Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels #1)(63)

“Stop,” she whispered through dry lips. “Please… I’m going to faint…”

His taunting whisper tickled her ear. “Then faint.”

The tension heightened unbearably. She spread her legs, helplessly rocking against his hand. It all began to uncoil with astonishing force, tumbling her headlong through a release so consuming that it felt like dying. The sensation kept opening, flowering, breaking into squeezing shudders. As she moaned and gasped, Devon kissed her, sucking at her lips as if he could taste the sounds of her pleasure. Another surge went through her, the heat spreading in her head, breasts, stomach, groin, while his mouth never stopped ravishing hers.

After the last liquid shivers had faded, she wilted against him, her head swimming. She was vaguely aware of having moved to her side, her face pressed to the softly springy hair on Devon’s chest. He had pulled her gown back down over her hip, one hand rubbing her bottom in comforting circles, while his breath eased back to its normal rhythm. She had never wanted to sleep as much as she did right then, steeped in the warmth of his body, snuggled close in his arms. But she could hear the distant sounds of housemaids beginning their morning chores, cleaning the grates, sweeping the carpets. If she stayed much longer, she would be discovered.

“Your body has gone as taut as a bowstring,” Devon said drowsily over her head. “And after all the work I just did to relax you.” A chuckle escaped him at her mortified silence. His hand came to her back, caressing the length of her spine. “Has that never happened to you before?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know it was possible for women.” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, low and languid.

“No one told you before your wedding night?”

“Lady Berwick did, but I’m sure she didn’t know anything about it. Or perhaps…” She paused as a discomfiting thought occurred to her. “Perhaps it’s not something that happens to respectable women.”

His hand continued its slow, reassuring glide up and down her back. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t.” His head lowered, and he whispered near her ear, “But I won’t tell.”

Timidly she let her fingers trace the edge of the great spreading bruise on his side. “Do other men know how to do… that?”

“Pleasure a woman, you mean? Yes, all it takes is patience.” He played with a few locks of hair that had come loose from her braid. “But it’s well worth the effort. A woman’s enjoyment makes the act more satisfying.”

“Does it? Why?”

“It flatters a man’s pride to know that he can make a woman desire him. Also…” His hand drifted to the soft cove between her thighs, and stroked through the layer of her nightgown. “… the way you tightened around my fingers… that’s pleasurable for a man when he’s inside you.”

Kathleen hid her face against his shoulder. “Lady Berwick made it all sound very simple. But I’m beginning to think that she left out some important details.”

He let out a quiet laugh. “Anyone who says the sexual act is simple has never done it properly.”

They lay together, listening to the sounds beyond the bedroom. Outside, groundskeepers began to push wheeled mowers and edgers across the lawn, the bladed cylinders whirring smoothly. The sky was the color of steel, a strong wind chafing at the last few bleached brown leaves of an oak tree near the window.

Devon pressed a kiss into her hair. “Kathleen… you told me that the last time Theo spoke to you, he said, ‘You’re not my wife.’”

She froze, alarm stinging the insides of her veins as she realized what he was going to ask.

His voice was gentle. “Was it true?”

She tried to move away, but he kept her firmly against him.

“It doesn’t matter how you answer,” he said. “I just want to understand what happened.”

She would risk everything by telling him. She had far too much to lose. But part of her longed to admit the truth. “Yes,” she forced herself to say, her voice thin. “It was true. The marriage was never consummated.”

Chapter 20

“So that was what you argued about,” Devon murmured, his hand moving over her back in slow strokes.

“Yes. Because I wouldn’t let Theo…” She paused with a shaking sigh. “I have no right to be called Lady Trenear. I shouldn’t have stayed at Eversby Priory afterward, except… I didn’t know if I would be allowed to keep my dowry, and I didn’t want to go back to live with Lord and Lady Berwick, and besides all that, it was shameful. So I lied about being Theo’s wife.”

“Did someone actually ask if you’d slept with him?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

“No, but I lied by omission. Which is just as bad as the other kind of lying. The deplorable truth is that I’m a virgin. A fraud.” She was stunned to feel a rustle of suppressed laughter in his chest. “I don’t see how you can find cause for humor in that!”

“I’m sorry.” But a smile lingered in his voice. “I was just thinking, with the tenants’ drainage concerns, the plumbers, the estate’s debt, and the hundred other issues I’m facing… finally there’s a problem around here I can do something about.”

She gave him a reproachful glance, and he grinned. He kissed her before moving to find a more comfortable position, levering himself higher. Reaching for the pillows, Kathleen propped them behind his shoulders. She sat to face him with her legs half curled beneath her, and refastened her nightgown.