by Sara Ramsey
Malcolm dropped the shirt to the floor and ran a hand through his tousled hair. The warrior look was back. “Should I guess what you will demand next?”
His breeches couldn’t conceal the bulge of his manhood. He wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended. She heard it in his voice, too — he was dangerously close to taking over, to forgetting his vow to make her say what she wanted.
The devil inside her urged her in a different direction.
She wanted to watch him strip completely, but the need to touch him was too great. “Kiss me,” she demanded, grasping his hand and pulling him toward her. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to meet his.
He grazed the tip of her nose.
“Kiss my mouth,” Amelia clarified, gritting her teeth.
Malcolm chuckled, then cupped her face with his hand. His lips claimed hers, and she felt the shock of connection where her lips were still swollen from their previous kiss. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, willing him closer. But while the kiss held all the heat and promise of their earlier kisses, he made no move to deepen it. He stayed tightly in control, even when she tentatively ran her tongue across his closed lips in silent invitation.
Finally, she pulled away. “You really won’t make this easy for me, will you?”
He almost looked contrite, but his eyes were smug. “I’m merely giving you what you want.”
There was something undeniably alluring about having him follow her orders. But if she had to stop every minute to issue further instructions, she doubted she would find fulfillment.
She switched tactics. “What would you do if a courtesan asked you to pleasure her? Would you know what to do?”
“Of course,” he snorted. “But...”
She cut him off. “Then that’s what I want. I want you to pleasure me like that.”
“I thought my reference to whores offended you,” he said, his harsh tone warning her to stop.
Amelia pushed ahead. “You piqued my interest. You may begin at your leisure.”
He eyed her darkly. His expression, so controlled a few moments earlier, was suddenly feral, and she shivered as he pulled her against his chest. The bed still supported her, but just barely. He seemed to like having her reliant on him for support.
But she reached that point again where thought was difficult, and then motivation and machinations didn’t matter. Where their last kiss was soft and restrained, this kiss was hot, wet, maddening. He ran his hands over her hair, still pinned tightly to her scalp. His roughness as he loosened hairpins, then braids, only increased her need. Her fingers pressed into his bare shoulders as her golden curls tumbled around them, urging him closer.
He broke away. Her lips parted on a silent question. He shook his head. “I will give you what you asked for,” he said. It sounded like a warning as his fingers deftly unfastened her riding jacket. “And you had best not change your mind, because it is too late for me to stop.”
He flicked open her jacket, pushing both the jacket sleeves and the thin straps of her chemise over her shoulders. Her arms were trapped by the fitted fabric, but he didn’t wait for her to remove them. He untied the neck of her chemise and shoved it down, freeing her breasts and staring at them for one endless moment before kissing her again.
She kissed him back, driven on by the heat building within her. She wanted to touch him, and she struggled against her jacket. He shook her shoulders, just a bit, just until she gave up her efforts and left her arms bound up in velvet.
When she was still, he slowly slid his hands over her tightening nipples. This time, she didn’t protest as his lips moved away from hers, didn’t try to free her arms. She guessed his destination, and she watched his progress through heavy lids as he swept a trail of kisses down to her breasts.
He slid a hand down to her ankle, skimming his fingers up her calf, tickling them across the sensitive flesh behind her knee, and finally caressing the curve of her derriere. Without breaking the kisses he was bestowing on her bosom, he shifted her and eased her skirts past her hips. She drew a shocked breath as her bare bottom met the cool silk coverlet, then moaned as his mouth abandoned her.
He tugged her skirts above her waist, the yards of velvet pooling on her belly and baring her to his hungry gaze. Ignoring her sounds of protest, he pushed her back to rest on her elbows, knelt before her, and draped her legs over his bare shoulders.
“Malcolm, I don’t...” she started to say, but her words fled as his lips found the nub of pleasure hidden beneath her curls.
The arousal caused by watching him undress was nothing compared to the sudden conflagration sparked by this new onslaught. When she cried out, his kisses turned rougher, until every stroke of his tongue was a teasing torment, holding her on the brink of release.
She urged him closer, arching back into the bed, her muscles tensed and trembling with need. But instead of pushing her over the edge, he slowed down, languorously licking and suckling between her soft folds.
He continued this pattern for endless minutes. A few strokes of his tongue on the center of her pleasure would send her to the brink — until he pulled back, kissing her inner thigh or swirling slowly around the outer edges of her opening, leaving her panting with frustration. Then he would start again, stoking the fires within her, until all of her thoughts were consumed with the need to leap over the edge.
Finally, she could take no more. “Malcolm, now,” she demanded, wrapping her legs around him as her desire overcame her.
As though he had been waiting for her command, he intensified his assault, flicking his tongue rapidly across her core, and she screamed as she shuddered in climax. The tide as she came took her somewhere beyond thought, to a moment of perfect, endless silence.
She fell back on the bed, breathless, melting, her legs slipping off of Malcolm’s shoulders as he pulled away. She slowly came back to earth, still trembling with the aftershocks, and opened her eyes to see Malcolm standing above her. He gave her a self-satisfied grin. She’d lost herself for a moment, but he had found her, and she thought the gleam in his eyes looked almost devious.
They regarded each other for long moments. Malcolm watched her with the intensity of a predator readying for the kill. Amelia couldn’t resist him even if she wanted to — and with the memory of his mouth still on her flesh, she thought she might never resist him again.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked.
His laugh was pained. “Hardly. But I trust that you want me.”
Her gaze dropped to his crotch, still rock hard under his breeches. “I’m not convinced you want me, MacCabe.”
She’d never called him that. He arched a brow. “What proof does the lady require?”
Amelia shrugged out of her jacket, leaving her upper body bare as her chemise fell to her waist. Malcolm watched, his eyes narrowing as he sought control, and she pulled him down into another kiss. It was brief, but she found his hunger and the shocking taste of herself on his lips.
She broke it off, then repeated his words. “If you want pleasure, I await your command.”
* * *
He wanted her. By God, he wanted her. He wanted to plunge into her, bury himself in her warmth, feel her clench around him as they both came. Or feel her lips wrap around his cock, her tongue a glorious torment. She was on his bed, half dressed, offering it all to him.
He wanted to take it.
His hand was already moving toward his buttons when he stopped himself. He hooked his thumbs in his breeches. “I want you. But I can’t have you.”
Her eyes flickered. “I thought...”
She stopped. She swallowed, hard, and slowly tugged her chemise up over her breasts. “I misunderstood, my lord.”
The ice was back in her voice. He pulled her up into his arms and crushed her against his chest.
She tried to pull away, but she couldn’t break his grip. He skimmed a hand over her cheek, used it to push her tousled curls back behind her ear. Holding her there, he leaned in and gro
wled, “I want you, Amelia. I want you everywhere, in every way.”
She shuddered against him, leaned in to rest her forehead on his shoulder. She still wasn’t talking, though.
He brushed a kiss on her neck and felt a tremor of her reaction. “Amelia, understand. If we were married, nothing would stop me from taking everything you offer. But you’re still a lady. I won’t risk leaving you with my child until we’re safely wed.”
She stroked his chest, letting her hand rest over his pounding heart. “I’m half tempted to shoot you.”
His lips curved as he moved lower, pushed her chemise aside to kiss her shoulder. “Save your bullets for after the wedding — it will take an army to get me out of your bed then.”
She laughed, the ice melting. “I’ll ask Alex to add militia expenditures to the settlements.”
“Consider it done, my lady,” he said, nipping her earlobe with his teeth. She arched against him, her laughter turning breathy.
He didn’t want to stop. And for a few moments he didn’t. He let himself kiss her, let his tongue have what his cock could not, and it was both pleasure and torment. No matter what else happened between them, this — this pleasure, this need, this connection — was real.
Finally, he broke it off. She moaned in protest, but he had to retreat. The pressure in his balls wouldn’t let him stop if he didn’t end it now. “No more, Amelia. I’m dying.”
“You deserve to, if you leave me like this,” she said, breathless.
How many other women in the ton felt like that? For all that Amelia wasn’t what he’d sought when thinking of marriage, he was glad that he hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He thought back to Alastair’s comment about finding pleasure in duty.
With Amelia, it was impossible to tell where duty ended and pleasure began.
“Four days, darling. Our wedding is four days from now. We can survive until then.”
He wasn’t sure he could, and Amelia’s face said the same. But that dark look was in her eyes, the one his seductions momentarily expelled, the one that always came back. “How can I know it will always be like this between us?”
“You can’t,” he said, his impatience sparking. “No one can see the future. But I can guarantee that if you walk away, you will never find anything like this again. Better the devil you know, darling.”
She closed her eyes.
He waited. There was nothing else, short of force, that he could do to convince her to give up her fantasies of evading their wedding. He wasn’t so noble that he wouldn’t use it. Alex would never let her leave Scotland unwed if he knew what had happened tonight. But there was still time to let her make this decision on her own. And he would rather have her think she had chosen freely than hate him for making that choice for her.
Finally, she opened her eyes, leveling them on him. He felt another jolt of lust. Her gaze was direct, challenging — the meeting of an equal, not the submissive frailty of most debutantes. He wouldn’t mind her submission, but the challenge she presented made him ache for her.
“You negotiated the settlements with Alex,” she said, her voice clear and steady. “But I want to add my own terms.”
“You couldn’t be better provided for. The settlements for your widowhood are extremely generous. I will show you what we agreed to, if Alex hasn’t yet.”
She waved a hand at that. “I trust both you and Alex know how to arrange finances. I don’t care about the money.”
“Then what do you care about?” he asked.
Amelia paused, and he saw her struggling to decide something. His fiancée still had secrets. Would she share them now?
“I know you need a political wife,” she said when she finally spoke. “I don’t mind attending parties, and I will do my best to host whatever you wish. But socializing is not what I want to do with my life. If you promise that I can use my days however I choose, I will marry you without complaint.”
“What do you want to do with your time?” he asked.
“What I’ve always done — read, write letters, visit with my friends,” she replied.
Her voice was light. But then, her request seemed light. Most aristocratic wives spent their days engaged in precisely those activities, without needing special dispensations from their husbands to do so.
He didn’t let on that she had aroused his suspicions. “I’m not a tyrant, darling. If you want to visit your friends when we are in town, I won’t stop you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes flickering back and forth across his face as she tried to read his intentions. He hoped he looked supportive, not curious. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because he felt her relax, just a little, in his arms.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him wonder.
“Is there anything else you wish to agree to before the wedding? Anything you should tell me?”
Amelia looked at his feet. “As we discussed, I don’t have any secret children or scandalous former lovers. You’ll find me quite boring, I’m sure.”
It was an adequate answer, even though she hadn’t specifically said that she had nothing to tell him. He let it go. It wasn’t like him to leave a thread dangling, but whatever her secret was, it wasn’t anything that would excuse him in the eyes of the ton — or his own conscience — if he jilted her.
So he laughed instead of questioning her further. “Never boring, Amelia. Whatever awaits us, it won’t be boredom.”
She smiled up at him, and his suspicions were temporarily buried. It was enough to have her in his bed. Theirs wasn’t a love match and might never be, if his duty to his clan occupied him as much as it should. But they would still find pleasure together.
And if love didn’t grow between them — he told himself that lust would surely be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Amelia survived until the fourth day — but only just. In the moments when her mother, and then Madeleine and Ellie, left her alone, the solitude that usually helped her to temper her emotions gave her too much time to think. Her thoughts oscillated wildly between excitement and escape, between eagerness for Malcolm’s touch and fear that her attraction to him would destroy her.
As the carriage carrying her to the church lurched on the rough road, she thought it wasn’t so farfetched that he might be her doom. She had behaved like an utter wanton when he demanded it, needing only the slightest encouragement to ask for the pleasure she’d always denied herself. When she awoke the next morning, safely tucked into her own bed after sneaking across the length of the darkened castle, she was ashamed that he had stopped when she had not. If he hadn’t pushed her away, she would have ended the night in his bed, beyond all reasonable thought, and no longer a virgin.
Tonight, her first night as Malcolm’s countess, her virginity would likely be gone. Malcolm wouldn’t refrain again, not when he watched her for the past three days like a rebel readying an ambush. But she hoped she maintained her reason. She couldn’t afford to give away her sanity, not if she wanted to remember who she was and what she really wanted from her life.
Madeleine interrupted her brooding. “You’re frowning, Mellie. What is the matter?”
Amelia gripped the strap affixed to the wall as the carriage jolted on another rut. “We should have ridden to the church. This road is abominable.”
“Is that all that bothers you?” Madeleine asked.
“Of course not,” Amelia snapped. “If I recall, you had nerves on your wedding day and I didn’t press you about them.”
“Likely because you were hoping I would give in to them and toss Ferguson aside,” she retorted with a laugh.
“I will allow that I was not precisely charitable about the Duke of Rothwell’s pursuit of you,” Amelia said. She continued over Madeleine’s snort. “But I do see the depth of your feelings for him. It made your wedding day a joy rather than a burden.”
She and Madeleine were in a carriage, their last moments alone before Amelia’s wedding. Amelia’s mother and Lady Carnach
had gone ahead, as had Ellie, Ferguson, his sisters, and Malcolm’s brothers. They would be waiting in the church, or the kirk, as the MacCabes called it. And Malcolm would be there too, ready to claim the rest of her life as his own.
She shuddered, just a bit, but Madeleine saw it. She reached out and took Amelia’s hand. “Are you sure you see Malcolm as a burden?”
Amelia wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t keep thinking about it if she wanted to walk down the aisle without bolting. “What will be will be, Madeleine. My fate is tied to him whether I like it or not.”
Madeleine didn’t respond. Amelia stared out the window. The Highlands were a fairy tale — hills and crags covered in vegetation and drenched in mist. It was raining on her wedding day. She tried not to take it as an omen.
“Do you love him?” Madeleine asked, squeezing her hand.
Amelia sucked in a breath. “I barely know the man.”
“I didn’t know Ferguson above a fortnight before he offered for me, but I already knew I would love him.”
Amelia pulled away from Madeleine’s grasp. “Not all of us are so blessed, Maddie.”
She was prevaricating, though. It was true she barely knew Malcolm. All the little facts, like what pudding he preferred, whether he liked to hunt, and where he bought his boots, were a complete mystery to her.
But she knew he was a good man. And she knew he could win her heart with nothing more than a quirk of his grin and the occasional moonlit adventure. She had never believed someone could scale her barricades so effortlessly. The thought of falling for him, of losing her heart and giving him everything, scared her more than anything else.
She wasn’t eager to see the church, but at least their arrival ended Madeleine’s questions. Through the window, the church loomed, ancient and imposing. Flowers arced over the doorway, dripping slowly onto the stone steps. Alex waited under the arch, ready to escort her.