Loving Julia

by Karen Robards

  He smiled that wolfish smile again. His hands, thrust into his breeches pockets, clenched into fists.

  “In return for becoming my mistress,” he said brutally.

  There was a long moment of silence as she seemed to absorb what he had said. He watched as she whitened so much that for a moment he feared she might faint. Her eyes were huge topaz moons in that colorless face as she stared at him. One hand went out to grasp the back of a nearby chair, but that and her paleness were the only outward signs of agitation she betrayed.

  “You brought me to London to set me up as your mistress?” The words were uttered through stiff lips. She sounded as if she had trouble forcing them out. Sebastian felt a surge of violence. How dare she stand there looking so—so damned stricken, when he knew and she knew that she was nothing more than a two-bit whore?

  “You made yourself my mistress that night in the library at White Friars. I propose merely to formalize the arrangement.” His words were cold, and in no way expressed the volcano of emotions that churned through him. He could not shake the absurd fury that had sprung to life in him all those months ago when he had discovered that his so innocent protegee was in fact no better than she should be.

  She moved then, letting go of the chair back with what appeared to be an effort and walking toward him without a word. Sebastian watched her approach, his hands still thrust into his pockets. When she was directly in front of him, so that not as much as a foot of space remained between them, she stopped. He could almost feel the heat of her body even across the space that separated them. But that heat was nothing compared to the golden fire of her eyes. He started to withdraw his hands from his pockets so that he could grasp her waist, but they were still hung up in the folds of cloth when she drew back her hand and slapped him with all her might in the face.

  The sharp sound of her flesh making stinging contact with his own was echoed by the even sharper indrawing of his breath. His head snapped back, not so much from the force of the blow as from the very unexpectedness of it. Recovering, feeling rage build in him like a rushing, overflowing river against a dam, he lifted a hand to his burning cheek, staring at her. She still stood before him, disdaining to run, her chin high and her golden eyes aflame.

  “You insult me,” she said coldly. And with that, she turned away.

  XXI

  “I insult you, do I?”

  His hands clamped onto her shoulders even as he spoke. Julia hardly had time to wince at his brutality before he was spinning her about to face him. Those celestial blue eyes were now blazing with fury, she saw as she lifted her own to meet them. His face was harsh with it. If she had ever wanted to break through the icy self-control with which he faced the world, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

  “I didn’t think it was possible to insult a two-bit whore!” The guttural insult left her gasping. But before she could retaliate either physically or verbally, he yanked her against him, his arms pinning hers to her body as his head descended. Caught off guard, she just managed to turn her head aside so that his mouth found her cheek instead of her lips. The feel of those burning lips against her skin sent an agonizing shaft of longing through her. But she would not, could not give in to it. This was not Sebastian, her Sebastian of all those months ago, but the violent brutal stranger he had so bewilderingly become.

  “Let go of me!” Unable to get her hands free, she could only writhe against him in her efforts to break away. As her abdomen twisted against him, she felt a sudden, horrifying change in his body that involuntarily sent her eyes flying to meet his.

  That wolfish smile appeared again, transforming the beautiful face into a mask of pure masculine aggression. He was strong and she was weak and he was out to prove his power.

  “Not—quite—yet,” he said through his teeth, and then his mouth descended once more.

  Quickly she twisted so that his lips again missed their mark, but this time one of the hands that clamped her arms to her sides snaked upwards to burrow through her hair and close over the back of her skull. Slowly, inexorably he turned her head so that she was an easy target. His single arm held her securely as his other forced her head around and held her helpless. He met her angry, frightened eyes with a smile. Then, as she twisted and struggled he slowly, oh so slowly, bent his head. Those blue eyes, ablaze now with blinding emotion, never left hers. She jerked against his iron hold, but to no avail. Then his mouth was on hers, hard and hot and demanding, and he was kissing her with a fury that stole both breath and reason with it. He was kissing her as if he hated her; and she, shameful, spineless creature that she was, loved it.

  He tasted faintly of brandy and cigars, and he was warm, so warm. The sheer heat he generated had an enervating effect on her. She struggled briefly, then forgot to fight him as his tongue slid between her lips, stroking over them, flicking against the white barrier of her teeth before weakly, helplessly, she opened her mouth and let him inside. He growled then, and whether the sound was of victory or of passion she neither knew nor cared. All she knew was that he was kissing her so deeply she felt as though he would steal the very soul from her body, bending her back over his arm so that if she had been in any rational state at all she would have feared that her spine would snap. But she was not rational, her mind had fled, leaving her emotions running rampant, and she could not fight them. His kiss was making her dizzy; the room was spinning round and round in front of her dazed eyes. All she could do was close them so that she was enveloped in a warm dark void.

  Her heart was pounding so loudly that it drowned out all other sounds. Her bones had turned to jelly, melting like hot liquid in his hands. She could feel the burning fire of her own surrender in her breasts and belly and thighs and especially between her legs, where it tightened and pulsed and throbbed. Then she traced the fire to him, and connected it to his hand, which was sliding over her body with abandon, fondling and possessing while with his other arm he supported her boneless weight. The thin silk covering her and flimsy underclothes beneath were no protection from the invasion of his touch. His palm found her breast again, rubbing roughly across it, tormenting her with the sudden sharp pleasure-pain of it. Then his hand traveled to her other breast, enclosing it in burning heat, and if she had not been lost before she was now.

  She groaned, quivering in his arms, and lifted her hands to clutch the shoulders that were bent so ruthlessly over her before sliding her arms around his neck. She couldn’t think, couldn’t reason; she could only feel. His mouth was hot on hers, demanding, devouring, his tongue exploring the sweet wet hollows of her own. Her tongue moved at last, shyly, to touch his. He jerked, and stiffened in her arms. She tightened her hold on him, clinging as he kissed her with greedy passion, kissing him back now without reserve, her hands clutching in the silver-gilt silk of his hair, digging into the tense muscles at the back of his neck, running over the broad expanse of shoulders still clad in the smooth cloth of his coat. It had been so long, so long….

  He bent her even further over his arm, kissing her, and then his mouth left hers to slide along her throat. The faint roughness of his cheeks and chin scraped her skin as he pressed his face into her neck. Then his mouth was moving even lower, sliding over the slippery silk to find the tip of her breast. She felt the moist warmth of his mouth through her dress, and cried out. He left his mouth on her for a long moment, while the heat of it seared through to the very core of her and all her feelings concentrated on that one spot. Then abruptly he pulled his head away.

  Before she could do more than whimper a protest at this abandonment, she was being lifted off her feet, and for a moment her eyes opened and reality intruded. He was carrying her out of the salon, a dark and hungry expression on his face that matched the way she was feeling inside. As he maneuvered her through the doorway and into the hall, she recovered just enough presence of mind to look swiftly around. Thankfully the hall was deserted.

  “Sebastian….” It was a faint protest as some semblance of sanity returned to he
r.

  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to make love to you on the floor again when there’s a perfectly good bed waiting upstairs,” he said roughly. Before she could martial her resources to say anything else he was climbing the stairs with her in his arms, taking them so fast that she felt dizzy and had to cling to him.

  “Sebastian….” She tried again to remember why she couldn’t let this happen as he reached the upper hallway. But her mind wouldn’t function properly with his arms all around her carrying her as if she were weightless and her body throbbing where he had touched it and the taste of him still burning on her lips.

  “Don’t talk. Just kiss me,” he muttered, his hand already finding the knob to the bedroom door even as his mouth descended.

  Her eyes helplessly fixed on that gorgeous mouth, Julia complied. She was hardly aware of being carried into the bedroom, of the click of the door closing behind them, of the softness of the bed as he lowered her into it. All she was conscious of was the loss of his warmth as he straightened away from her to blow out the bedside candle.

  “Julia,” he muttered as the room plunged into shadowy darkness, and then he was on the bed beside her, kissing her so deeply that he stole her breath away.

  She couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, could only feel. His hands were everywhere, on her breasts and belly, sliding up beneath her skirt to caress her thighs, pulling her undergarments with hands that shook too much to untie knots or to unfasten the tiny buttons that did her gown up the back. Julia felt the tug at her throat, felt the resistance of the silk and then heard the soft ripping sound as the hands that couldn’t manage her buttons tore her gown open from the neck. He knelt above her, pulling the ruined garment from her and then tearing the ties that held her petticoats and pantalets from their moorings. When the garments were free he slid them down her legs, following each baring of her skin with tiny biting kisses that should have hurt but instead sent her into a frenzy of passion. By the time he rolled each silk stocking down her leg, kissing carefully back up over toes and insteps and ankles and calves, trailing his tongue over the insides of her knees and then up the insides of her thighs, she was whimpering with passion, afire from the toes he had just drawn inside his mouth to her head which was writhing against the overblown roses of the still made bed. Only the loosened chemise saved her from being completely naked, and then he was drawing that over her head and pushing her roughly back into the nest of bedclothes, covering her body with his own. The textures of his coat and breeches and even the soft linen of his shirt abraded her tender skin, exciting her unbearably.

  He was still fully dressed, even to his boots, while she was naked and quivering with wanting him.

  “Sebastian …” she muttered into the mouth that was devouring hers, but the taste of his tongue and the feel of his hands on her swelling breasts left her incapable of further talk. Feebly she tugged his coat in an effort to get her message across, but his mouth followed his hands down her body, fastening on her breast with a hot wetness that made her cry out and clutch his head. He bit her nipple with his teeth, hurting her and yet not hurting her, reducing her to a kind of mindless ecstasy that left her gasping as his mouth moved over to torment the other soft peak. His hands were stroking her thighs, and she tried to writhe under his weight, wanting to bring his hands to perform the wonderful magic that they had performed before. But he was too heavy, his body had her pinioned, she could hardly move—or breathe. Then he was lifting himself off of her, as he rolled to the side of the bed and stood up.

  “Sebastian!” This time his name was a pitiful plea for him to return, but it died on her lips as she watched him tear the clothes from his body. Her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and she saw him shrug out of the black superfine coat, letting it drop where it would, then strip the cravat from around his neck and tear at the buttons on his shirt with hands that she knew were trembling. He let the shirt drop, too, then sat down on the edge of the bed to tug off his boots. Julia was fascinated by the planes and angles of that lean powerful back as it curved away from her, muscles working. She wanted to touch it.

  She sat up, conscious of her nakedness and her femininity as she had never been conscious of anything before in her life. Crawling toward him, she thrilled to the aching, pulsing need that made her breasts feel heavy and her secret woman-place weep. In the shadowy darkness his hair gleamed silver and his back arched as he pulled off first one boot and dropped it to the floor with a thud before tackling the other.

  She touched his spine, a delicate butterfly touch, and he stiffened. He was rigid, unmoving, as she traced a path from the silky curls at the nape of his neck over the ridged indention of his spine to the edge of his breeches. The breeches frustrated her exploration, so she put both hands on his back, palms down, and slid them upwards, testing muscles and sinews, ribs and shoulder blades, then stroked broad muscular shoulders. His skin was hot, smooth, just beginning to dampen with sweat. He was very muscular, with a honed, lean kind of strength that was deceptive when he was dressed. She slid her hands downward again in a sweeping caress. Then, propelled by instincts she hadn’t even known she possessed, she leaned forward to slide her arms around his waist and press her breasts against the warm moist silk of his back.

  “Christ!” It was an expletive, muttered as he shot off the bed and stripped off his breeches, giving her just a glimpse of a muscular, fur-sprinkled chest above narrow hips and a flat abdomen, and the enormous jutting male part of him below it.

  Then he was pressing her back into the bed, his mouth fierce on hers and his body hard, demanding, overwhelming as it bore her down. This time he was as naked as she, and she gloried in it. She felt the abrasion of his body hair against her breasts and belly and thighs, and squirmed beneath him the better to feel it. She felt the iron hardness of his back muscles under her hands and sank her nails into them, the better to test them. She felt the burning heat of his mouth against her neck, and opened her own against the salt dampness of his shoulder, the better to taste him.

  His thigh slid between hers, hair-roughened and hard from years in the saddle. It was joined by its fellow, and then he lay between her legs, throbbing and pulsing and prodding, and he was kissing her deeply on the mouth and his hands were on her breasts and then … and then …

  He slid inside her. She gasped as he filled her, arching, trembling and crying out his name. The sensation was exquisite, wonderful, setting her a-quiver from head to toe, stopping her breath and stilling her heart and spinning her away.

  She clutched him close, her arms straining him to her, her sharp cry swallowed by his mouth even as her body was consumed by his body. He plunged inside her with a pulsing urgency that drove her over the edge, and then, as he felt her ecstasy, he was himself swept away.

  Later, when they had both drifted back to earth and lay limply together, their breathing eased and their sweat drying on their bodies, Julia started thinking all the thoughts that had not managed to squeeze past her passion.

  Her body was sated and her mind, while still somnolent, was beginning to function again. This man in her arms, this arrogant infuriating gorgeous male whom she hated to love and loved to hate, had brought her to London for the express purpose of making her his mistress. She, who had been a good girl all her life despite the fact that making money by selling one’s body was as common a thing in her world as changing clothes was in his, had allowed him to do so. Despite her outrage at the suggestion, despite her proud denials and the ringing, richly deserved slap she had dealt him, she was now his mistress. It was funny, really. He had made her a lady only to turn her into the one thing she had vowed she would never be: a whore.

  “Do you always get what you want?” Her voice was tinged with resentment. She was too tired for real anger, but she suspected that might come later.

  “Ummm.” His face was nuzzled against her left cheek and ear while his arm lay heavily across her waist and his sprawled leg trapped both her thighs. “Not always. Just most of the time.”
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br />   He sounded sleepy, contented, and more than a little self-satisfied. Julia felt her anger prick a little more sharply.

  “Such as tonight?” The sharpness came through in her voice. Against her ear she felt his breath expel in a little sigh.

  “Do we have to discuss this now? I can think of more pleasant things to do.”

  His husky whisper would have sent a tingle down her spine if she had let it. As the realization of exactly what position he expected her to occupy in his life came home to her, her anger increased by the millisecond until in less than a minute it was full-blown rage. The suggestive nibbling of his lips on her ear did not help; neither did his hand, which slid up from her waist to cup and caress a soft breast. When he shifted, lifting his head to catch her lips with his in a deep soft kiss, she exploded. Her hand whizzed through the air to slap the side of his face with a satisfying crack and a force that made her palm throb. At the same time she jerked away from him and clambered to the opposite end of the bed, where she sat with her arms crossed over her breasts, glaring at him.

  “God damn it!” He roared the words, sitting bolt upright, his hand flying to his face and his eyes sparking so furiously that she could see their bright glitter through the gloom. “What the hell ails you now, you little hellcat?”

  “What ails me? You have the nerve to ask what ails me? After first you call me a whore, and then you make me one?” She was sputtering in her fury, bouncing off the bed to stand, arms akimbo, eyes flaying him. He moved too, rolling off the bed and leaning over the round table that flanked it, and she saw that he was lighting the candle.

  “I apologize for calling you a whore,” he said over his shoulder, the words only slightly gritted. “But I tend to get a little angry when I’m slapped. And as for making you a whore …” His voice trailed off suggestively as the room flickered to life.

  Instantly Julia became aware of his nakedness and her own.