by Sharon Page
Lord Wesley stood in the doorway, the door closed behind him. There had been a key in the lock before and now it was gone.
His cravat was undone, the snowy-white cloth trailing over his black tailcoat.
He’d guessed the truth. She had not planned to meet him. She knew she couldn’t—for two reasons. Both that mad moment of lust for a stranger and the fact that she could not have intimate relations with any man until she wore his ring. So, she had slipped into the study and poured herself some brandy to take away the frustration of knowing she couldn’t meet him. But she tried to tease, “It is only the hour of eleven. You cannot possibly know that.”
“I can guess, Grace.” His lordship prowled toward her, his hip brushing a gilt table and setting the crystal glasses tinkling upon it. She saw from his unsteady gait that he’d been drinking. But then, so had she.
“I know you are afraid,” he said. “I know what you want.” He brushed back the now unruly locks of his white-blond hair.
“You do?” Brandy was hot in her blood. She leaned back against the arm of the settee. “I don’t even know what I want.”
“Yes, you do. But you deny it.”
“I liked you much better when you were direct. What do I deny, my lord?”
His dark eyes—a stunning blend of violet and blue—held hers. He was breathtakingly beautiful. Much more so than that coarse and bold highwayman who was his half brother. “You deny that you want passion. Heat. Fire. You want lusty, sweaty, passionate sexual pleasure. You want to strip away the gowns, the corsets, and the bloody propriety. You want to fuck, sweetheart. And you want to fuck me.”
She was shocked into breathlessness. The most confident, audacious grin turned up the edges of Lord Wesley’s sensual mouth.
“You are drunk.” She set down the glass, her heart like a live bird trapped in her chest. He was right. Of course. His very words had set her on fire. “And your sister warned me—”
“That I’ve bedded a lot of women. So have most of the other men here who act like eunuchs around you. The men who try to treat you like you are sweet and untouchable. Can you imagine a life wedded to one of them?”
“No.” It was simply the truth.
“You don’t want marriage, Grace. You want sex. You have to take marriage to get it.”
She laughed at that, thrown off balance by the entire conversation. Had she already waded in too deep? She could hardly swoon or race from the room now. She had shown him the woman she really was. But she liked speaking this way. Bluntly. Truthfully. It was exhilarating. “And you don’t,” she challenged. “What would ever tempt you to embark on marriage, my lord?”
“Love. Obsession.”
“The desire to possess something precious?”
“Perhaps that.”
“I saw a man tonight. Pru—Lady Prudence told me that he is your half brother. That he murdered—”
“Shh.” He pressed his fingers to her lips. “That is something that I intend to make right. I intend to spill his blood.”
Lord Wesley left her side and he raced over to the desk. She stood, stunned, watching as he wrenched open a drawer. He lifted out a brass box that gleamed in the firelight, laid it on the blotter, and opened it. When he lifted his hands, he held a six-inch dagger poised between the tips of both his index fingers, one pressed to the end of the handle, one pressed to the point of the blade.
Watching her all the while, he dropped the knife to the desk. It landed on its side with a thud. He stripped off his coat and threw it to the nearest chair—a leather club chair. His cravat and waistcoat followed.
There was only his shirt now. Fine linen between her gaze and his skin. “One day I will exact retribution from my damned half brother. But only if you tell me something that I need to hear.”
She stared in confusion as Lord Wesley let his cravat slide off, as he undid the ties of his shirt. As he strode to her he grabbed the knife and he yanked the sides of his shirt apart. He pressed the tip of the blade to his chest, just beneath the plane of his pectorals, on the flesh that covered his heart.
Her heart was in her throat. “What…what are you doing?”
“Marry me, Grace. Be my bride. Fuck me tonight and marry me afterward. I cannot wait another moment to have you.”
“Or you will stab yourself to the heart?” She was eighteen. She was not a schoolgirl—well, since they hadn’t been able to afford schooling, she never really had been, but—
He wasn’t really in love with her that much.
Was he?
“I want you.”
“Why me?” she asked. “Of all the others? Of all the rich beauties, of all the dukes’ daughters, of all the girls who try to move heaven and earth to attract you? No pretty words—the real words.”
“Because you are like me.”
That mystified her. And then he pushed the blade in and she was stunned to see a trickle of blood race down his body. It would ruin his shirt. “This is madness.”
He bent forward, the knife still cutting into his skin, and he skimmed his lips along her throat. She stood, passively, letting the remarkable sensation wash over her. Soft lips—like velvet, like silk. No…more than that. Like the touch of a flame. Or the brush of an angel’s hand.
“Saying no is madness,” he rasped.
His tongue stroked the length of her neck. Her body became fluid. She was wet—indecently, wonderfully wet between her thighs. The stubble on his jaw teasingly scratched her skin. Her pulse seemed to beat everywhere at once—in her head, her lips, her fingertips, her…her sex.
“You are beautiful.”
How many men had said that? But it mattered, from him.
“Touch me.”
“Only if you take the blade from your heart.”
“I will plunge it in if you leave me now. If you do not touch me. I cannot live without your touch. I could go to another woman. I know you are thinking that. I could bury my heavy, aching cock into her and fuck until my brain explodes and all the while I would be in pain because I wanted you. Do you have any idea what bloody torture that is?”
“I think I know.”
“I want to marry you, Grace. All I need is a yes. One simple word.”
“Yes.” And there was no turning back. She hungered to touch him, and, once she did, she had to go forward.
If she touched him, she had to agree to do everything a husband and wife were intended to do.
Slowly, she pulled off her glove—a white, virginal, and utterly irritating scrap of satin. She reached out, touching her fingertips to his chest, his skin hot and damp beneath her touch.
“Take the knife away,” she breathed. He was drunk and his hand cupped her bottom—a place a man’s hand had never been—but she was afraid he would crush her to him and stab himself by accident.
He was young. Spoiled. Passionate. Wild.
Hers. With one simple word.
“Yes,” she said again, to ensure there was no mistake, and she released a sigh of relief as he tossed the blade back to the desk. But in the next instant, he slid her skirts, petticoats and all, up her thighs. He pulled her drawers down before she could squeak, held her as she stepped out of them.
“You smell of lust, Grace. You stink of it and I love your smell. I want to cover my hands in it, my cock in it.”
His earthy words made her more wet, more creamy and slick, and she could smell herself, flushing as she did so.
“Now, hold up your skirts for me and let me explore.”
She obeyed and his hands slid around her naked inner thighs. His palms were strong, a little rough, and as he squeezed her skin she feared she’d fall to the floor.
“Stand up, Grace,” he commanded in a growl and his hands skimmed higher, up and up to the juncture of her thighs, to her hot and sticky quim. “Part your legs for me a little more.”
She did, aware of the wetness leaking down her inner thighs.
“Ah, yes, good girl,” he murmured, and his look of fierce hunger softened
with his heartbreaking smile. “Lovely, soft curls.”
His fingers combed through them and she squirmed. Her quim felt tight and achy and hot and she was wriggling to ease the tension.
“Is your clit hard now? Would it like to feel my fingers stroking it? Would you like me to rub hard?”
She had no idea. A strangled, confused groan slipped from her lips. His bold erotic talk was what she wanted but not entirely what she’d expected. She was to be his wife—she’d thought he would be sweet. It would be sensuous and they would not speak—
Like a statue, she stood unable to move, and his long, strong fingers slid into her cleft. It felt so good, it felt—
His fingers sawed across her sensitive nub and she screamed. Her cry rang throughout the large room and his lordship laughed in response. “I knew you would scream,” he purred, and he suckled her neck, making her cry out again. His lips, his tongue, his teeth—all teased the tingling skin of her throat and turned her body to molten heat.
He fiddled with the buttons of her gown, muttering curses, and she knew then why he had wanted her in something easy to remove. A few gave way, her bodice sagged, and at once his hands were there, lifting her breasts over the ruffled neckline.
She saw the pale curves lift, felt the strain against the silk, then felt her breasts spill out. “God yes,” he groaned. “These tits. These enormous, plump, glorious breasts. I’ve been hungering to get my hands on these for a week.”
His head dropped to her right breast and she moaned at the whisper of his silvery-blond hair brushing her flesh. At once, his firm mouth closed over her puckering nipple and he suckled so hard she dropped her skirts and grasped the back of the nearest chair.
Yes, she had played with her own nipples before, but not like this. He sucked greedily, lavishly, then rolled her free nipple between thumb and forefinger. It was so much—too much! She shut her eyes tight, swamped by sensation. Stars sparkled behind her lids. Something hard stroked her nipple—his teeth, she realized. She was astonished. Shocked. A little scared.
But he was a master, skillfully using the hard pressure of his teeth to send her soaring. She drank in his masculine scent and it wrapped around her like a magic spell. Letting her lids flicker open, she saw him suck first her left breast, then her right, leaving a trail of saliva between the two. Her nipples were wet, and harder and longer than she’d ever seen.
Lord Wesley glanced up, fair hair dusting his vivid eyes, and her heart gave a pang. His smile was gloriously wicked. “Enough play, love. Let us move on to the main event.”
Grace wanted it to be slow and seductive, but he was far too aroused, she supposed. Tugging at his trouser buttons, he groaned, “I’m too damned hard to get these things off, blast it.”
She giggled at his loud moan of relief as the buttons gave and his placket opened. He shoved his trousers down just past his hips and she saw it—him—for the first time.
Darker blond hair dusted his abdomen, then made a curly thicket around the length of him jutting out. Before her mesmerized eyes, he wrapped his hand around its girth and gave a stroke that made his eyes roll back in his head.
He dropped to the floor and stretched out on his back on the rug. One arm pillowed his head and he held his…his hard cock upright. She stood like a ninny, a little nonplussed by his speed.
“Come here and straddle me,” he rasped. “I want you on top of me, Grace. You can control how hard you want the strokes. How deep you want my cock to go.”
Perched on top of her bodice, her large breasts stuck out, making it difficult to judge where she was as she lowered to the floor. Her breasts were much too big, unfashionably so, but Lord Wesley could not take his eyes off them.
“They’re luscious,” he promised. “Now sit on my prick, love, then bend forward and smother me with those tits for a while.”
She had never thought they would make love for the first time on a carpet in his father’s study. Yet the wickedness of it made it exciting. She was his coconspirator and she liked it. This was what she wanted. This was to be her future.
“Hurry, love,” he urged as she fought to push aside the heavy silk skirt of her gown and the layers of lace-trimmed petticoats. “Though I love watching your nipples jiggle as you struggle.”
Poised over him, she hesitated. Was she allowed to touch him—to hold his staff while she sank down on top of it?
“I’m dying, Grace.” One strong hand clasped her hip through her skirts, and she rubbed her quim along the tip of his cock. The head was wet and smelled lush and primitive, just as she did. She was so slick and he was so hot and rigid that he easily slid into her. Gasping, she lowered and bore her weight on her knees. Her position pitched her breasts toward his face, as he’d wanted, and he arched up with his tongue sticking out. His tongue furled around her nipple as she took his cock deeper. Her walls slowly pushed apart, clenching him tight.
You can control how hard you want the strokes… He’d promised that but he was thrusting up to her, filling her, invading her. He plunged up and a twinge of pain startled her. Then it vanished and she wriggled on him, glorying in the feel of being completely full. She lifted and lowered, shocked by the wet slurping as she rose and fell, stunned by the pleasure as their hips collided.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Fuck me hard. Pound on me and make your tits bounce. I want to watch them slap up and down—”
Both his hands were on her hips, guiding her to slam up and down on him. Her hair tumbled free of her coiffure. Her breasts wobbled heavily. She panted for breath, getting hotter and hotter. Her thighs were slick, her breasts and back and forehead moist. If she bent toward him, she teased her…her clit with each stroke—
His face contorted. “God!” He pulled her abruptly forward and she sprawled over him, burying his face into her round breasts as he slammed his hips upward. Clamped to him by his strong arm, she dragged in breaths and squirmed on him. She’d felt pleasure but no climax.
She knew of the climax. She’d seen the expressions in her father’s paintings. Of women in ecstasy, melting in pleasure all over a man. Their mouths would be open wide in a scream, their eyes shut, their faces flushed. Sometimes they’d be gouging the man with their fingernails, as though they were fighting for their lives, as though fighting to survive the pleasure claiming their souls.
She hadn’t quite got there. Suddenly his arms lifted, and Lord Wesley relaxed back against the rug, grinning, and looking disheveled and gloriously handsome.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “I love you.”
But he gave a coarse laugh. “Lord, but you’re a good fuck, as I knew you’d be. Now make yourself decent and get out of here. I’m done with you.”
2
Grace ran blindly down the hallway. She passed a gentleman, but tears of humiliation blurred her eyes and she could not see him distinctly.
Oh God, he would recognize her!
She forced herself to stop. To turn. But the gentleman was not watching her in astonishment, as she expected he would be. He had reached the door of the study and she could only see his back. She shivered at the sight of his raven-black hair, even as Lord Wesley jovially greeted him.
“Wynsome! Come to pay tribute to the master?”
The master? As she tried to absorb what that meant, Wynsome answered, with grudging respect and salacious humor laced in his words, “So, you finally had lovely little Grace Hamilton.”
Grace shrank back against the papered wall of the hallway, fighting the hot bile that clawed at her throat. He’d shared his horrible plans with Wynsome all along. It had been a joke, a wager, perhaps. And she’d stumbled right into it, a stupid, gullible girl.
He’d made it clear exactly how ‘done with her’ he was. She’d whispered, “But m—marriage?” and he’d laughed in her face.
How many other gentlemen knew? Did they all?
“She’s a treat,” Lord Wesley said with callous triumph. “Every bit as good as I’d conjectured, given that she w
as a virgin. And, as you will note, she makes my twentieth virgin of the year. Your blunt is at risk, Wynsome. I’ll have bedded a hundred by Christmas.”
She felt pinned to the wall by their appalling cruelty. This was sport to them.
“The rest of the club will be astounded. There’s many who wagered more than they could afford, certain you’d never claim one hundred gently bred virgins.”
The rest of the club? There were others, possibly dozens, of men involved in this? Men who would all talk of her ruination. This would destroy her. Oh God, what had she done?
All of society would know—every gentleman who had treated her as a gently bred young marriage prospect. Wynsome knew—would he tell the Earl of Warren about it? Would the handsome, white-haired earl sneer at her, calling her the horrid names he had used on her mother?
“What have you done, my dear?”
She gave a strangled scream at the deep male voice that repeated the very question she’d asked herself.
Devlin Sharpe had seen many frightened women in his day. Terrified women. Desperate women. He had seen the eyes of women as they stood on the gallows and waited for the platform to drop away.
But he’d never seen such a mix of fear and loathing and anger shooting from such beautiful and determined eyes. Of course, he did not think he’d ever seen such an intriguing woman before—an intoxicating, alluring mix of angelic golden hair, pretty features, and enticingly carnal curves.
He held the lovely blonde’s gaze, aware from the way her eyes darted and her lips trembled that she intended to lie to him. “Don’t lie,” he warned. “Don’t give me a weak story and try to run away. I want the truth. I want to know what—or who—has hurt you.”
She straightened, moving away from the papered wall, and Devlin knew exactly what had happened. Her small fingers were curled around the crumpled sky-blue silk of her bodice, holding it up over her generous breasts. Beneath the light of the wall sconce, her soft hair was gleaming gold and poured in disheveled curls over her shoulders and down her back. A tear still clung to the lashes of her red-rimmed green eyes. She smelled of sex.
