Seven Nights to Forever (26 page)

“There is so much of you,” she murmured, caressing his biceps.

“Yes, well, sorry about that.” If he levered up, he could capture one of those perfect nipples in his mouth. Suck on the hard tip until she was writhing for more.

“Why should you apologize? I adore your muscles.” A quick kiss and she dragged her lips down over his jaw. “And other parts of you, as well.”

Leaving a trail of kisses in her wake, she scooted down his chest, taking the coverlet with her. The cool air in the room did nothing to chill his heated skin. Anticipation built within, his breaths shortening, catching in his throat. Lust shot through him. He knew exactly where she was headed. Her intent could not be any clearer. How many times had she sucked him off in his dreams? Too damn many to count. He had never asked, never so much as nudged her in that direction, wanting her to gift him that particular pleasure of her own accord. And now it was actually going to happen.

A tremor shook his body. He curled his hands into fists at his sides to resist the need to cup the back of her head, to urge her to her target. Her tongue darted out to swirl around his navel, a tantalizing preview of what was to come. With openmouthed kisses, she followed the thin line of hair down to his impatient erection.

Her small hand wrapped securely around the base. The dark fan of her lashes drifted closed. Anticipation roaring through his veins, he watched as those full red lips parted as she leaned down. And then hot, wet heat surrounded the head of his prick. It was all he could do to stifle the soul-deep groan of gratitude. Crouched between his spread legs, bowed over his groin, she bobbed along his length. Her lips were heavenly soft, her mouth a hot haven that defined indulgence. The tousled dark length of her silken hair tickled his inner thighs.

Cheeks hollowing, she sucked hard on the upstroke, almost pulling the orgasm from him, before gliding back down to do it again. Teeth gritted, he fought back the primitive need to spill down her throat, determined to savor the experience.

She paused to swipe her tongue over the crown, lapping up the drop of fluid beading from the tip. Her sheer skill left him breathless, his cock not left untended for even one instant.

By God, it had been years since he had been sucked off. The sole incidence on that long ago visit to a brothel during a holiday from Cambridge. But on that instance, it had only been the unprecedented experience of a woman’s mouth on his prick that had brought the orgasm rushing down on him.

With a quick swipe, her rhythm unbroken, Rose tucked her hair behind one ear. The movement caused that old memory to prod his mind. Her lashes swept up. Red lips sliding up his length, she caught his gaze. He half expected to meet hardened, jaded hazel eyes.

The silken dance of her tongue across the head of his prick caused his ballocks to lurch up tighter, as if an invisible thread connected one part of his body to the other. He groaned, every muscle drawn tight, practically trembling under the onslaught. As if reading his thoughts, that secure hand fell away from the base to cup his ballocks. Her grip perfect—light and soft yet firm enough to satisfy that itch for attention.

She pulled free with a pop, the crude sound somehow rousing his lust even higher. Up and down, following the thick vein on the underside, she slowly dragged her lips along his length. Her tongue flicking out to tickle, tease. Then capturing his gaze once again as she wrapped her lips around the needy crown, taking him back inside her mouth.

But this time the determined strokes didn’t further fray the taut ropes of his control. When he was on top of her, kissing her senseless and deep inside her, he didn’t give her a chance to think. Like this, though . . .

She was clearly focused on his pleasure. But too focused. Those tickling fingertips too adept. Her every move too . . . practiced. His hands unclenched. He made to lift his arms from his sides, to reach toward her, but then she sucked hard and pressed right behind his ballocks, on that smooth expanse of skin, hitting a spot he didn’t know he had and triggering an orgasm he could not have stopped if he had tried.

The climax barreled through him, racking his muscles, a powerful quake that kept him from pulling her free.

Her lips softened, the suction easing until she was lapping gently on the head, the caress so gentle it soothed rather than abraded his overly sensitive skin. Releasing him, she swiped a delicate fingertip at the corner of her mouth. What could only be triumph shone in her light blue eyes.

He abruptly swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Off balance and oddly irritated, he stalked to the washstand and dropped a cloth in the white ceramic basin of water.

He would never be her first anything. It shouldn’t bother him so much, but it did. And he certainly did not like the thought of exactly how she had come by her expertise. It rubbed against his skin, harsh and sharp like jagged rocks.

“James, did I do something wrong?”

He wrung out the cloth and swiped between his legs. “Of course not. The old adage that practice makes perfect is most assuredly true.”

Dropping the cloth, he turned from the washstand to face Rose, who was kneeling on the center of the bed. Chin tipping down, shoulders hunching, she tugged the coverlet up to cover her bare breasts.

Silence hung, thick and heavy, as he quickly got dressed. Pulled on his trousers and a shirt. Tied his cravat in the most basic of knots. Slipped on a waistcoat and coat. All the while, he could feel her eyes upon him. Those questioning, hurt, beautiful eyes. But he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for his rudeness.

“Where are you going?” she asked, hesitation weighing down her words. Her lips were plumped, even redder than usual. Her dark hair tousled and covering her thin shoulders. The very image of a woman well and truly debauched—a siren who could tempt the will of even the strongest of men to come back for more. “I thought you wanted to stay in bed today.”

The buttons on his coat seen to, he paused by the mirror above the dresser to drag a comb through his hair. “I need to see to the morning post.”

“But it’s afternoon?”

His jaw was darkened with stubble, but the shave would have to wait until later. He needed to get out of this room now. “And therefore the post will be waiting on my desk.”

With a sharp snap that echoed in the corridor, he shut the door behind him.

A good couple of hours later and the piles of papers on his desk still hadn’t done their duty. He should be blissfully numb inside, fully focused on all the pressing concerns before him. But irritation and frustration still had his lips compressed in a tight line and his fist gripping his pen almost hard enough to break it in two.

At the light rap on his door, he called, “Yes?” Then he took a deep breath, forced the snap out of his tone, and tried again. “Come in.”

Bearing a pot of coffee, Mrs. Webb entered the study. “Good afternoon, Mr. Archer.” She refilled his cup, set the fresh pot down on his desk, and took the empty one. “I’ve just delivered tea to Miss Rose’s room.” A frown flickered across her mouth as she glanced out the window. Droplets of rain clung to the glass, blurring the view of the side grounds. The rain that had eased late that morning had picked back up, tapping against the house in an easy rhythm that would have been soothing under any other circumstance. “This weather is just dreadful. Makes one wish to never leave their bed.”

He had left his bed, and so had Rose, if Mrs. Webb had delivered tea to her room. When had she left? Directly after him, or had she waited in vain, hoping he would return?

Mrs. Webb turned back to him. “Is there anything I can bring you? I’ve some scones in the pantry.”

The cold knot forming in his gut killed any trace of an appetite. “No, thank you.”

“Would you like supper at the usual time?”

Without any other response at the ready, he nodded.

“It is a nice change to set the table for two. Company does make a meal so much more pleasant.” She smiled, as if nothing made her happier than the thought of him having company for supper.

“Indeed,” he replied in a flat voice. He shifted in his chair, the leather creaking with his movement. Though he had a strong feeling he would be dining alone this evening. Something he was long accustomed to, yet he already felt the loss of Rose’s presence acutely. A situation entirely of his own making.

“I shall leave you to your work,” Mrs. Webb said, tipping her head toward his desk. With that, she left the room.

The door clicked shut.

Thick and oppressive, shame fell over him. He called himself a gentleman. Had asked for her trust. And what had he done?

Never before had he been roused to the point of cruelty. To sling such words at another. If anyone deserved such treatment, it was Amelia. But he had stayed ever silent, bitten his tongue, able to hold back the need to lash out, to hurt her as she hurt him. Yet with Rose, with the one woman he adored, who made him feel like a man again, who accepted him as he was, what had he done?

He’d cut her down. Lanced her to the quick. Flayed her with a few choice words. Struck at the core of who she was, using it against her as a ready means to vent his anger.

The pen clattered to his desk as he dropped his head in his hands. How could he have done that to her? He well knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end, to have his knees kicked out from under him. Knew that instinctive need to crawl into himself. Yet unable to do anything but stand tall and keep the pain inside.

It wasn’t right of him to get upset with her. It wasn’t as if he was not aware of her profession. He had met her at a brothel, after all. Of course she would have been with other men, and would be with men after him.

That thought did not sit well at all.

There was nothing he could do about it now but accept it. If he wasn’t able to accept it, to accept her as she was, then there was no point in continuing their holiday. And he wanted more than anything to spend these days with her. To spend afternoons touring the grounds . . . when the weather would cooperate, that was. To look to his right and find her next to him at the dining table. To fall asleep with her in his arms. To have the first thing he saw in the morning when he opened his eyes be her beautiful face.

With a few words, had he ruined it all? Hell, one would think he had learned his lesson by now. When it came to Rose, the hot sting of jealousy was not a foreign beast. Yet on that occasion, the eventual knowledge that it had been for naught had placated it. Soothed it into a peaceful slumber.

There was no way to placate it today. One did not come by such skill without considerable practice. She had knowledge of carnal pleasures he could not even begin to grasp. But deep down he wanted to be her first, her only. A desire he had never before possessed. Christ, he hadn’t been his wife’s first, not that he’d held any expectations to the contrary. As if she would give such a gift to him. But his heart pleaded for that precious gift from Rose, a gift that could never be his.

So he could either let it destroy his holiday with Rose, or he could embrace this one opportunity to temporarily escape the hard reality of his life. And in order to do that he needed to fully reconcile himself to what ultimately had brought him to her.

A harsh wince tightened his brow.

But what was more important? How she had spent her nights before he had first walked through the door of her sitting room, or being with her now?

The answer required no thought at all.

ROSE
set her empty teacup on its saucer on her bedside table and lay back down, pulling the sunny yellow coverlet up to cover her shoulders. A freshly prodded fire in the hearth warmed the room, yet still she was chilled. Even the hot tea hadn’t warded off the cold that seemed to have seeped into her bones.

What would she have done if James hadn’t offered her this room? She certainly would not have been able to remain in his. The large bed, which had still held the warmth from his body, had felt so empty. And she had felt . . . dirty.

Used. Like the whore she was.

The disgust, the revulsion he had not been able to hide . . . It was a wonder she had kept the tears from falling.

Wearing only her thin silk wrapper, she had scurried across the corridor to her bedchamber and hadn’t left since. Her only visitor? Not James, but Mrs. Webb, who had come to check on her. The elderly woman had to have known she had not spent the night in her own bed. The simple sage green gown she had worn to supper hadn’t been in a wrinkled heap on the chair, but returned to the closet, cleaned and pressed. But there had been not one hint of censure on the woman’s face. Nothing but kindness as she had bustled about the room tending the fire, freshening the water in the washstand, and trying to tempt Rose with everything the kitchen could offer.

Now that she was alone again, she couldn’t help feeling like an unwelcome guest who refused to leave. Surely if James wanted her to leave, he would tell her. Or would he expect her to show some tact and leave on her own? While she knew she should, the thought of leaving him made tears threaten to prick anew.