“John,” she gasped as sensation mobbed her, overwhelmed her. It was too intense, too focused, too much in every sense.
He grinned up at her and then pressed two fingers to her entrance, gliding them deep within her clenching body as he returned his tongue to her aching, hard clitoris. He sucked the little nub of nerves between his lips and swirled his tongue around and around, flicking her with his teeth and tormenting her in every way imaginable.
The orgasm started slow, a few little twitches and vibrations, but as if he sensed her crisis, he increased both the speed of his thrusting fingers and the suction of his mouth on her sex. She cried out in utter release, writhing on the table, her heels digging into the edge as she lifted her hips helplessly.
But he allowed her no respite. As she reached the height of her orgasm, he withdrew his wet fingers from her sex and touched her backside. Using her own juices to lubricate the tender opening, he slid them inside her forbidden passage gently.
Mariah’s eyes flew open in surprise and pleasure at this new invasion and her orgasm intensified yet again as he licked her sex and pumped his fingers into her backside with slow, steady pressure. She was full and hot and unable to control her reactions, her screams, her wildly slamming hips as wave after wave of unfettered pleasure mobbed her and made her weak.
“Still want to leave?” he asked, removing his mouth from her sex and his fingers from her backside.
He looked up at her from between her thighs, his eyes dark with desire and bright with promises of things to come, and she could do nothing but shake her head.
“You know you make me too weak to refuse you,” she said, an accusation softened by the fact that she was still panting with release.
He smiled, so wicked, so sensual, and she shivered as she realized he wasn’t even close to being finished with her. Her release was not enough, he wanted more…more…always more.
He reached up and stripped his shirt off in a few smooth movements. His trousers quickly followed and he stood before her, naked in the bright lights of the dining hall. She stared in continued awe at his beauty as her mouth began to water with desire.
“The servants—” she began, but her voice held no strength in its one attempt at refusal.
“Let them watch,” he growled as he lowered himself over her on the table.
His mouth moved over hers and she tasted the earthy, sweet flavor of her own body on his lips. She arched with a moan both at the taste and the way it had come to be there. He smiled against her mouth.
“Delicious, isn’t it?” he murmured between long, languid kisses. “Better than any dessert my servants would bring to us. And so is this.”
He positioned himself at her entrance and stroked deep within her, filling her entirely with just the flex of his hips. She cried out against his mouth, digging her nails into his bare shoulders. He hissed out a breath as she clung to him and then he began to move.
No, move was not a descriptive enough term for what he did.
They had made love many times before. It had been sweet and gentle, it had been dark and passionate, but this…this was something else. As Mariah looked up at him, he seemed to transform from controlled gentleman to wild creature, driven to take her, to claim her, to fill her and to suck every bit of pleasure from her.
He pounded hard, rotating his hips to hit her clitoris with every stroke, lifting her backside more firmly as he took and took with ever increasing desire.
But it didn’t seem to be enough. Not for him. With a grunt of frustration, he withdrew from her aching body and stared down at her, panting, his cock hard and wet against his belly.
“Stand up,” he ordered. “And take off your dress.”
Mariah didn’t even think of refusing. She might still be angry and frustrated by a great many things in this strange relationship they had developed, but the passion between them was not one of them. It was too powerful to resist, even if she had wanted to do so, which she decidedly did not.
She got to her feet, clutching at the table to maintain her balance on shaky legs and then quickly stripped open the buttons along the front of her gown. As she stepped from the dress, she couldn’t help but notice the wrinkled destruction their lovemaking had already wrought. And there was some kind of stain on the fabric that might not ever come out.
She didn’t care. As she stood naked before him, she would not have been troubled if he went to her closet and burned every pretty gown she owned. As long as he took her, fulfilled her, after he did so. Clothing was highly overrated.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice gravelly and low as he stared at her with unwavering focus and intensity.
She smiled as she realized what he was going to do. But while she liked that he took the control, she wasn’t about to give it all to him entirely. She slowly turned around, taking her time to place each palm on the edge of the table, spreading her legs to reveal her sex for him. Then she peeked over her shoulder, blinking in what she hoped was the image of pure wickedness.
“You mean like this?” she asked, innocent as a lamb in her tone even as she displayed herself so wantonly.
He didn’t answer, at least not with words. He rushed her, reaching around to cup her breasts as he pushed his cock deep within her. From behind, she felt all the sensations so differently, so much more intensely, and almost immediately the orgasm he had created with his mouth returned and crashed over her again.
He drove her through it, pounding hard into her as he thumbed her nipples and circled his hips to stoke every part of her sex. She scratched her nails against the table, trying to get a grip on something,
anything
to keep her steady, to keep her from losing herself entirely.
But it was impossible. Her vision blurred as her crisis reached its peak and only John kept her upright as he roared out a loud, animal cry of pleasure and spent deep within her twitching, clenching body.
Mariah draped herself over the table, weak with pleasure as he withdrew from her body. Slowly, she rolled over and stared up at the ceiling high above. A fork was jabbing her hip and she was fairly certain that most of the plates once on the table were now shattered on the floor below them, but for the moment it didn’t matter as John wrapped his arms around her and gathered her to his chest. Together, they sank to the floor next to the dining room table.
She feared nothing, she felt nothing except for the warmth of his weight pressed against her. In that moment, everything was perfect.
But deep within her was a nagging sensation that perfect couldn’t last. After all, it never had before.
Chapter Thirteen
Mariah poured Vivien a cup of tea before she settled into a comfortable chair in her parlor. She smiled at her friend, though the expression was entirely forced. She felt anything but the comfort and ease that the look implied.
A fact which Vivien recognized immediately. She arched an elegant brow before she spoke.
“My dear, you have been grinding your teeth since the moment I arrived. What has you so frustrated?”
Mariah folded her hands in her lap and let out a long sigh. “Did you see the man seated on horseback across from my home?”
Vivien blinked before she shook her head in the negative. Mariah shut her eyes, counted to ten so that she would not reveal her tangled emotions and motioned to the window. The two women approached it together and Mariah pulled back the shade to reveal the busy street below. There, seated on his horse, staring at her home, was a tall, muscular gentleman dressed in fine livery.
Vivien drew back and looked at Mariah in question. “I suppose I
did
notice him now that you point him out. How odd to see someone just sitting in the street like that. Why is he there? Who is he?”
“A guard,” Mariah said as she returned to her seat and flopped down with a huff of breath. “Courtesy of Mr. John Rycroft.”
Vivien followed her and perched on the very edge of her own seat. Her face was ashen with sudden worry. “A guard? Whatever for?”
“He refuses to tell me,” Mariah said with a groan.
Vivien shook her head. “Were you threatened? Is there some kind of indication that Owen’s death was not the accident we presumed it to be?”
Mariah shivered at that idea. “
No
! None of those things, at least as far as I know. John simply told me one night that I was to have a guard. Then he pretended as if life were normal and refused to give me any more information.”
“How very odd,” Vivien muttered.
Mariah nodded emphatically. “Odd is certainly one word for it, though I have a few less kind ones for his behavior. He insists upon running my life, and I suppose I could accept that if he were my protector. But he is not. He refuses to offer me that benefit.”
Vivien tapped a finger against her lip, thinking. “I’ve never heard of him involving himself so deeply in a lover’s life. It is so unlike him.”
Mariah nodded. “Indeed, it is. Especially since we agreed at the beginning of this arrangement that it would only be a light and amusing diversion for us both. Now I somehow have a sentinel at my door. I’m surprised he hasn’t set wolves to patrol my back gate. Or arranged to have the Queen’s guard pace along my rooftop.”
Vivien tilted her head and Mariah felt her friend judging and analyzing her. “You pretend to be angry, but I do not sense that in you when you speak.”
Mariah’s mouth dropped open in surprise and outrage. “Of course I am angry! John Rycroft’s overbearing brutishness is not to be endured.”
Vivien raised both eyebrows as if she knew there was more. Of course, she
did
know. Vivien never missed anything, nor let it go if she saw it. Which was why there was no point in denying it.
Mariah shifted. “And I cannot deny that I am also worried by how intense our bond has become. There is so much at play here that I do not understand. He will not
allow
me to understand. There is the relationship with his family, his refusal to let anyone close to him—”
Vivien gave her a look like she was daft. “The fact that he seems to believe there is a
threat
against you.”
Mariah pursed her lips. “Yes, of course there is that.”
Vivien nodded and dropped her gaze away. She took a long sip of tea and then locked eyes with Mariah. “I think you should obtain a new protector.”
Mariah’s breath left her lungs in a whoosh. “I—I am trying to do so, Vivien! You know this.”
Vivien looked less than convinced. “Are you? It is a half-hearted effort at best, my dear.”
Her words cut off any denials Mariah might have had on her lips. With her friend she could be, nay she
had
to be, perfectly honest. Even if she hadn’t been so very candid with herself, lately.
“I—” she began, then shook her head as heat flooded her cheeks. How humiliating to have to broach this subject with her friend. “Yes, I admit, you are right that I haven’t tried as hard as I should be to find a new man to take the place Owen left empty. I think perhaps I was not as ready to do so as I thought when I began.”
Vivien shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think your readiness or willingness to be with another man is in question. I fear it is the opposite, entirely.”
“I don’t understand what you could possibly mean,” Mariah said.
She was beginning to feel a little peevish about the entire situation. John told her what to do, Vivien told her about her own feelings. Could she do nothing for herself?
Vivien’s next words ceased her annoyance entirely. “I fear you are developing feelings for John Rycroft.”
Mariah jumped to her feet, her breath ripped from her lungs. Her mind spun as she tried to find words for a contradiction of that statement.
“No,” she finally gasped. “That is ridiculous, of course! John and I are friends, that is the only emotional attachment we share. Our current physical arrangement is entirely separate from any matters of the heart.”
“Oh dear God,” Vivien muttered as she raised a hand to stop Mariah from continuing her denials. “Don’t try to delude me as ferociously as you attempt to delude yourself. It is exhausting for me to hear and I’m sure it is equally so for you to say. You care for him.”
Mariah opened her mouth then snapped it shut. “I will concede that I do care for him, though I go no further than that in my confessions.”
Vivien shook her head with an indulgent smile. “Very well, we shall not argue that topic any further. But I must still make my point.”
“And that is?” Mariah asked weakly. In truth, she wasn’t certain she was ready for Vivien’s grand argument on her life and her heart.
“He will not…” Vivien paused, looked troubled. “Or perhaps he
cannot
give you what you require to secure your future. And in this instance, it could be better, nay imperative, to be selfish and protect yourself.”
Mariah hesitated. Every word Vivien said was perfectly reasonable, and she certainly respected her friend for her success as a mistress. But she also couldn’t deny the ripping tug those words created in her heart.
She paced to the window, hoping that Vivien wouldn’t see too deeply into her soul if she could not stare her down.
“You are saying, I suppose, that I must turn away from John now in order to shield myself.”