Tempting Gemma 9 Read online

  Tempting Gemma

  Part Nine

  Josie Litton

  About this Book

  From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Josie Litton

  "Shockingly sexy!--Goodreads "Laugh out loud fun!"--Amazon

  Gemma and Charles are off to London in this conclusion to the sizzling summer romance that has readers and reviewers cheering!

  Set in a version of the modern world very loosely inspired by Jane Austen, this is the story of what happens when a lovely young woman unexpectedly finds herself married to a gorgeous British lord possessed of inexhaustible virility.

  In between encounters in every room of her husband’s sprawling ancestral manor house, not to mention the surrounding grounds, Gemma must cope with peculiar family members, a local village filled with secrets and her own overwhelming lust for the man she doesn’t dare to love.

  Will she succumb to temptation and fall in love with her uninhibited and unexpectedly charming husband? Will Charles come up for air long enough to confess to his enchanting wife that she is the woman of his dreams? Find out as TEMPTING GEMMA concludes in Episode Nine.

  Contents

  About this Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  My Gift to You!

  Sneak Peeks

  Chapter One

  Oh, my,” Gemma exclaimed, “this isn’t at all what I expected!”

  Standing just within the entry of their London residence, she spun around in a circle, trying to take it all in at once. Whilst the exterior of the five-story building fronting on Hyde Park was entirely traditional--being in the late-Georgian Regency style with high arched windows, stone balconies and Corinthian porticoes--the interior was breathtakingly modern.

  At a glance, she could see that the double-height ground floor included several reception and dining rooms that flowed one into the other and were all filled with light even in late afternoon. But it was the transparent spiral staircase of sea green glass and oxidized steel that commanded her attention. It appeared to float in the air as it coiled upward. Even the landings were made of glass so that it was possible to gaze up the full height of the house to a skylight that unless her eyes deceived her formed the bottom of a pool set into the roof.

  She was gasping at all this when her husband replied absently, “I had it gutted and redone a few years ago. Turned out to be a great space once it was opened up.”

  Glancing up from the stack of messages that Danvers had just handed him, he smiled. The skirt of the strapless sundress that his wife had put on that morning in preparation for their final assault on Mary Magdalene and the loathsome Dame Aurelia billowed out around her. White silk and a splash of crimson peonies made a pleasing picture but his gaze was drawn to her long, slim legs exposed from mid-thigh to the strappy heels she wore.

  His cock stirred, reminding him of his pressing need for her attentions. It had been far too long, well over twelve hours, since he had last sunk into the hot, tight depths of her exquisite cunt. Didn’t do for a fellow to deny himself like that. Led to all sorts of odd behavior.

  He had a peculiar memory of allowing his wife to take the wheel for part of their journey down from Northumbria. What could possibly have possessed him to that? Beyond, of course, his constant and all-consuming need to see to her happiness. It led him to do the strangest things--steal motorboats, go to a girls’ school reunion, break into a headmistress’ safe. Who knew what would be next?

  Still, he had to admit, all things considered she had acquitted herself remarkably well. He would have to remember that the next time she wanted to drive. Perhaps he wouldn’t feel the cold, clammy hand of panic around his throat quite so much.

  “I just have to make a quick call,” Charles said, the journey forgotten in favor of imagining her already stretched out naked on the bed in the master suite upstairs, waiting for him. She might even get impatient and play with herself a bit. He wouldn’t mind walking in on that.

  “Why don’t you get settled upstairs?” he said hastily. “I won’t be any time at all.”

  With a free hand, he began undoing his tie and added, “We’ll be dining in, Danvers. Let Missus Harkness and Cook know, if you would. Whatever’s easiest will do.”

  “As you say, sir,” the butler intoned, inclining his head. “I believe we have everything in good order. Shall I see to the wine?”

  “If you would and do thank everyone for getting here so promptly to open the house. I realize it was short notice.”

  “Not at all, sir. Always pleased to be of service.”

  Gemma watched the butler depart but her thoughts were elsewhere. Her husband never failed to surprise her. Not only had he handled the whole matter of Dame Aurelia brilliantly but he had let her drive! Admittedly, that was after three refusals and only as a result of her relentless cajoling but the important thing was that he’d capitulated in the end and let her have her way.

  Husbandly performance of that caliber deserved a reward both for its own sake and to encourage similar behavior in the future. Mounting the steel and glass staircase to the upper floors, she considered what that might be.

  The murmur of his voice caused her to glance down. Through the landing, she saw him on his phone. He looked uncharacteristically somber and more than a little tense.

  “As we discussed, yes,” he was saying. “I’m going to send it over to you now, if you wouldn’t mind having a look?”

  There was a brief pause before Charles said, “No, I haven’t. Can’t say that I want to either.”

  Gemma’s heart tightened. While the one-sided conversation might have seemed cryptic to some, she had no difficulty understanding it. No doubt he was speaking to someone about what they had found in Dame Aurelia’s safe. As fortunate as that discovery was, she could not help thinking that the contents would inevitably remind him of his own father’s perverse proclivities. She would not have inflicted that pain on him for all the world yet she feared it had proven unavoidable.

  Whatever could she do to erase such dark memories from his mind?

  A wickedly delicious idea so took her by surprise that she blushed all over. It was perfect yet did she dare?

  The butler had withdrawn. No one else was about. The double doors to the street were closed and at any rate, the house was set well back from it.

  Without pausing to reflect any further--highly over-rated in her opinion when she’d already made up her mind--Gemma reached behind her back, unzipped her sundress and let it fall onto the floor. Kicking the froth of white silk to one side, she stood in her ivory demi-bra, lacy thong and thigh-highs. Hands on her hips, she tapped the heel of her stiletto against the landing.

  Still on his phone, her husband glanced up--straight between her spread legs to the tiny scrap of silk that was the sole concealment for the sleek, pouty and decidedly damp lips of her pussy. About to speak, he was seized by a sudden fit of coughing.

  Gratified that she had his attention, Gemma unhooked the scrap of a bra and let it dangle from one finger before sending it whirling through the air.

  That left those pesky panties. As she began easing them off her hips, Charles rasped, “Talk later…must go--” and shoved the phone into his pocket.

  “Danvers!” Charging after the butler, he was gone mere moments, sufficient to hand over the bag of evidence with directions for its delivery.

  Almost at once, he was back and taking the steps two at a time. Had he stumbled at any point, he would have taken a nasty whack on his squarely resolute chin and quite possibly knocked himself out. Happily, fortune shone her favor on him, as usual.

/>   Belt undone, fly unzipped, he fairly leapt onto the landing with whatever the male equivalent is of gazelle-like grace.

  “You’re the very devil,” Charles said, taking hold of his wife and spinning her around so that she was pressed against the nearest wall.

  In keeping with the luxurious design of the house in which no detail had been overlooked, the wall was covered by a rare Indonesian grasscloth the same shade of blue seen only near the sea at sunrise. Its slightly rough texture was a further incitement to her pebble-hard nipples.

  Light filtering through the pool on the roof and the green sea glass further heightened the sense of being removed from the mundane world that in reality was only a few steps away. The bustling streets of London might not have existed, so lost was the amorous pair in one another.

  Gemma moaned softly as he dropped to his knees behind her, pulled her panties the rest of the way down and spread the cheeks of her sweet, round ass.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” her husband said and applied his wicked tongue to the smooth, taut surface between her rosebud anus and the shadowed opening to her vagina.

  “Aaahhh!” Clinging to the wall with all her strength, she only just managed to remain upright. Her knees shook, her breath quickened and her swollen clit throbbed. Very quickly she found herself on the verge of coming.

  Not what she had intended. This was for him, damn it, not her. She wanted to show him how much she appreciated what he had done and in the process drive the shadows from him. But he seemed intent on ravaging her.

  Lapping at her salty, musky essence, he murmured, “My birthday’s next month and I know exactly what I want.”

  “What’s that?” she gasped, fighting against the tightening coils of pleasure so acute as to teeter on the edge of pain.

  Another lap, the spear of his tongue into her and, “This, all day and all night non-stop, making you come again and again until you’re utterly docile, pliant, obedient to my every whim. And then…

  A long shudder ran through her. She wasn’t at all sure how she felt about such a version of herself but she was willing to give it a try. For a special occasion, of course.

  “There’s more?” she asked, breathlessly.

  “Much more, if you’re game, of course.”

  The mind boggled, truly. She would have to sleep for a week after but if that was what he really wanted…

  “Oh, all right… sweet heaven!…but there will have to be cake as well.”

  He laughed and applied himself even more energetically with the predictable result. She was coming hard when he drew her down with him onto the floor, arched her hips and thrust into her.

  “Fuck!” he gasped, rather redundantly as the sweet convulsions of her cunt seized his thick, long cock. Holding himself in strict check, he only just managed to ride out her orgasm before beginning to thrust into her deeply and slowly.

  His big hands kneaded the cheeks of her pert ass as he muttered, “I’m going to have to add to your jewelry collection. A diamond-studded plug right here, I think--”

  The finger he inserted into her sent her right over the edge again and took him with her.

  Chapter Two

  Later, after they had dined al fresco on the roof and had a swim, they settled on a chaise lounge beside the pool lit by underwater lights and framed by the dark silhouettes of potted trees.

  There Gemma posed the question that had been uppermost in her mind since shortly after their arrival in the city. “What happens next?”

  Propped up on an elbow, toying with a silken strand of her hair that had fallen across one full, delightful breast, Charles roused himself to reply. “I’ve sent the evidence to a friend of mine at one of the ministries. Adrian’s a solid chap with no tolerance for the Old Guard. He’ll understand the importance of it.”

  “The Old Guard…?”

  “You know, the fellows who can’t utter the word ‘progress’ without sneering. To hear them tell it, the world reached a state of perfection on some mythical day in their youth or their fathers’ or whatever and allowing for any change since then means we hurtle straight into the abyss. Insufferable bunch, if you ask me.”

  Reassured that he had taken a sensible first step, Gemma asked, “What can I do to help? There must be something and I want to be involved. I need to be.”

  Her husband sighed deeply but he was also smiling. She took that as a good sign. “You will be,” he assured her. “We barely walked in the door before Danvers handed me a stack of invitations. They began arriving as soon as it became evident that the house was being opened. We’ll start a bit slowly but by next week we’ll be in the throes of the social rounds.”

  Gemma grimaced. Going about in London society did not strike her as an activity that held much appeal. After all, she was barely out of the schoolroom, resented for her noble marriage and certainly by now the subject of tittle-tattle that could only be termed scandalous.

  Seeing her reluctance, Charles said, “Dame Aurelia is many things but a fool isn’t one of them. She’s not going to let her fiefdom be taken from her without a fight.”

  “What will she do?”

  “She’ll seek to undermine the case against her in any way that she can. I know it isn’t fair but my position in life puts me beyond her reach. That leaves you. She’ll try to cast you in the worst possible light--unstable, untruthful, and so on.”

  “Will she?” Gemma murmured. As much as what her husband said filled her with a certain degree of dread, she appreciated his willingness to tell her the truth. It put them on a much more equal footing. That, she had decided, was exactly where she belonged.

  Softly, the Marchioness of Ardsley said, “She may come to regret that.”

  Her husband eyed her shrewdly. “I have no doubt that she will,” he said. “Now, before the storm breaks over our heads…”

  A storm of a different sort seized them, one in which they both willingly lost themselves.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  By late afternoon of the following day, Society had confirmed to its collective satisfaction that the Marquess of Ardsley had indeed returned to the city. Moreover, he was accompanied by his lovely bride about whom there was great curiosity.

  The couple had been spotted strolling hand-in-hand around the Serpentine in Hyde Park. After which, they had brunch at Jikoni where they sipped chili-infused martinis and the Marchioness was seen playfully feeding her husband bites of the establishment’s famous tamarind-glazed bacon.

  From there, they went on to a gallery showing the latest Flabo installation, Sucks!, that was getting so much attention from the glitterati of the art world. Upon leaving the exhibition, the Marquess was heard to remark that he much preferred his wife’s own paintings to “that drivel”.

  That his lordship did not appreciate contemporary art was hardly news; he had been vocal on the subject before. However, the tidbit that the Marchioness dabbled in painting spread quickly. So did the overall conclusion that the Ardsleys were both an uncommonly attractive couple and quite taken with one another.

  However, by evening rumors of a different sort were spreading through the rarified air of the most fashionable drawing rooms and salons. There had been some incident at the Marchioness’ former school. It appeared that the Marquess had felt compelled to remove his wife from the scene quite suddenly. No one knew for certain what had occurred or at least wasn’t saying but there was mention of erratic behavior on her part.

  Everyone knew how protective dear old Mary Magdalene was of its girls. Indeed, tradition had it that should the school be mentioned in the presence of one of its graduates, she was to rise immediately and leave the room rather than risk being drawn into a discussion of the institution that upheld modesty and reticence above all else.

  It was therefore no surprise that the headmistress had drawn a veil over the whole affair. Still, word had gotten out somehow and speculation was rampant.

  It was all wonderfully stimulating.

  Except to
the focus of the rumors themselves. Although unaware that her Nemesis had already begun her campaign against her, Gemma was finding the entire business of waiting for the next shoe to drop, as it were, irksome in the extreme.

  What if she and Charles had gotten it wrong? What if those thumb drives contained nothing more than Dame Aurelia’s collection of Scottish terrier portraits or the like?

  And what if they didn’t? What if they really were evidence of the sadistic grooming of young women in preparation for lives of exploitation and abuse? What would the consequences be for those women if that all came out? For every one of them who might feel relieved and liberated, mightn’t there be many others for whom such exposure would mean devastating humiliation and shame?

  The diversions of the day--the stroll through the park, brunch, a very odd art exhibit--all served to distract her. But by the time they returned to the house, her worry had grown to such proportions that she was feeling cross and out-of-sorts, even a bit weepy.