by Alyson Chase
“Don’t assume everyone will act as rationally as you would.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s a good thing your driver was slow and I was able to arrive before you.” His hands tremored at the thought of what could have happened to her if she’d arrived on time, and he dug his fingers into his opposite biceps to hide it.
“The horse pulling my hackney threw a shoe.” She flicked a piece of lint off her sleeve. “I was delayed.”
He shook his head. “That horse saved your life.”
“You don’t know that.” Colleen stepped into him, and the scent of her soap tickled his nose.
The front door opened, and a footman stepped through, cutting off Max’s sharp retort. “Your carriage is here.” The boy pointed to the front steps. One of the club’s landau’s, a study in black and gold with the initial ‘S’ painted onto the door, waited for them.
Taking Colleen’s elbow, Max herded her out the door and down the steps, keeping an eagle-eye for anyone approaching. He tossed her into the carriage, one hand on her hip the other on her lower back. The feel of her warm body, alive and bristling with irritation, soothed the worry that had dug its claws into him ever since he’d fled The Black Rose.
Colleen slapped at his hands. “I’m in already.” Flopping onto the plush bench seat, she scowled at him. “We could have just taken my hackney.” She peered through the window. “Oh. He left. I owed him another bob.”
He climbed in behind her and slammed the door shut. “You thought you would purchase sufficient protection for a bob?”
She scooted to the end of the bench, as far from him as possible. “I don’t see how you can act as though you’re the injured party. We agreed last night that it would be for the best if our relationship was once again a purely business one. My employer doesn’t have the right to reprimand me unless it comes to the administration of The Black Rose.”
Max huffed. Agreed? After he’d confessed his crime, Colleen had gone white as a snowdrop flower and told him she could no longer continue with their affair. That she needed time alone to think. He hadn’t agreed to anything.
Max slid next to her, letting his thigh rest against hers. Needing the contact. “You have every right to hate me. And you have every right to keep me from your bed. But I will keep you safe, even if it goes against your will.” Pinching her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he turned her head to look in her eyes. “Is that understood?”
“Would it change anything if I disagreed?”
“It would not.”
She jerked her chin from his grasp. “Then it is pointless to say I don’t understand.”
“Perfectly pointless.” On one thing, at least, they could agree. He pounded on the ceiling, and the landau jerked forwards.
They rolled through London, Colleen staring out the half-lowered window. When she finally spoke, Max started.
“I don’t hate you.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
Max swallowed. He wanted to believe her. Needed her forgiveness. “How could you not? I took so much from you.”
She twisted, tucking one knee up on the bench to face him. Grabbing his hands, she held them close to her chest. “We all deserve forgiveness for our sins. Don’t we? There can’t be some mistakes that are irredeemable?” She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. “Can there?”
Max cocked his head. Was she letting him off the hook or asking for forgiveness herself? But then, there was nothing Colleen could have done that would warrant absolution. The greatest sin in her mind was having an affair as an unmarried woman. He didn’t want to dismiss her worries but needed to convince her that what they’d done had hurt no one. There was nothing to seek forgiveness for.
“I hope,” he said slowly, “that if the harm we caused wasn’t intentional, that if we try to do the right thing, that we can atone for anything. And if we haven’t hurt anyone by our actions, then I don’t think there is anything to ask pardon for.”
For men like him, much needed to be forgiven. The line between doing what was right and doing the right thing was blurred and bent. Did the good he and his friends secured override the less desirable methods they employed to achieve it? But on one score he was certain. “For someone like you, someone who leads a decent, solid life, mercy is always available. There is nothing you could do that would be very bad.”
She gave him a small smile. “Let’s hope you’re right.” Resting her shoulder against the bench, she sighed. She lowered their joined hands to her lap, and his fingers twitched.
So close to her heat. It was a crazy reaction. But the fear that had pounded through him had to go somewhere. And it turned into lust. He brushed his thumb along her skirt, along a small bump in the fabric that covered the crease where her hip met her thigh. A caress so small she couldn’t have felt it.
She shifted her legs. Her head, already so close to his resting on the bench back, dropped to his shoulder. “I don’t want to keep you from my bed, any more than you want to leave it.” The words were honey-coated whiskey. So sweet, and they started a low burn deep within Max.
More boldly, he palmed her thigh and slid his hand up and down her leg. The landau took that moment to grind to a stop. The footman from The Black Rose opened the door, his forehead clearing when he saw Max and Colleen inside.
“Welcome back, my Lord.” The boy reached up to hand Colleen down, but Max brushed him aside.
Bustling her into the club, he guided her directly to the stairs up to her private rooms. Lucy shouted a question across the room, and he slammed the door at the base of the stairwell in answer. All questions could wait. Colleen had forgiven him. He’d gone to bed the night before believing he’d never taste this woman again, and he’d been given a second chance.
A man didn’t waste a second chance.
Colleen pushed his hands off her bum. “I’m moving as fast as I can.”
“Not fast enough.” He turned her around on the step above him and slung her over his shoulder, enjoying her shriek. Taking the remaining stairs two at a time, he made for her bedroom.
The bottle of brandy and the candles still sat on her bureau. He couldn’t wait to tease her body. But first, he needed release. The fire could wait until he was in a clearer state of mind. Impatience and flame were never a good combination.
He tossed her on the bed and grabbed her ankles, dragging her hips to the edge. Her shrieks turned to laughter. Her skirt rode up to her hips, exposing creamy thighs and knee-high stockings. Shucking her boots, he stroked his hand down her calf, danced over the back of her knee, and drew down her stocking. The other bit of silk received the same treatment. When his hands traveled up her bare legs, they didn’t stop at her knee.
She jerked when his fingers grazed her sex then let her thighs fall wide. Finding her clit, he rubbed circles around it, loving the way her face flushed and her mouth fell open.
She popped open the buttons of her spencer and flapped the loose ends against her body. “That feels so good.”
Pressing his index finger into her channel, he glided along her slick walls. “I can see that. But trust me, it’s going to feel better.” He knelt and lowered his mouth. Colleen rested her feet on his shoulders, curling her toes into his coat at the first lash of his tongue.
Spreading her lips, Max licked the slick skin inside, lapped at the juices spilling from her opening. With his teeth, he nibbled on her outer lips, tugging at them before returning to her core. He plunged his tongue inside, wishing it were longer, wanting all of her.
“Oh God.” Her calves clenched against his ears and released. “Your beard is scratching me.”
He lifted his head, brows drawn. “Do you want me to stop?” This damn beard was becoming more cumbersome by the minute.
“No!” Threading her fingers into his hair, she drew him back down. “No, don’t stop.”
“Hmm.” She shivered, and Max vibrated his lips against her sensitive flesh again. Plunging two fingers inside her, he found her clit with his lips and pu
lled.
Her hips jumped from the bed, her feet digging into his shoulders. Pulling her closer to his mouth, he pinned her in his embrace. Her quim fluttered around his fingers, and his cock throbbed in response, wanting in.
But his fear from that day wasn’t forgotten. When Colleen started thrusting her pelvis, when her moans reached a fevered pitch, he pulled his head away.
She flopped to the mattress. “Don’t stop!”
“For ten minutes today, I was near out of my mind with panic,” he said. “Ten minutes where I imagined the worst. Ten minutes that I couldn’t get to St. Katherine’s fast enough. I think you owe me for those ten minutes.”
She pushed up to her elbows and glared down at him. “What are you jabbering on about?”
“For each of those ten minutes, I’m going to bring you to the edge.” A smile stretched across his face. “But not over. Never over. Not until we reach the tenth peak.” He lowered his head and paused. “Oh, and by that tenth peak, I’d better have heard an apology for making me worry and a promise you’ll never do anything so stupid again.”
“Apologize! I will no—oooh.” She bounced back on the bed, her whole body going limp as he applied himself back at her opening.
She was utterly delicious. Like smoked honey. He could spend all day feasting between her thighs. Which was a good thing, because he was going to be here awhile. Her legs quivered, her nails dug into his head, and Max pulled back, resting his chin on the edge of the bed.
Colleen cursed with feeling.
“Where did such a proper woman learn such filthy words?” he asked, nuzzling her thigh with his cheek.
“I told you I spent many an afternoon down on the docks accepting our shipments.” She rocked her hips into his face. “You pick up things.”
Max chuckled. He started in on her again. Each whimper, every curse, made him throb painfully behind his smallclothes. He had to give her credit. By the sixth time he’d brought her to the peak, he thought she would have cracked. It wasn’t until her seventh climb, when she was reaching down to bring herself her own relief and he had to trap her hands, that she finally broke.
“I’m sorry! So, so sorry.” She writhed and pounded her heels into his shoulders. She landed some solid blows. But not hard enough to make him stop.
“And?” Curling his tongue, he arrowed it in and out of her tight sheath.
“And I won’t do it again!”
Planting an open-mouthed kiss on her nub, he smiled, satisfied. “Good girl. Now, only two more climbs, and you’ll get your reward.”
She wailed, thumping her fists against the mattress. Max remained unmoved. He’d promised her ten, and he was a man who kept his word.
By the time they reached her tenth climb, Colleen was in tears. He took pity, shifting from leisurely swipes to a good, rigorous tongue-fucking. She needed to come, fast and hard. Slipping two fingers into her scalding heat, he curled them, finding that cushion of flesh that drove women mad. He locked his lips around her clit and sucked, and she came with a sob.
Her channel clamped down around his digits, the pressure so strong it crossed his eyes. Unable to wait a minute longer, Max pushed to his feet. He flipped Colleen to her stomach, her legs dangling off the bed, and shoved his trousers and smallclothes down his hips. Lining his straining cock at her opening, he pushed home, into her throbbing heat.
He fisted his hands into the coverlet and dropped his head. He wanted to stay in this woman forever.
Colleen’s knot of hair was half undone from all her thrashing, and he pulled out the remaining pins. Combing her hair out along the bed, he bent and pressed a kiss behind her ear. “You doing all right?”
A small sigh escaped her lips. “I’m lovely. Do what you will. I’ll just lie here.”
Pushing her skirt up to her lower back, he gave her arse a playful pinch. “Are you giving me permission to use your body as I see fit?” He rocked his hips back and thrust deep. “Thank you, love. I think I will.”
It didn’t take him long to get close. Her core was liquid heat, a velvet glove. Every thrust raised the hair on his arms and sent sensation shooting to the base of his spine. He forced his body to slow. Easing his cock back, he felt every tight clutch of her muscles. Only the tip of him remained in Colleen’s body, his shaft shiny with her juices. Digging his fingers into her hips, slowly, so goddamn slowly, he pressed back in, every inch she swallowed him tightening the screws on his control until he was ready to snap.
“What do you say, love?” He covered her back with his chest and bit down on her earlobe. “One more time?” He slid his hand up between her leg and the bed, his fingers questing for her bundle of nerves.
She groaned. “No more. I can’t take anymore. Just find your pleasure and be done. This was supposed to be for you.”
Max stilled. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Wriggling her arse, Colleen glanced back over her shoulder. “It just means I want you to find release. Want to show you that I don’t hold any grudges.”
He reared up. “Is this some sort of pity fuck, Colleen?”
She tried to push up, but Max kept one hand bunched in her skirts at the small of her back. The other stayed pressed against her clit. “Honestly, do you care right now why I invited you back to my bed? And it’s not like I didn’t get anything from it. I just wanted you to know, about the fire—”
“A forgiveness fuck then.” His chest burned, and bile rose in his throat. He didn’t understand his reaction. A fuck was a fuck, no matter what was going on in his manager’s head.
He glowered down at her, trying to figure out just what he was feeling. His pulse pounded in his temples and his cock, a strange twin beat. He needed to be guided by his head more, his prick less. This uptight woman of business was getting under his skin, and no good could come from that.
But it was the throbbing in his cock that won out. Swiveling his hips, he slammed back home. Her sheath felt like a hundred greedy tongues licking him all at once. How was a man to resist that?
Pummeling into her, he took her every moan as an affirmation. She thought she could just lie there like some twisted good Samaritan, gifting her body for his release? Like she was too good to find pleasure from his cock, that this was only for him? To hell with that.
Rage. That was what he was feeling. Not usually an emotion he brought to bed. But balls deep, he wasn’t going to waste the energy. He’d probably saved her life today; given her a job three months ago when she needed one; even paid off that old flower shop owner so he wouldn’t sell before Colleen could pay him. And she was still too bloody good for him? If she thought she could spread her legs, give him a benediction, and be done, she could think again.
His fingers began a soft seduction. Swirling a slow circle around her clit with each thrust of his hips before pinching down on the nub. With his other hand, he pushed her skirt high up her back. Her arse joggled each time he slapped into her, her normally fair skin flushing pink. With his boot, he knocked her legs wider, drove deeper.
Lighting raced along his cock. Gritting his teeth, he dug deep. No fucking way he was going without her. She thought she was wrung out from her edges? She didn’t know what being so damn drained from coming and coming until her entire body quivered like one giant exposed nerve felt like. But she would.
Sliding his thumb between the cheeks of her arse, he circled her other opening, rimming the tight muscle there.
Colleen dug her nails into the coverlet, fisting the embroidered fabric. Her small white teeth speared into her bottom lip and her sheath went so tight she nearly forced him out.
“You like that?” he asked. He pummeled into her, his balls drawing tight. Colleen might be better than him. More decent. Have a heart big enough to forgive the unthinkable, and God knew he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. Pain stabbed his heart, and his fingers faltered for just a second. Jesus, he didn’t deserve her forgiveness and yet she’d given it so freely. But he couldn’t think of that now. The eno
rmity of what he’d done, what he’d taken, would swallow him whole.
So, he focused on what made them equal. When his cock was fucking her body. His tongue, his teeth, his fingers. She might rise so far above him in her conduct and integrity and honesty that he couldn’t even reach her feet to kiss. But her body came just as hard as his when they screwed. Her surrender was just as true.
His balls slapped her arse. Hooking the tip of his thumb into her tight, rear channel, he let his body go. The bed shook and inched across the floor. Colleen kicked a foot up, her heel hitting his thigh. She tried to claw her way across the bed, but her core clutched at his length, pulling their bodies together.
She arched up, her hair falling down her back, as beautiful as a fiery sunset. He clamped down on her arse, her skin whitening around his fingertips. The soft sucking noise of her body grasping at his echoed in his ears. He grew thicker, harder. Colleen screamed, her channel fisting him hard. And he was done.
Thousands of pinpricks of fire raced up his cock. A pleasure so acute it hurt gathered at his spine and shot through his length. At the last moment, he pulled out, not wanting to leave her milking heat, but with just enough sense left to know he must.
His release spurted across her arse, marking her pink skin. Pulling his thumb from her, Max spread her wide, and speared his cock through her cheeks, drawing out each shuddering jet.
Colleen pressed her face into the mattress and groaned.
Staggering back, he stared at her, arse up, still clothed except for her skirt flung up to her waist. His seed glistened in streaks across her reddened skin. The room was silent except for their breathing.
Buttoning up his falls, Max withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. With regret, he wiped her clean. Removed his taint. He smoothed down her skirts, shame mixing with his anger. Stepping back, he waited for her censure.
