Chapter 4 #2
Holding her gaze, he lowered his lashes.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached down and caught the edge of her dress just below her knee, where her stockings were revealed, and inched the fabric upward.
He had lifted it no more than the span of a hand before the lady summoned the ladylike protest expected of her.
She whimpered. “Please.”
Culross caught several loose curls left artfully by her clever lady’s maid. He twined the silken tresses slowly around two fingers. The candlelight cast a fine glow upon strands that didn’t know whether they wished to be blonde, brown, or auburn, and settled upon a mesmerizing meld of the three.
Meghan’s breath caught the air. Her long siren’s lashes, cut of the same hue as her hair, fluttered like a butterfly’s wings.
Culross drew her curls close and inhaled deep the rosewater scent that clung to those tresses. “Please what?” he whispered silkily. His other hand began to glide her skirts slowly higher, exposing her bare limb to his worship. “Please put my hand in your hot cunny, Meghan?”
A little moan eased past her pink lips.
Satisfaction filled him. “Yes, that is right, little kitten.” He kept on in the silky murmur that had lowered her defenses. “You want my hand here.”
He palmed her mound.
Culross gritted his teeth. He’d be damned if he admitted to wanting her as badly as he did. “Even wetter than I’d imagined,” he said thickly.
Meghan bit at her lower lip. “P-Please.”
His breath grew ragged. How quick she’d surrendered. And how ridiculously much he wanted to—
“Stop,” she finished faintly.
The faint tremble in her voice, her uneven breath, made a mockery of the lady’s command.
Please, stop.
Unfortunate. “Such a shame,” he said. He would greatly enjoy tupping the beloved cousin of his greatest enemy.
“Let me kiss you,” he whispered, enticing her.
Doing so as much for her as for him. “Prove how unaffected you are by me.” He knew far better than to implore and had too much pride and no need to do so.
He also knew how to bring this obstinate spitfire to do his bidding.
“You think you are so skilled a lover.” Desire clouded her eyes, but the words she spoke displayed an admirable amount of control and strength. “You believe you’re irresistible, that I would never reject your obvious advances?”
The force which she hurled her obvious lie sent a fresh wave of blood to his unsated cock.
She tipped her chin up.
God, how had he failed to notice there was some beauty to the lady after all. Perhaps he’d been just so blinded by his goal for her sister that he hadn’t seen the more apt partner for him…and his lust.
Either of the sisters would’ve done. In their own way.
Unfortunate that. Things would be very different now.
Meghan bit at her lower lip. “Why?”
Her question stopped him.
“Why?” he repeated.
Meghan nodded hesitantly. “Do you…want me?”
Too bloody much.
He narrowed his eyes. His lust vanished. From the moment they’d locked eyes in the orangery, she’d sought the same thing her family did—power over him. They’d cost him an alliance. His pride.
His damned sanity.
They would take nothing else from him.
“Ah, Meghan with her bruised pride.” Culross pressed his hard cock against her cunny and rubbed in slow circles until the lady was moaning. “So desperate that you crave scraps of some attention from even an Archdale.”
She gave her head a dazed little shake. “What? N—!”
Culross released her skirts at once. The fabric fell back into place with a soft, whispering flutter of air between them.
“You’d love it if I told you how I want to strip you bare, lay you down, and bury myself between your sweet thighs. Is that it?”
Color exploded over her exposed cheeks. “No.”
Culross grabbed her quick by the shoulders. She gasped as he drew her up and in. He dragged a stare meant to punish over her. “I might be able to work myself up to it.”
The color bled from her cheeks.
Only when she ripped herself away from him did he realize he had retained his hold.
Meghan, her chest heaving, backed away. “I don’t like you much right now, August Archdale,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
He folded his arms lazily at his chest and stared as she bumped into a bush.
Meghan stumbled and then caught herself. She glanced at the potted plant and then whipped her gaze back to Culross. Her throat moved wildly.
Culross grinned. “Alas, fortunately for both of us, whether or not we like one another is irrelevant.”
With the pride of a princess, Meghan squared her shoulders back, gathered up her skirts, and started a slow march to the door.
He waited a moment.
“Meghan?” he called after her.
The lady whipped around fast.
Culross tossed her pair of gloves.
She caught them with ease.
“A fine catch, Miss Smith,” he said, in echo of those paltry compliments he’d paid her over a year ago.
The lady eyed him like he’d gone mad and then, shaking her head, she continued backing away.
When she reached the front, she took off running. She let herself out of the orangery, slamming the door shut hard behind her.
Restless, he stared through the glass doors until she’d gone.
Bloody unquenched lust. Cursing roundly, Culross adjusted his erection.
Off to the Smiths and McQuoids, she went.
Off to Hartwell.
Off to further cement an alliance and make it so that no one else could use the chit for gains outside their own.
Culross went stock-still.
And from the fertile seeds of hate, an idea was born.