Savage Nights (The Savage Trilogy #2) (21 page)

“Am I forgiven, Master?” I asked again, my words husky as I stroked his cock.

“In part,” he said. With his thumbs he eased the narrow straps of my gown from my shoulders and down over my arms until my breasts popped free of the low-cut neckline.

“Is this better, Master?” Shamelessly I sat back and shrugged my arms free of the straps. My corset supported the rest of my bodice and raised my breasts up like a lace-edged offering to him. “Is that enough for your forgiveness?”

He filled his hands with my breasts, knowing how sensitive they were. He pulled my nipples hard and rolled them back and forth with his thumbs until they stiffened, and then pulled them lightly, teasing me further. I moaned, straddling his thigh and rocking back and forth. Pleasure shimmered through my body. I moaned, unable to help myself, and arched my back into his hands.

“Better, but not enough,” he said, his voice rough with the same stark wanting that she felt herself. “I warned you you’d be punished tonight, Eve.”

“Whatever you ask, Master,” I said. “Whatever you ask, I will obey.”

10.

“You know what I want, Eve,” he said, his voice low and seductively demanding. “What I expect.”

I did. I didn’t need to see his face in the darkened carriage to picture his pale eyes turned wolfish, daring me.

He’d promised to punish me when we returned home, and I knew what that meant, too. I’d disobeyed him; I deserved it. If in the process he helped me as his Innocent discover the pleasures to be found in my own body, then my punishment in a way became his reward, too. It was all part of the Game we played together.

And this … this would be the true beginning of tonight’s adventures.

I slipped from his lap and knelt between his spread legs on the carpeted floor of the carriage. My skirts fanned around me in a rush of silk, and the long strand of pearls around my throat swung gently forward between my bared breasts. I placed my palms on his thighs to steady myself, feeling the tension in the long, corded muscles beneath the soft wool. I leaned forward, my taut nipples grazing against the plush of the seat’s edge, and he angled his long legs farther apart to give me more room.

Blinded by the darkness, I moved entirely from instinct and touch, and I let out an excited little sigh as my fingers again closed around the thick tumescence of his cock. If possible, his erection seemed to have become harder than he’d been even a few minutes earlier, and his muttered oath broke into a rough groan as my hand slid along his length.

Deftly I unfastened the last buttons at his waist and opened his trousers completely. For a moment, I fanned my fingers across the sleek skin of his belly and groin and through the crinkling dark hair, as if to worship his rising cock. I pushed the layers of cloth aside to free it, and I dipped my other hand inside the gaping trousers to cup his balls, primed and heavy with his waiting seed. I’d done this to him, I thought with awe. He’d given me this power. I felt as if I were holding his essence in my hands, his virility, and my answering desire curled through my belly to my sex.

He grunted, acutely aroused by my touch, and reached out to dig his fingers into my hair, heedless of the carefully arranged waves. He held my face that way, lightly stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. It was a gesture of fondness, true, but also a way of urging me on, and I did not disappoint him.

I parted my lips and drew the head of his cock into my mouth. I’d come to love this first moment when I’d taste him, when I’d join with him. I stretched my lips around the crown, licking the salty drops that gathered like dew on the little slit. I flattened my tongue and lapped it around the head, wanting to cover as much of it as I could, and he rewarded me with a grunt of pleasure.

“That’s it, Eve,” he said, his voice harsh and raw with building tension. “That’s it.”

I held his balls gently in my fingers, marveling at how tight they were. I’d have to be careful not to go too fast; I wanted to take my time and make this last for him as long as I could.

Even though it was dark, I closed my eyes to concentrate. I drew him deeper into my mouth, caressing the underside of his cock with my tongue as I closed my lips around his turgid length. My cheeks hollowed as I sucked hard, the way he liked. I loved his taste and his scent, the fascinating mix of velvety skin over steely heat. I bathed him with the wet warmth of my mouth and closed my lips around his shaft to draw him deeper.

He grunted again, and his fingers tightened in my hair—another small reward to prove I’d pleased him.

It pleased me, too, as the familiar tingle grew in my sex. Unable to touch myself, I pressed my thighs together, hoping to find some relief that way. My time would come later.

He was pushing back and forth into my mouth now, and I worked to find his rhythm. I relaxed my throat, taking him deeper still as I’d learned to do, and sucked to make more delicious friction for him. He swore, his voice harsh, and his fingers fisted into my hair.

From outside the carriage came the coarse exclamation of another driver, a sudden reminder of where we were. I thought of how outside this enclosed little world of ours were other carriages filled with other people, riding home from their own dinners or perhaps the theatre.

What would they think if the door to our carriage suddenly sprang open? What if all of London could see us now, with me kneeling between Savage’s legs, my dress pulled low to reveal my breasts and his cock buried deep in my mouth?

It aroused me to imagine it, having an audience like that, and eagerly I bobbed my head over him, sliding my lips up and down his shaft.

“Not so fast,” he said clearly through gritted teeth. He held my head to still me for a moment. He must be closer than I’d thought, and I paused, letting him take charge of his own pleasure.

No, I wasn’t
letting
him do anything. He’d do exactly what he wanted, as he always did. My role was to obey him, and a fresh wave of desire rippled through me. I arched my back to rub my now-aching nipples over the edge of the seat, the bristling plush teasing them with a delicious torment.

“I said not to move, Eve,” he ordered sharply.

I paused as he’d wanted, unconsciously making a hum of apology around him. The vibrations of it made him swear, and I ran my tongue lightly along the underside of his shaft to soothe him.

It didn’t work. Instead he flexed his hips and began to fuck my mouth in earnest, and I could feel him pulsing between my lips.

“Your hand,” he said roughly. “Use your hand, too.”

I closed one hand around the base of his cock, pumping my fist there as I took the head as deep as I could.

“Yes, Eve.” His voice sounded strangled now.
“Yes.”

He thrust hard and fast, his hips bucking off the seat. I tasted the moment when his orgasm began, the violent explosion that ripped through him and continued for seconds afterward, the animal roar that marked it.

I choked as he filled my mouth, yet still I held fast until he was done, making sure he’d found his satisfaction. I wanted this to be a gift to him, a gift of selfless pleasure. He shuddered one last time, gasping for breath, and his cock slipped free of my mouth, soft and heavy across my tongue.

He sat back on the seat, and without his support I dropped backwards heavily to the carriage floor. Breathing hard, I wiped my hand across my mouth and sat huddled with my arms across my chest, breathing hard. My body ached with unfulfilled desire, my muscles tight and my sex throbbing with empty longing, and all of it punctuated by the sound of the horses’ hooves across the pavement.

“Come here, Eve.” He reached down and pulled me up onto the seat beside him. I burrowed against him, my head resting over his still-racing heart and his arm around my shoulders.

“You’ve learned your lessons well,” he whispered. “You’ve earned a reward for yourself, too, after your punishment is done.”

I smiled against his chest, thinking of all he’d taught me and all I’d doubtless still left to learn.

“Thank you, Master,” I murmured.

“No, I should be thanking you.” He tipped my head up to face him and kissed me lightly. “You’re a rare woman, Eve.”

My smile was tremulous. “You’re a rare man, too, Savage.”

“Savage,” he repeated, and belatedly I realized I hadn’t called him Master. Yet he didn’t seem perturbed that I’d dropped the guise of the Game. Instead he continued to stroke my hair, holding me close.

“You could kill me with that sweet mouth of yours, you know,” he said after a while, “and I don’t believe I’d mind.”

He traced my lips with his fingers, and I flicked my tongue over his forefinger, enough to make him chuckle.

“Wicked creature,” he said, teasing. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“If I am wicked, then I learned it entirely from you,” I said. “Entirely.”

We laughed together, enjoying the closeness and affection of the moment.

“Perhaps that is so,” he admitted, and then with a sigh of regret he slowly pulled my bodice back over my breasts. Considering how familiar he was with undressing me, he did it with unexpected clumsiness, a clumsiness that I found both touching and endearing and very unlike his role as my Master.

“As much as I’d prefer you to remain as you are,” he explained, “I’d rather not have the footmen ogling you.”

“Nor would I.” I sighed, too, and slipped from his lap to the seat. “I suppose we must be nearly to your house by now.”

He chuckled, tucking his cock back into his trousers.

“I’ll wager we’ve been driving in circles around St. James’s Square for the last half hour,” he said. “My driver knows better than to stop before I’ve given him word to do so.”

I smiled, despite a little twinge of unhappiness that punctured the playful intimacy of the last few minutes.

Now that he mentioned it, I realized we hadn’t passed any other carriages or made any turns for a long while and that, in fact, we must be slowly circling the square’s small central park. From the beginning, we’d agreed that our private version of the Game would only last a week and that there’d be no complicated lasting ties between us. Neither of us wanted that.

But I still didn’t wish to be reminded that there’d been other women in his life before me and would likely be others after me, too. For now I wanted to believe—or at least to pretend—that I was the only woman who had played the Game with him, who’d shared his bed, who’d sucked his cock in the dark in his carriage.

I didn’t want to believe I could be as easily replaced as the others had been by me.

Logically I had no reason to expect any lasting allegiance from him, but at the heart of it—in my heart, anyway—the real reason was much more simple.

I didn’t want to be forgotten.

By now, he’d restored his clothing and I had done the same, at least well enough to make the short walk past the footmen, across the pavement, and up the steps to his house. He made three brisk knocks to the roof of the carriage, and at once the carriage’s pace increased. Within two minutes we’d stopped, and the door to the carriage swung open.

I hugged my velvet cloak around my shoulders, and though once again Savage placed his hand on my back to guide me up the steps, the gesture seemed perfunctory now. The intimacy was gone, and I felt foolishly sad over its passing.

I expected that we’d immediately retreat to his rooms, but instead the butler was waiting for us in the front hall, a concerned expression on his face.

Savage recognized it immediately. “What is it, Parker?”

The man pointedly glanced at me before answering, hesitating as if I were some terrible imposition.

“Did you receive the message that was sent to you, my lord?” he asked.

“At Gaspari’s?” Savage said, purposefully nonchalant, or so it appeared to me. “Yes, I did receive it, and acknowledged it, too. I’ve returned here as soon as it was convenient.”

That soothed me somewhat. At least he’d put me before whatever this mysterious message might have been.

The butler nodded, hesitating again.

“I fear there has been a change in the original plans, my lord,” he said. “The, ah, delivery was made earlier than expected. They did not wait until tomorrow, as planned. He—that is, the delivery—arrived a short time ago.”

Savage’s nonchalance dropped away, his face unable to hide either his surprise or his concern.

“He’s here now?” Savage demanded. “In this house?”

The butler nodded grimly. “Yes, my lord.”

“Why the hell did they believe that to be wise?” Savage demanded. “They’re paid to keep him there, aren’t they?”

“Yes, my lord,” the butler said patiently. “But under the circumstances—”

“The circumstances be damned,” Savage said. “This is not where he belongs, and I’ll see that he’s sent packing as soon as it can be arranged.”

At once I thought back to the first night and remembered the mysterious man whose arrival had so disturbed Savage and whom I’d glimpsed hurrying away from the house. Apparently he must have returned, and that return was not a welcome one, either. I could not begin to guess the nature of this business or why it had upset Savage, except that I probably had no place in it. Whatever had happened—or was happening—was beyond the Game.

I placed my hand lightly on Savage’s arm.

“It sounds as if you’ve other affairs to occupy yourself tonight,” I said. “Perhaps it would be better for now if I returned to the Savoy.”

“No.” He swung about sharply to face me. The expression in his eyes—unhappiness and sorrow—was at odds with the anger in his voice. “I want you here with me, Eve. I don’t want you to go. It’s not safe.”

I frowned, taken aback by that. “If by that you mean Blackledge—”

“Of course I mean Blackledge,” he said, but in a way that made it seem that the baron wasn’t the only reason or even the primary one. “I cannot force you, but it would be best for both of us if you did.”

“Very well, then,” I said. “If you insist that I stay—”

“I’m not insisting.” He took a deep breath, obviously struggling to control himself, and raked his fingers back through his hair. “I’ve no right to do that. I’m asking you to stay. Inviting you, as one friend to another. Please, do not leave. Stay.”