The Earl's Mistress (35 page)

He tipped up her chin. “Are you sure?”

She pressed herself closer and kissed him almost aggressively, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, twining it sinuously around his. Against the silken skin of Isabella’s thigh, his shaft twitched impatiently.

“Good Lord,” he rasped when she was done. “Turn around, my dear.”

“Yes,” she said in a soft, compliant voice.

His hands went to the knots of the rope and the silk bindings, impatiently unfastening. He wished to the devil he had his sharp knife, he thought grimly. He got them loose, if not completely unwrapped, before he lost all patience.

“Face down, love,” he whispered, giving her a little push. “You’ve been so very good. Just a little more, all right?”

She nodded. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Just give you pleasure, Isabella,” he murmured, his lips brushing over her temple. “Or try to. Will you let me? Will you trust me? And if you don’t like it, Isabella, we shall never do it again.”

She hesitated.

“Isabella,” he said a little harshly, “do you trust me? Do you give yourself to me for my pleasure?”

She nodded.

“Then lie down and let me take you,” he said, picking up the smaller of the ivories.

“That is odd,” she said, “b-but not too large, I suppose?”

This last was said almost hopefully.

“Don’t look,” he suggested. “I won’t hurt you, Isabella. Just let me take my fill of you, love. Please. Let me take you to that sweet and exquisite place again.”

She gave a short, quick nod and settled herself into the pillows, turning her head away from his chest of trinkets. Stretching, he lifted out his jar of unguent and liberally oiled his toy. Again, his shaft twitched impatiently. Damned if it wasn’t taking forever to get himself buried in the girl, but he would sooner die than truly hurt her.

Gingerly, he set his hand to her left buttock, but she flinched at the touch.

“Isabella, do you need the crop?” he asked warningly.

She looked back at him, her thick black lashes fanning down. “Have I been bad?” she murmured.

“A little,” he said. “The way you kissed me just now felt very wicked indeed.”

Without another word, she pulled a pillow nearer and buried her face in its softness.

Well,
he thought wryly,
the lady’s needs must be met.

He set aside the ivory, took the little crop, and drew it deep between her cheeks again. To his shock, Isabella shivered. He did it again, this time slipping his oiled fingers between her legs, lightly circling her clitoris. When she writhed a little against his hand, he struck her a stinging blow.

“Naughty girl,” he said. “You need a little something more, don’t you?”

“I need you,” she rasped. “Touch me again.”

He did so, slowly stroking until he felt a fresh pearl of dew. “
Ohhh,
” she whispered.

Again, the stinging blow, just enough to pink her cheeks. She writhed down on his hand, begging for something. “
Tony—
” she whispered, “
please
?”

“Wait,” he whispered, laying aside the crop. “Be patient, my darling.”

“But what you are doing . . . it seems so wicked. I think perhaps
you
should be cropped.”

“We may negotiate that,” he said, giving in to the temptation, “another night.”

He forgot all about his ivory toys, and she sucked in her breath as he entered her slick, feminine passage. “Umm,” she murmured uncertainly.

Isabella lifted her shoulders, and he bent over her, letting his lips skate down the soft skin between her shoulder blades. Beneath him she felt so small and perfect. He could feel the stubble of his beard rake against her tender flesh, could feel the warmth of her skin and the dampness of her perspiration. He forced himself not to move but merely to hold himself all the way inside her, savoring the almost suspended pleasure.

He felt his cock throb impatiently. She felt it, too, and gasped.

“Love,” he whispered. “Oh, Isabella.
So
sweet.”

And then he could bear it no longer. He let his hands slide low, stroking the curve of her hips, and then back up, pushing wide the full, fine swells of her rear to fully thrust. On a little moan, she shifted, instinctively—urgently seeking.

In the pale moonlight, her skin seemed to glow with warmth. Her face was turned into the shadows, her mouth open on a sigh. Again and again, she urged herself against him as she rose, and he bit back his urgency, pressing himself into her at that firm, perfect angle.

She shifted, trembling a little, her silken hair fanning over one side of the pillow. He lifted his hand, tenderly stroking it back. Then he cupped her full breast, lightly plucking her hard, sweet nipple until she began to sob. He felt his hard-fought control slip, and he had to will himself not to drive himself up into her too greedily.

On knees and elbows now, Isabella rode back hard, urgently seeking. Her breath came rapidly; soft, needy gasps as her head tipped back. He struggled for control, desperate to hold himself in check; desperate to give her what she needed and bind her to him with that perfect and aching release.

Isabella began to plead with him—begging him for wicked things and using words he was shocked to hear her utter. The erotic vision drove him. He thrust fast and hard, pushing his length inside her as she began to whisper his name like a soft plea.

He lifted her, pressing himself hard against the front of her silken passage as she urged herself back against him with her instinctive grace. And when the head of his cock stroked that deep, sweet spot again, she gave a moan of intense pleasure, her hands fisting great handfuls of the bed linens, her head tipping back.

Good God, how he wanted her.

The need beat in his blood like his own pulse, and his vision began to cloud as he felt Isabella’s very essence surround him. He reached out and fisted his hand in her hair, riding her like some stallion mounting a mare. Urgently pushing back to take him, she lifted her upper body, straining, and he sunk his teeth into the tender flesh of her shoulder.

On a soft cry, Isabella jerked hard and bowed back, her nails raking the pillow as he felt her begin to throb around his cock, and then splinter. Maddened by the sight, he thrust again, driving himself dangerously deep.

She cried out again, and it was as if fire and heat exploded in a blinding rush. He thrust once more and the spasms of pleasure seized him, his entire being jerking with it.

Reality dimmed, and he knew only that burning need to claim her; to spill himself deep. To push her past the point of release and bind himself to her, forged as one in the searing heat. Isabella fell into the pillows, sobbing as the pleasure wracked him.

Still pulsing deep inside her, he exhaled on a long, shuddering breath and rolled onto his side, taking her with him and spooning her back against him. “Isabella,” he whispered. “Oh, Isabella, my love.”

Sinking into the softness of the bed, he marveled at what she had just given him, his gentle, untutored lover. He marveled at how desperately he loved her, and tried not to let the fear choke him.

Countless lovers had come and gone from his life, but this was not the same.

Isabella was not the same.

Isabella was not replaceable. And if she were to go from his life, his life would be over. There would be nothing left for him but to raise his child and try to survive what remained.

This was, of course, hardly a new realization but one that had been growing in intensity these past many weeks. But the magnitude of it still shook him.

They drifted, with her bound in his arms, for a time, then roused to kiss and whisper and stir about before collapsing together again. Much later, in the darkest hours of the night, when the lamp was out and the moonlight pale and clear, they woke to make love again as they had done that morning in Fulham; facing one another, drowning in one another’s gaze as they came. He felt himself spill deep again—spilling heart and soul into her—his elbows shaking as the spasms wracked him.

He came back to a hint of dawn on the horizon and to the realization that he was lost. He was lost to Isabella, and there was only one real solution. He knew it even as he turned the possibility over and over in his mind. But even with his need burned down to ash, he now understood that nothing he felt for her would ever change.

He lifted his hand and tucked a long lock of hair back over her slender shoulder. How many times had he spilled his seed into her womb? Twice tonight. Once earlier in the week. They had escaped catastrophe several times before that.

It was the domination of his unconscious mind, he suspected. It was raw, male instinct—and selfishness—overwhelming his good sense.

He was going to have to make this right.

He only hoped that in doing so, he did not make things worse.

CHAPTER
17

S
urrounded in warmth, Isabella stirred near dawn to a lover’s touch. After drawing a lock of her hair over her shoulder, Anthony spooned himself about her, one palm settling heavily over her womb. He pressed his lips to the back of her shoulder, and lazily, she lifted her eyelids a fraction.

She could just make out, through the open draperies, a faint glow on the horizon. She stretched, and felt his lips skate up to the curve of her neck.

“
Umm,
” she said, glancing back at him. “What time is it?”

“Five, thereabouts.” He moved his lips an inch higher and kissed her again, his hand making soft, almost pensive circles on her belly. “Turn round, love,” he murmured against her skin. “We must talk.”

She felt her heart skip a beat, but she did as he asked, turning in his embrace. “That sounds ominous,” she said, her gaze searching his face in the gloom. “What about?”

He lifted his hand and tenderly tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Things,” he said vaguely. “Questions you asked once before. By the brook. Isabella, I care for you. Very much. You know that, don’t you?”

She laid a fingertip to his lips. “I don’t expect such words,” she said. “They . . . They complicate things.”

“Words do not complicate things,” he said on a sigh, “but I may have done. I’ve been careless. Again and again. With you, I seem always to be careless.”

Isabella understood then what he was speaking of, and she felt a chill of uncertainty. “It will be all right,” she said. “It has to be.”

“Life doesn’t work that way, Isabella, and if you’re carrying my child—” He stopped and shook his head. “—we’ll need to marry. Perhaps that horrifies you. I don’t know. If it does, I’m sorry.”

Her eyes flew wide. “Tony, you cannot marry me,” she said, rolling up onto her shoulder. “Think what you suggest. People will gossip. Fenster—he’s not dead, nor are his ugly rumors forgotten. And I’m a nobody. By choice. My heavens, I run a bookshop.”

“Come, Isabella, do you think I give a damn what people say?” he said harshly. “Do you think Fenster’s poison means anything to me? You’ll marry me, and I’ll give you no choice.”

She rolled back into the softness of the bed with a
huff
! “You may have had your wicked way with me tonight, Tony, but beyond the bed, don’t dare try to bully me. You’ll rue it, I promise.”

He reached out and stroked her face tenderly. “Let’s not argue, love, over a problem we don’t yet have, hmm?” he said, gentling his tone. “But in the future—and don’t say, Isabella, we have none—in the future, I promise to take more care. I know better. I do know how
not
to conceive a child. But I have been selfish, and I have not put your well-being first.”

Not knowing what else to say, Isabella tucked close and set her cheek against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, strong and steady.
He
was strong and steady. She had slowly come to understand that he was more than just a tempting—perhaps even tortured—lover. There were devils that drove him to arrogance and anger and self-loathing, but there were better angels, too.

“I will not die, Tony, bearing a child,” she reassured him. “Do you think I can’t see that’s what you fear? I know you don’t want that on your conscience. But if the worst happens, I will survive it. I am a survivor. I am not Felicity.”

“Indeed, you are not,” he said certainly, “for she was delicate, and you are far from it. But the worst, Isabella? What is the worst, I wonder?”

“Sometimes we don’t know the answer to that question until we are deep in it,” she said.

He seemed to consider her response. “You once said, Isabella, that you thought I must hate myself,” he murmured, his lips pressed to the top of her head.

“I meant only that you seemed bitter inside,” she said. “Beyond that, I spoke out of turn.”

“But you may have spoken rightly,” he said. “I’m not sure what I’ve let myself become. Anne . . . Anne constantly lectures.”

“Because she cares for you,” said Isabella. “Whatever may have happened between the two of you, Anne cares deeply. I can see that.”

He gave a muted laugh. “She warned me last night I should marry you,” he said. “She threatened to find a man who
would
marry you if I did not. Would you try to do that, my dear? Marry someone else?”

She did not fail to notice his use of the word
try
. “I don’t mean to marry anyone,” she said tightly. “I thank Anne for her kindness, but it’s not negotiable.”

“Still determined to keep your bookshop,
hmm
?” he murmured, brushing his lips across her eyebrow.

“I’m determined to survive,” she said, “and to look after my sisters. May we speak of something else? I really don’t wish to quarrel, Tony. Not after . . . last night. Not after what we shared.”

For a time, he simply lay silently beside her, one arm propped behind his head, his harsh, handsome profile faintly limned by the approaching dawn. Isabella could feel his mind working and the ponderous weight of words left unsaid.

She sat up, lit the lamp, and turned it low, wondering what next to do or to say.

After a time, he stirred, as if from a dream. “May I answer your question, then?” he said, his voice oddly weary. “The one you asked days ago?”