“Tell me more about the Horsemen,” she said between bites. “How did you meet them?”
Her question punctured his lustful musings. At Chen’s, she had greeted his plan to infiltrate Edgecombe’s group with remarkable equanimity. She had, of course, voiced her concerns about his safety, and he had tried his best to allay them while pointing out the merits of his strategy. His prior connections to the group gave him a unique opportunity to discover what those bastards were up to currently. All he had to do was bluff his way back into the fold and follow the trail to Fong.
Livy had pleaded for him to let her assist, but he’d stood firm.
“The best way you can help is by giving me peace of mind,” he’d told her. “I can better concentrate on convincing Edgecombe and the others to reveal their secrets if I know you are safe and out of harm’s way.”
She’d sighed. “Will you always be this overprotective?”
“Of you? Always.” He’d meant it. “I will always try to keep you safe…even from me.”
“I do not need to be protected,” she’d protested. “Least of all from you.”
Her present question, however, reminded him that he hadn’t told her everything about his degenerate past. As he looked into the limpid pools of her eyes, shame crept over him. Their difference in age was magnified by their difference in experience: her heart and soul were untainted by life whereas his were stained by so many sins, big and small.
Yet he’d promised himself that he would not lie to her; he owed her the truth so that she could decide whether he was worthy of her love. Buying himself time, he served the soup course before answering.
“After my actions led to Griggs’s suicide, I numbed myself with vice to avoid the infamy of what I had done,” he said in hollow tones. “That was when I associated with Edgecombe, Thorne, and Bollinger. We caroused day and night. I drank, smoked opium, gambled, and engaged in fisticuffs and duels.” He inhaled. “I changed bedpartners almost as frequently as I did my cravats.”
Livy’s spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering against her soup bowl. In her pleated brow, he saw the calculations she was making in her head. She knew he’d wed when he was eighteen, and the inevitable conclusion she’d arrived at molded her expression into lines of aching uncertainty.
“Weren’t you married at the time?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Adultery is among my many sins.”
Livy stared at him, her heart clenching. She didn’t know why his admission shocked her, after everything else he had shared about his past. Perhaps because in her mind he was a loyal man…indeed, his loyalty to his sister had played a part in his misguided and tragic attempt to punish Griggs, the man who had hurt Aunt Bea.
To hear Ben say that he had broken his marriage vows, however, sent Livy reeling. As a McLeod and a Kent, she valued loyalty above all, and she could not reconcile her steadfast friend and protector of seven years with the man who was now confessing to breaking his sacred vows. After finding him drunk and miserable that Christmas when she was fifteen, she’d known that his marriage wasn’t perfect. There was also what he’d said recently about Arabella’s habit of goading him into jealousy. Yet nothing justified infidelity.
For the first time, Livy felt a twinge of doubt about Ben. Could she be with a man who might be untrue to his promises? She stared at him, unable to hide her dismay.
“I deserve your judgement, little one,” he said with grim acceptance. “I have no defense for how I conducted myself. At the same time, you should know that Arabella and I had an understanding.”
Livy knitted her brows. “What kind of an understanding?”
“An understanding wherein we were both allowed to seek pleasure outside of the marriage bed,” he said. “As long as we were careful and discreet.”
“I don’t understand.” Bewildered, Livy flashed back to his duchess’s funeral. His grief and despair then and afterward. “I thought you loved Arabella.”
“I did.” His lips twisted, his pupils expanding and edging out the blue. “As you know, I was eighteen when I married. Arabella was the only woman I had been with. A couple of years into our marriage, she told me that only the bourgeois lived in each other’s pockets and suggested that we experiment with a more…sophisticated lifestyle. Such arrangements are not uncommon in the ton.”
“I do not care about the ton,” Livy said hotly. “I would not want to be with anyone but my husband, nor for him to be with anyone else. That would be a betrayal, and it would hurt.”
“You are right, little queen, on all counts.” Ben’s tone was gruff, his shoulders hunching. “The novelty of the forbidden soon wore off…at least for me. Being with other women felt wrong.”
“As it should have,” Livy said with emphasis.
“When I tried to change our agreement, Arabella refused. She said I was trying to spoil her fun, that it was up to me to make her want to be faithful. I became jealous and possessive, fighting duels over her, but it was not enough to make her stop.” He stared at his untouched soup. “I was never enough for her.”
“Oh, Ben.” His self-doubt squeezed Livy’s heart. “You are enough for any woman.”
“Even for you?” He slid her a glance, and the tormented yearning in his eyes seared through her. “I swear I would be a faithful husband. I would never betray you, Livy, or lie to you. I do not wish to discuss the specifics of my marriage any more than necessary, but I will say that Arabella enjoyed manipulation, and I cannot abide it. That is why I have insisted upon honesty and obedience in our relationship,” he said. “That is why I am laying my cards on the table now, so that you know what kind of man you would be taking on.”
Livy thought of the secrets she was keeping, and a shiver passed through her. Surely her actions weren’t comparable to Arabella’s. She wasn’t trying to manipulate Ben. She just wanted to do what she loved while being with the man she loved. How she wished she could tell him everything. Yet she knew he wouldn’t understand and, even worse, would try to stop her.
He’d been furious upon discovering her presence at both the Black Lion and Cremorne Gardens. He’d stated in no uncertain terms that putting her life and reputation at risk was unacceptable, for any reason. Thinking of how he’d nearly broken things off with her at the pleasure gardens cinched her throat. Even now, facing a foe like Fong, he refused to let her get involved.
I cannot lose him, she thought desperately. But I cannot let go of my purpose either.
“I have disgusted you.”
Ben’s stark words joggled her. Realizing that he’d misinterpreted her silence for rejection, she reached across the table to touch his hand.
“Nothing you have said has changed my mind about our future,” she said.
“Do you mean that?” His fingers gripped hers, and the hope on his face was heart-wrenching to witness. It was the look of a desert traveler who spots an oasis but fears it might be a mirage. “After everything I have done?”
She crossed over to him, and he rose immediately. He towered over her, the need in his eyes a vulnerable contrast to the sharp slash of his cheekbones, the honed muscularity of his form. Although he was older than her and far more experienced, she realized that she had something to teach him.
“I love you, Ben,” she said softly. “No matter what and for as long as we both shall live. That is what love is all about.”
“Livy.” His serrated voice scored her insides with a blend of beauty and pain. “I know I don’t deserve you, but I cannot let you go.”
“Then don’t.” She took his granite-hard jaw in her hands. “And I won’t let you go either.”
She felt a tremor go through him. Then he snatched her into his arms, slamming his mouth onto hers with fierce possession.
25
Kissing Livy drove Ben mad with desire on a normal day. Following her unconditional acceptance of his flaws, the taste and feel of her made him feel like a starved beast. Her plush mouth was bliss against his own, and he knew
there was more to savor. He licked her seam, and her instant parting of her lips injected steel into his cock. He drove his tongue inside, laying claim to her honeyed cove, her moan setting off a howl of need inside him.
The urge to back her into a wall, toss up her skirts, and sheath himself inside her tight pussy nearly overwhelmed him, as if he were a greenling randy for his first wench. He wasn’t that inexperienced boy any longer, however—hadn’t been for over a decade. When it came to his sexual history, he had plenty of regrets; the one thing he was glad for was that experience had taught him self-control.
Before Livy, he’d enjoyed dominance. With Livy, he craved it. Her surrender wasn’t just a game for an evening or a whim to indulge: it was an act of love and trust. When she melted for him, her sweetness filled the cracks of his parched soul. His spirited little queen submitted to him and him alone…and this made him harder than a steel pike.
He lifted her into his arms. She felt like thistledown, her soft smallness arousing him. Clutching his shoulders, she stared at him with lust-glazed eyes as he carried her into his bedchamber. He set her down by the foot of the bed. Turning her so that she faced the bedpost, he wrapped her fingers around the dark pole.
Standing behind her, he said in her ear, “Hold on for balance while I undress you.”
“Yes, Ben,” she said breathily.
“I like hearing you say my name.” He swept her long curls off her nape, planting a kiss there, relishing her shiver of response. “Tell me, were you a good girl for me last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hearing her embarrassment, he smiled to himself. He had no problem with her indulging in a bit of self-play; indeed, he planned to watch her doing it someday. Yet he also knew that keeping his naughty miss on edge would deepen the pleasure, for both of them.
“Then you shall have a reward, as promised,” he said.
He started working on the pearl buttons along the back of her gown, stirred by their delicate tenacity and the enchanting, precise moment when they popped free of their silken loops. He wanted Livy to come undone for him. Wanted it as badly as he wanted to tenderly put her together again afterward. The possessiveness he felt for her was matched only by his protectiveness. He alone would play with his wanton miss, and he would never, ever allow her to get hurt.
Even tonight, he would not do anything irrevocable. He would not take her maidenhead until his ring was upon her finger. She was so damned precious, and he would not dishonor her trust in him. And knowing that he was about to embark on a perilous mission, that it might be weeks before he held her in his arms again, he was determined to make tonight one that they would dream about when they were apart.
Livy’s gown whispered to the ground, and his blood heated at the sight of her in her unmentionables. They were crisply modest, white linen edged with the finest lace. He expertly released her petticoats and started loosening her corset strings.
“I like undressing you,” he murmured.
She twisted her head, raising her brows at him. “You are remarkably practiced at it.”
“Enough sauce from you, little brat.” He tugged on the strings for her impudence, just enough to make her breathless, the way he liked her. “You need someone older and more experienced to keep you in hand. You would run roughshod over some namby-pamby chap like Sheffield.”
“Beg pardon.” She gave him a coquettish look. “Who is Sheffield again?”
“Now you’re learning,” he said with approval. “Turn around and arms up, sweeting.”
She did as he asked, and he pulled her chemise over her head. His lungs strained as he saw her bare for the first time. He’d never seen anything half as erotic as Livy, bashful and blushing all over. Her exquisite breasts heaved, her thighs squeezing together above the shell-pink stockings he decided then and there to leave on. And between her legs was the prettiest little pussy he’d ever beheld.
When she tried to cross her arms over her breasts, he stopped her. Maneuvering her back against the bedpost, he placed her hands above her head, curving her fingers around the grooved wood.
“Stay like that,” he told her.
“This is rather immodest.” Roses bloomed in her cheeks, but she didn’t move.
“When you are with me, you have no need for modesty.” He tipped her chin up, looking into her beautifully discomfited eyes. “I want nothing between us, not even clothing. And you have nothing to hide.” His voice thickened as he swept his gaze over her nubile form. “By Jove, you are a goddess, and I mean to worship at your temple.”
He kissed her again. Plundered her mouth until she was panting, squirming against the bedpost. He winnowed out pleasure from her sensitive spots, flicking her earlobe with his tongue, sampling the silken column of her neck. He palmed her breasts, appreciating their rounded heft. She gasped as he thumbed the stiffened pink tips.
“Do you like it when I pet your tits, love?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she moaned.
“Would you like me to kiss them?” He chuckled at her expression: a bit surprised, mostly intrigued. “I think you would.”
Bending his head, he dropped a kiss on the slope of her right breast. Her flesh was firm and supple and carried her intoxicating scent. He licked his way around the smooth mound, circling his way to her areola. He blew against the straining peak, and she trembled like a leaf.
“Offer yourself to me. No, keep your hands on the bedpost,” he murmured. “Arch your back and present your breast to my mouth.”
Although Livy had never swooned in her life, she thought there might be a chance of it now. She adored Ben’s imperious manner, which made her feel demure and daring at the same time. She wanted to do anything he asked of her. To worship him, this beautiful, complex man whose strength and vulnerability made him god-like in her eyes. The desire to please him was as urgent as the need to take her next breath.
Her gaze on his, she arched her back, thrusting her breast toward his lips. When she couldn’t quite get the burgeoned tip to his mouth, she stood on tiptoe, holding onto the bedpost for balance. The weeks of training with Charlie paid off in an unexpected way; although her muscles trembled under the strain of the pose, she was strong and flexible, managing to touch her nipple to his waiting lips.
He rewarded her with a proprietary kiss on the sensitive bud, the brief swirl of his tongue threatening her ability to maintain her posture. Her knees wobbled as he placed a gentle kiss on the other nipple.
“Such a good girl. You may relax.” The warmth in his gaze washed through her, and she sagged against the pole. “Since you asked for my kiss so nicely, you shall have it.”
Then his mouth was on her breast, and pleasure consumed her. Who knew that it would feel this good to be suckled here? He did things with his tongue that forced whimpers from her throat. When he drew on her nipple, she felt a corresponding tug in her pussy, a gush of honeyed heat between her thighs. He switched to her other breast, going back and forth until she was writhing against the wood.
She was so lost in the sensations that it took her a moment to realize that his kisses were migrating downward, his tongue tracing over her ribs. Her hips bucked when he drew a circle around her navel. He kept going, his lips traversing her quivering abdomen and then…
Going down on one knee, he planted his hands on the insides of her thighs, pushing them apart. Her breathing grew fitful as he studied her sex. He was examining a part of her that she, herself, hadn’t really looked at. Yet there he was, scrutinizing her as if she were on the block at Tattersalls, and she didn’t know why it aroused her. When he parted her with his thumbs, she felt faint with mortification and need.
“How pretty you are.” His gaze consumed her. Then he leaned forward, and she cried out at the hot swipe of his tongue along her private cleft. “And even sweeter than I remembered. I am going to want more of this pussy, most definitely. Slide your leg over my shoulder.”
Helpless to his command, she did as he bade, resting her knee on his br
oad shoulder. The flexing bulge of his deltoid muscle pushed against the back of her knee, the rough silk of his hair brushing her inner thighs. His breath gusted warmly against her quivering pussy. She squirmed against the wooden pole when he inhaled deeply, his eyelids growing heavy.
“You remind me of a peach,” he rasped. “Juicy and ripe.”
He licked her again, this time long and slow. Pleasure obliterated her thoughts as he feasted on her as if she were a delectable morsel. Gripping her bottom, he kept her spread for his masterful devouring. Swirls and flicks, hard sucks and forceful thrusts of his tongue took her to her peak. When he laved her pearl with rough, demanding strokes, she shattered. Ecstasy melted her bones, and she would have collapsed had he not been supporting her, holding her steady, his mouth tenderly coaxing out every blissful spasm.
He rose then, towering over her like some god of carnality. When he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, it came away wet with her excesses. His eyes on hers, he stripped off his frock coat. The fact that he was still dressed while she was naked and panting from her climax sent an illicit thrill through her…as did the prominent ridge at the front of his trousers.
“You may let go of the bedpost,” he said.
She hadn’t realized that she was still holding on. Even in the depths of passion, she had followed his sensual command. It pleased her, and she could tell it pleased him too when she let go of the wood, stretching her arms this way and that. He ran his hands along her shoulders, and she moaned as he expertly massaged out the knots.
“Are you sore, sweeting?” he murmured.
“Quite the opposite,” she assured him. “I feel rather limber.”
His lips twitched. “Then on your knees, little queen.”
Olivia and the Masked Duke Page 20