A Pledge of Passion (The Rules of Engagement #2)(43)

His voice coaxed, soothed. “Would you like me to touch you there now?”

She answered with a helpless whimper, clutching the ropes while his skillful fingers explored, traced, and teased in rhythmic strokes. She knew she should make him stop but the pleasure of his touch was dizzying. Her world spun further out of control when he found and began circling her small hidden nub, increasing the pressure until her body racked with little tremors and a muffled cry.

“You do like that,” he said. She bucked against him and set the swing back in motion. “Not so quickly, little one.” Marcus laughed and withdrew his hand. He grasped her waist to pull her down beside him and rolled on top of her with his arms anchored on either side of her head.

Lydia lay stunned beneath him, her body still coiled with desire. At the press of his erection against her belly, she came instinctively to life and undulated against him.

“God help me!” Marcus groaned. “I hadn’t planned this, but damn me if you haven’t given me a mind to finish what we started.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” she gasped. “We are not wed yet. I cannot lie with you!”

“I’m not asking you to, Lydia. There are other, less hazardous ways to give a man relief,” he spoke with long-suffering effort. “I have already shown how I can pleasure you with my hands, now I want you to do the same for me.”

“You wish me to stroke your…your privates?” she asked, wide-eyed in affright.

“Yes, Lydia” he answered in a tight voice. “I want you to fondle my aching…” He grasped her hand to demonstrate, bringing it to his crotch, but Lydia recoiled. She squirmed beneath him in an effort to retreat, which only seemed to annoy him. “Bloody hell!” he groaned. “It’s not got teeth! If you won’t touch me, at least allow me to rub against your body. I must have release!”

“Release?” She froze under him.

Marcus took a deep, calming breath. “You enjoyed the friction when you moved against me. I enjoy that too. I can use it to come to completion.”

“Completion? With our clothes on?” she asked, incredulous.

“Yes! With our bloody clothes on if that’s the only way to cease this infernal throbbing.”

“It’s painful?” she asked.

“Bugger the questions, Lydia! It’s just damnably uncomfortable.”

“But—”

“Enough!” Marcus groaned and stemmed her flow of questions with his mouth. Unlike his gentle hands, his kiss was hard and demanding, matching the urgent thrust and grind against her pubis that made her entire body thrum. Lydia soon met his rhythm, angling her hips to grind against that hidden place of exquisite sensation until her nubile, young body racked with the spasms of her climax. Marcus followed with a great, shuddering groan and collapsed atop her. They lay there in a stunned silence, punctuated only by their ragged breaths, until Marcus helped her back to her feet and escorted her wordlessly back to the house.

*

Lydia went to bed in a daze. It had been a night of many firsts—the upswept hair, the silk gown, the taste of champagne, but the most remarkable of all was her initiation to passion. Her hand swept her body and her lips curved at the remembrance of how Marcus had looked at her with desire in his eyes. The rapture she’d experienced under the swing had banished her virginal qualms, replacing them with eagerness for her wedding night with Marcus.

She closed her eyes with a sigh of contentment. The evening that had earlier portended such disaster had transformed into a rite of passage from girlish innocence to awakening womanhood.





Chapter One





Bloomsbury Square, London—1748





MARCUS, LORD RUSSELL, slumped in a chair indolently paring his nails while his former school chum, now personal secretary, attended to his correspondence.

“You’ve a letter from Cotesfield Hall,” said Mr. Nicholas Needham.

“Do I?” Lord Russell answered in a bored drawl, but then furrowed his brows in a fleeting frown. “I must say it’s been a very protracted interval since I heard from Miss Trent, but if she’s learned of my return to London, she’ll no doubt be importuning me to set a date. Will you fob her off for a while longer, Needham? Just use the stock excuse.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes heavenward and answered by rote, “That to your everlasting and abject dismay, urgent business of State must take precedence over any private matters, regardless of your personal inclinations, etcetera and etcetera.”

Marcus smirked. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. That’s one of the chief perquisites of the Foreign Service, Needham; it gives one a valid excuse to ignore all domestic responsibilities, or at least to put them off until a more convenient time.”

“But what if she’s already aware of your return? It has been well over a month now.”

“You’re right, Nick. No doubt she’s already got wind of it from Mother.” Marcus gave a resigned groan. “I suppose there’s no avoiding her this time.”

If given a choice, he’d have postponed the reunion indefinitely. He’d not seen Lydia for six years—not that he’d had any burning desire to do so. When Marcus had departed for the Foreign Service on the heels of their engagement, she was still far too young to wed. Although he had left with every intention of honoring his troth within two or three years, three had turned to four, and four became five. His string of paramours in this interim only compounded his guilt until it became easier not to think of Lydia at all. Now, the idea of facing her again as a husband-to-be seemed altogether impossible.