“You are right, Grace love. I will always want to debauch you,” he told her, hating himself for the hitch in his own voice. How easy it was for the seducer to become the seduced when it came to her. He did not feel like an experienced rake. He felt like he was drowning in her, drowning in his need of her.
Or inebriated.
Delirious on desire.
On her.
She stroked his cheek. A gentle caress. There was tenderness in that lone gesture which set him aflame. “Thank you for the gift, Rand. I will treasure it always.”
She did not need to fill in the remainder of her words, for he knew what she meant.
Even when we are apart.
Even after our feigned betrothal is at an end.
He swallowed against a rush of emotion he refused to acknowledge. He had pretended to be betrothed to her for a handful of days, and already, he never wanted this to end.
“You are most welcome,” he told her thickly, before taking the book gently from her grasp and setting it atop a nearby table. “But now, I do believe the debauching must commence. We do not have all night, more’s the pity.”
Rand had made an effort to learn more about her.
And he had brought her a gift.
And her foolish, foolish heart was pleased. Her reckless, naïve heart was feeling things. Bursting with them, in fact. Things she had no wish to examine.
Better to distract herself, she reasoned.
She had been thinking, all day long, about how she might bring him pleasure. She wanted to bring him pleasure. Grace glanced down at his breeches as he settled the gift he had given her upon a table. The fall of them was once more pronounced.
She mustered up all her daring and boldness. The Tale of Love had described a lady taking her head gardener in hand. They had been amongst the roses. She had undone the fall of his breeches and eagerly gripped his staff. She had then fallen to her knees, taking him in her mouth in loving fashion…
She closed the distance between them, her breasts colliding with his chest, and then she settled her hand over him there. The rigid outline of him pressed into her palm. A new sense of wonder rushed over her, along with an answering ache between her thighs. He was so large. And thick.
He hissed out a breath. “Fucking hell, Grace. What are you doing?”
The epithet should have shocked her, but it did not. The book contained such words. Filthy words. Delicious words. Tentatively, she stroked him through his breeches. He seemed to grow even larger.
“I am touching you,” she said. “Do you like it?”
His hand closed over hers, and for a beat, she feared he would pry it away. But instead, his clasped it, pressing her more firmly into him. “I bloody well love it, but I am supposed to be debauching you, not the other way ’round.”
“The gardener liked when the lady touched him thus,” she told him. “In The Tale of Love, I mean. He also liked when she took him in her mouth.”
He groaned as if he were in pain. “You ought not to have read such wicked things, love.”
“Is it true?” she pressed, the curiosity which had been dogging her gathering momentum. “What you did to me last night…would you like if I did the same to you?”
Another gust of air left him. His gaze grew heavy-lidded. His eyes seemed to burn into hers. It was as if nothing and no one else existed beyond the confines of this chamber. As if they were alone in the world, as if everything had fallen away.
“Of course I would, but Grace, that is not why I am here,” he said, his voice low.
“You are here to debauch me, are you not?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Together, his hand atop hers, they stroked him again.
“Then debauch me, Lord Aylesford.”
“Damn it, Grace,” he growled. “This is not fair.”
She smiled, sensing she was winning their skirmish. And then she rose on her toes, bringing her lips to his. On another groan, he devoured her mouth. She sucked on his tongue, desperate for him. For more.
She found the buttons on the fall of his breeches and began undoing them, one by one. As their tongues tangled, she discovered his hot flesh. He sprang forth, into her hand, long and thick and yet smooth as velvet. He guided her fingers around his shaft, showing her how to grasp him. How to stroke.
He moaned into her mouth, into the kiss. But this was not enough. She wanted to worship him in the same way he had worshiped her. She wanted to make him lose control. To reach the heights of bliss he had taken her to last night.
She broke the kiss. They were both breathless. Their gazes clashed and held. She lowered to her knees on the plush carpet.
“Grace,” he protested. “You do not need to do this.”
He was glorious, rising stiff and proud. She ignored him and leaned forward, licking around the bobbing tip. The taste of him was too good, musky man, sharp soap. She glanced up at him, her hair falling heavy around her shoulders. He was so handsome, it almost hurt to look upon him.
“Do you like that?” she asked, uncertain of what she should do.
The book had said the lady took the man’s staff in her mouth. But Rand’s staff was large. She did not see how it would fit.
“Christ yes,” he whispered.
She licked him again, her tongue whirling slowly over the head. In the low light of the brace of candles and the crackling fire, she could see a drop leaking from his tip. Curious, she licked it up. She liked the way he tasted. Liked everything about this. Liked the way he watched her, his gaze hooded, his eyes dark. Liked the pleasure she was giving him, the power to make this hardened rake feel as if she were debauching him.
She thought again of what The Tale of Love had said, and she sucked him into her mouth. His fingers sifted through her hair, and his hips jerked. He liked this.
“Fuck, Grace.”
Yes, he liked this. Tentatively, she took more of him, sucking, and licking, moving in time to the subtle rolls of his hips. Listening for the sounds he made. The low sighs. The throaty rumbles. She sucked again, harder this time, bringing him into the back of her throat, and still there was so much more of his length. She could not fit it all, so she gripped the base of him with her hand as he had shown her.
He said wicked things.
Words she had never heard before.
She wanted to make him say them again.
Her boldness grew. She felt strangely powerful, on her knees before him, making him lose control. She became aware, for the first time, of how beautiful it was to give pleasure. Every bit as great and heady a gift as receiving it.
“No more, Grace, or I will spend in your mouth,” he said, his voice little more than a guttural plea now.
But she was not finished. Instinctively, she exhaled through her nose, trying to bring him deeper into her throat. His reaction was instant and affirming. His fingers tightened in her hair. She moaned around him, her mouth full, her own desire throbbing between her legs.
There was something unbearably erotic about this moment. They were both fully clothed, and yet her lips were on the most sensitive part of him, just as his had been upon her the night before.
She was not going to stop until he reached his pinnacle.
“Grace,” he warned.
Still, she would not budge from her position. Nor would she stop. The only surrender she wanted this night was his, and she was determined to have it. His breathing was growing more ragged, his hips jerking forward, seeking more of her. And she gave him more. She gave him everything.
Until he stiffened, and the rush of his release was on her tongue. She swallowed it down, loving the taste of him. Loving the moment.
Loving…
Him.
Dear God. Surely she did not love Rand. She scarcely knew him. He was a jaded rake. Her feigned betrothed. He was only using her to gain his precious Scottish estate from his grandmother. And after he was done, she would never see him again.
Wiping a hand over her mouth, she sat back on her
heels, an unwanted realization washing over her. One she did not wish to even contemplate. No, she was not in love with him. It was not possible.
The passion and thrill of the moment had overwhelmed her.
“My God, woman,” he said, fastening the fall of his breeches and pulling her to her feet. “You will be my undoing.”
She could say the same for him, she thought grimly.
“Come here,” he said, his voice gentle.
The expression on his face was tender. Affectionate, even. He opened his arms to her.
And she went. She went with ease, laying her head against his broad chest, wrapping her arms around his lean waist. She pressed her ear over his pounding heart, inhaled deeply of his scent. He hugged her to him tightly and kissed her crown.
They remained that way for an indeterminate span of time, united in a way they had not been before. She unabashedly reveled in his heat, his strength, absorbing every bit of it and of him. He held her without an exchange of words or kisses and yet somehow imparted a world of feeling.
Tonight had moved him, she could not help but to feel, every bit as much as it had moved her. This thing between them—feigned betrothal, debauching bargain, whatever it was—had altered once more. There was more heart now, joining the heat.
She did not mistake the difference.
“Grace, love,” he said at last into the heavy silence. “I think you have debauched me tonight.”
She smiled into his chest. “I think perhaps we have both debauched each other.”
And she thought, too, that he had ruined her. Oh, not in the traditional sense. No one had caught him sneaking into her chamber. Not another soul knew what they were about. But he had ruined her in a different way.
In the way that she could not fathom ever feeling for another man the way she had begun to feel for this one. This wicked rake. This man in her arms.
The man she was pretending she was going to marry.
The man who, much to her dismay, she was beginning to fear she very much wanted to marry in truth.
Chapter Ten
As it turned out, the only thing better than imagining Grace Winter’s pretty pink pout wrapped around Rand’s cock had been…
Grace Winter’s actual, glorious pink pout—puffed and swollen from his kisses—wrapped around his cock.
The sight of her taking him down her throat, on her knees before him, her eyes closed as if in her own bliss, the breathy moans she had made, the way she had refused to stop until he had exploded, filling her mouth with his seed…now that was the stuff of legend.
Of absolute, fucking legend.
Rand was out of his mind over it still, even in the biting December cold the next morning, riding over the snow alongside Lord Ashley Rawdon and the Duke of Coventry. Hertford had been nowhere to be found this morning. Rand harbored a suspicion his friend was sneaking into Miss Eugie Winter’s chamber, but since he too was prowling about the halls in the darkest hour of the night, slipping into his own betrothed’s room, he did not dare say a word. And Warwick, his oldest and best friend, had fallen in love with Rand’s sister and refused to leave Lydia’s side.
Curse it all.
Meanwhile, he had known the single, most carnal, most delicious, most blissful experience of his life last night thanks to his innocent betrothed.
Perhaps not so innocent, he amended inwardly, and not his betrothed. But rather, his feigned betrothed, as she was so oft correcting him. And not nearly as innocent as she had been before she knew him, thanks to their sessions of debauchery.
Only two down and five more to go until Christmas Day.
How he would manage a third night of debauchery without losing what last shreds of his restraint remained was beyond him.
“What was that, Aylesford?” Lord Ashley’s voice sliced into his thoughts. “Did you just say fucking legend?”
“He did,” Coventry confirmed, ever pithy.
Oh, Christ. Had he said that aloud? This was further proof that he was going mad. He was losing his damned mind over an auburn-haired siren who had sucked his cock with more enthusiasm than any woman he had ever known. A beautiful, stubborn, outspoken, bold lady who liked to sketch and who smelled like an English garden and who had verdant eyes and a heart-shaped beauty mark on her throat…
Lord Ashley and Coventry were both looking at him expectantly.
A gust of unseasonably cold wind hit him square in the face, nearly taking his hat. He clamped a hand down on the brim, holding on to the reins with the other. “I said you are a fucking legend,” he improvised, addressing Lord Ashley.
Because everyone knew damned well his older brother, the Duke of Coventry, was as quiet as a mouse. Painfully shy. Likely a virgin himself. An odd gentleman, it was certain. Rand had no doubt Lord Ashley’s presence at this house party was due to his brother needing the aid when it came to courting.
Devilishly hard to find a betrothed when one did not even speak to the fairer sex.
“Ah, but am I a fucking legend or a fucking legend?” Lord Ashley quipped with a broad grin. “That is the question.”
Everyone also knew Lord Ashley was a scoundrel. His reputation was even worse than Rand’s.
“Is it true that you tupped an opera singer, an actress, and a nun all at once?” he asked, giving voice to the old rumor in an effort to distract himself from the wayward bent of his thoughts.
Namely, Grace Winter.
“Not true at all,” Lord Ashley said, his grin deepening. “The actress in question had been playing the role of a nun in her latest play. The opera singer did not resemble a nun in the slightest.”
Rand had never bedded two women at once. Bedding one kept him more than occupied. And deuce it, now that he had a betrothed, he could not fathom the notion of bedding another woman at all.
Ever.
How sobering.
How bloody alarming.
“Ash,” chided Coventry. “We discussed this.”
“Ah, how could I forget?” Lord Ashley cast a derisive glance toward his brother the duke, his tone turning bitter. “I am to hide my past lest it muddy the waters for brother dearest as he attempts to find himself a bride. Familial obligations and all that rot.”
“Bugbears,” Coventry said. “I am yours. You are mine.”
“Bugbears indeed,” Rand grumbled. For he had more than a few of his own.
In fact, he had one in particular.
“Poor Gill has no choice but to wed because he inherited,” Lord Ashley informed Rand. “Our father was a reckless wastrel. Could not be trusted with a ha’penny. Now Gill gets to pay the price. However, he is not particularly known for his ability to woo the fairer sex.”
That was rather putting it nicely, if plainly, Rand thought. The Duke of Coventry was more painfully shy than a lady fresh from the schoolroom.
“You are his rearguard, as it were,” Rand suggested.
“Precisely,” Lord Ashley said. “Brilliant, Aylesford. I am my brother’s romantic rearguard. I save his army from impending doom. Particularly, Miss Christabella Winter.”
“Miss Winter is assisting me,” Coventry bit out.
“She is the wrong Miss Winter,” Lord Ashley argued with his brother. “You said you wish to marry Miss Prudence, did you not? She is the eldest and the loveliest of all the Winter sisters. Miss Christabella cannot compare. If you would simply cease spending all your time being distracted by the hellion and instead woo the woman you are meant to wed, your chance of success would increase immeasurably. Before someone else takes your place.”
“Here now,” Rand felt compelled to intervene. “I would argue Miss Grace is the loveliest of all the Winters by far. With her auburn hair and flashing green eyes, not to mention her perfect pink lips…”
He trailed off when he realized Lord Ashley and Coventry were both staring at him. And then he cleared his throat, his ears going hot. Sweet God, he was not flushing. He was not. He refused to believe it.
“In love, are you, Ayle
sford?” Lord Ashley taunted, his lips twitching.
No. Absolutely not. Bloody hell, no. Not a chance. Not now, not ever.
“Love?” he repeated, scoffing. “Such an emotion is better suited to fools and naïve women who sigh over silly novels filled with drivel. Do you not think?”
“I believe love is possible,” Coventry said.
“With Pru?” Lord Ashley demanded, his voice suddenly sharp.
“Pru?” his brother repeated, raising a brow.
“Miss Prudence Winter,” Lord Ashley amended, making a great show of flicking a speck of imaginary lint from the sleeve of his greatcoat as he held the reins in a loose grasp with his left hand. “You know to whom I refer.”
“I did not question whom but rather your familiarity,” the duke said pointedly.
“Go to the devil,” bit out Lord Ashley.
And then he spurred his mount into a gallop, taking off over the snow-covered valley stretching before them.
Puffs of white filled the air in his wake, and Rand steadied his mount before turning back to Coventry, who was watching his brother’s rapidly disappearing form in the distance with a curious expression on his face.
“He is angry with me,” the duke observed.
“So it would seem,” Rand agreed, noncommittally.
“I think he has fallen in love with Miss Prudence,” Coventry said.
Love, again?
“Love is a fable,” he dismissed. “A fiction. It is something we tell ourselves to believe in to distract us from how horrid life truly is.”
“You do not believe in it?” the duke asked him, surprise marking his tone.
“I believed in it once,” he elaborated. “Long enough to watch my former betrothed in the arms of another man, a man I once counted as a friend.”
Coventry whistled lowly. “Brutal.”
“Yes,” he agreed shortly. “It was. A lesson learned, and all that.”
“But do you not think what happened was not the fault of love, but rather the fault of the lady?” Coventry persisted. “The problem is not that love does not exist, but that your love was misplaced.”
Willful in Winter Page 11
