“Are you strong enough?” Blind desire aside, she felt compelled to ask.
“I think so,” he said, glancing down at his rising erection, clearly visible under his buckskin breeches. “And if I start bleeding too much”—he grinned—”we’ll slow down.”
As she moved toward him, she smiled. “Clearly you are mad.”
“Clearly.”
“And I surmise you knew I wouldn’t do… this… in your parents’ house.”
He nodded as her fingers touched his, and curling his fist around her hand, he pulled her close. “I confess to the artifice, although if you prefer to simply eat and leave, I will accede to your wishes.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice was teasing.
He hesitated fractionally. “I could do it.” A taut, strained reply.
“On the other hand, your lordship, I’ve just recently come down from the country,” Annabelle said brightly in a broad, north-country dialect, swinging away and posing for him with a smile, “and have never seen such a glorious sight as this fine house and you.”
He laughed. “As I live and breathe—it’s Nelly Primrose.”
“In the flesh, my lord.” She made him a proper bow, looking very much the innocent in her white muslin gown trimmed with silk bows, a matching yellow ribbon in her hair. “Do you think you might help a poor country girl make her way in the city? I’m quite without sponsors in the fashionable world.”
He’d first seen Annabelle in the role of Nelly Primrose and remembered even now how she’d turned every male head in London in her debut role. “If we play this game, my dear Miss Primrose, you may learn more of city ways than you anticipate,” he drawled.
She gazed at him from under the fringe of her lashes. “I am told I am a very quick study, my lord.”
The play was not so risqué as Annabelle’s current pose, but Duff found her playfulness enchanting. “I may have a position open in my household. I need a personal secretary. Do you read?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. I read very well indeed. Our curate took special care to teach me”—she paused for effect—”reading, my lord.”
“And other things as well, I surmise,” he noted dryly, not certain whether he should take issue with her comment about her curate. His jealousy extended to her imaginary past as well. “Perhaps you should tell me exactly what he taught you before I decide whether you will be suitable for my household.”
“Oh, you misunderstand, my lord. He taught me my numbers and such was what I meant to say.” As would any woman wishing to please the handsome Lord Darley when he was known far and wide for the lavish sexual pleasures he offered. And she wondered for a jealous moment of her own whether his maidservants were used by him for more than household duties.
His gaze narrowed, the line between reality and play unclear in his mind, ambiguity in both his words and thoughts. “You must not lie to me, my dear. I will not tolerate it.”
“Now, why would I lie when I wish to please you? If you are concerned with my chastity, Lord Darley, I swear I am chaste.”
As if he hadn’t already been primed for fucking, his cock swelled even larger at her feigned innocence. “I may have to see for myself,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t want to be deceived.”
“I understand. A woman should be virtuous,” she said, even while the sight of his burgeoning erection was inciting her body to a glowing receptivity. “Does not society demand it, my lord?”
Her intonation had turned breathy, a flush was warming her cheeks. “City ways may be different from those in the country, my dear,” Duff said with a knowing smile. “You will find that virtue is flexible in the Ton.’”
“Does that mean I may be flexible as well?” Annabelle murmured.
The double entendre in her words, the sweet guile in her eyes, was doubly provocative. “We will see, Miss Primrose. I can’t promise anything,” he said with mock sternness. “Your advancement will depend on your ability to please.”
“You, my lord?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good—your housekeeper scowled at me something fierce when she let me in.” She nibbled on her bottom lip in an affecting show of unease. “I’m not certain I could ever please her.”
“You needn’t fear, my dear,” he replied in reassuring accents. “Your duties would be confined to serving me.”
“I would like that enormously—I suspect,” she murmured with another little curtsy, her gaze on his crotch where the buckskin was stretched taut over his flagrant arousal.
“I would require my paper brought to me in the morning. You would read to me from time to time, answer my mail, see to the purchase of my books. And at night,” he said with conspicuous mildness, “I would require your presence close by, should I need a letter scribed.”
“I am capable of all those tasks, my lord. You will find I write a fine hand and reading to you would be a pleasure. I would simply adore”—she smiled sweetly—”helping you with anything at all.”
He suddenly felt light-headed as all his blood flooded to his cock at her seductive offer of anything at all. Dropping into a nearby chair, he gestured his erstwhile Nelly Primrose forward to participate in something more than conversation.
Annabelle moved toward him with a worried frown, questioning whether to continue in their play. “Would you like an elixir, my lord?” she murmured, allowing him to make the decision. “You look pale.”
“Perhaps a small cognac. Over there on the table.” He shut his eyes for a moment as Annabelle walked across the room and poured him a drink, opening them as he heard her approach. “You needn’t look worried. I’m quite well.”
He didn’t look entirely well, Annabelle thought. But having seen Duff force himself to walk through sheer will when he could barely stand, she rather thought if he was intent on having sex, he would have it. Handing him the drink, she waited for him to drink it, then retrieved the glass and set it aside.
“You are very helpful, Miss Primrose. I rather think you will be a valuable addition to my household.”
His deep voice was soft and low, the seductive tenor subtle and familiar, his heavy-lidded gaze lazily proprietary, as though she or any woman he fancied was his for the asking. A dissolving heat drenched her vagina in shocking disregard for her customary aversion to men who looked at her that way. But then, Duff was not like other men. “Are you up to this, my lord?” she murmured, wanting what he wanted with a headstrong urgency that would have been incomprehensible before Duff entered her life.
He was lounging in his chair, his color returned, his dark gaze touched with the willful arrogance that great wealth conferred. “You will find, Nelly, that the first rule in my household is never to question me.”
A shameful rush of pleasure streaked through her body at his purposeful declaration. “Yes, sir,” she whispered, improbably aroused by his inherent arrogance that assumed all things were available to him.
“Now, come closer and we’ll see about your chastity.” He used the royal we; he was not including her in his statement.
“Do I have the position, my lord?”
“Lift your skirts and we’ll see.”
“What if someone were to come in?” she inquired nervously. And whether it was Nelly Primrose speaking was not certain.
His gaze idly swept over her. “Do you want the position or not?”
Her profession aside, she was not an exhibitionist at heart. “I don’t know if I wish to continue this sport,” she said, Annabelle Foster’s voice distinct this time.
“Fine. But lift your skirts anyway.” Duff smiled. “If you’d be so kind.” He, too, was speaking in his own voice—polite, well-mannered, affable.
“The servants,” she murmured. “Seriously, Duff, they might come in.”
“They won’t.”
Not a scintilla of equivocation echoed in his words, and for a moment Annabelle didn’t know whether to be grateful or cross. But the real Lord Darley was lounging in all his stark and sensual beauty—close enough
to touch in his crisp white linen and bottle-green coat, while the sight of his apparently fully recovered and impressive cock stretching the soft buckskin was riveting.
His hands were resting on the gilded crocodile heads at the extremities of the Empire chair arms, his sprawl languid against the red striped silk upholstery, his gaze half-shuttered. “Did I mention how much you mean to me? You do,” he went on, answering his own question. He smiled. “I haven’t felt this good for a very long time. Humor me, darling—lift your skirt.”
“I will humor myself as well. I just want to make that clear.”
He chuckled. “I see Nelly Primrose has fled and in her place we have the imperious Miss Foster. I think I like her better, in any event. Submissive women are a bore.”
“Pray, abstain from mentioning your previous amours.” Annabelle quirked her brow. “Unless you wish a quid pro quo.”
“God, no,” he said with a grin. “It might curb my ardor.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” she noted sardonically, dipping her head toward his blatant erection. “He looks in excellent form.” Then she gracefully lifted her skirts and petticoat and held them out as a frothy frame to her lower body. “Do you like what you see, my lord?”
She stood before him, nude from the waist down, save for white silk stockings, pretty slippers in Pomona green kidskin and ruffled garters that matched the yellow ribbon in her hair. “One would have to be dead not to like what I see, darling.” He drew in a soft breath. “Indeed, it’s been much too long. Might I entice you to take off your gown as well? I would help you if I could; I apologize for my disabilities. I will make it up to you very soon.”
Aware that his chest wounds were still only partially healed, Annabelle didn’t question his asking her to disrobe herself so much as she took issue with the venue. She shot a quick glance at the door.
“Would you be more comfortable if the door was locked? Please, feel free to do so.”
His casual assumption that his privacy wouldn’t be breached annoyed her. Was his staff so accustomed to him having women in these rooms that none dared enter? “I gather your staff won’t come in,” she said, unable to dragoon her jealousy into submission. “Why is that?”
He lifted his gaze, a half smile on his lips. “They know I like my privacy.”
She abruptly dropped her skirts. “For activities like this, no doubt.”
“No. I never bring women here. You are the exception,” he said, and not waiting for the surprise in her eyes to be given voice, he added, “Now gladden the heart of an invalid”—he waggled his fingers—”and lift up your skirts again. Leave your gown on if you’re more comfortable that way, though.” He smiled. “After years on the stage one would think you would have exhibitionist tendencies in abundance.”
“Disregard for the censure of the world comes with wealth and privilege, darling.” She was appeased, or rather her jealousy was appeased, and she could smile as sweetly as he.
“I stand corrected, or rather, I sit corrected,” he replied pleasantly. “Let me see you now.”
“How far is Dr. Stewart from here?”
Following Annabelle’s gaze, Duff glanced down. A small bloodstain the size of a thumbprint had appeared on his cream-colored waistcoat. “It’s hardly bleeding. Don’t be concerned.”
“Duff, be sensible. You’ve moved much too much already with the drive over here. You could hurt yourself.”
“Byrne knows where Stewart lives. But we’re not going to need him. What I do need is you. And don’t say you don’t feel the same because I can smell your arousal from here.” A faint smile lifted his mouth. “Come now, you can’t always be sensible. We are not bookkeepers with balance sheets. I want to feel you close around me. I want to fill you and cram you full and make you scream like you do when you lose yourself to passion. So, tell me,” he said with a grin. “Have you practiced your usual prudence? Is your sponge in place?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed. He’d known the answer before he’d asked the question; Annabelle never took chances. He crooked his finger. “Let me see.”
After spreading his legs, he indicated he wanted her between them and she complied because she could no more curtail her lust than he. Her promiscuous indifference to reason unnerved her, but in the chaos of lust and desire overwhelming her senses, scruple was cavalierly dismissed.
When she stopped at the edge of his chair, he said quietly, “Spread your thighs.”
She obeyed. She could not have resisted no matter the cataclysmic consequences. Every beat of her heart echoed in the throbbing center of her body, every breath she took was one of longing for this man who was a byword for profligacy and vice.
“More,” he said, and as she complied, he leaned forward and slipped two fingers up her sleek, pulsing vagina. “There,” he whispered a moment later, his fingertips brushing the sponge. “I see you are impregnable, indeed. It almost makes one want to breach such an unassailable citadel. What do you think, Miss Primrose. Would you like your master’s child?”
A defenseless yearning, avaricious and improbable, swept through her senses like a flood tide. “Don’t say that,” Annabelle breathed.
It wasn’t an answer. It was a nonanswer. It was consent and permission from a woman who valued her independence above all else.
But then she suddenly said, “No,” in a strong, firm voice and tried to move away.
He held her in place, his fingers anchored in her heated cunt. “I won’t,” he murmured.
“Promise,” she said, vehement and emphatic, holding his gaze.
He could have said no. He could have done to her what he wished. Even now, in his invalid state. For a fleeting moment, he struggled with his volatile impulse to father a child on her. But ingrained habit prevailed in him as much as it had in her, and as quickly as she, he opted for reason. “I promise.”
“Now let me go”—she wiggled her bottom around his fingers—”and I’ll service you. You’re not strong enough yet for more.”
He didn’t remove his fingers, nor did his indolent gaze look as though he might. “If I wanted that,” he said, softly abrupt, “I’d call in a chambermaid.”
“That’s what I thought.” He was what he was and she’d do well not to forget it.
“So, then,” he murmured lazily, as though he’d not heard the temper in her voice, “would you like to come first—like this”—he moved his fingers delicately inside her—”say as a first course in the event I don’t last too long? I wouldn’t want you deprived of the multiple orgasms you favor.”
“You’re being foolish, Duff.” Her voice had turned gentle, her gaze on a second spot of blood that had blossomed on his waistcoat. “I can wait until you’re stronger.”
Having glanced down, he ignored what he saw. “If you choose to be selfless, I cannot.” He grinned as he slid his fingers free. “You may blame my aristocratic privilege or male selfishness or any of those faults you assign to men like me, but I must feel you”—his voice went soft—”everywhere. Come,” he whispered. “Come sit on me. I promise to barely move.”
He helped her unbutton his breeches, helped her climb onto his lap, his breath in abeyance after waiting for this so long.
She braced her hands on the chair arms to lower herself over his penis he held lightly in place beneath her. Careful not to brush against his shoulders or chest, she slowly lowered herself down his hard, rigid length until she rested gently on his thighs, his erection buried deep in her succulent flesh.
There was a moment of utter silence.
They were holding their breath, absorbing the full measure of sumptuous pleasure for a shimmering millisecond before galvanic delirium finally reached their brains.
She whimpered when the rush of ecstasy struck.
He grunted, as though punched in the gut.
A moment later, when he found the breath to speak, he whispered, audacious and heedless, “You cannot leave me.”
“No, never,” s
he whispered back, as rash as he.
They came quickly the first time, she moving more than he so his pain was kept to a minimum. But after that, anesthetized as he was by glowing rapture, he ignored health issues and proceeded to take a more active role, smiling with satisfaction as her orgasmic scream filled the room at their next climax.
“We should wait now,” she said afterward. “Until you’re better.”
In answer, he gripped her hips and drove her back down.
His virility was undiminished despite his orgasms, and she experienced a fleeting resentment at the thought of how many other women had been beneficiaries of his unflagging vigor. But Duff happened to flex his hips just then, ramming upward with a particular precision that resonated in every quivering nerve in her body, and after that, she disregarded the vexing question in lieu of more immediate sensation.
He was finally bleeding so much, she said emphatically, “If you don’t stop, I’ll shout for Byrne despite the circumstances. I mean it, Duff,” she added tersely. “I won’t have you bleeding to death for this.”
There was something in her tone that curtailed his lust, and glancing downward, he took note of a wide swath of blood that had soaked through his bandages, shirt, and waistcoat. “Oh, Christ,” he muttered.
“Don’t move,” she murmured, scrambling off him and shaking down her skirts. “Don’t move a muscle. I’ll find some towels and have someone go for the doctor.” After quickly making herself presentable, she arranged Duff’s clothing into some semblance of order and left to find Byrne.
While they waited for the doctor, Annabelle brought Duff another cognac and nervously eyed his pallor. “I blame myself,” she lamented, gently placing another clean towel on his chest. “I should have said no and meant it.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said softly as he rested his head against the chair back. “Honestly,” he said, smiling, “I’ve never felt so damned good. Stop worrying. I’ve bled more than this many times. If Eddie were here, he’d tell you as much.”
Hopefully, he was right, Annabelle thought. She’d never seen a man with so many old wounds. Perhaps she was unnecessarily alarmed.
When someone loves you Page 20
