by Shirl Anders
“If you speak one word of my hidden work as the Benefactor, Affinity Redgrift, I will publish your diary,” Law said in a deep husky-roughened voice against Affinity’s lips.
“W-What?” Affinity squeaked, trying to drag her mind into clearing her thoughts. She had heard the words, published and diary. Publish, diary? Her eyes popped open, though lethargically.
“Law!” she exclaimed, but her voice was too husky to sound sharp, and she suddenly realized that Law was gone! She propped up on her elbows with a wobble, looking about the room and the open French door beyond. Law had seduced her with a kiss, and then he’d stolen her diary.
Affinity’s bottom lip quivered, and then she burst out laughing. Oh she should not be joyous, because it was terrible that Law now had her personal diary. But all she could truly think of in her befuddled and aroused state was that this was all going rather well!
Chapter Ten
. . . My life changed today. It is amazing that it can happen as quickly as that. I have been warring against my existence for a long time. I know the anger inside me has been simmering with indignation for months since starting this first London season. Since I first realized that I have been marked as unwanted and undesired by London’s finest.
What a large hole to crawl out of with my silly young dreams of simply wanting to dance with a gentleman. A dance I shall never have.
However, today I threw away those silly young girl dreams and became a woman instead. A woman that will dare to do or to try anything to create the possibilities that I so long for . . .
Law dipped his head looking at the toes of his boots with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He knew about dreams and longing. However, he wondered if he were truly as brave as Affinity? He thought not as he looked down at the open page of her diary. He’d decided that he would not rifle through her entire life by reading the larger part of her written words. Nonetheless, he was compelled, well actually overpowered, to read her thoughts since they’d first met. He consoled himself with the fact that it was now his right.
Simply a dance, he thought. Magdalena had danced with him once, just a silly twirl around the room. They’d known each other so briefly, actually one week all told, but for some unfathomable reason he knew that Magdalena would like Lady Affinity Redgrift. They both possessed true spirit of life and dauntless bravery to see it through. He realized now, they both possessed much more courage than he did. He who had hidden, afraid to try again, afraid to forgive himself. A forgiveness that Magdalena would have demanded of him if she were alive. Her life and spirit showed him that.
Law turned his gaze to the next passage in Affinity’s diary and he saw his name written there.
. . . Lawrence Fabier St. Martin. How can one look . . . one feeling of a man’s aura, enamor me so? Am I so desperate? Am I so lost? . . .
“No,” Law muttered. “No, Affinity.”
. . . Yet, I will follow my heart. I will say that I deserve to, for if I am not brave enough to do this, then I am not worthy enough. But oh, he attracts me so and each new thing that I learn about him makes my heartbeat flutter and my senses come more alive. Dare I say, even to myself, how much I long to be close to him . . .
Law tilted his head back closing his eyes. Affinity was simply attracted to him. There was no other nefarious reason. She was simply a woman using her god given and sweetly turned wiles upon him. Should he be aghast at her audacity, taken back by her complete boldness, concerned about her unconventional methods or should he simply be flattered?
He chuckled then, unbidden, and the image of Affinity with her hair flowing about her and her breasts bared to his gaze, slipped through his mind. She had vowed passionately that she was not out to catch him by seducing him into taking her virginity, then crying foul. And now he believed her. What was it that he’d written to himself in his journal . . . that he wondered if a woman ever thought to touch a man’s nipple? Affinity would. Surely, she was a creature of passion. He began reading again
. . . I climaxed, just watching Law. With only my gaze upon him . . .
Law inhaled an instantly heated breath.
. . . The pleasure of it thrashed through my pussy like a tempest storm as I looked at Law’s hard cock bared to my view . . .
My God, she’d been watching him! Of course she had, yet he’d never realized. Those moments, those events were obscured in his voracious arousal at the time. Now his cock was hard, now his cock was calling to her with the thought that she had secretly watched him so intimately and what her reaction to it had been. Then, he realized in his pondering that he’d only scratched the surface of erotic nature. This, here . . . them. That was the stuff of full-bodied carnal making.
. . . The heat of Law touching my cheek, my throat, searing my skin. The feel of his chest compressing my breasts. The power of his body encompassing me. His thighs so unyielding and his height over me. But then, I felt true desire . . . Law’s rigid cock pressed into my belly. The feel of it flooded my pussy, making the sheath inside me ache and throb. Then, I touched him. I could not help myself. I had to! I touched the heated head of a man’s cock this day. I caressed my finger through the slit and it became wet with his seed dripping there . . .
“Lord,” Law swore, nearly tossing the diary aside as his cock pitched heavily in his breeches. If he kept reading Affinity’s diary, he would easily find himself with his cock in his hand. So determinedly, he rose from his chair before the fire in his study, setting the diary aside to adjust his evening jacket. Then, he tugged gingerly on the narrow pocketed front of his breeches, adjusting his hard cock to a more comfortable tilt beneath. He had a feeling that the boxing match he was set to attend this evening would be at a loss of entertainment for him. His mind would be elsewhere . . . it already was elsewhere.
Where was she? It had been three days since he’d visited Affinity’s bedchamber in the dark of night. By his reckoning it was her turn for the next move. Law sighed and went to get his evening coat. He really needed to decide what he was going to do about Lady Affinity Redgrift. However, at this precise moment, all he could come up with was his desire to see her naked upon her bed again.
Chapter Eleven
“He wants me,” Affinity muttered as she continued to dress carefully for her planned adventure that evening. “A man does not give a woman heated and mind-bending cunnilingus, just to get his journal back. He could have easily just taken it.”
Her voice sounded certain, she just wished that she was certain, she thought, as she adjusted the black lace corset beneath her breasts. It lifted the weight of her breasts to a pertly naked position, held by the corset beneath. Madam DeJonge had said that men wanted to look at their woman, the less dressed the better, but some scanty clothing was reported to be enticing.
Well, this was certainly scanty, Affinity thought, looking at herself in the mirror. It was lucky that her mother had started her daughter’s trousseau before her death, because that allowed her to find this beautiful black corset, which she would never have been able to afford to buy now.
She wore the corset because she had to wear stockings, because she ultimately had to wear evening shoes, otherwise she might not wear anything at all beneath her red mink-lined cloak. The luxurious cloak was a gift from Brevity to all the Lady Rogues, along with the red high-heeled slippers. It would be the Lady Rogues uniform of sorts and Affinity agreed with them in the fact that it fit their mission and design daringly. Her plan this evening was to visit Law in a place that he least expected, while wearing nothing under her cloak but the black corset and stockings.
She could ruin her reputation just by going where she was going, a place that only gentlemen, their mistresses, and prostitutes attended. Yet did she really have a reputation to ruin to begin with? Still, she added a bonnet and veil to her ensemble. It was a good thing that she had Aunt Fuchsia and that her uncle paid so little attention to her. Although, Aunt Fuchsia had asked after her health this afternoon, when she’d once
again used the tried and true lie of not feeling well. Affinity grinned, she had never felt better. She was nervous, but it thrummed in her veins like a heady liqueur.
After she’d snuck out of the house, Affinity took a rented hackney to the boxing match. She realized that the one sticking point in this adventure was that she did not have the funds to buy a ticket, nor was she certain how to go about doing so to get inside. That was why they called them adventures though, she decided, never once considering what the other men attending the boxing event would be assuming about her presence there. Her thoughts were focused only on one man.
Affinity saw immediately that the location of the boxing match was in a lower-class section of London. Perhaps, she’d been wholly wrong in her assumption of who attended these events, because there was a vast quantity of common folk milling about outside the large brick facade of the warehouse. As she stepped down from the hackney, carefully holding the cloak together, she thought that this gathering held the appearance and atmosphere of a rowdy county fair, and her naked flesh shivered beneath her cloak in proportion to her rising alarm.
Too late she turned back to see her hackney already pulling away, then quite suddenly she had to sidestep a group of rambunctious men whose quarrel broke out into fisticuffs before her. Perhaps, this had not been such a winning plan after all, Affinity thought, biting her bottom lip. She could acutely feel her nakedness, and she defensively raised the closed parasol that she’d thought to bring along at the last moment. Now she knew why, because somewhere in the back of her love besotted mind her commonsense was still valiantly struggling with the idea that if she would do this idiotic thing she should carry some type of defense!
It did not take her long to confirm that she’d made a very bad mistake coming here. All the men milling around her thought that she was a prostitute! Of course, ninny. Then what saved her was fear-inspired anger and her ability to use the point of her parasol to advantage. Her anger was a result of the realization that a lady could not walk unmolested in such a public forum. She really had wanted to see a boxing match. Nonetheless, Affinity was not sure her anger was going to help her now as she began backing up, nearly tripping at the awkward backward motion in her higher than normal high-heeled slippers. Nor was the point of her parasol going to hold out long against the concentrated group of slipshod men trying to surround her.
“Come on with me, fancy, I got a two pence for ye!”
“Hey ya, fancy-slut!”
“Look here, birdie, I’s got three pence.”
“You just blow me now for half a quid, girlie!”
“Give us a look! Lift them skirts!”
“Show us yer snatch!”
Affinity was assaulted by the lurid men’s rabid jeers and catcalls. She refused to assess their meaning as she raised the hem of her red cloak readying to run. She jabbed the point of her frilly parasol into the ribs of the boldest villain trying to grab her. The pot-bellied ruffian screeched in surprise and Affinity did not hesitate, but quickly ran past him with a shriek of her own. She ran as fast as her high-heels would allow, while she could hear the men at her back shouting the most vile and embarrassing jibes. Panic overcame her, surely some decent soul would help her, and she drew a breath to scream, but suddenly she tripped!
Law froze in mid-step. He could not believe what his gaze was telling him was true. Yet with no time for second thoughts and with the instinct born through many battles, he pulled one of the two pistols he always carried from his cloak pocket and immediately shot it into the air.
“Unhand, the lady!” Law’s command carried the sharp directive of a military officer. He stood with his legs braced apart, ready for action as he sneered at the felons groping Affinity, who was sprawled on the ground. “Now!” he snarled
Affinity, at her first sight of him, cried out his name as she struggled fiercely to free herself from the man who still held her by her arms. The blackguard deftly tugged Affinity to her feet as though she were a mere doll and he pulled her body in front of him, to use as a shield as the rest of the mob fell back, edging away from the threat of a pistol. Law took sight of Affinity’s disheveled state. Her bonnet was trampled into the ground at their feet and her hair flew around her like a shawl, while the blood-red cloak that she wore was wrenched off one of her pale shoulders, baring it to the top mound of her breast.
Swearing harshly beneath his breath, Law aimed his remaining loaded pistol at the man’s temple as the ruffian dragged Affinity backwards. “I repeat! Unhand, the lady!”
“Easy now, Gov’nr! You just take yer lady and I’ll be going! No harm done!” Having shouted that, the bully pushed Affinity forward roughly and with enough force that Law had no choice but to lower his pistol to catch her before she fell. Law grasped Affinity, steadying her as he watched the last blackguard stumble through the crowd. Then, quite without thought, but with great emotion, he pulled Affinity’s trembling body into his embrace.
“Are you totally insane?” he exclaimed roughly. He could feel his body vibrating in total collapse of his usual staid demeanor. “Are you hurt, Affinity?” he asked, and he noticed that his voice was shaking as he glared over the top of her head to assess any further dastardly attempts.
Affinity shook her head as she frantically burrowed her face into his chest, rubbing her cheek against his fine linen shirt. His hands moved up and down her spine, seeking assurance as he tightened his embrace and her disheveled silky brown hair tickled his throat. He turned them in a circle to surmise if there were any other louts about, and it was quickly apparent that none of the other passersby them had any inclination to tempt his pistol or his devilish scowl, for they all made a wide berth around them. Damnation, he thought his heart would collapse when he’d seen Affinity, and here of all places, being molested by what he could only dub as a mob of ruffians.
Law could feel the fullness of Affinity’s breasts pressed into his chest, and hotly on top of his alarm, a surge of sexual energy flooded his body. For moments he allowed his body free reins, opening his stance and drawing Affinity closer between his legs, while his hands stopped their roaming over her spine and settled on her delicious bottom, which he cupped warmly. The motion pressed his erect cock into her belly like a waiting pillow.
“I say, is that, Lady Affinity Redgrift?”
“Oh no!” Affinity gasped, instantly clutching him harder as her body shook more.
Swiftly, Law tugged Affinity forward, but she stumbled against his stride. Then, quickly he reached down, sweeping her up into his arms to carry her as his gaze scanned the crowd for the owner of that voice. He could not tell which man had spoken, nor did he recognize the voice, but he did know this entire episode was a recipe for social disaster.
He did not stop his purposeful stride until he reached his carriage, calling out before him to his driver to turn the carriage about and get them out of the crush of carriages before and aft. Without waiting for an answer, Law threw open the carriage door and stepped up inside with Affinity still in his arms. He sat abruptly in the seat as the carriage jerked with the beginnings of maneuvering out of the tight space. His long arm reached outward and he grabbed the carriage door, slamming it shut. He took one quick look around to see if he could see any familiar face about, but all he saw were the drivers and footmen of different conveyances. Then, he tugged the green velvet curtain closed as he cussed lowly and crassly, while reaching over and closing the other curtain.
He’d known before this time that Affinity’s antics and his own were ghastly beyond society’s norm. He assumed it was one of the reasons he’d been so quickly enthralled. Yet, that ominous voice had recognized Affinity for one, and possibly him. It had been like a slap in the face. His anger for Affinity’s protection and safety, and his sexual arousal, which was riding him hard, was all out of proportion. So much so that he was riding strangely high on his emotions and he found himself forcefully jostling Affinity around and turning her face down over his knee.
“If you ever dare do
this again,” he hissed through his gritted teeth. “You could have been raped by that mob!”
“Law!” Affinity cried, as he clamped his forearm over the small of her back, while his other hand tossed the hem of her cloak upward.
The last thing he expected to see was a naked ass! Yet, there it was. There was no gown with skirts beneath, but a plump and wriggling bare ass with stockings below and a black corset above. Why this infuriated him further, he had no clue, but his hand came down on those fat alabaster globes with a hearty smack!
“Ow!” Affinity squealed, thrashing her legs and bobbing her head.
“What in the hell are you wearing?” he demanded, as his hand lifted upward, then lowered, smacking her buttocks again. The woman was naked beneath her cloak . . . well nearly!
“Ow! Ow!” Affinity cried, as she tried to wiggle her small hands around to cover the bare and unprotected exposure of her buttocks. “I was coming to seducce you!”
Well hell, his hand was already descending and the flat of his palm spanked sharply against Affinity’s plump ass cheeks. “You will not sit for a week, thinking of your foolhardiness!” Law claimed.
It sounded perfectly rational to him, beside the fact that laying his hand smartly to Affinity’s naked and squirming buttocks was ridiculously arousing him further. Perhaps, it was her seesawing motion across his lap and therefore his rigid cock? It could be his position of dominance over her struggling near nakedness. The view itself was heatedly erotic. Then a lusty whim entered his mind. He wanted to see Affinity’s chubby wiggling ass cheeks stained a rosy pink color.