Wicked Temptation

by Carole Mortimer

  She now wanted, needed Titus to give her that same release. To have his fingers stroking and pressing against her nubbin until she shattered and gasped in climax.

  “Please,” she groaned.

  Those smacks instantly ceased and were replaced seconds later with the caress of the heated and slightly roughened palm of Titus’s hand as he touched and soothed her stinging flesh.

  “Titus, please,” Pru groaned again, completely beyond shame as she pushed her bottom up and into those too-gentle caresses.

  Titus’s hand stilled as he studied the woman lying prostrate across the table. Pru’s face was flushed, her eyes a fevered glitter as she looked at him beseechingly. The skin of her bottom felt hot, the slickness between her thighs now so copious, her earthy and womanly aroma flooded his senses. The wriggling of her bottom against his caressing palm appeared to be of need rather than protest or evasion of him administering any more smacks.

  “Please what?” he prompted gruffly, needing to know exactly what it was Pru wanted from him. He wanted no misunderstandings, no accusations later, if he took this to where he wished to go.

  “Just please,” she pleaded.

  “I need the words, Pru,” he encouraged huskily.

  “I… I… I cannot!” she choked emotionally.

  “Then let me help you. Do you want my fingers here?” He caressed a sensual path to where her pussy lips were slick and hot between her thighs.

  “God, yes!” She trembled and groaned as Titus’s fingers stroked along that wetness.

  “Here.” He moved his fingers farther forward, seeking out the pulsing and swollen nubbin beneath its protective hood, her skin wet and hot.

  “Yes!”

  He proceeded to stoke and caress that sensitive nubbin for several minutes, until Pru was writhing and thrusting her hips rhythmically back against the wetness of his fingers. “You have known this pleasure before,” he accused darkly, his fingers stilling against that burgeoning flesh. “Answer me, Pru!”

  “I… Only from touching myself,” she admitted breathlessly. “And only when the need for release became too great.”

  “Who taught you such things?”

  “I…”

  “Do not lie to me,” he warned.

  “My mother told us—”

  “Your mother?”

  Pru nodded. “She did not want Cilla and me to be a pair of ninny heads when it came to—to the marriage bed. She explained a woman has needs. Ones that some gentlemen are not even aware of or do not wish to acknowledge in a wife.”

  “That is unfortunately true.”

  “My mother told us she was sure that neither of us would choose to marry such an unworthy gentleman. And in the meantime, there is no shame in pleasuring our own body in order to learn what we like and do not like when we—when we feel the need.”

  “There is no shame in it,” he agreed huskily. “Is your need great now?”

  “Yes!” Pru squirmed as she tried to find the purchase to rub her clit against his now unmoving fingers.

  “No.” Titus gave her ass another slap, deliberately harder than any of the others he had administered. “I shall decide when you are to have your pleasure. Nor will you touch yourself in this intimate way again, but wait until we are together, and I will satisfy your needs. Do you understand me?” Ridiculous of him to feel jealous of Pru’s own fingers, but he did. He most assuredly did.

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “Yes, I understand I must not touch myself but wait for you to satisfy my needs,” she repeated desperately.

  “Good.” Titus resumed stroking her clit, interspersed now with a light pinching that caused Pru to groan and writhe as he pressed the length of his cloth-covered cock against the burning flesh of her bottom.

  It was only seconds before he felt her nubbin stiffen and then Pru’s body began to quake and tremble as she attained her release. He continued to stroke her through that climax, his fingers slick with the release of her juices. Then, unable to stop himself, he rubbed and pinched her flesh into another climax immediately after, and then another, each becoming more powerful than the last.

  “No more,” Pru finally groaned weakly.

  “Did you not give me permission to give you pleasure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only me?”

  “Only you,” she choked.

  “Good girl.” He had to stop this, Titus admonished. He had to. He had already gone beyond the purpose of the initial spanking. Far beyond, he acknowledged self-disgustedly as he removed his hand from between Pru’s thighs and stepped back. “You may straighten your clothing now.” His voice sounded harsh in the silence of the room.

  Titus turned his back on her as he strode over to the window, aware of the rustling of clothing behind him as he took out his handkerchief and wiped Pru’s sticky juices from his fingers. An exercise which did nothing to take away the addictive aroma of her release, a sweet floral aroma mixed with that earthier musk. His cock was so engorged and throbbing, it was tenting the front of his pantaloons, and he longed for privacy in which he might relieve that painful ache. It was—

  He turned abruptly at the sound of Pru’s sobs. Her clothes were as they had been when she entered the library almost an hour ago, but Pru herself was still bent over and lying prostrate across the table, tears raining unchecked down her cheeks.

  Because he had not given her leave to rise?

  Two long strides brought him back to Pru’s side to gently help her to straighten. He took her in his arms as she began to sob in earnest.

  Which had been the whole purpose of his unorthodox behavior.

  Not enjoying spanking Pru.

  Not pleasuring her.

  Not demanding that only he was allowed to pleasure her.

  Not the need he now felt for his own physical release.

  This was about Pru. For Pru. The tears she now cried were the catharsis that would, he believed, with time, aid in her full emotional recovery.

  Titus bent slightly so he could put one of his arms under Pru’s knees and the other about her shoulders, before lifting her and carrying her over to the chaise in front of the window. He settled her comfortably on his lap, cradling her in his arms as he patiently waited for her tears to abate.

  Pru cried until there were no more tears left inside her. Hard, body-racking sobs, with her face buried against Romney’s throat, her arms clinging about his neck.

  Her copious tears had dampened his neckcloth and shirtfront by the time she came back to herself enough to recall all that had come before those tears began to fall so readily.

  Titus taking exception to her continued rudeness toward him.

  His demand she prostrate herself over the table and bare her bottom to him.

  Those hard and punishing slaps administered to her bared flesh.

  Titus’s fingers exploring and stroking between her thighs.

  The pleasure of having those fingers on her nubbin and bringing her to climax after climax.

  Titus had not done those things to her but for her, Pru realized in a daze. To shake her, once and for all, kicking and screaming if necessary, from that well of numbed and helpless despair she had been lost in for so very long.

  Except she had not kicked and screamed in anger or torment, but in pleasure.

  Pleasure Titus had given her as unselfishly as he had the pain, all to help her break through the numbness she felt at the loss of her beloved twin.

  She moistened her lips before speaking. “I believe I should thank you once again.”

  These were the last words, the very last, Titus had expected Pru to say to him once she recovered from his having spanked and then pleasured her. “You are not angry with me?”

  “Well, I would not go so far as to say that.” Dry humor could be heard in her voice. “But let us say I am less angry with you than I was.”

  Titus pulled back slightly so he could look at Pru. Her eyes looked sore from crying so many tears, her n
ose was slightly reddened, her cheeks flushed, and her lips puffy. In normal circumstances, he would have offered her his handkerchief to dry her cheeks, but decided he had better not as he had last used it to wipe her pleasure juices from his fingers.

  “Less angry enough to listen to what I wished to tell you the last time we met, and which you said you have now come to hear?” he prompted huskily.

  Pru tensed. Listening to what Titus had to say about the accident was the reason she had come to see him today. The… The other had merely been a digression from that purpose.

  Merely?

  There was nothing slight or meaningless about the intimacies she and Titus had just shared.

  And Pru did not feel in the least embarrassed by them.

  Instead, she now felt completely freed from the numbing guilt she had been living with for so long. The guilt of living while her sister died.

  How could Pru not feel that way when she was totally aware of the sting and heat of her bottom cheeks and between her thighs still throbbed from her many releases? The former, she realized, was almost as pleasurable as the latter.

  “Yes.” She rose to her feet before turning to face him. “Yes, I am now ready to hear whatever it is you wish to tell me.”

  Titus was not sure he wished to tell Pru any of these things, only knew that he should. Because, despite what Stonewell may feel to the contrary, Titus believed Pru had a right to know the real reason Priscilla had died.

  Chapter 5

  “I would appreciate it if you would sit down while I talk.” Titus rose restlessly to his feet to begin pacing the library. Pru settled herself on the edge of the chaise he had just vacated. “You may ask me any questions you like, but some I might not be able to answer,” he warned.

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  His jaw tightened. “None of this is fair. And some of what I am about to tell you, I should not be telling you at all,” he added with a frown.

  Pru had no idea what Titus wished to reveal to her, but something told her she was not going to like most of it.

  Nor did she understand it’s relevance to her, as Titus began to talk of a traitor to the Crown, someone guilty of many betrayals to England, including aiding in Napoleon’s escape from Elba earlier this year and the battles that followed.

  She felt even more puzzled than she had before he began talking. “What does that have to do our carriage accident?”

  “I will get to that in a moment,” Titus bit out. “The Sinners, as you may or may not have guessed, are all agents for the Crown, and the Duke of Stonewell is our spymaster.”

  Her brows rose; she had not known. “Is this one of the things you should not be telling me?”

  “Yes.”

  Pru nodded. “You have my word I shall never reveal that knowledge to another living soul.”

  The viscount’s smile was bleak. “I advise you do not make any rash promises until I have finished speaking.”

  She eyed him warily. “Very well.”

  At any other time, Titus might have found Pru’s agreement amusing, even arousing, following so quickly after their recent intimacies. But he could find nothing in the least amusing about any of their present situation.

  He resumed his pacing as he gathered his thoughts. “The investigation had narrowed down to eight suspects, and as there are—were eight Sinners,” he corrected himself gruffly, “we were tasked with singling out and proving this traitor’s guilt.”

  She nodded. “That seems logical.”

  It had, at the time. Several months later, with Priscilla Germaine and Worthington both dead, that logic seemed severely flawed, primarily in the fact they had not taken into account that whoever the traitor was would become suspicious of The Sinners’ behavior, realize the net was closing in on them, and subsequently attempt to eliminate some of them as a diversion. In Worthington’s case, they had succeeded.

  But Titus was getting ahead of himself.

  He drew in a deep breath through his nose before continuing. “These eight suspects were all women of Society. Ones who were able to meet with and pass information on to their contact during the usual melee of Society functions, in this case specifically at six balls given throughout this past Season.”

  Pru realized, as her stomach began to churn, that she had been justified in her earlier unease regarding the things Titus wished to tell her. She was still unsure as to why, only knew this was somehow connected to those feelings of danger that had entered her own and Cilla’s life at the same time Romney and Worthington had.

  “Five of these women were Lady Beatrix Hanwell, Lady Isabella Aston, Miss Alys Newcomb, Lady Heather Smythe, Lady Jocelyn Forbes—”

  “Jocey would never betray her country!” Pru defended indignantly, only to frown as another thought occurred to her. “The ladies you have named are now married to five of The Sinners.”

  “Yes.”

  “The ladies they were each to investigate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because they have all been proven innocent?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Worthington is dead.”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes widened. “Because he was investigating my sister as being the traitor?”

  A nerve pulsed in Romney’s clenched jaw. “No, I was investigating your sister.”

  “Then…” Pru was finding it difficult to think straight with so much information bombarding her at once. Only one thing seemed of relevance. “Does that mean Worthington was investigating me?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mouth and lips had gone dry. “And the accident?”

  “Was not an accident.” Romney confirmed her suspicion. “Someone deliberately tried to injure or kill us.”

  Pru gave a dazed shake of her head. “But…but there was a fault with the wheel. And no one could have predicted the carriage would catch fire.”

  “No, no one could have predicted that,” Titus acknowledged heavily. “But the shots fired at me when I managed to escape from the carriage were most certainly deliberate. They missed,” he added as Pru continued to stare at him. “They also missed Wessex and instead hit Lady Jocelyn on the evening they attended the theater together. Five weeks ago,” he added pointedly.

  Pru rose abruptly to her feet, too agitated to remain seated any longer. “Jocey was not ill but had been shot…?” She had visited Jocey several times, believing her bed-ridden friend to be suffering from a severe cold or influenza.

  He nodded. “Wessex was beside himself, believed she would die of the wound. I have never seen him so agitated,” he recalled with a frown. “He has sworn to kill the person who almost took Lady Jocelyn from him.”

  “This is… It is all so incredulous.” Pru raised her hands to where her temples had begun to throb. “I truly believed Jocey had the influenza.”

  “As you were meant to.”

  Pru waited until her head started to clear a little, and with it, the ability to understand exactly what had happened. “Cilla died because you wrongly suspected her of treason?”

  Romney’s eyes narrowed at the accusation. “She died because the real traitor became aware of our investigations and decided to add mayhem and confusion to the mix. Worthington died too,” he reminded her huskily.

  Pru was well aware of that, and she had already voiced her regrets over that gentleman’s death. But Cilla… Cilla had been an innocent, and the other half of herself. The two of them had shared the womb, been inseparable during their childhoods. As adults, they were never far from each other’s company, and had giggled and flirted with and over the same handsome gentlemen of the ton.

  Latterly, two of those gentlemen had been Worthington and Romney.

  Gentlemen Pru now knew not to have been showing a romantic interest in the two of them at all, but investigating them both under suspicion of treason.

  And she had just allowed… Had let Romney…

  “If it is any consolation, I no longer suspect or believe you to be guilty of tr
eason,” he added softly. “In fact, I have had some of my own men in place protecting you day and night since the accident happened.”

  “I… That’s…” Her eyes narrowed. “Your words imply someone else does still believe me to be a traitor to my country and the Crown?”

  Romney shifted uncomfortably. “I have not discussed the matter with the other Sinners, but I know Stonewell still has his doubts, yes.”

  “Damn the Duke of Stonewell. And damn you,” she added vehemently. “God, how I hate you all!”

  Romney nodded acceptance of the emotion. “I suspected you might.”

  Pru eyed him scornfully. “Is that the reason you pleasured me before telling me these things?”

  A nerve pulsed in his clenched and scarred cheek. “As I recall, I inflicted physical pain in order to snap you out of the emotional self-pity you had lapsed into—”

  “Self—! How dare you! How dare you, you…you unfeeling bastard!” Pru rushed across the room toward him, her hands raised and her fingers curled into claws.

  Titus easily caught hold of Pru’s wrists to stop her nails from making contact with his already scarred flesh. His fingers tightened about those slender bones as he held her at bay. “Whatever you feel toward me now, I am not your enemy.”

  “Oh, but you are,” she scorned. “You and all of your Sinners friends have become exactly that.” She gave a disgusted shake of her head. “I knew it. I knew that you and Worthington were somehow responsible for what happened to us.”

  “Pru—”

  Her glare silenced him. “If you and Worthington had not singled Cilla and me out as being suspects in your investigation, if we had not been traveling in the carriage with you that evening, Cilla would still be alive.”

  Titus had no defense against that accusation, because he knew it to be the truth. Admittedly, neither he nor any of the other Sinners had been involved in the initial investigation in which it was decided Priscilla and Prudence Germaine were two of the likely suspects, but neither had any of them questioned those findings.

  And perhaps they should have. Perhaps that was where the weakness in this investigation lay all along. He needed to discuss that possibility with Stonewell.