Regency Romance Omnibus 2018: Dominate Dukes & Tenacious Women Read online

  "Lord Br... Brighton," she huffed, her body hot and her throat burning with the sensation of so many steamy breaths, "I've... I've never... I've never been with a man before. I've wanted, waited for the precise moment, and..."

  "You've never been with a man?" Ellery grinned; he sat her onto the edge of the bed, bending close, biting at her lips. His teeth pressed softly to her skin she shuddered and squirmed, feeling a pleasurable sting she had never felt before.

  "No, and..."

  "I promise I'll go easy on you... the first time," he toyed with her, running his lips along hers, until his kisses led him to her ear. "I'll take you quickly... gently, perhaps... but it won't be what you imagined..." he promised, his hands rolling along her sides, tugging at her black dress.

  "Lord Brighton, I don't know that this is... entirely... proper," she clung tightly to those last few protests, the last few she could make, her body shuddering, rebelling against her words, every touch of his driving her secretly wild. She could never bring herself to admit it, certainly not allowed, but this man did things to her she had never felt her body do before - the way she moistened, the way his kisses burned her to her very core. He pushed down on her shoulders and she melted at his subtle command; he laid atop her, kissing across her neck, down to her throat, to the top of her bust, leaving a hot and steamy trail of desire painted across her smooth skin.

  "Ellery. Call me Ellery," he murmured.

  "But, Lord Brighton..."

  "Ellery," he insisted, with a wolfish growl at the back of his throat. "I demand it." Demand. His demand made her feel something so primordial, so elemental, tingling in her bones; a need she had never knew she had. A need to be subjugated by someone so strong and sexy; someone so in tune with himself, and with what he wanted. She could never have bowed at the demands of a slime like the Duke of Thrushmore - someone trying so hard to dominate, while being little more than an old, wizened liar.

  Lord Brighton... Ellery... he was so very different.

  "Ellery," she cooed, her body supple and pliant, her back arching out against his strong chest.

  "Good girl," he rewarded her with a bite at her neck; her eyes widened and she hissed a breath in protest at the sensation, but she realized then just how much it didn't hurt. In fact... she liked it. She hated that she liked it... but she liked it. She liked Ellery squeezing her breasts; she liked his teeth digging into her flesh, leaving a bruise and searing, pleasurable pain racing through her veins. A part of what he had said was right, and her mind rebelled at the very thought that this roguish animal could be right about the secret desires she didn't know about, buried inside of her body; hidden by the proper ordering of high society she had suffered through her whole life.

  "That h... hurt," she murmured, though the coo and curl of the words at the back of her throat said so much about how she enjoyed the pain.

  "I know it did," Ellery grinned against the small reddish welt forming on his new lovely prey's neck. "I meant for it to. And I know, that you enjoyed it. I know everything about you, Lady Duskwood," he exhaled into her ear, kissing fire and fury along her neckline as his words teased against her ear. "I know everything that makes that body of yours tick. I know that, from the moment our eyes met, you've thought on many carnal matters, between us... our bodies... you've made no secret of your desires, try as you might," he whispered.

  "How could you know me?" Isobel said, her eyes wide; her question less scared, and more intoxicated in him.

  "Your soul is like mine. You'd never admit it... but your eyes tell all your secrets," he murmured, looking deeply into her gaze. Her eyes - unsteady, flickering, wide, and confused - glared into his.

  "My eyes?..." she said, her voice trailing away as their lips locked into another intense, passionate share of intimate need. She whimpered musically into his throat; he groaned against hers, the sounds a sweet and succulent symphony of rumbling bass and soprano mewling. "How..." she continued, breath stolen after their shared moment of throbbing desire. "...how could you know... so much of me, from just my eyes?"

  "It's my secret," he grinned against her lips. Suddenly, she felt her body in an upheaval; he grasped her and spun her onto her front, kisses running along the nape of her neck as he lifted her hair, tugging gently on it; pain shot along her scalp, but it brought not a snarl but a pleasured coo from her throat. He felt his fingers tugging at the hem of her dress, and though she didn't know what he wanted next, she recalled the feeling rushing through her veins when she heard him demand something of her. She folded to his will, unwilling to admit that whatever he had divined from the gleam of her innocent eyes, had been so very true.

  "M... M'lord, I'm... this, I don't like this," she lied, trying to hang on to her sense of propriety. He could sense the distrust in her words, and she felt her dress tugged up far enough to reveal her pretty, plump rear. He pulled at her stockings, freeing her ass from its clothy confines, worshiping the beautiful flesh with his squeezing, pleasing palms. "I'm... I don't..." she couldn't even pretend; she couldn't lie, any longer. The sun blazed across their skin through the window as twilight began to approach, rich oranges and reds splashed against their hot, blushing flesh; she glanced back hotly to glimpse the Ellery with his shirt unbuttoned, his jacket thrown aside, and she shuddered down her back to see chiseled abs, a strong chest, and handsome, steamy, sculpted muscles gleaming in the glow of sunset.

  "Look forward," he told her, and she thought not even for a second to disobey; when she had listened to him before, he had rewarded her with that first erotic bite, one that had driven her nerves wild and left her shamefully begging for more. She turned away, denying herself the sight of him, a sight so enthralling and enticing. She held her breath, fear in her veins; what could he want of her? What dark desire now crept in to him?

  "M... m'lord, I..."

  "Don't talk," he instructed her harshly. "I demand it." Like a hound trained dutifully, she followed orders when she heard that phrase - and it excited her. It excited her in ways she hadn't known or expected - to be told by this man to do something, and that he demanded it. It made a heat flutter in her chest, an erotic anxiousness she couldn't dare put to words. She pinned her lips shut, closing her eyes, her body on edge, every nerve like a tensed, gleaming wire dancing on the edge of a razor. She waited... and she waited, in that pained silence. She couldn't talk; she couldn't look at him. She had to trust him - and leaving her fate to him excited her. So bottled up with lewd need, she nearly broke his rules - she nearly turned to gaze upon him, when,

  THWAP! She felt a surge of pain like nothing she had felt in her whole life; a searing hand print stung her backside with sudden force, the Lord Brighton's palm swatting hard at Isobel's cute little ass. A shockwave of feeling roared through her, up through her feet and along her back, all the way to her neck; she could feel the pain sear in her nerves, and she held in a surprised gasp, her eyes shooting open wide. She absolutely could not believe a nobleman could do something so crass, so inappropriate! She looked back at him, swallowing her words of protest, disbelief in her face as she felt his spank surge into every part of her.

  She could never ever dare to admit that while the pain had stung at first, the shockwave of feeling afterward... it felt good. It felt very good, and she didn't know why.

  "I told you to look forward, didn't I, Lady Duskwood?" he grumbled tauntingly, reaching up to lace his fingers through her hair, its roots beginning to glisten in steamy sweat. She realized too late she had broken one of his demands; a deep, lewd shame gripped her gut, and he tugged on her messy locks, another feeling of pleasant, shocking pain filling her nerves. He punctuated the wrench of her hair with another powerful SMACK on her bottom, one that left her skin gleaming red and burning, bristling with erotic heat. She could hold back her feelings no longer, her mouth falling agape, a soprano squeal of delight barely audible at he back of her throat. She swallowed the sensation, fearing that she had broken another of her demanding new lover's rules.

  "Lady D
uskwood, if you keep disobeying me, you'll never get out from under those debts... or from underneath me," he teased, mounting her like a hungry animal, biting at her neck and pulling her hair as she felt his reddened, hard cocktip teasing against her dewy, feminine folds. She had barely begun to process the overwhelming, erotic sensation of his hands spanking her ass when his shaft teased at her reddened femme clit, sensation rocking her mind until she felt so good she felt she might very nearly pass out from the stimulation. She didn't understand these rules, and she didn't understand why the Lord Brighton wanted to play these filthy games with her body - but, perhaps most unsettling of all, she didn't understand at all why it felt so, so good to be made to submit; to become a pawn, a plaything for this gorgeous and enticing Lord, to whom she owed everything. She wanted to speak, but it felt like heaven to be denied; she wanted to watch him, tense and sweating and chiseled like a classical work of art, but she couldn't even dare dream of it - and that denial wound her up tight as a drum.

  And when he bit down on her neck, in that same special place, and his shaft stretched her tight, virgin slit wide, when he thrust into the quaking heiress and filled her with his hardening length, she broke the rules again; she screamed, absolutely screamed in mind-blowing delight at the feeling of her body, so wrung up on sexual tension and energy and unadulterated need, filled and gripped with all those delicious things she didn't even know she could dream about. She squeezed at the sheets of his bed, her hands nearly ripping them to frayed shreds; her back arched, her breasts bounced, her hair fell over her shoulder as a sweat-stained mess. She pushed her plump backside back against him to get every inch of his throbbing shaft inside of her, as she felt is harden against her pretty pink inner walls. With a deep breath she fought the need to exclaim just how perfect he felt inside of her; he pulled himself free of her, but she hadn't had enough, pumping her hips back to him to beg him for more.

  "I told you," he cooed salaciously into her ear while nursing the reddened mark he had bitten into her neck. "I know what you want... even you don't know. But I do," he taunted, his hips rocking into her curvy flesh, filling her now again, and again, faster and harder with each focused thrust while she lay helpless and squirming, bent over the edge of the bed. He spanked her again, and again, until the steamy pleasure-pain and the feeling of his shaft stretching and filling her over and over again became too great and she couldn't hold back before. She hadn't in her whole life felt anything even close to this sensation, gripping her and possessing her until she couldn't consciously stop herself.

  "It's so g-good, I can't—!!" she swallowed her words, stars in her eyes and her lungs wheezing with intense desire as she felt a climax rush through her every limb, heat warm and comforting in her stomach as she rode out wave after powerful, intense wave of lustful eruption. Overwhelmed by the tightening of her glistening slit around his pumping cock, Lord Brighton grunted and pounded her harder, until he hilted himself fully inside of her flushed folds and his shaft exploded, wave after steamy, sticky wave of his climax filling her up as she enjoyed those last quivering, quaking moments of orgasm. Exhaustion filled her muscles, turning them to bending rubber as she felt him climax inside of her; their breaths full of steam and whimpers, Lord Brighton collapsed next to her, hunger in his eyes as he watched her wriggle, her body still gripped with the last clinging vestiges of erotic ecstasy.

  "You broke my rules again," he teased, his lips curling into a devilish smirk. His thumb rolled down her cheek to the mark branded into her throat, his teeth marks clearly and distinctly visible on her flesh. He admired the handiwork of claiming his prey; his thumbing caused Lady Duskwood pain, and she retracted, the post-coital shame filtering into her quickly.

  "I've... I'm..." she took in a deep breath, her mind in a thousand different places all at once. "Is... is that what you wanted?" she asked with a sense of finality. "You... you wanted to take advantage of my... my body. You wanted to use me for your... dirty... indulgences."

  "You think that's... what this was about?" Lord Brighton grinned, catching his breath. "Just about you, and your body?"

  "That's... what you wanted, isn't it? For... for my debts," she sighed, stuffing all those desires he had brought out of her back into the box where she had hid them. But he looked deep into her eyes and his lips curled devilishly.

  "Why do you have to lie to yourself, love?" he needled her. She tried to keep her eyes away from his fit, sexy body. "You've done it for so long. You've finally found someone who doesn't want to lie anymore. So why do you keep trying to lie to me? Your eyes tell the story whether you bloody well want them to, or not."

  "What more do you want?..." she asked, resisting every bodily urge to give in to the want for him; to let all of her inhibitions go. She still had a name to hold on to - and business to attend to.

  "It's not about that, love. I told you. I want your body. I want your mind. I want you all, right here," he said with a confident smirk.

  "What does that mean?" Isobel asked, voice quaking.

  "You can pretend all that want. But I want you. Here. Mine - to do with, as I please, in this bedroom," Lord Brighton explained.

  "For how long?" Lady Isobel questioned warily. Ellery shook his head.

  "If you have to ask that question, this won't work. When the time comes for us to part, we'll both know it," he said. "And I'll know, when you know. Remember." He pointed to his eyes, and then to hers. "I know you, Lady Duskwood. You don't want to think about it. But I know you."

  "So I am to live with you?" Isobel asked, full of dread. She couldn't tell if the dread was fear of him... or fear that living with him could expose the truth... that she had truly liked all those filthy things he had done to her body.

  "I told you. It's more than that."

  "Of course," she sighed. "My body... my mind. If it will clear my debts..."

  "Just remember. I know when you lie," Lord Brighton grinned.

  "Yes," Isobel looked away. "My eyes." She shielded them from him. Because she knew, and he knew - that he was right. He could tell it in the eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "So you're going to be relocating just... temporarily, m'lady?" Beatrice had been a loyal servant of Lady Duskwood's father, and the prospect of the young lady moving abroad - particularly with the estate in such dire straits - worried the aging woman with her faded orange-red hair, and wrinkled face.

  "Yes, just temporarily, that's all," Isobel reassured Beatrice with a small, thin smile. She didn't relish lying to the few servants who had remained loyal to her father - but she needed to maintain some sense of dignity, and to avoid the scandal her departure for the Duke of Norbury's estate would no doubt cause all across north England. "I'll be back before long."

  "And you're certain you'll be safely looked after by... who, was it, you were staying with, for these few months?" Beatrice asked, trying to tidy the dust-caked rugs with a scrubbing brush in one hand. "I certainly hope they have a staff more equipped to help you than we are, dear Isobel."

  "Oh, I'm... I'm just staying at a guest residence, near Norbury, to... to deal with business negotiations, regarding Upton, for the next few months," Isobel insisted, trying to maintain a sense of ease, and as not to remind anyone of the specter of debt looming over the entirety of the manor.

  "M'lady, I had to come and see you off, especially considering the nature of your business," Deaton interrupted the exchange with the rather senile Beatrice, trouncing down the stairs with his arms wide. He embraced Lady Duskwood in a hesitant hug, though he murmured into her ear as they stood together, revealing to her the true nature of his visit, keeping his words a secret from eavesdropping old Beatrice nearby. "You're relocating to deal with the issues with Lord Brighton, right? The debts? Upton, and this entire estate, are certain to sink if we've not resolved these issues soon, and after your time away from the manor I had hoped—"

  "Please, Deaton," Isobel interrupted soundly, a sigh coaxed from her lips by the pressure the frenetic record-keeper and
majordomo placed on her shoulders. "Business with Lord Brighton will be worked out sooner, rather than later. It's nothing that you or the village need worry about, any longer. Upton will be freed of its obligations by the time I return. Do you understand?"

  "Had you perhaps considered consulting with the Duke of Thrushmore, m'lady?" Deaton asks in a hushed tone. The name brought visceral revulsion to Isobel's faculties; she shrunk at the mention, feeling his grotesque words and surly lips on her skin again as she did the last moment they met, and hearing his shrieking, demeaning roars in her ears. "I'm certain he would be interested in hearing your propositions, and he's quite wealthy; certainly wealthy enough to cover the debts incurred by your father, and more. He's a proper man who's more than deserving of your attention, I do believe, m'lady."

  "The Duke of Thrushmore is..." Isobel held back all the things she wanted to say about the old man, gritting her teeth angrily. She worked herself down from a fury, breathing the fumes of her vitriol out in a slow and measured manner. "...I'm not interested in working with him, Deaton. He's just not... it's just not a business proposition I'm interested in courting, at the moment."

  "Are you certain, m'lady? Because he arrived this morning, setting out as soon as he had heard you returning from the Duke of Norbury's estate. He's been waiting - asking for you, even," Deaton mentioned offhandedly. Lady Isobel blinked, her heart pounding hard, sweat immediately dripping form her brow, her nerves alight in fear.

  "He's... he's here? Why—who told him of my return? I'm not... I don't want..." she stammered. She had hoped to never see the lying 'gentleman' again, much less did she expect him to pursue her after their last meeting.

  "I would propose that I speak to him and see him off, m'lady, but a man like the Duke of Thrushmore would not take the word of a mere servant. He's been quite insistent on seeing you, m'lady, and I think it would be best for the reputation of the estate, and for your chances, m'lady—please, just listen to what he has to offer, won't you? He's not quite the doddering old fool he seems to be. He could mean good things for Upton, and for you—"