Her Perfect Match (10 page)

“And was the girl…raped…as the last two were?” Lysandra whispered.

Mariah nodded again. “She told a friend, another servant in another house, and the story came to me through the usual servant channels.”

“Is there any way to get the girl out?” Vivien asked.

Mariah shook her head. “I have used up all my resources for housemaids. Until we get the school off the ground, we cannot even remove them from the situation.”

Vivien squeezed her hands into fists in her lap. One of the items on her list of things to do was to destroy someone evil. And there seemed to be no one who deserved being destroyed more than the Earl of Dersingham. Publicly and thoroughly.

“I will call in a favor about the girl,” Vivien said, her voice cracking.

“And what about the next girl?” Lysandra whispered.

Vivien got to her feet and moved to wrap an arm around her friend. “I will find a way to take care of her too.”

Lysandra squeezed her waist gently. “I’m certain we will try,” she said and pulled away, pain in her stare.

Vivien ground her teeth. She was definitely going to destroy the man. For Lysandra and any other woman like her who had ever turned to desperation to escape from horror. She owed them all that and more.

Lysandra turned to look at them and a smile now covered her pain. “Now that the business talk is over, there must be something personal to discuss. I do not wish to leave here on such a painful note.”

Mariah laughed, though she, too, looked strained by the previous topic. “Oh good, I was wondering when we would reach the point of gossip. And I think someone in this very room has some to share.”

Vivien looked at Lysandra. “You do?”

Lysandra shook her head and shot a glance at Mariah in question. “What about me?”

Mariah barked out a laugh. “Oh no. Not our dear Lysandra. You,
Vivien
.”

Lysandra’s troubled expression cleared. “Vivien always has the best gossip. What is the latest, then?”

Vivien shrugged. “I have no idea what Mariah is talking about, I assure you.”

“I do not speak of common gossip,” Mariah said with a glare. “I am referring to you and Benedict Greystone.”

Lysandra pivoted to stare at Vivien in shock. “Your former lover, Benedict Greystone?”

Mariah shook her head. “Not a mere lover, my dear. Greystone was the very last protector Vivien ever had. It is rumored they have perhaps renewed their relationship.”

Vivien flinched as Lysandra’s mouth dropped open. “I had no idea he was your
final
protector! But you are with him again… I thought you had no wish to ever have a protector again.”

“I don’t,” Vivien managed through clenched teeth. “He isn’t my protector.”

Lysandra blinked. “But he is your lover again?”

Vivien wished she could deny it, but what would be the use? “Yes. But there is little else to say on the subject. I have taken lovers before without this kind of badgering.”

Mariah lifted her eyebrows. “Yes, you have, but never with someone like Greystone. You truly have no intention of addressing the issue of your renewed affair with him or any other feelings you have on the matter of him?”

“No,” Vivien snapped, more emotionally than perhaps she had desired. “I do not wish to discuss it.”

Mariah pressed her lips together and stared at her friend in surprise. “I see,” she said after a moment.

Vivien held back a curse. Now she was showing too much emotion again, something that had never been a problem up until Benedict came crashing back into her life.

“Honestly,” she said, softening her tone significantly. “There is nothing to discuss. Just as I attempt to do with all my lovers, Benedict and I have always remained friends. If we have shared anything more recently than an exchange of hellos, please do not read too much into it. We already know where a relationship will end. I don’t think either of us is interested in something more.”

She said the words she thought she meant, but they tasted very bitter as they passed her lips. True, but bitter.

She smoothed her skirt reflexively and said, “At any rate, I’m so glad we could meet today.”

The not-so-subtle hint worked, for Lysandra moved toward the door with a troubled gaze. In the foyer, she embraced Vivien. Vivien could see there was something she wanted to say, but instead she said her farewells to Mariah and headed for her carriage.

Mariah embraced her and the hug was tight. Before they parted she whispered, “Someday I hope you’ll let
someone
in, Vivien. Me…her…him…just someone. I have learned that it is worth the risk.”

Vivien drew back with a shrug. “My dear, you are in as far as anyone could get, I assure you. I will speak to you soon.”

Mariah nodded and left her standing alone in her foyer. But as she closed the door on the sight of her friends’ carriages departing the drive, an emptiness consumed her that no one could fill.

Because even if Mariah wished it, Vivien could never allow anyone in fully. It wasn’t possible.

Chapter Nine

Benedict paced Vivien’s parlor, barely seeing her naughty red wallpaper with its imbedded images of couples engaging in sex acts. His mind was too busy to attend to such things.

He had put off seeing her. In truth, that had been a test to see how long he could do it. It seemed two days was his limit now before the ache to touch her, taste her, feel her body and hear her voice was unbearable.

He cursed as he glanced at the clock. He had been waiting all of five minutes and it felt like an eternity. His brother was right—he was in too deep, drowning in his feelings for her. No good could come of it.

But he was still here. Where he wanted to be more than anything in the world, even if it was to his detriment to surrender to her siren’s call.

The door to the chamber opened and he spun around to watch Vivien enter the room. She was wearing a pretty red gown, cut daringly low so that he got a very nice look at the soft roundness of her cleavage. Her blonde hair was done up loosely and thick waves of it moved around her face, framing the angles of her cheekbones and the brightness of her blue eyes.

“Benedict,” she breathed as she closed the door behind her.

Her tone was so welcoming, so warm, so desperate…as if she had been missing him as much as he missed her. Not that he would ever expect her to admit such a thing. Vivien saw love as weakness.

But passion
was
something she would accept and return, so he poured it into her as he crossed the room in a handful of long steps and dragged her against him for a kiss that melted his very bones.

She moaned against his mouth and clung to him with both her arms, pulling him against her, writhing as they kissed for what seemed like an eternity.

But he wanted more. He wanted all of her, everything in her heart, her soul, her body. But she would give only one of those three, so he dove into the taking with fervor. He stepped back and swiftly went to work on the gown she wore. There were only three buttons on the front, just enough to hold in the bounty of her bosom but little else. He stripped them open with a flick of his wrist and revealed that she wore no undergarments beneath.

A fact that made his cock all the harder as he stared at the smooth curves of her breast, the hint of her nipple as the silky fabric slid away from the swells.

“No shift?” he murmured.

She shrugged. “I hoped you would come to me tonight.”

“Are you admitting you missed me?” he asked, teasing but needing to hear an affirmation that this madness between them was not his alone.

She didn’t answer, but slid her arms from the gown and shimmied it slowly down her body, revealing herself inch by inch until she stood before him in only her stockings and slippers.

“Shall I take that as a yes?” he grunted past a dry throat.

She smiled wickedly. “By all means,
take
it.”

He moved on her, but this time he didn’t crush her body to his. He pushed her back until she fell against the length of a fainting couch specifically built for the very pleasures he readied himself to indulge in. A fainting couch he had taken her on a dozen times in what seemed like another life.

Tonight he reclaimed that life. Even for just a moment.

He dropped down on his knees before her and grasped her hips to drag her to the end of the couch. She stared down the length of her body at him, blue eyes dark and sparkling with desire and passion. With
need
.

A need he intended to slake thoroughly.

“I have longed to taste you,” he whispered as he pulled the slipper off one foot, then the other and slowly rolled her stockings off her legs, kissing her knee, her ankle as he did so. “To enjoy the flavor that fills my mouth in my dreams.”

She sucked in a breath of surprise and her eyes went wide above him.

“That surprises you,” he continued, opening her legs wide to reveal the slick and glistening sex that awaited him. “That I continue to dream about you, your body, about taking you in every way imaginable.”

She hesitated, but finally nodded wordlessly.

“It shouldn’t. I would wager any man who has touched you would be branded by the action. Would be changed irreparably.”

He stopped talking as he reached out to stroke a finger along her entrance. She was so hot and wet that his cock actually twitched within the confines of his trousers.

He leaned over her, spreading her open with his thumbs before he pressed his mouth to her sex. She gasped and arched toward him, a tiny loss of control that he reveled in as he began the work to bring her to orgasm with fervor. He stroked his tongue over her, sucking at her clitoris, driving into her body with little shallow strokes.

Vivien cried out with the increasing pressure and rhythm of his ministrations, grabbing at the smooth fabric of the settee, lifting her body to meet him in helpless abandon until finally she gasped out, “Please!”

It was just one word, a very ordinary word, but Benedict lifted his gaze in shock as she said it. Vivien, begging? That had certainly never happened before, not any of the many times they fell into bed together. Normally she had more restraint than that.

But now she stared at him, eyes wide and pleading, and he realized something was different now. Something had shifted between them.

He was breaking down her walls.

He smiled and lowered his mouth to her. Gently, he sucked her clitoris, rolling his tongue around and around the little nub as she gasped and moaned above him with sounds of near release. He built his tempo and when he slid one thick finger inside her as he continued to suck, she screamed out his name in the quiet parlor and her body jolted with an orgasm that shuddered through her entire body.

As her crisis faded, she flopped back against the settee cushions and looked up at him through a hooded gaze. For a long time, they were both silent and then she sat up partially and smiled at him.

“How long are you going to remain clothed?” she whispered, her tone wicked and teasing.

He grinned and got up to strip down with record speed. When he was naked before her, she slid to the edge of the couch and took him in hand, stroking over him once, twice, three times.

He dipped his head over his shoulders and groaned as lightning bursts of pleasure jolted up his cock from her touch. She had a certain expression and he knew that her intention was to take him into her mouth, just as he had done. It would feel amazing, but he wanted something more intimate with her. He wanted to look into her eyes as he drove into her body, felt her flex around him in welcome and surrender.

He pulled away and dropped down to pin her against the settee. She looked up at him, slightly pouting, even though her blue eyes were bright with anticipation of what he would do.

“You don’t want my mouth?” she purred.

He kissed her, let her taste her own earthy flavors on his lips and tongue. She moaned against him and her legs parted wider. He nudged his cock at her entrance, its wet heat taunting him with what he would have in just a few short moments.

“I want everything,” he moaned and slid into her sheath in one long, languid thrust.

She shut her eyes and lifted toward him, her sex gripping him as if she couldn’t get enough. He pressed his lips to hers a second time and began to kiss her, stroking her tongue with his as he stroked her body with his. She relaxed in his arms, lifting to greet him, grinding her hips to his and clinging to his shoulders as if she would wash away if not grounded.

He drove a little faster, taking and claiming while the pleasure of her body rushed through him, overwhelmed him. He felt release building deep within his loins and he struggled to control himself as he felt her drive toward orgasm. Suddenly her eyes flew open and she tensed against his chest, smashing her breasts to him as she opened her mouth and cried out. Her hips flexed wildly and her release was evident by her face, her body, her nails digging into his shoulders.

Seeing her come was just too much and he lost control. Pleasure exploded within him, blurring his vision as his hips slammed without finesse or rhythm against hers and his hot seed filled her. He collapsed against her, breath coming in pants, and he held her to him for a long moment.