Heather and Velvet

by Teresa Medeiros

  He turned back to his task. “I believe that brings your total to five decent and three lewd, my offer to make you my mistress included, of course.”

  Her composure faltered at hearing his tender declaration reduced to such crass terms. He unbuckled the leather straps of her trunk. As he held a scrap of paper up to the meager light, his soft laugh chilled her.

  “An excellent likeness. Which of your lovers is the artist? Tugbert? The Scot I saw fondling you on the street? Or is this your own work? I don’t remember sketching being among your interests, but you are a woman of many talents.”

  “You saw me? On the street?”

  “Aye. I happened to be in the neighborhood.”

  His gruff tone did not fool her. She remembered the persistent shadow of the lamplighter on the evening she had met MacKay. Her heart skipped a beat. Sebastian hadn’t left her at D’Artan’s mercy. His ruse of apathy on the terrace had been just that. He had followed her. Watched over her. Perhaps even cared for her. But now his flinty gaze belied his affable grin. He looked less guardian angel than mocking Lucifer.

  She wished he would take off the mask. The shadows it made of his eyes unnerved her. She watched his deft hands smooth the wanted notice, remembering all the times he had tried to make her afraid of him. They were strong hands, competent and swift enough to muffle a scream before it started. What would he say if she told him she slept with that handbill under her pillow each night? That it was creased and worn to softness by her touch? She opened her mouth, then closed it again, unable to bear the mockery of his laughter.

  “Come now, don’t be modest, dear,” he said. “The phrase, ‘Reward Provided Alive or Upon Staunch Evidence Of Death’ simply rings with your flair for melodrama. ‘Gray Eyed and Well Favored’? Such flattery! How did you know I was well favored? Did Tricia tell you? Or was it Devony?”

  Prudence’s lips tightened. When Sebastian saw she wasn’t going to deny or defend, his grin faded. He bent over the lantern, sneering. Her gaze locked on the unforgiving lines of his back as he turned the light higher.

  Sophistication was a dismal failure. Perhaps she should attempt honesty.

  She smoothed her skirts over her knees and took a deep breath. “I’ve missed you, Sebastian.”

  His fingers twitched, touching the hot chimney of the lantern. He bit off a curse and whirled around, jerking off the mask. Prudence gasped. There was little trace of Tricia’s urbane fiancé in him now. Anyone who saw him would swear he was a Highlander, born and bred. His hair was long. The ends of the shaggy cascade curled against his shoulders, sandy bright against skin darkened by wind and weather.

  He seemed broader, more muscular, and infinitely more dangerous. His savage demeanor lent a devastating edge to his good looks—an edge honed to lethal sharpness by his expression of pure contempt. She had to struggle not to flinch beneath it. His anger in the jail was mere annoyance compared to this new bitterness.

  Too late, Prudence realized she had stumbled into the lair of an animal—a predator, cunning and feral and hungry.

  Twenty-four

  “Why, I do believe you might ravish me!” Prudence said in both disbelief and wonder.

  Sebastian’s lips curved in a roguish smile. The wild tattoo of her heart shifted to a slower, more jolting beat.

  “I wouldn’t be much of a bandit if I didn’t, would I?” he said. “I should hate to disappoint you. You’d have nothing to tell Sir Arlo over tea when you get home.”

  Her gaze dropped to the cozy nest he had fashioned of the blankets, then wandered to the entrance of the cavern. She knew their privacy was illusory. Big Gus’s men lay just down the slope, their thieves’ ears tuned to every stray crack of a branch.

  “A scream would be a nice touch,” Sebastian said in a conspiratory whisper. “It would enhance my reputation immeasurably.”

  She blinked up at him. Her natural curiosity won out over her trepidation. “Have you ever ravished anyone before?”

  “No.” He touched a finger to his lips. “But pray don’t tell. I should hate for it to get out. I try to think of it as a timeworn tradition. Pirates, bandits, Americans, all sorts of ill-meaning scoundrels have succumbed to the temptation.”

  She pulled off her spectacles and squinted at him. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Copiously. But staring down the barrel of that pistol gripped in your delicate little hand did much to sober me.”

  “Perhaps we should discuss this tomorrow when you’re sober,” she said, laying her spectacles on the folded redingote.

  “Fine. I wasn’t in the mood for discussion anyway.”

  He started toward her. She ducked beneath his arm and grabbed the warm bottle from beside the coals.

  “Would you care for another drink?” she asked. With any luck, she thought, she might be able to coax him into drinking himself insensible.

  He took a long swig from the bottle, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, sighing with satisfaction. “Whisky always make me feel powerfully lusty.”

  She snatched the bottle from him and tipped it to her own lips. There was no logical reason she should start being lucky now. Sebastian plucked the bottle away and tossed it over his shoulder, not caring that it was uncorked.

  His warm fingers curled around her own. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a woman?”

  She glanced nervously at the blankets. “About fifteen minutes, if my calculations are correct.”

  He drew her against the unyielding length of his body. “Wrong again, Miss Isaac Newton.”

  Prudence shivered. Sebastian had touched her so many times in tenderness, holding the hard edge of his masculine strength in check. It was a shock to realize how much stronger than she he was. A dangerous thrill of anticipation shot through her.

  Her fingers kneaded the nest of curly hairs spilling over his chest. She dared not look at his face, fearful her gaze might wander to his lips. “Villainy suits you poorly, Lord Kerr.”

  “Not as poorly as it did before I met you.” He arched a devilish eyebrow. “I’ve been practicing.” He twirled her in a neat circle and backed her toward the blankets.

  She closed her eyes, dizzied by their primitive dance and the intoxicating warmth radiating from his bare chest. “I’ve never been ravished before,” she said, her voice shaking. “I shan’t be any good at it.”

  “There’s really nothing to it. You just yell and thrash about. I’ll do the rest.”

  He hooked his foot around the back of her ankle, tripping her and catching her in the same movement. He eased her to the blankets, following her down with inevitable grace.

  Her hands seemed to belong to someone else. How had they gotten so enmeshed in the pale hairs of his chest? She slanted a look at him through her lashes. “Was Jamie right? Will you be sorry afterward?”

  His jaw tightened. “Probably.” He reached across her to kill the lantern. “But not during.”

  He was little more than a shadow above her, but the darkness only increased his substantial warmth and the husky reverberation of his voice. His fingers worked their way down the tiny pearl buttons of her bodice with ruthless skill.

  As Sebastian shoved the gown from her shoulders, his deliberate roughness failed him. He had forgotten how delicate and pronounced her collarbones were, how fragile the hollows beneath. It would take little force from him to bruise her tender skin. His grip softened. His thumbs betrayed him, stroking the silky union of skin and bone, finding the velvety dip at the base of her throat where he longed to press his lips. Dear God, what was he doing? She was so fine, so lovely. He had no right to touch her with his rough scoundrel’s hands. He leaned back, beguiled by the porcelain splendor of her skin against the dark wool blanket.

  His harsh breathing filled the silence. Prudence held her own breath as his expression shifted like quicksilver between desire and bewilderment.

  She had seen that look before. On the terrace at Lindentree when she had shoved him away. If she pushed
him away now, he might walk out of that den and never come back. It stunned her to realize that she didn’t want him to go. She wanted to search for some lingering hint of tenderness, some tantalizing whisper of her Sebastian behind his rough facade.

  Mustering her courage, she touched his unshaven cheek as if he were a dangerous animal she hoped to tame. She slid her fingers around his neck, winding them in the shaggy curls at his nape. His lashes swept down. From the corner of her eye, she saw his other hand rising, fingers curling hopefully toward her breast.

  “No!” She scooted back until her shoulders touched the wall, catching his wrist with two fingers as if she actually had the strength to hold him if he chose to press on. “Don’t touch me,” she commanded, her boldness surprising her. “I don’t wish to be ravished. I wish to be seduced. You may kiss me if you like,” she added primly.

  His scowl melted to a wry grin. “As opinionated as ever, aren’t you, Miss Walker?”

  But his hand linked with hers, pressing palm to palm as he lowered his head. His warm, dry lips touched hers. When he would have thrust his tongue deep in her mouth, she closed her teeth against him. He gave a frustrated grunt, but as her own tongue explored the seam of his lips, it turned into a groan. After an endless moment of this exquisite torture, she let him into her, a tiny bit at a time, drawing back when he got too greedy.

  Sebastian caught on to her game fast, easing his tongue into the hot, wet shelter of her mouth, then withdrawing to nibble and tease the sensitive inner skin of her lips. He caught on too fast. Prudence found herself clinging to his hand, not to keep it from roaming, but to find some substance in the shifting sands of pleasure and anticipation. She forgot to stop him when he leaned forward. He pressed against her until only their mouths, hands, and groins touched. With each deepening foray of his tongue, he rubbed the hard ridge of his arousal against the sleek satin of the gown trapped between them.

  “Wait,” Prudence said. She pulled away from him, fighting to control her trembling. “You must say something nice now.”

  His lips nuzzled her throat. “Take off your gown.”

  “No. Something truly nice.”

  Sighing, he pressed his lips to her ear. “Your hair smells like flowers.”

  “Mmmm. That was nice,” she whispered.

  He took advantage of her approval to plunge his tongue into her ear. She gasped, unprepared for the answering flood of warmth between her thighs.

  He traced her earlobe with his tongue. “You want to hear something else nice?”

  She nodded, too dazed to notice that his hand had untangled from hers and was stealthily working its way up beneath her gown.

  His voice was a husky whisper. “For every time you’ve pulled back on me, I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to kiss you and tease you until you’re begging me to love you.”

  She tilted her head to meet his intent gaze, her eyes glazed with desire and doubt. At the exact moment his lips met hers, his fingers breached her silken drawers, dipping into a honey as hot and sweet as her mouth under his.

  Prudence quaked as his warm, rough fingers plundered her, soothing and maddening with equal grace.

  She buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m afraid, Sebastian.”

  “So am I, angel. So am I.”

  But his fear didn’t stop him from undressing her and laying her back on the coarse blankets, prepared to make good on his vow. Prudence fought back a shiver as the scratchy blanket met her bare skin. She closed her eyes, swimming in a sea of contrasts. Sebastian’s unshaven jaw grazed her cheek. His chest hairs teased the aching tips of her breasts like a thousand gold filaments, sparking an electrical response that made her abdomen contract wildly.

  The rosy glow from the coals bronzed his skin as he drew off his breeches. She stared at his mouth, his chin, the faint smattering of freckles across his nose, anywhere but his eyes or much lower. He seemed suddenly a stranger, alien but achingly male, and determined to ease the hollowness yearning inside of her despite her fear.

  His hands cupped her breasts, teasing one nipple between his fingertips. She bit back a moan as his lips closed around the taut peak of her other breast. He laved her with his tongue, then suckled her with an insatiable hunger. She tangled her fingers in his silky hair, writhing beneath him in a drugged stupor of pleasure. She reached for him, but he pushed her back, his hands gentle yet determined, as he fought to ignore the hard ache of his own need.

  “We played your game,” he said in a husky whisper. “Now we play mine.”

  His lips trailed across her flushed skin, and he nibbled without mercy at the satiny softness behind her ear, the delicate crease along the inner curve of her elbow, the smooth plane of her abdomen.

  Her breathing quickened as he coaxed apart her trembling thighs. His nimble fingers stroked the tight little bud nestled in the silky curls. Prudence pressed herself to his hand, silently begging favors of his fingers she could never have put into words. A dark, secretive pleasure trembled through her veins. Remembering the others so near, she muffled her moans against his shoulder.

  For Sebastian, touching her was like touching a woman for the first time. He had forgotten what a delight it was to linger over a woman’s body, to explore all the sweet, musky clefts and hollows with his fingers, and then with his lips and tongue. He had never tasted anything so sweet, so infernally intoxicating. There wasn’t a pleasure garden in Paris or London to compare to the wonder of Prudence. He wanted to pour the heated whisky over her skin and lick it away, drop by drop. A groan tore from his throat.

  He pushed it to the limit for both of them, prolonging the exquisite pleasure until it was almost pain. Prudence felt herself becoming a shameless, wanton creature beneath the shimmering agony of his touch.

  She turned her face into her hair and moaned, “Please, oh, please, Sebastian.”

  He stopped touching her then, completely stopped, and she thought she would die.

  “What do you want, Prudence?” he asked hoarsely. “Say it.” He knew he was being a bully, but he didn’t care. He had waited too long to hear the words.

  Her voice broke. “I want you.”

  With a flick of his fingertip, he shoved her over the precipice of ecstasy. He prepared to follow, but hesitated, knowing he was about to learn the answer to the question that had haunted him since he’d seen her embracing a stranger on an Edinburgh street. Had there been another man? And if there had, was he, Sebastian, strong enough to let his passion for her override his bitter jealousy?

  He closed his eyes and pressed himself to her silken sheath. The warm dew of her body eased his passage until he met a faint resistance. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, pushing on until the throbbing length of him was gloved in her velvety warmth.

  A groan of satisfaction escaped him. Another man might give her diamonds and pearls, but there was one thing only Sebastian Kerr would give her. Her fingernails dug into his back. He opened his eyes to find her cheeks wet with tears.

  He brushed them away with his fingertips, ashamed that her pain had given him such exultation. She caught her bottom lip shyly between her teeth.

  “I should have warned you,” he said raggedly.

  “No need. Papa did have anatomy books.”

  “And what would they recommend to ease the pain?” He fought to hold himself still while his brave beauty pondered the question.

  Her eyes brightened. “Practice?”

  He gave a surprised grunt as she arched her hips in an elegant circle against him. His voice cracked an octave too high. “I grow fonder of Papa with each passing moment.”

  He drew his hips back almost to the point of leaving her, then sank his shaft deep into her shuddering body. Prudence closed her eyes, surrendering herself to his sweet, endless filling. Her lips hungrily kissed his neck, catching beads of sweat like nectar on her tongue. Her moans and whispered, wordless pleas sang a counterpart to his throaty groans.

  She had never imagined anything like th
is. She was being possessed, yet gaining a precious gift at the same time. Sebastian rocked hard against her, his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth in flawless rhythm. Waves of delight crested within her, swelling higher and higher until they finally broke over her, flooding her with exquisite pleasure. She gasped against his lips, her hands clinging to him.

  As his own body went rigid, she instinctively arched against him, holding him tightly as he thundered to a shuddering climax, filling at last all the empty spaces in her life.

  A desperate bellow rang off the lamplit walls of the tiny cavern.

  Sebastian awoke and rolled over with a curse, throwing the back of his hand over his eyes and shielding Prudence with the blanket in the same motion. She sat up on her knees, jerking the blanket to her nose. Without Sebastian’s warmth to cover her, she felt worse than naked.

  The lantern lowered. Tiny’s hair billowed around his head like the halo of a crazed Norse god.

  Jamie peered around Tiny’s shoulder, his hand over his eyes. He moaned as if he were going to be ill. “We ain’t too late, are we? Tell me we ain’t too late.” He peeked between his bony fingers, taking in Prudence’s huge eyes and tousled hair above the frayed edge of the blanket. “She looks to be all of a piece, don’t she?”

  “More than you will be when I get my hands on you,” Sebastian growled, wrapping another blanket around his waist. “This had better be good.”

  “There’s somethin’ ye got to know, lad,” Tiny said in his rumbling voice.

  A wing of warning fluttered in Prudence’s stomach.

  Sebastian swung his legs over the edge of the pallet. “I doubt that. I was doing fine before you barged in.”

  Tiny swallowed hard. “It’s MacKay. I fear we’ve made a tumble mistake and snatched his bride-to-be.”

  Prudence eased the blanket upward, planning to pull it over her head if an opportune moment arose.

  “MacKay’s bride?” Sebastian stood, running a hand through his hair.

  The blanket rode dangerously low on his hips. His attempt at pacing was thwarted by the suffocating size of the cavern and Tiny’s immense presence. He had to satisfy himself with circling the blankets. Prudence flinched as a lean, muscular calf brushed her back.