by London Casey
He took her hand and uncurled it from himself. “In your mouth, love. No hands.”
He grasped himself and held the shaft while he pressed the back of her head with his other hand.
She leant forward with her mouth open. The head of his cock slid inside. The salty taste of his fluids, the silk-over-steel feel of his flesh, made her moan with satisfaction. He thrust into her, deeper than he’d been before. She gasped in her throat.
“Swallow,” he said, pressing her head.
She obeyed him.
“That’s it, swallow my love.” He thrust deeper and deeper.
She kept swallowing, leaning forward until he had his entire length in her mouth, down her throat.
“My God, love, that’s good.” He held himself still. Her heart pounded in her ears.
He pulled back, almost all the way out of her mouth, then thrust back in quickly, forcing her to scramble and swallow. A thrill raced through her body as he pulled back again and repeated the motion. Then more thrills as he did it over and over and over again, his motions growing faster and faster, more urgent.
He gripped her head with both hands. Roughly.
She’d never felt more alive.
She’d been born to serve him like this.
She loved it.
Quickly, too quickly, his cock surged against her tongue, the pumping motions of his impending orgasm.
He groaned, tightening his hands on her head.
Fierce jets of thick, hot seed erupted in her throat.
Greedily, she swallowed and swallowed him, taking all he had to offer, as the violent outpouring shook them both.
Then it was over. His harsh breath echoed loudly in the chamber. He uttered a sound between a chuckle and groan. “My lady, oh, my lady.”
He withdrew and released her.
She dropped back, sprawling weakly on the floor.
Then she glanced quickly about the room.
Aside from Tiberia slumbering on her pallet, they were alone.
Jon chuckled. “He left, Anne. He left before you even got two buttons undone. He was quite indignant.”
He put his cock away and refastened his trousers. Then he took out his handkerchief and offered it to her.
She stared at it, feeling depleted and confused. He took her hand and pushed the handkerchief into it.
“Come now, Anne, you loved what we just did. Admit it. You want to be mine.”
She took the cloth and wiped her mouth. Then she stared up at him. “You know I am yours. There is no wanting or choice about it.”
“Well then, marry me and we shall be very happy.”
All her sexual arousal cooled. “This has changed nothing.”
“Christ, you can be so soft and then turn so hard. How do you do that? Relent, Anne. Relent.”
“I can’t.”
He studied her intently, his blue gaze burning her. “When I first came in here, you wanted to submit to him, to let him take you to his bed and fuck you, didn’t you?”
Kean. Goodness, she would never be able to face him again without dying of mortification.
“Goodness, no.”
“Be honest, Anne. I saw the look on your face.”
His tone was compelling, drawing her response before she thought. “I-I…felt tempted, yes. But not truly. I could never let a man like Kean bed me.”
Jon laughed, the soft sound sending chills over her body. “Why? Because he is a commoner? You think he’ll dirty you in some irreparable way?”
No, because he is not you and I am yours now and forever.
She looked down at her lap and studied her hands. “You brought me here. You made me stay for that wicked party.”
“Didn’t you enjoy getting a view of a world you never guessed at before?”
“No.”
“Little liar.”
“Yes, I was fascinated. It was arousing even. But on reflection—”
“He’s looking for a wealthy wife.”
She glanced up at him. “What?”
“Kean is looking for a wealthy wife. You should know that.”
“I am not looking for any husband.”
“You think that, Anne, but you’re wrong. You need me. You just don’t realise yet how much. I am going to let you go today. But when you decide to come off your high ropes, you send for me.”
She scoffed. “One week back in London amid your other women and you will have forgotten all about me.”
His expression hardened and he held out his hand to her. “Come, hurry, your carriage awaits. Your nervous little abigail is probably overcome with vapours wondering what’s become of you.”
It had been scant hours since Anne had arrived at Whitecross Hall from Eastwood Place. Her bottom was still sore from Ruel’s lash marks, yet she couldn’t baby herself. Nellie watched her too closely and should her faithful abigail discover the truth, she’d be all for seeing Ruel strung from the highest tree. She’d never understand Anne’s dynamic with her lover.
Anne sighed. Even though Nellie had been waiting inside to accompany her, the ride had been difficult for more reason than one. Being inside a carriage, while not as blood-chillingly terrifying as it had been just a month earlier, was still difficult for her. Even the two glasses of claret she’d gulped down hadn’t eased the white-knuckled edge.
But she had survived. She had made it in a carriage alone. Moment by moment. As she had descended the carriage at Whitecross, relief had sung in her blood. She would make it through the carriage ride to Plymouth and then all the carriage rides after that to Ireland just the same way. Moment by moment.
However, now she was drained.
She certainly hadn’t recovered her reserves enough to deal with this letter that had been waiting for her. Finally, Mama had sent the exact details of little Dorothea’s expected arrival.
Nellie bent and picked it up and folded it, placing it in Anne’s lap. “What does she say, my lady?”
Anne lifted her brows and sighed. It was time to tell her. “Seems Mama has found herself a wealthy Nabob. He wants to marry her.”
“Well, that’s grand news.”
“Yes, for Mama, I am sure. But there’s a snag, you see.”
“A snag, my lady?”
“Apparently Mama has had a bit of a side-slip. Previous to this, you understand.”
Nellie’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide.
Anne nodded. “Not a word to anyone, Nellie, you must promise.”
“Of course.” Nellie frowned. “How long…”
“Three years.”
“Goodness! And not a word until now?”
Anne nodded and dropped her voice. “And m-my sister,” Anne’s heart contracted at the realisation. “My sister is on her way here in the company of her nanny. Soon. Mama intended the letter to come sooner, but the ship had some troubles in transit. In a month, the Celia will dock in Plymouth. We shall have to be there to meet it.”
Even now, her stomach sank at the thought of riding in a carriage all the way to Plymouth.
“But you don’t have to go. You can send someone.” Nellie clasped her hand. “I shall go with my older brother, Robert. Do not worry over this, we’ll find a nice home for the child.”
“No,” Anne said firmly. “I must be there. I shall be the only family the poor girl will have here in England.”
“But she’s not your real family. She’s a side-slip, my lady, and you shall remarry eventually. Your husband will not appreciate the child’s presence any more than your Mama’s rich Nabob would.”
Nellie spoke common sense. Social custom. However, Anne refused to heed it. She would not be like the duke or her feckless Mama, who tossed her own child out like some unwanted kitten.
The same way she’d left Anne to the care of servants and then at sixteen dumped her unprepared into a cruel, competitive marriage mart and left England altogether immediately afterwards. Anne’s throat burned. No, she had to be there. When the child disembarked and walked onto Eng
land’s shores for the first time, it must be holding the hand of a blood relative. So she would know that she mattered. That she had a family. Even if it was to be a family of just one.
Two weeks in London had done little to soothe Jon’s mood. At the sight of Anne, clipping roses in the Whitecross garden, the shaggy dog at his side grew restive and tried to surge forward in her gimping, still somewhat unsteady gait. Jon gave the leash a warning tug. Nevertheless, he found himself in sympathy with Tiberia. It took all his control not to rush to Anne and pull her into his arms.
She stared at him, her face betraying no emotion. The old, cold mask, the one she’d greeted him with the very first day he’d met her. The day he’d dismissed her as a wallflower and then she’d given him that sultry, sensual, sidelong glance and sent his pulse racing. And, God help him, he felt the same challenge to probe her depths.
“I thought you might take care of Tiberia from now on,” he said.
“Don’t you want her with you?” She knelt to stroke the shaggy fur and Tiberia raised her head invitingly. “I haven’t kept a dog since I was a girl.”
She spoke so calmly, seemingly unaffected, while he’d spent all these nights—too many nights—longing for her. The hold she had over him proved an intolerable yoke that lashed him to her. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling at all. A devilish urge to torment her seized him and would not let go. “I won’t have time for her.”
Her head jerked up and her fathomless sapphire eyes struck him in the heart.
“What do you mean?” Her voice rang with suspicion, the first emotion she’d shown today.
Satisfaction surged through him, impelled him on. “You see, it’s exhausting to entertain all my mistresses, jumping from one bed to the other—”
“Oh, you’re too cruel!” she cried, jumping to her feet and fleeing.
Satisfaction slammed through him at having cracked her cold mask. He caught her about the waist and her soft curves under his hands made his cock twitch to life. As she struggled against his hold, he laughed softly, enjoying her helplessness against him. As helpless to him physically as he was to her emotionally. He’d not make this easy for her. “What’s all this? You told me to go back to London, to be with my mistress.”
She ceased her struggles. “And I suppose you have seen her.”
“Yes, I have.” His words were flat.
She went rigid. “I think you should leave. Just leave.”
“Nan—”
“Don’t call me that, you have no place to call me that.”
The hurt in her voice extinguished all desire for retribution.
“Nan,” he repeated more firmly, lowering his lips to her ear. “I have dismissed her.”
Her body stiffened even more. “Have your eye on someone else, do you?”
He smiled at her fortitude. “You little hoyden, one day that tart mouth of yours will spell your undoing.” He pressed his lips to her neck for a moment. “I dismissed her because I shall soon be a married man. I will have no need for mistresses.”
She placed a hand to her head. “Please do not do this today. I have so much to concentrate on and—”
“What is troubling you? Tell me.”
“My Mama is getting married, to a rich Nabob. So she’s sending my half-sister here to live with me.”
He frowned. “Your half-sister?”
“Yes, I have a three-year-old half-sister and she’s arriving in Plymouth next week. She’s illegitimate, of course, so you see I cannot abandon her and I could not ask you to accept her.”
“I shall welcome your sister into my household. She will be part of our family. You insult me to think otherwise.”
Anne’s breasts rose and fell with a deep, trembling breath. “I do owe you a debt of gratitude that I shall be able to travel there to meet her when her ship arrives.”
Disbelief nearly froze his brain. It took a moment for her words to fully register. “You mean to say you’re planning to travel all the way to Plymouth, alone?”
“I shall have Nellie with me.”
“You cannot travel alone with only a servant to watch over you. Not on your first trip since Cranfield’s death.”
“I shall do as I will. You have no say.” Her cold, stubborn expression somehow only made her look more beautiful, in an unattainable way.
He grasped her arm and gave it a tug. “You need me with you. Your servant can ride in a separate carriage with my valet and your luggage.”
“We cannot travel together like that.”
“We can if we are married. I have a special licence.”
“You have what?”
He released her arm, took the paper from his pocket, and showed it to her.
Anne gasped, then jerked her gaze back to him, expression agog, as if seeing their names together might be her undoing. “You presume too much—why, you had no right, absolutely no right!”
“I have the right, Nan.”
“Don’t call me that. I am not yours any longer.”
He caressed her cheek with his fingertips. “Aren’t you?”
She pulled away from him. “No, I am not. I am my own person. I need no one. I am going to live in Ireland and raise my sister. Alone. We need no one. No one.”
Her wild, defiant look set his blood afire. Made him itch to turn her over his knee and spank her into quivering submission. As he very well knew he could. And she was practically begging for it. Yet, he’d done it before and it had done no good.
“And that’s what you fear most, isn’t it? Needing someone. The way you need me,” he said.
Her onyx brows drew together tightly. “But you haven’t listened to a word I have said.”
“Do you think you’re the only one who feels fear?”
She looked shocked. “You haven’t been afraid. Of course you haven’t. You fear nothing.”
“Don’t you think I have found it uncomfortable, needing you to need me when you have fought me every inch of the way?”
She flinched at his frustrated tone. “Even the best woman cannot hope to hold a gentleman’s attentions for long. And I am far from being what a man expects in a woman. There has always been this discordance between what others expect of me and what I am able to deliver. I’ll disappoint you over and over. I could never bear that.”
He ought to have eased off but emotion pressed him on. “For God’s sake, Nan, it’s not your place to try and fit some arbitrary expectation I have. That’s not how it works.”
“How does it work?”
He struggled for the right words. “We just live together and learn how to love each other.”
Her expression hardened. “Such things cannot be learnt.”
“Who says they cannot?”
“The ability to love others is either there or it isn’t. And in my case, it isn’t. I have never known how to love others properly. The way that will satisfy them enough to stay.”
“Nan, you must stop judging me by the same measure as William. He wasn’t the man for you. He bored you. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t really his, either. It was just what happened.”
“I could believe you, if he were the only one. But I have always disappointed everyone.” Her voice became very small. “Everyone important to me.”
Her lovely eyes were twin pools of hurt. By God, he hated each and every one of those phantoms from her past that held her prisoner. He hated the duke. But he couldn’t change her past. Impotent uselessness burned his vitals. “Damn it, stop playing the dejected child. You haven’t disappointed me.”
“I will,” she said with certainty.
He took two steps forward and grasped her shoulders. “Will you get off your high ropes and listen to me?” He gave her a sharp shake and her eyes widened. “Anne, I am trying to tell you that I love you and I don’t want to live my life without you.”
She paled. “You don’t mean that. You can’t possibly. You’re shamming me, trying to get me to capitulate to your will, to go to Scotland, to marry you. But I
am just a toy to you, a passing fancy, as are all a gentleman’s toys.”
“You’ll be my wife. Lady Ruel.”
“What will that mean, to be Lady Ruel? I used to have a position of responsibility at Whitecross. I was the lady of the manor. I am used to it. I want to live that way again. I want to be useful in the world again.”
“You shall be Countess of Ruel in every meaning of the title. In fact, I shall expect it.”
“But you will make all the decisions.”
“I am not a neglectful lord in the way Cranfield was. I shall have the final say in all matters but, Anne, I shan’t be a tyrant either. You will have the same authority over my household as other wives of our station do. If not more so.”
“But in Ireland, I shan’t have to listen to anyone, save my own opinions.”
“You won’t be happy living like that. You weren’t happy living like that while Cranfield was alive. You want more from life. A husband, children.”
She compressed her lips and her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “I need no one. I never did.”
“What do you fear so terribly? I shall never deny you anything, nor override a decision you make without due and dire cause. I shall make sure your jointure is sound. The Irish horse farm will remain yours. Your personal wealth will remain yours alone. You may bequeath them as you choose. You will have personal liberty so long as your safety and wellbeing are not in jeopardy.”
“I already have personal liberty, my Irish farm and all my wealth.”
“I know your fears. I made the same mistake, Nan. I have measured all marriages by that shared by my grandparents and other people I have known. But we have to be brave. We’ve been given something precious and rare.”
She looked him straight in the eye and did not flinch. “I can’t…I just can’t take the risk, Jon. I am sorry.”
His patience snapped. He made his voice firm, commanding. “We’re getting married. So go and pack what’s absolutely vital to you because I am taking you with me today, even if I have to sling you over my shoulder. Is that plain enough for you?”
“So you will order me—force me to marry you?”
“If that’s what it takes to break through your stubbornness.” He took firm hold of her chin.
