Kasey Michaels - The Regency Redgraves - What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares

Gideon stripped off the rest of his clothes and joined her in the bed, placed a kiss on her mouth with a gentleness he didn’t know he could feel. “At least we’re still breathing,” he said as she smiled up at him. “We could have killed each other, you know.”

Jessica caressed his cheek. “But now you’re no use to me for at least an hour,” she said, her tone teasing. Unafraid. Even daring.

Leaning over her, supporting himself on one elbow, Gideon located one end of the bow securing her corset, began slowly pulling on it to release it. “Not entirely.”

He began kissing her just at the top edge of the corset, and then inched his way down even as the laces were undone. He kissed her breasts, licked at them, paid special attention to her taut nipples until she moaned quietly and raised her hips.

He kneaded her breasts, trailed kisses along the soft flesh inside her arms, down the length of her rib cage. His tongue found and teased at her navel, and she made a small, shocked sound of pleasure. He pressed his palm against her lower belly, bringing her heat that seemed to melt her…and then slowly turned his hand so that he was inching his way closer to her center even as she opened herself for him.

But not yet.

He cupped her, but then brought his mouth to her inner thighs, the sweet skin behind her knees. He worshipped, he teased, her every soft whimper of pleasure and frustration enflaming him.

But not yet.

He was in control now, he could wait her out; he needed to see what she’d do when he’d driven her beyond her limits.

She moved her hands down to the vee of her thighs, pressed his hand more firmly against her, shifted on the bed so that she could dig her heels into the mattress. She tugged upward on the skin of her belly, as if she could bring him in better contact with the parts of her that had to be aching to be touched, stroked into bloom.

He obliged.

He slid two fingers inside her, brought his mouth down to her and kept it there until she began to convulse around him, a living pulse of pleasure, taken over the edge in a new way, a different way. Ah, and there were so many ways… .

Jessica attempted to sit up, blindly holding her arms out to him, clearly wanting to be held, needing to be held. He’d never understood that in a woman, why indeed anyone would have that need. Until now.

Gideon gathered her to him, her arms and legs once more locked behind his back as he buried himself, and perhaps his own past, deep inside her, clinging to her as she clung to him, the two of them riding out the storm, together.

When they collapsed against the pillows, Jessica didn’t comment that he would be of “no use to her” for a while. Which was probably a good thing, as Gideon couldn’t do much more than lie there as she picked crushed rose petals from his sweat-slick body before curling into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He was going to have to learn to pace himself. If Trixie had been right and in another thirty years he would be happy most nights with his dogs, some brandy and a warm fire, at least he’d have that thirty years. He could only hope to tire out Jessica by that time, which he rather doubted would happen. But they’d work something out… .

He pressed a kiss against her hair and then closed his eyes, more than ready for sleep, and drifted away… .

“Your lordship?” There was a knock on the door. “Your lordship?”

Gideon raised his head a fraction. “Go. Away.”

“Yes, sir, your lordship,” Thorndyke answered. “I would do that, surely. But I can’t.”

Jessica stirred slightly but then only sighed and continued to sleep.

“Yes, Thorny, you can. You simply have to apply yourself. You managed to propel yourself here, now manage to get yourself gone.”

Jessica yawned and stretched. Rather like a cat, rubbing her body against him. Part of Gideon took notice and became interested. The other part wished his butler on the far side of the moon.

“What’s going on?” Jessica asked, the grace of a cat deserting her as she tried to prop herself up by pushing on her elbow, which then jabbed into his chest. “Who are you bullying?”

Gideon gave it up. “My butler. But don’t worry, I bully him all the time. Go back to sleep.”

She pushed her tangled hair away from her face, grumbling something about never sleeping without first braiding her hair or it turned into a rats’ nest. “What does he want? Is it morning? It can’t be morning, it’s too dark.”

The knock came again. “Your lordship? It’s the dowager duchess, sir. She’s sent a note.”

Now Gideon was awake. “Trixie?”

“Yes, sir. You’re to read it at once, sir.”

Gideon pushed back the covers and left the bed, using the near-to-guttering light from a few of the remaining lit candles to locate his breeches. “Slide it under the door. What bloody time is it?”

“Gone three, my lord. I’m so sorry, but the footman who brought it was most insistent. I’ll have the coach brought round.”

“The—Damn it!” He watched as a folded note was pushed beneath the door and bent to pick it up. “This couldn’t wait until morning, Thorndyke?” he asked as he broke the seal and opened the single page.

Get here. Now! The word now was underlined three times.

“Well, that’s succinct.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be down directly.”

“We both will,” Jessica said from behind him, and he turned to see she was standing beside the bed, unashamedly naked, crushed rose petals in her hair. And several other places. He looked down at himself, momentarily amazed at his powers of recovery in the face of distraction, and then silently cursed his grandmother’s pathetic command of proper timing.

Gideon tore his gaze from the trio of rose petals fortunate enough to be in such intimate contact with Jessica’s left hip, and then manfully squinted into the near darkness, looking for his shirt. “No, you stay here.”

“We’ll both be down directly, Thorndyke,” she called out, and then began foraging for her underclothes, her bare bottom enticing as she bent over to retrieve the French drawers. Ah, more rose petals… .

“I never before realized my own grandmother hates me,” Gideon muttered, once again turning his eyes away from temptation.

It was closer to a quarter hour before he and Jessica were heading down the curved staircase, thanks to Jessica’s “rats’ nest,” but they were nearly to the door before Kate hailed them from the top of the stairs.

“What’s she done this time?” Lady Katherine asked as she bounded down the stairs with an energetic lack of caution that could have brought anyone else to grief. But not Kate. She never made a misstep, never gave a thought to decorum or, God help them all, her own safety. It was what he loved about her and why he worried so much about her. She was too damn much of a man for a woman. Somehow she’d lost any soft feminine side she’d ever had, preferring to act and be treated as if she was fourth and youngest Redgrave son.

He gave a moment’s thought to his sister’s question, and the fact that his grandmother had been entertaining the Marquis of Mellis. What if she wasn’t as deft as she believed herself to be? What if she’d slipped, or become angry with something he’d revealed to her? What if—“You’re not going with us, Kate.”

She ignored him as if he’d said nothing, brushing past him and through the open doorway to the foggy, damp street beyond. She’d climbed into the coach, taking the rear-facing seat, and was buttoning the last few buttons of the jacket to her riding habit as Gideon and Jessica entered and the coach jolted forward.

“Trixie’s her grandmother, too, Gideon,” Jessica said, as if he’d forgotten. “Stop glaring at her.”