by Once a Rogue
Instantly defying her orders, he clasped her chin with one of those large, roughened hands, lifting it until she could no longer avoid his steady gaze. “How amusing! My sides split. Where is he, then?” His low voice rumbled all the way down his arm, through his fingertips and into her jaw.
“Where is…?” She was breathless.
“Nate Downing. He put you up to this, didn’t he?”
She tried to knock his hand away, but his wrist was strong as iron, his grip unrelenting. The more she struggled and pulled on his sleeve, the harder he held on.
“I don’t like to be made a fool.”
She snapped out, “That makes two of us.”
There was a fraught moment, when he stared down at her and she held his gaze, unblinking, furious. Finally he let her go, his fingers drifting away. It was almost a caress, shockingly gentle, despite the potent strength in his fingertips. She shivered, every pore on her body snapped awake and alert. There was a decidedly impish gleam in his eye, curiously taking her in, very thorough, as if he were the one paying three sovereigns.
He’d better not try mastering her, she thought. If he knew her, he’d never dare try it. But of course, he didn’t know her, did he? That was the point.
“Look, if you’re going to be difficult about this, you may as well leave now. If you want your three sovereigns you’ll get the dratted thing out of your breeches and get on with it.”
His eyes were startling, a color hovering between verjuice and azure blue. She’d noticed them immediately when spying on him through the peephole and perhaps they were the reason she’d chosen him. He’d entered the place alone that evening and was by far the quietest, most subdued of all the men she considered. This led her to think him safe. Now, observing several fierce, treacherous tides churning away behind the formerly tranquil waters of those eyes, Lucy feared she’d been deceived.
He smiled, wolfish. “You’re not one of the usual wenches.”
“How do you know?” she demanded, chin raised. “Come here often I suppose.”
When he chuckled it was almost a purr, but not of a household cat. His was the warning, heart-stopping rumble of a leopard she’d seen in the queen’s menagerie. “For one thing, you’re too damn clean.”
Lucy stood and walked away from him to the foot of the bed.
“And for another thing, most whores don’t give orders. Or pay their customers. It somewhat defeats the purpose of the job.” But despite his mocking tone, the hard lines of his face softened, his eyes brightened.
Definitely interested—despite her lack of meat. Meat! She still couldn’t get over his deplorable lack of manners.
But if he liked her, that was good, wasn’t it? For her purposes?
Lucy wasn’t so sure. The mischievous glint in his eye was troubling.
Better set him straight at once, before he got any ideas above his place. If he didn’t like her rules, he could damn well leave and she’d go home. Might be for the best, after all. Not that she’d lost her gumption, of course.
“Are you questioning me?” she exclaimed. “How dare you? Perhaps this will be more trouble than it’s worth.”
He flexed his arms, shook out his hands. His slow, heated gaze wandered, contemplative, up and down her semi-naked length. And then he cracked his knuckles. “Wouldn’t be changing your mind now would you? Looking for a way out? Looking for an excuse to withdraw the offer?”
Uh oh. She had indeed made a mistake. She’d expected anyone found in this place to do exactly as she commanded and willingly for the money, yet there was a powerful, obstinate strength oozing out of this man, like treacle from a broken pot. He now advanced a few steps toward her, not in the least discouraged by her icy frown. An expression notorious for freezing well-intentioned suitors where they stood, it seemed that tonight it held no power.
This was not going to plan. In fact, she considered abandoning her mission altogether.
As if he read her mind, his gaze slid sideways to the bolted door and then back to Lucy. Standing between her and the exit, he leveled his footing—a pre-emptive motion, the implication obvious.
“I’ve seen you before,” he said very softly, a slight uplift to the end of the sentence, making it a question as much as a statement.
The same strange idea had passed through her own mind when she first saw him.
“Have I?” he demanded.
“Certainly not,” she scoffed, although she sensed he wasn’t asking her, merely puzzling over it himself.
A little bit of a grin tugged at his lips, breeze-blown candlelight toying with his rugged features. “Must have been in my dreams, then.” There was a challenge in that smirk, daring her to make a run for the door.
She knew who’d be there first. And what would follow.
Mistake or not, the upward twist of his lips assured her it was too late to back out now; he was there, so was she, and sand already slipped through the hourglass.
Her resolve hardened again. “This arrangement is just for tonight, you understand? You’d better not get any ideas, for this is on my terms or not at all.”
He devoured her with his gaze, moving intently over her mask and then downward, leaving no part untouched. Something inside her began to melt. She was very warm, her throat tight, her breathing too scattered. Further annoyed by his silent perusal and her body’s involuntary reaction to it, she raised her voice, as if to a disobedient servant. “You’ll do as I say, no more, no less.” Though aware she was talking too much and too quickly, she couldn’t stop herself. “I need this thing done properly. I trust you know what is required? Might we begin at once? Remove your clothes and there is water over there with which to–”
“I’m not accustomed to uppity wenches making all the decisions.”
She huffed. “You surprise me.” Naturally, he was merely bothered by a woman in charge–that she paid the coin. Nothing else troubled him. Tonight the injustices of life wore on her temper like flint on a knife’s blade. “You can tolerate a woman’s commands, surely, for no more than a quarter of an hour. I won’t keep you long.”
His eyes gleamed, his nostrils flared. Slowly he walked around her in a full circle, taking it all in again, before he dropped to the bed, sprawled against the bolster and lifted his foot. “Boots!”
“What?”
“Take ’em off for me, wench.”
Wench? How dare he?
When she froze, he added with the quick flare of an insolent grin, “Unless you want me to keep ’em on while we do the deed.”
She frowned at his muddy boot. “Are you cup shotten?”
“No.”
“Then you can remove your own boots, man.”
He tucked his arms behind his head. “No. You do it, wench!”
“Keep them on, then. This won’t take long in any case. You won’t be staying.”
His eyes widened, then narrowed. “I’ll have the boots off. If you’ve no objection. Ma’am.” It was definitely not a question this time.
She sensed he was testing the waters, deliberately prodding her temper for his own sport. But what else could she do? Go back and find another man to take his place? There was no time and she was already half-undressed.
Yet there was another matter for consideration, far and above the practicalities.
She wanted him.
Lucy realized it then, as he lay on the bed, waiting for her.
Oh yes, she wanted him.
It was almost a challenge now. He dared her, thought she wouldn’t go through with it, was ready to call her a coward.
But he didn’t know Lucy Collyer, did he?
He soon would.
Chapter 2
So he was impudent and had a saucy mouth. What did it matter? Only a temporary hire, he was not one of her father’s servants to reprimand. Besides, she rather liked his smile, not to mention that superbly carved body. Lying across the bed, seething with raw energy, he was a gift ready to be unwrapped. Simply put, she’d never seen a man quite
so appealing.
She’d rolled the dice and this is where they’d fallen. It was her fault he was there, after all.
Perhaps, just this once, under the anonymity of that leather mask, she could put her hands on his filthy boots, another novel experience to be sure, but over in a few minutes. She grabbed his foot and pulled.
“The laces,” he chided her. “The laces, wench!”
He lay back against the bolster, watching her, offering no assistance whatsoever, just an amused critique.
Once she’d tossed his boots aside she moved on to his breeches, but he sat up, grabbing her hands as she leaned over his sprawling form. “This I’ll do myself,” he warned, serious again.
Walking around the bed, she watched him undress. He was stocky, his thighs were thick and powerful. Afraid to look at anything else, she carefully averted her eyes to the floor boards, but he took a knife from his discarded belt, jumped up and came toward her with a determined stride. She backed away to the wall, alarmed.
There was a small diagonal scar across his left eyebrow, an interruption of the symmetry of his face lending a slight quirk to his expression which prevented those clear, sculpted angles from looking too stern. Even so, with that knife in his hand, when he commanded, “Turn around,” she contemplated running for the window and leaping out.
“Turn around,” he repeated. When she hesitated, he held the knife in his teeth, put his hands on her shoulders and spun her to face the wall. Then he slid the knife’s blade under her corset laces and, with one ruthless motion, cut her free.
Evidently he was not the sort to trouble himself with knots and bows. In a quick burst of wry amusement, Lucy thought of her maid’s face tomorrow when she saw the corset’s sad fate.
With one impatient tug he freed her likewise of her shift. It tumbled down to her wrists and hips, where it came to a whispering halt. She closed her eyes, gathering her courage again. For just a few startled moments, she’d relaxed her guard and likewise the reins. Now her nerves galloped in every direction, almost out of reach.
His breath was on the nape of her neck. And then he touched her.
Oh.
She’d forgotten to make him wash his hands.
He stroked lightly down her spine with his fingertips, to the dip of her waist and back again. Then he spread them to her shoulders and down her arms, as if he measured her, as if she were a young filly at auction and he a prospective buyer. It was not at all the way she imagined. Having received a brief theory lesson from her knowledgeable maid, she was prepared for a quick “in and out” that might take no more than five minutes at the most.
Head bowed, eyes closed, she murmured, “Blow out the candles.”
“No,” he replied gruffly, “I want to see.”
She repeated her command, louder this time.
He kept his hands around her naked waist, fingers spread. “I’ll keep the candles lit.”
Lucy was accustomed to being obeyed by servants. This man, in her eyes, was simply another who should do as she bid, without question. “Do as I say. At once! I’m paying you, remember? This is on my terms! Mine!”
In reply, he jerked the sleeves free of her wrists, and then only the curve of her hip prevented the silk shift from falling. She felt it ready to drop, hanging there to save her modesty as if by its own willpower.
“Blow out the candles,” she repeated.
This time he must have noticed her tremble, for his voice softened, turned husky. “Say please, then.”
After a short struggle, she breathed the word, rare on her lips, and he finally complied with her wishes, extinguishing the candles, one by one, until there was only light from the young spring moon. He moved his hands around her from behind, his sinewy arms under hers, strong fingers splayed to cup her breasts. No one had ever touched her like this. He hadn’t even asked permission. She felt marked already, despoiled, merely by his forceful hands on her breasts, the rough pads of his brazen fingers caressing her nipples. She worried he would hear her heart thumping away–surely it vibrated along her backbone. There was no way to hide it. She could mask her face, but not those emotions pounding through her like galloping horse hooves.
His lips were on the nape of her neck, his teeth gently nipping. His warm breath stirred the little hairs straying from her caul and, with far greater alacrity than she, a woman never before touched so intimately, might expect, the anxiety faded. He kissed her ear, the side of her neck and her shoulder, his mouth moving wetly over her skin. Perhaps there was magic in his hands and lips, some elixir rendering her calm, soothed.
Ready.
“Where shall we begin?” His unshaven chin grazed her shoulder, while he slid a hand down her naked belly and gripped the silk shift where it bunched around her hips.
She gasped, a sharp burst of nervous laughter shooting out. How did she know what to ask for? She circumvented the question. “I’m spoiled for choice. With so much on offer how does one begin?”
“A smart-mouthed wench, eh?”
“A very wicked and disobedient one, I’m afraid. Will you get on with it, or are you all talk?”
He drew a quick, sharp breath. “I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me. Since no other man has taken you in hand, I’d best see to your guidance.”
Anticipation rippled through her every nerve, the touch of his hands and his words somehow communicating with parts of her which until now had lain dormant.
In the next beat of her heart, the shift fell from her hips, slithered over her thighs, stroked her knees and pooled soft around her feet. Immediately he was there, hard and warm, pressed to her bottom and the small of her back.
He moved to unpin the caul, a gold mesh net holding her bound hair.
“No,” she gasped. “Leave it.”
“I want it down.”
“And I say it stays.” She mustn’t be in too much disarray upon her return, in case she encountered anyone other than the maid.
Hands resting lightly on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “The mask then. Take that off at least.”
“No!” Bracing for another argument, she tried to ignore the heat radiating from her nipples, where they brushed his chest.
“Is there any part of this we can agree upon, do you think?” He sounded bemused rather than angry. “Are you going to let me do this my way, or not?”
“I’m the customer,” she pointed out tartly. “Shouldn’t it be my way?” He would fight her for control, she knew it. This man was no fool, neither was he afraid of a challenge. A strange excitement bubbled and whispered within her. Like recognized like, she thought. Here, in a Norwich bawdy house, of all places, she’d found someone as stubborn as herself.
One hand to his mouth, he hid either a curse or a chuckle. More likely the latter, since his eyes were very warm, his lashes lowered slyly.
Lucky for him, the contrary fellow was really very pleasing to look upon. To her surprise, even better naked. “We’ll compromise,” she conceded breathlessly. “You may take down the hair. But not the mask.” If only he knew how great a concession that was. She never willingly gave any man even her hand to kiss.
He tugged a pretend forelock. “Why, I thank you most humbly ma’am!”
“I’ll change my mind if you don’t hurry.”
His blue eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Impatient for me?”
“No,” was the curt rejoinder, “Just impatient.”
The pins were speedily discarded, gold mesh tossed aside. Her hair tumbled free and as the heavy lengths fell to her shoulders, over her bared breasts and down to her hips, she cursed herself for giving in. He was a persuasive fellow. His smile, oddly endearing, brought out a softer side in her she never knew existed.
Wrapping her hair around his knuckles, he brought it to his face, murmuring softly, as if he’d never seen or felt anything like it. While he explored, she remained still, her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to cover herself now, although wearing only her stockings, garters and her
favorite pearl earrings.
He ran his thumb across her mouth, pressing down on the lower lip. She had time for only one quick breath, and wondered if he inspected her teeth now too, before his lips descended to hers and pried them further open. Lucy had never been kissed on the mouth. Never. Astonished, she stood quietly and let him do it.
His ale-spiced lips were firm, certainly knew what they did and were not at all objectionable. The tongue, however, was an alarming development. With his hands around her face, she couldn’t pull away, so she tried to quell the anxiety, chiding herself for it. Let him have his kiss, if he wanted it. She supposed it would do no harm.
Brushing her hair aside, he gazed down at her breasts. Again she waited, glad of the semi-darkness to hide her hot cheeks. With an odd sound, deep in his throat, he ducked his head and took her nipple in his mouth, sliding his hand down her back, holding her close.
What the devil was he doing? This was supposed to take no more than a few minutes. She knew the basics of what must be done, but he seemed to be taking the long way around to it. He stroked her bottom, pressing her even closer so she felt his erection, hard and hot against her stomach. Her blood fizzled and sparked, as if laced with gunpowder. But again he delayed. Slowly he sank down, licking a meandering course down her body. Lucy bit back the cries singing in the back of her throat. She must not get carried away. She must not…
He licked her belly.
His mouth grazed her hip.
He kissed her inner thigh.
And when she moved her hands finally, knotting her fingers through his hair, she felt his tongue dart out, touching her most private place, his lips kissing her where she’d never dreamed. He was now on his knees before her, his hands around her thighs.
Oh.
She held her breath, almost lost her footing.
Oh.
This was most definitely not to plan.
Holding her firm, he tasted her, while she trembled like a newborn lamb, amazed by his audacity, but also at herself for allowing it. This was too much. She would shatter into a thousand pieces if she let him continue like this.
