Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) (36 page)

“But Reed is as dangerous as any of you.”

“Yes, so he knew what might happen.”

“What might? Stop the sleigh and direct your roguish charm my way, if you please. Let me see if I have the will to resist you.”

Ash regarded his pregnant bride twice before guiding the horses toward the trees. “Keep your blinders on,” he said to the matched pair as he took his wife into his arms.

‘Twas not long before they played their lavender-field game, hands in each other’s clothes, seeking all manner of sport, despite the nip in the winter air, and the iced white flakes drifting about them.

“I see what you mean about rogues and sleighs,” Lark said, sitting up, breathless, some time later. “I want what you want, but the babe makes it difficult in so closed a space.”

Ash grinned and rode the movement of their child with his palm. “Little Isobel is energetic tonight.”

“Little Zachary, you mean.”

He kissed her icy nose. “What say you to a nice warm bed?”

“Not yet, I like it out here. I want to do all the naughty things the rest of the rogues and their brides did.”

“What naughty things?”

Lark took off her gloves, moved the carriage blanket aside, and took his hornpipe out to play. She chuckled wickedly at his hiss of appreciation. “Now that I have it, what
should
I do with it?”

“I do not know that it will perform at all well. It has never been so stiff from the cold.”

“Let me warm it then.” Lark bent to do so, with her mouth, of all things.

Ash gave a shout of shock and pleasure. “Good God, woman? How did you know to do that?”

“The wives have been talking.”

“All the wives?”

Lark shrugged. “Some have more to teach and others more to learn.”

Ash thought he should protest the intimate exchange of information, but Lark did it again, closing her lips over him this time, taking him full in her mouth, and his every thought fled. He knew nothing but her lips on his sex, milking him, suckling him, as if she would devour him, and when he thought he’d expire from holding back, she took him into her hand again, as if to make him spill.

“You have to stop.” He covered her hand with his. “Lark stop, or I will ruin the blankets.”

To his surprise and delight, she loosed her bodice and removed her lace scarf to glove him. While he suckled her cool breast, she worked him with skill, and he found her center, and brought her pleasure with his own.

When they got back to her room, Ash found a sprig of holly on her dresser and picked it up. “What is this?”

“You were to show me what rogues did with their buttonhole sprigs, remember?”

Ash grimaced. “While once that might have seemed a fine notion, I do not think, under the circumstances—”

“What? Can we no longer speak of such things? What has changed between us except that we are more intimate? Is your reticence based upon the fact that your roguish ways involved your many conquests?”

Ash sighed. “They were naught but naked women wrapped in red ribbon,” he said, “a sordid past I would as soon forget.”

“So … tell me what you did then with the holly sprig?”

“I tucked them into the ribbon’s bow.”

“How disappointing. I thought surely you tucked them elsewhere.”

“Ouch.” Ash grimaced. “Have you not noticed, my love, how spiny holly leaves can be? Though now that I think on it, I might gently place that sprig between these lovely milky breasts.”

Lark stepped away and gave him a seductive pose in profile. “Can you not see me clad in naught but a red ribbon with a magnificent bow?”

Ash took her in his arms. “Do not mock what I hold dear.” He placed the sprig in her honey hair. “Perfect,” he said. “Though I have long since thought you beautiful, you are to my eyes, at this moment, only to be revered.”

“Oh no, never say so. Maternal perhaps, saucy yes, but never to be revered. I am your still your guttersnipe bride, make no mistake. Shall I be forced to beat you to remind you?”

“I had rather you took me to bed.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

They undressed each other there, beside her bed, but when they met in the center, and teased and kissed, as they were wont to do, their need escalated to a degree that could not be satisfied.

“We are a fine pair, are we not,” Ash said falling back against the sheets. “Me, hard as a pikestaff, you slick and pulsing. But you are too full and round with the babe to make it possible.” He kissed her hard naked belly. “Not that I am complaining, mind. I am awed and grateful.”

Lark closed a hand around him, though ‘twas not what either of them sought. Still, he spoke her name in the rush of frustrated pleasure at her touch.

“I want you inside me,” she said, “deep and deeper still. Nothing but you thrusting into me will do. Hard. I want you hard, and fast, Ashford.”

Ash regarded his raging manhood, aching to be gloved, as much as she ached to pull him in, and he shook his head. “I aim to please, Madam, but I dare not.”

“Let us try against the wall again?” she suggested. “Have we a sturdier footstool?”

“And take a chance on hurting you or the babe? I think not.” But Ash remembered what Buckston had said about meeting her half way and it gave him an idea.

“Lark,” he said, tossing aside the blankets and moving to the head of the bed. “I have an absurd notion that just might work. Do as I say and do not argue.” He knelt, and urged her to kneel facing him, closer, then closer still, her legs parted, her knees on either sides of his.

He placed pillows beneath her bottom to prop her up and position her, held her almost astride him, but not, her leaning toward, yet away, so as not to crush their child, but at exactly the right angle to receive him.

With a shout of joy, Ash gloved himself in his wife’s willing warmth, and while she arched and leaned back against his bracing arms, Ash moved in her.

“Do nothing,” he said. “I will do all the work and bear your weight. Just open for me, love. Welcome me.”

“I do, Ash. More than you know.”

Their passion turned wild and unruly. Her intense frenzy shivered his spine, as if she were driven, as if there might never be such another coupling, or another chance to express what they’d never dared.

For his part, Ash wanted more, many and more couplings, and he knew Lark did too.

Neither spoke the thought, not in words, but in the merging of their flesh they avowed it with eloquence, two as one, victorious, and secretly, shockingly, in love, for his part at least.

Ash barely acknowledged the insight when Lark cupped his ballocks and brought them against her, and he rejoiced in the sensation, and called her name with heightened rapture.

“I am flying, Ash, flying away from you, from myself.” She opened her eyes and looked full at him. “This is wonder. I cannot bear it—”

“Bear it, Love, a Christmas union always to remember, like naught in my experience. My wife, belly ripe with child, taking me so deep, I ride bliss to the stars. I never knew such wonder.”

“Make it last,” Lark said.

“You will kill us both,” Ash said on a gasp. Nevertheless, he slowed his pace, ground his teeth, and placed his hands between them to make her to rise again.

And after she reached her pinnacle, three, maybe more, times, Ash embraced oblivion, fearing nearly for their safety. But when he questioned her, some minutes later, she laughed, with the little breath she could muster, purred, and curled against him to sleep.

Unlike his ill-used and fatigued self, she woke looking radiant, as if she would take on the world, and her first Christmas Eve besides.

After nuncheon, while her guests either finished their personal Christmas preparations or spent time with their children in the nursery, Ash surprised Lark by urging her up the stairs toward her small sitting room.

Ashley Briana—for so everyone had taken to calling her since her announcement—arrived shortly thereafter wearing a claret velvet dress to match Lark’s own, Christmas gifts for both of them from Ash. Surprised and pleased as Lark to see it, Ashley Briana went to Ash, curtseyed, accepted his compliments and stepped into his embrace.

“Thank you,” she said simply, her least number of words at once since her first. Then she came to stand before Lark and fan her skirts. “Look Mama, I am almost as pretty as you.”

Christmas when you least expected it, Lark thought, but Micah rose and shouted, “No!” and Ash hauled the boy on his lap.

Ashley Briana placed her arm about Lark’s shoulder and raised her chin in challenge.

Micah ignored his sister’s gauntlet to regard Ash, as if he might like to make a similar statement.

Ash looked to each of the children in turn and reached for Lark’s hand. “Micah, Ashley Briana, only you can grant
our
most fervent Christmas wish, which is that you consider yourselves ours, equal in our love, with equal right to call us Mama and Papa.”

Micah threw his arms around Ash, Ashley Briana grinned, as if she expected as much, and Lark accepted her husband’s handkerchief.

Children’s excited voices drew them to the main staircase where the party congregated, including every one of the nineteen children. Alex and Chastity waited, each at the base of a stair rail, and those children old enough stood in two rows at the top.

“What the dev—ah, what Christmas tradition is this?” Ash asked, as he took his wife’s arm and they made their way down the stairs to the foyer.

“It is a new tradition, a banister race,” Alex said. “For children ten years and older. Hawk and Reed are to be the judges. Was there ever such a banister to be seen? Such a long low stair, the rail arched like a chair, a base that kisses the floor, as if the carver had such a sport in mind when he designed it. I tried it myself last night to be certain it was safe.”

“She did. After everyone retired,” Hawk said, “and more than once, I might add.”

“I say the winner gets to stay up and wait for Father Christmas,” said Rafe.

“There is no Father Christmas,” Harry said, repeating his litany.

“Is too,” Damon argued, and I am waiting up for him to prove it, whether I win the race or not.”

“So he thinks,” Alex said.

“Where is Bree?” Lark asked.

“She is … indisposed,” Gideon said, looking pale, culpable and shock-struck.

Alex raised a speaking brow. “I believe next year’s Baby Jesus has been chosen.”

Gideon lifted his two-year-old twins in his arms with the ease of practice and kissed each brow. “Poor Mama.”

Lark saw that Gideon loved his children, welcomed the notion of more, but felt frustration at his wife’s suffering. “Who has had the fastest slide so far?” she asked, changing the subject for Gideon’s sake.

“Micah,” Damon said, “but that is not fair because he has had weeks to practice.”

“Mama can slide down faster than me,” Micah said.

“You, Lark?” Chastity asked. “You have tested the banister as well? In your condition?”

“She slides all the time,” Ashley Briana said with pride. “Come, Mama, show us.”