A Thief in the Nude

by Olivia Waite

  It occurred to John, as his cock sprang immediately back to attention, that he had waited far too long to take Hecuba Jones to his bed.

  How many times did a woman have to ask him to fuck her?

  She hadn’t used that precise word, of course—though he had a marked suspicion she could have—but she’d made her desires plain enough. And he’d been holding back, lurching forward, then pulling back again, like an untrained horse in harness.

  Well, no longer.

  So he rose from the bed, found one of the sheaths he’d procured and slipped it over his cock, tying the ribbon tight at the base. Hecuba’s eyes were on him the whole time, which added an exhibitionist charge to the process. He felt like a courtesan posing for her protector.

  It was unsettling to realize that he liked the feeling.

  He was beginning to think he would like anything as long as it involved Hecuba Jones and a bed. And the bed was probably optional.

  She opened her arms to him as he returned to her warmth. The touch of her skin set him alight again—he needed to be inside her more than he needed his next breath. He pushed his hips between her thighs, rough, at the limits of his patience, but she merely spread her legs wide to accommodate him. He set the head of his cock at her entrance and scraped up enough self-control to meet her gaze before he went any further.

  She laughed and tugged at his shoulders. Had any woman ever been so amused by her own seduction? “Now,” she insisted.

  John obligingly began to push forward.

  The briefest of resistances and he was past her maidenhead. Hot and tight and oh so slick—her gasp and his groan came simultaneously. She stretched around him and he clenched his hands in the sheets to keep from pounding mindlessly into her. That can come later, whispered a treacherous voice in his head. It sent a frisson of pure need spiraling down to the base of his spine and he pushed in another inch.

  Hecuba raised her thighs higher and wrapped her legs around his waist.

  John lost control of himself and plunged in to the hilt.

  “Hell!” Hecuba swore.

  John shuddered and felt his cock throb inside her. He didn’t know how long he could keep himself from moving. “Sorry,” he ground out. “Too rough.”

  “No,” she corrected him on a moan, “I like it.”

  Those three small words were all it took to break him. John’s mouth came down harshly on hers as he began to move. Her stocking feet rasped lightly against the skin of his hips while he drove his cock home with long, powerful strokes—a driving rhythm some reasonable part of him worried was too much for a recent virgin. But that same recent virgin just slid her hands up to the back of his neck for leverage and met him stroke for stroke, breasts shaking with every desperate thrust.

  The reasonable part of him vanished.

  He tore his mouth from hers and buried his face in her neck, the better to fuck her as hard as he needed to. She bit down on his shoulder as he pistoned into her, her inner muscles working him and her hands pulling his hair just hard enough for the feeling to stand out in the sea of pleasure. Sweat gathered in the hollow above his buttocks as he strove for his long-denied climax.

  Hecuba released his shoulder and panted against his ear. “I’m close,” she said. “So close. But I don’t... I can’t...” A wordless cry of frustration shook her beneath him.

  Through his haze, John realized what she needed. He was too far gone himself for dexterity—but he could use her boldness to both their advantage.

  With an effort, he pushed his arms straight to either side, palms flat on the bed, making a space between their torsos even as he continued to thrust inside her. “Go on,” he rumbled, his jaw clenched tight against the urge to come at the sight of her flesh, pink and stretched around him. “Take what you need.”

  With only the briefest hesitation, she slid one hand down to where they were joined. It took her a moment, but he knew she’d found the right spot when she gasped and her hand began to move in time with his needy cock.

  The sight of her stroking herself while he fucked her seared into him like a brand. He sped up, so close to the edge he could almost taste it, then gave one particularly rough thrust that drove him impossibly deep within the throbbing, slippery warmth of her cunt.

  Hecuba came so hard she curled up around him, clutching at his shoulders with her free hand and panting desperately against the crook of his neck. It was too much—he’d been holding back too long. With a hoarse cry, John followed her up and over the edge, into flight, pulsing and shaking as he poured himself into her quivering body and sparks burst in the darkness behind his eyes.

  Slowly the aftershocks died away and their bodies regained their accustomed weight. John ran wondering hands down the curves of her hips and along the stockings she still wore, the black silk impossibly dark against the sheets. There were holes in them, he noticed now—spots where her skin showed through in delightfully lurid circles. He wanted to slip those stockings down over her calves, her ankles—remove them entirely and use them tie her down beneath him in the bed. Or else let her tie him up...Yes, he rather thought she would enjoy that.

  Hecuba sat up with a sigh and reached for her pantalets. “I must be going.”

  There was regret in her voice but not enough of it to soothe the sting. “When will you come back?” he asked, striving to keep his voice level and calm. Damn it all, she’d been the virgin, so why did he feel as though he’d lost something tonight?

  She pulled on her white chemise and smiled mischievously at him over her shoulder. Her lips were pink, her cheeks still flushed from climax, her hair tumbled and wilder than ever. Circe again, he thought, rising from the bed of Odysseus. His hands shook with the need to reach for a pencil and sheet of paper even as his body hummed with exhaustion. Apparently fucking Hecuba Jones as hard as he could had done nothing to curb his impulse to capture her image. He couldn’t wait to paint her again. And to fuck her again.

  He lay dazed by these twin revelations while Hecuba once again put on her black thief’s garb. It was only as she pinned up her hair that he recalled his promise to her. “Wait,” he said. He threw on a dressing gown, retrieved Hecuba as Henry VIII from his wardrobe—still in its protective roll, still bound by his cravat—and held it out to her. “We’ll be even after this,” he said.

  Hecuba took her mother’s painting but her eyes flashed up at him. “There are still two more paintings you have that I want,” she reminded him.

  John braced himself against the tide of relief. “Two more nights?” he said.

  “Two more nights,” Hecuba agreed.

  Chapter 7

  Hecuba had never known two days could take so long to pass.

  It didn’t help that recent activities had left her sore in some unwonted places. Every time she took a step or sat down, the quiet ache between her legs brought visions of Rushmore’s hands and mouth and hips, the feeling of his muscular body moving against hers, the pleasures that could be gleaned from a sensitive man with a ready cock. She knew better than to reveal these secrets to her family, particularly her innocent cousins—though there was a speculative gleam in Anne’s eyes every now and again when she looked at a gentleman, which made Hecuba suspect her cousin would not be as shocked as a maiden ought to be.

  So she held her tongue through all the visits for tea, shopping expeditions, a walk along the Serpentine, dinner en famille and luncheon with Aunt Eleanor’s circle of invariably hen-like acquaintances. It was downright disheartening to find that her continuous, deliberate silence went unremarked by everyone.

  Well, nearly everyone.

  At home on the afternoon of the second day, Anne poured tea then took a seat beside Hecuba. On the other side of the room Aunt Eleanor and Mrs. Gunn leaned close in a confederacy of gossip. Evangeline was sitting beside them, blushing and smiling and nervous.

  Anne, however, was perfectly confident when she asked her cousin, “Are you going to tell me what the matter is?”

  Hecuba blinked
in surprise. “What?” she asked, genuinely confounded.

  Anne snorted. “You’ve not said a word in two days. Mother has noticed and is somewhat relieved—she thinks you’ve finally learned proper feminine docility—but you haven’t said anything to me or to Evangeline either, and that isn’t like you. Also, Dorothy told me that some nights it looks as though your bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  Hecuba froze with the teacup halfway to her mouth.

  Anne peered at her with narrowed eyes. “Dorothy’s right—you haven’t been sleeping well, have you? You have such dark circles beneath your eyes.”

  Hecuba silently cursed herself for a fool. She ought to have thought to muss the bedclothes a little upon returning to her aunt and uncle’s house. Damn Rushmore and his distractions. But Anne had that set to her mouth that told Hecuba she wouldn’t be put off without answers. “You’re right,” she said, thinking quickly. “I haven’t slept well at all this week.” It had the benefit of being true—but Anne, though she nodded sympathetically, would need more than that to be satisfied. “Do you remember those four paintings that used to hang in the parlor at the cottage, before my parents died?”

  “The portraits?” Anne asked. Hecuba nodded. “I always liked those, especially the one of your mother. Whatever happened to them?”

  “Your father sold them,” Hecuba said bluntly.

  Anne had the grace to look shocked. “But…the will said those were to stay in the family. I mean—that is—they were family portraits!”

  “And now they belong to the Earl of Underwood’s younger brother.”

  “Good God.” Anne fell backward against the over-upholstered back of the chair. “No wonder you were so snappish when we introduced you.” She glanced at Evangeline, who was straining to hear her sister and cousin’s conversation, and lowered her voice. “However did you find out?”

  Hecuba spoke as low as she could while Anne took a leisurely sip of tea to mask her avid interest from Evangeline and Aunt Eleanor. “Your father kept putting me off when I asked about the paintings, so I picked the lock on his desk and found a bill of sale dated last spring.”

  Anne choked on her tea. She set the cup aside and coughed a little into her hand. When she could speak again, her voice was rough. “He used the money to pay for our Season.” It was not a question.

  Hecuba inclined her head. She’d come to the same conclusion.

  Anne’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “And now you’re wearing my castoffs while Evangeline and I have new wardrobes bought with funds that by rights belong to you.” The wave of her hand took in both her own pale-pink gown, expertly ruffled, and Hecuba’s ivory muslin, the pale hue of which made her look as though she were the victim of an intestinal complaint.

  “You didn’t seem to mind before,” Hecuba couldn’t help pointing out.

  Anne turned her teacup around and around on its saucer. “You made it plain you thought the whole thing was a waste of time and effort, that you had no desire to—how did you put it?—to be dragged to the altar like a sacrificial lamb.” She put aside the teacup and met her cousin’s gaze frankly. “I do want to be married, you see. I want children and a home of my own. A London Season is the best chance I have of getting that.”

  “I know,” Hecuba said. On impulse she reached out and took Anne by the hand. “And I don’t resent you for wanting something different for your life. I just wish...”

  “I do too,” Anne replied when Hecuba trailed off. She squeezed her cousin’s hand and the light of trouble kindled in her eyes. “Do you think you might teach me how to pick locks?” she asked.

  Hecuba agreed with a grin, thrilled both to have made an ally and because she had succeeded in distracting Anne from her original line of inquiry.

  She took pains to disarrange the bedclothes thoroughly that night before slipping out on her way to the Earl of Underwood’s townhouse.

  Rushmore wasn’t waiting downstairs for her, but that was hardly an obstacle. She found the subtle door and the servant’s stair that led to the north attic. He wasn’t there either—but he’d left a candle burning, and beside it a note with her name in a script too rushed for elegance.

  She picked up the letter.

  Jones,

  If you’re reading this, some tedious evening affair has gone on far longer than necessary. I will be with you as soon as I possibly can.

  Yours, Rushmore

  Hecuba looked for a long time at that single word. Yours. She wasn’t quite certain what to do with it. Was he hers, really? After so short an acquaintance, however intense? Did it mean that he considered her his in some similar way? She didn’t feel as though she belonged to anyone other than herself. And what was she? A fortuneless miss of questionable birth, plainspoken and suspicious and only half-civilized. Whereas John Rushmore had a magnetism about him that could increasingly pull her off course, or cause her natural hue to fade like bright pigments left out in too-strong sun.

  No. They had made a bargain and that would be that: four sittings, four paintings, with four passionate nights to follow. Then she would have her mother’s paintings...and with them, the key. Then Hecuba could build her own life, independent of her aunt and uncle and the ever more oppressive strictures of polite society.

  Yours.

  Did Rushmore really believe there could be something long-lasting between them? She would miss him, certainly, when she left—she would even cry, no doubt—but their futures led down very different paths. Hers would take her to a life no gentleman would countenance, especially not one who was next in line for an earldom, with all the responsibilities and privileges that entailed.

  There was no use hoping for anything more than what they had. The sharp dismay that had begun to strike whenever she thought of their parting was a symptom of sentiment, not a guide for future action.

  Perhaps Rushmore’s artistic tendencies were running away with his better sense. Perhaps she was overthinking this.

  She folded the note and set it aside.

  She would give him half an hour, no more.

  Hecuba took the candle over to where the two previous paintings leaned, facing the attic wall to shield the paint from the sun while they dried. Circe was even more mesmerizing now than it had been at first: Rushmore had used his most delicate brush to add detail to the original scene, honing the expression on her face and bringing the cup in her hand to vivid life. She put it carefully back and turned to examine the second painting, which she had not actually seen at their previous meeting.

  She gasped and nearly dropped the candle.

  On canvas her body shimmered with scales in some places and gleamed like pearl in others, particularly the naked breasts so obviously painted by a lover’s hand. He’d made her hair a shade darker—or perhaps that had been the water—and against the green of the background it burned like a flame. Her expression was patently hungry, bright of eye and red of lip, and with a jolt Hecuba saw that her presence in the painting had transformed Hylas. That young, doomed man was now all eagerness, trembling and ready to throw himself into the depths for one touch of that water creature’s hand.

  A footstep on the stair alerted her to Rushmore’s approach. He was resplendent in black formal dress, the snowy front of his cravat shining like a star in the dim light. “My apologies, Jones,” he said then his brow furrowed and he came closer. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long?”

  Hecuba’s throat was too full to speak at first so she merely gestured at the naiad in the painting.

  “Ah.” Rushmore traced one hand along the edge of the canvas. “I did some more work on that one this afternoon. What do you think?”

  It felt as though the words were torn from somewhere deep within her. “You made me beautiful,” she said.

  John was silent for so long that eventually she had to look up at him. He was staring at her as if she were daft. “I paint what I see.”

  Hecuba held the candle up to better see his face. His expression was solemn, if a bit
puzzled, and his eyes were clear and earnest.

  The realization that he was serious about her beauty staggered her.

  Seeking the comforting mask of darkness, Hecuba turned her head and extinguished the light with a breath, then set the candle aside. Her fingers first found Rushmore’s cravat, a ghostly white in the dimness, then traced the steely line of his jaw and the softer skin of his cheeks. She rose on tiptoe to feather her lips along his, keeping her motions light and delicate. Slowly she began to deepen the kiss, but still it was a fragile thing, born of gratitude and wonder.

  Rushmore sighed into her mouth but his hands stayed at his sides. There was sherry on his breath and the smallest hint of a cheroot, bitter and sharp. In the dark it was easy to believe she was as beautiful as he seemed to think, that she had all those powers of attraction she’d never dared to claim for herself. That the sight of her could cause a man to risk his whole future just for the chance to touch her and be touched in return.

  “You should take me downstairs,” she whispered.

  She felt as well as heard him chuckle. “So impatient, Jones?”

  She dropped her hands and stepped away, invisible now, the candle still in her pocket. “Or I could leave,” she said, the teasing lilt in her voice belying the way her heart was hammering in her breast.

  A rush of air and his hands caught her—the sound of her voice had given away her location in the dark. “Never,” he said and pulled her up hard against him, his earlier reticence cast aside. One arm banded tight around her waist and the other caught the back of her neck as he slanted his mouth over hers again and again. She kissed him back just as desperately. “You were right,” he said, breaking away to take in a lungful of air, “I should take you downstairs.”

  Hand in hand, they stole like fugitives down to Rushmore’s bedroom.

  The fire had burned down to embers, the barest pinpricks in the dark room. Hecuba silently shut the door while Rushmore pulled open the curtains, letting the light of the half-moon slip in and dance on every edge in the room: the polished wood of the bedstead, the metal poker by the hearth, the edge of a small shaving mirror on the dresser. Then he was across the room, sliding his hands beneath both her shirt and chemise, feathering her skin with kisses even as he removed the rest of her clothing with practiced efficiency.