Beautiful Distraction (4 page)

“Are you questioning the prudence of this arrangement?” she asked, torn between wanting to support her friend and just wanting Violet to go so that Mal could come.

Violet laughed, though the sound was filled with tension. “No more than I question any other decision I’ve made in the last few years.”

“Then I suppose there is nothing more to do than ride away in his carriage,” Olivia encouraged. “I’m certain you will be your usual self once you see him and remember what you are doing this for.”

Violet’s smile fell. “Yes. I must always remember that.” She kissed Olivia on the cheek. “If all goes well, I may not see you until morning. Enjoy your night, my dear.”

Olivia followed her into the foyer and stood in the doorway as she scurried toward the vehicle. “Good night!”

To her relief, Violet merely nodded and then stepped into the beautiful carriage, waving out the window before the vehicle pulled away. Olivia sighed and shut the door, but she had not gone more than two steps across the foyer when there was a knock behind her.

She pivoted as one of the servants moved to answer. “No need, I’ll answer,” she said, waving her away.

She pulled the door open and there on the stoop was Mal. He smiled at her and the action made his intimidating figure far less daunting.

“Great God, I thought she’d never leave,” he said as he stepped inside, pushed the door shut and immediately gathered Olivia into his arms for a passionate kiss.

She melted against him, offering no resistance as he cupped her hip and drew her against him, letting her feel the evidence of his desire as their tongues tangled. Against her will, she moaned with need and wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting to her tiptoes to offer more of her mouth to him.

He took it all, stroking his tongue over hers, sucking until her knees went weak, taking and mimicking the act of sex until she couldn’t see or feel anything but him.

Finally, he pulled away, his breath short and his eyes filled with intent.

“Your room,” he grunted—an order, not a question.

She nodded, took his hand and all but dragged him up the short staircase to the living quarters above. Violet had taken the larger master chamber, but her own chamber was certainly serviceable and had a bed large enough for what she wanted to do at present.

She threw open the door and they stepped inside. Mal paused and looked around at the plain room and its drab colors.

“It isn’t like you at all,” he murmured.

She started at his observation, but shrugged. “It isn’t my home. My room in my home is much more reflective of who I am.”

“I would like to see that,” he said, catching her eye.

She kicked the door shut. “Not tonight.”

He laughed as he cupped her face and drew her in for another kiss. This time he moved more slowly, as if the fact they were alone in a bedroom made him less desperate, less needy. But the desire was there. She could feel it in the press of his tongue, the heat of his body, the hard ridge of his cock that nudged her thigh as he urged her back a few steps toward the bed.

The room was quiet other than the occasional crackle of the fire as he drew back a fraction and began to unfasten her gown. Although the long line of buttons was along the length of her spine, his deft fingers moved swiftly and he met her stare as each one popped free. She forced herself to hold his gaze, unwavering until her dress drooped around her neck and he slowly drew it down and around her hips. She shimmied it loose and stepped free, kicking it aside to stand before him in her undergarments.

She had always liked fancy underthings. In her vocation, they sometimes made more impact than a gown. Now he stared at her nearly sheer, pink chemise that just barely touched the top of her thighs where her stockings stopped, and she arched her back slightly in pride. In this, at least, she had utter confidence.

“You are beautiful,” he murmured, stealing a hand out to cup her shoulder and allowing his fingers to play along her upper arm.

She shivered at the heat of his hands but refocused quickly.

“I am also at a disadvantage,” she whispered, shoving the coat that he had never bothered to remove downstairs from his shoulders. He smiled as she did the same with the jacket beneath.

He wasn’t wearing a cravat, and she let her fingers slide up his chest to touch the triangle of skin that was revealed by his far-too-casual attire.

“I want to see the rest,” she said, meeting his eyes as he had done to her and slowly unfastening his shirt. As more and more flesh was revealed, she stepped closer and slid her hand inside the space she had created.

He sucked in a breath as her palm stroked over the hard muscles there, her fingertips playing briefly with one flat, hard nipple.

“You are in dangerous territory,” he warned, looming over her but making her anything but afraid.

“I hope so,” she said and opened his shirt fully. She tugged the ends from his trousers and lifted up on her tiptoes to shove it away. Then she stepped back and stared.

He was…spectacular, unlike any man she had ever seen in a state of undress. There was nothing soft or pale or weak about him. His muscles were formed like a statue of a god from Rome. She wanted to touch him, to lick him, to claim him and be claimed by him. Just looking at him like this, her body was already soaked and ready, her thighs clenched and her knees shook with anticipation of what he would do with that body in a few short moments.

“Do you feel less disadvantaged now?” he asked, but his voice had changed. It was rougher now, darker with desire.

“Not quite,” she said and let her fingertips drag down that glorious chest to the waist of his trousers. He chuckled as she slid her fingertips beneath and then began to open the fly of the pants.

Wordlessly, he toed his boots off and as the pants fell around his ankles, he kicked everything away and stood before her utterly naked, his cock at full attention.

She stepped back to admire all she had revealed and could scarcely breathe. If his upper body was a sight to behold, the rest of him was equally magnificent. Muscled calves and thighs sheltered his sex. His very large, very hard sex, probably nearly twice as big as any other man she had been with.

“Malcolm,” she whispered, unable to keep herself from reaching out to trace a finger around the head of him.

He growled out a breath and caught the wrist of her exploring hand, pushing her away.

“Not so fast,” he muttered on short breaths. “It is I at a disadvantage now.”

He grasped the edge of her chemise and tugged it up and over her head, throwing the scrap of fabric away to slide under her bed where she would probably never find it again.

“There, we are even now,” he said, staring at her only in her stockings and heeled slippers.

“These don’t count?” she laughed as she touched her silken-clad leg slowly.

He grunted again but managed to say, “They do, but I want them on while I’m inside of you.”

Her smile faded, replaced with a burning desire she hadn’t experienced in years. She wanted this man. Desperately, completely…and she wanted him
now
.

Moving toward him, she molded her naked body to his and kissed him. He swore against her lips and then thrust her back to fall upon the bed together. She opened her legs, gripping them around him as he pinned her to the coverlet.

“I want to go slowly,” he grunted against her neck as he suckled a path down the slope of her throat.

She shook her head. “Slowly later,” she gasped, clenching her fingers against his bare back as he kissed her collarbone.

He ignored her, at least for a moment, and his mouth continued its hot trail lower, lower, until he hesitated at her right breast. She arched the moment he sucked her beaded nipple between his lips and licked her.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, as starbursts of pure pleasure seemed to come at her from every place, every nerve ending. He sucked hard, bordering on pain but eliciting pleasure, then moved to the opposite breast to repeat the action.

She burned beneath him, her sex wet, pulsing, making demands as she flexed. She wanted him inside of her.

“Please,” she begged between peppering kisses along his shoulder. “Please, please.”

He straightened to look down at her and she could only imagine what he saw in her wild face, with her hair half-down around her shoulders and pillow. Normally she could hide, pretend, be calm and cool with a man. Not now.

“You beg?” he chuckled.

She nodded without hesitation and for a moment he seemed to consider denying her demand. But then he reached between them, positioning his cock at her entrance.

“Very well,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “But only because I’ve been dreaming of this claiming since the moment you appeared in the entrance to that alleyway. But later, I will go slowly.”

She might have replied, but before she could, he drove forward and filled her. His cock was thick, and her wet, weeping body stretched deliciously to accept him. She arched at the claiming, crying out against his arm as roaring pleasure shook her.

She had always had to fight for release in her previous relationships, using fantasy and self-stimulation to bring herself to orgasm in the arms of her lovers. This was different. Already her body quaked, her clitoris tingling, her inner walls pulsing as they did before the explosion of orgasm.

And he hadn’t even moved yet.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

She hadn’t realized she wasn’t, but her head was turned into his arm, eyes squeezed shut. Slowly, she peeked at him from the corner of her eye.

“Wh-why?” she panted, scarcely able to speak when her body was so far out of control.

“I want to see you,” he said, putting a finger beneath her chin and turning her face fully toward his. “I want to see every moment.”

He kept his finger there for the first thrust, holding her steady, forcing her to watch him and to be watched in return. He groaned as he slid back and forward, but he didn’t shut his eyes or turn away.

Olivia forced herself to do the same, even as aching, mind-altering pleasure gripped her. He was magic with his hips, swiveling as he drove into her, hitting every spot she normally only found for herself. And the pleasure she almost always had to reach for rushed at her in a blind fury, taking over as she screamed out an orgasm that shook the walls, rocked the bed and took her over the edge toward a loss of all reason.

Through it all, she forced herself to hold his gaze as he held hers. It was amazing, for she felt his stare all the way through her, felt him connected to her not just with his body, but with something deeper.

Finally, the rippling echoes of her orgasm faded and she gasped out a breath she hadn’t even recognized she’d been holding. As he continued to move within her, his thrusts becoming erratic as his face strained with pleasure, she reached up to touch his cheeks. She drew him down and sucked his tongue into her mouth, swallowing his moan of pleasure, so lost in sensation that he barely reined in control long enough to withdraw from her slick body and spend his seed away from them.

With a groan, he flopped down next to her, dragging her close to press a few kisses along her neck. They lay like that for a short time before Olivia rolled toward him, allowing herself the pleasure of touching his angular face as she stared at him.

“So ’ow—” She cut herself off in horror. She had just allowed her accent to slip and she darted her gaze toward Malcolm before she corrected herself. “
How
did you come to be lurking just outside my door when Violet arrived?”

He laughed and gave no indication that he had been aware of what she’d said. “I wasn’t lurking.” She arched a brow and he shrugged. “I might have been lurking just a bit,” he admitted. “I actually rode over in the carriage Windbury sent for her. I popped out when we arrived and discreetly…”

“Lurked in my garden?” she finished for him when he hesitated.

“You should be complimented,” he said with a wide grin. “It only goes to show you how much I wanted to be here that I would be willing to crouch behind a prickly rosebush to get to you.”

The words, teasing as they were, warmed her heart and she blushed despite herself.

“I’m glad you came.”

“So am I,” he said softly, pressing a few kisses along her shoulder that served to light her flame once again. How could she want him so swiftly and so powerfully? “I needed that.”

“So did I,” she admitted, her breath catching on the renewed desire. “I admit, it has been a very long time since I did anything that was only for me.”

He leaned on one elbow, watching her intently for what seemed like forever, even though it was less than a minute. Then he pushed to his knees and caught her hips, flipping her on her back a second time. He slid her closer and then parted her legs gently.

“I would greatly like to give you something just for you,” he said, voice rough and filled with promise as he began to kiss a trail down her body.

She arched as he licked and sucked her flesh, teasing her nipples with his fingers and tongue, tasting her belly and finally settling between her thighs where he paused just to look at her pink sex, still slick from their previous joining.