Her hands cupped either side of his spine and stroked the powerful length of his back. His muscles were so hard, his flesh gave not at all as she tried to pull him closer.
This was what she had wanted when she returned from Brighton, this deep passionate intimacy and wild conflagration of desire. Unlike Simon, Christopher did not retreat when she asked. The pirate forced her to acknowledge him, to take him . . . to take him with pleasure.
Suddenly, he pulled away, his breathing hard and erratic, his entire body shaking. He pressed his cheek to hers and groaned. “Do you have any notion of what you do to me?” he asked.
The yearning note in his voice brought tears to her eyes. “Is it anything similar to what you do to me?”
Christopher’s hot, open mouth sucked erotically on her neck. “Bloody hell, I hope so. I do not think I could bear it were I in this alone.”
Maria’s hands moved to his shoulders and pushed. He grunted and continued his oral appreciation of her throat, his tongue rubbing back and forth across her fluttering vein.
“Allow me to perform a like service to your cock,” she whispered.
Lifting his golden head, he looked down at her with dark, fathomless eyes. “Yes.” He rolled to his back, taking her with him. His hand at her nape, he kissed her. A hard quick kiss that conveyed his gratitude.
It made her smile, that simple gesture. She slid down his big body with deliberately provoking movements, her mouth moving down his chest, her fingers teasing his nipple similarly to how he had teased hers. He tensed, his breaths shallow, waiting. Her tongue flicked rapidly across the tightened peak, wringing a cry from him.
“Do not dally,” he urged hoarsely. “I need you.”
She took further pity on him and wiggled down until she lay between his spread thighs. The muscles there were spasming, so great was his tension. She studied his balls, so heavy and full, drawn up tight in aching anticipation. His cock, so thick and hard, strained upward. She blew across it gently and it jerked, a spurt of semen escaping from the large, wide head.
“Delicious,” she breathed, taking his phallus in hand and angling it to her mouth. As she drew it closer, more cum beaded the tip and slipped down along a fat, pulsing vein. Her tongue extended, pressing flat against the shaft and then licking slowly upward, cleaning him.
“Ah!” His fists clenched in her bed linens, his neck taut with strain. More of his seed leaked out, dribbling down the long length, pooling in the valley between her fingers and his rock-hard flesh. He watched her with dark, heated eyes. “Maria.” His raspy voice was rough with urgency.
She lay on her side at eye-level with his cock. “Roll into me,” she directed.
Side by side they faced each other, with her body much farther down the bed than his. She angled his erection into position for her waiting mouth and sucked him in, holding his hips as he cursed and jerked violently. Her tongue rubbed back and forth over the tender spot beneath the head of his cock. His groan was low and tormented, and for a moment, she felt like weeping. They were too close emotionally, each able to hurt the other. It made her want to give him all the pleasure she could, to give him some modicum of happiness in the midst of the mire that sucked them in.
Her eyes closed and she hollowed her cheeks, tugging on the swollen tip, her tongue swirling around the silky top, collecting the semen that now spilled profusely.
“Christ,” he hissed, his large hands cupping the back of her head, holding her still as his hips pumped forward. She cupped his balls and rolled them with great care. Christopher’s grip on her tightened painfully, making her nipples ache further and her sex slick with desire.
Maria sucked hard, her mouth tight as she could make it, and he shuddered hard.
“Yes . . . Maria . . .”
She opened herself to him as he had to her by coming here today. Aside from the hungry workings of her mouth, she remained completely motionless, allowing him to set the pace. He continued to groan, cry out, and shake, his words and pitch becoming more guttural as he fucked her mouth with increasing fervency.
Soon her lips were rimmed with his cum and her saliva, her mouth filled too full as his cock continued to swell. He cursed and writhed, the tension of his body betraying how frantically he drove toward release. He pumped deep, hitting the back of her throat, and then froze with a shout of mingled pleasure and mindless relief.
The hot salty wash of his semen flooded her mouth in a pulsating rush, and she serviced him, stroking his cock and gently squeezing his balls and sucking hard, so hard. He tried to push her away, to flee, but she held him captive, taking him, making him surrender, making him mutter incoherently.
“No . . . Maria . . . dear God . . . yes . . . no more . . . no more . . .” And finally a whispered plea, “Don’t stop . . .”
She drained him, her hands and mouth still on him even as he lost that desperate hardness and softened against her tongue.
“Please,” he begged, his hands falling away, his body slackening with tangible exhaustion. “I am undone.”
Maria released him, licking her lips, her own body aching with unfulfilled desire, but she was pleasured nevertheless.
He watched her with dazed eyes, his face still flushed and glistening with perspiration. “Come here,” he said hoarsely, his arms open and reaching for her.
She crawled to him, snuggled against him, rested her cheek over his violently beating heart. Her eyes closed as she breathed him in. His breathing slowed, became shallow and even, the sounds of deep sleep. She was close to following him when she felt the hem of her chemise rising, the skin of her legs exposed to the air.
Her head tilted back to find him looking at her, once again the controlled and intent man she knew.
“Christopher?” she queried softly, shivering as the heat of his palm covered the chilled skin of her thigh.
He pushed her to her back, rising to prop his head on his hand while the other slipped between her legs.
“Open,” he rasped.
“You don’t have—”
“Open.” The upward press of his hand grew more insistent.
Aroused by the single-minded intent revealed in his actions, Maria spread her legs, a gasp slipping from her as his fingers tangled in her curls.
“How perfect you are,” he murmured, parting the lips of her sex. “To become so creamy and hot from sucking my cock.”
His long fingers rubbed lightly across her clitoris, making her sex clench tight with wanting.
“And your nipples.” His head lowered, the heat of his mouth circling the aching tip, tugging on it with deep rhythmic suction. He released her and blew across the wet, erect point, making her whimper. “So delicious and sensitive that it makes this hungry little cunt”—two fingers slipped inside her—“suck me deep inside.”
She started to pant as he worked in and out of her, his gaze rapt on her face, watching all the nuances of her pleasure.
“Yet despite how much I adore the outer shell of my beautiful, Spanish-blooded vixen”—his lips hovered above hers, taking in her gasping breaths while he fucked her with those wicked fingers—“it is my deeper affinity with her that binds me.”
“Christopher.” Her heart in her throat, she found it difficult to breathe. She felt herself falling and wanted to stop, but found she couldn’t.
“Yes.” His lips moved against hers, he was so close. “Shocking, is it not?”
Maria clenched the bedclothes and thrust her hips in time to the slow, drugging thrusts into her melting sex. She was so wet, so aroused, she heard her body suck him in and then release him with great reluctance.
“So tight and greedy,” he murmured. “If I hadn’t just come my last drop, I’d indulge.”
“Later,” she moaned, her eyes squeezing shut.
“Later,” he agreed in that raspy bedroom voice. “Now look at me when you come. I want to see how much you like it when I make you climax this way.”
Forcing her eyes to open, Maria was startled by the tend
erness on his features. His hair was disheveled, softening his look further. She cupped her swollen, aching breasts, kneading them to relieve her torment.
He plunged deep, rubbed inside her, retreated. Thrust and withdrawal, in and out.
“Please,” she whispered, writhing. Falling.
“Beggars we are when it comes to each other.” He kissed her, a soft sweet kiss so at odds with the base pumping of his fingers. He lifted his head, pressed his thumb into her clitoris in a circular rubbing motion, and watched her orgasm with a cry of his name. Watched her shudder violently as her cunt convulsed around his fingers. Watched her fall all the way down.
Then he caught her. Held her. Tucked her against him.
And slept.
Amelia hurried over the fence and ran to the stream. Ware faced the river, his hands clasped at his back, waiting for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly, coming to a stop beside him.
He turned to her slowly, his gaze raking her from head to toe. “You failed to meet me yesterday,” he said.
She blushed, memories of Colin’s desperate kisses making her heart race. “I was detained. I feel terrible.”
“You do not appear as though you feel terrible. Your eyes are bright and happy.”
Unsure of what to say, she shrugged lamely.
Ware waited a moment and then offered her his arm. “Will you tell me about whatever it is that has made you glow?”
“Probably not.”
He laughed, then winked at her, the friendly gesture relieving her immeasurably. She had worried about possible awkwardness between them. She was grateful to find that there wasn’t any.
They strolled leisurely along the bank until they arrived at their previous picnic spot. Once again, a blanket waited in the midst of the lovely view. The shallow stream rushed over the smooth river rock in a delightful melody. The air was filled with the scent of meadow grass and wildflowers, and her skin warmed in the dappled sunlight.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked as she settled onto the blanket with a shy smile, her hands nervously smoothing the skirts of her white gown.
“Disappointed slightly,” he drawled, shrugging out of his mustard-colored coat. “But not angry, no. I do believe it would be impossible to be cross with you.”
“Others seem to find no trouble with it.”
“More fool they. It’s much preferable to be in charity with you.” He sprawled across the blanket on his side, his head resting in his hand.
“If I begged a favor from you,” she asked softly, “would you try to grant it?”
“Of course,” he murmured, studying her.
He was always studying her. Sometimes she felt as if he was examining her even when he wasn’t looking directly at her. She seemed to be a source of great interest to him, though she had yet to discern why.
Reaching into her reticule, she withdrew the letter she had drafted to Maria. “I would like you to post this for me. I’m afraid I lack her direction. But she is quite infamous, and it should not be too difficult to find her. Also, would you mind terribly if she were to reply to you?”
Ware reached out for the missive and gazed down at her handwriting. “The notorious Lady Winter.” Glancing back up at her with an arched brow, he said, “I pray you will indulge me with the answers to some questions.”
Amelia nodded. “Of course. Anyone would be curious.”
“First, why ask me to post this instead of managing the task yourself?”
“I am not allowed to correspond with anyone,” she explained. “Even discourse with Lord Welton must be done through my governess.”
“I find that quite alarming,” he said, his tone low and more serious than she had ever heard it. In truth, she had almost thought that Ware was never anything but mildly amused by circumstances around him. “I also dislike the look of the men who patrol the borders of the property. Tell me, Amelia. Are you a prisoner there?”
Taking a deep breath, she decided to tell her friend all that she knew. He listened attentively, as he always did, as if every word that left her mouth was of the utmost importance. She adored him for that.
By the time she finished her short tale, Ware was seated cross-legged before her, his blue eyes intense and the line of his mouth somber. “Have you never considered fleeing?”
Amelia blinked and then looked down at her intertwined hands. “Once or twice,” she admitted. “But truly, I am not maltreated. The servants are kind to me, my governesses gentle and even tempered. I have lovely gowns and proper schooling. What would I do, if I were to leave? Where would I go? How foolish would I be to set out on my own with no destination and no means of support?”
She shrugged and looked up at him again. “If my father is correct about my sister, then he is only protecting me.”
“You do not believe that,” the earl said gently, setting his hand atop of hers, “or you would not ask me to post this for you.”
“Wouldn’t you be curious?” she asked, genuinely seeking his counsel.
“Of course, but then I am a curious fellow.”
“Well, I am a curious female.”
His blue eyes smiled. “Very well, my fair princess. I will humbly manage this task for you.”
“Oh, thank you!” She tossed her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Then, embarrassed at her exuberance, she recoiled, blushing.
Ware, however, had a soft smile on his aristocratic features. “Not the kiss I was hoping for,” he murmured. “But it will do.”
Chapter 18
Simon situated himself against the padded headboard and reached for the glass of wine that rested on the small table by the bed. His skin was heated by his exertions, so he ignored the linens and allowed the occasional breeze from the nearby open sash to cool him.
His throat worked with a large swallow, then he glanced down at the pretty blonde beside him with a lazy smile. “A drink, Amy?” he asked solicitously.
“Um.” The girl sat up, revealing small but nicely curved breasts, and accepted the proffered glass.
“So tell me more,” he murmured, studying her carefully beneath heavy-lidded eyes, “about this secret panel in Lord Sedgewick’s house.”
Amy swallowed the fine beverage with an unschooled gulp that made him wince inwardly. “’e uses it to ’ide ’is liquor.”
“His contraband liquor.”
“Aye.”
“And access can be gained near the coal chute?”
She nodded, her curls swaying around her appealing features. “Makes the deliveries simpler. You won’t steal it, will you?”
“Of course not,” he soothed. “I simply find the idea quite clever and may implement something similar in my own home.”
Simon dipped his finger into the glass, then painted the maid’s pretty mouth with it. She flushed, her gaze darting to where his semierect cock lay against his thigh. “We will return to that in a moment,” he murmured, hiding a smile at how easy she was to distract.
Her lower lip thrust out in a pout.
“When does he receive callers?”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays from three to six.”
He smiled. Once he finished here, he would visit the space and ascertain whether it was possible to hear clearly through the walls or not. If so, he would schedule a man to sit in that spot every Tuesday and Thursday in the hopes of learning more about the viscount. There was a reason Sedgewick had approached Maria at the masquerade, and Simon would learn of it.
But first he had to finish his business here.
He set aside his glass and glanced at Amy with a seductive smile. She shivered and lay back down quickly.
Ah, it is a strenuous job, he thought with an inner grin.
Then he set to work.
Amelia was so excited about the letter to Maria that she practically skipped through the trees toward the house. For the first time, she felt as if she was actively working toward something. She had a goal, and she had set in motion the steps requir
ed to achieve it. Lost in the heady excitement of that, she was once again caught off guard by grasping arms, but her startled cry was smothered by a warm, passionate mouth and her protest instantly turned into a plaintive moan.
“Colin,” she breathed with her eyes closed and her lips curved in a smile.
“Tell me you didn’t kiss him,” he said gruffly, both of his powerful arms banded around her waist and lower back.
“Tell me I am not dreaming,” she murmured, filled with pure pleasure at being near her love again.
“It would be better if you were,” he said, releasing her with a sigh.
Opening her eyes, Amelia noted his frown and the harshly set line of his sensual lips. “Why are you so determined to feel so terrible about something so wonderful?”
His lips curved ruefully. “Sweet Amelia,” he murmured, cupping her face. His overly long hair fell over his brow, framing those dark eyes she adored. “Because sometimes it’s better to not know what you’re missing. Then you can tell yourself that it wouldn’t have been as wonderful as you thought. But once you know it, you can’t help but pine for it.”
“Will you pine for me?” she asked, her heart fluttering at the thought.
“Selfish girl.”
“I have been wretched over you.”
His eyes closed and he kissed her softly. “Tell me you didn’t kiss him.”
“Colin, have you no faith in me?” Rising to her tiptoes, she rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “I simply asked him for a favor.”
“What favor?” he asked crossly.
“I asked him to post a letter to my sister for me.”
He stilled. “What?” He waved his hand around them. “All of this is to keep her away from you.”
“I need to know her.” She pushed away from him and crossed her arms stubbornly.
“No, you don’t. Jesus.” Colin growled and set his hands on his hips. “You’re always finding some mischief or another.”
With his exotic handsomeness and tendency to brood, he looked divine to Amelia. She sighed with deep infatuation. That only made his scowl deepen. “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered.
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