Kasey Michaels - Romney Marsh Trilogy - A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women

Chance reluctantly slid his hands back down to Julia’s waist, not because he didn’t want her but because he was beginning to think she was experimenting with him, this woman he’d shown the pleasure men and women could share.

He might worry that another woman would believe herself in love with him merely because he’d come to her bed, given and taken pleasure there. But Julia Carruthers wasn’t other women and far from gullible. She knew why he’d come to her—she’d told him as much—and no one could believe herself in love with a man who would do anything so low, so base.

No, she didn’t really want him. She wanted it. Miss Prim and Proper had turned overnight into a wanton, and that transformation was his fault.

So why shouldn’t he reap the benefits?

Because he was a gentleman, damn it, and if not that, he was a man with at least some semblance of a conscience.

Chance pushed her slightly away from him, pressed several more kisses against her face, then stepped back. “I really have to go now.”

“Yes…you really should. They’ll be waiting.”

“Don’t worry. Billy hasn’t boxed my ears in some time now.”

He got as far as the door before turning around to take one last look at this woman who had so quickly gotten beneath his skin, annoying him, rousing him, maddening him.

Julia still stood near the window, looking at him as the early afternoon light haloed around her. She lifted a hand and pressed her fingertips to her swollen mouth, hardly able to believe she’d behaved so recklessly…and that she still wanted him so much.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Chance said, turning the key in the lock and already unbuttoning his shirt as he stormed back across the room. “Let them wait.”

Julia was in his arms again almost before she could register what was happening, and moments later, their mouths fused together, she was lying on her back on the bedspread.

The flare of passion was instantaneous and fierce. They kissed again and again, nipped at each other, tasted each other, and all while working to remove each other’s clothes.

Julia’s gown was at her waist before she could push Chance’s shirt from his shoulders, so he finished the job for her, then began unbuttoning his pantaloons as he knelt over her, looking at her upper body with an intensity that she felt tauten her nipples in response.

“Hurry.”

Julia had said the word. She heard herself say the word, her voice all but pleading with him. And she didn’t care. She just wanted him to hurry.

She felt his hands on her thighs as he pushed up her gown, then slipped her underclothes down past her knees before settling himself against her. Just the thought of their shared state of partial dress, the urgency they both felt, ignited her passion to the point where such sudden, unseemly haste seemed perfectly reasonable.

Chance bowed his head toward Julia’s breasts, licking the valley between them as he looked up at her, heard her sharp intake of breath. And when he covered her nipple with his mouth, the low, purring sound she made in her throat made him realize that not only was she ready for him, he was in danger of disgracing himself if he didn’t take her, take her now.

He raised himself slightly to position himself better between her legs, then slipped inside her in one long glide, deep into the moist heat that awaited him. Captured him. Held him.

Julia wanted to lift her legs up and around him, as he had taught her last night, but her underclothes were tangled around her ankles. She whimpered in frustration and pulled him close against her so that she could hold him.

Chance felt his already nearly frantic passion building as his heart pounded, as he found it difficult to breathe. He plunged faster, deeper, while Julia matched him thrust for thrust.

There was nothing gentle here, nothing. This was two people in need, each of them demanding something from the other. A mindless coupling that moved them forward, took them deeper and higher and finally exploded all around them before they came crashing back to earth together.

And all Julia wanted to do now was hold him and kiss him and kiss him again.

And all Chance could think now was that he’d lost all control of himself and spilled his seed in Julia. And he didn’t care.

Julia did her best to slow her breathing, and then Chance kissed her one last time, smoothed back her hair and left the bed to snatch up a towel from the washstand, keeping his back to her as he buttoned his pantaloons.

He turned to her then, reaching for his shirt, and Julia finally came back to her senses. She tried to push down the skirt of her gown even as she pulled the bodice up and over her breasts.

“No, don’t do that, please. A man about to go off on a journey should carry with him the memory of why he can’t wait to return,” Chance told her quietly, pushing down her bodice once more, then kissed her breasts before stepping away again, smiling down at her. “Here, what’s this?”

Julia immediately knew what he was referring to—the black grosgrain ribbon she’d tied around the strap of her shift. She put her hand over it, thanking her lucky stars that her gad, at least, was safely hidden in her dressing table. “It’s…it’s nothing.”

“No,” Chance said. He pushed her hand away and looked at the bow visible on her shift. “It’s a tie for my hair. I left it here last night, didn’t I?”

“You may have,” Julia said, looking past him. Which was silly. She’d just made love with the man, certainly she could talk to him. But she couldn’t. Now who was foolish?

Chance pushed a little harder, caught between amusement and bafflement, with just a bit of pride mixed in, not that he’d think about that right now. “And you’re wearing it. Over your heart, too.”

“I tied it there so I’d remember to give it back to you,” Julia said, keeping her eyes averted. “Isn’t Billy waiting for you?”

Chance would have pushed some more, but even a stupid man, he believed, could recognize when it was time to withdraw from the field. “Julia Carruthers, you are an endless source of wonder to me. Just when I think I’m beginning to understand you I…You’re right, I’ve got to go now.”

Which is how Julia came to be lying on her side, totally bemused, her skirts barely covering her hips, her breasts bared, like some creature in a Renaissance painting, watching Chance Becket walk away from her.

“Please be careful,” she whispered as the door closed behind him and she sank back against the mattress, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. “Don’t do anything brave.”

JULIA DIDN’T GO downstairs until the second dinner gong had rung, hoping to avoid conversation with the family in the main salon and holding on to Alice’s hand because…because she was a selfish, craven coward, that’s what she was.

“I like it here,” Alice told her as, still holding Julia’s hand, she jumped off the last stair, landing gracefully in her satin soft-soled slippers, her curls bouncing around her smiling face. “Everyone is so very nice, and I’m not stuck away in the nursery eating porridge. Although Buttercup will miss me horribly. Could I please go back upstairs and—”

“I don’t think there’s a place laid for Buttercup, sweetheart,” Julia said, smiling, then swiftly said something to divert the child. “But I have heard that you will sit beside Callie at every meal now that you behaved so well at luncheon this afternoon, and she’s almost as fine a companion as Buttercup, isn’t she?”

Alice became very solemn. “She’s better, but we can’t tell Buttercup because she’ll be sad.”

Walking slowly, in no hurry to enter the dining room, Julia said, “I thought Buttercup was a boy rabbit.”