ColorMeBad (7 page)

It occurred to John, as his cock sprang immediately back to
attention, that he had waited far too long to take Hecuba Jones to his bed.

How many times did a woman have to ask him to fuck her?

She hadn’t used that precise word, of course—though he had a
marked suspicion she could have—but she’d made her desires plain enough. And
he’d been holding back then lunging forward then pulling back again, like an
untaught horse in harness.

Well, no longer.

So he rose from the bed, found one of the sheaths he’d
procured and slipped it over his cock, tying the ribbon tight at the base.
Hecuba’s eyes were on him the whole time, which added an exhibitionist charge
to the process. He felt like a courtesan posing for her protector.

It was unsettling to realize that he liked the feeling.

He was beginning to think he would like anything as long as
it involved Hecuba Jones and a bed. And the bed was optional.

She opened her arms to him as he returned to her warmth. The
touch of her skin set him alight again—he needed to be inside her more than he
needed his next breath. He pushed his hips between her thighs, rough, at the
limits of his patience, but she merely spread her legs wide to accommodate him.
He set the head of his cock at her entrance and scraped up enough self-control
to meet her gaze before he went any further.

She laughed and tugged at his shoulders. Had any woman ever
been so amused by her own seduction? “Now,” she insisted.

John obligingly began to push forward.

The briefest of resistances and he was past her maidenhead.
Hot and tight and oh so slick—her gasp and his groan came simultaneously. She
stretched around him and he clenched his hands in the sheets to keep from
pounding mindlessly into her.
That can come later
, whispered a
treacherous voice in his head. It sent a frisson of pure need spiraling down to
the base of his spine and he pushed in another inch.

Hecuba raised her thighs higher and wrapped her legs around
his waist.

John lost control of himself and plunged in to the hilt.

“Hell!” Hecuba swore.

John shuddered and felt his cock throb inside her. He didn’t
know how long he could keep himself from moving. “Sorry,” he ground out. “Too
rough.”

“No,” she corrected him on a moan, “I like it.”

Those three small words were all it took to break him.
John’s mouth came down harshly on hers as he began to move. Her stocking feet
rasped lightly against the skin of his hips while he drove his cock home with
long, powerful strokes—a driving rhythm some sane part of him worried was too
much for a recent virgin. But that same recent virgin just slid her hands up to
the back of his neck for leverage and met him stroke for stroke, breasts
shaking with every desperate thrust.

The sane part of him vanished.

He tore his mouth from hers and buried his face in her neck,
the better to fuck her as hard as he needed to. She bit down on his shoulder as
he pistoned into her cunt, her inner muscles working him and her hands pulling
his hair just hard enough for the feeling to stand out in the sea of pleasure.
Sweat gathered in the hollow above his buttocks as he strove for his long-denied
climax.

Hecuba released his shoulder and panted against his ear.
“I’m close,” she said. “So close. But I don’t… I can’t…” A wordless cry of
frustration shook her beneath him.

Through his haze, John realized what she needed. He was too
far gone himself for dexterity—but he could use her boldness to both their
advantage.

With an effort, he pushed his arms straight to either side,
palms flat on the bed, making a space between their torsos even as he continued
to thrust inside her. “Go on,” he rumbled, his jaw clenched tight against the
urge to come at the sight of her flesh, pink and stretched around him. “Take
what you need.”

With only the briefest hesitation, she slid one hand down to
where they were joined. It took her a moment, but he knew she’d found the right
spot when she gasped and her hand began to move in time with his needy cock.

The sight of her stroking herself while he fucked her seared
into him like a brand. He sped up, so close to the edge he could almost taste
it, then gave one particularly rough thrust that drove him impossibly deep
within the throbbing, slippery warmth of her cunt.

Hecuba came so hard she curled up around him, clutching at
his shoulders with her free hand and panting desperately against the crook of
his neck. It was too much—he’d been holding back too long. With a hoarse cry,
John followed her up and over the edge, into flight, pulsing and shaking as he
poured himself into her quivering body and sparks burst in the darkness behind
his eyes.

Slowly the aftershocks died away and their bodies regained
their accustomed weight. John ran wondering hands down the curves of her hips
and along the stockings she still wore, the black silk impossibly dark against
the sheets. There were holes in them, he noticed now—spots where her skin
showed through in delightfully lurid circles. He wanted to slip those stockings
down over her calves, her ankles…remove them entirely and use them tie her down
beneath him in the bed. Or else let her tie
him
up… Yes, he rather
thought she would enjoy that.

Hecuba sat up with a sigh and reached for her pantalets. “I
must be going,” she said.

There was regret in her voice but not enough of it to soothe
the sting. “When will you come back?” he asked, striving to keep his voice
level and calm. Damn it all, she’d been the virgin, so why did he feel as
though he’d lost something tonight?

She pulled on her white chemise and smiled mischievously at
him over her shoulder. Her lips were pink, her cheeks still flushed from
climax, her hair tumbled and wilder than ever.
Circe again
, he thought,
rising
from the bed of Odysseus.
His hands shook with the need to reach for a
pencil and sheet of paper even as his body hummed with exhaustion. Apparently
fucking Hecuba Jones as hard as he could had done nothing to curb his impulse
to capture her image. He couldn’t wait to paint her again. And to fuck her
again.

He lay dazed by these twin revelations while Hecuba once
again put on her black thief’s garb. It was only as she pinned up her hair that
he recalled his promise to her. “Wait,” he said. He threw on a dressing gown,
retrieved
Hecuba as Henry VIII
from his wardrobe—still in its protective
roll, still bound by his cravat—and held it out to her. “We’ll be even after
this,” he said.

Hecuba took her mother’s painting but her eyes flashed up at
him. “There are still two more paintings you have that I want,” she reminded
him.

John braced himself against the tide of relief. “Two more
nights?” he said.

“Two more nights,” Hecuba agreed.

Hecuba had never known two days could take so long to pass.

It didn’t help that recent activities had left her sore in
some unusual places. Every time she took a step or sat down, the quiet ache
between her legs brought visions of Rushmore’s hands and mouth and hips, the
feeling of his muscular body moving against hers, the pleasures that could be
gleaned from a sensitive man with a willing cock. She knew better than to
reveal these secrets to her family, particularly her innocent cousins—though
there was a speculative gleam in Anne’s eyes from time to time that made Hecuba
suspect her cousin would not be as shocked as a maiden ought to be.

So she held her tongue through all the visits for tea,
shopping expeditions, a walk along the Serpentine, dinner
en famille
and
luncheon with Aunt Eleanor’s circle of invariably hen-like acquaintances. It
was downright disheartening to find that her continuous, deliberate silence
went unremarked by everyone.

Well, nearly everyone.

At home on the afternoon of the second day, Anne poured tea
then took a seat beside Hecuba. On the other side of the room Aunt Eleanor and
Mrs. Gunn leaned close in a confederacy of gossip. Evangeline was sitting
beside them, blushing and smiling and nervous.

Anne, however, was perfectly confident when she asked her
cousin, “Are you going to tell me what the matter is?”

Hecuba blinked in surprise. “What?” she asked, genuinely
confounded.

Anne snorted. “You’ve not said a word in two days. Mother
has noticed and is somewhat relieved—she thinks you’ve finally learned proper feminine
docility—but you haven’t said anything to me or to Evangeline either and that
isn’t like you. Also, Dorothy told me that some nights it looks as though your
bed hasn’t been slept in.”

Hecuba froze with the teacup halfway to her mouth.

Anne peered at her with narrowed eyes. “Dorothy’s right—you
haven’t been sleeping well, have you? You have such dark circles beneath your
eyes.”

Hecuba silently cursed herself for a fool. She ought to have
thought to muss the bedclothes a little upon returning to her aunt and uncle’s
house. Damn Rushmore and his distractions. But Anne had that set to her mouth
that told Hecuba she wouldn’t be put off without answers. “You’re right,” she
said, thinking quickly. “I haven’t slept well at all this week.” It had the
benefit of being true—but Anne, though she nodded sympathetically, would need
more than that to be satisfied. “Do you remember those four paintings that used
to hang in the parlor at the cottage, before my parents died?”

“The portraits?” Anne asked. Hecuba nodded. “I always liked
those, especially the one of your mother. Whatever happened to them?”

“Your father sold them,” Hecuba said bluntly.

Anne had the grace to look shocked. “But—the will said those
were to stay in the family. I mean—that is—they were family portraits!”

“And now they belong to the Earl of Underwood’s brother.”

“Good God.” Anne fell backward against the over-upholstered
back of the chair. “No wonder you were so snappish when we introduced you.” She
glanced at Evangeline, who was straining to hear her sister and cousin’s
conversation, and lowered her voice. “However did you find out?”

Hecuba spoke as low as she could while Anne took a leisurely
sip of tea to mask her avid interest from Evangeline and Aunt Eleanor. “Your
father kept putting me off when I asked about the paintings so I picked the
lock on his desk and found a bill of sale dated last spring.”

Anne choked on her tea. She set the cup aside and coughed a
little into her hand. When she could speak again, her voice was rough. “He used
the money to pay for our Season.” It was not a question.

Hecuba inclined her head. She’d come to the same conclusion.

Anne’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “And now you’re
wearing my castoffs while Evangeline and I have new wardrobes bought with funds
that by rights belong to you.” The wave of her hand took in both her own
pale-pink gown, expertly ruffled, and Hecuba’s ivory muslin, the paleness of
which made her look as though she were the victim of an intestinal complaint.

“You didn’t seem to mind before,” Hecuba couldn’t help
pointing out.

Anne turned her teacup around and around on its saucer. “You
made it plain you thought the whole thing was a waste of time and effort, that
you had no desire to—how did you put it?—to be dragged to the altar like a
sacrificial lamb.” She put aside the teacup and met her cousin’s gaze frankly.
“I do want to be married, you see. I want children and a home of my own. A
London Season is the best chance I have of getting that.”

“I know,” Hecuba said. On impulse she reached out and took
Anne by the hand. “And I don’t resent you for wanting something different for
your life. I just wish…”

“I do too,” Anne replied when Hecuba trailed off. She
squeezed her cousin’s hand and the light of trouble kindled in her eyes. “Do
you think you might teach me how to pick locks?” she asked.

Hecuba agreed with a grin, thrilled both to have made an
ally and because she had succeeded in distracting Anne from her original line
of inquiry.

She took pains to disarrange the bedclothes thoroughly that
night before slipping out on her way to the Earl of Underwood’s townhouse.

Rushmore wasn’t waiting downstairs for her but that was
hardly an obstacle. She found the subtle door and the servant’s stair that led
to the north attic. He wasn’t there either—but he’d left a candle burning and
beside it a note with her name in a script too rushed for elegance.

She picked up the letter.

Jones,

If you’re reading this, some tedious evening affair has
gone on far longer than necessary. I will be with you as soon as I possibly
can.

Yours,

Rushmore

Hecuba looked for a long time at that single word.
Yours.
She wasn’t quite certain what to do with it. Was he hers, really? After so
short an acquaintance, however intense? Did it mean that he considered her
his
in some similar way? She didn’t feel as though she belonged to anyone other
than herself. And what was she? A fortuneless miss of questionable birth,
plainspoken and suspicious and only half-civilized. Whereas John Rushmore had a
magnetism about him that could increasingly pull her off course or cause her
native hue to fade like bright pigments left out in too-strong sun.

No. They had made a bargain and that would be that—four
sittings, four paintings, with four passionate nights to follow. Then she would
have her mother’s paintings…and with them, the key. Then Hecuba could build her
own life, independent of her aunt and uncle and the ever more oppressive
strictures of polite society.

Yours.

Did Rushmore really believe there could be something
long-lasting between them? She would miss him, certainly, when she left—she
would even cry, no doubt—but their futures led down very different paths. Hers
would take her to a life no gentleman would countenance, especially not one who
was first in line for an earldom, with all the responsibilities and privileges
that entailed.

There was no use hoping for anything more than what they
had. The sharp dismay that had begun to strike whenever she thought of their
parting was a symptom of past choices, not a guide for future action.

Perhaps Rushmore’s artistic tendencies were running away
with his better sense.

Perhaps she was overthinking this.

She folded the note and set it aside.

She would give him half an hour, no more.

Hecuba took the candle over to where the two previous
paintings leaned, facing the attic wall to shield the paint from the sun while
they dried.
Circe
was even more mesmerizing now than it had been at
first—Rushmore had used his most delicate brush to add detail to the original
scene, honing the expression on her face and bringing the cup in her hand to
vivid life. She put it carefully back and turned to examine the second
painting, which she had not actually seen at their previous meeting.

She gasped and nearly dropped the candle.

On canvas her body shimmered with scales in some places and
gleamed like pearl in others, particularly the naked breasts so clearly painted
by a lover’s hand. He’d made her hair darker—or perhaps that had been the
water—and against the green of the background it burned like a flame. Her
expression was patently hungry, bright of eye and red of lip, and with a jolt
Hecuba saw that her presence in the painting had transformed Hylas. That young,
doomed man was now all eagerness, trembling and ready to throw himself into the
depths for one touch of that water creature’s hand.

A footstep on the stair alerted her to Rushmore’s approach.
He was resplendent in black formal dress, the snowy front of his cravat shining
like a star in the dim light. “My apologies, Jones,” he said then his brow
furrowed and he came closer. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long?”

Hecuba’s throat was too full to speak at first so she merely
gestured at the naiad in the painting.

“Ah.” Rushmore traced one hand along the edge of the canvas.
“I did some more work on that one this afternoon. What do you think?”

It felt as though the words were torn from somewhere deep
within her. “You made me beautiful,” she said.

John was silent for so long that eventually she had to look
up at him. He was staring at her as if she were daft. “I just paint what I
see,” he said.

Hecuba held the candle up to better see his face. His
expression was solemn if a bit puzzled and his eyes were clear and earnest.

The realization that he was serious about her beauty
staggered her.

Seeking the comfort of darkness, Hecuba turned her head and
extinguished the light with a breath then set the candle aside. Her fingers
first found Rushmore’s cravat, a ghostly white in the dimness, then traced the
steely line of his jaw and the softer skin of his cheeks. Hecuba rose on tiptoe
to feather her lips along his, keeping her motions light and delicate. Slowly
she began to deepen the kiss, but still it was a fragile thing, born of
gratitude and wonder.

Rushmore sighed into her mouth but his hands stayed at his
sides. There was sherry on his breath and the smallest hint of a cheroot. In
the dark it was easy to believe she was as beautiful as he seemed to think,
that she had all those powers of attraction she’d never dared to claim for
herself. That the sight of her could cause a man to risk his whole future just
for the chance to touch her and be touched in return.

“You should take me downstairs,” she whispered.

She felt as well as heard him chuckle. “So impatient,
Jones?” he said.

She dropped her hands and stepped away, invisible now, the
candle still in her pocket. “Or I could leave,” she said, the teasing lilt in
her voice belying the way her heart was hammering in her breast.

A rush of air and his hands caught her—the sound of her
voice had given away her location in the dark. “Never,” he said and pulled her
up hard against him, his earlier reticence cast aside. One arm banded tight
around her waist and the other caught the back of her neck as he slanted his
mouth over hers again and again. She kissed him back just as desperately. “You
were right,” he said, breaking away to take in a lungful of air, “I should take
you downstairs.”

Hand in hand, they stole like fugitives down to Rushmore’s
bedroom.

The fire had burned down low, to embers, the barest
pinpricks in the dark room. Hecuba silently shut the door while Rushmore pulled
open the curtains, letting the light of the half-moon slip in and dance on
every edge in the room—the polished wood of the bedstead, the metal poker by
the hearth, the edge of a small shaving mirror on the dresser. Then he was
across the room, sliding his hands beneath both her shirt and chemise,
feathering her skin with kisses even as he removed the rest of her clothing
with practiced efficiency.

He paused when only her black stockings remained then knelt
and traced reverent hands up the side of her calf. “God, Jones,” he murmured,
“do you know how these have tortured me?”

Hecuba squirmed beneath his regard, even in the moon’s mild
illumination. “They’ve been darned half a dozen times over and they’ve got ladders
enough for all of Jacob’s angels,” she demurred.

Rushmore merely laughed. “Perhaps,” he allowed, shaking his
head as if this were the most trivial of objections, “but Jones, they’re
yours
.”
His eyes were as bright as the moon when he looked up at her. “Do you think I’d
be any more overwhelmed if they were brand-new, hand-stitched and straight from
Paris?”

Hecuba had no answer for that.

Rushmore leaned over and pressed a kiss to her thigh. His
fingers, meanwhile, insinuated themselves beneath the band of her garter.
Slowly he slid the old silk down her legs, his dark head bent, his breath warm
on her skin. A jolt of power went through Hecuba, a frisson of something potent
but not precisely comfortable.

When she was naked, he looked up at her again with a smile.
She reached to pull him up from his knees, but he stopped her, brushing her
hands aside.

She could feel that smile still curving his lips when his
mouth reached her cunt. He tongued her delicately, teasingly, his fingertips
resting gently on her hips, holding her there as though ensorcelled. Slowly his
tongue slipped deeper as he drank from her body, the dark rhythm he set
spiraling through her causing her to spread her thighs wider to give him better
access. He groaned and pressed closer, the white sliver of his shirt gleaming
against the darkness.

Hecuba reveled in every flick of his tongue and movement of
his lips, but it soon became clear to her that this steady pace would make
climax elusive and unattainable. She tightened her hands on the collar of his
dark coat, pulling his head up from between her legs. His amusement was evident
in the arch of his eyebrows and the quirk at the corners of his mouth.