Bliss pressed her fingers to her lips and then placed her palm on each of her grandparent’s graves. “Je t’aime,” she whispered, and let Caine guide her away.
They walked for a few moments in companionable silence, the wind caressing her cheeks, the hoot of an owl and the distant chorus of cats sweet music to her ears.
At the end of the footpath, Caine came to a stop. “What’s that?” He nodded to the crypt in the corner, with a mournful Victorian maiden adorning the front.
“That’s Chopin’s grave.”
“What are all the little pieces of paper there for?”
“Lovers tuck notes in the cracks. It’s become a bit of a legend that the maiden is really a guardian angel.”
Caine gazed speculatively at the statue and then glanced at her sketchpad. “Do you mind?”
Bliss shook her head, watching as he flipped to the back of the book, where he tore out a small square of an unused page. Using the fine edge of her charcoal drawing pencil, he scribbled something. She tried to peek over his shoulder, but he blocked her view. Then he walked over and inserted the scrap of paper into a sliver of space beneath the maiden’s heel.
“What did you write?”
He smiled down at her. “That’s for me and Chopin to know.” He laced his fingers through hers, refusing to satisfy her curiosity as they headed out of the cemetery and on to the boulevard, where he hailed a jarvey, giving the driver her address.
He helped her in. Bliss arranged her skirts and then glanced up to find him still standing outside, his hands shoved in his pockets, appearing uncertain.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
“Do you want me to?”
The answer came easily. “Yes.” She wasn’t ready to see this night end. She wanted to get to know this new and solicitous Caine Ballinger, to learn what she could about him.
The side of the conveyance dipped slightly as he climbed in and closed the door behind him, encasing them in a cocoon of darkness but for the dim glow of a single lantern mounted beside the box.
The gentle clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestones and the light swaying of the carriage lulled Bliss. Caine’s long legs were stretched out on either side of hers, their eyes locked on each other, the yearning they had managed to contain still simmering beneath the surface.
“If you could be anywhere right now,” she murmured, repeating a form of the question he had posed to her, “where would you be?”
The squabs beneath him creaked slightly as he leaned forward and took her hands in his, skimming his thumbs over her knuckles before slipping underneath to caress her palms in slow, rhythmic strokes.
“I’d be right where I am now,” he said. He kissed her then, softly, reverently, but with a hunger that burned her.
“Caine…” His name whispered longingly from her lips as she brushed the back of her fingers across his cheek. He tilted his head into her palm and placed a warm kiss in the center.
“Come here.” He took hold of her wrist and gently coaxed her across the small distance separating them, settling her on his lap again. “That’s much better.”
Lifting her hand, he kissed each of her fingers, then the inside of her wrist, working his way up her forearm and finding the sensitive flesh at the juncture of her elbow with a diligent sensuality that was maddening.
Bliss closed her eyes and sighed in grateful surrender, knowing how much she had wanted this intimacy with him. His chin skimmed over the upper swells of her breasts to the place where no material hindered his seeking lips. Then he kissed her again, hot and possessive.
He raised his head slightly, his eyes heavy-lidded as he stared down at her. His hand trembled slightly as he lifted it to her neck and splayed his fingers, nearly spanning her collarbone.
“So fragile. So sweet.” His palm slid down until it was between her breasts, and Bliss bit her lip, waiting, wanting.
He began to work the small mother-of-pearl buttons free, easing her bodice down until her breasts were exposed, her nipples already erect.
“Lovely,” he said, his voice hoarse with desire as he kissed each aching tip. The whispered caress made her throb with anticipation and excitement. “They’re so tight and pink.” He tasted her again, a long suckling that had her writhing. “They feel like silk against my tongue. And when I suck hard, they conform to my mouth, so that one flick of my tongue”—he teased the tips, creating a vortex of pleasure inside her—“and you moan my name. Yes, like that. A kittenish sound in the back of your throat. God, it makes me crazy.” He lapped at the jutting points.
Bliss felt a slave to her body, craving how delicious Caine could make her feel. “The driver,” she murmured hazily as the carriage began to slow.
His body shielding hers, Caine slid back the panel behind the box and called up to the coachman, “Keep going until I tell you to stop.” Then he drove the panel home with a crisp thud.
“What will he think?”
“I don’t give a damn. Now where were we? Ah, yes. Your beautiful nipples and how they feel in my mouth.” He leaned down and drew one aching peak between his lips, his teeth lightly grazing it, heightening the sensitivity.
Bliss felt his hand at her ankle, pushing up her skirt, his warm palm skimming her calf, teasing a sensitive spot behind her knee before moving between her thighs, gently bidding her to open for him. She did.
He cupped her, sliding his middle finger through her curls to find the hot pearl within. “You feel so good,” he said with a heavy groan in his throat. “But you taste even better, like rich cream. And this”—he massaged the nub in slow circles—“is like a sweet berry.”
His words made a cascade of heat pour through Bliss, with visions of his mouth down there, suckling with the same delicious rhythm he used on her nipples.
He lowered his head to the curve of her neck. “Are you thinking of my mouth on you?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
She could feel his smile against her skin. Then he sat her up, so that her back was to his chest.
“Put your legs over the tops of mine.”
Willingly, Bliss did as he asked. He pushed her skirt up to her waist, leaving her perched on his lap like a wanton, her thighs open, her softness exposed. He shifted his legs wider, spreading her until she was taut and quivering.
He kissed her shoulder and the nape of her neck, his hands pressing against the outsides of her breasts and then molding them, pushing the peaks high and massaging them with his thumbs.
“Like how that feels?” he murmured against her ear.
“Yes,” she said with a low, husky moan. “Oh, yes.”
He slid one hand slowly down her stomach, her muscles trembling in anticipation as his fingers glided into her slick valley and found her throbbing nub once more.
Bliss arched back with a broken whimper, the feel of Caine’s large finger against her swollen flesh so very exquisite, every nerve ending on fire. Her breasts pulled high and tight made the soft scrape of his fingers across the tips of her nipples that much more divine.
“Caine,” she said in an aching voice, as her body climbed to that heavenly pinnacle.
“Yes, love. Let me feel it.”
She panted as he massaged her nipples, the spread of his hand so wide he could rub both hot points at the same time, the finger stroking between her wet nether lips slipping inside her, moving back and forth while his thumb tantalized her slick sex.
“Think of me inside you,” he said in a low, hoarse voice, his breath warm against her neck. “Deep inside you, as deep as I can get. Pumping like this.” He slipped another finger into her and pushed hard, lifting her.
Bliss felt mindless, drugged, nothing existed besides Caine and what he was doing to her.
He watched his hands playing with her nipples, his jaw clamped tight as he rolled the tight buds, plucking and squeezing and flicking until her womb throbbed and her muscles tightened around his fingers.
“Yes, that’s it,” he urged, drawi
ng her down over his arm.
With a groan, he tugged one distended peak into the hot inferno of his mouth, and with the first lash of his tongue over the aching tip, Bliss climaxed, the throbbing tremors dragged from deep inside her, one after the next, until she spiraled down to earth in the molten aftermath.
“Beautiful,” he whispered against her ear, making her blush as she thought about how she had writhed against him, demanding more. “You’re so incredibly lovely when you’re being pleasured. I can’t get enough of watching you, how passionately you respond to me, or how my hands feel against your body.”
Bliss tucked her head beneath his chin, feeling uncharacteristically shy. “I want to make you feel good, too.”
“You did.” He tipped her head up. “Just touching you makes me hot as hell. When you came, and my fingers were inside you, that hot, wet release squeezing against me…Christ, I almost came right along with you. That’s never happened to me before. I’m so primed for you, I’m about to explode.” He nudged his groin up against her bottom to prove his claim. “But not here. Not like this. I want you in a bed with soft sheets and candles.”
He kissed her nipples one last time, groaning as he straightened. With gentle hands he fixed her bodice and tugged down her skirt, before cradling her against his chest as he had done earlier.
He eased back the panel and spoke to the driver again as Bliss lay languid and sated in his arms. She had forgiven him. He had come to Paris for her. He had missed her. Certainly that had to mean he cared for her.
A few minutes later, they came to a halt in front of Number Twelve Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, her home. Caine kissed her passionately and then reluctantly returned her to the seat across from him, his hot blue eyes promising delights she could only imagine.
He took hold of her hand and placed a light kiss on the back as the driver alighted to put down the steps. Then the door swung open.
But it was not the driver who stood on the other side, staring up at them with a taunting lift of brows and that cruel smile.
But Olivia.
“Darling!” she crooned. “How devilishly naughty of you to keep me waiting. You did say to meet you here at nine sharp, didn’t you? Pleasuring the little chit must have taken longer than you expected.” Her gaze shifted to Bliss, the implication clear as she raked an assessing glance over her, not missing Bliss’s disheveled hair and mussed clothing, or the flush on her cheeks and upper chest. “Clearly you succeeded, from the looks of things.”
Bliss stood frozen on the bottom step, Caine’s hand burning where it pressed against her back, his body rigid with tension. The happiness she had so recently felt began to deteriorate before her eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here, Olivia?” Caine demanded in a furious tone, helping Bliss down the final step when her limbs refused to work.
Somewhere in her mind, Bliss realized he held on tightly to her arm as though he thought she would bolt, but she could not summon the strength to wrench away, to run up the stairs and block out both of them. To save herself from what she feared was coming.
“As I said, I was waiting for you.”
“You know what I’m talking about. What are you doing here, in Paris? I left you back in Devon to rot in hell.”
Olivia laughed, tapping her fan coquettishly on his forearm, as though they stood in the middle of a ballroom rather than on a dusty street. “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. We arrived together.”
“Get out of here, Olivia,” Caine warned. “And don’t come back. If I see you again, you won’t like the outcome.” His grip unrelenting, he dragged Bliss toward the front steps of her house.
“Oh, dear. I’ve arrived too soon, haven’t I? She hasn’t said the words yet, has she?”
Time seemed to exist outside of that moment as Bliss drew to a halt and turned her gaze up to Caine’s, praying in the depths of her heart that he had not made a fool out of her again.
“Damn it, Bliss, don’t listen to her. I didn’t come here with her. I swear it. She’s lying.”
“What is it I was supposed to say?”
“Nothing. Jesus…It all changed, don’t you see? I couldn’t do it. I…” His face was a mask of regret and despair. “I couldn’t do it.”
“What couldn’t you do?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I told her so.”
“My dear Lady Bliss…” Olivia reached out to console her, placing her hand lightly on Bliss’s arm.
Bliss jerked back. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she commanded, a rising tide of fury replacing the numbness that had settled over her.
“I understand what you must be feeling,” Olivia said with false sympathy, “but please don’t blame Caine entirely. I fear I’m as much at fault as he is. It was only a game, you see, devised by two jaded lovers who were simply looking for some sport to relieve their ennui.”
“Shut up, Olivia,” Caine growled through clenched teeth.
“We’ve been found out, my lord. There is no need to pretend any longer. We owe it to the lady to confess our wrongdoings.” She looked back at Bliss. “I really didn’t think it would go this far.”
“Bliss,” Caine said roughly, coming to stand in front of her, blocking out Olivia. “Don’t listen to her. I love you. I should have said it before now, but…Jesus, I was afraid. You were too damn good for me. I thought I could let you go, forget about you. But I couldn’t.”
“Tell her the truth, Caine. Tell her how you used her to win back your home.”
“I didn’t use you, Bliss. I wanted you. I’ll always want you.”
“Tell her how we made a wager,” Olivia taunted.
He stared at Bliss pleadingly. “I couldn’t follow through.”
“You see, my lady,” Olivia went on, “what I didn’t tell you back in Devon was that your defilement was not solely about revenge. Yes, Caine wanted to get back at your father—”
“Shut up, damn you,” Caine threatened, whipping around to face her.
“But he also wanted his home back,” Olivia continued, undaunted. “I, too, wanted something. Caine’s child. And he was more than willing to provide me with one, if he didn’t succeed in fulfilling his part of the bargain.”
Caine advanced on her. She backed away from him, but the words kept coming. “What better way to avenge his father’s death by not only taking your virginity, but making you fall hopelessly in love with him? He didn’t want your heart, my dear. He wanted your soul.”
“Shut up!” Caine roared.
“You lovestruck bastard.” She laughed viciously. “You stupid, bloody fool. Do you think she could ever care for someone like you? You and I are two of a kind, my lord. Sinners to the end, caring for nothing but our own personal gratification. How do you think you fell so far? Because you’re a vice-ridden swine. The only thing you cared about was sticking your rod into the next willing female, letting your poor father suffer because your cock needed appeasing.”
“That’s enough.” The command came from Bliss.
“No,” Olivia said forcefully. “That’s not nearly enough. You’ve been duped by a master, my girl. Since I had quite a bit at stake here, I had to protect my investment. Caine is so very skilled at seduction, you see, I knew he would bed you and have you professing your undying love for him before you knew what had happened. Do you think he would be here now if he had managed to get you to tell him you loved him back in Devon?
“Think, my dear: Caine was willing to give me anything I wanted, do anything I say, perform any sexual act I desired, to remain in that house. Do you think he would let all that hard work go to waste on a silly virgin like yourself? I’ve done you a momentous favor, my dear. Caine is an exercise in poor judgment. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Bliss’s entire body ached with despair; her movements slowed as she faced him. “Is it true what she’s saying? Was everything…all of it because you wanted to get your home back?”
He leaned ag
ainst the wall, his head tipped back, his gaze focused on the night sky. “I thought it was going to be so simple,” he said, his voice hollow. “I thought I knew how each part was going to play out. I wouldn’t care about you; wouldn’t want you. And by Christ, I sure as hell wouldn’t need you.
“But you challenged me at every turn. You changed me.” His head shifted against the hard stone, his eyes empty as he looked at her, as though he was no longer there. “For a short while, you made me forget who I was.”
“How very maudlin,” Olivia drawled in a disgusted tone. “He’s so wracked with guilt, it’s pathetic. Well, darling, since you’ve gone this far, you might as well tell your beloved the rest. It is such an interesting tale, after all.”
“Don’t,” he begged. “If you care for me at all, Olivia, don’t do it.”
“Yes, I care for you—as much as you care for me, and we both know how much that is. I warned you not to treat me so callously. There was only so much I would take from you, even with your lovely cock that could do such sublime things to my body. But St. Giles has taken your place in my bed, and though neither his performance nor his manhood measures up to yours, he does what I say. So you see, I don’t need you anymore. Your usefulness is at an end. You’re worthless anyway. What do you have? Nothing. You’re an outcast, a homeless earl. You can rot in the street, my love. That’s how much I care.”
“Why are you doing this to him?” Bliss asked, hurting for Caine, knowing that no matter how he had broken her heart, she could not simply stop loving him. She had to defend him, because he had been brought too low to defend himself.
“Why?” Olivia countered with a bark of laughter. “Because I can. But really, what would a simpleton like you know about it? You wage wars with words, when any war against a man is best won with sex. Their brains are in their pants, my dear. I’d advise you to keep that in mind.”
“I don’t want any advice from you. You’re a cruel, calculating witch.”
“La, you’re finally figuring it out. But before you start labeling me and feeling sorry for this weak excuse for a man, consider this. He plotted against you. You were a pawn.” She turned her malicious regard on Caine, who was slumped against the wall, his head in his hands. “Now tell her, Caine. Tell her why she should lay all the blame on your shoulders. Tell her the one thing that makes everything you’ve done to her that much worse.”
The Pleasure Seekers Page 21