The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances (16 page)

“My, my.” She tossed her long, pale locks over her shoulder, caught at her crown in a pink ribbon today. “Let me give you a pillow to support your arm.” She strode to the settee and picked up a small, old thing then came back and lifted his arm. “We must really build up your strength here, darling.”

“I am fine as I am.”

“I dare say, not.” She arranged his arm and hand just so, draping his fingers over the curve of the pillow and smoothing them down. “I know a remedy,” she called and spun toward the kitchen again. “I’ll see if Charles has any idea where I might acquire the ingredients.”

“Lacy!” he called in vain.

She’d gone back to Charles. For what? Comfort? Another breakfast?

Wes snorted. With his good hand, he picked at his trousers. Then he brooded. Remembering her mouth beneath his. Her breasts against his chest. He had always told himself she would be his equal in bed, her sweet juicy little core grasping his cock like a vise and holding him.

Hell. What idiocy to want her.

And what the hell was she doing? With Charles, too.

He fisted both hands. He could not kill his own sergeant. A man who had been with him as his servant since he’d been in knee britches.

Wes rose and went to the window, yanked the casement open and inhaled the smell of torrential rain and autumn. There she was, hurrying toward the smokehouse and the stables, Charles close behind her.

What now?

He might take a switch to Charles.

Oh, bloody hell.
He couldn’t do that. Not to a man who was most likely his half-brother. The man was so loyal, so devoted that time and again he had forsaken his own amorous interest in Wes’s Aunt Amaryllis’s housemaid to go to war with Wes.

Damn.
How ungrateful can I be?

Ungrateful enough to want Charles to keep his hands to himself.

Wes cursed, lumbered to the hall closet and peered around in the dark for his coat on a hook.
Where the hell had Charles put it?

Ah. He grabbed the tweed, yanked it on and picked his way toward the kitchen, out the back door, down the stone path and into the smokehouse. He flung open the door. They weren’t here. He rubbed his jaw and whirled for the wooden building along the same path. The stables.

Raindrops dripping down his temples, he stood inside the stables. Turning, he heard his horses stomping. In the shadows, he heard the murmurings of his man and the woman who should have been his own.

He rounded a stall, and there they stood, Charles lowering his face to hers, his own eyes closed, his lips almost touching her throat.

“Hello! What is your business out here?” Wes glared from one to the other.

They broke apart like guilty thieves.

Lacy brushed her palms over her skirts. “Charles was showing me your horses.”

Wes took two steps forward to peer down at her. “Why? You know good horseflesh when you see it. You helped your father raise his bloodlines. And what is your excuse, Charles?”

“Sir! I was merely following her request to—”

“Yes, yes.” Wes waved a hand at Charles. “Leave us.”

Charles departed with a long, last glance at Lacy.

When the sound of Charles’ footsteps died away, Wes asked, “You like him?”

She demurred with a shrug. “Charles resembles you.”

“Is that why you like him?” He stepped right up to her and took her forearm. The mere feel of her tiny bones under his hand made his cock stiffen and his balls twitch.

“Yes.”

Wes examined her.
Witch.

“And no.” She pulled out of Wes’ grasp and made her way to his newest acquisition, a mare he intended to mate to his new stallion.
Might as well breed them if I can’t ride them.
“I like Charles for himself. He is quite knowledgeable about you.”

“You need know nothing about me.”

“But I do.” She approached the mare. “I need to know what happened to you in Talavera. Why you do not wish to be with people.” Lacy patted the mane of the mare that seemed to nod that she was happy to be noticed. “Why you do not wish to be with me.”

“It was war, Lacy.”

“You think I cannot understand that.”

“Why should you?”

“Because I love you!” she yelled at him. The horse whinnied. She spun to face the animal. “Sorry,” she said to the beast in the kindest tone, but to Wes she was argumentative. “Other men come home to their loved ones. Why not you?”

“Because I am not whole!”

“Or do not wish to be?”

He spun and almost fell over with the propulsion. “I will not argue with you.”

“Nor I with you.”

He had to walk away. Save himself from the ripe temptation to shut her up with a kiss.

“Do not leave me, Wes.” She said it in such a way that she clearly referred to much more than what he did at this moment.

He stopped in his tracks. Her tone gutted him.

Her arms surrounded him. Caught him back to her body. “I love you, Wes.”

“That feeling is best left to the libraries and ballrooms where once we met in peacetime.”

“Is love only for those rooms? Those times?” She strode around to face him then stood up on her toes and kissed him, lavishly, endlessly.

His lips ached with the beauty of it. His cock throbbed with the need to demonstrate his devotion to her.

She circled her arms around his neck. “I think such passion is for all the times of our lives.” She put her lips to his throat, one hand to his chest where the heat of her palm burned his chest. “All the places where we can be happy.” Her hips pressed against his and his cock, damn willful thing, sprang up higher, hard as iron. Suddenly, her hand was there, undoing his flies and reaching inside to caress him. “There is the proof we can be.”

She stepped backward, and he felt her loss like a wave of gall flowing over him. She worked at the ribbons beneath her bodice, freeing her dress and just as quickly, pulling it over her head. She was—
my god
—naked.

He stood so still he could have sworn he was felled by a falling tree.

Her skin, so perfect on her face, was a flawless expanse of porcelain. Her shoulders, trim. Her arms, long and lithesome. Her breasts, dear heaven, plump, upturned handfuls, her nipples pink as June’s roses. Her waist was small, but oh, she could and would bear beautiful babies. With those hips, she could carry children, but she would first hold a man in thrall. Her nether hair was a frothy platinum bush to match the glory of the curls on her head. And the plush wealth of her pussy made him lick his lips, wanting to taste and tantalize the plump lips of her
chat
.

Her gaze in his, she pulled at his trousers and sent them down his thighs. Her two hot little hands cupped his shaft and squeezed gently. Leading him backward, she lay down on a low haystack. If he’d had his right mind, he would have laughed, but she was leading him by his cock and damn his soul if he could say no. Or think straight.

She widened her trim thighs. And tipped up her hips. Her sweet womanhood was an irresistible invitation. Her blonde hair framed her thick, pouting lips. Her labia glistening with her desire for him. Her seam, long and red. Her tiny little asshole, a rose, too. His. All his. To have and to hold and damn, if he wasn’t going to feast on her, here and now. Vows or not.

He raked his hair. He knew he was mad. She was clever. He was needy. And she had driven him here, knowing full well he would lay her down and take her, letting no man—not even his half brother—intercede and put their affection to any unreasoned test.

“Lacy.” He bent over her, one knee to the side of her hip, his one good eye scanning her flushed face and her gorgeous sultry body. “You must not do this. The hay will torment you.”

She stroked his rod, long and evenly. “You torment me.”

“I will not make love to you for the first time in my barn with your ass in the prickly hay!”

She beamed at him, triumphant, testy. “If we leave here, I do not trust that you’ll fuck me at all!” As he gasped at her ribald words, she got a handful of his two balls and massaged him. “You must have me here. Now. I will not stop, and I will not move.”

He swallowed hard, summoning some self-control. “Lacy, you cannot imagine what you ask for.”

“I don’t want to imagine,” she crooned and kissed his mouth, his dimple, his throat. She rubbed her thumb over the slit of his cockhead, and he bucked.

“Very well,” he growled and glanced down at her sweet little
chat
. He’d have her and in his own way, too. “Don’t imagine. Feel.” He pushed her knees wide, her intimate folds spread open, his hunger for her a flame in his belly and his cock. “Spread your legs wider. Wider! I need to see! That’s right. Christ, you are beautiful.” He gathered a handful of her nether hair and combed it. Then he traced a finger down her seam. He could smell her. How musky, how florid and enchanting. He inserted a determined finger to her inviting channel and sank right in. She was so wet, so sodden, he groaned and stroked her. Then he lifted his fingertip to his mouth. She tasted of sunshine and lust.

She watched him, mouth open, eyes limpid with fascination.

He winked at her and nearly wept with joy at the sweet, thick flavor of her cream. Bracing himself on the damn hay, he nestled himself down and parted her plump folds even wider. “Your lips are beautiful rose petals, my love. I want to learn each curve.” He traced a fingertip over the edge of one lip. “And taste all of you.” His tongue defined the delicate edge of another. Blowing air on her hot skin, he thumbed open the apex of her labia and found her swollen little nub to pinch it and make her moan. “This is a sweet bud I must have in my mouth.” With parted lips, he surrounded her clitoris, tongued her pearl to a keen and sucked her high and hard into his mouth.

Somewhere in his head, he heard her scream. Spurred on by her whimpers, he laved her juicy flesh.

She thrashed on the hay and called his name. He sucked her lavishly, shot two strong fingers inside and felt the thrum of her delight. Her walls pounded against him, and he rejoiced that she was so giving and he was such a cad to take her this way without benefit of vows.

She rose up, her fingers plucking at his shoulders.

He gathered her close and crushed her nearer.
God what a fool you are, Stanhope. No willpower at all where she’s concerned. Never had any.

He brushed her hair from her forehead. “You liked that.” He smiled sadly at her.

She beamed back at him. “I never knew.”

“From what I hear, few women do.”

“I want more.” She wended her hand down to cup his very large and sensitive cock. “I want you inside me. Now, Wes.”

Craven, unprincipled, he feared he’d lost his reason. The drive to have her was a ripe and insidious thing he could not deny.

He parted her thick, slick lips with his cock and slid inside her. Until there was a barrier.
As I knew there would be.

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. This is what came of wanting a willful woman without regard to logic or consequence.

He drove inside her carefully. She was swollen, tight and small, so small he thought he’d give her his seed and end it right then.
Jesus.

He twisted up inside her. Her juicy walls gloved him, caressing him. He could go no further but savored heaven, paralyzed by her giving body.

She made a little sound.

He looked down at her. “Lacy, I am sorry, darling.”

She shook her head and, with two hands to his face, said, “I do not break.”

“Strong and wise. But in the act of love, I know best how this must be done.” He slid out of her.

“No! Don’t stop. Don’t!”

“I won’t leave you.”
How can I now?
He kissed her, her fragrance on his lips and filling the air around them, drowning him even further in a sensual haze. “I need to make you happy.”

“You have,” she protested as he reached for her gown and pressed it into her hands.

“Not like I will now. Upstairs in my bed.”

They passed Charles in the kitchen, Lacy giving the servant a smile of gratitude. He had done well by her and, thank the good lord, done it so quickly that she need not seduce him any longer.

Wes walked beside her, his step—she could have sworn—faster, lighter.

But the distance from stable to his bedroom seemed half a world away for all Lacy’s need to have him inside her once more.
Safe, with me. Always, with me.

She walked ahead of him up the stairs, brushing away the drops of rain from her face and bosom. She opened his door and proceeded to the center of the room. He shut the door with a soft thud.

She spun, facing him, aware now she had what she had come for. His attention. His care. His love? Ah. That she had always had, lust though it might have been the night they’d met. Their love would always contain lust, though this morning she would mix it with commitment, and like a good batter, add understanding later.

She watched him sink against the door. His rugged face was flushed, his scar vivid, his golden red hair mussed from their encounter. His lightning gray eye danced down her body. He was a sore sight. A man in love.

“Shall I pretend to be the demure girl now?”

“Do as you wish, pet.”

He pushed away from the door to advance slowly on her. For the first time, she noticed he had walked inside without the cane.

“You have so far, Lacy, and look where you have me.”

That made her grin. She crisscrossed her hands to lift her gown but then thought better of the plan. She strolled forward, the coquette coming out to play with the man she adored. He halted at her advance, his feet planted firmly.

With a finger trailing down his chest, she leaned up and widened her eyes at him. “I’d rather see you.”

He snorted. “I am not as lovely.”

“To me you are,” she whispered and ran the tip of her nose down his throat.

“I am not as graceful, either.” He grasped her by the waist.

She smiled, wickedness in her wink. “You did not plan to seduce me, either, this morning when you dressed. So I am certain, you are encumbered with all sorts of clothes you now do not need.” She stepped backward and crossed her arms, the better to keep her hands to herself. “Go on, Colonel. I await your pleasure.”