Damn the Earl of Winterbourne.
Why could he not have stayed in London and so allowed her to deliver her dire warnings? Freeing her to then travel to her own modest country home for several enjoyable months of peaceful contemplation after the rush and bustle of the Season.
She was being unfair, Fliss acknowledged heavily. It was not the earl’s fault that someone wished to kill him. At least, she presumed it was not. She had no way of knowing if the earl had done something horrible to that poor woman, and it was the reason the other woman was so willing to sell her soul—and her body—to that devil who had taken such delight in debasing and humiliating her.
Fliss’s quiver this time was one of distaste at the memory of those long minutes she’d had no choice but to endure listening as that hateful man defiled and reviled the other woman. It was—
Fliss turned sharply toward the door as she heard the handle being turned and the door opening, a large figure filling the open doorway.
The same green-eyed gentleman who had earlier so shamelessly devoured her with his eyes.
Chapter 3
To say Sin was surprised to find a woman waiting for him in his bedchamber would be an understatement. Most especially as it was the same woman whose arrival had so intrigued him this afternoon.
A woman who obviously returned the interest he had shown in her earlier, if she had gone to the trouble of finding out which bedchamber was his and then decided to wait here for him to retire.
As she was no longer wearing her bonnet, he was able to fully appreciate the glossy darkness of the curls secured at her crown and to at last see all her features. He could now clearly see that her eyes were gray, the same deep and stormy gray of a Scottish loch in wintertime, and surrounded by thick, dark lashes. The subdued candlelight also showed her brow as being smooth and creamy. Her tiny nose was slightly turned up at its tip, giving her an impishly endearing quality. High, defined cheekbones above slightly hollowed cheeks, her mouth a perfect bow, pointed chin indicating both pride and determination.
She had changed out of her blue traveling gown and now wore a gown of cream silk and lace, her breasts as voluptuous as he remembered as they spilled enticingly over the low neckline. Elbow-length cream lace gloves covered slender arms and hands.
Her face was every bit as lovely as Sin had hoped it would be, and the swelling surge of his cock let him know it was in complete agreement with that opinion.
He saw her give a start as he stepped farther into the bedchamber and quietly closed the door behind him. “I was hoping I would see you again.”
Those huge gray eyes remained fixed on him, much like a deer frozen in the sights of a hunter’s gun. That nervousness and uncertainty raised every one of Sin’s predatory instincts.
Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. “You were…?”
“Oh yes,” Sin confirmed without hesitation. He may have fobbed off Lady Eckles’s less than subtle overtures earlier, but he had no problem in showing this delicate vision of loveliness that he returned her interest. Her boldness in coming to his bedchamber was deserving of some reward, after all. A reward he was only too happy to provide.
“What are you doing?” Fliss prompted warily as the man she now knew to be the Earl of Winterbourne stalked slowly toward her. It was deeply disturbing to learn that the green-eyed gentleman of earlier today and the earl she had come here to find were one and the same person.
For some reason, perhaps because he was a Scot, Fliss had expected Sinclair Montgomery to be red haired, as well as possessing that rumored brash and uncouth manner. The gentleman before her had hair as dark as her own, and despite his excessive height and muscular build, he was elegance personified, a credit to his tailor in his black evening clothes and snowy-white linen. Nor was there even the trace of an accent in the deep timbre of his pleasant-sounding voice.
Having asked her maid to make discreet enquiries as to the whereabouts of the earl’s bedchamber, Fliss belatedly realized she should perhaps also have enquired as to that gentleman’s looks.
I might have known he was the green-eyed gentleman from earlier, if I had done so.
She took a step backward. “My lord—”
“Sin.”
Fliss blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
His smile became wolfish as he seemed to prowl toward her. “Call me Sin,” he invited huskily. “We are, as was obviously your intention, completely private here in my bedchamber.”
Sin?
This man went by the name of Sin?
It suited him perfectly, Fliss realized, as he now stood so close to her, she was able to look up and see the predatory and sinful glitter in those dark green eyes.
“And you are…?”
“I am—” Who am I?
She found herself so overwhelmed by this man’s size and close proximity, it was momentarily impossible for her to remember her own name.
“It is of no importance for now.” Winterbourne chuckled. “There will be time to take care of the introductions later. Much, much later.” His voice was gruff as his arms moved about Fliss’s slender waist and he pulled her up against the muscular hardness of his body.
Making Fliss blushingly aware of the long, swollen length of his arousal pressing against her soft abdomen.
Oh dear God…
The dryness of Fliss’s mouth was in complete contradiction to the moist warmth that now flooded and heated between her thighs in response to that blatant arousal. She was also assailed by the heady aroma of Winterbourne’s cologne, lemon and sandalwood and an invasive male musk she was sure belonged exclusively to the man himself.
She felt almost dizzy from the onslaught of the combination of her own arousal and those seductive aromas, her nipples hardening to sensitive berries beneath the increasing tightness of the bodice of her gown.
Fliss moved her gloved hands up between them, intending to push against the earl’s chest and put some distance between the two of them. But the moment her hands came into contact with the warmth of that hard flesh, she instead found her gloved fingers curling against and into all that tensed heat.
“You are very beautiful,” Winterbourne murmured as he lowered his head so that his mouth could explore the side of her throat. “So very desirable.” Those warm lips closed about the lobe of her ear, his teeth gently biting that sensitive flesh. “I wanted you the moment I saw you.”
Sinclair—Sin—wanted me from the moment he first saw me?
Such words were heady indeed to a young woman who had been widowed for over a year, and as good as for the previous three, with Stephen away at war for so much of their married life.
The touch of the earl’s lips became even more arousing, Fliss arched her throat instinctively to allow those lips to kiss a trail of fire down to the delicate hollows at the base of her throat. Pleasure coursed hotly through her body as she felt the rasp of his tongue against her skin.
This was… He was…
He has unfastened the buttons down the back of my gown, and those large hands are now caressing my naked flesh.
Fliss attempted to resist the plethora of sensations that threatened to become overwhelming: heat, desire, pleasure. “My lord—”
“Sin.”
She could not address him by that name. It sounded positively sinful. Was unacceptable. Improper.
And allowing him to take these liberties with my naked back is not?
Well, of course it was, but she was not exactly allowing Sinclair Montgomery liberties. He was taking them. Indeed, he was the sort of forceful gentleman it would be difficult to say no to under any circumstances, let alone such unexpected ones as these.
Then she must try, because she had not come here for this. The earl was in danger, and only she stood between him and certain death. Forewarned would at least allow him to be forearmed. “My lord, you must desist—”
“Why must I?” Sin murmured against the silky skin of her bared shoulder, having slipped the sleeve of her gown
But he had not yet bared his goal, those juicy nipples he could see pressing against the silk material of her gown. He wanted them in his mouth. To suckle. To bite. To draw on until they resembled ripe red berries. Tiny strawberries, perhaps, if he sucked on them long and hard enough. Her skin was so smooth and tasted of cream, and he now had a craving for the ripe strawberries to go with it.
“Is this not why you are here?” He slipped the bodice of her gown lower still before pushing down her camisole to reveal one enticingly bared nipple. Rosy red, as he had suspected it might be, and plump as a ripened raspberry.
“No, of course it— My lord,” she groaned as Sin’s lips closed fully over that pouting nipple and he suckled it greedily into the heat of his mouth.
She tasted as delicious as he had suspected she might, the aroma of the arousal wetting between her thighs, preparing her for his invasion, acting as a further aphrodisiac to Sin’s already inflamed senses.
There was no denying she liked it too, as she moaned softly each time he suckled or bit her nipple, her hands tightly gripping his shoulders. She arched her back and pressed her nipple deeper into his mouth. Sin was only too happy to oblige. He suckled harder and longer while he rasped his tongue over that swollen nubbin, then bit down to cause just enough pain to enhance the pleasure he could feel quivering through her body.
Dear God, was she going to come merely from having him suckle her breasts?
The thought of that was so arousing that Sin pulled down the other side of her gown before transferring his mouth to that second bared nipple. His fingers and thumb moved to take over the pleasuring of its twin as they tweaked and squeezed in the same rhythm as he suckled hungrily.
Her trembling increased, the aroma of her musk growing stronger. Only a little more pressure. A little more pleasure, and she would—
“Oh!” She gasped. “Oh, my lord. My— Oh…” Her lids fluttered closed as she turned to liquid heat in his arms, her nipple swelling, becoming harder in his mouth, as the waves of her release pulsed and now shook through the whole of her body.
Sin continued to suck and bite, pinch and pull on her nipples, until he was satisfied he had given and taken every last pulsing quake of her pleasure.
Fliss’s neck refused to support her head as it fell forward, and she rested her forehead against the hardness of Sinclair Montgomery’s chest.
She was embarrassed.
Ashamed.
Mortified.
Satiated in a way I have never felt before.
Stephen had been a kind and considerate husband and had obviously had an affection for her, as she had an affection for him. They had muddled along well enough together, although perhaps more as friends than lovers. They had never spoken on the subject, but it was obvious Stephen had thought it unseemly to make too many demands upon Fliss in the bedchamber.
When Stephen was home, he would visit her bedchamber once a week, kissing her gently on the brow as he pushed her nightgown up to her waist to lie between her thighs and ease his member slowly inside, before quickly taking his release, usually with no more than half a dozen thrusts. Afterward, he would disengage just as gently before climbing out of bed to wet a cloth in the bowl of water on the dressing table. His gaze would not quite meet hers as he handed her that cloth and left to return to his adjoining bedchamber.
Never in any of their encounters had Stephen touched her breasts in the intimate manner Sinclair Montgomery had just now, as he sucked on and squeezed and pinched her nipples.
Fliss had never dreamed… Never known such pleasure existed…
That was not true, and she would be lying to herself if she even allowed such a thought. She might never have experienced physical pleasure for herself, or even come close, but these past few months of seeing two of her three closest friends either marry or become betrothed to gentlemen who loved them deeply had substantially changed that opinion.
One of those friends had recently married the austere Duke of Blackmoor. Except he was not in the least austere when in Thea’s company, and the way the two of them looked at each other, could not stop touching each other, was indicative of the depth of their love for each other and the pleasure of their intimacy.
Fliss’s other friend, Sally Derwent, had only recently become betrothed to the Marquis of Oxbridge, but anyone with eyes in their head could see those two had and continued to enjoy each other in every way.
Her third friend, Rachel, also a widow, had taken to walking about with a secretive cat-that-had-lapped-the-cream smile on her face, and Fliss had long suspected it was a secret lover who had put it there. Considering how unhappy Rachel’s marriage had been, Fliss wished her friend well.
But inwardly, Fliss knew, she had become envious of the reason for her friends’ glowing eyes and secret smiles. An envy she barely acknowledged to herself and had certainly never confided to any of her friends.
Partly because she had always been the quiet voice of reason in the quartet, and widowhood had only intensified that air of matronly respectability. But also, she now acknowledged, because until this moment, she’d really had no idea what she had been missing out on all these years.
An only child of strict parents, Fliss had always been aware of an inner aloneness that had been alleviated only slightly when she had her first Season and became such close friends with Thea, Sally, and Rachel. Her marriage to Stephen had been arranged by her parents, and it was more that of polite friendship than lovers. Luckily, Fliss had retained Thea’s, Sally’s, and Rachel’s friendships during that marriage, and they had all rallied round when Stephen was killed.
She was pleased that two of those friends had found happiness in the past few months, and that Rachel was also occupied with her secret lover. At the same time, Fliss admitted those things had brought back a return of her own loneliness until at times she had felt as if she could have screamed with the longing, the need, to have a man love her as Thea and Sally were so obviously loved. That whether or not Rachel loved her lover or he her was unimportant, when the relationship gave her such a glow of happiness.
Fliss had ached to know that intimacy for herself.
As she had ached for a pair of strong arms to hold her.
The arms holding her now were incredibly strong, supporting her weight as if she were as light as thistledown rather than slightly plump.
“My turn,” the earl murmured throatily.
Fliss’s forehead still resting against his chest gave her an unrestricted view as the earl unfastened the buttons on his fitted evening trousers with ease. The flap tumbled forward and revealed he wore no undergarments as his rampant cock surged free.
Her mouth went dry as she stared down at him. She had never seen Stephen’s member, all their sexual encounters having taken place in her darkened bedchamber, but she had always believed him to be a reasonably endowed gentleman.
The cock now revealed to her showed her she had been completely wrong in that belief.
At least nine inches in length and almost as thick around as her wrist, there were thick veins clearly defined along its length, the bulbous head slick with the juices leaking from the slitted tip.
Sinclair Montgomery’s member was in perfect proportion to the rest of his impressively large body.
Surely such a fierce-looking thing could never fit inside me—
Of course it will not fit inside me, because it is never going to be inside me.
“My lord.” Fliss dragged her gaze away from staring at that fiercely engorged cock. She raised her head with as much dignity as she could muster in the circumstances.
Those circumstances being that they were both of them half-naked and moments ago, she had come completely undone in this gentleman’s arms, losing herself in the first physical pleasure she had ever known. Between her thighs was still damp and throbbing from that exquisite release.
And whilst the earl might have every reason to expect a return of that pleasure, Fliss knew she did not have the experience to give it to him.
Nor was this the time for her to learn.
She raised her gaze to the height of one broad shoulder as she spoke. “My lord, I have had reason to call at Winterbourne House several times during these past weeks in the hope of speaking with you.”
“You have?” He sounded cautious.
She nodded. “The first day I called, you were out to lunch with your cousin, I believe?”
“He has recently returned from his honeymoon.”
“The next time I called, your butler informed me you had left London.”
“I was away at one of my estates.”
“I am well aware of that,” she acknowledged.
“Did you follow me here?” Sin had tensed warily. To his certain knowledge, he did not know this lady, had never seen her before today. He would have remembered her if he had.
The fact that she had gone to such lengths to see him, those visits to Winterbourne House, her presence at Eckles Manor, waiting for him in his bedchamber, was disturbing to say the least.
A ploy to somehow trick him into matrimony?
Or something more sinister?
“Why?” he demanded coolly.
Her chin rose determined. “The reason I tried to see you in London, the only reason I came to Eckles Manor and now waited for you in your bedchamber is so that I might warn you of a plot to kill you during your stay here.”
Chapter 4
Sin stepped back to turn away and refasten his pantaloons as he considered this woman’s preposterous claim.
Apart from a couple of lunches with his cousin Ranulf and his new wife, he had attended less than a handful of social engagements during the week or so he spent in London. Deliberately so, having delayed his arrival there to coincide with the end of the Season and so enabling him to keep social engagements to a minimum. At none of those social events had he conversed with nor spent time enough with any one person to have incited murderous feelings toward him. At least he did not believe he had.
“Allow me.” Sin stepped behind the tiny dark-haired woman. He could see she was struggling to hold her gown in front of her in a belated attempt to protect her modesty as she tried to refasten the buttons at its back. Buttons he had minutes ago undone without thought or conscience.
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