Willful in Winter

by Scott, Scarlett

  “A bothersome fly, am I?” He was grinning that wicked grin of his that never failed to make her ache for him.

  How did he do it?

  “Yes.” Be strong, Grace. Be firm. Stand your ground.

  He took her in his arms, and she went willingly, because her body was a traitor to her mind.

  “Would a fly do this?” He kissed the tip of her nose.

  It was not what she had expected after the passionate kisses of the night before. Her hands were on his shoulders. Try as she might, she could not think of a single reason why she ought to push him away. The surprising tenderness of the gesture had robbed her of all ability to protest.

  “I can honestly say I have never experienced a fly landing on the tip of my nose,” she managed to say.

  “What of this?” He kissed her cheek.

  “No.” He smelled so good. And beneath her tentative touch, he felt so good as well.

  He stayed close, his lips grazing over her ear. “This?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  The heat turned into a roaring fire, scorching her. Need burst open like a blossom.

  His wicked lips found her throat, kissing a patch of skin she had never even known was so sensitive before. “Would a fly do this?”

  “Aylesford,” she protested, flustered. Flushed and longing.

  How he undid her, and with such tremendous ease.

  “Rand.” He nuzzled her cheek. “You smell so damned good, Grace. Like summer. I want to eat you up.”

  “Rand,” she echoed.

  There, she had done it. She had given in and spoken his given name aloud. It felt wicked and wonderful on her tongue. It felt wrong and right all at once, much like being in his arms did.

  “Brava, my dear.” His voice was low, laden with seductive approval. “Was that so difficult?”

  She shivered. Not because she was cold, but because his lips were lingering near her ear once more, and it was filling her with sensations the likes of which she had never before experienced.

  The last of her resistance melted.

  “Rand,” she said again.

  “Mmm,” he said, and it was just as before, a delicious rumble from deep in his chest.

  She thought of the way he had stroked himself in his sleep and said her name.

  And then she grew bold. Bold and reckless.

  “Kiss me,” she told him.

  She did not need to say it twice. He cupped her face in his hands and settled his lips over hers. The kiss began slow. A subtle exploration, as if he had all night. A gentle pressure, a slant of his lips.

  She sighed into his mouth and opened, rising on her toes to press her mouth against his. She wanted more. She did not want restrained or tender. She wanted powerful, possessive, demanding.

  She wanted him to eat her up, just as he had said he would.

  To pitch herself headlong into his flame and get burned.

  Tonight, he tasted of brandy. His tongue played with hers and she was bold, running hers right back along his. She suddenly felt as if she could not get enough of him. As if he were not near enough. As if she could not kiss him long enough or deep enough.

  Hunger and frenzy mingled, uniting to become one.

  He broke the kiss, gazing down at her with a glittering, blue stare. “Am I still bothersome, love?”

  “No,” she admitted, her lips tingling.

  She was alive, the wickedness coursing through her undeniable. Hunger for this man. Need for him. Why did he have to be so dratted irresistible? So handsome and self-assured? How did he always know just what to say, precisely how to touch her?

  Because he is a rake, cautioned Pragmatic Grace.

  “Do you still want me to go?” he pressed.

  It would seem he would not stop until he had her complete surrender.

  And she was going to give it to him. Because how could she not? He had routed her so completely, made his way past all her defenses, torn down all the walls of reason she had built around herself until nothing else mattered.

  Nothing but his kiss, his touch.

  “I do not want you to go,” she confessed.

  “Thank Christ,” he said, and then his lips were on hers again.

  Some part of her knew she should put an end to this. Or at the very least ask him what his intentions were. She could not allow him to do the deed. To take her maidenhead. Kissing him was one thing…the rest was…

  His fingers tunneled through her hair, tightening on her in a possessive hold and angling her head to accept the seductive onslaught of his kiss. He bit her lower lip. Desire rolled down her spine, pooled between her thighs in liquid heat.

  The rest was…

  Wonderful came to mind. Exquisite. Forbidden.

  Everything she wanted.

  He seemed to sense the torrent of emotion coursing through her because he tore his lips from hers once more. “You do not have to worry, Grace love. I will not make this betrothal inextricable.”

  “Inextricable,” she repeated, her mind fuzzy and dazed, struggling to comprehend.

  “I am not going to take your innocence,” he elaborated. “All I am going to do is give you pleasure.”

  He was going to give her pleasure.

  The beautiful man before her, Viscount Aylesford, unrepentant rake, arrogant lord, maddening, alluring, and everything she had never imagined she would want so desperately, had just announced his intent to give her pleasure.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  And then she kissed him.

  There was no question this time of who kissed whom, of who made the move first, of whose lips slammed upon the other’s. It was Grace this time, all Grace, and she did not even care. Everything else fell away. The curiosity she had been doing her best to ignore was back and it was bolder than ever.

  It refused to be ignored.

  He growled low in his throat, and then his hands were on her. Everywhere, it seemed, but as the bodice of her gown loosened while they kissed, she realized he had been plucking the buttons from their moorings. Her gown fell to the floor with a swift rush of air. Her petticoats were next. Followed by her stays.

  They were still kissing, moving toward the bed.

  Rakes were incredibly skilled at divesting ladies of their attire, it would seem. But she was too busy kissing him to care. Her lips were swollen. His tongue was in her mouth. He consumed her, overtaking all her senses. His scent, his touch, his taste, the sound of his heavy breathing, their kisses, the sight of his eyes burning into hers.

  He was kissing her with his eyes open, and she was doing the same. She did not dare close them for fear of missing out on one moment of this delicious embrace. Because surely this night could never be repeated. She would never again have Rand in her chamber like this, would never again be so thoroughly at his mercy.

  The realization cut through her, filling her with regret.

  He was kissing down her throat now, all the way to her collarbone, his knowing fingers plucking at her chemise. He pulled it over her shoulder, then bit her there. Nothing more than a gentle nip of his teeth, it sent longing arcing through her.

  It occurred to her that he was disrobing her and yet he was still fully clothed. And then she thought of how beautiful he had looked that night in his chamber, his chest bare. She wanted to see him again. But this time, she wanted to touch him too.

  She wanted the forbidden she had denied herself.

  She reached between them for the closures of his waistcoat, then plucked them free, one by one. He shrugged it away, and then grasped her chemise in his fists. In one swift pull, he drew it over her head. Cool air kissed her bare skin. She was wearing nothing but her stockings and his stare heated as it traveled over her.

  A sudden burst of panic hit her. He had seen other ladies naked before, surely. Many of them, if his reputation was to be believed. How would hers compare? Her limbs were too short and curvy, her breasts not as large as some ladies’. She attempted to cover herself.

  He
caught her hands in his and pulled them away. “Do not hide yourself, Grace. You are so bloody beautiful. More beautiful than I imagined.”

  He had imagined her nude?

  The revelation gave her pause, enough that he took advantage of the situation and guided her back toward her bed. Her rump connected with the mattress.

  “Get on the bed, love.”

  She was sure she should not. But she did as he asked, shimmying with as much elegance as could be mustered when one was clad in nothing more than her stockings with a gorgeous rake eating her up with his penetrating gaze.

  He opened the handful of buttons on his shirt before hauling it over his head. And then he was on the bed with her. And on her.

  “You are delectable,” he said, awe in his voice.

  His mouth was upon her before she could even form a coherent thought. But not on her lips. No, it seemed he was intent upon kissing every inch of her. His dark head lowered over her breasts first.

  One thing was certain when his lips closed over the peak of her breast and sucked.

  This night was going to end her.

  For a brief, wild moment as Rand sucked Grace’s nipple, he was convinced he was dreaming. That was how good it felt to have her lush, warm curves beneath him. To have her naked and flushed, her eyes glazed with passion, her body answering his every caress. To swirl his tongue over the pretty pink peak of her.

  But there was no denying the reality of the soft, taut bud tightening. Or the moan he wrung from her in the process. Nor the way her back arched, presenting both her breasts to him like offerings. Perfect handfuls, her breasts. Silken and round and oh-so-tempting. Creamy temptations topped with carnation-pink blossoms.

  Another realization hit him as he devoted himself to the delicious act of torturing the other breast in the same fashion and earning another throaty growl from her in the process.

  Her lips matched her nipples.

  And they were every bit as delicious.

  She was sensitive there as well. He rubbed his whiskers over them, testing her response. A breathy sound emerged from her. Learning everything about her was going to be a thrill unlike any he had ever known. With other lovers, he had never been so attuned to them. Nor had they been as exquisitely uninhibited as Grace was in her response.

  It was because everything was new to her.

  He was the first man to ever touch her thus. To take her nipples in his mouth. To own her body with his hands. To bring her to release. The last, he had not done yet, but he had every intention to this night before he left her bed.

  Something about that knowledge heightened his desire. Lust coursed through him, so potent and aggressive his ballocks ached. His cock had been stiff from the moment she had woken him, and no respite was in sight. Because he could not breach her barrier. He could not take her as everything in him roared to do.

  He could take this far enough. Just far enough to make her spend.

  Preferably on his tongue.

  But that would have to be all.

  He sucked hard on her nipple, and she mewled, and then her fingers were in his hair, sliding through it. Her nails were on his scalp, a delicate abrasion he did not think he could ever get enough of. He blew on her nipple, then caught it between his teeth and tugged.

  That made her gasp his name. “Rand.”

  God, yes.

  He liked that. And so did she. He did it again. And then he did it to her other nipple as well while he rolled the abandoned bud under his thumb. She thrust her hips beneath him, as if seeking to be nearer. It drove the moist heat of her cunny into the fall of his breeches. Into his desperately straining cockstand. And she was so wet, her dew coated him, sinking through the fine fabric of his breeches. He rolled his hips against hers in response, grinding himself into her core as he sucked her nipple.

  “Rand,” she cried out.

  The sound of his name in her dulcet voice made him harder still. He jerked into her, wondering how the hell he would ever make it through the night without sinking home inside her.

  You cannot, he reminded himself.

  She is an innocent.

  An innocent he would dearly love to debauch, completely and thoroughly. In every way. He wanted to claim all of her. To make her his. To keep her beneath him, at his seductive mercy, to make her body on fire for him. To make her weak with desire.

  But that was not to be.

  She was his feigned betrothed. He was not going to marry her. He was only going to make her come, and then spend the rest of the night alone in his chamber, stroking himself into oblivion on thoughts of what might have been.

  She moaned, her hips twitching. She was thrusting her cunny into his cock in a parody of lovemaking.

  And if he did not take care, he was going to spend in his breeches like a callow youth without ever even tasting her there.

  Or worse, they would get caught. How could he have known his Grace would be so ravenous, so responsive, so noisy?

  His Grace?

  The possessiveness he felt for her was absurd, and it distracted him long enough to allow her nipple to fall from his hungry lips. What the devil was he thinking? Had all the blood in his body rushed to his swiving-starved cock? He had not had a woman in… God’s blood, he could not recall how long it had been.

  He had parted ways with his last mistress and had fallen prey to ennui.

  An ennui which was nowhere to be found tonight, in Grace Winter’s bed. He had to taste her now, he knew, before he lost what little control he had over himself. He kissed his way down her body, caressing her everywhere as he went. The flare of her hips was a miracle. Her pale thighs were soft and supple beneath his hands and already parted as he worked himself there.

  “Rand?” she asked. “What are you…”

  He kissed her inner thigh. “Hush, Grace love.”

  He kissed the other thigh. Gently guided her legs farther apart. She was perfect there, pink too, a silken patch of auburn curls covering her mound. The bud of her sex was engorged, taunting him. Her scent reached him, flowers and woman. Sweetness and spice.

  And he could not delay.

  He lowered his head and flicked his tongue over her pearl. Gentle, rapid swipes at first, lapping at her, finding the most sensitive place.

  “Oh,” she keened, her thighs clamping on his head.

  She did not need to try to keep him there. He was not going anywhere. Not until she was shaking and crying out and spending. He wanted to make her wild with need. To work her into such a frenzy, she came so hard she saw stars. That frantic thought foremost in his mind, he sucked hard on her pearl.

  Sucked until she was bucking beneath him, shaking and crying out. She was spending already. Over the edge with the wildness of her release. He had not imagined she would be so quick to come, but since she had been, he would treat her to another.

  With great pleasure.

  Rand licked down her slit. She tasted so good. Better than the most decadent dessert. And the sounds she was making, the shudders rolling through her body, the thrusts of her hips, were building to a frantic crescendo inside him. He could not control himself. He was out of his mind for her.

  He thrust his tongue inside her entrance, penetrating her in shallow thrusts. She made a muffled sound of pure bliss. He glanced up at her, his tongue inside her, and their gazes met. She had pressed her hand over her mouth, presumably to stifle her cries. Her eyes were wide and glazed, the obsidian discs at their centers dilated wide with desire.

  She was flushed, her hair wild about her face, her breasts thrust in the air, and her cunny his to devour. So, devour it he did. Until she was coming undone again. She shuddered and undulated beneath him, riding out another wave of pleasure.

  He would have brought her to a third pinnacle, but he did not think his cock could withstand any more torture and denial. With great reluctance, he kissed her once more, and then kissed a path back up her lovely body before sprawling alongside her, his heart pounding. His ballocks drawn tight with the
need for his own release.

  One which would not be forthcoming.

  He sighed. And this was why one did not dally with virgins.

  But it had been worth it. So very worth it to be the first to make Grace spend.

  Indeed, if he could do everything all over, he would not change a bloody thing. This small part of her, this memory, would always be his.

  Even when she was not.

  Grace had been right. This night had ended her. She had exploded into a thousand glittering shards of light. There was nothing left of her. Her heart was galloping. A warm, delicious glow suffused her body. The center of her was still throbbing with the incredible aftermath of what Rand had just done to her.

  Yes, Rand.

  He would be Rand to her forever now. She did not suppose she could ever think of him by his title now that his tongue had been inside her.

  His tongue had been inside her.

  Good God.

  Slowly, the stupor of her pleasure began to ebb. Reality returned. With it, the realization she was naked save her stockings, and her feigned betrothed was clad in nothing but breeches, his bare chest pressed intimately to her side, his lips slick with her own dew.

  She stared at him, at the shocking yet erotic picture they made, their bodies aligned almost as one, his so masculine and different from hers. And then she could not help but steal another look at his mouth. Could not help but to imagine it there, between her legs. Making her wild for him, bringing her to heights she had not known existed.

  Nothing in the book had warned her about what Rand had just done to her.

  Nothing could have prepared her.

  But then she thought of other things she had read about in The Tale of Love. Specifically, actions a woman could take. Ways a woman could bring pleasure to a man. Her mind returned, inevitably, to the way he had been upon her entrance of the chamber. Asleep, moaning her name, stroking himself. Her gaze dipped lower and found the bulge at the fall of his breeches had not diminished at all.

  If anything, it had grown more pronounced.