Suzi Love

by Embracing Scandal

  Before he could stop himself, he bent and gently kissed the scarred flesh, then lapped it with his tongue to soothe the ache and save her any more pain. The idea of anyone hurting such a wondrous creature frightened him. Even more than before, he wanted to swathe her in the thickest of furs and hide her in an enormous bed where he’d guard her with his life.

  “Who shot you? Why?”

  Whoever had done this to her would be in fear of their lives if he caught them. And he would.

  “Oh, this one happened — ”

  Incredulous, he asked, “This one?” He was ready to commit murder himself, yet he wasn’t sure if the majority of his anger was directed at her assailant, or her.

  “Well, yes.” Her voice wavered at his unconcealed horror. “But I think one should only count being shot if you’ve a wound. After all, men who go to war are wounded constantly and don’t regard mishaps as important enough to recount. Unless you’re Major Townsend, of course.”

  “And who is Major Townsend?”

  He knew he was snarling but he couldn’t help himself. Never before had he been jealous, yet in his short reacquaintance with Becca, he’d become jealous of every male she mentioned. Wanting to do harm to his fellow man was becoming a common occurrence.

  She was driving him to insanity.

  Demanding an accounting of meetings with the opposite sex was the prerogative of married couples. It wasn’t something he’d ever done before. His mistresses, as Becca insisted on calling them, had been women with whom he’d enjoyed brief dalliances, without involvement. Once emotion was involved, women became paramours and he’d never had time for that. Never had the inclination.

  “You’ve no need for jealousy. The major could never be my heroic knight like you. He’s far too stuffy. And he’s the only gentleman I ever encountered who regales people with tales of his injuries. Mind you, I know that his falling down when inebriated caused several of his so-called war wounds. Which is often. Anyway, between my catastrophe prone siblings and I, we devised a system — ”

  “A system?”

  His heart pounded in a painful thump against the wall of his chest as he braced himself for her answer.

  “A categorising system, to evaluate the severity of wounds. Falling over when cup shot is a two. Being thrown from a horse in full gallop is a four, because of the danger factor, you understand. Being threatened with a knife rates an eight.”

  Unable to believe what he was hearing, his voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

  “How many have you … you suffered? On your scale.”

  “Well, I’m not known for being cup shot. So, only some others. That may account for why my family considers me the most accident-prone. If you remember when we were younger, I seemed to get into the most scrapes. But my aunt assured me I’d grow out of it.” Her head fell to one side as she contemplated that. “I don’t seem to have grown out of it though, do I? You’re still rescuing me as you used to do years ago.”

  “I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but I’m starting to follow your perverse reasoning, and your roundabout conversations.”

  She smiled and patted his hand. “I’m not at all surprised, Cayle. You’re actually quite intelligent. Brilliant, in fact.”

  Under his breath, he muttered, “It’s not brilliant to look at you and feel the way I do.” Out aloud, he said, “Becca, what am I going to do with you?”

  A tongue poked out to moisten her lips in that way she must know drove him to distraction. Fingers danced down his chest to hover around his waist, sliding back and forth in a seductive motion.

  “I can think of a few things you could try.”

  Damn! He never knew whether to thank Madame Faberge or murder her. With her education of the Jamison girls, she’d unleashed their powers as women. Richard had best beware when Laura stopped arguing with him. The attraction those two avoided like the plague would explode and his cousin would be caught up like he was, in a Jamison whirlwind.

  Becca’s dark red hanks of hair dripped water onto her already sodden undergarments and adhered them to every generous curve of her body. A lone rivulet escaped confinement to trickle under lacy-edged pantaloons, over the length of a stocking-covered leg, and spilled over dainty toes to pool, unheeded, on his stepmother’s Turkish carpet.

  His mouth dried. He longed to follow the water’s meandering path with his tongue, lap up any moisture clinging to her shapely legs, and suck her damp toes deep into his mouth’s drying heat. Hell. Nothing had changed. Looking an almost caught-in-a-brothel-fire-mess, this lady still tantalised him far more than the well-groomed and well-schooled mistresses he’d passed time with during the four years he’d been abroad.

  • • •

  Cayle swivelled, swallowed, and stepped away to retrieve a cover from the settee. Not allowing himself to move closer than his outstretched arm, he dangled the rug before her.

  “Here. Remove your wet things then wrap yourself in this.” He swallowed, hard. “I’ll turn away.”

  “What if … ” Her fingers played with the shoulder ties of her chemise. “If I don’t want you to turn away?” She tugged and one bow unravelled.

  With a groan, he spun away to face the wall. “Becca. Behave yourself, as I’m trying to do.” To distract himself from the thought of her undressing behind him, he picked up the thread of their earlier conversation. “Tell me what happened at the brothel. Before the fire started.”

  “Must we discuss this now?”

  “Yes. I need a distraction.” He gave a low growl. “To stop thinking about you wrapped only in a blanket.”

  She giggled, the high-pitched girlish sound making him smile. Lady Jamison, who’d relinquished her dreams to support her family, tutored streetwalkers on investing money and dodged bullets, still remained a young girl at heart.

  “Is distracting yourself working?”

  “No, it’s not.” This growl was deeper, pained, as he listened to her wriggle inside the coverlet. “So.” He cleared his throat. “Explain what happened tonight.”

  “I received a message from Mistress Duval saying you’d followed Arthur to that … eh … house. I’d asked her to inform me whenever Arthur met with consortium members, but when you followed him there she feared trouble and sent word immediately. While I was sitting outside deciding what to do, I watched a man slip into the alley. Naturally, I followed him.”

  “Naturally,” he muttered.

  “I saw the arsonist throw his lighted rags through the windows. The coachman spread the alarm and called for fire buckets.”

  “So why in hell didn’t you run back to the carriage? Stay on the other side of the street.”

  “I was terrified you’d be trapped inside. I ran to the door. Called ‘Fire’. You came out. Someone fired a pistol and … That’s all.”

  “That’s all? If not for your calm thinking, and the heroic actions of you and your coachman, those inside would have been trapped. Many would have perished.”

  “I wasn’t calm in the least. Not picturing you trapped inside that brothel. Oh, Cayle, if not for Mistress Duval, I might not have arrived in time.”

  “I don’t know whether to murder her, or thank her. The same way I feel about you. Frequently. Following me to a brothel, Becca? What were you thinking?”

  “As soon as your spies informed you Arthur dined with me, I knew you’d follow him.”

  “My sp — . What do you mean?”

  “You paid men to follow me.”

  “Yet you said nothing? Amazing restraint.”

  “I understood. You were protecting me. But we can discuss it later. Turn around, Cayle.”

  He muttered, “I hope you’re covered,” though it was too late. He’d already turned.

  For the second time, she stood proudly naked before him. Though the blanket was clutched in both her hands, she held it below waist level so it drooped on either side of her bare feet to pool in folds on the floor. Her breasts, full, high, and bared to his view, robbed him of breath. Cool
air pebbled goose flesh over her arms and her nipples stood to rigid attention while he stared, open-mouthed, awed, and reverent.

  A tiny tremor rippled down her exposed body, yet she proudly presented herself, a mix of sweet innocence and knowing seductress, while he satiated his hungry senses with the sight of her. He muttered a grateful prayer he’d been granted the chance to gaze upon the perfection of her body. The first time he’d seen her like this, he’d prayed for the fortitude to refuse her offered innocence. This time, he wasn’t strong enough to resist. He was merely a man and she was … Well, she was a beautiful siren.

  She swayed and he automatically reached out for her. Being with her would drive him insane. Yet, at the same time, he craved this madness.

  “You should sit down. Here, move closer to the fire. Are you warm enough?”

  She chuckled. “Cayle, I’m hot. Burning hot.”

  She took his hand and placed his palm over her breast, holding it there. He traced the shape of her curves with his fingers. Slowly caressed, worshipped them. With his other hand, he mirrored the movements on her other breast, delighting in her panted, “Yes, yes.”

  “Is that good, sweetheart?”

  “Cayle … ”

  “Yes?”

  “If you stop this time, I swear I’ll shoot you.”

  His hands still caressed her breasts. “This time, I can’t stop. I really can’t. I want you so much.”

  “Thank heavens.”

  “And thank God you want me too.”

  Other areas of their relationship remained uncertain, as only the night before she’d declared their association finished. Yet in this sensual area, he felt no hesitation. Becca wanted him, and that was all that mattered at this particular point in time. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  He felt her echoing need in the short pants of her breath against his chest, smelt it in the scent of her arousal. He bent his head and covered her mouth with his, kissing her as he’d wanted to for far too many weeks. With no hesitation, and happy to at last reveal the depth of his about-to-be unleashed passion. As he slid down to draw one pouting nipple into his mouth, to suckle her breast with a strong and unvaried rhythm designed to make her knees quiver and her body shake, his own body shuddered.

  He loved knowing he could do that to Becca, knowing his touch could make her shiver and shake with need. The force of his own desire may come as a shock to someone who’d tried to deny his own emotional entanglement for the first weeks of their reacquaintance, but he was past denying anything now. He needed her returned caresses and the touch of her hands on his bare skin so badly he could think of nothing else. Not the consequences, nor the problems they would have to face on the morrow. Desire had driven all rational thought from his mind. As a gentleman, he swore to make it right for his lady tomorrow before society. For tonight, he simply wanted her, man to woman.

  Laying her on his thick carpet before the fire, he threw off the remainder of his own clothing. At last, he felt free to worship every inch of her delectable body. He licked and sucked each delicious part until she writhed and chanted his name in small tense gasps. With questing fingers, he tested her readiness, running his fingers through her soft red curls and her swollen cleft. Over and over again, he touched her until she clutched at him in desperate urging.

  “Please. I need you. Now.”

  Ignoring her pleas, he concentrated on her pleasure and stamped down his own fast rising desire. He touched her in ways that made her hot, made her squirm, made her his pupil. When he drew forth her first climax, she screamed.

  A sound of total release and joy emitted from her throat in a long keening cry before she collapsed back in a spent heap on the rug. The heavy droop of her lids fascinated him. The look of satiation on her face increased his desire threefold.

  “Don’t imagine that’s all you’ll have tonight, sweetheart.” He nuzzled her cheeks, kissing her chin, her brows, the soft lids of her eyes, until he focused on the lobe of her ear, kissing, then tonguing it. “There’s more.” He dragged the sensitive lobe between the rough edges of his teeth, nibbled and worried it until she squirmed beneath him. “Much, much more.”

  Chapter 20

  Becca stared up at him with awe. Aware of nothing but the startling shivers of need spearing through her, gathering again in a sphere of heat deep in her abdomen. She moved restlessly beneath her lover, unable to keep still beneath his experienced touch.

  Her gaze wandered down the length of him as he held himself suspended above her. Everything about Cayle excited her. The smoothness of his tanned skin and the firm muscle beneath, the hard lines of his rib cage, the tapering of his body from wide shoulders to a narrow waist. She wanted to feel every part of him pressed against her, male to female.

  He lowered to her, pushed one of his legs between hers and spread her apart. Taking his weight on his forearms, he pressed downwards against her torso. His erection pulsed to match the throbbing of her own rapid beat in her hidden tender place. He was hard and heavy and pulsing. And hers. Totally hers.

  As he kissed his way down her neck, one large hand curved around her aching breast to pluck at the distended nipple. The sensation was a mixture of pleasure and pain so intense she didn’t think she would survive. Yet, when he moved lower to trail his warm lips over her chest, she moaned, pushing him closer to her breast. Needing his mouth sucking on her tingling nipple, long and hard.

  Her unspoken command was ignored so she nudged his face even closer to where she burned. Only his mouth, hot and wet could soothe the fire that raged inside her. Only Cayle could make her feel whole again, complete.

  “I have to have you, all of you. Now, Cayle.”

  To demonstrate, she zigzagged her nails lightly down his back and ended by digging her fingers into the tight flesh of his buttocks. Cayle exhaled a low groan, giving in at last and pulling her nipple into his mouth, rasping it with his teeth, soothing it with his tongue. As the heat built in her loins, she sobbed.

  “Little one, are you all right? Should I stop?”

  She groaned, arching up against him. “Do. Not. Dare. Stop,” she hissed out at him. “You’ve stopped twice before. The aching was so intense that I almost died of the pain when you left me last time. Do you understand me, Cayle?” She took a firm grip on his head and spoke inches from his face. “I can’t stand that again. Never again.”

  “There’ll be pain, my love. A little.”

  She nodded. “I know about the pain. Now show me the pleasure. All of it.”

  Her knowledge of intimacy went beyond that of most ladies her age. Madame Faberge believed that married men wouldn’t visit her girls if well-bred ladies weren’t so ignorant in the bedroom. They knew nothing of sex apart from a rudimentary knowledge that pregnancy was achieved after furtive visits from their husbands in the darkness.

  Becca wanted to learn it all, to experience every exciting moment.

  Cayle moved again, shifting until the tip of his shaft probed her centre. “Tell me what you feel, sweetheart, so I know how much to push.”

  “I can feel you spreading me.”

  He pushed in another inch. “And now?”

  She gasped. “You’re so big.”

  She halted him with her hand and peered down between their bodies and was stunned by the size of his shaft, half embedded in the opening to her body. “Cayle, will this work? Am I too small for you?”

  He held still, and then laughed. “No, my love. You’re just right for me. Perfect.”

  He shifted to one side and took her hand from where she pressed tightly against his chest to guide it between them, until she touched his rock hard shaft. Two fingers lightly grazed him. He jerked and swallowed in a hard gulp but didn’t move away.

  “Feel me. Hold me. You’ll see I was created this way just for you. To fit inside you. To fill you. And give you pleasure.”

  “Oooh.”

  She gave a moan, long and low, almost a growl, as she wrapped her whole hand around the width of him. His peni
s felt hard, yet soft. Strong yet gentle, just like the man himself. Cayle held himself still with the tip of him jutting just a little into her cleft, giving her time to explore. Giving her permission to trace the long blue veins with a finger.

  She felt his erection twitch and jerk in reaction to her touch and she giggled, making him laugh. His reactions were so enthralling that she was reluctant to release him. But he pulled her hand away and muttered huskily,

  “Enough, enough. You can touch me as much as you want after. Just not now. I’m too close to the edge.”

  Parting her legs, she lifted her hips up to encourage more of him to slip inside her. He moved again, thrust a little. At the flash of pain, she let out a startled cry and Cayle paused, his body trembling above her with his effort. But she didn’t care about the pain, couldn’t bear the waiting, so she rubbed her hands up and down his arms, and nodded.

  He plunged fully inside her and she gasped, amazed and delighted as Cayle filled her, stretching her to the limits. When he began to move within her, she realised this was exactly what she’d wanted. Needed. She hungered to hold him deep inside her hollow places, to possess him and be possessed by him.

  “Yes, reach for it, sweetheart. Stay with me.”

  Bliss came in a rush, pleasure sizzling through her, white hot at her centre and exploding in red bursts to shoot to every part of her body. She cried out, giving another buck towards him as he pushed further in four deep, fast thrusts until his own hoarse cry overlaid hers. Together they rode out the sunburst.

  At the last second, she’d felt Cayle jerk back and spill his seed in a warm spurt on her thighs. After a moment, he rolled to the side, taking her with him to wrap her closely in his arms.

  Upon his first thrust inside her tight passage, Becca had realised that her life was changed, forever. She smiled, the timeless smile of a girl who has become a woman.

  • • •

  “I’ve never been with a woman who was without any experience before,” her new lover murmured in absent-minded reflection.