The Defiant One

by Danelle Harmon

  His hand skimmed down her waist, moved out over the soft buckskin of her breeches where they covered her mound, and drove itself between her thighs, forcing them apart.

  "And here is another place that quite likes to be kissed," he murmured, rubbing her cleft through the breeches. "Another place where I shall quite enjoy putting my lips. My mouth. My tongue."

  "There? H-how can you even think such a thing?"

  The coach thundered on, its rocking movement causing her body to scrape against his, his hand to vibrate against her intimate flesh, and heightening the wild, prickly-hot sensations he was creating in her.

  "I will do more than just think it." He leaned close, so close she could see the starbursts of green that radiated out from his rust-colored irises, so close that the heat of his gaze drove right through her and impaled her with its intensity. "Let me tell you something, my dear Celsiana. Aphrodisiac or not, I have been wanting to peel these breeches off you from the moment you stepped out of the carriage. I have been wanting to touch those long, silky thighs, to trace the curve of your bottom, to slip my hand between your legs and feel you hot and wet with desire for me for the last agonizing hour."

  God help her, she was hot and wet with desire already; she could feel the moisture dampening her breeches, knew he felt it against his hand, and knew she ought to be mortified. But how could she be mortified when heat was rising from every pore in her skin, burning every blood vessel in her body, making her head feverish with longing? She gazed, fascinated, up into his intense eyes and felt her leg, bent at the knee, sag back against the squab; her other slid downward, off the seat, the ball of her foot just resting on the floorboards and leaving her wide-open to his questing fingers . . .

  "And I have been wanting to strip you naked and take you on the floor of this coach from the moment we entered it," he said roughly. "There is nothing you can say or do that will curb my desire for you. I want you. I need you. And I will have you."

  He bent his head, tasting her nipple once more, drawing it with a taut, ruthless pull into the hot cavern of his mouth even as his hand rubbed her through the breeches, hard, over and over again.

  "Oh," Celsie said faintly, sinking back into the seat and closing her eyes as her bones and muscles went liquid. "And here I thought you weren't interested in women . . . that the only thing you cared about was your science . . ."

  "I am interested in you. I just don't want to marry you. Nothing personal, of course," he murmured, the deep reverberations of his voice against her breast, her nipple, both tickling and exciting. "I don't want to marry anyone."

  "If marriage means getting to do this every day, then maybe it's not such a terrible thing after all," she breathed, watching him through half-lowered lashes as his tongue lazily circled her areola, the nipple in its center as hard as a dog's toenail. "If you married me, Andrew, could we do this every day?"

  "Every day and every night."

  "But we're not going to get married."

  "No. We are going to outsmart Lucien."

  "Yes. Outsmart Lucien . . ."

  "And make love." She gasped as he deftly unbuttoned her breeches and slid his fingers beneath the warm buckskin to find her silken mound. "Now."

  "Yes. Now . . ."

  His hands caught the waistband of her breeches in unspoken command. Through the fabric she could feel the warmth of his palms against her hips, the strength of his hands against her thighs. Celsie lifted her bottom from the seat, and slowly, agonizingly, he pulled the soft buckskin down her thighs, pushing them down to her knees and exposing her long white legs — and everything else — to his appraising gaze.

  He stared. His eyelids drooped. His breathing changed, and when he looked up at her, she saw that the little striations in his eyes had become very, very green.

  "No — keep them open," he said harshly, thrusting his hand between her thighs like a blade when she would have closed them in forgotten modesty. "I want to look at you."

  "I swear, I can feel your eyes upon me."

  "Can you? You'll soon be feeling more than just my eyes upon you."

  His gaze burned into hers for another moment, and then he looked back down at her, and stayed looking at her, and every place his gaze touched seemed to burn with a savage, unrequited longing.

  Still looking his fill, he dragged his hand higher, his fingertips skirting the soft triangular tuft of hair. Celsie tensed. His hand was big and warm against her belly, and she looked down to see the palm spread out over the alabaster skin, the tip of one finger just nestled within the top edge of her silken curls. He let his hand remain there for a long moment, warming her, tantalizing her, than let it slide downward, his forefinger driving between her cleft and stroking a hidden button of tingling, needle-hot flesh once, twice, three times.

  Celsie jumped, then moaned deep in her throat.

  "I see that my hypothesis is correct," he murmured, smiling.

  "Your . . . hypothesis?"

  "Yes. I hypothesized that you would be hot and wet and ready for me. You are."

  "It's embarrassing."

  He was still stroking her with the tip of his forefinger. "It's flattering."

  "It's beyond my control."

  "It's making me hard. So hard that I ache."

  She flushed and, as he continued that slow, maddening stroke, heard strange little whimperings coming from her throat, bringing his intense gaze back to her face. His hand paused, becoming rigid against her. "What is wrong, Celsiana? Yesterday you were a tigress. Today you are a kitten. Am I the only one who is going out of my mind with need?"

  "No . . . but you're the one who drank the whole damned bottle of laced brandy. I only had a sip. Just enough to keep me from saying no . . ."

  "If you want me to stop, I'm afraid you'll have to bodily throw me out of this carriage."

  "I don't want you to stop," she managed, opening her eyes to stare fixedly up into his face.

  "Then if you have any fears, qualms, or misgivings, you have only to voice them and I will soothe them to the best of my abilities."

  "I have no fears. After all —" she faltered, feeling a sudden pain in her heart — "I am no longer a maiden, am I?"

  He sobered. His gaze softened, and for a moment, he was the Andrew she had only glimpsed, the one who gently stroked his dog's head, the one who'd respected her on the dueling field, the one who had warily joked with her a few moments ago, the one who was usually gaoled behind the bars of anger and rudeness. "As I expect you do not remember much, if anything, of what occurred between us yesterday, I'll have you know, Celsie, that I still consider you a maiden in all senses of the word except one."

  Celsie. He had called her Celsie. Something hitched inside her heart.

  "And I shall contrive to treat you as gently as a maiden deserves to be treated."

  So he said. And all the while, she could feel the hard, flat blade of his hand thrust against her dampening cleft, the thumb lazily caressing the silky hair there and igniting the whole area into something hot and twitchy and wanting. She wanted his hand to touch her even more intimately, though she could not think how that would be possible. She wanted his thumb to move slightly more toward the very center of these oh-so-strange, oh-so-delightful, feelings. And she wanted —

  The coach hit a bumpy section of road, and Celsie, still gazing up into Andrew's smoldering eyes, gasped as the jerky movement of the coach caused his hand, which he himself hadn't moved, to begin agitating her exposed, already aroused flesh.

  "Oh!" she cried, her mouth falling open, her blood frying in her veins as she saw the wicked, lupine gleam in his eyes.

  "A rather singular sensation, is it not?"

  "You — how could you know?"

  "I know a lot of things about your body, madam, that you have yet to learn. And I also know that in a few moments, this road is going to change to chalk rubble for a good mile or two and then your senses are really going to explode when these iron-clad wheels go vibrating over it."

&nbs
p; "Will it feel . . . good?"

  "Oh, yes," he said, chuckling darkly. "It will feel very good."

  God help her, she felt really good, now. She felt really good as her lover knelt down on the floor of the coach, stretched her out on the seat, and began kissing the still warm spot on her belly where his broad palm had so recently rested. And she felt really good as his tongue, drawing little circles on the taut, electrified skin there, began moving closer and closer toward where his hand, shuddering rapidly with the movement of the coach, still lay, his fingers stroking her, his thumb pushing hard against that hot button of sensation.

  Celsie whimpered and moaned, her head twisting on the seat, a strange, wonderful sensation gathering inside her like a horse gathering itself for a titanic hurdle . . .

  "You may not remember all that happened between us yesterday, madam," he breathed, his lips now seeking the outermost curls of her femininity, "but I guarantee you shall never forget what's about to happen between us now."

  One hand on her breast, the other holding her legs apart, his hot mouth dragged through her curls and planted itself with hard, unrelenting firmness, there.

  Celsie cried out — and at that moment the coach hit the chalk rubble that he had heralded, making the vehicle, making her body, making Andrew's tongue as it plunged and dipped within her moist folds, shudder with a rapid, unceasing, crescendo of agitation.

  "Oh, dear!" cried Celsie, gasping.

  He raised his head the merest of inches. "Faster," he shouted, to the driver above.

  "Oh — oh, you fiend!" wailed Celsie, as the coach picked up speed, and so did the maddening agitation that was repeated in every cell in her body, in Andrew's mouth as he opened it wide against her shamelessly wet cleft once more, in his stiffened tongue as it pressed against that hidden button of flesh there, licking, stroking, the rumble of the chalk beneath the wheels rapidly agitating it beyond anything Celsie was physically capable of enduring.

  "Oh, please —- oh please, oh please," she sobbed, her fingernails clawing at the seat.

  "Faster!"

  The escalating rumble of the wheels, rapidly shaking everything inside the coach like the onset of an earthquake, was too much. Celsie came against him with a harsh, rending cry, her body arching straight off the seat, his tongue never retreating but only pressing harder, deeper —

  "Oh, oh God, help me!" she cried, flailing in the seat, writhing against his tongue, her hair whipping wildly back and forth as she climaxed once more. And then, just when she thought she would die, he drew back, thrust his fingers, vibrating with the shudder of wheels over rubble, deep inside her, and watched her senses explode yet a third time.

  She was still convulsing when he climbed on top of her, opened his breeches, and drove himself into her, hard, thrusting over and over again until he finally reached his own satisfaction.

  And on the box above, the driver never heard a thing.

  Chapter 13

  By the time Gerald reached his room at the Lambourn Arms, his terror had abated and self-disgust sat in his gut like an undigested bone. He galloped up to the stables, handed his winded horse to a groom, and stalked into the taproom.

  A glass of hard whiskey calmed him. A second fortified him. A third managed to restore some of the courage that his Grace the duke of Blackheath had so easily stripped him of, and halfway through his fourth, Gerald was on his way back out to the stables.

  He would deal with the duke. He would make him see reason, make him see how unsuitable his brother was for Celsie.

  He would make sure this marriage would not go through.

  Moments later, he was in the saddle once again, wheeling his already exhausted mare and sending her thundering toward Blackheath Castle. Gerald had his doubts that the duke would even receive him. The duke did — but arrogantly kept him waiting in the Great Hall for a full forty minutes, which was enough to infuriate Gerald all over again.

  Presently, a footman came for him.

  "His Grace will see your lordship in the library now," said the servant, bowing. "If you will just follow me . . ."

  Gerald found his nemesis standing before a wall of bookcases, idly perusing an old leather tome. The duke had changed his clothes, but was still dressed in black, or rather a deep, inky-blue velvet that, on his lean and dangerous frame, was somehow even more sinister. His back was turned, his manner unhurried. He took his time replacing the book, then turned, a cold, terrible smile just touching his mouth, and his eyes as warm as a cobra's.

  "Ah, Somerfield. I have been expecting you. Do sit down. I would offer you some refreshment, but I am not feeling particularly well disposed toward you this morning." Again that chilling, unpleasant smile. "I trust that you understand why, under the circumstances."

  He reached for the decanter to pour a drink for himself, but Gerald, who wanted to get this business over with, wasted no time in pleasantries. He glared at the duke's handsome profile, severe, aristocratic, a nearly unbroken line from nose to backswept brow, and said rudely, "I cannot permit Celsiana to marry your brother."

  Blackheath never faltered. Never allowed even the faintest suggestion of a reaction to mar his expression. Nonchalantly watching the sherry splash into the crystal goblet, he said, "Well, that is indeed unfortunate, as I am in favor of the union."

  "In favor of it? Are you mad, man?"

  "Mad?" Black ice glittered in the duke's eyes as he calmly raised his glass to his lips. "I can assure you, I am quite sane. In fact, I find myself wondering if you, Somerfield, are the mad one."

  Gerald, fortified with liquor, bristled. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Don't you? Yesterday you challenged my brother to a duel because he refused to offer for the lady's hand. This morning your cowardly and pathetic attempt on his life nearly cost you your own. And now here you are again, protesting the impending nuptials. My patience with you, Somerfield, is dangerously short. I should think you'd have had more sense than to come here spouting nonsense that will do nothing but strain it all the more."

  Gerald's hand shook; he wished he had another drink.

  "I am willing to pretend that this morning's little incident was the product of your overwrought passions, Somerfield. I am even willing to pretend a certain civility toward you for the sake of my soon-to-be sister-in-law. But what I cannot pretend is to even try to understand why you suddenly find Andrew unsuitable, when yesterday you wanted him to do right by Celsiana. Quite a sudden change of mind, no?"

  "It wasn't a change of mind, I was simply caught off guard yesterday by what even you will admit were shocking circumstances. Celsie is supposed to wed Sir Harold Bonkley, and if she marries your brother instead, it will make both Bonkley and me the laughingstocks of polite society."

  "I fail to understand why a marriage between the two will be so detrimental to what" — again, that deadly smile —"dignity you and Bonkley possess."

  "At the ball the other night — we told everyone who matters that Bonkley and Celsie were as good as betrothed!"

  "Then you are foolish as well as cowardly."

  "I demand that you do everything within your power to put an end to this lunacy!"

  The duke lifted one black brow, and put down his glass. "You demand?"

  Gerald sputtered and flushed crimson.

  "My dear Somerfield," Lucien continued smoothly. "I can assure you that I have no intention of putting an end to it whatsoever, as I happen to think our siblings are very well suited." He brushed a speck of lint off his sleeve and turned his stare, which had gone very black, and very wintry, on his guest. "Surely, you don't find my brother wanting, do you?"

  Gerald felt his guts seize up. He did not know Lucien well, but something on an animal level of instinct warned him that he was treading on dangerous, if not deadly, ground. Too much whiskey, however, made him reckless.

  "Damn right I do! He's aloof. He's arrogant. He's obsessed with crackbrained inventions and love potions, which proves that he's not only strange, but a pervert. In shor
t, Blackheath, he will make my sister miserable. He has no prospects for an admirable career or future, and he has nothing whatsoever to offer Celsie. Absolutely nothing."

  The duke regarded him for a long, uncomfortable, unblinking moment. Gerald felt dread tingling up his spine. His palms began to sweat.

  "And do you think that this Bonkley, whose name I can hardly utter without pitying his poor bride, will make your sister any happier than my brother might?" murmured Blackheath in a dangerously soft tone.

  "He, at least, has — has prospects!"

  "Does he, now? Pray, enlighten me."

  Gerald opened his mouth, and then shut it. Sir Harold Bonkley had nothing over Lord Andrew de Montforte, and both of them knew it.

  Blackheath gazed at him for a moment longer, and then, with a long-suffering sigh, returned his attention to his sherry. "D'you know, Somerfield, I am beginning to suspect that your real complaint with my brother has nothing to do with the fact he compromised your sister, but that he is not, shall we say" — he held up his glass, examining the golden depths — "malleable."

  "What?"

  The duke turned his head and flatly met Gerald's gaze. "Not malleable to your wishes, that is. I'm afraid my brother has always done, and will always do, exactly as he pleases. You will not bend him to your will."

  "I don't know what the devil you're talking about."

  "Don't you? Ah, but I think you do. It does not escape my notice that you would quite like to see your sister married to Sir Harold so you can control him and thus your sister's fortune."

  "I beg your pardon?" cried Gerald, outraged.

  The duke's smile was studied politeness, but the black eyes were dangerously cold, flat, and deadly. "It is no great secret, my dear Somerfield, that your sister allows you to live at Rosebriar because you have nowhere else to go. And it is no great secret that you have amassed a rather considerable number of gaming debts and now find yourself without the means to make good on them. Of course, a union between Sir Harold and your sister offers the perfect solution to your little dilemma, does it not?"