Lust (25 page)

Smiling, she thought of that afternoon when she had lain down for a nap, of how they had danced in the garden and the butterflies had flitted around them. She wanted to see his court, to share that with him. She wanted to be part of his life—a frightening but true revelation. Oh, God, she suspected she was already falling in love with him. And there was nothing she could do about it. The only thing she could do was sit in the carriage and think of him, wish he were here with her.

Hyde Park was alive with black lacquered carriages bearing aristocratic crests and elegantly dressed gentlemen riding prime horseflesh. It was the fashionable hour for London's best society. It was the time for the cream of society to see and be seen. She watched the carriages that littered the park avenues, all vying for the best positions. It was like watching the plumage of a bird spreading in an attempt to court a mate. These carriages were all here for one of two things—to court or to gather gossip. It was never simply for pleasure.

There was a sense of forbidden anticipation, a prevailing thought amongst the unmarried women and the courting gentlemen, that the privacy of a carriage ride might just cast enough shadow, or diversion, so that one might steal a kiss, or at the very least, brush hands, without their guardians noticing such wayward behavior.

Chastity averted her gaze from the carriage window and glanced at her sister, who was acting as her companion who was naturally gazing out the other window that
overlooked Rotten Row and the numerous gentlemen cantering atop their steeds.

“You are in deep thought,” Crom said, breaking the silence between them. Beside her, Prue and Arawn con versed in low tones.

“My pardon. I fear I am not much company or a scintillating conversationalist this afternoon.”

“Nonsense. You are obviously consumed with some thing most pressing. Your brow has been furrowed in concentration since the carriage pulled away from the front of your house.”

“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I am ruining your drive, aren't I?”

“Of course not. I am just worried for you. You haven't slept much, if the circles beneath your eyes are any indication.”

“I have slept well.”

“And your dreams?” he asked, his voice dropping low. “Have they been pleasant?”

How impertinent! She would never speak to Crom of her dreams. Would never tell him of Thane, and what they did in the privacy of the dark.

“Obviously my sister is not inclined to share her dreams, my lord,” Mary cut in. “She must be persuaded.”

Crom glared at Mary, then focused his gaze back on her. “Dreams are very personal things, are they not?”

“They are indeed,” Chastity sniffed.

“But best shared, do you agree?”

She stiffened when Crom smiled at her. It was not a
smile of mirth, but one of victory. Mary and Crom shared a glance that Chastity could not interpret.

“I had a dream last night,” Crom said as he leaned in and caught her gloved hand in his. “You were dancing with me, and you had a gown on made of gold and silver.

You sparkled in the candlelight, just like a queen.”

“I believe, sir, that this conversation is best left alone.”

Glancing away, Chastity resumed watching the passing carriages. She could not listen to anything more. She would not go to the Seelie Court. She would not attend any further drives or dances with Crom. Not when all she could think about was Thane. Despite everything that had happened and her worries over what he was hiding from her, she wanted him.

Even now, she could sense that he was there with her—
with them
—inside the carriage. She could smell him, and it was not just the perfume. But something stronger. She felt him, his heat along her body.

I will not let you go to him…

Chastity heard his voice in the quiet of her thoughts.

How strange it was to be riding in a carriage with flesh-and-blood people while hearing another's voice in her head. Did her sisters know that Thane was speaking to her? Did Crom, or Lord Arawn?

Only you can hear me. Only you know that I am here. Only you know what I am doing
.

She shivered, feeling a touch along her neck then behind her ear. It tickled and sensitized her flesh, making her
squirm on the carriage bench. Her body was warming, the place between her thighs melting, aching…

She heard Thane laugh low in her ear, felt him kiss her skin and heard him whisper,
Let me seduce you here. Now. The Dark Fey are so very skilled at this
.

Warmth settled along her thigh as she felt him continue to nuzzle her throat. She felt the hem of her gown and the ruffled edge of her petticoats skim over the top of her heeled slippers. Up and up, she felt her skirts being raised. Gasping, she looked down into her lap, fearing she would find her skirts hiked up over her knees. But curiously she found herself in an impeccable state of dress. There was not a wrinkle or a wiggle of linen to give any indication that she was being ravished by an Unseelie faery while sitting in the carriage.

Only you know what I am doing,
he murmured, drawing her back to what he was doing with his hands.
It should make you feel wicked and wanton, knowing you are being pleasured so secretly. It should burn you up, knowing you cannot move nor make a sound of pleasure. You will have to be so quiet, so still. You will have to allow me to explore you, and you cannot protest, cannot move away to prevent me from taking what I want
.

Her lips parted on a silent rush of breath and her lashes closed as she felt Thane's hand snake beneath her chemise, only to climb up the length of her thigh. Long fingers pressed between her clenched thighs, and she stole a look at Crom and saw, with great relief, that he had turned his gaze once more to the window.

Spread your pretty thighs for me.

Trying to rein in her breathing, she inched her knees apart. Immediately his hand sunk between her flesh, his palm cupping her.

Already wet,
he purred.
How wicked of you to be yearning for this, me fingering you while he sits across from you, ignorant of what is happening
.

Parting her outer lips, Thane caressed her softly and with aching slowness, building her, until she had to move, had to squirm against the velvet squabs of the bench. Stealing another look at Crom, and seeing he was lost in his thoughts, Chastity flexed her hips, forcing Thane to touch her with a firmer, less teasing stroke.

Little innocent Chastity,
he breathed.
Tell me you want this, what I am doing to you. That you want this right now.

I want it,
she answered.
I want so much to feel you inside me.

He sunk his finger deep inside and Chastity had to cover her mouth with her hand to stifle the moan that threatened to escape her. Slowly, he filled her with two fingers, plunging and retreating until she was nearly gasping.

You want to beg for it, don't you? You want to cry out loud for me to finish you.

Please,
she begged him, her fingers gripping the soft nap of the velvet upholstered bench.
Please.

The scent of your cunt fills the carriage, did you know that? He can smell it, your arousal, and the way it perfumes the air. Look at him, Chastity, watching you.

Her head snapped to the right and she saw that Crom
was indeed staring at her intently, his gaze straying over her with a liberality he had never dared before.

It is a pity that you cannot undo the pearl buttons securing the front of your gown. I should like to see his face as you undo your bodice and bare your breasts to him. I should like to see you bare breasted as I have my hand between your thighs. I'd like to watch you cupping them in your hands, bringing them together, offering them up to my mouth.

Her lashes fluttered, threatening to close altogether as she struggled to act as though nothing untoward was happening. Swallowing hard, Chastity fought the image of her hands parting her bodice and freeing her breasts, which were now so swollen and aching from her corset.

He's imagining you naked, spread for him. I can see into his mind, and he's painted you perfectly. But it's me here with you. My essence glistening on your skin.

She cast a glance at her décolletage that was spilling from her bodice. It did indeed still glisten. Moonbeams on mist…

He's wishing his hand was where mine is now. He's wondering what this pink silk would feel like against his fingers. He's wondering how you'd taste against his probing tongue.

She choked a little then and stiffened. Crom's violet eyes darkened, his gaze lowered to her lap where she smoothed her hand along her skirt.
Stop,
she pleaded, reaching for Thane's hand, which she could feel but could not see.
Stop, he knows.

But he pushed her on, driving her to the brink with his fingers inside her and his thumb circling the bud beneath
her hood. She was nearly there, close to release when Thane whispered,
The next time the Seelie bastard takes you driving in the park, I'm going to lift your skirts and taste you. Imagine that, Chastity, my mouth buried between your thighs as you talk to him about the weather and the number of carriages passing by. Imagine me there, pushing you on, tasting, sucking, eating at you as he sits before you, imagining what he will never, ever be able to have.

Release was upon her. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Her gaze locked with Crom as she felt Thane stroking her to completion. How wicked to know she was being touched in such a way while another sat inches away, completely unaware. Like a wanton, she reveled in the pleasure and saw, in her mind, the image of what she imagined her Dark Fey lover would look like, with his head between her spread thighs, his tongue doing to her what his fingers were doing.

You're coming. I can feel it. You look stunning with your flushed cheeks. He cannot take his eyes from you. Look at him, Chastity, and know who it is pleasuring you.

She did, and found herself smiling wickedly. What sort of fey was this, provoking her to sin?

“I think we had better return home,” Crom muttered as she felt herself explode around Thane's fingers. Sagging against the squabs, Chastity took a shaking breath as Crom reached for his hat and placed it on his lap. “The hour grows late. And I fear that—”

The Seelie fears that the scent of your aroused quim is making him descend into madness. Your essence is enough to bring any
man—mortal or fey—to his knees, and I, my sweet, am no different.

Half an hour later, the carriage was slowing before their town house. Thane was still with her, holding her. She felt him as if he were actually sitting there beside her. She felt comforted in his arms, as though she was cherished. A comforting warmth stole over her, and she realized now how much he had come to mean to her. In the beginning she had feared him, her attraction to him, she had warned him away. Tried everything in her power to keep him at arm's length, yet he had braved her disapproval, withstood her pleas to leave her be, and instead pursued her. In the end, he had claimed not only her body, but her heart, as well.

Then let me take you away.
The words were whispered in her mind.
Let me take you to my court.

She barely hesitated in her answer. “Yes, take me to your dark court.”

 

Crom watched as the three women climbed the steps of the town house. He was losing. For the first time in his life he felt an uncontrollable rage begin to sweep through him.
Fucking Unseelie bastard!
Somehow Thane had found a way into the carriage. He smelled him. Felt the charge in the carriage as Chastity's body heated, her arousal engulfing the still air. The bastard had been seducing her right beneath his nose and there wasn't a damn thing he could do but watch, and grow hard as she came before his eyes.

She'd hid it remarkably well, but as a fey, he knew.
His senses were keener than those of mortals and he had heard her blood rushing through her veins, the sound of her breathing increase, the way it panted between her lips. He smelled the honey seep from her body.

Damn it! He smashed the wall of the carriage with his balled fist. He would not lose her to the Unseelie swine. And that was exactly what was happening. Thane was going to take her to his court, and she would follow willingly. He couldn't have that. Not only because he wanted Chastity in his bed, but because he couldn't loose her as a virtue. He needed her if he was going to thwart his mother's rule.

There was only one thing to be done, and that was to turn Chastity away from Thane. There was only one way to do that, reveal her true purpose on this earth. It would turn her from him, but then, he had an advantage over the Unseelie. He did not need Chastity's willing acceptance. He could take her, fighting him all the way. Thane had no such luxury. It would be much more difficult for him to convince her to believe his sincerity once Crom had disclosed the purpose of Thane's ardent pursuit.

Chastity was a female, and every female, no matter which species she belonged to, did not wish to be used—especially by a man she believed herself to be in love with.

Chastity's love for his dark counterpart meant nothing to him. He did not need her love. Merely her body and the sons she would give him.

SHE WAS ASLEEP. HE HAD WATCHED HER BATHE
and brush her long hair out as she sat in her chemise at her dressing table. Lust had wanted to pick her up and carry her to the bed, sinking himself inside her. Thane had wanted to do the same. Ever since the carriage ride, when she had brought him along after using the perfume in the locket on her body, he had been consumed by the need to claim her.

Crom, that bastard, had leered at her the entire time, and Thane had been able to see inside his mind. See that the Seelie wanted her as badly—and in all the ways—that Thane did.

She was not safe. Not even after he claimed her would she be safe. For the fey were not dissuaded by things like that. Unlike their human counterparts, the fey were not put off by a woman's experience. Frequently they shared their women, so Crom would not be put off the chase
simply because Thane had been the one to take Chastity's virginity.

No, the only way she would be truly safe from Crom and the Seelie Court was to come to his court. She had agreed, and he would not linger here, in the mortal realm. He could not risk the chance that she would change her mind.

Standing over her, watching her asleep, with her hand curled beneath her cheek, Thane knew it was the only way. Knew that tonight must be the night.

He knew he should lift her up and carry her away, but Lust was pummeling him relentlessly. One look at her and both fey and sin wanted her.

Pulling back the sheets, he revealed Chastity's pale body in the moonlight. Breasts, round and full, rose and fell with deep breaths as she stirred in her sleep. She was waiting for him. And he could not resist the invitation of her naked body.

Hungrily his gaze raked over Chastity's voluptuous curves, drinking in everything he had longed to see. There was enough moonlight to illuminate her body and the V between her thighs as she spread them for him. He cupped her breast, stroking her nipple and watching as it puckered beneath his thumb. Already painfully aroused, he felt himself swell further, and to relieve a fraction of the ache in his groin, he brushed his cock along her milky-white thigh. None of his suffering was abated, however, and he stroked himself along her smooth skin over and over, watching the tantalizing visual of his flesh atop hers.

She stirred and sighed, coming slowly awake while he fondled her breasts. His gaze slipped to her face and he watched her lips part when he pressed her breasts together. Damn, but he needed to feel those lips on his cock, sucking him in deep.

Raising himself to his knees, he nudged her thighs wider and kneeled between them, resting his weight on his hands. Pressing forward, he trailed his mouth between her breasts, down her belly where he circled her navel with his tongue. Gooseflesh erupted on her skin, fanning out along her midriff. She stretched then reached for him, clutching his hair in her fingers, the tips of her index fingers rubbing his ears. He groaned and brushed his cock against her thighs. Lust was screaming in his head, and his Dark Fey blood was turning black and dangerous.

“Thane,” she murmured, opening to him, accepting him. How easily she accepted what he was. But would she still be as accommodating when she discovered what lurked inside him?

Tonguing her belly again he listened for her sighs, felt her hips shift on the bed as she spread her thighs wide.

“Yes,” she encouraged, lifting her hips once more. She wanted him there, licking and caressing. And he wanted to taste her. Needed her on his tongue.

Slowly, he lowered his mouth to the curls that were damp. Spreading the soft folds, he raked his tongue up the length of her, waking her fully with his mouth. She was wet and writhing, her fingers curling in his hair
while her hips moved in an intoxicating, erotic rhythm against his tongue that was searching and probing.

“Oh, yes…” She sighed, rubbing her sex against him. “Please,” she said with a keening cry as she tensed and tightened while he drew out her pleasure. But he stopped his ministrations just before she reached ecstasy. He wanted her wild for him, much more than this. And truth be told, Lust needed his pleasure, too.

Sliding along her body, he licked the valley of her breasts and slid his now-rampant erection between the full mounds. He showed her how to press her breasts together to increase his pleasure and he groaned, watching his cock slide between her breasts.

“Use your tongue and lick the tip of me.”

She did not protest or act afraid. Instead, her pink tongue crept out and licked him slowly, teasingly, so that he nudged his cock farther toward her mouth and her eyes widened with shock and perhaps excitement.

“How I've dreamed of this. The most intimate of acts a woman can do for a man.”

“Show me what you desire,” she whispered, meeting his gaze and flicking her tongue along his erection.

Needing no more encouragement, he moved away from her and brought her to her knees. Kneeling before her, his erection soaring in the air, he entwined his hand in her hair and motioned her forward so that her mouth was poised over the tip of him.

“I want to watch you on your knees before me.” And then she slipped the tip of him past her lips and put all of him in her mouth. “God, yes, take all of me.”

With gentle pressure of his hands in her hair, he guided her into a rhythm that was painstakingly slow and erotic. He told her how to suck him, how to bring the tip of his cock to her lips without letting him slide out of her mouth. He described how to build his passion slowly with tantalizing glimpses of her tongue curling around his shaft and her hand working the length of him as he watched.

She mastered the skill in minutes and soon he only need groan or fist his fingers in her hair for her to know what he liked.

As she worked her magic on him, he reached for her breasts and filled his hands with them, his fingers becoming more insistent as his desire escalated. Watching her loving him so thoroughly aroused him more than he thought possible. He'd always loved the sensation of a mouth on him, and no woman had so eagerly agreed to pleasure him in such a way as Chastity had. Already he was close to coming, and wanting to draw it out, he moved away from her, settling himself against the head-board and motioning for her to come to him.

When she crawled on her knees to him, he was already gripping his cock in his hand and stroking himself. Damn it all, she was working him up and he needed this release, this climax with her. With a soft purr, she lowered her mouth to his wet tip and he circled her lips with the head of his erection. Her eyelids fluttered closed as her tongue flicked out, as he teased her with his cock, and she moaned, as if she were savoring the taste of him. Slowly her tongue swirled around his shaft until he could not
bear it. Pulling out of her mouth, he reached for her and brought her legs around his waist.

“Lean back on your hands and rest your feet on the bed.” Parting her thighs he stroked her swollen sex. As she leaned back, her quim was exposed, slick and wet and begging for his cock.

Taking his cock in hand, he rubbed it against her folds, teasing himself by watching and listening to Chastity's escalating pants as he pleasured her. Her hips were rocking as well as her breasts, meeting him stroke for stroke.

Giving in to his desire, he brushed her opening and grinned as she looked up at him through a veil of hair. Teasing her, he traced her slit, watching her passion-glazed eyes widen.

“Please, do it…” She sighed, the sound husky and breathless. Nudging her hips forward, she forced the tip of him inside. She was scalding hot and drenched with arousal.

“What would you like me to do, Chastity?” he asked provocatively, slipping a fraction deeper inside her. She gasped and he watched her toss the hair from her face over her shoulder. He could now see all of her. Full breasts with pink nipples that were pebble hard and lush thighs that were open wide for him, waiting to accept his body.

He reached for her hips and brought her toward him. “Watch as I take you.” And only then, when he was assured that she watching him inch inside her, did he take her. Not in one swift movement, but in slow, straight strokes. When he was certain that he had
aroused her enough, he looked up from their bodies and commanded that she look at him.

 

Chastity gasped, then moaned, feeling the unforgiving hardness of Thane slide into her body. Slowly, inexorably penetrating her.
Stretching her
. His breathing was harsh, short pants, almost groans escaping his lips as he filled her.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, straightening from her and cupping her bottom in his hands, his gaze trained on where their bodies were joined. He stroked her a few times, letting her stretch, allowing her to grow wetter around him, all the while watching as he filled her fully. Then he thrust into her, a steady rhythm that made her arch, made her cry out.

“Please,” she begged, starting to claw at his shoulders. She needed him. More of the pleasure, the fullness of him.

He growled, then said, “I want to take you from behind.”

Not giving her a chance to understand what he wanted, he turned her away from him and with a hand on her back he pressed against her, lowering her to the silk counterpane. The deep sound in his throat made her skin tingle and she didn't know what to think. Her bottom was exposed, so was her sex, which was wet and glistening. His large palm was tracing and cupping her. And then she felt his erection slide between the cheeks of her bottom as he slipped into her, filling her so full she could only moan.

“Move against me,” he commanded, his fingers pressing into her hips. “Move and let me watch your body take me in.”

His body, hard and hot, engulfed her back, and his breathing changed, his voice grew deeper, darker.
Yes,
he said in a growl that washed through her. It was not completely Thane's voice, but something else, something blended with his, but her body responded to it like a fire sweeping through brush. That voice engulfed her, consumed her until she was writhing, flinging her hips back to meet the thrust of Thane's pelvis.

Yes,
the voice whispered in her mind.
More, give me more. Ah…
He sighed as his fingers bit into her hips.
Look at your cunt swallowing my cock
.

She went molten then, her body completely his. His harsh breaths mixed with the creak of the bed, and all she could think about was how wonderfully thrilling it was to be with Thane in such a way. She had tasted him, reveled in the way he watched her. He desired her, she knew that now, for he could barely control his strokes.

No longer were they smooth and rhythmic, but short irregular stabs that made him groan and grab for her bottom as he impaled himself inside her.

He was wild in his passion and she could not regret anything they had done. She was no longer virtuous and chaste, and the freedom emboldened her. Her heart swelled, as her did her body. She was giving everything to him.

There was a deep growl, followed by the feel of his
body plunging into hers as he forced her down to the bed and drove into her.

Then she felt him, trembling atop her as something hot and pulsing filled her core, warming her to every nerve and fiber of her being.

His voice was back to normal. The remnants of the darkness was still there, but less so. He was breathing hard as he gathered her in his arms.

“What a brute I was to take you like this. I really am just a monster, Chastity.”

“Don't say that.”

He placed his face alongside her cheek and kissed her. “You don't know what I am,” he whispered, “and I hope you never do.”

 

Early-morning fog hovered above the green fields. The sun was just rising, casting brilliant orange and pink above the trees. The fog would burn off soon, but not before he met with the queen.

Reining in his mount, Lennox slid from his black gelding and led the horse into the woods. He sensed the fey surrounding him, and he cursed whatever it was that made him so aware of the damn creatures.

“The Duke of Lennox.”

The womanly voice called to him from a group of trees. Narrowing his gaze, he searched fruitlessly through the dense shadows and leaves. And then by magic, she appeared, just as she had twenty-five years ago. Her beauty still breathtaking. Her figure arousing as she walked to him, the long silver flowing robes whispering over her
curves, her long pale hair swishing behind her, cascading over her hips.

Aine hadn't aged a day, and suddenly he felt conscious of the twenty-five years his face and body showed.

“We meet again.”

He was even more nervous now than back then, when she had first appeared to him. But then, he hadn't been in league with both faery courts, and he hadn't had four daughters to loose.

“My queen,” he murmured, bowing low before her.

“My, what pretty manners,” she said, her laughter tinkling off the trees. “You always were a flatterer, and if I were not ruined for the company of men, I would have removed you to my court and taken you as my lover.”

Swallowing hard, he willed his amorous blood to cool. The thought of lying between her legs was still as pleasurable as it was two decades ago. As much as he desired to know the touch of a fey lover, he had more important things to think on—namely, discovering what he could do for the Unseelie.

Those unscrupulous bastards, he thought, they were the dangerous ones. Crom and his mother he could handle with a deft hand and court manners. But the Dark Fey were beyond that. They wanted his blood, and that of his girls.

The queen's voice broke into his thoughts. “It is time to pay the tithe, Lennox.”

“Yes, it is.”

Head tilting, the queen studied him. “My son sensed reluctance in you, but I do not.”

“I accept your most generous gift, my queen, and as any gentleman of good breeding must do, I must now pay my debt of honor.”

“Indeed you must.”

He moistened his lips with his tongue. “And how shall I pay you, my queen.”