Wanton (Regency Scandal 1) Read online

  She threw the hand not holding the glass of sherry up in the air. “You are not listening to me!”

  He sighed. “No, not when you are discussing the possibility of the memory of not one other man, but two, sharing our bed.”

  “That is not what I said!” she snapped her frustration.

  “You told me you cannot forget Raphael or your husband. I can respect your past affection for both of them.” His jaw tightened. “What I will not allow is for you to lose yourself in memories of them when the two of us are together. Especially when we are both naked and in bed.”

  From what Diana had observed of her responses to this man, she doubted she would be able to think of anything or anyone but him if the two of them made love.

  “I have desired you for so many months now,” Xavier continued. “For so long, in fact, that I am in danger of losing my sanity to the need I have to bury my cock deep inside the heat of your pussy.”

  She drew her breath in sharply. “No man—no gentleman—has ever spoken to me in as blunt a manner you choose to.”

  He shrugged. “I am well known for the frankness of my speech.”

  Diana snorted. “You are known for many things, Your Grace. But I do not believe this single-minded pursuit of a woman, any woman, to be the usual behavior of the haughty and arrogant Duke of Northcliffe.”

  He sighed. “You will call me Xavier. And I have kept my distance from you for as long as I was able to do so. Seeing you again last night, holding you in my arms as we danced together, has brought an end to those long months of fighting the desire I feel to possess every inch of you.”

  It seemed incredible to Diana that during all her months of being lonely and ostracized by Society, this man had brooded equally as long over his unwanted desire for her.

  Diana gave a dazed shake of her head. “I cannot think of what I should say to you when you continue to make remarks like that.”

  “Then do not say anything.” He lifted the glass out of her hand and placed it, along with his own, on the nearby side table. “Let us delay eating dinner and go to my bedchamber instead, so that I might demonstrate the depth of my desire for you.”

  “What will your household staff think about that?”

  “They and their thoughts can go to the devil, along with everyone else.”

  Until yesterday evening, Diana would never have contemplated taking Northcliffe as a lover, and now she couldn’t seem to think of anything else.

  She gave a groan as Xavier pressed his lips against her throat, quivering in response as he then ran the moistness of his tongue along its length.

  His teeth bit gently on her earlobe. “I pleasured myself to completion last night with the scent of your perfume invading my nostrils and the imagined touch of your hand lending warmth to mine as I stroked and pumped my cock until I released,” he murmured softly.

  Oh dear God…

  “Did you think of me in that way too once you were at home and alone in your bed?” he prompted huskily.

  “I don’t— I cannot— Yes!” She finally groaned the truth when his teeth bit her lobe hard enough to send a shaft of pleasure leaping like fire through her body.

  “Did I fuck you with my tongue and fingers first? Or were you as desperate as I am to have my cock buried inside, you could not think of anything else?”

  Diana was beyond being shocked by the intimacy of Xavier’s comments as his lips continued to explore the heat of her skin, and her neck arched to accommodate his questing tongue. “You did each in turn,” she admitted.

  “Describe it for me.”

  She swallowed before speaking. “First your tongue licked my clit. Then your fingers stroked inside my channel. Finally, you thrust your cock inside me, stretching and filling me.”

  “You came three times last night merely thinking of me doing those things?” His breath was hot against her flesh.

  “Yes.”

  “Which did you like the best?”

  “All of them.”

  “Then all of them is what you shall have.” Xavier straightened before lifting her in his arms and crossing the room in three long strides. “Open the door.” He stepped out of the sitting room once she had done so, then strode purposefully across the entrance hall and up the wide staircase, two steps at a time.

  As rapidly as he ascended those stairs, Diana still had time for self-doubt as to the sensibility of allowing this to happen. “We should not do this,” she protested.

  He came to a halt at the top of the staircase. “You wish to return downstairs?”

  Diana wished… God, how much she wished she was the type of woman who could forget the past and simply give herself up to Xavier’s complete mastery and the passion burning so intensely in those glittering silver eyes.

  His expression softened. “Diana, will you believe me when I promise you I will not abuse or mistreat you, nor betray the trust you will be placing in my discretion when we become lovers? I give you my word, my silence on the matter will be absolute.”

  Of course, Diana believed him. She doubted many would question the word or discretion of the Duke of Northcliffe.

  Although it was difficult not to smile at his arrogant use of the word “when” rather than “if” as he talked of the two of them becoming lovers.

  “Nor will I ever question you about your past relationships or the feelings you had for my brother,” he added at her silence. “Raphael was unmarried and you were a widow. The two of you did nothing wrong.”

  It was here that the crux of Diana’s dilemma lay. “How well did you know your brother?”

  “Not as well as I should have,” Xavier allowed heavily. “But I have already told you I do not wish to discuss him now,” he added decisively. “We are going to my bedchamber.” He walked purposefully down the hallway. “Once there, we will make love until we are both satiated. Only then may you discuss my brother—if you can still remember his or any other man’s name.”

  Diana would never forget Raphael the man, or his name, any more than she could forget her brother, Jeremy, whom Raphael had loved as deeply as Jeremy loved him.

  Because Diana had not been Raphael’s lover. Her brother Jeremy had.

  The two men had met and fallen in love with each other whilst at university.

  A love between two men which was considered illegal and punishable by imprisonment or death.

  As much as they were able, Diana and Percy had accommodated Jeremy and Raphael’s desire to be together by making arrangements for them to spend several nights a week together in one of the bedchambers at Fitzwilliam House.

  As much as Raphael had loved his brother, Northcliffe was one of the Prince Regent’s closest friends, and so the very last person Raphael had ever dared to confide his sexual proclivities to.

  Diana did not believe it was a confidence she should betray now that Raphael and her brother were both dead. Only she and Percy had known of the men’s love and devotion to each other. A love so deep and strong that Diana was convinced her brother had, with his lover dead and buried for two months, entered the fray at Waterloo with no intention of surviving that battle. He had succeeded, if that had been Jeremy’s intent, and much as Diana missed her brother, she could not upbraid him for wishing to join in death the man he had loved with his whole heart.

  “You are thinking of him now despite my having warned you not to do so.” Xavier’s nostrils flared as he kicked open the door leading into what was obviously the ducal bedchamber, with its dark-blue-and-cream décor and large mahogany furniture, including a huge and high four-poster bed. “I did not intend to start off our relationship by punishing you.” He kicked the bedchamber door closed. “But neither can I allow such a blatant infringement of my request to go without consequence.”

  “Punishment?” Diana repeated warily.

  “Yes,” he bit out.

  “But I— What are you doing?” she gasped as, having lowered her feet to the ground, Xavier now held her tightly as he pushed her gown up to h
er waist. He unfastened the tie on her drawers and allowed them to fall to her ankles.

  Xavier held Diana’s hand as he pulled her toward the bed, the movement forcing her to step out of her drawers and leave them behind on the carpet. “I am going to warm your arse for daring to disobey me.” He pulled her across his thighs before throwing up the back of her gown and baring her bottom. “When I am done, you will tell me who you are thinking of. If it is anyone other than me, I will not have punished you sufficiently.” The last word was accompanied by Xavier’s large hand making sharp contact and causing both globes of Diana’s arse to wobble slightly at the impact.

  Chapter Six

  Diana let out a screech that sounded more indignant than pained. “You bastard!”

  “Tut, tut, my dear.” Xavier accompanied each word with another hard smack to those delectable mounds, smiling his satisfaction as they began to glow a deep rose.

  Diana struggled to escape those punishing smacks but failed to make purchase. “Fucking bastard!”

  “Dear, dear, dear,” Xavier mused. “Your language truly is deplorable.”

  “The three men closest to me, my husband, my brother, and Raphael, were all soldiers, and they did not always practice caution in regard to how they conversed in my presence,” she bit out between gritted teeth.

  “That is no excuse for you to use such unladylike language now.” He administered another two heavy smacks to the increasing heat of her bottom cheeks. “And,” he added in a hard voice, “you are still talking and thinking of other men in my presence.” He didn’t bother spanking her bottom further, but instead pushed her legs apart, taking a moment to enjoy looking at the swollen, wet lips of her pussy before he thrust a finger deep inside that moist and welcoming heat. “God, yes,” he groaned, his cock throbbing as he felt her channel walls contracting about his digit, as if to keep it there.

  “Yes…” Diana gasped.

  There was no fear of Xavier removing his finger now that it was inside her. In fact, a second digit quickly joined the first, both bending upwards, causing Diana to groan and arch her body as those two fingers began to stroke against the knot of sensitive nerve endings inside her.

  “Xavier…!”

  He ignored her cry, whether as a plea for mercy or more, Xavier had no idea. Instead, he added a third finger, both to stretch open her gushing channel even more in preparation for his cock, and also to exact yet more pressure on those nerve endings as his fingers began to thrust in and out in a remorseless rhythm.

  “What was the name of my brother?”

  “I— Oh God…” Diana trembled and shook as the thrust of Xavier’s fingers quickened inside her.

  “I doubt that very much,” he drawled. “Your husband’s name was…?”

  “I— Dear Lord…” Her body convulsed as the moistened pad of Xavier’s thumb caressed the closed rosette of her bottom.

  “Again, I doubt that very much,” Xavier mocked as he pressed that thumb tip inside and past the ring of tight muscle. “What is your own name?” He pushed his thumb in farther, able to feel the length of his own fingers inside her pussy through the thin membrane that separated them. “Answer me,” he instructed sharply.

  “Di—Di—My name is—” She broke off with a scream as Xavier’s fingers and thumb thrust and stroked deep inside her and her body convulsed in climax.

  Xavier allowed her no respite to recover from that ecstasy as he removed his fingers and thumb before standing to place her on her knees and bent over the end of the bed. He then moved to kneel behind her, using his hands to spread the cheeks of her bottom apart. The rosette was a deep rose from the intrusion of his thumb, the muscled entrance not quite as tight as it had been. The licking and rimming of that muscle with his tongue stretched the opening wider still, allowing his tongue to spear and then thrust inside.

  “What are you doing to me?” Diana’s fingers clutched tightly to the bedcovers in front of her. “You cannot do this,” she cried. “It is wrong.”

  “Then why does it feel so good?” Xavier’s breath was hot against the burn of her flesh. “Nothing two consenting lovers do together is wrong, Diana.”

  “I don’t—” It was impossible for her to continue when Xavier had his face buried in the crease of her bottom, teeth biting, tongue licking and entering that forbidden place.

  “Who am I?” he urged huskily.

  “Xavier.”

  “Again,” he rasped before once again burying his face between her bottom cheeks.

  “Xavier. You are— Xavier!” she screamed his name as another climax, even fiercer than the last, ripped through her body for long and overwhelming minutes.

  “I knew you could be good for me,” he purred as she lay draped boneless and satiated across the foot of the bed. His approval was accompanied by the rustling of clothing. “Be good for me a little longer,” he encouraged.

  She wanted to deny him, to retaliate, to fight.

  But she had no fight left in her as Xavier grasped her hips and the hardness of his bared cock now slid in and out between her parted thighs. Those thrusts became quicker as his cock grew slick with the juices once again gushing from between her sensitive pussy lips.

  This was not like any lovemaking Diana had ever experienced before. Percy had been only two years older than her eighteen years when they married, with little physical experience. They had learned together what they both enjoyed—

  Nothing two consenting lovers do together is wrong.

  Xavier might be correct in thinking that, but Diana’s only previous lover had been Percy.

  This rawness of emotion she felt with Xavier was nothing like the sweet pleasure she and Percy had once enjoyed together.

  This was fierce and wild, and revealed a depth of emotion inside Diana which shocked her. Nor would she ever have believed the cold and arrogant Northcliffe capable of indulging in such carnal pleasures as this.

  He bowed his body across the length of her spine. “I am going to fuck you now,” his breath was hot against the side of her throat. “Take me in hand and guide me inside you.”

  Diana didn’t think of denying him, as eager for that pulsing length to claim her pussy as Xavier was to have it there.

  She pressed her bottom back against Xavier as she arched slightly up and away from the bed. The small distance now between her and the bed allowed her to reach down and grasp hold of the long, thick cock now visible between her parted thighs. His skin there felt like velvet over throbbing heat as Diana guided the red and slick bulbous top between her hungry pussy lips. Her groan was one of pure pleasure as that cockhead breached and then surged powerfully inside. That girth and length stretched and filled Diana so completely, she could feel it pressing against the opening to her barren womb.

  Diana released a sobbing breath as that knowledge ripped through her again with a sudden jolting pain she was unprepared for.

  After four years of marriage, followed by two years of widowhood, she had believed herself well over her disappointment at not being able to have a child. Not that she wanted to have Northcliffe’s child, because that would be a disaster for both of them. But the renewal of the knowledge she would never carry a child of her own was still so devastating, she—

  Xavier stilled. “Come back to me, damn it!” he instructed harshly.

  “I—”

  “I warned you what would happen if you brought another man into our bed!” he rasped.

  “I did not—”

  “Yes, you fucking did!” Xavier’s fingers bit into the flesh of Diana’s hips, and he breathed loudly through his nose as he fought to regain a control he had never lost so completely before now.

  Before Diana.

  She was his, damn it.

  His!

  And he would not countenance her even thinking of another man in his presence, in bed or out of it.

  He pulled out abruptly before unfastening the buttons at the back of Diana’s gown and then allowing it to slide down her body, along with h
er chemise. Once she was completely naked, he stood and lifted her in his arms to carry her to the side of the bed. He placed her carefully on top of the bedcovers before straightening to look down at her.

  Her hair was disheveled, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, her breasts plump and tipped with ruby-red nipples, and her waist slender. The flesh on her hips already showed signs of bruising from the grip of Xavier’s fingers. Damp gold curls covered her mound, her slender legs slightly parted to reveal swollen red pussy lips.

  She looked utterly debauched and wholly delectable.

  Xavier held the heat of her gaze with his as he shrugged off his jacket and waistcoat, removed his neckcloth, before untying his shirt and pulling it over his head.

  Diana’s breath caught in her throat, her body heating as she took in the ruffled darkness of his hair before her gaze moved to the hard and muscular expanse of Xavier’s bared shoulders, muscled arms and chest. Copper-colored nipples nestled amongst the dark hair on his chest, with solid ridges of muscle over his ribs and abdomen. Muscles that stayed rock solid as he sat on the side of the bed to remove his boots before once again standing.

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as he completely unfastened his pantaloons and allowed them to fall at his feet. The hard length of his cock, at least eight, possibly more inches in length and with a wide girth, jutted up from a nest of dark curls. A thick vein pulsed along its length, the red and mushroomed top slick from the juices escaping from the slit in the tip.

  Diana ceased chewing her lip to run the moistness of her tongue over both lips as she moved up and then knee walked over to where Xavier still stood beside the bed. She held his gaze as she lowered her head.

  Xavier reached out to clasp Diana’s shoulders to steady himself, his breath leaving him in a hiss as she parted her lips and took his cock into the heat of her mouth.