The Corrupt Comte: The Bourbon Boys, Book 1

by Edie Harris

  “The best lesson.” His boots were kicked aside, followed by the sounds of what could only be him shedding his breeches.

  “Which is?”

  “That no man can ever make you feel as I will.”

  Then it wouldn’t be the best lesson, but the worst, and she knew she should hate him for it.

  Hearing the crisp crinkle of paper behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. “What is th-that?” The shadows of the room and the speed of his fingers made it difficult for her to see the details of what he was doing, but he’d drawn…something…over the rigid length of his penis, fumbling only slightly at the base.

  “It protects you,” he answered between gritted teeth.

  “From what?”

  “From me.” He stepped into her, gripping his cock in one hand as he prodded her slick entrance with its blunt head.

  Her head fell forward onto the mattress, eyes sliding shut at the sensation. She didn’t need to see him anymore, just feel, but she couldn’t resist asking, “Why d-do I need p-protection from you?” She wiggled her backside in excitement, inviting it—him—in. “Gaspard…”

  His hand clamped at her hip. “Be still,” he snapped, and she stilled, a needy whimper born of the anticipatory shivers racing up and down her spine escaping her parted lips.

  A gentle nudge, and his thick crown was lodged in her opening. “I wish…I want to feel you. Just you.” Both of his hands settled on her bottom now, spreading her rudely apart.

  She didn’t have to look at him to feel his tiger’s gaze searing her most intimate areas. With a shudder, she fisted the bedcovers. “C-can’t you?” Whatever he’d taken from that paper pouch separated his flesh from hers, but couldn’t he feel this? Couldn’t he feel the heat between them? The blinding, pulsing need?

  Her body clenched instinctively at the thought, tearing a groan from him. His fingers bit into her skin. “If you were mine…”

  She turned her face into the bed, her confession muffled against red satin and white linen. “I am yours.” Stupid man.

  “But only tonight. You are only mine tonight.” He slid into her on a slow glide. “Ah, putain,” he swore.

  Big. So much bigger than his fingers, stretching her wide, delving deep. A controlled stroke into her body, and they moaned in tandem when his hips pressed into her bottom.

  It wasn’t exactly comfortable, though it didn’t hurt, and when he started to withdraw, her eyes snapped open and she lifted her head to plead with him. “No!” Don’t leave, don’t go, don’t leave.

  Beads of perspiration dampened the hair at his temples, his face a study in concentration. Determination. “You want this?” He rolled his hips, seating himself deeper once more.

  “Y-yes.” Oh, God, she couldn’t even say “Y” words anymore without her condition rearing its ugly head. He was shredding every ounce of control she possessed with his hands and his cock and the way the firelight burnished his muscled torso bronze. Her gaze skated over the curved contours of his upper arms, so heavy and masculine and— “P-please, no…” He’d pulled back again, and the wretched sensation of his withdrawal had her arching her back, eyes squeezed shut as she buried her face in the bunched bedclothes.

  His hand petted down her spine, the soothing caress relaxing the tension gathered along her nerve endings. “In and out, kitten,” he murmured, accented English hoarse, pained. He thrust forward, filling her. “That is how we fuck.” Another retreat. Then he set a rhythm that had her understanding exactly what he meant.

  Her fingers dug into the mattress as each deep thrust threatened to shove her across the bed. His hand on her hip kept her in place, and his free hand came around to toy with one of her sensitized nipples, teased by the linen sheets every time he moved within her. Her inner muscles clenched around him as he pinched, tugged, and he grunted in response.

  The coarse hair on his thighs abraded the backs of hers. The skin stretched taut over his lean hips was cool with exertion, each animalistic slap against her buttocks spurring her to writhe harder, to push back in welcome for every measured thrust. Even as her mind clouded, even as she tumbled further into the beckoning darkness of lustful sin, she remained aware of the comte’s unraveling.

  The first clue was his words. “So…so…” A frustrated sound as her language failed him, and momentary sympathy opened her eyes so she could look back at him, encouraging.

  He switched to French, harsh and guttural, a wave of uncultured consonants and vowels spilling from between his full, tempting lips. “You’re so tight, mon ange. So tight…and wet…and hot.” Each word was punctuated by a thrust. “Do you like my cock inside you?”

  His bite. She recognized the word. Gaze locked with his, she answered in English. “Yes. I love it.”

  “Tell me you want it.”

  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He was power behind her, embodied and alive, and new tension coiled low in her belly, knotting her insides with the deliciously jarring invasion of his body into hers, and she bowed before him, supplicant and slave. Nothing but feeling now, a writhing mass of sensation that pushed closer and closer to the edge each time he stretched her inner walls.

  “I w-want it. I w-want your c-cock.” This time, her stutter had nothing to do with her condition and everything do with Gaspard’s forcefulness.

  “Fuck,” he groaned. “I need to come. I need you to come.” He leaned over her, teeth nipping her shoulder blade, her neck, a sharp bite of her earlobe. She felt him shaking, his ragged breaths heating the side of her throat.

  Losing control.

  The hand at her breast slid down to the juncture of her thighs, fingers quickly stroking over her clitoris until she vibrated, strung wire taut. Bigger than before, better than before, this will be so much more, taunted the voice in her head. Her body, speaking to her, telling her what it already knew, what it had known for centuries, eons. In every age of humanity, there had been this knowledge, leading women such as her into the light, turning sin and shame into joyous celebration. Revelation.

  “Oh. Ohhh,” she moaned. “Gaspard…” She closed her eyes, dropped her head. Bit down into red satin with a groan.

  “Come,” he snarled into her neck, fingers sliding, thumb flying. “Come all over me, bébé.”

  The string inside snapped, waves of molten heat rolling in on her as she shuddered beneath him. Her throat closed around damning words of love and adoration, even as every inch of her body rejoiced in the certain knowledge that yes, she was his. Yes yes yes and more yes, because her toes curled and her heart beat madly against her ribs and she wanted to feel this way—with him and only him—every single day for the rest of her life.

  He swore behind her as his pace quickened, as his thrusts turned jerky. “Oh, putain, Claudia,” and then he buried his face in her shoulder as he stiffened, a groan trapped in his throat, escaping in inelegant noises of frenzied satiation.

  Even draped over the side of the bed, she felt sleep crawling toward her and turned her face so her cheek was on the bedspread. A sigh left her as her eyes fluttered open, then shut, then open again as he slowly, so slowly, pulled himself from her body, dropping light kisses along her back as he went. Chill air slammed into her when he moved away, and she shivered.

  He’d gotten what he wanted from her, so now he would leave.

  No. That wasn’t fair. Gaspard had taken what she’d offered, and in return given her exactly what she asked for. Him. Tonight. Tomorrow, she would belong to the duke—tomorrow, and all the days of her life that followed.

  Tears stung, so she mustered the strength to pull herself atop the mattress. The lovely fatigue weighting her limbs made her clumsy, but she managed to grope her way to the pillows at the head of the bed, burying her face in them before her lover—good Lord—could catch sight of the wetness leaking down her cheeks.

  The bed dipped suddenly, and then his naked body was pressed against her, bare save for the bandage around one forearm. He drew the coverlet over them and proceeded t
o tuck her bottom into the cradle of his hips. The heat radiating from him was better than any blanket, and she wiped away the evidence of her distress on the pillow’s corner before snuggling back against him.

  His lips found her ear as his injured arm wrapped around her. “Let me stay,” he whispered.

  She had tonight, and the night would last until dawn breached the bedchamber curtains. So she nodded, because even with his secrets and his lies, the comte was still her choice. She’d claimed him with this transient power of hers, and for now, the only secret in her world that mattered was this one.

  Chapter Twelve

  14 February 1820

  The hidden staircase leading down to the duc d’Évoque’s study was dark and cold in the early hours of morning. Gaspard’s eyes refused to adjust as he blindly felt his way down the steps, and perhaps this was his body’s means of telling him that he should never have left Claudia’s bed.

  Having donned the rough attire he’d worn the night before, he shoved one hand into the pocket of his trousers. The satin ribbon she’d removed from that red, red corset twined about his thumb, and his blood heated at the memory of seeing her bent over the bed, face flushed and hair tangled, fists clutching the bedsheets as she moaned his name.

  He’d only taken her the once, but his body ached for more—more of her, more of them. But he had only one letter on him, those protective sheaths the death of his already pitiful accounts and thus needing to be rationed.

  Today marked the end of his spying and whoring. No more turning tricks for the Crown, and certainly no more playing Évoque’s little lapdog, sent off to fetch useless intelligence by humping the leg of a randy stranger. It was frivolously degrading, and Gaspard, intimately familiar with degradation, had had enough.

  Today was the day Gaspard stole back his freedom.

  He paused at the base of the stairs, the chilly draft that seeped in from the outside door wrapping around him like Death’s cloak, and glanced behind him. He saw nothing in the darkness but knew too well what—who—slept peacefully unawares up those steps. His freedom didn’t include Claudia Pascale. One night together was all they had, because today she married the duke.

  As soon as Claudia wed into this world, Gaspard planned to leave it behind, in its entirety. In the moments before he had drifted into dreamless sleep, curved around her under the covers, he’d understood what his body—his instincts—had always known.

  He wasn’t meant to be a comte. He simply wasn’t fucking built for the aristocracy. He’d only survived this long thanks to the innate commonness lurking beneath his skin, the sly, cunning wolf that never truly bought in to what the sheep were telling him.

  He refused to stay and watch her don the fleece.

  Pushing open the hidden door that led into Évoque’s study, Gaspard blinked against the bright light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the private garden. The duke sat behind his desk, head bent as his pen whipped out scrawling words onto a thick sheaf of papers, but at the sound of the latch catching behind Gaspard, he looked up.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped under his breath, gaze darting around the room, glare ferocious.

  “I’m done.” Gaspard leaned back against the door and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Still and watchful, he kept his voice equally quiet. “I’m done with this life.”

  With a shake of his head, the duke returned his attention to the papers in front of him. “Go home, Toussaint.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Gaspard said softly. Dangerously. A strange calm settled over him, a sheer veil that made the world seem a little hazy, a little surreal. “I won’t do this anymore. I will not be this man.”

  “And what man is that?”

  “Your terrier.” His lips twitched as though they wanted to smile, but there was no humor to be found here. “No more fetching. No more attacking.”

  The pen in Évoque’s hand stilled momentarily. “Don’t fool yourself. I have mastiffs for that.” Evidently realizing Gaspard wasn’t about to leave, he dropped the writing implement atop his correspondence and leaned back in his chair, a picture of casual boredom with his fingers laced over his stomach. “You’re only done when I say you’re done. And you, my dear Brutus, are far from done.”

  The veil constricted, and he couldn’t breathe. “You said—”

  “Have you heard the rumormongers this morning, Toussaint? Supposedly, when interrogators demanded who set him on his murderous task, Louvel answered, ‘The most cruel enemies of France.’” The duke paused, a flush of excitement lighting his aquiline features. “It’s perfect. He’s perfect.”

  Gaspard’s tongue tasted like ash in his mouth. “Did he know?”

  “Did he know what?”

  “How you planned to use him?” Anger lurked low in his gut, tickling unpleasantly along his innards as if to say, Don’t forget. Don’t forget me. “Did you feed him his lines, instruct him in his role beforehand?” His hands fisted inside his trouser pockets, knuckles sore and bruised beneath his skin, aching as they hadn’t in five years. “Does the poor bastard know he’s about to die for you?”

  “I’ve never met the man.” Évoque spoke coolly, carefully. “But don’t assume Louvel is dying for my cause. He wanted this—he simply needed a bit of divine intervention.”

  “Playing God, Your Grace?” Gaspard couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.

  “No, merely His chess-master.”

  Lifting his weight from the door, Gaspard strolled across the room to the desk. He was crushingly aware of his breath rattling in his chest and of the off-kilter echo of his pulse in his ears. Withdrawing one hand from his pocket, he touched a finger to the desk’s surface, studying the ragged edge of his short nail. More than likely he’d torn it last night in the deadly scuffle outside the opera house.

  Or perhaps it had ripped in his haste to yank off his clothing, right before he’d thrust into Claudia’s willing body.

  That torn nail held his attention as the thin scars striping the back of his hand drew the duke’s notice. Évoque’s stare was a visceral thing, lashing ice against his wrecked flesh, but Gaspard liked that the duke finally saw what lurked beneath the lace cuffs.

  Those scars, so at odds with the façade he’d perfected, were the most honest part of him. “I came to collect what you owe me.”

  The duke scoffed, but his gaze never left Gaspard’s scarred hand. “I owe you nothing.”

  “Not even my wage?” The fingertip tapped against the glossy wood. “I’m beginning to think you always intended for me to lose the lands, and the title with them.” It was an epiphany that hit him the split second the words left his mouth, because of course. Of course that was what Évoque wanted—Gaspard stripped of the tenuous power he now held and unable to threaten Évoque with the secrets he carried. “Are you going to beggar me, Your Grace?” The words were mocking, and he glanced up, forcing the duke to look him in the eye.

  “The thought may have crossed my mind.”

  The veil’s chokehold relaxed, and that chilling calm returned. One hand still tucked in his pocket, Gaspard reached out, slowly, and picked up the duke’s discarded pen. Weary joints forgotten, the pen slid through his fingers, then flipped back over his knuckles with nimble dexterity. He repeated the pattern, again and again, and with each pass, the blanket shielding his emotions grew heavier.

  He welcomed the numbness, afraid he would turn into a sputtering mass of rage without these invisible chains reining him in. Betrayed. He’d been betrayed, and it was no one’s fault but his, fool enough to believe Évoque would behave honorably. Gaspard knew better.

  There existed no honor in espionage.

  Acknowledging that fact, Gaspard gripped the pen in his fist. The scarred skin stretched taut, whitened, and he watched the duke shift in his chair to lean farther away from where Gaspard stood at the corner of his desk.

  Good. The duke ought to find him intimidating. The duke ought
to think him a threat. No lack of money, lands or title would leverage him less of one.

  Gaspard wondered if he should be flattered, that Évoque had been uneasy enough by his existence to sketch the plot of his downfall.

  He decided he wasn’t. “Do you remember Marcel de Courreaux, Your Grace?”

  The duke’s mouth curled in distaste. “I remember what you did to him.”

  “Do you really? It’s one of the best-kept secrets in all of France.”

  A muscle leapt in Évoque’s jaw. “Courreaux was my friend, you bastard,” he hissed.

  The pen’s nub bit sharply into Gaspard’s palm. “I know.” When the duke’s face paled, Gaspard arched an eyebrow. “Did you think I didn’t know? Do you think he didn’t tell me all about the neighbor boy, the someday duke who kept quietly advancing his career?” His mouth had gone dry, and the veil shuddered, but there was no stopping when the words demanded daylight after so many years in the dark. “You watched him fly up the military’s ranks, marry his superior’s daughter and then sodomize every boy he could dig his claws into.”

  “I—” The duke blanched. “I didn’t.”

  “Would you like to know what else I know, François?” he queried quietly, almost purring his nemesis’s intimate name, though the charade made him sick.

  The duke sat, silent and pale.

  “I know you liked to play right alongside him. The neighbor boy, the someday duke.” Nausea churned. Damn it, where had the numbness gone? He settled both fists on the desk, leaning toward Évoque as the fire in him roared hotter, meaner. The pen creaked ominously. “No manacles on me now, lover. Did you think I wouldn’t remember you?”

  —shoved to his knees with his skinny wrists bound like a criminal’s, and he lost his balance, falling forward onto the hard-packed earth of the tent floor. The impact jarred his shoulder, scraped along his cheek as he spat out a mouthful of dirt. He struggled upright again, only to be pushed down by a forceful hand between his bony shoulder blades. Unlike the hands of the man sprawled to Gaspard’s right on a pile of pillows like a gluttonous sultan, these lacked calluses, obviously not belonging to a lifelong soldier.