Sins and Scoundrels Books 1–3

by Scott, Scarlett

  “Morgan.” His name was torn from her, all she could manage in her sudden fear. “Morgan, it is Leonora.”

  “Leonora,” he exhaled her name, as if it were a prayer. A shudder ripped through him, and she felt it from her thighs to her breast. “Leonora?”

  “Yes.” How she wished she could touch him. Comfort him. Caress him. But he had not released her wrists. “It is me, my lord. You were having a nightmare, I fear. Will you not release me, if you please?”

  “Jesus.” He released her instantly, his voice laden with remorse. His forehead tipped to hers, resting there, his breath fanning hotly over her lips as he seemed to struggle to regain his composure. “I am so sorry. Have I hurt you, Leonora?”

  He had momentarily stolen the breath from her, and her wrists smarted from the force of his grip, but she was more concerned with his wellbeing than her own. Freed, her hands found their way to his bare back. Tentatively, gently, as if he were a beast, she could not be certain would bite, she caressed him, her fingers finding the ridges of his scars mingling with the smooth, velvet heat of his unmarked flesh.

  “You did not hurt me, Morgan,” she assured him softly, his name feeling right on her tongue for the first time.

  Even after the shocking intimacies they had shared when he had made love to her, calling him thus had felt foreign and wrong. But he seemed more reachable to her now, in this rare moment of vulnerability, than he had ever been before. Here was her first glimpse of his humanity, of the suffering dwelling within him that no doubt caused the cold aloofness he showed the world and herself most of the time.

  “Damn it to hell, I did not intend to fall asleep,” he gritted, attempting to move away from her.

  But when he would have gone, she held him still, trapping him with her body. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips, crushing him tightly in her arms. “Do not move away from me. Please, let me give you comfort.”

  He stiffened, and it was as if he had turned to stone. She could not be certain which version of the Marquess of Searle frightened her more, the battle-weary soldier defending himself in his slumber or the icy-cold stranger she had wed. Hours earlier, when he had been kissing her, when he had been inside her body, he had been someone else still, and now she feared she would never reclaim that man. The man who had kissed her as if her lips were the most decadent sweet he had ever tasted. The man who had made her experience such glorious rushes of pleasure, the likes of which she had never imagined possible.

  “I do not need your comfort, madam,” he all but spat, his head jerking up, severing the connection between them but not tearing away from her entirely.

  Not yet.

  “I think you are wrong,” she told him boldly. “I think you do, Searle. I think you need me very much.”

  “This.” His hand cupped the space between her legs. “I need your cunny, wife. Do not delude yourself that I need anything more from you.”

  His words hurt more than his manhandling of her had, but she knew they emerged as a defense. The Marquess of Searle may be her husband of only one week, but it had not taken her long to discover he was a proud man. He never showed a hint of either weakness or tender emotion, and she did not fool herself it was because he was incapable. Rather, he did not wish to show anyone else his true defenselessness. He had been a prisoner, after all, and he would have been at the mercy of his captors.

  “Then take comfort in me as you must,” she told him through the darkness, still tenderly stroking his back and all the puckered evidence of how very helpless he had once been. Her heart ached for the wounded warrior within him, the man whose outer scars had healed but who bore far more painful inner wounds that continued to ruin him.

  “This is not comfort,” he growled, his fingers delving deeper into her, finding the bud of flesh that even now, longed for his touch. “This is fucking, Leonora. I do not require your pity or your softness or your gentle bloody touches after I have nearly broken you in two with my own bare hands. Do you understand?”

  Yes, she understood. She understood him better now than she had ever before. He was ashamed of himself, frightened he had hurt her, or that he would hurt her, terrified of his own weakness. But she could not help but to feel she was meant to be his second chance. Filled with a boldness she could scarcely credit as her own, she slid her hands from his back to his neck and then higher still, her fingers sinking into his thick, silken hair.

  She cupped his head, wondering at what mayhem could possibly be rioting within his mind, trapped inside the lean, angry elegance of this beautiful stranger she had wed. “I am yours, Searle,” she whispered into the inky silence curtaining them.

  It was as if they were the only two people who existed in the world. There was nothing but the demons of his past and the rawness of their bare, imperfect bodies pressed together. There was nothing but untamed desire and the raging need to be one. If she could heal him, if she could offer up herself as sacrifice, she gladly would. And she would enjoy it, for he set her aflame with the wanton fires of the wicked, and she wanted nothing more than to scorch in them.

  “Yes,” he growled, his chest pressed so tightly to her breasts she felt the vibration of it. “You are mine, aren’t you? What a curious thing you are, urging me to bed you after I have just taken your maidenhead and then hurt you.”

  Self-derision underscored his every word.

  “You did not hurt me,” she denied. Not with your hands, she added silently. But I understand. I understand you. Let me in. “Perhaps you do not wish for comfort from me, my lord. But you do want something else, do you not? You want what is yours.”

  His breathing grew harsher, and she felt the exact moment what she had said settled upon him, for he grew hard and thick against her inner thigh. “It is too soon,” he said. “You must be sore.”

  He had tended to her with a bowl and cloth at some point in the hazy aftermath of their lovemaking earlier, washing away the blood and soothing her swollen flesh. She felt bruised but in a delicious way. Even as he murmured the denial, he rocked against her, pressing that huge, demanding staff into her skin in a crude imitation of what he would do to her next.

  And she did not know what was wrong with her, or if anything was wrong with her—indeed, perhaps it was only natural to feel this way toward one’s husband—but she wanted everything he would do to her. She wanted him to give himself to her, to enter her, to lose himself inside her once more.

  But still, she sensed a hesitancy in him. Perhaps she could never erase the memories haunting him or the terror dogging him, but she did know she could give him one thing he wanted.

  She could give him herself.

  Gentlemen like to be touched.

  Freddy’s advice echoed in her mind again as her left hand abandoned his hair in favor of sliding down his well-muscled body to touch him. Nothing could have prepared her for the first sensation of him in her hand, smooth and soft and hot, yet firm and beautifully formed. How impossible it seemed to think this thick length had been within her. Little wonder she was sore. Why, if she had felt how immense this part of him was before, she would have been fearful indeed.

  But now, she ached for him again, the need pulsing within her, blossoming, blotting out the lingering pain. Instinct driving her, the combination of the darkness and the wildness of him, the danger still tingling through her veins, she gripped him hard. With her other hand, she tugged on his hair, grabbing a fistful.

  “Tell me what you need, Searle,” she urged. Her voice was throaty. Not her own. Indeed, she scarcely recognized herself.

  “You tell me, wife,” he said darkly, increasing the pressure on her until she was sure she would lose all control. “Tell me what I need.”

  A long finger sank inside her before she could even say a word. This invasion was unexpected, but it was…oh, it was so very good. He worked that finger deeper, so deep inside her she was on edge, writhing against him, wanting him to stop and yet wanting him to go on forever at the same time.

  “
Me,” she whispered, tugging his head down to hers, rejoicing when he allowed it. When his lips were so close to hers, she could taste him. “You need me.”

  But she had fooled herself if she had believed the Marquess of Searle would allow her a victory over him. “Not all of you.” A second finger joined the first, sliding in wetly, for she was ready for him. “Just your cunny. This is all I need from you. This cunny is mine, is it not, wife?”

  His fingers curled within her, finding a place that was deliriously sensitive. She cried out, arching against that knowing hand. “Yes.”

  “Say it, damn you.” His order was low, guttural, as if it emerged from some dark place inside him.

  She knew it was the place where his fear dwelled. The place where his tortured memories lived. She rode his hand, and she stroked him, and her body arched up instinctively to meet and welcome his.

  “My cunny is yours,” she told him at last, the indecent, improper words burning her tongue. But she said them because she knew it was what he wanted to hear. And because she wanted to please him. Because she was going to heal him. She was going to make this man whole again. And she wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Are you certain you’re not sore?”

  Not too sore for what she wanted. “Certain.”

  That quickly, his fingers were gone, and in their place was the thick, solid length of him sliding home. Sliding deep.

  He felt so good, so right. She kissed him, and he kissed her back, their tongues tangling. He thrust in, then out, then in again. This time was different than the last. He did not hold back. She suspected it was not just because she was no longer a virgin, but because he had lost his ability to control himself.

  Because he needed her, and not in this one, simple sense as he claimed. No indeed, he needed all of her, her heart, her patience, her desire to understand him.

  The yearning to love another, which had waned over the years, but which she had never been able to blot out completely, rose strong. If she had to fall in love with anyone, she thought as Morgan brought her once more to the heights of pleasure and she exploded into a fine, shimmery mist of stars, why not her husband? Why not this man? Why not the Marquess of Searle?

  His kiss turned harder, almost bruising. When his fingers upon her bud set her free for the second time, he lost himself simultaneously, burying himself to the hilt, his seed pouring into her as her body convulsed all around him, welcoming him, embracing him.

  And she knew, in that breathless moment in the darkness, awash in sensation, her husband’s body heavy atop hers…she knew she was home. That this man, flawed and dark and dangerous and bitter and scarred, was hers in the very same way she was his.

  No realization had ever been more beautiful, nor more welcomed.

  Yes, she was home.

  The Marquess of Searle was hers.

  *

  Morgan woke with a thudding head and a stinging sense of guilt in his gut, just as if he had spent the previous day drinking and wenching himself to oblivion. Only, he had not done anything of the sort. Or, rather, he had done no drinking but he had done more than his fair share of wenching. Oddly, the wenching had been of the proper sort. With his wife.

  Early morning light pierced his chamber as remembrance washed over him.

  He had not just consummated his marriage the previous afternoon after his wife had returned from making her calls—and like an utter savage, he could admit to himself if no one else—but he had then fallen asleep with her in his bed. And he had been plagued by the same nightmares that had been terrorizing him since his return with unpredictable efficacy.

  Sometimes, he would go weeks without suffering a bout. Other times, he would become helplessly caught in the throes of them, unable to sleep for days on end for fear of reliving what had happened to him in Spain. Last night, after he had bedded his wife for the first time and fallen into a sated stupor, he had found slumber only for the dreams to return with an aggression that had provoked him beyond reason.

  Trapped in the darkness of his demons, he had not realized who the presence alongside him was until he was already straddling Leonora beneath him, pinning her wrists over her head. It had been a shameful moment of weakness. An embarrassing display of his inability to control not just the memories of what had happened to him but his mind since he had returned to England as a free man.

  More signs he would never break free of the chains binding him.

  Exhaling on a sigh of disgust aimed at himself alone, he rolled to his side to find she was still here. Still in his bed, her white-blonde curls fanned over a pillow, her face in sweet, angelic repose. The bedclothes had sagged to reveal one ripe, luscious breast.

  All he wanted to do was suck that nipple deep into his mouth, roll her onto her back, and take her again, just as he had once more in the night.

  But he was more lucid now than he had been in the blackest hours of the early morning, neither light nor rational thinking between them, and he knew she could not sustain another round. Not when she had just been bedded for the first time the day before. And she deserved more, this luscious, giving beauty he had made his. He was using her for revenge, using her body for his own gratification, and she was asking for nothing in return.

  Part of him wanted to wake her with a kiss, the sort of sweet peck lovers might share, laden with promise but free of pressure. But such a kiss would be indicative of a weak man. Of a man who did not intend to use her as his means for vengeance. And so, he rolled away from her, left the bed, and quietly stalked across the chamber to complete his morning ablutions and dress himself.

  He left her without a backward glance.

  *

  “My lady.”

  Leonora jolted awake, blinking at the hazy, sideways apparition hovering over her. It took a moment for her sleepy eyes to settle, for her mind to regain an awareness of her own body. She was lying on her stomach, face buried in a soft pillow that smelled like the marquess. She was even sorer now than she had been the previous night, the place between her legs tingling with a newfound awareness. Her mouth was open, and she was horrified to discover she had been drooling into her husband’s pillow.

  On a moan partially wrought from embarrassment and partially from all the sore muscles in her body crying out in protest when she moved, she swiped at the wetness on the corner of her lips. Moving was painful. She was tired, and she felt so lovely precisely where she was, buried within the luxurious bed linens.

  “My lady?” Hill, her lady’s maid, prodded again in a tentative voice.

  Leonora turned her head slightly, so Hill’s face was visible. She did not think herself capable of speech at the moment. “Mmm?”

  It occurred to her then, to wonder why her lady’s maid was here in Searle’s chamber, and furthermore, to wonder where her husband was. Leonora was alone in his massive bed. Stifling a yawn, she stretched like a lazy cat sunning itself on a summer day.

  And promptly realized she was nude.

  Her cheeks heated.

  “My lady, his lordship directed me to come here to you,” Hill said calmly, as though Leonora was not lying about in her husband’s bed, the rumpled bedclothes and her dishabille shameful evidence of what she had spent yesterday afternoon and evening doing.

  Dear heavens, they had not even taken dinner. What must the servants think of her? What must Hill think of her?

  “His lordship also indicated you would wish a bath, which I have drawn for you and perfumed with your favorite scent.”

  A warm bath did sound divine, but there remained a great deal of questions which had gone unanswered.

  Namely, where was his lordship? How long had she slept? When could she kiss him again?

  With great effort, she forced her seemingly boneless body into a sitting position, holding the covers to her breasts as if they were a shield. Of course, she had been unclothed before her lady’s maid on innumerable occasions, but somehow this time seemed different.

  It seemed wic
ked, even if it was not. Well, perhaps some of it had been wicked…

  Her cheeks flamed all over again. “Where is his lordship, Hill?”

  “I cannot say, my lady.” Hill’s countenance was expressionless as ever. “He sent for a carriage some time ago.”

  The news pierced the delirious fog of lovemaking that had infected in her mind. Here she was, mooning over him, lolling about in his bed, and he had gone without so much as a word. Somehow, she had imagined today would be different than all the others that had come before it as the Marchioness of Searle.

  But he had risen from her side, left quietly while she slept, and had already broken his fast and departed. Perhaps, she consoled herself, he had left a note. After all, he had directed Hill to find her here and draw her a bath.

  “Did the marquess leave a missive behind for me?” she dared to ask, half afraid to hear the answer.

  “No, my lady, his lordship did not.” Hill held up her dressing gown. “May I escort you to your bath now?”

  Disappointment pricked her, mingling with hurt. Of course he had not. He had simply taken her maidenhead, availed himself of her body, and gone about his day as if nothing life altering had occurred. As if he had not spent the night bringing her the sort of pleasure she had not dreamed existed until now. As if he had not held her and kissed her, as if he had not been inside her, his touch so sure and powerful she could almost feel it upon her still. As if he had not left his mark upon her, a small bruise from his mouth she could see upon the curve of her left shoulder.

  Why had she been foolish enough to believe one night would be enough to thaw the ice he wore around his heart? He had warned her what he wanted from her, had he not?

  And it was not her heart. Not her at all. The solace he found in losing himself in her body—that was what he wanted from her. That was all he was willing to give.

  Swallowing against a sudden surge of tears, she nodded at her lady’s maid. She must look a disaster this morning, lying abed as if she were a harlot, her curls tangled and twisted about her, wearing love bites and nothing else.