He was silent for a long moment. Long enough to have her searching for his face through the darkness. There was a quarter moon tonight, so there was some light, especially with the gaslights a dozen feet away. But that only gave her enough to see the shadow of his features—the dark circles that could be his eyes and the full line that might be his mouth.
“Mellie,” he said as he brought her hands to his lips. “When I hatched this mad scheme, I never thought it would hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt, Trevor. I feel free. I feel alive.” She said the words, but there was a tightness in her belly that belied her statement. Then, as if to prove it, she kept talking. “I was a success at the ball, had admirers on every side, and if it weren’t for Ronnie and whatever happened with your grandfather, I would say it was a perfect evening.”
“Then why do you grip my fingers so tightly? Why do I hear desperation in your voice?”
How did he know her so well? How did he hear when her voice was tight and her mind at war with itself? She didn’t know, but she knew an easy way to distract him. Or perhaps she meant to distract herself. Either way, her path was easy.
“Because I want you to kiss me, Trevor,” she said. “Because I want so much more than that tonight.”
He stepped closer, and though she couldn’t see it, she knew his eyes had blazed hot and hungry. She knew the cadence of his breath before he kissed her. And the tension in her belly that anticipated his touch.
“Mellie, this is madness.”
She smiled. Finally, he understood. “Kiss me, Trevor. Teach me what you promised.”
He dropped his forehead to hers. She was not the only one waging an internal war, she realized. So she ended the agony for them both. She ducked under his head just enough to come up from below. Then she claimed his mouth with hers.
His kiss set fire to her blood. She had started the motion, pressing her lips to his, but he finished it, opening her mouth with his tongue before thrusting inside. She surrendered without protest. She opened herself to him and let her body press forward, anxious for his attention.
He let go of her hands, slipping them forward to grip her hips. She thought for a moment that she could feel his member then. Hot and hard as he thrust once against her. But then he set her back.
“I’ll not take you in a London back alley,” he growled.
“So take me somewhere private, Trevor,” she said.
His fingers slid up her body. Just his right hand, but the trail was a long caress the left fire in its wake. “So reasonable,” he murmured.
She wanted to laugh at that. She had embraced her madness now, not run to reason. But his fingers had found her breast. Sometime during the evening, her bodice had become completely denuded of feathers so there was little between his fingers and her taut nipple but the smooth caress of silk. She moaned at the feel—the rasp of his nail across the hard bud. And she ached for him to do more.
So she pressed her hand against his on her breast, trapping it there. Then she took his other and slid it from her hip to the juncture of her thighs and held him there. “Now, Trevor. Please.”
He answered with one word, but it was all she needed right then. “Yes.”
Seventeen
Novelty is the key with every rake. Do something new with him.
Trevor had never been more grateful for being too poor to afford a regular servant. As he whisked Mellie through the London streets—trailing feathers like breadcrumbs—his mind filled with all the things he wanted to show her.
The sexual explorations were one thing, but the idea that she would see his rooms—in all their haphazard, disastrous glory—had him thinking of what he should hide. That brought him to the startling realization that he wanted to show her everything.
His notes on her father’s work. The latest paper on the newly discovered bones of a massive lizard. Even his rather complex research on the possibility that insects carried diseases, and his friend’s recent gift of knitted pants. He wanted to show her everything, and that startled him enough that he slowed his steps.
Turning to her, he searched her face. Her eyes were wide, her lips red and moist, and she was smiling.
“Mellie…” he began, unsure exactly what he meant to say. It didn’t matter because she silenced him with a kiss. She was too quick in her approach, and he had to catch her even as he slanted his mouth across hers. Then it was thrust and parry with tongues and teeth. All else was obliterated.
Then she pulled back. “You promised, Trevor,” she whispered against his cheek. “I will never forgive you if you go back on your word.”
“I won’t,” he promised. At that moment, he would promise her anything and then do his damnedest to see her every wish fulfilled. “Come upstairs.”
He rented bachelor rooms in a house loosely run by a widow. She fed him and the other tenant occasionally, kept the main parlor clean, and was in bed by dark. She was also nearly deaf.
He pulled Mellie in the back door and up the stairs. A moment later, they were inside his rooms, stumbling past a pile of papers he intended to read and skirting a pile of mending meant for his valet as soon as he could afford one again.
“So this is where you live,” she said, her steps slow as he tugged her into his bedroom.