Her mouth tasted like champagne and cinnamon, her lips were soft—softer than I remembered—but warm. When I parted them, her tongue was a slide of silk and heat, a sensation that went straight to my cock. It throbbed for that tongue, for that hot mouth. It wanted to violate her…again and again and again.
Molly’s face tilted up to mine, exposing her throat, and I don’t know how my hand found it, just that it did. And my hand caressed the smooth white column of her neck before I cupped her nape to keep her face tight to my own.
She pulled back, gasping, her breaths forcing her tits against her corset. I was so fucking hard right then, I swore I could feel every beat of my pulse in my dick.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed, trying to catch her breath. Her pupils were wide black pools and her lips were swollen. I dropped my hand from her neck.
I had no idea why I had dragged her off like a caveman or why I’d felt the need to brand her with such a possessive kiss. It had come from some dark place inside of me that I was unfamiliar with, despite the fact I’d seen it last year when I’d been with Molly. It had laid dormant since, but now that I was with her again, now that I had those pert, small breasts in front of me and all that scarlet, silken hair, and that adorable smattering of freckles across her nose—it flared back to life, roaring.
Take her, it urged. Use her.
Love her.
I shook it off. Donned the charming Silas mask everyone knew and loved. “Darling, I am so sorry. I simply couldn’t help myself; you are such a rare vision tonight.” I grinned at her, reaching out to run my thumb along her lower lip, but she swatted me away.
“Don’t call me darling,” she spat. “And don’t pull that playboy shit on me. We both know better.”
The dark thing reared its head again. “We do know better, don’t we? How many times did you let me come in your ass, Mary Margaret O’Flaherty? And how many times on your face? How many times did you let me spank you until you were begging for more? Begging for me to ram my—”
“Stop,” she said, her voice shaking. Her jaw was set, but her eyes glittered, unshed tears turning the bright blue eyes into dark sapphires. “Just stop.”
I looked at her—really looked at her. At the delicate swoop of her nose and the fine china of her skin under her freckles. At the dark smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well in months, and at the angular dip of her collarbone. At the frail curve of her shoulders.
“You’ve lost weight,” I said quietly, and the dark thing in me was pacing and angry. Not at her, but at myself. I felt the unaccountable urge to find some food and make her eat it in front of me. She’s your responsibility, the dark thing said. She is the woman you love, the woman you should be serving. The woman you should be doing everything in your power to care for.
I pushed the voice down, down and away from my mind. “Molly,” I tried again. “I’m so sorry. May we start over?”
She cleared her throat, not meeting my eyes. “I think you should leave.”
“Leave the Baron’s?”
She took a breath and then lifted her gaze, firm and still wet with tears. “No. Leave London.”
Something jagged sliced through my chest. Jagged and cold.
“We ended badly,” she continued, “but I see now that it was for the best. You and me—what we had—it wasn’t real. It was only three days, and Silas, we know better than to believe in love. Whatever we said to each other, whatever we promised each other, it was delirium brought on by good sex and nothing more. And you did us both a favor by dispelling that delirium as quickly as possible.”
The cold, jagged slice went deeper. “Dispelling it by fucking Mercy, you mean,” I said hollowly.
She hesitated, her throat bobbing ever so slightly, a tiny tremor in her chin. “Yes,” she said after a minute. “By fucking Mercy.”
We stared at each other again.
“Molly—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t. Just—whatever you were here to prove, you’ve proven it, okay? And I wish that I could rage at you, I wish that I could rain hellfire on your head, but I can’t. Not tonight. You’ve won, Silas. Now take pity on me and leave. I have too much going on in my life to expend the effort it would take to hate you.”
I felt completely sliced in two now, bleeding and severed. I had done this, I had earned this apathetic defeated tone, with my own weakness and cowardice last year. But tonight wasn’t supposed to be about last year. It was supposed to be about a fresh start, a straightforward agreement.
Just say what you came here to say, you idiot. “Molly,” I said, as contritely and also as charmingly as I could. “I came here to help you. Not to fight you.”
She lifted an eyebrow. She didn’t believe me, which was fair, I supposed, given our history.
I went on. “Julian told me about the board and their decision to make you marry.”
She sighed, making a yes…and? gesture with her hand.
“And I came back from France because I want to help you.”
“Silas,” she said, “you can’t help. No one can. I’ve seen every solicitor in London and there’s nothing to be done. Their decision is in no way illegal. They have every right to sell their shares if they so choose, and even though using that to force me into marriage feels like blackmail, legally, it is not.”
“I wasn’t talking about solicitors, Mary Margaret,” I said softly. “I was talking about me. Me and you. I came here to marry you.”
Her mouth fell open into a small O, and the glimpse of her pearl-white teeth and pink tongue reminded me how stiff my erection still was, how much my skin still burned to touch hers.
“You want to marry me?” she asked disbelievingly. “Why?”
Because I love you.
Because I can’t stop thinking about you.
Because I’ve found heaven, and it’s you and your perfect mouth and your perfect pussy.
“Because I have a proposition for you,” I said, still friendly, still smiling, still all business. “I can marry you, so you can satisfy the board’s demands, and then I will never, ever interfere in your running of the company or allow the board to use me to coerce you in any way—even if we have to playact at me taking charge, I never will interfere. And then you give me what I want. A transaction. No emotions, no entanglements, simply an exchange.”
“Exchange? Exchange for what?” Her tone was still doubtful, still incredulous. I knew that what I was about to say next would not repair that in any way.
I gave her the most dimpled and handsome smile I could muster.
“For a child.”
Her skin went even paler than normal, chalk-white against the sandy ecru of her freckles. “A baby,” she said, her voice devoid of any affect or feeling. “A…child.”
“A human baby. Yes.”
She blinked. Stared at me. Like she’d never heard of babies before.
“You want a baby,” she said, her face slowly changing from flatly pale to flushed and suspicious. “You want to marry me so that…what? So that we have children together?”
“Yes.”
She spun on her heel, realized she was facing a wall and then spun back. “Have you gone mad?”
“It’s been a while since I checked, buttercup.”
She didn’t even crack a smile at my response. She stepped forward, her cheeks flaming scarlet. “Are you joking, then? Is this some sort of elaborate prank?”
“My offer is as serious as sin, Molly. I’m not insane and I’m not joking.”
She came closer, so close I could smell her again, spices and the clean, flowery smell of her hair. “Then how dare you,” she seethed. “How dare you come here after what you did and presume to think that I could ever—ever—entertain the idea of being bound to you. How dare you think that I would debase myself enough to marry you? To carry your fucking child?”
Her volume had risen with her color, and I was certain people on the other side of the curtain could hear her. She was magnificent right now, her hands
balled into fists in her skirt, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her slender frame visibly shaking with anger.
I hadn’t expected her to hit me and I hadn’t expected my very physical (and deeply wrong) response to her striking me—but this? This bone-rattling, blood-boiling rage?
This I had expected.
“I know we have a history—” I started.
“A history?” she shrieked. “A history? Is that what you call it? You told me you cared about me, Silas, you told me that you wanted me and me alone and that you were done being with other women. You saw me crying! I told you…” She faltered and trailed off, her gaze breaking away from mine, her thin arms wrapping themselves around her body. “I told you I loved you.”
She didn’t have to say any more. We both knew what had happened next.
“I won’t try to defend myself,” I said quietly. “I don’t have any reasons or excuses except that I’m a loathsome troll.” And that I was scared to death of the way that you made me feel.
Of the way you still make me feel.
“But I don’t think we should let this bad blood keep us from a mutually beneficial arrangement. You need a husband to appease the board, and I can be that husband, just for appearances’ sake. We won’t have to live as man and wife, and I won’t ever involve myself in your business. It will be like we aren’t even married, and then the board will have lost that particular bit of leverage over you.”
“We won’t have to live as man and wife…except you want a baby,” Molly pointed out. Irritation and hurt still laced her words. “So you’ll get to marry me and fuck me…and I am supposed to be grateful for it? For your charity?”
God, when she put it that way, it did sound terrible. “This isn’t charity, darling, this is a mutually beneficial business arrangement. You need a husband. I want a family.”
“And why do you want a family so badly, anyway?” she demanded, arms still crossed and eyebrow raised.
I didn’t have a ready answer to that, not because I couldn’t name all the reasons why I wanted one, but because it just seemed so…apparent. So obvious.
Who didn’t want a family?
Molly. That’s who.
I gestured to the curtain, where a chink in the fabric revealed a whirling tableau of dancing, drinking and sex. “Is this really all you want your life to be? Meaningless fucking and too much wine? You don’t ever think about your future—about settling down and being content? You don’t ever want to experience the kind of pure, unconditional love that comes with a family?”
She didn’t respond. But she was listening. I could see it in the alert way she followed my movements, the way her lips pressed together at my words.
I decided it was time to be even more honest. I had been thinking about this arrangement for a solid week now, and I had grown used to its unusual proportions and conditions. But I also appreciated that this was a lot for her to take in at once.
I stepped closer to her, expecting her to step back. But she didn’t; she stayed where she was, even when I got so close that I could feel my shoes brushing against her skirt.
“I look at Thomas and at Charlotte, I see the life they have, and I want that, Molly. I don’t want to be the playboy any more. I don’t want to fuck forgettable women and drink too much and let my years pass me by. I’m thirty-five, and I’m too old to ignore how empty I feel. I want more.”
The pulse jumped in her throat as her eyes flicked to mine. There was something there, something in those blue depths that reached out to me. A sympathy or an empathy or something—she knew how I felt. And maybe she felt the same way.
“And I know now,” I continued quietly, “that I don’t deserve to have the love of a woman. Not like Julian and Thomas have with their women. But maybe, just maybe, I can be a good father. Maybe I can have the rest, even if I can’t have the marital bliss.”
Her eyes closed for a moment, her dark red lashes resting against her cheek, and God, I wanted to touch her again. I wanted her to tell me that I was wrong, that I did deserve to have the love of a woman and that I could somehow work to deserve hers again.
I wanted it more than anything.
But instead, she opened her eyes and shook her head. “No, Silas. I will not be your womb for hire.”
Disappointment crashed heavy and cold into my stomach. I bit my lip and her gaze followed the motion. I was still hard, and the only thing I wanted more than her saying yes to my unconventional proposal was her saying yes to me lifting her skirts and devouring her pussy until she couldn’t stand anymore.
I didn’t pressure women into anything—proposals, sex, dancing, card games, anything—mostly because I’d never had to, but also because that wasn’t me. I liked being easygoing. I liked avoiding conflict. I had told myself on the way here that if she said no, I would simply have to bear it up and leave. That I would honor her wishes.
But now that I was here, staring at the long arch of her throat and the blood-colored hair running over one shoulder, at those blue eyes so sad and strong and tired, I couldn’t give up on her. I couldn’t let her go that easily. Even if I didn’t love her anymore, I had to face the fact that I wanted her. I had to face all the crass, caveman-like images wanting her conjured. I wanted her to be my mate, and the idea of another man claiming her instead made me see crimson splotches of rage.
I had to face it: no matter how wrong it was, I couldn’t give up on marrying her. Not yet.
“Am I allowed to try to change your mind?” I said, leaning in so that my lips were near her ear.
She shivered, goose bumps prickling along her shoulders and arms, and I smiled grimly to myself. She wanted me still. After everything.
“Answer me, darling. Am I allowed to persuade you to marry me?”
My lips were at the shell of her ear now, and I nipped at her earlobe, drawing my teeth along the soft skin there before replacing them with my tongue.
She let out a half sigh, half moan.
“Maybe,” she breathed, as I let my mouth wander down her neck, licking and savoring and sucking, her skin sweet and clean with the slightest hint of salt. It tasted better than I remembered, which made me think about the other things I had tasted and wanted to taste again. “Maybe,” she repeated and then gave a little gasp as I gently bit her throat.
Good.
“Give me a safe word, Molly.”
“W-what?” she stammered, and I loved that my mouth on her skin made her incoherent. Maybe I had a shot at winning her hand after all.
“Give me a safe word. A signal. And when you use it, I will stop, no questions asked.”
“We’re not having sex tonight,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sure of herself, and her addition of the word tonight… I noted that and continued kissing her neck, working my way over to the other side and kissing up to her jaw.
“It isn’t for sex. It’s for pursuit.”
She pulled back a little, her eyes narrowing as she tried to parse my meaning.
My hand found her skirts and I began pulling on the silk, lifting it up to her waist. “If I court you, if I try to marry you, I am going to use every dirty, filthy trick I know. If I try to win your hand, I am not going to play fair.” Skirts up, petticoats raised, I dropped my other hand to run up the outside of her thigh. And then the inside.
Her legs fell apart and she slumped against the wall, her eyes fluttering closed once more as my fingers crept closer and closer to where we both wanted them most.
“For example,” I murmured, “I could do this—” I swept my fingers up and across the soft flesh of her mound, carefully avoiding her inner folds or her clit, savoring the almost pained sigh she gave me. “And I could promise to put my mouth down there. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You would give me anything right now so long as I gave you my mouth in return.”
A little noise escaped her, and then—my own self-control faltering—I cupped her. Hard. And even without penetrating her, I could feel how wet she was—dripping and slic
k—and fuck, my cock hurt. I wanted to make this woman come, and then I wanted to stick my cock inside of that swollen, tender flesh and drive away all the doubt and pain and blame we’d built around each other. I would tear it all down until she came like a quivering shot around me, and then I would fist her hair and press my crown against her mouth and make her lap up my cum as I pulsed it onto her lips.
I pressed a finger inside of her. She cried out, squirming, trying to grind her pussy down onto my hand. “How long has it been since you’ve let a man really fuck you, Mary Margaret? I know you’ve ridden men, I know you’ve used them, but how long since you’ve let a man use you?”
I slid my finger in deeper and added a second one, rubbing her hard with the heel of my palm. She was panting.
“How long?” I asked, wondering for a minute at my stern voice, at my almost-cruel words, but then she answered and I stopped caring how cruel I seemed.
“No one since you,” she whispered.
I crooked my finger, creating friction against her favorite spot, and her knees buckled. I caught her by the throat, wishing I could somehow freeze the flash of fear and lust in her eyes, freeze it like a painting and then hang it on my wall.
God, this woman.
This woman.
She was making me forget that I wasn’t supposed to be in love with her. She was making me forget that charming, happy, playful Silas would never grab a woman by the throat, never finger her without her express consent and yet here I was, doing it anyway.
“See, my love?” I said, my fingers still curled around that gorgeous throat, my other hand rubbing her into a squirming and wet state of ecstasy. “See how I won’t play fair? See how I’ll touch you and tease you? See how I’ll fuck you into giving me what I want?”
Her eyes flashed—indignation, perhaps, or maybe protest—but at that moment I squeezed her neck and ground my palm harder against her, and then a shuddering, buckling, slippery orgasm consumed everything in her. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened, a gasp for air that she could still get around my harsh grip but not without the illusion of struggle. And her sweet, wet cunt—I could feel it fluttering around my finger and all I wanted on this earth was to feel that fluttering on my tongue, one last time.
The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty Page 3