Ravished by Redcoats (Highland Heat Book 1) (2 page)

Perhaps it was because I was an innocent and the Major was not; he knew how to rouse a girl’s passion by patting her hips, squeezing her bottom, staring her in the eye all the while.
 

Or perhaps it was because I was a wanton.
 

Having come so close to carnal bliss with my love, then being denied all touch since, my body’s cravings simply overwhelmed me. To my great embarrassment, my nipples hardened the moment they were revealed. And a flush of heat spread down my neck, to my belly, between my legs, forcing from me a groan. “I’m going to undress you now,” said the Major.

“It’s—it’s not necessary.”

“Oh, but it is.”

“No,” I said, gasping over my own sudden lusts. “You can’t. I’ve never…I’ve never been undressed by a man before.”

Major Anderson looped his finger through a curl of my hair, seeming to delight in its fiery highlights. But his gaze held amusement, still. “I must teach you to come up with better lies, my dear. You cannot both insist that you’re a widow, and then say you’ve never been undressed before. It creates a dissonance that invites interrogation.”

“But it’s true,” I said, grasping his fingers where they teased lightly over the tops of my breasts. “We were wed…but he died before we could…”

He broke into a bright smile. “Well, then you weren’t really wed, are you? It takes more than a churching to make a marriage.”

Damn him!

“Shameful, really,” he continued. “To think that a man might have the good luck to marry a brave and beautiful lass like you, and then leave her maidenhead intact.”

I swallowed, because I’d never felt brave, and I hadn’t felt beautiful in quite some time. When Ewan gave me up without a fight, it had left me feeling small, undesirable, and unwanted. I turned my head away so that Major Anderson wouldn’t see those emotions flit behind my eyes, but it didn’t stop him from exclaiming, “Why your father deserves a good thrashing for allowing you to marry such a man and then rot away in his kitchen, a lonely widow…”

“Don’t,” I said, the full reality of my situation coming home to me. He could have my father jailed or hanged because of my folly. And I would never forgive myself. “Please, I beg of you. Whatever you suspect me of, my father has no part in it.”

“Are you quite sure that he didn’t send you up here to seduce me? After all, I’m very tempted by a girl so ripe and wanting…”

I was that. I must have been. How else could I explain the outrageous desire building in me to be touched by a man who was neither my love, nor my husband, and an Englishman at that!
 

“Would you like to become my mistress?” he asked, ever so casually.

The shock forced the word from me. “
What?
”

“My mistress,” he repeated, very calmly. “I’m in need of one. I’m far from home and I haven’t touched a woman in longer than I’d prefer to admit. And though I
adore
the total lack of moral scruple in whores who abandon themselves to every possible depraved act, I find brothels somewhat disenchanting. There’s really no challenge to seducing a girl in a brothel. So that leaves me in need of a mistress and you’re quite fetching—intoxicatingly so, if I’m to be perfectly honest. Your nipples are as hard as cherries, and look to be just as sweet. It is only a dubious sense of honor that is preventing me from ravishing you at this moment, with or without your consent.”

When I gasped with a trill of fear, he added, “I’d prefer your consent. Much prefer it. It makes things so much more interesting…if you
are
a spy, imagine the fun of the cat and mouse game that shall ensue.”

“
What?
” I said, again, because I couldn’t believe the brazenness of the man.

“I see I will have to be more frank with you, in order to secure your understanding of the situation,” he said, bringing my fingertips to his lips with a scamp’s grin. “I would very much like to teach you about pleasure. About erotic abandon. I’d like to part your legs and lick at the little pearl hidden between your folds until your thighs tremble, your slit is dripping wet, and you’re smothering your own screams of ecstasy for fear someone will hear you.”

My breath caught, and this time, not only because I was shocked, but because I was fascinated. The promise of that was a siren’s call, and the way he said it so surely…

“If you will allow me,” Major Anderson began, with a squeeze of my hand. “I will now introduce you to the instrument of pleasure that will deliver you into womanhood.”

I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve yanked my hand away. I should’ve slapped him. I should’ve done anything but stand there, dumb as an ox, while he gently drew my hand to his breeches, where I felt him, fully engorged.

“
Oh
,” I groaned, my eyes fluttering shut.

“Do you feel what you’ve done to me?”

I did indeed. I felt the pulse of his hard erection beneath my palm. An aching, straining, manhood that throbbed…for me. For
me
. And a terrible war broke out inside me between the girl I always thought I was, and the one I really was.
 

Fumbling in a field of heather with Ewan MacPherson had awakened my lusts, that’s true. And feeling his manhood beneath his plaid, pressed as it was against my thigh…that had been enticing evidence of his desire for me. But he hadn’t wanted me so badly that he’d been willing to risk my father’s wrath.

But Major Anderson was willing to risk quite a bit. “I will be happy to forget the possibility of your family being in league with traitors, of course. And I will make certain that you are serviced so well that you walk a bit bandy-legged some days. I cannot promise you more than one blinding climax every time I touch you, but I think you’ll find I generally keep at things long after other men would give up…” I stared, which prompted him to give a snap of his fingers. “Oh, I almost forgot! There will be compensation for you, too. Naturally. You’ll be well-kept with an allowance and some jewels, not to mention given liberal leave to visit your family.”

Why he was bartering with me. Bartering with me for my virtue!

And I was even more thrilled than I was offended.
 

My hand squeezed lightly at his breeches as if of its own volition. He smiled, clasping me about the waist, pressing himself more firmly into my hand. “And now that the terms are clear on my end, I suppose you must know what will be expected of you.”

I shook my head, as if I was not entertaining his offer.

But of course, I was, and he knew it.

“You are asking me to be your
whore
,” I hissed.

“Not
remotely
,” he said, as if mortally offended. But then that insufferably smug grin touched his features. “Well, yes, actually, I am. But I’m not looking for a woman to bed quickly, and leave behind on a mattress upon a puddle of my cooling seed. I will want you more than once. And not merely because you’re a virgin, which, by the way, will make the first time a bit of a nuisance. You see, I am a man of certain appetite. I will want you again, and again, in a variety of ways, and I will likely ask of you to perform acts that you will find depraved if not distasteful. I assure you, I will teach you to love them. But I don’t want to give the impression that ours would be any sort of ordinary transaction. Or that you’d be free to dispense with your favors to others without my permission.”

I gawked at him, in part because I simply lacked the imagination to understand what he could mean. Though I tried to
will
myself to silence, two words managed to escape past the cage of my teeth. “What acts?”

Another grin, this one accompanied by another throb of his cock in my hand as he backed me slowly up to the wall. Stroking my cheek while I mindlessly stroked his cock beneath his very white breeches, he said, “Well, I’m very glad you asked. Understand that I’ll take you in your mouth, your arse, and your cunt.” At the widening of my eyes, he chuckled. “Didn’t you know there were ways of taking a woman in every hole?”

Scandalized, I gave my head a vigorous shake.

“And they say the Scots do nothing but fuck all day in the fields with their sheep looking on…” He snickered a bit at his own joke, which I found more offensive than his proposition. “Oh, yes. I will want use of your whole body. And I will want your obedience. I might like to give you a little whipping, from time to time, though nothing that might ever mar this beautiful freckled skin of yours…”

He bent his head to kiss my shoulder then, and the nearness of him, the softness of his mouth as it pressed against my skin, nearly made my knees buckle.
Jesus
, but he was as tempting as sin itself. Though his face was admittedly handsome, I didn’t understand my attraction at all. He was insulting, vulgar-tongued, smug and …
English
!

 
But there was no hiding it; my treacherous body gave me away at once with a burning prickle across my skin and a hitch in my breath that sounded like surrender. As if sensing my unsteadiness, he pressed my shoulder blades to the wall and kissed me again.
 

My neck. My chin. But when he got to my mouth, he hesitated…just a breath away. “Now then, my dear,” he whispered. “Why don’t I give you some time to think about my offer. When I come next to you, I will ask you a simple question. You can answer yes or no. If you say no to me, I will not offer again. But understand that if you consent to be my mistress, I will take you on the spot, and I shall make it as wicked an experience as possible.”

And with that, he let me go.

~~~

I should’ve told my father, of course. I should’ve gone to my Da and confessed at once, telling him of the overtures made to me by a guest under his roof. I should’ve insisted that he eject the man and send complaint to Major Anderson’s superior.

Of course, that would have revealed that I’d been searching the Major’s room. And that, in turn, might have led to the discovery that I was trying to protect Ewan MacPherson. Or at least, that’s what I told myself excused my silence on the matter.

The truth is, I should’ve given my maidenhead to the Highland warrior I loved. But since I hadn’t, I was now going to give it to a man who was in a position to be of use to us both.

…if you are a spy, imagine the fun of the cat and mouse game that shall ensue.

That’s what Major Anderson had said. And though I was nothing whatsoever as fanciful as a spy, my sympathies were with the Jacobites. As the Major’s mistress, would I not be in a position to learn matters that might be of help?

These and a thousand other other justifications swirled in my mind, even as my fingers crept below the blankets and cupped between my legs, where I burned for relief. I was so hot. Fevered there. So needy. What would it feel like to have a man between my thighs. Not just any man, but the silver-tongued officer who wished to make a whore of me?

Three nights I burned for him.
 

Serving him grog in the main dining room with a shaky hand, I wondered if anyone saw the lustful way his eyes burned into mine, and the way my skin flushed hot in return. Brushing past him in the hall with a basket of laundry as he tipped his hat, I felt his gaze traveling appreciatively down the length of my body. Fetching for him his red coat and feeling our fingers brush in the handoff, I watched him stride impressively from the tavern in his tall black riding boots to mount his horse for some bit of business for the crown.
 

He was, in every other respect, polite and cordial and controlled.
 

And it was that very control that began to frustrate and enrage me.

How could Major Anderson put to me such an offer, such a wicked proposition, and then leave me to go about my business in the tavern as if my whole world were not changed by it? He had groped me, and kissed my neck, and let me touch the hard ridge beneath his breeches…and yet again, I was left frustrated and consumed with carnal thoughts.

I used to dream of brawny Ewan Macpherson crawling atop me and lifting his plaid to expose his own personal sword. But now, at night, I began to imagine the shrewd Major crawling between my thighs, kissing a trail up from my knees, his lips trailing softly to the place that ached for him. My own fingers pushed tentatively inside the tight space that I couldn’t imagine would sheathe something as large as his hardened shaft. And yet, I wanted it. I panted for it.
 

And I came undone from just the thought of it, biting hard upon my pillow to smother the cry as my sex convulsed upon my own fingers.

It was in this state of sexual madness that he found me in the kitchen that day. My father had gone off to market, taking our servant with him to help drive the cart, so I was left to scrub at the pots while the redcoats took their breakfast in the room beyond. The door was open, so that I could hear if one of them asked for another scoopful of porridge or taste of fresh buttercream from the jug. But I was happy to immerse myself in the work of a scullery maid so as to crowd out the madness of my own lusts.

“Your stays must be very loose,” said the Major from the doorway.
 

Could he never knock or announce himself? He moved with the stealth of a ghost! “
What?
”
 

He must’ve thought me quite a daft woman, given how often I asked him that. “Your stays,” he said, eying the part of my clothes my apron covered, then drifting up to the neckline. “If they were tighter, your breasts wouldn’t be jiggling quite as much while you scrub. Or is it just the tops of them that are jiggling? I’d like to know how ample they are…”

Feeling myself redden from neck to ear, I stopped scrubbing. “You said you’d ask me a question…in time. Is that the question you want to ask? You want to know if it is just the tops of my breasts that jiggle?”

I hadn’t meant to snap. To be so sarcastic. I also didn’t anticipate that it would delight him so. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “In a high Scots temper today, are we? I wonder what could be the cause of that…”

“You know perfectly well,” I said, abandoning my pot, and drying my hands upon my apron. Given the state of me, I couldn’t imagine that he still found me attractive. Perhaps it had been a momentary lapse and he’d changed his mind about wanting me for a mistress. I was a hearty country girl with freckled skin and copper hair, and back home he likely had some pale, willowy, English rose…