To Tame a Highland Earl (40 page)

She abruptly bolted upright. “My lord! What
are you doing here?”

He rolled onto his back and jammed his hands
behind his head. “Visiting my wife.”

“
You choose tonight to
notice that I am your wife?”

“
I noticed the instant my
father announced we were man and wife, and have thought of nothing
else since. The room is chilly, love. Come under the covers with
me.”

“
I cannot go to bed in my
gown.”

“
I couldn’t agree more,” he
said.

Her cheeks reddened. “Really, sir, why did
you pick tonight to avail yourself of your husbandly rights?”

“
Because I have had enough
of the torture.”

“
Don’t you think that is a
bit dramatic?”

He didn’t—and his cock was agreeing in its
most demanding tone—and he said so. “Will you come to bed,
Eve?”

She hesitated, then Erroll repressed a smile
when she crawled beneath the covers in her gown. He slid an arm
beneath her and tugged her against him. He felt the tension in her
body and pulled her arm across his chest, then wrapped his arms
around her. Her rose-scented shampoo tickled his senses.

“
Did you enjoy yourself
this evening?” he asked.

It seemed she hesitated for the barest of
instants, then said, “Yes, I like your family,” and he decided he’d
misread her.

“
So do I,” he
said.

“
Then you are very
lucky.”

“
You don’t like your
family?”

“
Of course I do,” she
said.

The warmth of her flattened hand on his chest
began to distract him and he wondered what it would be like if she
slid the hand lower.

“
You were very busy the
duration of the evening,” she said.

“
That is a hazard when my
mother throws a party. She is a stickler that her sons help ensure
the guests are entertained.” Erroll began drawing lazy circles on
her arm with his fingers. He felt her shiver and his cock
jerked.

“
So your mother keeps you
busy during her parties?” Eve asked.

“
I haven’t seen many of the
guests since I left for the navy.”

“
I imagine they missed
you.”

He shrugged. “They seemed pleased to see me,
though I imagine they were much more interested in getting a look
at the woman I married.”

“
The woman you were forced
to marry.”

“
There is no doubt the
circumstances of our marriage intrigues them.”

“
Of course.”

Erroll detected something in her voice. “Did
someone say anything out of the way, Eve?”

“
Oh no. Not a single guest
was rude.”

“
No snide remarks like
those you heard from Ladies Quincy and Greenwood?”

She shoved up onto her elbow. “How do you
know about that?”

“
Gossip travels
quickly.”

Something flickered in her eyes, and Erroll
realized that she must have made the connection between him and her
encounter with Paisley at the party in Manchester. “Lord Paisley
and I attended university together,” he said.

She groaned and flopped back onto the bed.
“It seems you have eyes everywhere, my lord.”

Erroll pulled her across his chest and
settled the blanket back over them. This time, she relaxed against
him without reserve. He covered her hand with his and began sliding
her hand downward.

She abruptly stiffened. “Sir—”

“
Trust me,” he said, and
gently urged her hand down.

When her hand touched his thickened cock, she
jerked—so did his cock—but she didn’t resist and Erroll wrapped her
fingers around him.

“
Oh my,” she said in a
breathless voice. “You are rather large.”

Erroll gave a strangled laugh and feared he
would come that instant. He gritted his teeth against the
compelling need and closed his hand tight around hers as he thrust.
She squeezed and he hissed a breath.

“
Careful, madam. I am
likely to forget myself.”

“
Idle threats,” she
said.

“
I never make idle
threats.”

She squeezed again and he groaned.

“
You are, in fact, in great
peril.” Or was it he who was in danger? Danger of losing his
heart…and perhaps his soul?

He pushed her back onto the mattress and
brushed his lips against hers, then traced her mouth with his
tongue. She opened on a sigh that made him feel as if she’d been
waiting for him all her life. He reveled for a long moment in the
taste of her, then broke the kiss and rose onto his knees. He
pulled her skirt up to the creamy flesh of her thigh, then tugged
it over her hip to her belly. She started to cross her legs, but he
grasped her thighs.

“
No, love. It’s all right.
Let me look.”

He drank in the sight of the dark curls
between her legs…then swallowed. The curls already glistened with
desire. He flattened his palms on her belly and shimmied the dress
upward. She lifted her buttocks to free the fabric, then raised her
hands above her head as he tugged the dress over her breasts and
off her arms.

He’d never seen breasts so beautiful, full,
creamy, and tipped with an areole so rosy it made a man want to
weep. “You are beautiful,” he murmured.

“
Pretty words, my
lord?”

“
They aren’t
pretty
words
when they are true.”

She shivered. “I am liable to catch my
cold.”

“
As long as I am in your
bed, you will never want for warmth.”

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes, and he
recalled her fear that he would abandoned his wife in favor of
other women. That assessment hadn’t been completely wrong. Erroll
understood discretion, but hadn’t planned on giving up other women
entirely. But staring down at her now, he couldn’t recall the face
of even one of the women he had planned to one day bed. He bent and
flicked his tongue against the peak of one perfect bud.

Erroll ringed the nipple with his tongue, and
her breasts lifted with the intake of a slow breath. He felt
himself further harden with surprising intensity, and lifted his
mouth from her breast, then lowered himself onto her. First the
rigid peaks of her nipples tickled his chest, then followed the
warmth of her flat stomach against his belly. Erroll thought he
would lose his mind when his cock lay nestled within her moist
curls.

He kissed her slow, deep, and with a
restraint that had never been tested to such limits. She sighed,
her body relaxed beneath him. She wrapped her arms around his
shoulders and shock reverberated from her fingertips to his
erection. He allowed himself one slow thrust of his member against
her mound. One only, he warned, for two would send him over the
edge. Her breath caught.

Erroll shifted and whispered in her hear.
“You like that, love?” He’d allowed only one thrust, but if she
liked it…he thrust again, and she drew in another breath. “Tell me
you like that,” he urged.

“
I like that.”

Her voice was rough with desire.

“
Then I will oblige,” he
said. And he would, even if it killed him.

He slipped a knee between her legs and urged
them apart. For an instant she tensed, then allowed him to settle
between her thighs. Erroll lifted his hips and skimmed the outer
edged of her folds.

“
Oh my,” she said on a
stuttered breath.

Erroll reached down and slid a finger
into—God, he wouldn’t last long—her wet heat and, with thumb and
forefinger, separated the flesh and fitted his cock between her
folds. He removed his hand and the swollen flesh molded around the
sides of his erection. Her eyes widened and he pushed his cock
through the dewy heat and along her sex until his bullocks
contacted the back of her arse.

“
Holy God,” she cried, and
raw lust surged through his groin.

He drew back and repeated the thrust,
gritting his teeth against the compulsion to climax. Her thighs
trembled against his hips, and he hardened his resolve. Erroll drew
back and dropped a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then her jaw.
She grasped his shoulders, but he kept going, dropping kisses, a
swipe of his tongue to each nipple, and nips to the underside of
her breasts. He continued down and she suddenly seemed to realize
he was doing something unexpected.

“
Sir—”

Erroll sucked her flat belly. She gave a
shriek and twisted. He shoved his hands beneath her buttocks and
held her still while he edged farther down.

“
Good God, what are
you—”

Erroll pressed his mouth against the curls
that covered her sex.

She yanked her knees up—which suited him
wonderfully—and he held tight and thrust his tongue between her
swollen folds to the engorged nub.

Eve stiffened in shock. “Ho-ly God.” She
sucked in a breath.

He flicked his tongue against the nub with
quick jabs. She gasped and the sound sent blood pounding through
his ears. He lifted his head and she relaxed as he pulled his arms
free of her hips.

“
My lord, I do not think
you should be doing this.”

“
Trust me.” He rose onto
his knees and urged her legs wider.

“
Erroll,” she said. “What
are you doing?”

“
What I have wanted to do
since the night I broke into your room.” He drew back her folds to
reveal the pink flesh and the bud hidden there.

“
Perhaps you should douse
the light,” Eve said in a tremulous voice.

“
Not for all the sheep in
Scotland.”

He lowered his mouth again and this time
probed gently at her opening. The scent of her desire and taste of
her on his tongue was an aphrodisiac unlike any other he’d
experienced with other women. Suddenly, he wanted to savor her
until she begged him to stop, then he would push her even further
until she burst apart in his mouth. Slowly, he grazed her bud with
his thumb while thrusting his tongue into her channel. She arched
her hips slightly. Erroll stroked again.

She whispered something incoherent and he
stroked again, thrusting deeper with his tongue. Eve shuddered
beneath his mouth. He moved his mouth up to her pleasure point and
sucked the bud into his mouth.

“
Ohh,” she said on a
moan.

Carefully, he inserted a finger into her
channel. Her body jerked. He sucked harder and thrust in shallow
bursts inside her. She unexpectedly jammed a hand into his hair. So
the lady liked this. Erroll flicked his tongue against her in
rhythm with the movement of his finger. Her hips lifted off the
mattress, pressing against his mouth. He obliged and sucked harder.
She gave a soft cry and tensed, her heat against his mouth.

Need assailed him on a tidal wave of blinding
desire. He crawled up onto her and, grasping his cock, shoved into
her. She gave a startled cry when his hard length stretched her
walls. Her contractions closed around him. He thrust, his lust
demanding another climax from her while his rod stroked her
walls.

Mercilessly, he drove into her, until she
wrapped her legs around his hips and whimpered pleas to end the
erotic torture. Then he broke apart, blood roaring through his ears
like the crash of a massive waterfall. Pleasure flooded him and all
rational thought disappeared. He was aware only of the tight walls
squeezing him beyond the limits of pleasure in an explosion that
left him limp on top of her.

Chapter Twenty One

Erroll had wanted his wife again in the
night,
all night
, but had given in only once. She was all
but a virgin. Blane had clearly taken her maidenhead, but if there
had been more, it had been so little and so long ago, it was a bare
technicality. Had Erroll given in to his baser instincts, she
wouldn’t have been able to walk that morning. A possibility that
pleased him more than it should have. It was probably best that
he’d woken to find her gone from his bed. He guessed that had as
much to do with the uncertainty of how to face a man who had done
to her what he’d done, and the possible embarrassment of a maid
walking into the room while he had his head between her legs.

He entered the drawing room to find Eve
surrounded by the ladies of his immediate family, including the
newest addition, Grace Crenshaw. Eve looked up from the papers she
and his mother were absorbed in and Erroll’s breath caught when he
realized that the shy smile on her face was for him. The picture
she painted sitting in familial harmony with the women of his clan
made her far more beautiful than she had been even in last night’s
fine muslin dress. He recalled the vision he’d had of her waiting
for him at home, her belly swollen with his child, and suddenly his
fears melted away and he wanted that fantasy to become a reality
more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

“
Good morning, Erroll,” his
mother said.

“
Mother.”

He crossed to her chair, bent, and kissed her
cheek, then did the same to Eve. She blinked in obvious surprise,
and Erroll caught the knowing glance his mother cast in Olivia’s
direction. Women knew far too much. The thought should have worried
him. Instead, he gave Olivia a kiss, then his younger sisters, and
even Hilary, who turned her head aside in an effort to thwart him.
Erroll grasped her cheek and planted a kiss anyway.

“
Ungrateful wench,” he
muttered when she shot him a dagger-filled look.