The Scoundrel in Her Bed

by Lorraine Heath

  He gave her a tender smile. “I’ve seen you before, Vivi. Why the shyness now?”

  “I’m older. You might not find my body as . . . fetching.”

  “Twenty-five is hardly an old crone.”

  “Please, Finn. I don’t want to argue about this or ruin what we’ve begun. I want you in my bed, but it must be on my terms with the romance of shadows and moonlight.”

  He set the lamp back on the table and lowered the flame, and she loved him for that. Again, he took her hand. He began leading her toward the bedchamber. She heard a crash, flesh and bone against wood.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  “What happened?”

  “I ran into one of the low tables. You’ve moved the furniture.”

  “Only a little.” Squeezing his hand, she walked around him. “I’ll lead.”

  He followed closely on her heels, his other hand coming to rest on her waist. “You’ll have to kiss my shin, make it better,” he said near her ear, his breath stirring tendrils of her hair.

  “Oh, I intend to kiss a lot of things.”

  Chapter 20

  He couldn’t stop his breath from hitching at her provocative words, words that mirrored his intentions as well. He’d been an untried lad when they’d come together before. He had a bit more experience now, had learned a few things, things he intended to share with her.

  She came to a stop beside the bed and turned to face him. He had to admit there was something seductive about seeing her cast in naught but shadows and moonlight. She was a sensual silhouette, moving gracefully through the faint, shimmering light, reaching out for his neck cloth and tugging the knot loose. Her confidence had increased over the years.

  “Have you been with anyone since me?” Knowing Thornley had gotten his sister with child before they married, he couldn’t help but wonder if the man had known Vivi as well. He’d hate to make his sister a widow in short order, but if the man had been intimate with Vivi—

  “No.” Her voice was low, soft, the volume just above a whisper. His neck cloth sailed under his chin as she tossed it aside. Her hands came under the lapels of his jacket, gliding up until she was shoving it off his shoulders. “You have. You admitted as much.”

  “Yes.”

  Her hands stilled for only a fraction of a second before carrying on to divest him of the coat.

  “But none of them meant anything, Vivi. It was need.”

  “Don’t you need me?”

  He felt the loosening of the buttons on his waistcoat. “With everything that is within me. With the others it was simply physical. With you, it’s more, it’s always been more.” After shrugging off his waistcoat, he cradled her face between his hands and took what she’d granted permission for him to have, to taste, to explore. Nothing had ever pleased his mouth more than the flavor of her. There was a sweetness to it, mellowed by the brandy. He savored it, knowing it could intoxicate him as effectively as any liquor.

  With a sigh, not moving her mouth from his, she pressed up against him, scraping her fingers up along his scalp. He deepened the kiss, relishing her mewling, welcoming the increasing of her enthusiasm as her tongue parried with his. It was as though for the briefest of moments, she’d been holding back, had been afraid of giving freedom to her desires. But the moment had passed and now she was untethered, unfettered.

  She was his and he would have her.

  Dear Lord, it had taken little more than his kiss to drive her into a frenzy. No slow arousing this time. It was as though the tension had been building beyond bearing, like the string of a bow that suddenly snapped from the strain. She wanted him desperately.

  It hurt to know he’d had others, but he was a virile man. She couldn’t have expected him to remain celibate. As much as it had pained her though, his reassurances so quickly, so unwaveringly, had comforted her. His tone hadn’t indicated a boasting, but merely a desire to be honest with her.

  He’d always been up front and straightforward with her. No teasing games for him. It was one of the reasons she loved him. After all this time, it had taken so little for her to fall back under his spell, but how could she not adore him when he was such a good man?

  Spinning her around, he went to work on the lacing of her gown. She didn’t admonish him to take care, not to tear it, because if he ripped it in his eagerness, she would have it mended. And any time her fingers skimmed over the additional stitching, she would recall this night, the fevered pitch of it.

  After the gown pooled at her feet, she began helping with the undergarments until she was standing bare in the moonlight, staring at the shadowy bed that would soon welcome them.

  Her back was still to him, and he planted his mouth between her shoulder blades. “You are as silky as ever,” he rasped as he slid his tongue along her spine.

  Dropping her head back, she concentrated on the trail he followed, down to her bum where he nipped at one cheek, then the other. His hands closed around her knees, and he skimmed them up her thighs, over her hips, along her sides to cup her breasts. Her moan was one of pure delight as he kneaded the pliant orbs, his thumbs and forefingers rolling her nipples into tightened buds.

  “I love the way you feel,” he growled low, near her ear.

  “Being in the darkness makes all the other sensations clearer, more pronounced.”

  “Climb onto the bed.”

  “Your clothing.”

  “I’ll see to them.”

  She clambered onto the bed and had barely rolled onto her back before he was joining her, and she wondered if he’d torn his clothes from his person. His body half covered hers as he nuzzled her neck, nibbling on the tender flesh there. “You smell so good,” he said.

  “So do you.” She caressed his shoulders, his back.

  “Did you go without this for eight years?”

  “I told you I had.”

  “No. You said you’d been with no man. That doesn’t mean you didn’t know pleasure.” He trailed his mouth along her collarbone until he reached the other side of her throat. “Did you pleasure yourself?”

  “Finn—”

  “Did you?”

  Licking her lips, she felt a coiling in her nether regions between her thighs. Rolling slightly, she pressed the sensitive area against his hard thigh. “Sometimes,” she confessed, her voice sounding raw as though she’d just spent hours screaming his name in rapture.

  “Did you think of me when you did it?”

  Even though he was little more than shadows, she slammed her eyes closed and shook her head in denial of the truth, not intending to answer but the word came out just the same, proving her actions false. “Yes.”

  In spite of everything, he’d always been the one she took with her into her dreams.

  He glided his mouth down and began peppering her breast with kisses. “When the rapture came, did you cry out? Did you scream my name?”

  “I whispered it.”

  “I thought of you. I thought of doing this to you.” He closed his mouth over her nipple, circled it with his tongue, until she released the tiniest of squeals. “Your name was a curse on my lips every time I spilled my seed in my hand. I tried thinking of other women, the ones I saw at penny gaffs showing their legs, or the girls serving at Gillie’s tavern with their breasts nearly spilling from their bodices, but thoughts of them brought me no relief, no surcease.” He shifted until he was nestled between her thighs. “Only you, Vivi. I’d think about your tight, hot channel and how it felt to be inside you.”

  “I would think about how full I felt with you inside me, how complete.”

  “It might hurt again tonight.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He eased down, pressing kisses to her stomach, dipping his tongue into her navel. “But I’ll ensure you’re wet and juicy and ready for me.”

  Pushing himself farther down, he placed his hand beneath her hips, tilted them upward. “Tell me if you ever fantasized about me doing this.”

  He lowered his head, and she f
elt the stroke of his rough tongue against the silk of her core.

  “Oh my God, Finn.” She tried to sit up, fell back down, down into heaven or hell, she knew not which. She knew only that his tongue swirled with maddening accuracy, his mouth suckled, his fingers spread her farther so he could feast. She’d never felt anything so sublime, so erotic, so intoxicating. She threaded her fingers through his hair, glided her soles along his thighs, pressed them to his buttocks—encouraging him to stay where he was, to have his fill of her. Her breaths came in short gasps. She couldn’t stop herself from making little mewling cries.

  If there could never be more between them than this, this would be enough. Only she couldn’t envision having him here in her bed if she didn’t love him. And she did love him. Every wonderful glorious inch of him. Every adventurous part of him.

  Her body began to coil as though it were a spring in a clock, being wound tighter and tighter. She rolled her head from side to side, cursed the darkness that she’d insisted upon that now prevented her from seeing him, from looking into his eyes, from discovering if he knew precisely what he was making her feel. Oh, it had been good before, but nothing like this.

  At that moment he was filling her with pleasure, taking her to new heights—

  And suddenly she couldn’t go any higher. She simply flung herself off the ledge into the cataclysm of sensations that rocked her to her core. She screamed his name, a benediction and a curse. In gratitude and in wonder that he could make her feel so much.

  Pushing himself up, he took her mouth and she tasted him and herself on his lips. She lifted her hips. He shifted his weight, and she felt him nudging at her entrance.

  “Take me,” she rasped.

  And he did. Sliding into her, stretching her, filling her with the glorious length and the beautiful weight of him. His thrusts were shallow at first, testing her readiness, and then they lengthened, nearly leaving her, then shoving back in. Over and over while he rained kisses on her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. While he whispered her name like a litany that would deliver salvation.

  Within her the sensations began to build again until they peaked, and when he fell over the edge, she followed.

  Finn awoke lethargic and well-sated, the sunlight hitting his closed eyelids, alerting him they’d slept the night away. She was still in his arms, snuggled against him, the covers gathered below her hips. There was a chill in the air, and she was going to feel it when he moved away from her to begin his day. Reaching down, he knotted a hand around the sheet, dragging it up, his gaze landing on her stomach, a belly not quite as flat as it had been when he’d first made love to her. Pausing, he studied the strange markings. In her youth, her skin had been flawless. Now it was marred here and there with a slight bluish discoloration, thin ragged lines. Releasing his hold on the sheet, he touched his fingers to a shallow indentation, was aware of her stiffening and realized she had awakened.

  It was so shallow in fact that he couldn’t really feel it, certainly hadn’t felt it last night. Was this the reason she’d wanted the darkness? “What happened here?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  She started to sit up, but he stayed her with a press of his hand, a splaying of his fingers. “It can’t be nothing, Vivi. There are several scars—”

  “They’re not scars, not really, I don’t think.”

  His brow furrowed, he traced some of the other marks. “How did you come to have them?”

  “It’s not important.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers, and within the green depths he could see a fear, a shame. He should let it go, let her have her secrets, but the thought of someone hurting her had him wanting to commit murder. “Vivi, how did you come to have them?”

  Tears welled in her eyes and he feared hearing the answer as much as he feared not knowing what it might be. He watched the delicate muscles of her throat work as she swallowed, the sudden trembling of the lips he’d devoured last night. His own trepidation increased as though he were suddenly facing a hundred men wielding knives, because suspicion of how they’d come to be was beginning to lurk. “Vivi, tell me.”

  “They happened when my belly increased . . . to accommodate your child growing within me.”

  Chapter 21

  Tears stung her eyes and she struggled to hold them back, knowing if she gave in to them, they’d flow until they drowned her. She fought to shove him aside, to scramble out of the bed, but with one powerful arm, he snagged her about the waist, pulled her back down, and covered half her body with his.

  “You had my child?”

  The wonder in his voice was a punch to her chest that gave freedom to the tears, that prevented her from keeping them dammed. She was devoid of words, could merely nod.

  With one hand, he gently cradled her jaw, stroked his thumb over her cheek, gathering the wetness that showed her to be weak. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. They took it from me.” The tears gushed forth as the sobs burst free. “Oh, Finn. I never got to hold it. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”

  The years of wondering and worrying and grieving crashed in on her, caused her to want to curl into a ball, to hide away from him, to hide her shame. But he wasn’t having it. He combed his fingers through her hair, over and over, while she bawled, her tears raining down her cheeks and over his chest. Then he moved away from her, and she didn’t cry out in protest or call him back. She deserved his rebuff. She hadn’t fought hard enough for it, hadn’t protected it, hadn’t been able to stop them from taking it away.

  She was vaguely aware of the sheet and blanket being wrapped around her, barely realizing she was being lifted, carried away, cradled within his arms, her cheek pressed to his bare chest as he lowered himself into a chair, until she found herself curled on his lap. He wore trousers now, and she realized he’d left her in order to partially clothe himself, wondered if without clothing he’d felt as vulnerable as she did.

  “Tell me everything,” he urged, his voice raw and raspy as though he’d screamed as much as she had when the midwife had swathed the babe and handed it over to her mother.

  “I wanted it. Even believing you’d abandoned me, I wanted it.” She pulled back until she could hold his wounded gaze. “You must believe that. I was happy when I realized I was with child. Frightened, yes. Terrified, certainly, but happy.”

  He skimmed the back of his hand along her cheek. “What seventeen-year-old lass wouldn’t have been terrified at the prospect of facing so much alone? Ah, Vivi.” He closed his eyes. “What a scapegrace I was to never once consider I might have burdened you with a child. Never once in all the time we were apart did it occur to me that I might have given you a bastard. The irony is not lost on me. You would have been forced to give it away—”

  “I was going to keep it. I didn’t see it as a burden.” She pressed her lips to his brow until she felt the fluttering of his lashes against her skin as he opened his eyes, and she could once again hold them, find strength in them. “My parents were furious, of course. Mother wanted to take me to Europe, so no one would notice me increasing, to have me deliver the child there. But I refused to go. It’s the one time I won out against them—and I was so smug in my victory. Yet I knew I couldn’t leave London. I held out hope, against all odds, that you’d return for me. I didn’t know you were in prison.” She combed his hair back from his brow. The dark golden locks were a mess from sleep, smashed on one side of his head, the strands sticking out at odd angles on the other, and yet his rumpled state was such a balm to her heart.

  “I’d have broken down the iron door, smashed through the wall, had I known you were with child,” he said.

  It was a nice fantasy, but she knew the truth of it. He’d have not been able to break free, but instead would have simply been tormented more by his incarceration. “I came to Whitechapel, tried to find you, to give you a good piece of my mind for leaving me. Only I didn’t know where to look for you. I went to your sister’s tavern, but I couldn’t br
ing myself to go inside. I feared her judgment or having her tell me that you’d run off with someone or your whereabouts were none of my business. So I came and I went and I decided I was on my own in this.”

  “You wouldn’t have been alone, Vivi. My family would have stood by you.”

  “I saw the way they looked at me, Finn, that night at the Mermaid. They didn’t like me or trust me. Knowing more about their pasts now, I don’t blame them. But I knew I couldn’t rely on them. As I began increasing, I stayed in residence.”

  “What of Thornley? What was he doing during all this time?”

  “The duke is much older than me, you see. He wasn’t yet ready for marriage, and he wasn’t truly courting me. Mother told him I’d returned to the country because I found the Season too overwhelming, wasn’t prepared for it. There isn’t a particular age when a girl must have her Season. It’s whenever her parents deem her ready, so she told him I wasn’t. Urged him to give me time. I’m rather certain he merely saw it as an understandable delay, and he was willing to grant me whatever time I required. He didn’t pursue me. Instead he engaged in the pursuits of all young men his age, sowing his wild oats—only he could do it guilt free, thinking I wasn’t yet ready to wear the mantle of duchess.”

  She fought not to recall how lonely she’d been, with no friends about, not daring to call on anyone who might discern the truth of her condition. Her only company was Miriam, who tended her. She had the occasional visit from her mother, who simply glared at her and sighed her disappointment. Her days and evenings were spent singing lullabies to the child, reading to it, and taking joy from its movements within her.

  “Winter came, and everyone retired to the country, except for Mother and I. Even Father went. He was so angry with me, couldn’t stand the sight of me, would always turn away if we crossed paths. I fought so hard not to let it hurt, not to let him know it pained me to be treated so unkindly.”

  The blanket slipped down from her shoulder, and he lifted it back into place as though he needed any small action to demonstrate he would protect her.