The Illustrated Romance

***NOTE: The following excerpt is not appropriate for younger audiences.

This is a scene from The Rake and the Recluse. ©2011 Jenn LeBlanc ALL RIGHTS RESERVED absolutely no reproduction without the express permission of the author.***

“Gideon,” she whispered, and with that one small word he was rock hard. He jerked up, trying to discern her figure in the darkness. He heard her trip on something, a tiny cry escaping her lips. He moved to help her, then realized he was trapped in the bed by his nakedness. His breath hissed as he inhaled.

“Gideon,” she whispered again, “are you still up?”

He shook his head. Still? Not still, again— yes, but not still, Gideon thought, and then— “Yes,” he grumbled. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep, I had to see you,” she whispered so gently he could hardly hear her.

Leaning forward, he grasped her hand, trying to stop it from moving across his body as he felt it passing over the blankets, coming dangerously close to the evidence of his arousal. “You should not be speaking, and you should not be here,” he said.

“And yet, I am,” she whispered.

He moaned. “You definitely should not be in here,” he attempted to convince her again that she should leave. “Mrs. Weston will have an apoplexy when she discovers—” he felt her other hand on his chest and the weight of her on the bed as he drew in a resolute breath.

He let go of her wrist as she climbed across the bed toward him. “Lord take it, Francine you must leave, you simply must. This is terribly untoward, you cannot—” he was cut off again by her hand, this time against his mouth. He thought his cock would burst from the pressure pulsating violently to his loins. He groaned, and her lips caught the noise before it had a chance to escape, her tongue teasing timidly.

He reached up in the dark to find her shoulder to push her away, but her arm wasn’t where he guessed it would be and he ended up with the soft mound of her breast cradled in his hand. She gasped and pressed her lips harder against his as he opened his mouth to her.

The woman above him was not acting like an innocent. He marveled at the thought as he momentarily yielded to her pleasures. Larrabee said he hadn’t received confirmation of the consummation of her marriage; he assumed that meant that she wasn’t yet married, but what if she was? What if Hepplewort had already claimed her? Roxleigh could never marry her, and she had been lost to him before this had begun— but for tonight, if she was married and he made love to her, he would cuckold that bastard for frightening his innocent wife.

“Stop thinking,” she whispered succinctly.

Roxleigh found a new source of passion. His thumb circled the hard point of her breast through the soft fabric of her nightgown as her breath wilted in a sigh. He rolled her beneath him in one swift move, twisting the blankets about them, placing one of his thickly muscled thighs between her soft legs. He spread her below him and she whimpered at the abruptness of his maneuver. He shifted achingly slowly, settling his strong points into her supple curves. He had one hand on her hip and moved the other to her nape, gently caressing the hollow below her ear with his thumb.

Helplessly, she opened her mouth to him and he took, plunging, tasting the satiny soft backs of her lips and the slick underside of her tongue, feeling a powerful shudder wrack her body from her head to her toes. He suckled her lower lip tasting the essence of the drunken pears, which even now lingered. He drew her lip between his, teasing it with his tongue before letting it go then licking and nipping at the other, listening to her delighted coos. He felt her hands on his back, aware of the pressure and the feel of his muscles twisting beneath his skin.

He shifted over her, the hardness of his body resting on the softness of hers. Moving his hand from her hip, he skimmed across her belly, and up the center of her body between her breasts, pausing to feel the flutter of her heart as she arched into him, digging her nails into his shoulders. He leaned up on one elbow, wincing, keeping his hand on her chest as he looked down into the darkness that enveloped her. He wanted desperately to see her. He imagined her silky skin shimmering in the moonlight, and the thought caused him to press his hips into her involuntarily. Blasted curtains! he thought, with a deep-seated moan. He preferred to sleep in total darkness, not waking until Ferry came to open the folds to the morning light. He never thought the complete darkness would bestow him such disadvantage.

Pushing his manhood into the shallow valley next to her hip, and grasping both sides of her head as he balanced over her on his elbows, her arms caught in the circle of his, he took her mouth again.

Her mind centered on the hard shaft that stroked her sensitized skin through the sheets. He moved, kissing her cheeks, eyelids, and forehead, drawing liquid trails of heat over her face with a long slow burn that made her gasp for air.

He pushed his fingers into her hair, grasping and pulling her head down to the bed beneath them as he trailed kiss after kiss down her jaw. With his tongue he lit a fire down the long curve of her exposed neck until he met the hollow at the base of her throat, where he rested his lips, quietly groaning against her, pausing for what seemed an insurmountable expanse of moments.

“Francine, I am very much past the point where I can rationalize,” he groaned, the vibration of his baritone resonating through his chest and sinking into hers, firming her nipples. “You either need to find your way out of my bed, or I will find my way into you,” he growled.

Her only response was to bend the leg that was caught beneath him, gently pressuring his loins with her thigh, urging him closer. His hardness inched slowly closer and closer still to where it was made to be, and every increment brought the cadence of her heart to a stronger rhythm. This is it, she thought finally, tonight, right now, this is it. The warmth of his breath against her throat loosened her muscles, willing a sound of carnal ecstasy to escape her lips.

She moaned a final plea and his senses unraveled. Rising above her, he kicked the blankets free of their legs and reached down with one hand, slowly pulling the hem of her nightgown up, resting his knuckles against the front of her exposed knee. He breathed deeply of the scent caught in the hollow of her neck, lavender and rain.

He turned his hand over on her knee, slowly tracing the crease that led around the back, into the softest skin of her leg. He trailed his calloused fingers up her thigh, drawing her leg up slowly as the nightgown rode up around his forearm.

“Gideon,” she said deeply. It drove him.

“Again,” he said gruffly, “say my name, again.”

“Ahh, Gideon!” she cried as he reached the crease just below the soft roundness of her buttocks.

He gently pushed his fingers between her legs, testing her heat. She was wet— for him, drenched in passion for him. He held a triumphant smile in the darkness as she gasped again and her hands flew to his shoulders, pressing him back slightly, sobering him as a small cry escaped her lips. With great difficulty he raised himself on his elbow, releasing her hair and bringing his hand away from her womanhood.

She clenched his shoulders. “No, please, please, please, Gideon. Don’t stop,” she breathed. She drew a sharp breath as he carefully placed his hand on the side of her hip, gently stroking the juncture between leg and belly with his thumb. Her body started to tremble at his pause and withdrawal.

Roxleigh thought about what he’d learned this night, how she must be terrified of moments like this. How Hepplewort must have taken her by force and how difficult it must have been for her to soften and come to him. “Francine, sweet, lovely Francine. We should—”

“No more,” she cried, her voice wavering. “I am only scared, because— just— don’t stop,” she begged. “I want you Gideon, I want to feel you, inside of me, filling me,” she breathed.

He was shocked. She ignited a fire that no power on Earth could repress. He felt unbound from his senses, his emotions grazing the surface of his skin, raw and unprotected. His head dropped to her chest with an agonized sound as his brain wrestled with her fears and his conscience. Slowly— surely, he moved his hand to the triangle of curls at the base of her soft belly and gently combed and teased them with his fingertips. He felt her thighs open to him instinctively. He turned his head taking one nipple into his mouth wetting the fabric of her gown with his tongue, teasing with his teeth.

She jerked up at the shock of the wet heat, the sensations from her breast racing to her belly, concentrating inside with a tingling pressure that threatened to burst. She opened her eyes wide, straining to see his head bowed over her body through the inky darkness, but she couldn’t. She reached for his disarrayed locks and immediately tangled her fingers thoroughly, stroking and pulling and pushing, urging his mouth over her passion swollen breast, guiding him to the other, where an equally powerful shock sent her hips thrusting forward as a ribbon of electricity shot to her core.

Innately her hips thrust into his hand as his mouth teased at her nipple, gathering the intoxicating bolts of energy. She felt his fingers unfurl as his palm flattened against her. His dexterous fingers shifted gently and she pushed back.

He slipped farther into her curls, searching the soft folds to find that which lay cloaked within. The first touch sent another jolt to her belly as he gently encircled the crux with his thumb, caressing and teasing. Her heartbeat quickened against the lips pressed to her breast as his hand slid farther down, until one finger slowly entered her, leaving his thumb to tease the delicate nub.

Roxleigh moaned at the hot, wet tightness enfolding his finger. How can she still be so firm? he thought clenching his eyes. If Hepplewort had his way, certainly she would have been loosened. He shook his head, panting heavily against her flushed skin from the feel of the constricting gateway around his finger. Perhaps she is merely tense from fear. He closed his eyes, slowly stroking her from within and without, as she saturated with desire and he reached the precipice at which he could not maintain without taking her.

“Please,” she breathed.

Soaring down the peak like an eagle in flight, the last vestiges of propriety left his consciousness. He quickly, gracefully, moved his other thigh between hers and spread his legs, pushing her open for him. In the same movement he swept her nightgown up over her head, tugging it free from her arms and flinging it across the room where it hit something and fell to the floor with a quiet thud.

He advanced on her with one hand at her nape, the other coming to rest at the small of her back, his fingers spread wide like talons, both urging and holding; carefully tilting her pelvis for his intrusion as he grasped her hair and pulled her head back again, kissing her throat with wet, searching, open kisses, breathing deeply as he attempted to control the forward thrust of his hips. Every muscle in his body trembled as he reined his advance.

He felt the head of his manhood warmly encompassed by her tight, flexing muscles and his lips drew tight across his teeth, drawing a hiss of breath against her neck. His mouth opened wide against her neck as though to bite her, but he never pressed the sharp edge of his teeth, only the pliable pressure of his lips as he drew against her gently.

He moved forward slowly, holding her firmly, until he felt an undeniable resistance against the cusp of his manhood. Pulling back slightly his eyes opened wide as he lifted his face above hers trying desperately to see her through the veil of blackness. He gradually comprehended the meaning of the barrier and froze in pained abeyance as the reality of the matter set in and he shook his head in confusion.

Her eyes flew wide in the dark as he advanced gradually, the pressure intense as she felt her body stretching to accept him. Then she felt the sudden twinge that threatened a searing pain, followed by his nearly imperceptible retreat. No…no, no, No. NO, she thought as she reached down, grasping his hips. She dug her nails into the soft skin of his buttocks urging him forward. “Please,” she begged.

He froze, his breath quickened, his entire body tensed, and her nails dragged his soft flesh as he pulled back from her and she cried out in great sobs of defeat.