Improper Pleasures (The Pleasure Series #1) Read online

  “Good.” He stood. “Then you won’t argue with me when I insist that you take off your dress.” Without waiting for her response, he began to unbutton his waistcoat. He tossed the garment aside, removed the neck cloth, then pulled his shirt from the waistline of his breeches.

  “What happened to your promise to behave?” She watched him with an expectant grin.

  “Is that what you really want?” His heated blue gaze told her they both knew better. “Will you take off your dress, my queen? I want to worship at your feet.” He held out his hand.

  She let him pull her to standing. “I have other places in mind for you to worship.”

  He came up behind her and worked at her laces. “I plan to get to those as well.”

  Together, they efficiently removed her clothes and to her surprise, James produced a hanger to save her gown from wrinkles.

  “You planned well.” She stood in nothing but her chemise, while he remained almost fully dressed.

  He hung the gown on a vine. It sagged a bit but supported the weight. “I don’t like seeing you unhappy and more so being the cause.”

  “It was not your fault. I’m sure the Bainbridges will not be the only ones who wish to ply you with their daughters. You will be bombarded at our ball next week, I promise you.”

  “And when they do, know that I will only be thinking of you.” James closed the distance between them, guided her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers. Not like the chaste kiss when they’d entered the gazebo but a hard possessive kiss. He gripped her bottom through the chemise and pulled her against his erection. She leaned into him, entwined her tongue with his, already yearning for the joining of their bodies.

  With obvious great effort, he broke the kiss. “I wasn’t going to do that. It’s dangerous.” He reached for a string on the chemise’s neckline and loosened it.

  She slapped his hands away. “I think it’s your turn to disrobe, sir.”

  “Afraid not, sweet. This is your party.” He grabbed the edge of her chemise and whisked it off her head, her resistance hardly impeding the process.

  She gasped in exaggerated outrage and clasped her hands over her chest. Of course, he’d seen her undressed before, but it seemed strange in the out of doors while he remained fully dressed. She shivered as the air caressed her bare skin, but instead of becoming chilled, warmth pooled in her belly and her sex grew wet.

  He grabbed her wrists and pried open her arms. “Come lay on the blanket and I’ll cover you.” He guided her to the pallet he’d made. A folded throw lay atop the blankets and she reached down to grab the lavender wool and wrap it around herself.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  She turned to see him frowning. “What?”

  His serious gaze met hers. “You have a scrape on your back. It’s from the railing.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t trouble me.”

  “Stay still.” He knelt down behind her and gingerly touched her scraped skin. His lips followed and his touching concern became instantly erotic. He rested his hands on her hips, then lowered his grip to lightly trace the contours of her bottom. She trembled, feeling entirely too exposed on her hands and knees with him behind her.

  “Perhaps you’d be more relaxed lying down?” He said between kisses that were dipping lower than the scrape on her back.

  “I’d be more relaxed if you removed your clothes as well.” She slipped from beneath him, gripping a blanket to cover herself.

  “I can’t do that. I’m not to be trusted,” his tone was half teasing, but there was determination behind his words. He easily pulled the cover away from her.

  “It’s just a scrape.”

  Still on his knees, he guided her by the wrist to lie on her back. Deciding she would feel less exposed lying down and much more comfortable, she stretched out on the soft blankets.

  “Do you always make it so difficult for someone to lavish you with their attention?” James loomed above her, studying her with sensual appreciation and something else. He looked at her as if she were a puzzle he was trying to decipher.

  His question struck Astra with the realization that no one had ever tried to lavish her with attention or anything else for that matter. She gave in to his urging, reclining her head on the pillows he’d wedged under her head and shoulders, naked to the world. “By all means, do your best…or is it worst?”

  “Somewhere in-between.” His grin gave her cause to pause at the same time it tightened her damp sex. As if sensing her body’s stirring, he urged her to lift her hips so he could slide another pillow beneath her. “To cushion your scraped back,” he said, heaviness in his eyelids suggesting the support had a more intriguing purpose.

  With her hips slightly tilted, her shoulders and head padded, he knelt at her feet. Again, he massaged her instep and up her ankles. He still wore his loose white shirt and his breeches. And his boots she suddenly realized.

  Most of his hair remained pulled back in a ribbon, but hunks had come loose and hung in his eyes, and down his neck. His blue eyes looked darker than usual but with an intense glow. In the soft light she could see the darker ring around his glowing iris. He was masculine beauty at its best.

  “Comfortable?” he said with entirely too much cockiness.

  Astra’s breathing quickened. Her chest rose and fell, acutely reminding her of the whiteness of her breasts and the fiercely erect state of her reddened nipples. The way he held her ankles, a little loosely, warned her that he could clearly identify the moisture on her thighs. Her dark blond curls no doubt accentuated what it should have concealed. Even now she pulsed at the thought of James’s hot stare.

  He spread her ankles further, then set her feet on the ground, leaving her knees slightly bent. He used the space he created to crawl over her. His white shirt fell loosely and brushed her belly. She could not help but catch her breath, every new sensation overwhelming.

  He sat back on his heels. “On second thought, I think I’ll remove this. No need to forgo the pleasure of my skin against yours.” He tugged at his shirt but his gaze had dropped heatedly to what was revealed by Astra’s spread legs. She arched her back in an exaggerated readjustment of her position, and let her eyes drift shut, but not enough that she could not see him beneath her lashes. After all, she was queen for a day, was she not?

  Bare-chested, his muscles bunched and a tendon in his jaw visibly tightened. His eyes remained transfixed on Astra, unmoving as if under a spell. Slowly, he dragged his gaze to Astra’s satisfied smirk.

  “Why forgo anything, my lord?” she purred.

  “Indeed, why?” he said in a horribly mangled imitation of her proper British accent. He crawled over her until his face hovered above hers. “Ah yes, I remember. To savor and suck the ripe fruit between your thighs is the objective of the day.” His shocking statement won their duel of false bravado. Astra’s eyes widened, and James smirked.

  With his knees braced between her thighs, she had no hope of preventing his parry. He leaned over her and whole-heartedly kissed her mouth, his tongue and lips making suggestions her female counterparts ached to know.

  Astra rested her hands on his ribs, then moved to caress the long muscles in his back. She returned his kiss in kind, even leaning up, her tongue greedily searching for his when he would pull away.

  “You have a wonderful mouth,” he whispered against her neck. “You make me think of things that I should not.” His kisses drifted over her collar bone, passed each nipple, grazing, searching, seeking lower.

  Astra gasped and arched against his marauding mouth. His bravado was definitely not false.

  He reached her quivering belly, and nibbled the skin over her hip bones. His hands came round her thighs, and he spread her, then lowered himself to his stomach. She jumped at the long fingers he pressed against her swollen sex. The first quick dart of his tongue caused her to cry out.

  Birds flew overhead in alarm, but her shriek only encouraged James. He licked her wet center, the bundle o
f nerves at the top. His attentions focused, sucking, licking then dropped down again. Astra tilted her pelvis, shamelessly pressing against him. She needed to writhe, to thrust her hips. She raised her head and saw a blur of green, a shimmer of pond, James’s bent head.

  He slipped a second finger inside her while he used his tongue on her most sensitive spot. Astra gasped and clenched around him, her body stiffening. The release was so swift, so intense that Astra saw stars behind her tightly closed eyes.

  When her shuddering subsided, she opened her eyes to find James poised above her. “Objective secured,” he said and kissed her. His lips were wet and she could taste her own juices in a tangy erotic flavor that mixed with wine and James. She rubbed her hand over his back. His kiss was gentle, and he pulled away and stretched beside her.

  “And what of other objectives? You have not even removed your boots, much less your breeches.”

  “This is not my day, it’s yours.”

  Confused, she worked her hand to feel between his legs. His erection strained the material. She ran her hands over the hard ridge. He leaned his head against her shoulder and remained unmoving.

  She turned to her side to reach him better. Loosening a few buttons allowed her into the opening of his breeches. She rubbed her palm over his hard cock. He moaned in her ear, compliant, submissive. His wet heat coated her palm.

  “So you are mine for the day to do what I will with you?”

  His eyes opened, his blue gaze intense. “Anything you wish, my lady.”

  “Stand and remove your clothes. I have need of your services,” she said in her coolest voice.

  But her tone only ignited the heat in his gaze as he slowly got to his feet. A beautiful animal of taut skin and sinewy muscle. He held her gaze as he slowly undid the buttons of his breeches. His head was lowered, but not in a submissive gesture, more like a wild beast that spotted its prey and was sizing it up for attack.

  His breeches undone, his cock flagrantly jutted through the opening. He leaned down and pulled off his boots. Taking his time, his muscles flexed as he peeled off his stockings, then his other boot. A sheen spread across his skin, a muscle stretched across his ribs jumped, quickly followed by his straining erection. Astra dropped her gaze and saw how full, how tight his skin had become, how aroused. He was enjoying exposing himself to her gaze. Teasing her while feasting on her reaction to his body.

  “You’ve taken long enough. Take off your breeches and mount me.” Astra uttered the shocking words, hoping for his equally stunned reaction. Hoping to make his eyes widen and return to the teasing banter where she too held the power, the bravado. Instead, her words only fueled his ever increasing internal inferno. He straightened, his jaw tightened, his eyes glowed.

  “As you wish,” he said without any hint of his usual mischievous smile. He was completely serious, completely enthralled by his game. “But your back? My weight will aggravate your injury. I have another idea.” His tone was flat as he reached out his hand to her.

  She blinked and took it. He pulled her to her feet. Kissed her. Molding her to him, pressing his hot erection against her soft stomach. He deepened the kiss and she was happy to let him lead again.

  He broke the contact, then gazed down at her with his confident blue gaze. “On your stomach, my lady,” he said.

  She hesitated, and he gripped her wrist and guided her down, kneeling beside her.

  “Or on your hands and knees if you wish,” his steady gaze told her that was the thing to do and what he wished.

  Her mind was a little unsure, but her body had begun to throb. The buzz that still swarmed over her skin from her recent release intensified and grew, gathering in her saturated womanly folds. A fierce tightening in her sex urged her to her hands and knees. He knelt behind her.

  His hands roamed over her hips, gripped her and adjusted her. When he bent down and kissed her lower back, she stiffened.

  “It appears I have you exactly where I wanted you despite my best efforts to be selfless. Life is wonderful, isn’t it?” His soft laugh, deep and lusty, made her shiver. He was like some satyr that had lured her into the woods under the guise of her own pleasure, only to be his sexual snack.

  She let her head drop, her shoulders roll, her back arch wanting to prove his equal at least in this.

  A soft groan escaped his throat and he dragged his finger across her damp sex. She undulated her hips wanting more from him. He slipped his finger inside. She bucked against him, rode his small offering. His thick breathing told her she was driving them both a little mad.

  “You know what I want,” she said demandingly.

  He abruptly removed his finger and gripped her hips. He kneaded her buttocks, spreading her. She braced herself for a forceful entry but bucked when his lips touched her sex, his thumb pressed against her…

  She gasped. “James,” she said outraged, and her cheeks reddened, because her sex tightened and gushed at the forbidden, shameful contact.

  “Shh. Don’t object. Just feel.” He lightened the pressure to a slight caress, but did not forgo the contact. He kissed her, an open-mouth joining that forced a moan from Astra. Never had she felt more in his possession, more a purely sexual creature that would allow him every access to her soul and body.

  Astra dropped to her elbows writhing under the unfair onslaught of his attentions. He grazed, he licked, he kissed but he did not penetrate or even attempt to ease the growing ache inside her.

  “James,” she sobbed. “Please.”

  He lifted his head, removed his touch and she braced herself for what new sexual torture he had in mind. Gripping her hips, he fit the length of his erection in the wet crease of her body. He covered her, kissed the side of her neck. He braced a hand near hers and used his other arm to gather her against him. Once he had her in position, he cupped her breast and rocked. The move was sexually teasing and surprisingly tender. His long shaft rubbed against the pleasure point at the apex of her wet center, but the sensation was agonizing when she needed him to fill her.

  “I love—” he said breathlessly, as if the words were pulled from him. “This. Do you?”

  To Astra, he might as well have told her that he loved her, because in this moment, nothing else mattered. She turned her head and found his mouth. They kissed for a long, extended moment, Astra’s body throbbing with need, his fierce erection snugly between her legs.

  With a deep growl, he broke the kiss. He released the arm he had wrapped under her belly, and gripped her waist. He pulled back his hips, then slid into her with liquid ease.

  A pleasurable sigh, her own, sounded in Astra’s ears. With each thrust, she met him, surprised with the freedom of movement the new position offered. At first, he was gentle, testing, but quickly grew faster, more fierce and rhythmic. She met each of his thrusts, gritting her teeth against the pure pleasure of him moving over her, inside her. She forced her eyes to remain open. The hazy afternoon sun gilded the pond, the fat green leaves on drooping tree limbs, illuminating everything with its powerful presence. James’s breathing was heavy in her ears. His slick chest pressed against her back.

  Abruptly, he surged into her, and the tenseness in his muscles warned her that he teetered on the brink of release, inside her. He dropped one hand and pressed his palm tightly against the mound of her sex and rotated, rubbing her. Astra’s response was immediate and fierce. Her pleasure clenched, forcing her to close her eyes and bite her lip as once again stars exploded behind her eyelids.

  He was moving again before her wracking spasms ceased. His thrusts were short and serious, punctuated by breathy moans. He pulled out on an abrupt gasp, and fell over her, hands braced over hers, entwining their fingers tightly.

  The hot evidence of his release shot across her back and his chest pressed snuggly against her. He kissed her neck, her hair, as shudders wracked his body. She wanted to take him in her arms, but remained poised beneath him. As the intensity of his spasm eased, he wrapped an arm beneath her breasts and rolled them
both over to their sides.

  He held her back tightly against his chest and she relaxed into him.

  “When you see me across the room, listening to some mother blather on about her virtuous daughter’s attributes, this is what I will be thinking of. The taste, the scent, the feel of you.” He cupped her breast. “It’s all I can think about most of the time anyway.”

  The resignation in his last statement made her smile. She wrapped his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles. “Thank you,” she whispered. And it was for so much more than just his declaration of devotion, or the day, or his generous giving of his body. It was for making her know what it was like to be a cherished woman. Allowing her to know what it felt like to be loved. If not forever after, at least for now, and that was more than she had ever had, or ever expected to have.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  On the night of the ball, James had no idea how true his declaration to Astra in the gazebo would be. An endless stream of fresh faces blushed and curtsied, vying for his attention, while all he could think about was Astra. Of course, he had cockily anticipated that his sexual musing would be pleasurable, a forbidden diversion to distract him from the unpleasant task of being paraded before Cornwall’s elite as some kind of prize-winning stud. That his secret conquest would be gnawing at his gut with acid-tinged fangs was a reversal he’d not expected. Astra belonged to him. The fact that he couldn’t publicly lay claim to her worsened his mood by the minute.

  “Ahem, my lord, I don’t mind saying that we are so pleased to have you in residence at Eastlan,” Sir John Mophett gushed as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Bully to see the old girl lift up her skirts and show some leg.”

  James instantly dragged his gaze from across the obscenely lit room where it lingered on Astra to blink at Sir John in confusion. He didn’t want to know how many candles they were burning in those elaborate holders that had been dragged from all over the house to illuminate Eastlan’s first floor with the brightness of a summer afternoon.