Free Rake's Honour by Beverley Oakley

Her smile was as unsteady as her shaking hand. What was happening to the cool façade she’d cultivated to such a fine art? Her nipples ached and she was conscious of the sudden heat and moisture between her legs. She swallowed, barely able to force the words out through dry lips. “I cannot see to sew, but you will be my hero if you can stitch a straight seam.”
    Lord Fenton took the needle, resting his other hand upon her shoulder. Whether that was to steady her or himself, Fanny wasn’t sure, but that was immaterial as her whole body seemed to come alive at his touch. A dull, needy ache started in the pit of her belly as his eyes, full of sympathetic understanding, bored into hers. The usual, calculating gleam of the rake was replaced with something deeper and more sincere that nearly took her breath away.
    But it was his lack of skill with a needle that, in fact, did so.
    At her exclamation of pain they jerked apart.
    “My apologies!” he cried, reflexively clasping her wounded breast.
    Each froze at the contact. With a soft gasp Fanny swayed and he caught her to him. His touch seared her soul, branded her his, melting her insides into a pool of heated longing. It was apparent he wanted something between them to happen as much as she did. She could feel his enormous erection pressed against her stomach. Lord Slyther had at least imparted some useful information on the mechanics of intimate relations between men and women. The thought burst into her head that, as God was her witness, she had no intention of allowing Lord Slyther to rend her asunder with his Magnificent Member when the man before her was just as willing to do so – and, oh, so damnably irresistible.
    Suspended in an agony of waiting, she watched Lord Fenton’s sudden awareness combust into something far more primal, tensed for his response, then wilted as he gathered her in his arms with a low groan. She had wit only to be thankful for the fact that the needle was no longer between them before she responded—completely, and with every particle of body and soul.
    “Oh, my Lord!” The fast and furious pounding of her heart and the urgency of her breathing almost deafened her. Or was that Lord Fenton’s breathing? The gaze he trained upon her was rapt. His eyes were glazed. In fact, for a moment he looked like a sleek, handsome wolf contemplating his dinner. Miss Fanny Brightwell? Oh, she was more than ready. Her nipples ached with need and she felt herself relinquishing all logical thought as her mind was tugged ever more insistently into the dangerous swirl of sensation that threatened.
    When his mouth came down on hers she was ready and eager as she’d never been with Alverley—as she’d never been with any man. Her heart, pumping ever more furiously, seemed to carry hope, fire and passion through her veins, not the familiar resignation wrought by a man’s interest. The body she’d groomed since womanhood, the mind her mother had filled with careful calculation, all for the purpose of snaring a husband, no longer screamed its endless litany of ‘caution, as long as you catch him’.
    Fanny’s mind emptied itself of every last drop of the careful advice with which it had been filled by her mother over a lifetime. As Lord Fenton’s hand contoured her from breast to knee, resistance was the furthest thing from her mind. The inner voice of warning that should have pierced her consciousness was stifled by the heady sensations that pumped through her like honey.
    “You are exquisite,” he murmured against her lips as his hands roamed all over her, making her gasp as they skimmed her waist and thighs, cupping her bottom and pulling her against him—hard against his jutting erection.
    She sucked in a breath at the contact. Lord Slyther’s sly insinuations and the forced physicality in which she’d been an unwilling participant the night before had been her first initiation into the underworld of desire. Of the effect desire had on men. There