Reckless Viscount

by Amy Sandas

“Most days.”

  Abbigael ignored his flippant response.

  “Have you any idea just how terrifying it is to wake up and find yourself in a strange place with no idea how you got there?”

  “Actually, I…”

  “Or what it feels like to wake after sleeping through the night with your wrists and ankles bound?”

  “As a matter…”

  Her gaze held a blazing light as she sent him a scathing look she hoped showed him just how fed up she was with his interruptions, and he wisely closed him mouth.

  “How dare you?” she finally shouted. “How dare you treat me with such heedless disregard? I canna fathom your cause or reason for doing this, but I willna stand for it.”

  She twisted her hands together in her lap. It was too much. The last few days of watching her dreams crumble in the midst of harmful whispers, waking to find herself a victim of abduction, and the subtle but constant onslaught of sensations created by simply being in the presence of the man before her were more than she could handle.

  Every muscle in her body felt strained and pulled tight. Her pulse beat rapidly in her ears. Her initial fear turned to wary confusion had been building since she first woke and was starting to make her insides shake. She felt the rising tide of her own jumbled emotions and desperately tried to hold back the flood. The pressure within her was reaching a breaking point and she feared that any moment she would either dissolve into a torrent of tears or scream with frustration.

  “Irish…” Leif began in a soothing tone.

  Abbigael’s frazzled nerves jolted at the sound of that one low murmured word. Her wide eyes met the deep richness of his and a shock of something bright speared through the chaotic haze of her distress. Her stomach flipped wildly and panic started to creep from the edges of her awareness.

  “No, no, no! Do not Irish me.” She held up her hands as if to keep him at bay even though he hadn’t moved an inch toward her. “I willna hear any of your honeyed words. They drip from a forked tongue. You’re a right devil to be takin’ me as you have, coming upon me in my bed, gagging and trussing me up like a spring goose, nearly scaring the life outta me. I thought…I thought you…”

  The words caught in her throat. She wouldn’t admit she had thought he might have some true feelings for her. Of course he didn’t. Why should he be different than anyone else?

  Her pause of distress seemed to prod him into action as he straightened from his careless slouch and slid forward to clasp her face in his warm hands. Abbigael’s distress turned instantly to alarm, but rather than resisting his touch, she stilled beneath it. His expression was imploring, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t form the words.

  No, she had to be mistaken. Men like him did not beg for anything.

  But there was absolutely no mistaking the complicated fire in the depths of his eyes. It was a perfect match to the unnamed flames within herself. Flames that had been building since this man first approached her with his wicked smile and jaded glance.

  In the next second, before Abbigael had a chance to form another thought, he pulled her forward and claimed her mouth with his. The world spun crazily out of balance as a dizzying sensation rushed up from her chest to spread through her stiff limbs.

  There was passion and fire and need in that kiss and Abbigael’s entire body responded to it with full vigor. Every cell and nerve and strand of muscle came to life. The warm, solid impression of his mouth on hers distracted her from any thought.

  He slid one hand into her hair at the base of her skull, exerting just enough pressure to hold her in place. Then he curved his arm around her upper back and in one smooth motion lifted her further onto the bed as he stood and rose over her. Never breaking the contact between their lips, he lowered his body to lay half on top of her, half alongside her in the narrow bed.

  His weight was heavenly. His body was hot and solid where he pressed along her side, partially covering her. His mouth was warm and firm. Abbigael brought her hands to his sides where she splayed her fingers and felt the ridges of his ribs beneath his thin shirt and the lean muscles that wrapped from his chest to his back.

  He was so strong. So male. Being pressed to such a body was a heady thing. She wasn’t exactly sure how she had gone from berating him to lying beneath him, nearly breathless from the lovely feel of him, but she couldn’t deny how perfectly right it felt to be here now, just like this.

  He shifted the position of his lips on hers and the subtle sliding friction brought a tingling rush to her limbs. She had been kissed by him before, but this was so unlike that other time. This had a deep note of urgency. She felt it in herself. And she felt it in the tension of his body against her.

  He turned his head to fit his lips more securely over hers. Abbigael lifted her chin, seeking the same, and a low sound of appreciation sounded in his throat. His lips parted and he very deliberately touched the center of her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. She gasped at the delicate sensation and he took advantage of her parted lips to dart his tongue between her teeth. He angled his head and tightened his fingers at the back of her neck, forcing her to accept his full possession of her mouth.

  Every muscle in her body melted in surrender. The taste of him was hot and sensual and dark and dangerous.

  Abbigael thought she might die from the rush of heat that poured through her body in reaction to the passionate onslaught. But it was a death she craved. She wrapped her arms around his back and arched into his chest. Her breasts felt heavy, a sweet hollow ache had started low in her belly and all she wanted was to feel him against her. Hard, strong, steady and hot.

  Nudging his thigh between hers and dropping his hand to the curve of her buttocks, he hauled her more fully into the curve of his body. Feeling him there, the hard surface of his thigh pressing deliciously against her, Abbigael experienced a wonderfully deep throbbing in her womb and in the heated flesh of her sex.

  The flames within her grew and so did the delicate aching tightness. The movement of his lips, teeth and tongue became more intricate and demanding and Abbigael responded on instinct alone. She kissed him with a fervor that may have frightened her if she had the wits to consider it. She fisted her hands in the material of his shirt and bowed her body into him, trying to ease the hollowness expanding within her.

  A low groan rumbled in his throat and he pressed her back into the mattress, following until he covered her completely, his hips settling between her spread thighs. The hard ridge of his erection pressed against her private flesh, provoking a rush of sensation to an area already throbbing with luscious warmth. She gasped and bit down on the fullness of his lower lip. It was a momentary lapse in control, but he seemed to enjoy it as he elicited another deep groan and claimed her mouth in a deep open kiss that pulled at the very base of her soul.

  He reached down along her thigh and tugged impatiently at the light cotton gown covering her bare legs until he got it bunched up at her hips.

  Cool air swept over her thighs and Abbigael stiffened, a brief flashing moment of awareness forced her to realize what was about to happen. And she wanted it. She wanted this with everything that made up who she was. Every past hurt and lonely wish, every fear and desire for more, every lost dream she ever had seemed unimportant as she reveled in her passion and desire for this man. She knew it was fleeting. She knew there would be consequences. But she didn’t care. She needed this. She needed him.

  He covered her breast with his large hand and softly molded her shape. He dragged his lips down the line of her throat, leaving a hot trail of moisture from his tongue, and she gasped for breath, arching beneath him. She slid her hands under his shirt to caress the long muscles of his back and a sound of pleasure pulled from her throat at the smooth heat of his bare skin beneath her palms. When his mouth descended upon her breast, teasing the peak through the thin material of her gown, sparks of new sensation swirled out from the contact and tightened the sweet ache in her womb.

  She had no more con
scious thoughts about anything.

  Even when he reached between her thighs to release the front of his breeches. In the next moment, she felt the smooth tip of him poised at the entrance to her body, but she refused to acknowledge anything beyond the sensations rushing through her.

  He lifted his head from her breast and for a startling second their eyes met.

  Abbigael’s breath caught sharply at what she saw there, and for that second her heart felt heavy near to bursting. Never had she seen such stark need in another person. It was not only powerful desire she saw, though there was that too. The dark centers of his eyes surrounded by rich changing color showed her a darkness buried deep in his soul. A darkness that craved light with near painful desperation.

  Before she could wonder at the revelation, he took her mouth in another kiss that stirred the echoing waves of sensation in her body to a new frenzy. When she felt the first easing of his body into hers, wet heat flooded her private flesh. She welcomed the pulsing pressure and tilted her hips to receive more of him. His tortured groan told her she was doing the right thing and she answered by kissing him more avidly, trying to tell him without words what she wanted. She wrapped her arms around his back and bent her knees, pushing her feet into the mattress, lifting her hips.

  She wanted him now. She didn’t want to wait another moment to know him in this way. The ache in her body demanded to be filled.

  He slid his hand beneath her hips to grasp her buttocks, tilting her to receive him. And then, as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, he thrust forward into her body, past the virginal barrier until he was seated to the hilt.

  Abbigael broke from the kiss and gasped for air. She had known there would be pain. She had overheard two of her married cousins talking once and knew this moment was to be expected, yet still it stunned her. The deep, rending burn left no doubt that the moment had changed her forever.

  At first, the pain of his possession blocked out all else, but other impressions quickly returned.

  Holding her buttocks firmly in his hand, he slowly withdrew from her body. But not all the way. Just enough to indulge in the easy glide of his length within her sensitive sex. Then he pushed forward again, claiming her completely. He slid an arm beneath her slim shoulders and he held her to him as his mouth pressed hotly to the curve of her throat and his hips moved with expert rhythm between her thighs. Plunging forward then gliding in retreat.

  She felt oddly secure and liberated in his arms, as if in holding her he set her free. The burning receded from inside her and Abbigael felt a return of the ache that had so tantalized her before. Except the hollow craving had become a restless demand in her body. She moved her hands up and down the corded muscles of his spine, loving the feel of his sweat-slicked skin. She turned her head, seeking his mouth and he met her with lips and tongue and teeth. Teasing her, urging her, encouraging her to come with him. Every deliberate thrust drew more delicious pleasure from her sensitized nerves and built steadily on what came before. She felt surrounded by him, crazed by the passion between them, and she wanted to go higher. Needed to reach the peak she sensed ahead.

  As if heeding her silent plea, his urgency increased, his possession became more powerful. Abbigael was ready for it. She surrendered to the strength of the passion threatening to sweep her away. She lifted her knees high against his hips and pressed her palms against the low curve where his spine dipped above the taut rise of his buttocks.

  Something was coming, she could sense it. She strained and arched beneath him, pulled him to her and made desperate little darts of her tongue into his mouth. His hand under her buttocks tensed and his fingers dug into her soft flesh. With a deep rumbling moan, he lifted her hips to take the quickened demand of his thrusts. Short, panting gasps escaped from her lips and every muscle clenched in anticipation.

  And then suddenly it was there. A shattering of awareness that started with a breathtaking pulse of pleasure deep within where they were joined and then spread out in multiplying waves, rippling through her womb and breasts and tingling throughout her limbs. Abbigael felt her soul lift in a way that had her wondering in a distant corner of her mind if she hadn’t just touched a wee bit of heaven.

  She was only slightly aware of the moment he gave a final plunging thrust into her pulsing core and his entire body tensed over her, a choked sound catching in his throat. And then the full weight of him covered her, their rapid breath the only sound breaking the silence of the room.

  Abbigael reveled in the surreal aftermath of the most amazing experience she had ever known. She silently studied the way his heart beat heavily against hers and his manhood softened within her. She wondered if he were even aware that he was pressing careless kisses to the side of her throat, sparking goose bumps over the surface her cooling skin.

  She didn’t intend to ask him. She didn’t want anything to interrupt the lovely haze they both seemed content to enjoy.

  But it had to end.

  And when he finally shifted his weight, she closed her eyes and bit her lip against the pained protest that rose from her chest. She wasn’t ready for reality. She wasn’t ready for him to leave her.

  He lifted his upper body and she could feel his gaze traveling over her face. But she kept her eyes closed. Then he dipped his head and took her mouth in a stirring and passionate kiss that warmed her blood and caused a painful little squeeze in her heart. Just when she thought he might start it all again, he released her lips and pulled himself away, leaving her alone and bared in the narrow bed. She was grateful he thought to pull the hem of her gown down over her legs before she heard him walk away.

  Once he removed his warmth from her body, the bliss slowly started to recede from her quaking limbs. Still, she feared she may never completely regain her equilibrium. She tried to do what she’d always done when she felt overwhelmed. She retreated. Into herself, behind a veil of false imperturbability. She had perfected the stratagem years ago when she realized that even the smallest sign of emotional distress was met with distrust and fear.

  The explosion of temper that had pre-empted Leif’s sensual possession had been her first display of pure emotion since her mother’s death.

  It had been startlingly liberating.

  And what came after…well, she didn’t quite have a word for that yet.

  When she felt as if she had managed to bring herself back under control, she rolled to her side, drew her knees up in front of her and opened her eyes.

  Leif stood in front of a basin of water set on a small stand in the corner of the room. He had pulled his shirt off and was dipping his hands into the water and splashing it over his face. Abbigael watched with wild fascination as water ran down his throat and over the surface of his muscled chest and shoulders. He splashed his face several times, heedless of the water that began to soak the waistband of his breeches.

  Abbigael blushed, realizing he hadn’t even bothered to remove any of his clothes or even his shoes before making…before…

  Goodness. She couldn’t even bring herself to think the word. Perhaps because she was not so naïve she couldn’t understand there had been no love involved in what had just happened. Strangely, she was all right with that. She half-expected to be overwhelmed with shame or regret now that the cloud of passion had started to fade from her awareness. But she felt none of those things and she didn’t want to wonder why.

  Lost in a moment of musing, she did not have a chance to glance away when Leif finished his ablutions and turned back to face her. She refused to look down to where he was refastening the closure of his breeches, but that meant she had to meet his gaze. A choice that was probably far more detrimental to her state of mind. Because what she saw there was far more disturbing.

  The deep yearning and heated desire had been replaced by a flat and passive regard that gave away nothing of his thoughts. It wasn’t exactly a cold expression, but to Abbigael it felt as if a warming fire had been abruptly doused. She pulled herself into a sitting position, tucking he
r legs and bare feet under the edge of her gown, clasping her hands and resting them in her lap.

  She closed herself off from the uncomfortable emotions and retreated into the silent composure that had served her well in the past.

  “I will give you some privacy to wash up,” he said in an even tone.

  His words called her attention to the sticky wetness between her legs and her blush grew hotter, but she did not lower her chin or avert her eyes.

  “Do you intend to come back?” Her spine stiff and her voice unwavering. Now was not a time to mince words.

  His eyes remained unreadable.

  “I will be back. I am not going far.”

  Abbigael nodded. She understood the implication that should she try to leave the room while he was away, she would not get far. He needn’t have bothered with the subtle warning. She had no thought to leave anyway. Not when she still had no idea where they were and wore only her nightgown as a barrier to curious eyes.

  Apparently satisfied by her sign of acquiescence, he pulled his discarded shirt back over his head then turned and walked the short distance to the door, sweeping up his coat from the back of the chair as he passed. A moment later, without another word from either of them, the door clicked shut behind him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  With every step Leif took down the narrow darkened staircase of the inn, one word repeated itself over and over in his pounding brain.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck…

  What the hell had he done?

  He had stolen a young woman’s innocence, that’s what. But not just any woman. A fiery, passionate woman who surprised him at every turn. He could still taste the sweetness of her mouth and smell the fresh dewy scent of her skin. The very essence of her clung to him with persistent purpose.

  There was no escaping the consequences of his actions.

  He hadn’t even used a sheath to protect against conception. That he could so completely forget something that had become such an ingrained part of sex was staggering in its implications.