The Pleasure Garden: Sacred Vows\Perfumed Pleasures\Rites of Passions (16 page)

He claimed her mouth then in a hard, consuming kiss. He stroked her breasts, cupping and squeezing as his tongue searched deeply between her lips. The kiss was not like the ones he had given her before—soft, lulling, enticing. This was a kiss that was commanding. Claiming, and she was powerless against it. She didn’t want it to end, only wanted to lie back on the stone, her breasts bared and her body open to him, welcoming him home.

As if he read her mind, he pushed her back, his body, long and fit, pressed overtop hers. His hands, trembling and gruff, pulled at her bodice, tugging it down to her waist, so that her breasts were fully naked and ready for him.

“I can think of no better way to become reacquainted,” he whispered to her, “although my body and heart have never forgotten you. A true gentleman, I know, would renew his acquaintance over tea. But it’s not tea I want to sip at, it’s you, it’s the honey between your thighs, and the berries of your nipples.”

“Yes.” She cupped her breasts in both hands, offering herself up to him. “I need to feel you, to know you’re alive and well, and here with me, and not just another dream.”

He was looking down upon her, she knew that much. She could sense his wild dark eyes roving over her body, attempting to see her through the darkness. She wished she could see him, could look upon the face she had loved for so long.

Moving to touch him, to cup his face in her palm, she found her wrist shackled, brought up high over her head, and a deep
no
echoed.

She made to protest, but he cut her off as he began suckling her breasts and raising her skirts with impatient hands. Any protest she might have made was lost when she felt the first brush of Joscelyn’s fingers against her core.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, “you’re so wet. I can’t think of anything else but getting inside you and reclaiming you for myself.”

“I want you. I always have.”

“I should be taking my time with you, but I can’t. I’m the soldier returned, ready to pillage and conquer.”

“Perhaps I am ready for that, Joscelyn. For you.”

He slid lower down her body, his long fingers petting her sex. “Then take me, Cathy.”

And then she was lost, for Joscelyn’s fingers were playing and pulling at her nipples while his tongue parted her sex. He lapped at her, and she moaned. She had loved when he had done this before. He was gifted with his tongue, patient with her and her needs. The rhythm was slow, unhurried, and she touched his shoulders, raked her fingers through his hair, and reveled in the fact that she was here, in her secret garden, with Joscelyn pleasuring her in the most base way.

“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her hips to meet his slashing tongue. “Take all of me, Joscelyn.”
Pillage. Conquer. Just don’t leave me again.

He didn’t think he could wait to slip his cock into her. The noises she was making made him crazed. He’d been too long without a woman. Every woman he had taken while away in the war he’d pretended was Catherine. To
be here with her now, to feel her slick folds against his tongue and his ruined cheek, made him feel more alive than he had in years.

She didn’t know what he was—scarred and broken. Right now, right here, he was just a man. Her lover. He knew that at some point, the illusion would be shattered. She would soon learn what he was, what mark the war had left upon him. But for tonight, he wanted to be the man she had once known. The one she had allowed to take her virginity.

Christ, she was so sweet, so aroused. There was no shyness in her, no maidenly protests. She was all woman, needing release, desiring pleasure. And her body…good God, she had developed into a stunning, voluptuous woman. He could hardly wait to strip her bare and stare at her, learning her. Seeing in the glow of candlelight the lush breasts he was caressing, and the wet cunt he was tasting.

It was too damn dark to see her, but it was what he needed—what they both needed—for now. The shadows had become his best friend. He knew no other way to come to her.

“Oh, yes,” she cried, tugging at his hair. Her stockinged legs wrapped around his shoulders, and he worked harder to bring her release. When she was nearly there, he pushed two fingers into her and she fell apart, her keening cry whispering about them as she bucked beneath his body.

She was breathing heavily, still trembling from her orgasm. Hard, throbbing, he undid his trousers and freed his cock, pumping his hand down the shaft. He was about to fall atop her, to push his cock deep in her body, when he heard the sound of footfalls coming from the house.

“Hurry,” he whispered, “someone comes.”

With lightning speed, he helped Catherine set herself to
rights, and was disappearing into the shadows before the gate opened.

“Ah, there you are,” Edward said. “All alone, I see.” He stepped closer until he was standing before Catherine, then he pulled her to the side, to where the moon cast a faint glow on the brown brambles. She was bathed in moonlight, and Joscelyn could see how Edward watched her.

“How beautiful you look tonight,” he purred. He touched her, her throat, her décolletage, and Joscelyn wanted to tear his hand from his wrist. The bastard. Touching what was Joscelyn’s.

“I’ve imagined these tits all night. Show me.”

“No.”

Edward laughed, and Joscelyn stepped closer, though he tried to hold himself back. When Edward gripped a handful of Catherine’s hair, Joscelyn saw red.

“You do know that your continued denial only makes me more aroused, don’t you?”

Catherine glared up at him. “I am not yet yours to paw.”

“You’re mine in every way that counts.” He tilted her chin up. “Never forget who you belong to.”

“Leave her be.”

Edward whirled around, his expression turning from lust to hatred. “You,” he sneered into the shadows where Joscelyn lurked. “I should have known you’d be out here, sniffing around her skirts like a mongrel.”

“The lady said no,” Joscelyn growled.

“The
lady,
” Edward mocked, “is none of your concern.”

“Be that as it may,” Joscelyn said as he emerged from the darkness and reached for Catherine’s hand, “the lady is not inclined to indulge you and your amorous pursuits
tonight.” Careful to keep his left side hidden in darkness, Joscelyn motioned to the garden gate, and Catherine did not hesitate to grasp the bit of freedom that was being granted her.

Both of them watched her retreating figure, and when the scarlet silk of her gown had disappeared behind the gate, Joscelyn turned his murderous gaze upon his cousin.

“If you ever do that to her again, I will kill you.”

There must have been something in his expression that made his cousin step back. Certainly, Edward saw that his threat was not an empty one. Joscelyn had killed before. He could kill again, especially this little slug that stood before him. Between him and want he wanted.

“She’s mine,” Edward sniffed.

“We’ll see about that.”

The last words from Edward’s mouth chilled him to the core. “Just remember this as you’re skulking about in the dark, attempting to take her from me—if I can’t have her, cousin, then no one will.”

3

TOSSING BACK HIS THIRD BRANDY, EDWARD stared into the fire that the comely maid had laid for him. Not even the thought of his voluptuous personal servant, Annie, was enough to stem the anger that was overtaking him.

Goddamn Joscelyn for returning and showing himself to Catherine. Edward would have bet his fortune that his proud cousin would have hidden himself away in his room. After all, he would not wish to have Catherine see him—not after what the war had done to him. Edward had been relieved when his rival had returned home burned and mangled. Joscelyn was a monster. Even the maids shrieked when he caught them off guard, or they found him lurking in the dark. His countenance was the stuff of nightmares. What would the beautiful and luscious Catherine do when she learned her knight in shining armor had become the ugly ogre?

No, Edward had believed that pride and self-pity would keep Joscelyn far away from his future bride. How wrong he’d been. He knew that they had been together in that garden. Felt it. Oh, she looked immaculate and as aloof as
ever, but there was something there, a sparkle in her eye, the kind of twinkle that came after a good sound fucking.

He’d kill him if that bastard had taken her. Stupidly, Edward had heeded the wishes of his father by waiting till she was a bit older to claim her. Indeed, she had been young when they were betrothed, only sixteen. But one grew up rather quickly when one was poor. He could have taken her then, or anytime since, but his father had pleaded decorum. Give her time to settle in, to accept the union. Let her grow up. Edward had acquiesced, only to have his bastard cousin come sniffing around her.

He felt desperate, as though time was running out. He must move swiftly if he was to prevent Joscelyn from taking her. He had no doubt about it, his cousin would try to steal her away. And Catherine would go to him, despite knowing her place was with Edward, as his wife and the mother of his children.

The door to his study opened, and in walked the maid. Obedient as always, she was shedding her gown and baring her breasts for him. He liked this one. She was buxom. He’d singled her out because he liked to imagine her as Catherine.

Christ, his obsession with her was appalling. He was a rich, titled gentleman panting after a poor aristocrat’s daughter. He could have any number of titled ladies, but Catherine, with her harlot’s body and sharp tongue, aroused him. No one else would do. Only Catherine.

He watched as Annie stood naked before him. She was eager to please, and tonight he was in a hell of a mood. His trousers were tented with a formidable erection—but not for the buxom maid. For Catherine, and the way she had looked in the scarlet silk gown—all white décolletage
peeking out. Lord, the thoughts that had run through his mind. What he wanted to do to her.

“My lord?” the maid asked, shyly looking down upon him.

Oh, what he wouldn’t do to see Catherine this way, humbling herself before him. Perhaps all the amorous thoughts and lusty fantasies he’d had of Catherine while at the supper table could be fulfilled by Annie, and her eagerness.

Settling deep in his chair, he spread his legs wide, capturing her knees with his thighs. He was shirtless, in preparation for their assignation, and she watched as the thick bundle of muscles in his belly flinched and constricted. One day, Catherine would look at him this way.

The maid’s eyes widened as he parted the flap of his trousers. His erect phallus throbbed through the opening, and she studied it with a deep hunger, heedless of the fact that she was standing shamelessly naked before him.

She knew what he wanted, what he would ask for as he reached between the parted folds of his trousers and gripped his cock in his hand. He slid his palm up and down the shaft, pleasuring himself slowly, expertly, and she watched him, studying the way he found pleasure with his fingers. It was not so difficult for Edward to pretend she was Catherine. In fact, it was rather naughty to do so, and he found it aroused him, made his cock thicken even more. Annie’s eyes widened in appreciation. She always was game for a good hard fuck.

When she lowered her body so that she was kneeling before him, he imagined Catherine doing the same, as if she were a servant set to do his bidding. His hand tightened around his shaft and a muscle jumped and flickered
in his jaw as he gritted his teeth, watching her kneel before him, and pretending she was Catherine.

“You know what I want, don’t you?”

She nodded and pressed forward, brushing the sides of her breasts against him as she insinuated her body between his thighs.

“Tell me what you think I want you to do to me,” he commanded.

She allowed her eyes to slowly trail up his form, taking in every hard contour and muscle, anticipating the moment when he would cover her body with his.

“You want me to suck your cock,” she whispered huskily. “And I want to taste you.”

His breath rushed out of his chest as she reached for the waistband of his trousers and pulled the black fabric down his hips. He was now naked and magnificently aroused.

“That is what you want, isn’t it,” she teased, “for me to take you into my mouth?”

“Yes,” he half drawled, half groaned, threading his fingers through her hair and cupping the back of her head. “I want you to suck my cock. And I am going to sit back and enjoy watching you do it.”
And pretend you’re Catherine.

Annie set her tongue to him and trailed it up his long shaft. She groaned, a husky sound that came from the back of her throat. “I want this,” she purred, nuzzling her lips against the throbbing vein that ran the length of him. “I want to feel this pulsating in my mouth.”

“Like it pulsates in your cunt?” he growled as he thrust forward, filling her mouth with more than just the head. She sucked him vigorously, allowing the rhythm of his hips to guide her.

Edward felt his thighs tighten around her shoulders, and he nudged her closer so that she could take more of his
straining cock into her mouth. She was working it with such enthusiasm that he nearly came seconds later, but closed his eyes and forced himself to find control. He did not want this to end.

Grasping a handful of her hair, he gently tilted her head back so that he could see her pink tongue snaking up and down the length of his thick shaft and curling around the swollen head. His cods tightened, and as if she instinctively knew, she cupped his sac, fondling him in her palms as she made love to his prick with her mouth.

He was content to sit back in his chair, like a pasha being pleasured, watching her, studying the way her mouth looked atop him, and the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as her sexual need began to heighten. How bloody powerful it was to take his pleasure this way, to do nothing other than watch and direct her with pressure from his hand. How dominant he felt sprawled out in his chair as she worked his cock with an eager, inexperienced mouth. How fucking satisfying it was going to be when he had Catherine down on her knees, sucking him.