Chapter Ten

 

Phillip left the house, stalking out to find a path that led toward a small decorative lake on the property, created no doubt by some designer decades before to provide a great vantage point of the estate. Like every structure and area of Oakwell Manor, nothing seemed unplanned or without purpose.

The solarium had sealed his heart’s fate. What had him flummoxed was that the next natural step eluded him. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for the strange turns of the Earl of Trent waving him off with odd speeches about time to be had and the advantages of boring women. He’d been ready to ask for Raven’s hand then and there before Geoffrey had urged him to choose a better time.

He’s testing me. Instead of demanding I marry her, he’s dangling about and giving me advice on courtship. But why?

How do I not measure up?

His position was secure enough, his fortunes on the rise; certainly he had money enough to afford a wife and Raven would be Lady Warrick, her children provided an inheritance and legacy any woman would be proud to claim. So where was the hindrance?

“Slow and steady wins the race.” Phillip repeated the words and stood to look back across to the manor house. “God, why does that sound so hard?”

The answer to his question came racing up the gravel path with a smile, her gait as easy and carefree as a colt’s. “I was hoping to catch you, sir.”

“Raven.” Phillip took a deep breath to steady himself, determined to say his piece before her touch unraveled him. “We cannot keep meeting alone like this, but we must talk.”

She slowed, some of her joy muted. “Oh. As you wish.”

“Lord Trent is…” he began and then decided that this conversation required a more comfortable distance between them and any watchful eyes in the house. “Here, come.” He took her hand and spotted a makeshift haven for their retreat. He drew her toward a large log that was set into the shade of several willow trees. The ground was covered with thick moss and a canopy of hanging willow leaves punctured with sunlight that dappled the place with fleeting laces of light added to a fairy-like aura. They were completely cut off from view from the manor and the path around the lake. He sat her down and then knelt in front of her, keeping both of her hands cradled like wild birds inside the gentle cage of his fingers. “Raven, of all the ways I might have wished to approach your guardian...”

She smiled. “It was horrible, wasn’t it?”

“Then why are you grinning?”

She laughed. “Because I’m relieved that it is the means by which we were discovered that troubles you and not some fault with my kisses.”

“I have no complaints with your kisses outside of their addictive nature. They must cease and I must cease seeking them or we are both ruined.” He forced himself to release her hands and shifted to sit next to her. “I need to prove to Lord Trent that I am not a villain and not the kind of man to take advantage of one so young.”

Her brow furrowed. “I am not so young.”

“You are three weeks away from eighteen and not yet out in society, Miss Wells.”

Eyebrows lifted to betray her skepticism. “And by comparison this makes you at ten years my senior, what exactly? A jaded Methuselah?”

“I have experience enough to understand that if I mean to win you, I cannot allow my passion to overrule my sensibilities. The earl made it clear he doesn’t think I have the discipline or character to see things through or to adhere to a slower and honorable pace.”

“He said that?” she asked.

“He may have but,” Phillip said. “I won’t give you up, Raven”

“Then don’t.”

“Nothing is that simple.”

Raven sighed. “What are your intentions, Phillip Warrick? Are you going to seduce me and…spoil me….only to throw me aside? Am I to be one of those foolish girls in those novels who is lost to passion?”

“Lost to passion?” He shook his head. “Who talks like that?”

“Is that your answer?” she began to pout and a ricochet of heat blazed through him.

“No. My answer is no. You are not going to one of those foolish girls because my intention is to marry you. I want to ask Trent for your hand in marriage. How does that sound?”

“Like heaven,” she said softly. “Except…”

“Yes?” Phillip smiled. “Did I omit something?”

“If your intentions are honorable, can you not seduce me along the way? I mean, does one choice necessarily forbid the other?” She gave him a shy hopeful look. “I have nothing to fear of you, Sir Warrick.”

His breath caught in his throat, his spine stiffening as he stood to step back from her. “Damn it. You can’t look at me like that and—we’re not children playing a game of dare, Raven.”

Raven blinked. It was her turn to catch her breath and accept that she was in fact, pushing him very hard. Driving him toward giving her what she desired, even if she wasn’t sure where the aching need for him would take her. “No, not a game.” She stood to face him, standing close enough to hold him captive as he looked up at her. “Oh, Methuselah, I need your guidance.”

“Raven.”

“I am caught in a riddle, O’ Ancient One. My guardian has not forbidden me to fall in love, sir. And if he had, what attention would I pay? Trent is my guardian and I owe him all obedience but after kissing you in the gazebo, I am somewhat off my tether, sir. It is as if you alone are the voice I would hear or heed. Can you imagine such a thing?”

“Raven.” He said her name again, but instead of a reproach his tone conveyed an ache and longing that matched hers.

“Furthermore, Great Sage of Experience, I do not think I will be able to agree to any plan that forbids kissing. I find that I want you to kiss me again very much.”

“The risk…”

“I am an optimist and a dreamer, Mr. Warrick.” She reached out a hand to rearrange a curl from his cheek, her breath quickening at the phantom tingle of raw power at the move. She was standing between his thighs, above him and something uncoiled inside of her at the sweet supplication in his eyes. “Nothing in the glittering fantasy of London holds a candle to you, Mr. Warrick.”

He shook his head. “You mustn’t…”

She smiled and slowly began to lean down until her lips hovered a scant inch above his. “It is Spring and I care nothing for the Fall. Kiss me, Phillip.”

It was a woman’s logic and he was an enrapt captive.

If I intend to marry her, with or without Trent’s permission—is it really so wrong? If an honorable end is assured, what matters the path…

It was a cad’s logic, a rogue and a rake’s reasoning but as her breath fanned out to tease and torment his lips, so close it was as if he could already taste her kisses, Phillip no longer cared. He had found her. The woman of his dreams: clever beyond reckoning, a creature of light and laughter, Raven was pure joy and in his arms, his angel became a shameless siren that trembled in his arms.

It is Spring and I care nothing for the Fall.

She kissed him, melting into him in a slow, glorious cascade of sensation.

Raven savored it, the slow surge as her confidence grew, for Phillip yielded control to her, guiding her only by responding to her touch and demonstrating his pleasure. Power added a dimension to her desire, to the potency of it. She loved the sensation that he was struggling to maintain a line in the sand; that the pleasure she inflicted could sweep him into her arms.

In the solarium, she’d reveled in the firm lines of his body, marveling at the heat of his frame through his coat and shirt. But now, in this private glade and with caution lost to the winds, she wanted more. A restless, anxious frustration nibbled at her, a hot unfamiliar tension begging her to solve the mystery of a mechanism that screamed for release.

Raven unbuttoned his shirt and dispensed with the layers that kept him from her. Coarse silken curls a dark tawny brown that echoed his coloring made for a delightful discovery. It was a light mat across his frame with a wicked trail of hair that disappeared into his pants. She gasped at the sight of his chest—a muscled wall that was so firm and at the same time, his skin was velvet under that dusting of hair. She leaned in to kiss him again, wrapping her legs around him to settle in to the business of pushing his coat and shirt from his shoulders.

For a second or two, he was helpless with his arms tangled in the cloth and he moaned in frustration. For she alone could touch him, while he was her willing prisoner. It was too tempting a conundrum for Raven to waste.

“Raven.”

“Shh. Be very still. I am learning you.”

If kissing Phillip’s throat was even a pale echo of the effect of his mouth against her neck, several new theories came to life that demanded exploration. She shyly began on the familiar lines of his throat, this time deliberately trying to evoke his groans. His skin smelled faintly of cinnamon and sandalwood, and she reveled in the taste of him. Raven was able to determine that a playful combination of her tongue and her teeth was best. As if pain and pleasure were somehow one and the same for a man…

She kissed his collar bone and lightly raked his upper shoulders with her fingernails. Then boldly moved downward to kiss one of the tight peaks so like her own. She knew how sensitive her breasts were and within the space of heartbeat as she latched onto his coral ruddy skin, she knew his body was the masculine echo to hers.

“Raven! Get this coat off me!”

She leaned back, mischief and fire warring in her eyes. After all, freeing him meant yielding her newfound power but it also freed Phillip to touch her as she desperately needed him to.

“Will you behave if I free you?”

He shook his head. “Not a chance of it, Raven Wells.”

“Thank god!” Raven pushed the bulk of the cloth downward, past his elbows, and he was able to pull his arms free.

Phillip smiled. He was so far past a useless grab at good behavior it was comical.

He dropped his coat and shirt on the mossy ground as an improvised blanket beneath them, and lowered her onto it. The buttons of her bodice yielded to his touch and he kissed every inch he bared until Raven’s hands were just as eager to aid him in his quest. She giggled as the barriers fell, sighing with relief as he dispensed with her corset with an efficient maneuver that popped the front fastenings without wasting time on the back laces.

Within seconds, the bounty that was Raven Wells was laid out for him. Naked to the waist, her breasts were firm and high, as ample as autumn apples, twin orbs with dark pink tips jutting out to the sky. She was soft curves and gentle lines, her skin unmarred, the color of cream. She was slender but not rail-thin or frail and it was impossible not to admire the alluring health of a goddess turned woman. Raven began to cover herself with her hands but when his expression betrayed his disappointment, she stopped and then won him over for all time by stretching her arms over her head with a shy smile.

“It pleases you to look?” she asked softly.

“God, yes,” he said lowering himself to take her into his arms. “You are pure sorcery, woman.”

He began touching her in a playful dance that aroused but barely teased her skin, his fingertips lightly trailing around the swell of her breasts, the tender underside of each mound, each concentric circle daring to come a tiny bit closer to the small tips, her flesh puckered and tight, dark rose peaks with thick pert nipples that demanded his touch. She arched her back, her eyes fluttering closed and he kissed her and then covered her breasts with his hands, gently pressing the warm wells of his palms across her, a whisper of contact, before he lowered his head to suckle first one and then the other.

She was bucking and writhing beneath him, her hands restlessly stroking and clawing at his back and shoulders. And everything began to accelerate in a sizzling race to satisfy themselves.

He captured one of her hands and guided it down to press her palm against his rock hard arousal, the barrier of his pants hiding nothing of the shape and mass of his cock. He stopped kissing her to lift his head, taking in the widening of her eyes, the flutter of her lashes in shock and the slow shift as a new heated possibility came to her.

He did not expect her to push him off but even in the heat of the moment, a portion of his soul demanded that he offer her the chance to retreat.

“I will be bold where others are cautious,” she whispered.

“What was that?” Phillip asked, surprised at the phrase on her lips.

“I am not afraid.” She lifted up to kiss him and the moment of reversal passed forever.

Her fingers moved of their own accord and Phillip moaned as his world narrowed to the span of her small hands as they worked up and over his taut flesh. The buttons were dispensed with and he shuddered as his cock sprang free to land in her waiting hands.

Tentative strokes from trembling fingers gave way as his arousal stiffened even more, bobbing up as if to seek the hot soft pads of her hands. She covered the swollen tip of him, sending a shiver of sweet fire up his spine. The flow of blood to his cock felt like hot sand trickling through him to pool there, the power of his sex gathering in a delicious storm that she alone summoned.

“It is so…strange and noble, isn’t it?” she sighed and he kissed her for it. He kissed her for being so sweet and wild and Raven.

He covered her hand to guide her touch, teaching her what pleased him best and then realized his mistake. For Raven was an apt and eager pupil and when she added the faintest drag of her fingernails to the game, Phillip held his breath and prayed he didn’t spend himself.

Too quick. God, when did I ever feel this rush? Boasting…about….how I took every woman at my leisure…who was that fool? My innocent Raven is holding the reins now and I am flying!

It was all happening much more swiftly than he wished but every effort to slow her backfired. There was nothing to be done. Phillip knew he’d forfeited civility—forfeited every layer of restraint, stripped to a primal need to achieve her.

“Raven,” he said as he pulled back to part her thighs, to reach up under her skirts and when his fingers encountered folds so slick and so hot it made his breath seize up in his chest. She was already so wet, so ready, it shook him. He’d meant to prepare her, to ensure that her desire would be a match for the impending moment he couldn’t delay, but the honey that coated his fingertips ignited a dark storm that roared through him.

Meant to…should…a better man would…

The words lost meaning.

He pushed her skirts up around her waist and positioned his hips between her thighs, the swollen tip of his cock notching up against the silky damp fire of her entrance. He hesitated, his eyes closing as the sweet promise of her body beckoned him—but Raven managed to surprise him once again.

She arched up, her channel seizing him, crying out as he encountered her virginal barrier. Phillip kissed her to ease the pain, distracting her for just a few seconds before he reared back and then took her completely in one masterful and forceful thrust that irrevocably ended the dilemma.

He held only long enough for her channel to accept him, stretching to hold him fast. Phillip kissed her neck again, whispering a stream of soothing promises into the curve of her ears, rewarded as she relaxed and the molten confines of her body beckoned him on.

She didn’t shrink from him, from any of it. Her thighs widened and she urged him to move into her, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing her heels into his lower back. She moaned and writhed beneath him and Phillip fell back into the race. He withdrew and returned, each stroke a revelation for them both.

She was so tight, her muscles gripping and releasing him in a mystery of possession and power. Thrusting, thrusting, faster and faster, until he was sure he was flying, soaring, tethered to the earth only by Raven until the red hot sand pooling between his hips electrified and he knew he was close.

Close and then gone…his world contracted into a spasm of white-searing ecstasy, a release that ripped from him in jetting torrents that robbed him of all language. His climax shuddered and then peaked again, forcing him to cry out.

Phillip sagged against her, struggling to balance on his elbows to keep from crushing her. He was not a novice at the arts of love, but it was all he could do not to weep at the strength of an orgasm that had wrenched him free of his existence.

It took several seconds before he could think clearly enough to speak.

“Raven…that was…not how I….hoped…”

“No?” she asked, her voice filled with concern. “Did I do it wrong?”

He shook his head. “No, but I definitely could have done better by you.” His breathing was ragged as he gently kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose.

“Truly?” she asked breathlessly. “How marvelous!”

He knew she hadn’t climaxed but the reality that she had no notion of how selfish the encounter had been was nearly his undoing. “Raven. It will be. I promise.”

She sighed and wriggled in contentment, inadvertently forcing Phillip to hold his breath as he was treated to an after-shock from his overly sensitive flesh still held in the grip of her body. A faint echo of a secondary climax unfurled from his spinal cord and Phillip prayed he didn’t faint from the delicious torment of it.

“Woman. Don’t. Move.”

Raven instantly obeyed, but a gleam in her grey eyes told him that he wouldn’t always be so lucky. Phillip disengaged as delicately as he could, freeing her from him, wincing at the glimpse of blood on her thighs. “Are you all right?” he asked her cautiously, making an intense study of her face for any hint of hurt or fear.

She smiled at him. “I feel wonderful though a bit strange…”

“Strange?”

“Strange because I do not know myself anymore. I have the urge to sleep in your arms but also to run and dance about like a pagan queen; and cannot decide which impulse would be wise.” Raven laughed. “If being deflowered parts me from my reason, I shall have to begin preparing myself for bedlam, Phillip. For I don’t think I wish to stop. Ever.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head then rolled away to tuck himself away and rebutton his pants. “We are already mad. Oh, god, I know I am supposed to start moaning apologies but I am not sorry, Raven. God help me. If regret comes later, it will only be at your bidding.” He kissed her forehead, a weak attempt to cool his ardor. “To hell with it, I’ll speak to the earl before another hour passes and if it goes badly, we can elope.”

“Phillip,” she sighed and raised herself up to her knees to kiss his temples and smooth his brow with the cool blades of her fingers. “Yes. I want you to speak to Lord Trent but…I think we must choose the hour more wisely.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying, my love, that he has rebuffed the subject once today and I know him. If we rush back with another petition, his temper will refuse you even if his common sense dictates acceptance.” She sighed. “If he challenged you to move slowly, than I have spoiled things, haven’t I?”

“Nothing is spoiled.” Phillip said levelly, struggling not to be distracted by the sight of Raven Wells bared to the waist. “Shall we…give him the impression that things are unfolding…at a more natural pace?” He caught the tip of one pert breast in his mouth and suckled her as she arched her back to beg him for more.

“Phillip!”

He forced himself to lift his head. “Raven. Look at me. Can we do this? Can we—look at each other politely across that dinner table and publicly keep a polite distance for a few days?”

She pouted at the loss of his mouth to her flesh but finally nodded. “Yes, but only if you do not deny me when no one is looking.” She retrieved his shirt and coat from the ground and held it out to him, the embodiment of an enticing beauty who would have her way. “You promised to do better, Mr. Warrick.”

“Raven Wells, I don’t think I will ever be able to deny you—anything. But I am a man of my word and I look forward to it.”