by Sabrina York
Her smile was far too sweet, far too innocent for the moment. It threatened to concern him, but he was far too befuddled for the warning to seep through. “Of course you do, darling,” she whispered. She set her hands on his shoulders, stroking the column of his neck. Then her palms skated to his chest … and she pushed.
It took a moment for him to realize she was pushing him away; his soul wailed.
With a taunting smile, she stood and sauntered to the hearth, leaving him perched by the bed on his knees. He watched her, tracking the sway of her hips, the knowing quirk of her smile. She stopped next to a large chair by the fire. And then she crooked her finger.
He didn’t know much in this world, but he did know one thing. When a woman like Susana Dounreay crooked her finger at a man, he came.
Hopefully …
Not breaking with her gaze, he stood and made his way to the chair. He had no idea what she had in mind. He didn’t care.
Especially when she reached down and traced his cock.
It was heavy and full and pressed uncomfortably against his breeks. But God, it felt good, that caress. She edged closer and palmed him and murmured, “Mmm.”
Heat flared. Lust howled. He wanted to grab her and bend her over the back of the chair and fuck her like a stallion fucks a mare in heat. But he didn’t. Because he desperately wanted to know what she had in mind.
He was certain he would enjoy it.
Ah, yes. With sure fingers, she unbuttoned the placket of his breeks, allowing his cock to spring free. She murmured again as she grasped him, encircled him. The blood left his head in a rush, making him dizzy. It pooled—all of it perhaps—in his groin.
He hissed as agony swelled.
She released him far too soon. His eyes fluttered open and he stared at her. Hunger simmered, burned.
Her lips quirked. She pointed at the chair. “Sit.” Her tone was sharp, commanding, irresistible.
Naturally, he sat.
“Put your hands behind you.”
He blinked. His lips parted but she silenced the unspoken word with a finger.
“Do as I say, Andrew.”
Oh, holy God.
He whipped his arms behind him and clasped the legs of the chair.
“Do not move or I shall stop.”
Stop? Stop what?
But ah! He didn’t have to wonder long. She set her hands on his thighs and knelt between them.
His breath locked in his lungs. His pulse pounded. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Was she going to…?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. She was.
She hissed in a breath and took his cock in her hands, double-fisting him. Her fingers were gentle and soft, but firm. She stroked and he nearly lost consciousness.
That it was this woman, on her knees before him, clutching his cock, nearly unmanned him. He grit his teeth and tightened his fingers and forced himself to suffer her torment.
Bluidy hell, he knew what this was.
She was going to pay him back.
While he didn’t mind paying—didn’t mind in the slightest—he filed away a mental note that Susana Dounreay was a woman who would meet every assault with one of her own. And hers were ever so much more heinous.
She dipped her head and lapped at the head of his cock—he nearly sprang out of the chair at that, but somehow managed to stay put. Then she parted her lips and encased the mushroom head in her sweet mouth. The sight, the sensation lashed him. He shuddered. Ripples of bliss and agony danced over his nerves as she explored him with an untried tongue.
She nearly drove him mad with that untried tongue.
When this was finished, when she’d had her revenge, as clearly that was what this was, he would need to show her, school her on how to—
Fook!
She sucked him in, and his thoughts scattered to the winds. His hips heaved as she took him deeper, making him ache to drive deeper still. He tried to control himself, but he was beyond cogent thought, beyond gentlemanly restraint. Far beyond manners of any sort.
“Ach, aye,” he said. “Suck it.”
He shouldn’t have said anything. She lifted her head, releasing him with a plop. She tipped her head to the side, stroking him slowly, dandling her finger in the damp slit where a salty tear beaded to replace the one she’d stolen. “Do you like it when I suck your cock, Andrew?”
“Ach. Aye.” He lifted his hips, a suggestion, perhaps, that she please continue.
“Do you want more?”
Oh, Jesus. “Aye.”
A wicked grin blossomed on her beautiful, beautiful face. It occurred to him, in that moment, she might very well be the most evil being on the planet. Because she put out a lip and said, in a pouty voice, “Say please.”
Shite!
He very nearly released his hands and buried his fingers in her hair and yanked her mouth back where it belonged, but he didn’t. He’d set the rules for this game and he would abide by them. Bluidy fook.
“Please.” No doubt it was easier for him to say it than her, because there was hardly any hesitation at all. But then, he didn’t give a flying fook about the word. It was just a word. And saying it would get her mouth on him again. Thank God she didn’t realize that.
Or … maybe she did.
Her brow rumpled and she sat back on her heels. She released his cock altogether, which was a tragedy of monumental proportions. Nibbling her lip—oh, that she were nibbling him—she studied him.
“Susana?” He thrust his hips. His cock bounded, but not much. It was stiff as a pike. “I said please.”
“Aye. You did. But so quickly. It makes me wonder.”
“Wonder?” Lord preserve a man from a woman who wondered.
“Wonder if you are sincere…”
He glanced down at his little warrior and then glanced at her. “Does this look sincere to you? Does this look fooking sincere?”
She shrugged. “I doona know.” She affected a grin. “Men are a mystery to me.”
“Let me clue you in. When it’s like this”—he nodded to the thick shaft, with the angry crown and bulging veins—“a man is always sincere. Especially when he says please.”
“Do you really want me?”
“Ach, Christ, woman. Yes.”
She seemed inclined to lean in again, but then she frowned. “Me? Or would just any woman do?”
He gaped at her. His first thought was that she was playing with him, trying to get him to say something that might be more difficult than a simple please, but then he realized her question was genuine. She really wanted to know.
He swallowed. “Most of the time, honestly, any woman would do.”
There was a flash of pain in her eyes, but she nodded and acquiesced. She took him in her hands again.
He released his hold on the chair and cupped her chin. “But Susana, that is not the case now.”
She blinked. Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted. “It isna?”
“Nae.” And God help him, it was true. Since he’d met her. Since he’d kissed her, tasted her, gloried in her scent. “No other woman would do for me.” He kissed her gently. Their lips melded, meshed for a long moment. When she pulled back, there was a sheen of tears in her eyes. Or perhaps he was imagining things, because she forced a frown and, with a remonstrating tut tut, arranged his arms behind him once more. “I told you not to let go.”
“Aye, mistress.”
He was joking, but she seemed to like that. Her eyes glowed. But then she said the most perturbing thing. “I think you need to be punished.
“What?”
“Och, aye.”
He watched in shock as she lifted her skirts and straddled the arms of the chair. Thusly situated, she hovered above him. He could feel the heat of her core on his cock, imagined he could feel the drizzle of her arousal. Reaching beneath her, reaching between them, she took hold of him. “Now,” she said in the tone of pedantic instructor. “Let’s begin again.”
She edged lower and rubbed the head of his cock agains
t her damp folds. His eyes crossed. “Tell me what you want?”
“I want to fuck you.”
“Just me?”
“Och, aye.”
“Doona let go of the chair.”
“Nae. I willna.” This, he hissed through his teeth.
And ah, God. She slipped lower and lower still until the tip was sheathed in her hot wet embrace. She wrapped her arms around him, bracing herself more securely. “Now,” she whispered in his ear. “Say please.”
“Ah, Susana.” A groan. A desperate entreaty. “Pl—”
She dropped. Impaled him, before the word even passed his lips. And God, was it exquisite. Her weight, the grip of her sheath, the slow, slick slide of her body on his.
He couldn’t stay still. His hands came around and cupped her ass, glorying in the feel of her supple globes filling his palms. He held her still and thrust up, once, twice, three times. With each maddening lunge, her breath huffed out, and with it, her groan. Her eyes glowed. Her lips parted.
“Do you like this?” he growled.
“Aye. Oh, aye.”
“It would be better on the floor.”
A desperate suggestion, perhaps, but he needed to make it. This was delightful, but he burned for leverage. He wanted control. He needed to cover her.
“Och, aye,” she gasped, and in a heartbeat, without even disengaging, he had her flat on her back on the carpet, her legs high over her head and spread. With a snarl he yanked out and then thrust in again. Like a wild beast he took her, but she gave it back to him with equal measure. Lunging up into him, grasping, clawing, savaging him as he savaged her. He wanted, needed, to see her breasts, so he yanked at her bodice. It came away with a rip and she laughed. Her laugh rippled through her body and into his, but he barely had time to enjoy the vibrations, because her breasts stole all his attention. They bobbled as he moved, as he pounded away at a faster and faster pace. He had to pause, though, to suckle a nipple, because it would be a shame not to do so and because he’d spent so much time wondering what they—
Ah. Raspberries. They tasted like raspberries.
He found he couldn’t release her. So he shifted position, so he could nuzzle her delicious breasts and still maintain a mounting frenzy.
As he nipped a nipple she gasped, cried out, and closed around him.
The bliss was blinding.
Heat coiled at the base of his balls. Tension in his cock, in this spine, in every muscle, mounted. A great pressure closed around him, a dizzying delirious torment he knew well and welcomed.
“Susana…” he gasped as he neared the precipice. Mad to take her with him, he nudged her pearl, circled it, pinched.
And, aye. Aye.
As he succumbed, so did she, dissolving in his arms in a series of excruciating quakes that sent him over the edge and tumbling into the abyss. In a wild tumult, he flooded her, filling her with jet after jet of surging seed.
It was an abyss of delirium and delight, so he welcomed the fall.
* * *
Susana stared up at the ceiling, her mind in a whirl. Andrew’s weight on her was a delicious burden. She loved the feel of him, his warmth, his scent.
He’d mated with her like a wild animal in heat. It had been magnificent.
He groaned and eased out. She winced at the loss of his presence within her. But then he took her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly. With a chuckle, he rolled to the side, but she didn’t mind, because he took her with him, settling her on his chest.
He held her close and teased his fingers through her hair. “That was…” He shook his head, at a loss for words.
“Aye.” She kissed him. “It was.”
“One of these times, we shall have to get undressed.”
She chuckled. “If we can wait that long.”
A light glimmered in his eye. “Doubtful.” He pulled her closer and kissed her again.”I just seem to lose all rational thought around you.”
“And I you.” She propped her hands on his chest and set her chin on her hands. “You’ll have to leave, you know.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You’ll have to leave. You canna stay here.”
It was adorable the way he put out a lip. But, reminded of rational thought, this was a very important point.
“Why?” He traced her cheek, her chin. “I was hoping we could … explore more.”
She sighed. “I canna let my daughter find you here. You have to go.”
“Your daughter?”
“Aye. Sometimes she comes to my rooms at night. It could be … awkward.”
“We could lock the door.”
“We could. Or you could leave.”
“Ach, so you take what you want from me and then kick me out?” His outrage was feigned. She was almost sure of it.
She chuckled and kissed his beard, then pushed up and away. “Doona pout. I will see you in the morning.”
It was hard letting him go, but she had to. She was a mother. And her daughter did indeed have a habit of appearing in her room at all hours.
It was a pity she’d never thought to restrain the habit before.
“Aye. All right.” He stood and fastened his breeks then reached down to help her to her feet. His attention stalled on her bodice and she realized that, as he’d ripped her garment asunder, her breasts were bare.
A light flickered in his eyes. He caught her gaze and pulled her closer and kissed her with unmistakable intent.
It was a long time, indeed, before he left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Andrew woke in a dreamy fog. His body hummed with pleasure … and arousal. Memories of the night before flitted through his mind. Though he was ensconced, not in a smelly kennel on a lumpy pallet, but in a luxurious bed in a finely decorated room, dissatisfaction rippled through him. Because he was alone.
Though he’d spent most of the night with Susana—and though she was not far away, perhaps still sleeping in her room in the next wing—her absence now was a gaping hole in his soul.
Then again … perhaps she was still sleeping in her room.
A flare of excitement flickered. He glanced at the window. Though it was raining—and thank God he wasn’t sleeping in the kennel—he could see that the sun was just rising. If he hurried, maybe he could wake her with a kiss. With that thought, he pulled on his breeks and tunic, ran his fingers through his hair, and headed for the west wing.
He was almost to the grand staircase, which separated the wings of the castle, when an odd sound, a dull thud, captured his attention. He knew that sound, and it had no place in a castle.
It sounded again, followed by a warbled cheer.
Perplexed, he pushed open the door from beyond which the strange sounds emanated, stepped inside, and stared.
It wasn’t often that one saw a small girl, perched on the second-story rail of a library, shooting unsuspecting books with a bow and arrow.
Isobel drew back and sighted on a shelf across the room. She teetered precariously and then tightened her legs around the rail … and then let fly. The arrow screamed across the room and landed in the spine of a tome with a dull thunk.
“Woo-hoo!” she cried. And then, in her exhilaration, she loosened her hold on the rail and wobbled again.
Andrew’s heart lurched. What the hell was it with this girl and heights?
Rather than call out to her, and possibly startle her and cause her to topple to the floor far below, he rushed in and grabbed her by the waist and tugged her from her precarious perch.
She screeched. Her bow tumbled from her fingers; it whipped down and down and clattered onto the hardwood floor below.
“What are you doing?” This they both demanded of the other as he set her safely on the ground.
Andrew sighed. “You were going to fall.”
“I wasna going to fall. And look. You made me drop my bow.” She peered over the edge, a petulant frown on her face.
“The bow suffered the fall rather well. You, my l
ady, wouldna have.”
She blew out a damp breath. It sounded like Pffft. “I’ve never fallen before. I’m verra practiced at this.”
And aye. About that … He gazed across the room to the prickling bristles of arrows deeply embedded in what appeared to be the drama section. Shakespeare would not be pleased. “Why are you shooting books in the library anyway?” What had they ever done to her?
She shrugged. “It’s raining.”
How that signified, he didn’t know.
Her nose rumpled and she added, “I was bored.”
“Do you often shoot books in the library?”
“Only the ones I doona like to read.”
He gulped. Stared down at her diminutive form. “You read?”
“Hannah taught me. I thought it was stupid at first, but you can learn interesting things in books, I’ve found.”
“Such as?”
Her only response was a truly chilling smile.
“Surely there are other things to do that are no’ so…” Dangerous? Destructive? Discombobulating? “What would your mother say if she knew you were perched on the railing, risking life and limb to defeat an army of books?”
“She does encourage me to practice.”
“In the library?”
Isobel grinned. It was an unsettling grin. Far too mischievous. Far too familiar. “She would probably say the same thing she always says.”
“Which is?”
She bunched her hands into fists and scrunched up her face into a moue of ferocity that looked very much like Susana’s indeed. And then she bellowed, “Isobel Mairi MacBean! What on God’s green earth are you thinking?”
His breath stalled. “Isobel Mairi?”
“Isobel Mairi is my I’m in trouble name.”
“Your I’m in trouble name?”
“It’s what my mama says when I’m in trouble.”
“Mairi?” An odd mélange of emotions swirled in his gut. He reminded himself that Mairi was a common name. And his Mairi had hailed from Ciaran Reay. There were probably many Mairis here.
“It’s my middle name. Mama’s, too.”
“Ah.”
She peered over the rail again and sighed heavily. “Now I have to go down there and get my bow.”
“So you can continue shooting? I think not. Why do we no’ go to the morning room and have breakfast?”
