A Hint of Wicked

by Jennifer Haymore

  Her lips wobbled into a tentative smile. “Tristan.”

  “May I sit?” He motioned to a spot beside her on the grass.

  “Of course.” Her voice was ragged, like a piece of silk frayed by the angry claws of a cat. He lowered himself beside her and turned toward the water. The crystalline current slipped over the stones in the creek bed, sparkling like millions of tiny diamonds in the sun.

  “I’m not leaving,” he said softly. His voice held just the slightest inflection of challenge.

  “Not this time, Sophie. Never again.”

  Her hand, curled tight in her lap, unfurled like a flower. Holding it open, she reached out for him.

  “No, you’re not leaving.” She looked up at him, her whiskey-colored eyes welling again with tears. “Garrett is. He’s riding after Fisk and Becky. And he’s not coming back.”

  It took a moment for Tristan to assimilate what she’d said. Then he took her hand in his.

  “Is that what you want?”

  Tears gathered on her lower lashes. “Yes.” She let out a low whimper as two big drops streaked down her face. “But… I do love him. I still do.”

  He reached out and pulled her onto his lap, careful of her wounded arm. She fit perfectly against his body. He stroked her hair, her face, and he kissed her tears away. They were salty, but they held Sophie’s essence, and they were beautiful. As she was. She loved Garrett, but she loved him, too. He could accept that. He always had.

  “I know, love. I know you love him,” he murmured, rocking her. “I love him, too.”

  “I’ll miss him.”

  “I’ll miss him, too, Soph.”

  Her good arm twined about his waist. “But, Tristan, it’s you I want. I love you. So much, I can hardly bear it. I don’t want to live without you anymore.”

  “Does Garrett know this?”

  Wisps of hair framed her face, brushing over her high cheekbones and red lips. Her lashes slanted over her eyes, arched to perfection, contrasting beautifully against her pale skin.

  “Yes. That was why I had to follow him. To… to say good-bye.”

  He gathered her closer. Her rounded bottom rubbed against him, and he grew hard. He stroked the outside of her arm, just beside her wound. The wound she’d risked out of love and loyalty to her family, to those she loved.

  She softened against him. “I have been unfair to you. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I pushed you away because I was confused and torn. I didn’t want to hurt him, either. I love you both, but…” Her voice dwindled.

  “But what, Soph?” he asked in a firm tone. He had to hear it. Just once. Just today, and then he’d never make her say it again.

  “You… you are the other half of my soul. You fulfill me. You complete me in a way nobody else ever has. It’s you I’m meant to stand beside for the rest of my life, Tristan. Not Garrett.”

  Another tear slipped down her face, and he kissed it away, then swiped his tongue over his lips to taste the salty droplet.

  She pushed the back of her hand over her eyes and curved her body more deeply into his.

  “I’m happiest with you, Tristan. It’s you I want, you I need.”

  “I need you, too, Sophie,” he murmured against the top of her head. “You are the other half of my soul, the only person who has ever made me whole.”

  He held her, thinking of the four of them—him, Sophie, Gary, and Miranda. A family once again. A few months ago, they’d been content together. It would be better now, because Garrett wasn’t dead. His cousin was alive. Gary’s namesake, Miranda’s papa, Sophie’s beloved. They could all rejoice in that knowledge. They would be happy again. Happier than ever.

  He nuzzled her hair with his mouth, moving lower to her forehead and nibbling over her skin until his lips met hers in a sweet kiss. She was eager and wanting and utterly submissive in his arms, under his hands and mouth.

  “I want to take you, right here,” he murmured.

  Their hands met at the hem of her dress, and they both pulled it up past her garters and over her knees. He laid her on the grass growing from the steep bank of the stream. They were well hidden from the inn and stables by trees and the outcroppings beside the water, but they could still be caught. He didn’t give a damn. By the way she rucked up her dress, he knew she didn’t give a damn either.

  Her hands reached for the falls of his trousers, and she unbuttoned them, then pushed the waistband over his hips. His unruly cock sprang out from its nest of black curls, and she gazed at it, licking her lips as if it was the most enticing confection she’d ever seen. He groaned softly.

  Staring at him, her eyes like whiskey swirling in a glass, she propped one foot on a nearby rock. He let his gaze rake up from her green half-boot to her stockings and her garter. A bit of pale thigh showed just under her raised hem.

  He slipped his hand beneath her skirts, finding the seat of her pleasure right away. He stroked her slick folds, and she threw her head back, moaning softly. He could make her come this way. He’d done it before. But not today. He wanted to feel her orgasm while he was inside her. He wanted to feel her come apart around him. He wanted to be holding her when it happened.

  He found the little nub that made her wild and stroked slick little circles around it, ramping her pleasure until a mottled flush crawled up from the white lace of the fichu tucked into her neckline.

  He slid one finger inside her, then two, and she arched up off the grass, gasping. “Tristan!”

  “You’re so wet, love. So ready for me.”

  “Take me then.” Her voice was a whisper. A promise.

  He withdrew his fingers, and then as she opened her eyes, he threaded his hand in hers, pushing it against the springy grass of the bank. And with one powerful thrust, he was inside.

  They were locked together. Two as one, and Tristan would never let her go. She tilted her hips to meet every stroke, each one bringing him higher, sending vibrations of pleasure traveling through his body.

  She let her left arm lie useless, but she ran her right arm over the dips and curves of his bunched muscles, up his cords of his neck and finally plunging into his hair. He gazed down at her to see her eyes wild with passion and intensity.

  “I want you, Sophie. God, how I want you.” He punctuated his words with deep thrusts, each one drawing a short gasp from her throat.

  “I want you, Tristan,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “What do you want?” He lowered his head, grazing his teeth along her jaw. She shuddered against him, clinging to his shoulder, pulling him tight to her.

  “You. Just you.”

  He supported himself on one arm, and brought his hand to her breast, tightening his fingers over her bodice and running his thumb over the jeweled tip he could feel despite the several layers of fabric separating her skin from his. She strained toward him.

  “I—” She gasped as he stroked over the spot again. “I need you!”

  He growled low in his throat, a feral sound of possession, and his hand closed fully over her breast. “I’m never going to let you go.”

  She clenched him powerfully, rippling up and down his shaft, and already he felt the tightness at the base of his spine.

  “I’m not going to last,” he shouted out.

  She whimpered. “I’m not—oh, Tristan—I’m not either.”

  He slipped his free hand between them, rubbing her furiously as he ground his cock into her, deep. Hot. Hard.

  His restraint snapped. He yanked himself out of her, until the head of his shaft rimmed her entrance, and then thrust in, wedged against her womb. Then he did it again, and again. Over and over, he pummeled into her until he could feel nothing but her. Taking him, accepting him, over and over. Rippling around him in spasms that sent deep pulses of pleasure coursing through his body. And she grew even tighter around him, tauter, like a bowstring quivering under a master archer’s hand.

  Every muscle in her body tensed, flexed to its limit. And then exploded. Her body bowed up into him
as release thrummed through it, rippling through her limbs and leaving her shaking helplessly, whimpering his name over and over.

  “Sophie,” he murmured. “I need you, Sophie. God, I need you.”

  Her orgasm grabbed onto him. Clinging to each other, they shuddered and moaned together as his seed poured into her body as if each drop was dragged from his heart, through his body, and finally offered to her—a gift born of himself. Her heartbeat seemed to thud right through him, into his veins, until he couldn’t separate her heartbeat from his own. They pulsed together, as one, riding the wave of bliss together. She held on to him with her good arm as his cock continued to clench inside her and her channel rippled in the aftermath of her release.

  The last pulse of his release flooded into her, and he was suddenly boneless, his arms shaking with the effort of keeping his weight from crushing her. She looked up at him, her eyes shining. She reached up and pressed her palm over his heart. “What I want,” she whispered. “What I need.”

  He lowered himself as gently as he could beside her, and he rolled to his back in such bliss he might’ve dozed off. Sometime later, she shifted beside him. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

  His eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at a puffy cloud drifting lazily across the sky.

  “Did you hear him at the stables?” he murmured.

  Yet they were too far from the stables and too close to the river to hear much of anything besides the low drone of insects and the trickling flow of the water.

  “No,” she said. “I felt him go.”

  He reached over to stroke her cheek. There were no tears now, just her silky skin beneath his fingertips.

  He rolled to his side to face her. “London?”

  Turning to him, she smiled and nodded, her eyes shining with happiness and contentment.

  “Yes. London. Home. To the children. To our family.”

  “Home,” he repeated. “With you.”

  He stared at the slope of her forehead, the tip of her nose, the shape of her chin. Her soft skin, the satin of her hair. The muss of her clothes, and the shape of her body he knew so well beneath them.

  Home with Sophie. Nothing could be sweeter.

  Turn the page

  for a sneak peak at

  A Touch of

  Scandal

  Chapter One

  An annoying heat crept into Kate’s cheeks as she hurried through the narrow passageway. If only she could learn how to hide her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she forcibly slowed her step, squared her shoulders, and lowered her eyes. She was just a servant, finished with her duties for the day, ready to make the threemile trek home. Not a flustered woman rushing out to a secret, secluded spot to watch a strange man—no, a god, more like—bathe in the nude.Kate paused at the threshold of the front parlor. “Pardon me, my lady?”

  She bobbed a curtsy as her mistress looked up from the novel she was reading. Lady Rebecca always kept her head firmly tucked in a book, and a pang of sympathy shot into Kate’s heart when the younger woman’s haunted blue eyes met hers.

  “Yes?” Lady Rebecca lowered the thick volume to her lap.

  Lady Rebecca was the sister of a duke, and her breeding showed in her expression, in her bearing, in her mannerisms. Today she wore a plain white muslin gown with a gauze fichu tucked into its rounded neckline, but neither the simplicity of her dress nor her relaxed position on the sofa diminished the evidence of her nobility. She’d kicked her shoes off and settled on the plum-colored velvet, her legs tucked beneath her. With her slender figure, her coal-black hair, and her midnight-blue eyes, Lady Rebecca was one of the most beautiful women Kate had ever laid eyes on, but there was a sweetness about her, a vulnerability, that drew Kate, that made her want to protect her, even to share secrets. No, Kate reprimanded herself. A shiver skittered down her spine. Some secrets were best left unspoken. Forever.

  Had the circumstances been different, she and Lady Rebecca might have been friends. But Kate was merely a servant, albeit an unconventional one, considering the fact that she slept apart from the rest of the household. Still, she’d rather have the freedom to sit beside Lady Rebecca and engage in a lively discussion about whatever it was she read with such passion.

  “What is it, Kate?” Lady Rebecca gazed upon her without really seeing her, but Kate was used to it. It was how the upper orders always looked at her—as an object rather than a human. She couldn’t blame them, for they didn’t know any better. It infuriated Mama, though.

  “Might I be dismissed, ma’am? I’ve prepared your bed, brought up fresh water, and set out your nightclothes for Anne.” Kate’s smile wobbled. The knowledge that she might see him again had butterfly wings tickling her insides. She fought not to squirm, but the mere thought of the handsome stranger made her skin prickle.

  Lady Rebecca waved her hand. “Of course, Kate. Please do go—I know you’ve a distance to walk, and—” She squinted at the drab chintz curtain covering the single square window in the parlor. “—it’s near dark isn’t it?”

  “I… think so.” Oh, please, Lord, let him be there today. Let me not be too late.

  “Yes, well…” Lady Rebecca glanced across the room at the door that led downstairs. The hope in her eyes was unmistakable. “The master should be home soon.”

  Yes, he should. He’d better. But Kate knew all too well he liked her to be gone before he arrived. Keeping her cheerful expression locked firmly in place, Kate inwardly grimaced. How could Willy leave his beautiful new wife so alone and lonely—a virtual prisoner in their home—day in and day out?

  Lady Rebecca turned back to Kate. “Of course you may go.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be here when you wake in the morning.” Kate dipped into another curtsy and tried not to break into a run as she crossed the room to the opposite door. Even so, the clack of her shoe heels on the wood floor announced her hasty departure, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Lady Rebecca’s brow tilt in bemusement as she watched her go.

  The cottage was elegant and expensive, but tiny, and certainly neither as elegant nor as expensive as a duke’s sister was accustomed to. Willy employed only four servants—Kate, the cook, the maid-of-all-work, and the manservant, John. The other female servants lived in the small room in the attic and John slept in a loft above the stable, but Kate walked back and forth to Debussey Manor daily.

  All in all, it was surely far less help than someone of Lady Rebecca’s breeding expected. Yet although she was a very young, privileged woman, she never complained. Kate admired her for that.

  Her cheeks still flaming despite all her efforts to douse the fire in them, Kate descended the last step and emerged into the drawing room. Glancing up, she stopped in her tracks, stiffening. John lay on the tasseled chaise longue, his stockinged feet crossed atop the cream-colored silk and his arm flung over his forehead.

  He cracked one lid open to gaze at her with a pale green eye, and Kate pursed her lips in distaste.

  “Leaving?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered curtly. Untying her apron, she spun round and strode to the closet behind the stairwell containing her cloak, though she doubted she’d need it. It had been a hot day. Feeling John’s eye on her, she pulled off her apron, hung it on its peg, and decided to leave her cloak here overnight. It wouldn’t be too cold to walk without it in the morning, and it would be a nuisance to carry both ways.

  “You look pretty today, Kitty. That color becomes you.”

  She cast a look down at her dull, pale brown work dress. How pleasant to know that brown was her color. “Thank you,” she replied.

  He chuckled but Kate didn’t look in his direction. John was negligent, arrogant, lazy, and, with his greased hair and pointed beak nose, unappealing. Whenever Willy was near, John’s manner was obsequious to the point of inducing nausea, but when Willy wasn’t home, he strutted about the place as if he owned it, even going so far as to be disrespectful to Lady Rebecca. Nothing raised Kate’s ire more than to see that
man’s disdainful attitude toward her mistress.

  She turned from the closet and strode to the front door. Opening it, she stepped into the pleasant late-summer evening. As she closed the door, John’s voice drifted lazily out.

  “Tomorrow, then, pretty Kitty.”

  Her lips twisted, and when the door met its frame, she shoved it hard. The tiny slam brought her a small measure of satisfaction.

  If John thought to seduce her with lies, he ought to think again. No man had seduced her yet, though a few had tried, and one had come close. Nevertheless, she’d promised herself long ago to never go down that particular perilous road. And with a man like John… not a chance.

  Still, it was best to stay away from him and make certain to avoid being alone with him. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who’d take her rejection to heart. Kate paused on the tiny landing and took a deep breath. Was she a hypocrite? She shook her head, thinking not. Watching was a wholly different animal than doing, after all. And John the skinny, lazy butler was a wholly different creature from the bronze god at the pool.

  Kenilworth’s gently curving High Street was deserted for the moment. The setting sun cast a hazy orange glow across the rooftops, and the houses and shops abutting the road shimmered in the haze.

  She turned and strode down the street with purpose, her shoes scraping against the hardpacked dirt. Ahead, a woman dressed in black with a dark shawl draped over her shoulders emerged from the front door of one of the pretty neighboring cottages. Kate bobbed and murmured a polite greeting as they passed each other. The woman smiled and wished her a good evening as the clatter of wheels and the sound of hooves heralded a coach and four coming from behind. Kate glanced over her shoulder to see the carriage, a closed, lacquered black beast, approaching, tossing up a billow of dirt in its wake. She picked up her skirts and hurried across the street in front of it, slipping through a broken slat in the old wooden gate onto a narrow path on the field beyond just in time to avoid a choking spray of dust.

  Through the trees just beginning to turn gold in preparation for autumn loomed the tall, jagged, ivy-covered ruins of Kenilworth castle. Keeping the castle to her right, Kate followed the overgrown trail that led along the bank of the brook. She skirted fallen branches and dead leaves, and before long grime caked her shoes and dampness seeped through her stockings.