Ecstasy
( Notorious - 4 )
Nicole Jordan
Having watched her mother languish away for a lost love, Raven Kendrick vows never to surrender her heart. But when her life erupts in scandal, she is forced to accept a marriage proposal from the wickedly sensuous owner of London's most notorious gaming hell. Though fiercely drawn to her enigmatic rescuer, Raven battles to resist her husband, whose sensuous caresses promise ecstasy beyond her wildest fantasies.
To save the reputation of an innocent girl nearly ruined by his brother, Kell Lasseter sacrifices his freedom to wed the dazzling debutante. Long scorned for his Irish blood and dark past, Kell cannot deny that this enchanting spitfire is unlike other society misses . . . anymore than he can quell his smoldering desire for her. Torn between loyalty to his brother and his growing feelings for his rebellious bride, Kell must somehow free Raven's reluctant heart before they can know the ecstasy of true love.
Nicole Jordan
Ecstasy
Chapter One
London, November 1813
He rose naked from the surf, his wet, sleekly muscled body glistening in the Caribbean sun. Framed against the brilliant turquoise sea, he looked like some pagan god. Yet he was no god. He was the pirate who had stolen her virtue and then her heart.
Heat and vitality and danger throbbed from him as he stood spread-legged on the crystalline white beach, commander of all he surveyed. His engorged male flesh clearly proclaimed his arousal and made her breath falter.
As if he heard her soft gasp, his dark gaze riveted on her. She felt ravished each time he looked at her, even though she couldn’t make out his features. She could never see his face, only his dark eyes that were intense and burning.
He came to her then, purpose defined in every lithe stride. The sand was warm at her back as he bore her down, his hungry mouth hot as it claimed hers.
His kiss was ravaging, not in force but in effect; his touch dangerously, wildly sensual as his hands roamed over her at will.
He drank of her mouth, then shifted his caresses lower, gentle and ruthless at once. Pressing her head back, he kissed the arch of her throat, her collarbone, her naked breasts… His lips felt hotter than the sun on her bare skin, the blistering heat searing her flesh. He captured a nipple and suckled hard, shooting arrows of pleasure downward to her moist, feminine center.
She whimpered and parted her legs for him, sighing as he nestled his swollen sex against her softness, the throbbing ache between her thighs soothed and aroused at once.
“Please…” she pleaded.
Understanding her urgent need, he slid himself relentlessly within her, his huge shaft filling her, making her want to weep with ecstasy.
But then he went still, denying her the release she craved. The hot darkness of his gaze pinned her as surely as his pulsing masculine flesh impaled her.
“How can you wed him?” he demanded roughly. “How can you think to give yourself to him?”
“I must. I have no choice. I swore a solemn promise.”
His intense gaze burned into hers. “Your duke is cold, passionless. He cannot make you feel what I do. He cannot make your blood run hot as I can.”
She turned her head aside, knowing all he said was true. She felt a sense of desperation at the thought of her impending marriage. She wanted to forget…and yet her pirate would not allow her.
His hand clenched in her hair, his teeth bared in savage insistence. “You belong to me, only to me. You are mine, do you heed me? And I am yours. You created me.”
His possessiveness thrilled and excited her. “Yes,” she said simply.
He withdrew his slick shaft and sank forcefully into her again, thrusting completely home. “When you go to him, I will be the one you remember. My touch, my taste, my hard flesh driving deep inside you, making you cry out with need.”
“Yes. Yes…only you.”
She pulled his mouth down to hers, needing to taste him, feel him…
The fierce intimacy of his body locked into hers and he began to move again, taking her, claiming her. He wasn’t tender, but she wanted no tenderness. Instead she lifted her hips to meet his deep thrusts, answering him with all the vigor in her trembling form.
“More,” he urged hoarsely against her mouth. “Give me more. Surrender…”
Climax exploded through her in intense, rigid shudders again and again and again before at last he found his own release. Eventually he collapsed upon her, his gasping breath mingling with hers, their fierce hunger momentarily sated.
She lay back, replete, as silken waves came to lap at her, cooling her overheated skin and the blaze of passion between them…
Slowly Raven Kendrick roused from fantasy to awareness, recognizing her bedchamber. The chill light of early morning filtered through the damask curtains as she lay in bed, her body still throbbing with her powerful climax and the memory of her pirate. He was a wild, sweet fire in her blood…and he was merely illusion.
With a sigh of unfulfilled longing, Raven rolled over and drew a pillow to her still-tingling breasts. He was all she would ever have of true passion.
Her lover existed only in her imagination, although sometimes he seemed as real to her as any flesh and blood man. He had no identity, no past other than the one she had attributed to him. He’d come ashore in her dreams one bright Caribbean morning to plunder her body and capture her heart…
Her eyes closed on the memory of their most recent interlude. She was still hot and moist between her legs from his make-believe claiming, but in real life she had never felt the ecstasy of a man’s flesh filling her, burning deep inside her.
She could imagine, though. Indeed, she knew things no virgin should ever know. The rare, erotic book her mother had left behind at her death, A Passion of the Heart, had been given to Elizabeth Kendrick by the man she’d desperately loved and was forced to relinquish-a parting gift to keep his memory alive.
Penned by an anonymous Frenchwoman, the journal was a true, tragic tale of love and filled with exquisite details of carnal desire. It had provided solace to Raven’s mother for years, for although it mirrored her pain, the vividly told story let her relive her own lost passion.
Yet it was a scandalous tome for any young lady of virtue to possess.
Raven frowned defiantly. Perhaps she was wicked to foster such vivid illusions of her pirate, but in her fantasies she could be as unconventional and free as she chose. She could satisfy the deep restlessness inside her, indulge her forbidden hunger without the dire consequences of social ruin. Most vitally, she could give herself completely to a lover without fear of losing her heart and soul, the way her mother once had.
Involuntarily Raven clenched her fists as the familiar dread pulsed through her. She would never give her heart to a real man. She’d seen how love had destroyed her mother, made her a slave to dimming memory. For years her mother had sobbed into her pillow each night, lamenting the love she’d lost. By day she had pored over her precious journal, memorizing each poignant line.
Reaching into the bedside table drawer, Raven withdrew the jewel-encrusted book, her eyes blurring as she remembered. It had grieved her endlessly to see her mother waste her life away, wishing even on her deathbed for a man she could never have.
The loss of her mother had left Raven achingly bereft yet filled with determination. She would never make the same mistake her mother had made, falling victim to a hopeless love. No man would ever own her soul. She alone controlled the shape of her destiny. She might have resolved to marry, but love would form no part of the equation.
A rap on her bedchamber door brought Raven out of her dark reverie. Quickly returning the journal to the drawer, she bid admission, and her personal maid entered, carrying a tray.
> “Morning, miss,” Nan said in unmistakably excited tones. “I’ve brought you a fine breakfast since you’ll need proper sustenance. ’Twill be many hours before the wedding feast.”
Inexplicably Raven’s heart sank at the reminder. Her wedding day at last was here.
She sat up slowly in bed and allowed Nan to set the tray on her lap, even though she suddenly had no appetite.
The maid poured her a cup of chocolate, talking all the while. “Just think, Miss Raven! You’ll soon be a duchess. ’Tis just like a fairy tale.” Nan sighed, her expression filled with reverence before she caught herself. “Beg pardon, miss. I shouldn’t let my tongue run away like that. But I’ve never known a real duchess before.”
Raven summoned a smile she didn’t feel. “That’s quite all right, Nan. I am a bit in awe myself.”
Turning to the hearth, the maid built up the dwindling fire to ward off the November chill, then bobbed a curtsy. “Your bathwater is heating, Miss Raven. If you please, I’ll return in half an hour to help you bathe and dress.”
“Yes, thank you, Nan.”
When the servant had left the room, Raven dutifully picked up her fork but set it down again as her stomach recoiled. In a few short hours she would wed the man she had chosen, a prominent nobleman who commanded the respect of the highest echelons of the ton. She had eagerly anticipated this day for months-so why did she now feel as if she were somehow going to her execution?
Bridal nerves. Her anxiety could be attributed merely to that. Every bride had misgivings on her wedding day.
She shook her head, determined to quell the knots in her stomach. It was absurd to be entertaining doubts at this late date about the plan she’d set for her future. Her marriage to the Duke of Halford would not only be the fulfillment of her mother’s most fervent wish for her-securing her rightful position among the nobility-but it meant she would no longer be an outsider.
She would at last belong somewhere.
As a duchess, she would be accepted by the cream of society…the society her mother had been denied after being banished to the West Indies more than twenty years ago by an irate father.
Raven raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, trying to ignore her qualms. Her future husband, the Duke of Halford, might be a proud, stiff-necked aristocrat more than twice her age-one, moveover, who’d had the misfortune to bury two young wives after accidental tragedies. But as his wife, she would no longer be compelled to fight the despairing feelings of aloneness that had haunted her for much of her life.
She was fortunate to have attracted Halford, considering the disadvantages she faced. Although a British citizen, she’d been born in the West Indies and had only come to England for the first time this past spring, a year after her mother’s death. Forcibly swallowing her reluctance, she’d reconciled with her estranged family-her ailing viscount grandfather and her dragon of a great-aunt, who had sponsored her London season as a debutante.
Since then, Raven had grown to realize how very much acceptance meant to her, how deeply she cherished the feeling of belonging.
To her relief and gratitude, her first Season had been a triumph. She was sought after by countless admirers and received a half dozen estimable proposals of marriage, along with several unsuitable ones. She’d fooled even the highest sticklers with her efforts at demure deportment. But with a hidden scandal in her past, she could give the ton no reason to challenge her entree into its select ranks, no matter how much she might like to thumb her nose in their faces. Not if she wanted to become one of them.
Her unconventionality was a definite drawback, Raven was keenly aware. Her upbringing on the Caribbean isle of Montserrat had afforded her a rare freedom, and she’d spent her hoydenish childhood swimming in secluded coves and playing pirate and riding to the wind. Even her name was unorthodox; she’d been named for the color of her hair, a throwback to one of her real father’s Spanish ancestors.
But once in England, she had striven to restrain her natural high spirits, repressing any sign of passion in favor of conformity, enduring the stifling rules of proper conduct because she was fiercely determined to be accepted.
One of her few concessions to restlessness was her early morning gallops in the park. And when she craved passion, she turned to her fantasies and her imaginary pirate lover. Though he was only an illusion-one that sometimes left her aching with an unfulfilled longing-she was certain her pirate could satisfy her deepest hungers far more profoundly than her real-life duke ever could or would.
Raven shivered, suddenly feeling the chill of the winter morning. Sternly repressing her apprehension, she set aside her tray and rose from the bed. Were this any other day, she would be riding at this very moment, but she had a wedding to prepare for.
She had just drawn on a woolen wrapper when another knock sounded on her door. To her vast surprise, her great-aunt entered.
Catherine, Lady Dalrymple, was an imposing figure-tall and elegant with handsome features and silver hair that lent her a majestic air.
“Is something amiss?” Raven asked with a frown. Never once in all the months of living with her great-aunt had she been visited like this. Nor did her elderly relative normally rise this early.
Aunt Catherine managed a stiff smile. “Nothing is amiss. I merely brought you a wedding gift.” She held out a small satinwood box. “These belonged to your mother. I suspect Elizabeth would wish you to have them.”
Raven felt her heart wrench at the mention of her mother. Opening the box with curiosity, she gasped to find a stunning strand of pearls and a pair of pearl-drop earrings, not large but with a lustrous sheen that suggested great value.
Raven gave her great-aunt a questioning glance, wondering what had caused this show of generosity. Lady Dalrymple usually treated her with a frosty reserve bordering on dislike.
“I harbored grave doubts,” her aunt answered her unspoken query, “that this day would ever come. But now that your nuptials actually are at hand, I think you are entitled to have these.”
“They are beautiful,” Raven murmured.
“Elizabeth refused to take them with her when she left,” Aunt Catherine observed with obvious disapproval. “Her defiance was imprudent, considering that she could have sold these for a pretty price. But I presumed you would wish to wear them at your wedding.”
Surprised but grateful for her aunt’s gift, Raven tempered her response. “Yes, thank you. I would like very much to wear them.”
Without speaking, Aunt Catherine turned to take her leave, but then turned back, arching one elegant eyebrow. “I confess you have pleasantly surprised me, Raven. I never imagined you would make such an advantageous marriage.”
“Why not?” Raven couldn’t help asking. “Because you didn’t believe I should aim so high, given the illegitimacy of my origins?”
“Few people know the secret of your origins, thank heavens. No, frankly, I didn’t believe you would have the good sense to accept Halford for your husband. You had so many suitors… I feared you might choose someone unacceptable just to spite us.”
She had indeed had numerous suitors, Raven reflected. In fact, one suitor in particular had hounded her relentlessly even after her betrothal to Halford was announced, nearly embroiling her in scandal. Thankfully her aunt knew nothing of that near disaster.
“I would never have behaved so rashly, Aunt-despite your estimation of me.”
“Perhaps not,” her aunt replied. “Still, I doubted your betrothal to Halford would last all these months, what with the vast disparity between you.” Catherine’s mouth twisted in the flicker of a smile. “Even I consider his grace a stuffed shirt. In disposition at least, he doesn’t appear at all to be the right match for you.”
“He isn’t all that bad,” Raven said in his defense. “Halford is reserved and very proper, certainly, but beneath the trappings of his rank, he is actually a very kind man.”
“Well, I am glad you don’t harbor foolish notions like marrying for love. Love does
not ensure happiness, as your mother discovered to her everlasting grief.”
Raven felt herself stiffen. “Yes, quite the contrary. Love can bring great misery. I learned that lesson quite well, Aunt Catherine.”
“You obviously have more sense than your mother had.”
Raven lowered her gaze to hide her anger, deploring this conversation. She had no wish to discuss her mother or to dredge up painful memories.
The elderly lady pursed her lips together. “At least now you will have the future Elizabeth wished for you. A place in society that her folly denied her.”
Stung beyond bearing, Raven lifted her chin and looked piercingly at her aunt. “A place she was denied when her family cast her out, you mean,” she retorted, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone.
Catherine frowned. “We had no choice but to compel Elizabeth to marry. She was facing total ruin. Her behavior was scandalous in the extreme-becoming obsessed with a married man and letting him get her with child.”
Raven bristled to hear her mother’s sins catalogued so scornfully. “Grandfather did not have to disown her and send her across an ocean!”
“Perhaps not.” Catherine’s expression grew even frostier. “But Jervis made the correct decision. No one could expect him to tolerate the shame of his daughter bearing a child out of wedlock.”
“So he forced her to wed a man she disliked and then banished her from sight?”
“I assure you, Elizabeth understood that marriage was her only salvation. Wedding Kendrick rescued her from disgrace and saved you from being born a bastard!”
Raven winced at the familiar guilt that curled inside her. She well understood the sacrifice her mother had made for her. And that she had caused her mother’s downfall by her very existence. But the necessity of the marriage didn’t excuse her grandfather or her aunt for being so heartless and unforgiving.
“If my mother had not been forced to live among strangers,” Raven said tightly, “if she had been surrounded by family and friends and her familiar life, perhaps she might have been able to overcome her hopeless passion. As it was, she pined her life away, yearning for a love she could never have.”
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