Page 82 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

“Come to my bed, Jane,” he coaxed her. His impatience was not part of his plan. But he could not wait any longer. He wanted her so badly, had dreamed of this so often that he intended to savor every moment.

He ran his fingers down her throat into the deep cleft of her breasts. “Come. Leave your dignity at the door.”

“What dignity do I have left?” she whispered.

“Be undignified with me,” he taunted her.

She closed her eyes. How it had come to this, she could not say. She had made a mistake, taken a wrong turn in her longing for a love of her own choosing. She had branded herself an outcast. What, if anything, in his pretended courtship of her had been real? Only their desire for each other? Surely there was more—

His voice broke into her thoughts. “Be your wildest, Jane. I have not seen every side of you, have I?”

“What—what are you saying?”

“There is another Jane deep inside you, isn’t there?”

“You are certainly showing your true colors,” she retorted. “As in black, blacker. And blackest.”

He backed her into the staircase, his laughter low and alluring. Soon she would be laughing with him. They would laugh at each other—after a huge passionate argument, perhaps. It would feel good to be himself with her again.

“Yes or no, Jane? Kiss me and give your answer. I have been dreaming of how I will take you. I will surely die if you say no.”

She felt as if the room had suddenly gone up in flames. Fire. There was fire everywhere. In the sting of his lips on her throat, in the air they breathed, fire running up the backs of her legs, leaping in her belly, to her fingertips. How frightening it was to love like this. How thrilling. What would be left of her after tonight?

“Yes,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss her fill of him. There was no other answer. “Yes.”

They were both burning with need.

His bedchamber was cavernous, the plaster ceiling adorned with Baroque ornamentation. A pair of beeswax candles in scrolled silver sconces on the wall threw mysterious shadows across the thick Persian carpet, and a moist sea breeze blew in from the open windows. The curtains fluttered. The silk coverlet had been turned down enticingly to reveal lavender-scented sheets.

She was breathless with desire before he deposited her on the bed and undressed her with a leisurely expertise that should have offended her but instead only heightened her arousal. She was eager for pleasures she could not even name. She fell back against his other arm, opening herself to him, inviting him.

Her heart raced as she gazed up into his lean face. Never had she felt more vulnerable or more beautiful as she did in that moment when he studied her body without bothering to hide his lust for her. When he was finished, Jane felt as if every inch of her flesh had been examined and found desirable.

“You are perfection, Jane,” he said, his voice deep and unnerving. He stroked the curve of her cheek. “Trust me.”

She was spellbound by his voice, aching for him to touch her. As he shifted on the bed, her pulses leaped, and she felt moisture pooling between her thighs. He kissed her once, slowly, deeply, until she was writhing beneath him. The ache inside her grew unbearably.

“Trust me, Jane,” he said again, and only later would she remember the faint hurt in his voice when he spoke.

“I do trust you,” she said, realizing it was true. “I have never trusted anyone as much before.”

He leaned even lower. His eyes smoldering, intense, he feathered kisses on her face, her throat, her breasts and belly, the delta of her sex. She tangled her fingers in his silky mane of hair. He groaned in pleasure and pushed her thighs apart, breathing deeply of her scent, rubbing his jaw against her nest of curls. He was a lion, her lover.

Her spine curved at the potency of this forbidden act. His tongue parted her swollen folds and found the hidden bud he sought. “Grayson, you can’t—”

“You cannot deny me this, Jane.”

In the shadows he was a stranger, her seducer, not the man she had come to trust, but a rake whose sole purpose in life was pleasure, who made seduction an unhurried ritual. Yet even as a stranger, she could not resist him. Her heart knew his name. Her body answered to his skill.

Perhaps his voice seemed deeper, different. But Jane had desired him since the day of her wedding. She had been drawn to his potent masculinity even then, and look where her desire had led her. Discovering the gentleness beneath his sensual allure had doomed her. Now she could not resist his cruelty.

“I cannot believe we are doing this,” she whispered as her body began to respond, hips moving, her hands stroking the ridged muscles of his shoulders.

“I think it is a natural progression of a relationship between a man and a woman,” he said in a low voice.

Whatever she might have said was forgotten as the pulsing tension in her belly neared its peak. She moaned, awash in pleasure as he took full advantage of her helpless sensuality to drive his tongue deeply inside her.

It was bliss. It was humiliating and uplifting and not enough for either of them. She smothered another moan as her body came apart, pinned where she lay between his arms. For a full minute she could not bring herself to open her eyes, knowing he had proved his power over her in the most elemental of ways.