The Scoundrel's Lover (11 page)

She gave a strangled moan and pulled from his embrace. “You do not know the temptation you are creating, Marcus. But I can’t give in.”

“Why?” he asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it.

“Because I’m in the midst of trying to catch a husband,” she said softly, her gaze flitting away from him as if she were embarrassed by the admission.

“What we did here would be no impediment. I would certainly not march into a ballroom and declare that you were mine. You would not be mine, no matter what we did.” He said the words and his chest ached.

Her lips pursed. “Perhaps you are right that any man courting me might not know what I did alone with you before we wed. But after…” She cleared her throat, and her cheeks flamed with bright red color. “I have been led to believe that a man would know if his bride was not a virgin. I could not commit a fraud against a man I call husband. It would be a terrible way to start a lifelong union.”

He couldn’t control the shock that jolted through him. He had plenty of experience with women of rank and privilege. They filled his hall every night, exuberantly giving in to their every sexual whim. Many did not come here to explore with their husbands, but behind those same spouse’s backs. They didn’t give a damn about their vows.

And here Annabelle was, not having made any yet, and she honored them regardless.

“Is the state of your virginity your only resistance to what I propose?” he asked.

She swallowed hard, her eyes bright with desire. “Yes. I know it makes me sound like a wanton, but yes.”

“It doesn’t make you sound like a wanton,” he assured her. “It makes you sound alive, Annabelle.”

She frowned, and he could see she wasn’t certain of what he said. Her foray into the highest Society made her question herself, and he hated it.

“But I can give you what you need,” he continued, voice shaking. “I can get what
I
need, without penetrating you. And no matter how much I want to do that—” He somehow stifled a moan. “—I vow to you that I will not, Annabelle. I can give you pleasure, you can give me the same, and I won’t spoil you for whatever man is lucky enough to make you his bride. Will that satisfy you?”

Annabelle blinked. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with Marcus. Or more to the point, that a man like Marcus, who could obviously have any woman he desired, would offer her something like this. Could he truly mean he would give her pleasure, allow her to purge her darkest desires without ruining her for someone else?

It was thrilling, but deep inside she felt a tug of unpleasant disappointment she refused to analyze or acknowledge.

“Annabelle,” he pressed, his voice barely carrying in the quiet room. “I’m afraid you must agree or disagree to my proposal. I wish I could read your mind, but I cannot.”

“I’m sorry. I think I understand what you mean,” she whispered. “I’ve read books, I’ve seen things here that look pleasurable without fully claiming. If you would be willing to leave my virginity intact, then I would…I would very much want what you offer.”

The moment the words were spoken, Marcus moved on her. He pinned her so her back was to the glass, pressed against the cool surface and kissed her with such wild abandon that she was almost afraid. Here was a man always in control who couldn’t stop himself when he was with her.

But he had made a promise, and she had the feeling he honored his vows. She relaxed in his arms, giving in to the kiss she had dreamed of since the last time they touched. She felt his manhood against her stomach and arched against it, smiling when the movement elicited a moan from him that disappeared into her mouth.

They kissed for what seemed like an eternity until finally he drew back and said, “Come with me.”

“Why?” she asked, uncertain if her shaking legs would allow for movement.

He smiled. “Because anyone who looked up from the hall could see you pressed against the glass. And I don’t want an audience the first time I make you come.”

She blushed as she looked over her shoulder. For the first time, the debauchery below didn’t interest her as much as the man across from her. She took the hand he reached out to her and let him take her across the room toward the chamber she had spied upon just a few days before.

“Why do you have a bedchamber here?” she asked, uncertain if she wanted to know the answer, since it likely included passionate encounters with ladies who gave him everything he desired without limit.

His eyebrows lifted as his hand hesitated on the handle to the chamber door. “And how do you know I have a bedchamber attached to my office?”

She blushed but refused to lie. “I, er, did some spying the first time I was left here alone.” 

“And you went into my chamber?” he asked.

She nodded. “And saw your bed and wanted…” He opened the door to reveal the very bed she spoke of. “I wanted what we’re about to do,” she admitted at last.

“I can fulfill that fantasy,” he promised, drawing her in, closing and locking the door and then pulling her into his arms for another deep, probing kiss.

She felt him turn her toward the bed, then his fingers found the fastenings on the back of her gown. He wasn’t clumsy as he unhooked her, even though he couldn’t see what he was doing. His fingers were warm as they brushed along her spine through her thin chemise, but she shivered from the stroke of them regardless.

He drew her gown down, and Annabelle turned her face as he tugged the dress off her arms to hang at her hips.

“I have imagined you like this a hundred times,” he mused.

Her breath caught. That was the second time he had spoken of desiring her for far longer than the short time she had been coming to his club. Could that be true? Could this man have wanted her for that long?

It was a thrilling idea. But oh, so very dangerous.

“Just like this?” she managed to squeak out before she hooked her fingers into the folds of the gown and let it fall at her feet. She kicked it away. “Or like this?”

“That,” he admitted, staring at her from head to toe. Her flimsy chemise did very little to cover her. The fabric allowed the dusky tips of her breasts to be outlined against the silk and the chemise was so short that if she turned around he would have seen the swell of her bottom without her having to bend over even a touch.

No man had ever seen her like this, though she had examined herself in this state in the mirror so many times. She had watched as she touched herself, fascinated by how her body changed when she found pleasure.

Would it be different when she received that pleasure not from her own fingers, but from this man? Would she ever be the same, even if he left her hymen intact and no one would be the wiser?

“I have also pictured you in less,” he whispered, breaking into the thoughts he couldn’t read and moving toward her. He dragged his fingers down the apex of her body until his hands fisted the bottom edge of her chemise. Never breaking eye contact with her, he lifted the silk up and over her head and tossed it aside with the rest of her gown.

She was naked now. With a man. With
this
man. Slowly, she moved her hands to cover herself, but he caught them to push them away.

“Don’t,” he murmured, his green gaze intense and imprisoning. “I want to look at you. Worship you.”

She could hardly breathe now as he burned a brand into her with the heat of his stare. She shook at the intimacy of it, the way she couldn’t move or think or do anything except stand before him and allow him whatever he desired.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice broken. “I want to look at you too.”

His gaze jerked up. “I’m not nearly so beautiful as you are,” he warned her.

She reached out and slid a hand down his chest. She felt the muscles ripple beneath his clothes, and her fingers trembled. “I cannot believe that is true, Marcus.”

She saw the strain on his face, the mask of desire he was just keeping under the surface so that he wouldn’t overwhelm her with it. He stepped back and unbuttoned his jacket. After he’d tossed it aside, he went to work on the rest, but he took his time unbuttoning buttons and unhooking hooks. It seemed to take forever, but finally he tugged his crisp white shirt over his head and let her see his chest.

She held back a gasp of pleasure as she stared. “You are a liar,” she managed to squeak out as she held out her hand to press her fingers to his flesh.

“How so?” he asked, tone strained.

“
You
are beautiful. Like a god.”

She drank him in, examining him in the firelight. He was thickly muscled, with broad, defined shoulders. She moved closer, circling him to look at his back, also cut with muscle. But something else too. As she began to turn to come back to face him, she saw the slashing mark of a scar that started in the middle of his back and curled around his side, disappearing under his arm.

“Marcus,” she whispered.

He caught her hand and brought her back to face him. His expression was tight and drawn. “No.”

“But—”

“No,” he repeated. “Just touch me, Annabelle. Touch me.”

She wanted to ask more, but she could see what the results would be. If she pried, he would push her away for good and this would be over before it began.

She couldn’t risk that. She simply had to accept that their relationship would be one of passion only, not shared secrets. With a shuddering sigh, she set her questions about the scar aside and leaned forward, dragging first her fingertips across his bare chest and then her lips.

“Mmmm.”

His hand came down to tangle in her hair. “What?”

“I wondered how you would taste,” she said between licking kisses. “Delicious.”

He cupped her chin and tilted it up, his green eyes glittering in the dark. Then he crushed his mouth to hers and shoved her the rest of the way back until she tumbled into his bed.

She yelped as he bracketed his hands over her, imprisoning her in a cage of his hot, hard body. He crushed his mouth to her throat and sucked hard until pleasure merged with the slightest of pains and her back arched.

“Very nice,” he purred, moving lower to trace her collarbone with his tongue, lower until his mouth crested over the swell of her breast.

Annabelle cried out when he closed his hot lips around her right nipple, and her hands came down to clench in his thick, crisp hair. He smiled against her flesh, but didn’t let up in his relentless and pleasurable assault. He swirled the tip of his tongue around the nipple, he sucked hard on it until it tingled and the answering reverberations spread throughout her entire being. And just when she thought she would lose all reason, he abandoned her right breast and turned his attention to her left, repeating each and every act until she panted with desire and lifted into him helplessly.

“And now I’m going to find out how
you
taste,” he said, lifting his head to look at her.

She gasped, her mind shifting wildly to the images from two nights ago, when she had watched the man and woman through the peephole downstairs. The man had been feasting on the woman’s most private parts.

“You—you can’t mean—” she began.

He chuckled, his eyes lit up with dark and dangerous desire and slid down her body, kissing her stomach, her thigh. Finally, he pushed her legs open wide, draping one over his shoulder and settled between them, looking at her sex.

“Don’t you want to know how it feels?” he asked, his tone teasing and taunting. “Because I know that watching this act made you wet and ready. Just as you are now.”

“Please,” she said, clenching the coverlet in her hands.

He smiled up at her. “Please what? Please do this or please stop?”

“Do it,” she cried out, her voice cracking. “Please!”

The teasing left his face and he looked back at her wet body. Slowly, he peeled the outer lips of her sex back and gently stroked just the tip of his finger over her. She jolted at the intimate contact.

She was being touched
there
. By this man. It was as if every dark fantasy, every wicked impulse, had come to this. She should have hated herself, but she didn’t. She only arched her hips, trying to drive him closer, trying to make him do what she wanted but couldn’t express with words.

He didn’t deny her. His mouth came down, settling over her sex. First it was merely a tender, close-mouthed brush of his lips. Still, she lit on fire. His breath was like sin and his lips impossibly soft against the sensitive flesh. But almost immediately the tenderness of that kiss changed. He darted out the tip of his tongue and sliced it across her entrance not once, but twice, three times.

“Marcus,” she whimpered.

It was shocking how much sensation he could coax from her body with such a slow, easy seduction. Oh, she had felt pleasure before, from her own hand. But not like this. Never like this.

This was explosive. Powerful. Inescapable.

And she loved each and every moment.

He held her thighs apart and delved deeper, tasting her folds, piercing her entrance and finally swirling his tongue around and around the sensitive nub of her clitoris.

She arched as the sudden wave of her orgasm hit her with a power she’d never experienced before. As he suckled the tender collection of nerves, wave after wave of pleasure hit her, building higher and higher, never ending, until she lost all control and her cries echoed in the room around them. And he licked on, forcing more from her, taking every drop of her passion until she collapsed, limp and languid on his pillows.

He stroked a few more times with his tongue and then grinned as he moved up her body. He bracketed her in with his big arms and stared down at her, examining her face in the firelight.

“That was quite something, Miss Annabelle Flynn,” he said.

She could hardly catch her breath. He was so outrageously handsome with his lips slick from her juices and his eyes still bright with the passion they had shared.

And she wanted oh so much more.

“It was indeed,” she murmured, the wicked woman she normally kept leashed inside of her loosened for the moment. She caught his chin and drew him down. “But I don’t think we’re finished yet.”

She caught his mouth with hers, tasting the earthy flavor of her sex still on his lips. She was surprised at how arousing it was to taste herself there. He moaned against her, relaxing his body so that he fully covered her. His weight was heaven, as was the insistent pressure of his cock against her thigh through his trousers.