Scandalous Liaisons Page 13

  Julienne rubbed her forehead and shook her head, wondering if she was dreaming this mad encounter. “Mr. Remington, you are the handsomest man in all of England. Your reputation is well known to me. I am aware a libertine like you would have no interest in a green debutante like myself.”

  He moved toward her again with painful slowness, as if he pulled against his will. “The handsomest man in England?” he queried softly. “Is that your personal opinion, or one you repeat from the mouths of others?”

  She twisted at the waist as he approached, hiding her bare back. “Both,” she admitted. She raised a finely arched brow. “I did not take you to be a man of vanity, Mr. Remington, but if you are, and you require confirmation of your attractiveness, I would be more than happy to oblige you . . . in the morning. At the present time, I would appreciate—”

  “I’m curious, my lady,” he interrupted, his mouth curving intimately. “How would you confirm my attractiveness?”

  Julienne grew wary at the hot flicker she saw in his eyes, the same look he’d given her in his office. She liked it, but Lord above, she was naked! The whole situation was . . . thrilling . . . but far beyond her experience. Clutching the sheet firmly with one hand, she held out the other to halt his advance. He stopped immediately. “What do you want?”

  “To ravish you.”

  He said it so simply, his expression so earnest, that she was momentarily rendered speechless. Oh, he was wicked. And far more interesting than the other men of her acquaintance.

  “You can have any woman you want.”

  “No.” His smile was wistful. “I can’t have you.”

  Her breath caught.

  “You’re very good,” she said finally, honestly awestruck. She’d never seen such a talented rogue. “Charming, seemingly sincere. I can see how you’ve managed so many conquests. But really, I am not worth the effort, I assure you, although I am flattered.”

  Remington laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re amazing. You dress as a man to sneak into my club, tolerate my extorting you into spending the night, and then feel flattered when I barge into your room and tell you I want to ravish you.” His voice softened when he said, “I wish I could keep you.”

  The expression on his face made her heart race. Julienne felt light-headed and dizzy all over again. Then she was struck with a thought that made sense, unlike all the others that swirled in her head. “Have you been drinking?”

  He moved casually to the chair and sat. “Tell me why you want to find your brother, and I’ll tell you why I came in here.”

  “If you’re interested in conversing with me, can you at least allow me to dress?”

  His blue eyes glittered with eagerness. “In the negligee or the trousers?”

  Her mouth fell open. This really had to be a dream. An odd, wonderful, bizarre dream. “I don’t know how to deal with a man like you, Mr. Remington.” She was out of her depth.

  “You can start by calling me Lucien,” he suggested. “Then you should probably begin screaming. Most debutantes would have run from the room in terror by now. I’m a stranger to you except for my scandalous reputation, which decries me as a hedonistic seducer of women.”

  She smiled. “I’m not afraid of you. You’ve no need to force yourself on a woman.”

  “Who said I would have to force you?” he purred seductively.

  “Good grief,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “You deliberately cultivate your image, don’t you? I’d wager you’re not as bad as they say.”

  One side of his mouth twitched in amusement. “No,” he agreed. “I’m much worse. If you weren’t the purest, sweetest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, I would have already had you on your back, with your heels in the air.”

  Julienne’s mouth parted in surprise, and she looked away, her face flushed. He was a perfect scoundrel to say such things, but she didn’t care. Strong, virile, and devastatingly handsome, Lucien Remington was her fantasy come to life. He had been since the first moment she’d seen him at the Milton country rout.

  Taller than most of the other men there and heavily muscled like a common laborer, Lucien had permanently imprinted himself on her memory when he’d inclined his head toward her with a rakish wink. She’d not passed one night in the month since without dreaming of him in ways no proper lady would dream about any man, not even their husbands.

  Ah, what she wouldn’t give to be brazen and desirable, if only for a moment. She would love to be the kind of woman who could retain the interest of a man like Lucien. The thought made her sigh aloud.

  “Bloody hell.”

  She looked up in surprise and was startled by the anguished look on his face.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Why do you look like that?”

  Lucien stood and rounded the backside of the chair, putting the piece of furniture between them as if she posed some grave threat to his person. “Because you look like that! I know what you’re thinking, and you must cease. Now.”

  “My thoughts happen to be none of your business.” She waved toward the door. “The hour is late, and I’m tired. I’m undressed, and—”

  “I wanted to watch you sleep.”

  Julienne blinked. “Beg your pardon?”

  “You asked me why I was here.” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to watch you sleep.”

  She frowned, confused. “Why would you want to do that?” Lucien Remington, notorious voluptuary, watching her sleep? How much more intimate that seemed than ravishment.

  She studied him, noting his hands gripping the back of the chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. It couldn’t be possible that he was interested in her. It was so against his known nature, she simply couldn’t credit it. He preferred mature, and usually married, women. “Are you feeling unwell, Mr. Rem—er, Lucien? Perhaps you are slightly in your cups?”

  “I am not in my cups!” he growled. “But I am decidedly unwell. I’m coming undone. And damn it, the way you look at me tells me you feel the same. I’m not an honorable man, and I do not aspire to be one. I’ll take your innocence and walk away without looking back. You’ll be ruined, Julienne. I’ve been panting after you for weeks. Weeks.” He shoved away from the chair and began to pace. “I wish to God you had not come into my club.”

  Julienne gaped. From the moment she’d arrived in London at the start of the Season, her life had seemed to turn completely upside down. Her brother was missing, creditors hounded Montrose Hall, and Lucien Remington wanted to bed her. She couldn’t decide which event was most disturbing. Her skin grew hot and tight, her body achingly uncomfortable.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” he snapped. “Shout at me. Call me a cad, or worse, if you have the coarse vocabulary to do so. Tell me to leave.” When she just stared at him, wide-eyed with incredulity, Lucien approached her and grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook her roughly. “Do something! Anything, damn it, to make me go.” His fingers kneaded restlessly against her skin, as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her.

  She stared mutely at the ferocious man who held her. His voice, his words, his countenance—never in her life had she seen such passion. To think she had inspired such a display shocked her to silence.

  And thrilled her.

  “Tell me to leave,” he repeated harshly. “Before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  “Go,” she said, her voice so soft it was less than a whisper. But it was enough. Lucien released her and walked away with angry strides.

  As the door closed behind him, Julienne felt an odd panic, as if once he left she would never see him again, which was partially true. She would never be allowed to speak to him, to touch him, since simply looking at him was a grave offense. Once he walked out that door, her time with him would be over. Forever.

  And she simply couldn’t bear it.

  “Lucien!” she cried in dismay, willing him to come back to her.

  Instantly, the door swung open, and he was in her arms.

  Chapter Three


  Julienne La Coeur smelled heavenly. Her skin was like the finest silk, her breasts full and generously swelled as they pressed against his chest. Lucien didn’t understand why she’d called him back, but he wasn’t about to ask for an explanation.

  “Sweet Julienne,” he murmured feverishly against her throat. “You should have allowed me to go.”

  Her small, delicate hands slipped inside his velvet coat and slid across the smooth satin back of his waistcoat. “I tried.”

  He rolled to the side and shrugged out of his coat, tossing the expensive garment carelessly to the floor. He turned back to her and then froze in place.

  The sheet had slipped down to her waist, leaving her breasts exposed to his gaze. Firm and gently swaying from his near-frantic movements, they were more lovely than anything Lucien had seen in his life. “You are more beautiful than I imagined,” he breathed.

  He watched in amazement as her skin flushed right before his eyes, rosy color sweeping across her chest before rising to her cheeks. His gaze studied her face, and he saw that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, meet his eyes. With his fingertips, he tilted the bottom of her chin upward, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. Not with me.”

  As he searched her face, he wondered at his good fortune. Lady Julienne La Coeur. Julienne, so lovely, laying in one of his beds, bare from the waist up, her rich blonde hair spilling around her creamy shoulders, her dark eyes staring at him with such desire. He was so damn desperate to fuck her, he thought he would burst with it, but the small portion of his mind not presently between his legs wondered why the beautiful, socially esteemed diamond would be so eager to spread her legs for a bastard like him. With a muffled curse, Lucien leapt from the bed.

  He looked around wildly. “Is this a trap?” he bit out. “Is your brother hiding somewhere, waiting to jump out and catch me compromising you?”

  “Beg your pardon?” She looked genuinely confused.

  “What are you doing? Lying in bed naked? Giving yourself to me so easily?”

  A frown marred the smooth area between her brows. “I was sleeping,” she answered crossly. “I didn’t ask you to come in here. I didn’t even want to spend the night here. You insisted.” Julienne rubbed her forehead, pulling the sheet up once again to cover herself. “Get out,” she said coldly.

  His hands clenched into fists.

  “Leave, Mr. Remington. Before I take up your suggestion to scream.”

  He watched in amazement as she threw herself into the pillows and turned her back to him. It would damage her more than him to be caught, but why else would she offer herself?

  “This is fantastic,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

  She gave a disdainful little grunt and punched the pillow.

  Lucien wandered around the room, looking behind the thick sapphire velvet drapes and dropping to his knees to look under the bed. Finding no one lurking in the room, Lucien strode to both doors and locked them. He shrugged out of his waistcoat.

  Julienne sat up again. “You’re mad if you believe I would allow you to touch me now!”

  Lucien yanked his shirt out of his trousers and drew it over his head. He smiled grimly when she gasped at the sight of his chest. He knew he was considered too muscled, the result of many hours spent engaged in fencing and pugilism. But the glimmer in her eyes wasn’t fear or revulsion. It was desire.

  “Why me?” he asked.

  She rolled back onto her side. “Go away.”

  “Why me?” he repeated.

  “Why do you find it so hard to believe?” she mumbled into the pillow. “Women throw themselves at you all the time. Why should I be any different?”

  He moved toward the bed. “Am I something to boast to your friends about?”

  Julienne tucked tighter into the pillows, pulling the sheet with her. “As if I would ever tell anyone that I’d succumbed to your charms. Which I won’t!” she added hastily. “Succumb, that is. Now, please leave!”

  “What if I spread the tale?” he asked. “What if I tell every member of my club that I rode between your thighs? That I ruined you, and you screamed with pleasure while I did it?” His mouth curved in a predatory smile. “And you will scream with pleasure.”

  She snorted. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  “What if I tell everyone, Julienne?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”

  “You don’t know me well either. For if you did, you wouldn’t be so fearful of my intentions.”

  Turning away, Lucien stared into the dying fire. “You are distraught over your brother.”

  “I am,” she admitted, her clear voice telling him as she faced him again. “I will have to bail him out of this mess, just as I’ve always done.”

  He sighed. “If I touch you, you’ll be ruined, and the marriage you require to save your brother will be jeopardized.”

  “I’m aware of that. My actions tonight were foolish at best, but I knew the possible consequences and I weighed them carefully. I’d planned to sit in a quiet corner and observe. I wanted to watch you in your element, a place where the rules are completely yours and you are not bound by the strictures that suppress you in Society. It is unfortunate that Ridgely chose my table to share, but not unexpected.”

  “Lady Julienne. If you’d been found out—”

  “The scandal would have destroyed all chances of an advantageous marriage, I know. But perhaps that would be best for Montrose. I don’t care much for the thought of being a sacrifice on the matrimonial altar. Facing the consequences of our actions is the best way to learn responsibility, but I am to blame for shielding him too well. As for this moment, is it so wrong to want the pleasure other women experience? Is it so terrible to steal a little passion in a life that will be bereft of it? There are ways . . . ways to . . . ways that would leave me a virgin—”

  Lucien turned in stunned amazement. “How would you know of such ‘ways’?”

  She flushed from the top of her breasts to her hairline. “I read . . . things.”

  “You read ‘things’?” His eyes widened. “Erotica?”

  Julienne’s hair was a golden curtain around her. With her bared shoulders and flushed face, she looked every bit the wanton seductress and nothing like the genteel virgin he knew her to be.

  And yet it was the unabashed tilt to her chin and the defiance so evident in her silence that most affected him. An innocent who wasn’t quite so innocent. His cock had been aching before. Now the throbbing was downright painful.

  Her beauty was what had first caught his eye, her voluptuous figure had kept his attention, but her smile, warm and open, was what obsessed him. Women did not look at him with such sweet interest. They either shot daggers at him for being what he was, or invited him to their beds with seductive glances. When Julienne had first seen him across the Milton’s crowded ballroom, she’d smiled so beautifully that he’d found it difficult to breathe. He’d wanted her instantly, wanted to discover what it was she saw that lit up her eyes with such warm regard.

  But now that he had her in his grasp, he found there was more to his interest than mere carnal gratification. He was startled to realize he liked her, liked that she was unconventional and bold, as well as beautiful and kind.

  Abruptly—regretfully—he realized he couldn’t take her. Doing so would destroy her, and he could never do that.

  “No.” He gave a wry smile. “It’s not wrong to want passion. And I’m deeply flattered that you want to discover it with me.”

  Her smile was so brilliant, it made his chest tight.

  Lucien ran a hand through his hair. “I enjoy a good debauch as much as any man, Julienne. But sometimes I wish for the finer things in life, the softer things, pure and innocent like you are.”

  “I’m not so innocent as all that. If you knew the thoughts I have about you—”

  “Hush. Don’t say any more. I’m having a hard enough time being honorable as
it is.”

  “I rather like you dishonorable, if you don’t mind.”

  He arched a brow and grinned. She was a minx. He never would have guessed. “Haven’t you been warned about men like me?”

  “Yes.” Her lips curved. “But therein lies the problem.”

  He shook his head.

  “You see,” she continued, her voice lowering. “Being around you makes me ache. The way you look at me makes me ache, much more so than when I read Hugh’s books. I’m a grown woman. Allow me to worry about the consequences.”

  Lucien groaned low in his chest, a sound filled with defeat and the death of good intentions. He was only a man, an extremely lustful man, with the woman he wanted most offering liberties he shouldn’t accept. But would. He couldn’t turn away the chance to touch her, to hold her, just once.

  “I’ll take care of that, sweetheart,” he said softly as he approached her. “I’ll make the ache go away.”

  He placed one knee on the bed and then stretched out beside her, clenching his teeth as she rolled and pressed her breasts into his chest. She tilted back her head, offering up her lips, and he claimed them, his tongue sweeping into the sweet recesses of her mouth. Her response stunned him, her eagerness obvious, and he could hardly bear it. He shook with the effort to slow down, to be gentle, when the fire in his blood urged him to hurry.

  His hand caressed her shoulder and then moved down to her breast, finding her nipple as he ravished her mouth. He tugged gently with his fingers, loving how she melted against him, completely responsive and unreserved. Pulling her body to drape over his, Lucien caressed the curve of her derriere, kneading the firm flesh until she squirmed.

  “Please,” she gasped, pulling her lips from his. Her legs spread in silent invitation.

  Lucien buried his face in her throat to hide his smile. Julienne was so innocent and yet so wanton. So perfect.

  He slid his hands between her thighs, one finger finding the slick opening that betrayed her desire. He slid through the cream, testing her, before sliding just a tiny bit inside. She moaned and instinctively pressed her hips downward, away from the pressure and onto his erection. Lucien groaned along with her.