Ensnared by Innocence Read online

  “I told you”—my, she sounded winded and her stomach kept twitching, every time he touched her a little differently—“I am not innocent.”

  “I know what you said. I have not forgotten.” He leaned in and inhaled. “I happen to disagree. Heartily.”

  She couldn’t remain still any longer and wiggled her hips, restless. He pushed one long, blunt finger inside her passage. It slid in easily, flowing into her body as if it belonged. Her muscles gripped him and held tight when he would have pulled away. Her hands fluttered, releasing her gown, and she grasped for purchase upon his shoulders.

  “You are so swollen, drenched…ready for me.” Now he sounded proud, and she couldn’t stop a tremulous smile from curving her lips. Thank you, body, for whatever instincts you’re heeding.

  Who knew, that with the right person, this would feel so grand? Not hurt at all. Except for the gnawing ache growing in her abdomen and lower. A fierce pressure that wound tighter every second.

  He added another finger, thrusting them both high. At the exquisite sensations, she almost lost her footing. Though he steadied her, he didn’t halt his motions. Her body was rocking against his touch, taking his fingers farther inside. New vibrations bombarded her, growing outward from her slit, encompassing her trembling thighs, her stomach—which clenched with every forceful thrust of his hand—but still, she ached for more… Needed it all.

  “I need.” He echoed her desire as he growled the words, unfastening his pantaloons with his free hand. The stars shone down benevolently, the considerate moon beaming just enough as he released his shaft and fisted it. Her tongue slipped from her mouth to wet her lower lip. She wanted…

  “A taste,” he said, reading her mind again. “I must taste you.”

  He rotated his fingers inside her, capturing the essence that flowed forth. Easing his hand free, he ran his fingers under his nose, staring at her, inhaling…the act so horridly decadent, so impossibly sensual, that it would have stolen her wits if she’d had any to spare.

  Stars and seduction… Her senses spun faster than the overhead canopy. “My, you are debauched.”

  The whisper only sounded like a compliment.

  “Aye, I am.” And he took it as such, nostrils flaring, that haughty bearing of his only increasing.

  Then he stood, still holding his erection and holding her gaze. How was it his eyes seemed to blaze? As if lit from within…a fire that raged in his soul. For her. Gracious, she was burning up.

  He came close enough to kiss and placed his longest finger between their lips, proceeding to lick it clean with slow, thorough swipes of his tongue that touched her mouth as he washed the juices from her body off his.

  Francine smelled herself, felt the pressure of his finger against her closed lips, felt his moist flesh traverse over his finger, caressing her mouth with each torturously slow glide of his wicked, delightful tongue. A mew of protest, of yearning, escaped her trembling lips. She longed to join in but inexperience held her back.

  Her lower muscles spasmed, wrenching her hips forward.

  “All done,” he said, rubbing her lips with the pad of his finger before removing it.

  Warm flesh nudged between her legs. Thicker than before…

  Francine moaned, staring into his smoldering eyes and slanting her pelvis, desperate to impale herself.

  “Share?” he invited, placing his second naughty, coated finger at her mouth.

  He’d now proven her earlier assessment accurate—he was a tormenting demon and she was so very wicked. For even considering…

  She unclenched her jaw and her tongue came out, just barely grazing his slick skin. Salty tang invaded her senses, made her head spin and her senses swim. For though she’d touched herself before, she’d certainly never tasted.

  A second later, his tongue met hers and he slid his finger away, replacing it with his mouth. She mimicked his actions, licking his tongue with hers. At once he tensed and withdrew.

  “Come back,” she begged, her tongue bereft. “I was not finished—”

  Then he was there, giving her what she needed, licking her lips, plunging his tongue inside her mouth the same instant he drove into her body.

  Yes.

  Pure sweet sensation burst through her. Her cleft expanded, acclimating to him…his breadth, his length. He held himself motionless, breathing into her mouth.

  She wound her fingers in his hair and guided him even closer. That released his restraint and he ground their lips together, thrusting his tongue deeper and gliding it sinuously over hers. She felt consumed. Alive. Gloriously alive.

  No need to bemoan that it wasn’t bright enough to see every single detail. She could remember how black his hair, how strong his jaw. She could remember the haughty way he’d first looked down his nose at her and the sardonic tilt of his lips when he’d instantly declined her proposition. She could smell his scent—man. Primal, spicy, sex-crazed man.

  But most of all, she could feel him—feel his hands curved around the back of her head, feel his fingers burrowing past the dangling ringlets and through her upswept hair, feel the weight of his palms as he released her head to trail his hands over her shoulders and down her back…and lower. She could feel his staff lunging inside her, feel her inner muscles rippling along its length. Clasping tight, pulling him higher. All the way into the depths of her body. Oh my, oh-mazing.

  Who needed to see when they had Lord Blakely making them feel?

  A moan escaped her throat and she swirled her tongue against his. He dove deep in her mouth, exploring every hidden recess as his hands came to rest on the swells of her buttocks. She sucked harder on his tongue and he gripped her arse firmly, holding her snug against his length. Francine lifted her feet from the ground, allowing him to support her weight. The moment she wrapped her legs around his waist, her body convulsed around his shaft, pulling him in until she sank so far down, their pubic hair met, tangled. Tied her in knots. Thrilled her to her core.

  This is what she’d been missing. And she hadn’t even known it. Real feeling. Real emotion. Desire—wanting to be close to another human being. Wanting to be pummeled from the inside out. She forgot every concern that haunted her and gave herself up to the night, to this man. This experience. She tugged his hair, loving the unexpected wildness of their coupling.

  His grip tightened on her bottom, lifting her until he almost slid free, then he brought her down, crashing into his abdomen. Ankles crossed for leverage, her thighs squeezed his body, telling him without words, More. Harder!

  He listened.

  The tips of his fingers delved inward toward her most private regions and he spread the cheeks of her arse. Cool night air assailed her anus. Francine hugged his shaft with her passage, amazed. This wasn’t a dream. It was real.

  Lord Blakely’s strummer. Inside her. Pleasuring her in ways she hadn’t thought to ever know.

  He grunted and pulled away from her mouth to latch on to her collarbone. His hips pumped, driving his long rod in so deep it hurt. Wonderfully.

  He braced her against the tree trunk and shifted his arms, wedging his fingers between her thighs and his to caress her intimately. The top of her cleft was on fire. He touched and teased.

  She squealed and screamed.

  The bark of the tree scraped against her back, snagging the delicate fabric of her gown, but Francine didn’t care. Again, he lunged, thrusting higher. His fingers pinched and rolled her flesh. His hands grabbed her arse and held tight. She pulled his hair harder, unable to temper the force of her actions.

  She loved his raw power, the way he touched a part of her she’d held back for years, stifled first under the weight of grief, then under the strident propriety of her relatives, now freed thanks to his rugged stimulation. With no thought nor care to decorum, Lord Blakely physically adored her body in such a manner she felt truly cherished.

  His teeth sank into her shoulder and she exploded, fire erupting along her channel, within her abdomen, encircling her heart.
r />   Tears of joy, of release, flowed down her cheeks as he heaved and pounded into her. Then he wrenched himself free, climaxing to the side with a growl that echoed throughout the garden.

  5

  Anxious Anticipation

  The armed guards deliver raw meat once a day through the iron grill I had installed. In my saner moments—before this yearly hell starts in earnest—I have convinced them I’m training a cross breed. A new type of hunting dog, one paired with a wolf. Or perhaps one of those thought-to-be-extinct cave critters…

  Pah. Better to secure my place in Hell with a lie than a lion—dining on some unsuspecting human.

  Just the thought sickens me. Anguish rolls through my veins in lieu of blood. What has befallen me? Could my days be any more wretched?

  Could the day be any more glorious?

  The light from the window shone brighter.

  The bird calls sounded cheerier. The late-morning chatter from her cousins less insipid.

  Even last week’s embroidery efforts didn’t appear quite so disastrous when she held the piece up for inspection.

  What a truly spectacular day!

  At least, that was how it’d seemed—two hours ago.

  Francine sat in the drawing room peering through her spectacles at the embroidery floss mangled about her fingertips, above the cut-off gloves. Despite how many times her aunt complained and insisted she purchase a new pair, Francine had trimmed the finger fabric away so she could better attempt some modicum of decent stitchery—hopeless attempt, though it might be.

  How she’d rather be outside, sans gloves altogether, with her hands palm-deep in the earth, vacating weeds from their expired reservation in the garden.

  But remain indoors during calling hours she must, on the distinct possibility that Lord Blakely would pay a visit and ask for her hand.

  If, that was, he hadn’t changed his mind.

  If last night hadn’t been a trick, or a lark.

  Spark with the naïve, bespectacled chit, take what she recklessly offers and depart.

  Nay! He’ll not treat you thus. He cannot, part of her insisted.

  While the other, more cautious part demanded, And just what makes him different from any other arrogant, indulged lord of the ton?

  His inner demons.

  His what?!

  And there it was—the truth laid bare. Some of it at least. For ever since that first, awed glimpse of him at the Seftons’ ages ago, she’d sensed they both battled inner torment. Secrets that were theirs alone to bear, kept securely hidden from others—except in rare, brief unguarded moments.

  Secrets. Such as the silly reason she kept attempting needlework even with her decided lack of talent. Especially despite how it actually pleased her aunt to see her engaged in such a domestic endeavor. Not that Francine ever went out of her way to thwart her aunt—well, not excessively so, if she were being completely honest. Neither did she relish making an effort to please her aunt, either. Certainly, not lately.

  Nay, she stitched—or attempted to—because it made her feel close to her mother’s memory. The quiet, repetitive task bringing recollections to the fore, ones that produced soft sighs and happy smiles. Ones she didn’t want to let fade.

  Her secrets? The cause was easy enough to identify. After Mama lost three young babes mere days from the womb, she and her fourth-born had become especially close. Much more than typical for a duchess and her young daughter.

  Whether cavorting through the manor, playing hide-and-go-seek together or running free over the estate, swimming in the lake, even the Latin lessons Mama insisted would benefit their only living child as she matured, Francine and her mother were more than family. They were friends. Confidants, even.

  Oh, they both had friends their own age as well, and each had their own individual interests too. Mama couldn’t abide dirt anywhere—much less seek to invite it upon her person or beneath her nails, and Francine would rather walk behind the carriage and shovel up after Papa’s matched bays than spend an afternoon plying a needle and thread as Mama had once been so very accomplished at…

  And then later, when Mama’s condition became worse, Francine would read to her, find other ways they could still ramble about the manner and estate grounds, even if slower.

  Neither had Papa been excluded from their antics. One winter when storms stranded travelers nearby and Papa learned of their plight, he’d invited the family in out of the blizzard and played along with a twelve-year-old Francine who pretended to be a maid of all work instead of his daughter. He and Mama had laughed about it for days afterward.

  She shut her eyes against the pang of memories.

  Heartwarming though they might be, they also invited comparisons to the present. The present that, given her current environment, was decidedly lacking. Squeezed both eyes hard, needing to block out the memories that came after. Clenched the floss a bit tighter and breathed through the pain of loss. The loneliness.

  Relocating from the boisterous, playful existence she’d known for most of her sixteen and a half years to the perfectly proper, exceedingly dull and critical abode of her aunt and uncle hadn’t shocked the joy out of Francine, only sent it scurrying underground.

  Is that why you like to dig in the dirt?

  She relaxed her eyes and fist, allowed a small smile.

  Nay. I like watching things grow. From an unremarkable seed to a magnificent bloom. To a flower or a fruit. Herbs or vegetables. It mattered not what the end result, only that seeing the change, the growth, and knowing she’d had a hand in it comforted her as little else.

  Cut through the placid pall that hovered over and around her since moving to London and cleared the fog, made way for the sun.

  Much like your Lord Blakely?

  Only if starlight be sun. And his darkness something I can cut through…

  Why she was so certain he had secrets, heavy ones, perched upon his broad shoulders, she couldn’t quite explain. But just as she knew—sensed—right before a bud poked through the dirt that it was on its way, she knew.

  The haughty, droll, seemingly self-sufficient man she harbored a secret tendre for needed her. And Francine was determined to find out exactly what she could do to help him.

  If, that was, he actually deigned to appear today.

  She’d like to repay him for the gifts he’d given her last night—not only of his promised assistance, but the gift of feeling again.

  Multiply that by his unintended rescue several years ago, and why, ’twas no wonder she thought frequently of the man. All right, constantly of the man…

  Now Lord Blakely’s secrets?

  The ones she instinctively knew existed and longed to know more about?

  Instead of assuaging her curiosity or dampening her interest, time spent in his presence only sent her need to know more about him soaring.

  After the act of passion she’d experienced in his arms last night, he’d efficiently gone about setting their clothing to rights, retrieved her shawl from the ground and placed it about her shoulders. Then he took her by the arm and escorted her to their host’s back patio, just steps away from where guests laughed and danced, having no thought nor clue to the monumental event that had just occurred in Francine’s body. In her life.

  With a bow and the gentle application of his lips upon the back of her gloved hand, Lord Blakely had stated, “I will call upon you tomorrow to pay my address. Be ready to receive me at three o’clock.”

  Then he was gone, leaving her to wonder if his slight emphasis on the word receive meant what she fancied it might.

  But it was half past five already. Why give her a time if he didn’t intend to honor it? He had raised her hopes, only to dash them with his tardiness, the scurrilous beast.

  Determined to accomplish something this afternoon other than counting minutes that passed far too slowly, she once again smoothed the threads of floss. Her forehead pinched, a sharp tug that stole her attention. Ugh, she was straining again.

  Breat
he slowly. Ease the pressure away.

  She consciously unknit her brow, blinking several times, then concentrated on seeing the far corner. Things were more blurred than usual and her eyes felt especially tired. That’s what you get for embroidering three hours straight.

  Burford, her aunt’s butler and Francine’s favorite servant in the townhouse, had checked on her twice in the last hour, no doubt wondering why she spent the long afternoon toiling at her least favorite task. Why had she not succumbed to the splendid weather beckoning her outside and into the garden?

  Mayhap she should have forewarned Burford she might have a caller. But as it happened so rarely these days—without her aunt’s scheming behind it—the notion might have given the elderly servant heart palpitations. Mayhap you do not want to let anyone else know of your rash actions of last night in case they do not bear ripe fruit today?

  No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on her handwork, the doubts kept plaguing her. Had he entertained second thoughts after agreeing to pose as her betrothed, or was it her request they become lovers that caused his hesitation? Why had he been so intent on intimidating her? Requesting that she as much as vanish at his leisure, then expressing such surprise when she instantly agreed?

  Of course she’d agreed. Having come so close to obtaining what she wanted, she wasn’t about to quibble over anything that might interfere. She was determined to be all that was agreeable—in every matter—to ensure Lord Blakely had no cause to regret their bargain or to desire anyone other than her at his side for its duration. If she made it her goal to satisfy every one of his desires, then he would have no reason to wish her gone, and the time until her birthday would fly by without compare.

  If he appeared today.

  Her aunt and cousins had already retired to their rooms for their daily restorative, leaving Francine to wait alone—thank goodness—but what could be keeping Lord Blak—

  Pain shot through her hand.

  Drat!