A harsh groan and then another curse slipped from him. “Close your eyes,” he commanded.
“Why?”
“Evie,” he growled. “Close your damn eyes.”
His profanities were shocking, the hunger in his gaze equally intimidating and thrilling. Evie was unable to comply. “Whatever you need to do…I want to watch.”
His eyes darkened dangerously, entrapping her attention and holding her still. A blush worked itself along her body when he loosened the front flap of his breeches and…a sturdy stalk sprang forth. Oh God. Heat flushed through her, but she could not look away. He was so hard and beautiful. He fished a handkerchief from his pockets, gripped that thick stalk in a tight fist, and with three strong and violently sensual strokes, his hips jerked, and a raw groan of need pulsed into the carriage.
The raw intimacy of what he was doing enthralled Evie’s senses, and a startling rush of need arrowed down to her aching core. Unable to help herself, she rubbed her thighs together, even squeezing them closer. She needed to be touched, held, anything to relieve the pressure stabbing her insides with cold fire.
As if he understood, Richard tucked himself back into his pants and stuffed the handkerchief into his top pocket. “Come here,” he said soothingly, drawing her onto his lap. “I had to do that…or I would have taken you.”
She dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “Tell me what to do.”
He positioned her even more securely in his lap, but very scandalously so that she straddled him, her legs bracketing each of his outer thighs. An unexpected shiver of anticipation cascaded down her spine. One of his hands snaked around, and his fingers splayed across her stomach, where he kneaded gently. The other found its way to her core where he lightly skimmed his knuckles over her desperately needy flesh. Evie gasped at the electrifying contact, desire coursing through her like molten lava at each soft but persistent stroke.
His fingers slipped over her aching nub with even more firmness, and then he pinched down. Her nub got harder, more sensitive, yet his questing fingers never stopped their slippery caresses as she trembled with powerful quakes and her breathing became fast and urgent.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “You are getting so wet, Evie, so damn wet.”
Her breath came in gasps and pants as she clutched his shoulders and dazedly deduced that it was a good thing she was wet. He sounded so pleased at the notion. She had not thought the piercing sensations could improve, but Richard moved his wicked questing fingers lower. He gently eased one of his long fingers into her aching depths, and she bit into his shoulder as the feeling became so intense it bordered on pain.
“I need more, Richard,” she said on a soft moan into the curve of his neck.
Using a finger to force her chin up, Evie met his golden gaze. The mix of tenderness and visceral lust had her throat closing. He covered her trembling lips with his and withdrew his intimate caress, returned with two fingers rimming her aching entrance, and proceeded with an even more torturously slow plunge into her. Though he seemed so careful, the pain and the sweetest pleasure mingled, driving her higher toward something wonderfully elusive. Helpless against the emotions flooding her senses, helpless to stop the undulations of her hips, she slowly rode his fingers to the fever beating in her blood. Hungry, desperate cries spilled from her, mingling with his low, gravelly murmurs of approval.
A rough kiss was pressed to her swollen lips, and his diabolical fingers stroked her deeper…harder, while his thumb slid sinuously across her aching nub. Everything inside of Evie melted as fiery heat swamped her senses with bliss so destructive her entire body shuddered as ecstasy exploded through her.
Shaking and trembling, she rested her forehead against his. It took several moments for her to regain equilibrium. “Oh, Richard…that was…I’m not sure what it was.”
He dragged his thumb across her tender lips. “I want these sweet, hot, reddened lips around my cock.”
She whimpered at the illicit images filling her mind. Surely she did not understand his meaning. Evie felt as if she stood on the precipice of change, or more like the cliff of insanity, for she wanted to bestow on him pleasure…even the lurid images he’d just provok
ed to her thoughts. She should have been appalled at her unladylike passions, but instead, a burst of exhilaration shot through her heart. It was a heady feeling, doing something she wanted, and not because of duty and expectations. “Teach me.”
“I assure you, these lessons would be of ruin and disgrace,” he groaned against her lips. “Eventually I’ll strip you bare, kiss away all your shyness, and ride you for hours…until you can only moan my name in satisfied exhaustion. I’ve not the willpower, Evie, to stop at kisses and harmless teasing.”
The silence that lingered seemed brittle. She suddenly felt ridiculously vulnerable. “Is that so bad?”
“Yes. I’d have no choice but to marry you, wouldn’t I? My blackened reputation will sully you in the eyes of the ton, and remove you from your family and friends,” he said, his voice still rough and uneven.
She wanted to protest, but the words remained trapped in her throat. Surely it couldn’t be that bad. Deep inside, she did fear her mother would never accept an alliance with a known miscreant like Richard. I have Papa’s approval. And that was what she would hold on to. Not the memory of the embarrassing insinuations she had to suffer from friends, and the avid way they tried to besmirch his character, and the rebukes from her family whenever she publicly socialized with him, even briefly. Spying his conviction that she would be ruined by association, at that moment Evie grew unbearably wary.
He skimmed his fingers over her cheek. “I know your ridiculous fancies. They will never be had with a man like me. I do not trust, nor do I love. These are things you desire from your marriage, Evie. I’ve heard enough of your girlish, foolish hopes, albeit I want that for you because I need you to be happy.” He withdrew from her fully and tugged her dress lower, shifting her so she was once again seated beside him. “No more kisses, Evie…such intimacies will only lead to a ruin of your reputation, whatever is left of my honor, and our friendship.”
He chucked her gently across her chin, and she managed to produce a small smile. She lowered her head and rested it against his shoulder as the carriage rumbled along the streets.
I do not trust, nor do I love.
It struck her then how awful it was that a man as giving and selfless as Richard should live a life where he trusted few and did not require the comfort and joy loving someone brought. She wondered if he found it lonely to be without his family and the friends he had lost. Evie couldn’t imagine an existence where her parents and her brother lived, but she was prohibited from speaking, laughing, visiting them for the Christmas feast, or other traditions which they honored.
It cheered her to envision the happiness his daughter must have brought to his heart. Evie was determined even more now to love him, though she did feel more than a twinge of apprehension at constantly tempting the ruthless sensual scoundrel who’d almost ravished her in a carriage.
But what wouldn’t she risk to have his love, to move from being his only friend to his lover, his wife, his marchioness and future duchess?
Nothing… She would up the stakes for his heart.