Parlor Games

by Jess Michaels

  With a laugh, she drew her hand away. “Not yet.”

  He arched an eyebrow, but let his hips rest flat on the bed again. Taking her time, she freed each button of his trouser waist and peeled the heavy fabric away. His cock sprung free, swollen and hard, ready.

  She wrapped her fingers around the heavy length, remembering how much he liked it when she stroked him the night they met. That seemed like a lifetime ago, even though it wasn’t long at all.

  She met his gaze and slowly worked her hand from base to head, massaging lightly. When his eyes screwed shut and he let out a hoarse groan, Arabella’s heart soared. Giving him pleasure was as much a gift to herself as to him.

  That thought brought her up short. Her original plan for tonight was to steal Valentine’s power, regain her control. But now, as she stroked him, power and control were the furthest things from her mind. So was the idea of taking anything from this man.

  The moment she touched him, her world revolved around giving. Giving pleasure. Giving completion. Even giving a tiny part of her heart and soul, a part that had remained hidden for many years.

  Her sigh shuddered as she leaned forward to press one kiss against the mushroom head of his erection. Valentine jolted at the contact of her lips. When she looked up, he strained against the leather ties, the vein in his neck popping as he fought to maintain calm.

  She smiled. “You can let go, Valentine.”

  He stared at her, his gaze hooded. There was still a wall between them. One built by her secret past. Built by his painful experiences. She wanted more than anything to tear that wall down. Even if it meant giving more of herself than was wise.

  But for this moment, she was content to start with her body. Her intent had been slow seduction, but she couldn’t wait for that now. She wanted Valentine inside her. But she needed something else just as much.

  “Tell me you want me,” she said as she slid up the length of his body. She let her breasts rub against his hips, his stomach, his chest, until her face was even with his.

  He hesitated, then whispered, “You know I want you.”

  “Do you need me?” The question was a hard one to ask, but she had to know.

  Valentine drew in a harsh breath. “I need you, Arabella. More than I ever thought I could.”

  The tears she had cried a short while ago had been born of fear and heartbreak, but the ones that burned her eyes now were joyful. She bunched her nightgown, positioned herself above Valentine, and took him inside her, inch by slow inch.

  The fullness she felt when he filled her always surprised Arabella. It was almost like a part of her was missing until their bodies joined. Then…completion. Fulfillment.

  Shutting her eyes, she began to ride. After so many times when Valentine had controlled the pace and even the position in which they joined, she reveled in her newfound power as much as she reveled in the pleasure of rocking her body against his.

  Valentine groaned as she swirled her hips and moaned with him. He felt so good, so right. Almost immediately, she found herself on the edge of a powerful orgasm, but she couldn’t quite reach it. She rocked against him in frustration, closer and closer, but unable to reach the pinnacle she desired.

  Opening her eyes, she looked down at Valentine. He met her gaze and she jolted even closer to release. Suddenly she knew what she wanted, how to get it.

  “I’m going to untie you,” she said softly.

  “Why?” His eyes went wide as she freed his wrists.

  She grabbed each hand, placing them on her waist before she started to move again. “Because I need you to touch me. I don’t want control or to take. I want to feel you inside me. I want to feel your arms around me.”

  His expression softened as his arms wrapped around her. His fingers pressed into the flesh of her backside and he guided her, helping her thrust as she moved with more purpose, more pleasure. Desire coiled in her belly and began to tighten, becoming more focused, more clear, until an explosion of pleasure overwhelmed her.

  She cried out as she came, but her shout was not the only one. It merged with Valentine’s cry of release as he pumped hot into her body.

  Valentine sighed as Arabella fell forward onto his chest in an exhausted heap. His arms came around her as he soothed sweaty locks from her cheeks and listened to her breathing slow. What had begun as a gift had turned into a powerful, emotional encounter. As unexpected as it was pleasurable.

  Arabella’s body relaxed as he moved her to his side and gathered her close. She was asleep, or nearly asleep.

  “Valentine,” she whispered, her voice heavy. “I love you.”

  7

  Valentine watched the morning light play with Arabella’s features. The sunlight reflected off her golden hair and made her skin even more luminescent than usual. He could have lain there and watched her sleep all morning, except his troubled thoughts kept him from fully enjoying the pastime.

  Arabella loved him. Her admission the night before had kept him tossing and turning all night. Worse than that was his reaction to her sleepy claim. Joy had flooded him. Emotion. The very things he’d vowed to avoid after his last disastrous affair. Things he had no right to feel when he knew full well that Arabella was lying, that she wasn’t who she said she was.

  Her eyes fluttered beneath her hooded lids, then came open to reveal blue so pure it hurt to look at it. Hurt to observe that beauty. Especially when he knew it hid such deceptions. Ones he had to uncover…for his own sake as much as hers.

  “Good morning.” She sighed. A wince marred her expression when she stretched her injured shoulder.

  “Good morning,” he replied. “I’ll change your dressing in a while. But before I do…we need to discuss what happened last night.”

  Her face paled and her smile faded. “The attack?”

  He frowned. “No. Before that.”

  She straightened up, propping herself into a sitting position against the pillows. Her tousled blond hair tangled around her shoulders and she stared solemnly at him, waiting as she contemplated his statement. He had a wild urge just to put her on her back and make them both forget these issues, but he couldn’t.

  “You want to know about my…identity,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “Last night I put my trust in you. This morning I ask for some of the same in return.”

  “Trusting me with your body and your control in this bed is very different from asking me to trust you with my past…my soul.” She fingered the edge of the coverlet as she spoke, but there were no angry sparks as there had been the previous night.

  He sighed. If he demanded trust, he had to give it. He realized that now. And it wasn’t even as terrifying as he thought the realization would be.

  “It is the same for me, Arabella. Giving you control last night was a test of more than just my body.” Her gaze snagged his, questioning. “You’re not the only one with a painful past.”

  She tilted her head and he sighed. “You know I was dismissed from the Bow Street Runners. Do you know why?”

  “I heard rumors.” She shifted as if uncomfortable. “About you aiding a ring of thieves.”

  His jaw set as it always did when this subject was broached. “There was a woman. I met her during my last assignment with the Runners. She was exotic and wild and I went to her bed most willingly.” Arabella’s mouth twitched, but she urged him on with a nod. “I surrendered myself to the pleasure she gave, believing we had made a connection. I didn’t realize until it was far too late that she was the doxy of the man I was investigating. She used my desire, my heart, against me, in order to help him in his crimes. Nothing we shared was real. In the end…” He trailed off. “In the end I was implicated in their crimes and ultimately dismissed from the position I loved, all because I allowed myself to surrender to her charms.”

  Arabella sucked in a harsh breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “Few do.” He sighed. “And few who have heard the story choose to believe it.” Reaching out, he
took her hand. “But don’t you see, Arabella? That woman was a stranger in my bed. And I’ve realized you are as well. Please help me understand who you are. If not for your own safety, then for my sake.”

  Arabella looked at him, his eyes so dark with questions and desire. He had trusted her with a glimpse of his past. All he asked in return was a bit of her own.

  She sighed, then started in a trembling voice, “My name is Miranda Foxworth, I am the daughter of—”

  “The Earl of Kessington.” Valentine drew back, instant recognition on his handsome face. “You’re dead.”

  She flinched, wishing she could recoil. Wishing she could keep hiding. But she couldn’t. Not from this man.

  “That’s what my father told the world. That I disgraced my family and died from the shame. But I did neither.” Her chin tilted with defiance. “He brought shame upon our name, upon me.”

  “Tell me.” He brushed the hair back from her face. She smiled at the touch, so comforting. It had been a long time since anyone had touched her that way.

  “I am the eldest of five sisters,” she said, clenching her hands in her lap. “My father wanted sons. My mother died trying to give him that wish. Two other wives followed, but all they birthed were girls. Eventually he decided that at least we were worth something in the marriage mart.”

  Valentine winced. Arabella had stopped flinching at her father’s cold, calculating nature long ago. “He arranged a courtship with the Duke of Waverly.”

  “Marcus?” Valentine repeated. “But he only took the title this year.”

  “No, his father.”

  “He was an old man,” Valentine said with a frown.

  She shivered. “Waverly and my father promised I would be his wife…but the Duke wished to test my ‘wifely’ skills first. He convinced me with promises, seduced me, took me to his bed.”

  Valentine started but said nothing.

  “He was not an unkind or selfish lover. In fact, he schooled me in many of the ways of pleasure. I did not love him, but I didn’t think his house hold would be any worse than my father’s. I was beginning to look forward to the marriage when an announcement arrived.”

  “He had married Elizabeth Grayton.”

  She nodded, surprised he knew the story. But then, Valentine had once been a member of society, before his father’s death. “She was the pretty, virginal daughter of a man much richer and more powerful than my father, whose fortune was tied to entail and who wanted nothing more than to rid himself of his daughters for the lowest cost.”

  “Why didn’t he call Waverly out?” Valentine asked, his jaw set with anger. “He had every right. The man breached an agreement.”

  “The man also paid a significant portion of my father’s debts,” she said softly. “Satisfied he had received the highest return available, my father threw me from the home, claiming I had soiled my reputation, become a wanton. I had no money, no reputation, nowhere to go. Any relatives who might have taken me in could not risk their reputations. I became a mistress.”

  “And changed your name.”

  She nodded. She’d grown so used to the name she now bore, she sometimes forgot she had ever been Miranda Foxworth. That was another life, another girl.

  “Yes. To Arabella Nichols. Arabella because I liked it. And Nichols because Waverly’s first name was Nicholas.” She winced at the memory. “I never wanted to forget what a man could do if he held power over me. If I trusted him.”

  Valentine’s face constricted with brief pain, then he took her hand. “Jesterton, what about him?”

  She let a humorless laugh pass her lips. “You have researched well, Valentine. You were a talented Runner. He was the first man who took me as a mistress. I know there are rumors about him. About his appetites, about his cruelty.” She shrugged. She had long ago trained herself not to think of those horrible weeks. Not to relive the fear and the pain. “They are all true. But I survived. And he settled me very well when he moved on to the next woman. I took that settlement and invested it. And eventually, I put my money into this club. Here, the pleasures of the flesh can be explored without recrimination. Both men and women are equal partners in desire. Here I regained what ever control I lost to my father, to Waverly, to Jesterton. I let Miranda die completely and became Arabella in every way.”

  Valentine nodded, but the emotion she’d seen in his stare while she told her story had faded. Now there was a blank distance in his eyes. It frightened her. Had she made a mistake by confessing her past?

  He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the top. “Thank you for trusting me, Arabella. With this information, I hope I can finally determine who is trying to kill you.”

  Her eyes went wide as he pulled away. He shrugged into his clothing without explanation. When he turned back to her, it was with a false smile. “You must rest a while. I’ve arranged for a guard at your door. No one will harm you while I’m gone.”

  “But—” she began, shocked by this sudden, unexpected departure.

  He raised a hand to silence her. “I will return, I promise. I have a few things to do, things to help solve this case. You want that, don’t you?”

  She stared at him. There was a double meaning to his question. He wasn’t merely asking if she wished to be safe again, he was saying that the sooner the case was over, the sooner they could each return to the lives they led before they met. He was saying that despite the closeness they had shared, he could not share any more.

  Her heart stung and she dropped her gaze so he wouldn’t see. “Of course,” she murmured. “I understand completely.”

  He hesitated, but shook his head. “Good. I’ll see you when I return later this afternoon.”

  He dropped an awkward kiss on her forehead. Gone was the man who had brought her to the heights of ecstasy. The man who had demanded her surrender. She swallowed back disappointment and forced a smile as he walked to her door.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered as he turned to look at her.

  His face fell slightly. “Yes, good-bye.”

  He shut the door behind him and she heard his echoing footfalls in her adjoining sitting room before he was gone. She lay back on the pillows with a sigh. What had happened?

  One moment he was confessing private pains and urging her to give up her own sad history…the next he couldn’t wait to be out of her sight. But what else could she expect? No man would want a woman with such a past. No man could truly love what she’d become.

  “What are you doing?” she muttered to herself as she flopped her uninjured arm over her eyes. This was exactly the kind of thinking she had expunged when she became Arabella Nichols. There was no room to give a man…any man…that kind of power.

  Even one she—

  “Arabella?”

  She moved her arm and saw Lydia creep into her bedroom. Her friend looked pale and drawn, but Arabella had never been happier to see anyone.

  “Lydia!” she said, motioning her friend to her side.

  “Thank goodness you’re alive.” Lydia sighed. “I had to bribe the guard to let me in. But you look upset. Is everything well?”

  Arabella stared at her friend. This seemed to be the time for confessions of the soul. She needed advice, she needed guidance, and Lydia was her oldest friend. It was time to tell her the whole truth.

  “I’m physically well. Valentine halted the attack on me.”

  Lydia’s face changed ever so slightly. Hardened. “How lucky he was there. I thought you two had parted when he left for two days without any word.”

  Arabella cocked her head. How had Lydia known Valentine sent no word in the time they were apart? She shrugged, wincing at the pain it caused in her shoulder.

  “I must confess something to you,” she said. “Valentine is my lover, but that isn’t the only reason why I called him here. After I was threatened, I knew I needed to take action. I did not wish to depart London as you said I should, so I hired him to protect me and investigate the attempts on my life.
Valentine is a former Bow Street Runner.”

  Lydia drew back, her face suddenly pale. “What?” she asked, low and harsh.

  Arabella nodded. “I didn’t want anyone to know how afraid I was, so I kept his true purpose here a secret. But I’ve ruined the whole plan, Lydia.” She drew in a breath. “I—I’ve fallen in love with him.”

  Hearing the words from her own lips startled Arabella. In love? She had shied away from such emotion her whole life, yet in the instant she met Valentine she’d been gripped by powerful emotions. Their attraction went deeper than the earth-shaking sex…there were other feelings always swirling beneath the surface. Things she had been afraid of. But that didn’t change the fact that she felt them.

  She was in love with Valentine. A man who had just deserted her.

  Lydia shifted, drawing Arabella’s attention to her. Her friend stared at her as if she had declared she would give up the club and take a vow of celibacy. She’d never seen Lydia in such shock, with such emotion flickering in her dark eyes. She waited for her to say something…anything. Extend her sympathies, offer her hope, but she only continued to stare.

  “Lydia?” she whispered.

  “Now that you are in love, do you intend to quit the club? Leave London with him?” Her friend’s eyes flashed, belying the strange monotone of her voice.

  Arabella’s stomach clenched, both from her friend’s question and her strange demeanor. “No. Valentine has made it clear from his actions that he does not return my feelings. I suppose I’ll be forced to hire another guard. Perhaps even go to the authorities about the threats on my life.” She forced a wavering smile. “But never fear. I shall not bend to the will of some madman. The club will go on. And I’ll remain at the helm. No one can take that away.”

  She expected an encouraging smile, a hug from her friend. Instead, Lydia’s face twitched, as if she had been keeping emotion at bay for a long time and had finally lost the battle for control.