The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty (4 page)

She didn’t respond. But she was listening. I could see it in the alert way she followed my movements, the way her lips pressed together at my words.

I decided it was time to be even more honest. I had been thinking about this arrangement for a solid week now, and I had grown used to its unusual proportions and conditions. But I also appreciated that this was a lot for her to take in at once.

I stepped closer to her, expecting her to step back. But she didn’t; she stayed where she was, even when I got so close that I could feel my shoes brushing against her skirt.

“I look at Thomas and at Charlotte, I see the life they have, and I want that, Molly. I don’t want to be the playboy any more. I don’t want to fuck forgettable women and drink too much and let my years pass me by. I’m thirty-five, and I’m too old to ignore how empty I feel. I want
more
.”

The pulse jumped in her throat as her eyes flicked to mine. There was something there, something in those blue depths that reached out to me. A sympathy or an empathy or
something
—she knew how I felt. And maybe she felt the same way.

“And I know now,” I continued quietly, “that I don’t deserve to have the love of a woman. Not like Julian and Thomas have with their women. But maybe, just maybe, I can be a good father. Maybe I can have the rest, even if I can’t have the marital bliss.”

Her eyes closed for a moment, her dark red lashes resting against her cheek, and God, I wanted to touch her again. I wanted her to tell me that I was wrong, that I did deserve to have the love of a woman and that I could somehow work to deserve hers again.

I wanted it more than anything.

But instead, she opened her eyes and shook her head. “No, Silas. I will not be your womb for hire.”

Disappointment crashed heavy and cold into my stomach. I bit my lip and her gaze followed the motion. I was still hard, and the only thing I wanted more than her saying
yes
to my unconventional proposal was her saying
yes
to me lifting her skirts and devouring her pussy until she couldn’t stand anymore.

I didn’t pressure women into anything—proposals, sex, dancing, card games, anything—mostly because I’d never had to, but also because that wasn’t me. I liked being easygoing. I liked avoiding conflict. I had told myself on the way here that if she said
no
, I would simply have to bear it up and leave. That I would honor her wishes.

But now that I was here, staring at the long arch of her throat and the blood-colored hair running over one shoulder, at those blue eyes so sad and strong and tired, I couldn’t give up on her. I couldn’t let her go that easily. Even if I didn’t love her anymore, I had to face the fact that I wanted her. I had to face all the crass, caveman-like images wanting her conjured. I wanted her to be my mate, and the idea of another man claiming her instead made me see crimson splotches of rage.

I had to face it: no matter how wrong it was, I couldn’t give up on marrying her. Not yet.

“Am I allowed to try to change your mind?” I said, leaning in so that my lips were near her ear.

She shivered, goose bumps prickling along her shoulders and arms, and I smiled grimly to myself. She wanted me still. After everything.

“Answer me, darling. Am I allowed to persuade you to marry me?”

My lips were at the shell of her ear now, and I nipped at her earlobe, drawing my teeth along the soft skin there before replacing them with my tongue.

She let out a half sigh, half moan.

“Maybe,” she breathed, as I let my mouth wander down her neck, licking and savoring and sucking, her skin sweet and clean with the slightest hint of salt. It tasted better than I remembered, which made me think about the other things I had tasted and wanted to taste again. “Maybe,” she repeated and then gave a little gasp as I gently bit her throat.

Good.

“Give me a safe word, Molly.”

“W-what?” she stammered, and I loved that my mouth on her skin made her incoherent. Maybe I had a shot at winning her hand after all.

“Give me a safe word. A signal. And when you use it, I will stop, no questions asked.”

“We’re not having sex tonight,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sure of herself, and her addition of the word
tonight
… I noted that and continued kissing her neck, working my way over to the other side and kissing up to her jaw.

“It isn’t for sex. It’s for pursuit.”

She pulled back a little, her eyes narrowing as she tried to parse my meaning.

My hand found her skirts and I began pulling on the silk, lifting it up to her waist. “If I court you, if I try to marry you, I am going to use every dirty, filthy trick I know. If I try to win your hand, I am not going to play fair.” Skirts up, petticoats raised, I dropped my other hand to run up the outside of her thigh. And then the inside.

Her legs fell apart and she slumped against the wall, her eyes fluttering closed once more as my fingers crept closer and closer to where we both wanted them most.

“For example,” I murmured, “I could do this—” I swept my fingers up and across the soft flesh of her mound, carefully avoiding her inner folds or her clit, savoring the almost pained sigh she gave me. “And I could promise to put my mouth down there. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You would give me anything right now so long as I gave you my mouth in return.”

A little noise escaped her, and then—my own self-control faltering—I cupped her. Hard. And even without penetrating her, I could feel how wet she was—dripping and slick—and
fuck
, my cock hurt. I wanted to make this woman come, and then I wanted to stick my cock inside of that swollen, tender flesh and drive away all the doubt and pain and blame we’d built around each other. I would tear it all down until she came like a quivering shot around me, and then I would fist her hair and press my crown against her mouth and make her lap up my cum as I pulsed it onto her lips.

I pressed a finger inside of her. She cried out, squirming, trying to grind her pussy down onto my hand. “How long has it been since you’ve let a man really fuck you, Mary Margaret? I know you’ve ridden men, I know you’ve used them, but how long since you’ve let a man use you?”

I slid my finger in deeper and added a second one, rubbing her hard with the heel of my palm. She was panting.

“How long?” I asked, wondering for a minute at my stern voice, at my almost-cruel words, but then she answered and I stopped caring how cruel I seemed.

“No one since you,” she whispered.

I crooked my finger, creating friction against her favorite spot, and her knees buckled. I caught her by the throat, wishing I could somehow freeze the flash of fear and lust in her eyes, freeze it like a painting and then hang it on my wall.

God, this woman.

This woman.

She was making me forget that I wasn’t supposed to be in love with her. She was making me forget that charming, happy, playful Silas would never grab a woman by the throat, never finger her without her express consent and yet here I was, doing it anyway.

“See, my love?” I said, my fingers still curled around that gorgeous throat, my other hand rubbing her into a squirming and wet state of ecstasy. “See how I won’t play fair? See how I’ll touch you and tease you? See how I’ll fuck you into giving me what I want?”

Her eyes flashed—indignation, perhaps, or maybe protest—but at that moment I squeezed her neck and ground my palm harder against her, and then a shuddering, buckling, slippery orgasm consumed everything in her. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened, a gasp for air that she could still get around my harsh grip but not without the illusion of struggle. And her sweet, wet cunt—I could feel it fluttering around my finger and all I wanted on this earth was to feel that fluttering on my tongue, one last time.

And it was amid her final crest, her last stunned sigh, that the curtains swept abruptly open, revealing Hugh.

My eyes flew open at the noise of the curtain, and there was Hugh, looking furious and alarmed all at once. The last shreds of my orgasm peeled away from my core and wilted, like flower petals in the summer heat. My mind began to clear, registering shame and horror and
oh my God, that was the best thing I’ve ever felt. Ever.

Silas’s hand was still at my throat, the perfect amount of pressure to send adrenaline zinging through my system without actually threatening my ability to breathe. And his other hand was still gripping my sex. And part of me never wanted it to leave. Part of me wanted to spend the rest of my life being so possessively held by this man, because somehow his arrogant manner of touching me sent me soaring far higher than even the most passionate caresses from any other lover I’d ever had.

The other part of me was simply furious. With
myself
, for having wanted Silas so much that I let him make me come. And with Silas, for being himself and yet not-himself, this new Silas that I had only glimpsed for the first time last year, and only then for a few days. This dominating, intimidating, rough Silas, who was more predator than gentleman.

This predator who counted me among his prey.

And Molly O’Flaherty is no one’s prey
, I thought fiercely.

I straightened to tell him this, to tell him that it didn’t matter how dirty he played the game, he’d still never win me, when he was yanked backwards and Hugh’s fist connected with his jaw.

I realized how it must have looked to Hugh, me backed into a corner, my skirts at my waist and Silas’s hand around my neck. I suppose my gasps of pleasure could have looked like pain and the contortions of my face like a struggle—but still. No matter how well-intentioned his chivalry, it was unnecessary.

“Hugh!” I came forward, my skirts still in disarray, my breathing rapid and shallow from the intense climax I’d just had. I grabbed Hugh’s arm before he could swing again. “Stop!”

Hugh threw me a furious look. “Molly, he…he was
touching
you.”

I cleared my throat and smoothed my skirts, making sure that when I spoke, my voice was cool and collected. “He was touching me with my permission, Hugh. Step away.”

Silas, meanwhile, was standing back up and rubbing his jaw with a rueful expression, like he should have expected all along that something like this would happen. “I have to say, Hugh, when I contemplated the possibility of leaving here with a bruise on my face, I rather thought it would be from Molly. At least you don’t hit as hard.”

Hugh practically snarled, lunging at Silas again. Silas easily dodged Hugh’s second swipe, an arrogant grin spreading across his face. Now that the two of them were standing, now that Hugh was trying to hit Silas and failing, I could see that Hugh had gotten lucky with his first punch. Silas was tall and quick, and without any malice or apparent anger, he parried a punch from Hugh as he stepped in behind him. And then—almost casually—he twisted his body so that Hugh went sprawling onto the floor, landing hard on his ass.

And even though I still hated Silas, and even though I liked Hugh, I giggled, clapping a hand over my mouth when Hugh glared up at me. “I’m sorry,” I said, the giggles punctuating the words. “I just—you look—I’m sorry.”

Silas was trying not to laugh himself, at least until he turned to me, his bright blue eyes suddenly serious. “Molly. I need the word.”

“The word?”

“Your safe word.” Everything about his stare was too blue, too impossibly blue, and somehow hard and soft at the same time, like this look contained all of the love and all of the angry, resentful lust he felt for me. I remembered his fingers on my throat, and my cunt clenched with renewed want.

“You realize I am the first woman ever to need a safe word for courtship, right?”

His lips twitched, that irrepressible grin hiding under the surface, begging to come through. “If I’m honest, darling, this is the first time a woman has ever needed a safe word with me at all. But,” and that beautiful mouth turned into something sterner than a smile, “this is also the first time I’ve ever wanted a woman to marry me.”

Marry.

I’d repeated that word in conversation—and in my own mind—enough times that it didn’t even sound real any more, like it was a word dredged up from some foreign and ancient text. A word synonymous with torture and pain.

I hated the thought of marrying, and the thought of marrying the one man who’d managed to break my heart…

“Clare,” my mouth said before my brain could catch up. Before my brain could definitively tell my body—and my traitorous heart—that I didn’t want Silas to have this safe word, because having it was tacit consent to his pursuit.

“Of course,” he said, because unlike most people, he knew that I’d grown up in County Clare just outside of Ennis, until my father moved us to Liverpool when I was twelve. And I hated that he knew that. I hated how sweet and musical the word sounded on his lips when he repeated it: “Clare.”

And then he gave me a deep bow and left, vanishing into the whirl of the wine-soaked ballroom almost immediately.

I glanced down at Hugh, who was finally standing up, and then to my wrinkled skirts. My body still sang from Silas’s touch and the memory of those intensely blue eyes.

No
, I told myself.
He doesn’t get to come back here and parade those eyes and that easy grin around. That ship sailed—literally—last year.

It sailed when I’d told him I loved him and when he’d said it back to me, and then not hours later I’d found him with his prick inside Mercy Atworth.

The memory sent a predictable storm of rage pounding through my blood, and I wished Silas were still here so I could rescind my safe word and finish the job that Hugh started when it came to layering that handsome face with bruises.

God, I needed gin.

Why I’d agreed to receive Frederick Cunningham the next morning, I wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe I hoped the board had relented and he wanted to deliver the news in person. Or maybe I was sick of admitting anemic, floppy-haired dandies into my parlor and watching them plead their case for marrying me. Or maybe I was simply restless after seeing Silas last night, restless and furious and filled with an empty kind of longing. I’d gone home with Hugh, but I’d dismissed him the moment we crossed my threshold. He wasn’t Silas, and no matter how much I wanted to pretend that my cunt didn’t care, the lingering satisfaction in my body told me otherwise.

Whatever the reason I agreed, I immediately regretted it as I entered my parlor and Mr. Cunningham rose to take my hand. The de facto leader of my company’s board was taller and older than me, and I felt like a stupid girl in front of him.

A stupid girl of fourteen, to be precise.

The late morning light dusted his pale blond hair and matching mustache with gold, and the effect might have been handsome—for he was indeed a handsome man—if not for the smirk curling on his lips. I allowed him to kiss my hand, purely to show him that he had no power over me, but the moment his mustache tickled my skin, bile rose in my throat. The memory of stinging flesh and the taste of my own tears caused me to yank my hand away faster than was polite; Mr. Cunningham’s smirk deepened as he rose back up to his full height.

Fucking hell, Molly. Show no weakness, remember? Be a wolf or a hawk or a snake—anything but the girl you used to be.

“How may I help you today, Mr. Cunningham? I’m afraid I have no husband yet, so if you’re expecting my engagement announcement, you will be sorely disappointed.”

“Call me Frederick, please. I think you’ve earned that familiarity, have you not, pretty girl?” Mr. Cunningham asked, settling into an upholstered armchair.
My
favorite armchair, if truth be told, because it sat at the head of the room. It was impressive and the perfect shade of blue to set off my eyes.

“I’d like to keep our acquaintance within the bounds of etiquette, if you don’t mind,” I said, doing my best not to grind my teeth together. I sat in another chair, one far enough away that I could pretend I didn’t know what that mustache felt like on my skin. Far enough that I could pretend I didn’t know exactly how selfish and ruthless he could be.

If I try to win your hand, I am not going to play fair.

Silas’s words from last night echoed in my memory, and I forced myself to connect them to the man sitting across from me. Frederick Cunningham was exactly why I didn’t let men fuck me, why I never ceded control of myself in the bedroom or in affairs of the heart.

Funny though, how I had so enjoyed the ruthless, selfish side Silas had revealed to me last night…

“As you may know, Martjin van der Sant is visiting us soon, and he will expect to meet with you, in addition to touring our docks and warehouses.”

Van der Sant, yes. I’d almost forgotten in the fog of recent events, but van der Sant owned one of the most expansive shipping networks in the world, connecting Europe to India and China, and he was looking to partner with O’Flaherty Shipping in order to expand his reach to Iceland and Canada—places where O’Flaherty Shipping was established and thriving. A partnership between us would be mutually beneficial and profitable, with very few drawbacks. However, we needed van der Sant far more than he needed us, since we were already losing clients who wanted more access to the Eastern hemisphere, and he was a notoriously fastidious and uncompromising businessman. There had been at least two other English companies he’d come close to making an agreement with, only to pull out at the last minute because he didn’t like the state of their books or the personal habits of one of their dock managers. Everything would need to be perfect for his visit, but I wasn’t concerned. I ran O’Flaherty Shipping fastidiously. There would be no irregularities in our books, our managers were all hardworking and moral men, and I was prepared to be as discreet as possible about my own personal habits when he came to town.

I took a deep breath and returned my attention to Mr. Cunningham. “I’m quite prepared for van der Sant’s visit, a fact of which I’m sure you’re aware. Is there another reason you needed to see me?”

He crossed his legs, raising his chin and looking quite pleased with himself. “I came to strike a bargain,” Mr. Cunningham said.

“I am sick of your bargains,” I said, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.

Mr. Cunningham smiled. “What a shame. But I think you will like this one better than our last.”

Our last.
To an outsider, it might have seemed that he was referring to the board’s demand that I marry, but we both knew better. I kept myself from crossing my legs reflexively, making sure my back was straight and my shoulders square.

“In fact,” he continued, “I am certain you will like it. Perhaps too much; I admit, it does feel as if the board will be ceding too much in this agreement.”

Hope, for however brief a moment, flowered within me. As much as I hated this man, as much as I resented the other men who had invested in my father’s company, perhaps something had happened to change his mind. Perhaps they had found a new heiress to torture or perhaps they’d realized I would still find a way to run the company the way I wished, even with a husband.