“You’re most welcome to touch my parts whenever you wish.” He dipped his hips until his erection brushed her belly. Through his trousers and her dress, the heat burned like a brand.
He was a big man. Of course he was. He had too much swagger to suffer any lack of confidence about his manhood.
She placed both hands on the broad expanse of his chest. She pushed, but it was like struggling to shift a huge slab of sun-warmed rock. His scent surrounded her. Soap. Clean skin. Arousal. Physically he was more overwhelming than any lover she’d ever known. It wasn’t just Erith’s size and power, but some deep source of energy that made the air around him buzz and swirl. Like he created his own weather wherever he went. Storm or sunshine.
She shoved harder and he made a scornful sound deep in his throat. “Give up, Olivia. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. We’re destined to end up in this bed. You don’t need special techniques to seduce me. You seduced me the moment I saw you.”
Desperately she studied his face, seeking some weakness. She saw only adamantine will and the burning regard of a man intent on having a woman. There was no help there. She was canny enough to realize she’d lost this particular battle.
“All right,” she whispered, using the voice that gained her unfailing sway over simple male animals.
“All right?” He sounded suspicious. “As easy as that?”
A reminder that while he was definitely a male—she couldn’t mistake that hard seeking organ in his trousers—he was more complex than most members of his sex. She trod such a fine line between overestimating his power and underestimating his cleverness, which she grimly recognized as prodigious. Managing Lord Erith was like crossing a river full of hungry crocodiles on a fraying rope bridge.
“Don’t think too long and hard, my lord, or the offer may disappear,” she said sourly.
“Long and hard sounds good,” he murmured, brushing her belly again and sending searing heat shooting through her.
“Self-praise is no recommendation,” she snapped. “Let me up from this ridiculous position and we’ll begin.”
Another huff of laughter and no attempt to obey. “You sound like a stiff-rumped governess. It’s strangely arousing.”
She studied Lord Erith’s vivid features and reached a decision that had nibbled at the edge of her mind for a long time. He was the last man she’d sleep with for money. Given her contempt for all males, that meant he was the last man she slept with.
She’d play the old game to its end with Lord Erith then retreat to private life. Olivia Raines, queen of courtesans, would be no more.
Thank God.
But freedom must wait until pride was satisfied. Right now, she had to control a rampant and very large male.
Control. Her favorite word. Lord Erith’s too, she’d wager.
“You’d like me to lie here while you do what you wish?” Sarcasm tinged her question. “It’s a waste when you’ve paid a fortune for my skills. But I live to serve, my lord.”
“I applaud your conscientiousness in making sure I get value for money.”
His face was alight with reckless amusement as he bent to kiss the base of her throat where her pulse bucked and kicked like a maddened horse. His gesture delivered the message that he knew how nervous she was beneath her hard-won and completely artificial sangfroid.
He raised his head, his eyes still sparkling with laughter. “Are you always this cold-blooded with your lovers? Analyzing your actions, their actions, who has the upper hand?”
No, she wasn’t. Usually her lovers were so dazzled at the prospect of bedding the legendary Olivia Raines that she merely expressed her slightest wish and it was done.
Lord Erith undoubtedly wanted her. But he was nowhere near dazzled, curse him. He went on without waiting for an answer. “Kissing you becomes more appealing by the minute.”
Beneath her appearance of indifference, she suppressed a shudder. Nothing he’d done to her tonight compared to suffering his mouth on hers yesterday. “You can kiss me. Just not on the lips.”
“Very generous.” He rolled to the side and stood up. “Come here.”
She sucked in her first full breath since he’d caught her up in his arms. “More orders?”
“Of course.” He took her hand. She waited for him to haul her to her feet, but he drew her up very gently. When she reached for his neckcloth, he lifted a hand to still her busy fingers. “I want to undress you.”
“We’ve only got until July,” she said with asperity. “Perhaps you should begin.”
“Your impatience is flattering.”
His long narrow mouth curved in a full smile, carving deep grooves in his tanned cheeks. He was a handsome man when he was somber. Smiling, he was breathtaking. Her wayward heart abandoned its wild gallop for one lost moment and ceased beating altogether.
He raised his hand. She waited, with a breathless tension she was ashamed to admit, for him to paw at her bodice. Instead, he carefully slid a pin from her hair. One long tendril of shiny brown uncoiled to snake across the top of her bosom, revealed under the low neckline of her gown.
He lifted the lock and rubbed it between his fingers. “Pretty.”
Fleetingly she was a child again, watching her father test wool shorn from his tenants’ sheep. Sad nostalgia stifled the barbed retort that rose in her throat.
Slowly he pulled out another pin. Another tendril fell. And another. And another. Until the elaborate confection her maid had tortured her hair into was only a memory.
Lord Erith stroked the thick brown mass, smoothing tangles, straightening kinks. His eyes shone with fascination. He brought a handful of hair to his face.
“It smells like flowers.” He dropped her hair and buried his face in the curve of her neck, where he’d bitten, then kissed her. “You smell like flowers.”
“It’s the bouquets.”
“No, it’s not.”
His hands dropped to the hooks that ran up the back of her gown. In spite of all her experience, the dedicated attention he paid to undressing her had its own allure. With practiced ease he undid her gown and slid it off her shoulders. The room was warm with the candles and the fire in the grate. Still she shivered as air glanced over the bare skin of arms and shoulders.
Carefully, he drew her sleeves down over her hands so the bodice fell to her waist. She stood in her light corset and shift. Perhaps because tonight she didn’t control the encounter, her near nakedness before a stranger gave her a frisson of discomfort. She raised her chin and swallowed to moisten a throat dry with nerves.
Her corset was delicately embroidered with ivy leaves and tulips. His attention fell to where her breasts mounded above the lace edging. His breathing wasn’t as steady as it had been. When he raised his eyes, the gray was soft and deep like endless sea fog. Brittle excitement glowed like banked embers behind that gaze. The slightest spark would ignite his desire into an inferno.
“Turn around,” he said gruffly. Definitely, his restraint wore thin.
Without a word, she presented her back and stretched to push aside her hair so he could unlace her corset. It sagged and she shrugged it away. She faced him, clad in her transparent shift. The silk was so fine that her light brown nipples were clearly visible. Her breasts were small but round. Even though she was over thirty, they’d hardly sagged. She wasn’t ashamed of her body. It was as lean and spare as it had been in girlhood.
She wondered if Lord Erith preferred a fuller figure. Then wondered why she wondered. Current fashions didn’t conceal her shape. He couldn’t expect to discover a generous bosom under her clothing.
Her brief and uncharacteristic insecurity vanished as a delighted smile crossed his face, making him look much younger. “Perfect,” he said softly.
She lifted the hem of her shift, but again he reached out to stay her. “Let me.”
She stood like a puppet, raising her arms as he pulled the shift over her head. Was he this careful with all his lovers? Even she, inured to any m
an’s touch, found this slow unveiling piquant. One would almost imagine he cared about the woman he bedded as more than just a willing body.
A pity he wasted his concentrated attention on a woman who couldn’t appreciate it.
Still, she didn’t resist when he placed his hands on her bare shoulders and gently but firmly pushed her back onto the bed so she lay spread before him. He slid her shoes and stockings off then surveyed her with deceptively sleepy eyes. She wasn’t fooled. He was about as sleepy as a starving leopard stalking a herd of antelope.
He shucked off his coat and flung it across the carved chair that backed against the elegant lemon and navy striped wallpaper. Then those deft hands lifted to his neckcloth. A few economical movements and he stood barefoot and bare-chested.
He was built like a wrestler. No, like a lithe young boxer, for all that he must be nearly forty. This was a man in the prime of life. His chest was heavy with muscle. Hair covered his pectorals then narrowed to disappear into his waistband. His shoulders were straight and wide, and his arms bulged with power.
He straddled her, his heat an enveloping blanket. The air felt thick as soup, heavy with the spice of his arousal and the sweetness of the flowers. Every breath clogged her lungs. As she braced for his possession, her fists clenched.
Still he delayed. He brushed his fingers along her body. Discovering the straight line of her shoulders. Tracing the hard collarbone. He shaped her flanks, running his hands down her ribs to the curve of her waist. Testing the gentle flare of hips, the firmness of thighs.
She shifted restlessly at last. This slow seduction disturbed her. Why didn’t he touch her breasts, her sex? Why didn’t he just push her legs apart and take her?
He cupped her breasts. The nipples had contracted into hard points, and he bent to kiss one whorled tip. His mouth was hot on her flesh, hotter when he took her into his mouth. Erith shifted his attention to her other breast, nuzzling and suckling as if she were some delicious piece of exotic fruit.
For a long time she lay unmoving beneath his ministrations. The sensation of his lips on her skin wasn’t unpleasant. She’d certainly known men less skilled.
He drew away and stood, his hands going to his trousers. He removed the last of his clothing with another of those adept movements.
She should have been prepared for his nakedness. But even so experienced a courtesan as she felt the breath catch in her throat at the sight of Lord Erith wearing nothing but his skin.
He was superb in his masculinity.
There was nothing of the boy in him. Nothing unformed or undeveloped. Just confidence and virility and strength. Most men seemed diminished once they shed their clothing. Like snails without their shells. Lord Erith was only more vital. Slowly, her scrutiny traveled from his large feet, over his long powerful legs, to where his penis jutted, thick and large, from its nest of black curls.
The inevitable moment was upon her. When a man crushed her down on a bed and forced his swollen member inside her. The odd stasis that held her quiescent shattered. Her heart began to race and her muscles tightened with automatic resistance.
She’d had no chance to don the impenetrable mental armor of Olivia Raines, queen of the demimonde. She’d had no chance to convince Erith that no matter how he tried, he’d never possess her completely. Her ultimate unattainability always cowed her lovers into allowing her sway.
But tonight, with Lord Erith, everything was different. Why? Why? Why?
She resisted pulling the sheet up. Modesty was a luxury she hadn’t enjoyed since she was fourteen. Real and unwelcome emotion vibrated through her and left her vulnerable.
Then she realized he no longer constrained her. At least she could make her most essential preparation for a lover. A preparation she usually took in private before she summoned her keeper. She rolled away and reached for a small ceramic pot on the bedside cabinet.
A powerful hand came down and circled her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“It’s…it’s an unguent that increases pleasure.” She cursed the faint stammer. Good God! No man made her stutter. You’d think she hiked her skirts for her first customer.
“We won’t need it.” He angled her stiff body so she faced him. Naked, large, powerful, he knelt over her, leaving her nowhere to hide.
“The cream helps prevent conception,” she said flatly. It wasn’t true but it made a convincing argument.
Or should have.
“I’ll withdraw,” he said implacably. The gray eyes were burningly intense as they studied her. “I want to feel you and you alone the first time I fuck you.”
She felt the blood drain from her cheeks. At his strong language and at the determination behind it. “My lord, I claim a certain freedom in my liaisons.”
“So you’ve told me,” he said with a trace of weariness.
“Sorry if I’m boring you,” she snapped.
His lips took on a sardonic twist. “I expect you’ll be interesting enough in a few moments.”
She grabbed for the unguent but he was too quick, snatching it out of reach. “No, Olivia.”
“You have no right to say that to me!”
“I claim the right.” With an abrupt movement, he pitched the little jar against the wall, where it shattered, splattering her precious ointment across the wallpaper. A pungent herbal reek overpowered the perfume of the flowers.
“Lord Erith…” She was more shocked than angry.
“I claim you,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. As though he hadn’t just acted like a barbarian. “Are you ready, Olivia?”
After his performance with the ceramic pot, she hadn’t expected such consideration. Hiding her reluctance under an impassive facade, she slipped down to lie outstretched.
“Yes.” Although she lied.
God give her strength and greater acting skills than she’d ever called upon before. She stared up at Lord Erith’s saturnine face and lifted her arms in silent invitation.
Chapter 4
Erith stared down at a woman desirable beyond the dreams of earthly men. And wondered why, through his boiling need, instinct screamed to be suspicious. Very suspicious.
But God help him, he was only human. The clarion call of hunger smothered any doubt.
As he knelt between her legs, his heart thundered and sweat chilled his burning skin. He bent to nibble and lick the side of her neck, breathing deep so her sweet essence penetrated his lungs. Her warm fragrance was more intoxicating than wine.
She moaned, a soft breathy sound of need.
He trailed his hand across her thigh to the bronze curls on her mons. His palm moved in delicate circles while he took her pert, perfect breast in his mouth. A shaft of pleasure pierced him. She tasted like honey on his tongue. As he drew hard on the puckered crest, she released a smothered cry and hooked her hands around his shoulders. He slid his hand lower to test the slick evidence of desire.
She was dry.
Shocked disbelief juddered through him. His hand stilled at the junction of her thighs. He wrenched his head up and stared into her face.
The face of a woman ripped by talons of desire.
What the hell was going on?
Her head tilted back, her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted in ecstasy. Her chest heaved as she fought for air. She moaned again. A rich, female, passionate sound. Her long slender legs framed his hips. She lay willing and open to his invasion.
“Take me,” she pleaded in a guttural voice, her hands kneading his shoulders.
She wanted him. Everything she did told him she wanted him.
Was he going mad? Carefully he stroked her sex again.
Not a trace of feminine dew.
Another moan. She pressed herself into his hand in a paroxysm of need.
His fingers clenched as confusion rocked his mind. Damn it, what part of her was a lie?
She was a goddess in his arms, everything he wanted. But what did she want? She wasn’t ready, whatever passion she pretended.
“Yes, oh, yes,” she hissed, grinding herself against his fingers in rapture.
Except rapture would make her moist and hot. Carefully, because dry as she was he could cause her discomfort, he pushed one finger into her. She surged up and bit him on the shoulder. The sharp nip of her teeth shot a blast of reaction through to his balls. He jerked and almost lost control.
All the time, his finger rasped in her dry passage.
Hell, he couldn’t be mistaken. Damn it all to Hades and back. This woman showed no physical signs of sexual response. Although she did a marvelous job of counterfeiting passion.
“Stop it,” he snarled, snatching his hand from her. She twisted as if she’d die unless he took her in the next second. The dishonesty of it all suddenly disgusted him. He ripped himself away and knelt over her, furious and naked and, Devil take her, nearly blind with unsatisfied lust. “I said stop it!”
As abruptly as if he’d tossed a bucket of icy water over her, the writhing siren vanished. When she opened her eyes, the topaz stare was clear and unglazed with passion.
Of course it was. That elaborate performance hadn’t been real.
What was real, unfortunately, was the excruciating ache in his nuts and a cock as hard and hot as an iron brand. He set his jaw and struggled to hold onto what few shreds of control he retained.
He’d never had a lover who hadn’t responded. It stung his vanity that Olivia was as cold in his arms as a tin automaton. And filled him with a regret that was the strongest emotion a woman had roused in years.
“What’s wrong?” She drew herself up against the head-board and curled her legs under her. She looked annoyed and not at all frustrated. He, on the other hand, harbored enough frustration to fill an ocean.
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