A Measure of Deceit

by Jess Michaels

  And also of her promise not to come until he gave her permission to do so. She didn’t know if she could keep that promise, especially when he used the tip of his tongue to trace the swollen pearl of her clitoris. Her entire body jolted and the waves of pleasure immediately intensified.

  “Oh God,” she groaned.

  “Not yet,” he reminded her, moving his tongue away and taking the intensity of the sensation with him. Instead, he stroked his tongue along her entrance, swiping away the wet evidence of her desire for him and leaving even more humid need in its place.

  He dove into the task of pleasure, nibbling at her sensitive flesh, lapping at her juices, but purposefully ignoring her swollen clitoris. She needed him to touch it, needed him to suck it and squirmed as if she could force his hand.

  He stopped licking her immediately and looked up her body with a warning expression.

  “Don’t make me stop, Grace.” His voice was rough, strained, and she nodded as she gripped her hands into fists above her and prayed for the self-control she was so known for.

  Self-control he tested, yet again, when he slipped two fingers into her sheath. Still licking her, he began to curl his fingers deep into her, pumping his fingers out in a languid rhythm that made her hips flex and her breath short.

  He was building her toward release, forcing her to break her promise, and she gasped and moaned as she fought to do as he’d asked.

  “Please,” she finally wailed as the orgasm hovered there, taunting her with release from this shocking torment and making her wild with desire.

  He stopped moving and looked up at her. His smile was wicked and knowing, arrogant and oh-so-very masculine.

  “Please make you come?” he asked, dragging the tip of his tongue up the apex of her body and leaning over her, hands braced on either side of her head.

  “Yes,” she gasped out, lifting her hips to rub them against his still entirely clothed body.

  “Please give you permission to take the pleasure I own?” She nodded, but he shook his head. “Say it.”

  “Yes, please. Please.”

  He didn’t respond verbally, but guided a hand between their bodies, caressing her skin as he did so. She felt him working the fastenings on his trousers open and then she felt the hard, heavy swell of hot flesh against her bare thigh. She opened her legs wide, wantonly inviting him in.

  He took the invitation in one smooth stroke and suddenly she was being filled, stretched to capacity by this thick and impossibly long member. She bit back a strangled cry, fearing what would happen if she lost control even now, fearing he would withdraw and leave her a whimpering mass on the parlor carpet.

  He drew back and then drove forward a second time, lowering his body over hers. She was trapped between the roughness of the floor beneath her and the roughness of his clothing, and yet still she wrapped her legs around his back and ground against him, trying to ease the ache, trying to find pleasure where he withheld it.

  He chuckled. “Come,” he murmured, close to her ear.

  She was shocked how swiftly her body responded to his command. He stroked into her another hard time, circling his hips to stimulate her, and the world around her faded as everything in her focused on that spot between her legs.

  She shook as wave after wave of her orgasm washed over her, and he pulled even more from her as he reached up to pin her tied hands to the floor and plowed hard into her body. She heard herself screaming, moaning, repeating his name again and again, despite the fact that they were in her parlor, despite the fact her servants would hear. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t withhold what he demanded from her. All she could do was come and come and come until the pleasure began to border on pain as she rode out the violent storm of release.

  Finally, his movements became erratic and he grunted as he withdrew and spent away from her, then collapsed over top of her, panting his own satisfaction.

  She lowered her still-tied wrists around him in an embrace, letting his weight press her to the floor. She’d likely have some very interesting rug marks on her backside, not that she cared much about that.

  In fact, she really didn’t care about anything at all except that he had possessed her.

  Chapter Six

  “Attraction may come before understanding. And understanding may lead to attraction. There is no right or wrong way.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Connor watched as Grace tugged at the knot that remained in her tangled chemise and smiled.

  “That was very unexpected, my lady,” he drawled, pushing himself back into his trousers and refastening them. “But highly satisfactory.”

  She glanced up at him from her wrinkled chemise, but didn’t answer until she tugged the fabric over her head. Her expression was difficult to read—damn near impossible, actually. She didn’t blush, she didn’t turn away from his stare—despite being half-naked—she didn’t simper or giggle…but there was something about just the faintest glisten in her eyes that was…strange.

  “Yes,” she finally said softly. “To both observations.” She hesitated a moment, then continued, “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Sheridan?”

  He laughed. “Are we still so formal, Grace?”

  She smiled and then seemed to force herself to stop doing it. “Connor.”

  “Ask away,” he encouraged.

  She pulled her gown up and began to fasten it. The action meant she didn’t have to look at him and he thought that was by design.

  “Why are you in Society now?”

  He drew back. That question, he had not been expecting. It was though she had kicked him in the gut, then called out to the world about the disparate nature of their stations.

  But he wasn’t about to show her that, or any other kind of vulnerability, despite any passion they had shared.

  “I’ve been invited,” he said, tone cool and as neutral as hers had been.

  She looked up from her buttons with a sharp expression. “I’m absolutely certain you have been invited before, Connor. So why accept now?”

  Still confused by the nature of her question, Connor shrugged. “It’s been a while since the book came out, but interest remains high. In it. In her.”

  She had finished with her buttons, and now she smoothed the fabric on her gown a few times before she locked eyes with him.

  “Her. Who is she?”

  He stared at her, then slipped his gaze toward the rug where they had both been so uninhibited and filled with pleasure.

  He was accustomed to being endlessly interrogated by readers of the book about its contents and its author. He knew that was the only reason why a lowly pup from Scotland held any interest for them, but somehow in the short time he’d known Grace, he’d thought she was above all that.

  But perhaps he had misread her entirely. Perhaps everything she had done, from her icy demeanor to her unexpected demand that he share a liaison with her, was all just a way for her to find out what was an obsession with all of London. Perhaps he was just a means to a boon amongst her friends.

  “Is that why you asked me here?” he said, voice tense. He wanted to manage his response, but couldn’t.

  She shook her head so swiftly and firmly that it had to cause relief to him. “No, no. I just wondered.”

  “I thought you were convinced that I didn’t know her, that I was merely taking advantage of everyone’s interest in order to get free food and port,” he said. “Wasn’t that what you said last night at Lord and Lady Lyndham’s gathering?”

  Now she blushed, the color just like that which spread down her chest when she found release. The realization made his cock begin to swell again. Remarkable when he’d had his fill…or so it had seemed.

  “I did say that,” she admitted, completely unaware of his renewed physical desire and discomfort. “But I…I find you very hard to read, Mr.—Connor.”

  He smiled at her correction and folded his arms. “Do you? I think of myself as quite the open book.”

  She tilt
ed her head and laughed, and the sound seemed to coil around that hardening cock of his and tug with just the right amount of tension. Damn, but the woman did make her mark.

  “You must be jesting,” she said. “You play the perfect game when it comes to the Lady and her book. You say you haven’t met her, but then you immediately tell the room that even if you had met her or knew of her identity that you would be forced to say you didn’t to protect her. It leaves the listener wanting more.”

  He leaned in, loving that her fresh scent was now mixed with the muskier smell of sex.

  “Do you want more?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened, and then she drew a breath and seemed to gather herself. “There you go, speaking in riddles and double entendres again. I asked my question first.”

  He laughed. “By God, you are a bold one, aren’t you?” She didn’t reply, but matched his folded-armed stance and tapped her foot as if he were keeping her waiting from something important. “I told you yesterday, I havena met the Lady.”

  She tensed and her pupils dilated. Oh yes, he knew she liked the accent. The one he had spent years being told to extinguish entirely. Now something he had always hated was becoming a tool to tease this woman, to please her.

  She swallowed, her tone strained when she said, “Perhaps I have asked the wrong question. You say you haven’t met her, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know her.”

  He took a step away, for without meaning to, this woman had hit upon the very heart of Connor’s relationship with the Lady.

  “I do know her,” he admitted, surprised his voice didn’t shake when he said it. Grace stiffened at that statement, though he didn’t know why it would bother her so much. “When you work with someone so closely, exchanging letters and notes, I think it would be impossible not to know them, don’t you?”

  She seemed to battle with a response, but finally nodded once. “Yes, I suppose you would have to.”

  She moved closer, her movements jerky and uncertain, but when she reached up to place a hand on his arm, a warmth spread though him that had to do with more than the intense desire this woman inspired in him. Her blue eyes were bright and clear when they locked with his and even if he couldn’t read her emotions, he could clearly see her need.

  “Connor, I-I don’t want this to end,” she whispered.

  He blinked in utter shock. “I declare, Lady Jameswood, you never say anything I expect.”

  She smiled and squeezed his arm. “As I said, I’ve never been accused of subtlety. But I want you, Connor Sheridan. And if it would please you, I’d like to continue what we’ve begun.”

  Connor thought all too briefly of his Lady, but then shook the thoughts away. That woman was unknown, almost unreal, and Grace was here. Grace was open to being pleasured and dominated and everything in him wanted to do that again and again. Hopefully on something more comfortable than her hard floor.

  “Then the lady will have what she desires,” Connor whispered, pressing a finger beneath her chin to tilt her face toward his. He was nearly undone by her simple hitch of breath that told him so much about her desire.

  He dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her. She opened to him immediately, their tongues dueling and desire mounting in his loins until his trousers were quite uncomfortable yet again.

  But somehow he managed to extract himself from her tempting lips and backed toward the door.

  “Until next time,” he murmured, then left her parlor and her home feeling far more puzzled by her than when he’d arrived. And far more satisfied.

  Connor swung open the door to his townhome and handed his hat to his servant with a smile.

  “Higgins,” he said. “Is Mr. Smallshaw here still?”

  Higgins nodded. “Of course, sir. In the office.”

  Connor nodded as he walked down the long hallway to a large room in the back of the house. He supposed that the room had been intended to be a formal parlor, but the moment he took the house he had transformed it into the hub of his publishing endeavor. There were two desks placed face to face in front of the large window and at one of them sat Adrian Smallshaw, his partner and friend.

  “Did you truly ask Higgins if I was still at work?” Adrian asked, lifting his head from a pile of paperwork strewn across his side of the desk.

  Connor settled into his side and glanced over the new paperwork there. An author’s manuscript, some advertising opportunities and there, hidden beneath the corner of it all, the last letter he had received from the Lady.

  With a frown, he shoved the other papers over that and said, “Someone has to check in on you, don’t they? There’s work to be done.”

  Adrian laughed. “As if you would know, being out until who knows how late, not stumbling down until after noon, and today you were gone for four hours all together in the middle of the day. You are becoming a London fop, my friend. It’s a good thing you have me around to pick up the slack.”

  “I am indeed,” Connor said, and he was no longer teasing.

  Adrian had been his partner and his confidant for many years. He hadn’t blinked when Connor brought up what was then a wild idea to publish books. In fact, he had hopped on board the scheme and never looked back or questioned their decision to sink their time and most of an unexpected fortune that had befallen Connor, into the venture.

  It didn’t mean they didn’t disagree. Adrian had long pressed for books with more controversy and political appeal. Books that called for change…sometimes at any cost. One of their most intense arguments had been when Connor had decided to publish the Lady’s book. Adrian couldn’t understand how such a book could be seen as significant.

  But it was. In more ways than one.

  “Well, you are in a reflective mood,” Adrian said, setting his reading spectacles aside. “In fact, you have been very strange for two days. Please don’t tell me you have found the Lady at last. Or should I say, your Lady.”

  Connor squeezed his eyes shut. He should never drink with Adrian, not when it would loosen his tongue. How he wished he’d never confided anything about the Lady to his friend. Adrian never left the subject alone now, and though he often made his comments on the subject teasing, Connor got the sense his friend truly did not approve.

  “No,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  Adrian leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “You needn’t look at me as if you’re thinking of ways to kill me. I only know you too well.”

  “Do you?” Connor asked, pretending to look at the paperwork.

  “I know you have been invited by these Society fools before and have refused them all until recently. Don’t tell me that isn’t because the Lady cut off all communication with you a month ago. You can’t think I wouldn’t guess you’re looking for her.”

  Connor winced. How he hated being so obvious.

  “If I am looking for her, it is only to convince her to pen another book.”

  Adrian’s lips pursed and any joviality disappeared from his face, for this was another bone of contention between them. His friend’s voice was sharper when he said, “Why the hell would you want another book from that woman?”

  Connor tensed at the way Adrian said the last two words. A curse. A slur. “We make a great deal of money from that woman.”

  “There is more to life than money. You knew that when we started,” Adrian snapped. “Besides, I think you have a bigger problem. Can you truly tell me you aren’t mooning over her?”

  Connor clenched his fist over the papers, wrinkling a page in the process. “Of course not. In fact, I recently began an affair with another woman.”

  The moment he said the words, he wished he could take them back. He wasn’t one to brag over his conquests, even to Adrian, and the statement seemed even more unseemly since it was about Grace, not some doxy from the street.

  But he couldn’t erase the words and Adrian’s mouth dropped open in shock at them.

  “Really?” his friend asked.

  “Yo
u’re surprised,” Connor responded, as a way to avoid the question and any details his friend might require after the answer.

  “I am surprised. Who is she? Not one of these titled fools, I hope.”

  Connor shook his head. “A gentleman doesn’t tell.”

  “I see.” Adrian was quiet for a moment—too quiet. When he spoke again, there was real concern in his low tone. “Be careful, Sheridan.”

  Connor shook his head and shot his friend a dark look. “What are you going on about?”

  “You have been in love with a fairy tale for so long it’s blinded you in many ways. I fear reality will never live up to it.”

  Connor shoved back from his desk and paced off to the window. “I’m not in love with anyone,” he said, trying to measure his tone and failing. “And we are wasting valuable time on this foolishness.”

  Adrian didn’t press further, only nodded and went back to work on his ledger.

  But Connor couldn’t make himself return to the editorial duties on his desk. What he had just said to Adrian was a lie. He did love the Lady. He had for…months. Perhaps even longer. And even a pleasant diversion with Grace couldn’t change that.

  Chapter Seven

  “Another person may be key to uncovering one’s true desires.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Grace scribbled a line in the note she was penning and then stared at the words before her, judging every one. With a groan, she crossed them out and tried another sentence to convey what she wanted to say.

  “It’s a good thing Maura will be transcribing this,” she muttered, staring at the paper with its messy blobs of ink and scratched-out lines.

  The letter was to Connor, meant to arrange their next meeting. It was an assignation she was greatly anticipating, since she had not seen the man in two long days. Not since he had tied her up and had his wicked way with her on her parlor floor.

  Her gaze slipped to the carpet before the fire and she blushed.

  “Concentrate,” she hissed, then returned to the paper.