by Tamara Gill
Callum ran a hand through his hair, a pained expression crossing his handsome features. “Nothing. Everything.” He sighed. “Do you really want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Yes.” She nodded, hoping it was equivalent to her thoughts.
He raised his brow, leaning in and placing small kisses against her neck. “I’m thinking that I want to push you up against the wall, slide those very tight breeches that will haunt me for years to come, from your legs, and ruin you here and now.”
Alice shivered at his words, her mouth parched from her ragged breathing. His lips left a line of fire across her chest and her fingers curled into his hair, holding him close, loving the sensations he brought forth within her. “And what is it that you’ll do, my lord?”
He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m going to set you on your feet, walk you to the door, and not allow myself to follow you lest you only make it to the kitchen downstairs.”
The hunger in his gaze left her speechless and solidified exactly what she wanted. She didn’t want to go, nor did she want anyone other than Callum to propel her into womanhood in its most delicious, decadent way.
She clasped his breeches and pulled him back against her, his eyes, dark with need, widened and he shook his head. “You’re playing with fire, Alice, and trust me, you don’t want to be burned.”
Alice leaned forward and kissed his chest, tasting the salty residue of his hard work. “You’re wrong, Callum.” She untied the little string at the top of his pants that held them together. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” Next, she flicked the top button on his frontfalls, watching as understanding dawned on Callum’s face. Excitement over what they were about to do made her ache, literally ache, between her legs. “And I’ve always had a thing for fire, its complexity and heat, its power and wildness.” Another button slipped undone and the front flap of his pants fell away. With a boldness she didn’t know she possessed, Alice slid her hand in and against his bulging flesh, wrapping her fingers about his length.
She bit her lip, watching him as she stroked his shaft, his breathing ragged. Callum reached out and clasped her face, his eyes fierce with a need that left her breathless.
“Are you certain?” He kissed her quickly, gasping against her lips when she tightened her hold of him, stroking long and sure.
Alice nodded. “I am.”
Her words had the effect she hoped, and, throwing all caution aside, Callum did exactly what he’d said he would. He pulled her off the workbench and ripped her breeches from her body, leaving her as bare as the day she was born from the waist down.
With no time for modesty, he lifted her up again on to the table, shucking off his own pants before dragging her against him, rubbing her flesh and leaving her moist and impatient.
“I want you so much,” he said, kissing her deep. Alice lost herself in the moment, enjoying the awakening this frenzied need brought forth.
She’d never known a man’s penis was so soft, yet hard. It was the most odd, yet brilliant, thing she’d ever beheld. And Callum himself was unexpected. He shivered, pushed himself against her, laved kiss after kiss upon her, touch after delectable touch, so different to how Alice had thought her first time with a man would be.
Having spoken to young wives in town, a lot of them had said the marriage bed, or workbench in this instance, was uncomfortable, over quickly and unsatisfying, unless it resulted in a child.
And yet, the looks she’d seen her sisters bestow on their husbands, and the way Callum was looking at her now, like she was his whole world, that everything started and ended with her, made her wonder if those women were merely unlucky in their choices.
That perhaps there were men in the world who gave and received pleasure equally.
Callum’s hand slid down her hip, clasping her bottom before touching her stomach and delving between her legs. She moaned, clasping his nape. The bold embrace against her most private of places relieved a small amount of need that coursed through her, but still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Much more.
“You’re ready for me.” Callum nipped her lip and she moaned as he slid one finger within her. Her body seemed not her own, and wrapping her legs about his hips she pulled him closer, liking the feel of him inside her, pushing against a secret little spot that left her breathless and in need of him. All of him.
“Damn it, I need to go slow with you, but you test my self-control.”
Alice liked the sound of his voice, rough and without restraint. That she, Alice Worthingham, had made a gentleman want her, exhilarated her more than anything ever could.
Impatient for more, Alice placed the tip of his member against her and urged him to finish what they’d started. Callum took deep, calming breaths against her neck, the muscles across his shoulders taut and fighting what Alice had recognized as a losing battle.
For today was, when she thought back on their association, always going to happen. For weeks a simmering attraction, a flirtation, had thrummed between them. Yes, they disagreed, argued even, but always, beneath such repartee, there’d been this. A conflagration of two bodies, two souls that would never be satisfied unless they were together.
“Damn it all to hell. I have to have you.”
Alice gasped and stilled as Callum thrust deep and hard into her, taking her virginity within a moment of time. He stopped moving, holding himself against her, kissing the lobe of her ear while whispering sweet apologies over the pain he’d caused.
The sensation of him seated within her was…different, to say the least. Where once she was empty, now she was heavy and full. She realized, with some relief, that she liked him where he was.
“I’m sorry, love,” he said.
She shook her head, wiggling a little to accommodate him more. “I’m fine. In fact, I’m more than fine.” Her voice sounded breathless, wanton even. Callum swore under his breath before he slowly pulled out and then slid back in again with exquisite care.
“Tell me if you wish me to stop.”
Alice pulled him down for a kiss, relishing in the feel of his lips against hers while their bodies were together in other, more delicious places. This act between a man and a woman was truly a marvel, and the more Callum increased his pace, sliding his hands about her bottom and shifting her a little against him, made her body sing and climb to pinnacles she’d not known existed.
She clasped the nape of his neck, holding herself against him as he pushed into her, dragging her into a world he’d only recently shown her to exist. Alice wrapped her legs about his waist, feeling the wood beneath her bottom, and the hard planes of Callum before her. If only they were naked, to have him kiss every part of her body, to tease her as he’d done the night before.
The fleeting thought that this could happen again, if they snuck away and used the cottages late at night, thrilled her beyond anything.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed against her lips, watching her as he led her toward a pinnacle, a relief from this desperate yearning that grew to a conflagration of pleasure. “I can’t get enough of you,” he gasped.
Alice shivered at his words. She was so close, her whole focus shifted to where they were joined and she fought for release. Needed to shatter in his arms with him inside her.
“Keep going,” she begged as he pushed hard and deep, quick strokes that threatened her hold on reality. “Don’t stop, Callum.”
Callum’s strokes became harder and faster and then exquisite torture burst through her body like a ray of light. Alice moaned his name as tremor after tremor racked her core before Callum’s own shout of ecstasy sounded against her throat.
They stayed entwined for a little while, until their breathing was level and heart rates calm.
Callum stepped back, a sheepish look to his face that made her laugh. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Truly?”
Alice slid off the workbench and, leaning up against him, wrapped her arms about his neck. His hands came about and clasped the globes of he
r bottom and even after all they’d done, her body purred with expectation. With a need only he brought forth. “I told you I’m fine. What I would like to know is when we shall do that again.”
He grinned, shaking his head. “Minx.” He laughed. “Not today, but perhaps in a few days’ time. I must travel to London, but I’ll be home four days hence.”
“London?” Alice stepped out of his hold, wondering what would take him to the city. Was it the unpaid debt he owed that took him there? The thought of him trying to garner more time to pay his cousin’s debt, against people who had little care for other’s concerns, left dread churning in her stomach. “Why?”
“Estate business, nothing to concern yourself with.” He tapped her nose, and bending over grabbed her breeches. As he stood, Callum ran his hand along the inside of her leg. She shivered. “I’ll miss you when I’m away, and I’ll think of nothing but you and your delectable self.”
Alice slapped his arm, taking her breeches from him. “I’ll miss you, as well. Don’t stay away too long.”
“Nothing would keep me away,” he said, kissing her deep and long and all thoughts of London and why he was traveling there floated out of her mind when he picked her up and threw her onto the bed, before joining her.
“You may be right,” he said, sliding his hand under her shirt and touching her breast. His fingers circled her nipple and Alice bit her lip, her body aching for more of the same. “Waiting four days before I touch you again is too long.”
Alice chuckled, but allowed him his way, only too happy to have him exactly where he was.
“I agree,” she sighed.
It was many hours later before Alice rode out of Ashford and toward home.
Chapter Sixteen
All was well at Dunsleigh until, two days after Callum’s departure, the house was in an uproar. Victoria bounded through her bedroom door as Alice was having her maid put the finishing details to her toilette. Today she’d opted for a few sprigs of blossom in her hair, and overall, she liked the effect the white little blooms had on her light locks.
“Mama is beside herself. Her room, Sister, is beyond redemption, and you must come and calm her immediately.”
Alice stood, dismissing her maid and waiting for the girl to leave before speaking. “Why, what’s happened?” The despair on her sister’s visage raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
“The emerald brooch is missing. Mama swore she left it in the drawer beside her bed for safe-keeping and now it’s not there. She’s demanding answers from her maid, and the poor woman is half scared to death. If Mama doesn’t calm down soon, I’m sure she’ll have a fit and collapse.”
Alice shushed her sister. “Best that you calm yourself as well, before you, too, suffer the vapors.” She walked over to Victoria, ushering her to the door. “Let us go help Mama find it. I’m sure she’s misplaced it, that’s all.”
Victoria shook her head vehemently, her curls bouncing about on her shoulders. “Mama says she has not. That she especially placed the brooch beside her bed, and that is where it should be.”
They left Alice’s chamber, walking quickly to the duchess’s rooms that her mama had taken over not long after their father had died some years before. They found Josh in the room, going through cupboards and drawers, as well, and a flurry of maids, some on hands and knees, looking for the missing jewel.
“Oh, Alice my dear, it has gone again. I am beside myself.” Her mama slumped onto the bed, laying a hand against her brow. Alice sighed, knowing that her dearest mama was wont to overexaggerate.
“I’m sure we’ll find it. Now, can you remember when you wore it last?”
“I wore it to the ball, but it pulled on the lace fichu so I came upstairs and placed it in the drawer beside my bed. I swear on all of your lives that is where I put it.”
Alice went over to the bedside cabinet and searched through it, noting little letters, no doubt old love notes between her parents, pencils, and some sewing gear, but no brooch. Certainly, the emerald jewel and the case it sat in was missing.
“Have you checked the gown? Perhaps you never removed it and just thought so.”
“I did remove it. I may be one of the oldest persons living in this house, but my mind is sharp and clear. I took it off and placed it here,” she said, poking the cabinet top.
Alice patted her arm, but turned toward a maid who stood beside the armoire. “Please check the gown, in any case. If we’re to determine that the brooch is indeed missing, we need to check everything twice.”
The maid did as she was bid but the brooch was not there.
“It’s not attached to the fichu either, my lady,” a young maid stated, while standing beside a large chest of drawers.
All eyes seemed to be on Alice when it did not turn up. “If the staff could go downstairs and check the ballroom, supper, and card rooms that were used on the night of the ball that would be most appreciated. Let me know immediately, if the jewel is found.”
As the door closed and only family remained in the room, Victoria turned a worrying glance her way. “We shall find it, Mama. Do not fret.”
Josh walked over to the bed and handed their mother a glass of water. “I’m sure it has not gone far. Do not despair.”
“Victoria and I will check our rooms, as you did come and check on us prior to the ball starting. Maybe it fell off and you’re confusing this ball with one of the many others we’ve held.”
Her mother pinned her with a withering glare. “I’m not senile. I know what happened to my brooch. Someone has stolen it.”
Alice couldn’t meet Victoria’s hard stare, for the thought had crossed her mind when it had not turned up in the room. Had the jewel been stolen yet again, and if so, by whom? Alice knew who the Surrey Bandit was, and Callum would not have done this, and yet…
“Come Alice, the sooner we start the search, the sooner we alleviate Mama’s distress.”
Without a word, Alice followed her sister from the room, walking back to her own. Victoria shut the door with a snap, rounding on her. “I knew Arndel wasn’t to be trusted. The thieving bastard has stolen the brooch back.”
Alice shook her head, not willing or wanting, to believe such words. “No, you’re wrong. Callum would not do that.” Not after he’d made such passionate love to her and let her fall in love with him, would he break such a trust. He couldn’t have done it. He promised the lifestyle he’d led was over.
“Callum? Are you on a first name basis with the gentleman now?” Her sister threw her an assessing look. “You were with him that night for a time, do you think him capable of such an act of deceit?”
“No.” Alice could not. “Not at all. In fact, he left early, from what I remember.” Had gone to the cottages, where she, too, had ended up…
“Probably because he’d stolen the brooch and didn’t want to be caught.”
“You’re wrong, Victoria. He would not do that.”
Would he?
Her sister paced before the mantel and Alice’s stomach churned. I can trust Callum. I can. Can’t I?
“You need to go speak with him, ask him if he knows anything about it. I know it seems wrong, and rude even, but he was the Surrey Bandit, after all. It’s not like he’s such an honest, polite soul.”
Alice sat on the bed, looking out the window and the green rolling hills that lay beyond their land. How would she ever tell her sister what she must? “I cannot do that.”
“Why not?” her sister stopped pacing and turned to face her.
“Because,” Alice sighed, fortifying herself. “He’s gone to London for a few days. Estate business, he said.”
The condescending laugh her sister bellowed made her cringe. “He’s gone to London. Well, how fitting such a trip to the capital is, wouldn’t you say?”
Alice ran a hand over her brow, the small ache of a megrim starting to thump behind her eyes. “He wouldn’t do such a thing, not now, at least.”
“Not now, what does that mean?”
Victoria threw up her hands in despair. “You must admit, the timing is too coincidental for us to be wrong. You’ve been duped, Sister, by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“No, I have not. I know him,” she said, standing. “He wouldn’t do such a thing.” But the more Alice said the words, the hollower they sounded. Was her sister right and she wrong? A lone tear slid down her cheek and she swiped it away, beyond mortified that she was crying.
“Are you crying?” Victoria strode over to her and sat. “What have you done, Sister? And don’t you dare say nothing, for I won’t believe it. You never cry, so these tears must be about more than Mama’s brooch.”
“I cannot believe it of him.” The memory of that day, the sweet love that Callum had made to her after their frantic first meeting of souls could not have come from a man who’d deceive her so. “And if such a crime can be laid against his door, then I am ruined.”
Victoria gasped. “Oh Alice, please tell me you’ve not been indiscreet.”
“Indiscreet is such an odd word to use.” Fast would be a better term.
“The day after the ball, you were gone most of it. Where did you go?” Victoria clasped her shoulders and turned her to meet her sibling’s eyes. “What have you done?”
Alice couldn’t form the words to tell Victoria what it was that she’d partaken in. More tears streamed down her face and she fumbled for her handkerchief.
“You gave yourself to him, didn’t you?”
Alice nodded, shame washing through her, along with despair. “Over the many weeks we’ve worked together on the cottages, I suppose I fell for his charm and easy manners. I know it was wrong. He’d stolen from us after all, but he promised he was sorry. He swore I could trust him and that he would make it up to us all. That he would never steal again.” She shrugged. “I believed him. I thought I was falling in love with him.”
“Oh Alice. I think you already are in love with him.” Victoria pulled her into a hug, her hand running over her back. “We need to go to London. We received word only this morning that Isolde and Merrick will be arriving in the capital tomorrow for the start of the Season. We could beg Mama to go visit her and use the time to track down Lord Arndel and see what he’s about.”
