For Desire Alone

by Jess Michaels

  He reached between them, fitting his cock to her entrance and glided deep inside of her in one long stroke.

  John could scarcely see as stars flashed before his eyes. He had been inside a great many women in his time, but there was something about fitting himself into Mariah’s body that felt…different. Almost like they were made for this, for each other.

  He shook his head to clear it of that thought and thrust forward in the hopes that mind-blowing pleasure would make him stop waxing poetic. And it worked. His cock throbbed with every thrust into her willing and flexing body. She clung to his neck, staring up at him as her breath came in jerky pants and her hips arched with every entrance and withdrawal.

  She had already experienced an explosive orgasm, but he wanted to feel her tremble around his cock, to milk him toward his own release with the tremors of her own. He drove toward that goal, rubbing his hips to hers to stimulate her tender clit, making circles with each thrust.

  Sweat broke out in a thin sheen on her forehead and her gasps and moans became more erratic, proving he was doing his job. Finally, she dug her nails into his shoulders, nearly lifted her entire body from the bed and screamed out his name as her sex went wild with flutters and squeezes.

  His cock swelled and he slammed into her through her crisis, even as he built toward his own. He clenched his teeth, he held his breath and then he exploded in a fiery burst of pleasure and release. Her body milked every drop of his essence from his cock and he collapsed onto her and rained soft kisses on her mouth, her cheeks, her neck.

  For a moment, they lay like that, but then John flopped away from her, panting as the last vestiges of pleasure faded and left him, for the moment, satiated. This feeling never lasted, of course, but damn he did enjoy it for the short time he felt it.

  Mariah rolled over and placed her head on his chest, her own breath short.

  “There is one thing to be certain, we are good together,” she said with a smile up at him.

  He brushed stray auburn locks away from her eyes, which were bright and beautiful in the firelight. “Indeed, we are. I don’t think I have ever been so swept away as I am by you.”

  Her eyes widened and her smile fell. “No? But you have bedded so many women.”

  He shrugged but said nothing else. There was nothing else to say, really.

  She shifted and broke her gaze from his to stare off toward the fire for a few moments. Then she shook her head and slowly eased her body away from his. He reached for her hand.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, with more desperation to his tone than he cared to think about.

  She covered his hand with her own and smiled at him. “I’m dressing and then I’m returning to my townhome.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Returning? You aren’t staying here tonight?”

  She sucked in a breath and for a moment her face reflected worry and anxiety. “No,” she said slowly. “You and I are only engaged in an affair, yes?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Then we must keep up boundaries,” she said with a sigh. “I have learned that most definitely the hard way.”

  He stared. What did that mean?

  “And your boundaries include running away the moment an encounter is finished?” he asked instead.

  She lifted his fingers to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss there meant to soothe him. It didn’t work, but did the exact opposite, inflamed him even more.

  “It is very late,” she explained. “And I think it best if I don’t stay in your bed with you. It will only…complicate matters.”

  He pursed his lips. She was utterly correct, of course. He had never encouraged his lovers to stay with him through the night. He was always slightly annoyed if they insisted on doing so. But Mariah’s refusal to remain by his side somehow…irked him.

  She slipped away and gathered her things. She fastened her buttons and buckled her slippers with swiftness and efficiency he really didn’t care for in that moment.

  Mariah smiled as she finished closing her last button. John continued to lounge on the bed, hoping to remain nonchalant when he felt anything but. Keyed up and filled with tension that had nothing to do with sex was more like it.

  “Goodbye, John,” she murmured as she leaned over to kiss him.

  He cupped her face gently and drove his tongue into her mouth, daring her not to respond, proving to her, and perhaps to himself, that she still wanted him even if she insisted on leaving him. When he released her, she staggered back on unsteady feet and he smiled. There was triumph in that, at least.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

  She blinked. “Er, yes. If you intend to be at Vivien’s monthly masquerade, then you shall.”

  John’s lips pursed. Normally he loved Vivien’s parties that she held monthly during the Season. They were nights of pure debauchery.

  “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  She smiled, but there was something faded about the expression. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He nodded as she slipped away. But when the door shut behind her, he threw himself from the bed and began to pace restlessly. Tonight he had taken his time. Tonight he had given and received all the pleasure he knew Mariah could provide. And that should have sated his desire, faded it away.

  But it hadn’t. If anything, he was left feeling edgier than ever. He wanted her. Now. He wanted her all night. Every night for a week. A month. Maybe even a year.

  He sank down in a chair beside the fire and rubbed his eyes. “I’m in trouble,” he muttered.

  And never had he believed a statement more.

  Chapter Seven

  Mariah gazed around Vivien’s party with a stifled sigh and her friend slipped her arm around her and squeezed.

  “Don’t look so thrilled,” Vivien teased. “I’ll think I’m putting on the soiree of the century.”

  Mariah smiled at Vivien. “Oh, you know you have the best fetes, my dear. My expression has nothing to do with the quality of your party.”

  Vivien tilted her head and Mariah could see the question perched on her friend’s lips. One she did not wish to answer, so she continued swiftly.

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how you started having these monthly masquerades.” Mariah tilted her head. “You’ve done them for what…three years? Since you left your last protector.”

  Vivien’s face grew tense for a moment, but then she relaxed into a smile. “Yes, that is correct. I suppose I’ve always liked a masquerade. There is something so sensual about hiding behind a mask, being able to do any naughty thing with utter anonymity. I held one and it was such a huge success that the next month I held another. And then another and another and suddenly people simply expected that there would be a monthly masquerade during the Season.”

  She shrugged, but Mariah didn’t feel her question had been fully answered. “And what about the…other activities that go on during the masquerade?” she pressed.

  Vivien smiled slightly. “Ah yes. The back room. Well, my home has always been a retreat for pleasure, has it not? It seemed only fitting that during a masquerade there should also be a place for the attendees to slake their needs and share their bodies.”

  Mariah shivered and found herself gazing around the room to find John, just as she had been all night. He was standing with two ladies, both in masks, though one had allowed hers to slip down quite low to make it clear who she was. Lord Sunderworth’s mistress, a chit named Nadine or some such thing. She was a scatterbrainbut pretty. Exactly the kind of woman John had taken to his bed in the past.

  Mariah ground her teeth as she tried to tamp down and ignore the jealousy that was building within her.

  “I see you looking at John, but you two did not arrive together. Have you had a falling out already?” Vivien asked.

  Mariah turned away from him. She was being too obvious, clearly. “No, not a falling out,” she said, her voice strained. “Quite the contrary, our affair is…”

  She stopp
ed. There was no use voicing how powerful their connection was. Vivien would only scold her on endangering herself and her heart. Something she was not doing. Intense physical connection and intense emotions could be separated.

  They had to be.

  “I can well imagine you two are quite good together,” Vivien supplied. “But if that is true, why maintain such distance tonight?”

  Mariah sighed. “I told John that I must take the first few hours of the party to continue my search for a protector. So we agreed not to come together until midnight.”

  Vivien looked at her evenly for a long moment. “You realize it is quarter to midnight right now.”

  Mariah nodded. She had been well aware of every slide of the clock’s hand throughout the entire evening.

  “And I don’t think I’ve seen you talk to more than a few men during the time you’ve been here,” Vivien continued.

  Mariah swallowed. “Yes. Well, I have been particular in my choice of companions tonight, that is true.”

  Vivien arched a brow. “Particular. Yes, that is one way to put it. Another is that you have no interest in any of them. I can see you looking for a way to escape any time you are forced to be alone with any man in this room. And your eye has been wandering to John all night. When he stands with women, you look as though you’d like to slap someone. When he stands with men, you are disinterested.”

  Mariah shook her head. “Untrue on all accounts, Vivien.”

  “I’ve been doing this for years, Mariah. I know what I see.” Her friend caught her hands. “My dearest, I hate to point out the obvious, but there is still a game afoot here for you. John may be a worthy distraction, but if he will not protect you—”

  Mariah jerked her hands away and reached for a drink from the nearest footman’s tray. She downed it in one swig. “I know, I know!”

  Vivien stared at her, her gaze utterly focused on Mariah’s face. Her friend was reading her. Analyzing her. Judging her. And as much as Mariah hated it, she wondered what the far more experienced Vivien’s conclusions were. Certainly it was beginning to become harder to judge herself, perhaps she needed an outside opinion to really see what she should do.

  Finally, her friend patted her arm. “My dear, you should go to him.”

  Mariah’s eyes went wide and she staggered back a step in disbelief. “What? What happened to concerns and maintaining distance and needing a protector and all your other lectures?”

  Vivien smiled. “I stand by all my sermons. But there is something between you and John that has not yet been purged from your systems. And until it is, you shall be worthless to look for a new situation for yourself. So go to him, drown yourself in what he offers. One night won’t change much for you in your search. And if other men see you are the object of John’s attention, that can only garner you more interest amongst them.”

  Mariah shifted. She didn’t particularly like the idea of being with John for such a mercenary cause, but she shoved that aside. The fact was, she was being given permission to fly to his side and wrap herself in his passion. Something she wanted more than anything.

  “But—” she began.

  Vivien turned her around and gently shoved her in John’s direction. “Go! We will speak at length about the dangers and questions later. For now just go before you make yourself sick from trying to pretend you aren’t interested.”

  Mariah did as her friend ordered, gliding through the crowd toward John. She thought she might have heard someone say her name, but didn’t stop to seek out the person. All she could see was her friend, her lover, standing a few feet away, waiting for her. And as she moved closer, it was like she had been made lighter by each step. Lighter by the fact that she would be with John tonight.

  Consequences be damned.

  John had been pretending he wasn’t tracking Mariah’s every movement throughout the night, but he had been. Any man who stood near her had earned John’s scorn and he had been counting every moment until the offender left her side. When any one seemed to garner her attention longer than another, his heart leapt, and not in a pleasant fashion.

  But now she moved toward him, a smile on her face that was just for him, and he caught his breath in anticipation of the moment she would reach his side.

  He stepped away from his companion, who was midway through another empty sentence, and reached for Mariah’s hand.

  “Hello,” he said softly.

  She smiled up at him, almost shy in her expression. “Hello, John.”

  He wanted to kiss her, right there in the middle of Vivien’s ballroom. An act of claiming that he would normally never perform so publicly.

  But before he could do something so telling and so foolish, the lady he had been standing with stepped between them.

  “Why, Mariah!” Nadine said. “I had no idea you were here tonight.”

  Mariah pursed her lips and John could see she didn’t like the other mistress. “Hello, Nadine. How is Lord Sunderworth?”

  John could hear a not-so-subtle reminder in the way Mariah said the other man’s name and he stifled a smile. So she had been watching him with other women too, and disliking what she saw just as much as he had. Her jealousy should have been distasteful to him, but it wasn’t in the slightest.

  Nadine shrugged. “Fine, as always. He is floating about here somewhere tonight. We have agreed to find new partners for our fun and meet later. I was hoping John would be interested in joining us.”

  John cast a quick glance at Mariah, who seemed to be holding her breath. On any other night in the past, he probably would have said yes. Nadine was a pretty girl and Sunderworth had good taste, so he would probably pick an equally beautiful partner who John would also get to share. Any other night, that kind of empty erotic encounter would have seemed perfectly palatable.

  Tonight, it did not.

  “I’m afraid I have other plans,” he murmured, locking gazes with Mariah. “Though I do appreciate the offer.”

  Nadine looked between them and sudden understanding dawned in her blank eyes. “Ah. I see. Well, then I have wasted my time here. Good evening.”

  She turned on her heel and stomped away into the crowd, leaving Mariah and John alone.

  “You didn’t wish to take her offer?” Mariah asked in soft surprise.

  John shook his head. “No. The only person I want to be with is—”

  He broke the sentence off and stepped away from Mariah. What the hell was he saying? Certainly he had been bewitched by her eyes if he was about to admit that he wanted no one but her. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want only one woman. He never had and he never would.

  But now Mariah stared at him, golden stare flickering with questions and confusions. She knew his intention, even if he had bitten off the words. But he couldn’t be that close to her. He wouldn’t be.

  He leaned in and struggled to return to his normal nonchalant, erotic self.

  “My dear, I believe we should retire to Vivien’s back room. I simply did not wish to do so with Nadine, as she has never been a favorite with me.”

  Vivien blinked, tilting her head to explore his face as even more confusion clouded her expression. “I—you wish to go to the back room?”

  He nodded. “Of course. It is the most erotic area of Vivien’s home.”

  She swallowed. “I see. Well, if that is your desire, I will go with you.”

  He wrinkled his brow. She sounded as if they were going to be going to the hangman’s noose together, not to a sensual playground. But he wasn’t going to ask her about her feelings, nor was he going to share his. That was the bargain he had made with her and had already come dangerously close to betraying tonight.

  He held out his elbow and for a brief moment she hesitated, but then slipped her hand into the crook. She allowed him to lead her through the ballroom and down a hallway that twisted and turned past many parlors and sitting rooms. Inside, John could hear the cries and moans of pleasure from those who had forgone the back room and
decided to take their desires to a more private place.

  For a moment, he considered going to one of those rooms to repeat what they had done that first night together. But he didn’t. He had come too close to Mariah tonight. The best way to maintain distance, while still being able to touch and pleasure her, was the back room. It was the only way.

  A large door loomed before them and as John opened it, it revealed a big, open room. There was no furniture in the middle of the room, which was surrounded by a low wall lined on the outside by benches. Comfortable cushions covered in silk, satin and velvet were scattered around the floor in the center.

  And in the middle of this odd room ten people milled about. Kissing, touching, moaning in erotic bliss as they pleasured and shared each other in varying ways.

  On the benches outside the circle, individuals and couples watched the action. There were couples grinding against each other as they stared at the sexual fascination in the middle and one couple had even begun fondling each other blatantly as they stared.

  For the moment, John ignored it all and guided Mariah around the parameter of the room to a bench in the corner that offered a good view of the center of the room, but was hidden in shadow to give its occupants the highest degree of privacy. As he motioned to the bench, Mariah blinked at him in surprise.

  “I—” she whispered. “I thought you were going to tell me we must go to the middle of the circle.”

  Her voice was low, but John could hear the strain to it. She hadn’t liked the concept that he would ask her to join the others in the center of the room, to be pleasured and touched by strangers as the others watched them. And it wasn’t a generic dislike that showed on her face in the soft lights that glowed from the center of the room to highlight the lovers there. It was something more specific.

  But he didn’t ask her why. This was not the time, nor the place. He simply motioned to the middle of the room and the lovers there.