by Liz Carlyle
“You’ve an awful lot of faith in me,” he said hesitantly.
She lifted her head, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him. Her eyes were more somnolent than distant now, and she seemed to have come entirely back to herself.
“I do have faith,” she said quietly. “You will go, and you will do the right thing.” Then she pulled a little away from him, her gaze softening almost seductively. “But you did, as I recall, claim that tonight you were going to do the wrong thing. I hope you don’t mean to renege on that promise?”
He laughed, remembering his words to her. Though little more than an hour had passed, the moment seemed a lifetime ago. But suddenly—with Anisha’s warmth pressed so sweetly against him and his heart perhaps a little unburdened—it didn’t seem nearly as wrong. It made, in fact, a disconcerting amount of sense.
He managed to grin down at her. “Aye, well, enough of this redemption business,” he said. “A sinner I might be, but ne’er a liar.”
With little effort, he scooped Anisha up again, just as he had lifted her from the carriage, this time to carry her around the table. She laughed and threw her hands round his neck.
The door to her tiny bedchamber was half open to allow the fire’s warmth to permeate. A lamp burned low by the bed, which was already turned back. Elbowing his way through, Rance perched her on the edge of the impossibly high mattress. For a moment, Anisha’s earnest brown eyes held his, and she looked, he thought, as happy as ever he’d seen her.
And he had done that.
He, somehow, had put that light in her eyes.
So he’d bloody well manage to keep it there. Kissing the tip of her nose, he stepped back a pace. “Well, Nish, here’s to doing the wrong thing,” he said, turning his shirt inside out as he dragged it over his head.
She made a faint sound of appreciation, her eyes warming in the lamplight as they drifted down him; all the way down to the drawers which now hung loosely off his hips, and just a little lower still, for his hardening cock was unmistakable now.
“Do you not begin to wonder, Rance,” she murmured, her gaze focused there, “if doing the right thing isn’t vastly overrated?”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Aye, well, just remember, love—if one day old Ruthveyn yanks that wicked jezail of his off his wall and shoots me dead for it, the wrong thing was still worth it to me.”
But Anisha’s gaze did not rise. “Seriously, you are magnificent,” she said huskily. “I remember wondering all those many months ago . . . well, let us just say, meri jaan, that nothing about you falls short of a lady’s fantasies. And you are beautiful in the bargain.”
He tossed the shirt aside, certain her eyes were clouded by something—just feminine lust, perhaps. As a lad, yes, he had been handsome. When he’d first come down to London at scarcely eighteen, alone and looking for mischief, it had found him—and in myriad forms. At first the ladies of the ton had simply winked at one another behind their fans. But eventually, more than one had brazenly tipped a finger beneath his chin and called him pretty in a voice that had been pure invitation.
And Rance had said yes. To a lot of them.
But he was no longer a pretty boy. Now he was just a hard man with a bad name who had lived an ugly life and been scarred by it, inside and out, then boiled down, he often thought, to the pure essence of what a man was: sinew and bone. Muscle and grim determination. There was nothing more to him than that.
But it was what Anisha wanted, it seemed. She scooted back off the bed, her eyes glowing with a warmth even the most practiced of courtesans could not have feigned. And when she crooked her finger, the last little scrap of what might have been a good intention vanished.
He stepped close, and her small, clever fingers went at once to the tie of his drawers, tugging free the knot. In an instant, they breezed down his legs to pool on the old planks. Then, catching her hand, he drew her up and unfastened the gold-embroidered ties of her peignoir. Sliding his hands over her slender shoulders, he pushed it off. It slithered down her back to join his shirt and drawers on the floor.
Rance kissed her again, hot and hard, fisting up her nightgown as he thrust and circled her tongue. He broke the kiss just long enough to drag the green silk over her head. At the sight and scent of her, his cock stirred, brushing the soft flesh of her belly.
He set her a little away and tried to drink his fill as she stood a little shyly before him. But he knew it would never be so; that with Anisha, he would never be sated. In the last hellish year, his had become a well of need that flowed over all boundaries, eternally replenishing.
Good God, she was so small and perfect—like a little jewel, exquisite in her dark beauty. His eyes drifted down over her face, past her small, round breasts, catching on the sweet flare of her hip bones and the soft place his cock had just teased. Unable to stop himself, Rance let his hand slide down to cover her there, his broad fingers splaying over her womb, and thought of the miracles that had been.
Of the miracles that could still be.
More than anything on earth, Anisha had told Teddy, she yearned for more children.
The thought sent a wave of protectiveness and desire surging. And the guilt that usually followed his desire for her was . . . well, still there.
But the desire and the dream had muted it; the yearning he felt for her was beginning to set free inside him a rush of possibilities—the sense that certain things were meant to be, and that it fell to him to make them happen. To endure whatever had to be endured, and to make certain she suffered no regret.
He drew her to him and held her there, burying his face against her neck. “I love you, Nish,” he whispered. “I have always loved you. Tell me you know that.”
“I know,” she said simply. “I have just been waiting for you to know.”
He gave a harsh laugh and pressed his lips to the warm pulse point beneath her ear. “I have always known,” he said. “Almost from the moment I saw you on that ship, so small and lost and yet so full of courage—”
She cut him off with a gentle poke in the ribs.
“Ow!” he said, nipping at her throat. “What?”
“You make me sound like a stray cat,” she declared.
He laughed and pushed her onto the bed, following her down. “Oh, you are no stray,” he said, crawling predatorily over her. “I’m much afraid you’re mine—at least for tonight. And after that, well, heaven help you.”
Propped back on her elbows, Anisha looked up at him through a shock of silky, disordered hair. “Hmm,” she said. But she was not, he thought, displeased.
Bracing himself above her, he brushed the hair from her face, then bent his head and kissed her, this time slowly. With his eyes open, literally and figuratively, he circled her tongue with his, then stroked sinuously back and forth. He wanted her to know. He was laying claim—as near as he dared—and he yearned for Anisha to ache with the wanting as he did.
He thrust again, one hand weighing her breast in the warmth of his palm, his thumb plucking and teasing her nipple to a hard, sweet bud of desire, until at last she arched beneath him on a soft cry. His blood surged, hot and urgent, and Rance knew he hadn’t the strength to turn back, even had he possessed the inclination.
And he didn’t. He was done with doing the right thing.
Ever so lightly, he pinched the pink bud between his fingers, and a tremble ran through her. Kissing his way along her cheek, Rance paused long enough to whisper sweetly in her ear—just enough to tease—then let his mouth take her breast, soothing the nipple with his tongue.
He suckled her slowly, drawing out her need like the gold thread of her zari, reveling in her sighs and gasps. She arched her hips again and whispered his name, her fingers spearing into the hair at his temples. In response, Rance kissed his way down her belly, all the way to her navel, then drew his tongue lightly over the swell of her womb and lower still, to tease at the thatch of dark curls between her thighs.
Anisha’s head tipped back into the
pillows. “Oh!” she said softly.
He drew in her scent and felt raw lust shiver beneath his skin. She was enough to madden the sanest of men. Desire surged through him now, throbbing with the beat of his blood. Sliding one hand beneath to cradle her hip, he touched her again, this time more intimately. Her answering cry was a sweet, thready sound. Beneath his relentlessly delving tongue, she began to tremble. Her hand fisted in his hair, and one dainty foot slid restlessly up the sheet, the tiger’s claw charm on her ankle brushing coolly along his skin.
Again and again Rance drew his tongue deep through her silken flesh, until he heard her nails rake the sheets. “Ah—” she cried.
Gently he eased one finger, and then another, into the velvet heat. One hand twisting at the bed linen, Anisha begged him, vowed it was too much. Too intense. But already her gasps were soft and tellingly rhythmic. He stroked again, lightly coaxing her sweet, erect nub with tiny flicks of his tongue as she whimpered.
At last she cried out beneath him, shuddering with her release, beautiful beyond words.
Kissing her lightly on her soft inner thigh, Rance eventually shifted his weight to rest his head on her belly, curling himself protectively about her.
Anisha’s hand was threading limply through his hair. “Oh—!” she said on a long, breathy sigh. “That was . . . oh—utterly enslaving.”
“Ah.” Rance rimmed her navel with the tip of his tongue, then curled one arm round her hips. “Are you my slave now, love?”
She swallowed hard. “Perhaps,” she said. “Could you do it again? So that I might be perfectly sure?”
He did laugh then, brushing his lips over her belly. “It was something new?” he murmured.
Her voice hitched. “Not entirely,” she said. “I’ve only seen it.”
“Seen it?”
“In drawings and carvings,” she said a little defensively. “And the Kāmashastra teaches it as a permissible way to experience bliss with one’s lover.”
He laughed softly and nuzzled her belly. “And bliss it was,” he conceded. “But Nish, you . . . you were married—”
“Yes, for a long while,” she softly interjected, “to an Englishman with no imagination, and even less wish to please me. But that is over. You and I, however”—her hand fisted a little roughly in his hair—“we are not over, meri jaan. I did warn you, did I not, that I meant to put you through your paces?”
His cock was already throbbing, and hard as the old oak bedpost. He lifted his head to look at her, and Anisha rolled up onto one elbow, her firm breasts wobbling enticingly. “Shall I show you another, slightly im-permissible pleasure of the Kāmashastra?” she suggested, her voice pitched seductively low.
He let his gaze drift over her nakedness. “I find myself your eager pupil.”
Her face flushing sweetly pink, Anisha urged him off and onto his back, then crawled atop his legs, her knees set to either side of his. “Umm,” she said, running her hands up the muscles of his thighs. “Like solid marble—ah, everywhere, I see.”
Watching, he laughed a little uneasily. “Nish, you’re up to mischief.”
To his shock, her hand eased artfully—and firmly—round the base of his rigid shaft. “Yes, something wicked,” she agreed. “Something a lady ought not do—or so the teachings say.”
“Then don’t,” he advised, crooking his finger to draw her up.
A naughty, sideways smile tilted one corner of her mouth. “Does it not strike you, meri jaan, that the rules of bed-sport are written by men who wish to imagine their lady wives boringly perfect?—which might explain their propensity to take mistresses, now I think on it.”
“No real man,” he said firmly, “could ever want more than you.”
Nonetheless, she fisted her hand round his shaft and eased it up and down. He could not suppress a groan of pleasure, and when her other hand worked lower, to caress him in that most erotic of ways, he felt his bollocks seize with pleasure in her palm.
“Nish . . .” he said warningly.
But he was not a saint, and she—well, she was just quietly stubborn. However gently a burn might flow amongst the braes, it was still, like Anisha, a force of nature. And so he surrendered; actually closed his eyes, when he felt the softness of her hair tease across his belly as she bent over him. Lightly, her tongue stroked up his shaft.
“Oh, minx—!” he groaned.
She laughed her light, musical laugh again. “This is called auparishtaka,” she said, just before her tongue flicked over his swollen head.
“Oh, that’s not”—he gasped through his teeth at the next long stroke—“what I’d call it.”
“The Kama Sutra teaches that this is a skill best practiced by eunuchs,” she said, her voice light and teasing, “or prostitutes.”
“Nish—!” he grunted.
But it was too late. Her hand tightening at the base, Anisha swallowed him deep into her warmth. Rance felt every muscle in his belly go taut as the sensitive head of his cock slicked across the roof of her mouth. And then he could only moan.
Her actions now were a little artless, perhaps even clumsy, but it scarcely mattered. For long moments he lost himself in a kaleidoscope of pleasure—her womanly warmth spread across his knees, her nipples teasing his thighs as she bent, the silken slide of his swollen flesh through her lips, and the heat of her palm massaging the pooling weight of his seed—until the pleasure nearly crested and he knew it had to end.
Eyes flying open, he stilled her hand with his. “Anisha,” he rasped, “—stop.”
At last she listened, sitting obediently up and rocking back onto his knees. He came bolt upright and folded his arms around her. “Nish,” he murmured, burying his face in the turn of her neck. “Oh, love. This is dangerous deep—and I don’t mean literally. You know that, yes?”
She speared her fingers into his hair. “Yes,” she said. “But it always has been. And you know that.”
“Aye, I know it,” he whispered. And then he kissed her again, his hands cupping both sides of her face, her silken hair falling over his hands and spilling over her shoulders.
“Lie down,” he rasped when the kiss was broken.
Anisha did so, stretching her slight form across the sheets and settling her head on the thin bolster. Dragging his body over her, Rance urged her legs wide with one knee, fighting the urge to enter swiftly. Lingeringly he kissed her, their comingled scents teasing at his nostrils, his fingers buried in the inky silk of hair, his cock throbbing against Anisha’s nest of curls.
He tasted her thoroughly, thrusting into her mouth and curling his tongue around hers. Anisha returned the intimacy in full measure, her body already restless and rising beneath his, her nails curling into the flesh of his buttocks.
By the time he pulled away, her breath was coming fast, her eyes glassy with need. Sitting back on his heels, Rance allowed himself the pleasure of letting his gaze drift down her small yet womanly body.
“Rance,” she whispered. “Now.”
Her small breasts rose and fell with her breath, her areolas a dusky dark rose against her honey-colored skin, her nipples peaking into sweet, tempting nubs. He could feel the heat rolling off her in waves and marveled it was he who possessed such power over such a fey and wondrous creature.
And still he did not enter her. Fleetingly he closed his eyes, willing fortitude. He wished to hold time suspended; to treasure this moment of pure longing as if it was his last—for tomorrow, he knew, Anisha might well come to her senses.
“Rance.” His eyes flew wide to see her hands moving restlessly over her breasts. “Please.”
In response he bent over her and set his mouth to her areola, drawing the pink tip between his teeth. She gasped at the slight nip, her nails raking lightly down his back. Over and over he suckled her, moving between her breasts, kissing feather-light across her breastbone, and less gently where it mattered.
Her breath seized and her hips tried to buck. “Now,” she said.
He lifted
his head to see her left hand curled into the bedcovers, her head tilted backward into the softness of the bolster, as if ecstasy already neared.
“Anisha,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”
Anisha began to fear she was losing her mind. Did he mean to torment her all night? At last she felt the warmth of his hand cup her face.
“Do you want me inside, love?” Rance’s voice was thick and abrupt. “Are you willing to risk it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Anything. Just—”
A dam of restraint seemed to burst inside him then. A little roughly, he pushed her legs wider, entering her on one deep, triumphant stroke, the width and length of him stretching her impossibly wide.
“Oh!” he grunted. “Nish. Good . . . Lord.”
She looked up to see his face turned, straining, to one side, and his black curls spilling down his neck, realizing vaguely that his hair had grown too long. But the thought left as swiftly as it came, her hips rising to his involuntarily.
He drew back, his throat corded with tendons, and thrust again. And again. Over and over he slid deep, forcing himself into her in a way that should have been impossible. Taking her, in every carnal sense of the word. Joining his body to hers in a raw, unrestrained rhythm that left her shuddering under his weight and aching for more.
His strength unflagging, Rance set one big hand to the mattress just above her shoulder and slid the other beneath her hips, cupping the swell of her buttock as he lifted her to take him. The sound of their warm, slightly slick bodies was almost primitively erotic against the backdrop of falling rain as flesh rose to meet flesh, and blind need drew them deeper into that sensuous abyss that only lovers know.
Rance’s breath was rough now. “Anisha, love,” he murmured. “Oh, witch! Ma sirène.”
His thrusts came powerfully and deeply now. Anisha felt breath and his need—his pure, sensual essence—swirling around her. Calling to her. Clutching his thick shoulders, she strained to rise to him, to take him deep inside herself. To become one with him. To bind herself unassailably to him.