by Multi-Author
She drew back, confusion lining her face. “And what is that?”
He reached into his jacket and took a long breath before he retrieved the envelope he had placed there earlier in the day. He held it out to her wordlessly.
She moved on him and took it gently. “What is this?”
“Open it,” he urged, turning away as heat flooded his cheeks. The humiliation of this moment was almost too much to bear…but it would be worth it if it proved to Amelia how much he meant every word he said.
She slowly broke the seal and took out the paper within. She read over the contents and then looked up at him in surprise.
“This is…” She hesitated. “Stephen, this is an account in my name containing a thousand pounds.”
He turned back. “Yes, it contains the first in a schedule of payments that will return the entirety of the dowry I took when I wed you.”
She looked at the paper again and then back to him. “I don’t understand.”
He shifted. “I will return the money to you, with interest, Amelia. I cannot do it all at once, but I am not my father. I have invested that money well and I believe it will be very possible for me to return the principle, plus a reasonable rate of interest, within four years.”
She said nothing but kept looking down at the paper, then back up at him. “But…but the money was yours, Stephen. You fulfilled your part of the marriage bargain and you do not owe it back.”
He swallowed hard. “Not to your father, no. But to you, I believe I do. You’ll also find enclosed a statement I signed that does not allow me to touch a farthing in that account under any circumstances. This is not frivolous pin money, Amelia. I hope you will see it as a genuine desire on my part to make up for how deeply I hurt you.”
“But you need—” she began.
He turned his face. “I’ll rebuild my family fortune. It will just take time. Trust me, I desire your good opinion more than I desire a quick solution to problems caused by my father.”
She said nothing for so long that Stephen finally forced himself to look at her. She slowly crossed the room to him and stopped when their chests nearly touched. He could smell her from this distance, sweet and heat merged together in a tempting combination.
She lifted to her tiptoes, cupped his cheeks and drew him down until their lips met. Hers opened and she darted her tongue out to touch the crease of his mouth.
He was lost with that shockingly erotic exploration. His arms came around her and he dragged her flat against him, opening himself to her, drowning in her and praying silently that this kiss was the beginning of something better between them.
Chapter 6
AMELIA HAD NEVER been so bold, but in that moment she didn’t give a damn about propriety or whether or not she looked like a wanton. Stephen’s confession had moved her, and the fact that making it was clearly an exercise in humiliation moved her even more. She knew full well that a man like him didn’t often experience this kind of shame.
And yet he had allowed himself to be subjugated for her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted into him, her body wiping clean the tangled thoughts in her mind and leaving behind only desire. Desire to be truly joined with him rather than merely teased.
She broke the kiss and slid her hands over the firm muscles of his shoulders, his chest. She slid her fingers beneath his fitted jacket and all but growled at the warmth she found trapped there.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching her like a hunter stalking his prey. Only she didn’t feel much like an innocent rabbit at that moment.
“I’m removing your clothing,” she whispered as she unfastened the jacket and pushed it from his shoulders so that it fell at his feet in a heap.
He drew back in surprise, and for a moment Amelia’s heart skipped a beat in fear that he would deny her, but then a tiny smile tilted his full lips.
“I didn’t…I didn’t tell you these things so you would do this,” he said, but he didn’t stop her as she began to loosen his cravat.
She glanced up, locking gazes with him. “Do you think I’m touching you out of pity, my lord? If so, you couldn’t be further from the mark. I do this—” She tugged the cravat free and began to pull the shirt from his trouser waistband. “—for my pleasure.”
He muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath, though she was fairly certain it was a salty curse, then his mouth dropped back to hers. Heat seemed to swirl between them as she glided her hands under his shirt and dragged her fingers across the defined muscles of his toned stomach. He hissed out a breath against her mouth and then stepped back to tug the shirt over his head.
She swallowed a groan as she looked at him half-naked. He was a specimen, hard in all the right places, and she had the most shocking desire to touch him, stroke him, lick him. She leaned forward and let her fingers rub over him again, dipping into the spaces between muscles as he grunted a pained sound of desire.
“I think the trousers next,” she managed to squeak out as she slid her hands down his stomach and teased along the waist of his breeches.
He shook his head, but he was smiling. “I did not realize I took such a demanding bride.”
She met his gaze. “You’ve only yourself to blame. I have become much more demanding after the torture I’ve endured since my arrival here, my lord.”
“Torture?” he asked, his tone all innocence even as his gaze lit up with wickedness. “Whatever could you mean?”
She managed to free the first fastener of his trousers, no easy feat with his heavy erection pressing firmly against the front of them. As she went to work on the second, she said, “I arrive here to your teasing and pleasuring and touching, but you never let me have…”
She grunted as she opened the trouser front and his hardness bobbed free. She stared at it for a moment before she whispered, “…this.”
His eyes widened as he shoved his trousers off and kicked them aside. “You considered my pleasuring you torture?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps that is too strong a term. It was quite satisfying torture, of course.” She forced herself to stop staring at the jutting length of his member and into his face. “But when you do not take me it feels like…like a wall remains between us.”
He frowned. “Then allow me to take down that wall. Right here. Right now.”
His mouth was on hers again in an instant and his fingers on the buttons that fastened the gorgeous dress he had gifted to her not an hour before. He made quick work of the gown and her underthings beneath, and soon she was as naked as he was.
He gathered her against him, letting her feel the velvety steel of his body rubbing her belly as he backed her toward the settee where he had made his confession. He laid her back and then lowered himself over her, bracing his weight on his hands as he looked down at her.
“I fear I’ll have no control once I’m finally inside of you again,” he whispered.
She opened her legs wider and lifted until his erection just nudged her sex. She shivered at the teasing feel of him.
“I want you to lose control,” she murmured. “You’ve had far too much of it.”
He stared at her, his unreadable gaze moving over her face like he was trying to memorize it, then his mouth came to hers again. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him down. He made a quick adjustment and then he began to ease inside her sex.
She quivered at the feeling she had waited for these past six months. He stretched her just as he had on that night so long ago, but this time there was no pain of the taking of her virginity. There was only slick, hard heat filling her, intensified when he fully seated himself inside of her.
For a moment he drew back and stared at her. “I’ve waited for this for so long,” he murmured.
Tears sprang to her eyes at the confession, and she reached up to touch his rough cheek. “Then take it, Stephen.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and rotated his hips, slowly at first, though she could see how much
it pained him to take his time. She smiled, for she knew he was doing that for her. And God, but it was a gift. With every swivel of his cock within her, her pleasure built, multiplied, made her arch beneath him and tremble. She squeezed her inner muscles around him, clinging to him with every stroke.
He grunted in response. “Amelia, I can’t…I’ll-”
She dug her fingernails into his bare shoulders and shivered. “Don’t wait, Stephen, please!”
Her order was enough, it seemed. He began to move in earnest. His hips flexed as he drove into her with a smooth, unrelenting rhythm. The pleasure swirled inside of her, focused between her trembling legs. It built at rapid speed and suddenly, almost without warning, the explosion of orgasm ripped through her.
She clung to his shoulders as his movements became erratic and less controlled. Every jerk of his body inside of hers dragged her pleasure out longer, made the sensation stronger until he cried out her name and the heated splash of his seed finally extinguished the rising fire of their joining.
He remained above her for a few moments, his panting breaths merging with her own as he pressed his forehead to hers. But finally he rolled away, drawing her against his side on the narrow settee.
“I want to tell you one more thing,” he said after he had held her for some time, the room quiet as they each reflected on what they had shared.
She looked up at him. His face was very serious and her heart leapt with worry. She could only hope this one thing more wouldn’t ruin what they’d begun to rebuild.
“What is it?”
He cleared his throat. “I-I love you, Amelia.” He glanced down at her briefly, but darted his gaze away as he added, “There is no reason for you to feel the same way, of course. I have given you no cause to share your heart. But I wanted you to know that I do feel this way. I have for some months now. I love you and I want you to come home, to live with me as my wife. Please.”
Amelia sat up on one elbow and stared down at him, her eyes wide and her heart now swelling not with fear but intense joy.
“You idiotic man,” she said softly, tracing his lips with her fingers.
His gaze went dark and desperate, and she hastened to explain herself.
“Do you really think I would storm from our martial home, all but from our marital bed, when you hurt me if I didn’t love you?” she asked. “Great God, Stephen, I have loved you likely from the first moment you paid me attention. I’ve loved you more each day we were apart, even when I didn’t want to feel that way any more. And since coming here, I have cursed myself because I’ve fallen even more deeply in love despite my inability to fathom your intentions.”
He shook his head as if in disbelief. “You love me?”
She smiled. “I do, husband. And I will come home with you. And I will also use this repayment you insist on making to me as a way to improve our lives and the lives of your family because I love you and want to be your succor in times of sorrow, your partner in times of joy. Your wife.”
He gave a small shout as he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, nearly crushing her in the power and relief of his embrace. She pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder, letting joyful tears soak into his naked flesh, letting her wide smile of happiness fill the space between them.
When he parted from her, his smile was just as wide. “And you are certain?”
She laughed at his doubt. The fact that she made him hesitate was proof enough he loved her. And that gave her a joy she had never before felt.
“I am as certain about this as I have ever been of anything,” she said softly. “And since our families won’t arrive for four long days, I hope you’ll allow me to prove my heart…and that you’ll attempt to further prove your own, again and again and again.”
Now the uncertainty fled his face and was replaced by arrogant sensuality. An expression her body responded to instantly, despite how recently he had claimed her. He drew her down across his chest, his lips a fraction of an inch from her own as he whispered, “That would be my great pleasure my wife, my love, my Amelia.”
THE END
If you enjoyed A Christmas Kiss, please turn the page for an excerpt of A Measure of Deceit in the Ladies Book of Pleasures series.
More From Jess Michaels
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Excerpt – A Measure of Deceit
Ladies Book of Pleasures, Book 3
December 9, 2014
A MOMENT OF air was what she needed. At the very least, the brisk feel of it across her skin would shake her from these strange thoughts.
Only it didn’t.
She rested her arms against the cold, rough stone of the balcony edge and sighed. “Idiot,” she muttered.
“Are you referring to yourself or to me?” came a voice behind her. A voice with lilting Scottish undertones that made her thighs clench and unwanted wetness pool in her sex.
She turned and faced Connor, watching as he slowly closed the terrace door and created a privacy she didn’t wish to share with him. Well, she did wish to share it, but she couldn’t. Shouldn’t.
“You followed me?” she asked, trying to maintain that haughty tone she had begun to use with him, hoping it would be a shield so he wouldn’t see the truth.
He nodded once. “I would be remiss if I didn’t. After all, I seem to have greatly offended you, Grace.”
He said her name and she should have corrected him, perhaps even set him in his place where he belonged, but instead she stopped breathing. Her name coming from his lips was seduction in itself. Thanks to his accent, he rolled the R in Grace, and it felt like he had just rolled his tongue over her flesh.
She could hardly breathe as she stood there, mutely staring at him.
He moved a step closer. “Or is it the book itself which offends you? I assure you, you would not be the first to feel that way.”
She parted her lips, but no sound would come, and he stepped closer again.
“Or perhaps your friends are wrong when they say you could never be outraged by a man with as lowly a situation as my own mixing amongst those of power and privilege.”
Grace jolted at that accusation and at the expression in his emerald eyes when he said it. She saw a brief glimpse of the judgment he must have endured during his life. Her heart ached with empathy for him and shame in herself.
Now she was the one that took the step toward him, and suddenly he was so close that his body heat warmed her and she could smell his skin. “Mr. Sheridan—”
“Connor.”
He smiled, making that dimple pop in his cheek yet again. Her body responded accordingly and inappropriately, and she prayed that the heavy fabric of her bodice wouldn’t betray the fact that her nipples were now hard.
She swallowed past a suddenly dry throat and began again. “Mr. Sheridan, I assure you neither the book you have edited nor your person has caused offense to me. Certainly your position in Society means nothing to me. If I have led you to believe otherwise, then I truly apologize for my bad behavior.”
He drew back in surprise at that answer. Another man might have just accepted the apology and gone back inside to leave her to her reverie, but she could see he was not that man.
He was far too intelligent.
If you enjoyed this excerpt VISIT HERE for more info!
Loving Michael
The Diable Delamere series 2.5
by
Kate Pearce
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Author’s Note
Dear Readers,
I hope you enjoy this short story about Michael and Angelique who make a Christmas wager they will never forget. If you want more, please check out ‘Educating Elizabeth’ and ‘Redeemin
g Jack’, books one and two of the Diable Delamere Regency romance series on my website. And please join my mailing list if you want to be notified first about all my new writing ventures and the upcoming part three of the series, ‘Awakening Amelia’.
I also want to thank all the other authors in this set for contributing such amazing stories and for sharing their Holiday delights with us all.
Enjoy!
Kate x
Blurb
Since returning from the Peninsular wars, Michael Waterstone has learned to live within restricted boundaries and taught himself not to yearn for what he can never have. Fortunately for him, ex-courtesan Angelique Delisle is no respecter of boundaries of any kind, and offers him a provocative Christmas wager that might change his life forever...
Chapter 1
MICHAEL WATERSTONE FLEXED his fingers, gripped his quill pen, and started yet another letter his employer, the Duke of Diable Delamere, wanted him to finish before the end of the day. In truth, Michael enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of his work, but sometimes on days like today when the winter sun was shining and the sky was a crisp blue, he wanted nothing more than to fling his inkpot out the window and climb out after it.
Unfortunately, that was not possible.
The sound of raised voices had him looking toward the door of his office and carefully returning his dripping pen to the inkpot. His sister Elizabeth’s marriage to the Duke of Diable Delamere was nothing short of miraculous, but one could hardly describe their union as easy.
His sister was intelligent and opinionated. The duke even more so, and half-French, which made their disagreements both frequent and predictable. Michael held his breath as his sister sailed into his office, talking over her shoulder at her spouse who didn’t appear to be amused by whatever edict Elizabeth was citing.
“Michael.” Elizabeth came to a halt in front of his desk. “Tell him.”