Ways to Be Wicked (22 page)

“Show me then, love, how you’d like it to be,” he said softly.

Sylvie opened her eyes and inhaled deeply, and took in with her breath the musk of his desire, the warmth of his skin, and it was potent, harsh and sweet; it was wine, it was opium. It dissolved what remained of her ability to think, but this seemed almost a relief; she had come here for one reason only, after all, and thinking had nothing at all to do with it.

Sylvie leaned forward and looped her arms loosely around his neck. Rested them against the warmth of his bare skin. Her mouth nearly touched his; her nipples just brushed the skin of his chest, sending a swift scorch of pleasure through her. His breathing was shallow and swift, and she could feel it against her mouth, and yet still he merely watched her, thoughtfully. His eyes never moving from hers, his hands waiting, curling into the blanket at his sides.

And then she leaned back, her weight pulling him slowly down with her. He came down over her; heat and smooth muscle covering her; she wrapped her legs around the furrowed contours of his thighs, cradling him, capturing him with her body, slid her ugly dancer’s feet down his hard calves in a caress. Shifted so that the hard length of his arousal fit perfectly against her. Saw his eyes darken when he sensed she was ready for him even now.

They breathed in and out, swiftly, their bodies so close their ribs moved together in time; it seemed they drew in, exhaled the same breath. His mouth was a tense line.

Tom searched her eyes for doubt or surrender or intent, perhaps; she truly didn’t know what he would find there.
Want,
was all her mind and body said.
Want.

“No mercy, then,” he whispered.

His mouth fell hard upon hers; she felt his low groan vibrate through her as they tasted each other again at last.

There were few preliminaries; she needed none, for it seemed necessary to take him in all at once, like an antidote. She arched her hips up against him to take him inside her, and she took him as equally as he took her, nearly crying out her pleasure when they were joined.

He propped himself up over her and gazed down. And continued to gaze.

“Tom—
s’il tu plait
—fast—
vite
—”

He stared down at her, his eyes still so dark, his mouth curved up. She could feel the sweat starting over her own skin. And still he didn’t move.

Her voice became a rasp of urgency. “Tom—you must— I want—”

“No.”

Sylvie felt the breath of his word against her lips. She opened her eyes; his face almost touching hers. He’d managed to make his refusal sound nonchalant, but the perspiration gathering, gleaming on his chest, the muscles trembling beneath her fingers, made a liar of him.

“I need—”

“Beg me, Sylvie.”

“
Please,
I beg of you—”

“Hush, love. You should never, never beg.”

She half laughed, half groaned.
“Tu est un bête.”

“A beast, am I?” She heard soft laughter in his voice. He drew his hips back from her, slowly, so slowly, allowing both of them to feel every inch of each other, the sensation exquisite, too much, too much. “Is it this...” He swiftly thrust, once, twice. Stopped. Hovered over her, again, his arms propping his body above her. “Is it this you want, Sylvie?”

She tried to swear; English or French, it would not have mattered, but God help her, she could only moan her assent.
Bloody man.

He dipped his head then, brought his mouth to her ear and confided in a whisper: “It’s what I want, too.”

She nearly laughed; it became a shameless moan instead, when he moved inside her at last.

Eyes locked with his, she clung, conscious of the blanket scraping against her back as she arched up to meet his thrusts, of the squeak as they taxed the springs of the narrow bed, the chafe of his whiskers exquisite against the skin of her throat as he ducked his head to kiss her arched neck. Of her hands sliding over his sweat-slick back and the low roar of swift, mingled breathing, and their mouths finding and losing each other again in the ferocity of their coupling. And then her nails biting into his shoulder blades for purchase and the primal sound of bare skin meeting bare skin swiftly and hard as urgency drove them toward release.

Too soon it had Sylvie in its teeth; and then all at once it engulfed her, shocking, total, a pleasure indescribable.

“Tom—”

She would have screamed it, but he covered her lips with his, took his own name into his mouth as she came apart beneath him, the pleasure savage, seismic. Her body bowed up from the force of it, and still he moved in her, and moved, until his eyes closed and his body stilled as the consuming pleasure of his own release took him.

Tom lowered himself slowly, careful not to crush her; his breath was hot, rough, in the crook of her neck.

A peace like nothing she’d ever felt cupped Sylvie inside it. She listened to his breathing, floated on the sound of it, as though it was soft music. After a moment, she wrapped a spiral of his hair around one finger, pulled it straight, released it to watch it snap back into its loose wave.

She felt him smile against her throat.

Languidly, he lifted his head, as though the effort cost every bit of his strength, and gazed down at her, studying her as if seeing her for the first time. For so long and so quietly she began to feel uneasy.

“Your mouth...” he began.

But then he shook his head once and kissed her instead. And this kiss was all softness. All tenderness that silenced her, made her shy.

He stopped, and they lay in peaceful silence for a moment.

And then he propped himself up on his elbow. “And now may I show you how I’d like it to be?” Eyes serious, the question solemn.

Feeling breathless, she hesitated. Then nodded. And waited.

His head lowered; his lips brushed hers again, very softly.

And though they were places he had been planning to kiss her from the moment he’d seen her, a way of stating his intent to discover every corner of her, he kissed her. Her earlobe. Her temple. The base of her throat. Her collarbone. As if every place on her was precious, worthy of exploration. She discovered the places along with him, felt them all but sing beneath the touch of his lips.

“When I saw you dancing, Sylvie, it was like watching a...flame. And yet, here is your body, as solid, as strong as...as strong as an ox...” He dragged his fingers, softly up the curve of one slim thigh, moved his face there to kiss a tiny mole on the silky skin between them.

“An
o-ox?
” The last word began as indignant and ended as a gasp when his tongue dipped into her navel.

“An ox,” he repeated firmly. “I am not a poet. So strong...so fine...” He flattened a hand over her taut belly, traced outward to the sharp corners of her hip, then kissed the smooth curve of it and turned his cheek so she could feel his whiskers against her tender skin. Goose-flesh swept over her.

“I’d never seen anything so...so beautiful, Sylvie.” His voice grew thicker.

He dragged his lips lower, and lower, into the silky dark triangle between her legs.

She gasped when his tongue reached its destination. Dipping into the wet heat of her, a deliberate, skillful caress.

“Is it good?” his voice low and taut.

“Dieu.”
She breathed it.

“It will get even better.” His voice low and dark with promise.

With tongue and lips and breath, he proved it.

And it was difficult, for this was a different kind of surrender, this allowing him to give to her. This opening up of herself to this searching, skillful lover, who made love to her as though he wanted to know every bit of her. And even as her body wanted to submit, surrender, lose itself to him entirely, a part of her resisted, was very nearly afraid, and she could not have said why.

And he knew.

“It’s all right, love,” he murmured. “I have you. I have you. It’s all right to let go.”

And inexorably, little by little, fear gave way beneath his fingertips, his tongue, his breath, his lips, and the word dissolved until it was comprised only of his touch and her body’s response to it. She moved with him, at first learning how to take, then learning how to demand, with sighs.

“So beautiful,” he murmured. And he gave more, until she thought she could no longer bear it.

Lost.

It wracked her when it came, her release, a great wave that rippled from somewhere inside her, and it seemed to go on and on, tossing her with it.

“I want to be inside you again, Sylvie.” Tom’s voice came to her distantly, a hoarse demand.

“Yes.” It was the only word she knew at the moment.

He lifted her hips and guided himself into her, slowly, slowly, and she took fresh pleasure, fresh awe, in watching him lose himself in her. He moved rhythmically until she saw the cords of his neck draw tight and his eyes close. And with a ragged gasp, he spilled into her, his body jerking.

He withdrew, sank down next to her, and held her loosely against him. And for a long time they lay like that, two sated bodies, damp with sweat. His hands moved in her hair, stroking out the tangles, as though he had all the time in the world to do just that.

Her hair was long and fine, a skein of silk. It tangled so easily.

“He didn’t ask before he took you, did he, Sylvie? This...lover...of yours.”

Her breath nearly stopped.

It was the tone of his voice. She didn’t like it...and

she did. A tight, low band of sound. Gentleness shot through with veins of fury.

She couldn’t answer him, any more than she could seem to stop the tears that astonished her. They spilled slowly, large and cold. Old tears. As though they’d been inside her for a very long time.

She impatiently brushed them away. “I was a grown woman. I did not refuse him.”

“Ah. That makes it all right, then.” Ironic now, and harder.

She heard his breathing grow rougher, but his hand was still gentle. Tracing the lines of her, the sharp blades of her shoulders, the fine strong muscles of her back created from the magic of the dance, which allowed her to continue to make such magic. The small even bumps of her spine. Gently, gently. Stripping her down to nothing with this relentless, searching, tenderness.

“How did it happen?”

“Does it matter?”

His silence told her he realized that it did not. “But it did. Happen, that is. He just. . . took.”

Sylvie closed her eyes and tried to focus on the path of his hand over her.

She remembered Etienne’s charm, his words; she’d been flattered and overwhelmed and an accomplished coquette, and so she had found his pursuit exhilarating, a game, even as she recognized the dangers inherent in it. She remembered the day: He’d stolen a kiss, as he had a half dozen times before. And then she’d been in his arms, up against the wall, his mouth hot against hers, and she had returned his kisses with ardor and skill, because it was thrilling, and part of the game.

And then his hands were beneath her skirt, and it had felt. . . interesting, and new. She sensed rather than saw him open his trousers. Too afraid to deny him, half-enamored of her own worldliness, too proud, in a way, to protest what she knew was about to happen and what did happen.

She’d realized when it was over that she hadn’t been worldly at all.

He had smoothed down her skirt and promised her the next time would be better. That he’d been overcome and perhaps hasty. He’d been all apologies and charm and flowers and gifts. And...it
had
gotten better. She had learned to take pleasure as well as to please.

But no, there had never been any asking. He had never given her a choice.

Had never assumed that she might want one.

And he had been her very first.

“He loves me. He wants to marry me.”

Tom’s hand stilled on her. Sylvie was glad for the moment for the chance to gather herself. And glad when it resumed moving over her again, because for a moment she’d feared he no longer wanted to touch her.

“Do you love him?” He asked it gruffly.

The truth was she didn’t really know. “He is a prince.”

She felt Tom’s body go utterly still. “Metaphorically speaking, or an
actual
prince?”

“Meta...” Not an English word she knew.

“Is he truly a prince?” he clarified for her. “A real prince?”

“He is truly a prince,” she confirmed. In such a way that Tom knew that she meant it.

There was a beat of silence. “Christ, Sylvie.” He actually sounded darkly amused.

He sat up abruptly and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. Though she doubted he’d be going anywhere, since he was naked and his clothing was on the other side of the room and this
was
his room, after all.

“Do you love him?” he had asked her. In truth, she really didn’t know. What did she really know of love? Etienne promised her safety and permanence and status and all of the things she had wanted for so long. A long future of comfort. Of certainty.

But oh, it was nothing, nothing like this.

She was tempted to call this love, this savage, tender want for Tom Shaughnessy, but she wasn’t entirely sure it was; she was afraid to think that it might be, and what she would then be giving up when she left him. Easier to call it desire, for such a thing could ostensibly be appeased, spent.

She felt shy, suddenly, admiring the broad spread of his back in the lamplight, the smooth golden ridges of muscle on either side of his spine. Utterly unself-conscious in his nudity, his hair poking up in odd peaks and horns created from sweat and passion and her hands rummaging through it, his small white buttocks looking oddly vulnerable, both comical and uncompromisingly masculine somehow as he sat there at the edge of the narrow bed.

He suddenly seemed a stranger, this strong, clever, beautiful man. A complicated man, for all of that.

She supposed it could be love, this surprising ache that spread through her, and seemed to need. . . all that he was...to ease it. The dazzle, the temper, the roughness, the tenderness, the pragmatism, the passion. But how could it be love after so short a time?