Heather and Velvet (34 page)

Sebastian caught on to her game fast, easing his tongue into the hot, wet shelter of her mouth, then withdrawing to nibble and tease the sensitive inner skin of her lips. He caught on too fast. Prudence found herself clinging to his hand, not to keep it from roaming, but to find some substance in the shifting sands of pleasure and anticipation. She forgot to stop him when he leaned forward. He pressed against her until only their mouths, hands, and groins touched. With each deepening foray of his tongue, he rubbed the hard ridge of his arousal against the sleek satin of the gown trapped between them.

“Wait,” Prudence said. She pulled away from him, fighting to control her trembling. “You must say something nice now.”

His lips nuzzled her throat. “Take off your gown.”

“No. Something truly nice.”

Sighing, he pressed his lips to her ear. “Your hair smells like flowers.”

“Mmmm. That
was
nice,” she whispered.

He took advantage of her approval to plunge his tongue into her ear. She gasped, unprepared for the answering flood of warmth between her thighs.

He traced her earlobe with his tongue. “You want to hear something else nice?”

She nodded, too dazed to notice that his hand had untangled from hers and was stealthily working its way up beneath her gown.

His voice was a husky whisper. “For every time you’ve pulled back on me, I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to kiss you and tease you until you’re begging me to love you.”

She tilted her head to meet his intent gaze, her eyes glazed with desire and doubt. At the exact moment his lips met hers, his fingers breached her silken drawers, dipping into a honey as hot and sweet as her mouth under his.

Prudence quaked as his warm, rough fingers plundered her, soothing and maddening with equal grace.

She buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m afraid, Sebastian.”

“So am I, angel. So am I.”

But his fear didn’t stop him from undressing her and laying her back on the coarse blankets, prepared to make good on his vow. Prudence fought back a shiver as the scratchy blanket met her bare skin. She closed her eyes, swimming in a sea of contrasts. Sebastian’s unshaven jaw grazed her cheek. His chest hairs teased the aching tips of her breasts like a thousand gold filaments, sparking an electrical response that made her abdomen contract wildly.

The rosy glow from the coals bronzed his skin as he drew off his breeches. She stared at his mouth, his chin, the faint smattering of freckles across his nose, anywhere but his eyes or much lower. He seemed suddenly a stranger, alien but achingly male, and determined to ease the hollowness yearning inside of her despite her fear.

His hands cupped her breasts, teasing one nipple between
his fingertips. She bit back a moan as his lips closed around the taut peak of her other breast. He laved her with his tongue, then suckled her with an insatiable hunger. She tangled her fingers in his silky hair, writhing beneath him in a drugged stupor of pleasure. She reached for him, but he pushed her back, his hands gentle yet determined, as he fought to ignore the hard ache of his own need.

“We played your game,” he said in a husky whisper. “Now we play mine.”

His lips trailed across her flushed skin, and he nibbled without mercy at the satiny softness behind her ear, the delicate crease along the inner curve of her elbow, the smooth plane of her abdomen.

Her breathing quickened as he coaxed apart her trembling thighs. His nimble fingers stroked the tight little bud nestled in the silky curls. Prudence pressed herself to his hand, silently begging favors of his fingers she could never have put into words. A dark, secretive pleasure trembled through her veins. Remembering the others so near, she muffled her moans against his shoulder.

For Sebastian, touching her was like touching a woman for the first time. He had forgotten what a delight it was to linger over a woman’s body, to explore all the sweet, musky clefts and hollows with his fingers, and then with his lips and tongue. He had never tasted anything so sweet, so infernally intoxicating. There wasn’t a pleasure garden in Paris or London to compare to the wonder of Prudence. He wanted to pour the heated whisky over her skin and lick it away, drop by drop. A groan tore from his throat.

He pushed it to the limit for both of them, prolonging the exquisite pleasure until it was almost pain. Prudence felt herself becoming a shameless, wanton creature beneath the shimmering agony of his touch.

She turned her face into her hair and moaned, “Please, oh, please, Sebastian.”

He stopped touching her then, completely stopped, and she thought she would die.

“What do you want, Prudence?” he asked hoarsely. “Say it.” He knew he was being a bully, but he didn’t care. He had waited too long to hear the words.

Her voice broke. “I want you.”

With a flick of his fingertip, he shoved her over the precipice of ecstasy. He prepared to follow, but hesitated, knowing he was about to learn the answer to the question that had haunted him since he’d seen her embracing a stranger on an Edinburgh street. Had there been another man? And if there had, was he, Sebastian, strong enough to let his passion for her override his bitter jealousy?

He closed his eyes and pressed himself to her silken sheath. The warm dew of her body eased his passage until he met a faint resistance. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, pushing on until the throbbing length of him was gloved in her velvety warmth.

A groan of satisfaction escaped him. Another man might give her diamonds and pearls, but there was one thing only Sebastian Kerr would give her. Her fingernails dug into his back. He opened his eyes to find her cheeks wet with tears.

He brushed them away with his fingertips, ashamed that her pain had given him such exultation. She caught her bottom lip shyly between her teeth.

“I should have warned you,” he said raggedly.

“No need. Papa did have anatomy books.”

“And what would they recommend to ease the pain?” He fought to hold himself still while his brave beauty pondered the question.

Her eyes brightened. “Practice?”

He gave a surprised grunt as she arched her hips in an elegant circle against him. His voice cracked an octave too high. “I grow fonder of Papa with each passing moment.”

He drew his hips back almost to the point of leaving her, then sank his shaft deep into her shuddering body. Prudence closed her eyes, surrendering herself to his sweet, endless filling. Her lips hungrily kissed his neck, catching beads of sweat like nectar on her tongue. Her moans and whispered, wordless pleas sang a counterpart to his throaty groans.

She had never imagined anything like this. She was being possessed, yet gaining a precious gift at the same time. Sebastian rocked hard against her, his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth in flawless rhythm. Waves of
delight crested within her, swelling higher and higher until they finally broke over her, flooding her with exquisite pleasure. She gasped against his lips, her hands clinging to him.

As his own body went rigid, she instinctively arched against him, holding him tightly as he thundered to a shuddering climax, filling at last all the empty spaces in her life.

A desperate bellow rang off the lamplit walls of the tiny cavern.

Sebastian awoke and rolled over with a curse, throwing the back of his hand over his eyes and shielding Prudence with the blanket in the same motion. She sat up on her knees, jerking the blanket to her nose. Without Sebastian’s warmth to cover her, she felt worse than naked.

The lantern lowered. Tiny’s hair billowed around his head like the halo of a crazed Norse god.

Jamie peered around Tiny’s shoulder, his hand over his eyes. He moaned as if he were going to be ill. “We ain’t too late, are we? Tell me we ain’t too late.” He peeked between his bony fingers, taking in Prudence’s huge eyes and tousled hair above the frayed edge of the blanket. “She looks to be all of a piece, don’t she?”

“More than you will be when I get my hands on you,” Sebastian growled, wrapping another blanket around his waist. “This had better be good.”

“There’s somethin’ ye got to know, lad,” Tiny said in his rumbling voice.

A wing of warning fluttered in Prudence’s stomach.

Sebastian swung his legs over the edge of the pallet. “I doubt that. I was doing fine before you barged in.”

Tiny swallowed hard. “It’s MacKay. I fear we’ve made a tumble mistake and snatched his bride-to-be.”

Prudence eased the blanket upward, planning to pull it over her head if an opportune moment arose.

“MacKay’s bride?” Sebastian stood, running a hand through his hair.

The blanket rode dangerously low on his hips. His
attempt at pacing was thwarted by the suffocating size of the cavern and Tiny’s immense presence. He had to satisfy himself with circling the blankets. Prudence flinched as a lean, muscular calf brushed her back.

To her shock, Sebastian threw back his head and laughed. “All these years and the stubborn old cuss has never married. I must have underestimated Tricia’s charms. We’d best send her back. He’ll have the redcoats on us for sure. He’s worse than his father when it comes to cozening up to the damnable English.”

With Tiny’s accusing gaze on her, Prudence swallowed hard, feeling worse than damnable. Jamie’s cheeks inflated with a worried breath.

Tiny folded his massive arms across his chest. “That’s not the end of it.”

“It is fer him.” Jamie gripped Tiny’s elbow. “Ye heard him. I’ve changed me mind. Be off with ye.”

Tiny shook him away. The lantern threw rocking shadows on the wall. “There’s more.”

“More?” Sebastian said lightly. “Pray, do tell. My infinite patience is wearing thin.”

Tiny pointed at Prudence. Her fingers froze around the blanket.

“That lass told Big Gus to refer all claims fer ransom to her fiancé, Laird Killian MacKay of Strathnaver.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the creak of the lantern suspended from Tiny’s hand.

Sebastian slowly pivoted to face Prudence. A cold light dawned in his eyes.

She shrank against the wall. Shrugging, she accidentally dislodged the blanket from one bare shoulder. A tremulous smile curved her lips. “I was going to tell you, Sebastian. Truly, I was.”

“When?” His voice was deadly soft. “After you and MacKay settled into
my
castle and raised a passel of whey-faced, mealymouthed brats?” His eyes narrowed to silver slits. “First the sheriff. Now MacKay. You lead a very interesting life for such a dour spinster, don’t you, dear?”

She felt the color drain from her face. “That’s not fair. You don’t understand—”

Tiny took a step backward as Sebastian’s r’s began to roll. “I understand all too well. I sold my soul for Dunkirk and still couldn’t win it. All you had to do was waltz in and bat your pretty eyelashes for that miserable lech MacKay.”

She stared at the blankets, fighting back tears. Should she confess her engagement was only a ruse to trap him for MacKay? Sebastian had every reason to distrust her. After all, she had betrayed him to Tugbert. If he believed she was betraying him to yet another enemy, she might never have a chance to make amends. But as she stared up at him, she was no longer sure she wanted to. All of her noble intentions to play angel of mercy, then retreat meekly back to her own life, melted in the condemning heat of his glare.

“Why should you care who I marry?” she asked, her voice rough with bitterness. “You’re the one who offered me to your grandfather.”

His fingers bit into her chin. “Would you have preferred I had taken you away to Paris that night? Raped you into insensibility to get D’Artan’s godforsaken formula?”

She jerked free of his grasp. “I should have shot you,” she said icily.

“I wish you had.”

“I ought to be worth a pretty fortune to you now. Shall I help you pen the ransom note? Would you like to send MacKay my ear or perhaps a few of my toes?”

His scathing glance took her in, from her tangled mass of hair to her little toes peeping out from beneath the rumpled blankets. “Are you sure he’d even want you now? MacKay’s not too fond of used goods.”

Jamie’s muffled sound of protest was almost her undoing, but she managed to meet his gaze evenly. “Especially goods used by Kerr men.”

Sebastian’s face went white. His hand twitched, and for a timeless second she thought he would strike her. Instead, he reached down and flicked the blanket back over her shoulder.

A wayward tear trickled down the side of her nose. With a snort of disgust, Sebastian reached under the blankets and
tossed a scrap of tartan into her lap. She rubbed the soft wool between thumb and forefinger. It was what was left of Sebastian’s plaid, frayed and worn almost bald in spots. She remembered the tender care he had given it, the reverent pride with which he had touched it. It was the Kerr plaid, his only plaid, he had said, and he couldn’t afford another.

She lifted her eyes, gazing at him with regret and pity. The brackets around his mouth deepened for an elusive moment, then his face smoothed into the flawless veneer she was coming to hate. He snatched up his breeches and boots.

“Guard her,” he commanded Tiny with a dark look at Jamie. “If anyone tries to get to her, fire one shot in the air. If she tries to escape”—his even gaze met Prudence’s—“shoot her.”

He flung the curtain aside and ducked into the dawn. Tiny followed. Jamie hung behind, his eyes brimming with mute apology until Tiny’s hand reappeared to jerk him out by the collar. Prudence hugged her knees and rested her cheek against the coarse blanket.

Her gaze fell on the handbill resting on top of the trunk. The Edinburgh artist had been as much a fool as she. He had captured the warm promise of Sebastian’s mouth without revealing any of its sulky threat. For her, the threat had now become a promise.

If his men were goblins, then Sebastian Kerr was no less than their king. She rolled to her side, pressing the scrap of tartan to her mouth to muffle her sobs.