Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3

by Scott, Scarlett

  For the last few years, he’d lived a life of quiet respectability. He’d thrown himself into duty, into repairing his estate, into living a life that was above reproach. And now he was about to cast his time of penance into the wind. His reaction to Tia shook him, he couldn’t deny it. He’d never experienced a pull so strong.

  Except for his painting.

  The unwelcome thought gave him pause. He hadn’t taken brush to canvas in five years. After Bess’ death, giving up the passion that had once consumed him had seemed the only fitting punishment for leaving her to die alone. In all that time, he’d never once missed creating the artwork that had once driven him. But he couldn’t keep himself from noticing the way the light played across Tia’s lovely features, bringing her burnished curls to life, rendering her a sultry Venus before his eyes.

  The old itch returned. He wanted to paint her. Nude. In his bed. Waiting for him to take her. The mere thought of it had him so hard he could scarcely form a coherent sentence. Good Christ, what was wrong with him?

  “Is something amiss?” she asked quietly, apparently sensing the change in him.

  He took a breath, trying to rein in the wild emotions stampeding through his chest. He hadn’t brought her to his chamber to paint her. He’d brought her here to have his wicked way with her. “No,” he lied. There wasn’t a need, after all, to unburden his darkness upon so light and gorgeous a creature. “I was merely admiring your beauty.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but if she didn’t believe him, she chose not to say so. “I very much like your beard,” she startled him by revealing as she reached up to caress his jaw.

  Her simple touch sent another surge of desire through him. He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her fingers as if they were meeting in a drawing room rather than his chamber. “Do you?”

  “Oh yes.” Her lashes fluttered over her eyes, briefly shutting him out. “I like its rasp against my skin.”

  Heath kissed a path to her wrist, turning her palm up. Her heartbeat was a steady thrum against his lips. He rather enjoyed employing a slow, unhurried seduction on her, and he fancied she felt the same. He rubbed his beard against her inner wrist, testing her reaction. “Do you like this?”

  She licked her lips. “Yes.”

  Heath found the fastenings of her dressing gown, pulling them open to reveal a white nightgown beneath, and stepped closer to her, running his beard along her throat. “And this?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice a throaty murmur. Her hands fluttered to his shoulders as she rubbed her cheek against him in response. “Oh my, yes.”

  Her scent invaded his senses again. His fingers went to the line of buttons on the front of her nightgown, pulling them from their moorings. Slowly, inch by inch, her creamy skin was revealed to him. The tempting curves of her breasts came into view. Damn, but he wanted her naked. He cupped the heavy mounds in his hands, gratified when her hard nipples poked hungrily into his palms.

  Heath lowered his head and ran his beard over her nearly bared bosom. “What of this?”

  “Mmm.”

  He liked the sound of that, so he flicked open a few more buttons and peeled away her gown, pulling it down her shoulders and arms so that every inch of her was visible to him from the waist up. Her breasts were full and round, the taut peaks the same luscious pink as her lips. A slight flush tinged her skin where he had rubbed her with his beard. He liked seeing his mark on her. The signs that, for tonight at least, she was his.

  She was watching him through half-closed eyelids. “Kiss me, Heath.”

  The sound of his name in her throaty voice was as erotic as her standing half-nude before him. “Where?” he asked, framing her breasts with his hands as he once more lowered his head. He pressed a kiss on one stiff nipple. “Here?” He moved to the other, kissing it too. “Or here?”

  “I’m not certain,” she murmured. “Perhaps you should try it again.”

  The naughty thing. He glanced up at her as he drew one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking. The open, unabashed expression of passion on her face was nearly enough to make him gather her back up in his arms and take her straight to bed. But he couldn’t do that. Not yet. First, he would make her mad with wanting.

  He used his teeth, gently tugging, gratified when he won a moan from her. Her fingers sank into his hair. He sucked again before dragging his mouth away at last, her nipple leaving his mouth with a wet, lusty-sounding pop. “Shall I try it again?”

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she pulled his face to hers, fusing their lips in a passionate, open-mouthed kiss. He ran his tongue against hers, his cock going even more rigid. He wanted to be deep inside her in exactly the same way. Heath’s ability to leisurely woo her was about to disappear faster than a gold pocket watch in White Chapel.

  With a groan, he tore his mouth from hers before going to work on shedding his evening attire. His jacket went first, flung to the floor, followed by his waistcoat. She helped him with his necktie, seemingly as eager for him as he was for her. He didn’t even bother with the buttons on his shirt. He rent them, tearing from end to end and shrugging his shirt away.

  “I fear you’ve done it irreparable damage.” Tia’s gaze lingered on his bare torso like a caress.

  He caught her to him, starving for the feel of her bare flesh pressed to his. He wasn’t disappointed. The tempting points of her breasts poked his chest. “I don’t give a damn,” he told her, just before taking her mouth once more.

  They moved as one toward the bed, he leading and she taking steps backward. In those few steps, he tried to summon his conscience, to remind himself that he had not come to Penworth for a dalliance but to find a wife. That he had come so far only to fall back down into the abyss once more. That the glorious woman in his arms deserved more than one night of reckless lovemaking.

  But his cock was a hard reminder in his trousers that this night could only end in one way. He and Lady Stokey may have begun the house party as strangers, but they would end it as lovers. When they reached the bed, he stopped them, reminded of his need to remove her nightgown the rest of the way. He pressed kisses down her throat, stopping only when he reached the hollow between her breasts. His fingers located the thin line of buttons keeping him from heaven.

  Tia, perhaps sensing his urgency, grabbed both sides of her half-discarded nightdress and shimmied her hips, pulling it down until it landed in a puddle of fine linen at her feet. She stood before him, naked and lovelier than he could have possibly imagined. The urge to paint her rose again within him, stronger than before. Her form was impossibly perfect, her waist nipped, her hips full, her mound flanked by pale, exquisite thighs.

  His mouth went dry as he stared at her, and he knew in that instant that despite all his promises to himself, despite his not having created so much as a charcoal sketch in the last few years, he would paint her. It was inevitable. As inevitable as this moment between them now had been. From the second she’d wandered around the corner in the maze, prettier than a butterfly and every bit as delicate, Fortune’s wheel had dealt him a turn that was as thrilling as it was dangerous. Because he could very easily lose himself in the passions he’d once known. And no other woman had ever brought him so close to pitching himself back into the flame.

  “Do you not like what you see?” Tia asked then, interrupting his weighty thoughts with her hesitant voice.

  He realized then that she must have misread him. If he hesitated, it was merely because of the weight of his thoughts, not because she wasn’t the most breathtakingly gorgeous woman he’d ever seen nude before him. Because she most assuredly was. No other could compare to her.

  “On the contrary,” he reassured her, catching her hand in his and pressing it to his brick-hard cock. Her fingers found the outline of his arousal, skillfully working him from root to tip through his trousers. The breath fled from his lungs.

  “Do you like this?” Her tone turned teasing, sultry, as she repeated the very question he had asked of her not long before.<
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  She was a woman who knew what she wanted, a lusty woman with an unapologetic sense of who she was. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. To follow him through the halls of Penworth when at any second a door could’ve opened or a servant could’ve rounded the bend, catching them. Damn if her forthright nature, her willingness to meet him seduction for seduction didn’t arouse him even more.

  “Perhaps you would like this,” she murmured, pulling open the fastening of his trousers.

  His cock sprang free and he’d never been happier that he had a habit of eschewing small clothes. He couldn’t abide by the extra layer. Never had. Now the lack of a barrier seemed fortuitous indeed. Especially when Tia gripped his shaft and sank to her knees. Dear, sweet Christ. She was going to take him into her mouth.

  Her brilliant gaze fixed firmly on his, she licked a circle around the tip. “What of this?”

  “Jesus, Tia.” The gentleman in him reminded him that he ought not to simply abandon all sense of proper conduct and allow her to suck him as if she were no better than a common doxy. But he couldn’t summon the restraint. Her lips parted and she took his cock deep into her mouth. He couldn’t suppress the moan that escaped him, couldn’t stop from jerking into her, couldn’t keep his hand from sifting through the soft cloud of her hair, wrapping it around his hand.

  She sucked him back into her throat, then retreated to lick along the underside of his shaft, circling him with her tongue. The sight of her before him, her bare feet peeking from beneath the swells of her sweetly rounded bottom, her full breasts grazing his thighs as she worked his cock, was enough to make him fear that he would spend himself right then and there. She cupped his balls as she sucked and took him back into her throat. Every part of his body clamored for release.

  No, damn it. Not yet.

  Before he lost himself entirely, he used the hand he’d fisted in her hair to hold her still when she reached his tip again. “Stop, darling.”

  She flicked her tongue against him, giving him a look that was part siren, part innocent. “You don’t like it?”

  “I love it.” Damn it all. One night of her would never be enough for him. He saw it for what it was. He was hopelessly, helplessly in her thrall. “But I want to give you pleasure.”

  He wondered then what sort of other lovers she’d had. The kind who had accepted her gift of pleasure without returning it? Very likely. He would show her what she had been missing. He caught her arms and pulled her to her feet before guiding her to the bed and giving her a hand up. She lay back, watching him wordlessly.

  “Open your legs for me,” he said, part command, part request. It was his turn to ply sensual torture, and he’d never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted to make Tia come on his tongue.

  Tia was sprawled across the Duke of Devonshire’s bed, her body on fire for him. He stood before her, dropping his trousers, his eyes a possessive brand that never left her. His cock was magnificent and hard, jutting from between his thighs. She had taken him in her mouth, and it had aroused her beyond belief. Never before had she been so bold and wanton with a lover, but something about the man before her brought out a wild streak she hadn’t known she possessed.

  His demand that she open her legs to him made a new ache of desire pulse there. She was already wet for him, utterly ready. Tia watched him as he joined her on the bed, his figure all lean angles and rigid muscle. He must have indulged in a great deal of labor to have such a fine form, she thought before he lowered his head to press a kiss to her inner thigh.

  Good heavens.

  Then, all thought ceased to exist, for his wicked mouth moved next to the plump nub peeking from between her folds. His tongue shot out to tease her, playing over her with a practiced skill that had Tia jerking off the bed as pure pleasure shot straight through her. She moaned as he sucked hard on her, the same way he had her nipples earlier, drawing her very near to the edge of release. No one had ever pleasured her in this way, loving her with his lips and tongue until she was frenzied beneath him.

  He sank a finger inside her, probing deep as he continued licking and sucking. The breath left her lungs and she arched into him, wanting more. Deeper. All of him. Suddenly, the sensations were too much. She was spiraling helplessly out of control. Her release was swift and hard as he slid a second finger inside her, making her body quiver as white-hot bliss blossomed from her core, spreading to overtake her.

  Heath rose over her, his mouth glistening with her wetness, unbearably handsome. He looked in that instant, with his blond hair, powerful body and masculine beard, like a Viking conqueror of old come to take her. She reached for him, pulling him down atop her, thinking that she could live the rest of her life and never forget this night, the raw desire, the heights to which he had taken her.

  He guided his cock to her slick entrance, the tip grazing her in a maddening way. She wanted him inside, buried to the hilt. A crude word rose in her mind then, one ladies dared not say or think, but one that seemed to fit in its elemental way. Fuck. Yes, that was it. She wanted him to fuck her. The sentiment was so wicked she didn’t dare say it aloud.

  “Please,” she said instead. “I need you inside me.”

  Tia was not a woman who begged. Indeed, she was quite proud, oftentimes to a fault. But he had brought her low. Made her into someone she didn’t even recognize, someone willing to thumb her nose at propriety, someone willing to risk scandal and follow a man she barely knew to his chamber and his bed all for a taste of passion. Even if it had been worth it. Every delicious second of it.

  “Not yet,” he told her in a voice low and laden with promise.

  He took her nipple into his mouth again, drawing on the taut peak until she cried out, forgetting that she ought to keep quiet. He licked a lazy circle around it before glancing up at her. “Hush, darling. We don’t want to wake Tuttleworth.”

  And then he caught her sensitive nipple between his teeth, tugging. Oh, the wretch. How did he expect her to keep her silence when he was tormenting her so? She bit her lip, trying to keep her cries under control. But he was hell-bent on driving her wild, and it was increasingly difficult to rein herself in.

  The tip of his cock sank inside her then, and she couldn’t help it. To the devil with Tuttleworth. She moaned and jerked against him, wrapping her legs around his hips, welcoming him into her. Tia didn’t want to go slowly. She wanted fast and hard and deep. She wanted to be claimed. Devoured.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, surging inside her another measure.

  She knew he’d wanted to go slowly, and she had to admit that she rather enjoyed his inability to deny himself. It meant that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. It gave her a sense of power. “Is something amiss?” she asked, keeping her tone deceptively innocent as she moved again, bringing him deeper.

  “Minx,” he accused without heat. He sucked her other nipple and then braced his arms on either side of her head, gazing down at her. “I wanted to give you pleasure.”

  “Oh, you have,” she assured him, jerking her hips once more. “And you will.”

  “Sweet Jesus.” He groaned, and then he lost himself completely, surging into her so swiftly that it quite took her breath. He was buried inside her to the hilt before withdrawing only to sink inside her again.

  Her fingers tunneled through his hair, pulling his mouth down to hers for a lush, open-mouthed kiss. His tongue tangled with hers. She was very close to reaching another climax. The combined sensation of him within her, his mouth on hers, his hard body pinning her to the bed, was enough to undo her. He seemed to know precisely how and what she wanted, thrusting into her, consuming her with his mouth and his cock both.

  She kissed him back, matched his rhythm thrust for thrust. Their coupling was fast and furious. Decadent and thrilling. Everything she wanted. Suddenly, she couldn’t get enough of him. He reached between them to toy with the plump nub hidden within her folds again, flicking it back and forth with just the right amount of pressure. Pl
easure shot through her. The combination of it all was too much. Too potent. She was going to lose herself.

  “Heath,” she cried out, climaxing so quickly it was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. Potent, powerful. But oh so wonderful.

  He pounded into her, still nipping at her lips with small, quick kisses. And then, suddenly, he lost himself inside her, his seed spilling deep into her womb with a series of rapid strokes. Tia twisted up off the bed, taking as much of him as she could.

  “Tia,” he said against her mouth. “Ah, sweet Tia.”

  She had never felt closer to another human being in her life. An exquisite sensation enveloped her. She knew well enough to know the bliss that washed over a woman after a skillful bout of lovemaking. But this was different. Different enough to excite her and frighten her all at the same time. He kissed her again, deliberately and open-mouthed. Possessive. And any misgivings Tia may have had were banished. For the moment, at least.

  Heath woke to the earliest glimmers of morning sunlight filtering in through the drawn curtains. He blinked and rolled over, stretching. Damn, he hadn’t felt this bloody good in quite some time. His body was relaxed, satisfied and replete. A deep sense of satisfaction filled him all the way to his bones, something he hadn’t felt in as long as he could recall.

  Not since Bess.

  Thoughts of his betrothed now brought reality to him with an uncompromising jolt. Tia. Good God. He had fucked Lady Stokey last night as if she were no better than a well-practiced whore. Had carted her back to his chamber with shocking disregard for her injured ankle, stripped her bare, sucked and licked every delicious inch of her beautiful body before burying his cock in her hot, tight cunny.