Cry for Passion (14 page)

“But he has the legal right to force you to live in his home,” Jack Lodoun riposted.

An empty house that would never be filled with the laughter of Jonathon’s children.

Rose swallowed, reality a bitter pill. “If Jonathon came to you, could you win him a private act?”

“Yes.”

“Because London believes I’m an adulteress,” she essayed, back straight, coiled metal sharp underneath the softness of the mattress.

“Yes.”

“But I couldn’t divorce him on the grounds of adultery.”

“No,” danced and shimmered inside the sunlight.

“So if Jonathon will not divorce me, I will live the rest of my life alone.” Rose gripped the quilted duvet inside her fists and forced out the words. “Unless I take a lover.”

There was no compassion inside his gaze, only the hard reality of Parliamentary law.

“Yes,” he said.

“A husband can sue his wife’s lover for”—the polite euphemism for adultery scraped raw her throat—“criminal conversation.”

It was not a question.

“If I were legally separated, and I should take a lover,” Rose asked, dying a little inside that her need for passion had brought her to this, contemplating the very act of which Jack Lodoun had publicly accused her, “would Jonathon be able to sue him?”

He murdered the brief spark of hope. “Yes.”

The loneliness she had felt—penetrating herself with a cold, lifeless phallus while the man who stood before her watched—washed over her.

“What man would want me”—her fingernail snapped a thread—“knowing the price he could ultimately pay?”

“I want you.”

Emotion swelled Rose’s breasts.

“You want me, Mr. Lodoun?” she quizzed, light stinging her eyes.

“Jack. My name is Jack,” Jack Lodoun replied. “And yes, I do want you.”

“Because you watched me fuck myself with a dildo,” Rose said, deliberately vulgar, hurting, with no legal recourse to rectify her hurt.

“And you watched me fuck my cock,” he countered.

Inside his eyes she saw a man stroking his penis and a woman engorging her vagina.

“You needed me to see you, Rose.” His gaze would not let her look away from the nakedness they had revealed to one another. “But I need you to see me, too. I am a man who desires you, but I’m also a member of Parliament. I told you divorce was out of the question.”

Outside the courthouse, he had told her.

But Rose had not wanted to believe him.

“Parliament is not going to break the vow you do not have the courage to break yourself,” sliced through flesh and pierced hope. “If you want passion, you will pay for it.”

Rose wanted to protest: She could not.

She did want Parliament to liberate her so she wouldn’t have to choose between fidelity and passion.

The impossibility of what she wanted shone inside his eyes.

He had said every situation he accepted affected his career.

“What would happen,” Rose asked, fingers cramping, “if you were brought to trial for criminal conversation?”

“I’d lose my position in Parliament.”

The question shot out of her mouth, the question he had asked the night before: “Why?”

He did not pretend to misunderstand her.

“I don’t want you to be alone when you orgasm.”

“But you don’t love me,” Rose said, sounding like the naive woman she was, full of dreams that had no basis in either law or reality.

“And you don’t love me,” he returned unapologetically.

Chirping flirtation infiltrated the silence, a mating sparrow fleeing pursuit.

A dull thud killed the chase, feathered body crashing into the window.

The bird had mistaken glass for air.

“If you could go back in time,” Rose suddenly asked, “knowing the pain that would come . . . would you still seduce Mrs. Whitcox?”

“If you could go back in time,” Jack Lodoun flatly parried, “knowing that Jonathon Clarring would contract the mumps . . . would you still marry him?”

Memories flitted through her thoughts.

The warmth of Jonathon’s kisses. The gentleness of his embraces.

The joy of his laughter.

Rose had two perfect months of love before the mumps had taken her husband away from her.

“Yes,” she said, finally. “I would.”

Rose would not change one minute of the precious time she and Jonathon had spent together.

His purple-blue eyes mirrored her answer.

He would not change the past, his gaze said. But was she willing to pay the price for passion?

Four distant bongs echoed inside the barren bedroom, Big Ben announcing the sitting of the House of Commons.

Jack Lodoun turned. Jack Lodoun departed.

The squeaking descent of footsteps filled the empty bedroom.

It was Rose’s decision, those footsteps said. It was Rose who would bear the consequences of her decision.

Rose and Jonathon.

And Jack Lodoun.

Chapter 15

The clock tower glowed against the blackening sky, two dark hands poised to advance.

A minute. An hour.

Silently Rose counted down the seconds that would catapult copper and gunmetal into motion: fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four . . .

Heat penetrated her elbow; the curving pressure of familiar fingers clenched her abdomen.

She lowered her head and met the unfathomable gaze of Jack Lodoun.

He lived with pain. He lived with guilt.

The price of passion.

“I want you, too, Jack Lodoun,” Rose said. The brim of his bowler shadowed his eyes and nose; lamplight sharply delineated his lips and chin, bottom lip fuller than the top, chin caught between light and darkness. “And I will pay the price.”

Vibrating chimes pierced the air.

The first strike of Big Ben ripped through Rose’s chest. The second strike cupped her right cheek. The third strike brought Jack Lodoun’s shadow-darkened face closer, red-gold hair glinting. The fourth strike enveloped her in liquid heat.

He kissed her, lips petal soft.

Her breath rasped inside her throat.

It had been so long. . . .

Rose gazed into his eyes until she could no longer stare into their darkness for the bittersweet waves of sensation that rolled over her with each strike of Big Ben.

A man’s scent. A man’s touch.

A man’s taste.

The warmth of his hand and the heat of his kiss dissipated on the ninth bong.

“I’ll try not to hurt you,” forced open her eyes.

The motionless bell continued to vibrate the night.

Rose gazed up at Jack Lodoun. “I’m not Cynthia Whitcox.”

She didn’t need to be wooed and coaxed into his bed.

Underneath the brim of his hat, the darkness in his gaze glittered. “And I’m not Jonathon Clarring.”

He was not a gentle man. Unlike her husband.

Truth compelled Rose to speak. “I’m glad.”

His eyelashes closed for a long second, as if her confession brought him pain. Shadow hollowed out his cheeks.

Approaching footsteps snapped open his eyes. His fingers that clasped her elbow pulsed in time to her vagina. “Would you like supper?”

They had lived alone for too long.

“What I would like”—Rose paused a heartbeat before initiating intimacy—“Jack, is for us to go home.”

Footsteps veered, heel taps receding. Masculine laughter drifted, faded into the careen of grinding wheels.

The impenetrable blackness that was Jack Lodoun’s gaze bored into Rose.

“Last night . . . when I got to my town house . . .” A long, tapered finger branded her cheek. “. . . I fucked my fist.”

The imagery his words conjured was explicit.

“When you reached orgasm,” Rose queried, breasts swelling, chest hurting, “who was with you?”

“You, Rose Clarring.” Her presence had not been entirely welcome. “You were with me.”

Rose blinked away scalding moisture. “I purchased a tin of machines.”

The chemist had blushed with the shame of which she was curiously devoid.

His hand dropped. “I have my own.”

“I meant what I said,” Rose said, and did not know why: There could be no lasting relationship between the two of them. “I don’t want any man’s child.”

“And I meant what I said,” Jack Lodoun returned, turning, firmly cupping her elbow. “I want nothing more than to share the pleasure of your body.”

Pleasure rattled on the wheels of an approaching Clarence cab, dual lamps a bobbing blur of light.

Pinching fingers dug into her skin. Jack Lodoun did not hail the cab.

Still tied to the past.

A dusky black horse—breath steaming the night—raced toward them. A shadow slashed through the darkness, the slice of an umbrella and a swinging satchel. The horse pulled to the curb, head shaking in protest, reins jingling.

Jack Lodoun secured Rose’s elbow when she stepped up onto an iron stair. He followed her into the black cavity of the hansom cab—hip abridging her hip—and closed the door, sealing them in darkness.

The pulsation inside her vagina spread to her hip.

The cab lurched forward.

“Do you have to return to Parliament tonight?”

His gaze touched her breasts. “No.”

The pulsation inside her hip spread to her breasts. “Do all MPs break for supper?”

“Yes.” His gaze touched her lips. “Why?”

The pulsation inside her breasts spread to her lips. “I’ve not seen that many men.”

“Not everyone leaves the building. There’s a dining room inside. A tunnel leads to St. Stephen’s Club, for those who wish to dine there. As for the others”—the shrug of a shoulder abraded Rose’s shoulder; the grating crunch of wheels on pavement turned into the hard vibration of wheels crossing an iron bridge—“House members have private entrances.”

Unrelieved darkness framed Jack Lodoun.

“But you don’t use them?” Rose asked.

“I prefer the St. Stephen’s Hall entrance.”

Rose had never been inside Westminster Palace. But she didn’t want to think about the place that legislated the lives of women.

“I stretched myself,” she offered. “Before I came to you.”

“With the dildo?” His dark gaze probed hers, hip rubbing and grinding her hip while underneath her the hard leather bench rubbed and ground her vulva.

“I wanted to be”—Rose swallowed—“I didn’t want you to have to stretch me.”

As he had stretched the woman he loved.

The hard vibration of iron became a grating crunch of pavement.

Passing lamplight set afire the hair framing Jack Lodoun’s lean face and illuminated a chiseled lip. “Did you orgasm?”

The left wheel dropped into a pothole.

Rose grabbed a leather pull. “No.”

“Why not?”

The climax she had not precipitated suddenly throbbed inside her vagina, open and vulnerable now, penetrated by a hard prick if not by passion. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

Her hand that was clenched inside her lap independently lifted.

Rose’s breath caught inside her chest.

“When you stretched yourself”—Jack Lodoun peeled off her leather glove—“did you insert it all the way in?”

Chill air inch by inch embraced her fingers. “Yes.”

“Did you imagine it was my cock that stretched you?”

Inch by inch.

“Yes.”

He pressed the palm of his hand against the palm of her hand: Instantly the heat throbbing inside her hip, breasts and vagina spread to her fingers.

“Was I gentle?”

Heat licked her cheeks. “No.”

“You weren’t gentle last night.” His breath feathered her cheek, cooler than her skin. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“A little,” Rose admitted. The muscles inside her lower abdomen constricted in memory of burning invasion. “At first.”

“When you stretched yourself this evening”—naked fingers slid between her naked fingers—“were you tender?”

The intimate connection swelled her breasts until Rose had no room inside her body for oxygen.

“Yes,” she said.

She was tender still.

“Will I hurt you?”

Rose closed her eyes against the stark touch of his hand and the finality of her actions; darkness pulsed against her lids. “I don’t know.”

She did not lie.

Rose did not know how much this man would hurt her. She did not know to what extent her actions this night would hurt others.

She only knew that she would pay a price for her pleasure. As Jack Lodoun continued to pay for his.

“You said you enjoyed sex,” she managed.

“Yes.”

Rose attempted to pull her thoughts away from his fingers that bound her, and his hip and shoulder that ground into hers. “What do you most enjoy about it?”

“Touching.” Fingers hugging her fingers—a separate pulse beat in each of her five knuckles—Jack Lodoun rested their clasped hands on her thigh. Their combined heat penetrated the wool of her dress. “Holding.”

Jack Lodoun outwardly appeared cold and untouchable. His simple desire for tactile contact squeezed a part of her that was neither her heart nor her womb, yet was connected to both.

“Will you stay the night?” Rose asked.

“Yes.”

The tears that had earlier scalded Rose’s eyes tightened her chest.

“I hired a housekeeper today,” she offered, needing to share more than just the pain of desire.

“She let me in, earlier,” tickled her cheek. “Will she be there tonight?”

The cry orgasm had forced out of her reverberated over the grind of wheels.

Rose could not imagine engaging in physical intimacy with this man while another person resided in the same house.

“She has her own family to care for,” she shakily explained, “so she’ll be going home in the afternoon. She’ll be back tomorrow morning. She said she’d bring a cook and a maid with her.”

“Did she have good references?”

It was so ridiculous, discussing domestic help when his linked fingers were melting the flesh off her bones.

“Her references were well enough.”

Not perfect. But Rose had given up the right to expect perfection.

“Will the cook and maid be living in?”

The cab turned. Rose clung to the leather grip.

Hard muscles and grinding, vibrating wood sandwiched her hip and shoulders.

The cab straightened. The pressure of Jack’s fingers remained hard and binding.