The Rakehell of Roth

by Amalie Howard

  He was hers.

  Officially bought and paid for.

  Isobel moaned into his mouth, her lips parting and that tiny pink tongue creeping forward for a taste. It recoiled wildly when it touched the tip of his and then crept back for more. And still, Winter didn’t take control, letting her set the pace. He sat there and endured her sensual explorations until his skin felt like it was going to burst at the seams. Winter groaned as her teeth scraped his lip. He could taste the brandy on her tongue and a tart sweetness that was all her own. It made him want to taste her elsewhere.

  Without warning, she pushed off of him, her pink mouth swollen and her light blue eyes hot with desire. “Let’s make this last, shall we?” Her voice was husky and made his groin tighten even more.

  He swallowed. “What, exactly?”

  “Torture,” she tossed over her shoulder with a saucy grin.

  Hell, if she wasn’t right. He was fit to bursting. Adjusting his painful erection with the heel of one hand, his needy eyes tracked her progress about the room, watching as she perused the items on a built-in bookshelf lining the wall near the entrance door to his office. He couldn’t think of what rested on those shelves, all his brain could focus on was the sinuous arch of her bottom atop those long legs, the fabric stretching tauntingly with every step.

  It was indecent and wicked, but his mouth watered with the need to sink his teeth into either of those perfect handfuls. God but she tempted him—with that pert, bitable rear, her tiny waist, and those perfect peach-like breasts that he also couldn’t wait to get into his mouth. His cock jerked convulsively against his palm in enthusiastic agreement.

  Christ.

  If he wasn’t careful, it wouldn’t take much to spend in his trousers like a sodding greenhorn. Just watching her was a study in arousal. He shoved his hand down harder on the falls of his breeches, a raw growl rumbling through him at the intense sensation. Isobel’s eyes met his from where she stood, concern in them.

  “Are you well, Roth?”

  “Quite,” he bit out.

  Her gaze fell to his palm-covered groin, and a blush stained her cheeks as if she was remembering the last time her hand rested over him. Then his vulgar words in the carriage. Winter let out a breath. She had to be a complete innocent if she wasn’t aware of the effect she had on him. Then again, she was an innocent. He’d been the only one to have her. Unless she’d had a secret lover, which he highly doubted because Ludlow would have flung that in his face by now.

  Pushing off the edge of the desk, he moved toward the relative safety and privacy of his chair. At least his inability to control his overexcited body would be hidden from view. Distracting himself with moving around some account ledgers on his desk, he didn’t immediately see the thin book she’d removed from the shelf until it was much too late.

  “Don’t, that’s not—” he began and then stopped when she opened the first plate of erotic illustrations, her cheeks flaming the color of poppies.

  He knew exactly what she would see. Etchings upon etchings of Thomas Rowlandson’s more risqué works. It was an art collection. Depraved and utterly filthy art, but it’d been a gift from Westmore when they’d opened the darker side of The Silver Scythe. The drawings they’d passed in the corridor by the very same artist her first time at the club would be tame compared to these, which depicted sex in ways that would make a grown man blush. To his surprise, his sheltered little wife didn’t immediately fling the book back, but continued paging through its contents, rolling her lips between her teeth, that sultry flush of hers in full bloom now.

  “Interesting,” she said, though her eyes didn’t meet his as she replaced it and selected another. It was Cleland’s, Fanny Hill, a flowery erotic novel about the adventures of a prostitute. To his eternal shock, a smile quirked her lips. “I’ve read this, though not this early edition, a later expurgated one.”

  Winter was well aware his jaw had hit the floor. But he almost groaned at the next book she chose—one of nearly a dozen volumes by the disturbingly violent and cruel Marquis de Sade—La Nouvelle Justine. It was a graphically depraved account of one girl’s sexual encounters.

  “Wasn’t the Marquis de Sade imprisoned for these by Bonaparte?” she asked.

  “He was.”

  She shot him a glance. “And yet you have them in your possession.”

  “I do.” Despite the order to have the books destroyed by the Royal Court of Paris and the author’s imprisonment, Winter did not feel the need to defend his possession of the volumes, though the subject matter was one of extreme debate. However, he couldn’t stand to see any judgment in her eyes. He cleared his throat. “Hence the hard and fast rule of engagement at this club: permission and consent. As you might have gleaned, parts of this club cater to sensual play and fulfilling certain needs.”

  Isobel replaced the book and moved on to the adjoining shelves. “Like flogging.”

  He blinked. “Yes.”

  “I saw some of the earlier sales with members auctioning off their services. One Lady Renly who enjoys the occasional birch switch and the cane went for quite a high sum. I’m surprised the regent wasn’t here to avail himself of your offerings.”

  Curious fingers trailed across a decorative paddle carved from onyx as well as a birch rod, and once more, when his cock leaped, Winter was grateful for cover of the desk. The last thing he wanted was for her to assume he was any kind of sexual deviant, not that she would, but some people tended to shy away from the unfamiliar. The thought that she was not the prude he expected slid like silk through his mind.

  “Lady Darcy covered that subject in some detail in one of her letters,” she went on. “She thought that switches were better kept green and in water for easier use.”

  Winter’s groin tightened past the point of pain. He was aware. Those letters had brought on a slew of new members. He could barely get out a word as Isobel continued, oblivious to his worsening state.

  “She was of the mind that the fetish probably had to do with all those young boys being sexually shamed and lashed at Eton or elsewhere,” she explained. “Or perhaps it stemmed from wanting to escape the rigid rules of the ton outside of the bedchamber?”

  Hell, he wanted to put that well-informed mouth of hers to practical use.

  But then she chuckled, holding a familiar periodical aloft. “I see you’re also a collector of Lady Darcy’s work.”

  “I collect many things.”

  Pale blue eyes regarded him over the top edge of the volume. “You said you didn’t think I could be her because I was too innocent. In truth, I fear you don’t know me at all, Lord Roth.” His mouth dried when she clasped her hands behind her back, causing the fabric of her waistcoat to pull tight over her breasts, as she sauntered back to the front of the desk. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m here?”

  “How did you get here?”

  She grinned. “Clarissa stole Oliver’s invitation.”

  That was why he hadn’t seen his brother. “Is Clarissa here, too?”

  “No.” Isobel shook her head, propping her left hip on the desk and giving him her profile, her right leg swinging. One hand reached up to unknot her cravat. He was so distracted by the long, elegant lines of her exposed throat that he barely took in her next words. “She’s at home playing nursemaid to your brother.”

  “Clarissa and Oliver?” Though he’d assumed as much at the previous ball.

  She laughed with a nod, twisting the fabric of her cravat between her fingers. “Apparently.”

  “They detest each other, no?”

  “Well, love and hate tend to walk the same path. Perhaps they have found some common ground.” She pursed her lips. “You haven’t asked why I stole the invitation and paid such an exorbitant amount for you.”

  “Why?”

  Winter watched as she put her gloved palm to her mouth and pulled the tip
of each finger with her teeth. His body throbbed as each slender finger loosened from captivity. He was instantly and viscerally reminded of the time she’d removed her glove beneath the table…and the indelicate torture his cock had experienced from her bare hands. Did she intend to do the same now? His breath reduced to pitiable pants.

  “The reason is simple,” she went on, tugging off the glove and discarding it, and then repeating the action with the second hand. “You wagered that I would flee London with my tail between my legs. And yet, here I am with nothing between said legs but a soaked pair of trousers.”

  Lust drove him straight up from his chair, evidence of his bulging erection be damned. “Isobel, you’re—”

  “Starting a dangerous game? Playing with fire? Biting off more than I can chew?” Her smile was pure seduction as it slid to his distended crotch. “You knew a girl, Roth, from three years ago who was unsophisticated in every possible way. Practically asleep. She’s not anymore.” She crossed her arms over her chest and licked her lips. “Now close that sinful mouth of yours, strip like a good lad, and show your mistress what she’s won.”

  …

  Isobel nearly toppled off the desk at his astonished expression. Half of her brain was excited by her boldness and the other was worried he’d see through her efforts. The racy books and whips in his collection had roused her to play the role of the provocateur. She might be innocent in body, but she had more than enough food for fantasy in her brain. In fact, her entire performance had hinged on the inner chant: What would Lady Darcy do?

  “Isobel, what do you think you’re doing?” Winter growled.

  Don’t back out now, she told herself firmly, even though every instinct was screaming at her to flee like the terrified kitten she was. You’re not a kitten! Or a cat or any foolish feline. You’re a woman. Now act like it.

  She arched an imperious brow. “Did I stutter? I said strip. Show me what my five thousand pounds are worth.”

  Isobel pinned her lips, nerves coiling. Oh God, he was going to see right through her. Call her bluff. Laugh in her face. Call Matteo and have him escort her out, back to Vance House. Only he wasn’t laughing.

  His handsome face was tight with desire, his eyes pools of onyx and silver. Those long, lean fingers of his manhandled the edge of his desk. Isobel suddenly wanted them gripping her with equivalent ferocity, sinking into her flesh in carnal need. His broad shoulders bunched as he braced his weight against the mahogany, and his hips… She gulped at the sight of those grotesquely protruding breeches that did nothing to hide the mouth-watering, erotic outline of him.

  Why her mouth watered, she did not know.

  “This won’t end as you hope, Isobel.”

  A beat of panic flickered through her. No, it probably wouldn’t, but now wasn’t the time to waver or worry about what she had to lose. In this moment, he was hers. She would take her pleasure, use him thoroughly, and walk away, leaving him wanting.

  At least, that was the plan.

  “I’m not paying you to talk, Roth,” she drawled, shaking out her loosened cravat. “And unless you wish me to tie this over your mouth, you’ll do as you’re told.”

  Shock crashed through his heated eyes, his cheekbones darkening from golden to berry. Dear God, the great Winter Vance was blushing. Good. She needed to keep him off-balance, to not see through her charade, though with each minute that passed, she grew bolder and more confident. Reassured by his obvious attraction to her, Isobel was reasonably sure that she could seduce him. And she was willing to wager her pride that Winter would not say no. She hoped.

  Now she just needed to keep her wits about her and not become the seduced. She was mortifyingly aware of how sodden her trousers were between her thighs and how scratchy her shirt had become, the fabric abrading the sensitive buds of her nipples. Her feminine arousal equaled his, it seemed. She was wild for him.

  But she also had a wager to win…which required patience and strategy instead of mounting him like an animal in heat. Her husband needed to beg. Isobel reached up and pulled the pins from her hair, letting the loosened locks tumble down her back. His subsequent groan was loud in the silence. If he clenched that jaw of his any harder, she was sure it would shatter.

  “I’m waiting, Roth,” she said, her voice low and husky.

  “Isobel—” Her name was a cross between a warning and a desperate plea.

  Undeterred, she flung the cravat at him. “Disrobe and put that over your eyes, or so help me, I’ll put some of your wicked toys over there to good use.”

  A tremor rolled through those wide shoulders, and then he pushed off the desk, his eyes holding hers as he did as asked. His coat went first. Then his cravat, followed by his waistcoat. With every popped button and each discarded article of clothing, her pulse escalated. By the time he slid his shirt over his head, Isobel’s mouth was so dry that she was ready to leap over the desk and gulp down that entire bottle of whiskey. But not before getting her greedy little palms all over that moral-smelting masculine body.

  “More?” he asked in a low growl.

  She could only nod, temporarily silenced by the overwhelming display of muscles. Lady Hammerton’s portrait had not done him a lick of justice, because Winter was sculpted to god-like perfection. Her hitherto dry mouth flooded with moisture. Holy hell, he was edible, and she was going to consume him. After she got him to yield, of course.

  His fingers had stalled at the waistband of his breeches.

  “Why are you stopping? Disrobe means disrobe.”

  “And you?”

  “I am the proprietress of the transaction,” she told him, her brain’s capacity to function reducing with every breath. “You are the performer.”

  A surprised chuckle burst from him. “Now I know how a debutante feels on the marriage block. Or better yet, a Cyprian.”

  Isobel stilled, remembering what he’d told her about the rules of consent in the club. “Lord Roth, do you grant me permission to proceed?”

  “I do.” His gray eyes were so dark they were nearly black, but they shone with approval.

  “And you accept my will in all things.”

  “Yes.” The word was a primal growl that set her lady parts on fire.

  “Good.” She rewarded him with a sultry smile and strolled around the desk. “Bind your eyes.”

  Winter stared at her for a protracted moment, but then lifted his arms and wrapped the fine linen around the upper part of his face. Ragged breaths sawed past his lips, chest heaving as his clenched fists fell to his sides. God, she’d never seen a more beautifully made man.

  And he was hers.

  Isobel drew her own ragged breath into her aching lungs, ogling him without fear of him seeing just how desperate she was to drink him in. Freed of the hot press of his eyes, she traced a fingertip down his chest, watching as the muscle leaped reflexively beneath it, all the way down to his waistband that was still fastened.

  “You disobeyed me, Lord Roth,” she chided, knuckles brushing over his flexing abdomen. They leaped, too, along with other still-covered body parts. “I seem to recall telling you to get rid of these.”

  She let her hand drift lower, hearing his sharp intake of breath, her woolen mind dimly confirming that he was rock-hard everywhere, especially there. The thick shape of him had been burned into her memory, but she wanted to see him.

  Emboldened, Isobel unfastened his falls, allowing his eager erection to spring free from its confines, and nearly swooned then and there. Rowlandson might have some disturbingly erotic drawings, and she might have been able to keep a clear head while paging through the filthy pages earlier, but none of them could compare to the real thing.

  Winter was as formidable and as beautiful there as he was everywhere else.

  “Isobel.” The three-syllable rasp of her name dripped through her like hot honey.

  “Undress me.”


  He exhaled a groan. “I cannot see.”

  “Then feel.”

  …

  Winter wondered if a man could actually die from need. His ballocks were so tight, his cock so full, with every muscle in his body straining for release that he was sure he was balancing on the very edge of death. But hell, what a way to go.

  He could feel his wife’s eyes on him, the lack of sight heightening every other sense—the smell of her, the sound of her own suffocated breaths, and now the feel of her.

  As instructed, Winter reached out blindly, attempting to control the trembling of his hands when they contacted the front of her body. He fumbled with the buttons at first, but managed to get the first layer off and then her waistcoat. She helped with the shirt and then stepped away. The rustle of clothing reached him.

  God, he wished he could see.

  She shifted again, and then warm breath caressed his ear. “Put your hands on me, Winter.”

  At the sound of his given name, this time, he couldn’t hold back the shudder that dissipated like lava through him. A shudder that turned into a full-on quake when his bare hands met soft feminine flesh. Her hips. Her naked hips. His greedy palm slid around the satiny curve, cupping the firm arse he’d drooled over before, her velvety skin making him harder than he’d ever been in his life.

  “Sit,” she ordered, pushing a palm to the center of his chest and urging him back into the seat behind him. Hell, he loved the sound of her voice. Her breathy commands. And then she straddled him, thighs bracketing his. Fuck this charade, he had to see her. Had to take her in.

  Winter reached up to remove the blindfold.

  “Take it off and this ends,” she whispered, her fingers digging into his shoulders for purchase as she settled her weight over him.

  “Isobel, please.”