by Suzi Love
He rarely kissed women, yet he wanted to wrap her in his arms so she couldn’t lift her mouth from his. “You make me yearn for things that can never happen.”
She rested her forehead on his and her warm breath fanned his face. He shut his eyes and blocked out everything outside their cozy cocoon.
Lifting her head she faced him, her eyes inches from his and met his stare with a depth of emotion that shook him to his toes. He was awed, amazed and yet tormented. “You believe the same, don’t you?”
Her face creased with pain before she dropped her gaze and shook her head, unwittingly teasing him by flicking her hair back and forth across his bare chest. Lifting her chin, he watched her expression.
“It’s in your eyes. Tell me, because for once in my life I’d like to hear someone express their true feelings and not tell me what they think a duke needs to hear.” He captured her tongue between his teeth and bothered it with his tongue and mouth until she panted. “Not false praises from paid companions on my excellence, nor buttered compliments from debutantes hoping to become my duchess.”
She caressed his face and pressed her lips to his. He liked the games they played with lips, tongues and mouths. Advance and retreat, until they quickly outgrew foreplay and he pulled her thighs apart with rough desperation and slid deep inside her, making them both moan and groan and demand more and more from each other.
From their first time together, she’d ignored his rule about kissing and had opened her mouth over his with no finesse but a bucket-load of love, until he craved the feel of her lips moving over his; craved the volcano of feelings she effortlessly stirred.
“Poor, Max,” she murmured. “Hasn’t anyone praised your bedding skills before? I lose myself and become a wanton woman with you, so I can’t understand why your other consorts didn’t applaud your obvious talents, especially when you arouse a woman with such finesse and then ensure she reaches her pinnacle long before you let go yourself.”
He sucked in a ragged breath. “I never allowed it before.”
Her eyes closed and she nodded. When she opened them again, she inspected him as if deciding to lay bare each of his dark and hideous secrets, like serving meat on a dinner platter. She silently encouraged him to share some his burdens with her in a way he’d never done before, completely and freely.
“I haven’t been paid to toss out accolades and further inflate your enormous ego, and I’ve been married off to a title and have no interest in bowing and scraping to a peer again.” She laughed. “I’m certainly not looking to marry again anytime soon, so I say this in all honesty. When you make love to me, with me—”
“No!” He replied by rote. “We share a bed.”
She shook her head and smiled. “You and I, Max, make love. Beautiful love. The reason I let you blackmail me into these meetings...” He raised his eyebrows. “Fine, I amend that statement.” She waved a hand between their bodies. “This was why I agreed. Passion, desire and lust. I wanted to enjoy myself, rather than be the novelty act. The chance for an unknown man to add another notch to his bedpost by deflowering a virgin.”
Max winced. “I’m sorry.”
She placed a finger over his lips. “Shush.”
He removed her finger and kissed the tip. “You may not want to speak of it, but the guilt still keeps me awake at night. I’ve been unraveling some of the mysteries from my teens, and there are things that concern you and questions I need to ask.”
“I know.” She sighed against his lips and he had to taste her again. Breathe in her scent and absorb her moans and sighs with his mouth. Feasting on her lips, tasting her body, had fast become an obsession.
“This,” she said, looking around, “is our sanctuary. Let’s enjoy what little time we have,” she begged, “because there’s certain to be a reckoning soon.”
She dipped her head to hide her tears but drops trickled through the hairs around his nipple and ran down his torso. Each drop cut like a knife blade. She shifted and leaned on his chest. “This respite will give me strength for later.”
He frowned. “What are you planning?”
“No, my darling. I can’t tell you, so please don’t ask.”
He finally nodded. Delaying their parting would allow more time to solve their problems with Lindsay. Legally, the bastard was in the right. Morally, he was lower than a slave trader.
“Only for a short time, but then I expect answers. Promise?”
She gave a sketchy nod and he mentally loosened the reins, but he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, let her run free for too long. Not when the danger was a man as unpredictable and unstable as Lindsay.
“I do like the idea of us being equal.”
She rose on one hand and studied his sprawled nakedness, as if standing in a lolly shop and deciding which sweet to bite into first. His shaft bobbed and she licked her lips. “Oooh, perhaps I’ll start there.”
Christ! No matter which part of his anatomy she touched, he wouldn’t survive, because they were both approaching foreign territory. Her cheeky grin showed the unfettered girl she’d once been.
“I want to do something.” He swallowed hard. “Do you trust me?” Unable to speak, he nodded. “Put your hands above your head and hold onto the bar. Don’t let go.”
His cock leaped to attention, quivering above his nest of dark hair. His cock’s antics made her smirk and all he could think about was tossing her on her back and fucking her until they both passed out from pleasure. He gritted his teeth.
“You want me.”
He threw his arm across his face and snorted his self-disgust. “Carrot-top, I always want you, no matter how strongly I resist.” He looped an arm around her neck and pulled her mouth closer. “I lust for you day and night.” He devoured her mouth. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”
He slumped across the bed, arms open wide in supplication. After gnawing her lower lip, she wiggled down until her face was level with his unruly dick. Her pink tongue flicked out to moisten her lips, making clear her intention.
“Christ,” he spluttered. “You can’t do that.”
She frowned. “Don’t you like it?”
He swallowed hard. “It’s ... it’s not for ladies.”
Her face lifted. “Do mistresses do it?”
He threw back his head and groaned. “I’m not discussing that.”
“Ah, so they do. Though I’m surprised you’d allow that.”
Despite longing to change the subject, curiosity won. “Why?”
“In drawings, in books, it seems that to...”
She waved her hand at his groin and flushed. He grinned at his intrepid lover’s struggle with earthy sex words.
“Ejaculate?”
She ignored his offered word. “You don’t like handing over the reins.”
“Huh! Am I so easy to read?”
“Only to people who know you well.”
“Few people know me.” He stared hard. “It’s not easy for me to surrender.”
“I know.” She pushed him flat and bent towards his groin.
Despite his alarm, he held his breath and waited. Many experienced whores refused to suck a man’s penis, so when her tongue touched his purple bulb of his cock he jumped so high he almost landed them both on the floor. She laid her hand on his stomach and eagerly applied herself, her mouth sliding wetly around and over his swollen head until his eyes rolled, and he flopped back and encouraged her to do more and more with his painfully engorged shaft.
Tentative licks had soothed, but now her long tugs stretched his size and made him wonder how much he could tolerate before he exploded. Teeth grazed the sides when she plunged and pulled back in a slow experimental torment that had him squirming and panting.
His hands dropped from the wooden rung and she stopped.
“Ah, ah.” She shook her head and he felt like a boy being chastised by the school mistress. “Stay still or I’ll stop.”
“Oh, God, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
&nbs
p; His ballocks tightened and his prick stiffened, ready to release. With what remained of his strength, he tugged her away. Sucking him off, swallowing his salty seed, wasn’t something he’d ever contemplate asking from Alice, and nor should he ask it of a countess.
She reluctantly allowed him to pull her upwards to meet his mouth. He poured his feelings and yearnings into the kiss and tried to roll her beneath him, but she refused. Seizing control once more, she straddled his hips and rubbed her dripping cleft up and down his shaft.
He obliged her unspoken wants by thrusting upwards and impaling her on his length. He’d never been so engorged before and every inch screamed at him to plunge deeper, until his shaft touched her womb and he claimed her completely. She gasped and he plunged inside again, setting up a slow and constant rhythm of advance and retreat until sweat ran from his brow and her teeth bit down on her bottom lip.
She leant forward and offered her breasts. The position offered more control than tossing her to her back, as she’d been afraid would happen each time at the inn. Nor would she feel trapped as when the Earl had uselessly grunted and rutted on top of her. He nuzzled at her rose-scented neck while adoring her breasts with his hands, rolling and tweaking her tight nipples until she threw back her head and climaxed with a long and loud scream.
Damn, but she was magnificent when she did gave herself over to her own enjoyment and forgot everything else. He loved watching her lose herself, knowing that he’d done that for her. Push her to such an exquisite peak that her screams echoed around the old plastered walls and rattled the used tea cups on their tray.
He pushed up hard to increase pressure on their joining and reached between them to tug on her swollen nub the way he pulled and tweaked her nipples. She spasmed again. Her walls tightened and squeezed his cock as tightly as when he used his fist for several months recently. He wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer. Every male part of him clamored for release. Begged him to let go. Urged him to claim this woman with his seed.
Circling her clitoris with his fingers, he varied the speed. Fast then faster, her sweet little bud twitched and shivered and orgasm sent her into another drawn-out scream. Her protracted climax pushed him quickly to the top and over. Thrusting hard and urgently, once, twice, and then on the third he exploded.
Endlessly, he filled her with streams of hot sperm and chanted her name over and over, uncaring if she saw his raw need for her and read more into it than he could ever say aloud. Release had been too swift and earthshattering to withdraw fully, and he’d be damned if he’d worry about that right now. Not when she’d collapsed on his chest, panting and gasping, and her small continuing contractions milked him of every drop. Dammit! He’d barely withdrawn and certainly not enough to be safe. Other times he’d tried to pay more attention until the last so he could protect her better, because she wasn’t a prostitute who knew a multitude of ways to prevent pregnancy. Or knew which East End alley to visit to rid herself of an unwanted babe.
She lazily stroked his chest and murmured, “Each time is better.” Her breathing evened out as she fell asleep, draped across his chest and breaking another rule about post coital behavior. He should quietly extricate himself, let her sleep, and leave, yet he couldn’t bring himself to abandon her in this place, their shared haven. The tiny house had felt different, more comforting, since she’d joined him here and he was loathe to break their intimate spell.
An hour later, he stared at the ceiling with Carina’s head tucked under one arm and the other draped possessively across her tiny waist. Her full woman’s breasts rose and her nipples beaded in the rapidly cooling air. He was half aroused already. Inwardly, he groaned. Would his hunger for her never be sated? He could almost laugh at his stupidity in thinking that he could use her body as unemotionally as normal, and that having her again after years of searching and not knowing would instantly cure his obsession.
Repetition normally left him grateful that a month’s end was in sight and he could pay his light skirt and send her away with good grace. To his bewilderment, nothing in his life was predictable any more. Exchanging banter with Carina was invigorating, rather than boring, and taking her to bed was playful and exciting, rather than calculated.
He shook her gently. “You need to return home before you’re missed.”
She sighed. “And you must dress for your evening with Alice.”
“We both have responsibilities.”
“Reality calls.”
‘I still don’t believe that our times together must end so soon. Why not wait until closer to my wedding.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re talking about keeping me as your mistress and marrying Alice in one sentence. If we’re found out, I’ll be shamed and shunned more than in the past. A soiled dove, or the other woman. I can’t do it.”
He held her in his arms and kissed her one last time, showing his desperation and need, yet his confusion was crystal clear to them both. Carina might be set on the righteous path, but he wasn’t so noble and, for the first time, he had no clue how to proceed.
Chapter Thirteen
Max considered the reasons Carina refused to commit to him and, as any good strategist does, envisaged the best way to change her mind. No woman had ever refused him, because, for better or for worse, he was Stirkton, blue-blooded and wealthy.
Widows and bored wives had strewn themselves in his path for years, until he’d become an expert at dodging entrapments and avoiding women who would disrupt his carefully ordered life. Men of less breeding jumped out of bedroom windows to evade enraged husbands, but he’d been taught how to sate himself with women without getting caught with his pants down. So he understood why a woman of Carina’s status refused to be the mistress of a married man, especially when he’d be expected to be dance attendance upon Alice for at least the first few months.
If he was a ruthless and despicable Meacham, he’d remind Carina that a woman sold several times had no right preaching to him about proper behavior, but in truth, he admired her ethics and felt guilty that his own conduct was blemished. Ironically, while Carina taught him kindness and compassion, she used his name and titles to elevate her sisters and didn’t care a fig if he was uncomfortable with this whirlwind of socializing, something he generally avoided.
He sprawled in a chair before the fire and pondered the unexpected twists and turns disrupting his heretofore straight pathway, uncertain if he was satisfied or exasperated. He poured a fourth glass of brandy, another oddity considering that he rarely over-imbibed. Alcohol muddled a man’s brain and he held a deep-seated fear of being pitied or looking foolish before his peers or servants.
Benson knocked and entered, carrying a silver salver holding a white embossed calling card. “Your Grace, Lord Johnston requests an audience.”
The last thing he wanted was his future father-in-law seeing him coddling brandy and reeking of spirits. Settlements had been discussed long ago, lawyers had had papers drawn up, and only final signatures were needed. Whatever Johnston’s concerns, they wouldn’t be pleasant because, apart from financial decisions, the man obeyed his wife unquestioningly. And he’d sensed that Lady Johnston wasn’t happy with him. He rose and adjusted his cravat, sighing inwardly at this unwanted interruption.
When Benson announced his lordship, Max forced himself to appear unperturbed and welcomed his unexpected visitor with a casual air, while silently preparing to defend his interactions with Carina and her sisters, if that was Johnston’s reason for calling.
He extended his hand. “Lord Johnston, a pleasure to see you.”
“I’ll come straight to the point. My good wife and I are worried about your relationship with Lady Dorchester, though we know you are old friends.”
“Yes, we’ve known each other for several years.”
“While it’s commendable to assist old acquaintances, it’s not acceptable for a man about to be married to devote so much time to other women. We realize you’re busy with investments and estate matters, but
we insist you spend more time with Alice.”
“Does my fiancée have any specific complaints?”
“Alice doesn’t know I’m here. Best to discuss this man to man before she learns about your frequent meetings with the countess.”
“Frequent meetings?”
“Yes. Before I allowed you to court my daughter, I naturally made enquiries.”
“But my grandfather had already arranged our match.”
“A father cannot be too careful with his daughter’s wellbeing. Circumstances change, and we want the best for our daughter. I’m a wealthy man, so money was never the deciding factor in our agreeing to give you Alice.”
“Of course not,” he said with a sneer. “Titles are far more appealing to matchmaking mothers than money.”
Johnston either chose to ignore the sarcasm or was impervious to it, and considering he dealt with Lady Johnston every day, perhaps the latter was true. The lady had a sharp tongue that Max took pains to avoid, but her husband would have no escape.
“Even your titles won’t protect you if there is a public scandal breaks concerning you and Lady Dorchester. I need your promise that you’ll finish whatever the two of you share.”
“Are you threatening me, My Lord?”
“I’m displeased at having to make this call to your house as I’d already made my thoughts clear to you, but if you ignore my warning I will retaliate. I realize that it’s accepted, and possible expected, for gentlemen such as yourself to take a mistress, and I’ve no objection to your liaisons at your cottage─”
“My cottage? Who told you anything of my private life?”
“I’ve kept a close eye on your finances and your personal habits.”
“You had me followed?”
“Only for a short time before your betrothal. Until I was satisfied that you’d not harm my daughter. However, watching you fawn over Lady Dorchester over the last few weeks has left me feeling uneasy. Very uneasy indeed. Fucking a courtesan is permissible. Ploughing Lady Dorchester at your cottage like any other courtesan is not to be tolerated.”
