The Pleasure Garden: Sacred VowsPerfumed PleasuresRites of Passions

by Amanda McIntyre

  “Oh, yes,” she cried, tugging at his hair. Her stockinged legs wrapped around his shoulders, and he worked harder to bring her release. When she was nearly there, he pushed two fingers into her and she fell apart, her keening cry whispering about them as she bucked beneath his body.

  She was breathing heavily, still trembling from her orgasm. Hard, throbbing, he undid his trousers and freed his cock, pumping his hand down the shaft. He was about to fall atop her, to push his cock deep in her body, when he heard the sound of footfalls coming from the house.

  “Hurry,” he whispered, “someone comes.”

  With lightning speed, he helped Catherine set herself to rights, and was disappearing into the shadows before the gate opened.

  “Ah, there you are,” Edward said. “All alone, I see.” He stepped closer until he was standing before Catherine, then he pulled her to the side, to where the moon cast a faint glow on the brown brambles. She was bathed in moonlight, and Joscelyn could see how Edward watched her.

  “How beautiful you look tonight,” he purred. He touched her, her throat, her décolletage, and Joscelyn wanted to tear his hand from his wrist. The bastard. Touching what was Joscelyn’s.

  “I’ve imagined these tits all night. Show me.”

  “No.”

  Edward laughed, and Joscelyn stepped closer, though he tried to hold himself back. When Edward gripped a handful of Catherine’s hair, Joscelyn saw red.

  “You do know that your continued denial only makes me more aroused, don’t you?”

  Catherine glared up at him. “I am not yet yours to paw.”

  “You’re mine in every way that counts.” He tilted her chin up. “Never forget who you belong to.”

  “Leave her be.”

  Edward whirled around, his expression turning from lust to hatred. “You,” he sneered into the shadows where Joscelyn lurked. “I should have known you’d be out here, sniffing around her skirts like a mongrel.”

  “The lady said no,” Joscelyn growled.

  “The lady,” Edward mocked, “is none of your concern.”

  “Be that as it may,” Joscelyn said as he emerged from the darkness and reached for Catherine’s hand, “the lady is not inclined to indulge you and your amorous pursuits tonight.” Careful to keep his left side hidden in darkness, Joscelyn motioned to the garden gate, and Catherine did not hesitate to grasp the bit of freedom that was being granted her.

  Both of them watched her retreating figure, and when the scarlet silk of her gown had disappeared behind the gate, Joscelyn turned his murderous gaze upon his cousin.

  “If you ever do that to her again, I will kill you.”

  There must have been something in his expression that made his cousin step back. Certainly, Edward saw that his threat was not an empty one. Joscelyn had killed before. He could kill again, especially this little slug that stood before him. Between him and want he wanted.

  “She’s mine,” Edward sniffed.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  The last words from Edward’s mouth chilled him to the core. “Just remember this as you’re skulking about in the dark, attempting to take her from me—if I can’t have her, cousin, then no one will.”

  3

  TOSSING BACK HIS THIRD BRANDY, EDWARD stared into the fire that the comely maid had laid for him. Not even the thought of his voluptuous personal servant, Annie, was enough to stem the anger that was overtaking him.

  Goddamn Joscelyn for returning and showing himself to Catherine. Edward would have bet his fortune that his proud cousin would have hidden himself away in his room. After all, he would not wish to have Catherine see him—not after what the war had done to him. Edward had been relieved when his rival had returned home burned and mangled. Joscelyn was a monster. Even the maids shrieked when he caught them off guard, or they found him lurking in the dark. His countenance was the stuff of nightmares. What would the beautiful and luscious Catherine do when she learned her knight in shining armor had become the ugly ogre?

  No, Edward had believed that pride and self-pity would keep Joscelyn far away from his future bride. How wrong he’d been. He knew that they had been together in that garden. Felt it. Oh, she looked immaculate and as aloof as ever, but there was something there, a sparkle in her eye, the kind of twinkle that came after a good sound fucking.

  He’d kill him if that bastard had taken her. Stupidly, Edward had heeded the wishes of his father by waiting till she was a bit older to claim her. Indeed, she had been young when they were betrothed, only sixteen. But one grew up rather quickly when one was poor. He could have taken her then, or anytime since, but his father had pleaded decorum. Give her time to settle in, to accept the union. Let her grow up. Edward had acquiesced, only to have his bastard cousin come sniffing around her.

  He felt desperate, as though time was running out. He must move swiftly if he was to prevent Joscelyn from taking her. He had no doubt about it, his cousin would try to steal her away. And Catherine would go to him, despite knowing her place was with Edward, as his wife and the mother of his children.

  The door to his study opened, and in walked the maid. Obedient as always, she was shedding her gown and baring her breasts for him. He liked this one. She was buxom. He’d singled her out because he liked to imagine her as Catherine.

  Christ, his obsession with her was appalling. He was a rich, titled gentleman panting after a poor aristocrat’s daughter. He could have any number of titled ladies, but Catherine, with her harlot’s body and sharp tongue, aroused him. No one else would do. Only Catherine.

  He watched as Annie stood naked before him. She was eager to please, and tonight he was in a hell of a mood. His trousers were tented with a formidable erection—but not for the buxom maid. For Catherine, and the way she had looked in the scarlet silk gown—all white décolletage peeking out. Lord, the thoughts that had run through his mind. What he wanted to do to her.

  “My lord?” the maid asked, shyly looking down upon him.

  Oh, what he wouldn’t do to see Catherine this way, humbling herself before him. Perhaps all the amorous thoughts and lusty fantasies he’d had of Catherine while at the supper table could be fulfilled by Annie, and her eagerness.

  Settling deep in his chair, he spread his legs wide, capturing her knees with his thighs. He was shirtless, in preparation for their assignation, and she watched as the thick bundle of muscles in his belly flinched and constricted. One day, Catherine would look at him this way.

  The maid’s eyes widened as he parted the flap of his trousers. His erect phallus throbbed through the opening, and she studied it with a deep hunger, heedless of the fact that she was standing shamelessly naked before him.

  She knew what he wanted, what he would ask for as he reached between the parted folds of his trousers and gripped his cock in his hand. He slid his palm up and down the shaft, pleasuring himself slowly, expertly, and she watched him, studying the way he found pleasure with his fingers. It was not so difficult for Edward to pretend she was Catherine. In fact, it was rather naughty to do so, and he found it aroused him, made his cock thicken even more. Annie’s eyes widened in appreciation. She always was game for a good hard fuck.

  When she lowered her body so that she was kneeling before him, he imagined Catherine doing the same, as if she were a servant set to do his bidding. His hand tightened around his shaft and a muscle jumped and flickered in his jaw as he gritted his teeth, watching her kneel before him, and pretending she was Catherine.

  “You know what I want, don’t you?”

  She nodded and pressed forward, brushing the sides of her breasts against him as she insinuated her body between his thighs.

  “Tell me what you think I want you to do to me,” he commanded.

  She allowed her eyes to slowly trail up his form, taking in every hard contour and muscle, anticipating the moment when he would cover her body with his.

  “You want me to suck your cock,” she whispered huskily. “And I want to taste you.”
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br />   His breath rushed out of his chest as she reached for the waistband of his trousers and pulled the black fabric down his hips. He was now naked and magnificently aroused.

  “That is what you want, isn’t it,” she teased, “for me to take you into my mouth?”

  “Yes,” he half drawled, half groaned, threading his fingers through her hair and cupping the back of her head. “I want you to suck my cock. And I am going to sit back and enjoy watching you do it.” And pretend you’re Catherine.

  Annie set her tongue to him and trailed it up his long shaft. She groaned, a husky sound that came from the back of her throat. “I want this,” she purred, nuzzling her lips against the throbbing vein that ran the length of him. “I want to feel this pulsating in my mouth.”

  “Like it pulsates in your cunt?” he growled as he thrust forward, filling her mouth with more than just the head. She sucked him vigorously, allowing the rhythm of his hips to guide her.

  Edward felt his thighs tighten around her shoulders, and he nudged her closer so that she could take more of his straining cock into her mouth. She was working it with such enthusiasm that he nearly came seconds later, but closed his eyes and forced himself to find control. He did not want this to end.

  Grasping a handful of her hair, he gently tilted her head back so that he could see her pink tongue snaking up and down the length of his thick shaft and curling around the swollen head. His cods tightened, and as if she instinctively knew, she cupped his sac, fondling him in her palms as she made love to his prick with her mouth.

  He was content to sit back in his chair, like a pasha being pleasured, watching her, studying the way her mouth looked atop him, and the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as her sexual need began to heighten. How bloody powerful it was to take his pleasure this way, to do nothing other than watch and direct her with pressure from his hand. How dominant he felt sprawled out in his chair as she worked his cock with an eager, inexperienced mouth. How fucking satisfying it was going to be when he had Catherine down on her knees, sucking him.

  “I am so eager to please you, my lord,” the maid murmured between flicks of her tongue.

  “How eager? So eager that you would give your body over to me?” She looked up at him through a veil of golden lashes and he saw her pupils dilate, but he did not think it was in fear. Rather curiosity, and perhaps arousal.

  “I want you to do everything to me that you have ever thought about.”

  “Everything?” he asked, brushing her mouth with the tip of his cock, coaxing her to take him between her swollen lips. They trembled, and he saw how she ran a shaking hand down her smooth ivory thigh, and felt himself grow thicker, imagining that hand snaking between her thighs and playing in her plump folds.

  “What if I wanted to feel my cock between your breasts? Would you let me?” He’d been thinking of that tonight, with Catherine and her beautiful breasts. He had wanted to take her out to the garden and suck them, coat them.

  “Yes, my lord,”

  His gaze drifted down the maid’s throat and then to her breasts. “Offer them to me.”

  She did, and the sight of her breasts in her hands, and her fingers stroking her pebbled nipples, was more than he could bear. He brought her forward and gripped his cock, stroking it between the soft valley of her breasts.

  “What if I wanted to come on them?” She gasped as he put his hands to her breasts and squeezed them so that they gripped his cock like her sheath. He pressed his mouth to her ear and thrust his hips once more, filling the valley of her breasts with his prick. “What if I want to come in your mouth?”

  She didn’t have to answer him, for he knew she would bring him to orgasm and keep him inside her mouth until he was limp and spent. And he did that, imagining it was Catherine drinking him down.

  She would soon learn her place, he thought, as he began to lose control. Soon, she would know who her lord and master was.

  He cried out, finishing off in the maid’s mouth. Closing his eyes, he thought of Catherine and his plan, and how absolutely stunning she would look on her knees, sucking him.

  When he opened his eyes he saw the ammunition he needed. The one thing that would bind her to him. The only thing Joscelyn could not do for her.

  “My lord,” Annie purred. “Again?”

  He smiled and lifted the maid onto the desk. “All night,” he said. “Till you can’t stand.”

  An hour later, Catherine found herself still dressed in the scarlet gown. She had dismissed her maid, her mind a jumble of thoughts, her body quivering with emotion—desire, anger, fear.

  Edward had discovered them. What would he do to Joscelyn?

  She pressed her head against the windowpane. Whenever she came to visit at Fairfax, she always chose this room because it looked out over the garden—and because she had been able to watch Joscelyn return from riding, or a swim in the pond. When she couldn’t sleep, she would rise from her bed and sit on the little window bench and look down at the desolate copse, and feel some sort of comfort. The garden was as isolated as she.

  Now, all she could see was the fountain, and she couldn’t help imagining how she must have looked with her chest bared and her thighs draped over Joscelyn’s shoulders. What must he think of her? They hadn’t even spoken or seen one another in three years, and there she was kissing him wildly and parting her thighs for him.

  She would have given him more, too, if Edward had not come in search of her. Perhaps it was providence he had. For she surely would have allowed Joscelyn to make love to her, and then where would she be? Even more deeply in love with him, that’s where.

  The bargain was set. Her role in it firmly outlined. There was no room in her life for Joscelyn, no matter how much she wished it.

  The door opened with a nearly inaudible squeak and Catherine anxiously turned her head toward the sound. The sizzle of moisture against the flickering candle flame sounded above the closing door before the room was snuffed into darkness. Blackness cloaked her and the click of a key turning in a lock sent gooseflesh erupting along every pore of her body.

  Oh, God, was it Edward? Had he finally come to take her?

  Curling her fingers into her fists, she stemmed the urge to whimper. She was not ready for this. To have Edward in her bed. Her body.

  A deep and melodious whisper erupted in the quiet, sending her anxieties scurrying. Joscelyn. “I had to come and check on you.”

  “I’m well.” Swallowing hard, Catherine tried to remain cool. Distant. There could be nothing between them. It was best to continue on as she meant to go along—apart from Joscelyn.

  “Please, you should leave.”

  The darkness in the room unnerved her. She wanted to see him. To turn and gaze upon him. She did not want this disembodied voice in the darkness.

  He reached out, gathered her up, and though she protested, he ignored her weak objection and snaked his arms around her middle, bringing her flush against his chest, a chest that felt firm and warm beneath his clothing. “You were left aching. Unfinished,” he murmured. “I want to remedy that. I want to fulfill your desires.”

  Joscelyn brought her up against the wall, holding her upright with his thighs pressed against hers. His fingers laced through hers, holding their entwined hands against her side, while his other hand trailed down her throat to her décolletage and down over her breasts. He cupped her and she felt his breath hot beneath her ear, smelled the scent of him, spice and claret, beneath her nose. His thumb slid over her nipple, which hardened painfully beneath her silk gown, and he moaned deep in his throat when she whimpered and squirmed against him.

  “You protest this desire, but I can feel it. Your body betrays you,” he whispered as his finger slid away from her breast and skated down her belly. “You want to know what it is to feel passion. You want the feel of my hands on you. You want to remember what it is like to have me inside you.” His fingers were now at the junction of her thighs, and he was stroking his fingertips against the curls th
at lay beneath her gown.

  Her stomach coiled and tightened and she felt her blood thrum heavily in her veins. She whimpered as he pressed himself against her.

  “Do I frighten you with my passion, Catherine?” he asked as he kissed her throat. “Or does it excite you?” She moaned and her legs weakened when he pressed his lips, then his tongue, to her breasts. “It excites you, doesn’t it? It is not a shiver of fear, but of desire, a yearning for more. You don’t want Edward. You want me.”

  Despite her resolve not to, she hissed, “Yes,” when his fingers expertly reach for the edge of her bodice. Slowly he inched it down until her breasts were nearly spilling out of her gown. “Please,” she cried, arching her back when his nails caressed her flesh scant inches from her nipples.

  “Are you wet?” he asked, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered the words. His knuckle traced her jaw. She shivered when his fingers touched her skin and his breath caressed her throat. “If I were to touch you, to spread your legs and feel you, would you be ready to come for me?”

  She pressed against him, unable to talk or think. How could she when he was even now lowering her bodice so that her breasts were exposed? With his thumb and forefinger, he gently rolled her nipple, and automatically she reached for his wrist, knowing she should stop this. But he refused her and instead brought her hand to his trousers and pressed it against the bulge behind the flap.

  “Take my cock in your hand, Catherine, and pleasure me.”

  Her blood quickened when, instead of leaving her to fumble with the buttons, he tore the flap open and she felt his erection spring free. With ruthless determination he curled her fingers around his thickness and pressed himself into her hand.

  “Touch me, Catherine,” he groaned. “I am quite at your mercy. I always have been.”

  She did not know what to do, other than to slide her fingers along the satiny skin. She must have been doing an admirable job for he groaned and thrust his hips forward, sliding his erection up the length of her palm. Closing her eyes, she let her head rest against the wall and allowed herself to feel his warmth covering the front of her body. His mouth was everywhere, on her throat, the tops of her breasts, her lips. His hands were roaming the contours of her figure and his fingers cupped and stroked every inch of her burning skin. Her heart was pounding so fast she felt light-headed, and yet she could not stop what was happening even if she desired to. This passion, the feel of him surrounding her, the intimacy of his tongue in her mouth as he possessed her lips, were nothing she’d ever thought she’d experience. It was heaven, bliss, an erotic sensation she could easily find herself addicted to.