Chapter Five
Beaumont made no move toward her luxurious bed in the next room. Before the fire, he knelt to remove her shoes while she balanced, a hand on his strong shoulder. Verity must make him believe she’d taken other lovers into her bed. Then perhaps he wouldn’t discover the truth. Some of her actress friends had boasted they’d fooled their lovers into believing they were the first. Perhaps the reverse could also be true.
His skilled hands as he undressed her banished her nerves. Curiosity and an unfamiliar yearning to be close to him emboldened her. She pulled the ribbon from his hair, running the silken strands through her fingers. She wanted to know more of this man.
He rose and smoothed back his deep brown locks with a careless hand. The firelight threw his face into relief, high cheekbones, strong brows, and chiseled jaw. His expression was intense, and his actions deliberate. He threw his waistcoat onto the chair, freed his cravat, and tossed it down with a smile. “To undress a pretty woman is like opening the best present a man ever received.”
Her laugh released the coil of tension in her body. She was an actress, wasn’t she? She could put on a satisfactory performance.
“Such a pretty wrapping, but the present beneath is exquisite.” As he unfastened her bodice, she wondered how many women he had undressed.
There was a heated silence, only the crackle of the fire, and the clunk the gilt clock on the mantel. He assisted her to step out of her gown and petticoats which had pooled at her feet. While still in her shift and stays, he cradled her face again and eased her lips apart with his tongue. He gathered her close. His mouth sought and demanded a response and she gave it, the erotic play rending her weak, his quickened breath on her cheek. He dropped a kiss onto her breast where it peeped from the top of her stays before untying the strings.
She should do something. Was her inexperience obvious to him? Oh, but she did want him to continue, more with every delicious moment that passed. His big hands roamed her body, stirring a throb of heat and need. She slipped a hand through the opening in his shirt in cautious exploration, and grew fascinated at the contrast of hard muscle and bone, beneath smooth olive skin. He made a deep sound in his throat when she touched his small brown nipples.
Her stays gone; she stood in her shift as he knelt and gave his attention to her stockings. His fingers sent tingles along her nerve endings. Verity had never experienced anything so intensely pleasurable. She shivered at the erotic sensation of her ribbon garters falling away and his hands on her skin, peeling her stockings down her legs.
“Your skin is so soft, Verity,” he murmured. He stroked her bare leg, the lightest of caresses as he fingers roamed over her thigh to that sensitive place between her legs. It was so arousing her knees buckled, and she sought to steady herself with a hand on his shoulder. As his fingers worked magic, she lost all sense of herself.
He turned his attention to removing the rest of her clothing. Embarrassed, she avoided his gaze obediently lifting her arms as he removed her shift. He tossed it on the chair and his gaze roamed over her as she stood before him naked.
“You are exquisite.” His voice more like a growl sent a shiver through her.
Absurdly shy, Verity smiled into his dark eyes finding raw passion. She trembled and exalted in her womanly power, became emboldened, and peeled away his loose cravat. She tugged at his shirt. “Allow me to undress you.”
He grinned and cocked his head. “I believe you’ve already begun.” Once his shirt had gone, she became distracted by the broad expanse of naked chest. She fumbled at the buttons of his breeches, chewing her lip. A man’s clothing was so different to hers. She refused to meet his gaze as the desire to giggle nervously almost overtook her. Why had she said she would do this? She busied herself, aware of his manhood straining beneath her hands.
Beaumont’s hand stilled hers. “Allow me.” His hot, amused look suggested he wished to devour her there and then, and she was being far too slow. He flicked at the last button and stepped out of his breeches, stockings, and shoes in one fluid movement. Kicking them away, he stood naked and magnificent before her, his member proud, erect.
Verity sucked in a breath, unprepared for such a superb body, muscular and firm and wonderfully constructed, his limbs long and graceful. Her appreciative gaze roamed from his broad shoulders down over his ridged stomach to his narrow hips. His manhood was nothing like Jacques Rocchard. Beaumont was a much larger man.
He reached up and drew the pins from her hair. Her hair fell in heavy waves and curled round her shoulders. The violets scattered over the rug.
“Sweetheart.” He bent to kiss her breasts. She had never felt so wanton, so needy. She was hot between her legs. Her nipples peaked and throbbed.
He pulled her against him, skin to skin, sliding his hands over her as if committing all the curves of her body to memory. She was intent on learning his. He was so male, all sharp ridges and taut muscle and bone; warm and alive.
They were like darkness and light. Where she was all soft creamy curves he was all power, sun-kissed, hard, and strong. How perfectly her body melded to his as it was surely meant to. Surely even more so when they finally... A moan escaped her lips as he drew her down onto the rug. The soft, silken carpet rubbed sensuously over her back and derriere, teasing her heightened nerves to fever pitch. Ripples of sensation rushed through her when he lavished attention on her breasts and drew a sensitive nipple into his mouth. She moaned.
His eyes told her how much he enjoyed making her moan. He would assume she had seen many naked men. She gave up pretending she knew what a coquette knew. Somehow it no longer seemed to matter, for he led the way. He explored her thoroughly with his hands and lips. When he stroked the sensitive nub between her thighs, her thoughts deserted her. With a moan of abandonment, she spread her legs. She licked her lips and rocked her head from side to side as a strange needy sensation built within her. She murmured incoherent words, her eyelids fluttering closed as she moved inextricably toward something just beyond her reach. She heard a cry and realized the sound had come from her. She felt floaty, euphoric, and opened her eyes to find him watching her with a heavy-lidded smile.
It was instinctive to reach for him, to circle the solid length of his erection which was hot and silky and firm, growing harder beneath her fingers. She breathed in masculine aromas, and fascinated, stroked her fingers over its length.
He closed his eyes. “Oh, sweetheart, that is good.”
Moments later, Beaumont stilled her hand. “I want to enjoy you. And you to enjoy me.”
Her hand on his nape she brought his mouth to hers, her tongue dancing with his. She was filled with an insatiable curiosity. She wanted him inside her. “Please,” she murmured.
He eased her legs apart and his hard, heated body settled over hers. His blunt weight nudged at her entrance. With a thrust, he filled her. It hurt, and she cried out.
“The deuce!” He withdrew, his eyes widened with disbelief. “You’re a virgin?”
“She gasped out a breathy sob.
He looked at her doubtfully. “You want me to continue?”
“Oui!” She pulled him back down against her.
