"Shall we wake the ghosts?" he asked, his eyes narrowing with mischief. Syrian nodded, gleefully. Harrison looked down over the threshold. The old door was in the way and he stepped onto it. Gallantly, he instructed, "Watch your step."
Syrian let him lead her into a small, dusty room. Their boots creaked on the old floorboards. An antiquated stone fireplace with a collapsed chimney sat along the back wall of chipped stone. There was a broken table, an abandoned pot and some shattered plates. Cobwebs danced in the rafters, drifting in the slight stir their presence caused.
Thin rays of sunlight managed to filter into the dim atmosphere of the one room cottage. Out of all her daydreams of it, Syrian never thought it would look so ordinary or plain. She frowned.
Harrison, seeing the look, asked, "Disappointed?"
"Yes," she answered truthfully. "Ghosts aren’t very tidy creatures, are they?"
The Earl chuckled, nodding in agreement as he eyed the rafters. He could detect a dusty nest but no birds. He turned around to look at her again as he spoke. "Shall I escort you back outsi--?"
Syrian couldn’t stop herself, as she acted on pure instinct. When she saw his lips, parted in speech, she leapt forward and pressed her mouth to his. Harrison inhaled in sharp surprise, but instinctively wound his arms around her to keep them from tumbling over to the dirty floorboards. She moaned lightly against him. She pressed her fingers into his shoulders, gripping him for support. When he was too stunned to return her hard, closed mouth kiss, she pulled back.
"I’ve never done this before," she said, glancing with innocent longing at his unmoving mouth. Her cheeks were flushed, but she refused to let them stain with embarrassment. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared deeply into his amazed eyes. Almost shyly, she said, "You’ll have to tell me what to do."
A groan left his throat as he dipped forward. Instantly, his tongue darted over the rim of her mouth, parting her lips. She didn’t stop him, drowning in the pleasurable sensations his lips brought to her senses. His mouth sawed against hers, searing her with his expert tongue, massaging and exploring.
Syrian’s body felt as if it was on fire. She instinctively sucked his tongue gently into her mouth and was rewarded with a small moan from Harrison’s lips. Her stomach flipped in nervous excitement. It seemed so wicked and wrong, against everything she’d ever learned. But, she couldn’t stop. Her head spun with his earlier words.
You’re so young, so lovely. There is no reason you shouldn’t experience that loveliness and youth while you have it. They don’t have to know anything we don’t tell them. So long as you’re discreet, you can truly have everything.
Oh, how Syrian wanted to have everything. She wanted to feel, to be felt. She wanted to taste things and see things and do things. She wanted to live, to feel as if she were truly alive--despite that society would frown upon her kissing her brother’s best friend in an abandoned cottage. Society didn’t live her life for her, not anymore. She wouldn’t live in fear of their judgment. She’d be careful, sure, as not to bring shame to Thomas and herself, but she would no longer be afraid.
Syrian moaned. She ran her hands down to explore the feel of his chest. Pulling back to breathe, she dipped her fingers under his jacket, trying her best to push it off his broad shoulders. "You’re right. I have been drifting in a horrible state of rules and decorum. I haven’t been living at all. I want to live, my lord. And I want you to show me how."
She tried to kiss him again, her mouth swollen and wet from his teachings. Harrison pulled back. His body ached with a burning desire for her. He hadn’t meant for her to throw herself at him like this. He was stunned beyond belief that she would come to him so readily, so boldly. It excited him, made his flesh tighten and throb, more full than he could ever remember it being.
"I didn’t mean," he began, setting her back so he could think straight. He saw the cloudy, dazed look in her dark eyes, and he saw the dreamy smile coming to her lips. To their mutual surprise, he stepped back, away from her when she would reach for him again. He tried to turn away, to lead her back out into the sunlight, but she bit her lip in such a thoughtful pose that his body lurched and he couldn’t move. All he could do was stare at her.
"I want you to take off your clothes," she announced audaciously, looking him over. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation as they settled on the foreign bulge between his legs. Her body wiggled slightly beneath her binding corset. "I want to see what a man looks like naked."
"Syrian, I didn’t mean for you to do this," he tried to deny her and yet was tempted to obey her request. His mind tried to reason with him, with her. "I meant for you to explore this cottage--"
"Do it," she said, her eyes darkening. "Or are you the one who is now afraid? What holds you back? Whose rules do you follow?"
Harrison didn’t move, wondering what sort of monster he had inadvertently created. He refused to be goaded by her. One of them must keep a logical head. He was surprised to find out that it was he who would do so. He thought of Thomas, his good friend, his best friend. Thomas trusted him with his sister. Harrison promised before ever meeting her that he wouldn’t treat her like the other women he persuaded. He wanted what he created with her to be honorable, pure, forever. Now, looking at her wide eyes, he knew that more than anything he wanted her happiness. He would do anything for her, regardless of the cost.
"Fine," she stated, when he thought too long and said nothing. Syrian was too giddy in her newfound freedom to catch his hesitance or his honorable intentions. Why should she be any different than the women he seduced? She knew what she asked him and accepted it. A man like the Earl would never love anyone but himself. So she wouldn’t love him in return. She’d enjoy him--fully. Her eyes lowered beneath the set of her thick lashes. "I’ll go first."
Before Harrison could even find the words to stop her, her fingers pulled the fastening of her bodice. Within seconds, she had the dark green material pushed down around her ankles into the dirt and was stepping out of it. Standing before him in a petticoat and corset, she smiled almost shyly at him.
Harrison’s eyes were on her creamy breasts, so pale and pure, untouched by the sun, untouched by everything and everyone. The rounded globes pushed up indecently from an endless row of lace and silk. All it would take was the flick of his finger, or of his tongue, to draw the tip out for his viewing. Syrian found herself growing excited as unfamiliar sensations coursed through her skin. She liked the daring way he looked at her, staring with his lips parted, his breath panting.
She drew her long fingers to her waist, pulling the tie of her petticoat free. His body hardened as she stepped out of it. Clad only in her long silk drawers, that were so thin he could see the dark curls between her thighs, and the enticing corset that latched in the front, she smiled up at him. The bright look on her face, unseen to him before that moment, stole his breath.
She unconsciously trampled her gown as she walked over it to get to him. He didn’t move. Slowly her arms wrapped around his neck, pressing her near naked body to his hot length. She gasped to feel the most obvious of their differences pressing hard and pulsing between them. She didn’t pull away. Harrison was surprised. His size usually intimidated the most experienced of women--until he showed them he knew how to properly wield such power.
"Do I please you, my lord? Will you not say aught to me?" she asked, bold and shy at the same time. Her lips were offered to him, her gaze stared directly into his. She trembled along his length. "Will you not kiss me?"
"Do you know what you ask for?" he said down to her. He trailed his hands over her slender arm. She shivered, drawing closer as her head fell back. "Do you understand what you wish for me to do?"
"Yes," she breathed. It was an obvious lie. She didn’t know exactly what she asked for. She only knew that she wanted it more than anything.
"If we do this, I’ll be forced to marry you," he said, not against the idea, but oddly excited by it.
"No," she said back, drawing her arms alo
ng him. "You won’t."
Harrison stiffened in disappointment. His eyes narrowed. "Your brother--"
"--will never know," she broke in. She dipped her eyes to look at his chest and she drew lazy circles around the base of his neck. "I won’t tell him. You won’t tell him. No one will ever know of this, except us."
"You don’t understand what you’re asking of me," he tried. "You risk too much."
"I know that my body has the strangest urge to feel you. Please, my lord, touch me. Kiss me. I want you to, desperately," she pleaded with a feminine pant that drove him mad. "Don’t you want…?"
Harrison tried to pull away, but the look of her softly clad skin combined with the almost hurt plea of her words was more than his fervent body could deny. Instantly, he dipped his head to taste her offered lips. His kiss claimed and conquered her mouth, stealing her breath and her mind. He became forceful, shrugging from his jacket before lifting her up and spinning her to the fireplace to press her back into the hard stone.
Once trapped, he drew his fingers intimately between her thighs, searing her through the silk that guarded her most intimate opening from him. Her body was damp and flooded him with her moisture at that first touch. With a growl, he ordered, "Is this where you burn for me?"
"Yes." Syrian said, dizzy from just the feel of his bold fingers pressed against her. Her body convulsed against him, tightening slightly as it throbbed.
Harrison’s lips lowered to devour her neck, her face, her chest. He flicked his tongue over the top edge of her corset, reaching a dark nipple, hardening the bud with his suckling lips. Her body jerked, desire fanning everywhere in her at once, stemming from his hot lips on her chest. She felt alive. She found hold, gripping his linen shirt with her hands, grasping at his shoulders for support.
The hand between her thighs didn’t move, though her body wanted it to. Harrison kept his hand steady, feeling her womanly pulse, gauging her reaction to him, feeling what made her body jolt with desire as he took his time discovering her.
"Ah, my lord," she whimpered, her voice growing louder. Her hips pushed against his cupping palm, not knowing what it was she sought. She wiggled against him, instinctively knowing he held the key to her release. She wanted what he could give her. "Ah, yes."
His thumb dipped into her corset to free the other imprisoned bud. He massaged her breast in his palm, causing lightning to again shoot through her. Harrison smiled, delighting in her feminine shivers. His lips drew hot kisses along her neck, biting her earlobe, licking her pulse beat. He delighted in the little sounds she made, urging him on, begging for more, whimpering in her newly discovered desire.
Syrian’s body squirmed, searching against the warm palm that waited between her thighs. Harrison grinned, feeling her heat beneath his instruction. The silk clung to her hot opening, sticking in the moisture pooling from her body onto her thighs.
"I’m going to kiss you," he said near her mouth. She leaned her lips up and forward, offering them to him.
"No," he denied, his hand lifting to cover her lips. A finger dipped in the corner, near her teeth and he pulled her jaw open so his breath panted into her. Feverishly, he whispered into her mouth, "Not these lips."
Syrian blinked, confused.
"These lips," he murmured, his finger stroking up into her. She called out in surprise as wave after wave of agonizing pleasure shot up into her. He massaged her, intimately pressing into her heat, so gentle and firm, keeping a slow rhythm.
Before she could comprehend what he meant to do, Harrison was on his knees before her. He found her slender hips with his strong hands only to jerk the silk drawers down her legs, leaving her nothing but her tantalizingly erotic corset.
His mouth watered to see the soft mound of hair waiting for him. There was nothing to keep his lips from drinking the sweet nectar from her body. He smelled the perfume of her, tempting him forward so that he might fully taste her. He rounded his hands about her thighs, jerking them apart from behind to accommodate his lips.
Syrian gasped and looked down to see his light brown head dipping to touch her. She watched his lips move, extending as they puckered towards her most private area. She raised her hand, ready to swat him back if what he attempted felt too peculiar. But, as his tongue drew from between his teeth, the erotic sight nearly did her in and she leaned back into the stone wall. She gripped her hands behind her head, searching for support, finally finding it on the old fireplace mantle.
Harrison groaned. His lips latched onto her, sucking the little nub of her desire between his lips. His teeth nipped gently. She tasted sweet as he sipped from her body. Syrian gasped, her hand fell into his hair. Instead of pushing him away, she pulled him closer.
Harrison growled in pleasure as she thrust her hips into his mouth. It was such a natural response, as was the growing wetness against his tongue. Her parted thighs spasmed hard against his sucking mouth. Her hips wiggled and jerked, hitting his nose as she tried to understand what was happening to her. With a groan, he gripped her thighs tighter. Forcing her body open, he drew her leg over his shoulder.
Harrison chuckled in greedy passion as the action opened her body completely to him. Her fingers were in his hair, pulling and pushing frantically as she sought her first release. He traced his tongue over the edge of her slick opening, swirling and sucking at the top arch, lapping and dipping along the soft velvet lips before thrusting into the center hold.
Harrison gripped a breast, thumbing over her ripe nipple. Syrian screamed, her hips finally discovering a mad rhythm as his tongue darted erotic and bold inside her feminine lips. His growls of approval hit her in vibrating waves, weakening her knees. Her leg tightened over his back until she sought to smother him with her body.
"Oh my … lord!" she cried. Tremors racked over her as she climaxed hard into his parted lips. A flow of her feminine liquid ran to his eager mouth and he moaned in ecstasy. Harrison didn’t stop, even when she pushed at his head to get him away. He forced her to ride out her passion, sucking greedy and hard until every last drop of her was spent and released.
Pulling back, he let her leg slide off his shoulder onto the floor. He licked his lips. Her climax had been ecstasy and he reveled in the memory of her tremors against his lips. She gasped for air. Her nipples strained as they reached out to him, inadvertently begging for more. Her eyes were dazed with wonderment and a soft, confused smile graced her panting lips.
"Oh, oh," was all Syrian could manage, over and over again. "Oh, my, oh."
Harrison caught her up into his arms when she would have fallen to the floor like a rag doll. She still shuddered lightly in the aftermath of his touch. Nuzzling her neck, he said, "I warned you my kisses could weaken your knees."
"Ah," she moaned, his expert lips giving her chills. Her mind conceded to that point wholeheartedly.
"And now I’ll show you another way to get such feelings," he said, nipping at her ear. "I’m going to fu--"
"Syrian? Harry?"
Syrian stiffened. Her eyes widened as she blinked herself back into reality. Weakly, she said, "Thomas."
"Get dressed," Harrison hurriedly said, as he sprung into action.
"Lord Wrotham?" Thomas called. "Where are you hiding? Syrian?"
Syrian tugged on her drawers, rushing to grab her petticoat. Her limbs trembled, which made dressing hard. Harrison waited with her gown. After she had the petticoat laced, he eased her dress quickly over her head. As Syrian moved to tie it into place, the Earl dipped his fingers down her bodice and pressed her nipples back into the corset. She shivered at the touch, pausing to look at him.
Harrison couldn’t stop himself from pressing a quick kiss to her lips. Urgently, he said, "Be quick!"
Syrian tasted herself on his mouth and it gave her a jolt of wayward pleasure, a heady sensation as if they’d gotten away with something truly devious. She laced her riding-dress as Harrison smoothed his own appearance. His body was still hard with unfulfilled desires, but there was nothing they co
uld do about it now. He had the promise of later to sustain him. He’d waited a year for her, he could wait awhile longer. He ran his fingers quickly through his hair, before tugging her to the cottage door.
"Syrian?"
"Caldwell, quit your hollering," the Earl called, leaning over to dust off Syrian’s skirt. Her eyes still had a slight dazed, dreamy look to them that was very out of place for her. "We are here."
"Where … I don’t see you?" came the reply.
Harrison shot Syrian a grin that seared her to her toes. She trembled, stumbling when she tried to walk. Her whole body hummed.
"By the cottage," the Earl yelled, not daring to touch her. "Syrian tripped and has dirtied her gown. I think she might have twisted her ankle."
Syrian frowned.
"It explains your soiled gown," the Earl said. "Now, if you know what’s best for you, get to limping."
Syrian couldn’t help her secretive smile as she began to hobble. Grabbing his arm for support, she called, "Here, Thomas! I’m all right."
The Earl led her over the dirt path to the sunlight. Thomas sat astride his white horse. His eyes narrowed to see her slightly disheveled state and flushed cheeks. His tone full of concern, he swung off his mount and demanded, "What happened?"
"I tripped on a floorboard," Syrian said. "I finally got the nerve to see the cottage and a bird … I thought it was a spirit."
Her tone sounded so dejected that even Harrison bought her story, and he’d been there.
"Ah, well, let’s get you home then, shall we?" Thomas said, offering his arm to his limping sister. Both men helped her onto her horse. Then, they mounted up to join her.
"What are you doing here, Thomas? I thought you were meeting with Mr. Turner." Syrian gave her brother a sweet smile. To Harrison’s disappointment, she ignored him completely as she rode beside Thomas.
"I was going to join you at the picnic. Mr. Turner sent word that he wouldn’t be here until tonight. He’s been delayed in London," Thomas answered.
Portrait of His Obsession Page 5