He removed his breeches and kicked them aside.
Her gaze transfixed on his jutting member, Penelope opened and closed her mouth several times. “This will not work.” Those words whispered more to herself roused a smile, and he came over her once more.
“I assure you, it will work just fine,” he whispered, taking her lips in a kiss.
“I d-do not see how that is possible,” she breathed, as he turned his attention to worshiping the swells of first one breast, and then the next. “You are entirely too b-big,” she stammered.
He’d always hated words. They’d been the one obstacle in his life that had proved insurmountable, evidence of his fallibility, his weakness in ways that would earn him the scorn and derision of every patron and worker who stepped foot inside this hell. Unlike Penelope, whose every word spilled forth with an unfettered honesty that stirred a tenderness inside he’d long believed himself incapable of.
“D-did you hear me?” she asked, tapping him on the shoulder.
“I am flattered, love,” he said hoarsely.
She shook her head dizzyingly against the velvet sofa. “You misunderstand. It isn’t a compliment, Ryker,” she said, as he slid down her body. “It is . . . It is . . .” Panting from her exertions, she shoved onto her elbows. “W-what are you doing?” He settled his face between her legs, taking in the midnight curls, damp with her desire.
“Making love to you.” The air left her on a hiss, as he slid his tongue inside her wet channel. He worshiped her swollen nub, teasing it, tasting it, until she was bucking frantically against him.
She gripped his head between her fingers, holding him close and thrusting up into his mouth. “Ryker,” she begged. The desperate entreaty sent blood surging to his rampant erection.
He yanked away, and her agonized cry spilled around the room. Ryker lay between her legs and slid himself inch by aching inch inside. Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes, as her tight, virginal channel closed around him, pulling him deeper and deeper into a world of pure sensation where he hungered to merge his body with hers.
“Forgive me,” he whispered against her cheek and claimed her lips in a kiss as he surged forward. He swallowed her cry, as her entire body jerked in his arms.
Agony lanced through him, and God help him for the devil he was, desire blared through his veins, and he ached to thrust himself into her over and over again until he spilled his seed.
“You were wrong.” Her chest moved hard and fast from the force of her breaths. A tear slid down her cheek, ravaging him with the evidence of her pain. “I-I told you, you were entirely too large to spear me.”
He caught her lone tear with the pad of his thumb. “Spear you?” Ryker fixed on her words to dull the need to move.
She gave a shaky nod. “That is what my m-mother called it.”
His head fell forward and a strangled laugh stuck in his throat, in the first genuine amusement he’d known in more years than he could remember. Mayhap the whole of his life. By God, she’d speak of her mother in this moment.
“Is this somehow funny to you, Ry—ahh . . .” Her words, his name, ended on a shocked, pleasured gasp as he began to move inside her. He rocked slowly forward, stretching her, accustoming her sheath to the size and feel of him.
Soon, Penelope’s breath was coming in ragged little spurts that fueled his movements. “You were correct. This is not at all unpleasant.”
“Did I say that?” he whispered, thrusting and withdrawing. Thrusting and withdrawing. And her hips fell in time to the rhythm he set.
“I-I think you did.” She closed her eyes and arched her back. “P-perhaps I was wrong.”
There was not a moment she’d not fill with words, and it only caused this further lightness in his chest. He pumped inside her, over and over. “Come for me,” he urged, needing her to find surrender, needing to join her in that mindless moment of release.
She caught her lower lip hard, and then her eyes formed round moons. Her entire body jerked, and then she came undone in his arms, in long, rippling waves of desire screaming his name; her surrender pulled him over the precipice. Ryker thrust once more, touching her to the quick, and then he lost himself inside her heat. He groaned, the sound ripped from deep in his chest, as he came. The depth of his release so great that pleasure merged with pain in a moment he wanted to last forever.
Gasping, Ryker collapsed atop her slender frame, holding her close. His breath came hard and fast. Never had he felt this mindless surrender with any woman, and he thought the terror lapping at his consciousness should send him fleeing.
She stroked her delicate fingers down his scarred back, in a soft, gentle caress that brought his eyes closed. Where was her proper revulsion and horror?
Ryker pulled out of her and shifted, bringing her atop him so they lay twisted about each other in a tangle of limbs, with her curls fanning about them like a midnight waterfall. He stroked his hand up and down the graceful curve of her back.
“I have never felt anything as wondrous as that in my entire life.” Her soft breath stirred the coils of hair on his chest.
If he were a man in possession of sufficient words, he’d have something more to accurately capture the bliss of making love with her, but he’d never have those pretty endearments that one of those fancy nobles would. Why did that suddenly grate?
Resting her hands on his chest, Penelope propped her chin on them. “It is odd, isn’t it?”
“What?” He continued to caress her back, moving lower to explore the graceful, arching curve of her buttocks.
“I should know so very much about you. I know that you taste of brandy and mint. I know that your eyes have flecks of silver that dance and glimmer when you touch me, but there is so much I don’t know about you.” She trailed her fingertip down the scar on his right side, and he shuddered at the intimacy of that caress. “I don’t know how you received these marks. I don’t know what causes your nightmares.”
The truth would shred her innocence. “You wouldn’t want to know.” His voice emerged gravelly. He’d married her to save the hell, but for all his ruthlessness, he’d not destroy her innocence as his had been taken from him.
Penelope laid her cheek upon his chest, and his heart thumped hard in response. “I expect you believe that,” she murmured. “I expect you want to believe that so you can keep me and everyone out.” Her eerily accurate words hit a mark that made his mouth dry. Penelope lifted her gaze once more. “But I do wish to know about the boy who longed for rock candy, too.”
All these years he’d believed himself invincible, only to now find he couldn’t meet her seeking gaze. Ryker let his head fall back and closed his eyes, needing to shove her back in her proper place. To keep her out, just as she’d correctly predicted. For ultimately, she was still a noblewoman—those self-indulgent people he’d spent his years hating for that self-absorption. He’d not forget thirty years of loathing for four days of knowing her. “Do you truly want the truth?” he demanded roughly.
Fearless as always, without hesitation, she nodded against him. “I do.”
“As a boy, I filched from houses, stealing the brass knobs from just-built homes. I was good at it.” Too good. Some men were born to be thieves in the street. “The man who raised me saw my”—his lip peeled back—“skill and quickly used me to filch from fancy lords and ladies.” People like her. The truth danced in the air, and she stiffened. “The man who raised me taught me how to be the best.”
“How did he teach you?” Her somber question brought forward memories as fresh now as they’d been to him as a boy of five.
His stomach churned.
“He’d have me enter a crowd in Drury Lane to steal from the peers there,” he continued on in his telling. To abandon it now would be a mark of cowardice. “When I had my hand in a lord’s purse or on a lady’s jewels, he’d raise a cry.” Sweat beaded his brow, revealing that old but always-with-him horror. The grasping hands reaching out, colliding with his tat
tered fabric, as Ryker had weaved in and out of those greedy lords. “One day, to teach me the value in stealth and silence, he had one of his men pretend to be a gentleman, another the constable.” The long-remembered horror of being caught with his hand in the bastard’s pocket. The sting of bile in his throat at being dragged away down an alley for a mock hanging. The noose about his neck, as he’d vomited all over himself. A hard grin formed on his lips. “My mentor staged a hanging, with a crowd of onlookers and all.” Since then, being amidst a crowd of people roused that same, cloying terror that had besieged him as a child.
“Oh, Ryker,” she said softly. She touched her lips to a puckered scar left by a bullet in his right shoulder.
Those long-ago stories he’d buried, ones that he’d not discussed, shared, or allowed himself to so much as think about since he’d established the empire in St. Giles, filtered back in through the door she’d cracked open. Where was her proper horror? The fear? The revulsion? He’d shared that glimmer into his past so she’d recoil as any proper lady would. Instead, she looked back at him with so much emotion spilling from those fathomless blue eyes that he didn’t know what to do with it.
“What of your true father?” His true father? “The duke?”
He stiffened. He’d taken not a penny from the man who’d given him life. Ryker’s association with that powerful peer had extended to the debt he owed Helena. “I don’t have any dealings with him.”
“He’s not disavowed you,” Penelope noted.
“No.” The duke’s attempts at being a father had come a lifetime too late.
“Has he treated you unkindly?”
Since Wilkinson had learned of Ryker’s existence, he’d sought him out and attempted to settle coin on him. “I never wanted nor needed anything he offered.”
“Was he aware you’d been sold to that man?”
Good God, she would not let go of her questioning. “It was his responsibility to know,” he growled, stilling his absent cares. Would she make excuses for him? Wilkinson had made Delia Banbury his whore, gotten a babe on her. A man of honor looked after his own.
Like a hungry dog in the streets with a bone, Penelope held on. “But he did not know?”
He shook his head.
“Hate will destroy you if you let it, Ryker.”
An incessant knocking saved him from her endless stream of questioning about topics he was content keeping buried. “Trouble on the floor, Ryker,” Calum called.
He cursed as reality intruded.
Penelope’s entire body colored crimson. He’d always despised those blushes as telltale marks of frailty. With this woman, it set his blood to a feverish pitch. “He knows we’re in here?” she whispered. She scrambled off his chest, and he went cold at the loss of her.
Another knock followed. “Ryker?”
“I’m coming,” he bellowed. Reaching for his jacket, Ryker retrieved a handkerchief and proceeded to wipe the stains between his wife’s legs. “Calum’s job is to always know where I am,” he said as he finished cleaning her. He tossed aside the scrap and quickly retrieved and pulled on his garments. Penelope sat up and huddled into herself.
Ryker grabbed her garments and tossed them to her. She quickly caught them. A frown marred her lips. “I do not want you on the floors because it’s not safe,” he said gruffly, giving her more reason than he’d ever given another person before. “It is my responsibility to protect you. People would seek to inflict harm upon me through you. Go to our room, and lock the door.”
Another round of knocking ensued.
“By Christ, I’m coming,” he thundered. With a final glance for his wife, Ryker stalked out of the room. The moment he stepped into the hall, he collided with Calum. “What—” He quickly took in his brother’s bruised cheek and bloody nose.
“Fight,” Calum said, panting, his chest heaving.
With a curse, Ryker bolted down the hall, Calum hot at his heels. Racing down the steps, he pushed past Oswyn, who stood on guard at the entrance of the private suites. The sharp cries and bellowing blended in a violent cacophony as patrons hurled themselves at other patrons.
Christ. The scene that greeted him better suited the violent streets of St. Giles. Men sparred, pounding their opponents with violent fists, while fancy lords searching for escape fought through the throng of bodies wrestling on the floor.
The same bloodlust that had run through his veins during any fight with Diggory’s men roared to life. With a shout Ryker tossed off his jacket and rushed into the fray. A garish dandy hurled another patron into Ryker’s path, and he caught the man, righting him.
“Where is Niall?” he gasped, as he separated two gentlemen taking turns pulverizing each other.
“Fight at the roulette table,” Calum yelled into the din, layering his back to Ryker’s as they systematically broke up dueling patrons.
As Ryker fought to restore order to his club, he cursed himself for having abandoned his responsibilities here, where he was needed. Where he belonged. All because of Penelope.
A patron shot a fist out, but Ryker quickly turned and the blow glanced off his cheek.
This is what comes from letting any woman inside . . .
By God, he’d be damned if he forsook his club and his strength—for any woman. Even the one he was forever bound to.
Ryker steeled his jaw and with a roar went to battle.
Chapter 15
Dearest Fezzimore,
I found out Pru and Poppy have been keeping secrets from me. I feel so very excluded. It is rude to keep secrets from anyone. I shan’t speak to them ever again.
Penny
Age 13
Postscript: Unless they apologize.
Post-postscript: And it must be a very heartfelt apology.
With Ryker’s parting words ringing in the air, Penelope struggled into her chemise and hopelessly ruined gown. The dress gaped open, a product of Ryker’s hasty destruction of the neat pearl buttons.
And as she poked her head into the hall to search for passersby, she felt that she really should feel a modicum of shame at wandering the halls with her gown hanging open. Instead, she warred with the delicious thrill of Ryker’s lovemaking and unease at the situation he’d rushed off to attend.
Noblemen visited their clubs. They sat in their offices, cradling a snifter of brandy, while they attended their ledgers. They did not make passionate love to their wives and then bolt off to attend a violent outbreak in their home.
Anxiety twisted away in her belly. For the truth was, she hated the idea of him putting himself in harm’s way. The scars upon his chiseled form spoke of a man who’d already danced with death too many times before. Such a man would never, could never, abandon that existence and become a typical lord in the country, hosting hunts.
Nor had she ever truly wanted that in a husband. She’d craved a husband who was passionate and who embraced the thrill of life. Penelope reached her chambers, and holding her gown close with one hand, she used the other to push the door open. She closed it behind her.
An eerie chill hung in the air, freezing her. Shivers of apprehension coursed along her spine. “Do not be silly, Penelope,” she muttered. It was merely the ominous threat her husband had raced off to face that caused this growing disquiet. She took a step forward, and Ryker’s ruthless lesson halted her movements. Penelope locked the door and made her way to the armoire. Garments without a proper home still littered the floor and furniture. Releasing her torn dress, she let it fall to the floor in a silent rustle. She gathered a simple ivory dress with puffed sleeves and struggled into it. Then stopped. A scrap of ivory vellum atop her pillow stood out stark on the flawlessly made bed.
Wetting her lips, Penelope finished slipping into her gown. That peculiar sheet beckoned, calling her forward. As she picked it up, goose bumps dotted her arms. Someone had been here. She glanced around, and then, unfolding the page, proceeded to read the unfamiliar scrawl.
Penelope Pippa Banbury-Black,
Allow me to congratulate you on your marriage.
She frowned, and continued reading.
No one in the Dials believed the time would come when Ryker Black bound himself to a lady. What a fortunate gent. To have a fancy wife, and his mistress living under the same roof.
Her heart started, and she stumbled over the words on the page. Penelope’s breath stuck in her lungs. What . . . ? She forced herself to read the final sentences.
Even a man of Ryker Black’s status, however, surely knows better than to let his mistress stand in as lady’s maid. Or mayhap you simply did not know?
Yours,
A friend
All strength bled from Penelope’s legs as the page slipped a sad, silent path to the floor. Her skin went hot and then cold under the weight of those damning words on the note.
Oh, God. Clara was Ryker’s . . . mistress. Her stomach dipped. Of course, she’d never considered a discussion on fidelity with the stranger she’d wed, because to her, when you pledged your name and made an oath, with that also came honor. She told herself this sick humiliation was the only cause for the hurt stabbing at her breast.
She’d unwittingly trapped him. She bit the inside of her cheek. It was why he would be so coldly removed and why Clara hated her. Penelope had thought of all the dreams she’d lost in marrying Ryker, but until now, until this note left by another, she’d selfishly failed to consider that there was another for him.
Clara.
And here was Penelope, hopeful for a future with Ryker, prattling like a naïve fool, worrying about the décor of her new home. She cringed. The décor.
A little sob spilled past her lips, and recovering the page from the floor, she rushed for her reticule and buried the note inside.
She needed to escape. Needed to be free of this pitiless home. Penelope yanked her door open and rushed down the hall. A sharp twinge of pain pulled between her legs. I gave myself to him . . . He’d laid her down and made love to her, stroking her and tasting her in ways that were surely a sin, and all the while it was nothing more than a mindless act for him.
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