Page 7 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

W hen had Cressida’s makeshift mattress ever felt this feathery soft and welcoming? As if she were floating on a cloud made of spun sugar. The warmth enfolding her was so great, her usually aching limbs were cradled and comforted.

Never.

It was for that reason that the splendor of Cressida’s slumber ultimately awakened her.

Still, she fought the force attempting to drag her away from this bliss.

Cressida had been without a steady source of heat for so long now, she’d forgotten what it was to be anything other than chilled to the bone.

But this beautiful dream—of her enfolded in a thick blanket, which conferred only wonderful, quiescent tranquility, was one she wanted to live in forever.

Alas, there were chores and darning, and as it so rudely—and invariably—did, reality reared its head.

Yawning, Cressida stretched her arms high above her and burrowed deeply into the allure of placidity.

Maybe just a moment more.

Smiling contentedly, she curled onto her side. That slight movement caused a sharp twinge between her legs. She winced and rolled onto her other side. A throbbing pain at the apex of her thighs brought her eyes sliding shut in agony, and a hiss exploded from between her tightly gritted teeth.

All previous contentment vanished and the dream of warmth, comfort, and security remained a memory.

“Bloody hell,” she mouthed inaudibly.

When she and her brother first arrived in London, he’d insisted Cressida learn to ride a horse. As he’d pointed out, her fitting into Polite Society reflected upon him, and that was the only reason he’d purchased the mount. She’d ridden but three times before Stanley accumulated enough debt to merit her lovely mare, Rosalind, going up for sale. What Cressida remembered most about those handful of sessions was the aching discomfort and sore muscles that’d followed for days after. Her body now hurt in much the same way.

With greater care than before, she rolled onto her opposite side. This time the pain eased…some.

Her gaze locked on the soundly slumbering and very naked man next to her.

Cressida froze. Her pulse thundering in her ears, her heart pounding in her chest, she jerked her attention at the ceiling overhead and at the mural of Jupiter and Juno. In that crude rendering, the Roman god and goddess were in the throes of lovemaking, while around the mating couple, other painted gods and goddesses, all in various states of dishabille and sin, copulated and—

Her entire body on fire, Cressida wrenched her head sideways.

She froze.

The pleasantness that’d greeted her this morning became some twisted nightmare.

To verify she was, in fact, awake, Cressida, pinched herself hard on her leg. Her naked leg.

Swallowing frantically, Cressida edged her neck up a fraction to take in the sight of herself. She lay completely naked. Little red marks marred her breasts and chest. Faint bruises the size and shape of a man’s fingerprints marked her upper thighs.

Laying slowly back upon the white satin sheet, she stared, dazed, at the sleeping man beside her. Cressida lay beside none other than the honorable, devoted to his family, patron to worthy, compassionate charities, Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield—a man she’d fallen more than a bit in love with since she’d come to London. Albeit a gentleman whom she’d only exchanged a handful of words with when he’d courted her friend Lady Anwen, now the Marchioness of Landon.

Panic didn’t allow any order to the rapid questions ricocheting around her brain.

How…why…what’d happened that she’d ended up here beside this man? Granted, it was a place she’d always longed to be, but not in whatever way this was.

Think. Think. Think.

Then the gates of her mind broke wide open and, like a torrent, everything came rushing through.

All of it.

The cup of tea she’d taken with her sister-in-law. The sudden hazy state, and the heavy feeling in Cressida’s limbs and head as her brother cheerfully explained he’d found an old duke for Cressida to marry.

The plans to have Cressida broken in for her ancient bridegroom.

Plans that’d turned out to be an auction where strangers bid on her to handle the task of ridding Cressida of her virginity.

Her throat worked as she remembered the joy of seeing him there.

Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield, who was wholly out of place in the crowd of depraved, lecherous lords ogling her. He hadn’t bid upon her. He’d just intently watched her.

His presence alone and the steadiness of his gaze had steadied her, and she’d not taken her eyes from him, until he’d spoken words to Lord Dynevor next to him, who’d shot a hand up and brought an immediate end to the auction.

She’d been whisked off the stage—saved—escorted away from the mad show of which she’d been the leading lady and taken elsewhere .

Then whatever other drug Lady Marianne had laced her tea with had left Cressida shamefully aware of her body and craving things she hadn’t understood—until last night.

Until a night spent in the Earl of Wakefield’s arms.

Cressida swallowed back tears. These weren’t, however, the sorrowful ones.

Blinking didn’t help clear her blurred vision either. Through that sheen of moisture, she gazed reverently upon the earl.

No, Benedict. Given all the ways in which they’d come to know one another, how could she possibly refer to him by anything other than his given name?

A contented sigh eased past her lips.

Here she’d believed a nobleman of the earl’s caliber wouldn’t and couldn’t pick Cressida out in a crowded ballroom on account they rarely moved in the same social circles anymore. He rubbed shoulders with the most venerated ladies from the highest families. Cressida, on the other hand, had but a single brother—a heartless monster, notorious debtor, drunkard, wagerer, whoremonger, who, with his pursuits, blackened his reputation and darkened Cressida’s all the same.

Yes—the devil in her head taunted—he remembered you, but had you been a different lady, a sparkling beauty from the highest echelon of society, would he have done all the things he’d done with you, or whispered the vulgar words he had?

“…Your body was made for my cock. It craves it. You crave it…”

She winced.

But her mind refused to free her.

“…I’m going to bury my big cock so deep inside you, sweet, you won’t be able to tell where I end and you begin…”

Cressida bit her lower lip hard.

“…this isn’t what you truly crave…What you really want is my cock buried in your sweet, hot cunny…”

Unable to stifle her humiliated groan, Cressida crept under both sheet and coverlet and drew them over her head.

That shifting fabric broke into Benedict’s peaceful slumber. Cressida held her breath and went absolutely motionless.

Please, don’t wake up. Please, don’t wake up.

The memories of what they’d done, still clouded by whatever it was she’d been given, were still clear enough to recall his hands and mouth moving hungrily over hers. Snippets of scandalous words he’d uttered—most of which she hadn’t understood. Her shameful cries as she’d told Benedict how badly she wanted him. Her desperate pleas as she’d begged him to make love—

Cressida’s mind screeched to a stop.

Cringing, Cressida lay there until she’d managed to contain her mortification. She waited several moments more. The earl’s breathing came in the slow, even tempo of a man fully at rest. It’d been so long since they’d last been face to face—before last night, that was. Not since speculations had first started circulating around Town that his falling out with his best friend, Viscount Waters, was a deliberate result of the fact Benedict loved the other man’s wife.

Jagged pain cut up her heart.

Shoving back the bitter jealousy, Cressida eased herself out from under the covers, just enough to freely observe Benedict.

Notorious for being somber and solemn, over the years of observing, she’d noted physical changes in him. His sandy-blond hair, sun-kissed from time he took riding, once close kept and meticulous, with not a single strand out of place, had become unfashionably long and tousled. With the earl now asleep in a peaceful state, those luxuriant strands hung disheveled. A light beard dusted his high-chiseled cheekbones and slightly hollowed cheeks, and the earl’s straight and strong lips leant him a grave countenance, even at rest.

Somewhere after the end of his friendship with Lady Marcia, the Viscountess Waters, and his courtship of Cressida’s friend, Anwen, newly the Marchioness of Landon, he’d added muscle to his previously wiry frame.

Maybe the physical transformations that’d taken hold of him accounted for why he was here, in this horrid place with her, even now.

An errant sunbeam filtered into Wakefield’s eyes, penetrating the deepest sleep he’d had in his entire twenty-eight years.

But then, given the night he’d had, a dead sleep was both fitting and necessary.

Now, however, in the light of a new day, replete as he’d never been after a night of fucking, and yet still somehow hungry for more of the woman who’d ensnared him, the wickedness he’d been a player to refused to allow him any more rest.

He wiped a tired palm over his closed eyes and along his stubbled cheeks.

What in hell had he taken part in?

For Wakefield, the night he’d spent in the Juno-Jupiter Room at The Devil’s Den had been unlike any other night in his entire unremarkably staid life.

In fairness, since his best friend married his other best friend, Marcia Gray, now Marcia Barrett, Viscountess Waters, nothing about Wakefield’s days had been their usual humdrum.

His late father, the previous earl, had failed the Adamson family so spectacularly that Wakefield had devoted himself to raising not only his finances but also restoring his family name. Unlike the majority of the handful of noblemen who sullied their hands in trade and investments, Wakefield was fully involved in the day to day running of a variety of businesses. Railways. Coal. Banking. New technologies.

Oh, Wakefield remained committed to the respectable life he’d built for himself. He kept membership at White’s. He boxed regularly with Gentleman Jackson himself. He’d been an avid Parliamentarian since he’d taken his seat in the House of Lords. He moved in the social circles of the most venerated members of Polite Society.

Yes, he’d always adhered to a strict moral code—that is until he’d been presented an opportunity to invest in The Devil’s Den. The invitation came from his brother-in-law, Mr. Lachlan Latimer.

That offer had been made to Wakefield at a time he’d had his heart broken by his two childhood friends—Marcia Gray, né Barrett, Viscountess Waters, and Andrew Barrett, Viscount Waters. His straightlaced self should have balked at that offer, but he didn’t. He’d thought to himself, “Hell, why not invest in the greatest industry in the entire British empire? Drink, women, and wagering?”

Nothing about his latest investment came remotely near in wickedness or scandal to Wakefield’s actions last night. Maybe that’s why he found his head swimming and his body stiffly erect as he stared at the wide-eyed, luminescent creature he’d spent the entire night, and entire morning, making violent love with and to.

He made himself open his eyes. The sun toyed with Miss…or Lady…? Cressida No-Name’s curls, which hung in a waterfall of dark blondes and pale browns around her naked shoulders.

His energetic lover of last night greeted him with an adoring smile. “Good morning,” she greeted softly.

Her voice didn’t contain the sultry quality it had throughout their bouts of passionate bedsport, but rather the husk of sleep and sudden uncertainty.

That vast variation in her husky tones from then to now did nothing to stop his randy cock from stirring.

“Morning,” Wakefield said gruffly. He dedicated himself to avoiding those expressive eyes of hers, but he’d already looked at her, and the damage was done.

Her maple-burnished brown eyes scared the everlasting hell out of him. Hers were eyes befitting an enamored woman.

Panicked by that, he scurried to the other side of the bed.

Cressida cocked her head and continued to stare at him with enormous doe eyes.

Once more, he made himself look away. If he gazed upon her too long, he’d spend the rest of this new day fucking her in new, unexplored ways. He couldn’t afford that weakness. He’d never been the sort that needed to linger with his bedmates. After he’d pleasured his partner, and received like pleasure in return, he left. What was it about his newest lover that so compelled him?

“Do you know what time—?”

“Fifteen or so minutes past ten o’clock,” she supplied, correctly anticipating the rest of his question.

Past ten o’clock? That was four hours longer than he ever slept.

Eager to get the hell out of the room that contained the strong scent of sex and sweat, Wakefield swung his legs over the side of the bed, presenting his back to the siren. Even as he studiously avoided her shy, adoring eyes, Wakefield felt Lady…Miss?… Cressida watching him .

His gaze frantically skittered about the Juno-Jupiter suite. He took in the garments littered upon the hardwood floor. His black jacket, trousers, and cravat lay all twisted and tangled up with her delicate, filmy pieces. That diaphanous gown he’d hastily removed from her body. The lace garters she’d worn which, at some point last night, he’d removed with his teeth.

Sweat broke out on his body.

A woman with her bedroom eyes, who’d moved the way she had and been so passionate in his arms, should absolutely never, ever, ever wear a look of adoration for a man she’d spent the night making love with in every possible way a man and woman could.

A prickling sensation raced along his neck.

Delicate fingers settled upon his bare shoulder.

His every muscle locked in place, but somehow Wakefield still managed to get himself to his feet, and fast. He spun so quick on his bare feet, he got tangled up in his trousers and shirt and nearly lost his balance.

His mystery bedpartner, on the other hand, was all stoic calm, completely and utterly in complete control of her faculties—unlike Wakefield who was spiraling and fast .

Without any choice left to him, he looked squarely at Cressida. This time, he peered more closely and frantically searched his mind for how he knew her.

There was something still vaguely familiar about her. Obviously, between the way she spoke, carried herself, and her very part in last night’s entertainments, the lady belonged to the nobility. For the life of Wakefield, he could not place her.

Where he’d avoided her gaze before, now Wakefield did a deep study of his recent lover. In one hand, she held tight to the white sheet wrapped about her naked body. With her other hand, she held something over to him.

His gaze skittered to the white lawn article. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Wakefield snatched it quickly from her hands and pulled it overhead. He made it a point not to stay the night after he’d bedded a woman. He never slept beside lovers because there was nothing personal or intimate about any of the connections he shared. They were just mindless meetings of the flesh, but sleeping together added a layer of intimacy that wasn’t required of a carnal union.

In sleeping with a lover, there came the awkwardness of what one said to a lover in the morning, after they’d achieved mutual sexual gratification. It was better to leave.

But this time, he hadn’t.

Benedict went about collecting the rest of his garments.

Cressida No-Name had been the first—and would absolutely be the last—woman he ever spent a night with.

The lady’s soft voice came, hesitant, just as he stuffed one leg inside the opening of his trousers. “Have I done something to offend you?”

Bloody hell? That was not a question asked by a worldly woman who’d made Wakefield come more times than an over-sexed Caligula had in his entire libidinous lifetime, but by an uncertain innocent.

“You’ve done no such thing,” he muttered as he jammed the other leg into his trousers. Wakefield made the mistake of looking at the lady.

It proved a fatal mistake. The way she regarded him?

He blanched. This wasn’t good. It was all trouble. She was trouble.

“Benedict?”

Her voice emerged again, this time with a slight tremble and a hurt edge that forced him to look fully at her. She’d managed to turn his name into a query, putting some delicate, unspoken question before him.

What the lady expected of Wakefield, he couldn’t say, only that it was something he was unwilling to confront.

Bloody hell! This was precisely why he didn’t stay around. This here. If a fellow lingered, he left behind lingering emotions. He couldn’t afford to stay here, not when the very air seemed to thicken with something he dared not name. Resolved to bring their relationship to a close, Wakefield set his jaw.

“I wanted to thank you for an enjoyable night,” he said, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he grimaced.

I wanted to thank you for an enjoyable night? That’s what he’d come up with? Although in fairness, theirs had been a transaction, a business one that he knew beyond a doubt had been pleasureful for both of them.

Her eyes dimmed, like a radiant star extinguished too quick.

Wakefield couldn’t meet her agonizingly expressive gaze, not when he’d been the one responsible for snuffing out the light from those velvety rich brown irises. He cleared his throat. “More importantly, Cressida, I hope you enjoyed our time together?”

The lady’s consternation grew. Why, Wakefield could have sprouted a second and third head for the way in which she looked at him.

Fuck.

This is when he could have used some of the urbane charm of his former friend, Lord Waters, or Lord Rothesby. The dashing duke would’ve known how to handle a clearly wounded young bedmate.

And how very close the charming rogue had been to claiming—

“You’re leaving,” Cressida murmured soto voce.

Hers sounded more like a question, but he answered anyway. “Yes, yes. Business matters. Important ones to see to.” Perspiring, Benedict grabbed for his jacket. He found himself fumbling to get his hands through the arm holes. After he’d managed the nearly impossible feat, he fished a purse from within the pockets of his wrinkled evening coat.

“This is for you,” he said. He set the bag down on the table next to her.

The lady’s gaze flickered from the velvet sack to Wakefield, then back to the sack before it finally landed on Wakefield again.

This time, her eyes shimmered, not with tears but unutterable…anger.

Hell, he’d offended her.

Wakefield reached inside again, fetched another purse, and dropped it beside the nightstand. The bag gave a damning jingle, mocking the both of them with their awkward silence, and this time, Wakefield looked away.

The floor moved under his feet, and he grabbed one of the bedposts to keep himself upright.

Of a sudden, everything made sense. All of it.

“Christ,” he whispered, and every moment they’d spent together came rushing in like a violent wave, sucking him under, determined to sweep him off.

There’d been his complete lack of restraint, a loss of self-control which he’d never before shown and he’d prided himself upon that fact.

He had at last figured out the reason for her hesitancy, and he wanted to reverse time to when he’d been seated at the table with Dynevor and the young proprietor offered the lady up.

“No,” he said to himself. All the memories of what he and his lady had spent the night doing—all the ways in which she’d taken him, all the ways in which he’d made love to her—flooded his memories. He realized going back to the beginning and undoing all of it was still not something he’d have done, even in the light of day. He would, however, have gone back to one particular moment.

Navigating unchartered territories, Wakefield grabbed a chair and tugged it closer to the mattress. The lady stared at him warily. He couldn’t blame her. He loathed himself in ways he’d only previously hated his father, but he now understood the problems his father had gotten himself tangled in and why.

“I understand the reason for your distress,” he said somberly.

Cressida eyed him with a rightfully healthy dose of mistrust. “You do?”

The bewitching nymph traced the tip of her tongue over her lips.

Heady with lust all over again, he managed to nod. “I’m sorry. I’ve never behaved so deplorably.” Wakefield grimaced. “None of this manner of love play is”—he slashed a hand at the air for emphasis—“ anything I’ve ever partaken in, and I’ve handled it all very poorly.”

That certainly made for the understatement since the calendar had made the switch from BC to anno Domini to now.

“No!” she said, showing him entirely too much grace. “You needn’t apologize!” At the force of her vehemence, the lady’s wounded expression vanished.

Her delicate countenance leant an ethereal serenity that stole his breath away and briefly distracted him.

“You haven’t behaved poorly, Benedict. You were patient and kind and…generous,” she added shyly.

Color blossomed on his skillful lover’s cheeks and chased a path of pink down her neck and shoulders. The rest of that blush he’d wager carried on under the sheet she held adorably close.

A fire roared to life within him. Despite all the ways in which they’d made love, he found himself wanting Cressida with a hunger to match the moment she’d stepped onto the stage at The Devil’s Den.

The morning cockstand, which had faded the moment his lover turned those dewy eyes on him, sprung fully erect.

“But you are deserving of an apolo…” He trailed off.

Wakefield frowned.

Hungry wantons and eager widows were not given to blushes, and certainly not after having had intimate relations in nearly every way. Why, the number of acts they’d performed together and on one another could, in their breadth, rival the Kama Sutra.

Cressida’s brows pinched together.

How strange. He knew the citrusy lemon scent that clung to her like the sweetest fragrance. He knew she loved to have her nipples played with and enjoyed toying with the matting of hair upon his chest when they’d rested in one another’s arms.

“Cressida,” he mused. It was all he knew about her identity.

She stared strangely at him. “Yes, Benedict?”

For every last intimate act they’d partaken in, he still didn’t have a hold of her actual identity, but she did his. That in of itself left him unnerved in a whole other way.

“Were you going to say something?” she ventured.

Wakefield blinked wildly. What is it he’d been saying? Oh, that’s right.

“I spent within you,” he said bluntly. He felt more ashamed than a lad with his first Cyprian.

Cressida dampened her lips, but didn’t add anything. Really, what was there for her to add?

“I want you to know,” he continued. “This is not something I’m in the habit of doing. That is, I do take lovers, but I do not. I am not…” He continued to stammer. “I’ve never failed to use a French letter, and I always withdraw.”

His mystery woman touched her fingertips to his lips, silencing him and setting off another round of desire within him.

Wakefield caught her wrist and brought it against his mouth; he placed a hard kiss upon the spot her pulse pounded.

Her breath caught on a soft intake.

She wanted him just as much, and there was something very gratifying in that.

“It’s all r-right,” she said, breathless. “I understand.”

Did she ? he thought to himself. Could she actually make that statement and also at the same time realize the implications of what they’d—of what he’d —potentially done?

Wakefield stormed to his feet and knocked her fingers free of his touch. She tilted her neck back and looked at him as he paced.

“I want you to be assured that in the event you do find yourself in the way , I will be sure to see you and the babe are taken care of.” How were these words even leaving his mouth? How? When he’d spent his entire life despising the previous earl, his bastard of a father, for having sired babes with his mistress? How when he’d resolved to never make those same mistakes?

God, the old bastard was certainly laughing up at him from Hell. He knew his lover finally understood the ramifications of what they’d done. All the color fled from her cheeks. They were in a like plane of emotion and complete and utter horror.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

It could have been him uttering that same profanity or prayer. Perhaps it was both. Either way, both were justified. She briefly lost the grip she had on her sheet and bared her body before him once more.

His randy cock responded, as it invariably did to this woman.

Wakefield cursed and loudly.

Somehow the already pale beauty managed to go even whiter.

“Given my identity,” he said, determined to get this meeting done and get himself as far away and as fast as he could from the woman. “You know how to find me should you need to get word to me and…” He fumbled about. “I believe it would be helpful if I had your identity as well.”

She sank back on her haunches, and had she not been seated upon the bed, he rather thought she would have collapsed. He wasn’t even certain he’d have been able to catch her.

Horror washed over her face. “Oh, my God,” she repeated.

Shite. Bloody hell! They had met before.

You bloody dolt! Of course you’ve crossed paths with her at some point . That’s why she seemed familiar and why he faintly recognized her. He searched his mind, but this was hardly the time for him to be able to pull anything out of his rapidly spinning thoughts.

He’d been in the dark long enough and despised that she should have an advantage over his identity.

“We know one another,” he bluntly stated.

The lady shot her gaze to his and stared at him so dazed, it was as if she’d just remembered his presence.

She nodded just as dumbly.

Oh, Christ. Now it made sense. She’d been offended and hurt he hadn’t recognized her. That steadied him just a tad. Granted, it didn’t and wouldn’t make the lady feel any better that he had absolutely no bloody clue as to her identity.

“Forgive me.” He spoke gravely. “I want to be clear. The minute you stepped onto that stage, Cressida, I recognized you. I knew we’d met before.”

Skepticism and hope melded in her eyes—eyes that read like a painting. “You did?”

She was right to have her doubts. Wakefield moved closer to the bed and cupped a hand about her nape. Every nerve, every muscle, every sensation came to life all at once. His fingers convulsed reflexively upon her neck, and he found himself lowering his mouth to hers.

Somehow, he found the will to stop.

Wakefield moved his eyes over her face. “Just because I don’t recall your name or the events we met at, it doesn’t mean I am not utterly and entirely captivated by you.”

Her long flaxen lashes fluttered, and she tipped her head up just as Wakefield closed the rest of the distance and kissed her. Theirs was more a gentle reunion of two longtime lovers than the violent passion that’d raged between them last night.

His lack of control is what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

Even so, he found himself placing a tender kiss upon the lady’s brow. Her breath caught and her lashes fluttered in the same way she had just prior to his kiss.

“Who are you?” he marveled.

“I told you, my name is Cress—”

“Your entire name, love.”

She hesitated for an instant, and he believed she’d withhold her complete identity.

“My name is Cressida Smith. I am no lady, just a mere miss.”

At last, he had her full name.

And God help him, it still did nothing to help him recall how he knew the lady or where they’d met, or anything .

“Cressida Smith,” he repeated back, murmuring those two syllables to himself to try and place her.

By the way her features softened, she took his efforts as the endearment they were not.

“Cressida,” he murmured. “I need you to know I will take care of you.”

Her breath caught audibly. The hold she had upon her sheet slackened, and the sheet dipped slightly once again.

Wakefield palmed her cheek, and she leaned so trustingly into his touch. “On my word and on my honor. If you find yourself in the family way, I promise to look after you and the babe,” he said, finishing that assurance so she knew.

Wakefield’s fingers tensed.

If he had gotten her with child this day, he’d be no different than his father.

His stomach muscles knotted, and he wanted to throw his head back and roar his fury to the heavens at the potential irrevocable mistake he’d made.

Cressida edged away from him. “What do you mean you’ll…look after me?” she asked haltingly.

He frowned. Surely, she didn’t expect marriage ? And yet, where his late father proved unfaithful outside the bounds of his union, Wakefield now, himself, had no such commitments, which meant, he could and likely should marry—

“Benedict?”

“I…”

He needed to put distance between himself and his no-longer-nameless lover. He took a step to go as his gaze landed and locked on a telltale sanguine stain upon the stark white satin sheets.

He went hot and then cold all over. His belly roiled. His mouth moved, but nothing came out beyond a sharply hissed exhale.

There was a worrying whooshing sound in his ears like the time he’d been learning to swim and the tutor teaching him had thrown him into the lake as a trial by fire.

There appeared to be more reasons for the lady’s disappointment in him and upset with him. Wakefield wanted to rip himself apart.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, anguished and horrified. He lifted a stricken gaze to his lover’s. “I hurt you.”

“No!” Cressida flew to her feet, and as she did, she got tangled in the silk bed linens. Before he could catch her, the lady came down hard on her knees.

Befogged, feeling like he was swimming upstream, Wakefield finally reached her but too late. By the time he managed to move, she’d only gotten herself to her feet, but she had the protective cover of her sheet back in place.

“You didn’t hurt me, Benedict,” she entreated. “You were thoughtful and tender and kind.”

A harsh, half-mad laugh oozed past his lips.

“You were,” she insisted, earnestly defending Wakefield, a man wholly undeserving of her mercy.

Delicate fingers caught in his, and he glanced down where her long, graceful but curiously callused digits interconnected with his larger hand.

Cressida lightly squeezed, forcing his eyes back to hers. “I have no regrets, Benedict. You were the only man who I’d have ever wanted to give myself to this way, and I’m grateful to you, and I’m thankful you were my first.”

Her first? Wakefield tried to make sense of that cannonball she’d just fired into his head.

“…you were my first…”

“…you were my first…”

“…you were my first…”

He replayed those four words over and over in his mind, thinking if he said them enough times, they’d eventually change. But they didn’t.

“…you were my first…”

He’d been her first ? Which meant…

Horror kicked him hard in the gut and pulled Wakefield from his dumbstruck state. He forced his gaze back to that damning patch of red.

The implications of what she’d confessed and what he’d done, and what she’d been , hit him with all the force of a runaway carriage.

“You were a bloody virgin ,” he whispered, horror and shock wreathing his voice.

His virginal lover—or his formerly virginal lover—gave a shaky nod. Her eyes bled with more of that earlier suffering.

Wakefield scraped an unsteady hand through his damp hair.

Then, unable to look at her, unable to speak, he stumbled back several steps, righted himself, and spun around in a full circle. Somehow, he managed to steady himself enough to walk straight for the door and continue walking without looking back.