Everything Forbidden

Miranda Albright ducked under a branch, batting twigs out of her face as she attempted to calm herself. Frustration bubbled inside of her, threatening to overflow and wipe away her last thread of control. The urge to throw herself down in the middle of the woods and have a childish tantrum was nearly overwhelming.

“Oslo!” she hissed out a second time, this one through clenched teeth.

No dog miraculously appeared.

“Dratted animal,” she muttered as she stepped over a fallen log and moved further into the tangled branches of the trees.

She had been following her mother’s dog since he broke free
of his lead what seemed like hours ago. At the rate his short, little legs could carry him, they could well be in the next county by now.

Or in the very least, their neighbor’s property.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard a low, masculine chuckle echo from nearby. Instantly, she stiffened at the sound and peered around to determine its source. It came again, this time huskier.

It actually
was
her neighbor, she realized with a start. She’d heard the Earl of Rothschild laugh before and this was definitely him. Naughty, like he had a secret he’d never share with her. It was a teasing laugh, a taunting laugh.

Quietly, she moved toward the sound. All she could hope was that her mother’s blasted Pomeranian hadn’t interrupted the man during his afternoon entertainments. She had only met him a few times, mostly at country gatherings with her parents, but he’d never struck her as a man of much patience. Just by the way he held himself, the way he looked at others, it was clear he was accustomed to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

Certainly, Rothschild had never appeared to be the kind of man who would appreciate the devil disguised in fluffy orange fur racing across his picnic blanket. She was certain she’d get an earful from him and his companions if her worst imaginings turned out to be true.

Prepared for a stern berating, she stepped into an area where the trees thinned and peered in the direction his voice had come from. What she saw froze her in her spot, jaw slack.

She had assumed she would find the Earl with a group of
friends, fishing in the pond, perhaps, or sharing luncheon. Any kind of normal diversion would have been expected with the fine summer weather.

Instead, what she saw was a very different kind of entertainment. One that widows and married women whispered about in secret—but wouldn’t yet share with her, telling her that her time would come soon enough. An activity her mother vowed she would speak to Miranda about only when she was preparing for her wedding night.

But this was not Miranda’s wedding night. And yet she couldn’t look away. There, right in the open air for everyone to see, was the handsome Earl of Rothschild, and he was with a woman.

There were so many things in the scene before her to shock her, Miranda wasn’t sure where to begin. For one thing, Rothschild was shirtless. Oh, she’d seen men without shirts before, despite her mother’s attempts to shield her. Sometimes the field workers went without and Miranda would catch brief glimpses from her father’s carriage as they rode along to town. The sight had always given her a forbidden thrill. A feeling multiplied by what she was secretly witnessing at present.

Those workmen, who often appeared soft, even from a distance, didn’t look anything like the Earl. Muscles tapered down his lean body, moving beneath the surface as he shifted his position on the picnic blanket that had been laid out beside the lake. His skin was tanned, as though he often went without the decent protection of a shirt. And a few tousled locks of dark hair fell across his forehead like a disheveled, tempting devil.

When the woman beneath him moaned, Miranda started.
She’d been so focused on the man, she hadn’t really looked at his paramour. Did she know her? There was nothing immediately familiar about her, not that Miranda could have recognized her with her head lolled over to the side, facing away from the brush where Miranda was concealed. And at present, her face didn’t concern Miranda as much as her state of undress that went beyond even Rothschild’s.

The lady’s gown was in a pile beside the Earl’s shirt and jacket. She was wearing only a sheer chemise, which was hiked up around her stomach, leaving her utterly bare from the waist down except for a pair of lacy white stockings and satin high-heeled slippers. The slippers were impossible to overlook as they were thrown over the Earl’s tanned, defined shoulders.

He was kneeling between her legs and he was…

Miranda tilted her head, squinting to see better despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t.

Dear God, he was
licking
her…
there
. There in that place her mother told her to ignore, but she secretly didn’t. In the place that was tingling madly as she watched Rothschild pleasure the moaning, squirming woman. The unknown lady’s hips lifted and her back arched with every stroke of his tongue. Her cries grew louder with each intimate kiss.

Miranda shifted. She should turn away. She should
run
away! This was no place for her. These were no sights for her. But she couldn’t make herself stop watching. Stop waiting for what she would see next. She couldn’t stop the growing ache deep within her body, one she had felt before, but never so sharp and needy. She shut her eyes briefly, but the moans continued to echo and they elicited a brief image.

One of Miranda being pleasured by the Earl instead of this faceless woman.

Her eyes flew open, widened at the shocking thought. What in the world was she thinking? She covered her mouth to keep her startled gasp from revealing her spying, but she still didn’t look away from the scene being played out before her.

Now Rothschild got to his feet and Miranda got a clearer view of his partner. She was definitely a stranger, not a village woman or a member of a neighborhood family. The woman sat up a little, leaning back on her elbows with a grin as she watched Rothschild shuck out of his trousers and give them a casual kick to the side.

Miranda stared. While she may have seen a man’s chest before, this was something entirely different. Muscular legs met an equally muscular backside, and both were just as tanned as his back and arms. Dear God, that meant he went outside naked on a regular basis.

And then there was the thrust of muscle between his legs. Miranda had heard the servants call it a cock when they didn’t know she was within earshot. It was as hard as any other part of him, curling up toward his belly at full attention.

The woman below him licked her lips as she stared just as blatantly as Miranda did. The stranger smiled, a wicked, knowing expression that made Miranda feel very young and naïve. And jealous. There was such a confidence in the other woman’s every move. A sure sensuality that Miranda recognized, but wasn’t yet able to master, thanks to her mother’s constant criticisms and intrusions.

“Come down here,” the woman ordered, opening her legs a little further.

“Oh, very pretty,” Rothschild drawled as he looked at her blatant offering with a wicked grin.

He dropped to his knees between the woman’s splayed thighs. His mouth came down hard on hers, his arms pinned hers above her head. And then, he thrust his hips forward and his cock disappeared into her body.

Miranda had heard whispers about sex from servants and married friends. Varying accounts described it as anything from heavenly to horrible. But judging from the lusty moans from the woman on the picnic blanket, Miranda was beginning to think
heavenly
was a closer description. If it made that woman feel anything like just watching them made Miranda feel, it
had
to be heavenly.

Miranda shifted a little, longing to touch herself, longing to ease the tension building like an inferno between her thighs. She knew her own hands could bring her pleasure. She’d done so in the past, reveling in the exquisite release.

Would that be what it felt like if a man like the Earl spread her wide like he was doing to that woman, and drove into her with those short, circular swivels of his muscular hips?

Would Miranda moan and cry out like that if it was she Rothschild was taking instead? If it was
she
who he claimed so blatantly?

She squeezed her eyes shut again as hot blood rushed to her cheeks. How she wanted to know the answers to those wicked, unspoken questions. How much she wanted to experience that type of passion.

A nudge on her hand made Miranda yelp in surprise. She looked down to see that Oslo had found his way back to her
and was sitting at her side, little tail wagging wildly and head cocked with a quizzical bent as he waited for her.

She cast a quick glance toward the couple as she snatched up the dog and held him to her chest so he wouldn’t escape a second time. With her luck, Oslo would bolt into the clearing and reveal her humiliating intrusion.

Rothschild didn’t seem to have heard her cry, but the woman beneath him clenched her hands around his muscular upper arms.

She moaned, a broken, wanton sound, before she said, “Did you hear that?”

Immediately Miranda crouched down lower, peering through the high grass and praying she wouldn’t have to endure the ultimate disgrace of being caught. No doubt the wicked Earl would assume she had been spying on him for quite some time. Worse, that she was aroused by what she saw. She would never live that down.
Never
. How could she face him afterward?

Worse, what if he marched her home and told her parents what she had been doing? She couldn’t bear their reactions. Her mother, especially, would make her life hellish if she knew.

Miranda held her breath as Rothschild lifted his head. His breath came in pants.

“What?”

“A cry,” the woman insisted.

Rothschild slowly circled his hips and the woman cursed, a word Miranda hadn’t heard before, but didn’t need to be familiar with to know it was
not
ladylike. Why did that vulgar phrase make her thighs even wetter? It was like everything forbidden was also undeniably arousing.

“It’s probably those absurd peacocks Brendan brought with him last week,” he panted, driving his hips forward again with a groan. “Ignore it.”

“Hmmm, pea
cocks
, eh?” The woman giggled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a deep kiss.

Miranda waited until the two of them were utterly engrossed in their coupling before she gathered Oslo closer and began to crawl out of their line of sight. Even when she knew they couldn’t see her and dared to stand up, she continued to hear the woman’s moans of encouragement and Rothschild’s grunts of pleasure in the distance. Worse, when those decadent sounds were no longer to be heard, she still couldn’t help but recall, with perfect clarity, everything she had witnessed. And the images continued to arouse her beyond measure.

She fumbled in her pelisse for Oslo’s broken lead and tied it clumsily around the dog’s collar before she set him down and began to weave her way back to the house. With every step, she flashed to another heated image of Rothschild burying himself into the woman. Of him tasting her in the most intimate way. Of the moans. The slide of skin on skin.

“Oh, God,” Miranda gasped. “I want that, I want that passion so very much. How could anyone ever settle for anything less?”

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