The Pleasure Garden: Sacred Vows\Perfumed Pleasures\Rites of Passions (18 page)

She was mewling and writhing against him. He could feel the desire emanating from her. He wished he could see it in her eyes, but it was so blasted dark he could see nothing.

He ran his mouth down her throat to suck at the swell of her breast and tongue her nipple, while concentrating on the wetness engulfing his hand. She cried out with a gasping breath and clutched his arms as he lightly passed his finger over her clitoris. “You could come just like this, couldn’t you?” he murmured. “You’re so hot and aroused that only grazing my finger on your clit would have you falling apart in my arms.”

She shoved against him eagerly, searching for his touch. He did not stroke her there, but slowly slid his hand to her opening, tracing the rim of her cunt with his fingertip. He did not penetrate her. He had waited too long for this moment, and the only thing he wanted her to feel was his cock stretching her wide.

The image of thrusting into her tight, hot body fueled his blood, and he felt the front of his trousers dampen with pre-come. Joscelyn finally fully freed himself from his
trousers and was reaching for her hand when he felt her fingers curl around his cock.

He groaned and shoved himself into her hand, and she began to run her fingertips up and down his length. It felt so good to at last feel her hand pumping him.

He moved his palm between their bodies and sought her clitoris, which was erect and pulsating beneath the pad of his fingertip. Furiously, he flicked the sensitive flesh, over and over, matching the rhythm of her hand around his shaft as she pleasured him, tossing him off like a skilled whore.

She was panting in little breaths that made his blood pound, and he was so bloody close to spending. But he could not stop until he felt her shudder against him. So he worked her harder, and even when she began to tremble and shake and arch her back, he gave her more, until she shattered in his arms and cried out his name and begged him, a keening plea from deep in her chest.

“I will give it to you hard, because we both yearn for it that way, don’t we, Cathy? We both need it like that so that we can exorcise this imprisoned passion that is nearly consuming us.”

He pulled out of her hand and thrust his cock deep inside her. She was tight, so bloody tight. He penetrated her in one long stab and she groaned, a beautiful wanton sound, so beautiful that he had to hear it again. So he pulled out and reentered her swiftly, feeling the rush of wetness engulf him as he lodged himself farther inside her.

Without giving her more time, he reached for her hand, raising it above her head so that he clutched it as he thrust up deep inside her. Harder and harder he thrust. Higher
and higher she moved against the wall as his cock stabbed her deeper.

“Do you want it, all of me inside you?”

“Yes,” she cried, clutching his hand as he drove his hips upward until she could feel all of him pulsing inside. He waited till she was full of him before he began thrusting and breathing against her. Never had anything so wild and unrelenting felt so beautiful and right.

“I’m going to fill you,” he said with a hard moan. “And then I’m taking you to the bed, and loving you all over again.”

4

NAKED, CATHERINE LAY WITH JOSCELYN, HIS long limbs entwined with hers. It was dark, and despite her requests that he light a candle, or the oil lamp on her dressing table, he refused.

“Just let me hold you, here in the dark.”

She did not press the matter, but knew there was a reason that Joscelyn intentionally made it dark in the room. He didn’t want to be seen, and it piqued her curiosity. Edward had said at supper that Joscelyn had returned a monster. What did that mean? Was his injury to his face, and did Joscelyn believe her to be so cruel and callow that she would shun him for it?

“You smell so good,” he whispered as he pressed his face into her hair. “Even better now that you’re marked with my scent.”

A jolting sensation crashed through her. It was an odd sentiment, but it struck a chord with her. She was blanketed in his scent. The entire room smelled of him, spice and man—and sex.

“You don’t know how many nights I fell asleep dreaming of this, you naked in my arms,” he told her.

Cuddling into him, she squeezed him tightly. When her hand began to roam, he put a little distance between them and made certain his left side pressed deeper into the mattress.

“We must have dreamed the same dream, for I thought of the same things. I wished you with me every night.”

“Half of me was afraid to return home, fearing that you would already be married to Edward.”

Mention of her future husband cooled her. Joscelyn seemed to sense it, and pulled her closer, kissing her cheek, her temple. “That was badly done, wasn’t it?”

“No, it wasn’t. It’s reality.”

“Not in this bed, it’s not,” he said. “The only reality is what has happened between us, the love we’ve just made. That’s reality, Cathy.”

“No, it’s only fantasy. A make-believe world in the dark. Come morning, we will be faced with the real world. And in that world I am to marry Edward.”

“No, you will not. I have the means to keep you comfortable, Cathy. You don’t need to give yourself to Edward.”

Hope flared in her breast. Joscelyn was the illegitimate child of Lord Fairfax’s sister. He’d been brought to Fairfax House as a young boy, after the death of his mother. He’d been penniless, dirty, but Lord Fairfax had treated him as though he were his own. Yet surely Joscelyn did not have the means to care for a wife, and her dependent family—no matter how kind Lord Fairfax had been. Joscelyn could keep a wife, perhaps, but it was not only a wife he would be getting if he intended to have Catherine.

“You doubt that I can provide for you.”

“No, of course not.” She did not want him to believe
that she was shallow, fickle, concerned with her own comforts. In truth, she would go and live in a little cottage with him, tend his home, the kitchen, launder his clothes and bear his children if she could. But her life was not hers to give away. Love, however much she desired it, was not to be.

“You must understand,” she began, wetting her lips. “I am to be married at the end of the week. There is nothing to be done.”

“Then we will run away, far, far away where Edward will never find us.”

The notion was so tempting. Catherine was ashamed to admit she wanted to accept his offer. They could flee to Scotland or Ireland. Could hide away where no one knew them and build a new life. But her parents…

“Say yes,” he whispered, kissing her. “Say you’ll be mine. Come to me tomorrow night. The moon is new and the night will be dark. I’ll arrange for a horse, and we can make for the border, and Gretna Green, where we can be married.”

He didn’t wait for her reply and kissed her hard. He had grown thick, aroused, and he easily slipped inside her.

She was panting as he made love to her, her fingers clutching, caressing his back, her face pressed tightly into the smooth contour of his neck. She inhaled his skin, brought him deep into her lungs. She would never forget this night. Never forget him.

When he cried out and poured his seed into her, she prayed that it would be his child she gave birth to, and not Edward’s.

Holding Joscelyn close, she told him without words how much she loved him. How she always would.

But come the morning, the fairy tale would end, and cold stark reality would greet her. For tonight, she would pretend hers was a different life. A different ending than the one that had already been written for her.

“You will permit me a turn about the garden?”

Edward’s request was not a polite one. It was more a demand. With her parents watching them intently, Catherine gave a slight nod and accepted his arm, placing her fingertips on his sleeve.

“Beg your pardon, Lord Tate, but I am taking your daughter outside for a short stroll. It’s lovely and sunny, and we won’t be gone long.”

“Splendid idea!”

Fruitlessly, Catherine stared at her mother, imploring her with her eyes to put an end to this, but she uneasily glanced away, her mouth pinched in a tight line.

“I trust you don’t mind, Lady Tate?” Edward drawled.

“No, of course not,” her mother murmured, reaching for her embroidery hoop. Catherine watched as she stabbed the fabric with the tip of her needle. “Don’t forget your shawl, dear, for the wind is up today. You won’t keep her long, will you, my lord? You would not want an ill bride, I think.”

It was the only help she could expect from her mother.

“Of course not, Lady Tate.”

With a triumphant smile, Edward led her away from the relative safety of her parents. Of course, Catherine never could rely on upon her parents’ prudence. They wanted her wed to the earl’s son, and the quicker the better. It didn’t matter that Edward had no intention of walking with her. He had something much more sinister planned.

Leading her to the French doors, he ushered her through. When they were out of hearing, he turned to her.

“You slept well, I assume?”

Nodding, she averted her gaze, and instead glanced around their surroundings. Edward had led her out of the salon and down the stone steps to the back garden. In the sunlight, she could see how old the stone wall that surrounded the garden was. And the door, too. It was thick oak, cracked and weathered, and the Green Man knocker, which she assumed had once been glittering gold, was faded and rust covered.

“You are very quiet this morning,” Edward observed.

Of course she was. She didn’t know what to say, and her usual acerbic tone would not help her. Not this morning. She sensed that Edward was in no mood to be trifled with.

If it were only herself to be concerned about, Catherine would not be so worried. But she had her parents to be troubled over, and now Joscelyn, too. She did not want her lover to come up against Edward, who had never fought fair in his life.

He led her into the garden, motioning to the fountain where he had found her sitting last evening. The memories of Joscelyn came rushing back, and she hid them, hoping she could blame her flushed skin on the sun and the heat of the day—or perhaps even the breeze that occasionally sprung up.

Sitting, she arranged her skirts and watched as Edward paced before her. It was not like him to appear ill at ease. He was always so smooth and calculated. Nothing seemed to bother him. But he was flustered this morning.

Content to sit and wait for him to begin, Catherine used the seconds to study the garden. There was some greenery
on the weed that had woven itself over the stone, and a white bloom resembling the blossom on a trumpet vine. There was life in this garden, after all, she mused, as she bent at the waist to pick the bud. She had never once seen anything green in this copse. Never a bloom, not even a bird. But she heard a bird this morning, singing merrily from its perch on the garden wall.

Whatever could be the reason for this sudden transformation?

“About last night.” Edward paused. He stopped before her and glared down at her, forcing her to raise her head and meet his stare head-on. “I want you to know that it won’t happen again. You will not meet my cousin anywhere, let alone here, out in the garden. Is that thoroughly understood?”

She bristled, hating his commands. But she dared not defy him. She had no difficulty believing that in his present mood her fiancé was capable of anything.

“Do you understand?” he enunciated with cold precision.

Nodding, she let the bloom slip from her fingers and fall to the shell pathway curved around the fountain. “Of course. But you have it all wrong.”

“Do I? Do you actually think I believe that? Joscelyn Mallory has been lusting after you since you were sixteen. He wants what is mine. And that is the only reason he’s come to you. Because he’s jealous. Because he covets my title. My money. My…”

“Possessions?” she suggested.

“Do not tempt me, not today,” Edward warned.

He was flushed, his fair complexion blotched and ruddy. He despised being the underdog. Winning was his first concern. Being the best was always first and foremost in his
mind. Edward felt he needed to beat Joscelyn, but didn’t realize he would never best him. Joscelyn was the better man. Always had been.

Joscelyn did not covet anything of Edward’s. He desired Catherine for himself. She was not so naive as to fall for Edward’s tricks. What she and Joscelyn had shared last night had been soul shattering. Heartfelt. There was no possible way he had fabricated his feelings in order to take her away from Edward in a fit of pique, and a childish display of jealousy.

“I’m prepared to let last night go, Catherine, if you promise never to even look at him again.”

She wanted to fight Edward. To jump up and claw at his eyes, and scream at the injustice of having to marry him. But she remained seated, a paragon of ladylike behavior, suffering under her fiancé’s chastisement.

“I am a handsome man, Catherine, with a fit body. I daresay if you spent as much time looking at me as you do
him,
then you would realize that your future husband is not the troll you make him out to be.”

Troll, ogre, fiend.
He was all those things and more.

“You know how much I desire you.”

“I know how much you wish to possess me,” she clarified, attempting to lift her chin away when he clasped it in his hand.

“How you tempt me,” he said. His voice was tight, and his grip on her chin hurt. “So damn proud, aren’t you? You’re not even able to see what a gift you’ve been given.”

What she’d eaten for breakfast threatened to come up. She was utterly bilious at Edward’s conceit and self-importance.

“Whatever you think of my cousin, Catherine, you must
allow yourself to remember that he is a bastard. He comes to you with nothing, not even a proper name. He certainly hasn’t the means to care for you, or for your family.”

The reality of that nearly destroyed her. His lineage meant nothing to her, but unfortunately, his lack of wealth did. She could not abandon her parents. Her father and mother had never worked a day in their lives. They would never survive their fate if Catherine did not marry the brute standing before her.