When the Scoundrel Sins

by Anna Harrington

  Yet she exhaled a deep breath and willed herself to unwind the tension spiraling tightly inside her. But the churning nervousness was simply too strong to will away, the growing tingle at her core too insistent to ignore. Each breath she expelled emerged as a tremulous shiver.

  “It’s only a touch, nothing more,” he promised, although the husky purr of his voice curling through her was far from convincing. “We’re up to our necks in ice-cold water. The last thing I’ll be able to do is ravish you. Although”—he swirled his tongue along the outer curl of her ear and drew a hot shudder from her—“I’d be happy to try.”

  Oh, that certainly wasn’t putting her at ease! “Quinton, be serious.”

  “I am. When I kissed you all those years ago,” he whispered, his hand on her stomach tracing tantalizing patterns of seduction across her bare skin, “I had no idea that you would grow into such a temptress.”

  Leaving her light-headed and tingling, all her senses alive, the world around her spun into a swirling mass of contradictions. The heat of his lips on her cold skin…the warmth of bodies pressing together beneath the cold water…the silence of the wild glen around them while her heartbeat roared deafeningly.

  And most of all, there was the contradiction that was Quinn himself. The pest who had always sent her pulse racing with anger was now a man who sent it cartwheeling with desire.

  “Have I truly become that woman?” she whispered, all of her on pins and needles in anticipation of his answer. “Am I at all what you expected?”

  A small pause…“No,” he admitted quietly.

  A stinging pain pierced her—

  “You’re more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

  She closed her eyes, unable to keep back a smile of happiness. Oh, he was still a charmer, through and through; it was in his nature. But only Quinn could utter such a piece of sheer flattery and actually mean it.

  “Why does that surprise you so?” he murmured.

  “Because no one has ever told me that before.” That the first man to do so was Quinton Carlisle—she could scarcely believe it.

  “You deserve to be told how beautiful you are. How brilliant and special.” His hand caressed in long, slow strokes along her outer thigh as he murmured, “Especially by the man you marry.”

  She trembled and struggled to keep her wits through the delicious fog of wanton sensations he swirled inside her. God help her. She was losing the war already, and the battle had barely begun! “That…doesn’t signify.”

  His lips caressed at her temple. “Then what does?”

  “Mutual respect,” she whispered. During the past few weeks, she’d resigned herself to her situation. A loveless marriage was inevitable. Now she only hoped it would be painless. “Friendship, caring…”

  “And desire,” he rasped hotly. “Never forget about that.”

  He drove her to distraction as his fingertips poised at the edge of her feminine curls yet teasingly refused to slip lower, to that aching place that now craved his touch. Her heart pounded like a drum, half in longing for his hand to drift lower, half in fear that it wouldn’t. “That’s not important.”

  “You know you want desire in your marriage,” he admonished softly. “That you want to be touched, like this.”

  His hands slid up to capture her breasts. She gasped, her argument dying on her lips.

  She closed her eyes and gave over to his caresses. And oh heavens, how good his hands felt…how thrillingly wanton and warm, and oh so wicked. Beneath his massaging palms, she rose up in the water until her breasts floated on the surface. She bowed her head and watched shamelessly as his fingers teased at her nipples until they ached, already puckered hard from the coldness of the water and throbbing in time with the pulsing heat flaring up from between her thighs.

  She gave a frustrated whimper. No good could come of this. He was still leaving to put half a world between them, and she would still be forced to marry another…Yet she couldn’t quash it, that delicious craving swelling inside her that only Quinn could satisfy.

  She panted softly as her body arched back against his and shamelessly invited his touch. She couldn’t stop herself. To be bare to his seeking hands yet still hidden beneath the mirror-like surface of the dark pond—a delicious contradiction. And when his fingers pinched her nipples and shot a shiver of pleasure-pain straight down to that aching place between her legs, she didn’t want to stop.

  “You enjoy being touched and pleasured. Even now you’re craving it.” His lips curled into a knowing smile against her temple. “You should have that, Belle. You should be with a man who wants to give you every pleasure you desire, a man who desires you in return.”

  “Desire…will come…in time,” she somehow found the breath to force out as his hands left her breasts. While his right hand rested against her outer thigh, his left arm encircled her waist and held her tight against the cradle of his hips, his manhood pressing into her bottom.

  “No, it won’t.” He nuzzled the back of her neck. “Desire is immediate or never, an unstoppable need to bury yourselves in each other until the two of you become one.”

  When he placed a hot, openmouthed kiss to her nape, she bit back a whimper on her lips. “I don’t need to feel desire to be a wife.”

  He nipped sharply at her shoulder in punishment for that untruth. But instead of a rebuke, his bite sent a wanton shiver curling through her, followed by an immediate longing to have him sink his teeth into her flesh again.

  “Your husband should make you feel wanted as a woman, Annabelle. He should give you everything you desire. Especially himself.”

  His velvety voice swirled through her, like a ribbon unwinding from a spool, puddling in silky softness between her thighs. He meant to chastise, but the eroticism behind his words left her aching with an intensity she’d never experienced before.

  He lowered his lips to her shoulder. She whimpered at the heat of his mouth against her water-cooled skin, at the light nibbles he took of her flesh when what she wanted was for him to devour her whole. A new contradiction that had her head spinning and her body tightening like a coiled spring.

  “You should have passion,” he murmured against her wet skin.

  “Passion is,” she panted out as he once again cupped her breast and strummed his thumb over her nipple, “overrated.”

  At that wholly blatant lie, he laughed against her shoulder. A wickedly knowing sound, as if he’d read her body and found the truth there. “You’ve got so much passion in you already, Annabelle, just waiting to be released.” His lips smiled against her bare shoulder. “You probably fantasize about it when you’re lying in bed at night, unable to sleep. About what it would be like to have a man’s hands on you, caressing you until you tremble with need.”

  Despite the cold water, her face flushed hot. “I don’t. I don’t think about any man doing that,” she countered. Sweet heavens, the last person she’d admit to having fantasies about— “Certainly not you.”

  He purred in a dark voice that dripped like liquid flames through her, all the way down to her toes, and made them curl into the mud at the bottom of the pond, “Would you like to think about me when you lie in bed? Because I’d very much enjoy making you do just that.”

  Her fingers dug into his arm as it circled around her waist, holding herself tight against him as she panted out, “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Dare to make you want me?” The amusing disbelief lacing his voice spun fresh wariness in her belly. Taking her words as a challenge, his slowly slid his hand over her front and down…until his fingertips teased at the edge of the curls between her legs. “A beautiful, naked mermaid with soft skin and inviting lips, who’s practically begging to be taught a very important lesson about desire…” He delicately kissed her nape, then smiled against her bare skin when she shivered. “What rake could resist?”

  Nervousness tinged with quick arousal sent her heart somersaulting. At that moment, she knew exactly how charming he was with his deep purr
ing voice, his deliciously scandalous words, and his wandering hands. He was pure danger. “I don’t need to learn any lessons from you.”

  “Then tell me to stop.” With a flirtatious tease, he combed his fingertips through her wet curls. His fingernails scratched tantalizingly at the soft skin beneath. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

  Oh, she should. It would serve him right, the arrogant devil! But she couldn’t. Because a dark part of her knew the truth. That this was exactly how she’d wanted to be touched by him, ever since that night beneath the rose bower.

  “Or this,” he drawled huskily, and slipped his hand down between her legs to finally give the caress she craved.

  She gasped at the intimate touch, her breath tearing from her. The inhalation on her lips died into a soft moan as he slowly stroked her. Oh sweet Lord…The sensation was overwhelming, both tender yet exciting at the same time. She closed her eyes against the way his fingers played wantonly against her folds, her body yearning for every wonderful caress he was willing to give.

  “Admit it, Annabelle,” he rasped hotly against her ear. “Admit that you like this, that you like being desired.”

  “I don’t,” she panted, her pulse speeding at the sweet torture of having his hand against her. Biting her bottom lip, she fought back the urge to writhe her hips against him and bring him harder against her.

  “Liar,” he drawled with a throaty little laugh.

  She exhaled a deep breath and willed herself to unwind the tension gripping her like an invisible fist. But the heat swirling inside her was too delicious to give up. Too temptingly exquisite to deny herself. Quinn was being so gentle yet firm as his fingers stroked back and forth against her that the anxiousness slowly eased from her, and she gave over to the pleasure.

  Heavens, how good it felt! His fingers were wanton and wicked, wholly scandalous…simply divine.

  Helpless beneath her rising arousal, she stepped her legs wider apart. “Quinn,” she whimpered and turned her head to nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder.

  He smiled triumphantly against her wet hair. “So you like that?”

  “It feels—” Her suddenly thick lips could barely form the words as she capitulated beneath the truth. “Oh, it feels so very good!”

  His fingers moved harder against her now, stroking farther into the hollow at her core and flitting teasingly against her intimate lips. Each caress slipped deeper…And that felt so very wicked.

  “This is what a man can do to a woman,” he murmured against her nape. “You deserve a husband who can give you such pleasures. You won’t be happy with less.”

  He was right, God help her. Her body had craved this since that morning at the ruins when he first stirred the ache sleeping inside her. Now she longed for him to make the relentless throbbing even more intense, even fiercer, until it engulfed her.

  He whispered hotly into her ear, “You need this.”

  What she needed was him, but he wasn’t hers to have.

  “No,” she whispered, even as his clever fingers did such things to her that she could barely keep her breath. “You’re wrong. I don’t—”

  A low moan tore from her as he stroked again, this time so deep that two of his fingers slipped inside her.

  She shuddered at the delicious contradiction of his water-cold fingers plunging inside her warmth, at the way her soft body clasped hard around him. And at the biggest contradiction of all, that it had to be Quinn who shared this first intimate touch. Somehow she’d known that all along.

  She grasped onto his forearm as the sensation swelled through her that she was rising up and floating away, yet she was desperate to stay with him, right there in the circle of his strong arms. He drew such pleasures from her that she could barely keep from crying out at the intensity of them.

  Then his touch changed. No more teasing, flitting caresses. Now his hand worked in a steady, relentless rhythm to push her toward the breathless edge. Her thighs quivered as he continued to plunge his fingers into her warmth, swirling inside her and growing the ball of unbearable heat at his fingertips.

  “You deserve to be desired, Belle.” He licked at her nape. The erotic caress shivered through her, connecting the ache of her puckered nipples to the relentless throbbing between her legs. He delved his thumb into her folds, to tease against the aching nub buried there. “You deserve to have passion and pleasure. In your heart, you know that as well as I.”

  His words cascaded through her in a waterfall of flames, and the mounting ache at his fingertips grew more ferocious until she could no longer remain still. With a whimper of need, she writhed her hips against his hand to demand release—

  A gasp tore from her throat, and her hips bucked against his hand. All the tiny muscles inside her clenched down around his fingers, then released in a shuddering, electric jolt. With a soft cry, she shattered and went limp in his arms. Her body pulsed with waves of pure pleasure that radiated out from his hand at her core, and she sagged down into the water, to welcome its coldness against her heated flesh.

  He wrapped both arms around her and held her against him, murmuring her name against her shoulder.

  As she regained her breath, the lingering pulses of residual release gradually ebbed away. And in its place came self-recrimination. Good God, what had she done? With Quinton! The most impossible man for her.

  She struggled free of his arms and shoved herself away, hot tears blurring her eyes as she turned toward him. Concern darkened his face. When he reached for her, she held up her hand.

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  He lowered his arms. The concern on his face vanished, and his jaw set hard at her rebuke.

  Embarrassment squeezed her chest. Not that he’d touched her, but because she’d so shamelessly encouraged it. And because she now wanted nothing more than to do it again. Worse, she wanted even more. She wanted his hard body moving inside hers, giving her the greater pleasures she knew he was capable of bringing to her at the same time he soothed away all her pain and sorrow. Even now her body shook with longing for exactly that.

  “It was only a touch, Annabelle,” he reminded her. “Nothing more.”

  Oh, he was so very wrong about that! “You shouldn’t have done that,” she chastised, wrapping her arms protectively over her breasts, even though he couldn’t see anything through the water.

  “We both wanted that,” he countered gently.

  “That doesn’t—” She choked on the knot tightening in her throat. Then, letting the anger come, she sought refuge behind it from the swirling confusion he’d unleashed upon her. “Thank you for the object lesson about desire,” she bit out scathingly, jutting her chin into the air. “But I don’t need any more of your lessons, nor do I want them.”

  He closed the distance between them with a single step before she could dart away, cupping her face between his large hands and tilting her head back. She saw his angry eyes blaze like blue flames for one heartbeat before he seized her mouth beneath his, daring to plunder her lips in one last blazing kiss.

  Lord help her, she let him, even as tears stung at her eyes. Losing herself beneath his strength and fierce determination, she kissed him back. How could she not, when his kiss was so torturously delicious? Sweet yet passionate, and so full of promise.

  He tore his mouth away from hers. “You need my lessons.” His breath panted hot against her cheek. “More than you realize.”

  His burning gaze dropped to her lips as he slowly backed away from her, as if he were afraid of what might happen if he stayed, of what their anger might drive them to this time.

  As he turned and waded through the water to the bank, she stared after him, averting her eyes only at the last moment when his hips emerged from the water.

  A new ache thumped brutally inside her. Although she couldn’t put a name to it, this longing was completely different from the desire to have his hands on her and his body inside hers, to be physically exhausted and satiated in his arms.

  It was a lo
nging to have him. All of him. Now and for the rest of her life.

  And it terrified her.

  Chapter Eight

  With a groan of exertion, Quinn lifted the heavy stone from the ground and set it into place on the pasture wall, then straightened and ran his forearm across his brow to wipe away the stinging sweat dripping into his eyes.

  “That one nearly did ye in, eh?” Angus Burns teased beside him as he set his own rock into place.

  Quinn answered with a strained grimace, panting to catch his breath.

  Burns slapped him good-naturedly on his back with a grin. “Only twenty more t’ go!”

  He glanced at the break in the stone wall, the same gap he and Angus had already spent most of the day attempting to close, and cursed beneath his breath at the size of the breach left to fill.

  Burns laughed and reached for a smaller stone to plug a tiny hole.

  The cool morning had given way to a warm afternoon, with bright sunshine flooding across the pasturelands and the blue mountains on the horizon. It was a beautiful day, and Quinn had barely noticed any of it. His mind was on the same place it’d been since the evening he arrived and found that the Bluebell had grown into a capable woman, with a kind heart, full curves, and quiet dedication. One he couldn’t seem to stop worrying about. Or keep from kissing whenever they were alone.

  Kissing? He rolled his eyes. He’d done a helluva lot more than that.

  Which was why he was out here in the fields with Angus Burns this afternoon, breaking his back mending walls, instead of inside the house with Robert, interviewing potential suitors. The last thing he wanted to do was find Belle a husband. Which was also why he’d marched straight back to the house after leaving her at the pond to swallow his pride and scratch out a letter to Sebastian, asking his brother to loan him the money necessary to purchase Glenarvon from the Church, should Bartleby not discover another viable loophole.

  And after that morning’s encounter at the pond, he also needed to expel the frustration of being able to touch her and hear her throaty cry of pleasure, yet not be able to share in that release.