He was so lost in her, in fact, that he walked them right into the bed without realizing it. They lost their balance and fell, together, upon it. He used his arms to leverage himself, attempting not to crush her. Their lips parted. Mutual laughter bubbled up, ringing forth.
Damn, but he loved her laugh.
He loved her, and it was at least the thousandth time he had entertained just such a sentiment in the last few weeks, but it was every bit as true.
“My seduction of you is decidedly not going according to plan,” he admitted, falling into her green-blue eyes the same way he had fallen into the bed. “I feel like an oaf.”
Her tender smile pierced his heart. “You do not resemble an oaf in the slightest, my darling husband.”
“Did I injure you?” he asked, searching her face.
He felt certain he had borne the brunt of their impact. She did not appear winded.
She giggled again. “No. Now do stop fretting and make love to me.”
A more promising invitation had never been issued, he was sure. His cock twitched to life once more as he realized he was settled nicely between her thighs. Just where he longed to be. He was not a practiced rake like his brother, but he was fairly confident he could follow his instincts and bring both of them great pleasure. The time leading up to and following their nuptials had not precisely been chaste, even if they had not consummated their relationship.
“As you command, Your Grace,” he told her, and then he could not resist dipping his head to kiss her sweet lips once more.
She kissed him back, their tongues mating. He could kiss her like this forever, he thought. But there were other, equally delicious places to press his mouth upon her body. To taste her. He kissed down her throat and then peeled his body away from hers long enough to whip her night rail over her head.
She was bared to his worshiping gaze. He wanted to drink her in, but he also wanted to consume her. It was a hell of a conundrum. Her breasts were perfect, round swells. He cupped one in his palm and lowered his head, sucking the hard, pink peak into his mouth.
Her soft cry and the instant arch of her back told him she liked it.
So he did it again. Then he fluttered his tongue over her, licking her. Learning her. The taut bud puckered. He moved to her other breast, kissing the generous fullness before sucking her nipple into his mouth.
“Oh, Gill.”
His name on her lips, in her husky voice, was the greatest reward. And all he could think of was kissing her everywhere. Licking her everywhere. Until she was writhing and helpless beneath him. He traveled farther, kissing down her creamy skin, tasting her. Her skin was sweet, salty, and she smelled faintly of flowers. But he wanted more.
He slid away from her, lowering to his knees on the carpet. Her legs were spread, opening her to him. Her cunny was there, and though he had touched that paradise on past occasions, this was his first glimpse. It was better than any engraving or painting he had ever seen. Better than his imagination.
Her cunny was pink, glistening, like the petals of the rarest flower. Her mound was shielded by a womanly thatch of cinnamon curls. Need roared through him, rendering him immobile until the scent of her reached him. Musky and delicious. He had to taste.
His hands swept up her inner thighs, opening her more, and she moved with him, complicit. Wanting. Watching. Waiting.
“You are the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld,” he told her honestly, his voice quivering with emotion.
She moaned, moving her bottom on the bed as if in invitation.
And he did not hesitate. He lowered his head, licking her slit. She was wet, and she tasted even sweeter here, at the heart of her. He licked into her channel, finding it with ease. She rocked her hips, thrusting against his face. He slid his hands up her thighs, over her hips, until he was cupping her deliciously rounded bottom.
Perfection.
He held her to him, as if she were a feast.
In a sense, she was. Because he was starving. And though he had promised himself he would proceed slowly, he could not seem to regain his control. Desire for her slammed into him. He was a man consumed, sinking his tongue deeper before traveling higher, to the fleshy bud he had spied hidden within her folds.
Her pearl.
He sucked. Hard.
She cried out, bucking against him. Her fingers were in his hair, raking his scalp, tugging on the ends. She had turned into a wild woman in her frenzy. And he loved it. Because he felt the same way. All the advice his brother had given him, all the bawdy books he had read in an attempt to leave his wife well-pleased escaped him.
He was a man possessed now, following his instinct. Listening to Christabella’s breathy sighs. Learning the urgency in her undulations. When she made intoxicating sounds low in her throat, and her hips moved seemingly of their own volition, he knew he had found a particularly sensitive place. He sucked, licked, used his teeth.
Suddenly, she stiffened beneath him, gasping his name.
He had made her spend, and the realization only served to heighten his own need. He flicked his tongue over her until the last ripples of her pleasure seemed to abate. And then he was on the bed with her, his body ready.
Her hands found the knot keeping his banyan in place.
He had forgotten, in the intensity of his need, that he was still clothed. As one, they removed the last impediment to their bodies being together. But she surprised him by urging him onto his back after he had shed the garment.
“Belle,” he said, wondering what she was doing. Because he had to be inside her. Now.
“There is something I read about in a wicked book I managed to acquire,” she told him, as if sensing the question in his mind. Her touch was on his chest now, caressing, leaving molten heat in its wake. Everywhere her fingers grazed, he felt alive. Alive and starving.
“You are beautiful too, Gill,” she told him. “So strong. I love your chest.”
She caressed him, then raked her nails over his flat nipples, which proved surprisingly sensitive. Lowering her head, she began kissing a path over his body in the same way he had done to her. The breath hissed from his lungs, the heat and hunger shooting to his already-rigid cock.
What the devil was she doing?
What had she read about?
He forgot to care—hell, he forgot the English language altogether—when she placed a kiss on his straining shaft. And when she took him into her mouth…
“Fuck,” he moaned, the curse fleeing him. He could not control it. Could not contain it.
She was…
He was…
Bloody hell, those lips. His hips jerked, driving his cock into her mouth. And she took him, making a soft whimper of her own pleasure. He was surrounded by wet heat. Her hum vibrated down his aching shaft, making his ballocks tighten.
He was going to spill.
If he did not stop her, he would not be able to hold back. And there was only one place he wanted to plant his seed this night. It was deep inside his wife.
Gently, he disengaged from her, before positioning them so that she was on her back and he atop her once more.
“I was just beginning,” she protested.
He groaned, pressing his forehead to hers. “That is what I was afraid of, my darling. I cannot bear another moment of such torture. I need to be inside you.”
“I want to try it again,” she murmured. “I love your cock, Gill. It is so beautiful. It does seem frightfully large, however. How will it…fit, do you suppose? Inside me, that is?”
He suppressed another moan, because the mere thought of his cock inside her was enough to make him dangerously close to the edge. And because only Christabella would say such a thing. What else could he expect from the bold lady who had dared to tickle him, who had lured him from his shell?
Nothing less, and he knew it.
He kissed her, reaching between their bodies to find her cunny once more. She was dripping, so wet. That was important, and he knew it. With his foref
inger, he found her pearl once more, stimulating her there until her hips were moving and her breath emerged in shallow gasps.
Until he could not wait.
He withdrew from her and used her dew, slicking it over his shaft.
He paused, tearing his mouth from hers. “Are you ready, my love?”
“Always,” she said.
He guided his cock to her entrance. One pump of his hips, and he was seated inside her. Not all the way. Just enough. The sensation was exquisite. Unlike anything he could have fathomed. Tight heat engulfed him. He almost came right then.
But he held himself still, for he knew the loss of a woman’s maidenhead could prove painful. He kissed her cheek, her nose. “How do you feel, Belle?”
“Incredible,” she whispered back. “Why did you stop?”
“Is there pain?” he asked, mindful of her.
“A sting,” she said, “nothing more. The greatest ache inside me only has one solution.”
Bloody hell.
He moved again. Remembering the importance of her pearl, he worked it once more with his fingers, which had remained between their bodies. She was swollen, ready. She bowed from the bed, and he drove deeper. Then deeper. Until he was seated all the way, inside her as far as he could go.
Their mouths met.
They kissed, and it was fervent and carnal, those kisses. He could not keep still. His body had a mind of its own, his desire all-encompassing. Gill lost control. He withdrew from her almost entirely and then thrust home once more. The friction and tightness were making him mindless.
He and Christabella found a rhythm, moving together. It seemed as natural and right as anything. As natural and right as the two of them, as their love. Nothing had ever been so pure, so true. Their bodies and their hearts were one.
He increased his pressure on the bud of her sex, and she tightened on him, her sheath gripping him with so much force, he lost himself. Her spend rippled through her as he buried himself to the hilt. And it was too much. He tensed and spilled deep inside her. They came together, their cries mingling in the night.
The force of his release rolled through him, and he remained where he was, still inside her, spent. And sated. Oh, so damned sated.
Gill held his weight on his forearms, conscious enough not to want to smother her entirely beneath his much larger body. He kissed her once more, his gaze locking with hers.
“I love you, my darling Belle,” he said.
He wanted to say more, but his mind was addled. He was mindless. Breathless. Helpless.
And happy.
So deliriously happy.
“I love you too,” she told him, her caresses sweeping up and down the plane of his back. “When can we do that again?”
Gill did the only thing he could do in a moment like that.
He tipped back his head and laughed.
“Soon,” he replied, pressing another kiss to her lips.
“Do you promise?” she murmured against his mouth, the minx he had married.
“I swear,” he vowed.
“What about now?” she asked wickedly, moving her hips against his.
What about now, indeed? He kissed his wild Winter again.
And then again.
It proved a long, long time before either of them fell asleep that night, replete and happy and in love, wrapped in each other’s arms.
The End.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Wild in Winter! I hope you enjoyed this sixth book in my The Wicked Winters series and that Gill and Christabella’s unique love story touched your heart. I love my Winter family, and I thank you, the readers, for loving them too!
In fact, I love them so much that I’m not ready to say goodbye to them yet, and I hope you aren’t either. The secret’s out! The other half of the Winter family, led by oldest brother Dominic Winter, is about to start falling in love. Look for this continuation of the series in Fall 2020. I can’t wait for you to meet the Wickedest Winters yet…
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As always, please consider leaving an honest review of Wild in Winter. Reviews are greatly appreciated!
While you wait for the next chapter of The Wicked Winters, why not check out my League of Dukes series if you haven’t already? If you’d like a preview of Scandalous Duke, a steamy stand-alone romance about a single father duke on a dangerous mission and an American actress with secrets, do read on! It’s got all the heart and sizzle of The Wicked Winters, but with an added dose of adventure.
Until next time,
Scarlett
Scandalous Duke
By
Scarlett Scott
Felix Markham, Duke of Winchelsea, has devoted his life to being the perfect statesman and raising his daughter after his beloved wife’s death. But when devastating bombings on the railway leave London in an uproar, he is determined to bring the mastermind of the attacks to justice. He will lure the fox from his den by any means.
In her youth, Johanna McKenna donned a French accent and stage name to escape the clutches of her violent father and became the darling of the New York City stage as Rose Beaumont. Her past comes calling when her brother’s reappearance in her life leads her into a dangerous web of deceit. She finds herself hopelessly trapped until she receives an offer she cannot refuse from London’s most famous theater.
Felix’s plan is clear: bring the famed Rose of New York to London, secure her as his mistress, and drive his quarry to English shores. But the more time he spends in Johanna’s company, the more he realizes nothing is as it seems, least of all the woman who feels as if she were made to be in his arms. When he finally learns the truth, it may be too late to save both his city and the enigmatic lady who has stolen his heart.
Chapter One
London, 1883
From the moment he first saw Rose Beaumont grace the stage that evening, Felix had known why she was the most celebrated actress in New York City. He also knew why Drummond McKenna, the Fenian mastermind behind the explosions on the London railway, would want her in his bed. And he knew he was going to do his damnedest to use the beauty to lure McKenna to the justice awaiting him.
But for now, he would settle for champagne.
He took a sip, watching his quarry from across Theo Saville’s sumptuous ballroom where the company of The Tempest and the city’s most elite patrons of the arts had gathered to fête the Rose of New York. Trust Theo to throw a party lavish enough for an emperor. The servants were aplenty, the food was French, the champagne likely cost a small fortune, and the company was elegantly dissolute.
As a duke from a line that descended practically to the days of William the Conqueror, wealth and ostentation did not impress Felix. As a man who had lost the only woman he had ever loved, women did not ordinarily impress him either.
Rose Beaumont, however, did.
In the light of the gas lamps, she was a sight to behold. Dressed in an evening gown of rich claret, her golden hair worked into an elaborate Grecian braid, there was no doubt she commanded the eye of every gentleman in the chamber. Rubies and gold glinted from her creamy throat, her lush bosom and cinched waist on full display.
And though he observed her to hone his strategy, he could not deny he was as helplessly in awe of her as the rest of the sorry chaps gaping at her beauty. He had watched her perform, so mesmerized by her portrayal of Miranda, he had forgotten he was attending the theater to further his goal. For a brief beat, he forgot it anew as she tilted her head toward Theo and laughed at something droll he had no doubt said.
Theo looked pleased, and well he should, for though he had brought Rose Beaumont to his stage as a favor to Felix, there had been so much fanfare surrounding the arrival of the famed Rose of New York, that his already much-lauded theater was enjoying an unprecedented amount of attention. But
he was also favoring Mademoiselle Beaumont with his rascal’s grin, the one Felix had seen lead many a woman straight to his bed.
Felix had not painstakingly crafted his plan just so Theo could ruin it with his insatiable desire to get beneath a lady’s skirts. No, indeed. Felix finished his champagne, deposited his empty glass upon a servant’s tray, and then closed the distance between himself and his prey.
As he reached them, he realized, much to his irritation, that Rose Beaumont was lovelier than she had been from afar. Her eyes were a startling shade of blue, so cool, they verged on gray. Her lips were a full, pink pout. Her nose was charmingly retroussé. Hers was an ideal beauty, juxtaposed with the lush potency of a female who knew her power over the opposite sex.
Their gazes clashed, and he felt something deep inside him, an answering awareness he had not expected, like a jolt of sheer electricity to his senses. There was something visceral and potent in that exchange of glances. A current blazed down his spine, and his cock twitched to life.
She smelled of rose petals. Rose had been the scent Hattie favored. The realization and recognition made an unwanted stirring of memory wash over him. He banished the remembrance, for he could not bear to think of Hattie when he stood opposite a woman who had shared the bed of a monster like Drummond McKenna.
“Winchelsea,” Theo greeted him warmly. “May I present to you Miss Rose Beaumont, lately of New York, the newest and loveliest addition to the Crown and Thorn?”
Her stare was still upon him. He looked at her and tried to feel revolted. But the disgust he had summoned for her when she had been nothing more than a name on paper refused to return. Her beauty was blinding, and he told himself that was the reason for his sudden, unaccountable vulnerability. That and the scent of her. Not just rose, he discovered, but an undercurrent of citrus. Distinctly different from Hattie’s scent after all.
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