by London Casey
“I didn’t hear you, Nan.”
She turned her head. “Yes.”
“I can make you do anything, Nan. Make you attend a party full of whores, make you kiss another woman. Anything. And you’ll be glad to do it for me. That’s how it is between us.”
“Yes, yes, yes…anything.” She turned, wanting to touch him, to plead for him, to please him.
“I can make you spend the winter with me in Scotland and I can make you love me.”
She heard his words but they were too much for her overheated senses to deal with. She whimpered, reaching for him. He clamped his hand on her head and pressed her back down. “Stay flat on your stomach.”
He spread her buttocks and coldness gushed over her arsehole. The now familiar scent of coconut oil filled the air. She gasped and came halfway up. He pressed his hand on her back. “Down.”
She lay back down and clutched the pillow. His finger traced along her puckered entrance. Anything for him. Anything. Yes, but… “Jon?”
He made a sibilant sound.
She bit her lip.
He entered her with a slippery fingertip there. She trembled. He gripped her neck. “Easy, wench. Breathe normally.”
She released her breath.
“After tonight, there shall be no more doubts that I own you, body and soul. For always.” He slipped his finger inside again. Unexpected pleasure washed back over her. He slipped another finger in. Then he moved them back and forth. “I am going to fuck you here.”
“Yes,” she moaned.
“No part of you can remain unclaimed by me.”
“Yes. Anything you want. Anything.”
Her hips arched backwards, then she pressed forward onto the bed, trying to rub her aching nub on the crisp linen sheets. Her cunny spasmed and spasmed, pleasure claiming her, brief and intense.
“Christ,” he groaned the word.
The head of his cock throbbed against her arsehole, pressing. Instinctively, she arched her back. He entered a little way. Stretching her, hurting her. She cried out. He paused for a moment, then pushed further in. Bittersweet bursts of painful pleasure sparked within her.
“Jon.”
“Good girl, that’s it.” He entered her a little more and she whimpered, pressing her forehead into the pillow, tears flowing out of her eyes. He was tearing her in two and she didn’t care. He thrust with more force and she wailed. The sound echoed in her ears as her bottom pressed up against his pelvic bone.
“That’s it, take it all, wench. My pleasure is your pleasure.”
Her internal muscles contracted, hard. He groaned. She spasmed again.
“Fuck.” He gasped the words, sounding pained. “Like this, do you, you little trollop?”
She wailed again loudly in assent. He slid his hand underneath her pelvis and touched her nub, firing her desire to unbearable levels. Her tears flowed freely and she uttered stupid, senseless sounds. Begging him. Then he pulled up and thrust down. Hurting her. Pleasuring her. Several more thrusts and the pain eased, superseded by pleasure. She came, her whole body flailing, and she screamed as his hands tightened painfully on her sore buttocks, stilling her. He shouted harshly. His weight fell on her back, his panting breath sounded near her ear. He nipped her neck.
Several moments passed.
“You belong to me and you know it, Nan.” He bit her lobe, hard. Exhausted, she barely registered it. “In fact, you can’t live without me. You’ll come to Scotland and spend the winter with me. And you’ll stay with me as long as it pleases me, won’t you?”
Her heart raced so hard and her thoughts swirled so fast that she couldn’t latch on to any one of them to make coherent sense out of anything. She just needed to sleep, yet she felt so agitated that she would never be able to.
He pulled her head up by the hair. “Are you listening to me, Nan?”
She stared into his frowning face. Her heart pounded. The chamber spun. “M-my heart won’t slow down…I can’t think straight.” She swallowed. “It frightens me.”
He moved away from her, then candlelight shone in her face, blinding her. She closed her eyes, crying softly.
“What the devil?” he said, sounding suddenly angry.
Chapter Eighteen
Jon put the candle back, a dry metallic taste coating his throat. He knew he had not cropped her enough to elicit such a reaction. Her skin felt hot and dry.
“How much punch did you drink, Nan?”
“Four cups.”
“Oh Christ, I told you two—” He slapped his hand to his mouth and ran it roughly down his chin. “Lie here and be very still, Nan.”
He leapt off the bed and found the discarded dressing gown. His hands were shaking as he drew it on. Damn him. Damn her. If she was harmed… Well, the first thing he was going to do was throttle Kean for making such a brew of God knew what aphrodisiac herbs.
He threw the door open and flew down the corridor to pound on Kean’s door. “God damn it, Kean, get out here.”
Shuffling and clattering sounded behind the door and it swung open. Kean appeared somewhat wild-eyed, his hair tousled. The odour of a waterpipe hung heavy in the air. Feminine giggles echoed from within.
“Anne had some reaction.”
Kean’s eyes stared back at him dumbly. “Reaction?”
“To the punch. Her eyes are almost completely dilated and her heart is racing. Her skin feels too dry. Hot, like she’s burning.”
“Oh.” Kean’s face sobered and he paled.
Seeing Kean’s fear sent a charge through Jon’s blood. So, the ingredients in the punch could be more dangerous than Kean had previously said. And Jon had allowed Anne to drink it.
“If anything happens…I swear I’ll kill you.”
Kean paled even more. “Now, calm yourself, Jon.” He laughed softly. “Don’t worry. The amounts of herbs in the punch are not dangerous. Some people are just more sensitive than others. This is not the first time this has happened.”
Rage boiled in Jon’s guts. “This is not the first time—What the devil are you saying?”
Kean held up a hand. “Don’t become distressed. Let’s have a look at her first. Just a moment.” He disappeared back into the chamber and came back with a small dark bottle.
Jon scowled. “I think she’s had enough of your potions for one evening.”
“This will counteract any ill effects. But first let’s have a look at her.”
Jon’s mind flashed to how he’d left Anne. Naked and well-fucked in his sheets. He jerked the bottle from Kean’s hand. “I don’t think so. Just tell me how much to give her.”
“Well, how much punch did she take?”
“She claims four cups.”
Kean told him the dose. “Put it in some wine. It should bring her down in about half an hour.”
“Half an hour!” Jon grasped Kean’s lapels.
Kean’s already dilated eyes enlarged even more.
“Don’t tell me half an hour.” Jon tightened his grip and gave Kean a sound shake. “Her heart is racing—it can’t be safe.”
“Calm yourself. She’s going to be fine.”
Kean was flying as high as the clouds. A frisson of fear raced down Jon’s spine. He was depending on the medical skills of a man whose senses were obscured by intoxication. He caught a rare, sideways glance at the way he had been living. And he’d brought his precious Anne into this world and exposed her to its decadence. To its dangers.
He released his hold on Kean. “She had damn well better be fine.”
“In half an hour she’ll be asleep. Until then…” Kean grinned, as though they were sharing a wicked secret. “Just enjoy her.”
The chamber door coming open sounded unnaturally loud in Anne’s ears. Too frightened to move, she lay on the bed, curled into a ball.
“Jon?”
“I am here, love.” Glass clinked and the bed moved. He touched her. “Sit up, you have to drink this.”
She looked up into his face. “My heart w
on’t stop racing.”
“This will help.” He helped her sit up and held a glass to her lips.
The wine flowed cool in her parched mouth but it burnt her raw throat like acid. She coughed.
“All of it, Nan,” he ordered.
With difficulty, she complied. Her stomach lurched warningly. “It’s going to come back up,” she said, panicked.
“It can’t. You have to keep it down. It must get into your blood.”
“I can’t help it.” She tried to crawl across the bed, heading for the chamber pot.
He took her in his arms and pulled her back to the bed with him and cradled her head against his chest. “Concentrate on keeping it down. Swallow.”
She lay against him as he stroked her hair. “Will I die?”
“No, the antidote will counteract the effects.”
“Good, I don’t want to die.” She swallowed hard against acid rising in her throat. “I want to go to Scotland. With you. All winter.”
“Nan—”
“But for only the winter. After that, I shall go to Ireland, as I planned.”
“Of course you will.” He didn’t sound like he believed her at all. She could hear the smile in his voice.
“I shall, you will see.”
“Hmm,” he said. He slid his hand down her chest, to just above the swell of her left breast. “It’s slowing already.”
She stared at him, her eyes growing heavy, and she knew as sure as she took her next breath that she loved him. Completely. Desperately.
Jon idly caressed Anne’s tousled hair as she slept sideways on the bed, her fist pressed to her mouth, her head resting on his stomach.
“Until then…Just enjoy her.”
When Kean had said that, Jon could have cheerfully throttled him. But there’d been no time, he’d had to return to Anne and see that she took the medication.
Now that the crisis was over, Jon sat up in bed, pondering the night. This life he led was useless. It was insane.
He should never have left Anne’s side at an event like this. What had been the matter with him to have done so? He’d left Anne alone after the supper so that Maria could approach her. Because he’d wanted to introduce Anne to the decadence of his life. He wanted her to adapt to something she would never be comfortable with. She would do what he asked; however, she was not a woman who could ever dally lightly without suffering emotionally later. He should have never asked her to accept Maria into their bed.
At the time, he’d thought he was asking Maria to accept Anne into their bed. But that was not the way of things. His bed was not Maria’s. His place was with Anne now. His bed was hers. Why had he not seen that?
How many women had he shared with Maria over the years? He’d lost count. Tonight, however, as he’d watched Maria kissing Anne’s lower stomach, he’d realised he didn’t want that. He wanted to be the one touching Anne. No one else had ever given Anne pleasure but him. He wanted things to remain that way. He wanted no one else between them.
Anne was the only thing that mattered. Truly mattered. Damn it, when he’d looked into her eyes and seen her body’s reaction to the punch, he’d been terrified for her. And now he fully realised how important she was to him. She was his and he wasn’t about to let her go. For one thing, he’d be sick with worry the whole time she was away from him.
He’d have to marry her. And she was going to have to accept that.
He’d never broken his word to anyone in his entire life. Not willingly. But was this really his will? When he’d pledged himself to Maria Waterbury, he’d believed himself too burned and jaded to fall in love with anyone. But love Anne he did, and no one and nothing was going to keep him from claiming her in every possible way. Not even the lady herself.
Hours passed and still Jon couldn’t sleep. Now fully dressed, sober and hollow-eyed, he watched over Anne. She hadn’t moved in hours, she’d just lain there like a dead woman. How much of last night had been her consent and how much had been the effects of Kean’s punch?
He couldn’t stop the circular, self-rebuking thoughts. He ought never to have brought her here, ought never to have insisted she attend the party. He should have watched her more closely last night.
Shame burned into him relentlessly.
He wasn’t entirely familiar with that particular emotion. Not for many years now. He had lived shamelessly in London. Since leaving the dragoons and inheriting the earldom, he’d been nothing more than an idle pleasure-seeker and he had not seen the shame in it. Not until Anne opened his eyes.
She was a rare woman and he had been damned lucky to stumble across her path. He could never, ever again put another woman above her.
A knocking at the door pulled him from his thoughts. He went and answered it. Maria glanced up at him, looking little better than he felt. Hazarding a glance at the bed, he assured himself that Anne still slept peacefully. He took his fiancée’s hand and led her into the smaller adjoining sitting room.
“You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?” Maria was never one for hedging anything.
“Yes.”
She compressed her lips and her eyes widened. She paled a shade or two. “I see.”
“I am sorry, Maria. I didn’t intend for this to happen.”
“Of course, no one ever does.” She laughed softly, maybe a little bitterly. “I wish you happiness of her, but it does leave me quite in the lurch.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. She was a beautiful woman. She’d find many eager to take his place.
“I would never have expected you to turn into a lovelorn fool.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “So as it turns out, we really don’t suit each other, do we?”
He shook his head.
There was nothing more to be said and she left him.
Anne opened her eyes and blinked in the harsh sunlight streaming through a crack in the curtains.
“So you’re finally awake?”
She moved her gaze to the chair by the bed. Angry blue eyes stared back at her. Stiff and sore in all sorts of unlikely places, she pulled herself up into a seated position, then gasped. Her bottom stung mightily. Moreover, every twinge reminded her all over again of last night and caused a wave of lust to pulse through her sex. She wanted his weight on her, pressing her down, his cock thrusting into her without any delay.
However, he did not look particularly amenable to erotic play this morning.
“I told you last night, only two cups of punch. You disobeyed me.”
“Others were drinking the punch quite heavily,” she said, offering the only defence she knew.
“They are used to it.”
“I thought you meant it to bully me.”
He sighed. “What am I to do with you? You will not trust me. Even in Scotland, you’re going to test me, aren’t you? I’ve spent the whole night wondering what I can do. How can I keep you safe when you won’t trust me to know what’s best? How can I demonstrate my sincerity? And I have come to a decision. We should be wed.”
Chapter Nineteen
Anne’s mouth fell open. Last night, she’d made promises to him she could never keep. Going with him to Scotland was totally out of the question. But could she be rightly held to blame? She’d been intoxicated. She must still be a little foxed, because she couldn’t have heard Jon right. “What?”
“You’re going to marry me and the sooner the better.”
Marriage.
Yes, of course, it was the only way. She’d never be his mistress. Not long-term like he wanted. She couldn’t be a proper sister to Dorothea and carry on with Ruel. Also, she had too much pride to be just a mistress to a man.
So it had to be marriage.
But no, no, no. It was too soon. She needed time to think things through. Time away from him. She had to know her own mind.
Sudden fear beat at her, making her heart pound almost as hard as the wicked punch had. She loved him. Probably had since the first moment she’d set eyes on him. She wasn’t sure. She
loved him, adored him, craved his strength, even his domination and control, at least in the bedchamber.
But wait… What was she thinking? He couldn’t be hers.
“You’re already engaged to be married.”
“Yes, I was engaged to be married to Lady Maria Waterbury.”
“Maria…” The shock of that rendered her speechless. But the shock was quickly replaced by confusion. “But you are engaged to her, correct?”
“I broke with her this morning. It was quite a mutual agreement in the end. We’re just not as suited as we once thought.”
Her stomach sank to the floor. “You broke with her?”
He scowled. “Yes. Am I not speaking clearly, Anne?”
She’d heard him clearly. Good God. He was free to wed her.
But she’d never take him like this.
By breaking with Maria, the very thing that freed him, he’d proven himself a man of wavering intentions and attention. Just like the duke and William and countless other gentlemen.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “No, no, no.”
“What the devil do you want from me, Nan?”
“I want something you can’t give. So it doesn’t matter what I want.”
He frowned at her. “What is the problem?”
“You believe Goethe is correct—all that business about instinct and senses.”
“Yes, I thought I made that clear.” He laughed softly. “Anne, that’s a philosophical difference between two people. What the hell does it have to do with marriage?”
“That’s all this is, between you and me. It is just senses and instinct.”
“I love you, Anne.”
She stared at him, hearing his words. Comprehending them. Yet wholly disbelieving them.
“God damn it, don’t look at me like that.” His voice boomed in the chamber. Her heart began to pound. He sounded—and looked—angry. One of the things that had made him so approachable had been his emotional control. Now, for the past few days, he seemed like everyone else. Unpredictable. “I said I love you.”
Her heart swelled at his words. She ruthlessly forced back the feeling. “I love you too, but we cannot make an emotional decision. Not about something like marriage.”