My Hellion, My Heart

by Amalie Howard

  She would have to deter him and somehow explain her presence here on someone else’s private property, along with the nature of the secret course belonging to the Earl of Langlevit, no less. Gritting her teeth, Irina made to move toward him when a large wet hand reached around to cover her mouth. It startled a surprised, though muffled, squeak from her.

  “Shhh,” Henry whispered into her ear, drawing her out of sight behind a large oak tree just as Max appeared on his horse at the top of the path. “Be still.”

  Sandwiched between the large tree and the equally large man at her back, Irina obeyed, her heart thumping in her chest as Max frowned, his eyes canvassing the area. He took in the start of Henry’s course before his curious gaze moved back to the waterfall. Irritation surged once more at the fact that he had followed her. Trembling with suppressed fury, her fingers gripped the rough bark of the oak. Max stood there for some time and called her name again. To her horror, he dismounted and started walking down the path. It wouldn’t take much for them to be discovered.

  Irina stiffened, and Henry’s thumb stroked across her chin in a quiet attempt to calm her rattled nerves. Her breathing eased somewhat as Max halted a stone’s throw away, his eyes studying the waterfall and then the pool. Irina noted sourly that he didn’t seem to mind the mud too much. What a little liar! With a shake of his head, Max headed back toward his horse, and within moments, was gone. Neither she nor Henry moved for a long minute, in case Max decided to circle back.

  A slight cramp in her leg made her wriggle, and she heard Henry’s sharp inhalation as her hips rocked into his. She was getting quite adept at freezing mid-motion, but this time, everything inside her body went feral even as she went completely still. Her blood simmered like a wild thing, her heartbeat trebled its pace, and her breath rattled in her lungs.

  She was alone.

  Pressed against a tree.

  With a naked man glued to her back.

  Henry’s hand released her chin and dropped to rest across her collarbone, his fingers stroking lazily across her throat. Without a word, he drew her against him. Irina sucked in a soft gasp, realizing the dampness from his nude body had seeped into her own clothing. He was so warm she’d noticed none of it. Her breath came in shallow agonizing pants as his hand wandered down the front of her, skimming over her breasts to her stomach and back up. He still hadn’t said a word, even though she was quite sure that Max had gone.

  Mesmerized by the sensual stroking of his fingers along each of her ribs that left rivers of warmth in their wake, Irina remained silent. After a moment, she felt his warm breath on her neck and then his lips, planting sweet touches along the crest of her nape. Climbing up the sensitive column of her neck, he sucked her earlobe into his mouth. She nearly collapsed. Heat shivered through her in molten waves while his mouth continued to explore her skin and his hand drifted upward.

  Cupping her jaw, Henry tilted her chin up and took her lips in so gentle a kiss that it made her want to swoon with the tenderness of it. He teased the seam of her lips with his tongue before delving inside to stroke against hers. The kiss turned carnal, and he groaned low in his throat. Arching her neck, Irina attempted to twist her body around, but he kept her firmly still, with her back to him.

  Henry was hard everywhere. She squirmed against his uncompromising frame, and he laughed quietly, one of his hands falling to her hip. “Stop moving, sweet,” he whispered, his tongue shifting to trace the outline of her ear, making her daft. “Or you’ll unman me.”

  Freezing once more, she felt heat rush into her body at the insistent prod of him against the seat of her breeches. She’d forgotten he was naked. And that was his…oh God. Irina sucked in a shuddering breath. She was innocent, but she was not naive. Max had never been scandalous enough to deluge her with details of what happened between lovers, but she’d heard enough salacious talk to discern what the bulge pressing into the base of her spine meant. The hot, hard length of him made her blood thicken to molasses in her veins and her toes curl in her riding boots.

  Her thighs went weak. Good heavens, there was nothing soft about him. Henry’s hands roved over her body restlessly as his mouth claimed hers once more. Lost in sensation, she opened for him, relishing his taste and the seductive feel of his tongue rubbing against hers. Once more, she made to turn in his arms, but he held her still. “No, I like you like this.” His voice was like rough velvet across her rapidly fraying nerves.

  Irina gasped as his hand slipped inside the neckline of her coat and under the cotton chemise within. He rolled an aching nipple between his fingers and then shifted his attention to the other breast. Sharp bolts of liquid fire shot from their tips to the center of her hips, making her moan his name into his mouth.

  “Henry, please,” she said, not knowing what she was asking for.

  But he seemed to, and obliged with a muffled growl as he nipped and suckled at her throat. His hand slid down the front of the coat, undoing her buttons as he went, until it gaped open. Both his hands reached beneath her chemise to cup and knead her breasts as she lolled back against him in senseless abandon, lost to the storm he was inciting inside her. With deft fingers, he skimmed down her torso, his warm hands exploring the waistband of her breeches.

  “Laces,” she murmured as his fingers fumbled in search of a clasp. Good Lord. She couldn’t believe she’d just instructed him on how to loosen her clothing. But if his touch felt anything like it had when he’d undone her coat, she wasn’t about to complain.

  The laces unsnapped loop by loop, each flick of the leather cord making her pulse leap in reckless anticipation, until she felt the waistband loosen and Henry’s large hand inch its way downward past her silk drawers. Irina held her breath as he pressed his palm against the very core of her. Moaning, she writhed against his hand, wanting him to touch her more but unable to articulate exactly what it was she wanted. Everything ached at the point where his palm met her body.

  “God, Irina, you’re so warm,” he whispered into her ear. One teasing finger slid past the slit in her drawers, threading through the soft curls there. Irina arched back against him in bewilderment. “Relax,” he coaxed, scraping his teeth along her neck. “Let me touch you.”

  Words failed her as his fingers began to stroke through her sleek, damp center, causing white-hot sensations to streak through her limbs and into her belly.

  “Oh—oh.”

  Suddenly, Irina couldn’t focus a single coherent thought in her head—her brain had become as utterly pliant and useless as her body was in his hands. Those clever, devious hands that were doing things that could not be decent. A decadent shiver took her unawares, and she gasped. She didn’t want decent.

  “You feel like silk,” he murmured, trailing scorching kisses along her jaw. “Hot, wet silk.”

  His words seduced almost as much as his fingers did. Irina’s mouth fell open on a shattered exhale as pressure began to build with each glide of his finger against her. She moaned in deliciously shocked surprise as Henry strummed her body like a virtuoso. He plucked and stroked and circled her flesh, making her mad with desire, while his mouth continued its lush sampling of her sensitive nape.

  Irina knew she should have been frightened. She was alone in the woods with a man…his hands caressing places that had never been touched. But she also knew Henry would never hurt her. Alone with him at last, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t wary. She felt bold, wanton. Like a free-spirited Greek nymph.

  Pleasure built in lavish surges within her as his fingers and mouth coaxed unbelievable sensations from deep inside. He groaned when she arched backward and tilted her neck, a sigh rising in her throat. Was he enjoying this as much as she was? Was she wrong to crave his touch so shamelessly?

  Whimpering softly, Irina tipped her chin up and sought his lips. His tongue mimicked the motion of his wicked fingers below. Pleasure ebbed and flowed in surges as her hips rocked against his hand.
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  “Henry—”

  “It’s yours, just reach for it,” he told her and took her lips again, his clever fingers quickening their pace.

  Her thoughts turned to nonsense. With a soft cry, she felt her body tightening until she could hardly bear it, and then she shuddered against him as violent waves of pleasure rocked through her. When the inner storm finally subsided, her brain felt numb and her sated body boneless.

  Never had Irina felt anything so stirring…so soul shattering.

  So unbelievably wicked.

  Weak-kneed, she sagged backward into the spooning arch of his body. Supporting her weight, Henry removed his hand from the damp crux of her, still cupping her intimately as she collapsed against him, her breath coming in short, strained pants. She wanted to laugh at the shocking pleasure of it. She wanted to weep with how tender he’d been.

  Neither of them spoke as Henry finally turned her to face him, his patient fingers re-lacing her breeches and buttoning her coat. Irina felt herself coloring fiercely. Only now she truly understood the meaning of carnal pleasure. She had just been the willing recipient of it.

  Embarrassment filled her in a blazing rush at how wanton and pliable she’d been in Henry’s arms. She had let him touch the most intimate part of her, and worst of all, she’d enjoyed every blissful minute of it. Irina dared a look up at Henry through her lashes and felt the warm satiety depart her body. This time a whole other unpleasant emotion gripped Irina, something that matched the brooding, furious expression on Henry’s face. Confusion swiftly followed, and once more, she became fixed in place. He stared at her as if she’d grown a pair of horns, when he’d been the one to incite the devil in the first place.

  She’d done nothing wrong. Had she?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Henry stepped back from her, his bare feet treading upon his clothes, which he’d dropped to the ground seconds before grabbing her from behind and pressing her against the rough bark of the tree. That had been his first mistake—putting his hands on her at all. His second had been in not sending her home the minute Remi left. His third…well, the state of his engorged body was proof enough of that.

  As if in response to his thoughts, Irina’s eyes dropped to his naked front, and the stain of color on her cheeks intensified. Her eyes rounded in shock as her mouth, those perfect lips he’d been plundering seconds before, parted in unconcealed astonishment at the unobstructed—and unabashed—view of him. Henry crouched and took up his trousers, pulling them on with angry tugs as she spun away, averting her hot stare. He suppressed the sudden, demented urge to drag her to the forest floor and bury his rigid arousal in her warm, willing body. The cling of her dewy skin on his fingers had been drugging, her moans and whimpers even more so.

  “You are intent on ruination,” he muttered, buttoning the fall quickly over his straining anatomy, gooseflesh rising on his arms and stomach despite the heat of exasperation simmering just beneath his skin.

  “I—I only wanted to run the course again, and I thought you were still in London,” she said, turning slightly to see him.

  His shirt was damp, the linen sticking to his wet arms as he dressed. Noticing her perusal, Henry’s jaw clenched. She’d been at the pool, he knew, watching him. His ravaged back must have been on full, grisly display then. Had she felt horror? Revulsion? Or worse…pity?

  “Did you tell Lord Remi about this place?” Henry asked, finishing with his shirt and grabbing his stockings and Hessians. “Did you intend to meet him here for a rendezvous, believing I was still in town?”

  “Of course not,” she answered, and from the insulted tone of her voice, he believed her. “He followed without my knowledge. How dare you suggest I intended for a tryst.”

  Henry stepped toward her, water dripping from his hair and soaking his collar. “Intended or not, you received one just the same.”

  He stormed past her, toward the path that led to the small cabin in the clearing, unable to hold her livid glare. He’d lost control the moment he’d tucked her against that tree, his dripping wet body plastering the back of her shirt and trousers. Even as Remi had called for her, his eyes searching the thick wood for any movement, Henry had felt the weightlessness of abandon lifting him. Dressed as she was, the full curve of her backside on such luscious display, he had wanted only to sink into her.

  He heard Irina following him now along the path, her feet breaking small sticks as she rushed to keep up.

  “Why are you acting as if I am the one who has done something wrong?” she asked.

  Henry faltered in step. She had done nothing—nothing—wrong. He was the one who couldn’t seem to stop making these mistakes, even though in the moment, they felt the furthest thing from wrong. He’d been standing under that waterfall, fantasizing an erotic scenario, one in which Irina joined him, stripping herself slowly before wading into the pool to meet him. He’d been at full mast even before he’d seen her.

  Henry had been yanked from his fantasy by the sound of a male voice calling Irina’s name. And when he’d turned, Henry had seen her figure standing stock-still on the brink of discovery. He’d stared at her for a half second before swimming toward shore, irrationally concerned—and elated—that somehow his thoughts had summoned her.

  “You should not have come here,” he replied, wishing to hell she had stayed away.

  “So why did you just… What was that back there, then? Punishment?”

  He strode into the clearing, relieved to see Lord Remi had not hung about, waiting for Irina to return to her horse.

  Henry turned to her, his gaze snapping to hers. “Did it feel like punishment to you, Princess?”

  She drew back, those violet eyes of hers going heavy with the memory of what had just transpired between them. A furious blush rose, warming her neck and suffusing her cheeks. God, he’d wanted to strip her bare and take her right then and there. Had she been wearing a skirt, easily tossed up over her hips, instead of those damned breeches, he was not quite certain he wouldn’t have. He’d reached into her instead, touching and stroking her, until she cried out, his name upon her lips.

  Without waiting for an answer, Henry turned away, toward his horse, hoping to shield from her the renewed ridge of his erection.

  “We cannot be found here,” he said, thinking only of the possible firestorm of scandal that would smudge her reputation. But when she spoke he grew disappointed in himself yet again.

  “No. I imagine Lady Carmichael would not like to hear such gossip.”

  He had not thought of Rose. Not once.

  “That is a business arrangement. In name only. Rose is aware of what that entails.” Henry drew a calming breath. “If you’ll meet me back at Hartstone—” he started to say, but Irina went to her mount and began untying the mare from the post.

  “I cannot stay,” she said, unable to look at him.

  “We need to talk,” he replied, thinking of the betting book at White’s and the reason he’d come to Essex in the first place.

  “There is nothing to say. Nothing that will change anything. Leave me be,” she said, setting her booted foot in a stirrup and hoisting herself into the saddle. “I must find Max before he alerts Lana or Gray that I’ve gone missing in the Earl of Langlevit’s woods.”

  “It is Remi we must talk about.” He was trying to think of a way to tell her what he knew without mentioning the bets. Or perhaps he should mention them. If she knew the truth about why men kept falling at her feet, making fools of themselves, perhaps she’d be more cautious at society events. Not that the bets were the reason he seemed to keep making a fool of himself. He wished it were as simple as money.

  Irina gritted her teeth and gathered the reins. “Why must I say this yet again? Max is my friend.”

  Henry took her mount’s bridle and stopped her from riding away. “That is what he would have you believe. I have it on good authority, howeve
r, that he has other designs upon you.”

  “Whose good authority is this?”

  “That does not matter.”

  “It does if you expect me to listen.”

  He groaned. There was something off about Lord Remi, and Henry needed her to listen. Needed her to believe him. There could be no skirting around the issue any longer.

  “There are wagers being placed at White’s,” he said. “They involve you.”

  He’d expected a scathing glare or an immediate refusal, but instead Irina broke into a slow smile. And then she laughed.

  “What do you find so humorous?” he asked, still holding tight to her bridle.

  It was as if she’d found his revelation lacking in some way.

  Her laughter calmed. “Nothing, nothing at all. I’m only curious…Max hasn’t wagered anything…has he?”

  Henry curled his fingers tighter around the leather bridle. “You don’t seem surprised in the least to hear that men have been betting on your favors.”

  Because she isn’t, he realized. The hellion. She’d known.

  Irina shifted uneasily in her saddle, the mare trying to prance away from Henry. The animal likely sensed his simmering anger.

  “Oh, stop. The wagers are innocent enough. A stroll in Hyde Park. The first dance at a ball. Why, I think the most scandalous wager I’ve heard of yet involved touching a palm to my lower back while guiding me to the dance floor.”

  Again, she laughed. Henry released the bridle and instantly wished for the neck of that bet’s winner to strangle.

  “Oh, trust me, Princess, there are wagers in that book that are far from innocent, and your dear friend Max is encouraging them. As are you.”

  “He is only having a bit of fun—”

  “Yes, at your expense and at your peril.”