She licked her lips, her breathing labored . . . as though she were in the midst of some exertion and not standing virtually motionless.
“I’ve never even fantasized about doing such wicked things,” she confessed.
“And yet you did. And now you stand here watching me rub one off.” He resumed stroking himself then, watching her rapt face hungrily. Her chest rose and fell faster. She was not unaffected by the sight of him.
Her hands played with the collar of her gown, curling into white-knuckled fists as though she wanted to yank it from her body. “It’s as I said.” Her chin went up defiantly. “The lingering effects of the tonic and nothing more. I would never stand here and watch you otherwise—”
Her words lit a match to his temper. “Tell me, Charlie—”
“I told you to address me as Miss Langley,” she said in the sternest tone.
That made him laugh. A hard and dark chuckle that he felt in his belly.
Her lashes lowered to half-mast over eyes that seemed all dark pupils. She watched him fondle himself and yet she insisted he address her formally.
By God, he would not.
He would use her Christian name. “Charlie . . . come here.”
Chapter 7
At Kingston’s command, she blinked but remained where she stood. Her eyes boldly studied his cock, not at all in the manner of a frightened maid. If he believed in things like love potions he would almost believe she was, in fact, under the spell of one.
But of course, he did not believe in such rubbish. He was not a lad to believe in fairy tales, potions or spells.
“I—I beg your pardon?” she stammered between gasping breaths.
Bloody hell, but she was aroused. Wildly aroused. He could almost smell the desire, the need, radiating from her like something born of earth and wind and the ancient beats of nature.
He did not miss how one of her feet inched closer. Against her will, it seemed, she was tempted.
“If you want this, then get beside me now. Permit me to give you relief,” he taunted—although he felt no levity as he got the words out. It felt like only the most serious thing in his life. This woman getting beside him. Touching him. Letting him touch her.
She stared at him for an interminable moment, still watching him working his member. She swallowed visibly as the moment stretched and he wondered what she would do. His gaze drifted to her throat, to the madly thrumming pulse there. It was jumping beneath her flushed skin like a wild drum, like a hammer pushing to break free. It was passing strange. She wasn’t exerted and yet that pulse was throbbing, beating, fighting like the wings of a bird at her neck.
“Make a decision. Go or come here,” he commanded, at war with himself. Wanting her to go. Wanting her to stay. He simply needed it done one way or another.
She dropped down beside him with an anguished little cry that he felt echo through him as keenly as the twist of a knife’s blade.
He wasted no time, flipping her skirts and positioning himself between her thighs.
He dragged her toward him. She slid easily over the slick grass.
His eyes met hers. She looked back and forth between his face and his cock, pulsing and aimed directly for her crotch.
There was a good amount of alarm in her eyes and he wished it gone. He wished to put her at ease. She thought he meant to take her. Ravish her in the outdoors like a rutting beast.
He would not.
He was not that much of a cad. Nor was he keen on deflowering a maid who couldn’t even bring herself to own her own desires.
Still, there were other things they could share that did not involve relieving her of her maidenhead.
The open seam in a lady’s drawers made it blessedly convenient to access her pretty quim. As a randy youth, he had always been grateful for the mechanics of female undergarments. He had taken many a maid for a quick tumble, neither one of them discarding their clothing.
Even so, he had never been as grateful as he was now.
He studied her pink and quivering flesh in the light of day. She was wet, weeping for him. He could practically smell her desire, ripe and pungent on the summer air.
“You’re still suffering the influence of your tonic?” he heard himself asking.
She nodded jerkily.
His gaze dropped to the open seam of her drawers. “Would you like me to relieve you again?”
She nodded, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to hear her say it.
“Charlie?” he prodded. “Tell me what you want.”
She licked her trembling lips, her gaze landing on his cock. “Make the ache go away.”
Nodding, he released a ragged breath. He could take her now. He knew that was as good an invitation as any, but still he withheld himself the pleasure of sinking into her inviting heat. Again, he was not a cad.
Instead, he lowered his face to her, inhaling her fragrance and nuzzling his lips in her sweetness, his tongue tasting and finding the tender pearl buried at the top of her folds.
He seized it between his lips, interchangeably grazing with his teeth and flaying with his tongue. Her body bucked under him. His hand found her abdomen, pressing down and holding her as he feasted, working and rolling the little nub.
She began to roll her hips, working herself against his mouth in abandon. Her hand delved in his hair, her fingers tugging fiercely on the strands as she used him, seeking her release.
Then she found it. She climaxed and the tension in her body snapped.
He drank deep from her until the last wave rocked her.
He fell back, his chest rising and falling as the air shuddered out of him.
This was perhaps not his best idea.
His own arousal raged unabated. His erection jutted out hard before him, unrelenting and unrelieved.
He gripped it savagely, determined to finish himself off before he turned and drove into her welcoming heat, so soft and available and still vibrating with the aftershocks of her release.
He was not a mindless brute, however.
No matter how tempting she was. No matter how many times she used him to take her own release.
He’d not find his pleasure with her until she was in full possession of reality and not hiding behind excuses. Not until she admitted she wanted him strictly for passion’s sake and not because of some idiotic aphrodisiac.
Groaning, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound of her gasps as she came down from her release.
Then suddenly her hand was pushing his own hand aside.
His eyes shot open to find her over him, staring down at him with bright-eyed determination. She bit her lip and his gaze fixed on that mouth, hungrily absorbing the way that tiny row of white teeth sank into the deep pink of her lip.
He read her determined expression for what it was. She wanted to return the favor—last night’s favor, and now this one.
He shook his head. “You don’t have to do—”
“Quiet,” she murmured in a throaty voice that brooked no argument. “It’s my turn now.”
Her touch was by no means expert. Her small hand was uncertain, barely big enough to wrap around him, but the tentative sensation of her slender fingers, so warm and delicate on him, had him sitting up on his elbows and watching her ministrations.
“Harder,” he directed after some moments, covering her hand with his own and showing her how he liked it, guiding her once, twice, three times up and down his cock in a pumping motion.