Her gaze in his, she pulled at his trousers and sent them down his thighs. Her two hot little hands cupped his shaft and squeezed gently. Leading him backward, she lay down on a low haystack. If he’d had his right mind, he would have laughed, but she was leading him by his cock and damn his soul if he could say no. Or think straight.
She widened her trim thighs. And tipped up her hips. Her sweet womanhood was an irresistible invitation. Her blonde hair framed her thick, pouting lips. Her labia glistening with her desire for him. Her seam, long and red. Her tiny little asshole, a rose, too. His. All his. To have and to hold and damn, if he wasn’t going to feast on her, here and now. Vows or not.
He raked his hair. He knew he was mad. She was clever. He was needy. And she had driven him here, knowing full well he would lay her down and take her, letting no man—not even his half brother—intercede and put their affection to any unreasoned test.
“Lacy.” He bent over her, one knee to the side of her hip, his one good eye scanning her flushed face and her gorgeous sultry body. “You must not do this. The hay will torment you.”
She stroked his rod, long and evenly. “You torment me.”
“I will not make love to you for the first time in my barn with your ass in the prickly hay!”
She beamed at him, triumphant, testy. “If we leave here, I do not trust that you’ll fuck me at all!” As he gasped at her ribald words, she got a handful of his two balls and massaged him. “You must have me here. Now. I will not stop, and I will not move.”
He swallowed hard, summoning some self-control. “Lacy, you cannot imagine what you ask for.”
“I don’t want to imagine,” she crooned and kissed his mouth, his dimple, his throat. She rubbed her thumb over the slit of his cockhead, and he bucked.
“Very well,” he growled and glanced down at her sweet little chat. He’d have her and in his own way, too. “Don’t imagine. Feel.” He pushed her knees wide, her intimate folds spread open, his hunger for her a flame in his belly and his cock. “Spread your legs wider. Wider! I need to see! That’s right. Christ, you are beautiful.” He gathered a handful of her nether hair and combed it. Then he traced a finger down her seam. He could smell her. How musky, how florid and enchanting. He inserted a determined finger to her inviting channel and sank right in. She was so wet, so sodden, he groaned and stroked her. Then he lifted his fingertip to his mouth. She tasted of sunshine and lust.
She watched him, mouth open, eyes limpid with fascination.
He winked at her and nearly wept with joy at the sweet, thick flavor of her cream. Bracing himself on the damn hay, he nestled himself down and parted her plump folds even wider. “Your lips are beautiful rose petals, my love. I want to learn each curve.” He traced a fingertip over the edge of one lip. “And taste all of you.” His tongue defined the delicate edge of another. Blowing air on her hot skin, he thumbed open the apex of her labia and found her swollen little nub to pinch it and make her moan. “This is a sweet bud I must have in my mouth.” With parted lips, he surrounded her clitoris, tongued her pearl to a keen and sucked her high and hard into his mouth.
Somewhere in his head, he heard her scream. Spurred on by her whimpers, he laved her juicy flesh.
She thrashed on the hay and called his name. He sucked her lavishly, shot two strong fingers inside and felt the thrum of her delight. Her walls pounded against him, and he rejoiced that she was so giving and he was such a cad to take her this way without benefit of vows.
She rose up, her fingers plucking at his shoulders.
He gathered her close and crushed her nearer. God what a fool you are, Stanhope. No willpower at all where she’s concerned. Never had any.
He brushed her hair from her forehead. “You liked that.” He smiled sadly at her.
She beamed back at him. “I never knew.”
“From what I hear, few women do.”
“I want more.” She wended her hand down to cup his very large and sensitive cock. “I want you inside me. Now, Wes.”
Craven, unprincipled, he feared he’d lost his reason. The drive to have her was a ripe and insidious thing he could not deny.
He parted her thick, slick lips with his cock and slid inside her. Until there was a barrier. As I knew there would be.
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. This is what came of wanting a willful woman without regard to logic or consequence.
He drove inside her carefully. She was swollen, tight and small, so small he thought he’d give her his seed and end it right then. Jesus.
He twisted up inside her. Her juicy walls gloved him, caressing him. He could go no further but savored heaven, paralyzed by her giving body.
She made a little sound.
He looked down at her. “Lacy, I am sorry, darling.”
She shook her head and, with two hands to his face, said, “I do not break.”
“Strong and wise. But in the act of love, I know best how this must be done.” He slid out of her.
“No! Don’t stop. Don’t!”
“I won’t leave you.” How can I now? He kissed her, her fragrance on his lips and filling the air around them, drowning him even further in a sensual haze. “I need to make you happy.”
“You have,” she protested as he reached for her gown and pressed it into her hands.
“Not like I will now. Upstairs in my bed.”
Chapter Five
They passed Charles in the kitchen, Lacy giving the servant a smile of gratitude. He had done well by her and, thank the good lord, done it so quickly that she need not seduce him any longer.
Wes walked beside her, his step—she could have sworn—faster, lighter.
But the distance from stable to his bedroom seemed half a world away for all Lacy’s need to have him inside her once more. Safe, with me. Always, with me.
She walked ahead of him up the stairs, brushing away the drops of rain from her face and bosom. She opened his door and proceeded to the center of the room. He shut the door with a soft thud.
She spun, facing him, aware now she had what she had come for. His attention. His care. His love? Ah. That she had always had, lust though it might have been the night they’d met. Their love would always contain lust, though this morning she would mix it with commitment, and like a good batter, add understanding later.
She watched him sink against the door. His rugged face was flushed, his scar vivid, his golden red hair mussed from their encounter. His lightning gray eye danced down her body. He was a sore sight. A man in love.
“Shall I pretend to be the demure girl now?”
“Do as you wish, pet.”
He pushed away from the door to advance slowly on her. For the first time, she noticed he had walked inside without the cane.
“You have so far, Lacy, and look where you have me.”
That made her grin. She crisscrossed her hands to lift her gown but then thought better of the plan. She strolled forward, the coquette coming out to play with the man she adored. He halted at her advance, his feet planted firmly.
With a finger trailing down his chest, she leaned up and widened her eyes at him. “I’d rather see you.”
He snorted. “I am not as lovely.”
“To me you are,” she whispered and ran the tip of her nose down his throat.
“I am not as graceful, either.” He grasped her by the waist.
She smiled, wickedness in her wink. “You did not plan to seduce me, either, this morning when you dressed. So I am certain, you are encumbered with all sorts of clothes you now do not need.” She stepped backward and crossed her arms, the better to keep her hands to herself. “Go on, Colonel. I await your pleasure.”
“Damn right, you do.” He fiddled with his shirt ties, undid the buttons on his flies and stepped from his shoes. With a few flicks of his fingers, he cast off his shirt and let his trousers drop, then his small clothes.
She bit her lip.
One hand on a chair back, he stepped from the heap of his clo
thes—and she was breathless with the glory that was Colonel Wesley Stanhope of His Majesty’s Hussars.
True, he bore the scars of his career in the cavalry. A slash across his taut ribs. A nasty gash, red but healed, on his massive left thigh. The wounds of Talavera shone more brightly though, more starkly, and she caught back a gasp. He would not want her pity. Not now. Never here.
His left arm hung at an odd angle, witness to how it had been broken and not appropriately healed. His left ankle was larger than the right, but both corded legs looked healthy, normal. Of course, there was the facial scar that could not diminish but only enhanced his square jaw, his dimple and make him more debonair than the night she’d decided he was destined to be hers. And as for the eye patch, evidence of the loss of his left eye to a saber’s cut? Ah. That she could not heal, but she had made him see how she loved him—and she could and would make him see so much more.
“What do you think?” he asked, his left eye muscle twitching below the patch, showing his nerves and his tremulous distaste for her examination of his wounded body.
“Shall I tell you?” she whispered and walked forward to press her torso to his and enfold him. “Darling.” She splayed her fingers atop the breadth of his chest. He was so broad, her fingers did not meet. She sent her hands down his huge arms. He was power and might. Sleek and sturdy. She twisted her hands down to run them over his ribs, and as she sank her fingers to his groin into his nether hair, she barely made a sound as she said, “You are stunning. A male creature who makes me want and need.”
He hauled her against him, one hand driving up into her hair, sending her ribbon to the floor. “I wish to hell I were that creature who adored you the first night we met.”
“Would you have made love to me then?” she asked, enthralled by the way he kissed his way down her throat.
“Aye. If you’d been mine then, I would have taken you in Adam’s library.”
“Ah,” she said, “and here I thought you were such a gentleman.”
“I tried to restrain myself but failed with you, Lady Featherstone.” He lifted her face and focused on her lips. “Now that I’ve had a taste of you, I think I’ll have you wherever I want, whenever I want.”
“Oh, good!” She gave him a peck on the lips. “Will you please do me a favor?”
“Mmm. What?”
“Hurry.”
He laughed then, throwing back his head then crushed her to him to take her lips in a fierce assault. “You have to ask for mercy, my lady, because I intend to have every morsel of you in my hands.” He kissed her then, all lips and tongue and teeth. “And in my mouth.”
She shivered and pulled out of his arms. Knowing his infirmities and his balance were off, she gave in to her own impatience and reached down to gather up her gown to once more fling it off.
For long minutes he did not move while he examined her, head to toe. “In the bright light of day, my darling Lacy,” Wes said as he took one step toward her then another, “you shine like fine ivory silk.”
She grabbed his hand and led him beside her to the bed. “I hope to god you do not treat me like I’m silk.”
He smoothed her hair back from her face and cupped her chin with one strong hand. “I shall treat you like my lover.”
“Precisely what I am.” She fell back on the mattress, up on her elbows to beckon him with wagging fingers. “Come here and show me.”
But he hovered over her hips, his arm shaking with exertion. Or was it tense delight?
Then, with two hands to her knees, he spread her legs and looked his fill. “You have the loveliest chat.”
She vibrated at the compliment. “So you have said. Will you have more of me?” she asked, her voice tremulous with bashful expectation. “That way?”
His lightning gray eye sparked with sensual need. “You crave more of my mouth on you?”
“Everywhere, yes, I do.” She undulated. “I do. I never knew men loved women like that.”
“Pleasure comes in many forms.”
“I’ve seen only one way. Like animals mate.”
He hooted. “Like a stallion takes a mare.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Take me that way, will you?”
He advanced on her, chuckling but fierce like the warrior he was. Bold, massive, and so amused. The dimple in his left cheek twitched. “I’ll have you in so many ways, your head will spin.”
“I’m ready. Let’s get to it!”
“A harpy!” he laughed, but his expression died to a serious note. “I fear to hurt you though. You are, my darling, very small here.” His fingers slid to her seam and glided up inside her.
“Too small?” She panicked. “Do you not like me?”
“Sweetheart, shh.” He soothed her with tiny strokes inside her body. “I adore you. You are just precisely the right size for me.”
She relaxed and took his cock in her one fist. “And you, my darling, are very well hung.”
He snorted. “The better to please you, you demanding piece.”
She opened her legs so wide that his hips sank between them. He took her slowly and she breathed deeply to take rod of his manhood. “Put more of that inside me. No more delays.”
He insinuated one arm behind her hips and lifted her, then sent his cock up inside her to the hilt. She hung suspended in the euphoria of what she had needed for months and months. Wesley Stanhope, deep inside her mind and heart, now inside her body.
But he halted. Caught his breath. “We must breach this.”
She knew he meant her virginal wall. Arms to the mattress, she braced herself. “Do it.”
He snorted and brushed his lips on hers. “Courageous Lacy.”
“Eager Lacy. Dying Lacy.” She cuffed him. “Wes?” she pleaded.
“Shh. One stroke and then you will enjoy this. I will ensure it.”
He plunged forward, and she felt only his move to claim her.
“There,” he said.
She grinned. “Easy. So easy.”
He kissed her quickly, then began moving like a sleepwalker, slow and steady, his mouth against her ear, breathing words of passion. Words she had yearned for from him. Some she’d never heard. “Sweet Lacy, god, you feel divine. Lacy, small and tender. You have the juiciest cunt. Christ. How you take all of me… You are a prize. Mine to fuck.”
The sensation of his cock claiming her made her frantic, blissful. Her cunt throbbed and pulsed. She wanted to cry out how she needed him to stroke her, take her, do her harder, faster. She bit her lip, dug her nails into his back and just let loose with a scream of wild delight.
He anchored himself to her, his hips pumping into her with swift force. “That’s right, love. Go. Cry! God, you are so good.”
He shouted and then he stopped.
His mouth to her throat, he fell over her body then rolled to the side. He outlined her mouth with a fingertip then cupped one breast and thumbed a nipple. “Did I hurt you?”
She examined him. He was all concern for her, soft and sweet, the caring lover. His face was relaxed, his mouth moist and swollen from their kisses. His dimple roguishly showed in his handsome square face. His scar along his left cheek seemed redder with his exertion. And for the first time, the eye patch gone, she could see how the field surgeon had sewn down the lid where once his left eye had been.
Her Wes. He was dear and kind, hurt, but a hero to his men, to his commander and country. He had once been hurt in savagery and war, man’s inhumanity to man. But to her, he was simply her man to love. What he had done with her now was in another cause. A gentler, nobler one.
She pressed a palm to his left cheek and covered his scar, “No, Wes, you could not hurt me. You have made love to me.”
“I want to ensure you love the act. Love what we do together. I could not bear it if you turned on me now that we are one.”
“What makes you think I would?”
“The scope of human emotion is wide.”
“I doubt you could ever hurt me.” She
asserted this with firm knowledge.
He pushed up, scowling as he rose and patted the bed to find his lost patch. Fuming, he snatched the black fabric and string off the bed.
Lacy did not move. She would not call attention to its loss. Or his. This was not the time or place. And the issue they had just opened was a terrible topic that she knew better than to probe. Not now. Later.
He went to the sideboard and donned the patch once more then poured fresh water from a pitcher into a large porcelain bowl. Taking up toweling and a bit of soap, he rinsed his hands then brought the cloth toward her. “Open your legs, Lacy.”
This time she did so slowly. And while passion sparked in his one good eye, his desire died to sweet concern as he put the cool towel to her hot, moist core and washed her carefully. When he was done, he leaned over to kiss her mouth. But hands to her ankles, he spread her thighs again and, once more, bent to take her with his strong, demanding mouth.
He ran the tip of his tongue down her seam. Plumped her lips and shot two large fingers up inside her. She whimpered with the fullness. Then he rolled her open, found her nub and ran the edge of his teeth over her taut little bud.
She cried out and put a hand to her flesh, the pleasure so unbelievable it was unbearable. Yet she wanted more of this rapture and let him take her hand away. “Let there be nothing between us.”
He parted her more fully then, placed his torrid mouth over her and feasted on her slick, demanding flesh.
She keened, plucking at his shoulders when she suddenly felt the ferocious need to buck and scream.
He caught her to him. “Roll over.”
At first, she couldn’t understand but scrambled to do it.
The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances Page 13
