December Heart

by Merry Farmer

  He shrugged out of his jacket and shirt as she undid her skirt and petticoats and laid them aside, then was back with his body pressed to hers for more kisses before they continued. The ridiculous bed was high enough off the floor that he lifted her by the waist and sat her on the edge. It wasn’t lost on him that she was suddenly at the perfect height for replicating the position she’d pointed out in the painting. All he would have to do was flip her to her stomach and dispose of her drawers. But there was a time for a quick tupping and a time for something much slower and more sensual. So he pulled off her garters and rolled her stockings down, kissing her knees, calves and toes as he did.

  “Who would have thought knees could be so nice,” she sighed, leaning back on her elbows as he slipped her second stocking off.

  “You have no idea how gratifying it is to hear you say that,” he said, draping her stockings over the back of a chair, then unfastening his trousers.

  “Ooh, do I get to see you this time?” she asked, unhooking her corset.

  His moment of disappointment as she finished undressing herself was eclipsed by the thought that she wanted to look at his body.

  “You didn’t see last night?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “The lantern was behind you. What I saw was in shadows.”

  He responded to that by letting his trousers drop and kicking them to the side, displaying all. And for some ridiculous reason, he felt as green and self-conscious as a youth standing in front of her, naked and aroused. Her eyes went straight to his erection, and her cheeks pinked.

  “I had all of that inside of me?” she squeaked, eyes wide.

  “And you liked it, if I recall,” he said, joining her on the bed and helping her dispose of her chemise and drawers. “Quite a bit.”

  She shivered as he stretched over top of her, which made him want to be inside of her again, and soon. But he was determined to take his time, particularly since, chances were, she was still sore from the night before.

  He should have pushed aside most of the ridiculous pillows covering the bed and slipped between the sheets with her, but the uncanny notion that the velvet coverlet felt uncommonly good against the bits of him that weren’t in direct contact with her made him careless.

  “Do I get to touch it?” she whispered, looking up at him with an impish glint in her eyes.

  “Love, you can do whatever you want with it,” he growled, taking her hand and guiding it between them. “And if you don’t know what to do, I have a few suggestions.”

  Even though he was the one taking the lead, he still gasped when her hand cradled him. More so since she gasped too, her eyes bright with excitement and desire.

  “Like this?” she asked, moving up and down his length with short, quick strokes.

  “More like this.” He guided her with longer, slower movements that had him hard and aching under her touch.

  “Oh, I like that,” she hummed. “I like that quite a lot.”

  “So do I,” he replied, unable to hide just how much.

  “You do,” she said with a relish that made her touch so much more potent. “That just makes me want to learn all the ways I can get you to make that expression.”

  “What expression?” He moved his hand away, leaving her to caress him on her own, and balanced on his forearms above her.

  “This one.” She squinched her face up in a ridiculous expression that he found thoroughly arousing.

  “Is that so? Because I seem to recall you looking something like this last night.” He made a face that was a vague approximation of the ecstatic wince she’d worn as she cried out in pleasure.

  She laughed. “I’d like to make that face again, if you please.”

  “All right,” he said with mock warning. “You asked for it.”

  He closed his hand around her breast and lowered his head to take her nipple into his mouth. She sighed with pleasure, and her hand squeezed his cock. He almost regretted that he had to shift out of her reach to give her breasts the attention they deserved. As far as he was concerned, it was a miracle that she was so sensual with him, that she responded to his touch with enthusiasm.

  He breathed in the salty scent of her skin as he kissed and suckled her breasts. He’d always been fond of breasts, and now hers in particular, and could have spent all night with them, but there was more to explore. He slid down the velvet a little farther, hooking a hand under her knee and lifting it to the side so that he could kiss the soft skin of her thigh. Mariah writhed with pleasure, her hands digging into the coverlet. He didn’t suppose she was aware of the view she was giving him of her glistening sex as she moved her other leg restlessly to the side. He reveled in it, though, kissing closer and closer to the heart of her.

  She sighed and writhed as he drew close enough to feel the heat of her against his cheek and to smell the musk of her desire. It was a blessing that no one had taught her not to enjoy sex. It whispered to him that they could gain so much more than the child he desperately wanted by being together this way. He would do so much more than fill her with seed, he would drive her wild with pleasure.

  His mouth reached her wetness, and he traced his tongue along her opening. She cried out, her thighs tightening. “What are you doing?” she panted. Her hands moved from the coverlet to grab handfuls of his hair.

  He probably shouldn’t tell her how devastatingly good it felt to have her pulling his hair while he went down on her. At least, not yet. “I’m doing this,” he said, then resumed his mouth’s work.

  She was perfect, sweet and salty, and so hot. She made glorious sounds as he licked and suckled her, and blessedly, she gripped his hair harder and harder. He could feel how close she was to coming, but he pushed on relentlessly instead of bringing her to the brink and pulling back over and over until she begged him for release. They’d save that for another day. Instead, he circled her clitoris with his tongue until her panting grew desperate. When she cried out as her body convulsed, he felt like the most powerful man alive.

  He couldn’t wait to join with her. He slid up her body, hooking her knees with his elbows and bending her into a position worthy of one of the paintings around her. She wasn’t quite flexible enough to rest her ankles on his shoulders, but the position she did manage left her spread and open for him. He pushed inside of her, groaning with pleasure at the way she took him in and tightened around him. She squeezed him so perfectly that instinct took over and had him thrusting with more energy than he thought he had, over and over until the friction was beyond exquisite.

  As had happened the night before, he climaxed before he expected to, the hot ball of energy at the base of his spine bursting into a flood of pleasure. The joy of spilling his seed inside of her went beyond anything he’d experienced before, so much that he cried out wordlessly, completely undone. All the while, she sighed and mewled beneath him with genuine enjoyment. It was so good that he never wanted it to stop.

  Except that the afterglow was almost as good as the orgasm. He dropped, spent, to her side, rolling her with him so that they could remain entwined. And even though he knew in seconds that he would fall asleep out of pure exhaustion before he could tell her how beautiful or wonderful she was or how much she meant to him, everything felt right. He tumbled into sleep with her in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder and whispering his name on a pleasured sigh.

  * * *

  There were few places where Lord William deVere felt more in his element than London’s Black Strap Club. Shayles provided excellent food and drink, the décor was fittingly dramatic, and the occasional plaintive, female scream that echoed through the walls from one of the other private rooms was exactly the sort of spice to make a night interesting.

  “You wouldn’t scream like that, would you, sweeting?” he asked the woman hard at work between his spread legs in a hoarse, panting voice.

  The woman leaned back, her mouth breaking free with a slick pop. “No, my lord.” Her eyes were round and vacant, just the way he liked i
t. Her ankles and wrists were tied, and while that made it difficult for her to balance on her knees as she was, the sweet thing managed somehow.

  William sat up slightly from the specially-designed, padded chair and slapped the darling across her pretty face. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

  “N-no, my lord,” she squeaked. She leaned gingerly forward, mouth open, attempting to catch his bobbing erection without hands.

  William moved his hips, making her task even harder, and laughed at the sight of her trying to catch him. When she failed, he slapped her again. “Get on with it.”

  “I’m trying, my lord,” she sniffled pathetically.

  “Oh, here.” He fisted his hand in her hair and held himself until her mouth closed around him again. She squealed and then choked as he drove deep, holding her head with both hands and forcing the action he enjoyed so much.

  The sounds of the whore’s muffled protests, coupled with the sensation of her mouth, had him rushing toward the edge when the door flew open, banging against the wall. Two of Shayles’s bouncers marched into the room.

  “What is the meaning of this?” William shouted.

  One of the bouncers stepped forward, looping his meaty hands under the whore’s arms and pulling her back. She gasped in relief and sobbed as the bouncer unlocked her chains and carried her out of the room.

  “I paid for that,” William growled, making no attempt to hide his red and rigid cock from the remaining bouncer.

  “No, you didn’t,” a softer, cooler voice said. A moment later, the slim, handsome figure of Oscar Lawrence appeared in the doorway.

  William leapt up from the chair, reaching for a nearby robe to cover himself. “Lawrence,” he laughed nervously. “What brings you here?” His mouth twisted into an anxious smile.

  Lawrence brushed the sleeves of his fine jacket, his expression as mild as a summer day. “I hear felicitations are in order.”

  “Felicitations?” William trembled as he threw the robe around his shoulders and tied it at his waist.

  “On your uncle’s marriage.” Lawrence smiled. His eyes flashed with wrath.

  “My uncle’s…he’s not married. He’s well past anything like that,” William said.

  Lawrence’s brow inched up almost imperceptibly. “You weren’t aware? He married a Miss Mariah Travers yesterday.”

  Itching panic spread down William’s spine. “Yesterday? How would you know?”

  “Shayles has eyes everywhere,” Lawrence said, still smiling pleasantly. “He keeps track of his interests, you know.”

  “What interest does Shayles have in my uncle?” William hunched forward and hugged himself to stop the trembling. His groin ached with unspent arousal.

  “In your uncle himself?” Lawrence shrugged. “Parliamentary rivalries, mostly. With Lord Dunsford as the source of your income and future prospects? Everything.”

  William couldn’t breathe as stark fear spilled through him. After a twenty-year marriage with no heirs, he had been certain his uncle would die childless and the Dunsford title and estate would come to him. He’d counted on it. Every single one of the vast debts he’d rung up in recent years used his status as heir to the Dunsford estate as collateral. But if his uncle had married, if the woman he’d shackled to his decrepit leg was of child-bearing years, that collateral was gone.

  “Yes, I think you see the situation we’re in,” Lawrence said, tilting his head to the side and sniffing. “I believe the money you owe Shayles stretches deep into the six-figure range?”

  “I can pay him,” William snapped, feeling the color drain from his face. “He’ll have his money. I’m still the heir, no matter what this new little chit thinks.”

  “She’s the daughter of a respected MP, you know.” Lawrence studied his nails. “Young.”

  The message was as clear as if Lawrence had spelled out how babies were conceived and calculated the odds of a new heir by Christmas.

  “You’ll get your money,” William insisted. “Shayles will get his money.”

  “Yes, well, you may think that—” Lawrence sniffed, then clasped his hands behind his back, smiling again. “—but Shayles believes you’re a substantial liability now. In fact, he believes the only use you can serve at this point is as an example for others who may attempt to withhold what they owe.”

  William swallowed hard. “What do you mean?” he croaked.

  Lawrence shrugged. “You have the summer to pay your debts in full—”

  “I can’t possibly—”

  “—or you will pay with your life.”

  Lawrence smiled.

  A chill shot down William’s spine. “He can’t do that.”

  “I assure you, he can,” Lawrence said.

  He turned to the bouncer, who had watched the entire conversation with his jaw clenched and his fists balled, a look of pure hatred in his eyes. William swallowed again. There were rumors that the Black Strap’s bouncers actually cared for the whores employed there, and that they didn’t look kindly on club members who liked things rough.

  “Escort Lord William to the door,” Lawrence ordered the hulking man. He turned back to William. “Repay all of your debts in full or put your affairs in order.”

  “But that’s not enough—”

  Lawrence ignored him. He turned and strode from the room as if moving from one exhibit in the National Gallery to another. The bouncer remained behind, growling.

  “All right, all right.” William feigned annoyance, but inside his bowels had turned to water. He rushed to dress, fumbling every article of clothing as he did. Shayles was asking the impossible of him, but what stuck in William’s craw even more was his uncle’s audacity. How dare the old fool marry again and put his life at risk? And who was Mariah Travers anyhow? He would have to find out all he could about her as soon as possible. And once he did, there was really only one course of action open to him. He would have to get to Starcross Castle as soon as possible, taking an overnight train if he had to, so that he could give his uncle a piece of his mind and get what was his.

  Chapter 7

  Mariah had never imagined it was possible for one chapter of her life to end and another to begin with such sharp definition. By Sunday evening, as she sat drowsily by Peter’s side in the carriage his butler had sent to pick them up from the train station in Truro, the life she’d lived for twenty-seven years in Aylesbury seemed like a dream. Except she wasn’t sure she was awake. Exhaustion infused her, from her boggled mind to her deliciously sore body.

  She should have been distressed by the soreness of her muscles, and other important areas, considering how she’d come to feel that way. She should have been scandalized at the speed with which she and Peter had become so intimate. But whether it was the whirlwind of travel and change or the fact that the things she and her new husband had done in bed were unbelievably pleasurable, she didn’t know and, frankly, didn’t care. It was almost as if she’d known Peter her whole life.

  “We’re almost there,” he said softly, kissing her forehead.

  She’d fallen asleep against him yet again. At some point, he’d put his arm around her. It was cozy, intimate, and natural. She smiled and drew in a breath, pushing herself to sit straight and half regretting it.

  “Sorry I’m such a sleepy-head,” she said with a yawn.

  “You have every right to be,” he told her. It was dark in the carriage as the sun had gone down just as they disembarked from the train, but she could still make out his tired smile and the way he looked at her as though she were a treasure. He reached out to brush a lock of hair from her cheek.

  Had Robert ever looked at her like that? She’d known him for years, but she wasn’t sure he had. And here Peter had only known her for days, but he treated her as though she were a cherished lover. Yes, her life had taken an unexpected and definitive turn. One she was determined to appreciate to the fullest. Nothing would get in the way of this new life she was so enthralled with.

  The carriage slowed and
turned. Peter glanced out the window beyond her and nodded. “There it is.”

  Mariah turned to the window, eager to get a glimpse of her new home. But all she could see were a series of windows glowing with dim light, and a great, dark space. There wasn’t enough light for her to decide whether she thought Starcross Castle was beautiful or bulky. But the looming expanse of it filled her with an eerie sense of the unknown.

  The carriage circled around a drive, drawing up beside a long set of stairs, before which a line of uniformed servants stood waiting to greet them.

  “It’s nice of them to greet us so late at night,” Mariah said. “And on a Sunday. Don’t servants usually have a half-day on Sundays?”

  “Yes,” Peter answered, shifting so that he would be ready to step down from the carriage when the door was opened. “It’s kind of Snyder to bring them out to greet us like this, but I’ll have to have a word with him about respecting their free time.”

  Mariah smiled at the consideration Peter showed, although as soon as one of the footmen opened the door and Peter helped her down, she wondered if she was the reason for the full turn-out from Starcross Castle’s staff. Even in the dark, she could see the eager expressions of everyone from the stately woman who must have been the housekeeper to the young maid at the far end of the row. It was flattering to think that she could garner so much attention.

  “Welcome home, sir.” The imposing figure of the butler, Mr. Snyder, stepped forward from the line to bow to Peter.

  “Snyder.” Peter greeted the man with an equally respectful nod, then smiled on to the housekeeper and another man who was dressed slightly better than the others. “Mrs. Wilson.” He nodded. “Wright.”

  “Shall I take your things up to your room, sir?” Mr. Wright asked. Mariah put two and two together, realizing the man must have been Peter’s valet.