by Erin Rye
The next thing she knew, he’d swept her up in his strong arms, carried her up the stairs, stepped over the threshold of their room, and kicked the door shut.
“My love,” he whispered in her hair as he set her on her feet.
She ran her hands over his chest. His skin felt so pliant and warm under her hand, even through his crisp linen shirt. The muscles under the fabric tightened beneath her touch.
“God, I want you,” he said in a husky voice.
She slid her palms up his muscled chest, then he caught her by surprise and carried her back against the wall and held her there, firmly. Her channel flooded with heat.
“Shall I pin you here?” He grazed her lip with his teeth, just the way she liked it. “Methinks my large girth and length would feel beyond wondrous as it slides deep in this position, aye?”
“Yes,” she moaned as a wanton heat pooled between her legs.
As she feverishly tugged at his shirt, sending a button or two flying across the floor, he impatiently unfastened her dress. She heard the sound of tearing fabric, but whether it was his or her doing, she couldn’t tell, nor did she care. At last, their clothing pooled to the floor, and finally, no barriers stood between them.
“We’ll experience the wall soon enough, lass,” he murmured, nipping her lip. “But methinks a bride should be first bedded properly in a bed.”
“Properly?” she moaned. She liked the sound of that. He’d spent the journey torturing her with his mouth and his fingers. She’d yet to feel the pleasure of his hard cock.
He swept her up and carried her to the bed. Chills raced along her skin as he gently lay her back on the counterpane. He stood there a moment, feasting his eyes on her naked flesh as she did the same, admiring the hard planes of his chest and his powerful thighs.
Then she glanced up to his face, and the look in his eyes set her body on fire. “Take me, Ethan. Please. I need you inside me.”
He dropped onto the bed and slid his hard body over her, kneeing her legs apart at once.
“At last,” she panted impatiently.
“Och, you’re a firebrand,” he teased. Looming over her, he dropped his hand between her legs. As his thumb found her swollen bud, he began nibbling her breasts. She moaned, enjoying the skill of his fingers. But now? Now they were wed. Now, she needed more.
“I want your shaft in me, Ethan,” she moaned, arching into him as she buried her hands in his hair. “Please.”
“Shall I drive myself to the hilt?” He teaseds her folds with his fingers.
She lifted her leg. His shaft nudged her moist heat. “Take me, Ethan. Take me, hard.”
“Och, wee beastie, I’ll have you screaming pleasure soon enough,” he promised as he fondled a taut nipple between his first and middle fingers.
“Now,” she insisted.
He teased her first, and drew on the tips of her breasts, then as she lifted a brow, he chuckled. “If you insist.”
His expression altered, and lust rolled over his face.
Her heart pounded. At last. The excitement built as he positioned his body. His hot, turgid shaft brushed her inner thighs, and he dropped on his elbows to cradle her face between his hands.
“I love you, lass,” he whispered. “Even though you’re a greedy wee thing.”
She smiled and caught his bottom lip between hers. “I love you, more.”
A gleam entered his eyes and he dropped his lips over hers. As he thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth, he impaled her on his shaft in one, single hot thrust, straight up to the hilt.
“Yes!” Rosalyn cried into his mouth, heart pounding as he stretched her wide.
His thick cock slammed into her tight inner canal, so hot, so raw. He filled her completely, his muscular body pinning her to the bed and offering no escape from the endless pleasure of his unyielding cock.
She fisted the sheets and lifted her hips to meet him, thrust after desperate thrust. She wouldn’t last long. Already, she stood on the brink of release. Wet heat flooded between her thighs, allowing his shaft to pleasure her deeper than she’d ever experienced before.
Then her orgasm struck. She gripped his arms and dug her nails into his skin as her body clamped down hard on his shaft. Wave after burning wave radiated from her core until every part of her hummed with pleasure.
He roared and gripped her hips hard, his shaft buried as far as her flesh allowed. He looked her straight in the eye as his seed shot deep inside her. She took his throbbing shaft until he’d milked the last of his essence. At last, he pulled free, slid off to the side, and draped one large leg over hers.
“You’re a wonder, lass,” he murmured. “But I do have a wee question.”
Rosalyn turned onto her side and faced him. “And?” she prompted when he didn’t continue.
A devilish spark lit his eye. “You judged me on so many things. Hygiene, tidiness, and the like. Tell me, what is my score for the category of love? Am I still a ten?”
She snorted and caught his mouth in a long, sweet kiss, then pushed him firmly onto his back. “I fear I shall have to investigate the matter further, my lord.” She sank on to his already rising shaft.
“I shall be delighted to help,” he murmured, and began to move his hips.
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Take a peek at the next book in The Marriage Maker Goes Undercover collection
My Lady of Danger
The Marriage Maker
Book Eleven
The Marriage Maker Goes Undercover
Summer Hanford
In the world of spies, even love is suspect…
Forced into the role of heir by the sudden death of his older brother, Alasdair Lochgeal is robbed of his one passion, serving the Crown. Equally at home in the catacombs of Paris, the portside alleys of Lisbon or on the dark canals of Venice, his family’s wish for him to marry leaves him bereft in the ballrooms of Inverness. What does a man trained in dealing death know of white-gloved misses?
When Sir Stirling James appears with a final mission, simple though it seems, Alasdair can’t pass up the opportunity, little knowing one white-gloved Scottish miss might end his career for good.
Prologue
Alasdair stood, unmoving, outside the general’s office. He did not pace. He didn’t fidget. His uniform was a study in perfection, his dark hair neatly trimmed. When the door to the general’s office opened, Alasdair’s highly polished boots reflected back the line of sunlight that cut across them.
“He’ll see you now, sir.” The clerk held the door for him.
His expression inscrutable, Alasdair strode inside, passing through that line of light. It slanted in through a gap in a set of brocade drapes, the row of windows the only other exits from the room. The door slammed shut behind him. He didn’t so much as blink, let alone flinch. He came to a halt before the general’s desk and saluted, his gaze straight ahead.
“You asked to see me, sir?” he said in a voice as neutral as his expression. The summons was odd for, though he was nominally quartermaster to the troop, Alasdair didn’t take his orders from the general. Those came via the Raven, directly from the Crown.
“Aye.”
Though he fixed his attention on a point just above the general’s right shoulder, Alasdair noted the way the man shifted, could all but taste his unease in the stale air of the room.
“Sit down, Lochgeal,” the general suggested.
“No, thank you.” Alasdair didn’t believe any danger existed, but preferred to remain unencumbered by a chair in case his instincts proved false.
“Yes, well.” The general cleared his throat. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. Your brother is dead. You are now Duke of Ceann na Creige.” The general’s chair grated back. He stood and bowed. “Let me be the first to congratulate you, Lord Alasdair.”
Alasdair stilled inside. His brother dead? With an iron will, he refused any thought, any reaction. “I see. Will that be all, sir?”
“Don’t you wish to know how he died?”<
br />
“Was it by treachery?” If so, Alasdair would repay the villain responsible in kind.
“No, ah, a riding accident.”
“I see.” Then there was nothing to do. No blame to dole out. No one to punish.
Still on his feet, the general tugged at his collar. Finally, he dropped his gaze to the desktop. “There’s more,” he muttered. Meaty fingers poked through the missives littering his desk.
Alasdair hid his disgust, for he’d already garnered a week’s worth of troop placement since the start of the interview. The man should be decommissioned, then shot.
“Here it is.” The general fished free a paper. “You’re, ah, relieved of duty.” He extended the page with a trembling hand. “You’re to return to England with all haste.”
Alasdair’s gaze flicked across the document. He knew the Raven’s bold script. She’d signed another name. A man’s. “Is that all?”
“Yes.” The general sounded relieved. “You’re dismissed.”
Alasdair saluted. He turned with sharp precision and marched from the stuffy office. He didn’t slow as he passed the wide-eyed clerk, or the soldiers awaiting the general’s bidding. They saluted him sharply, but made no effort to engage him. His face remained expressionless, yet somehow conveyed the dire outcome awaiting any who might speak to him. He strode through the halls of the general’s commandeered headquarters with purpose.
Yet he had no purpose. None other than to navigate the richly appointed home until he escaped scrutiny. The moment Alasdair felt no eyes on him, he ducked into the nearest room.
A startled squeak issued from a girl crouched before the fireplace. Her maid’s uniform, bucket and broom indicated she was sweeping coals.
“Go,” he ordered.
Leaving her tools, the girl scurried out through a servants’ door. Including the two long windows, that made four exits from the small parlor. Alasdair sank onto a couch along the inside wall. He dropped his head into his hands. For the first time since he’d been a babe, Alasdair Lochgeal, newly proclaimed Duke of Ceann na Creige, wept.
Chapter One
Bridget’s lips pressed closed, effectively cutting off the narration of her lilting voice. She leaned forward, angled Oliver’s letter nearer the candelabra’s flickering candlelight, and reread the sprawling script. The words remained the same. Unease whispered through her.
“Well, lass, what does Oliver say next?” her father demanded from the other side of his large mahogany desk. His eyes, piercing even if they could no longer make out words on a page, narrowed. “Nothing amiss, is there?”
“Oh, no, Papa,” she said quickly. “Ollie doesn’t sound his usual cheerful self is all. I was taken aback.”
Her father nodded. He drummed thick fingers on the desktop. “Read on. Let me judge.”
“I did not enjoy the gaming hall Lord Belview recommended,” she read. “In fact, it was no longer in the location he said it would be, which strikes me as odd. Lord Belview’s information is generally quite accurate. As I spent my time seeking it, to no avail, I haven’t had opportunity to contemplate the name Lord Winston suggested for his new hound. Please forward my apologies for that and ask him if he’s settled on that name or awaits my viewpoint on the matter.”
The agitated tap of her father’s fingers halted. Her gaze snapped to his downturned mouth. His deeply lined face and ponderous jowls gave him an ominous look by candlelight.
“He then goes into the usual adieu, Papa,” she concluded, lowering the letter to the desk. The sweet honeyed scent of the costly candles, normally a source of pleasure, mingled with her worry to form a queasy knot in her gut.
“Couldn’t locate the gaming hall?” her father repeated. He slapped his hand flat on the desk.
Bridget jumped.
“That’s three times now,” her father said. “In a row.”
“Yes.” Bridget forced lightness into her tone and subdued the desire to shift, for the hard wood chair would creak and reveal her unease. She mustn’t let her father suspect she realized Ollie’s words were a code. He would find someone else to read for him and she would lose her tenuous glimpse into what her brother did for the Crown. “I daresay it’s been so long since Lord Belview toured the continent, many of the places he once visited have changed.”
“Hmm?” Her father blinked, focusing on her. “Yes, of course. You’re a smart lass.” A hint of satisfaction ghosted across his features. He levered his still powerful form from his chair. “Write Belview and Winston before you retire, will you? Tell them what your brother wrote.”
“Yes, Papa. Should I reply to Ollie?”
He shook his head. “Wait to see what their lordships have to say.”
She stood as her father crossed the candlelight-filled office. His dragon-topped cane pounded a sharp rhythm, even through the thick carpet. With a parting nod, he left. He closed the door behind him.
Alone in the intricately paneled room, Bridget tossed her thick blonde braid over her shoulder and went around the desk. After taking her father’s chair, which was considerably more comfortable than her own, she pulled out clean pages, ink and a pen. She slid her brother’s letter across and read the lines a fourth time.
She wasn’t meant to, but she knew Ollie spied for the Crown. It had started years ago, when they were both quite young. Her father and Ollie had spent hours locked in this very office, or so it had seemed. Not until Bridget, a child of four, squeezed under one of the massive, hard-backed sofas, did she learn of the secret door.
Her eyes traced the decorative millwork along walls, cabinetry and mantelpiece. A complex pattern of corbels and rosettes opened the indiscernible secret door beside the fireplace. That door led to an entirely different world. One of hidden chambers, carved from the rock below the keep.
Chambers Bridget wouldn’t be visiting that evening.
She brought her attention back to the page before her. Careful to convey Ollie’s precise words, she penned a note first to Lord Winston and then to Lord Belview.
She didn’t know exactly what Ollie did for the Crown, only that he’d trained for such service his whole life. Their father had instructed him in secret, in the hidden rooms below their ancient keep, Lomall a 'Chaisteil. Having been warned by Ollie to stay away, Bridget had never witnessed that training, but sometimes the bruises were visible above Ollie’s collar or if he took off his socks and rolled up his pants to splash in the garden pond. Occasionally, there’d even been a black eye or broken nose, always blamed on a riding accident, but she’d never once seen Ollie lose his seat.
Bridget slid a candelabra nearer and double checked her letters before she sealed and addressed them. She wished she knew what Ollie’s code meant. She suspected Lord Belview’s continuous recommendations were locations and Lord Winston’s obsession with the nomenclature of his prize hounds a code for people’s names. Usually, Ollie wrote back that he’d visited the place and approved of the new name. Bridget suspected that meant he’d found the person and done, well, whatever it was he was meant to do. If so, her brother was very successful.
Until the last few months, that was, and again in his new letter. Even not knowing what success meant, given the secrecy surrounding her brother’s profession, she could imagine the danger of failure. How long could things continue to go wrong for Ollie before they went very, very wrong?
She let out a sigh, aware of her helplessness. She could only assist their father, whose eyes were too old for reading and writing. She placed the letters to one side and returned the pen, ink and paper to their drawers. Lastly, she pulled a key free of her bodice and unlocked a different drawer. She put Ollie’s letter inside with the others and turned the key in the lock.
Bridget tucked the key back into her bodice and went to collect a candle from the candelabra. The others she extinguished, licking her fingers before snuffing out each wick to save her soft skin from burns. The office, windowless paneled walls rendering it lightless even at noon, was plunged into deep shadow, punc
tuated by the sooty, honey-touched smell of the snuffed candles.
The hall without was cold and dim, as the servants had already put out most flames for the night. She tugged her shawl closer. The office, for all its eternal darkness, was at least cozy. The rest of the ancient stronghold had soaked up so much mist and icy cold from long Scottish nights, the old stone never warmed. Not with fires blazing in every room. Not at the height of summer. Never.
Bridget left the candle on a hall table. With a nearly full moon, she didn’t need its light to wend her way to the staircase and up to her room. In twenty-six years, she’d learned every floorboard. Especially over the past four years. With Ollie away, her mother little more than a toddler’s memory, and her father’s need of her to be his eyes, Bridget’s feet rarely left the Sollier grounds. She hadn’t visited Inverness, the nearest town, in years.
She didn’t call for a maid when she reached her room. She wore no fancy clothes, and kept her hair in a simple braid down her back, so she had little need for assistance. Aside from which, she didn’t trust the new maid, Fiona Brown. Though ten years Bridget’s junior, Fiona demonstrated too-keen an attention to details. Her eyes were disconcerting, and definitely not soothing right before bed.
After she changed into a shift, Bridget climbed into bed and pulled the quilt up over her shoulders, but she soon found nothing soothed her. She was simply too aggravated to sleep. Why were Ollie’s missions not succeeding? She felt as if she must warn him, or help him in some way. Perhaps if she could glean more from the code he used with Lords Belview and Winston, she could formulate a plan.
Her thoughts went to the secret rooms below the keep. Aside from the swords, knifes, boxing gloves and whatnot that her father and Ollie used, there were scrolls, maps and books. As she knew from years of stealthy midnight visits, several of the books detailed and dissected codes and cyphers. Bridget had already read them, but she may have missed something useful. Aside from that, new additions to the collection sometimes appeared. They never arrived through the keep. Someone brought them in by way of the hidden tunnel that lead from the base of the crags Lomall a 'Chaisteil was built atop to the rooms concealed below.
