What the Stubborn Viscount Desires Read online

  “Believe what you want, Viscount Trewellain.” Heightened sensation raced over her person while an odd quickening curled in the pit of her belly.

  “I often do.” His breath skated over her cheek, scented faintly of tea as he leaned closer. “I’m curious. Is that what you think of me, then?” The purr in his voice remained, and with each inflection, the flutters in her belly intensified. “That I take women to my bed without thought to anything other than what’s between their legs? That I merely desire the release?”

  “Um…” Sophia froze. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. With him so close, so suddenly overwhelming and filling the space with his presence, her brain stuttered even as her body experienced an awakening of sorts. She met his dark eyes in the gloom, their depths unreadable. “In all honesty, I’ve not particularly given thought to what you do between a woman’s legs or your own, for that matter.” Heat flooded her face. Dear heavens, how had she gotten into such a mess?

  “More’s the pity, for as you said, we are engaged, so a bit of slap and tickle would be perfectly acceptable.” He moved his hand upward and paused just shy of brushing the underside of her left breast.

  Sophia bit back a whimper. “You and I are experiencing a gross misunderstanding.” She turned onto her right side toward him and put out a hand with the intent of staying him, but her fingers glanced over a bare chest—a very bare chest—sprinkled with coarse hair that rasped against her palm, and she gasped. She gave him an experimental push, but he didn’t budge, much like a hard wall. Oh my. He is quite solid. The experience was novel, for how often had she been given the opportunity to touch a half-naked man? Never, that’s when. She sneezed, but didn’t remove her hand. The flex of muscles beneath her fingertips sent her heartbeat fluttering.

  “Oh, I am not certain about that. These circumstances are much too nice and tidy for anything like that. Almost as if you’d planned them.” The viscount slipped his left hand beneath her and with his right, encouraged her onto her back, effectively trapping her in his web. “Who am I to disappoint a lady’s imaginings?”

  Get hold of yourself, Sophia. Use this as an opportunity to gain what you want.

  “Except I have never imagined myself in your bed.” If her protest was a tad breathless and her lie too bold, she ignored it. She’d had plenty of time to think about what it might be like with him over the years since her father gambled her hand into his keeping, but never did she believe anything would come of it. He’d never shown himself; perhaps he’d forgotten. Yet almost of its own accord, her hand explored the upper part of his chest and his shoulder. The viscount was well-muscled, and that surprised her because she assumed he was only what the rumors said—a laze-about and a rake.

  Was all of that wrong? Was he truly a king’s man? Perhaps she had misconstrued the fleeting glimpse she’d read on that paperwork.

  “Then let me disabuse you of that oversight.” He caught her hand and removed it from his person. She clenched her other, caught beneath him, in the sheets. The hard wall of his chest layered against her side, and the heat of his body seeped into hers. The new circumstances brought a heady mix of excitement, anxiety and mysterious anticipation. “I will show you exactly what you think I am.” The viscount wrenched the bedclothes from her body, and the sudden kiss of cooler air pulled a gasp from her.

  “What…” She forced a swallow into her tight throat. “Surely you don’t… you wouldn’t dare to—”

  His rumble of laughter sent surges of need through her veins. “In matters of pleasure as well as life, Miss Wickham, I dare to do everything.”

  Sophia had no time to voice a protest or anything else for that matter before he’d returned his hand to her belly, and this time he didn’t leave it stationary. He danced his fingers up her torso, between the valley of her breasts, to caress the side of her neck. Heat and tingles trailed in his wake. The viscount drew abstract designs on her skin, never saying a word, but his dark eyes bore into hers as if he tried to convey a message, but she couldn’t understand.

  And then she could do nothing except concentrate on what his clever fingers did to her body. When he finished caressing her neck, he traced her collarbones with those same digits. Lower and lower his touch drifted, the pad of his thumb glancing over the top slope of first one breast followed by the other.

  She trembled with both need and the sense she should call a halt to such scandalous proceedings, but she’d never been one to hide from curiosity, and being here on this ship in order to chase her own future was so intoxicating she wished to explore further.

  Closer and closer his fingers came as they danced and stroked over her petticoat-covered nipples. This time a whimper escaped before she could tamp it down. Would he touch her there, where her need concentrated most? Her breath caught as she stared into his fathomless eyes. The faint smile curving his sensuous lips was more grim than anything else. What did that mean? She couldn’t say, didn’t care to conjecture, for he lowered his head and fit that wonderful mouth to one of her erect and aching tips.

  A breath shuddered out of her, whether from the break of the intense connection of their gazes or the sudden heat on her skin, the delicious rasp of his tongue against the nipple, she couldn’t say. She could only feel. “Oh.” The whispered word held surprise as she fisted the sheet in her hand. This is… lovely.

  The viscount lifted his head, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “Is this what you assume I do to any female who crosses my path, Miss Wickham?” He circled her breast with his fingers, and with each pass, the recently suckled tip tightened almost painfully. “That I have no control over my baser urges?” He rolled the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure swamped her and she writhed from his attention.

  “I didn’t…” She panted, crying out when he tweaked the sensitized peak. On the heels of a gasp, she said, “I had no idea I could feel…” To hell with trying to put what she experienced in words. He didn’t care; he merely played with her as if she were the mouse to his cat. Around and around he drew his fingers about that abused nipple. He strummed those digits over it, went so far to give it a sharp pinch, and when she gasped, he transferred his attention to her other breast to begin the process all over again.

  The longer he played, the more anxious she became, yet it wasn’t nerves that made her feel energized with a throbbing need—hot desire—building through her lower belly and into her core. Sophia bent her left knee. She wriggled from his attention, but nothing stayed his hand or called off his relentless lesson.

  “Jonathan, please.” Bloody hell, but she’d used his Christian name without permission, but then didn’t care. She needed him to stop, needed him to continue, for if he did, perhaps she might know what would happen to halt this swamping and terrible pressure.

  “Or perhaps this is what you assume I do to every woman of my acquaintance,” he said and the whispered, conversational tone took a decidedly bitter note. The viscount left off his torment of her breasts only to slide his hand down her torso, over her abdomen to glance his talented fingers along her mons. “This is what you want, correct, Miss Wickham?”

  She couldn’t be certain, but she thought anger had returned to his voice. Why? Then every thought flew out of her mind when he moved his hand lower still and pressed his fingers between her thighs, finding the center of her being albeit through her clothing. A surprised yelp escaped her, and she bucked her hips into his hand.

  The viscount wasn’t as immune to the situation as he’d portrayed, for a groan emanated from him, and the manly portion of his anatomy stiffened as it lay pressed against her hip through the trousers he wore. He said nothing more, merely rubbed those fingers along her folds until he returned to the swelling bud he’d just awakened.

  Sophia feared she would break apart from the fierce tension that built inside her. How did a touch to one portion of her body provoke such heavenly feelings? Against her better judgment she let him continue to rub that all-important button, lay ownership to the bundle
of nerves that seemed to hold her form together. Pressure stacked and mounted. What would happen to break the needful throbbing?

  “Oh, oh, my goodness.” Higher and higher she went the more he provided friction on that little nubbin. “I am going to break apart.” She moaned from the sheer wonder of what he evoked in her.

  The viscount remained silent, an unmovable rock while her body writhed and thrashed.

  And why, if relations between men and women were so terribly wonderful, did the viscount not wish to explore it with her? She clawed her way to the surface of the sensations of pleasure currently swamping her and forced her eyes open. Catching his gaze, she managed to gasp out, “Why, Jonathan? Why did you never come to my father’s home to claim me?” Then she fell back into the frenzied, drugging passion he’d invoked inside her.

  He froze for the space of a heartbeat, his fingers on her throbbing button, but he said nothing, didn’t even utter a grunt. After a silent second broken only by her labored breathing, he continued his quest to drive her mad.

  Higher and higher the sensations pushed her. Harder and harder he rubbed his fingers over her nubbin. Greater and greater his manhood swelled against her hip. She imagined what that length might look like, how it would feel if they were both naked and he slid that part of him into her as his weight pressed on top of her.

  The bands of need snapped and the dam holding back the pressure shattered. Bliss unlike any she’d ever known raced through her veins and over her skin so quickly that a low cry tore from her throat, full of surprise and delight. “Damn and blast, that was quite… something,” she managed to gasp out. Flutters tickled her core while those walls convulsed. As she clamped her thighs together to prolong the sensations, he removed his hand from her person. Even though she’d been brought to release, a hunger for something greater had her body clenching. “Finish me, Jonathan. I am still in need.”

  “Bloody hell.” Instead of embracing her as she thought, the viscount launched from the bed. The dull thud of his boots echoed in the small space. “You are more daft than I figured.”

  “What do you mean?” She levered up on her elbow and stared in his direction. Some of the tingles he created faded.

  “You are nothing more than a light skirt, and a wretched one at that.” When he approached the bed once more, an envelope clutched in one hand, his greatcoat over that arm, his gaze flashed with livid anger.

  She rolled her eyes. “It certainly felt as if your body disagreed.”

  After muttering a few black curses that had her eyebrows lifting, he said, “You want to know why I never called and claimed you. I’ll tell you.” He shoved his free hand through his hair, leaving it in furrowed blond rows. “I never wanted you, and I certainly don’t want you now, and especially not like this.” He held up the envelope, and then meeting her gaze, he tore the vellum up thrice and then tossed the pieces in her direction. “If you wish to be in my life, Miss Wickham, you need to start with the truth instead of something degrading like this.”

  “But I was… but I didn’t…” She trailed off at his quelling glance.

  Never had she seen a man so angry. He was the personification of a summer thunderstorm. “I refuse to be with a woman out of obligation or desperation, and in your case both apply.” He turned about so sharply that he stumbled but recovered. When he reached the door, he paused but then yanked the portal open.

  Sophia struggled into a sitting position. The torn paper crackled around her. “Where are you going?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded small in the darkness.

  “Somewhere away from here. Perhaps I’ll spend the night on deck, for this night has certainly lost whatever charm it might have had.” Then he was gone, and the reverberations from the slamming door echoed after him.

  Chapter Five

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Jonathan rested his forearms on the railing on the deck while a few Navy men attended to tasks around him. The chill in the nighttime air cooled his overheated skin, and well it should, for he hadn’t taken the time to put on his shirt before he’d stormed out of his quarters. He’d been in Miss Wickham’s company for all of a handful of hours and already he’d violated her in an intimate way, without thinking and without intent to make the experience memorable for her.

  To say nothing of the mission he should have been engrossing himself in. He’d yet to read the whole dossier through, but Miss Wickham had certainly wasted no time in availing herself of those classified papers.

  How much had she read before he’d interrupted? His blood ran cold. God, I’ve already mucked up this case. Rathesborne’s going to tear me apart.

  He groaned and buried his face in his hands as his thoughts bounced back to his unlikely cabin mate. The heat licking through his blood chased away the chill. Worse yet, he suspected she was still an innocent, yet he’d treated her like a doxy. And as the monster he was, he’d brought her to release to teach her a lesson, to make her fly into the boughs and otherwise bedevil her, all because she’d simply wished for him to sit down and talk. He’d lost control of his temper and that was the result.

  There is no excuse.

  The woman deserved an answer regarding her future. Of course she did. Guilt plowed into him to join the ever-present remorse he always carried with him. Whatever was happening could squarely be laid in his lap. It was his error in judgment; everything that had occurred in the last year—or perhaps beyond—was.

  He blew out a breath. Removing the fact that the soft sounds she’d made when he’d teased her had gone straight to his cock, she was here through no fault of her own. Once he’d barely traced her curves, he’d wished to continue, for even covered with a petticoat and shift, her body tempted, yet his conscience had finally won over, and he’d shot from the bed when she’d begged for him to finish her.

  It had all been too much, and the regret and shame would bury him if he wasn’t careful. For far too long he’d lived with the feelings. Not even Archewyne knew the depth of the demons that haunted him. Oh, no doubt his best friend could guess; he fought his own contingent too, but he had a wife to help him through. Which grated on Jonathan’s nerves. He’d had that love once, and now he didn’t, thanks to the actions of a now-dead duke with a demented quest for power. He swallowed and his tight throat wouldn’t constrict correctly. The only reprieve from the memories and feelings was to throw himself into missions in order to escape.

  Which was suspect due to Miss Wickham. Perhaps I am the failure my father thinks.

  Now, fate had contrived to toss that guilt back into his face and force it clearly into his path, unable to ignore.

  “You are the perfect image of a man gripped by high emotion.”

  He jerked at the sound of Lady Archewyne’s voice and pulled himself upright. When her gaze widened with surprise and went to his naked chest, he hastened to wrap his greatcoat about his person. “Lady Archewyne. What are you doing out here?” Of every person on this ship, it was his misfortune to meet her.

  “I wished for a quick walk in the air as a reward for minding the children all day.” A shiver wracked her shoulders. She snuggled deeper into her rabbit fur-lined cloak. “Why are you here, and in such a state of undress?” One of her midnight-hued eyebrows rose and curiosity was stamped all over her face.

  “The same as you. To take the air.” Amateur sleuth that she was, he braced for a barrage of questions. “I do not do well being confined to small spaces such as my quarters.”

  “Ah.” She didn’t further her inquiry. In fact, she merely stood with her arms crossed at her chest and held his gaze. Those green depths seemed to look into his soul and poke around at his secrets. “I am trusting that you know what’s best for yourself. However, I would caution you to remember what I whispered to you when Miles and I told you goodbye yesterday.”

  Let life happen. That’s what she’d said. “Thank you for the reminder, Lady Archewyne.” He promised himself to do better at conducting his own affairs, to be a better versi
on of himself, and right now that was squaring with Miss Wickham. “I hope you’ll have a peaceful night and an equally pleasant journey.”

  “You as well, Jonathan. Please keep yourself safe while away from England’s shores.” She briefly laid a hand on his shoulder, and with a nod, she continued her walk until she disappeared below deck.

  He lingered at the railing for a long time before he returned to his quarters. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, he approached the bed where Miss Wickham lay. The counterpane had been pulled to her chin, and her pale blonde hair—bound in a long braid—snaked over one shoulder. In the shadows, she resembled a fragile child; an innocent. A strong wave of protectiveness moved through him. She was here because of him and his inability to attend to his business.

  Pieces of parchment caught his eye and he edged closer a few steps. She’d pieced together that damned letter. Foreboding rolled through his gut. Which meant she’d read what his father had written, every bloody word instructing him to marry her as well the critical comment about her looks and the damning evidence of his king’s agent status. He wanted to rail at her for further invading his privacy, but he tempered the urge. What else could she have done when he’d thrown the torn pieces at her as if he’d been a petulant toddler?

  No, this was what came of losing his temper, what had come of letting himself wallow in bitterness over the last year. Silently, he gathered the bits up and once he’d had them all, he shoved them into his bag. Perhaps he could use the letter as his introduction into a discussion on the morrow.

  Or an apology.

  Somewhat at peace, Jonathan grabbed his bag and made his way into the sitting room. He would bunk on the settee and hope to God that sleep came easy. First, he needed to study the dossier Rathesborne gave him. No matter that his life was currently complicated by the arrival of a petite pain in the arse, he still had a mission to perform, and he owed it to the Crown to actually prepare for such.