“Mmm,” he murmured, “so wet and ready for me.”
His lean body covered hers again, pressing skin to skin. This time, his cock jutted against her pussy, demanding the entrance she so desperately longed to give.
“Taste yourself on my mouth.” He trapped her face between his hands and kissed her again.
His tongue tasted of her, she realized, thrilled by the intimate act.
At last, he tore his mouth from hers, his breathing harsh. “Do you want me, Clarissa?”
“Yes.” More than she dared to admit.
“Are you certain?” He kissed her cheek, his jaw a lovely abrasion against her skin. “There will be no going back.”
“Please.” She clutched at his shoulders. He had stopped pleasuring her and she desperately wanted more of his caresses. “I’m coming apart. I need…” She didn’t know precisely what she did need, only that Pierce Foster could offer it to her. Turning her head, she caught his lips in another drugging kiss.
He groaned into her mouth, sliding a finger inside her. The intrusion startled and titillated. A maddening rhythm commenced, and just when she feared she’d shatter and faint dead away, she knew the hardness of his cock again. Instinctively, she bucked toward him, her legs falling apart to accommodate his large body.
In one swift thrust, he sheathed himself, her maidenhead rending in a quick but painful tear. She stiffened against him and he stilled, allowing her to grow accustomed to the feeling of him within her. With deliberate, gentle strokes, he filled her, slipping just inside, then out, then deeper. She threw her head back on the pillow, crying out. She knew her entire body was about to shatter into a million splendorous bits. Delightful tingles skittered over her skin. Her pussy throbbed and her breasts ached. She could scarcely breathe.
His teeth raked over her neck. He lowered his beautiful head to suck her nipple into his mouth once more, rasping his stubble against the curve of her breast. Spasms rocketed through her. “Just like that, darling,” he cooed, “just like that.”
Then he began again, and the pain ebbed away, replaced once more by the consuming desire, the ache to be one with him. She met his rhythm, taking him deeper, each thrust stretching her, making her pussy the center of her being. She was going to swoon. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Soon her body convulsed in sweet release, rocking against him, pulling him into her even more. He moaned, increasing his pace, sliding into her harder, faster, until his hot seed spurted inside her. Her undoing was complete. She collapsed against him, hands clutching for desperate purchase in his thick, soft hair.
“Oh dear heavens. What has happened to me?” Clarissa tried to regain her breath and her strength, but both eluded her. She clung to Pierce like a drowning victim who had just been rescued.
He kissed her again, his tongue plunging hungrily into her open mouth. “La petite mort, princess.”
“The little death,” she translated when her passion-hazed brain could once again function. “If that is death, sir, then I should like to die again.”
A wicked grin curled his mouth. “My pleasure. In time.” Pierce rolled onto his side and pulled her against him, cradling her body to his. He kissed her neck. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“It was wonderful,” she murmured, fearing she had somehow developed an impossible tendre for the man who held her now as if she were his dearest love rather than a woman he’d taken to pay a gambling debt.
Chapter Three
“Breakfast is served, princess.” With an exaggerated bow and a wicked grin, Pierce deposited a tray on the bed before her laden with enough delicacies to feed the House of Commons.
Clarissa could not keep the besotted smile from her lips. A fortnight had passed from the day she had abruptly become his lover, and she had found surprising happiness here. Pierce had proved generous, considerate and kind. “Good morning.” She raised her face up to accept his melting kiss.
“Mmm,” he murmured. “You are delicious.”
He pulled back to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose before he plopped on the bed at her side, devilishly alluring. “I have a special treat for you this morning.”
“Indeed?” She raised a brow, basking in his infectious good mood. Each day, she fell deeper under his spell and she found she quite liked the feeling.
“Close your eyes.”
She did as she was bid, but managed an attempt at sneaking a peek from beneath her lashes.
“No peeking, C. This is serious business. You must abide by my rules or you won’t have your treat.”
Drat. He knew her so well already. She scrunched up her face. “Very well. I shan’t peek.”
“Good girl.” She heard a smile in his voice. A slightly rough object touched her lower lip. “Open your mouth and take a bite.”
She did and the heavenly taste of her favorite fruit pleased her mouth. Her eyes fluttered open. “Strawberries! Where on earth did you find them at this time of year?”
“I have my ways.” He winked. “Would you care for another bite?”
“Yes.” She opened her mouth and waited for him to bring the luscious red fruit back to her again.
Suddenly, his blue eyes darkened with a familiar heat as his gaze centered on her lips. He held the berry to her and she nipped the rest from his fingers, leaving him only the leafy green top.
“You don’t like sharing, princess?”
“If you are exceptionally nice to me, perhaps I will let you have a bite or two.”
“Aren’t I always kind to you?”
“You are.” Tenderness swept through her. She reached out to caress his strong jaw, relishing the scratchiness of his whiskers. “I thank you for it.”
He kissed her palm. “You are most welcome, dear lady.”
“Sometimes I feel as if I’ve entered a dream world, as if at any second my maid will wake me and I’ll be back in my bed at the Grosvenor house.” She paused, considering the complexity of her emotions. “You will no doubt think it bad of me, but I heard such awful tales and believed them. You are not at all the man I expected.”
He turned her hand over and kissed her fingers, then her inner wrist. “You were anticipating a chap with horns sprouting from his head?”
She laughed at the ridiculous imagery his words provoked. “However did you come into all this?”
“The gaming hells, you mean?” He straightened, his face losing its playfulness and becoming inscrutable. “Either impossibly good fortune or impossibly bad, depending upon how one views the world.”
She scooted closer to him, nestling against his shoulder when he would have perhaps retreated. “Won’t you tell me?”
He sighed. “Have another strawberry, C.”
She retrieved one from the small crystal bowl he’d uncovered and took a bite. “Now won’t you tell me?”
A chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Persistent minx, aren’t you? Very well. I was born in the streets. My mother was a maid in a fine house, a chamber maid, but it was good work, steady income and all that. Respectable. Until she was ravished by a footman and became with child. The footman wouldn’t marry her, and when the master of the house discovered he had a maid with a bastard in her belly, he dismissed her without references.”
Clarissa gasped at the horrific tale. “Dear God, what happened to her?”
“She went to the streets and was forced to earn her living the only way she knew how, on her back.” He paused as his voice grew thick with emotion, composing himself. “She had me, took care of me as best she could. I never wanted for anything. When I was fifteen, she married a much older man, the owner of a particular establishment, and when they both died, I inherited it. From then on, I worked my bollocks off—forgive me—for everything you see around you.”
His beautiful face looked desolate as he completed his story. Clarissa knew no other way to comfort him than by drawing him into her arms. They held one another tightly for a long time, neither speaking, neither willing to move and break the connection they ha
d impossibly discovered in one another.
“I am sorry, Pierce, for the suffering you and your mother both must have known,” she said softly when at last she could speak. She kissed his ear, then his neck.
“No need to be sorry.” He rubbed his cheek against hers. “I’m nothing more than a gutter rat. Don’t waste your concern on me. The past is the past.”
A swift current of emotion passed through her. She had fallen in love with him. Somehow, unlikely though it seemed. The man who had once been the source of her downfall was now the source of her redemption. And perhaps she too was his. Clarissa bracketed his beloved face in her hands, searching his eyes. “You are a fine gentleman.”
His gaze sank again to her mouth. “Christ, I hope you’re not hungry for breakfast.”
Without another word, he pushed the tray to the floor and rolled her onto her back. They kissed as if they were finding one another all over again, breathless and desperate. Her pussy pulsed with the sweet ache of wanting and with the loving she’d received the night before. Now she wanted more.
“I can’t be with you for more than ten minutes without wanting you desperately,” he groaned. “I need to have you.”
“Mmm.” Her hands stroked over his broad, strong back. She wanted to feel his smooth skin and corded muscles rather than fabric. “Tell me what I should do.”
“No.” He nipped her bottom lip. “You must tell me what you want me to do.”
Could she? Good heavens, it seemed so indecent, so naughty, so…arousing.
“If you insist, sir.” She shoved at his shoulders, forcing him from her. Very well, if he wanted her to be the one giving orders, she would. And thoroughly enjoy herself in the process. “First off, you must take off all your clothes.”
“Indeed. You want me naked?” A glint she recognized well lit his eyes.
“Utterly.”
“I am at your service, as ever.” He shucked his shirt in one swift movement to reveal the tempting glory of his chest, the thick bands of his abdomen. She wanted to lick it.
“Now your breeches. I shall help.” Feeling the warmth of want between her thighs, she lowered her lips first to his devilish mouth, then to his neck. She trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down his lightly haired chest, running her fingers from his taut belly to the placket of his breeches as she did so. There was something she’d been wanting to do ever since she’d first glimpsed his cock.
“I want you in my mouth,” she told him, looking up to meet his brilliant gaze. Oh how wanton she had suddenly become. She quite liked the feeling.
Pierce gave a guttural groan, raising his hips to her. He was hers for the taking. She undid his breeches and slid them down over his hips. His cock sprang free, stiff and beautiful. Clarissa lowered her head and took him into her mouth as far as she could. He tasted salty and musky. She sucked, then laved the tip with her tongue, swirling it round and round. When she heard him moan, she took more of him into her mouth, loving the slick of her saliva over his hardness, the sound of his heavy breathing, loving the power she had over him. It made her wet, she realized.
Her hand sank down over her body, parting her dressing gown to press into the folds of her pussy. As she sucked his cock, she stroked herself as he had done for her. Liquid pooled on her fingertips. She toyed with the aching bud at her center, then sank a finger inside herself.
“Damn,” Pierce moaned. “Are you touching your pussy?”
She looked up at him, the tip of his cock still in her mouth. “Yes,” she whispered, dragging her tongue up across his shaft to its base.
“How does it feel?”
“Hot and wet.”
“Hell, I have to be inside you now.”
He flipped her onto her back again, rising over her in all his naked beauty. He quite took her breath. She spread her legs wide, opening herself to him. He played with her, then rubbed the moisture from her pussy over his cock so that it glistened. The hole at the tip of his cock oozed a liquid she wanted to lick up. She felt quite as if she wanted nothing more in the world than to have his cock pulsing inside her. Her pussy ached with want and need.
He slowly entered her and she arched her hips, bringing him deeper. The rhythm he began was maddening. Sensation bloomed from the center of her body outward. He lowered his handsome face to her breasts, rasping the sensitive tips with the scant scruff of whiskers he’d grown over the course of the evening. Her fingers sank into his thick golden hair. Meeting her gaze, he sucked a hard nipple into his mouth. He reached between their slick bodies and toyed with her until he had her gasping for breath, climaxing around him.
He surged deeper, pumping over and over until she felt the wonderful spurt of his seed within her. Every inch of their naked bodies pressed together. She knew then that somehow, in spite of their inauspicious beginnings, the fire between them burned unlike anything she’d ever known.
“I love you, Pierce Foster,” she whispered against his neck.
* * * * *
Pierce was furious with himself. He cut a path through the smoke and laughter-filled den of gamblers and sharps that had once been his home. Biting back a curse, he sat in on a game of vingt-et-un, determined to distract himself. One hundred pounds later, he rose from the table, shrugging off the well-meaning ribaldry of the viscounts and earls he’d once enjoyed. Everything had changed. He felt restless. Anger coiled inside him, tightly wound, ready to be released. He resented Clarissa. Because he loved her.
Damn it. Somehow, in the span of one bloody fortnight, he’d allowed her to find a place within his black heart. She had given herself to him so freely, so wonderfully, and he had used her as if she were no better than a dockside doxy. He had used her. The knowledge of it ate at him.
She had told him she loved him. Him, Pierce Foster, son of a whore, a nobody, a nothing. Clarissa had been born to wealth and privilege only to lose both to her wastrel father’s ineptitude. She’d done nothing to deserve his ill treatment of her. He wasn’t fit to tie the laces on her shoes. But she treated him as an equal, loved him, listened to him, did not ask a thing of him in return.
Pierce Foster had done many bad deeds in his lifetime. He’d been a pickpocket as a lad, he’d ruined men because he could. He’d gambled and drank and pleasured himself with more women than he cared to count. But hurting Lady Clarissa Darlington was one bad deed too many. He couldn’t bear it. But he couldn’t bear losing her, either. And in telling her the truth, surely she would slip from his grasp.
* * * * *
“C.?”
Clarissa blinked her eyes open to find Pierce standing over her, a candle in his hand, his lithe body haloed in the gentle, flickering glow. She’d waited up for him to come to her as he did every evening after completing his duties belowstairs. Tonight, he had not come, and she’d grown tired waiting. She’d curled up into his pillow and fallen asleep.
“Pierce?” She stretched and gave a tiny yawn. “Where have you been?”
“Working.” His jaw tightened.
“Of course.” She extended her arm to him in welcome. “Won’t you come to bed? I’ve missed you.”
She sensed a palpable difference in him tonight. He was not his usual, carefree self. Gone was the grinning, winking lover she had come to know. Worry stirred within her. “Won’t you come to bed?” she asked again.
He deposited the candle on a nearby table. With one hand, he pulled the buttons of his shirt free of their moorings with such force more than one could be heard skittering along the wooden planks of the floor.
She caught a glimpse of his muscled chest in the flickering light. His face bore a haunted expression. There was an animal magnetism about him tonight that tantalized and startled her at the same time.
“Is something amiss?”
He dropped his shirt first, then his breeches. “Everything is bloody well amiss.”
She tried not to admire the beauty of his naked body and failed utterly. His cock rose proud and hard at the juncture of his strong thighs. “Won�
�t you tell me what is wrong?”
“What’s wrong is you naked in bed without me.”
Somehow, she didn’t quite believe him. But given his dark mood, she was reluctant to press him. She threw the bedclothes to the side, exposing her body. Her pulse quickened at the wicked glint in his gaze.
He joined her on the bed, running his hands over her breasts and lower, to her pussy. “I want to fuck a different way tonight.”
His crude language gave her pause for a moment. “There is more than one way?”
He laughed but the sound held little mirth. “God yes, darling. Let me show you.”
With a gentleness that belied the storm clearly roiling within him, he lifted her into a sitting position. He caught her face in his palms. “Kiss me, princess.”
She pressed her body into his, feeling his cock hard against her belly and threw her arms around his neck, bringing his lips to hers. His tongue slipped in her mouth. He tasted of brandy and smoke.
“Turn around, darling,” he commanded, voice gruff yet sensual against her lips.
Angels in heaven. She searched his gaze, trying to determine what he wanted of her and seeing nary a hint. Confused yet aroused, she did as he asked, sliding about on the sheets until she presented him with her back. He swept her long hair to the side. A pair of warm lips settled at the nape of her neck, then lower, all the way down her spine.
“On your hands and knees,” he instructed and placed her as he wished at the same time.
Clarissa looked at him over her shoulder. She felt open, at his mercy, wanton and wicked. Her pussy was slick with wetness, throbbing for his cock. She tilted her bottom up for him. His fingers entered her, sending pure pleasure skittering over her senses. She wanted more. As if he knew her body better than she, he replaced his fingers with his cock. With a slow thrust that took her breath, he was inside her, so deep she could scarcely maintain her sanity.
He pumped into her, his rhythm gradually increasing until it was almost as fast as her heart’s frantic beat. She came almost at once, unable to bear the pleasure without shattering. Her pussy clamped tightly around him and he groaned.
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