But her body refused to listen to reason. Her cunt swelled and wept with need. How many nights had she hugged her pillow tightly with her thighs, trying to assuage the ache for him?
How long would it take her body to forget him? She didn’t look forward to finding out.
“You have to forgive me, Beth.”
She folded her arms over her bodice and arched a brow. “Do I?”
“Yes, you do.” He grinned. More than a grin, it was a bone-melting flash of the boy inside the man. The motherless boy who had grown up with the stern, cold father. Fleeting as a heartbeat, it spoke to her of babies and booties and long winter nights spent snuggled up to a strong, male body in bed. Things she had never let herself believe in.
To break the spell, she shook herself and took a deep, fortifying breath. “I thought you were leaving soon for New York.”
“I can’t leave Philadelphia yet.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.” His voice, sensual and low, invoked memories of his tall, strong body upon hers, their sweat-slick skin sliding in crisp linen sheets. “Meet with me one more time.”
Her cunt contracted hard. The temptation to say yes was almost too much to bear.
She couldn’t possibly say yes.
But where would she find the strength to say no?
“I shouldn’t.” She heard the wavering in her own voice. It made her mouth go dry. Oh, God help her.
“Come and see me on Saturday.”
She trembled at the erotic promise in his eyes. Why did he have to be so blasted persuasive? At the sound of Charlie’s boots on the floorboards, she retreated from the counter, unsure if she was grateful for the distraction or if she suddenly wished Charlie to the devil for breaking the intimacy.
“I’ll be waiting in the lobby,” Grey whispered.
* * * *
Beth promised herself this was the absolute last time. A proper goodbye. Grey had insisted on taking her for a ride. Now the carriage stopped in front of a small but stately red-brick Georgian house.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“We’re going inside.”
“But I don’t want to visit anyone.”
“I own this house. I gave the housekeeper the afternoon off. We shall be quite private.”
She drew her brows together. “Why do you stay at City Tavern if you have this house?”
“Because until recently it was occupied.” He threaded his fingers through hers and picked her hand up. “Let’s go inside.”
* * * *
Beth allowed Grey to lead her by the hand through the dining room, passing by its glossy cherrywood table with the vase of pale pink peonies, and back into the foyer. Why didn’t they go to the bedchamber? That was why they were here, after all.
Light dotted the wall like rainbow-hued butterflies, drawing her eye to the sunlight sparkling through the crystal chandelier. “You keep this house, furnished this splendidly, and never use it?”
“I am using it today.” He embraced her from behind and nuzzled her neck. “God, but I have missed you.” His erection pressed huge and hot against her bottom. Then, abruptly, he swept her up into his arms. She squealed and clung to his neck.
“You’ll break your back!” she said, laughingly.
“You weigh nothing. You want fattening up,” he said, smiling down at her.
In the bedchamber, with his angular face hard with the determination of a man set to a delicate task, he deftly undressed her. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” he asked, all formality and politeness.
Moments later he returned, clad only in a black dressing gown.
He handed her a flat, rectangular box, his expression so serious she was almost afraid to take it.
“Well? Open it.” Boyish earnestness made his handsome face all the more gorgeous. All thumbs with the latch, she dropped the box.
He picked it up, unlatched it and handed it to her. She opened it. Inside, against plush red velvet, laid a double strand of luminescent pearls, small and perfectly matched. She traced her finger over them. She’d never touched anything so lovely in her life.
And she knew they didn’t come without a price.
Chapter Six
“I don’t need these.” She stared at the pearls as if they might turn into a snake.
“But I want you to have them.”
The edge in his voice made her jerk her head up. “Where would I wear them?”
“You could start by wearing them for me.”
He picked the box up, removed the necklace and moved behind her. Brushing the hair off her shoulders, he placed the strand about her neck. The pearls lay cool and heavy against her throat and collarbone.
He traced his fingers across her nipples. “See how erotic the pearls look against your beautiful breasts.”
She glanced down. His dark hand contrasted with the twin rope of pearls gleaming against her pale flesh. Her cunt clenched and wetness seeped over her inner folds.
“Come here.” He led her to the mahogany Chippendale dresser, then cupped her face and kissed her deeply. After several moments, he lifted his head and turned her to face the framed mirror and hugged her from behind. She’d never seen herself like this. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the image of her pale, petite nakedness and his strong arm latched about her waist. His dark head fitted into the curve of her neck.
He slowly pulled the necklace backwards, the smooth beads a cool, continuous slide along her skin. Snug against her throat, the pearls made an expensive-looking collar. He brought a hand to rest beneath them, at her collarbone. His other hand rolled the pearls against her back, a slow and steady silken sensation. Her nipples drew into tight, pink points, as if jealous of the attention he lavished on the necklace.
He traced the clasp with a fingertip, bringing her attention to it. She hadn’t noticed it before but the latch wasn’t a simple latch. It sparkled with fire. Tiny diamonds surrounded an oblong, deep blue stone gleaming with the slightest hint of violet. She sucked in her breath.
A sapphire—oh, but surely not real. No, it must be paste.
But he didn’t strike her as a paste kind of gentleman.
She opened her mouth to speak but he stroked her breasts in feather-soft circles, driving whatever she had intended to say out of her mind. Soon all she could do was long for him to touch her aching peaks but he seemed to be purposely avoiding them.
Finally, he brushed them with his fingertips. She whimpered for more and he gradually increased the pressure, pinching them between his thumbs and forefingers.
In the mirror, she watched his hand slide down her belly to the pale blonde hair at her junction. He traced her outer lips, an unhurried counterpoint to the urgent throb of his erection against her bottom. At the barest touch of his fingertip to her nub, she writhed, wriggling her bottom against his cock.
“Plead for me, Beth.” His voice was as smooth as sin.
She laughed huskily. She wouldn’t beg. At least she hoped she wouldn’t.
“You will,” he assured her.
“I doubt it, not this time.”
He sank two fingers into her, giving her what she needed. Pressure, speed—driving her into an unbearable tension. Any moment. Oh, oh, oh—any moment now. She caught her breath, closed her eyes, her mouth falling open, waited for the perfection to claim her.
He stopped and she remained there, on the edge of ecstasy. His large, warm hand rested lightly over her aching cunt. She pressed against it, rubbed. But it wasn’t enough. Her desire was too built up now. She needed him inside her, filling her up, fucking her hard. A moan escaped her.
“Plead for me, Beth,” he repeated, his voice deeper, huskier this time.
He was the source of all pleasure, all pain, all relief. She wanted only to feel him inside her. Whatever it took.
“Yes, Grey, please…please fuck me now.”
With the words still leaving her lips, hand on her neck, he nudged her to lean forwards. His muscular, ha
iry leg tickled the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and she opened to him. She sighed, anticipation increasing as the heat of his cock glided along the crease of her bottom, along her cunt to tease her nub. She’d never felt so empty, so desperate to have a man inside her. Moaning hungrily, she arched backwards. Would he never enter her?
He lifted her leg and bent it to the side, then his hardness filled her, stretched her. The joy of it made her catch her breath. He lowered her leg, then pressed his face into the curve of her neck. He pulled almost all the way out. She cried out and he thrust deep again, his hands squeezing her breasts with a glorious roughness. He nipped at her neck and moved in and out of her, a long series of hard, powerful strokes. In the mirror, she watched her body shake with the impact of it, again and again. Never had the sight of anything been so exciting.
His fingers brushed her nub, sending sparks of fiery pleasure racing through her, culminating in a swift and violent orgasm. She leant back against him, cradled in his strong arms with his lips pressing her temple while she waited for the world to stop spinning.
This was all that mattered. These stolen moments. Because it was all she could have of him. All she could afford to have of him.
He hadn’t come. She could feel his stomach muscles still tense with longing against her body, his cock still hard within her. The afternoon was just beginning.
He withdrew. “Let’s go to bed.” The passion in his voice resonated deep in her belly. He took her hand and led her to the bed.
She fell onto it sideways, sinking into a feather bed as soft as a snow drift. He took her ankles and drew her body towards him until her legs dangled over the edge. Kneeling between them, he cupped her bottom, lifting her up. Holding her breath, she watched him lower his head until his face almost touched her quim. He exhaled slowly, blowing warm, moist air into the pale blonde hair. His tongue stole out and flicked her erect clit. Her hips jerked but he held her still for his licks.
He sucked her tight nub. Ran his tongue round it. Grazed it lightly with his teeth. All the while she rolled her head on the pillow, her eyes closed, lost to sensation until her tension grew to a point close to pain.
She tried to thrust her hips, to show him her need, but he held her so she could not move. Her feet pressed hard into the feather bed, her hands fisted the bedspread. “God…Gre…” She shivered with need. “Please, oh please.”
He thrust a finger into her, then two, finding that sweet, sensitive spot and giving it repeated, determined, delicious pressure. She twined her fingers into his thick, silken hair and let herself go, pressing and spasming and creaming against those angular, patrician features.
When she came back to herself she was aware of his cheek resting against her mound, his fingertips tracing her hipbone.
The bed rocked as he moved.
“Come here.” He motioned to his hard-muscled midsection. “Climb on. I want to watch you ride me. I want to see your pretty breasts bounce while you’re wearing your pearls. I pictured it when I was purchasing them and it very nearly made me rock hard to think on it.”
She crawled to him, then straddled him, lowering herself until her quim brushed his straining cock.
Arching her back, she raised her arms above her head, displaying herself to best advantage. Aware the whole time of how he watched her, she leisurely lowered her arms, then cupped her breasts and pressed them together.
He motioned for her. “Come down here where I may pay proper attention to your beauties.”
Holding his gaze, she lowered her head and licked her own breast.
He made a pained face. “Don’t be a tease. Come here.”
“Beg me.” She licked herself again.
He grasped her hips and pressed his cock against her cunt. “Can’t you feel me begging?”
She shook her head with slow, deliberate motions. “I’ll need to hear it.”
“I could write you a bank note.” His eyes twinkled.
“Oh, no, that’s not good enough either.” She rubbed her nipples, closing her eyes, letting herself shudder and squirm on his erection. He throbbed against her and she moaned with exaggerated affect.
“All right, Beth, would you please, please bring me your beautiful breasts?”
She opened her eyes. He was grinning.
“These?” she asked, cupping them again.
“Yes, smother me with them.”
Leaning down, she let her breasts dangle over his face, teasing his lips with the erect peaks.
A desperate hunger seized Grey. He couldn’t get enough of the taste and feel of her hard little nipples on his tongue. Straddling him, naked but for those pearls, she was everything he’d imagined and more.
She sat back, resting her weight on her knees to either side of him. Her kiss-bruised mouth, the colour of dark pink roses, was open and laughing. “You will pay for that.”
“Will I?”
“Oh yes,” she promised, closing her eyes to slits as she moved backwards down his body, her silken mound brushing his belly. She touched his erection. Her fingers were soft and cool, and he caught his breath.
She guided him to her cunt and lowered herself onto him. He watched as she took his length inside, inch by inch. Her internal muscles tightened and an impulse to come at once made him grit his teeth. His hands tightened on her hips and he groaned deep in his throat.
Reaching backwards, she placed her hands on his thighs, stretching her legs until her feet rested on either side of his shoulders. Leaning back, she moved her hips, not just up and down but back and forth and all around, swivelling them like something out of The Arabian Nights. All the things one could imagine a harem slave girl would know.
The sensation of her hot, wet channel twisting on his cock—not to mention the way it made her breasts bounce and bob and move in circular motions—made his heart thunder against his chest wall like he wouldn’t have thought it could without damaging itself.
He should have known nothing would ever be predictable or simple with her. She could put her unique stamp on anything. Christ, the excitement was probably going to kill him but he didn’t care.
The sucking caress of her orgasm caused violent tremors deep in his balls that radiated outwards through his entire body. He shouted as the pleasure of his ejaculation ripped through his cock.
* * * *
Leaning against the headboard, Grey tapped his fingers upon the coverlet.
“You want to smoke,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. “Go ahead.”
Her perception unsettled him. He knew it came from experience with men. In bed. When he returned home, she would find other amusements. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
“I can smoke later.”
“Why should you wait?”
“Because a gentleman doesn’t subject a lady to smoke.”
“But I am not a lady.”
“I hold you equal to any lady I know.”
Sighing, she rolled away on her side, the soft, seductive curve of her ass moving beneath the sheet. He reached to caress it.
“It’s ridiculous for you to deny yourself the pleasure of a cigar just because I happen to be sharing your bed.”
His hand froze and he retracted it. How could she do this? Turn something simple like smoking a cigar into a statement of her self-professed lowly status in life. “Beth, don’t put this issue between us.”
She sat up with such speed the bed rocked. “I must go soon, anyway.”
“I know.” He traced a fingertip along the pearls, wanting to take her dainty pink nipples into his mouth until they were stiff peaks again. However, they had something to discuss.
She unlatched the necklace, slipped it off and handed it to him. “You’d better keep these.”
“I gave them to you.”
“I cannot take them home. How would I explain them?”
“Hide them.”
“In a house full of curious children, nothing can be truly hidden.”
“Forget this nonsense.” He tapped her hand with his finger. “I want this house to be yours.”
She blinked hard, several times. “Mine?”
“I want you settled. I want to go about my business and know you are safe and comfortable and I may come and visit you here at my leisure.”
She straightened her spine and squared her shoulders. “I won’t be your mistress.”
Her words stung. “I don’t know how to say this but you are already here, naked in my bed.”
“Oh, be very clear, sir, ours is a temporary arrangement.”
He scowled. “You are playing at semantics.”
“No, I am not. If I took this house, you would expect a tyrant’s rights. Your requirements.”
“I require nothing unreasonable. In return, I’ll provide you with a carriage and horses, a groom to care for them. A housekeeper and a personal maid.” He took her hand, turned it over and traced the reddened palm with a fingertip. “You needn’t be soaking your hands in lye like some lowly laundress.”
Her chin jutted out in a way that infuriated him. “No, I won’t be a slave to—”
“You’re making excuses.”
“Besides, if I lived here, everyone would know I was your mistress.”
“Another excuse.”
“A very valid one!” Her face flushed and her breasts jiggled. She looked magnificent.
She also frustrated the hell out of him.
He took a deep breath, struggled to keep his voice even. “So long as we are discreet, not many will greatly care. We would hardly be the first.”
“My family will care. If they knew… I couldn’t face their shame. Then you’ll tire of me—”
“Not anywhere this side of forever.” Unable to resist, he leant down and captured a rose-coloured nipple in his mouth.
She pulled away and hugged the sheet to herself. “Ha! Words! Gentlemen love to throw them around. They make life sound so pretty but they mean nothing. You would never come to my brother’s shop and ask to court me. Admit it.”
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