by Suzi Love
She laughed. “Yes, I’m afraid you’ve caught me out. By your reputation, I didn’t consider that you might also have any sort of intelligence as well as—”
“As well as what?”
She glanced sideways at him. “If I finish that thought, I’d only pander to your already enormous conceit.”
He laughed. “Then please continue. My conceit knows no bounds.”
“You’re incorrigible. And, as I’m certain many women have told you, you’re also a very handsome man. The way you treat others shows you are compassionate. You’ve recovered enough of the family fortune to be able to restore your estate and close the Bath House to others. That shows your intelligence and skill. I’ve found very few titled gentlemen whose character encompasses all those traits. So many of them are shallow.”
“Many call me shallow.” With effortless skill, he negotiated the walking paths and pulled his team to a stop at the side of the lake. “Yet I do recall my happier hours spent as a child and as a young man on my estate. Before my fights with my father drove me to the continent. I asked you out driving with me today so we could talk about that.”
A stab of disappointment went through Chrissie. Of course a man of his ilk wouldn’t want to spend time in her company without another purpose. “Oh, I see.”
“I want a chance to get to know you again,” Justin continued, unaware of her disappointment. “And to talk about what has happened in the district while I’ve been gone. I’ve missed out on so much and with my family gone, there is no one to tell me.”
He dipped his head to see her face beneath her bonnet brim and lifted her chin with one cupped hand to meet his eyes. “What is it? What did I say to make you so sad?”
“I’m not sad,” she lied. “Yes, you are, though I don’t understand why.” He studied her face, and frowned. “A moment ago, you thought I had another reason for asking you to come with me today. What was it?”
“There could be no other reason. I’m hardly your normal sort of flirt.”
“Ah, I see.” The damn man’s knowing smirk irritated her immensely. “Naturally, I also wanted a chance to spend more time in the company of a fascinating woman.”
Oh, ho. The man thought he was so clever but Chrissie was too old to fall for his tricks. “Please take me home, my lord. I’ve more to do than sit here and listen to a practiced rake hone his glib range of falsehoods.”
He gave a much put-upon sigh but instead of taking up the reins once more, he took her face between his two hands and bent his head to her lips. His pressed against hers in a soft questing motion, asking her forgiveness, seeking her consent. Despite her will, her lips parted.
On a small sigh of enjoyment and relief, she opened her mouth to allow the entrance of the tip of his tongue. He ran it around the inside of her mouth, explored in a gentle sweeping motion that sent her stomach swirling in a matching twirl of butterflies fluttering deeply within her. She pressed a hand to her middle to still the sensation and he drew back slightly to look down.
“Chrissie?”
“You make my stomach tumble. My mind whirl.”
He held his hands cupped around her hot cheeks and whispered into her face, “Good. It’s only fair that you feel it too.”
She gasped. “You feel that?” He nodded, grimaced. “Yes, I do. However, you mustn’t tell anyone or my reputation as a hard- hearted breaker of hearts will be shattered. If women imagine I’m soft as custard inside, as soft as you make me feel, I’ll become a laughing stock around London. My bedroom will be overrun by women wanting to test the new theory.”
She pulled back. “Can you never be serious?”
“Oh, but I am. Completely serious.”
He bent again and his kiss this time wasn’t soft and gentle, but so full of hunger and passion it left her reeling. When he lifted his head, she grasped the back of it, sliding her fingers through his silky dark hair and brought his head back to hers.
This time, she took control of the melding of their mouths. All the yearning she felt at his touch was released from containment and the only way to ease the ache was to have more of him, more of her body pressed to him, his mouth on hers. For long minutes, they remained that way, locked together. He slid one hand down her body to press her hips against the lower part of him and moved so his erection was more prominent, so she felt it, a long and hard rod, prodding her midsection. She purred like a kitten, then felt him chuckle. Ever so slowly, they pulled apart. She gasped and looked around. She’d lost track of everything. Where they were. Who might be watching.
All the rules of propriety flew out the window whenever he came near. From the loud gasps for breath coming from him, she suspected that he was as rattled as she was by their embrace, although he had much more experience with these sorts of encounters. It was gratifying to know that she could at least upset his equilibrium to some extent. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “My lady. Chrissie!” He touched her hand. “It isn’t a good idea to take anything I do too seriously. My life is a mess. I don’t want anyone else to be caught up in it as I try to unravel my family problems.”
The hurt she felt was excruciating. She wanted to pretend for a few more minutes the kiss that had devastated her meant something to him. But already he pulled back, erected his habitual shield.
Never mind. She also knew how to erect defensive shields.
“Take me home. Please.”
With a nod, he pulled his team out onto the path once more and in a short time stopped outside her home. She ignored his outstretched hand and took instead that of the groom to jump down to the footpath. Picking up her skirts, Chrissie fled up the steps and through her entrance when her butler opened her door for her, not stopping to say goodbye to Justin. Not waiting to be embarrassed any longer.
Justin left Lady Wellsby’s house cursing his own stupidity. One minute he’d kissed those luscious lips, enjoyed the feel of a woman more than he had in many months, and the next he warned her to stay away from him. Idiot!
He cursed himself for the tenth time. What was wrong with him? Chrissie was the best thing to walk into his life since his return to England, and he’d deliberately wielded his rudeness, his habitual sardonic streak to drive a wedge between them before she stepped closer. He’d treated her as if she was one of the others, one of the many shallow women of the ton whose bodies he’d remorselessly used and left.
At his house, he spent three hours making arrangements to have the Pleasure House opened and the rooms set up. There was a lot to do. Each room had a theme and the lavish drapes and furnishings needed to be brought out of storage and aired. The Bath Houses must be filled with water from the hot springs running through the estate.
He sent the servants he normally used ahead to prepare the lavish spreads of food and wine that set the mood for the wealthiest of the ton who came and were prepared to spend a the coin, but the extra people were necessary to provide obscurity for the principle players to hide behind. The more people who wore masks, veils, and other concealing costumes, the less chance the three women would be discovered and their identities uncovered. After his tasks were finished and his servants organized things to his satisfaction, Justin slumped back into his desk chair. Memories of the conversation he’d had with Chrissie that morning haunted him. He’d made such a mess of things. He needed to fix it. To take away the hurt he’d caused.
Calling for his butler, he ordered his curricle brought around. Impatient to get to her, Justin leapt down the steps and into the seat, barely waiting for his tiger to jump into position before he took off at speed. Upon reaching the mews behind her town house, he gave the reins to the groom and circled around to look for a way in. In the end, it was easier than he imagined.
The laundress walked out the back door with a large basket of washing, leaving it ajar. A peek inside showed the kitchen staff were occupied preparing the dinner and nobody looked in his direction as he slipped up the servants’ staircase.
If he was caught, he had no story p
repared, though he was used to thinking on his feet after the number of times he’d leaped out of bedroom windows to escape husbands who’d returned home at an inopportune moment. Making no sound, he slipped up the narrow stairs to the next landing. Which bedroom belonged to Chrissie was a guess but he went with instinct, remembering what she’d said about Geoffrey’s great- aunt leaving them the house.
Geoffrey sounded like such an arrogant prick that he would have demanded the best of everything, therefore the best room in the house. The front room over the street would have the best outlook and by the dimensions probably the largest area.
It was the end room on the corridor and he quietly walked down the carpeted hallway, hoping no one opened a door and discovered him. At the end door he halted, an ear pressed to the wood to listen. Water splashed as someone bathed. He prayed to God it was Chrissie and not one of the others. He’d no desire to walk in on a naked Anna, no matter how much he’d teased Chrissie over her friend’s pretty looks. Anna was a true innocent, and therefore the sort of female he took care to avoid. They carried with them the threat of entrapment, marriage, and forever. Things he had no intention of embroiling himself in at this stage of his life.
Turning the knob, he cracked the door a scant inch and peeked inside. Steam rose in curling tendrils above a tin bath but all he could see were the clawed feet at the bottom as a screen covered the top half, preventing him from identifying the occupant.
He sucked in a deep breath, terrified of whom he’d discover. If Edward arrived home and discovered him ogling his wife, he’d demand pistols at dawn. If it were Anna, what remained of his gentleman’s honor would oblige him to offer marriage. The risk was enormous, yet the urge to glimpse Chrissie’s body—naked, slippery, and soft—rising from the water proved greater than any risks. Opening the door a little wider, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him, clipping the lock as he did so. He took the necessary steps to bring him beside the screen and closed his eyes, waiting.
“Is that you, Mary?” Chrissie’s voice called.
The breath he’d been holding expelled and he relaxed. It was her.
The right room, the right woman. And the thought that she was naked a step away from him brought his erection leaping to life, tightening his trousers. He’d been in perpetual pain since she’d entered his room days earlier and now he was in her room and in even worse pain.
Stepping sideways, he stood beside the bath but out of her eyesight, a little behind her head. He picked up the soap from the dish at her fingertips and plucked the cloth from her dangling hand. She gave a start of surprise and jolted upright, splashing water over the edge, but Justin barely noticed as her nipples arose from the sudsy water to stand at attention before his eyes. His hiss of lusty admiration drew her attention and she swiveled in the bath to face him, her mouth dropping open in shock.
“You!”
She flung her hand up to cover her breasts but not before he was treated to a full view of them bouncing and bobbing as they rose from the water in all their unrestrained glory.
“Christ,” he said, his gaze fixed on her chest. His hands reached out without thinking to cup her full globes. “They’re magnificent.”
She followed his eyes down to where her hands quivered over her breasts, trying to hide them from his view. He touched a finger to one hand and waited. “Please. Let me look. You’re so beautiful.”
“I’ve told you, I’m not beautiful.”
He nodded. “Yes. You are. So beautiful, you rob me of breath.”
With gentle persistence, he tugged on her hands until she dropped the shields she held before her full breasts to expose them to his hungry eyes. He wanted to devour her visually, and orally. Her breasts were full and round and when he cupped them, weighed them, treasured them, they filled his hands like ripe fruit. Leaning forward, he touched his tongue to one pouting tip and inhaled sharply when it budded instantly, tightening into a red puckered bud. He looked up at her, begged with his eyes for permission to proceed, and was overjoyed when she sketched a tiny nod of approval.
Knowing he needed to move slowly, he covered one nipple with his lips and sucked in light pulling motions that drew the nipple between his teeth until he heard her breath catch. Her fists unclenched from her sides and came up to rest on his head. His teeth bit down lightly on the end of the nipple and she groaned and wriggled, sliding her fingers through his hair to hold him tightly against her breast. Using his teeth, he drew the nipple in slow elongating motions over and over out to the end to nibble delicately on the sensitive tip.
She shivered, writhed, and clenched his hair even tighter until he winced.
“Ouch!”
She let go suddenly and jerked backwards, releasing him. “Sorry,” she cried, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He chuckled and reached for her again, pulling her warm body against his. “That should be my line, if I was a gentleman. But as I’m known to have no morals, you may kiss it better.”
“Kiss it? Where, your head?” “You may kiss any part of my body you wish. I assure you I’ll not jump away from your mouth.” She glanced down to his groin and he groaned. “Especially not there.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, about what Magdalene did to Bart last evening. What all the women did.”
“Yes?”
“Do all men like it?”
“Oh, yes. I can assure you they do.”
“So you wouldn’t object if I wanted to try it with you?”
Justin gulped, hard and fast. Words failed him. He stared at her with his eyes popping and his mouth working soundlessly as he scrambled for the right words. If he were a civilized man, he’d reject the very idea that a decent woman, a lady like Chrissie, would go down on her knees before him. His mind swirled with the image of such an exquisite woman sucking on his aching arousal until his climax took him and he spurted in hot jets into the coaxing cavity of her mouth.
However, his reputation wasn’t for decency, but for depravity. The fact it was a mostly false reputation didn’t matter. What mattered was he should be strong enough to say no to such a bad idea. No, he thought. No, he told himself. Yes, he nodded. Nodded like an imbecile.
Her hands dropped to the flap of his trousers and fumbled there until he moved his own over hers to assist with the buttons. Pulling aside the flap, he grasped his shaft in one hand and lifted it clear of the cloth while she watched with a transfixed gaze.
Her small hand, still damp from her bath, reached out and moved his aside so she could wrap hers around his engorged flesh. The second she touched him, he heated and swelled, throbbed under the tiny pressure she exerted. He covered her hand with his large one and showed her how to move up and down in a slow rhythm upon him and immediately his knees weakened. No other woman had ever affected him in this profound and overwhelming way. Courtesans, wives, widows, and whores had performed the same act over the years and none had brought him to his knees. Yet now, he felt on the brink of collapse.
As one hand continued to stroke him, her other came up to touch his chest where his heart pounded so hard his ribcage shook. She stroked him there as well and murmured, “Shush. Let yourself relax for once.”
He opened his mouth to reply, to inform her of his noted calm and tranquility. Then he understood. Through her perceptiveness, she understood him. Knew he rarely allowed himself to slip into a tranquil state for fear of what might happen. Normally, he remained fully alert for the next disaster in his life. With his family, the estate’s finances, or the ownership of his properties. Only his closest friends realized the prince of pleasure rarely let himself be sucked into the whirlpool of pleasurable pursuits that he provided for so many others.
Letting himself go to that degree wasn’t something he was comfortable with. He’d learned early in life the only way to survive his father ‘s wrath and fits of extreme temper was to retain control at all times. To know where he was, how much money he had, who he was with, friend
or foe.
As he tried to use what remained of his rational mind to decide, she thwarted his plan once again by dropping to her knees in front of him. In a quick movement and before he could stop her, she engulfed him with her whole mouth. No tentative touch of her tongue to his throbbing cock, but a full- throated assault that robbed him of breath and of any semblance of reason.
“Jesus! Oh, Christ, that is unbelievably good.”
His body shook like a bough in the wind but he couldn’t control it, all he could do was clutch at her head. Not to pull it away but to keep it in that divine place between his thighs where her tongue slid up and down from the coarse hairs at the base to the tip where he oozed fluid. And not drops either. Like a green boy, he seeped hot liquid into her mouth with every suck on his length and he wanted to apologize, explain, something. The words froze in his throat. Her tongue flicked over the slit in his prick, around and around, until his head spun in a dizzy fashion and he was sure he would faint. Then she changed the motion and sucked, drawing him through her sharp little teeth like an expert courtesan anxious to finish with her customer. And be paid.
He had no idea how Chrissie knew all these tricks but some feminine instinct had seized her. She was treating his cock to the tastiest licking he’d ever had. Looking down at Chrissie’s flushed face and the ecstasy there as she edged him closer and closer to climax, it was difficult to decide into which category he should slot her. Seductress, temptress, or sedate widow.
Right now, kneeling before him as if she were indeed his concubine, she was as far from a sedate anything as she could be. He threw back his head as his thoughts scattered and the end surged upon him in a rush that he’d been unable or unwilling to hold back.
Thrusting clumsily into her mouth, he gripped her head to anchor it firmly in place and not allow any retreat as he felt the pulsing of his muscles and the tightening of his balls. His dick stiffened for the final assault and with a loud moan of release, he thrust deeply into the back of her throat and spilled his seed in an almighty gush that seemed endless.
