White Lace and Promises

by Natasha Blackthorne

  She was going to enjoy being his wife in every meaning of the word. Especially when she learnt the kind of power his wealth and name could wield for her. Power was a balm for many of life’s disappointments. He well knew this from his own experience.

  She laughed, low and soft. “Admit it—you dismissed your other mistresses only because I play the harlot better.”

  He compressed his lips. Who the devil had ever called her a harlot? Certainly never he.

  And she was well aware it was bad manners for a fiancée to broach the subject of a man’s mistresses, much less compare herself to them. She was doing it deliberately to provoke him. To test him and gain reassurance. But he had done everything he could to reassure her. What more could he do?

  God, young women and their constant insecurities. Hadn’t he stayed away from them for a reason?

  She faced him and the candlelight backlit her hair into a glowing halo. “Please stop scowling at me.”

  Christ. Her voice—all breathy and soft. A bedchamber voice that made his lower stomach go taut.

  “I am not scowling.”

  Her hips swung with practiced grace as she walked towards him. A harlot’s exaggerated, seductive moves, as if to taunt him further. It should enrage him, and it did, yet the blood rushed into his groin, bringing him to a full erection. Lord above, she drove him insane in all meanings of the term.

  As she stopped before him she made a pretty pout. “You are angry with me.”

  He stared down into eyes as large and impossibly azure as the tropical sea. A man could drown in such depths and forget himself completely. Beneath the expensive floral perfume he’d purchased for her, her natural tangy, sweet scent tempted him. Her breast brushed his arm and, at the soft warmth, the tightening in his stomach spread to his cock, increasing with each beat of his heart. Lust pounded through him until he grew almost lightheaded with it.

  A whole week away from her. A whole week, when he was too addicted to her intense sensuality. Whose clever idea had it been to refrain from carnal relations with her in the carriage? What would it have really hurt?

  Her face tilted up to him, the delicate cords in her throat extending, exposing the beating pulse that just begged for the press of his lips. Rational thought became impossible and he took hold of her lithe waist and bent towards her.

  “I disappointed you, didn’t I?”

  He paused with his lips poised to kiss her neck. “What?”

  “In the ballroom, just now.”

  He struggled to clear his head and focus on her words. “No, you did fine. Beautifully.”

  She had, considering that the memory of facing Dorr at City Tavern must surely have rattled her. Indeed, such a glance at the rapacious side of the old satyr would have been enough to rattle many a seasoned society lady. He raised his head to look at her. “I am not disappointed in the least.”

  “You charming liar.” She gave him a smile, all white teeth and softly curving pink lips, but beneath her fluttering lashes her eyes were sad. “The truth is I ran away like a green girl. They are probably saying as much in there right now.”

  “All ladies get overheated and faint. They’ll think nothing of it.” He bent and took her mouth. As the haunting strains of a waltz sounded distantly, he slid his tongue along hers. She was all fire and wine. He let his hands slide down from her waist to cup her ass.

  God, she drove him to distraction. He drank of her hungrily. Greedily. But he knew he’d never be able to find satiety.

  When he’d tried to leave her behind and return to New York, he might have spent his nights fucking his pretty mistress, tall, lushly figured, red-haired Kate. Instead, he’d lain in his lonely bed tormented by the memory of Beth’s kisses. She had a way of kissing, drawing his tongue in and swirling hers around it… He lacked words adequate to describe the sensation.

  He lacked words to describe her.

  And, in the end, he’d lacked the will to put her behind him. Now Kate was living off his generous congé while she sought another protector.

  Here he was, on the verge of doing what he’d vowed he would never do—getting married again. All right, yes, he had broken his vow. It didn’t mean he’d given over control. He could be a husband yet keep his priority focused on business. Time to prove that. He broke the kiss, raised his head and opened his mouth to suggest they return to the ballroom.

  Beth pressed her soft body into his pelvis and his cock throbbed in response. His heart beat a tattoo in his ears, and a warning echoed off the walls.

  He was losing his self-control. He removed his hands from her tempting little ass. “We shouldn’t start this here.”

  She gripped his lapels. “Why not?”

  Her eyes turned to blue smoke, full of need and longing. She was such an emotional, sexual girl. Her needs ran high. His own need he could resist, but hers was another thing entirely. The hunger in her eyes pulled deep inside him, as if she yanked his guts with just a glance.

  But he must be in control, not her. It had to be that way from the very start between them. It must—else he’d have no peace.

  He grasped her wrists and pulled her hands away. The feel of her small-boned wrists, the softness of her skin, sent pure fire racing through him. He dropped her hands and fixed her with his strongest look, the one he’d learnt at his father’s knee. The one that quelled men of twice his age and wealth.

  She quailed…a bit.

  All right, those were some fairly big guns to level at such a petite girl, but he knew from past experience that her charms were deadly.

  “We should not do this here,” he repeated, slower this time, more for himself than her.

  She laughed, a nervous catch in her throat. “Who is going to know?”

  A mischievous light sparkled in her eyes. His heart gave a little leap and warmth suffused him—a strange sensation of pleasure and pride at knowing she wouldn’t be quelled. Not even by him.

  But no. He’d better get things in hand. He opened his mouth, prepared to deliver a sharp retort. To tell her just how childish she was being. She grasped his erection through the wool cloth of his pantaloons. Again, fire went racing through his whole body, forcing a sound between a laugh and a gasp from the depths of him.

  Her tongue flirted over her lips as she squeezed him and her eyes teased his, glittering with lust—and triumph.

  He shot out his hand, seized her by the cascade of silver-gilt curls that lay against her nape and dragged her head back. He paused, holding her like that. Her lips parted and her eyes widened. Then she laughed, throaty and wickedly sensual.

  “You’re playing with fire.” He scarcely recognised his own voice.

  Her eyes ignited into blue flames and her body trembled against his. “Burn me.”

  God, she was such a vixen.

  He brought his open mouth down on hers and stabbed his tongue again and again into her velvet-wet cavern. Ravenously. Savagely. He wanted her to feel the same powerlessness he did. Wanted to impress on her how ungovernable this passion was.

  She didn’t even flinch. She thrust her tongue back against his with bold strokes. She never backed down. Never. His very own virago. He loosened his grip on her hair, cupped her face and his mouth gentled on hers.

  Dear God, he adored her mouth.

  Maybe a few more moments wouldn’t matter.

  Meanwhile she’d got his fall open faster than he’d thought a woman’s fingers could work a man’s buttons. And he’d let her. Couldn’t find the will to stop her. She wrapped her hand around his heated flesh and squeezed him. Pearly fluid surged from the tip. She swirled her thumb, spreading the fluid in a silken glide over the head.

  He groaned deep in his throat and opened his eyes to enjoy the beautiful, refined lines of her face while still relishing the taste of her kiss. She stroked him up and down with agonising slowness. His heart drummed in his ears, chest and cock.

  She broke the kiss. Eyes that smouldered like sin held his as she licked her palm, thoroughly wetting
it. Then she twisted her hand about his shaft while stroking up and down, touching him in a mind-bendingly novel way.

  “God, Beth, where’d you learn that?” He barely choked the words out.

  Her throaty laugh resonated deep in his balls. “I know a lot of things I have yet to show you.” She squeezed him. “You like it?”

  Couldn’t she tell from the way he was leaking all over her hand?

  “I like it fine,” he managed to choke the words out.

  She laughed again. A wicked promise.

  She pushed her breasts, belly and pelvis against him. Her soft curves pressed into him and she slid slowly down his body. He caught his breath.

  She dropped to her knees.

  His heart pounded and his erection twitched urgently. She grasped him and held on firmly. Squeezing. So accurately mimicking the rhythmic clenching of her cunt when she came that he released his breath in a groan and leaked uncontrollably. She bent her head and her warm breath cascaded over his heated flesh. Again, he sucked in his breath and held it. She glanced up at him, her eyes full of sin and sex. Her little pink tongue came out and swept over the head, licking it clean. He threw his head back.

  Christ.

  Again, she circled the head with her tongue, a slow, wet, warm slide. Over and over. He glanced back down and touched her face. She moaned deep in her throat, as if having him in her mouth was the most delicious pleasure. The sound vibrated in her mouth, through his cock and deep into his groin, his balls. Weakening his knees. Weakening his resolve even more.

  He had never felt her mouth on him before. It wasn’t as if he’d never received this kind of pleasure. With his former mistresses he’d got this regularly enough. While certainly diverting, he wouldn’t have said it was anything to sell one’s soul over. But no woman had ever put all her heart into it as Beth did now. No contest, this was the most exciting, enchanting thing he’d ever experienced. And she hadn’t even really got started.

  What would she be like when she—

  Boots sounded in the corridor, seeming almost unnaturally loud. His eyes popped open and he glanced down. Beth’s champagne-silver head was bent, shimmering in the candlelight and bobbing as she pleasured him. The pale pink roses in her diadem had wilted considerably. He focused on the tiny chamber.

  Good God, they were in Cornelia Hazelwood’s house.

  At what point had he lost all sense and propriety? He was supposed to be introducing her to his world, not setting her back on her ass and fucking the breath out of her in a musty, dusty old schoolroom—which was exactly where this would end.

  He reached to push her away. She licked him on the underside between the head and the shaft. The sensation rocked him to his balls and his hand stilled as his hips thrust forward.

  He shuddered with pleasure and clasped her shoulders.

  “No, not like this, not here.”

  Her eyes flew open. Her delicate brows lifted and she looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

  His cock twitched as if he’d lost his mind as well.

  “But why?” she asked.

  “Anyone could come in.”

  “I locked the door, remember?” She slowly lowered her head, opened her mouth and her moist, heated breath encircled him. His cock twitched, as if rearing up to reach her lips.

  She stroked her hot, wet tongue down his length. Grey gave a whispered groan, part pleasure and part frustrated defeat. She glanced up questioningly, her eyes smoky and sensual. Oh Christ, he was so damned. He nodded and stroked her hair, wishing he could take the pins out. He wanted to see it flowing around her. She was closing her mouth over the head.

  Would she—

  No, this wasn’t right. He wasn’t going to fall on her here like she was some harlot he’d picked off the wharf. They would do things his way, on his terms.

  “Get up,” he said firmly, certain those words would be the death of him.

  She fell back on her heels, mouth open, eyes glazed. “I just wanted to prove something to you.”

  “What? That you drive me absolutely insane with desire?”

  “No, that I reached too high. And I shall bear the blame for the ruin of us both.”

  “Reached too high?” Oh damn, not this again. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Would a lady do this, here with you, like this?” She moved forward, took his cock in her hand and stroked him up and down.

  He gave a whispered groan.

  “Would she?” Her voice became urgent.

  “It depends”—he caught his breath and grimaced with pleasure, then exhaled on a groan—“on the lady in question.”

  “Would she ask you to allow her to take your cock into her mouth and pleasure you until you pour your seed down her throat?”

  His cock throbbed and painful hunger made him grit his teeth. He was close to spilling in her hand. “Christ, Beth.”

  “Here in her former benefactress’s house? In the schoolroom where she once learnt her letters? Would she get such a perverse thrill out of it?” She said this in a calm, conversational tone, all the while stroking him. Her eyes smouldered. He knew that look. She needed a good, hard fucking.

  He needed to give it to her.

  But not here.

  “Beth—”

  “Now that you truly know the kind of girl I am, it’s not too late for you to back out.”

  He knew her. Already, even after a couple of months, he knew her. She was pushing at him. Testing him. Wanting to goad him into a reaction. It was a defiant self-destructiveness that worried him.

  He must remain firm. It was the only way he knew to handle her.

  But, damn it, at the moment he couldn’t think clearly enough to form the words to refute her. He put his hands on her shoulders, trying to dissuade her. She leaned her head forward and caught his cock in her mouth, swallowing him in one swift, silken slide. His crown rested in the snugness of her throat. His heart pounded against his chest wall and in his ears. He shouldn’t let this continue…but damn, she had such a sweet, small mouth. How had she—

  A loud squeak sounded. Her mouth popped open, releasing him. With a small cry, she scurried away. He jerked his cock and shirt tail into his pantaloons and threw a glance over his shoulder towards the door.

  A tall, slender, bespectacled young gentleman stood there holding a lantern. His dark eyes were huge in his ashen face. He lifted his free hand and the lantern’s light caught the glint of metal. A key. “I knew you’d bring him here. Did you think you could keep me locked out?”

  The younger man’s voice was accusing.

  Still aroused, with the blood still roaring in his ears, Grey struggled to regain his bearings.

  Beth hugged herself and glared at the intruder. “You have no right to come here—spying on me. Get out of here.”

  “Now Beth, I am only trying to—”

  “Just get out.” Her voice was so hard, it sounded brittle.

  Then Grey knew. This was her heartless seducer. Christ, in all his imaginings of the bastard, he’d never pictured such a harmless puppy. He didn’t even appear to be thirty years old—and a sheltered, pampered thirty at that. He had a soft, untried look about his eyes.

  Grey went and put his arms about Beth’s shoulders and drew her close. “What the devil is going on here?”

  “I should ask that question of you,” the younger man said, his voice quavering, his eyes burning with the type of emotion that could come only from a man’s basest jealousy. He stood up taller, puffed his slender chest out. “I warn you, I watched her grow up. I am as protective of her as I am of my dear sisters.”

  “Ha!” The sound exploded from Beth. She laughed, the sound so cynical and bitter it sent shivers into Grey’s bones. The last pulsing echo of his arousal faded, replaced by cold determination.

  Time to put an end to this farce.

  “I am her intended husband,” Grey said.

  The young man dropped his gaze to rest it again on Beth. “So it’s true? You acc
epted him?”

  “I did.” Her voice rang with defiance and her body bristled beneath Grey’s touch. At her intensity of emotion directed towards another man, jealousy stabbed his innards.

  The young man’s eyes widened, then he lifted his chin, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Well, I see.” The ridiculous puppy spun on his heel, strode to the door and slammed it behind him.

  Grey bent down and placed a kiss on Beth’s head. Her shoulders remained stiff under his hands, and she seemed to crackle with tension, like a cat with its fur on end. “That’s him, isn’t it? Your seducer?”

  She slunk down, slipping from his embrace. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, I do.”

  She whirled to face him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing. “You promised not to harry me about my past. Don’t you remember?”

  Harry her? He was no longer just another stiff cock between her legs, amusement in the otherwise drab grey of her life. “Beth, I am your betrothed husband and I demand to know who the hell that boy is to you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Demand? You demand?”

  “I think I have the right.”

  Her face flushed brighter and her fists tightened by her sides. She leant forward, the muslin of her bodice straining across her breasts. God, she was so damnably gorgeous right now. The heat of her emotions singed him. Made him want to be burnt further, consumed. Made him dangerously close to forgetting why it was important to refrain from bending her over that large, central desk.

  She’d be a lot more amenable to his questions after a long, hard fucking.

  “Well, you’ve no rights to know my past. Your rights began the moment you declared yourself and not a moment before.”

  Her defiant tone broke over him like January sleet.

  Damn her stubbornness. Why couldn’t she learn that he was on her side? She needn’t spend the rest of her life defending herself against him.

  “Quit playing the injured little girl about everything.”

  She startled, her mouth dropping open. “Little girl?”

  She took several steps back, gaping at him the whole time. Oh, that might not have been the best choice of words. But it was too late to bite them back. “Yes, you are acting like a child, not a woman ready to be a wife. I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life dealing with your childish defensiveness. If he was the one, then just say so.”