Ravished by Sorcha MacMurrough, Book 12, The Rakehell Regency Romance Series

Ravished
Book 12 of The Rakehell Regency Romance Series
Sorcha MacMurrough

Matthew Dane rescues his cousin Althea from a fate worse than death when he stumbles across her tied to a bed in a London brothel.
Kidnapped from her home and sold, the orphaned young woman has no recollection of how she got there, and is terrified that whoever grabbed her will try to seize her again.
Matthew can only see one solution: marry Althea and give her the protection she needs as his wife. But the accomplished rake is at a loss as to how to deal with the delicately beautiful woman, and has no belief in love, only lust.
Althea has been in love with Matthew for as long as she can remember. Tired of being treated like a victim or empty-headed Society belle, Althea wages a campaign to put behind her the traumatic ordeal which brought them together.
Althea is willing to fight using every weapon in her arsenal to win Matthew's love, and stop her husband from seeking solace with the many women who wish to be his mistress.
When another young woman goes missing near Althea's childhood home, Althea must risk all in a depraved and deadly game to save the imprisoned girl. Althea will stop at nothing to uncover the identity of the criminal mastermind who has engineered the ring of debauchery lurking under the pleasant facade of aristocratic society.
The thought of losing Althea is more than Matthew can bear-can he save his beloved before it's too late?

Althea was indeed a virgin, but she was not naive. There was no mistaking what was about to happen next. She desperately tried one last gambit to stop the passion rising between them. He had no idea it was her tied to the bed like a sacrificial lamb in this out of the way brothel.
Worse still, she had no notion what he would do once he discovered her identity if she didn't try to stop him now before it was too late. "Matthew, please, you need to think what you're doing. If this is what you really want."
"Do you want me?" he asked, stroking down her neck, his hands all over her breasts, abdomen, and buttocks.
She had never lied to her cousin, and so even now in this moment of crisis she told him the absolute truth. "I've always wanted you, Matthew. You know that. From the first moment I saw you a fully grown man, so tall and broad and handsome, and so well, virile, I couldn't help myself. I knew you would be magnificent. Naked as you are now, well, words fails me. And the way you touch me? But we need to leave. We must hurry from this awful place--"
The danger motif added a new thrill to the already wonderful games the breathtaking prostitute was playing, making Matthew all the more excited. "We have all the time in the world, lass. You just said you wanted me, after all. And I most certainly want you."

Ravished
Book 12 of The Rakehell Regency Romance Series
Sorcha MacMurrough
Word Count=81,000, 257 8.5 x 11" pages
Rating: Very sensual
Format: Instant PDF download

London, 1820
Chapter One

The hands were there again. Upon her body. Touching her once more. Constantly seeking. Never leaving her alone. All over her breasts and belly and thighs, her face, her lips.
Only this time they were warm, gentle, soft. Almost teasing. Cresting her nipples, feathering along her hips. Touching her delicate flesh most intimately, deeply, for the first time. Dabbling with her soft feminine curls, her secret peaks and valleys. Dewing her with moistness as if a sponge were being wrung out between her slender thighs.
She shivered hot and cold with the indefinable thrill of it all. This couldn't be real. It had to be a fantasy. A beautiful dream stemming from all of her secret yearnings for her handsome cousin Matthew, the only man she had ever loved.
Althea opened her eyes, and tried to peer through the fog. No, no fog, a gauzy blindfold which had not been fastened securely and had slipped down over her face, obscuring her features, but allowing her to peep over the edge of it to see the person touching her.
Now Althea was sure she had to be dreaming. For she was certain that it was Matthew leaning over her, working the most exquisite magic with his hands. All these weeks she had been praying, and now at last he was here to help her. Save her from her torment.
She gazed with joy and terror at his raven-black hair, turquoise eyes, and exquisitely fine nose and cheekbones.
Althea tried to speak, but the sound was muffled, the words hardly forming in her bruised mouth and throat. Her tongue felt like lead. She was so parched she was sure she had sucked sand.
She tried again. "Please, help me. You have to get me out of here."
"It's all right. No one's going to hurt you. I won't hurt you."
"I know. I trust you. But they'll be coming for me in a minute. They'll kill you if you try to rescue me."
Her world spun dizzily, and she shut her eyes against the swirling sensation which sickened her. She could still feel his hands upon her, stroking down her bare belly in long soothing caresses. The contact was her only anchor in the stormy sea of confusion she found herself bobbing upon, weightless and powerless to stop herself from drowning.
Only Matthew could save her. Yet if he were here, touching her, did that not mean he had betrayed her too?
When Althea opened her eyes again, her cousin was still there, as he had been before, his face familiar and beloved as always. But he was naked. Naked and fully aroused. And he was touching her in the one place the men had said it was forbidden to tamper with. The pleasure was so great she gasped.
Pleasure, or pain? For she had never felt anything but utter revulsion before when the others had poked and prodded all of her other orifices like a beast of burden at auction. What was happening? Why was Matthew doing this to her now of all times?
She cast her eyes wildly about and saw she was no longer in the dank dungeon in which she'd been kept a prisoner. Moreover, Matthew was alone. No one else was laughing, jeering, shouting encouragement or the disgusting words she could only guess the meanings of. Doing things to themselves in their excitement over the brutal act being committed upon her until she screamed or choked. Or tried to as the crushing weight and blackness rolled over her once more.
But Matthew had always cared about her, protected her. Why on earth was he here? Touching her in her most secret place reserved only for the man who was to become her husband?
It was dark in the room, black and red, a single candle in each corner of the shadowy chamber giving off but feeble light. She was in a proper brass bed with a real feather mattress, not on a splintered table. No longer tied with rope, but something silky. Laid out on her back spread-eagled, her head comfortably resting on some soft pillows, not hanging over the side. There had to be some mistake. Matthew would never be party to...
"Matthew, please, we need to get out of here, now. They're coming for me. It's not safe."
He halted for a moment, surprised at the use of his name. Then he shrugged. He must have told her it when he'd come in.
He was bare and aroused, but the truth was, he wasn't so sure about this game. He had said he wanted a young clean girl. He'd examined the pretty blond with dusky eyes partly concealed behind her gauzy blindfold and found her pleasing and seemingly free of disease. But the supposed ultimate fantasy he'd been offered by the doorkeeper of the brothel when he had asked for something fresh and ripe did not sit well with him at all.
At the same time, it was a novelty. He'd dragged himself to this bawdy house at his friends' recommendation for a bit of something unusual. If he was going to debauch himself tonight after months of trying to live on the straight and narrow, he might as well do it with verve.
He was certain the girl was not a virgin. All the same, he entered into the fantasy of the evening by saying, "It's all right. They won't hurt you. I'm here. You're my willing slave now, and I shall protect you. I won't hurt you. I'll be gentle."
"But Matthew, why would you let them take me, treat me like this?"
"I didn't take you. You've been given to me. So you belong to me now," he said, whispering the tips of his fingers over her naked flesh like a miser caressing his treasure.
She sighed and licked her lips, not struggling against the curious throbbing wherever he touched her.
"Please, Matthew, water. Then you have to untie me and let me go."
"In a moment."
"Please, I'm so thirsty."
There must have been enough urgency in her tone for him to pause in his detailed exploration of her opulent body. He rose and went over to the small washstand, and poured a glass from the carafe there.
He held it to her lips. She forced herself not to gulp, taking each mouthful and swirling it around before swallowing in order to alleviate the dreadful sere feeling.
"Better?" he asked after half a glass.
"More, please," she gasped.
She drained the beaker and struggled for breath. "Thank you, Matthew. But now, please, you must untie me. They'll be here soon."
Matthew was delighted to resume the game. "They won't harm you. You're mine now, all mine."
"No, you don't understand, they're-"
But he had refilled the glass and pressed it to her mouth. As soon as she'd drunk the rest of the water, he replaced the glass with his lips.
Althea wanted to plead with him, but her tongue was like glue, and in any event all her protests flew right out of her head at the nature of the kiss.
"You have the most fabulous mouth," he murmured when he eventually raised his lips. "So red and inviting. I just had to kiss you. And your breasts."
He swirled his tongue over each in turn. "Such lovely dainty nipples, pink and tight. I can tell they liked that. But then I adore them. You really are perfection," he said in surprise.
He had known some very lovely women his day, yet never been tempted to wax lyrical over their attributes. But then, he was sure none of them had ever been so luscious as this girl. All this talent going to waste...
"You're so gorgeous and ripe, a delectable bowl of fruit, all mine for the asking. Skin like a peach, breasts like melons, and oh, your pear-shaped hips are just so delightful. You really are a treasure. And to think you're my captive. That I can do whatever I like with you."
"But, Matthew-"
"Are you a virgin?" he demanded suddenly in a harsh tone. "Or have you let someone else enjoy you before me?"
"Of course I am," she replied quickly, stung at his accusation. "I haven't let anyone do anything. I've been tied up for I don't know how long."
Her head hammered as she attempted to remember, tried to struggle upwards out of the darkness they had kept her in for what seemed a lifetime. At least the water he'd given her hadn't been tainted. Not this time.
"Please, more water, and then I can explain every- Oh!"
He was kissing her again, and now his bare hips were grinding against her soft abdomen, his manhood a red hot brand between them. One hand was already reaching down to caress her even more intently.
She stiffened for a moment as he probed with one long, hard, slightly callused finger, sending shivering sensations right down to her toes.
"You forgot to wear your riding gloves again," she whispered when he raised his mouth to kiss down her neck and breasts.
"I don't need gloves or a crop for the kind of riding I have in mind, my dear," he said with a laugh.
"Please, Matthew, you have to listen," she gasped as a second finger now began to tease and coax her tight entrance. "I'm not saying I don't want you. One touch of your hand or kiss is enough to set me on fire. But we have to go. We need to leave this place!"
"I'll not be leaving until I've done what I came to do. To make love with you, make you mine. We have an hour. So just lie back and enjoy it. Or I shall have to spank you for being a disobedient little slave."
"No, please, Matthew-" she whimpered.
"Call me Master," he said with a wolfish smile, entering even more into the spirit of the fantasy.
"Please, Matthew-"
"Ah, no, it's Master, remember? Otherwise I shall have to spank you."
She strained against her bonds then, knowing only too well what that meant. But he made no move to turn her over as usual, and gentled her with his hot hard hands.
"Now I can give you as much pleasure as you like, dear little slave, but you have to be submissive. If you're naughty you get nothing."
It was no lie he told, for the pleasure was almost crushing in its intensity. Though the last thing she had expected was to feel elation after all she had been through, his touch upon her body was so heated and assured she felt herself going on fire. The moisture she'd felt before gushed between her thighs uncontrollably.
"There now, you see how lovely and wet that is? It will be much easier for us both if you just play nicely."
"But Matthew, you need to listen to me. Can't you see what they've done to me is wrong? We need-"
"You're a hostage of war," he said, playing the game and finding it more entertaining and exciting than he'd thought.
Perhaps his friend Matthew Sampson was right. Maybe all men really did have a streak of the primitive, the ravisher in them. Not that he had ever--but he was enjoying the diversion.
Of course in his case, he was not just going to swive her with one huge thrust, though she was certainly positioned like some sacrificial victim on an altar.
He looked around the room for a brief second as he refilled the glass and took a drink himself, then placed it back down on the bedside table.
He wondered at the decor. Something meant to depict Ancient Ireland, he guessed. Something from the Celts in any case, for he had seen similar art work to that which decorated the walls here in the fields around his country house in Somerset.
The lurid red and black were a bit off-putting and made the room seem even more dark and sinister. He would have liked something a bit more sensual, a touch of the harem. A scrap of dark silk, perhaps, or even a hint of the feminine and floral to match the supposed purity of the ‘slave' he was about to make cater to his every whim.
Althea was squirming now as his hands continued to thrill her. It was not in any effort to get away. He toyed with the idea of untying one of her bonds, but wondered what it would like to have a woman truly at his mercy. He could always unbind her later, for a second or third go around. Normally he would just take his ease with one of his mistresses and leave, not being able to abide their chatter.
This one, though, seemed barely able to speak, and he had no doubt that he could keep her Cupid's bow mouth busy will all sorts of other sultry things besides prattle once his most urgent needs had been assuaged.
It had been months since he'd been with a woman, since the hideous scenes Matilda had subjected him to. The lust sizzling along his skin as he touched the whore was urging him to fulfil himself and come back for more as soon as he could manage. He even found himself wanting to see how many times he could satisfy himself in his allotted hour.
Matthew thought he had experienced just about all he'd ever wanted as a rake. But this game was so erotic he wondered why he had never tried it before. He inserted a third finger into her now, and she whimpered with surprise and need.
He delighted in the tightness he found. Some of his most expert women had had wonderful muscle control like this, which was truly thrilling and could squeeze the essence from him if he were without armour. He threw all caution to the winds and left his sheepskin prophylactics in his jacket pocket as he slid back up over her body to position himself between her silken thighs.
Althea was indeed a virgin, but she was not naïve. There was no mistaking what was about to happen next. She tried one last tack. "Matthew, please, you need to think about what you're doing. If this is what you really want."
"Do you want me?" he asked, stroking down her neck, his hands all over her breasts, abdomen, and buttocks.
She had never lied to her cousin, and so even now in this moment of crisis she told him the absolute truth. "I've always wanted you, Matthew, you know that. From the first moment I saw you a fully grow man, so tall and broad and handsome, and so well, virile, I couldn't help myself. I knew you would be magnificent, but naked as you are now, well. And the way you touch me? But we need to leave, we must hurry-"
"We have all the time in the world. You just said you wanted me, after all. And I most certainly want you."
Matthew glided his throbbing tip along her moistness, trying to seek entrance. She was so tight he was not sure he could manage. So he kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting possessively, though as a rule he didn't normally kiss anyone the French way.
As she relaxed against him, he penetrated slowly, inch by inch. She arched up against him, taut and tense, her scream echoing in his mouth as he continued on. She felt the hot gushing between her thighs and knew what he'd done to her. What he'd done himself as well. He hadn't lasted two seconds inside her entrance to paradise, but his manhood was already urgently demanding more.
She prayed, as she'd been told, that the pain would subside. It diminished to a dull ache as he went on. She could feel her back bow to take him still deeper, observing as if from a long way away her drugged body responding to the ardent pressure.
"Lord," he panted against her cheek, "you are so tight, so hot. Absolutely incredible. I'm going to lose myself all over again in a minute. And the one after that."
Her desperation to escape the pain of his huge size within her slender body battled with the compelling throbbing deep with her. She managed to shift her weight and kissed him harder. "Matthew, please, I want to lose myself too."
For the agony she was in was nothing compared to the ecstasy. The heady drug still swirling through her brain served to deaden some of her soreness. She knew it was only natural for her first time; he had been gentle, tender.
But the drug made her feel so strangely. Her head felt as though it were going to roll from her shoulders, and her eyelids throbbed so that she could barely keep them open.
Yet still there was such euphoria radiating out from between her thighs that she could scarcely breathe. She pushed off the bed with her heels, trying to get closer to the man she loved above all else. It had been so long since she'd seen him. Weeks. Months. They'd been so close just before he'd left. Had his thoughts been tending this way all along? If only she'd known, she wouldn't have been so despondent.
He should have taken her with him. Then she would never have been so cruelly attacked by those monsters.
Matthew's senses swirled uncontrollably. With one long groan he pounded into Althea and she met his demands with thrust after thrust. She let out a gasp, calling his name over and over again until he hardened anew.
Her writhing as she sought to make him go even deeper sent him soaring yet again. His great need vibrated through her inside and out, peaking her pearl of pleasure until she quivered and sobbed, her hips nearly lifting him off the bed with her fulfillment.
Swept up in her clamorous response, he climaxed a fourth time and stilled his body in an effort to steady his giddy world. His hands continued to bring her to rapture, however, so much so that she was sure she was going to faint.
She was stunned by his ardour and her own response to it. She lay under him for some minutes panting as he teased her breasts and her dainty curls.
She knew her time was running out. If he was not one of the men who had seized her, he was in danger too. She couldn't be sure. But she had to trust someone.
For she never wanted to go back to that dreadful place, to all those horrible men. To the violence and violation she had had to endure. He was her cousin, and she had always loved him. And he'd made love to her, had tried to please her, not intentionally harmed her even though she was completely at his mercy, bound as she was.
Having indulged their bodies before marriage was wrong. Yet he had never been anything other than a warm and loving man toward her all these years, and most especially since she had come out last Season. Matthew had bedded her now, true. But he was her last hope.
Her virginity was well and truly gone. Yet after the brief loss of her tender membrane, the exquisite pleasure had sparked, and built and built into a conflagration.
Summoning all her scattered wits about her, Althea moved under Matthew abruptly enough for him to turn his head to look in her eyes. He had forgot about the blindfold, and tried to summon the energy to move off her to untie it, and her arms as well, the better to enjoy her more fully.
He had been intent upon his own pleasure, of course, but was happy that the girl had enjoyed herself, and was already seeking more. He knew he certainly wanted her in the worst way, and would have indulged himself still further, until he managed to make out the words that she next uttered.
"Please, Mattie, if you've ever loved me at all, please get me out of here right away and take me home with you, or to Lady Pemberton's before it's too late," she gasped.
He stilled deep within her, the creeping sense of guilt and unease over the tawdriness of the fantasy halting him mid-stroke.
But her body was already rippling around his vast compelling invasion, driving him onwards. His orgasm rent his sanity asunder and he lunged straight upwards into her and exploded.
Her breathless cries and the way she frenziedly began to kiss his neck told him he had wrung the pleasure from her too. He was glad and fearful, for her words and knowledge of his name and family had set his flesh prickling in the most bizarre and not entirely pleasureable way.
He couldn't believe he had indulged himself so completely and enjoyed her without any thought for safety, either from disease or conception.
Now he had even more to regret, for as he withdrew from her tight sheath and moved to pour more water he gaped. The spreading red stain on the sheet, the red flecks daubed all over his most intimate parts, proclaimed what the incredible tightness of her body should have. Had he not been so driven by his own blind lusts he might have paused to consider those facts. It hadn't been an act. She'd been a virgin in truth.
He tried to survey the situation with some nominal attempt at rationality, though his heart jolted in his chest alarmingly. His fingers trembling, he took one candle from the nearest wall sconce and brought it over to the bed. He stared at the sheets again, at his own now shrivelled manhood, and swore softly to himself.
Incredible, but there could be no doubt about the truth. The girl had really been a virgin. He only prayed he had not been too hard on her.
He'd never indulged in one for this very reason, though he'd had enough offers from amongst the more racy set in the Ton. There were enough misses about to be married to some dried-up old stick or other and wanting to spite them to have kept him busy if he'd so chosen. But ‘breaking them in' had never held even the remotest appeal.
He looked around the room with a sense of sickened and helpless despair. There was a cracked basin and ewer with some relatively clean cloths beside it. He brought them over to the bedside table and began to untie the girl's limp wrists.
Her arms flopped bonelessly down onto the mattress. The only change in her was the blush which flooded her from throat to knees, proclaiming her moved by his act of passion.
It was a only a small consolation. He had thought it naught but a fantasy. He had never pressed on with any woman, decent or otherwise, if she'd shown even the slightest hesitation. He knew his reputation as a rake. With some women it had ruined his chances. With others it had actually enhanced it.
But he'd never wanted underripe fruit, innocence defiled. It reminded him far too much of his tender and very beautiful cousin whom he adored and worshipped like a goddess. It was wrong of him to think of her in a carnal way, or indeed any of her contemporaries, no matter how much they angled for an introduction or flirted boldly.
No, he much preferred experienced women of the world who could understand good healthy lust and the necessity of slaking one's baser desires. Now as he cleansed the voluptuous naked girl he'd just debauched, he realised just how base they really were. He'd once been an idealist, had tried to hold himself back in an effort to remain chaste, worthy of his beloved.
But once the floodgates had opened he'd been so disgusted yet thrilled that he'd just given in to all the temptations of the flesh without another thought. He'd lost his battle, lost his chance of love. Oh, not that his lovely little cousin would ever reproach him. But he blamed himself bitterly enough to be willing to renounce her, give her a chance of a decent match to a good and loving man, not a stallion who could barely stop rutting long enough to attend his uncle's funeral.
He grimaced at the memory, and acknowledged that his self-reproach in this instance was not quite fair. He'd actually been alone rusticating on his new estate in Somerset after his nasty split with his former mistress Matilda. She'd pursued him for matrimony to the point where he was being made a laughingstock and it had become the talk of the Town.
Still, he should never have let things go so far that when Althea had written to him for help and solace in the wake of the unexpected death, he'd been days away and unable to get there in time to say goodbye.
Or be of much comfort once there, for fear he would reveal his true feelings and shock her utterly.
Matthew did not remove the silk blindfold, for he feared and dreaded to see reproach and horror in the poor girl's eyes. Or worse still, glee at the start of a long and lascivious career. Damn. Maybe he could do something to prevent such a disaster. Such a lovely young girl. It would be such a dashed shame.
How much money was he carrying? He could give her whatever he had to leave this den of inquity and never come back. After all, had she not said she wanted to go? Seemed frightened?
As he worked to clean the blood from himself and then her, tenderly stroking the delicate flesh, he tried to cool his ardour. Think of something besides her succulent body. The sounds of the brothel filtered in through the paper-thin walls: moans, cries, screams.
Matthew shuddered. He had made her scream and loathed himself for it, natural though the pain was supposed to be. This place was Hell, and he would not leave yet another girl to be so cruelly dragged down by the world. He would take her to the clinic for fallen women which he and his friends the Rakehells supported. Dr. Herriot and the others would help her, he was sure.
The girl's lips parted with a sigh. Her words were far more dreadful than any reproach she might have uttered. "Please, Mattie, please take me out of here. Take me home to Enfield." She gave a heart-rending sob. But before he could say a word she shook her head. "No, not Enfield. It's not safe for me there. Please take me with you to Barton."
His tongue withered in his mouth. His breath choked in his clenched throat. His fingers shook as if with the palsy. He could feel his insides churning with both revulsion and a blinding knife-blade of lust.
Althea? God, please, no, it couldn't be... No, no, no... It just couldn't be!

Ravished
Book 12 of The Rakehell Regency Romance Series
Sorcha MacMurrough
Word Count=81,000, 257 8.5 x 11" pages
Rating: Very sensual
Format: Instant PDF download

Reviews:
A remarkable blend of eroticism, mystery and suspense. It certainly gave me all kinds of goosebumps. Her heroes are always sexy, her villains really spine-tinglingly nasty. Matthew is a fallen hero if ever there was one, and Althea certainly not a conventional heroine either.
Ravished is a perfect title for this novel, and proves a sensual addition to this fabulous series, and a super opportunity to catch up with your favourite Rakehells, who are all in top form. Evelyn Trimborn
"Totally creepy, and yet sexy too. The author has penned yet another Gothic Regency romance with heady sensuality, and a very complex hero and heroine with genuine depth and a very rocky road to their happily ever after. The superb cast of supporting characters provide a fascinating mystery and a breathtaking race against the clock to save an innocent girl from certain doom." Jacinta Carey

Ravished
Book 12 of The Rakehell Regency Romance Series
Sorcha MacMurrough
Word Count=81,000, 257 8.5 x 11" pages
Rating: Very sensual
Format: Instant PDF download

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