Taking Liberties (5 page)

“Let go,” he rasped against her skin, all heated urgency and need. As if her release meant more to him than his own. As if he shared in whatever pleasure he gave her.

With that thought, there could be no more resistance. She let go and fell into shimmering, shuddering rapture.

And knew she would never be quite the same again.

Nash leaned his head against the tree he was hiding behind and struggled to calm his racing pulse and ragged breath. He closed his eyes, disgusted with himself. So much for any hope he had nurtured that his response to watching Tish with Hapsborough had been a one-time occurrence. After bringing her to orgasm in the garden yesterday, Nash had almost managed to convince himself that he had only been so because he had known the notoriously quick-to-spend duke would leave Tish in a state of frustration that Nash could use to his advantage. And it had, indeed, worked out that way.

He could no longer comfort himself with that explanation, however. Not when Randley had just done a more than adequate job of satisfying Tish’s physical needs—as well as his own—and yet, here Nash stood with his cock hard as stone and his balls tight as an old lady’s purse strings.

Try as he might, he couldn’t get the image of the two of them pleasuring each other out of his mind.

Events had proceeded much as they had with Randley the day before. Lady Albemarle had accompanied the earl and Tish on their picnic, but soon excused herself back to the house. Her sister gone, Tish had flirted with the earl, encouraging him to kiss her. Eventually kissing had led to fondling and then to the earl dropping his drawers. Except that, rather than simply allowing Tish to toss him off as the duke had done, Randley had got her to suck his cock. And then, while she did so, he’d had her raise her skirts, straddle his face, and allow him to lick her sweet, sensitive cunny until they both came in one another’s mouths.

Not once during the entire encounter had Tish demurred or hesitated at any of the earl’s advances.

Nash ought to be enraged. Jealous. Horrified that the woman he loved and wished to marry was so wanton and faithless that she could allow any man other than him to take such liberties.

So why in the name of all that was unholy did he want nothing more than to take her in his arms and fuck her until they were both limp and witless? And then, perhaps, watch her do the same thing with someone else?

Somehow, in some strange way he could not begin to fathom, her passion was his passion; her needs, his needs; her pleasure, his pleasure. Nash had felt her climax today as plainly as he had yesterday when he’d had his fingers in her snug, slick channel and her muscles had had clenched around him like a tight, wet fist.

Christ, what sort of perverse monster was he? It was one thing—a perfectly natural thing—to become aroused by the sight of two people in a carnal embrace. In fact, it was quite possibly an unavoidable response. But to feel that way when one of the participants was the woman he planned to marry…and to such an extreme degree? He was actually a little frightened by the intensity of his desire to watch her making love to other men. What sort of man enjoyed the idea of sharing his wife’s body with anyone else?

Lord Fitzgerald
, his mind whispered traitorously. And Fitzgerald seemed a reasonably content and well-balanced human being. Not to mention a happily married one, despite his apparent perversity.

Nash opened his eyes and shook his head. No, he couldn’t go there. Tish was, despite her obvious delight in the pleasures of the flesh, an innocent and a lady. Knowing what he now knew about himself, Nash could no longer assure himself he was the best man for her. Leticia Blake
deserved a husband who could fulfill her without resorting to debauchery. Without whoring her out to other men like a common strumpet…

Someone like Randley, who was obviously every bit as capable of satisfying her carnal desires as Nash himself.

He had to let her go. Even if it killed him.

But before he did, there was one matter he had to take in hand. He reached down and unbuttoned his fall.

After levering herself to a sitting position, Tish smoothed her pale blue lawn skirt back into place and did her best to direct her scattered wits. The bitter-salt flavor of the earl’s seed settled on her tongue, not unpleasant but odd. Her limbs were languid and heavy with spent desire, but she was far from fulfillment.

Only one thing—or more accurately, one person—could bring her that.

She glanced over her shoulder, searching the tree-lined hillside behind her picnic site for some hint of Nash’s whereabouts. He was there somewhere, she knew, and the certainty that he was watching had fueled her response to Randley’s attentions. Randley was an adequate lover, but his skills with his hands and tongue truly couldn’t hold a candle to Nash’s. Without the benefit of Nash’s presence as an aphrodisiac, she did not believe she would have found release.

Something was dreadfully wrong with her. She had thought it yesterday when the thought of someone interrupting her tryst with Nash in the garden had heightened her arousal, but she had been able to dismiss it then. Or at least forget about it…

But this afternoon, she could not, for although it was Nash she desired first and foremost, Nash’s touch that set her senses ablaze and her heart afire, she was not sure she could truly be satisfied with just one dessert for the rest of her life. Not that she wanted other desserts
without
him, of course. What she wanted was to taste every confection the world had to offer—with him by her side.

But that was madness. What sane gentleman would accept such a preposterous arrangement? And Nash was certainly among the sanest gentlemen of her acquaintance.

Tears pricked behind her eyelids. She had to tell him, had to explain to him that she could not marry him. He deserved a chaste, faithful wife. In other words, anyone but her.

“Are you all right, my dear?” the earl asked, his tone laced with concern. “Did I frighten you with my passions?”

Tish managed a tremulous smile. “No, not at all.” At least, unlike the duke, Randley did not behave as if she had committed some grievous sin against him by bringing him to pleasure. “It is just that—” she glanced up in to the trees again, her cheeks heating “—I need to relieve myself.”

Randley, who had tucked his shirt back into his breeches and rebuttoned his fall, pulled an indulgent expression. “Of course, my dear. I quite understand.”

Tish felt absurdly as if he were patting her on the head and sending her off to bed with milk and a biscuit, but she took the opportunity nonetheless. After rising to her feet, she began to climb the hill, her slippers crunching in the heavy layer of leaves beneath her feet. She peered left and right as she ascended. He was well-camouflaged by the underbrush, however, and she nearly walked right by him before seeing him.

She froze in her tracks.

Nash leaned back against the gnarled trunk of a very large tree. His eyes were closed and
an expression of bleak concentration marred his handsome features.

The look ripped Tish’s heart apart. She had done this to him. She had forced him into supporting this experiment, and he was paying the price with his anguish. What sort of woman would do this to the man she loved?

And there was no question in her mind that Nash was the man she loved.

All the more reason she must let him go. Even if she suppressed and denied her strange desires for the rest of her life, he knew now who she was, what she was. How deep her depravity ran. She couldn’t saddle him with such a burden. Even if he loved her in return.

Especially
if he loved her in return.

She spared a brief glance down the hill to reassure herself that Randley was paying her no mind. He had politely turned his back and appeared to be digging through the picnic basket in search of something to eat.

With a sigh that was half relief, half resignation, she took the first step in Nash’s direction. He must have heard the crackle of her footfalls, because he turned to look at her.

“What are you doing here?” Although he didn’t whisper, his hoarse voice was barely audible.

She continued to pick her way toward him through the small bushes that pushed up through the carpet of leaves. “I came to tell you—”

She broke off on an in-drawn breath as she got close enough to see that he was not standing there in deep contemplation. His fall was open. He gripped his cock—gloriously long and thick and hard—in his hand, pumping it with his fist.

Fierce, biting desire leaped to instant life between her thighs, and her heart thudded wildly with sudden, unexpected hope. Perhaps Nash wasn’t disgusted by what he had seen. Perhaps he was as aroused by it as she was.

He stopped what he was doing, his eyes meeting hers with piercing intensity. “Came to tell me what?”

She licked her lips, hesitating. What she’d come to say no longer seemed nearly as important as the longing that pounded in her veins. The need to touch him, to fuck him.

To love him.

The words tumbled out at last. “I came to tell you I decided to marry the earl.”

He released his cock abruptly. The shaft bobbed free, pointing toward her like a divining rod. “The hell you are,” he growled, pushing away from the tree. “You love me.”

She didn’t think to ask how he could be sure of that. “I know. But…I didn’t think you’d want me once I told you…” Her voice trailed off. Was there any way for a woman to tell the man she loved that she gained the most exquisite pleasure imaginable by having him watch her engage in intimate relations with other men? How did one explain the inexplicable?

While she tried to summon the words to describe the indescribable, Nash reached out for her and pulled her into the shadow of the tree. “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. Nothing can change that.”

Love and fear collided in her chest. “Not even if I don’t think I can swear off all other desserts for the rest of my life?”

His forehead furrowed in puzzlement, and then let out a soft bark of laughter as comprehension smoothed his features. He dragged her into his arms, the ridge of his cock folding up and pressing, hard and insistent, against her stomach as he brushed his lips to her forehead. “Desserts, my love, or hors d’oeuvres?”

Now Tish was puzzled. “Hors d’oeuvres?”

His hands traversed the distance from her shoulders to the small of her back and then down to cup her buttocks, fitting her more closely to him. She moaned softly with contentment at the way their bodies seemed made for each other, every angle and plane of his body having a matching curve or pillow on hers.

“A little taste before the meal. Something to whet your appetite before the main course,” he clarified. “The main course being, I hope, me.”

She slid her arms around his neck. “Oh, God, of course, it’s you. Everything comes back to you. Even down there…with him, it was about you. That you were watching.” She buried her face in the sweet tobacco-scented expanse of his waistcoat and took a shuddery breath. “I thought there must be something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in that.”

He drew away slightly and shook his head, a rueful grin lighting his features. “And I feared there was something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in watching it. But I did, and I do. As you can tell,” he added with a roll of his hips.

The hope that had been fluttering weakly in her chest spread its wings and poised to take flight. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I…well, if I partake of an
hors d’ouevres
now and then?”

“To the contrary, my love. As long as you allow me to watch and then fuck you within an inch of your life afterward, I will actively encourage it.”

Joy and raw lust threatened to overcome her, but she could not quite believe what he was saying. “But…why? Why would you want a faithless wife?”

He shrugged. “I don’t understand it myself. I thought I would be racked with rage and jealousy when I saw you with Hapsborough, but I wasn’t. At first, I told myself it was because I knew he hadn’t satisfied you and I was certain I would. But today…” He made a low, rumbling sound in his throat and tightened his grip on her backside. “Christ, I’ve never seen anything more erotic you sucking Randley’s cock while he ate your delectable little pussy. And when you came, I damn near spilled in my breeches. It was as if I were a part of you, feeling what you felt…”

Tish nodded. Strangely she understood exactly what he meant. Because she felt it, too, if in a different way. “And I wouldn’t have come at all if I hadn’t known you were up here in the trees, watching me, experiencing it with me.”

With a chuckle, he buried his face in her hair, which had been released from the restraints of her bonnet some time earlier. “It would seem we are two sides of the same debauched coin, Leticia Blake. I can’t pretend to understand it, but I do know this--we are plainly meant for one another.”

“Does this mean you still want to marry me?” she asked.

“It means I want to fuck you right now and make sure you never have the chance to even think of marrying anyone but me.”

“Oh.” Tish’s body responded with instant, liquid heat even as the bird of hope took wing inside her. But… “Now?” she asked.

“Now,” he rumbled, beginning to raise her skirts by gathering them up in his fingers.

“But what about Randley? I told him I came up here to relieve myself.”

“And so you did, my love. So you did.” Cool air blew across her bare skin as her skirt cleared her garters.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she protested with a light swat on his shoulder. “He’s waiting for me. He’ll be expecting me any min—ah!”

Nash’s fingers found the part in her drawers, dipped into her slick, swollen slit. “This won’t take much time,” he said on a raspy laugh. “We’re both so hot for each other, it will be over in a minute. Two at the most.”

The way her flesh leaped as his touch grazed her there, she was fairly certain he was right. She arched into his touch, a hot rush of need sluicing through her core.

“I wish I could take longer with you, my love,” he murmured apologetically against her head. “We ought to take it slow your first time, gentle. But I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Joy bubbled up in her chest, counterbalancing the heavy longing in the pit of her belly. She could either fly or sink to earth. Or both.

“That’s all right,” she said, lifting her face to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to be slow or gentle.”