Mariah jerked her hands away and reached for a drink from the nearest footman’s tray. She downed it in one swig. “I know, I know!”
Vivien stared at her, her gaze utterly focused on Mariah’s face. Her friend was reading her. Analyzing her. Judging her. And as much as Mariah hated it, she wondered what the far more experienced Vivien’s conclusions were. Certainly it was beginning to become harder to judge herself, perhaps she needed an outside opinion to really see what she should do.
Finally, her friend patted her arm. “My dear, you should go to him.”
Mariah’s eyes went wide and she staggered back a step in disbelief. “What? What happened to concerns and maintaining distance and needing a protector and all your other lectures?”
Vivien smiled. “I stand by all my sermons. But there is something between you and John that has not yet been purged from your systems. And until it is, you shall be worthless to look for a new situation for yourself. So go to him, drown yourself in what he offers. One night won’t change much for you in your search. And if other men see you are the object of John’s attention, that can only garner you more interest amongst them.”
Mariah shifted. She didn’t particularly like the idea of being with John for such a mercenary cause, but she shoved that aside. The fact was, she was being given permission to fly to his side and wrap herself in his passion. Something she wanted more than anything.
“But—” she began.
Vivien turned her around and gently shoved her in John’s direction. “Go! We will speak at length about the dangers and questions later. For now just go before you make yourself sick from trying to pretend you aren’t interested.”
Mariah did as her friend ordered, gliding through the crowd toward John. She thought she might have heard someone say her name, but didn’t stop to seek out the person. All she could see was her friend, her lover, standing a few feet away, waiting for her. And as she moved closer, it was like she had been made lighter by each step. Lighter by the fact that she would be with John tonight.
Consequences be damned.
John had been pretending he wasn’t tracking Mariah’s every movement throughout the night, but he had been. Any man who stood near her had earned John’s scorn and he had been counting every moment until the offender left her side. When any one seemed to garner her attention longer than another, his heart leapt, and not in a pleasant fashion.
But now she moved toward him, a smile on her face that was just for him, and he caught his breath in anticipation of the moment she would reach his side.
He stepped away from his companion, who was midway through another empty sentence, and reached for Mariah’s hand.
“Hello,” he said softly.
She smiled up at him, almost shy in her expression. “Hello, John.”
He wanted to kiss her, right there in the middle of Vivien’s ballroom. An act of claiming that he would normally never perform so publicly.
But before he could do something so telling and so foolish, the lady he had been standing with stepped between them.
“Why, Mariah!” Nadine said. “I had no idea you were here tonight.”
Mariah pursed her lips and John could see she didn’t like the other mistress. “Hello, Nadine. How
is
Lord Sunderworth?”
John could hear a not-so-subtle reminder in the way Mariah said the other man’s name and he stifled a smile. So she had been watching him with other women too, and disliking what she saw just as much as he had. Her jealousy should have been distasteful to him, but it wasn’t in the slightest.
Nadine shrugged. “Fine, as always. He is floating about here somewhere tonight. We have agreed to find new partners for our fun and meet later. I was hoping John would be interested in joining us.”
John cast a quick glance at Mariah, who seemed to be holding her breath. On any other night in the past, he probably would have said yes. Nadine was a pretty girl and Sunderworth had good taste, so he would probably pick an equally beautiful partner who John would also get to share. Any other night, that kind of empty erotic encounter would have seemed perfectly palatable.
Tonight, it did not.
“I’m afraid I have other plans,” he murmured, locking gazes with Mariah. “Though I do appreciate the offer.”
Nadine looked between them and sudden understanding dawned in her blank eyes. “Ah. I see. Well, then I have wasted my time here. Good evening.”
She turned on her heel and stomped away into the crowd, leaving Mariah and John alone.
“You didn’t wish to take her offer?” Mariah asked in soft surprise.
John shook his head. “No. The only person I want to be with is—”
He broke the sentence off and stepped away from Mariah. What the hell was he saying? Certainly he
had
been bewitched by her eyes if he was about to admit that he wanted no one but her. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want only one woman. He never had and he never would.
But now Mariah stared at him, golden stare flickering with questions and confusions. She knew his intention, even if he had bitten off the words. But he couldn’t be that close to her. He wouldn’t be.
He leaned in and struggled to return to his normal nonchalant, erotic self.
“My dear, I believe we should retire to Vivien’s back room. I simply did not wish to do so with Nadine, as she has never been a favorite with me.”
Vivien blinked, tilting her head to explore his face as even more confusion clouded her expression. “I—you wish to go to the back room?”
He nodded. “Of course. It is the most erotic area of Vivien’s home.”
She swallowed. “I see. Well, if that is your desire, I will go with you.”
He wrinkled his brow. She sounded as if they were going to be going to the hangman’s noose together, not to a sensual playground. But he wasn’t going to ask her about her feelings, nor was he going to share his. That was the bargain he had made with her and had already come dangerously close to betraying tonight.
He held out his elbow and for a brief moment she hesitated, but then slipped her hand into the crook. She allowed him to lead her through the ballroom and down a hallway that twisted and turned past many parlors and sitting rooms. Inside, John could hear the cries and moans of pleasure from those who had forgone the back room and decided to take their desires to a more private place.
For a moment, he considered going to one of those rooms to repeat what they had done that first night together. But he didn’t. He had come too close to Mariah tonight. The best way to maintain distance, while still being able to touch and pleasure her, was the back room. It was the only way.
A large door loomed before them and as John opened it, it revealed a big, open room. There was no furniture in the middle of the room, which was surrounded by a low wall lined on the outside by benches. Comfortable cushions covered in silk, satin and velvet were scattered around the floor in the center.
And in the middle of this odd room ten people milled about. Kissing, touching, moaning in erotic bliss as they pleasured and shared each other in varying ways.
On the benches outside the circle, individuals and couples watched the action. There were couples grinding against each other as they stared at the sexual fascination in the middle and one couple had even begun fondling each other blatantly as they stared.
For the moment, John ignored it all and guided Mariah around the parameter of the room to a bench in the corner that offered a good view of the center of the room, but was hidden in shadow to give its occupants the highest degree of privacy. As he motioned to the bench, Mariah blinked at him in surprise.
“I—” she whispered. “I thought you were going to tell me we must go to the middle of the circle.”
Her voice was low, but John could hear the strain to it. She hadn’t liked the concept that he would ask her to join the others in the center of the room, to be pleasured and touched by strangers as the others watched them. And it wasn’t a generic dislike that showed on her face in the soft lights that glowed from the center of the room to highlight the lovers there. It was something more specific.
But he didn’t ask her why. This was not the time, nor the place. He simply motioned to the middle of the room and the lovers there.
There were six men and four women in the circle. Some still wore their masquerade masks, but a few had removed them to reveal one of the most powerful earls in the kingdom, a widow who was highly respected by those in her charity circle and a gentleman who had risen to power through shrewd business dealings. In this instance, though, they were nothing but writhing bodies, gliding against each other.
If any of them had come in pairs, their couples had been altered. There was no rhyme or reason to the way they touched. It was just hands gliding over skin, pumping cocks, fingering slits as moans and sighs echoed through the room.
Beside him, John heard Mariah’s breath catch and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She leaned forward to get a closer look, her hands curling over the edge of the wall that separated those who watched from those who fucked. Her body betrayed her arousal. Through her thin silk gown, he saw her puckered nipples, he heard her rough breathing, he saw the way she squirmed as she watched one of the women before them straddle one man’s lips so that he could eat her tender pussy while she sucked another man’s cock deep into her throat.
Mariah’s arousal increased his own. He slipped around to stand behind her and wrapped his arms around her to drag her against his chest. She shivered and pushed her backside against his cock, rotating her hips against his. He moaned against her ear and began to kiss and lick the column of her throat, reveling in how her body grew warmer with his touch.
In the center of the room, the foreplay had ceased and now the couples joined in earnest. One of the women had taken a man deep within her backside and another pushed into her pussy. With each stroke of one cock or the other, the three participants gasped and moaned with pleasure. The final four, two men and two women, were just as busy. The two men took turns stroking and licking one woman’s pussy while she busily fingered the final woman’s sex in time to their ministrations.
Mariah stared, mesmerized, it seemed, by the erotic visions before her. So mesmerized that when John touched her, she jumped with surprise.
“Forget I was here?” he asked with a smile.
She shook her head. “I could never do that, I assure you,” she whispered. She leaned up close to his ear. “I want you.”
He blinked in surprise at her bold admission. He had planned, of course, to tease her while they watched. To tempt her. Perhaps even to take her if she could be persuaded, but now she took control of the situation, demanding.
She turned into his chest and leaned up to kiss him. The kiss was deep as she swirled her tongue around his, sucking him in as she rubbed her body against his.
“Please,” she murmured.
He didn’t have to be asked twice. He spun her around so that they could both watch the group in the circle again. Couples had traded off now, women were riding men, taking their cocks deep within their throats. One of the men was thrusting deep within a shaking woman while another man positioned himself behind him to take him at the same time. There were no taboos, nothing but pleasure.
“Hurry,” she groaned and he lifted her skirts up around her waist.
He tore at his fly until his cock was free and then glided deep into her sheath. She pushed back against him as she flexed her sex and gripped him in heated, slick heaven. They slammed against each other as they continued to watch the orgy in the center of the room.
Others watched them too, even though they were in the deepest shadows. John saw the eyes flit to them with excitement, saw the other couples moving together in much the same way. It only increased his desire, his longing to make Mariah cry out with pleasure as she found release.
He cupped her hips and drove harder, circling and coaxing her pleasure higher and higher.
She tensed against him at last and made a deep, guttural cry as her orgasm hit her. He slammed through it, building toward his own until finally he gasped and pure pleasure pumped through him and deep into her body.
They stood like that for a few moments, panting together as the scene in the center of the chamber continued to play out. Then John straightened up, smoothed Mariah’s skirts back over her body and buttoned his fly. She turned to look at him with an almost shy smile. He reached out to take her hand.
“Would you like to return to the ballroom?”
She nodded. “I think the purpose has been served, has it not?”
He glanced at the center of the room where the throng of naked bodies was still writhing. “For us, I believe it has.”
He escorted her around the parameter of the room, past the other couples outside the wall who were now also making love with abandon and into the hallway. He shut the door behind them, but the sounds of sex and sin continued to echo down the hall as they walked toward the ballroom.
Chapter Eight
Mariah’s body continued to tremble and tingle as John maneuvered them back into the ballroom where the masquerade went on as normal. Only Mariah felt anything but.
There was nothing like sex with John. It always left her both satisfied and anticipating the next encounter. She had no idea how to label what they were experiencing, but she didn’t want it to stop.