Capturing Cora (4 page)

Her lower part seemed immediately awash with heat, so too did her cheeks, for what he'd suggested wasn't at all polite. No true gentleman would ever have spoken like that, but Bran had never treated her like a piece of china. He’s shared enough ribald jokes with her to know she wouldn’t faint just because he’d been lewd.

“I’ve spoken to your father. He took me seriously.”

“He did? You have?”

“Aye.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier? I’d have known then. I wouldn’t have doubted.”

“It didn’t seem very romantic to bend down and say that I’d spoken to your father first. It seemed presumptuous, nor did I wish to imply that by speaking to him first I considered you somehow irrelevant, when you’re so very, very far from being that.”

The buttery slur of Bran’s words wrought havoc with her self-restraint. Heavens, if he didn’t kiss her soon, she would take the matter out of his hands.

“I want you, Cora. Say yes, because I’m so sorry, but I have—” He touched her cheek. Then one hand slipped into her hair. The other rested against her bodice. “—I simply have to kiss you.”

He pressed his tongue between her lips and wakened desires she couldn’t put names to, not even images. She clung to him, dizzied by all she was feeling, and in turn he held her back, crushing her body to his. Bran’s kiss bore no resemblance to the chaste, powdery and familial brushes of affection she’d been accustomed to. Arousal flooded her body. The rush of blood in her ears drowned out everything else.

A slow tingle rolled down Cora’s throat and into her breasts, so that her nipples ached and chafed against the inside of her stays.

She wanted… yearned…

Bran’s large hand cupped her face, and his forefinger stroked back and forth over her flaming cheek. “Cora, say it. Say yes.”

She strained towards him, balancing on tiptoe to compensate for the difference in height, and initiated the second kiss. To the devil with being wholesome and chaste. Bran was everything she wanted. This close, even insulated by numerous layers of fabric, he literally radiated heat. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes. Yes.” To whatever he wanted. To passion and rubbing herself naked against him. These were the things she truly wanted. Not an exchange of vows in a church, but passion and torment and all the emotions that made a person feel alive. Though heaven help her if she wasn’t moving into territory she had no experience of.

Bran’s hands moved possessively over her bodice. Then his thigh pressed between her legs, rousing an even more dangerous sort of excitement. “Touch me,” he whispered. “You don’t know how often I’ve dreamed of you holding me.”

Cora released her grip on his shoulders. Daringly, she pushed her hands inside his frock coat. Solid muscles rippled beneath the flare of his waistcoat. Beneath that, yards of shirttail sat tucked into his breeches, which tug as she might, she couldn’t quite find a way beneath in order to touch his skin. “I swear you have on more layers than I do.”

“Probably more,” he agreed. “Though not so many petticoats.”

“Oh, Bran.” She jabbed him playfully.

In return, Bran drew his kiss away from her lips. He began to tease her earlobe and the very top of her neck. At first, she shied from the sensation. It seemed almost too intense to bear, and made her ache low down in her belly. Then she leaned in to the kiss, craving more, until she literally hung onto him, unable to speak, barely able to stand.

“Do you like that, my sweet?”

“Oh!” Her breath released as a hiss. “Don’t stop.”

“So, you do like it?” He nuzzled against her hair, kissed her brow, but didn’t return to her neck. He shuffled his feet too, so that he wasn’t pressed so firmly against her.

“What is it?” she asked.

Bran smiled. “I’m just growing a little excited too, my pet.”

“What do you mean? You mean like the stallions?” Her gaze shot downwards to his loins. Even in the dingy light of the cupboard she could make out the lozenge-shaped hummock distorting the frontfall of his breeches.

Cora’s mouth turned dry.

“Don’t let it scare you, my love.”

“I’m not scared.”

That was a lie and they both knew it. Still, she couldn’t help but stare at him curiously wondering how it would feel, and how it would look in the flesh.

“You needn’t worry. I shan’t do anything ungentlemanly.”

“Will you not?” Cora gave a nervous giggle, realizing that a hint of disappointment had threaded her response. It wasn’t that she specifically wanted to move their relationship forward that quickly. They were in a precarious position, in a closet, after all, and she was hardly experienced in such matters. It was just that… Well, she wanted to touch him, to know him. All of him. There had to be a first time. Why not make it now, while she felt a little daring and a great deal crazy?

“Can I? May I… Bran I want to touch you there.” She reached out as she said the words, trying not to think too hard about what she was actually doing. She brushed one fingertip against the ridge beneath his front fall before jumping back as if scalded.

When nothing happened, she wheezed a sigh of relief, and then clamped a hand to her mouth.

“Do that again,” he said, grinning.

“I’m not sure that I should.”

“Oh! Why is that, Cora?”

“I think you might like it.” Her cheeks ached from the grin that stretched across her lips. She’d always deliberately sought to do whatever she shouldn’t. Wasn’t that the reason why she rode like a fiend and why she could swim and fish and bowl? She’d trusted Bran to teach her all those things, so why not trust him now?

Besides, her curiosity was winning over her sense of fear again.

Bran’s breath whooshed into her ear as she settled her palm over his loins. She encompassed his length with the flat of her palm. She didn’t squeeze or fondle, simply remained still with the heat of him against her hand.

“How does it work, Bran? Is this the part you’ll put inside of me?”

“Dear God,” he swore. All the muscles in his abdomen pulled tight. “Cora, you’ll be the undoing of me if you say things like that. I think it’s time we left this cupboard.”

“Wait. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I just want to be able to please you. You’re the one who taught me to ask questions in order to conquer my fears. I want everything to be wonderful between us.”

“Yes, but not here, not like this. Not right now.”

Cora swore he hadn’t meant them to, but his words worked like magic. Suddenly, she not only wanted to see and feel his length properly, she was determined to. Grinning as she did it, Cora slipped open the first button of his frontfall.

Bran’s breath hitched. “I ought to stop you right there.”

“But you won’t.”

“Hell, I might.”

Cora shook her head. “Just let me hold you. Just for a moment.” His second button opened as easily as the first. Only one other button held his breeches closed, but already her impression of his shape was much clearer.

“Woman, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

Oh, but she did. “Branwell Locke, don’t you dare become an honourable gentleman now.”

* * *

Being honourable was very far from Bran’s thoughts, as Cora opened the final button of his breeches. He couldn’t stop her. Hell, he craved what she was about with every inch of his soul.

Bran’s vision had adjusted to the dark well enough to make out her features clearly now, certainly well enough to see her eyes widen. Her perfect rosebud lips parted slightly to release a gasp.

“This isn’t the time or place for this,” he reasoned.

She didn’t let up, but instead used her fingers and thumb to discover every inch of his cock. When her exploration became increasingly bold, he thanked God that he’d worn his longest shirt, the tails of which met between his thighs and stopped her making direct skin on skin contact. At this very moment, he didn’t think he could tolerate that. Hell, that touch of hers would have him spending in no time at all, if he didn’t put a stop to it.

Her thumb swept up over the tip of his cock, and the radiance that crackled through his lower half nearly spun him into orbit.

“Cora.” Bran clasped her hands in his and raised them so that they were pressed to the wall on either side of her head. Romp that she was, she actually tested his strength. “Minx, I think it’s time we got to the business at hand, rather than my business in your hand.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then dipped his head and planted two kisses on the luscious swell of her breasts.

She smelled of cinnamon and honeysuckle, and the latter scent reminded him just what he intended to do next—suckle. It was time he gave her taste of what he intended to do to her once he had her in his bed, starting with how he intended to lave his tongue around her nipple and cover her breasts in gentle nips.

“What do you intend to do?”

Wild excitement glowed in her eyes when he glanced up. “Everything you ever dreamed about.”

She smiled, showing off a flash of white teeth, which Bran read as a challenge. “You’ve no idea what I’ve dreamed about.”

“Then I shall have to go off my very best guesses. If I happen to miss anything, I’m sure you’ll inform me.” He planted another kiss upon the upper swell her breast, and then released one wrist so he had a hand free to work with and traced the scooped neckline of her bodice.

Cora’s breathing quickened. Her lacy fichu barely covered a thing, so that if she leaned forward even an inch or if he removed a couple of pins then the already glorious sight before him would transform into a heavenly one.

Bran reached for the fastening only to discover it a fake, and that the front of her bodice had been tacked into place.

Not to be thwarted, he tugged at the stitching until it came loose. Then he pushed his palm beneath the satin and the edge of her stays. Her bare breast filled his palm, pleasantly weighty, the skin smooth and soft. Her nipple peaked and crinkled tightly against the centre of his palm.

“Bran?” She trembled slightly as he lifted her breast free of the fabric.

“Yes, my love.” He took a moment to explore her pulse point with his lips before weaving a path lower and tracing his tongue lightly over her nipple.

She stiffened and then gasped as he sucked, and whatever it was she’d meant to ask him became lost in a sea of mewls.

How quickly the tide of events had turned. Little more than an hour had passed since she first refused him, and now he intended to make a far grander gesture than the first in order to secure her promise. He meant to bring her to fulfilment, and whisper his pleas at the exact moment she reached climax. He wanted to hear her scream her reply loud enough for every goddamned guest in Rievaulx House to hear it. And then, once she had properly said yes so that everybody knew it, then and only then, would he let the ache in his loins find relief. First of all though, he had to pray that Swansbrooke led the other hide and seek players on a merry dance in the other wing for long enough for him to see this through.

Keep them away
,
Hugh
, he silently wished.
Do so, and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you find the right woman too.

* * *

Speechless, Cora let her head fall back against the cupboard wall. Bran’s touch sapped all her strength. Her limbs were jelly-like, hardly able to support her weight. A fever ran between her nipples and her puss and tied them together in knots of fire. She’d never guessed it would feel like this. Oh, she’d dreamed of holding Bran in her arms, even of having him come creeping into her bed , but as for the actual sensations invoked, she’d never even come close to imagining them. They were sweet and sharp, and they made her want… She didn’t really know what it was that she craved, only that Bran was definitely the one to deliver it.

While his mouth remained at her breast, his hands had begun wandering. He held her about the waist while he smoothed his other hand over the fabric of her skirt, and then he began hitching it as though to find a way beneath.

“Heavens, is there any need for all this frippery? There’s enough fabric here to re-curtain my bed.” Despite the complaint, laughter rather than vexation filled his voice, and he had no problem in finding his way beneath the various layers of petticoat. His big palm touched her leg where her garter clasped her stocking top. Then, he knelt and his scalding breath stirred the curls of hair upon her muff.

Cora stiffened in fearful anticipation. Her breath seemed trapped inside her chest.

“Do you know what I’m going to do?” he asked.

Not with absolute certainty. Dear God, was that the flick of his tongue? He was… Was a gentleman allowed to kiss a woman there?

Her legs quivered, hopelessly unsteady, as his—yes, that was his tongue—daubed against her slit. Embarrassment and excitement warred within her thoughts. It seemed so lewd to be touched like this. To have him kiss and lick and suck her most intimate parts. Oh, but she couldn’t stop him. She’d never stop him. Nothing had ever felt so wonderful. Every nerve in her body seemed oversensitive and to be shooting grapeshot that tingled as it reached her skin. Her nipples, that nub of pleasure—was there a word for it?—were all connected. He was batting at it with his tongue so that streamers of fire stretched between all her pleasure points, causing her toes and fingers to curl.