The Corrupt Comte (20 page)

His full lips moved against her, the sensations he elicited creating an inferno of need between them. He groaned, an angry, animal sound. Her nipples hardened into painful points she couldn’t ignore. Without thinking, she pinched them between her fingertips, unable to control her shuddering response. She was succumbing to rapture with each deliberate swipe of his tongue against her sex, acquiescing—submitting, ultimately—to whatever pleasure the
comte
could wring from her.

That pleasure approached, steadily creeping through her singing limbs and hazy mind to tease, to tempt. But then the temptation abruptly stopped, and he leaned back.

Her eyes flashed open. “What…? Why d-did you…?” She writhed, her body aching with thwarted lust.

He grunted as he grabbed her wrists and hauled them both to their feet. “I told you, when I ruin you it will be on that bed.” He turned suddenly, taking her with him, and walked her steadily backward toward the bed, rough hands manacling her wrists.

She stumbled as her heels caught in her discarded gown, and he released her wrists to steady her with his arms around her waist. Her hands fell to his bare chest, fingers curling automatically into the hair covering his firm musculature.

“You feel g-good,” she mumbled as her fingertips pressed into muscle.

He dropped his head, capturing her lips in a swift kiss, even as they continued to move away from the heart. “You taste good.” His tongue swept over her lower lip.

She opened for him, her own tongue darting out to taste herself on his lips. “Yes, I d-do,” she agreed, enjoying the musky, salty-sweet tang that clung to his skin.

“
Dieu.
” He kissed her hard, one hand gripping her waist with near-bruising force, the other dancing madly up and down her side, shaping the sweeping curve from her bosom, down her rib cage, to the flare of her hip. “Too much,” he breathed against her lips. “You are too much.”

He broke the kiss, and she wanted to keep petting him, entranced by the springy softness of those golden-brown hairs, but he turned her to face the bed, depriving her of further exploration.

“This way.” His splayed hand found the middle of her back and applied pressure, until she bent at the waist.

She planted her elbows on the mattress, uncertainty rising to the fore, sloughing the rough edges from her desire. “What lesson are you t-teaching m-m-me now?”

“The best lesson.” His boots were kicked aside, followed by the sounds of what could only be him shedding his breeches.

“Which is?”

“That no man can ever make you feel as I will.”

Then it wouldn’t be the best lesson, but the worst, and she knew she should hate him for it.

Hearing the crisp crinkle of paper behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. “What is th-that?” The shadows of the room and the speed of his fingers made it difficult for her to see the details of what he was doing, but he’d drawn…something…over the rigid length of his penis, fumbling only slightly at the base.

“It protects you,” he answered between gritted teeth.

“From what?”

“From me.” He stepped into her, gripping his cock in one hand as he prodded her slick entrance with its blunt head.

Her head fell forward onto the mattress, eyes sliding shut at the sensation. She didn’t need to see him anymore, just feel, but she couldn’t resist asking, “Why d-do I need p-protection from you?” She wiggled her backside in excitement, inviting it—
him
—in. “Gaspard…”

His hand clamped at her hip. “Be still,” he snapped, and she stilled, a needy whimper born of the anticipatory shivers racing up and down her spine escaping her parted lips.

A gentle nudge, and his thick crown was lodged in her opening. “I wish…I want to feel you. Just you.” Both of his hands settled on her bottom now, spreading her rudely apart.

She didn’t have to look at him to feel his tiger’s gaze searing her most intimate areas. With a shudder, she fisted the bedcovers. “C-can’t you?” Whatever he’d taken from that paper pouch separated his flesh from hers, but couldn’t he feel this? Couldn’t he feel the heat between them? The blinding, pulsing need?

Her body clenched instinctively at the thought, tearing a groan from him. His fingers bit into her skin. “If you were mine…”

She turned her face into the bed, her confession muffled against red satin and white linen. “I
am
yours.” Stupid man.

“But only tonight. You are only mine tonight.” He slid into her on a slow glide. “Ah,
putain
,” he swore.

Big
. So much bigger than his fingers, stretching her wide, delving deep. A controlled stroke into her body, and they moaned in tandem when his hips pressed into her bottom.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, though it didn’t hurt, and when he started to withdraw, her eyes snapped open and she lifted her head to plead with him. “No!”
Don’t leave, don’t go, don’t leave
.

Beads of perspiration dampened the hair at his temples, his face a study in concentration. Determination. “You want this?” He rolled his hips, seating himself deeper once more.

“Y-yes.” Oh, God, she couldn’t even say “Y” words anymore without her condition rearing its ugly head. He was shredding every ounce of control she possessed with his hands and his cock and the way the firelight burnished his muscled torso bronze. Her gaze skated over the curved contours of his upper arms, so heavy and masculine and— “P-please, no…” He’d pulled back again, and the wretched sensation of his withdrawal had her arching her back, eyes squeezed shut as she buried her face in the bunched bedclothes.

His hand petted down her spine, the soothing caress relaxing the tension gathered along her nerve endings. “In and out, kitten,” he murmured, accented English hoarse, pained. He thrust forward, filling her. “That is how we fuck.” Another retreat. Then he set a rhythm that had her understanding exactly what he meant.

Her fingers dug into the mattress as each deep thrust threatened to shove her across the bed. His hand on her hip kept her in place, and his free hand came around to toy with one of her sensitized nipples, teased by the linen sheets every time he moved within her. Her inner muscles clenched around him as he pinched, tugged, and he grunted in response.

The coarse hair on his thighs abraded the backs of hers. The skin stretched taut over his lean hips was cool with exertion, each animalistic slap against her buttocks spurring her to writhe harder, to push back in welcome for every measured thrust. Even as her mind clouded, even as she tumbled further into the beckoning darkness of lustful sin, she remained aware of the
comte
’s unraveling.

The first clue was his words. “So…so…” A frustrated sound as her language failed him, and momentary sympathy opened her eyes so she could look back at him, encouraging.

He switched to French, harsh and guttural, a wave of uncultured consonants and vowels spilling from between his full, tempting lips. “You’re so tight,
mon ange
. So tight…and wet…and hot.” Each word was punctuated by a thrust. “Do you like my cock inside you?”

His
bite
. She recognized the word. Gaze locked with his, she answered in English. “Yes. I love it.”

“Tell me you want it.”

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He was power behind her, embodied and alive, and new tension coiled low in her belly, knotting her insides with the deliciously jarring invasion of his body into hers, and she bowed before him, supplicant and slave. Nothing but feeling now, a writhing mass of sensation that pushed closer and closer to the edge each time he stretched her inner walls.

“I w-want it. I w-want your c-cock.” This time, her stutter had nothing to do with her condition and everything do with Gaspard’s forcefulness.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “I need to come. I need you to come.” He leaned over her, teeth nipping her shoulder blade, her neck, a sharp bite of her earlobe. She felt him shaking, his ragged breaths heating the side of her throat.

Losing control.

The hand at her breast slid down to the juncture of her thighs, fingers quickly stroking over her clitoris until she vibrated, strung wire taut. Bigger than before, better than before,
this will be so much more
, taunted the voice in her head. Her body, speaking to her, telling her what it already knew, what it had known for centuries, eons. In every age of humanity, there had been this knowledge, leading women such as her into the light, turning sin and shame into joyous celebration. Revelation.

“Oh. Ohhh,” she moaned. “Gaspard…” She closed her eyes, dropped her head. Bit down into red satin with a groan.

“
Come,
” he snarled into her neck, fingers sliding, thumb flying. “Come all over me,
bébé
.”

The string inside snapped, waves of molten heat rolling in on her as she shuddered beneath him. Her throat closed around damning words of love and adoration, even as every inch of her body rejoiced in the certain knowledge that yes, she was his. Yes yes yes and more yes, because her toes curled and her heart beat madly against her ribs and she wanted to feel this way—with him and only him—every single day for the rest of her life.

He swore behind her as his pace quickened, as his thrusts turned jerky. “Oh,
putain
, Claudia,” and then he buried his face in her shoulder as he stiffened, a groan trapped in his throat, escaping in inelegant noises of frenzied satiation.

Even draped over the side of the bed, she felt sleep crawling toward her and turned her face so her cheek was on the bedspread. A sigh left her as her eyes fluttered open, then shut, then open again as he slowly, so slowly, pulled himself from her body, dropping light kisses along her back as he went. Chill air slammed into her when he moved away, and she shivered.

He’d gotten what he wanted from her, so now he would leave.

No.
That wasn’t fair. Gaspard had taken what she’d offered, and in return given her exactly what she asked for. Him. Tonight. Tomorrow, she would belong to the duke—tomorrow, and all the days of her life that followed.

Tears stung, so she mustered the strength to pull herself atop the mattress. The lovely fatigue weighting her limbs made her clumsy, but she managed to grope her way to the pillows at the head of the bed, burying her face in them before her lover—
good Lord
—could catch sight of the wetness leaking down her cheeks.

The bed dipped suddenly, and then his naked body was pressed against her, bare save for the bandage around one forearm. He drew the coverlet over them and proceeded to tuck her bottom into the cradle of his hips. The heat radiating from him was better than any blanket, and she wiped away the evidence of her distress on the pillow’s corner before snuggling back against him.

His lips found her ear as his injured arm wrapped around her. “Let me stay,” he whispered.

She had tonight, and the night would last until dawn breached the bedchamber curtains. So she nodded, because even with his secrets and his lies, the
comte
was still her choice. She’d claimed him with this transient power of hers, and for now, the only secret in her world that mattered was this one.

Chapter Twelve

14 February 1820

The hidden staircase leading down to the
duc d’Évoque
’s study was dark and cold in the early hours of morning. Gaspard’s eyes refused to adjust as he blindly felt his way down the steps, and perhaps this was his body’s means of telling him that he should never have left Claudia’s bed.

Having donned the rough attire he’d worn the night before, he shoved one hand into the pocket of his trousers. The satin ribbon she’d removed from that red, red corset twined about his thumb, and his blood heated at the memory of seeing her bent over the bed, face flushed and hair tangled, fists clutching the bedsheets as she moaned his name.

He’d only taken her the once, but his body ached for more—more of her, more of them. But he had only one letter on him, those protective sheaths the death of his already pitiful accounts and thus needing to be rationed.

Today marked the end of his spying and whoring. No more turning tricks for the Crown, and certainly no more playing Évoque’s little lapdog, sent off to fetch useless intelligence by humping the leg of a randy stranger. It was frivolously degrading, and Gaspard, intimately familiar with degradation, had had enough.

Today was the day Gaspard stole back his freedom.

He paused at the base of the stairs, the chilly draft that seeped in from the outside door wrapping around him like Death’s cloak, and glanced behind him. He saw nothing in the darkness but knew too well what—who—slept peacefully unawares up those steps. His freedom didn’t include Claudia Pascale. One night together was all they had, because today she married the duke.

As soon as Claudia wed into this world, Gaspard planned to leave it behind, in its entirety. In the moments before he had drifted into dreamless sleep, curved around her under the covers, he’d understood what his body—his instincts—had always known.

He wasn’t meant to be a
comte
. He simply wasn’t fucking built for the aristocracy. He’d only survived this long thanks to the innate commonness lurking beneath his skin, the sly, cunning wolf that never truly bought in to what the sheep were telling him.

He refused to stay and watch her don the fleece.