Seductive as Flame

by Susan Johnson

  Forty minutes later, Zelda appeared in the doorway in a heavily quilted, velvet robe of deep hyacinth, her flamboyant hair tumbled on her shoulders, her feet in sheepskin slippers to ward off the drafts. “I’m keeping him, so you mustn’t frighten him away.” Her gaze was limpid, her smile of good cheer as she surveyed each of the large, flame-haired men in her family. “No shooting, mind.”

  “Don’t worry,” Alec said, raising his glass to her. “We’re friends.”

  Her father’s smile was teasing. “Aye, an’ he says ye’re not to ride anymore.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Naturally, it’s open to discussion.” Alec knew better than to debate the issue here.

  “Well, I’m pleased to hear that,” she sweetly said. “Now if you’ll kindly set down your glass, Dalgliesh, I have need of you. If you stay much longer, you willna be much good to me.”

  As Alec pushed his chair back and left the table, a drunken chorus of raucous and overly personal exhortations having to do with willful women and henpecked men followed him. All of which he sensibly ignored. Reaching Zelda a few moments later, he smiled. “Forgive me, darling. I’ve been busy improving my image with your family.”

  “And doing it very well, it appears,” she murmured, drawing him out into the hall and moving toward the stairway. “Now you may turn your pleasing efforts on me. I’ve been waiting what seems a very long time.”

  “I’m sorry. Your father has some excellent port.”

  “I’m so happy to hear it.”

  He knew that tone of voice in a woman. “I’ll make amends, darling, for my discourtesy. I’m at your command. I’m damned sober. And,” he said with a lavish smile, “six days necessitous. By the way, they knew about the baby.”

  She shot him a look as they ascended the stairs. “No!”

  “Yes. Before I told them or as I was making a hash of telling them. Your maid apparently spread the news. Your father had the family bible brought in and pointed out the page where the name of our firstborn will be written.”

  “Oh, Lord, and I suppose he showed you the hair from our first haircuts and our baby teeth. He’s impossibly sentimental when he drinks.”

  “Actually, I found it very nice.” In contrast to his father, who spewed hate at his son. “I enjoyed seeing it all. We must get ourselves a bible.” He grinned at her shocked stare. “For the baby names. Did you think I was going to have you reading passages from the bible or make you go to church instead of hunt on Sunday?”

  “Make me go to church?” she said, having forgotten the reason for her surprise.

  “I can make you do things,” he softly said.

  “Not that.”

  “Maybe I could. With the right compensation.”

  A raised brow, a lush smile. “What kind of compensation might that be?”

  “As soon as we get to your bedroom and I lock the door, I’ll show you.”

  “Lock the door?”

  “Just to be safe.”

  “From whom?”

  “Mostly your family.” His smile was wicked. “Were you worried about something else?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Maybe you should be. I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “You said you’d be gentle.”

  “I will be. I might just be gentle for a very long time.”

  “How long exactly?” she said in a soft purr that brought his cock to parade-ground attention.

  “As long as you can stand it,” he said with unimpeachable confidence. He knew what he was doing, he’d known what he was doing for a decade or more and had the reputation to prove it.

  When they reached her bedroom and Alec locked the door, the small metallic click sent an edgy little frisson of excitement racing through her senses. She spun around in a shimmer of purple velvet and a flurry of heliotrope scent. “How do you do it?” She held up her trembling hands. “Make me like this?”

  “I’m glad I do,” he said, pocketing the key, moving closer, and gently taking her hands in his. “You don’t know how glad I am.” Raising her hands to his mouth, he brushed her knuckles with his lips, then looked up, his gaze slipping over the curve of her fingers. “You’re more precious to me than life.” He stared at her for a moment in amazement, frightened, too, not quite sure he deserved this quiet happiness. She reminded him of some fairy-tale beauty in her long velvet robe, her hair tumbled on her shoulders, her eyes like midnight orchids. Then, recovering, his smile appeared and his eyes sparkled. “Now if I’m to please you, what would you like first?”

  “Surprise me,” she said, teasing like him, because she, too, was frightened. She’d never loved anyone like this. She hadn’t known love could make your heart ache and fill you with alarm.

  “I’m not sure I have much left in my repertoire you haven’t seen or felt or”—he grinned—“screamed to.” He cast a swift glance around the turret room of the original castle, his gaze flickering over the tapestry-hung stone walls stout enough to withstand cannon. “Not that sound’s a problem here. Come,” he said, drawing her to the high, carved bed, unquestionably on familiar ground once again. “Wait for me while I stoke the fires. I wouldn’t want you to be cold.”

  Unlike his homes where he’d had central heating and electricity installed, the castle hadn’t yet been similarly equipped. A large green tile stove like those seen in the Baltic countries served as the primary source of warmth, although the large fireplace functioned as well to keep off the chill. And lamplight lent a radiant luster rather than a brilliance to the room.

  Resting against the bed pillows, Zelda filled her eyes and heart with the sight of the man who’d swept her up in a wave of unbelievable happiness. His dinner coat stripped away, he squatted in shirtsleeves before the open door of the stove, feeding logs into the fire with his broad, strong hands. His physical presence never failed to bewitch and delight her: the unusual height, the powerful shoulders and limbs, the length and bulk of his body, his dark hair carefully trimmed by Jenkins so it curled on his neck, his profile as it was now, limned by golden firelight, a combination of classic beauty and pagan splendor.

  When he finished, he shut the stove door, stood, and turned to her. His memorable eyes, bred to calm by his difficult life, heavy lidded, long lashed, were smiling now for her alone. “We are lucky, you and I,” he softly said.

  Her heart swelled with love. “From this moment on. Promise me,” she said with the alarm she couldn’t quite suppress.

  “I promise,” he said, spare and sure. “For now and always.” His happiness came from her.

  She lifted her arms as he neared the bed, and sitting beside her, he took her hands and kissed them both. Then he set them at her sides and reached for the top button on her robe. “I’ve missed you. I didn’t know I could miss anyone so much,” he said thickly. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Don’t worry, though. I know enough not to frighten you. I’ll be gentle.”

  “I don’t think you have to be.”

  His heart was beating rapidly. He’d not been celibate for so long a time since he’d married. He was tense with restraint. “I think I do.”

  “Perhaps I can change your mind.”

  He looked up, was silent for a moment. “We’ll see,” he politely said. And once her robe was discarded and her nightgown set aside, he sat very quietly, disciplining his wolfish lust. “Are you warm enough?” An automatic politesse, a mannered distraction.

  “Yes, yes. Undress,” she impatiently said, self-restraint bred out of the MacKenzies centuries ago.

  “I will in a minute.” The heat in her eyes was familiar, seductive. “Let me look at you and the baby first,” he said. “Even if there’s nothing yet to see.”

  Her smile was instant and sublime, her eyes dancing with joy. “Here—feel, here.” She took his hand and placed it on her stomach.

  An unqualified sense of wonder struck him for a moment, and the world grew in splendor. “Will it have red hair or black?” he said with a
smile like he had that morning at Crosstrees.

  “I don’t care.” She looked up sharply. “Does it matter to you?”

  “Not in the least.” He ran his fingers gently over her stomach. “Whatever you give me will be perfect.”

  “You’re sure? Some men want sons who look like them. Some men don’t want daughters at all.”

  “I’m not some men. You can do no wrong, darling, when it comes to this child. Or to anything,” he quickly added with a grin. “There, did I catch myself in time?”

  “Only just,” she said with the dazzling smile that warmed his entire world.

  “Then I must be sure to practice more.”

  “I have something you can practice. As soon as you undress,” she said in a small, exacting tone.

  “Yes, dear,” he waggishly replied. But he immediately rose to his feet and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. As he quickly undressed, he took in the subtle changes in her body that only a lover would recognize. Her breasts were nominally larger, her slender waist and belly a modicum less slender. Her lush sex sent a familiar jolt of lust through his body, the exquisite feel and taste of her etched in his memory. He paused a moment in his undressing before he regained his composure and contemplated the rest of her body—her long, shapely legs and finely formed feet. He smiled. “Your toes are curled.”

  “I’m desperately curbing my lust.”

  “Is that my cue to perform?”

  “As I recall, you didn’t usually need a cue.”

  “I’m on a very tight leash tonight.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not taking any chances.” The thought of a child was enough to make a fearless man fearful.

  “You have to think of me, too,” she said, reproachfully.

  He softly laughed, pulled his shirt over his head, and kicked off his shoes. “I gather you’re tired of waiting.”

  She restlessly shifted her hips. “It’s been way too long.”

  He knew that feverish tone. “Just a minute,” he said, already sliding his underwear and trousers down his hips. He looked up at her small moan and quickly left his last garments on the floor. “Wait!”

  She dragged in a ragged breath. “I never knew pregnancy made one so ravenous for sex.”

  He shot her a narrowed glance as he moved toward her. “You better have behaved.”

  “Oh dear, I forgot to send away the men from under my bed.”

  “Very funny,” he grumbled as he lithely settled between her legs. “I’m wildly jealous. Just so you know. I shall watch you like a hawk.”

  “And you’re not allowed to talk to other women.”

  “Perfect. We agree.” A shocking testament to love from a man who, some said, had screwed every woman he’d met, since his marriage, at least. Braced lightly above her so his weight only grazed her body, he guided himself to her pulsing sex and smoothly entered her—quickly, as ordered, but with noticeable restraint.

  “I won’t break,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.

  “Good,” he said, unclasping her legs and placing them back on the bed. “Still. Let me do this my way.” And calling on all his willpower and abundant skills, he beguiled and bewitched, stimulated and provoked, and brought her to the swift orgasm she preferred with a minimum of injudicious wildness and a sharp curb on his libido.

  “You didn’t climax,” she gasped when she finally stopped screaming.

  “I will.” He moved gently inside her. “Next time.”

  “I love you madly, madly, madly,” she breathed, in a blissful, throaty whisper. “You’re incredible.”

  He wasn’t unaware of his sexual talents after years of similar praise, but it had never mattered like it mattered now. Now, he only wished to please one woman, give her every pleasure. “You’re having my baby. I think you’re pretty incredible, too.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Tell me you’ll love me forever.”

  “Longer than that,” he softly said. “Don’t worry.” He kissed her tenderly and shifted into a gentle rhythm, his lower body moving in a masterful cadence, not too far but far enough, not too deep but deep enough, slowly, carefully, the measured pace reasonable, responsible. A new father-to-be on his best behavior, prudently measuring increasing degrees of rapture in Zelda’s breathy moans and sighs.

  But as the heated glory amplified, a building hysteria engulfed them both. She was panting hard, very near to climax, and when she wrapped her legs around his waist, this time he didn’t push them away. He’d never been celibate so long; the woman he loved was impaled on his erection. He was perhaps allowed a small departure from prudence, this man who’d not understood the word in conjunction with sex these many years. And when she cried, “More, more, more,” what man with breath in his body could resist?

  He gave her more in full measure.

  Her wild cry was familiar. He knew that sound.

  And he met her climax, pouring into her sleek, glossy cunt, flooding her with days of pent-up semen. A record celibacy for the prodigal Earl of Dalgliesh.

  When he found adequate air to breathe once again and his mind yielded to reality, he took note of Zelda’s bloodless skin, her arms thrown out in a terrifying lethargy, her shut eyes, the too slight rise and fall of her breasts, and immediately jerked backward onto his haunches. “Oh Christ, I’m sorry.” He drew in a ragged breath and gathered her into his arms. Sitting in the middle of the bed, he scrutinized her for graphic evidence of his brutality. “I hurt you, didn’t I? Where does it hurt?” He was disgusted with himself that he’d not had more sense. “I’m so sorry. That’s it. No more.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Even in the half trance following a staggering orgasm, she was shocked back to her senses at such a terrifying prospect.

  “I’m not arguing about this,” Alec firmly said, wracked with guilt. “I refuse to hurt you for something that can perfectly well wait.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said as firmly, not about to wait just because he was ill informed. “Sex during pregnancy is normal. And you don’t understand—you must accommodate me. I need you now even more than I did before.”

  “Jesus. Don’t say that.” That his cock found merit in her unquenchable lust was immediately apparent.

  “See,” she said as his erection swelled against her hip. “You want to.”

  “I never said I didn’t. I just don’t think it’s wise.” Lifting her off his lap, he seated her a small distance away.

  “If you don’t make love to me, I’ll cry and cry and cry.”

  He was reaching for her robe and paused.

  “I will,” she said to his startled glance. “I’ll cry all night long—and tomorrow, too, and my father and brothers will wonder what you did to me.”

  “Blackmail?” he said in a dangerous voice. He wasn’t a man who took kindly to coercion.

  “Would you prefer womanly wiles?”

  He dropped the robe in his hand and sat back very carefully. “I don’t like either one.”

  But his erection appeared to like something; it was rock hard and enormous. She took a small breath, a covetous look in her eyes. “My cravings are irresistible, you’re irresistible. Tell me what I must do to have you make love to me. I’m without pride. Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

  A dilemma he’d never faced before—having to resist. While the woman asking for his help meant the world to him. How do you choose? “I don’t suppose there’s any way to evade this.”

  “You won’t hurt me. On the contrary,” she softly said.

  “I’m reluctant.” His voice dropped so she had to strain to hear it. “Fearful actually.”

  “Please don’t be. There’s no need. None whatsoever.” She flung her arms out wide. “Look. I’m perfectly fine.”

  It took him a moment to answer with her ripe breasts quivering and the urge to eat her alive beating at his brain. “I want to make sure you stay that way.”

  “So you’re going to be
come a monk?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t care to become a nun,” she sullenly said. “What do you think of that?”

  He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t say, You have to or I’ll lock you away. He didn’t want to be thrown out on his ear. Not when he planned on marrying her.

  “Fine. Be difficult,” she said with distaste. “I’ll have to find my dildo. You’d be better. A thousand times better—not that your ego needs bolstering in that regard.”

  His dark brows settled into a frown. “You’ve been using a dildo?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? I’m ravenous for sex. It’s the pregnancy.”

  “You could hurt yourself.” Dildos weren’t very flexible.

  She stared him down. “Don’t you even think of saying what you’re thinking. I’ll shoot you where you sit.”

  There was a silence. “If I agree,” he finally said, “nothing wild. Don’t ask for that.”

  The sun came out even at night. “I won’t, I promise. If you like, we could talk to the midwives in the morning. You might feel better if you knew more.”

  “Or you might learn more.”

  She smiled. “You won’t have your way on this, darling. I’ve already talked to them. I’ve been reassured.”

  “But you asked.”

  “No. It never crossed my mind. They told me in the course of their initial tutorial. Apparently women ask. I can’t imagine why.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then pulled a face. “I should be grateful, I suppose.”

  “I’d rather think you might be.”

  “Perhaps I could make amends somehow for my ignorance,” he said, reaching out to pull her close, a familiar warmth in his eyes. He grinned. “Perhaps we can conjure up some missionary delights. I’ll have to make a few adjustments.”

  She was already dissolving inside. “Whatever you say, so long as you do it quickly.”

  So he did; with grace and charm and levels of delight, he took great pains to deliver with both carnal splendor and love. With a degree of caution and reserve as well that required exceptional skill to disguise. And perhaps not exclusively tempered by praise worthy theological precedent in the end.