Countess Curvy: A Curvy Girl's Earl

by Reed, Kristabel

  Audrey grinned again up at Duncan as he took her hand once more. Oh, yes, if the heat in his gaze was anything to go by, her tour of the house would definitely involve taking him in every room.

  Duncan led her through the house, down long hallways, and through the library to a pair of French doors. The building shadowed the bright spring sun, and a light breeze curled along the patio. Audrey wished she’d kept her coat and stepped closer to Duncan. They walked through magnificent gardens, with early flowers peeking out in a brilliant display of colors; vibrant green bushes opened to the sun and offered the crisp tang of spring.

  She breathed deeply and smiled, trying and failing to remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed.

  “They’re beautiful,” she told him as they walked down the neatly raked stone path. “It’s beautiful here. One of my plans was to see Kew Gardens,” she admitted as they wandered past a stone fountain. “Maybe we can see them when we return to London?”

  “Of course,” he agreed. Duncan had stopped at a crossroads and looked down each path before deciding on the right one. “Anything you want.”

  Audrey gave a low, throaty chuckle and pulled him closer. “Anything?” she asked, her lips a breath from his. “Anywhere?”

  His hands clenched on her hips, and she wondered when he’d drawn her this close. And when her fingers hand-combed through his hair. And when his mouth kissed down her neck. Shivers of pure need chased up and down her spine and that moan had to be hers; her breath hitched as his fingers found her already hard nipple through her top.

  “Duncan.” She didn’t recognize her own voice but did recognize the clawing need bursting to break free.

  He pulled back, his eyes dark, his breathing erratic. Audrey looked up at him, feeling as if she was drugged. She didn’t care where they were, but the way he looked at her made her think he searched for a secluded corner of the gardens. Still breathing heavily, Duncan took another step back and watched her for several long moments, his expression unreadable.

  Audrey licked her lips and tried to speak, but forgot how to form words. Then he took her hand again, as if they hadn’t been groping in the garden, and they continued their walk.

  Audrey took in deep gulps of air as unobtrusively as possible, and hoped the fresh spring air helped. It didn’t. And just as she decided she didn’t care about the gardens, who might be wandering by, or what his staff might think of her if she gave into her need and pushed him to the nearest bench, they stopped.

  “Mum.”

  It took Audrey a moment to register the name. Not just the sound, but the name that sound formed. An older woman, tall and elegant, rose from where she kneeled in a flower bed. Her wide-brimmed hat covered her face for a moment as she dropped her gardening gloves to the ground.

  “Duncan! I didn’t know you were coming home this weekend.” She moved with a grace Audrey envied, and she wrapped her arms around her son.

  Audrey tried not to gape. He’d brought her here to meet his mum?

  Her limbs forgot how to move and her insides felt like ice. She wasn’t afraid to meet his mother or at least she didn’t think she should be. But the shock of doing so, without so much as a warning, had her scrambling for…well, pretty much anything. His mum. Oh boy.

  “Audrey,” he said, pulling back from his mother and retaking her hand, “I’d like you to meet my mother, Lila. Mum, this is Audrey Mills.”

  She composed herself as best she could, given she had absolutely not expected to meet his mother. Every single thought she had about wrapping her lips around his cock and taking him in the middle of these lovely gardens vanished in a burst of motherly smiles.

  And, damn it, she knew she was blushing again!

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said and took Lila’s outstretched hand, still desperately trying to stuff all her Duncan fantasies into a box in a distant corner of her mind.

  “It’s about time Duncan brought a lovely young lady to meet me,” Lila said with a smile. Her eyes, the same blue as her son’s, brightened as she focused on Audrey.

  Zeroed in on, Audrey with barely contained panic. Her mind scrambled to remember the words his mum had spoken, that part about finally bringing a woman home, but they were slippery threads she couldn’t grasp.

  Good Lord, he’d brought her home to meet his mother.

  She hadn’t even imagined his mother. No, as far as she had taken the idea of it, not that she really had, he’d sprang from Mr. Darcy, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant, all wrapped into the lickable form of Duncan Collins. A mother? Nope, she’d never thought that once. And to meet her?

  Audrey’s thoughts ground to a halt, and she refused to think further.

  Swallowing, Audrey forced a smile, saw the answering one in return, and felt some of the tension ease from her shoulders. Then Duncan’s hand took hers again, and with that comforting and familiar touch, she felt her natural smile slip into place.

  Audrey looked up at Duncan, to see him watching her.

  “When Duncan told me he planned to come up for a few days with a friend,” Lila said as she gestured to a bench near where she’d been working, “I had hoped to meet someone like you. He works entirely too much, you know.”

  Audrey sat beside Lila and smiled. “Yes,” she said and tried not to cringe at the memory of thinking he’d abandoned her because he had to work. “I know he does.”

  “I do so hope you’ll enjoy all we have to offer here at Thornhill Hall,” Lila added with another soft and sincere smile.

  “Oh,” Audrey said with a bright smile of her own, “I’m sure I shall.”

  And it wasn’t her fault, it really wasn’t, that all she could think of was enjoying Duncan at Thornhill Hall. After all, Duncan’s fingers brushed the nape of her neck, and stroked just behind her ear.

  “Duncan,” Lila said, and her entire demeanor changed. Stiffened, in fact. “Libby is here, and she brought a friend.”

  Beside her, Duncan stiffened as well, his fingers now rigid on her shoulder. Audrey looked up at him, but that mask had fallen back into place, hiding everything he thought or felt.

  “Why?” he ground out.

  “I don’t know.” Lila shrugged. “She just popped over when I mentioned you’d be visiting for a few days.” Lila sighed, and her shoulders sagged for a heartbeat before she resumed her perfect posture. “I’m sorry, Duncan.”

  “Libby?” Audrey asked, still watching him. His fingers hadn’t relaxed on her shoulder yet, and she wanted to take his hand in hers, to stand and hold him until this awful tension in him subsided. Only his mother beside her stopped Audrey.

  “My cousin.” The words were short and terse, and he offered nothing more.

  “I must apologize in advance for Libby,” Lila said. Her voice held that frosty politeness the British pulled off so well. “She’s…” Lila sighed and shrugged, a slight movement of her shoulders that portrayed more annoyance than the exaggerated roll Audrey was used to seeing. “She’s one of those people I wish I could control like I control the telly, so when she says inappropriate things, I can mute her.”

  Audrey stifled a giggle; after all, this was Duncan’s cousin and Lila’s niece. But, oh, Audrey knew people like that.

  “If we could figure out a way to invent that,” Audrey said with another laugh, feeling unaccountably relaxed suddenly, “we’d be the richest people in the world.”

  Chapter Nine

  Audrey took to Duncan’s mom right away. Who wouldn’t like someone who offered to mute overly chatty relatives? Completely thrown at meeting her lover’s mother, she tried to take it in stride. But seriously, finding aliens had actually built Stonehenge and had just returned wouldn’t have surprised her more than this impromptu come-meet-my-mum trip.

  However Lila was funny and astute, and made her relax. They’d had a pleasant talk in the gardens, all planned and maintained by Lila, followed by a light lunch on the patio.

  Prior to this little country trip, Audrey hadn’t given any thought
to Duncan’s mother. Oh, he’d mentioned her during their sightseeing trips, but not enough to make her think that after only a couple days of touring London and hot monkey sex, he’d bring her home to meet mummy.

  Frankly, Audrey had no idea how to feel about that. Except that Lila probably lived here at the family estate—but then why had Duncan brought her to the country?

  Her thoughts chased themselves around and around like an unruly puppy, until Audrey wanted to scream in frustration. She was frustrated with herself for reading too much into this meeting and with wanting more from a holiday affair than was smart to even think about. Now, as they walked around the well-maintained lawn, the cool spring breeze nipping at her cheeks, she forcibly pushed it all aside and tried to focus on what was actually happening and not what she wanted to happen.

  Because fantasy very rarely merged with real life.

  Duncan’s hand was warm and comfortable around hers as they made their way around the manor house. She’d had a wonderful afternoon, joking with him about the portrait gallery he’d shown her and how he did look like his five-times great-grandfather but not his four-times great—and what had happened there?

  She’d laughed and winked at him as she spun ever more elaborate stories of servant girls and illicit trysts in the parlor room. Then laughed harder when he made her blush with what exactly they’d done in his front parlor the other night.

  Even now the memory caused her to flush with arousal, with that same out-of-control need to taste him, to feel his skin against hers. Try as she might, Audrey couldn’t remember the last time a guy had made her this aroused with simply a memory. Or a look, like the heated one in his sharp blue eyes he now gave her.

  They rounded the manor and headed back for one of the many doors that led inside. Audrey hadn’t thought about it before, though she supposed she should have. The vast number of doors leading from the house to the outside was staggering—no wonder Jane and Elizabeth were always running around in Pride and Prejudice.

  “There are no bodies in the basement, Audrey.” Duncan laughed, and it sounded free and light. But the look in his eyes, the piercing heat, the blue so crystalline she wanted to drown in it, told Audrey all she needed to know about his current thoughts.

  “With a place like this?” she asked, laughing up at him. “Of course there are bodies in the basement! But I promise.” Audrey leaned in and rested her head against his shoulder, her breath brushing the skin just below his ear. “I’ll keep your secrets.”

  She pulled back from the innocent but incredibly intimate touch, licking her lips. Looking up at him, she returned his smile, her laughter dying in her suddenly dry throat. She felt Duncan’s fingers tighten around hers and knew he could all too easily read her desire in her eyes.

  Audrey didn’t care.

  “Oh?” Duncan asked. His low voice sent a rush of heat tingling through her. “Will you keep my secrets?”

  “Every one of them,” Audrey vowed, breathless. She stopped and cleared her throat and said in a lighter tone, “From the innocent ones to the mother of all secrets.”

  Duncan’s mouth dominated hers; his tongue swept through her mouth, with one hand low on her back, to pull her flush against him. Her free hand raked through his hair, and she pressed closer. She moaned, whimpered more like, and didn’t care where they were or who was in the house behind her. He could take her against the house, for all she cared.

  As abruptly as he kissed her, Duncan pulled back. She hadn’t expected that, and followed him slightly when he did so. Struggling to catch her breath, Audrey leaned back and tried to control herself. She blinked up at him, but the molten blue of his gaze did little to help her find her equilibrium.

  “Yes,” he said. “I believe you would.”

  It took her a heartbeat to remember what they’d been talking about. Secrets. His secrets. And, Audrey realized, as her breathing more or less evened out and her heartbeat slowed somewhat, that he hadn’t really trusted anyone with his secrets. She licked her lips, tasting him on them, and dropped her gaze to his mouth.

  Despite the heat between them, her tearing need to feel him moving within her, she almost missed his words. Almost. But the conviction behind those words, the way he looked at her, the sincerity there…

  She swallowed and found herself nodding.

  “Of course I would,” she said softly. She didn’t promise or swear she would, but hoped the quiet conviction she felt was enough for him to believe.

  Duncan looked like he wanted to say something else, but only nodded. He stepped back, and a cold blast of air rushed between them, causing Audrey to shiver. His hand had never left hers, and once again he turned them toward one of the doors.

  “Don’t you have many you can confide your secrets in?” she wondered, but somehow she already knew the answer was no.

  Maybe, she thought, maybe before he’d rebuilt the family’s fortune, but she knew all too well what money did to people. Made them leeches, at best.

  “No.” The word was simple, without anger or contempt. A simple acknowledgement, and that made her ache for him. “I don’t. I don’t trust many people,” he added quieter.

  “No,” she agreed. And hated that he couldn’t. “I suppose not. But,” she said and looked up at him, “you do have those few friends you trust with everything, don’t you?”

  “I have different people I trust with different things,” Duncan said slowly, the words drawn out carefully. He looked down at her and offered a shadow of a smile. “But there isn’t one person I trust with everything.” He paused, and the smile strengthened. “Well, maybe there’s one now.”

  Taken aback, she surprised herself by not moving out of his embrace, by not releasing his hand and running back to the house, gathering her bag, and walking out of the manor. Instead, she looked up at him as they walked slowly along the flagstone path, but didn’t pull away.

  “I would never betray you in anything.” Her words slipped out of her mouth before she’d realized she’d planned on saying them.

  Swallowing hard, she pulled back and released his hand. Oddly bereft at the lack of contact between them, she shoved her hands into her coat pockets and tried to convince herself she was cold. Not that her words terrified her with their honesty.

  “But,” she said with her normal sassiness, “I might betray the rules of etiquette and grope an earl on his own terrace.”

  Audrey grinned up at him, trying to dispel the emotion that wrapped around them and made her want to stay exactly where she was for as long as it mattered. She pinched his ass and laughed when he jumped.

  “I’m sure the mavens of such things would be horrified.” He laughed.

  But the band tightening her chest didn’t loosen.

  “Would their stone faces crack?” she wondered, trying to reclaim the easiness between them.

  “Into a million pieces.” He took her hand once more, and dragged her in the door.

  “Oh,” she whispered, easily keeping up with him. Audrey ignored the emotions boiling between them and grinned up at Duncan. Sex, she could handle. Even the explosive, toe-curling, memory-numbing sex between her and Duncan. The sex she couldn’t get enough of and wanted every minute she saw him.

  “Are we being naughty?” she asked as he led her up the stairs and down a long hallway.

  He didn’t respond, and that was just fine with her. Audrey didn’t get a good look around the room, not with his mouth on hers and the door slamming closed behind her, but she had the impression this wasn’t a guest room. In fact, she thought through the haze of Duncan clouding her mind, she had the impression this was his room.

  Audrey wanted to protest, or at least make a joke out of going to his room and not hers, or even another guest room. She tried to think of the words, but his mouth was doing incredible things to her neck, and his fingers were caressing her stomach beneath her sweater.

  Words had little meaning when her sweater lifted over her head and Duncan’s tongue found her nipple through the
bra. She gasped his name, her body hot and wet, and arched into his touch.

  Duncan waltzed her backward, an erotically graceful dance where their bodies met and released with every step. Audrey wondered, in the moments before the back of her legs hit his bed, what it would feel like to dance with him, hot and sweaty in a club, where the rules of society held true.

  Then she decided she never wanted anyone else to see the way he moved and the way they moved together.

  Her fingers trembled on the buttons of his shirt, and she shoved it off with jerky movements. His hands yanked on her pants, and Audrey quickly sat to remove her boots. She loved them, but they were a definite hindrance to having a quickie with Duncan.

  She threw the boots aside, her mouth on his belly and her fingers on the button to his pants. Already she could feel him hard for her, and she shuddered at that thought. Duncan stepped back to kick off his shoes and socks, pushing down his pants, and Audrey watched.

  Oh, he was beautiful. She sat on the bed, completely unself-conscious in her nakedness, and licked her lips. She could watch him for hours, Audrey decided, and she ran a finger over the tip of his cock. And one day she would do exactly that—spend hours tasting him, feeling every inch of his body beneath hers, know every spot that made him growl and exactly how to make him lose control.

  Duncan did growl now, and the sound sent a burst of heat through her. She gasped. Her nipples ached to feel his mouth, and she wanted nothing more than to straddle him and make him lose that control.

  He knelt before her. Surprised, Audrey spread her legs, and every last thought fled from her. Duncan kissed up the inside of one leg, only to ghost over her core with featherlight touches that built her orgasm higher but never offered relief. When he kissed down her other leg, she moaned and clawed at his shoulders, desperate to feel him again.

  Audrey pulled him up and shoved him onto the bed. Desperate need beat through her with every pound of her heart, but she needed to taste him. Her mouth grazed the side of his neck, her tongue tracing the outline of his collarbone. Her fingers wrapped around his cock and stroked him, the guttural sounds he made coiling through her.