More or Less a Temptress

by Anna Bradley

  Then he sank to his knees beside her, and turned her face to his with gentle fingers. He studied her for a moment, then said. “You look nervous, aingeal. Do you trust me to take care of you?”

  Hyacinth fiddled with a fold of her skirts. “Yes. It’s just that…well, you’re a large, virile sort of man, Lachlan.”

  He looked startled at this observation, but then he chuckled. “Have Lady Huntington and Lady Dare explained to you what happens between a man and a woman?”

  Hyacinth gave him a shy glance, but he was looking at her with such tender humor, a smile rose to her lips. “A little. Just enough to worry me.”

  “We’ll go slowly, then.” He reached down to remove her slippers. “There. Not too terrifying so far, is it?”

  “Well, no.”

  He began to slide the pins from her hair. He was careful, his fingers gentle. He caught his breath when the heavy locks tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. “So beautiful. I’ve imagined how it would look unbound since the first time I saw you.”

  “You have?” Hyacinth flushed, her heart leaping with joy. “Truly?”

  He laughed softly. “You sound surprised. I wonder what you’d think if you knew what else I’ve imagined.”

  He kicked off his boots, then stretched out beside her on the sofa, gathered her into his arms, and caught her hand again. “Touch me, leannan.” He slid her palm over his bare stomach. “Anywhere you like.”

  Hyacinth’s gaze roved over him, her lips parting at the glorious sight of this man spread out before her. He had a smattering of dark hair across the sculpted muscles of his chest, and lower down, under his belly button—the line of it disappeared into his breeches.

  She pressed her mouth against the center of his chest to feel the frantic thump of his heart against her lips, and he cupped his hand around the back of her head, urging her to explore his body.

  Encouraged by his breathlessness, she covered his chest with kisses, then slid lower to nip at his belly. Lachlan gasped, his fingers tightening in her hair, his neck arching as his head tipped back against the sofa. “Your mouth feels so good.”

  He curled her tighter into his side and trailed his fingers through her hair in smooth, steady strokes, catching at the long strands and murmuring with pleasure as the waves fell over his stomach.

  Hyacinth’s eyes fell half-closed. His touch was gentle, soothing, but she wasn’t at all tired. Her body hummed with a strange, restless energy, as if he’d tapped a tuning fork and set it vibrating deep inside her. It was a gentle hum at first, but as he continued to stroke her and she became conscious of the warmth of his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek, it grew until the urge to be closer to him was overwhelming. “Lachlan?”

  He swallowed, and squeezed her hip. “Yes?”

  “I want to see you…touch you.” His breeches rested low on his hips, still covering that most masculine part of him, and Hyacinth’s hand drifted lower, her fingertips sliding under the waistband.

  A low moan rose in Lachlan’s throat. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath, and his shaft twitched and jerked against his breeches, as if it was reaching for her. His hips arched when she loosened the buttons on his falls, then he dragged his breeches over his hips and down his legs, and tossed them aside.

  She stared down at him, her lower lip caught in her teeth. The hard, thick length of him was pulsing against the taut flesh of his belly, the flushed tip straining toward his belly button. “You’re…it’s…it’s so animated.” Faint heat rose in her cheeks at how foolish she sounded, but she hadn’t understood until now how alive this part of him would be.

  A strained laugh escaped him. “It is now.”

  His words faded into a strangled groan as her hand closed around him. Hyacinth’s mouth opened with surprise as she cradled his throbbing length in her palm. His skin here was thin, and softer than she’d ever imagined, but under that hot, silky flesh he was rigid.

  “Harder, aingeal.” Lachlan covered her hand with his, his fingers tightening until she was gripping him much more firmly than she would have dared otherwise. “Stroke me.” He moved her hand up, his hips jerking when they reached the tip.

  “It’s, ah…swelling.” Hyacinth’s voice was filled with wonder, and her own breath was coming harder as he writhed against her touch, broken moans and endearments falling from his lips as she stroked him.

  “Do you want me, aingeal?” Lachlan stilled her hand, and pulled himself gently from her grip.

  Want him? Her entire body was flushed and aching. She was certain if he didn’t touch her soon, she’d explode. “Yes. So much, Lachlan.” She fumbled for her skirts, ready to tear her gown off, but he reached behind her and loosened every button himself, and soon the silk of her gown, her fine cotton shift, and her tight corset were just a memory.

  Lachlan went still. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he eased her back against the sofa, his hot gaze moving over every bare inch. He slowly traced the curve of a breast with one finger, then circled a rosy nipple with his fingertip. “So pretty, aingeal.”

  Hyacinth’s lips parted in a soft cry. He was so gentle—just one of his fingers, lightly caressing her breast, but even that simple touch made her want to unfurl for him, to stretch and spread under his hands so she could feel them on every part of her body.

  His gaze darted to her face, then dipped back down to her breasts, a masculine smile curling his lips when her skin flushed in the wake of his touch. “You’re sensitive here.”

  She couldn’t speak, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He brought his hands back to her breasts and stroked his palms over her nipples, gently abrading them, sucking in a harsh breath when they hardened for him. He circled the peaks with his thumbs, his mouth opening when they turned a deep, dark pink. He held her gaze as he lowered his mouth to her breast. He paused to nuzzle her neck and press a kiss over her heart, then his lips were there, on her nipple, suckling her.

  “Lachlan.” Hyacinth’s back arched sharply at the exquisite tug and stroke of his tongue. Her hands flew to his head, her fingers clutching at his hair to hold him against her breast. “It’s so…oh. I-I don’t know what to do.”

  She felt his lips curve against her swollen nipple. “You don’t have to do anything, leannan. Just let me pleasure you.” He gave her nipple a final, teasing lick before kissing his way to the other straining peak to suck it into his mouth. “Let me touch you,” he murmured, sliding his hand over her hip. “You’re so soft here.” He stroked his palm over the skin of her upper thigh in a soothing caress, then he let his hand drift higher, higher…

  “Oh, oh…” Hyacinth’s breath tore from her lungs in a strangled moan as he opened her with gentle fingers, parting her folds to find the center of her pleasure. Then he was stroking her with his fingertip, his breath hard and fast in her ear, and she didn’t try to reason, or to think at all, but arched her hips toward his hand, utterly lost to him.

  * * * *

  He’d gone mad.

  The thought drifted through Lachlan’s mind as he kneeled between her legs, but it was snatched out of his head by her breathless whimpers, and the sensation of her warm, damp folds against his fingers.

  He stroked and circled and teased at her dewy flesh until she was crying out for him, her fingers tight in his hair, her body arching to get closer to his. His name was on her lips, and she was pleading with him to ease the ache inside her.

  And he…

  He was going to make her his.

  It wasn’t why he’d brought her here tonight, to Lady Chase’s deserted library. Touching her, kissing her, making love to her—those were dreams only, gifts never meant for a man like him.

  Scoundrel, liar, murderer…

  He’d been that man for so long, he hadn’t believed he could ever be anyone else.

  Until her.

  Because I love yo
u, Lachlan…

  As soon as she said those words, it was as if he’d been swept into a racing current, but instead of drowning, he’d broken the surface, coughing and sputtering, but cleaner than when he’d entered, the ugly stains fading into a distant memory.

  He didn’t deserve her, yet somehow she was his, and he could no more let her go than he could command his heart to stop beating. It made no sense he should be the one who’d been given the gift of her, unless…

  Unless it was because no other man could ever love her as much as he did.

  “You’re mine now, Hyacinth. I’ll never let you go. You’re mine.” He took her lips in a slow, lingering kiss. He was hard and aching for her, and every nudge or shift of his hips brought him closer to sinking inside her tantalizing heat, but he held back, the tip of his cock poised at her entrance, pausing for long moments to kiss her as he cradled her face in his hands.

  His mouth was still clinging to hers when he surged into her damp heat. He caught her gasp in his mouth, and then stilled, his body over hers, inside hers, the sensation like nothing he’d ever felt before. Lachlan was no monk—he’d had lovers—but never before had he been inside a woman, and at the same time still desperate to get closer to her. Her arms were locked around his neck, her legs tight around his hips. Her breath was in his ear. He was holding her tightly against his chest, and still, he wanted more of her.

  He was inside her, and even so, he wanted more.

  She touched his cheek to bring his mouth back to hers, and then he was moving—just the tiniest nudge of his hips, restrained and careful, and yet the exquisite pleasure of her slick flesh pulling his shaft deep inside her body tore a helpless moan from his lips. “Ah, aingeal. I’ll never have enough of you.”

  “I want all of you, Lachlan.” She raked her nails down his sweat-slick back, and the tiny sting and her breathless words made him wild. He began to thrust in earnest, his strokes long and even. He gritted his teeth as he held back his own release, until, at last, at last, she let out a cry and arched against him. Her body pulsed around him, so tight and wet and hot, and he buried his face in her neck, groaning as the astonishing pleasure ripped through him.

  They lay in each other’s arms afterwards, her head cradled against his chest, his hands toying with her hair until at last their breathing calmed. They might have stayed there all night, but for the chime of the longcase clock on the first floor landing.

  Five o’clock in the morning.

  Lachlan roused himself, gathered their scattered clothing, and helped Hyacinth back into her gown, resisting the urge to tear it off her again the moment the last button was secured. Instead, he clasped her shoulders and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

  Their night was over. Huntington Lodge, and his reckoning with Finn, awaited.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Of all my five granddaughters, I dared to hope you, Hyacinth, might manage to get through your season without a scandal.” Lady Chase dabbed at her eyes with the sodden handkerchief she’d been clutching in her fist since they’d left London that morning. “But oh, how wrong I was!”

  “Grandmother, I—”

  “Luring Lord Dixon into a dark library? Heaven and earth, child! What in the world could you have been thinking? No, no—don’t try and answer, for there’s naught to be done about it now. Your season is over. You’re ruined—and Miss Ramsey right along with you—and there’s an end to it. Oh, thank goodness I haven’t any more granddaughters, for I daresay I wouldn’t survive another season.”

  Lady Chase buried her face in her handkerchief, and commenced a loud wailing.

  Lachlan resisted the urge to slap his hands over his ears. He stood in front of the fireplace, his gaze fixed on Hyacinth. The morning had started badly, and had deteriorated with every mile they’d put between London and Huntington Lodge.

  To begin with, Lady Chase had been distressed to discover her granddaughter’s season had come to such a sudden, disastrous end. She’d alternately wept and scolded the entire way to Buckinghamshire, until Isla had retreated into a morose silence, and Ciaran began to give way to the restless agitation that usually preceded one of his bloodier brawls.

  And then there was Hyacinth.

  Before they left Bedford Square that morning, Lachlan told her he intended to take Finn aside the moment they reached Huntington Lodge, and tell him the entire truth about what had happened before they’d left Scotland. Isla’s attack, Baird’s death—everything he’d hidden, right down to the last detail.

  She had not been pleased at this revelation, to say the least, but Lachlan flatly refused to let her carry the burden of his secret. He was done with lies. When her arguments and pleading failed to move him, she’d squeezed herself into a corner of the carriage, turned her face toward the window, and hadn’t moved again for the entire ride.

  After what they’d shared the night before, Lachlan had had visions of a delightful journey filled with yearning smiles and private touches, but she hadn’t looked at him once since they’d left Bedford Square. By the time they reached Huntington Lodge his heart was aching, his muscles were screaming with tension, and he was as ready for a brawl as Ciaran was.

  He was in no frame of mind to speak calmly with Finn, but as it happened, he didn’t get a chance to say a single word to him. The moment they set foot in the entryway, all hell broke loose.

  Lady Chase fell into a fit of hysterics. Ciaran had worked himself into a sudden snit over Isla’s part in the Lord Dixon disaster, and Isla, provoked into a fury by Ciaran’s scolding, had chosen that moment to burst into angry tears, which sent Lachlan headlong into a temper.

  Only Hyacinth was silent, but it was a stubborn, ominous silence.

  Finn made several attempts to calm the chaos, but at last he threw his hands up in the air and ordered everyone into the drawing room. Since Hyacinth was the only one of the five of them who wasn’t either crying or shouting, he’d asked her for an explanation.

  He may as well have asked water to explain why it’s wet, for all the good it did.

  Lachlan stood in front of the fireplace, his hands clenched into fists, and waited in vain for Hyacinth to tell her family the truth—to confess she’d risked her own safety and reputation to protect him from a secret he never should have kept.

  Instead, she perched on the edge of the settee, her back straight and her hands folded neatly in her lap, fixed her wide, guileless blue eyes on Finn, and stubbornly refused to utter a single word in her own defense.

  Finn gave her a blank look when she finished her fragmented story. “At the risk of sounding like a half wit, I’m afraid I’m going to need you to explain once again how you and Isla were both ruined in a single evening. Hyacinth? What have you to say?”

  Hyacinth was patting Lady Chase’s arm, but now her hand went still. “Nothing, except to beg your pardon for my behavior.”

  Lady Huntington, who’d joined them in the drawing room, exchanged a puzzled glance with her husband, who held his hands out in an uncharacteristically helpless gesture. This uncooperative, stubborn Hyacinth was a new and incomprehensible creature, and neither of them knew quite what to do with her.

  “Hyacinth, dear.” Lady Huntington crossed the room and sank onto the settee next to her sister. “If you’ll only explain to us what happened, perhaps we can help.”

  Hyacinth didn’t reply, but continued to sooth her grandmother as if her sister hadn’t spoken.

  Damn her. Even now, with Lady Chase’s hysterics and Lord Huntington’s stern eye upon her, she refused to divulge his secret. With every second that ticked by in silence, the deafening howl building in his chest roared closer and closer to the surface.

  A roar of rage, because damn it, he was furious with her for endangering herself for him. That trick with Dixon—Jesus, when he thought of what might have happened, the number of ways she could have been hurt, he went wild with r
age and panic.

  Most of all, it was a roar of love—a love more profound than any he’d ever believed a hard, ruthless man like him could feel. A love that had burrowed its way under his thick skin and into his veins until she lived in every part of him, as essential to him as his blood, and bred into his very bones.

  Maybe he wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t the sort of man who’d let anyone—especially not his woman—take the blame for something he’d done. Damn it, he wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. Didn’t she understand that?

  “I believe I’ll go and lie down now.” Hyacinth rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’m afraid the journey from London has left me fatigued.”

  She gave them all an apologetic smile, but before she could take a step toward the door, Lachlan stopped her. “Do you think I’ll let you keep lying for us, Hyacinth? That I’ll let you sacrifice yourself to keep our secret?”

  She froze at his words. Her back was to him, but he saw her shoulders stiffen just before she turned to face him. “I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Stop it, Hyacinth.” He took two long strides toward her, his entire body trembling with the effort it took not to snatch her into his arms.

  Hyacinth and Isla exchanged a single, stricken glance, then Hyacinth’s anxious gaze darted from Finn back to Lachlan. “Mr. Ramsey, I can’t imagine what—”

  “Enough.” Lachlan caught her hand in his. “Enough secrets, and enough lies. I came here to tell the truth, and I want you to hear it from my own lips.”

  Finn huffed out a breath. “I’d like to hear the truth from someone’s lips, if it’s all the same to all of you.”

  Lachlan led Hyacinth back over to the settee. “Sit down, please.”

  Hyacinth sank back into her seat beside her grandmother, but her face was pale, and she clenched her hands in her lap as if she were holding herself together.

  “Hyacinth didn’t lure Lord Dixon into the library on a whim. Her actions were deliberate.” Lachlan turned to Finn. “I never would have let her out of my sight if I’d had any idea she would do something so reckless, so foolish—”