The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife (Lords of the Matrix Club #1)

by Jen YatesNZ

  There was still no sound from behind her and she hurried into speech again to fill the awful silence that was something she usually treasured about the Tor.

  ‘I th—thought men—um—didn’t mind. That—that any w—woman would do. I’m so sorry. You will now think me the most l—loose of—of d—demi reps! P—please forget I ever mentioned anything!’

  What was he doing? She dared a glance back over her shoulder and wished she had a stiletto to stab her own heart.

  Still on his knee, he’d turned his head to watch her. The skin along his cheekbones had gone a pale pasty yellow, his jaw hung open and the most peculiar expression filled his eyes. Anguish? Horror? Terror? Anger? Or a ghastly potpourri of all the above? She’d done this to him, given him such an abhorrence of her he’d never speak to her again, let alone anything else her foolish heart—and body—had been thinking of! The unimaginable had happened and she’d lost the most precious friendship she would ever have.

  She’d assured herself she could live with the outcome whatever it was. She’d lied.

  A violent sob wanted to burst out of her chest and she could not have stayed a second longer if the devil himself had threatened her with eternal purgatory for moving.

  Grabbing a handful of her riding skirt, she fled the few yards down to where the horses were placidly grazing. She snatched Chester’s reins up over his head, threw herself at the saddle with a desperation that despite the heavy encumbrance of her riding habit, enabled her to get her leg almost over the pommel.

  Startled between one wrench of the sweet grass and the next, the horse leapt sideways, threatening to toss her in a very humiliating heap on her backside. Recognizing his attacker was his beloved mistress he settled with a sudden shudder of his whole body, legs bunching, poised for take-off.

  With her weight all to one side, the girth began to slip and to her terror she knew she was going to end up under Chester’s belly and nothing would hold him then. Her only hope of deliverance was to throw her body from the saddle again and away from Chester’s deadly hooves.

  Matching thought to action she closed her eyes and launched—into a warm, solid obstacle, closer and more forgiving than the hard earth was ever going to be. Arms clasped about her like a vice and Rogan took the total impact of her momentum and staggered to the ground, rolling their bodies so that in one second she was clutched desperately against his chest and the next his whole length pressed intimately down against hers. Another roll and she was above him again and they had fetched up in a shallow crater in the ground.

  Their lungs bellowed, pounding their chests against one another as their wide-eyed stares locked together.

  ‘Christ, Jassie! What the fuck did you think you were doing, woman?’ he yelled suddenly.

  She blinked, swallowed, closed her eyes, opened them again and tried to tell herself he hadn’t just said what she thought he had. He might have been her mentor in many manly pursuits but he and Philip had rarely sullied her much younger and very feminine ears with the rough cant she knew gentlemen shared among themselves. And it was entirely her own fault that he’d lost control to the extent he had now. Her blood must be so confused, rushing in and out of her cheeks like a demented storm tide, it was a wonder there was enough to drive her stampeding heart. She should roll off Rogan, put distance between their bodies, try and restore some semblance of propriety to the situation.

  ‘Propriety!’ her brain mocked. ‘You abandoned that the moment you decided on this brazen-faced plan of action.’

  Deciding propriety well-lost in the circumstances she simply dropped her head to his massive, heaving chest and let her arms slide in ugly desperation around the powerful masculinity of his neck. She knew her desperation was ugly—and obvious—but if she were never to have the opportunity to be this close to the temptation of his body again, and the universe had seen fit to gift her with this one luscious moment in time, she would steal every second of it Rogan would allow her, seconds he did not appear to be about to curtail any time soon.

  Oh blessed be!

  Speech was not an option. It would take all her strength and concentration to restore anything approaching a normal breathing pattern, as much because of where she now found herself as for what had transpired before her spectacular mode of arrival there.

  ‘Are you—all right?’

  His voice was a rumbling vibration against her forehead.

  She managed to nod and ask, ‘You?’

  ‘I think so,’ he answered slowly, his voice husking and the brutal grip of his hands softening across the small of her back.

  Just when she thought she might regain the ability to breathe, those same hands lowered and opened against the swell of her buttocks before beginning a slow, sensuous glide, into the hollow of her back where the fingers splayed, sliding under her riding jacket, fanning her waist and raking hungrily up her straining rib cage.

  She’d never hated her corset more. How could she get those hands beneath her clothes, exploring her skin? Her moan was involuntary, a rasping ache of need rippling through her, shimmying her heated feminine softness against the hard masculine torso. Her fingers pressed into the warmth of his neck and she began to wonder if she’d ever be able to prize them away.

  Why couldn’t her mind shut down and just let her body revel in the realization of her deepest, most secret desires? Why must thoughts still bombard her with distraction? Not the least of which was how far short her maidenly memory or imagination had fallen from the reality of how it would feel to finally be in Rogan’s arms again—however she’d managed to arrive there.

  Ever since her sixteenth birthday she’d wanted to feel again the wonder of his lips, his tongue dancing intimately with hers, deep in the cavern of her mouth. He would come to his senses any moment and toss her unceremoniously on her backside, just as instinctively as Chester would have. Her senses demanded she grasp every experience she possibly could before that moment arrived. Tightening her grip round his neck she dragged her body over his, achingly aware of a hard ridge behind his trousers pressing up into the fork of her thighs. Instinctively her hips bucked a little, wanting more. Her breasts sliding roughly over his chest were aching so badly she wondered if they might have been bruised in the fall. But that worry went the way of all other rational thought when her mouth came level with his.

  He’d lost his hat in his crazy rescue of her person and now her fingers threaded hungrily through the short black silken curls that had called to her hands for years. For just a second she was distracted by the glow in the deep blue eyes that seemed to pulse in rhythm with her breathing, with the regular thrusting of her breasts against his still heaving chest.

  Sanity had not claimed him yet. She lowered her mouth—and his opened to welcome her! Her last thought before abandoning herself to the heated seduction of that mouth was that sanity was greatly over-rated.

  Her fingers dragged down the smooth shaven planes of his cheeks to grip his jaw and hold his face for her ravaging mouth. Somewhere in the fog of her brain she was aware she’d lost all semblance of anything ladylike and was at the mercy of the love, the hunger, the lust she’d carried deep in her being for this man for as long as she’d been aware of such things.

  The hot chiseled lips that had starred in her dreams for years were at last exactly where she’d longed for them to be, drinking her in, suckling hungrily, devouring her every breath which she gave willingly into his keeping. His tongue danced along the edge of her teeth, seeking entrance, demanding more. Instinctively her mouth opened and suddenly his hands were at the back of her head and there was no pulling back even in the unlikely event she would want to.

  She wanted to climb inside him, to take him inside of herself, meld their two beings into one perfect entity from here until eternity. Her desires tried to make themselves known through passionate mewling whimpers in the back of her throat and then his hands, those two fiery brands holding her head, stroked back down her torso to grip her buttocks and pull her hips hard ag
ainst the solid ridge in his trousers. Finally there were no words, no thoughts in her mind, just an all-consuming fire that had been smoldering, simmering, threatening to combust for so long that no other tinder was needed. Her hips pumped against him, eliciting a deep groan from his chest that maddened her still further.

  This was what she’d wanted, what she’d been asking for, and now for whatever miraculous reason, it was hers. Nothing could keep her hands from him now. With desperate fingers she ripped the already loosened neck cloth undone, exposing the violent pulse at the base of his manly throat.

  Hers—for now.

  Her mouth settled there, suckling deeply at the vulnerable spot while her fingers worked with feverish intent at the stud fasteners of his shirt. One by one they slid from the fabric, abandoned the moment they’d succumbed.

  ‘Rogan!’ she whispered, more to herself than him. ‘I—oh—I have so longed—’

  Words failed her again for her fingertips had discovered the pure masculine textures of his body beneath the shirt; hot skin, taut over straining muscle, and a soft dark mat of fine curly hair. Where her fingers led her mouth instinctively followed, kissing, licking, suckling with noisy delight. Impatient hands spread the shirt wide exposing the full extent of his broad muscular chest with dark, flat nipples offering a challenge she never thought of resisting.

  At least she had some idea what to do, having had the freedom of the very extensive libraries at both Brantleigh Manor and Windermere Abbey all her adult life. If she’d been thinking at all she’d have thanked whoever had thought to provision the topmost shelves, at the Abbey in particular, with some very explicit tomes. No one, not even Philip had known she’d found those, let alone Rogan.

  With a soft moan of deep satisfaction she closed her lips over Rogan’s hard left nipple, sucked deeply and nibbled with her teeth, eliciting a harsh groan from him that excited her almost beyond bearing. He was as lost to desire as she was. He was not going to stop her! The knowledge was a heady burst of excitement, sparking her every nerve ending with wildfire.

  Her breasts felt as if they were straining free of her corset, her mouth was a furnace of insatiability and her whole lower body was about to burst into flame at any moment.

  This was what she’d wanted, knew had been missing from her life. Would she ever be able to go on if this was all she would ever have? That thought was enough to spark another explosion through her bloodstream.

  Her mouth slid across his chest to pull deeply at his right nipple and Rogan gripped the back of her head, clearly indicating his appreciation. Then his hands were dragging restlessly down her body again. A cool breeze whispered across the back of her thighs, quickly warmed by large, heated palms sliding upwards under her skirt and over her tingling flesh to curve over her buttocks.

  As she lifted her mouth back to his with a hissed, ‘Yessss!’ one hand slid right round under her hip, finding the soft mass of curls at her mound. She tried to raise her lower body a little to ease his access but the other hand clasping her buttock held her firm. Nevertheless, his seeking fingers slid deep, unerringly finding where her desire wept for him. More encouraging groans were driven from her throat.

  ‘Please—oh Rogan—please!’

  A deep, almost animalistic growl, rumbled up from his belly and between one breath and the next that didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to flow in or out, she was on her back beneath him, riding skirts rucked up to her waist, all her woman’s secrets open to him. Gripping her flailing arms he thrust them above her head and held her wrists down with one hand while ripping open the fall of his trousers with the other. His huge swollen cock sprang free and just for a breath Jassie felt doubt, and words quivered on her lips.

  Then his fingers were back between her desire soaked folds sending streaks of lightning straight to her womb, and her body over-rode her mind. Unable to move her hands to grasp any part of him, she bucked her hips upwards in a desperate plea for the ultimate connection.

  ‘Please,’ she begged again, her head threshing helplessly against the harsh, wind-dried grass of the Tor.

  His mouth was a taut, grim slash; a small scar beneath his left eye gleamed oddly white and a strange fire glittered in his eyes. Jassie had the sudden disconcerting thought that he was no longer aware of who lay beneath him; that he was lost in the power of his need and the instinct to mate, maybe even to—punish?

  Harsh, guttural sounds emanated from his throat and she could only hope they were the sounds of a man in the throes of passion for if they were not—it sounded almost as if he’d called her some very ugly names. But she was helpless against the strength of him and the desperate surging need within her.

  And then he thrust, hard and deep, and a wild yelp of pain ripped from her throat at the tearing, intensely burning power of his possession. A deep moan of satisfaction was his only response as he held himself deep in her body for several seconds before he began to withdraw. In those few seconds Jassie realized the pain had subsided and that she didn’t want him to leave her body. But then, to her great relief, he thrust again, and again, over and over, his eyes closed, his body hammering into hers with the power of a battering ram and his fingers still manacled about her wrists—and yet—now the pain was gone she welcomed him. Her brain was sizzling, lyrical, with the wild realization that at last—she knew.

  Knew how it was to be loved by a man. Knew herself capable of bringing the man she loved, this man, beyond the limits of his own formidable control.

  Something was building within her, some awesome pinnacle she was striving to conquer, the peak of which promised a spectacular boon she could not begin to imagine. Just when it seemed she might reach out, claw her way to this crowning glory, Rogan’s whole body stiffened above her, his penis buried deep, surely as deep as the mouth of her womb, and with a harsh, long-drawn out, rending groan, he gradually collapsed down over her, relinquishing his punishing grip on her wrists.

  His eyes opened, glowing like molten silver in his head and then the strange glitter faded and Jassie saw the moment when he came back to her, really saw her. Anger, black, ugly and bitter, flashed before he closed his eyes and with an ugly oath he rolled off her to lie with his hand across his eyes as if trying to block out the sight of her.

  As if he hated her. As if he really had called her a ‘fucking whore’.

  What had she done? In her selfishness—somehow she’d hurt him.

  Stunned by the crazy wildness of it, the ache within her that wanted to cry for something lost, or maybe never found, she lay as he left her, arms still above her head as if she could no longer pull them down, her lower body exposed like some abandoned trollop, and fought to drag air into her lungs and stop the tears that suddenly burned at the backs of her eyes. Succeeding desperately with the first and failing miserably with the second she finally moved with the thought of touching his shoulder, comforting him, telling him it was all right, it was her fault and she’d never bother him about this stuff again, when he rolled even further way from her and slammed his fist into the hard ground with a jarring force that must have been exceedingly painful. But the words he shouted with the force of bullets from a gun, ugly curses she’d never heard him use before today, held her from touching him.

  Instead she began to push agitatedly at her skirts with one hand while attempting to wipe tears from her cheeks with the other. Why was he so angry? What awful darkness filled his soul? For she knew she had glimpsed the dark pit of despair in his eyes. Did he hate her so much for bringing him to the point he could not refuse her?

  Gradually he became still, face buried against his arm where it lay on the ground and the only sounds on the Tor were the soft whisper of the wind about the standing stone and the trill of a skylark far above them.

  ‘Jassie, Jassie—damn it! Damn it all to hell.’ The words came to her in a harsh, almost broken whisper then he rolled back and folded her limp body in his arms and held her close against his chest. His whole being trembled. ‘How can you ever forgiv
e me?’

  His lips pressed hotly against her forehead, then his cheek rested gently against hers and she imagined the dampness on her skin was as much from his tears as hers.

  Dear God, where did they go from here?

  When his mouth found hers again, it was gentle, caressing, seeking. His tongue moved tentatively in search of hers and she surrendered to the sweetness of it with a sigh of intense relief. Perhaps all was not lost. The large heated hand that had driven her to such heights only moments before closed gently over the swell of her breast. Then with a groan of frustration he swiftly unfastened her jacket and shirt to ease her aching flesh above the confines of her corset. Her brain was fit to explode with the delight of it and then he bent his head to hers, delving deep into her mouth with his tongue until she moaned and writhed with need.

  ‘I know—I know,’ he growled, lifting his mouth from hers and allowing their breaths to mingle. ‘I promise—I will—control myself this time.’

  His head lowered again to the breast he cupped and held for his hungry lips to savor, pulling and suckling with exquisite tenderness. Once again her body seemed to have a mind of its own, bucking and jerking up towards his mouth, wanting—wanting—more. Trailing kisses across the valley between her breasts he lavished the same attention on her other nipple and the fire in her belly magnified.

  ‘Rogan,’ she begged. ‘Please—’

  ‘Don’t!’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t beg. It’s all right. I’ll not leave you wanting this time. But—don’t—beg.’

  His hand found her thigh, cool from its exposure to the air, and rubbed gently upwards, leaving a restless heat in its wake. Strong masculine fingers found that place that still ached for him, slid into the searing inner heat of her—and out—and in again.

  Suddenly that peak she’d strained for with such futility earlier was within her grasp, and she hissed through her clenching teeth.

  ‘Yesss!—Oh God, Rogan! Oh—oh—’