“Size, then,” she said, blushing. “Er, what’s next?” She bit her lips, fighting for composure. She did not want to seem like an oblivious, incompetent henwit, even though she was technically incompetent. “I seem to recall a promise about not being able to speak my own name? Was that a euphemism?”
With a low laugh, Rhystan shifted his hips, drawing a gasp from her. “I always deliver on my promises. No speech, guaranteed.”
He withdrew and slid back in, to her sublime delight, the erotic push and pull making her body crave deeper and faster contact. Instinctively, Sarani rolled her pelvis forward on the next thrust, ripping a growl from his chest as she lifted her hips to take him deep.
“Yes, love, like that.”
His face was still scrunched, his eyes dilated with pleasure as his body worked. Every slow rock of his huge frame sent her spiraling higher and higher, climbing toward some invisible summit. “Rhystan, please… I need…”
“I know, sweetheart.” He took her lips with his, a warm palm finding her breast and kneading. The sensation gathering within her was almost too much. Her skin felt like it was on fire, her very soul enflamed.
When she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, her moans dissolving into incoherent sounds, Rhystan reached his hand between them and slid his hands to the top of her sex, circling a spot that made her body bend like a bow. One swipe of his fingers and she was shattering into a million pieces of light as her orgasm crested and broke.
A few short thrusts later, Rhystan followed her into bliss, a groan wrenching from his chest as he pulled from her body and spent his seed on the sheets between them. Sated and undone, Sarani exhaled, grateful that at least one of them had been thinking about the probability of conception.
Her heart gave a sad twinge. If circumstances had been different…he might have finished inside. Then, they would have cherished whatever came of their union. But those stars had never aligned and that future was not to be. They were merely lovers, not in love. They’d fucked, in his blunt words. They hadn’t made love.
Love did not factor into anything between them. In the wake of such devastating pleasure, Sarani suddenly felt a beat of sorrow. She shook it off. She hadn’t done it for love. There’d been very practical reasons, very rational reasons. Her virginity did not belong to the male sex to do with as they pleased. She’d wanted to experience carnal pleasure with a man she trusted with her body. And life was too short for regret.
Nothing to do with love whatsoever.
Twenty
If he could have booted the man out on his pompous arse, Rhystan would have. Bloody fortune hunter. Viscount Marvelle was in debt up to his ears, and Rhystan had nearly laughed at the ludicrous offer of marriage for Ravenna.
How much is the chit’s dowry? The duns are after me. I’ll take her off your hands.
Marvelle was lucky he was leaving the residence with his legs in good working order. Rhystan wished he could say the same for his unraveling temper. He rubbed his temples. That was the sixth offer this week, all from known scoundrels. Titled gentlemen, but sodding wastrels. Once he’d reinstated Ravenna’s considerable dowry, they’d come out of the woodwork.
Lord Belford, heir to a marquess, was a known gambler. Lord Penderton, an earl in his own right, was barely hanging on to his entailed estates. Mr. Lincoln Trent, son of a prominent barrister, had three by-blows living with him and was a known profligate. Rhystan respected the man’s decision to acknowledge his progeny, but a man who fathered God knew how many children with different women was not the husband for his little sister.
None of them were sodding good enough.
Just like you.
The wayward thought struck him hard.
The truth was, who was he to talk? He’d ruined an innocent woman—a royal no less—because he needed to sate his lust. All because he wanted her. Rhystan raked a hand through his hair, stalking to the mantel where he poured himself a full tumbler of whisky.
“She consented,” he muttered. “We both knew what we were doing.”
Doesn’t mean she wasn’t innocent.
She’d been a virgin. Sarani had been so passionate, so responsive, but innate sensuality did not imply that she was experienced. Rhystan didn’t know what he’d been expecting. She’d been engaged to Talbot for a few years. In hindsight, he’d made a stupid assumption. Sarani was Sarani.
Rhystan scowled. Hell, he was the worst kind of cad. Worse than Trent possibly.
He tipped up the whisky, feeling its contents burn a hot path to his stomach and waiting for the ease it would eventually bring. In the meantime, his thoughts remained on Sarani. In the aftermath, they’d lain together in his bed in a strange sort of comfortable quiet.
Neither of them had spoken until he’d risen to find a cloth, which he had used to wipe away the evidence of both her virginity and his prudence.
“Do you wish to return to Huntley House?” he’d asked. She’d stared at him, eyes unreadable, the barest flicker of something in them. Regret? Hurt? It had made his sudden awkward vulnerability become more acute. “Before it gets too late.”
“I suppose I should return,” she said, rising gracefully from the bed like the apsara he’d likened her to.
It’d been on the tip of his tongue to beg her to stay, but he’d held back. Once was enough. More than enough for them to get whatever it was between them out of their systems. Once would have to suffice. From then on out, abstinence would be in order.
As she’d dressed and retied her cloak, Sarani had glanced at the bed and then at the discarded cloth with pale-pink stains discoloring the pristine linen, her cheeks tinting. “Won’t Harlowe…” She’d trailed off, embarrassed.
“I’ll toss it in the grate. No one will know.”
She’d nodded, pinning her lips. “Thank you.”
Rhystan did not know how he’d had the presence of mind to withdraw, given his insensible state at the time, but she was inexperienced. He was not. Conception was not an outcome for either of them: him as a seafaring duke, her as an independent spinster. Their lives were meant to diverge at the end of their pact.
Sex did not change anything.
Until it does.
With a snarl at the logical voice in his head, he scrubbed a hand over his face, stopping himself from getting another drink. Whisky solved nothing.
“Your Grace?” Harlowe asked, knocking on the door to the study. “Her ladyship has sent a messenger inquiring whether you will attend the Van Dunne masquerade this evening.”
Rhystan’s eyes narrowed. “Which her ladyship? My sister, my mother, or my…or Lady Sara?”
“The second, Your Grace. She is adamant that she must receive a response.”