Page 37 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

“Do you, Sedgecroft?” she murmured, pressing her shoulders to the wall to steady herself against the sensation of falling into a black, heated void.

“I am lost,” he said against her mouth. “Save me, Jane.”

“Save you?” she whispered.

Shimmering arcs of color danced behind her eyes. She sighed as his breath raised warm shivers along her collarbone, skimmed the creamy rise of her cleavage until the pink tips of her breasts strained against the thin gauze gown. She stared down at his head. He looked up slowly into her desire-clouded eyes. “I am the one who needs to be saved,” she said with a sigh. “I feel—”

“Better than anything I have ever touched. Dear Jane, never doubt for a moment that you are desirable.”

She studied his beautiful face, the face of her downfall, in fascination. Those blue eyes studied her back in blatant sensuality. Blue the color of a midnight sky, the color of sin.

“Close your eyes,” he murmured in amusement, rubbing his forefinger across her wet lower lip.

She did, and his mouth returned to hers, greedily absorbing her gasp of excitement, his tongue seducing the very breath from her body. Heat and sensual awareness washed over her in shivery waves. Her knees bent, trapped by the iron-hard support of his thighs. She fought the urge to press herself against his body. Her back bowed slightly.

Grayson could not help responding even though he sensed that Jane was in over her head. He thrust, the movement instinctive. In his mind he was already inside her. He felt the involuntary shudder that crept down her spine. Her breasts rose and fell against his hard chest. He drew his hands down the enticing curves of her body, tracing her ribs, sculpting the ripe flesh that tempted him beyond mercy. He wanted to tear that gown off with his teeth.

He couldn’t think of too many young ladies who would turn a stolen kiss into a crisis of self-control. Actually, he couldn’t name a single one. Not that other ladies never engaged in pleasures behind closed doors. But Jane brought an appealing freshness to the forbidden.

“Sedgecroft,” she said, taking a deep breath.

He drew back slightly, releasing a sigh of unadulterated longing into her hair. “Yes?”

“What are we doing?” she asked, her voice shaky.

The original point, he reminded himself, had been to make her feel as if she were a desirable female, to prove to her that Nigel’s rejection had not rendered her unappealing to a man.

He had succeeded to a humiliating degree. His own body burned, the blood in his veins simmering with a lust he had never known. Was it possible, he wondered wistfully, that the lady did harbor a little naughtiness beneath that shell of propriety? No. He dismissed that provocative consideration. Darker motives belonged to men like him and their earthy mistresses, not to roses-and-cream-complexioned young women of impeccable breeding. Too bad for them both.

Her subdued whisper broke the spell. “I think I hear voices above us. Listen.”

He angled his head to the side, his brows drawing into a frown of self-disgust. God above. In his fit of lust for Jane, he had forgotten all about Chloe. “I think you’re right, and one of those voices sounds like my sister.”

Jane smoothed down her disarrayed gown, feeling flushed all over. She was hardly composed enough to appear before anyone yet. Never in her life had she felt such a storm of unsettling sensations. She needed time to recover.

“Hurry up,” he said, catching her hand, back to his usual arrogance. “This is a crucial moment.”

“I do not hear her calling for help,” she whispered in annoyance.

“That is why it is crucial,” he said, dragging her down the passageway toward a small torch-lit stairwell. “Silence implies submission.”

“I shall remember that in future.”

He glanced back at her flushed oval face. He doubted she had a clue how badly he had wanted to take her. “It was not a criticism of your behavior. We both know you’re sensible enough to say when to stop.”

“Am I?” she muttered as they emerged at the top of the stone steps into a cozy towered chamber, so tiny that it held only a Grecian chaise and—

—a man wearing a blue military jacket and Hessian boots, and a familiar raven-haired figure sitting with her head against his shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Grayson said in a low controlled voice that vibrated in the silence. “Are we interrupting something?”

The officer leaped to his feet, his face dark with fear as he surveyed the tall powerful figure that towered over him. “My lord, please, let me explain.”

“I think I understand perfectly well what is happening,” Grayson replied, brushing the terrified young lieutenant away with one hand as if he were a fly. His blue eyes were blazing. “I was talking to my hellion sister.”

Chloe came gracefully to her feet, a slow blush spreading across her face as she noticed Jane hiding behind her brother. “What are you doing here, Grayson?”

“What are you doing here?”