Romancing Lady Cecily

by Ashley March

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. Slowly, she straightened and leaned forward on the window seat, her eyes roving over him. How still he sat, his posture stiff and his gaze guarded. Cecily reached forward and lifted his hand where it lay clenched upon his knee. She turned her face and laid his palm against her cheek. He stared at her, and she willed him to see her own silent confession, the truth that had been evident all along if only he had tried to see it.

  “Is this the hand you would seduce me with?”

  His chest expanded with breath. He gave a short, terse nod, his black eyes flaring.

  “And this?” She leaned farther still, reaching to trace the outline of his lips, her fingers trembling at the first touch. “Is the mouth you would use to make me mindless with passion?”

  He kissed her fingertips, then lifted his other hand to capture hers. Holding her captive, he parted his lips and drew both fingers inside. The hot, sensuous pull of his mouth stirred an ache between her thighs. Her breath rushed from her lungs, her skin heating in turn from her own need, his touch, his dark gaze which claimed every beat of her heart as his.

  Withdrawing her fingers, she knelt and circled her arms around his neck. “I accept,” she whispered. “I will take all of you, everything you will give me. Your heart, your soul, your body. Just as you have mine.”

  “I fear even your heart, soul, and body will never be enough,” he said against her lips. “I will always want you, always want more of you. I will never be content with what you can give me. You must understand, Cecily, for I will not leave you alone. If you take me now, you take me knowing that this fire will remain unquenched, this desire something that I wish to consume you also.”

  “You speak as if you are the only one who wants. Do I not love you as well? Do I not need you as desperately?”

  “You have not said—”

  “I love you. I loved you from the first. I—”

  He kissed her hard, sealing his lips to hers, tangling his hands in her hair and holding her to him with such strength that she couldn’t move. But she didn’t want to move. She couldn’t get close enough to him. Her clothes were too constricting, unbearable boundaries shielding her from the heat of his skin, the touch of his flesh against hers.

  Unlike their previous encounters, he didn’t leave her lips. He tore at her buttons, her lacings. He shred the gown from her shoulders and shoved her corset aside. He ripped her drawers and chemise apart and she was naked before him, all but for her shoes and stockings, and still he kissed her.

  She tugged at his jacket but he moved her arms again to encircle his neck. In a frenzy he removed his own clothing, their lips parting for seconds only to find each other a moment later. He laid her down upon the window seat and moved over her.

  “I shouldn’t take you now,” he said, each syllable a caress as his mouth brushed over hers. “Not here, not like this. Tell me to stop, kitten. I need you to tell me—”

  In answer she smoothed her hands over his shoulders and down his back, pressing him against her, opening her thighs to cradle him. “Now,” she whispered. “No more waiting. Please, August.”

  On a moan he entered her, unable to control himself. She cried out his name again.

  “August.”

  He shuddered as he stroked inside, again and again. A thousand words could not have described the glorious heat of her body as he moved within her. He searched for her pain, cursed himself for taking hours and hours to prepare her over the past two years only to abandon all pretense of control at the moment he needed it most.

  With relief he found that her features wore only an expression of passion. She stared up at him, when he’d expected her to close her eyes as she’d always done in the past when pleasure overtook her. He watched her as he moved inside, needing to see the moment that she, too, realized that all the words they had spoken and all of their previous caresses were finally confirmed in this moment, this consummation.

  They moved together, silent. Words were needless now when every time he entered her, each tightening of her legs around his hips, every second that passed between them as they stared into one another’s eyes was like a vow.

  Neither looked away. Not when her lips parted with breathless pants, not when she clenched around him, not when he reached between their bodies to push her first to release. She bowed beneath him, the most beautiful image he’d ever seen, coming apart in his arms. Burying his face at her throat, August poured himself into her, his entire body trembling with the effort after every time they’d met and he’d given her pleasure while taking none of his own.

  Afterward her heartbeat thudded beneath his ear, and she clutched him tightly, her arms and legs still wound around him as if she could keep him inside her forever.

  “I understand,” she said quietly.

  Reluctant to have even one inch of his skin leave hers, still he pushed himself onto his elbows. He drew a line from the corner of her eye where a wet trace showed a tear had spilled, moving over the crest of her cheek and down to her chin. He turned her gaze toward his.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  Her eyes burned into his, and for the first time, August realized she was finally allowing herself to see him as something that wouldn’t soon disappear. At last, she understood that she was the one who possessed him heart, body, and soul.

  “I always thought that I would be satisfied, that this would be the conclusion to your kisses and caresses that kept me longing for you these past two years. Yet you have just made love to me and already I want you again. Is this how you intend to consume me?” she asked.

  He smiled and leaned down, kissed her once more. “Every day for the rest of our lives, my love.”

  Chapter 6

  The note arrived as he finished preparing for dinner. Though his name was written in her script it held no scent, which he knew after lifting it to his nose, seeking another hint of her.

  August turned the envelope over, carefully pried the edges open with his fingers. He drew out a thick white card, the elegant black writing containing a short missive, nothing more than:

  Meet me in my bedchamber.

  —C

  Though the location and the signed initial were different, the message was more than familiar, an echo of the same he had sent to her repeatedly over the past two years.

  His wife had summoned him to a rendezvous.

  Casting off the cravat his valet had just perfected, August dismissed the servant and strode to the connecting door between their chambers, her note in his hand.

  He didn’t knock, but entered quietly, his body already hardening. Is this how she’d felt when he sent for her? Her blood thickening with arousal, her heart speeding in anticipation? No wonder she hadn’t been able to refuse him; simply the thought of her waiting for him, knowing she wanted him, was enough to tear away any pride that might have kept him from her side.

  Of course, where Cecily was concerned, he’d long ago surrendered his pride. With her there was only need.

  Although he made no noise as he entered her bedchamber, nothing to alert her of his presence, she was nowhere to be found. Not on the bed—the first place he looked—nor waiting for him before the fire.

  “Cecily?”

  A soft, smooth hand touched the back of his neck. “Don’t turn around,” she ordered, her voice low, each of the four syllables spoken in the seductive tone of a temptress.

  Black cloth descended over his vision, and he felt her fingers brush in his hair as she tied the ends at the back of his head.

  He knew by the stirring of air that she moved to stand before him, by the silken strands of her hair sliding across his skin as he stretched out his hands that apparently she’d never meant to go downstairs to dinner.

  He took a deep breath, aware of his own impatience now, when he’d been eternally patient as the seducer.

  “Hullo, kitten,” she said.

  August laughed, but the sound was uneven, uncertain. Even he could hear the need in his voice. �
�Perhaps you should try another name,” he suggested.

  “You’re right, of course. Kitten is too tame for you.”

  Her fingers descended upon his shoulders, then dragged downward, pulling sensation from every pore hidden beneath his clothes. “Am I the tame one, my lord? Is that why you gave me that name?”

  His breath hissed out as she untucked his shirt from his trousers.

  “Hardly tame. As I mentioned once before, even kittens have claws.”

  “Hmm. I suppose they do, don’t they?” Her fingernails scraped low on his abdomen, scoring him lightly. They passed over the front of his trousers, little lines of pleasure pressing through the thick cloth.

  “Is this a proper seduction, my lord? Am I doing this correctly?” The placket of his trousers came undone, the waist loosening. She tugged them down.

  August reached out, needing to touch her, to feel her, but she calmly took his hands and returned them to his sides.

  “My lord? You haven’t yet answered me.”

  She took him in hand.

  “Yes.” He pushed into her touch, gritted his teeth as her palm moved over him. Had she also felt powerless like this, helpless as he’d determined each move to be made, as he’d dictated how much control he would give her?

  No, she could never have felt as helplessly thrilled as he did right now, unable to do anything but let her have her way with him.

  The moment her tongue touched his tip, he thought he would spill himself. Every muscle clenched as he sought restraint. And though he tried to keep his hands at his side as she wished, he couldn’t help it as his fingers sank into her hair in wordless encouragement.

  Then she drew away, her head tilting upward beneath his hands.

  “Perhaps I should stop,” she said.

  “No—why?” he asked. God, but he was close to begging her. Behind the blindfold he closed his eyes, swallowed. She was silent, the only proof that she remained in the room the feel of her hair beneath his fingers.

  “Please,” he said, careless that he begged, careless that the word came out hoarse and raw. How many times had he tortured her when she would have kept silent? He’d forced her to moan her acquiescence, forced her to plead in sighs and whimpers and wordless noises of pleasure. “Cecily.” He groaned her name.

  Her hand wrapped around him again, her fingers small yet tight at the base of his cock. “Perhaps this is what you want,” she said. An exact echo of the phrase he’d used with her. She slid her lips over his tip, lightly sucking. “Or this.” His entire length slid inside her mouth.

  He arched against her. A moan issued from his lips without thought. If he were worthy of her, he would have stepped back and ripped off the blindfold, carried her to the bed and pleasured her until she was the one moaning and screaming, until she begged him for release.

  But he was selfish. Too weak with want to think of anything but her hands and her lips on him, his cock swelling even further inside her mouth.

  When she began to withdraw again, he begged. “Please, Cecily.” The blank slate of his vision swam with colors as she obliged with the tight circle of her fingers and the hot, velvet wet cup of her tongue.

  A wild cry broke his throat as he spilled himself inside her mouth, his legs shaking as he held her head in place and bucked his hips. She didn’t try to move away but tightened her grip, swallowing as he came.

  When he was done he stood over her, his mind empty of anything but the thought of her. He removed the blindfold, then moved his hands from her head to her shoulders, dragged her upward and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

  “Why?” he asked her, kissing first her cheeks, her forehead, her chin.

  She shrugged, her mouth curving. “I wanted to give you pleasure.”

  “I am always pleased with you.”

  “Then I lied.”

  He tipped her chin up. “The true reason, my love.”

  “I wanted to know that I’m not the only weak one. I wanted to see if you would give me control.”

  He laughed, a shaken sound. “Then we are each weak and without control, for every time I look at you I feel helpless. Each time we kiss my chest aches, and I despise each moment you’re away from me.” He stroked a finger down her cheek, laid his forehead against hers. “I believe, kitten, that I am simply, unbearably, in love with you.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “And I you.”

  August cleared his throat. “I would like you to know, however, that should you ever feel weak again, please feel free to arrange another tryst as you like. I would be happy to oblige you.”

  “Perhaps after dinner, then,” she said, looking at him through her lashes.

  “Agreed.” And he captured her smile on his lips.

  What happened to Lady Cecily’s friend Angela?

  Read on for a preview of the next riveting Victorian romance from

  Ashley March

  ROMANCING THE COUNTESS

  “From the first page, Romancing the Countess captivated me with a smart heroine, a sexy, brooding hero, and a sophisticated romance that vibrates with sexual tension.”—New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt

  London, April 1849

  As on most every other night, Leah lay in the center of the bed and watched the shadows cast from the firelight flicker across the canopy. The steady lash of rain and wind rattled the windows in their cases, a buffer against the usual silence.

  Lightning flashed through the room, and her breath caught as she stared at the illumination of silver-threaded flowers overhead. Even if the bedchamber had been suffused in darkness, she still could have recited each detail of the bed’s rococo-style construction. The fluted mahogany posts with their serpentine cornices. The shallow frieze of interwoven palmettes and draperies of lush, midnight velvet. The feet fashioned as lion heads below and the domed canopy above. When the lightning came again, Leah measured her breath, anticipating the accompanying growl of thunder.

  She imagined the women who had come before her: her husband’s mother, his grandmother. Had they, too, stared at the canopy so long that they began to dream of its embroidered ribbons and flower garlands, of shimmering, silvery threads and roses turned black by the shadows? Had hours and hours passed until they imagined they could see each impeccable stitch, counting them only to forget the number when a sound downstairs erupted from the silence, startling them into awareness?

  With her heart pounding, Leah waited for the sound to transform into footsteps up the stairs, to distinguish themselves into Ian’s steady, swaggering gait. How foolish she’d once been to admire the way he walked—to admire his easy grin, the golden shine of his sun-swept hair . . . anything about him. And how even greater a fool she was now to dread his arrival into her bedchamber, when she knew he would easily accept her plea of a headache. He might even be glad for the reprieve.

  Still, as the echo of footsteps climbed within her hearing, she remained in the center of the bed. Neither on the left nor the right, but rigidly in the middle, as if the few feet on either side could serve to sufficiently delay the moment when he leaned across her and began stroking her breasts in solicitous, husbandly regard. He could have spared her that, at least.

  Leah’s breath hitched at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Then, slowly, she sighed with relief. It wasn’t her husband. These footsteps were too hasty, the stride too short. Her gaze retreated from the door to the canopy overhead, her fingers released their stranglehold on the counterpane, and she began counting the stitches again.

  One, two, three, four . . .

  “Madam?”

  Leah’s gaze stumbled over the width of the ribbon and flew toward the direction of the housekeeper’s voice.

  “Mrs. George? I apologize for disturbing you . . .”

  “No, no. Not at all,” Leah called. Tearing the covers aside, she hurried across the room. Anything to leave the bed. She had already opened the hallway door and raised her arm to invite Mrs. Kemble inside when she froze, a
rrested by the housekeeper’s expression. Gone was the woman’s usual implacable cheerfulness; in its place was a face worn with time, each wrinkle sagging with the weight of her age. Her brows were lowered, her teeth buried in her upper lip, and the hands clasped at the front of her waist trembled as she met Leah’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, madam. There’s . . . there’s been an accident.”

  Leah blinked. The housekeeper’s mouth seemed to be moving at an extraordinarily slow pace, as if each syllable struggled to escape. “An accident?” she repeated. And somehow, simply by saying the words, she knew that he was gone.

  “Yes, Mr. George . . .”

  They stared at each other for what seemed an impossibly long time, until Leah was certain she could have counted at least a hundred canopy stitches.

  Finally, she forced the words out. Not as a question, but a blunt, sure statement. “He’s dead.”

  Mrs. Kemble nodded, her chin quivering. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. If there is anything—”

  Gone. Ian, her husband, was dead. Never again would she lie awake at night, waiting for him to return from his lover’s arms. Never again would she listen for his footsteps or count the stitching or bear his tortuous, sensual lovemaking.

  He was gone.

  And Leah, who had vowed never to cry for him again, sank to her knees, her hands clutched in the housekeeper’s skirt, and wept.

  “Rook to queen. Check.”

  Sebastian nodded and considered the whimsical dance of the fire’s shadows as they played across what little remained of his ivory army. He slid a lonely pawn forward.

  His brother uttered a low oath and planted his bishop near Sebastian’s king. “Checkmate. Damnation, Seb, that’s four in a row. Do you even realize you’re losing?”

  Lifting his gaze from the chessboard, Sebastian raised an idle brow. “Yes. And I thought you’d be happy.”