Her Wicked Proposal: The League of Rogues, Book 3 (22 page)

“Touch me. Touch me everywhere,” he encouraged in a soft growl and settled himself between her legs. She swept her hands over his back, his arms, his abdomen, memorizing the grooves of his muscles and the power of his body beneath her touch.

The massive and insistent press of his arousal rubbed against her, the delicious friction blurring her vision. Anne wound her arms around his neck, the irritating ache of her shoulder forgotten for the time being. All that mattered was letting Cedric inside her. She wanted him to lay siege to the emptiness she’d struggled with for so long.

His hands gripped her hips, his eyes hooded as he drew back from her. “Tell me you can take me, Anne. Please.” The raw need in his voice had her shifting restlessly, urging him to fill her.

“Yes, I’m ready. Hurry.” She’d barely gotten the plea out before Cedric thrust inside. They shared a moan as he thrust again and finally sheathed himself.

“You’re so tight, my heart, you feel… God if you only knew!” Cedric hissed and began to rock against her. His motions were reverent, admiring, so at odds with the desperate man who’d pushed into her moments before.

“Why did you slow down?” Anne panted.

“Do you think me to be an impatient man?” Cedric chuckled and lowered his head to her breast, suckling a sensitive nipple.

“But I need you to…” Anne’s voice died as he bit the tight bud playfully.

The feel of skin sliding across glistening skin melded with the rhythmic rustling of their bodies on the blanket-covered hay. The heavy wool of the blankets created an enticing sensation against her back and bottom as Cedric rode her, his thrusts shallow and teasing. Frustration lapped at her and a growing tide of need swelled within her core. He slid one hand down between their bodies, his thumb finding the hard knot of nerves in her mound. He circled it, rubbed it until Anne began to thrash. It was the oddest sensation, the slow, shallow strokes of his shaft mixed with the quick play of her bud.

“Come for me, darling,” he breathed against her lips.

She came in a quick wave of pleasure and melted beneath him, but Cedric left her no time to recover. He withdrew from her, ignored her cry of disappointment and urged her to roll over onto her stomach. She rested in the bed of hay, propping her body up on her good forearm, allowing Cedric to raise her hips into the air.

“What are you doing?” Anne was half shocked and half fascinated as he caressed every inch of her from behind. The heat of his palms sliding over her skin made her shiver, and her need for him reawakened.

“I’m going to mount you. Take you just like this.” He kissed a path from her bottom up along her spine to her neck. He cupped her sex possessively, pressing the heel of his palm against her, the pressure exquisite. She reacted out of sheer instinct, pushing her bottom backward, seeking him, needing him deep inside her. She’d orgasmed only moments before, and already she was craving him again.

“I’ve dreamed of this, of you and I together.” His voice was soft and dark like a starless winter night.

But Anne had long since lost control of speech. She merely panted as he took her hips and guided himself to her wet entrance. He took her in one powerful jab. She arched her back in shock as he seemed to go deep enough to touch her womb. Ecstasy streaked through her as she gave herself up to him.

Cedric cursed and pulled out before plunging back in. His hips pistoned against the cushion of her backside. He’d never favored willowy fey-like women, preferring a woman closer to his size. Anne was a perfect match—her muscled body with elegant lines and rich curves was the most erotic thing he’d ever felt beneath him. She met his energy with her own, and he was relieved and excited. He’d feared taking her like this would upset her, but now he was unable to regret his actions.

To finally have her in the way he’d craved for years, it was too much, the pleasure too intense. Every instinct screamed with animal intent, to bind her to him forever. Now he had made her his, as much as any man could possess a woman. Men so often deluded themselves into believing they controlled the fairer sex, whether in bed or marriage. But the truth was that they could no sooner catch hold of a woman than they could harness the wind. And Anne was certainly a gale force he’d never wished to tame, only embrace its intensity.

“More!” Anne’s desperate gasp nearly made him smile, but he could barely control himself as it was.

All his concentration was required to ride her over the edge of bliss before he could allow his own release. He slowed briefly, then dropped over her, covering her back with his chest. His arms encased her shoulders, his fingers lacing through hers as he resumed the wild thrusting from behind.

She tossed her head back, her dark tresses spilling to one side of her face, leaving her neck vulnerable. He sought her weak spot with his teeth and bit down. That was all it took. She clamped down around his shaft as she gave an uninhibited cry of sensual excitement, drawing him deeper, as though to keep him inside her. His own climax unleashed along with a hoarse cry from his own lips.

Anne collapsed onto her stomach beneath him. Too weak, he remained on top of her, unable to move away for a time. When he finally managed to, Anne cuddled against him. He took several deep breaths, shocked at the miracle he’d experienced.

For a few brief seconds he swore he’d glimpsed Anne, seen her curves bared to him.

Nonsense. How could that be? His imagination must have taken over, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. The sensations and ecstasy of making love to her had been unlike any he’d had before with any other woman.

“Did I hurt you?” His voice was soft, but his breath was still ragged.

“No…I believe I enjoyed the roughness.”

He knew her well enough to hear the blush in her tone. He absolutely adored that she could admit what she liked about their lovemaking. It was a good sign that their relationship, their trust, was healing.

“I didn’t mean to get carried away,” he admitted. “I blame it on the surroundings. The sounds and smells here make a man forget he’s not a beast. I swear I didn’t mean to treat you like a broodmare.”

He was completely baffled when his remark was answered by a girlish giggle, quite unlike Anne, or at least the Anne he thought he knew. Could it be there was still a young girl inside her, that her icy walls were finally vanishing enough that she would someday be soft and sweet with him?

Anne’s hands settled on his chest, fingers tracing invisible patterns. “If that is how you treat broodmares, then by all means, let’s come to the stables more often.” She paused, suddenly reflective. “I suppose I am proving to be the worst sort of wife. I am behaving more like a mistress. I ought to scold you and lie limp next time, shouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you dare!” Cedric’s response was half-teasing, half-serious. “I enjoy your brazen behavior. Having one’s wife behave like a hussy in her husband’s bed is most satisfying.” He lifted one of her hands to his mouth and pressed tiny kisses to her knuckles.

“Hussy?” Anne gasped of mock outrage. “If I had a riding crop, I would switch that pretty behind of yours.” Again he could hear that hint of a barely there laugh.

Cedric tugged her body over his and cupped her bottom, clenching one cheek. “If we’re speaking of punishments, my lovely wife, then I’ll be happy to dole out spankings when required.” He swatted her bottom and he knew by the hiss that escaped her that there would be a fresh pool of heat between her legs.

“How dare you!” she chastised, but he lifted her hips up and impaled her on his newly hardened erection.

Anne’s breasts rubbed against him, the rasp of her tight nipples a sinfully decadent sensation. She arched her back, her body moving upright against his. Cedric used his hands on her hips to guide her to the right angle and the right rhythm. Once Anne settled into a slow rocking, he sought her breasts. He thumbed her nipples and pinched until her body jerked. Cedric knew she was close to coming yet again. Their ride ended in a delicious cacophony of mingled cries and heavy grunts. His wife wilted onto his chest, their bodies still locked together. The weight of her on him was strangely soothing, a physical reminder that he was no longer alone.

“That was…that was so…” Anne’s words traveled across his chest and up his neck to his ears in a ticklish pattern.

“Breathtaking. Perfect. Stunning,” he supplied. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Anne, darling, but I hope that we made a baby.”

“The future Viscount Sheridan conceived in the stables? Even for you that is too scandalous.”

“Nonsense, Christ was born in a manager, wasn’t he? It is little different here.”

“I highly doubt any child of ours would have such high morals. He’ll be a devil for sure. I’ll give birth to a little pagan with a wicked streak.”

“And we’ll both spoil the child, won’t we?” He laughed, delighted at the idea of a little boy running rampant over their hearts.

“Then I’ll pray our first child is a girl. She will have to have more of me in her and therefore will be more sensible and manageable.” Anne’s warm breath fanned across his neck as she kissed his throat.

Cedric chuckled. “Manageable?” Humor filled him as he stroked Anne’s back. “You have met my sisters, have you not? Sheridan women are notorious for their inability to be managed. If I have even one daughter, she’ll be spoiled worse than any boy we have. Audrey will tell you that I’m dreadful at saying no to them.”

“So I shall be the parent who enforces the rules then while you sneak them sweets behind my back? Very well, I shall contrive for sons only.”

Anne was giggling again and Cedric was tempted to spank her just for the passion it would arouse, but even he was too tired to do much more than lie in their makeshift bed and hold on to his dear, precious wife.

Soon Anne was sleeping, her even breaths against him unbearably sweet. Cedric coaxed her sated body off him and reached around her to pull the blankets over them both. The storm outside continued, as though the clouds and rain were determined to keep them in the stables. Never in Cedric’s life had he ever been thankful for rain. Until now.

Chapter Twenty

Icy, clawing darkness. Choking, suffocating blackness. No air
.

Charles couldn’t breathe. Ropes cut into his wrists and his ankles, immobilizing him. Struggling, the burn of his lungs as air couldn’t get to him. He was going to die in the river, drowned, swallowed by eternal darkness…

“Help!” The hoarse shout ripped from his throat. “Help me! Please!” It died in a frantic whimper as water filled his lungs.

Suddenly a hand touched his face. “It’s all right, my lord. You are safe. Wake up,” a voice soothed in a whisper close to his ear. Charles’s body spasmed and sweat beaded on his forehead and drenched his clothes.

“Take a deep breath, my lord. It is only a dream. You must wake now.”

He drew in another breath and then let it out in a slow exhale. Air, not water, filled his lungs. The nightmare evaporated into the darkness.

He was safe.

“Thank you,” he said to whoever had been there. His body went limp as exhaustion claimed him again.

He drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours before he had the strength to get up. He wasn’t alone. Tom Linley was sprawled out on an armchair close to Charles’s bed, fast asleep. His face was strained with worry, and Charles’s heart ached for the young man.

The lad was good company, and a strong boy who wasn’t afraid to do the right thing, even when it was the harder path to choose. Charles respected a man like that. It had been a refreshing change of pace to have the lad accompany him about town, and with his list of unwed friends growing ever shorter, a welcomed one.

Tom had had a hard life, losing his mother and raising his baby sister on his own. Charles had found the boy working at Berkley’s and convinced him to abandon his job there to work for Charles. The look on his housekeeper’s face when he’d brought Tom’s baby sister Katherine home with them, however, had been quite amusing.

“A babe? Here? My lord…” The plump woman had begun to protest, but little Katherine had let out a hearty cry and his housekeeper had huffed and reached for the baby. “Give her here, I’ve got some milk I can heat up for the wee one.”

A room had been provided below stairs for Linley and his sister, and the servants had seemed to take to both the lad and the babe instantly.

Charles had to admit that having a baby around was…interesting. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being around children sometimes. He’d helped raise his own sister, Ella, who was over a decade younger than him. Despite his personal aversion to marriage and wives, he had no qualms with children or infants.

The only problem with the babe under his roof was that the upstairs maids, ones he’d often stolen a kiss or two from when the mood took him and if they happened to be smiling back at him, had changed. Now they would rush to the baby’s room to hush it if it cried, rather than rush to him if he crooked a finger.

All the more reason for him and Linley to visit Charles’s usual haunts in pursuit of pleasure.

Sitting up in bed, Charles shoved his covers back and swung his feet over the side. He was still half-dressed in his trousers and white lawn shirt.

Damnation
, another late night with too much to drink. Too little and he couldn’t sleep at all. Too much and the dreams he had invariably took him back to those dark waters, darker deeds, and lost friends.

He combed his fingers through his hair, sighed and tilted his head back, fighting to wake up. His heartbeat had finally calmed after the last remnants of his dream settled like tea leaves at the bottom of a cup.

He glanced over his shoulder, surprised he hadn’t disturbed the lad in the chair. Charles had intended to hire the lad as a valet, but the boy had proved himself indispensable as a companion about town. A master of clothing, he selected things Charles himself would have chosen, their fashion sense so closely matched in quality.

Charles considered what to do the rest of the evening. He couldn’t go back to sleep. He shouldn’t have slept in the middle of the day to begin with, but after that bout of drinking at the club that afternoon he’d ended up in bed around four o’clock.

Avery Russell, one of Lucien’s younger brothers, had invited him to the Dandy Club tonight, and not simply for drinks and gambling. Avery was a spy. It was a well-kept secret about Lucien’s family. Only the League had ever been allowed more than the most basic of details as to his line of work.

More than once, Charles had found himself a participant in one of Avery’s missions to gain information, preferably when it required plying a person with drink, gambling, or women to loosen their lips. As Avery had explained it once, Charles was not the sort of man one would ever suspect to be engaging in espionage, and was therefore the perfect person to do the questioning.

Even Cedric’s youngest sister, Audrey, had aided him a time or two by questioning the wives or mistresses of particular targets over tea. The little scamp had a knack for befriending any woman and getting them to talk, especially when it came to their husbands or lovers. She probably heard more gossip than
The Quizzing Glass Gazette
.

Charles walked over to the nightstand and splashed water from a small porcelain basin on his face to wake up before he laid out a pair of trousers, shirt, waistcoat and overcoat on the bed. Once he was dressed, he shook Linley’s shoulder to rouse him.

“Come on, lad, we’re off to the Dandy Club.”

Linley rubbed his fists against his eyes, blinking wearily. “What time is it?”

“A little after eight.” Charles tugged on the edges of his coat, smoothing it down. “I think tonight we should go see about finding you a woman. You are certainly old enough.”

“My lord!” The young man made a choking noise. “My job is to accompany you, not join you in your pleasures.”

Charles faced him and cupped his palms on Linley’s shoulders. “I will hear no more arguments. I plan to bed several women tonight, and I will not be doing so alone.” He drew a perverse satisfaction from the flash of panic in the boy’s eyes. It reminded him of several of his friends back at college, especially Peter…

The thought threatened to darken his mood, so he rallied back with added enthusiasm. “You need a woman, lad. It’s time, especially if you wish to keep up with me. I give you full permission to chase skirts while we’re about town.”

Linley’s jaw gaped, but he didn’t utter another word of protest.

Charles strode to the door, eager for his night of revelry to begin. “Fetch your coat and let’s be off.”

The Dandy Club was a gambling hell well known for the army officers and soldiers who haunted its halls, seeking pleasures and thrills that eased the memories of the battlefield. Charles was at home among their tortured souls. He had his own horrors and nightmares to wrestle with. Oil lamps bathed the rooms in a rich gold, exposing the scenes of debauchery and gambling. Charles scanned the crowds, seeking familiar faces. At his side Linley was doing the same, brows knit in consternation.

What a green lad the boy was!

“My lord! What a pleasant surprise.” A lovely woman in a red satin gown sauntered over. Her wealth of dark hair tangled down her neck as though she’d been recently tumbled.

“Mrs. Hollingberry, how are you?” He brushed a lingering kiss on the inside of her wrist, causing Mrs. Hollingberry’s brown eyes to gleam.

“Are you here alone, my lord?” She claimed his arm before he could respond and did not spare a glance at Linley, who trailed behind.

“I cannot be alone if I am with you.” Charles chuckled, relishing the thought of bending the lusty widow over the nearest surface.

Her grip on his arm tightened. “And would you
like
to be with me?”

Charles freed his arm, then curled it around the widow’s waist, tugging her against his side so that he could lean down to whisper in her ear.

“It would be my dearest wish”—he paused, listening to the hitch in her breath—“to make you scream with pleasure.” He didn’t miss the sudden rise in her breasts as they strained against her tight bodice.

“I shall find us a room.” The eager widow tugged him away from the hazard tables and toward a hall that led to an empty billiard room.

“Tell your boy to wait outside, unless he wants to watch.” Mrs. Hollingberry cupped Charles’s erection, applying just the right amount of pressure.

Desire flooded through him. Base, pure instinct. Nothing more than the need to fuck and then be done, but it still called to him. He knew it didn’t feel this way for Godric or Lucien—they’d spoke often enough of the differences of bedding a woman they loved versus those they’d bedded in the past. But Charles feared that sort of emotion. Better to find satisfaction with women like Mrs. Hollingberry than to run the risk of falling in love.

“Here, lad, find a woman of your own.” Charles tossed a heavy coin purse at Linley, then dragged the giggling widow into the private room and slammed the door.

The second he was alone with Mrs. Hollingberry, he prowled toward her. She gave a delighted shriek as he caught her and lifted her up to set her on the bed. It was an easy thing to ruche up her skirts around her waist. The skin of her thighs was smooth as he spread his palms up her legs. The widow wriggled closer to him, curling her legs around his waist and reaching for the front of his trousers.

“How do you want it?” he asked. “Hard and fast?”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, palming his now freed erection with her slender hands. “You do that so well.”

He groaned at her firm, knowing touch and shifted closer. Soon he was tangled around her, shoving deep into her body. But it wasn’t the same. He found his satisfaction, just as she did hers, but it was…
shallow
. A flash of momentary lust, quickly extinguished.

He withdrew from her and fixed his clothes before helping the lady with hers. She gave him a wry smile, stroking his chest. She still sat on the edge of the bed leaning back a little on one hand.

“You were always a good bed partner, my lord.”

“I sense that there is more to your statement.” Charles clenched his teeth and stared down at her.

Mrs. Hollingberry met him with a level stare. Her fine features, usually so attractive, seemed more calculating tonight, but not in a way that concerned him. Rather he was puzzled. Usually when he bedded a woman like her, they wouldn’t be able to think, let alone look at him like that.

“You seemed distant tonight.”

“I suppose I am,” he admitted. His mind had wandered quite far from the moment of pleasure.

“And what could consume the mind of the Earl of Lonsdale and make him melancholy?” Mrs. Hollingberry’s eyes glittered as she continued to study him in open curiosity. Her sudden scrutiny made Charles’s skin itch. Why did this feel familiar?

“I’m sure I have no idea,” he replied with a wry chuckle. It wasn’t the truth though. For the past few months he’d been coasting along, like a skiff adrift at sea, carried by full winds, but now rudderless. Helpless and at the mercy of the winds of change. If only he could find some sense of control or direction, he might not feel so damned weak.

“Well, this was fun, my dear, but I have the strangest urge to drink myself under the nearest table.” He flung the door open and found Linley staring at him.

“Have we finished, my lord?” Linley’s disposition was cold and professional, and altogether unlike himself.

“Well, yes.”

“Very well, I’ll be outside with the coach when you’re ready.” He stalked down the hall and vanished in the crowds in an instant.

“What the devil has gotten into him?” Linley had never shown any sign of a temper before now.

“Perhaps the woman he approached spurned him?” Mrs. Hollingberry said, joining Charles at the door, watching the crowd. “Shame. If he had waited, I might have given him a turn. Handsome boy, that.”

“I think I really do need that drink. Goodnight, Mrs. Hollingberry.”

Charles kissed her hand and headed straight for the nearest hazard table, where he hailed a servant for drinks.

Perhaps the widow was right. Charles made seduction look easy, and even with a purse full of coins at his disposal, some charm and care was needed to woo a woman here. He imagined such a rejection would not have been handled tactfully, either.

Poor lad.
Charles hadn’t even thought to advise him beforehand. No wonder he was in such a rush to get out.