To Sin with Scandal (3 page)

She moaned and gasped his name, then shattered beneath him, allowed herself to go, to enjoy what Merrick did to her . . . for her . . . was still doing to her, as he continued to love her with his fingers while his lips and tongue drained every tingle and contraction her body could summon.

He chuckled and moved over her when she lay sated, a satisfied grin on her lips. She could not move had she tried. "I had no idea it could be this way between a man and woman," she whispered.

Sedley frowned and kissed her. "Did your husband not perform as one should? Did he not love you as I longed to love you?"

Miranda wiped the frown line from his brow and tried to ignore the pain she could hear in his voice. "Never."

"Stay with me, and it's all you will ever know."

It sounded very much like a promise.

Merrick kissed her uncertainty away and set to entice and arouse her once more. Would he ever get enough, now, that he'd had her? He thought not. She was as fresh and pure as he imagined. A woman untouched by desire, thanks to an inept husband. But a denied woman no more. He would ensure this night that she would enjoy their coupling. So much so, Miranda would never wish for another.

He chuckled when she pushed at his chest and rolled him onto his back, straddled him, and lifted her chemise from her body. Merrick sucked in a startled breath as the woman above him revealed her bountiful, womanly body. Alabaster-smooth skin shone in the firelight. Her eyes sparkled with mirth and mischievousness.

"Perhaps it is my turn to pleasure you, my lord."

Merrick ground his hips against her wet sex and groaned when she rubbed her slick heat along his engorged cock.

"You want me, my lord? Want to take me with your large phallus over and over again?" She taunted him with her words while her hands stroked over his chest, his stomach, his . . . .

He clasped her hair and dragged her down to his lips. Letting her feel his uncontrolled, brazen desire, just what she did to him. She made him wild for her, made him ache in places he hadn't believed possible.

"Before I do exactly what you said, what pleasures did you have in mind, my Lady Miranda?"

She gave him one last peck on the lips before she slithered down his chest, her hair tickling his skin. Merrick groaned when she settled between his thighs and touched his engorged cock with a single finger. It jerked under her caress, and she smiled, or a better word for her features, planned. Savoured.

Her gaze met his quickly then moved back to what fascinated her so. He closed his eyes when five delicate fingers clamped around his shaft and stroked long and sure. His balls grew tight, and Merrick had an overwhelming urge to pull her head down on his cock and make her suck it . . . hard.

And yet, such action was not needed. For blessedly, the wonderful woman in his bed bent and licked the creamy nectar from his penis, then took him in her mouth. Exquisite sensations overwhelmed him. His legs shifted on the bed in the hopes he wouldn't disgrace himself and come in her mouth after such a short time.

But as her hand worked his lower cock and her lips and torturous tongue teased the head, that was exactly what he wanted to do.

But no. Not yet. Tonight, he would show her pleasure. Enough to keep her by his side for all time. Just as she was meant to be all those years ago.

"Stop." He begged when she took him deeper and faster into her mouth and sucked with the abilities of the best London courtesan.

She sat up and frowned. "Do you not like it?" she asked, worry in her eyes.

Merrick pushed himself up and pulled her onto his lap to straddle his legs.

"Too much, Miranda." He kissed her and tasted both her and his essence in the kiss.

"I want you."

Miranda searched his gaze and nodded. "Then take me."

He needed no further encouragement. In one movement, he lifted her and pulled her down to impale her on his shaft. Her tight core pulled at his cock with every stroke. Her whimpers forced him to increase the tempo; he fucked her with all the skill he could summon. Her breasts rocked against his chest, sending tremor after tremor of desire to his groin.

"Merrick, I—" She gasped.

He clamped his jaw when the first spasms of her orgasm started to flex about him. He continued the relentless ride and allowed her to shatter, did not cease his gorging of her until she was sated in his arms. Then and only then did he allow his own release to spill into her womb.

He came in a blinding light that seemed never to end. She clasped his shoulders and kissed him, then screamed as his climax brought on another for her.

Merrick clamped down the urge to grin at his ability to bring her to orgasm once again. Before morning, she would come many times over.

Miranda slumped onto the settee beside Merrick and smiled up at the ornate ceiling. Never had she had such an amazing experience. Of course, when they were young, petting and kissing had been a given in their short courtship, but never anything as grand as what she just experienced. Although, on their last night together, hints of what was to come had teased her senses alive.

Left her longing for years.

She looked across at Merrick, who lay with his eyes closed, his chest rising swiftly with the lack of air. And a heart that had not lived for seven years started to beat once more in her chest. "I should have believed you."

Merrick opened his eyes and turned toward her. "What do you mean?"

"I should have trusted you would come when you promised you would. And yet, I panicked and agreed to Lord Fitsimmon instead. How you must have hated me." Miranda wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

His knowing sigh sounded loud in the quiet of the room. "My carriage lost a wheel on the road back from Kent, took an age to get it repaired. It was why I was late. Had I known you would accept the first marriage proposal you received, I would have asked for your hand the first night we met."

Miranda stared up at the ceiling, unable to meet his gaze. "I saw you the night before you were to call on me with Lady Mont and thought you were no longer interested. She being such a beautiful widow and you—"

"I was not a libertine then, Miranda." Merrick stood and reached for his shirt.

Clasping the only thing available to her, Miranda held a pillow against her body and followed to where he stood. "You blame me for your uncouth life?"

He paused, then continued to button his shirt, walking to a window and staring out at the moonless night. "I did. But tonight, seeing you again, I realised I still love you. Always have, and perhaps just marked time until you were free of a husband who was not worthy of you."

A prickle of hope blossomed in her heart followed quickly with disbelief. "I requested you to call on me after my mourning was over. You refused. Why?"

Merrick turned and walked toward her, his gait that of a predator. He smiled down at her and pulled the pillow from her hands, his eyes heating at the sight. "I was angry." He shrugged. "I'm sorry I cannot give you any other excuse more pleasing."

Miranda snatched up one of her stockings and wrenched it over her foot.

"You think I asked you to call to start what we never finished? It did not occur to you I needed a friend? A man I once knew who was kind and considerate of others? That I thought you were such a man?"

Merrick's jaw worked as he stood silent, hands on his hips. "What was I to think? Lord Fitsimmon had been gone a year or more, more than enough time for you to get over his death. Was I mistaken?"

"Yes!" Miranda looked about the room for her other stocking. Spying it under the settee, she picked it up and sat. "I needed a friend, someone who knew me. I was lonely." She sighed and dropped her hands into her lap. "You love me?"

A smile quirked his lips at her change of thought. "Yes."

"But what of this life? Your reputation as a rake will be over should you take a wife." She paused, not sure how to say what she must. "I will not share you, Merrick."

"I had not known I'd mentioned marriage," Merrick said, one eyebrow quirked.

Miranda stood and looked about for her chemise, thanked the dim candlelight in the room that hid the heat on her cheeks. "I just assumed, since you mention love that marriage would be something you wished." She swallowed her mortification and slipped her chemise over her head.

"What are you doing?" he asked, frowning.

Miranda cursed her inability to locate her cloak. "Leaving." She watched him walk over to a decanter of brandy and pour himself a glass. He tossed it down his throat.

Merrick sighed, turned, and settled his annoyed gaze on her. "I lie."

Miranda halted her attempt at placing her hair into some semblance of order.

"Lie about what, may I ask?" She dropped her hands to her side. Merrick poured another glass of the golden liquid and fear churned in her stomach, making her dizzy. Did he not love her? Did he regret this eve? Ever meeting her? What?

"Damn it, Miranda, of course, I wish to marry you. Your presence in the ton has been the veriest torture for me all these years. Sitting on the edge of ballroom floors watching your smitten husband fawn over you, dance with you, show his ardent love for all to see."

Miranda shook her head. "You cannot tell me you did not like this uncouth life you have created. Scores of women begging for your attention, wanting to share your bed." She spotted her silk slippers and cloak, picked them up, and held them against her chest. "The night I caught you with Lady Mont, what were you doing?"

Merrick ran a hand through his hair. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it does," she said, glaring. "Lady Mont was the reason I accepted Lord Fitsimmon in the first place."

"So now you are blaming me for your marriage?" Merrick stormed toward her, and Miranda stepped back at the wild anger simmering in his green orbs.

"If you must know, my lady, I was informing Lady Mont of my lack of interest in her," he said through clenched teeth. "That her ladyship decided to drape herself over me while I did so was not of my making. The fact you sighted such a scene at that precise moment is unfortunate, but was not, in my estimation, worth jumping into a marriage for which you cared naught."

Miranda beat back the urge to chastise herself. She couldn't change the past. It was over. Done with. Best to move forward and find happiness. But the thought of him sleeping with all those other women vexed her and made the blood in her veins boil. "I suppose she was more than willing to fix your broken heart after I married Lord Fitsimmon."

Merrick shrugged and met her gaze. "Of course. What did you expect? That I would pine away and live a life of a bishop?"

Miranda had not expected him to, but she had wished it all the same. Her eyes tore over his chiselled chest, visible through the silk shirt he wore, the muscled vee pointing toward a part of him that could bring such pleasure to a woman, now hidden by his breeches. She licked her parched lips. "I had hoped," she said, her words barely audible.

"I love you. I have always loved you. Is that not enough? Have we not made enough mistakes we cannot find it in our hearts to forgive and move on? I wish to marry you, Miranda. I love you."

She dropped her cloak and shoes on a nearby chair and walked toward him.

The warmth of his gaze and the truth behind his words went some distance in mending her broken, unsure heart. "Will this disillusioned life you have end? I expect my husband to be faithful to me, as I will be to him."

His resounding chuckle sent shivers of delight across her skin. "My first words to you tonight were true. I care not for the life of a rake. My associations have ceased, and Lady Anna was to be the first to know. As luck would have it, the woman I wanted happened to arrive instead. Saved me a lot of trouble, I assure you." He kissed her lips and lingered. "Would it bother you to marry a man with a tarnished past? I promise I'll be faithful to you always. Please do not ever doubt my word again."

Miranda's knees wobbled. Would it bother her? Not if Merrick's words held true and remained so for the rest of their life. She smiled and wrapped her arms about his neck, allowed her hands to caress the corded muscles on his shoulders.

"No."

"No, you won't marry me? Or, no, it doesn't bother you, I'm sullied?"

Merrick's arms tightened about her waist, his uncertainty obvious in every feature of his handsome face.

"No, it doesn't bother me, Merrick. Even the matrons of the ton would agree; reformed rakes make the best husbands and fathers." She paused and gave him a pointed stare. "That is,
if
the rake is reformed."

He laughed and grazed her lips with his own. "I do believe I would make a wonderful father and of course, reformed husband." He nibbled her neck and kissed the sensitive skin below her ear, his breath tickling her desire to life. "If they take after their mama they will be the most beautiful children on earth."

Incomprehensible happiness swamped her; tears welled in her eyes at the notion of having a family, a future with this man. "Children?" she said, sniffing.

"Of course." Merrick picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the settee. "And before this night is out, I plan to have you with child. Enough time has passed. I do not intend to waste any more of it," he said, her chemise once more pulled from her body and floating to the floor.

Miranda grinned. Her one night of passion had turned into a promise of a lifetime of pleasure, and what a wonderful life she intended to make it.

Together.

~The End~

About the Author

Tamara Gill's love of history started from an early age, but her reading of historical romances only began when home on maternity leave with her second son. Her writing career started as a hobby but soon turned into an obsession; just ask her family, who have suffered many a whipped up, burnt meal. Membership in Romance Writers of Australia, Romance Writers of America, South Australian Romance Authors and the Beau Monde keeps her occupied and focused on her craft and the changing trends of readers. Tamara lives in the beautiful Barossa Valley in South Australia and enjoys hearing from readers and writers alike.