Jess Michaels

by Sin Collection

  She shook her head. “But… but our bargain… the money you are giving to my father…”

  He winced even as he gathered her closer. “The agreement I struck with your father, I do not regret. If you will agree to be my wife, I count my investment as a steal, indeed.”

  She smiled despite the overwhelming emotions that were building in her chest with his every word.

  “As for the bargain I made with you…” He shook his head. “It was cruel and I apologize. I ached for you for five long years, Juliana. And I foolishly thought that if I could make you hurt as much, then it would cleanse me of my pain. All it did was make me want you more. Make me realize I still loved you. And when I realized you had left me, not because you did not love me, but because you had to protect your sister… it made me feel like a cad for not fighting harder. I know I’ve not yet proven it to you, but I swear I will fight for you from now on. Every day. Every night. For the rest of my life.”

  Her eyes welled with tears yet again, but this time they were tears of joy, not pain. She cupped Landon’s cheeks in her palms and shook her head.

  “My God, you think you have not proven you would fight for me?” Leaning forward, she kissed him. “You are my champion, Landon. And I would be lucky to have a second chance to be your wife.”

  He brought her in closer and she thought she saw moisture glistening in his eyes before he took her lips and made her forget everything but the feel of his mouth moving against hers.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as she opened to him. Opened her lips, opened her heart. And this time, she knew there was nothing to part them. No dark cloud over the horizon. Just their love.

  He stumbled forward until she sat down on the settee and sprawled between her legs, kneeling on the floor before her. She clung to him, tasting him, sliding her hands along his shoulders, his back, feeling every inch of him because he was hers now. Really hers.

  His hands found their way to the edging of her skirt and warm air brushed her legs as he started to push the gown up.

  “Landon,” she protested weakly between melting kisses. “Your brother and Bianca-”

  “Trust me, Juliana,” he said as he slipped down toward the flesh that had been revealed. “Hawk and Bianca will understand my need to do this more than any other people on earth.”

  Juliana would have blushed or tried to protest a second time, but all her thoughts and words were lost when Landon lifted her skirt as high as he could and pushed her legs open. Then his mouth was on her, hot and wild against her folds. He stroked her as her head fell back on the cushions and she let out a moan.

  “I wanted to do this the first night I saw you,” he admitted as he used his thumbs to open the outer lips of her sex, then went back to tonguing her.

  Her hips arched as he rolled his tongue around her sensitive clit. “I wanted you so much,” she sighed. “And I was so afraid you would turn me out.”

  “I couldn’t,” he murmured against her flesh. His gray eyes peered up, snagging hers. She was mesmerized by the sight of his dark head between her legs, his eyes focused on her even as his tongue did such wicked things to her clenching body.

  Stroke after stroke, he brought her to the brink of release, but just as she was close to completion, he withdrew. She would have sobbed with frustration if he hadn’t immediately loosened his trousers and set his cock free from the confines of cloth.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck as he positioned himself at her entrance. Before he moved, he leaned down to kiss her and she tasted her own essence on his lips.

  “I love you, Juliana,” he murmured, then he filled her in one smooth thrust.

  Immediately, her body exploded with pleasure. He pounded into her, riding through her release until he collapsed on top of her, pouring his heat into her as the last tremor of her pleasure rocked her.

  For a while, they lay like that. Her against the settee, his head resting on her breast and his body still buried deep. She stroked her hands over his hair as peace filled her to her core.

  “How soon would you like to marry again?” he whispered.

  She smiled. “As soon as Evelyn is back here safely and able to attend the wedding.”

  “Good.” He sighed. “Because I cannot wait until the world knows you are my wife.”

  “Say it again,” she whispered.

  He lifted his head and she knew that he was remembering her saying those very words so long ago. “Lady Juliana Hawkins,” he murmured. “My wife. Forever.”

  Book 3: Sin’s Mistress

  By Jess Michaels

  Chapter One

  “You are out of options, Trevington. You must accept that.”

  Sin leaned back in the chair beside the fire in the parlor of his biggest enemy. He took every opportunity to enjoy the expression on the bastard’s fat, red face. Trevington deserved pain and ruination and more. He deserved to suffer.

  Sin intended to make him suffer.

  The other turned to look at him with wild eyes. “I have repaid a portion of the markers, Sinclair, but I cannot repay the full amount right now. You must give me more time.”

  Sin fought a smile. Beg, you bastard.

  “When you were winning, did you give your partners additional time to repay their wagers?” he asked.

  Trevington hesitated, but then began to nod so rapidly it seemed his neck was on a hinge. “Of course! Of course, sir.”

  Sin was on his feet and across the room, though he didn’t recall giving his body the order to move. Grasping Trevington’s collar, he slammed him against the wall once, then twice, until Trevington gasped for breath.

  “Liar,” Sin growled, just above his breath.

  The other man’s eyes bugged out, his skin going a pasty gray. “Please! Please, I’ll do anything. Anything.”

  Sin let him go and backed away as Trevington hit the floor in a heap. “Now that I believe. So let us negotiate. You have something I desire.”

  Trevington scrambled to his feet and held out his hands in pleading. “Whatever it is, you can have it. If it will clear my debt, I will sacrifice it.”

  “Whatever I want?”

  “Yes!”

  Sin returned to his seat with a thin smile. “What about your youngest daughter’s virtue?”

  He almost expected the bastard to hesitate. To consider what Sin’s offer meant to his daughter, Evelyn Greville. But he didn’t. Trevington nodded immediately. “Yes! Evelyn is untouched, sir, I assure you.”

  Sin swallowed back the bite of nausea. Trevington knew of his sordid reputation, yet the man didn’t think about Evelyn’s comfort or even her safety. He was willing to throw his child into the fires of hell to save his own disgusting skin.

  And though that played into Sin’s plans perfectly, the idea still troubled him. And made him all the more driven to take Evelyn. He had been watching her for months. It wasn’t why he’d come to Trevington’s to gamble with the bastard… that was about revenge. But Evelyn had become the one light in the darkness of his anger. Her innocence had drawn him to her, but it was something else that had driven him to distraction over her. Made him crave her in the night when he woke up hard and ready for a woman. He had learned Evelyn’s secret and that had changed everything.

  It was the only reason he would dare to claim her innocence as his ultimate vengeance on her father.

  “Very well,” Sin said with a nod. “But I do not want a simple night to take her virtue. You owe me far more than a night could repay.”

  Trevington looked at him, eyes filled with worries and fears, but only for himself. “What more do you want? What will make us even?”

  Sin nearly said ‘nothing’, but he held back. There was no need to reveal how very personal this bargain was. That it was a trade of a daughter’s future for a father’s life.

  “I want her for a fortnight. At my estate in Devon.” He studied his fingernails like he was bored, when in reality he felt on edge, coiled like a snake ready to strik
e. “I am departing for my home there today. You will wait three days to send her to me. I will have a carriage come to collect her. You will not tell her where she is going or for what purpose. She will not bring a servant with her. Do you understand my instructions?”

  Trevington stared at him with wide eyes, an expression that almost said he understood what he was doing to his daughter by agreeing. But then he stammered, “Yes. I understand. I shall follow your directions, Sinclair. She will follow behind you in three days time and stay at your home for a fortnight.”

  Sin rose to his feet. “Very good. Once the ten days are over, I will count your debt as fulfilled.”

  He didn’t wait to hear Trevington’s gratitude or further groveling. Without a backward glance for the man, he headed for the parlor door. He strode down the hallway toward the front entrance where his carriage awaited him, already packed and ready for the three day journey back to his estate, Huntswood.

  The footman was just about to turn the knob and show him out when the library door off the foyer opened, and Evelyn Greville stepped into the hall.

  Sin couldn’t help it… he came to a stop and stared.

  He had been with enough women that often the faces and features blurred together in one tangled mass of sweaty limbs and arching bodies. But for some reason, Evelyn’s face was not one he could forget. She was beautiful. Not as traditionally pretty as her elder sister Juliana, with her fiery red hair and fine features, but a different kind of beauty. A sensual sort, like a woman who knew her body and how to hold it, how to move it to her every advantage.

  What made it better was that her sensual movements were not by design. She was an innocent, at least in body. When she swayed her hips, she did not know how it made a man’s cock rise hard and heavy. When she licked her full lips, as she did right now, she had no idea that the nervous habit gave a man’s mind visions of that pink tongue stroking his erection.

  “Mr. Sinclair,” she gasped, pulling the book in her hand up to her breast.

  His eyes couldn’t help but follow the motion. Perfect breasts, just the right size to fill his palms. And soon they would, though she didn’t know that.

  “I did not realize you had come today,” she continued with a little smile.

  “Lady Evelyn.”

  He caught her hand, which was bare since she had not been expecting guests. It was the first time he had ever touched her and he was nearly unmanned as he reveled in the soft satin of her skin. Damn, but he couldn’t wait to feel that silky brush against his chest, his back, his cock.

  He wasn’t alone in reaction to the first touch. Her eyes widened as she stared down at their now entwined fingers and she sucked in a harsh breath. Color rushed to her throat and downward… he wondered just how far that pink blush went.

  “I was just on my way out,” he murmured, voice suddenly husky with the need to have her now. Damn, could he wait nearly a week? He had to.

  “Oh,” she squeaked, though she did not pull her hand away. “I-I am sorry I didn’t know you were here sooner. We could have talked.”

  “We will talk very soon, my lady,” he said before he lifted her hand to his lips. Turning it over, he pressed his mouth to her palm and pressed a kiss against the delicate skin there. Evelyn began to tremble and her lips parted with surprise. He also couldn’t help but notice the harsh outline of her nipples against the thin silk of her pink gown.

  So very, very responsive.

  “Good day, Evie,” he whispered before he released her hand and backed out of the foyer. As the servant closed the door in his face, Sin saw her lean back against the wall, the hand he had kissed pressed against her breast, her breath coming fast.

  Soon. Very soon. She would be his in every way. Any way.

  And he would make sure she liked it.

  *

  Evelyn had always known this would happen. Her father had sold Juliana, Evelyn’s older sister into a marriage years before. He would do and had done anything to settle his always mounting debts. She had waited for him to do the same to her, but that moment hadn’t come. She had feared it, had nightmares about it.

  And now she was living it as she felt the carriage she had been riding in for three long days come to a stop. She didn’t know who the vehicle belonged to. That had been yet another piece to the puzzle. It was luxurious, but gave no other clues.

  Neither had her father. He only had forced her to get in with a brief farewell. He hadn’t said what her fate would be, but Evelyn was no fool. She was going because some man had been willing to count her father’s debt fulfilled in trade for her.

  And unlike the arrangement her father had made for her sister all those years ago, Evelyn somehow doubted this had been a trade for marriage. It was a trade for her maidenhead.

  Beneath her fear, there was a certain thrill that worked through her at that thought. Evelyn was innocent, yes. Aside from her own hand, she had never been touched intimately by another person. But she knew about sex and sin. She had seen it when she spied on the servants at night. She had read about it in the books she ordered using a secret account she’d set up in her father’s name. And she had eventually written about it in her own private diaries and journals. Written about her deepest, darkest desires… and the one and only man she wanted to share them with.

  She could only hope the man in this reality was something vaguely similar to the man she had dreamed about for months. Raphael Sinclair. Sin.

  Evelyn shivered at the mere thought of him and her body grew tight and ready. The last time she’d seen him, he had touched her… and she had spent the past week touching herself while she thought of the pressure of his hot mouth on her delicate palm.

  The door to the carriage opened and her driver stood outside. “My lady.”

  He offered her a hand and she forced herself to shake off memory and fantasy to move outside. It was very dark. Only a few lights from the house shone off the drive, but she could see the estate home was large. Her father had sold her to a rich man, a man with power.

  The door at the top of the marble staircase opened and a well dressed butler showed her in with a few words of welcome. He led her down a long hallway to a private office where she was left alone for the first time since she had been loaded into the carriage days ago.

  Evelyn pulled off her driving coat and gloves and draped them over the back of a richly upholstered settee. Stretching her back, she strolled around the room, examining her surroundings as she tried to control her pounding heart.

  A fire burned brightly in a large fireplace with an ornate mantelpiece. A massive mahogany desk was across from the fire with a leather chair behind it. The furniture was utterly masculine.

  There were paintings on every wall. She stepped forward to examine the one above the fireplace and caught her breath. Dear God, they were sexual in nature. In this particular one, a nude woman bent over a chair, her body exposed to a man. He was nude, as well, and his large member jutted skyward. In his hand, he held a riding crop. Judging from the red mark the artist had painted across the woman’s round backside, it had already been used once. But the woman’s face was anything but pained. In fact, it looked like she was in the heat of pleasure.

  Could a woman really enjoy such a thing?

  Evelyn shivered as she moved to the next piece along the wall. Another sexual subject greeted her. This time a woman reclining on the same sofa, opening her sex as a man knelt on the floor before her. His red tongue lapped at her juices as he stroked a large cock in his hand.

  As she examined the piece more closely, Evelyn felt her body react to the image. Her nipples tightened and her own sex grew wet and hot with achy need. She should have been ashamed by her blatant, wanton reactions. They weren’t ladylike. But she wasn’t. She had learned over the past few years, that this was who she was. She had needs. Desires.

  And now, despite everything, she tingled at the thought that those needs would finally be fulfilled and those desires realized. Shutting her eyes, she braced hers
elf on the wall beside the painting.

  “Please, let this man be something like Sin,” she whispered, though she had her doubts any man would move her like he did.

  “Evelyn.”

  She froze, her eyes flying open to stare, this time unseeing, at that explicit painting. That voice. It couldn’t be. This was a dream. A fantasy. She would turn around and see some portly peer of the realm or perhaps a rich merchant. She wouldn’t see Sin.

  Clenching her fists, she slowly turned.

  “Sin!”

  *

  Sin bit back a curse at the sound of his name leaving Evelyn’s lips. She had never called him by that name before. Always it was Mr. Sinclair. Always propriety and concealed heat.

  Now that heat was alive in her eyes. And it was in her voice was she hissed out the nickname he had carried since he was twenty. Never had he enjoyed the sound of it more. Never had the mere whisper of that one syllable made his cock jut to full attention and his body jolt with potent desire.

  They stared at each other, her shocked into silence, him shocked in general. Seeing Evelyn in his lair, in the den where he had pursued a hundred or more conquests, was not like he’d imagined. She seemed so… sweet amongst the rich carpets, the velvet settees, the erotic art he collected. So innocent.

  This was wrong. It had been wrong from the start. To ruin her father was one thing, yes. Trevington deserved to suffer. But to bring Evelyn into Sin’s world, a world she couldn’t truly fathom, no matter what secrets he knew she had, that went too far. He should send her home. He should forget this plan.

  He stepped toward her, ready to do just that, when that delectable pink tongue darted out and wet her lips. Just as it had a few days before, that simple action undid him. And he knew, in that second, that he wouldn’t let her go. He would have her. He would take her. He would teach her every wicked thing he knew. And he would enjoy every moment of her ruination. So would she.

  “Mr. Sinclair…” She panted like she’d run a league and her breasts lifted with each breath. “I-I don’t understand…”