Authors: Kate Pearce
Simply Carnal (18 page)
She opened her eyes wide at him. In truth, if he thought her reluctance to dine with him stemmed from her sexual confessions, that suited her perfectly. But it was never wise to capitulate too easily. Christian was no fool.
“Don’t you have your accounts to do or something?”
“I’m all caught up and I have the evening off.”
She manufactured a heavy sigh. “Then I suppose I should accept your generous offer.”
He kissed her hand. “That is very gracious of you. “I’ll ring the bell and ask Madame to send up the first course.”
During dinner, Elizabeth managed both to make small talk with Christian and allow her brain to worry away at the question of how to pawn her jewels. As she nibbled on a lemon shortbread biscuit, Christian drank a glass of brandy. It occurred to her that he must already know she had the jewelry. All she had to do was think up a plausible reason why she needed the money.
Christian cradled his brandy glass in his two hands. “Did Ambrose return your jewelry to you?”
How strange that he was thinking about her jewelry too.
“Yes, he did.”
“It still seems that the advertisement was a lure to get hold of your person rather than to return your possessions.”
“I thought it might be, but I felt I had no choice but to go.”
“Why?” Christian asked. “What was so important?”
She met his gaze. Let him think her mercenary. “My jewelry is important to me.”
“It can be replaced.”
“Not all of it. There are certain items”—she touched her throat—“like these pearls, that are irreplaceable.”
His mouth twisted. “I doubt you would risk your life for them, though.”
“Christian, I didn’t really believe that my husband’s cousin Armand would attempt to capture me. I thought that maybe he had decided to let me go. I even wondered if the jewelry was an attempt to buy me off.”
There was a long silence broken only by the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Christian placed his brandy glass carefully on the table between them.
“Don’t lie to me.”
Elizabeth slowly let out her breath. She kept her gaze on the glass and his long fingers wrapped around it.
“The jewelry is important to me for more than just sentimental reasons.” He didn’t respond and she continued. “I plan on selling most of it.”
“Selling it? For what purpose?”
She shrugged. “So that I can live independently.”
“You wish to leave?”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “I can hardly stay here forever, can I?” She attempted a laugh. “Your next lover would not be very happy about that, would she?”
His gaze was cool, his tone arctic. “How kind of you to care about my next mistress, Mrs. Smith. Have you already picked her out for me as well?”
“I am a realist, Mr. Delornay. Our liaison will not last.”
“When exactly are you planning on leaving?”
“It depends on several things. I need to have the jewelry valued first.”
“And you need to make sure that you are no longer in danger.”
“As I said, perhaps the return of my jewelry really does signal the end of the problem.”
Christian sat forward. “I don’t agree. Your attempted abduction took place after the jewelry had been returned. Why would your cousin bother if he considered he had paid you off?”
Elizabeth had no answer for that. “Are you suggesting I should stay here indefinitely?”
“I’m suggesting you stay here until we have neutralized the threat against you.” Christian stood up and threw his napkin onto the table. “I don’t think it will take that long and then you can do whatever you wish without any fear for your long and, no doubt, happy future.”
Elizabeth looked up at him. What he suggested suited her perfectly, but she suddenly felt guilty. He had done nothing but offer to help and protect her, but she couldn’t allow that to influence her decisions. It didn’t matter what he thought of her. She had to do what was right.
She stood up, too, and went to him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and gently kissed his mouth.
“Thank you, Mr. Delornay.”
He didn’t kiss her back, so she kissed him again, running the tip of her tongue along the seam of his lips. With a groan, he opened his mouth and let her in. His response made her press her whole body against his. With a muffled curse, he caught her wrists and brought them behind her back.
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Try and buy your way out of a difficult situation with sex.”
“I wasn’t! I just wanted to ...” She shook her head. “Damn you. I
wanted
to kiss you!”
wanted
to kiss you!”
His gaze narrowed. “You never do anything without a purpose. You use your body to bend a man to your will.”
Anger warmed her belly and she fought against the grip on her wrists. He was the first man she had ever willingly kissed in over ten years. Didn’t he understand that? God, she was so tired of this, so tired of having to pretend. “I have learned how to placate a man, yes. How else was I supposed to survive? I found I had an aversion to being beaten and raped!”
“You assured me that all the men you fucked were gentlemen.”
“I ...” She could only shake her head again, too enmeshed in her own protestations and half-lies to even know where to start.
“Do you think I’ll force you?”
“No!” She realized she was shouting, but for once she didn’t care. She was sick of being judged and found wanting, sick of being compliant. “I wanted to kiss you!”
He yanked her even closer, his lips a fraction away from hers. “Then do it. Do what you want.”
She bit him hard on the lower lip and he hissed in pain. She took advantage of his momentary recoil to work her wrists free of his grip and brought her hand up to slap his face.
The sound was shockingly loud in the silence, but she didn’t care. She gloried in it, in the darkening redness on his cheek, in his incredulous expression.
“What in God’s name was that for?”
She was beyond caring now. “Because you ... you ... don’t understand!”
He took a step closer and she raised her fists.
“What don’t I understand?”
“Anything!”
He reached for her and she batted his hand away, but he kept coming and she let fly with her nails, scraping his cheek. That didn’t stop him either, so she launched herself at him, biting and kicking. He avoided her blows when he could, his expression intent, his aim to subdue her with the least possible exertion on his part so obvious that she redoubled her efforts to hurt him, to
really
hurt him, to get past that perfect shell to find the man underneath.
really
hurt him, to get past that perfect shell to find the man underneath.
His fingers closed around her wrist, and he twisted it behind her back, bringing her to her knees.
“Let me go!”
He didn’t answer, and she tried to get up, only to have him bring his weight down on her back. His mouth settled over her ear, and he bit down hard, making her gasp.
“Is this what you fear, Elizabeth? Being held down, being forced?”
His free hand was already under her skirts, shaping the curve of her buttocks, his long fingers probing her sex.
She couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t get him off her.
“If you dread this, why are you wet and ready to be fucked?” His finger slid inside her and she fought a moan. “Didn’t you tell me that you liked the idea of a man taking you whether you wanted him to or not?”
She tried to turn her head and sink her teeth into any part of him she could reach, but to no avail. His finger started to pump into her, and his thumb pressed hard against her clit.
“Stop it!” she whispered.
He paused, his breath warm on her throat. “What if I won’t stop?”
She gasped as he rolled her onto her back and straddled her. She struggled to free her hands and go for his face again, but he caught them and drew them over her head.
“What if I won’t stop? Will you fight me?”
She stared into his hazel eyes and saw his lust and the raw excitement. She’d wanted to get beneath the surface of his accomplished lovemaking, but was this what she wanted? She didn’t care. He bent his head and kissed her, and she tried to bite his tongue.
“Don’t,” he said. He shifted his body so suddenly that she couldn’t take advantage of it, his knees now bracketing her shoulders. She shivered as he undid his pantaloons and shoved them down to display his thick shaft. “Suck my cock.”
She found herself growling at him, and he merely smiled. His fingers closed on her face, and he used his thumb to prise open her jaws, keeping it there so that she couldn’t close her mouth. “Suck me.”
She couldn’t stop him sliding his cock inside her mouth, and she loved the way he felt, his thick, insistent presence and the sensation that she was never going to fit him all in, that she would choke. Would he care? Would he even notice? She swallowed him in, taking him deep, and heard his groan of approval.
“That’s it, let me fuck your mouth. Let me come down your throat.”
He didn’t wait any longer; he set his own fast pace, and she could do nothing to stop him taking her as he wanted, her mouth used for his pleasure, his body holding her captive beneath him despite her struggles.
Even as he pumped himself into her, she realized her lower body was relatively free. Could she brace her legs and push him away, feel his tender cock grate against her teeth as she forced him to withdraw? Even as the idea came to her, she acted on it, sliding her legs up until her feet were on the floor and arching her back and hips to throw him off balance.
Her sudden movement worked well enough to make him release her jaw and slam his hand on the floor to stop himself falling forward. Elizabeth used the opportunity to slide down under him, releasing his cock as she went and rolling onto her front. She didn’t get far. He was on her in less than a moment, but she continued to kick out at him until he recaptured her wrists and restraddled her.
He was panting now, his chest heaving, his smile wild. “Are you done now?”
“No!” she hissed.
“Because you still want to be fucked, don’t you?”
She snapped at his shoulder, and his expression grew serious. “I’m not going to stop, Elizabeth. Do you understand that? I don’t care how much you fight me—I’m not going to stop.”
She glared at his perfect features marred now by the bloodied tracks of her nails and the mark of her hand. He held her gaze, his mouth a hard line, his weight pressing down on her.
“Fight me, Mrs. Smith.
Make
me understand.”
Make
me understand.”
He shoved his knee between her thighs and lowered himself on top of her, pushing her legs wide despite her struggles. His pantaloons were still unfastened, his cock erect. She moaned as he shoved himself deep inside her in one sure motion and started to thrust.
“So wet and ready to be fucked,” he murmured against her ear. “So wet ...”
She couldn’t move an inch, her legs spread wide, the unforgiving floor underneath her, his cock impaling her again and again as he slammed his full length from tip to root into her. An ache grew low in her gut, and she tried to lift her hips, but he wouldn’t let her control anything, wouldn’t let her take anything from him but what he chose to allow.
One of his hands remained grasping her wrists; the other worked its way between their bodies and settled over her clit, rubbing her tender flesh in rough, unforgiving circles. Stabs of mixed pleasure and pain made her sex clench and grip his pumping cock. He forced his tongue into her mouth and moved it in the same unforgiving rhythm as his cock and thumb.
She couldn’t stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. She ... “Oh, God!” she screamed into his mouth, but he didn’t pause as her orgasm broke over her in a devastating wave.
“Do it again,” he growled, and she closed her eyes as he continued to fuck her even harder. “Come for me.”
Other books
Champagne Toast by Brown, Melissa
Duty Free by Moni Mohsin
The Gates (2009) by John Connolly
Summer Boys by Hailey Abbott
The Wicked Guardian by Vanessa Gray
Sexting Mommy - A Family Secrets Taboo Story by Kat VonSant
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry by Mallory Monroe
Stay Dead by Jessie Keane
The Widening Gyre by Robert B. Parker
Darkest Hour by Rob Cornell