“What does Mountjoy have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“Because you are in love with him.”
Chapter Thirty-two
IN MOUNTJOY’S ROOM, LILY PRESSED HER BACK AGAINST the wall beside the door, not wanting to look away from him. Not yet. Her heart beat faster when he closed and locked the door. His room. She drank in everything about his private quarters. Every detail revealed him to her and made her heart ache. He’d brought her here where, without meaning to, he would break her heart. She knew it. He hadn’t asked her about Fenris. If he did, what would she say? What could she possibly tell him that would not ruin everything else?
The curtains were open, but the sun was at the other side of the house and his rooms were cool and shadowed. The decor was reassuringly spare, as suited the man, but not austere. She stopped examining their surroundings and watched Mountjoy. He stood by the door, a hand on the latch. Silent.
Here she was. Alone in a room with a man to whom she was not married. With a man who had just admitted for them both that they were lovers now and who had asked her to be his mistress. He’d not used the word, but he’d meant that. Still with his hand on the door, Mountjoy cocked his head and gazed at her, the faintest of smiles curving his mouth.
She said, “I’m nervous to be here with you. I don’t know why. I oughtn’t be.”
“Tell me what I can do to make you feel better.” He stayed where he was, just at the door, but with his body angled toward her. Shadows darkened the edges of his face.
“Kiss me?” She meant it in jest, but it wasn’t. Not really. She wanted the comfort and steadiness of his arms around her.
He leaned over to kiss her lightly on the mouth. She raised her chin, and his mouth lingered on hers. Her stomach flew away. Mountjoy continued kissing her, softly, tenderly, but not at all politely. How strange it was to pretend during the day that she never once thought about throwing herself into his arms. The truth was she did. She was happy around him. Giddy.
Hunger rose up in her as they continued to kiss, and she found herself leaning into him. She coiled an arm around his neck.
After a bit, he drew back, one hand lifted to brush her cheek. His head stayed by hers. “A moment.”
He pushed away from the door and lit a lamp which he set on a table on the other side of the door from where she stood. Across the room he locked an interior door. So that his valet or some other servant, she supposed, would not accidentally come upon them. He left the other interior door open. She presumed that one led to his bedchamber.
The lamp made it possible for her to see there were the usual things one found in a room meant for a gentleman’s privacy and relaxation. In the middle was a gleaming cherry-wood table and chairs, against another wall, a cherry writing desk with gold fittings. Books, a newspaper, and several volumes of a gentleman’s magazine were on the desk. One of the torques from the treasure hoard sat atop the desk. A claw-footed sofa faced the fireplace. On one wall was a landscape from somewhere in Yorkshire.
The room and its decor suited him. It was easy to imagine him sitting in here, tending to his private affairs. Writing letters. Reading. Having a drink before he retired for the night. She committed the sight to memory so that she would have the image with her always.
She left the door to sit sideways on the nearest of the mahogany chairs, one hand gripping the top rail. This was Mountjoy’s private domain. His room. He lit the tapers in a branched candelabra and the room grew brighter. He seemed so matter of fact, going about mundane tasks while she could scarcely breathe. Next, with a glance at her, he walked to a side table. “I know it’s afternoon, but would you care for a cognac?”
“I’ve never had cognac.”
“It’s time you tried, then.” He picked up a decanter and removed the top. With his free hand, he turned over two tumblers and poured cognac into both glasses. He walked to her, holding out one of the glasses. The other he left on the table. “A sample, to see if it’s to your taste.”
She accepted the glass and took a sip. It burned going down, but mellowed quickly enough that she was able to suppress a cough. Warmth spread through her chest. She looked up at him, still gripping the top of her chair. “My.”
Neither of them said anything for a while. She didn’t know what to say and knew even less what might be going through his mind just now. Had she really agreed to continue seeing him? Being here with him was a deliberate enough choice that she was forced to admit that yes, they were lovers. If he came to Exeter, she would gladly continue as his lover.
He broke the silence. “Are you having second thoughts, Wellstone?”
She shook her head because words of denial stuck in her throat. They had done this before, been alone together in a room locked against intrusion. They had been to bed before. Conducted their illicit affair out of sight of family and staff. But the intimacy of being here was too real.
“If you’d rather not, I understand.”
She clutched her glass. She did not want him to send her away, and yet, if he did, she would spare herself the tension squeezing her heart. “How sanguine, Mountjoy,” she said. “Are you so indifferent to my presence?”
He smiled. “I would be disappointed if you left, don’t misunderstand. At the same time, if you are not certain you want this, then don’t feel you must be here or that you must stay simply because earlier you agreed.” He gave a quick look at the ceiling. “Damn me for saying such a thing. I’m not usually so noble.”
“Yes you are. You are the noblest man I know.”
His eyes landed on her again. “I want you to stay. Please. Stay. Make me forget again that the world consists of anything but you and me.”
“It seems different now.” A part of her mind shouted that she should leave immediately, that if she did this with him here, her life would change irrevocably. Her heart would never be the same. “Why is that?”
“Have you changed your mind?”
She held his gaze. Somehow, Mountjoy had become her friend, and she did not want to give him up. “No. Have you?”
He held out his hand and waited for her to take it. “Not in the least.”
She put her hand on his palm, and he tugged the merest bit until she must either resist or stand. She stood.
He took the cognac from her and placed the tumbler on the table. His fingers tightened around hers, and he pulled her close to him. Closer than was proper, but then when they were behind locked doors they were never very proper, were they?
He dipped his head to hers, not to her mouth, but to the side of her throat. “I am unbearably aroused by you. And I ask you, why is that?” His breath warmed her skin. He trailed his fingers up her arm to her shoulder. His lips touched her skin just above her collarbone, and his mouth parted. She shivered at the touch of his tongue, the kisses he dropped. “I want to see you reclining on my bed,” he said. “With your hair down and your legs spread, looking at me with that imperious gaze of yours.”
“Imperious? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I adore that about you. The way your eyes snap with intelligence.”
“I should think you ought to at least be overcome by the perfection of my figure.”
He laughed. “I am. I am and hope to be so very soon.”
She leaned toward him, and his arms tightened around her. “I should like to see you unclothed as well, Mountjoy.”
He lifted his head. His arms remained around her. “Ah yes, you and your fondness for splendid animals in their natural state.”
“Extremely splendid, Mountjoy.” She kissed his lower lip. “And very, very natural.”
“Your every wish is my desire. After all, you’ve done the same for me, haven’t you?” He took a step back and shrugged off his coat. He dropped the garment on a chair, all the while looking at her. He unfastened his watch chain and tucked the watch into a pocket of his waistcoat before he undid the buttons.
“Do you
require assistance?”
He kept unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Kind of you to ask, but no. But make a note, Wellstone, that you’ll need to order me new riding clothes. These won’t do for me at all. Not anymore.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the chair she’d been sitting on. “You may sit down again, if you like.”
“I’ll just stay here.” She leaned against the table.
He dropped his waistcoat on the chair with his coat. “Mind your cognac.”
She moved the tumbler to the middle of the table.
Mountjoy undid his cravat next, exposing the placket of his shirt. He sat down to remove his riding boots. And then his buckskins. The rest of his clothes followed. He didn’t hurry, but he was naked soon enough.
Lily gazed at him in silence.
He waited, arms at his sides, his weight on one leg. She made a motion with one finger and, with a grin, he obliged her by turning in a circle. Muscle shaped his long legs, his torso, too, front and back. He had, as she knew, little hair on his body. His body, so magnificent, demonstrated the effects of the hours he spent in the saddle or working with his tenants and neighbors. He walked to her and, taking her cognac from the table behind her, drained the tumbler. Her heart sped up.
He set down the glass and took a step back. “What will you do with me, Wellstone, now that I’m at your mercy?”
“I’ll worship your body.”
He grinned. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
“Greedy man.”
“Lovely, devilish, clever Lily.” He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. His member was not yet erect. “Should I confess that I dream about you every night? About you being here with me. In this very room. It’s unwise, I think, but now I’ve gone and said it.”
“Do you?” She reached for her medallion, out of habit fingering the cool surface. “Tell me what happens in your dreams.” She went to him and rested one hand on his shoulder and curled the other around his nape. His body warmed hers. This was what she wanted, to have someone close, to be connected with another person in the way only lovers could be. “Is it my laughing eyes and dulcet tones you dream of? Or is it my intelligence?”
“In my dreams, I call you Wellstone.”
“Mine, too. What else?”
“Your soft and naked skin.” He put a hand on her waist. “Your mouth doing unspeakable things to me.”
“Unspeakable?” She leaned against him and slid her hands up and down his back, over the curves and valleys of his muscles. “Mountjoy, my heart races trying to imagine what you mean. Do tell me. Or, since you cannot speak of it, show me.”
“We have all day,” he said. “What’s left of it. I’ve locked the door. There’ll be no servants interrupting. My bed is just there.” He tipped his head in the direction of the open door. “Waiting for my most wicked dreams to become reality.”
“Wicked of you, I agree, but hardly unspeakable.”
He took a step closer. “I’d like for you to fetch me with your mouth.”
She twined her fingers through his hair. “I’d like that, too. You know I would.”
“Here?” he said. “On your knees?”
She trailed her fingers down his chest. “That is very wicked, your grace.” She pressed her palm to his hip, and Mountjoy cupped the back of her head, fingers tense. She wanted to caress his cock, his beautiful manhood, and so she did. He was warm, and firm, erect now, to be sure, and his skin was soft. Without saying a word, he wrapped his hand around hers.
“On your knees,” he said in a low voice. Not quite a question. Yet, not a command, either.
She knew his body by now, enough to know she adored the shape and taste and scent of him. The thought of bringing him to completion in that way aroused her. She longed for the pleasure it brought him. With a glance at him, she adjusted her gown and sank to her knees, sliding one of her hands from the middle of his chest to his groin as she did. “Like so?”
“Yes,” Mountjoy said. With the lamp and the candles burning she could see the green of his eyes. His body was lean and well muscled, and she could spend hours worshiping his form with her hands, her eyes, and even her mouth.
She kissed the top of his penis, and that part of him flinched. He set his fingers lightly on her head, and a thrill shot through her at the contact. She wrapped her hand around his shaft.
“You needn’t be gentle,” he whispered. “You know what I like. Yes,” he said again when she took him in her mouth.
With word and deed, Mountjoy showed her what he wanted from her, and she loved his reaction to her, the tension in him, his groan when she used her hands, her mouth, and her tongue. Before long, his body tensed, and his directions to her turned insistent. His moan deepened her arousal.
His fingers tightened around her head again, and he pressed forward. “Like that. Christ…Like that.”
She used her tongue on him, cupped his sac, and touched, so lightly, the base of him because she remembered once that he’d told her he liked that, and he shouted, and pushed into her mouth and came. His hands lost contact with her head, then returned. She kept her mouth on him until there was no question he was done. In such moment, he was hers.
Only then did she sit on her haunches, the back of her hand pressed to her lips.
His eyes held hers. “Are you disgusted with me?”
“No.” She stood, with the aid of his hand. “Are you disgusted that I enjoyed that and would gladly do so again?”
“No. God, no. Never.”
She put her hands on his chest. “Perhaps your bed would be more convenient?”
His eyelids lowered halfway so that she could barely see the green of his irises. “Yes, I think it would.” He picked up the candelabra and walked to the door he hadn’t locked. She followed, watching his naked backside.
He put the candles on a table opposite the bed and she looked around. His bed very much suited a duke. Four posters and a canopy of burgundy silk with yellow silk tassels holding back the hangings. The duvet was embroidered with his coat of arms, red and blue and with the swan picked out in silver thread. He pushed it away then stretched out on the mattress and extended a hand to her. “Come.”
Lily kicked off her slippers before she joined him on the bed. She lay beside him, on one flank, and touched his chest. He raised a knee and tucked a hand underneath his head. “Do with me what you will,” he said.
Lily stroked him, watched his face and body for reactions. His nipples were sensitive, she knew. To her fingers and her kisses.
“I think it’s time you were naked, too,” he said after not a very long time.
“That seems only fair.”
He snaked an arm around her and brought her in for a kiss. “And convenient to our purpose.”
She turned her back to him, and he unhooked her bodice. Between them, sometimes clumsily, they removed her garments. She left the bed, wearing little but her chemise and stockings, and carefully draped her clothes over a chair. She rejoined him and knelt on the mattress between his spread legs when the last of her clothes came off.
“You’ve converted me,” he said. “From liking brunettes to worshiping blondes. Loosen your hair, Lily. So I can see it down around your shoulders.”
She pulled the combs that held her hair back, and he took them from her to place on a table near the bed. She shook out her hair and arranged it so most of it fell over her shoulder.
Mountjoy held out his hands and she straddled him. “Lovely,” he murmured. “So very lovely.” He cupped her breasts and the flush of heat through her body astonished her.
He lay her back, and kissed his way from her shoulders to her toes and back up to her thighs. He buried his face there, kissing her and finding clever things to do with his tongue and fingers until she could hold back no longer. He stroked her body while she came, whispering her name, whispering, Lily darling, I adore you.
When she came back to herself, Mountjoy had himself
recovered. He opened a drawer in the bedtable and took out one of his sheaths, made of the finest lambskin, he’d told her. He left the bed long enough to wet it with water from a basin as the fit was more comfortable for them both if the sheath was damp. She helped him put it on and even tied the ribbon around the base of his cock.
She lay back, and he came over her, and slid inside, and though they’d not in the past been silent lovers, they were strangely silent now. Her heart had become too big for her chest. Mountjoy’s expression was intense, and his strokes in her at first were slow and luxurious. Until he pushed harder once, then again, and she felt that stroke all the way to her heart.
Not Wicked Enough Page 30