Page 18

Wrestling herself back from the precipice of bliss, she gripped his thick, loose golden curls in her hands and shoved him away.

His eyes, fierce as fire, glinted with raw hunger and surprise.

Alice luxuriated in wrestling back power over him. “If you are to make me come, I want far more than having my tits played with, Laurence.”

His breath hitched. His eyes darkened. “And what is it my mistress wishes for me to do?” His primally low baritone contained a low, guttural rawness she’d never before heard from him or any man. “Tell me. I live to please you, Alice,” he rasped, turning his palms up.

For me. Laurence will supplicate himself to me and my pleasure.

A bead of moisture trickled from her sodden center and slicked her inner thighs.

Mad with desire, Alice sank her teeth into her lower lip hard to keep in her want-filled moan. The metallic tinge of blood filled her mouth.

Laurence sucked in a sharp breath. “Please, mistress. Instruct me. Tell me how I can please you.”

Alice prayed to all the gods and goddesses whom she’d given eternal pleasure to upon her canvases for strength to not surrender so that she could live in this wicked, lust-filled moment forever as they did.

Alice stared at the top of his head, bent as if he too prayed to the same gods and goddesses of carnal love that she did, when, in fact, Alice knew it was she whom he consecrated himself to.

Somehow, she found the strength to edge away.

“Take my gown off, Laurence.” She ordered him to do her bidding with far less strength than she wished, but the most she could manage.

With an even greater care and reverence than her lady’s maids of before, Laurence set his strong hands at her waist and began to tenderly work her chemise and dress down past her hips.

As he did, Alice gazed upon him with heavy eyes. Love and longing clouded her vision.

Then, when he’d eased her gown all the way down to her ankles, he lifted his gaze, looking to her for permission.

She trembled at that deference.

Her pulse pounding, Alice nodded once and lifted her right foot first and then the next.

Without a word spoken, Laurence slipped the material all the way off. With the same beautifully tender regard he showed her and her body, he set Alice’s gown aside so it lay upon the floor beside them.

Her breath quivered.

He was the only man she’d ever wanted—the only one she needed. She’d longed for Laurence to be the one to teach her passion, and settled for less, and what she’d known with her faithless, fleeting lover had left her cold, empty, and absent of carnal pleasure.

Laurence remained in full-kneel, with his head bowed. His body conveyed what his words needn’t.

What would she allow him to do to her next?

Alice inhaled sharply.

Somehow, through the ravenous desire consuming her, she found the strength to speak. “Look at me, my lord.”

He immediately complied with her sharp command.

Their gazes locked; the heat of her hungering was reflected back in his. Their chests rose and fell in a fast, like rhythm.

Lying back on her elbows, Alice let her legs splay. “Put your hand between my legs and make me come,” she impelled.

Laurence drew in a breath on a sharp inhale. His nostrils went into a full-flare like a ravenous beast ready to rut.

“As my mistress commands,” he purred.

Then he set to work giving Alice exactly what she craved. He palmed her mound and placed the heel of his hand over her sodden curls, applying a deep pressure. Every nerve ending and fiber of her body tunneled on her hungry center.

He teased her swollen folds with a lone, long finger.

All the air left her lungs on a swift exhale.

Impatient for his touch, Alice jerked her hips up. “I said touch me,” she ordered.

Laurence did not disappoint in following that directive. No, he attended her and the assignment like an enthusiastic, obedient servant who lived to fulfill his employer’s wishes.

This time, there was no gentleness. He pushed the heel of four fingers hard against her pulsing cunny. A hiss exploded from between her teeth. Laurence, her friend, now lover, alternately put pressure where she ached and eased a single finger along her slit.

“Like this?” he murmured.

Suddenly, he pressed two fingers deep inside her.

Alice cried out, and her hips jerked wildly. Nodding wildly, she undulated in opposite rhythm of his downward strokes.

Her pulse pounded like the steady beat of a drum, and every part of her centered on the splendorous torture he inflicted upon her.

Eyes closed, Alice sank further back on her elbows and rocked against him.

She’d known it could be like this. When a woman lived in a gaming hell, amongst debauchery and libidinous worshippers of sin, one learned all too quick everything there was to know about lovemaking.

It was impossible not to. Alice lived amidst women who made their coin from the carnal.

She was surrounded by literary works like the Su Nu Jing , Kama Sutra , The Perfumed Garden , and Sappho’s erotic poetry.

When she’d first arrived, she’d been instructed to study on the Khajuraho Temples, Chunhua, or spring pictures from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the classical erotica of Pompeii and Herculaneum… and more.

Laurence continued to slip his fingers through her wetness. He smeared the hot dew of her desire over her curls and around her clit.

A slow shiver traveled through Alice. Her eyes closed, she focused on breathing and…on feeling .

Yes, she’d known it could be like this. She’d just never believed it would be like this…for her.

She’d chosen a second to Laurence—the man she could not have—and ultimately ended up with nothing. Not love. Not true passion. Not lust-filled surrender and surcease.

For the first time, her body was awake. Now, she learned what it was to feel how it was to come alive in a lover’s arms.

That pressure between her thighs, the confused pressure that hovered between acute pain and the ultimate pleasure, built.

Moaning, Alice’s hips, of their own volition, began to move; the upward and downward thrust of her hips took on a frantic quality. Her body moved to its own rhythm of desire; Alice existed as just a vessel for that all-encompassing need.

Close. I am so close.

“ More ,” she keened, pushing herself against his quixotic fingers.

Laurence, oh so dutifully, did her bidding.

Alice gritted her teeth. Digging her elbows hard into the white velvet upholstered cushions, she drove her hips up to meet his strokes.

“Tell me what you want, Alice,” Laurence whispered gutturally. “Tell me what you want?”

His question contained a harsh, pleading quality that added to her frenzy.

“Put your mouth on my cunny, Laurence.” The naughty command tore ragged from her throat and filled her ears; that lusty issuance thundered and echoed in this space. This haven he’d built and gifted to her.

“As my lady wishes,” he said throatily.

Laurence buried his face between her legs.

“Laurence!” she hissed his name. Alice’s hips shot up, and she gripped his head hard in her fingers.

Her obedient lover devoted himself to her pleasure. He licked her. He laved her. He sucked at her nub. He thrust his tongue over and over within her hot channel until words and logic fled, and Alice was reduced to a puddle of all-consuming lust and longing.

At some point, Alice had collapsed completely upon the chaise.

Her lower body moved as if possessed. Her core burned and she distantly registered the broken sobs falling from her lips.

She held his head tighter to that place she needed him most; the only place she wanted him right now.

She ground herself against his mouth and jaw.

Laurence didn’t let up.

Alice wanted his loving to go on forever, but her center trembled with such need, she felt on the edge of breaking.

“Make me come, Laur— ence .” She hissed the last syllables of his name as he thrust his hot tongue deep.

Alice broke apart, shattering in an explosion of fireworks over a clear night sky—so bright, so vibrant—and the force of that cataclysmic beauty left her briefly blind.

She wept, tears of ecstasy leaving her cheeks damp. She cursed. “Laurence!” She screamed his name over and over, an entreaty, a prayer, a ballad of love.

A final deep, long shudder rocked her throughout.

With a broken, shuddering gasp, Alice collapsed into the folds of her makeshift mattress. As she lay there, her body replete, she tried to get her breathing to a place where her lungs did not fail her.

Her heart put up a valiant fight to return to its natural tempo. Her nerves tingled and thrummed.

And then, like a feather that’d flown too high and floated back to earth but settled instead upon the softest of clouds, she settled.

A slow, sated smile teased her lips, but her surrender left even her mouth too tired to form a full smile.

Laurence dropped the tenderest, most worshipful of kisses upon her soaked curls first. Then upon her soft, sweat-slicked inner left thigh. Then her right.

She trembled.

When he at last moved away from her, Laurence sat and drew Alice atop his lap, cradling her close.

Her gaze was drawn, riveted, to the gleaming dampness upon his mouth and chin from where he’d dined on her nectar.

“Is my bride-to-be pleased?” he murmured.

“Most pleased,” Alice purred.

Even as he leaned down to claim her in a kiss as deep, penetrating, and soul-searing as the one he’d shown that place between her legs, she reached up and kissed him. She tasted herself upon him. Salty, hot lust.

That ache rekindled anew, and as they tangled with their tongues in a gentle waltz, Alice’s hips began to move again.

Laurence’s breath hitched.

“I trust my lady wants more?” His silky whisper teased her lips.

It took all she was, but Alice managed to draw back.

Cradling his chiseled cheeks between her palms, she ran her gaze adoringly over him. “Indeed, I do, Laurence.”

His eyes darkened, unquenched lust making his eyes volatile and dangerous. “And what is it you require? I am yours to command.”

He’d give her this power. He’d give her control of this. Him. Their future together.

“I want forever with you, Laurence,” she whispered, her voice catching. “I want forever.”

Through the desire glittering in his eyes, an even more powerful emotion flared to life—love. Bright, beautiful, and all-powerful love.

“My lady’s wish is my command,” he vowed, his voice thick. “I love you, Alice.”

Tears blurred her vision. “I love you more, Laurence.”

A half sob, half laugh tore from him. “Impossible, love.”

They came together as one, drowning on the nectar of one another’s lips. Their breathing tangled and merged in unity with their souls.

Laurence gripped her jaw gently in his hand, urging her to open for him, but Alice stopped.

He stared at her questioningly.

“There is one more thing I’d ask of you, Laurence,” she murmured.

A question clouded his eyes. “Anything.”

Alice let her lips form a naughty smile, and then, leaning close, she whispered precisely what she wanted.

And Laurence proceeded to give her—and do—exactly that.

The End

One sin isn’t enough.

Give in to the rest of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Wrath—The Devil Duke

In 19th-century London, rival gaming hells battle for power—but love is the deadliest gamble of all. He fell from grace. She’s out for revenge. Together, they’ll ignite something dark, dangerous, and utterly irresistible.

Lust—The Bad Earl

He was made to kill. She was born to tempt.

Ruthless, emotionless, and England’s deadliest secret weapon, Severin Cadogan has no use for hearts—or complications.

Until she arrives. Lady Raina Goodheart is everything he shouldn’t want: pure, poised…

and wickedly drawn to darkness. But as desire turns dangerous, and hearts become weapons, one thing’s certain—neither will escape unscathed.

Pride—The Rogue

He built an empire from vengeance. She’s about to set it on fire.

Lachlan Latimer is ruthless, powerful, and hellbent on destroying the dukes who betrayed him. Love? That’s a luxury he buried long ago. But when defiant, beautiful Livian Lovelace crashes into his world, one reckless night changes everything. She wants freedom. He offers only desire.

But some sins burn too hot to walk away from.

Sloth—The Fallen Earl

She was never meant to be his. One scandalous night changed that.

When Cressida Alby is put up for auction at London’s most notorious den of sin, salvation comes in the form of the only man she’s ever longed for—Benedict, the Earl of Wakefield. Bound by duty, he should’ve walked away. Instead, he claimed her.

Now, one reckless night has tied them together in a tangle of desire, scandal, and impossible choices.

Will honor keep them apart—or will passion rewrite the rules?

Obsession—The Unspoken Sin

He came to drag her home. He didn’t expect to want her.

Lady Alice Masterson was meant to disappear quietly into Scotland. Instead, the Earl of Denbigh finds her thriving in London’s most infamous gaming hell—brazen, beautiful, and scandalously off-limits. She’s his best friend’s sister. He’s the last man she wants.

But when old sparks turn to slow-burning fire, and long-buried secrets come to light, passion may be the one thing they can’t resist.

Coming August 2025

She was his scandal. He was her undoing.

Greed—The Savage

In a world where survival demands sharp edges and silent loyalties, Addiden “Snap” Killoran has mastered both. Raised with nothing and trusted by no one, she’s clawed her way into the only kind of power she understands—one built in shadows and silence.

Malric Mauley, the Marquess of Thornwick, once had everything—until scandal stripped him of his title’s respectability.

His brother’s treachery tainted his name, but Malric wears the ruin like armor.

On the fringe of society, he thrives in the shadows, dealing in secrets and sin, wielding scandal like a blade.

His revenge is slow, calculated—and deeply personal.

Their paths were never meant to cross. He wants nothing more than to provoke, to destroy. She wants only to keep what little she’s earned. But when ambition meets recklessness, when loyalty and desire blur—nothing stays buried.

Not secrets.

Not lies.

Not hearts.