Being blindfolded, being in the dark when she knew he could see everything about her, was a wildly arousing experience. One she never would have said she wanted if she had been asked, but one she couldn’t get enough of now that she was being pleasured.
The only thing that destroyed the perfection of it was that her mind kept wandering, taking her to places she didn’t want to be. Making her think of Jeremy and the way his mouth had moved toward hers. Making her recall just how much she had wanted his skin on hers.
Her faceless lover tugged at her nipples with his mouth and her body jolted as pleasure ricocheted between her legs. She wrapped her calves around his broad back and writhed against him all the harder, but still her ache wasn’t appeased.
He seemed to sense her need, for he dragged his hands away from her breasts and slid them down her stomach between their bodies. Urging her to lay back, he cupped her sex. She whimpered as a tremor of pleasure arced through her like summer lightning. He spread her open, and she heard him catch his breath.
“Lovely,” he murmured as he ground his thumb against the hard ridge of her aroused clit and slipped one finger inside her clenching sheath.
Penelope arched, her hands fisting the coverlet as he drove into her body. She lifted her hips to meet his strokes, she clenched her inner muscles to prolong the pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. She still felt empty, unfulfilled.
And she still wanted more.
“Y-Your mouth,” she panted, not even caring that she was begging. “Please.”
He didn’t ask for clarification or question her demand. She felt his hot breath burn against her thigh almost instantly. His stare equally blistered her revealed flesh. Even with her eyes covered, she knew he was drinking in the sight of her naked body, finally revealed to him.
And then his tongue lapped over her exquisitely sensitive flesh. Penelope jolted at the contact and the cry that escaped her lips wasn’t one she could have controlled if she were paid a thousand pounds to do so. This man had stripped away every polite nicety she had always prided herself in and left her a writhing, begging wanton.
And yet, she didn’t care. She just wanted more.
He gave it to her. He speared his tongue inside, lapping up to suckle her clit until her head thrashed back and forth against the wrinkled coverlet. The pleasure had never been so intense, pulsing in time to her rapid heartbeat, building and building until it bordered on pain and she wanted to scream for release.
But it never came.
Frantic to feel the waves of pleasure, Penelope squeezed her eyes shut and let herself think of Jeremy, as she had so many other nights that this man touched her. She imagined him between her legs, caressing her thighs, stroking his tongue over her wet flesh, sucking and dragging pleasure from her.
The pleasure peaked a second time, but still she couldn’t find release. Not even with her fantasies in overdrive.
There was only one thing that would give her what she craved. As she lay there, the stranger’s wicked mouth working over her at a frantic pace, she knew exactly what she needed.
She needed to be taken. Fucked, as she had heard other men whisper when she walked by. Hard and fast. Slow and steady. She didn’t care. She just wanted this man’s cock inside of her body.
Now.
“Please,” she moaned, heat flooding her already flushed cheeks. “Please. Take me.”
The pressure of his mouth on her flesh was suddenly jolted away and Penelope groaned aloud in protest.
“What?” he panted, his voice thick with desire.
“You heard me,” she gasped as she lifted her hips to him helplessly. “Give me what you’ve wanted. Join your body to mine. Take me.”
Jeremy stared at Penelope in utter shock. Her blond hair was tangled around her flushed breasts, her legs splayed open to reveal the glistening mound of her sex, her back arching out of control. She looked nothing like the proper lady who shunned sensuality anymore and every inch the lustful hoyden.
Finally, Jeremy had broken down her last wall. She wanted him to put his cock in her. Claim her. The one thing he had desired more than any other since the first night he touched her. The final barrier to both breaking her will and blackmailing her.
He stroked his hard erection once as he maneuvered over her, driven to feel the heaven of her body lock around his in a wet, hot fist. He braced his arms on either side of her head and hesitated, taking a moment to look down at her.
Penelope arched, her body thrusting toward his. Half her face was hidden by the black satin blindfold that hid the truth from her. But her full lips were tense with anticipation, her cheeks flushed as she panted out breath after breath.
She was utter temptation. She was passion personified. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman he’d ever bedded.
And yet, he couldn’t do it. Not this way.
That afternoon, he had pulled away from Penelope because she was too close. Tonight, he realized he had to pull away because she wasn’t close enough.
He wanted to “take her,” as she had asked him to do. But he didn’t want to do it while she was blindfolded, unaware of his face, without knowing his name. He didn’t want to be a pleasure she allowed in the night and denied in the light of day. A dirty secret that she never shared with anyone.
No, the surrender he wanted, he realized, was much deeper. And it had nothing to do with the promise he had made to his friends.
He wanted Penelope to look into his eyes as he glided inside of her body. He wanted her to whisper his name as he took her over the edge of pleasure. He wanted her to blush when she next saw him at a gathering, because she remembered the intensity of their joining.
He wanted her to know exactly what she was doing and whom she was doing it with.
It went against his every plan. It violated all his codes about keeping the women he bedded separate from the everyday life he led.
But that was what he wanted. And he wouldn’t…couldn’t settle for anything less.
Even though it meant getting up and leaving Penelope without taking her. Without feeling her body pulse around him. Even if it meant going home aching from being unfulfilled.
It served him right.
With effort, he pushed away from her and back to his feet where he swept up his trousers and quickly put them back on. He didn’t bother with the rest of his things, merely shoved them together in an awkward pile.
Penelope sat up, and the expression on her face was much the same as it had been earlier in the day when Jeremy denied her his kiss. Even though he couldn’t see her eyes for the blindfold, he could tell she was embarrassed. Hurt.
“What…? Why…?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, Penelope,” he said softly as he moved for the window, repeating the refrain he had started in her parlor just a few hours before.
“You don’t want me?” she said, her voice flat even though her mouth was still twisted with pain.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated before he tossed his remaining clothing out the open window and stepped onto the ledge.
Once he was outside, he turned back. Penelope stood with her back to him. Her shoulders were hunched.
He fisted his hands at his sides. He had hurt her twice in one day. And he hated himself for it. He hated himself for letting anyone close enough that he had the power to hurt them.
He hated that the realization of how much pain she was in made his own chest ache.
Penelope stood in the silence a long time after her mysterious lover was gone before she reached up and removed the blindfold from her face. She stared at the cloth. It was a fine black handkerchief, but there were no initials stitched on the fabric to reveal her lover’s identity.
With a frown, she dropped it onto the floor next to the pile of her nightgown. Perhaps it was best not to know. If the man was someone in her acquaintance, she couldn’t bear seeing him and knowing he didn’t want her anymore.
She sighed as she swept up her night shift and pulled it ov
er her head. During the nights her mystery lover had joined her in her bed…and even before that when he was nothing more than a series of erotic words and descriptions in the letters he sent, Penelope had liked being wanted. She had liked being touched and told she was beautiful. She’d craved the power she had when she touched the faceless man in return.
And that reaction was more than an experiment. It was more than a study in passion so that she would know her “enemy,” as Jeremy had said so many times. She had truly given in to her desires. Fully.
Only to be denied at the last moment.
She shook her head as she pulled a dressing gown from the armoire and draped the heavy robe over her shoulders. Images bombarded her, even as she fought to keep them at bay. They were memories of the many varied pleasures she had experienced. There were so many ways she had been touched and touched in return.
For the first time, she really understood why people would sacrifice so much to feel as she had felt. Both men and women. Even her sister’s behavior began to make sense now that desire had become a driving force in her own life. Penelope thought about it day and night. It had compelled her to do things she had never thought she would.
And now she had lost it. Not once, but twice in one day. From two different men. And that loss hurt her. It cut like a knife down to the marrow of her soul.
She opened her door and moved into the hallway quietly. She wanted to find Fiona. To talk to her. Her maid had experienced pleasure in the past, and she had also been through great pain. Perhaps she could help Penelope clear her head. Remember all the very good reasons she had for avoiding such passion.
At the very least, Fiona would understand what she was going through, perhaps better than anyone else.
The house was still as Penelope moved through the hallways and up into the servant area. Most of the staff would be in bed by now, deep in dreams and completely unaware of their mistress’s torment.
She stopped in front of Fiona’s door and drew in a breath to calm herself. Quietly, she turned the handle and pushed the door open a fraction, ready to apologetically wake her maid.
Instead, she staggered back a step and reached a hand up to cover her lips. Fiona wasn’t asleep. And she wasn’t alone. No, the former courtesan was bent over her narrow bed, totally naked. Candlelight cascaded over her pale flesh. Next to her stood one of Penelope’s footmen. He was stripped down to only his trousers and he was swatting Fiona across her backside with his bare hand.
Penelope swallowed her gasp and stared. Fiona didn’t seem to mind the spanking, even though her backside was pink from the results of the slaps. In fact, she arched up with a lusty moan every time the young man made contact.
Too shocked to know what to do, Penelope spun around and fled, the sounds of Fiona’s cries of pleasure echoing in her ears as she flew down the stairs and all but ran back to her own chamber. She slammed the door and leaned back against the barrier, her breath short.
It felt like her whole world had been yanked off its axis and thrown into a different place. Penelope didn’t know herself, she didn’t know her body, she didn’t even know her own beliefs anymore. Everything she had come to depend upon was different now.
When she discovered Fiona and heard the former courtesan’s story, she had been certain that by offering the other woman a place on her staff, she had been saving Fiona. That her maid had desired to leave her life as a courtesan because she didn’t enjoy it. But now…now Penelope didn’t know anymore. Fiona had clearly been enjoying the shocking activities Penelope had just seen.
What did it all mean? Had Penelope been totally wrong? Had Fiona simply been unhappy with the man who was her protector, not the life she had been leading? And did her maid secretly wish she could return to that decadent life she lived before? To the erotic days and nights she had spent as the plaything of powerful men?
Penelope blinked at sudden tears as she threw herself onto her bed. She winced. The masculine, arousing scent of her secret lover still clung to the bedclothes. Tempting and taunting her.
She had no one to talk to. No one to share her confusion with. No one to give her council.
“Jeremy,” she whispered, her own harsh voice startling her.
Could she go to him after his rejection? She had no other choice. Even if he didn’t want her, he would at least understand. And she needed his friendship and guidance, at least one more time.
Perhaps for the last time.
Seventeen
Jeremy stared out the window at Worthington’s Club, watching as droves of the ton’s elite wandered down the sidewalks, seeing and being seen in the fine summer weather. He frowned. They all looked so damn happy. So content and certain.
While he was twisted inside like a wrung-out handkerchief.
“Are you even listening?”
Jeremy turned to face Anthony Wharton. His friend was pacing around the private room, his face a dark, ugly red and his hands clenching in and out of fists at his sides. Jeremy arched a brow. He’d never seen his friend so angry before. It was clear it bothered the others, as well, for everyone in the room was staring at him.
“You have had more than enough time to finish this foolishness,” Wharton railed. “And yet Lady Norman continues to be a problem. You have not properly humiliated her, and the mistresses and wives are still in an uproar caused by her ridiculous notions.”
Jeremy pursed his lips and tried to remain calm. There was no way he could tell his friends that he was beginning to see Penelope’s thoughts as less than foolish. Or that they had no one to blame but themselves if the various women in their lives were upset.
Dunfield chuckled, but it was clear he was only trying to lighten the mood in the room. “Great God, Wharton, is it worth all this bluster?”
“Shut your mouth, Dunfield,” Wharton snapped, spinning on the Earl with a scowl. “You haven’t suffered at all from this woman’s tongue. I’m the one who lost my mistress, and I still haven’t found the little bitch.”
Jeremy stared. He hadn’t been aware that Wharton was continuing to look for Fiona, despite her rejection of him. His language and his demeanor made that revelation troubling. It certainly didn’t encourage Jeremy to share the fact that Fiona was now Penelope’s servant.
“Let it go,” he advised as he lit a cigar and tried to feign nonchalance. “Why would you want a woman who didn’t want you?”
He flinched at his own choice of words. He had rejected Penelope the night before. Did she believe he didn’t want her? That she was undesirable when the utter opposite was true. She was too tempting.
“I would wager my best mount that Penelope Norman knows something about it,” Wharton said with a scowl. “And if you aren’t going to take care of her, Kilgrath, then you’ll leave me no choice but to do it myself.”
Jeremy flicked his still burning cigar onto the floor and advanced on Wharton in three long steps. Before his friend could react, Jeremy caught him by the throat and slammed him against the nearest table. Wharton gasped for breath as Jeremy leaned over him, his face mere inches from his friend’s.
“That is enough, Wharton,” he growled, fighting hard to temper his rage. “Perhaps you are only blowing off your frustration, but you will cease your tongue’s flapping before you lose it. No one will bother Lady Norman. I am taking care of the situation, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Am I making myself clear?”
Wharton shoved him away and rubbed his red throat. “Perfectly,” he said, his voice hoarse.
His friend straightened up from the table and strode from the room without so much as a word for any of the remaining men. The Earl of Dunfield got up from his lazy seat on the settee and sighed.
“Well, he’ll need to complain about this to someone. I’ll go after him.”
The Marquis of Chartsfield clamored to his feet with a side glance for Jeremy. “I’ll go, too.”
Jeremy watched the two men follow Wharton out with a frown. How had it come to this? These were his bes
t friends, and now they were fighting like schoolboys. And all because Jeremy hadn’t kept one promise. He might claim he had, but it was a lie.
He’d had plenty of opportunities to resolve the situation with Penelope. He could have revealed her, blackmailed her, crushed her spirit over and over. Yet, he hadn’t. But Wharton’s reaction, his veiled threats against Penelope had struck a chord in Jeremy, a protective reaction that he hadn’t expected any more than his shocked friends.
He looked up to find the remaining Nevers, Ryan Crawford and Viscount John Lockwood, staring at him.
“Want to discuss it?” Lockwood asked as he leaned back in his seat with an appraising look for Jeremy.
Jeremy hesitated. How could he discuss something he couldn’t even fully explain to himself? He shook his head. “Not particularly.”
The door to the private room opened, and a footman dressed in the club’s fine livery appeared. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Lord Kilgrath, you have received a message. Your servants forwarded it from your home.”
Jeremy stepped forward and took the letter that was propped onto a silver platter. Waving the man off, he turned the missive over to look at the seal. An ornate N. His heart lodged in his throat as he broke the seal and read the contents.
It was from Penelope. Her hand had been shaking when she wrote that she had to see him and would be arriving at his home at two that afternoon. He glanced at the grandfather clock across the room. It was one now.
“I must go,” he said, folding the papers into his pocket.
“Ah, there he is!” Ryan Crawford crowed.
“There who is?” Jeremy asked with a scowl at the younger man’s elation. “What are you going on about?”
“We’ve all been wondering where the wolf went,” Crawford explained. “Since you began your pursuit of Lady Norman, he has been hidden. But I just saw a flicker of him in your eyes. It must be a woman who wrote to you. Happy hunting, my friend.”
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