“Goodness,” she said with a chuckle, and pulled a piece of her own hair out of her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” He was sorely embarrassed.
“It’s all right. I liked being so close. Your skin is …”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But I like it. Very much.” She ran a hand over his chest.
He closed his eyes against the sensation. “I’m trying to do the right thing. But you’re impossible to resist.”
“I hope so.” She kissed his mouth.
A moment later, he lowered his own mouth to the line of pale flesh above her bodice. Cupping one of her breasts in his hand, he pushed it up and kissed the exposed mound. Then he moved to the small cleft between her breasts and nuzzled it with his mouth. Her skin smelled sweet, like clover and honeysuckle.
She gave another little whimper of pleasure deep in her throat. “You’ve made me feel very beautiful, indeed.”
He lifted his head. “I can make you feel even more beautiful.”
“Can you?” The bees-and-honey voice had never been more alluring.
He heaved a great sigh, wishing he could show her and also dreading what he must say next. “I can, but it’s time to go.” He stood up and offered her his hand.
“Not again,” she said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, my.” She didn’t move. Her gaze was focused on his breeches.
He looked down, where proof of his arousal was plain as day. “My apologies,” he said.
“Please don’t apologize,” she murmured, and allowed him to pull her up. Her face took on an obstinate expression. “I’m not ready to leave. You said you could make me feel even more beautiful.”
He forced himself to laugh. “I was boasting. You shouldn’t listen when a man says outrageous things—”
“You’re beautiful,” she said out of the blue.
He inhaled a breath. “Daisy. It’s time to leave.”
“Viscount.” She pulled his head down by wrapping both hands around his neck. “You’re at my beck and call, remember?” She paused. “I know you won’t dishonor me. And you promised me anything. Anything.”
He’d never seen her so solemn.
Or entrancing.
He put his hands on her rounded bottom and pulled her firmly against his hips. “You’re right. I would never dishonor you, or allow anyone else to. And I did make that promise.”
She gripped his neck. “Show me how beautiful I am,” she whispered. “Please. Before I have to go back tonight and pack the trunks of three harridans.”
And that was all it took.
He picked her up again, lifting her high in his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist. She clung to him, enjoying the sensation of her most intimate place pressed firmly against his hard belly as he strode a few feet up the slope, onto the Stone Steps themselves. She could hardly bear to part her lips from his when he set her down, as gently as he could, on the third step from the bottom.
The sun had baked the steps a warm temperature. Daisy basked in its rays as Charlie sat beside her and kissed her again, one hand around her waist, the other cupping her breast.
When his thumb caressed her nipple, she relished the new sensation.
He made her feel so alive, Charlie did! Alive and wanting more pleasure. More closeness.
“I want to untie your laces,” he whispered in her ear.
She murmured a sound of acquiescence, shrugging out of her bodice and letting him fumble with her stays.
Free. That’s how she felt when he released her stays, especially with the sun and wind on her bare flesh. Charlie’s obvious appreciation made her lose all concern that she didn’t compare favorably to women he’d seen before.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he said, and bent low to kiss her.
She sucked in a breath at the wonder of his tongue laving her nipple, and when he took it in his mouth and suckled, a sharp dart of pleasure between her legs made her lift her lower belly toward the sky. He grabbed her bottom with his free hand and rubbed a slow circle around it, his mouth still dancing across both her breasts, causing them to pucker and tingle with such sweet pleasure, she moaned out loud.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“Never fear,” he replied, and gently plucked a nipple with his teeth. “I’m not going to stop until you’ve had enough.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, her hands clinging to his hair. “But I don’t know when that will be.”
He looked up then, his pupils dark. “Is that a kind way to say I’m at your beck and call again?”
She nodded. Then giggled.
“That’s a special sound,” he whispered.
“It is?”
“Yes. The first giggle I’ve heard from you.”
She felt bashful of a sudden.
He tilted her chin up. “Don’t be shy to do it again,” he whispered. “It was a gift. Thank you.”
She bit her lip. “You’re welcome. I—I didn’t—”
“I’ll relive that sound,” he interrupted her, his tone serious. “I’ll play it over and over again in my head.”
She blinked, touched at his words and yet a bit confused. “You’re sweet,” she said.
“There’s nothing sweet about me,” he said, and came up to plunder her mouth with his own.
But he was sweet. Generous with his body and his words. Carefree like a boy—but strong like a man.
“Shall I stop?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “If you stop now”—he kissed her right below her ear—“I’ll never forgive you.”
“All right.” He dipped down to lay kisses along her jaw. “But I don’t want to rush you. Perhaps it’s too soon.”
“No. It’s not. Show me, Charlie. Please.”
He showed her, all right, caressing her intimately with the palm of his hand, making her arch and ache for more.
She clutched his circling hand with her own. “More,” she said against his mouth, and was delighted when his fingers worked into her drawers to tease the nub of her softest flesh.
The feeling was so tantalizing, she threw her hands out on either side to grasp the edge of the step, her mouth connected to Charlie’s in a ribald, frantic kiss.
And when his fingers slid inside her—oh, glorious feeling!—she felt herself clench hard around him, pulses of pleasure urging her hips to thrust upward.
“Charlie,” she said in wonder.
He kissed her while moving his fingers in and out, mingling with her hot, damp curls. She arched, waves of pleasure taking her over the edge of bliss as she cried his name into his mouth, and then as she sank back down.
“Charlie,” she whispered, her head fallen back, her gaze filled with the bowl of Highland sky and nothing else.
She wilted onto him, his hand buffering her spine against the hard edge of the stair behind them.
When she blinked again, she opened her eyes to a whole new world. And Charlie’s satisfied smile.
“Oh,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Really?”
She let out a long breath. “That was more than I ever imagined.”
He stared at her seriously then. “I’m glad.”
A bee went buzzing by, and they both watched it go.
“But what about you?” she asked, caressing Charlie’s shoulder. He sat next to her on the steps and pulled her onto his lap. “I want you to achieve such a blissful state, too. It hardly seems fair that only I do.”
They were nose to nose. His legs were hard, his belly was hard, and he gripped her hard, but in his arms she felt like a fragile china teacup, the most exquisite one in a person’s possession … or a petal-soft flower much adored.
“Believe me, I can,” he said with a grin. “On my own. Although it’s not nearly as much fun alone.”
“Let me,” she said, and pressed herself into him so she could feel the hard length of him through his breeches.
He pressed back, like a lion pr
eening. “I want you to. More than anything. But today’s about you.”
“Why?”
He squeezed her close. “Because everyone needs to have a day about them, other than their birthday. Didn’t you know that?”
“No. When’s your special day?”
“I think it falls in April sometime.”
“I think you’re making this up.” He had the most beautiful eyes, brown with golden glints, especially when he was being playful.
“I’m not.” He touched her nose with a finger. “Your day is today. In fact, some people get more than one day. Some people get every day.”
“Every day?”
“Every day. And since you have me here, you’re one of those lucky people. Every day we can do … whatever you like.”
“No.” She was utterly shocked and delighted at his fancy. “I realize you’re still making this up, but wouldn’t it be nice if it could be true?”
“It can be.” He said it as if he felt sorry for her for not believing him.
She grew serious. “I think you’re amusing. And this … this has been incredible. But in real life, people can’t do whatever they want when they want.”
Charlie bit his lip. “You’re right, I suppose. But who gets to make the rules?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He gave her a slow, languorous kiss. “When it comes to you and me, we make the rules. Let’s establish that right now.”
Daisy nodded. “I like that.”
“You’ll like what I’m about to do, too,” he whispered in her ear.
“Charlie—”
“And don’t stop me,” he said. “Remember, today’s your day.”
She felt a great thrill of anticipation and nerves, but his kisses, even as they aroused her, calmed her in a way nothing ever had. Feeling spoiled, she barely noticed that somehow he’d managed to deftly maneuver himself around her so that she was sitting back on the steps. He knelt two steps below, his broad chest between her legs. In fact, she was forced to spread them to accommodate his hard, lean body.
Next thing she knew, he was raising her gown: first, above her ankles. Then her shins, knees, thighs, and gracious goodness, above her waist! And he was removing her drawers, shimmying them off her—one moment they were there, and then they were gone—and gently pushing her knees even farther outward.
She had no time to be shy about basking in the sun with her legs spread wide on the Stone Steps. How could she when she was forced to endure the exquisite pleasure of his warm mouth upon her inner thighs, while she admired the curve of his back, the top of his curly head, and the large muscles bunched at his shoulders?
And then she was fully immersed in the sweetest pleasure she could ever imagine. Charlie’s mouth nuzzled her womanly core, gently at first, but her moans drove him to licking and sucking and loving her with great abandon.
She’d never felt so wanton, so beautiful, so in touch with life as she did at the moment she cried his name over and over, his fingers and his mouth sheer poetry upon her as she alternated between grinding her rear end into the warm stone and arching upward, hoping to get closer and closer to him—
Her viscount.
CHAPTER TEN
Charlie woke the next morning from a fitful slumber, and it wasn’t only the poor sleeping accommodations and the extraordinary light that had kept him awake. Images of Daisy naked and inviting his caresses at the Stone Steps pervaded every aspect of his dreams. And as warmly sensual as those imaginings had been, he’d awakened with an uneasy feeling.
Of course, in the true light of day, he knew why. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was walking a risky road with Daisy. A dalliance in London was one thing, with a knowing widow or a kept mistress … but Daisy wasn’t made for dalliances.
And he wasn’t made for marriage.
Looking up at the crude beams above his head, he vowed to keep his distance from her, as difficult as it would be. First chance he got, he’d tell her there were to be no more kisses of such an intimate nature, as much as he craved holding her in his arms again and lavishing her with kisses from head to toe.
As much as he longed to make every day for her a special day.
“Lord Lumley!” The hiss came from the ground outside the byre, from the other side of the rotting shutters.
He peered through a crack in them.
Daisy stood below, bright-eyed and apparently well rested. Dreams of him obviously hadn’t kept her tossing and turning all night.
She wore the plainest gown he’d ever seen, and her hair was once more tightly bound. Even so, when he pushed the shutters open, he couldn’t help thinking how feminine she always was, especially in the throes of passion.
“You’re up awfully early,” he managed to say, trying to ignore his desire for her.
She put a hand to her eyes and squinted up at him. “I had to come see you. Before all the visitors arrive at the Keep and we don’t have a chance to speak.”
“Hold on a moment, and I’ll be right out.”
“No,” she said, and sounded rather embarrassed. “Please don’t bother.”
“But there’s something I need to talk to you about—” He was already standing and tucking his shirt into his breeches.
“Very well.” She sounded a trifle uneasy. “But first, I have to tell you I’ve had a chance to think over what happened yesterday, and as memorable as it was, we can’t do it again. I’ve too much at stake here with winning the castle back. I can’t afford to be distracted. And—and you’re a man of a certain ilk. We both know what that means.”
“Ilk again? Are we always going to come back to that?”
She shrugged in pixieish fashion. “You told me yourself you’re an Impossible Bachelor, wise in the ways of the world. So let me speak frankly. You helped satisfy my curiosity about certain things, and it was very nice. Thank you, but now it’s over. We’ll continue our ruse of being engaged, but it certainly won’t displease my stepmother to see us apart.”
He ceased in his dressing. “You used me yesterday afternoon?” he called out to her.
“I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it. You looked very … appealing, having just come from shinty. And the way you held the bag of shinty sticks, I could see all your muscles to perfection.”
“Wait a minute. Are you describing me the same way I’d describe a horse I admire?”
“I don’t mean to. I’ve never bought a horse. Is that how men talk about them?”
“Never mind that. Did you say my lovemaking is very nice?”
She nodded. “Perfectly agreeable.”
“That’s all you can say about it?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry if that disappoints you, my lord.” She didn’t look sorry. She looked annoyed and impatient, the way she was throwing her arms about to add weight to her words one minute and pushing her hair behind her ears the next. “No doubt plenty of women in your future will be more ebullient in their assessment of your—your skills because they’re not very busy, are they, those London ladies? Riding about on their horses in Hyde Park, lolling on sofas with glasses of ratafia—”
He shook his head. “You were assessing me?”
She waved a hand at him and turned partially away. “I’ve got to go. One last thing—I know at the Keep, you’ll do your best to treat me the way you would any other woman there.”
He saw her stride away, toward the castle, and he hurriedly finished tucking in his shirt, climbed down the ladder he’d taken to the loft, and strode after her.
“Miss Montgomery,” he called to her retreating back. “Daisy.”
She kept going. “I really must go.” When he caught up with her and took her arm, her eyes were stormy. “Which part of our conversation did you not understand, my lord?”
“First of all, it was your conversation,” he said. “I barely got a word in.”
“But—”
“And secondly, I must tell you that at the Keep, we’ll still need to work together t
o ensure that the visit goes off without a hitch.”
She let out an impatient breath. “Of course. But the Keep is vast. We probably won’t see much of each other, except at meals. By the way, I gave you the largest suite, the Blue Room. I’m up the stairs and down another corridor entirely.”
She took off again.
“Wait a minute—”
“I can’t,” she said, her back to him. “I promised Mrs. Skene and Mrs. MacAdoo Hester’s receipt for her special apricot brandy pudding. They volunteered to take charge of the kitchen at the Keep all ten days of the Highland venture.” But then she stopped and turned around. “You do know you won’t be able to participate in the hunt, don’t you?”
He couldn’t help scowling. “But that was the part I was looking forward to most. Stalking red deer, eating around a campfire …”
She shook her head. “You have responsibilities here. You can’t just disappear for a couple of days in the mountains.”
“But—”
“The men of Glen Dewey will take care of our guests on the hunt. What if some of the travelers prefer to stay back at the Keep? Perhaps there’ll be a few crotchety old men who like to play whist, or some who’d rather go fishing. You’ll need to bait their hooks.”
“Me?”
He was used to having people bait his hooks!
“Oh, and I must remind you. Joe said he’s going to need help shearing the sheep here at Castle Vandemere. It will fall right in line with showing the visitors what the Highlands are about. To a large extent, we’re about those stubborn, woolly beasts. The guests will enjoy traipsing over to watch.”
She sounded quite pleased at the idea.
He huffed. “I’ll do my best to shear the sheep for Joe’s sake but not in front of any guests. I’ve never done it before, and I’ll look like a fool.”
“They’ll love it. Just remember”—she grabbed her index finger—“pleasing the guests. It’s our first priority. And then”—she held on to her middle finger and wiggled it—“winning the castle back, priority number two.” She then grabbed her thumb. “Keeping as much money out of my stepmother’s hands as possible. Those are the three subjects uppermost in my mind, as they should be in yours, as you’re a stand-in for my godmother, Lady Pinckney.”
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