The way Charity’s thighs tensed against a sudden surge of arousal ought to have shamed her. What had become of her? She had been scandalous for years, had been a courtesan for too long to be so distressingly stirred by such a suggestion as that.
“You want to—” She licked her dry lips, running the point of her tongue across them to wet them.
“You want to put your head beneath my skirts and kiss me there?”
“Women enjoy it, do they not?”
“Every bit as much as men do.” Though the men who were willing to perform that act—especially when the woman involved was his mistress, and meant to be dedicated to his pleasure—were vanishingly short in supply.
“Some men, while perfectly willing to…we’ll say, find themselves on the receiving end of such an act, are loath to return the favor. Either they do not enjoy it, or they are not particularly interested in a woman’s pleasure.”
“I would be pleased enough if I could make a woman scream like that.” His hand flattened at the small of her back, no longer the light, tender touch she had first instructed him to give.
“I would be pleased if I could make you scream like that.”
“It’s possible,” she said, wondering when, exactly, her voice had grown so breathy, “that she exaggerated her reaction for her lover’s benefit. Or for those who might be listening.” Still, the thought ignited an illicit thrill, sparking heat low in her belly.
“But there is no balcony. It will be—”
“Fine. So long as you can hold your feet.” He said it as if he had every confidence in her ability to do so, and a breathy laugh stuck somewhere in her throat at the realization that she did not share in that confidence. Already there was a distinct tremble to her knees.
The heat of his hand left her back, and there was a strange blur in the darkness as he went to his knees before her. The scrape of wool across the rough stone beneath her feet—the fine threads of his trousers catching upon it as he eased closer. Chill bumps chased across her skin as his hands snatched at the silk of her skirt, drawing up handfuls of it to slide his fingers beneath.
She pressed her shoulders against the wall at her back, locking her knees as she drew in a deep breath. Even the champagne she had imbibed had failed to offer any relief to the dryness of her throat. Beneath the tight fabric of her bodice, her nipples tightened to hard points. As if of their own accord, her hands settled upon his shoulders, steadying him—steadying herself.
“Touch me, first,” she said, and there was a telling rasp in her voice as his fingers slid up the inside of her thigh.
“Just like—ah, yes.”
She hadn’t had to remind him, to direct him. He was a quick study, had clearly been paying close attention to every lesson which had come before. The very tips of his fingers slid through the curls at the apex of her thighs to the warm, damp flesh beneath. A slow, searching stroke, exploring the delicate flesh that yielded to the pressure of his fingers.
“Yes,” she said on a sigh as he found the bead of her clitoris, circled it with the pad of his thumb. Her fingers kneaded his shoulders in praise.
“Slower,” she murmured. Or she would come entirely too soon. He had to feel the tautness of her thighs, the faint tremble of her hands that she could not quite control.
“So soft.” It was only a murmur, as if he was transfixed by his own actions, by her reactions to them. Deeper strokes, setting her nerves ablaze. The tip of one finger dipped into the hollow of her body, breaching her entrance by a scant inch.
“Yes.” Her hips rocked to that tender touch, seeking to steal more sensation. His finger sank inside her so slowly that she clenched her teeth against the frustration of it.
“Another,” she gasped through it. His fingers were long, thicker than her own, and so much more satisfying. A slow, maddening withdrawal, and then—the delicious stretch of two fingers sliding inside her.
Her head tipped back, crushing the elegant arrangement of her curls against the wall behind her. Somehow she’d clutched a handful of his hair in her fingers, and her thighs pinched against the intrusion of his hand between them as if to trap it in place.
“Now?” His voice had acquired some guttural property that shivered along her skin, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
“Yes. Now. Please.” Now, before she came upon his fingers without ever knowing the touch of his tongue.
He wrestled his way beneath the cling of her skirts, but the press of her thighs challenged him. She bit back a murmur of disappointment as he withdrew his fingers, leaving her empty and aching. A brisk breeze skittered over her shoulders, whisked around her calves, and then—then the pressure of his fingers behind her left knee as he urged her to bend it and string her leg over his shoulder, making space for himself where there had been none.
For a moment she tottered on one foot, suddenly conscious of how tense her body had grown, how she had lifted herself so far into the strokes of his fingers that she had ended up precariously balanced upon her toes.
There was the warmth of his breath against the very heart of her, the minutest scrape of the edge of his domino mask against the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. His fingers found her again, delicately manipulating her quivering flesh, sliding deep within her once more. Her back bowed at the first touch of his tongue, a ragged gasp squeezing itself between the clench of her teeth. Her toes curled.
“Yes,” she sighed.
“There, there.” The pointed tip of his tongue caressed the bead of her clitoris as his fingers plunged.
Deep in his throat he made some sound—some hungry, feral sound of satisfaction—which vibrated along her every nerve. His head was buried beneath her skirts, and her fingers cradled his skull through the fabric, holding him in place where she needed him. Her inner muscles clutched at every thrust of his fingers, seeking to hold him deeper, longer. A spiral of pleasure coiled deep in her belly, crept up the arch of her spine.
Too fleeting a moment, when she had wanted it to last ever so much longer. But she was fast approaching what promised to be a magnificent climax already.
“There,” she said again on an aching whisper, when his tongue circled her clitoris once more.
“Suck, as you would on my nipples.”
The tender lash of his tongue ceded to the delicate pressure of his lips as he placed them around the taut bud, and sucked. In only a moment, fire streaked through her veins with the intensity of a lightning strike, lifting her once more onto her toes as climax struck, swift and brutal. The scream he had wanted to hear tore itself from her lungs, shrill and frenzied, as every muscle locked in an agony of the sweetest release.
It was a long, long moment before she came down once again with a tremulous sigh, wilting against the wall at her back and hearing the tear of fragile threads of silk as the stone connected with her gown. Her fingers scratched at his head as if to lavish praise upon him, praise he had well-earned in his efforts to please her.
He had ruined her for Cyprians’ balls. She would never be able to attend another without thinking of this moment. Ah, well—if it was to be her last, then at least it had been a grand one. Owing in no small part to him.
Anthony was going to make some lady extremely happy someday, she thought as he ducked out from beneath the folds of her gown and let her leg down from its perch upon his shoulder. Her feet steadied her once more as the last tingles of her climax faded at the sobering thought.
Some lady. Lady Cecily, in all likelihood.
But not her. Never her.
***
“Are you certain you wish to leave already?” Anthony asked as he watched the footman he had tasked with sending for his carriage dart off in the direction of the door.
“It’s been—what, an hour?” He had, after all, promised her his company for the evening so that she could enjoy herself at an event she had not allowed herself to attend in years.
“An hour has been enough,” Charity said, her voice more than a touch breathless, her fingers clutching the sleeve of his coat where they rested over his elbow.
“I’ve had my fill of it already. Will you take me home in your carriage?”
“Yes, of course.” It was safe enough at this time of night, he supposed, provided he did not accompany her inside. Which was not to say that she would have extended the invitation. But that she wished to leave so soon—had he done something wrong? Said something wrong, something which had soured her upon the evening? Of course he did not know how he was meant to comport himself at such an event, but he’d thought he’d done a fairly admirable job of following where she had led.
And yet she charged on ahead of him, to all accounts just as eager to leave the ball as she had been to arrive at it, her grasp firm upon his arm as she sailed in the direction of the front door, skirting with effortless grace around those who had lingered to chat in the halls. By contrast, he felt large and ungainly, stumbling after her, nudging an occasional shoulder as they passed.
Presumably she would have dragged him all the way to the carriage, had she not been forced to a halt by the sudden clench of a hand upon her upper arm.
She drew herself back as far as she could, directing a withering stare at the offender who had dared to touch her without invitation.
“My lord,” she said, in a voice so scathing it could have stripped the varnish from furniture.
“Release me at once.”
Anthony did not recognize the man who had seized her arm, who wore a distinct drunkard’s flush and little enough else, but a distant recollection floated through his mind, the warning given to him by Charity’s last benefactor—that he had, on occasion, found it necessary to put the fear of God into some of the more persistent gentlemen who had pursued her past the point of reason and over her own objections.
His hackles raised at the affront of it, Anthony positioned himself just behind her; a steadying, reassuring presence at her back. Reinforcement, had she need of it.
The man flicked him only the slightest glance, swiftly redirecting his attention to Charity—or her breasts, at any rate, offering a leer that made Anthony’s skin crawl.
“Charity,” the man said, his fingers tightening upon her arm to the point of whitening her skin beneath the pressure.
“I had heard you were in attendance this evening.”
Anthony curled his free hand over her shoulder to make the point that he was her chosen companion for the evening, and Charity drew in a deep breath, her shoulders easing from their rigid set. As if only that small touch from him had calmed her escalating ire.
“I have refused you already, my lord,” she said firmly.
“Release me.”
“Whatever he’s paying you,” the man said, in tones of drunken desperation, “I’ll double it. Treble it.”
“The lady asked you to release her,” Anthony said, and the cut of his voice through the sudden stillness ought to have been in itself a warning.
But the man was inebriated past the point of rationality, past the point of good sense or the manners which ought to have been second-nature to a peer.
“Lady?” An incredulous laugh issued from the offender’s mouth.
“She’s no lady. She’s a whore.”
“She is more a lady than you could ever be a gentleman,” Anthony snarled. It was a matter of moments to pry loose the fingers that had imprinted themselves upon Charity’s delicate skin and ease her to one side, safely out of the way. He had only a half-second’s satisfaction of the fool’s shocked face before the strike of his fist sent the bastard reeling, tumbling arse over heels on his descent to the floor, where he ended up in an unsightly—and thoroughly undignified—sprawl. There was a spurt of blood from a nose most likely broken, but the only sound the man uttered was a low groan before he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Charity issued a single, surprised trill of laughter, clapping one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. But the raw delight in her dark eyes could not be so constrained, nor could the tremble of her shoulders with the force of her muted mirth.
Had he been thinking clearly, it might have occurred to him in the moments prior that causing such a scene could hardly be beneficial—but it seemed that the interest they had so briefly commanded had waned nearly the instant the man had got his reckoning. The chatter resumed once again, and the party continued about them as if there were not a man—a lord—laid out upon the floor in a shameful state of undress, unconscious as they milled about around him. And over him, it seemed, when his lax body had proved to be too much in the way.
“Let’s go,” Charity said, her eyes glinting merrily. And this time as she grabbed his hand, she interlaced their fingers as she led him through the front door and out into the night.
The carriage had arrived, waiting just outside the house. Charity scrambled inside it with a surprising alacrity, as if she could hardly wait for it to convey them away from the ball, sinking into the shadows of the interior with a sigh of relief as Anthony paused on the pavement to convey her address to his coachman.
He ought to say something, he thought as he climbed into the carriage and closed the door behind him. The carriage rumbled into motion, carrying them away from the raucous ball, and he wished he could see her face in the darkness, wished he might judge by the expression upon it whether her amusement had been just a temporary madness owing to the sheer absurdity of the situation.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“I hope I have not caused problems for you there.” He couldn’t be certain how events thrown by the demimonde were governed, but within the Ton, those who had caused such disturbances could not, generally, expect to receive future invitations.
“Don’t be,” she said, and Anthony found himself relieved that her voice was warm, pleased.
“He’ll suffer for it; not I. It is not done to make such brazen overtures to someone else’s mistress. It is a trespass that will not soon be forgotten.” There was the rustle of silk in the darkness, a shift in the cool air.
“You defended my honor,” she said, in a low, wondering tone.
“Of course I did,” he said.
“He was a blithering arse, and he ought to count himself lucky I didn’t choose to break anything more than his nose.” He had considered, however briefly, rendering a swift and vicious kick to the man’s unguarded genitals in the hopes that it might make his pursuit of an uninterested woman moot—at least for some time to come.
“There are some,” Charity said softly, “more than some, most likely, who would say I’ve no honor to defend. That I surrendered any claim to it when I chose to become a courtesan.”
“What rubbish,” he said.
“Those people don’t matter. The only opinion which matters is your own.”
“Yes, it is.” He could hear the smile in her voice, as if she had been well pleased by the response—a lesson he had finally taken to heart.
“Still, it is…nice to be so defended. Even if I am quite capable of defending myself.”
“Are you?” he asked, interested.
“Oh, yes. I keep a knife in my reticule. I’ve only had to use it a handful of times, but I’ve come out the victor each one of them. He is lucky you struck him,” she said, and there was a sibilance in her voice which suggested a streak of malevolence which had been only slightly appeased, “because if you had not, he would soon have found himself light a finger or two.”
In no way did she sound as if she were jesting—but he found himself smiling anyway, at the savagery of it. That she had not found fault with him being so quickly moved to violence, as she had been contemplating a bit of it herself.
“And what would you have done, then, if you had relieved a lord of his fingers? He might have set the police upon you.”
“No chance of that. Then his wife would learn where he had been this evening.”
“Is that a problem? You said many of those in attendance were married.”
“It would be a problem for him,” she said, and he felt the heat of her body as she used the slowing of the carriage in a turn to shift herself from her seat to his. She settled beside him with a sigh.
“His wealth is on account of his wife’s father’s largesse. He won’t risk those purse strings snapping shut. Probably,” she said idly as she placed her hand upon his knee, “he would have made up some story about having been attacked by footpads.”
“And you were considering this before I struck him,” he said.
“Whether or not you might get away with it.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, curling up against his side.
“But mostly I was considering the stains that the blood would have left upon my gown. It is so hard to get blood out, you see.”
Anthony choked upon a laugh.
“Somehow,” he said, “that does not surprise me in the least.”
“Does it not? How marvelous. Then this will not surprise you, either.” Her hand slid up the wool of his trousers, expertly finding the fall and flicking loose a button.
Anthony sucked in a breath at the pressure of her slender fingers palming his cock over the fall of his trousers. Their encounter in the garden had left him in a bit of a state, which had naturally diminished itself somewhat during the altercation in the hall—but now that same violent arousal came roaring back once more, his cock stiffening with fierce swiftness to the strokes of her hand.
“Christ,” he muttered, tensing his thighs.
“This is why I wanted to leave,” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear.
“I don’t mind such things as trysts in gardens, where anyone might stumble across us…but I think you would, at least a little.” She gave a wicked little laugh as she slipped off the seat, her hands falling upon his knees to press them open and slide between them.
“And I do want you to enjoy this.”