Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1)

by Anna Campbell

  A few moments later, Ilya opened the door to the small room at the back of the house. “I was waylaid.” He locked the door behind him as Seph stood from the small sofa. It was strategically placed in front of a floor to ceiling, gold framed mirror that took up a good part of the whole wall. Ilya shrugged out of his coat, placing it on a chair beside the door.

  “Remove your mask,” he asked.

  “I’d feel more comfortable with it on.”

  “All the more reason to remove it.” He was going to keep his on a little while longer, play the wolf to make her brave.

  Her hands reached up and removed the mask. This woman made him weak at the knees and think about things he’d laughed at as foolish for more years than he could remember. Children, monogamy, settling down to build a career, a life. Any of those things had made him disdainful until he’d met her. One look and it was as if the very essence, the most fundamental parts of him were rearranged. Love.

  What did he know about love? He’d thought himself immune. Yet he’d known from the moment the sound of her voice in the next room made his pulse race, she was not going to be some ordinary woman.

  Ilya walked over and stood close enough to feel her heat.

  “Finally, alone,” he murmured, running the backs of his fingers across her cheek.

  Her hands lifted to his chest and tentatively smoothed over his shape, feeling him out. Exploring what he felt like and, in the process, setting the skin under his shirt alight.

  He bent down and kissed her, a soft promise of pleasure as his tongue glided over her lips, pressed the crease open and slipped into her warmth. Her arms entwined around him drawing him closer. He took his time. Tasted and teased. Ran his fingers under her bodice and flicked her nipples. Coaxed and awoke her body ready for what would come next.

  “Are you wearing anything under your dress?” Ilya whispered against her lips.

  “No,” she grinned.

  He loved her just a little bit more in that moment. He wanted her naked under a court dress the next time he was in the Russian court, have her drive him crazy with that knowledge as she mingled with the guests.

  “I am even more unhappy that you danced with that fop,” he rumbled.

  She laughed. “Half the women in the room are most likely dressed the same.”

  “I don’t care. I only care about you,” he growled.

  She reached up and drew him down. Her eyes already growing dark with desire. She nibbled on his lips, small teasing touches, a swipe of her small sweet tongue. He was in heaven. His blood thickening and the need building. But this seduction wasn’t a race to the finish. He intended to draw this out between them. Change forever what she thought about pleasure between a man and a woman.

  “Lift up your skirts.” The fabric rustled as she lifted the shimmering salmon pink gown. The soft gas lamps making her glow.

  “Up higher.” He tugged at his cravat and removed it, throwing it on the chair with his jacket. “Let’s get these off you.”

  His hands worked rapidly to unfasten the panniers until he had them off and placed them away on the floor. “Don’t lower your dress little bird.” He murmured as he gently guided her to back up to the small sofa. “Sit.” Need pulsed through his body, but this was all about her finding her pleasure.

  “Put your feet on the bench, like you saw in Hell’s Hall. The wolf wants to see what’s for dinner.” Her face blushed, her pulse thundering at the base of her neck. He wanted her brave. He wanted her to reach for the deeply sensual woman she was and set her free.

  Slowly she settled her skirts around her on the sofa leaving them high on her waist. Their gazes met and she deliberately lifted her feet placing first one and then the other on the sofa. The soft pale hair on her sex, her perfectly shaped nether lips and crease made his throat suddenly dry. She was so incredibly beautiful.

  “Place your feet wider.” His accent sounded thicker.

  She did as he asked. The small crease between her legs widening. “Now press your knees out wide.” She swallowed, color high on her cheeks, her eyes never leaving his face as she pressed her knees out at either side, down toward the seat. The ruby red of her sex opened to view, and he groaned with need. His body smoldered with lust and desire that he banked for later. No hurry, he reminded himself, as difficult as it was to not ravish his little bird.

  “Look in the mirror.” His voice was rough as he watched her.

  Her eyes shifted to look at the reflection of herself. She gasped. A sharp intake of breath as the image she made hit her. She was the definition of erotic. Her sex splayed for view, skirts around her like a luminous cloud. And the rest of her body rising out of the salmon pink luster, a tower of lascivious flesh, corseted, breasts pillowed, a long slender neck and a beautiful face with a pastel pink wig decked with birds towering above her. Any man with heat in his blood would want to fuck her senseless. As Ilya did. He wanted to press himself into her, make her call his name, clutch his shoulders and croon. But that might be for another time. Right now, he was going to introduce her to one of the best things the French had given to the rest of the world, cunnilingus.

  He unfastened his britches, the fabric too tight against his cock. But he wasn’t just any man, he had decades of experience under his belt. Enough to know that this was about her. That the road he paved now would yield years of delicious fruit if she liked what he did. If she learned to feel comfortable with the mysteries and pleasures her body held.

  Ilya drew off his mask casting it aside as he sank to his knees. He murmured things to her in Russian. My Beautiful bird, how you do me honor.

  He slid his hands over her calves, her thighs, her mons. Your hair is like the softest down.

  “You are perfection.” He leaned down and kissed along her leg. Nuzzled the soft sensitivity behind her knee. He kissed it and her breath changed, her legs dropped fractionally wider as he made his way up her thighs to her apex. Your skin like an ethereal glow.

  Ilya brought his face to her sex. The beat of his heart thundered in his ears as he drew in a deep breath of clean, soft woman. He licked the rosy flesh and she gasped above him. Then he blew on her and was rewarded with the soft shaking of her thighs. He did it again. He wanted everything for her in this moment. Wanted her to saver the sensations, the pleasure, the carnal pulse of need the setting gave her.

  “Look in the mirror little bird. Look at us as I pleasure you.”

  Her breath came fast, skin flushed. Ilya lost himself in her. Pressed into her soft quim, tasted, licked, nibbled. Breathed in the scent of her so warm and musky, cherished the feel of her on his tongue, his lips, his face.

  Her breath came hard and fast above him.

  He wanted her to give everything over to him, to relax into a pliable mass of languid heat.

  The bunched fabric pressed around him. Her breath came fast.

  His determination to make this about her tightened his muscles. Tightened his back, his legs, and gut as he held back his own need.

  “Hold my head against you. Wrap your fingers in my hair." He wanted her in a bed, wanted her legs wrapped around his head and squeezing his ears so tight he couldn’t hear anything except the sound of his blood pounding through his body. He would show her passion. Show her how it was between them.

  Ilya breathed her in as he pushed his face against her, against the soft folds of her sex. Pressed her lips against the flat of his tongue. The satin slide as he ran his tongue along her crease and pushed it up into the heat of her. He licked over the flesh. Licked between the folds, over her nub that held all that sensitivity, the tickles of golden, soft hair.

  The taste of her, the feel of her flesh, his whole focus narrowed to the world of her sex, the ripples through her body. Her hands held his head firm as her muscles clenched and unclenched and she pressed her sex closer to his face.

  “I have wings Ilya,” she whimpered. “My body is climbing, higher...higher…”

  “Yes, little bird, I have you.” He said between
nips on her thighs and as his fingers pressed into her.

  Ilya nuzzled back into her soft, damp heat. Slipped his tongue over the delicate folds of flesh, between the soft damp creases of her sex, all the while moving his fingers in her, finding that secret spot. She bucked against his face, her fingers tightening in his hair and twisting as he worked between her legs with licks, bites, sucks, and rubs.

  “I’m going to fall, Ilya, fall or burst into the heavens.” She was panting now, the muscles in her thighs tight.

  Ilya looked up. She was watching the two of them in the mirror, eyes glazed. She shifted her gaze to him. Had there ever been a time he wanted a woman as he wanted her? No. He didn’t think so. Never like this. The physical, yes, the hunt always made him hungry. But the other, the emotions that went soul deep? No. Never. And never had he imagined what it added to the act of amour.

  “Gobble me up wolf. I want the death you promised me.” Her voice was sensual, filled with desire, making his cock weep with need. He’d thought the night would just be for her, but now…he was not sure he would be able to oblige.

  Ilya held her gaze as he slipped another large finger into her. Her lids dropped lower over her eyes and then he started to move them, looked at her beautiful sex as it sucked around them as he promised her what his cock would feel like. He lowered his face and licked, sucked and flicked his tongue against her nub.

  She tightened against him.

  The warm dampness of her on his fingers as he moved them in her. Damp over his lips, nose, and cheeks. His need matched her own. There would be no way he could not take her once she’d come. He growled into her flesh, as raw need pulsed through him.

  Her movements became more uncontrolled. She bucked into his face, his little bird finding her wings as she muttered and cried out words of senseless glorious poetry. His fingers pumped, his tongue flicked, and she convulsed against his fingers, against his tongue, her juices flowing over his hand as she called out his name in her completion.

  In moments he was standing, he pulled a sheath out of his waistcoat pocket and drew down his britches. Her eyes half open, fixed on his cock as he rolled on the sheath. She reached for him, his beautiful bird, hunger on her face for more. He lifted her, limp limbed, her arms wrapping around his neck and took the two steps to a low dresser and sat her on it. Drew her knees up and pushed them out wide as he pressed himself against her heat and pushed in. A soft heavenly slide into her glorious heat nearly undid him. Her sex clutched at him, swollen and soft, taking all of him as he pressed home.

  “Wrap your legs around me.” Ilya helped her hook her legs over his hips, her arms wrapped around his neck as he kissed her deep and drove into her. Thrust deep again and again. Moving into her, finally finding the road to bliss.

  He rode them so she panted his name, sobbed it as her legs tightened against his hips. He kissed her as he worked his hips to pump, one glorious thrust after another. He murmured all kinds of things in Russian he could not yet tell her. Promises of the life he’d give her, the happiness they would have, the joy they would share as he drove them past rational thought.

  Ilya held back, held back till his back strained and his balls throbbed for her cry of completion. Held back even as his cock screamed for release and his jaw ached from being clenched so hard, holding back a storm. This was for her, he chanted to himself, for her.

  With each thrust she blossomed, with each kiss, and each touch. Her body undulated, her skin flushed, her mouth going lax and loose as her eyes saw nothing but the wave of ecstasy heading for her.

  When it came over her, she cried out.

  “Ilya!” Her voice broke, her head pushed back. “I’m broken. The bliss…the bliss.”

  He couldn’t hold on. How could any man? He let go and pleasure exploded through his body as he clutched her to him. The pulse of her around his cock as it throbbed in aftershocks, as he pressed his face to her neck and held her so close, he never wanted to let her go.

  He carried her to the sofa, wrapped her in his arms on his lap and held her as she dozed the rest of satisfied lovers. He gazed at them in the mirror. He imagined them in ten years, in twenty, in forty if they were lucky. He would want her like this, wrapped in his arms snuggled against him trusting that he had her, that the world was a safe and benevolent place because he’d made it that way for her.

  “Mmmm,” she mumbled into his chest and started to extricate herself.

  Ilya helped her to sit up. He’d have been happy to have her curled up against him for the rest of the night. A soft bundle of woman, lax in the aftermath of sex. She was intoxicating. Her body a perfect fit to his own.

  “I’ll help you with your panniers.” He walked over to where he’d placed them and brought them back to the sofa. “Turn around and lift your skirts.”

  The soft scent of her strengthened as her skirts lifted and he fastened the panniers, left one then the right, then set about rearranging her skirts.

  “There,” he said. “You look as if nothing notoriously untoward has happened.” He grinned up at her as she stood gazing at him. Her hands reached out and cupped his face, both her palms pressed his cheeks.

  “Ilya…” She bent and kissed him, gratitude, soft pleasure, growing confidence. He tasted them all. “I want to do it all again,” she moaned the words against his lips.

  “Now?” He asked and wiggled his eyebrows making her laugh.

  “You said you never did that.”

  “Since you suggested it, I thought you might find it charming.” Ilya stood. “Another set? You can gaze at me and remember the diabolical things I have just done.”

  She laughed. “We could lounge in the library with a champagne and let me catch my breath. Play some chess.”

  “God forbid you make me play chess. Worse still than trifle.”

  Her brow creased and he escorted her to the door. Opened it and checked the corridors were clear. “You go first. I’ll come later to the library but none of that chess, for that you need my brother!”

  She slipped out of the room and he watched her turn into the next corridor. Another breadcrumb and his little bird had caught it.

  In the columns the next morning:

  The exotic Prince gracing the social set can find no rivals for the remarkably beautiful and elusive widow seen with him at every venue. Is there something more in the wings than the tantalizing flirtation London is witness too? Will Russia lose one of its most eligible bachelors? But I wonder, has the widow heard the whispers?

  Chapter 11

  Snow fell as their group of carriages rolled out of Bath’s train station. The sound of carolers faded as they entered the bustling flow of carriages and trolley cars. Once out of town, the countryside filled with the jingle of Christmas bells attached to the horses. Fourteen miles and they arrived at Ston Easton Park, a twenty bedroomed Palladian Manor with its Tuscan Portico and thirty-six acres of land.

  “I didn’t think house parties were your scene. This is a racy set.” Marsden said as he handed Seph down and guided her up the stone steps to the front door. “Or is it your Russian?” he said under his breath. “You’ve decided to have a taste.”

  Seph slapped his arm with her purse even as her nerves gave a flurry.

  “Maybe I’ve already had a taste.” She murmured so the other guests couldn’t hear.

  Ilya…he was constantly on her mind, in her poems. Like a puppeteer with his marionette, he had somehow taken hold of her body because she dreamed of him every night. Fantasies born out of the things he had done to her, the promise in his voice, the look in his eyes, scorched through her body. Those recollected demands and pleasures were things her late husband never conceived of. “Besides, I was invited, and I was curious. And more importantly, if I don’t find it to my liking or grow bored with my Russian,” she leaned in closer to Marsden, “I have an escape route.”

  “How so,” Marsden murmured back, “I am always in need of a useful escape route.”

  She laughed. He was a repro
bate and she loved him. “Never you mind. Make your own plans.”

  “Oh, I have.” He reassured her and she didn’t doubt it.

  The other carriages relinquished their guests who soon filled the foyer. The room hummed with voices and laughter as coats were taken. Viscountess Lonsdale, Lady Lowther, their hostess for the event, ushered them into the front room for warm eggnog and the blazing fire in front of a resplendent Christmas tree, while their luggage was brought upstairs to their respective rooms.

  Seph scanned those who’d arrived earlier only to find no trace of Ilya. The churning disappointment was pushed back. He would be here soon.

  Along with a handful of other guests she went upstairs to rest before carefully dressing for dinner. One didn’t start with an obvious call to seduction, but she could make a notable entrance. Seph selected a Christmas burgundy satin gown with jet beading; a long-flocked velvet jacket with fur edging, burgundy velvet slippers and burgundy stockings with black suspenders, leaving her pantaloons in the suitcase.

  Seph imagined Ilya’s hands gliding over the fabric. Imagined his delicious rumbles in Russian as he collected the fabric in his hands and raised it to reveal how little she had on underneath. She wanted the heat of him against her. The feel of him pressed along her back as he murmured in her ear, as his hand caressed her breasts and flicked at her nipples. She wanted to lounge in a bed with no thought of the servants and spend hours exploring each other.

  A ripple of excitement fluttered in her breast as she entered the parlor.

  “You look stunning, dear,” the Viscount said at her elbow. “Let me introduce you around.”

  “Thank you. I recognized quite a few familiar faces when I arrived.” She casually scanned every part of the room for the second time taking in all the hidden enclaves and turned chairs.

  He wasn’t there.

  The disappointment was a weight in the center of her chest. Nor were there empty chairs at the dinner table which made her immediately worry if he intended to come at all.