Seven Wicked Nights

by Courtney Milan

  “I wasn’t after your damn stocking,” he blurted out. “When I took you to the ground last night and pushed up your skirts. By all that’s holy, I wanted—” With a muttered oath, he gripped her by the shoulders, hauling her further into his lap. Until she felt the hard ridge of his arousal, pressing insistently against her cleft. “Cecily, what I want from you is not tender. It’s not romantic in the least. It’s plunder. It’s possession. If you had the least bit of sense, you’d turn and run from—”

  She kissed him hard, raking his back with her fingernails and clutching his thighs between hers like a vise. Boldly, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and gave it a sharp nip, savoring his startled moan. Wriggling backward, she placed her hands over his, dragging them downward and molding his fingers around her breasts. “For God’s sake, Luke. You’re not the only one with animal urges.”

  He took her mouth, growling against her lips as he did. Tongues tangled; teeth clashed. With a small rip of fabric, he liberated her breasts from her stays and bodice, fastening his lips over one pert, straining nipple. He licked roughly, even caught the tender nub in his teeth, and Cecily gasped with shock and delight.

  Then his hand left her breast and strayed downward, tunneling through the layers of skirts and petticoats and drawers to find her most intimate flesh. He stroked her there, so tenderly. Too tenderly.

  Impatient with desire, she grasped his shoulders and rocked against his hand. A thrill of exquisite anticipation coursed down to her toes. She licked his ear and heard his answering moan.

  Yes. Yes. This was finally going to happen.

  “God,” he choked out. “This can’t happen.”

  “Oh, yes it can.” Breathless, she worked the buttons of his trouser falls. “It will. It must.” Having freed the closures of his trousers and smallclothes, she snaked her hand through the opening and brazenly took him in hand.

  Of course, now that she had him in hand, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. She tentatively skimmed one fingertip over the smooth, rounded crown of his erection. In return, he pressed a single finger into her aching core.

  “Cecily.” He shut his eyes and grit his teeth. “If I don’t stop this now…”

  “You never will?” She pressed her lips to his earlobe. “That’s my fondest hope. You say you’re done with fighting, Luke? Then stop fighting this.”

  He sighed deep in his chest, and she felt all the tension coiled in those powerful muscles release. “Very well,” he said quietly, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Very well. To you, I gratefully surrender.”

  Clutching her bottom with both hands, he rose to his feet, startling a little shriek from her.

  “Too late for protests,” he teased, carrying her toward the cottage’s narrow bed and tossing her onto it. With an impressive economy of movement, he stripped himself of his boots, trousers and smallclothes before settling his weight onto the bed. “Now you.”

  All that remained of the daylight was a faint, dusky glow filtering through the small window and the chinks in the thatching overhead. He helped her out of her gown and petticoats, then loosened her stays and the ribbon tie of her drawers. When she was completely bared, he sat back on his haunches and regarded her with a quiet intensity. He sat that way for so long, she began to grow anxious.

  “Luke? Is everything—”

  “Promise me,” he said hoarsely, “that you will give me another opportunity to do this properly.” Shaky fingertips traced the pale curve of her hip. “You are so beautiful, Cecily. Yours is a body that deserves to be worshipped, adored. Promise me the chance to kiss every lovely, perfect inch of you—next time.”

  How she loved those words, next time. She nodded as he prowled up her body. “Of course.”

  “Good.” His voice was strained as he lowered his weight onto hers. “Because—forgive me, darling—this time will have to be quick.”

  She gasped as he insinuated one hand between them, probing the slick folds of her sex and spreading her thighs apart. Then she felt the blunt head of him—there—pressing, pushing, stretching her to the point of pain. And beyond.

  “Are you hurt?” He panted against her neck.

  “A little.”

  “Shall I stop?”

  “No.” She clutched his back and hooked her legs over his. “Don’t you dare.” She had fought for him, fought to experience this pain, and she felt oddly possessive of the dull ache between her legs. She wouldn’t let him take it away. The pain was real, it was now—it meant he had truly come home at last. Home to her.

  All too soon, the ache dissipated, lessening with each thrust, and a desperate yearning took its place. She rose up to meet each wild buck of his hips, her hands sliding over his back on a thin sheen of perspiration. His tempo increased, driving her closer and closer to that horizon of delicious pleasure he’d pushed her beyond that afternoon. But this time, it would be so much better. This time he would come too.

  With a guttural moan, he froze deep inside her. His gaze caught hers, and Cecily instinctively understood the question in his eyes. They could create a child this way, if she allowed him to continue.

  She swept a lock of hair from his brow and waited. He knew her feelings already. This decision should be his.

  “I do,” he said roughly. “My God, Cecily. I do love you.”

  Joy swelled inside her, until she trembled with the effort of containing it. Smiling up at him, she whispered, “Then damn the consequences.”

  No more words after that. Only sighs and moans and wild, inarticulate urgings. Faster. More. There. Yes, there.

  Now.

  “CAN WE STAY HERE ALL NIGHT?” Cecily asked. She lay tangled with him on the narrow bed, struggling to catch her breath. Only now growing aware of the musty closeness in the cottage.

  “We could,” he answered sleepily. “If we wish to be awoken by Denny’s footmen crashing down the door. He’ll have them all searching for us soon enough.”

  “He knows I’m with you.” In more ways than one. She felt a pang of sympathy for her old friend. There’d been true disappointment in his expression, when she’d broken their kiss and refused him that afternoon. But Denny deserved to find love too, and she never could have made him truly happy. Not when her heart and soul belonged to Luke.

  As if exerting his claim on her body as well, Luke tightened his arms around her. Kissing the hollow of her throat, he murmured, “Perhaps we can stay a half hour more.”

  Afterward, they rose and dressed quietly, pausing to tidy the small dwelling before latching the door as they left. The night was cloudless, and the nearly full moon provided them sufficient light to follow the path. They walked hand in hand.

  “Did you see it last night?” she asked quietly. “The stag?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was beautiful.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “Don’t you agree?” Perhaps men did not think animals “beautiful”, or did not admit to it if they did.

  “Yes.” He gave her a rare, easy smile. “It reminded me of you. Beautiful, graceful, fearless.”

  “And here I thought him so much like you. Proud, wild, strong.” She laughed softly. “Perhaps he didn’t exist at all, and we were just out here chasing each other.”

  If the stag truly existed, they did not see it again before reaching the border of Swinford Woods and emerging onto the green. Then again, a whole herd of bloodthirsty man-deer could have been lurking in the thickets, and Cecily would have remained oblivious. She only had eyes for Luke.

  And that fact must have been painfully obvious to Denny, when he nearly collided with them at the entrance to the drawing room.

  “Cecily.” His gaze wandered from her unbound hair to her disheveled gown, to her fingers still laced with Luke’s. “I…I was just about to go searching for you.”

  “There you are!” Portia called from behind him. “Come in, come in.” She lay swaddled in blankets on the divan, with her bandaged leg propped on a nearby ottoman. Brooke sat beside her, bala
ncing a teacup in either hand.

  Cecily turned to Denny. “I’m sorry to have worried you, but…” She squeezed Luke’s hand for courage. “You see, Luke and I—”

  “I understand,” he replied. The serious expression on his face told her he did understand, completely. To his credit, he took it well. He turned to Luke. “When will you be married?”

  “Married?” Portia exclaimed.

  Cecily sighed. Just like Denny, to take his responsibilities as her third cousin twice removed—and only male relation in the vicinity—so seriously. But did he have to force the issue now? Certainly, she hoped that she and Luke might one day—

  “As soon as possible.” Luke’s arm slid around her waist.

  Cecily’s gaze snapped up to his. Are you certain? she asked him silently.

  He answered her with a quick kiss.

  “Well, then. When can we be married?” Brooke directed his question to Portia.

  “Married!” Blushing furiously, Portia made a dismissive gesture with both hands. “Why, I’m only just learning to enjoy being a widow. I don’t want to be married. I want to write scandalous novels and take dozens of lovers.”

  Brooke raised an eyebrow. “Can that be negotiated to lover, singular?”

  “That,” she said, giving him a coy smile, “would depend on your skill at negotiation.”

  “What an evening you’ve had, Portia,” Cecily said. “A brush with death, a proposal of marriage, an indecent proposition… Surely you have sufficient inspiration for your gothic novel?”

  “Too much inspiration!” Portia wailed, gesturing toward her bandaged foot. “I am done with gothics completely. No, I shall take a cue from my insipid wallpaper and write a bawdy little tale about a wanton dairymaid and her many lovers.”

  “Lover, singular.” Brooke flopped on the divan and settled her feet in his lap.

  “Oh,” she sighed, as he massaged her uninjured foot. “Oh, very well.”

  Luke tugged on Cecily’s hand, drawing her toward the doorway. “Let’s make our escape.”

  As they left, she heard Denny say in his usual jocular tone, “Do me a favor, Portia? Model your hero after me. Just once, I should like to get the girl.”

  Cecily and Luke tumbled into the corridor, hands still linked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, twirling her to a stop and backing her against the wall. “I didn’t have a chance to ask for your hand properly, but…you don’t have an objection, do you?”

  She paused a moment to savor the endearing vulnerability in his expression. Then she kissed him soundly, threading her fingers into his hair and pressing her body to his. “There,” she said finally. “Does that feel like an objection?”

  He smiled and planted a light kiss between her eyebrows before resting his forehead against hers. Between them, their hands made a tight knot of fingers and thumbs.

  “I’ll leave within the hour,” he said, “to go speak with your father. I cannot expect even Denny to be so generous as to continue hosting his rival in this house. And I couldn’t spend another night here without having you in my bed.”

  “As if I would find that objectionable.”

  They kissed again, and he pressed her against the wall, his hips grinding deliciously against hers. “We must have”—kiss—“a very brief”—kiss—“engagement.”

  “Can we not just elope? I could pack a valise in a trice.”

  He laughed softly into her hair, and she thought it the most beautiful sound in the world.

  “Cecy,” he whispered against her ear, “tell me this is not a dream. Are you truly mine at last?”

  “Oh, Luke.” She slid her arms about his waist and gripped him tight. “I always have been.”

  About Tessa

  Thanks for reading!

  I hope you enjoyed How to Catch a Wild Viscount!

  If you’d like to learn more about me or my books, please visit www.TessaDare.com, or sign up for my e-mail newsletter to be notified whenever I have a new release. You can also follow me on Twitter at @tessadare, or like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/tessadareauthor.

  Tessa Dare is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of eleven historical romance novels and four novellas. Her books have won numerous accolades, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® award and multiple RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Booklist magazine named her one of the “new stars of historical romance,” and her books have been contracted for translation in more than a dozen languages.

  A librarian by training and a booklover at heart, Tessa makes her home in Southern California, where she lives with her husband, their two children and a big brown dog.

  Other Books by Tessa

  Castles Ever After series

  Romancing the Duke

  Say Yes to the Marquess — releases December 30, 2014

  Spindle Cove series

  A Night to Surrender

  Once Upon a Winter’s Eve

  A Week to be Wicked

  A Lady by Midnight

  Beauty and the Blacksmith

  Any Duchess Will Do

  Not part of a series

  The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright

  Stud Club trilogy

  One Dance with a Duke

  Twice Tempted by a Rogue

  Three Nights with a Scoundrel

  Wanton Dairymaid trilogy

  Goddess of the Hunt

  Surrender of a Siren

  A Lady of Persuasion

  Chapter One

  March 13, 1813, the rear lawn of Doyle’s Grange, Somerset, near the Exmoor hills, England

  CRISPIN HOPE, FOURTH VISCOUNT NORTHWORD, stood to one side of the lawn and prayed for a miracle. None arrived. He remained unable to summon a blessed word. He twitched with the need to do something besides stand mute. Words, any words, would be better than his damnable silence. Action, any action, would be better than inaction. He managed to force a smile. A minor miracle, then. Hallelujah.

  Naturally, a woman was involved in his present difficulties. A particular and specific woman. Was any man’s heart ever brought to its metaphorical knees except by a woman? Minor miracle or no, he needed to say or do something to convey how unmoved he was by her.

  He tapped the side of his left leg with two fingers. Next, he cleared his throat. Portia sent a questioning look his way. Of course, words failed him. He affected what he hoped appeared to be mild interest in the proceedings; practically nonexistent. He coughed again and dug into his store of conversational inanities. “A fine day.”

  “Mm.” She arched her eyebrows. “A touch cold for me.” Her attention returned to the sapling that was the reason he was standing out here in the first place.

  He’d known Portia Temple since he was a boy of eight and she a girl of six. Twenty-one years. For the first ten years he’d never thought of her as anything but a friend and companion who by a quirk of fate happened to be female. Pity for her when boys were so superior, and how annoying that she’d disagreed.

  For the second ten years he’d managed to set her neatly into a box in which she was devoid of femininity yet continued to exist as his best friend’s sister. A woman he avoided, but with whom he kept a friendly correspondence. Friendly. Nothing more.

  He did his best not to think about the time between those bookends of decades. Silence reached out and set fire to his nerves. “It’s spring,” he said. Oh, Jesus. Had he really said that? “One ought not be cold in spring.”

  That got him another careless glance, and he was convinced that she, unlike him, had found a way to forget. But then, in all their years of friendship, he’d always been the one who felt more deeply.

  She stared at the sapling, head tilted. “You’ve been away too long. You’ve forgotten our weather.”

  Resentment boiled in him, and he required a monumental amount of sang-froid to let that pass. Forgotten? He bit back a retort but could not quash the sentiment that came with the impulse. He’d not forgotten a
damned thing. It was no accident that this was his first visit to Doyle’s Grange in ten years. Nor that this was his first time socializing since his wife’s passing nearly two years ago. Outside the circle of his most intimate friends and women of a certain reputation, that is. He straightened the lay of his coat and said with sharp intent, “I’ve not forgotten anything.”

  “We’ll disagree on that.” If he’d not been watching her so closely, he might have missed the distress that briefly replaced her pleasant smile. But he had been watching, and he did, and it ripped him to shreds.

  Jesus. They’d made their peace in letters and it was all a lie, all those words they’d written to each other were now stripped of that fantasy pax now that he was here. Instead of the two of them moving on in person as they had in letters, they were mired in the past.

  She put a hand on one of the slender branches of the sapling. One would think that in ten years she’d have changed more than she had. He had. Her brother Magnus had. She was remarkably unaltered. Smiling, too-tall-for-a-woman, auburn-haired, full of life. It was—almost—as if those second ten years had never been.

  While he watched her, she lifted the hem of her muslin skirt and tamped down the last shovelful of dirt around the tree she’d just planted. She was wholly unconscious of his stare. No. He’d not forgotten anything.

  Mud coated the bottom and sides of her plain leather half-boots. Spatters of dirt clung to her hem. She’d not been careful when she pinned her hair this morning, for there were curls, and not the fashionable sort. Hers came loose every which way. In daylight, there was no disguising that her hair was more red than brown, and of all things, that was what doomed him. That dark red hair.