Chapter 40
Chapter
He’s the goddamned Duke of Barclay. He doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want anything to do with his father or his brother or their tainted fucking legacy.
But he wants this. He wants her.
And if it’s good for nothing else, being the duke will let him have her. An earl’s daughter belongs with a duke in a way she never would with a salty sea-dog by-blow.
He makes his way over to her slowly, the rain keeping up its thick, hard cadence on the roof.
It’s insulating, that sound, such that it feels like they’re on their own little island together.
Just the two of them, somewhere in the wide blue ocean, listening to the rain.
Another moment he wishes he could hold in his hands and preserve forever.
“Catherine,” he whispers as he lies beside her, careful to keep the weight off his leg.
“Aye?” she says, and smiles his favorite smile. The one where her blue eyes are radiant with mischief and crinkling at the corners.
“What is it that you want?” he asks, and holds his breath that she wants the same thing he does.
“I want to be here with you,” she says. “Right now. I want to hold you in my arms, and I want to breathe in the scent of you. I want—what were those words you taught me?” She pretends to think while drumming her fingers against his arm. “Something to do with a cock, I believe it was. And a quim?”
His manhood rises to attention. It knows its name. “Aye,” he says. “But I cannae just roll ye about in the hay, lass. Like some common serving wench.”
“Oh, but you could. And I hope you will.” She wraps her arms around him and squeezes. “Just for tonight, we could be Catherine and Andrew, could we not? Until the rain stops?” She pauses, then says, “Please.”
He doesn’t need to be asked twice.
“Come here, lass,” he says, and carefully positions her astride him.
Catherine climbs atop him, wishing she wasn’t wearing a day gown with so many underskirts. But at least she’s not burdened with wire crinolines. It’s been a long, difficult, and frankly sweaty few days, and all she wants now is to be as close as possible to this man as quickly as she can manage it.
This man—the one with the emerald-green eyes and the black curly hair and the good, sweet soul—is hers. Andrew McGann is hers. She settles astride his hips with less grace than she’d like and reaches for his face, careful to avoid his injured thigh and ankle.
“Andrew,” she says, cupping his cheek in her hands. “All I want is for you to be my Andrew.”
“Aye. You have me.”
She leans forward to kiss him—a soft, languorous slide of her tongue against his lips, the rain keeping time on the roof and filling the air with the wondrous scents of Jamaica.
This, she thinks, is how I’d have wanted my wedding day to be, if I’d married for love. Air redolent with wild ginger and plumeria; hair tucked easily back in a simple twist. No glitter or crinolines or gowns with starched layers. Just this man with his blazing eyes and dark skin and sweet tongue.
Just the two of us together. Just Andrew and Catherine.
He meets her kiss, his arms holding her tightly against him. “Are ye certain, lass?” he asks, but she only puts her finger to his lips.
“More certain of this than of anything I’ve ever done in my whole life. Now lie still. Please.”
“You know I cannot resist when you ask nicely.”
“I do know,” she says, lifting the hem of his linen shirt. He wears no cravat nor overcoat here in the tropics. Another thing to like about Jamaica.
“Better,” she murmurs, and lays her lips on his bare throat and neck until he groans beneath her.
“Stay still,” she says as his hands come around to grip her hips. “Or you’ll hurt yourself.” She tweaks his nipple lightly and he jerks beneath her. “Still, Andrew.” She grins at him. “Or—”
She puts her teeth on him and bites. Just a little nibble, her teeth scraping lightly against his sensitive flesh.
“Careful, Menace,” he says and gives her rear end a swat. “Or you’ll be in for more than you bargained for.”
“Is that right?” She shifts her weight to standing and slowly unties her underskirts, letting them drop to the floor in front of his widened eyes. And then, once rid of them, she drops back to her knees beside him.
“And yet it seems to me,” she goes on, reaching for the first button of his trouser flap, “that you are here…” The second button goes. “And very much…” The third and fourth follow, and his hard length springs free from its enclosure. “At my mercy.”
She places her hand around his cock, just as she’s seen him do. “Is this right?” she asks, and he grunts.
“I’ll take that as an aye,” she says and squeezes a little harder, her hand sliding up and down the length of him.
“Menace,” he groans beneath her ministrations. “Come here.”
She lifts herself to meet his kiss, her hand still on him as his mouth claims hers, all heat and hunger. She doesn’t want to stop touching him—not now, while she still can. While they can still be Andrew and Catherine, before the rest of the world inevitably intrudes.
“Is that the kind of gown,” he asks finally, pulling away from her, “whose stays are easier to undo than to fasten again?”
She grins. “As a matter of fact,” she says, “I believe it is.” She reaches behind her to undo the lacing and slips the gown off. She wears only a chemise and a simple corset underneath—decidedly not the style in London. And thank heavens for small mercies.
She repositions herself atop him, her nipples brushing against the thin, sheer undergarment, her legs shaking slightly while he slides his hand up between her thighs.
“I can take it off,” she says, reaching for the hem of the chemise.
“Not yet,” he growls, in that low, rough tone of desire she loves. She closes her eyes for a moment at the sound of it, savoring how it mirrors the passion in his gaze and the ache building in her body.
“I want to look at ye. Just like that. Yer wee nipples pert and ready.” He tweaks them beneath the chemise, then returns his hand to her thighs, moving up between them. “And yer skin is so damnably soft. And yer quim—”
He bites off his words into a groan as his fingers slip between her folds, finding the wet evidence of her desire for him.
She loses herself in his touch. In the sweet slide of his hand between her thighs, in the way he stares into her eyes.
She doesn’t think any longer about the world outside this room or what it means for them.
She doesn’t think about anything but the smell of him and the taste of him and the feel of his fingertips on her skin.
The pad of his finger moves gently at first, gliding through her wet heat, circling the most sensitive parts of her.
She feels every sensation that shudders up her body, thick and strong, the intensity making her want more.
She moves against his hand, knowing now what she likes. What she wants, and how to find it.
“Andrew,” she murmurs and opens her eyes to stare at him.
He looks glazed and hungry, his breath already ragged.
She realizes her hands have fallen away from him and she reaches for his body, to touch him as he touches her.
He groans and slips his finger up into her, where she’s slick and hot and wanting.
She feels all her blood rush to the point where he touches her, where his fingers move deep inside her. When he begins to draw them back, she clenches around him instinctively, as if she could hold him there—inside her—forever.
“Menace, do you trust me?”
She opens her eyes and looks at him. “Yes,” she says. Because she does, with every part of her.
“Then hold still, lass, and spread your legs for me.”
She lays herself bare for him, her chemise pulled up to her hips and her knees splayed open so he can feast his eyes on her.
He whispers something that sounds an awful lot like Elphame help me, but she can’t make sense of it then, because he’s reaching for her again—and then lightly pressing his fingers against that central spot of pleasure.
“Andrew—” She presses herself against him, everything forgotten but the feel of his hands on her. The rough touch of his fingertips. The exquisite rise of her pleasure.
“Aye, lass,” he says. “I want you to find your satisfaction for me. Can ye do that?”
She can. She already is, sliding herself against his bear-paw hand as he presses and circles and, good heavens, flicks. He steers her body toward release and her eyes close again as her body fills with the purity of feeling instead of thinking.
She becomes solely a creature of sensation—full of want and heat and a building, burning ache. She pants and moans and strains against him until the orgasm overtakes her like a bolt of lightning and she explodes. A thousand points of light bursting into a million stars.
When she comes back to herself, he pulls her near.
“Do ye know what they call that, lass?” he asks. “They call it a le petite mort.”
“Hmm,” she says, lazy now and sated. “The little death?”
“Aye. I can only have one at a time, but women are luckier. Some have multiple little deaths.”
She feels her body perk back up at that. “Is that so?” she asks. “Like a cat with nine lives?”
“Aye. I dunno if we can make it to nine, but I’d be damnably happy to try if you are.”
“Oh,” she says, “I am.” But her attention is already turning back to his cock. It’s been too long since she touched him.
She feels greedy for him—for his skin and his moans and the grunts he makes. She wants every single touch, every sound, every taste. “How much can you move, Andrew? I don’t want to hurt you.”
He grins at her in a way that lights her up from tip to toe. “Dunnae worry, lass. There’s a way.”
He keeps his back leaning against the wall of the cabin as he pulls her astride him again with a rough, “Come here.”
He can barely think, can barely breathe, with his cock so close to her. He’s already leaking, already desperate to be inside her. In only her chemise, there’s nothing to separate them but his own willpower and desire to make this night last as long as he can.
But then she makes a little “oh” sound and brushes her sensitive outer lips against his cock. Lightly, so that he can feel her slick juices coating him. So that it would only take the slightest push to be inside her.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she murmurs, and he growls something along the lines of, “Christ, lass.” And then, when she presses against him once more, “Ye’ll be the death of me.”
“The little death,” she says and grins. “What next?”
“You take my hard cock in yer hand,” he says, “and ye guide it up into yer cunny. Go slowly. It might hurt the first time.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she says, and he feels her lean forward to cup his face until his heart nearly bursts. He doesn’t think there’s ever been anyone who’s cared for him as she does—who trusts him and protects him and who, Elphame help him, puts herself in danger for him over and over again.
“It might hurt you,” he says. “It doesnae always, but it might. Don’t worry about me.”
“I always worry about you,” she whispers, but she grasps him in her hand anyway and squeezes, using her own slick juices to let her hand slide up and down the length of him.
Christ, he’s never felt anything like it.
He sees stars before he’s even inside her.
His hips buck in her hand and he feels his release already curling at the base of his spine.
“Now?” she asks, and he makes some inarticulate noise that might be an aye before she slowly—so fucking slowly—slips him up and inside her.
“Are ye okay, lass?” he has just enough wherewithal to ask.
“Yes,” she says and wriggles about on top of him for a moment—such that it takes every ounce of strength he has to restrain himself. Not to move until she feels comfortable.
“There,” she says.
He groans beneath her weight and places his hands on her hips, moving her slowly back and forth. “Like that,” he says. “Christ. You move.”
She does, creating so much pleasure in him, so much feeling, that his mind walks right out the cabin door and leaves him alone with his body. All he can do is groan and feel and breathe beneath her.
“Talk to me, Catherine,” he grits out. “Can you find your pleasure again?”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I think so.” She adjusts her legs slightly and moves again, rocking her hips.
“Yes,” she says again, and he can tell from the change in her voice and the quickening of her pulse that a release is coming back upon her. And, Elphame help him, all he has to do is hold on until she finds it.
“Take it, lass,” he murmurs, his large hands grasping her hips as she moves quicker and quicker. “Take what’s yours.”
And then he’s only babbling, murmuring some string of letters and sounds that don’t mean anything at all. Pleasure ratchets up until he no longer has any hope of stopping it or controlling it. He’s desperate to fill her up with himself.
And then she begins to clench and shudder on top of him and he knows she’s found her peak once more. He has just enough presence of mind left to growl, “Off, lass,” before he grasps his cock and pulls himself free. With a few desperate, shuddering pumps, he brings himself off between them.
“Come here,” he mumbles to her when he’s finished, his eyes already closing in sleep.
“My lass,” he murmurs as she lies down next to him and he holds her. “My Catherine.”
And then he sleeps.