Some Like It Wicked

  The sweet, hot flicker of his tongue over the swollen bud at the crux of her curls was like a living flame whipping her into a fever of lust. When she tried to writhe away from it, he curved his big, warm hands around her bottom and held her still, forcing the flames even higher. At the exact moment they threatened to consume her, he closed his mouth around that tender bud and gently suckled, sending a rush of unspeakable rapture cascading through every nerve ending of her body.

  It seemed to roll on and on, as did her broken wail of surrender.

  Feeling as if she’d been flung up to the heavens to touch the stars, then dropped to float gently back to earth, Catriona slowly opened her eyes.

  Simon was gazing down at her, the glint of triumph in his eyes unmistakable.

  She lifted a hand to his cheek, unable to stop herself from touching him. Eyeing him solemnly, she said, “I was right about you. You’re an unscrupulous villain without an ounce of honor in your heart.”

  “That may be true, sweetheart,” he whispered, cupping her face in his hands. “But tonight I’m also your husband.”

  As his mouth came down on hers, feeding her an intoxicating taste of her own pleasure, she tangled her hands in the wheaten silk of his hair and kissed him back, wrenching a groan from deep in his throat.

  Taking his groan for the invitation it was, she shoved the shirt from his shoulders, allowing herself to revel in touching him as she’d always dreamed of doing. He was a male marvel of sinew knitted over muscle—warm and smooth, supple and strong. Desperate to taste what she was touching, she tore her mouth away from his kiss and pressed it over his heart. He tasted salty and unbearably sweet all at the same time. Her greedy tongue couldn’t get enough of him.

  After shedding his shirt with an impatient shrug of his broad shoulders, he dragged her to a half-sitting position and tugged her nightdress over her head.

  He gazed down at the pale globes of her breasts with an oddly beguiling combination of reverence and lust. “I don’t think even your beloved Robbie Burns ever composed any poetry worthy of such a sight.” He lifted his eyes to her face, the corner of his mouth curving in a rakish grin. “But perhaps you’ll let me put my own tongue to the task.”

  As he leaned down and circled one blushing nipple with the very tip of his tongue, Catriona discovered she had neither the will nor the desire to refuse him. Her head fell back in surrender as he proved once again just how eloquent that tongue could be. Without wasting a single word, he lavished attention on each of her breasts in turn, using the taut flick of his tongue, the moist heat of his lips, the gentle scrape of his teeth, to compose a glorious sonnet to her feminine charms. She could only clutch at his hair and clench her thighs together when he drew one of her nipples into his mouth and suckled her deep and hard, skirting the boundary between pleasure and pain and sending a shadow of that earlier delight rippling through her womb.

  His equally accomplished hands stripped away his trousers. Before she could steal so much as a peek at what he had revealed, he gathered her tenderly into his arms and laid her back on that bed of blankets and moss, pressing his naked body to hers and drinking one kiss after another from her lips.

  There was something timeless about being here in the moonlight in this place. In this man’s arms. With their breath mingling in wordless sighs and their naked limbs entwined, they might have been any lord and lady throughout all of history, drunk with the carnal pleasures of love and all of its intoxicating possibilities.

  When he pulled away from her, she clutched at the smooth muscles of his back in protest.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured, pressing a soothing kiss to her temple. He reached up to a shelf created from a fallen stone and retrieved a small lacquered box. He lifted the lid to reveal a delicate glass flask nestled on a bed of silk. As he drew out its stopper, the rich exotic smell of myrrh scented the air, mingling with the heady musk of his own desire.

  “I’m afraid I can’t make myself smaller for you, since you’ve had the opposite effect on me since the moment you walked into my jail cell. But I can”—he dragged the cool, hard stopper between the flushed softness of her breasts, leaving a glistening trail of oil—“ease things along.”

  As his meaning became clear, Catriona both blushed and scowled. “I suppose you carry that around in your portmanteau just in case you run across a virgin you’d like to seduce.” Utterly fascinated, she watched the faintest hint of color creep across his high cheekbones. “Why, Mr. Wescott, are you blushing?”

  Simon blew out a sigh and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m going to share a deep, dark secret with you that could very likely ruin my reputation if it got out.” Leaning down to her ear, he whispered, “I’ve never had a virgin before.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Truly?”

  He nodded solemnly. “You’re my first.”

  She smiled, feeling ridiculously pleased by the revelation. “I suppose that makes you something of a virgin yourself.” Patting his chest, she said, “Don’t worry. I’ll strive to be gentle with you.”

  “Please don’t,” he growled, catching her lower lip between his teeth and giving it a tantalizing little tug.

  She thought he might smear a bit of the oil on his fingers, but he surprised her by tilting the bottle and pouring it freely over her belly and thighs.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed as the oil began to trickle between them.

  Led by his thumbs, Simon’s hands followed its path, gliding downward over the incredibly sensitive hollows just above her hipbones, stroking upward until her thighs fell apart. The oil seemed to warm beneath the hypnotic friction of his touch and the sensation of his hands on her made Catriona feel deliciously decadent, like some pampered harem girl or Queen Esther being prepared for the King’s pleasure.

  He kept up that maddening circling and stroking until the whole world narrowed down to that silky little triangle between her legs. The one place he wasn’t touching.

  He had told her once that if she would give him ten minutes, he would make her beg. But it had taken less than five. “Please, Simon,” she moaned, dying for his touch. “Oh, please…” She turned her face into her hair, but there was no place to hide from this terrible wanting.

  He was not without mercy. At her breathless urging, he used both of his thumbs to part those silky curls and follow the glistening path all the way down to its ultimate destination.

  He used the pad of one thumb to stroke the oil around the mouth of that fragile opening. She could feel herself blooming like a flower beneath the kiss of the sun, eager to take whatever he would give her.

  She bit back a sob of pleasure. “Is this one of those creative perversions you’ve been known to practice?”

  “No, but this is,” he whispered, sliding that thumb deep inside of her.

  Catriona let out a low moan, as if her very soul were being torn from her in exchange for some unspeakable pleasure. Aided by both the oil and the tears of joy her own body was weeping, he slid his thumb in and out of her, ravishing her tenderly but thoroughly in a bold imitation of what was to come.

  And still he wasn’t done with her. Just when Catriona thought she might very well swoon from the primal power of it all, he brushed his forefinger ever so lightly against that swollen bud he had suckled earlier. That was all it took for her body to erupt in a fresh rush of ecstasy.

  The tremors of delight were still coursing through her when he withdrew his thumb from her, leaving a raw emptiness that ached to be filled. As she felt the solid weight of his manhood against her thigh, she knew he intended to do just that.

  Suddenly it didn’t matter how many women he had bedded in the past. Tonight he was hers. Only hers. All hers.

  The thought made her feel both wild and bold. “Wait,” she commanded.

  His startled gaze flew to her face. His voice was hoarse, barely recognizable as his own. “If you’ve decided not to abide by our bargain, you’d best tell me now.”

  She reached for the bot
tle of oil, poured a generous amount over her palms, then reached for him. He threw back his head and sucked in an agonized breath as her small hands struggled to enfold him. She used both hands to smooth the oil over his rigid shaft, as stunned by the length and breadth of him as she was beguiled by the flickers of rapture that danced over his face in the moonlight. His eyes were closed and his lips pulled back from his teeth in an expression that was both feral and beautiful.

  She was boldly stroking the oil over every inch of him when he captured both of her wrists in a viselike grip.

  “Don’t you like it?” she asked, unable to hide her dismay.

  “That’s the problem, angel,” he murmured, easing her to her back and covering her with his shadow. “I like it far too much. And if you keep doing that, I’m not going to be able to do…this.”

  She gasped with shock as he sheathed himself in her all the way to the hilt in one masterful stroke. She suffered a sharp pain as if he’d cleaved her with a genuine blade. Despite all of his efforts to prepare her, her untried body could barely contain him.

  He kissed her sweat-dampened brow, breathing as if he’d been running for a very long time. “I’m sorry, sweeting. I swear I only wanted to give you pleasure, not pain.”

  She let out a disgruntled little snuffle. “I think I liked your thumb better.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and gazed down at her, his eyes glowing with a fierce tenderness that made her heart clutch. “I promise to do everything in my power to change your mind about that.”

  Knowing that was one promise he would delight in keeping, Simon braced his weight on both hands and began to move within her. She was exquisitely tight. Exquisitely hot. Exquisitely his. It wasn’t as if she was the first virgin he’d ever had. It was as if she was the first woman he’d ever had, the only woman he would ever want.

  He took her with long, deep, slow strokes, gliding in and out of her as if he had all night to devote to the act. Although he would have liked nothing more than to close his eyes and surrender to sensation, he couldn’t resist watching her face as her pain began to melt into flickers of delight.

  Before long, her lips were parted in a soundless sigh, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed with pleasure. When she began to lift her hips to answer each of his thrusts with one of her own, Simon had to squeeze his eyes shut and clench his teeth against a ragged moan, in danger of losing his legendary mastery over his own needs.

  Catriona ran her hands over Simon’s sweat-sheened chest, marveling that she could be joined to such a beautiful male creature. The throbbing between her legs had faded to a dull ache that only made her more exquisitely sensitive to the friction between their bodies.

  Both Aunt Margaret and Cousin Georgina had led her to believe that kisses, caresses, and whispered endearments were to be desired, but the marriage act itself was something to be stoically endured—the price a woman must pay for a man’s affection.

  But apparently someone had failed to tell Simon that, because the pleasure he was giving her now was even deeper and more powerful than the bliss he had offered her with his mouth and hands. She felt taken. Possessed. As if she might never truly be her own again. As if she would do anything for him, let him do anything to her, no matter how shocking or forbidden. If he was a master of the art of love, then tonight she was his willing and eager pupil.

  She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her, to really see her. “You’ve given me everything I wanted, Simon. What do you want?”

  “You,” he said hoarsely. “Only you.”

  Then there was no more time for words, no more time for thought. There was only that driving rhythm where their bodies were joined.

  Simon clenched his teeth as he drove himself into Catriona with reckless abandon. It was as if her touch had unleashed a wildness in him that he’d been fighting to tame his whole life. For once, instead of seeking his lover’s pleasure, he was seeking only his own.

  Which made it all the more extraordinary when he heard Catriona cry out his name, felt her taut, velvety folds convulse around him in a paroxysm of ecstasy. Rapture came rolling through him like thunder, driving all reason before it until all he could do was collapse on top of her, shuddering and spent.

  They lay there for a long time in each other’s arms, their chests heaving, their breath coming in ragged gasps. Catriona’s voice was still tinged with awe when she finally managed to wheeze out, “Now I know what Jem and Bess were screaming about.”

  “And now I remember what it’s like to be two-and-twenty,” Simon mumbled into her hair.

  Catriona’s eyes widened as she felt him harden anew deep within her. “Why, Mr. Wescott, you can’t be serious!”

  He lifted his head, a rakish glint in his eye. “Why, Mrs. Wescott, I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  Chapter 18

  Catriona awoke to the delicious sensation of Simon stroking her breasts. Pressing her rump to his groin, she snuggled deeper into the warm cup of his body before murmuring, “It’s really quite reprehensible of you to fondle me just because you believe I’m asleep and can’t defend my virtue.”

  He slid his other hand between her legs and began to stroke her there as well. “You’re absolutely right. I should be deeply ashamed of myself. Just what do you intend to do about it?”

  She gasped with delight as he slid his longest finger into her. “Hmmmmm…I don’t know. Pretend I’m still asleep?”

  She closed her eyes, but it was impossible to pretend for long. She couldn’t muffle her sighs and whimpers of pleasure as he tugged gently at her nipple, couldn’t stop herself from arching against his palm as his hand had its wicked way with her.

  “The first time we met,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her nape with a possessive tenderness that made her shiver, “I believe you tried to instruct me in the fine art of lovemaking, did you not? What was it you said? That the male simply bites the back of the female’s neck to hold her still while he mounts her from behind?”

  Catriona shuddered anew as Simon nipped the back of her neck at the precise moment he slid into her from behind.

  “You never told me what comes next,” he whispered in her ear, buried to the hilt in her but not moving a single muscle.

  “This,” she replied breathlessly, rocking against him in a rhythm older than time. “Only this.”

  A short while later Catriona lay cradled in the crook of Simon’s arm, deliciously drowsy but not wanting to waste another precious moment of the night on sleep. His hand played in her hair, twining first one curl, then another, around his finger. As the chill had deepened, laying a sparkling layer of frost over each fallen leaf and blade of grass, he had drawn the blankets up around them both to create a cozy nest.

  “I thought my tender young heart was going to break when you smiled at me on the docks the day you returned from Trafalgar,” she confessed. “I was sixteen years old and somehow I just knew that you were going to sweep me into your arms right in front of Alice and all the world and proclaim your everlasting devotion.”

  “I’m afraid I was a bit distracted.” He gazed up at the shimmering sweep of stars, his profile inscrutable. “You weren’t the only ghost from my past in the crowd that day. My mother was there as well.”

  Catriona frowned, thinking she must have misheard him. “Your mother? I don’t understand. You told me she died.”

  “I told everyone she died. But the truth is that she finally found a wealthy lover who wasn’t married. Oh, she swore she was leaving me with my father for my own good—that I had reached the age where I needed a man’s influence in my life and that he could give me a home and a future she could never hope to provide.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “When she left me at the solicitor’s office, she held me as if she would never let me go and cried the prettiest tears you ever saw. But she forgot that I’d seen her cry those same tears in dozens of different roles over the years.”

  “What if they were real?” Catriona as
ked softly. “What if she truly believed she was doing what was best for you, even if it broke her own heart?”

  “Then she was a bloody fool,” he said flatly. “I would have been better off living on the streets, picking pockets and peddling my body to strangers to make my way in the world than living off of my father’s charity. The only thing he despised more than her was me.”

  Catriona gently stroked his chest but could do nothing to soothe the ache in her own heart. “What did you do when you saw her on the docks that day?”

  “The same thing I would have done for any pretty woman. I winked at her and kept walking. By the time I glanced back, she was gone. I heard later that she had married her lover and was living a respectable life in Northumberland.” He slanted her a rueful look. “I’ve never told another soul that she’s alive, not even my father.”

  “That makes two secrets I’m bound to keep,” she replied solemnly. “That your mother is alive and that you’re not given to ravishing virgins.”

  He rolled on top of her, lacing his fingers through hers and imprisoning her hands on either side of her head. The fierce look in his eyes took her breath away. “But I am given to ravishing you.”

  “After tonight,” she whispered, opening her legs for him, “that’s no secret.”

  Simon stood at the edge of the cliff, watching dawn sweep across the vale below. The wind stirred his hair and tugged at the edges of his open shirt. Puffy little clouds tinged with pink drifted through the brightening sky, so close it looked as if he could reach out and touch them. But he knew that if he tried, they would melt through his fingers like the vapor they were.

  He’d left Catriona sleeping in their nest of blankets, half a smile deepening the dimple in her left cheek. He’d had ample experience creeping out of women’s beds before they awoke. He would usually slip silently out of their bedchambers, boots in hand, and never allow himself to suffer so much as a twinge of guilt. And why should he? He’d always given them exactly what they wanted from him and left them with a kiss on their brow, a smile on their lips, and a fond memory to cherish when the winter winds blew cold and their beds were empty.