He bent his head to the tender spot just beneath her ear. “Think of it as practice for making everyone believe we’re a love match, after all.”
And that statement spurred a new thought. “Someone might come upon us.”
“Indeed.” He pressed his lips to the base of her throat. “That is part of the excitement.” Another kiss punctuated with the hot swipe of his tongue. “Imagine the scandal, should someone come upon us. Then when the masks come off, they’d find me swiving my wife.”
“Swiving?” Such crude language ought to have insulted her. Somehow it only sensitized her to what he was doing with his mouth.
“Mmmm.” The vibration buzzed against her skin. “Say that again.”
“Swiving.” The word emerged on a breath of air.
“Yes, that. And what else might I coax from those lips before the night is through?” His fingers strayed to the edge of her bodice, making teasing forays beneath the fabric.
Her nipples tightened to aching buds yearning toward his touch.
“I’m tempted to strip you down to your bare skin, so whoever comes upon us might see me enjoying your perfection.”
“Perfection?” She could barely credit it, but his fingers filled her mind with swirling clouds of possibility.
“Oh, yes. These.” He cupped her breasts, his palms forming about her like a second skin. “These are magnificent. And no one else has access to them. The pleasure of these are my exclusive domain. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.” She hardly knew if she was agreeing with his assertion or asking for more.
Her spine arched in a silent plea, and he squeezed. His thumbs brushed over her taut nipples, back and forth in a maddening rhythm. She followed the direction of his gaze. He was watching himself touch her, his lips parted. His eyes met hers, and his expression hardened. The sheer intensity driving it turned her mouth dry.
“Whoever walks in on us is likely to be shocked,” she sighed. Emma ought to be shocked herself, at the way she was discussing the notion so casually. Most especially when her husband was undoing her bodice. Most especially when he released her breasts to the cool air in the sitting room.
“Someone such as your cousin?” His breath wafted across her throat in a hot puff. “No doubt she cannot imagine a man doing such things to her.”
“Such things?”
“Things such as this.” He dipped his head and took a straining nipple between his teeth. His tongue circled the peak, and she melted further with each velvet sweep.
All too soon, he raised his head. “My problem is, I do not wish to share even the sight of you.” Gently, he applied pressure to her shoulders, turning her to face the door. “Keep careful watch.” His hands strayed to her skirts, gathering them, rucking yards of fine silk up toward her waist. “You’ll warn me if anyone comes in, won’t you?”
“Surely you will know.” Cool air caressed the bare skin of her thighs above her stockings.
“I’m afraid I shall be otherwise engaged.” The tips of his fingers traced a fleeting circle over a globe of her backside. “Lean forward. Brace your hands.”
She tried to turn—she needed to see his intent. “What are you planning?”
Firm pressure at the small of her back convinced her to obey. She gripped the back of a chair.
“Don’t worry. You’ll feel everything. Don’t forget to watch the door.”
With a toe, he nudged at her feet, coaxing her legs apart. Then his palm molded itself about her buttock, fingers splayed, reaching, tantalizingly close. His touch shifted, and his fingers delved forward, parting her. Testing. Sending a jolt of pleasure straight to her center.
A moan erupted from her throat.
“I forgot to mention.” Somehow his voice came from a point much lower than its usual wont. As if he’d knelt behind her. “You mustn’t make a sound—unless you want someone to catch us. Quietly, now.”
And then something swept across her most intimate flesh. Not his fingers. It was too hot, too moist. It slipped between her folds and flicked, much like his tongue against her nipples. Dear Lord, was he kissing her? There? Oh, God, he was, with long, smooth strokes, parting her, seeking that aching bud of flesh above her entrance. Circling, finding, making her melt.
Her knees wobbled, and she swallowed an urge to cry out. “I can’t…”
“You can.” Another smooth swipe of his tongue. “Or do you want them to see what only I have seen? You bent double over a chair, your skirts at your waist. All wet.” Stroke. “Disheveled. Wanting.” Stroke. “Desperate.” His very tone was low and urgent. “Yearning.”
“Ah…” It was the most she could get out.
With that, he went back to work.
Her fingers gripped the upholstery. Heavens, her knuckles must be white, and still he went on. Tireless, relentless, building her up and up. A trickle of perspiration eased down her temple, and she gritted her teeth.
“Are you still watching the door?” The heat of his breath fluttered against her inner thighs.
She opened her eyes. “Yes.”
“Good.” Another lick twisted her higher still.
“I can’t,” she tried again.
“You can,” he insisted, and eased a finger inside her. “Is it good, Emma? Tell me.”
“Yes.” It was, but that blasted finger wasn’t nearly enough. She raised herself on her toes and strained toward him.
“Do you want more?”
“Lord, yes.”
“How much?” That wicked finger slowed its stroke.
She pushed against it.
“You want a proper swiving, you need only tell me. Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Then say it.”
“I want a proper swiving. I want it hard, and I want it now.” Part of her—the part that had endured so many lessons in proper deportment—could barely believe what was coming out of her mouth. Miss Conklin would surely have a fit of apoplexy to see her now. But then, a man—as near a title as she would ever get—was on his knees before her. Or rather, behind her.
“Your servant.”
She wasn’t fooled for an instant. He may refer to himself as her servant, but she wasn’t the one in control of this encounter. Not by a long shot.
He stood. She felt the movement more than she heard it. Then came a scrabbling that could only be desperate fingers tearing at the falls of his breeches. Then he was pushing at her, entering in one long stroke, slow and aching, until he filled her entirely.
Until he pushed the very air from her lungs. “Ah.”
His sigh of relief and desperation was just as forceful.
He wrapped an arm about her waist. “Careful, now. We must be quiet lest we be discovered. Remember to watch the door.”
She forced her eyes open, her entire body shaking with the effort. She wanted to close all her senses off to everything but him. To feel, to revel in the sensation of him filling her until this wild energy inside her burst free.
He eased out and pushed in once more. Slow. Too slow.
She thrust herself back against him.
His arm tightened about her waist. “Easy now,” he muttered into her nape. “I believe I hear someone in the corridor.”
She strained her ears, but no sound met them other than the pounding of her heart. Or was it his?
“Would you like them to come in and watch us? Do you want someone else to know the precise way your face contorts with pleasure when I make you come?”
Good Lord, she no longer cared. She could no longer think. She only wanted him to make it end, to give her the high-flying ecstasy he’d shown her in the wine cellar and afterward.
He moved in her again, and every last nerve in her body jangled. A whimper emerged from the back of her throat. His hand slipped downward, reaching for the knot of aching need at the top of her cleft.
“Yes, please.” He’d reduced her to begging, but she no longer cared.
“I believe I like you this way.” Another
thrust, long and slow, while his fingers danced a counterpoint over her most sensitive spot.
“What way?”
“Mindless. Heedless of everything but your own pleasure. Wanting it so badly you can nearly taste it. You’re so very close. I wonder how much longer I can draw you out?”
She couldn’t respond to that beyond a strangled cry.
“But you don’t understand…No one’s shown you yet.” His movements quickened. “The slower the buildup, the higher the peak.”
His passion wavered on the edge of a knife. She sensed it in the way his hips jerked with more desperate purpose. As much as he sought to control this encounter, she still held the power to break him. To make him give over. The increasingly guttural rasp in his voice belied his control.
With a sigh, she backed into him, bore down on every last thrust, letting him fill her to the hilt, reveling in that sweet spot deep inside that he hit with each stroke.
Soon. Soon she would splinter. Both of them would, together. But he was right about one thing. The longer they held off that final moment, the higher she climbed. The heights were dizzying now, and still she rose.
Up.
Up.
More.
Ever more.
When at last she shattered into millions of sparkling shards, the entire world broke along with her.
—
He couldn’t let her return to the ball in this state. Even with her skirts and bodice set to rights and her mask solidly in place, there was no hiding the color in Emma’s cheeks—a brilliant wash of pink, barely apparent in the darkened room, that extended down her neck and spread over her bosom. One look at her and anyone would guess she’d just been swived senseless.
He ought to call for the carriage and see her home. Then you can start in again.
But he shouldn’t subject her to even more of the ton’s scrutiny and vicious tongues. God, what had come over him? What had he been thinking? For all his talk, someone could have discovered them. He never should have taken the chance.
This is all part of the charade.
Except he was no longer certain. Once he’d sheathed himself in her heated silk, his body had taken over, and he couldn’t stop. Over and above the demands of his cock, his mind craved honesty from Emma. This was the most honest a woman ever got, when she gave herself over to her pleasure, when she dropped all pretense and asked unabashedly for satisfaction.
And she had, purely, honestly, and with her entire being. He’d felt it in every last nuance of her response. In the decadent rippling of her internal muscles along his entire length just before pleasure exploded.
God.
Words jumbled into his throat, clamoring for release the way his body had, but he could not give them voice. He’d once thought to give himself wholly over to a woman, to disastrous results. Never again. He could hold this part of himself in check. He had to, as a simple question of self-preservation.
“You return to the ball first.” Passion and checked emotion roughened his words. “I will wait an appropriate interval.”
She nodded, smoothed her skirts, and left, her slippers thudding dully on the carpeting. Thank God she hadn’t raised a protest or insisted on any more. He needed time to recover, if he was honest. What he wouldn’t do for a drink, but that would require tracking down a footman.
He’d wanted to leave his mark on Emma. Imprint her indelibly with his person. Now that she was gone, he could free his thoughts, at least in his mind. Mine. Mine and no other’s.
He wanted to plant the notion in her head, let it grow until it overshadowed the thought of another man. No matter what the rest of the ton did or thought, he’d tolerate no infidelity. Not even once she’d given him his heir.
This was Lydia’s fault. If not for the devastating guilt that entire situation inspired in him, he might have looked the other way when it came to Emma. He might have dallied himself, the same as the other gentlemen in his social circles. But no, he had to ensure his wife was just as faithful as he intended to be, and so he’d left his mark on her.
Except no one had warned him she might well leave her mark on him. The devil take it. He needed a measure of brandy to burn away these thoughts before they drove him mad.
He strode across the room and yanked the door open. In the corridor, he nearly collided with another guest.
“What ho, my good man.”
Rowan blinked at the fellow. In keeping with the party, a black pasteboard mask covered part of his face, but there was an unsettling familiarity about him, perhaps in the reddish tangle of curls atop his head. Impossible. Rowan had never seen this character at a society event. Of that much, he was certain.
“Pardon me.” Rowan made to push past him.
“But I’ve been waiting for you to emerge, ever since your lovely wife returned to the festivities.” Something about that voice twinged Rowan’s memory, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Clever of you, leaving at different times. Wouldn’t want to get caught. Especially with one’s wife.”
“Do I know you?”
The other man chuckled before producing a snuffbox from his topcoat. “I daresay you ought to, since you hired me to track down that Higgins fellow.”
“Dysart?”
“That’s Lord Dysart to you.”
Rowan could barely believe the transformation. His garments, his accent, his bearing—hell, the dainty way he took a pinch of snuff between his thumb and middle finger, pinky extended at a precise angle, and snorted the powder—fit in seamlessly with a ton ball, in direct contrast to his rough manner on Bow Street. “How did you get an invitation?”
“I don’t need an invitation.” Even though Dysart pronounced the words as smoothly as any Eton-educated gentleman, the cockiness shone through for a moment. “This is what makes me good at my job, old chap. I know how to blend in.”
“If you’ve gone to the trouble of tracking me down here, you must have news of Higgins.” Rowan could hope. So could Dysart, for that matter, if he wanted payment.
“Nothing on Higgins.” For a moment, the roughness crept back into his accent.
“Damn it.”
“He disappeared, all right, but he hasn’t left the country. He’s not at his estates, either. In fact, he’s nowhere to be found. I’d be willing to wager your friend Crawley knows where he is. Might even be holding Higgins against his will.”
Any lingering warmth left from his encounter with Emma seeped away. The chill in the corridor was suddenly as penetrating as in the wine cellar. “What? How—”
“I’ve been asking around. Piecing things together. Most of all, I’ve been keeping close watch on certain people. You want to know who made off with your blunt, ask your friend Crawley.”
“But…Higgins…” As it did whenever anyone presented him with a logical connection he had trouble making himself, his mind went blank.
“Forget him. And while you’re at it, you might want to ask Crawley what he’s doing with your wife.”
“Emma? She has nothing to do with this.” Not directly.
“I wouldn’t be so certain. They’ve been carrying on a correspondence for several weeks.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Crawley and Emma. The betrayal hit him like a sledgehammer straight to the gut. Every last doubt that Emma had laid to rest with her sweet and passionate response just now came roaring back to life.
Yes, and hadn’t she declared her intentions outright? Behave to her standards, indeed. Only a fool would take that statement at face value. Well, paint one Rowan Battencliffe in motley and put a belled hat on his head.
He grabbed Dysart by the lapels. “Good God, man. Don’t just stand there. Crawley’s here.” Not only that, he’d spotted the bastard talking to Emma earlier. “Fetch the magistrate.”
Expression hardening, Dysart raised both palms outward and took a pointed step back. “Don’t manhandle the togs, or it’ll cost ye. The magistrate won’t do ye no good. Crawley’s left or I’d’ve trussed him up for
ye. Might’ve added a bow if I could persuade a young lady to lend me a ribbon.”
“Damn it!” And if Rowan hadn’t been all fired up to have his wife, he might have experienced the pleasure of knocking the stuffing out of Crawley in front of the entire ballroom. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Dysart flushed red and looked away, muttering under his breath.
“What was that?”
“I said he gave me the slip. First time it’s happened in a dog’s age. It won’t happen again.”
Rowan clenched his hands into fists, longing for something more solid. Like Crawley’s neck. “Find the bastard. And don’t come back until you do have him trussed up with a bow. As for me, I have a wayward wife to deal with.”
He did not wait for Dysart’s reply. Pivoting on his heel, he headed back toward the ballroom. At least he hoped that was where he’d find Emma. He’d be damned if he was going to comb this house yet another time in search of her.
One thing was certain. When he found her, he wasn’t going to swive her again. Not even if she got on her knees and begged. He waved aside the mental images that particular thought conjured. Not now. Possibly not ever.
On the threshold, he paused to scan the space. Couples bowed and weaved, their feet pattering to the prescribed rhythm, but Emma was not among them. Of course not. His gaze drifted, rather, to the far corner.
There. He narrowed his eyes, and she came into sharp focus.
An entire ballroom a-whirl with dancers separated them, yet he was aware of every move she made. Every last nuance waltzed through his mind like one of the couples on the floor. Whom she smiled at. Whom she nodded to. Whom she addressed. Male or female made no difference. His attention centered entirely upon her. It shouldn’t be this way. The last thing he wanted was this obsession, but he was powerless against it.
Now she was smiling up at a man, and not just any man. Rowan well recognized the dark hair, the height, but most of all he recognized the walking stick. More than a fashionable prop, Viscount Lindenhurst needed support for basic movement due to the horrific injuries he’d sustained in the war.
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