Wicked Christmas (Regency Sinners 8) Read online

  Nik chuckled darkly. “We both know you were not. But your teasing deserves punishment, don’t you agree?”

  “I… Yes,” she gasped as her husband’s other hand landed hard on the cheeks of her bottom, followed by a rain of blows, one smack after another, as he continued to pump his fingers inside her.

  She came twice more in quick succession, by which time her spanked arse cheeks felt as hot as a furnace and were no doubt blazing a fiery red.

  “You are mine, Angel.” Nik removed his fingers from her cunny and used them to lubricate the shadowed hole between those hot cheeks. “Never ever forget that,” he warned before plunging his cock inside her tight hole.

  “I am yours, Nik. Always yours,” she groaned, knowing by his leisurely thrusts inside her that he intended claiming her long into the night.

  Monique was a jittering mess of nerves by the time she was sure the duke and duchess and all the guests had retired for the night and the household slowly fell into silence.

  She had used that time to remove her gown and undergarments, washing and then pulling on her night rail and robe. She had also removed the pins from her hair before brushing it, and it now cascaded in golden silky waves down the length of her spine.

  Twice, Monique had attempted to leave her bedchamber and both times been forced to retreat again when she heard noises coming from one or another of the nearby bedchambers in which the married guests were staying.

  Several of those noises had made her cheeks burn with the probable awareness of what was happening behind those closed doors. Probable? The sound of flesh against flesh emanating from the duke and duchess’s bedchamber and the groans coming from the Marquis and Marchioness of Wessex’s bedchamber, along with the words “breed me, Jericho,” were explicit enough as to leave no doubt.

  This delay in going to Martin should perhaps have succeeded in deterring Monique, a sign that she should not go to his bedchamber at all. But instead, Monique felt even more aroused by the sound of the other couples’ lovemaking and the imaginings of what they were doing together.

  She was feeling very hot and bothered, her breasts plumped, the nipples hard and sensitive peaks against the thin cotton of her night rail, by the time she believed it safe to leave her bedchamber a third time. At one o’clock in the morning, it was so late, or early, depending on one’s point of view, that Martin probably thought she had changed her mind and would not be joining him in his bedchamber after all.

  A bedchamber she knew to be at the end of the hallway on the left. Information Monique had gleaned from observing where Martin disappeared to when they separated after dinner.

  Even so, she felt extremely conspicuous as she crept through the silent hallway, anxiously glancing to left or right in case she was observed. The short distance was made more hazardous by the fact she dare not carry a lit candle with her for fear of making her presence more obvious, and was instead reliant on the single glow from the candle left alight on the table downstairs in the entrance hall.

  Her nervousness grew as she stood outside the door to Martin’s room. What if he had changed his mind and no longer wanted her? She would look extremely foolish if that should be the—

  Monique drew back with a gasp as the door in front of her suddenly opened and Martin stood in the doorway.

  He looked far less austere wearing what could only be one of the duke’s dark brocade robes, possibly supplied to him by the duchess for his stay here. It fit Martin’s similar build perfectly, from his wide shoulders to his ankles. His hair was tousled as if he had been running his fingers through it while waiting for her.

  His dark eyes glowed with a sexual fervor that instantly restored Monique’s waning confidence.

  Martin grasped one of Monique’s slender wrists and pulled her quickly inside the bedchamber before closing the door behind her. “I was beginning to suspect you might have been toying with me earlier.” The admission burst out of him before he had chance to think of censuring his words.

  Making him sound too needy? Perhaps even desperate?

  If that was the case, then it was not so far from the truth, he inwardly acknowledged ruefully.

  He had been unable to think of anything but kissing and touching, tasting Monique again, since they’d parted earlier this evening. It seemed an age since he had retired to his bedchamber and undressed before putting on the brocade robe waiting for him on the bed. Indeed, he had paced his bedchamber so restlessly as he waited for Monique, he finally had to force himself to stop for fear he might wear a hole in the carpet.

  He was not a callow youth nor an inexperienced lover, far from it, but Monique was nothing like the women with whom he usually slaked his lust. She was more. So much more. A lady in everything but name.

  She now reached up and briefly touched one of his hard cheeks with gentle fingertips. “I would never tease you on such a subject.”

  Martin breathed out deeply. “You intend allowing me to fuck you?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Perhaps you could sound less…clinical about it?”

  His brows rose. “You wish for romance and seduction?”

  “Well…perhaps not romance, but certainly seduction,” she encouraged.

  Martin tried to remember the last time he had seduced a woman. Or if he ever had.

  The women who’d made themselves available to Wellington’s army had not required such niceties.

  Nor did the women he had spent time with since.

  Before those years, then?

  He’d had a couple of fumbling encounters with a shop girl in his late teenage years, and then spent his early twenties abroad, training to be a physician, with little time to spare for romance or seduction. There had been an obliging tavern wench or two and a maid working at the university during that time, but all had been as eager as he for sexual satisfaction and little more.

  Monique would be the first woman he had ever needed, or wanted, to seduce.

  Chapter 12

  “It is now past midnight and officially Christmas Day, and as your duties as valet to the Duke of Wolferton means there might not be time in the morning, I should very much like to give you my Christmas gift now.”

  “I thought you just had.” James Quinlan’s arms tightened about his lover, the two of them naked in bed together in the aftermath of their lovemaking. “As long as I have you, I do not need anything else.”

  Jeremy raised his head to look at him. “I feel the same, Quin, you know that I do. It is only…”

  James felt a shiver of apprehension down the length of his spine. “Only?” He had always been aware of his ten years seniority in age, and of Jeremy’s inexperience before their own relationship began the previous year. Was his lover becoming curious in regard to other men? Perhaps he wished to explore other relationships.

  James knew he would want to die if that should be the case.

  Jeremy laid a gentle hand against James’s cheek as he sat up. “Do not look like that, my love. I love you, I shall always love you.” He made the words a vow. “It is only that I should like you to have something…tangible, as a reminder of our love for each other.”

  The two men had met eighteen months ago, when Quinlan, as the valet of the Duke of Wolferton, had visited the home of the future Duchess of Wolferton, Lady Beatrix Hanwell, for whom Jeremy Kilby acted as butler.

  It had been a case of instant attraction between the two men, and one they had privately acted upon within days of meeting. To the jaded James’s surprise, that attraction had quickly turned to love, and when the duke and Lady Beatrix were married, combining their two households, the two men were also able to be together.

  Love between two men was forbidden, taboo, a hanging offense even amongst the lower classes. But the duke and duchess held no such prejudices and, knowing of Quinlan and Jeremy’s love for each other, always made a point of ensuring that where one man went so did the other.

  “Tangible?” James repeated curiously. Could Jeremy possibly have had similar thoughts to
his own this year in regard to the exchange of Christmas gifts?

  “Yes.” Jeremy’s cheeks were flushed as he reached beneath his pillows and brought out a small square box. “I know and accept we can never allow our love for each other to become public knowledge. But that does not mean I do not want to make private vows to you and to have you make those same vows to me.” Jeremy moved up onto his knees. “I love you, James. I will love you until the day I die. Will you please wear this ring as a show of our lifetime commitment to each other?” He lifted the lid of the box to reveal a simple gold band.

  Quinlan, a total cynic until he met and fell in love with Jeremy, felt the prick of tears heat his eyes. “You wish us to be husband and husband?”

  “In private, yes, that is exactly what I want,” Jeremy stated firmly.

  “Then it seems we are of one mind.” James reached beneath his own pillow and brought out a similar square box of black velvet. “I love you, Jeremy. I shall love you until the day I die. I should be honored to wear your ring as a symbol of that love. Will you please wear my ring as that same symbol of our lifetime commitment to each other?” He lifted the lid of the box to reveal a similar plain gold band.

  Jeremy gave a choked laugh, his own tears cascading unchecked down his flushed cheeks. “I should be honored.”

  The two men took the rings from their boxes, love shining in their eyes as they each placed a ring upon the other’s finger.

  “I am not asking for a false declaration of love,” Monique assured at Martin’s continued silence. “I wish only…” Was it asking too much of Martin to expect gentleness, kindness, along with the passion they obviously felt for each other? “Never mind.”

  “What do you wish for?” he pressed softly.

  She avoided Martin’s gaze. “It does not matter.”

  “If it matters to you, then it also matters to me,” he encouraged.

  Monique swallowed. “I am not experienced like the women you have known previously—”

  Martin’s fingers against her lips silenced her. “Those other women meant nothing to me. You are uniquely you. Which is both beautiful and desirable.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “More than enough.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “I have bruises over most of my body.”

  “I have seen them.”

  “But you do not know how I came by them.”

  “If you wished to tell me, then you would have done so—”

  “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and arrested along with half a dozen prostitutes.” Her chin rose, her gaze challenging as it met his. “Afterward, I was attacked by other prisoners in Newgate. The bruises and other injuries are as a result of that attack.”

  Good God…

  Martin would never have guessed it was something as horrific as that. Monique must have been terrified, in fear for her very life. “I have no doubt the injuries were bravely gained.”

  “I am not sure about that.” Monique grimaced. “In the end, I simply curled myself into a ball to minimize the damage the blows caused.”

  “You were brave,” Martin insisted.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  Monique nodded, her gaze holding his as she slowly unfastened and removed her robe to set it aside, before her slightly shaking fingers moved to the ribbon fastening of her night rail.

  “Allow me.” Martin stepped forward to gently remove her fingers and replaced them with his own, unfastening the bow before smoothing back the two sides of her night rail to fully reveal her bared breasts tipped with engorged rose-colored nipples. Nipples he was quickly becoming addicted to the touch and taste of. “I have never desired any woman as much as I desire you,” he admitted gruffly as his hands moved to cup beneath the fullness of her breasts.

  Monique drew in a sharp breath, pupils blown, her tiny white teeth biting into her bottom lip.

  Martin held her gaze as he lowered his head to capture one of those swollen buds in the heat of his mouth. He felt the hardness of his cock leak pre-cum as he began to suckle in earnest.

  Monique clung to Martin’s shoulders, moaning softly as her body heated and the pleasure washed over her in ever-increasing waves. That heat intensified when Martin turned his attention to her other breast, the fierce sucking of his lips and gentle bite of his teeth a cross between pleasure and pain.

  He touched her nowhere else, not the fluttering of her belly, the throbbing nubbin between her thighs, nor the plump and slick lips of her pussy, and yet Monique could feel the pleasure building to an almost unbearable degree. It was—

  “Oh God… God!” She gasped, her head dropping down onto Martin’s muscular shoulder as the pleasure exploded inside her. It centered between her throbbing thighs and shot outward. Wave after wave of indescribable ecstasy that rendered her weak and shaking, her fingers clinging tightly to Martin’s shoulders so that she didn’t actually fall at his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Martin prompted once Monique had finally caught her breath.

  She looked up at him with overbright eyes. “I had no idea that was even possible.”

  Neither had Martin, if he was being honest. No other woman he had bedded had ever attained a climax simply from having her nipples suckled. Monique was the most sensual woman he had ever met. He wanted to devour every inch of her, give her climax after climax, until they were both totally sated.

  He swung her up in his arms and carried her across the room before laying her gently on the bed and following her down. “We need to take this off.” He helped her to remove her nightgown.

  Monique gazed down at her own nakedness. “The bruises really are not a pretty sight.”

  “They are battle wounds. A battle you survived,” he dismissed before moving so that his legs straddled her thighs. His hands cradled her hot and flushed cheeks as he gazed down at her. “I am going to kiss you now, everywhere, from your head to your feet,” he warned before he began to do exactly that.

  Monique lost track of time and place, was aware only of the heat of Martin’s mouth and hands as they trailed a sensual path of pleasure from her throat to the soles of her feet. “Turn over,” he encouraged huskily as he stood to quickly remove his robe.

  She glimpsed only his muscular shoulders and chest, and the fierce jut of his engorged cock before she did as he asked and rolled over onto her stomach. She felt suddenly shy now that the moment of Martin’s possession was almost here.

  Pleasure shivered down her spine as he once again straddled the tops of her thighs, the silky heat of his steely hard cock now resting along the length of her bottom crease.

  Monique might be a woman grown, and have lived in households where many of the servants indulged in nights of pleasure together, but as a lady’s maid, she had always been an outsider to those liaisons, much like the butler and housekeeper within the household. Nor had there been time or the inclination for men or relationships this past year.

  Would Martin mind that she was still a virgin?

  It was a little late for her to be worrying about that!

  “Even your delicious bottom did not escape the attack,” he lamented before Monique felt the warm brush of his lips and tongue against her bottom cheeks.

  She squirmed in embarrassment as Martin’s hands parted those twin globes. “I do not believe I am bruised there,” she gasped as that moist tongue licked an arousing path along her crease before lingering to probe the sensitivity of her bottom hole.

  “I said I intended to kiss you everywhere,” he reminded, the heat of his breath against that warm flesh causing the cream to once again gush between her thighs.

  Something Monique knew he must be fully aware of as his lips now kissed beneath her bottom cheeks, then down her inner thighs, the backs of her knees, her calves, and then her feet.

  By which time, Monique was a quivering mass of sensitive nerve endings, the lightest touch now causing her to quiver and shake.

  “I cannot wait any lon
ger,” Martin groaned achingly as he gently eased her onto her back. His eyes were dark and glittering, his burnished skin gleaming with perspiration, the top of his engorged cock slick with his own juices. “I need you now, Monique.”

  “Then take me.” She parted her thighs in invitation, her glistening cunny as desperate to be filled as Martin was to fill it.

  Despite the fierceness of his need, Martin took care as he took his cock in hand and guided it to the slick heat of Monique’s opening. He knew from experience his cock was larger than most, and Monique was so small and delicate. He had no wish to hurt her.

  “More,” she encouraged as he paused with the tip of his cock barely penetrating that opening. “Martin, please!” She gazed up at him with hot and feverish eyes.

  Martin drew in a sharp breath and ceased all movement when his cockhead instantly came up against the barrier of Monique’s virginity. “Dear God…”

  Chapter 13

  Martin’s gaze quickly moved up to Monique’s flushed face. “Why did you not tell me you were still a virgin?”

  “Does it matter?” she dismissed.

  Martin had half guessed from their earlier conversation this might be the case, and Monique was a grown woman, certainly old enough to choose when and to whom she gave her virginity.

  But she was choosing to give it to him.

  Did that mean that she cared for him, as Martin had no doubt he already cared for her? More than cared for her. Monique was everything he could ever have wished for in a woman. Beautiful Refined. Both capable and determined. More importantly, Martin not only desired her but felt a need to protect and care for her. The last two emotions were totally alien to him.

  Was it love he felt for her?

  Never having fallen in love before, Martin had no idea. He did know he had no intention of allowing Monique to leave Stonewell Park without first ensuring he would be able to see her again.

  “There will be some pain,” he warned.