Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 4) Read online

  Or worse, become the governess to his future children. Bile burned like acid in her throat.

  Jonathan continued to study her, uncharacteristically silent. “Is that what you want. Do you want me to leave? If you do, say the words.”

  There could be no more unlikely pair than Juliet Marshville and Jonathan, the 5th Earl of Sinclair.

  And yet…

  God help her. She couldn’t call up the proper, ladylike response.

  Until this moment, Rosecliff Cottage had represented the one opportunity she would have in life to own something. Now, in Jonathan’s arms, with the promise of his touch, she now realized she could own something more—this splendorous moment. She could lay herself open to his embrace and carry with her, the memory of his touch, his lips, the very essence of him.

  She forced herself to take a calming breath. And another. And another. “I ask you to please leave me be.” Because with your body’s nearness, and the strength of your hand in my own, I risk doing something foolish like losing my post for the pleasure of your touch.

  He stood stock-still. Unmoving. His stare fixed upon her face. “Is that what you want? For me to leave?”

  No. “Yes, my lord.” There could be no alternative, even as she wished it with that small sliver of an innocent lady’s heart.

  His long legs carried him over to her in three long strides. “So, it is back to my lord, then?”

  Juliet craned her neck back to look at this man who, with his strength and aura of power could rob a weaker woman of her wits. Oh, Jonathan. “It has always been, my lord,” she whispered, imploring him with her eyes to understand how fearful she was of losing any more of herself to him.

  He reached his fingers out to caress her jaw and she swallowed hard. “But then, that isn’t true is it, love?”

  Oh goodness, when he called her love in that silken, seductive murmur she wanted to do something foolish like throw away her good name and let him make her his love in every sense of the word.

  “You want me, Juliet. As I want you,” his husky baritone warmed her like liquid sun being poured upon her naked skin.

  She wet her lips. He dropped his stare to her mouth, and fixed there as though he’d never before seen a person’s lips. When he at last met her gaze, all hint of emotion or anything of which he’d been thinking, had been erased.

  “I am lost,” Jonathan groaned. He dragged her into his arms and her wrapper fell open. Her breasts tingled from where they pressed against the hard muscled wall of his chest. His lips found hers in a fiery explosion of fury and wanting and desperation.

  Juliet moaned; it was as though her hands possessed a will of their own. She tangled her fingers in the luxurious locks of his black strands and kissed him as she’d longed to do since she’d first spied him exiting his clubs.

  He crushed his lips over hers again and again. She whimpered as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, making love to the wet cavern like he wanted to forever bear her imprint upon his soul. He pulled away, and she groaned in protest, fisting his hair. But her efforts proved ineffectual, and he trailed a path of kisses down her cheek, the place on her neck where her pulse fluttered wildly with her wanting of him, still lower until his lips hovered above the modest expanse of her décolletage.

  Her head fell back on a guttural groan when he nipped at and teased the sensitive flesh of her exposed skin. Her fingers ached to tear free her gown and open herself to his skilled ministrations. He cupped her buttocks and he scooped her in his strong, capable hands, dragging her close to his swollen length. The small, sliver of logic that resided in her passion-clouded mind registered the absolute indecency of his fingers inching up the exposed flesh of her thighs. However, raw, hungry desire devoured the sliver of logic in a burning conflagration that set her body ablaze. “J-Jonathan,” she panted against his lips, wishing she had the willpower to pull away. Knowing with her heart, that he’d possessed her since their first kiss in the parlor.

  His fingers continued their masterful climb until he’d rucked her ivory wrapper and modest nightgown up about her hips. The cool night air kissed her skin. “I do not know your hold on me, Juliet,” he whispered harshly against her temple. She cried out as he inserted an oak-hard thigh between her legs, and she shamelessly ground herself against him. “But you’re a temptress who has captivated me mind, body, and soul,” he rasped, continuing to rock his thigh between her legs.

  Hot, wet heat flooded her center, and she clenched her legs tight around him. His strong hands anchored about her hips, guided her in a rhythmic, seductive motion—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Juliet bit her lip hard. “Jonathan,” she said on a soft cry. She buried her head against his chest and found support in his arms while pressure built at her core, and then she screamed.

  He swallowed the piercing cry with his kiss, and wave after wave of unadulterated pleasure unfurled throughout her body. “That is right, love,” he groaned. “Come for me.” He continued to rock her against his thigh, wringing every last pleasurable drop from her until she collapsed in his arms. Jonathan caught her to him.

  Her pulse sounded loudly in her ears, and blended with his harsh, heavy breathing. She turned her cheek against his chest, and squeezed her eyes tight. God help her.

  She loved him.

  Chapter 13

  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

  Jonathan’s heart threatened to pound from his chest, and he sank down onto the floor, with Juliet in his lap, borrowing support from the leather sofa. His body throbbed with an aching, unfulfilled desire; a need to lift the skirts of her nightgown and guide her upon his shaft, and bring her to surcease yet again.

  She shifted off his lap, and he groaned. “Jonathan?” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes tight, not trusting himself to speak with his need for her. “I need a moment, love.” He needed far more than a moment, but that was hardly fit for an innocent young lady’s ears.

  His Juliet, however was far too clever. She came up on her knees beside him. Eyes wide. “Oh,” she blurted. “You…er…”

  “Yes,” he interrupted, because the last thing his body could stand was her lips uttering her virginal question as to his current state.

  She angled her head. Her breathing had resumed its normal cadence. “Can I help you? I imagine there is something I can do, as you’ve done for me.” She worried her lower lip. “Of course, I don’t know what that something is, per se, but…”

  His groan drowned out her next words. He was going to hell, there was nothing else for it, but he needed to feel her fingers upon his manhood. Jonathan released the front flaps of his breeches. His shaft sprung free, both angry, and begging.

  Juliet’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, my,” she whispered, and it was that breathless, hungry, desirous whisper that nearly drove him mad.

  “Touch me,” he implored. He guided her hand to his rod. His eyes slid closed on a hiss as she wrapped her long, slender fingers about his length.

  She stroked him up in down, and his hips lunged upwards. Juliet paused. “Have I hurt you?”

  He clenched his eyes tight. “Only when you stop,” he managed between gritted teeth.

  Juliet resumed stroking him. Up and down. Up and down. Then she touched the tip of her index finger over the plum tip of his rampant manhood, collecting the bead of moisture. She raised it to her mouth and flicked her tongue over the drop.

  His hips lunged up, and he reached for her hand. He dragged it back to his swollen shaft. “Please,” he implored.

  Juliet closed her fist about him and squeezed with clever hands, and then began to work him in a slow, rhythmic motion.

  He groaned, and through heavy lids studied the erotic tableau of her pleasuring him. Her mouth hung agape as if bringing him pleasure had roused her just sated desires, and it only fueled the increasingly frantic movement of his hips. Jonathan pumped them in time to her firm tugs.

  He should stop. He should stop. She was a lady, and…

  His h
ead fell back on a groan, and he spent himself while she wrung every last drop from him. He collapsed against the sofa, the life drained from him. His arms hung uselessly at his side. When blood resumed circulating through his arms, he pulled her into his lap.

  When he could breathe again, he reached into the front of his jacket and withdrew a crisp white kerchief, and cleaned his seed from her. He righted his clothing and then reclined back against the leather sofa.

  She burrowed close to him like a small kitten in need of warmth. He ran a hand over her back in little circles. The sweet smell of her upon his leg permeated his senses, more intoxicating than the most powerful spirits; a delicious scent of sin.

  In his life, he’d carried on with a vast number of women, some inventive creatures who’d brought him a fleeting moment of pleasure. Never before had he known this mind-numbing bliss, as he’d known at Juliet’s innocent hands. All he knew was that this could never be enough. He could not live the remainder of his life without knowing the feel of plunging into her hot, tight heat.

  He ceased his rhythmic stroking, under the staggering realization that this pull she had over him went beyond mere sex. This enigmatic hold was of a sorceress who’d woven a spell about him of which he could not be freed. Jonathan’s heart pounded loud and hard as his mind shied away from the implications of such a thought. He trailed his hand over her lower back, her buttocks.

  She gasped as he scooped her into his arms and cradled her upon his lap. Jonathan dropped a kiss against her brow. He ran his hand over her body, until he reached the lean, lithe legs of a woman accustomed to the seat of a horse.

  He paused, remembering Prudence’s claim earlier that day. He lifted the fabric of her wrapper and nightgown, studied the slim calf, and then paused. But for the slight curve at the lower portion of her right leg, there was little else remarkably different about the limb. He trailed his fingers over the former break, and Juliet stiffened in his arms. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered and kissed the corner of her lips.

  “It’s ugly,” she said bluntly. She spoke of her injury as a matter of fact. She didn’t shed tears or avert her gaze. He’d never before known a woman like her.

  “You’re so very wrong, Juliet. Whatever gentleman would desire a flawless limb when presented with such unique—”

  She snorted. “You’re a hopeless rogue, Jonathan.”

  He started, a frown on his lips as it occurred to him that she believed he spoke as nothing more than a flirtatious rogue, and not as a gentleman who in this moment desired her and no other. “You are beautiful, and your leg is beautiful,” he said harshly. “When I speak, it is the truth.” He’d never resented the title rogue ascribed him—until now. With this woman.

  With her, he wanted to be more. He wanted her to see him as more than merely Sin, hopeless rogue.

  A strand of hair fell over his brow, and Juliet brushed it back. “Forgive me,” she said quietly. “I did not mean to insult you.”

  He nodded, and spanned his hand around the lower portion of her calf. “What happened?” he murmured, wanting to know everything about her life before this moment.

  She shrugged. “Hardly anything exciting. I was thirteen. Albert and I were climbing a tree at Rosecliff Cottage, and I fell to the ground. The doctor set it, and it, of course, never healed the exact same.”

  Pain knifed into his heart. She would have been the same age as Penelope at the time of her accident. He imagined a crimson-curled, freckle-faced Juliet of thirteen with wide eyes filled with tears of pain.

  Around the time of her accident, Jonathan had been recently out of university, a young gentleman of three and twenty who’d recently assumed the mantle of responsibility for his family…and he’d also established his reputation of rogue, and master at the faro tables around that time.

  Shame twisted at his stomach. “Your brother was with you,” he murmured, finding some solace in the idea that she’d not been alone. Even if she had been in company with the boy who’d grown into the wastrel, reprobate Albert Marshville.

  Juliet stiffened, her gaze skittered away. “Yes, he was with me.” Bitterness laced those five words.

  Jonathan had a sense that she withheld something more to the story of her fall. He ceased his line of questioning, and they fell into a comfortable silence better suited to a companionable couple long wed. He resumed running smoothing circles over the small of her back.

  Juliet steepled her hands together and placed them upon his chest, then leaned back while looking up at him. “Do you know how very angry I was after I’d fallen? When I woke up and learned what had happened, I hurled every item within my reach at the walls of my room.”

  Suddenly, he wished he could go back and sit beside her as she’d learned the truth of her leg. Wished he could go back and take her hand in his and assure her that he’d glimpsed into the future and spied the twenty-two year old Juliet Marshville and she was a courageous, beautiful, spirited woman, in spite of the injury she’d sustained.

  A wistful smile played at her lips. “I look at Penelope and see just a girl, and yet, when I was very nearly her age, I’d already learned the truth.”

  He stilled. “The truth?”

  “That I would never wed. I knew I’d never have a husband or nine children,” she smiled up at him as if he could find amusement at the reminder of their earlier game, even with this pain bleeding through her words.

  “Of course you’ll have a husband and nine children,” he added gruffly. And he would abhor the man with everything inside him.

  Her eyes took a faraway quality. “Perhaps,” she said unconvincingly. “Know what I shall have though?”

  He locked his gaze with hers. “What is that?”

  “Rosecliff Cottage,” she said on a smile.

  The unwitting reminder tugged at his insides. There would come a time, not very far from now when she would leave. She’d pack her valise of her gowns and sketchpads and disappear from his life. Ah God, what was to account for this dull ache at his chest? He forced a half-grin. “Ah, yes, but then that requires your converting my sisters into proper, demure, English ladies.” His teasing had the opposite effect. The sparkle in her eyes dimmed, and her smile faltered. Determined to restore the gentle ease between them, Jonathan rescued the sketchpad from the floor, and with Juliet on his lap, awkwardly flipped through the pages.

  “Jonathan,” she murmured, and made a grab for it.

  He held it aloft, just beyond her reach. There was the drawing of his three, somber sisters that existed as nothing more than a pretend image upon a page. He grinned.

  “Jonathan,” she insisted, her tone imploring.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he scolded. “As a governess you should know to obey one’s employer.”

  She swatted at his arm, and made another ineffectual grab for the book.

  He came across the sketch she’d done of him. And… He paused, glancing down at Juliet.

  She’d buried her gaze in his now, limp cravat.

  Lady Beatrice Dennington. “It’s a remarkable likeness,” he said into the quiet. Then, all of Juliet’s work seemed remarkable in nature. She’d captured the demure, lowered gaze, the perfectly arranged ringlets. Even the blush upon Lady Beatrice’s cheeks managed to shine through the dark charcoal. “What is it, Juliet?” He lowered the sketchpad and his knuckles to force her chin up.

  Her mouth set at a firm line. “Nothing. It is nothing.”

  Except, he’d come to know women rather well these years and knew when a woman uttered ‘It-is-nothing’ in that particular tone, well, it usually happened to be a very big something. He tread cautiously. “Did Lady Beatrice do or say something to offend you earlier this day?” He fisted his hands at his side.

  Juliet sprung to her feet, and her rumpled nightgown and wrapper fluttered about her ankles. She began to pace. “It is nothing,” she repeated.

  Which only confirmed his suspicion that Juliet concealed something from him.

  He climbed to his feet, wit
h a frown. He didn’t like the idea of Juliet concealing anything from him. “Did she—?”

  “No!” Juliet exclaimed. She paused mid-pace and glowered. Then, muttering something beneath her breath, she resumed pacing.

  “You weren’t even with me?” he repeated back. His brow furrowed. Or it sounded as though she’d said something to that effect.

  A crimson blush to match the fiery hue of her hair flooded her cheeks. She only increased her frenzied pace. Her rapid movements released a long, tightly coiled red curl from the loose knot at her nape. The strand danced in a fluttery, cascading dance across her small bosom and lay there. “I should have never come here,” she muttered under her breath.

  Jonathan’s heart started, and he placed himself in front of her. “Why do you say that?” he demanded, furious with her words, furious with her inexplicable reaction, furious at the prospect of her leaving. Furious with himself for caring.

  Juliet held her hands up beseechingly. “Because I shouldn’t, Jonathan. This,” she gestured between them. “This is dangerous. No good can come of it.”

  He clasped her hand in his, turning it over. “Everything good can come of it.”

  “You’ll marry your Lady Beatrice, and then what will become of me?” She freed her hand and fisted the fabric of her skirts.

  He angled his head. Suddenly the sketch, her volatile, inexplicable reaction, the hurt in her eyes, all of it made sense—why, Juliet was jealous.

  Through the years, when presented with a woman’s more-serious interest, Jonathan had taken care to turn on his heel and run as far and as fast as his roguish legs could carry him. Some marked shift had occurred inside him at Juliet’s covetousness. He liked that she was jealous. Because it meant she cared. And he wanted her to care for reasons that he didn’t understand. He grinned.

  “What?”

  He tweaked her nose. “You’re jealous.”

  Her gaze narrowed, and if this lighthearted sensation hadn’t taken over his chest, he’d surely have had the sense to not smile but—