seen men look at her chest before, and knew they liked it… If she could just keep Lucien’s thoughts on the pleasures her body could afford him, perhaps he wouldn’t turn away just yet…
She was perfect. Her breasts were a feast of perfection and he thought her lovely. This might be going nowhere, but he could lose himself for now. Tara was doing everything she could to make this possible for him and in return he would take her to paradise and back. If there was one thing he understood about a woman, it was her body and how to make it sing.
He lavished attention on every smooth and perfect inch of her, kissing and caressing her as he made her wait so that her senses sharpened. When that moment came and she couldn’t wait any longer she grabbed his hand, guiding him to the sweet swell of her belly and pushing his hand down between her legs again. She parted those legs as if it was the most natural thing on earth to her, and even lifted her knees to encourage his exploration.
Moving down the bed, he tasted her and found her more than ready, but it pleased him to hold her back a little longer, knowing her pleasure would increase if she would only wait. She called to him during all this time with little whimpers of desire, which he answered by parting those swollen lips to find the receptive little bud trembling in anticipation of his touch. At the first lash of his tongue she shrieked his name. He caught her as she bucked and held her firmly in place to make sure she derived maximum pleasure from the experience. Far from subsiding in his arms when it was over, she clung to him and begged for more.
‘Of course, ma petite…’ He reasoned that she would want him to go ‘all the way’ so she could report back to Freya that she had bagged the Count as instructed. And she had, he thought a little sadly, knowing he was being manipulated. With his appetite, it was hardly likely that one night of excess with such a voluptuous young woman would be enough for him. His only hope of salvation was that by morning he would wake to find reason had returned.
Having protected them both, he slipped a pillow beneath her hips to tilt her into the most receptive position. Moving over her, he paused. The anticipation of sinking into that warm, throbbing flesh was so intense he wanted to hold back and savour the moment, but she wouldn’t have it and, drawing up her knees as far as she could, she looked at him plaintively. He feasted his gaze on somewhere other than her face before testing himself inside her. They both exhaled sharply, which told him that neither of them could possibly have predicted this level of sensation. Even with his experience, this was a revelation. He withdrew completely, only in order to enjoy entering her again. He went deeper this time, taking her slowly and gently, conscious that he was stretching her. Whatever he thought of her, and whatever her level of experience, he was so much stronger than she was and honour demanded that he must treat her with care. When he thought he might be hurting her he stopped, but she urged him on, clamping her fingertips into his buttocks and working with him.
‘Please Lucien…don’t stop now,’ she begged him when his impulse was to soothe her. But she was very tight, and he was very large, which made him move with the utmost care. Finally it seemed she relaxed again, and as her pleasure built her mouth fell open, and it pleased him to hear her sob in ecstasy.
He could see she was consumed by pleasure as he set up a regular pattern. He stared deep into her eyes to ensure she enjoyed this on every level. Her answer was to urge him on, straining to meet every stroke he dealt her as she closed her muscles around him to draw him deep.
It was more important for him to please Tara than he could possibly have imagined, though the sane part of his brain continued to warn that she had been well trained to please a man. He could see it all now. The Devenish sisters had set out that night in a wholly calculated manner to land a double prize, but whereas Freya might have succeeded, Tara’s future remained in her own hands.
She lay next to him, watching Lucien sleep. The fantasy might be over, but she was determined to imprint every fragment of it on her mind. Biting down on her lip, she remembered the sharp pain that had marked the end of her innocence. But even that pain was precious because it was the only gift she had to give to Lucien.
Though the shock when he had taken her…
He had stretched her beyond anything she could have imagined possible. But he had also reassured her, and it was Lucien’s care and gentle treatment of her that would stay in her mind.
She had been full of lust, Tara remembered, smiling shyly down at him, but Lucien had turned it into more than that, and for that she would never forget him or this night of passion. Whatever life held for her in the future, this precious memory of Lucien Maxime, the Count of Ferranbeaux, would remain safely locked away in her heart.
Which would have to be enough for her, Tara told herself sensibly, settling down in bed a respectful distance away from Lucien. She might have fallen for a man called Lucien, but the man lying beside her was the mighty Count of Ferranbeaux, and she wasn’t silly enough to imagine he felt the same.
CHAPTER THREE
Two years later.
STORM clouds, unusual for the time of year in the far south of Europe, threatened rain as Lucien Maxime, the Eleventh Count of Ferranbeaux, halted his Aston Martin outside one of his many grand country hotels. Opening the car door, Lucien unfolded his powerful frame, retrieved his pale summer-weight jacket and threw it on. Sensing he was being watched, he glanced up. An unremarkable plump young woman with an infant in her arms was looking down at him from a wrought iron balcony.
Tara Devenish.
The shock of seeing Tara again was like a battering ram to his solar plexus and time melted away as he stared back at her. Was it only two years since that night? He’d lost a brother and gained a niece in that time. Guy and Freya had been married little more than a year when they had been killed in a horrific car crash, and the baby in Tara’s arms was their orphaned daughter.
The sight of his niece lifted his heart, but to see Tara holding Guy’s innocent child sickened him. He could only think of that night when Tara had ground her hips so shamelessly against him. She’d been good—better than good, she’d been practised, she’d been excellent—and he had later learned his brother had thought so too.
With a sound of disgust he slammed the car door, remembering how, shortly before the fatal crash, Freya had publicly denounced Tara for sleeping with her husband. Who knew what Guy’s state of mind had been when he’d embarked on that tragic car journey? The way he saw it, Guy’s blood was on Tara’s hands and if she thought that touching cameo of her holding Guy’s child would soften him she was out of luck. Someone should have warned her he was not as gullible as Guy—he was a different man, a very different man. He couldn’t believe he had misjudged her character so badly.
Uniformed doormen, in the claret and gold of the aristocratic Ferranbeaux family, raced to open the door for him, but he got there first. Swinging the door wide, he acknowledged each man in turn by name. He might loathe the fuss and deference many men in his position so avidly courted, but believed that was no reason to brush people off.
Today, with little time to spare, he moved swiftly on. He didn’t need the heraldic shield emblazoned on each man’s jacket to remind him why he was here. The honour of the family was once more under siege, another scandal pending; another situation for him to deal with before the rumours got out of hand. Guy’s death had opened Pandora’s box and now Pandora herself, or that young ingénue, as he had once so foolishly thought of Tara Devenish, was here at his command. She had been easy to manipulate, wanting to see where Poppy would live before agreeing to sign the adoption papers. He suspected she had seen this as one last chance to follow her sister’s lead in securing a wealthy husband. Why else had it taken a single phone call to her lawyer from his for her to agree to this meeting?
His
