An Introduction to Pleasure (34 page)

I moaned and he responded, not breaking the kiss as he hummed. My tears dried from his body and the heat he was generating in mine. His erection rose hard between us, pressing insistently against my belly, and because I had undressed, I felt every ridge, right to the cap at the head. Oh God, I’d missed that. Those lover’s touches, absent these last three months and more. It might as well have been three years, thirty years. A desert of longing.

His hands, up to now in hard, knuckled fists against me as if he still tried to resist, opened and spread over my back, encompassing all of my being. During our history together we had the truth that our bodies spoke to each other, never failing us in the tide of desire and togetherness. From our first kiss in the coach house in Yorkshire, we’d fitted like this. That kiss had persuaded my body that I belonged to no other, that I could give myself to nobody but him.

I opened my mouth, and his tongue thrust in, firm and possessive. I tasted him in return, boldly played with him, tongue against tongue, the sensitive buds tasting. He sucked at me as if he’d thought of nothing else, wanted nothing else, needed me to continue his existence.

When his mouth left mine, it was so he could kiss down my throat and find the sensitive hollow at the base. He teased me there, his grip loosening so he could stroke and then cup one breast through the fabric of my shift. Shivers racked me, and I gasped his name, pushing my body into his, desperate to feel his skin against mine once more. His tongue caressed and demanded, and I imagined all my nerves standing on end and screaming for his touch.

Emboldened, I palmed his balls, felt his hard, hot length. Something inside me seemed to loosen, just as he’d loosened my stays for me, and I gave myself up to him.

That was when he gasped, “No!” and thrust me away.

I took a step back, my eyes wide. I’d tugged at his shirt, which now flopped loosely under his waistcoat and over his breeches.

His mouth was slightly open, his breath coming in short gasps. “Now you see,” he said. “
Now
you understand.”

He turned and left the room, and a moment later I heard the slam of his stateroom door. I stared at the door linking our bedrooms. Other doors, other places, we’d never locked them, but this one we’d never unlocked.

I didn’t understand at all. Not one bit.

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

The King’s Mistress

© 2011 Sandy Blair

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: This title contains men in kilts, Scottish accents and a feisty heroine contained herein. A more perfect historical romance doesnae exist.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The King’s Mistress:

Hearing a cock crow, Britt opened his eyes and found Lady Greer just as he’d spied her most of the night, sitting upright on her pallet with her legs pulled close to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly about them, her chin on her knees as she stared at the dying embers. Had he not known better, he’d think her a woman on route to her doom.

“Good morn’.”

At the sound of his voice, she jerked upright and hastily rearranged herself, then glanced at the sleeping crofters who’d offered them a place before their hearth for the night. In a whisper, she said, “You sleep like the dead.”

Grinning, he stretched and rolled to his feet, taking care not to crown himself on the low-slung ceiling beams. “One sleeps when and how one can, m’lady.”

And last night—like any night whilst on the road, his sleep had amounted to only a few quick catnaps.

He held out a hand. Ignoring it, she rose on her own.

As she dusted bits of straw from her gown, he pulled two bodles from his sporran and placed the coins on the hearth where the crofter’s wife would find them when she awoke. He bent and whispered in Genny’s ear, “I’ll ready the horses whilst you seek what privacy there is to be had.”

Outside, he found fog blanketing pasture and knoll, the sun gilding the distant mountains. Their ride would prove comfortable, unlike his charge. Lady Greer, normally a chattering and laughing wench, had been uncharacteristically reticent since leaving her cottage.

Although he’d kept an eye on her in Edinburgh, he’d made no effort to form more than her passing acquaintance. Mayhap if he engaged her in conversation, she’d stop looking at him as if he were taking her to the gallows.

He caught a flash of bright blue and glanced left and found the king’s normally gliding mistress charging with long, determined strides through reeds toward the babbling burn behind the croft like a ship plowing through high seas. How odd. He shook his head and turned his attention back to securing their possessions. The woman was a conundrum.

The next time he looked up, she was again gliding as she normally did, this time with their breakfast in hand. “Here,” she said, holding out a square slice of oat cake and a cup.

He looked in the cup. “Milk?”

She nodded, biting into her oat cake. “There’s a lovely cow in yon paddock.”

“’Tis warm.”

She looked at him blankly as if not understanding his meaning, then blanched white as the cup’s contents. “I…I found a bucket half full of milk by her side. A tenant must have begun milking her but been startled away by me. I took only a wee bit but… Oh dear, I’ve no coins…”

“I left enough coins.”

Nay, she could not have milked the cow. The queen’s ladies-in-waiting were just that: ladies, the pampered daughters and sisters of landed men. He very much doubted any knew which end of a cow to approach for milk. He couldn’t imagine any knowing how to hobble a cow, much less stooping beneath one and pulling on teats. Aye, she must have found the milk as she said.

His qualms settled, Britt tried to suppress his bone-breaking shudder as he drained the cup. Never let it be said that he lacked chivalry.

He dropped the cup on the croft stoop. “If you’re ready, we should leave.”

She looked up at him, her bonnie blue eyes shimmering as if on the verge of tearing. “Aye, I’m quite ready.”

Nay, she was not, not in the least.

He placed his hands above the silver girdle she wore, marveling once again at how small her waist was. When her hands settled on his shoulder armor, he lifted her negligible weight, bringing them face-to-face. What was she thinking as she stared into his eyes so solemnly? Was she simply wary, or did she feel the same charge he felt when he held her so close? How easy it would be to capture her mouth with his, to taste the forbidden fruit he’d been thinking about since she’d cocked her head and smiled at him in her parlor.

Too easy and too dangerous for both of them.

He settled her on the gray, then leapt onto his patient destrier. Determined to put her at her ease, he said, “What new songs have you to entertain the court?”

“Uhmm…none. I’ve had no opportunity to learn any.”

He nodded. Of course she hadn’t had time, what with her having to arrange her parents’ funerals, then notifying the earl and her extended family of their passing.

They rode on in silence as the day grew warmer, he alert to danger and Lady Armstrong yawning in the saddle. When the sun reached its zenith, he stopped by a burn, and Lady Armstrong jerked upright, asking, “Why are we stopping?”

“Because I’m hungry, as are the horses.”

Helping her dismount, he again caught the scent of lavender and roses, his blood heated, and he quickly set her down and turned his attention to their mounts. He pulled free their wine skin and his saddle bag and handed them to her. “I’ll water the horses if you would be so kind as to set out something for us to eat.”

She mustered a smile, her first since leaving the croft.

With their mounts tended, he settled on a sun-warmed boulder next to her and accepted the oatcake and dried fruit she’d packed. “How many years have you been in the king’s service?” she asked.

Mesmerized by the halo of sunlight bouncing off her silver coronet and glossy braids, he murmured, “Near a decade.”

“Ah, you must enjoy it, then.”

He straightened and looked about. His remaining at the king’s side had naught to do with enjoyment. “Duty and honor before pleasure, my lady.”

They finished their repast in silence. Dusting the crumbs from her kirtle, she said, “We should be going.”

In no hurry, he suggested, “Why not rest a bit. You must be tired.”

She rose. “Nay, we need be on our way.”

They rode on. And as he could have predicted by gloaming, Lady Armstrong was head down and eyes closed, weaving in her saddle. They were but a few hours’ ride from the stronghold of Meade Mont, but fearing she’d topple and crown her lovely noggin, Britt steered his destrier to a grassy wee glen and dismounted. The gray followed without any assistance from their king’s sleeping mistress.

Shaking his head at the woman’s stubbornness, Britt secured his mount, gathered deadwood, then cleared a spot in the grass to lay a fire, all while Lady Armstrong slept. Accustomed to sleeping in the elements, he needed no fire, but from what he’d observed, Lady Armstrong enjoyed her creature comforts. And God forbid she should grow ill.

When the fire caught, he spread his
breachen feile
on the ground at a safe distance from it, then lifted Lady Armstrong from the gray. As she settled on his plaid, she mumbled something incoherent about love and castration—a decidedly unsettling thought—then, sighing, curled like an exhausted kitten before the fire.

He pulled his whetstone from his sporran, then freed his blades from their sheaths. As he ran a finger over his broadsword’s edges, testing the sharpness, he watched her by the glow of the fire. Aye, his king was a lucky man but had no clue to what extent. His Majesty had been blessed first with a fertile and sensible wife, then been granted a second wife, one half his age, and still his eye wandered.

Shaking his head at the sad waste of blessings, he sheathed his broadsword and began honing his more oft used
sgian duhb.

And what on earth was this woman, now tossing in restless sleep, thinking? She’d been gifted with incredible beauty and a voice that could make songbirds weep with shame, yet she too squandered her gifts. Was she such a rustic, such an innocent, that she did not know she’d ruined all hope of her ever making a good match by acquiescing to Alexander?

She could just as easily have said, “Thank you, but no.” His Majesty was lusty—no denying that—but he was also chivalrous. Oh, he would have sulked and made everyone’s life miserable for a day or so, but then he’d have shrugged it off and sought out one of his other paramours…or the queen.

Women. Be they fair or foul, royal or not, he would never understand them.

Lady Armstrong, brow furrowed, flipped onto her stomach and cocked a leg. Looking at her well-turned ankle and calf, at the lovely swell of her rump, he sighed. At least he well understood what his liege was thinking.

An Introduction to Pleasure

Jess Michaels

An innocent lady’s education could be a gentleman’s wicked seduction.

Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1

Lysandra Keates is running out of options. Her father is dead, her mother is ill, and her efforts to find respectable employment have ended in failure. With her small savings bleeding away, she swallows her pride—and her terror—and turns to Vivien Manning, an infamous courtesan, to match her with a wealthy protector.

For years, Viscount Andrew Callis has lived a monastic existence at his country estate, hardening his body against the snobbish, lazy young man he once was, hardening his heart against grief over the deaths of his wife and infant son. When Vivien asks him to spend one month training a young woman in the ways of a mistress, his mind resists…but his body responds with an ache he thought long dead.

As Andrew begins his gentle tutelage, he finds himself falling under the spell of Lysandra’s innocent charms. And as they give in to the powerful hunger, the last thing Andrew ever expected, or wanted, forms between them. An emotional connection that could carry them well past the training period—if only Andrew can open his heart to the possibility of love.