A Bit of Rough

by Jackie Barbosa

He brought her hand to his mouth and gave her thumb a slow, sensuous lick, and she shuddered at the memory of tasting of her own sex on his mouth. What would he taste like? Suddenly, she was burning not just with desire, but with curiosity.

  “Would you let me take you in my mouth?” she asked.

  His entire body stiffened, and he half laughed, half groaned. “Not only will I let you, querida, but at some point, I will likely beg you to do so. But not today.” Gazing down at her with eyes as dark and hot as coal, he said hoarsely, “Take off the rest of your clothes, Honora. I want you naked and in my bed.”

  Heart thudding madly in her ears, she nodded and finished undressing. Heat rose in her cheeks and in her quim as she worked, and when she was completely nude, she had to smother the impulse to cover her breasts and mons. Modesty was ridiculous when he’d already put his tongue and fingers on—and even inside—her most private places, and yet she couldn’t entirely suppress the impulse to hide.

  But when she managed to lift her chin and meet his eyes, her shyness fled. He was looking at her with an expression that bordered on reverence, as though she were a goddess and his only desire was to worship her. She could no more feel shame or embarrassment in the face of such admiration than she could have prevented herself from regarding him in much the same way.

  Because he was beautiful. Broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, and corded with lean muscle, he resembled every classical sculpture of a naked male torso she had ever seen, except that his muscles rippled and flexed beneath warm brown skin instead of being captured in cold white marble. His thighs and calves were similarly chiseled with sinew. And then there was his cock, rising from the nest of black curls, thick and hard and ready. For her.

  In one swift movement, he crossed the plank floor and swept the blankets from the bed, revealing a clean if somewhat threadbare sheet. She started toward the bed, but he swept her off her feet and laid her in the center of the mattress, which was softer than she had been led to expect. Or perhaps she just didn’t care, because he followed her down, stretching his body out over hers, propping himself on his elbows. Heat radiated from his skin and his erection nestled against her abdomen, the velvety tip pressing into her navel.

  His mouth seized hers in a greedy kiss that made her head spin while his thighs insinuated themselves between hers. She readily opened her legs for him, and when they were quite wide, he shifted his position and she closed her eyes, preparing herself for whatever pain might accompany his first intrusion into her body.

  But the expected intrusion didn’t come. Instead, he kissed his way down her torso, lavishing attention on her neck, her breasts, her belly and finally once again settling on the core of her need with his lips and tongue. This time, he was swift and certain in finding his rhythm and he used not two fingers but three. There was another slight twinge of discomfort, but then there was nothing but glorious pleasure and she came, her back arching off the bed as she shuddered and sobbed with release.

  Only then did he slide back up her body and placed the head of his cock against the entrance to her quim.

  “Honora,” he said gently.

  She opened eyes she hadn’t realized were closed. His handsome features were drawn sharp with the restraint he was obviously exerting over himself. “Lucas,” she answered, reaching up to caress his taut jawline.

  “You can still say no.” His gaze was serious. Somber.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine what it was costing him to make that offer. Shaking her head, she said, “No,” and then, when he stiffened at what he must wrongly be taking as a rejection, swiftly corrected herself. “No, I won’t say no. What I mean is yes.” To punctuate her words, she canted her hips upward and raised her knees in an instinctive invitation.

  “Thank the gods,” he rasped and pressed himself inside her.

  The feeling as her passage stretched to accommodate his girth was peculiar, for his cock was considerably larger in circumference than even three fingers, but not painful. Once he had seated himself to the hilt inside her, she was delighted to discover the sensation was not merely tolerable but in fact quite wonderful.

  “All right?” he asked.

  “Better than that.”

  “Good.” Leaning down, he gave her a kiss so exquisitely tender that tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  This language might be new to her, but it possessed an eloquence far more potent than mere words. Desire, passion, devotion, love: they were all just empty strings of consonants and vowels compared to their physical manifestation. She felt as if she had been given a key that unlocked a corner of the universe whose existence she had heard of but had never been able to verify. A place where two people could, for a short time, be so closely connected that it was like sharing a body. Like truly being one flesh.

  With a sigh of pure contentment, she curled her arms around his neck and melted into the kiss. If there was anything better than this simple, sweet sense of union, she could not imagine what it might be. Then he began to move, and she didn’t have to imagine at all, because surely this was what she had wanted all along.

  He started slowly, easing out and then in again with a gentle rocking motion. Honora would have sworn that she was thoroughly spent and quite incapable of achieving yet another climax, but the delicate friction just there coaxed a fresh and unmistakable pulse of arousal that told her otherwise. Except this placid pace wouldn’t be enough, and she slid her hands from his neck down to clutch the sleekly rounded muscles of his bottom and pulled him tighter, deeper, into her.

  Breaking the kiss, Lucas lifted his head and searched her face. “I’m not hurting you?”

  With an exasperated huff, she shook her head. “Quite the reverse. But I want…I need more.”

  His lips quirked into a fleeing smile, but his eyes were dark and hot. “Then more is what you shall have.”

  And more was what he gave her, withdrawing almost completely and thrusting back in again, over and over, faster and harder. Pressure and pleasure built up inside her, and she was intensely aware of the obscenity of what they were doing. Of his thick cock driving into her and the wet, slapping sounds their bodies made and the breathless grunts and moans that escaped them both as they strained together to achieve release.

  No wonder people wanted to fuck, she thought dizzily. It was marvelous. In fact, she wondered that anyone ever wanted to do anything else!

  His mouth closed over one of her nipples, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh, and the scrape and tug sent her crashing over the edge. He continued his relentless rhythm, stroking into her and prolonging the bliss while her inner muscles clasped and released him.

  Her climax was fading into ripples when, with a muffled shout, Lucas pulled out and, kneeling between her thighs, took his cock into his fist. He pumped himself several times before he shuddered with release. A thick, white fluid spurted from the tip of his cock onto her belly, and she realized that by spilling his seed outside her body, he was attempting to protect her from conceiving. Something she had foolishly not even thought to worry about.

  Lucas Delgado really was the best of men. The best of lovers. Every step of the way, he had made certain of her agreement, ensured her safety, and cared for her well-being. Kind, decent, trustworthy…not to mention extraordinarily skilled in the carnal arts. He would make some woman a fine husband one day.

  Maybe, a traitorous and seductive voice in her head whispered, that woman could even be you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Never forget that the Sheriff of Nottingham was the villain and that his primary crime was the imposition of collection of unfair and oppressive taxes. Today, the British crown, in its demand of 4d in stamp duty, plays the role of the sheriff and the publisher who refuses to pay it of Robin Hood.” – Luke Evangelista

  Lucas was fastening the hooks up the back of Honora’s dress in preparation for her all-too-hasty departure when someone knocked at the door to his rooms.

  She cast a dismayed glance over her shoulder
at him. “Were you expecting someone?”

  Frowning, he shook his head “No.” Unanticipated callers were becoming rather too common an occurrence for comfort. “Wait here while I find out who it is and send them away.”

  If he could send them away, he thought with some apprehension. And then actual terror flooded his veins. What if the police had managed to discover Lucas’s true identity and had come to arrest him? It seemed unlikely—none of his printers knew his real name or address, and he was scrupulous about maintaining his incognito with his writers, at least until now—but wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. And if it was the police, then things were about to get very bad, very quickly. For Honora to be caught here, in his rooms, would be a disaster in more ways than he could even consider.

  Mierda, but he had been a damned fool to let her know where he lived in the first place, and bringing her here for an illicit tryst was nothing short of idiocy. Whether it was the magistrate or his landlady or (gods forbid) his parents at the door, the consequences would be unpleasant, to varying degrees, for her as well as for him.

  The knocking became more insistent as he closed the door between the sitting room and his bedchamber.

  “I say, brother, I know you’re in there!”

  Lucas’s knees weakened as relief, combined with a prickle of annoyance, replaced his fear. Rahul. The only person Lucas hadn’t thought of who both knew where he lived and would have the audacity to turn up without prior announcement. The question was why his best friend would be making an impromptu call on a Saturday afternoon when they’d met as usual just says ago.

  Reaching the door, Lucas yanked it open. It was only when Rahul’s expression cycled from impatience to surprise that Lucas remembered he must look like an unmade bed.

  Or, entirely accurately, like someone who had just sprung from one.

  “What are you doing here?” he barked, then regretted his unwelcoming tone. “That is,” he continued, gentling his voice, “is everything all right?”

  His friend’s face broke into a delighted grin, any astonishment at Lucas’s dishevelment apparently forgotten. Without warning, Rahul stepped across the threshold and clasped Lucas in an enthusiastic embrace. “My parents have approved of my marriage to Maggie! We are to be wed in three weeks’ time, first in the Anglican church for the sake of English law and then in Marathi fashion. I’ve come to ask you to stand for me as my best man.”

  “Well, of course I will,” Lucas said, staggering a little when his friend released him. “But why the rush? Couldn’t this news have waited for coffee on Thursday?”

  Rahul laughed. “I was too happy to wait until then to tell you. You know how worried I was about how they’d react to Maggie’s not only being English but having been on the stage. But oddly enough, I think that seems to have made them more accepting.”

  “That is odd,” Lucas murmured, his body still sagging.

  “I thought so, too, until I learned that they’ve been reading a serial called The Adventures and Misadventures of Miss Persephone White. The heroine is a virtuous but penniless young woman who becomes an actress as an honest way to make a living. I think, based on this story, they have concluded the English are as unfairly prejudiced against female performers as they are against people from India, and have decided this makes Maggie ‘one of us.’”

  By this time, Rahul had brushed past Lucas and was preparing to hang his hat on one of the available pegs on the rack. He froze midmotion, eyeing the lacy white and blue-beribboned bonnet that dangled conspicuously from one of the hooks. Glancing over his shoulder, he raised his eyebrows. “Not your usual style.”

  Lucas felt heat rise in his face as his friend looked him up and down and came to the obvious—and correct—conclusion.

  “I’m interrupting.” Rahul slanted a speculative gaze around the sitting room, which had certainly never been so orderly on any of his previous visits, and smiled. “You have taken my advice and seized the day. Good!” He clapped Lucas on the back. “Congratulations.”

  “I’m not sure congratulations are quite what’s in order.” Casting a glance in the direction of the bedchamber, Lucas grimaced. “If it had been anyone but you… I cannot believe I was so careless.”

  His irresponsibility shamed him. Nor could he console himself with the excuse that he had been unaware of the risks; he had known and recognized them from the first. Yet somehow, he had allowed himself to imagine that if he was smart enough and vigilant enough, he could keep Honora safe. That he could have her without paying the consequences. It was nothing more than pure, blind luck that she was, as yet, unharmed.

  Gods, why had he been such a fool? But he knew, didn’t he?

  On a whisper, he added, “I love her, you know.”

  Expression sobering, Rahul gave Lucas’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Then you will find a way. I am sure of it. After all, if my parents can come around to having Maggie as a daughter-in-law, anything is possible.”

  A well-intentioned observation, Lucas thought, but hardly apropos to his situation. At worst, Rahul faced the disapprobation of his family in his choice of a mate. To be sure, having to choose between one’s parents and one’s beloved would be emotionally devastating and was not a decision Lucas would wish on an enemy, let alone his best friend. Even so, the repercussions were hardly comparable, for Lucas was putting Honora at risk not only of losing her family, but also of losing her livelihood and even her freedom if her incognita was pierced.

  And the only way to protect her was to put an end to this. Today. Before it was too late.

  After Rahul made a hasty and apologetic departure, Lucas headed back to the bedchamber. Unlike his friend, however, he was in no hurry. His heart felt like a leaden weight in his chest. Perhaps he was overestimating Honora’s attachment to him on the basis of his own feelings for her, but he did not relish sending her away for good. So long as he was a criminal—by definition if not design—he represented too great a danger to her.

  What if he were to give up publishing The Weekly Disciple? Yes, he would be forgoing his only current source of income, but he could return to the practice of law, which—however dispiriting he had found it—had at least been moderately lucrative. In fact, he supposed becoming a solicitor might make him respectable enough for her parents to consider him acceptable, if not to say desirable, marriage material. Not that a change in his profession would affect Honora’s opposition to the wedded state, of course. Still, if he went back to making a living without breaking the law, they could carry on an intimate acquaintance without putting her in legal jeopardy, although the personal consequences could still be damaging to her.

  And he would be miserable.

  He knew it as soon as he contemplated the possibility. The law was made to preserve the power of the already powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless, and he could no more turn his hand to supporting that cause than he could put the woman he loved in unnecessary peril.

  Granted, periodicals that promoted radical and reformist causes were as common in London as fog and deprivation; no sooner had the police shut down one such publication than another sprang up in its place, often produced by the very same person who had just been prosecuted and had paid the penalty for the transgression.

  Nonetheless, Lucas fancied he brought a unique perspective to the inequities and injustices of the British Empire both at home and abroad. His status as an outsider, albeit one who had spent the majority of his life on English soil, and as the product of a union that could not have occurred if not for the colonization of his maternal ancestor’s country by the Spanish, made him peculiarly suited to the task of analyzing and enumerating the problems that plagued the subjects of his adopted country. And while he did not for one moment believe the world could be changed solely by his or any other individual’s words, turning his persuasive rhetoric toward upending the status quo had brought him a measure of gratification and peace of mind that defending it at the bar had never done.

  No,
he could not stop writing and publishing The Weekly Disciple, and equally, he could not afford to continue doing so without committing the crime of tax evasion. The time had come to accept—and effect—the inevitable.

  He turned the knob and opened the door to the bedchamber. Honora sat on the edge of the mattress, her half-fastened bodice, tumbled locks, and kiss-swollen lips giving silent witness to the afternoon’s activity. No one, upon seeing her in this state, would have any doubt as to what the two of them had been up to. The two small smears of blood on the towel draped over the wash basin provided additional evidence of his perfidy. The enormity of his transgression punched him in the gut. He had relieved her of her virginity and now he would cast her aside. The fact that it was for her own safety hardly mattered.

  Her welcoming smile faded as she caught his unhappy mood. “Whatever is the matter?”

  Knowing there was no point in prolonging the pain, he said, “We mustn’t see each other again, querida. That—” he jerked his head in the direction of the sitting room to indicate Rahul’s unexpected visit, “—was a warning, and we’d best heed it.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean. Wasn’t that gentleman a good friend?”

  “He’s not only a good friend, we are as close as brothers.” Settling beside her on the bed, he slid his hand through hers. Her skin was warm and very smooth but for a discernible callous on her right index finger. “But when he knocked, my first thought was that the police or Lord Hornsby had gotten Rickert or another of my publishers to inform on me and that he had arrived to arrest me. That wasn’t what happened, of course, but I realized it could happen…at any time, and if it does happen, it would be disastrous if you were here.”

  “Not as disastrous as you might think,” she said wryly. “I’m the daughter of an earl, and one very highly placed in the government. As you yourself pointed out, the rules are different for people like me.”