Page 55 of One Night with a Rake

Her eyes met his in a trusting look. This was really going to happen. He was going to bed Georgette.

Was it really possible that she’d only burst back into his life a few days ago? If someone had told him they’d reach this point so quickly, he’d never have credited it.

Was it only lust? Or was there something much deeper between them, something inexplicable? Something he’d never be able to quantify and lay odds on.

He kissed her cheek, not wanting to spook her. Slow and steady, that was the ticket.

“Don’t you want to know why I came?” she asked.

He tipped her chin up and gave her a warm, wet kiss. “I think we both know why you came.”

Her lips twitched in a slight smile. “But you don’t know why I’m willing to take the risk.” She drew a deep breath.

“Because none of us are promised tomorrow?”

“There is that.” She tilted her head in admission that Vesta’s death was weighing on her. “But if I am granted a future, I know what it will be. In a few days, the match with the duke will be settled and I’ll be married before the end of the month, like as not.”

“Not if you’re no longer a virgin,” he said. Should he propose now or after the deed was done? It was a measure of how certain he was that it was the right thing to do that the thought didn’t surprise him. “Am I your way of avoiding a royal marriage?”

She shook her head. “Who but we two will know that I’m not untouched?”

He couldn’t keep from touching her at that, letting his hands drift over her breasts and find her waist.

“And I don’t think it will truly matter once the knot is publicly tied. His Highness may have a private fit, but his dignity won’t allow him to admit he’s been cuckolded.” She shivered when he drew her close. “Whatever else a royal marriage is about, it certainly won’t be about me. There’ll be no caring, no love. I can’t bear for the first time I lie with a man to be with a stranger.”

“So I’m only a notch up from a stranger. I think you’re damning me with faint praise, but I’ll take it.”

“No, you’re several notches up,” she said, untying the sash at the waist of his banyan and pushing the fabric off his shoulders. The silk pooled at his ankles and he stood before her naked as Adam. Her gaze dipped to his groin, then back to his face. If there’d been enough light to see it, he was sure she’d have blushed that glorious cherry color again. “When a girl decides to rid herself of her maidenhead, she could do much worse than you, Nathaniel Colton. Very much worse.”

He kissed her again. He’d convince her to give up any notions of being royal later. “Whatever comes in the morning, this night is about you.”

Twenty-one

Georgette started to untie her wrapper.

“Not so fast,” he said. “There are some things a man likes to do for himself.”

“But I thought—”

“That I can’t wait to see you naked? You’re right, as always,” he said, taking over the job of unbelting and removing her wrapper. “But as much as I want you, I want even more for this to be good for you. So we must go slowly.”

“You’re sure?” She leaned against him and nearly ruined his resolve. “That doesn’t feel right. I think…fast would be good.”

“It is.” The urge to bend her over and show her just how good a hot, hard rut could be was almost irresistible. “But not the first time. Trust me.”

He struggled to hold her gaze and lost the battle. The swell of her breasts beneath her lacy night shift called to him. Under his scrutiny, her nipples drew into hard points beneath the thin fabric.

“You see, it’s not just a question of fitting the right parts together,” he said as he kissed along the top of her bodice. He let his fingers trail down her arms from her shoulders to twine with hers.

“Really?” she murmured. “I would have thought that’s the main point.”

His body cheered this line of thinking with a raging cockstand. But if he was going to talk her out of the royal duke’s suit, he needed to offer her more. “It’s meant to be a joining of spirits, as well.”

“A joining of spirits?” She laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand. Then all mirth fled from her face. “Is that what you told all the other women you’ve been with?”

“No.” It never would have occurred to him before. The mindless couplings of the past few years all blurred into a mass of tangled limbs in his memory. For the first time, he wished he didn’t have those images in his brain. He wished he stood before Georgette offering her as clean a slate as she brought to him. Then he’d be filled with only her.

Perhaps he could be in any case. If he loved her long enough, strong enough, Georgette would banish thoughts of any other.