Her arms were around him, holding him to her as he sucked on her, her fingers clutching him, and as he slid one finger inside her she bucked again, her hips reaching for the pleasure she knew he could bring her. He lifted his head, releasing her breast with a soft, popping noise, and her fingers dug in, not wanting to let him go.
“Equal time, precious,” he murmured with a soft laugh, and caught the other distended nipple between his teeth.
The sound she made, low, keening, needy, was music to his ears, and he pushed one finger inside her. She was so delectably tight, despite the dampness he was coaxing from her, and he pulled out one finger and slid two in. There were things women could do, to make their bodies tight, almost virginal again, and Sophie must have made use of whatever herbs or powders provided that effect. He didn’t need it—this had been her game, not his, but either way it didn’t matter. It was where he wanted, needed, to be.
He had to move this along. He couldn’t remember ever being so aroused in his life. He needed to get inside her and fuck them both senseless, a fast, hard, heavy release that would get some of the pent-up frustration out of him. Then he could go slower, take his time, let her practice her skills on him. He had a few skills of his own he’d learned in his travels when he was younger, and he had every intention of giving her as good a time as she was giving him. But right now he was ready to explode.
She was making no effort to undress him, caught up in the sensations of his mouth and his hands. He took his fingers from her sex, hearing her cry out with pleasure. He hadn’t even touched her pleasure spot yet, and she was already shaking with need. He pulled her hand from his shoulder and set it on the buttons that were now tight over his swollen cock, and instead of setting to work she tried to jerk away.
He wasn’t having it, and he gave her nipple a small, warning nip with his teeth as he brought her hand back, and this time she didn’t pull away. She rested her fingers against him for a moment, like someone checking a hot stove to see if it would burn, and then she moved, slowly touching him with a delicate, exploratory hand that almost made him spill. She caressed him with her fingers, slid her hands down, as if to figure out the size of him, and if it had taken her any longer he would have reached down and ripped the damned buttons off himself.
But he felt her reach the top one, and he moaned, running his tongue over her, and she moved to the next button.
This was the way it was supposed to be, give and take, his move increasing her need, her move building his own passion. It was no wonder it felt as if they would end up bursting into flames. This was it, the way it should be, the way it never really was.
But not with Sophie. She’d reached the fourth button, and damn, he wanted her mouth on him, so much he shook with it. But she was still playing her game, not his, and in impatience he reached down and released his cock, catching her hand and placing it on him as he felt her try to move away.
Oh, Holy Mother of God, that was a terrible move, he thought with a groan, as her cool fingers slid along his skin. He’d underestimated how her deceptively shy touch would affect him. It was a good thing she wouldn’t take him in her mouth this time—he’d spill at the first touch of her lips. Even the thought of it was making him ready to burst.
Her soft, seemingly innocent touch was driving him mad, and he pushed his fingers back inside her, into the sleek tightness of her. His thumb found her and he rubbed.
She shrieked, her hand clamping down on him almost painfully, and if he didn’t know better he would think she’d never felt a man’s hands on her before. She was aroused, maybe as hot as he was—there was no way for her to fake the wetness between her thighs, and he wanted to see her come, wanted to make her as helpless and lost in pleasure as he planned on being. She’d teased him, kept him dangling on a string for too long, and he was going to do a bit of the same to her, bring her to the brink and then pull back, so that she knew what frustration was like. He circled her with his thumb, bringing her wetness with him, and before he could stop her she came, hard, her body clamping down on his fingers as they thrust inside her, her entire body rigid as she exploded with a silent scream.
He couldn’t wait any longer. He gave her a moment, until she fell back limply on the bed, then covered her, shoving his pants down and moving between her legs. His cock felt huge, and he set it where his fingers had been, rubbing the head of it against her, mingling his wetness with hers, a joining of readiness neither of their bodies could deny. He started to push inside her.
He felt the jolt of shock run through her, and her hands caught his shoulders, digging in. But she didn’t push him away—at least that little bit of playacting was over with. He paused, his cock just barely inside her, fighting to control his need to rut. “You want this?” He knew she did—her body didn’t lie nearly as well as her mouth did. But he needed there to be no mistake about what was going on between them. The game was ending. Les jeux sont faits. The game is played.
There was a breathless, endless pause. And then the one syllable he needed in her hoarse voice. “Yes.”
He slammed into her, driving deep and hard, so needy that there was no more polite maneuvering. He was unprepared for her reaction. She screamed, this time out loud, convulsing against him, and it wasn’t in pleasure, but pain. He froze, deep inside her, blessedly deep, her body clutching his, throbbing around him. Women had told him he was bigger than most men, and she’d done something to make herself tight, and he should have remembered before thrusting into her so hard, but he hadn’t been able to resist. He’d hurt her, he should do something, but he heard her shattered breath beneath him, and her legs moved around him, accommodating him, and he could no longer think, didn’t want to think. He only needed to move, to thrust, to find the release so long delayed. He buried his face in her neck, forcing his body to slow, hard thrusts. He was slick with sweat and so was she, and she was clinging to him tightly, holding on, gasping as he thrust, back and forth, a heavy rhythm that was almost costing him his sanity. He wanted her to come again, but something was off, something was wrong, and all he could do was drive himself home and then deal with it.
He pulled her legs tighter around his hips, driving into her, and finally he was there, and he wanted to spill inside her, so badly, but he pulled out, letting his seed pulse on her stomach as he sank against her with a deep groan, his whole body shaking with the power of his release.
He didn’t know how long it was before he realized she was holding him almost tenderly, her hand stroking the back of his neck with delicate, strong fingers. He nuzzled against her, purring like some huge jungle cat. When he could he lifted his head to smile down at her, to kiss her, and then he stilled.
He had always been able to see well in the dark—his night vision was extraordinary. He could see her face, the shocky whiteness of it, the dried tracks of tears down her cheeks, the dark, confused pools of her eyes. She looked like someone who’d been assaulted.
He pulled away from her in sudden horror. She’d said yes, damn it. She was a hired whore, a woman good at playing games. He didn’t like this game at all.
“What . . . ?” he said hoarsely.
And then she smiled at him, a beatific smile that warmed her eyes, even if his uneasiness still lingered. “Come back,” she whispered, a siren call drowning out his sudden misgivings.
He could no more resist than he could stop his heart from beating. He sank down beside her, into her arms, held with such tenderness it made him ache. A moment later he was asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOPHIE COULD TELL WHEN his breathing slowed and he sank into a deep sleep. His muscles relaxed, and she knew she could let him go and he wouldn’t notice. She didn’t want to. She wanted to burrow against his big, strong body and hide. She felt . . . so many things. Shame. Anger. Pain. A strange churning inside her that seemed to claw at her, demanding something. She should hate him. He’d ruined everything. But all she could do was hold him to her, her fingers in his long, silky hair.
r /> She knew, deep in her bruised heart, that this had been her fault, not his. She was the one who had let sheer, overwhelming animal attraction distract her; she was the one who had held him and told him yes. She could come up with all sorts of excuses, but in the end she had to answer to herself. And she knew that no excuse would absolve her of this.
She’d ruined her life for a moment of pleasure. Well, to be sure, there had been more than a few moments, and while the tearing pain when he’d thrust all the way inside her had been like cold water on a bonfire, there had still been a kind of primitive joy in the possession, even as it hurt.
It always hurt the first time, Bryony had informed her with the knowledgeable voice of a confirmed virgin. It hurt a lot more than she’d thought, but then, Alexander hadn’t made any effort to ease it for her. She could be angry with him about that, she thought, as she stroked his smooth, damp skin. But in the end she knew that she was the one to blame.
This was such a strange feeling, as if that rough, erotic joining had forever changed her heart and soul. This was a random coupling for him, but it was something more for her. A gift, a promise, a connection that wouldn’t be easily broken, no matter what happened next.
And nothing would happen next. She had to leave, just as she’d planned, and pretend this had never happened.
Let go of him, she told herself, but her arms didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her brain. Move away, pull yourself together, and assess the damage. She couldn’t. Soon enough she was going to have to disappear, get away from here and try to regain some semblance of her life. But for just a few moments more she wanted to sink into the feel of him.
A murky light was beginning to seep through a crack in the curtains, and sudden shock made Sophie release him and roll on her back, looking upward. Looking up at what she’d always looked up at during her years at Renwick—the top of the coffered ceiling. She was in her old room, her old bed. She’d just been deflowered in the very bed, perhaps the very sheets, where she’d formed such romantic fantasies about it. The handsome, deferential lordling, shy and adoring, the coupling that had been long on bliss and short on detail.
Instead she’d been roughly taken by a cynic, a sarcastic creature with demonic eyebrows and the eyes of a lost soul, damn him. The sooner she got away from him the better, or she’d start to romanticize the whole thing. This should have cured her of the notion that she was falling in love with him. This was reality.
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to crawl under his body, feel him all around her, his heat, his strength.
She had to go.
She inched away from him, rolling over on her stomach as she stared blindly into the darkness. This was no time for longing for the impossible; this was a time for action. She pressed her face against the cool sheet. It smelled like Renwick, it smelled like Alexander, it smelled like sex, a perfume of pain and complexity that wrung her heart.
But her heart could have nothing to do with it, she reminded herself. Escape was what mattered, before he woke up, before anyone woke up. Fortunately she was already packed.
She slid from the bed, but he slept on, like a rock. It took her a while to find her discarded shift, and when she did, she pulled it over her head. It was still slightly damp from her dip in the pool, and she shivered, but there was nothing she could do about it. She closed the door quietly behind her, and her bare feet were silent as she ran down the hall and the front stairs she’d played on when she was younger.
When she stepped outside, the grass was cold and wet with dew, and she was shivering by the time she found her discarded dress and petticoats. His shirt lay there as well, and she was so cold she pulled it on against the early morning chill. Prunella and Gracie would be up any time now, getting started on the early morning baking, and Dickens was right about one thing: The staff knew everything. She needed to run.
She didn’t wait to get dressed. She couldn’t find her shoes anywhere, and finally she gave up, slipping inside the kitchen to grab her valise. At the last minute she took a hunk of cheese and a loaf of yesterday’s bread, suddenly famished. And then she was gone into the early morning mist.
Alexander was not a man who woke up quickly. It took him a damned long time; he came awake in stages, helped by large amounts of coffee, and woe betide any fool who yammered at him before he was good and ready to hear another human voice. Dickens knew this full well, and had continued to live a good long life because of it.
He didn’t even want to open his eyes. He could smell her. Smell the tangled perfume of sex and Sophie on the sheets beneath him, the air around him, and in his morning thickheadedness he remembered something was wrong, but he couldn’t remember what. His body was humming pleasantly, still happy from the bone-shattering release of last night, so powerful that it had knocked him out and he hadn’t been able to continue with all the things he’d wanted. But it was morning, and he was going to have to say something to her and not growl.
He was hard as a rock, of course, and not just his early morning erection. Maybe he could just take her first before any unpleasant memories fought their way through. He opened his eyes to the dim morning light. It had to be only a bit past seven. Very carefully he rolled over onto his back, ready to take her in his arms.
He was alone in the bed. Suddenly he was wide awake, as if he’d been up for hours with half a pot of coffee inside him. He sat up, looking around the room. His trousers and smalls were in a heap on the floor, but there was no sign of her shift, or of Sophie at all. She’d run off, the coward, and there was nothing he could do but roll out of bed.
He yanked open the heavy curtains, letting in such a flood of light that it assaulted his eyes and his head. He’d had too much to drink last night before he made the fatal mistake of finding Sophie almost naked, dancing in the moonlight.
Fatal, he thought. Why the hell did it feel fatal? He was just taking what was bought and paid for, and he’d gone out of his way to make certain she’d been willing, which on the face of it had been absurd.
It hadn’t felt like a transaction. It had felt as if he were in bed with someone he cared about, not a hired companion. Part of her damned games, and even in the heat of everything, she hadn’t dropped that mask. He glanced over at the bed in frustration, and froze.
There was a dark stain on the sheets. He shut his eyes. He wasn’t going any closer—the maids would strip the bed and the whole thing was none of his business. But he knew he couldn’t ignore it. Opening his eyes, he moved back to the bed and looked down.
The smear of dried blood where he had taken her was unmistakable. He could tell himself she’d had her monthly courses, yes, that was the reason she’d been standoffish, but he knew that was a lie. He remembered the blessed tightness of her, her cry of pain when he’d pushed through, and the impossible, damnable truth was staring him in the eyes.
He heard Dickens rap softly on the door and without thinking Alexander slid back in bed, pulling the discarded covers up over the telltale sign.
“Good morning, your lordship,” Dickens said in a quiet voice used to keep a wild animal at bay, carrying his breakfast tray. He came over to the far side of the bed and set it down, right over the spot that was burning a hole in Alexander’s brain. Dickens poured him a cup of coffee from the heavy silver pot, and Alexander grabbed for it, amazed that his hand was steady as a rock.
“I’m afraid breakfast is a bit below expectations, but I regret to tell you our cook has disappeared. When Prunella went to wake her, there was no sign of her, her bed hasn’t been slept in, and all her belongings are missing.”
Alexander met his butler’s eyes angrily. There’d been just the faintest bit of accusation in the man’s voice, and Alexander’s guilt bit at him. He took a deep gulp of coffee and burned his tongue, but he swallowed it anyway. “So what the hell do I have to do with it?” he demanded.
“Indeed, sir,” Dickens said smoothly. “I wondered the same myself.”
No one but Dickens would
have dared to say something like that to him. Alexander ignored him. “Draw me a bath. I’ve got work to do today. And you’d best see about finding us a new cook, one who won’t flit off in the middle of the night. Have you checked to see whether she ran off with any of the silver?”
Dickens’s disapproval deepened. “No, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
A servant, even one of Dickens’s tenure, wasn’t supposed to be sarcastic, but Alexander ignored it. Dickens got away with a lot more than a regular servant. Alexander lifted the silver cover and then dropped it back on the unappetizing meal. “And take this rubbish away. Tell Prunella if she can’t manage a decent breakfast then she can take herself off as well.”
Dickens stiffened. “Yes, my lord. Would you prefer I send her to you so you may inform her yourself?”
“Go to hell, Dickens.”
“Yes, sir.”
By the time he was bathed and dressed and Dickens had shaved him without cutting his throat, Alexander’s head had cleared. It was a relief she was gone, he told himself as he settled behind his desk. She’d been a distraction instead of a convenience, the exact opposite of what he’d told Lefton he’d wanted, and he was well rid of her. He was going to have a word with Mrs. Lefton, and never make the mistake of trusting even a professional like that overpainted harridan to choose a bed partner for him.
By the time it was late morning he’d been doing an excellent job of not thinking about Sophie more than once or twice every few minutes. When Dickens knocked on the door he felt an unaccustomed relief in the distraction.
“You have a visitor, my lord,” Dickens said in austere tones.
Alexander raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I’ve put her in the small front parlor. Do you wish to see her there or shall I bring her to you?”
“Her?” he echoed, puzzled. “Do you mean a lady?”
“No, sir,” Dickens said in a stiff voice. “A female.”
“A servant?”