“Oh, God!”
Callie stopped in surprise at the guttural exclamation. That was the good part? Slowly she slid him into her mouth again, then drew back, trying to re-create the moment entirely.
He only groaned this time. Something was missing. Again, but this time she accidentally sealed her lips about him and suction was created as she withdrew him from the depth of her throat.
One big hand came to fist in her hair and she heard him breathing hard and fast.
Aha.
Poor Mr. Porter. He was in for it now.
Callie dove upon his rod, licking and sucking and sliding up and down it, all in a rush. He cursed breathlessly, then drove his other hand into her hair and steadied her pace.
Her mouth full of man, Callie allowed it while she thought it over. He wanted a slow sliding pace? With suction. He wanted to go deeper into her throat, but it took a while before Callie caught the trick of that. His breathless gasp rewarded her and he moaned her name.
“Callie.”
He’d never called her that before.
Suddenly this act didn’t seem to be so much about vengeance as it did about pleasure. She wanted to please him, as he had pleased her the night before. She wanted him to feel that brilliant explosion of delight, that languorous blissful slide afterward.
So she gentled her mouth. She took him in as far as she could. When she could go no farther, she lifted her hands to wrap around the base of him, warming the length of him, covering him, and yes, owning him.
He allowed it, too lost in her mouth to demand obedience. Encouraged by this lack of attention, Callie opened her hands and spread them wide. She dared not open her eyes … not because he commanded it, but because she didn’t know who she would see, the angel or the demon.
All she wanted was the man.
So she spread her fingers out to fan on either side of his rod, questing through the patch of hair, like her own, but wiry. Then upward, over a flat stomach, hard and lean, down, along muscled thighs sprinkled with crisp hair, bravely back upward and back, to feel his buttocks hard and muscled as he flexed them, thrusting into her mouth. She sucked him, using her hands on his firm buttocks to press him deeper. He groaned, forgetting his protest, and she had him in her power once more.
She deeply enjoyed the sensation of her hands on his buttocks and lingered there a moment longer, digging her fingers into that hard manly flesh, so different from her own soft round bottom. Then, unwilling to lose this chance to explore, she slid her hands up his flexing back. He was lean all the way up, although she’d known that from the fit of his somber clothing.
She liked it. It excited her to touch him, to steal this invasion while she sucked him senseless. She liked owning him this way. Her labia dampened and she squirmed her thighs tighter together, pressing them to relieve the throb of wanting. It was big. Too big to fit in her mouth and her throat. Callie wasn’t sure but wasn’t her vagina smaller than her mouth and her throat?
Yet even that alarming thought was arousing. She wanted him big. She wanted him to fill her completely,
Then her questing fingers found a thick ridge of scar on his back, curving like a crescent across one shoulder blade and almost to his armpit.
Her other hand found another, a lumpy, starburst shape, round and radiating smaller scars.
Trying not to lose her pace, she allowed her hands to slide back to the front of him. She could not reach all the way to his shoulders, but yes, there above the hard plates of his chest, an answering scar to the starburst, another angry round ridge of flesh.
Something had gone clear through him.
Then Callie felt his rod surge in her mouth. Quickly she slid her hands back down to encompass him, holding him while she sucked faster. He must be close. He was making the same sort of wild nonsense sounds she had.
Then he orgasmed and she felt her mouth fill with salty, tangy liquid.
Goodness!
Her eyes flew open, her surprised gaze lifting up to his face.
His head was thrown back as a guttural cry was torn from his lips. It was no good. She couldn’t see his face at all, only the ridges and bumps of the scars, lacing over that shoulder and more over his chest and ribs.
Ooh, the poor man. What had happened to him?
Then he dug his fingers in her hair and thrust his cock deeper, shuddering, pumping more of that salty substance into her throat.
She swallowed reflexively, with him still deep within her, and he released his breath in a great groan as he shuddered. In ecstasy? It certainly seemed like it.
Callie shut her eyes quickly, feeling as though she had stolen something from him. Did he think his body ugly with his scars? Damaged or not, he seemed rather magnificent to her. She treasured the image of his tall muscled body thrumming with tension and pleasure as she held him captive in her mouth.
When his fists eased free of her hair and he slid his rod from her mouth, she let her hands fall away and sat back, working her weary jaw and savoring the strange taste of him on her tongue.
Remembering his command, she put her hands behind her back once more but there was no help for the lost pearl, discarded somewhere on the carpet. She would find it later.
For now, she fought the urge to smile, instead keeping her expression the mild, obedient one that she knew drove him mad with frustration. She had just sucked him to a great groaning orgasm. She could still hear him panting, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he stumbled a bit.
“That … that will be all tonight, Mrs. Porter.”
As Callie listened to her husband flee her bedchamber, a smile quirked her lips.
Just you wait, Mr. Porter.
Chapter 20
Betrice entered the front hall of Springdell and began to unbutton her damp coat. Now she would have to block it carefully in the kitchen, checking it often to assure it did not shrink badly in the heat from the oven.
Someday Callie would have a lady’s maid to do such things for her—if Lawrence ever overcame his ridiculous aversion to staff.
She had to hand it to Callie, though. The house, while still vastly undermaintained, looked genuinely comfortable now, at least in the living areas occupied by the two of them. Callie had scoured the place down to the floorboards. It quite literally shone.
It was annoying, really, how Callie made it very difficult to truly hate her. It would have been so much easier if the new lady of Amberdell had turned out to be some spoiled, supercilious creature.
Betrice felt quite ill thinking about what might have happened earlier that day. At the very least, that empty-headed filly could have killed Callie!
She shook off her unhappy thoughts and pasted on a smile for Henry’s sake. Still carrying her wet coat—for who was there to take it from her?—she sought out her husband in his study.
“Good evening, dear. I suppose Jakes informed you that Mrs. Porter made it home safely?”
Henry sat in his favorite chair, gazing into the fire. He didn’t look up at her with his usual bland but welcoming smile.
“Betrice.”
She went still. Betrice, not Betty—which she loathed. “Yes? I really must go press this coat before it—”
“Betrice, when Lawrence came seeking information about his wife, you told him that Sally had only just returned.”
Damn Jakes.
Betrice blinked innocently. “I don’t think so. I don’t really remember what I said. I was in such a state of worry.”
Henry turned to look at her then. She nearly flinched from the flat disappointment she saw there.
“Betrice, that horse had been home and stabled for several hours. I was under the distinct impression that she had been courteously returned. An impression you imparted to me.”
She shone a wide gaze at him. “I thought Sally had been dropped off at the stables without any of us realizing it.”
Henry’s eyes were cold now, like ice in winter. “Betrice, I will ask you this just once. You will answer truthfully.”
She tilted her head, blinking back tears. “Of course, Henry. I always do.”
“Did you cause harm to Lawrence’s wife today?”
Sweet relief poured through her. She smiled pleasantly. “Of course not, Henry dear. What a silly question.”
She saw the doubt creep in past the anger and knew she had him again. Leaning forward, she dropped a kiss on his balding head. “Enjoy your pipe, darling.”
As she left the study, she breathed out a long sigh of relief. Thank goodness Henry had phrased that question just that way!
* * *
Ren paced his bedchamber. It was a new one, the one he’d been meant to have all along, the master’s chamber adjoining Calliope’s.
Outside the sun was near to rising. Though his body ached he could not rest.
She had nearly come to serious harm yesterday. It seemed that someone in Amberdell wanted his wife gone.
Gone … or dead.
Why? She had scarcely been there a week. She had been there but a day before the first attempt. Even a Worthington could hardly make an enemy so quickly … unless it was possibly Dade Worthington. Yet Callie had challenged no one, had confronted no one. She had wed him in the village in the vicar’s parlor and in less than twenty-four hours someone had tried to prompt her to fall off a window ledge!
Unless it was not about Calliope at all … which was the thought he’d been trying very hard not to think all along. It was the very reason why he’d not been willing to listen the first few times she’d told him her suspicions.
A man with a past had to expect that past to follow him, like a hound upon his trail.
The giant …
Ren had once belonged to something he’d thought was wonderful. A band of brothers, comrades-in-arms. A club, as rich and delicious a secret as any boyhood club could be. Yet he’d not been a boy, but a man, in service to the Crown.
Yet even the Crown would disavow this club if it were asked. Thieves, spies, saboteurs … and assassins, like the giant.
One lived in that club or one died in that club. One never left that club. Yet Ren had. He’d considered his debt paid in full … but there were those perhaps who did not think his life payment enough.
He had died for that club. Beaten to death on a slimy dock, left bleeding out his duty and his loyalty to the last. If it hadn’t been for a ship full of wounded soldiers unloading nearby, with staff already trained in medical procedures, he would not have made his way back to life.
He’d been unconscious for weeks. Months. When he’d woken, he’d been half crazed with pain, so broken he could scarcely function, scarcely walk, scarcely talk. Yet he’d crawled from that private nursing bed and donned the fresh set of clothing left optimistically near his bedside, and he’d simply walked out.
They’d found him eventually … or he’d found them. Driven by half-mad thoughts of vengeance, or longing for what he had lost—he still wasn’t entirely sure—he’d aimed his broken, fevered body at them like a weapon, determined to make every one of them face what they had done with their betrayal.
For he had been betrayed, turned in to the enemy by one of those selfsame comrades for a bag of coin and a Napoleonic pat upon the head.
The enemy had begun picking off the betrayed one by one, attacking, murdering … even as he had been murdered.
Now his supposed brothers were back, sending their most dangerous man against a pretty, odd, warmhearted young woman who had never heard of them or their mission!
No, it wasn’t about Calliope at all. This was all meant for him.
What could be their aim? To silence him? What need had they now for his silence? The Peninsular War was won, with Napoleon losing more ground every day.
Calliope … Callie …
He paused in his pacing, leaning one hand on the mantel and gazing into the red eyes of his coal fire. She’d dealt him a killing blow last night. When she’d devoured him, taken him into her warm, wet mouth and made him cry out her name … it ought to have been an act of dominance, of humiliation.
Instead it had been quite nearly sacred—a benediction, a blessing, a gift.
He’d been too lost in her sweet, hot cock-sucking to realize it at the time, but she had put her hands upon him, sliding them over his hot skin like cool balm, soothing and stroking even as she sucked and tantalized him. For all that he’d plunged deep into her mouth, he felt as though he were the one invaded, assaulted, deflowered.
She’d done something to him. She’d ensnared him, ensorcelled him with her giving mouth. He was not the same man he’d been a week ago.
Yet he was not the same man he’d been three years ago, either. He was someone new—someone with all the youthful arrogance gone, yet with his eager romantic heart still struggling to beat. He was a man with all his bitterness and despair gone, yet with scars—honorable battle scars. She was a gift, a lesson in humility and generosity. As lessons went, he’d not got off too badly.
The sun began to peek out over the easternmost hilltop. Ren snapped his mind back, away from the way she’d run her small questing hands all over his naked, broken body, and focused his mind upon today’s mission.
He meant to find the giant.
* * *
Callie had been ordered to sit today and frankly she didn’t mind. She’d thought she might work on her drawings, but her specimens had faded and she hadn’t brought any fresh home from yesterday’s venture.
The day outside was gray and chill, making the window seat unappealing.
Reading didn’t tempt her, for her head still ached. Sewing seemed pointless, for the ivory gown was far too ruined to rescue. The blue she was wearing was all she had, but she had hopes that Mr. Button would keep his promise of others within days.
In the meantime, she found herself in the unique state of … well, boredom.
Boredom was a dangerous state for a Worthington. Things tended to explode, or at least catch fire. Or flood.
In one corner of the library stood a dainty Chinese cupboard. It was just a small red-lacquered box, really, set high on outrageously carved legs finished in gold leaf. In the somber room it fairly glowed, drawing Callie’s restless gaze.
She hobbled closer, bending to admire the inlaid ivory pictures on the doors. The intricate designs looked like nonsense at first, but as she peered more closely, she realized that the figures were people … oh, no … animals? Yes, definitely people, but with the heads of animals. There were tangles of them, leading round and round in a sort of square spiral …
Callie’s eyes widened. Oh. Animal-headed people who were … er … fornicating.
Straightening, she crossed her arms and gazed dubiously at the cupboard. Really? And she’d thought Mr. Porter such a respectable sort of man. She knew he had an erotic side, of course, but she’d no idea he had a whimsical erotic side.
The cupboard was positively exuberant with naughty-boy enjoyment. Callie knew it when she saw it. Five brothers, after all.
She bent to examine the pictures again, following the pattern of tiny orgies with one fingertip … just in case, well, there was something new.
It wasn’t as though she’d never seen erotica before. Her mother had a lovely collection of illustrations from an ancient Indian sexual text. One learned where one could.
The pressure of her seeking fingertips released something inside the latch and the little bowed door swung open into her hand.
Oh, well, don’t mind if I do.
Callie went awkwardly to her knees to peer inside. One by one she lifted out an assortment of tiny objects.
First she pulled out a folded packet of silk. She unfolded it to find nothing within, then realized that the swath was a long sort of shawl, as fine as spiderweb, dyed in the most brilliant pattern of Turkish blue and emerald green. It was as vibrant and lovely as a peacock’s feather. Callie longed for it with all her girlish heart, but she carefully folded it up and set it aside. She found another small cubical box. Nested inside was a stunning ring of exquisite
sapphire. The stone was easily the size of Callie’s own thumbprint. The jewel was surrounded by smaller green stones that must be emeralds. Though Callie had never seen them before.… except among the jewels in the casket in her room.
This ring, however, was no antique treasure. It was cut and mounted in an ostentatious height, very much the style of a ring recently presented by the Duke of York to his mistress and much gossiped about in the tattle sheets.
It had to have been created some time in the last five years or so. Ellie would know. She kept on top of all the latest trends among the wealthy and titled—just in case she ever became one, Callie supposed. If anyone could rise so far, it would be Elektra Worthington.
The ring and the exotic silk shawl had doubtless been intended for the same lady … one with a taste for the vivid and ostentatious.
Mr. Porter had been in love. With someone who quite obviously didn’t remain long enough to receive the ring Callie now clenched in her hand. A ring from the last five years. Scars that were four years old.
Gifts refused and rejected? Mr. Porter summarily dismissed from some shallow woman’s favor?
Had he loved her?
Did he love her still?
Rage rose within Callie at the imagined rejection he’d suffered, at the unfeeling female who had looked at his suffering and his scars and then looked away.
She was being ridiculous, creating stories about matters of which she knew nothing. Perhaps the lady was still waiting for Mr. Porter, languishing somewhere, while he refused, stubborn man, to show her his ruined face and beg for her love. Now her ire rose against Mr. Porter himself!
Callie looked down at the treasures in her hands and laughed out loud at herself. She was becoming as fanciful and romantic as Mama.
Firmly setting aside the ring and, a little more slowly, the shawl, Callie reached back into the opening.
Next she extracted a letter in an envelope of the finest rag linen paper with a waxen seal in a design that made Callie’s eyes pop. She set it aside, trying to remember that prying wasn’t nice.
When She Said I Do Page 19