Beauty and the Earl (5 page)

It would take a good deal of control to maintain her normally casual and rather dismissive façade in the light of the fact that something about this man intrigued her.

“Miss Milford,” he said, taking her outstretched hand and tugging her gently through the doorway into his foyer.

She smiled despite her complicated thoughts. “Are we to be so formal, my lord? Even now?”

He began to stroke his thumb back and forth across the place where her thumb met her hand. He held her gaze.

“Should I call you Violet, then?” he asked, his tone softer.

She caught her breath at how intimate things had suddenly become between them. And how out of control his touch made her feel. Wasn’t she to be seducing him, not the other way around?

“Yes,” she said, hating how breathless she sounded. Good Lord, she had never played the wide-eyed, panting innocent with men, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop now. “But what shall I call you?”

“Liam,” he responded without hesitation. “For I truly despise being called Windbury.”

She drew back slightly at that unexpected confession. “And why is that?” she asked softly.

Now he released her hand and stepped away. “Forgive me, it was a foolish thing to say. I will not bore you with ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ complaints.” He motioned down the hallway. “Will you instead join me for a drink before we dine?”

Violet’s lips parted, but she swallowed back any desire she might have had to push the subject further. She had plenty of time to get to know this man’s secrets. If she overplayed her hand now, she might not obtain what she desired, and then all this, and all her confusing turmoil about what she was doing here, would be for nothing.
 

“Of course,” she said, surprised when he held out an elbow for her to take.
 

“It is a beautiful home,” she said, admiring the place honestly as they entered a parlor. There were fine lines to the place, though little decoration. “Did you let it for your holiday?”

He shook his head as he released her and crossed to the sidebar where he held up a decanter. “Sherry?”

She nodded, and he poured one for each of them.

“It isn’t let,” he explained, handing over her glass. “This is actually a family home. One of many pretty little places my father kept so he could flit about the country being very important.”

“Did he drag you and your sister along on those very important missions?” she asked, walking away from him so that the question seemed less important than she knew it was. She held her breath, wondering how he would react to this first mention of Ava, her first acknowledgment that she knew some part of his story.

He hesitated, and she glanced at him. His expression was pained, tension around his lips and eyes that made him look suddenly very stern and unbendable.
 

“Yes,” he finally said with a shrug. “Occasionally he brought his family for company. I always liked this place best of all. It is the least ostentatious.”
 

She pivoted to look at him fully. “Our definitions of that word are clearly not the same. I think this is one of the finest homes I’ve ever been in. But I’ve moved in slightly different company.”

He studied her. “You have always been around my circles.”

“Yes, but not fully in them,” she said. “I have not taken a titled lover before.”

He seemed surprised by that revelation. “Ever?”

“Not until I snuck into your private bath,” she corrected herself, moving toward him.
 

He cleared his throat and set his drink down on the sidebar with a clink that echoed in the suddenly quiet room. “And was it worth the wait?”

She met his gaze. There was hot, burning desire in his stare that made a low ache begin between her legs. One that had very little to do with her real purpose here, even though it would further that purpose.
 

“Are you fishing for a compliment, my lord?” she asked softly.

He took a long step toward her. “Do you have one?”

She bit her lip. “Was I not clear when we made love last time? Did I not properly express my pleasure?” He didn’t respond, so she walked toward him, only stopping when he was within arm’s length. “Should I tell you how I have thought of you as I touched myself in the days since? Or that I have awoken from dreams of your body inside of mine? Will that be clear enough?”

He made a low sound in his throat and grasped her wrist in an iron grip with his good hand.

She smiled. “I
very
much enjoyed every moment of our encounter in the baths, Liam. And I have thought of little else since we parted.”

“Then allow me to return the compliment,” he said, his voice rough with desire he didn’t seem willing or able to control. “Since you intruded upon my privacy and utterly shocked me with your seduction, I have thought of you every moment. I do not keep women, Violet. I will not keep you. Nor did I bring you here in order to share my supper. I want to take you upstairs to my bed and strip you naked. I want to have you until I cannot move, until I cannot think, until I can feel nothing but the slick remnants of fucking you all night.”

He pulled her closer. “
If
that is agreeable to you.”
 

Violet could hardly breathe. She was in the business of passion, but so often she had chosen men who wanted her to generate it. She avoided men like this, men who dominated a room just by entering it. Men who could make a woman weak. She knew the consequences.

And yet she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t. Because she wanted him.
 

“Take me upstairs,” she whispered. “Now, Liam.”

Chapter Four

Violet entered Liam’s bedroom feeling a little like a virginal bride, thanks to her nervousness. It was a ridiculous reaction. After all, she had been with many men—she had even been with Liam.

But invading his private, personal space felt…more complicated.

Not to mention the fact that as he pushed the door shut behind them and leaned against it, she felt a powerful urge to wrap herself around him and never let go.
 

“You are an enigma,” he said as he placed a big hand on her hip and cupped the curve possessively.
 

“How so?” she said, trying not to wither beneath the heat of his desire.
 

“I cannot read your facial expressions,” he said.

She held her gaze on him. “You are one to make such a claim, when you do not allow any emotions on your own face.”

“I suppose we will have to show what we feel and what we want in different ways,” he murmured.
 

She looked up at him, nodding. She might have said something more, but he crushed his mouth to hers and silenced her in the most delicious way possible: with his lips, with his tongue, with his hard, heavy hands dragging her hard against his wicked, ready body.

She could hardly find air as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her nails raked against the fabric of his shirt as he spun them so her back was against the door instead of his and leaned into her. There was no mistaking the rock-hard erection that pressed to her belly, even through his trousers and her gown.

She wanted that erection without the barrier of clothing. She wanted long, languid lovemaking until she couldn’t move. She wanted him, tonight, all night.

So she lifted her trembling fingers to his shirt and began to undress him. She focused on each button, hearing her breath echo around her as she slipped them free and revealed his chest, bit by bit. She moved to push the shirt away, and he stiffened.

She jerked her face up to him at his sharp intake of breath.
 

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

He eased his injured arm into a different position and shook his head.
 

“There is occasional pain,” he admitted, heat flooding his cheeks. “But the pleasure of your touch makes up for it.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Liam. I have no desire to hurt you. I want anything we do together to be nothing but pleasure.”

He arched a brow. “That may not be possible.”

She slipped his shirt down, more careful now. “Anything is possible.”

He didn’t respond to that statement, but his expression changed. It became more guarded, filled with a hint of disbelief that cut Violet to her core, especially when she thought of the pain she had seen on his sister’s face at their estrangement.
 

This man was utterly alone, even when surrounded by people.

And she wanted to fill him for a few hours. To make whole what had been broken, even temporarily.

Those feelings were terrifying, and she shoved them away, removing them from her mind by lifting on her tiptoes and kissing him.

He returned the kiss passionately, pinning her to the door as his mouth claimed her. His hands cupped her backside, lifting her with his good arm as he rocked himself against her just as he would once they were naked. Her body reacted instantly. She felt hot, her nipples hard and her body growing wet and slick for him.

He pulled away, searching her face for a moment too long before he stepped back and motioned for the big bed that was the centerpiece of the room.

“We’ll be more comfortable here,” he suggested.

She didn’t argue. Partly because she could see the weakness his body betrayed in him was not something he wished to discuss, partly because she truly wanted to climb into that big bed and lose herself in pleasure.

She moved forward and stopped when she reached the edge of the mattress. Turning, she smiled at him.

“Will you undress?” she asked. “Although I did have the massive pleasure of seeing your body at the baths the other day, I would greatly like to take my time observing you now.”

“Do you always so fully take control?”

Her lips parted in surprise at the question. “I-I suppose I do. It is my profession, in part, but also the kind of men I have been affiliated with.”

“Ones who wanted their mistress to take charge in bed?” he pressed.

She shrugged. “Sometimes men who are in control all day like the idea of surrendering it.”

He shook his head. “I am not one of those men.” He moved closer and spun her around, opening her dress in rapid time. “You don’t need to tell me what to do, Violet. I know exactly what I want.”

He leaned down and bit gently where her neck met her shoulder. She gasped, but as the shock of the act faded Violet arched her back with a shuddering sigh that didn’t fully express her pleasure.
 

He pushed her gown forward, trapping her arms in the folds of fabric as he bent her over the bed, lifting her partially exposed backside to grind against her in hard, insistent circles. When she shuddered, he slipped a hand inside the gaping opening in her gown and slid two fingers down the parting of her bottom, then around to stroke her aching slit.

She shivered as those exploring digits found her tingling clitoris amidst the folds of her sex. He circled it swiftly, teasing and stroking. To her shock, the expert touch caused an almost instant reaction. The orgasm hit her, and she buckled, just catching herself on the edge of the bed as she cried out and slammed her hips against him, looking for more, looking for release, looking for something she couldn’t quite name.

Finally, he slowed his working fingers, and she collapsed on her stomach against the bed, panting as the final tremors of pleasure echoed through her shaking body.
 

“As you can see, I am more than capable,” he whispered before he leaned down to press a hot kiss against her neck.

She peeked over her shoulder at him. Rising above her with the firelight behind him, he looked like a dark god of pleasure and sin. And he was unlike any lover she had taken in a long time. He would dominate their encounters, he would demand control.

She shouldn’t have liked that idea, but oh, how she did.

But if she gave herself over to him, would she be able to obtain his secrets? More importantly, would she be able to fully extract herself from his power when this affair was over?

She straightened up and faced him.

“You are most definitely capable, Liam,” she said, her knees still shaking even though she tried hard not to show him that weakness. “No one could doubt that.”

The corner of his lip turned up in a smile, and her heart stuttered. Great God, but he was stunning. She looked at him, staring at her with possessive, powerful control, and she almost forgot everything else.

Including her real reasons for coming to him.

“You hesitate,” he all but purred. “You
fear
the fact that I could steal your control in a moment.”

It was meant as a challenge, and it took everything in her not to rise to the bait.
 

Instead, she pushed her dress off fully and stood before him naked, flushed from orgasm, aching for more. “Do I look afraid of you?”

He swore under his breath, so low she couldn’t fully make out the word, and then he moved on her. But he didn’t slam her backward onto the mattress, as she thought he might. He cupped one breast with his right hand, stroking a thumb over the already distended nipple. She bit back a sound of pleasure and squeezed her eyes shut.