Page 26 of The Lady’s Sweet Revenge (Safely in Scotland #3)

R eese paced his room long after Rupert had helped him dress for bed.

His avoidance of the ladies had left him at a disadvantage.

He didn’t know if she might return to his room tonight.

Had he been able to steal a moment alone with her, he might have been able to encourage such a rendezvous if she’d been amicable.

After an hour of waiting, he wasn’t sure if the light tap at the door was real or if his anticipation had conjured up the sound, but he nearly ran the few steps to the door and opened it.

She was there.

Pulling Harlow inside, he only gave a moment of hesitation before his lips crashed down on hers. If she did not want him, she wouldn’t have come to his room. And she wouldn’t have looked up at him with longing in her green eyes.

If he needed any more assurance, she would definitely not be grasping tightly to his hair while her tongue explored his mouth in equal measure to the way he was exploring hers.

Then she moaned and he needed no further proof for she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

He was not quite so gentle as he’d been the night before.

She was only one day out of being a maiden and might yet be sore, which meant he would be careful when they joined, but leading up to that point, slow was beyond him.

He’d spent the entire day wanting her and not being able to speak to her the way he wanted.

He wasn’t able to make her laugh or hear her stories.

He pulled her shift off and moved her to the bed with haste and hunger.

She shoved at his clothes as if they offered some offence for simply being there. When they were naked, she looked down at his body when the night before she’d only looked at him.

Her hands lightly traced the line of hair of his lower abdomen so close to where he needed attention, but her fingers moved back up over his stomach to his chest and then across one nipple causing him to suck in a quick breath. Her gaze went to his face.

“Did that hurt?”

“Only in the way that great pleasure is almost unbearable before one gives into it.”

She smiled, seeming proud of herself for bringing him pleasure by her touch.

He kissed her again inadvertently trapping her hands between them.

She freed them to wrap her arms low around his waist, her gentle touch moving up his back and then down.

On her third circuit, she didn’t stop at his waist, she went lower to his arse and squeezed him while pressing her body against his.

That was the end of his thorough examination of her neck and jaw. He moved above her and looked down to see her dark hair reaching out across his pillow like seaweed on the beach. He’d once thought her a siren and she looked like she could be one still.

“Are ye sore from last night?” he asked and she shook her head quickly.

“Is this what ye want?” he asked when his body was lined up with hers.

She nodded and pressed up again from the mattress as if hoping to make the connection herself. Her impatience cleared his concerns and he slowly pushed his way inside her body.

She moaned in the way of pleasure rather than pain and he surely made his own sound.

Joining with her this night was better even than the night before.

Because all of the business of virtue and discomfort was gone.

They were not doing anything this night that was so resolute or changing. This was simply good.

He knew somehow that if he had a thousand nights with her they would all be better than the one before. Just because it was Harlow.

He looked down to see her gaze on him and he smiled at her. Through the lust, she managed to smile back at him. His body was near to boiling with desire, but that simple exchange cracked his heart wide open.

He didn’t just want her in his bed. He wanted her in his life. When she pushed up against him again, he decided he would figure out how he could make her his sometime later. For now, he focused on her pleasure.

*

Harlow had expected it to hurt again. Maybe not as bad as the night before for she was no longer a virgin. But after inspecting his body more thoroughly this evening, she still didn’t understand how all of that had fit inside her.

But tonight there was no pain at all. Save for a small amount of soreness in her legs she’d not mentioned. She didn’t think that was what he was asking about.

When he’d slid inside her that first time, she felt as if she’d been waiting a lifetime to have him inside her again.

She’d heard of blue ruin and the way men and women gave up their lives to drink, unable to do anything else.

She wondered now if there was a similar affliction for this.

For she could see herself giving up many things to feel this way.

Certainly she’d be willing to give up hours of needlepoint with the countess. She’d forgotten she was put out with the earl for leaving her with Lady Breckenridge all day. It seemed the moment he kissed her all of her ire burned away like the morning mist.

Reese did not seem to be as careful with her this evening. It wasn’t as if he was rude or reckless, he definitely saw to her satisfaction, but his thrusts were harder, his movements quicker. As if he were chasing something. Perhaps the same thing she pursued.

She began to feel that warmth growing as it had the night before. She couldn’t believe it had frightened her that first time. As if she’d not survive. Now she knew how good it would be when it finally arrived.

As if Reese heard her thoughts, he reached between them pressing against the very place that spurred the feeling. She broke around him and he pounded her relentlessly until he pulled from her and shot warm fluid all over her stomach.

When he collapsed on top of her, she stared up at the canopy while running her fingers through his damp hair. She needed this in her life. She needed this man in her life. But he’d made it quite clear today that he did not.

“Should I not have come to your room this evening?” she asked.

“Oh, you definitely should not have, but I’m very glad you did.” He raised his head and smiled. Maybe so she’d know how much he enjoyed what they’d done. “I was pacing the room wondering if I should have asked you or if I should go to you…”

“Had you spoken to me today we might have made arrangements.” She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “Which reminds me, I’m cross with you for leaving me all day with your mother.”

“I’m sorry, lass. It seems the only thing the woman can speak of when I’m in the room is marriage and I can’t take it.”

She sighed. He wasn’t wrong.

“She speaks to me of marriage as well.”

“Aye. I’m sorry about that too. I thought I’d gotten over some of the anger, but seeing her, having her push her demands… The resentment surged.”

“She is a mother who wants what is best for her child. Just like many mothers. She just goes about it much more aggressively. She doesn’t seem to realize she only drives you further from doing what she wants when she pushes you as she does.”

“You have the right of it. If she told me the sky was blue, I would argue it was green simply to disagree with her.”

As she’d guessed. Harlow chuckled. “Both of you are so stubborn.”

“This is not the time to tell me I’m like my mother,” he warned with a cocked brow.

“I wouldn’t think of it.” She snuggled closer to him and he wrapped his arms tight around her.

She loved the way he held her and didn’t want him to ever let her go.

But she would need to return to her room before they risked falling asleep and being found together in the morning. “I should return to my bedchamber.”

He let out a sigh and squeezed her closer still.

“I don’t wish for you to leave,” he admitted.

She didn’t want to leave him either, but she could feel sleep pulling at her. Perhaps it was penance for having lied about being tired earlier with the countess.

In truth, Harlow wished he could hold her all night. Wake her with kisses in the early hours of dawn and make love to her when they were warm and drowsy before falling asleep for another hour or two. But it was too risky.

Unless she was his wife…

He kissed her temple and then her hair before she rolled away and stood to dress. She wasn’t his wife and since he was adamant about not taking a wife any time soon, she wouldn’t ever be.

He helped her dress, or rather kissed along her shoulder keeping her from pulling her gown up which was the opposite of help. She chuckled as she pulled the shift up once again only to have him pull it down for a third time.

She raised up on her toes to kiss his lips and then pulled back only far enough to look into his eyes.

His dark eyes seemed to look deep into her soul.

Could he see what she’d been thinking? Could he know how much she wished he’d ask her to wed him for real?

She’d not known at that time how very much she would come to want him.

She knew he’d only asked for the sake of propriety, but she wanted him to ask now for a different reason entirely. But he didn’t.

He saw her to his door and stood watch as she rushed down the corridor, glad for the thick rug that hid her footsteps. When she paused in front of her door she looked back and gave a small wave before stealing inside and closing the door with the smallest of clicks.

Her bed chamber felt cold despite the warm night. The chill was not due to the weather but that she missed the heat of his body next to hers.

Reese would not propose again for he knew she didn’t want a marriage of obligation any more than he did. But Harlow didn’t want to spend her nights alone when her time at Slains Castle was over. She would set her sights on finding a husband. Someone kind and funny. Someone handsome and striking.

Someone just like Reese.

*

Reese returned to his bed, allowing his hand to wander over the spot of warmth where Harlow had lain moments before, and wished she was his.

Nay, not just his, but his wife.

As he’d told Harlow, he’d argue against anything his mother said or wanted because he was still angry with her, but in this, he thought he wouldn’t mind so much to give her what she wanted.

Not when it was something he wanted as well.

But was it something Harlow wanted? He wasn’t sure and he didn’t want to risk asking to have her turn him down yet again.

As if it wasn’t enough for thoughts of her to haunt his every waking minute, she also followed him in his dreams. As he slept, he was able to repeat all the things he’d done with her hours before.

She taunted him with her teasing laughter and seductive smiles. He could feel the softness of her skin and smell her sweet scent. He never wanted to wake, for in this state he never needed to worry she would leave him.

But as if his subconscious realized his darkest fear, she stepped away from him. One step and then another.

“Wait,” he begged. “Don’t go.”

“I’m to marry,” she said and then she turned her back on him and faded away.

He woke in a panic, reaching out for her. But she wasn’t there. As the dream evaporated and his mind cleared, he knew she hadn’t left either. She was in her room a few doors away from where he lay. She was hopefully sleeping and having sweet dreams, unlike him.

He still had a chance, but what if she didn’t want him?

He let out a sigh and covered his face with his hand. This was ridiculous. He couldn’t allow himself to fall for another woman who didn’t want him.

Because if he asked Harlow to marry him now, after they’d been intimate, she would assume he did so out of honor and she would say no.

And that would break him.