What the Stubborn Viscount Desires Read online

  His pulse pounded in his ears. Heat rolled over him. Desire lanced through him and hardened his cock. He slid a hand down her back to her arse and pressed her body to his shaft. A moan threatened, but the additional friction didn’t alleviate the need.

  “Damnation, you feel so good.” Jonathan gripped her waist and lifted her, never breaking contact with her mouth, and shuttled her backward to deposit her upon the table. A few books fell to the floor at his feet with dull thuds.

  “Not as wonderful as you make me feel,” she murmured as their kiss broke. “Touch me like you did the first night we met.”

  Was there nothing this woman wouldn’t ask? “You are as bold in this as you are in everything else.” She was a wonder, and that made him want her even more.

  Her throaty chuckle went straight through his prick. “Did you truly expect anything less? I fully believe in throwing myself into every new experience with enthusiasm, for why else do them, and how else does a person learn?” Holding his gaze, she tugged down the bodice of her moss green dress, as well as the lace-edged petticoat beneath, and bared her breasts for his perusal. Thank God the window was high and the area shrouded in shadows. She wore the emerald they’d found the other day, along with her timepiece. The gold glimmered against her creamy skin. Arching an eyebrow, she grinned. “I’ve wanted this for a while. Do you dare?”

  “Always.” Her rose-colored nipples stood erect. Who was he to disappoint a lady? He bent and took one of those tips into his mouth while she wrapped a hand about his nape and guided him closer. One swipe of his tongue along the pebbled bud had her squirming. A second one made her back arch and give him greater access.

  He explored her satiny skin with his tongue, licking all around the puckered flesh before sucking the point back into his mouth. When she vibrated with need, he switched his attention to the other bud. The sweetness of apple blossoms mixed with the unique scent that was all her, and it tantalized him. He drank her in, devoured her, and still couldn’t get enough to satisfy the growing appetite he’d developed for this woman.

  “More.” Her whisper nearly undid him, but when she steadily undid the buttons on his jacket and then his waistcoat, he was lost. “Please.”

  Desire flooded his senses and guided instincts long since honed and denied. He cupped her lush breasts. The abundant mounds filled his hands and he pushed the pillowy masses together, pressed his face into them, rubbed his cheeks and chin against them so his stubble would scrape and tease—mark her. When she gasped, he tweaked the swollen nipples and rolled them before once more torturing them with his mouth, teeth and tongue.

  She parted her legs and he availed himself of the invitation, sliding her to the edge of the table until her center rubbed along the hardened bulge at the front of his trousers as he leaned over her. How gorgeous she was with her skirts rucked up about her waist and her breasts flushed with passion. Her eyes fluttered open and she peered at him, those blue depths questioning and dark in the shadow-drenched room.

  His cock throbbed. Oh yes, he wanted her.

  But this was Stephen’s sister. He’d promised the man’s memory to protect her from men like himself. Another swath of guilt hit, and his ardor cooled. He took a step back in order to put space between them, his chest heaving. “We cannot do this. I have no right.” He shoved a shaking hand though his hair. Her pout almost had him on his knees. “I refuse to take what belongs to your future husband.”

  Sophia huffed in annoyance. That little burst of air fluttered an escaped tendril of her hair. “That is not your decision to make.”

  “I won’t compromise your chances—”

  She snorted. “I’d say I’ve been well and truly ruined up until this point. What happens to me now will rest on my own shoulders, for society will toss me aside anyway.” Then she rolled her eyes. “I know my own mind, Jonathan. I know what I want, and in this moment, it’s you.” She sat up straighter and grabbed his shirt in a fist, reeling him back to her. “Haven’t we been dancing about this desire for weeks?”

  Damn and blast. Clever as well as enchanting. He wasn’t strong enough to resist or argue. Not right now. Especially now. “You’re certain?”

  “I am.” She nodded and tugged until he brought his mouth close to hers. “Besides, isn’t it best to come to a marriage with carnal experience over being a wondering virgin?” The minx managed to pull a portion of his shirt free of his trousers, and the moment her fingers glanced along his abdomen, his tight control skittered. “It will make relations go that much smoother if the time comes, when a man might look beyond what society considers failures on my part and consents to court me.”

  Bloody hell. A surge of hot jealousy filled his chest. He didn’t wish to think of her with another man, naked and quivering with desire on her wedding night, yet that was exactly what would happen eventually. Jonathan buried that thought deep at the back of his mind. But I’ll be the one to teach her how to pleasure a man. I’ll be the first to introduce her to coitus. No other man would possess the gift she freely gave. With a growl of victory, he claimed her lips in a crushing kiss.

  When he couldn’t maintain the contact he wanted, he slid his hands beneath her buttocks and lifted her. Sophia wrapped her legs around his waist, her body layering snug against his. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Archewyne what we did in this library. He will never let me live it down.” He propelled them across the hardwood until her back bumped against a stone wall.

  “Why would he think so?” She sucked in a breath when he slipped a hand between them and fumbled with the few buttons at the slit in her drawers. The evidence of her desire wet his fingers and his knuckles rubbed against her swollen bud.

  “Never mind.” He didn’t wish to think of his friend at such a moment. Jonathan kissed her again, so hard and so deep that it was him who pulled away first with a certain breathlessness. “This is madness.” Even so, he worked the buttons on his trousers and groaned when his engorged length sprang from the fabric confines.

  “If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be so thrilling or such fun,” she whispered, and when he transferred his grip to her thighs, she giggled as her legs spread. “Please hurry.” A sneeze followed the directive.

  Jonathan frowned. “Are you anxious?” He hefted her up, her weight slight in his hold, and fit the tip of his cock to her opening, bumping slightly into her passage. Teasing. Taunting. Torturing.

  “No. Yes.” She wriggled and then moaned as she gripped his shoulders to stay upright until he pressed her back to the wall once more. “It is hard to say at this point but I’m willing to experiment in any way you see fit.”

  The woman would land him into trouble, and everyone else around her if he wasn’t careful. And he absolutely wouldn’t let her alone any longer. When she feathered light kisses to the underside of his jaw, his concentration shattered.

  He claimed her lips again, drank from her, shared long drugging kisses with her, and when he speared his tongue into her mouth, he thrust into her tight channel, broke through her feminine resistance, and didn’t stop until he was fully seated and she was plastered to the wall behind her.

  “Aw, damn.” Heady sensations raced up his length to tingle in his stones. She fit around him snug like a tailored glove, and the heat of her crossed his eyes. “Have I hurt you?” It was a risk, taking a woman’s virginity. Sometimes there were hysterics and tears, which is why most men didn’t wish to bother bedding an innocent.

  Sophia wriggled. She wrapped her arms about his shoulders and held him closer. In his ear, she whispered, “There was some pain, but it’s manageable and…” Her words drifted off as he began to move within her. “Oh… my…” Of course she wasn’t a hysterical miss. “Don’t stop.” She embraced every aspect of the act.

  A purely primal grin curved his mouth. “Just wait.” Primed to the point of explosion, he stroked in and out at a fast pace and each time, her body gripped him, welcomed him in with heat and wonder. Deeper. Faster. Harder. Every thrust sucked him under waves
of building need. Each push hurtled him closer to the edge of oblivion.

  Sophia threw herself into this with the same enthusiasm that she did anything. She tightened her ankles about his waist, which encouraged him inside her so deep that he feared he’d lose himself. Her fingernails would no doubt leave crescents on his skin through his clothing, and the soft sounds she made at the back of her throat left him shuddering with the need to give in to bliss.

  He thrust again. She gasped and sucked in a breath. He stroked into her once more. She moaned, and then her whole body stiffened. As much as he would have adored prolonging this joining, his body fought him, and with his next push, Sophia shattered. Her inner muscles contracted around his shaft and pulled him along with her into release. As his cock pulsed and his chest heaved, he pressed into her, pinning her between his chest and the wall with his forehead layered to hers. She clung to him, her arms twined tight around his neck, her breath fanning warmth along his cheek.

  For a long time, their labored breathing rasped in the silence of the chamber, and finally he peeled himself from her with a self-conscious laugh. “Was it everything you’d hoped it would be?” What sort of nodcock was he to ask that sort of thing?

  But he truly wanted to know, and theirs was a rather unorthodox relationship.

  “It was, and more.” She framed his face with her palms until he met her shining gaze. “It was wonderful, Jonathan. I’m glad we shared it.”

  His chest tightened as he pulled out of her body, and when she sagged, he picked her up into his arms. “So am I.” Never had he spoken so much truth to a woman after finding release. He carried her over to a leather-bound, wing-backed chair and gently lowered her onto it. Her necklaces tinkled together. “Rest now.”

  She stretched, apparently uncaring that her breasts were still on display, and she offered him a tremulous smile. “Shall we continue our quest tomorrow?”

  To further their intimate acquaintance, or do more research? Then he sobered. Of course she didn’t mean lovemaking. This event was an aberration, a culmination of high emotion that wouldn’t repeat. Jonathan retrieved his greatcoat from the table where he’d flung it earlier. He covered her with the garment. “Sleep. I am not leaving this library until I figure out the damn answers to the riddle Basselton has set for me.” While she snuggled into his coat, he righted his clothing and returned to the table with renewed purpose and a clearer head.

  Too bad he didn’t know which answers he now sought.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A soft whoop of victory tugged Sophia from the doze she’d fallen into.

  She blinked open her eyes. Golden light from two lanterns illuminated the room. They rested on the table where Jonathan sat hunched in one of the high-backed chairs, his face close to the travel journal she’d abandoned earlier, and he again hooted with excitement.

  “This has to be it, but what the devil does it mean?”

  As she snuggled deeper into his greatcoat, she sighed. A smile of contentment curved her lips. What they’d shared had been nothing short of amazing. Startling and shocking to be sure, but amazing nonetheless. He had told her some of what haunted him, and she’d seen a different part of him, one she hadn’t expected. What sort of man took her hand offered at a gambling table merely to protect her from further machinations of her father?

  A blush raged in her cheeks as her thoughts lingered on the other bit they’d shared. Even during intercourse, the viscount had been intense. She shifted in the chair and a pleasant ache made itself known between her thighs, a constant reminder that she had indeed given herself freely and unapologetically to him, and in so doing, she’d somehow lost a piece of her heart.

  It was pointless, of course, to think anything permanent would happen between them. He’d already admitted during his exorcising of demons that marriage wasn’t for him due to his capacity as a king’s agent. Not to mention, he had already made it abundantly clear he intended to deliver her back to England and wash his hands of her.

  What they had enjoyed earlier had been a culmination of the raw desire building since the day she’d stepped into his cabin. It was mutual and a sort of physical comfort for them both. Nothing more. Her easy smile faded, and as surreptitiously as she could, she tugged her clothing back into place beneath the shield of his coat. Eventually they would leave Spain. He would continue his exciting life of adventure and danger, and she would resume her position within the Hawkins’ household. Their paths would cross, of course. Never again would they have that unique intimacy of now.

  But nothing could take away the glorious act they’d indulged in. That belonged exclusively to her—to them.

  She drew off the greatcoat and slipped from the chair. As soon as she took a few steps, Jonathan turned at the sound of her heels on the hardwood.

  “I apologize if I woke you in my enthusiasm.” His eyes glittered in the lamplight while he raked his gaze over her person. Did he fondly remember what they’d done?

  “Did you find the answers you sought?” She bit her bottom lip to stifle a smile when his focus lingered on her bosom. Yes, he remembered. Cheeky man, yet she liked the wave of feminine power that flowed through her from his notice.

  “I might have.” Jonathan turned back to the journal. “What it means, I’m not sure.” He handed her the journal and indicated a passage of interest. “What I do know is that this is all a game, and Basselton considers himself a puppet master of sorts.”

  “Why?” She moved closer to one of the lamps.

  “God knows, but I suspect he isn’t working alone.” A touch of surliness remained in his voice, but not as heavy as it once was. “For whatever reason, he’s set out clues—and easy ones at that—like breadcrumbs, hoping I’d follow along without question. Using the Spanish crown jewels as markers of sorts.”

  “For what purpose?” It was one thing for the man to leave clues, but it was quite another if he was deliberately drawing them farther off course. Chilling, really.

  “That is still to be determined.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s maddening.”

  Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been the last time she’d eaten.

  Jonathan’s laughter reverberated through her chest. “While you were sleeping, I rifled through an office at the other end of this floor. I found some cheese, a hunk of bread that is rather stale, and a few oranges. It’s not a meal by any stretch, but it will hold you over.” He met her gaze with a grin and indicated a plate covered by his handkerchief. “I figured you might be hungry.”

  “I appreciate that.” The fact he’d remembered her body’s wont to hunger warmed her. She frowned at the journal to distract herself. After pages and pages of breezy writing regarding Roman ruins beneath the city, one passage leapt out at her. She read aloud. “‘The holy cup of Christ, the treasure many have searched for yet few have found, remains a lost to the ages underground. The woman at the well knows the secret.’” She glanced at him. “What the devil does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. More research is required.”

  “How does the woman at the well—clearly a reference from the Bible—and Roman ruins come together? Unless that is not the underground referred to.” She narrowed her eyes at the handwritten pages. “True, rumors and legends say a chalice could have been brought to Spain from Rome through a servant and saint, but how much truth is there in such a tale? And why would any of it culminate here?”

  “There must be some if Basselton is hell bent on locating it. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless it’s all a ruse and there is no Chalice of Christ. Rathesborne wasn’t entirely certain such a relic existed, but agents are duty-bound to investigate on the off chance such things are in circulation.”

  Sophia shrugged. “Perhaps it does exist, but what if the Knights Templar moved it? They took an oath to guard it as well as other precious treasures. If the Chalice of Christ is real, there is every possibility it—the powerful relic, not the historical vessels—
has been spirited away and re-hidden by those knights. If that is the case, chances are we shall never find it.”

  “This is true.” He offered her a small smile. “You are an amazing fount of knowledge. Thank you for that.” While she beamed from his praise, the viscount rubbed a hand along his jaw where blond stubble clung to his skin. He held out the plate and whipped off the handkerchief. “Eat. I’ll continue to read.”

  She traded the journal for the plate. “Thank you.” Why would he not bring up the subject of what they’d done? “Jonathan, about what we shared—”

  “Please don’t say anything,” he interrupted and stood from the chair. “In the heat of the moment, we gave into passion. It is not a crime, and I don’t regret not being a gentleman.” In the dim light, his eyes darkened as he looked at her. “I needed you in that moment. I won’t apologize for it.”

  Her jaw hung open, and she closed it with an audible snap. This was groundbreaking on his part, admitting to needing someone, even if it was merely for a carnal release. “The only thing I wished to say was that I enjoyed it. There are no regrets on my part either.”

  “Oh.” Jonathan nodded. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “Back at it, then. The research, I mean. I’d rather not spend the remainder of my life in a library, no matter how pleasant the memories.”

  “Right.” Sophia wandered about the area as she nibbled on the chunk of sharp, crumbly cheese. The bread was indeed stale, but she ate some of it anyway. There had to be a reason they were led here, to this library, to this section, to this collection of volumes. She drifted back to the table and set the plate down in front of him. “Eat the rest. It’ll help keep up your strength.” She collected her reticule and two of the oranges. “Do you mind if I borrow your greatcoat? It’s quite chilly in here at night, especially near that far wall.” The one other option was to sit upon his lap and encourage him to kiss her for warmth, but that seemed unlikely.