Lord Ruin (5 page)

“Yes.” He drew in a sharp breath when her tongue went his length, circled the tip until he thought he would expire from the sensation. She had the trick of it now, just the right pressure. Urgency built. Increased. Swelled until he knew she would kill him with that sweet, clever mouth. And then, it was upon him. She did not draw away as he came, offering him the most exquisite pleasure. “Christ. Oh, Christ.”

When he let go, she straightened, pressing the back of her hand to her lips. He lifted her onto his lap. “I like to have a woman’s mouth around me when I come,” he said into her ear while being rather free with his hands.

“I want to do that again.”

“And so you shall,” he said, laughing as he lowered his mouth to the side of her neck. “Your mouth was very nice indeed.”

“That tickles.”

He kissed her once more, just to hear that warm, pleasing laugh again, then shifted her off his lap. “Stay here.” He went to the washstand and on the way back brought her a glass of water. While she drank thirstily, he availed himself of the chamber pot. Upon rejoining her, he took the now empty glass and replaced it on the nightstand without actually watching what he was doing, so that he did it clumsily. “These, my darling, I cannot wait to kiss them.” His hand boldly caressing her breasts made the object of his sentence shockingly plain.

Arching into his caress, she sighed. “Surely, this is a sin.”

“Rather late in the game to be worrying about that, don’t you think?”

“A wonderful, incredible sin.”

“Shall we sin some more?” He grinned and got an admirably bashful look from beneath those too-dark lashes of hers. “Naturally, I am not ready for you quite yet. But, with the proper caress from your lovely hands, or perhaps your mouth, in a shorter time than we expect.”

“But ”

“What, my dear?”

She frowned. “I am not myself just now. My mind reels so I can scarce think or speak.”

“That I’ll take as a compliment. As for anything else, you may trust I’ll take care of you.” He slipped both hands under her nightdress, molding his palms to the curving of her hip. “I promise you that.”

She let out a long breath of air. Not so gently, he pushed her onto her back and moved his hands upward, closer to her magnificent breasts. He kissed her, parting her lips, pulling her to him and shifting so his torso was over hers, and he could feel nothing but softness against him. To his surprise, she resisted his removing the garment. By now his belly touched hers. A mere millimeter of cloth hardly made a difference.

“Let me see you. Just as you’ve seen me.”

“I feel so strange,” she said on another sighing breath. “As if I’m floating.”

“Darling, please.” He couldn’t help himself. His mouth came down on hers, opening, delving. After a moment’s hesitation, she kissed him back, and he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. God, she kissed like an angel. Or was it a devil? While he took her mouth, he worked at that damned nightdress. At last. With a shiver of anticipation, he had it up and over her head.

The garment fell unnoticed to the floor. For some moments, he just looked at her. She had a figure to make a dead man come to life, and he was far from that state. He’d never felt more alive or aroused in his life. Slender legs, hips that curved to a slim waist. Very nice shoulders and arms, too. And those breasts, really too big for her torso, so perfectly and spectacularly round he ached for a taste.

“You’ve a flawless body,” he told her in a tone made husky by awe. “I’ve never seen a more perfect one.” It was true. Absolutely true. “Where the hell did Devon find you?”

“At the bottom of the stairs,” she said.

“What?”

Then she stretched her arms above her head with a motion of such abandoned sensuality that his mind went whirling in another direction entirely. “I’m going to owe him for this the rest of my damn life.” He touched one of her breasts. A reverent caress of firm, plump flesh. Lord, he was a man in sensual paradise. He could hardly wait to discover how she felt when he was inside her. Pinning her wrists above her shoulders, he moved over her, letting his weight settle onto her. She did not adjust herself to him, no shifting of hips and legs to accommodate his man’s body. But, their skin touched. Ought to be a crime for a woman to be so damnably soft.

He positioned himself between her thighs, making the correct adjustment on his own before driving into her not at all gently. Entering a woman for the first time always took his breath, for he made a particular point of seeing a woman ready for him and this one was readier than most. Because of his ardor and his belief in her experience, by the time he realized that the cause of her discomfort and his difficulty penetrating her was not clumsiness on his part or due to his size and her natural tightness, he was firmly in, having just taken her virginity. Impossible as it seemed, the woman was a virgin. Unmistakably he’d felt the barrier give way.

“I was promised it would not hurt,” she said in a voice tense with pain. “I distinctly remember that, being told I would get through the night without pain.”

“Hush, love.” He nuzzled her ear, wondering if Devon had thought he needed the practice. “It will soon be all right.” A virgin, by God. His sex throbbed in her so irresistibly he forgave her the annoyance. He moved himself the slightest bit forward and inward. She felt good. Reaching down, he brushed the outside of her thigh. As he intended, she bent her knee, and he sank a little deeper in her. “Are you all right?”

“Mm.” Not a word, a breath.

He drew partially out then slid slowly in and received the reward of a slow, thoughtful lifting of her hips toward him in that timeless welcome of female to male. Ruan went deeper into her. “My God,” he said, catching his breath. “Are you floating still, my darling?” he said fiercely into her ear.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“Your body is wonderful. Christ, I can feel myself inside you.”

“All the way to my heart,” she murmured.

After a bit, his head bent, touching her shoulder while he concentrated on being deep inside her, and she continued to send him mad with pleasure. His orgasm came upon him unawares. The one moment, he was enjoying her pliant body beneath him, at last in the more usual manner, and showing her how to move with him, the next, he was submerged in pleasure so deep he thought he would actually die if he didn’t come in her. Now. This minute. He looked away, for the briefest moment distracted by light reflecting off a pair of spectacles on the bed table.

The flicker was caused, he dimly realized, by the fact that someone had opened the door. The distraction was just enough to take his mind off the prevention of conception and had the strange effect of increasing his awareness of being in her. Without warning he was insensible to anything but thrusting into her, the way her passage clung to him, the unholy friction driving him absolutely mad. He howled as he felt his climax peak and shatter him into the most intense sexual experience of his life.

“You’re awake.” Mary, on a chair by the bed, leaned forward to stroke Anne’s hair from her forehead. “How are you, dearest?”

“I don’t know which hurts more, my head or my ankle. Heavens but I feel muzzy-headed. Is it very late?”

“Nearly eleven. I was beginning to think you’d sleep ‘til noon.”

“Eleven. Good heavens.” She frowned as bits and pieces of a dream flashed before her. Shockingly intimate. She could almost believe she’d kissed the duke of Cynssyr, for heaven’s sake, that his mouth was by turns surprisingly gentle or thrillingly harsh, that he had told her about parts of his body, and that she had repeated the names to him. Words like
cock
and
ballocks
and even
arse
. Had she really had such an improper dream? Odd, how real it seemed. It was the laudanum, of course, that gave her such unusual dreams.

She sat up a little in bed, but stopped when she jarred her ankle. Concerned because Mary looked suspiciously close to tears, she reached for her sister’s hand. “You, Mary, look like you’ve not slept a wink. Did you sit with me all night?”

“I ought to have.” Mary jumped up, turning her back to Anne. “There’s a tray here. Tea. Indian, I think. Some toast and jelly. I’ll help you dress. I’ve brought fresh clothes.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “I do hope I’ve not got the catarrh that brought you low.”

Suspecting what may have happened, Anne sighed. “Did Papa embarrass himself last night?”

Busy preparing the tea, Mary didn’t turn around. The cup rattled on the saucer. “No more than usual.” When she brought the tea and a slice of toast, Anne ate slowly. “We’ve been so worried about you. You took such an awful fall. Lucy feels just terrible. Shall I help you dress? I’ve brought a gown for you. And Bracebridge—” Mary drew in a sharp breath. “Bracebridge sent up a walking stick of his.”

Having finished off the toast and tasted her tea, Anne moved to the edge of the bed. Pain shot through her ankle when she put weight on her foot. She leaned backward and hauled herself onto the mattress. The motion dislodged her pillow, but she managed to catch it. With a wry smile at the pillow, she asked, “Is Papa very annoyed still?”

“Papa?”

Anne stilled, for some reason transfixed by the pillow. A residual effect of the laudanum yet lingered, for the duke’s face suddenly flashed before her, every detail etched in her brain. His eyes were closed as in sleep, and yet she knew he was vitally awake. Against the pillow, his rich brown hair made a stark contrast to the snowy linen. Strong white teeth showed in his slightly open mouth. The angle of her vision suggested she was above him, looking down at him from a not very great distance.

“
Christ, oh sweet Christ, don’t make me come yet
.” The words echoed inside her head. She didn’t just hear the husky voice. She felt that caressing, beseeching voice deep inside her wanting to burst out.

“Never mind Papa.” Mary gave a strained smile.

Anne dropped the pillow, shaking her head, but the sensation remained, as if she were standing at cliffs edge gazing down.

Mary brushed a few crumbs from the mattress. “Benjamin wants a word with you.”

“What about?”

To her astonishment, Mary burst into tears. “Oh, Anne.”

“Mary, dear Mary, what is it?” She put an arm around her sister’s shoulder.

“His grace arrived in the night, Anne.”

Anne stroked Mary’s shoulder, giving what comfort she could. .

“The worst, the very worst has happened.”

Though Anne’s heart misgave her, she spoke calmly. “I know,” she said, thinking of Emily. Her sweet, young beautiful Emily. “I know. If the duke is here, then indeed disaster has come. Help me dress. I shall deal with this, I promise you.”

Mary stroked Anne’s cheek. “You are brave, Anne. Braver than I could ever be.”

Anne knocked softly on the door frame. As always, Aldreth was impeccably dressed, but this morning his cravat looked as though he’d tied it too tight and he’d just been trying to loosen it.

“What?” he barked. Then he saw her and softened. “Anne. Come in.” His hand went to his neck. “Please.”

She limped forward, leaning heavily on Devon’s walking stick and feeling immediately something amiss. Distress swirled in the air, an all too familiar miasma. The air had turned oppressive like this on the day the magistrate told them how Lucy’s husband had died. Something had happened. Indeed so, she knew the signs too well.

“Do sit.” Remembering himself, Aldreth brought her a chair.

“What has happened?”

She saw him then. The other man. The duke. A taller man, long-legged and not quite as broad through the shoulders as Devon, stood at the far side of the room. Everything about him announced wealth and rank and consequence. He practically reeked of command, an animus of vitality even Anne found hard to resist. Up close, he was more perfect than her memory of him from Aldreth’s wedding. Time had hardened the material from which he was sculpted. The granite core was no longer hinted at. ‘Twas exposed for anyone to see. Anne found it suited him vastly.

Enveloped in a tenebrous silence, hands clasped tightly behind his back as if he were still a soldier, he was a breathtakingly handsome man. “Your grace,” she said uncertainly. He looked at her and something tightened low in her belly. The impossible green of his eyes held her. A drowning, captivating color. Another fragmented memory flashed into her head. It wouldn’t have been so bad except her body reacted to the image, sensations she knew she’d never had in her life. A mouth sliding along her throat, someone’s breath hot on her skin. A hand on her breast, holding with a firm grip, another on her backside, bringing her forward. An amazingly clear and intense recollection of a ravenous desire that he not stop.

“A cushion for your ankle?” Aldreth’s hands clenched and unclenched.

She looked from her brother-in-law to Cynssyr and back again. She didn’t dare look at the duke for long because for some reason he appeared to be the catalyst for the disturbing feelings flitting through her. She brought the whole of her practical nature to bear on the problem at hand, which was whatever Cynssyr had done to her sister.

Feeling ashes in her mouth, she asked, “What has happened to Emily?” With a sharp look at the duke, she bit back rising anger. If he thought Emily could be discarded like all the others, he’d best think again.

“Nothing has happened to Emily,” Aldreth said. He’d grabbed a silk-tasseled pillow from the sofa and now stood squeezing it.

“Papa, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Lucy?” Keeping her eyes off Cynssyr proved difficult. The harder she tried, the more compelling the urge to look.

“Is fine.”

“Mary? The children?”

“Quite well.”

“Then what?”

Cynssyr said abruptly, “Do you recall anything of last night, Miss Sinclair?”

Slowly, Anne forced herself to look. The duke stood unmoving, a stark and beautiful man dressed in unrelieved subfusc but for white shirt and cravat. Mourning, it struck her. He lacked only a crepe band about his arm to complete the resemblance. The chest beneath that mourning black was broad and muscled. A scar ran white and jagged along his collarbone. Vividly, she saw his naked chest, could feel the heat of his skin. Impossible. How could she have another woman’s memories? Anne Sinclair could not have seen the duke of Cynssyr without a stitch of clothing.

She was, she realized, staring at him as if he were some sort of oddity, a puzzle to be solved. Those pure green eyes stared back. Eyes of such haunting familiarity she started to shake. Eyes like gems. Even when she turned away, she felt his gaze on her. Impossible, what her memory suggested. Impossible. “Aldreth?”

“Do you?” Ben asked so gently she had to believe him in earnest. “Remember anything at all?”

“The doctor gave me laudanum.” Disturbed and humiliated by the images that danced through her head then disappeared like mist into the air, she stared steadfastly to one side, not looking directly at either of them. “Dreams,” she repeated loudly and very clearly. Her mind rejected what her disjointed memories suggested. “I remember dreams,” she said calmly. “Nothing more.”

“Not dreams, Anne.” Staring hard at the cushion in his hands, Aldreth took a breath. “I am so dreadfully sorry.” He hurled the pillow. It hit the sofa back and bounced to the floor.

“What do you mean, Aldreth?” But she knew. In her heart she knew the disaster was hers.

“I mean you must be married.” He snatched up the pillow and after the briefest of moments tossed it gently onto the sofa. “You must be married to Cynssyr.”

“Surely, you’re jesting.” He had to be. But the sick feeling in her stomach increased, and a tiny, unwelcome voice told her he wasn’t.

“Good God, Anne. Do you think I’d be so cruel? I wish it were a prank. I wish it were.”

She turned from Aldreth to Cynssyr but words failed to come. All she managed was a mute plea for denial.

Ruan stared at the woman. Dressed in a wholly unflattering gown, without any curls to frame her face, with the spectacles perched on her nose, he could yet see the woman who had made love to him without a shred of inhibition. A jolt of lust hit him when he remembered her mouth and the body that might have been made for his tastes. “I thought you were a whore.”

“Damn you.” Benjamin whirled and grabbed Ruan by the lapels, jerking hard enough to move him a step or two. “Damn you!” Ruan did nothing, made no attempt to defend himself. Under the circumstances, Ben was showing a great deal of restraint.

“Aldreth, please,” the woman said. “I’d hoped for an honest answer. He has given one.”

Ben released him with a slight push. “You let your prick do your thinking, that’s what happened. If you hadn’t been such a randy bastard you might have realized your mistake before it was too late. I warned you this would happen one day. I warned you!”

“Ben—”

“How the hell could you not recognize her? Damn you!”

“It’s not the first time some female decided to avail herself of my bed without telling me beforehand. And not the first time Dev has sent me a whore, either. She wasn’t wearing her blasted spectacles, which is all I would have known her by. I told you I couldn’t remember her. I ask you, what was I to think? There she was in my bed with legs to here and tits like a man only dreams of getting his hands on and—” He stopped because he suddenly remembered the object of his vitriol was listening.

She looked a good deal like he felt; as if the world had suddenly disappeared from beneath her feet. Oh, indeed, Ben had warned him and here sat his future, a bespectacled spinster with eyes that couldn’t even decide whether to be blue or gray.

“Anne,” said Ben. “I am so sorry. As for you, Cynssyr, if you don’t apologize, I’ll beat you to a damn bloody pulp, so help me I will.”

“Miss Sinclair. You have my profoundest apologies. I’ve no excuse. None whatever. I stand ready to make any and all possible amends.”

The woman hadn’t any choice but to marry him. He knew that. Ben knew that. But he was interested to see that she did not, for she had yet to show any sign of acceptance of her situation. Better women than she had schemed for just such an outcome as this and failed miserably. Might she actually choose disgrace over a duchy?