Lennox lifted her skirts and kissed her knees, first the right, and then the left.
Mortified at the sudden exposure of her stockings and legs, Chloris’s hand went to her throat. “This is so untoward.”
Then her limbs tingled and heat pulsed through her.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, looking up at her, eyes luminous, “allow yourself to be taken by the spell.”
It took a moment, for she was captured by the sight of him, but she did as he said. As soon as her eyes were closed she heard him chant again. Her skin tingled. Her head dropped back, her hair tumbling loose over her shoulders.
“What do you feel?”
Chloris struggled to find the right words. “A surge, as if something is rising up inside me.”
Lennox pressed his mouth to her belly through her skirts.
Like a rising tide inside her, she felt gloriously vital. She drew a deep breath and lifted her arms, twining her fingers together over her head.
“Oh, yes, you are like a young sapling reaching for the sky.” He rose, but as he did, he embraced her around the waist with both hands and bent to kiss the swell of her breasts at the edge of her gown.
Her eyes flashed open. Her breasts swelled against the confines of her corset and bodice, nipples chaffing. She trembled with the immense rush of sensation within her.
He stood before her, watching her. “I must kiss your mouth to complete the ritual, do I have your permission?”
The twinkle in his eyes made her pause. Struggling to make sense of myriad sensations she felt, and doubting the need for the kiss, she was about to query him. Then she looked at his mouth—so handsome, so lush and firm—and she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to know what it would be like.
Her head tipped back as she offered her mouth to him.
When his lips touched hers she froze, suddenly afraid, but he held her to him with one hand against the small of her back. Am I doing this because of his magic? she thought vaguely, but the question wisped away on the spring breeze he had conjured.
His mouth was firm and warm and persuasive.
Closing her eyes, she let it happen, too aroused to think clearly and too entranced to refuse herself this. When she melted and moved against him, his kiss became more provocative. He parted her lips with his. Exploring her, he kissed her mouth until her body arched against his, and then he demanded more by thrusting his tongue between her parting lips. The action was so suggestive that she tingled wildly at her center, the heat between her thighs building by the moment.
Pressed body to body, she responded by grasping his shoulders, and as she did, a hidden part of her blossomed inside. She gasped against his mouth as the strange feeling grew, becoming intense, and she felt dizzy with pleasure. Her entire body vibrated with the need for more. Her intimate flesh grew damper by the moment, her breasts aching for contact.
Lennox drew back, but kept his hands locked around her waist.
Chloris was glad he anchored her that way, for she felt as if she might swoon. Her body truly had warmed and blossomed after his strange actions, but the state it left her in was no easy burden. “You have made me...”
She inhaled deeply, but that only seemed to increase her agitated state.
He cocked his head to one side, a predatory smile on his lips.
Had he done that on purpose? Frustration and objection swelled in her. “You have put me in a state of...need.”
His hands roved lower, around the curve of her hips. “I warned you, did I not?”
“I did not know it would be like this.” It was the strangest experience, for his proximity alone had stimulated her before the intimate contact. Her breathing was increasingly constricted and she felt dizzy, as if her garments were too tightly laced.
“You have not felt this way before?”
There was no doubt he was being provocative. She pressed her lips together.
“It will pass, try to breathe steadily.” His actions contradicted his soothing words, for he drew her in against him, resting her head against his chest, which only made her situation worse.
It was akin to being embraced, and the hard bulk of his chest beneath his shirt only served to convey the kind of masculine virility that could slake her current needs. What had he done to her with his magic? Surely, if he had put her in this state, he could end it? Touching her forehead with one hand, she looked up and gave him a pleading glance. “Please, can you help me?”
With a nod he bent and lifted her in his arms and took her to the bed. Being held that way—totally enclosed and easily carried in his strong arms—only made her state worsen. Before she had a chance to object, he bent over her and began to loose the ribbons on her bodice, deftly untying them and tugging them open. Astonished, Chloris tried to stop him. “Please, sire, no.”
Arching an eyebrow, he gave her an amused glance. “Hush, you are in danger of fainting, I am only assisting.”
He wore a dark smile, though, a smile that only seemed to confirm his ability to seduce her.
Chloris whimpered. Then his hand brushed the swell of her bosom and, as her bodice was loosed, made fleeting contact with her left breast. “Oh, lord, you are making it worse.”
He leaned right over her and captured her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze.
Chloris stared up at him, taking in the self-assured look in his eyes. He knew the effect he was having on her, and he was about to kiss her.
Her lips parted.
With a sigh of admiration, he brushed his fingers over the swell of her breasts again and then ducked his head and rested a kiss in her cleavage.
The contact made her melt into the bed. Her emotions soared. Never before had she been touched with such persuasive hands. Torn, she knew she should feel this was wrong, allowing this man so close to her bed. But it didn’t feel wrong, it felt good, and she wanted more. Have I lost my sense of reason?
“You are most desirable. Perhaps I should not confess this, Mistress Chloris, but you have made me crave a taste of you.” Mischief glinted in his eyes, the candlelight picking it up as he turned his head.
She shook her head.
“Why do you fight it?” He breathed against her collarbone as he rested a kiss there. “This is what you wanted, to be a woman who is fecund and rich in possibility.”
His words were so suggestive, so flagrantly outrageous. Yet it made her entire body throb in response.
“You are all of that and more.” Whispering the words close against her ear, he captured the lobe between his teeth and tugged at it gently. “What man could resist?”
“But I...”
“Don’t fight it. This is what you came to me for.”
Was it? She wasn’t sure anymore. He was a wild one, living by his own rules. Why did that intrigue her so?
Brusquely, he undid the remaining ribbons on her bodice, and then tugged her shift down, exposing her nipples where they rose up and breached the top of her corset. Unruly fire built in his eyes as he looked down at her.
He ran his thumb over her peaked nipple. “Take your pleasure from my touch, it will serve to bed down the magic of the ritual.”
He lowered his head and kissed her nipple. It was gentle, barely a breath of a touch, but it drew the heat inside her up and to him, linking them together somehow, swelling the vitality inside her.
Even in the peculiar heated state she found herself in—adrift on the sensations he introduced into her—she tensed in his grip. Decorum forced her reaction. She was shocked at his intimacy. She drew back. “Master Lennox, please...”
Don’t.
Please don’t. That’s what she had intended to say, but she stumbled on the words.
He swooped, kissed her other nipple, this time fiercely.
“Please, Master Lennox, I cannot bear it.”
He lifted his head, but his expression had turned serious. “I cannot help but wonder at this,” he said gruffly, and she realized his whole body was tense with withheld pass
ion.
She stared at him, unable to believe that this man wanted her. It was there in his eyes, though, in every touch and action. “Wonder?”
He sat alongside her on the edge of her bed. “This, it seems so unnecessary, for you are a desirable woman, Mistress Chloris. As lush as a ripe fruit and just as tempting.”
The man was every bit the seducer Jean had suggested, and Chloris leveled her gaze at him, battling to control her senses, for they were driven wild by him.
“I do not sense that you are barren,” he added.
Reference to her malady made her emotions tumble. “It is almost certain. I have seen a physician in Edinburgh, the best of his profession. But you’re attempting to distract me from what just occurred.”
His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps it is your husband who is barren.”
“No.” She shook her head. His comments did nothing to quell the tension she felt.
“If you were to take a lover, it would prove the matter,” he added.
Chloris expected to find mischief in his eyes, but his expression was quite serious. She sighed. “How convenient to have a man in my bed, should I feel your suggestion was appropriate.”
That made him smile. “I take it you do not have a lover, or have you?”
“No.” It was a suggestion she’d heard many times before, though, from her friends and acquaintances in Edinburgh. She’d even been offered the opportunity of an introduction to a suitable man who would be willing to undertake the task. “If I were to take a lover...I would not do it to prove my husband was at fault. I am loyal to Gavin. That’s why I...” She beseeched him, searching his eyes for understanding.
His eyebrows gathered. “Loyal, through love?”
Duty.
His question was too much, worse than the intimate touch, the heated kiss. She forced herself to nod and then turned away. “I fear I am and always will be a failure to my husband.”
Leaning closer, he stroked her hair back from her forehead with a tender touch. “Is that what burdens you so?”
Why was it she was compelled to share her thoughts with him, to be honest about things she had never told anyone? “It disappoints me greatly, I cannot deny it.” She pursed her lips a moment. “I am, however, not prone to melodrama over such things.”
Once again, he smiled. “But you do carry a secret burden, something you have shared with no one, not friends or kin.”
Tensing, she shook her head.
“I sense it in you. If you tell me what it is, I will be more able to help you.” There was a firm, commanding tone to his voice.
“You’re my last chance.”
“And we have made progress. It is that important to you?”
“Would I have put myself at risk with a stranger if that were not the case?” She turned her face away.
“What is it?” Grasping her by the chin he forced her to meet his gaze.
Chloris felt something turn in her chest and her will to keep her private matters private weakened. “I must fall pregnant with my husband’s heir.”
He cocked his head as if waiting for her to say more. Expecting it.
The truth knotted in her chest, but the dark secret she carried—that which filled her with shame—was being drawn out as surely as if he had it harnessed by a thread of magic and tugged gently, drawing from her.
Her lips parted, but she said it unwillingly. “I fear my life depends on it.”
CHAPTER SIX
My life depends on it? Lennox studied the woman, attempting to read the turmoil he saw there at the back of her eyes.
Prior to that moment of confession she was all but ready to surrender herself to him completely—and he was more than ready to lose himself between her soft thighs. His intentions, at first, had been almost wholly selfish. There was a twisted pleasure in entering Tamhas Keavey’s house while he slumbered unaware. There was also great pleasure in dallying with his cousin. Her tender beauty called to him. She would be soft and supple beneath him, and he craved the clasp of her body on his hardened cock as he entered her. During the ritual she had responded so readily, and that only increased his desire.
How sweet it was to enjoy her, with the certain knowledge that Keavey would be horrified when the tale came out. The nature of the situation had changed, however. She’d drawn back a curtain and showed him her secret fears. An instinctive need to know more came over him. He regretted the interruption, but there were times when discovering the truth overwhelmed his cause. It was because he hated to see fear in a woman’s eyes. Desire was good. Fear was not. It was always the way because of what he’d seen happen to his own womenfolk, as a youth.
“Your life?” he queried.
Her eyelids remained lowered, the patches of color on her cheeks high. “I should not have said that.”
The tug of resistance was more than he would expect in a well-to-do woman who had lowered herself to seek help of the local witches. There were the basic fears—that they would be discovered together, that she would be mocked by her hosts for indulging her whims with the demonic Witch Master. Beyond that there was a deep fear, something that had forced her footsteps to his door. She wanted a child, and yet that wasn’t the only thing pushing her footsteps on. The need in her was something far deeper, rooted in obligation and mired in a situation from which she felt she had no escape.
“Come now.” He stroked her face, urging her to tell him more. There were so many intriguing things about this woman. She was a wellborn lady, and yet she was suggesting that she had suffered. “You have said it, and you have lowered a barrier between us.”
“Please.” She looked at him from under her lashes. “My comment was overly dramatic in the heat of the moment.” She swallowed. “I meant only that my husband would be so much happier if I were to have a child.”
Lennox took a lingering glance at her breasts, so voluptuous spilling from her loosed bodice, her peaked nipples a telltale sign of her state of readiness for lovemaking. How he would enjoy disrobing her completely, pleasuring her until she cried out for him. It would happen. He had commenced her seduction in order to make Keavey suffer. Now that he saw the humility in her, and he felt the vital spark of her burgeoning arousal in response to him, his opinion on where to take matters was divided. He shrugged it off, disposing of the moment of doubt. He could have her, embolden her in carnal ways, bring her to an understanding of her perceived lack of womanhood, and still it would annoy Keavey.
In the candlelight he could see the pulse beating at the base of her throat and the swell of her breast rose and fell rapidly. Stimulating her had been easy enough, stepping away was going to be harder for him. She was ready, and the startled expression in her eyes convinced him that she was not familiar with being in the state of readiness for passion. How interesting it would be to lead her further along that path.
The pressing need to find release himself played its own part. The way she’d looked at him when he began to weave his spell turned him hard. Those eyes of hers, so open, so honest. The way her lips parted when she found her senses stimulated. It made him want to enter her, to satisfy the desire that had been brought about in them both. He had not expected to be so readily stimulated, but the moment he entered her chamber he began thinking about how pleasant it might be to lie between her legs.
Advances had been made to his satisfaction.
Now, to be sure she would meet him again.
He traced his fingers across her collarbone and down into the shadowy dip between her breasts. Hooking his finger over the bodice of her gown, he tugged at it, freeing her breasts entirely. Her head pressed back into the pillows, her eyelids fluttering down as the soft globes of her breasts were fully revealed. Her body undulated against the bedcovers. She reached for him and her hands fisted on his shirt.
There was no doubt in his mind that she was ready to capitulate, to allow him to take what he wanted. However, that wasn’t enough. He wanted her to need him so desperately that she pursued him and begged for her
release at his hands. Only then would he accept that he had done his job well enough. Knowing that she had flaunted herself, offered—nay—given herself to him, she would hang her head in shame when Keavey asked her if it was the truth, if she had sullied herself at the hands of the local Witch Master.
He had made it easier for her tonight, traveling to meet her here. She had needed that, however. The night before there had been regret in her eyes. Now the new fear that she exhibited was that he would not take this further.
It was time to test her a little. How far was she prepared to go?
He rose to his feet. “We have done well tonight, and now I must take my leave.”
Her head lifted from the pillows, seeking him out. “But you...you have put me in such a state. I do not know how I will rest.” Round-eyed and delightfully innocent-looking, she continued, “Is there no way you can alleviate the condition you have put me in?”
Lennox attempted to keep his manner serious. In truth it amused him immensely to think how outraged Tamhas Keavey would be if he knew the despised coven master was in his home, making his pretty cousin swoon after mere moments of preliminary lovemaking. Lusty thoughts filled his mind and it took some effort to ignore the state of his cock when he stood upright. Her whispered pleas and protestations did not help to quell his state of readiness. “I cannot risk staying longer. I have not forgotten your honor is at stake, nor do I want to.”
She sat back against the pillows and rested her hand against her forehead, her expression apparently startled to the point of dismay by his imminent departure.
Lennox observed the depth of her need. Unleashing her passions—when the time came—would be most pleasurable indeed.
“But I... Is it done? I mean, have we achieved our goal?” There was a demanding expression in those wide eyes of hers. “I have seen your magic but I do not know if it has changed me. At least—” she put her hand to her throat “—not in the way I meant it to.”
Her honesty was startling.
Did she truly not believe it, or was it the fact that she was left aroused and bewildered that brought about that reaction? Lennox pulled on his coat. “The ritual will need to be repeated and reinforced.”
The Libertine Page 7
