Lords of Passion

by Virginia Henley

  With a harsh sound of need, he brought her upright and down onto his thick waiting cock. Her scream was buried in his mouth as his hands took control of her hips. He soon had her moving up and down his shaft, bringing her closer and closer to a fiery explosion that threatened to shatter them both.

  She climaxed and heard him groan, his fingers like iron bands on her hips keeping her down onto his still hard flesh. With a roar he stood up and, still holding her, returned to the narrow cot where he laid her down and continued to pound into her. His strokes shorter, yet more powerful, his mouth fused with hers as he came deep inside her.

  She came again wrapping her arms and legs around him, biting his shoulder simply because she could, and because she wanted him to experience the wildness of the feelings he aroused in her.

  Nicholas levered himself away from Louisa and stared down at her ruined shift. With a smile, he drew his dagger and slit it from top to bottom. Her breasts were flushed, her nipples hard and tight. Between her legs his cock still nestled, trapped in her luscious folds. Even as he enjoyed their joined flesh, his cock demanded more and began to fill out. He withdrew and crawled up the bed until he straddled her breasts. He wrapped his fist around the base of his shaft and touched the tip to her mouth.

  “Make me hard again, wench. You know how to do it.” She didn’t argue and he liked that, liked that she had fallen so happily into the character of the heroine and allowed him to flaunt himself as the pirate captain. The lurid dialogue from the book might be ridiculous, but it had created a curious sensation in his loins and on his lady. Perhaps he should consider it a fine work of literature after all.

  He leaned forward and eased the thick crown of his cock between Louisa’s lips. He was already half-erect and it wouldn’t take much to have him wanting her again. And he intended to fuck her to the best of his ability. She should never forget this night, or the many nights that were to come. Never forget that he was all the man she needed—with a little help from her obviously fully fleshed-out fantasies.

  “My lady …” He moved his hips into the rhythm of her sucking, let the pleasure build slowly before he withdrew his cock from her mouth. “Turn around and place your hands on the wall.” She got onto her knees and turned away from him. He paused, one hand stroking his shaft, to admire the sleek curve of her arse, her back, and the wetness already sliding down between her thighs. His seed, his woman. His to do anything he wanted to—if she was agreeable.

  Nicholas knelt behind her and rubbed his aching cock against the crease of her buttocks. He reached around to cup her breasts, stroked his thumbs over her nipples.

  “You are beautiful, my captive. I’m going to enjoy taking you like this, from behind, where I can play with your breasts and your pretty little sex, where you can only open yourself to me and beg me never to stop, to stay inside you forever.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d long forgotten the script he’d so carefully learned. Louisa needed to know that sex was not all pretty words, that it could be graphic and crude and messy. He needed to know that she could accept him as he was, his wet, hard cock demanding entrance as often as he could persuade her to accept him.

  On that thought, he slid inside her, enjoyed the way her muscles clamped down on his shaft, the heated wet glide of her flesh against his hardness, the kick of her heartbeat. She could be enough for him: he sensed it, perhaps had known it from the very first. If only he’d allowed himself to see it.

  Louisa came again, and again he kept moving. She was moaning his name constantly now, the pleasure so intense and her body so sensitive that she’d forgotten how many times she’d taken him inside her. He’d demanded everything she’d had to give, taken her to heights of pleasure that she’d never dreamed of, shown her quite comprehensively that even dressed as a pirate he put all fictional pirate heroes in the shade.

  With a deep satisfied groan, Nicholas collapsed over her, his breathing as erratic as her own, his heartbeat slowing and finally returning to normal.

  “Nicholas?”

  “Hmm …?”

  “Whenever I dreamed about the pirate captain, he always had your face. I always hoped …”

  He rolled off her and lay beside her, his blue gaze fixed on hers. “Hoped what?”

  “That you’d be my hero. In bed or out of it.”

  His mouth curved in his generous smile. “I’m glad to have been of service, my lady.” He brushed the corner of her mouth with his fingertip. “And I’m also glad that you told me about that blasted book.”

  She wanted to blush but had neither the energy nor the necessary shame left to try. “There is another book that I love almost as well as this one.”

  He came up on one elbow and looked down at her. “There’s another one?”

  She smiled into his eyes, finally confident that if he was willing to go this far to please her, he would be willing to continue entertaining her deepest fantasies. “Well, there is this knight who returns from the Crusades …”

  He placed his finger over her lips. “Perhaps you could tell Madame Helene about it. I’m sure she’d love to help you.”

  Louisa sat up, wincing as her body protested. “You asked Madame Helene to help you organize all this?” Nicholas shrugged. “That is her business, to provide opportunities for her guests to enjoy their most erotic fantasies.”

  “Did you come here earlier this week, then?”

  “I did.”

  Louisa smiled at him. “That explains why April was so concerned about me the other day. She must have heard the rumors that you were out on the prowl again.”

  His brows drew together as he glared down at her. “And you assumed I would do that?”

  “I was told that every man eventually takes a mistress, and that I should be grateful you intended to spare me the worst of your bestial nature.”

  “April never said that load of ridiculous drivel, did she?”

  “No, that was my mother. April just assured me that it was not my fault, and that when I had provided you with an heir or two, I should take a lover of my own.”

  Louisa gasped as Nicholas brought her back down onto the bed and loomed over her. “You will not take a lover.”

  “If you will not take a mistress.”

  “I have no intention of taking a mistress. I saw what havoc and humiliation that caused my mother and sister. I have no desire to do that to my own wife!”

  His biting words no longer scared her. She wrapped a hand around his neck and kissed his nose. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He kissed her and his voice sounded gruff. “Then you believe me?”

  A warm sensation coalesced in the region of her heart. “Why would I not? You’ve stooped to reading and acting out a gothic novel in a sexual pleasure house just to show me how happy you intend to keep me in bed. What else could a man do to show that he cares?”

  “What indeed?” He moved away from her and handed her the remnants of her shift. “You might want to cover yourself before you move away from the bed.”

  She studied the ruined garment. “Why is that?”

  He grinned as he stood up stark-naked and bowed toward the other end of the room. “Did I forget to mention that these rooms are sometimes opened to the other guests? I wonder if they enjoyed it as much as we did?”

  Louisa stared at him open mouthed. Was he telling her the truth? She grabbed the sheet from the bed and hastily wrapped it around her. Nicholas offered her his hand to help her crawl off the bed, and Louisa buried her face in Nicholas’s chest.

  Nicholas started to chuckle. “It’s all right, my love. There’s no one there. I’d hardly do that to you on our first night here. Mayhap another time?”

  She thumped him hard on the chest, and he laughed even more and hugged her tightly. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do to get back at him yet, but she was certain that with Madame Helene’s help, she’d find a way. Nicholas led her through another door where a maid helped her dress in a different set of clothing t
hat Nicholas had brought for her.

  She met him in the hallway, her mask firmly in place, her smile bright. He looked down at her, his head on one side. “You have forgiven me, then?”

  “For tonight.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “The pleasure you brought me far outweighed the embarrassment.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He hesitated. “I would never do that to you; publicly humiliate you with another woman.”

  She smiled into his eyes. “I know. And I doubt I will ever want another man in the way I want you.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. “I love you, Nicholas. I know that is a terribly unfashionable thing to say to one’s husband, but I do love you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you arguing with April at her birthday party.”

  He touched her cheek. “Even though she is infuriating, I love her, too.” His smile was beautiful. “And, although I cannot claim to have fallen in love with you over the tea cups at April’s, I do love you.”

  “Then we are lucky, aren’t we?”

  “Lucky?”

  “To be married and thus free to be as unfashionably devoted to each other as we wish.”

  “We can start a new fashion,” Nicholas said. “We’ll become as popular as my sister for our devotion to each other.” His gaze darkened. “Would you like to go home? I’d like to see you naked in my bed, and love to sleep beside you.”

  Louisa bit her lip. “As long as we can come back here one night.”

  He grinned. “I’ll ask Madame Helene if she’ll renew my membership. If you are included, I’m sure she’d be more than happy to oblige.”

  “And you’ll ask her about my medieval knight?”

  He pretended to groan, but she knew he was intrigued by the idea. Louisa smiled at her husband, the man not only of her reality, but of her dreams. And what possibly could be better than that?

  Not Quite a Courtesan

  MAGGIE ROBINSON

  Chapter One

  London, 1818

  Darius Shaw had been in many vermin-infested hovels before, most recently a berth of The Star of the East, docked right outside this filthy ale house. But his current surroundings quite took his breath away. He devoutly wished they would rob him of his sense of smell, too, and at the same time improve his hearing, for his brother Cyrus made no sense at all.

  “Tell me again. Slower this time. You eloped with Sophia?”

  “Sophronia actually, but as that’s such a mouthful everyone calls her Sophy. Met her in Bath. She’s a taking little thing with pots and pots of money. An orphan in the nominal care of a sickly aunt but guarded by her dragon-cousin. The woman wouldn’t let her out of her sight, but you know us Shaws. Creative, we are. I managed. And then I had a stroke of luck. The aunt died and I seized my chance.”

  Darius rolled his eyes. “You eloped with a grieving child?”

  Cyrus shrugged, unapologetic. “The aunt had been ill for years. Everybody knew it. Kept Sophy away from society, which was all the better for me, ‘cause she don’t know a thing about the Shaws. Well,” he reflected, “she does now. When she opened Carmela’s letter, all hell broke loose! Threw me out, she did. Wouldn’t listen to a word I said, even when I told her I loved her.” Cyrus rubbed a healing bruise under his eye rather furtively. Darius pictured a vase, good-quality but altogether unexceptional, being tossed in Cyrus’s direction and hitting its mark. He liked Sophy already.

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Love her, Cyrus,” Darius said, losing patience.

  Cyrus waved a hand in the direction of the tavern wench. “Whatever love is. She’s really very sweet. I could love her if I set my mind to it.”

  Darius hoped his brother would not share these unsatisfactory sentiments with his new bride, or he’d never get back into her good graces and bank account. “So you’ve been staying on Jane Street—Courtesan Court—with Carmela. That should placate your wife.” Darius’s sarcasm was evident. His brother had inherited the Shaw looks and the Shaw charm, but none of the Shaw brains as far as he could tell.

  “Where else was I to go? Haven’t a sou. Carmela’s a nice old bird. I can see why Uncle Algy popped off in her arms.”

  A great deal had happened since Darius left England, one of which was that he and his brother were now the owners of a fully furnished love nest on Jane Street thanks to their dead uncle Algernon. The house was one of a dozen in that exclusive enclave that held the crème de la crème of mistresses—“Courtesan Court” as it was known to the ton. Unfortunately, the house also came with Carmela de Castro, who was not interested in vacating the premises until she got a proper congé after the indignity she suffered lying under their uncle’s seventy-odd-year-old inert body for several uncomfortable minutes until her servants heeded her shrieks and pulled him off. While Carmela had kept her girlish figure, Uncle Algy had liked his dinner and his port a touch too much.

  Neither Cyrus nor Darius had much ready cash. All of Darius’s dubious riches were tied up in the tower of boxes that were piled outside on the wharf. The brothers couldn’t very well sell the property “as is,” with a rather mature Carmela in residence.

  “So you see, you have to talk to her. I’m not getting anywhere.”

  “Talk to Sophy or Carmela?”

  Cyrus snorted. “Carmela, of course. I can handle Sophy. Once I get close enough.”

  “And how do you propose I sweet-talk a sixty-year-old whore?”

  “She’s not an ordinary whore. She’s still a looker, you know. And she knows more about the classics than I do.”

  That would not be difficult. Anyone was smarter than Cyrus. “I haven’t any money left—it took all I had to come home,” Darius said.

  “Give her a trinket or two from your collection. You must have something in all that muck she’d like.”

  Darius hoped that what he brought back to his homeland was not muck. He had a good eye, and, unlike his brother, had paid close attention in his classics class. He also had buyers lined up to own very unique pieces of history if he could just find the time to unpack the crates. But he’d have to deal with his brother’s domestic difficulties first.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He rose, thinking of anything he had handy in his portmanteau. The thought of rummaging through all the boxes on the pier was rather daunting for a variety of reasons. Besides, most of the valuables within were already promised to his clientele.

  They would not think kindly if he gave away their precious artifacts to a prostitute past her prime.

  Cyrus brightened. “I knew I could count on you! I’ve been following the papers, hanging about the docks looking for The Star of the East every day for a week. I want to go home, Darius. You can move into Jane Street yourself once you get rid of Carmela. Although you might want to keep her on. She makes a delicious flan.”

  If Carmela were two decades younger, Darius might have reached an accommodation with her, for she had been one of the most sought-after mistresses in her day. He hadn’t had sex in a very long while, but he was not about to embark on an affair with a woman old enough to be his mother, even if she could cook.

  Gentlemen didn’t live on Jane Street. They merely visited when the urge took them. But Cyrus’s scheme had some advantages—Darius wasn’t about to move in with his brother and spoil his honeymoon for the second time, and he couldn’t afford a decent hotel. On Jane Street he’d have a place to store his boxes and inventory them, too, sparing him the expense of renting a warehouse. He could conduct his sales right at the discreet private address, which, considering the type of objets he dealt in, was rather fitting. Darius hated to admit it, but for once Cyrus might have a worthwhile idea.

  “Keep away from the house for a few hours.”

  “Where am I to go?” Cyrus asked. “Carmela expects me back. We play bezique every afternoon.”

  No doubt the courtesan won every hand, too. “Take a walk. Stay here and finish your pint.”

  Cyrus squinted at the foul m
ud-brown liquid. “All right. I’ll keep an eye on your boxes.”

  “No need of that. Malcolm’s on it. Just tell him to bring them around to Jane Street.”

  “You’re so sure you can convince Carmela?”

  “I,” said Darius Shaw, “am Darius Shaw.” He had faced caliphs. Consuls. Reputed cannibals. He was sure one courtesan of a certain age would pose no trouble.

  Prudence Thorne lifted her veil and examined the painting on the parlor wall. It was positively indecent, yet compelling just the same. She angled her head like a curious wren inspecting a worm, imagining the logistics of such a position. Certainly she never herself had occasion to find herself tangled up just so. If Carmela de Castro had remained, Pru might have asked her about its feasibility, but Senora de Castro was on her way back to Seville—or, more likely, Tunbridge Wells—with Sophy’s second-best jewel case and a fistful of pounds.

  Pru had been unable to dissuade her cousin from flinging her bits and bobs at the courtesan, who had seemed quite pleased with her payoff. Senora de Castro had left almost immediately with her elderly maid and her elderly manservant, asking Pru to explain to Mr. Shaw when he came home that he was no longer responsible for her and her ancient entourage, and could he possibly pack up her books and send them to her when she was settled?

  Sophy had not flung her bits and bobs personally. Through a storm of tears and entreaties, she had begged Pru to do the flinging for her, and Pru, ever a loyal cousin, had girded her loins, donned her veil, and done so. And now she was responsible for the disposition of a courtesan’s library, whatever horror it might hold.

  Part of Pru’s motivation coming to Jane Street had been to reunite her young cousin with her worthless husband. Despite the difference in their ages, Pru cared for Sophy, even if she was silly and romantic. She had virtually raised the girl alone because Pru’s widowed mother had been an invalid for years and couldn’t even be bothered to raise her own daughter. It was Pru who arranged for Sophy’s schooling—not that much had sunk in—Pru who met with Sophy’s trustees, Pru who should have been chaperoning with more vigilance. She blamed herself for Sophy’s runaway marriage. If Cyrus Shaw did not appreciate the prize he had in his innocent eighteen-year-old wife and preferred to while his time away on this indecent street, she was about to tell him where his duty lay.