His boots, his breeches, and whatever else she chose to remove! Lawrence shook his head. “I can manage.”
Jura nodded. “Mind you do now, else you’ll likely catch a fever. I’ll be back in a moment.”
The door closed behind her. Lawrence stared into the flames of the fire. Back home, he would have been in the midst of preparations for tonight’s ball. His mother would find time, in between driving the servants mad with unnecessary reminders and completing her lengthy toilette, to lecture him on the merits and demerits of each eligible partie. He grinned. His temple throbbed. His feet were soaking. Hoby’s boots were obviously not designed for Scottish snow. His coat, too—the superfine was wet through at the shoulders to his shirt. Still, he wouldn’t swap places even if he could, because cold and tired and lost as he was, he was also thoroughly intrigued and no little aroused by his barefoot and unaccountably unattached hostess. Lawrence took off his boots.
In the wooden lean-to that was her still room at the back of the cottage, Jura collected together leaves, seeds, roots, and essential oils. Lifting her mortar and pestle from the shelf, she set about pounding a balm for the bruising, a tisane for the headache.
She had never seen such extraordinarily blue eyes as Lawrence Connaught had. If she could have cast a spell to conjure a lover, she’d have wished for eyes exactly like those. She’d have wished for hair to curl over her lover’s collar as Lawrence’s did, for his mouth to curve delicately under just such a straight nose. Her spell would have given her lover just that aura of sensuality, the same heady mix of potency and confidence which would make her feel both vulnerable and desirable.
She was not accustomed to feeling either. Her powers made her inviolable. It was her choice, her magic which ensured she would never know the happiness of true love. A bleak enough future for sure, but knowing it would also be without tragedy, without the sorrow and anguish she had seen her mother suffer, had always helped comfort her lonely hours. Though tonight…
Tonight, fate had brought her Lawrence Connaught. Tonight, for the first time, she knew the lure of temptation. She could never have love, but that did not mean she had always to be alone. Yearning, until now quite undefined, sharpened and focused. Longing, wanting to taste just a little of what was forbidden, now that it had shape—such a very attractive shape—was so much harder to resist. What harm could it do to open the door to that forbidden chamber just a little? To take just a step into the sensual, glittering world of desire? A moment out of time to warm her in the cold nights to come.
Jura tipped the crushed leaves for the tisane from the mortar into a linen sachet. She didn’t mean it, of course. She was merely indulging her imagination. No harm in that. She picked up the jar of balm. The knot in her stomach tightened. She didn’t mean it, but what harm if she did?
Chapter Two
Night had taken hold as Jura lifted the latch on the cottage door, a dark, lowering night heavy with snow clouds which quite obscured the stars. Lawrence was sprawled in the chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, calves and feet bare. His coat hung from the back of the settle. His waistcoat too. His boots stood on the hearth, his stockings draped over them. He had loosened his neckcloth. A thick lock of black hair fell over his brow. He was sleeping.
Pouring water from the kettle into a bowl, Jura took a cloth and set about cleaning the cut on his brow. His face, his hands, his throat were lightly tanned. Pushing back his hair, she could not resist tangling her fingers in its natural curl. He opened his eyes. The blue of rosemary flowers. Captivating blue. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.
What he felt, Lawrence thought, was quite overwhelmed by her nearness. Jura exuded femininity, as if imbued by everything he most loved of women. ‘My ministering angel,’ he said.
She laughed softly. ‘Ministering yes, but I doubt if you knew me you’d call me an angel.’ She could see just enough of the bare skin at his throat to make her want to see more. In the soft glow of the firelight, with the door bolted against the night, she could imagine they were alone in the world. Lawrence’s chest rose and fell. Yearning so acute it was painful assailed her, making her lean closer to him just for the simple pleasure of feeling another’s skin near hers, for the simple pleasure of being close enough to have his breath whisper over her.
‘If not an angel, then you must surely be an enchantress,’ Lawrence said, trying to unravel the scent of her. An undertone of lemony herbs overlaid with spice, the whole resonant of an exotic perfume, it made him dizzy with desire. ‘You are certainly quite enchanting.’
He closed his eyes as she smoothed a pleasant-smelling balm over his cut. Lavender and sage, he could detect. A silken strand of her hair caressed his cheek. Her fingers were gentle. It should have been soothing, but he couldn’t help imagining those same fingers stroking other parts of him, her hair shimmering over other parts too.
Jura handed him a glass. ‘Drink this. It will ease your headache. It’s whisky and a tincture of herbs, perfectly harmless.’
‘Uisge beatha.’ he said, trying to ignore the curve of breasts that were on a level with his chin, the way her bare leg brushed his. ‘Water of life. My mother taught me that.’ He took another sip, and then another. The drink did not seem to be having the soporific effect on him that spirits usually had. Instead he felt over-sensitized and at the same time light-headed, reckless. He stretched to place the whisky glass on the floor, and his knuckles grazed the slope of Jura’s bottom. Her hair tickled his skin. He could not resist wrapping a thick auburn tress of silken hair around his hand. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on, do you know that? I’m still not quite sure you’re real.’
‘That’s strange, because I was just thinking that you must have walked out of my dreams,’ Jura replied. Her heart was racing. Her voice was no more than a whisper. She did not think of resisting. She did not even remind herself that there would be no harm.
‘I’d like to be in your dreams,’ Lawrence said, slipping his arm around her waist, pulling her to him, trapping her between his knees, ‘but I can think of an even better place I’d like to be.’
His slow, seductive smile was captivating. Jura had had no idea that temptation could be so delightful, wispy as spun sugar, heady as whisky and just as potent. Intoxicating. She leaned her hands on his shoulders, curling her fingers into the warmth of his skin beneath the fine cambric of his shirt. ‘Where?’ she asked, quite mesmerised, unaware that her mouth was tugged into a smile just as sensual as his. ‘Where is it you want to be, Lawrence?’
‘Inside you.’
‘Oh!’ Her knees gave way. She sank to the floor, unbelievably aroused by his words.
‘I’ve shocked you.’
Jura shook her head. His legs cradled her waist. ‘Not shocked. Only….’ She trailed her fingers along his leather-clad flanks. She tilted up her head to meet those blue, blue eyes. ‘Tell me. More.’
Lawrence caught his breath. Her smile was smoky. It stoked the fire which raged in his gut. He pulled her closer, burying his hand in the silken mass of her hair, inhaling the scent of her as he placed his mouth right next to her ear. “I want to taste you. I want to breathe you in. I want to feel your skin on mine. I want you to sheath me.” His thumb found the sensitive spot at her nape. Her breath was warm on his cheek. Her heart beat faster than his, he could feel it through the bodice of her dress. He licked the lobe of her ear, tasted the skin behind it. ‘I want all of you. Me inside you. You inside me.’ He was astonished by his own words, spoken without thinking, yet spoken with utter conviction. ‘Say you want me in the same way. Skin to skin. Flesh to flesh. Say it, Jura,’ he said, urgent now.
‘I want you. Skin to skin. Flesh to flesh.’ She spoke without hesitation. She heard the words, breathy, as if she had been running, as if someone else was speaking them, with no thought for the consequences.
‘You mean it?’ Lawrence asked urgently. ‘Because if you don’t—I can stop now, but if I kiss you, I don’t think…’
‘I mean it. Kiss me, Lawrence.’
He was vaguely aware that this was different. Part of him doubted it could even be happening. Part of him thought he was still wandering the woods in the dark and the snow, lost and hallucinating. He didn’t care. He kissed her.
She tasted exotic and familiar, like ripe fruit dusted with cinnamon. He kissed her slowly, drinking in the nectar of her as if imbibing a potion. Her lips softened under his. Lawrence drank more deeply. The tip of her tongue flicked into the corners of his mouth, over his bottom lip, sending the blood surging to his groin.
He pulled her closer, but the arms of the chair got in the way, so he sank down onto the floor beside her, to the woven rug in front of the fire. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back as passionately as he kissed her. He thrust his tongue into the delightful heat of her mouth. He was hard. Completely aroused. He felt rampant.
Jura shuddered as his hand closed around her breast through the rough wool of her gown. The thrust of his tongue deep into her mouth made her arch against the potent length of him. She tugged his shirt free from his breeches, fluttering her palms over the hard, flat planes of his belly, his rib cage, his chest, blazing a burning trail, kindling a fire as hot as the one leaping into life between her legs.
Starved of company, starved of affection, she yearned for the escape from harsh reality which this situation, this man offered. His kisses were ravenous. She kissed him back equally hungrily. His mouth flooded her with heat. His touch sent the heat spiralling. A cloud of desire cocooned them. The very flagstones seemed warmed by it.
Lawrence loosened the lacings at the front of her gown, then the ribbon which tied her chemise. They faced each other, kneeling. He dipped his head, took her nipple into his mouth and sucked hard. Jura cried out, a harsh moan, as liquid heat ripped down through her body. She clutched at his buttocks. His breeches were made of the softest leather. His lips puckered around her other nipple, and she cried out again. He lifted the hem of her gown, stroking the inside of her thigh, rubbing the heel of his hands on the mound of her sex. Desire tightened around her. She tensed, arched herself against him, yanked at his hair because she did not want it to be over too soon and because she needed to taste him again.
He kissed her, just exactly as she needed him to kiss her. He sank back onto the rug, pulling her astride him, rucking up her skirts as she fumbled with the buttons on the falls of his breeches. They lost control together, urgently pushing away clothing, kissing, clutching at flesh, tearing at fabric. His fingers slid against her sex, along her sex, slipping and stroking over the pulsing mound of her sex. The pleasure was excruciating in its intensity.
Awed, fascinated, she wrapped her hand cautiously around his shaft, her thumb tracing the length of it, the curve of it, from the heavy potent weight between his legs up the silken skin to the engorged tip. He pulsed at her touch. Colour slashed his cheek bones. His eyes were glazed.
“We don’t have to. I can stop if you want me to,” Lawrence panted, wondering if it was true, knowing it was the last, the very last thing in this whole surreal world that he wanted.
“I don’t want you to.”
“Thank God.” Lawrence fell back, pulling her with him, on top of him, lifting her so that his shaft slid into her welcoming wetness. Jura whimpered. He let her slide down, sheathing him. She drew him in, flinching just a little as he broke through her maidenhead, quickly drawing him in further lest he notice. He groaned, a harsh, feral sound he didn’t recognise.
Jura moaned softly as she paused astride him, relishing the way he seemed to bloom within her. She smoothed her palms over his rib cage, his chest, making his nipples harden against her skin. Instinct led her. She rocked gently, accustoming herself to the shape of him, the length of him, deep inside her. She gazed at the hard contours and planes of him, at the way his skin stretched so smoothly over him as his chest lifted and fell, quicker and quicker as she rocked, slower and slower, holding him inside her, enfolding him tighter, tighter. His eyes, his blue, blue eyes, were dark with passion.
She tilted back and clenched the thick length of him inside her. The tip of his shaft touched something high up which made her spasm. It was too much. She came hard, violently, arching back, grinding herself against him as she shuddered, crying out, her fingernails digging into the rigid wall of his stomach. She felt as if she’d been thrown high up into the air, dropping sharply and cast up again before falling like a meteor shower from the sky.
Lawrence bucked under her, gripping her waist, the strain of holding back his own completion vivid in the tautness of his face, the dark pools at the centres of his vivid blue eyes. He lifted her up, and the slither of her muscles clinging to the sleekness of his shaft made her tighten again. Bracing herself on the flagstones, she caught his rhythm, moving with him, astounded and thrilled by the way she could feel his climax build. She cried out her second release just as he came, with a deep, wild cry, at the last minute lifting her from him to spend himself on his stomach.
She could hear his heart pounding as she lay sprawled beside him, her face buried in his shirt. His fingers twined in her hair. One hand stroked the length of her spine, up and down, up and down, soothing and at the same time keeping her slightly on edge. She lifted her head to look at him. Blue eyes glazed darker, the same heavy, dazed satisfaction that weighted her reflected in his face. She smiled at him, cautiously touched his cheek.
Lawrence smiled back hazily, reluctant to drag himself up from the depths of such bliss. Usually, lovemaking invigorated him. Afterwards, he wanted always to be up and about, and though he was careful not to let it show, he wanted to be alone. Not this time. This time, he wanted to lie here, entwined, enjoying every moment of the floating completed emptiness. He felt as if the world began and ended here. A foolish flight of fancy, no doubt due to his six months’ abstinence, he told himself. He pulled Jura to him, kissing her slowly, relishing the taste of her, surprised to find that that taste stirred him into wanting more. Chastity had certainly added a new edge to his appetite.
Lawrence sat up abruptly. ‘You should have told me. Did I hurt you?’
Jura blushed. ‘I didn’t want to. I thought if I did you would—I didn’t want you to stop.’
‘I would have. I hope. I thought…’ He stopped, running his fingers through his hair, impatiently pushing it back from his forehead. ‘The fact is, I didn’t think. I don’t know what came over me. I am not usually so—you know, I have never met anyone quite like you. I think I was right when I called you an enchantress.’
‘More than you know,’ Jura replied, reluctantly detaching herself from him and getting to her feet.
‘So you are a figment of my imagination!’
Jura bit her lip. What she wanted more than anything was to entice the naked-but-for-his-shirt man into her bed, to have him once more inside her, to lie entwined afterwards, to fall asleep with that heart beating against her cheek. She had never known such intimacy.
But it was not real, for he did not know the truth, and though he may mock her, fear her, disbelieve her, she wanted him to know her, and she did not want there to be lies between them. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Starving, now you ask, but I’m even more curious. What is it that’s making you frown like that?’
‘Put these on,’ Jura said, handing him his breeches shyly, ‘I’ll fetch us something to eat.’
Lawrence got to his feet. ‘I did hurt you, didn’t I?’
Jura shook her head. His shirt tails only just covered his manhood. His legs were long, flanks lean, feet elegant. ‘It’s not that,’ she said, managing a weak smile, ‘but there is something you need to know. Let me get us some food first.’
Sensing that she needed to work up to what she was going to say, Lawrence dragged on his breeches and, receiving a decided shake of the head to his offer to help, went through the curtain to the little bedroom with a kettle of water in order to wash. He felt light-headed, utterly bemused by the violenc
e of his passion, and, at the same time, absurdly pleased, high on the thrill of discovering in himself such depths of emotion. He couldn’t understand it, and was for the moment more interested in experiencing it again than in trying to do so. Whatever it was: the combination of whisky, the concussion, and being so far away from all he knew, Jura Mcnair herself—so very, very different from any other woman he’d ever met—whatever, he was in no hurry to break the spell.
The food was simple, smoked meat, fresh scones which Jura called bannocks smeared in thick yellow butter and cream cheese. ‘This is delicious,’ Lawrence said. ‘My mother is holding a ball tonight. There will be twenty to dine before, a cold supper at midnight, and breakfast at four. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here, and not there.’
‘Why are you here?’
Lawrence grinned. ‘Because I’m heartily sick of my mother’s attempts to marry me off.’
‘I don’t believe anyone could make you do what you did not want.’
Lawrence spread another bannock with butter. ‘She could not, of course, but she is most determined, and, to be honest, though we cannot see eye to eye, I have no wish to hurt her. She was an appalling wife to my father, but she has never been anything other than a doting parent. The problem is, my mother is incapable of being faithful. She calls herself a free spirit. She claims that what she calls her joie de vivre makes it impossible for her to suffer the constraints of marriage. Though my father has been dead some years now, the memory of their arguments when her indiscretions became insufficiently discreet—which they did on a regular basis—are some of my most painful. Though she swears that my siblings are all my father’s children, I cannot blame him for having doubted her. She made him utterly miserable.’ He grimaced. ‘You know, this is not really a pleasant topic of conversation.’
‘Why does your mother wish you to marry when it obviously made her so unhappy?’
Spellbound & Seduced Page 2
