by Karen Ranney
Her breasts were beautiful, larger than he’d thought, with large coral areolas surrounding turgid nipples. He bent and placed his mouth over one, hearing her gasp.
His tongue flicked over the tip. Her hands crept up to burrow in his hair. This moment in the sun when he suckled her was the single most erotic scene of his life.
In her silence and her welcome she granted him a freedom he’d never known. Here there was no judgment and no one to be compared against.
For her, he wanted to be a better lover than he’d ever been. He wanted to bring her to pleasure with his hands and his mouth, with his cock and his words. He wanted her to shiver and tremble and scream in pleasure.
First, however, he would be as naked as she, as exposed and vulnerable.
She didn’t look away once, but sat there intent and quiet, looking her fill.
When he finished undressing she almost unmanned him.
“You’re more beautiful than I imagined,” she said, her eyes sweeping over him.
“You imagined me naked?”
She nodded.
She continually surprised him, but no more so than in that next minute when she widened her legs, placed her hands on his chest, and urged him closer.
“Shall we be about this business of making me a wife?”
“Why so quickly?” he asked.
“Because I can’t wait any longer.”
The insides of her thighs glistened with her arousal. He placed both hands there, gently spreading her open with his thumbs. Her eyes closed, her breathing escalated, and she bit at her bottom lip.
For all his wish to be slow, he doubted he’d be able to, not after touching her and feeling how swollen and wet she was. His thumb gently circled one spot, causing her eyes to open and fix on him.
“Ross.”
Just his name, but it was as great an entreaty as he’d ever been given.
He pulled her forward with both hands on her hips, then gently kissed her.
The kiss turned heated within seconds. Her tongue dueled with his as her hands swept over his back, cupping his buttocks and pulling him forward.
She was a damn demanding virgin.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
She pulled back. “It’s going to hurt?”
“Did no one ever tell you?”
She shook her head. “It isn’t something that comes up in polite conversation, is it? And my mother certainly didn’t say anything. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything that I could use.”
The image of the Dowager Countess of Barrett giving her daughter seduction advice was not one he wanted to have in his mind.
“I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
“I’ll try not to scream,” she said.
He didn’t want to hear that, either, so he kissed her again.
Lowering her back to the desk, he rose over her, kissing her breasts, drawing one hard nipple into his mouth.
Before she could worry about it, he slowly entered her, feeling her so tight that he wondered if he would be any type of lover at all. He felt a slight constriction, then pushed forward.
Ellice hadn’t lied. She was a virgin, one with a magnificent imagination, eyes that bore right through him, and a body to tempt him.
Her eyes were clenched shut and she was biting her bottom lip again. Slowly, he withdrew, and just as gently entered her again.
Her nails were gouging into his shoulders.
Once more he left her and entered.
She opened her eyes. “When is it going to hurt?”
“It doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “It pinches, but I suspect that’s because you’re so large.”
He felt a smile begin again.
“And it itches a little, as if I want you to do more than what you’re doing.”
Was she coaching him now?
“What do you think I should be doing?” he asked, startled by the combination of humor and lust.
“Going faster, I think,” she said. “I do wish you would.”
“I can do that,” he said. This time he surged into her, until the hair at his groin mingled with hers.
She groaned softly.
When her eyes opened, he asked, “Was that painful?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. It felt very nice.”
Well, hell. Nice was not a word he would use to describe what he was feeling. The top of his head was about to blow off.
He paid more attention to her breasts, cupping one while he gently suckled the other. Then he kissed her again, thumbing her nipples, keeping up the stroking rhythm. Her breathing was keeping time. Each time he surged within her, she would gasp. Each time he withdrew, she made a strange little sound and her hands gripped his arms tighter.
“Is it nice?” he asked against her ear.
“Yes,” she said, but that one word seemed to cause her a great deal of trouble.
“How nice?”
She groaned when he began to move a little faster. If he were truly blessed he’d be able to bring her to satisfaction before his own.
But it would be a tight race.
“Oh, Ross.”
“Very nice?”
She made a noise in the back of her throat.
She pulled her mouth away from his, her eyes flying open.
“Ross, oh, Ross.”
In the next instant, she wrapped her legs around him and raised her hips. Her whole body trembled, her channel gripping him, milking him until he had no choice but to surrender.
Chapter 22
“I think I screamed,” she said.
“Only in the most ladylike manner.”
“It was very, very nice. The nicest thing in the world, actually.”
His smile startled her as he helped her sit up.
She looked at the floor, surprised she hadn’t noted the vibrant colors in the Turkish carpet. Or the expanse of windows through which they could easily be seen. Nor had she fully grasped how very large the library was, or how small they seemed at the moment, two naked people, one of whom was smiling.
She, on the other hand, was trying very hard not to cry.
His hand cupped her chin, raised her head. She blinked up at him, refusing to let him see how emotional she was at the moment.
He didn’t say a word, but his smile vanished. Slowly, he lowered his head and kissed her. She was nearly overwhelmed by the tenderness of it, enough that one tear fell soundlessly down her cheek.
“I hurt you,” he said, the words echoing in the silence.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, you didn’t.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Was there a way to say how she felt? She was so much more adept at putting her thoughts on paper. Then, she had a chance to change her mind, reassess, and correct. When speaking, she had to be correct from the first.
“What is it, Ellice?”
She shook her head, looking away from him.
“Ellice?”
She finally turned her head. They exchanged a long look, one that made her weepy again. She wanted, almost desperately, to wrap her arms around him, rest against the wall of his chest until she felt more capable of facing the world again.
Bending, he grabbed his clothes, retrieved a handkerchief from somewhere and handed it to her. He dressed as she blotted at the evidence of their passion. She knew, without being told, that she should feel embarrassed and vulnerable.
Strangely, she didn’t. Instead, her skin was warm, her body still pulsing with delight.
His eyes were soft as wool when his gaze touched her.
The blood startled her. She must have made a sound, because he glanced at her, then at the cloth in her hand.
“It’s nothing to worry about, I understand,” he said. “It’s merely proof you were a virgin.”
“And now I’m not.”
“No, you’re not.”
When he brought her clothes to the desk without a word, she donned her garments, slower than she’d pulled them off h
er body.
She’d dared him and he’d taken her dare, teaching her about passion. She’d been right about a great many things but wrong about so much.
Passion had made her insane for a little while. Was it supposed to do that? Was she supposed to lose her wits? All she could think about was him, touching him, making him touch her, take her. Everything else was meaningless.
The sky could have fallen and she wouldn’t have cared.
He hadn’t donned his jacket, merely stood there in his shirt and trousers. He dragged a chair to sit in front of her, grabbed her stockings, and began to roll each one up her leg.
“Are you a lady’s maid, too?”
“It will speed things along if I help you dress. Women always have more clothing.”
“Do you think I’m with child?”
His head jerked up and he stared at her. She smoothed her foot over his trousers and he grabbed it, held it in his warm hand. Who knew that her foot could be so sensitive?
“You haven’t asked about your staff,” he said, which wasn’t an answer and at the same time was. The idea of her being with child was not something he wished to discuss.
The thought scared her a little. Was she prepared to be a mother? Would she be as terrible at the job as her own mother? Or was that too harsh a criticism? Enid had always been devoted to her children. The loss of Lawrence first, then Eudora, changed her.
“I have a staff?” she asked, which was an easier subject than motherhood at the moment.
He nodded. “A secretary, the maids that are assigned to your suite. Your own cook, if you wish, and of course your personal maid.”
She stared at him. “I haven’t the slightest use for any of those people, especially a personal cook. What foolishness.”
If she hadn’t been so close to him, she probably wouldn’t have seen the way his eyes darkened, the center black part widening. She was captivated by the beauty of his eyes, enough to simply sit there and study him.
When he frowned at her she realized she’d been doing that for a few minutes at least.
“You have to have some staff. You’re the Countess of Gadsden.”
She sighed. “Very well, but no secretary and certainly no personal cook. The girl I met yesterday will do fine as a lady’s maid. Pegeen, I think her name is.”
“She’s assigned to the public rooms,” he said. “She has no experience at being a lady’s maid.”
“And I have no experience at being the Countess of Gadsden, so we’ll suit each other perfectly. But how did you know about Pegeen?”
He slowly rolled the stocking from her foot to her knee, smoothing it as he went, taking such care that her leg trembled from his touch. She really wished he wasn’t as good at dressing her, or touching her for that matter. The former made her wonder at his experience with women, while the latter made her regret she was getting dressed and not the reverse.
“I’m the earl,” he said. “I’m supposed to know how many people are employed at Huntly and who they are.”
“How many?”
“One hundred sixty-seven.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you know where each of them works?”
“Not all of them,” he said, tightening the garter above her knee. “But Pegeen is memorable because she has red hair and green eyes.”
At that moment she’d give anything to have red hair and green eyes.
“I’m sorry I’m so plain,” she said, watching as he fastened her left shoe.
She had to stand to don her corset properly, but she wasn’t about to interrupt him. She hadn’t been dressed since she was a child and never considered that a man, her husband, might do so.
“What utter rot,” he said, beginning to roll up the second stocking.
She frowned at him. “What is utter rot?”
“That you’re plain.”
“My eyes are brown and my hair is brown.”
“Your eyes are the color of warm chocolate,” he said, tilting his head to study her. “Your hair isn’t brown, but auburn with gold and red threads in it like the finest tapestry.”
Her heart turned over.
“I haven’t your beautiful gray eyes,” she said when she could speak. “Perhaps our child will.”
He didn’t look away but his hands continued to caress her leg.
“Pegeen it is, then,” he said, finally breaking the spell that stretched between them. “But if you change your mind about the others, let me know.”
“A personal gardener,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. She wanted, almost desperately, to kiss him, but she already knew where that would lead. She didn’t want to be taken on the desk again. There were enough beds at Huntly to test all of them at least once.
“If that’s what you wish,” he said, not batting an eye.
“A personal farrier, perhaps.”
“Someone to shoe your personal horses?”
She nodded. “I don’t ride. I think you should know. Not that I have anything against it. It’s just in London there was never the time or the inclination, and one doesn’t just ride for pleasure at Drumvagen.”
“What does one do for pleasure at Drumvagen, other than talk to the animals?”
“One writes,” she said, genuinely smiling this time. “Or one tends to children or goes on long walks.”
“A very placid existence.”
“Very placid. So placid I might have been bored without Lady Pamela.”
He finished with her stocking, garter, and shoe, then helped her stand.
“Lady Pamela is most definitely not boring.”
“I was teasing about the gardener,” she said. “I wouldn’t change a thing about Huntly.”
“It’s yours to change,” he said. “Within reason.”
“So I can’t dig up the courtyard and have the Celtic knot replaced with an English symbol?”
“I think my ancestors would emerge from their crypts,” he said.
“Can I change the countess’s chambers?” she asked, serious now. She donned her corset over her shift and tightened it.
“What would you change about it?”
“All those mirrors,” she said as she finished dressing. “I’d have them removed. And surely no one needs all those armoires. I’d have the secretary moved to the sitting room.”
“Done,” he said. “What else?”
Surprised, she glanced at him. He was looking at her with a small smile.
“A larger desk?” she asked. “Not appreciably bigger but a little.”
“I’m sure we have something in another room that will suit.”
She nodded, a little bemused. No one had ever listened to her so carefully or granted her wishes with such alacrity.
He brushed her skirt in the back, surveyed her once, as she did the same to him. He offered her arm and she took it, allowing him to lead her from the library as if there was nothing untoward about their visit there.
She noticed the alabaster inkwell on the floor and bit back her smile.
He was besotted.
What else could he call it? Whenever he looked at her, he wanted her again. She talked about children, his children, and he wanted to push her back down on the desk and make her scream in pleasure. She teased him and he desired her.
She confessed to not liking to ride, and he wanted to place a kiss on each pink cheek, enfold his arms around her and protect her from every fear she had, every lack in her life.
He wanted to assign each and every one of the hundred and sixty-seven of Huntly’s staff to her beck and call.
No, he was most definitely besotted.
When they crossed the courtyard with her hand still on his arm, he took it in his instead. As they entered the house and he greeted one staff member after another with a nod, he still held onto her hand. And when they stopped in front of her suite, instead of relinquishing her, he pulled her down the hall, opened his doors, and brought her to his room.
He stood silent, watching her look around, feeling a
sense of wonder at her surprise. The sitting room was as massive as hers, but the furniture was upholstered in the Forster tartan. The bedroom was dominated by a bed hewn from an oak from Huntly’s forest over two centuries ago.
But it was the bath where he led her, a series of rooms to rival or exceed anything at Huntly.
The first chamber was occupied by a simple tub made of copper, a design of vines pressed into the back and sides. The stone dais on which it sat was beige with veins of copper and green.
The second part of the bath, reached through an arched door, was their destination.
The room they entered was hewn from the same beige stone, a bowl carved in the center. Thick copper pipes jutted out from one wall. He bent, turned one faucet, and hot water began to fill the tub.
She hadn’t said a word since they entered the room. He’d expected, at the least, a dozen questions. Instead of waiting for her to ask, he gave her what information he could.
“It’s built over a hot spring,” he said, adjusting the cold water.
“What’s that smell?” she asked. “It reminds me of medicine.”
He smiled. “The water’s thought to have medicinal properties. It’s from the mineral springs.”
She stepped forward, stretched out her hand, then drew it back in surprise. “It’s really hot.”
He reached her, began to unfasten her buttons.
How wide her eyes were and how silent she was. As if she were stunned at the force of their passion or his actions of the last fifteen minutes.
Little did she know he felt the same.
He’d never cared for a woman like he was doing now. He’d never coaxed her hair free until it fell below her shoulders then returned the pins to her so she could make sure it was up, out of the water.
He’d helped a woman undress before, holding her steady so she could step out of her skirts and the rest of her clothing, but he’d never done so with such tenderness. Nor had he ever cautioned himself to restrain his libido.
His wife was only one interlude away from being a virgin.
When she was down to her shift, the rest of her garments placed on the stone bench at his back, she finally spoke.
“Will you be joining me?”
He smiled. “No, not this time,” he said. “I want you to soak so you aren’t sore.”
