Jess Michaels

by Sin Collection

  Sin stared at her, trying to maneuver back into the shell of propriety that young ladies were raised to rely upon. But he also saw the flush of awareness darken her skin. He saw the way her gaze darted up and down his body with interest and longing. Reaching back, he shut the door behind him and took another long step toward her.

  “Surely you’ve guessed by now what my purpose for bringing you here was,” he said, measuring his tone, not letting her see how deeply involved he was.

  She blinked, as if in her utter shock she’d forgotten whatever guesses she’d made about this journey’s ultimate purpose. Then memory dawned and she began to tremble, just as he imagined she would when she reached the ultimate crest of pleasure. His erection strained against his trousers and he nearly groaned with the desire that was steadily building in his boiling blood stream.

  “This cannot be,” she whispered, taking a step backward but finding herself flush against the wall.

  He wasn’t certain whether to be amused or irritated by her resistance. He remained neutral while he continued to push her toward the realization that this was truly happening.

  “It is.”

  She swallowed hard, then straightened up and gathered her composure with effort. “Please, tell me exactly what my father’s bargain with you was.”

  He nodded. She deserved that. “One fortnight at my home, Evelyn. Ten days of pleasure.”

  She shivered, but her expression remained cool. “In exchange for what?”

  Hesitation halted him. Should he tell her the whole truth about their bargain? Tell her that her virtue, something valued and protected by ladies of society, was worth so little to her father… a man who should have been protecting her with all his heart and power?

  Evelyn met his stare with a blush tingeing her cheeks. “How much does he owe you, Sin?”

  He let out a breath of relief. Somehow he didn’t like the idea of revealing her father’s true nature. If she already knew it, that only eased the entire situation.

  “Enough,” he said with a shrug.

  “I knew it.” She sighed, resigned. “I am afraid you are getting a poor bargain. I have none of the experience it is rumored you are accustomed to.”

  She turned away, but he caught her take a peek over her shoulder at him. Ah, so there was pain… humiliation… but there was also an undeniable interest that flickered in her brown eyes.

  He took a long step toward her, startling her into facing him again. Pinned against the wall, she had no avenue for retreat. Within a few paces, he had braced one hand on either side of her head. He breathed in her scent: sweet hints of heather and jasmine, but also an undertone of sultry, heady need.

  A need he so desperately wanted to fulfill.

  “You underestimate how much a man might wish to give you the experience you lack, Evie.” Her eyes widened, but she didn’t speak. He leaned a little closer. “Can you deny you wish to surrender?”

  Still, she didn’t reply. It was almost as if she were frozen in place, as she stared up with eyes wide and misty with powerful and warring emotions.

  He tilted his head ever closer, never touching but near enough to feel the heat of her skin. “I have watched you. Seen you watch me. I’ve received the messages you may not even know you telegraph. And now I intend to give you no choice but to surrender everything you are, everything you could be to me.”

  When she sucked in a breath to argue, he dropped his lips against hers and stole away her words with the sweep of his tongue. She let out a little cry of surprise and he took full advantage, breaching her lips to sample her mouth. When he stroked his tongue along her own, her cry turned to a gasp of pleasure. Then a moan when he pushed his fingers into her hair and tilted her head for greater access.

  Just as he had always fantasized she would be, Evelyn was a quick study at pleasure. After just a few moments, she darted her tongue to tentatively meet his. Then with more surety and greater confidence. Her hands relaxed at her sides, then lifted, fingers skimming over his stomach to rest on his chest. His own moan, one he could not contain any more than she had been able to hold back hers, was lost in her mouth.

  Sin leaned in to rock against her, let her feel the demands of his body as his hard, heavy cock nudged the yielding warmth at the juncture of her thighs. She broke the kiss at the foreign feeling, her head dipping back as she hissed out a harsh sound of pleasure and surprise and even fear.

  “You cannot deny you want this,” he murmured as he brought his lips to her throat.

  She stiffened, then began to push him back. “No! Wait-I-” Instantly, he released her, pulling away as she twisted from his embrace and struggled for breath. “I am a lady, I cannot…”

  He nodded. He had anticipated that the veil of propriety might inhibit her. But he had a weapon against that. Reaching into the inside pocket of his tailored jacket, he withdrew a thick, leather bound book.

  Before he even said a word, Evelyn’s eyes widened and all the high color left her cheeks.

  “Where did you get that?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. “That-that is my journal!”

  Chapter Two

  Evelyn fought the powerful urge to snatch her diary from Sin’s fingers and run into the dark night. As tempting as that idea was, it was impractical and wouldn’t change the fact that Sin had clearly read her private thoughts. Her stories.

  Heat flamed her face. They weren’t just stories. They were fantasies. About all the things she longed to do with this man. To this man. The very things some of his artwork depicted and more. Things that began with the kind of kiss he had just bestowed upon her.

  But in none of those fantasies had he bartered pleasure for a debt he owed to her father.

  Disappointment flooded her as she reached for the book, but he held it out of her reach, watching her with those green eyes that could be dark as night or light as spring grass depending on his mood. At present they were jungle dark and filled with such passion that it almost scared her.

  “You have no right to my private thoughts!” she protested, hoping he would assume her breathy voice was due to outrage, not the taut, growing need that was building in her lower belly. “My words, my feelings, my-my-”

  He smiled, wolfish and possessive and she felt yet another small part of herself seduced by his intention to have her for ten delicious days. “Your desires, Evelyn?”

  She shook her head, sinking under his spell with terrifying speed. “This is not proper!”

  He tilted his head, demanding she meet his eyes. She was helpless as he stared deep into her soul. Touched her in places he had no business to see.

  “It is improper,” he agreed far too readily as he moved toward her, closing what little gap of safe space she’d carved out between them after the kiss. Reaching out, he traced her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “But I think that a proper lady would never write the naughty, delightful things you put in this book,” he drawled as he held up the journal briefly. Then he tossed it aside, freeing both his hands. “I think beneath these proper gowns…”

  His hand slid from her cheek to the top button of her high waisted, woolen traveling gown. Before she could protest, he made quick work of the four tiny buttons separating her from madness. The gowned seemed to float away from her shoulders to crumple at her waist. Her chemise hardly covered her in any decent fashion. The thin cotton did not keep her hard nipples from being visible or hide the gooseflesh that had popped along her bare arms at his touch.

  “And behind this proper hair,” he continued as he reached up and threaded his fingers into her already tousled style. One by one he found the pins hidden within her locks and pulled them away until her hair came down around her shoulders, offering a little protection that had been taken when he left her standing in the thin sheath of her chemise.

  “And beneath all your proper words-” He traced her lips with the rough pad of his thumb, then parted them. “There is a wild, wanton woman who has been hiding for too long. And for ten da
ys, I intend to set her free and give her every fantasy she wrote about in the dark, secret hours of the night.”

  Evelyn shivered. With his every word, her nerves had become more and more sensitive. Now it felt like her very blood hummed with desires long hidden. She tilted her chin, shamelessly, wordlessly offering him her mouth. He took that offer with a muttered curse and she found heaven in the heat of this second kiss.

  Sin demanded more this time and she found she was willing to give what he required. His fingers curled against her back, stroking bare skin and bringing her alive in ways she’d only dreamed about.

  But once again, her wary mind kept her from the full surrender he demanded. “Wait-” she whispered. “Wait.”

  Again, he pulled away, staring down at her with wild eyes. “What is it?”

  She didn’t pull from his embrace. “Did my father give you my diary?”

  He shook his head without any hesitation. “No. He is not aware of its existence.”

  She drew in a sigh of relief. “And did he make you the offer of my flesh for his debt?”

  Again, he shook his head in the negative. “I made the terms.”

  Joy flooded her. Though this wasn’t how she had ever envisioned coming to Sin’s arms, at least she knew he hadn’t been coerced into this. Not that she could pictured Sin being forced into anything. But she needed to know one more thing before she took what her body and very soul craved. What Sin offered.

  “Why did you make my body a term of repayment?”

  He seemed surprised that she would ask such a thing. For a moment, he considered the question. Finally, he said, “If I had not, I knew your father would offer you to another man. And after reading your fantasies, I couldn’t bear the idea of someone else being the one to introduce you to passion and pleasure.”

  She shivered as he pulled her a fraction closer. Close enough that she felt the hard thrust of his erection against her belly. Her own body trembled, growing hot and gushing wet in reaction.

  “I am the only one who knows your secrets, Evie.” His voice was low now, husky and seductive. “The only man who knows your every desire. By my reputation, you must know I can introduce you to pleasures you haven’t dared dream of.” His hot breath stirred her cheek. “Do you think any other man could truly give you what you want?”

  She blushed. Despite reading her private thoughts, Sin didn’t realize he, himself, had been the star of all her stories. That there was only one man in the world who she wanted to give her what she had described.

  He clearly took her hesitation for resistance, for he cocked his head and met her gaze with steely green determination. “Evelyn, you will stay here for ten days, whether you surrender to your wants or not. Why not take what you haven’t dared ask for?”

  She stared up at him. Temptation embodied. But also very, very right. She thought of her sister, Juliana, who had been so broken by a similar bargain. If Evelyn didn’t take this moment with Sin, her father would surely give her to another at some point. Why shouldn’t she have what she had longed for?

  She felt herself nod.

  Sin’s eyes lit up with feral desire more potent and dangerous than any she’d ever seen. She braced herself for the moment of taking, claiming, but instead he let his hands slide down her sides until he found her drooping gown. Gently, he lifted it back over her shoulders and fastened it closed as easily as he had loosened it.

  “I am very pleased,” he said. “We will retire to my chamber. You can rest from your journey, eat and then…” He trailed off with a tantalizing smile.

  “Then?” she asked, her entire body shaking.

  He caught her arm and slid it into the crook of his own. “Then I shall begin your education.”

  *

  Sin’s chamber matched his nickname to perfection, but Evelyn was not experiencing it as she had expected. Instead of lying on the big bed with the sumptuous velvet coverlet or being ‘educated’, as he put it, on the fur rug before the blazing fire, she was sitting at a small table having supper. It was utterly civilized and not sexual in any way…

  Except that she was in Sin’s room. Next to Sin’s bed. And he was sitting across from her, watching her every move with keen interest. He seemed especially fascinated by the way she ate. Even the most benign motion, like licking a bit of cream from her lip, elicited a muted groan from his lips.

  Evelyn was beginning to realize that innocent or not, she had power over him. Over Sin! A man who could reduce the chilliest matron to a quivering mass. A man who made her father tremble in fear.

  She set her napkin aside and smiled with a nervous flutter. Now it would happen. That moment she had feared and anticipated for nearly a year. The moment when Sin would take her to his bed.

  Except he made no motion to do so. Instead he poured her another glass of wine and leaned back in his chair.

  “May I ask you a question?” he said, strumming his fingertips along the stem of his own wine glass.

  She nodded. How could she say no?

  “Why did you begin to write down your fantasies?”

  Dipping her chin, a rush of heat tickled her cheeks. She had kept her scribblings a secret for so long, she wasn’t sure she could share them, even with the star of her darkest fantasies. Especially with him.

  He leaned forward and she felt the touch of one finger beneath her chin. With a gentle nudge, he forced her to look into his eyes.

  “Do not do that,” he ordered and suddenly his voice was harsh. She had never heard such a tone from him. “If you are inexperienced, that is fine… but I don’t like coquettishness. I like you brazen and bold like you are in the words you wrote. Don’t hide behind some veil of propriety. Not with me.”

  She looked into his dark eyes and let her shoulders come back. Bold and brazen. It was easier to do behind the cloak of secrets and the veil of written words. Much harder with the real man. But if that would bring him pleasure, she would try. She had to. For she could already be certain that he would do everything in his power to bring her the same.

  “I knew my father would probably make a bargain like the one he made with you. For my hand or my virtue, either way, I knew I would be forced to lay down with a man. After watching my sister go through her own hell under similar circumstances, I realized it would be best for me to be ready for that inevitability. I heard my maid was secretly meeting with a groom in the stable, so I-”

  She wanted to turn away, but Sin’s earlier order stopped her. She sucked in a harsh breath. Sin nodded.

  “What did you do?” he encouraged, his voice low.

  “I-I followed her one night. Hid in the shadows as they--they--”

  “Made love?” he finished. “Fucked?”

  She started. She had only heard that term once. Only seen it in writing a few times. It was shocking and thrilling to hear it from Sin’s lips. Suddenly it wasn’t just a vulgarity, but it conjured wicked images.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  He cocked his head and slowly slid his chair closer to her at the round table. “What were they doing, Evie?”

  Her eyes fluttered shut as she tried to breathe past the tightness of her chest. Remembering was an erotic exercise she’d repeated before. But always alone. Still, saying these things out loud made hot cream rush to her thighs.

  “He-he pushed her skirts up and knelt before her. Between her legs.” She shifted to help relieve some of the tension that made her womanly parts tingle and her nipples harden. “And he licked her.”

  Sin cleared his throat before he reached out to catch the chair she was sitting on and dragged her closer. “What did you do?”

  She watched his face, taut with desire, then let her gaze move down. She had felt the thrust of his cock earlier, but now she saw the harsh outline of it against his trousers. Retelling her story was arousing him as much as it did her.

  And that feeling of power thrilled through her again.

  “It looked like my maid enjoyed what he did. It was the first time I thoug
ht the things that pass between a man and woman in the privacy of their bed could be pleasurable. And it made me want… something. I didn’t know what. But when I touched myself, in the same place where the groom put his mouth on the maid, it relieved that ache. So I did that while I watched.”

  “And did you come?” he asked, parting his legs. She jumped when he grabbed the edge of her chair and pulled it between them. Her knees pushed his inner thighs as he pushed them apart a fraction and stroked his palms against her legs.

  “Sin!” she gasped as electric reaction jolted through her every fiber.

  “Did you?” he repeated.

  “Come?” The world was spinning as his hands stroked, stroked, just lightly, against the top of her knees and up her thighs, but never actually touching her where that deep ache throbbed.

  “It means to find release. To relieve the want that watching created in you,” he explained.

  She shook her head. “Not the first time. Later-later I felt… something happen.”

  He groaned. “And was it after that night that you began to write?”

  She was having a hard time focusing as Sin’s fingers continued to play along her hips, cupping her in such intimate ways, pulling her ever closer.

  “No. I only spied on the servants for a while,” she admitted, now too aroused to be embarrassed by the confession. “And then I discovered people actually wrote books and made drawings like the paintings in your parlor. I found ways to get them. When I felt that need, I looked at my pictures and read the stories. And then one night I couldn’t find a new story to interest me… so I wrote one.”

  “Very good, Evelyn.” Sin leaned forward. One hand stroked her rib cage in slow, steady brushes. The other cupped her chin. “I appreciate your candor. And I will give you everything you saw. Everything you wrote about. And then I’ll introduce you to even more. But first, I must take your maidenhead.”

  She nodded, the movement jerky as his fingers finally stroked the side of her breast. She remembered her ladies maid begging the groom to suckle her nipples, her screams of pleasure when he plucked them. Would Sin do that to her?