Silent Surrender (2 page)

She came forward slowly and he waited, motionless. It occurred to him to stand and leave, to collect up his clothes and never come back. He might joke about this over a pint, but deep down, he would always be unsettled by the strange woman who had invited him into her home and had a man ask him politely, would he fuck her.

But the memory of her slender body in his arms, fragile as a china doll even through her clothes, kept him where he sat.

She knelt beside the bath, the firelight illuminating her body inside her nightgown. The rosy points of her nipples stood out dark against the muslin, jerking upward with every ragged breath, though she appeared otherwise calm. Her eyes met his and she searched his gaze with an intensity that discomfited him. He’d never in his life been so shaken, that he could recall. Not even as a child in the workhouse. There, and later at the docks, he’d been able to stand before any man or woman, regardless of station, look them in the eye and make it clear that he was no man to be crossed.

This woman, Honoria, didn’t deserve to be frightened of him, and so he did not glower. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure it would have worked on a woman as bold as she was. For all her timidity as she trailed her fingers through the water, studiously avoiding his thigh, she had come up to him in view of God and everyone at the docks and handed him that scrap of paper. She’d known what she was doing and that she wanted him for the job.

That struck him with a new sense of responsibility and made him doubt even more that he should stay.

She dropped her gaze, still playing at fanning her fingers through the too-hot bath. Slowly, the circles she made widened to brush his skin beneath the water, from knee to hip, and her breath hitched. Transfixed by the sight of her own hand touching him, she did not see him studying her or, thankfully, the way he held his own breath as she laid her soft palm across his skin. The water made a ghost of her touch, and she lowered her head. A tremor shook her shoulders and he feared for a moment she might be crying, but when she lifted her head, she was composed. She went to the little stand and lifted the soap, asking wordlessly, with eyebrows raised, if she could wash him. He nodded, only slightly unsure he answered the question she asked. Kneeling again, she plunged the soap into the water and brought it to his shoulder, soaping over the broad expanse of his back in circles.

He thought of the last time he’d been with a woman. They’d tumbled together after he’d won a hand of cards and he’d had enough money to buy her another pint. He’d had her up against the wall out back of the pub, and afterward he’d left her standing there laughing drunkenly and asking too often for him to come back.

There had never been a time when he’d had to be gentle with a woman. He didn’t like hurting anyone, and he never sought to, but he’d never been particularly careful either.

She cupped water between her small hands and lifted it to sluice down his back. Some ran down her arms, sprinkling the front of her nightgown as it dripped from her elbows. The wet muslin clung to her skin and as she leaned over him to wash the other shoulder, her tight nipples brushed across his chest. She drew back, her face close to his, hand still braced against his soapy shoulder. He thought for a moment that she might kiss him, even pictured kissing her himself. Vividly he imagined smiling at her, reassuring her without words then capturing her mouth. But the moment passed and she sat back on her heels, out of reach. Slowly, she lathered the soap over his chest, her fingers inching through coarse black hair. This time, when she reached across to scoop up the water, he did kiss her, fitting his mouth over hers and winding his arms around her back. She stiffened, her hands coming up almost defensively. Then, as if remembering this was what she wanted, she relaxed, but only slightly.

Sliding an arm under her backside, he lifted her into the tub, her knees parting on either side of his legs. She pushed against his chest and forced their mouths apart, breath tearing rapidly from her throat. She reached slowly between them, down, down, close enough to his groin that his cock leapt greedily toward her hand. He couldn’t remember ever being so hard, so sure that he would burst the second she touched him.

She lifted up the soap she had dropped and climbed from the tub, her dripping nightgown folding around her legs, revealing the dark triangle between them. She knelt again, concentrating now on his arms, on scrubbing his fingernails with the little brush. His hand was so large in hers, he felt at once like a lumbering giant and the most powerful man in the world. It was a good thing she had chosen him and not another of the men on the docks. There were men who would see her smallness and want to crush it, who would delight in ruining something so pure.

Capturing her wrist, he dunked her hand into the water then brought it to his lips, still tasting a faint trace of soap as he sucked one fingertip into his mouth.

She heaved a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes, her face as close to pure rapture as Esau had ever seen. She trembled like a rail tie when the engine steamed through, and he took her other hand, slick with the soap, and guided it to his cock.

She shot to her feet, eyes wide, covering her mouth and nose with both hands folded in a silent prayer. “Deliver me from mortification,” he assumed from the way she turned her back.

He rose slowly from the tub, looking all around for something to dry himself. When he found nothing, he was content to soak the fine carpet on his way to her. Her shoulders stiffened an instant before he reached her, but she permitted him to lay his hands on them. Slowly, he slid his feet closer, wet muslin sticking to his legs and stomach, catching onto his skin to draw her to him. When he held her back flush against his chest, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

This was when he would have liked to whisper something in her ear. He didn’t know what he would have whispered if she could have heard him. He’d never had a tender way with women.

Instead, he lifted her up in his arms, cradling her to his chest, and carried her to the bed. It was so ridiculously massive that when he sat her upon the mattress, they could see eye to eye. Unflinching, she stared back at him as she slowly drew free the ribbon at the collar of her nightgown.

Reaching down, he lifted the hem of her garment and slowly raised it to her knees. She wriggled to help him free the fabric from beneath her, and he pulled it to her waist, finally up and up, over her head. The cloth whispered off her arms, leaving her bare.

Her skin was white and unblemished, like porcelain. His hands shook as he reached for her. He didn’t know where to touch her, so he laid his hand on her chest, over her collarbone. His fingers looked huge and clumsy on her, his skin rough and tanned where hers was smooth and light. Maybe that was why she’d picked him, their differences.

She placed her hands over his and lay back, drawing him onto the bed to cover her. He kissed her again, and this time she accepted him, her soft body rising against his. He settled between her legs. The downy curls over her mound brushed his stomach. Her mouth opened under his, tongue timidly lighting over his bottom lip. It was an invitation he was not inclined to refuse and he plunged his tongue against hers, stroking her mouth as he planned to stroke her cunny soon. She wriggled under him, her body emboldened by new passion. He could push into her now and she would accept him, but he held himself back. She wasn’t some whore spreading her legs to please him. It was, uncomfortably, the other way around.

And he wanted to please her, he did. He wanted to be gentle and careful with her, wanted her to feel the pleasure the whores he’d been with had only feigned for him. He wanted her breathless, wanted her desperate and wild beneath him, not because she was trying to urge him along, but because he’d brought her to unimaginable heights. He wanted to fuck her well, and when he was done, he wanted her limp and satiated in his arms.

His hand found her breast between them as he kissed her neck and sucked on her ear until she squealed and pushed his head away. He rolled her hard nipple between the first two fingers of his hand, his thumb stroking along her feather-soft skin. He kissed her there too, sucked her into his mouth and laved her with his tongue. Her fingers clutched on his hair, her hips rose restlessly beneath him and he worked one hand between them to touch her between her legs.

The moment his fingers brushed the damp curls there, she stiffened. Her ragged breathing hitched, and when he leaned up to see her face, she met his eyes with an unsteady, apprehensive look.

“It’s all right,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t hear him. He smiled at her, unsure how to use the expression honestly. He faltered, then looked down to where his hand lay still against her mound. He heard her shuddering breath and knew she had resigned herself, for good or ill, to see this through.

He wouldn’t let her regret it. He leaned up and motioned to the head of the bed, where pillows were mounded against the carved headboard. She scooted back and reclined against the claret silk, and her body shone the way he imagined a pearl might on a bed of velvet. Pearl and jet, with her amber-kissed black hair shining in the firelight.

He caught her ankles and gently guided her legs over his shoulders. She watched him as he lowered his head to her cunny. Never breaking her gaze, he ran his tongue down her slit in a long, flat stroke.

Her cry startled him, even though he’d seen her eyes drift closed and her brow crease. He savored that desperate, startled noise and set about getting her to repeat it, parting her with his thumbs and sucking at the knot at the apex of her sex. He dove his tongue inside her and the taste of brandy stung him. The clever girl had used the trick of a liquor-soaked sponge to keep him from getting a child on her. That removed the very last of his apprehensions. He plunged a finger into her, feeling the tight resistance of thin membrane that ringed her opening. She lifted her hips, pulling him in deeper as he delved his tongue between her folds and circled that hard little bud that strained for his attention. She panted and twisted, pumping her hips in time with the pumping of his finger. A low wail, beginning from a whimper and growing to a full-throated exclamation, toneless and formless, tore from her throat as her cunt fluttered around his finger and her legs tightened around his head.

The wet clutching of her cunny against his hand was the last of his patience gone. He rose above her as her hands roamed over his back, almost frantic in their exploration. He reached between them and guided his cock to her, felt the first damp brush of her curls against the head of him. He’d never deflowered any virgins before, and he hadn’t considered what it might take. He thought for a moment he might be more nervous than she was, but then he looked up from the smooth, pale body beneath him, to her face. A glaze of tears shone over her eyes, her lower lip trembled. Even as desperate as she was for him, she feared.

He tried an encouraging smile and said “Kiss me”, hoping she would understand him, and she complied while he made a first, tentative push inside her. She stiffened, her cry falling against his tongue, and he shoved into her, all the way, holding her still against him with an arm behind her back. She whimpered into his mouth, breaking their kiss to meet his gaze. He took her hand, guiding it down her own body to where he stayed buried deep inside her. She looked down, past the hard plane of his stomach, and her fingers brushed his shaft. She sobbed aloud.

He brought her fingertips back up, to his lips, and he kissed them then leaned his forehead against hers as he tried a slow, tentative withdrawal. Her breath caught and he paused. When she lifted her hips, he understood. He surged forward, drew back, rocking with her in an easy rhythm that pulled sighs from her lips. She caught his face between her hands, holding him there to look into her eyes as she looked back at him. Her pulse beat in her pupils, her breath rasped in time to his thrusts in a communication more intimate than any words could have been. He felt those first grips around his cock and her body tensing beneath him, but she never looked away, not until the last moment of her release, when her eyes closed and she moaned as if she were dying.

It was enough to make him weep, if he were the sort of man who wept at beauty. The familiar drawing-up in his bollocks sped his thrusts, sooner than he had planned. It was too late then, far too late. She arched beneath him, crying out as her cunny rippled all around him once more, and he lost himself inside her with a shout of his own. He held her hips tightly to his until every last tremor passed over him. He’d been so intent upon her pleasure that his had come as a sudden shock, one that drained him of his strength entirely. He grimaced when he slipped from her, and flopped to his back beside her, panting as he stared up at the claret silk canopy.

Wiping sweat from his brow, he muttered, “You fuck like a lioness, you do,” and laughed at himself, speaking when he knew she couldn’t hear. Beside him, she hiccupped and sniffled a bit. It seemed fitting that losing her purity might cause some tears, but he tapped her shoulder, just to catch her attention and make sure she wept for the right reason. She brushed her tears away, blushing and smiling at him, and he lifted his arm to let her lie close.

He’d never slept with a woman, but he found it damnably easy to doze with her curled up at his side, warm and limp and stroking slow circles around his nipple. He reached for her hand and kissed it, then let it rest against his chest once more. He hoped he had done right by her. He suspected he had.

Chapter Two

If he stayed there listening, he would go mad.

Jude leaned his head back, eyes pinched tightly closed. Another woman might have worried about discretion and would have covered her face with a pillow to stifle her moans. He doubted that Honoria would ever be that kind of woman, even if she could know how loudly she carried on.

As disturbing as he found it to loiter in the hallway, striving to ignore their noisy copulation, Jude could not make himself leave. He’d already imagined all the dangers in this ill-conceived plan of hers. Now that he’d seen the man with his own eyes, Jude wouldn’t trust a dog with him. He would wait outside the room, every night if he had to, to make sure Mr. Esau Coal didn’t think of slitting Honoria’s throat or crushing her skull in his hands.