LadyClarissasSeduction (4 page)

Clarissa gasped at the horrific tale. “Dear God, what
happened to her?”

“She went to the streets and was forced to earn her living
the only way she knew how, on her back.” He paused as his voice grew thick with
emotion, composing himself. “She had me, took care of me as best she could. I
never wanted for anything. When I was fifteen, she married a much older man,
the owner of a particular establishment, and when they both died, I inherited
it. From then on, I worked my bollocks off—forgive me—for everything you see
around you.”

His beautiful face looked desolate as he completed his
story. Clarissa knew no other way to comfort him than by drawing him into her
arms. They held one another tightly for a long time, neither speaking, neither
willing to move and break the connection they had impossibly discovered in one
another.

“I am sorry, Pierce, for the suffering you and your mother
both must have known,” she said softly when at last she could speak. She kissed
his ear, then his neck.

“No need to be sorry.” He rubbed his cheek against hers.
“I’m nothing more than a gutter rat. Don’t waste your concern on me. The past
is the past.”

A swift current of emotion passed through her. She had
fallen in love with him. Somehow, unlikely though it seemed. The man who had
once been the source of her downfall was now the source of her redemption. And
perhaps she too was his. Clarissa bracketed his beloved face in her hands,
searching his eyes. “You are a fine gentleman.”

His gaze sank again to her mouth. “Christ, I hope you’re not
hungry for breakfast.”

Without another word, he pushed the tray to the floor and
rolled her onto her back. They kissed as if they were finding one another all
over again, breathless and desperate. Her pussy pulsed with the sweet ache of
wanting and with the loving she’d received the night before. Now she wanted
more.

“I can’t be with you for more than ten minutes without
wanting you desperately,” he groaned. “I need to have you.”

“Mmm.” Her hands stroked over his broad, strong back. She
wanted to feel his smooth skin and corded muscles rather than fabric. “Tell me
what I should do.”

“No.” He nipped her bottom lip. “You must tell me what you
want me to do.”

Could she? Good heavens, it seemed so indecent, so naughty,
so…arousing.

“If you insist, sir.” She shoved at his shoulders, forcing
him from her. Very well, if he wanted her to be the one giving orders, she
would. And thoroughly enjoy herself in the process. “First off, you must take
off all your clothes.”

“Indeed. You want me naked?” A glint she recognized well lit
his eyes.

“Utterly.”

“I am at your service, as ever.” He shucked his shirt in one
swift movement to reveal the tempting glory of his chest, the thick bands of
his abdomen. She wanted to lick it.

“Now your breeches. I shall help.” Feeling the warmth of
want between her thighs, she lowered her lips first to his devilish mouth, then
to his neck. She trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down his lightly haired
chest, running her fingers from his taut belly to the placket of his breeches
as she did so. There was something she’d been wanting to do ever since she’d
first glimpsed his cock.

“I want you in my mouth,” she told him, looking up to meet
his brilliant gaze. Oh how wanton she had suddenly become. She quite liked the
feeling.

Pierce gave a guttural groan, raising his hips to her. He
was hers for the taking. She undid his breeches and slid them down over his
hips. His cock sprang free, stiff and beautiful. Clarissa lowered her head and
took him into her mouth as far as she could. He tasted salty and musky. She
sucked, then laved the tip with her tongue, swirling it round and round. When she
heard him moan, she took more of him into her mouth, loving the slick of her
saliva over his hardness, the sound of his heavy breathing, loving the power
she had over him. It made her wet, she realized.

Her hand sank down over her body, parting her dressing gown
to press into the folds of her pussy. As she sucked his cock, she stroked
herself as he had done for her. Liquid pooled on her fingertips. She toyed with
the aching bud at her center, then sank a finger inside herself.

“Damn,” Pierce moaned. “Are you touching your pussy?”

She looked up at him, the tip of his cock still in her
mouth. “Yes,” she whispered, dragging her tongue up across his shaft to its
base.

“How does it feel?”

“Hot and wet.”

“Hell, I have to be inside you now.”

He flipped her onto her back again, rising over her in all
his naked beauty. He quite took her breath. She spread her legs wide, opening
herself to him. He played with her, then rubbed the moisture from her pussy
over his cock so that it glistened. The hole at the tip of his cock oozed a
liquid she wanted to lick up. She felt quite as if she wanted nothing more in
the world than to have his cock pulsing inside her. Her pussy ached with want
and need.

He slowly entered her and she arched her hips, bringing him
deeper. The rhythm he began was maddening. Sensation bloomed from the center of
her body outward. He lowered his handsome face to her breasts, rasping the
sensitive tips with the scant scruff of whiskers he’d grown over the course of
the evening. Her fingers sank into his thick golden hair. Meeting her gaze, he
sucked a hard nipple into his mouth. He reached between their slick bodies and
toyed with her until he had her gasping for breath, climaxing around him.

He surged deeper, pumping over and over until she felt the
wonderful spurt of his seed within her. Every inch of their naked bodies
pressed together. She knew then that somehow, in spite of their inauspicious
beginnings, the fire between them burned unlike anything she’d ever known.

“I love you, Pierce Foster,” she whispered against his neck.

* * * * *

Pierce was furious with himself. He cut a path through the
smoke and laughter-filled den of gamblers and sharps that had once been his
home. Biting back a curse, he sat in on a game of
vingt-et-un
,
determined to distract himself. One hundred pounds later, he rose from the
table, shrugging off the well-meaning ribaldry of the viscounts and earls he’d
once enjoyed. Everything had changed. He felt restless. Anger coiled inside
him, tightly wound, ready to be released. He resented Clarissa. Because he
loved her.

Damn it. Somehow, in the span of one bloody fortnight, he’d
allowed her to find a place within his black heart. She had given herself to
him so freely, so wonderfully, and he had used her as if she were no better
than a dockside doxy. He had used her. The knowledge of it ate at him.

She had told him she loved him. Him, Pierce Foster, son of a
whore, a nobody, a nothing. Clarissa had been born to wealth and privilege only
to lose both to her wastrel father’s ineptitude. She’d done nothing to deserve
his ill treatment of her. He wasn’t fit to tie the laces on her shoes. But she
treated him as an equal, loved him, listened to him, did not ask a thing of him
in return.

Pierce Foster had done many bad deeds in his lifetime. He’d
been a pickpocket as a lad, he’d ruined men because he could. He’d gambled and
drank and pleasured himself with more women than he cared to count. But hurting
Lady Clarissa Darlington was one bad deed too many. He couldn’t bear it. But he
couldn’t bear losing her, either. And in telling her the truth, surely she
would slip from his grasp.

* * * * *

“C.?”

Clarissa blinked her eyes open to find Pierce standing over
her, a candle in his hand, his lithe body haloed in the gentle, flickering
glow. She’d waited up for him to come to her as he did every evening after
completing his duties belowstairs. Tonight, he had not come, and she’d grown
tired waiting. She’d curled up into his pillow and fallen asleep.

“Pierce?” She stretched and gave a tiny yawn. “Where have
you been?”

“Working.” His jaw tightened.

“Of course.” She extended her arm to him in welcome. “Won’t
you come to bed? I’ve missed you.”

She sensed a palpable difference in him tonight. He was not
his usual, carefree self. Gone was the grinning, winking lover she had come to
know. Worry stirred within her. “Won’t you come to bed?” she asked again.

He deposited the candle on a nearby table. With one hand, he
pulled the buttons of his shirt free of their moorings with such force more
than one could be heard skittering along the wooden planks of the floor.

She caught a glimpse of his muscled chest in the flickering
light. His face bore a haunted expression. There was an animal magnetism about
him tonight that tantalized and startled her at the same time.

“Is something amiss?”

He dropped his shirt first, then his breeches. “Everything
is bloody well amiss.”

She tried not to admire the beauty of his naked body and
failed utterly. His cock rose proud and hard at the juncture of his strong
thighs. “Won’t you tell me what is wrong?”

“What’s wrong is you naked in bed without me.”

Somehow, she didn’t quite believe him. But given his dark
mood, she was reluctant to press him. She threw the bedclothes to the side,
exposing her body. Her pulse quickened at the wicked glint in his gaze.

He joined her on the bed, running his hands over her breasts
and lower, to her pussy. “I want to fuck a different way tonight.”

His crude language gave her pause for a moment. “There is
more than one way?”

He laughed but the sound held little mirth. “God yes,
darling. Let me show you.”

With a gentleness that belied the storm clearly roiling
within him, he lifted her into a sitting position. He caught her face in his
palms. “Kiss me, princess.”

She pressed her body into his, feeling his cock hard against
her belly and threw her arms around his neck, bringing his lips to hers. His
tongue slipped in her mouth. He tasted of brandy and smoke.

“Turn around, darling,” he commanded, voice gruff yet
sensual against her lips.

Angels in heaven
. She searched his gaze, trying to
determine what he wanted of her and seeing nary a hint. Confused yet aroused,
she did as he asked, sliding about on the sheets until she presented him with
her back. He swept her long hair to the side. A pair of warm lips settled at
the nape of her neck, then lower, all the way down her spine.

“On your hands and knees,” he instructed and placed her as
he wished at the same time.

Clarissa looked at him over her shoulder. She felt open, at
his mercy, wanton and wicked. Her pussy was slick with wetness, throbbing for
his cock. She tilted her bottom up for him. His fingers entered her, sending
pure pleasure skittering over her senses. She wanted more. As if he knew her
body better than she, he replaced his fingers with his cock. With a slow thrust
that took her breath, he was inside her, so deep she could scarcely maintain
her sanity.

He pumped into her, his rhythm gradually increasing until it
was almost as fast as her heart’s frantic beat. She came almost at once, unable
to bear the pleasure without shattering. Her pussy clamped tightly around him
and he groaned.

“Do you like what I do to you, princess?”

“I love it.”

His pace increased again, his cock thrusting in and out of
her. “Tell me what you like.”

She could hear the sounds of her own wetness and it made her
want to come again. “I like your cock inside me.”

“Hell, princess.” He surged inside her, rotating his hips as
he came and bringing her once more to climax.

As one, they collapsed to the bed, breathless. A sheen of
sweat coated their naked bodies in the low light. Clarissa had never loved him
more.

Chapter Four

When she woke the next morning, Pierce was gone. From the
sounds emanating from the streets below, many of The Painted Lady’s patrons
were just ending their evenings of debauchery. Loud, drunken voices echoed.

Clarissa rose and slipped on a dressing gown neatly placed
at the foot of the bed for her. As she crossed the room to the window, a thump
caught her attention. A journal lay open on the floor. She must have somehow
knocked it from the nearby writing desk.

One name on the open page caught her attention.
Darlington.

* * * * *

She strode into Pierce’s study without bothering for
Henderson to announce her. Pierce was seated behind a large desk, poring over
what appeared to be a ledger, pen in hand. He glanced up from his work as she
bustled into the room. A smile kicked up the corner of his mouth as he rose and
offered her a bow.

“Good morning, C. I trust you slept well?”

She flushed at the subtly couched reference to their evening
together. It had been frantic, passionate. Intense. But she would not let him
sway her with charm or seduction. Her decision had been reached and she knew
well what must be done.

“I want to go home,” she informed him in her iciest voice.

His features hardening, he dropped his pen to the desk.
“What is this nonsense?”

“Do you think revenge is nonsense, Mr. Foster?”

“Princess, don’t—”

“Do not call me that.” There was more stone in her voice
than even she recognized. Deep inside her wounded heart, she had somehow
unearthed more strength than she had known she possessed.

“Lady Clarissa. It would seem you’ve been snooping through
my personal papers.” Pierce’s voice grew curt and cool. “Taking you home is
impossible, I fear. You have no home.”

“I realize we are pockets to let, but the home remains.”

He paused, weighing his words, expression impenetrable. “It
is mine.”

Shock rendered her speechless for a few tense moments. His
deception had gone deeper than she realized, then. He had claimed to be giving
her father a reprieve from the thirty thousand pounds he owed, but in truth,
Pierce had merely been removing him from the home he had acquired. Likely it
was how he’d known of her father’s mortgaging.