Wicked Temptation

by Carole Mortimer

  “Pru!” His hands tightened in her hair as she sucked all the harder, causing his cock to stiffen in her mouth before hot jets of sweet, salty-tasting and creamy liquid began to pulse into her mouth.

  Liking the taste, Pru continued to suck greedily on his cock until she had consumed every drop of his release.

  “That was so good…” Titus was too sated to attempt to move from where he lay half-sprawled on the bench seat, his spent cock hanging out of his breeches.

  Pru’s eyes were fever-bright, her lips red and slightly puffy as she sat back on her heels. “All with but one instruction from you,” she said with satisfaction. “I believe those books of my father’s to have helped after all. Indeed, I seem to have had no difficulty at all in mastering the ability to suck your cock.”

  He arched one brow. “Your vocabulary is scandalous.”

  She chuckled. “Then it is your influence which has made it so.”

  Titus could not deny Pru did have a natural ability when it came to giving him pleasure. Nevertheless… “You should not talk of sucking a man’s cock.”

  “I talked to you of sucking your cock,” she corrected. “I have no desire to suck any other.”

  Thank God for small mercies. The thought of Pru being intimate with any other man but him made Titus’s jaw ache.

  He sat up abruptly to fasten his breeches, relieved to see there was no evidence of his release on his clothing. Because Pru had swallowed it all down, greedily and with obvious pleasure.

  The sight of her as she now licked the last of his taste from her lips was enough to cause his cock to twitch in renewed interest. “We should return to the house and take our leave.” That renewed arousal of his cock caused him to speak more harshly than he had intended.

  Something Titus instantly regretted as he saw the pained frown creasing Pru’s brow when she rose to her feet and stepped away from him.

  As well as those other physical signs of their intimacy, her hair was slightly disheveled from where he had threaded his fingers through those golden locks as she sucked and pleasured him.

  Pru kept her head lowered as she adjusted her clothing, unwilling to allow Titus to see how much his sharpness so soon after their shared intimacy hurt her. Not only hurt her, but also filled her with uncertainty as to whether or not he had enjoyed that intimacy as much as she had thought and he said he had.

  Her mother had informed her men were different to women in that they could, and very often did, receive physical satisfaction with women other than their wives when their needs were not being take care of at home, and that single gentlemen took their pleasure with whomever they pleased.

  Was Pru merely another warm and willing woman to Titus? She could still feel the silky in-and-out thrust of his cock into her mouth, still taste the creaminess of his release, but—

  “Pru, look at me.”

  She lifted her head but kept her gaze lowered.

  “I said look at me, damn it.”

  She raised her lids at the sharpness of his tone. Titus looked as elegant as he always did, his clothing adjusted and with not a hair out of place. Whereas she probably looked totally debauched: her lips felt slightly swollen, her cheeks flushed, and several tendrils of unruly hair had fallen down onto her nape.

  Titus reached out to grasp her upper arms. “You have done nothing wrong. On the contrary,” he added dryly. “You did everything so right, I was unable to control myself.”

  She blinked. “And that bothers you?”

  His mouth quirked into a smile. “I am sure someone as ancient as me should not have responded so readily.”

  “Now you are teasing me,” Pru chided with a pout.

  “Only a little.”

  “I do not think of you as being in the least old,” she assured him huskily. “I meant only to tease and play with you by making those comments.”

  He drew her into his arms so that her head rested beneath his chin and against his chest. “Perhaps in future, you should not choose a dinner party at which to challenge me?”

  “A need for privacy that did not seem to bother you in the slightest when you dragged me out into the garden for everyone to see.”

  It only bothered Titus now in regard to Pru’s reputation. Not that he thought for a moment the other Sinners or their wives would ever divulge a word of Pru being here this evening unchaperoned, or the time they had spent alone outside in the garden. But the voluble Lady Jacqueline might, that lady being well known for her lack of discretion. He would not have Pru’s reputation ruined on top of everything else she had suffered these past weeks.

  “It was either bring you outside or spill in my breeches,” he acknowledged self-derisively, and with the desired result. He could feel the tension easing from Pru shoulders.

  That mischievous light, only recently returned to her, glowed in her eyes as she raised her head to look at him. “I believe we should do as you suggest and make our excuses to leave. I have several more ways in which I might challenge you again on our journey home.”

  Titus felt his cock give another approving throb merely from thinking of what those ways might be. “I will speak to Stonewell.” He tidied several wayward strands of her disheveled hair into the arrangement at her crown. “If you would like to go to the drawing room to say your goodbyes to the duchess and the other ladies before waiting for me in the entrance hall.”

  Pru kept her eyes lowered so as not to catch the gaze of any of the six suddenly silent gentlemen in the dining room still enjoying their brandy and cigars. But her cheeks were nevertheless aflame with embarrassment by the time she stepped out into the hallway and the door was closed behind her, knowing they all must be aware of how long she and Titus had been alone together outside.

  “Leaving us so soon?” Lady Jacqueline was seated beside her daughter drinking tea when Pru politely made her thank-you for dinner. “Not that I blame you. I am sure I would do the same if I had a lusty beau like Romney to go home with,” she added speculatively. “His newly acquired scars are a little off-putting, of course, but no doubt they will fade with time—”

  “Mother!” the duchess rebuked sharply.

  Lady Jacqueline looked unrepentant. “I am only saying what you are all thinking.”

  “We are thinking nothing of the sort.” The duchess rose gracefully to her feet, linking her arm with Pru’s as they strolled out into the entrance hall. “I apologize for my mother.” Her weariness of tone said it was something she had to do on a regular basis. “I have no choice but to put up with her outrageous behavior, but I deplore the fact she embarrasses Stonewell and our guests too.” She gave a heavy sigh. “No doubt he will tire of it soon and banish us both to the country for several months before joining us there for the Christmas holiday.”

  Pru realized, as she saw the shadow of sadness in the other woman’s dark green eyes, how little she really knew the Duchess of Stonewell.

  She was very beautiful, of course, and always elegantly attired.

  But now that she gave the matter some thought, Pru did not recall ever seeing the other woman with any particular close female friends.

  No doubt being a duchess precluded some of those friendships, but the outspokenness of Lady Jacqueline, who was always at her daughter’s side, must also make it difficult for Angelique Sinclair to form close feminine alliances. Quite what Pru would do without Jocey to talk to and confide in now that Cilla was dead, she dreaded to think.

  Of course, there was another explanation as to why the duchess chose to keep herself aloof from close friendships. Being a traitor to one’s country must be exhausting—

  “Titus!” The sadness in the duchess’s eyes was no longer in evidence when she turned to give Romney a glowing smile, making Pru wonder if she had imagined it being there at all. “It has been so lovely to see you again. And to spend time getting to know Lady Prudence better,” she added warmly.

  “I believe the pleasure was all ours,” Romney answered with a brief glance in Pru’s direction.r />
  Angelique Sinclair gave a throaty laugh. “I have not seen this teasing side of you before, Titus.”

  “Perhaps that is because only Lady Prudence succeeds in coaxing forth that part of my nature,” he drawled.

  “Indeed?” The duchess eyed him speculatively. “Well, please do not leave it so long before both of you join us again for dinner.”

  Pru’s cheeks were ablaze with color as she allowed Romney to place her cloak about her shoulders before escorting her to his carriage. Not all that color was embarrassment. It greatly warmed her to know that Titus’s teasing was something the duchess knew nothing about, because, as he admitted, it was a part of him reserved for Pru alone.

  Chapter 8

  “What are you thinking about so deeply?”

  Pru snapped herself out of her reverie. She would have plenty of time to continue her speculation about the Duchess of Stonewell once she arrived home, rather than wasting any more of the precious time she had left to spend with Titus this evening. Except… “Is the duchess happy with Stonewell, do you think?”

  She could see Romney’s brows rise in the light given off by the lantern inside the carriage. “What on earth makes you ask that?”

  She shrugged. “She seems…sad, somehow.”

  “Angelique does?” His expression was one of surprise. “I have always found her to be very gay and charming.”

  That could be because, as Pru’s mother had observed, it was the ladylike face the duchess chose to show to the outside world. But Pru had caught a glimpse of another side to the other woman this evening, most especially so once the two of them were alone in the entrance hall together. But Titus had known the other woman far longer than she had, so perhaps she had imagined the duchess’s underlying sadness.

  She gave a dismissive shrug. “I am sure I should feel the occasional frustration if I was married to Stonewell or had a mother like Lady Jacqueline.”

  “Stonewell is not so bad,” he reproved.

  “If you say so.” She eyed Titus teasingly. “She thinks you make a ‘lusty beau,’ by the way.”

  He looked startled. “Lady Jacqueline does?”

  Pru could not resist teasing him further. “I believe, if you gave her the least encouragement, she would happily forgo Lord Holmes’s company for your own.”

  “Indeed?” Romney’s expression had turned to a glower. “And what is your own opinion on the subject?”

  She opened widely innocent eyes. “I believe Lady Jacqueline might be a little old for you, but you did assure me that with maturity comes experience, so perhaps—”

  “Bring your teasing little bottom over here. Immediately,” he growled when Pru failed to move quickly enough for him.

  She chuckled as she crossed the carriage to sit beside him. “Lady Jacqueline—”

  “Can go to the devil,” he rasped, turning so that she now lay on the seat rather than sat upon it, the length of his body coming to rest on top of hers mere seconds later, the thickened evidence of his arousal pressing against her mound.

  Romney took the majority of his weight on his elbows as he unfastened her cloak before unbuttoning the front of her gown to pull down her chemise, baring her breasts to his heated gaze.

  “I have been remiss in not paying more attention to your beautiful breasts.” He lowered his head and took one of the swollen and sensitive nipples into his mouth.

  Pru groaned, her body arching up into his as she felt the hot rasp of his tongue against her turgid flesh. She gave a gasp, her hands moving up, fingers becoming entangled in the hair at Titus’s nape as his fingers grasped hold of her other nipple, rolling and squeezing it in the same rhythm as his mouth suckled its twin.

  Was it possible, she wondered mindless minutes later, for a woman to come only from having her nipples suckled and squeezed? The slickness and rapidly rising heat between her restlessly moving thighs gave the impression it was.

  “Titus?” she gasped as that heat became unbearable. “Titus, please!”

  He raised his head to look at her with heavy, dark eyes. “Come for me,” he said gruffly.

  Both his hands were on her breasts now, fingers pulling and plucking the engorged nipples until the pleasure became too much and Pru cried out her release.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She was unable to articulate anything else as the heat imploded at her core before claiming the rest of her in a body-shaking climax.

  Titus continued to pull on Pru’s nipples until he was sure she had experienced all of her release. She looked absolutely beautiful in the throes of ecstasy. Her eyes were closed, cheeks flushed, her pouting lips moist and slightly parted, the fullness of her creamy breasts tipped with red and swollen nipples.

  He rolled to the side before straightening her gown and then pulling Pru into the warmth of his arms, the bench seat barely wide enough to accommodate both of them. He had heard that a woman could come only from having her nipples played with, but it was the first time he had experienced seeing and participating in that pleasure. He believed it to be testament to Pru’s complete lack of self-consciousness in their lovemaking.

  She roused herself from her stupor. “Would you like me to return the pleasure?”

  “We do not have the time, and I would rather continue to look at you.” Titus gently brushed the hair back from her heated temple. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured as he gazed down at her. “So very beautiful.” He kissed her gently on the lips.

  Pru felt beautiful as Titus gazed down at her with warm and approving eyes. She also felt thoroughly satiated. Cherished. Protected. As if nothing and no one could ever harm her again while she was in Titus’s arms. Which was strange, when only a week ago, she had held Titus completely responsible for the danger which had come into her own life and that of her twin.

  Now Pru did not want this night to end, or to go back to the empty house and her even lonelier bed. “Titus, might I come home with you tonight?”

  He drew back slightly before sitting up. “You know that is not possible.”

  Unfortunately, she did know, yes. The fact the two of them had spent so much time alone together this past week would be cause for conjecture if others were to learn of it. But if she spent the night in Titus’s home, even if it was in a bedchamber of her own, her reputation would be lost beyond repair.

  Sometimes Pru hated the constraints Society placed upon her and other single ladies. One whiff of scandal and they were ruined, and yet a man could have any number of indiscretions and it was more often than not treated with amusement.

  An argument for another day, perhaps? One with which she had no doubt her mother would wholeheartedly agree.

  Pru almost laughed out loud at the imagined cries of shock and protest she knew such radical thinking would bring down upon her own and her mother’s heads.

  She moved to sit beside Romney, finishing fastening her gown and drawing her cloak about her shoulders as a glance out of the window showed the carriage was nearing Germaine House. “When shall I see you again?” She hated sounding so needy, but she really did feel safer in Titus’s company.

  Titus thought it perhaps for the best, as he did not seem to be able to keep his hands off Pru for longer than five minutes, if they did not meet for a few days. Much as he enjoyed and hungered for their lovemaking—it consumed most of his waking thoughts—he had more investigations to carry out in regard to the real traitor so that he might protect Pru.

  Nor, despite what he might have once thought otherwise, did he believe their intimacies would long remain even as innocent as they had been. He could think of nothing he would enjoy more than to slide his cock into Pru’s virgin pussy before pounding them both to completion.

  “Perhaps in a few days’ time,” he answered Pru vaguely as he helped her to ascend from the carriage before walking with her to the door.

  Pru, never one to hide her emotions, pouted her disappointment as they reached the top of the stairs where they must part. “Did I not behave myself this evening
, as I promised I would?”

  “After a fashion,” he drawled, his cock giving a twitch of its approval of that fashion.

  She eyed him teasingly as his expression no doubt revealed his thoughts. “One you seemed completely in agreement with at the time.”

  “I am a man, not a block of wood,” he growled beside her ear as he bent to brush his lips lightly against her blushing cheek. Luckily, he had straightened by the time the front door of the house was opened by the Germaines’ butler. “I will call upon you again—” His words were cut off abruptly as there came the sound of a gun being fired.

  Titus instinctively stepped in front of Pru, placing his body protectively about hers as he heard a second shot being fired before he felt a searing pain in his back and he slumped forward.

  “Titus!” Pru did her best to stop him from falling, but he was too heavy for her, and she very soon found herself sitting on the ground, his head cradled on her thighs. “Titus? Titus!” Her voice rose to a scream for help when she received no response from him.

  “I am so sorry, my dear.” The Duke of Stonewell paced Pru’s private parlor in Germaine House, his austere features almost as pale as her own. “Three deaths in just a few weeks is unforgiveable, two of them people close to you.”

  Unforgiveable hardly described the horror that had become Pru’s life this past seven weeks. “That is clearly an understatement, Your Grace,” she said flatly.

  He nodded acknowledgment of the criticism. “Because there simply are no words to express my regret at the personal loss you have suffered.”

  Pru rose agitatedly to her feet to glare at him across the length of the room. “Did any of the men watching me manage to apprehend the person responsible?”

  His mouth tightened. “Titus dismissed my men several days ago.”

  “He did?”

  The duke nodded. “Titus employed his own men without my knowledge.”

  Her brows rose. “Which is why they did not report the shooting to you and you did not arrive on my doorstep earlier than nine o’clock this morning.” When Stonewell failed to appear during the night as she expected he would, Pru had sent a note to his home at eight o’clock this morning, informing him of the incident. His visit an hour later appeared to be a result of that letter.