“Not by your terms,” he repeated, gentler this time. “You watch, Arabella. Watch in that mirror above us while I take you. Because I am taking you.”
He tilted her chin with one big, hot palm and she gasped at the vision over his shoulder. At the way his big body looked covering hers. Her leg was draped over his hard, muscular calf, some of her blond curls had caught on his arm and fell over his back in a yellow ribbon.
“Valentine,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. The muscles in his backside clenched as he withdrew and thrust forward. She screamed, pleasure cycloning in her chest, in her belly, between her thighs. It was intense, out of control. Normally, she had to touch herself, finger her own clit to find completion, but with Valentine, she was already on the edge.
He withdrew again, the glide of his erection stroking her perfectly on both edges of the thrust. Bringing her closer to heaven and stealing what ever thin line of control she’d captured for herself when she took him in her mouth.
Every rational part of Arabella screamed at her to fight. Fight Valentine’s possession. Fight for control. But that voice was blocked out by the singing of her nerves. By the burning rush of blood in her ears as Valentine took her again and again.
Release was coming. It crested inside her on a wave, building higher and higher in her lower belly as heat spread throughout. She could not fight it, not while she watched Valentine’s hips in the mirror above. Not while her fingernails bit into his sweat-misted back.
But then her view was blocked as Valentine moved his face into her line of vision. The cords of muscle in his neck were taut, his face reflected the strain of waiting, taking, as much as she supposed her own did. He stared at her, holding her gaze without slowing the pace of his hips.
“Arabella,” he groaned. “Let go.”
She arched, attempting to fight utter surrender one last time, but she couldn’t. The fire roared out of control and she screamed as pleasure wracked her. Valentine caught her roar of release with his lips, swirling his tongue around hers as he clutched her closer. Their lips broke contact when he groaned, filling her with his hot essence.
Panting, Valentine collapsed onto her. Arabella wrapped her arms around him, smoothing her fingers along his spine. A satiated warmth filled her, making her limbs heavy and clouding her mind. She hadn’t felt so fulfilled in…actually, she couldn’t remember when. She certainly didn’t feel this good when she pleasured herself, and no man had taken her over the edge with such skill.
Valentine let out a sigh as he slipped from her embrace and withdrew from her body. Arabella winced at the sudden chill, the emptiness his departure left behind.
Her stomach clenched. That was exactly the problem. With a man like Valentine, she was opening herself up not only to surrender and pleasure…but to the certain emptiness bound to happen when a woman gave a man more than her body.
And that was something she could never allow. Not if she wanted to maintain her dignity. Not if she wanted to keep her secrets.
3
“You took her to bed?”
Valentine reached over to pound on Bennett Caruthers’s back as the other man choked on a swig of whiskey. As his friend gasped for air, Valentine tried to clear his head of the images Bennett’s words conjured.
Arabella on her bed, spread wide to his lips and hands and cock. Her mewls of pleasure as he took her. The way her hot body milked him when she found release.
“Dear God, man,” Bennett gasped, finally able to speak again. “I never thought that was what she required when word arrived she was looking for a man to do a job. If I’d known, I would have gone myself.”
Valentine’s gaze snapped to his friend’s handsome face. Even though Bennett grinned, there wasn’t anything funny about Valentine’s reaction. He hated the idea of his best friend being the one to take Arabella’s body. To touch her.
Shaking off the uncomfortable response, he strode away to look out Bennett’s window to the street below. Jealousy? What the hell was his problem? Arabella Nichols had hired him. That they had shared a wild night of unrivaled passion didn’t mean anything.
It couldn’t.
“She didn’t call me there to share her bed,” he managed to grumble. “If she wanted a partner, she has more than a few choices in that club of hers.”
“Then what did she want?” Bennett asked.
“Someone is trying to kill her. She wants protection and to find out who and why.” He turned to face his friend, hoping his expression didn’t reflect how much Arabella had moved him. “And that’s why I need your help. I can investigate within her walls, but I’ll need your assistance if I’m to stay by her side for her protection. Can I ask you to use your resources within the Runners?”
Bennett winced and Valentine fought not to do the same. They rarely spoke of their mutual affiliation with the Bow Street Runners. The group was how the two men met, how they became friends.
But that was over now. Valentine had been dismissed more than six months before. Disgraced by the charge that he had aided a ring of thieves rather than brought them to justice.
Others in the organization claimed to believe his innocence, but only Bennett had stood by his side. Fought to prove the charges were unfounded. Not even his own family had done that.
Valentine frowned, itching to refill his empty drink. But he’d been drowning his anger and disappointment for far too long. Arabella Nichols’s case gave him an opportunity to prove his worth again. Even if it couldn’t clear his name.
“You know I’ll do anything to help you. Of course I’ll work on the outside,” Bennett said with a sad nod.
“Thank you.” Valentine turned away to avoid seeing his friend’s pity. He hated that above all else.
Bennett cleared his throat. “I’ve heard Arabella Nichols is the most beautiful woman in the Empire, but I have only seen her from a distance. Is she truly the fallen angel some claim?”
Valentine thought about Arabella. Of her cascading blond hair, the intoxicating, spicy scent of her satin skin, of the captivating blue of her eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “She’s even more beautiful than described.”
Bennett tilted his head, searching Valentine’s face until he shifted uncomfortably. Valentine wasn’t sure he wanted his friend to see the whole truth about his encounter.
“And you took her to bed.” Bennett shook his head. “I must say, that surprises me.”
“Why?”
His friend shifted. “Because a woman…your desire for a treacherous woman…is what led to your dismissal.”
Valentine shut his eyes. He didn’t need a reminder of that fact. Laurel Talbot had played his desire and his emotions like a fiddler at a country dance. He had given all of himself to her…only to discover she was the doxy of the leader of a ring of thieves. That every word she said was a lie, that every time she lay in his bed, let him take her body, it was done to aid her other lover.
And in the end, she made sure everyone believed Valentine was a willing participant in their deception. That he was part of their ring. Had given over duty for sex.
“I realize that,” Valentine said softly. “But this is different. My eyes are wide open. I know what Arabella is. Who she is. She doesn’t want anyone to know of her plight, so she wants me to pose as her lover. You know that when you take on a role for a case, it’s best to make it as real as possible.” He shrugged, dismissing the night he spent in Arabella’s bed as nothing but investigative cleverness. when in reality, it was so much more. Too much more.
Bennett nodded. “I trust you know her. And yourself. Just remember that a woman in the business of pleasure must know how much power her flesh yields. Don’t let any skills she possesses let you forget that fact.”
Valentine clenched his fist at his side. That was the trouble, wasn’t it? When he was in Arabella’s arms, he had forgotten that fact…just briefly. Pleasure and emotion had ruled his wild mind. And it was only by the grace of seeing his surrender in the reflec
tion of her mirror that he’d been able to take control of that powerful encounter.
“Yes, that may be true, Bennett,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I know better than to trust any warm words or tempting touch she tries to use against me. I will keep a tight rein on Arabella Nichols.”
His friend nodded, but as Bennett launched into a detailed outline of what information they would need to gather in order to protect Arabella, Valentine winced. Keeping a tight rein on her wasn’t the challenge. Based on the night they had shared, the difficulty might be restraining himself.
This was only the second time John Valentine had been in Arabella’s room, but already he owned it. She clenched a fist as she watched him pace around the perimeter like a sleek, dark tiger surveying his territory. The room, her things…even her, he had claimed them all the moment he arrived. And now he was going to share this chamber with her until he felt she was safe from her would-be killer.
There would be no respite from his distracting presence…no break from his tantalizing touch. She shivered.
Valentine didn’t even notice her reaction as he turned a page in one of the letters he held. “Are these all of them?”
Her shiver turned from one of desire to fear. “No.”
His brown gaze shot up with his eyebrows, ensnaring her own. “No?” he repeated in surprise.
She forced a smile, hoping to keep up the façade of a jaded lady. Very few saw her real self; Valentine could not be one of them. “As I explained last night, I only began to save them after the first attempts on my life.”
“And does anyone else know about them?” he asked, setting the pile aside.
“I’ve confided my fears to one other person, my closest friend, Lydia Bartlett. She’s seen them and even begged me to depart London.”
He nodded, his expression grim. “She may well have been correct. This person, whoever he is, is serious. I don’t believe his threats are idle…and they are escalating.”
Pure terror ripped through Arabella and she dipped her head with a choked sob. Clenching her fists, she turned from Valentine and tried to pull herself together. With effort, she bit back her emotions, tamping them down deep in her chest.
But he had already seen her weakness. Silently, he crossed the room and placed his hands on her shoulders.
The touch did aid her in forgetting her fear, but it inspired a new reaction. One just as dangerous. Desire. With just a benign, comforting gesture, Valentine lit a fire in her belly. The same one he lit the night before. The one she had been trying to convince herself wasn’t as hot and powerful as it seemed.
She was wrong.
Slowly, he turned her to face him and she caught her breath, this time not on a sob, but a sigh. A moan. How could the man do that with just a touch? With just the scent of his hot skin?
It was too much.
Shrugging out of his embrace, she paced to the fire. A cold substitute for his hands.
“Now that you have seen the letters, perhaps you’d like to join me downstairs?” She glanced at the clock on her mantel. Half past eight. “It is late enough that many of my patrons will have arrived for the nightly festivities.”
“And you wish to show them your newest trophy?” he asked with a sly smile she didn’t expect from the normally stoic John Valentine.
She laughed, some of the tension around them fading. “Yes.”
“Do you think it will be difficult to convince them of our affair?” he asked as he offered her an arm. She took it, starting at the spark that snapped between them when they touched.
“Perhaps. It is well-known and often discussed that I’ve been alone for a long while.” When Valentine’s sharp gaze flashed to her, she turned her face. That was twice he’d made her blush in as many days. “To keep suspicion from being raised, yes, we will have to prove our passion for each other.”
As he opened the door and led her toward the main stairs, his smile grew and turned dangerously animal. “Then I will endeavor to be convincing.”
Valentine’s eyes darted from corner to corner in the large main hall as Arabella led him through tables and past groups of people. Her smile was broad, welcoming, as she waved and called greetings to some of the most powerful people in society. But as she motioned to a private table against the back wall of the hall, he saw tension around her eyes. She might play the part of sparkling hostess, but there was more to her than that.
Just as he’d seen in her bedroom a few moments before, fear darkened her face. Not that he blamed her. The letters from the person threatening her life were graphic and pointed. And in his estimation, not to be trifled with.
But who was the person willing to take Arabella’s life? And why?
He settled back into the leather chair, straightening his legs beneath the large table until they were hidden beneath the long tablecloth, and looked around.
Arabella always referred to the person set on taking her life as someone outside her inner circle. A thwarted lover, a blackballed patron, a zealous moralist…but he knew well that often it was the ones closest who were most capable of treachery and betrayal. Anyone in this room could be responsible.
Though at present, no one around them seemed very interested in taking a life. No, they seemed more focused on taking each other. Music played in the distance, soft, sensual, and set the mood for the activities around them. At the closest table to Arabella and himself, a man kissed a woman in a mask with unbridled passion as his fingers slipped below the neckline of her gown and teased her full breast. She writhed beneath his caress. Valentine couldn’t see below the tablecloth, but by the way her arm jerked up and down, he believed she was stroking her companion’s cock with no thought of who could see.
Farther away, but still within clear view, a woman served drinks to a table of raucous gentlemen. Her gown was utterly sheer and she wore no undergarments. When one of the men pulled her down to straddle his lap, she didn’t protest. In fact, she threw her head back with a laugh and began to grind against him.
But up on the raised stage in the distance, the real entertainment of the night had begun. A large screen glowed from the lamps and candles that had been lit behind it. Behind the screen, the silhouette of a couple was clear. The man was on his knees, pleasuring his female companion. Her shadowed hips jerked and hands clenched in his hair with every motion of his head. Finally, the man slid his lips up the apex of her body, turned her around and speared his erection inside her.
Her scream of pleasure echoed in the hall around them, despite the buzzing of the crowd, the moans of other couples enjoying the public pleasures allowed them. Valentine shifted. His cock was already swelling from the presence of the woman beside him. Seeing all this sin and sex, hearing the moans, he only became more aware of Arabella. Of the spicy scent of her skin. The brush of her unbound hair against his arm.
“Valentine?” she whispered, leaning up to brush her lips against his ear.
Color exploded before his eyes as the desire in his bloodstream raged out of control. He turned his face toward hers and took her lips in savage possession. She gasped, clearly surprised by the intensity of the kiss, but when he cupped her chin and tilted her head for greater access, she acquiesced with a sigh of pleasure.
He stroked her mouth with his tongue, mimicking the way he had filled her the night before. But memories of that heated joining also made him remember other things. Their struggle for control. His near surrender to her demands.
He couldn’t let himself get so close to the edge again.
Pulling back, he looked into blue eyes soft with desire. Arabella’s breath came short, lifting her breasts with each one, and her nipples were outlined clearly against the silk of her low-cut gown. He groaned when he realized she probably wore no underthings.
“Valentine?” she whispered again.
“We need to prove we’re involved in a passionate affair?” he asked, his voice rough with desire and lack of breath.
She nodded slowly, but before she c
ould say anything else, he surged forward and took her mouth again. He stole her words with a kiss, her resistance as he slipped his hands down her waist and drew her flush against him.
Arabella groaned and her voice vibrated against his tongue, sending shock waves of pleasure to heat his blood and harden his already steely erection. He wanted nothing more than to lay her out on the table and have his way with her. She wouldn’t resist. The way she arched and clawed at him told him she wouldn’t.
But doing so, having her publicly, would do more than relieve his need. It would mean surrendering to her terms. Losing control. He needed her to be the one to beg. To writhe.
A wicked smile turned his lips as he glided them away from hers. Lower to her throat. Lower to her breast, where he blew hot through her thin gown. Lower, lower, as he slipped to his knees beneath the table.
“Valentine!” she gasped, shock and desire equal in her voice.
He lifted his eyes just once, letting her see his intent before he ducked his head beneath the tablecloth. The heavy fabric muffled some of the sound and light of the hall. It cocooned him in a prison of warmth and the heady fragrance of Arabella’s growing desire.
He only teased for a moment, running his hands over her legs through her gown. She sucked in her breath above him, tensing against his fingers. He wanted her on the brink of anticipation. The edge of reason. He wanted her to reach for his lips, his hands, his touch.
His need called to him, but he pushed it aside. When he tasted her, it wasn’t going to be about his need. It would be about hers. Only hers.
He lifted the hem of her gown, revealing the dainty slippers and hand-stitched silk stockings she wore. Both were dusky blue, matching her gown perfectly. He pushed the skirt up with one hand, shifting his position on his knees so he could stroke the back of her calf.
Her legs trembled, though she no longer said his name. She held back and he had to admire her for that. He knew the value of staying in control. A woman of her position, a woman of her reputation, had no choice but to do the same. And that was why making her lose that control was all the sweeter.
Parlor Games Page 3