“I dare say they will not be able to show their faces in London again if they do remember,” Adolphus muttered.
He watched the madness that followed the wine being opened and glasses being passed around with a frown, but Eliza could tell something about him had changed. She feared she knew what it was, and as much as she delighted in the fact that he’d been triumphant in apprehending Henry for his crimes, she also knew what that meant.
“Will you return to London to hand Henry over to the authorities and to see to his trial?” she asked in a subdued voice, considering the growing volume of the party.
Adolphus dragged his eyes away from the revelers—and those members of the party who lingered around the edges of the room, shocked and, in Lady Malvis’s case, disgusted by the debauchery that was unfolding—and stared hard at Eliza. She could see his thoughts whirring behind his expression, could feel the tension pulsing through him.
“It would be jolly if you could stay a bit longer,” she said, hating how vulnerable she sounded. She’d only really just found him, after all. She’d never known a man who saw her in such a favorable light before, and for what she was certain were selfish reasons, she wasn’t ready to let him go.
He opened his mouth, and she braced herself for a world of excuses and reasons he had to leave her. If he left, she knew she would never see him again. But to her surprise, he shut his mouth, clenching his jaw for a moment, then grasped her hand and led her out of the room.
Eliza’s heart sank farther. Surely, the only reason he could have to take her aside was to tell her things that would disappoint her, as she’d always been disappointed in the past.
She was taken utterly by surprise when, the moment they left the grand parlor and its revelries, Adolphus spun her into his arms and closed his mouth over hers in a kiss that left her head spinning and her body throbbing with sudden arousal. He pressed her against the wall, reaching for her leg and lifting her knee up over his hip. The entire, sudden movement left Eliza giddy with excitement and banished the worst of her fears.
“I’ve never kissed someone in breeches before,” he said breathlessly, stroking a hand up her side to cup her breast. “I rather like it.”
“I must confess that I have kissed someone in a dress before,” Eliza said, glancing mischievously up at him.
Adolphus froze, the fire in his eyes reaching a smoldering height. “You…have?”
Eliza shrugged nonchalantly. “I was locked away in an all-girls school for quite some time.” She left her explanation there, leaving it to his imagination to determine how extensive her experiences had been.
He continued to study her with a look of fiendish desire for a moment before swooping in to steal another punishing kiss. It was pure madness for Eliza to enjoy his aggression so much when male aggression had led to so much heartache in the past, but coming from Adolphus, it was a temptation and a challenge, not a demand for submission. He might manhandle her, but she would be as safe as a kitten in his hands, and she would purr just as loudly for him.
She was half convinced that he would tug her breeches down her thighs, spin her around, bend her over one of the decorative tables in the hallway and take her from behind, but as news of the treasure being found reached the other guests, more and more people were marching through the halls.
“Not here,” Adolphus growled against her ear, as though he, too, were thinking the same thing. He pushed away from the wall, took her hand, and led her toward the stairs.
Ophelia and Mr. Khan were two of the people rushing down the stairs as Eliza and Adolphus headed up. “Has the treasure been found?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes,” Eliza told her, even though Adolphus pulled her on without breaking stride. “And Miss Ivy was found as well. Henry has been taken into custody and Lady Rothsay—oh!” She yelped as Adolphus lifted her into his arms and doubled the speed with which he charged up the stairs.
Eliza only barely caught sight of Ophelia clapping a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter as Adolphus marched around the corner onto the upstairs hall. He moved with purpose, managing the increasingly loose folds of his costume dress’s skirt, toward his bedroom.
The moment he reached the room, practically kicking the door in, and set Eliza on her feet once more, he tore at the silly dress. Its ties had already come loose in back and the whole thing fell away like a cobweb swatted out of a corner. But he didn’t stop there. He went to work straight away on the buttons of his coat and waistcoat, which he hadn’t had a chance to remove before the play.
“Oh, dear, you do look serious,” Eliza said, backing playfully away from him toward the bed. “Or perhaps this is a lesson on how one removes a coat and breeches?” She arched an eyebrow, then glanced down at her costume.
She reached for the buttons of her doublet, but Adolphus stopped her with a loud, “Don’t.”
Eliza was so startled—and aroused by the dark look of command he sent her—that she dropped her hands instantly to her sides.
“I want to remove those myself,” Adolphus went on, tossing his coat and waistcoat aside.
He continued his own process of undressing by yanking loose his cravat and throwing it to the floor, then tugging his shirt out of his breeches and over his head with such force that a button popped off. The sound of it hitting the wall then bouncing on the floor should not have turned Eliza’s cunny to molten need, but it did.
Or perhaps it was the sight of Adolphus’s broad, powerful chest. His muscles rippled as he bent to pull off his boots. Every inch of him was pure masculinity, even the abrasions on his knuckles and the bruise forming on the side of his face from where he and Henry had brawled. It was pure madness to be enticed by those signs of aggression instead of frightened by them, but they were simply more symbols of the ferocity with which Adolphus would protect her.
By the time he straightened and worked open the front of his breeches, staring at her with a look of outrageous lust as he did, Eliza was so hot under her doublet and breeches that she ached to be freed from them. When he let the falls of his breeches go, pushing the restrictive garment down over his hips so that his thick cock leapt straight up, she was so overcome that she sat heavily on the side of the bed.
“This is no time for rest,” Adolphus said, stepping out of his breeches and kicking them aside. “Rest is the very last thing I have in mind for you.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice trembling.
He stalked toward her, so intimidating when he reached her that she flopped to her back on the bed. He planted his hands on either side of her and leaned close to say, “You have played your last game with me, Lady Elizabeth Towers.” His use of her full name caused her sex to squeeze and ache to be filled. “You will marry me.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. The only answer she could give was a long, sensual sigh.
Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for him. He rocked back, taking hold of her half-soaked shoes and prying them off her feet. Once they were gone, he undid the buttons of her breeches and tugged them from her legs in one, smooth motion. The sudden swirl of cool air around her legs and hips did nothing to return her powers of speech, though. Neither did the way he took hold of her ankles and wrenched them apart, forcing her to bend her knees and open her legs wide to him. If the feeling of air against her legs left her breathless, the sudden coolness against her gaping sex left her groaning.
“You will marry me,” Adolphus repeated, sliding one hand down her thigh and stroking his fingers across her wet entrance, “or I will never put my cock inside of you and stretch you until you weep with pleasure ever again.”
Eliza yelped in protest, then arched her hips against his teasing hand. “You’re bluffing,” she panted. “You want me as much as I want you.”
He hesitated, proving that she was absolutely correct. His shoulders sagged for half a second before a renewed grin of power and provocation danced across his lips. “Of course, I want you,” he said, circli
ng his fingers around her clitoris and causing the most delicious sensations within her before sinking two fingers deep into her aching folds. “But I have more experience with self-denial. I can hold out longer than you.”
She wanted to argue his point, but his hands had worked their magic on her. She could feel the coil of pleasure that would burst into orgasm squeezing tighter and tighter inside of her. She was so close she closed her eyes, ready to feel the whole thing intensely. But he drew his hand away, leaving her frustrated and desperate.
“No,” she groaned as he stood straight, taking a half step back from the bed. To make things worse, he took hold of himself and stroked, a look of wicked defiance in his eyes. “No,” she gasped even louder. “That’s not fair.”
“I can still enjoy myself without sinking deep into you,” he said, his voice little more than an impassioned rumble.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, glaring at him and sitting up. She kept her legs apart as she did. More than that, she rushed through the buttons of her doublet, pulling it open, then scrambling to undo the ties of her stays. She’d kept her stays and chemise on while changing into the silly costume, but now she wished she hadn’t.
It was next to impossible to force her fingers to work or to still the wild pounding of her heart as he stroked himself harder. He was a villain if he thought he could bring himself to completion without treating her to the joy of feeling him inside of her. The only weapon she had to beat him at his own game was to show him what he was missing.
At last, she struggled out of the doublet and her stays and chemise, then arched her back to show him just how sensual she could be. She went beyond that, drawing on every trick she had to make him lose control, and grasped one of her breasts. A surge of victory pulsed through her as his gaze dropped hungrily to watch what her hand was doing. She took advantage of the moment and slipped her hand slowly down over her belly.
“Perhaps I should show you some of the things I practiced with my schoolmates,” she said, biting her lip and sending him the most wicked look she could as her fingers delved into her curls. His imagination would decide what she meant and whether it was the truth or a clever lie.
It was exactly the trigger he needed. With a muttered oath, he let go of himself and surged onto the bed with her. He brought his hips to hers and jerked inside of her without teasing or niceties. She cried out in shock and pleasure and delight as he filled and stretched her. But for once, she didn’t curse herself for being wanton or embrace deep feelings of shame at her body’s response. He was hers, and the way he claimed her, like a warrior claiming his prize, was exactly the way things should be.
His thrusts were hard and purposeful. There would be no more teasing or drawing their mating out. She was already hovering on the brinks, and when he tensed, jerking desperately into her as he came, she burst into orgasm herself. The sensation of milking him for all he was worth as he spilled his seed within her was so shattering that her pleasure went on and on. She’d never known completion so wonderful before and she didn’t want it to ever end.
All beautiful things come to an end, though. Too soon, the surging tide of passion began to ebb, and Adolphus sank to her side with a deep, satisfied groan. But then he did something else, something Eliza never would have expected.
He laughed.
The sound was a revelation, filling her with energy as she rolled to her side and propped herself on one arm to gaze down at him. Everything about him was transformed by the sound of his laughter, by the broad smile that relaxed his face in a way she’d never seen before. His whole body shook, filling her with joy.
“Am I that funny?” she asked, giggling herself.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and sighing, then laughing all over again. “I only just realized.”
“What have you realized?” Her own laughter grew more and more uncontrollable as he failed to bring himself into line.
He glanced up at her, resting a hand on the side of her face. “I’ve realized that I love you. I really and truly love you. Though it’s madness to think how. We hardly know each other.”
“We know each other better than most couples ever do,” she said, pushing herself so that she sat straddling his hips. She stroked her hands over his damp chest, playing with his nipples. “Didn’t you have a question to ask me?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
His eyes widened, as though he couldn’t believe she was asking such a thing in that moment. Then his expression settled into as much seriousness as the laughter that remained in his eyes would allow. “Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Why do you want to marry me?” she fired back at him, grinning with all her might because she knew that this time, he would come up with the right answer.
“Because you’re mine,” he said, a richer note in his voice. “Because I’m yours. Because I want to protect you and give you a happy life. Because you deserve to be treated like the goddess you are.” He paused, understanding widening the smile he wore. “And because I love you,” he finished.
Eliza’s heart had never been lighter. She leaned forward, slanting her mouth over his and kissing him with far more power than a woman was supposed to kiss a man. He responded readily, circling his hands around her backside and squeezing. It was all the sign Eliza needed to know that they wouldn’t be leaving his room, or his bed, for quite some time to come. She looked forward to every second of it, guilt-free.
“Yes,” she said at last, pulling back just a bit, so that her nose was only inches from his. “If you love me, of course I’ll marry you. Nothing in the entire world would make me happier, because I love you with my whole heart.”
Epilogue
Ophelia held her breath and inserted the key that she still wore on a ribbon around her neck into the lock on the chest that had contained the prize at the end of the treasure hunt. Every one of the party guests who had taken part in the drunken revelry at the end of the hunt—and it was by no means all of Caro’s guests—were still sleeping off the effects of the prize. That meant Ophelia had the perfect opportunity to sneak into the grand parlor to see whether the prize chest had something to do with her key.
Of course, it didn’t. The key she’d found was much too small for the chest’s lock, but she had hoped there was some sort of secret compartment within the chest that the key could unlock. She was disappointed yet again and stood with a sigh.
“Good heavens. What was that for?”
Ophelia whirled around with a start, her heart pounding against her ribs, to find Mr. Saif Khan standing only a few yards away, watching her.
“I was…that is to say…I was just….”
“You don’t need to explain to me,” Mr. Khan said, walking slowly up to her side. “We did our best to win the prize for ourselves, but without luck.”
“It’s not that,” Ophelia said, lowering her eyes. Mr. Khan was so deliciously handsome that she found it impossible to look at him without giving every one of her tender feelings for the exotic man away in an instant.
“Are you sad that your friend has left, then?” he asked, stepping closer.
Ophelia dared herself to look at him. Others might have been taken aback because he was Indian, but he had the kindest eyes of anyone she’d ever know. The exotic additions to his otherwise ordinary clothing—the silk waistcoat with its Indian print and the ruby pin that she had come to think of as a tiger’s eyes in his cravat—thrilled her. And that was before she even began to try to describe the way his accept tickled her toes, and other places.
With a start, she remembered he’d asked a question. “I haven’t had time to be sad. Eliza only left this morning,” she said. “She and Mr. Gibbon will be married in London, just as soon as they deposit Mr. Ward at Newgate Prison.”
“Yes, what a curious and unpleasant business,” Mr. Khan answered, though the way he watched her seemed to say that everything was magnificently pleasant. “Her family won’t mind if she is married without them?”
“Her fam
ily hasn’t minded about much in Eliza’s life thus far,” Ophelia confessed.
“And you?” he asked on.
Ophelia blinked. “Me?”
“Does your family mind about you?”
She blinked again, going hot from head to toe. “My father only minds that I find a suitable husband. Aunt Millicent is here to make certain I do.”
“What does your father consider suitable?” He seemed far more curious about the answer than Ophelia dared to hope for.
She shrugged. “A fortune, I suppose. And lofty connections.”
“I see.” Mr. Khan’s smile widened. “Is that why you seemed so disappointed, then? Have you not set your heart on any of the wealthy, lofty gentlemen at the party?”
Heat blossomed on Ophelia’s cheeks. How could she explain to him that the only man she had found even remotely attractive was one her father would never approve of?
She grasped the key around her neck. “It’s this key,” she said, counting her statement as a half-truth. “I have been searching for what it might unlock for a fortnight now.”
“May I see?” he said, stepping forward.
Ophelia held her breath as he handled the key, letting it rest in his palm as the back of his hand came tantalizingly close to brushing her breasts. Every wicked feeling that she wasn’t supposed to have but had never had any luck in suppressing rushed to the fore.
At last, Mr. Khan glanced up at her, his eyes seeming to sparkle with heat and mischief, like the haze she had read about during the Indian monsoon.
“You are in luck, Lady Ophelia,” he said. “I know what this key belongs to.”
* * *
I hope you have enjoyed Eliza and Adolphus’s story! I’m so happy that the two of them got their happily ever after! And what about Ophelia and Saif? Is it possible for the two of them to be together? And what on earth does Ophelia’s key unlock? Find out in the next When the Wallflowers were Wicked book, The Charming Jezebel!
The Playful Wanton Page 10
