All the Secret Pleasures [I Love Rogues Anthology]

by Thea Devine

  He took a step toward her.

  She found her voice. "Stay." She sounded hoarse, rusty. Angry.

  "Why?" He sounded soft, coaxing. Aroused.

  "Miss Hounslow. So this—our liaison—must end." There, admirably brief, to the point, exactly what she wanted, with no mincing of words.

  "Why?" He sounded amused.

  "My dear Simon, don't be dense, and don't play me for a fool. Miss Hounslow is a likely candidate to be your wife, and you cannot in good conscience diddle around with a paramour while you are courting her."

  "But we are of exactly the same mind, my dear Corinna."

  She looked at him suspiciously. "How so?"

  "For one thing, I am not courting her. My dear lord, I have only just met the chit. And for another, my conscience likes diddling around with you. That I will not give up. So the choice has been made—Miss Hounslow loses."

  "That's ridiculous. You must consider her."

  "Why must I?"

  "You want a wife."

  "So I do. Indeed I have publicly said so. What about you?"

  He threw that question at her so off-handedly, so fast, she barely heard it. "So you must… what?"

  "What about you?"

  Corinna bolted out of the bed. "Don't you do that, Simon Charlesworth. Don't say that, don't do that, don't ask don't… I won't listen to you. I told you the rules. I told you how it must be. You cannot change things now. I don't want it, do you hear me? I don't want to be married, not to Richard, not to you, not to anyone—"

  He let her rage for a moment. "Why not?"

  "What?"

  "Why not?"

  "Because. Because sex is more fun and there's no responsibility. Because men are beasts, they get control of everything, and it's much better if they don't get control of your heart and they have to exert themselves to give you pleasure…"

  "It's no hardship, Corinna."

  She sank back onto the bed. "Don't be funny. I hate this. Miss Hounslow will be perfect for your soup."

  "Ummm… but I'm looking for more unusual ingredients. It's my nature to seek something not in the common way—a woman of some little experience, for example," he heard her faint whimper, and he went on relentlessly, "who takes great pleasure in my handling of her body, who opens herself willingly to me, who takes me deep between her legs and urges me to press and pound for more. Whose kisses are as intoxicating as wine; whose cunt tastes like honey; whose lust is as bottomless as mine… does that sound like the prosaic Miss Hounslow?"

  "I do not wish to marry. I will not have sex with you. Go away."

  "Of course you'll have sex with me. You're waiting to have sex with me. You're dressed to have sex with me. You might just as well lie down and spread your legs…"

  He was not wrong. His words liquefied her body even as she denied her need. And it would always be this way, she thought. She could never refuse him. She wanted his sex too much, too often, she was too greedy.

  "I would mount you," she said suddenly, not a position many men preferred.

  "As my lady wishes," he murmured, as he walked toward the bed and slowly disrobed. "The deeper I can take you the better."

  She shuddered with anticipation as she pulled forward a chair and motioned for him to sit, while she admired the way the candlelight sculpted the hollows in his body, and elongated his thick jutting manhood so it looked almost impossible to enfold.

  She shivered at the thought. How did one take that bone-hard muscle and insert it into her body? She canted her hips as she climbed onto the chair, and grasped his throbbing penis and angled it perfectly between her legs.

  And then she sank into his hardness, down and down, his hands on her hips, guiding her, down still more until her pubis nestled against his and she felt him so rooted in her, she could not move, and neither could he, he was that close to drenching her with his seed.

  He wound himself around her—his arms, his lips, touching, stroking, kissing her, his hips as always seeking to drive his shaft deeper within her. It was just never enough. Never. That was the secret pleasure—that he could never get enough, and seeking that surcease would keep him in her arms forever.

  She was so pliant… so open; he loved her seat on his penis, the depth to which he could push it in her hole. And he loved the freedom he had to move his hands everywhere, to explore every part of her, between her legs, into her crease, stroking her anus, her nipples, and the particularly sensitive sides of her breasts; and she loved his handling of her buttocks as well, her body writhing as he caressed her there, and as he wriggled his fingers to feel her succulent clit.

  He almost wanted to suck her senseless there. The impulse was so intense—he wanted that clit, those nipples, her hot tongue… he wanted—a thousand orgasms on her body was what he wanted, all of it now, that moment, and that still would never be enough…

  He felt the first spurt of his come, and he vigorously controlled it as he took every liberty he wanted with her naked body. Every inch was his, every lush pleasure point was his, and he meant to keep her in thrall in this luscious position as long as he could stand it.

  And every time she moved, he put his hands on her hips, and settled her cunt more tightly on his penis.

  Don't move, don't move … just leave me jammed up inside you…

  Perfect. Holding her bottom, perfect. Spreading her buttocks and stroking her there, perfect. Keeping her hot honey cunt centered on his penis—perfect…

  Her squirming need to move, to undulate… perfect because then he could pull her back even more tightly onto his bulging shaft. He could keep her like this forever, enfolding his penis in her tight hot cunt-kiss.

  "What were you saying?" he whispered against her lips.

  "I love sex, I want sex, and only sex…" she breathed.

  "I can do that. I could do more…"

  "No. I want to spend the whole night embracing your penis like this."

  "Let's do that," he murmured, seeking her lips. "Hold my penis rooted between your legs like this the whole night."

  "Can you hold on?"

  He thought about it for one second. One second too long. His body seized up, he whispered, "Absolutely—" and he came, in one long volcanic spew he came, and he took her over the edge with him.

  She looked too happy, Richard thought the next night as Corinna made yet another entrance into another ballroom for yet another rout that would be such a crush nothing could be accomplished. So obviously Simon had got to her, got into her last night, which answered his question as to whether Simon still shared her bed.

  He hated knowing that, he hated the crowds, he hated the insipid misses parading before him and sending him coy looks as they made their too-obvious entrances. He hated everything about the season at this point, and he would have retired to his study to read a good book already, but for Corinna.

  Delicious, delightful, acerbically acute Corinna who would not listen to one protestation of love.

  She might be the wisest woman in the world, he thought. Because she had to have refused Simon too. Corinna knew what she wanted. She wanted a lover. She had chosen Simon, but she • could just as well have chosen him.

  Maybe it really was a question of marriage, Richard thought. Maybe Simon hadn't asked her. Or maybe it was a moment for public display where she would have to make a choice. He wondered if that would up the stakes. If, on that level, he were that much of a gambling man.

  He just hadn't expected Corinna. But that was what several seasons abroad did to a woman—cut and polished her to a rare finish and made her more precious than diamonds. That was the thing, for him, about Corinna. Even on such limited acquaintance it was obvious she was worlds above any woman he had ever known. Worlds away from the spoiled and spiteful miss who had spurned Simon and run off to find an earl. Worlds more intelligent, witty, beautiful, practical. Plain-speaking. Experienced.

  God, he'd soon be singing paeans to her; he was that besotted already. Or was it that he just wanted to cut out Simon?
>
  Ah, Corinna. Her eyes all alight, her skin glowing, a room-tilting smile at the ready, her gaze seeking, seeking—Simon.

  "So will you many me?" he drawled as he strolled up beside her and took her arm.

  "Will you not ask me?" she answered in kind.

  "No," he said. "I will not not ask you. I deserve you. You most assuredly need and deserve someone like me."

  "I need—" she stopped abruptly. "I need not to be importuned; it doesn't suit you, Richard."

  "You are too right about that," he said agreeably. "But I am also not a one who takes an out-of-hand no gracefully."

  "You are too spoiled, then."

  "You are too kind."

  She smiled at him. "I do like you, Richard."

  "And whom do you love?"

  "I do not give my heart." But she knew that was not true, and she turned her face away from him so that he did not read the lie in her eyes.

  "Well, it is yet another chaotic event. We will hear no music, will have no meaningful conversation, and in the end, return home as drained as if we had put in the effort all evening."

  "It is of course the sole reason we put up with all of that," Richard said. Put up with any of it, he thought irritably, when he could be home and comfortable, and be rid of this intrusive and gnawing need to make Corinna his own.

  Everything had been about Corinna from moment he'd met her. And with her ongoing refusals, all the season events had begun to pall. He wanted resolution. He wanted love, he wanted companionship, and he wanted sex, and all of that with a woman of spirit who was witty and worthy.

  In short, Corinna.

  Who had not yet either been asked by or said yes to Simon. So there was still one last gamble. One last chance before he retired and licked his wounds.

  He moved away from Corinna and made his way to the podium where the orchestra was playing, and where he presented a most commanding figure as he held up his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen—" his voice boomed over the music, the gabble and gossip, and the noise, and the crowd quieted as if it were one person, taking one deep disbelieving breath to see a most private person up on a very public and visible stage.

  "… ladies and gentlemen…" he stepped off the stage and started making his way toward Corinna, who looked horrified. "Corinna—Lady Woodholme…"

  "… will you marry me?" Another voice, commanding and overriding Richard's, from the opposite side of the room.

  Simon.

  Corinna whirled to see him coming toward her as well.

  "Will you marry me?" Richard asked, not to be deterred, following Simon's words in a similarly commanding way, but a beat behind.

  Oh, this was the worst, Corinna thought frantically. She wanted to sink into the floor; she wanted to render herself invisible, but the crowd had made a passageway from either side of the room as Richard and Simon paced toward her, and the crowd waited with baited breath to see what she would say, whom she would accept.

  The silence was deafening after the arcing noise, and all eyes were on her.

  "I have expressly told both of you—I do not wish to marry," she said desperately.

  "And yet we each wish to marry you," Simon said. "Who will you choose?"

  Everyone was watching. She couldn't get away. "You know what I choose."

  "And you know what I choose," Simon and Richard said simultaneously.

  Immediately a murmur rippled through the crowd. Corinna knew what it was—they were making bets. It was ever thus: they cared only about being the first with the best news, or holding the winning hand, the trumping wager.

  "Perhaps it might do to have a contest," Richard said.

  "There will be no contests," Corinna pronounced immediately.

  "We will each kiss Corinna."

  There was a smattering of applause.

  "We each will not," Corinna said. "I will not kiss anyone—" She looked around at the crowd, at Richard, at Simon, at the Misses Hounslow, Heath, and the ladies Worsley and Darfield who were hovering around the edge. Perfectly good ladies, all, worthy of being kissed, and loved, and asked for their hands in marriage.

  Richard would do well with any of them, if he truly wanted to be married. And Simon—

  Simon…

  She licked her lips. "—unless the other ladies in search of a husband will kiss them too."

  A titter went up, and then a wave of voices, an undercurrent of excitement. Why not? Why not? Every man in search of wife should kiss the paper white lilies who wished to be married. It made such sense. Separate the chaff immediately, and go from there.

  Bets were made surreptitiously. Money changed hands. The flower girls were pushed forward to the center of the room to one side, and the eligible gentlemen to the other, almost as if they were lining up for a reel.

  "A kissing reel, one after the other…" Richard said.

  "Come—some music—step lively… my Lady Hounslowωyou will begin…"

  Miss Hounslow stepped forward, meeting the very young and nervous Lord Penderfield midway, and lifting her face for his smacking kiss. Then they each moved in the opposite direction in time to the music, to buss each succeeding candidate clumsily, expertly or chastely on the lips.

  The onlookers clapped, watching as the candidates on either side then diminished and retired to the sidelines, until only Corinna, Richard and Simon were left.

  "Corinna, you must take your turn," Richard said, "and you will be mine."

  He moved toward her, reaching for her, and it didn't take three steps but Simon was directly in front of him, challenging him.

  "Touch her, and I will kill you."

  Everyone heard. The music stopped. Everyone stopped dead in his tracks. Richard stared at Simon. Simon stared back, daring him to do something he might regret.

  "Well then," Richard said finally. He knew how to be a good loser in any event, and how to retain Simon's friendship as well. "'Tis as I had planned: to evince enough interest in my lady to finally provoke Simon to jealousy and to action. And here we have every visible evidence of it. But what does my lady say?"

  Corinna sent him an irritated and speaking look. "I would choose kiss Simon."

  "And do you choose Simon? We all are witnesses."

  And so she was cornered. And if she said no, she would not lose him, certainly, but the ton would pressure him anyway on his expressed determination to find a bride.

  So he could not yield, and she could not back down.

  If she said yes, she would be committing to something more than just a shadow lover coming to her in the night. She was so torn. A shadow lover was a perfect thing, in and out, and gone, leaving her wallowing in cream and satiety. A shadow lover didn't interfere, could have no say in her affairs, would not share her bed if she didn't wish it, would not require anything of her but that she be naked for him.

  And something more was something more. A husband. A partner, a companion, a lover… and two with different temperaments and personalities living as one, none of which mattered in bed, in the shadows.

  A lover was so easy. Something more could mean clashes, pain, sorrow…

  … losing Simon to a woman who might treasure him more…

  It was no one's business what might be her choice.

  "I am going home," she said, because there was nothing else she could say, and she wheeled around and marched toward the doors, her posture as ramrod straight as a general's.

  The music started up. The crowd began milling around, to talk over this last scene, and Richard turned to Simon to say, "Well, I tried…"

  But Simon was already gone.

  She stamped into the reception room out of all patience with everything and everyone. It was time to return to the Continent, where things were easier and men were less difficult, less demanding. She'd had quite enough of the Richards and Simons of society. And enough of the cackling hens who even now were chewing over the evening's events, and embellishing them probably to the point where she, Corinna, would become such an object of attention
that she could not go out for a month.

  "Oh you are in a temper," Fanny murmured, taking her pelisse.

  "You can have no idea. I do not wish to see anyone of the male gender in this house—forever …" Corinna said angrily, pulling off her jewelry as she stamped up the stairs.

  Enough of them all. Sex was not worth it, this public embarrassment and demand that she make choices. What had Richard been thinking? How smooth he was, shifting it all altruistically onto the notion he was trying to push Simon to some kind of declaration and her into some kind of acceptance…

  MEN!

  She was not so easily prodded and pushed, and Richard and Simon would discover that soon enough. It wanted only some planning—she needed to mend what had been unraveled this night.

  Simon had better not be lurking in the shadows…

  And he wasn't. He was sitting, naked, in her bed.

  She stopped short on the threshold, almost tripping on the ledge.

  "Go away."

  "Come here."

  Lord, he was so seductive—so naked, so hard, so enticing, with his legs angled and spread and his penis jutting up at her.

  "The answer is no." She could resist. She tossed her headdress onto a nearby chair. That chair. The one where she had mounted him and sunk onto him, into him… stop it!!!

  "Let me give you a home truth, Corinna. The answer is yes. Because in the same way that I concocted this ridiculous plan to get you back, you deliberately and calculatedly returned to England to find me."

  "Never."

  "Because your marrying the earl was a horrible mistake, wasn't it?"

  She sat down on the chair—that chair—and kicked off her shoes. "He was a dear and kind man and treated me well, and left me with the wherewithal to do as I please. What more can a woman want of a husband?"

  "A shadow lover," Simon said immediately. "A real lover. Real love. A partner. A life you build together. A home. Children…"

  "I am too old," Corinna said instantly, insistently.

  "You aren't."