Scoundrel of My Heart EPB

by Heath Lorraine

  So he stacked the bricks and shoved mortar between them, making the walls sturdier, as he crossed the room and opened the door. “I’ll join you.”

  Following dinner, he taught her to play brag, a favorite of the Duke of Kingsland apparently. They wagered with matchsticks, and she won most of his. While he grumbled a lot about her winning, she could tell he enjoyed the competition she provided.

  When the clock struck ten and most of the matchsticks were in her possession, he bid her good night and retired to his bedchamber. And she went to hers and readied herself for bed.

  But now as she lay beneath the covers, she couldn’t sleep for the thoughts of him going through her mind. The way he met her gaze and held it. The manner in which, sometimes, that very same gaze would drift to her lips. The frequency with which he would touch her hand, her elbow, her shoulder—and the naturalness of it. As though he did it without any conscious thought. She’d caught herself touching him a time or two without thinking it through, realizing what she’d done only when the warmth of his skin penetrated the linen of his shirt to taunt her fingers, to remind her of how it had felt to skim her hands over his forbidden flesh.

  She would never again be able to visit the cottage without seeing him here. Sitting at her table with wineglass in hand. Lounging on the sofa sipping port. Standing at the window watching the rain.

  But it was more than their time here she would be unable to forget. It was everything about him. She knew her thoughts should be focused on Kingsland, that he should occupy her mind at all times, that she should miss him, be anxious for his return—and yet it was Griff who filled every nook and cranny of her mind and, she feared, perhaps even her heart.

  In all the months Kingsland had courted her, had she really come to know him? Did she know how his lips twitched when he was teasing? Or how his eyes darkened just before he kissed her? Or how they smoldered when he first caught sight of her in a gown of green? Griff had never said in words how he favored the green, but it was there in the way he looked at her as though he’d just encountered a masterpiece.

  She knew so many small things about Griff, and they seemed as important as all the large things she knew about him. His dreams, ambitions, willingness to take any job to survive. He’d watched over Althea until Benedict Trewlove had taken on the task. Then he’d gone to watch over his brother and had nearly sacrificed himself to ensure Marcus remained safe.

  Life had thrown challenges at him, and he’d met each and every one of them head-on. No more mornings waking up behind hedgerows. No more nights filled with drink, and play, and . . . women. Were there women? There certainly could be based on the interested way several had watched him at his club, but he’d told her they weren’t for him. Would he have returned her kiss at the club or in the carriage if he favored someone?

  She listened as the rain pattered the roof and tapped against the windows. She’d always loved this room at the top of the stairs when the weather was rough and wild and should have been frightening. It had always given her strength and made her believe that if she could survive a storm, she could survive anything.

  Even a marriage without love.

  But what she found herself wondering now was if she could give up love for such a marriage.

  He awoke to a scream. High-pitched. Terrified. The shrill cry of someone being attacked, someone in mortal danger. He scrambled from the bed, snatched up his trousers and drew them on, fastening the buttons and ignoring the pain in his side as he raced out of his chamber before the echo of sound faded. He tore down the hallway and up the stairs.

  Only one other person was in this residence with him. The woman who did the cooking and cleaning lived in the village with her husband and returned to him every night. Griff had learned it was that bloke’s clothing that had been lent to him. He had no idea where the coachman and footman slept. Perhaps in the village as well, where they liveried the coach and horses. At that moment none of it mattered. All that mattered was her.

  Another shriek, his name woven through the wail.

  His heart pounding so hard that he was surprised the walls didn’t shake with the force of it, he reached the landing. Three doors were visible. Two open, one closed. He went for the one that would have given her privacy when she’d retired. He didn’t bother with testing to see if it was locked. He simply kicked it in.

  His gaze swept through the room, searching the shadows that evaded the faint moonlight spilling in through the window. But he could make out no dastardly silhouettes or menacing figures cloaked in darkness.

  Yet still another shout came, the danger real, but only to her, as she thrashed about in her bed. He’d had enough nightmares over the past several months to know how terrifying it could be when lost in the throes of one. Crossing quickly to the bed, he sat on its edge and grabbed the wrists of her flailing arms, bringing them in close, holding them against her heaving chest. “Kathryn, love, I’m here. I won’t let anything hurt you. Wake up.”

  While speaking the words forcefully and determinedly, he gave her a gentle shake. “Come back to me, sweetheart.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, wild, unfocused. Then they fell on him and widened. She blinked. Her breaths came in harsh pants. “What are you doing here?”

  You were screaming like the hounds of hell were chasing you probably wasn’t what she needed to hear at the moment. “You cried out.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry.” She tried to move an arm, and he realized he still had them clamped tightly, badly needing the touch of her to reassure himself she was safe. He released his hold.

  Grateful he had, when her first action was to reach out and cradle his jaw. “I was back by the Thames. You were being attacked only . . . you weren’t winning.”

  He settled his hand over hers, held it in place as he turned his head and pressed a kiss to the heart of her palm, all the while managing not to take his gaze from hers. “I shall always win, Kathryn.” Because his father’s actions had given him a taste of what it was to lose—and he was determined to never experience a soul-crushing defeat again. While he wasn’t going to win Kathryn, it was by choice, a decision not to try, a resolution to ensure she won something far greater than anything he could offer her.

  Her enticing lips twitched as she fought a smile. “I would claim you arrogant. Except I’ve seen you fight.”

  Then she grew somber because what she’d witnessed had been responsible for the nightmare that had plagued her. If it visited her again, away from here, he wouldn’t be near enough to rescue her from it. He needed to give her a better memory to replace the awful one.

  After standing, he tossed back the covers, took her hand, and gave a little tug. “Come with me.”

  She didn’t hesitate, didn’t question, simply slipped out of the bed, and like an ethereal being, limned by silver moonlight, she came into his arms. He captured her mouth with an urgency that he was grateful didn’t seem to frighten her. It was maddening how desperate he was for the taste of her, the feel of her, the warmth of her.

  Her fingers scraped up his scalp, tangled in his curls. He wanted them to remain there forever, to hold him in place so he could never stop kissing her.

  As for his own hands, they were sliding up and down her back, grateful for the thin linen of her nightdress that allowed him to feel the movement of her muscles as he adjusted the angle to take the kiss deeper.

  Perhaps it wasn’t his letter to the duke that had seen her selected. If she had put in her missive to the arrogant peer that she kissed with wild abandon, had described the enthusiasm with which she partook, had admitted that she wasn’t missish at all when it came to entangling tongues, the duke would have selected her without bothering to read any of the other solicitations he’d received. Griff didn’t want to consider that eventually the man would have this, would know what it was to experience her passion.

  Drawing back from the kiss, he intertwined their fingers, and it seemed as intimate a thing as entangling bodies lost to rapture. After leading h
er over to the window, he once again took possession of her glorious mouth. If he’d never been wounded, he wouldn’t have this now, her in his arms, moaning low as he plundered. But it wasn’t enough, in this darkened room, with only the moonlight. He wanted more, wanted to give her more.

  Feasting along her neck, he journeyed up to her ear and took the small lobe between his teeth as he freed the buttons of her nightdress. When he was done, satisfaction swept through him as she gave her slender shoulders a little shrug that eased her out of the linen and sent it gliding down her magnificent curves to the floor, leaving her bared to him, awash in the moon’s silver glow.

  “My God, but you’re beautiful.”

  She trailed her fingers over his chest, circled the tip of a finger around his nipple, as though mesmerized by the darkened disk, and he was glad he hadn’t taken the time to grab a shirt when he’d run from his room. “So are you.”

  Before she set them on a path of no return, he spun her around, so she faced the stars that seemed even more brilliant as they glowed now that the rain had stopped, draped her plaited hair over one shoulder, pressed himself against her, and settled his mouth at the curve of her neck where it flowed seamlessly into her shoulder. So smooth, so silky.

  “Watch the sea, Kathryn.”

  And in the future, when you look at it, remember me.

  She shouldn’t have brought him here, but this place had always been her sanctuary. After the awfulness they’d endured by the Thames, she’d been in desperate need of a sanctuary and had thought perhaps he’d been as well. Someplace to heal not only the physical wound but any emotional ones as well. She’d seen the toll that the duke’s betrayal had taken on Althea, couldn’t imagine that it hadn’t taken an equal one on Griff. To have plunged from the summit of Society with nothing to soften the landing when he’d hit the nethermost realm of existence.

  But now whenever she visited this little corner of the world that she loved, she would be reminded of him. She would hear his laugh in the wind that swept over the cliff, the low deep rumble of his voice sharing secrets in the parlor. She would see his blue-gray eyes as he watched her in the sunlight, his smile in the moonlight.

  And in the sea, whenever she looked at the sea, she would recall what it was like to have his hands caressing her breasts, his heated mouth languidly trailing over her back, along her spine, down one side and up the other. While in the distance, the water reflected the moonlight, and she wondered if it absorbed its glow as her flesh did the amazing sensations he created, or if it tossed it back to the sky, more brilliant than it had been when received.

  She loved when he glided his bare chest up her back, from her hips to the top of her shoulders. Then his mouth, open and hot, was on her nape, and his fingers were skimming lower, lower, past her ribs, over her belly, circling there, teasing, tracing along her hips, arrowing down slowly, giving her time to object to the intimacy. Instead, she placed her hands over his larger ones, partaking of the journey.

  As he neared his destination, she glided her fingers over his wrists and forearms, over the coarse hair that wasn’t dark enough to hide the raised veins or the taut muscles that now defined him, clasping the muscles just above his elbow, holding firm as his deft fingers tiptoed over her curls and parted the folds, before circling tenderly over the sensitive bud that had never known a man’s touch. The wondrous sensation that tripped through her explained why seasoned women went to his club in search of unfettered companionship.

  While Kingsland had called upon her, had even kissed her on occasion, nothing they shared had ever been like this, all-consuming, devouring, passionate. So why should she not indulge in pleasure when neither the duke nor she had committed themselves to the other. Especially when she cared so very much about this man. When she’d thought he might die, she’d wondered how she would go on in a world that didn’t include him. Even though he no longer wandered about in high Society, she at least knew he still drew breath.

  Even if it did sound as though he was having difficulty doing so now, his panting harsh and heavy.

  “You’re already so wet and swollen,” he rasped near her ear in a strained voice that made her wonder if the knowledge made it as difficult for him to remain standing as the delicious vibrations were making it for her to do so. “I love how quick you are to react.”

  “Is that not a testament to your prowess?”

  “It’s a testament to your lack of inhibitions, to your sensuality, to your own power. Your body wouldn’t react thus if you didn’t want it.”

  It? It wasn’t it that she craved, but him. She wanted him. It pleased her that he wasn’t boasting or taking credit but was instead crediting them both for creating this fire that was blazing within her. Could the match create a flame if the wood was not receptive to it?

  She started to turn—

  “Keep looking at the sea that you love.”

  She would give him that, if it was what he wanted, but she raised her arm and bent it back until she could tangle her fingers in his hair. She hadn’t the ability to not touch him when one of his hands was kneading a breast and the other circled her nether regions. Then he slid a finger inside her, and she couldn’t stop the whimper or the tautening of her muscles.

  “So hot, so tight,” he growled low as he worked his finger in and out. Another joined the first as his thumb circled her nubbin, pressing against it, sliding over it. “Christ, this isn’t enough for me, Kathryn. I want to taste you.”

  “Then, kiss me.”

  Coming around, blocking her view of the sea and the stars and the moon hovering on the distant horizon, he took possession of her mouth, her heart, her very soul. Even as she knew she shouldn’t give the last two aspects of herself to him. But she also knew they would never go to the Duke of Kingsland. Her grandmother hadn’t made them a condition of receiving her inheritance, hadn’t indicated she should marry a man she loved, only a man with a title. Why had she favored status over her heart? Why sacrifice this, a man adoring her, for position?

  She’d always admired, respected, and trusted her grandmother. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to have faith in her opinion on this matter, on her future, when the present was so deuced satisfying. When his kiss reached every aspect of her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered again, reverently. “Cream to be lapped up.”

  He cupped a breast, plumped it, and scattered a series of kisses over the soft mound. As the heat coursed through her, she dragged her fingers through his thick hair and then down over his shoulders, digging into the hard muscle. Then he closed his mouth around her nipple, sucked hard, tugged, and her whimper was one of pleasure and slight pain. His tongue soothed, and he suckled more gently, pulling glorious sensations up from her toes.

  He dedicated himself to ensuring her other breast didn’t feel overlooked. She adored the intimacy of being able to touch him as she pleased, wanted to touch all of him, but was careful with his healing wound. Images from the earlier nightmare threatened to return, and she shoved them away. Now was not the time for horror, not when he was doing such wicked things to her body, was causing such riotous sensations to burst forth that she wondered if it was even possible to survive the exquisite commotion that he was stirring to life throughout her, from head to toe to fingertips. How was she to have known that a touch in one spot would travel through every muscle, across every inch of skin?

  His large hands cradled her sides as he took a journey along her ribs, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. Sinking to his knees, he continued his expedition, along her stomach, dipping his tongue in her navel. Kissed one hip and then the other.

  Lowering his head, he kissed her right knee and then traced a path along her thigh, spreading her, opening her. He did the same with the other side, and when he was done, she was surprised to discover somewhere along the way she’d abandoned all modesty. She parted her legs farther, and his resulting groan turned her blood to lava. The heat swamped her. Her body tightened in anticipatio
n. She didn’t know what he had in mind, what his next move might be, but she knew it would result in gratitude.

  He tilted his head back, and his smoldering gaze nearly ignited her. “I used to be jealous of the sun for all the kisses it bestowed upon you. Now, I’m going to kiss you where it never could.”

  Burying his head between her legs, he kissed her most intimate center just as he kissed her mouth: open with tongue delving and exploring. Crying out, her thighs trembling, she dug her fingers into his shoulders, anchoring herself to him as he plundered. To keep watching him was too much. Falling into the depths of the wonder that he was creating, she looked out to the sea.

  In the far distance lightning flashed, hinting at more rain, momentarily illuminating his wide shoulders and broad back, glistening with dew. He was so gorgeous. She wanted more lightning. She wanted sunshine to flow over him and fill her with jealousy because it could touch all of him at once while she could only touch portions at a time.

  He suckled and stroked and teased. He swirled his tongue around the tiny bud and then closed his lips around it and tugged. The sensations built. She clutched his shoulders. “Griff?”

  “Let it take you under, Kathryn, to the deepest depths, and then the tidal wave can shoot you into the stars.” She hadn’t known he had such poetry in him or that he could accurately describe the promise that was thrumming through her veins with each stroke of his tongue.

  “I can barely stand.”

  “I have you.”

  And she knew that he did. Perhaps always had.

  When the cataclysm came, it rocked her to her core, a tempest that thrashed her about, wrecked her, and left her lethargic on shore. While tremors cascaded through her, he softened his attentive actions, slowed, licked gently before pressing a kiss to the heart of her. After rising to his feet, he circled his arms around her and tucked her face into the crook of his shoulder. She pressed a kiss against his heated skin.

  “I shall never look at the sea in the same way,” she said in breathless wonder.