The Lover (17 page)

Trust me
, he had said.

But she didn't.

It was so difficult to trust when all her life she had been warned not to.

Anne took a deep breath. "Tell me what to do. How to do it."

The steel hat pin winked.

Hollows indented his cheeks; the raw-looking scars lining his high cheekbone and temple whitened. "Take me in your mouth."

"Say it in French." She heard her voice over the drum of her heartbeat. "Talk to me like you did the others…"

The women who were beautiful. Gay. Frivolous.

Everything she was not.

For a long second even the rhythmical pounding inside her fist stopped. Sunlight ebbed and swelled around them, defining glistening flesh, gray wool, white linen, and shiny metal.

Across the library the burning coals ceased to snap and pop.

And then…

"
Prends-moi dans la bouche
." Take me into your mouth.

Closing her eyes, she took him into her mouth. The steel pin continued to glint in her mind's eye.

"
L'eche-moi
." Lick me.

She licked him.

"
Mords-moi
." Bite me.

She gently nibbled on him.

"
Suce-moi
." Suck me.

She sucked him.

"
Plus pro fond
." Deeper.

She took him deeper, lips working against the circle of her fingers.

"
Plus fort
." Harder.

She drew deeply on the silky hard flesh inside her mouth, as he had drawn on her breast. A woman taking sustenance from a man.

Did he feel this closeness when he suckled a woman
? she wondered.

Had he felt it when he suckled
her
?

His scar-roughened fingers dug into the base of her head.

"
Plus vite
." Faster.

Anne felt the fragility of her neck, the masculine strength in his hand. The feminine power of her touch.

She took him faster, trembling on the verge of discovery, utterly lost in the taste and texture of Michel des Anges.

His flesh hardened. Thickened.

Something was happening. Something quite incredible.

It felt as if he were about to explode inside her mouth.

A sharp ping resounded beside her. Vaguely she identified it as the hat pin bouncing on the wooden floor. At the same time both of Michel's hands clamped about her neck and he hoarsely shouted, "
N'arrête pas
! Jesus! Don't stop!"

Liquid spurted against the back of her throat.

It was hot. Thick.

Exhilarating. Empowering.

It was the essence of Michel's pleasure.

Anne instinctively swallowed.

And yes, she
did
like it.

Sauce. Blanc. Came.

The French terms rolled on her tongue.

Her hat flew off the top of her head. Suddenly she was standing, blinking in surprise. Strong fingers tangled in her hair, dislodging the pins securing her bun. Hair slithered down her back.

Michel's face was flushed; his eyes were narrow shards of violet. "I won't hurt you," he whispered fiercely.

"You didn't hurt me," she reassured him shakily, equally enthralled by both the wonder of his orgasm and her ability to effect it. "I—"

His dark face swooped down. He stole the words from her mouth, and then he stole her breath, lips grinding against hers, tongue plunging between her teeth.

She was arrested by the unexpected fervor of his embrace. Or perhaps it was fear that held her immobile.

This
, she realized with a frisson of alarm, was the difference between a lover and a man employed to ensure a woman's satisfaction.

This was a man out of control.

This was a man's passion.

"I won't hurt you," he repeated raggedly, inside her mouth, against her lips. More hair cascaded down her back; a tiny rain of
pings
, impacting hairpins, reverberated over the harsh sound of his breathing and the thudding cadence of her heartbeat. "I promise. No matter what, I won't hurt you. Kiss me. Kiss me back. Suck my tongue like you did my
bitte
."

Anne tentatively reached up and kissed him back, suckling his tongue as she had suckled his manhood.

She grabbed his shoulders at the sudden loosening of her dress, her corset…

"The servants—"

His hand flattened against her lower back. "Will not intrude."

The thin cotton chemise did not shield her from the heat of his skin. A matching ball of heat glowed inside her stomach.

It was ridiculous, of course, but she fancied she could feel his sperm inside her. It was every bit as hot as the pressure molding her spine.
The breath gusting against her cheek
. His tongue filling her mouth.
The masculine flesh prodding her abdomen
.

Anne imagined that heat spurting deep inside her vagina, jetting against her womb as it had jetted against the back of her throat.

Gasping for oxygen, she tore her mouth away from the scalding furnace that was his mouth.

"Have you ever ejaculated inside a woman's vagina without benefit of a French letter?"

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Michel stilled, violet eyes watchful, intensity banked. A man once again in control of his passion. "Yes."

Anne's heartbeat fluttered.
How quickly he recovered from intimacy
.

She firmed her chin. "Is there another means of protection, then, that may be used to prevent conception?"

His irises were translucent in the sunlight, like colored glass. His contracted pupils were as black as jet beads. "Yes."

"What?"

"There are things that you can use. Devices that fit up inside you."

"Do they hurt?"

"No."

"Do they lessen a woman's pleasure?"

"I have been told that they do not."

"Where does a woman obtain these devices?"

"Through a physician."

She frowned. "Not through a chemist?"

"The most effective contraceptive requires an examination so that the proper size can be prescribed."

Anne did not need to ask what part of a woman's anatomy a physician examined in order to prescribe this mysterious device.

It was impossible to think of physicians and the pain they wrought when she was pressed this closely to his body.

She lowered her gaze. Blood rapidly pulsed through the artery underneath his jawbone. An answering rhythm pulsed deep inside her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For your honesty."

The blood pumped more quickly through the vein. She saw the muscles in his throat contract as he prepared to speak, but suddenly she did not want to hear what he said.

"And for sharing your pleasure," she blurted out. The back of her throat burned slightly, as if she had swallowed salt water. "It was quite educational."

And redeeming.

She would never again think of a man's sperm as being solely intended to impregnate a woman.

"I have not finished sharing my pleasure with you," he murmured huskily, fingers kneading her spine. Her bustle did not stop the path of erotic sensation. "Or contributing to your education."

Her hair felt heavy and hot. The afternoon sunlight no doubt illuminated every single strand of gray.

"Please do not feel compelled to reciprocate my attentions. I am more than content."

"But I am compelled." He nudged her stomach; he was hard. Erect. "I told you what I would do. And I won't be content until I do it."

He had promised to tickle her clitoris with a feather until she screamed for him to stop.
But he wouldn't stop
.

Heaven knew, she didn't want him to stop. Not now. Not ever.

But that was the price of a liaison.

It did not last forever.

"And afterward?" She continued to watch the thrumming and throbbing of the blood pumping through his artery. "Will you show me how to accept you in my other orifice?"

"Not today."

Startled, she glanced up. "Why not?"

The heat inside Michel's eyes impaled her. "There are other things I want to do. Other avenues I want to explore."

Anne stared into his gaze… and felt as if she would incinerate. "I believe one of the chaise lounges will offer an interesting variation to a bed."

"But I don't want you on a chaise lounge."

She dug her fingers into his shoulders, wanting to touch his naked flesh. Wanting him to touch her naked flesh.
Wanting to give him whatever he wanted
. "What do you want, Michel?"

"I want you sitting in a wing chair. Naked. Here. Facing the sunlight. With a leg over each chair arm so that you are completely open when I tease you with the feather. Inside. And out."

One… two…

Michael waited on the balcony, staring at the dim balls of gaslights that burned throughout London, and counted the distant bongs.

He pictured Anne asleep in his bed, her hand curled against her cheek.

And he felt again the vibrating hums of pleasure she had emitted while sucking his cock.

A sigh of motion sounded behind him. It was followed by the click of a closing door.

"You drugged her."

Gabriel's voice was coldly matter-of-fact.

Michael did not turn around. Nor did he respond to the question that was no question.

There had been no other alternative. He had not wanted to chance Anne's being awake when Gabriel arrived, so he had added a drop of laudanum to her after-dinner glass of wine. Then he had drunk the remainder of the bottle of wine from the container of her body and loved her to sleep.

"You used your key," he said instead, squelching a spurt of possessive anger that Gabriel had trespassed into his bedroom, observing Anne and the unmistakable heaviness of her slumber. While she dreamed, hopefully, of the pleasure he had given her. And the pleasure she had given him.

Michael/Michel. Michel/Michael.

For a brief moment his spinster had brought the two together.

And thanked him for his pleasure.

"You didn't summon me to take her." Gabriel was as stealthy as a cat. Michael mentally gauged his distance by his voice. "Or did you?"

It was too late to send Anne away.

Wispy black clouds trailed across the half-moon that lightened the starless sky.

"I summoned you to dispose of the solicitor's body," Michael said flatly.

"Did you kill him?"

"Do you need to ask?" he evenly countered.

Gabriel stepped up to the balcony rail that Michael gripped with both hands. "Why don't you dispose of him yourself?"

"I can't leave Anne."

"Why not?" Gabriel prodded.

Sunlight reflected off of the moon, lending it radiance.

Anne's steel hat pin had been equally reflective of sunlight. The joy she had taken in pleasing him had made her face shine with an inner radiance no less brilliant than the light illuminating the moon.

Her mouth had tasted of him. Of his sperm.

Of her enjoyment in pleasing a scarred whore.

He had not tasted himself on a woman in five years.

Michael imagined the saltiness of his sperm mingled with the sweetness of her arousal—and fought the need to go back inside his bedchamber and share with her the intoxicating flavor of a man and a woman's mutual satisfaction.

"Because he will kill her," he said finally, bleakly. "And I cannot."

Sharp, furious barking broke up the night.

He listened to stray dogs fight—for food? territory? a female?—and knew he was no different from a mongrel.

Michael had spent the last twenty-seven years looking for a home. A woman.

Food that wouldn't turn his stomach.

He had loved Diane's laughter and passion.

Diane had loved his expertise and stamina.

He had never expected her to thank him. And she hadn't.

A yelping whimper punctuated the end of the battle.

"Go to the police," Gabriel said quietly.

Michael bit back a snarl. He turned his head, his gaze catching Gabriel's. "Little is stuffed inside a trunk that just happens to be in my study. Do you think the police are going to believe he was delivered to me by accident?"

Gabriel's eyes glowed in the moonlight, pale, like Anne's. With none of her softness. Her openness.

"What do you want, Michael?"

What do you want, Michel?

The truth pressed in on him.

Yesterday he would have answered differently. But this wasn't yesterday.