He gave a garbled shout as he lifted his hips to drive even farther, and she took every inch of him with pleasure. He filled her mouth with silken steel and she reveled in his taste and his reaction as she swirled her tongue around his length. She lifted up higher on her knees, clutching the base of his cock and stroking even as she glided her mouth up and down over him, taking him deeper, tasting him more completely.
John tried to hold back his helpless moans and cries, but it was impossible as Mariah pleasured him with her wicked, experienced mouth. She knew exactly how to test him and taste him, how tightly to hold him and suck him, to make him go wild. And he did, losing his grip on control little by little as he forgot everything except how good her mouth felt.
He lifted his hips, gripping the settee cushions in steel fists as the pleasure mounted, building toward a crescendo he wouldn’t be able to halt or temper. And yet he didn’t have to worry about Mariah. She knew the consequences of her actions. If her tiny, vibrating moans were any indication, she welcomed them. She glanced up at him from time to time with hazel eyes darkened by pleasure, both the given and the received.
But just as his pleasure reached its peak, she popped his cock from her lips, rose up to straddle him and dropped her slick pussy down over him in one smooth stroke.
He jolted from this new pleasure of her hot sheath, but she gave him no time to adjust. She just began to ride, hard and heavy, holding his shoulders as she arched her back and flexed her hips over him.
He loved how she didn’t wait for him to give her release, but rubbed her clitoris over him to find it herself. And how she didn’t blush or pretend she was an innocent, but reveled in her own sensual power.
He gripped her hips and lifted to meet her strokes, leaning forward to suck one hard nipple as she rode him. She gasped out a sound of surprise and pleasure and then her hips went mad as orgasm gripped her. Her sheath flexed against him in out-of-control tremors and it was too much. He exploded inside of her with a grunt that rang in his ears and made the world around him blur quite beautifully.
He didn’t know how long they sat, bodies still intertwined, heads pressed together, breathing matched, but finally she sat up and stared down at him with a tiny smile.
“Amazing,” she whispered. “You and I knew each other for years, and yet we never did this. How much we were missing.”
John stared at her. In those years, she had been bound to his best friend. In love with him, or so she’d always said, and he knew she had been a faithful and true companion to Owen.
But her words sparked images of something amazing. Of the two of them together all this time. Doing this. Sharing their bodies, but also more. And he realized he didn’t want to let her go after a brief affair. He
wanted
to be her protector. He wanted to know that she would be there in the morning when he woke, that she would be on his arm at his bidding. That he could turn to her for companionship and comfort, and offer the same for her.
The realization shocked him. He had always taken such pride in the fact that he never bound himself to anyone. Deeper bonds never seemed to result in anything good. But now…now he couldn’t escape this desire.
But he was also not ready to voice it. Not until he could practice his words, make sure they did not promise too much…nor too little.
So instead, he cupped the back of her head and drew her down for a kiss. Not a passionate possession, but something else. He tasted her and felt differently, knowing she would be his. He held her and reveled in how perfectly she fit his arms and his body. And she would be there, for as long as he desired.
“Are you well?” she asked as he pulled away.
He cocked his head. “Well? Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “There is just something…different about you now.”
He drew back a fraction to stare at her. Could she truly read his moods so easily? A day ago that would have concerned him, but today…today he rather liked that she could tell his feelings.
He knew she would always protect them.
He cupped her cheeks. “I am perfectly content, I promise you,” he whispered. “Except that I would very much like to take you upstairs and continue this night together. If you would allow me to share your bed.”
She looked at him for a long moment and then she nodded. “Yes. I would very much like that.”
John smiled. Tonight was a beginning. And for the first time in a long while, he looked forward to the beginning of something good.
Chapter Eleven
John staggered into the foyer of his London home and smiled. He hadn’t spent a night away from this place in years. He always made it a point not to join a woman in her bed for more than a few hours. But waking up to Mariah beside him, being able to make love to her in the sparkling light of dawn and then sharing breakfast with her…he realized he had been missing out on something very special.
But perhaps it would not have been so special with any other woman. He certainly couldn’t picture doing the same with anyone but Mariah. Which was why he intended to ask her tonight if she would allow him to be her protector.
A thrill worked through him at the very thought of something more permanent with her.
A thrill that faded as his butler approached. Swanson’s normally calm, unflappable countenance was pale and his lips thin.
John stared. “What is it?” he asked, his voice barely carrying. “I—did someone die? Is someone hurt?”
The butler swallowed and shook his head, sending relief through John, albeit briefly.
“No, sir,” he said. “But…but your father is here, sir. He insisted on being taken to your parlor and presented with brandy while he waited.”
John stepped back until he hit the door. Luckily it was shut, or he might have deposited himself down his stone steps onto his head.
“My father?” he said.
This was the second time in as many days that his estranged family had intruded upon his home. With Adam, it was a welcome intrusion after the first bit of awkwardness. But if Vaughn Rycroft was here…well, there was not going to be anything pleasant about the rest of the day.
The servant nodded. “Yes, sir. I
did
try to impress upon him that you were not in residence, nor did I have an estimated time for your return, but he refused to depart.”
John shook his head to clear the shock and dismay that gripped him just as it had all throughout his childhood. He couldn’t be emotional when he saw his father. He couldn’t afford that. He had to collect himself or he would be bait for a very dangerous prey.
“You could not have done anything to stop him, short of physically restraining him,” John reassured the servant as he worked to calm his breathing and slow his racing heart. “And even then, it might not have ended well. Do not trouble yourself. I expected his arrival, though perhaps not today. There is no use in trying to put it off.”
Swanson nodded, but there was a flicker of pity in his otherwise unreadable expression. “Is there anything you require? Shall I bring you anything?”
John shook his head. “No. I don’t want the bastard to have anything more than what he’s already taking. But…” He hesitated and locked eyes with the servant. “In half an hour, knock and interrupt us. Remind me of an appointment. I refuse to give the man any more time than that.”
“Yes, sir.” Swanson straightened his shoulders. “And I shall alert Thomason and a few of the other servants just in case the physical force you mentioned is necessary to remove him.”
John smiled and patted the butler’s arm. “We shall hope for the best, but you are right to prepare for the worst. Vaughn Rycroft almost always delivers it.”
He turned away from the butler and toward the door to the parlor. With a deep breath, he opened it and entered the room.
His father was standing at the window, staring out on the street with his eyes narrowed. John took a moment to stare at him. He had always hated how much he looked like his father, with the same dark hair and eyes. He wanted to look like anyone else in the world, perhaps to be able to convince himself that anyone else in the world was his father.
But there was no denying a connection when Vaughn looked at him. His father was an older version of the same thing he saw in the mirror every day.
“About time you rolled in,” his father hissed as he stepped toward him. It took everything in John not to step backward an equal distance.
“I didn’t know I was under your curfew,
Mr. Rycroft
,” John said, emphasizing the address he chose to use. “Since I am far above the age of majority and have not spoken to you in too many years to count.”
His father smirked. “You may be above the age of majority, boy, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to be put in line now and then. You don’t think I’ve watched you all these years?”
John folded his arms. “I’m certain you have. It has always been your style to spy and intrude where you were not welcome.”
His father’s lips pursed in displeasure and he glared at John. “Welcome or not, I am here. We have a great deal to talk about, a fact I think you know.”
John shrugged. “And why would I know that? Why would that be true at all?”
His father moved forward, aggression in every line of his body. As a boy, that look had terrified John. It almost always meant emotional or physical punishment for unseen and uncommitted crimes. Often both. His father’s rage had caused him nightmares, cold sweats, terror that shook him all the way to his bones.
As a man, the same warning signs put him on guard and made his stomach clench, but John was happy to have put the fear away.
“Don’t play stupid, John. I
know
your brother made an appearance here yesterday.”
John shifted. The spies were hard at work, indeed.
“I suppose he did,” he said quietly. “Though I’m not certain how that visit is any of your business.”
Vaughn laughed, but it was anything but a pleasant sound. “I’m sure it had everything to do with the fact that I recently cut your brother off entirely and told him directly that I was turning over the inheritance of my fortune to you. No doubt he came here sniveling for a handout. So I think it has
everything
to do with me.”
John shut his eyes briefly. How he wished he could block his father from his world entirely. How he wished he could pretend he had no father. But it was impossible.
“Adam mentioned something to that effect, yes. But he didn’t ask for a handout at all. Just delivered a welcomed warning.”
“No doubt he
warned
you of a great deal.” His father leaned back with a satisfied smile. “It must have stuck in that boy’s craw to tell you my fortune was being torn from him. It must have made him sick.”
John stared. For years, his father had pitted the brothers against each other. As children, they had each played into his game in order to avoid the ugly, painful consequences of defying Vaughn Rycroft. As adults, their separation had only grown.
John imagined other parents might have mourned the distance between their children. Or even worked to close it.
Their father
smiled
over it.
Hatred bubbled inside of John, but he kept it in check. “The entire situation makes both of us sick, I assure you, sir.”
His father laughed again and sarcasm dripped from his tone as he continued, “Oh yes, I’m certain the idea of inheriting a fortune worth well over one hundred thousand pounds and growing every day is pure devastation to you. And taking it from your brother gives you no pleasure at all. Winning is, after all, such a burden.”
“Is that what you think this is?” John asked, truly surprised. “
Winning
? You don’t seem to understand that I don’t care about your land and your businesses and your money. Your hundred thousand pounds worth of assets is garbage to me. I do not desire it and I will not accept it. You waste your time and mine by coming here.”
His father moved on him with such swiftness that John hardly had time to react before Vaughn was standing just a foot in front of him, his dark eyes flashing with rage and his fists clenched at his sides.
“Bollocks,” he snapped, his tone tense with anger and violence. “You don’t get to choose, John.”
He shrugged and now a smile of his own fluttered on his lips temporarily. “Oh, but I do. You see, I have made my own fortune. I don’t need yours.”
His father sneered. “That little shipping business? It’s worth, what, half of what I am offering you?”
John tensed. How did his father know that? His records were kept private.
“It matters little what the business is worth. It more than supports me.”
“You lie if you say that you don’t want more,” his father snapped.
John considered that. Once that might have been true. Once he might have been his father’s son. Not anymore.
“I lie about a great many things,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But not this. I will not come under your thumb, Mr. Rycroft. So forget whatever nefarious plans you have.”
His father stared at him for a moment in disbelief. “I could destroy you. And then you will have no choice.”
John held his tongue. All his life his father had torn down in order to control. His toys, and even his bones, had been broken. His friends had been taken from him, his mother had been sent away to die alone because Vaughn Rycroft knew that destruction was the best way to keep his sons trapped beneath his heel.