A Question for Harry (27 page)

Fiona couldn’t stop the blush that crept up her cheeks and ran her palms over the sheets self-consciously
. “I chose the black only because I …”

“Shh,” he
murmured with a roguish grin. “Don’t ruin the fantasy.”

Aylesbury never took his eyes from her as
went to the door and locked it with an audible click that Fiona thought sounded her doom.

She just wished he’d hurry up about it.

But Aylesbury took his time and
slowly worked the knots of his tie loose as he returned to the side of the bed. He tossed the tie aside, devouring her with his eyes, stoking the fiery desire within her without even touching her. If he continued disrobing at such a leisurely pace, Fiona would surely be near to exploding before he even laid a finger on her.

Chapter Thirty-One

From the Diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Apr 1893

Why do I continue to try? Harry has humiliated me (I know you know nothing of it, diary. I wrote only that I could not bear to even write of it here). But be assured that it is so. Then he has ignored me quite rudely. Still I am placing myself in his path at every turn.

My head calls me a fool
. My heart, however, will not be denied.

“Harry …”

“Do you know what this reminds me of?” he asked, cutting her off
. The question was a confusing one. Surely being with her didn’t remind him of a time with another woman?

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“Do you remember that time in Edinburgh when I was staying at Abby and Richard’s after Moira and Vin’s wedding?” he asked. It was a vague reference but not so vague that Fiona didn’t immediately understand what he was referring to. Her face flushed, not with desire any longer but humiliation. Of course she remembered.

“I had been out riding,” Aylesbury continued as if he weren’t aware of how mortifying the memory was
to her. He rolled his jacket off one shoulder and then the other as he spoke. “I went up to my chamber to change, and you were there on the bed. Much as you are now.”

It had been nothing like this
.

Aylesbury had been staying with Richard and Abby in the month before the christening ball
. Before the
disaster
. Fiona had snuck into his room one morning, waiting – yes, on his bed – for him to return to change after his morning ride. She had been incredibly nervous, flipping from her side to her back. Skirts to her knees and back to her ankles, striving for a certain provocativeness that at eighteen, she had no idea how to express. When Aylesbury had finally come in, he’d been appalled to find her there and demanded she leave.

N
othing had happened.

Other than the
gross loss of her dignity.

“You need to leave, Fiona,” Aylesbury had said.

“I have nowhere else to be,” she had teased as coyly as she could.

“Well, you cannot be here,” he had said bluntly
. He’d lifted her from his bed, his body shaking with anger, and deposited her abruptly in the hall before slamming the door on her.

“Do you remember?”

Fiona nodded, feeling the choking memory of humiliation all over again.

“You had tormented me almost from the moment I met you,” he said huskily, working the buttons on his shirt
.

Astonishment swept over her though he wasn’t likely to see it written as clearly on her face as it must have been since he was pulling his shirt over his head
. “What?”

Flinging the shirt aside, he toed of
f his shoes, first one, then the other. “Against my will I had dreamed of you, imagined you in my bed. Finding you there that day …”

Good God, Fiona thought
, so shocked by his admission that she couldn’t even appreciate the sculpted beauty of his bare chest. Were they remembering the same day? “You ordered me out of your room,” she reminded him.

“You were in my bed,” he continued watching her
as he sat on the edge of the bed and made quick work of his shoes and stockings. “Your skirt was hiked up just over your ankle. Sweet innocence and seduction combined. Just as you are now.”

“You forced me bodily out of the room,” Fiona said slowly
. “You deposited me like so much rubble in the hall.”

“Is that how you remember it?” he ask
ed. Standing, his hands moving to the buttons on his trousers. Fiona’s eyes followed his hands, feeling some frustration that he was stealing the beauty of the moment from her with such an awful memory. “That isn’t how I recall it at all.”

“You were practically shaking with anger!”

Aylesbury laughed then, a low rumble that began deep within his chest. “Is that what you think?”

Forgetting his half opened trousers, he crawled up the length of the bed, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching like a prowling lion as he came
. Lifting himself over her, Aylesbury let her feel the hard length of him brushing against her, pressing the proof of his desire against her core. “I was shaking,” he whispered, running one rough palm up the length of her thigh and lifting her leg around his hips, “with
desire
, my love. I was so taken by pure rapacious lust at the sight of you on my bed that it was all I could do to get you out of there before I surrendered to my most base urge.”

“What urge?”

“To take you for my own,” he confessed roughly. His lips descended, running down the length of her neck. His teeth raked lightly along her collarbone. “You had teased and tortured me for weeks. Months. I couldn’t bear to touch you. I couldn’t even dance with you without wanting you. And then there you were. In my bed. My darkest fantasy made real. All I wanted to do was pounce on you and ravish you like an animal.”

“Unbelievable!” Fiona sighed, holding his head against her as his lips closed over her breast, drawing her sensitive nipple deep into his mouth
once more. Arching against him, she felt the pull all the way to her core and gasped out, “Isn’t it amazing how two people can see something so differently?”

“I guess we
shall just have to reexamine every conversation we’ve ever had,” he murmured against her breast as his palm covered the other. “But not now.”

“No,” Fiona agreed. “Not now.”

“Right now I would rather show you what I would rather have done that day.”

But Fiona shook her head, pushing Harry away until he was on his back
. “No, Harry. I want to show you what I would have liked to do that day.”

Pressing the heels of her hands against his shoulders, Fiona rolled over on top of him, straddling his hips
. Smoothing her palms up the ridged muscles of his abdomen, she swept them over his chest and back down the sides of his ribs. Allowing herself to touch him, enjoy him as she had always wanted to.

Harry was spread before her like a gift she had waited for too long
. His skin was hot and smooth beneath her hands, his muscles quivering at her slightest touch. She had the power, her mind scrambled over how to best use it. He liked her undergarments, she could tell, so she wouldn’t disrobe as he had, but he seemed to like her breasts as well.

Uncertainly, Fiona pushed open a couple more hooks on her corset
, spreading her chemise wider until her nipples were barely exposed by the lace edge. Harry’s hungry gaze was fastened there, his lips parted. A good sign, she thought, when his palms cupped her breasts once again, his thumbs flicking back the lace, grazing her hardened nipples.

Pushing her hair over her shoulder, Fiona leaned over him eager to have his lips on her once more
. Harry nipped at nothing more than air when she pulled away.

“You are truly about making me regret what I did
. Aren’t you?” he growled.

Why not
? She had him there, laid out before her and he seemed content enough to let her lead the way. What would she have done that day if he hadn’t set her aside? Would she have waited to see what he would take? Fiona smiled. Even at eighteen, she would have been too nervous to do anything else.

She was still nervous now, but there had been a long while in between for her imagination to rework that day with what ifs
. What if he had let her stay? If he had looked like this? What if he had looked at her like this? “Yes, I am,” Fiona nodded with a smile. “Now hush. There’s only a dressing room and a bathing chamber between us and Connor’s room.”

“I doubt he’s in.”

“Do you want to find out the hard way?”

Running her hands over him again, Fiona explored the breadth of Harry’s shoulders, strength of his arms and the shape of his muscular chest
. A tight sprinkling of dark hair started there and trailed down over his stomach. Brushing her thumbs over his nipples as he had hers, she reveled in his harsh intake of breath and leaned over him to run her tongue across them as well while her hands worked their way down his ridged stomach, marveling at the way the muscles coiled and jumped as her touch dipped and cut in so definitely.

With so many men in her life and home, Fiona had seen more than one bare chest before and knew the amount of hard labor it took to build such massive muscles
. Her brothers rode hard, boxed, and worked the estate alongside their tenants. “What do you do?” she whispered running her fingers over the rippling muscles while his rough palms skimmed up her thighs and under the hem of her knickers before his fingers closed over her bottom.

“Rowing,” he murmured
. “Skulling. Cambridge.”

“Ahh, so that’s why you gave in so easily when I told you where I wanted to go
today.”

“Yes and I wish I hadn’t
.” He squeezed her bottom, pulling her down as he arched up against her. Fiona gasped and lifted herself.

“None of that, this is my turn.”

“Who said so?”

“I do
. A thank you for saving my life.”

Boldly, Fiona dipped her hand into Harry’s open trousers, closing her fingers around the thick, rampant erection that she found there
. It startled them both. Harry groaned straining against her hand and Fiona moaned softly herself. He was so hot, so hard. Unable to help herself, she ran the circle of her fingers down the turgid length, savoring the low rumble that shook Harry’s chest as she did so.

“Fiona.”

His husky plea only encouraged her to continue. Sitting back on her heels, Fiona tugged Harry’s loosened trousers down, easing back farther until she was able to pull them off. Straddling his ankles now, she ran her hands up to his knees, wondering at the texture of the black hair covering his legs against her palms. His thighs were hard, bulging as she slid back up dropping kisses along the way. Nipping at his thighs. He was beautiful in his nudity, every tense muscle shadowed and highlighted in the light of a single lamp as he waited for her assessment, his eyes piercing hers.

Her attention was elsewhere though
. Running her hands upward, Fiona cupped him in her hand once more. Harry’s breath hissed when she encircled his arousal, his body as taut as a bow. Groaned again when she traced the length again, feeling him pulsing in her palm. Such power he was giving her, waiting for her to look her fill. To touch to her heart’s content.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to be contented that easily.

The wicked gleam in her eyes and the brush of her hair against his hip was all the warning Harry had before Fiona’s lips closed over him. Hands fisting in the sheets, he arched up as her tongue circled the engorged tip, a hoarse shout escaping him. “Fiona! My God …”

“Shh
.” Then she took him in her mouth. Deep, drawing on his length. Harry nearly came right there. There had never been anything more arousing in his entire life. His hand moved to the top of her head, wanting to urge her on. His fingers fisted, drew her away until Harry met her eyes, knowing his were blazing with shocking white-hot lust when hers widened in surprise.

Lifting her with one arm, Harry looked down at her
. “My turn.”

Even before she had seen that look in his eyes, Fiona had wanted him. Deep within her very core, she had been throbbing with want, hot and ready for him. That look nearly made her swoon. Her blood was thrumming hotly, leaving her dizzy with heady desire before his mouth closed over hers. No longer tender and gentle, Harry devoured her with urgent fervor, driving her passions when Fiona was sure they could go no higher.

But they could
. His lips followed his hands as he unhooked the remainder of her corset, nipping, sucking and biting through the thin batiste chemise beneath. Hooking a thumb in the waist of her bloomers he pushed them down and off, lifting her to sweep the chemise over her head in a smooth motion before his naked body covered hers. The feel of him – hard, rough and hot – against her, left her gasping for air but Harry had only just begun.

His hot lips continued downward, his teeth raking along her ribs, his tongue delving into her navel and downward still
. Harry nudged her legs apart and his hot mouth descended over the throbbing nub at the apex of her thighs. Fiona cried out in surprise, both hands fisting in his hair as he roughly tongued her, licking and tugging.