Good Lord! This time he was commenting about how wide he’d spread Lenora’s legs tonight and how tomorrow she would be unable to stand on stage with steady legs? How was Lenora not turning a burning shade of red?
For the first time ever, Clarissa’s face heated completely from chin to brow. She hid it so he would be unaware that she spoke French and knew all the little secretive, salacious things he was saying.
Damn him for making her cheeks color.
She stooped over, grabbing Lenora’s shoes so he wouldn’t see what was probably a very obvious scarlet-hued blush.
The man was a fiend.
“Watch out for the protesters outside,” Clarissa told Lenora while she slipped the shoes on without her help.
“They mean nothing to me.” Lenora sniffed, patted Clarissa’s hair like she was a pet and then grabbed a mask she had lying out on the counter.
Clarissa’s stomach tightened as she fought off a laugh. This strike on the theaters was the main reason Lenora was in high demand. The mediocre had risen because the creamy elite—the eloquent and distinguished—had left the stage to balk about better wages, better conditions for actors and their help.
“I do so detest masked parties,” Ferrismore groaned.
“They’re for people like me who have a reputation to protect,” Lenora huffed, then grabbed her hat.
Without a word, Clarissa pinned it in place into the snobby woman’s loose chignon.
Lenora gathered her reticule and her fan and held tight to her mask she’d already been gripping, then moved toward the door as if being carried on an ancient Roman litter.
Her nose was so high in the air the back of her hat almost grazed her shoulders.
“You forgot something,” Ferrismore said, rolling the tip of his shoe over what was undoubtedly another pearl Clarissa had lost.
He wore a fey smile as he handed her the broom he’d still been holding and then scuffed his shoe across the pearl, scraping it toward her.
She scowled and bit back a nasty curse.
“When ere we meet again, you taxing woman, I shall do more than watch you act the part of a consummate tease,” he told Clarissa in French with a glint in his eye.
He shut the door behind them.
She muttered back in the same smooth language, “Et vous chierez mes perles quand je les fourrerai aux fin fonds de votre gorge, espèce de porc.”
She went about gathering every last one those beads.
They might be needed later.
She tucked the one with his boot scuffs into her corset, up against her breast. This one she would certainly not lose.
* * *
The Vanderbilts’ home was lit up with sparkling lights, and the trees were all aglow.
William’s hand dug into Lenora’s wrist. She was dragging on purpose.
“How long must we be here?” she asked, making it sound like this would be tedious.
“Long enough to secure what I need,” he answered, then quickened his pace.
She stumbled a few times, her heels wobbling.
The woman was nearly as tall as he was in these heels, but with her tight dress, she could barely move her legs.
“You should have worn the other dress,” he said, giving her a cutting look.
“Why in God’s name would I wear a stage costume?” She fingered her mask.
“Because it had a slit, and I plan to have at least the bottom half of your dress up to your waist, ma putain.” He inhaled deeply. God, she smelled atrocious. Like a sweating mess, covered in cloying, spicy perfume.
Now that cherry girl—she smelled good. That frustrating maid’s simple scent was extremely appetizing compared to these noxious fumes Lenora was subjecting him to.
He leaned away a bit, trying to catch a breeze of something better.
“Excuse me,” a man in a simple suit and bowler hat said, passing by them.
He was short and puny, and he walked with a funny sway.
“Why would anyone come to this party in anything other than their best costume?” Lenora asked, wrinkling her nose at the passerby.
“I failed to dress up,” William pointed out.
“Yes, but you are allowed. This is your party.”
“Indeed it is,” he said, nodding, smiling and once more, quickening the pace.
When Lenora stumbled yet again, he picked her up and glared at her. “Vous êtes très belle. Je ne vous permettrai pas de tomber jusqu'à ce que ce soit sur mon lit.” He rubbed the tip of his nose along the arch of her cheek.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do not patronize me. I was too slow for your liking, and you are so randy, you cannot think of anything else but donning your sheath.” She took a breath. “I have no intention of being the place for your manhood to rut in tonight. I am here to socialize and find new friends in the business.”
“This is why I put you on that damnable stage,” he replied, giving her a condemning look, “so I would have a predictable place to ‘rut’ as you’ve so aptly put it.”
“I know, and I will give you what you want after I have seen to the production for over a week, not before.”
He dropped her to her feet. “You’ve only had two performances. You think I plan to wait five more days before I’m in that cunt?” He gripped her arms.
“I’m not a prostitute, Mr. Ferrismore—I’m an actress of the highest caliber,” she said, stiffening and straightening her spine.
He stepped into her, cupped a breast and squeezed as he snarled, “My money is paid for you to do whatever I damn well please, and that makes you the biggest tart around. I pay more for you than any call girl I’ve ever been with.”
“Then maybe you should—”
He leaned in and bit her cheek.
“Ahhhhh!” she yelped, then tried to smack him, but her reticule got tangled in her beading, and instead she fell on her curvy bottom.
She flopped around like a netted fish, screaming at him and calling him a cad.
He hovered over her with his arms crossed over his chest and smirking.
“Help me up, you miserable shit,” she said, reaching for him.
“I rather like you down there. It suits you.” He tilted his hips forward. “Since you are my tart, and I am paying you, I think I should like to test your filthy mouth out.”
“I’ll bite your cock off at the root if you try!”
He nudged her with the toe of his shoe. “Come, come . . . Be a good putain. Open up and say ‘Oh, ee, oh, ah, oh, ihhhhh,’” he sang, mocking her vocal warm-ups before she took to the stage.
“I’ve heard about you!” She pointed at him, and his stomach dropped. The blood drained out of his face. She kept going. “Yes, I know what a sick, deviant man you are! You tie women up in your garden, gag them and treat them worse tha—”
He crouched down and gripped her chin, shoving her mouth closed. “You listen to me, you little whore—I only brought you here to fuck you. I don’t care who else you use to create a temporary career out of. You keep your mouth shut, or I’ll send you back to the gutter where you belong.”
Her eyes misted.
“Nod if you agree,” he said, his fingers digging into her jaw.
She did it, struggling to swallow under his stare and the steel clasp on her face.
“Good girl.” He stood up, helped her to stand as well and then put an arm around her waist.
“I won’t allow you to talk to me like that again.” She sniffed.
“You’ll do whatever I damn well please,” he said, his jaw tight and the guilt building up inside him like snow on a mountain about to cause an avalanche. Could he ever find relief? Would anyone ever understand why he was this way and what he needed?
“William.” She stopped walking and shrugged out of his hold. “I’ll let you have my body—I’ll do whatever you say, but you cannot think this is acceptable.”
“The moment I want to hear what you have to say, I’ll tell you. Now be a silent tart and smile.” He prodded her i
nside and was immediately handing her some champagne.
He needed something stronger to dull the unending ache in his chest. Why did he have such a feral craving that he could scarcely control? Why couldn’t he find a way to quell it?
And why was he even with this woman who was using him for his connections? He could find someone else a little more agreeable than her.
He ambled away from her, trying to stop the furious thoughts plaguing him over what he wanted to do to a woman, and how it would all feel. Images assaulted him of his garden and the ropes he had ready to be used.
She ignored him and imbibed freely, spoke in her moronic French to the men around her, bumbling around yet somehow impressing them.
Most likely they saw only her breasts speaking to them.
Even though he’d warned her not to stray far, he was already sick of her and he was the one drifting in the opposite direction from where she’d planted herself.
She was not what he needed.
There was no fight in that woman, so he let her roam free.
His chest clenched when he imagined a woman that wanted the same things he did, and his head buzzed.
He burned inside for something more.
He craved bone and gristle and blood. He craved a grimy, sensual creature so base and carnal he could rip into its flesh and find the light.
A high note hung in the air as a singer at the end of the ballroom crooned about love and sensual delights.
He strode through the room, ignoring most of the masked beauties.
This was a ruse—a means to fuck a woman in public in a way she’d give in and have her identity concealed. It was time he took control of his urges and risk being caught.
“Pardon me, sir,” a servant said, handing him a glass of wine.
“I didn’t ask for this,” William said, refusing to take it.
“I apologize. I was told this was made specifically for you.” The man bowed, clicked his heels together and held it aloft before William’s face.
“What is it?”
“Cherry wine,” the man answered.
There was a pearl sitting at the bottom of the drink.
William grabbed it, sniffed and took a sip.
It was a little boring for his tastes, but he drank it all and ran that pearl across his tongue, rolling it around on his taste buds.
When he pulled it out, he laughed so loud, the woman standing five feet away bent away from him and gave him a disapproving look.
It had the track mark of his shoe on it and was pink.
That damned cherry girl was here.
How? How would she have gotten in?
He searched the room, scanning the servants first.
When he passed by Lenora, she ignored him, chatting with Tyrone.
Of course she would latch onto him. He was one of the top actors in town.
Normally this would’ve enraged him, since Tyrone Power was a known womanizer and would try to find a way to steal anything William was interested in, but since he was already tiring of Lenora’s incessant whining, he let it go.
Oh, yes—William had a lot of competition tonight with the high-powered actors on parade, but none of them were nearly as wealthy as he was. The only true competition in that regard was the younger son of the Vanderbilts’, Mike, and it was well known he was spoken for. That man was not the philandering type.
William set his empty glass down and rolled the bead around between his index finger and thumb. It was slightly damp, sticky and yet a little slick from the polished texture.
What was that woman doing with real pearls?
He pivoted, knocking into a serving girl. His eyes scrutinized her top to bottom, making her blush.
“Do you know a woman with dark blue eyes, dark hair and with a very tiny, but curvy form?”
“I know many women like that,” she answered, keeping her eyes on her tray of hors d’oeuvres.
He grabbed the tray, pushed it onto a table next to him and gripped her by the shoulders. “She was helping Miss Cheri tonight at the—”
“I was here all night, preparing for this party,” she answered.
“Fine.” He let her go.
She grabbed her tray, and it almost toppled out of her shaking hands as she skittered away from him, clearly intimidated.
He circled the room once more. It wasn't until he saw a woman even more curvaceous than Lenora, dancing in a magenta, skin-tight dress and wearing a long, white pearl necklace similar to the pink one he’d broken earlier tonight, that he knew he’d spotted the infernal cherry girl.
“How dare she,” he muttered under his breath, strolled straight out onto the dance floor and cut in.
Without a word, he gripped her to his chest and led her along like she was on a cloud.
“I . . . This is unseemly,” she said, her voice rough.
“And I give a damn?” He smiled at the man he’d just displaced who was standing by, glaring.
“Charles will have something to say to you about this,” she said, glancing over at her previous dance partner.
“I’m certain he will, and he can speak to my fists,” he said, crushing her tighter.
They were the only couple dancing this close.
“Is it your intent to wind me by not allowing me to breathe?” She blinked and her mask shifted a little. “I have a corset already seeing to that duty.”
“No—it’s my intention to fuck a cherry girl because the tart I arrived here with is too bitter for my tastes.”
“She’s the ma chérie, not this girl you hold onto.” Her back arched away from him. In perfect French so quietly he almost didn’t hear, she said, “Vous pouvez très bien écarter ses jambes mais vous ne trouverez rien valant la perte de votre temps ! Mes jambes sont ici pour danser et non pas pour être déplié pas des gens comme vous.”
His hold on her waist cinched down further, but she neither flinched nor withered away at his grip. God—his stones tightened at the way she was able to withstand his aggressive grasp.
“She’s a simpering fool and will break. You may keep dancing, but know this . . . I don’t handle fake pearls”—he licked his lips—“and I—”
“You disgust me,” she hissed with a whooshing sound.
Was it because both his arms were clamping down on her with such a vicious force that she might not breathe again until he released her?
He should loosen his arms, but something inside him refused to let that happen.
Before she could say one more vile thing, he trapped her lips with his.
She pushed against his chest for a moment until he danced her straight off the floor, keeping his mouth attached to hers.
Some moments later, he had led her down the hallway, toward the servants’ quarters.
It was difficult to walk so briskly with his stones this tight. What kind of rash move was this?
He was unsure what he was about—only knew she incited him to act the impulsive fiend.
“We can’t be back here,” she managed to say breathlessly, and her hand gripped into his shirt, tugging him closer.
“We can do whatever we like. This is my world—you’re on Pearl Street now,” he said.
“What about Cherry Street? We don’t do it this way in my world. I’ll flounder, sir—be unsettled and unsure of what to do.”
“Then show me your way. I’m inclined to be entertained by your form of debauchery if only for a little while.” He chuckled, shoved open a door to a servant’s room and swept her inside.
In a flash, she had her shoulders bared and then was ripping his shirttails out of his trousers.
She bent over, exposing cleavage, biting his bow tie, tugging it off him with her teeth.
Her nails raked across his shirt, popping buttons through holes along the way with ease.
Had she done this before?
Chills raced down his spine, landing in his gut. His chest heated at the way she tore into him.
He dropped his coat on the floor, opene
d his trousers wide and had a sheath in his hand at the ready.
“See how the other, lower half does it,” she said, arching a brow at him, then she bent down, taking his pants with her.
Chapter 2
William could barely breathe as she pushed him onto the bed.
“How do we know these sheets are clean?” he asked her.
“They are. This woman changes them daily. She’s paranoid about stuff like this occurring,” she answered.
Her lips landed on his nipple. She was sucking, biting and leaving lipstick all over him.
He groaned and dropped his head back.
This was odd—the feeling of a clothed female pawing at him while he was bared.
Was this how the women usually felt as he stripped them and loosed his cock and nothing else?
She pulled her necklace off and wound it around his legs, then twisted the beads in a loop to tighten it.
He was bound.
“Is there a dastardly plan at work here I should be made aware of?” he asked, tipping his head up, smirking.
She gave him a wry smile and then dragged her nails down his torso.
Her teeth nipped and she pulled and sucked on his flesh wherever she went.
His breathing was ragged, and he almost leaped off the bed when her tongue hit the tip of his cock.
“Enough!” He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down, then turned away from him, straddling his chest with her lush, clothed bottom in his face.
This was why a slit in a dress was so necessary.
His hands roamed the fabric stretched across her bottom. He bit at her, but the satin made his teeth glide back off.
Warmth.
Wetness.
Oh God—she had her mouth on his shaft, engulfing it, sucking with a loose, leisurely pull like time was nothing of consequence.
He fondled her cheeks before him and let her do what she wanted.
This was counter to all his lusts—all his moments of licentiousness he surrounded and conquered the opposite sex.
But there was no chance he would stop her. She was voracious with her lust.
The sheath was missing—he had no recollection of where he must have dropped it.
Pearl on Cherry Page 2