by Elsa Holland
Vaughn put her on her feet and she tugged the sheet off. They were in his bedroom. Her heart beat faster and her hands shook as she watched him pace around the room.
“It’s not what you think. Please let me explain.”
He whirled on her. “Not what I think?” His voice rose. “I don’t know what to think, Edith. He hasn’t fucked you, no, I’m going to do that, but he’s been over your body with a razor leaving his mark everywhere.” He now bellowed between them.
“I can explain.” She stepped closer.
He bridged the gap between then and dragged her against him as his arm around her waist held her with an iron grip. His other hand came under her chin and lifted her face to his.
“You, madam, have had ample opportunity to explain.” He glanced down. Her open bodice exposed the tattoos over the mounds of her breasts. “It would have been hard to overcome if you’d told me last night, any night . . .” His eyes came back to hers dark with anger. “The fact that you never did, and I imagine never intended to has played me for a fool.”
She shook her head to say no and his mouth came down on hers. Brutal punishment of teeth, tongue and a vice grip around the back of her neck as he kissed her. She couldn’t move, didn’t want to. Desperately, she tried to respond but he gave her no room. He dominated her mouth. Immobilized her arms. He was hard against her thigh. He pulled her closer as he ground his hips against her. Then suddenly, he let her go and walked to the door.
“Wait!” she was desperate to let him know, tell him what he needed to understand. That she had risked everything for a taste of what they were. That she would never willingly deceive him. That she would die of shame if he left things as there were right now.
He didn’t leave. Instead he locked the door, placed the key in his pocket and turned the switch setting the room ablaze with light.
Despite her relief she stepped back, head shaking at what she knew he would ask.
“I thought you shy, Edith. I worried what you hid, worried not for what I would find but that you must be struggling with something. How you must have laughed.”
She shook her head again, and he simply growled and stalked towards her.
“Take off your clothes,” he commanded.
Her hand went to her bodice.
“Don’t even think I have a concern for your modesty. Shy!” He bellowed. “No woman who is decorated like you is shy madam!”
Suddenly she wasn’t sure she could face what inevitably came next.
“I want to go to my room.” Edith drew herself up as her heart raced. “Unlock the door.”
He circled her, not even a flicker of mercy in his gaze. “You will not leave this room until I see you.
Excitement and panic both ran through her as she tried to draw in enough air. She didn’t know her own mind, the need to run, the need to stay, and the darker desire of what he promised would follow if she stayed. . . he hasn’t fucked you, no, I’m going to do that.
Her chest got tighter and tighter until all she could do was pant as she tried to get enough air.
“Let me go. I’ll leave. Forget about me . . .”
“No!” the answer came fast and unequivocal. Vaughn stepped up to her and swung her around. “You’re going to make yourself pass out if you don’t slow your breathing.”
The fastenings of her skirt were released with expert ease and the skirt dropped. Her panting got worse as did the sharp pain in her chest. He shook his head then pulled her against his chest, stroked her hair, a slow, slide of his palm soothing her in the storm between them.
“Shhh.” He whispered above her. “Just breathe. I can’t exact my revenge if you pass out.” She would have laughed if she wasn’t so sure he was serious.
His hand ran over her hair, the request she’d made when she had fellated him pounding in the air between them. The humiliating thing was that it worked, it soothed her.
“I don’t think I can,” she said into his chest.
“You’re as excited as I am.”
“But you’re angry.”
“No, Edith, I am furious.”
“Then, let me go.”
He didn’t respond, but his arms tightened as he held her and his hand continued to glide over her hair.
Eventually her breathing slowed, and he turned his hands back to undressing her, removing her blouse, her half corset and her chemise. She stood there at last, naked and wretched. As a Painted Sister she’d been put on view before, knew how to hold her head high. She’d had the luxury of a mask then. Edith pulled her shoulders back lifted her head and slowly turned to face him, her pride keeping the tears in her eyes from spilling. Even as her nipples hardened in the cool air and her sex throbbed with the tension between them. He was right. She did want this as much as him, it’s just she had never imagined it like this.
Vaughn leaned against the wall, hands crossed over his chest, looking at her. He gestured to the room. “Walk around, I want to see the artwork at all angles. I have quite a bit to catch up on.”
A flash of anger spiked, and she grabbed hold of it, held onto it to see her through. She walked around in front of him moving back and forth, tilted her head higher then ran her hands up both sides of her torso, over the painted pictures of Japanese botanicals. If he wanted a show, she would give him one. “I was tattooed by one of Japan’s most respected tattoo masters, Omori-san.” She stood still a few feet away from him. Her hands came under her breasts and she lifted them, tilted her head to the side and rolled her nipples between her thumbs as he had done so many times to her sending longing down to her sex that still throbbed for release.
“The design is a full torso, bottom, thighs and arms, with large leaves and blossoms.” Edith looked at him through her lashes then slowly turned so she was glancing over her shoulder.
“Careful, Edith.” His voice was thick as he tugged at his necktie and pulled it off, throwing it aside.
Excitement rippled through her as she continued. “The inks came from China and Japan where they have mastered a range of colors that are not available in Britain or the continent.” He growled. She turned her head and lifted her arms to take the pins out of her hair, which soon tumbled down her back in dark waves tickling and caressing her skin, alive with sensitivity.
“The red has been so softly graded it looks pink. And the white of my flesh fills in the orchids and peonies. There is a particular orchid that I’m sure you’ll like.” Edith bent over so her backside faced him. There was an orchid whose stem traveled between her cheeks to circle her anus. “I am told this is also the best angle to get the full impact of the design on my sex.” She opened her legs and bent so her hands touched the ground and he would again see the most intimate of her tattoos. A taunt to come back to where he had left off. A taunt to show she wasn’t as scared as she really was.
He was on her in three strides, hand on her back so she couldn’t rise.
“Let me up.”
“Oh you stay down there Edith. You wave a red flag at a bull, you damn well dance with it.” His hand came between her legs, fingers sliding through the crease of her bottom and down into her sex. A reward, not a punishment, for them both as she heard him groan when fingers pressed into her heat.
Vaughn moved his fingers back and forth, the damp sound making as much of a mockery of her anger as his ragged breath made of his. She didn’t care. She needed release and moved her legs out wider. He purred. This then was relatively neutral ground, this common need which the revealing of her first secret had created.
An armchair was a step away. He sat and pivoted her towards him then pressed her back down hands on the floor “Stay like that Edith.” And in seconds his mouth came over her sex, over the whole shocking area as his fingers moved in and out of her. As they pumped and twisted in and out of her, as he pressed his face against her sex and anus.
Edith whimpered and pressed closer wanting more, needing more of whatever this was before it ended, and she needed to pack up and leave.
/> His hot firm licks, the press of his tongue on places she had never considered receiving them brought her closer and closer to release. Her muscles tightened and tightened and she squeezed her internal muscles around his fingers as his tongue pressed against her.
So. Close.
Then he lifted his face away.
“No, no, no, no.” She chanted. But he hadn’t moved far, she could feel his breath over the damp skin, hot fast breaths. His fingers stopped their pumping penetration, withdrew and instead traced her sex, traced over the images, circled her clitoris which would explode with a serious stroke.
“What are you doing?” She panted and looked over her shoulder at him.
His expression was tight, aroused and determined. He wanted her to ask, he wanted her to beg. Her pride said no but her body screamed yes. And her heart, her heart wanted anything it could get before this was over, and there was no doubt in her mind this was the finale to their liaison.
Their gazes held.
She owed him some ground, owed him for the deception and for the forgeries of which he was still unaware.
She rose, turning to face him, reached out and took his hand, drawing him up.
She wanted him, but she wanted some control.
“Get on the bed.” She wanted him to finish what he started. Then she would give him everything he asked. She tugged on his arm, but he stood still, his gaze intense and determined.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Her pride squirmed. “Will you sleep with me?”
“You don’t want to sleep, say what you mean and use my name.”
Her chest rose and fell as her breath came faster.
“Will you have sex with me. . . Anthony?”
Vaughn leaned down closer to her. “Use the word ‘fuck’.”
The panting started again, and she let go of his hand and felt for buttons that weren’t there.
Vaughn groaned when he saw the movement, lifted her and kissed her until her legs went weak, then bent down and put his mouth over her breast and sucked, her hips bucking of their own accord. In fact, every part of her body betrayed her, even her voice, as whimper after whimper slid out. She tugged at his grip and he bit down on her nipple.
“Fuck me, Anthony,” she moaned.
He pulled his shirt off over his head, then pushed her against the wall. His face only inches from hers as the blazing heat of his skin reached for hers.
“Tell me Edith, the Japanese man who did this to you, was this the man who taught you,” Vaughn’s voice rose again to a bellow, “how to suck a man’s cock?” He bit down on her shoulder hard. She yelped.
“It was talk, talk to hide the pain of the broad razor as he shaded the design.”
Vaughn kissed the bite. “Did you suck him?”
“No!”
“Anyone else?”
She shook her head, whispered. “No. Just you.”
A look passed over his face, hard to catch but she knew he was satisfied.
“I haven’t slept with anyone either.”
“I know.” A smug sound that was oddly pleasing.
His trousers dropped exposing lean hips, muscular thighs, defined and taut, with a covering of black hair.
Her breath caught. His cock, which she’d seen before, had sucked and pumped and tasted, made her body undulate with need.
He stepped forward and lifted her chin. “Kiss me!”
She slid her hands over his skin. Her touch made him shiver and raised goose flesh as she leaned in. The tips of her breasts brushed his chest, his soft hairs tickling her. She lifted her mouth and gently placed her lips on his. Tried to say what he wouldn’t hear.
His breath came out unevenly and he ran a hand up over her breast as she kissed him, then slowly down over her hip and around to clasp her bottom as he angled his face and deepened the kiss.
“Get on the bed,” she repeated against his mouth.
He walked backwards towards the bed, face closed and impossible to read then lay down on his back.
“Come further down the bed.” He moved down, and she straddled him. Then slowly moved up higher until her knees were on either side of his neck.
He pulled her down to his face, pressing her knees out so wide that all her control was lost. Edith held onto the head board as his fingers moved into her and his mouth sucked on her nub.
Her hips rocked over him as he buried his face in her, using his tongue, his fingers ’til she was breathing open-mouthed. She looked down, watching him taste her. He looked up, their gazes met, and she came with a cry.
Vaughn quickly moved from under her flipping her on her back, then settled between her legs. He positioned himself at her entrance, then despite the anger still visible on his face, he rocked into her gently. Her breath caught as he pressed the thickness of his cock in then held until she grew more comfortable with him inside her. She didn’t deserve this gentleness, had expected him to be brutal in his taking of her. And here he was, making sure she was alright, that he didn’t hurt her.
“Edith?” his voice was strained.
She pulled his face down to hers, “I’m fine.” She murmured against his lips then kissed him. Kissed him like this may not be the only time they came together.
He made a sound in the back of his throat and started to move, hips thrusting between her hers, building her up again as she thrust her hips in unison with his. His mouth tasted of her, his cheeks damp from her scent from moments before as she rode his face. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he slipped his arm under her and held her close to him, stroking deep and strong as they thrust against each other.
She looked up and his gaze held hers, his desire, the strain in his neck, the building pleasure plain on his face. She didn’t look away and neither did he as the pleasure grew, pulsed, throbbed until she saw his face contort in the wave of climax, his bellow as he came making her tip over the edge, her muscles contracting, throbbing as wave after wave of pure bliss surged through her. She cried out, a mindless shout as she lost all sense of herself. Every inch of her skin, every nerve was vibrating in rapture.
Vaguely she felt Anthony move, taking his weight off her but keeping her close, he pressed his forehead against hers.
“Are you alright,” he asked moving her hair from her face.
Edith could do little more than nod.
He was still angry, it was creeping back into his eyes even as he kissed her again—hard—then rolled away.
The absence of him, even inches away as he lay next to her made her ache. His arm lay over his face as they lay there and caught their breath.
She thought he may have dozed off when he said, “Can you find your way back to your room?”
The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced. After countless hours at the end of a tattooist’s needle, under the blade of the Japanese bamboo and razor, she thought she knew all there was to know about pain. But in comparison to a broken heart, that had been child’s play.
CHAPTER 52
Vaughn watched her move a little stiffly over to her clothes, her hair a wall of satin, her body an incomprehensible work of art. His heart felt skewered, the offending implement remaining deeply embedded in that failing organ.
He walked over to his dressing room and came out dressed in a burgundy robe. He couldn’t stop looking at her, was already thinking of an excuse to keep her here, to have her again. But he knew he would only be more callous with her, and, despite his jealousy and anger, she had not been with someone and would be sore.
Each piece of clothing she put on covered a piece of indecipherable beauty, a leaf so accurately shaded it looked three dimensional, a hydrangea nestling behind bamboo. Each vista tucked away in cotton and wool until finally there she was, his prim and proper Apple. But she wasn’t that to him anymore. He would never look on her again and see the woman he thought she had been, now he saw her as exotic, intoxicating and untrustworthy. Unforgivable.
“Should I pack?” Her
cheeks and chin wore the red marks from his stubble. His mark.
“Not yet.” He got up and reached into the trouser pocket for the key and unlocked the door, stepping aside to let her pass. She stopped next to him, waiting for something. His jaw clenched. He had sworn after Henrietta that he would not be with a woman he couldn’t trust, and Miss Appleby was full of deception.
“So, we’re done?” She sounded tired.
“I’ll have a tray brought to your room.”
“I’d appreciate that.” She walked away.
He knew what she looked like now, knew what her blasted buttons kept hidden. He no longer saw his lovely Apple, imagining her pure skin as it tucked itself under necklines, hems and sleeves. He saw the reds, the pinks, the yellows and greens, and the black shading that made the images float around her like a living garden.
A woman does not get like that on her own. A woman gets like that through the fantasies of men.
Vaughn walked into his adjoining study, poured himself a scotch then went back to his bedroom. He slid down the wall and sat, knees bent in front of him.
The room smelled of them, she was on his fingers, on his face. His jaw was so tight his temples hurt. When he closed his eyes, he saw only her. That small wonderful body, the ink. The fucking ink. How the hell could he have guessed that?
He swiped at his face then took a sip of the scotch.
Who would she have done that for? Who had looked at her, dick as hard as nails etching the image of her into his fantasies for the rest of his life? He took another gulp. Hell, if it were him he would be searching for her, would never let her out of his sight.
And there lay the truth of it.
The other man, whomever he was, may have lost her, but she was under his roof now, she was under the Butcher’s protection now and he wasn’t going to let her go. Ever.
CHAPTER 53
Goldbloom alighted at Victoria Station and made his way to the Central Post office. He inserted his key and opened the door to his personal post box, there was a letter sitting in the dark leaning against the side wall.
