The Harlot (14 page)

Gregor looked the serving girl over, but it was Jessie who persistently drew his attention. He marveled at her sensual, easy way with the other woman. She was fully aware of him the whole time, but it was not obvious. Just as she had been aware of him watching her when she'd pleasured herself that first morning. She was connected to him even while she teased and amused another person. Rightly so, he surmised. He was her employer, and this demonstration was exhibiting her talent and her value. The connection nonetheless kept his attention.
It also initiated a longing in his loins to possess her. He found it increasingly difficult to deny himself frequent and lengthy access to her intimate places.

Jessie flashed her eyes at Morag when she stroked one finger in the furrow between her full lips. “Oho, you are a minx. You are quite wet already. I think you are enjoying this.”

Morag chortled appreciatively. “I liked what you did to my paps. I will do that to meself later.”

“Do you pleasure yourself often?” Jessie asked the question while she stroked her finger up and down the woman's glistening slit.

“I do. Every night, if I don't have a good man to satisfy me.”

When Jessie paused and glanced his way, her look was so provocative that Gregor had to remind himself to stay seated, lest he miss the performance. He would never forgive himself for missing such a show, no matter how much he would prefer to stand up and drag Jessie aside to give her a good seeing-to. His hands itched to slap her rump until it was as pink as her cheeks, and she had surely earned it for that incendiary look she'd sent his way.

Jessie closed in on her victim. “Tell us what you do. Do you rub yourself?”

Morag rolled her head from side to side on the bolster. “Aye, I do. I do it all the time.”

Jessie pushed a finger inside her hole. “Tell us all about it. We want to know.”

Gregor gave a brief moment's pause to wonder if she played him this well, before allowing himself to be distracted by her ongoing antics.

Morag's head went back against the pillow, and she opened her mouth as if gasping for air. Clutching at the blanket with her fingers, she nodded. “I rub myself at night, rub it hard.
Sometimes I do it up against the door handle in my room, imagining it's a man's…you know, his cock.”

“The door handle,” Jessie repeated, and glanced Gregor's way again. Licking her lips, she lowered her gaze to the bulge in his breeches.

“Demoness,” he hissed under his breath, for her benefit alone.

That only seemed to delight her. She returned her attention to her current victim. “Well now, the door handle. There's a trick I had not heard of. I must try it myself, perhaps when I'm locked up and alone in my room of an afternoon.”

The image that filled Gregor's mind at that point was lewd to the point of obscenity. Three days now he had locked her in that room, and he would be unable to do so now without being haunted by the image of her lifting her skirts to press her mound against the door handle and use it well, in his absence. His cock was now so thoroughly distended it was growing painful.

Meanwhile, Morag continued with her explanation.

“The door rattles when I thump myself against it, right there at the end when I am dizzy with it.” She emitted a gutsy laugh, and then gasped for breath as Jessie manipulated her fingers.

“Do that, aye, do that.”

“But you did not know that your breasts were so sensitive, did you?”

“Oh, no, that was good.” She slapped her hands over her own bared breasts, palms flat, then stirred the lolling mounds, moaning loudly as she did so.

Jessie plowed the serving girl's furrow, three fingers grouped like a man's phallus. Morag cried out, her feet lifting from the bed. Her hands left her breasts and grappled for the iron rail on the bedstead, holding tight for purchase as Jessie slid her
fingers in and out of her wet hole. With her arms upright that way, the maid's breasts squeezed together. Jessie pinched one nipple with her free hand, while she rode her fingers in and out down below. Planting her thumb on the swollen nub, she nudged it back and forth.

It did not escape Gregor's notice that Jessie was rubbing herself up against the bed, one knee lifted to aid her as she pressed her hips to the edge of the mattress. At this point he had to place his feet wider to accommodate the size of his cock and ease the ache in his ballocks. What aroused him most of all was how she was affected by what she was doing. It was then he realized that he was more eager to know how wet she was than to imagine himself easing his cock into the wet hole of the other wench, the one so readily displayed.

Jessie had captured his attention fully, but that was no surprise. She was a sensualist of the highest order, more so than he ever would have guessed that first night—and more so than any woman he had ever encountered on his travels.

“Oh, my,” Morag shouted.

Jessie had lowered her head and stuck out her tongue to tease the woman's nipple, turning her head in profile so that he could see it all. Gregor was so hard he was in pain. Was she trying to pleasure him or torture him?

Meanwhile Jessie thrust her fingers in and out ever faster. When Morag reached her peak, her feet lifted from the mattress and her arms grew rigid, her hands locked around the bedstead. He thought Jessie might climb into the bed with her, but with the deed done, she turned her attention to him.

Gregor's ballocks ached for release when she glanced at the front of his breeches. She gave an appreciative smile and met his stare. Her eyes were dark, her lips wet. He rested his hand briefly over his cock while they exchanged glances.

Within a heartbeat she'd left her place by the bed and stalked
over to him, lifting her skirts as she did so, briefly displaying herself to him. Seeing the pale flesh of her thighs made his need to be between them desperate. The soft, dark hair that feathered over her intimate places only drew his attention to what it concealed.

He was about to shift and rise from the seat so he could touch her there, when she shook her head. She didn't have to say anything. He knew what she wanted, because she was staring down at his bulge, and her skirt remained half lifted in order to mount him. He opened his breeches.

As soon as his cock bounced free she sighed.

Momentarily he considered that her talent might be his undoing. It would be easy to allow himself to be thoroughly distracted by this. Mad things he'd done in the few days he'd known her. He'd rescued a condemned woman and dallied in the jail for some of this.

“You enjoyed what you saw?”

“Perhaps.” He gestured with his hand, eager for her to lift her skirts again. “Show me more and I will decide.”

She pulled her skirts up as far as her waist, revealing herself fully to him.

For a moment Gregor could only stare. The soft, feminine curves of her body made him want to keep her naked so that he could observe her that way all the time. The place where thigh melted into hip made him eager to run his fingers along that line and claim it. The plump cushion of her mound was an invitation to invade her sweet puss. The delicate brush of hair that fanned out from her glistening slit made him harder still. He forced his gaze back to hers.

Her eyes glittered and she nodded down at his erection. “I think you have decided you like what you see?”

Still she made mischief. He was used to being obeyed, and
she should be eager to please, and yet she taunted him. “Are you suggesting you made me pay for a tease?”

“Why no, I was merely making certain you were pleased. I assure you I am eager to ride a good cock, and that is what I see before me.”

Oh, yes, she surely did know how to play him, and now his need was so great his patience had gone. “You know it is true, now carry on. I believe you were about to demonstrate how much you needed to ride a good cock.”

“Demanding now. Tsk. And there I was thinking you wanted me for another man.”

Gregor snatched at her wrist. “Right now you will mount
me,
or our agreement will not stand.”

Jessie smiled, and her eyes were bright with lust and with victory. “Our agreement, the one you have invested so much in already…you would cast it aside for the want of a tumble?”

He gritted his teeth and gestured for her to approach.

She made her skirts swish and sway, eyeing his cock all the while. “Let me warm your bed again tonight and I will make you come as you never have before.”

“Cheeky wench, you are in no position to make demands.”

“I believe I am.” Straddling him, she climbed over his knees, her thighs spread. With one hand she captured her skirts at her waist and with the other opened up the lips of her puss. It was succulent as a ripe peach, swollen and damp with her juices.

Morag had shifted and was watching, agog. When Gregor caught her eye she sat bolt upright. “Pardon me, but should I leave you now?”

Before he replied, Gregor moved his hand to Jessie's crotch, easing two fingers inside her, his thumb resting over her swollen nub.

Jessie gasped, her eyes closing for a moment while her puss clamped hard on his fingers.

His cock jerked. “That, my dear,” he said, in answer to the serving girl's question, “is entirely up to you. This will happen either way, so if you do not want to see it, leave.”

Jessie glanced over her shoulder at Morag and laughed softly. With her hand on his shaft she directed it to her and eased his crown into her hole, grasping it tightly enough to make him stamp his foot.

Pausing, she smiled and then lowered herself onto it, taking a portion of him inside her and squeezing it, as if to drive him to distraction.

The hot, damp clasp of her body on his aching cock was both pleasure and torture, and she knew it. “More,” he instructed. “I need more.”

Arching her neck, she sighed aloud and took him deep.

A groan escaped him when she sheathed him to the hilt. The succulent grip of her cunny on his cock made him grateful to be alive. That was not a familiar feeling, and he wrapped his hands around her bottom beneath the skirts of the special gown he had picked out for her, squeezing the soft, rounded flesh of her buttocks each time she rode his length.

She shifted one hand and pushed her fingers into his hair, clasping him around the back of his head as she rode him. Her moves were as agile as a dancer's and she took everything he had to give. “Am I good enough to seduce your enemy?”

“Good enough to seduce the king himself, I warrant.” Gregor dug his fingers hard into her backside.

She cried out when he gripped her, and rolled her hips forward, which bowed his cock inside her.

“Hellfire.” The rhythm of her body and the slippery, hot embrace around his shaft made him exhale loudly. “Now I know why they call you the Harlot.”

Throwing back her head, she laughed joyously. “I'm not ashamed of enjoying this.”

“I noticed. Your skills are exceptional. You could seduce anyone you desired.” Instinctively, he reached one hand to cup her face and hold her.

“Aye. Probably I could.” She turned her cheek toward his hand and kissed his palm. “But I wanted you and I could see you watching, and all the while my desire for this grew fiercer.”

Her eyes glittered, and for a brief moment he knew that she had him—he could so easily become addicted to this. Fighting it, he glanced away toward the woman on the bed, who now lolled on her front, watching them while she sucked on her fingers.

His hands tightened on Jessie's bottom and his lower back thudded intensely.

“Ride me hard,” he instructed, desperate for the release.

Gripping the chair back, she rode him vigorously, her breasts swelling from the edge of her gown, her hair tumbling down her shoulders. Her cunny tightened.

His balls throbbed and fire shot the length of his spine.

“I wanted to do this most of all,” she whispered, and then cried out. The grip of her puss on him grew rhythmic and tight at her peak.

That undid him, and he urged her to break free so that he might spill elsewhere. He barely made it, and it was with regret that Gregor came in her hand instead of her sweet puss.

THAT NIGHT GREGOR WAS AWAKE AND LOOKING
at Jessie when the nightmares began. After Morag had gone, they'd shared a bottle of wine that he procured from belowstairs, and then conversed into the night about Morag's stoic yet brazen ways. Once again, Jessie had startled him. He'd discovered that she was observant to a fault. It was no bad thing, for he wanted her to observe his enemy, above all.

As the passage of the moon across the sky bathed the room in light and shadow, he watched her sleep, admiring her. In repose she could pass for a Madonna, a classical statue of great worth. With decent food and clothing she was an unquestionable beauty. Any man with half his faculties would find her bewitching. And yet Gregor missed the ribald character that usually lit that face, the unique traits and wild-eyed glances that made her the bawdy wench who had caught his attention.

Wryly, he attempted to address the fact that he had grown so curious about her. How had that happened? She was meant to be a cipher, no more. For many years no one had even
entered into his thoughts this way. He preferred it like that. Thinking only of avenging his father's tragic end and securing his land, Gregor had moved through the most exotic places in this world with little thought of women and companionship. Was it because he was so near his home that he had started to feel again, or was it Jessie who had broken the pattern?

He was addressing the conundrum when her head went back against the bolster and a low, pained cry came from her mouth. Gregor lifted himself onto his elbow and was about to wake her when she spoke.

Her eyelids flickered but did not open. “No,” she cried.
“Màthair.”

Gregor was surprised. She was calling for her mother in the Gaelic tongue. Was she a Highlander? More to the point, she had not mentioned any family, and it made his curiosity grow. Would she say more?

Sweat had broken out on her forehead and her breathing was labored. Her limbs moved restlessly in the bed. She was obviously in great distress.

Gregor could not bear it.

Kissing her cheek, he whispered her name, calling to her gently, willing her to wake easily and not carry the bad dreams with her. “Jessie, wake up. Come now, you are here with me at the inn. You are safe.”

Her eyes flickered open and her hand moved to cover her mouth, but not before she cried out again. Her eyes were wide and troubled, and when they locked on him, he drew her into his arms.

Her hands opened and closed on his shoulders, needy and fretful. “Gregor, hold me.”

“What is it that troubles you so?”

She stilled and then shivered.

Silently cursing himself for asking, he drew back and lifted her chin with one finger. He needed to view her face.

He didn't expect the sheer terror he found in her eyes. She did not seem to see him at first, but looked beyond, as if at some other thing that disturbed her. “Jessie?”

Although her eyes showed recognition in response to his voice, she buried her head in the curve of his neck as if not wanting to see more. “I cannot say. You would scorn me if you knew.”

“No. Never. Hush now, Jessie. Come closer, my wild little creature, come closer.”

Her hand fisted against his bare shoulder. “You promise you would think no worse of me than you already do?”

“I do not think badly of you.”

“But I am a whore.” The great regret in her voice made him want to calm her more than ever.

“And I have been a thief and some would say a blackguard, in order to survive. I have lied and cheated, and pretended to be what I am not, in order to get ahead. I did not plan for it to be so. It was not the way I was brought up, but life sometimes takes choices away from us.”

He shifted, lifting her chin again so that she had to meet his gaze. “Neither of us are holy souls, my dear. I think we understand each other well on that account.”

For the longest moment she stared into his eyes, with raw emotion in her expression. Then she nodded. “When I was a wee bairn, my mother was put to death. I saw it all. They made me watch.”

“They?”

“The villagers, the people who condemned her.” Jessie took a deep breath. “We had come south from the Highlands, because my mother wanted to find my father. He'd run off when she fell pregnant a second time. But when we came to
the Lowlands she never found him. Instead, she found her end. Stoned, hanged and burned.”

“It was a charge of witchcraft?”

Jessie nodded.

Gregor's mind ticked over fast. “That woman in Dundee, Eliza. Did she know what had happened to your mother? Is that why it was easy for her to accuse you of the same crime?”

It explained it well enough.

Jessie did not respond for a moment, and then gave a slight nod. “Perhaps that was the reason.”

In a few moments he had learned much about her. He rubbed her back. “And you are a Highlander by birth?”

It explained the Gaelic tongue, but he could not help being surprised.

She shot him a glance. “That information was not meant to offer you the chance to mock me.”

He wrapped his hand around the curve of her bottom and nudged her closer. “I was not mocking, merely surprised. You have an uncanny knack that way.” He placed a kiss on her bare shoulder. “You surprise me every day.”

When he met her gaze, he saw her spirits lift, and she almost smiled. “Aye, well, yes, I'm a Highlander by birth, and I remember it still.” She looked wistful. “When I have my purse, I intend to go there.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “They do not persecute people for their beliefs in the Highlands.”

It made sense for her to leave and head north.

She stared at him thoughtfully. “You do not charge me with witchcraft, Gregor Ramsay.”

He laughed softly. “I have seen no evidence of it.”

It made him think on it, however. However wrongly given,
the accusation that she had been charged with would follow her if she remained anywhere close to Dundee. In time, perhaps, she would be able to return, but it was for the best that she leave soon.

She glanced wistfully toward the moonlit window.

He traced his finger across her lips. “You're a strange one, though.”

She looked up into his eyes. “You do not shun me?”

“Why would I? You have given me no reason to do so.” He cupped her breast and ran his thumb over her nipple. “You are far from being an ordinary woman, for I have never known one quite as lusty and shameless as you, but that is why I wanted you.” He was about to mention the task, and thought better of it because of the tender look in her eyes.

She sighed and gave a faltering smile.

Then she wriggled onto her side, looped one hand around his neck and pressed herself to him. His cock had been at half-mast because she was warm and naked against him, and it reared up expectantly when she moved closer and pressed her breasts to his chest.

“You are recovering?”

She nodded, lifted one knee and brushed it along his thigh invitingly. “Fill me, Gregor. Push the bad dreams away.”

What man could resist?

Mounting her, he eased his cock inside her hot channel.

Moving slowly back and forth, he worked his way to her deepest point. The sleek, tight clasp of her body on his length made him pause. He stared down at her, looking deep into her eyes. They glinted in the moonlight and seemed strangely lit, as if from inside.

When she noticed him studying her, she lowered her eyelids.

She was vulnerable, he realized, from her nightmare.

Gregor eased back and forth slowly, taking his time with the act, fascinated by the way each thrust was reflected in her expression. Her lips moved, her breath rasping. Her eyelids flickered and a soft cry issued from her throat each time he bedded the head of his cock at her center.

“Look at me,” he encouraged.

It took a moment before she did. She swallowed and drew a deep breath, then met his gaze. Her breath hitched, and her eyes shone with withheld tears.

He held her gaze while he rode her.

Making it last as long as he could, Gregor thrust slowly and easily until neither of them could fight the release any longer and they both shattered. Then she clutched at him gratefully, whispering his name, and he rolled free and drew her into his arms, tucking her against him for sleep.