Jess Michaels (9 page)

He seemed to grow even bigger between her lips, hardening as he moaned and murmured nonsensical ramblings of desire.

It didn’t take long for her to learn new things about his pleasure. How fast she could go before he trembled, how he liked the extra pressure of her tongue against the base of his cock when she fully seated him in her mouth. She made him tremble, she took him to the edge, she tormented him in the sweetest way possible.

But before she could feel the hot splash of his release, he jerked away from her mouth, his breath in hot pants. She looked up to find his expression wild and heated as he stared down at her.

“Not like that, Cass,” he said, as he caught her beneath the arms and lifted her from her knees. “Inside of you.”

She nodded in mute agreement, rising just long enough to strip out of her gown, her undergarments, and her stockings. He stared at her, his eyes glazed as she straddled him a second time, this time unimpeded by their clothing. His cock strained up, rubbing against her wet slit as she positioned herself above him.

He thrust up as she coaxed herself down, and their bodies merged with a heated slide of slick skin. Their shared moan echoed in the quiet room and Cassandra couldn’t help but tilt her head back in pure pleasure. God, he felt so good inside of her, a stark reminder of how much she wanted him. Needed him.

Hadn’t ever gotten enough of him.

She rocked forward out of instinct and desire, gliding his cock in and out of her with hard, clumsy thrusts of her hips. He seemed to share in her desperation, for he cupped her breasts, lifting their heavy weight together before he began to glide his lips back and forth from one taut nipple to the next. His chin was beginning to show the first signs of stubble and she cried out as the roughness caressed her.

“Still so sensitive,” he murmured, as he lifted his hips in time to her thrusts.

Yes, he remembered everything, just as she did. The thought made her hips rock faster, racing toward the brink, reaching for the blind explosion of pleasure that was inevitable now that their bodies were joined so intimately. Her sheath began to tremble, the tingling awareness increasing with every long, hard thrust.

A rush of heat, a spasming of her inner muscles that was so intense it bordered on pain. She clung to his shoulders as wave after wave of pleasure rocked her, overwhelmed her. Her nails dug into his skin, but she couldn’t stop it, her cries filled the air around them, but she couldn’t be silent.

All she could do was quake, milking his cock with her pussy as her hot wetness flowed over him. She was aware of him through the explosion. She watched him through heavy lids as he fought to stay calm. Fought to keep himself from losing control. But the more her hips rocked, the harder her sheath worked him, the more obvious it became that he was going to lose the battle.

When he did, it was magnificent. He roared out her name, lifted his hips until she came off the settee and then he pulled himself away to pump his essence away from her body. The power of that moment drove Cassandra back into the heights of release and she cried out a second wail of pleasure that melded with his hoarse, animal cries in the parlor.

When the moment had finally passed, when the room began to refocus, Cassandra wrapped her arms around him and held tight. He didn’t resist her embrace. In fact, they collapsed onto their sides on the settee, face to face, as the intense plea
sure of their passionate joining faded into a background hum of relaxation and contentment.

Cassandra held back a sigh as Nathan’s arms came around her, holding her against him and keeping her from tumbling off her precarious perch on the narrow settee. Although she couldn’t have hurt herself with the short fall to the ground, it still felt like a protective gesture, something gentle and caring.

She wasn’t a fool. This unexpected respite from Nathan’s vicious attempts at revenge was in no way permanent. They had resolved nothing, even if this joining was far more intense and emotional than any time they had sex before.

And yet she remained snuggled against his chest, breathing in the musky scent of his skin. Until he turned away, she intendend to enjoy this moment. Later she could convince herself it meant nothing.

Nathan brushed her tangled hair away from her face with the back of his hand, the touch warm on her skin. She glanced up to find him watching her with a strange intensity, something beyond the desire that usually made him so focused. It was like he was
looking
for something inside of her. Something hidden.

“May I ask you something?” he said, his voice soft and rough in the quiet room.

She hesitated, taken aback by his request for permission. And even more stunned by her own desire to answer whatever he asked. As if she could be open with him.

It was amazing how easily pleasure could erode walls, mak
ing it seem that a connection had been made when it hadn’t. It couldn’t. Not again.

“You and I both know that I cannot say no,” she said, reminding them both of their situation.

His mouth turned down, but he shook his head. “You cannot say no to my sexual demands. But you could always refuse to tell me what I want to hear. Or lie.”

Lie
. The word hung between them like a slap. That was what he thought of her, after all. That she was a liar, that she had played him for a fool over and over. Nathan had always been willing to believe the very worst of her.

She sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Your parents, what do they think of what you do in London?” He continued to look at her intently.

Cassandra jolted. Indeed, he had struck upon a topic she never expected. Her mother had been the governess of one of Nathan’s childhood friends, and her father had tailored a few items for his father. He had only met them a handful of times, and only once after they struck up the affair that had led them to this.

Her parents, like his, had not approved, fearing the censure she would face if she entered Nathan’s world. They had been just as vocal as his father and mother, although less insulting. And far less willing to do whatever it took to stop them from marrying.

“Cass?” he said softly.

She melted. In the heat of passion, the endearment of her shortened name could be explained away, but now he was ra
tional again. He had to know what using her nickname meant to her when he said it so softly.

Did he even realize he used it, or was it an intentional manipulation?

She shrugged. “They are proud of my success as a seamstress,” she said quietly. “My father especially, as he taught me that trade.”

“What of the other things?” he pressed, voice low. “The other business, the fact that you have been a mistress during your years here?”

Cassandra sat up a fraction, staring at him. “Why do you want to know?”

He shook his head slightly. “I just wondered. I know your father was quite ill last year and that you send a good deal of money home to them monthly. I wondered if they ever question how you have so much to share.”

She pushed off the couch and turned to stare at him fully. She ached as his body parted from hers, but she was too upset to feel the full extent of the sting of separation.

“How do you know those things?” she barked, hearing the wild tone to her voice even as she tried to control it.

He seemed surprised by her reaction and sat up, facing her in all his naked, muscular glory.

“I…I kept an eye on things,” he admitted.

She stumbled back, her hand lifting to her mouth. “From the moment you came to me with your threats, I realized you had me followed, watched,
spied
upon. It was the only way you could have known so much,” she whispered, proud that she
was reining in control when she was shaking so hard. “But you did the same to my family?”

“Cassand—”

She cut him off. “Were you trying to find more ways to blackmail and hurt me? Trying to uncover some kind of secrets about them to hold over my head in case my own didn’t suffice?”

He was up on his feet then, his hands held out in mute entreaty. “No! I never would have brought them into this. I just knew how close you were…you are. And I wondered—”

“Or maybe you just wanted to keep them as extra leverage to hold over my head. You asked me what they thought, you made comments about my father’s illness…” She was livid now, her hands shaking out of control, her stomach rolling with nausea. “If I don’t bend to your will even further, do you plan to tell them that I am a whore and a sex monger?”

His lips pursed, but he didn’t reply.

His silence was all she needed. “You bastard.”

She spun away, grabbing for her discarded clothing as her breath came in heaves.

“That isn’t it at all,” he snapped, coming within reach and extending his hand toward her.

She lurched away, their beautiful joining damaged, broken, by her new fears.

“It is one thing to blackmail me with the end of my reputation and livelihood,” she said softly, finally meeting his eyes. “But if you intended to hurt my family, then you are so far gone that the boy I knew, the man I wanted to marry, the man
I—” she stopped herself. “Well, he is gone. Maybe he never existed.”

She headed for the door and for once Nathan didn’t stalk after her. He merely watched, an almost stricken expression on his face.

She didn’t look back, she didn’t have the strength. At the door, she paused. “I know you’ll be back. I will be ready. The sooner you can purge whatever twisted ill will you have toward me, the sooner we can both move on with our lives as if none of this ever happened, the better.”

And for the first time, as she left the room and hurried up the stairs, she meant every word.

W
hen the missive came demanding that she meet with the Marquis of Herstale, Cassandra wasn’t surprised. Although she had not spoken to or even seen the man in years, she had been waiting for this moment since she saw Nathan again in his aunt’s home.

Nathan’s father had always been driven to keep them apart. There was no reason to assume it would be any different now, despite the years, and despite the heartache the man’s last attempts had brought to them both.

Her first reaction was to refuse. Or ignore the note. Or to run away from London entirely and forget that Nathan and his family had barged, uninvited, back into her life. But in the end, none of those actions would do her any good in the long run. The Marquis would pursue her until he had his say.

And Nathan…well, although Nathan had not called upon her or contacted her in three days since their last encounter, he was only biding his time. Her heart told her that he wasn’t finished with her yet. If she ran, he would follow her and the situation would only be worse in the end.

So she sent a note back to the Marquis, telling his lordship to expect her call that afternoon.

And now she stood in the middle of a parlor in one of the biggest homes in London, staring at the gold-encrusted clock that sat ticking on the mantel of a ridiculously large fireplace. It said that she had been waiting for more than half an hour.

She shifted in annoyance, brought back to a similar scene in the country years ago. The Marquis had tried to buy her away from Nathan. When that hadn’t worked, he had threatened and eventually shouted. But she had been so sure of Nathan’s love, so devoted to her own for him, that she hadn’t been moved. She hadn’t known what her refusal of the Marquis’ offer would unleash. Or ultimately reveal about Nathan’s true feelings.

The door to the parlor opened and she turned to face the man who had been her silent nemesis her entire adult life. When he entered the room, she drew in a sucking gasp of breath.

Although only a handful of years separated them from that ugly day in another parlor, the Marquis had aged a decade or more. His salted dark hair was now almost entirely gray, and his broad shoulders and muscles had been eaten down by illness, making him smaller and far less imposing. And he
walked with the help of a cane that he leaned most of his weight upon as he passed by the servant who had opened the door for him.

He waved the man off and the door shut behind him. Only then did Cassandra see the powerful lord she remembered. He was still alive in the Marquis’ hawkish blue eyes. The ones his son had inherited.

She shivered despite herself.

“We had a deal,” the old man said, his voice in no way as weak as his body.

Cassandra folded her arms. Although he remained imposing, she was not the same terrified girl she had been that long-ago afternoon. She refused to let him bully her. Or make her feel small and worthless.

Those days were long gone.

“Good day to you, too, my lord,” she said softly, feigning just the right touch of boredom as evidenced by the light of frustration that entered his eyes. “It has been a long time.”

“Not long enough in my estimation, Miss Willows,” the Marquis said, as he creaked forward, step by slow step.

“Nor mine.” She met his gaze solidly. That seemed to surprise him, for he stopped advancing and merely tilted his head to the side. It was as if he hadn’t fully recognized her until now, or perhaps he was finally realizing that she had changed on the inside as much as he had externally. Where he had lost his strength, she had found hers. They were on far more equal ground now.

“I offered you money, Miss Willows. You took that money. And now I hear that you have met more than once with my son.” He arched one graying brow. “How can that be?”

Cassandra had spent a great deal of time releasing her anger. She had come to accept the past, mourn it and move on. She realized that hating the Marquis, hating what he had done, hating Nathan for his lack of faith…those things only served to hurt her.

Yet, his lordship’s question, his pointed statement about the distasteful bond they shared, awoke the emotions she had long believed dead. And the anger she had so long stifled burned hot in her belly as she stared at him.

“If you recall, my lord, the payment you gave me was a form of recompense for what
your
actions caused. There was nothing about Nathan in that bargain.”

She couldn’t help but smile when the man flinched and broke his gaze away from hers. So he still felt shame for his actions. Good. She hoped it haunted him every day.

The Marquis flexed his fingers against his cane. The grip was shaped like a serpent’s head and Cassandra barely resisted the urge to laugh at the irony.

“You know I do not want you to see him. To confuse him. He is finally back where he belongs and then you pursue him!”

Cassandra shook her head. “You should pay for better spies, my lord. Your son came to me. I would have been happy to stay away.”

Except that wasn’t true. If he hadn’t come to her, she would have been eaten at by emptiness. Perhaps she would have pur
sued him at that point. Seduced him. But the Marquis didn’t have to know that.

The older man’s nostrils flared. “My son came to you?”

She nodded. “There is much you do not know about him. And clearly much he does not realize about you, sir.”

Now the Marquis advanced again, much faster than before, though it seemed he paid for it when his breath grew short and labored.

“It was better for him not to know!” he blurted out between puffs of painful sounding air.

Cassandra shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

The old man was livid now, his pale hands shaking and his eyes wide and wild with anger, but also with fear. “If you think you can hold our bargain over my head, or get more money out of me—”

“In case you haven’t heard, I don’t need your money,” Cassandra interrupted with a dismissive wave of her hand. “And even if I did, I would
never
tell Nathan about our bargain. About the reason behind it.”

The Marquis turned his head to the side, again examining her like she was some kind of strange specimen of a creature he had never seen before. But of course he wouldn’t understand. He certainly had no compassion or kindness. At least none she had ever seen, though his son was loyal enough that she guessed he had exhibited such emotions at some time in his decrepit life.

“Why wouldn’t you tell him,” the Marquis asked, “if you know the trouble it could bring me?”

Cassandra balked at the question. Her anger, which had reached the boiling point when the man entered the room, faded as she thought of Nathan.

“I don’t keep the secret for you, old man, that is for certain,” she said softly. Then she turned and stared across the room toward a bright, sunlit window. “I keep my counsel because, as you say, it is better for Nathan not to know. If he did, it might destroy him. And I would not do such a thing willingly, no matter what has transpired between us.”

She turned back to the Marquis. In the end, he was just a withered old man who had sold his soul to “protect” his son from someone who wanted nothing more than to love him. And if his appearance was any judge, living with his guilt had brought him enough pain.

“If this is the only subject of our meeting, I shall go,” Cassandra said softly. “Please do not call on me again, my lord, for I will not come at your insistence. Good day.”

She brushed past him and moved for the door, desperate to get out of this house, out of the company of this man who brought back such trying memories.

“Miss Willows.”

She hesitated as she reached for the door, drawing in an exasperated breath before she turned back. “Yes, my lord?”

The Marquis leaned heavily on his cane with both hands now, as exhausted by this meeting as she was. He sighed before he met her eyes and for the first time she didn’t feel his distain and judgment of her stature in life.

“Perhaps Nathan did come to you, but you have the power
to send him away. It is best for all involved if you do so. You cannot have him.”

She stared at the shell of a man who had once been so vibrant. And she thought of the angry, vengeful shell that Nathan inhabited now. He was but a husk of the loving, laughing man she had known before. Both of them made her so desperately sad.

“I am more than well aware that we cannot have each other, my lord. Not for long.”

Then she exited the room without asking his leave.

Nathan stared out the window of the rolling carriage, watching the twinkling lights of the city pass by. Every jolt and bump moved him closer to home and farther away from his evening at a club where he drank too much and thought even more.

His head was spinning from whiskey and blurry, powerful images of Cassandra.

When he told her he planned to blackmail her, he’d thought it would make it easier to get over her. It was a way to have her, use her, then discard her like she had done to him all those years ago.

But now…things had grown complicated. As hard as he tried, he was not capable of turning off his emotions when he touched her. Nor could he hold on to his anger or really do anything except luxuriate in the grip of her body as he entered her and reveled in her moans of pleasure.

The vehicle stopped in front of his London townhome and
Nathan slowly departed the carriage and staggered up the walkway. He hardly acknowledged his butler as he trudged through the door. What he needed now was his bed and a deep sleep, hopefully devoid of dreams of Cassandra thanks to the alcohol coursing through his system.

Moving up the stairs, he thought of their final moments the last time they’d been together. She had all but accused him of threatening her family, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. After all, he had resorted to blackmail already and he had brought her mother and father into the conversation. Why wouldn’t she link the two things?

The truth was, as much as he wanted to return the hurt Cassandra had brought down on him, he did have his limits. Hurting her family, destroying their view of her, making her an outcast with the people she loved…those were apparently his limits.

But
she
didn’t know that, and somehow that stung. He didn’t trust her, and he certainly had done nothing to earn her trust in return, but damn, how he wished she knew he hadn’t sunk that low. That he wouldn’t.

He pushed his chamber door open and entered the darkened room. Sometime during the night, his valet had come in and lit a few candles and fed the fire, but after the brighter glow of the hallways, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.

When they did, he staggered back in surprise, hitting the door with his shoulder and forcing it shut with a slam.

There, lying across his bed with her head propped up on her hand was Cassandra.

He blinked a few times. He’d had more than a few drinks, was he hallucinating?

“Cassandra?” he croaked.

She didn’t reply, but merely pushed from the bed to her feet. He sucked in a harsh breath. She was wearing the most delightful concoction of sheer fabric that he’d ever seen. Black as the night outside, but still translucent enough that her body was clearly outlined beneath. And it was shockingly short, just barely skimming over the middle of her thighs so that her long, pale legs were bare.

“How are you here?” he asked, his voice shaking from surprise and need.

She moved closer, the shadows obscuring her expression. “It is amazing what one can do and where one can go when one pays the right servants.”

He cocked his head, amazed she would resort to bribery when all she had to do was send him word. God knew he was unable to resist her. If she had actually instigated a meeting…

“Why
are you here?” he asked.

She reached him and the light hit her face. She was smiling, but it wasn’t an expression of kindness or joy. There was a hard edge to it. A hint of…anger. Bitterness.

“Why do you think, Nathan?” she asked, her tone matching her expression. Then the smile fell away entirely. “No one tells me what to do. Not anymore.”

Nathan’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. Was she trying to regain control over this situation by initiating this encounter? He stared at her, so beautiful in her revealing gar
ment, her pink nipples swollen under the sheer fabric, the musky, hot smell of her sex already wafting up to him and making him mad with lust.

But did he want her like this? When anger and desperation were her driving forces?

He opened his mouth to argue that point with her, but she didn’t allow it. She latched her arms around his neck and then her mouth crushed to his with angry, heated passion. A passion he couldn’t deny no matter how many rational arguments he made with himself about her motives. The moment he tasted her kiss, the moment her hot body molded to his, he was lost.

And he wanted to claim her in an elemental way. To burn his imprint on her so that she wouldn’t be able to forget that he had taken her. Even when he was married to another and she had a new lover.

The kiss shifted in that moment. She had been dominating it, but now he took over, slanting his mouth over his for greater access and reveling in her deep, needy moan that was lost in his mouth.