“You will like this, pet,” Michael assured Aria when her eyes widened as his mouth approached the apex of her thighs, nearing the most secret of places on the female body. “I promise. Trust me.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he was there, tasting her intimately, his tongue sliding inside of her honeyed depths while his fingers played with the tiny nub of pleasure he had taught her to appreciate, even by her own hand.
Aria thought she might die when Michael kissed her down there. He had done so much to her and with her over the last few weeks that she was certain there was nothing left he had not taught her, save for one particularly forbidden act that she was still uncertain about.
She had been wrong. In fact, she had been gloriously, most spectacularly wrong.
For nothing could have prepared her for the way it felt as Michael licked and kissed her there. Oh, he had put his fingers inside of her frequently and pleasured her that way, more often than not when he was afraid the staff might stumble upon them. But never this. Never this perfect, delectable sort of lovemaking that was both slightly scandalous and highly erotic at the same time.
“Michael, please!” Aria gasped as he slid his tongue inside of her once more, his hand holding her feminine lips open to him so that he could toy with the small bud of pleasure that could bring her to release almost instantly.
“Please what, pet?” he asked. His voice was teasing but he made it clear he knew exactly what she was asking for. She was just as certain that he wanted her to say the words.
“Please take me!” she begged, though she knew that mild demand would never satisfy him. Not Michael. He would demand more from her. Always. It was one of the reasons why she loved him.
Another slide of his tongue, this time through her slick channel. “Take you? Do you wish to go somewhere, pet? I thought we were having a rather lovely time right here.” Then he flicked her swollen nub and she hissed with pent-up pleasure.
“I want you,” she tried again, enjoying this game with him far more than she thought she would.
Aria could feel Michael’s smile against her nether regions. “Want me to do what? I can go fetch you some luncheon if you like. You hardly ate anything at the wedding breakfast.” He flicked her nub again, this time while his finger was buried inside of her and she nearly shot up off the bed.
Aria had endured enough. “I want you to fuck me! Please, Michael! Please!” The dirty words came easier to her now than they had at first, and she almost relished them, demanding her husband take her body in the language that he knew so well.
He chuckled, drat the man. “That, my love, I can do. In fact, it would be my pleasure.” Then he slid one more finger inside of her before using his tongue to tease the nub again.
She shattered. Aria screamed out her release, heedless of who heard her, for she didn’t care. She was with her husband and it was glorious. Then he was inside of her and it was better still.
As Aria rode out her first release, Michael settled himself between her legs and thrust into her hard. When he had stormed out of the ballroom earlier, he had not imagined the day ending like this, with his wife in his bed. How glad he was that he had been wrong.
Her feminine core was still tight but her body drew his cock in almost eagerly and he shifted his weight so that he could enter her fully. He loved the feel of her body around his, the way she welcomed him without question or judgment. He felt as if he was coming home.
As Aria’s quaking subsided, Michael thrust into her again and immediately, he could feel her passions begin to rise once more. This was what he craved, giving her pleasure after pleasure until she could no longer think. Until all she felt and all she knew was him – his body giving her pleasure, his kisses bringing her to new heights of passion. Just him and no one else.
Then he too became lost in the rhythm of his thrusts, hard and fast at first before he slowed his pace, teasing out both of their releases until she was clenching her body tightly around his, trying to hold off until he was ready to spend. Little did she know that he was always ready for her. And he always would be.
“Come for me, Aria,” Michael demanded with another hard kiss. “I want to see you find your release.” Then he thrust as hard as he dared into her still fragile body and she shattered once again, her release washing over her as she cried out his name repeatedly, clinging to him tightly as he emptied himself inside of her, his own need to possess her too great for him to be able to hold off either.
Finally, as he came back to himself, Michael carefully slid from Aria’s body, not wishing to hurt her. Next to him, her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow but she seemed unharmed. For a moment, he was afraid that he had broken her, silly though that thought was.
Aria opened one eye to find Michael staring at her worriedly. “I am well, Michael. Just a bit winded. You were more amorous this time than normal.” She smiled. “Or perhaps I was simply more eager.”
He reached out and stroked a lock of hair from her forehead. “I would never hurt you, pet. You must tell me if I am too rough with you at times. I know you are still not recovered. You should have said something.”
Shifting to her side, now it was Aria’s turn to stroke back Michael’s hair. “Had I been able to speak, I simply would have asked you to speed things up.” She grinned at him. “I am not so fragile that I will break, darling. You above all people should know that. You should also know that I am able to handle anything you do to me.” Then, for good measure, she winked at him.
“Minx,” he growled as he pulled her to him, this time settling her over his hips so that she might straddle him. “You will be rewarded for your insolence.”
Leaning down, she kissed him on the tip of his nose. “I am counting on it.”
For the first time that Aria could remember, Michael laughed. It was not a chuckle, but a loud and boisterous laugh. And she could not think of a better present she could have received this Christmastide season. Not that she had asked for anything anyway – save for a way to remain here at Thornfield.
Aria also understood that this did not mean that Michael was healed. Like her body, he might never be completely well inside both this heart and mind, and he would certainly never be the man he had been before the war. But he could be better, as could she. That he could laugh at all, even after the events of the day, was a miracle in and of itself, she decided as she leaned down to kiss him again.
Michael was also her miracle and her gift. He was a present she had not known she wanted or even knew how to ask for. But someone had known, be it God or the universe or the fates. And she was ever so glad they –whoever “they” were – had gifted her this perfectly wicked scoundrel for her very own. For she loved him and he loved her. In the end, that shared love was the only thing that mattered.
Epilogue
Christmastide 1822
Somerset
“He is as handsome as his father, and you know it.”
Michael looked down in awe as his sleeping son, James Xavier Nicholas Longford, still not quite able to believe that he had a child. Two children, in fact.
“Well, she is certainly as beautiful as her mother already, pet. You know that as well.” In the crib next to her brother, little Phoebe Jane Isabella Longford yawned contentedly, her chubby little hand clenched into a fist for a moment before drifting back off to sleep as well. “As our next child will be, as well.”
“You flatter me, Michael.”
“It is not flattery if the words are true, Aria.”
And the words were true. Michael meant every last word that he spoke in devotion to his family. A family he had once believed he would never have.
Even after a year of marriage, he sometimes still found it difficult to believe that Aria actually wanted to be married to him. He was far from a perfect man – or husband for that matter – but he was trying. Just last week, he had gifted Aria with a lovely Ormolu clock for her dressing chamber. It was not much for the first gift of Christma
s, he had confessed to her almost ashamedly, but it was a start. For he was trying.
He didn’t always succeed and he still had moments when the darkness of the long-ago Spanish battlefield threatened to close in upon him. However, when that happened? Aria was there. She was always there whenever he needed her, providing calm words and gentle smiles. She would touch him and reassure him of her love until his mood passed. Thankfully, those moments were becoming fewer and fewer these days, though he doubted they would ever be truly gone. Some remnant of war would always remain within him. His experiences there had affected him too profoundly to be otherwise, but they no longer ruled his life as they once had. Now he was a better man than the one Aria had wed a year ago. And a year from now, he hoped to be better still, God willing.
“Yes, well do not go about saying things like that when your sisters arrive. I am already nervous enough as it is. I do not want them thinking me a trollop.” Aria rose from beside their sleeping twins and turned to her husband. “They know very well that our babes arrived eight months after we wed. Not the proper nine.”
Michael waved a dismissive hand in the air. “They were premature. I am a physician, after all, so I should know.” Even though it was true that the twins had been born early, likely conceived the night they had first made love, Michael and Aria were so much in love that no one questioned the timing of their children’s birth. At least not if they wished to live, for in certain circumstances, Michael knew he could still be quite terrifying. When it came to the subject of his family, that was one such circumstance.
“Still, your sisters are utterly nosy. I swear I have never met the like!” Aria leaned back into his embrace and stared at the Christmas tree propped in the corner of the ballroom. Now that his family was coming for the holiday season, all of Thornfield Grange’s rooms had been cleaned, aired, redecorated and furnished. This time both Michael and Aria were thankful he had never gotten around to cleaning the attics. There were enough luxurious furnishings up there to outfit three houses.
“I told you my family was odd, did I not?” Michael asked as he nuzzled Aria’s neck. “Also remember, pet, that it was you who wrote to them first. Not I.”
“They are your family,” she chided, though he noted that she also reached back to cup him intimately, letting him know her thoughts were the same as his just then. “You needed to reconnect and you are stubborn enough not to be the one to make the first move toward reconciliation. Thus, I did it for you.”
“Minx,” he growled, but there was no heat in his admonishment. “If you keep that up, I shall have to take you over my knee.”
“I would like to see you try,” she teased back, though they both knew he would do so if he saw fit. And that they both would enjoy it.
In a way, Michael was pleased Aria had sought out his family, hoping to heal the rift between Michael and the rest of the de Rossi family. He had made it clear that he would remain a Longford, but that he was willing to meet his mother’s family. He would never be the de Rossi heir, either, but he would be acknowledged. Until Aria had taken that first step on his behalf, Michael hadn’t known he desired that sort of familial recognition. Now? He did.
Turning in her husband’s arms, Aria saw the teasing glint in his eyes and could not resist placing a quick kiss upon his lips. Despite how well she had come to know him over the last year, there was still a great deal she had to learn about her husband. However, she knew the important things. He loved her and she loved him. He loved the family they had created together and he would, as he had once threatened, slice to ribbons, anyone who dared harm so much as a hair on the head of either James or Phoebe. His family was his world and he made no secret of it.
Just as Michael and her children were Aria’s. A year ago, when she had wed Michael, Aria hadn’t been all that certain what the future held. The truth was, it held more magic and love and wonder than she could have ever imagined. However, it had also held tragedy.
During the summer months, Felton had been discovered in the bed of an eighteen-year-old debutante the very night she had made her debut in Society. He had been killed by the girl’s father the next morning in a duel. No one really mourned his passing, save for Aunt Tilly. After that wretched day, the older woman had slowly come to accept that her beloved nephew was no saint and that many of the stories floating about regarding his libertine behavior were all true – and then some.
She and Aria had not yet completely reconciled and Aria wasn’t certain they ever would. However, Aunt Tilly was trying as well, and that was enough for the moment.
Placing her hand over Michael’s heart, Aria felt the beat, strong and steady. For whatever reason, that sensation gave her comfort in a way nothing else could. “I also wanted to thank you for allowing me to decorate fully for Christmastide this year. Not just the greens like last year.”
“You and the staff both, you mean.” Michael laughed as he leaned down to kiss her. “I told you, pet. As long as you are not going outside to haul in the greens yourself, you can decorate however you wish. That was true last year and the same is true this year as well. I doubt that will ever change.”
“Perhaps one day I will be able to tolerate the cold again,” she said, snuggling into the warmth her husband’s body offered.
“Perhaps,” he mumbled, pulling her closer. “Or perhaps not. We will see. Next year.”
Though Aria had been surprised that she was still not able to tolerate the cold when winter came again, Michael was not. Though she had completely recovered her health, the first bite of winter often made her shiver more than she ought. It was a puzzling thing, but as Michael reminded her, just as the war had changed him, so had her frigid journey across Somerset changed her. She might never be able to endure cold for long stretches again, but Aria did hope that as the twins grew older, she might be able to play outside with them even after the weather turned.
“Next year,” she agreed as she returned Michael’s kiss with a more ardent one of her own. “Or next year at this time I might be in childbed again.”
She watched Michael’s eyes stray to her still-flat stomach. “Are you? How can you be certain?”
“I can’t,” she teased. “At least not yet. It is far too soon to tell.” Then she graced him with a coy smile, the same sort of smile he had given her so often during their early weeks of association. “But perhaps you can think of something we could do that might increase our chances that I am?”
“Minx,” Michael growled again, this time his voice full of passion. “You will be the death of me, pet,” he sighed as he scooped her up into his arms to carry her off to their chambers, calling for the nursemaid as he did so.
“No, Michael,” she corrected as she kissed him. “I will be your life and your joy. I will be your miracle. Just as you are mine. For this Christmas and every Christmas to come. For always.”
Dear Readers,
Every so often when I sit down to write, things get a little out of hand. It’s happened before and it will likely happen again. The best I can do when that occurs? Just go with it and hold on for the ride.
The novel you are currently holding in your hands (be it in print or eBook form) was never meant to be a novel at all. Instead, it was meant to be the annual Seldon Park holiday novella. And then? Things went wrong. Or right, depending on how you look at a situation.
Dr. Michael Longford has been lounging about my brain for quite some time. Only tangentially connected to Seldon Park through his brother, Nathaniel, I had thought giving him his own holiday novella seemed like a good idea. After all, he wasn’t that complex, and neither was his heroine, Aria. Together, they seemed like the perfect fit for the upcoming holiday novella which is usually more fluff than substance.
Hey, we’re all busy at this time of year, even fictional Regency romance characters. They’re no different than us, really. Just with more fabulous lives. And servants. Those especially.
Until, of course, the day came that they weren’t all fluff and began to
take on a more in-depth life of their own.
Hey, it happens to all authors and their characters, right?
What began as an approximately 40,000-ish word Christmas novella suddenly became a full-length novel. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps because Michael and Aria had more to say than I anticipated? Possibly. All I know is that when the first draft was finished, I knew there was no way this would be a novella and that all I could do was commit to making it a novel, allowing the characters to speak their minds while I typed.
So I did. Because as I’ve said before, when the characters talk, I listen.
That said, most of my long-time readers will notice that this novel falls outside of the chronological order established by my previous Seldon Park books. I usually make it a point to tie the novels in to one another somehow, including some with mini story arcs across multiple books, but this one? Well, this book just didn’t fit, but it was also taking on a life of its own, begging to be written.
Somehow, I managed to go back and slip a small mention of this story into my last novel, One Night In A Lord’s Bed, before it reached “the point of no return” in the publication process. Careful readers will have likely already found the rather heavy-handedly placed hint, but that was about all I could do. After all, this was meant to be a Christmas novella and those don’t always adhere as strictly to the Seldon Park timeline.
So with my apologies for not maintaining continuity, I truly hope you have enjoyed reading Michael and Aria’s story as much as I’ve enjoyed telling it. And if you skipped to this part of the book first, since I know some readers do that? Sit back, relax with a nice cup of your favorite tea (or other beverage of your choice), and enjoy!
Bethany
Coming Early 2019
After a year of secretly “almost” courting a particular lady, Bow Street Runner Harry Greer has found his attentions wandering as of late and he has no idea how to go about ending things gracefully – and without possibly losing a limb or two. In the meantime, Harry still has a job to perform and is currently assigned to keep tabs on Lady Penelope Marshwood. New to London, Miss Marshwood is suddenly everywhere about Town and ardently pursing the Duke of Fullbridge in hopes of becoming his wife – a position no lady of any sense could possibly want!
Christmas With a Scoundrel Page 21