Taken by the Earl (Regency Unlaced 3) (14 page)

Sin’s arm about Fliss’s waist, the rigidness of her back pressed against his chest, allowed him to feel her increasing tension. As he could also feel the strong contractions of her sheath about his cock, almost succeeding in throwing him over the edge into his own release.

“Ranulf, Millie, may I present Mrs. Felicity Randall.” He offered no further explanation as to who she might be. “Felicity, my cousin Ranulf and his bride, Millicent.”

Millie laughed. “Oh, I think four months wed means we can no longer be called bride and groom! It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Randall,” she added huskily.

Sin was only half listening to his cousin and cousin-in-law’s acknowledgment of Fliss. He was more concerned about Fliss’s condition.

“I am afraid I must refuse your dinner invitation on behalf of both of us. Mrs. Randall is feeling a little unwell.”

“Once she is better, perhaps? Our guests will be with us for some time,” Millie assured him.

“And damned tedious it is too.” Ranulf scowled. “I do not even like half the fellows invited, and now I have to take them all shooting with me.”
 

“You should not have made so many friends while we were in London,” Millie teased her husband.

“I believe most of them are
your
friends, my love. Word of advice, Sin.” Ranulf sighed. “Do not be persuaded into finishing your honeymoon at a London Season.”

Millie laughed softly. “We really should return to Cairn House now, my dear.”

“Fliss?” Sin questioned sharply as he felt her crumple limply against him, her eyes fluttering closed as she fainted in his arms.

Chapter 13

“Do not distress yourself,” a soothing voice murmured as Fliss desperately tried to pull herself back from the darkness consuming her. “God, I am sorry. So very sorry.”

Fliss opened her eyes, feeling disorientated for several moments as she lay on the bed and gazed about the bedchamber and then at the more familiar man seated in a chair beside the bed.

Sin looked anguished as he leaned forward, the warmth of his hands on hers. “Forgive me, Fliss. I was unreasonable in my demands earlier. Cruel. I did not mean to cause you to faint.”

“I do not think an overabundance of pleasure can be called cruelty.” She gave a weak laugh, still able to feel the length and girth of Sin’s cock stretching and pleasuring her channel as if it were still buried deep inside her. “How did I get back here?” She frowned her consternation, having no memory of returning to Castle Montgomery from that wild ride across the rugged hills and valleys nearby. Yet she must have done so, as this was the bedchamber given to her for her use during her stay here.

“I rode back with you fainted dead away in my arms the whole way.” Sin gave a disgusted shake of his head. “I ensured your modesty before we arrived back at the stables,” he added when she frowned.

Fliss felt grateful for that, at least.

Just as she was aware of something looming dark and foreboding at the back of her memory. Something important. Except she could not seem to remember what it was.

She sighed. “I am sure I shall feel better after I have rested.”

“Do you forgive me?” Sin’s fingers tightened about hers. “My behavior was…unreasonable earlier,” he admitted gruffly. “I intentionally brought you to peak after peak of pleasure.”
 

Her eyes widened. “But why?”

Sin released her hand to stand abruptly before moving to the window, back toward her as he looked out on the long graveled driveway leading up to the front of Castle Montgomery.
 

To tell Fliss the reason for his anger, confide that he did not wish her to leave Castle Montgomery, would put pressure on her not to leave. It would give importance to a relationship that to her was merely an adventure. The first of many, no doubt, now that she was free of the restrictions of her marriage, her year of mourning her husband well and truly over.

“Sin?”

He closed his eyes briefly before turning to face her. “Nothing. You did nothing. I was feeling restless earlier today. With Ranulf away, I have things on the estate in urgent need of my attention. This limbo of inaction we have been forced into while we wait to hear from Brooketon is starting to grate on my nerves.”

Fliss wondered if she was also starting to grate on his nerves. Her company had been forced on Sin for several weeks now, and she had no doubt that it—she—was becoming irritating to a man as used to his own company as Sin was. She would leave now if he were agreeable, and save him any more inconvenience. But as he was not, she would do the next best thing and keep to her rooms as much as possible so as not to be a nuisance to him.

She fabricated a yawn. “I believe I shall sleep for the rest of the day and leave you to get on with your work.”

“Shall I instruct your maid to come up and help you out of your riding habit?”

“Thank you.” Her smile was as forced as her yawn. “Please do not worry about me, Sin, I am perfectly capable of entertaining myself— Not in that way.” She blushed hotly at his raised eyebrows and recalled the way he had instructed her to pleasure herself yesterday while he lay beside her and watched.

She had been embarrassed at first, self-conscious. But then she’d become aware of the pleasure of plucking and squeezing her own nipples, the swirl of her fingers against the erect nubbin between her thighs, and quickly lost herself in that maelstrom of sensations.

She avoided meeting the intensity of Sin’s gaze. “I will sleep for a while, and then read a book.” Several of her favorite books sat on the table beside her bed, although so far she had found little time to read them.

“Of course.” He nodded.

Fliss sank back against the pillows once Sin had left her bedchamber, aware still of that nagging sense of foreboding at the back of her mind, but still having no idea as to the cause of it.

She was too tired to think on the subject just now, grateful when Mary entered her bedchamber a few minutes later to help her undress.

Hopefully, she would be able to think more clearly once she had slept.

Sin paced his study, too restless even to look at the stack of letters that had been delivered that morning and left on his desk for his attention.

He had been a brute to Fliss this morning, and now he was suffering for it too, his cock hard and throbbing inside the buckskins he had worn to go out riding.

Sin gave a groan as that throbbing increased at the memory of the way Fliss had in turn ridden him, her sheath a hot, tight glove about his erect cock. His determination not to ejaculate meant that his cock had been hard for hours without attaining a single release.

A release he was more desperately in need of than ever.

Damn it to hell!

Sin flung himself down in the same chair where Fliss had knelt to receive her punishment, unfastening his buckskins to take out the rigid length of his cock. He pushed his shirt out of the way as he took himself firmly in hand before closing his eyes and bringing back that delicious image of Fliss’s bare, raised backside, the imprint of where he had spanked her clearly visible on those reddened twin globes.

His hand pumped up and over the swollen head of his cock before moving down again, giving a slight twist before repeating the motion. He imagined he could hear Fliss’s gasps as he spanked her. The feel of her burning flesh beneath his palm. The heat of her pussy as his fingers plunged inside her, fucking her to an even deeper arousal.

His balls drew up tight beneath his cock as he stroked and pumped harder, his breathing becoming labored as he imagined the way Fliss had ordered him to sit in the chair, of seeing the slickness of his fingers thrusting in and out of her channel. He could feel the quakes of her release even now, the pleasure as she took him with her.
 

Sin gave a groan as he felt the hot release erupt along the length of his cock before it spurted hotly onto his bare stomach, surge after surge until he finally collapsed, completely spent, against the back of the chair, chest heaving as he tried to draw breath back into his starved lungs.

What was he going to do about Fliss?

His hunger for her was not abating but growing stronger with each day that passed.
 

Fliss felt sluggish and lethargic when she woke in her bed later that afternoon, taking several minutes to once again find her bearings. To remember—

Oh God
.

She now realized the reason for that sense of foreboding she’d had earlier, had remembered what triggered that emotion, now she was rested and could think clearly.

Sin.

She needed to speak to Sin.

Wishing to speak to him urgently and finding him were different matters, however. He was not in his study. Nor the rest of the castle. Or the stables when she ventured outside the house in search of him.

“Are you looking for his lordship?”

Fliss turned to find the elderly head groom looking at her enquiringly. “Do you know where he is?”

“He took Dante out again an hour or so ago. Didn’t say where he was going, though.”

“Thank you.” Fliss wondered where Sin could have gone to. Probably taking advantage of her afternoon of rest to visit with his steward at his cottage, or some other estate business. She had taken up rather a lot of his time these past few days. After all, Sin had no idea yet as to the reason for her feelings of concern.

In the circumstances, she had no choice but to return to the castle and wait for Sin there.

She chose to wait in her favorite room, Sin’s study and library, not with any intentions of reading a book, but because she loved this room. It smelled of old books, brandy, and the fine cigars Sin occasionally indulged in after dinner. His paperwork, letters, and estate summaries were spread over the top of his desk. The book she was reading lay open on the arm of the chair. It was a scene of domesticity unlike any she had shared with Stephen.
 

It was also the room where Sin had made love to her so fiercely shortly after their arrival. Where she had made love to
him
equally as fiercely. She imagined she could even smell the lingering scent of their lovemaking.
 

She and Sin now spent the majority of their evenings together here. The sexual tension would slowly grow stronger and stronger between them until they both surrendered to the emotion. Sin would lay down his pen, Fliss her book, and without a word being spoken, they would retire to either her own or Sin’s bedchamber to make love for the rest of the night.

Fliss had no idea what had happened this morning to change that.

One moment they had been happily eating breakfast together, and the next Sin had announced they would go riding. And such a ride it had been.

Certain parts of Fliss’s body still ached and tremored from that excess of sexual pleasure.

It had been as if Sin were punishing her for something. His apology later seemed to confirm that feeling.

But what?

He had not really answered her question earlier, and at the time, she had not felt strong enough to press the subject.

What could have possibly sparked such a relentless taking on Sin’s part? What had they been talking about before—

She had asked Sin if he’d heard from Brooketon.

That he had not heard from the other man had not changed their current situation in the slightest.

But perhaps that was the problem?

Sin had said he could not let her leave until the situation was resolved. Which must be frustrating for him, when he was used to living alone. His duty as host to her also meant he was neglecting his other duties as laird.

That had to be it. Sin was as anxious for her to leave as she was to stay. Forever.

She had been a fool to fall in love with him. Not that she could have stopped it, but even so…

Sin could not continue to keep her in his home as his mistress. Even if he wanted to, which Fliss was not sure he did, he must marry one day. He would require a young woman unencumbered by a previous marriage. One who came to him fresh and new. A wife he could be proud of and who would provide the heirs to the Winterbourne title and the Montgomery estates.

Even thinking of those heirs, of Sin’s life with another woman, was like a knife twisting in Fliss’s chest.

She must leave here, and soon, before she made a complete fool of herself.

Luckily, she believed she now had the answer to part of Sin’s problem.

And the possible reason for it.

She would know more once she had spoken to him.

Was it possible he had gone out, and stayed out, in order to avoid her company? That the intensity of this morning had been the end of their affair? She would—

Fliss turned toward the door of the study as it opened, biting back her disappointment when it was Sin’s butler who entered.

“Lord Brooketon is here to see his lordship, Mrs. Randall.”

Viscount Brooketon had come here in person? Surely that must mean he had urgent news for Sin? Fliss could only hope that was the case, and he would be able to provide the other half of the puzzle.

“Show him in, Spencer.” Fliss stood. “And please bring refreshment. His lordship will have been traveling for some time.”