by Carrie Lofty
And just that easily, he knew.
William wrapped her in his arms, clung to her. “My darling Catrin, I already do.”
The distress he’d felt began to seep away. Desire and a dizzying hopefulness rushed in to take its place. The breath he’d been holding pushed free on a long exhale. His next inhale was filled with the sweet bliss of her scent.
No longer able to resist the lure of her body, William reveled in the resilient curve of her hip, the supple strength of her legs, the pulse of life just beneath her skin. Kisses. He rained kisses from her mouth to her throat, then farther still. The strings at the neck of her chemise slipped loose.
That almost innocent beginning took on a hard, desperate edge. Hot breath mingled. He traced her lower lip until she opened for him. The throb of his cock was a mind-numbing distraction now. He ground it against her hip and took her moan into his chest. Each nudge became more aggressive. He tunneled his hands into her hair.
Eager lips found a bare stretch of muscle across the top of his chest. Tiny nibbles, little licks—Catrin was a miniature explorer. She skimmed her hands down his flanks, around to his backside. Clasped tightly.
William slid his hand between her legs and circled tense fingers between her slick folds. She moaned, then tightened her hold on the globes of his ass. She was so wet, so ready. And bloody hell, so was he. The entire evening had been a prelude to this moment.
“Legs around my waist.” Power heated his blood when she quickly complied. He positioned his aching head against her opening. “Tell me you’re ready, Catrin. Please.”
She tightened her calves, her thighs. “Have been for hours,” she gasped.
With a growl of amusement and need, he plunged deep. No boundaries now. No hesitation. Fast, hard, he indulged in the woman he loved—the woman who held nothing back. She reveled in his driving hips, as each thrust pitched her moans higher and higher.
“No hand on your mouth. Not tonight.” Bracing his weight on his elbows, William smiled in the dark. “Never again, Catrin. Give me your screams.”
They rode one another with abandon. They were a wildfire across a summer-dry moor. She thrashed her head against the pillow until he caught her jaw. Claimed a kiss. Plunged his tongue with a firm, swift stroke that matched his cock. He clenched his eyes shut against the release that built and built. But he wanted Catrin’s release more.
She crisscrossed her forearms behind his neck, panting, arching, meeting his hips with such strength and need. “Now. Yes . . . Oh—!”
Her cries and breathless shrieks stabbed deep into his mind. He’d given his woman what she needed. He would continue to do so for the rest of their lives.
William gave over to his grinding need. His thrusts shook the mattress ropes and banged the curtain posts against the wall. Catrin clung to him and whispered dark endearments, until he tensed, shuddered, and groaned her name. Pleasure fired behind his eyes and burst free of his straining body.
As they lay together, still gasping, Catrin began to giggle. She scraped her fingers up his back as that beautiful, carefree laughter bubbled out. William rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. Her breathe huffed against his chest.
Only when she sobered on a long, contented sigh did he stroke tangled hair from her cheek. “Will you marry me, Miss Jones?”
“Yes, Mr. Christie.”
“Because negotiations were completed to your satisfaction?”
“Very much so.” She levered up, found the tip of his nose, and kissed it. “Now, on to other plans.”
His mind was sludge, but hers was as vibrant as ever. “Other plans?”
“Mr. Lymon won’t need the story of my shipwreck if he has the exclusive on our titillating night together. And access to the wedding.”
She curled her fingers into the muscles that pebbled down his sides. A ticklish place made him twitch and laugh. “Do not do that again.”
But she did anyway. Of course she did. He let the laughter overwhelm him, holding her close.
“After that,” she said, a little breathless, “we’ll feed him tidbits of news about the most scandalous couple in the ton, how we buy our way into parties, make love in carriages, and mock our betters.”
“We sound absolutely filthy.”
“Don’t we, though? People will lap it up.”
“Can you live with such talk? Each day?”
“Yes. You’ll be with me.” He felt her smile against his cheek. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to see America. One day we might do with a change of scenery. Little Alex, too. Your iron ore company is based in New York, yes?”
“How in the world did you know that?”
“If it’s a matter of public record and it’s about you, I know it.”
“Devious,” he said. “You’re completely devious. Although, to be fair, you know much more about me than what can be found in the public record.”
“I’m a lucky woman for it.”
“No, my darling. I’m the lucky one.” William found her hip, her waist, then her chin. He rubbed his thumb along her lower lip. “But my beautiful Miss Jones? There’s something you should know.”
“More?”
“You’ll like this one,” he said, his voice intimately low. “I want to see you bathed in light when next I take you.”
With a contented purr, she arched along his side. “And when will that be?”
“Soon.”
“Not good enough. In this modern age, no one can risk delay.” She grabbed his hand and pushed it between her legs. Damp heat pulsed against his palm. “Now go light the candles, Mr. Christie. We have a world to conquer.”
Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from
Flawless
CARRIE LOFTY
Sir William Christie, ruthless tycoon and notorious ladies’ man, is dead. Now his four grown children have gathered for the reading of his will. What lies in store for half siblings Vivienne, Alexander, and twins Gareth and Gwyneth? Stunning challenges that will test their fortitude across a royal empire . . . and lead them to the marvelously passionate adventures of their lives.
Lady Vivienne Bancroft fled England for New York, hoping to shed the confines of her arranged marriage to unrepentant rogue Miles Durham, Viscount Bancroft—though she never forgot the fiery desire he unleashed with his slightest touch. And when the gambling man arrives on her doorstep for a little sensual revenge for her desertion, he is met with Vivienne’s dilemma: She must earn her father’s inheritance by profitably running a diamond business worth millions in colonial South Africa. Swept together in an exotic undertaking filled with heated passion and hungry temptation, will Vivienne and Miles discover that the marriage vows they once made are the greatest snare—or the most treasured reward?
One
Cape Town
March 1881
Although Miles stood well back from where the Coronea had docked, the push and crush of humanity threatened even his studiously crafted calm. Hordes of disembarking passengers wrestled with their belongings as they forged toward land, a never-ending snake creeping down off crowded decks.
The ripe stench of coal fires, harbor rot, and hundreds of bodies overpowered the clean salt of the ocean. Seabirds circled and swooped in a chaotic dance. Beyond the prickly masts of anchored ships, the sky had lost the garish colors of dawn, given over to the glare of midmorning. Miles touched the back of his neck where a light wind teased his hair. The cool seaside air reminded him of Southampton.
I watched thee on the breakers, when all was storm and fear.
But Lord Byron’s words offered Miles no comfort, only an odd sort of foreboding.
Four months had lapsed since the will reading, when Viv’s siblings had also learned the details of their assigned companies. There in the library, Miles had passed the time glaring at his wife’s exquisite neck and marinating his lustful, resentful thoughts in Hennessey. He’d awoken to find himself alone in a guest room in Old Man Christie’s brownstone.
He grimaced and shifted his gaze
across nearby faces, baffled by an embarrassment he rarely suffered. But the emotion refused a lengthy stay. Anger took its place. The whole Christie clan had decamped to their mansion in Newport. Holidays with the family, but that hadn’t included Miles.
Viv had left him a note. Yet another elegant, prissy note to say she was leaving.
So he’d sobered up. And made a decision.
After catching the first steamer back to England, he’d evaded his father long enough to gamble his way into a bit of ready cash. Then it was off to Cape Town. But damned inconvenient timing, the war against the Boers. Passenger traffic had slowed to a trickle, with Viv stuck in the States until the February armistice. The ink had yet to dry on the official peace accord. Time wasted, yes, but also time spent resolving how to get what he wanted.
Vivienne Bancroft would come back to him. Willingly.
With a hand to his brow, he looked toward the luxury clipper’s topmost deck. Viv would be up there among that tangle of people, along with the manservant he’d sent to intercept her luggage.
Intercept . . . and then hold hostage.
Impatiently swiping at a cluster of midges, he craved a drink—not just any drink, but a long, stinging, obliterating swig of cognac. But he hadn’t touched a drop since leaving New York that fateful morning. A good game required sobriety, which few of the world’s casual card players understood. And Vivienne was anything but an easy mark. He would need all his wit and wile to keep from falling under her spell like a bloody fool.
Again.
Miles found himself twirling his wedding ring. That little hypocrite—all decorum and indignation until her mouth met his.
Had beastly Sir William given his daughter a plump dollop of cash, she would’ve had the financial means to end their marriage. Miles would’ve gone back to London, alone, solvent enough to keep the family estates intact. But little else remained of her dowry.
Instead, the challenge of Old Man Christie’s bequest offered an unexpected one-million-dollar reprieve. Stretching his arms, Miles stood away from the crate and sucked in cooling gulps of air. Damn and blast. Far, far too much money to ignore.
His scant head start aside, during which he’d secured accommodations in Kimberley and completed banking transfers, he and Viv would need to learn quickly: every major player, every aspect of the diamond trade, and even the bloody weather. They were starting near to zero. He should have been terrified but a sharp thrill sped the beat of his heart.
Beyond the challenge of earning that rich sum, he had a score to settle. Viv had left him. The surprise of finding their London town home abandoned still made him shake. One year spent fending off polite rumors about his marriage had been one year too long.
The crack of a whip snapped his attention toward a man sitting atop a heavily laden wagon. The road leading away from the docks, clogged with dark bodies, permitted no room for the vehicle to pass. Burly and dough-faced, the wagon master wasn’t directing his whip at the donkeys straining against their tethers, but at people.
“Get off there,” the driver shouted. He threw his weight into the next strike of braided leather.
A young woman screamed and fell. Those nearby snatched her arms and hauled her upright, saving her from the crush of feet and hooves. Blood streaked along her shoulder, and her worn homespun dress was torn and covered in dust.
With relentless clarity, the Cape’s autumn sunshine illuminated every face twisted by concentration and fear. The donkeys continued to bray. The wagon master raised his arm again. Leather sliced through the air, this time striking a tall shirtless man whose dark, scarred back had already suffered the bite of a whip.
“Out of the way, you kaffir scum!”
Across three months, the colony had subjected Miles to many such scenes. Perhaps the difference, on this occasion, could be traced to the bitterness Viv churned in his blood. His arms ached with the need to pummel his fretfulness into submission—or pummel someone. The lawlessness of the colony, the otherworldliness of it, gave him permission to do what his tedious title had never permitted: take matters into his own hands.
“Oh, bloody hell.”
He strode into the crowd, abandoning his role as a mere bystander. Fully a head taller than most of the hunched, scrambling people, he fixed on the wagon master. Every successive crack of the man’s whip filled Miles with sizzling indignation. Like most of the British Empire, Cape Colony hadn’t permitted slavery in almost fifty years. That didn’t stop some colonists from treating Africans as they would the lowest animals.
Miles didn’t consider himself a do-gooder, but such a flagrant abuse of power assaulted his most basic principles. It wasn’t sporting and it simply wasn’t British.
He elbowed his way through the throng until the wagon master loomed above him on the bench. Miles quickly climbed aboard, senses centered on his target. The wagon master turned just as Miles balled his fist and let it swing. A satisfying crack of bone rewarded him as his opponent’s nose gave way.
Blood streaked the man’s mangy beard with crimson. Narrow-eyed anger replaced his stunned grimace. He reared back the butt of his whip and brought it down like a cudgel. Miles used his forearm to deflect the blow, then retaliated with a flurry of jabs to the gut.
Foul exhales accompanied the wagon master’s sharp grunts, but his flab seemed to absorb the impact of each punch. Winded, he tottered slightly. His guard dropped. Miles snatched the whip. When the man’s expression bunched around the need to continue the fight, Miles jabbed the butt of the whip against that bloody, broken nose. The wagon master howled and clutched his face.
“Are we quite through?” Miles demanded, his throat stinging.
His opponent sank onto the bench and nodded once. Rage still flared across his expression but his shoulders caved forward.
“Good.” Miles slowly, deliberately coiled the whip. “Now I suggest that you notice the situation here on the docks. Too many people, for one. Laughably poor engineering. But that’s no excuse for whipping people.”
“They’re bloody kaffirs,” the man said, his voice muffled behind his hands. “Beasts like these here donkeys.”
Miles glanced across the sea of faces, more dark than light, and wondered again at the state of the Cape. Ripe, vital, raw, it perched continuously on the edge of violence. He tasted its bitterness in the air and felt it itching under his skin—a shocking sort of awakening.
“No more beastly than the rest of us,” Miles said.
He hopped down from the wagon, not so negligent as to disregard a defeated opponent. He’d often seen desperation or pride draw out a confrontation, and harbored no compulsion to go another round. Too much animal in that man.
As the immediacy of the fight seeped from his body, Miles shivered. He eased back into the crowd on legs just shy of steady, intent on returning to the machinery crate. Surely Viv had found her way off that damned clipper by now.
He bumped into a solid wall of ebony flesh and found himself looking up at a man—a rare occurrence. Before him stood the same shirtless African who’d taken one of the wagon master’s cruel strokes. His shaven head gleamed.
“Pardon me,” Miles said.
“Thank you.” The African’s deep bass was melodic, like the notes of a bassoon. Across his back would be those old silvery scars and a fresh line of split skin, but his expression was none so grim. “Boggs is a scourge.”
Miles raised his eyebrows. “A scourge? Nice word.”
“I speak the truth.”
“And I believe you. My hope is that I won’t require his services.”
“Hire a wagon,” the man said. “I’ll drive for you instead.”
Miles studied that dark African face. Every feature was as he’d seen in caricatures and even so-called scientific journals: the wide, flat nose, the large lips, and the fathomless black irises surrounded by white. Those demeaning illustrations hadn’t captured what it was to look upon such a man. Miles found intelligence and a rugged, hard-edged dignity—a refreshin
g change from the feckless gentlemen who’d comprised his social circle in London.
“You need a work pass,” Miles said.
“Yes, sir.”
Without a work pass, Africans could be subjected to police harassment or even expulsion from the city limits. In Kimberley, the constant threat of diamond theft tainted all manual laborers, regardless of skin color, but Africans bore the heaviest burden of suspicion.
“Good, because I need reliable workers. I’m returning to Kimberley, if you’re interested.” He held out his hand. “Call me Bancroft,” he said, omitting a significant part of his identity—namely, his title.
The man stared at Miles for a long moment, then shook hands. His grip was strong, his expression intent. “I’m Umtonga kaMpande. But you English seem to find that a challenge.”
“No argument here.”
“Because you have shown the kindness of a friend, I ask that you call me Mr. Kato.”
“That is a kindness in itself, Mr. Kato. Any woman? Any possessions?”
“No, sir.”
Miles nodded. “Good.”
With nothing more by way of niceties, he turned and strode back toward the Coronea, toward Viv, glad to know that the tall African would follow.
* * *
Viv brushed a gloved hand across her forehead and pinned the porter with a hard look. “What do you mean they’ve been taken care of?”
The short man, bulky and rippling with menacing muscles, simply shrugged. “Your baggage has been taken care of, ma’am.”
Fear brushed up her spine. Had her things been stolen? Hardly on African soil for five minutes and already a snag. She took a quick breath. “By whom?”
“He said he was your husband, ma’am. Lord Bancroft.”
Viv blinked.
He’s here?
She locked her knees against the impulse to sink onto the foot-worn planks of the dock. “My husband,” she whispered.
Of course he would come. She’d been willfully naïve in believing her trip to Newport would signal her intention to remain separated.