Cry for Passion (23 page)

Her admission had not brought Jack the comfort she had hoped.

“You’re not wearing the same clothes you wore last night,” she said, gulping air.

Clothes that she had folded for him. And upon which he had loved her.

Hot breath gusted her forehead . . . her right eyebrow. “I changed at the office.”

But her lover’s office was as unfamiliar to Rose as had been her husband’s office.

Struggling to breathe—crushed between wool-padded muscles and unyielding glass—Rose latched onto a subject that involved just the two of them. “How much did you give the lift man?”

“Ten pounds.”

“You gave my housekeeper twenty pounds,” she said unevenly.

Lips softer than sunshine grazed her left eyelid. “I wanted to feed you my cock, not your breakfast.”

Laughter worked up inside her chest, was halted by her too-tight throat.

“I gave a lift boy threepence today,” she whispered.

A hot tongue flicked the corner of her eye. “Why?”

“He said I was a pretty lady.” She clenched her vagina to keep Jack inside her, softening crown a kissing bud. “And he asked me to join him for a cup of coffee.”

“Cheeky bastard,” scraped her forehead.

Rose blindly turned up her head, following the warmth of his lips. “He made me laugh.”

Jack stilled, gusting breath catching . . . slowing.

An image of the pregnant young secretary flashed behind her eyelids.

Rose tightened her arms, bracing herself against more pain. “Is the child his?”

“No,” resonated against the bridge of her nose.

Rose did not know if she was glad or regretful.

Her fingers with a will of their own worried a stiff collar, searching for more of Jack, touch frustrated by cotton and leather. “He wouldn’t see me.”

The soft knob of his penis jabbed her on a sudden intake of air. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a door inside his office that leads down to the”—Rose struggled to remember what the secretary had called it—“traders’ pit.”

Soft lips branded her temple; the brim of a hat collided with the crown of her hat.

“He must have heard my voice,” Rose said, the hurt Jonathon had inflicted muted by Jack’s flesh. “When I went into his office, he walked out. When I followed him, he escaped through another door.”

His naked flesh slipped free of her naked flesh.

Reluctantly Rose released the comforting warmth of Jack’s neck. At the same time he let her go: her buttocks . . . her spine . . .

Silk drawers peeled away from her sliding thighs, wool trousers a rough abrasion.

Her shoes impacted a tiled floor, heavy skirts dropping over her hips. Warm liquid trickled down the inside of her left leg.

She stared up into eyes that leaked purple pain.

“He’ll have to confront you in court,” Jack said.

But she could not say what she needed to say in a room filled with strangers.

Rose glanced downward.

Jack had unfastened all but the top button of his trousers. The bold red crown of his penis was now a bluish bud that shyly peeped out of a shiny-wet prepuce.

Irresistibly she reached out—his flesh was slippery, soft even through butter-soft leather—and tucked him inside pink wool.

A damp circle darkened the front of his smallclothes.

The wetness did not all come from him.

Rose spoke past the sudden lump inside her throat. “When I married Jonathon, life was so simple.”

She fastened a wooden button, the slitted hole tight, gloves a black hindrance.

“I thought when a man and a woman loved one another,” Rose said, “they would live together happily ever after.”

Metal cable coiled around a metal gear, a lift rising above them.

Rose fastened a second wooden button, leather-covered knuckles brushing wool-protected flesh. “I thought love was all that mattered.”

The front of his smallclothes tented, sex reaching for her.

“You’re not a simple man, Jack,” she acknowledged ruefully, heart twisting inside her chest.

Always Parliament would stand between them.

She fastened a third button, gloved fingers finding the rhythm of masculine dress.

“But I do know one thing,” Rose said, firmly closing the V of black wool.

Jack’s voice was guarded. “What?”

Rose fastened the fourth and final button. Carefully she tucked a roll of white shirt inside the band of his trousers and smoothed the wrinkles out of a pearl gray silk waistcoat before stepping back.

She would not hide from the truth.

Rose met his gaze. “I do want you more than I want my husband.”

Dark color edged the tautly stretched skin over his cheekbones.

The rift Jack had created loomed between them.

“But I need to talk to Jonathon.”

“Why?” he asked harshly.

For better or worse, she had been married for twelve years.

“I need to say good-bye,” she said.

Jack searched her gaze for long seconds before he lowered his lashes; the brim of his hat shadowed his face. “He believes you’ll go back to him.”

Rose breathed deeply. “I can’t.”

The pain had to end.

Reaching inside his frock coat, Jack pulled out a crisply folded white handkerchief. Lashes lifting, gaze veiled, he asked. “May I?”

Rose irrepressibly remembered the care with which her brother had cleansed her face and the familial closeness she had felt.

“Yes,” she said, needing Jack, but also wanting Jack. “Please.”

Jack leaned forward until he filled her vision: Eyes dark underneath the gray brim of a hat; hair that glinted with red fire even in the dim lighting of the lift. At the same time surprisingly cool air crawled up her legs.

“I’ve only ever loved one woman, Rose.” Starched cotton shaped by masculine fingers slipped inside the vent of her drawers and swiped dry her inner thighs. “I never thought I’d want another woman. But I want you.”

Tears burning her eyes, Rose reached out and straightened his black-and-gray-striped tie. “I know you do.”

“No, Rose.” The flesh-contoured handkerchief slipped between her thighs, seeking admission. “You don’t know.”

She parted her left leg . . . her right leg, granting him the same access to her sex that he gave to her.

Abrasive cotton swirled around the portal of her vagina . . . reached up inside her vagina.

Rose involuntarily abandoned his neckcloth and gripped the lapels of his coat.

“I will not allow you to live alone for the rest of your life.” Gently, firmly, Jack swirled the handkerchief deep inside her. His gaze penetrated her far more deeply than his fingers. “I will stay with you for as long as you want me.”

Rose closed her eyes against the pain and the pleasure that was Jack Lodoun. “And you’ll love me when you fuck me.”

“And I will gladly pay the price.”

Slowly, methodically, he cleaned her. She could feel his gaze mapping her every reaction: internal . . . external.

The fullness inside her vagina traveled up into her chest.

“Would you want me, Jack,” Rose asked, lashes lifting, fingers tightening, throat swelling, “if I should terminate a pregnancy that resulted from our union?”

He kissed her eyelids closed. “Yes.”

Unable to stop the pending loss, Rose held her face still for the moist press of his lips.

Jack withdrew from her body: fingers . . . lips. Warm wool slithered down her legs.

Rose opened her eyes and studied the man she had taken as her lover. “You called my name.”

It reverberated inside the cab.

Her name. His name.

Lashes lowered, Jack folded the handkerchief with which he had cleansed her and thrust it into his trouser pocket. “Yes.”

Rose felt the presence of Cynthia Whitcox.

“Do you cry for her?” she asked impulsively.

Jonathon had cried over the loss of his children. Did men cry over the loss of a woman?

Jack’s lashes slowly lifted; his voice, when he spoke, was as expressionless as his eyes. “No.”

He lied: He cried every time he ejaculated inside her.

Rose took a deep breath.

She had set out with three objectives this day: to visit Sarah Burns, to confront her husband, and to shop. While Jonathon had thwarted her second goal, she could yet accomplish the third.

Chapter 24

Men did not rule in the domain of women.

“There, Madame Clarring.” Careful hands lowered a hat onto guinea-gold hair. “It is très chic, non?”

Rose angled her head; mottled sunshine laved an oval cheek. The pearl that hugged her earlobe glowed as if it were alive. “It’s very purple.”

“It is heliotrope, madame.” Slender, clever fingers straightened a primrose bow, fluffed a tuft of white feathers. “Très fashionable. You are an attractive woman. This hat”—she expertly curved the brim—“shows off your face . . . comme ci . . . while the ostrich feathers give you height, non?”

Inside the mirror, cornflower blue eyes snagged Jack’s watching gaze. “Do you like it?”

Jack thought of the pain Jonathon Clarring, her husband, had caused her in the past. Jack thought of the pain that he, her lover, would bring her in the future.

“A beautiful hat for a beautiful woman,” Jack said truthfully.

Rose flushed with pleasure. “I’ll take it, Madame Benoit.”

“Excellent,” the milliner said, French accent slipping. Quickly the thin, energetic woman caught herself. “Maintenant, a chapeau for the simple pleasures of summer. Oui?”

“Madame Benoit,” drifted up to the front of the shop. “Do you have any more of the dark gray cocks’ plumes?”

“Un moment, Madame Gerard,” the milliner called out.

Nimble fingers quickly replaced plush heliotrope with gold straw.

To Rose, the milliner said, “You have beaux yeux, madame.”

Beautiful eyes.

No vanity at the compliment shone inside Rose’s eyes.

Reaching into a bulging white apron, the milliner produced a spool of bright blue ribbon. “I wrap the ribbon round like this. . . . See how it brings out the color? Monsieur”—the milliner’s voice subtly chilled—“if you will be so kind as to hand me that spray of flowers. . . .”

Jack sharply glanced upward.

Brown eyes captured his: They were filled with condemnation.

She knew Jack, the milliner’s gaze said. She knew the pain he would inflict.

It was obvious she had read about the trial.

Her disapproval, Jack curiously noted, did not extend to Rose.

Instantly the woman’s animosity disappeared. A thin finger pointed toward a table beside Jack.

Silk flowers covered the wooden surface: white orange blossoms . . . purple irises . . . pink primroses . . . red roses . . .

Unerringly Jack selected a sprig of silk cornflowers. Impulsively he added a purple-blue spray that resembled periwinkles.

The woman’s brown eyes flickered. “Très bien, monsieur.”

“Thank you, madame, that is very attractive.” Inside the mirror Rose gazed at Jack rather than the silk flowers the milliner stuck into the band of blue ribbon. “Can you make it up while we wait?”

“Certainly, madame.”

Plucking off the straw hat, the milliner disappeared in a rustle of wool.

Muted murmurs carried over the whine of carriage wheels.

“She recognized you,” Rose said in a quiet voice.

“Yes,” Jack merely said.

He was oddly untroubled by the thought.

“When will you petition the courts?” carried over the quiet murmurs behind him.

But Jack did not have an answer.

“How did you come by your earrings?” he asked instead.

Shadow kissed her face. “They were a gift.”

He held her gaze inside the mirror. “From whom?”

“My father.”

The pain Jack had caused dilated her pupils.

“Why did you visit him?”

Jonathon Clarring.

“I needed to see the man you married,” Jack said.

A man who had filled her with his sperm.

Now Jack’s sperm resided inside her body.

Jack had fucked only one other woman without benefit of a condom.

A sharp jangle pierced his spine: Grinding wheels, plodding hooves and raucous voices invaded the shop. Immediately the door closed, dulling the cacophony of civilization.

“Bonjour, Madame Hallsburn!” wafted from the back of the shop. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Good afternoon, madame . . .” drifted away from the front of the shop.

Rose’s gaze did not veer away from Jack. Jack did not look away from Rose.

Sexual awareness glimmered inside her eyes.

“In which place did you prefer ejaculating?” she unexpectedly asked.

Before him men and women strolled past the window. Behind him three women concentrated on the makings of hats.

Or perhaps not.

“Your vagina,” Jack said, voice equally quiet, acutely aware of the public setting in which they privately discoursed.

“Why?” Rose asked curiously.

The memory of her flesh embracing his naked flesh rubbed raw his nerves.

“I wasn’t alone when I came.”

He had felt disjointed and vulnerable when he had buried himself between her buttocks, taking his pleasure while she gave him absolution.

“I came alone last night,” she observed.

“I breathed your scent; I swallowed your taste. You came in my hands, against my tongue.” Jack held her gaze. “You were not alone, Rose.”

Inside the mirror, light played on her face while darkness swallowed her eyes. “You didn’t cleanse away all of your ejaculate.”

Hot blood seared Jack’s cheeks at the imagery of her vulva swollen and wet, dripping his sperm; a matching band of heat ringed his cock. “Can you feel the Dutch cap?”

“Yes.” She matched his sexual curiosity. “Could you, when you were inside me?”

“Not with my cock,” Jack replied, gaze unwavering. “What does it feel like?”

Her face was solemn. “When I left the doctor’s office, I was afraid to take the stairs for fear I’d dislodge it.”

So she had taken a lift. And a young boy had made her laugh.

Jack squelched a spark of jealousy. “And now?”

“I think it may be permanently affixed to my cervix.”

A purely masculine laugh shot out of his throat.

“Ici, madame,” stanched his laughter. “Should you like to look at more hats?”