by April Moran
Her skirts were twisted higher. Brushing past the flimsy barrier of her drawers, he eased a finger inside her intoxicating heat. Swallowing her startled sigh, he caressed the point of her womanhood with the pad of his thumb until she grew damp and restless. Forcing her to the edge of the cliff, he made sure she was trembling and ravenous before letting her plunge over. Erratic but steady, her climax pulsed against the palm of his hand and Sebastian greedily wanted every tiny shuddering beat to belong to him.
He wanted to move over her, replace his finger with his body. He wanted to thrust his way into her softness until she cried out his name in pleasure. Unbuttoning his breeches, pushing at her, rubbing against her sex, not quite entering her, he allowed his shaft to become slick with her moisture. Her climax left her hungry. She was desperate for his caress, mindless for it, almost incoherent from pleasure, and although his touch was rough, his grip harsher than any time in the past, Ivy was beyond caring. Caught in the whirlwind, she could not distinguish his wrath from passion. Sebastian knew it. He took full advantage of it.
“Yes, Sebastian, please, please.” She tried pressing her lips to his and he evaded her.
Because he could not bring himself to kiss her when she was like this. He would willingly drown in her, losing sight of his ultimate goal if he gave in. To keep his wits about him, he must drag her to the brink of insanity before giving into her.
Yanking at the bodice of her gown, he pushed at the light corset until she was fully exposed. Crudely cupping one breast with his palm, he raised it to meet his voracious mouth, groaning at the taste of her sweetness. He clasped the rounded swell of her bottom, jerking her closer to the edge of the desk. His fingers dug painfully into the flesh of her buttocks as his erection quivered at her body’s entrance.
Her low moan was a siren’s call, her hips lifting in an ancient invitation. Rolling her nipple around in the wet heat of his mouth, his teeth raked it until it hardened into a tight little rosebud. Then he bit her, a sharpness that made her jerk and press closer to him. Between her legs, she grew even wetter, the damp flesh against the tip of his shaft nearly unmanning him.
“Are you mine, Ivy?” His whisper demanded truthfulness. “Are you? Answer me, damn you, answer me.”
“Yes, Sebastian, I love you, I love you. You- only you. Please, oh God, Sebastian, I don’t know what to do. I need you…. inside me…inside...please. Don’t stop.”
Hearing the words, tumbling from her beautiful lips in needy gasps, drove Sebastian to the depths of a gruesome brutality. The very last piece of her fell into his hands.
Her body was his. Her heart, her wicked soul. All his.
With no warning, he thrust, impaling her with one quick stroke. His head reeled with such unbearable sensations he barely comprehended that her cry sounded different from before.
Pain or pleasure?
Did it matter? Pinpricks of heaven, glittering and terrible, bombarded him. Sliced without mercy into his brandy-fueled, revenge induced haze. He melted into her.
Ivy was hot.
Slick.
Glorious.
Tight.
A beautiful creature he had no right to possess.
Tangling a hand in her hair, Sebastian forced her head back while keeping the other clasped on her rear. Ivy shifted, adjusted to the pressure. When he surged forward, she did not push him away. Instead, with a strangled whimper, she pulled him closer, her fingernails biting through his coat and shirt. A strange rigidity within her gave way to his invasion and torrents of pleasure flooded his veins as she opened to him. He glided into silken depths he never wanted to escape.
Goddamn you, Ivy-how, how will I live without you? How? How did this happen? That my soul entwined with yours?
Soft flesh encompassed his, holding him a tight hostage, pulsating and hot. All around him, her heartbeat fluttered with the delicate energy of hummingbird wings in slow motion. Sebastian buried deeper, then deeper still, until he was within her to the hilt and could go no further.
“You are mine at last, the devil take us both,” he muttered against her pretty shell of an ear.
“Yes, yes.”
Mine…mine.
Mine forever.
Again, and again, he thrust, stealing her muffled pants and gasps with quick, ruthless kisses. Grinding, slow at first, then almost frantically, unable to understand how incredible, and how horrible, it felt to make this a reality.
Ivy’s fingers laced through his hair. Offering everything to him, her head lolled, her back arching.
“My god,” she breathed in awe. “I didn’t know it could be…yes, Sebastian, yes, yes. I’m yours, yours...”
An out of control wildfire, she burned him, her lushness coiling about him, squeezing tight as a vise. She hovered on the verge of peaking again; if he kept his pace, kissed her thoroughly with gentle, persuasive lips, she would discover ecstasy once more. And Sebastian knew he could not withstand her if this happened while inside her. His very soul would be lost.
If revenge was unnecessary, he would kiss her instead of breaking her...
Paradise this magnificent was not promised. The task hung over him, as heavy a burden as iron chains. Maybe it was a sign of his inner weakness or something born of shame, but when he finally spoke, his voice quivered. Whatever it was, he shoved it aside. His words, the actions, his body- they were all instruments of his vengeance.
“I want you every night.” With each heated whisper of a word, he bit the flesh of her throat, thrilling to her moans of agreement. “Every goddamn night.” His thrusts slowed. The giddy combination of heat, soft perfume and the brandy consumed earlier was making his head swim. Possessing Ivy was akin to drowning in an opium den, the sensations overwhelming and disorienting, the room swirling as her sweet softness drugged him.
“I want you available when I have need of you. In my bed, on my desk, in my coach, my library, my goddamn dining room table if I have the notion to fuck you there…I want to bury myself in you whenever and wherever I want.” His sharp teeth nipped her ear. “Do you understand me, Ivy?”
“Yes, Sebastian, yes.” Her murmur came apart when he ground harder against her. Slick with arousal, oblivious to his brutal words, willing to accept anything he did, she tried to answer him. “Anything…as your wife, I will do anything…tell me, show me. I love you so much...”
“Wife?” The harsh laugh was punishing. “You misunderstand me, butterfly. Goddamn. No, not my wife. Never that. I want you as my mistress. Don’t you understand? My mistress. My own lovely, little whore to be used when and where and however I like.”
Had Ivy heard him? Maybe she could not comprehend his meaning. Gliding in and out of her heat, Sebastian’s brain vaguely registered every explosion of rapture while waiting for the words to penetrate. Another minute and he would forgive her, take her with tenderness. He would kiss her and care for her pleasure. Beg her forgiveness.
That could not happen. Sebastian focused on revenge. Revenge. Remember, this is for Timothy. Remember, she is heartless…she caused his death…remember, you don’t love her. You can’t love her. You… cannot.
A heartbeat passed. A second. A lifetime. An eternity.
In one huge gasp, Ivy sucked in her breath. She locked up in his arms.
There was a roaring within Sebastian to stop, but it was impossible. This business of destroying her would certainly kill him too; the tidal wave, once it overflowed, rushed forth to extinguish everything in its path.
“Your mistress? Your...whore.” Stumbling on the words, her hands, encased in pristine white silk, braced against the wall of his chest. “Sebastian? I don’t understand. I don’t…you- you don’t want to marry me? You don't want…?” She stared uncomprehendingly as Sebastian methodically ripped apart her soul with everything brutal inside his own.
She said she loves you.
“What man wouldn’t want you?” Pressing tiny kisses to the outermost corners of her lips, his body continued its seductive assault, punctuating wo
rds with unending thrusts of his hips. Ivy’s eyes were unfocused, as if she could not understand what was being said; as though his words were a foreign language she had yet to learn. “Heartless little butterfly. Did you actually believe I would take you as my wife? Marriage isn’t quite the thing for a woman like you. Not with your reputation. Not with your black, empty soul.”
He was unprepared for the stinging slap across his face, but he half expected it. Like a heated sword slicing through flesh, it cut through his woozy pleasure.
“How dare you!” Ivy choked. “You- you bastard.”
She shoved him, but with Sebastian between her thighs and her feet dangling above the floor, it was impossible to move more than a few inches. When she managed to wiggle so a heartbeat of a space opened between them, he grabbed her upper arms, giving her a rough shake. The fact their bodies were still joined heightened the barbarity.
“How dare I?” His fury was both hushed and terrifying. “Don’t you realize I won the game?” The buttons of his evening coat bit into the bare flesh of her breasts, the gold metal branding full moon patterns on her white skin. How bizarre he had not removed a stitch of clothing. Destroying her required only the unbuttoning of his breeches.
“Ah, little, treacherous Ivy…breaking you, taming you, is why these men gather here. And it is just a game, because no matter how many come and go, we all want the same thing. To tame you. Each one of us wants to claim the victory, the opportunity to smear it in the face of the others.” His voice dropped to a scornful snarl. “You drove Timothy to his death. He adored you, worshiped you, and you ground that devotion to dust beneath your heel. He took his life because of you. He chose to die because you, with your petty, selfish actions, rejected him. Does it excite you? Knowing that men take the risk of courting you, placing their bets they will survive you? Does it? Well, now there are wagers to pay, by God. Scores to settle. And it is my right to collect first.”
Ivy whimpered at the mention of Timothy and the stakes placed on her head, but Sebastian ignored her distress, savage as a winter storm in his march across her heart.
“As for you and I, you’ve teased, tempted and enticed me. Truly, you led me on a merry chase, but this has been my game from the very start. There is not a man alive in London, in all of England for that matter, who can deny I’ve successfully tamed the sweet, deceitful, Poison Ivy. It shall be on everyone’s lips come morning… Ravenswood survived the Countess! To your credit, my sweet, it’s been a most entertaining ride.” His hips rotated crudely, a stark reminder he had not finished mauling her pride and her soul.
A strangled moan of anguish escaped Ivy with the use of that vile moniker, a reminder of the ton’s viciousness. The sound was almost animal like, the level of torment so deep Sebastian wavered. Even as whispering demons whipped him on, demanding he finish her, shame stabbed his gut at his own maliciousness.
“Breaking you has been pleasurable for us both and I don’t intend for it to end. I still want you, deceitful, wanton whore that you are,” he muttered roughly. “And you want me too. Your body cannot hide that from me.”
Choking back another helpless whimper at the ugly words, Ivy renewed her struggles. Sebastian closed his eyes, silent, immobile as a wall of granite, allowing it until she finally hung limp with exhaustion in his punishing embrace.
Gulping for air, damp with perspiration, Ivy shivered against his chest. Locks of hair tumbled from her coiffure to cling to his neck and chin with the tenacity of a delicate spider web. Releasing the grip on her arms, Sebastian spanned his palms on either side of her hips, breathing heavily. Now that she was still, a dawning consciousness speared him with jabs deep enough to draw blood. The room spun with the crazed velocity of a kaleidoscope. He wanted desperately to shake his head, to clear the fog of lust and anger and brandy, to be able to think clearly.
The magnitude of his actions, the monstrosity of it all, seeped in. Slumped in defeat, Ivy wept quietly, wounded angel tears soaking through his shirt to cool the blistering heat of his skin.
Several things battered his intoxicated vengeance…the tight resistance to his invasion, the phantom sensation of a flimsy barrier giving way in the path of conquest. That haunting cry shadowed by the convulsive clenching of her legs as she held him tighter, her fingernails biting painfully through cloth and into the flesh of his shoulders while her body sucked him in deeper. Her reaction to his possession was baffling, but the trickle of comprehension clawing at his brain screamed for attention. Bloody hell, it was not possible.
You goddamn fool. You goddamn, heartless, stupid bastard. She’s an innocent. A virgin…she’s a virgin.
She couldn’t be. She’d fucked half the men waiting in her conservatory with their pathetic rehearsed proposals. Hadn’t she?
Sebastian rocked away, grabbing Ivy by the nape of her neck to stare down into her face. The golden cartwheel of freckles glowed in stark relief against the ivory paleness of tear-streaked skin. Darkened to the shaded dimness of a stormy sea, she gazed back with eyes wide and hazy. Truth was a harsh master, lashing him with every breath. It was not possible. It could not be. She could not be...
Pure.
Virgin…
Bitter regret washed away the scarlet mist of fury, turning him abruptly cold and instantly sober. What he had done? He hurt her. This...this was the act of a madman. An evil that could not be undone. This might be worse than rape. He tricked her into offering a precious gift then ripped it from her hands. Oh, God. What kind of monster am I?
“Ivy...” His hands dropped as if she were a lit flame burning his palms. “Sweet Jesus, what the hell have I done?”
Ivy’s fist slammed his jaw with such uncanny precision and force that his teeth clicked together with a loud snap. Sebastian reared back, the salty tang of blood in his mouth. He’d bitten his own tongue. As he processed that, a tiny foot struck him, the wooden heel of her shoe finding his groin as if she’d practiced the defensive maneuver for years. Sebastian’s body exploded in excruciating pain. “Goddamn…” Grasping the vicinity of his manhood, he stumbled away.
The space between them was just enough for Ivy to slide off the edge of the desk and regain her footing. Snatching her dress up to her shoulders, she darted to the side while Sebastian doubled at the waist, his hands braced on his thighs. He sucked in deep breaths, fighting the alcohol when it rose in his throat, a thick and obstructive tidal wave of nausea battering for release. Eventually, the pain eased to a point so it was possible to stand without retching. Ivy’s sobs echoed throughout the room, a swirling cacophony pounding at his head, leaving him a bit wobbly on his feet. There was a flurry of rustling silk behind him, the sounds of metal against metal. She struggled to unlock the door, her fingers clumsy with blind panic.
Sebastian fumbled with the buttons of his breeches, gazing dumbly at his hands when they came away slick with fresh blood. The red smears confused him. Were the heels of her shoes that damned sharp? Had she cut him somehow?
Do you honestly believe that is your blood? An internal voice mocked his stupidity. It’s hers, you bastard. Her blood. Ivy’s blood.
Virgin blood. Sacrificed for his cousin’s life.
The click as the key turned was loud as a thunderbolt. She was fleeing him, as though he were a demented beast, a twisted evil from the depths of hell. He reached to grab her, but even he was unsure of his motives. “Ivy. Holy hell.”
Was it possible to beg forgiveness for the unforgivable?
With a nimbleness born of terror, Ivy evaded him. When she bolted into the hall, Sebastian stumbled after her, falling against a table. A priceless vase teetered, crashing to the floor in an ear-shattering explosion of porcelain. The sound would undoubtedly draw all guests to the foyer. But he must stop her. He must explain, catch her, even if there was little hope of undoing the damage.
A fleeting glimpse of apricot silk flying up the stairs was the last he saw of Ivy Kinley and his pursuit ended at the bottom of the polished marble steps. Not even he, t
he Earl of Ravenswood, who dared almost anything, risked following her up those stairs, not here in her father’s house and with witnesses no less.
She loves you.
Struggling to compose himself, Sebastian gripped his chest. Overwhelming pain throbbed in relentless thumps. Such a strange feeling it was, to have one’s heart shredded while it still beat steadily. Silent and sick, the horror of his actions washed over him anew to see his hands marked in startling red.
Slowly, he pulled a handkerchief from an inner pocket on his suit coat, using it to wipe the blood away, blotting at the miniscule stains on his coat where he’d touched his chest. Forcing the most arrogant expression imaginable to his features, stamped there by sheer willpower alone, Sebastian faced the men steadily gathering. Confused expressions exposed their thoughts: What happened to our darling countess? What in God’s name did you do to her? Why does the sound of her weeping linger in this hall?
Sebastian did not think he would ever feel anything again. He became the cold, collected earl once more, the numbness a welcomed blessing.
Christopher Andry scowled, as if Sebastian were the Devil himself inexplicably landing in their midst, with great black wings beating the air. The other men mumbled, shuffling about, wondering what should be done to the creature before them.
How he stood, when his very knees threatened to buckle beneath him, was mystifying. To hide the weakness, Sebastian placed a casual hand on the balustrade of the stairs, sliding it up to grasp the finial of the newel post. The delicately carved wood miraculously supported his weight.
With the goal accomplished, the actual horror of what he’d done was slicing him to ribbons. Ivy was ruined. At the cost of destroying his soul. And hers. He carefully selected his words to inflict the most damage. And pain.
“The countess has taken issue with the ending of our association.”
Chapter 13
She was broken. Shattered into so many tiny pieces it did not seem possible she would ever be whole again. A burning hurt screamed within her heart, Sebastian's betrayal diminishing her into a creature she did not recognize. But even as she wept, something grew, something hard, something sharp and black. Razors replaced the softly feathered wings of innocence.
