The Footman (The Masqueraders Book 1)

by S. M. LaViolette

  A pause that felt a dozen years long stretched between them.

  She heard him inhale. “Would it bother you if I were to see you?”

  She nodded, no longer able to speak.

  “Have you seen a man naked?”

  She shook her head.

  He made an odd noise and she opened her eyes. He was looking at her as if she were some manner of . . . freak. She turned away.

  “Oh, darling. I don’t mean to make you feel self-conscious.” He pulled her to his chest, the endearment as powerful as his gentle arms and the strong, steady hand stroking up and down her back. “How about a compromise?” She shrugged and he laughed softly. “Have you stopped speaking to me?”

  “No.” The word was muffled against his shoulder.

  “Good, I should hate that. Your voice is one of the things I like best about you.”

  She pulled away until she could see his face. “It is?”

  He nodded, his expression serious.

  “You don’t think I’m . . . waspish?”

  He hesitated and then nodded again, a tiny smile making his lips even more kissable.

  She laughed and pushed on him, which was like shoving an anvil. “You beast.”

  He pulled her close and nuzzled her throat.

  “Now it is you who have stopped speaking. What compromise, Stephen?”

  He jolted slightly at the sound of his name. “No dress, no stays, no drawers, no stockings.” His voice rumbled against her throat, the words causing her body to turn liquid and hot.

  “Drawers and chemise.”

  He grunted, his fingers already going to her back. “Done.”

  “What—what about you?” His hands on her back made speaking difficult. His fingers paused.

  “What about me?”

  “What will you wear?”

  “What do you want me to wear?”

  She swallowed. “What do you usually wear?”

  He chuckled.

  Her breathing hitched and hiccupped. “Oh.”

  “Haven’t you seen a man’s cock before, love?”

  The word made her woozy. When she didn’t immediately answer he tried to pull away and look at her. This time it was Elinor who held him firm. “No.”

  “No, you haven’t seen one?” He sounded stunned.

  “No, don’t look at me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I could never have this conversation with you looking.”

  She felt him hesitate. “Are you quite certain about this, Elinor? We do not have to do anything. We could just lie here together and talk.”

  Elinor considered his offer, which was more than kind considering how they’d ended up on this bed. He must think her daft—a woman married for a decade who made such a fuss about the marital act. How could she tell him she’d never experienced such a thing? That all she’d had was brutality and harsh neglect? Would he even know what she meant? Everything he’d done to her—from his kisses, to the way he’d gently held her foot at the Blackfriars ball, to the way he was behaving right now—was so different from what Edward had done they were like two different species.

  She realized he’d pulled her closer and was rubbing her back, holding her lightly. He really would just hold her. But if he did so, she would never know where these feelings swirling around her body might lead.

  “Could we extinguish the lights?”

  His hand froze on her back. “Is that what you’d like?”

  “Would you mind terribly?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, I would, but I would be glad to do it for you.”

  Elinor turned away while he rose and extinguished the various lights. When he was done, only the light from the city below illuminated the room.

  “The windows?” Elinor reminded him, when she heard him approaching.

  “The windows?” He sounded plaintive.

  Elinor lifted a hand to smother a laugh. “Please.”

  He cursed under his breath, but yanked the heavy drapes closed, making the room as dark as a moonless night. She heard a thump.

  “Bloody hell!” he muttered. She couldn’t entirely stifle a laugh. “I’m so glad I amuse you, my lady. I’ll have a bruised shin, now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You sound it.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked when he didn’t return to the bed.

  “Stripping.”

  Elinor swallowed. “Oh.”

  “Don’t touch your dress. Or your stockings,” he ordered, his voice coming from someplace close. “That’s my job. You may remove your shoes.”

  “You are too kind,” she muttered, kicking off her kid slippers.

  “What was that?” His voice came from right beside her ear and she squeaked.

  “You move like a cat.”

  His hands went to the back of her dress. “I’m going to push it down, lift your bottom.” She complied and a big, warm hand pulled the garment beneath her.

  “You never answered my question.” His voice was husky as he slid a hand up one of her legs.

  Elinor had hoped he’d forgotten asking it.

  “Yes, I’ve seen one.” She didn’t tell him it had only been a drawing in Doctor Venable’s textbook. She knew all the pertinent parts and what they did; it had been the most mortifying part of her instruction, thus far.

  He deftly released one stocking and then the other, rolling each down slowly.

  “Mmm.” The sound was low and predatory and it made all her muscles tighten. Intellectually she knew what was happening: blood was flowing to her clitoris and causing it to become engorged. She knew where it was; she’d seen it both in drawings and on herself. She’d touched it from time to time and knew what it did when stimulated. But it had never felt quite like this before.

  His hands settled on her thighs.

  “Drawers?” He sounded hopeful.

  “We had a deal, Mr. Worth. Are you trying to breach your contract?”

  “No, just renegotiate.”

  “Isn’t that breaching the contract?”

  He picked her up by the waist and tossed her further back on the bed, just like a doll.

  A laugh broke out of her.

  “I thought you were studying medicine. Have you taken up the law, too?” His weighty, muscular body made the bed shift as he moved closer.

  She felt his hands on her ankles and the laughter froze in her chest.

  “Shh,” Stephen murmured, immediately releasing her legs and crawling up beside her, stretching out along her body. “Don’t be frightened, Elinor. I would never force you.” He unerringly found her jaw in the darkness and slowly traced one finger to her chin. He leaned in and kissed her gently, his tongue probing suggestively between her pursed lips. She opened and took his thrusting organ into her mouth. He moaned and inched closer, his free hand moving from her jaw, down her neck, and settling lightly on her breast.

  She gasped into his mouth at the feel of his palm over her nipple.

  “Easy, sweetheart.” He circled his hand over her and her body answered without any help from her mind, arching to meet him. “Yes, that’s right,” he coaxed, nipping her lip sharply before pulling away from her mouth. Resentment surged through her. Where was he going? Why was he leaving her?

  Something warm and unbelievably soft hovered over her breast. He dropped lower and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  “Stephen!” His name tore from her mouth before she could stop it. He tongued her stiff peak, his lips curving into a smile against her sensitive skin before he commenced suckling her through her chemise. She bucked in his grasp until he locked his arm around her and held her fast, his wicked, wicked mouth moving to her second breast. Her intimate muscles contracted and she almost cried out at the sensation. She was so unbearably sensitive, so tight, so . . . something. He chuckled against her nipple and she realized she’d been pushing her hips against him.

  “No, don’t stop.” He kissed her throat, her ear, her temple while his finger went to her nipple
and pinched it through the damp cloth. She shuddered and gasped, her body no longer hers to control. “Such sensitive little things,” he murmured, his hand moving to her other breast, tweaking the nipple harder. The sensation between her legs began to overwhelm her reason and she pushed against him, desperate. His hand slid down her hip with glacial slowness.

  “Oh, Elinor, I could make you come just by sucking your sweet nipples.” His vulgar words were like a key unlocking the madness inside her body.

  “Please.” Elinor’s shame at what she was saying and doing was no match for the need driving her.

  “Hmm?” His hand continued its journey, brushing the bones of her hip like the wings of a butterfly.

  She shook her head back and forth, unable to take any more sensation, unable to verbalize what she wanted, what she needed.

  “Is this what you want?” His finger pushed through the slit in her drawers, into the curls that guarded her sex.

  Elinor’s mind shut down.

  ∞∞∞

  Stephen held her shuddering body against him, one finger deep inside her sheath as his thumb teased another climax from her responsive body. She’d come so quick and hard it had stunned him. He was so bloody aroused he couldn’t think straight.

  Slow down, you great rutting pig! a voice from the far-flung reaches of his mind ordered.

  Yes, slow. He needed to go slow. She would be angry at her body once she realized it had broken free of her control. Stephen had seen the same reaction before, times beyond counting, widows whose husbands had merely come to them in the darkened room, filled them like anonymous vessels, and left them confused and unsatisfied and still in the dark.

  He cupped his hand around her swollen mound and slowly removed his slick finger, unable to resist touching her pearl one last time. She flinched as though he’d touched her with a hot poker.

  “I’m sorry, love. Too sensitive yet?”

  She nodded her head against his chest.

  Stephen swallowed back his lust, his body shaking with need, his mind offering all kinds of suggestions, all of them ending with some part of him buried in some part of her. He brought his hand to his face and inhaled her musky scent. His mouth watered to take her stiff peak between his lips and suck until she screamed. Instead, he put his middle finger in his mouth and sucked it clean.

  “God, you taste so sweet,” he groaned.

  She jolted against him and he could tell he’d shocked her—again. He grinned and put his wet finger to her lips, pushing gently until she parted and took him. “Can you taste yourself, Elinor?” She trembled but her tongue touched the pad of his finger and then drew back, like a shy serpent scenting danger. He pushed and she took him deeper.

  He ground himself against her while stroking into her velvety mouth, the motion suggestive, making it obvious what he wanted.

  Stephen thought he’d imagined it at first, that it was just the torturous rub of a sheet against his enflamed skin.

  But then her hand settled around him and he jerked violently.

  “Good God!”

  Her hand disappeared.

  “No!” He snatched at her wrist in the darkness and wrapped her small, rough fingers around his throbbing organ. “Stroke me, Ellie. Please,” he begged, rolling onto his back, one hand covering hers, guiding her movements.

  Her hand tightened. “Nobody has ever called me that before—Ellie.”

  “Mmmhmm,” he moaned. “Elinor is too stern, too proper. She wouldn’t do this. But Ellie would.”

  She chuckled, the sound low and wicked. “I like it.”

  He thrust his hips against her fist.

  “My rough hands don’t hurt you?” Her voice was more tentative than he’d ever heard it.

  He laughed, thrusting with barely restrained violence, like a boy with his first grind. “You’ll only hurt me if you stop.”

  He released her hand and fisted the bedding at his sides until his knuckles ached, fighting the inevitable as his balls tightened and snugged to his body, eager to free him from his misery.

  Even with her awkward fumbling—or maybe because of it—he came fast and hard, crushing her hand with his and pumping savagely into their doubled fists to finish himself. He vaguely heard his voice shout something crude as she milked him. He stilled her hand, just before everything faded to black and his mind went to that place where nothing mattered and he became nothing.

  He must have slept because the next thing he noticed was cold spunk on his stomach and a small, warm body snuggled against his side. He turned toward Elinor but could see nothing in the utter darkness. Her breathing was heavy and regular, telling him she’d fallen asleep.

  He dropped his head back onto the pillow.

  Well.

  He stared at the blackness above while he considered tonight’s work.

  One down, two to go, his baser side crowed.

  Part of him wanted to stifle the crass, snide voice, but another part knew the chivalrous reaction was nothing but a side-effect of ejaculation. It had been a while since he’d come—either in a woman or in his fist. He’d been hard for Elinor countless times, but he’d never acted on it with another woman or relieved himself. He didn’t want the pretty whores, eager servants, or lustful widows who’d slaked his need for the past fifteen years.

  He’d only wanted her since that first morning in her shabby little house.

  He still wanted her and that bothered him. He’d hoped to satisfy the beast inside him by bedding her.

  You haven’t been inside her yet, the evil little voice reminded him.

  No, not yet. Maybe that’s why he still felt hollow—he needed to complete the ultimate act of possession and then it would all be over. He’d slip out of the strangling, choking leash that had dropped over his head a decade and a half ago and tightened every year. Yes, that was what he needed, to be inside her.

  The thought of fucking her had made him harden again.

  Why rush? You’ve been waiting for it for half your life.

  Why was he rushing? Tonight was proof he could have her in any way he wanted before all was said and done.

  Stephen thought of the Chinese monks he’d once read about. They believed ejaculation made a man weak, drained him of his power and his male essence. Stephen thought that was probably a load of horseshit, but he had to admit going without a woman had made him one mean bastard and kept him sharp.

  The very opposite of how he felt right now, which was like a fat, lazy housecat on a warm hearth. He wrapped his hand around his nagging arousal and absently stroked himself while his lips found her shoulder and covered it with soft kisses.

  His body, and a big chunk of his mind, urged him to take her now, but the other part of him—the cold, driven part that always made sure he got what he wanted—told him to wait.

  Stay with the plan, Stephen.

  Yes, the plan.

  Wasn’t that what Stephen was always telling Fielding when he tried to rush things?

  He released his insistent organ with a groan, shoved aside the covers, and rose, careful not to disturb Elinor. He felt around in the dark for his robe and used it to wipe the cold ‘essence’ off his stomach. He tossed the soiled robe on the floor and carefully made his way across the dark room to the door, opening it only a crack. A glance at the bed showed him she was still sleeping.

  He edged sideways through the gap and went to the study, closing the door before striding across to the decanter on his desk and pouring out a good three fingers. He collapsed into his overstuffed chair, leaned back, and rested his heels on his desk, savoring the fine spirits and trying to forget about his semi-erect cock.

  Stephen couldn’t have said how long he sat there when he heard a knock.

  “Come in.” Fielding stepped inside and Stephen felt a smile tug at his lips. “Well, look at you.”

  Fielding scowled. “I could say the same for you. I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to put on some bloody clothes?”

  Stephen grinned. “
Is my naked body exciting you?”

  Fielding strode across the room and snatched a glass off the desk, turning to the side to fill it. “The sight of your hairy bollocks is enough to shrivel my own.”

  Stephen threw back his head and laughed. “Lord, what a bloody prude you are. You never would have survived at Eton or Harrow.”

  “It’s a good thing I was born on the wrong side of the blanket then, wasn’t it?”

  Stephen dropped his legs and tucked his lower half beneath the desk. “There, is that better?”

  Fielding grunted and lowered his considerable bulk into the biggest chair.

  Stephen looked him up and down. “You look like a bloody lord. Better, actually, since most of them can’t afford to dress so well.” His gaze snagged on the other man’s glossy black boots. “Hoby?”

  Fielding actually smiled. “You sent me to the top of St. James.”

  “You profligate son of a bitch. You’d better prove worth it.” Stephen ignored Fielding’s laughter and dug around the papers cluttering his desk before finding what he wanted. He flicked the envelope over to the big man, who caught it with nimble fingers.

  “Take that over to Trentham’s town house.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight. And wait for an answer.”

  “And should I bring that back tonight?”

  “No, don’t bother me again until morning. Come first thing.” He looked around the room. “Where the devil is Nichols?”

  Fielding tossed back the rest of his drink and stood. “How should I know where your valet is? Perhaps he’s tired of looking at your naked arse as well.”

  Stephen stood, causing the other man to turn abruptly away. He smiled and scrubbed his hand across his chest before stretching and falling into a huge yawn.

  “Fielding,” he called as the other man reached the door. “Since I can’t find Nichols, you’ll do just as well. Tell them I want a cold supper sent up—just in case she wakes up hungry. Send it in an hour.” He absently scratched himself. “Make that two hours and have them send two bottles of the best red they have. And a bottle of champagne.”

  Fielding muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Go sod yourself.”