Countess Curvy: A Curvy Girl's Earl

by Reed, Kristabel

  Straddling his hips, her eyes locked with his, Audrey guided him into her and hissed at the feel. The moan came from her, the harsh, breathless sob of need. She moved quickly, rocking over him, his fingers on her nipple, finding her nub, and circling it until she thought she’d burst. Never had she felt anything like what she did with Duncan. Every touch aroused her; every look made her forget the world.

  Her orgasm broke through her in a thousand fragments, and Audrey shuddered and gasped; Duncan’s hands were still on her, his mouth on hers, his body pressed so tightly against her. He’d rolled them over, pounding into her with a fierceness that drove her over the edge again, and once more she shouted his name, her climax sudden and hard and blinding.

  She heard her name fall from his lips, and later, when she could feel again, his lips brushed against her neck. Audrey wrapped her arms over him, shifting so she felt as much of his skin against hers as possible, and closed her eyes.

  “I feel like a naughty teenager,” Audrey said, her mouth brushing his chest.

  Duncan moved and tugged a blanket over them, but didn’t release her. Audrey chose not to dwell on that little fact too much.

  “So you did this as a teen then?” he asked, his voice rumbling beneath her ear. “Snuck into a boy’s room?”

  “I did not sneak,” Audrey said as haughtily English as she could manage. She laughed softly and spread her fingers over the beat of his heart. “I was invited.”

  “Oh, yes.” She felt Duncan smile but didn’t move to see it, perfectly content to stay where she was, wrapped in his arms. “A permanent engraved invitation you have to my room.”

  “I like the sound of that,” she admitted. Then, because she heard her own words, added, “But I won’t hold you to it.”

  He didn’t immediately reply, and she felt his fingers stiffen against her skin. She closed her eyes and wondered what was happening between them. Suddenly it felt so far out of her control, she didn’t know what happened.

  “What if I want you to hold me to it?” Duncan’s voice was low and soft, the barest hint of tension.

  Audrey did move then, raised her head, and looked at him. She didn’t want to; part of her screamed for her to look away and not acknowledge what she heard in his voice. But Audrey ignored that voice. Duncan made her want to ignore that voice.

  “Let’s not talk about this,” Audrey whispered. But her hand lifted, and she cupped his cheek. “Let’s just enjoy the heat of the moment.”

  Chapter Ten

  The village was quaint, quiet, and looked exactly like Audrey pictured a village should look: like it was trapped in time and you never knew if Shakespeare was going to stroll about with pen in hand or Harry Potter was going to buy a new wand. It reminded her of a British serial, she couldn’t remember which, but one with lots of unexpected murders in so quiet a place. Or maybe an Agatha Christie setting—with technology.

  There were cars, of course, and people walking along the sidewalks with cellphones to their ears, and a couple teens with headphones in, oblivious to the outside world, but overall, Audrey had a hard time remembering what century they were actually in.

  Duncan hadn’t called this village by name, only saying he wanted to take her to the village, as if its name meant little. She hadn’t seen a sign, which she considered unusual for England, and had a feeling it was named after the family, so she mentally dubbed it Thornhill Village.

  The sun shone overhead, bright and warm in late spring, and once again Duncan’s hand wrapped around hers. Audrey tried, and failed, to suppress a smile, and she hoped she didn’t look as silly as she felt. But Duncan smiled down at her, and she didn’t care how silly it was; a woman involved in a heated fling had every right to be silly.

  They’d window-shopped for a bit, and Audrey had insisted on looking through a small tea shop. The inside wasn’t2 quaint and antique, but a total shock to her system. No, the inside was done in an overly-contemporary décor with little floral teacups in front of abstract paintings that made her eyes hurt. The dichotomy was almost too much for her brain to process.

  Now they were again walking down the street, hand in hand, with every other person they passed greeting Duncan like an old friend. When Audrey thought of earls and their villages, which, to be honest, she never really had before today, she assumed they had a bit more aloofness.

  “Seems you’re popular wherever you go, aren’t you?” Audrey asked.

  Duncan didn’t wear sunglasses despite the bright early afternoon, and the look in his eyes showed pure happiness. “It’s a curse,” he said with a wink. “I can’t help it. It’s my charming smile; I attract them like women are attracted to shoe sales.”

  Audrey squeezed his hand. “I love me a good shoe sale!”

  She grinned up at him, his laughter warming her, and rested her head against his shoulder. For a heartbeat there was tension back in his fingers, in the shoulder against her cheek, but it disappeared in the next beat. She’d thought he’d been about to say something, but Duncan remained silent.

  The next minute, he pulled Audrey into the jeweler’s shop. He insisted, more like it, despite her protests. But she laughed and let him pull her inside the cozy store. The man behind the long glass counter looked uncannily like Dick Van Dyke. She had the insane urge to giggle, but kept quiet and smiled as evenly as she could manage at the man.

  He moved slowly but purposefully down the counter to where she and Duncan stood, smiling pleasantly as he held out his hand to Duncan.

  “My Lord, ’tis good to see you again.”

  Duncan smiled and held the old man’s hand. They chatted like old friends, and Audrey moved a little away to give them some privacy. Behind her, she vaguely heard Duncan’s laugh and tried her very best not to admit to the flush that warmed her with that sound.

  “I’d like to see the moonstones,” Duncan said to the other man. Audrey hadn’t heard his name, and she hadn’t looked at the name of this jeweler before they’d walked in.

  She returned to his side and looked at him, puzzled.

  “There’s a legend in this village about the moonstone,” Duncan said, but he didn’t elaborate.

  “It’s like our village gem,” the old man said with a smile that looked entirely too enigmatic for description. “But I’ll let your young man explain.”

  She nodded, a warm feeling spreading through her at the man’s words, and hoped she hadn’t blushed. Where were her sassy comebacks? Where were her quick quips? Where was her Mae West confidence?

  Gone in the face of a smiling old man and a grinning Duncan. Before she could follow that thought further, Duncan took one of the moonstone bracelets, picked up her hand, and wrapped the bracelet over her wrist, quickly closing the clasp. It settled perfectly on her arm. Not too tight, as most bracelets were on her admittedly thicker wrist, but just perfect.

  Audrey refused to follow that thought as well.

  Stunned, she waited in silence while Duncan handed over his credit card and the man processed it. He hadn’t haggled and hadn’t, as far as she could tell, even looked at the price. Billionaire earl or not, she couldn’t let him spend money like that on her. As she tried to find the words to politely refuse the gift, the old man returned with the receipt, and Duncan signed it.

  He threaded their fingers back together, said goodbye to the proprietor, and they left.

  And Audrey still hadn’t figured out how to form words through the mass of conflicting emotions burning through her. The bracelet was lovely, the oval stones set perfectly apart in a bed of white gold.

  “Duncan,” she murmured.

  “Legend has it,” Duncan began with a quick grin down at her. She couldn’t read his expression but didn’t stop his story, either.

  Audrey licked her lips and rested her head against his shoulder once again. His words flowed over her as he drew her into the story.

  “Sometime in the Middle Ages,” he continued, “there was a pair of lovers. He had to go to war; there were so many wars and so
many battles in England, no one really knows which one, but he had to leave. Before he left, he wanted to leave his love with a token to remind her of him, should he fall in battle.”

  He tugged her around a corner toward a small bakery.

  “This man wasn’t a silversmith,” he continued. “He was a blacksmith and unused to making fine things. But he somehow used his skill to craft a bracelet. Some people believe it was a ring or a pair of earrings; there’s a debate over what the actual item was. I,” Duncan said and smiled down at her, “like to think it was a bracelet.”

  They stopped outside the bakery but didn’t enter. Fascinated, Audrey listened to the story, uncaring about the people watching them. All she knew was that he’d bought her something so beautiful with a lovely, if tragic, story tied to it. Actually, she didn’t know much of anything outside the sound of his voice and the story he wove.

  “He traded something, probably one of his blacksmith projects, for moonstones, and set them into the bracelet. By all accounts,” Duncan said, his voice dropping as one hand cupped her cheek, “she was overwhelmed by the gift and heartbroken to see her lover leave. He didn’t fall in battle, but returned to a village that had been sacked, completely ravaged by one army or the other.”

  Audrey shivered but didn’t move away. His gaze caught and held hers with such blue intensity, she wanted to shudder again.

  “The villagers scattered into the forest, running in all directions to escape the army.” His thumb brushed along her cheek. “It’s said that the unique glow of his lover’s moonstone bracelet led him to her in the dark of night.”

  “That’s very romantic,” Audrey said. She swallowed and leaned up to kiss him gently. “Thank you for the bracelet.” She pulled back and laughed. “But I think he probably just bumped into her in the dark.”

  “It’s our village legend.” Duncan shrugged. “And there’s always a grain of truth in legend.”

  “Yes,” she said softer, unable to play off the romanticism of the gesture. “I suppose there is.”

  She pressed her lips to his again but didn’t deepen the kiss, no matter how she wanted to. It was romantic and it was sweet, and it most definitely did make her stomach flip and her heart beat a little faster. And she tried. Oh, she definitely tried not to read too much into the gift; after all, sometimes a bracelet was simply a bracelet.

  Pulling back, she walked the few steps to the bakery and insisted on a late lunch. Their weekend together at his home had been wonderful and fun, and his mother had been the perfect hostess, who wasn’t too inquisitive and who genuinely seemed to like Audrey, but this bracelet was something else. As they ate their sandwiches and drank the homemade tea, she tried to shuffle through what this gift meant.

  All she could think about was the legend, however.

  And on their walk back to the car, with Duncan’s hand in hers, Audrey sighed in contentment. It’d been a lovely weekend, and she didn’t want to think about tomorrow.

  Back at the manor house, she barely blinked when Duncan led her upstairs, ignoring the fact his mother was someplace in the house. Audrey couldn’t look away from him and had been unable to since the second he’d finished his story about the lovers and the moonstone bracelet. On the very edge of her consciousness, she heard words like “fallen hard” and “fallen too fast” and “vacation romance” but ignored them, content to let them run around in circles so she didn’t have to acknowledge them.

  Duncan led her upstairs to her bedroom, and she was only moderately surprised by that. Each time they’d made love, it had been in his, so the fact he led her to her guest room surprised Audrey. He sat on the bed but didn’t make a move. That surprised her, too, but she let it pass.

  Slipping off her shoes, she stretched on her toes and watched him. He studied her, darkly intense, with so many emotions hidden behind blue eyes now the color of a perfect lake in spring.

  Yes, she admitted if only to herself. She was obsessed with his eyes.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” she eventually said, fingering the bracelet. He didn’t have to, but she doubted she’d ever take it off. “It’s sweet, but it was unnecessary.”

  In one fluid movement, he rose from the edge of the bed and crossed the room. Lifting her hand, he watched the bracelet slip against her skin. “I wanted to,” he said. “I wanted a way to find you.”

  “Duncan,” she began, amazed at the way her voice sounded. She tried to clear the lump of emotion in her throat but knew she was unsuccessful. When she spoke again, she sounded just as quiet, just as soft, which was uncharacteristic of her. “You shouldn’t say things like that. You’ll give people the wrong impression.”

  He looked at her, confused, his fingers still playing with hers.

  “We haven’t talked about it,” she said, pushing the words out with an effort that surprised her. “But we both know what this is; it’s only a fling. It can’t be anything but. I live across the pond, and you—” She swallowed, but it hurt to do so. Hurt more to continue. “You have obligations here.”

  “All dating is a fling at first,” Duncan said, his voice even and his gaze never wavering. “Isn’t it?” he asked but clearly didn’t expect an answer. It was just as well, as her voice had seemed to desert her. “And my obligations take me where I want to go. And if that means I want to go where you are, or I want to find you…”

  He trailed off, still toying with the bracelet. “Then a little luck seems appropriate.”

  She had no words. No idea what to say to that. She wanted to say yes, wanted to agree, wanted to tell him they’d find a way to work this out. But those words, too, stuck in her throat. Audrey swallowed and tried again, and though her voice shook and she felt about as unsteady as she ever remembered feeling, she finally found the words.

  “You sure do know how to turn a girl’s head.” They were, however, not exactly the words she’d wanted to say.

  But then Duncan’s mouth pressed to hers, and he kissed her softly, tenderly. It was an echo, or perhaps a continuation, of the quietness between them. He undressed her slowly, his mouth gliding down her chest, over her already hard nipples. His hands caressed her body, worshipping each curve of her considerable curves.

  He teased her core, his mouth and tongue bringing her to the verge of orgasm again and again, but always refusing to let her fly over the edge. When Duncan rose on top of her, his face shadowed and eyes unreadable, she gasped, his name falling from her lips in a plea, a beg.

  One hand hooked beneath her knee and jerked her leg around him, and with a single smooth thrust, he buried himself in her. Audrey screamed his name, her climax crashing over her, through her, around her, and still Duncan moved. He drove her higher and higher until she orgasmed again.

  She barely heard him cry out her name, but she did feel him still against her, his mouth on the soft arch between shoulder and neck, his tongue licking what now felt like teeth marks.

  Audrey shuddered once more, feeling him roll off her to dispose of the condom, only to pull her back in his arms. She lay there for long, long minutes, sense finally cutting through her bliss-wrapped mind.

  Beneath her ear, she heard Duncan’s heart slow and felt the evenness of his breathing. She waited another moment before carefully slipping from his embrace. Snagging her robe from the chest at the base of the bed, Audrey slipped into the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind her. She hesitated a heartbeat then locked it.

  “What is happening?” She asked the question of the bracelet, the beautiful white gold and moonstone bracelet he’d bought her earlier.

  Her fingers brushed the intricate work, dancing over the settings and stones as her mind desperately tried to think.

  “This is stupid, Audrey,” she told herself. Her voice was low in the bathroom as she lowered the toilet seat and sat on top of it.

  It was stupid, all right—a dalliance, a tryst, no more than a curiosity for Duncan. And she had to remember that. No matter what he said or how he looked at her or what he
bought her, she needed to remember that.

  But she felt it, deep inside the feelings roiled and spread and encompassed her. Her feelings were all mixed up with the sex, and Audrey couldn’t afford that. And at the end of it all, she had to go home. Back to New York, back to her work and her life and her continent on the other side of a vast ocean.

  This…this between them wasn’t serious, and she knew that. Damn it, she knew that! But Duncan said all the right words, and the way he looked at her, the way he touched her, all felt like more than a fantasy. It felt real, all too real.

  Audrey needed to get out before she lost herself in his kiss, in his laugh. Get out before her heart was more involved than it already was.

  Chapter Eleven

  Audrey had been awake for a while but hadn’t quite moved from bed. She’d laid on her side and watched the sun lighten the sky outside her window. She’d thought about moving to the window seat to track its progress over Thornhill Manor’s grounds, but hadn’t managed to do so. In bed she was warm and sated, with the scent of Duncan clinging to her skin and the sound of his whispered words caressing her.

  Slowly she stretched, forcing heavy limbs to move and her body to sit up. Duncan hadn’t yet returned to bed; he’d gone to make several business calls before the sun had even lighted the horizon, and he promised to see her for breakfast. Audrey glanced at the clock then closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders. She needed to get up, shower, and get dressed if she was going to meet Duncan, and his mother, for breakfast in just under an hour.

  Snagging her robe from the floor where it’d fallen the previous night, she wrapped it around her and headed for the en suite.

  Her body may have been sated, limp from sex and pleasure and the feel of Duncan’s arms wrapped around her through the night. And her heart may have beat a little faster at the memory of Duncan’s lips and teeth and hands, and of the weight of him pressed behind her as she slept. But her mind raced.