My Rogue, My Ruin

by Amalie Howard; Angie Morgan

  “No, thank you, I won’t be here long.”

  Braxton looked to his mistress, who nodded. He finished his bow and retreated into the back of the house, out of sight.

  Archer stepped closer to the bottom step, where Brynn had just arrived. “We need to speak. Uninterrupted.”

  It had been a full week since they had last done as much. A full week since their encounter in the library at Hadley Gardens, though Archer had relived it in his mind every hour of every day.

  Her body softening under his touch, her dress and chemise slipping from her shoulders to expose her lush, full, rosy-tipped breast. She’d moaned insensibly when he’d filled his palm with her flesh, when he’d suckled her and then kissed her breathless. Archer felt his loins tightening in an immediate and visceral response.

  What was it about this girl that made him lose his senses so?

  Brynn hesitated before nodding once more and leading him down the hallway, in the direction Braxton had just disappeared. She put a finger to her lips, indicating that he should remain quiet. Those lips, so pink and full, made him mad with desire. As he followed her into a room that was decidedly not a morning room, a host of indecent imaginings flooded his mind. His eyes fell to the gentle sway of her hips.

  He wanted his hands on them.

  He wanted her lips on his.

  He wanted those lips on parts of his body ladies did not generally acknowledge. Damn it, but he wanted to finish what he had started days ago, his body still caught in an uncomfortable and unfulfilled state.

  Archer attempted to compose himself as she shut the door behind them. “We won’t be bothered here,” she said.

  The room was cramped, stuffed with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves piled with texts, a long, low velvet sofa in front of a fireless hearth, a desk in the corner with a reading lamp and slim leather chair.

  “This is not your father’s study,” he said. It was far too feminine, and there was no wet bar. A shame. Archer could use a drink even at this hour of the morning, if only to give his hands and mouth something to do that did not involve defiling Lady Briannon’s body.

  Brynn walked to the center of the room, before the hearth. “No. It is my own room,” she said, lifting one shoulder as if to apologize. “No one else wanted it. The single window doesn’t give much light.”

  Archer glanced toward the window, draped in layers of white lace and gauze, completely obscuring the view outdoors. He walked deeper into the room. He didn’t fail to notice how Brynn wavered back a few steps. It was as if she wanted to keep a good five-foot buffer between them. It was probably the best course of action. Any closer and he would be able to reach for her. He couldn’t trust himself.

  The thought of his hands on her body reminded him of what he did hold right then.

  He held up the Times.

  Brynn saw it, her chest rising with a long, full breath. “I read it this morning,” she said in a rush. “It seems your imposter is hell-bent on terrorizing the peerage.”

  “I’m not concerned with the Masked Marauder at present, Brynn,” he said in a controlled voice. “I’m more concerned about my terrified fiancée.”

  She nodded, exhaling silently. “I saw that also. It’s why Gray is out for a ride. He’s furious with himself.”

  “As he should be.” Archer tossed the paper onto the cushion of the sofa.

  “He was inebriated and angry, and…well, I know he didn’t intend to say all the things he did.” The way she spoke reminded him too much of his mother, and how she had consistently defended her husband’s actions. Even when they had involved days of delirious parties and countless women warming his bed. Archer blinked, his fury taking fresh root.

  “He was a fool.”

  Brynn threw up her arms. “He doesn’t know the truth! All he sees is a rushed betrothal, and he knows me too well to overlook how…how nervous I am.”

  It struck him then what she was admitting. The defiant wit, the displays of temper, and that iron chin of hers…all bravado. All a shield.

  Archer held his tongue and stared at her. Standing there, she looked so small in that dress. Small and delicate, whereas last evening, when she had stepped into the ballroom, she had been a grand, glittering jewel. Last evening, in that gorgeous gown, the entire ball had revolved around her, as it had been meant to do.

  Despite his resolve to be aloof, he’d wanted to peel her out of that gown, layer after silken layer, right there on the dance floor, with everyone watching. Here, in this small study of hers, he wanted to do the very same thing. Perhaps even more than before, now that the dress she wore would not be as complicated to relieve her of. The light and airy day dress was the fashion for women, Archer knew, the cut of it a shapeless billowing length of linen, though tight and laced around the breasts. The fit was perfectly proper for women with small or modest bosoms.

  On women such as Brynn, however, it was as tantalizing as a nightdress. The tops of her breasts swelled into view, the ribbon along the scooped neckline accentuating her shapely figure. It would be an easy thing to strip away. He wanted her bared to him again. He longed for the sight of her. For the warmth of her skin against his. Archer took an involuntary step forward.

  The tension in the room solidified a thousandfold.

  “Why are you nervous?” he asked, desire pulling his voice lower in his throat.

  Her eyes flashed. She was an innocent when it came to men, but that did not mean she was naive. No, the spots of color on her cheeks told him she knew what emotion gripped him.

  Want.

  “You should be as well,” she said, a touch breathless.

  “I am,” he admitted, though it had nothing to do with Thomson’s inquisitive eyes, his father’s murderer still on the loose, or the threat of being discovered as the Masked Marauder.

  He was nervous because he had not wanted a woman with this sort of mindless intensity for a long time. Perhaps ever. The women he had pursued in the past had all given themselves with a willingness he had appreciated—at the time. They were women. They were pleasurable. But it had never been anything more. Never a challenge. Never so damn complicated. Never so inexplicably exciting.

  Archer went around the arm of the sofa toward her, forgetting the newssheet he’d tossed down, and with it, his anger and concern. If his life had taught him anything at all, it was to savor the small things. Beyond this room, there were troubles enough; troubles that had kept him and Briannon from speaking privately all week. Who knew when they would next get a chance to be alone like this.

  “What…” she blurted out, following his strides across the small room with alarmed eyes. “What are you nervous about? Mr. Thomson?”

  “I don’t wish to think about him. Or speak of him.”

  Brynn stood at the desk, her backside leaning against the edge, her palms flat on the desk’s top. She squirmed as he drew closer, but she did not try to dodge him the way she had in the library at Hadley Gardens.

  She had not been immune to him, and though she may never admit it, Archer knew she wanted to feel his touch again. He could see it in the darkening shadows of her eyes, and in the accelerated rise and fall of her bosom.

  “Then…why are you nervous?” She was more than breathless now, those hazel eyes of hers wide and searching. They matched his steady gaze as he stopped directly before her, so close he could feel the heat of her body and see the throb of her pulse in her neck.

  He breathed in and leaned closer. The woman intoxicated him with merely her scent, so clean and perfect and fresh.

  “Because I am about to ruin you, Lady Briannon, and this time, none of it will be an act.”

  …

  Brynn couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move, either, not with Archer’s body practically pressing hers against the desk at her back. He had given her plenty of time to skitter about the study as he’d prowled closer, but she had stayed put. If he intended to intimidate her with his height and those broad shoulders that blocked her sight of the door, well, it wo
uld not work.

  You’re lying to yourself.

  He did intimidate her, but not because of the storm clouds she’d seen in his eyes as he’d stood in the foyer with Braxton. It had nothing to do with his anger over the gossip column or her brother’s wretched behavior from the night before, or even her hasty lie that had started this whole charade in the first place.

  He intimidated her because he made her feel things she knew were wrong. Things that were base and wicked. He made her feel weak and ravished and completely and utterly reckless. It was not like her at all.

  And yet she liked how it felt. How he felt.

  She wet her lips and tried to speak in a coherent fashion. “You have already taken liberties, or do you not recall?”

  His hands braced the desk on either side of her hips. His forearms brushed along her dress, an item of clothing that began to grow curiously warm.

  “I recall,” he said, drawing so close his mouth touched her ear. His breath tickled over her skin. “Fondly and often.”

  “Your Grace—”

  “My name is Archer.”

  “Archer—”

  “You feel it, too,” he murmured in her ear. His hands were still on the desk, and not touching any part of her body. “The wanting. I tasted it on your tongue. I felt it on your flesh when I touched you. I heard it when my mouth made you moan. I see it now.”

  Brynn took a shaky breath at his purposefully seductive words. The memory of baring herself to him, of her breast filling his palm, was closer than it had been all week. And yes, she had thought of it many, many times.

  “We are not betrothed,” she whispered, his musky male scent invading her nostrils and threatening to steal away all thought and reason.

  “On the contrary,” he said, his lips skating over the delicate curve of her ear, and making butterflies take flight in her chest. “I believe our engagement ball was last night.”

  His hands stayed where they were, gripping the edge of the desk. She turned away from his mouth and glanced at them; his knuckles were white from holding the desk so tightly.

  “That does not make this right,” she said.

  “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you again.” She straightened her head, and his mouth was at her ear once more, teasing her with its warmth. “Tell me you find me repulsive.”

  Oddly enough, it didn’t sound like an arrogant challenge. It was almost as if he did want her to tell him those things. She stole another glance down at his hand at her side. It continued to grip the desk like it was his lifeline.

  “Tell me, Briannon,” he whispered. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”

  She turned her face up to his and, for the first time, saw the crusade he was waging inside of himself. He did want her to tell him to leave. It would be the sane thing to do. The wise thing. All she had to do was open her mouth and repeat his command. Leave. One word, that was all it would take. He would sweep out of her study and back to Hadley Gardens, and she would be safe from ruination. She would be safe from him.

  She closed her eyes in sublime rapture, her voice a tortured whisper. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  A low groan built in the bottom of his throat. The tension blossomed between them, raw and powerful…and incredibly fragile. It held Brynn captive. “Then say yes,” he said. “Tell me I may touch you.”

  Brynn arched toward him in a semi-trance, her eyes sweeping open. She swallowed hard, and her mouth shaped the words he was begging her to say. “Yes. Touch me.”

  The words were wanton and vulgar, and yet she could not feel ashamed of them. They were honest. She wanted his hands on her again. She’d wanted it every moment of this last week. And right now, she could hardly say no, not with him looking at her the way he was, plying her with his heavy-lidded eyes and his tantalizingly close body. Brynn was acutely aware of how attractive he was—the smooth wings of his eyebrows, the sensual curve of his mouth, the sharp planes of his cheekbones. His eyes glittered with restrained passion. She licked suddenly dry lips.

  The desk shook as he continued to grasp it. “Where? Tell me where to touch you.”

  She blushed at his bidding. To know where she wanted his hands was one thing, but to tell him where he could put them…she couldn’t do it.

  “I don’t know,” she managed to say.

  He lowered his mouth to hers, but continued to speak, his lips brushing against hers in featherlight nudges. “If you cannot be more specific, I have my own ideas in mind.”

  Finally, his hands came off the desk, but they still did not caress her—at least not her body. His fingers trailed down the linen of her dress, bunching the fabric so that the hem was starting to rise above her ankles.

  Then her calves.

  Then her knees.

  Brynn gasped as his hot fingers slipped underneath her skirt and skimmed her thigh. She wore a pair of thin cotton bloomers, but she could still feel the heat of his palm as it rounded to the back of her thigh—and hiked her leg up so that her foot left the floor. She gasped, shock and desire filling her in frantic beats.

  Desire won out as Archer stepped closer, tucking himself flush against her body. He brought her raised leg around his hip and hinged it there, her skirt tossed up around her knee. She felt him—all of him—and it stole away any shred of decency she had left.

  He stared boldly into her eyes, daring her to look away or to blush at the bulging ridge of his desire pressing so intimately into the soft, yielding parts of her. But Brynn held his gaze, her breath coming in small, shallow huffs, her body feeling as if it were melting at the point where their bodies intersected. God help her, she wanted more.

  A hint of a smile curved his perfect lips, so close to hers; all Brynn had to do was move forward an inch in order to claim them.

  So she did.

  Her bold but tentative kiss surprised him. She felt the squeeze of his hand on her thigh in response, and then heard another low groan in his throat, felt it reverberate through her. His tongue pushed past her closed lips with less tenderness this time. He stroked inside, while his hand… Brynn inhaled sharply when she realized where his hand, buried under her skirts, was traveling.

  His fingers reached the waistband of her bloomers and tugged, pulling the undergarment lower around her hips.

  “Archer—” she gasped.

  “I told you I had my own ideas,” he replied before capturing her lips again.

  His flattened hand scooped underneath the waistband of her bloomers and slid along her bare skin, curving around her buttock until he had it firmly in his palm. He kneaded her flesh, his fingertips stroking lower and inward, closer to the heart of her.

  Brynn could not bring herself to twist away from his mouth in order to stop him. She was lost to the trembling sensations pulsing in the pit of her stomach. His lips were on hers, plying her with slow, sensual kisses, and with every push and pull of their mouths and tongues, the further away the rest of the room, the rest of the house and world became.

  It was only she and Archer, his hands and mouth possessing her utterly. But as his hand swept over the top of her thigh and tugged her bloomers a little lower, she stiffened. She parted her lashes to see if the door remained shut, a small voice in her head begging her to see reason and sense. The door wasn’t locked. Anyone could walk in.

  “No one is there, Brynn. You are safe.” Archer had pulled from their kiss long enough to counsel her and now returned to her mouth, his teeth gently nipping her lower lip. She sighed into the kiss, her tongue touching his and retreating shyly. Archer coaxed it back as his fingers brushed lower.

  “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” he whispered as his hand finally settled over the most private part of her. She caught her breath, her body again turning rigid at the shocking contact of his palm.

  “I don’t think I—”

  One of his strong fingers slipped between her legs, dipping into her most secret place. The rest of Brynn’s sentence dissolved into a hushed moan. She froze against him, c
lamping her legs together, a pulsing sensation streaking through her.

  “Don’t, darling.” His lips moved against hers as he spoke. “Trust me, Brynn.”

  She nodded as he caressed her, parting her thighs, his palm brushing past the soft thatch of curls. Archer drew his finger along her sensitive flesh, the feathery stroking making her giddy with longing. “I’ll stop if you ask,” he murmured against her. “But tell me you want my touch, and I promise you will feel nothing but pleasure.”

  Brynn knew he was telling the truth. He would stop—if she insisted he do so. But his promise felt too divine, too glorious to deny. And his words, the sound of his whispered voice, his breath hot in her ear, made her more inflamed than his hands did. Filled with unfathomable yearnings, Brynn parted her lips.

  “Yes. Yes.”

  With a groan of relief, Archer slid his finger deeply into her. Brynn gasped at the sudden pressure, her eyes going wide. His finger stroked and teased, filling her for a moment, but then drew out. She had just gathered a breath when he sank into her again. Her pulse hitched at the gathering tension between her thighs, a stunned moan escaping her lips.

  “You consume my thoughts,” he whispered in her ear, his teeth taking the lobe and tugging it gently. “Day. And night.”

  He nipped across her jawline to find her mouth, sucking her lower lip in between his. He flicked it lazily with the tip of his tongue, while his thumb skillfully teased the delicate bud at the apex of her thighs, building a hot, swollen pressure inside of her. As he stroked into her again, a second finger joined the first, and she arched her back, straining to get closer to him. The sensations coming to life between her legs and rippling through her body were so maddening that she cried out with the sinful pleasure of it.

  “What have you done to me?” she whispered. “Archer, I can’t…”

  “Soon, sweet.” His mouth took hers in a ravenous kiss. His tongue mimicked the sensuous slide of his fingers, driving her into a near frenzy.

  With shameless greed, Brynn closed her eyes and instinctively thrust her hips against his hand. She almost sobbed at the relentless urgency of his fingers as liquid fire raced unheeded along her limbs, building and building.