Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,39

term, not entirely sure she knew to what he was referring, but feeling wicked all the same.

“My sister is my sister, and thus, not a true chaperone.”

“With that notion in your head,” he admonished, “you are apt to get up to all sorts of dangerous trouble.”

“Too late,” she muttered, but he heard her and shook his head, probably recalling when he’d saved her from the viscount. “Anyway, sir, I thought your idea to take a little air to be a good one, as this room has grown stuffier by the hour.” It wasn’t as if she were hoping for either an assignation or a dash over the stone wall and a trip to Gretna Green.

Without delay, he led her surreptitiously out one of the back doors into the garden. Whispers and giggles from more than one location met her ears, and Julia realized another world of intrigue was happening all around her.

Recalling how she’d arranged for them to be alone in Sarah’s home, and yet he’d left as swiftly as Odysseus’s arrow, she wondered if tonight—

Julia found herself yanked out of the torchlight and into the shadows before she could finish her thought. In the blink of an eye, they were on the other side of an arbor, shielded by a topiary shaped like a pineapple. His arms encircled her immediately.

Maybe the earl was now more like Eros’s arrow, its tip dipped in desire.

Her heart beating at double speed, she raised her face to his and welcomed the crush of his mouth upon hers. In fact, she sighed through the beginning of it, enjoying pure welcome relief. Then his tongue tickled her lips, and she parted them.

While his tongue slid along hers, his hands skimmed down her thighs to draw up the sheer outer layer of her gown, as well as the chemise beneath. She began to tremble, but when the cool night hair whispered across her skin, Julia went motionless. If someone should stumble upon them...

“This is what most of us come to these infernal gatherings for,” the earl said, having kissed his way from her lips along her chin to her neck, speaking softly against her skin. “The rest of it, the dancing and such, is for the simpering innocents and upstanding hum-drum fellows.”

His words sank in as his palms touched the soft cotton of her unfashionable drawers, inching toward the apex where they opened.

Wasn’t she one of those innocents? she wondered.

His fingers slid between the space where the fabric crossed, and he touched her, a mere gentle brush across her curls. She shuddered.

“You’re damp for me,” he said softly.

Rather than feeling embarrassed, his knowledge of her body heightened her excitement. However, when one of his fingers flicked across her most sensitive spot, fearing her legs would collapse, Julia grabbed ahold of his lapels.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I only want to please you.”

And she let him. While keeping herself upright by hanging onto him, she let him stroke her shamelessly, and when she felt his finger enter her, she bit her lip and moaned.

“That’s it,” he said, claiming her mouth again. “Let me satisfy you.”

And Julia realized she was moving up and down upon his hand, unable to stop as the pressure of exquisite sensation built.

Suddenly, his other hand slipped into the bodice of her gown — an easy passage between the fabric and her heated skin. His palm stroked her breast and then he took her hardened nipple between his thumb and forefinger. At the same time, he flicked the throbbing bud between her legs with his thumb while one of his fingers was still inside her.

He was a sorcerer!

Reaching the pinnacle of sensation, pleasure released through her like hot water poured across her skin, unleashing a dam of desire that made her want to sink to the garden floor. Yet still impaled on one of his hands and her breast palmed in his other, she could do naught but rest against him.

Finally, her breathing began to calm, and the tingling between her legs disappeared along with his hand, before her gown fell into place. He’d already withdrawn his other hand from her bodice, but he took a moment before releasing her entirely.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking directly into his unfathomable gaze. His words echoed in her head.

“What most of us come for.”

And just like that, quick as a whip, her exultation vanished. He had probably done the same with many women, countless times. And he’d probably done quite a bit more. For while she’d