Pippa and the Prince of Secrets by Grace Callaway

27

Watching Pippa observe the starlings, Cull had known he was right to bring her here. The wonder lighting up her eyes had chased away the shadows. She’d lost herself in the wild pulse that connected living things, and he knew how that felt. He’d first heard of the flight of the starlings a few months after his injury. Weary in body and spirit, he’d come here, hoping for a diversion from his damnable self-pity. He’d left renewed in spirit and faith.

No matter how arduous the journey, a life that held beauty like this was worth living for.

As Pippa pressed her mouth against his, he felt that beauty pour into him like liquid sunlight. She heated his blood, stirred his heart and cock in equal measure. He threaded his fingers into her silken ringlets, knocking off her bonnet as he took everything she offered. The sweet and sensual succor that only she could give...that had fueled his dreams for years.

He dragged his mouth to her ear, and she mewled like a kitten.

“We should go inside,” he murmured.

“I don’t want to wait,” she panted. “I want you now.”

Jesus wept. How could he resist her command? It was an unseasonably warm day, after all…and even if it wasn’t, he would find ways to heat them up.

With a growl, he tore at her buttons and laces. She laughed breathlessly at his haste, but that didn’t stop her from doing the same to him. Never had he wanted a woman so badly; never had he felt this wanted in return. When their clothes lay strewn around them, he pressed her down on the blanket and caressed her breasts, savoring their firm yet supple heft.

“Finally,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to suckle these pretty nipples for ages.”

Bending his head, he circled her areola with his tongue before drawing the taut peak into his mouth. She moaned and speared her fingers into his hair as he sucked and licked. He took his time, going back and forth between her heaving mounds, adoring how sensitive she was here. Glancing down, he saw a smear of wetness on her thighs, and the needy way she clenched them together injected steel into his cock.

I wonder if I could make her spend from sucking her tits.

A man who enjoyed challenges, he redoubled his efforts, taking one nipple deep into his mouth while he played with the other, rolling the damp tip between finger and thumb. Her whimpering grew desperate, her squirming even more so. That was before he grazed her with his teeth. Her back bowed, and she let out a shocked cry.

He looked into her dazed eyes, steeped in the sultry violet of dusk.

“Did you come?” he asked.

Her nod was bashful and bloody arousing.

“Splendid. Keep playing with those lovely tits while I avail myself of your other delights.”

She stared at him. “Um…play with them?”

“Touch yourself. Don’t be shy,” he said huskily. “It arouses me to watch you. To see your pleasure.”

After a heartbeat, she brought her hands to her breasts, her slim fingers brushing the plump undersides. When she brushed her fingertips over the peaks, she trembled with pleasure. Hell, so did he. Biting her lip, she rolled an engorged bud between her thumb and index finger, tugging delicately.

He kissed his way down the gentle valley of her belly while enjoying the view of her naughty, ladylike hands. “Pretend those are my hands touching you. Squeezing your breasts. Teasing those stiff little nipples. How does it feel?”

“So good.” Her voice was slurred with pleasure.

“And this?” He spread her thighs and bent his head, swiping his tongue up her slit.

“Cull.”

Her cry was as sweet as the nectar coating his tongue. Fucking hell, she was delicious. He buried his face in her cunny, eating her with savage hunger. Feasting on her womanly bounty. When he tickled her pearl with his tongue, her sleek thighs tightened. He spread her wider, laving her nub and sucking it into his mouth. He thrust two fingers inside her, groaning at the lush constriction, imagining that snugness around his prick.

She came again, this time with his name on her lips, and the sound enthralled him.

Blood pounding, he raised his head, licking her cream from his lips. Her eyes were heavy-lidded as she raked a hungry gaze down his chest to his heavy, rearing cock.

In a throaty voice, she said, “I want to feel you…inside.”

Christ, yes.

Gripping his prick, he rubbed the head along her satiny folds. Her abundant dew bathed him, made his stones throb in anticipation.

“Hurry,” she whimpered.

He reached for his discarded jacket, taking out the French letter. Her avid gaze as he sheathed his erection made the sheep gut feel tighter than normal. He crawled atop her, keeping his weight on one arm, using the other to guide his cock to her entrance.

Staring into her eyes, he thrust himself home. She was tight—God was she ever—but she was also soft and wet from her climaxes, blossoming around him. Pleasure poured over him in a hot wave as he hilted himself and held.

“How is that, love?” he said hoarsely.

“Oh, Cull.” Her expression was awestruck. “I never knew.”

Pride expanded his chest that he had been the one to show her.

I’m the luckiest bastard alive.

He pushed a tress off her damp cheek. “Ready for more, sunshine?”

“Yes, I want more,” she breathed. “Everything.”

Groaning, he claimed her mouth and began to move.

Pippa hadn’t known that coupling could be like this. This raw and full of need. As Cull pushed inside her, she gulped at the feeling of fullness. At his size and heat and thickness driving into the heart of her. He went deeper and deeper, touching places that had never been touched. Setting off sparks of bliss.

He made her mad with wanting. Moaning, she wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling the hard flexing of his buttocks against her heels as he drove into her. This was what she’d always longed for—what she’d always craved. A passion that consumed her thoughts and senses so that she wasn’t Patient Pippa or the perfect countess or even a lady…she just was.

With Cull, she was just herself. And it was enough. Everything.

“More,” she pleaded. “Please, Cull.”

An animal gleam came into his eyes. “Want it harder, love? Like this?”

The rough shove of his hips lifted her spine off the blanket, and she moaned her approval. He was so big, so vital, his presence expanding her capacity for sensation. Then he really began to move, making her realize that he’d been holding back. He drove into her with thrilling aggression, and she held onto his shoulders, feeling the powerful shifting of muscles beneath his taut skin. Losing herself in the wildness of their mating dance.

Soon their passion began to overwhelm her. Need filled her, pushed at her insides, pulsed under her skin until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She craved release.

“Cull,” she begged.

In answer, he withdrew. At her mewl of protest, he gave her a sensual grin and grabbed her legs one by one, hooking her knees over his shoulders. Then he pushed inside her again, the angle even deeper than before. He pounded into her, grunting with pleasure, the cords of his neck standing out in brute relief. Staring up into his glittering gaze, she felt a tautening at her center, and an instant later, ecstasy burst.

The slow, grinding lunges of his hips kept her adrift in pleasure.

“Christ, I love the way it feels when you come around my cock,” he rasped, his eyes heavy-lidded. “So tight and hot and wet. You’re going to take me with you.”

“Come with me.” She framed his face, her palms curving around smoothness and scars. “I want to feel you, Cull.”

With a growl, he thrust harder, faster, so virile that, even in her spent state, she felt her blood quickening. Then he pulled out, tearing off the sheath. Kneeling between her legs, he gripped his cock, and her breath snagged at his magnificence. At the rippling animal power of him as he jerked his enormous shaft. He roared as he reached his finish, as he lashed her belly with his hot essence. He sprayed her skin with silky trails until he was wrung dry.

Panting, he collapsed atop her and kissed her, slow and deep. She would have been content to lie there forever, blanketed by his musky warmth, floating in the twilight.

“My arse is getting cold,” he muttered.

Laughing, she said, “I can think of ways to keep it warm.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, sunshine.” He rose and scooped her up effortlessly, striding toward the cottage. “All night long, as a matter of fact.”

Pippa awoke, her cheek pressed against something warm and scratchy. Her lips curved as she took in the delicious expanse of Cull’s chest, the hard-paved muscle with its covering of wiry hair. They were in the bed of the gamekeeper’s cottage, and she was cuddled up against him, his arm around her, her leg over his. She had never woken up tangled with a lover before. Wistfully, she thought she could get used to it.

Memories of the night returned, suffusing her with heat. After making love to her outside, Cull had carried her into this rustic one-room cabin. Before the wood fire, they’d feasted on the simple repast of bread, cheese, and ham he’d packed in the basket, but their real appetite had been for one another. The food had just been the fuel to keep their energies up.

After eating, they’d made a meal of each other—at the same time. She blushed, recalling the wicked position Cull had introduced her to and how much she’d loved it. He’d taken her twice more until she was too exhausted to move. Fully sated, she’d fallen asleep in his arms, and the only thing better than that was waking there too.

She leaned her head back to look at him. Asleep, Cull looked boyish, his features relaxed, his long lashes resting against his cheeks. Bronze scruff glinted on his strong jaw and unblemished cheek. In the light of the new day, his scars seemed diminished. He was so attractive that she felt a stirring of lust…but she had other bodily needs to attend to first. Taking care not to wake him, she extricated herself and went to use the necessary.

When she returned, he’d rolled onto his side, his back to her. His backside was an artist’s dream, a network of ridges and hollows, shifting shadows and light. The sheets were draped just below the vee of muscle that girded his lean hips, revealing a hint of his delectable derriere. She didn’t know what she wanted more: to paint him or have her way with him.

Then she noticed the markings. Since it had been dark last night—and she’d spent most of it beneath him—she hadn’t seen the small triangle of dots nestled between his shoulder blades. Slipping into bed, she took a closer look at the tattoo and saw that each dot was an inverted “W.” A pair of wings…like the drawing a child might make of a bird in the sky. There were six birds in all, one on the top row, two on the next, and three on the bottom.

She gently touched the top of the triangle, wondering what the markings meant. When his muscles bunched beneath her fingertip, she pulled away.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.

Cull was rolling over. They lay on their sides, facing one another. Her chest warmed at the boyish appeal of his sleep-tousled hair and drowsy eyes.

“That one is for Toby,” he said in a sleep-roughened voice.

She blinked, not understanding.

“The lark at the top of my tattoo,” he clarified. “His name was Toby, and he was twelve when he died. A rival gang captured him, wanting information that he’d gathered for one of our clients. His body was found in the Thames a few days later.”

Horror swept through Pippa. Now she realized what the tattoo was: a memorial for fallen mudlarks. Her heart squeezed at the burden that Cull literally carried on his back.

“He was just a child,” she said with helpless sorrow.

Cull nodded, his gaze stark. “So were the others who died under my watch. Except for Patrick.”

“Patrick?” she asked softly.

“He was my best chum. We came up the ranks together. The fire that caused my injury took Patrick’s life.” Cull’s voice was gritty with emotion. “He died getting others out because that was the kind of fellow he was.”

“I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Death—whether from enemies, disaster, or disease—is no stranger to the mudlarks. The only thing we can do is weather it together.” Shadows lurked in his eyes. “Do you know why the starlings fly together the way they did last night?”

She shook her head.

“According to birdwatchers, it is how the starlings thwart their predators. I’ve seen it myself. A falcon trying to hunt was confused by the constant movement and shifting of the group. It swooped in and out, trying to capture a single bird, but it left without a meal because of the coordination and cohesion of the flock.”

And the bonds between the members of Cull’s gang were just as strong. Pippa recalled how worried the larks had been after Ollie’s injury. How protective Fair Molly was of Cull. And how Cull took responsibility for them all.

“The former prince had a saying: Alone, we are easy to defeat. Together, we are invincible. I’ve tried to make the mudlarks invincible, but I’ve failed…six times too many.”

She touched Cull’s jaw, felt the harsh tension in that muscle. “It is not your fault. You’re a wonderful leader, but even you can’t control everything.”

“When it comes to you, that terrifies me.”

His blunt admission took her aback. She hadn’t thought that Cull was a man afraid of anything.

“A part of me wonders if I have been selfish starting things with you,” he said with burning intensity. “That’s why I stayed away all those years. I knew the life I led wasn’t right for you.”

“I told you before. I don’t need a life of luxury and ease—”

“But I need you to be safe.” Exhaling, he rolled onto his back, staring up at the slatted ceiling. “I have a history of failing to protect the people I care about the most. My mam, Maisie, Patrick…the list goes on. And I can’t—won’t—let that happen with you.”

Pippa’s heart was hammering. Not because of his asinine notion that she needed protection.

“You care about me?” she said in an aching whisper.

He turned his head, his expression incredulous. Pulling her into the crook of his shoulder, he looked into her eyes. “Jesus wept, Pippa. Did you think I didn’t?”

“I guess I knew you, um, liked me.” She fumbled for the right words, hating how unsure she sounded. Hating her lingering self-doubt. “But this is an affair. Without strings. And you told me from the start that you could only offer me the pleasure of the moment.”

“Is that what you want?” His gaze probed hers. “For this to be a casual liaison?”

Responses swarmed her mind. Keep it casual and safe. This was just supposed to be a fun diversion. Don’t get attached too quickly.

Yet this wasn’t just any lover; this was Cull. A man who had survived the cruelest of environments and still saw beauty in the everyday. A man who cared so deeply that he inked his penance onto his skin. A man who was kind, passionate, and trustworthy…and worth the risk of heartbreak.

“I want more,” she whispered.

I want the dream that started in the bell tower. What fourteen years didn’t erase. I want you, Cull…please don’t hurt me.

“Thank Christ,” he said gruffly. “Because I’m falling in love with you, Pippa.”

Her breath stuttered. “You are?”

This good, noble, powerful man was falling for her?

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Don’t know why you’re surprised, sunshine. I started falling for you fourteen years ago.”

“You didn’t know me then,” she countered. “Not really.”

“True. But you were the prettiest lass I’d ever laid eyes on. Gave me the best kiss I’d ever had.” He leaned in, the hot and tender claim of his mouth curling her toes into the sheets. “And fourteen years later, you’re still giving me that…and more,” he murmured against her lips. “You’re even more perfect than my fantasies.”

“I’m not perfect, Cull. Far from.”

Unease twinged as Pippa remembered other times he’d alluded to her flawlessness. At first, it had been flattering; she supposed she’d needed the boost to her self-confidence. Yet being with Cull was helping her to get over her past, and she didn’t need the reassurance any longer. Or rather, she needed honesty more.

“You’re perfect for me,” he amended.

She sat up, drawing the sheet over her breasts. “Don’t idealize me, Cull,” she said quietly. “I made that mistake with Longmere—saw who I wanted him to be instead of who he truly was. I don’t want you to be disappointed like I was when I finally opened my eyes.”

“You could never disappoint me.” Cull got up beside her, his mien serious. “While you are a lady in the truest sense of the word, I know you are also more than that. You’re strong and capable and can handle yourself. That is why I’m going to take a chance on this…on us. But I have enemies, Pippa, and if you are exposed to harm because of me, if I fail to protect you”—his pupils dilated, darkness edging out the warmth of his irises—“I couldn’t stand it.”

“And I couldn’t stand it if you shut me out. If you kept secrets from me.”

“I’m nothing like your husband,” Cull said, his tone curt.

“I know that. Which is why I am willing to trust my heart.” She touched his arm, feeling the taut bulge of his biceps. “I think…I think I’m falling for you too, Cull.”

“You are?” he said hoarsely.

The wonder in his voice cinched her throat. Maybe they were more alike than she realized. Maybe they were both afraid to trust themselves…to risk getting hurt again.

Yet wasn’t love worth the risk?

She drew a breath for courage. “I am. But I need to know that we will share our lives, support one another, and be true partners. I want to be a part of your world and for you to be a part of mine. I won’t countenance walls between us. If you can promise me that, I can promise you that I will do my utmost to make you happy.”

“Christ Almighty, you make me happy just by breathing.” He cupped her face with a reverence that made her eyes sting. “I want you in my life, Pippa. To share things with you that I’ve never shared with anyone else.”

“I want that too,” she said tremulously.

“And you are certain you want to take on a man like me? A man not from your world, who cannot offer you the privileges to which you are accustomed?”

The vulnerability in Cull’s searching gaze astonished her. How could this prince of a fellow doubt his worth when he had so much to offer?

“True nobility is not about titles,” she said in a steadfast tone. “You, Timothy Cullen, are a real gentleman. And I would be honored to have you in my life.”

Relief flashed in his eyes. “Then it’s settled,” he declared. “We’re falling in love.”

Smiling at his decisiveness, she tipped her mouth up, and they sealed their new promise with a kiss.