Temptation & Twilight. Charlotte Featherstone

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СКАЧАТЬ onto his tongue. Her sigh when he drew her into his mouth and suckled, as he pleasured himself … He could come just imagining it.

      “I believe, my lord, that we are all finished.”

      Reluctantly, Alynwick pulled himself from the fantasy to see his shoulder bandaged in white cloth. One glance down the length of his body to his tented kilt made him close his eyes with a groan.

      “Whatever you were thinking about, my lord,” Sutherland said knowingly, “it worked. You didn’t flinch once.”

      TWO HOURS LATER, Alynwick sat in a large chair before the Duke of Sussex, with yet another tent in his kilt as he thought of the images that had flowed through his vivid, fevered imaginings while Sutherland worked over him.

      How easy it was to conjure the image of a fair Elizabeth, naked, crawling toward him, red wine staining her body. In his mind he had been seated like a sultan before a harem girl, studying her—his possession. He loved to watch, and there was no woman he found more fascinating than Elizabeth York, with her exterior of innocence, and the eagerness of a harlot. He’d once watched her in the grass, watched the undulations of her body beneath his roving hand as he made her come with slow, knowing caresses and whispered words that were far too indecent for any well-bred young lady’s ears.

      She had been younger then, less full than she was now. She’d been beautiful to his eyes, but now … Now he’d give what remained of his soul to see her body, all full, voluptuous curves and soft planes, with secret places for his hand to touch, his lips to caress. He’d had only a glimpse of it last evening, and he wanted more. So much more. To say he was hungry for her was an amusing understatement. He was starved for her.

      He groaned, wiped his palm along his unshaved face. He was damn hard, sitting before Sussex while thinking lurid thoughts of the duke’s sister. He really was an unrepentant rake to debase the innocent sister of his friend with his lascivious dreams and erotic wishes.

      “What’s with you?” Black demanded of the silent duke. “Are you ill?”

      For the first time, Iain took in Sussex’s haggard appearance, and felt some measure of pleasure. His Grace looked nearly as worn as he did this morning.

      When he and Black had barged into Sussex’s study not more than ten minutes before, they had roused the duke from his sleep on the couch. Sussex had nothing to grumble about; he had not been shot in the shoulder. It was then that Alynwick recalled he had some unfinished business with his friend.

      “What the devil d’ye think ye were doing, fobbing me off at Grantham Field?” he asked indignantly, his anger getting the better of him and allowing him to slip into his brogue. “Ye were supposed ta be me second!”

      “No,” Sussex growled impatiently, “one of us was supposed to be your second, and because you showed up at the Sumners’ musicale drunk and itching for a fight, I had to bodily remove you from said musicale. Ergo, I was not able to perform as your second, since I wanted to shoot you my goddamn self!”

      “I wasna drunk,” Alynwick grumbled, wishing he could forget about the scene he’d created at the Sumners’. “Itchin’ fer a fight, aye, but no’ drunk.”

      “Careful,” Black said with some amusement, “your cultured English accent is giving way to your heathen Highland one.”

      Black was hardly helping. And the bastard seemed to be taking an extraordinary amount of enjoyment out of it all. Iain rarely allowed himself to fall victim to his brogue. All the more evidence that something was ruling him, and it was not the coldhearted calculations he was notorious for.

      Sussex’s steel-grey eyes settled on him once more. “Surely you did not believe that it was the thing to do to be your second after the stir you caused at the Sumners’? Everyone saw what happened, and how I had to remove your arm from Sheldon’s throat!”

      “Get at yer point, ye windbag,” he snapped, hating the earl’s name being mentioned. Iain had purposely tried to forget that Elizabeth had been in that room hanging on to the arm of another man. And by the looks of things, bloody well enjoying herself.

      “My point, you infuriating brute, is this. We are not supposed to be friends, or even acquaintances, in the eyes of the polite world. We’re to pretend that our own private circles do not cross, so no one will suspect that we are acquainted—in ways we have all vowed never to reveal. And then you stroll in and force my hand, making my sister the object of ridicule and gossip, and you wonder why I didn’t come and perform as your second? The reason, you Highland ninny, is simple—because no one would believe it! No one would think it plausible that we were out for a pint, met up and I just merrily agreed to travel at dawn to some godforsaken farmer’s field to aid you in putting a bullet hole in someone, when not four hours before you were importuning my sister and nearly killing the Earl of Sheldon!”

      Black’s gaze volleyed between them, then he groaned as the truth of Sussex’s revelations sank in. “Alynwick, you didn’t. Good God, you did, didn’t you?”

      Iain was not chastised, and more to the point, he was ready to fight again. “You didn’t force me away from anything,” he sneered. “I allowed you to tear me off that piece of trash.”

      “And how do you know anything about Sheldon,” Sussex growled, “when your face is constantly gazing into the bottom of a whisky decanter?”

      Iain lunged over the desk, ready to tear his friend apart, but Black caught him by the coat and hauled him back. “None of that, now,” he grunted as he tossed Alynwick into the chair. “Stay!” he shouted, pointing at Iain as if he were a biddable canine when he tried to stand up again.

      “I’m no’ a bloody mongrel to heed yer commands.”

      “Really?” Black straightened his waistcoat and resumed his seat. “You look like something that’s been roaming the street for weeks. Where did you go after I left you in Sutherland’s care?”

      He’d gone to find Lady Larabie, that’s where. But he’d been too deep in thought to do anything but regale the lady with the gossip of his fight with her husband. Contrary to Larabie’s boasts, the man had not returned home to deal with his wife, but instead made his way to his club in St. James’s. That had left the lady free to dally, but dallying had been the last thing on Iain’s mind. In a strange mood, he had sought out Georgiana for something else entirely. Comfort perhaps. Solace. She’d provided nothing of the sort—only petulance that he did not seem inclined to pleasure her. He was literally sickened by it, sitting in her overly ornate little parlor fending off her roving hands, when all he really wanted was to lay his head in her lap and feel her feminine fingers run through his hair while he pretended he was with Elizabeth. But it had all been to no avail. The lady was not capable of solace, and he had left, disgusted with himself for desiring such a thing. Iain Sinclair did not need anything from anyone—most especially sanctuary in a woman’s arms.

      With a sigh, he answered, “You doona want t’ know where I was.”

      “By the stench of you, I think I already do.”

      Iain sent Black a glare, aware that he appeared debauched. But he wasn’t. He was restless, mindless. There was a sickness ruling his thoughts, and if he had the courage to look through the darkness inside him, he’d be able to name the illness. He was heartsick, his soul crying out for the one remedy that could cure his illness. Elizabeth.

      But she did not want him, or the love that he could no longer deny.

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