Sommersgate House

by Kristen Ashley

  “Jesus,” he murmured, looked in her eyes again and she could have drowned in the depths of his, they had turned to ink.

  He pulled her in his arms, her bare skin crushed against the edges of his partially opened shirt and she barely had time to savour that sensation before she was falling backwards, one of his arms around her waist, the other one thrown out to control their fall. Her back no sooner hit the bed when he was gone, pulling away from her, his hand reaching for her panties.

  “Douglas, we need to slow down.” This was going too quickly for her, she needed to think, she needed her clothes, she needed…

  “Slow is not an option,” he declared as he pulled the lace expertly down her legs and it too joined the pile of clothing.

  She gasped at the quickness of his action but his body covered hers before she could think or move and she became aware that he was still nearly fully clothed while she was nearly naked. She felt exposed and vulnerable.

  This, she didn’t like.

  He kissed her again and all such thoughts flew right out the window. Her body ignited as if the time between the white-hot passion of the stairwell and now had simply melted away.

  He sucked her tongue into his mouth and she took the opportunity to explore it boldly. His hands were all over her, her hands roamed over him. Her skin tingled where he touched it and she moaned low in her throat.

  He pulled his mouth away. “Take off your bloody gloves,” he commanded and, for once, she obeyed happily, shakily removing her gloves and flinging them wherever they would land.

  The minute her bare hands touched the skin of his back under his shirt, there was no time to think, there was only time to feel. She felt his mouth on hers, on her neck, at the base of her throat. She felt the edge of his teeth drag against her nipple then pull it hungrily in his mouth then move to the other, only to do the same thing. She felt his hands roaming the skin of her sides, her bottom, her hips, her belly, against the silk of her stockings and then up, between her legs.

  “Oh!” she cried, as he found her with his thumb, a fleeting, joyous pressure that sent her neck arching back and her mouth opening in a silent groan of pleasure. Then it was gone, only to be replaced with one, long finger sliding slowly inside her.

  Her breath dragged out of her while his finger moved and his thumb again found its spot. She started panting, actually panting, as her stomach clutched and then dropped away and she pressed her hips urgently against his hand.

  It was her turn to touch him, her hands insistently roaming, her mouth at his neck and throat, her tongue darting out to taste the salt of his skin against the hard muscle as she rode his hand like a madwoman. She was close, the pressure was building, she felt she only had to reach for it and the wild joy he was promising would be hers.

  “Do you want me?” His mouth was at her ear but his finger had slid away, his thumb disappeared.

  “Yes!” She didn’t hesitate, wanting it all back, wanting it immediately and willing to do anything to get it.

  His hand was still gone and she arched her back, her breath ragged, her fingers desperately running down his arm to find his hand and pull it back to where it was. But this was thwarted, Douglas captured her hand in his and pulled her arm over her head, his body settling on hers as he caught her other wrist and imprisoned both over her head in one of his hands.

  Then she felt him yanking at his trousers, then parting her legs and settling between them and, finally, she felt him there, just at the edge and not moving any closer.

  She wanted him closer. She needed him closer.

  She needed him inside her.

  She realised her eyes were closed when they flew open and she saw him watching her, his indigo gaze boring into hers.

  “Douglas,” she whispered and the minute she uttered his name, he slammed into her with a heady ferocity that she welcomed without question. Her hips lifted to receive him, her legs moved to open herself to him, one wrapped around his hip, the other curling around the back of his thigh.

  He let go of her wrists and both of his hands went to pull her hips boldly upward to meet his thrusts, deepening them, his open lips on hers, receiving her moans in his mouth, every once in awhile his tongue shooting out to duel with her own.

  She’d never, not once, climaxed simply with a man inside her but she felt it building now, felt her muscles tensing with anticipation, her legs tightening, her fingers clawing, her mouth searching… and then he was gone. His body completely still, he was suspended where she could feel the promise of him but she didn’t have him.

  She arched against him in desperation, pressed her hips down, sought him soundlessly and through all this he withheld from her.

  She bit her bottom lip, her nails dragging down his back and when she could take it no more, when she thought she would likely die if she didn’t feel him inside her again, she pressed her mouth against his, looked into his dark eyes and begged, “Please.”

  Hearing that word, he drove into her violently, burying himself to the hilt inside her, and she exploded, her entire body tensed, wrapping him fiercely in her limbs as if she would never let go and she went completely still. Except her mouth, which emitted a prolonged moan that eloquently informed him of the profound pleasure tearing relentlessly through her body.

  He’d joined her moments later and she registered it with contented feminine knowledge but was still too immersed in the residual shudders and tingles of her own climax to watch. Then she felt the weight of his body settle against hers.

  Her response was to tighten her arms and legs.

  They lay there, still joined, his heavy weight pressing her into his soft bed while her mind fought for control over her body, and lost.

  It had never, ever, been this good. She hadn’t even imagined it could be, not in her wildest dreams. She felt an intoxication that had nothing to do with seven glasses of champagne and no matter how hard her common sense struggled to remind her that this was a frightening risk, she delighted in it.

  Douglas lifted his head and looked at her. She didn’t know what to say so, for once, she said nothing at all.

  “Do not ever flirt with another man in front of me,” he growled so ferociously his command throbbed through both of their bodies.

  She blinked at him in surprise.

  So that was why he was angry.

  She lifted a palm and laid it gently against his cheek. “Douglas, if this is my punishment for flirting, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it more often.”

  He didn’t move.

  “In fact,” she went on, “I may do it all the time. I might start flirting with Nick,” she informed him and his arms stole around her, his weight bearing heavily on her. “And even Carter,” she breathed, because his body on hers was taking her breath away, in more ways than one. “You’re crushing me,” she whispered softly in his ear.

  She no sooner said it than she lost his arms and him as he pulled out of her and away, dropping to the side, half-on her, half-off, lifting himself on his elbow to look down at her.

  She may have been teasing but she saw that he was not amused.

  He watched her and then asked bluntly, “Are you going to marry me?”

  His eyes were intense and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  She wanted to say something flippant.

  She wanted to rush home to the safety of Indiana, her old house, her old job, her old life, her old grocery store where she knew where the cake mixes were, but she understood now that it was all too late.

  “Yes,” was her simple reply.

  There was no crowing in victory. Douglas simply rolled into her, gathering her in his arms and he kissed her. Gone was the passion and urgency and in its place was complete and surprising tenderness which left her a different kind of breathless.

  Then he carefully pulled away and, nearly reverently, swept off her shoes and stockings, righted her body on the bed and pulled her under the sheets. He discarded the rest of his clothes and met her there, pulling
her back into his arms.

  She wanted to talk to him, for him to reassure her, for something to be said that would be a hallmark of this momentous occasion.

  Instead, she asked teasingly, “So, you liked the dress?”

  His response, “It’s obvious you think this is incredibly amusing but allow me to educate you. Men do not like to be teased.”

  He was lying on his back and had pressed her against his side and she’d laid her head on his shoulder.

  “I gathered that,” Julia mumbled, his hand drifted to her bottom and he may have been about to give her a smack but she didn’t feel it because the intensity of her climax suddenly stole over her and she drifted to sleep.

  Now, she was awake and she needed the bathroom, she needed a moment to herself, she needed a moment to think.

  She shifted slightly and his arms tightened.

  “Douglas,” she whispered, not knowing if he was awake or asleep, “I need to use your bathroom.”

  Apparently he was awake for his arms loosened. She slid out of them and rolled off the bed.

  Not entirely comfortable with ambling around his still-lit bedroom completely nude with him half-asleep, or not (she’d learned that lesson the night of the gunshot wound), she grabbed the closest thing at hand, which was his shirt. She shrugged it on, avoiding looking at him and scurried to one of the two doors she could see, hoping it led to the bathroom.

  Thankfully, it did.

  As with his bedroom, it was decorated in deep chocolate browns, dusky blues and sharp chartreuses. She quickly went about her business and, at the basin, after washing her hands, she stared at herself in the mirror.

  She nearly laughed out loud.

  Her hair hadn’t moved. It was still twisted in its elegant coils as if she hadn’t just been thoroughly satisfied by a rapacious baron.

  She’d just lifted her hands to begin to release her hair from its pins when the door flew open.

  She jumped.

  “What are you doing?” Julia demanded, staring in the mirror at Douglas standing behind her in his glorious nakedness, his lean, muscled body nonchalantly exposed to her eyes, which were shining in disbelief at his intrusion. Her arms were lifted and her hands were stilled in the process of taking the hairpins out of her the hair at the back of her head.

  He looked at her, also through the mirror. “You were taking a long time.”

  “What? Did you think I was going to crawl out the window?”

  He walked forward and stopped. She felt the heat of his naked body against her back, his eyes still on hers in the mirror and his hands settled on her waist.

  “Honestly?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  She couldn’t help herself, she burst out laughing.

  When she finished, she noticed he was still watching her in the mirror, no amusement in his eyes.

  She was wearing his shirt which was unbuttoned and only partially gaping, exposing very little except the winking emerald that still lay against her chest and a one inch expanse of skin from chest, between breasts, down her midriff and belly to below. His eyes dropped to follow the opening as her hands began to pull out the pins.

  “I need to take down my hair,” she explained her delay as his deep blue eyes rose to meet hers in the mirror.

  Douglas surprised her when his hands lifted and pushed hers aside. He then further stunned her by working his fingers into her hair, gently seeking out hairpins and pulling them free, tossing them heedlessly in the sink.

  Her arms fell and she grabbed the edge of the sink in an effort not to relax against him, which was what she desperately wanted to do. Her chin dropped to give him better access and she spied the emerald at her neck.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Know what?” His deep voice rumbled behind her, causing her to shiver.

  “About the emerald, how did you know it would be perfect?” Her voice was quiet.

  His reply came immediately. “I asked Charlotte. She told me the colour you intended to wear and about the emeralds your mother gave you. So I found something to match.”

  At the pronouncement of that bit of thoughtfulness, her fingers tightened spasmodically against the edge of the basin as something stole through her, starting at her belly and this time, heading north, straight to her heart.

  She was falling in love with him.

  Dear God, she was falling in love with Douglas Ashton.

  In fact, Julia thought hysterically, she may have started falling in love with him the moment she met him.

  But what she knew for certain was that she was falling deeply, madly, stupidly in love with him now.

  She was falling in love with how good he was with the children and the reason he watched over them (and her) because of his heretofore unknown bond with his sister.

  She was falling in love with how he warned off her father and how he protected her against Monique.

  She was falling in love with the way he helped her learn snooker, didn’t make her feel a fool when she’d seen The Mistress and sat with her in her room until she fell asleep.

  And she was falling in love with the way he made her feel when he looked at her (and was already in love with the way he made her feel with his mouth and hands and body).

  His fingers worked carefully in her hair but her body stiffened against the knowledge stealing into her heart.

  For the second time she was going to marry a man she loved. This time, she knew in advance the heartbreak it would bring. This time she knew that there would be a day when his eye would wander, when he’d grow tired of what they shared earlier that evening even though she’d live for it.

  Her father had left her mother. Sean’s behaviour had forced Julia to leave him. And Douglas, Douglas would be no different. He was just Douglas. A man of means who got what he wanted, when he wanted it and, when he was satisfied, he’d be gone.

  And it was then she realised she couldn’t do it. She’d agreed to it but she couldn’t go through with it.

  He finished finding pins and his fingers slid against her scalp, running gently through her hair to it ends, then they dropped, stealing around her waist until he was holding her loosely there. She lifted her eyes to the mirror, first to look at herself (worrying that her hair would be a crazed, Medusa-styled mess but instead it was just a mass of curls) then to catch his eyes.

  “Better?” His eyes warm, he asked his question softly, that one quiet word fastening like a silken shroud around her heart, and she nodded, not trusting her own voice. Not trusting what she might say. Not wanting him to know, ever, how she felt. And lastly, not wanting this moment to end because, she knew, it would be their last.

  “Good,” he said, “come to bed.”

  She nodded again, too undone with her new knowledge to bristle against his order.

  He let her waist go but caught her hand and she followed him, still staggered by her realisation.

  She had no idea what she would do, how she would cope but, right then, she was just going to go with it.

  “Jewel,” Gavin had once said, “you need to take a risk, leave that little farm town and live your life. There’s something out there for you, little sister. But you’ve got to go out and find it.”

  Tonight, she’d taken a risk.

  She’d agreed to marry a wealthy, dangerous, English Baron, who she could easily love, who also happened to own a haunted mansion.

  Tomorrow, she’d take it back and most likely regret it for the rest of her life.

  But she had no choice. She had to guard her heart. She couldn’t go through it again without being destroyed.

  He stopped, his back to the side of the bed, turning her to face him. His hands went to her belly and then turned, the backs of his fingers brushing against her as he spread open the shirt. His head descended and his teeth nibbled at her lips.

  “I want you,” his voice was low and silky, “with this on,” he said, his mouth teasi
ng hers and he indicated what he meant by tugging at the shirt.

  She took a shuddering breath and mumbled, “Okay.”

  He found her hand and pulled sharply at it, forcing her to fall with him back on the bed, hooking her at the waist so she fell on top of him.

  He kissed her, his right hand delving into her hair to hold her head firmly to his and his left hand pushing the fabric of his shirt away so her naked body was pressed against his. She felt the immense heat of him and revelled in it, allowing it to fire her skin. Then his hands ran down her back, over her bottom and he did an abdominal crunch, his fingers softly sliding down her legs to the backs of her knees.

  He pulled his mouth from hers and she found she was already breathing heavily, wanting him again.

  “This time,” he began and with a forceful jerk he pulled her knees up and she found herself, with a surprised gasp, straddling him. One of his hands moved from her knee and went between their bodies, the other hand went to her waist. “You get to do all the work.” His hand on her waist drove her relentlessly down on him and, as he filled her, her teeth caught her lower lip in delicious pleasure, her head rolled back and her back arched.

  “I think I can do that,” Julia breathed, wishing she sounded more sultry and cosmopolitan but he’d have to make do with just her.

  She bent forward again, kissed him softly and it began.

  Of course, it didn’t end with her on top, not with Douglas. Moments before their climax, he flipped her onto her back and drove into her unrelentingly, this time wrapping her legs around his waist himself, thrusting fiercely as if he wanted to penetrate her very soul, until her teeth bit uncontrollably into his shoulder and, finally, she had no choice but to throw her head back and cry out his name in pure, excruciating, mind-numbing pleasure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Morning After

  Douglas woke, felt his arms were empty and the delicious furnace that was Julia’s body in sleep was gone.

  His eyes opened, he turned his head and saw Julia had pulled away from him some time in the night and was lying a foot away, her back towards him. He turned to his side and lifted himself on his elbow in order to watch her sleep.