She shrieked, her hand clamping down on him almost painfully, and if he didn’t know better he would think she’d never felt a man’s hands on her before. She was aroused, maybe as hot as he was—there was no way for her to fake the wetness between her thighs, and he wanted to see her come, wanted to make her as helpless and lost in pleasure as he planned on being. She’d teased him, kept him dangling on a string for too long, and he was going to do a bit of the same to her, bring her to the brink and then pull back, so that she knew what frustration was like. He circled her with his thumb, bringing her wetness with him, and before he could stop her she came, hard, her body clamping down on his fingers as they thrust inside her, her entire body rigid as she exploded with a silent scream.
He couldn’t wait any longer. He gave her a moment, until she fell back limply on the bed, then covered her, shoving his pants down and moving between her legs. His cock felt huge, and he set it where his fingers had been, rubbing the head of it against her, mingling his wetness with hers, a joining of readiness neither of their bodies could deny. He started to push inside her.
He felt the jolt of shock run through her, and her hands caught his shoulders, digging in. But she didn’t push him away—at least that little bit of playacting was over with. He paused, his cock just barely inside her, fighting to control his need to rut. “You want this?” He knew she did—her body didn’t lie nearly as well as her mouth did. But he needed there to be no mistake about what was going on between them. The game was ending. Les jeux sont faits. The game is played.
There was a breathless, endless pause. And then the one syllable he needed in her hoarse voice. “Yes.”
He slammed into her, driving deep and hard, so needy that there was no more polite maneuvering. He was unprepared for her reaction. She screamed, this time out loud, convulsing against him, and it wasn’t in pleasure, but pain. He froze, deep inside her, blessedly deep, her body clutching his, throbbing around him. Women had told him he was bigger than most men, and she’d done something to make herself tight, and he should have remembered before thrusting into her so hard, but he hadn’t been able to resist. He’d hurt her, he should do something, but he heard her shattered breath beneath him, and her legs moved around him, accommodating him, and he could no longer think, didn’t want to think. He only needed to move, to thrust, to find the release so long delayed. He buried his face in her neck, forcing his body to slow, hard thrusts. He was slick with sweat and so was she, and she was clinging to him tightly, holding on, gasping as he thrust, back and forth, a heavy rhythm that was almost costing him his sanity. He wanted her to come again, but something was off, something was wrong, and all he could do was drive himself home and then deal with it.
He pulled her legs tighter around his hips, driving into her, and finally he was there, and he wanted to spill inside her, so badly, but he pulled out, letting his seed pulse on her stomach as he sank against her with a deep groan, his whole body shaking with the power of his release.
He didn’t know how long it was before he realized she was holding him almost tenderly, her hand stroking the back of his neck with delicate, strong fingers. He nuzzled against her, purring like some huge jungle cat. When he could he lifted his head to smile down at her, to kiss her, and then he stilled.
He had always been able to see well in the dark—his night vision was extraordinary. He could see her face, the shocky whiteness of it, the dried tracks of tears down her cheeks, the dark, confused pools of her eyes. She looked like someone who’d been assaulted.
He pulled away from her in sudden horror. She’d said yes, damn it. She was a hired whore, a woman good at playing games. He didn’t like this game at all.
“What . . . ?” he said hoarsely.
And then she smiled at him, a beatific smile that warmed her eyes, even if his uneasiness still lingered. “Come back,” she whispered, a siren call drowning out his sudden misgivings.
He could no more resist than he could stop his heart from beating. He sank down beside her, into her arms, held with such tenderness it made him ache. A moment later he was asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOPHIE COULD TELL WHEN his breathing slowed and he sank into a deep sleep. His muscles relaxed, and she knew she could let him go and he wouldn’t notice. She didn’t want to. She wanted to burrow against his big, strong body and hide. She felt . . . so many things. Shame. Anger. Pain. A strange churning inside her that seemed to claw at her, demanding something. She should hate him. He’d ruined everything. But all she could do was hold him to her, her fingers in his long, silky hair.
r /> She knew, deep in her bruised heart, that this had been her fault, not his. She was the one who had let sheer, overwhelming animal attraction distract her; she was the one who had held him and told him yes. She could come up with all sorts of excuses, but in the end she had to answer to herself. And she knew that no excuse would absolve her of this.
She’d ruined her life for a moment of pleasure. Well, to be sure, there had been more than a few moments, and while the tearing pain when he’d thrust all the way inside her had been like cold water on a bonfire, there had still been a kind of primitive joy in the possession, even as it hurt.
It always hurt the first time, Bryony had informed her with the knowledgeable voice of a confirmed virgin. It hurt a lot more than she’d thought, but then, Alexander hadn’t made any effort to ease it for her. She could be angry with him about that, she thought, as she stroked his smooth, damp skin. But in the end she knew that she was the one to blame.
This was such a strange feeling, as if that rough, erotic joining had forever changed her heart and soul. This was a random coupling for him, but it was something more for her. A gift, a promise, a connection that wouldn’t be easily broken, no matter what happened next.
And nothing would happen next. She had to leave, just as she’d planned, and pretend this had never happened.
Let go of him, she told herself, but her arms didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her brain. Move away, pull yourself together, and assess the damage. She couldn’t. Soon enough she was going to have to disappear, get away from here and try to regain some semblance of her life. But for just a few moments more she wanted to sink into the feel of him.
A murky light was beginning to seep through a crack in the curtains, and sudden shock made Sophie release him and roll on her back, looking upward. Looking up at what she’d always looked up at during her years at Renwick—the top of the coffered ceiling. She was in her old room, her old bed. She’d just been deflowered in the very bed, perhaps the very sheets, where she’d formed such romantic fantasies about it. The handsome, deferential lordling, shy and adoring, the coupling that had been long on bliss and short on detail.
Instead she’d been roughly taken by a cynic, a sarcastic creature with demonic eyebrows and the eyes of a lost soul, damn him. The sooner she got away from him the better, or she’d start to romanticize the whole thing. This should have cured her of the notion that she was falling in love with him. This was reality.
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to crawl under his body, feel him all around her, his heat, his strength.
She had to go.
She inched away from him, rolling over on her stomach as she stared blindly into the darkness. This was no time for longing for the impossible; this was a time for action. She pressed her face against the cool sheet. It smelled like Renwick, it smelled like Alexander, it smelled like sex, a perfume of pain and complexity that wrung her heart.
But her heart could have nothing to do with it, she reminded herself. Escape was what mattered, before he woke up, before anyone woke up. Fortunately she was already packed.
She slid from the bed, but he slept on, like a rock. It took her a while to find her discarded shift, and when she did, she pulled it over her head. It was still slightly damp from her dip in the pool, and she shivered, but there was nothing she could do about it. She closed the door quietly behind her, and her bare feet were silent as she ran down the hall and the front stairs she’d played on when she was younger.
When she stepped outside, the grass was cold and wet with dew, and she was shivering by the time she found her discarded dress and petticoats. His shirt lay there as well, and she was so cold she pulled it on against the early morning chill. Prunella and Gracie would be up any time now, getting started on the early morning baking, and Dickens was right about one thing: The staff knew everything. She needed to run.
She didn’t wait to get dressed. She couldn’t find her shoes anywhere, and finally she gave up, slipping inside the kitchen to grab her valise. At the last minute she took a hunk of cheese and a loaf of yesterday’s bread, suddenly famished. And then she was gone into the early morning mist.
Alexander was not a man who woke up quickly. It took him a damned long time; he came awake in stages, helped by large amounts of coffee, and woe betide any fool who yammered at him before he was good and ready to hear another human voice. Dickens knew this full well, and had continued to live a good long life because of it.