Between the Devil and Ian Eversea: Pennyroyal Green Series

by Long, Julie Anne

  It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t something she’d done to him deliberately, after all.

  Well, not entirely.

  His voice was steady. “I can assure you, some women never know that kind of pleasure. Take a survey of your friends. You’ll doubtless discover most of the married ones are mulling their household budgets whilst their husbands busy themselves on top with the act of getting an heir. And young spoiled heirs never need to learn how to pleasure a woman.”

  This did make her instantly flush scarlet. “You’re awful.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, I’m afraid. I’m no hero, Tansy.”

  She suspected she knew at least part of it. She suspected he was at least partially wrong. He was allegedly an inveterate rogue, and she’d witnessed nothing to dispel the notion. She thought of a certain sloe-eyed brunette widow and exchanged glances, and about what Mrs. deWitt had said.

  It ought to matter to her more than it did.

  And that was the danger of kisses, and seeing stars on a balcony at night. Her senses suddenly seemed to have dominion over her brain.

  “We can limit our conversation to the weather, if you prefer,” he said, when it seemed she would say nothing. “Wouldn’t that be more sensible?”

  “It’s hot today,” she said instantly.

  He smiled, a slow, delighted smile. Then shook his head.

  Damnation, but she liked him.

  The tension loosened.

  “I meant every word I said the other night. Do not play roulette with me, Tansy.” He said this gently, almost apologetically. “It will be all. Or it will be nothing.”

  She backed away two steps. Back into the sunlight, inadvertently.

  And he stood and watched her. “Like watching an angel return to Heaven.”

  She snorted at that. “Now that was blarney.”

  He grinned.

  “Comfort yourself with the knowledge that it’s all in your hands. But then, I know that’s precisely where you like men to be.”

  He reached for his hat, lying next to him on the settee, and settled it on his head.

  “And enjoy your picnic.”

  Chapter 22

  “HAS ANYONE EVER TOLD you that your eyes are the most singular color?”

  They were walking along, side by side, across parklands that seemed never to end. Green as far as the eye could see. Once, when she was a little girl, she’d thought Heaven might look like this, but now she hoped it didn’t. It was rather dull, all told. A bit safe.

  And the fact that it seemed endless suddenly made her nervous. A bit like a marriage. The endless part. The “until death parts us” part.

  She was somehow suddenly less certain about the safe part with regards to marriage.

  “Not in so many words, no.”

  “They are. And when you smile . . . they’re like stars.”

  Stars.

  Seeing stars.

  He would have to say stars.

  Would Lord Stanhope make her see stars? Could he? She glanced down at his hands surreptitiously. Beautifully groomed hands. Had he ever hammered a nail with them? Defended anyone with a weapon? Had they ever trembled when he touched a woman? Did he listen to a woman’s breathing in order to ascertain the kind of pleasure he could give her, and . . .

  He interpreted her silence and her sudden pink color as bashfulness. “I do apologize, Miss Danforth. I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward.”

  “Not at all. How could I object to such a thoughtful observation?”

  She slid a sidelong look at the well-made young man. No lines at the corners of his eyes from squinting down a rifle or riding into the sun. His laugh was surprisingly hearty, and just a trifle irritating. Perhaps because it seemed too easily won, which seemed a very unfair thing to think. He laughed a good deal, too. Life was good to him; why shouldn’t he laugh?

  He’d shown himself to have a rather literal sense of humor. Better than none, she supposed. But it had thus far been difficult for her to strike a spark from it when he was so very amiable. It was only in walking and talking with him that she realized how the past few years had shaped her, carving out unexpected nooks and crevices in her character. Surprisingly, she wasn’t as easy to navigate now. She wasn’t as easy to persuade.

  One really only discovers one’s true self in contrast to other people, she realized.

  Which is the only way one discovers one’s true needs.

  She was tempted to ask Lord Stanhope if he had any scars that told the story of his life.

  Scars. Which, coincidentally, rhymed with “stars.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, remembering how she’d drawn a finger along the hard torso of a man, tracing a bit of his history, an event carved into his soul, while his fingers combed through her hair almost reverently, as though it was made of rare silk.

  Have you ever put yourself in harm’s way for another person without thought for your own safety, Lord Stanhope? She was tempted to ask him.

  “Where did you go, just then, Miss Danforth?”

  Blast. Lord Stanhope might be a bit tedious, but he was observant.

  Which she supposed spoke well of him.

  And he was going to be a duke.

  The word definitely still held its glamour. Fanning out from it was a world of possibility beyond this stretch of banal, tamed greenery.

  “I was imagining my eyes as stars. Such a lovely thing to say.”

  “You must hear that sort of thing all the time.”

  She smiled enigmatically. “Not as prettily, I assure you.”

  “Speaking of pretty, I have had the good fortune of purchasing a very fine gray mare. I think you and she would be beautifully matched.”

  He was matching her to a horse?

  Was he about to give her a horse?

  God help her, she wouldn’t mind having her own horse here in Sussex.

  Was he looking for a wife who would match this horse? This was a bit more troubling.

  “Would you care to go riding some morning very soon?” he asked.

  “I would love to, thank you. I enjoy it very much.”

  She peered over her shoulder. In the distance, Genevieve had kicked off her slippers and appeared to be reading to her husband, who had removed his hat and was playing, idly, with the ends of a long ribbon that circled her dress just below her breasts. Catching it, releasing it, as the breeze fluttered it.

  She smiled, but felt a sharp stab of envy. Genevieve was married and she was in love with a man many people probably considered unknowable.

  Then again, one might describe Ian Eversea in just that way, too.

  But he possessed the key to her senses. He was waging a campaign to have her that included no promises and no future. He was likely, as the duke had implied, broken in a way.

  And as she smiled up at the future Duke of de Neauville, she wondered why it didn’t matter as much as it should.

  ONCE AT HOME again, she sorted through the bouquets sent to her—five, this time!

  She opened her mouth to ask the footmen to take a few of them down to the churchyard so the Ladies of the Society to Protect the Sussex Poor could distribute the bouquets again over naked graves.

  But then she paused. And she thought about Olivia and Lyon Redmond and the loss of him, and she knew, suddenly, that the Olivia she now saw wasn’t the Olivia she’d been before he’d disappeared.

  And that was what Ian had been trying to tell her. Ian loved his sister, and Ian knew what “gone” felt like and he’d trusted her with that information because he’d known she would understand. And oh, how she did.

  She carefully removed all of the cards from the bouquets.

  “Would you please tell Olivia Eversea that all of these have come for her?”

  The footman nodded as if this were an ord
inary request.

  She made her way up the marble staircase, thoughtfully.

  And then she settled in at the little writing desk and retrieved her list of requirements, which was beginning to look a trifle worn and dirty at the edges from all the handling it had endured. Then again, she’d learned a good deal in a short amount of time.

  On the surface of things, Lord Stanhope seemed to meet many of the requirements.

  Funny how each day revealed a few more that seemed absolutely critical.

  But the quill called to her, so she picked it up, and twiddled it between her fingers, before carefully adding two new, quite essential points.

  Must have a few interesting scars.

  Makes me feel more alive than anyone ever before has.

  And it was this last, above all, that was significant. She’d valued very little in the past year, but Ian Eversea had both brought her down to earth abruptly as well as shown her the stars.

  On the surface of things what she was about to do couldn’t be more reckless. It was hardly the act of someone who had both feet planted firmly on the ground.

  But it was one of the more reasoned decisions she’d made in a very long time.

  Chapter 23

  IAN DIPPED IN AND out of sleep like a bit of flotsam tossed on a shallow stream.

  She should not come to him.

  He prayed she wouldn’t come.

  He woke again. Lay there in the silent dark. And felt like a bastard. An utterly worthless, lustful bastard. Who wanted what he wanted and had applied every trick of persuasion to get it.

  The night stretched on.

  And now he feared she wouldn’t come.

  He hadn’t any right to do that to her. To use her own sensuality as a weapon to seduce, to persuade. To instill doubt in her future when he did, truly did, want her to be happy and to have what she wanted.

  Surely he wished her a lifetime of happiness more than he wanted to make love to her.

  He wasn’t certain.

  But if he could have one night with her. Just one night. He would have a lifetime to repent his methods. From across the sea, of course.

  And the irony was that this could very possibly be the duke’s revenge. To want beyond reason the one woman he shouldn’t, and couldn’t, and might never, have.

  And as one of the longest nights he’d experienced since the war inched glacially by and she didn’t come, the heaviness of disappointment finally carried him off to sleep like a stone hurled into the deep.

  Sometime later—it was still dark—he awoke again and stirred. He tilted his head to the side; the wick of his lantern had burned low.

  He turned his head again toward the window and froze.

  She was sitting on the foot of his bed.

  They stared at each other a good long time in silence.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked.

  An eternity, which was likely only a few seconds, passed before she spoke.

  “No.” In a whisper. Hesitant. A trifle fearful. A trifle amazed.

  She was there.

  Wordlessly, very slowly, he pushed the blankets away from his body. He moved to her, silently. And without preamble reached for her night rail and slowly lifted it off over her head.

  Her arms went up, assisting him, fell again.

  She sat nude before him, her heart beating so loud the blood whooshed in her ears.

  And he eased her backward, slowly, to the bed.

  Her arms went around his neck. And oh, the glory of his skin touching hers. Of the heat and strength and weight of his body. She clung to him, savored the chafe of her nipples against the coarse hair scattered over his chest. He buried his face in her throat and sighed, placed a soft, hot kiss beneath her ear, and she felt herself begin to melt, to surrender utterly. And then he moved his lips to the delicate bones at the base of it, and she arched back and threaded her fingers through his incongruously soft, fine hair. She found his ears and traced them, trailed her fingers over the immense hard curve of his shoulder. Rejoicing in the fact that there was so much of him to discover.

  And a sort of wildness overcame the two of them, as if nudity had turned them into the first man and woman and sex was their very first discovery.

  There was to be no narration, no finesse, no coddling. He covered her as if she were a longtime lover, and she surrendered, as if in a dream, not knowing where it would lead, only that she would go wherever he wanted to take her. And in the dark silence it only seemed right, to make sense.

  He found her lips, and the kiss was savage and hungry and deep, almost punishing, as if he’d waited a lifetime for this very kiss, as if she’d deprived him of the very thing he needed to survive. She cupped the back of his head with her hands and yielded to the heady dark sweetness of his mouth, stroked his hair, to soothe, to gentle him, and the kiss eased into something more languorous, more penetrating, more profound. Somehow she felt it everywhere in her body, stealing into her veins like opium. Slow, slow. As if in slowing it they could make time itself their slave, and it would stop for as long as they wanted this moment to last.

  He gently pulled his mouth away and rested his forehead against hers. His breath rushed out hot and hoarse. She felt the rise and fall of shoulders.

  “How I’ve wanted you.” Half whisper, half groan, against her mouth.

  He slid his lips down along the arch of her throat, lower, lower, until his mouth found her nipple and circled it hard, with a sinewy tongue.

  She gasped and arched, and he did it again, then closed his mouth over it and sucked.

  “Oh, God, Ian.” A ragged whisper.

  He did it again, moving to her other breast, and then his mouth went traveling, down, down, down the seam that divided her ribs, his lips and tongue and breath stopping just long enough to set every cell in its path on fire.

  He was shockingly skilled. Every bit of the swift, sensual assault was deliberate, new, devastating. With his tongue, his fingertips, the slide of his palm, sensation built upon sensation, buffeting her, ensnaring her, turning her into a creature whose only purpose was to accept pleasure. She writhed beneath him, moaning softly.

  He dipped his tongue into her navel, slid his hands over the soft curve of her belly, lifted her up and then parted her thighs with his hands and touched his tongue to the silky hot wetness between her legs.

  She jerked at the sensation; a glorious shock.

  But he didn’t stop. His fingers played lightly, lightly, on the delicate skin inside her thighs as his tongue delved and stroked and circled, quickly and lightly, then slowly and hard.

  She whimpered. Dear God, it was like no pleasure she’d ever before imagined. She rocked her hips in time to the thrusts of his tongue. And she could feel herself hurtling headlong into the unknown. Her words came in raw desperate sobbing shreds.

  “I can’t bear it . . . oh please . . . I need . . .”

  She shattered in a hoarse cry, bowing upward from the force of it, and she nearly blacked out as her body bucked in the throes of it.

  He raised himself over her with his arms, and with one hand guided his cock into her.

  The shock of him filling her threw her head back on a gasp. He pulled her thigh up around his waist and thrust again, slowly. He dipped to kiss her, gently; he licked her nipple as he thrust and dove, almost languidly.

  He withdrew. And then filled her again. The rhythm built, and with it that indefinable insistent, delicious pressure, beginning on the periphery of her senses. And with each thrust it gathered, banking, into something so almost unendurably blissful she knew it could only be released in a scream.

  And then their bodies collided hard as his hips drove his cock swiftly, deeply, into her, the rhythm of his thrusts swift and pounding, his hoarse breathing and muttered oaths and her own soft cries mingling as she dug into his shoulders with her nails
and their bodies raced toward release.

  She threw her head back. “Please, Ian . . . please . . . I’m . . .”

  He went rigid over her, and she heard his ragged cry of something almost like triumph as his release rocked his body.

  HE LOWERED HIMSELF carefully. Rolled to the side of her, then collected her in the crook of his arm. Her skin, its silkiness, undid him.

  “You are beautiful,” he murmured.

  “A compliment,” she murmured. “Wonders never do cease.”

  He breathed into the sweetness of her hair. He pushed the silky mass of it aside and kissed her neck, and she sighed. He wrapped his arms around her body, and for a time they lay quietly. He savored the rise and fall, rise and fall, of her rib cage beneath his hands. They said not a word.

  Inevitably, his hands began to wander. A leisurely journey, sliding over the soft mound of her belly, then delicately up her rib cage to her breasts. He cupped them in his hands and feathered strokes over them. Again, and again. Like a man fanning flames. Reveling in the satiny texture of her skin. Reveling in the tension he felt in her spine as desire tightened her muscles, shortened her breath, then made tatters of it. Reveling in the way she arched like a cat into his hands. She was devastatingly sensual and abandoned; she took to receiving pleasure with the instinct of a beautiful animal, and it only made him want to give her more and more and still more, and to take her every way he could.

  And soon she was rippling beneath his touch, her buttocks circling hard against his hard cock. He slid his hand down over her spine and slipped it between her thighs, and his fingers slid into her silky wetness. She groaned with the pleasure of it and parted her thighs a little more, begging for more.

  His hunger for her seemed fathomless. The more he took, the more he wanted.

  He nipped the back of her neck and moved gently away from her, tipping her onto her stomach.

  He dragged his palms down her back, then raised her hips, and unquestioningly she moved with him, trusting. He pressed a kiss at the sweet dip of skin at the base of her spine and slid his hands over her arse. He nipped one cheek gently, as if it were a peach.