by Carrie Lofty
He frowned briefly. “I must say, that’s the first time a woman has ever refused to accept my apology.”
“They believed you. I do not.”
She licked her lower lip. His shadow-dark eyes fixed on the spot her tongue had touched. A tiny flicker of hope caught fire in her throat. She was suddenly breathless as he watched her once again. No other men stood between them. No other suitors. A spark would ignite the air in his leather-scented office. Rather than repeat the intimate gesture, thus creating such a spark on purpose, she refrained.
They needed to talk, not consume one another again.
But the words that came were not at all sensible. More like pained. Or intentionally provocative. She was too swirled with emotions to sort one from the other. “Were all of your words lies? About my mouth, for example?”
“No.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me if we’re to continue.”
He flashed that infuriating little smile. “Continue?”
“With our deliberations. I was offering you a story of my miraculous survival, which Mr. Lymon will assume is true. Perhaps then, once the whole salacious scandal is in print, I’ll be able to escape the constant gossip.”
“But it won’t be the truth,” he said with narrowed eyes.
“Of course not. Why would I offer that? More to the point, why would you ever need to know?”
His fingers stretched along the armrest until his hands covered hers. Naturally, alone in his office, he wore no gloves. White scars no wider than delicate embroidery needles lined the backs of his knuckles. From fighting? Sleek blond hairs poked out from his cuffs—more softness on a man who possessed so little of it. “What do you have to hide, Catrin?”
“About what happened?” She shuddered. “A great deal. But none of that matters. Mr. Lymon sells lots of papers. You will claim the lion’s share of the Daily Journal, and make your way on to fame and even more fortune by crisscrossing railroads over the whole of England.”
That beautiful male mouth quirked into another rare, genuine smile. But it also held an edge of suspicion, as if she were the party to be feared.
Fair enough. She quite liked that idea.
“And for dear Catrin? What do you get out of all this? Simply the privilege of walking into a ballroom without speculation as to your silence?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Christie.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against the mouth she could not resist. The barest kiss. “I meant it when I said my intentions have always been forthright. I am in search of a husband. What I propose is a trade.”
Seven
William paid no mind to thought. He simply kissed her.
Her declaration was no genuine surprise, but he wanted to make sure she understood that toying with him had consequences. Tied up in knots, pulled by conflicting ambitions, he took the easiest path. Their mouths did not meld; they dueled. She fought back as much as she acquiesced, with her tongue a weapon at turns defending and assaulting. He pushed deeper into her wet warmth, where her maddening ideas—she was so bloody quick of mind—found voice. Those lips. God, he could kiss them for the rest of time. She felt that good, that right.
“You silly, stupid girl,” he rasped against her throat. Her hands slipped up his forearms, his biceps, to the sharp tension between his shoulders and his neck. A brief squeeze. He nearly groaned. Then her clever fingers untied his cravat and slid down his nape, as if searching for even more of him—more forbidden places. “You have no idea what it is to be married to me.”
“Surely it involves more of this.”
The only other woman he had known to behave so naturally and speak so frankly had been Georgette. He had attributed her differences to a Gallic lack of inhibition and a slightly cynical bent. A dancer, yes, and an amazing young woman, she had nonetheless taken men to bed for money. She had said it was easier to be frank about the matter than to sink beneath the shame.
Catrin tightened her forearms and drew his head back to hers. William growled into her mouth. He kissed her with the abandon he rarely felt, always constrained by his ambitions and concern about how he should appear and behave to achieve them. Catrin upended those expectations. He dragged a huge breath into his chest. The burn of holding it in while he plunged his tongue between her lips was a quiet torture and a means of staying sane. He wanted to take her, to rip her clothes, tug her hair, make her scream.
Bloody hell. How dare she be so contrary to what he had planned?
And yet he refrained, because she remained such an eager little devil. She played with fire without realizing he could burn her to cinders. Susannah had been terrified of his passion. Any lady of consequence would have been. Only Georgette had been able to keep pace with his needs. What did that say about him? No matter the expensive clothes he wore and the fine company he kept, he remained a beast who deserved to lie with a courtesan, not a woman born to a good, God-fearing family.
Catrin needed to know that. Now.
He crisscrossed his arms behind her back and her bum, then lifted her straight up from the chair. She gasped against his cheek. Any momentary shock dissipated as she sank more deeply into his embrace.
She bit his lower lip, her smile returning in force. “So strong,” she whispered against his wet mouth.
William’s vision wavered at the edges. He was trying to intimidate her, not impress her, yet her breathy compliment sent a thrilling jolt to his cock. Yes, he was strong. He had forged himself into a man no one would challenge. Yet this tiny, curious woman shoved at his control with more determination every time.
He wanted to shove right back.
Far, far too much fabric separated her thighs from his hands, but her bodice was wide and generous in its display of creamy skin. He stripped off her bonnet with one quick flick of ribbon, then laid her back along the desk. No softness or sweetness now as he suckled kisses down her throat and across to her delicate shoulder. Her intake of breath urged him without words, as did her squirming, gently thrusting hips.
William adjusted their position so that she stretched flat against the unforgiving mahogany. His legs tucked against the yards of satin between hers. He bowed up and over her body, and pressed her shoulders back against the ink blotter. She arched into his hold, thrusting up her bosom.
He feasted.
She was milk-and-honey sweetness. Hot. Soft. Firm and resilient. The dip of her bodice revealed the plump swells of her breasts. He skimmed his teeth across her skin, flicked his tongue beneath the hem of lace. The gasped sound of his name on her pretty apricot lips tempted him to keep taking more of this delicious treat. With two fingers, he tugged the lace down to reveal hidden secrets—the secrets she was more willing to reveal than what had taken place on that doomed ship.
He sucked deeper. Her pelvis shuddered beneath his, then met him in a long, hard grind. The mark he left on the upper curve of her left breast gave him a heady, uncomfortable shiver of ownership. He banished that thought, tugging again to expose her nipple. Perfectly pink, hard, petite. He took the bud into his mouth and licked until she fought free of his hands and grabbed the back of his head. The deep, sharp strokes of her fingertips along his scalp spoke in a language he never thought to share with such an unassuming young woman. The language of dark places.
Her other nipple was as responsive as the first. He tickled with his tongue, then tugged with his teeth. All the while he cupped and kneaded those small, beautifully formed breasts as she sought his touch. She behaved like a woman without limits. That thought transformed his prick from merely hard to insanely so. His breath was hot against her skin, radiating back against his damp mouth and the sweat along his upper lip. Another blazing kiss bubbled away rational thought.
Hands. He needed his hands on her backside, and he needed her hands flexing against his chest. Heedless of the barriers, he fought his way under her skirts and pushed past her thin cotton drawers. She moaned as she dipped the crown of her head back toward the desk. All he saw was the elegant stretch of
her neck and her fiercely aroused nipples. He kissed down her jaw, down her throat.
If he suckled that delicate skin, he would leave a bruise. For all to see.
The choice at that moment was no choice at all. It was a primal call, like reflex and deep, forbidden instinct. He clasped his lips to her throat. A frantic pulse beat beneath his tongue, which matched his heartbeat. The suction he applied was light at first, but then his questing hand found her feminine mound, softly padded with a thatch of curls.
Her gasp and her sleek, wet flesh drove him to suck harder. She thrashed her head. Mischievous fingers fought the constraints of his suit, stripping him from the waist up. She scored him with her nails again and again—between his shoulder blades, over his biceps, across the meat of his chest.
“Amazing, William,” she breathed, lips moist and swollen.
The pull of her responsiveness was so much greater than he had anticipated. So often, in such a brief span of time, she had taken him by surprise. He released her neck and grasped her backside. Her drawers were no barrier. He held bare flesh—round, supple, soft. His brain flickered. So little thought remained. He breathed heavily against her neck, right against the red-blue bruise he had sucked to the surface of her pale skin. He wanted to be inside this woman.
“We shouldn’t,” he managed to rasp.
Her little gyrations stilled. She caught his face with slender hands. William blinked and discovered a pale, clear brown. He finally recognized the color as her hypnotizing eyes. A flurry of kisses along his abused nose were the prelude to her shivering sigh. Then Catrin looked down between their disheveled bodies. He followed her gaze as her fingers trailed directly toward his trouser buttons.
“Shall we talk about ‘shouldn’t,’ William?” With a few quick flicks and a graceless tug, she bared his cock, his ass, and clutched both. “Because I shouldn’t be alive.”
He groaned, as near to pain as he had ever experienced beneath a woman’s touch. Speaking was even more difficult than breathing. “I’ll take you.”
“I’ll be disappointed if you do not.”
“But I won’t marry you.”
Catrin only smiled. The teasing shape of her mouth snapped his reason in two. Damn her. He had given her more reminders to be sensible than any man could be expected to produce. But her slim fingers began to pulse along his hard length.
Hissing softly, he dropped his forehead to her bosom. He slid farther down, pulling free of her grasp just as he stripped her stockings and whatever other frilly garments kept him from her flesh. She had lithe, petite legs with sharp knees and dainty little feet. He palmed her thighs and pulled them apart to encircle his lower body. Her bottom slid forward on the desk. The hot sweetness of her arousal stabbed at the most primitive part of his brain.
He would do what Susannah had never permitted, what Georgette had taught him to enjoy almost more than sex. He would taste Miss Catrin Jones.
Her soft, breathy scream as he kissed her thigh was as near to a request to stop as she had uttered. The tension in her bare legs quivered on the edge of no. William was so very far gone. He could wait for that fateful word and put his honor to the staunchest of tests, or he could show her bliss. At that moment, so near to licking her sleek, glistening center, he possessed no other semblance of logic.
She tunneled her fingers into his hair. Tugged. Opened her thighs wider.
“Damn fool woman.”
He tasted, yes. He sipped. He licked and nipped and grabbed behind her knees. Like honey, her sugared slickness trickled across his tongue. Each subtle shift drew forth another of her sensuous gasps. William wanted to close his eyes and bask in his unexpected triumph, but he angled his gaze to watch as pleasure transformed her features. Usually so tidy and composed, Catrin was quickly coming undone: sweat along her brow, hair trailing like ragged pennants, and breasts up-thrust with every shallow inhale.
“William! Oh, God. Help me.”
He lifted his mouth, but kept her on the brink of climax with the steady pulse of his thumb. “Fight me on anything else, Catrin. Anything else. But not this. Relax, my delicious miss. Let it happen.”
“Let what . . . ?”
William sucked hard on her swollen bud. No more gentle teasing. No more luxuriating in her taste, although he could have done that until dawn. Instead he applied more pressure, faster, taking her wholly with his mouth. Her gasps became louder and more desperate. The tendons along her throat drew taut. Catrin smacked her hands on the desk and gripped the sides. The rich sugar of her climax slicked his fingers and bathed his tongue.
He would remember the image of her white, tense knuckles against the dark mahogany wood for the rest of his life.
But with a quick glance toward the office door, William knew he could risk no more. She was too bloody loud. Instead he traveled up her body, notched his thick cock against her opening, and pushed his palm flat against her mouth.
He slid inside.
Catrin flinched, stilled. Her eyes flared wide. She shook her head once, which chilled him to the core. A shiver climbed his back. He could feel his own pulse within her wet sheath. But damn the world, he found the strength to stop.
“Tell me.” He bowed low. And he removed his hand. He needed to hear the words, one way or another. “Tell me no if you must. Just get it over with.”
“My answer remains yes.” Her breathing was ragged. “But why silence me?”
A chuckle seemed so out of place, but he could not deny its rightness. “Because you’ll get us into trouble.”
“Can’t have that. Pray, do continue.” She grinned, smoothed his fingers back across her mouth, and flexed her hips.
William drew a deep breath, which did nothing to alleviate the dizzying rush. Instead he rode that rush and became the animal she dared him to reveal.
Eight
Catrin pushed against William’s firm, slick chest. She wanted to see him. See his body. He was so wary, however, that she dared not push too hard. He might stop altogether.
And she would rather live the rest of her life a spinster than have that happen.
With any luck, she would never need to make that choice. As William thrust his magnificent rod and her eyes rolled shut on a wave of pure pleasure, she vowed to have him—have this. Her body had known, as had some deep, formless part of her brain. She had known they were suited, to the point where the attention she received from other men left her cold and agitated.
Only William left her wanting. Wanting more.
Was that even possible? She already felt as if he had wrung every last drop of pleasure out of her. Yet she was not slack, not satisfied. Something else awaited her, and she had no notion of what.
She wanted to ask him as much, but his rough rhythm had splintered her capacity for language. The brute strength of his hand across her mouth was its own arousal, as well as serving to keep her relatively quiet. Still, when he dragged her nearer to the edge of the desk and tipped her pelvis toward his thrusts, she could not help a low moan. The perfect spot. Beyond a few furtive, embarrassed whispers among her fellow nurses, she had not known such a thing existed. But there it was—the place deep within her that she’d needed him to find.
His fingers tightened across her mouth and on one thigh. A sheen of sweat gathered in the wells of his collarbones. She sank her nails into the hard, round caps of his shoulders. He must have liked that, because he flashed his peculiar smile. As quick and condescending as ever, it was overlaid with something very near to wonder. His quick gaze never settled. From breasts to neck to where their bodies joined, then back to her eyes, as if he tried to give his attention to each facet of her wanton display.
She was flattered that he made the attempt, sympathizing because of her own struggle. She literally could not decide where to look. To his savage face—the broken nose, striking eyes, and beautiful mouth. To the fantastic breadth of his chest, with every sharp muscle flexing in time. Or to the trail of glossy, damp golden chest hair that arrowed down to . . .<
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Good God, he was big.
In and out. How did she take him each time?
And yet her body was open, accepting his hard pulse with ever more greed. Again she trailed her sharp caress across his skin, this time down his chest. He arched back a little more, then a little more, until he offered the proud, arrogant picture she had wanted to see. For a moment she basked in the wonder of him. So powerful. Holding on, just for her. His labored breathing and faltering pace said as much. And still he rocked her with the most blatant weapon a man possessed.
A trapdoor in her mind unlocked. Opened. She shuddered, then shrieked behind his hand. Desperate for closeness, she hugged her legs behind his back and clung to his neck. He bowed over her, his arm wrapped low around her hips. Her bare bottom, slick with sweat and her body’s moisture, squeaked along the desk’s polished wood.
There had been a word. A word the soldiers used when they thought no woman was within earshot. A word only the closest of her friends in the nursing corps had dared utter, followed inevitably by hushed giggles.
Fucking.
William was fucking her.
That taboo thought and the mindless, pounding beat of his body launched her into a dark and searing realm. She screamed. All she heard was a muffled noise, but the scream echoed louder and longer within her mind. Pleasure flared outward from where they joined, hot and liquefying. She bucked beneath his hold, his big frame, his questing hips, until the screams died away, until he groaned her name. The tremendous shudder that overtook his chest and shoulders made her grin beneath his palm.
This was not her first time. But it was the first time she understood the fiery potential of man and woman.
They lay panting, reclined against the desk, for longer than Catrin could figure. William’s face was tucked along the side of her throat. She could not feel her upper thighs where they pressed against the edge of the desk, yet the slight discomfort was easy to ignore. The supper hour could be nigh for all she knew. She was so dazed, so faintly sore, so completely tousled, that she never wanted to move again.