by London Casey
“Why should I do that? They would still despise me and I would hate to intrude where I was not welcome.”
“But it is your birthright.” He leaned towards her and put his lips close to her face. “I happen to adore your dark skin. And I am of a mind to see it bared again.”
Heat washed over her. She caught her breath.
He kissed her cheek, briefly. “We can leave now.”
The hungry, sensual note in his tone sent her pulse racing.
Thunder rumbled through the little cottage. Anne was seated on the bed, propped up with a pile of pillows, and Jon sat within the circle of her spread thighs. In between taking care of the horses, and feeding themselves enough to keep their strength, the last five days had passed in a blur of carnal indulgence. He was no stranger to such excesses but never before had he focused that intensely on one single woman.
It had been hours since they had sat together in the carriage. He’d had her twice and now was slowly massaging her breasts with oil in a gluttony of possessive pride.
He loved to watch the play of candlelight on her skin. Loved to shape her large, dark rose-brown nipples into erect points. Christ above, he’d always dreamed of such beauty but never expected to actually see it in reality. To be able to fondle it at will. She frowned, marring her gorgeous face.
“Maybe Goethe has it right. However, I can’t see how the Prince’s abandonment of all reason, and giving into his ‘sensuous instinct’ for Lily, helped him to find any personal liberty.”
He couldn’t help a grin. None of his other women spent their time in bed discussing The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and Beautiful Lily. “I don’t think Goethe means we should abandon all reason in the name of lust. He means that we should value intuition as a guide to reason.”
“But he seems to hold emotion equal to reason, a sure prescription for self-delusion and—”
Jon groaned, intentionally making it a drawn-out sound of extreme exasperation. “Enough, Nan.”
He ran his oiled hand down the length of his shaft. Then he positioned himself at her entrance.
She was staring up at him, her expression serious, as if she were still consumed by her thoughts. “I think Goethe, and even von Schiller, were on the right path. A person can create a connection between the exterior world of the senses and the inner, aspiring man only by his own will. However, their emotional thinking won’t allow for—”
He chuckled softly. “Enough.”
He thrust into her, partway.
Her eyes widened. “No, no—not yet.” She backed up, the motion of her tight sheath creating the most exquisite sucking sensation on his cock.
He grasped her hips, roughly.
Her mouth fell open. “Jon! You’ll break my trail of thought.”
“Oh, I think we’ve been up and down that trail several times already.”
God, her little intellectual soliloquies drove him mad with wanting her. He didn’t understand it. Didn’t even try to. He just enjoyed the feeling. The moment. Because their time together would not last.
He pulled her down and thrust all the way home. His crown rammed against the mouth of her womb.
She gasped and closed her eyes.
“This is the way it is, Nan. When the master of the manor wants your body, he takes it.”
Her cunt gushed wetness, luscious and sweet. He rocked against the end of her depths. She moaned and fisted handfuls of the sheets.
His body urged him to pull back and thrust hard. He wanted to fuck and fuck and fuck her. Immediately. Christ. She was always taking his control.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to wait. He leant forward and pinched her nipples. The tips hardened into sharper points.
She lifted her hips, her increasingly wet sex sliding on his cock like a silken glove. “Please…please.”
He wanted… God help him, sensually he wanted so many things from her. With her. But he reminded himself that she had been gently raised. Sheltered and cosseted with physical luxury. She lived in her head. A woman who valued thought and had denied her own sensual side for far too long. He must go slowly, carefully with her.
With both hands, he caressed her breasts again, handling them with increased roughness. She thrashed her head upon the pillow and moaned. He took her stiffened peaks into the thumb and forefinger of each hand and twisted, harder than before. All the while, he watched her.
Her face contorted. But from pain or pleasure? He wasn’t sure until her cunt released a torrent of fluid, surrounding him in succulence. And she arched her back up, pressing those full globes into his touch. His cock throbbed within her snug walls, hungry for slick friction, urgently insisting that he assuage its wants immediately.
He resisted. Instead, he bent over her, captured one pebbled tip into his mouth and nipped it. Her whole body flinched under his and she cried out sharply. A thrill raced through him. She clutched his shoulders, her nails biting him in return. He licked at her nipple. She moaned loudly, her lush body writhing against his.
He should take her by the wrists, pull her hands above her head and not allow her to mark him. But he liked the sting of her claws cutting into him. It reminded him of the banked fires he had seen in her eyes during the first days he had known her. He had longed to feel her heat and now he was.
He nipped the tight nipple again, more sharply.
She squealed and dug her nails in deeper. He bit her again and again, giving each straining peak equal attention.
She was shrieking and shrieking in that hitching, tremulous way of a woman who had been suppressed and finally let go. She ran her nails down his bare back, leaving stinging trails of burning flame.
The pain ignited a charge in his blood. It was beautiful. For it was honest. It was truly the way men and women interacted. Pleasure for pleasure, pain for pain.
He groaned, pulled his hips back and then thrust into her with force and vigour. God, she was so wet now, it was hard to fuck her. He should stop and wipe the excess from his shaft. But there was no stopping. She was screaming, her pelvis was plunging down then arching up to meet his violent thrusts with a speed to match.
He held her hips more firmly, ruthlessly stilling her. She fell back against the pillows, her hair like a spill of ink on the white pillow cases. She went limp even as her quim squeezed him harder. The scent of her arousal was heavy in the air like the most exotic, exquisite perfume.
“Jon…Jon…Jon.”
The sound of his name in her breathless voice maddened him. He wanted all of her. Now. He slammed the head of his cock against the mouth of her womb again and again and again.
Her cunt clamped down on him, clenching his cock as her screams became convulsive. Her walls gripped and grabbed him as if demanding his own release.
His balls were heavy, like leaden weights and his whole body thrummed on the edge of release, yet he wanted to hold back. To give her a second climax. But the spasms began deep inside his body. His seed came roiling up his shaft.
“Damn it,” he growled, jerking himself from the snug heat of her.
His seed erupted in torrents all over her thighs and her mons and the sheets. Everywhere. Ecstasy exploded through his whole being with such force he shuddered with it. He’d never known anything like it.
He lay in the wake of it, breathing harshly and dumbstruck. Their sex so far hadn’t been anything outside of his experience. It wasn’t even particularly adventurous.
But it was her.
She made him lose his control. She took him to heights he’d never before experienced.
He lifted his weight from her then lay on his side. Watching her.
Sweat drizzled down her face, making her honey tinted skin glow in the candlelight. Her lips were swollen from too many harsh, passionate kisses. Her eyes remained closed, their lids shadowed purple with exhaustion.
“Goethe almost got it correct but his emotionalism blinds him…” Her sleepy voice trailed off.
Breathless, he chuckled roughly a
nd placed his hand at the base of her throat. “Later, my lady. You had best get some sleep now.”
A moment passed. Then another. Her breathing became regular and deep, growing a little louder.
An odd feeling swelled within him. A lack of restlessness. A sort of quietude.
Contentment?
How the devil would he know?
He got up, fetched a towel and gently wiped her clean of his seed. She didn’t stir. He had managed to wear her out. He went and took care of his own needs then poured himself a brandy and had intended to go and sit in the other chamber.
But it was cold and damp there. And he found himself drawn back to the bed.
He studied her sleeping face, slowly, as if memorising every beautiful line and curve. Each step she took along the road to getting over her fears revealed more of the woman inside. A woman he was fast growing to adore. She was like no other woman he’d known.
He couldn’t help but admire her. During the last few days, he’d managed to pry a lot of information about her history from her. She’d been left alone. To the care of servants and an indifferent governess who had stayed only long enough to teach her the basics of reading and writing.
Beyond that, Anne had educated herself, had read all the books in her father—‘the duke’s’—study and knew mythology and philosophy better than he did with his fine Cambridge education. Before meeting her, he’d never expected that from a woman.
More than that, for someone so young, she had a strong sense of responsibility for her station in life. When she related her stories of her life before Cranfield’s death, he could hear her love for her estate and the people who occupied it in resonating in her voice. She wasn’t some spoilt, wilful woman like Cherry or his grandmother. She had a soft heart and a strong mind. It was just that she’d been sheltered as a child, allowed to remain too shy and her husband had neglected her. She’d been alone, with no one of her own rank to care about her. Cranfield’s death had simply been too much for her to bear alone.
There was nothing ailing Anne that time and some regular human contact couldn’t heal. He couldn’t wait to see her flowering from girl into woman.
But then again, their time was limited. Another man, her next husband, would be the one to share the beauty of her full maturing.
At the thought, his chest seized up. Such a peculiar feeling. Already their first week was nearly over. There would only be three more like it. A month was really a great deal shorter a time than he’d previously given it credit for being.
Anne stood inside the stable door. It was morning on her seventh day at the cottage. She’d spent every morning and afternoon like this, watching Ruel as he’d demanded, but unable to bring herself to get any closer to the horses.
He’d demanded much of her. Making her sit in that closed carriage. He’d remained adamant that she must obey him on this. Yet once inside, like before, he’d been tender and compassionate, distracting her with tales from his years spent in the dragoons—and much kissing and fondling.
He had also insisted on blindfolding her and pushing her in the swing attached to the branch of one of the oak trees near the cottage yard. He said it would teach her how to cope with feeling out-of-control and bring her more into her own body. Whatever that meant.
She would never admit to another living soul, besides Ruel, how once she’d become accustomed to the sensation of floating free in the air, she had squealed like a girl. But there in the woods, no one else would ever know, would they?
Yet they were not totally without contact with the world. On the third day, a cart came from Eastwood Place and sent her scrambling to the loft. Ruel said it would come every few days to bring new linens and pick up the soiled ones. It would also bring eggs, milk and butter.
Nevertheless, they did much for themselves. Ruel was patiently teaching her how to make bread and scones.
But he’d done the majority of the upkeep.
Yes, she’d been amazed to see him wash plates and sweep the floor and chop wood and skin rabbits and pluck a quail. But even more amazing was seeing a peer of the realm shovelling manure.
“I wager you’re sorry you didn’t bring any servants.”
He put the shovel aside and tossed the worn leather gloves into the open chest by the door. “I rather enjoy it.”
“You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Hard work is good for the soul.”
“Your servants must be scandalised.”
“When I am on my estate, I play the almighty earl to the hilt. But I own a hunting box in Scotland. Once or twice a year, I go up there and seclude myself for a fortnight at a time. It’s the only place where I can be truly alone. I don’t even take my valet.”
His comment stunned her into silence. She could imagine no other gentleman of her acquaintance hungering for such hard-won solitude. Though she certainly understood herself how precious solitude could be.
He returned to the horses and began to brush Sally’s coat, his movements patient and methodical, crooning gently to the mare. She would have never guessed at this side to him.
“What about feminine companionship?” She blurted out the question before she thought better of it. “Surely your fancy pieces don’t enjoy roughing it.”
“Why, my darling, what language!” His deep laughter echoed in the stable. “Fancy pieces, indeed.”
“Then your trollops, if you prefer that,” she added tartly.
He turned and grinned at her “I have never taken a woman there. Being alone means being alone. Period.”
As he turned and became once more engrossed in the horses, the import settled on her slowly. No other woman had known him like this. Warmth blossomed in her chest. Their shared solitude felt precious in this moment. But she shouldn’t assume he felt the same way. Gentlemen didn’t like their private time intruded on. She knew that. A chill chased the pleasant sensation away.
“I suppose it must be rather tiresome having a female along now.” Immediately, she hated herself. How weak of her to ask. What could he say? Certainly he wouldn’t admit it if it were the truth.
“Nan, I invited you here; went to great lengths to arrange the whole matter.”
“What choice had you? I practically begged you to help me.”
“My darling, I don’t have one charitable bone in my body.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you know damned well why you’re here.” He turned back to her and pointed near the door. “Love, can you bring me that sack of oats?”
Without a thought, she bent and picked up the sack. It was less than halfway full and easy to carry. She took it to him. As she approached, he gave her such a first-rate, blindingly charming smile that she didn’t even know where she was.
Until Jasper nickered.
Every muscle froze and her throat went as dry as parchment. Tingles raced over her scalp and the sack slipped from her hand.
His arms were around her in a flash. “It’s all right. I’ve got you. You’re perfectly safe.”
“I-I can’t…I can’t!” She clung to his broad shoulders, unable to get enough air. Eerie tingling crawled over her scalp and her stomach churned warningly. Panicked, she slipped her hands to his shoulders and gave a firm push. “I have to go outside.”
“Just breathe slower, love.” He held her tight and caressed her back.
She breathed deeply and slowly, inhaling his familiar scent and feeling comforted even more by the solid reality of his hard body. Several moments passed and the terrifying sensations eased off. Her heart and breathing resumed some normalcy. “I suppose you think I am the veriest ninny.”
“On the contrary, I think you’re being very brave.”
“Now you’re patronising me.”
“It takes time to get over something like this. And it takes courage to face up to the need to address the issue.”
She barely dared breathe. She wanted him to continue speaking and to tell her all he knew.
“Did you? But why did they become afraid when others—like you—didn’t?”
He laughed softly. “I don’t have enough sense to become afraid.”
Disappointment crashed over her. “You’re making sport of me.”
She tried to push away from him but he held her firm. “No, I am not making sport of you.”
He pulled her closer. As close as they could possibly get whilst fully dressed. Vital strength radiated from him, warmth that melted into her very bones. It was intoxicating. Almost of its own accord, her head dropped to lie upon his shoulder. The wool of his jacket prickled her cheek. The sound of his breathing and her heartbeat in her ears filled the moments as he methodically caressed her back.
“And did you comfort them like this?” She attempted a teasing tone.
“Hmm?” His voice rumbled through his chest.
“Those men, the ones who became afraid like me. Did you comfort them like this?”
He moved his hand up and stroked her hair. “No, we threatened them with the sharp end of a bayonet and told them to man up.”
Something about his irreverent, dry tone made her think he wasn’t teasing. She couldn’t suppress a shiver.
“Did that work?”
“Not a bit, my love. Had to figure something else out.”
“What did you do?”
“Something somewhere between this here and threatening them with death.” He nipped at her earlobe.
She gasped at the sharp pain. He licked her lobe, hot, wetness that soothed the sting and tickled her insides with delightful thrills.
She laughed weakly.
“You’re a good girl, Nan.”
Again, that galling sensation of warmth entered her heart. As though she’d been waiting all this time for some big, strong, fierce-looking man to come along, pat her on the head and tell her she was a good girl. God, how pathetic. However, her indignation seemed to change nothing. She lapped up his praise like a stray kitten with a bowl of warm milk.