Tall, Dark, and Wicked (Wicked Trilogy)

by Madeline Hunter

  She accepted a consuming kiss, and returned one just as fiercely. She tried to turn her head. “What are we— We should not—”

  He went to work on her dress’s fasteners, impatient to see her, hold her. “We are blameless. Eros is present in this house. Have you not sensed his spell, even up here?” He kissed her neck and sucked on her pulse. She groaned, and nodded. “Then do not tell me we must not, Padua. The wonder is I do not take you every way I have known or imagined.”

  He pulled her garments off impatiently. Clumsily. She knelt beside him on the bed and took his face in her hands. She kissed him a long time and forced some calm on him. Not much, but enough that he allowed her to slide his coats off, and unbutton his shirt, and tantalize him by undressing him.

  “What do you imagine? You said the wonder would be if you did not take me every way you have imagined. What wicked things do you dream of doing?” She pushed his shirt open and gently rubbed her breasts against his skin.

  “They would shock you.”

  “I have not been too shocked so far.” She worked at unbuttoning his trousers. “Are they the things you needed to negotiate with your mistresses?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Not minor variations, then, if such women might not be amenable.”

  “Nothing dangerous, however. Nothing cruel.”

  She scooted off his lap, and helped him to shed his lower garments. Then she straddled him, her long white legs dangling on either side of his lap, the dark hair of her mound revealing flashes of dark pink flesh. “Perhaps I will not be shocked. At least not too much.”

  She lured him to a path he had avoided. He might have forgone it forever. With Padua such things became unnecessary indulgences. Now that she spoke of it, however . . .

  He put his hand to her, and used his fingers to explore the most sensitive spots she had. She draped her arms on his shoulders and accepted the pleasure. A dreamy expression softened her face.

  “The first thing is that you do as I say,” he explained, leaning forward to lick the dark, hard tips of her breasts.

  “You command me, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “No seductions.”

  “No.”

  “Negotiations?”

  “You can say no.”

  Her hips swayed to his hand’s arousing touches. “It sounds— It should not be exciting, but I find the notion is. A little frightening, but—” She looked into his eyes.

  “The second thing is, you will answer my questions.”

  “We will be chatting?”

  “You will be telling me things I want to hear.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You will address me as my lord.”

  That amused her at first, but he watched understanding dawn in her eyes. “That has nothing to do with your title, does it?”

  He shook his head.

  She pressed her forehead to his and looked down. She took his cock in her hands. “What does my lord want? This?” She trailed her fingertips up the shaft, then wrapped them around it.

  “That is the least of it. But first things first.” He lifted her forward, so her knees rested on the mattress. He raised her until his mouth could reach her breasts. He wanted her so wild that she denied him nothing. He aroused her without mercy until she swayed and clawed at his shoulders.

  He inserted two fingers in her passage, then three. She bore down on them hard, panting in short, desperate breaths.

  He controlled her carefully, giving her just enough to leave her on the edge. She sought more with her hips and objected with frustrated whimpers.

  “What is it you want, Padua?”

  “I want— I need— Can’t we—”

  “You must wait for that. Does this help?” He withdrew his fingers, and caressed around the outside of her lower lips. A low, guttural scream trembled out of her. Her response had him gritting his teeth to control the urge to throw her down and relieve them both.

  “Or do you want this?” He stroked forward to the nub and rubbed.

  She buried her cries in his shoulder while the pleasure sent her crashing higher. He let her have her release, but not totally. He removed his hand at the point where she had calmed and known the best of it but remained aroused.

  He set her on her feet, and stood with her. He released some of his own hunger in an embrace too tight and a kiss too savage, but anticipation had his blood scorching his mind.

  “I want you to kneel now,” he said.

  She gave him a glance of curiosity, then lowered herself. He gazed down on her long dark hair, and full breasts and pale arms and shoulders.

  “How do you feel, Padua?”

  “Small.” She looked up. “Vulnerable. If my lord were a different man, I would not like it. If I did not know you so well too. As it is, the fear is not real fear, because—”

  “Because it excites you?”

  She nodded.

  On her own, she took his cock in her hands. He watched, thoughts deserting him, while she stroked him.

  “Do you know what I want now?”

  “I am not sure.”

  He told her.

  Her fingertips circled the tip of his cock. He all but heard her mind working. “My lord said I could say no if I want.”

  “That is true.” Her lord might die if she did.

  She contemplated the demand for an excruciating minute. He thought his body would split open.

  Tentatively, she stuck out her tongue and tested. She thought some more. “You do this for me, and it is wonderful. If you would know something similar—it is only fair to try.” She looked up. “You will tell me what to do?”

  He told her. She kissed, then she licked, then she used her mouth fully. Keen bolts of feral pleasure prodded him to spectacular erotic heights. She did not retreat, not even at the end.

  He lifted her up and dropped on the bed with her in his arms. For a long count he lost himself in a dark mist of an encompassing pleasure that spun out of his climax.

  Later, he did not know if it was one minute or twenty, Padua moved. She raised up on her elbows. “Are we done, my lord?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Hardly.”

  * * *

  Padua had always known that her submission aroused Ives. She had not called it that, but it had been there, from that first night when he held her hands together during the first kisses. She had sensed it in the ways he handled her. Even in his possessive caresses.

  She supposed all men liked it. They were not far from the animals in such things. Nor, she was learning, were women.

  She lay on the bed, waiting for Ives to finish preparations for the next wicked game. He had stacked two pillows and told her to lie facedown with them under her hips. She now spread naked on the bed.

  The waiting aroused her terribly. Again the vulnerability. Again the fear that was not fear because it excited. Her arms angled out toward the bed corners, to which they were loosely bound. Behind her Ives did the same with one of her feet.

  He moved to the other foot. Her legs spread now, like her arms. Her bottom rose high, exposed. Waiting.

  She could not believe what it did to her. She had never been in such a state without being touched before.

  “How do you feel, Padua?”

  He stood behind her, next to the bed near her leg. Even with her face turned on the mattress, she could not see him.

  “I am comfortable enough.”

  A small slap smacked her bottom. “That is not what I meant and you know it.”

  That smack had not hurt. It had been too gentle for that. But it had— She blocked her mind against the fantasy that he might do it again. She would not like that, she was sure, but the thought of it, the waiting—

  “I am surprised, my lord. I do not feel the way I expected. I am already half-mad.”

  A caress fluttered up her leg in a feathery touch he had first used in Langley House. “Do you like how you feel?”

  “It is intense.
I grow impatient, however.”

  The mattress depressed as his weight joined hers. She looked over her shoulder. He knelt high between her legs. Low, deep throbs began torturing her. She set her head down again. He caressed her bottom and she throbbed more. “And you? How do you feel?”

  He warmed her back as he came over her. Braced on his arms, he dipped his head low so he spoke right into her ear. “I feel in possession, when I know I really am not. I feel as if you are mine, and I will make sure you never leave, when I know that is not true. I can want you without reservation, as I have never wanted another woman before, and make you admit your own passion, and pretend I am indeed your lord.” His lips brushed her cheek. “And I like that I can make you ache with desire, and totally surrender to the pleasure I give you.”

  He moved back. “Tell me what you want, Padua.” He caressed her bottom firmly, taunting her.

  “You,” she whispered. “Everything.”

  He entered her slowly. She caught her breath. She closed her eyes so she might feel it all as intensely as possible. He filled her. Completed her.

  He took her then. Restrained as she was, she could only accept whatever he gave, both the tenderness and the fury.

  * * *

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Padua turned to the door. Ives stood there. He had thrown on trousers and shirt.

  She hitched the blanket in which she cocooned her own nakedness. She held her finger to her lips, then pointed to the long carriage house. “Look low. Near the ground, halfway along. There is a deep shadow there. I think it is a small window.”

  He peered through the night. “There may be a cellar underneath.”

  “I think there is. I have spent a long time looking at that building over the last few days.” She opened the door and returned to her chamber. She climbed onto the bed and drew up her legs. He lay beside her, resting on his elbow.

  “I told you I had a plan. I let everyone know I was taking my father’s place, because I think whoever coerced him to take that trunk is connected to this house. If so, perhaps they will now approach me as they did him. Then I will know who else is involved, and can use that information to help him. They sought to catch a whale, you said. Well, I intend to find the whale, or someone who knows where he swims.”

  She expected praise for her cleverness. Instead his gaze pierced her. “If you are correct, you have put yourself in harm’s way, Padua.”

  “I do not think anyone will hurt me here.”

  “You do not know they will not. Men facing a noose will do desperate things.”

  “I will be very careful.”

  His severity did not dim one bit on her reassurance. He sat up on the edge of the bed. “You will move out tomorrow. I will bring you to Langley House.”

  “I cannot leave. I have things I need to do tomorrow.”

  His head snapped around. “What things?”

  “A walk in the garden, for example.”

  He captured her face in his hand. “A walk very close to that carriage house, is my guess.”

  “I only want to see if there is a cellar like it appeared tonight.”

  “I should have smacked your bottom much harder, and more often. I still may. I forbid you to go within fifteen feet of that building.”

  She rose on her knees and wrapped her arms around him from the back. She nuzzled his neck. She thought it charming, and very male, that he did not understand that even if he were her lord, which he was not, she would not always obey him.

  “Do not try to work your wiles on me, woman. You are not to—” She nibbled his ear. “Stop that, I am serious. You are not to leave this—” She ran her hands down his chest. “I will not tolerate—” She slid her hands lower yet.

  He caught them, turned around, and threw her down. “I will do it,” he said. “Tomorrow night, I will see if there is a cellar and what it might contain. Nothing more than rusting carriage parts, is my guess. I will check if you want. You do not go near it or show the slightest interest, however. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, and tried to look meek.

  He pushed her over, unswaddled her from the blanket, lay down beside her, and unfurled the blanket over them both. “As for the rest of your plan, I will be here every night. If you are correct, you will not face or meet such men alone if I am alive to prevent it. Since you set things in motion on your own—” He gave her one more glare. “There is no choice but to await developments.”

  “Every night?”

  “Until it is clear you are wrong, or until it is proven you are right.”

  “You plan to sleep here?”

  “I’m not going to sit awake in a chair, Padua.”

  “It is a fairly small bed.”

  He turned, and pulled her close. “We will manage. You do not take up much space.”

  It would be like Merrywood again, his lying with her. Her sleeping with his presence around her and in her soul. She might not regret the passion, but this—

  Her heart swelled with poignant emotion as the intimacy descended, claiming her. But she trembled too. She would endure the worst of the heartache again, raw like a fresh cut.

  “Does anyone come here in the morning?” he asked in a drowsy voice. “One of the servants?”

  “I must go and get one. Mrs. Lavender will do nothing to aid my comfort.”

  He settled himself deeper on the pillow, and rested an arm over her. “That is because she suspected you were troublesome baggage at first sight.” He yawned. “As did I, God help me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Ives arrived at Langley House the next evening. He found Gareth in the library as planned. He poured himself some brandy and stood by the window, watching twilight begin its fade to black.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Eva is in her chambers, reading. Lance is in his study, pretending to attend to estate affairs,” Gareth said. “The solicitor sent a stack of documents around late in the afternoon, with a message they required his immediate attention.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Damned convenient. Good of him to help out.”

  “He does not want Lance in more trouble any more than we do.”

  He opened the window and stuck his head out. He could see the moon low in the sky. There were few clouds to interfere with what light it would give.

  Gareth stood. “Shall we go?”

  Ives nodded. They walked side by side to the reception hall.

  “Ives. I did not know you were here.” Lance’s voice sounded from the stairs.

  “Keep walking,” Ives muttered under his breath. He shot a quick glance back at Lance, who stood on one of the stairs with a stack of papers in his arms. “I just stopped by to get Gareth.” He aimed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Gareth turned and shrugged. “Out and about. No place of interest. No place that is any fun. I am married now, so it is bound to be a boring few hours all around.”

  “Not as boring as mine.” He frowned at the documents. “I think we need a new solicitor.”

  Ives hung back while Gareth engaged.

  “It is quite a lot of paper,” Gareth said.

  “I was going to spread it out in the library and see if it makes more sense that way.”

  “Such are the duties of the title, eh?” Gareth gave Lance’s shoulder a firm clasp. “We will let you get to it, then.”

  “Hell. It can wait. Even being bored by you is better than this.” He gestured for a footman, and deposited the stack into his arms. He brushed off his coat sleeves. “So, where to first?”

  Ives inserted himself. “You cannot come.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would not be appropriate,” Gareth said. “If we are caught, it is one thing. If you are, it is a huge scandal and the talk of the town.”

  “Caught doing what?”

  Ives wanted to throttle Gareth. “None of your business. Which is why you cannot come.”

  “Is
it his business?” Lance jerked his thumb at Gareth. “I didn’t think so. It is your business.”

  “Correct. So I get to make all the decisions, such as the one that says you are not joining us.”

  “Yes, I am. An adventure is afoot, I can tell.”

  “A very small one,” Gareth soothed. “So small it is almost as boring as those documents.”

  Lance frowned peevishly. Then his expression cleared. “It has to do with that Belvoir case, doesn’t it?”

  Ives often regretted forgetting that Lance, for all his self-absorption and distraction, had a mind as sharp as a sword when he chose to use it. That he so chose at the most inconvenient moments was a source of unending annoyance.

  “I am right. You are investigating something, and I’ll wager it is not for the Crown’s interests. You will only make a mess of it without me, whatever it is.” He snapped his fingers at a footman. “My horse.”

  Gareth sighed, defeated. Ives wondered if they could lose Lance between this house and the one they would visit.

  “Do not follow your own nose in this,” he said to Lance. “If you insist on coming, at least do not get in the way or cause more trouble than we need.”

  “I am insulted and wounded. I do not cause trouble.” He strode to the door, paused, and turned to them. “Say, do we need our pistols?”

  “It is not that kind of adventure.”

  “If you say so. Pity.”

  * * *

  Lance stood in the alley, gazing up at the house.

  “Are you coming?” Ives whispered.

  Lance joined him. “The house appeared familiar to me. Have I been here before?”

  “I am sure you have never stood in this spot before.”

  They crowded Gareth, who bent over the lock on the carriage house, working a pick.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Lance asked.

  “Here and there. It mostly requires concentration, and silence.”

  “You will have to teach me. It might be a handy skill to have. Don’t you agree, Ives? We will have Gareth give us lessons on lock picking some rainy day.”

  “Concentration and silence,” Gareth repeated tightly.

  Lance folded his arms and waited.