Page 33 of A Lyon’s Lesson

“Hmm,” she nodded, pulling at his neckcloth. The feeling was mutual, a hot ache between her legs making her press closer against his hard body, reveling in the feel of his erection against her belly.

Clothing scattered rapidly between fevered kisses and urgent strokes on skin as they got rid of layers and fell onto the bed in a tangle of urgent limbs. Drowning in kisses and the bliss of his fingers exploring her intimate places, Cecey arched up into his touch with little mewls of delight.

“Are you as ready for me as you seem?” he panted, his fingers tracing patterns of pleasure between her legs.

“Yes! Yes!” she said, tugging him closer and covering his chest and shoulders with kisses.

“My perfect goddess, Diana,” he murmured with a low growl that gave her a little thrill. She loved it when he growled like that. He moved her leg over his hip and, reaching between them, moved his cock into position, pressing to her entrance. She shifted her hips to accommodate him, and she felt the deep slide as he pushed inside. She uttered a soft groan of delight, echoed by his own.

Lying face to face on their sides, he moved his hips, and she moved with him, the perfect seesaw of delight, as he held her close and pressed his lips to the crown of her head. His hand slid down to cup and squeeze her bottom as he pushed deep inside her in a rhythm that began to build a knot of desire within her.

He moved his arm under her leg to grasp her cheek, lifting her leg higher and pressing deeper with his slowly building thrusts. As if he knew exactly how to fuel the fire within her. Her groans of delight and urgent need got louder, and these seemed to encourage him to strive deeper and harder to pleasure her, his thrusting hips pushing her closer and closer to the precipice as the knot of pleasure tightened and tightened. His hand on her bottom squeezed hard and pressed her closer with each thrust.

Her hands clutched at him, her nails digging into his flesh as her groans got louder, and she almost screamed. “Oh Rick! Rick! Rick!” Her head flung back as her back arched and her body convulsed with pleasure.

“Fuck, Cecey!” he groaned and rolled her under him, his hips continuing their thrusting rhythm. She gasped, opening her eyes as the explosion settled to watch his face. His eyes were closed, and his expression was torn with desire as his own pleasure peaked with a deep groan and shudder of his body. She felt the rush of heat within, and her body jerked in a secondary wave of pleasure, as he collapsed on her in a panting heap.

His head came to rest on the pillow above her, and he murmured something unintelligible.

“What was that?” she asked with a soft sigh of contentment.

He lifted his head with a visible effort and said, “Fucking perfect.”

She chuckled. “Yes,” she agreed.

He rolled sideways bringing her with him, careful not to separate their bodies, and from there he rolled onto his back. His hands ran down her back and clasped her bottom. “I’m still hard. You can ride me if you want,” he said lazily.

She moved experimentally and realized it was true. He was still hard and buried deep inside her. She curled her knees up to straddle him and moved her hips, enjoying the sudden thrill of pleasure from her sensitized flesh.

“That’s it,” he murmured stroking her back with one hand while the other stayed firmly on her bottom. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the pleasure, letting the knot rise and tighten until she brought it rapidly to its peak with a soft groan.

“More?” he murmured, as she continued to move her hips in the aftermath. Discovering that indeed she wanted more, she kept going and managed to push herself through three more peaks of pleasure before her body collapsed on his in a trembling heap.

“That was extraordinary,” she gasped.

He grinned. “Indeed.” Wrapping his arms around her and brought her head into his shoulder and murmured, “You are extraordinary.”

She sighed with contentment and nestled into him. “Thank you.”

***

Rick lay still while his wife fell asleep on his body and made a silent vow to protect her from all harm. He hadn’t chosen to marry, but he was beginning to realize that for some reason he had been earmarked to protect this little lady, and he was done resisting that. She was his to protect, and he would, to the best of his ability, do so.

Chapter 17

The encounter with Lord and Lady Kenrick infuriated Bidenden, and he spent three days brooding about it. Quite how the idea came to him, he wasn’t sure, but the more he thought about how Rick had snatched Cecelia out of his grasp, the more furious he got. His life was in a tenuous position from which he could see no way out until his father passed away. And frustratingly, the old man seemed likely to kick on for many years yet. The more he thought about Cecelia, the more he wanted her. Not just her money, but her. Her round and soft little body, her sunshiny disposition, and her ardent spirit. She was a sensuous little thing, he just knew it.

She seemed the solution to all his woes, and in his mind, only one thing stood in his way of having her: Lord Kenrick Layne.

And so, by degrees, he began to think about ways he could be rid of this hindrance to his plans. He couldn’t do it directly—even he balked at murder by his own hand—but people died every day from all sorts of causes. And accidents happened all the time . . .

Bidenden entered the Wounded Dog in the evening, four days after his encounter with Rick and Cecey over dinner, suitably anonymously dressed, so as not to draw attention to himself. He’d been keeping a low profile while Baines kept him abreast of Lord and Lady Kenrick’s antics. It seemed the newly wed couple were playing at being lord and lady of the manor. Which might be amusing to the casual observer but wasn’t following the script that Bidenden had hoped for. He had expected Rick to grow rapidly bored with the situation and hopefully choose to return to London, leaving his lady vulnerable and alone. It would then have been a simple matter to arrange—at a safe distance—for an accident to befall Lord Kenrick, thus making his bride a widow, ripe for the plucking. But the meeting a few days ago had put paid to that hope. Rick, apprised of his presence in the vicinity, would be unlikely to leave Cecelia alone and unprotected now.

Indeed, that scenario seemed an extremely unlikely one in any event, based on the—by all accounts—intense physical relationship that had developed between them. So a new plan was called for. Thus, he had come for another meeting with Mr. Baines. He approached the bar where Catherine Freeman was dispensing drinks to customers and wondered idly if the comely widow would be open to a reprise of their first encounter. She was a passionate woman, and the notion stirred his body to attention. Perhaps he would pursue it after his meeting with Baines.

She turned from the customer she was serving to smile at him and ask with a saucy look what she could do for him. Promising! He smiled and ordered a porter. While she was pouring it, he said, “I came in the hope of finding Mr. Baines. Is he here?”

“Aye,” she said, handing over his tankard. “In the parlor, yonder,” she nodded to a doorway on the right side of the back wall, near the fireplace. “Down the corridor, first door on the right. He’s having dinner with Mr. Hendrix.” This piece of information made his ears prick up. He had noted before that Baines and Hendrix were in communication. It seemed the relationship was closer than he had first thought. Was Hendrix mixed up in this business, too? Falconbridge had surely not operated alone. Good information to have. The more leverage he had with these people the better.