Wicked Deception

by Carole Mortimer

  “That is none of your concern,” she answered him icily.

  “Everything to do with the Carlton name is my concern,” he stated harshly, hands clenched at his sides as he stepped away from the window. “Of which you are a family member.”

  “Something you would rather forget,” she taunted.

  Maxim’s eyes narrowed. “I assure you that has proven impossible these past five years. And I doubt there is a single man alive who could ever forget seeing you clothed in that scandalous fashion.” He scowled.

  Her chin rose even higher. “Is that the reason you are so obviously aroused?” Her gaze focused contemptuously on the bulge in his own pantaloons.

  Maxim felt the angry color rise in his cheeks. “I defy any man, of any age, not to become aroused when your ass and pussy are so clearly outlined for his enjoyment.”

  A flush of temper darkened Heather’s cheeks at his crudeness. “Any other man may enjoy it, if they so choose!”

  “But not me?”

  “No.”

  A nerve pulsed in his jaw. “Where have you been?” he demanded again.

  “I told you, that is none of your business.”

  “I am making it so.”

  “Do I have the same right to ask as to your own nocturnal movements?”

  “That is not necessary when I have been right here all night.”

  She eyed him scathingly. “I was referring to nights other than this one. I am sure there are many women in the area who would be happy to resume your acquaintance.”

  Maxim’s mouth thinned. “There are no acquaintances to resume.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Have you never heard the saying ‘one does not fuck where one lives’?”

  Her brows rose as he continued to use that crude language, no doubt meaning to shock her. “I do not believe that is the true saying. Nor do I remember that being the case six years ago.”

  “And look where that got me,” he snapped. “I returned to Cornwall to find my lover married to my own father!”

  Heather smiled contemptuously. “Then perhaps you should not have dallied so long in London enjoying yourself before returning.”

  Dallied? Maxim had not dallied anywhere six years ago, nor had he been enjoying himself. Instead, he had been incarcerated in a French prison, consumed with fever, his wounds festering from continuous ill treatment and torture.

  His mission at the time had been to infiltrate a French fort and learn the extent of their firepower before the English army attacked. Unfortunately, he had been discovered by two of the sentries before he could do that and been forced to fight for his life. He had kept his life but been severely wounded by a sword in the process.

  As a valued agent of the English Crown, he had quickly been transported out of the fort to a prison on the French coast where he had suffered long days and nights of interrogation by men not only conversant in the art of torture, but ones who also enjoyed their work a little too much.

  Weeks, and then months went by before Maxim was rescued, not by the English army, but by the rest of The Sinners. Those seven gentlemen had been searching for him all the months he had been missing. Finally learning of his whereabouts, they had immediately set out to free him, and killed his torturers before transporting him back to England.

  Even so, Maxim still occasionally woke in the night, his body covered in sweat, heart palpitating as he relived in his dreams those months of tortuous captivity.

  None of which he was able to share with anyone but the other Sinners.

  Not even with the young woman he had hoped would be waiting in Cornwall for his return.

  Which her marriage to his father only months after he had left her meant she clearly had not.

  “Why did you marry my father?” he prompted harshly. “Were you so set on becoming a countess that you married a man old enough to be your own father to achieve your goal?”

  The color had drained from Heather’s cheeks. “James was exceedingly kind to me.”

  “Kindness is not a basis for marriage!”

  Her chin rose. “In this case, it was.”

  “And how did you enjoy fucking a man thirty years your senior?” Maxim scorned. “Did he have the stamina to arouse and pleasure you as fully as I always did?” The bitter words were now tumbling from his lips unchecked and unfiltered.

  The pupils of Heather’s eyes had grown so large, there was only a faint ring of green about the black. “It is your own father you are talking about in this disgusting manner.” Her voice shook with emotion.

  “I am well aware of whom I am speaking, madam.”

  Heather shook her head. “I refuse to talk of James or my marriage with you, of all people.”

  Me of all people.

  Maxim drew in a deep and controlling breath, knowing there was nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation. “I will ask only once more,” he bit out tautly. “Where have you been tonight?” Even learning Heather had been aiding in the smuggling so rife in the area would be preferable to knowing she had been out to meet with a French spy to pass along treasonous information.

  “Perhaps you should consider that I could have been visiting my lover,” she came back challengingly.

  This third possibility sent an icy chill down the length of Maxim’s spine. “Who is he?”

  Her mouth thinned. “None of your concern.”

  Maxim’s control had already taken enough of a beating for one night. First by the realization Heather had slipped from the house unnoticed by him, after he had waited for hours by his window. He’d finally given up the vigil to come to her bedchamber to see if Heather had left the house unseen by him. The empty bedchamber confirmed she had. The hours that followed the discovery had dragged by as Maxim waited in the bedchamber for her return. Now she dared challenge him with a lover she refused to name.

  Not that there were many men to choose from in the area. The local vicar was a man of sixty or more and married with half a dozen children. The local squire was of a similar age, but had a preference for the company of young men. Maxim did not know the local doctor, that gentleman being new to the area. Although he believed he was also married with children. Any other landowner of worth in the area was either exceedingly young or exceedingly old.

  Unless Heather had returned to her hoydenish ways and preferred the rougher company of either the blacksmith or one of Maxim’s own estate workers?

  The thought of it being the latter, of him actually paying the other man’s wage so he could service the dowager duchess, filled Maxim with rage.

  “What are you doing?” Heather took a step back as Maxim strode determinedly toward her, her spine now pressed against the door behind her. “Maxim…?”

  A humorless smile curved his lips as he came to a halt in front of her. He reached out and removed the cap from her head, releasing her hair in a loose tumble of red-brown curls down her spine before throwing the cap aside and tightly grasping the tops of her arms. “If there really is a lover, then you will dispense with his attentions forthwith,” he rasped.

  Her eyes flashed her anger. “Why should I?”

  “Because if you have need of a lover, I am more than willing to offer my own services.”

  She glared her outrage, aware of every word and nuance of Maxim’s insult. “I am already serviced well enough, thank you.”

  “Indeed?” he taunted. “Let’s put that to the test, shall we?”

  “What—” Heather’s words were cut off as Maxim’s head swooped and his mouth claimed hers.

  Chapter 4

  A sensual mouth and a kiss Heather had no defenses against after their bitter exchange of words.

  Despite her challenging claim of having a lover, in reality, it had been a long time since anyone had so much as kissed Heather on the lips. Or since she had felt the wildness and heat of passion that now claimed her body, causing her nipples to engorge and harden, and the lips between her thighs to flower and dampen.

&nb
sp; She gave a low groan as Maxim’s tongue breached her lips to become entangled along the length of her own, igniting sparks of pleasure even as he slipped the jerkin from her shoulders and down her arms before allowing it to fall to the carpeted floor. He made no effort to unfasten her shirt but instead gripped it at the collar and ripped the front effortlessly apart from throat to navel, baring her breasts and abdomen.

  Heather pulled back with a gasp, her protest at such rough treatment dying in her throat when she saw the raw desire blazing in Maxim’s eyes as he looked at her bared breasts.

  Color blazed in her cheeks at the knowledge her breasts were far larger than they had been six years ago. Bigger and fuller, the nipples colored a deep rose.

  Maxim’s hands moved to cup beneath each of those breasts. His skin was so much darker than her creamy mounds, his hands large enough to take that fullness in his palms. The soft pads of his thumbs stroked across the turgid nipples, causing Heather to gasp anew as pleasure shot down the length of her spine and burned hotly between her thighs.

  He glanced up at her. “Did you have a wet nurse or feed Ralph yourself?”

  She swallowed. “I fed him.” Her milk had been so plentiful, it had been painful for her not to do so.

  “Did you enjoy having your babe suck on these?” Maxim pinched her nipples between fingers and thumb. “Pulling and sucking as he gorged himself on your milk?”

  The weakness of her knees had absolutely nothing to do with thoughts of breastfeeding Ralph but all and everything that was Maxim. The memories of him sucking on her breasts as he pleasured her with his mouth and hands. The squeeze and pull on her nipples as the juices flowed between her swollen nether lips.

  “Answer me!” he bit out harshly.

  She gave a shake of her head. “It is not the same. I was giving my baby life—”

  “Whereas I intend to give you pleasure.” Maxim gave a hard, relentless grin as he lowered his face until it was on a level with her breasts. “As I recall, you always came the first time from nipple stimulation alone.”

  This was wrong, so very wrong, and yet Heather had no will to stop Maxim as his open lips claimed and sucked one of her sensitive nipples into the moist heat of his mouth. Her eyes closed, back arching, pushing her breasts forward, as the fingers and thumb of his other hand squeezed and tweaked its twin in the same rhythm as he sucked and laved the turgid flesh with his merciless tongue.

  It was as if those six years apart had never happened, as Heather’s body responded to the only master it had ever known, consuming her as familiar and overwhelming desire rose within her. Her breathing turned into sobs, and the undulating of her thighs were pleas for release as the pleasure deepened and then finally broke, sending her hurtling into an ecstasy of release that almost brought her to her knees.

  She could no longer breathe or think. She had no strength or will to protest when Maxim unfastened her breeches and pulled them far enough down her thighs to allow him access. His fingers parted her dark curls and stroked her swollen and wet nether lips. Two of those fingers entered and then thrust into her still-pulsing channel. The rasp of his tongue against her swollen and sensitive nipples sending her over the edge into another climax, even deeper than the first.

  Heather fluttered her lids open as Maxim straightened in front of her.

  “Whoever your lover is, he obviously cannot be satisfying your specific needs if you can still respond so readily to me minutes after leaving his arms,” Maxim stated with satisfaction as he stepped back.

  His expression was one of triumph as his gaze swept over her debauched and satisfied body in the ripped shirt and her breeches about her knees, bringing about a painful and humiliating return to reality for Heather.

  She lowered her lids as hot tears stung her eyes, blinking rapidly to prevent them from falling. She would not cry in front of this man. Would never allow Maxim to see or know the pain he had caused her, in the past and now.

  She pulled up and refastened her breeches before pulling the two ripped sides of her shirt together over her breasts. “I assure you he satisfies me well enough.” The fact the only lover she currently had was her own caressing fingers, and then only rarely, was none of Maxim’s concern. “And at least I can rely upon him to be there to give me what I need when I need it,” she added challengingly.

  His jaw tightened at the deliberate taunt. “I am here now to give you what you need, whenever you need it.”

  She tossed the long length of her hair back over her shoulder. “And if I do not care to once again put myself at the mercy of your whims and fancies?”

  Maxim could still feel the softness of Heather’s breasts in his hands, her cum still dampening his fingers. It made her obdurate attitude toward him now doubly infuriating. “Do not force me into reminding you that you and your son owe your current comfortable existence to me.”

  She eyed him contemptuously. “I believe you just did.”

  Yes, he had, and Maxim had regretted it the moment the words left his lips. He was not this man. He did not use emotional or any other form of blackmail in order to force a woman into his bed. Except Heather was not just any woman. And when he was with her, it seemed he became a man he barely recognized.

  “You have been allowed to run wild for far too long, and it is time that wildness stopped,” he stated flatly.

  “And how do you intend to bring that about?” she scorned. “By pushing me up against any convenient door or wall and mauling me whenever you feel like it?”

  “Your climax just now, not once but twice, shows how much you enjoyed my mauling,” he bit out.

  Her cheeks suffused with color. “What an arrogant bastard you still are!”

  He made no attempt to deny it. “I also intend for the two of us to travel to your parents’ home later on this morning to collect Ralph and bring him home.”

  Heather’s throat moved as she swallowed. “He has barely spent any time with them. Besides, I do not think it would be good for him to be brought back into a house that is so charged with the tension between the two of us.”

  “If there is tension between us, then it is of your own making, not mine,” Maxim assured her. “Make sure you are appropriately dressed and ready to travel at eleven o’clock this morning.” He grasped her arms and moved her gently to one side before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. He closed that door behind him before releasing his breath in a shuddering sigh.

  He had not known quite what to expect as he took his time traveling to his estate in Cornwall this past week. He had known there would be tension between himself and Heather, of course. His own investigation into whether or not Heather was a spy for the French made it impossible for there not to be tension on his part, at least.

  He had also known there was an unconcluded desire between the two of them. Again, on his part. But he had believed Heather’s marriage to his father to have meant her own desire for him no longer existed. Her ready and explosive response to his lovemaking just now had proven otherwise. Even if, as was obvious, it was a desire she despised to recognize in herself.

  Maxim could not accept her story of having spent the night with a lover. Heather had always been wild and a little reckless, but she had never been promiscuous, having been a virgin the first time the two of them made love together. If she really had spent part of the night with her lover, Maxim did not believe she would have allowed him to touch her in the intimate way he had.

  Which meant she had either spent that time smuggling with her brothers or meeting her French counterpart. But not in Treganon Cove; otherwise, Maxim would have seen her descent into the cove and the arrival of the ship. Which meant there might be illegal contraband stored somewhere else in the area. If so, it was his duty to go in search of it.

  Despite the desire he felt for Heather, Maxim would not fail in his mission to find out exactly what the mistress of Treganon House was up to, as he had not failed in any of his missions since that ill-fated one six years ago.

>   “You have insisted upon this journey, but there really is no need for you to accompany me,” Heather told Maxim waspishly as he assisted her into the Carlton carriage. Her parents would be no happier to see Maxim again than her brothers had been last night to learn of his presence in Cornwall.

  As a child and then a young man, Maxim had been welcomed into Heather’s family home as a friend of her brothers, his then title of lord having no bearing on that friendship. But many years had passed since there had been that ease of welcome for Maxim by her parents into their home. None of her family could ever forget or forgive the callous way he had used her and broken her heart six years ago.

  Including Heather.

  Maxim shrugged broad shoulders beneath the dark blue superfine he wore over a silver waistcoat and snow-white linen, a complicated neckcloth arranged at his throat, his muscular legs encased in gray pantaloons and black leather Hessians. “I will need to see and speak with your father while I am here anyway, so this morning will do as well as any other.”

  Knowing Maxim was a friend of the Prince Regent, Heather could easily guess the reason he needed to speak to her father. “I am so pleased I am able to accommodate your own plans,” she told him with a false and sugary sweetness.

  He gave an appreciative smile. “Somehow, I doubt that very much.”

  Heather relaxed back against the plushness of the seat to turn and stare out the window at the rugged coastline, hoping Maxim would take that as an end to the subject. It would take an hour or more to reach her parents’ home, and she did not intend to make conversation with Maxim for the whole of the journey. He had a habit of asking questions she would rather not answer.

  It had been difficult enough facing him again in time for this carriage ride after the events of earlier this morning.

  It galled Heather immensely that she still responded so readily to Maxim. She should hate and despise him, and perhaps she did, but her body was still as attuned to his as it had been six years ago. Even now, much as she wished it were not the case, she was still aware of Maxim’s effect upon her and the shattering climaxes that had resulted from the caress of his hands and fingers.