Something Reckless (15 page)

“You are a minx,” he murmured as he caught her upper arms and pulled her to her feet. With the brush of his fingers he pulled her tangled chemise away, leaving her naked.

She sucked in her breath in shock. She had assumed that after he found his pleasure, he would leave. Her husband had never expressed any interest in her once he had his own release.

“What are you—?” she began.

He silenced her with a kiss that melted her bones. His tongue drove inside, stroking over hers with promise and passion that made her ache.

“Did you think I was finished?” he growled before he dropped his mouth for another rough, needy kiss. “Not at all. Now that the edge is off my own desire, I can concentrate solely on
you
.”

Penelope’s eyes went wide at that thought. So the night before his attention
hadn’t
been solely on her? Dear God, he had made
her weak. What in the world could he do when his own desire was slaked and her body was the only thing to distract him?

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. He lifted her arms over her head with one big hand, pinning them to the door. Then he wedged a knee between her thighs and pushed them open. Penelope gasped as the hard muscle of his thigh flattened against the wet lips of her sex. The dull ache of desire immediately ratcheted up to a new level.

But behind it was an entirely different emotion. An anxious, needy fear. She was totally naked, totally at his mercy without the use of her hands to fend him off. And he was unclothed, as well. If he wanted to, he could take the one thing she had made him promise to leave be. He could have sex with her without asking her leave.

And the worst part was that if he lifted her up, if he filled her with his cock, she knew for certain that she wouldn’t fight him. She would writhe and moan and come, despite herself.

“You promised,” she protested weakly, pushing halfheartedly against his hands.

His body went perfectly still so that all she could feel was the hot brush of his breath against her cheek.

“Not to take you?” he panted. “And I shall not, as tempting as that is. I don’t force women to do anything, Penelope. If someone else did so in the past, then he shall rot in hell.”

Now she was the one who went perfectly still. She had only ever confessed the harsh reality of her marriage to one person: Jeremy Vaughn. And yet this mysterious man who didn’t know her at all had guessed some of the truth. Her body, her reactions to him had betrayed her deepest, most painful secret.

“Penelope, I will only take what you have offered,” he whispered. “Until you ask me for more.”

His mouth found hers again, but there was nothing rough or forceful about his kiss. This time it was gentle. Reassuring. So soft and sweet and unexpected that it brought tears to Penelope’s eyes. When was the last time she had felt tenderness? From any person, but especially from a man? She relaxed against him, forgetting her position, letting her mind go quiet and just
feeling
the soft pressure of his lips on hers.

When he drew away, she heard the quiet intake of his breath. She felt her own. This man had many plans for her, but that kiss hadn’t been one of them.

And that made it even more special.

No longer afraid of having taken what she did not offer, Penelope surrendered to feeling. The knee that was pressed between her legs pushed up, higher and higher until her feet came off the ground and her sex was spread against his thigh.

“God, you are so wet. So ready,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

He moved his hand, lowering her trapped arms until they were wound around his neck. They were face to face now in the dark and he cupped her backside and dragged her forward. Sweet friction was the result. She bucked as her clit was rasped against his unyielding muscle, tickled by the little hairs along his legs.

He moved her again, guiding her until she was grinding down on his thigh of her own accord. Almost instantly, all her pent-up desire, all the heated pleasure she had been fighting for two days, bubbled forth. Overflowed.

She tilted her head back and let the wave wash over her. When
his lips touched her throat, it send her over the edge. She bucked wildly, riding his thigh as tremor after tremor of pleasure rocked her. Her orgasm seemed to last an eternity, never easing, never slowing until she went weak against his sweat-slicked chest.

His arms came around her back and he held her as he slowly let her feet touch the ground. Unsteady, Penelope kept her own arms around his neck, clinging to him as little tremors occasionally continued to rack her sensitive body.

The stranger tilted his head and his mouth found hers. His tongue breached her lips and explored her mouth with lazy purpose and slow torment. The fire that Penelope had only just had extinguished immediately came back, and then doubled when her lover cupped her backside and pulled her against him.

“More?” she whispered, weak as he slowly guided her toward her bed.

“So much more,” he promised as he placed her against the pillows.

She shivered as his big body covered hers, pressing her into the mattress, molding into every soft curve with unyielding hardness. She stared up at the blank outline of the man who was slowly changing her, yet whom she had never seen. Who was he? How had he found her? Why did he want her?

She wanted to ask those questions and more, but he didn’t allow her time to think, let alone speak. His fingers began to move, dancing over her skin, teasing her and testing her. She arched up as his fingertips slipped over her nipples, her thoughts emptying from her mind like water from an overturned glass.

He glided down, touching every inch of exposed flesh until he cupped her sex, opening her with a few lazy strokes of his fingers
and thumb. She strained up, offering herself to him like a wanton, waiting for him to breach her body with his fingers.

But he didn’t.

“I want you, Penelope,” he groaned, his voice low and husky in the dark.

She arched again, forcing the tip of his finger into her wet sheath. She bit back a cry as she panted, “Then touch me.”

“I would rather drive inside of you,” he whispered.

Penelope froze. Was he asking her…?

“But you won’t allow that,” he said, before she could respond.

She wanted to be glad for that fact, but she wasn’t. Part of her knew that if he had hesitated a moment more, she might have allowed him to make love to her. To fill her.

“So your mouth,” he said, as he leaned up over her. He pressed his lips to hers and Penelope gasped as she felt the long, hard length of him against her belly. “I want your mouth on me again.”

She pulled away. “Already?” she whispered. “I didn’t think…”

With a blush, she broke off. What a foolish, naive girl she must sound like. Obviously
this
man could want her again in such a short time. Her husband had simply not been able to desire her after he spent himself.

“Penelope, I have been ready for you since a few moments after you made me come.” He pressed his mouth to hers again. “You make me mad with desire. I can think of nothing else but you. But I want to give you pleasure. Will you trust me that we can each have our release, simultaneously?”

Penelope swallowed hard. “How?”

He shifted onto his back next to her. “Now, straddle me so that your mouth is near my cock. Let me taste you while you taste me.”

She drew in her breath sharply. She had never heard of such a thing, but already her body throbbed with the anticipation of her mysterious lover’s mouth against her. His talented tongue arousing her.

Carefully, she shifted into the position he had described. His cock was fully hard already as she leaned over him. When her hair brushed the sensitive head, he jolted beneath her. And when she took him in hand, guided him between her lips a second time, he let out a shuddering, pleasure-filled sigh that blew a gust of warm air against her exposed body.

And then his tongue speared into her. Penelope arched, and his cock popped free from her lips as she cried out in focused pleasure. She rubbed his erection as he licked her, swiping his tongue against every crevice, lapping at her juices like they were fine wine.

Her moans grew louder and more strangled as he added a long, thick finger to the torment. Slowly, he glided inside her clenching sheath, even as he continue to nip and lick at her clit.

Penelope fought to hold off the wave of pleasure, returning her focus to his cock. She covered him with her mouth, sliding her tongue over him with the same rhythm that he slid his finger in and out of her body. Her body was already starting to tremble, release loomed up like the shadows in the room. Penelope strained for it. Reached for it, but it remained out of reach.

Because she wanted more. She
wanted
this man to rise up behind
her and fill her with his hard body. She
wanted
to be pressed into the mattress beneath his weight. She wanted to give him everything. Her body, her surrender.

Only when she pictured a man rearing up behind her, pressing her against the bed as he took her, the face on her faceless lover belonged to Jeremy.

With one thought of him, her body roared with pleasure. She shook as she continued to suck and slide her mouth over her mystery lover’s body, she slammed her hips into his mouth as she moaned around his girth.

She felt his legs stiffen, and then he came. Penelope was surprised by the sudden eruption but didn’t find it unpleasant. Her own pleasure was too keen for her to be disturbed by anything. With a final cry, she arched up, his cock falling from her mouth.

Penelope collapsed onto her lover’s legs, panting as her body shivered a few more times. He leaned forward and gathered her up, moving her to lay beside him. Penelope didn’t argue. She was too weak and boneless with pleasure. Too warm and satiated.

“It is growing late,” he said softly as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I should go.”

Penelope looked up at his shadowy face. “Very well.”

He kissed her, and she tasted the earthy essence of her own pleasure on his lips. Immediately, her body responded at shocking speed. How could she want him again? He moved away and she heard him gathering up his clothing, dressing in the dark.

“Will I…,” she said, halting as heat filled her cheeks. Thank God he couldn’t see her.

“What?”

“Will I see you again?” she asked softly.

There was a moment’s hesitation. “Tomorrow night.”

Relief flooded her. Troubling relief, considering how close she had come tonight to demanding he take her. She would have to be strong when he visited her again. Perhaps make the next time the last time.

A thought that troubled her.

“I will leave my window unlocked for you,” she promised.

“Good night, Penelope,” he said softly. “Dream of me.”

Then the window clicked open and he was gone. Penelope rolled over to stare at the low coals of her fire. The ones that provided so little light that she didn’t even know the man who had given her such pleasure.

She was already empty without him. Aching for his touch. And it seemed satisfaction wouldn’t come from his fingers, his tongue. It only left her craving more. Craving the one thing she had sworn to stay away from.

And craving Jeremy, no matter how wrong that desire was.

Jeremy strummed his fingers along the arm of the wingback chair he was uncomfortably situated in. He gazed around Penelope’s parlor with a frown. It was a fine room, very pretty with all the very best in furniture and accoutrements, although there was a cold quality to the decoration. It reflected the public persona that Penelope put on.

But it didn’t reflect her true nature. The passionate nature that Jeremy had begun to unleash as her mystery lover. He clenched his fists. Being a faceless seducer had seemed like the perfect plan when he thought of it. And it had certainly worked. The anonymity of his disguise put Penelope at ease. It allowed her to unleash her desires, or
some
of her desires. But she still held back.

And Jeremy found that breaking her barriers, giving her secret pleasure, knowing that she was providing him fodder for black
mail and ruin was far less pleasurable than he had planned. In fact, it was downright frustrating.

Jeremy wanted to be inside of her body. He wanted to feel her arch beneath him as he entered her inch by inch. He wanted her to admit that she craved that as much as he did. And none of those desires had a damn thing to do with his plans. He wanted her to ask him to make love to her, not for blackmail, but for some other reason. Some troubling thing that he couldn’t understand, let alone name.

He simply wanted her to want him.

The door behind him opened, and Jeremy rose to his feet as Penelope entered the room. He noted that she left the door open as she gave him a tired, weak smile of welcome. She looked haggard. Far more exhausted and confused than she had even the afternoon before.

After he left her last night, had she lain awake, tormenting herself? Or had she been up pacing her room out of unfulfilled desires of her own?

“Good afternoon, Penelope,” he said, smiling as if he didn’t notice her red eyes or the smudges beneath them. He could only hope she was too distracted to notice his own.

“Hello,” she said softly, but didn’t meet his gaze.

Interesting. Was she feeling guilty over what she had done in the darkness the night before? Or was she simply afraid he would see the truth? After all, Penelope didn’t know that
he
was the man who made her cry out in the night. She simply thought of him as a friend.

A label that was troubling in more ways than one.

“Are you ready for today’s excursion?” he asked, shaking off
his troubling thoughts as he motioned to the door behind him.

Penelope looked at him for a long moment in silence. Then she paced past him and sat down in the chair across from the one he had recently occupied. She stared at her folded hands for so long that Jeremy couldn’t help but step toward her in true concern.

“Penelope?”

She looked up at him with a weak shake of her head. “I realize you came all this way to escort me on one of your outings, and I do appreciate how much thought and time you’ve put into your…
education
. But, I am in no mood for it today.”

He straightened up. “Have I done something to upset you?”

She shook her head immediately. “No, you have been nothing but kind to me, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

He winced. When she found out the truth about his deception, she was going to hate him. He shouldn’t have cared, but he did.

“Do you wish for me to leave you in peace?” he asked and was surprised that a knot formed in his gut at the thought.

He had actually been looking forward to spending time with Penelope in the light. Being able to look at her, see her reactions to the sensual delights he exposed her to that day.

She pondered his question for a moment. “No. Would you stay?”

He stepped away from her, taken aback by that unexpected request. “Of course,” he stammered as he retook his seat across from her.

They sat in silence until a maid arrived and deposited tea on a small table between them. After Penelope waved the girl away and began to pour, she spoke again.

“Do you think I am an utter hypocrite?”

Jeremy tensed. There it was. The question he had been waiting for her to ask. The one that could easily turn the tide in her so-called war against excess. He ought to tell her yes. To preach to her about her true nature. To use the trust she had developed in him against her.

But now that the moment was upon him and he was looking at Penelope’s tired expression and broken eyes, he found his response far different.

“I don’t know. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing, yet does another. Or keeps another in her heart or her soul. Someone who denies the truth of what she is in public.” He shrugged as he took the cup she had poured for him. “And I could not begin to guess the truths you may or may not hide from others. Or even from yourself.”

She stared at the steaming liquid in her cup and Jeremy saw the battle she was waging. He held his breath, waiting for her to confess that she had been indulging in dark passions with a man whose face she did not know.

But she didn’t. Finally, she shook her head. “I suppose you are correct. But some would say that my excursions with you are proof of my hypocrisy. Some would want to use those times against me if they had a chance. To silence me.”

Jeremy found himself strangely bothered by the fact that she did not confide in him about her secret lover. But it was foolish. After all, what would he say if she
did
confess? Would he reveal himself to her? Would he complete his plan as he had promised his friends?

“Jeremy?” she said softly. Then she shook her head with a blush so fierce that it darkened her cheeks to crimson red. “I mean, Your Grace.”

He smiled. “In private, I see no harm in your calling me Jeremy. After all, I have long been impolite enough to call you Penelope, and you have been kind enough not to correct me.”

She dipped her chin. “We are friends, aren’t we? Friends might refer to each other by their given names and it wouldn’t be improper. As long as we continue to use titles in front of others.”

Jeremy frowned. There it was again. Her unbending resolve to remain proper, at least in public. To fight what she desired in the public eye.

“Yes, I suppose. As for what you said about others wishing to silence you, it is true, you
have
created enemies with your words. But if you know yourself, know your own heart, then what others say shouldn’t matter to you.”

She looked up at him, surprise in her expression. “Do
you
know yourself and your own heart?”

He shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t accustomed to talking about himself. His friends didn’t require such openness, and his lovers had always known their place was only in his bed. He was very rarely pushed beyond the comfortable distance he chose to maintain.

“What do you mean?” he asked, mostly to stall for time.

She shrugged. “Your behavior used to be quite different. You were known for your excess, your sinful lusts.” He thought he detected a very slight shiver when she said the word
lust
, but he couldn’t be sure as she continued. “And now you claim to be changed. What made you the man you were before? And what has turned you to the man you now claim to be?”

Such direct questions. And now that she had asked them, he wasn’t certain he truly knew the answers she sought. He was the man he was. He’d never paused to ask why. He’d never considered any other path.

Until now. Drinking tea with a woman he was lying to.
Now
he considered the truth of his life.

“I know
I
was shaped by my family,” Penelope continued before he was forced to answer her pointed question.

He breathed a sigh of relief before he pressed her. “Your sister, you mean.”

She nodded, and her cheeks pinkened again. “Yes, by Miranda and what I uncovered about her true nature. But Miranda’s lies weren’t my only influence. My parents had a great impact on my life.”

Jeremy wasn’t quite able to stifle a shiver at the thought of Penelope’s mother, Dorthea Albright. The entire
ton
was aware of the overbearing woman, who seemed entirely oblivious to how her outrageous behavior actually hurt her younger daughters’ chances in the marriage mart.

“I see from your expression that you know my mother,” Penelope said with a slight smile that softened her haggard expression. “She is…difficult, I know. Growing up in the shadow of her moods, of her criticisms, of her drive for more and more and more…that certainly shaped me. I realized, quite young, that I would be expected to better our family’s situation. So it wasn’t only Miranda’s behavior that drove me to marry to financial gain.”

Jeremy found himself leaning in. Very few women were so frank. At least with him.

But then, he doubted Penelope would have been so frank with him in the past, before they were, as she put it,
friends
. A false friend he might be, but he found himself interested in what she had to say, nonetheless.

“What about your father?” he asked. “He must have had some influence on you.”

“Oh, he did.” Her voice was even softer, and a sadness entered her eyes. “He was a dear man in many respects. He loved me and my sisters, I truly believe that. He was kind in every way that my mother was harsh. But he lived in a world of excess.”

Jeremy looked at her in question. “You mean—”

She interrupted. “No, not sensual excess.” She frowned. “Not that I ever knew of. But he gambled, he raced, he could never quite get a handle on his vices, even when they began to ruin him, ruin our family. His selfish needs became more important than our comfort and even our survival.”

Jeremy nodded. It made her quest against such selfish behavior all the more understandable. She had seen and felt the consequences of excessive behavior. First from her father, later from her sister.

“What about you?” she asked as she leaned back. “I know very little of your family. You must have been shaped by them.”

Jeremy shifted, no more comfortable about talking about his family now than he had been when she first broached the subject. “I suppose that must be true, but I have never thought much about it.”

Penelope frowned. “You have a brother, yes? Are you close?”

Jeremy straightened up. “Yes, well, no.”

She let out a little laugh. “Which one is it?”

“Both.” He smiled, despite the unpleasant subject. “Christopher used to be much like I am. Or was. He was wild. But then he fell in love, of all things. He got married.” He frowned. “And I didn’t know what to do. Or think. I resented him, I suppose.”

“Because he was rejecting the life you still lead?” she asked softly.

Jeremy’s gaze jerked up. Dear God, she had hit upon the very thing he’d been denying so long. Christopher had forced him to wonder if his life, which he had always enjoyed, was frivolous. Seeing his brother’s newfound happiness and fidelity had altered Jeremy’s view on his own existence.

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” he admitted. “That was when I started to change.”

He frowned. Except he hadn’t changed. He’d simply fought harder to keep the life he had been living. And that fight included his agreement to destroy Penelope.

“What about your parents?” she pressed.

He frowned. “My father died four years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t.”

She drew back, and he saw the surprise in her eyes. He felt it in himself. He’d never admitted that to anyone, even Christopher.

“We weren’t close,” he explained as he shoved to his feet and began to pace the small parlor. “He was never cruel, or even neglectful. He taught me many valuable life lessons and I always respected him. But there was something…missing. I never knew what it was until one day I saw him with his other family.”

“His other family?”

He nodded. “He had a longtime mistress, and they had a son
and daughter together. I saw him with them once. He was an entirely different man.” He thought of the way his father had tossed his young daughter in the air. The way he’d laughed. “Affectionate and loving.”

Penelope rose and stepped toward him. “That must have been painful.”

“I assume it must have been at some point to my mother. But by the time he died, they had a cool relationship. Now she travels. She seems very happy.”

Not that he would know. Another revelation that shamed him.

Penelope shook her head. “I meant painful to you. To see him with another family. To see him give them love so easily, when it was not something he’d shared easily with you or your brother.”

He shrugged. “Not painful. Just…strange. I never looked at him the same way again. I was his…family business in a way, as was my brother. We were a way to insure his legacy, but he left his passion and his emotion somewhere else.”

“And that was what you decided you would do, as well,” Penelope said.

Jeremy looked down at her. A parade of willing, wanton women briefly passed before his eyes. Women he had taken to his bed, but never any further. There were a few he had actually liked, but the moment any one of them grew too close or demanded more than he was willing to give, he pushed them aside.

Until Penelope.

“I suppose I did,” he admitted softly.

“Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if you could have both under one roof,” she said with a wistful sigh. “A wife you loved
and
felt
that passion for. A woman you could see as a partner, not just a business transaction?”

She looked so pretty, staring up at him, her face filled with naive hopes. Jeremy wished he could hold that image of her forever. Because eventually that naivety would be gone. He was sworn to crush it.

“Your crusade, again?” he asked with a soft chuckle.

“That was all I said, you know,” she sighed. “The first day I spoke to my friends. All I said was that it wasn’t fair that we were asked to sit at home while our husbands found love and passion elsewhere. That we deserved more thought and respect than that. And that the only way we would get it would be to demand it.” She shook her head. “I must have hit a chord, for the entire thing escalated from that moment on. And now I am the one who is hissed at, stared at, the one who is supposed to lead some kind of uprising.”