by Isobel Carr
Leo tipped his head and leaned back into his chair. A smile cocked up one side of his mouth, causing the cut that marred his cheek to tighten and pull. His wicked green eye glinted, as if it could laugh all on its own, even past the bruise that shadowed it.
One large hand shot out to grip her skirts, pulling her toward him. His fingers grazed her hip as he tightened his hold. “Search your memory. I think you’ll find I’d reached your thigh and was well on my way heavenward.”
“Really?” Viola raised one brow, gazing down at him, trying to look arch and mocking. It had always been so easy, controlling men. And when you controlled them, controlling yourself, your world, was easily accomplished. But she was clearly not in control with Lord Leonidas Vaughn, and tonight she could barely keep her hands steady. She had to concentrate just to place one foot in front of the other, her nerves jangling with anticipation.
“Really.” Leo stood suddenly, chest scraping the length of her, the buttons of his waistcoat stuttering across the hook and eyes that held her gown closed, popping the uppermost free. She fell back a step, his firm grip on her skirts preventing her from retreating farther. Her breath caught in her throat as her lungs seized.
He yanked her closer, head dipping to her ear. “But perhaps I’ll start over from the top.” He caught her lobe between his teeth and kissed the pulse point behind her ear, mouth hot, breath moist.
“And work your way down to hell instead?”
He laughed, hands sliding around to grip her bottom. Her feet left the floor, one shoe falling to the carpet with a muffled thud. He sank back into the chair, dragging her with him, her thighs splayed wide, embracing his ribs. A flurry of panic beat its way up her spine.
Leo hadn’t pulled her into his lap because he’d lost control. He’d put her there because, in such a position, she had almost none. Physically she was trapped, restrained… lost.
His mouth was at her throat. His teeth slid roughly along her clavicle. His hands slid up her thighs, gripped her hips, and tugged her forward in his lap. Her skirts rose in a froth between them. Leo shoved them back, leaving her naked nearly to the waist.
Warm as the night was, the air felt cold as it washed over her exposed skin. Excitement mounted, desire threaded through her.
“If this is hell, I’ll be happy to forgo Christ’s promise of forgiveness.”
Viola gasped, as much from his easy blasphemy as from the shock of his knuckles running lightly over the straining peak at the base of her mons. She arched, body seeking more, spine fighting against the embrace of her stays. One nipple slid free of her bodice, and Leo captured it with his mouth.
His cock was hard against her thigh. The promise of earthly delight blatant and tantalizingly close. He bit lightly down on the bud of her nipple, opened his mouth, and sucked hard, teeth sharp on the tender flesh of her breast.
Her hands locked in his hair. Her hips rolled as his hand possessed her, long fingers filling her, thumb circling, teasing, torturing.
Her thighs shook as she leveraged herself up so she could open his breeches. She yanked his shirt loose, fought her way past his drawers. His hand left her, slid around to manacle her wrist.
She caught a sob at the sense of bereavement that followed. She was hollow, aching, her whole being wound down tightly to the throbbing between her thighs that had replaced her heartbeat as the measure of life. As the only thing of import in the world.
“Have we reached the begging stage already?”
The chuckle that followed caused her spine to stiffen. Lust and need died away as though she’d been slapped. Her breath left her in a huff, and she found herself staring into eyes filled with cool assessment. He was as rampant as a statue of Priapus, but he hadn’t lost one jot of his self-control.
“Not quite, my lord.” Viola forced every bit of frustration into her voice, and prayed that it sounded more like annoyance.
Leo grinned back at her, clearly not at all fooled. He let go of her wrist. His fingers trailed lightly up the inside of her thigh. His teeth slid along her neck.
“Shall I resume where I left off?”
His thumb pressed against the tendon where her thigh joined her body. Fingers circled the secret folds, blazing a path that left her with an aching need for more.
“Or shall I retrace my steps?”
One finger slid tantalizingly across the very peak of her clitoris, then slid down to circle the entrance to her body. Her thighs quivered, and her womb pulsed. His fingers circled again, flittering over her, leaving a teasing promise of delight in their wake.
“Let me make this easy. Do you want me to touch you here?” He pushed against her clitoris.
“Yes.” The word shuddered out of her.
“Here?”
His hand slid downward, and one long finger pushed inside her. Viola’s throat tightened. Her hands gripped his coat hard enough that they shook. “There.”
A second finger joined the first inside her. His thumb returned to its rightful place at the center of her being. Leo nipped at her neck and bit her shoulder. His fingers moved within her, curling, pressing.
Tension coiled in her belly, her core turning to liquid, pleasure sliding into pain and back again as she came. “Not enough.” Her own plea shocked her. Humiliation and need spun together, coalescing sharply between her thighs. His fingers pushed deeper, and her body throbbed in response.
Viola yanked the fall of his breeches open. “I need—I want—”
Leo pushed her hands away a second time. “If that was you begging, Love, you’ll have to do better. Much, much better.”
An annoyed huff was all she was able to manage. She wanted him inside her so much that her body ached. Her hands were cold. Her fingers and toes tingling.
Viola clutched his shirt and buried her head in the crook of his neck. She took a deep breath. Linen and leather, warm skin and Bay Rum. God, but he smelled good. She swallowed hard and took a shuddering breath.
This was supposed to be a contest of wills. Why had hers utterly deserted her? She’d desired other men. Enjoyed their touch, but this was different. Her friend Lady Ligonier would smirk and put it down to her prolonged bout of abstinence. But she’d be wrong.
It was desire—raw, hot, and irresistible—spiraling between them. Hers fed on his; his fanned hers to greater heights. One-sided, it was merely lust. Her coin of trade. Shared, it was another thing entirely. A passion that almost frightened her.
Leo nudged Viola’s head up from his shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered, finally settling half-open over irises that had darkened to azure in the candlelight. Curls tumbled about her face, transforming her once more into the Italian goddess of their first encounter.
He dipped his head, capturing her mouth with his. Her tongue met his, dipped and stroked. Their kiss intensified, becoming a battle all its own. Her hand twisted in his hair, ripping his queue free of its ribbon.
Leo surged out of the chair, sweeping Viola off his lap and into his arms. He strode toward the door. Carrying his acknowledged mistress through the house would hardly shock his all-male staff, and Viola’s maid must be inured to such experiences.
Once in his room, Leo kicked the door shut behind him. Viola slid out of his arms, regaining her feet. He yanked the hook and eyes that fastened her bodice with enough force to bend the last few. The tapes that held her skirts were quickly dispensed with, as were her stays and shift. He left her standing in nothing but her stockings and garters.
Blood pounded in his ears in deafening waves. Viola raised her chin, gaze holding his, skin flushed and damp and radiant. He wanted to push her beneath him and thrust into her, to lose himself in her, to ride her to sweet incoherence. But he wasn’t going to do so, at least not tonight.
Leo pulled her toward the bed, tipped her onto it, and sank to his knees. He wrapped his arms about her, slid her forward to the edge, and leaned in to take one taut nipple between his teeth.
Viola hissed. Her knees gripped his ribs, squeezing, tugging h
im closer, trapping him against her. The damp heat of her cleft burned through the fabric of his shirt. His cock pushed against the layers of linen and leather between it and its goal.
Leo opened his mouth wider, took more of the flesh of her breast between his teeth, and sucked hard enough that Viola whimpered. His cock was going to have to wait. Tonight was about her. Tonight, he was dedicated to her complete seduction, her pleasure, and her surrender. Simply fucking her wouldn’t achieve any of his goals, though the tight ache in his balls and his painfully hard erection argued against his plan.
Viola clutched at his shoulders, hands pulling at his shirt. “Please, Leo. Please.”
“Please, Leo, what? Please, Leo, touch you?” He flicked his tongue over her ruched nipple. “Please, Leo, taste you?” He blew across the wet peak. “Please, Leo, take you?”
Leo cupped her breast, caught the tight bud of her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and squeezed. Her eyelids fluttered, her spine arched, and her lips parted. Sweet Jesus, he wanted to fuck her.
He rolled her nipple between his fingers, and Viola’s nostrils flared as she breathed in sharply. Her legs gripped him, pulling him in. She leaned forward and brushed her cheek against his like a cat greeting its mate.
“Please, Leo.” Her words slid across his skin, scalding hot. “Taste me.”
Her lips found his, her tongue invading his mouth. Leo slid away from the kiss, mouth trailing down her neck, over her breasts and stomach. He pushed her back onto the bed and held her there, arm across her hips while he shouldered apart her thighs.
Her secret folds were slick and swollen from the last time he’d brought her to climax. Leo dipped his tongue into her and she bucked, thighs locking about his shoulders.
Sweet and salty at the same time. Peaches and balsamic vinegar. Dessert in Rome on a hot summer day. Leo licked and sucked, fixing his mouth over her pulsing clitoris.
Viola’s hands slid into his hair, pulling him closer, trying to pull him away. He couldn’t tell which, and didn’t care. She was panting, twisting, legs trembling as they gripped him. Her hands suddenly clenched, nearly ripping his hair from his head, and she gave a high, keening cry that ended in his name.
Leo ran his tongue up her cleft, flicked it over her clitoris, and let his teeth slide lightly over the tender peak. Viola shook and pushed at his shoulder with her foot.
Hands resting on her thighs, Leo sat back and simply allowed himself to enjoy the trembling aftershocks of her climax and the knowledge that the next time she came, his cock would be buried inside her.
CHAPTER 12
A fat, lazy bee droned among the hollyhock and pinks, the spring’s bounty too much for even its greedy forging. Viola twitched her skirts aside to avoid its pollen-drunk flight.
She hadn’t been stung since she was a girl, but she remembered it clearly enough not to want to repeat the experience. No more than she wanted to repeat the dizzying thrill of infatuation… but her own feelings, her own memories, were harder to avoid than the bee.
Penthesilea grumbled behind her, breaking into a full-throated bark as a butterfly had the temerity to flutter across her path. Viola shook her head and quickened her pace. She’d caught a glimpse of water from her window that morning as she’d dressed. A pond? A stream? She hadn’t been able to tell, but the promise of shade, cool water, and a peaceful spot to think was irresistible.
She’d woken in her own bed, the memory of Lord Leonidas carrying her there hazy, mixed up as it was with that of climax after climax. It had been a night filled with teasing, with sweet, erotic torture. And when she’d complained that hands and mouths were not enough, he’d simply smiled and brought her to orgasm again.
The path of crushed oyster shell turned to dirt as it meandered into an artful copse of trees. Nuthatch and robins darted through the dappled light. A squirrel dashed up a tree, scolding as it went. Pen sneezed derisively, ignoring it in favor of crashing through the foliage beside the path.
Birds erupted in all directions. Pen woofled, chasing after them, far too slow to catch one but happy to try all the same. She had been pronounced to be, in general, healthy and likely to recover in full.
The local hunt master clearly hadn’t been delighted to minister to Viola’s mongrel, but he’d done so all the same. Undeniably only as a favor to Leo. He’d left with promises of dire consequences if Pen were to interfere with his hounds and general predictions of doom attached to her adoption of such a beast. That Leo had gone with him had been a relief.
The ground rose slowly until the path became a rough set of stairs. Stone steps emerged as she rounded the hill. A stone wall, damp with moss and lichen, rose along one side. A few more steps and then an outer wall began, and then she was climbing into the ruins of a small, square tower.
It was enchanting. A garden folly of epic proportions. She hurried upward, winding past several narrow windows before reaching the top.
A vista of rolling hills, green with grass and dappled with trees, greeted her over the uneven, broken balustrade. The small rise where the tower was built was littered with broken stones. They tumbled down until they met a wide stream that wound through the open field and lapped at the tower’s base. Pen was circling and sniffing among them, rooting in the tall grass.
Viola sat down upon the uppermost edge of stone and stared out toward the ha-ha. Her head ached. Likewise her wrist, but it was the weakness in her thighs that stood out, that reminded her that last night she’d sailed off the edge of the map. The waters here were deep, filled with hidden shoals… teeming with dragons.
The previous evening’s misadventure left her with no illusions. She had attempted to claim the reins and failed. Lord Leonidas had emerged the victor in that particular struggle for power—utterly, completely, delightfully. All that was required now was her complete surrender. But allowing herself to succumb to pleasure, to simply receive, to take was inadvisable and dangerous. Not to mention utterly infuriating, just like the man himself.
“Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!”
Viola nearly fell from her perch as Leo’s voice startled her. He was mounted on his blood bay, the horse’s front hooves firmly in the water. Pen gamboled about them, splashing, whining with excitement.
“Alas, my lord, my hair is red. Not at all the proper color for a princess.”
“Nay.” He smiled up at her, the shadow of his hat hiding the bruise she knew ringed one eye. “ ’Tis gold, with flame running beneath it, just as a princess’s hair should be.”
A smile tugged at her lips. She caught her lower lip between her teeth to hide her grin. Her hair was red, no denying it, though she’d escaped the plague of freckles that so often accompanied such coloring.
He urged his mount forward and abandoned it to crop grass at the base of the tower. Her pulse surged. Lust, ripe and heady, washed through her. Try as she might, she was no more composed today than she had been last night.
Mere moments after he’d disappeared from view, he was pushing in beside her, crowding her, hip balanced against the top of the wall. Did he do it on purpose? Was he even aware that he always dominated a space in such a manner?
“I see you’ve found my Tintagel,” he said, one hand reaching into her hair. He gently pulled a leaf free and stood turning it in his fingers.
“Your what?”
Leo chuckled, the sound rumbling through her. “My Tintagel. My Tower of London. Occasionally even my Nottingham Castle.” He turned and sat beside her, gazing out over the field and stream. “No, to be truthful, it was my brother’s Nottingham.”
“Did your father build it here for you?”
“No, my grandfather built it for my grandmother, but she shared it with us, along with stories of King Arthur, Robin Hood, Cú Chulainn—all the myths and legends that Father and Mother eschewed in favor of truth and history.”
“But the stories are so much more satisfying, aren’t they?”
Leo nodded, still playing with the leaf. “More happ
y endings anyway. Good wins over evil. Right triumphs in the end…” His voice trailed off, and he tossed the leaf over the edge.
Viola watched the leaf spiral down until it disappeared into the climbing roses that girded the tower’s base. “It’s a beautiful folly. It must have taken quite an effort to create it.”
He ground a weed under the toe of his boot. “It’s a miniature version of the ruins of Kirby Muxloe. Grandmother loved the place. It’s only a few miles off. I should take you to see it. We could ride over tomorrow if the weather stays fine.”
“I don’t ride.”
Leo shook his head, a smile growing on his face. “Honestly?”
Viola shook her head and shrugged one shoulder, wishing madly that she did ride. “This is the first time I’ve ever been to a country estate. Not much call to ride in town.”
“You can’t always have lived in London?” He looked shocked. As though he couldn’t fathom the idea of being born and bred in a city.
“No, but I’ve never lived in the country. A sedan chair is a simpler, and cheaper, option regardless of what city one is in.”
“Not ride.” He turned the concept over, his brows drawn up in disbelief. His eyes took on a familiar spark of devilment. “Well, that will have to be fixed, and what better time and place than this?”
“Oh, nooooo…” She let the word drag out as uncertainty washed over her. “Thank you very much, but—”
“You aren’t afraid, are you?” His eyes were still dancing. “The divine Mrs. Whedon, not ride? It’s an outrage. For heaven’s sake, think of my reputation if you’ve no concern for your own! Lord Leonidas Vaughn, Corinthian, owner of Dyrham, breeder of some of the most sought-after hunters in all of England, to have a mistress who doesn’t ride? I’ll be a laughingstock.”
His feigned outrage set her laughing until she had to place one hand across her stomach, afraid she’d burst her stays like the subject of some rude cartoon.
“You see, even you find it ridiculous.” His blue eye had taken on the teasing nature of his green one.
