The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

  They left Marcus engrossed in a book in the drawing room; as they climbed the main stairs, she linked her arm with his. They reached the first floor and walked to the door of his room, but instead of releasing him, she tightened her hold and drew him on—to the narrow stairs that spiraled upward a few yards further on.

  She had to release his arm, but caught his hand and, raising her skirts, led the way. Curious, he allowed her to tow him, haltingly, up the curving flight and into the turret room above the chamber he’d been assigned.

  That the turret room was her private domain was, to his eyes and all his senses, instantly apparent. The room wasn’t a girl’s, but a woman’s, powerfully yet elegantly decorated in myriad shades of green—from the softest spring-green of the sheets, to the vibrant leaf-green of the silk comforter, to the lush velvet draperies that cloaked the windows and the corners of the four-poster bed in the deep dark green of the forests.

  She drew him further in, then released his hand and turned back. Behind him, he heard the door shut with a quiet, solid thunk of fated finality.

  Soft lamplight glowed from sconces on either side of her mahogany dressing table; another lamp sat on the small table beside the bed, shedding light over the wide expanse, laying a shimmering golden sheen over the green silk.

  He was vaguely aware of two dressers and two armoires set against the walls and, beyond the bed, a comfortable setting of two armchairs with footstools angled before a fireplace. A fire burned in the hearth, and the tang of pine underlay the perfume infusing the very air. Tempted, he breathed deep, filling his lungs—and recognized the pervasive scent. That curious blend of herbs, flowers, and spring sunshine he associated with her.

  He would recognize that scent were he blind; that hook had already sunk deep.

  He started to turn toward her, but she came up beside him, took his hand again, briefly met his eyes, then faced forward and drew him on.

  The bed was her ultimate goal.

  He understood that and was willing enough to follow.

  She halted by the bed’s side, released his hand, and with a swish of her silken skirts, turned to him—stepped to him, framed his face with her hands, pulled him down as she stretched up and kissed him.

  Her passion hit him full force. No warning, no gentle rise of desire, but with the sudden impact of a raging storm.

  She parted her lips under his, but the instant he responded, she changed tack and boldly slid her tongue past his lips, found his tongue, and heavily stroked.

  Incited.

  With each successive, deliberate caress, she demanded and taunted.

  For long seconds, he reeled, rocked back on his mental heels by the sheer force of her desire, the heat, the raging beat, the power—the sheer need she poured into him.

  He drank it down—suddenly couldn’t get enough. His own need roared to life, answering hers.

  Rising to her call.

  His hands had instinctively closed about her waist, holding her… His fingers curled, his palms seized.

  His cane cracked on the floor as he moved into her and closed the last inch, then he hauled her against him, into a crushing embrace as he forced her head back, took control of the kiss, and pressed his passion on her.

  She didn’t give ground. Didn’t back away an inch.

  She speared her fingers into his hair, clutched, and came up on her toes the better to press yet another scorching kiss on his mouth, on his slavering senses.

  Curiosity flared; she’d dispensed with all shields, all care, all caution.

  How far would she truly go?

  The primitive male in him wondered.

  Yet he wasn’t prepared to cede to her in this, not in this arena. His fingers tensed, then eased, his senses registering the feminine vitality between his hands, the supple, resilient skin beneath the layers of clothes; once he got his hands on her, on the silken curves of her body, she would yield and the reins would be his once more.

  Yet she wasn’t ready to end the passionate plundering of their mouths—and neither was he.

  Awareness fracturing, he wrenched enough of his wits free of the kiss, enough to send his hands searching. Tonight, her lacy bodice closed down the back. Starting at the high collar at her nape, he swiftly slid the tiny buttons free, driven by a rising desperation to feel the silk-satin of her skin again, to taste the succulent peaks of her breasts and hear her moan.

  Her kiss pulled his mind one way, his desperation pulled in another; he almost felt giddy.

  The bodice was loosening, gaping at the back, almost undone… What wits he’d reclaimed from the heated, hungry savoring of their mouths were focused on that. Then his neckcloth whisked away, and the witch in his arms hauled apart the sides of his shirt that she’d already freed—and set her greedy hands to his chest.

  To his body; from the way she swept her palms, here, there, and over every inch of bared skin she could reach, it was transparently clear that she wanted it all—wanted to, intended to, seize and lay claim.

  The need infused in each sweeping caress had him closing his eyes—made him shudder.

  This was passion of a different stripe—of a power and force he hadn’t before encountered.

  Life. I will always bring you life. Life, indeed, at an elevated level.

  A temptation he couldn’t resist.

  He had to step up, had to match her; some innate part of him recognized and accepted that he had no other choice.

  He pushed the last button free and hauled open the back of her bodice, then by main force, unrelentingly pulled the garment forward and down—trapping her arms and inexorably forcing her to draw her hands from his already burning skin.

  Lucilla had no intention of stepping back, slowing down, or allowing him to dictate this engagement. She—her instincts—saw tonight as hers—her time to convince him of all they could have, of all they could be. The cuffs of her sleeves weren’t tight; in virtually one movement, she lowered her arms, with two swift tugs freed her hands, drew her arms from the confining sleeves—and reached and grabbed handfuls of his shirt, waistcoat, and coat level with his collarbone, then lifted and pushed the garments up and over his shoulders, trapping his arms in return.

  She broke from the kiss as, with one last, downward shove, she pushed his bunched clothes to his elbows. Then she seized a second for the battle to catch her racing breath.

  Her bodice fell away; she heard the clink of the buttons as he let it fall from the fingers of one hand to the floor.

  His hands, large and strong, were splayed on her back, his touch burning through the fine silk of her chemise.

  She’d broken the kiss, but their faces remained only inches apart. They were both breathing rapidly, heated breaths mingling. Their gazes met and locked—his glinted, gold in amber, from beneath the thick lashes of his lowered lids. She flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips. “How’s your leg?” The one restriction still hovering in her mind.

  Thomas blinked. For an instant, he didn’t know what she meant…then he remembered and inwardly checked, but it wasn’t his leg that was aching. “It’s not hurting.” The words came out in a low growl.

  “Good.” She shifted closer and, with calculated deliberation, pressed herself to him like a cat, rubbing her barely clad breasts against his lower chest, the warm, curvaceous mounds impressing his skin, his senses.

  His jaw locked as he battled vainly to ignore the provocation—in the movement, in her intensely green eyes.

  With his arms trapped, he was at her mercy, but to free himself, he would have to take his hands from her—lose the last vestige of control over her.

  Her eyes on his, she swayed, the tight peaks of her breasts dragging across his skin; the sensation made the muscles of his abdomen quiver, then lock even harder than before.

  He muttered a curse and drew his hands from her. Lowering his arms, he pulled and shook the constricting garments down and free of his hands.

  But she was on him the instant he moved. Small hands bra
cing, fingers spread, on the heavy muscles on either side of his chest, she placed a hot, wet, open-mouthed kiss in the small hollow in the center of his chest—and branded him.

  Scalded him; the heat from that claiming touch raced through him and spread, igniting a need he had to assuage.

  He reached for the laces anchoring her skirt.

  Lucilla pressed her lips once more to the beckoning hollow, then she licked, laved. Closing her eyes, she gave her senses over to tasting him as he had her—to savoring the slightly salty tang of him and drawing the arousing scent of pure male deep, to her bones.

  He filled her senses to overflowing, and she welcomed and embraced the knowing. Then she set about tasting him some more. She found the flat discs of his nipples hidden beneath the fine mat of curly dark hair. She fingered them—learning them by touch, by feel—then she closed her lips about them and tasted, closed her teeth and lightly scraped, then with her lips tugged.

  She read his response in the flickering of his skin, in the tensing of iron-hard muscles, in his increasingly harried breathing.

  Her own breaths were shallow; if she thought of it, she’d feel giddy, but in that moment, she was focused on only one thing.

  Him.

  On claiming him.

  She felt the frantic tugs at her waist and knew she was on the right road. Recognizing the opportunity, she used the moment to let her hands slide down, fingers lightly gripping, tracing over the tensed ridges of his abdomen to his waist.

  To the buttons securing the waistband of his trousers.

  Two flicks and she had the buttons undone.

  He cursed and yanked her skirt down, pushing it down in a profusion of silk folds, then he set about unraveling the laces of her petticoats.

  It fascinated her that he could unknot the laces without seeing, yet he seemed quite adept; she left him to it.

  Left him worrying at that while she peeled back the front placket of his trousers, sought and found the slit in his linen underpants, and slid her hand within.

  She palmed his erection and his breath hitched, then halted. She closed her fingers about the rock-hard length, heavy as marble, corded with thick veins, the skin unbelievably delicate and fine. And sensitive. His breath stuttered and shook when she brushed her fingertips over the smoothness of the broad head. Her fingers dallied on the moistness of the slit—and he came at her again.

  He yanked the laces loose, shoved her petticoats down to join her skirt.

  Before he could seize her and lift her—and break her hold on him—she stepped out of her skirts and kicked them aside. Closing her hand more firmly about his erection, she reached with the other for his nape. She caught him and hauled him into another kiss.

  This time, he dove into the exchange—as determined as she, as ravenous for control, but even more for the outcome. No reluctance, no resistance. Just need and raw desire.

  She moved into him, and he hauled her closer. For a protracted moment, they caught each other, seized each other’s senses and held them immersed in the scorching duel of their tongues, the blatantly sexual mating of their mouths.

  She was no longer thinking—she didn’t need to; she reacted and stroked the hard hot length in her palm, then sent her other hand skating down from his nape, tracing down the side of his chest to slide around to his back and splay over the center, holding him to her as with her other hand she played.

  He groaned through the kiss. The guttural sound was music to her ears.

  Then his hands, until then spread on her back, slid down, blatantly sculpting her body, her skin screened from the heat of his hard palms only by the flimsiest of silks. Those large hands swept lower, over the indentation of her waist and down, to close, possessive and greedy, over the globes of her bottom.

  Her own breath shook as he gripped, then provocatively kneaded.

  Although their lips were still supping, neither was any longer trapped in the kiss—they were trapped by their own desires and the sensations battering them. She could barely breathe, but by her judgment, it was her turn.

  She slid her hand from his back to his side and gripped the loose waistband of his trousers; simultaneously, she eased her hold on his erection just enough to score upward with her nails, all the way to the tip.

  His focus fractured. The grip of his hands on her bottom eased.

  Just enough for her to wiggle and slide out of his hold and sink to her knees.

  With her free hand, she held the front of his trousers open, while with the other she angled his erection to her lips.

  Thomas froze. Emotions lashed him—a vivid medley of leaping passion, straining desire, disbelief, and surging expectation. Anticipation triumphed, sank its claws deep—and held him immobile. Every muscle he possessed locked; he was unable to move, barely able to breathe—all he could do was watch as, kneeling amid the pile of her discarded skirts, she closed both hands about his straining length, and gently, delicately, kissed the weeping head.

  His senses teetered; she was going to kill him—slay him—if she didn’t do more. Did she know how?

  The answer came in the next second. She parted her lips and took him into her mouth, and his senses rioted.

  Her hair was still more or less up in the knot she’d worn it in that evening, exposing the delicate curve of her neck as she bent her head at his groin. He stared, then she suckled and ripped a groan from him.

  If he watched any longer, he’d be lost. Closing his eyes, he rode out the exquisite slide of her hot wet flesh closing about him. He reached for her head, needing that anchor—needing that pretense that he had some control, when in reality he had none. She’d razed his defenses.

  She proceeded to reduce every last barrier he had to ash.

  Every lick set him quaking, clinging desperately to fast unraveling sanity; every time she sucked, he teetered on the brink of losing all control and simply ravishing her.

  If she realized that, sensed that, she didn’t stop.

  Her hairpins pinged and scattered on the floor as, his head tipping back, he desperately clung to some semblance of sophistication while she, with her hot mouth and her wandering hands, hands that ultimately came to close about and lightly knead his heavy balls, tried to cinder even that.

  Bit by bit, suck by lick, she succeeded.

  Life. I will always bring you life.

  But some part of him was dying. Under her committed, direct, and determined ministrations, that part of him that was not truly him was withering and falling away.

  And all that was left was the true him—nothing like the Thomas Carrick the ladies of Glasgow knew, but a man of even stronger passions, of needs that went so much deeper than any of them had ever known, ever touched, much less satisfied.

  Under her hands, under the touch of her lips and the wet heat of her mouth, the true him burned.

  Then she shifted her head and took him deeper yet.

  And he knew beyond question that he wouldn’t last.

  “Enough.” He forced the word out, could barely make it out himself, but she heard and paused—he seized the moment to slip his thumb between her lips, to spread his fingers and grip her head and, as he drew free of her mouth, haul her up.

  Against him. He held her head clamped between his palms and pressed a searing kiss on her swollen lips.

  Tasted a trace of himself in her mouth and plunged deeper, forcing her lips wide, sweeping his tongue over hers, claiming every inch of her softness anew. Then he released her head and caught her instead, crushed her to him and, angling his head over hers, holding her trapped in the kiss, proceeded to conquer the rest of her.

  Lucilla wasn’t about to be conquered—at least not so easily. Especially not now that he’d finally dropped his shields and was interacting with her as just him. She hadn’t realized what a difference there was between this inner man and the other, the one she’d known until now. This man was harder, more demanding—even more inclined to command.

  She didn’t care—he was the one she co
veted. Her true lover, her true husband, her true mate.

  His hands shaped her body, ruthlessly pressing fire beneath her skin.

  She returned the act with interest, then pushed things even further, touching, tracing—teasing and taunting. Passion thudded in her veins; desire surged through her even as delight coursed down every nerve.

  She was burning, almost as hot as he; his skin was like a brand wherever she touched, sinking into her senses. She could feel urgency building in them both, in the tension in their muscles, in the desperation driving each caress and in their fractured breaths, yet still they battled, waging a sensual war of sorts, neither willing to surrender even though both were reaching the limit of what they could withstand… They were racing flat out toward that threshold beyond which passion wouldn’t allow them to hold back.

  He reached that breaking point first.

  A guttural sound escaped him, then he swung around and backed her against the bed. The high mattress met her thighs.

  His arms eased from around her, but instead of gripping her waist and lifting her—either to the bed or against him—he closed both hands in the open collar of her chemise. The eyes that met hers were burning gold. Then he ripped.

  In one violent move, he stripped the fine garment from her.

  Cool air washed over her flushed skin, and she rejoiced.

  Dragging in a shallow breath, she reached for his trousers, still hanging open from his hips.

  Her fingertips had barely touched the material when he caught her shoulders and spun her to face the bed.

  She caught only a glimpse of his face, of his eyes, as she turned, but what burned there was so powerful, so passionately alive, she lost what little breath she’d managed to catch.

  Then his hand pressed heavily between her shoulder blades, and she had no choice but to bend over the bed.

  Turning her head to one side, she tried to peek through the fall of her hair, tried to reach back, but he caught her hands, anchored them in one of his in the small of her back, and leaned enough of his weight on that hand to keep her in place.

  Then with his feet, he pushed hers apart, and touched her.