The Corrupt Comte (9 page)

It was the sound she’d made, right before she came all over his fingers.

Gaspard didn’t knock, didn’t bother with a fortifying breath. He simply turned the knob and entered the bedchamber.

There, in the middle of a massive bed piled high with cream-colored linens atop a red satin throw, lay a moaning Claudia Pascale, head thrown back, throat exposed, back arched.

And with a frantic hand between her legs.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a cockstand so hard, so fast.

His eyes narrowed on her as she sprawled across that blatantly sensual piece of furniture—and he cursed that bastard Évoque to hell for giving Claudia such a bed—a lecherous grin curling his lips. This was too perfect an opportunity to waste, an opportunity that never would have presented itself at Max’s party tomorrow night.

Here, they were hunter and prey, bishop and pawn. The Claudia sprawled on that bed was his chance at freedom after years of heinous servitude.

From this moment onward, nothing could be left to chance.

Propping his walking stick next to the door, he turned the key in the lock, then crossed the large room until he came to a halt at the foot of the bed.

“
Bon soir,
kitten.”

Chapter Five

She gasped as the release she’d nearly found trickled away with the knowledge that there was someone in her bedroom.

Not just someone.
Him.
Claudia would recognize that heavily accented, rough-silk voice anywhere.

Her eyes opened, remnants of unfulfilled desire prickling across every inch of bared skin, and there he stood, staring down at her from the foot of the bed.

He was handsomer than she remembered, though shadows shifted across his face from the hearth’s faint light. His light brown hair was messier, falling over his brow and finger-combed back from his temples. That lusty mouth of his curved in a close-lipped smile as he ran his deep teal gaze down her body, lingering where her fingers were cupped protectively over her sex.

“You undressed for me.
Merci.
”

She didn’t respond, unable to trust her tongue, and snatched the coverlet over her mostly naked body. Her
négligée
was hiked up, the excess fabric pooled around her waist, but she could have been wrapped in furs from ears to ankles and still have felt exposed beneath the intensity of his gaze.

“N-not for you,” she finally managed in a strained whisper. But her cheeks heated, because she
had
been thinking of him, after all.

Thinking of the calloused pads of his fingers teasing her clitoris. Thinking of the sharp flare of pain as those fingers broke through her virginal barrier. Thinking of the liquid ecstasy that burst low in her belly when he’d stroked inside her…and when his teeth had closed hard on the side of her neck. So hard that Claudia had needed to style her hair differently for two days in order to hide the bruise.

That bruise throbbed now, reminding her of how she had traced it with hesitant, awed fingertips as she’d studied her reflection the next morning. She’d liked the sting. She’d liked the mark.

She feared those weren’t smart things to like.

The
comte
leaned a casual shoulder against one of the posts flanking the bed’s lacquered footboard. “You wound me,
chaton
. I had thought you might enjoy seeing me again, after what happened in the closet.”

His dark green satin coat caught the firelight from the veined marble fireplace, turning the fabric bronze and blue before her eyes. He wore a snowy cravat, intricately knotted and pinned in place with an emerald stud. His waistcoat beneath the green jacket was a lovely silvery mauve, his trousers a pale dove gray.

As her eyes traveled back up, she noticed the body beneath the outfit. The thick thighs and lean hips, the flat stomach and wide shoulders, and the muscled upper arms that seemed incongruous when compared to his softer sartorial choices. His frame didn’t match his fashion, she realized. It was almost like he wore a costume, but he wore it with such natural confidence that it would be easy to think his dated-yet-dapper clothing represented his masculinity.

Claudia had a few questions about his masculinity, as a matter of fact. But she wasn’t certain she was brave enough to ask.

When she finished her perusal of him, his predatory smile was completely gone. In quiet, halting English, he asked, “Do you like what you see?”

She did. She shouldn’t, but she did.

She turned her face into the pillow and rolled onto her side, wanting to melt into the bedsheets and disappear. The shame of being caught touching herself so intimately—and worse,
enjoying
her own touch—bubbled up in her chest until she was choking, worse than she had on any consonant, any syllable. Embarrassed heat burned her face, her ears, her neck, but before she could draw the blankets over her head, the bed dipped, and the coverlet was ripped away.

Cool air hit her like a slap as she stared up at the man braced over her on hands and knees, his bigger frame bracketing her, caging her with his sturdy limbs. “Do not hide.”

She froze, not in fear but in shock. Bathed in firelight, his face was stunning. She drank in the harsh planes that made up his features. His upper lip was shaped like a bow, dipping deeply in the groove beneath his nose, but to her mind it was more reminiscent of a hunter’s weapon than Cupid’s.

She remembered the feel of his teeth on her top lip from their closet interlude. She remembered the slight tingle as he sucked the swollen flesh and the pins-and-needles sensation as he lifted his mouth from hers.

She wanted to do the same to him, right now, though trepidation tripled the rate of her speeding heart. A strange man loomed over her, his stormy gaze filled with beastly intent, yet her mind had gone blank but for the vivid memory of the unwilling pleasure he’d so recently wrought from her body. She should be terrified, and yet…

“What are you d-doing here?”

“Continuing your education.” But he didn’t move, simply held himself over her in predatory readiness.

Supine beneath him, desire curled to life again, low in her abdomen. Smoky wisps of renewed arousal, tickling her senses as it thickened, darkened, until her lungs grew tight. It was worse than when her tongue refused to work as it ought to—which until this moment she had believed to be the most frustrating feeling in the world. If she wriggled now, if she reached for him, what would the
comte
do?

What would he
do
?

“You shouldn’t b-be here.” It was what she was supposed to say, as a proper, well-mannered, commonsensical woman. But propriety and that lot weren’t getting Claudia any closer to finding a husband and leaving her parents’ house, so perhaps it was time to bend the rules a bit.

The
comte
had already proven he was a man with whom she could bend those rules.

“What were you thinking?”

“What?”

His head dipped, stopping when his lips hovered only an inch over hers. “When you touched yourself. What was in your mind?”

Hot breaths puffed against her parted lips, and she couldn’t help squirming where she lay, arms trapped at her sides by his. He was so close, surrounding her, bombarding her senses. She tried to breathe in his scent, and as before its definition eluded her—there was iron in the air around him, fire and sparks embedded in the salt of his skin and the harsh lye of his soap. He needed one of the specialty bars her father’s shop crafted…but then this strange, sharp scent would be masked by bergamot or sandalwood or some other popular male fragrance.

She might not know his scent but she recognized it as his, and the perfumer’s daughter knew it would be a tragedy to cloak that honest scent in lies.

His brows drew together. “Answer me. What was in your mind when I interrupted?”

If she told him, she would indeed be bending the rules. She’d been a passive player in their closet game, allowing him to take from her and thus avoiding any blame or responsibility for the outcome of that game. But if she opened her mouth and spoke—a trying action even on the best of days—her purposefulness could not be denied. If she spoke, the words would mark her first foray into an affair.

If she spoke, it would prove she was in control of her own destiny.

“You.” Her lips felt dry, her tongue thick, her throat parched. “You were in m-my m—” She needed to choose different words, words that wouldn’t hobble her on her dash for freedom. Because now that she was running, so tempted by the possibility of control, the thought of shrinking back in on herself nauseated her. She could do this. She could speak. “I was thinking of you.”

His breath caught and his eyes closed for a brief moment, but instead of lowering his mouth to hers for a scalding kiss, as she’d hoped he might, he drew back, pushing himself up until he sat back on his heels. Straddling her like this, he was a giant of a man, and the sight of those broad shoulders set her squirming again. Arousal pulsed between her thighs, low and liquid, her hips moving of their own accord.

He stared down at her, one brow arched. “Have you seen Sabien?”

The abrupt change in subject threw her. “I d-don’t—”

“Since the closet, have you seen Sabien?” His tone was cold, his English gruff.

Irritation tickled in her chest. “Yes.” The lieutenant had approached her yesterday evening at a soirée, prodding her with curious politeness for information on what had transpired between the
comte
and herself. Their closet antics had evidently been the source of much speculation among those who’d been present in the parlor…which was when Claudia began to learn exactly who it was she’d permitted to kiss her and stroke her and give her pleasure.

Where before she hadn’t been brave enough to ask, she now found the words, ignoring his current attempt at intimidation. “Are the rumors t-true?”

He stilled above her. “So. You have heard about me.”

Not so much heard as surmised. No one had asked if the
comte
had ravished her. It had been disconcerting, the number of both men and women who had approached her since that night, all eager to console her on what they assumed must have been a shamefully barren quarter hour of play. Most had said something along the lines of, “Well, his tastes don’t
run
to you,” followed by, “but that is no fault of yours!”

In fact, people had been significantly kinder to her in the past two days than they had in the entire two weeks she’d been in Paris. By going in the closet with the
comte
, Claudia had earned herself a place inside the gossip circles for the first time in her life, making her privy to all sorts of talk instead of remaining the unfortunate subject of it.

Claudia was not a stupid woman. She knew she hadn’t suddenly gained dozens of new friends, just as she knew enough to piece together what they were all ineffectually trying
not
to say: Gaspard Toussaint was a molly.

But that simply
didn’t make sense
.

She hadn’t bothered to correct others’ conclusions—to do so would require more than her typical monosyllabic attempts at conversation. But Claudia had wanted to tell them that, no, the
comte
had made an excellent go at ravishing her, and yes, he’d been quite enthusiastic about the process, showing no reticence concerning her gender whatsoever.

How could they not see? She gazed up at him, taking in the wholly masculine appeal of his visage and trying not to let her stare stray to the curve of his biceps straining against his coat sleeves. His clothes were a fine distraction, but he was so very…male. And should someone so very male indeed be attracted to his own gender, one had merely to glance at the
comte
’s eyes and see the way he looked at a woman—at her, Claudia—to know in which direction his lusts lay.

His eyes told her that he wanted to eat her for breakfast, have her for tea, and gorge himself on her for dessert.

She hesitated. “You’re not what they s-s-say.”

“How do you know this?” His knees squeezed her hips ever so slightly, and he reached down and traced a gentle fingertip along the center of her chest. Starting at the dip at the base of her throat and sliding down the valley between her breasts, his finger halted at the neckline of her nightgown. He tugged, pulling the fabric taut over her breasts as the warm pad of his index finger pressed against the base of her sternum.

That was all it took—one touch, and she was desperate for him, unable to breathe as longing subsumed her. It was the same as in the closet, when she realized she was so starved for human touch that she could be made a slave to the person lavishing such a paltry show of affection upon her.

She grabbed at his wrist, catching a fistful of lace. “You k-kissed me.”

His palm flattened, long fingers splayed over her chest, sinking into the giving flesh of her breasts. “Perhaps I was playacting.”

Her back arched, lifting herself to him. “This…this s-says no.” He must be able to feel the erratic thump of her heart beneath her ribs.

His expression was a mix of wariness and excitement, gold-lashed lids lowering to shield his dilated irises. “Perhaps I like men
and
women.”

“You don’t.” She didn’t hesitate over the words, feeling them to be true. “Why d-do you let them think your p-preferred lovers are m-men?”