Addicted

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “What are we, Anais? Are we friends? Acquaintances? Or are we each other’s regret?”

  “Each other’s past,” she said simply before walking away and reaching for Lady’s bridle. “One last ride, Lindsay,” she said, gaining the saddle and spurring Lady forward. “For tonight, let us be friends once again.”

  Moonlight shone silver on the new-fallen snow and filtered between the leafless branches that were now shimmering in the glow of the moon and ice. The glistening above their heads and the iridescence at their feet illuminated the paths through the woods, providing enough light for them to safely maneuver their mounts in a canter along the path. Anais would have liked to break out in a liberating run, to feel the wind push back her hood as she allowed Lady to gallop. But she would settle for a quiet canter and the chance to enjoy the woods in their snowy slumber.

  It would have been a forbidding place if not for the snow and the full moon that hung heavy in the black sky. But with the wilds of winter surrounding them and the sparkling branches, the Wyre Forest was transformed into some mystical realm where fairies lived and magic prevailed.

  Lady whickered softly, the sound was followed by a heavy cloud of vapor. The air was crisp and clear and Anais’s lungs burned with heaviness as she breathed deep of the night. Sultan stomped, irritated by the slow pace Lindsay was setting. Effortlessly, he pulled Sultan in with the tightening of his thighs and a gentle tug of the reins. The Arabian was as antsy as she to break into a run—to taste freedom and the liberating rush of the wind.

  “You may put that thought right out of your mind,” Lindsay grumbled as he pulled Sultan in alongside her.

  Anais tilted her head back and looked up at the magnificent display of iced branches that creaked above their heads. “And what thoughts are those?”

  “Of breaking stride and running.”

  “How did you know?”

  He chuckled. “I have seen that particular expression on your face many times. You get a certain look in your eye. I always thought of it as a craving to be free. To shun the world and run unbridled and do what you please.”

  “Yes,” she said, laughing softly. “I did that enough, didn’t I? How many times did I force you to accompany me on my wild escapades?”

  “As I recall, it wasn’t too terribly difficult to talk me into anything, especially when it provided me time alone with you.”

  She glanced at him, watching the way his curling hair blew softly around his face. She studied his strong chin that was now devoid of the facial hair he had returned home with. He was simply Lindsay, looking as he now was—the man she had loved all her life.

  “Tell me about Constantinople.”

  “It was lovely. Rather warm at times, but beautiful. The nights there are particularly decadent. The breeze that blows in from the Bosphorus is balmy, making the night less sultry. From our rooms we could smell the scent of frankincense and myrrh from the spice bazaar as it wafted in through the windows.”

  “Sounds lovely and exotic.”

  “It was.”

  “I’m certain the women were just as exotic.” She couldn’t help but say that and she saw how he grinned at her barb.

  “I suppose they were. Wallingford certainly thought so.”

  “Oh, you didn’t?” she asked archly.

  “My penchant runs to blue-eyed blondes, and I may assure you, Turkey is grossly lacking in that.”

  “I suppose it was all very decadent and opulent there.”

  “It was. Much like something out of the Arabian Nights. I think you would have liked it.”

  “And the opium?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  “Yes,” he answered quietly, “there was opium there.”

  “And you used it,” she finished for him.

  His gaze flickered to hers. She saw nothing that told her he was lying to her. “Yes. I smoked wherever I could. I smoked so much that I could do nothing but sleep and dream. I did not dream of the women in Turkey, Anais. I dreamed of you.”

  “But I was not enough, was I?”

  “I have never chosen opium over you, Anais.”

  “It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  He reached for Lady’s bridle, pulling her to a stop in the middle of the path. “Let us speak freely, Anais. I did not go to Constantinople because of the lure of opium. After that night with Rebecca, I couldn’t find you. You’ll never know what an agony that was. The opium took that pain away, but it never took away my love for you, or my desire to find you and right the mistakes I had made. You may believe whatever you want, I have never preferred opium to you, nor would I allow it to come between us.”

  “It already has, Lindsay. Don’t you see that?”

  “There is more than opium between us, Anais. You are hiding something from me. What has made you so ill? Why are you so pale and fragile looking?”

  “It is nothing.”

  “Tell me,” he urged, pressing closer to her.

  “Lindsay, some things are of a private nature.”

  “Private? What is private between us? We’ve been naked with each other—we’ve made love. Anais, there is nothing you can’t tell me.”

  “I…I don’t really know what it is,” she murmured, looking away from him.

  “Consumption?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Pleurisy?”

  “Lindsay, please. It is nothing. As I’ve told you, I am on the mend.”

  “You never used to hide anything from me. We shared everything, didn’t we? But now your confidences seem to be shared with Broughton. You’re settling, Anais. You don’t love Broughton. I’d bet my life on it that you feel nothing but friendship for him. So why now? Why after all these years would you settle for a man that does not make you feel passion?”

  “You know nothing about Garrett and me.”

  “I know he can’t make you happy. He can’t give you what you need. I don’t believe he even knows what you need. He doesn’t even know the real you. Not the person you show to the world, but the true you—the person you were with me. Does Broughton indulge you as I indulged you?”

  Nudging Lady with her knees, Anais attempted to move Lady forward, but Lindsay reached for the reins and pulled them to a stop.

  “Does he?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Does Broughton bring you riding? Does he encourage you to be free of all of society’s silly little rules that govern what a woman should be and how she should act? Do you wear his breeches like you used to wear mine?” He leaned forward and she felt his heat. “Do your breasts fill his shirts?”

  She bit her lip, refusing to lose her composure. “Does he lay with you in the grass? Does he stare up at the stars, speaking of his dreams, wishing he could roll over and kiss you and run his fingers along the breasts that tease him beneath the shirt—the shirt he knows he will carry home with him and smell and, God help him, sleep in, just so he could be close to you?”

  The barest hint of his lips brushed intimately against the corner of her mouth, and her lips instinctively parted. “The shirt he could not bear to have washed,” he whispered, “so he kept it hidden and brought it back to Cambridge with him, only to drag it out every night and smell it, fearing that one night he might not be able to smell you still clinging to the linen.”

  He raised one hand from the reins and brought it to her hood, slowly pushing it back over her hair. Her eyelids fluttered open and she found herself gazing into his searching eyes. “Does he wish it could have been his body your scent clung to instead of his shirt, because I vow to you, Anais, I would have given my soul to have you wrapped around me, covering my flesh with your scent. I dreamed of it every night. I still dream of it.”

  The whinnying of approaching horses made her pull back from him. Her heart, she feared, had stopped pulsating altogether during his speech. Anais felt herself gasping, trying to break free of the gossamer threads he was weaving around her.

  “I will do anything, anything to get you back. Tell me what I must do, who
I must be—”

  “Anais?”

  Her gaze snapped from Lindsay to the clearing of trees where Garrett was steadying his mount. Seconds later, Wallingford emerged from the woods and reined in his horse alongside Garrett.

  “Good evening,” Wallingford drawled. “Splendid night for a ride, don’t you think? Couldn’t resist the lure, myself. Had to drag old Broughton out here, didn’t I?”

  Garrett was not listening to Wallingford. His attention was directed solely upon her and she felt as guilty as a child caught stealing a sweet by the governess. Should she feel guilty? She was only out riding. Yet she did feel shame.

  “Should you be riding?” Garrett asked, his voice clipped. “Is it a tall safe? Has my brother given you leave to be doing such a thing?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, feeling blood rush to her cheeks, especially when she saw how Lindsay’s gaze volleyed back and forth, studying both she and Garrett.

  “You shouldn’t be riding in your condition.”

  “Should I not?” she asked, bristling at the accusatory tone of his voice. He opened his mouth to say something and she feared that in his present state he would give far too much away. But then his mouth shut firmly and his eyes strayed from her to Lindsay, whose position so close to her left little to the imagination.

  “Enjoy your ride. I trust that your activities this evening will not alter your plans to attend dinner with me on Friday.”

  “Garrett—”

  “Good evening,” he muttered before turning his mount around and tearing off down the path. Nodding goodbye, Wallingford galloped off after Garrett.

  As she watched Garrett and Wallingford race along the path, their greatcoats billowing out behind them, she said on a strangled breath. “Take me home.”

  “Why can’t you give in to what I see in your eyes, Anais?”

  “I told you, people change. I have changed.”

  “And along with that so have your needs? Your desires? Don’t deny what you feel. I see the same desire in your eyes as that night I made you mine in the stable. The hunger is there. The yearning is there.”

  She knew it was. Knew she could not hide it and so she spurred Lady into a run, racing back to the stables, trying to outrun the man she feared she could never leave behind her. He wasn’t what she needed in her life. He wasn’t the right choice. Yet she could think of nothing but feeling him deep inside her. Even as she hated herself for hurting Garrett, she could not stop herself from desiring Lindsay.

  15

  Anais was struggling to free her boot from the stirrup when Lindsay’s strong hands wrapped around her waist, dragging her from the saddle. Her breasts brushed along his chest while she waited impatiently to feel her boots touch the ground. Instead of setting her down, he wrapped her leg around his hip and cupped her bottom in his hand, silencing her outraged gasp with his hungry, demanding mouth.

  He was ferocious in his kiss, in the way he sought and captured her mouth. Not breaking the kiss, he stepped to the side, taking her with him until he pressed her up against the stable wall, tearing the cloak from her shoulders. Flinging it to the ground, he continued to kiss her wildly as he rubbed his tented breeches against the apex of her thighs.

  Gasping for air between his demanding kisses, Anais felt his fingers seek the fastenings of her gown. With a mastery that stole her breath, he shoved the bodice away from her shoulders, revealing the thin shift she wore beneath.

  She tried to release her death grip on his shoulders and cover her breasts with her arms, but he reached for her hands and kissed a hot path down her throat. Releasing one of her wrists, he thrust aside the chemise, baring her swollen, sensitive breast. Greedily he fastened his mouth to her nipple, which was curled into a tight little bud, and sucked, pulling the tender flesh deep into his mouth until she could feel his tongue curling around it.

  Anais cried out, a keening moan that came from some place deep inside her. His roughness, his commanding aura, called to all her secret fantasies. Her womb tightened in response to his hands and mouth, and arousal dampened her thighs. He felt it, too, he must have, for he raised her skirts higher and pressed closer, stimulating her with his pelvis as he broke the seal of his mouth on her breast and looked up at her.

  “You’re aching for it as much as I.”

  The embarrassing rush of her wetness directly against his breeches jolted her into awareness. She squirmed against him, not knowing if she wanted to run or push herself wantonly against the hard phallus that was pressing urgently against her sex.

  Shifting his hips, he rubbed her—in the right spot—between her swollen sex so she could feel the shape of him combined with the friction of the material working her into a frenzy.

  She moaned, unable to do anything but arch her back and rest her head against the stable wall, still trying to fight her desires. But her strength was evaporating and she could not even speak let alone gather the might to struggle out of his grasp.

  “Touch me, angel.”

  The haunting need she heard in his voice made her open her eyes. The need was there, shining in his eyes. The need for her body, the need for her.

  Lindsay reached for her hand. Anais felt the contact of his face beside hers, the warmth of his breath caressing her cheek. “Touch me.”

  With trembling fingers she grazed his cheek, watching her fingertips touch his sun-kissed skin that was warm and covered with the faintest dusting of stubble.

  “I need your touch…” His breath was harsh against her ear and she felt the tips of his fingers glide down her throat and along the tops of her breasts. Sighing, she clutched his hair as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked slowly, erotically, in a rhythm that was unhurried and sensual.

  “Oh, God,” she panted shakily when she felt his finger slide up her thigh and over her garter until it reached the cleft of her buttocks. She was trembling in anticipation. She wanted his hands all over her, caressing her, loving her.

  “I can make it so good for you. Let me, Anais.”

  “Yes.” The word was a hushed whisper, her agreement issued before she could stop it spilling from her lips. She was at the mercy of her own needs now.

  He unfastened the facings of his breeches, her hand slipped down between them, stroking his phallus as it parted the fabric and stretched against her hand.

  “Do you ache for it?”

  “Yes,” she answered on a shaky breath.

  He brought the head against her curls, rubbing it slowly against her slick flesh. Their gazes were locked in a way that was far more intimate than even the way their bodies were touching. Their need—their souls—were exposed. Every aching desire, every thought, every inch of hurt was mirrored in their eyes.

  “Invite me in, Anais. Invite me to join you inside your body.”

  She felt strange, as if she were floating. As if the weight of the past months had magically been lifted from her shoulders.

  “Come to me, Lindsay.”

  Slowly he entered her, angling her hips forward and up so that the moonlight shining through the stable window illuminated their bodies. She watched in the silver glow, Lindsay’s body sinking into hers. His thick shaft glistened as he retreated before slowly pressing forward again. She had never seen anything more wondrous than Lindsay’s body becoming part of hers.

  Over and over she watched him thrust into her. She heard her heavy breaths, knew she was breathing too heavily, too fast, and he looked up from their sex and watched her. Unable to hide her response, she looked away and raised her arms above her head so that she could wrap her hands around the beam at her back. Closing her eyes, she stopped thinking of everything except the feel of the rhythm of their bodies together.

  So damn beautiful… Lindsay kept saying the words over and over, chanting them as he watched Anais’s little quim sucking him into her body, milking him with its silky, tight walls until he could not keep up the slow, unhurried pace.

  How wanton she looked with her round breasts, covered in a damp
chemise, thrusting forward, bouncing with the rhythm of his hips. Her head was thrown back and her lips parted with each thrust of his cock.

  The dance of cock and cunt enticed him and he thrust harder. She took him, telling him with her little whimpers that she was aroused and enjoying—no, needing—what he was doing to her. As he watched his cock, thick and hard, fill her quim, he felt a primitive possessiveness steal over him.

  Beautiful, tight cunt, he thought, feeling his seed shoot up from his testicles. He was going to fill it full, to give her all of him. He felt her quim tightening around his cock, milking it. She screamed his name and he thrust again, but this time he parted her slick folds and flicked her erect clitoris with his finger in time to his stroking cock.

  Immediately she bucked against him. Pressing forward, she wrapped her arms around him so that she could bury her mouth in the collar of his shirt.

  Milk me. Let me spend inside this beautiful tight cunt.

  She stiffened, reached for his hand to stop his assault on her clitoris, but he pressed harder, ignoring the way her fingers clutched his wrist.

  “Please,” she cried, her lips pressed against the bare skin of his throat, “please make this exquisite ache stop.”

  He sunk his cock deep inside her as he continued to circle her clitoris. She was panting against his throat as she cupped his neck. Her free hand was gripping his shirt as her body began to jerk in his arms.

  Her quim contracted in pleasure, increasing his, and he came, his seed rushing out and splashing deep inside her. It was the most exquisite sensation to feel himself spending everything he had inside her. And then he felt it, the hot wetness from her eyes as her tears trickled down her cheeks and on to his.

  “You were made for me. Only me,” he whispered harshly as he buried his face into the crook of her neck, not caring if he appeared weak or vulnerable, for he was weak. Anais was his weakness. “How beautiful you are during orgasm. How wonderfully perfect you are after it.”