“You, goddess. I watch you with Lewes and wonder how the man can stand it. How can he look at you and not want you to distraction?”
Calliope swallowed past the fist-sized lump in her throat and pushed aside the impulsive urge that had caused her to step where she never should have dared to tread. This conversation, this man was dangerous, and she would do well to remember that if she wanted to make it out of this with her virtue and her reputation intact.
“Desire is inconsequential,” she stated, hoping her voice was steadier than her shaking hands. “Giving in to our baser urges with no control or thought to the consequences would make us no better than animals. Passion fades, and then we are left only with the things that truly matter. Companionship, compatibility, commonalities that bind people together and create lasting bonds rather than passing fancies.”
Her last word broke off on a gasp as he stood just before her, so close she could see where the rims of his irises bled into a darker green along the edges. The urge to back away warred with her determination to face him, and not back down from the challenge he presented. She wasn’t some silly young girl who would swoon in his arms. She could face him and withstand this.
Couldn’t she?
“I wonder if you think of desire and passion that way because you’ve never experienced them. If you had, you might see things a bit differently.”
“I highly doubt that.”
He smiled, reaching up to stroke one finger down the side of her face. “Then you would be content with a bland, passionless marriage just for the sake of having a husband? Do you think you would be content with a man like Lewes, who can only see how lovely and interesting you are when someone else notices it first?”
“You have no idea what my marriage to Martin might be like, and you are only giving me the slightest bit of notice because I am paying you to.”
“You can lead a horse to water, but … well, you know the saying. Money or no money, I think I saw you far before he ever did.”
“You hardly know me.”
“I know enough. I know that you are afraid of letting people see how fiery and passionate you are for fear of scorn. You won’t let anyone get too close because you think it will make it easier for you to belong. I can tell you’ve never really been kissed.”
She frowned, trying to concentrate on what he was saying but finding it difficult when he wouldn’t stop touching her. His finger had caressed her jaw, twined through a strand of her hair, and now traced a slow path down the side of her neck, pausing just where her pulse thundered. The effect was just as alarming as when he had touched her arm.
“That isn’t true. I’ve been kissed, more than once.”
He chuckled, and the sound sent vibrations through the core of her being. His laugh was deep and husky, thick and full.
“Some overeager lord sloppily trying to devour your pretty lips does not count. I’d be willing to bet you didn’t enjoy a single one of those kisses.”
Damn him, he was right. Kisses from past suitors had been underwhelming at best.
“I didn’t feel anything for those men, so of course their kisses weren’t enjoyable. I imagine it will be different with someone I actually like.”
Dominick’s smile turned wicked as he took his coin between two fingers and held it up before her. “Care to put that to the test?”
She blinked, staring at the coin in bemusement. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. You are asserting that a kiss can only be enjoyable with Lewes because you admire him. I daresay you even fancy yourself in love with him. Am I wrong?”
“N-no, not really. I cannot say I love him just yet, but … I know that someday I could. I will.”
He watched her as if searching for more of an explanation. Perhaps he wanted to know why she felt that way. Calliope couldn’t explain her feelings, aside from the fact that Martin Lewes was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. He was everything Dominick was not.
“I think it safe to also assume that you don’t like me very much. There is no need for you to protest, I’m fully aware that I unsettle you. You find me crass and arrogant, and you only endure my presence out of necessity. However, I know something you’ve yet to be made aware of. Attraction and desire can exist between two people whether they like one another or not.”
“Are you saying you want me, but don’t like me?”
It was an absurd question of all the things she might have asked. Yet, the words had come tumbling out before she could think better of them.
He tweaked her nose with a playful grin. “I never said that. I like you just fine, goddess. But I think you would sleep just fine each night were I to fall off the face of the Earth. Anyway, this isn’t about whether I like you, but if you are prepared to test your theory.” The coin waved before her face, before he settled it onto his bent thumb, prepared to flip it. “Heads, you let me kiss you to prove my point. Tails, we leave right now, and I never mention it again.”
Calliope crossed her arms and glared at him. “You are mad if you think I’m willing to make such a wager.”
“What does it matter when you are secure in the knowledge that you dislike me? If your theory holds true, my kiss will prove as unpleasant as the others and you can walk away from me content in the knowledge that you were right. If you care so deeply for Lewes, then you oughtn’t worry that a single kiss will be enough to sway you.”
“It won’t,” she snapped, annoyed with him for challenging the deeply-held beliefs that had put her on her present course. “Besides, Martin has never kissed me, so there is no basis for comparison.”
“There will be. If I haven’t missed my guess, there will be the chance for you to make the comparison in the very near future. Now … what do you say? One coin flip, one kiss … or perhaps not. Maybe fate will smile on you.”
Calliope glanced over her shoulder, secure in the knowledge that the door was firmly closed and all the drapes of the windows facing the garden had been shut tight. How long could a single kiss take—if he even won this absurd wager?
“Very well. I accept your terms.”
Dominick took a step away from her and flipped the coin. Time seemed suspended as it flew upward, turning end over end on its descent. Calliope held her breath and waited for the desired outcome. Which was, what exactly? For her to win and not have to allow a kiss? For him to win so she could prove that he was wrong about her?
The breath left her on a swift sigh when it landed in his palm. Her throat constricted when he slapped it onto the back of his opposite hand, uncovering it to reveal that it had landed heads-side up. Dominick’s predatory gaze flicked up to meet hers, and she felt his intent a second before he moved with a speed that left her reeling.
The coin clinked to the ground as he closed the distance between them and took hold of her face. His lips slanted over hers with such tenderness Calliope was left reeling. She had expected rough handling and a cruel mouth, a kiss that took but did not give. Instead, he shattered her presumptions with the first press of his mouth, firm but gentle. His thumbs stroked along her cheekbones, his lips pushing and prodding as if trying to coax something more out of her.
This was no soft peck, no sweet overture. It was an outright assault, one made with plush lips and heavy breaths, each pass of his mouth over hers chipping away at the resistance she found it increasingly difficult to cling to.
She brought her hands up to cling to him, her fingers curled in the fabric of his coat as she began losing control of her knees. As if he sensed this, he smoothed his hands down her face and neck, past her shoulders, over her waist. Then, he was hauling her against him, every masculine ridge of him pressed to her. A breathless sound of shock escaped her throat, answered by a deep, rumbling murmur from him. Then, his tongue slid shockingly along her bottom lip, warm and wet, stroking at the seam of her mouth. A tingling sensation spread from where he lapped at her as if tasting some sweet delicacy, and Calliope could bear it no longer.
She melted in his arms, her head tipping back and her lips parting without a fight. She was dizzy and out of her mind, every part of her coming alive as his tongue slid into her mouth and rasped against hers. He repeated the motion again and again, licking at her with an urgency that prompted her to respond.
Reticence melted away, timidity forgotten as she mimicked his motions and caressed his tongue with hers, pushing back against him with tentative swipes and then surer strokes. A deep, guttural groan floated up from him, shattering the near-silence of the peaceful garden. The sound was wild, completely unrestrained, darting through her like an arrow, stabbing into her belly and exploding in a sudden rush of fluttering heat.
Her back arched against the brace of his arms, her breasts thrusting against his chest. Her nipples pebbled tight, agitated by the friction of their bodies. Each hot stroke of his tongue seemed to exacerbate it, while simultaneously creating a pulsing sensation between her legs.
It was the most embarrassing feeling, yet was somehow made all the more decadent and thrilling because of it.
He panted against her mouth, the kiss growing wilder and more heated, finesse giving way to something raw and primal. Calliope could not blame it all on him, for she was behaving in the most wanton fashion, mewling into his mouth and going up on tiptoe to capture more of the bliss he fed her with nothing more than the touch of his lips and tongue.
Shock pierced through the haze that had stolen all her good sense at the press of something hard against her lower belly. Diana had explained enough that she knew what that part of him was, what its turgid state meant for the man pillaging her mouth like the most wicked of pirates.
He wanted her, and at the moment she could not delude herself into pretending his kiss hadn’t made her want him back.
They both seemed to realize it needed to end at the same time, for they wrenched apart with a flurry of harsh breaths, wide eyes, and stumbling legs. Dominick’s lips were flushed and slick, and shame overwhelmed her as she realized she’d put that glistening sheen there with her tongue.
She’d behaved abominably, kissing and pawing at him like a shameless harlot. It had been one thing to submit to the rules of their wager and allow him to kiss her. It was quite another for her to have kissed him back, with no regard to who might come upon them or the man waiting for her in the carriage out front.
She lowered her gaze while trying to convince herself that nothing more need come of this. It didn’t have to mean anything. She didn’t have to acknowledge that Dominick Burke had just torn her to shreds with a kiss.
A gentle hand tilted her chin up, and she had no choice but to meet his gaze. His eyes had gone heavy-lidded, but still burned with the hypnotizing intensity that seemed to hold her in its thrall every time she looked at him.
“You’ll be certain to let me know how I measure up against the seraphic Martin, won’t you?”
When she merely gaped at him, unable to speak, he smiled and ran his thumb over her lips. Planting a short, swift kiss against her forehead, he then brushed past her and headed toward the door.
Glancing down, she found his coin lying at her feet, forgotten. Crouching to pick it up, she turned it over and scowled at what she found.
“You … you vile cheat!” she spat, whirling to find him lingering in the doorway, shoulders shaking with laughter. “You tricked me with a double-headed coin!”
With an indolent shrug, he reached up to catch the coin when she hurled it at him.
“Something else you’ve now learned about me, goddess. I’m a betting man, but there are some wagers I’d never leave up to chance.”
Chapter 7
“That most disreputable gentleman, The Hon. Mr. S, has been seen about town yet again with the dowager countess he’s been keeping in grand style for the past few years. They are quite shameless in flaunting their arrangement—though it does make one wonder. The dowager has no need to act as some man’s chère-amie, as rumor has it she received quite the jointure upon the death of the earl. But then, one must account for the salacious influence of Mr. S, who—when he is not battering some poor fellow in the pugilists ring—is known as a rake of the worst order.”
The London Gossip, September 4, 1819
He was an idiot. No, idiot seemed too mild a word, but Nick’s mind was so muddled, exacerbated by the state of his treacherous body, he couldn’t think of another.
Of course, self-castigation did not help matters, because two days after he had succumbed to the mad urge to pull Calliope into his arms and taste her, he had not stopped reliving the moment over and over in his mind. He had kissed her for two reasons.
First, it annoyed Nick to no end that she seemed to hold Martin Lewes up as some paragon of manhood and honor without even knowing him. It never seemed to have occurred to her that he was not the be all end all, or that she would be utterly wasted on a man like that. What sort of man had a willing, eager woman like Calliope Barrington setting her cap for him and failed to take notice?
Secondly, he’d done it because he bloody well wanted to. It had been all he could think about during the meeting of the patronesses of the foundling home. Watching her lead the proceedings with such command and poise had done something to him. It had been the first time he’d witnessed her allowing herself to be seen and heard, as opposed to becoming as small and innocuous as possible. As well, he’d discovered something he realized very few people were privileged to know.
The woman was brilliant. Not just smart or witty, but also driven and full of conviction. She truly cared about the children relying on her, and unlike many of her peers was not content to throw her money at a cause and leave the work up to someone else. She’d been magnificent and he had been utterly captivated by her.
So, he’d stolen a kiss like a slippery pickpocket, knowing the coin flip would turn out in his favor and savoring his little victory. Only, in hindsight, Nick wasn’t certain he’d been the true winner. Certainly, he had affected her with his kiss—quite thoroughly if her response was any indication—but she’d affected him right back, and in the most perplexing of ways.
He’d been let off outside his lodgings with a wandering mind and lips that still tingled from the pressure of hers. His clothes smelled of her sweet, floral scent. He had spent last night and a good portion of this day trying to banish her from his mind. But the haunting memory of her clung fiercely to the edges of his consciousness, and he’d walked about distracted and as hard as a brick as a result.
Tonight, he had shunned an outing with his courtesan friends and the promise of a good meal at a dinner party with his sister. Solitude had seemed like the best course of action when he could hardly see straight from the discomfort of the erection plaguing him, or string sentences together when his mind wouldn’t function properly.
After trying to find some way to amuse himself, he’d decided going to bed at a decent hour for a change might clear his mind. Gambling was a bad idea, and not only because he was trying to curb his destructive habit. In his current state he was certain to piss away everything he had.
Sleep had eluded him for near an hour already, with no relief in sight.
He stared up at the ceiling, the fire in the hearth casting oblong shadows. As it turned out, silence and stillness were not what he needed, for they made it impossible to escape the plaguing memories of that kiss.
His cock stirred beneath the bedclothes as he recalled the feel of her against him, all untouched stretches of supple curves. Her mouth, that plump upper lip, the sweet, tentative tongue, the mewling sounds emitting from her throat as she wrestled with her desires as well as her trepidation. He’d felt the moment her resistance crumbled, and she stopped thinking of another man, and surrendered to surrender to Nick, instead.
“Fuck,” he muttered, shifting beneath the sheet and trying his best to ignore his throbbing nuisance of an cockstand.
He needed release. He needed hot, panting, writhing, wild escape into a tight, wet cunt. But, he didn’t want it from just an
y woman, and therein lay the problem.
He wanted Calliope.
Closing his eyes, he surrendered to his imagination. As he palmed his aching prick, he let himself think of that kiss turning into something more. This was the only way, he told himself. In the morning, he could think of her as belonging to Lewes, even if no promises had yet been made. Tonight, in the dark and with no one here to tell him otherwise, Calliope was his.
She was spread across his bed, nude and waiting and wanting, a temptation comprised of slender limbs, flaring hips, and soft breasts. He clenched his teeth around a desperate sound as he gave his cock a long, slow stroke, his belly clenching. His breaths came harsh and low, his entire body thrumming and tense.
He wasn’t gentle with her—but then, tonight he didn’t have to be. Tonight, she wasn’t a priggish maid afraid to let herself experience the heady bliss of succumbing to her own need. The woman lying on the bed before him was a temptress, a siren who welcomed him with parted legs and a flash of rose petal pink flesh from within silken black curls. She arched to welcome him, moaning and sighing as he licked his way up her belly to her breasts. She held him to her as he teased her nipples, her fingers threaded through his hair.
He stroked faster, tightening his grip as he longed for climax while still wanting to linger over his tawdry thoughts. He was drunk on a moment of his own making, one that felt all-too real as he imagined surging inside of her, being clutched in her welcoming body. Her hips would fill his hands so perfectly, flaring and soft and easing open to accommodate him. He bit his lip until it stung as he fucked his fist and imagined her screaming, wild and wanton and free, her breasts bouncing as he pounded into her, her chin tipped up to offer her neck as she moaned her pleasure. He licked and bit the slender throat like a raving beast, delighting in her shocked cries and soft sighs of bliss.
The entire scene changed with nothing more than a shift in his thoughts. He might want her that way, but there was something he’d enjoy more, so he allowed himself to experience it within the safety of his own mind. She was above him now, hands braced on his chest, his cock buried deep inside her. Her waist and hips undulated in the most enticing rhythm as she rode him for her own delight, her fingernails digging into his skin and producing pinpricks of pain along with the pleasure.
Making of a Scandal (The Gentleman Courtesans Book 3) Page 14