Never Surrender to a Scoundrel

by Lily Dalton

  In that moment, Clarissa felt very sad—which made her grasp on to hope. “But perhaps you are wrong.”

  “Perhaps I am wrong,” he agreed solemnly. “But I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I’ve upset you,” he said, reaching to touch her face. “You want more children. Lots of them?”

  “It’s not that,” she said with a shake of her head. “But I would want yours.”

  “Thank you for saying that.” He leaned toward her and kissed her gently, consolingly.

  Desire, tangled up with emotion, welled up inside her, and she kissed him back, sighing, needing him and wanting his touch with an urgency she hadn’t expected.

  His lips moved, and he let out a sound as his hand cupped her chin and he widened his mouth on hers, probing with his tongue. He gently pushed the straw bonnet from her head, running his fingers through her hair.

  She sighed, leaning toward him as well, pressing her hand to the center of his chest. He turned his face aside and breathed near her ear. “Am I a savage for wanting to make love to you here, where I can breathe, instead of within those walls, where I cannot?”

  His words thrilled her, and the idea of making love with him on a blanket in the out-of-doors thrilled her more.

  “Then make love to me now.” In anticipation, her breasts swelled inside the confines of her corset and she shifted closer to him, aware of a hunger between her thighs. His tongue traced her earlobe and, for a moment, his lips closed on it, sucking, as he eased her backward onto the soft blanket, his hands moving to her breasts, smoothing over them through her pelisse. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the paradise of his touch.

  He murmured, “It’s all I’ve thought of since that night at the inn, being with you again.”

  He unfastened her buttons, one by one, bending to kiss her as he undid the ones on her dress underneath. He gently tugged the soft, pleated cups down, baring her breasts, which grew fuller every day. Light and cool air tantalized skin that had always been kept covered, a sensual pleasure in itself.

  “Dominick,” she whispered, feeling as if he laid bare not only her body but her soul as well. He stared admiringly, his gaze burning so hot it took her breath away.

  “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. Except for your face, of course.”

  He bent his dark head to kiss her mouth, sweetly urgent as his palms grazed her nipples. She moaned in reaction, startled by the pleasure his touch inspired. His hand closed over a breast and squeezed.

  “You’re like that wine. Rich and sweet.”

  She sighed, his touch giving her such pleasure she couldn’t remain still. His words—private words, sensual words spoken between lovers—pleased her.

  His fingertips smoothed over her face, her jawline, her mouth, making her feel adored and beautiful. Her lips opened, and she touched her tongue to the pad of his center finger. He exhaled raggedly and slowly…gently…slipped the fingertip into her mouth. Her lips closed around it, and she sucked, tasting his skin. A gust of wind swept through the trees.

  “I want to see you. All of you.”

  His palms traveled up her stockings, over her calves, to flatten behind her knees. Her legs shifted and slid, one against the other, squeezing tight around the center of her swollen and needful sex, and the tapes of her stockings rubbed together. Her skirts made a soft, rustling sound.

  “You’re like a present I don’t deserve,” he murmured.

  “You do deserve me. And I deserve you.”

  His fingertips gently scored up her legs…lifting her petticoat and skirts…gathering them above her waist, leaving her thighs, stomach, and sex exposed. Cool air tantalized, in marked contrast with his heated touch between her legs.

  “I love looking at you,” he said, lowering himself onto his elbow beside her, still completely dressed.

  That simply had to change, and quickly. She untied his cravat and, enticed by the smooth male skin she saw at the opening of his shirt, touched her lips there. His thumbs stroked between her legs, upward, over her swollen sex that felt torturously damp and tight.

  “Dominick, please,” she begged softly.

  At that, he left her, quickly removing his coat. His hands returned to her hips, holding her, sweeping his hands up her legs and between her knees to press them aside, wider. She had never felt more vulnerable or exposed. His hand swept over her belly, over the gentle swell of her pregnancy that had become apparent there.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  His head lowered, and she tensed. His hair brushed against her thighs, and his mouth, open and hungry, fell on her there. She cried out in shock. In pleasure. The sound echoed off the stone canopy above them. He responded with a firm stroke of his tongue, and his hands gripped securely on her hips. She writhed, shattered by the sensual sensations his wicked kiss inspired, and reached for his head, his shoulders. Unable to reach him, she seized fistfuls of the blanket instead.

  His shadow fell across her, and she watched as he dispatched the placket of his breeches.

  “My cock is an impatient tyrant,” he said huskily. “I can’t wait any longer.”

  His cock, as he called it, jutted out from his body, darkly flushed and stiff like a cannon ready to fire.

  “Then hurry,” she said, wanting him.

  She rose up to half sitting, feeling dazed and intoxicated, her breasts bared and her skirts at her waist, helping him tug the fitted breeches down his hips, sliding her hands over the heavily sculpted muscles there and along his abdomen. His shirt hung over his hips, his sex tented the linen. She pushed the garment up and instinctively wrapped her hand around his arousal.

  He froze and groaned raggedly.

  Then he closed his hand around hers, for a moment guiding her hand, showing her how to squeeze and stroke him to greater pleasure, the proof of which she saw when his hips moved and his head fell back in apparent ecstasy. Wanting only to please him more, the way he had pleased her so unselfishly, she kissed the swollen head and he jerked.

  He bit out a curse. “Clarissa.”

  Wanting to deepen their intimacy, she dared even further, opening her mouth and taking him inside her lips.

  “You slay me,” he growled.

  His hands came down against her hair, and he stroked her face, his thumb firm against her jaw, gently urging her to open her mouth wider, to accept him more deeply, which she did as best she could, still holding him at the base.

  “I swear to you, I’m dying.” Again he urged her to tighten her hand on him. “You can’t understand how good that feels.”

  She slid her tongue along the length of him, testing the velvet-over-steel texture. The soles of his boots crunched against the stone floor.

  “No more.” His thumb pressed gently against her lower lip, urging release. “I’m going to lose control.”

  As he pulled away, his hands came down on her shoulders and he pressed her back onto the blanket again, then lowered himself on powerful arms so that his hips came down between her thighs.

  Fascinated, she watched as he reached between them, stroking her between the white slash of her garters, while his sex hung heavy between them.

  “Take me, darling,” he commanded. “Take me inside you.”

  The afternoon light and the shadows inside the folly played erotically on their bare skin. There were no night shadows to hide their love play as she took hold of his rigid staff and guided him, pressing the swollen plum head to the place where her body begged for him most—

  He let out a guttural sound and thrust, hard.

  She arched, stunned as he filled her…stretching her, and with another sudden push of his hips—deeper…yes, more.

  “So tight,” he groaned.

  “So…big,” she whispered, her toes curling inside her boots. She squeezed his shoulders, and felt his muscles bunch beneath her palms.

  He chuckled and groaned, and as he began to move inside her, he made other, deeper, more wolfish sounds. He grasped her thighs, her knees…brought her ankles behind his h
ips.

  “Is that…good?” he asked, sinking deeper.

  “Yes!”

  The inside of the folly echoed with their voices and the sounds of their clothing and bodies shifting and sliding together. As his weight settled onto her, he pushed more deeply and she shifted in her efforts to accommodate.

  “Ahh.” He growled deep in his chest and stopped moving…only to dig the toes of his boots against the stone floor and rock into her more urgently until she cried out, stunned by pleasure.

  “My wife,” he whispered, his hands finding hers and stretching her arms above their heads, kissing her sweetly. “My beautiful wife.”

  His hips moved, slowly at first, then faster, delivering waves of pleasure through her womb with each advance and retreat of his sex. She tightened her thighs, pulling his powerful body closer, wanting to bewitch him and keep him there forever. Here there were no arguments, no secrets, and no past, only the now.

  “Clarissa,” he moaned.

  Looking up, she found his eyes glazed and his cheeks deeply flushed. The same fever claimed her, as her body strove for some greater gratification, a paradise she instinctively knew existed just out of reach. He rutted into her, she clutching at his shoulders, learning she brought them both more pleasure when she matched his every thrust for thrust.

  “Now.” Above her his expression went stricken, yet in the next moment his lips spread…slowly…into a shocked sort of smile. Under his shirt, his muscles seized beneath her hands.

  “Dominick!”

  “Agh—” he groaned, his head going back.

  She froze as a beautiful, throbbing heat flooded her womb—

  And quickly transformed into something else, sweeping her into a soaring delirium. Her body clenched and pulsed around his member, finding its release.

  She clung to him, startled and amazed, feeling that her spirit hovered high above the earth, tangled up with his. Slowly the sensations ebbed, and she floated like a feather, languid and spent, able to breathe again.

  Dominick gathered her in his arms and held her tightly, breathing hard into her hair, his heart pounding against her breasts.

  Then he rolled away, falling onto his back on the blanket beside her.

  “Clarissa,” he said, sounding amazed. “That was…indescribable.”

  “I did not know it could be like that.” The breath rushed from her lungs and she lowered her head against his chest, listening to the heavy thud of his heart, never having felt this close to anyone ever before.

  “Neither did I,” he answered quietly.

  His words made her happy. Deliriously so.

  She sighed, wrapping her arms around him, and kissed his face—the hard planes of his cheeks. His masculine nose. His eyes. He had just confessed that something truly earth-shattering had taken place between them. She did not harbor ill feelings toward his dead wife but selfishly needed to know their lovemaking pleased him more.

  “I can’t wait to do it again,” she whispered.

  He laughed, deep in his throat, and she savored the rich sound in her ear. Reaching up, his hand touched her hair. “I for one am all for an early evening tonight.”

  She laughed as well. He rolled her onto her back and kissed her, urgently sweet, and then broke away to stand. She watched from the blanket as he fastened his breeches and tucked his shirt in.

  Looking down at her, he tied his cravat. “You lying there like that…you’re the most lovely thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She’d been so entranced watching him, she still lay like a wanton, tangled in her clothes, her breasts and thighs naked and exposed.

  His eyes burning with renewed heat, he reached down and pulled her to her feet. His palms framed her face and he kissed her tenderly—then passionately, backing her against a column. His hands fell to her shoulders, holding her captive against the cool stone as his hot mouth descended her neck, and then her collarbone, finally devouring her breasts. She arched in response, surrendering willingly.

  Catching her hand, he pressed her palm against the ridge of his arousal.

  “Look what you do to me,” he growled, returning to her mouth.

  She did not pull away but boldly measured his size—which increased as she touched him.

  “I could have you now, again. Here against this column,” Dominick murmured.

  “Why don’t you?” she asked.

  “Wicked minx,” he teased as his hands deftly buttoned her dress. “It’s getting colder and there are clouds rolling in.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Just then a sharp gust of air swept through the folly, blowing leaves across the blanket. Clarissa shivered.

  “Ah, see there?” Dominick pulled the open flaps of her pelisse together and buttoned those as well. He smiled, his hands settling on her belly, and his expression became serious. “So stop tempting me, and let me take care of you and the baby.”

  The day they’d married, he’d never expected to feel such desire and affection for her, along with the overwhelming wish to protect her and the baby.

  Clarissa peered up at him. “Just as long as you let me take care of you as well.”

  He retrieved her hat, lowered it onto her head, and tied the ribbon the best he could. “There. If you don’t take it off, no one can tell you’ve been ravished.”

  She laughed. But then he heard something. He turned his face to the side and listened. Horses’ hooves on the road.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Clarissa quickly pulled her gloves on and gave him a dazzling smile. “Thank heavens they didn’t arrive ten minutes ago. We’d have given them quite the shock.”

  He left her to fold the blanket and pour the unfinished bottle of wine into the grass.

  The rider appeared. It was Colin, and he rode close enough to speak.

  “Hello, Colin,” Dominick said.

  Colin gripped the reins of his mount with his gloved hands. “Lady Blackmer has visitors waiting at the house. The Duke of Claxton. Also, a man he has introduced as his brother, Lord Haden.”

  Dominick’s mood turned instantly dark. Claxton, here? Why?

  Dominick saw Clarissa’s face go white.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “The only reason they would have come so soon after we left London is if they bear bad news. Is it Wolverton?”

  She rushed toward the curricle and Dominick followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Your Grace,” she said, rushing into the drawing room, fearing the worst. “Lord Haden. Tell me what has happened. Is Sophia all right?”

  Sophia had miscarried their first child, but her sister’s current pregnancy had seemed healthy from the start.

  Claxton turned from where he stood beside the fire. He looked weary and travel worn. “On the contrary. Everyone is well.”

  “Even Wolverton?”

  “He is actually very much improved,” Claxton assured in a soothing voice.

  Clarissa exhaled, relieved, and threw herself into his arms. “I’m so glad to see you. It feels like forever since Blackmer and I departed London.”

  “Am I invisible?” Haden asked, drolly.

  “Of course not.” Euphoric now to see them, she embraced him warmly as well.

  Lord Haden was Claxton’s younger brother, and while he’d once collected scandals like Beau Brummell collected snuffboxes, he’d grown more serious of late and traveled much, after receiving an attaché appointment where he acted as a proxy for the duke in matters of foreign policy.

  Lady Stade watched raptly from her chair. She had changed for dinner and looked fashionable and elegant in dark blue, thrilled to have a duke standing in her parlor. Lord Stade stood near the window, his expression one of interest.

  “How long will the two of you be staying?” Clarissa inquired.

  “We won’t, I’m afraid.” The duke tilted his head toward Lady Stade. “Although Lady Stade has already extended a very gracious invitation.”

  Lady Stade effused, “Unless you can convince
them otherwise.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Haden added in a teasing voice, “being that he can’t stand to be parted from the duchess for more than five minutes anymore.”

  Claxton threw him a barbed look. To Clarissa, he smiled. “It’s true, of course. He just isn’t supposed to say it here in front of everyone.”

  Clarissa smiled. “Why not stay the night and leave early tomorrow?”

  “Of course you will stay the night,” said Blackmer from the direction of the door, where he’d remained since they’d arrived. While his expression wasn’t exactly welcoming, Clarissa took heart in his insistence that the duke and his younger brother remain. “It’s already late and you won’t make appreciable distance before it gets dark. I’ll tell the footmen to bring in your things.”

  With one final look toward Clarissa, he quit the room.

  Haden drifted toward the door, looking after Blackmer. “That longsword I saw on the way through the vestibule, is it Norman?”

  Clarissa wasn’t a fool. She recognized his obvious attempt to draw her in-laws away.

  Lord Stade’s expression brightened. “Indeed. It has been in her ladyship’s family…well, since her Norman forebears invaded this fair isle alongside William.”

  “May I have a look?”

  “Allow me to accompany you,” His Lordship answered. “There are several other very ancient weapons you might also like to see. I can show them to you.”

  Claxton said to her, “Clarissa, is there somewhere I could speak with you alone?”

  “Should I summon Blackmer?” asked Lady Stade, standing.

  Claxton answered politely. “Just my sister-in-law, if you will. Family talk.”

  “Certainly,” answered her ladyship graciously, moving to the door. “Take all the time you need. I must inform Cook we will have guests for dinner and ensure your rooms are prepared.”

  She left but did not close the doors, something that Claxton quickly remedied. When he turned toward Clarissa, she couldn’t remain quiet any longer.