Page 13 of Seduced By the Squire (Diamonds in the Rough #1)

“Did ye do it?”

As Duncan had predicted, Llinos almost jumped out of her skin when he spoke. A corner of his lip curled up. The lass was deliciously spontaneous. Intent on surprising her, he had been careful to approach the castle at a walk and get in as unobtrusively as possible so as not to alert her to the fact that he had returned. By the looks of things, he had succeeded.

“You scared me!” she croaked, placing a hand over her heart. Over her breasts, the breasts he had fantasised about day and night in the past month.

“So I saw. Didn’t I tell ye always to expect the worst from men?” He was at her side in a heartbeat and before he knew what he was doing, he had drawn her flush against his chest. For a wild, and altogether bewildering moment he wondered if he was not about to kiss her.

He started. Not again!

Duncan MacQuarrie, bastard son of a minstrel, kiss Lady Llinos as if he had every right to ?

Don’t be such a fool , he cringed inwardly, before releasing her. Having her soft body against his was just tempting the devil in him.

“So?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest. It was better for both of them if he reverted to being a commanding Scotsman instead of acting like a love-struck ninny. “Did ye do as I asked? Did ye practice touching yerself?”

Aye, that was why he was here, to turn her into the veriest wanton, not to entertain foolish ideas about her or behave like a loving husband returning home after a long absence. Three days, damn it, he had only been gone for three days! And yet he’d missed her as if it had been three years.

“I believe you have a letter for me?” she demurred.

He snorted at her attempt at diversion. Did she really think it would be that easy to make him forget what he wanted to know when it was all he had been thinking about on the long ride back to Pitcairn Castle? “Oh no, lass! Ye willnae get anything until ye answer me.”

“That is blackmail!” she gasped.

He shrugged. Even after all that had happened between them she still seemed surprised to see him act like a rogue. The lass really was too trusting by far. It was high time she understood what he was capable of. Blackmail was really not the worst thing on the list.

“It could be worse. I could ask ye to show me the result of yer experimentation,” he said with a slight smile. “Here, in the corridor. But I’m only after an aye or a nay.”

She flushed. “And then you will give me the letter?”

“That depends on what the answer is. If it is a nay, I will be mighty displeased. I willnae hear that ye disobeyed my orders.”

“Disobeyed… orders… I…”

He’d rendered her speechless. Perhaps it was not surprising, considering that he had no right to order her about in the first place. But he had. And it felt right.

“I asked ye to do something, I expect ye to have done it,” he confirmed. “And dinnae even think about lying to me, because I’ll ken the truth.”

“How?”

Oh, she had walked straight into that one. His smile broadened. That woman was just too delicious to be believed. “Because either way, I will ask ye to prove it. So I will be able to judge for myself.”

When her lips parted, his shaft, already more than half interested in what they were discussing, grew straight as a poker .

“You don’t mean that!”

He barely repressed a growl. He most definitely meant it. Seeing her touch herself was all he had thought about while he stroked himself on those long, lonely nights at Hackworth Castle. Her body had been on his mind every time he had closed his eyes. Her name had been on his lips every time his seed had shot out of him in hot, creamy spurts.

“So, tell me, lass, do ye want to see yer letter?” he asked, pushing the memory away. It would only make him do something foolish.

“Yes.”

“Is that aye ye want to see the letter or aye ye obeyed my orders and pleasured yerself?”

“Yes, I touched myself.”

Holy mother of… White hot shards of need exploded up Duncan’s spine. What was it with hearing lewd words in her innocent little mouth that sent his blood to boiling point? The combination of demureness and impudence was intoxicating.

Slowly he reached inside his tunic to retrieve the letter. He had to go now, before he either disgraced himself by coming inside his hose like a lad of sixteen or he took her against up the wall. Even supposing she had not baulked at such rough treatment, now was not the time or the place. They were in a corridor where anyone could happen upon them and Masterson would have been told of his arrival by now. He would want to hear about the situation at Hackworth Castle.

Duncan could not delay any longer at the risk of being interrupted.

“There you are, my lady. Your letter.”

He stepped back and reverted to his practiced, impersonal speech. His Sassenach speech. Llinos’ face fell and he could not bear it.

Unable to resist, he seized the hand she had used to grab the missive and drew her to him again. All thoughts of propriety, of caution, flew out of the window. He just had to know.

Now.

“Which one?” he asked in a rasp, brushing each of her delicate finger in turn. Llinos buried her face into his chest.

“This one,” she said, placing her middle finger into his palm.

He let out a low rumble and drew the finger into his mouth, to try and recapture some of the lingering taste he craved. It wasn’t enough. He would have to get the nectar straight from its hidden source, and soon. Llinos moaned as he sucked on her finger and sagged against him. He thought he heard her whisper his name. He closed his eyes at the sound. What was she doing to him?

“And did ye — ”

A door opened in the distance. They jumped apart at the same time.

“I must go,” Llinos whispered, sounding both panicked and dismayed. “Thank you for the letter.”

With those words, she was gone.

*

Dearest Llinos,

I won’t mind admitting that I was quite flustered when I saw the rugged Highlander delivering your letter. And then I read your message and I understood that I was not the only one… Mon Dieu , Llinos, what a man! No wonder you are finding yourself in quite a quandary! I know your heart was never really set on marrying Sir Benedict, and now I’ve seen your handsome squire, I can only sympathise. Two more different men I cannot imagine. But…

Yes. But. Exactly.

But it could lead nowhere. But she might as well have set her sights on the King of England himself. But there was no hope for her, for them. Ever. She was betrothed to another, and even if she had hatched a plan to free herself from that bond, there was no guarantee it would work. If it did work, then it still didn’t mean they could be together. The squire and the heiress. Ridiculous. Duncan was not even a squire; therefore he had no chance of ever becoming a knight. The minstrel and the lady then. Even more ridiculous. Not only ridiculous but a painful reminder of what his parents had been. He would never agree to being with a noble woman after promising his father he would not follow in his footsteps.

Llinos fell onto her bed, utterly defeated.

After days spent on high alert, waiting for Duncan’s return, she was tired. Soon, she started to float into unconsciousness. A moment later, she succumbed to a deep sleep.

The feel of a hand on her breast woke her up.

Duncan’s or someone else’s?

She froze, afraid to open her eyes and betray the fact that she was no longer asleep. If the man in her room was not the one she wanted and he saw that she was awake, there would be no stopping him. She was already lying flat on her back and in a bed… A man who had slipped into her bedchamber uninvited would not hesitate in making the most of the opportunity. That was in all likelihood why he had come. But who could it be? And how had she not heard him come in?

A chuckle reached her ear and the hand at her breast gave a gentle squeeze .

“I ken ye’re awake, lass. Dinnae think ye can fool me.”

Relief washed through her. This irreverent burr could only belong to one person. The man she wanted the most in the world.

“And just what do you think you’re doing, stealing into my chamber?” she whispered, eyes still closed. Judging from the silence surrounding them, it was the middle of the night. Duncan had never dared come to her before. Could she dare hope it meant something? Her heart skipped a beat.

The mattress dipped when he leaned in on one knee to speak into her ear. “What do ye reckon? I’ve come to see that ye didn’t lie to me.”

Blood started to race through her veins. She’d asked that man to deflower her, she had allowed him to fondle her breasts, to see her naked, to take her maidenhead, to place his fingers, his tongue, his… cock inside her, to slide it in her mouth even, and yet this felt like the ultimate barrier.

“I couldn’t,” she whimpered.

“Och aye, ye could and ye will, because it would please me to see it. And to that end…”

He left the bed. Llinos opened one eye to watch him light a candle on the fire embers. So he really meant to see everything. He would not only make her expose herself, but he would make sure no to miss a single thing.

Her breath caught in her lungs.

“Did ye reach yer pleasure when ye touched yerself, lass?” Duncan asked once he had placed the candle on the chest by the foot of the bed.

Llinos flushed and knew she could not lie. “No,” she admitted. Her caresses had left her wanting, there was no denying it. All she had managed to do was stoke the burning need inside her. The whole thing had ended up in a frustrated scream. “It was pleasant but I did not… I’m not sure quite why but I could not…”

He chuckled. “Oh no, you poor dear!”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Had he just imitated Lady Mary? Yes, of course he had. He never used that crisp accent with her, and he would never ever, thank the saints, call her a ‘poor dear’.

She gave him a playful tap on the arm, grateful for the release of tension. “Wretched man! How did you know I could not stand that?” He really did know her inside out!

Duncan chuckled again, a delightful sound. “It isn’t hard to guess. I would hate it too. Now, where were we?” he asked, reverting to his forbidding, commanding self in the blink of an eye. “Aye, ye needed help wi’ the best way to make yerself come. I can do that.”

Of Lord. Every time she thought he had uttered the most shocking thing she had ever heard, he somehow surpassed himself.

“Lift yer skirts,” he instructed tersely. “Lower yer bodice. Ye’ll want to touch yerself and stroke yer breasts as weel. And I’ll need to see them.”

She obeyed because by now she knew it was useless to resist him. They both knew she would comply in the end and it aroused her to follow his guidance.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just get undressed?” she asked nonetheless.

“Easier, aye, but less exciting. Trust me, lass, ye’ll feel more wanton that way, more exposed, and it will only help.”

It didn’t take Llinos long to see the truth in what he was saying. Revealing herself bit by bit, imaging the sensual tableau she would present with her bunched-up skirts and her rumpled clothes did more to rouse her desire than her most daring caresses had. Knowing Duncan was watching her only increased her arousal further.

“Beautiful,” he said under his breath. She bit her lip. He was not teasing her now, he meant it, absolutely. “Now, show me how ye make yerself come.”

“I can’t!” she rasped. Was she going to end up frustrated like the last time? It would be horrible because she would also be humiliated, and all this in front if Duncan. “I told you. No matter what I do, I just can’t…”

“Can’t what?” he coaxed when she stopped.

“I can’t make myself come!”

Oddly, saying the words out loud took her perilously close to doing just that.

“Dinna fash, I can help wi’ that,” Duncan purred in her ear. “I willnae touch ye, but I’ll tell ye what I see. And ye will come, because it will arouse ye to ken that I can see it all.”

“What do you see?” she rasped as she gave a tentative stroke.

“Och, yer small, delicate finger sliding over the place where my cock wants to be right now,” he answered in a groan. “Yer thighs shiny wi’ the juices my tongue aches to lick. Yer breasts with their hard nipples begging to be suckled hard. Ye’re so beautiful, lass. I’m so hard I could come just watching ye touch yerself.”

Llinos’ breath caught in her throat. The man really had a knack for dirty talk. A sudden rush of moisture came to ease her movements and her finger slipped right past her entrance. She shuddered.

“Aye, that’s it,” he said. “Show me how ye spasm out of control. Show me how ye use that wicked wee finger of yers. Slide it in. Then when ye’ve finished ye’ll bring it to my mouth so I can lick it clean. Show me how beautiful ye are when ye come.”

A moment later she did just that.

He trapped her cries of pleasure under his palm and she almost bit him in her ecstasy.

As soon as she’d calmed down, he grabbed her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth to do what he had promised to do. His gestures were rough, proof of his desperation to taste her. Llinos whimpered when her middle finger disappeared into his hot mouth. So decadent! Somehow the swirls of his tongue wrenched more pleasure out of her core. How was that even possible?

“So good.” Duncan growled, as if he was tasting the most delicious treat imaginable.

Then he ripped at his clothes and freed himself in a heartbeat. Just as he’d told her, he was harder than stone.

“My turn. I’m going to make myself come. Watch me,” he ordered, before grabbing himself in hand. “Will ye let me come on yer breasts?” He sounded urgent, gruff, nothing like the sensual tones had used to ease her into pleasure. It sent her wild.

Although she wasn't sure why he would find that arousing or why the question had her blood boiling, the answer darted out of her mouth. “Yes. Come on my breasts.”

Fascinated, she watched as Duncan stroked himself with swift, punishing strokes that had little in common with the gentle, careful touch he used when he pleasured her. How was he not injuring himself with such frantic movements?

“Ah, Jesus!”

All of a sudden he threw his head back and stopped moving. Thick spurts of milky seed fell onto her exposed breasts, sending shivers of desire through her. Llinos had never felt so wicked. Her hand automatically went to the warm liquid pooling on her skin and, before she knew what she was doing, she brought her forefinger to her mouth and sucked it clean, in much the same way Duncan had done with hers. Her gaze met his as the salty taste of him hit her tongue. Just like that, a fresh burst of need exploded between her thighs.

Even though she had achieved her release only moments ago, she wanted more.

Duncan watched her lick the last remnants of seed from her finger and opened his mouth. No sound came. A smile bloomed on her lips. For the first time since they’d met she had rendered him speechless.

She waited. Eventually he cleared his throat .

“For that, lass, ye deserve a reward,” he told her darkly. “Spread yer legs for me.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Whatever he wanted to do to her she would be amenable to it. The whole scene had sent her every fibre aflame and she was more desperate for release than she had ever been.

Before placing his hand on her sex he traced his fingers in his seed, spreading it all over her breasts, coating them in the sticky substance.

“For what I have in mind, the wetter ye are the better,” he drawled.

She cried out and arched her back when he cupped her with his slick hand. Slowly, he eased a finger inside of her, withdrew, then with a feral, possessive growl, he slipped in another. In a different place.

Llinos almost bolted off the bed.

“You are not — ”

“Relax, lassie. Trust me. ‘Twill feel good.”

Oh, it had. Still, he wasn’t supposed to touch her there, surely?

“But — ”

“But nothing. Lie down. Let me give ye pleasure this time.”

He stalled further protests by bending his head and sucking her most intimate bundle of nerves into his hot, wet mouth. His fingers resumed their scandalous dance and his other hand latched onto her breast – and it was too much. Llinos moaned. He was everywhere at once and she wasn’t sure how she would take it. She gave a series of moans so loud and lewd that she would never be able to explain them away if anyone asked about them tomorrow.

Her body dissolved, exploded, disappeared and expanded all at once.

After an eternity of bliss Duncan straightened back up. When Llinos opened her eyes he was staring at her from the foot of the bed, eyes ablaze. She dreaded to think what picture she presented with her spread legs, her bunched up skirts, her exposed breasts sticky with his seed and her face flushed from the forbidden pleasure he’d extracted from her, but she could not bring herself to care. This had been the most glorious moment of her life.

“Duncan.” The word was a mere whisper. She wanted him to join her in bed and finish the night with her. Without him she was cold and lonely, she wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her tight. “Duncan, please,” she repeated, knowing he would never agree to staying.

Something shifted in his eyes. Regret. “I will leave you to rest now, my lady. ”

And just like that the squire was back.

*

Damnation. How would he sleep now? Or ever again?

Watching Llinos lick his seed from her finger had almost pushed him over the edge. For a moment he had not known what to do. He was supposed to shock her , not the other way around. But seeing her taste his most intimate flavour had been the most soul-wrecking, devastatingly erotic experience of his life.

After that, and after what he’d dared to do to her, he fully expected her to put a stop to the whole madness. He had gone too far this time, taken too many liberties. He imagined she would tell him she didn’t need to be debauched any further, that things had gone far beyond what she had wanted in the first place. He’d entered her forbidden place, forced her to expose her most intimate moment, made her watch him as he pleasured himself and emptied himself all over her like a beast marking his territory.

He clenched his teeth when he remembered all the things he’d done to that woman he should never have approached. That she had been the one going to him first was neither here nor there. He should never have agreed to this folly. No doubt he would pay for it in the morning when she told him in no uncertain terms she wanted nothing to do with him any more.

But to his intense relief, when she sat on the dais to break her fast, she appeared her usual beautiful, if slightly shy self. It was he who felt different, unable to meet her eye.

Ashamed.

It was a new, and highly unpleasant feeling.

He stared at the food in front of him and found he was unable to eat another mouthful. The bread tasted like ash and the ale like vinegar. Last night he’d allowed his baser instincts to take over. He’d been no better than that mangy cur of hers. He’d soiled her perfect body with his tainted seed, he’d taken possession of her most secret places! How could he have forgotten himself so?

Well, at least he had not kissed her. Small consolation! He was starting to think that the rule he had put in place to protect his dignity was actually preventing him from doing the thing he most desired to do to her. Aye, this was the most galling thing of all.

He wanted to kiss her.

Leaving the rest of his meal untouched, he left the great hall and went to the stables. Cwtch was still locked in, waiting to be let out. When he spotted Duncan he tilted his head instead of wagging his tail as he did whenever Llinos approached.

“Why are ye looking at me like that, ye dirty wee mongrel?” Duncan mumbled between his teeth. “Because ye ken last night I behaved no better than ye do when ye mount yer bitches, that’s why. Because ye ken what I did to yer beloved mistress. Go then,” he said, opening the door wide. “Go to her, ye lucky bastard.”

The dog, mangy as he was, was allowed to be with Llinos in public, she was allowed to hug him as many times as she wanted. Duncan snorted as he bent over to pick the grey stallion’s foot. So what? He didn’t need to be seen in public with her, and he especially didn’t need to be hugged.

He didn’t need her full stop.

If only he could persuade himself that was the case!

“There is to be a banquet tonight.”

“Jesus Christ!” Duncan raised his head so fast he bumped it on the stable wall. “Ye made me jump, lass!”

For a reason he could not fathom, Llinos’ giggle pierced his heart. He’d been so sure she would be embarrassed, or angry at him after last night! And yet here she was, behaving as if nothing had changed between them. He had almost convinced himself it would be for the best if she was angry, for it would help ward off temptation. He might not need her but he wanted her still.

And it was a recipe for disaster.

“So I see. For once you know how it feels. Usually it is you who surprises me.”

“What do ye want?” he growled, rubbing his head. Being in pain wasn't helping his dark mood.

“I wanted to tell you about the banquet tonight since you left the hall before Lord Masterson’s announcement.”

They stared at each other. They both knew she hadn’t needed to come in person to apprise him of the fact, he would have found out soon enough.

Say something , Duncan silently prayed, say something that will shake me out of this madness, something that will make these new, unwelcome feelings go away, something that will make me see we cannot be together in any way, something that makes it clear you don’t want to see me anymore because, the Lord have mercy on me, I cannot walk away from you.

Llinos opened her mouth and stared at the floor. This was it. She was about to tell him it was all over. He braced himself for the pain of having his pathetic hopes nipped in the bud.

“I didn’t bathe this morning,” she whispered. “I… I wanted to keep your scent on my skin.”

Oh, bollocks.