To Sin with Scandal Read online

  He took a step nearer to the woman who graced his library, the scent of roses wafting across the room. Another hint the woman before him was not who her card said she was.

  “Push your hood back. I wish to see you,” he said, using a tone meant to soothe and yet an order just the same.

  The woman stiffened and, if anything, pulled her cloak tighter about her chin. “I should leave.” She stood and walked toward the door. Without turning she said, “I wish you all the best, Lord Scandal, in whatever direction your life takes. You deserve to be happy. Goodnight.”

  He made the door at the same time she did and reached over her shoulder, slamming it shut. The scent he had not smelt for an age intoxicated his senses. Brought back the callow youth he’d once been before a disreputable life and scandal shadowed his every step. Before a mistake, not of his making, ruined his life.

  Sedley pulled the hood from her head and breathed in the scent of her hair, summertime fruits, as he’d suspected. Instead of the chignon she favoured, this night she wore it loose about her slender neck, pulling his gaze over her shoulder toward her bountiful breasts.

  He swallowed and unable to resist, curled his hand about her luscious curves, welcomed her sigh and the warmth of her back as she leant into his embrace. Need thrummed hot and heavy in his blood. He wanted her, craved her like no other, and tonight, he would make her his as he ought to have years ago.

  His choice was wrong, he knew with every fiber of his being he should let her leave, move on with her life. But he could not, and his conscience pinched over his decision. Had he not vowed to give up this life, finish having meaningless sex with women he hardly knew? He wanted a wife. A woman of his own. A family. Miranda deserved more than a tumble in his sheets.

  Sedley ran his gaze over her profile, creamy white skin, straight nose, and succulent lips. At one time, he had wished for her to be his wife; not that he harbored such ideals any more. Few would wish for a husband as tarnished as he.

  “You should leave,” he said, with no intention of allowing her to do so. Miranda stiffened in his arms, her throat working in an almost audible swallow.

  “Let me go then,” she said, her words edged with steel.

  His mind fought an inner battle over doing what he knew to be right and allowing himself one night with the only woman he had ever loved. After this eve, she might walk out his door and not look back. His arms tightened about her waist, the temptation too much to forego. He would have her, this once.

  Before she married someone else.

  And Miranda was here, was she not? To sleep with him, fuck him like all the others. The image of her legs tangled with his while he drove deep into her hot sex, her breasts rocking with every stroke, made the breath whoosh from his lungs.

  Sedley lost the battle to deny himself this night. He wanted her with a raw need that went beyond physical contact. No longer would he allow any excuse to keep them apart. Family, marriage, money, or reputation. Now that he knew who stood before him, he’d allow nothing to stand in the way of having her. Of loving her.

  Miranda . . . .

  “Where are you going?” he asked as he skimmed his free hand over the silk chemise she sported. She gasped, and heat shot to his groin making his cock strain against his skintight breeches. Unable to resist her bottom, he pushed his manhood between the globes.

  “I thought . . . you said you wished for me to leave.” Miranda answered on a moan when he tweaked her nipple.

  “I said, I wanted Lady Cameron to leave. I did not mention Lady Miranda Fitsimmon.” Sedley nuzzled her neck and kissed the small freckle beneath her lobe. “I don’t want you to leave.” Never had he spoken truer words, and oddly enough, it did not scare him.

  Miranda turned in his hold and met his gaze. Her wide, blue eyes searched his, for what, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps the truth? He fought his devilish side that wanted to taunt the woman who had betrayed him for another, and yet the new Lord Sedley could not. He would not live another day without her.

  “Why?” she asked, skimming his jaw with her fingertips. One sliding over his bottom lip as if she’d never seen a more delectable sight.

  “Because I want you. Tonight.” Always, although he could not voice such a word. In time, he would court her, win her love and marry . . . .

  But for this night, he would seduce her. The one woman he had always wanted. Had once loved.

  Miranda.

  Chapter 3

  Miranda should leave. For all of Lord Sedley’s reassuring words and ardent touches, she was playing with fire. And her heart.

  “This was a mistake,” she said, settling the hood about her face and stepping back. The thought of all those women he had bedded raised her hackles. Every one of them had used his lordship for enjoyment, to while away the banality of society. He was sport for them and nothing more. It should have been she who warmed his bed. Loved him with her heart and soul. Oh, it was an irrational stupid reflection, but one she had nonetheless.

  “You don’t want me?”

  The unsure note in Sedley’s question caused an ache to settle in her chest. Of course, she wanted him. Had wanted him from the first day she had met the dark-eyed, handsome gentleman on a picnic at Richmond. Her eyes took in his immaculate attire, the crisp starched cravat. Such a gentleman on the surface but what hid beneath? Hard as such a realisation was to admit, she no longer knew. She met his gaze, and the desperate yearning she saw there crumbled to ash her resolve to leave.

  Unable to deny herself this night, Miranda leant up and kissed him. Life was too short to make another mistake, one she might regret forever. His lips, soft at first, turned punishing, ravished her mouth with an abandonment she welcomed and mimicked. His tongue teased her own, his teeth nibbling on her lips. He drank from her as if his life depended on her favors. She knew her future could possibly hinge on what happened this night between them.

  She gasped and chuckled when his strong muscled arms lifted her and carried her to a settee made for coupling. He skittered his hands over her body leaving fire in their wake. Miranda undulated beneath him, moaned when he touched her most private part, circling the little nubbin hidden in her wet folds.

  “Do you like that?”

  Miranda clasped his hand to ensure he did not stop. His knowing chuckle against her neck then lower on her chest heightened her desire. She ran a hand through his short locks and shut her eyes. Never had she known such pleasure. Such care and petting were never part of her coupling with her dearly departed husband. Or perhaps, just departed. All consideration of her past sexual experiences dissipated when his lips sought her nipple through the silk of her gown and he kissed her.

  “Yes, I like it.” Her nails scraped his skull when he left her sex to run his hand down her leg. “I always welcomed your touch.” He clasped the hem of her gown and slid it upward, the cool air of the library served only to add heat to her body, as he slid the silk toward her waist. His callused hand pushed her leg outward, and he kneaded the delicate skin of her inner thigh.

  Moisture flooded her core when his hand grazed her sex without any material impediment, and Miranda thought she might dissolve into tiny fragments of bliss. So long since she’d felt this fire. This need thrumming through her blood. His fingers resumed their stroking before one, then two, entered her in one fluid move.

  Sedley groaned. “So tight. I’m looking forward to breaking you in to my size, Miranda.” He leant over her and met her gaze. His eyes shadowed by the longest lashes she’d ever seen, looked at her with longing and maybe . . . regret. “You’re as tight as a virgin.”

  She wrapped one leg about his hip and pulled him down for a kiss, wanting all and everything he could offer her. His tongue teased her own before his lips skimmed her chin, neck, breast . . . .

  “What are you doing, Sedley?” Miranda sat up on her elbows and looked at him in horror as his kisses ventured further down her body. Sedley nuzzled her navel, his eyes glinting up at her with wicked intention.

&nbsp
; “Call me Merrick.” He kissed her upper thigh. “You once loved calling me by my given name.”

  Miranda bit her lip when two fingers delved into her aching center, moving with an expertise that tantalized and left her senseless while his gaze remained glued to hers. “If I recall correctly, my lord,” she panted, “you refused me such a liberty on my nineteenth birthday.”

  Sedley nuzzled her sex, and heat prickled her cheeks. “I give you leave to call me thus again. It’s been too long since I’ve heard my name uttered by your lips.”

  Miranda flopped on to her back when he slid his tongue down between her folds and flicked her aching nubbin. She clasped the pillows strewn about her, but nothing could stop her moan when his mouth blinded her to everything but this decadent pleasure.

  “I want you so much,” he said, kissing her stomach then taking her sex once more to tease.

  With wanton abandonment, Miranda let her legs fall open to allow him his way. Tension coiled within her, and grasping for stability, she clasped his head and grinded her body up against his face. All thoughts of propriety and decorum forgotten as Merrick pushed her into unexplored territory of sensations she had often heard talk of but never had experienced.

  Desire and need unlike anything she had known assailed her. His tongue swirled, flicked, and heat spiralled throughout her body. She moaned and gasped his name, then shattered beneath him, allowed herself to go, to enjoy what Merrick did to her . . . for her . . . was still doing to her, as he continued to love her with his fingers while his lips and tongue drained every tingle and contraction her body could summon.

  He chuckled and moved over her when she lay sated, a satisfied grin on her lips. She could not move had she tried. “I had no idea it could be this way between a man and woman,” she whispered.

  Sedley frowned and kissed her. “Did your husband not perform as one should? Did he not love you as I longed to love you?”

  Miranda wiped the frown line from his brow and tried to ignore the pain she could hear in his voice. “Never.”

  “Stay with me and it’s all you will ever know.”

  It sounded very much like a promise.

  * * *

  Merrick kissed her uncertainty away and set to entice and arouse her once more. Would he ever get enough, now, that he’d had her? He thought not. She was as fresh and pure as he imagined. A woman untouched by desire, thanks to an inept husband. But a denied woman no more. He would ensure this night that she would enjoy their coupling. So much so, Miranda would never wish for another.

  He chuckled when she pushed at his chest and rolled him onto his back, straddled him, and lifted her chemise from her body. Merrick sucked in a startled breath as the woman above him revealed her bountiful, womanly body. Skin, as smooth as alabaster, shone in the firelight of the room. Her eyes sparkled with mirth and mischievousness.

  “Perhaps it is my turn to pleasure you, my lord.” Merrick ground his hips against her wet sex and groaned when she rubbed her slick heat along his engorged cock. “You want me, my lord? Want to take me with your large phallus over and over again?” She taunted him with her words while her hands stroked over his chest, his stomach, his . . . .

  He clasped her hair and dragged her down to his lips. Letting her feel his uncontrolled, brazen desire, just what she did to him, made him wild for her and ache in places he hadn’t believed possible.

  “Before I do exactly what you said, what pleasures did you have in mind, my Lady Miranda?”

  She gave him one last peck on the lips before she wiggled down his chest, her hair tickling his skin. Merrick groaned when she settled between his thighs and touched his engorged cock with a single finger. It jerked under her caress, and she smiled, or a better word for her features, planned. Savoured.

  Her gaze met his quickly then moved back to what fascinated her so. He closed his eyes when five delicate fingers clamped around his shaft and stroked long and sure. His balls grew tight, and Merrick had an overwhelming urge to pull her head down on his cock and make her suck it . . . hard.

  And yet, such action was not needed. For blessedly, the wonderful woman in his bed bent and licked the creamy nectar from his penis then took him in her mouth. Exquisite sensations overwhelmed him. His legs shifted on the bed in the hopes he wouldn’t disgrace himself and cum in her mouth after such a short time. But as her hand worked his lower cock and her lips and torturous tongue teased the head, that was exactly what he wanted to do.

  But no. Not yet. Tonight, he would show her pleasure. Enough to keep her by his side for all time. Just as she was meant to be all those years ago.

  “Stop,” he begged when she took him deeper and faster into her mouth and sucked with the abilities of the best London courtesan.

  She sat up and frowned. “Do you not like it?” she asked, worry in her eyes.

  Merrick pushed himself up and pulled her onto his lap to straddle his legs. “Too much, Miranda.” He kissed her and tasted both her and his essence in the kiss. “I want you.”

  Miranda searched his gaze and nodded. “Then take me.”

  He needed no further encouragement. In one movement, he lifted her and pulled her down to impale her on his shaft. Her tight core pulled at his cock with every stroke. Her whimpers forced him to increase the tempo; he fucked her with all the skill he could summon. Her breasts rocked against his chest, sending tremor after tremor of desire to his groin.

  “Merrick, I—” she gasped.

  He clamped his jaw when the first spasms of her orgasm started to flex about him. He continued the relentless ride and allowed her to shatter, did not cease his gorging of her until she was sated in his arms. Then and only then did he allow his own release to spill into her womb.

  He came in a blinding light that seemed never to end. She clasped his shoulders and kissed him then screamed as his climax brought on another for her. Merrick clamped down the urge to grin at his ability to bring her to orgasm once again. Before morning, she would come, many times over.

  * * *

  Miranda slumped onto the settee beside Merrick and smiled up at the ornate ceiling. Never had she had such an amazing experience. Of course when they were young, petting and kissing had been a given in their short courtship, but never anything as grand as what she just experienced. Although, on their last night together, hints of what was to come had teased her senses alive.

  Left her longing for years.

  She looked across at Merrick, who lay with his eyes closed, his chest rising swiftly with the lack of air. And a heart that had not lived for seven years started to beat once more in her chest. “I should have believed you.”

  Merrick opened his eyes and turned toward her. “What do you mean?”

  “I should have trusted you would come when you promised you would. And yet, I panicked and agreed to Lord Fitsimmon instead. How you must have hated me.” Miranda wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

  His knowing sigh sounded loud in the quiet of the room. “My carriage lost a wheel on the road back from Kent, took an age to get it repaired. It was why I was late. Had I known you would accept the first marriage proposal you received, I would have asked for your hand the first night we met.”

  Miranda stared up at the ceiling, unable to meet his gaze. “I saw you the night before you were to call on me with Lady Mont and thought you were no longer interested. She being such a beautiful widow and you—”

  “I was not a libertine then, Miranda.” Merrick stood and reached for his shirt. Clasping the only thing available to her, Miranda held a pillow against her body and followed to where he stood. “You blame me for your uncouth life?”

  He paused then continued to button his shirt, walking to a window and staring out at the moonless night. “I did. But tonight, seeing you again, I realised I still love you. Always have, and perhaps just marked time until you were free of a husband who was not worthy of you.”

  A prickle of hope blossomed in her heart followed quickly with disbelief. “I requested you to call on me
after my mourning was over. You refused. Why?”

  Merrick turned and walked toward her, his gait that of a predator. He smiled down at her and pulled the pillow from her hands, his eyes heating at the sight. “I was angry.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I cannot give you any other excuse more pleasing.”

  Miranda snatched up what looked to be her stocking and wrenched it over her foot. “You think I asked you to call to start what we never finished? It did not occur to you I needed a friend? A man I once knew who was kind and considerate of others? That I thought you were such a man?”

  Merrick’s jaw worked as he stood silent, hands on his hips. “What was I to think? Lord Fitsimmon had been gone a year or more, more than enough time for you to get over his death. Was I mistaken?”

  “Yes!” Miranda looked about the room for her other stocking, spying it under the settee she picked it up and sat. “I needed a friend, someone who knew me. I was lonely.” She sighed and dropped her hands into her lap. “You love me?”

  A smile quirked his lips at her change of thought. “Yes.”

  “But what of this life? Your reputation as a rake will be over should you take a wife.” She paused, not sure how to say what she must. “I will not share you, Merrick.”

  “I had not known I’d mentioned marriage,” Merrick said, one eyebrow quirked.

  Miranda stood and looked about for her chemise, thanked the dim candlelight in the room that hid the heat on her cheeks. “I just assumed, since you mention love that marriage would be something you wished.” She swallowed her mortification and slipped her chemise over her head.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, frowning.

  Miranda cursed her inability to locate her cloak. “Leaving.” She watched him walk over to a decanter of brandy and pour himself a glass. He tossed it down his throat.