Eternally Seduced (76 page)

          “Is that you, Staffan?”

          Saffi moaned in embarrassment.

          A chuckle. “Is that you, Saffi?”

          She stopped moaning.

          And then all she could do was breathe as Staffan began to move in earnest, a look of passion falling on his face as he pounded his dick into her, over and over and over.

          Katy was still laughing outside.

          “Ignore her,” he gritted.

          “I ca---aaah!” She shrieked as Staffan slid one finger into her ass, something that was still new to her but oh so…“Aaaaah.” In moments, the dual thrusts had thrown her into a whirlpool of pleasure and all she could do was gasp and gasp, wondering when the pleasure would stop, wondering if she ever wanted it to stop.

          Knowing Staffan, it wouldn’t stop anytime soon. Katy Perry was better off finding another dressing room---

          “Baby,” Staffan growled from behind her. “You’re not concentrating.” Another finger joined the one in her ass and the whirlpool of pleasure started again, spinning her around faster and faster as Staffan’s cock moved in tandem with his fingers. His pants became louder as both their orgasms threatened to explode.

          “Love you, baby,” Staffan growled as they came together.

          It wouldn’t end, this pleasure, Saffi thought dizzily. This wouldn’t end. And it would never end because---

          Staffan kissed her shoulder, and then bit it when she didn’t respond. Saffi forced her eyes open. “Mmm?”

          He smiled at her lazily. “Ready for Round 2?”

          She moaned weakly. “Staffan…”

          But he was already moving.

          Ah, yes. This, this bliss with Staffan…it would never ever end.

****

          One Week Later

          Rathe Wellesley reached the floor where Saffi’s dorm room was supposedly located. Why the hell did he even continue playing poker with his friends, he wondered. He fucking sucked at it, and he always ended up losing.

          Like now.

          He checked the slip of paper where Saffi had hastily written instructions for him.

          The girls are pregnant so I can’t transfer them to our new home. Please, please, please feed them on schedule!

He shook his head. Saffi made her fish sound like they really were pregnant women. As he tried the knob, the door next to Saffi’s room opened. A petite girl with the most curvaceous body he had ever seen came out. Her dark hair was twisted up like a jaunty hat on top of her head, and her glasses seemed a size too big since it kept falling down her nose even as she kept pushing them back up. She looked extremely shy and awkward, but her lingerie was extremely revealing – a two-piece silk-and-lace pair that practically exposed her breasts and her long silky legs.

The complete contrast was utterly intriguing, and he was successfully and hopelessly intrigued. He wanted her. And he meant to have her.

The girl hastily crossed her arms over her chest as his gaze narrowed. Rathe could see that she wanted to go back inside, lock the door, and hide in her room, but something was preventing her. “Are you here for…Saffi’s fish?”

He nodded.

She disappeared in a flash, making Rathe blink. She reappeared and held her hand out to him. “Here’s the key. She told me a friend of Staffan’s would be coming over to care for them.” She was obviously preparing to retreat.

“Don’t go.” His commanding voice stopped her from moving. “What’s your name?”

She shook her head.

He took a step closer. “Tell me your name,” he invited.

She swallowed. “Mary.”

He looked behind her. “Is this your room?” His voice was throaty.

“Yes---”

Rathe held her by the shoulders and gently made her move backwards, and he followed her inside. He closed the door and the moment the world outside disappeared, he bent his head down and kissed her. ###

18 years ago

“
Hail holy queen enthroned above, o Maria…”
The girls’ soprano voices blended beautifully with the deeper baritone voices of the boys, and its gorgeously delicate harmony was as impressive as it was unfair. The few reporters allowed to witness the performance of the students of St. Anthony’s and St. Clare’s were half-envious and half-incredulous. These young individuals seemed to have received all of God’s blessings
.
N
ot only were they all wealthy scions and heiresses
,
but they were also all incredibly attractive and, based on today’s performance at the Chapel of The Holy Angels, they had the makings of a professional choir, too.

The boys of St. Anthony’s, ranging from twelve to eighteen, were dressed in coats and ties, while the girls of St. Clare’s were dressed similarly, except for the fact that pants were replaced with short skirts and knee-high socks. Each student had a story to tell, no doubt, but at the moment, all eyes were trained on one pair.

The girl was of average height, the classic English blond beauty with her peaches and cream skin and blue eyes. Her name was Marigold Bordeaux, and she was allegedly the girl whose naked bum was caught on camera by the paps as she climbed the rather low walls of St. Anthony’s.

Next to her was a sixteen-year-old boy, rather tall for his age. He was two years her junior and coldly beautiful with chestnut brown hair and an extremely bright shade of blue eyes. He had the look and build of a nobleman, which he was, never mind if he wasn’t acknowledged by his grandfather, the Duke of Flanders.

His name was Rathe Wellesley, and if rumors were to be believed, he was the boy who had been fucking Ms. Bordeaux in one of the dark corners of St. Anthony’s manicured gardens. Wanda, a reporter for a rather sleazy tabloid, had gone undercover
and
had chatted up as many of the pair’s classmates as she could find
.
T
hey were unanimous in their accounts.

Marigold had been so desperate to snag Rathe Wellesley that when he had finally given her the time of the day, she had not hesitated to say yes to what he wanted. And if he had preferred to take her from behind in the dark, skirts tossed up like she was no different from a maid being dallied by her master – well, it was a price she was eager to pay as long as it meant having the right to call the ever-elusive Rathe as hers.

“Can’t believe she let him treat her like that,” Ned, Wanda’s cameraman, whispered to her, trying not to gawk at the extremely pretty blond next to the duke’s aloof-looking grandson. If it was him, he’d willingly spend his entire year’s wages and treat her like a princess.

Wanda snorted. “Just shows how little you know about girls. For a really hot man, we’d do anything.”

Ned shook his head. “Maybe here in London. But girls from my place aren’t like that---”

“Sssh! They’re done singing!” Wanda joined in the applause at the priest’s instigation even as she kept her gaze
on
the couple. Her eyes gleamed with sharp curiosity when she noticed Rathe subtly shrugging off Marigold’s clinging hold.

“I can feel it, Ned,” she said in a low and excited whisper. “Get your camera and train it on those two. Something’s going to happen…”

And she was right.

****

As Rathe exited the pew, Marigold hurried after him. She did her best to ignore how everyone was staring at her as she did, keeping her chin up. She was the Earl of Lowell’s daughter and they were
no one.

“Rathe, baby,” she said breathlessly when she finally managed to
catch up with him
.

The way he glanced at her made Marigold flush. It was as if she had no right to be standing this
close to
him.

Forcing a smile on her face, she asked, “What do you think of spending the holidays with my family
in
Bath?”

“No.”

The word was spoken so casually, like an experienced murderer going for the quick kill,
that
it took her more than a few moments to understand she had just been completely rebuffed. By then, a crowd of students had come between them, and Marigold had to force her way back to his side.

She reached him just as he was about to step out of the ancient chapel, and panicking that he would leave without saying yes, Marigold caught hold of his sleeve. Pretending she didn’t
notice
the amount of time it took for him to look at her, she asked, “What do you think?”

He turned to her then, and she drew her breath in sharply. He looked
bored
– so patently bored that Marigold was pretty certain everyone else in the chapel – including the media, dammit – noticed that look, too.

Marigold was
of
a mind to scream at him, but she managed to control the urge, reminding herself that this was Rathe Wellesley. Painful as it was to admit, he was the kind of man that even girls like her had to work hard to run after.

“It will be fun,” she told him, keeping her voice sweetly cajoling.

“I’m sorry
,
but no.”

Bloody hell, how she wanted to kiss him and slap the arrogance out of him. If only he wasn’t so bloody eligible and so bloody good at sex, Marigold would have given him a piece of her mind. How dare he act so high and mighty when everyone knew about the truth of his parentage?

“Are you planning to spend the holidays with your family?” Everyone knew of the rift between him and the duke, but if he was ditching her in favor of mending fences with his family, Marigold was all for it.

He answered briefly, “No.”

She gazed up at him in consternation. “Then I don’t understand why---”

His look had her shutting up. “I have no wish to spend time with your family
anytime.
”

“---because I’d like to formally introduce you to my---” His bland reply finally sank in and Marigold gasped. The look of dismay on her face was almost comical, and unbeknownst to her, Ned the cameraman was able to take a close-up shot of it with his camera’s high-powered lenses.

“Is anything wrong?” She did her best to keep her temper
under
control even though she was incensed at his treatment of her. Didn’t he know how lucky he was to be dating someone like her? Unlike him, her lineage was impeccable, never tainted by commoners’ blood.

His sigh made her flinch, the way it spoke of his immense boredom of the topic at hand. “It means I do not see any reason why I should spend the holidays with your family this year
,
or any year for that matter.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Face white, she hissed between bloodless lips, “I broke it off with Fergusson for you!”

He drawled, “I believe you mean to say he dumped you when he saw you without your clothes on the front page---”

Marigold moved to strike his face, her rage at being made a fool knowing no limits, but Rathe caught her hand in the air. “What’s the matter?” His voice was silk
y
with
contempt, making her shudder even though she didn’t want to. It reminded Marigold of that one night she had finally succumbed to her desires and let Rathe take her in her father’s stables, just like a common slut.

“Haven’t you always wondered what it would feel
like
to fuck a pedophile’s son?”

****

Hours later, soft knocks landed on the door of Rathe’s bedroom. They were easily identifiable, and he closed the book he was reading and returned it to its shelf. “Come in, Mother.”

Alyssa Wellesley walked into his room, and one look at her pretty but unsmiling face told Rathe that she already knew everything. She might just be a housewife, and his father might be the head of a billion-dollar weaponry business, but in times like this it was clear whose network of information was more effective.

“Does father know?” he asked as
he
turned to face her. She was a tiny thing, with clouds of blond hair and angelic blue eyes. She had the kind of face that would always look young, which many considered a blessing but both Alyssa and Rathe privately considered a curse – even if they would never speak of such a thing out loud.

“What do you think?” she asked with a wry smile as she gestured for him to sit
.
H
e did so obediently. He tended to have head-butting quarrels with his father, but for Alyssa
,
Rathe would do anything.

“I’m guessing I have till tomorrow until I get a beating?”

“More or less,” she acknowledged cheerfully.

“I shall report you one day, Mother. You can’t sound that happy when your only son’s about to be thrashed.”

Laughing, she came to sit beside him. Looking up at Rathe, she marveled at how he was the perfect blend of herself and her husband. Her blue eyes, his father’s commanding height, her stubbornness, and his father’s pride. The combination was guaranteed to make him extremely difficult to handle for any girl.

He was far from perfect, this son of hers, but one thing no one could doubt was how protective he was of her – so much so that he had been defending her name ever since he was twelve.

She said with a sigh, “Why do you keep doing it, sweetheart? Even when your father and I have told you to let it go, why do you insist on doing things this way?”

Rathe only clenched his teeth in response.

Reaching up to stroke his hair, she murmured, “You know, I’ve always been meaning to ask you but I just kept delaying it because---”

“Mother---”

Making him look at her, she asked, “Do you believe them, Rathe?” When he did not answer, she looked at him, her heart twisting at the hardened look on his gorgeous face. When her son grew up, he would be beautiful – extremely so…and
heartlessly
so.

It was a pity his grandfather did not accept him. In his generation, Rathe was the one who most closely resembled their famous ancestor, the Iron Duke, inside and out. No matter how much she tried, she just could not make him
unbend.

Warren had never stopped insisting it was because Rathe was British through and through, with a heart made of steel.
He’s not hurt by the taunts, Alyssa,
Warren liked to say.
He’s angry, like a man.

She suppressed a sigh.
Like a man indeed.
It was because Warren was so typically like a man that he did not realize Rathe was far from immune to the ridicule and bullying that he had been subjected to since he was old enough to understand how everyone saw him – and his mother. Rathe might pretend to be unaffected, but he was. Alyssa was his mother, and she knew that underneath the arrogant exterior were wounds so raw Rathe would be broken if he acknowledged they existed at all.

When Rathe still hadn’t spoken, she asked in a gentler tone, “What they’re saying is not true and has never been true.” She paused, hoping he would open up
,
but he did not. “I didn’t marry him for his money and he did not marry me because he wanted a trophy wife. One day, you’ll understand that age is never a factor when it comes to love. Your father may have been twenty-two years older than me when we married---”

“It’s never been about you!”

The words took her by surprise. He had never expressed his thoughts about her marriage to Warren until now.

“What do you mean?”

“I never blamed you, Mother. He swept you off your feet. Even I know Father can be attractive, being rich and a duke’s heir but…” His fists clenched. “
Why couldn’t he have waited?
You were a teenager, barely older than I am now,” Rathe pointed out bitterly. “Why couldn’t he have just waited?”