‘Very nice,’ he said in a neutral tone. ‘Anywhere over there, please. Away from the windows.’
Gabriel saw a disconcerted shadow cross Marldon’s face. It was the briefest loss of poise, but it rallied his spirits. Octavia had been right: the man disliked the taste of his own medicine.
Lord Marldon arranged Clarissa on a blue damask chaise. She was a rag doll in his hands, her compliant limbs flopping this way, spreading that. When he had finished she was lying full length, her head on the armrest, one foot on the floor, one on the upholstery.
‘What I would like, Gabriel,’ began Marldon, ‘is for you to capture the expression on her face when she’s in ecstasy.’
The earl drove his fingers into the crimson-throated entrance between her thighs. Clarissa gasped quietly. She squirmed on the couch, uttering small objections, but her legs widened and she tilted her hips, pursuing his invasion.
‘Ecstasy is a fleeting thing,’ asserted Gabriel. ‘And it seldom stays still. The task will be somewhat difficult.’
Lord Marldon pushed in and out of her pouting orifice, slow and teasing, his thumb rolling on her clitoris. Clarissa’s eyelids dropped shut and she gave in to his caress. Her breath grew short and she moaned shamelessly.
‘Then you’ll have to watch her come, again and again,’ said Marldon softly. ‘Commit it to memory, Gabriel, then set it down on paper.’
Gabriel felt his face flush with a surge of loathing, but he was resolute, convinced he could better Marldon – as long as he could control his emotions. He inhaled deeply and quietly.
‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘I think the times I’ve spent with Clarissa will give me a head start.’
Lord Marldon slid him an uncertain glance then smiled benignly, returning his eyes to Clarissa. He probed rhythmically in her open, dewy sex, answering her groans with murmured words of approval. As his glazed fingers worked he studied her face, his own rapt and adoring. But it was delight, not in her enjoyment, but in her subjection which gave him such a look.
Gabriel’s resentment swelled apace with his arousal. Clarissa’s abandonment, her writhing body and her sounds of bliss stirred his prick to hardness. And it was at her that he began to direct his anger. This was the Clarissa he had seen yesterday, the one with the restraint of a whore and the constancy of a weathervane. Those victimised looks she’d cast him had meant nothing: they were as hollow as her declarations of love.
And while he detested Marldon with a violent passion, Gabriel decided that he was not the one to denounce. Clarissa was the one who had claimed devotion and spoken of forever, not Lord Alexander. She was the one who now betrayed him. She was the faithless slut.
He watched, inflamed with fury and lust, as Marldon thrust into her greedy wet flesh. She ground herself against his hand, gasping frantically, body shivering, eyes closed, lips parted. Gabriel had seen such an expression before, but then it had been at the touch of his fingers. Now she was blind to his presence. The girl did not care who gave her pleasure, or who observed it. As long as she got her fill, she was happy. Any man would do, any cock.
Marldon brought her, panting and thrashing, to the edge of her crisis. Then he stepped away from the couch and turned to Gabriel, holding his gaze.
‘She’s all yours,’ he said disdainfully. ‘Do what you will with her. I recommend her arse, but it’s entirely your choice.’
Clarissa gave a cry of alarm and pushed herself on to one elbow. She looked beseechingly at Marldon, her face a confusion of disbelief and desperate, lascivious need. Then she turned to Gabriel, and her countenance did not change.
Gabriel had been right: she could transfer the object of her desires within the blink of an eyelid. And now she’d been denied, she wanted
his
prick inside her – his prick because it was the only one on offer. Well, he would give her what she wanted. He was rock hard and more than ready for it.
He shoved aside his drawing board and got to his feet, tearing off his shirt. He strode over to her, unbuttoning as he approached.
‘No, Gabriel,’ she gasped, cowering in the corner of the chaise, her hands raised as if to ward him off. ‘Don’t be like this. Don’t give him the satisfaction.’
Gabriel scoffed, stripping till he was naked. ‘I think it’s you who wants satisfaction,’ he rasped.
He scooped her upper body to his, and kissed her harshly, his tongue thrashing hot and quick. She whimpered in his arms and when he urged her off the couch she sank with him to the floor. Her hands swept eager caresses over his back and her mouth searched for his. But Gabriel did not care for such pretences of fondness. The brazen doxy was only trying to appease her guilt.
He pressed his hands to her inner thighs, forcing her wide. Her sex, red and slick, gaped for penetration. He lay over her and, on a violently swift lunge, slammed his cock deep into her. He began driving furiously, thumping his prick high, venting his anger in an onslaught of thrusting madness. Her slippery wet heat hugged his shaft. She moaned deliriously, protesting one moment, begging the next. He brooked her no mercy. She liked cruelty; she liked to be mastered.
Her body shunted back along the carpet, jolting with the force of his stiff, plunging phallus. Gabriel clutched her firm breasts and kneaded urgently, his fingers
tweaking and twisting her tightly pinched nipples. Clarissa wailed and wrapped her legs about his waist, encircling him, her vagina thirsty for every thick swollen inch. She ground herself against him, her loins pumping upward, her actions belying her gasps of complaint.
‘Shut up,’ barked Gabriel. ‘Stop pretending you don’t want it. Bitch. You grasping, greedy slut.’
She looked up at him, her half-closed eyes full of pleading and hurt. Amid moans of hunger, she uttered words intended to soothe and calm. She tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. Gabriel snatched his head away. He felt her lips brush against his neck, soft, gentle, moist. He did not want those touches from her; he did not want her deception.
He fucked her hard, driven more by rage than desire. He rammed his prick to its root, and clawed at her tits, abused and cursed her. He blocked out every care he’d ever had.
She loved it. The hot little bitch loved it. A ruthless fuck was all she wanted, and that’s all she would get from him. No more love, no more tenderness.
As he powered into her, she gasped frantically, her fingernails raking his back. She peaked, her head tossing, her humid sex trembling around his solid pounding length. Gabriel gritted his teeth, driving wildly. His climax would not build and he begrudged Clarissa bitterly for taking hers.
‘Lift her on to your prick,’ came Lord Marldon’s voice.
Gabriel glanced up and saw the earl striding over to them. He was naked, his phallus hugely erect and forbidding.
‘I want to share her with you,’ he continued. ‘I want to take her arse while you’re taking her more romantic orifice.’
Gabriel’s blood ran cold. The idea of having another man so intimately near filled him with horror and revulsion.
‘Damn you, no,’ he growled, feeling suddenly possessive.
Marldon was at his side in an instant. He grabbed Gabriel’s curling locks and twisted them, forcing back his head. Gabriel, his spine arched, held still, his penis pressing deep inside Clarissa.
‘My faithful stablemaster is just outside the door,’ sneered Marldon, bringing his face close to Gabriel’s. ‘Jake Grimshaw – not a pretty fellow, I’ll grant – is desperate to get his hands on Clarissa. Would you enjoy watching him fuck her? Seeing his great oafish arse pumping between her spread thighs? Seeing him slaver and grunt over her soft white body?’
Clarissa screamed. Lord Marldon clamped his free hand to her mouth, stifling her cries.
‘Well, Gabriel?’ he enquired smoothly. ‘What’s it to be?’
Gabriel gave a jerk of his head, wrenching his hair from Marldon’s fist. Clarissa looked up at him, mumbling urgently behind Marldon’s fingers, her blue eyes wide with terror. Gabriel glared at her, making her wait for his answer, wanting her to suffer. She deserved Grimshaw, he thought spitefully. But he could not do it to her; he could not do it to himself.
He acceded to Marldon’s request with a curse and a quick movement, holding Clarissa tight and rolling over so she was sitting astride his cock. Clarissa protested, whining thinly, but she did not struggle.
‘Ah yes,’ breathed Marldon. ‘It’s what she’s wanted for a long time: the two of us inside her.’
He spat on his fingers and moved to kneel in the gap of Gabriel’s bent, open legs. Clarissa whimpered her excitement as Marldon worked his spittle into the crack of her buttocks. His touch brushed once or twice against Gabriel’s balls. Gabriel tensed, fighting to quell his abhorrence: he did not want to appear cowed by the earl’s perversions. But Clarissa, oblivious to his ordeal, moaned gently and began rocking back and forth.
Gabriel’s resentment flared and he gave a snort of derisive laughter.
‘Isn’t one enough for you?’ he jeered.
Clarissa dipped her head, holding herself immobile. Her hair hung in black waves over her bosom. Gabriel jerked his pelvis upwards, bouncing her passive body with each thrust. She looked down at him, her wet lips parted salaciously, her indigo eyes, full of amethyst shards, searching for his sympathy. Gabriel had none to offer.
‘Yes,’ urged Gabriel. ‘She’s a sordid little whore. Give it to her hard.’
Lord Marldon laughed with unrestrained delight, and Gabriel felt a moment’s acute embarrassment.
‘So you think you can give the commands, do you?’ teased the earl. ‘How charming.’
He tipped Clarissa’s upper body until she was leaning over Gabriel, her weight supported on her arms. His thighs pressed against Gabriel’s as he edged forward, then with a blissful sigh Lord Marldon entered her. Gabriel felt it. He felt Marldon’s thick, turgid shaft rising in her greedy little arse. It pushed against the silky flesh separating them, moving against his own organ, rubbing upward as it forayed into Clarissa’s darkest depths. The pressure of the internal caress was unexpectedly gratifying.
Marldon held himself deep and shifted position, moving back until his arse was flat against Gabriel’s, his legs either side of his torso. Clarissa groaned, sitting upright, impaled on two swollen hungry cocks.
‘Work for us, Clarissa,’ ordered Marldon. ‘Show us how much you care.’
Clarissa released a tortured cry and tilted her racked gaze to the ceiling. Her sex muscles rippled around Gabriel’s erection and he grunted sour enjoyment. Tentatively, she rose from the dual penetration then sank down, groaning as their hard, rigid columns bored into each orifice.
Increasingly passionate, she rode their engorged pricks, her pert breasts jiggling with her body’s lift and fall. She gasped and sobbed, wanton lust contorting her face.
‘Faster,’ urged Marldon. ‘Squeeze us hard.’
And she obeyed. Gabriel felt the tight clench of her inner muscles as she moved on their solid, fleshy staffs, rising and sinking with frenzied need. The two men set up a conspiratorial rhythm, both of them thrusting up to meet Clarissa’s hot, swallowing holes. Marldon’s balls, warm and tense, crushed against Gabriel’s. Gabriel did not care. He cared only that Clarissa would look back on this with overwhelming shame.
With a surging anger, he rammed himself high into her, driving faster and faster, setting the pace for Marldon. His loins throbbed, his prick ached, and yet still his climax eluded him. Clarissa’s tear-stained face, though it rewarded his vengeful fury, was doing little for his lust.
The earl cursed, growled, then matched a fierce lunge to a snarl of fulfilment. His phallus pulsed against Gabriel’s, then moments later he slipped out of Clarissa’s rear. She was all Gabriel’s again.
Gabriel clutched her buttocks to his thighs and, with a twist of his body, jerked her on to her back. She gasped beneath him, and he clamped his eyes shut, plunging into her with animal passion.
‘Watch her,’ commanded Marldon. ‘Watch her as she comes. Commit that expression to mind then you can set it down on paper.’
Gabriel paid him no heed. He knew well enough what she looked like. He slammed relentlessly, and the pressure in his cock burnt as it strained and quivered. Then at last he claimed his satisfaction, groaning as the hot release tore through his groin and into Clarissa. She cried out, joining him in dissolution, before he collapsed on top of her, exhausted and emotionally numbed.
Clarissa sniffled against his shoulder. Her body trem
bled and she coiled a strand of his hair about her finger. Her lips moved on his neck, kissing and sobbing. She whispered in his ear, Gabriel, oh Gabriel. Misery and loss echoed in her soft tremulous voice. She was vanquished, devoid of hope, but Gabriel felt none of the victor’s triumph he’d anticipated. Her gentle intimacy kindled a flame in his heart, and he felt a sudden upsurge of compassionate, debilitating love, so raw that his eyes prickled with emotion.
He pulled away from her and snatched up his crumpled shirt. He dressed in haste, his gaze steadfastly averted. He knew Clarissa was still lying there, naked, tearful, threateningly pathetic, but not once did he look at her. When she called his name on a plaintive, breathless howl, he did not turn, because he did not hear it. He heard only a whore’s solicitation.
He would not let his feelings hold sway; they would destroy him. And she was not worth it.
Marldon stood between two windows, leaning against the blue wall, his arms folded across his body. He smiled vaguely, watching the boy tug on his clothes.
Clarissa might be fooled by that stern exterior, those attempts at nonchalance and cruelty, but Marldon was not. Oh, Gabriel had been good at first, unsettling even, but the poor sop couldn’t sustain it. He loved the girl too much. Marldon was grateful. The artist, in his futile bid to gain the upper hand, had deprived his lover of all hope.
After this, Clarissa – and her dowry – would truly be his. Alec’s only regret was that Gabriel hadn’t suffered more overtly. It would have been most entertaining to see the young pair tormented by each other’s shame. Still, there was time.