Annette Blair

by Holy Scoundrel

  Gabriel began to approach her in a rather sinister but titillating way, much like a predator, a wolf perhaps, like Ivy’s Sergei—well, a little bit of Sergei and a bit more of Parson puppet—stalking its prey. “After we dine, then,” he whispered, stroking the skin of her breasts above her décolletage. “Where should we make love? Beneath the stars? In the gypsy wagon? Or in Rectory Cottage?”

  “Yes, please.”

  His head came up quite fast at that. “What? All three?”

  “Beneath the stars, to start. We’ll go for silk and sensation, teasing and tantalizing, with all the candles on, a first coming together of husband and wife, shy, sweet, slow, raising pleasure like a mighty wave that spills as it crests.”

  He cleared his throat. “What will be left for the gypsy wagon?”

  “There, we will be ruthless lovers. We will ride each other until we rock the wagon and cry out with mutually unbearable pleasure.”

  Gabriel took to standing differently.

  She’d affected him and she reveled in it . . . because that’s what she’d set out to do.

  “And at the cottage?” he asked, his voice nothing more than a rasp now.

  “Lastly, in our marriage bed, we’ll tear each other’s clothes off . . . and go to sleep.”

  He caught his breath and she laughed at what she’d done to him, boldly raking his body with her gaze, stopping to admire his arousal so long, she’d turned his readiness into a saluting soldier.

  “Sleep?” he asked, playing along. “On our wedding night?”

  “Well, it’s midnight now, so by the time we get to the rectory, it’ll probably be the morning after our wedding. What are we, heathens to make love during the day? Lud, yes!” she added.

  “Oh, I love it when you get forceful.” He lunged.

  She squeaked and stepped back. “But not too forceful.”

  He stopped, held his hands behind his back and, whistling, he headed past their bed beneath the stars and out the side door.

  She laughed.

  He peeked back inside.

  “In Rectory Cottage, which sounds so decadent,” she said, curling her finger his way to draw him toward her, “we’ll get naked and eat passion whole, throw our bodies into the earthiest of gratifications. Love-licks, mouths exploring, suckling each other, handseverywhere. I’ll become the mate to the wolf hiding inside you, and we’ll pleasure each other until we howl at the moon and expire of exhaustion.” She met him halfway.

  “One step closer, Lacey, and I’ll spill my seed, I swear.”

  “Words,” she said, stopping. “They’re so powerful when painting a picture.”

  “Well you’d better paint another picture or I’ll be useless to you.”

  “I’m hungry?” she tried.

  He shook his head. “Hunger and the scene you described feel as one to me. You’ve only made it worse.”

  Lace fell to the grass in giggles, her silver gown puddled around her, mirroring a dazzle of sparks, like shooting stars made of moonbeams and candlelight.

  After watching her for a minute or more, Gabriel bent to raise her face to his by placing a finger beneath her chin. “Of all the memories we made today, I think I’ll carry this image of you in my heart forever. I’ll call it:Seductress.”

  “Caught,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. “Happy wedding day, Gabriel.”

  “Happy life, Lacey.”

  “Can we eat now?”

  He groaned and gave her a hand up so they could.

  She uncovered the courses. “I’m glad the pews have been taken away, or I’d feel as if our guests were watching us in our bed beneath the stars later.”

  “You might have doused me with cold water with that remark.”

  “Not in the condition you’re in.” She chuckled and kissed him.

  They sat as close as two people could and fed each other bits of turkey and ham pie, pears in red wine, pippin pie, and bites of steamed lemon pudding with sugar bells on top. To drink, Mac had made a weak champagne punch.

  Lacey raised her glass. “To our family.”

  Gabe nodded. “All three.”

  “Our family.”

  Gabe went into Ivy’s wagon, which surprised her, until she heard the strains of a Viennese waltz.

  He returned to take her hand.

  “How does it play without someone turning the crank?” she asked.

  “Ivy taught me this afternoon how to change the music and run it with a coin. He often puts it outside during street shows and lets his audience choose the music.”

  “I’m glad we’re here in our secret place.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Not secret anymore.”

  He twirled her, slowed to a decadent waltz, caught her mouth with his, stole her breath with love, let his lips linger and toy with hers, his tongue, his hands making free with her person, until they were all but making love with each move of their legs and torsos, his leg between hers, abrading her sex, her knees set to buckle.

  “It was rather cheeky of MacKenzie and Ivy to set up a bed for us beneath the stars, wasn’t it? Mac must’ve blushed from here to the sea.”

  “For all that we’ve scandalized the town, we’re rather naïve, we two. It seems that Ivy and Mac have had an understanding for years, now.”

  “You mean that they—”

  “Every chance they get. He won’t stay in his own room tonight any more than he does when he stays here. You didn’t wonder why he picked a room on the third floor in the servant’s quarters? And this? Only lovers understand what lovers who practically have to steal their wedding day need in a wedding night.”

  Lacey stopped dancing. “I’m shocked.”

  “You’re surprised is what you are, Lacey Kendrick—I told you that would be your name.”

  “Now don’t pick a quarrel, I’m rather liking you right now,” she warned.

  He laughed, swept her off her feet, and brought her to the mattresses in the corner of the ruins, set her on the satin bedding, and went down with her.

  “I’ve already lost my head kissing you in front of everyone today,” Gabe said. “So I’m taking full advantage of being alone with you in a bed. Finally.”

  His vow of never letting passion rule him again echoed with a beat similar to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, the sound of an inner mandate to mate with his one true love. Zounds, he was in trouble.

  He kissed her like a man drowning and tried to keep his hands above her gown, to enhance her rise to bliss, grow her need from a seed to a bud opening its petals. He wanted to bring her to flower, moist with the dew of her need, woo her with an ever-expanding pleasure heretofore unknown to her, and make her his own, for eternity.

  Over that gown, he traced the straight of her spine, but before he caught himself at it, he’d slipped his hand upward, along the silk stockings, garters, then the bare skin of a soft, sweet leg.

  Lacey sighed with anticipation and pleasure, rolled to her back, and arched to give him access. Saints preserve them both. At the rate they were going they’d last thirteen seconds at the most.

  So instead of cupping her perfect bottom as he anticipated, he found her perfect center instead, and her needy whimpers at his touch combined to form the inner music that fed their love, and the strains of the waltz surrounding them fed their spirits as well. Stars above, a full moon, the grass below their bed, Lacey, slick and sleek and more than ready, as open and dew-kissed as a morning glory at dawn. What more of life could a man ask?

  Several minutes in, she burst as if from the inside into a million sparks of light.

  “You went up like the fireworks celebrating our victory over Napoleon,” he said, raising her up again. “Since you came home, you’ve been different in bed. Reserved. How long has it been since youreally let yourself go like this?”

  “You mean with a man?” Lacey shouted her second release with him throbbing so hard, the push of his trouser buttons chafed his saluting soldier. And she wasn’t done yet, but he
wouldn’t stop for anything. Giving her this kind of attention and satisfaction both humbledand excited him. “Of course, with a man,” he said, tardy in catching her silly joke.

  “The last time I let myself go like this, I was with Gabe . . . somebody . . . the man I loved—” She gasped. “’Twas five or so years ago, no mattress, just the grass at my back and him inside me.”

  Talk about being humbled. “That’s all I need to know. Fly once more, or ten times more, that’s it. Come on, you can do it.”

  “Too . . . tired.”

  “No. I’m not giving up. How’s this, right here? Oh, that’s the spot, slow and deep, I can tell.” Thunderation, she was sweet and beautiful in her wild abandon, as hot and bright as those fireworks. He had nearly missed her hearty participation since she came home because guilt accompanied every stolen moment of bliss. But she was hiswifenow.His.

  “This is all for you,” he said. “Let’s keep it going, love. I’m sending you straight to the stars and I’ll keep you there for as long as you can stand the ride.”

  CHAPTER TWENTYONE

  Lace opened her eyes to an actual dream, the one where she wakes in the morning with Gabriel wrapped around her, the sun streaming in the windows.

  Except that it was still the dark of night, the stars winking down on them like a blessing, and they were both wearing clothes. Every stitch.

  She had been extraordinarily satisfied, and Gabe had gotten . . . nothing. Remembering the size and throb of him in her hand, he must have suffered for her pleasure, but he bore it stoically and exhausted them both in the process.

  She might even have lost consciousness from the pleasure, it was so nearly unbearable. So utterly amazing. As was her new husband.

  While he snored softly, his waking erection patted the back of her hand. With it being so big and happy to be alive, she gave it a “good morning” stroke, to which it stood and bowed, and soon enough, her hand was full and being coaxed into rhythm.

  “You once said you liked it best big and long,” Gabriel said, stretching and falling to his back. “Are you trying to have your wicked way with me? Say yes.”

  The night she came home, he’d looked like Lucifer to her, and now he more closely resembled the lamb wanting to be stroked. So she simply adored him, every part, not just his impressive erection, but all of him, his face, his talented lips, his dark head of hair, the “ucky-scratchy” beard, silken chest hair, broad shoulders, big clumsy feet, andeverything in between.

  “Gabriel? May I please feel my breasts against your nice, naked hairy chest?”

  “C’mere, wife.” He pulled her over him so she could use him as another mattress, and he could insinuate himself, that elongated part of himself, between her legs, just where she wanted it almost.

  “Gabriel, it would work better if my skirts were up and we were wearing less clothes.”

  He chuckled. “You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Funny, but I’m rather ashamed of myself. If I remember it clearly, you did not get your share, or any share of the delight to be had in the marriage bed. You didn’t, did you?” She raised herself up on her hands. “Oh, please tell me I didn’t sleep through it?”

  He chuckled. “If you ever sleep through my lovemaking, I shall have a duel with myself and win.”

  “You haven’t had your turn, then, have you?”

  “Not yet,” said he, “but I did not intend for my situation to be a permanent one, make no mistake.”

  She grinned like a sated cat. “I shall give you more than your fair share until you beg for mercy.”

  “I may need a nap first. You exhausted me, you ravenous, delightful dream of a wife.”

  Lacey buried her warm face in his neck. “I am so very remorseful.”

  “Remorse, my aunt Tilda. I witnessed a miracle tonight. You gave new meaning to the termmate. I will want to rush through my work just to get to my marriage bed from this day on. I only hope I don’t remember last night during future sermons, wherever we find a church, or I’ll lose my place and be too embarrassed to move from the pulpit. By thunder, you belong in the betting books, except that I prefer my secret knowledge—in the biblical sense—of your lusty self.”

  Lace wailed and buried her face in his neck. “I’ll never be able to look you in the eye again.”

  He stood and offered her a hand. “Sure you will. Right now. In the wagon. Naked. I’m determined to let you earn your way to our bedroom in Rectory Cottage, or die of pleasure trying.”

  But when he carried her up the steps and into the wagon, she knocked over a lap desk that belched a flutter of papers that floated to the floor.

  Denied the pleasures of the marriage bed for a bit, they found themselves crawling around the gypsy wagon on all fours picking up papers and trying to put them together.

  “I’ll light a candle,” Gabriel said, his arousal still tenting his formal attire.

  Lacey giggled.

  He shed some light on their task. “I’ll get you back,” he whispered at her ear, warming her, and making her want. But she was quickly distracted by the sight of two papers that landed close to each other. “Gabriel, my name.”

  He picked up a candle so they could see to read. “These are Ivy’s directions to his solicitor for my anonymous inheritance. He told the man that he was doing this so I, Lacey Ashton, could become self-sufficient, self-confident, and as a lady of independent means, I could freely choose to marry the man I had always loved.”

  “He did it for us, Lace,” Gabriel said. “I can see that now, though I feared at first that you would see it as a way of taking Bridget.”

  “I would never have done that. And I’ll never be able to thank Ivy, because he shouldn’t know that we know,” Lace said.

  They put all the papers back in the lap desk and Gabe returned it to its shelf. “This should be secured but you must have kicked the strap at a vulnerable point.”

  “Gabe, he’ll see that it’s broken and know that the papers have been rearranged.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll probably think Hedgehog did it.”

  Lace scoffed.

  “Seriously, he’ll probably think Cricket and her friends did. They’re always in here. And he’d never be angry with them.”

  He turned her away from him, there on the floor. “Allow me,” he said, undoing her buttons, remembering their time in the wagon with fondness. He kissed and fondled her as he peeled away the layers between her and her underpinnings, toying with every pleasure-heightening inch of flesh he exposed along the way.

  Lace whimpered. She gasped. She asked him to stop, and she asked him for more.

  He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her the way he’d kissed her the day they made love for the first time. He’d kissed her then as if time had stopped and belonged entirely to them. Now he could do that and more. He could slip inside her and stay forever, take her on a meteoric rise to the stars, where they could both weep with pleasure.

  He set her on the bed and she pulled up the covers.

  “No.” He pulled them back down.

  “This is embarrassing,” she said, turning on her side to face him, moonlight bathing her hair a rich sable, starlight stroking her from her neck to the tops of her long shapely thighs, until she raised a leg to hide her woman’s core and placed her arms so as to hide her breasts, the nubbins hard and aching for his hands and his mouth.

  He imagined those legs wrapped tightly around him and was forced to drop his man-drawers to save himself from strangulation by titillation.

  You’d think she was his first meal in a week. All he could think about was the way she’d taste on his lips and feel gloving him.

  She seemed as interested in the process of him taking off his clothes as she had been interested in him removing hers.

  “When we get to the Rectory, I want to take off your clothes the way you removed mine,” she said, moving in the bed like a slithery siren seeking his ministrations.

  “Can you read my mind?” he
asked.

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded. “Naughty thoughts make for a naughty vicar, a holy Scoundrel, if you will.”

  “Your holy Scoundrel, if you will.”

  She practically purred. “Oh, I will.”

  He lost his patience as his inner garments came off in a rush, and he was in the bed as naked as she.

  She met his enthusiasm and became the warmth at his neck, the heaviness on his chest, her hair feathered his cheek, his sex. Her scent became seduction and salvation enticing him to slip further into her arms. Her hand rode his chest, her knee rode his groin.

  Destiny, this was called.

  He found her mouth, warm, barely open, inviting, seeking succor from a kiss. He devoured that pout while she gave an involuntary squeak, a lusty moan. Those sounds and her tongue set him on fire.

  “Lace,” he heard himself breathe.

  She responded by becoming greedy, ravenous, determined to help him make the relentless climb, breathless and unyielding, toward a place they labored to reach, a ride toward eternity, a need to prolong. Despite his best efforts to hold his passion at bay, realization came with a frisson of panic that turned quickly to elation. His wife. Lace the passionate had become his wife. At the release of his ban on passion, joy came in waves. Acceptance. Gratitude. Responsibility.

  “I want you,” Gabe whispered against Lacey’s ear, sharing the warmth of his breath, offering himself to her, raising her higher still, but not so high that she could miss the underlying need of Gabriel the boyseeking acceptance.

  “I need you more than my next breath,” she said. “No more pretending this is out of our control. We’ve taken it in hand, so to speak.” She stopped being serious to squeeze his thickened flesh. “This is the rest of our lives we’re talking about. I love you. Till death do us part. I want all of it, home, family, all of it with you,” she added, arching against him, fitting her every curve to his every hollow.

  “Now tell me you’re actually awake,” he begged.