Edmund’s eyes were wide, as though he was attempting to drink her in. “God’s teeth, Molly, but you are beautiful.”
And before she could answer he had closed the gap between them and pulled her into his arms, and Molly gasped at the visceral reaction her body had – which was to open itself to him immediately.
His kisses were wild and passionate, demanding more and yet giving so much, and Molly gave him everything she wanted. She wanted to give Edmund everything as he gave her this pleasure, such pleasure that made her entire body tingle all over.
She did not know how they had done it, but all of a sudden they were lying on a makeshift bed of the sofa’s cushions and their own clothing. Edmund was nestled in her legs and his mouth was around one of her nipples, teasing it as wild ripples of ecstasy moved around her body.
“God, Edmund,” she moaned, her legs tightening around him. “Yes, more!”
And though she could not imagine how there was more – there was more. As his hands caressed her face, her breasts, her hips, Edmund moved to the other breast and teased her nipple with his tongue.
“Edmund, yes!” Molly could not help but cry out, did not care who heard her, for this was joy as she had never experienced before.
He raised his head to grin at her, and she kissed him, pouring into the kiss the desire she felt for him, the desire that was as unknown and surprising to her as it was to him.
They broke apart and Molly looked up into the eyes of a man who she was rapidly falling in love with. How could she not, knowing he could give her this much pleasure and utterly selfishly?
“I am going to…to enter you now,” Edmund said breathlessly, concern on his face. “It – well, it may hurt, Molly. You have to tell me if it does.”
Molly tried not to smile. If her late husband was anything to go by, this was the moment it all ended. It would be over in a few thrusts, and all the pleasure she was feeling would be over.
At least she had experienced this. It was far more than she could have imagined, and it was wrong, surely, to be disappointed it was almost over.
She nodded. “I will tell you.”
Edmund smiled and leaned down to kiss her – and as he did, he shifted and gently lowered his manhood into her.
Molly cried out and he stopped immediately, fear in his eyes. “Molly, are you – ”
“Keep going,” she growled, desperate for the return of the hot carnality which had soared through her body as he had started to enter her. “God, yes!”
This was unlike anything she had ever experienced – she was warm, wet, and ready for him and he was filling her in a way she could not have predicted.
It was more than glory, more than pleasure – it was the unique connection between a man and a woman and she wanted more.
Edmund grinned and started to build a rhythm as his hands pushed back the hair from her face. “Come for me, Molly.”
She did not understand what he meant, but there was heat and joy and ecstasy building between her thighs and she did not understand it, but she wanted more of it and as he rose and fell into her at a steady pace it was building, and suddenly she broke and exploded with pleasure, her entire body now aching with the joy of it.
“Edmund!”
Eventually the pleasure passed and Molly looked up at him with blearily eyes. “That – that was…”
“That was an orgasm,” he said gently. “You came for me, Molly, and there is no higher compliment for a gentleman.”
Molly nodded, barely able to think. Was that what she had been missing out on for those two years of marriage? Was that what Charlie had enjoyed each and every time he had bedded her?
No wonder people liked doing this.
“That was…” Molly swallowed, trying to find her voice. “That was wonderful.”
Edmund grinned. “Good. Ready for another?”
Her eyes widened. “We can do it again?”
They could. Again, and again – Molly thought her voice would go hoarse, Edmund pleasured her without any thought for his own release, until finally he lay beside her.
“One more time, I think,” he said with a grin. “But this time, I want you on top.”
Molly blinked at him through the haze of her own contentment. “On top?”
Edmund nodded, shifting to lie on his back. “Just pretend you are riding a horse.”
It was impossible not to snort as Molly shifted and found herself astride him. “You do know that I have never ridden a horse before?”
But she did not wait for his answer before she lowered herself slowly onto his manhood and saw the twitch of agonised joy on his face.
Molly swallowed. Now was her time to show him just how much she wanted to give him pleasure.
She moved slowly at first, a little unsure of herself, but as Edmund writhed and cried out her name, Molly sped up the pace and before she knew it she was coming herself, and her cries of pleasure seemed to push Edmund over the edge and he exploded into her.
Molly collapsed onto his chest as they experienced the end of their orgasms in each other’s arms.
As they lay there, panting, Molly knew she would never experience anything like that again. That was a once in a life moment, and she was so glad she had shared it with Edmund. Making love brought two people closer together forever, and Edmund was the man she would have chosen.
That she did choose.
“Well,” said Edmund in a ragged voice. “I have to say. This is the best kidnapping I have ever experienced.”
Molly laughed, unable to control herself. “Me too.”
7
Nothing could have prepared Edmund for the confusion of waking up.
The world seemed all wrong. Mrs Bird has obviously been stinting on the cleanliness of her sheets, but also the care of them. They felt hard, almost wooden to the touch – and as for his pillow, it had been grievously treated. It felt no better, as Edmund lay there with his eyes shut, as his own waistcoat.
Edmund opened his eyes. The reason that his sheets felt like wood was because they were floorboards. The reason his pillow felt like his waistcoat, brass buttons and all, was because it was his waistcoat.
He was lying on the floor of a building he did not recognise with a naked woman wrapped around him that he recognised even less.
The moment of panic only lasted but an instant, and then memories rushed back. He had been kidnapped on Christmas Eve, been tied up and dragged here, spent Christmas Day bound for half it, and the whole of it with a woman who…
Edmund’s eyes returned to the naked woman curled into him. It was Molly, and she was asleep. A smile drifted across her lips and her arm was across his chest.
Molly. There was no one like her. He had bedded women, of course, but nothing like this. Nothing like this close connection. They had seemed so entwined, so close in spirit as well as body, that he had been utterly free with her.
She moved against him and Edmund’s smile broadened. If anyone had told him, when he had clapped eyes upon her from the other side of the King’s Head just two days ago, that he would not only have made love to her but also seemed to be falling…
No. Surely not. Sir Edmund Northmere did not fall in love with the women he bedded.
Edmund lay there, luxuriating in the feeling of her pressed up against him. It was more than a lustful thrill, it was something far greater.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not on your life.”
She had evidently trusted someone in the past and it had all gone catastrophically wrong. Anger flared in his stomach at the idea of anyone hurting Molly. Why – how could anyone do that to a woman so precious?
His memories slipped to the evening, that kiss he bestowed upon her that led to such delightful pleasure. God’s teeth, if he had known she had been so desperate for his touch, he would have stripped her of her gown and corset the moment she had pulled those ropes from his hands.
Edmund glanced down at Molly again and smiled. Well, Molly Kimble would no
t have been a very good wife for Edmund, Marquis of Dewsbury. He would have had to marry for money, or power, or connections. His father would have accepted no less.
But there was no reason that Sir Edmund Northmere, knight, could not marry Miss Molly Kimble. No reason at all.
God knew how long they were to be trapped here together. For some reason, the thought no longer filled him with fear and frustration.
The idea of being kidnapped with Molly was one that sparked joy, rather than concern. Even today, the day after Christmas, there was more pleasure in being kidnapped and kept a prisoner with her than being anywhere else.
Edmund’s eyes flickered over her face and his smile broadened. His Molly.
She stirred, eyelashes fluttering, and Edmund snapped his eyes shut. It was a habit he had grown from being a child and being forced to share a room with his brother, Luke. Whoever had awoken first had the most arduous task: breaking up the water in the ewer. Their father had believed in hardening his sons, and the freezing temperatures in which they slept over caused their water to freeze over.
Edmund could see nothing, but could feel Molly shift beside him. Her head lifted from his shoulder and the weight of her body disappeared from his side. The emptiness felt awful, as though she belonged there and had no gone missing.
He risked a peek and was well-rewarded with a view of her naked body leaning to pick up her gown, pulling it around her. By God, but she was beautiful – and more so than he had realised when he had seen her.
There was a beauty of soul there, a diamond in the rough. It was astonishing, really, that she had not married before. Why had no one wanted her beauty, kindness, and that spark of fire?
Edmund certainly did.
Molly was quiet as she stepped across the room, finding a tankard in a cupboard which she closed quietly. With her back to him, Edmund was able to watch her without being caught, and his body stirred with longing as she leaned over the tap and tried to twist it for some water.
The tap did not budge. Just before Edmund rose to help her, Molly took a careful look at the tap, and then hit it carefully on one side, four inches down the pipe.
The tap immediately twisted.
Edmund frowned. “How in God’s name did you do that?”
Molly froze. Every inch of her ceased movement except her heart, which was battering against her ribcage painfully.
She was a fool, and she was going to be found out. She had used this tap – what, a hundred times? The only way to force its cooperation was to hit it just right. She had learned the skill months ago, what felt like years ago.
But a woman who was not meant to know why she was kidnapped shouldn’t know the secret to getting a tap to work.
Trying to slow down her frantically beating heart by keeping her breathing level, Molly straightened up and smiled at the gentleman who had made her feel – such things. Things she had never known before, had not even know she had not known them.
Pleasure beyond compare. The sensation of being wanted and needed, not just a body to get his own pleasure from.
He was so unlike her disgusting and now departed husband that she wondered whether they could both be men.
“I said,” Edmund repeated slowly, “How in God’s name did you do that?”
Molly swallowed. If she looked nervous, showed any sign of weakness, he would jump on it. He would know she had been lying, lying about everything.
She was no innocent victim here, except that her brothers would probably leave her for a few more days than normal. But they would release her, and with little harm.
No, it was Edmund who was the victim, and he did not even know it.
She allowed an awkward smile to spread across her face. “The tap? I hit it just like the one at home. ‘Tis no prodigious skill – not like the skill I enjoyed last night.”
Her guess had been correct. Edmund’s look of suspicion and confused disappeared immediately as he propped himself on his shoulders with a lazy grin on his face.
“Ah, so you enjoyed yourself then?”
Molly had to work hard to keep her face steady. Really, in many respects, men were the same the world over. Even if you added a title, wealth, and a certain disregard for the rules, a gentleman could always be depended upon to be distracted by talk of his prowess in the bedchamber.
“It was…” Her voice failed her as the realisation of the truth dawned in her mind. Molly swallowed. She had shared herself with this man, shared the most vulnerable part of herself. So why was being honest about it so difficult?
He was watching her, his hair falling over her eyes. Molly’s stomach gave a lurch. She was for it now. She knew what that lurch meant.
“It was the best time I ever had,” she said truthfully.
Edmund’s face broken into a grin. “Truthfully?”
Molly nodded. Her fingers were only just holding up her gown which could fall at any moment, but she knew she had to keep talking – had to keep Edmund from realising that she had almost certainly been here before.
The smile on his handsome face broadened but then froze. “You ever had?”
It was impossible not to laugh at that. “Did you think I was an innocent, Edmund?”
Edmund shifted uncomfortably as he lay on the floor. “Well…yes. It is not a strange assumption, Miss Kimble. Few women make love with anyone before they are wed.”
Molly took a deep breath. She had wondered when this would surface, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to put right a few of the assumptions Edmund had made, what felt like years ago, in the King’s Head.
Pulling her gown around her, she stepped forward with a smile and sat beside Edmund. He leaned forward and kissed her and she lost herself to it for a moment, desperate for the warmth of his touch.
And then she broke the connection and looked into his grey eyes. “Edmund, I am not Miss Kimble.”
His forehead creased. “Not Miss – but you said…”
“I said that my name was Molly Kimble,” she said gently, not looking away from him. “And you…you assumed that I was unmarried.”
Edmund’s look of confusion now became one of horror. “Unmarried? Molly, you are not…you are not married?”
Molly swallowed and dropped her gaze. “Widowed, actually.”
There was silence in the room. All she could hear were the chimes of the church clock just outside the window, chiming seven in the morning. It was Boxing Day. The joy and festivities of Christmas Day were over – and so was the magic between herself and Edmund.
A hand gently nudged her chin upwards so that her eyes met his. Edmund was smiling, and there was no fire in it. This time, they were full of kindness.
“Tell me.”
Molly smiled wryly. “‘Tis not much to tell, if I am honest. I was young, dreadfully young when I met him. He was a friend of my – of my family. I was a Bletchley before, and when he proposed I said yes. He died two years later.”
A wrench of guilt tore into her stomach. Well, it was hardly proper for her to explain exactly how he died. What was it to Edmund, after all? Was she not to have any secrets from this gentleman with whom she was kidnapped?
Edmund was watching her closely, as though attempting to read her mind. “To be widowed so young – to lose the love of your life – ”
“He was not the love of my life.” Molly saw his face. “I did not intend my words to be so harsh, but it is impossible not to speak harshly of a man who had been so harsh to me. Yes, I mourned him for what could have been. But he…he was not a good man, Edmund, and though I did not celebrate his passing, I have lived a better life since he has gone.”
She stopped there, afraid of revealing too much. And yet it was not a unique story. How many fathers wept when their daughters married men undeserving of them? How many families were torn apart when choices were made to bring ruin and destruction on them?
How much better was it when the perpetrator was removed by God’s hand – or man’s?
“How did
he die?”
Molly looked away from him. “‘Tis immaterial. The fact is that he is dead, and even when he was alive…Edmund, he never gave me such pleasure in two years as you have given me last night.”
The words were truthful, but as she glanced back at him she saw that they had had their desired effect. Edmund was no longer curious about the demise of her husband. He was more interested in comparing his prowess.
She had to smile. Edmund was just like any other man, and yet at the same time, so unlike any she had ever met before. He was unique; a gentleman raised for riches who gave it all up for honour and justice.
“Truly?” Edmund beamed. “You do not just have to say so. I have an ego, naturally, but I would rather it was fed with honesty than muck.”
Molly nodded and felt her cheeks crimson. “Edmund, I have…I did not even realise the body could experience such exquisite ecstasy. I – ”
But her words were stopped as he kissed her full on the mouth – and this kiss was different. True, there was warmth in it. It was a kiss from Edmund, after all.
But there was more than that. Something had changed between them, as they had shared this kiss in the full knowledge, now, of Molly’s past.
Molly lost herself in the sensation of his lips on hers, his hands around her waist, the warmth between her legs. Kidnapped with a knight or not, she could easily lose herself for days with this man, in his touch, with his kisses.
Edmund pulled her down to nestle in his arms, and Molly lay with him willingly. His arms were strong around her, making her feel safe.
But she was not safe. Not until she could escape this prison of a house, and without – and if she could, it would be a miracle – this wonderful man who she was falling in love with discovering that it had been her own brothers who had put them here.
8
For the first few seconds of the heavy knocking, Edmund kept his eyes shut. What on earth could that noise be? Why was it interrupting this wonderful moment with Molly – a woman he now knew to be a loving, caring, woman.
Kidnapped with a Knight: A Steamy Regency Romance (Ravishing Regencies Book 0.5) Page 6
