For Desire Alone (9 page)

He growled his desire out and swept her up into his arms. She expelled her breath in a surprised sigh as he carried her to the bed and laid her out against his sheets. Then he stepped back to stare at her.

Her hair had come partially down and long locks of it curled around his pillows and at her shoulders. She lounged back, utterly seductive without even trying as she stared up at him in waiting.

He lifted himself onto the bottom of the bed and crawled up toward her, nuzzling her calf, her knee, then her inner thigh. Each time the slightly rough texture of his cheek caressed her, she let out a quiet moan of pleasure. Dear God, but she was responsive. And none of it was forced or falsified as so many courtesans did. Mariah pretended nothing. Not in her life and not in her lover’s bed.

That fact was as bewitching as her eyes.

He parted her legs farther and opened her sex. It glistened with readiness, pink and wet. She had trimmed the hair around it, so it was almost bare but for a thin line of red curls. He stroked a finger along the slit and she arched her back with a guttural grunt.

“So tender,” he teased. “Good enough to eat.”

She opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut when he touched her and stared at him. “It’s time to put that wicked tongue to good use. I have longed to feel its skill since the first time we made love.”

His eyes widened. Again, her boldness shocked and delighted him. And her reward was exactly what she had demanded.

He parted her folds and pressed his lips to her. He teased with his lips, brushing along her entrance with light, playful bites. But teasing her was as tormenting to himself as it was to her. He didn’t want to play, he wanted to thoroughly taste her. To delve deep inside of her. To make her come until she shook, until she was weak against the pillows and begged for his cock to finish what his tongue had begun.

Mariah couldn’t stifle a harsh moan of pleasure as John drove his tongue into her sheath in earnest. He swirled his tongue around her clit, sucking the tingling bundle of nerves until she could hardly breathe from desire. She had always been exquisitely sensitive when it came to a man’s mouth on her, but with John her excitement built even faster. Within just a few strokes of his tongue, she was quivering on the edge of bliss.

And when he added two thick fingers to her sheath…she was lost. She arched up with a great heaving cry and tremor after tremor of intense, focused pleasure mobbed her. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe, all she could do was scream out as he dragged her through more and more spiraling depths of sensation.

He never slowed his pace, even as tears began to flow down her face from the intensity of the sensation. Even as she flopped back in pure exhaustion from the experience. Her body continued to twitch with each flick of his tongue and slowly, slowly he eased his pace and finally sank away from her sex to stare up at her with brown eyes almost black with desire.

“I like that,” he murmured as he began to move up her trembling body. “I
like
how powerfully you react to that touch.”

“I like how powerfully
you
make me react,” she countered as he settled over her. He nestled between her legs and she lifted herself to rub her soaking sex against his hard length.

“Let’s see if I can repeat it, yes?” he whispered.

He lowered his mouth to her and she tasted her own juices on his lips and tongue. Greedily she kissed him, her arousal rising again at the proof that he had just loved her so completely. Her heavy, heated kisses only seemed to inspire him to more.

He reached between them, fitting his cock to her entrance and glided deep inside of her in one long stroke.

John could scarcely see as stars flashed before his eyes. He had been inside a great many women in his time, but there was something about fitting himself into Mariah’s body that felt…
different
. Almost like they were made for this, for each other.

He shook his head to clear it of that thought and thrust forward in the hopes that mind-blowing pleasure would make him stop waxing poetic. And it worked. His cock throbbed with every thrust into her willing and flexing body. She clung to his neck, staring up at him as her breath came in jerky pants and her hips arched with every entrance and withdrawal.

She had already experienced an explosive orgasm, but he wanted to feel her tremble around his cock, to milk him toward his own release with the tremors of her own. He drove toward that goal, rubbing his hips to hers to stimulate her tender clit, making circles with each thrust.

Sweat broke out in a thin sheen on her forehead and her gasps and moans became more erratic, proving he was doing his job. Finally, she dug her nails into his shoulders, nearly lifted her entire body from the bed and screamed out his name as her sex went wild with flutters and squeezes.

His cock swelled and he slammed into her through her crisis, even as he built toward his own. He clenched his teeth, he held his breath and then he exploded in a fiery burst of pleasure and release. Her body milked every drop of his essence from his cock and he collapsed onto her and rained soft kisses on her mouth, her cheeks, her neck.

For a moment, they lay like that, but then John flopped away from her, panting as the last vestiges of pleasure faded and left him, for the moment, satiated. This feeling never lasted, of course, but damn he did enjoy it for the short time he felt it.

Mariah rolled over and placed her head on his chest, her own breath short.

“There is one thing to be certain, we are good together,” she said with a smile up at him.

He brushed stray auburn locks away from her eyes, which were bright and beautiful in the firelight. “Indeed, we are. I don’t think I have ever been so swept away as I am by you.”

Her eyes widened and her smile fell. “No? But you have bedded so many women.”

He shrugged but said nothing else. There was nothing else to say, really.

She shifted and broke her gaze from his to stare off toward the fire for a few moments. Then she shook her head and slowly eased her body away from his. He reached for her hand.

“Where are you going?” he asked, with more desperation to his tone than he cared to think about.

She covered his hand with her own and smiled at him. “I’m dressing and then I’m returning to my townhome.”

His brow wrinkled. “Returning? You aren’t staying here tonight?”

She sucked in a breath and for a moment her face reflected worry and anxiety. “No,” she said slowly. “You and I are only engaged in an affair, yes?”

He nodded slowly.

“Then we must keep up boundaries,” she said with a sigh. “I have learned that most definitely the hard way.”

He stared. What did that mean?

“And your boundaries include running away the moment an encounter is finished?” he asked instead.

She lifted his fingers to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss there meant to soothe him. It didn’t work, but did the exact opposite, inflamed him even more.

“It is very late,” she explained. “And I think it best if I don’t stay in your bed with you. It will only…complicate matters.”

He pursed his lips. She was utterly correct, of course. He had never encouraged his lovers to stay with him through the night. He was always slightly annoyed if they insisted on doing so. But Mariah’s refusal to remain by his side somehow…irked him.

She slipped away and gathered her things. She fastened her buttons and buckled her slippers with swiftness and efficiency he really didn’t care for in that moment.

Mariah smiled as she finished closing her last button. John continued to lounge on the bed, hoping to remain nonchalant when he felt anything but. Keyed up and filled with tension that had nothing to do with sex was more like it.

“Goodbye, John,” she murmured as she leaned over to kiss him.

He cupped her face gently and drove his tongue into her mouth, daring her not to respond, proving to her, and perhaps to himself, that she still wanted him even if she insisted on leaving him. When he released her, she staggered back on unsteady feet and he smiled. There was triumph in that, at least.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

She blinked. “Er, yes. If you intend to be at Vivien’s monthly masquerade, then you shall.”

John’s lips pursed. Normally he loved Vivien’s parties that she held monthly during the Season. They were nights of pure debauchery.

“Yes, I’ll be there.”

She smiled, but there was something faded about the expression. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded as she slipped away. But when the door shut behind her, he threw himself from the bed and began to pace restlessly. Tonight he had taken his time. Tonight he had given and received all the pleasure he knew Mariah could provide. And that should have sated his desire, faded it away.

But it hadn’t. If anything, he was left feeling edgier than ever. He wanted her. Now. He wanted her all night. Every night for a week. A month. Maybe even a year.

He sank down in a chair beside the fire and rubbed his eyes. “I’m in trouble,” he muttered.

And never had he believed a statement more.

Chapter Seven

Mariah gazed around Vivien’s party with a stifled sigh and her friend slipped her arm around her and squeezed.

“Don’t look so thrilled,” Vivien teased. “I’ll think I’m putting on the soiree of the century.”

Mariah smiled at Vivien. “Oh, you know you have the best fetes, my dear. My expression has nothing to do with the quality of your party.”

Vivien tilted her head and Mariah could see the question perched on her friend’s lips. One she did not wish to answer, so she continued swiftly.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how you started having these monthly masquerades.” Mariah tilted her head. “You’ve done them for what…three years? Since you left your last protector.”

Vivien’s face grew tense for a moment, but then she relaxed into a smile. “Yes, that is correct. I suppose I’ve always liked a masquerade. There is something so sensual about hiding behind a mask, being able to do any naughty thing with utter anonymity. I held one and it was such a huge success that the next month I held another. And then another and another and suddenly people simply expected that there would be a monthly masquerade during the Season.”

She shrugged, but Mariah didn’t feel her question had been fully answered. “And what about the…
other
activities that go on during the masquerade?” she pressed.

Vivien smiled slightly. “Ah yes. The back room. Well, my home has always been a retreat for pleasure, has it not? It seemed only fitting that during a masquerade there should also be a place for the attendees to slake their needs and share their bodies.”

Mariah shivered and found herself gazing around the room to find John, just as she had been all night. He was standing with two ladies, both in masks, though one had allowed hers to slip down quite low to make it clear who she was. Lord Sunderworth’s mistress, a chit named Nadine or some such thing. She was a scatterbrainbut pretty. Exactly the kind of woman John had taken to his bed in the past.

Mariah ground her teeth as she tried to tamp down and ignore the jealousy that was building within her.

“I see you looking at John, but you two did not arrive together. Have you had a falling out already?” Vivien asked.

Mariah turned away from him. She was being too obvious, clearly. “No, not a falling out,” she said, her voice strained. “Quite the contrary, our affair is…”

She stopped. There was no use voicing how powerful their connection was. Vivien would only scold her on endangering herself and her heart. Something she was
not
doing. Intense physical connection and intense emotions could be separated.

They had to be.

“I can well imagine you two are quite good together,” Vivien supplied. “But if that is true, why maintain such distance tonight?”

Mariah sighed. “I told John that I must take the first few hours of the party to continue my search for a protector. So we agreed not to come together until midnight.”

Vivien looked at her evenly for a long moment. “You realize it is quarter to midnight right now.”

Mariah nodded. She had been well aware of every slide of the clock’s hand throughout the entire evening.

“And I don’t think I’ve seen you talk to more than a few men during the time you’ve been here,” Vivien continued.

Mariah swallowed. “Yes. Well, I have been
particular
in my choice of companions tonight, that is true.”

Vivien arched a brow. “Particular. Yes, that is one way to put it. Another is that you have no interest in any of them. I can see you looking for a way to escape any time you are forced to be alone with any man in this room. And your eye has been wandering to John all night. When he stands with women, you look as though you’d like to slap someone. When he stands with men, you are disinterested.”

Mariah shook her head. “Untrue on all accounts, Vivien.”

“I’ve been doing this for years, Mariah. I know what I see.” Her friend caught her hands. “My dearest, I hate to point out the obvious, but there is still a game afoot here for you. John may be a worthy distraction, but if he will not protect you—”