Page 8 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHERE A LADY LEARNS A LESSON

W est left her with her gown gaping, silk spilling into her hands. He walked to the door, locking it with a decisive click . After, he turned to lean against it, his gaze going a smoky, inspired green as he stared.

A fleeting expression of hurt stormed his features and was gone before she could record it. Such a swift appearance, she’d tell herself later she was mistaken, though she would add the color to her next painting, a depiction of a volatile, restless sea.

Although there was more than lust here, more than passion. Penelope was as fascinated with his mind as his body. His dreams, his past, his future were mostly unknown to her, and she coveted them as much as she coveted the pleasure he’d give her. After they soothed their hunger, if he let her in , there would be time to plan what could be.

He shook his head—when she hadn’t asked a question.

Bracing his hands on the door, he shoved off, taking two steps before divesting himself of the facade he loathed. The facade she’d helped him create.

Her breath streaking past her lips, his expensive attire tumbled to the paint-scarred floor while her heart thudded. Each piece he shrugged off in a thrilling, masculine show of muscle. It was clear from the speed that he dressed himself without the aid of a valet. His trouser close was open, of course, by her hand, and he stepped from them with an elegance she’d wager he had no idea he exhibited.

The Tierney bloodline was as evident in him as in his brother.

West gestured to her, the cravat clutched in his fist an ivory splash against his skin. “I’m going to unlace the ribbons of your drawers with my teeth, just so you know. Where I will then make you come with my mouth, leaving you gasping, spent, and feral. That was my dream.” He tugged on the tie at the waist of his drawers. “Frankly, it’s what I was thinking about most days during your readings from Debrett’s . I shall forever link the scent of musty pages and the sound of your voice reciting ancient English titles with pleasure.”

She smiled, willing to play his game. She loved when men thought they were in complete control. Letting her gown slide to her ankles, the stumble in his progress delighted her. “I prepared for your visit by only wearing a shift beneath. No ties to destroy with your teeth, I’m afraid.”

“Your boots,” he said in a hoarse voice, motionless, the waistband of his drawers gripped in his fist.

Backing up to sit on the sofa, she removed them without looking away. When she reached for the hem of her shift, he stopped her with a whispered plea, “Save that for me. And leave your spectacles, please.”

Obeying the command, maybe the only time she would in this life, she rested back, observing. Her encounters with Alain that long-ago summer hadn’t allowed for true intimacy.

It was good she was sitting because her legs went boneless as more of his body was unveiled. She’d not pictured Weston Whitaker well because he was more beautiful than her visions of him. Broad, but not too, lean and long where it counted. Wide shoulders flowing into narrow hips with such a dazzling play of muscle in between. A faint scattering of dusky hair on his chest angling into a slender trail racing to his belly. He displayed scant modesty as he worked his boots off and rolled his stockings down his calves, comfortable with nudity in a way she’d never been.

When he stood, his rigid shaft swung high, brushing his belly. It had been years since she’d done this, and Alain hadn’t been generously endowed.

West noticed her unease, his teeth a white flash in the muted candlelight. “We’re not in a hurry. I mean to take my time with you, sweetheart. Give my time to you, as much as you need. We’ll go only as far as you’d like and no further. In fact, this may be all we do. I’ll introduce you to pleasure without more than you’re ready for. Because what I’m going to do to you is pleasure .”

Her blood sizzled at the thought of going far, indeed. “I don’t normally sketch figures,” she whispered, “as I’m not skilled at proportions. But for you—” She brought her hand to her mouth and sighed behind it. “For you, I would try.”

West kicked aside his clothing and made his way to her, male satisfaction stamped across his face. Before she could decide what to say, how to act, how to move, what to do , he dropped to his knees before her. There was an ink stain on his thumb she’d yet to notice. She was engrossed with the streak as he slid his hand from her ankle to her knee, where he grasped the hem of her shift and glided it to her waist.

“In the dream, you were wearing this gossamer bit that flowed over your body and mine like cream. We were wrapped in it and each other. I came seconds after I woke, one stroke, like a fucking boy.” He leaned, nudging her leg wide with his shoulder, exposing her to his hot breath and the cool air.

She shifted as a flood of yearning pooled, heavy and throbbing, in her core.

“ Don’t ,” he whispered, his fingers gripping her knee to keep her from closing her legs. “Don’t hide from me. No one on this planet desires you more, wants you more. And God , Penny…” He nipped the tender skin of her inner thigh, and she released a weak whimper, a sound that had his gaze shooting to hers. “Force thoughts of your beauty aside because you have more of it than a person should be allowed, more than I’ve ever been gifted. Know that you’re more to me than the physical. I want you, all of you. And I mean, with your leave, to have you.”

Consenting, her head fell back. Her curiosity and trust was stronger than her fear.

He started slowly, feathering kisses along her thigh. Letting her catch his rhythm. His stubbled jaw abrading skin unused to such handling added an element of stimulation to the suction from his mouth, the gentle pinch from his teeth. His calloused fingertips teasing, an easy glide across her skin.

I can handle this, she thought, but when his lips settled against her, as her hips rose to instinctively meet him, her fingers drilling into his hair to hold herself steady, the moment spun away from her. The sensation of his tongue slicking her sex was the most indescribable feeling, no way to imagine or plan for it. West groaned in aroused agreement, his hand working its way beneath her bottom and lifting her, where he began to devour her in crude, helpless, panting pleasure, as he’d promised.

Both of them were gusty-breathed and moaning, both in the race. She seized hold of one sensation, fissures of awakening racing from the base of her spine to her brow, only to be captured by two more. Too much to battle after minutes comprised of his tongue probing her swollen folds, her hips moving in a cadence of his design meant to drive him deeper.

Knowledge was nothing when faced with innate physical response.

Mindless worked well for this endeavor, so she gave herself to going forward without conscious thought.

“There, that’s it,” he murmured, draping her leg over his shoulder. “The lady submits.”

Intentionally or not, his wicked words and the teasing gust of breath against her lit her up, sending a flutter cresting beneath her skin, bubbling in her veins. A wondrous thrill separating her from herself. Bright splashes erupted behind her closed lids as her heartbeat quaked in her ears. “More, Wes, more .”

Struggling for breath, she opened her eyes to find his, as brilliant a green as she’d ever seen them, observing her.

“Wes,” he murmured, his finger penetrating her. He stroked, calmly, then faster, his chest lifting on his own hard breaths. Their fraught exhalations echoed about the space, wrapping her in need.

“I can’t,” she started, tensing her leg around his shoulder.

“You can. You will .”

Believing him, she gave in, gave up when he dropped his head and caught her sex, sucking, his tongue circling. Her hands cradled his head, guiding the tempo.

All at once, it was too much, it was everything . His fingers—now there were two—his mouth, his teeth, the scrape of stubble on the tender skin of her thigh. The wave took her, carrying her away, overruling anything that had happened before. An upheaval, the ground shifting beneath her.

In the best of ways, she was reborn. Her slate erased.

Tremor upon tremor traveled through her, the raw response working its way through her in its own time, pulses both swift and lingering.

He stayed until her ecstasy became too deafening to conceal, where he rose over her, seizing her lips with his while palming her mound. “Cry into my mouth, don’t waste a second of this. I want to swallow you whole if that isn’t obvious. If we were alone in this dwelling, I’d demand you bring down the walls with your shouts.”

Her body bowed, his words, his touch, the pleasure wrecking her.

“You,” she found the strength to gasp, scarcely decipherable.

With a ragged laugh, he untangled her fingers from his hair and moved her hand to his engorged shaft. She stroked, beginning to understand what he liked when he moaned low in his throat, his hand folding around hers to guide her.

“ Ah, yes, just like that. I’m so close, too close.” Dropping his brow to hers, he released a tortured exhalation. “I have a plan. I come, you come, quick, dirty. After, we’ll get to the true business. Once I… catch my breath. Men sometimes need time… to gather themselves.”

“True business.” What had they been doing before?

“Just wait,” he gasped and rocked his hips into her tight grip, “and see.”

Curving her hand over his jaw, Penelope pulled his lips to hers, needing to share his delight when it hit him. He was leaning over her, a knee braced on the sofa, their motion rocking it on its spindly legs. She was glad they’d tried this before lovemaking because the piece would not hold them.

Breaking the kiss, he tucked his lips into the curve of her neck and whispered a moan across her skin. His cheek was warm, flushed, moist, his body shaking. She didn’t recall this level of hunger from her summer affair. Alain’s craving had been sternly wound, controlled, like the man.

Lowering his head, he sucked her chemise-covered nipple between his lips. “Your breasts are magnificent. Next time, they are getting more of my undivided attention.” He was honest, a rare thing among her set. He desired—and admitted to his desire. He didn’t seek to hide his yearning from her.

He didn’t pretend to be perfect, and she loved him for it.

Penelope’s body still vibrating from her release, now bound so tightly with his, she circled her thumb over the crown of his cock and recorded the impact as it shuddered through him, marveling over being the cause of such bliss. The hot words he pressed into her skin, lewd pleas and promises, dreams and fantasies, ignited her passion until she was seconds from begging for “true business” ahead of his grand plan.

“ Now ,” he whispered and took her lips, his cries lost within her. His arm came around her and held her to his chest, where they shivered and shook.

The intimacy was… astounding. A revelation. Erotic, chaotic, messy. She didn’t recognize herself. A woman’s understanding colored her vision like she’d dashed the scene with her paints. A couple’s desire unfolding in the privacy of their world.

Penelope rolled to her side, and he collapsed to face her. The sofa wasn’t built for such bulk and it didn’t hold all of him, but for the moment, it was enough.

“I’m sorry, let me clean you up,” he murmured in a thready voice that made her feel like a bloody queen. She’d brought Weston Whitaker this low, this wondrously low.

She wiped her hand on her chemise and shook her head. She wanted his long body, damp from exertion, trembling against hers.

She wasn’t giving him up until she had to.

“Come here,” she said and drew him as close as she could without dumping them to the floor. “Just for a little while.”

“I’ll fall asleep,” he mumbled, sounding halfway there. “Orgasms exhaust a man. Especially when they’re like that one.”

Penelope would have preened had she been a peacock. As it was, she grinned and gazed at the slanted wooden beams above her head. West was gone in seconds, his body going slack beside her.

Such was a man’s uncluttered existence, she reflected in amusement and fondness.

And love.

Accepting this, she shifted to study him as she’d never seen her brilliant engineer out of motion. He was wedged in the tiny crook next to her, one arm thrown over her waist, the other cushioned beneath his head. His hair was a ruin, the thick breaths streaking from lips she’d chafed with her own, scattering the ebony strands hanging in his face. There were new things she noticed, too, thrilling little finds all her own. His lashes were light brown at the tips, and he had a freckle, just the one, beside his nose. His nipples were small, dark disks she longed to taste as he’d tasted hers. Her gaze slithered over his ribs and down his lean belly. His member lay in a softening curve on his thigh, vulnerability in repose.

Heavens, he’s beautiful, she decided for the hundredth time as she traced the scar beneath his jaw with her fingertip. Exceptional and compassionate, but at times, unapproachable. Stubborn, with the belief his way was the best way. Guarded, like no one she’d ever known. He wasn’t looking for love; this she knew. He and Emelia had an arrangement which suited him. They’d been this intimate, possibly. Naked and knotted about each other, blissfully depleted.

Add to that, Lady P and the others.

He hadn’t been Tall, Dark, and December for a life blandly lived.

Penelope swallowed back tears and hugged him close. It wasn’t the perfect time to fall in love, and he wouldn’t be an easy man to love. A foreigner set to return home, a man with a shadowy past who believed he wasn’t worthy. He only believed in his engines.

Her heart had taken a gamble.

Or would if she told him.