Her Lovestruck Lord: 2 (Wicked Husbands)

by Scarlett Scott

  “Do you want my cock, Maggie?” he asked slowly, his voice dark with sensual promise.

  She licked her lips, anticipation mounting. “I do.”

  “Open for me,” he directed, still not moving to join her on the bed. “I want to see you in the light.”

  Slowly, she did as he asked, parting her legs to expose her most intimate self to him. She’d never felt more vulnerable or more alive. He was truly a sinful man, and she had a feeling she’d only just begun to witness his wild side.

  “Touch yourself,” he said, shocking her with his request.

  She bit her lip, hesitating, uncertain of what to do, how to do it. But he waited with such intensity that she didn’t want to disappoint him. Slowly, she lowered her right hand to her mound, pressing her fingers to the tender nub there once, then twice. Warmth diffused through her, along with a demanding ache for release. As he watched, she toyed with herself, all the while never removing her gaze from his handsome face.

  “That’s it, darling. How does it feel?”

  “It feels very good,” she admitted, though surely it was a sin. “But not as good as when you touch me.”

  His eyes darkened. “Place a finger inside yourself.”

  If she’d been shocked before, she was scandalized now. Desire sluiced over her. She stared at him, wondering if she ought to do as he’d asked. It seemed so terribly naughty, and yet she realized she wanted it. There was something infinitely delicious about his green gaze upon her, his velvety voice commanding her to bring herself pleasure.

  “Go on, darling,” he urged. “For me?”

  That proved her undoing. Maggie slid her fingers lower, to the entrance of her body. Her folds were slippery and soft, incredibly sensitized. Her gaze never leaving his, she sank a finger inside.

  “My God, woman,” he said on a groan, the desire she saw reflected in his slackened expression only serving to heighten hers.

  He joined her on the bed then, straddling her legs with his muscular thighs. His head dipped near to her sex as he pressed a kiss to the top of her hand. Gently, he pulled her fingers away and replaced them with his mouth. He sucked on her, dragging on the bud at her center in the same way he had the night before. She writhed beneath him, glorying in the raw sensations he evoked in her. His tongue swept over her wet folds, down to her entrance, before sinking into her.

  She snagged handfuls of the bedclothes, mesmerized by the sight of his beautiful mouth working its magic between her legs. He met Maggie’s gaze and flicked his tongue against her, alternating between sucking and entering her with his tongue. Just when she feared she could no longer bear the pleasure, he switched from his mouth to his fingers, working her into a frenzy as he kissed a path from her belly to her neck. He dropped open-mouthed, ravenous kisses upon her while his long fingers slipped inside her slick passage. She arched into him, clutching his broad shoulders. He kissed her earlobe, his breath sending more pleasure flitting through her. Then he caught her hand and lowered it between them, settling her once more on his cock.

  “Put my cock inside you,” he murmured against her skin.

  She rubbed her cheek against the stubble of his whiskers. “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll show you.” He pressed her fingers around him and guided them to her aching sex. “Can you feel me, darling?”

  As he asked the question, he thrust forward until his tip grazed her. “Yes,” she said, barely able to manage coherent speech any longer.

  “Take me inside.” The pressure of his large cock increased.

  She tipped her hips up to accommodate him while simultaneously pulling him into her drenched slit. He began filling and stretching her. There was a moment of pain as her body adjusted to the still-new invasion, but it faded as he pushed himself all the way inside. Pleasure shot through her like a huntsman’s arrow finding its expert mark. He buried his face in her neck, kissing her still as he found his rhythm, sliding gradually into her, then out again. She sensed he was going slow for her benefit, allowing her to accustom herself to him.

  But she wanted it faster. Deeper. She arched against his every thrust, matching his pace. Her thighs fell apart to welcome him more fully. His fingers went into her hair as he dragged his mouth back down to her breasts. He sucked her nipples while he drove into her again and again. The pull on her highly sensitized breasts was enough to send her careening into climax. She shuddered as pure bliss overtook her, making her tighten around his cock.

  He groaned and plunged deeper, harder, quicker. Soon, he was pumping into her, finding his own release. He cried out, throwing his head back, and the warm spurt of his seed filled her. She clamped her legs round him, milking his cock for each drop. Her heart beat a thunderous rap against her chest. Her body tingled with a potent glow of sated desire.

  They remained entwined for a few breaths, and then at last he rolled to his side, removing his weight from her altogether. She was fairly certain that none of her limbs were in working order, but her neck obliged her by moving to the left so that she faced Simon. He lay on his back, beautifully naked and spent, staring at the ceiling. His profile was exceptionally handsome, she noted, more handsome than a man’s profile ought to be really. Almost beautiful.

  It was difficult to believe that after a year of misery and abandonment he was at her side of his own volition. Her feelings for him were such a confusing jumble. The old resentments and hurt remained. How was she to ever make sense of this new, passionate husband who had taken her life by storm? She couldn’t forget their past, but neither could she deny their incredible passion.

  He turned to her, his expression guarded in that way of his now that their needs had been met. “I expect I should return to my chamber before we start tongues truly wagging.”

  That was not what she wanted to hear. She frowned at him. “You know as well as I that everyone has been about the same business. There is no gossip here.”

  He absentmindedly stroked his stomach. “I’m fairly certain everyone guessed who we are after the spectacle I created at dinner. I’m afraid there will be a great deal of gossip now.”

  “Ah.” Coldness replaced the wonderful warmth she’d been enjoying. “You wouldn’t want news to reach Lady Billingsley, would you?”

  “I simply don’t wish to be fodder for the gossip mill,” he said, but he looked away from her.

  He was lying, and she knew it. Would the dreadful woman never cease plaguing her? Maggie wished he had simply fallen asleep instead of choosing to speak. His words were like tiny daggers being sunk into her heart. “Do what you must,” she said coolly. If he wanted to leave, she would not beg him to stay, particularly if his heart still remained elsewhere.

  Irksome misgivings began shouting to be heard within her head. He had loved Lady Billingsley for longer than she had even known him. She hadn’t a chance of winning his love, wasn’t even certain if his love was what she was after. Had she been mad to suggest they become lovers for a month? Perhaps she wasn’t made of stern enough stuff. What if she developed tender feelings for him? Could she truly watch him walk into the arms of another mistress and keep her heart intact?

  Worry formed a knot in her stomach. He didn’t speak, simply rose from the bed. She turned her back on him, not wanting to see him sneaking out of the chamber as if he were no better than a thief. Or a rogue sampling a kept woman’s charms for the night. The rustling sound of fabric reached her ears.

  They were strangers once more, it seemed.

  His abrupt defection hurt her. She wanted to cut him with words. Say something ugly, something that would dig beneath his arrogant façade and go straight to the bone. “If you were this cold with your whore, I’m surprised she didn’t grow bored of you much sooner,” she said before she could stop herself. It would seem she possessed precious little control where he was concerned.

  All sounds of rustling fabric disappeared as though they had never been. Her words had hit their mark. Though it was cruel of her, she relished the brief moment of
power it gave her over him.

  “She was never my whore,” he said at last and with great restraint.

  “Nor was she your wife,” she reminded him, still refusing to give in to her inner weakling and glance back at him.

  “I’m more than aware, Margaret.” She had displeased him enough to earn the use of her full name, it appeared. The sound of him dressing resumed. “I’m going to join in the after-dinner festivities, and I suggest you do the same. But stay the hell away from the Earl of Ravenscroft.”

  She didn’t respond, simply kept her back to him as he stalked from her chamber and slammed the door. It occurred to her that she really ought to discover precisely who the Earl of Ravenscroft was. And then, like an unwanted gift, it also occurred to her that she was going to have to suffer the embarrassing fate of ringing her maid to assist her in dressing once more. Damn him.

  * * * * *

  Damn her. The drawing room was ripe with possibility, laden with inebriated women wearing scandalously low-cut bodices who wanted nothing more in the world than to be fucked later that evening. But he had eyes for her alone. He couldn’t decide which was worse, his having agreed to her mad concept of no other lovers for a month or the sad fact that it didn’t matter. Regardless of his promise to her, he didn’t want another woman. He only wanted the red-haired siren flirting her head off with the Earl of Ravenscroft.

  Clever minx. He had no doubt she had sought him out intentionally. Earlier, he had been itching to get away from her, frustrated with himself for allowing her to compromise him so completely that everything he’d stood for since their marriage had been completely obliterated. His reaction to her scared him. He wanted her in a way he had not wanted any other woman in a very long time, perhaps ever. Including Eleanor.

  Men and women were pairing off by the moment, disappearing from the drawing room in search of pleasure. As he looked on, a pair of buxom blondes escorted a masked man he was certain was the Duke of Eversleigh from the room. Lucky blighter.

  “I must apologize,” purred a familiar voice at his side.

  He turned to find Nell watching him. “I’m afraid your apology doesn’t matter.”

  She winced. “I didn’t mean to muck it up for you, Simon, truly.”

  “There’s nothing to muck up,” he lied. “I didn’t know who she was but now I do.”

  “You must have had a lovely time smoothing her ruffled feathers.” Her eyes narrowed as she considered him with thinly veiled skepticism. “You disappeared for two hours.”

  “I was napping,” he said, careful to keep his tone bland.

  “Rubbish. You were bedding her.”

  A guilty flush crept over his cheekbones. “Go to hell, Nell.”

  “Such poetry.” She winked. “You’re not the only man who’s smitten by her, you know. Ravenscroft appears to be prepared to kiss her very hem.”

  His gaze went back to his wife. She was standing deuced close to the earl. Her breasts were nearly brushing against his arm, for Christ’s sake. “I’m going to kill him,” he vowed.

  “I’ll not have bloodletting at my soiree,” she admonished firmly. “Tell me, Simon. How is Eleanor?”

  He stiffened at the mention of her. “I wouldn’t know.”

  But Nell was ever a dog with a bone. “I’ve heard she’s living at Billingsley’s country estate and that she’s breeding.”

  Breeding. Eleanor was with child. The revelation hit him with the force of a fist. But there would have been a time when he’d have been hit with the force of a raging stallion. She had done her duty by Billingsley, then.

  “Then she ought to be happy,” he forced himself to say, though he didn’t think it was true. Billingsley was a notorious brute and given to drink. The thought of Eleanor at his mercy had once been enough to make him ill. He’d been prepared to do anything to keep her from going to her husband. But she had not wished it.

  “Are you happy, Simon?”

  Nell’s unexpected question shocked him. No one had ever, in his recollection, asked him such a thing. He wasn’t even certain how to answer her. “I suppose that depends upon whether or not my little wife is planning on leaving your drawing room with Ravenscroft.”

  A smile played with the corners of Nell’s lips. “You’re jealous,” she observed. “That settles it. You’re definitely smitten with your little wife, as you call her.”

  Smitten. Devil take it. Was he? Obsessed, perhaps. Consumed by lust and the need to be inside her, absolutely. But the word smitten suggested something deeper, something based on emotions he’d thought he’d sealed away like a secret room. His eyes sought out Maggie once more. She was resplendent in her evening gown. There was no outward sign to suggest that she had been naked and in his arms a mere hour before. But he knew.

  “I don’t like this,” he grumbled, more to himself than to Nell.

  “I daresay you don’t.” There was humor in Nell’s voice.

  He was going mad. There was no doubt about it. He tore his gaze from his wife and looked down at the woman at his side. He tried to summon a crumb of the desire he felt for Maggie and could not. Damn it, he could not allow another woman to ensnare him as Eleanor had done. He caught Nell’s hand in his and raised it to his lips for a leisurely kiss at the sensitive turn of her wrist.

  “Go to bed with me,” he suggested on a whim. A dark voice in his head told him he’d be better off if he forgot his wife and his promise to her. After all, he owed her nothing. The past two days had been an aberration.

  Nell’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m not the woman you want.”

  Of course she was right. But he was foundering. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  “I shall tell you.” Her tone was frank, pure Nell. “You’ll go to her side and make your claim upon her. Why bother playing silly games? Let yourself free, Simon. You aren’t encumbered by Eleanor any longer.”

  Eleanor and Nell had been friends once, but something had happened to change all that. Though she had continued to extend invitations to himself and Eleanor over the years, Nell had not bothered to hide her dislike for her sometime friend.

  He considered Nell’s edict now, eager for the distraction. “Why do you harbor such ill will toward Eleanor?” he asked, curious. He had often wondered, but Eleanor had never wanted to discuss their falling out.

  Her expression became shuttered. “Some secrets are best kept.”

  “Nonsense,” he dismissed. “Can you not tell me now?”

  “You don’t wish to know.” Her ordinarily lush mouth was drawn into a pensive frown.

  He was more determined than ever to have the truth. “Tell me, Nell. Our friendship demands it.”

  “Very well.” She tipped up her chin in a show of defiance. “She bedded my husband.”

  “Needham?” But that was impossible. Eleanor had only been intimate with two men, himself and of course Lord Billingsley, out of necessity only. She had told him so herself. “Surely you must be mistaken.”

  Nell’s gaze never wavered from his. “I saw them together.”

  He felt as if the breath had suddenly been sucked from his lungs. He had never known Nell to be a liar, and she would certainly have no cause to dissemble now when he and Eleanor were no longer speaking. He thought back to the time when Nell and Lord Needham had first become estranged. Two, perhaps three years. “When?” he asked, needing to know.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Nell shook her head as if to dispel the memory from it. “This is very difficult for me to discuss, and we cannot change the past however much we might wish to.”

  Her refusal to answer told him his suspicions were true. Eleanor had bedded Lord Needham while professing her love for him, while she had been Nell’s trusted friend. He was shocked. The realization of her betrayal still hurt, even if his ties to her had already been cut. “Jesus,” he said at last. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why did you allow us to attend your house parties as though nothing had occurred?”

  “You would ne
ver have believed me.” She patted his arm in a consoling fashion. “I know too well how love makes us oblivious to the faults of our lovers. And as for allowing her to attend my parties, I was too proud. I would die before I’d allow her to see how deeply she’d wounded me.”

  His heart hurt for her as much as for himself. He put his hand over hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

  “You needn’t be. It was a long time ago, and my life is very different now.” She drew herself together, replacing her vulnerability with her cheerful hostess’s façade once more. “Now unless you act with haste, I’m afraid the earl is about to make off with your wife.”

  Christ, the barbarian appeared ready to throw her over his shoulder and cart her from the room as if she were spoils of war. An unholy rage came over him, a potent mixture of suppressed anger toward Eleanor and confusion over the way one saucy redhead had overtaken his mind. “I will kill him,” he growled again. “I swear it.”

  Nell directed her best impression of a displeased governess his way. “I’ve already told you. Absolutely no bloodletting. You’d do best to whisk her away from all this, Simon. She’s too innocent for our jaded lot.”

  She was right. Maggie didn’t belong here in this den of lotharios eager to take advantage of her naiveté. Damn it, he wasn’t certain he belonged here either. And if anyone was going to avail himself of his wife’s naiveté, it would be him. Damn Ravenscroft and Eleanor, and for that matter Needham, straight to hell.

  * * * * *

  A quick inquiry with Nell had led Maggie to the Earl of Ravenscroft, and she’d sought him out, all the better to irritate Sandhurst. Maggie found the earl deceptively witty and charming. Perhaps too charming. She was aware of his clever attempt to steer her from the drawing room without her being the wiser. His hand was firm on her elbow, lingering too high, his thumb a deliberate pressure on her bare skin. He smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling with mirth, and she couldn’t deny his amusement was infectious. Even if she was only using him as a pawn in her war against Sandhurst.

  “I’m afraid your husband is bearing down upon us just now,” he told her abruptly, sotto voce. She wasn’t surprised that after the disastrous altercation at dinner, everyone appeared to know who she and Sandhurst were, despite their masks. Gossip loved to travel. “If you but say the word, I shall have you out of here in a trice. Beyond his insufferable reach.”