All's Fair in Love & Seduction (The Elusive Lords, Novella)

by Beverley Kendall

  But she hadn’t. Which had surprised him. And then he’d been painfully aroused.

  Her hands hesitated on the band of her drawers, her nervousness betrayed by a discernible tremble. She inhaled and his gaze was instantly riveted to the thrust of her breasts, firm, full and rose tipped. His breath suspended and his cock felt as if it would explode.

  Then she was pushing the offending garment to the floor. Derek took in the cluster of brown curls at the notch of her thighs and wanted to groan at the unfairness of it. A haze of lust blinded him to everything else but her.

  “Come.” This time he could do no more than grunt.

  She came to him all sultry innocence with her gently rolling hips, on long slim legs and he wanted nothing more than to spread her on the bed, free himself from the constraint of his trousers and sink himself as far into her as he could go. But he could not. He would not take her virginity. He would not risk getting her with child. But by God, he’d take some pleasure with her. That much he’d allow himself. That much he was owed.

  “Lean forward.” Another dark throaty command.

  She did as she was told, stepping between his splayed legs and bracing her hands on his shoulders. Her breasts were where they should be, level with his mouth. Derek flicked the red nub with his tongue. Her skin held the subtle fragrance of some wildflower and tasted…indescribably good. A taste that could easily become addictive.

  Her nails dug through the wool of his overcoat into his upper back. That was soon followed by a ragged whimper. He treated her ruched nipple to another swipe of his tongue. Her legs gave away and she sagged into him.

  Circling his arms about her waist, he dragged her still closer, keeping her upright as his hands cupped the rounded cheeks of her bottom. He squeezed and kneaded, savoring the feel of delectable, pale, female flesh, so firm and soft.

  “Oh,” she said on a choked gasp of wonder.

  He liked the sounds she made. God, he could not remember wanting a woman more.

  Derek didn’t know precisely when it occurred. When need obliterated all judicious thought. Gone were the many reasons he could not—should not—take what they both wanted. Lust replaced logic, belated honor lost its valiant fight.

  He broke away long enough to divest himself of his clothes. He yanked off his coat, waistcoat and shirt in a frenzy of movement. Frantic fingers made quick work of his trouser buttons. And then finally, thankfully, he was dragging the trousers down over his hips, freeing his erection. Forest green wool crumpled at his ankles and he hastily kicked it off.

  The savage in him wanted to part her thighs and sink endlessly into her. But in some lucid functioning part of his brain, he remembered she was a virgin. He had to take it slow.

  He groaned into the lower curve of her breast when his cock brushed the sheltering hair between her thighs. He could almost feel her tightness wrapped around him, taking him deep, squeezing him.

  Her pants came more rapidly now. She inched her legs apart and he gently pressed them wider as his lips coasted down from the tip of her breast over the peach warmed skin of her belly. Her breath stuttered when his lips reached the tender skin above her sex. With his shoulders, he forced her open to him.

  “No, you mustn’t.” She was staring at him, her expression stricken with embarrassment. “I’m wet.” The two words were pained, barely audible. It must have cost her the Earth to utter them.

  “That’s alright,” he soothed, parting her soft, pink flesh with his fingers. “So is my tongue.”

  And with that he licked her.

  She emitted a high keening sound. Bewildered. Aroused. Her hips jerked, her back coming clear off the bed. Derek stayed with her, steadying her hips in his hand as he licked, tongued and sucked her until she was babbling incoherently, her head thrashing against the pillow. Hips, slim and giving, demanded, cajoled, pled for satisfaction, wider, granting him full access to her swollen, wet heat. He tortured her with long languid strokes before catching the sensitive nub at the hood of her sex between his lips. He worried it with his tongue and then enclosed it in his mouth. He suckled her once, sending her into a paroxysm of pleasure. Her cry, high and plaintive, sounded as if it had been ripped from her throat. Her back bowed tight before she let out a shuddering breath. Then she went limp beneath him, satiated and spent.

  God she was glorious. Derek wanted to watch her come again. He wanted to be inside her when she did.

  He placed on last kiss on her damp center. She whimpered and her hips undulated in response as she plowed her fingers through his hair. He forced himself to go slow, kissing his way back up her body to swell of her breasts before taking the nipple between his teeth.

  “Oh God, Derek.”

  The thrust of her hips grew in urgency, her nails scoring his scalp, his neck and then sinking into his back. In minutes, she was ready again.

  He released her nipple and positioned himself between her thighs, his cock so hard it hurt. He dragged it over her wet folds and her eyes fluttered open. What he saw in them froze him in place.

  Bloody hell, he didn’t want her affection. It was bad enough he didn’t even know what he felt for her anymore. And if he took her virginity…

  Derek started to pull away but her legs locked around his waist and her arms manacled his neck.

  He groaned. “I can’t,” he ground the words through clenched teeth as he held himself still against squirming, soft female flesh when all he wanted to do was slide into her.

  “I need you,” she whispered, panting, her mouth next to his ear. Then she ducked her head and began kissing the side of his neck and bucking her hips until she had his cock prisoned between her legs, snug up against her mound.

  Derek’s arms trembled but not from physical strain, propped above her as he was trying to play the saint when there wasn’t a saintly bone in his body when it came to her.

  “Take me.” She followed her whimpered command by nipping him on the neck and sliding her hands down his back to grab hold of his buttocks.

  Derek couldn’t take a second more of her torture. In a flash, he had her arms pinned above her head. If he let her touch him right now, it would be over much too soon.

  But she didn’t need her hands to excite him and when she arched against him, demanding her bliss, he thrust hard into her and was encased in her slick heat.

  “Sweet Lord, Elizabeth.” She was tight. He gritted his teeth as he strived for control. His exit was excruciating slow for he wanted to savor the feel of her, memorize the way her muscles contracted around him. His reentry was swift and jolting.

  She gasped, her eyes again closed, her face a picture in ecstasy and her hair a silken tangle on white bed sheets.

  Derek experienced pleasure beyond belief. And all too soon his mind released its control to his hips as he pounded into her.

  The moment he registered the tremors of her release—the sweet pulsing around his cock—he came utterly and completely undone, giving himself up to an orgasm that wracked his body inside out, wringing him dry. His usual finesse had long abandoned him, and he came down hard on her, drained as he’d never been.

  He’d been having sex since the age of fourteen. Sex touched every one of his senses and he knew the feelings each elicited intimately.

  Swiftly, he rolled from atop her.

  This had not been sex.

  It took several minutes to recover, for her body to become her own again, moving under her directive and not his.

  Collapsed beside her liked a man who’d been felled by a much greater force, Derek’s chest continued to heave, his breaths frequent and ragged.

  Outside, the sun had set leaving the room faintly lit by candlelight. Cooling air prickled her sweat-dampened skin. She shivered and reached for the dark green counterpane, a poor substitute for what she really wanted.

  In the aftermath of his climax, he’d all but thrown himself from her, their only contact was where the hair on his thigh brushed the baby fine hair on hers. Why hadn’t he drawn her into his
arms? Was this not the time to pepper her face with tender kisses?

  He turned to look at her and nothing in his expression spoke of a man who’d just taken her as if the pleasure of it had to see him through the next ten years. He quickly returned his gaze to the ceiling, one hand propped behind his head.

  “Elizabeth Ann Smith, you grew up in Penkridge, Staffordshire in a small cottage with a small parlor and no servants. You have an older sister named Madeline who became acquainted with my younger brother, Henry. She came close to ruining his life,” he said in a very flat voice.

  Shock rendered her mute and deathly still. Her heart, not yet returned to its normal rhythm, began an erratic thumping in her chest.

  Instinctively, her trembling hands yanked the counterpane up to cover her breasts. She bolted to a sitting position.

  He allowed his words to permeate before angling a glance in her direction, his eyes cold and remote. “Tell me, Elizabeth, do I have my facts correct?”

  Oh God, he knew, was her first painful thought.

  But yet he’d made love to her.

  How long had he known? came a more disquieting question.

  And then she knew.

  “How long have you known? From the beginning?” Elizabeth desperately needed the answer, yet didn’t really want to know.

  “Long enough.” His tone was brisk and no nonsense.

  She clutched the sheet closer to her, now too aware of her nakedness. “So all this time you were—”

  “Don’t you dare try and turn this on me,” he warned between clenched teeth, rising swiftly from the bed. “I was not the one pretending to be someone I’m not.”

  He located his discarded clothes and began yanking them on. His movements were hurried and abrupt as if he couldn’t wait to remove himself from her presence.

  “I never once pretended with you. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid. I knew you’d think—”

  “That you are as much a liar and a conniver as your sister.”

  Elizabeth’s head jerked back, his words as hurtful as a physical blow. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “Just as you accepted your brother’s word as truth because he is your blood, I feel the same about my sister. I won’t sit here while you malign her character.”

  “I notice you didn’t deny that you are a liar and a conniver.”

  “I’m not,” she whispered in a choked voice. She was living her worst nightmare, the one day she’d feared the most. “And what of you? Yes, you’re correct, I didn’t tell you who I was because I knew how you feel about my family. But that is the full extent of my sins. I didn’t set to hurt you but you deliberately set out not merely to hurt me, but to ruin me.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. If he possessed a conscience under all his condescension and judgment, she might have thought it had just been pricked.

  “I am no longer a virgin.” But in truth, she’d lost more than her virginity the past hour.

  He gave a dark laugh and sent her a sidelong glance as he tugged on his trousers. “I did not take your virginity.”

  Elizabeth blinked certain she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “But you did.” It wasn’t so much as statement as it was a protest.

  In a sweeping motion, he gestured toward the bed sheets. “Where is the blood? In any case, I tried to stop but you wouldn’t let me go. Did you forget how you were, scratching, biting to get your way,” he cruelly reminded her. “I’m no bloody saint. When a beautiful woman begs me to make love to her, who am I to refuse her.”

  Elizabeth’s face burned as she vacillated between shock and shame. In the end, she’d been the sexual aggressor, lustful, demanding and greedy. But despite her behavior and the sexual fire he’d been responsible in igniting in her, she had been a virgin.

  “Exactly how many virgins have you had?”

  He stilled in tucking his shirt into his trousers. His face was in profile so she couldn’t see his eyes to try to read him.

  After a moment’s silence, he resumed dressing. When his clothes were in order, he turned and faced her. “You’ve played me for a fool once. I’ll not let it happen again.” His tone held a bitter, hard edge. “I will leave you to dress and await you downstairs.”

  The door clicked closed seconds later and she was alone. But for the unfamiliar ache between her thighs, she felt alone and numb.

  The tears fell then. They fell slowly at first before becoming a constant stream, vivid reminders of the crippling pain of heartbreak.

  He had deceived her, exacting his vengeance by targeting her where she was weakest. Her desire for him. But she could blame no one but herself for what had taken place tonight. It had been a risky and dangerous game of who would blink first. She’d done a great deal more than blink and for that he would make sure she paid.

  Dear Lord, what was she going to do?

  She heard his footsteps downstairs where he was undoubtedly impatiently pacing the hall.

  Elizabeth scrambled off the bed. At present, she hadn’t the time to indulge in self-pity and a good bout of weeping.

  As she dressed, she tried not to think about what had occurred on the bed. But for all her attempts to keep the memories at bay, they flooded her thoughts vivid and hot.

  She had thought the first time would be painful. That had not been the case. His initial possession had caused a tinge of discomfort, but that had been swept away under a storm of pleasure. So much pleasure.

  No, don’t think of it.

  In order to slip her dress over her head, she had to leave half the buttons unfastened. She pulled on her pelisse and buttoned it up to her neck to hide the way the bodice sagged in the front. She then bundled her mussed hair under her bonnet.

  There, she was finished but not ready to face him. Summoning up her courage, she exited the room and descended the stairs.

  Derek stood rigid as a palace guard by the front door. His expression was closed and his eyes cold. They proceeded to the carriage parked in front of the residence and completed the journey back to Laurel House in silence.

  Upon their arrival at the manor, the viscount insisted on escorting her to the door over her vehement protests. One would imagine he’d be happy to see the back of her.

  Why must he insist on torturing me more than he’s already done?

  Just when Elizabeth had thought the day could not possibly get worse, the front door swung open to reveal her mother standing on the other side.

  Chapter Nine

  “Mama!” It wasn’t a greeting. Elizabeth had glimpsed her face in the mirror of the vanity in the bedchambers, and her eyes were red-rimmed, her face a mottled mess.

  “Lizzie,” her mother practically shrieked in delight.

  Soon Elizabeth was enfolded in slender arms, breathing in the scent of her mother’s favorite perfume. It reminded her of lilies and the tiny garden they’d had at their home in Penkridge.

  Considered a beauty in her time, her mother had managed to maintain much of her looks, her complexion smooth, her brown eyes crinkled lightly at the corners and her hair, light brown and subtly streaked with gray.

  Elizabeth found herself hugging her mother’s slight frame tightly, suddenly homesick and craving the warmth and loving security of family. But she refused to get misty eyed, especially in front of the viscount.

  Her mother set her away from her. “Are you surprised?”

  “Mama, what are you doing here? What about the house?”

  “I didn’t receive a letter from you the week past. You know how I worry.”

  “But I posted it.” Her mother would use any excuse to come to London. But their new residence had been in desperate need of renovations. And her mother trusted no one to oversee the effort and that included Elizabeth’s father and sister, Rebecca.

  “I did receive a letter from Teresa.”

  Mrs. Abernathy. Elizabeth suppressed a groan. That explained everything.

  It was only then that her mother directed her attention to Derek. He ha
dn’t left but stood quietly behind them watching their reunion.

  “Who is this, Lizzie?” Her mother’s smile welcomed the viscount. It was obvious she didn’t recognize him.

  An awkward silence followed. Her mother’s smile fell as her gaze darted between them. Two lines formed on her brow.

  “Mama, this is Lord Derek Creswell.”

  A sharpened gaze returned to the viscount. Comprehension dawned on her mother’s face. She stood back and switched her scrutiny to Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth was immediately conscious of her half-buttoned gown under her pelisse and her disheveled hair under her bonnet.

  “Then it would appear the viscount and I are acquainted,” her mother’s voice had iced over.

  Derek acknowledged the fact with a terse nod.

  “Elizabeth, remove your things and let us all adjourn to the drawing room where we can speak in private. If Lord Creswell has no objections,” her mother added.

  There was no way she could remove either the bonnet or the pelisse. And she was certain her sharp-eyed mother was aware of it.

  “Mrs. Smi—Lady Bartlett, I’d prefer to speak with you in private.”

  Relief made Elizabeth almost light-headed. Before her mother could form a response, Elizabeth turned and fled up the stairs and straight into the privacy of her bedchamber.

  Lady Bartlett was exactly as Derek remembered her. A petite thing who carried herself with a regal grace that suggested her origins had not been working class or even gentry. Six years ago, he’d thought she’d been simply putting on airs. He wasn’t so certain of it now.

  Upon entering the drawing room, she dismissed the maid dusting around the fireplace. She settled herself on the sofa and then motioned for him to take a seat.

  Derek obliged her, ready for charges that he’d compromised her daughter and demands for a marriage. Six years later, the players were different, but the scenario unchanged.

  “Lord Creswell, have you compromised my daughter?” she asked in a most civilized tone.