Playing the Rake's Game Read online

  He was nuzzled against her entrance, but he wasn’t done playing, wasn’t done stoking her fires. His mouth sought her breast, his tongue working her rosy peak, sucking and tugging ever so lightly until her hips arched up into his in protest. No more waiting, only claiming. Her body was eager to see if the magic would happen again. She’d shattered for him not once, but twice last night. Would it always be like that?

  Ren chuckled at her impatience, his lips pressing kisses to the column of her neck, but she sensed his own desire was pushing him. She spread her legs wider, an invitation he could not refuse. He slid into her and she sighed, luxuriating in the feel of him filling her, of her body shaping itself around him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him, securing him. He thrust once, twice, and she picked up the rhythm, raising her hips to meet him, to join him. This—lying naked in a primeval cave, joined with a man in the oldest pleasure on earth—was decadence defined, sin at its very best.

  Their rhythm increased, moving them towards the edge of ecstasy. She bucked hard beneath him, wanting her hands, wanting to bury her nails into his shoulders as an anchor against what was to come, something to hold on to while she broke. But he held her fast, forcing her to free-fall into the pleasure. And she did, one cogent thought in her mind—it was indeed possible.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emerging into the sunlight and heat was akin to being born into another world and almost as difficult. Ren would like to have remained by the waterfall, savouring the magic of their cavern glade, but the horse would be getting restless and reality called. They kept silent as they climbed back into the gig and resumed their drive towards the beach.

  Ren was reluctant to the break the spell, perhaps Emma was too. He cast a sideways glance at her profile beneath her straw hat, the slim nose, the sweep of her jaw, all conspiring to create the sharp beauty of her face. But there was tenseness, too. Whatever the reason for her silence, she was absorbed in her thoughts, breaking her contemplations only to gesture toward the cut-offs leading down to the water. He wondered if her thoughts followed the same pattern as his. Was she thinking about them, too? What did the events of the last two days mean to her? Or was she thinking of something else? She’d been frightened last night with Gridley and she’d been frightened again this morning, although a less perceptive man would not have noticed. Emma was a master at using boldness, her bravado, as her shield against that fear.

  They rounded a final curve and the ocean opened up before them, sparkling in deep blues and greens beneath the sun, the sand nearly white.

  Ren couldn’t help but smile at the incredible view. ‘I thought the cave was breathtaking, but this easily rivals it. The average person in England can’t begin to imagine the beauty here, it’s so vibrant. Even the colours are different. Our ocean is dark and cold, hardly inviting.’

  He jumped down and unharnessed the horse. In this secluded cove, the horse couldn’t go far. He went around to Emma’s side and helped her down, his hands lingering at her waist, looking for some sign of what was going on behind her dark eyes. She was by far the loveliest, most mysterious woman he’d yet to meet, but that also made her the most complicated and the most intriguing. ‘Will you walk with me, Emma?’ Ren asked quietly.

  They made short work of their shoes. Ren rolled up his trousers and Emma tied her skirt in a knot to keep it out of the waves. Everything was different, not just the colours of the ocean, Ren reflected as they made their way to the water, the sand warm between his toes. Emma was different, too. She’d not hesitated to take off her shoes, to knot up her skirt. No English girl would have dared such immodesty, certainly not the heiress in York. But modesty was often impractical here. He couldn’t picture Emma not enjoying the beauty of the ocean for the sake of keeping her toes covered. Propriety was not worth the sacrifice.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts...’ Ren began as the waves gently lapped at their feet. The warmth of the water was a marvel to him. His brother Teddy would be in awe.

  ‘A pound for yours. You smiled just now. What were you thinking?’ Emma bent down and picked up a white shell.

  ‘I was thinking of my brother and how much he would love this place. We’d never get him off the beach.’

  Emma threw the shell out into the water. ‘Do you miss them? Your family?’

  Ren gave a short laugh. ‘Not yet. I am sure I will, though. Back home, I saw them every day. It can be overwhelming to have a house full of females, especially when one is used to living alone.’

  Emma knit her brow, not quite understanding. He elaborated. ‘When my father was alive, I kept my own apartments in London. It was the right balance of distance for a young man. I like my family, but I like my freedom, too. A young man’s pursuits aren’t always appropriate when surrounded by nosy sisters. When my father passed away, I moved into the town house so I could take care of the family.’

  When he’d become the earl, everything had changed right down to his way of life. ‘Overnight I went from being a carefree buck to a man of responsibility.’ Great responsibility. He not only had a family to look after, he had estates, investments, debts to manage, decisions to make, his sister Sarah to launch into Society. That had been four years ago, four years of trying to make ends meet and realising that traditional methods of aristocratic money management weren’t going to work.

  Emma looked up at him from beneath the brim of her hat, her eyes thoughtful and sincere. ‘I’m sorry. You never mentioned your father had died. Were you close?’

  ‘We were.’ Ren couldn’t help but smile. He could see his father in his mind, tall, striding about vigorously, laughing, wrestling with Teddy, teasing the girls, full of life. ‘He loved us. None of us doubted it. My father saw that I was ready to take his place some day, that I was educated and prepared for life, socially, academically. He did the same for his daughters. But it was all so sudden.’

  His voice dropped, the memory of those first moments flooding him. ‘I’d met him for a drink at our club the previous afternoon. We’d talked about a horse he wanted to buy. I was supposed to meet him and my family at a ball that night, but he didn’t feel well after dinner and went to lie down. The next morning he was gone.’

  He felt Emma squeeze his hand, her words quiet. ‘We’re never prepared, sudden or not.’ She looked away, her eyes going out over the ocean. ‘It is beautiful here, but it’s dangerous, too. Sometimes I’m not sure we were meant to be here. There are hurricanes, deadly insects, fevers and there’s nothing to be done when they strike. We can’t hold back the storms, we can’t stop the fevers. We are so very vulnerable.

  ‘My father was a strong man. He’d weathered the rigours of military life for years and yet the fever took him within a week. People told me I was lucky. We’d had a chance to say goodbye, he’d had a chance to make last plans. Merry sat with him, writing furiously when my father wasn’t delirious and reassuring him when he was. But in the end, it didn’t matter. I still missed him, still grieved. I suppose that gives us something in common.’

  They moved a little further along the surf line, hands interlocked. He felt connected to Emma in those moments in a way that defied any other connection he’d felt. Perhaps it was the lingering intimacy of the caves that had provoked his disclosure. Perhaps it was something else. He only knew he’d not planned to tell her such a thing when they’d come down to the water. In truth, he’d meant to draw her out. He knew, too, that he’d never shared those feelings with another, ever. Kitt had left before his father died, and he’d not wanted to burden his sisters in their own grief with his.

  They turned back towards the wagon and the picnic basket. His stomach was rumbling. Breakfast seemed ages ago, part of a different world. Ren spread the blanket and helped Emma set out the food. She wanted to hear more about England. ‘I haven’t been there since I was a little girl,’ she confessed, biting into a cold ham sandwich. ‘I don’t remember
much except that it was gloomy and it rained a lot.’

  Ren laughed. ‘Then you remember it pretty well. It hasn’t changed. But summer in the English countryside is not to be missed.’ He regaled her with stories of his family, their country home where they picked strawberries and rode horses and swam in the river.

  His tales took them through the sandwiches, the mangoes and the sponge cake the cook had packed. Ren finished his cake and set aside his napkin. Emma had already stretched out on her side of the blanket, propped up on an elbow, her hair falling over one shoulder. She looked utterly provocative on that blanket. His body stirred with a thousand possibilities. Actually, he wasn’t sure it had stopped stirring since the caves. Her every move, her every glance, touch, word seemed to keep him on the edge of arousal.

  Ren stretched out beside her and she welcomed him with a smile. Ren fought the urge to give in to that welcome. What she wanted would have to wait. ‘I think we have to talk before things go any further.’

  She did not protest. Part of him had hoped she would. ‘I thought we had been talking,’ she said coyly, dropping her eyes to the blanket.

  ‘We have, and it’s been good. We haven’t talked, not like that, since I arrived. Sometimes I’m struck about how little I know about you and you about me, considering how much time we spend together and our circumstances.’

  Her eyes came back to his, her gaze direct. ‘By circumstances you mean having made love?’

  ‘Among other things.’ Ren met her directness with a bluntness of his own. ‘We have a plantation between us, we are partners whether we choose it or not...’ he made a back-and-forth gesture with his hand between them, ‘and now, we have this. It’s profound and heady and I don’t have a word for it, just “this” and “it”. What are we doing, Emma?’ He paused, watching her pleat the blanket between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Is this an affair, something to entertain ourselves with? Is it guided by real feeling or is it part of some political agenda against Gridley? Maybe it’s just a personal agenda. Which is it, Emma?’

  ‘You think too much, Ren.’ Emma gave a slow smile to take the edge off her response and perhaps to distract. ‘Can’t it just be sex? Very, very good sex?’

  ‘I wish it could be, but I don’t believe it can be, not for a minute. There are too many strings pulling at us.’

  Emma scooted closer to him, the heat of his body rising with her nearness. Her arm went about his neck. He could smell the scent of water and salt on her, the scents of the Caribbean in her hair. ‘Were there strings pulling at us in the cave?’ Her voice was husky as she dropped slow kisses along his jaw.

  Ren swallowed hard. This conversation was going nowhere—well, not nowhere, it was going somewhere quite nicely, just not the place he’d hoped. He was starting to think resistance was pointless. ‘Emma, you know what I mean.’ It was a half-hearted attempt to call upon her own sense of reason.

  She gave a throaty laugh against his neck, her hand reaching for him. ‘I shattered for you twice last night, and you brought me to it again this morning. Is that something secret agendas can control?’ Her words were an aphrodisiac as she thumbed him, the friction of cloth and her hand driving him to the edge of insanity. Her next words, whispered at his ear, sent him over that cliff. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like it before. Does that mean nothing?’

  She bit his earlobe with a gentle nip. ‘Only you, Ren Dryden. I’ve shattered only for you. Forgive me if I don’t want to look for reasons for it.’ She worked the fall of his trousers. ‘Let me return the favour. Shatter for me, Ren, no strings attached.’

  It was the fantasy every man must dream about: a beautiful woman in a setting that rivalled Paradise, taking him in hand. Before now there’d only been moulding, cupping. There was no material between them this time, just her warm, firm hand on him, easing itself up and down his length. He would shatter for her. There was no doubt in his mind she would bring him to climax.

  That didn’t mean everything was settled between them. He should probably stop her; force her to keep the contract that nothing could happen until they’d decided what this was going to be between them. She thumbed the tender tip of him, spreading moisture over the head, a shudder of absolute delight taking him. He knew there was no chance of stopping her just as surely as he knew he would shatter under her touch. Their discussion had been postponed. Which was just as well. A moment later he was beyond any coherent thought, his hips bucking upwards against her hand, a groan ripping from his throat as she brought him to completion.

  Emma’s eyes were dark with excitement, a little smile hovering on her lips as she watched him. He was not the only one who had received pleasure from the act. The look she gave him was almost as moving as what had just occurred. It was an honest look, a look of having been swept up in the moment. In his experience, there was much about pleasure that could be contrived or feigned, but not that. It went a long way in alleviating his worries over there being a larger, more sinister agenda at work. After this, Ren didn’t want there to be. He didn’t want to face a reality where this pleasure had an ulterior purpose. He’d already faced one in the York heiress and found such a situation cold, lacking.

  For once, he wanted something to be pure and unadulterated. He’d been pursued by women since he’d come into the title—not because they wanted him necessarily, but because they wanted what he represented. He, too, had been forced to pursue certain women because of what they represented as well—fortunes that could redeem the earldom.

  Here, in the Caribbean, he could have the best of both worlds; he could escape that fate as Kitt had escaped it and he could save his family from social ostracism. But he wanted Emma to want him, no strings attached. He certainly wanted her. He’d have wanted her with or without the plantation. He wanted her still, even with Sugarland acting as a barrier between them. She was used to independently running the place, she did not easily welcome his interference and yet, wanting her overrode those concerns. He wanted to believe the passion they shared overrode those concerns for her, too, that passion could lay the groundwork for trust. But even if it did, he was right back to where he’d started. What did this mean for them? An affair, or something more?

  In his world, a gentleman’s world, ‘something more’ implied marriage without exception. A man didn’t behave with a woman as he had with Emma without offering her the protection of marriage unless that woman was of a certain sort and class, a class Merrimore’s ward didn’t fall into by any means. Had Merrimore been expecting her to now fall under Ren’s protection as his proxy? Or had Merrimore thought something more?

  Emma moved into the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. ‘You’re thinking again, Ren.’

  Ren kissed the top of her head, breathing in the light floral scent of her hair. ‘Only about you, surely that’s fair enough.’

  She nestled closer, running a hand up inside his shirt. ‘As long as the thoughts are good ones.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why they wouldn’t be, but his mind wasn’t entirely finished with the previous ones. What if Cousin Merrimore had brought him here for more than just the plantation? What if Merrimore had brought him here for her?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The more Ren thought about it, the more the idea had merit. It was still on his mind as he paced in the drawing room, waiting to take Emma into their usual dinner for two. The question was—what shape did that inheritance take? Had Merrimore wanted him to be a proxy protector? If so, Ren had done a poor job of it. He’d been here a handful of weeks and he’d already bedded Merrimore’s ward, hardly a sterling recommendation for a protector, which raised another question. Had Merrimore wanted him to be something more permanent? A husband, perhaps?

  Ren wasn’t sure how such a possibility sat with him. In part, he’d left England to avoid an arranged marriage. It seemed the height of irony to have come all this way
only to have another arrangement waiting for him. It was a much prettier arrangement, a more passionate arrangement to be sure, but it was still an arrangement, someone else’s arrangement, that would guide the rest of his life. Ren very selfishly wanted to make those sorts of arrangements on his own.

  Had that been what Cousin Merrimore had wanted? Ren trailed his hand over the curves of a porcelain figure of a dog sitting on a small side table. He’d been so sure Merrimore had been looking for a plantation manager. Had Merrimore instead been looking for husband material for his rather wayward ward? It had not escaped Ren last night or this afternoon that he’d not been her first lover. She’d been sure of her skills and he’d thought from the first that such sensuality didn’t come with virginity, but from confidence and experience. He had no complaints. Virgins had never held much charm for him, but society adored them. His cousin might have been anxious about Emma’s future based on that social preference.

  Ren did, however, chastise himself for not seeing the possibility sooner although he knew the reasons for it. He’d been self-absorbed in the adventure; overly focused on the plantation and what it could do for the salvation of his family in England, overly focused, too, on his own freedom, his narrow escape from the clutches of the York heiress. The busyness surrounding his arrival hadn’t helped things. There’d been the exploding chicken coop, the burning fields, the neighbours to meet, new and unexpected circumstances to adjust to. He’d been swept up immediately into the daily processes of plantation life. There’d been no time, as one of his professors at Oxford was fond of saying, ‘to see the forest through the trees’. The larger scope of why he’d been called here had escaped his notice, lost in the technicalities and events of the daily routine.