Master of Pleasure (21 page)

His rugged features twisted and eventually gave into anguish. Setting a heavily scarred hand to the back of his neck, he squeezed his eyes shut. A slow and well-controlled breath left his lips. “I’m not like other men, Leona. I would tell you more, but—I stayed at sea for a reason. I didn’t want to meet any women because I didn’t want to do something I would regret. Be aware, that the more you ask for and the more you want from not only my body but my heart, the less I’m able to control.”

What was she getting herself attached to? Whatever this was, whatever he was not saying, it wasn’t something she was willing to expose her child to. She would rather hug a damn pillow for the rest of her life than live in the shadow of whatever he was talking about.

“I can’t do this,” she finally choked out. “I don’t know what you are or aren’t saying, because you aren’t giving me enough to understand. The kiss you and I shared in, the one you insist that now makes me yours, obligates me to nothing. Because I have a child to raise, Malcolm, and forgive me for even saying this, but I don’t need a man to raise, too.”

With that, she walked out of the room to answer the door.

Whoever thought so many insults from a woman could make a man want more.

Leona, Leona, make me bleed and suffer in unending bliss, Leona.

Malcolm plastered a disbelieving hand to his mouth, his body still pulsing from so much want and so much need. A cavernous yearning he’d been struggling to bury since he was eighteen years old gripped him. For he had finally met
the one
.

She was the leopard he’d been waiting to embrace. The one whose spots were all visible, for her nature refused to let her hide it. The one who growled when angry and purred when content for her nature refused to let her hide it.

He knew he had wounded more than her pride. He wounded her heart. A heart she tried to foolishly place into his hands without fully understanding how much he lived in fear of crushing it. Over his lifetime, his greatest sin was living with a need to feel
so
much until it became
too
much. What she considered to be a mere kiss, was him actually wanting to bite down and take her tongue right out of its socket to ensure she felt what he did:
everything
. And when she had flinched against him in pain in response to his yearning, he reveled in it.

Which he knew was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Letting his hand fall away from his mouth, he slowly turned to the wall where he carved the word
deltangam.
Which meant: ‘My heart is tight’. It was a Persian expression for longing. It was how she made him feel.

Shifting his jaw, he yanked out the dagger he’d stuck into the wall. Angling the blade, he was about to gouge out the Persian word he wished he hadn’t written, when a flurry of two female voices, one belonging to Leona and the other to one he did not recognize, drifted toward him.

He paused, lowering his blade and intently listened to what was going on.

“He was told I would be calling,” a female voice lectured in a refined, but heavily French accented tone. “It is imperative I tap a finger to this head that reminds me all too well of a man I once knew. A man who rattled himself to pieces in the same way.”

Leona interjected. “Whilst I wish I could understand, Madame, he simply isn’t accepting any visitors right now. Nor is this a good time. He isn’t—”

“
Absuridté
,” the woman tossed back. “When a man is in need, the time is always right. And I assure you, I am not just
any
visitor. I am
Madame de Maitenon
. Back in France, not even the National Assembly would have turned me away. No one puts dirt on my bonnet like this.
Non, non, non.
I will find him myself. Try to be useful elsewhere,
mon chou
.
Excusez-moi
.”

The clicking of determined steps made him realize that the female voices were coming up the stairs and heading down the corridor toward him.

His throat and chest tightened. It was the French woman Nasser mentioned. The one who was supposed to help him. He doubted she could. He’d been this way a very, very long time.

But if he wanted Leona and Jacob to be part of his life, if he wanted to be part of a real and normal family, he had to try. He’d
always
yearned to be normal. He’d always yearned to be able to gently kiss a woman’s hand without thinking of nipping or biting it. He’d always yearned to be able to bend a woman backward without breaking her back.

This was his one and only chance. It was this or nothing. And he was rather tired of nothing.

Malcolm swung toward the open doorway and waited.
With the holy thou shalt be holy: and with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect. Help me, Lord, in understanding how to expel this evil from within me.

An elderly woman wearing an oversized bonnet trimmed with too many feathers and lace and ribbons breezed into the room.

He awkwardly lowered the blade he forgot he was holding. He tossed it, letting it clatter. She looked like an elegant version of his grandmother who died when he was ten. And here he was greeting her like a sea hoodlum. “Forgive the dagger.”

Bright blue eyes that could have put the sky to shame pertly skimmed the blade and then Malcolm’s appearance. She puckered her full, pink lips during her perusal, and although it appeared to be disapproving in nature, the merriment that glittered in those eyes after seeing the blade, contradicted said disapproval.

With the sweep of gloved fingers, she unraveled the length of the ribbon belonging to her flamboyant bonnet and removed it, revealing silver hair elegantly bundled in perfect ringlets. “Lord Brayton. A pleasure. I am Madame de Maitenon.” She regally held out her bonnet to Leona, letting the feathers wag. “This will take a while,
mon chou
. Leave us and do not linger by the door or I will give him permission to toss you on your pretty little ear. This will require utmost
discrétion
. Are we understood in this?”

Leona hesitated and slowly took the bonnet.

How fitting she was here to see what he’d been trying to hide all along: the truth.

After years and years of denying it, he was done. He was done fighting it. He was done pretending the other half of his dark soul didn’t exist. It did. It always did. No matter how many good deeds he tried to plaster over it, it was always there nagging him. Once in a while, when he couldn’t stand it, and he’d be lying alone at night, unable to sleep and refusing to stoop to the level of masturbation, he’d take a blade, dip it in gin and poke himself. Just so he could stop thinking about having sex with a woman who would not only leave marks all over his body but would let him leave marks on hers, as well.

It was a bit of a problem.

He puffed out a breath, not wanting Leona anywhere near this conversation. “Miss Webster, can you please close the door after you and go downstairs? Mr. Holbrook and your son should be back soon. It’s important this is addressed before they return. It is my hope you will forgive my earlier behavior that led to our argument. I wish to progress in sharing something more meaningful with you. I would like us to move forward.”

Leona’s lips parted as she edged back with the bonnet. “I’m moving backward, right now. I’ll go…clean something downstairs.”

Madame de Maitenon turned to Leona, a silver brow going up. “Am I to understand you and Lord Brayton are involved, Miss Webster?”

Leona winced. “I…well…oooo…I’m merely a glorified scullery maid. I’m no one.”

Malcolm swiped his face, the taste of Leona’s tongue against his own still making it hard for him to focus. “Leona, this woman is here to help me. So don’t play games with her or me.” He leveled his gaze at the French woman. “I leave to Persia in eight weeks. If you can help me bed Miss Webster well before then and have her willingly follow me out of the country, I would appreciate it.”

Leona gasped. “Have her help you bed me?
What
? I’m not—”

Malcolm pointed at her. “Don’t pretend you don’t want what I do.
This
is happening whether either of us are ready for it or not. You want everything? Fine. You’re going to get it. And given you want me in your bed, you’re going to get that, too. In fact, I’ll be in your bed so damn often, you won’t have time to leave it.”

Leona’s mouth dropped open.

The French woman chimed out a laugh and swept back toward Leona, her viridian morning gown rustling in the silence of the room. Pausing before Leona, she tugged back her bonnet from Leona’s hand and pertly set it atop of her hair, angling it. Madame tied the ribbon around Leona’s chin, fluffing the ribbon. “This stays on until he keeps his promise.”

Leona dropped her hands to her sides and puffed at a large ostrich feather that fell over its rim. “Oh, yes, and how will I sleep with it?”

Madame de Maitenon smiled. “I am hoping you will not have to.” Turning Leona around by the shoulders, she gently nudged her toward the door. “Peer in on us in exactly two hours. By then, he will need you.”

Leona swung back around. “Need me? For what?”

Madame tsked. “If I answer that, you will be long gone. Which would defeat him and the point. Now go.
Go, go, go
.”

Leona blinked rapidly from beneath the angled rim of the oversized bonnet, then awkwardly turned and left, closing the door behind her. Harried steps indicated that she was not only leaving, but had no interest in staying
or
listening in.

Malcolm shifted from boot to boot and after a long, awkward blanket of gnawing silence, he set aside all common sense and blurted, “Given you’re here to help me, help me. I almost pulled her damn tongue out of her socket when I kissed her.
And
I thoroughly enjoyed knowing she was in pain. I
enjoyed
it. What do you have to say to that,
Madame
? How can anyone even begin to help…
that
?”

Turning toward him, Madame de Maitenon tugged on the wrists of her gloves, as if that entertained her far more. “What was her reaction?”

He lowered his chin. “What do you mean?”

“When you almost pulled her tongue out of her socket. What was her reaction?”

He hesitated. “She stupidly wanted to do it again.”

“And did you let her?”

“No, of course not. Why would I— I was scared I’d…”

“Hurt her.”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

A delicate breath escaped Madame. She was quiet for a long moment and eventually walked toward him, the click-click of her slippered heels drawing closer. “Prince Nasser was very concerned about you. And rightfully so. These tendencies can lead to very dangerous situations. No one knows that more than I. It can be frightening to a young woman who has never been exposed to it and equally frightening to the gentleman who only yearns to fulfill the dark fantasies in his head.”

She sighed. “Prince Nasser told me everything, but there are too many things even he could not answer. If I am to help you, I must better understand the depth of these tendencies. For I am not about to prod you into a relationship if you are a danger to yourself and whatever woman you wish to get involved with. I am therefore asking you to be incredibly honest and filter
nothing
. Even if you think the answer may disturb me, I want that answer. I need that answer. Can you do that? Because I cannot help you without your honesty.”

Malcolm became uneasy. Not even Nasser knew the extent of what he was. No one did. No one but his brother had ever truly known.

“Lord Brayton?” she prodded.

He puffed out a breath. He could either move forward or backward. And his back was simply too far up against the wall to go anywhere. “Yes. I can do that. I can be honest.”

She inclined her head. “
Merci
. I appreciate your attempt to face this.”

Hell, he appreciated his own attempt. “I just want to be a normal man.”

“Let us not run with the dinner fork quite yet.” She hesitated. “Do you remember a time when you were not drawn to pain?”