“You’re beautiful.”
A throaty chuckle. “You don’t have to say such things to me,” she said. “Only keep them in mind for her.”
But shewasbeautiful. Did she not also deserve to hear such words?
“And now, a kiss. It must be light,” she said. “Soft, gentle. Remember you are seducing, not pillaging.” She tilted her head back expectantly, waiting upon him.
His lips brushed hers, feeling for too fleeting a moment the decadent softness of her lips against his own. It wasn’t how she wanted to be kissed. It wasn’t how shelikedto be kissed. She had taught him that much already. And he found he did not much care for the pretense that she was anyone other than who she was, that she was merely the stand-in for someone else. Perhaps that first time in the library it had been useful; a skillful ruse designed to combat his nerves.
But he had not required it since.
On the balcony above them, the sounds of passion continued unabated, building to a crescendo until at last the woman cried out her pleasure into the dark of the night. A vibrant, primal screech, unmistakable for anything other than what it was. And then, at last, there was the faint rustling of clothing, the patter of retreating feet.
And suddenly it wasn’t Charity’s mouth he wanted to kiss.
He said, “Sweet and chaste, no? As you said that first time in the library.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s it exactly. At least for a first kiss—”
“I can do that, if so called,” he said. It had, after all, been his instinctive first attempt. “That’s not what I wish to learn this evening.”
“Oh?” He could hear the pout in her voice, as if it had irked her that she had put so much effort into finding a prime secluded spot for a kiss, to teach him a particular lesson, all for naught. “What, then, would you learn?”
“Something less wholesome. Something more prurient, more suited to the occasion.” Anthony tilted his head back, peered up at the underside of the now-abandoned balcony. “The couple on the balcony,” he said. “The woman seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. I should like to learn that.”
ChapterFifteen
The way Charity’s thighs tensed against a sudden surge of arousal ought to have shamed her. What had become of her? She had been scandalous for years, had been a courtesan for too long to be so distressingly stirred by such a suggestion as that.
“You want to—” She licked her dry lips, running the point of her tongue across them to wet them. “You want to put your head beneath my skirts and kiss methere?”
“Women enjoy it, do they not?”
“Every bit as much as men do.” Though the men who were willing to perform that act—especially when the woman involved was his mistress, and meant to be dedicated to hispleasure—were vanishingly short in supply. “Some men, while perfectly willing to…we’ll say, find themselves on the receivingend of such an act, are loath to return the favor. Either they do not enjoy it, or they are not particularly interested in a woman’s pleasure.”
“I would be pleased enough if I could make a woman scream like that.” His hand flattened at the small of her back, no longer the light, tender touch she had first instructed him to give. “I would be pleased if I could makeyouscream like that.”
“It’s possible,” she said, wondering when, exactly, her voice had grown so breathy, “that she exaggerated her reaction for her lover’s benefit. Or for those who might be listening.” Still, the thought ignited an illicit thrill, sparking heat low in her belly. “But there is no balcony. It will be—”
“Fine. So long as you can hold your feet.” He said it as if he had every confidence in her ability to do so, and a breathy laugh stuck somewhere in her throat at the realization that she did not share in that confidence. Already there was a distinct tremble to her knees.
The heat of his hand left her back, and there was a strange blur in the darkness as he went to his knees before her. The scrape of wool across the rough stone beneath her feet—the fine threads of his trousers catching uponit as he eased closer. Chill bumps chased across her skin as his hands snatched at the silk of her skirt, drawing up handfuls of it to slide his fingers beneath.
She pressed her shoulders against the wall at her back, locking her knees as she drew in a deep breath. Even the champagne she had imbibed had failed to offer any relief to the dryness of her throat. Beneath the tight fabric of her bodice, her nipples tightened to hard points. As if of their own accord, her hands settled upon his shoulders, steadying him—steadying herself.
“Touch me, first,” she said, and there was a telling rasp in her voice as his fingers slid up the inside of her thigh. “Just like—ah,yes.”
She hadn’t had to remind him, to direct him. He was a quick study, had clearly been paying close attention to every lesson which had come before. The very tips of his fingers slid through the curls at the apex of her thighs to the warm, damp flesh beneath. A slow, searching stroke, exploring the delicate flesh that yielded to the pressure of his fingers. “Yes,” she said on a sigh as he found the bead of her clitoris, circled it with the pad of his thumb. Her fingers kneaded his shoulders in praise. “Slower,” she murmured. Or she would come entirely too soon. He had to feel the tautness of her thighs, the faint tremble of her hands that she could not quite control.
“So soft.” It was only a murmur, as if he was transfixed by his own actions, by her reactions to them. Deeper strokes, setting her nerves ablaze. The tip of one finger dipped into the hollow of her body, breaching her entrance by a scant inch.
“Yes.” Her hips rocked to that tender touch, seeking to steal more sensation. His finger sank inside her so slowly that she clenched her teeth against the frustration of it. “Another,” she gasped through it. His fingers were long, thicker than her own, and so much more satisfying. A slow, maddening withdrawal, and then—the delicious stretch of two fingers sliding inside her.
Her head tipped back, crushing the elegant arrangement of her curls against the wall behind her. Somehow she’d clutched a handful of his hair in her fingers, and her thighs pinched against the intrusion of his hand between them as if to trap it in place.
“Now?” His voice had acquired some guttural property that shivered along her skin, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
“Yes. Now. Please.” Now, before she came upon his fingers without ever knowing the touch of his tongue.
