Unraveling the Earl

by Lynne Barron

  Painted red moonlight streamed over her face, turning her eyes into iridescent jewels and coloring her smile a deep burgundy. Blue light shimmered across the swell of her bosom rising above the neckline of her gown and trailed over her slim waist and narrow hips. Green light limed her long legs as her skirts settled above silver slippers. .

  “Gracious, my lord, how wicked you are.” Georgie sashayed back up the aisle, deliberately swinging her hips from side to side in a blatantly sensual manner and tugging at the glove covering her left hand.

  She slowly prowled nearer, the light playing over her features, shifting from red to green to blue until she no longer resembled his Georgie at all. She was a kaleidoscope of colors splashed over canvas. On that canvas was painted the image of a naked girl sprawled across a tangle of linen and velvet, bound hand and foot, faceless men and women crawling over her, pawing between her legs and squeezing her breasts.

  “I never would have imagined you’d choose to frolic in a chapel.” Her voice took on a soft breathy quality, one designed to entice, to lure the unsuspecting into a dark web of desire. “Even one no longer used for holy purposes.”

  “And I never would have imagined you would allow Jasper Clive to bind you and ply his crop across your back.”

  In the days that followed, as he replayed the scene over and over in his mind, Henry would wonder which of the two of them was more surprised by his question, by the fury that shook his voice.

  Georgie blinked, the incandescent light in her eyes falling away and the glove dropping to the floor as she halted midway up the aisle. “Grasper? You want to talk of Grasper? Now?”

  “And I sure as hell cannot imagine how you allowed Clive to pass you on to Carlton when he was through with you,” he roared, knowing full well he ought not to travel down this twisted path, not now when his anger was a living breathing creature clawing at his guts.

  “Grasper did not pass me on, I went of my own free choice,” Georgie replied, setting to work on the second glove as if she hadn’t a care in the world beyond its removal. “But that hardly matters, not now when we have so little time.”

  “Was it your choice to invite other men into your bed to rut over you while Carlton watched?”

  “I never took another man into my bed while Benedict watched.” Georgie grasped the white silk by the fingers and pulled the glove down her arm, unhurried and unconcerned, lending the simple action an erotic edge that tightened his balls and prodded his barely restrained temper.

  “I know all about Lord Carlton’s perverse desires.” Henry strode toward her, his hands balling into fists. “The orgies he orchestrates for his viewing pleasure.”

  Georgie, bless her or curse her, tossed the glove at her feet and took three gliding steps, meeting him at the end of the aisle. Tilting her head back and lifting her chin in the air, she captured his gaze and held it.

  “To be sure, Benedict liked to watch me find my pleasure, but not with other men,” she said, her voice soft and sultry and edged with mocking laughter. “I only ever took ladies into my bed for his viewing pleasure.”

  The air left Henry on a low groan and he reached for her, his hands wrapping around her slender arms. He lifted her onto her toes, brought her close enough that he could see her eyes darken until they were as inky as a midnight sky. “You allowed Clive and Benedict to use you, to abuse your body and poison your heart. And for what?”

  “For what I wanted. Tit for tat, my lord,” Georgie drawled with a smile that held no warmth, only a cold, brittle sort of pride. “I seduced Grasper and allowed him to play with his whips and cuffs in exchange for a haphazard education. His games grew too dark for my liking so I sent him off before I learned to scratch out more than a few simple phrases but I can read the classics, balance a ledger to the last penny and find Madagascar on a globe. Benedict taught me to be a lady, to pour tea like a duchess, dance a waltz and push beef around on my plate with the proper fork. And all it cost me was the last scrap of my innocence, a price I was more than willing to pay.”

  “Damn it, Georgie, you should have told me all of it,” Henry thundered as the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and the truth of her past was revealed with startling clarity. “Given me their true names.”

  “What difference do their names make?” she asked in the same cool, sardonic tone. “I never pretended to be an innocent and you never mistook me for one. What right have you to be angry with me now?”

  “There’s a fucking song written about you,” he bellowed, barely resisting the urge to shake her. “A bawdy song set to the tune of a nursery rhyme.”

  “That silly song is about Grasper’s exploits, not mine.”

  “It is about you and it is set to the same fucking lullaby that was mangled to malign my father all those years ago.”

  Georgie let loose an inelegant snort. “That old tune wasn’t about your father.”

  “Of course it was,” he argued.

  “It was about your mother,” she insisted with a low laugh. “Your mother and her lovers.”

  “My mother never took lovers.” The idea was laughable but Henry couldn’t form so much as a chuckle. “Mother detested men.”

  “To be sure, she detested men,” she agreed with a sly smile.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “Are you deaf as well as blind, then?” Georgie’s words were flippant, the gleam in her eyes something else entirely. “Who precisely do you think the Angels were, my lord?”

  “Are you suggesting that Mother enjoyed…that she was a…” he faltered over the words, his mind refusing to work properly.

  “A sapphist,” she supplied. “A lady from Lesbos.”

  Henry did chuckle then, in fact he barked out a laugh that rushed, raw and painful, from his throat as he recognized her ploy. “Oh no you don’t, my pretty little liar. You’ll not be inventing ridiculous tales to divert me from the truth.”

  “What truth would that be, Lord Hastings?”

  “The truth that you have not only bargained away your body, you have traded bits and pieces of your heart until there is likely nothing left worth claiming.” Henry hurled the words at her, undone by the revelations of the past minutes, unbalanced by the speed with which everything he’d believed of the woman he’d pledged to marry had been revealed to be lies and half-truths, fabricated from his naïve desire to see the world as he wanted it to be rather than as it truly existed. Just as she’d said all those weeks ago. “You warned me. Christ, you warned me time and again that your heart was nothing more than jagged shards of regret.”

  “I regret none of it.” A mottled flush crawled up Georgie’s neck, spread over her jaw to settle on the hollows of her cheeks and it occurred to Henry that she was in a temper to match his own. “I do not regret my time with Grasper or Benedict, or even Jacob who was too naïve to comprehend the bargain we made until it was too late. I do not regret the lies I’ve told or the mistakes I’ve made to become the lady I am today.”

  “The damaged lady you are today.” The words were out before the thought had fully formed and through the haze of fury surrounding him, Henry saw Georgie flinch, felt the shudder that racked her slender form.

  “Oh, to be sure I am damaged,” she replied, her voice dipping into the lyrical cadence of her homeland. “But, make no mistake, I was damaged long before I took those three men to my bed. I was damaged the moment Connie named me a boy and sent me off to live as one at River’s End. Only I didn’t know it, not until…”

  Henry did shake her then, his hands hard on her arms, his panting breath blowing over her upturned face, sending a wayward curl dancing across her forehead. “Until when? When did you realize you were so damaged you would willingly barter away every last part of you that was good and clean and whole?”

  “I was never good or clean or whole, my lord,” Georgie answered in the same lilting burr. “I have always been wicked and broken and dirty. I am vengeful and covetous and impulsive and selfish, and I like that
about myself. I like my murky morals and my stubborn streak and my dubious loyalty and my greedy desire to claim what I want, no matter the cost. I like it all and what’s more so do you.”

  It took Henry a moment to process her words, so caught up was he in the decadent sound of her voice, in the twin spots of color cresting her cheeks and the sensual light in her eyes.

  “No.” The single word left him on a groan as he released her and took one unsteady step back.

  “Liar,” she whispered, following his retreat, coming up on her toes, her lips hovering just beneath his. “You like me, as broken and dirty and wicked as I am. You like me and want me and mayhap you even love me.”

  He wanted to deny the truth, to claim he did not want her, did not love her at all, but the words, the lie would not form.

  “Shall I prove you a liar?” Georgie’s breath was warm on his lips.

  “Damn it, Georgie,” he growled, lifting his head just enough so that her lips found his chin, trailed along his jaw.

  “You want me,” she purred, her hands coming up between them to push beneath his open jacket, her fingers spreading over his chests.

  “I did not bring you up here to…” His words left him on a hiss of breath as she dragged one hand down his abdomen and between his legs to cup his shaft, her fingers cradling his balls.

  “To fuck in a chapel?” Georgie’s finished for him on a dark laugh. “Your cock tells me otherwise.”

  Henry knew he ought to stop her, stop the madness that held him in its grip, but her fingers were plucking at the buttons of his placket, dancing over the ridge of his cock and her lips were traveling down his neck, burrowing beneath his cravat, teeth nipping, tongue caressing.

  The last button came free and her hand drove beneath his loosened trousers and smallclothes to wrap around his shaft as she clamped her mouth around the sensitive skin of his neck, sucking and biting down.

  Pleasure and pain, lust and fury coalesced into a treacherous vortex of seething need.

  “Christ, Georgie,” Henry growled, thrusting his cock against her hand. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  “I ask for nothing.” There was anger and an odd sort of triumph in her voice as she dropped to her knees, her hands tugging at his garments, pushing trousers and smalls past his hips.

  His cock sprang free and she was waiting, her lips closing around the engorged head, licking around and beneath before pulling him into her mouth.

  And Henry was lost to the agonizing pleasure, lost to the hum of satisfaction that vibrated on Georgie’s lips clasped around his pulsing shaft, lost to the feel of her hands gripping his hips, fingers digging into muscle, nails biting into flesh, lost to the sight of her mouth taking him deep.

  He made an effort to remain still beneath her ministration, to hold his passion in check, but she would have none of it, pulling him hard into her voracious mouth with each wet stroke down his rigid length, pushing him back with each gliding withdrawal, until he was thrusting and lunging in time to the rhythm she’d set.

  Henry could not think beyond the anticipation of the next foray deep into her wet heat, the next tight, wet stroking retreat of her lips, the next swirl of her tongue around the fat head.

  “Jesus,” he groaned, clasping her head in his hands, his fingers driving into the coils and braids, intent upon pushing her away before he spent, instead pulling her to him as he thrust into her mouth, holding her close, forcing her to take all of him.

  With her lips stretched around his shaft, she shifted, changing the angle of his penetration, and the tip of his cock prodded the back of her throat before the way opened, pulling him deep, closing around him in a tight clasp.

  Georgie peeked up at him through her golden lashes, her eyes heavy with desire, her fingers flexing on his ass and he nearly climaxed then and there.

  “Enough,” he ordered through clenched teeth, battling back the clawing need and taking one stumbling step back, his hands holding her in place as he retreated.

  Georgie released him, her mouth sliding wet and hot down his length and her hands falling to her to her thighs for balance as his clock slipped from her mouth.

  Before he could offer up so much a single word, be it a prayer or a curse, she fell onto her back and lifted her skirts, exposing long legs beneath gossamer-thin stockings, pale thighs open in invitation.

  “Fuck me,” she begged, one hand dipping between her legs to stroke her folds as she swiveled her hips and arched her back, as sinuous as a serpent.

  Oh, he would fuck her, but not on the floor.

  Henry bent over her to grasp one slender arm, lifting her to her feet, smiling grimly at the huff of surprise, or perhaps anger, that fell from her lips.

  “You can’t mean to walk away from me,” she hissed, prying at his fingers on her arm. “Not yet.”

  “I’ve no intention of walking away.” He strode down the aisle and she had no choice but to follow him, no choice but to allow him to lift her and place her on the dais before the medieval throne.

  Georgie’s mouth fell open, but whatever words she might have spoken, be they protest or demand, were lost as he wrapped his arms around her slender back and yanked her hard against him, claiming her parted lips.

  With a groan that came from some secret, starving place within him, Henry abandoned all pretext of decorum, of decency and restraint, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth and driving one hand up into her coiffure, sending emerald-tipped pins falling to the floor with soft pings that echoed off the stone walls. A coil of hair slithered over the hand he pressed to her spine and he grasped the silky strand and wrapped it around and around his fingers, pulling her head back and angling it just so, aligning their lips until he had her precisely where he wanted her.

  A puff of warm, minty breath was the only warning Georgie gave him before she twined her arms over his shoulders, fingers sifting through his hair, nails scouring his scalp, and curled her tongue around his, joining in a kiss so carnal, so voluptuous and abandoned and downright decadent, his head swam. Caressing, suckling, parrying and retreating, Georgie lured him into further madness with only her sinful mouth and her fingers tangling in his hair.

  There was no finesse to the kiss, no grace, no elegance. It was a torrid mating of mouths, a clash of teeth, a mingling of breath, a chorus of murmurs and soft sighs that soon escalated into dark groans and throaty moans.

  Henry broke the kiss to race his lips down her arched neck, to latch on the tendon at the juncture of her shoulder with teeth and lips. Georgie let loose a whimper and bowed her back, brushing her breasts against his chest and he imagined he felt the hard points of her nipples clear through all of the layers of clothing that separated them.

  Desperate to bury his painfully hard cock in her heat, he grasped her bottom and lifted her off her feet. Taking two strides, he dropped her onto the chair and tossed her skirts up to bunch around her waist.

  “You want me, my lord Henry,” she whispered, her voice taunting him, daring him to deny it, as she squirmed about on the faded velvet, her back arching and her hips slowly undulating.

  Henry drew a stuttering, raspy breath into his lungs as he took in the long, lean splendor that was Georgie spread out before him. Blue light splashed across her face, forming shadows in the hollows of her cheeks and beneath her winged brows, transforming her eyes to a deep, dark purple. Green light fanned over the creamy expanse of flesh above the bodice of her gown, fanned over her breasts rising and falling as she curled her back in blatant invitation. Red light coasted over her hips, dipping into the hollows above and beneath the two curling, jutting bones and blazing over the hair at the apex of her thighs.

  Capturing her gaze, he saw desire and something else, simmering fury or desperation, perhaps even a touch of anguish. Whatever it was, the gleam in her eyes combined with the soft smile drifting over her lips laid waste to his meager store of control.

  Henry dropped to his knees between her legs. Winding his fingers through her
listing coiffure, he liberated the remaining locks from their pins and sent the mass of coils spiraling over her shoulders and down her back.

  Tipping her head back he swooped down to find her lips open in anticipation of his kiss. She tangled her tongue around his, over and under in a luxurious swirl that had him groaning as he fisted his hands in her hair, pulling an answering moan from her that vibrated on his lips.

  Delving deep and withdrawing only to dive deep once more, he circled her tongue, curled around the sensitive underside, stroked the velvety top, again and again. Georgie wrapped her arms around his back, fingers digging into his shoulders, as she pressed her legs along his hips and thighs to coil her feet around at the backs of his knees.

  Henry dragged his hard length down over her mound and back up again, parting her folds and finding her wet, so wondrously wet for him.

  With a low moan that echoed around the room, Georgie broke their ardent kiss and Henry opened his eyes to find her looking back at him, her eyes dark and fierce in the indigo moonlight. Holding his gaze, she arched against him, swiveling her hips and pressing her slick heat hard against his shaft. With her hands gripping his back and her thighs tight against his hips, she twisted and slithered against him from chest to groin, her breathy laughter urging him onward.

  He prodded the opening to her body, slid into her snug sheath, giving her the engorged head of his cock, groaning when she raked her nails down his back to grip his ass, squeezing and pulling in an attempt to take him fully into her body.

  “Fuck me, show me how you want me.” A plea, a demand, accompanied with another rolling twist of her hips, her flesh tightening and pulling at his cock.

  Henry fell on her with a groan, took possession of her mouth and drove his tongue deep as he thrust his cock, heavy and hard into her body until he was so blessedly deep within he felt as if he were a part of her, a missing piece of the puzzle that was Georgie Buchanan.

  With one hand entangled in her spiraling tresses, he dragged the other down her slender back to grasp her hip, his fingers spread across her ass. He withdrew until only the tip of his cock remained in the tight clasp of her pussy, tilted her hips, just so, and slammed back into her, grinding against her folds, pressing against her clit. Georgie moaned into his mouth, the sound carnal, hungry, desperate, a mirror to the lust burning, writhing within him. Again and again, he thrust into her, pounding between her legs, hammering into her body. Georgie met each thrust with wild abandon, her hips rising, twisting in exquisite torture, taking him deep, and deeper still into the silken heat of her body, until his orgasm loomed, dark and dangerous, waiting to consume him.