Jo Beverley - [Malloren] (18 page)

She melted into laughter. “Oh, I’m sorry. Jessie mustn’t have had time.”

“You need more servants, mysterious lady.”

“At this moment, I need only you.”

His body betrayed him with a tremble. His already hardened penis responded. This couldn’t go on much longer—

Well, why not?

Sitting up straighter, he eased her astride him. She tensed a little. Doubtless she’d never done it this way before. Hell, she’d doubtless never done it except passively under her thrusting, loutish, elderly husband.

He hoped that was true. If he could have nothing else, he wanted her senses, her heated memories, her secret dreams, to all be of him.

As casually and slowly as possible in his increasingly desperate state, he arranged her skirts so none of them came between her nakedness and him.

“What are you—”

“Hush, slave.”

She went silent, but remained anxiously rigid.

Adjusting his own position, he spread his legs, spreading hers. Her hands braced against his chest, as if she might at any moment push away from him. He captured them, placing them on his shoulders. “No,” he said.

Then, without getting up, he struggled out of his coat. His cravat followed, then his shirt, tugged out of his breeches and up over his head as she bounced and slid with his movements, driving him even wilder. Then he put her hands on his bare shoulders and almost melted at the sweetness of it.

After a moment, her hands moved, sliding slowly along his shoulders to the curve of his arms, then back to his neck to circle—or half circle—it in imitation of his earlier action. Her thumbs rubbed up and down the front of his throat, and she must surely feel it when he swallowed, feel his desperate pulse.

Then her hands slid behind, to his nape. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed, in danger of coming just from that innocent, devastating touch.

Her naked heat was so close, so ready! He managed to stay still as she sensed him with her fingers. Then she leaned forward—unaware, he was sure, of how her movement almost destroyed him—and put her face to the base of his neck.

Now
he
braced to push away, unable to bear the thought of a kiss from the mask. He felt only her tongue. Carefully keeping the mask from contact with him, she was cherishing his skin with her wet tongue.

Control broke. Thrusting his hands under the silk and lace of her skirts, he freed himself. Then, groaning with relief, he guided himself into her hot, creamy folds, fighting to go slowly, then losing, all his awareness there, and there alone.

When her hands clutched his hair, he’d forgotten he even had a head.

She moved as if to take him greedily farther into herself, as if to move around him.

He pushed into her, deep into her, into the flaming clutch of her.

He groaned something. He hoped it was flattering, because he meant it to be—she was bloody perfect, and she was giving him perfect pleasure—but at the moment she was only that. His pleasure. He took and took, holding her hips to use her, until he dissolved into her and she into him, snared to him by his arms, her hair sticky in his questing mouth.

Dammit, but he wanted to kiss her!

He dragged back her head, wrenched up the bottom of her mask—something ripped—and put his mouth to hers. She cried out, struggling, but he kissed her anyway, claimed his right to kiss his woman, and after a moment she surrendered.

Bliss.

He drew back at last, feeling himself slip out of her below, sated, dissolved, complete. “I tell you true, sweet lady, I will always recognize you if we chance to kiss.”

She fumbled, and he knew she was pulling her silly mask back into place. “That’s safe enough, then,” she snapped. “I don’t go around kissing strange gentlemen.”

“I’m no stranger to you. Not anymore.”

He’d broken the rules, however, so he seized her skirts in case she tried to run.

All she said was, “Promise you won’t do that again.”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“Yes.”

He groaned at her wonderful honesty, pulling her into his arms. “Then why not? Why? What point to a mask in the dark?”

“I have my reasons. You must promise.”

“But you are my slave. You surrendered.”

“Not to that.”

“To everything.”

“No.” She tried to move and found she couldn’t. “Don’t …” she whispered. “Don’t spoil this.”

He wanted to insist, to truly master her to his will. He thought he could. Despite that, he knew he couldn’t. “Tell me why you must wear the mask.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s dark. I can’t see you. Blindfold me, if you want!”

“It’s not that. Stop this! If you don’t, I’ll have to go.”

He froze the angry words that burned at his lips. “But you don’t object to kisses?”

“Not as such.”

“Then tell me how I can kiss you. I need to kiss you.”

She lay against him, her breathing as fractured as his. After a silence he made himself not break, she said, “Let me go, and I’ll try to fix the mask.”

He wanted to argue further, but this clearly was her limit. Much as he hated to, he helped her to stand, then listened as she left the room.

She might not return.

What did it mean when a man risked a night of luscious sex for the chance of an honest kiss?

He sat and sank his head in his hands, hardly able to believe all this. He’d never had a taste for overwrought drama.

He didn’t have a taste for it now.

He was sunk in a genuine tragedy.

He believed this magic between them would have sprung up no matter where they’d met. If fate had been kind, it would have been at an assembly, a tea party, or even a country fair. He could have wooed and won her in the proper manner.

Instead, they had this. Masks, drama, and tormenting secrets in the night.

Chapter 12

T
he door opened and he said a brief prayer of thanks that at least she had returned. She fumbled her way over, and a searching, unsteady hand brushed his cheek. Catching it, he drew her gently back onto his lap, realizing with a wince of embarrassment that his clothes were still disordered. A courteous gentleman with a trace of brain left would have tidied himself while she was away.

“You can kiss me,” she whispered, “if you still want to.”

Hardly daring to hope, he explored the path with his fingers, up her arm, across her shoulder, up the front of her slender neck, to her firm chin. Skimming to one side, he found the mask still there, cut so only her chin and lips were exposed. Despite her tension, he followed the ragged edge up, over her nose and down the other side.

It was a more common style for a Venetian mask than full face, and he wondered why she hadn’t worn one like this in the first place. Curiously, he explored a little more with his finger, and found full, soft lips. Kissable, vulnerable, generous lips. He’d known how they would be. Tracing around them, he detected no secrets except that her lips twitched as if he was tickling her.

He longed to demand an explanation of her strange obsession, but he wouldn’t risk this precious gift. Tilting her head, he put his lips to hers, hovering a moment as if at a shrine. It was she who wove her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer.

Though still aware of the mask, he surrendered. Perfect, perfect lips soft under his. A treasure of a hungry mouth. Deepening and blending, the kiss became a mating of its own, perfect in its way, so that when they slid apart, he felt almost as satisfied and drained as after sex.

Almost.

Her hand traced his face. “Thank you. You were right. I would hate to have missed that. Any of this. I want you to know that. It has to stop at dawn, but whatever follows, you have given me something very precious.”

So suddenly it should have been audible, his willpower broke. “It doesn’t have to stop at dawn.”

Her hand stilled. “It does.”

Holding her palm to his lips, he said, “Come away with me. It will be a scandal, yes, but in my circles, people accept scandal.”

“Your circles. Someone told me Brand Malloren is a lord. That his brother is a marquess.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He was surprised that it might have hurt her. “No bad reason, I promise. I didn’t want to discomfort you. And I’m not so elevated. I’m my brother’s land manager, that’s all.”

“Manager of a great deal of land, I’m sure.”

“If we’re talking of honesty, why not give me your true name?”

Her hand slipped free. “I can’t. That’s the simple, honest truth. Not for my sake, but for others. And for their sake, I cannot run off with you.”

Anger stirred. This was no dithering, tempted wanton. This was a woman who would hold by her intent. Had he actually liked the fact that she was strong?

What confined her so absolutely?

How could he break it?

“Would you run off with me if you were free?” he tried. “Not unmarried, but free of whatever binds you?”

“Is anyone ever free … ? But yes, if not for heavy obligations, I might. It’s bitter to me that I could be so weak, but that’s the truth. I am bound, though. I want you to promise never to try to contact me once we part. Please. It’s important.”

He put her gently off his lap and stood to disrobe her. “I can’t promise that. For the sake of what we have, for your honesty, I will try to do your will. I promise to try, but I can’t promise to succeed. I’m not used to being weak either, but you have made me something of a stranger to myself. I have no control.” His fumbling hands on her gown echoed his words.

As did her tremors. “I am the same. It’s wrong….”

He only half heard her, being more intent on the urgent loosening of her corset strings.

“I’m discreet,” he argued, tugging the strings until the corset was loose enough to pull over her head and toss away.

“Discretion isn’t enough. I wish you would promise.”

“I don’t make promises I cannot keep. Do you?”

“No.”

“Then promise me one thing.”

“What?”

He put his arms tight around her from behind. “If you don’t leave with me,” he whispered into her neck, “promise to send for me if you are ever in need. Of anything.
Promise
.”

After deep breaths, she asked, “How could I?”

“A message to Malloren House in London will always reach me. Marlborough Square. Or addressed in care of the Marquess of Rothgar. Promise.” He knew his arms were tightening. He couldn’t stop them.

“We shouldn’t—”

“Only in need.
Promise
!”

“It won’t happen!” Struggling against him, she gasped, “I have a good husband and loving family. I won’t need you. I’m not alone in the world!”

Abruptly, he loosed her. “Then I wish you were.” He fought the petticoat strings at her waist and managed to knot them. Frustrated—with the lace, with the dark, with her—he snapped them with his bare hands.

“Stop that!” she protested. “You’re going to leave me in rags!”

Ignoring her words, he lifted her so the petticoat dropped, then dragged off her cotton shift so she was finally, perfectly naked to his hands. He stilled them at her waist, caught almost breathless by the moment.

“Promise me,” he said again, trying to sound like the reasonable man he generally was, not the wild one he was in danger of becoming. “Promise me that if ever you have need, any need, you will send for me.” He slipped his hands up slowly to fill them with the perfect generosity of her breasts. “
Promise me
.”

He could hear her breathing, feel it through his hands. “What if I summon you to be my love-slave any time I feel the need?”

“I can imagine nothing more delightful.”

“This is folly. Folly beyond reason!”

“Promise.”

“Oh, very well!” she snapped. “But it will do you no good. I will never be in that desperate a state.”

“I should hope that you’re right, but I don’t. I’m not sure I can live without you.” He was mad to reveal that. Clearly mad. He didn’t care.

“This is
all
. Tonight is all we have.”

Rage flared because he feared she was right. He didn’t understand her situation, her family, her husband, but he knew her. With his soul and his bones, he knew her. Whatever had driven her to this—and “driven” was not too strong a word—she wasn’t a woman who could live openly in sin.

Intolerably, she would never be his. With the dawn, she would disappear, pick up the pieces of her life, and banish him from her thoughts. But not from her memory or her dreams. He’d make damn sure of that.

He let her go and began to strip. “Our situations are different,” he said, choosing words like weapons as he pulled off his drawers and stood finally as naked as she. More naked than she. He wore no mask. “I’m not likely to stay celibate. I can find release tomorrow if I want it. What of you?”

“I don’t need
release
.”

“Liar.”

He took a step closer to her shadowy shape, and she inched back. He shouldn’t be doing this. He should be snatching the time to give her sweet loving, not loosing his anger. Not trying to push her into admitting her need, her temptation. Not trying to whip her into wild ruin.

She stopped her retreat and her chin went up. “I didn’t find release in what we just did.” Now her tone was as harsh as his.

She was right. He’d not given a thought to her satisfaction. A dismal first.

“I suppose it’s as well,” she continued coolly. “After tonight, I will not do this again, so it is better, really, that it be something of a disappointment.”

He captured her wrist. “Don’t poke a lion, sweetheart, unless you want it to roar.” He dragged her toward the bed. She fought him.

“Slave?” he reminded her.

“Mistress?” she spat back. “My lord?”

Abruptly, unfairly, he let her go. “Leave then.”

His breath stopped. Might she actually … ? If he sank on his knees and begged … ?

But after a silent moment, she stepped closer, found his hand, and linked it once more around her wrist. “My lord?”

He almost swept her into his arms, but that wasn’t the game they were playing just now. “Slave,” he whispered. “Love-slave.” Let her interpret that as she wished.