Joss and The Countess (The Seducers Book 2)

by S. M. LaViolette

  He lifted her on top of his body, the only place she could be comfortable with him taking up most of the bed.

  “You need a bigger bed,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow, his hands stroking her sides. “You don’t like your part of it?” he asked, flexing his hips beneath her.

  Her lips curved at his suggestive tone and gesture and she wiggled her hips, fully aware of what she was doing to him.

  “I love my part of the bed.” She kissed his shoulder, apparently unaware of what she’d just said. And certainly unaware of the way he could have taken it.

  Of course he did not.

  Instead, she looked over her shoulder and then back at him. “Your feet hang off the bottom.”

  He nodded.

  “They must get cold.”

  He nodded.

  She smiled. “Have you gone mute?”

  He nodded.

  She laughed and lowered her smiling lips over his, brushing them back and forth lightly, her tongue peeking out and flicking.

  Joss groaned. “You’re making me hard again.”

  Her body stiffened at his words. Oh how she liked it when he was coarse. And of course he did what she liked.

  “Tell me something about yourself, Joss.”

  “What would you like to know?” he asked cautiously.

  “Anything.”

  “There is not much to tell—at least not that you do not already know.”

  “Won’t you tell me something you’ve never shared with another?”

  The look she gave him made him reckless.

  “My mother is not dead.” Her lips parted and he hurried on before he lost his nerve. “That is just what my family tells everyone. The truth is that she left when I was fifteen.” Saying the words out loud made his chest tighten, made breathing difficult. “She left my father, my sister—me.”

  “Oh, Joss.” She leaned down and kissed him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “You didn’t make me say anything I didn’t want to.” He smoothed her hair off her brow, momentarily distracted by several long strands of white among the blond. “Before she left us she managed to fill my head with rubbish—dreams of going to school and becoming a teacher. She did the same to my brother Gordon, who suffered the humiliation of being a charity boy to earn a place as an overworked and undercompensated bank clerk.” His mouth flexed into a frown. “All my life she led me to believe she’d done my father some manner of favor by stooping to marry him. In truth it was my shy, quiet father who rescued her. She’d been a governess in the home of the same banker who’d employed her father. When she became pregnant, he turned her off. She told my father that her employer had forced himself on her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  “It turned out that wasn’t true. Gordon learned, much later, that the child was actually a footman’s—a man who worked in the same house and refused to marry her.”

  Joss shrugged. “So, that was our oldest brother’s father: not the master of the house, but his servant.” Joss didn’t tell her how furious he’d been when he’d learned the truth. Not because his mother had slept with a servant rather than the master, but because she had lied to them. All those years pretending she was somehow better than the situation she’d ended up in and the people she ended up living with. As if even her own children were beneath her.

  He met her concerned gaze. “When I was fifteen and Belle only five, I woke up to find that she’d run off with the man who sharpened my father’s knives.” He snorted. “What kind of woman leaves a child who is little more than a baby?”

  Alicia laid her head down on his shoulder and he slid both arms around her, burying his nose in her hair.

  “Everything changed then. I went to work in the shop. Gordon was already in school and even with the scholarship my father couldn’t afford to pay for two of us. And of course, Michael had married and the shop now needed to support two families.” He shrugged. “It was a hard life and I never blamed her for wanting something easier—I just blamed her for making us all ashamed of who we were.”

  “What made you decide to be a groom?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “Da’s younger brother had been in service to Lord Easton since he was a boy and he offered me a position as stable hand. I’d always liked horses and I’ve got a strong back. It was a good fit.”

  “I’ve not seen you ride,” she murmured, tracing the scar on his chin with a soft finger. “I imagine you are an excellent horseman.”

  His harsh face flushed slightly. “I haven’t ridden since leaving Lord Easton’s. He had a big stable and I exercised his hacks most days.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I still get to groom and care for them.” He cut her a smile. “Besides, I’d look rather silly hacking your mounts.”

  She grinned, clearly amused by the thought of him on one of her dainty mares. She kissed him and sat up, naked and majestic as she straddled his body. “You might not be able to ride, but I can.” Her hand settled on his erection and gave it a squeeze.

  Joss laughed, unable to recall a Christmas when he had been happier.

  ∞∞∞

  Alicia was trapped by something invisible but utterly unshakeable. She knew there was something bad coming, she needed to run, but all her effort produced not even the smallest twitch.

  “There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you, darling.”

  She tried to open her mouth, to scream, but only the tiniest whimper escaped, and that was suffocated by the sound of David’s sickening, evil laughter.

  His hands slid around her, more powerful than metal bands. “Why aren’t you fighting me?” He murmured in her ear, his horrible fingers stroking her. “You know how much I like it when you fight me, don’t you? Alicia? You know how much you love the things we do together, the things I do—”

  Alicia screamed.

  “Alicia? Alicia! My lady!”

  Strong arms cradled her and a big hand caressed her back. “Shhhh, sweetheart. Shhhh, you’re having a nightmare. You’re here, with me. It’s Joss.”

  Alicia stopped struggled and opened her eyes to a pitch-black room.

  “Joss!” She pulled her arms out from where they were trapped between their bodies and wrapped them around his huge torso, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe.

  His body shook as a soft chuckle escaped. “It’s all right. It was just a dream.” All the while his hand stroked her.

  She closed her eyes. No, it was not a dream, it was a nightmare.

  “What were you dreaming about?” He hesitated. “Or don’t you wish to speak of it?”

  She squeezed him tighter, gutted yet again by his sweetness. “I don’t remember,” she lied. “I was just running, trying to get away from—something, but I couldn’t move.”

  She felt him nod. “Aye, I’ve had those. You’re paralyzed.”

  “Yes, yes,” she whispered, his stroking calming her, but also arousing her. She kissed his chest, his shoulder, her sex thumping wildly when he groaned with pleasure.

  He liked his nipples sucked and nipped. She knew that now. She knew all manner of things about his magnificent body, and he knew even more about hers. She found the small pucker of flesh in the darkness and sucked it into her mouth.

  “Ahhh, God. You know what that does to me.” She smiled against him and he squeezed her tight. “You’re a witch.” He pushed a hand between them and she lifted her thigh so he could reach her core. “Fuck. You’re drenched for me.”

  Her stomach, womb, and sex clenched at his vulgar declaration. He shook his head, his finger circling, his cock stiff against her thigh. “You’re perfection,” he muttered into her hair. “I want you again.”

  She bit his nipple. Hard.

  He jolted and moved faster than should have been possible for a man his size, flipping her, until she was facedown, his knees bracketing her thighs.

  He stroked his hardness between her cheeks and up her spine, his b
reathing heavy. “Have you ever seen a stallion mount a mare?” he asked, his hot breath on her ear one moment and his hot, wet mouth on her shoulder the next, his teeth sinking into the fleshy part of her shoulder.

  She cried out as he bit her, his erection thrusting against the thin skin of her back.

  “Have you?” he rasped, thrusting again, the slickness on her skin telling her how ready he was.

  “Yes, Joss. Please.”

  “You want it hard? Rough? Deep?”

  “Please . . . I—” she faltered and he froze.

  “You what?” The words were low and menacing and pregnant with dark promise. He slid one huge hand beneath her throat and lifted her, arching her back until he held her in a position that left the front of her body exposed. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve imagined you taking me like this.”

  He released her in a flash. His knees shoved hers wide and he took her hips with both hands and jerked her up.

  “Shoulders and head down on the bed,” he ordered, “but this,” he shoved a finger deep into her sex, the sudden penetration making her moan. “This I want up here, wet and tight for me.” She clenched around him and he grunted. “So eager,” he whispered, a second finger joining the first.

  He worked her in deep, languid thrusts with one hand while his other stroked her crease, moving back and back until—

  “I want to take you here.” He ceased his thrusting and thumbed her back entrance.

  Every muscle in Alicia’s body tightened at the shocking words and sensation.

  Joss laughed and pulled away, giving her buttocks a sharp slap. “Perhaps next time I’ll take you that way, Alicia. But for now—”

  He positioned himself at her entrance and slid into her with a brutal thrust that made them both gasp with pleasure.

  ∞∞∞

  God how Joss wished the light was blazing so he could see every part of her in this deliciously submissive position.

  He shook with desire, but made himself slow down, the gradual possession of her beyond intoxicating, inch by inch.

  “Joss.” She shuddered and pushed back against him and he almost came apart. Instead, he dropped over her, his belly on the gentle curve of her spine, his chest on her back and shoulders, holding himself inside her.

  “How do I feel,” he asked, because he wanted to know and also because he knew she loved hearing him talk, hearing him describe the things he would do to her, the things he wanted her to do to him.

  “I’m so full of you—I don’t feel like I could take any more. But I would, I would do anything for you,” she added in a whisper.

  Joss growled and began to move, stroking slowly—seating himself with each thrust, feeling her squeeze and caress every inch of him.

  Which is when he realized that he’d come into her unsheathed. He froze.

  She wiggled beneath him. “Joss?”

  “I am not wearing a sheath.”

  She hesitated and then said, “I have no diseases.”

  He kissed her shoulder. “Neither do I.”

  She pressed her hips up against him and flexed her internal muscles, making him gasp. “I want you.”

  He hissed in a loud breath. “But. . .”

  “I cannot have children.”

  She must have felt the hesitation in him at this disclosure—the most personal they had yet to share.

  “I want to feel you spend inside me.”

  Her words erased all rational thought. Joss drove himself home, again and again, his hand finding the center of her pleasure and working a climax from her slick, tight body as he came, dissolving into pure sensation.

  When he woke from his daze a few minutes later he was lying on top of her, his cock still buried inside her. He groaned and began to lift himself off.

  “No, don’t go.”

  “But I’m crushing you.”

  “I like it. Stay on me. In me.”

  He lowered himself onto her, keeping the bulk of his weight on his elbows.

  “I want to tell you something.”

  “Yes?” he asked cautiously.

  “I’m thirty-nine.”

  Which made her eleven or so years older than him. Joss smiled. So, that was why she was so concerned about her age. He stroked her hair and kissed her neck but had no idea what he should say. She was bloody gorgeous—perfect, in fact. What did he care how old she was?

  “I—I just thought you should know. I am almost forty and I cannot have children.” She hesitated. “I didn’t mind so much with Selwood, but I loved my first husband—Horace—and I so wanted to give Horace a child.” She shrugged. “I have no family left, except Elizabeth.”

  Joss traced a pattern on her shoulder, wondering why she had confided such things to him.

  As if he’d spoken out loud, she said, “Only Maude knows this about me. I know it is unconventional, but I’m very close to her. We’ve been together a long, long time.” She sighed. “As sad as it might be, Maude is my closest friend.”

  “I like her. She is a doughty one, but with a kind heart.”

  “Yes, you’ve summed her up perfectly.”

  “Why did you come to England?”

  An odd expression flickered across her face, which he could only see in profile. “I came to England to be punished.”

  Joss cocked his head.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?”

  “Yes, tell me something about you?”

  “I’ve already told you all there is to know,” he lied.

  “Tell me more about your family.”

  Joss frowned. “My family?”

  “Don’t use those tricks with me?”

  He grinned. “Tricks?”

  Alicia shifted beneath him and he rolled off her onto his back, pulling his tumescent cock from her body with regret.

  She muttered something beneath her breath and then straddled him, leaning low and capturing the nipple she’d been tormenting earlier. She sucked hard.

  Joss gave a helpless laugh. “Ah! All right, all right! I’m sorry.”

  She looked up; her expression triumphant. “You admit that you use tricks with me?”

  He hesitated and she leaned forward, mouth open.

  “Yes!” he gasped, pressing himself back into the mattress, as if he could escape. “Yes, I was being evasive.”

  She grazed the skin below his nipple with her teeth, the harsh friction making him throb. He wanted her. Again.

  “I’m sorry I kept you away from your family today.”

  “You needn’t be, I was happy to take off New Year’s instead.”

  “How will you celebrate an entire free day to yourself?”

  “With my family.”

  “They will all gather?”

  “No, for New Year’s it will just be Belle, me, and my Da, although he might not even notice.”

  Her smile drained away. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know about your father—is he very ill?”

  “He’s not well. He fell down about a year ago and when he woke up, he was mostly paralyzed. He can move and talk a little now, but he’s not really quite there.”

  “Then I’m doubly sorry you missed being with your family today. I should have given you both days off.”

  Joss picked up one of her hands and kissed her fingertips, one by one, and then swiftly rolled her over, the action making her laugh.

  “It doesn’t matter about Christmas, my lady. I’d rather spend New Year’s Eve with just Belle,” he hesitated. “She is … well, she has rather a lonely life.”

  She stared up at him as he rested on his elbows. “Because she nurses your father?”

  “That, but also because she had the smallpox when she was five.”

  Alicia winced. “She was not vaccinated?”

  “We all were. It seems there were a significant number of people who developed the disease regardless. It was less severe, but it left her scarred.”

  “Oh, Joss. Is it—is she—well,
is the scarring very bad?”

  “To me it does not seem to diminish her beauty, but many young men cannot seem to look beyond a few pockmarks. It is unfortunate that Belle and I both look like my father.” He smiled. “A huge frame, big nose, and harsh features are bad enough on a man. But on a woman?”

  “You poor, poor man.” She made a theatrical moue of pity and placed both hands flat against his chest, exerting pressure.

  Joss grinned. “Are you trying to push me over? Again?”

  “Humor me.”

  He chuckled and rolled onto his back, their activities causing the bed frame to creak alarmingly.

  She climbed on top of him, her knees bracketing his hips, her hot slickness on his erection. He reached out to take her hips and lift her but she shook her head. “Give me your hands.”

  Joss complied and she raised up on her knees, having to squirm and wiggle in a very enticing way to line him up with the entrance to her body. And then she sat down on him, hard.

  Joss moaned.

  She leaned forward, still holding his hands, and dropped a devastating piece of feminine artillery, “I will miss you terribly when you are away on New Year’s Eve, Joss.”

  And what about all the nights after? He wanted to ask.

  But, of course, he did not.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Alicia:

  I want to speak to you on a matter of some importance. You will

  come to Selwood House for dinner tomorrow night. Do not bring either Lizzy and her savage looking body servant with you.

  I will brook no excuses.

  David”

  Alicia’s blood boiled as she re-read the brief missive.

  She’d just come back from the mews—only to find this letter waiting on the salver in her sitting room. Which meant David had sent it sometime during the night. Had anyone knocked on her door to deliver it? Had David’s man waited for a return message?

  The temptation to run back and seek comfort in the small room over the stable was powerful, and that impulse frightened her.

  Alicia closed her eyes; since when had she started to expect Joss to rescue her?