“I fear you’ve done it irreparable damage.” Tia’s gaze lingered on his bare torso like a caress.
He caught her to him, starving for the feel of her bare flesh pressed to his. He wasn’t disappointed. The tempting points of her breasts poked his chest. “I don’t give a damn,” he told her, just before taking her mouth once more.
They moved as one toward the bed, he leading and she taking steps backward. In those few steps, he tried to summon his conscience, to remind himself that he had not come to Penworth for a dalliance but to find a wife. That he had come so far only to fall back down into the abyss once more. That the glorious woman in his arms deserved more than one night of reckless lovemaking.
But his cock was a hard reminder in his trousers that this night could only end in one way. He and Lady Stokey may have begun the house party as strangers, but they would end it as lovers. When they reached the bed, he stopped them, reminded of his need to remove her nightgown the rest of the way. He pressed kisses down her throat, stopping only when he reached the hollow between her breasts. His fingers located the thin line of buttons keeping him from heaven.
Tia, perhaps sensing his urgency, grabbed both sides of her half-discarded nightdress and shimmied her hips, pulling it down until it landed in a puddle of fine linen at her feet. She stood before him, naked and lovelier than he could have possibly imagined. The urge to paint her rose again within him, stronger than before. Her form was impossibly perfect, her waist nipped, her hips full, her mound flanked by pale, exquisite thighs.
His mouth went dry as he stared at her, and he knew in that instant that despite all his promises to himself, despite his not having created so much as a charcoal sketch in the last few years, he would paint her. It was inevitable. As inevitable as this moment between them now had been. From the second she’d wandered around the corner in the maze, prettier than a butterfly and every bit as delicate, Fortune’s wheel had dealt him a turn that was as thrilling as it was dangerous. Because he could very easily lose himself in the passions he’d once known. And no other woman had ever brought him so close to pitching himself back into the flame.
“Do you not like what you see?” Tia asked then, interrupting his weighty thoughts with her hesitant voice.
He realized then that she must have misread him. If he hesitated, it was merely because of the weight of his thoughts, not because she wasn’t the most breathtakingly gorgeous woman he’d ever seen nude before him. Because she most assuredly was. No other could compare to her.
“On the contrary,” he reassured her, catching her hand in his and pressing it to his brick-hard cock. Her fingers found the outline of his arousal, skillfully working him from root to tip through his trousers. The breath fled from his lungs.
“Do you like this?” Her tone turned teasing, sultry, as she repeated the very question he had asked of her not long before.
She was a woman who knew what she wanted, a lusty woman with an unapologetic sense of who she was. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. To follow him through the halls of Penworth when at any second a door could’ve opened or a servant could’ve rounded the bend, catching them. Damn if her forthright nature, her willingness to meet him seduction for seduction didn’t arouse him even more.
“Perhaps you would like this,” she murmured, pulling open the fastening of his trousers.
His cock sprang free and he’d never been happier that he had a habit of eschewing small clothes. He couldn’t abide by the extra layer. Never had. Now the lack of a barrier seemed fortuitous indeed. Especially when Tia gripped his shaft and sank to her knees. Dear, sweet Christ. She was going to take him into her mouth.
Her brilliant gaze fixed firmly on his, she licked a circle around the tip. “What of this?”
“Jesus, Tia.” The gentleman in him reminded him that he ought not to simply abandon all sense of proper conduct and allow her to suck him as if she were no better than a common doxy. But he couldn’t summon the restraint. Her lips parted and she took his cock deep into her mouth. He couldn’t suppress the moan that escaped him, couldn’t stop from jerking into her, couldn’t keep his hand from sifting through the soft cloud of her hair, wrapping it around his hand.
She sucked him back into her throat, then retreated to lick along the underside of his shaft, circling him with her tongue. The sight of her before him, her bare feet peeking from beneath the swells of her sweetly rounded bottom, her full breasts grazing his thighs as she worked his cock, was enough to make him fear that he would spend himself right then and there. She cupped his balls as she sucked and took him back into her throat. Every part of his body clamored for release.
No, damn it. Not yet.
Before he lost himself entirely, he used the hand he’d fisted in her hair to hold her still when she reached his tip again. “Stop, darling.”
She flicked her tongue against him, giving him a look that was part siren, part innocent. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it.” Damn it all. One night of her would never be enough for him. He saw it for what it was. He was hopelessly, helplessly in her thrall. “But I want to give you pleasure.”
He wondered then what sort of other lovers she’d had. The kind who had accepted her gift of pleasure without returning it? Very likely. He would show her what she had been missing. He caught her arms and pulled her to her feet before guiding her to the bed and giving her a hand up. She lay back, watching him wordlessly.
“Open your legs for me,” he said, part command, part request. It was his turn to ply sensual torture, and he’d never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted to make Tia come on his tongue.
Tia was sprawled across the Duke of Devonshire’s bed, her body on fire for him. He stood before her, dropping his trousers, his eyes a possessive brand that never left her. His cock was magnificent and hard, jutting from between his thighs. She had taken him in her mouth, and it had aroused her beyond belief. Never before had she been so bold and wanton with a lover, but something about the man before her brought out a wild streak she hadn’t known she possessed.
His demand that she open her legs to him made a new ache of desire pulse there. She was already wet for him, utterly ready. Tia watched him as he joined her on the bed, his figure all lean angles and rigid muscle. He must have indulged in a great deal of labor to have such a fine form, she thought before he lowered his head to press a kiss to her inner thigh.
Good heavens.
Then, all thought ceased to exist, for his wicked mouth moved next to the plump nub peeking from between her folds. His tongue shot out to tease her, playing over her with a practiced skill that had Tia jerking off the bed as pure pleasure shot straight through her. She moaned as he sucked hard on her, the same way he had her nipples earlier, drawing her very near to the edge of release. No one had ever pleasured her in this way, loving her with his lips and tongue until she was frenzied beneath him.
He sank a finger inside her, probing deep as he continued licking and sucking. The breath left her lungs and she arched into him, wanting more. Deeper. All of him. Suddenly, the sensations were too much. She was spiraling helplessly out of control. Her release was swift and hard as he slid a second finger inside her, making her body quiver as white-hot bliss blossomed from her core, spreading to overtake her.
Heath rose over her, his mouth glistening with her wetness, unbearably handsome. He looked in that instant, with his blond hair, powerful body and masculine beard, like a Viking conqueror of old come to take her. She reached for him, pulling him down atop her, thinking that she could live the rest of her life and never forget this night, the raw desire, the heights to which he had taken her.
He guided his cock to her slick entrance, the tip grazing her in a maddening way. She wanted him inside, buried to the hilt. A crude word rose in her mind then, one ladies dared not say or think, but one that seemed to fit in its elemental way. Fuck. Yes, that was it. She wanted him to fuck her. The sentiment was so wicked she didn’t dare say it
aloud.
“Please,” she said instead. “I need you inside me.”
Tia was not a woman who begged. Indeed, she was quite proud, oftentimes to a fault. But he had brought her low. Made her into someone she didn’t even recognize, someone willing to thumb her nose at propriety, someone willing to risk scandal and follow a man she barely knew to his chamber and his bed all for a taste of passion. Even if it had been worth it. Every delicious second of it.
“Not yet,” he told her in a voice low and laden with promise.
He took her nipple into his mouth again, drawing on the taut peak until she cried out, forgetting that she ought to keep quiet. He licked a lazy circle around it before glancing up at her. “Hush, darling. We don’t want to wake Tuttleworth.”
And then he caught her sensitive nipple between his teeth, tugging. Oh, the wretch. How did he expect her to keep her silence when he was tormenting her so? She bit her lip, trying to keep her cries under control. But he was hell-bent on driving her wild, and it was increasingly difficult to rein herself in.
The tip of his cock sank inside her then, and she couldn’t help it. To the devil with Tuttleworth. She moaned and jerked against him, wrapping her legs around his hips, welcoming him into her. Tia didn’t want to go slowly. She wanted fast and hard and deep. She wanted to be claimed. Devoured.
“Damn it,” he muttered, surging inside her another measure.
She knew he’d wanted to go slowly, and she had to admit that she rather enjoyed his inability to deny himself. It meant that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. It gave her a sense of power. “Is something amiss?” she asked, keeping her tone deceptively innocent as she moved again, bringing him deeper.
“Minx,” he accused without heat. He sucked her other nipple and then braced his arms on either side of her head, gazing down at her. “I wanted to give you pleasure.”
“Oh, you have,” she assured him, jerking her hips once more. “And you will.”
“Sweet Jesus.” He groaned, and then he lost himself completely, surging into her so swiftly that it quite took her breath. He was buried inside her to the hilt before withdrawing only to sink inside her again.
Her fingers tunneled through his hair, pulling his mouth down to hers for a lush, open-mouthed kiss. His tongue tangled with hers. She was very close to reaching another climax. The combined sensation of him within her, his mouth on hers, his hard body pinning her to the bed, was enough to undo her. He seemed to know precisely how and what she wanted, thrusting into her, consuming her with his mouth and his cock both.
She kissed him back, matched his rhythm thrust for thrust. Their coupling was fast and furious. Decadent and thrilling. Everything she wanted. Suddenly, she couldn’t get enough of him. He reached between them to toy with the plump nub hidden within her folds again, flicking it back and forth with just the right amount of pressure. Pleasure shot through her. The combination of it all was too much. Too potent. She was going to lose herself.
“Heath,” she cried out, climaxing so quickly it was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. Potent, powerful. But oh so wonderful.
He pounded into her, still nipping at her lips with small, quick kisses. And then, suddenly, he lost himself inside her, his seed spilling deep into her womb with a series of rapid strokes. Tia twisted up off the bed, taking as much of him as she could.
“Tia,” he said against her mouth. “Ah, sweet Tia.”
She had never felt closer to another human being in her life. An exquisite sensation enveloped her. She knew well enough to know the bliss that washed over a woman after a skillful bout of lovemaking. But this was different. Different enough to excite her and frighten her all at the same time. He kissed her again, deliberately and open-mouthed. Possessive. And any misgivings Tia may have had were banished. For the moment, at least.
Heath woke to the earliest glimmers of morning sunlight filtering in through the drawn curtains. He blinked and rolled over, stretching. Damn, he hadn’t felt this bloody good in quite some time. His body was relaxed, satisfied and replete. A deep sense of satisfaction filled him all the way to his bones, something he hadn’t felt in as long as he could recall.
Not since Bess.
Thoughts of his betrothed now brought reality to him with an uncompromising jolt. Tia. Good God. He had fucked Lady Stokey last night as if she were no better than a well-practiced whore. Had carted her back to his chamber with shocking disregard for her injured ankle, stripped her bare, sucked and licked every delicious inch of her beautiful body before burying his cock in her hot, tight cunny.
And he had spent himself inside her.
He never acted with such an alarming lack of self-control. He knew well enough to avoid siring bastards. His own grandfather was rumored to have had as many as a dozen scattered throughout the countryside, perhaps more, in his lifetime. He’d seen his fellow lords fall into that trap too many times to count. He’d vowed to never be the same.
And indeed, in the last few years, while he’d slaked his needs where he could, he had certainly never acted with such complete, foolish disregard for what was right. For what he’d always believed was right.
Groaning, he cast a glance about the chamber to confirm that Tia was truly gone. Aside from the dent in the feather pillow alongside him and a lone strand of waist-length golden hair, it was as if she’d never been there at all. But he remembered. Good Lord did he remember.
Every searing second of the night before. He didn’t know how they could ever go back to polite exchanges. What they had shared was too all-consuming and far too powerful. He didn’t know what it meant. They had been strangers, traveling in the same circles of society without ever truly knowing each other. And now they were lovers.
“Shit,” he muttered, passing a hand over his face. She must have wandered back to her chamber in the cold dark of the night, her injured ankle making her progress unbearably slow.
He should have been a gentleman and at least escorted her back instead of rutting and then passing into oblivion. What the hell was the matter with him? He didn’t carry off women he scarcely knew and make love to them at house parties. He’d been determined to find a wife. Instead, he’d found a woman he should never want. A woman he should have never touched.
A woman who could, at this moment, be carrying his child.
Oddly, the thought didn’t alarm him in the way it undoubtedly should. Rather, it warmed him. Tia had surprised him. She was sensual and giving. Beautiful to be sure. Open to pleasure and passion in an unashamed manner that made him want her all the more. She was everything he should never want in a wife.
But somehow, he couldn’t shake the odd sensation that maybe, just maybe, he’d found what he’d been looking for all along. And then he couldn’t resist rolling back over and burying his face in the pillow opposite him.
Ah, yes.
Violets.
It was only the fourth day of Cleo and Thornton’s house party, and Tia had already gone down the path of no return with the Duke of Devonshire. She’d woken up in the inkiness of the night in his bed, her head on his chest. They’d both been naked, entangled as though they were longtime lovers. It hadn’t escaped her just how perfectly they fit together.
Regret unfurled within her later that morning as she sat in her sister’s sitting room alongside Cleo and Miss Whitney, attempting to appear normal to them. Attempting to appear as if she hadn’t been ravished the night before by a man she’d once mistakenly supposed to be boring as a bowl of porridge.
Dear Lord, the mere thought of what he’d done to her, what they’d done together, was enough to make her cheeks flame. She held her breath, praying Cleo was too engrossed in her discussion of the entertainments she’d planned for the unfolding house party to notice.
“Tia, darling, I daresay you’re looking quite flushed,” her sister commented suddenly.
Drat. “I find it excessively warm in here,” she offered in her most flippant tone. “I thought country estates were all supposed
to be rambling, draughty affairs. It feels like summer in here.”
“I find it cold,” drawled Miss Whitney, no help at all.
Tia glared at the girl. “It’s warm for England, I tell you.”
Cleo’s eyes had narrowed upon her, and Tia knew a sinking sensation in her stomach. She suspected she’d been caught. “Perhaps you’re feverish, my dear.”
Tia made a show of fixing the draping of her silk skirt. “I’m the picture of health.”
“Perhaps it is merely your ears that are the problem then,” her sister suggested. “I was just telling you that I have the most brilliant plan for this evening’s entertainments.”
Tia didn’t wish to think about something as trivial as house party entertainments at the moment. She felt as if she were walking about with a sign around her neck proclaiming to all what she’d been about the night before. Wickedness.
“Oh?” she managed, desperately distracted.
“Indeed. We’re to have duets before dinner. Miss Whitney has a lovely voice, and I’ve come up with just the thing. We shall partner her with the Duke of Devonshire,” Cleo proclaimed, giving Tia a knowing look. “It is a wonderful idea, is it not?”
“No,” she snapped before she could think better of it. “It is an altogether horrid idea.”
Dear God, she couldn’t very well attempt to marry off her charge to the man she’d shamelessly bedded the night before. Everything had changed. Two pairs of eyes pinned her to her seat. She felt rather as if she were a pressed flower in a botany display.
“Why ever not?” her sister asked before sipping at her tea.
“He’s too old,” Tia managed. “And boring. A young thing like Miss Whitney requires someone more of an age with her.”
Reckless Need (Heart's Temptation Book 3) Page 5
