Alex turned to Nicolo. “Are you staying?”
Nicolo’s eyes flickered to Emily, twin flames of disdainful blue. “No, I am expected elsewhere for supper,” he said in his accented tones.
His eyes seemed to frost over and another chill raced through her. As he turned to go, she shivered and hugged her arms.
What did he know about Alex and his past that she didn’t?
* * * *
Alex sat in the parlour, drinking brandy and waiting for Emily to dress for supper. Ladies always had to dress for supper, even if it was just cold leftover chicken at a time close to midnight. It did a man no good to get upset over it. Still he couldn’t help but wonder if this were yet another way for her to express her displeasure with him. To make him wait on her for a change. Yes, she wasn’t exactly pleased with him. That much she’d made clear.
Who could blame her? He’d been a first-rate jackass for a fortnight now.
And she was unhappy with him for delaying the wedding. He couldn’t explain why he kept putting it off. At least not an explanation that any man would feel comfortable with. He only knew that he felt a nameless, impending doom hanging over their heads every time he contemplated setting a final date to wed her. As if making the wedding date final would spell the end to their love—or worse.
He put his hand beneath his queue and rubbed the back of his neck. What the devil was the matter with him? Why delay? She was everything he wanted. Everything he could imagine wanting. It made no sense. He wasn’t a superstitious man by any means and he wasn’t pleased with himself for letting such nameless misgivings dictate his actions.
But tonight, like a cool rain after a spell of summer heat, he was in sanguine sprits. Sexton had come to town just today and informed him that Aimee, along with her parents, was now en route to Montreal on a ship owned by Thomas Watson.
“You think my sister will pester Emily over those rumours Richard Green passed around about Tom Eliot, don’t you? That’s why you didn’t accept Cornelia’s offer for Emily to stay with us.”
Peter’s question pulled Alex out of his reverie and made him pause with his brandy at his lips. A ripple of discomfort twisted his guts. He didn’t want to think about this topic tonight. In the wake of finding out that Aimee was safe, Alex just wanted to enjoy the relief. However, he couldn’t ignore Peter’s question. “It’s certainly a distinct possibility, isn’t it?”
Peter frowned. “Yes, I suppose it is.” He tapped his glass a moment. “Is there any truth to those rumours, Alex?”
Tension coiled tighter in Alex’s stomach. He gazed down at the reflection of the flames in the highly polished mahogany arm of the settee and smiled. “Who knows?” He traced the groove of the arm’s claw pattern. “It’s driving Cornelia over the mast, isn’t it? The thought that I might make Emily an offer of marriage, I mean. She’s squirming over it, isn’t she?”
Peter exhaled long and loud. “Cornelia can’t help herself. She’s so obsessed with bloodlines and social standing and such things.”
“And it goes without saying, she won’t approve my marriage to an alleged slave-trader’s daughter. Child of a mere sea captain, heaven forbid. And you wonder why I don’t make a public announcement. Cornelia would come down on Emily like an avalanche of loose stones with her prodding and probing and the poor girl just might run.”
“Oh, Alex, you take Cornelia too seriously, everyone does.” Peter’s tone was impatient.
“I don’t take her seriously—at least not any further than her ability to hurt my wife’s chances to fit into society. You know what hell it will be for Emily if she’s given a chilly reception.”
“Well, honestly, I don’t think she’ll give a damn. Emily seems to live by her own standards.”
A stab of pride made Alex smile. It was swiftly followed by a stronger surge of possessiveness. “She’ll soon be living by my standards.”
Peter chuckled. “I wouldn’t count on that, Alex. She seems a law unto herself. Come now, admit, she’s very different from the girls we were raised to expect to marry.”
Alex knew Peter was thinking of his own wife, Jacobine, now deceased. Pretty, dark-haired, quiet and very modest. She’d have been appalled to have had her name engraved on a work like Emily had authored. She’d have starved in some discreet corner before ever selling her virtue to survive.
“Yes, my Emily is very different.”
“Delightfully different.”
“Yes, agreed, delightfully different.” Alex took a deep breath in and held it a moment, then released it on a soft laugh. “And no, absolutely no.”
Peter’s eyes widened and he raised his brows. “No, what?”
“No to what is on your mind.”
“You can read minds now?”
“I can read yours.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come now, Peter, this is me, Alexander, your cousin.”
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, yes, but not like you think. I am not without some understanding of your feelings.”
“Thoughts like that are dangerous. They could get you killed one of these days.”
Peter laid his palms down on his knees. “You’d never kill me.”
“Don’t be too sure.” Alex lifted his glass to his lips.
“I’d just be happy to watch.”
The drink went down the wrong way and Alex choked then coughed convulsively for a few moments. “Damn, Peter, your gall knows no bounds, does it?”
“Absolutely none.” Peter grinned. “But Christ, Alex, you have to admit it. She’d be worth the risk of a duel. She gets a little older and loses that shy-kitty-in-the-corner aspect and you’re going to have your hands full. And the world is going to pose a terrible temptation to her. It’s always like that for girls like her.”
The last of Alex’s good humour vanished and he bristled all over. “Girls like her? Tell me, what are ‘girls like my fiancée’ like?”
“Come down from your high ropes. I simply mean passionate, idealistic girls like her. They are so pure of heart and spirit. They have no inkling of how base and devious other people can be. Nor of how strongly they can be pushed by their own innate drives.”
Peter’s reverent tones gave himself away. He was so obviously in Emily’s complete thrall that Alex couldn’t help shaking his head. Peter had always been helpless to his impulses where women were concerned. Well, truth be told, Peter was helpless to his impulses where a lot of things were concerned.
“And you’ve made a career of taking advantage of such types?” Alex asked.
“No, I have steadfastly avoided them, but they have always fascinated me nonetheless.”
Alex stood. “Well, do yourself a favour and tamp down that fascination where my fiancée is involved.”
Peter started. “Have I offended you, Alex?”
Alex rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Let me consider, you all but asked if you may watch me fuck my fiancée. And then you went on to tell me how her passionate nature makes my being a cuckold an all but certain assumption—”
“I did no such thing. You forced the whole matter from me—”
“For God’s sake, Peter, you haven’t offended me. I know you too well to be offended. I find myself merely disquieted.”
Peter’s expression wrinkled with concern. “Oh dear, should I leave?”
“Just sit tight and wait for supper. Then you can go home to Cornelia and tell her Emily is safe and sound here.”
* * * *
Clad in her satin chemise, Emily stood at her washstand, adjusting her hair. Alex’s boots sounded softly on the thick rug behind her. Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn’t sure how to respond to him. She was still hurt from his distance, and his continued reluctance to finally put a date to their wedding hadn’t helped one bit.
Yet she’d missed him so desperately.
She looked up into the mirror. He stared back at her, his expression blank, his eyes dark bluish-grey as wint
er’s storm clouds, the pupils dilated.
“You.” She put all her anger and hurt into the word.
He came to stand behind her. So close, his body heat radiated to hers.
He touched her stomach and her every nerve ending came alive for him. Her nipples beaded. Devil take her traitor body. He pressed into her, erect and throbbing against her backside. Her hunger flared.
Oh, God.
“Let go of me.”
He brushed his lips over her ear and uttered a series of sibilant sounds.
“I don’t want you.”
He traced her earlobe with his tongue. His hot, wet, teasing tongue. She froze for a moment and desire trembled through her. Heat spread through her loins, her nipples pulled tight.
“Yes, you do,” he said.
She couldn’t stop her hips from pressing backwards into his heated flesh. Her empty, hungry cunt contracted, pleading to be filled, used, pleasured. Lubrication flowed over swelling inner folds that craved the stimulation of his fingers. She couldn’t help rocking into him. She felt him catch his breath and his hand tightened on her belly. She wished they were naked now. On her bed. Joined together, with him thrusting deep and her legs wrapped snugly about his waist, driving him deeper. Two weeks of nights spent aching with desire, alone in her bed.
Two weeks that he had chosen to neglect her.
She shook herself, forced her hips to still and pulled away from him a little. She was angry with him. She couldn’t let herself forget it this time.
“This would look lovely in your beautiful claret hair.” He placed something on her head.
She looked to her reflection. She had the sense for a moment that a stranger stared back at her. A heart-shaped face, bathed in candlelight to a glowing ivory colour, two large, alarmed amber brown eyes framed by lashes that glinted auburn. On her head lay a circlet of gilded laurel leaves studded with glittering topazes and iridescent pearls that had a more golden than white cast.
It was lovely.
“See, it is fit for a princess.” He lowered his head and put his lips close to her neck. “My beautiful princess.”
She understood. This was an apology for his distance.
She didn’t know how to take this, if she should be touched or offended. But his hands were caressing her stomach through the satin. His cock pressed into her. Throbbing. Demanding. He moved his lips over her neck, kissing, licking, sucking. Shafts of sensation blazed through her.
A whole two weeks without him inside her. God help her.
Her knees weakened and hunger consumed her. His hands slid upwards and caressed her breasts. Of course, she could pretend coldness to hurt him back. Maybe she should. Maybe he deserved it.
“Alex, I…”
“What?” He breathed his question against the already sensitive skin of her neck.
She closed her eyes and shivered as her nipples pulled into even tighter points. “I don’t think we should do this… Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am not altogether certain of my feelings towards you at the moment.”
Alex backed away from Emily a step. Her large eyes pleaded with him in the reflection. How innocent she appeared, in her chemise and the circlet of pearls and topazes. Yet he knew she was not so innocent any longer. He was wholly responsible for that. He had taken her virginity and taught her everything she knew about lovemaking.
Did he like his creation?
“You’re angry with me.” It wasn’t a question. He knew she was.
“You ignored me.” Her voice was soft, small and tight. Like a girl’s. Her body held a girl’s litheness.
Her heart held a girl’s belief in the overall goodness of the world.
In the goodness of him.
Tension swept through him. He inhaled deeply, trying to dissipate it.
“You left me here alone.” Her eyes were pools of hurt, stabbing into him.
I don’t want to die here. I don’t want to die a slave.
“I was preoccupied, Emily. I have responsibilities to others.”
She looked off to the side, her chest rising high then falling slowly, as if with a deep sigh.
He touched her shoulder. “I did miss you. Very much.”
She glanced up in the mirror. “Did you?”
Hope sounded in her voice, showed in her face, so earnest and trusting. His chest tightened.
“Of course I missed you.” He traced his fingers over her satiny cheek. “You know I am sorry.”
Her expression softened, as if she hadn’t guessed he might simply tell her anything to get to shove his cunt-starved cock into her.
But, then again, she yet retained the pureness of heart that so attracted him to her.
He felt her tremble. Saw the capitulation in her eyes.
Hunger tore through him.
He nudged her towards the washstand and with one hand pushed her head forward and down. She put her palms flat on the washstand as he shoved her chemise up to her waist, exposing her lower body.
He jammed his thigh between hers.
The scent of her arousal filled the air. He touched her quim. Her wetness gushed onto his digits. He entered her with two fingers. Christ, she was tight. The tightest cunt he’d ever known. She moved under his hand. She tried to turn and look at him. He gripped her head more firmly, keeping it lowered. He moved his fingers back and forth within her, until her juices were dripping down his arm. He removed his two fingers then replaced them with three.
She moaned, low and lingering. As if her need was painful to her.
Well, damn, he understood exactly how she felt. He was going to fuck her long and hard.
“Please, please, please.” She arched her back, as if trying to drive his fingers deeper.
He withdrew his hand.
She sobbed. A catching, grieving sound.
He wrenched his breeches open. Any moment he would thrust into her. He would fuck her. Hard. Fast. Furious.
She began to tremble all over, her hands rattling on the washstand.
His cock was throbbing, aching, ready to explode and pour his seed into her. Two weeks without this. Two weeks…
His crown touched her entrance.
She caught her breath loudly.
He grasped her hips and pulled her backwards, ruthlessly impaling her upon his erection.
She cried out, then writhed and wriggled herself upon him.
He slapped her buttock. The sound cracked and a red handprint rose on her pristine pale ivory flesh. “Be still, you hoyden.”
A renewed flood of honey gushed from her core, slicking their connection.
He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, sucking in his breath as he did. Her panting echoed in his ears. But he moved at his own pace, until that moment he was fully engaged within her, filling her, stretching her.
He had burned for her. Yet he had abstained. Always with other women he had made love to them in order to escape himself. To forget. But with her he could escape nothing. She forced him to feel every emotion, to face himself.
Facing himself wasn’t always a pleasant thing. He would run from her now, if only he could. But he was bound to her with every beat of his heart.
Damn him for being vulnerable. For allowing himself to open to her and become addicted to her love.
And double damn her for it.
He withdrew suddenly, swiftly. Completely.
She cried out.
He laughed softly.
“Oh, damn you, damn you,” she gasped.
He gave her a few more quick, sharp slaps to her arse. “Watch how you speak to me, you naughty girl.”
She let out a long and lingering wail.
He put his cock to her cunt again. “That’s what you want?”
“Yes, yes, oh yes.”
“And did you miss it?”
“God, yes.”
“And did you touch yourself in the night? Did you try to assuage the need with your own fingers?”
“And why mu
st you even ask…? You know I did.”
“My vanity demands it, sweetheart.” He entered her, on one long, slow, slide.
She gasped, a sound of both relief and pleasure.
He slapped her bottom several times, firmly “That’s my girl—take all of me.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she moaned the words, pressing herself back against him, grinding her buttocks into the hardness of his lower belly.
His balls slapped the soft cushion of her mons.
He leaned forward and retrieved a bottle from her washstand. It was the oil they used when too many climaxes made her usually dripping core dry up.
She attempted to rise but he applied steady pressure on her head, keeping it down.
The scent of gillyflowers permeated the air, girlish, wholesome. He oiled his fingers then replaced the bottle. He touched the base of her spine and then traced down slowly, right along until he reached her anus. She gasped.
“Every part of you belongs to me now.”
“Yes…” Her voice hitched a little.
He circled the puckered ring. “There are many ways we can give each other pleasure. I’ve told you this before.”
He pressed into the centre—the tight ring resisted him, but he knew she would deny him nothing. She loved him. She wanted to please him. At times, she seemed to live to pleasure him. Her natural sensuality, her curiosity, would also work in his favour. Was it unfair of him to take advantage of those factors? Yes, probably. But, then again, there was nothing fair about the way she made him feel, either.
“I won’t hurt you.” He continued to circle and then to press, each time working a little deeper.
Her internal muscles clenched. She moaned and arched backwards.
He worked his finger back and forth in a slow, gentle fashion. She moaned and writhed wildly. Fire raced through his blood, in equal parts to the sensuality of her response and also to the sense of power and mastery her submission to this gave him.
He leaned close to her ear. “Be still, very still.”
She seemed to try but with limited success.
Two of his fingers were within her anus now. Moving. And then he rocked his hips and the head of his cock rammed against the mouth of her womb. He released his hold on her neck and reached beneath her to brush her sensitive nub. And then he was fucking her, both her cunt and her arse and he was touching her most pleasurable spot. Her cunt and her arse contracted on him again and again and again, demanding his response. His seed roiled up his cock and jetted into her in fierce bursts of white hot pleasure.
Emily's Seduction Page 4
