Page 97 of More or Less a Temptress
“You’re mine now, Hyacinth. I’ll never let you go. You’remine.” He took her lips in a slow, lingering kiss. He was hard and aching for her, and every nudge or shift of his hips brought him closer to sinking inside her tantalizing heat, but he held back, the tip of his cock poised at her entrance, pausing for long moments to kiss her as he cradled her face in his hands.
His mouth was still clinging to hers when he surged into her damp heat. He caught her gasp in his mouth, and then stilled, his body over hers, inside hers, the sensation like nothing he’d ever felt before. Lachlan was no monk—he’d had lovers—but never before had he been inside a woman, and at the same time still desperate to get closer to her. Her arms were locked around his neck, her legs tight around his hips. Her breath was in his ear. He was holding her tightly against his chest, and still, he wanted more of her.
He wasinsideher, and even so, he wanted more.
She touched his cheek to bring his mouth back to hers, and then he was moving—just the tiniest nudge of his hips, restrained and careful, and yet the exquisite pleasure of her slick flesh pulling his shaft deep inside her body tore a helpless moan from his lips. “Ah,aingeal. I’ll never have enough of you.”
“I want all of you, Lachlan.” She raked her nails down his sweat-slick back, and the tiny sting and her breathless words made him wild. He began to thrust in earnest, his strokes long and even. He gritted his teeth as he held back his own release, until, at last, at last, she let out a cry and arched against him. Her body pulsed around him, so tight and wet and hot, and he buried his face in her neck, groaning as the astonishing pleasure ripped through him.
They lay in each other’s arms afterwards, her head cradled against his chest, his hands toying with her hair until at last their breathing calmed. They might have stayed there all night, but for the chime of the longcase clock on the first floor landing.
Five o’clock in the morning.
Lachlan roused himself, gathered their scattered clothing, and helped Hyacinth back into her gown, resisting the urge to tear it off her again the moment the last button was secured. Instead, he clasped her shoulders and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.
Their night was over. Huntington Lodge, and his reckoning with Finn, awaited.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Of all my five granddaughters, I dared to hopeyou, Hyacinth, might manage to get through your season without a scandal.” Lady Chase dabbed at her eyes with the sodden handkerchief she’d been clutching in her fist since they’d left London that morning. “But oh, how wrong I was!”
“Grandmother, I—”
“Luring Lord Dixon into a dark library? Heaven and earth, child! What in the world could you have been thinking? No, no—don’t try and answer, for there’s naught to be done about it now. Your season is over. You’re ruined—and Miss Ramsey right along with you—and there’s an end to it. Oh, thank goodness I haven’t any more granddaughters, for I daresay I wouldn’t survive another season.”
Lady Chase buried her face in her handkerchief, and commenced a loud wailing.
Lachlan resisted the urge to slap his hands over his ears. He stood in front of the fireplace, his gaze fixed on Hyacinth. The morning had started badly, and had deteriorated with every mile they’d put between London and Huntington Lodge.
To begin with, Lady Chase had been distressed to discover her granddaughter’s season had come to such a sudden, disastrous end. She’d alternately wept and scolded the entire way to Buckinghamshire, until Isla had retreated into a morose silence, and Ciaran began to give way to the restless agitation that usually preceded one of his bloodier brawls.
And then there was Hyacinth.
Before they left Bedford Square that morning, Lachlan told her he intended to take Finn aside the moment they reached Huntington Lodge, and tell him the entire truth about what had happened before they’d left Scotland. Isla’s attack, Baird’s death—everything he’d hidden, right down to the last detail.
She hadnotbeen pleased at this revelation, to say the least, but Lachlan flatly refused to let her carry the burden of his secret. He was done with lies. When her arguments and pleading failed to move him, she’d squeezed herself into a corner of the carriage, turned her face toward the window, and hadn’t moved again for the entire ride.
After what they’d shared the night before, Lachlan had had visions of a delightful journey filled with yearning smiles and private touches, but she hadn’t looked at him once since they’d left Bedford Square. By the time they reached Huntington Lodge his heart was aching, his muscles were screaming with tension, and he was as ready for a brawl as Ciaran was.
He was in no frame of mind to speak calmly with Finn, but as it happened, he didn’t get a chance to say a single word to him. The moment they set foot in the entryway, all hell broke loose.
Lady Chase fell into a fit of hysterics. Ciaran had worked himself into a sudden snit over Isla’s part in the Lord Dixon disaster, and Isla, provoked into a fury by Ciaran’s scolding, had chosen that moment to burst into angry tears, which sent Lachlan headlong into a temper.
Only Hyacinth was silent, but it was a stubborn, ominous silence.
Finn made several attempts to calm the chaos, but at last he threw his hands up in the air and ordered everyone into the drawing room. Since Hyacinth was the only one of the five of them who wasn’t either crying or shouting, he’d asked her for an explanation.
He may as well have asked water to explain why it’s wet, for all the good it did.
Lachlan stood in front of the fireplace, his hands clenched into fists, and waited in vain for Hyacinth to tell her family the truth—to confess she’d risked her own safety and reputation to protect him from a secret he never should have kept.
Instead, she perched on the edge of the settee, her back straight and her hands folded neatly in her lap, fixed her wide, guileless blue eyes on Finn, and stubbornly refused to utter a single word in her own defense.
Finn gave her a blank look when she finished her fragmented story. “At the risk of sounding like a half wit, I’m afraid I’m going to need you to explain once again how you and Isla were both ruined in a single evening. Hyacinth? What have you to say?”
Hyacinth was patting Lady Chase’s arm, but now her hand went still. “Nothing, except to beg your pardon for my behavior.”
Lady Huntington, who’d joined them in the drawing room, exchanged a puzzled glance with her husband, who held his hands out in an uncharacteristically helpless gesture. This uncooperative, stubborn Hyacinth was a new and incomprehensible creature, and neither of them knew quite what to do with her.
