4

      More Wicked than you Could Possibly Imagine

      But there was no time to think of that moment of transformation now. In the perilous present, Wilson’s tongue probed her mouth just as it had during their first hot kiss, the wicked muscular thrust aping that other thrust, that other wonderful hot, wet, hard intrusion. The possession she still wanted, and still wanted from him. Ignoring the murmuring voices of reason and tediously pervasive doubts about her reputation, she pressed her body against him as hard as she could, rocking her pelvis against his in a primal rhythm.

      He was still hard, unyielding as the oak of the door and the desk and the mighty trees in the park beyond the window. She could feel the heat of him through all their layers of clothing.

      “Oh, Della, my Della, how you still rouse me,” he growled against her neck, his lips nibbling her skin just above the little collar of her gown. With one hand still gripping her bottom through her skirt and petticoats, he set the other to the task of unfastening the row of jet buttons down the front of her bodice. As ever, he was quicker and defter than any man had a right to be, but his manual dexterity had always matched his rare intelligence.

      Adela tried not to think, because if she did, she’d deem herself too idiotic to be allowed to live. All that mattered was to feel and savor experience while she could. Her own hands ranged over what parts of Wilson she could reach, diving into his tousled, silky hair and stroking his strong back beneath the patterned fabric of his eccentric dressing gown. It was only fair that he should be revealed, just as she was, and as he rested her on the edge of the desk while he attacked her bodice, she snatched at his shirt and wrenched and pulled at his buttons.

      “Yes!” Wilson paused in his efforts, dashed her hands away and ripped at his shirt himself, rending it open. It was a buttoned garment, unfastening all the way down in the new American style, and the little discs flew everywhere as he bared himself almost to the waist. Conveying her hand to his body, he pressed it against his skin and the wispy peppering of dark hair across the center of his chest.

      When Adela dug her nails in, he laughed.

      “You’re a wicked woman, Della, though no doubt I deserve the punishment.” Dashing her hand away again, he returned his attention to the front of her gown.

      You do not know the half of it, cousin dear. I’m more wicked than you could possibly imagine. For a moment, Adela thought of other men, other chests.

      Manipulating ribbons and buttons and hooks, Wilson managed to get at what he sought. She groaned when he wedged a hand inside the top of her corset by force and cupped her breast. She was slightly formed, and he cradled the entire curve, his thumb settling on her nipple as if he owned her very flesh. It might have been only yesterday when he’d last rubbed her this way and made her squirm. Instead of seven long years, during which lately she’d been compelled to seek other hands.

      “You’re beautiful...so beautiful.” Given the length of the statement, and the long burning look he gave her, Adela almost believed him. Then reality returned, bringing with it her harsh little laugh. She wasn’t beautiful, and he was a liar, an unrepentant sweet-talker of women. No doubt that woman demanded the tribute of pretty words and compliments as a right, but Adela Ruffington preferred the truth, unadorned.

      “Don’t insult me.” She narrowed her eyes at him, even while she closed her hand over his. She wasn’t lovely. She was flawed. But she still had needs, and as Wilson had stirred them, both then and now, it was his responsibility to assuage them.

      “Don’t start that again.” He tightened his hand on her breast, his fingers and thumb ruthless. He trapped her nipple between them, creating a twinge of pain among the pleasure, a bright, intense shard that darted instantly from her breast to her belly. Between her legs, her sex pulsed in a warm ripple.

      “Start what?”

      His fingers twisted, lightly pinching. Pleasure-pain.

      “Denying your beauty. I won’t have it. You are lovely, and I’ll punish you if you persist in denying it, believe me.”

      Adela could barely breathe. A threshold loomed before her, a line beyond which lay a delicious peril, the dark, sensual play only hinted at by the brash lovers in the praxinoscope reel. It wasn’t an entirely unknown country to her, but she was almost certain Wilson wouldn’t realize that.

      The frolicsome pair in the moving pictures were far from the first she’d seen engage in a spanking game. She’d seen it in the flesh...and felt it, too.

      “You can’t order me what to feel, Wilson. Even if we’d been the most intimate of friends for the last seven years, I still wouldn’t obey you.”

      They were a pair of mythical beasts head to head in a battle. Adela wouldn’t give in, and she knew Wilson wouldn’t, either. He had the upper hand at present, though—and it was on her breast, squeezing and plying wicked pleasure.

      “Liars should be punished.” His low, menacing voice made her wriggle just as much as his tormenting fingertips did. “And when you say you’re not beautiful, you are lying.”

      “I’m not!”

      “You are to me, and to any right-thinking man with even a scrap of discernment.” He shot forward, grabbing the back of her neck with his free hand and jamming his mouth down on hers, tongue stabbing again for entrance. At the same time he pinched her nipple hard, making her gasp, and allowing him access between her lips.

      Wilson kissed like a marauder, like a brigand, forcing her back against the edge of the desk, tweaking her nipple, plucking at it repeatedly as he thrust over and over with his tongue. Adela felt pins slipping from her half-collapsed chignon as his fingers held her head unrelentingly.

      You’re an animal, Wilson. A pirate. A wicked despoiler of women... Please don’t stop.

      Her jaw ached by the time he freed her and gazed into her eyes from the closest of quarters. His own eyes were as pale and silvery as ever around the periphery, but at the center his pupils were black and dilated with lust. “I’m going to punish you, Della,” he breathed, the exhalation sweet and spicy against her face. “Just like that naughty little girlie in the praxinoscope reel. I’m going to smack your gorgeous bottom and make you squeal. And then you’re going to damn well admit that you’re lovely, do you hear me?”

      “Do what the devil you want, Wilson, but I won’t lie.”