Page 95 of The Rogue’s Embrace

Rupert had to wait until the wee hours of the morning, when the last of the ball guests were saying their goodbyes to his mother and Lord Malcolm, for a moment alone with Cece.

"I don't know why people stay so long at balls,"

he said, striding up to Cece's side as she helped direct the servants to clear up the last of the punch glasses and serviettes that had been left in various corners of the ballroom.

Cece stifled a yawn and turned to him. She smiled, appearing too tired to put on haughty airs or tease him. It was a good sign, as far as Rupert was concerned.

"People stay late at balls because they enjoy the company and the diversion,"

she said, handing a glass off to a maid, then stepping over to Rupert's side. "Or because they don't want to go home."

"I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to go home,"

he said with a seriousness he hadn't displayed for days. "When I was in the Transvaal, all I could think about was going home."

Cece blinked in surprise, her expression lightening. "Truly?"

Rupert looked surprised in turn. "Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?"

She shrugged as they made their way slowly across the ballroom toward the hall. "Your letters were always filled with stories of fun and excitement. And you've barely been able to talk about anything else since you returned home."

She sent him a look that was surprisingly withering for three in the morning. "I thought you loved being in the army."

"I did, I did,"

Rupert rushed to say, although his true thoughts on the matter were far more complicated.

Their conversation paused as they reached the hall and Natalia burst out of the parlor across the way.

"Have you seen Bianca?"

she asked, her eyes glassy with exhaustion, even as she wrung her hands with anxious excitement.

A knot formed in Rupert's stomach. "No,"

he said. If Jack Craig had importuned his sister, he would wring the man's neck, Scotland Yard inspector or not.

"When was the last time you saw her?"

Cece asked as they continued down the hall together.

"I don't know,"

Natalia fretted. "I can't remember. I danced with so many amiable young men this evening, and I'm afraid I lost track of her sometime after midnight."

She gasped and grasped Cece's arm. "What if she's done something foolish with Mr. Craig?"

"I'm sure Bianca has more sense than that,"

Cece reassured her.

Rupert had no such certainty. His sister was headed for a heap of trouble, and they all knew it.

"I just wish I knew where she was, even if the answer is scandalous,"

Natalia continued to fret as they reached the front hall, where their mama and Lord Malcolm were just shooing the last of their guests.

Their mother must have heard Natalia's comments. She turned to them, pursed her lips for a moment, then said, "Bianca has gone to bed. I sent her there over an hour ago."

"Right about the time I suggested Jack Craig might want to go home for the night,"

Lord Malcolm added in a menacing grumble.

Rupert let out a breath of relief, but it felt as though they'd only had a reprieve from disaster instead of avoiding it entirely.

"You should be in bed as well, young lady,"

their mother said.

Natalia huffed. "Really, Mama. I'm twenty years old now. I'm not a child."

"Then stop behaving like one,"

their mother said, pointing toward the stairs.

Natalia looked as though she would argue, but in the end, she let out an exhausted sigh and headed up the stairs. Their mother followed behind as though she would make certain Natalia made it to her room, and Lord Malcolm followed her as though he had the same intention but entirely different designs.

Rupert and Cece exchanged amused looks, starting up the stairs at a slower pace.

"After all that,"

Rupert said, "I consider the evening a grand success."

Cece raised her brows at him. "And what defines the success of a ball in your mind?"

Rupert let out a laughing breath and grinned. "I did not punch Charles Denbigh in the face in front of everyone and cause a scene."

Cece laughed abruptly, then slapped a hand over her mouth as her shoulders continued to shake. It was the most beautiful sight Rupert had seen in years. Whether it was a change in their relationship or just the exhaustion of the night, for a change, it felt as though they were on the same side.

"Mind you,"

he continued, slowing his pace even more as they reached the top of the stairs, "I might get another chance to thrash Denbigh to within an inch of his life."

"Oh?"

Cece managed to look both curious and wary.

Rupert's grin widened. "The bast—the bloke challenged us to a cricket match."

"A cricket match? Whatever for?"

"To play for honor, I suppose."

Rupert shrugged.

"Men and honor,"

Cece said with a shake of her head. A moment later, her eyes widened. "Perhaps you could play at Reese's house party."

"Denbigh wants to play at Lord's,"

Rupert began, but stopped dead when the rest of her sentence struck him. "Hang on. Reese?"

Cece smiled mysteriously. "Yes, that's what he asked me to call him."

Rupert's mouth dropped open as jealousy reached up and nipped at his backside. He shifted his weight, crossing his arms, then asked, "House party?"

"I convinced him it would be a good time to invite all of his friends to stay at Albany Court for a while,"

she said, her smile growing. She must have known full well how irritated he was.

"His friends?"

Rupert shifted his weight again. "And are you his friend?"

Cece answered with a laugh, swatting his crossed arms playfully.

Rupert caught her hand and held it tight. He met her eyes just as she sucked in a breath. The breath did glorious things to her chest, but it was the fire in her eyes that lured him into a mad sort of boldness.

Without a word, he twined his fingers with hers and tugged her off to the left, to the hallway where his bedroom was located. She and the rest of the family were currently staying in rooms in the other wing. Cece wasn't dense enough not to know what his move signaled, but instead of yanking her hand away or digging in her heels and pulling back, she dashed silently down the hall with him.

Neither said a word or made so much as a sound until they had reached his room at the end of the hall, slipped through the door, and shut it behind them. Rupert turned the lock for good measure before sweeping Cece into his arms and pressing her back against the door. Before he could think of anything beyond the sweet, salty smell of her skin and the way her cheeks were flushed with anticipation, he slanted his mouth over hers.

She responded with a gasp of surprise that opened her mouth to him, allowing him to take all sorts of liberties. He kissed her with a deeper intensity, sliding his tongue along hers and tasting her fully. She made a sound deep in her throat that echoed through him, making his cock stiffen and his blood run hot.

He knew what he wanted beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he was certain from the way Cece's body relaxed and molded against his as he leaned into her that she wanted the same thing. He slipped his hands down her arms to her wrists, grabbing them and pinning them to the door behind her, over her head. With the massive expanse of her bustle wedged between her and the door, the effect was to bend her backwards until she was at his mercy. But she didn't seem to mind.

He teased her lips with his and with his teeth and tongue until they grew plump and red. Then he broke away to whisper, "I want you, Cece. I've always wanted you."

"Dear heavens,"

she replied, her breath coming in shallow gulps that pressed the limit of her bodice's ability to contain her shapely breasts.

He slid his hands back down her arms to brush her neckline, trying to work out how he could get her out of her ball gown as quickly as possible. He rained kisses across her shoulders as he thought—or rather, as he failed to think—dropping lower and lower until he reached the line of white silk roses that kept him from what he wanted. He curled his fingers around the edge of the garment and tried to nudge it down, but the blasted thing was fastened too tightly for him to do more than expose a few extra millimeters of her skin.

He pulled back and frowned disapprovingly at her gown. "We're going to have to do something about this," he said.

For a moment, Cece was the perfect picture of wanton abandon. She leaned against the door, her eyes heavy-lidded, her kiss-swollen lips parted as she panted for breath. The sight made Rupert harder, so much so that he debated unfastening his trousers then and there. But he wasn't so much of a cad that he would take what he wanted from her without giving her the experience she deserved in return.

A modicum of sense must have returned to her as well. She lowered her arms, pushing away from the door enough to stand straight. "We can't do this, Rupert,"

she whispered, sucked in a breath, blinked, glanced from side to side as though someone were hidden in the curtains, then went on with, "Can we?"

"We can do whatever we want,"

he said, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against him.

He pressed his growing erection against her, or at least tried to, as he closed his mouth over hers once more. There were simply too many layers of fabric and frills to her gown for her to feel his hardness. She made up for that minor disappointment by sliding her arms over his shoulders and kissing him back with as much vigor as he could have asked for.

What she lacked in experience, she made up for in enthusiasm. She hummed with desire as she teased his tongue with hers and raked her fingers through his hair. Desire pulsed through him so demandingly that he genuinely worried he would go off half-cocked. He'd waited for years for this moment and he wanted to enjoy it.

"This won't do,"

he said, breaking partially away from her, his breath coming in short gasps.

"It's doing quite nicely,"

she argued, then tried to kiss him again.

He indulged in a brief peck before inching back again and shaking his head. "We need to get out of these clothes. If I'm going to ravish you to within an inch of insanity, I want you fully naked while I do it."

She blinked, her eyes shining with passion and her chest heaving more than ever. "Oh. Oh, my."

Her complete lack of fear in the face of what he was suggesting resulted in a twist of humor that made Rupert restless. "So if you would be so kind as to instruct me in how to get you out of this extravagance, I would be grateful," he said.

She laughed, reaching behind her to where her bustle met her back. "If I had known we were going to end up like this, I would have worn something much simpler."

Rupert made a sound that started out as a laugh but turned to a strangled groan of desire when the entire bottom half of her gown jerked as she pulled something free behind her.

"You're going to need to help me,"

she whispered, turning her back to him.

It was ludicrous that such a banal statement and such an ordinary gesture should drive him wild with desire, but it did. He surged toward her, ready to help in any way he could to get her out of her clothes as fast as possible.

* * *

Cece's mind refused to function in any rational way as Rupert's hands worked at her back, untying the fastenings of her skirt and bustle at first, then working on the row of buttons down her back. Fashionable ball gowns were definitely not designed for mad-capped, early-morning escapades. It was likely that they were designed to stop a woman in her tracks if she so much as thought about doing anything silly with a man.

But somewhere between the sheer exhaustion that lent an air of unreality to everything swirling around her and the wild, relentless ache growing in her core, she wasn't about to stop. It didn't matter that Rupert drove her mad with his bullheaded ways. It didn't matter that it would mean social ruin if they were caught. Her blood was pumping, her curiosity was bristling, and dammit, modern, progressive women had just as much of a right to explore their sexuality as men did.

"There,"

Rupert said at last with a sigh of satisfaction. "That's the last of it."

He slid his hands into the newly unfastened bodice and helped her shrug it from her shoulders and to push the whole ensemble down over her hips to the floor. Her skin tingled in expectation and her breasts felt heavy and desperate to be touched.

But when she climbed out of the mountain of red and white silk and stepped to the side, turning to face Rupert, he blurted, "Bloody hell, there's more?"

She shouldn't have laughed. Not when she was standing there in her underthings only, facing a man with whom she had a history and an understanding, especially when his trousers were conspicuously tented. But the dismay in his eyes as he surveyed her corset, chemise, stockings and drawers was truly comical.

"Yes,"

she answered, moving to him and stroking the lapels of his jacket before setting to work on the buttons. "They keep us trussed up tightly to prevent spontaneous outbreaks of sensuality."

He might have laughed at her joke, but before he could, she pushed his jacket over his shoulders and went to work on the buttons of his waistcoat. Rupert spent half a second helping her by twisting and shrugging out of his things before snaking his arms around her and pulling her in for another searing kiss. He was devilishly good at kissing and always had been. He knew just how wicked she wanted him to be and exactly how to make her feel alive.

His hands interested her more than his lips, though. He stroked her sides, cupping her breasts as best he could through the stiff boning of her corset. He even attempted to work a few of the top hooks loose before losing patience and shifting his hands down to her backside. She sighed loudly at the possessive way he squeezed her, then gasped as he ground his erection against her hips.

Her insides ached to feel more of him that way. He reached for her thigh, lifting her leg over his hip so that he could rub against her, even though too many layers of fabric still separated them. His intensity was vastly different than the coy, teasing games they had played with each other before he'd gone away. They'd fumbled innocently with each other's parts a few times all those years ago, but never undressed and never in a way that produced any results other than longing.

Everything was different now, and Cece knew it.

"I can't wait,"

she panted against his ear as he rubbed against her in a particularly effective way. "If I don't have you inside me soon, I think I might die."

"God, I hope not,"

Rupert growled. He dropped her leg and used both hands to work on the hooks of her corset. "I'd have to die right along with you."

He paused, concentrating on undressing her with sharp, pink-cheeked focus. As soon as her corset came loose, he met her eyes and said, "Of course, there is what the French call la petite mort."

Cece was educated enough to know exactly what he meant. She'd had Lady Katya for a step-mother for the past four years, after all. She wriggled out of her corset, not caring where it dropped, then pulled her chemise up over her head to expose everything from the waist up.

Rupert groaned in carnal appreciation at the sight of her breasts. He reached for them, fitting them expertly in his hands and brushing his thumbs over her nipples until her core ached so desperately she thought she might scream.

"They're gorgeous,"

he moaned, squeezing and fondling them. "I want to…I want…."

He bent to bring his mouth to one of her nipples, suckling and raking his tongue over her tip.

"Good heavens, Rupert,"

she gasped. "If you keep doing that, I won't be able to stand."

"Good,"

he said, straightening and grabbing at the last of his clothes as though they were on fire and his life depended on removing them at once. "I don't want you to stand. I want you on your back, legs spread. I want to see your cunny glistening right before I bury my cock so deep inside of you that you come hard enough to cause an earthquake."

A shiver shot straight through Cece, helping along what he wanted by causing her to drip with desire. She didn't have any more patience than he did. She tugged at the drawstring of her drawers and kicked them aside, then peeled off her stockings. It was only as she moved to the bed and twisted to flop on her back that she realized that she'd completely forgotten to remove her long, kid gloves.

She started to peel them off before Rupert said in a wolfish voice, "Keep them on."

The strangeness of his demand coupled with the fact that she was thoroughly naked and on her back on his bed was one thing, but he'd undressed entirely as well and stood between her knees at the edge of the bed.

He was glorious, a perfect specimen of male beauty. His mustache might have been atrocious, but his broad, well-defined chest with its masculine hair was scintillating. His stomach was flat and his abdomen muscled. She would have enjoyed the clear strength in his thighs as well if her gaze hadn't stopped dead at the long, thick length of his penis. It didn't matter how many artistic depictions she'd seen and giggled over with Bianca and Natalia, the real thing was stunning. Rupert's cock was large and stood erect, the flared tip already glistening. And where Cece was certain the vast majority of the young ladies she knew would shudder in terror and weep over the thought of attempting to fit something so big into such a delicate space, all she wanted was to feel him lodged firmly inside of her.

"Is this what you had in mind?"

she panted, resting her arms submissively on the bed above her head and parting her legs as wide as she could, knees bent.

She knew she looked like a perfect whore offering herself up that way, but it had exactly the effect she was going for. Rupert groaned with desire, hunger that was almost predatory filling his expression. He surged onto the bed with her, covering her body with his so suddenly that she gasped and sighed at the sensation. She braced herself to lose her virginity, but the expected thrust didn't come.

Instead, Rupert kissed her again. It was a savage kiss, far from the sweet and gentle pecks they had shared at the dawn of their relationship. His hands stroked and kneaded her flesh, as if he wanted to tease and explore every part of her at once.

"If this is just a joke and you aren't really ready for me to make love to you, tell me now,"

he whispered, tension rippling through his body and his voice.

"It's not a joke,"

she told him. "I want you, Rupert. And if you don't fuck me soundly and soon, I shall be most displeased."

The sound he made was almost a sob. And still he didn't penetrate her the way she expected and wanted him to. Instead, he shifted a hand between them, cupping her sex possessively. She wondered if that was the sort of thing men usually did, at least until his fingers plunged into her.

She gasped, arching her hips into his exploration, as he stroked inside of her. The wild feeling of being a clock wound too tightly grew within her. Her body resisted him slightly, but she hardly cared.

"You waited for me,"

he said, joy glowing in his eyes as he gazed down at her.

"Of course, I did,"

she said, barely able to form words. "Did you wait for me?"

"I did,"

he said, his hand shifting to stroke her clitoris. "I haven't been with another woman since the moment I met you."

Whether it was his confession of fidelity or the skill with which he brought her to orgasm, when her body burst into pleasure, it felt so good she nearly shouted. She was utterly exposed and beholden to him as he stroked her into a longer and longer climax, watching her wanton enjoyment of everything she felt.

"I'm never going to forget this sight,"

he purred before positioning himself at her throbbing entrance at last.

He thrust into her without hesitation. Cece gasped as her innocence was taken. She'd expected the pain, but not how quickly it would pass. She also hadn't expected how perfectly delicious it would feel to have him moving inside her, thrusting and grunting in the most undignified way as he mated with her. It was absolutely divine in every way. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, urging him to take her harder and deeper. The coil of pleasure inside her tightened once more as she moaned in time to his thrusts.

Her body launched into a second orgasm just as he cried out and tensed in her arms. She felt a rush of warmth inside her as his hips convulsed against hers. She didn't even care how dangerous it was that he spilled his seed inside of her. It was bliss beyond description to receive him that way, and to know that she had the power to take him from a strong man, full of needs, to the putty in her embrace that he was quickly becoming. He sagged, spent, on top of her, panting and wrung out, without even the energy to withdraw his marvelous member from her. She'd done that to him. She was the one who held the real power.

And as much as it sealed her fate to be his wife, it gave her the gift of knowledge that she was certain Lady Katya and women like her had known for ages. Society might have dictated that she belonged to Rupert now, but she was the one who now held ultimate sway over him.