“About other men wanting you?”
“Yes.”
He thought for a moment, then answered honestly, “Proud. Smug. Protective. Ridiculously pleased with myself, like a child who’s been singled out for a special prize. I feel utterly unworthy, and yet I would fight to the death if someone tried to take you away from him.”
“You feel all that?”
“Yes. That’s only the beginning.”
The air felt suddenly charged between them, fused by desire and lit by the heat of their bodies. Brianna’s small, pink tongue darted out as she licked her bottom lip. “I see. How fascinating.”
Jonathon nearly groaned aloud. “This is where male courtship gets interesting,” he forced himself to continue, his eyes not leaving hers. “Staking territorial claims is a critical part of the whole ritual. One must do it properly.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was a territory. Or that ours was a courtship.”
“Really? How remiss of me. But I’ll have to remedy that later. Right now I have to convey to those gentlemen in no uncertain terms that you belong to me. That if either of them risks so much as an untoward word to you, let alone tries to touch you, I am likely to tear him apart limb-by-limb.”
“My. That sounds awfully feral.” She paused, eyeing him curiously. “And exactly how do you intend to accomplish this?”
“By touching you in a way that can only be interpreted as a lover’s caress.”
“In public?” Her voice was an intoxicating mixture of alarm and anticipation.
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
A beat. “All right.” She cast a glance at the two curious gentlemen, then leaned slightly forward. “Go on then,” she said, her voice a breathy dare.
Excitement spiked through Jonathon. God, this woman. They were playing a risqué game—flaunting their desire, breaking all of society’s rules—but she liked it. Perhaps as much as he did.
He lifted his hand to caress her cheek, then brought it lower. He brushed his knuckles along her collarbone, then moved lower still, his fingertips lightly tracing the tops of her breasts. She swayed slightly Her eyelids fluttered shut. A small, feline smile curved her lips.
“Don’t,” she purred, leaning into him.
“Don’t?”
“Stop. Please don’t stop.”
Jonathon’s cock went rock hard. Their titillating little game was over. Love and lust, pride and possession, collided within him. In that single, explosive moment, everything changed. In the shadow of his friend’s castle, with his hand hovering above Brianna’s breast, he felt goddamned noble. He wanted to slay dragons for this woman. Drape jewels about her neck. Thrust his throbbing cock between her thighs. Tattoo her name above his heart. Claim her in every way a man could claim a woman.
“This way.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the crowds and festivities, leading her toward the rear gardens. While he’d never attended Michaelmas celebrations, he’d been a guest of Richard’s often enough to remember the lay of the estate. Although he’d found the castle itself rather grim and foreboding, the landscapers had created a lovely labyrinth of tall shrubbery, shadowy alcoves, and dappled sunlight. Perfect for the sort of tryst he envisioned.
He ducked into a pocket oasis with a gurgling fountain. It was framed by a curved wall, which would serve nicely to give them a modicum of privacy. Without a word, he captured one of Brianna’s slender wrists, then the other, holding them both over her head. He pressed her back against the wall and thrust his knee between her skirts, imprisoning her beneath him.
“Jonathon,” she said—amazing, the tiny thrill that shot through him at the sound of his name on her lips—“are you sure we should be here?”
“No.”
“No?”
He lowered his head and began to nuzzle the side of her neck. “We’re being very wicked.”
“Are we?” She pulled back slightly, searching his gaze. Excitement sparkled in her dark eyes. “How wonderful.”
Jonathon felt his breath catch. Sweet Jesus. How much could a man take? And where would it end? In the brief walk from the common grounds to the secluded gardens, his lust for her had grown, expanding and curling into something far more reckless and compelling.
The mere touch of his lips on her throat was enough to ignite a fire within him. He swept his tongue into her mouth. Her body melted against his. Her response was hot, scorching, her kiss an open confession of burning need. He continued to entrap her wrists above her head, pinning her between the wall and the solid masculine length of his body, holding her there for him to claim.
All sense of place and propriety evaporated as she thrust her breasts against his chest. Pressed her thighs against his. She wanted to be captured. Taken. Right there, in that instant, no matter who might see them.
He felt his cock stiffen and swell against her belly. The knowledge that he could arouse her as she was arousing him filled him with an intoxicating combination of power and pride. He tore his mouth away from hers, hungrily pressing a trail of kisses along the smooth column of her throat.
He brought one hand beneath her emerald skirts. He drew his fingers over her ankle and up her calf, following the seam of her stocking. He felt a shiver run through her as he traced a path along the back of her knee, then continued up her leg. Finally he reached the lovely space where her stockings ended and her flesh was bare. His fingers teased the soft, creamy skin of her inner thigh. He brushed the delicate curls that covered her sex, then slipped one long finger inside her.
Brianna gave a startled whimper, followed by a raspy moan. She clamped her thighs shut, imprisoning his hand between her legs. Delicious tension rocketed through him. He slipped his fingers between the slick pink folds of her sex, then toyed with the sensitive nub at the entrance to her channel. She rewarded him with another whimper, a kitten-like release of warm breath against his shoulder.
Then she uttered a single word: “Yes.” Again and again. “Yes, yes, yes.” Her skirts rustled as she bucked against his hand.
The scent of her arousal perfumed the air around them. He could come right then, right there, his britches still fully fastened, if he wasn’t careful. He drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He wasn’t ready to stop. Not near ready.
He teased her, massaging the wet, glistening pearl hidden within the folds of her sex, lifting her to the brink of orgasm and then pulling back. Finally Brianna could take no more. She struggled free of his grasp on her wrists and reached for the buttons on his shirt, unfastening them one by one. She trailed hungry kisses over his throat and down his chest, nipping at his skin with her teeth, licking him with her tongue.
Jonathon let out a low moan and reached for the delicate buttons that ran down the front of her gown. Impatience careened through him and urgency made him fumble.
He wanted to bite off the damned buttons with his teeth and spit them out. To rip the garment from her body and liberate the silky skin beneath.
Finally he succeeded. He shoved her gown and chemise off her shoulders and slid them down her arms, letting the garments hang loosely about her waist, baring her breasts to the fading afternoon sunlight. He feasted on the sight before him. Smooth, silky skin, delicate shoulders, and saucy, pert breasts capped with dark pink areolas and tight, delectable nipples.
Naked greed overwhelmed him. He bent low and took her left nipple in his mouth. Brianna drew in a sharp breath and arched her back. She dug her nails into his scalp as he laved the nipple with his mouth, sucking and twirling his tongue around the sweet pink bud until it rose stiff and hard. He found a new game: alternating his warm breath with the cool autumn air until shivers wracked her body. He brushed the tip of his teeth lightly over the erect peak, drawing a low moan of approval from Brianna. Then he lavished the same loving attention on her right breast.
Jonathon drew back and studied her in the dappled afternoon sunlight. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks f
lushed, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her skirts tumbled and her thighs exposed. She looked wanton. Entirely indecent. Achingly beautiful. She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly pleasured, and loved every moment of it. But who still needed more.
He unbuttoned his trousers. His cock sprang out, firm and hard and pulsing with life. Pushing aside her skirts, he thrust himself inside her with a force that lifted her onto her toes. Brianna gave a throaty cry and grabbed his shoulders for support. With her back pressed against the wall, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him, locking her heels together at his waist, giving him greater access to her silky depths.
He drove into her again and again, long, rhythmic thrusts that elicited soft moans from Brianna. She threw back her head and dug her fingernails into his shoulders. He felt her sheath tighten around his cock in tiny spasms. She cried out, trembling as she came. Her orgasm was fast and hard and furious, a shuddering rapture that triggered his own. He came immediately after. His muscles contorting with glorious release, he gave one final thrust and poured his seed into her.
Spent and exhausted, thoroughly sated, they collapsed at the base of the brick wall. Sitting side-by-side, they drew in deep, ragged breaths. After a moment they exchanged a glance. A glance that spoke volumes—a glance so obviously full of cocky pride and smug satisfaction at the caliber of their lovemaking that they both burst out laughing.
As he gathered Brianna onto his lap, Jonathon was struck by the realization that he’d never laughed with a woman after making love. How extraordinary to discover that the act of laughing together afterward could be nearly as enjoyable as the sex itself.
Chapter Sixteen
“You look perfect,” Jonathon assured her as he led her away from the walled alcove.
Brianna smiled at the compliment but couldn’t help wishing for a mirror. Impossible to believe that some evidence of their coupling wasn’t immediately apparent. Yes, she’d tidied her hair, fastened her bodice, and brushed the leaves from her skirts, but surely some sign of what had just transpired was still visible. It simply wasn’t possible for her to feel this way—her joy so abundant she felt as though she were walking on air—without some physical manifestation of it on her person for all the world to see.
Jonathon reached for her hand and caught it in his. He brushed his lips against her temple. “Ready?”
She nodded. They left the gardens and returned to the Michaelmas celebrations, pausing as a boisterous crowd passed before them. A parade of some sort. In the center of it all, two teams of horses pulled distinctly different wagons: one carried an enormous effigy of a very righteous angel, the other a dark, monstrous figure which emanated both rage and defeat.
She sent Jonathon a questioning glance.
He smiled. “I suppose you never had Michaelmas celebrations in Canton, did you?”
Brianna shook her head. Drums and fireworks, yes. Glowing paper lanterns and silk dragons, yes. But this… definitely not. “What is it?”
“A victory celebration,” he explained. “According to legend, on this day a fierce battle took place between the archangel Michael and Satan. Michael drove the devil from heaven and forever after consigned him to the lowest regions of hell.”
She watched as the exuberant crowd of celebrants rolled past them like tidal wave. They left in their wake a small party of expensively dressed men and women. Brianna glanced at the group and would have turned away, but one woman in particular caught her attention. She was a striking brunette dressed in a gown of rich, shimmering russet. The woman’s gaze locked on Jonathon. Her brows furrowed as her expression shifted from confusion, to shock, to delighted surprise.
“Lord Brooksbank! Is that you?! Over here!”
Brianna felt Jonathon stiffen beside her. He turned. “Bloody hell,” he murmured beneath his breath.
His hand slipped from hers. Just dropped away. There was no sharp tug, no quick jerk, just a loosening of their fingers and the lowering of his hand to his side, as though their limbs had not been tangled just moments earlier, as though their bodies had not melded into one, as though nothing had passed between them at all.
Nothing. The word sliced through Brianna’s heart and settled stone-like within her chest.
The group of expensively dressed men and women, perhaps seven or eight in number, crowded around them.
“Lord Brooksbank, what a surprise! We had no idea we’d find you here!”
They welcomed Jonathon into their midst, their faces alight with both curiosity and good humor. They took in his clothing with an air of expectant laughter, as though that was sort of jest he would normally play—blending in with the common rabble. So outrageously amusing.
Flashes of words and explanations circled above Brianna’s head. Questions were answered in only the vaguest terms: Separated from his traveling companions, an unfortunate mishap with thieves, left without funds… All told with a lively air, as though the experience had been part of some amusing adventure.
Not a Grand Adventure at all. Just a petty, mildly amusing one. A high-spirited lark. Brianna took that in, and then something else: Lord Brooksbank, they said. My lord. Not Mr. Brooks. Certainly not Jonathon.
Her mind reeled. Lord Brooksbank. A viscount.
But he had told her that, hadn’t he? He had. Of course he had. Not only had he told her (and she hadn’t listened) the proof of who he really was had been there all along: his unconscious air of authority, his educated manner of speech, his breezy, almost careless charm, as though the relationship between action and consequence held no sway in his world. Then there had been his unshakeable confidence that he could have whatever he wanted: a warm bed, a good meal… her.
So lost was she in her thoughts, she gave a start when she felt the slight brush of his fingers against her spine. It was the lightest of touches, a courtesy really, accompanied by a slight bow. He drew her closer to the group surrounding them. Jonathon, whose voice had been a low, warm tickle in her ear only minutes earlier, now formally explained her presence to strangers.
“May I present Mrs. Donnelly. She and I were introduced in Liverpool; her late husband was engaged in trade in Canton. It has been my privilege to escort her to London.”
A truth, but not a whole truth. Certainly not their truth.
She drew back her shoulders and stiffened her spine, drawing herself up to her full height (which regrettably was not very tall) as the group’s interested gazes lit on her. They regarded her with undisguised curiosity, surveying her from head-to-toe. Foreign. The word seemed to float in the air around her. An exotic specimen brought before them for their perusal. Speculative gazes shot between her and Jonathon. Their smiles shrunk, and the subtle lifting of an eyebrow or two was enough to tell her that she fell short of some indefinable standard.
Then they were hustled off amid murmurs of sympathy for their plight—sympathy Brianna didn’t want but couldn’t refuse. Swept away with happy assurances that the Unfortunate Episode that had brought her and Jonathon together was now behind them. Traveling by mail coach! How absurd! What stories they could tell!
Brianna’s throat tightened. Impossible to smile while she clenched her teeth, yet she found herself desperately endeavoring to do so. She brought up her chin. She would not fall apart. Not here. Not in front of this group of beautiful, boisterous strangers who clearly adored Jona—Viscount Brooksbank.
In no time at all he was surrounded by men, his friends and peers no doubt, all toothy grins and back-slapping good wishes, congratulating themselves on their helpfulness as they whisked him away. Strangers who were happily acquainted with Viscount Brooksbank. A man who was charming, titled, wealthy, and obviously popular with the London set. A man she really didn’t know at all.
Brianna found herself encircled by women, folded into their elegant, sophisticated set and swallowed by them, as though caught in a tide she didn’t have the strength to withstand.
Jonathon glanced over his shoulder and sent her a look she couldn�
�t begin to interpret. Unable to meet his gaze she looked away, looked down, looked anywhere but at him. Focused her attention on lifting her feet, carrying herself forward with as much dignity as she could muster.
She examined the scenery surrounding her: lush green lawns, serpentine stone walls, bubbling fountains, late-blooming autumn flowers. A castle perched on a hill. But rather than enjoy the beauty of the site, she recalled with startling intensity a moment from her childhood.
In a fit of rage against the British after they had brazenly violated yet another opium ban, the Emperor had ordered his troops to set fire to the foreign quarter in Canton. Brianna recalled standing on the docks with her parents, watching the fires rage, licking wood and shooting up sparks, her world collapsing around her in a blaze of heat. Swift, vicious, and final.
She’d been numb then, just as now. Unable to stop any of it.
* * *
Lady Warwick, accompanied by her maid, arrived to help Brianna dress for supper. While Brianna would have preferred to claim a headache and skip the whole ordeal, she was aware that to do so would insult her hostess’s kindness. And Lady Warwick had been nothing but welcoming, warm, and kind. Of course Brianna hadn’t a gown of her own—certainly nothing suitable for a formal dinner with an earl and his wife—so Lady Warwick had graciously lent her one of her own: “I haven’t been able to wear this since the birth of our third child. You have the figure I once had.”
And so Brianna found herself attired in a borrowed gown of shimmering gold silk which didn’t suit her at all (the cut did not flatter her frame, and the shade was all wrong for her coloring), but which had been so generously offered she couldn’t refuse.
The dinner proceeded in a similar fashion. A cavernous dining hall, a table so large it was positively medieval, meticulously prepared food (ten courses, though she certainly hadn’t tasted any of them), elegant guests, and white-gloved servants catering to their every need. Impeccable elegance everywhere she looked. And she had looked everywhere—except at Jonathon. She did not trust herself to meet his gaze.
Wicked Games (The Sun Never Sets Book 3) Page 15