by Lara Temple
She had turned over with a sated sigh after her climax and now lay half on her side, facing away from him. The fire was just a collection of embers and the orange light kissed her bare shoulder and cheek and gilded her eyelashes. She looked as soft and dewy as dawn and he was as hard as the standing stones of Inverdine and as hot as the inside of a volcano.
He smiled, letting his hand hover a few inches above the arch of her back, absorbing her warmth. He was in agony and in heaven. Her pleasure was addictive, intoxicating. He wanted to wake her and take her back to that peak of pleasure so he could watch her melt. And then do it again. And again. He should have had the forethought to take her to his room where he had a French sheath, because this time he wanted to be inside her when she unravelled so she could torture him with each undulating contraction. He still could, but he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to do anything that would send her scurrying behind her grey-eyed shield.
His fingers twitched with the urge to follow the guidance of that light where her curves sloped under the blankets, but he stayed motionless, trying to absorb this new reality. It didn’t reflect well on him. He had seduced a respectable widow, his son’s companion, his dead wife’s cousin, a woman under his protection, while half of the population within a hundred miles were guests at the castle.
There was not one way to look at this that would make it acceptable.
Well, there was one way. It had been given to him in the soft moans as he goaded her towards climax, in the sweet curving of her body against his, in the generous slide of her hands over his body, torturing, seeking, giving...
He shuddered a little in remembrance of that first moment of bliss as she had abandoned herself to his hands and mouth, as he watched the bottomless grey of her eyes awash with need and pleasure as he touched her, tasted her...
Who would have guessed his externally placid and controlled little pixie would be such a wild lover?
Well, to be fair, he was not surprised. There had been sufficient clues even for someone as obtuse as he, though she had been hidden behind magical mice and pond maids and a pixie who waltzed like an angel and who cried because her dead husband had not seen her in her lovely new dress. He pushed that thought away—he did not want to think of Jo in Langdale’s bed. Which was problematic enough. Jealousy was not an emotion he was familiar with and being jealous of a dead man was...wrong.
He sat on the side of the bed and surveyed their scattered clothes. Her lovely dress was probably ruined. He would buy her a dozen more if she would let him.
He sighed. That would be a battle royal.
Still, having discovered new ways of resolving the conflicts between them, perhaps a battle would not be entirely a bad idea.
The darkness in the window had already shifted and he knew he should leave her room. There would be guests to tend to in a few hours and the servants would be up early. He drew the cover carefully over her shoulders and she sighed, tucking her hand under her pillow and rubbing her cheek on it as she had earlier on his chest with a feline purr of pleasure. A shaft of heat shot through him and he waited for it to peak and settle before he slid off the bed and collected his clothes. It was a little ridiculous to react so hotly to something so simple. Except it was not simple at all. He had been in trouble long before he entered her parlour that evening and saw her in her lovely new dress, her hair arranged into luxurious waves, her eyes huge and full of light... He did not know when this pull began. From some strange moment in the carriage heading north. From taking her hand in the dark to help her off a boulder as she dreamed of her mountains. From watching her face the elements and bare her ankles on the ship. Each moment a little pixie dart, seeping her pixie poison into his blood, making him want this...her...
God, he was aching like a green lad. He wanted nothing more than to slide back next to her, press up against her warmth, tangle his limbs with hers, his tongue with hers... Make her moan and beg and cry out in the agony of her pleasure and this time slide into her and absorb all that heat and passion with his body.
He watched the amber shades of firelight play on the rise and fall of her sleeping form and succumbed to temptation, trailing his hand from the peak of her shoulder down the smooth slope of her arm, settling for a moment in the soft crook of her elbow to catch the warmth of her pulse. As soft as it was, it latched on to him like a reverberating drum, echoing through his body. He breathed in and detached his hand, trying to call himself to order and forcing his eyes back up to her shoulder, but they glided down again, following the curve of her spine and, without thinking, his hand followed his gaze, shifting the blanket down. There was a small heart-shaped beauty mark just above the curve of her behind and his finger traced it and moved lower, cupping her bottom with his hand, his fingers splayed on her hip, slowly kneading it with his palm.
She shuddered into wakefulness, turning towards him, her hand brushing down his chest, her legs shifting towards him. He caught her hand in his, his voice as taut as he felt. ‘Don’t. If you move I’ll do something rash. Just let me look at you for a moment and I will go.’
She looked up at him, her eyes gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the near dark. Then her leg stretched, sliding between his, before rising and coming to rest against the rock-hard length of his frustration. His breath caught and he couldn’t resist sinking against her, fitting himself so he was poised against the damp heat still pulsing with her climax. Her scent—a whole lush summer garden of roses—was all around him and he closed his eyes and imagined her at The House, spread out before him as he spread her legs and tasted her to his heart’s content, suckled her into mutual annihilation. He couldn’t help sliding against her slickness, he could feel every one of her textures against his sensitised erection and the promise of that tight, wet fist of muscles waiting to pull him in... He cursed and shifted, but her leg just found him again.
‘I don’t think all of you wants to go quite yet,’ she whispered, her voice wavering between embarrassment and laughter. He nuzzled the warm fragrant curve of her neck, edging his knee forward, forcing her leg harder against him, his breathing quickening at the pressure.
‘None of me wants to go. Except go off, perhaps.’
‘Then stay.’
Her hands rose, but hovered by his shoulders, her fingertips just grazing his taut muscles as if afraid he might indeed go off at the first contact. Then they settled, shaping his shoulders, sweeping down his arms. He held still. At least most of him did. His arousal pulsed and surged against the pressure of her leg, answering her hands as they settled for a moment on the pulse inside his elbow, then traced up the hidden skin under his arm, his ribs, her nails pressing for a moment into the taut rise of his shoulder blade. He could not tell if her exploration was the result of an innocent’s hesitance or a siren’s determination to demolish him. He anchored himself on his elbows, keeping as much space between their chests as possible while her hands roamed, though he longed to sink down on her, feel the hardened tips of her breasts graze his chest as he pulled her against him.
Her hands sloped down his back, drifting like a breeze, but when they reached the rise of his buttocks they fluttered and stilled. Then fell away. If he hadn’t felt the quivering in every inch of her body, the shallow raspiness of her breath, he would have wondered if she lost interest. He looked up from the pulse fluttering at the side of her neck to her eyes, wide and confused.
‘Did I do it wrong?’ she whispered.
For a moment he just stared, too much of his intellect hovering at waist level.
‘Wrong?’
‘You aren’t...you aren’t going in.’
‘Going... Sweetheart, I can’t enter you. It wouldn’t be safe. The only means I have to protect you are in my room and I can’t even think of moving away from you right now, not even for that.’
Her eyes gleamed as they widened, her lips rounding into an O of realisation.
‘But you still want me to to
uch you?’
‘More than I want to breathe at the moment. There are ways to give and receive pleasure without penetration, but we don’t have to do anything. Rest now.’
He kissed her, a short, quick brush on her lips, intending to move away, but her mouth opened under his, her hands sliding into his hair, her words coming in breathless bursts.
‘You touched me. It was... You want me to touch you like that? There?’
He still hesitated. He was too close to the edge for the patient tutoring she deserved. But her words rushed on.
‘I want to know... Benneit. Show me how to touch you...’
He sank back, defeated, too ravenous to be sensible. He took her hand, sliding it down his chest, his back arching as her cool fingers closed on his blazing erection. Her hand leapt under his, then tightened, and he sank his face into the curve of her neck, dragging air into his lungs.
It was torture. He had never been so aroused and so unwilling to end it. Her hands were exquisite, like a silk scarf drawn over his skin, and he suffered the soft sweeps of her fingers and palm as she explored, growing bolder as he guided her. It wasn’t only her hands—she was so engrossed in following his guidance she seemed unconscious of her own body, and it was doing as it willed—her legs kept rubbing against his, her toes flexing against his calves as she tried to draw him even closer. He didn’t want it to end, ever. He wanted to remain at this peak of agonised pleasure for ever.
She raised herself on her elbow so her lips could brush over his jaw, over the corded tension of his neck and shoulder, kissing and tasting him as she went, and when he succumbed to the need to close his hand over her breast she gave a little mewl and her teeth nipped his shoulder, making him gasp as he fought to stave off his climax.
‘Did I hurt you?’ she murmured, licking the spot like a cat at a spill of milk.
‘No. But you’re killing me. Don’t stop.’
She blew on the damp spot and shifted her lips to his chest, her hand still gliding over his erection. ‘There are so many textures...’ she murmured, her palm curving over the base of his arousal and skimming upwards again. ‘I never realised. It feels like velvet here, but so hard beneath. And hot...’
He choked, caught between a laugh and a groan, closing his hand on hers. She raised herself, suckling his neck with sudden and total abandon, her hand following and then leading the rhythm of his body until he could no longer fight the racking shudders of pleasure. In his mind he was inside her, becoming part of her, branding both of them with his need. And then it all fell away and he was melting, they were both melting into the sea, a liquid warmth with no boundaries between them. At the edge of his reason like a storm on the horizon was just that flash of lightning and fear—that he would never find those boundaries again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Benneit paused before entering the study. The blessed silence that fell on the castle after the last of the guests departed was purely external. Inside his head a dozen voices were sparring and all of them were coming off the worse for wear. He pushed them all into the background and entered the study. It was time to face his little nemesis.
‘I would like a word with Mrs Langdale, please, McCreary.’
A look of blank panic widened her eyes, but McCreary was out the door before she could speak.
Benneit closed the door and stood for a moment, surveying her. She wore a pale yellow gown that gave her skin an ivory lustre. Evening primrose, he thought inconsequentially, pleased with how lovely she looked in her new wardrobe. And how much lovelier she looked without any clothes at all.
He must be quite mad to even contemplate what he was contemplating. Because as he watched her slightly averted face and the tension in her slim shoulders, he knew he was far from done. He knew it was unfair to her. To all of them. The sensible course of action would be to accept what happened as an aberration and resume an amicable but respectful distance. Since his marriage to Bella he had been determined to pursue the sensible course of action and Jamie’s birth had transformed that decision into a moral necessity. But still...
‘I will not apologise for last night, Jo.’
‘Neither will I.’
Her chin rose and he was so tempted to pull her out from behind the desk and coax her upstairs. Reminding himself that was not wise, he changed course.
‘I must go with the engineers to Kilmarchie today and must stay there tonight, but tomorrow we are invited to the McCrieffs’.’
‘So I understand.’
‘It is only for the one night. We are likely to be back here by the following afternoon.’
‘Good. Enjoy yourselves.’
‘The invitation includes you as well. The three of us.’
‘Surely there is no reason for me to come.’
She still did not look up from the ledger. He didn’t know why he was pressing. It was wrong to take her to the McCrieffs’. But he wanted her with them. With him for whatever time was left them together.
‘I won’t force you. But Lord Aberwyld extended the invitation to you as well, by name. Besides, I have engagements with the engineers and builders in Kilmarchie in the morning and so I must travel to McCrieff directly from there. Jamie will be coming by carriage and will be upset if you remained behind and...’
‘Oh, very well. You have made your point,’ she interrupted, frowning. ‘Is there anything else, Your Grace?’
‘No.’
‘Good luck in Kilmarchie, then, Your Grace.’
He finally moved forward and she leaned back in his chair as he came around the desk. It really was uncanny, her ability to show absolutely no expression, but he knew her well enough now to see the small signs—the dilating pupils in the grey-ocean eyes, the careful flattening of her soft lips. He placed his hand on her wrist where it lay on the ledgers, his fingers seeking and finding her pulse. It echoed his, an angry beating at the walls. He might not be able to read her emotions, but he could read her body. This pixie was as passionate as she was deep.
‘I am not leaving until we clear the air.’
‘There is nothing to clear. You have nothing to apologise for. I am neither an innocent nor a fool.’
‘I agree. I won’t lie and say I regret what happened or that I do not wish to repeat it. But while I am gone I want you to consider what you wish during the time that remains of your stay here. I will respect whatever choice you make.’
He stroked his thumb over her wrist and she leaned further back in his chair, strands of flaxen hair clinging to the dark embroidery. He pulled the two visible pins from her bun before she could react. Her hair slid down to rest on her shoulder.
‘Benneit!’
He ignored her hoarse exclamation, pulling the last pin from the tangle and placing it on the desk.
‘I want this image in my mind tonight.’ His voice was as hoarse as hers, his throat tight as heat streaked through his body at the thought of unfurling her further, from the yellow dress that reminded him of the primroses that sheltered below the wisteria vines in the garden at The House. He raised a long strand of her hair, breathing her in, his cheek just an inch from the heat of hers. He could feel his voice echo against her throat, his breath shallow.
‘I want your scent with me when I think of you tonight, Jo. Think about that when you slip into the bed we shared come evening. I’ll be miles away, but thinking of touching you, tasting you...’
‘Stop.’
Her cry was one of pain as she clasped his nape, her cheek pressing against his, her breath hard and fast. The force of her fingertips against his flesh was painful, but it was as welcome as a full surrender. She was still so tightly held, so much Joane, but he wanted Jo to come forward as she had last night in her room, to tell him she wanted him.
He pressed his mouth to the hollow just below her ear, his tongue capturing her flavour. His hand traced down the other side of her
neck, tickling the edge of her bodice before gently settling on her breast, a light, feathering touch that soon felt the answering hardening of her nipple. He wanted to see her bared to him in full daylight. He wanted to make love to her under the sun and sky. With each sweep of his hand and mouth he hardened, too, his erection a hot demand straining against his buckskins.
‘Tasting every inch, Jo. Every inch of skin you can see and every inch you can’t.’
He let his hands sink lower and when he pressed it against the apex of her thighs she rose against it with a breathy denial. His hand fisted on the fabric of her skirt and he closed his teeth gently on the petal-soft lobe of her ear.
‘Will you think of this when you touch yourself tonight, Jo?’
‘What?’
‘I want you to touch yourself and think of me tonight.’
‘Touch myself?’
Her voice was lost and fading and his sanity was following fast, but he drew back at that, keeping his hand on her thigh, gently kneading. Her eyes were dark and her mouth was warm with colour, as if he had already kissed her senseless, but there was no recognition. Last night he had been too caught up in his own arousal to think about the peculiarity that her husband had never introduced her to what he would have considered basic intimacies between a man and a woman. Still, he knew many of his peers regarded intercourse with their wives on a different plane than that with their mistresses. Or perhaps Alfred might have been as innocent as she before their wedding.
Whatever the case, he felt a surge of atavistic satisfaction. He might not be able to keep this passionate lover for himself, but he could at least be the one to initiate her to the gift of pleasing herself. It was selfish, too—he hated thinking she might one day have other lovers, that someone else would tap her passion. He should wish it for her, but right now he couldn’t. So if she learned with him the joy of pleasing herself, perhaps he could fool himself into imagining she did not need another man.
It was selfish, greedy, unfair, but undeniable.
