by J. K. Coi
She gasped. He smiled. He wanted her making that sound over and over into his mouth as he kissed her.
“The one thing that kept me going was the memory of you,” he admitted. “I’ve wanted this for so long, even though I don’t deserve it.” He lifted his hands to her cheeks and pressed soft kisses across her forehead. Down the bridge of her nose. “So damn long.”
He’d replayed their kisses from that last night in his mind so many times, the supple imprint of her lips was forever engraved on his. He would never forget the way her breathing had accelerated and her fingers curled in his shirtfront. She’d boldly indulged in a sip of brandy that evening, and since then every opportunity he’d had for some of the same left him disappointed because it never tasted nearly as good as it had from her mouth.
Now, in the soft moonlight, her lips were dark red, the rest of her face pale but for twin spots of color high on her cheekbones that betrayed the chill in the air.
The stark emotion in her eyes—fear, uncertainty, sadness and…love—was his undoing. He crushed his mouth to hers with a low groan of surrender.
Those eyes of hers fluttered closed. His did the same and his heartbeat doubled. The kiss was harder than it should have been. He didn’t want to shock her, but need arrowed through him with a strength that throbbed in his chest and groin.
And she didn’t seem frightened. She gave the kiss right back to him with a sweet ardor that would have brought him to his knees if they were not already sitting.
He took a deep breath and gazed down at her wet mouth. “Are you cold?”
“A little.” She nodded. “Warm me?”
He leaned her back until she lay cushioned by his coat in the grass. She watched him with heavy-lidded eyes and he was pleased that she didn’t shy away when he shifted his weight over the lower half of her body.
He told himself not to crush her, even though he wanted nothing more than to do exactly that. To cover her completely, push himself down on her, in her, and infuse all her senses with the feel of him, taste of him, smell of him. Just as the essence of her was already in all of his pores and his blood.
He leaned forward to take her mouth again, and she met him eagerly with a sigh of happiness. A surge of tenderness gentled his kiss and he lingered, tracing the shape of her lips with his tongue until he dared slip inside and sip the sweetness of her mouth.
Anna’s hands trailed across his shoulders before sliding into his shirt and spreading it open. When she paused over the half-healed scar left by his recent injury, he lifted his head and winced. It didn’t hurt in the least, but he didn’t like to be reminded that he’d been too slow, that the mistake should have cost him his life and he remained alive only through dumb luck.
“Musket shot. Close range,” he said.
“This is why you were sent home from the war?”
“Not in and of itself, no. This also came with a head wound. I fell on the battlefield and lost consciousness. My unit couldn’t find me and assumed I was done for. When I came to, I had been lying in the mud beneath the dead body of another soldier for the better part of three days and nights. Infection and fever had already set in. I was lucky that someone finally found me and got me to a clinic, or the rumor of my death would have in fact been the truth.”
He flinched when she pressed her palm over the scar, still red and swollen. But when she moved to drop a kiss on the spot, he tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up so her lips met his instead.
It was better to focus on pleasurable things and leave the dark thoughts for another night.
He ran his hand down her side, over her hip and thigh. On the way back up, he slipped beneath her nightdress and groaned at the feel of her smooth skin. He gripped the underside of her knee and brought it up. She lifted her other leg too and he couldn’t stop himself from shifting until he rested directly within the cradle of her thighs, planting both elbows in the grass on either side of her head.
He tried not to rock against her. She wasn’t ready for that, even though he was hard as stone and ached with the culmination of an eternity spent wanting her. Instead, he ground his cock against the cool grass. Spreading his hand wide over her thigh, he moved all the way to her supple round bottom.
His lips trailed a hot path along the line of her jaw and down her neck. When he started back up again with his tongue, she gasped, throwing her head back. His lips rested gently on the pulse pounding madly away in the hollow of her throat before continuing on.
Gently tugging open the ties on the front of her nightdress, he pressed kisses on every parcel of skin slowly revealed to him. She shrugged the soft cotton off one delicate shoulder, shuddering when he pushed it down farther.
Her breasts spilled out into the cool night air, peaked and perfect. He pulled one stiffened, succulent point into his mouth and teased her relentlessly, flicking her tight nipple with his tongue. He sucked and nipped, and cupped the weight of her opposite breast in his palm.
Soon she was squirming beneath him, thrashing her head and lifting her hips. Her nails scored his shoulders as she clutched him tightly and this time he couldn’t stop the forward thrust of his hips between her warm thighs.
“Please, Graham,” she begged, taking deep breaths. “I, ah…I don’t know…Oh God, please.”
“Anna.” He lifted his head and pursed his lips to blow air across the wetness he’d left on her pebbled skin. “You’re so beautiful like this. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Good lord, she was a goddess. Graham was struck again by her beauty. Her heart-shaped face glowed in the moon’s gentle light, her skin like the shell of a lustrous pearl. Eyes squeezed closed, cheeks flushed, head thrown back. Her body was laid out like a decadent buffet just for him. He’d never wanted anything more desperately than he wanted her in this moment.
Not just her stunning body. He wanted everything. He wanted her infectious laughter and sweet voice. Her clever mind and welcoming heart. He wanted all of it, all of her, in his life for the next sixty years or so.
The well of his self-control must be deeper than he’d believed was possible, because he eased back. He didn’t want to, but if he took her here, now, he’d be doing her a disservice. She deserved to know who she was giving herself to and he didn’t think she’d truly accepted the changes in him, the darkness in him.
She blinked up at him with questions in her eyes. “Will you leave me again without finishing what you started?”
He groaned and forced out a pained smile. “I want us to get to know one another again, and come together in full knowledge of the choices we’re making. We have time to love each other properly now. We don’t have to do this tonight, here on the cold ground. Let me be honorable this one last time.”
But he didn’t have to leave her unsatisfied. He could give her a heady introduction to the pleasures they would soon be able to share together.
One hand cupped the softness of her breast as he eased his body between her legs again and slid his other hand under her gown and up her thigh until he grazed her wet curls.
He buried his face, muffling his tortured groan in the cotton covering her belly. “You’re so warm and wet and perfect,” he said.
Her head thrashed back and forth as she squirmed and tilted her hips. He lifted the hem of her nightdress with his teeth. A hiss broke from her lips.
“Ah Christ,” he swore, his gaze drawn to the slick moist lips of her pussy. Yes, soon. It would have to be soon. He wouldn’t live through many nights like this one.
“Graham.”
He leaned forward and drew his tongue along her slit. She tasted delicious. Spicy and warm and intoxicating, and he couldn’t get enough of her. She gasped and shuddered, and he pressed a hand on her chest, between her breasts to keep her from bucking right out of his grasp as he drilled his tongue into her tight channel.
He alternated between plunging inside her and sweeping over her clitoris. She clutched at him, her nails digging into his forearm, and he
redoubled his efforts, determined to make her scream.
He pushed her knees up to her chest and gripped her ankles to spread her wider. When he glanced up the length of her body, he groaned to see her cupping her breasts as her head tossed back and the delicate arch of her neck beckoned him.
After pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her inner thigh, he crawled up her body slowly, breathing in her scent before he reached the curve of her neck. At the same time that he closed his teeth on the tendon of her shoulder, he slipped two fingers in her pussy. “Oh God, Graham,” she cried. “It feels so full when you do that. I can’t imagine how—”
He smiled and traced her jawline with kisses. “You can’t imagine how you’ll ever be able to take my cock?”
She gasped in response to his crude terminology, but ducked her head into his shoulder and nodded.
“Oh you’ll take it,” he promised, thrusting his fingers deeper, spreading them inside her. “Won’t you?”
She nodded again. He pumped his fingers in and out of her, grazing her clit with his thumb on each pass. “Tell me.”
“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her face to his. Her eyes were glazed with passion, her mouth parted as she gasped for breath. “Yes, I will take you.”
He crushed his lips to hers just as her orgasm crashed through her and her pussy walls clenched on his fingers.
He made her scream, just as he wanted.
Chapter Six
Graham drew away from Anna a short while later after the shuddering spasms had subsided and her breathing returned to normal. A daunting bulge pushed out the front of his trousers that looked as if it would be uncomfortable, but he only shook his head when she begged him to take her completely.
She couldn’t believe the intensity of the things he’d made her feel, only knew that she needed to feel that again, needed to help him feel it as well…and soon.
As they both quietly straightened their grass-stained and rumpled clothing, the sound of rustling leaves and a snapping twig caught her attention. She gazed down the path to the family plots, and then back in the direction of the house, but saw only shadows.
The wind had picked up, no doubt making the tree branches sway and knock together.
She leaned into Graham with a sigh, knowing it was beyond time for her to head home. Her mouth still felt swollen from his kisses, her pussy wet from the juices he’d drawn out of her.
He quickly pressed another kiss to her lips, but she sensed his hesitancy.
When he cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up, he was frowning and she worried that he was letting his demons get the better of him again.
“This isn’t the end for us,” she warned him. Resolve hardened her voice. She wouldn’t lose him again.
“My angel.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to be anyone’s angel. There was too much pressure in that. She only wanted to be herself, and with him she’d always felt like she could.
“Do you remember the gawky, ugly little girl I was?”
“You were beautiful,” he replied, caressing her cheek. “Just as you are now.”
“Well, you’re the only one who ever thought so.” She smiled. Those memories didn’t really hurt anymore, but she tried not to think of them often. “I was constantly tormented for being forced to wear my sister’s castoff clothing, none of which ever fit me properly because I was so plump. Even my father agreed that I was ugly and overweight, and he despaired of ever finding a man to marry me.”
“If only he knew that even then I dreamed of the day when I would be old enough to make you my wife.”
“You did not.” She laughed.
“Maybe not right away,” he admitted with a roguish grin. “But you were always special. To hell with anyone who couldn’t see your beauty.”
“I had your friendship to carry me through, and after a time none of that other stuff mattered as much,” she said. “But then you were gone. The real world rushed in to fill the void, but I had hope, and waited patiently for you to come home. When they told me you weren’t ever coming back…”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said. A frown pulled his features tight.
Maybe she’d never understand what he had experienced while away at war, but she understood that it had marked him, and she hoped one day he would share those feelings with her and let her help him come to some sort of peace with his past.
“No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m glad I came here tonight—even if I don’t remember making the decision or exactly how I got here,” she chuckled. “I want you to know that—”
Another noise, more distinct. This time there was no doubt that it couldn’t have been the wind. And it was closer.
“What was that?” Anna asked.
She looked around and stiffened.
He saw it then, too. A figure coming up the path from the cemetery. The man shuffled and stumbled so badly, it was surprising he hadn’t keeled over.
A drunkard who’d lost his way heading home from the Pebble and Poke Tavern? That would be a hefty distance in the opposite direction of town, if that were the case.
“Graham, what are they doing here?” Anna grasped his sleeve. “What’s wrong with them?”
He squinted. Indeed, the man wasn’t alone. Another person came up behind him, and another.
“Hullo there,” he called, pulling Anna into his side. “All of you are trespassing on property belonging to the Earl of Kent. Halt where you are. Announce yourselves and your purpose, and there’ll be no trouble.”
The first of their nocturnal visitors let out a pained-sounding groan and lifted his arm in front of him, as if reaching out for help.
Graham put Anna behind him with a reassuring squeeze of her hand and started forward. “Are you in distress? Do you require assistance?” he called.
The figure in front stumbled all the way out of the shadow of the bushes at the end of the path, into the relative openness of the greenery by the lake’s edge and was illuminated by a shaft of moonlight.
“Oh my God,” he hissed, flinching and halting in place.
This was no drunkard who had lost his way.
The two of them stepped back and Anna squealed, clutching him tighter as her foot slipped over the edge of the lakeside into the water. She’d gotten too close.
He helped her back up, keeping one eye on the others. There were now six of them, steadily approaching with awkward, uncoordinated steps.
“They’re—”
“Dead,” he finished. At least that’s what it looked like under the unreliable moonlight.
Of course, they must be sick. Maybe he was looking at a pack of lepers escaped from isolation. Except that he couldn’t recall hearing about any leper communities located anywhere near his family’s lands. Such a development would not have gone unchallenged by the Earl.
They continued to take slow steps toward him and Anna, their mouths drooping open, gazes unfocused. They didn’t look like lepers. They were walking catatonic. Walking…dead?
No, of course that couldn’t be. But the pale light had shown him their faces and it was something he’d seen before…but only in his darkest nightmares. Nightmares where dead soldiers rose from a battlefield covered in sand, blood and ash to chase after him, looking for retribution for the early death he’d dealt them.
These men and women had the same faces as those from his horrible dreams.
Sunken eyes in cavernous sockets. Swollen, black tongues hanging between cracked lips. Some of them didn’t even have lips, only bared skull bones flashing jagged teeth in a terrible grin.
In the moonlight, their flesh had turned a pallid grayish color, covered in dark splotches that had to be caked blood…and yet in other places, it seemed as if their skin had rotted away completely.
Arms stretched out, hands curling into claws. Shredded and dirty fingers reached toward them, looking as if…as if they’d clawed their way out of the very ground.
No, no, no.
Fear
was getting the better of him now. He didn’t know where these people had come from, but they were obviously sick. Just very sick. Poor diseased souls looking for help.
They made thick snarling sounds that turned his stomach. Eager sounds that sent chills rushing through him.
Hungry sounds.
“Run Anna,” he said, urgency making his voice harsh.
He turned and pushed her toward the main house, keeping watch over his shoulder. They would have to make a bit of a triangle and go through the gardens, where the path narrowed considerably, to get to safety. “Hurry.”
“Graham. Oh God, Graham. That one has no nose,” she cried, pointing to one of the females. In the middle of her face where her nose should have been there was nothing but a dark void oozing a thick black liquid the consistency of muck.
Anna’s gaze was glued to the advancing corpses as she took a step backward for every one they shuffled forward. “What are we going to do?”
“We aren’t going to do anything. Get inside the house, Anna,” he repeated firmly. “Let me handle this.”
She reached for his hand, holding tightly to him like a lifeline. “Come with me, Graham. Please. There are too many. I don’t think…they aren’t friendly. You’ll get hurt.”
The agitated yet mindless looks on the faces of those people—he didn’t even know if he should call them people—was eerily similar to the look he’d seen on soldiers’ faces in the thick of battle. It was a look he knew he must have worn himself, when the smoke burns your lungs, the blasts ring in your ears, and all you can smell is the blood, all you can see is the enemy at the other end of your musket. It was a look he’d thought he would never see again outside of the battlefield.
The stunned look of someone who had lost all sense of individuality, who moved without thought, only instinct. The instinct to kill.
He should stay and find out what was wrong with them and what they were doing here. But he had no weapon in case they turned violent, which seemed a strong possibility. And he needed to make sure Anna got to safety.