Lorelie Brown (21 page)

“There,” he said, and this time it was no question. She could practically hear a smug smile in his voice. “There, it’s exactly what you like. It’s better than good.”

“It is,” she agreed in a whisper. Her hands were still spread wide, and she wanted to touch him, but she was afraid to move. This was all perfect and good. He filled her and took away and gave again. So much heavy shoving became something more. Something wonderful.

“I like pleasing you, of course.”

She gave a little sound that was half laugh and half pleasured moan. “How can you talk at a time like this? Just…do.”

“I am.” He thrust hard with his hips, into her and out again, making a point of his words. “You know I am. You can feel it in that pretty, wet pussy of yours. The way I fuck you.”

Her fingers flew to his mouth, as if to silence him. He grinned at her from behind those fingertips and good God, how that made her clench on his length. On his cock. The newly learned word echoed over and over again in her mind. “You shouldn’t say such things.”

“Really? Have I found wicked Lottie Vale’s limit?” His lips moved under her touch. Soft and wet, and that stupid, small thing of his mouth moving made her eyes drift shut on the feel of him. He slid his grip from the pinch on her hip up her side to hold her breast firm. He rubbed his thumb over the pink, tender tip. Another waterfall of joy rocked her from top to bottom. “You’ll say and do almost anything. You’ll beg me to take you. But if I talk about your pussy being filled with my cock? That’s too much?”

“You can’t,” she said, but she was breathy and it was good. More than good. The way he stroked into her, the way she thought she’d fly away on the waves.

He lowered his head to her ear. She was surrounded. Absorbed. Her knees hitched higher on his hips. “And you can’t lie to me, Lottie. I feel your cunt clench on my prick every time I talk so.”

Apparently she really was that depraved. The words set up a chain reaction inside her that led her to abandon. He stroked, and she pulled tight with every fiber of her until she thought she’d never breathe again. Within her was an absence. A feeling that she was waiting and hesitating, but then he’d come into her with a little more force. Plus he kept
talking
. Filthy, depraved things that blended into a grunted chain of
there, sweets, fuck me, yes, harder.

And she was lost over the edge. Pleasure tingled down her lips. Echoed up through her chest. She pulled tight on his length, and it only amped the pleasure up higher. She was everything beautiful from the inside out. The way he slid over her, the soft blankets beneath and the gorgeous shine of his eyes as he watched her with rabid attention. She was seen. She was his.

For now.

He grunted when her body closed on him. “Fuck, Lottie,” he said, all breath and snarl. “You’re amazing. Your body. The way you hold me. The way you feel.” His words fell away on a mean growl. He stroked into her harder, grinding. His ruthless grip pinched.

The small bite of pain only added to her pleasure. She loved the way he let himself go and only held on tighter to her. She opened fully, absorbing his brute force with wickedness. He withdrew abruptly. Air swirled through the space between them when a moment ago they’d been one.

He wrapped those long fingers around his cock. “Where?”

Her eyes went wide. She knew what he was doing, preventing children. He could have deposited into the blankets, but she was struck with the sudden, instant need to
see
. She spread her fingers wide across her stomach. “Here.”

He gulped hard. Still his hand stroked his prick, to the crisp dark hair at the base and then up to the top, where he was swollen and red. Twice was all that was needed, then his release spilled across her skin. She touched it though she knew she shouldn’t. Sticky and so very hot. The moment managed to be both depraved and right.

On a contented sigh, she let her head fall toward the bed. Ian collapsed beside her so they were shoulder to shoulder, looking up. Their chests rose and fell on fast pants in tandem.

She felt…strange. Deserted, though she’d shared this brilliant thing with a man she was coming to care about. Maybe it was having to be alone in her body when a moment ago she had held him inside herself. She’d lost something and gained a new part of her soul. New knowledge about what she was capable of that was quite frankly majestic enough to be frightening.

One of her hands was now sticky with his release, so she reached into the small and narrow space between them with her other hand. It felt like a tiny miracle that his hand slid toward hers as well. Their fingers laced together.

She had to lick her lips in order to be able to talk. Her voice had gone raw. “I understand now.”

“What’s that?” The barest curiosity sounded in his voice. He turned his head toward her. He looked as blasted as she felt. She took a measure of pride in that.

“What?” She’d lost her train of thought, already thinking about his body again. About exploring him at her leisure. While she’d needed to be rid of her virginity, she couldn’t see indulging in a life of sin and vice. If nothing else, the risk was too high. Experimenting along these lines too many times would eventually net her a child—the very thing she’d set out to avoid.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t have at least one more turn.

His mouth curved into a bit of a smirk. He rolled onto the shoulder nearer her. He loomed so well, she wanted to nestle into the shelter of his body. “What do you understand?”

She gave in and entwined their legs. It took her a second to find her thoughts again. “Why they put such proscriptions on such intimacy. Try to convince women that it’s horrible.”

He coiled a lock of her hair around his finger, then let it trail and drape over her breast. It tickled. She shivered. He admired his handiwork with a pleased grin. “And why is that?”

“Because my only regret now is that I didn’t do that years ago. Women would run rampant.” She failed at holding back her teasing giggle.

“You didn’t know me years ago.” He flicked a glance at her from under his dark lashes. His eyes glowed with mischief. “I believe this is where I’m supposed to be offended.”

“How delicate men can be at times.”

“It’s true.” He dropped soft kisses along her shoulder. “Completely fragile. It’s the real reason no one talks about how good sex is. Because I’d break if you were to kick me out now.”

She let her fingernails scrape under his hair. The strands were rough silk. The best part was when his eyes drifted shut. “Might you cry?”

“Maybe. A manly sniffle, perhaps.” He flashed her his most cheeky smile. “I could create a tear or two if you thought you might kiss it away.”

She pushed up on her elbows enough that her mouth nearly touched his. “Gather up your ballocks and kiss me yourself.”

How could he not obey? Before Lottie, he hadn’t kissed while smiling, but now he seemed to do it often. She tasted like sweetness and salt, everything good. Manhandling the back of her neck wasn’t intended to hold her still. It was so that he could touch as much of her as he could manage. Any space between them was space wasted.

The kiss turned so slow, it was like being drugged in the best sort of way. Deliberate touches. Already Ian’s prick was waking again, as if he were a randy boy who’d recently figured out what women were.

He was coming to adore Lottie, her humor and her shine. The very qualities he’d once thought were only gilding, he now realized were fully her. She might lie, but only to protect those most tender parts of her soul. She needed an ally. In this whole wide world, she seemed to show no one her real self.

He wanted to be that person who knew her and protected her and who kept her safe from the rest of the world.

His hand wound deep through her soft hair, his mouth on the heaven of her lips, Ian suddenly realized he had exactly what he’d been looking for. A woman who could keep him twisted up in their life together for the rest of eternity. If he’d found himself a regular country girl, he’d have been bored inside of six weeks. That would never happen with Lottie. She’d always keep him alert.

In the meantime, he would be able to kiss her whenever he wanted. Feel the delicate curve of her waist and ribs. He liked the dip between her breasts. The way her flesh was resilient and elegant.

As he traced his mouth down her neck, heavy on the lips and teeth and tongue, headed with intent toward those berry-tipped breasts, there was a shift in the air. Not sound so much, not at first. A breeze whispered over his bare back.

“Lottie, are you awake, my dove? I had an epiphany about the depth of two dimensionality in my paintings, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Lottie flinched, jerking upright. “Mama, get out.”

Jesus Christ. Ian flipped them and scrambled for the tangled sheet. He yanked it over their bodies, but he rather thought Lady Vale was far enough down the long, narrow room she wouldn’t see anything.

It helped she intently studied a book in her hands. “What? Is there a problem?” she asked, without ever looking up.

Lottie slipped out the other side of the sheets, shrugging into a diaphanous robe. She tossed a frantic look back over her shoulder, but besides sinking farther into the bedclothes, Ian couldn’t see a damn place he could go. Her bed was set alone, with no furniture directly about it. He’d look for a dressing room sort of door, but all that stuff was piled near the front of the room, where her mother was. Exactly where he
didn’t
want to be.

Out the window, maybe? Except he was starkers and they were three floors up. He shrugged, pulling the blankets past his waist.

She rolled her eyes and held a finger to her lips. Sure. He was going to chatter away any minute.

She scurried toward her mother with her hands fluttering as if trying to provide a distraction. “It’s past two in the morning. Can’t we discuss this tomorrow?”

The older woman pointed at something in the open pages. “It’ll leave me if I can’t get a grasp on it. See this? It’s Caravaggio’s. He had it, three hundred years ago. I’ve been a fool.”

Lottie took her mother by the shoulders, gently steering her back toward the door. “Where is Nicolette? Didn’t she administer your medicine this evening?”

“I rid myself of it when she wasn’t looking.” She looked up, blinking. “Is there someone with you?”

Lottie shook her head, frantic. “I’ll meet you downstairs if you like, Mama. If we discuss it in your studio, you’ll be able to show me examples.”

“There is.” Lady Vale craned her neck to the side, trying to see around Lottie, who was equally insistently trying to block her view. “A man. Have you a man in your bed?”

Lottie’s hand went to her head, and Ian could sympathize. Pressure and tension pinched hard over his skull. He fisted one hand in the blankets. He hadn’t ever enjoyed being helpless, and at that moment he completely was. He nodded, though he wasn’t sure if she’d be able to see it through the shadows and the length of the room.

He rather wished his trousers weren’t on the floor next to the chaise. “Good evening, Lady Vale.”

“Sir Ian,” she cooed. She waved, twiddling her fingers. “How marvelous to see you again. I should like you to come to dinner some evening. I haven’t yet properly thanked you for saving me that day.”

He inclined his head, as near as he could get to a bow from his position in Lottie’s bed. “Name the evening and I’ll be there.”

“Wonderful. And do you have family?”

Ian hesitated over the truth, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t discover the information if she set out to find it. “My mother and sister are in town.”

“Bring them as well.”

“Mother,” Lottie said with no small measure of exasperation. “You simply cannot.”

She flipped her hand in a dismissive gesture. “What? Am I supposed to yell at you? I should never dare be so boring and provincial. Though I suppose you should be thankful your father isn’t here. He’d be rather displeased. In fact, I believe you and I should agree to keep this our little secret. And you, as well,” she directed toward Ian.

“As you say,” he agreed, thankful that she couldn’t see his expression and the grin he held back. The whole scene had an air of absurdity he’d have expected to see in one of Shakespeare’s more ridiculous plays.

“Mama, you have to go,” Lottie said with stressed emphasis. She kept looking back over her shoulder as if wishing Ian would drop through the floor.

So much the worse that he couldn’t oblige her.

Lady Vale went out on a push and a rather gentle shove. She continued chattering the whole time, going on about the menu for the dinner they’d have, with a random segue for Lottie to remind Lady Vale to talk about two-dimensional skies the next morning. Lottie agreed.

Then she shut the door. She turned back toward the room, but that took the last bit of her energy. She sank against the wood. Her fingertips rose to her forehead. “Oh sweet saints,” she muttered.

Ian shoved out of the bed and stalked toward her. “Did that really, truly happen?”

“She’s right. Be thankful it was her and not my father.” She spoke with her eyes closed and her head back against the door.

“Didn’t you lock the door?” He passed his trousers and grabbed them, pausing only briefly to pull them on. Raw wool rubbed over his ass. At this point he didn’t care.