Instead she feigned gaiety. In response to her host’s questions, she heard herself babbling about silks in Canton. The state of Indo-China trade. Her voyage to England. Nonsense words pouring out of her mouth. She had the odd sensation of being outside herself. Laughing a beat too late, smiling a bit too broadly.
Glancing at Lady Warwick, she read concern in the other woman’s eyes. Kindness. Pity. Brianna’s temples throbbed. Be careful what you wish, for you just might get it. She swallowed past the knot in her throat as the tired cliché drummed through her mind. A castle. From the day she’d read her first fairy tale, she had always longed to see an actual castle. Now she was within one, surrounded by peers and being feted like royalty, and she had never felt more miserable.
At last the meal ended. The men were led away to enjoy brandy and cigars, while the women were ushered into a feminine parlor for tea. The moment she could leave without insulting her hostess, Brianna plead fatigue from her journey and fled to her room.
* * *
A soft knock on her door. Without waiting for her call to enter, Jonathon slipped inside. He’d come. Just as she’d known he would.
Brianna, who’d spent the entire evening studiously avoiding his gaze, now drank in the sight of him. He looked unbearably handsome. So perfect it made her chest ache. Like her, he had had to borrow his attire for the evening, having nothing remotely formal or suitable for dinner. But unlike her gown, his clothing suited him perfectly.
He wore a crisp white linen shirt, impeccably starched. A burgundy cravat was intricately knotted about his throat. His broad shoulders were encased in a jacket of fine wool serge. Neatly pressed trousers covered his long, athletic legs. His boots gave off a highly polished, satiny sheen. Even the tawny gold waves of his hair, unfashionably long enough to brush against his collar, did not detract from the image he presented.
This new clothing matched the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he breathed. His height, his carriage, his innate nobility. Viscount Brooksbank was the very picture of aristocratic bearing and masculine beauty. Everything about him simply looked right, in a way that his ratty clothing had simply looked wrong.
Brianna shook her head, chiding herself. She should have seen it sooner. She should have recognized it.
“How did I ever believe, even for an instant, that you were a valet?”
He stepped toward her. She took an involuntary step away.
He froze, a stricken expression on his face. “Brianna. I did tell you who I was.”
“Yes, you did.” She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “What do I call you? Your Grace?”
He released a brief, humorless laugh. “I’m not a duke. Even if I were, you would call me Jonathon.” He gestured to his clothing, his new personae. “This doesn’t change anything.”
Brianna smiled slightly. Of course it did. It had to. Needing a moment to compose herself, she turned to the sideboard in her room. Sitting atop a highly polished tray was a crystal decanter containing an exotic amber liquor. She went to pour herself a glass, but found her hands were shaking too badly for her to accomplish the task.
She clenched her fists at her sides. Blast and bloody blue hell. It was her own fault. The pain she was experiencing now was entirely self-inflicted. She hadn’t wanted to recognize the truth. She had wanted simplicity. Sin. She had wanted Mr. Jonathon Brooks exactly as he was. His miserable shave and ragged clothes. His reckless charm, tousled golden hair, and dimpled smile. Someone she could have. Take. After her marriage to Arthur, she’d wanted to know what she’d been missing. Passion. Love. Lust. Now she knew. For the rest of her life, she would know what she was missing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish it were different.”
“Wish what were different?” she asked softly. She brought up her chin, challenging him. “That you weren’t titled, or I wasn’t common?”
A flash of anger darkened his eyes. “You’re not common.”
“No? You never did ask me why the East India Company didn’t recognize my parents’ marriage.”
“I’m listening.”
“My mother worked a flower boat in the port of Guangzhou. That’s how she and my father met.”
“A flower boat?”
“A fanciful name for the boats that ferried out Chinese women to pleasure the foreign sailors who came to Canton.”
Silence, thick and heavy, hung between them. A muscle flexed in Jonathon’s jaw. He gave a curt nod. “I see.”
“Do you?” Brianna forced herself to continue. “My mother used to say she had never seen hair or a beard like my father’s—so red and wild and bushy. Red everywhere: on his arms, his legs, his chest. She also said he was a kind man, gentle with her, and paid well. For his part, he thought she was the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen. But they didn’t marry until after my birth, when my father saw the red highlights in my hair, and he felt he could truly claim me as his own.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it. Not to me.”
“It will to everyone else.”
“Then everyone else can go straight to hell.”
The sound of footsteps outside her door prevented Brianna from replying. A soft rap sounded on the door, then a young maid popped her head in. “Can I help you undress for bed, m’lady?”
“No. Thank you.”
The girl nodded and left.
Brianna turned away for a moment and marshaled her thoughts. She lifted her palm and drew it along the stone wall. It felt damp, icy cold to her touch. “There’s a name for this,” she said.
Jonathon frowned. “The stone?”
“No. I meant this—“ she gestured broadly, “this space. This room.”
“Ah. Turret. It’s called a turret.”
“Yes, that’s it.” She tested the word in her mouth. Turret. An English word. Not a word that was ever used in China. “I suppose everyone downstairs would have known that instantly.”
His brows drew together in annoyance. “What possible difference could that make?”
“I’m not British. I never will be. I’ll never be part of that world.” Or, she finished silently, part of your world.
But she’d known that all along, hadn’t she? Jonathon Brooks—Viscount Brooksbank—had never been hers to keep. They’d even made a pact to that effect. Their adventure would last until they reached London, where they would each go their separate way. The liaison might be ending sooner than she’d expected, but she’d known all along it would end.
Very well, then.
She stiffened her resolve. If all she had left with the man was one night, she would play it out on her terms. She would not be remembered as a tumble in the hay. A grown woman who read fanciful tales and dreamed of castles. A woman in a borrowed gown who had been shamefully ignorant of which fork to use at supper. No. Jonathon would remember her the way she wanted to be remembered. She would do this on her own terms.
Brianna closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck. She let herself go, kissing him with all the need and longing that had flooded through her from the moment she’d put her hands on his wound and been knocked off-balance by a heady physical awareness of the man. Kissed him with all the pent-up sexual energy she’d stored from the moment she’d felt that indefinable heat pulse between them. There would be no holding back.
He was hers for one more night. Hers to kiss, hers to caress, hers to command. She poured her heart and soul into her kiss, then she drew back and looked him in the eye.
“Take off your clothes.”
Chapter Seventeen
.
Stunned surprise showed on Jonathon’s face. For a moment he only stared at her. Then his lips split in a slow, steady grin. Dimples bracketed his mouth and blazing warmth shone from his crystal blue eyes.
He reached for her, his large hands moving confidently to pull her toward him, but she stepped just out of his reach.
“Take off your clothes,” she repeated, her voice low and hu
sky.
His smile deepened. “If you insist.”
Brianna had never suspected that merely watching a man undress could be an erotic act. Or perhaps it was just watching Jonathon slowly and deliberately strip himself of his garments that was so uniquely arousing.
He unlaced his boots and toed them off, kicking them haphazardly toward the wall. His stockings followed. His eyes locked on hers as he pulled off his jacket and let it fall to the ground. Then he reached for his cravat and began working the knot loose. She watched those long, masculine fingers, imagining them brushing softly over her hip, caressing the underside of her breast, or thrusting deep inside her.
Brianna’s heart drummed wildly in her chest and heat spread through her belly. She ached to reach for him, to hurry him along, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She wanted this to last.
His cravat finally free, he began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. Once he succeeded, he shrugged off the fine white linen and tossed it aside. His chest. Such masculine perfection—rough velvet skin coated with a light dusting of coarse, tawny hair. Her gaze hungrily raked over the breadth of his shoulders, the rippled muscles of his stomach, the corded strength of his arms.
Then he unfastened his pants. He dropped his trousers in one swift move and kicked them away. His cock sprang upward, resting against his lower belly. His shaft utterly rigid, already so thick and engorged she could nearly detect the blood pulsing through the delicate blue veins.
Ready and waiting, just for her.
She drank in the sight of him. Her breath caught in her throat. Blast and bloody blue hell. No wonder she’d never suspected he was an aristocrat. There was nothing, nothing, soft and pampered about the man. He looked as though he’d been sculpted from stone. Tall, powerful, and fascinatingly male. A magnificent Spartan ready for battle.
“Don’t move,” she said.
He quirked a playful brow. “Not even a little?”
“No. Not even a little. This is for me.”
This was her chance to live out the vivid fantasies that would carry her through the rest of her days. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she would not be rushed. .
Filled with quiet power, she reached for him, running her hands along his shoulders, memorizing the feel and scent of his skin.
Her fingers lightly traced his biceps, his muscular torso, the smattering of hair across his chest. Smiling at the way his muscles bunched and quivered in response to his touch, she traced a path across his belly, then dropped her hand lower, moving toward his groin.
Jonathon drew in a sharp breath. Brianna deliberately skirted past his throbbing, eager cock, avoiding contact. Not yet…
She stepped behind him and sent a gust of soft, warm air against the back of his neck. She drew one delicate fingernail down the length of his spine, brushed her palms against his slim hips, his powerful thighs, then gave his firm male ass a playful squeeze.
“Brianna…” His voice was a hoarse growl. Not quite pleading, but nearly there. A powerful jungle cat ready to pounce on the mouse who tormented him.
“Hmm?” she responded innocently, determined to continue her game. Slipping in front of him once again, she leaned forward until her mouth gently grazed the burnished skin of his chest.
Tilting her face upward, her eyes locked on his. A mischievous smiled played about her lips. She wrapped her hand around his cock, taking in the length and breadth of him. His member was as thick as it appeared—the oar of a Cantonese junk came to mind. But not cold; that was the amazing contradiction. The skin of his penis was warm and silky to the touch, yet rod stiff and pulsing with life.
She tightened her grip experimentally and brushed her palm up and down along his length. She drew her fingers under his sac, feeling it bunch and tighten beneath her touch. Her thumb traced the bulbous tip of his penis, toyed with the pulsing vein that ran the length of his member. His cock quivered and jerked in her hand.
Jonathon clenched his jaw. He drew in his breath in a sharp hiss. His body trembled, straining with the effort of holding himself back. He gave a rough shake of his head and closed his eyes.
“Brianna,” he grit out. “You will undo me.”
Yes. She understood exactly what he meant. A dull ache filled her chest at his words. Jonathon had already undone her. Taken her apart piece by piece, never to be put back together in exactly the same way. Her hand dropped away.
Jonathon was there instantly. Unwilling to break contact, he scooped her into his powerful arms and carried her to the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress with her cradled her in his lap, kissing the column of her throat as he worked free the tiny row of buttons that ran down the back of her gown. His fingers worked with clumsy desperation, gently pulling and tugging, as though unable to abide another moment without feeling the warmth of her skin. .
The instant he succeeded in freeing the last button, he rid her of the borrowed gown, slipping it off her shoulders and past her waist until it puddled at her feet. Shoes, stockings, chemise, petticoats, and drawers quickly followed and were cast aside..
Within seconds she was as naked as he was. His gaze roved over her flesh. Then he pulled the pins from her hair. It cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in wanton disarray, a mass of dark silk. He studied her with eyes that were liquid blue pools—but not cool. His gaze was a slow burn, blazing with blistering heat. He lifted his large hands and touched her with infinite gentleness, reverently skimming the soft swell of her hip.
“Brianna,” he murmured, his breath falling soft and warm in her ear. “Brianna.” Just her name, over and over, as though that single word contained all the hope and longing in the world..
Brianna writhed in his lap, her small body arching against his larger one. They fell backward against the bed, moving their hands over each other’s bodies in frenzied exploration: touching, tasting, licking, biting. Tumbling against one another in a wave of passion so intense it swept them away, carrying them on a current of bright, hot, insatiable lust. Their need swelled and grew, becoming larger and more desperate with each passing moment..
Jonathon tore his mouth from hers, his breath coming in hot pants against her throat as he said, “We have to slow down. I won’t last. I won’t be able to give you what you want.”
“This is what I want,” she rasped back. Her gaze locked on his. She grasped his cock in her hand. “You, only you, just like this.”
He let out a shout of laughter, followed by a vivid oath as she bent down and took his throbbing erection in her mouth. She felt him stiffen in shocked surprise. A low, husky groan issued from his lips. He wove his fingers into her hair and arched his hips slightly forward, thrusting himself deeper into her mouth.
Brianna relaxed her jaw, taking as much of Jonathon as she could, reveling in the taste of him. Richer and more complex than the taste his mouth, yet still uniquely him. She traced her tongue up the base of his shaft and brought it down again, following the throbbing ridge that pulsed along the side of his cock. Then she pulled back and teased the plump tip of his shaft, licking a spot of milky dew from the slit.
“Ohh, God.”
Jonathon could take no more. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her beneath him and stretched her out flat on the bed. He caught her wrists in one hand, pinning them above her head. His eyes seared into hers. His gaze was dark and smoldering, like the embers of a fire before it erupted into a full-fledged blaze. Bracing himself on his elbows above her, he captured her lips with his, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as his groin pressed into her belly.
She knew Jonathon had meant to proceed slowly. That had been her intention as well. But their good intentions were abandoned as a sudden, burning urgency fueled them both. His mouth slanted hungrily over hers. She met his kiss with open, aching yearning, thrusting her tongue against his own, moving her hips to the same hot, ardent rhythm of their kiss.
Her thighs brushed his. Her breasts pressed flat against his chest. His rigid erection rubbed against the
soft nest of curls that covered her sex. An aching, throbbing emptiness rose inside her, demanding to be filled.
She threw back her head, digging her fingers through his hair, sighing with pleasure and longing. She heard herself gasp his name as his lips moved up and down her leg, nibbling and kissing the tender flesh of her inner thighs, her knees, her calves. Her muscles tightened, giving startled little leaps wherever his lips brushed her skin. She felt a rush of heat race to her thighs and a tight, fiery knot fill her belly. She arched her back and grasped his shoulders, whispering his name with an almost desperate urgency.
For years Brianna had prided herself on her gift for language. Her natural facility for words and dialect. Now, however, she remained mute, unable to communicate any of the chaotic feelings whirling within her. So she used her body to speak for her.
She pressed herself against Jonathon, touching his physical body the way she wanted to touch his heart. I love you, she silently cried. She ran her hands over the hard, corded muscles of his chest, across his ribbed stomach, and down his powerful thighs. She caressed, she kissed, she suckled and stroked, all the while loving him silently, intently, fiercely.
As though sensing her thoughts, he drew one hand along the curve of her hip, then brought it to rest between her breasts, just over her heart. He drew her right nipple into his mouth, sucking and licking the erect, tender nub until the pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain. Then he gave her left breast the same deliciously erotic treatment.
Until that moment he’d held her wrists pinned above her head. Now he released them and drew back, his breath ragged against her throat as he murmured, “Let me love you, Brianna.”
She melted at his words. “Yes,” she breathed, her emotions stripped bare for him to see. “Yes.”
She arched her back, willing to give him whatever he wanted, craving his touch more than she craved life itself. His fingers wove through the dark tangle of curls between her thighs, unerringly coming to rest on the tight pink nub of flesh at the entrance to her cunny. Her breath caught and her pulse doubled. She lifted her hips to receive his hand, biting her lip as he separated the slick pink folds of her sex and massaged her clit in tight, teasing circles.
Wicked Games (The Sun Never Sets Book 3) Page 16