by Evie North
Gervais, who must have been expecting a show of gratitude or more likely naive embarrassment, laughed loudly.
“Do other women have such feelings?” she insisted.
“I believe so.”
“And do other men do as you did? Kiss my other lips?”
“Yes they do.”
Katherine’s lower lip stuck out sulkily. “What is it called, that...that sensation when you...when I...?”
“When you reached your peak. Your climax. Your orgasm. Your petite mort.” He tipped his head to one side. “You haven’t experienced this before?”
Katherine shook her head. She felt like a fool but she hadn’t known, had never experienced such carnal satisfaction. But he didn’t seem to find her silly—indeed he looked pleased with her answer.
“There is more I can show you.” And now he grinned wickedly at the sudden glitter in her blue eyes. “Much more. We have all night, Katherine.”
“Until cock crow,” she whispered.
“Until cock crow.”
Katherine didn’t know whether to feel hard done by or excited. Edward’s actions had landed her here in Newgate, yes, there was that, but now to learn that such delight could be had from a man... All she had ever experienced before was rough handling, a few moments beneath a heaving, panting man with ale sour breath, and then an unpleasant wetness against her thighs. To protest, she’d soon found, was pointless. Edward had enjoyed hurting her almost as much as he enjoyed bedding her, and any objections she’d raised had only made him more keen.
She had always thought it was her fault, because she didn’t love him. Katherine had gone to Edward because of her father. After her mother died he had fallen in with a bad crowd, gambling and getting further and further into debt with Edward and the whole Prime family. Then one day he had come home and told her that if she agreed to be Edward’s mistress they would wipe clean his debts. It seemed that her beautiful face had captured Edward Prime’s heart and he’d made the offer despite his family’s objections.
What could she do?
She should have hated her father but she pitied him and his fall from grace, and at first Edward had not seemed so bad. She’d half thought he might marry her, and before her father died he’d promised he would. She’d hoped at least then she would be an honest woman, but Edward’s family had been against marriage from the start.
As their time together went on—she was with him for two years in all—Edward had become very possessive of her. He’d set her away from all others, calling her his property, keeping her well away from the customers at his inn. His family complained she did not do as much work as she should, but as always Edward had his way.
She hadn’t known Edward was in debt, that he owed money all over London. He’d never told her anything. She hadn’t known until he’d disappeared one night and left her to the tender mercies of his family. They hadn’t taken long to dispose of her, blaming her for Edward’s fall, and sending her off to Newgate.
The debt wasn’t hers, and if she’d had a lawyer perhaps, to help her fight the injustice of it, she might have escaped her current fate. But she’d had no one. No champion to fight for her, no person in authority to stand up for her. She was a ruined woman, cast out and abandoned by her lover’s family.
And now, in barely the time it had taken for a candle to burn down an inch, Gervais Hawley had shown her what her life could have been like if she’d chosen a different man. A man who cared for her. Who loved her.
“Why did you ask for me?” The question spilled out of her.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I saw you. You are beautiful. Why not?”
Katherine wasn’t satisfied with the answer but she supposed she couldn’t expect anything more. What did she want? A vow of undying love from a man about to be hanged? She was being foolish.
Make the most of this night, a voice whispered in her head. Take what you can. Because who knows what tomorrow will bring for you?
Getting to his feet, Gervais stretched his arms above his head. Katherine found herself admiring his lithe, powerful form with new eyes. This man, this body, would take her soon. He would be joined with her, giving her pleasure, and she realised, amazed at her own daring, that she was impatient for it.
The warm ache in her breasts returned, and now that she knew what it meant she reached down, as if to touch.
But she was not quite that brave. A wave of self- consciousness washed over her, so that instead she reached to pull her torn gown more modestly about herself.
But he noticed.
“Stay as you are,” Gervais said, and she read it as a command despite the silkiness of his voice. “Don’t move, Katherine,” he added firmly. “I want to look.”
Again his heated gaze slid over her naked body and Katherine experienced that heat as if he were touching her once more. She felt adrift, out of control, and it was too much for her. Things were moving too fast. Was this modest Katherine? Was this the woman she’d thought she knew? Grasping the torn cloth, she pulled it about her as she stood up. Her loose hair cascaded around her, adding another shield against his ability to disconcert.
“You must learn to do as you are told,” he said in a way that warned her he meant to be obeyed.
She turned away from his gaze, refusing to answer.
“Come here, Katherine.”
“No.”
“Come here!”
Suddenly his hands spanned her waist and pulled her around to face him. She stumbled, almost falling, but before she could protest he was peeling her ripped gown from her body so that it fell to the floor and once again she stood entirely naked.
“Better,” he purred with satisfaction. “Much better. It should be against the law to hide such loveliness.”
Katherine swallowed. She glanced at him sideways to see if he was teasing, but his face was taut, and even someone as innocent as she could read the desire in his slitted eyes.
She’d agreed to this bargain between them. She knew she must endure. But if enduring was supposed to be a brave and noble thing, then she wasn’t enduring at all. Instead she was revelling in this. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted to curl herself about him. She wanted whatever he was willing to give her.
Gervais Hawley had touched something inside Katherine she hadn’t known existed, and now that she did... She shuddered, but not from the cold. The ache was back in her breasts, between her legs where he had sucked and licked. His gaze on her was doing that, driving her desire up and up to an uncomfortable pitch.
The truth was that this night, until cock crow, she would willingly lose herself in the pleasure this man, this stranger, could give.
5
He grasped her hand and as she watched wide-eyed he placed it upon the triangle of bare flesh where his shirt lay open. Her fingers were folded over and gently but firmly he unfolded them, so that her palm and fingers were flat against him. Against his warm skin, faintly rough with its sprinkling of dark hairs.
And then he drew her hand down slowly, ever so slowly, over the soft cloth of his shirt, down to his hard, lean stomach, and then down to the waistband of his trousers. Her heart was beating fast now, her head dizzy again, and the ache between her legs was too pronounced to ignore.
She could plainly see the bulge in his trousers where his male member was pressing. She remembered the hard unpleasantness of Edward penetrating her in the darkness of their bed, but this was different. With this man there was a sense of excitement and anticipation. Of want.
Of need.
It was Katherine who, without prompting from Gervais, let her hand drop lower. It was Katherine who brushed her fingers back and forth across the straining cloth of his trousers, exploring the hard shape of him, and then—so daring she could hardly believe it herself—it was Katherine who reached for his buttons.
But at the last moment her doubts returned and she hesitated.
Gervais bent his head until his forehead rested on hers. She could see the rise and fall of his ch
est, hear the ragged rasp of his breath. She had done this to him with her touch and doubt was overrun by a new sense of excitement and confidence.
He was speaking to her with words that dared her, commanded her. “Touch my cock, Katherine. Hold me in your hands, stroke me, use me as you will. Tonight is ours, and tomorrow I will be gone.”
His words reminded her of his fate but they also freed her. He was right. She could do as she willed. What did it matter? Everything would come to an end in the morning and who would care then what she did tonight?
Trembling, working mostly by feel, she began to undo his buttons while he murmured encouragement.
And then her hands were full of him, his cock, velvet- covered on the outside, hard and hot on the inside.
She wanted to see. Even after two years as mistress to Edward she had never seen. His rough taking of her in the darkness, the haste and the pain, had not encouraged her to seek such intimacies. Now she sank to her knees before Gervais, taking in the shape and size and colour, letting her fingers trail over him, fascinated by her discoveries.
In her excitement she’d forgotten her own nakedness but it seemed he had not. His cock hardened even more, rearing up against his belly, and she saw the drop of moisture at its tip. With one finger she smeared the droplet around the head. His cock jerked toward her as if it was on a string, and she stroked down the length of him, cupping her palm and fingers around him.
“You are killing me,” he said through gritted teeth, and reached down to catch her in his arms, drawing her up against him.
She gasped as he pulled her close, his hands squeezing the flesh of her bottom as he dragged her hips toward his own. “Sir? I thought...I thought you wanted me to touch you.”
“Yes, you minx, so I did.”
His voice was a growl but his dark eyes shone with amusement, and she smiled up at him. He groaned. “I want you. I have to have you.” The words were hardly out before he’d swung her up into his arms and, clasping her to his chest, strode purposefully across the room.
There was a bed.
She hadn’t seen it before, there in the shadows, all but hidden by the thick embroidered curtains that surrounded it. He tossed her down upon the feather mattress with its sumptuous coverings. He was still dressed, and now he wrenched off his shirt, before tugging off his boots and then pushing his trousers down over his thick-muscled legs.
His body was so different from her own, but Katherine didn’t get a chance to look properly. His heavier weight as he threw himself onto the mattress caused her to roll toward him. He took advantage of this and captured her in his arms. She wasn’t averse to being held, but then he was placing his larger body above hers, pinning her in place as if she was his prisoner. When he stretched her hands out above her, she stared up at him with an excitement and trepidation that made her breath quicken and her blood heat.
He gazed down at her, his dark eyes full of the promise of pleasures to come.
“I want you,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered, thinking he might need an answer.
He began to suck upon her nipples, making her body tremble, and sending a bolt of desire from her breasts to between her legs. She wanted to squeeze her thighs shut, create a pressure that would release the tension and give her the pleasure she knew now was possible. But his thigh was between hers as he straddled her, the hard muscles and hair-roughened skin foreign to her own soft flesh and at the same time exhilarating.
He’d released her arms long ago but she hadn’t moved to cover herself. She lay spread before him. His hand covered her mound, exploring the soft curls that grew there, causing her to move her hips, to invite him to go further and to cool her growing heat. And then at last—her breath sighed out—his fingers parted her lips and began to delve in the warm, wet slit of her body. He slid them up and down, stroking the hard little pearl, and with each stroke the pleasurable feelings within her grew.
Her thighs fell open of their own accord and he was lying between them, on top of her, his warm body pressed to hers. She felt his cock at her entrance. The heat of him, the thick length, nudging inside her. A little at first, before withdrawing, and then he was back, pushing in a little more. And more. Until she was full of him, stretching to aching, and yet not wanting him to stop.
She tilted her hips and took more of him inside her, so deep it was almost uncomfortable.
He reared up, resting on his hands that he’d planted on either side of her head. “Look,” he growled. “Look at us.”
Her gaze followed his and she saw what he meant. His cock, gleaming from her wetness, sliding in and out of her body, slowly, measuredly. The sight was so erotic she whimpered and involuntarily pushed toward him, allowing him to go deeper still.
Gervais groaned. She matched his movements and he began to drive into her more quickly, increasing his pace. She responded, fastening her hands about his upper arms, anchoring herself as his heavy thrusts pushed her up toward the pillows.
The pleasure was building again, the same as before, but different too. The fact that he was a part of it this time, that he was showing her his own pleasure, increased her own. She could hear her voice, little wordless cries, and his voice joining in, a deeper, almost savage note. And then the bliss drenched her and she flew.
Gervais waited a moment, watching her beautiful face regain its calm, watching the damp sweat dry between her breasts, and then he thrust again. A single hard thrust deep inside her wet sheath. He could feel every inch of her, the heat, the trembling muscles, the way she gripped him. And now she was looking at him in wonder. She’d thought it was over. He chuckled at her expression, though what he really wanted to do was pound into her until he exploded. But this was his last night. The only night he’d ever have with her. And he wanted it to last.
So he thrust again, slowly, savouring each long stroke, watching her surprise and wonder turn again to ardour. And as his thrusts grew quicker and deeper, she pushed back, catching his rhythm, until at last he could hold back no more.
Pleasure overwhelmed him, blinding him, taking away everything but the miracle of his seed spilling into her. He gave a shattered cry of triumph and wondered if he’d ever be the same again, as her soft cry echoed his and they held each other in the warm shadowy world of his bed.
6
While Katherine slept beside him, Gervais allowed his thoughts to drift back to his undoing and to the events that brought him to this place and this night.
He had been on Hounslow Heath on that fateful day, where the Great Western Road left London, and where he had a clear view of any approaching coach. Until now it had all been a bit of a lark, a bit of fun, a dare. But on that night he’d found himself wondering about his choice of entertainment.
He’d always liked danger. All of them did; Gervais and his two brothers, and probably their father too. Why else go to India if not for the danger and the adventure? There was no need for the money—the family had enough wealth that they never needed to worry about money—although the earl had done very well with his Indian connections.
Their mother had died when Gervais was very young and he barely remembered her. While their father, the Earl of Mortmain, was away, his boys, under the care of easily manipulated governesses, had been allowed to run wild. It was rare for any of them to be caught out in an offence serious enough to bring their father home and they almost always remained unpunished for their misdeeds.
Even as adults, Gervais and his brothers were still running wild.
And so the curtain rose on the final act, here on Hounslow Heath, where Gervais was waiting for a coach. He was a gentleman, a wealthy gentleman, and he was playing at being a highwayman. Not because he needed the money but because he needed the rush of danger the act of holding up a coach provided him. He rarely took anything, though sometimes a kiss if the lady seemed willing. He told himself it was harmless, a way of satisfying his craving for danger, but tonight it occurred to him that he was playing a very risky game.
A sense of doubt, a kernel of worry, was niggling at him. Was it because his partner in crime hadn’t arrived? Yesterday they’d met at the small coaching inn on the edge of London, where their partnership had been formed during a chance encounter. One of the coaches Gervais had waylaid had stopped at Edward’s inn. An outraged husband had described their accoster— although his wife, from whom the kiss had been stolen, seemed happy enough to keep silent. Edward remembered that Gervais, in his guise as the gentleman ‘highwayman’, had stopped at the inn for a tot of rum, before riding off onto the heath to steal the kiss. The next time Gervais stopped by Edward had taken him aside and offered information on the coaches that passed to and fro from his inn, in return for becoming Gervais’s cohort.
Gervais sensed Edward was in somewhat-desperate straits. That was why he preferred wealthy travellers, and unlike Gervais took everything they had to offer. He had gambling debts and to pay them off had borrowed money from the sort of people who thought nothing of cutting a man’s throat if he were slow to make his repayments. Edward told him this once but the next moment he’d denied it, so Gervais wasn’t sure. Didn’t Edward run the family inn? Wasn’t he the beloved only son of a doting mother and proud father? But there was a dark, mean streak in Edward that Gervais had seen on occasion which made him more and more doubtful about his choice of partner in crime.
This particular day the inn was busy—horse-drawn vehicles came and went, and guests crowded into the dining room. Edward had taken him to a smaller room at the back, where they could speak in private. He seemed in a particularly unpleasant mood. He said he wanted to take more than one coach the following night, to double his profits, while Gervais felt one was more than enough.
As they argued Gervais happened to look up. Edward hadn’t closed the door properly, and through the gap he saw a woman in the other room. It was a parlour for the guests and appeared to be empty at the moment, apart from the woman.
