Simply Shameless (25 page)

it wasn't as if Sir Harry represented a threat to Marguerite. She started for the door and found her way blocked by Philip.

"Where are you going?"

She gazed up at him, wondered if her doubts were clear on her face as his grip tightened.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure." It was hard to resist the desire to run up the stairs after Marguerite and beg her to come home, but she had no choice. "Can you take me back to the inn?"

"Of course." He took her arm and guided her toward the rear of the inn. "I've heard rumors of a prize fight in one of the taverns on the waterfront. If it's true, we'll have to watch our step."

Outside, the narrow cobbled streets seemed to be full of men of all ages and classes intent on finding the rumored site of the fight. Their excitement generated a frisson of danger in Helene, a sense that violence could erupt at any moment. Philip drew her closer to his side and kept to the inside edge of the walkway.

A roar and the crash of breaking glass ahead of them sent more waves of energy pulsing through the crowd. Philip swore as a gang of sailors started to run through the center of the milling crowd, forcing everyone else to the sides. Helene gasped as Philip was knocked into her, shoving her up against the bow window of a milliner's shop.

"I'm sorry, Helene. Are you all right?"

She caught her breath as the crowd surged around them. It reminded her of her family's capture during the revolution, of the sense of being caught up in something she could not control. The mob had swarmed over her parents' carriage, brought it crashing onto its side, and dragged them out like sacrificial animals to appease their bloodlust.

"Hell and damnation!" Philip caught her around the waist and pulled her back into the comparative safety of an alleyway between two of the shops. The crowd roared past them like a mighty river in flood, unstoppable and uncaring about the damage caused in its wake.

"Helene, say something."

She looked up into Philip's worried face, saw his fierce determination to protect her mirrored in his hazel eyes. She reached out a trembling hand and touched his cheek, desperate for something to connect her with the present, to tear her thoughts away from the horrors of the past.

"Helene ..."

She managed a shaky smile. "I'm fine now. For a moment, I feared myself back in France during the terrors."

"God, I didn't even think about that. I swear I won't let anyone hurt you."

She went up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth. "I know." She kissed him again, harder this time, nipped at his bottom lip. He needed no further invitation to kiss her back, his body pressing her against the uneven stone wall as he devoured her mouth. She slid her hand between them and cupped his balls.

He groaned and stepped away from her. "Not here. It's not safe. We're almost at the Mermaid."

Helene squeezed him once more and then let go. She would have let him take her right then up against the wall but discovered her fear of being found by the mob was even greater.

Philip grabbed her hand and stuck his head out of the alley. "Most of the crowd had disappeared. Let's go."

He yanked hard on her hand and started off down the street. Helene barely had time to grab a handful of her skirts to prevent herself from tripping and was grateful she wore flat-soled walking boots. Her breathing became uneven, but she kept on running as the sign for the Mermaid Inn came into view.

Philip pulled her into the hallway and on up the stairs, slamming their bedroom door shut behind him. Still fighting for breath, she faced him, held his gaze, let him see the lust in her eyes. He leaned against the door, his breathing as ragged as her own.

A muscle flicked in his cheek as he stared at her. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

She shook her head.

"Don't you think I'm entitled to an explanation?"

She concentrated on the hard planes of his face, needed him to touch her so badly that her whole body started to shake.

"I want you to fuck me."

His expression tightened. "Is that all I am to you? Someone to fuck?"

"Isn't that what I am to you?"

"You are more than that, and you know it."

"Because I understand you?"

He took off his coat and hat, and tossed them onto a chair. "Are you suggesting you don't? You are the first woman I've ever told about my wife and her lover."

She shrugged. "I'm a whore. We're supposed to be good at listening."

"You are a liar."

She fed off his anger, encouraged it, fanned it even higher. "How so?"

He advanced toward her. "You use sex to hide your true feelings and to turn men into slavering fools."

She tossed her head. "And you are such an expert about sex."

"I'm experienced enough to know the truth when I see it."

She lowered her gaze as she struggled to assimilate what he had said. How dare he try to tell her why she did anything at all!

"So you don't want to fuck me."

His fingers slid under her chin, and he forced her head up until their eyes met.

"Of course I do, but tonight it will be on my terms, not yours. I intend to make love to you until you beg me to stop."

"No one man has ever managed to satisfy me all night."

"Then tonight will be a first for you, won't it?"

His cold lips closed over hers, and she gasped as his tongue filled her mouth. His hands worked on the buttons and ribbons of her gown and stays, ripping and tearing when he couldn't get access fast enough. With a muttered curse, he backed her toward the bed and sat her on the edge.

He used his broad shoulders to shove her legs apart and slid two fingers right inside her, using his thumb for her clit. Helene moaned as he bent his head and added the torment of his tongue and teeth to her wet, swollen sex. She lifted her hips, seeking the delights of his stabbing tongue, felt her body gather itself for a climax.

He pulled back, his mouth and chin gleaming with her cream, his expression feral. She tried not to writhe and beg for him to let her finish as he stripped off her gown and light stays, leaving her in silk stockings and garters.

"Such a beautiful body, Helene. So easy for a man to lose himself in it and in you."

He slipped one finger inside her, watched as he slid it in and out. The soft wet sucking sounds excited her even more. With his other hand he cupped her breast, used his thumb to bring her nipple to a hard aching point.

She was trembling now, her nerves stretched tight, anticipating his next caress, needing it more than she needed to breathe. He kissed her, his tongue coated in her juices, which she eagerly lapped up.

"You're going to take my cock in your mouth and make me hard now. I want you to do it quick, like a man."

"Like Adam?"

"Yes, like Adam."

To her annoyance, he seemed unsurprised by her knowledge of his sexual activities. Had he come to terms with his needs, then? Had he realized what he truly desired?

He helped her down from the bed and slowly undid his breeches. His shaft already tented his underclothes. He shivered as he pulled them down to reveal his cock.

"Do it."

Helene sank to her knees at his booted feet and licked the dripping crown of his cock. His hand tightened in her hair.

"Take it all."

She opened her mouth wide, and with a surge of his hips, he fed his cock between her lips. She had little time to prepare as he began to push himself deeper with each hard thrust. Not that she minded. She'd wanted to be overwhelmed and dominated, to not be allowed to think of anything but pleasuring him. And he knew that. Despite his irritation, he still knew what she wanted and was more than willing to give it to her.

"Stop now."

She held still as he carefully disengaged his shaft from her mouth and sat heavily into the nearest chair. He patted his knees.

"Come here."

"I'm not your dog."

"You are, however, in need of my cock."

He didn't smile, just continued to stare at her. With a sigh, she complied. He lifted her onto his lap, her thighs straddling his, soft buckskin leather against her naked skin. His thick wet shaft was wedged between them. His fingers and thumbs closed around her nipples and pinched hard, making her moan.

"Do you want my cock?"

"If you want to make love to me until I swoon, then I would say it was a necessity."

He squeezed her nipples again, bent his head to nuzzle the

exposed tips with his tongue and then his teeth. She couldn't help squirming closer to him, her already swollen clit rubbing against the root of his shaft.

"Do you want it, Helene?"

She tried to shake off the waves of intense desire shuddering through her, to find a clever riposte, but she couldn't. He fingered her nipples again tugged at the tips until they ached.

She writhed against him again, every coarse hair on his groin a separate torment against her clit.

"Yes."

He considered her, his eyes narrowed, his lush mouth curved up at one corner. "Tell me exactly what you want."

Helene closed her eyes as he placed his hands around her waist and set her farther back on his thighs, away from his cock. He slipped his hand between her spread thighs and rubbed his palm against her sex.

"You're certainly wet enough, so tell me what you want."

His tone was commanding enough to annoy her, but she was too in need of relief to argue about that now.

She sighed. "I want your cock inside me."

"Just my cock?"

She blinked at him. "What else is there?"

"Whatever I want, surely?" He stretched out his arm and retrieved her hairbrush, measured the length of the handle against his cock. "For example, this would work well."

Helene simply stared at him as her heart rate kicked up. Beneath that harsh exterior, he truly was an exceptionally sensual man. She kept her expression neutral, her voice even more so.

"Do you wish me to use it on you?"

His eyebrows rose. "What?"

She touched the bristles, stroked her fingers over his on the handle. "I can spank you with it." She watched him carefully through her lowered lashes. "Or oil the handle and insert it in your arse." His cock jerked, dripped more precum in a sudden slippery rush. "Perhaps now that you've had Adam, that is really what you prefer."

"I haven't had Adam. I'm not sure I could ever become that intimate with a man."

"Ah, I see. You allow him to pleasure you and give nothing in return—such a gentleman."

He held her gaze and smiled slowly. "I wouldn't say that."

She stared at him, tried to picture him pleasuring a man, and found the image not only believable but highly arousing.

"Perhaps you'll let me watch next time."

"Perhaps." He smoothed his fingers over her hairbrush. "But for now, let's concentrate on you."

Before she could utter another word, he flipped her over onto his lap. Her hair fell over her face as she struggled to right herself, but he was too strong. She shuddered as his hand smoothed over her buttocks.

"Gossip in the kitchen insists that you have never experienced the joys of the top floor yourself. Is that true?"

Helene stopped moving and lay still, trying to catch her breath. She stiffened as Philip caressed her flesh with the flat wooden side of her brush.

"Answer the question, Helene."

"If you are asking if I have never allowed a man to dominate me, then you are correct."

"And why is that?"

"I would think it is obvious."

"You are afraid you might enjoy it too much?"

"Don't be absurd. I've had enough of being forced by men to last me a lifetime."

"I'm not intending to force you."

"Then why won't you let me sit up?" She wiggled in another attempt to get free and felt the swell of his cock jerk against her hip.

"Because I wish to play with the luscious curves of your arse, of course." He moved the brush around, slid his other hand between her legs, and cupped her sex. "You told me you wanted to be fucked all night. Don't you trust me to do that?"

Helene opened her eyes and stared at the worn red pattern on the fireside rug. What did she want? And could she really trust him enough not to hurt her?

"Helene?"

She jerked as he tapped the brush five times against her right buttock and then her left, felt warmth pool in her groin. Each small slap of the brush pushed her against Philip's hand, which covered her already aroused sex.

He did it again, harder this time, then paused to fondle her breasts and tug hard at her nipples. Heat coalesced in her sex, and she shuddered as he resumed his attentions to her buttocks, alternating from left to right. A suggestion of pain shimmered in her mind and was transformed into raging desire.

She sensed she was about to climax without him even penetrating her and pushed shamelessly against his hand. With a muttered curse, he dropped the brush, grabbed her around the waist, and righted her. She screamed as her world revolved, and he impaled her onto his cock in one demanding thrust. She came hard, biting at his mouth as he tried to kiss her, fighting his iron grip on her hips that held her down on him.

Grimly Philip held on, let her pulse and writhe around his cock until she collapsed against his shoulder. He prayed he wouldn't inadvertently make himself come as he lifted her off him and put her back over his lap.

"What are you doing?"

Helene sounded dazed and most unlike herself. He liked that.

"What I want."

He picked up the brush again, studied her now slightly reddened arse. He'd spent some time on the top floor watching the clientele perform outrageous sexual acts. Seeing someone being spanked made him hard as hell. By God, he was hard now, so eager to fuck Helene that it hurt to breathe.

With great care, he stroked the bristled side of the brush over her skin, enjoying the way she trembled at the subtle touch. Her breath hissed out as he applied a little pressure to the figure eight he was making across both her buttocks. He slipped one finger inside her wide wet passage and curled it around to probe that especially sensitive spot.