What a Lady Demands

by Ashlyn Macnamara

  His laugh was a rumble, low and enticing. “I believe first we’d better lock the door, before someone gets an eyeful.”

  “Hurry.” Goodness, had she really said that? That was only inviting trouble.

  “Oh, yes, I like this.” He laughed again, and made his way about the desk, as though he had nothing better to do than make her wait. Than make himself wait. Didn’t he know she’d been dreaming about this moment for years?

  The realization hit her like a palm across her cheek. Yes, she’d wanted him at age fifteen. She’d not been too naïve to recognize that truth. But at the time, she’d thought another man could appease her curiosity. How wrong she’d been, for this encounter was nothing like anything in her past. Nothing at all.

  He turned the key in the lock and made his way back to her. “Now, where were we?”

  “Here.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. “We were here.”

  He kissed her quickly. “Oh, I beg to differ. I think we were closer to here.”

  And he took her nipple in his mouth. He drew on her, and she threw back her head. A long, throaty moan emerged from her lips, while her fingers tangled in his hair.

  He paused to press his fingers against the seam of her lips. “You’re going to have to be quieter than that, unless you’d rather be caught.”

  She sank her teeth into the fleshy pad of his finger. “I’m not certain I can be quiet.”

  Once again, that grin spread across his face, already tinged with self-satisfaction, but it only made him more attractive. “I intend to make sure you’re not. Still, you’ll have to make an effort.” He held her gaze. “And won’t that be difficult when I have you screaming under me?”

  Without her even thinking, her tongue darted out. She swiped it the length of his finger before taking the digit entirely into her mouth. His nostrils flared, and then he dipped his head again, nipping and worrying her with his teeth before soothing with the damp heat of his tongue.

  She slumped back on her elbows. Thank goodness, she hadn’t been standing. Her legs would have long since stopped supporting her. His attentions robbed her of the will to do anything except lie back and experience—until it was her turn to impart pleasure.

  And he needed that. Needed the release more than she did. She’d felt all the pent-up hunger seething inside him as she held him in her arms. If he wouldn’t release it one way, she could coax it out of him another.

  Raising her body again, she reached for the fastening of his trousers. One button, another, until one side of his fall sagged. She flicked open the other side, and his erection sprang free, hot and red and needy. She wrapped her fingers about its girth, pressing downward, and he groaned low and long.

  His reaction called forth her own. The ache in her midsection sharpened and centered at her core, where a tiny bundle of flesh just above her entrance begged for attention. The kind of attention he’d just shown her breasts. But no matter. She could wait. This was for him, for Lind.

  Her turn would come, even if it must be under the form of her own imagination and busy fingers. But given the craving in her body, she might not even need that much. At the very thought, the knot inside her tightened.

  With her other hand, she reached behind him, molding her palm and her fingers about one rounded buttock. The muscle tightened beneath her touch as she drew him closer, and his breathing quickened. She looked up at him, to find his hungry gaze riveted on the motion of her hand, up and down, stroking from base to tip and back again. The flesh beneath her fingers hardened and lengthened like a living thing, and a milk-white drop purled from the tip.

  With her thumb she spread it until the red skin of the head felt like silk beneath her fingers.

  Up, down. Relentless.

  He closed his eyes. His head tilted back.

  And so she slowed her movements.

  His eyes flew open. “Minx.”

  She merely smiled, hoping her expression was a mirror for his earlier. “I figured you’d prefer to prolong matters, but if you’d rather we finish more quickly, I can do that, too. But then you might miss this.”

  Holding his gaze, she pushed herself off the desk to kneel before him, the movement measured, for he had to know exactly where she was going. Her tongue darted out, and she licked the drop from the head of his cock.

  Once again, his eyes drifted shut, and one hand gripped the edge of the desk, the knuckles white. He tangled the fingers of his other hand in her hair, and so she opened her mouth and drew her lips slowly along his length, her thumb and forefinger enclosing the base, holding him still.

  He pulsed in her throat, alive and vital, while below her skirts her body responded. She pulled back, and swirled her tongue about the tip, flicking at the sensitive spot just below the head before easing down again.

  “Ah.” His breath released on a rush. “Ah. Stop.” And then a second later, “Don’t stop.”

  The urge to laugh took her, but she had to be content with smiling, her mouth about his length. She released him with a pop, her fingers maintaining the movement. “Which is it?”

  “God, I don’t know. Ah. Come here.”

  With the hand behind her head, he drew her up, pulled her mouth to his again, and their tongues tangled. As the kiss went on and on, he lifted her hips and set her back on the desk. A draft of air hit her ankles. And then his hand slipped up her calf, behind her knee, up her thigh, pushing her skirts along with him as he quested higher.

  His fingers found her center, parted eager flesh, and thrust inside, easily, so easily.

  “God, I could take you now.”

  “You could,” she agreed. “I wish you would. Now.”

  With a growl, he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her bottom to the edge of the desk. In the next moment, he’d sheathed himself to the hilt, filling her, stretching, stretching, stretching. She leaned back on her elbows, the hard wood biting into her bones, to watch his face as he began to move within her.

  A dark lock of hair flopped onto his forehead, making him look young, almost boyish, but never innocent. She doubted he’d ever been so. Not when he watched her with such heat, such hunger, such pure concentration. Not when small tremors wracked his body. He was trying to hold off his crisis for her, but he was close to the point where lust took over.

  Let it. She was more than ready for him. She raised her hips to meet each thrust, bringing him deeper, until he touched that sweet spot inside her. There. Yes. Right where he made her thighs shake and her toes curl. Right where he made her moan and writhe and cry out for him. Right where he made her body clamp down on his, inner muscles fluttering along his length. Good, so, so good.

  With a deep groan, he pushed deeper still, one final surge that left them both gasping. Then his head sagged and his body slumped over hers. She slipped her fingers about his neck, and drew his cheek down to rest against her collarbone.

  No other man had made her feel so desired. So needed. She wanted nothing more but to bask in that feeling for a while before reality intruded. Easing herself up, she touched her lips to the top of his head and let herself drift.

  —

  Lind pulled Cecelia into his arms, and cradled her against his chest while waiting for his heart to stop racing. After the encounter in his study, he’d thought of nothing else through yet another evening meal taken alone than getting her into an actual bed. Thank God, she’d been agreeable. So he’d led her up to his chamber and slowly stripped every last stitch of clothing from her perfect body, until she stood before him clad in nothing but her long dark curls. And then he’d lifted her, laid her out on the mattress and kissed every inch of her bare skin. He’d wrung every possible ounce of pleasure from her before taking his own.

  Her hair spread across his flesh in dark tendrils. He lifted a hank, and wrapped it about his hand. So heavy, yet so soft. A sense of deep calm such as he hadn’t felt in ages filled him, surrounded them both like a blanket.

  Had he ever felt so at peace, even
with Lydia? He could hardly recall. She hovered on the edges of his memory like a phantom, insubstantial, nearly intangible. He’d loved her once, or thought he had, but he was no longer certain what he felt—or even what was real.

  Cecelia stirred against him, her bare breasts pressed to his chest, her head nestled on his shoulder. Even now, with their bodies uncoupled, the way she molded to him formed the pair of them into one.

  She raised her head, her eyes clear of the smoke of passion, their fire spent. “You know my secret now.”

  Damn. Did she have to ruin it by bringing up the very topic he’d been trying to avoid since this afternoon? “I am going to pretend I did not hear that.”

  “But—”

  He placed two fingers over her lips. “There is nothing beyond this moment, and I’m not ready to give it up yet. Just lie with me and, for once, let’s simply be, the two of us.”

  Suspended in time, as it were. Outside present or past or future. Right now, here with her, there was nothing else. No Battencliffe, no Sanford. No wives, no previous lovers. No guilt over a child whose mother he’d been unable to save.

  “I am a broken man.” He drew his fingers through her hair. “Imperfect. And yet, I feel as close to perfect right now, with you, as I ever have. Even before, when I was whole.” Part of him had hesitated to disrobe before her, to show her the ravages the war had left on his body. But she’d insisted. She’d reached for him and removed his clothing herself before wordlessly tracing his scars with her fingers and then her lips.

  She raised her head and met his gaze. Her dark eyes brimmed with tears. One slipped over the edge of her eyelid to trace a trail along her cheek. “You…That…Do you mean that?”

  He leaned forward and licked the salt from her cheek. “God help me, I do.”

  “I never thought…never expected…” A sob choked her words, and she buried her face against his chest.

  His heartbeat accelerated, and not for any pleasant reason this time. “What is it? What have I said?”

  “No, no.” She sniffed. “That was beautiful. You’ve made me feel beautiful.”

  “You are beautiful.” He brushed the hair back from her forehead, and pressed his lips to her temple. “Why shouldn’t you feel beautiful without me having to tell you?”

  She shook her head slowly, eyes wide, as if she could not believe what he was saying. “You don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know? Is this about Anstruther? Did he rob you of your innocence?”

  She ran her fingers along the speckling of white scar tissue that dotted his left hip and thigh, a permanent reminder of the grapeshot that had nearly been his end. “We all bear our scars. Some are more visible than others.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Some of us bear both kinds.”

  She tugged at her lower lip with her teeth. Under different circumstances he might have found the gesture endearing, but she somehow looked simply desperate. “I told you before, no one robbed me of my innocence. Anstruther might have protected me in his way. I was ruined long before I became involved with him. I’m sorry. You said you did not wish to spoil things, but I don’t know how else to explain without telling you every last sordid detail.”

  He settled his head back against the pillows, and let the truth wash over him. Yes, she had just proclaimed herself broken. He was about to discover just how broken she meant. A hot surge of emotion erupted in him and seethed through his veins. Anger? Yes, he was angry, damn it, but, shockingly, not with her. Never with her.

  Some man had wronged her, a man he’d already met on his ride today. He didn’t need the details so much as confirmation. When he had that much, he’d ruin the bastard, just as he was doing to Battencliffe. Slowly, surely, he’d seek the scoundrel out, and he wouldn’t rest until the blackguard begged for mercy.

  “Was it Eversham?”

  She glanced away. “Yes.”

  He placed his fingers under her chin and raised her gaze to his. “The truth now.” He’d never meant it more. Never had it been so important, but not for the usual reasons. Cecelia had been hurt—even Lind could see that much—and he needed to know.

  “His name was Alistair Eversham, and I was sixteen when I met him at a house party we were both attending.” She said it plainly, the words flat and detached. Simple facts.

  “Good God. Were you sixteen when he ruined you?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  “And how long did it take him from when you were introduced to when he seduced you?”

  She kept her eyes closed. “Less than a week,” she whispered.

  His hand closed into a fist about her hair, and she winced. “Forgive me. You…you’re not going to tell me this was your fault, are you?”

  “But it was, don’t you see? Something about him intrigued me. I hadn’t even met him properly yet when I followed him out on the terrace. He was with another young lady, but it didn’t take him long to notice me watching the pair of them. I get the feeling he made a great show of kissing her for my benefit. And then…then…”

  “Then what?”

  “He asked me if I’d like to join them.”

  “Good God.” He wrapped his hands about a pillow and squeezed, pretending it was Eversham’s neck. How he wished he had the man here to answer for his sins. Lind would have taken great pleasure in throttling the bastard. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.” She didn’t add then but she didn’t need to. The word still echoed at the end of her statement.

  “And yet you let him…”

  “He was very persuasive, and I was very, very curious. Even watching him with the other young lady, I…well, I didn’t quite know what desire and lust were, but that didn’t stop me from having the feelings. But once he’d had me, well, he had me in more ways than one.”

  Lind definitely did not like what she was implying with that last. “I think you’d better clarify.”

  “I was ruined before I was even out in society. That gave him something to hold over my head. And as I said, he was persuasive. On multiple occasions. And he talked me into doing…things.”

  Lind closed his eyes and recalled the exquisite sensation of her lips wrapped about his cock, the clever way she’d used her tongue to tease his shaft, her hands on his bollocks. Bold and expert. Practiced. He ripped at the pillow again, and in his mind, he was no longer wringing Eversham’s neck. He was removing a far more sensitive part of the man’s anatomy.

  “Did he ever force you?” Lind grated. He didn’t want to know, yet it was imperative he find out the truth.

  “He didn’t have to when he could use other means of convincing me.”

  He ought to have experienced relief at that admission. Instead a fresh wave of anger seethed through him. “And what other means were those?”

  She stared at him for a moment, incredulous he’d ask such an obvious question. “He threatened to expose me, naturally.”

  “That is just as bad as forcing you. You were not willing.”

  “But I complied with every last one of his wishes.”

  “He mentioned something about those,” Lind said carefully. Part of him had to know, damn it, had to know the extent of what that bastard had made her do. “Something about enjoying the infliction of pain.”

  She looked away, a wash of pink flowing across her cheeks. “I wish I could say he was lying. He wasn’t, not completely.”

  He paused in the midst of raising his fingers to tangle into her hair. “Explain.”

  She met his gaze, head-on, a challenge as ever. “Don’t misunderstand. He talked me into beating him. However perverse it may sound, he enjoyed it. I hated what he made me do, but sometimes…Sometimes I let my hatred fuel my blows. The only problem was, he liked that even better. Knowing it only made me hate myself all the more.”

  “It’s over now.” This time he did tangle his fingers in her hair and draw her head to his shoulder. Her lithe body settled into the protecti
on of his arms. If only that simple gesture could erase her past and calm the churning sensation in his gut. If only change were so easy. “You got away from him.”

  “No, that’s just the problem. I haven’t got away from him. He sent me a letter, letting me know in no uncertain terms that he’s not finished with me. I told you about the ring. If he comes back here, I don’t know what I’ll do. He’ll expose the entire scandal.”

  “Let him come. I will take a great deal of pleasure in disposing of his sorry life as slowly as I can devise.”

  She pulled out of his arms to stare at him openmouthed. Good God almighty, he’d shocked himself with the vehemence of that statement. He stared at his hands, which he’d somehow clenched into fists. “I’ve no patience for men who use young ladies that way.”

  “I’m glad you believe me.” She sounded relieved, but he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to witness the confirmation in her eyes. The hope.

  He’d bared himself to her in more than one way just now, unexpectedly. She hadn’t flinched at the visual evidence of the extent of his injuries, but he wasn’t ready to face the rawness of the feelings he’d opened and recognized within himself since…Well, since this afternoon.

  He’d meant to fire her, and he’d ended up sharing himself with her in a way he’d done with no one since his wife died. How the hell had that happened?

  And worse, he didn’t want to let her go. But he had to in one sense, at least.

  Swallowing, he reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “We still need to have a very serious discussion, now that all this has come to light. I cannot keep you on as a governess.”

  “What?” she shrieked. In a flash, she jumped from the bed, taking the sheet with her. She tucked it about her breasts. “Was this your plan all along to get proof of my scandalous behavior? You thought to seduce me yourself?”

  She picked up a pillow and bashed him about the face with it. Hard.

  “Wait, let me finish.” He yanked the pillow away, and struggled to his feet, keeping the mattress between them. The distance seemed prudent, a sort of no-man’s-land, however small. Odd, but he’d always considered his bed overly large for one person, yet now it looked nowhere near wide enough. “You cannot remain here as Jeremy’s governess, under the circumstances.”