The King's Mistress (33 page)

I’d woken up this morning dreamily content. I wanted to stretch, but Richard was still asleep, and I would wake him if I did that. I could wait.

It was broad daylight, but early yet. The birds in the garden outside hadn’t yet subsided, the excitement of spring filling their tiny bones, urging them to go about their business. There were two large double windows in my bedroom, framed by the same dark gold silk that hung at the corners of the bed. Knowing Richard would spend more time here than in his own room, I’d chosen the colour to be flattering, but not too feminine. I wanted him to be comfortable in here. My husband might wear lilac, but he wore it over decisively male anatomy.

I thought of the heavy, stately furniture in Southwood House and sighed. So depressing to live in that mausoleum, as one day I would probably have to do.

A gentle kiss between my shoulder blades informed me he had woken. The weight of his arm on my waist lightened. He smoothed his hand over my stomach, pulling me closer, but I rolled on to my back.

We smiled at each other. Waking in the mornings constituted one of my favourite parts of the day.

“Good morning, my love.” I adored the light in his eyes when I used the endearment he so richly deserved.

“Good morning.” He kissed me, lingering over the greeting, gently caressing my lips with the tip of his tongue. When I returned the favour, he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding inside my mouth with languorous certainty. He lifted up on one elbow and moved his other hand to caress my breast. His cock hardened against my thigh, and I went closer, enjoying his protective warmth.

He broke the kiss and lifted his head. “Every morning and every night I give thanks. If I’d married anyone else, I’d be waking up in my own bed, alone. But I have you.” He twined one hand in my hair, drawing me to him for another kiss. The other hand lay on my breast, caressing with an increased urgency that heated me, sent tingles through every part of my body. “And every morning I want you with the same desire as on the first. Something else to give thanks for.”

Small kisses on my jaw and my throat, his breath heated my collarbone, then his mouth replaced his hand on my breast, kissing, drawing on the tip, his tongue curling around my nipple, sending delicious thrills through to my groin. When he heard my “Ah!” of pleasure, he increased his efforts, moving to the other breast, his long, slender fingers delicately caressing the one he wasn’t kissing. He knew I had said yes, although not out loud. I didn’t need to.

His mouth followed his hand and he kissed the new line between my navel and the dark curls below. “Nice of it to show me the way,” his wicked voice muffled through the bedclothes covering him. I pulled them aside so I could watch him and reach my hand down to twine my fingers in his short, golden hair. He lifted his head and looked up at me, past the gentle swell of my belly and the heavy mounds of my breasts. His smile filled my soul. Never had blue eyes appeared so warm.

Propped up on one elbow, he gazed down at me, his free hand touching me, caressing me, and he inserted two fingers inside. I was wet enough to take him and he knew it, but he caressed, rotated his fingers and touched me so intimately I gasped in response.

“You want me,” he said softly.

“Yes. Oh yes, I want you, Richard, my love.” I caught another quick breath when he moved his hand again and sent sensations of rising excitement through my very heart. “How do you do it? Make me need you so much?”

“Years of dedicated practice,” he said, coming back up the bed after one particularly soul-wrenching twist of his hand. “But you—you are the culmination. I’ll never get over you. I never want to.”

He covered my body with his, needing no help to guide him, watching me as I watched him. I welcomed the careful pressure, his heat, the sublime sensation of his hard shaft probing my melting softness. My flesh shivered when he pushed his way inside.

She vows to protect her heart…until love burns away her resistance.

The Courtesan’s Bed

© 2010 Sandrine O’Shea

Régine Laflamme rules as the Queen of Fire, the Paris demimonde’s most notorious and accomplished courtesan. Wealthy men shower her with riches and vie to become her next conquest. Respectable women shun her. Other courtesans envy her.

No one knows she was once an innocent young governess, ruined and turned out by a cruel lord. And now, years later, she spies her seducer’s son—a man who never answered her frantic pleas for help.

Darius, Earl of Clarridge, has never stopped searching for the woman who haunts him. He doesn’t expect her to believe that her letters never reached him. No, he will regain her trust in a way she understands—by promising to give her more pleasure than she’s ever known.

In spite of her misgivings, Régine is intrigued and takes Darius up on his boast. To her surprise, he conquers not only her body, but captures her very heart.

Yet beyond the haven of her boudoir, two men scheme to possess her for their own. When one of them kidnaps and enslaves her, she clings desperately to a new hope—that this time Darius will find her before it’s too late.

Warning: This novel contains scenes of graphic sex, bondage, S/M, anal pleasuring of the hero, and a two-women-one-man threesome in a brothel.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Courtesan’s Bed:

“What would be your terms?”

He threw out a monthly stipend that made her swallow hard, added a generous clothing allowance that surpassed that of a certain profligate duchess of his acquaintance, and assured her he was known to most of the jewelers in London.

She smiled seductively. “And what are your requirements in the boudoir, monsieur?”

He returned her smile. “As often as you like, and I promise you will want me often. But if there are days you wish a respite, that will be fine too.”

A faint flush warmed her cheeks. “You’re very confident.”

“It’s one of my finer attributes.”

She smiled, obviously amused.

“So,” he said, staring deeply into those expressive eyes, “do we have an agreement?”

“There is much to consider.”

He let his gaze rove over her face like a slow, soft caress, settling on her delectable mouth. “Perhaps a kiss would convince you of the seriousness of my intentions.”

She stared boldly at his lips and patted the place next to her on the settee. “By all means, monsieur.”

He sat down, angling his body so he faced her, and draped one arm across the back of the settee just behind her shoulders. She leaned toward him, willingly turning her head. He raised his hand and gently traced the line of her jaw with his fingertips. Her skin was as dewy and silken as a rose petal in the morning. When he reached her chin, he tilted her head and leaned over to reach her voluptuous, inviting mouth with his own.

He kissed her lightly at first, a mere pressing of the lips to both soothe and arouse her.

She responded with a sigh and the parting of her soft, sweet lips for an open-mouthed kiss that tasted faintly of brandy. Then he deepened his kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth. She moaned softly and stroked his tongue with her own, sending a tremor of desire rocking through his body, straight to his prick.

She raised her hand to his cheek, and he thought he’d melt at her tender touch. He slipped his hand around her waist and drew her even closer, needing to feel her warmth, pleased that he’d caused such a response.

When they parted, breathless and panting, Regina purred, “You kiss very well, Clarridge.”

Then she undid the top three buttons of her gown in blatant invitation.

He stayed her hand. “That’s not necessary.” At least, not yet.

Her expression turned perplexed. “But I thought you wished to please me.”

“I do.”

“Well, it would please me if you’d touch my breasts.”

Ah, so she was testing him to see how far he’d go. He hadn’t expected her to move so fast, or talk so frankly, but she was experienced and accustomed to being intimate with strangers without preamble or coyness.

He grinned. “Touching your beautiful breasts would certainly please me.”

He caressed the long column of her ivory neck, causing her to tremble beneath his fingers. But rather than undoing the rest of the buttons, parting the fine silk fabric and burrowing for the Promised Land of her bare breasts, he practiced the art of gradual arousal, which he knew from long experience that most women appreciated. He placed his hand on her left breast, feeling its soft fullness beneath the layer of cloth.

Regina closed her eyes with a gentle sigh, and her head fell back against his arm.

Darius squeezed gently, and her nipple hardened provocatively. Regina’s lips parted. He teased the rigid nubbin with his thumb, and then moved to the other breast for the same tender ministrations.

“Do you like the way I touch you?” He certainly relished his own reaction to touching her, the warm fullness that swelled his cock and made his heart race with dizzying speed.

She caught her breath and murmured a ragged, “Oh, yes,” when he raked her tender earlobe with his teeth.

He worked her nipple harder with his thumb, and when she made a satisfied whimper at the abrading fabric, he swiftly undid the buttons so he could slip his hand beneath the silk and touch her warm, bare flesh, which overflowed his hand as he cupped it possessively.

Her sharp intake of breath at his intimate touch heightened his own arousal.

She was like absinthe, one color until another ingredient transformed it. And he just wanted to drink and drink and drink until he went mad.

He caught the straining bud between his thumb and forefinger, and squeezed gently. She cried out. He smiled, pleased that he could coax such a reaction out of her.

He increased the intensity of his caresses while trying to maintain his own fragile self-control, moving from one tempting breast to the other. He felt a heady sense of triumph and power when her groans grew louder.

For one second he wondered if her response was genuine or the pretense of a calculating courtesan seeking to give her protector his money’s worth.

Her eyes flew open. They were drowsy with passion and delight that couldn’t be faked. She pouted prettily. “You are cruel to torment me so.”

“How ungentlemanly of me. I shall have to remedy that failure.”

He opened the bodice to bare her breasts. They were perfect, round and heavy, full enough for him to bury his face in their ivory softness and lose himself in their sweet scent. He thought both his cock and his head would explode.

“Your beauty leaves me breathless.” His exhaling breath warmed her large, rosy nipples. He teased them with the tip of his tongue, wetting first one, and then the other. He lifted his gaze to Regina’s face, pleased to see her closed eyes, an expression of transported bliss giving her ivory complexion a luminous glow. He had demolished her reservations and her misgivings with his persistence.

He waited until her breathing grew more uneven and impatient before he grasped the breast to steady it, took the inviting puckered tip into his mouth and sucked, gently at first, then harder, with the eagerness of a starving man too long denied.

Régine’s high-pitched cry filled the drawing room, and she arched her back, offering herself to him in an ageless gesture of female surrender.

She tangled her fingers in his hair and held him in place, demanding his touch.

Now he pleasured her right breast with his eager mouth and the other moist nipple with his fingers, driving her wild with abandon. If she reacted so strongly to just having her breasts caressed, he was willing to bet the earth would shudder and shake when he brought her to orgasm.

He reluctantly raised his head, gently stroking her to ease the abruptness of his withdrawal.

Regina’s eyes flew open. “Why did you stop?”

He drew the bodice together to cover her. “Because if I keep going, I’ll make love to you right here, right now.”

She looked confused. “But I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Not for our first time.”

She raised her brows. “You surprise me. You are so different from the other men I’ve known.”

He smiled and drew her hand to his lips, lightly brushing her knuckles. “You’ll find me to be a very surprising fellow.”

She buttoned her bodice with crisp efficiency. “I’m looking forward to discovering all your secrets.”

The King’s Mistress

Sandy Blair

The long way home could be the shortest road to ruin.

The king of Scotland is in a snit. Which means Britt MacKinnon, proud captain of the king’s guard, has an onerous task: fetch Alexander’s favorite paramour back to the royal bed—
now.
Never mind that the crown should be about the business of getting a legitimate heir. Especially since England’s Edward I would love nothing more than to seize an empty Scottish throne.

When the handsome soldier appears on her doorstep, Geneen Armstrong has to think quickly. Her twin lies abed in her cottage, pregnant with the king’s bastard. If the barren queen learns the truth, the foolish girl’s life won’t be worth a farthing.
 

She must somehow transform her graceless, plain-spoken self into her vivacious, talented sister. Then, after the court is convinced she carries no child, use her herbal knowledge to sour the king’s taste for her sister’s company—for good.
 

By the time Britt realizes this unusually articulate, ungodly stubborn woman is the
wrong
woman, tendrils of attraction have already tightened into a bond. A bond that will be tested when the king’s unexpected death puts Scotland’s very destiny at stake—and unleashes an ever-tangling web of court intrigues, secrets…and lies.

Warning: Men in kilts, Scottish accents and a feisty heroine contained herein. A more perfect historical romance doesnae exist.

eBooks are
not
transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.