A Whisper of Desire (15 page)

“It occurred to me that you and Susan might need my help dressing. Your attire will need to be perfect to fool everyone. A dandy is very specific about his dress.”

“Susan is still pressing my shirt. I'll need to borrow a cravat; Priscilla doesn't have one.”

He moved to stand in front of where she still sat at the end of her bed, and looked at her studiously. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No.”

He reached and stroked a finger down her cheek, and she closed her eyes at his touch. “You look sad.” She also looked pale. It was too much to ask of her. To expose her to this club…what was he thinking?

“I'm just anxious about tonight.”

Her eyes would not hold his, as if she were trying to conceal something from him. He was so used to the straightforward Marisa that he immediately grew uneasy.

“There is no need to worry, little one. Hadley and Angelo visited the club last night and learned that Angelo is away for a few days. No one knows where he has gone, but we suspect he's conducting his own inquiries.”

Before Marisa could respond, Susan arrived with her clothes.

“Oh, please excuse me, Your Grace, I didn't realize you were here. I have the clothes ready.” Susan hurriedly hung them over the privacy screen.

“Excellent.” He pulled Marisa to her feet and began to untie the sash at the front of her robe. She batted his hands away.

“Your Grace, Susan and I can see to my dress.”

He took a surprised step back. He looked at his wife, who only two nights ago stood naked before him without a hint of embarrassment. It was almost as if she were reluctant to be naked in front of him. Perhaps it was Susan's presence. “Susan, would you excuse us? I'll call you when it is time to dress her hair.”

Susan looked briefly at Marisa, who simply shrugged.

Once they were alone, Maitland drew from within the deep pocket of his robe a wad of strapping. “If you'd take off your robe I'll bind your breasts. It will be uncomfortable, I'm afraid, but necessary.” She fidgeted with the sash of her robe. “Come, little one, you can't be bashful. Only two nights ago you stood unashamedly naked before me.”

Her face flushed to a tinged red. “The most humiliating moment of my life, thank you very much.”

His head jerked back at the depth of misery in her voice. He moved toward where she still stood, but she turned her back on him. He looked at her hunched frame and shame paid him a visit. He gently turned her to face him.

“The embarrassment should be mine. I was too tired to do justice to the pleasure you offered me.”

She studied him, assessing his words. Something flashed deep within her beautiful hazel eyes—distrust. “Priscilla told me your story. She told me why you could not, and still cannot, be together. It must be torturous to love someone but be unable to be with them.” She reached up and cupped his face. “There is no need to lie to me anymore, but I am not sure I can forgive you for misleading me, especially when you knew how important finding love is to me.”

“I never misled you. I told you I don't believe in love.”

She frowned. “You're in love with Priscilla.”

He almost laughed until he saw the devastation on Marisa's face. He pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. “You silly…Priscilla will always be special to me. I thought I loved her once and I would have married her all those years ago if she had agreed. I'm sure we would have been happy. But she is not the love of my life. Do you think I would let her condition stop me marrying her if I truly loved her?”

“You need a son.”

“If I loved a woman, nothing, nothing, would stop me marrying her. A son be damned.”

Marisa's sniffles stopped. She lifted her head from his chest to look at him. “You truly do not love her?”

“I love her like I love Sebastian. She is a dear, dear friend, that is all. Part of me also feels guilt for what my father did to her, to us.”

“You cannot carry the blame for something you did not do.”

“Tell that to our villainess.”

Marisa sighed. “I hate that woman.”

“I also carry the blame for feeling relieved that she chose to marry my father. It set me free.”

Marisa hugged him harder and sighed. “She's still in love with you. She admitted it. She thinks you love her too.”

“Is there any harm in that? She's had enough misery in her life. Surely we can let her keep that illusion.”

Marisa pulled out of his hold and wiped the tears from her face. “You know of her feelings?”

“I'm the only man she trusts, the only man she sees regularly, and, on occasion, the man she shares a house with. Is it hardly surprising she still loves me? I don't encourage it. I simply choose not to address the issue.”

“Now that you've married me, perhaps it is time. If we grow close, it will only hurt her.”

He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know how to tell her that she would be no more important to him than Priscilla, and God help her if she was. He'd never let himself fall in love. His father's slide into debauchery started when he fell in love with Maitland's mother.

“Perhaps your words have merit. I'll talk with her after we catch our villain. There is no point upsetting her before she returns to The Vyne. This is her first trip to London in ten years.”

“You're very kind, do you know that?” She studied him for a minute, then undid the sash holding her robe closed and let it drop to the floor. “If you are not in love with her, or any other woman, why is it you find it so easy to resist me?”

Ah, he began to understand the background to this conversation. “I don't find it easy to resist you.” How could she think that? The vision before him would tempt the devil to give up sinning. It was only his tight hold on his self-control that stopped him from tasting her passion every minute of every day.

She ran her hands over her body. Maitland drew in a sharp breath at the alluring sight. She was so beautiful.

The picture of beauty before him turned him into a slave caught in her thrall. He couldn't stop his response, his voice dropping to a husky whisper as he moved closer. “Your breasts are perfect.” He reached out and trailed a finger over the gentle slope of one unblemished breast, circling her pink nipple, which pebbled beautifully at his touch, before his hand fully cupped the plump pertness.

He gently squeezed and she shuddered.

His blood, which had fired as soon as he'd entered her bedchamber, was now pumping hot and fast in his veins. It was Wednesday, three days since their wedding. Every three days was the rigid routine he'd set for himself. His schedule was torture when married to a woman as beautiful and as sensual as Marisa.

They stood looking at each other, her eyes challenging him, clearly wanting, needing, this as badly as he did. Maitland inwardly groaned, stepping closer so that his robe brushed the tips of her breasts. His hands skimmed her hourglass figure, her slim waist, her full hips, and stroked over her rounded buttocks, cupping the globes to pull her fully against him.

Fighting his desire was futile. In this moment his pretense at a restrained sexual schedule was ripped to pieces; there was only need, want, overwhelming all the reasons why he should restrain from falling under her spell.

On tiptoes she eagerly gave him her lips. She consumed his tongue in scorching intensity, claiming his mouth as she claimed every one of his senses. All reason fled from his mind, and for once he let passion take hold. Want poured over him and he didn't try to shake it off.

Her hands made short work of removing his robe. The feel of her fingers dancing over his skin was like kisses from heaven. Glorious in its innocence, yet molten in its effect.

He drew back, wanting to drink in her beauty, to grab some semblance of control before his desire ran wild.

This was insanity to give in to his base desires, especially with a woman who lived in his house, whose room was next to his. A woman he had unlimited access to. But Marisa excited him so deeply that he was past caring.

He lowered his head to claim her mouth, wresling control from her. She tilted her head back and parted her lips wide to receive his burning kisses, returning them with all of
her
fire.

To his surprise, she broke their kiss. They stood so close their naked chests were touching as they both gulped in deep breaths.

“You are in my boudoir, I'm in charge here, and I believe we should practice my role as I'll have to play it tonight.” Her smile was deliberately provocative. “Unless coming will hinder your performance later tonight.”

Hinder his performance? Christ, he had only to look at her anytime, day or night, and he was hard for her.

Swearing silently, Maitland cursed himself for being a fool. He'd married the one woman who it seemed could dissolve his self-discipline at will. After only a few days he was obsessed with his own wife. With her vibrant beauty, her joy of life, her determination to embrace this marriage, and her defiant spirit, how was he, a mere mortal, expected to deny her? She was a temptress who made him ache with desire. The first woman in more than ten years who could drive him so wild that his rigid self-denial, his ironclad control, evaporated like rain in a sun-drenched desert.

Now he faced his greatest mistake and knew he could never give her up. Somehow he would have to learn how to control his need for her, or there was a real possibility he would fall into his father's dark, debauched pattern of destruction. Knowing the pain and suffering his father's sexual compulsions caused, he would not let himself become addicted to his baser needs. He would not turn into a rutting beast like his father.

“I'd like to practice so that I may not look a gauche fool. I don't know why you're hesitating, I'm sure you'll instruct me so that you'll enjoy it,” she whispered in his ear in that low, sultry voice that tied him in knots and saw him harden to the point of pain.

Composing his features in a mask, he tried to distance his inner self from Marisa. Perhaps if he treated her like a stranger, he could just about keep a rein on his conflicted emotions. He forced himself to remain immobile, even as she fumbled with the placard of his breeches. He breathed deeply, trying to placate the pounding blood in his veins.

There was no way to hide his response. Marisa's questing fingers soon found the head of his erection. Her fleeting touch saw his insides quiver. When she ran her pink tongue over her lips, he almost fell to his knees.

His heart thudded frantically in his chest when she drew open the fabric to expose his already seeping cock. He had to fist his hands at his sides to stop from forcing her to her knees when, with a tempting smile, she closed her caressing fingers around the base of his pulsing arousal.

Her hand worked magic upon him, slowly sliding up and down the length of him while she placed scorching kisses over his chest. How she teased him, and all he could think about was where her hot, wet mouth would soon be. He didn't care if his life ended minutes later, he had to feel her wrap those soft lips around his pulsing cock.

As if reading his thoughts, she slowly sank to her knees and he praised God. He had to close his eyes. The sight of her on her knees, intently studying his cock, almost made him spill his seed, and she hadn't even put her mouth near him.

Marisa swiped a finger over his weeping slit and he heard her taste.

“A bit salty.”

He pried one eye open, only to quickly shut it as he saw her begin to lean closer. Marisa's lips pressed kisses along his throbbing shaft, while her fingers continued to stroke him. He jerked and let out a groan as her lips found his sensitive head. She pulled back.

“Is that wrong?”

God, no.
He shook his head and silently begged her to continue.

Her lips were warm on his flesh. His skin burned, heat pouring over every inch of his body, seared by the erotic touch of her mouth as she softly ran her tongue around the swollen head, the sensitive ridge below…His hips pushed forward, encouraging her, needing her, wanting her, to take him into her mouth.
This is torture…

He felt her hot breath at his groin, and against his better judgment his eyes flew open. He had to watch. He opened his eyes just as her lips closed around his distended length and he could feel the muscles of his neck tighten as he fought for control. She was intuitive, her lips and tongue exploring his length, tasting the slick contours as she took him fully in her mouth.

He was going to come far too soon. Desperately he tried to keep his mind divorced from the wicked sensations her hot mouth conjured.

Her skills were wholly intuitive and she needed no instruction. If she were any more expert he'd die from pleasure.

Maitland shuddered. Marisa lips gripped him firmly, and he groaned at her exquisite ministrations. Her mouth was a firebrand, her teeth adding a bite of pain to the pleasure. He flinched and she was about to stop. “Don't stop,” he cried. He felt her smile.

Involuntarily, his hands rose to wrap in her thick ebony tresses. He had lost the battle to resist the craving within, as soon as her mouth engulfed him in her heat. He reveled in the feel of her moist lips sliding down his aching shaft and he couldn't stop his hips from moving. He strained against her mouth, even as his mind battled to resist the sensual need she evoked. He shouldn't love this so much!

Why hadn't he married a docile creature, a woman too prim and proper to ever think of going down on her knees and taking him in her mouth…Like a bird spying the open cage door, his plan to keep her at arm's length in the boudoir had flown on the wind.

With the arrogance of a man who was never questioned, he had thought he'd control her like he controlled everything and everyone in his life. From the outset, she'd turned his well-intentioned plan on its head. She took, and demanded, his attention, and not just in his bed. She wanted to be an integral part of his life.