Cheryl Holt (6 page)

He’d suckled against her! With his dark hair splayed across her chest, and his lips wrapped around her breast, he’d looked so beautiful. The episode had been brief and abrupt, but the agitation he’d inflicted with his atrocious teeth and tongue still tormented.

Her womanly cleft was overly aggravated, as well, and when he’d caressed her there, she’d been outraged by the intimate penetration of his conniving hand, but not now as she reflected upon it coolly and analytically. His shrewd finger had fit exactly right, had stroked across an itch she hadn’t realized needed scratching.

Retrospection about him and his indecent gestures caused her to press her thighs together, but the movement inundated her with searing sensation, and she groaned in frustration. Her tender, feminine flesh was moist and swollen, and to her consternation, she wished he was available to continue his maneuvers. Without a doubt, he would be competent to ease her physical woes.

Michael Stevens, bounder that he was, had created this abject misery, and he would be aware of the route she needed to travel to assuage her unrelenting agony. The man was a walking, talking primer of information on the female torso. He knew more about a woman’s anatomy than she knew herself.

Just before he’d departed, he’d kissed her. It had been
scarcely more than a peck, but considering that it was her first kiss, she lingered over the nuances. The transient embrace had been magnificent, and her mind wandered again to the couple in the garden who’d united so ardently, and she couldn’t help speculating as to what it would have been like had Mr. Stevens kissed her like that. Long and deeply and passionately.

Her nipples began to throb, once more, and she rubbed her palm over one of them, presuming she’d allay the arduous distension, but the slight palpation initiated a fresh flurry of unusual perturbation. Alarmed and flustered, she rolled onto her stomach and stretched out, but the position made matters much worse. Each of the spots Mr. Stevens had rigorously provoked was in direct contact with the mattress, and she was inflamed anew.

Appalled by her state of affliction, she jumped out of the bed as though she’d discovered snakes in it. There was a bottle of wine on the dresser, and she poured a glass and paced slowly, sipping the red liquid and trying to calm her shattered nerves.

What had happened to her?

Her body had careened out of control, making her yearn for things she couldn’t have, for things she’d never guessed she desired. She’d grown daring and reckless, and if Mr. Stevens had been with her at that very instant, she’d have let him do whatever he pleased as long as he promised to terminate her infernal suffering!

She was obsessed with him. Why was he at Lady Carrington’s party? Who was he? Where did he live? How did he support himself?

He was certainly refined and self-possessed enough to be a member of an aristocratic family, but he was too bold and dangerous to have sprung from such a tepid background. With the cryptic comments he’d supplied about his participation in the festivities, he’d hinted that the female guests were zealously vying for his favors. Was he some sort of sexual servant? A man who made his way by pleasuring the women in residence?

The concept—that he shared his marvelous physique with anyone who asked—was so fantastic, and so far beyond her realm of experience, that she couldn’t process it.

Who was he?
What
was he?

Any probable answers to her questions were too disturbing, so instead, she switched to pondering his warnings about the gathering, about her family. Critically, she strove to recall every tidbit of the conversation she’d had with Hugh that had led her to Bedford. The visit had been his idea, as had the choice of location, and other than his efforts to coerce her into rescuing him from his financial straits, she couldn’t recall any untoward remarks with regard to the party or the people who would attend.

How about her cousin Rebecca? Rebecca’s decision to accompany Sarah had also come about at Hugh’s recommendation. Was she simply a congenial, innocuous traveling companion, or was she actually an instigator of trouble? Mr. Stevens seriously believed that Rebecca had steered him to Sarah’s room, then stopped by—supposedly innocently—to check if Sarah was settled. Why? Was she anticipating that she’d catch Mr. Stevens on the premises? Could she have acted so despicably?

They were friends, relations. When Rebecca’s parents had died four years earlier, Sarah had taken her in and provided food and shelter when Rebecca was out of options, when she’d had nowhere else to go. After prevailing on Sarah’s generosity for so long, what could Rebecca hope to gain by sending an unknown man bent on ravishment? Had that been her aim?

Sarah refused to credit it.

And the party . . . Was it the lewd assembly Mr. Stevens insisted? How could she find out? She could hardly wander the halls and go sneaking into people’s bedchambers.

Should she depart for home as he’d demanded? Did she wish to leave?

There was nothing for her in Yorkshire, no reason to rush back, and now that she’d met Michael Stevens, she
was determined to stay. Distressing as it might be to chance upon him, she
had
to see him again.

Throughout her musing, her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and she noticed a sliver of light emanating from the dressing room. No lamps or candles were burning, so she couldn’t fathom from where it emerged. She walked into the smaller room and was surprised and astonished to discover a peephole.

Intrigued, she marched over to it and stood on tiptoe, trying to peek, but the hole was too high, so she retrieved a footstool, climbed upon it, and peered inside.

A tiny room was visible. She couldn’t see the entirety, just part of one wall, a chair, a table, and a narrow bed. Two candles flickered in a holder, illuminating the enclosed space.

Michael Stevens was there, alone, dressed as he had been earlier in a pair of tight-fitting trousers and naught else. He lounged negligently on the bed, his back against the wall, one ankle carelessly crossed over the other. From his rapt stare, Sarah assumed he was waiting for someone to join him. On the surface, he appeared relaxed and bored, but there was a restless energy hovering about him that piqued her interest.

Would he realize she was watching? Was she the only one? He was acquainted with the purportedly perverted workings of the manor and had intimated that there were copious peepholes, so there could be many people spying on him.

Did he know? Did he care?

Conspicuously unconcerned, he rubbed circles across the center of his chest, his fingers scratching through the mat of curly, tempting hair. Languidly, methodically, he arced lower, past the waist of his trousers, across the placard. He was swollen down below, the odd ridge of flesh prominently manifested, and he stroked the heel of his hand along it, a pained look on his face, as though he was extremely uncomfortable.

Despite the fact that she barely knew him, she sensed
many things about him—what he was thinking, what he was feeling—and she could tell he was eager, expectant, anticipating whatever was about to happen. She strained against the peephole, searching for clues.

Off to the side, a door opened, and a woman stepped into view. She was wearing a cloak, the hood pulled over her head and shielding her identity. Sarah rudely studied the goings-on, and when the pair began to talk, she pressed her ear against the hole so that she could eavesdrop on what was being said.

“What’s your name?” Mr. Stevens asked, his voice husky.

The woman spoke softly, and Sarah couldn’t discern her reply.

“Who is your husband?”

This response was also unintelligible, but Mr. Stevens chuckled over whatever he’d learned.

“What is it you would like to do for me?” He regarded the woman with a jaded, intense expression.

The woman gawked at her feet but didn’t speak.

“You know the rules,” Mr. Stevens advised sternly. “You have to say aloud what it is that you want.” The woman hesitated, then leaned closer to Mr. Stevens and whispered something. “Ah . . .” he murmured, a brow rising, “one of my favorites. Are you undressed under your cloak?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Her fingers went to the clasp at her neckline, then pushed the fabric off her shoulders but the hood remained in place. Sarah observed the woman’s body in profile. She was naked, her breasts exposed. Her nipples were a brown color, elongated, and they jutted outward.

Mr. Stevens reached out and manipulated both of them with finger and thumb, inducing the woman to writhe uneasily, and Sarah’s heart pounded. He was arousing the woman in the same fashion that he’d handled Sarah and, conscious of how it had felt, her own breasts reacted, tingling
and hardening just from her watching. Though he was caressing someone else, it seemed as if he was touching her own bosom. Mesmerized, she was bothered and startled by how easily she was drawn in just from viewing the erotic interlude.

“Excellent . . .” he crooned seductively.

The sexy timbre of his compliment—bestowed on another lover—tickled down to her toes, and the realization confounded her terribly. The display was corrupt and deviant, and she understood that she should desist. Her behavior was improper, disquieting, and the outcome none of her affair. There was a shutter she could utilize to cover the hole, but embarrassingly, she couldn’t force herself to use it.

Disgusting as it sounded, she was absolutely captivated by Michael Stevens. He was so handsome, so wholly virile, in a manner she’d never encountered before. Until they’d met, she’d had no idea there were men like him in the world, no inkling that people carried on in the shameless ways he welcomed, and a team of horses couldn’t have dragged her away.

Like the worst sort of voyeur, she had to witness how the incident unfolded.

He moved behind the woman and turned her toward the opposite wall—one Sarah couldn’t see—but it was clear that the couple was facing a mirror. Mr. Stevens was gazing over his lover’s shoulder, just as he had with Sarah, and he cradled the weight of her breasts as he nuzzled against her throat. Whimpering with apparent ecstasy, the woman’s eyes fluttered shut, her head tilted back, and he nipped against her nape.

“Do you like it when I do that?” he questioned, fiercely twirling at the woman’s nipples.

“Yes.” His lover was breathless, excited. “Don’t stop.”

“Your breasts are so beautiful,” he declared, assessing the two mounds in the looking glass. “Just the size I like on a woman. Not too big. Not too small.”

What!

“Maybe I should take you here in front of the mirror, so you can see how splendid we are together.”

Sarah lurched away from the hole, the familiar words ringing in her ears.

“Look at us,” he continued. “Look at how exquisite we are with my hands on you.”

The cad! Only hours earlier, he’d uttered identical statements in her very own boudoir! How dare he lavish the same praise on another! It made their rendezvous seem so tawdry and ordinary when, on her end, she’d ultimately decided that it had been the most fascinating, enchanting event of her entire life. After reflecting at length, she’d persuaded herself that he’d been as charmed by her as she’d been by him, that he’d found her to be special as no other man ever had, that she was attractive and appealing.

Now, she simply felt like a fool.

In a temper, she whipped away from the peephole so rapidly that the stool wobbled and tipped, dispatching her to the floor with a loud thump. She landed crookedly on her rear and smacked her ankle against the vanity. Pain shot through the joint, and she moaned aloud, then clapped her hand over her mouth, wondering if the occupants in the adjoining room had heard the commotion.

If Mr. Stevens detected that she’d been snooping, she’d die of mortification!

Cautiously, she tugged herself up to a standing position. Though her ankle ached and her bottom smarted, nothing was injured but her pride. The beam of light from the hidden room was like a beacon, urging her to return to her perch on the stool, but she categorically refused to heed its beguiling call. However Michael Stevens might conclude his bizarre evening, she didn’t care to know. She didn’t
want
to know. Some mysteries were best left unexplored.

She hobbled out, shutting the door that separated her bedchamber from the dressing room. Confused, anxious, haunted by what she’d seen, she forced herself to bed and jerked the covers high. Eventually, after suffering through hours of wretchedness and chaos, she fell into a fitful sleep.

Michael heard a strange noise, as though someone had fallen, and it was followed by a restrained whimpering, but he didn’t allow the sound to distract him. There were several peepholes into the Viewing Room so, no doubt, diverse people were watching, and anything could be happening just beyond the walls.

For a moment, he endeavored to conceive of who some of the spectators might be. Perhaps it was one of those eccentric men who enjoyed huddling alone and playing with himself during the proceedings, or one who became stimulated for later sexual congress by spying on others. Perchance it was one of the handful of aberrant men with baser appetites, those who were not attracted to women at all—but to himself as a potential partner. They would be impatiently waiting for a degenerate glimpse of his engorged member, an impressive sight by anyone’s standards.