The Wicked One (26 page)

"I may never be able to give you my love, Blackheath, but I promise that I will give you my loyalty, my strength, my — best efforts to make a go of this."

"I am in no doubt of that.  And for now, that is enough."

"For now.  But what about later, Blackheath?"

"Hmm, yes . . . later.  If we have a later, Duchess."

"And if we do?"

He smiled, and in that moment she saw his soul, deep as the universe, in his eyes.  "Then I would like the sort of marriages my brothers have."  His hand moved over her partly concealed breast, teasing the nipple, bringing it to a hard peak beneath the thin silk.  "I would like to have a marriage based on trust and friendship.  A wife who is never afraid to tell me when I am wrong . . . and children.  Many children."  His smile spread.  "Lots of children."

"Girl-children?"

"Girls, boys . . . their gender matters naught to me."  He caught a length of her hair, dragging his fingers down and through it, letting them just touch her pebble-hard nipple as he came to the end of each gentle pull.

"I could grow to like this, Blackheath."

"My dear madam, I daresay you already do."  He cupped her jaw with his hand, making her feel tiny, fragile — cherished.  "Now . . . let us get you out of these hopeless confines of fabric and hoop, yes?"

Off came jewels, accessories, shoes, and hoops.  The beautiful Polonese gown followed.  Then, wearing only stays, shift, and stockings, she rolled onto her stomach, arms crossed beneath her on the pillow, back arched and her cheek resting on the backs of her wrists.  "Oh, yes . . ."

She felt his fingers caressing her nape beneath the heavy mass of her hair.  Her blood thickened with sensuous languor, her body ached with desire.  She craved his touch.  Sighed as his fingers combed through her hair, gently pulling it up and away from the top of her chemise, gathering the weighty, silken mass up in his hand before laying it alongside her neck and out across the pillow.  Cool air kissed her exposed nape . . . then, the gentle, all-consuming warmth of his hand.

She closed her eyes in bliss as he slowly caressed her, his knuckles lingering in the hollow between her shoulder blades; there they remained for a long, dragged-out moment, skating over the thin chemise that separated her skin from his, massaging out a knot before continuing downward, unlacing her stays, freeing her from their constraints, traveling ever lower until his fingertips met the dip where spine met hips.  There they lingered in a warm caress.

"If I were a cat, I'd be purring," she mumbled, as he lifted her slightly and pulled the stays out from under her.

His hand was roving down her lower back, stoking the fire within her, now rounding the high curve of her bottom.  "Ah, but you are a cat, my dear, sleek and lustrous, one moment purring, the next, hissing and clawing."

"Mmmm . . . purring versus hissing and clawing . . .  Do you have a preference, Duke?"

"No, as long as I have variety."

"Then make me do more than purr, Blackheath."

"With pleasure, madam."

And with those husky words, the bed sagged a bit more as he leaned down over her, and she felt the press of his lips there in the dip of her spine, grazing the sensitized skin through her thin chemise, making her sigh and flex her fingers beneath her in pleasure.

"Mmmm, Blackheath . . . I'm definitely purring, now."

He pulled the long, loose garment up over her legs, lifted her, and dragged it up her back.  She felt his hand tracing the curve of her bottom, his mouth teasing the small of her back; then, slowly, his lips, his tongue, his teeth all working in a heady caress, he moved up her spine, going to work on each vertebra, making her every nerve tighten and tingle.

She raised her head from the pillow, breathing hard.

"Oh, Blackheath —"

Still he dragged his mouth up and over each vertebra, his hand still caressing her bare bottom; beneath her, pressed against the sheet, her nipples were on fire, and the restless ache between her legs was growing unbearable.

"Purr for me, Duchess."

His tongue was stroking into each dip of her backbone now, drawing little circles on her skin that the air instantly chilled, and she began to moan and squirm, fast reaching the end of her tolerance.  In a moment she wasn't going to be purring; she was going to be yowling.  And then he pulled the loose chemise back down and his hand, which had been caressing the high, rounded curve of her bottom, moved lower, finding her cleft through the thin fabric.

"Oh,
damn
you, Blackheath!"

He only laughed, and continued stroking her through the fine lawn, and Eva, beginning to perspire now against the pillow, felt a spreading slick of moisture between her thighs, soaking into her chemise as he pressed it against her aching center, slowly moving the fabric up and down, the rough pressure bringing her nearer and nearer to climax.

"Oh . . . oh, you are a merciless
beast
.  "Please — stop!"

"But my dear lady, I haven't fully . . . prepared you."

"Any more preparation and the sheets are going to catch on fire beneath me."

He laughed, and his hand left her hot, aching nether regions, pulling the chemise up once more.  He lay the fine fabric across her bottom, her back, the bed on which she still lay facedown and trembling.  Cool air assaulted her exposed legs, whispered up her inner thighs.  His knuckles roved up her calves, grazing her skin through her thin silk stockings.  It was nearly her undoing — but no, she had control, she did, she
did
.  She would not let herself go over the edge just yet, even though she wanted nothing more than those knuckles, those hands, that warm, knowing touch, higher . . . wanted it where it had been a moment ago, wanted him, and that hard, pressing arousal she could feel stabbing into her hip, inside her.  Penetrating her.

But no.

No, he was kissing, caressing, the sensitive backs of her knees . . . turning her over now, his hands warm and guiding, peeling the chemise from her hot body as he had earlier peeled the orange from its protective flesh.  His fingers were at her throat, untying the neck of her chemise, sliding it down her shoulders, baring them, baring her, to his simmering gaze, his skillful hands.  She lay there for a moment, wrapped in only the thin lawn, now damp with her own excited perspiration.  Finally, he removed this last barrier and she lay beneath him, skin to skin, as naked as he.

He gazed down at her, smiling as he took in her lush curves, her flushed skin, his eyes lingering at the junction of her long white thighs.

"Now I think" —  his finger traced the valley between her breasts, drew a light, agonizing line down her abdomen — "that I will make you hiss and scratch."

Anticipation pulsed through Eva; she was so primed and ready for him that she feared one more touch would make her splinter like crystal.

But he did not touch her, except with that enigmatic black gaze; he did not lay a finger on her, even, only allowing her to simmer in her own steam, smiling as she gazed up at him through the tangled, damp skeins of her hair.

"And how do you plan to do that, Blackheath?"

For answer, he only let that grin spread — and reached for the bowl of cherries.

Eva's eyes widened; she stared mutely at him.  Fascinated, she watched as he plucked a cherry from the bowl, holding it by the stem and slanting her a wicked sidelong glance; then, his eyes hooded, he lowered it to her mouth, dragging it lightly over her lower lip, and then the arched contour of her upper one.

His command was an unspoken one.  Eva opened her mouth and bit off the bottom edge of the sweet fruit.  She boldly met Blackheath's gaze; his eyes went even darker.

He bent down and kissed the thin trickle of red juice from her lower lip; then, still holding the partly eaten fruit by its stem, he dragged it down the damp white arch of throat.

Along the base of one breast.

Around the flushed areola, circling it once, twice, until the nipple tingled and ached; still twirling the cherry by its stem, he let its soft, wet flesh, the slick raspy roughness of the exposed pit, graze the edges of her nipple until Eva felt the tension coiling between her legs once more, building, until she could not contain her tortured moans of desire.

Breathing hard, her hot body filmed with dampness, she opened her eyes just in time to see Blackheath's mouth fasten upon the fruit-stained nipple, sucking and licking the sweet red juice.

Eva gasped and arched upward, using every bit of her will to keep climax at bay, her hands shoving at Blackheath's shoulders, her nails scoring the skin stretched over the hard, bulging muscle as his tongue flicked and rasped the engorged bud.

"Ah . . . my cat shows her claws," he murmured, pulling back and smiling.

She stared up at him, breathing hard, her nipples so tight she thought she would explode.  He was still holding the half-eaten cherry; still twirling it lazily between thumb and forefinger, his gaze dark, promising, and very, very wicked.

And then, as she watched, he brought it to his mouth, and, his eyes never leaving hers, took a tiny bite, exposing that much more of the fleshy red fruit, the paler pit.

His gaze still holding hers, he held the cherry out, just over her stomach . . . and began to lower it.

"No — oh, Blackheath, no, you wouldn't dare —"

"Oh, but I would," he murmured, and she gasped as he touched the cool wet fruit to her abdomen.

He dragged it around her navel, leaving a thin trail of fruity red juice . . . and just skirted the top edge of her silken curls, teasing her, making her writhe with wanting.

"Blackheath —"

But he only bent down and began to follow the trail of juice with his tongue.

Eva shut her eyes as she mouth grazed her midriff, as his lips teased her skin into prickles of exquisite agony, as his tongue ran over the sweet red juice.  She knew what he was going to do . . . oh God, she knew what was coming —

And then, yes, he pulled back, took another bite of the cherry, and, still holding the fruit by the stem — now nothing more than a pit and a wedge of dark red flesh — he dragged it around the triangle of soft red curls, coaxing her legs apart with his other hand.

"Oh, dear heavens, Blackheath —"

He merely smiled, pulled the fruit through the thatch of silken hair, and then drew it up, then down, between the parted lips of her femininity.

"Black
heath
—"

She writhed on the pillow, drowning in sensation, fighting the inevitable, her hair spilling across her face and twisting beneath her.

But he was relentless.  Ruthless.  She felt the ball of fruit touching her most intimate folds, felt him pulling it between the petals of her womanhood, held open by his thumb and forefinger, and then —

Oh, God
 —

And then, he was holding her fully, tautly open . . . and touching the sweet fruit to her engorged bud, fully exposed to his gaze, the air, the wet pit of the cherry.

Eva began to sob.  To thrash.  To whimper and make strangled noises of desire.  Desperately, she clawed at his hands, but he only caught her flailing wrists, lowered himself down, and with his mouth and tongue began to follow the sweet red juice from where he'd left off at her navel.

Down through her hot, moist curls.

And there —
there
, right at the peaked, burning center of her last kissed by the fruit, as he held her thighs wide apart with both hands.

Eva felt climax rushing down upon her.  She screamed and tore free, pushing at his head as his tongue flicked and rasped over the hardened bud, mercilessly bringing her higher and higher until she was raking at his shoulders, twisting helplessly beneath him, crying out his name.  She forgot to breathe, and for a moment she nearly blacked out . . . and when she came back to herself, he was atop her, covering her with his body, his hands anchoring her head, his mouth covering her own cries of passion as he slipped, oh-so-deeply, inside her . . .

Filling her.

Stretching her.

Causing her to arch upward to meet his slow, driving thrusts until they came faster and faster, carrying her right along with him, little cries ripping from her throat as she soared with him toward climax yet again.  And then his body went taut.  He hung poised above her before giving one last thrust, and she buried her scream against his damp shoulder as she convulsed with passion once more.

Exhausted, they lay together, breathing hard, their bodies separated by only a film of perspiration.

Outside, the sleet hissed against the window.  The storm gathered force, and Eva felt sleep pulling the curtain down around her eyes.

And as she faded toward oblivion, her arms wrapped loosely around her husband's broad shoulders, she was smiling.

Chapter 22

Lucien did not go to sleep.

He lay there, his arms and shoulders taking most of his weight, his body half covering the woman beside him.  Outside, in the darkness beyond the heavy drapes, wind and sleet hissed against the windows, rattling the casements, bringing to his ears the distant roar of the sea.  He had no wish to give in to his body's demand for rest, no wish to revisit the nightmares.  No, better to just lie here with her, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, the scent of her in his nostrils, the sight of her curving, long-legged body in the light of the flickering candelabra.

She was beautiful.  And this had been the first time she had given herself to him with no coercion and little seduction; the first time she had let down her guard enough to tentatively trust him.  The first time the aloof, contemptuous Eva had allowed a softer, sweeter side to take its place.

Lucien smiled.  He quite liked this sweeter side.

Now that their passion was spent, their bodies cooling, he realized how chilly it was in the room.  Carefully, so as not to wake his bride, he rolled off her, seized the thick coverlet, and pulled it up over them both.

She opened her eyes.

"Lucien."

He froze. 
Lucien
— she had called him by his given name.  Not Blackheath, not Duke, not Your Grace — but Lucien.  His heart swelled almost painfully.  He swallowed hard against the sudden tightness in his throat and managed a little smile.