WidowsWickedWish

by Lynne Barron

  “And riskier,” she purred as his cravat gave way to her nimble fingers.

  “There is that,” he agreed on a low groan when she twined her arms around his shoulders and reached up to press her lips to his neck just below his ear. Her tongue game out to taste him, to softly explore.

  “Touch me,” she whispered against his neck.

  Jack cupped her breasts, smiled as she arched into his hands, her nipples hardening against his palms. Gently he squeezed the soft globes, lifted them, pushed them together, while her lips drifted from his neck to his ear. She drew his lobe into her warm mouth, suckled him, lightly nibbled and Jack’s cock twitched in anticipation.

  Olivia’s hands caressed his shoulders and down his chest, pushing his coat open. With a laughing groan, Jack released her breasts to shrug out of the confining garment before pulling her hard against his chest and into his arms. His mouth claimed hers, his tongue driving into her heat, circling, parrying with hers. He dragged his hands down her back to cup her bottom, lifting her hard against his straining cock.

  He rocked against her, his hands kneading her soft, round ass, and Olivia strained onto her toes, rubbing her breasts against his chest, a soft hum vibrating from her lips to his. Jack nibbled her full bottom lip, sucked the soft flesh into his mouth, before releasing it to spear his tongue deep into her warmth. He set up a tempo with his tongue plunging into her mouth, his hands grasping her ass, and his shaft thrusting against her mound.

  He was rock-hard, arousal coursing through his blood, the only thought in his mind to bury his cock in her tight little cunny. He lifted her, his hands firm on her ass, and turned to put her onto the edge of the balustrade. Her legs fell open and he stepped into the space created, holding her steady and dragging his aching shaft along the apex of her thighs.

  “Jack,” she purred against his mouth before her head fell back in invitation.

  Jack wrapped one arm around her back and dragged his lips down the arch of her throat, all the while holding her hard against his pulsing cock, thrusting against her, working his shaft over her clit until she was trembling and panting.

  “Oh, God, please.” Olivia leaned back in his embrace, her hands coming up to tug at the bodice of her gown, to pull it down until her breasts were bared to the night. Jack groaned as he watched her perfect pink nipples harden, begging for his touch.

  He swooped down, sucking one pebbled peak deep into his mouth, scraping his teeth along her flesh. Her hips bucked against him, her legs lifting to wrap around his waist, her ankles locking at the base of his spine. She twined her arms around his neck and leaned farther back, the motion pushing her mound harder against his cock. She undulated against him, her hips swiveling and twisting, rubbing against his shaft to the rhythm of his mouth on her breast.

  It occurred to Jack that his passionate Olivia was on the brink of orgasm, that he could make her come with only his mouth on her breast and his cock riding her clit. But he wanted, needed to feel her hot quim clench around him.

  “Release my cock,” he growled against her breast before abandoning her nipple to take the other between his lips, to swirl his tongue around the burgeoning bud, to nibble, to suck her flesh deep into his mouth.

  Olivia fumbled between their bodies, pulling her skirts up to bunch at her waist before attacking the buttons of his breeches, her fingers clumsily nudging and bumping along his rigid length until he thought he might go mad with the need to be inside her.

  He felt the night air on his shaft a moment before she took him in her hand, gripping him firmly at the base, her fingers squeezing and milking as she trailed the fat head through her curls to the tight bud beneath. She stopped there, twirled the tip of his cock around her clit, a fractured moan tumbling from her lips.

  Tilting her hips up, she dragged the engorged head to the opening of her body.

  With one last strong pull of his mouth, Jack released her nipple and raced his lips over her neck, along her jaw, to her lips. He clamped his mouth over hers as he nudged his hips forward, barely penetrating her.

  “Fill me,” Olivia whispered into his mouth.

  Jack tightened his arm around her back, flexed the fingers against the silk covering her delectable ass, and thrust into her waiting heat.

  “Oh, Jack, yes,” she cried, tearing her mouth from his, arching her neck back, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her fingers clawing at his back.

  He buried his cock fully within her tight quim. Immediately he felt the first tremors of her release, her moist wet flesh quivering along the length of his shaft.

  “God, your cock,” she moaned into the night as her legs tightened around him, pulling him hard against her. “Fill me with your cock, oh Jack.”

  “Christ, Livy,” Jack growled against her neck.

  He rocked against her, withdrawing an inch, two, before delving deep once more, grinding himself between her splayed thighs with each jabbing thrust, giving her his entire pulsing length and the hard pressure she craved against her clit.

  His orgasm took him by surprise, so quickly was it upon him. Olivia let out a long, guttural growl, her inner walls clenching around his shaft just as his balls tightened in exquisite agony and he spilled into her pulsating cunny.

  “So big, so hard,” she chanted, her nails scourging his back through waistcoat and shirt as he pumped wildly into her squeezing, clasping sheath.

  Jack buried his face in the juncture of her shoulder, his breath sawing in and out of his open mouth, her fingers rhythmically clenching and relaxing against his back, her legs trembling around his waist. They stayed that way, his cock still buried deep in her gently spasming cunny, one of his hands flexing against her ass, the other spread between her shoulder blades, holding her tight to him.

  When his breathing slowed to soft panting breaths, Jack lifted his head to find Olivia looking back at him through dazed eyes.

  “Don’t let me go,” she murmured with a wispy laugh, her fingers tightening on his back.

  It was then that Jack realized that Olivia was dangling over the wall, her pretty little derriere perched precariously on the edge.

  Jack huffed out a shocked laugh, dragged her off the stone banister and against his chest. With his arms wrapped around her back and her legs entwined around his waist, Jack spun in a slow circle, pulling a tinkling giggle from Olivia as the night sky flew past them. Again and again he twirled her about, until he was dizzy with the motion, dizzy with the wonder of the woman in his arms, dizzy with the myriad possibilities for their future.

  Chapter Twenty

  Olivia blinked against the bright candlelight as she stepped into the ballroom with Jack at her side. The room was buzzing with noise, laughter and conversation rising over the string quartet that played in one corner. She felt disoriented and lightheaded returning to her cousin’s ball after the passionate interlude atop the tall tower.

  And wonderfully sated and drowsy.

  “I’d like to find a bed,” she whispered to the man who’d plundered her cunny with his cock, nearly toppling her from the tower.

  “You are insatiable,” Jack whispered back, his voice raspy.

  “In which to sleep,” she replied around a huff of laughter.

  “Don’t tell me I wore you out.”

  “Quite, Mr. Bentley.”

  “You’d best find a quiet place to rest. I’m not finished with you for the night.”

  “And you name me insatiable.”

  Jack barked out a laugh that caused heads to turn. Olivia raised her chin and glided around the dance floor, ignoring the pointed looks sent their way. They might speculate, but they didn’t know, she reminded herself. And even if they did, she did not care. She was London’s Daring Darling.

  She smiled at the thought.

  “Keep smiling like that and everyone will suspect I’ve swived you silly,” Jack said with a grin.

  “And if they do?” she asked with an arch of her brow.

  “I don’t want to ruin your reputat
ion,” he replied promptly.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m a widow. Suspicion alone won’t ruin my reputation. They suspect every young widow of rogering her footmen,” she answered with a wave of her hand. “You’d have to kiss me silly in front of the queen, or a duchess at the least. Or announce to all and sundry that you’ve had your wicked way with me.”

  “Would a duke do?” he asked with a nod across the room.

  Olivia followed the gesture to find the Duke of Ridgeway napping in a high-backed chair beside the cold hearth, his pretty grandson standing watch over him.

  “His Grace isn’t one to gossip,” she answered. “But if said duke was accompanied by a few of the tabbies, he’d have to demand satisfaction. His honor would demand it.”

  “I can’t see the Duke of Ridgeway challenging me to a duel,” Jack replied doubtfully.

  “Not that sort of satisfaction,” she replied with a giggle.

  “There you are.”

  Olivia spun around at the whispered words.

  “Lady Piedmont,” Jack greeted with a slight nod. “Lady Palmerton, would you care for a glass of champagne?”

  “Why thank you, Mr. Bentley,” Olivia replied with exaggerated courtesy.

  “Where on earth have you been?” Alice asked, her eyes on Jack’s retreating back. “Never mind. Father has been looking for you.”

  “Uncle Robert? Whatever for?” Olivia asked in surprise. “I saw him not an hour ago. I even let him push me around the dance floor.”

  “I’ve no idea. But I’m guessing it has something to do with your handsome friend.” She nodded to Jack who’d stopped to allow three young ladies to pass in front of him. “Your mother was filling Father’s ears with her usual vitriol when she arrived.”

  “I’m really not in the proper frame of mind to listen to one of your father’s halfhearted lectures,” Olivia replied.

  “Best to just get it over with,” Alice said, her gaze lifting over Olivia’s shoulder. “You’ve no choice in the matter anyway. Here he comes.”

  Olivia turned to watch her uncle plow his way through the matrons gathered around the refreshment table, his barrel chest heaving and his blue eyes bulging.

  “She’s worked him into quite a lather,” Alice drawled. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

  “Uncle Robert,” Olivia greeted the man who’d been a second father to her all her life.

  “By God, there are too many blasted people here,” he barked at his daughter. “I’ll not be hosting this ball next year if you don’t limit the number of invitations.”

  “The invitations are sold, Father, and for a good cause, one that was dear to Mother’s heart,” Alice replied.

  “Bah, you only bring up your mother to put me in my place,” the Earl of Somerton groused.

  “Is it working?” his daughter asked with a cheeky grin.

  “None of that, girl. Go bedevil your husband and allow me a moment with my niece.”

  “Yes, Father,” Alice replied before spinning about and wandering away in the opposite direction from where her husband stood with his cronies.

  “You wanted to see me?” Olivia asked, her eyes finding Jack who’d been waylaid by an older man with steel-gray hair and a pretty lady dressed in yards of flowing pink silk that should have clashed with her pale-red hair but didn’t.

  “Quit making eyes at that young pup and come with me,” Uncle Robert demanded in a whisper loud enough to turn a few heads.

  Olivia dutifully followed her uncle from the ballroom, immeasurably grateful to leave the swirling crowd and noise behind.

  “Close the door, that’s a good girl,” the Earl of Somerton muttered when they’d entered his study, a room Olivia had always liked.

  “This is my favorite room in the house,” she said as she watched him march to the row of decanters on the sideboard.

  “It’s the only room in the house I enjoy,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Your aunt turned the rest of them into women’s rooms, all spindly furniture and pastel walls. Wine?”

  “Thank you.” Olivia lowered herself into a soft leather chair and kicked off her silver slippers.

  “You’re to look properly chastised when you leave this room,” Uncle Robert said, handing her a glass of deep red wine.

  “What precisely will I have been chastised for?” The wine was good, rich and bold, and slid over her tongue and down her throat, warming her right down to her stockinged toes.

  “The miner’s son,” he answered as he dropped his bulk into the chair behind his desk.

  “Jack Bentley is more than a miner’s son,” Olivia responded. “He is actually a miner himself. He and his father own the Sedgefield Mining Company together.”

  Robert waved one blunt-fingered hand in the air. “Your mother’s taken it into her head that you’re to marry Ridgeway’s grandson. What’s his name?”

  “Belmont,” Olivia supplied. “Have you not met him?”

  “How would I know? There are too many bloody people in my house.”

  “You can’t miss him,” Olivia replied. “He’s the too-pretty boy who follows the duke around like a shadow.”

  “Boy?” Uncle Robert barked.

  “He’s yet to reach his majority, or his full height for that matter,” she assured him.

  The Earl groaned before downing his whiskey in one loud gulp.

  “I have no intention of marrying Belmont,” Olivia said.

  “Of course not,” her uncle agreed. “But you can’t marry the miner.”

  “Actually, I could,” Olivia replied. “I am a grown woman, independent and in control of both my finances and my future.”

  “The Earl of Palmerton cannot have a commoner for his stepfather,” Uncle Robert argued with what she knew was meant to be a reasonable, even apologetic tone to his words.

  “I don’t see why not,” Olivia answered. “The Countess of Singleton, my cousin, married Mr. Simms last year and that worthy gentleman is now stepfather to the young earl.”

  “The Singleton earldom was only trumped up two generations back as a reward for services rendered to the crown,” he pointed out.

  “We could argue the point until dawn, Uncle, but truly there is no need. I have no intention of marrying Mr. Bentley.” Olivia ignored the pang she felt in the vicinity of her heart as she uttered the words.

  “No?”

  “I don’t intend to marry any man.”

  “Bah, you’re young and only just out of mourning,” her Uncle replied. “In time you’ll change your mind.”

  “No, I will not,” Olivia said with as much patience as she could muster. “Mother will simply have to accept the fact that her only daughter intends to remain a widow forever.”

  “I won’t be the one to tell Lydia that,” Robert grumbled.

  “There is no need for you to tell Mother. I’ve told her. Repeatedly. I imagine I will go on telling her until I am old and gray and she finally gives up.”

  “You know what she’s like when she gets a bee in her bonnet.”

  “I do.”

  “You’d best tread carefully,” he cautioned. “Don’t allow yourself to be locked in a room with the boy.”

  Olivia laughed at the notion. “I doubt very much Belmont would know what to do if he found himself alone with me.”

  “Still,” he mumbled before falling silent, his gaze drifting over her face, and a fond smile pulling at his lips.

  “Simon tells me you’ve attempted to have Dr. Nelson examine Mother,” she said into the silence.

  “She won’t see him,” Uncle Robert replied.

  “She’s been acting peculiar,” Olivia said.

  “Your mother has been acting peculiar for most of her life.”

  “Do you know a lady by the name of Connie?”

  “Connie? Where on earth did you hear that name?” he asked in surprise.

  “Mother was talking about her, about some scandal with a handsome seducer of innocent ladies,” Olivia explained. “Who is the
lady?”

  “Your mother had a friend by that name years ago. I don’t remember her full name,” he replied. “She was a pretty little thing who’d only just come out when Lydia took it into her head to befriend her. She used to do that sort of thing. Choose some shy young miss to usher through the pitfalls of a first Season.”

  “Mother did?” she asked in some surprise.

  “I always wondered if she didn’t feel a bit of pity for the quiet ones, the ones who were pretty enough but unused to the ways of Town.”

  “And this Connie was one of them?”

  “The last one that I can remember. It must have been twenty years ago now. They had some sort of falling out and Lydia stopped taking the angels under her wing.”

  “Angels?”

  Robert came to his feet with a grunt, his hands resting on his desk. “That’s what we called them, your father, your Uncle William and me. Oh, and Mountjoy. We called them Lydia’s angels. We used to place wagers at the beginning of the Season as to which of the ladies would take her fancy. It seems to me Mountjoy won the pot that year.”

  “What happened to this Connie?” Olivia asked.

  “I’ve no idea. She likely went back to whatever country estate her father owned and married a baronet or some such.”

  Knowing the conversation had come to a close, Olivia rose to her feet. “Might you top up my glass before I brave the hordes once more?”

  “Right you are,” her uncle said before proceeding to fill her glass nearly to the rim and replenishing his own. He turned back to her with a smile. “You were a good girl, Olivia, and an exemplary wife, considering what you had to work with. No one will begrudge you if you’d like to have a bit of fun now. Mind you just don’t get caught up in any real mischief.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Robert,” Olivia whispered as she rose up to kiss his cheek.

  “Off with you, girl.” He shooed her from his study, his gaze lingering fondly on her as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Well?” Alice sat in a spindly chair in the hall, her skirts hiked up to her knees. She massaged one foot while she stretched out the other, wiggling her stocking-clad toes. Elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen milled about the space.