Chapter 16
U nder that sweet, trusting, innocent avowal of Opal’s desire, Strathearn’s body fired hot. Lust pumped through his veins and left him hard in an instant and simultaneously enraged.
I want you to make love to me.
The harsh drag of breath he pulled in through his nose filled the stable.
The latest favor Opal enlisted his help with—lovemaking. She wanted him to prepare her for the one she loved; an honorable chap who’d give her his name and until his last dying day, live beside her.
With every rotten fiber of his selfish being, Strathearn despised the blackguard.
She wished to learn from Strathearn so she could give the gift of herself to another man—a man who’d not be a mystery to him, forever.
Strathearn wanted to hiss and snarl like a pitiless, bloodthirsty beast.
And yet…a primal, possessive satisfaction came for Strathearn in imagining he’d be the one to teach Opal; to tutor her. The roguish part of him—and it was the biggest, greatest—and also, the worst—thrilled at the prospect and relished knowing one day, when she belonged to another, that it had been he, Strathearn, who’d first coaxed her body to passion.
He went to war with himself, fighting the very battle Adam himself once toiled over in the Lord’s paradise.
Opal rested a hand upon his chest; she lay her palm upon the place where his heart pounded and lifted her gaze in supplication to meet his.
She was a grown woman. Opal knew what she wanted. That’s what he told himself to silence the angel on his shoulder demanding Strathearn not commit this greatest of sins against his best friend.
He wasn’t this strong.
“Opal,” he begged.
“ Please ,” she issued that husky, stark entreaty of her own that pilloried the last of his restraint.
He was done for.
His shaft throbbed; his breath hitched. This was utter lunacy.
Something about Opal Carmichael left him completely and totally mad and rendered him defenseless.
He sensed his own capitulation and knew the fall coming, yet remained powerless to stop it.
Looping a hand about Opal’s waist, he brought her body flush to his, drawing a breathless gasp from her trembling lips.
Jeeringly, Strathearn rubbed his rock-hard erection in deliberate circles over her belly. “You want me to take you, do you, mon Coeur ?”
His crude words and lewd undulating didn’t raise any terror. Instead, she sank her even white teeth into her lower lip and moaned.
“No, Locke,” she whispered.
No?
Strathearn jolted. Being a blackguard through and through, he’d have preferred Opal run him through with the five-foot-long, Renwick ancestral, steel-arming sword before ending this.
He squeezed his eyes shut. But he’d just as sooner cut off his own right hand with that same weapon before placing his desires ahead of hers.
Warm, delicate, fingers rested on the top of his hand.
His eyes flew open and his gaze collided with Opal’s unwavering, hypnotic one.
Without taking her eyes from his face, Opal, with the sensual allure of a self-assured woman who knew precisely what she wanted, guided his palm to her right breast.
Strathearn’s breath hitched. Like a starving man who’d just been given a loaf of life-saving bread, his fingers reflexively curled upon her bountiful flesh.
A low, guttural groan reverberated in his chest.
“Opal,” Strathearn bade, unsure whether he pleaded for her to spare his soul from this sin, or to let him make an altar of her body, and be the first to lay worship there.
The latter. God help me, it is the latter.
“I want you to be the first man I give myself to. I want you to show me what it’s like to know real passion.” Her luminous eyes glittered with all her truths. Her every avowal sent a fresh, fiery, bolt of lust through him, shattering his already broken defenses. “And I want you to make love to me right now, right here.”
His vainglorious pride burgeoned. She’d chosen Strathearn .
I’m going straight to hell.
And he was going to wear a smile when he did…
Strathearn curled his palm about her nape and angled her head to receive him. “I am lost, love because I’ve never been able to disappoint you,” he said huskily.
“I am found,” she said with a solemnness that scared the everlasting hell out of him and compelled him to stop.
He was too far gone.
Guiding her back against Zephyr’s stall door, Strathearn ultimately consecrated his soul to the ultimate sin and brushed his mouth over Opal’s. He worshipped the generous seam of her lips.
Unlike their passionate exchange before, now Strathearn kissed her slowly, deeply, easing her into the violent battle he intended to wage over her.
Looping her arms about his neck, Opal leaned up and into him, surrendering fully to his embrace.
His heartbeat surged. All his senses tunneled on one thing and one thing only: the innocent woman in his arms.
Strathearn savored the taste and feel of her. She was all intoxicating fire, and he reveled in the illicit pleasure that’d sent Icarus soaring for that fiery star.
Having become bored over the years, his tastes in lovemaking had become more violent and debauched. Not a single act he’d performed with any woman in the whole of his existence had possessed the potency or intimacy or majesty of this act now, here, with this woman.
“Locke,” she moaned.
Strathearn’s name emerged throaty and tremulous, and his blood thickened under the sultry, musical quality of her plea.
Not a single lover had ever used his given name.
Not a single person had.
He was: Duke. Your Grace. Strathearn. Only Opal addressed him in that intimate and confident way she did—and it set him afire.
Strathearn slipped his tongue inside and drank of her goodness.
In a deliberate, teasing, tempting parry, he glided his flesh about hers in sweeping movements that invited her to take part, only to retreat so Opal became the innocent lead in a dance more complex than the quadrille.
They each took time to explore and exult in the taste and feel of one another until they merged to become complete partners in the only set he wished to ever be part of.
Their breaths came fast in a matched rhythm to the pounding of Strathearn’s pulse hammering away in his ears.
Enflamed, he filled his palms with Opal’s well-rounded buttocks and massaged the flesh; he sculpted his fingers into the generous swells, luxuriating in the feel of her in his hands.
He crushed her gown in his hands. The fabric rustled noisily like the fireworks that crackled and fizzled at Vauxhall. It, combined with Opal’s low, hungry moan, contributed to a hedonistic symphony that drove Strathearn wild.
He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Do you like the feel of my hands on you, Opal?”
“M-More than anything, Locke.”
By the way she rocked her untried hips against him, Strathearn already knew the answer but hearing it on her lips further fanned the flames of his desire.
He buried his nose in the crevice where her shoulder met the slim, graceful swan’s length of her neck; he sucked lightly at the silken flesh and then blew softly upon the laved skin.
She cried out.
“You are so responsive to me, ma fee .”
Opal tipped her head, opening herself further to his erotic assault.
“I-Is that a good th-thing?” Her chest rose and fell like she’d run the lengths of his property.
“Oh, a very good thing.” Hiding a smile, Strathearn placed a tender kiss on her heated skin. “But there’s just one problem.”
“Su-Surely not,” she gasped.
“My hands.” Strathearn gave her a little nip.
“They are l-lovely.”
“Thank you. Though, we were discussing whether my hands were on you. They aren’t really on you, mon minette .”
An indistinct reply came followed by her low, agonized moan. Thrilling as much at her desire for him, as his power over her, he stroked his hands along her narrow waist and flared hips.
He glided his tongue and lips along her collarbone and collected the slight sheen of perspiration.
Moaning, Opal rubbed herself against him. “ Mmm . Y-You know, Locke.” She sank her teeth into her lower lip. “I-It feels very much as though your hands are on me.”
His breathing grew labored.
“ Are they ?” To illustrate his point, Strathearn tugged one strand of the gossamer lace bow at her waist.
He gave the other lace a pull. Her gown sagged.
Enflamed, Strathearn dipped his tongue within the crevice between her breasts.
“O-Oh, my,” she panted.
His amusement died a swift death. Oh, my, indeed.
Excitement and desire blazed within her eyes. Opal held his stare with both fearlessness and ferocity. This was why Caesar had risked his political power and people’s wrath for Cleopatra.
This was also what Strathearn knew it would be like to make love with fiery, undaunted, Lady Opal Carmichael. After she’d last visited, Strathearn hadn’t been able to fight that which he’d denied for so long—Opal had become an alluring, enchantress and he lusted and longed for her like the unrepentant rake he was. In some of the most depraved moments of his life, he’d lain in bed and been tortured by thoughts of the woman she’d become.
Now, she is mine…
Like the base, ravenous, animal he’d become, Strathearn pushed his body more firmly against hers, driving her more stolidly against the stable door, and anchoring her there.
“Do you want to feel my hands on your naked breasts, love?” he demanded; he continued running his tongue between the glorious orbs.
She attempted to rock herself into his cock, and cried out when he continued to deny her. “I want it!”
Strathearn drilled his cock more firmly into her belly. “The words, Opal. Give me the words.”
“I want to feel your hands on my naked breasts!” she rasped.
“Good girl.” He rewarded her honesty by freeing her some to move in her body’s natural rhythm.
Strathearn drew on a life’s worth of lust-filled instincts and restraint. As casual as a Sunday, he finally slipped her evening gown all the way past her breasts. He eased the material lower, until the shimmery garment slid along her hips, and pooled in an iridescent pink and white pool at their feet.
He gazed into her dazed eyes and waited.
Her cheeks flush, her mouth swollen and wet from his attention, Opal nodded.
Strathearn unfastened the ties at her waist. His pulse pounded erratically in his ears. Her stays took the same path her luxuriant dress had traveled moments prior, leaving Opal nude before him.
The earth stood still.
Hungry as he’d never been in his life, he rabidly devoured her with his eyes. Like she’d been designed by the Creator for Strathearn, Opal’s high, full breasts were the perfect fit to his palms. The blush pink of her areolas stood out vividly glorious upon her alabaster skin, that contrast made all the brighter by the enormous cherry-red nipples; nipples that begged for his mouth and lips. He could have spent his sorry existence dreaming about her ample flesh bared to his gaze and not once imagined their absolute and utter perfection.
He feasted on all of her—her slender waist, the curve of her hips, and long, supple legs that traveled on forever, and then he lingered at that thatch of midnight curls at the apex of her thighs.
Upon his venerated study, Opal’s creamy skin reddened. She hunched her shoulders slightly.
“No shyness,” he said hoarsely, unable to remove his gaze from her. “You are too exquisite a queen to hide from me, love.”
Her breath caught. “I am?”
From another Opal’s shy disbelief would have been coy and contrived. “You’re a goddess among mere morals,” he said thickly.
Strathearn stopped torturing them both and filled his hands with her fullness.
Moaning, Opal frenziedly rolled her hips against him, grinding her flat belly into his cock.
He hissed and fought the urge to yank his placard open, and draw her long, innocent fingers to where he needed her touch.
But this night was all for her, and he tunneled his on pleasuring her.
All the while Strathearn played with her breasts; tweaking her nipples, rolling them between her fingers, he worshipped a path along the soft, graceful length of her swan-like neck. As he went, he kissed, then lightly sucked each place his lips touched.
Opal’s head fell back and she opened herself even wider to him. Awed by the faith she put in him, he lowered his head and rewarded her by drawing one of her pebbled nipples deep into his mouth.
“Locke,” she cried out, his name both an erotic plea and invitation.
Afire, Strathearn fighting for breath, scooped his palms under the generous swells of Opal’s buttocks and lifted her up. Like the Venus she was, Opal brought her legs about his waist so the only barrier between her sweet cunny and him was the placard of his wool breeches.
“I want you so badly,” he rasped, massaging her flesh?
With a siren’s mewling that spilled from her lips, Opal rubbed herself against Strathearn’s length.
The rhythm of their breathing shifted and grew more frantic; the air grew charged and sparse between them.
“I want you, too, Locke. More than anything.” She gazed upon him with eyes like glittering, luminescent stars. “You’re the only one I want.”
Her vow threatened to send him into an all-out panic. Before he let reality intrude all the way in, Strathearn’s long history as a rogue, allowed him to drown out the terror and guilt at what he did here with his best friend’s innocent, young sister-in-law.
Bearing her in his arms, he led them to the vacant stable master’s quarters, grateful to Burrell and prepared to offer sizeable salary increases to each fellow who’d retired this night.
The minute he lay Opal upon the narrow cot, he stood over her and drank the sight in. With her hair hanging in a shimmery black waterfall of tangled curls about her waist she had the look of a siren at sea. “You are gorgeous, Opal.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Oh.”
How was it possible she had absolutely no idea the extent of her beauty or greatness?
Impatiently, he yanked his cravat free and tossed it aside. “If I were a good man, I’d end this,” he warned. “But I’m not a good man.”
She needed to know that. Before he went and completed his descent into hell, he needed her to know that. “I’m fast approaching a point of no return, and only you have the power to command me to stop and end this madness.”
“You are the best of men,” she spoke with a fervor that almost made him believe her. “Of everything that’s come to pass in my life, or will, or will ever be,” she said thickly, “the absolute only thing of which I’m certain is my need for you, Locke. You are the only man I—”
Terror sent his eyebrows into a full flare.
“I want to know first in this way,” she finished.
The man she wanted to know first in this way …
Instead of an appropriate relief, there came a sensation remarkably close to…regret. He chased it away.
Raw, primitive, masculine satisfaction freed Strathearn of his bothersome restraint. He shrugged out of his jacket. His white lawn shirt was next to follow. Then, his boots.
“You are the apple, mamour .” His fingers went to the waistband of his trousers. “You are the sweet, forbidden fruit worth carrying all man’s sins for.”
Daring her with his gaze, he pushed the garment down and kicked them aside, until he stood naked before her.
With the same zeal she went through life, Opal pushed herself up onto her elbows. She looked boldly at him with such innocence and zeal, his erection grew and throbbed.
Her eyes formed perfectly rounded moons. “Oh, my,” she whispered faintly.
His lips twitched. “A ‘good’ ‘oh, my’ or a ‘bad’ ‘oh, my?”
“A ‘you are more exquisitely made than the statues of David and Perseus combined’ oh my.”
Her reverent awe threatened to undo him.
“Part your legs for me,” he purred, his was both an order and an invitation.
The demand hadn’t even fully left his lips when she let her sweet thighs splay.
His body temperature soared.
“Good girl.” With a growl of appreciation, he came down over her.
As Strathearn took her lips in a voracious kiss, he stroked his right hand up and down the satiny expanse of her thigh.
Opal slid her long fingers through his hair and urged him closer. “Please, Locke,” she spurred him on.
“Do you know what you are begging for?”
“You!”
“That’s right.” His pulse pounded so hard, it filled his ears, near deafening.
Strathearn cupped her breasts and brought the supple flesh together. He played with the orbs; tweaking her nipples, tugging them lightly at first.
He lowered his mouth near one of the taut, rosy tips and stopped. “I am going to kiss you here, Opal,” he whispered. “I’m going to take your big nipples into my mouth, one at a time, and suck until you’re begging for surrender.”
Opal’s breath grew shallow, her body, listless.
A sheen of sweat popped out at his brow. “That excites you, doesn’t it?” he asked hoarsely. “The thought of me drawing these beautiful tips inside my mouth.”
He did just that—briefly. Strathearn came off the peak with a noisy pop.
Opal’s cry of frustration rang around the room.
“Yes, you love it.” His rough, graveled voice ruined the casual tone he attempted to adopt. “But…” He flicked his tongue back and forth over that sensitive flesh, drawing another wanton moan from her. “You also enjoy when I’m talking dirty to you.”
She arched her hips in answer.
“Mm. Mm,” he chided. “That will not do. Tell me,” he demanded.
Opal stared at him with fiery eyes. “I love both.”
Strathearn proceeded to reward her honesty; he licked and suckled her, lightly at first, and then with an increasing pressure and intensity that had Opal lifting and lowering her hips, simulating the exquisite act he’d initiate her to this night.
That only served to remind him of the favor she’d put to him. Hungry for her, he’d become so lost he’d forgotten the way this ultimately ended—with her marrying some other man.
A man he now prepared her for.
Rage briefly blinded him and he threw himself more fully into pleasuring her.
“What of your mystery love?” he snarled angrily, kissing her neck, and his question and ministrations were alternately used to tease and taunt. “Should he not be the one whose arms you seek?”
Her sooty black eyelashes lifted like it was a herculean chore. “I don’t… what ?” Confusion filled her eyes.
A pleased chuckle rumbled in his chest. He’d made her forget all about the man she wished to call ‘husband’ and Strathearn was more than happy benefitting from the other man’s neglect.
She isn’t yours. She can never be yours. Even if there weren’t some other man she loved. He was a rogue with a wicked past; an ugliness flowed in his veins. And there was Grimoire.
“Worry not,” he purred. “I will show you the way, mon Coeur .” Lowering his mouth to her breast, he drew the already puckered, moist tip deep into his mouth and suckled harder this time.
Opal sank into the thin mattress and keened so low and long that all the mounts within the stable grew restless.
Strathearn didn’t let up the attention he paid her breasts. He pressed the heel of his palm over her mound and applied just the right amount of pressure.
Opal’s breath caught on a sharp intake.
Growling like the monster he was, he pressed the long ridge of his erection against the small of her belly, so she could feel his hungering for her.
“He must not just prepare you to receive him,” he educated her on how it should be, “but so that you achieve surrender.”
Her eyes widened.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked sharply.
She shook her head wildly.
“I’m going to show you how it can be; how it must be,” he said harshly, rocking himself against her.
“Locke,” she moaned.
Yes. That was right. He’d show her pleasure the likes of which she’d never know again, and imprint upon her mind and body so that long after she left and married the husband, he now prepared her for, she’d think only of Strathearn.
“I’m going to touch you, Opal.” The jagged, serrated quality of his whisper leant a lie to the steadiness of his voice. “I’m going to touch you in a way that you will love, and you can use your fingers the same way I do to bring yourself exquisite release.”
There. Thinking of Opal frigging herself with her fingers, as opposed to some stranger helping coax her to an orgasm, made the flame of his lust burn hotter.
He reached down between them and threaded his fingers through her feathery soft nest of black curls covering her mound.
A hiss exploded from between Opal’s teeth and her hips shot up.
Reaching between their bodies, he slipped a finger inside her folds.
Opal cried out.
“Bloody hell.” A hiss slid between his tightly clenched lips. “You’re so hot for me.”
He rubbed his aching shaft in a circle along her silken thigh.
More of her sweet wetness coated his fingers. “That’s it, love,” he encouraged, as she rode his fingers.
Strathearn shifted his mouth and made to claim hers—and then stopped. “He must kiss you—everywhere…” he coached, and lowering his mouth to her breast, he drew the already puckered and pebbled tip deep into his mouth and suckled.
A hiss exploded from between Opal’s teeth and her hips shot up.
Hiding a smug smile, he used one hand to tease, touch, and explore her drenched center. With his other, Strathearn stroked her jaw and coaxed her. “Open for me,” he demanded.
Sighing, Opal granted him entry, and the same moment, he swept his tongue inside to feast, he slid a finger inside her channel.
Opal cried out; that hungry, ardent exclamation lost to his mouth. He stroked his tongue against hers, twirling the flesh around Opal’s again and again.
She was a quick study, as passionate in lovemaking as she was in every other aspect of her life; Opal tangled her fingers in his hair and forced Strathearn’s head so she could better lash her tongue against his.
The entire time, he switched between teasing her nub and gliding a finger inside, mimicking a rhythm as old as time.
Moaning, Opal rocked against his hand; undulating her hips.
Sweat trickled down his brow. His ballocks drew up tight. He wanted to bury his cock deep inside her. When had he ever had to wage a fierce battle against his animalistic urge to fuck?
Because with her, with Opal, it was…more.
Because she is Opal. Because she is everything.
He wanted her to know every happiness and feel unutterable pleasure with him.
That selfless hungering sent him slithering down her body. Going up onto his knees, he straddled her body and lowered his head to the only place he needed to be.
“L-Locke?” she asked, tremulously.
Tenderly, he placed a kiss along the inside of her inner thigh. He breathed in deep of the musky, womanly scent of her desire and his body trembled in response.
He focused on breathing. “Do you trust me?”
“M-More than anything.”
Her faith in him was nearly his undoing. “I’m going to make love to you with my mouth.”
Then, burying his face in the nest of her womanhood, he slipped his tongue inside her sodden sheath and proceeded to do just that.
A cross between a scream and sob left her lips and soared to the ceiling rafters.
Unrelentingly, Strathearn stroked Opal. He began slow and then drove up the speed with which he slid his tongue inside.
Knowing it’d drive her mad, he sucked on her nub.
Tangling her fingers in the thin cotton blanket upon the small bed, she arched her hips violently, grinding herself against him.
“Looocke!” The way she stretched the lone syllable of his name into three ravaged his fraying self-control.
Lost in her, lost in the driving need to bring her surcease, Strathearn forced himself to stop.
This time, Opal wept openly.
“Shh, my love,” he crooned, ragged, his chest heaving. “I am going to take care of you.”
Strathearn settled himself between her legs, and with the tip of his shaft poised at her entryway, he froze. His damp hair hung over his eyes, and he flung his neck to the side, to clear his vision, needing to see her as badly as he needed to be inside her. He drank in the vision of her here; wanting to cement the memory of her—of them—in his mind, and draw on it, forever.
Later he could wonder at why, and worry over it. For now—
Opal caught his damp face in her trembling fingers. “Do not stop,” she pleaded, lifting her hips in supplication.
“Never, love,” Strathearn vowed, and accepting that most glorious of invitations, he slowly entered her. Her molten wetness eased his way.
He gritted his teeth. Bloody hell, he’d never felt a channel as hot and tight as hers. His shoulders shook with the effort it took to not drive himself inside her.
Opal’s long, sooty, eyelashes fluttered. “What is it?” she whispered.
Incapable of words, Strathearn shook his head, and with their gazes locked, he plunged inside, joining his body with hers.
Hating himself for bringing her pain, he swallowed her sharp hiss under his kiss.
“I’m so sorry, Opal,” he whispered imploringly and placed his lips against her temple. “I’m so—”
“Why are you…? Why did you stop?” she whispered. Her features quavered. “Did I do something wrong?”
An anguished groan rose inside him. “No, love. You’ve done everything right. Everything you are, everything you do, always is.”
He lay his brow upon her glistening one. “I hurt—”
Opal writhed. “I’m not in p-pain.”
Strathearn froze. “You’re not?”
“No, you silly man.” Opal tilted her hips up. “Please—”
He kissed away the rest of that entreaty. “It’ll be my pleasure, love,” he purred and began to rock inside her, slow at first.
Twining her hands about his nape, she locked in on Strathearn and raised her hips to meet each of his downward thrusts.
They began to move as one.
No words were spared. None were needed. With the discordant tempo of their breaths, he and Opal remained captives of one another.
Strathearn palmed her right breast, and raised it to his mouth, making love to the flesh the way he now knew she loved. While he did, with his other, he massaged and caressed the neglected orb.
She’s close…
I’m close…
Moaning, Opal brought her knees up, and gripped him tight with her athletic legs.
With each rhythmic push, he plunged deeper until her movements grew jerky and uneven; urgent.
Opal gasped and rocked to his rhythm. Their slick bodies strained against one another.
“Locke?” Dismay sent her husky voice creeping up into a question.
“I’ll help you,” he rasped. “It’s all right, love.”
Strathearn bloody lied.
It wasn’t. Would it ever be again? How could it? Certainly, it wouldn’t for him.
His thoughts raced dizzyingly in time to the mayhem of his passion.
Drawing himself up onto his elbows, he gripped Opal harder by her hips, and drove himself deeper into her, until he felt her body tensing.
“Locke.” Each word came as a punctuated gasp. “I. Want. Pleease .”
Opal bit her lip so hard she drew blood.
Strathearn leaned down and gently sucked away those drops. Then, shifting his mouth near hers, he coaxed her, begged her. “Come for me, my love,” he pleaded.
When had he ever been this close to losing control? With Opal, everything was different. Nothing made sense, and at the same time, everything did.
Her eyes grew large; a look of surprise spread over her face, and then arching her back, Opal’s body spasmed. All the while she came, she sobbed Strathearn’s name.
Sweating, he flexed his hips violently, pumping himself inside, until a shuddery gasp left Opal’s lips and she collapsed under him.
Still, he wanted this moment to keep going. He wanted to live inside her like this, forever.
Gritting his teeth, he fought his own release. The glove-like feel of her channel still spasming around his cock, proved his breaking point.
Opal.
With a dying gasp, he wrenched himself out of her and came in long, juddering spurts onto the stable floor.
And then, sapped of energy, emotionally and physically replete, he collapsed in her arms.