by Joanna Shupe
“Pleasure. Yours, mine. Ours.”
Her fingers skimmed his chest, the digits desperate for another chance to map his sharp angles and thick muscles. “That sounds fairly generic. I pity your imagination.”
“You believe I lack imagination? My dear little innocent, my depraved thoughts would send you screaming from the room.”
She could barely breathe, the air thick with wanting. Run screaming? Not dashed likely. Besides, she was dying to know what constituted depraved for her high society lawyer. “Try me.”
The edges of his lips curled and he pulled her flush with his body. The hard length of him pushed insistently between them. His mouth rested near her temple, and air from his mouth teased the fine skin. “At the moment I am fantasizing about bending you over my desk. With everyone just on the other side of that flimsy door, I’d push up your skirts. I could fuck you through the slit in your drawers, keep things neat and tidy. But I want more. I want you whimpering and begging instead. So I untie your drawers and let them fall to the floor, your naked, glorious heart-shaped bottom tilted up toward me. I kneel behind you, spread you apart, and tongue your folds. I’d tease your clit until you were wet and ready, grinding on my face. Then I’ll stand and unfasten my trousers—”
She launched herself at him, her mouth slamming into his, their lips clashing in a brutal kiss. God, what he’d said . . . She was a melted, trembling mess of need. Where had he learned to speak like that, use words like that? Rather than shock her, however, it had turned her inside out. Between her legs ached, her body thrumming with the beat of her heart.
Blunt fingers dug into her skin, his kiss desperate and wild. So unlike the polished man who’d presided over their earlier meeting. She loved seeing him undone. Her hands threaded his hair, her grip firm as she pressed closer. This was madness, kissing him in the early evening with the entire office outside, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. His mouth was firm and coaxing, his touch a drug she could not function without.
When he broke off from her mouth, a sound of protest left her throat. They stood there, panting, for a long second, before he closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have started this. Not here.”
“Because the door is unlocked?”
“No. I turned the lock when Otto departed. I shouldn’t have started because I cannot possibly concentrate on work with you here, and I have too much to do yet before I can leave.” He took a step back and gestured at the erection in his trousers.
“Session number four, then?”
He dragged a hand down his face, groaning through a laugh. “It seems I must, unless you have plans to visit me at home later tonight.”
“I have an event with my family. The Kirkland Ball.” Likely it wouldn’t end until one or two in the morning.
He appeared crestfallen at this news. “You are dangerous to my peace of mind, Marion Greene.”
A heady power swept through her, the knowledge that he was equally wound up, longing for her as she did him. This was all new for her, so it was a relief to realize he shared this overwhelming lust as well. Her gaze drifted to the front of his trousers then to the desk. Craving and desire burned in her veins, a crackle that demanded satisfaction from this one man, a man she could not marry. However, they could enjoy the most of their short time together.
And really, where was the harm? They were two consenting adults who desired one another and the office building had been nearly deserted when she’d arrived. Was what he said earlier even possible?
Did people do that . . . on a desk? Then, she remembered one of Florence’s erotic playing cards. Substitute a sofa for the desk and Mamie suddenly understood how it worked. And the position had looked quite pleasurable, if the faces of the partners had been anything to go by.
I want you whimpering and begging.
Yes, but she’d have him whimpering and begging as well.
“This fantasy of yours,” she started and strolled toward the desk. “Have you ever done it that way before?”
“Here?” His voice broke in the middle of the single word. A telling sign, she thought.
“Or at home. Anywhere with a desk.”
“No, I haven’t.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “That’s a bit advanced, Mamie. I hope you aren’t thinking we could do that now.”
Advanced? Meaning, she couldn’t handle it? A tiny spark of anger flared at the base of her spine. “You know, whenever you tell me I cannot do something it merely makes me want to do it all the more.”
“I know, but damn it. You’re Duncan Greene’s daughter and I can’t—”
“Not this again. I’m tired of only being Duncan Greene’s daughter.” She held her skirts, perched on the edge of his desk, and pushed up onto the wooden surface. Papers crinkled beneath her backside. “When will you begin to see me?”
“Get off that desk.” The skin of his neck flushed a deep scarlet above his collar, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his breath. Mamie hid a smile. He liked her here.
“No, I think I’ll stay. Besides, there’s hardly any difference between this desk and a billiards table.”
“Perhaps I could spare time for a hotel. Let’s go now. There’s one a few blocks away. That would be more appropriate for you.”
“Again with your decisions of what is appropriate for me. It’s very, very tiresome, Frank.” She dragged her skirts up slowly, inch by inch, revealing her calves, until the delicate lace cuff of her drawers peeked out below her knees. “When will you learn? I decide what I want, no one else. No man—husband, father or otherwise—will make my decisions for me.”
“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, his bright blue stare focused on her legs. She widened her knees until her thighs were splayed open, still covered by her skirts, and he inhaled sharply.
“Still wish for me to get down from here?” she rasped.
“God, no.” He stalked toward her while removing his jacket. The garment hit the floor and then he was on her, his big hands cupping her face as his mouth slammed against hers.
Sweet victory, she thought and kissed him back.
Chapter Sixteen
He’d surely go to hell for defiling Duncan Greene’s daughter in his office, on his desk . . . but Frank couldn’t help himself. Mamie was too tempting, too stubborn, and he was too weak to resist her. I’ve always been too weak to resist her.
His hips wedged between her thighs and he pulled her as close as the position would allow. He kissed her hard, his hands moving everywhere at once, his brain unable to decide where to focus first. Desire raged in his blood, his faculties overcome with lust. So hard. So desperate.
He thrust his tongue in her mouth, needing to taste her, and she met him eagerly, tasting him right back. He groaned and, without thinking, rolled his hips into the cradle of her thighs. She broke off from his mouth to gasp, her head thrown back in abandon. “Do that again,” she pleaded in that husky voice he loved so much.
God help him, he did. He pressed the ridge of his cock to her core and dragged, the result a heavenly friction that had him seeing stars. Fuck.
He shoved the tiny jacket off her shoulders and down her arms. Even still, she was too buttoned up, too closed off from his hands and mouth. “I want you naked,” he said, kissing his way down the soft skin of her throat. “Spread out like a feast in my bed again.” He’d been able to smell her on his sheets for days and her scent never failed to get him hard as stone.
“I’d like that, too. I didn’t even get a chance to explore you the other night.”
His cock jerked as he pictured lying on his bed, naked, while Mamie touched and licked him everywhere. It scared him how much he wanted that. “I am at your service, madam.”
She hummed in the back of her throat. “Is that so?” Her fingers went to the waistband of his trousers and began working on the buttons. “Then may I explore you now?”
Could he stand it? He was practically ready to spend from just a few kisses and humping her pelvis. This couldn’t end too quic
kly, not when she’d granted him this unbelievable fantasy. “Mamie . . .” His voice drifted off as he watched her fingers. He needed her to both hurry up and slow down at the same time. I am losing my mind over her.
She pushed apart the placket then grabbed the fabric of his shirt to lift it out of the way. With his vest and suspenders still on, however, the effect was a lot of cloth in awkward positions. “You could help,” she said and brushed the back of her hand over the outline of his erection. His knees damn near buckled as pleasure shot up the length of his shaft.
He was beyond banter, past playing. His ability to form words had deserted him the second her fingers landed on his waistband. Quickly and efficiently, he removed his necktie and vest, lowered his suspenders, and drew his shirt over his head. She observed this quietly, biting her lip, her eyes serious and intense. Her fingers traced his sternum through his thin undergarment when he finished. “Mercy, but you are the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.”
He opened his mouth to return the compliment but her hand trailed south, toward his groin, and his jaw snapped shut. Dainty fingers unfastened the tiny buttons of his undergarment, which was all that separated her touch from his bare skin. Frank held his breath, anticipation crawling over him like a live electric current, and hastily undid a few buttons himself.
When his cock was released from its confines, Mamie wrapped a hand around the shaft, delicately, politely, as if afraid of hurting him. “It . . . looks so different close up,” she whispered. “Feels soft and hard at the same time.”
He panted, chest bellowing, as her gentle touch mapped him. “Grip it tight, sweetheart. Be as rough as you like. You can’t hurt me.”
“Like this?” She clenched her fist then jerked. Hard.
“Fuck,” he growled as pleasure exploded in every part of his body. “Yes, exactly like that.”
She did it again and his lids closed in exquisite bliss. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and tried to keep from coming after a few pumps like a teenage lad. But Jesus, it wasn’t easy. Nothing was ever easy with Mamie . . . and he loved it that way.
His hands sifted through the fabric at her hips. “May I touch you?”
“You are touching me,” she teased. “And besides, I’m enjoying having you at my mercy.”
“So you don’t want me to make love to you on the desk? Sink deep inside you and make you come?”
Her rhythm faltered and her free hand began helping move her skirts out of the way. “God, yes. Please.”
In seconds, he found the part between her drawers and reached hot, wet skin. “You’re soaked. I think you enjoy seducing me.”
Her teeth closed over his earlobe and gently bit down. “I think you’re right,” she whispered in his ear.
His balls tightened at the delicious twinge of pain and moisture leaked from the head of his cock. Not long now. Hurry, damn it. He slipped a finger inside her, stretching her until he could squeeze in another digit. Then he kissed her, swallowing her gasps and moans, working her clitoris with the palm of his hand, until she dragged him closer. “Now, Frank. Please.”
She guided the tip of him to her entrance and he pressed forward, taking care to go slowly. It wasn’t lost on him that this was only her second time and he’d rushed her a bit tonight, considering the circumstances. He’d be damned if she didn’t enjoy it. So tight, so hot. Don’t come yet.
Deeper and deeper, inch by agonizing inch. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The urge to thrust nearly overwhelmed him.
Then her fingernails dug into his hips and he was lost. He drove into her sheath, filling her, and they both exhaled sharply. “You feel so good,” he told her. “I don’t know if I can last.”
“Please move. I need you to move.”
The desire to pleasure her overrode everything else. He lifted her knees and spread her wider, and she braced herself with her hands on the desk. Then he drove deep, with enough force to raise her slightly off the wood. “Oh, God,” she breathed. “More.”
He couldn’t stop then, her pleas ringing in his ears, as he rocked his hips and dragged his cock in and out of her sex. It was pure heaven, unlike anything else he’d experienced, probably because he wanted this woman more than anything else on earth. If this was what he had to look forward to for the remainder of his life, he’d die a happy man.
Her walls contracted as her limbs tensed, the look of rapture on her face so alluring he had to bite the inside of his cheek to avoid spilling right then. He shifted a hand to brush his thumb over her clit. “Come, you beautiful girl. Come right here on my desk, in my office, where anyone walking by might hear you cry out—”
Her body began to spasm then, her core milking his shaft, and he couldn’t hold off any longer. His lids slammed shut as his hips faltered, the orgasm upon him then, fierce and strong, his knees buckling as semen shot from his cock. It was pure dizzying bliss, wave after wave of mind-numbing pleasure, his body emptying into hers.
They stood there, catching their breath, for a long moment. He’d finished inside her again, which was not a habit he wished to make, not without discussing it with her first. Children hadn’t been a part of his future, nor had marriage, but then he’d met Mamie. He liked the idea of starting a family with her when she was ready. He wanted to experience everything with this woman.
She shifted. “Ouch.”
“Oh, apologies.” He’d been standing here like a dolt, inside her, waxing poetic, not even considering her discomfort. The wood had to be hard. Stepping back, he tucked his semihard shaft back in his underclothes then helped her down from the desk. He smoothed stray strands of hair off her forehead. “Have I romanced you enough?”
She chuckled. “Any more romance and I might very well expire.”
“You know what I mean. Have I romanced you enough to agree to marry me?”
Her lips twisted into a reluctant smile. “Frank, I cannot marry you. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be.” She pointed to a closed door on the far side of his office. “Is that your washroom?”
He nodded and let her go clean up without arguing. In the end, he would emerge victorious from their battle of wills. For now, he would enjoy the fight.
Not long after, once Mamie had been seen off in a hansom, the door to Frank’s office opened. The other partners of the law firm walked in, en masse. Frank studied their grim expressions and braced himself. “Evening, gentlemen. Were we scheduled to meet and I forgot?”
“Frank, we have a problem,” James Howe said without preamble.
William Travers, the most even-tempered of the bunch, said nothing, merely walked to the chairs opposite Frank’s desk and sat.
Charles Thomas pointed directly at Frank. “You have turned the police force against this firm.”
Frank leaned back and rocked in his chair. “That’s ridiculous. What on earth makes you say so?”
“Evidence in my murder case has gone missing,” Charles snapped.
“And I was counting on police testimony in a trial next week to help my client. They’ve now recanted.” James put his hands on his hips. “And I cannot get any of the detectives to speak to me in any official capacity.”
“Two witnesses have disappeared, and one of my clients was beaten unconscious in a holding cell last night.” Charles looked at William. “This cannot go on. He has to drop this case.”
William held up his hand and faced Frank. “You had a run-in with Byrnes over this Porter case.”
Not phrased as a question, so his partners already knew. “One of Byrnes’s men is the cousin of the deceased. Byrnes asked that I step aside and allow the court to appoint someone.”
“Also advice we gave you weeks ago,” Charles said. “You told us not to worry—and now look at what’s happened.”
“Charles, please.” William never took his gaze from Frank. “Let’s hear why this case is so important.”
Frank laid it out as best he could: the abuse, friend of Marion Greene, self-defense, the children. Whe
n he finished, William stroked his beard thoughtfully. “This case is a request from Duncan Greene?”
Frank shifted in his chair. “No, not specifically.”
“What does that mean, not specifically?”
“Duncan has asked me to watch out for his interests, and I have interpreted that request to mean his family. Marion, specifically.”
“Are the two of you romantically involved?”
Frank paused. That was not something he wished to discuss, not even in the privacy of his office with his three partners. All of them were adept at keeping secrets, but admitting the affair felt like a betrayal of Mamie’s trust.
“Christ, you are,” Charles said. “She’s betrothed to the eldest Livingston boy.”
“The marriage agreement has not been signed,” Frank couldn’t help but add.
“I cannot believe you are ruining this firm over a woman.” Charles stared furiously at Frank.
“Now, no one is ruining anything,” William said. “Does Duncan know about you and Marion?”
Frank shook his head. “Not yet.”
William blew out a breath. “I’ve spoken to Livingston about this. Everyone considers the marriage a foregone conclusion.”
Except me and Mamie, Frank wanted to add.
“Let me understand this,” James said. “You have pissed off Byrnes and every detective in the police department, and you’re about to upset two of our biggest and most prestigious clients. Am I missing anything?”
“I am doing the right thing by our client, Mrs. Porter,” Frank said. “She deserves to be acquitted for this crime.”
Charles’s face turned a deep red. “You are jeopardizing our livelihoods for a low-class murderer who belongs locked up on Blackwell’s Island.”
“She’s not insane. She was a woman defending herself and her children from a violent drunk.”
“No one cares!” Charles blurted. “That happens daily down in Five Points. Those people are animals.”
