Megan Frampton (5 page)

“I need to taste you,” he murmured, before lowering his mouth—his mouth!—to her there.

If she hadn’t been enjoying herself so immensely, she might have fainted, she was
so startled. His mouth was warm, and wet, and was licking at her in a way that made her breath hitch. His hands were clamped on her thighs, opening her to him entirely.

He raised his head and met her gaze. His mouth was wet. From her. “You taste incredible. Tell me if you like it.”

Was he joking? Speak out loud, when she wasn’t sure she could remember her own name, much less make some sort of articulate conversation? While he was doing this?

“Yes,” she managed. “Yes, I like it. Would you mind—that is, can you go on?”

“So polite, Lady soon-to-be Jepstow.” He stopped talking, thank goodness, and began to kiss and lick her again, swirling his tongue on her, sucking gently at her as she twisted and moaned.

“Please, oh, please,” she begged, not sure what she was asking for. He continued his luxurious assault on her, the only noises in the room her cries and the sounds his mouth was making.

At last, when she felt she couldn’t stand any more—not that she was standing; she doubted her legs would hold her—he took his mouth away and got back onto the divan to lie on her, his hard, rigid length against her stomach.

“I want to feel you around me as you come,” he said, lowering his mouth to kiss her. “I’m selfish, you know that, right?”

Oh, he was, but if this was selfishness, she was glad he had this particular fault.

“I’m going to do what you want now, Violet. Are you ready?”

But he wasn’t selfish, he was thoughtful, and concerned, and very, very naked. Not to mention about to make love to her, right here in his study on his divan, amongst the philosophers and the books and all the thinking he normally engaged in when he was here.

Violet held her breath as he nudged at her entrance. And gasped as he entered her. Would he even fit? His expression showed total concentration, while his brow dripped a few drops of moisture onto her.

It was good to know she wasn’t the only one working up a heat.

“Lord, Violet, you are so tight,” he said, sliding his hard shaft into her. A sharp twinge cut into the waves of sensual pleasure washing over her, and he stopped his
movement.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes staring intently down at her. Thoughtful. That was her Christian.

“Yes, but never mind that.” She cupped his backside and nudged him. “Let us finish this challenge.”

“It will be my pleasure,” he said with a wicked grin. “Not to mention yours as well.”

It was good to find he still kept his sense of humor, even in the midst of all this.

Christian captured her mouth with his as he began to move, the thrusting of his tongue in her mouth mirroring his movement down below.

Goodness, Violet thought, wasn’t this lovely? She ached, yes, but a stronger, far more pleasurable ache was building inside her. Like that earlier aching, but more intense, if only for the fact that they were joined there, and he was on top of her, and all she could think about was him, and them, and this.

“Please, Christian.” She didn’t even know what she was begging for; she only knew there was something else. There had to be, one couldn’t walk around feeling this sense of total wanting all the time, or one would go mad.

“Faster? Slower? Harder?”

“Yes,” Violet replied, nonsensically.

* * *

When Violet came, shattered in his arms, it was the most alive Christian had ever felt. This was what could happen between a man and a woman, between a man and a woman who—loved each other?

Because he knew, even though she hadn’t said it, that she loved him. Why else would she have dared to do this, risk her engagement, just to prove there was passion between them?

She was absolutely lovely. Intelligent, witty, and beautiful to look at. Plus, if he was being honest, her body was absolutely stunning, definitely a delightful addition to their future life together.

“Violet.” Christian slowed his rhythm, watched as the sensual flush receded from her cheeks. Her eyes, which had been closed, opened, and she gave him a satisfied smile.

“What?” Her expression grew concerned. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“God, no.” He thrust in, hard, just to prove his point. “It’s perfect, and it’ll be better when I come inside you. Maybe we’ll even be making a future Violet or Christian when I do.”

The thought apparently hadn’t occurred to her, because her eyes widened in surprise.

“But I want to say something.”

“Mmm?” She’d closed her eyes again, and was, unconsciously perhaps, grasping his buttocks with firm hands. He definitely enjoyed it that she genuinely reacted, didn’t just act as a female was supposed to. Plato was wrong on this score—his Violet, at least, wasn’t inferior to him. Which was why he had to tell her what had been true for a long while now, but he just hadn’t known himself.

“I love you.”

Her eyes flew open. “Oh!” A pause, during which Christian hoped he wasn’t mistaken. “Well, that is good, because I love you, too.”

As Christian thrust his way to completion, then lay spent and breathless on top of her, his luscious Violet, he realized he still had to write that damn column.

Thanks to my fiercely persistent agent, Louise Fury; my enthusiastic editor, Sue Grimshaw; and my fabulous friend Myretta Robens.

Photo credit to Scott Frampton

Megan Frampton majored in English literature at Barnard College, with a double minor in political science and religion. She worked in the music industry for fifteen years, editing and writing music reviews for a music-industry trade magazine, eventually becoming the editor in chief, and is the community manager for the romance-novel website
HeroesandHeartbreakers.com
. She likes tall men, gin, the color black, and cocktail rings, not necessarily in that order. Frampton married one of her former interns and lives with him and their son in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at
meganframpton.com
,
@meganf
, or at
Facebook.com/meganframptonbooks
.

Hero of My Heart

“She’s a virgin, gentlemen. And she’ll be sold to the highest bidder.”

Alasdair raised his head from the worn wooden table, struggling to open his eyelids. He lifted his hand from where it had been dangling by his side and pried his left lid open, propping his head up on his right hand. The words had registered only vaguely, but they were enough to pull him from his miasma.

The man who’d spoken was standing on the largest of the tables in the pub, his loud, checked waistcoat and overoiled hair proclaiming his gentlemanly aspirations. The man bowed, spreading his hands wide and smiling.

“Allow me to introduce myself; my name, fine sirs, is William Mackenzie, and I am in the fortuitous position of offering something very rare, very special to you this evening.” His overdone accent almost disguised his Scottish burr. “If you’ve got the blunt,” Mackenzie added, clearing his throat. The clamor in the pub did not abate. “Gentlemen! If I may have your attention,” the man repeated in an even louder voice.

Alasdair wished he’d just shut up. It wouldn’t be possible to slide back into oblivion, not while the loudmouth was yelping. At least the rest of the customers had quieted, waiting to hear what it was the Scot was selling.

Alasdair watched as Mackenzie leaned down and pulled on something—an arm? While he pulled, another man—a younger one, his face contorted in a sneer—shoved a woman onto the table where Mackenzie held her, tightly, around the waist. She didn’t struggle, just gazed at the assembled crowd with a blank expression on her face. Too blank.

Alasdair sat up. His head throbbed from the effort.

“What’ll you bid?” Twenty or thirty men were watching—no,
inspecting
—the woman on the table. Alasdair wiped a hand over his face, clearing his bleary eyes.

She was medium height, with dark, curly brown hair. Her gown was modestly cut, but tight, as if it had belonged to someone else, and her breasts strained at the fabric. Her figure looked lush and inviting, the kind of figure men slavered after.

The kind of figure that would make every man in the room want her.

“Untouched.” Mackenzie winked, a grotesque leer, and then bent down and
inched her skirt up slowly until her entire ankle and part of her shin was showing. She wasn’t wearing shoes or stockings, and the pale, white flesh of her leg gleamed in the candlelight.

Alasdair stared, transfixed by the lovely curve of her calf, the delicate bones of her ankle. His eyes traveled up, taking in the much-washed fabric of her gown, her luscious breasts, the graceful column of her neck.

He noticed a dark area on her shin. A trick of the light? A birthmark marring that otherwise perfect skin?

He glanced at her face, dreading what he would see there, but knowing he had to look anyway.

As he’d expected, no emotion registered there. Her eyes were dull, her pupils huge and dark.

It was worse than if she’d been frightened or trembling—she was so distant from what was happening, he doubted she even comprehended it. And that blankness, that empty gaze, cut through to the heart he’d thought was blackened forever.

Damn it. He was going to have to do something.

“How do we knows she’s a virgin?” a voice asked. “Who’s to say she ain’t just pulled a fast one on you?”

Mackenzie let go of the woman, who wobbled unsteadily as her skirt tumbled down. The Scot rolled his head back and laughed, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his trousers. He bobbed forward and eyed the crowd. “ ’Cause she’s a vicar’s daughter, my lords. And she comes straight from church, pure as an angel. God’s honest truth,” he finished, chuckling at his own wit.

There was a moment of silence—Reverence? Appreciation?—and then the bidding started.

“Two pounds!” a gruff voice shouted from behind Alasdair.

“She’s worth more’n that,” the younger man said from behind Mackenzie, his voice tinged with desperation. Mackenzie turned around to shush the man, and then faced the crowd again with that patently false smile plastered on his face. He clasped the woman to his side.

Not that she was struggling. Alasdair doubted she even could.

“Two pounds three shillings!” A large man to Alasdair’s right flung his hand in the air, then swept off his hat and bowed toward the table. “Although the lady might want to consider paying me after I’m done with her,” he added. The men in the room laughed. A few derisive comments followed.

The woman didn’t react at all.

Anger roiled in his gut, anger at the crowd, the greasy Scot who had her on the table, the man standing behind her, even anger at her for allowing herself to be put in this position.

She needed rescuing. And he was the furthest thing from a knight in shining armor anyone could possibly imagine.

“Three pounds, gentleman, for the pleasure of taking this dell’s virtue. For the pleasure,” Mackenzie said, running his hand from her waist up her side, “of owning her.” He slid his hand forward and placed it on her breast, squeezing it, stroking it, his eyes closed in exaggerated ecstasy, his other hand reaching toward his crotch.

She remained still. Not looking in any particular direction, just—placid. Calm. As though she weren’t being eyed by a group of lusty farmers while being fondled by a crass, pretentious Scot with suspect fashion choices.

Alasdair jumped up before he could stop himself. “Five pounds!” he barked, thumping on the table with his closed fist. The men in the room glanced around in surprise, obviously wondering where the real gentleman had come from.

Alasdair hadn’t spoken more than a few mumbled words since arriving at the pub—he hadn’t wanted to be noticed. But now every man in the place was gawking at him, his accent giving him away as Quality.

There was a low murmur as hands were shoved back into pockets and the men began to shuffle from side to side. Alasdair had won the bidding, as much with his accent as with his money.

The auctioneer’s eyes opened and his hand dropped back to the woman’s waist. “Well, then, my lord,” he said, “she’s all yers. Provided, of course, you’ve got the ready?”

Alasdair didn’t bother replying to Mackenzie’s implied insult. He shoved his fingers in his pockets for his money as he stepped forward. He’d planned exactly how much to spend tonight—enough to get deliciously deadened, but not enough to actually kill him. And then, because old habits die hard, he’d stuck some more bank notes in his pocket in case of emergency.

This, he reasoned, was an emergency.

He strode up to the table, unsteady on his feet at first. The room was silent, so quiet the rustle of the money in his hand echoed like a hammer in Alasdair’s brain.

The man waited for Alasdair to place the note on the table, then removed his hand from the woman’s waist, pushing her forward until she teetered on the edge of the table. She stepped forward so that one foot dangled off the table, then Mackenzie gave her a push, and—