How the Dukes Stole Christmas

by MacLean, Sarah

  Wide blue eyes gazed up at him, unblinking. His self-control slipped a dangerous notch and yet he clung to it. He wasn’t like some men, lacking self-control. He was a man who held himself apart—even from people he knew well. His life was and always had been one of restraint.

  Calder stared in silence for a moment before finding his voice. “Hello,” he breathed.

  “Hello,” she returned in a small voice.

  “How are you?” Were they truly exchanging niceties?

  She moistened her lips and he followed the trail of that pink tongue. “Fine. I think.” She inhaled and lightly touched her head. “What happened? I don’t recall . . . ”

  “You fell and hit your head.” He reached up and brushed the light brown hair off her forehead. He delved through the strands until he found the lump on the back of her scalp. “Does that hurt?”

  She reached around, following his fingers to test the area herself. “Just a bit tender.”

  “By the time we arrived here you were soaking wet and freezing nigh on tae death. We had tae get you warm.” He actually sounded conciliatory. There was no cause for that, however. He’d saved her life.

  “Oh.” Her gaze dropped between them, taking in her state of undress. Her cheeks pinkened as she pulled the counterpane higher up her chest. “I suppose that explains this.”

  He waited, imagining her ladylike sensibilities taking over. He braced himself, waiting for the shrieking to start, something any proper soon-to-be-nun would do.

  Only it never came.

  Her fingers flexed on his shoulders, and that was when he realized she was touching him. Voluntarily. His mind might have been slow to process, but his body had known. It had recognized her closeness, her touch. He’d wager that was what woke him in the first place with a raging cock.

  “I always wondered . . . ” Her hands trailed down his shoulders to his chest, her eyes brightly curious. Perhaps dazed? Perhaps it was the lump on her head?

  He needed to be sensible for both of them. He should climb out of the bed and put space between them. Put his clothes back on. Stride from the room until this inconvenient desire ebbed.

  Instead, he asked, “What did you wonder?”

  She looked up from his chest, her eyes hooded beneath her lashes. “I wondered how it might be . . . with a man.”

  He swallowed back a groan.

  She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t. She was an innocent destined for the sanctity of the church. She’d been through an ordeal tonight and was undergoing the effects.

  “You’re clearly suffering from some sort of head injury.”

  A faint smile hugged her pretty lips. “Is that what you think?”

  She was a siren.

  Suddenly, he felt tied up in knots. As though he was the inexperienced one here and she the skilled lover.

  Their lips were so close. Somehow his head had lowered. Or had she lifted her lips to his?

  “You’re supposed tae be a nun,” he reminded her in a whisper, his words husking over her mouth.

  “But I’m not yet one,” she reminded.

  He brought his head down then, sinking into her lips.

  Just as he feared. She was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. Unfortunately—fortunately?—their individual blankets were bunched between them, keeping all their most intimate parts from pressing flush. It was the only reason he wasn’t already between her thighs. Had that been the case, he might not have been able to stop himself from driving inside her body the moment she invited him.

  He slanted his mouth over hers and she parted her lips on a sigh. He took advantage, sweeping his tongue inside, stroking hers. She responded, tasting and licking him back until he felt even hotter than when he first woke up, blazing and afire.

  He tore his mouth away.

  She chased after his lips with a soft little whimper. He cupped her face with one hand and looked down at her, his breathing labored. This girl was unraveling him.

  “Where did you learn tae kiss like that, Annis?” It was not how he expected a convent-bound girl to kiss.

  She smiled coyly. “I have kissed a few boys . . . ”

  “Boys?” He hated the thought of that. Almost more than he disliked the notion of her becoming a nun. He far preferred the idea of her staying nearby . . . within reach, however impossible that was. Her father had won a castle for them to enjoy on holiday. There was no chance of her staying in proximity.

  “Yes. When we lived in Bristol. Before we moved to Town.” Her smile faltered, and she looked suddenly less confident. “I suppose you think less of me for that.” Her tone turned indignant. “I don’t know why it has to be that way. It never struck me very fair that men do all manner of vice and are excused for every single instance. How many girls have you kissed, Sinclair?”

  She was lovely angry. Hot color splashed her cheeks. “Calder,” he said.

  She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “I beg your pardon?”

  He brought his head back down. “My name is Calder, and I don’t care how many boys you’ve kissed, Annis,” he declared. “Because I’m the first man.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Annis had once had a governess who insisted she was the most troublesome of all her sisters. Naturally, Annis took exception to that. She didn’t throw tantrums. She didn’t pick fights with her siblings or treat any of the household servants with disdain. She never complained about the pudding or the tea or any number of things about which her sisters saw fit to complain.

  You’re the one I worry will dive off a cliff. When a notion takes you, there be no swaying you, miss. Such a headstrong lass I never did attend.

  Dive off a cliff, indeed. It wasn’t true, of course. She was the practical one. She might be headstrong, but she wasn’t one given to flighty thoughts or impulses. She had chalked the remarks up to the governess’s terrible judgment of character.

  Except this moment, right now . . . This was impulsive behavior. No denying that.

  Perhaps that governess had known her better than she knew herself.

  This was reckless and completely out of character, but she’d already decided it might be her only chance. One time to surrender. One time she would always remember.

  One time for her blood to sing. Already the faint light of dawn crept in around the thick damask curtains. Soon the light of day would be upon them and it would not be so easy to forget or pretend.

  She felt his manhood, hard and jutting against her hip. She knew what it was. What it meant. She was a great reader of histories and scientific texts and that included the medical texts in Papa’s library. Reading material she was certain would scandalize Mama if she only knew.

  He ground against her and she couldn’t stop herself from turning and rotating so that his hardness brushed the apex of her thighs. She didn’t even want to stop. In the name of research, she had to explore this further. She craved that hardness right . . . there. She moaned softly as she pressed into him.

  Just because she’d kissed a few boys didn’t mean she had experience with matters of the flesh. Although, as she arched closer to Calder, she supposed she shouldn’t underestimate the power of instinct.

  With a move that ripped the air from her lips, he rolled over onto his back, taking her with him and settling her astride him.

  She gasped and dropped her hands to his broad shoulders, steadying herself. The counterpane slid to her waist, leaving her exposed.

  His deep blue eyes swept over her, taking in her full nudity before resting on her small breasts.

  Self-consciousness seized her. Her sister Regan was quite well-endowed and liked to lord it over Annis and the others who were less developed. Annis’s lack of assets had never bothered her before now. Now she wanted to be more. More for him.

  She brought up her hands to shield herself, but he brushed them aside with a tsk. “No hiding these from me.”

  Then his hands covered her, his blunt-tipped fingers tweaking her nipples until they were hard and straining. Sh
e arched her spine, crying out and quite bewildered at the searing sensations shooting from her breasts directly to her core. She covered his hands with her own, exerting pressure, guiding him with that instinct that seemed to be serving her so well.

  His hands left her for a moment, and she whimpered in disappointment. He grasped her waist and adjusted her until she was sitting perfectly aligned with his manhood. Her mouth parted on a quick gasp.

  She felt every inch of him against her wet heat. Long and straining, pulsing at her opening but not breaching her. No, he made no move to do that. She held her breath, biting back further sounds as she gazed down at him.

  His eyes, hungry and dark, watched her, waiting, she sensed, for something from her. She waited, too.

  Until she couldn’t wait anymore.

  “Calder?” She heard the plaintive edge in her voice. She was afire. She started moving. Rocking on him. Grinding his hard length. The friction was delicious. A moan tripped her lips as she grew slippery.

  He muttered encouraging words, his hands roaming over her, touching, stroking until she was mindless. Pleasure burned in her, swelling and growing. She started shaking uncontrollably, pleas for something, for more, falling from her lips.

  A sob swelled in her chest, strangling in the back of her throat and suddenly her skin sizzled and snapped. She burst from the inside. For a moment her vision blurred. She could see nothing. Could only feel. Could only choke as ripples of pleasure rushed over her skin.

  Then she was on her back, Calder looming over her, his big body between her thighs. His muffled words reached her ears, but it took her a moment to digest. His burr had thickened in a way that made her skin shiver. “Och, you are a hot-blooded lass…”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly the door flung open and a cheerful exclamation rang out. “Up with ye! No lazing the day away!”

  Did no one knock in this infernal keep ever?

  She squeaked and tried to shrink more fully beneath Calder’s body. Thankfully he was a big brute of a man and shielded most of her from the woman’s view.

  “Impeccable timing,” he muttered so low she could scarcely make out the words. He twisted his neck to look at the older woman standing in the doorway. His shoulders dropped with a great exhale and there was disappointment laden in the sound—a disappointment she felt, too. This lovely escape had come to an end. “Good morning, Mrs. Benfiddy.”

  After politely requesting her departure, Mrs. Benfiddy left so that they could dress. Nothing in the woman’s stoic expression revealed what she thought one way or another of her master in bed with a naked woman, which only led Annis to wonder if this was a regular occurrence. And that made her scowl. She didn’t want to be one of many. One of a slew of women to warm his bed.

  What do you want?

  Shaking her head, she finished dressing, averting her eyes from him even as she refused to answer that question—even to herself.

  To say the mood had fled between them would be an understatement. It didn’t take long for the embarrassment and self-recriminations to settle in. In the light of day, there was no pretending or hiding. She was Miss Annis Ballister, late of Bristol, now a resident of London and destined for the veil.

  She had plans. Her future was decided. She had decided it. Not her parents. Not society. Certainly not this duke. She could not change her mind. She could not be having doubts now. She wouldn’t . . .

  Her hands shook as she finished her last button. Her gaze caught on a plate on the nearby side table and she froze. “Wait. What’s that?”

  He followed her gaze to the plate of what looked like … biscuits. Biscuits! Her stomach knotted. NoNoNoNoNo.

  “Ah. Nothing. Just a plate of …” His voice faded.

  “Of what?” she quickly demanded, a sick sense of knowing making her stomach knot harder. When he held silent, she pointed at the plate, pressing for an answer. “Who left it here?”

  Still, he hesitated, his expression oddly blank.

  “Fenella did, didn’t she?” At his continued silence, she pressed, “Those are the biscuits? The magic biscuits?” Not that she believed in such rubbish. She was of a scientific mind. Yet it was highly coincidental . . .

  He shook his head with a sigh. “There’s no such thing as magic—”

  “Did you eat any?” It was vastly important for her to know. Suddenly his answer might be the most important thing ever. “Did you?”

  His gaze traveled her face before he slowly admitted, “I might have had … one.”

  “One,” she echoed, nodding. The knotting in her stomach gave way to nausea. He had eaten one of Fenella’s love biscuits before they had very nearly—

  She could not even think it. Not about what they had almost done. Not the chance timing of it all. As much as she rejected the idea of magic, this man’s sudden and ardent response to her was baffling. She had lived all her life in the shadows of far more beautiful sisters. Her feminine wiles were not so substantial.

  Perhaps there was something to this magical shortbread, after all.

  He chuckled. “Come now. You dinna think this has anything tae do with what you and I—”

  “I don’t know.” she cut him off, unwilling to hear him say the words. If she couldn’t think it, she certainly did not want to hear him give voice to it. “And yet it is coincidental.” Too coincidental.

  Now everything about what happened between them felt suspect. She had been the initiator. She woke him with roaming hands. If the biscuits truly possessed properties that served as some manner of aphrodisiac, then that, combined with her assertiveness, might have rendered him …vulnerable. It shouldn’t matter since she was destined for the convent, but it still stung.

  “I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong.” He reached for his boots. “Ridiculous even,” he flung out.

  She bristled, watching him tug on one boot, then the next. “You can’t claim to know me or my mind.”

  “You wear your thoughts and emotions plainly on your face and right now you’re thinking Fenella’s foul biscuits made me—” He stopped abruptly, looked at her. Looked away again.

  Love. The word he wouldn’t say. Of course. Because that would be ridiculous.

  Emotion did not play into this—love did not. What they had done was physical. Frowning, she stared at his face. The sight sent flutters through her stomach. An ache started at the back of her throat.

  He couldn’t love her. Men could engage their bodies without engaging their hearts. She knew that. It was science. Biology. Like animal in the barnyard. He did not even want her here. And yet he’d acted like he wanted her here when they were in that bed together. There had been no derision or contempt from him then. He’d behaved as though she were his entire world. He’d behaved as a man obsessed—obsessed with her.

  She turned and glared distrustfully at the biscuits again. Perhaps they had cast some spell over him. Her chest ached to think that what had transpired between them had not been real . . . that it had been wholly one-sided on her part. As illusory as a dream.

  Humiliation burned in her throat. Her governess had been right. Annis had done just as she said and dove off a cliff. She was lucky to have survived.

  She’d not make that mistake again.

  Annis spent the rest of the day in bed. Not by choice, but every time she insisted she was fine, she was just pushed back down on the bed by old women who were a lot stronger than they looked.

  She was achingly conscious of the fact that it was the duke’s bed and that he had occupied it with her the night before . . . and they had done things there that she’d never imagined herself doing with any man. She had long settled into the idea that she would never marry. Now, in the light of day, the fact that she had engaged in such brazen behavior (and had justified it at the time) left her reeling.

  Annis had to get out of this room. What if he came back? What would he think if she was still lazing about in his bed?

  She flung back the counterpane and paced
the large space, her skin itching with anxious energy. Even when he wasn’t here she imagined she could smell him—that hint of leather and wind and man.

  She took a bracing breath. In six months she would enter the abbey and begin her year of postulancy. She should not be thinking about him so much and imagining she could smell him everywhere. Feel him even now, when they were not touching.

  Especially after knowing he’d eaten Fenella’s wretched biscuits.

  The doubts were planted now. Even as irrational as they were, she could not shake them. She would always question his desire for her. She could never trust it. Never trust him. Not that it mattered as it was . . . with a decided lack of promises between them, but it felt bad. Crushing.

  Her gaze darted around the room anxiously. She would feel immensely better in a space that did not belong to him. She would be more herself then. Again.

  “What are ye doing out of bed?

  The accusing question hung on the air as she swung around to stare at the irritated-looking woman in the doorway. She had not even heard the door open, but Fenella stood there, her eyes sharpening on Annis. “Ah, Fenella. I am fine—”

  “Nae. Back tae bed with ye.” Fenella propped her bony fists on her narrow hips.

  She shook her head stubbornly even as Fenella charged toward her. “I’m not staying one more moment in his bed.”

  “Tis more than likely he saved yer life so stay that saucy tongue of yers,” Fenella reprimanded as she pushed Annis back down on the bed and rearranged the covers around her, tucking her in as though she were a child. Annis didn’t miss the sneaky glances she sent the plate of biscuits. A self-satisfied smile curled the old woman’s mouth as she eyed the crumbs, remnants of the one he had eaten.

  “I would like to be moved into one of the spare bedchambers.”

  “Ye should stay here where it’s more comfortable. This is the warmest room in the keep.”

  “Fenella.” She glared at the woman, quite aware of the game she was playing. Now Annis fully grasped what an expert manipulator she was. She’d baked her magic biscuits in the middle of the night and somehow managed to get the duke to eat one because she thought it would leave him lust-addled. “It is most unseemly. You must see that.”