Captain Durant's Countess

chapter 8


Maris could feel the captain’s dark eyes boring into her back. Reyn. It had taken her years to remember to call her husband by his Christian name instead of Lord Kelby. She wasn’t sure she could use Captain Durant’s first name. It wasn’t proper.

Oh, good grief. She was a first-rate idiot. Why was she bothering to think of propriety? They were both well past that. She was about to commit a sin so great it would bar her from Heaven, if there was such a place. Even if she was doing this to please Henry to secure the earldom, God would punish her.

But she’d been raised on many gods and goddesses. The Etruscans had a list as long as her arm, and believed that they directed all activity on earth. Perhaps she was meant to be having carnal relations with Captain Durant. Perhaps it was not even her choice or Henry’s, but some long-forgotten deity’s.

Maris put a hand to her lips, which still buzzed with stimulation. Something had turned hot and liquid inside her. Of course, Durant was a practiced rake who must know how to do all sorts of horrible things to a woman. He had restrained Patsy Rumford, although the woman didn’t seem to mind. Tied her and whipped her. How could anyone find that pleasurable? Maris wished with all her heart she could forget that first encounter with the man who was to be her loveless lover.

He was so big. He was not fleshy, but well-formed, his arms corded with muscle, his scarred body brown and defined. When she was in those arms and against that body, he made her feel slight. Delicate.

And his manhood—well, that was not slight or delicate.

Maris wished she could throw a switch and shut off her brain for the next few weeks. Be more like the captain, who didn’t seem to give anything a deep amount of thought. Six schools!

She was being unfair. Durant was no scholar—bragged about that—but he did seem to have some native intelligence and wit. He’d kept himself alive in an army career that had spanned more than a decade, so that meant something. He was kind to his sister and when he wasn’t tying up women and beating them, he could be quite charming.

She should have mentioned the Reining Monarchs Society to Henry, but her courage had failed her. Henry had not asked where she had found the captain, and she had not volunteered the truth. He would have been furious—worse, disappointed in her—for lowering herself to enter such an establishment.

They entered the warm workroom. Maris stood before the fire and rubbed her frozen fingers, wondering if she should have moved the chaise in front of it. But they could kiss standing up again. They were old hands at that already.

Reynold Durant stood behind her. She could feel his breath on her neck, and goose bumps washed over her. It seemed to be colder in the attics than it was outside, which made no sense at all.

Nothing made sense.

She turned slowly to face him. “What are you waiting for?”

He caught her off guard as he placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs grazing her exposed collarbone. Durant said nothing, just pressed her as if he wanted her to sit down on the floor. At the same moment, his lips touched her forehead. “Lie down before the fire with me, Maris.”

She should mention the chaise and its pillows and blankets, but the very fact of it revealed that she had capitulated days ago. The gentle pressure of his large hands and the brush of his lips over her right eyelid caused her to sway, and he pushed her straight down to the moth-eaten hearth rug. They were both on their knees, nose to nose. His expression was unreadable.

“You promised—”

“Hush. I keep my promises.” He tipped her backward, spreading the silk of her skirts under her to keep her hair from touching the rug. The front of her dress rode up as well, and Maris tried to cover herself.

He pulled her hand away. “No. Let me see. Let me taste.”

What on earth was he talking about? They had a bit of a tussle as he slipped his hand under her dress and tried to part her legs.

“No! Not like this! We’re on the floor, for heaven’s sake!”

“I suppose I could have you sit on the worktable. You might be more comfortable. This rug’s none too clean. Yes, you’re a genius, Lady Kelby.”

“And you! You are a—”

“I am a man who is about to make you very happy.” He pulled her to her feet, swept her up, and deposited her on the edge of the makeshift desk.

“You are insane! You said you were going to kiss me, not toss me about like a ragdoll!”

“And so I am. Hold still, please. I swear I won’t hurt you.” He dragged over a chair and sat down in front of her.

His mouth was nowhere near convenient for kissing, and it was turned up in a sly smirk. Odious, odious man.

If she didn’t know better she’d think he was going to kiss her . . . Sweet heaven.

He bunched her dress and petticoats up in a fist and petted her nether curls with his free hand. “Scoot toward me just a little bit.”

“W-what?”

He reached around her bottom and gave her a push. Maris gripped the edge of the table before she fell off.

“Beautiful. Roses and your own musk. You smell good enough to eat, Maris.” Then his face disappeared and all she could see was his glossy black hair at the juncture of her thighs.

And all she could feel . . . she yelped at the first swipe of his hot wet tongue along her seam. Sweetest heaven. What was he doing? He’d dropped her dress to one side and both his hands held her folds open for his silent, serious assault on her wits. She could do nothing but meet his thrusts with feeble spasms of her own. Her legs fell apart—exactly like a ragdoll’s—and she allowed herself to focus on his fingers and remarkable tongue.

Never in her thirty-four years had she ever imagined anything like this. The salacious act that Reynold Durant was performing on her should fill her with disgust. Him, too. Yet his long nose was buried in her curls and his tongue was curling up inside her, and his hands—oh, his hands were doing things that drove her wild.

Once upon a time, Henry had stroked her like this, though never with such diligence or precision. But he had never kissed her as Reynold Durant was doing, never took the morsel of flesh that was the key to her undoing gently between his teeth, then sucked hard as his fingers slid into her. Maris rocketed up from the table and gasped, holding the edge of the table so she wouldn’t fly right off.

She bucked helplessly as each wave washed over her. She was finished, done for. Surely he knew that. But he kept kissing her center as though he found her to be delicious. Delectable. Showed her no mercy. She climaxed again and again, begging him in a ragged whisper to stop.

But is that what she really asked of him? She was incoherent at the moment. Unreliable. Perhaps she told him to continue. Whatever he heard, he simply did as he pleased, which seemed to involve giving her more pleasure than she had ever deserved.

She was hot and wet and in a sort of heaven that she doubted a Judeo-Christian god would approve. “You must stop,” she hissed. She couldn’t remain upright or relatively quiet one minute longer.

In an instant his tongue disappeared between his lips and his hands rested damply on her knees. Reynold Durant—Reyn—looked up at her, his black eyes gleaming. “Must I? Very well. Did you like it?” His lips were rough. Red. Beads of perspiration etched his forehead and his black hair was tousled. He looked as if he’d run a mile.

She had no words to answer him. Not a one.

“I see you’re speechless. It was a success, then.” He grinned, looking like a very naughty boy.

Maris nodded, almost against her will. She was every bit as depraved as Patsy Rumford, only she didn’t need him to tether her to the table to gain his mastery over her.

“Has no one ever done this for you before?”

“ No.”

“Ah. Well, I’m honored to be the first.”

She felt a finger trace a pattern on her right thigh. She’d noticed the few times they’d met his hands were often busy. She’d thought it a nervous trait, but found his circular touch pleasant. She tried to still her breathing to the light downward curve as his fingertip swirled.

Seconds ago that fingertip and two more had been snug inside her, working her into a near-frenzy. Now Reyn was spelling something with her own moisture on her skin in a language she’d never learned.

But what they had done would not get her with child, so it was all a waste of time, wasn’t it?

Even if she’d never felt so exhilarated, she was falling into herself, her back muscles tightening in tension, her bare arse chafing against the rough wood of the old table. Her crumpled new dress would require ironing, her mind retrieving from wherever Reynold Durant had sent it. Maris had sworn to herself she would take no joy in their arrangement, and she’d broken that vow already, on his very first afternoon at Kelby Hall. She was worse than Patsy Rumford.

She pushed his hands from her body and smoothed her skirts over her stockinged legs. “It’s late.” The room was no longer bathed in bright sunlight, and shadows deepened in the corners.

“Don’t go yet.” He wasn’t satisfied.

Did he want her to return the favor? She knew that women could kiss men down there, even if she’d never suspected the tables could be turned. David had tried to make her do it, and a ghastly business it had been.

“I-I really must. I have a thousand things to do before I have to dress for dinner.” She couldn’t remember a single one.

His hand slipped into her disordered hair and pulled out a loose hairpin. “I feel guilty, Maris. I tricked you. You were expecting an altogether different kind of kiss, weren’t you? Something ‘usual.’ Although I don’t think anything between us will ever be usual.”

“There is no ‘us,’ Captain Durant.” She meant to sound superior, but her words rang hollow.

“Oh, there’s going to be an ‘us,’ if only for a few minutes every day. Maybe several times a day to make sure we’ve given this mission all our efforts. I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

He was teasing her! Did the damn man not know his place?

And it wasn’t between her legs in whatever form he happened to choose.

“I need to go,” she said firmly.

“A good-bye kiss then. For luck.” He waggled a black eyebrow at her. It needed some smoothing down after his recent activity.

“I am only going downstairs to my rooms, Captain, not off to war.”

“Luck always comes in handy. We will need as much of it as possible in the weeks ahead. Come, Maris, just a quick kiss and then you can scamper off while I go back to numbering boxes.”

She slid off the work table, surprised her legs were strong enough to support her. Before she could refuse his offer she was in his arms again, tasting herself on his lips. She was shocked—and something more.

The kiss was not long in length, but not short on sensation, either. Reyn was very gentle, teasing her again, but not with words. A butterfly kiss, that’s what it was called. She’d read about it somewhere, but had not understood.

Now she did.

And knew she was in trouble.