Page 3

TWO

Briar

“I need a…distraction. Do you think you could come back to my place and be suitably distracting, Mr. Markham?”

It was a stupid thing to say. I never did anything like this. What sort of young lady invited a gentleman back to their home to utterly lose their innocence?

It appeared that I did.

I could see the lust in his eyes. Mr. Markham desired me, wanted to bed me the moment I caught him staring at my breasts.

Well, it wasn’t like I was expecting a great emotional connection. I was tired, I’d had a bad day, and there was only so much pleasure you could get by yourself. No one would ever know, there would be no scandal—so there would be no consequences.

So I was using him. Wasn’t he using me for the same thing?

“Go with you? Yes,” Mr. Markham breathed.

I grinned, turning on my heels. “Come on then.”

It didn’t take long for us to get back to my townhouse. When you own a block in Mayfair, you’re never that far from home.

“Hell’s bells,” breathed Mr. Markham as we entered the hallway and I slipped off my shoes.

I tried to play the nonchalant card, though I wasn’t quite sure how I was managing it. I’d never brought a gentleman back here, after all.

“Make yourself at home,” I said, slipping off my rings and necklace, and pooling them together onto the console table by the front door.

Mr. Markham was staring around with wide eyes and I tried to repress a sense of smugness.

Well, if money couldn’t be enjoyed this way, how could it?

“Is that a Herbin fountain pen?”

I nodded. What an odd thing to notice. “That particular fountain pen is a limited edition. Only ten made.”

My eyes didn’t leave the tall, dark gentleman as he meandered around the hallway and glanced up the staircase.

“And what’s up there?”

“That,” I said firmly, forcing myself to walk up the stairs without glancing behind me, “is my bedchamber.”

I don’t know whether he was expecting it. Perhaps he was. All I knew was that I was tired, and being around Mr. Markham for more than five minutes had made me warm.

Warmer than any man ever had.

There was a teasing sort of rakish quality about him, but I had obviously underestimated him. As I approached my bedchamber and then turned, ready to lean up and kiss him, Mr. Markham moved swiftly—far quicker than I could.

My hands were pinned against my bedchamber door by his own, my hips pressed against his, and I gasped as Mr. Markham swept his lips down my neck to press a burning kiss just above my left nipple.

“You wanted this, did you not?” he growled, moving to burn a kiss above my other breast.

I couldn’t help it—the ache was growing now between my legs. “Y-Yes.”

“Anything else in particular you wanted?”

I whimpered. I couldn’t help myself. Most men crumbled into dust when they knew who I was—I’d never had a man speak to me like this before.

Like he was my equal.

“No full names, no expectations, no hearts getting involved—definitely not broken,” I breathed, straining against his hold, my back arching with repressed pleasure as he held me tightly. “And I don’t want to see you in the morning.”

“What, you want me to leave like some rake who just came here to pleasure you?” Mr. Markham breathed.

I would have replied—if his mouth hadn’t meandered to one of my gown straps, tugging it down from my shoulder with his teeth.

“That’s exactly what I want,” I muttered, finally breaking free of his hold, forcing Mr. Markham against my bedchamber door, the corridor empty of all servants.

His eyes widened. “What the?—”

“The question is, what do you want?” I asked, hardly knowing where this boldness had come from.

Did every woman feel this? Had I ever let go like this, cast all cares to the wind, given up all expectation and just lived in a moment?

Mr. Markham groaned as my fingers made hasty work of his shirt and waistcoat buttons. “Damn woman, you seem to already know what you want.”

I breathed out slowly as I pulled his shirt from his body, dropping it on the floor. “You know, I think you’re right. I think I’ve found it.”

On the last word, my fingers found the top button of his breeches.

That, apparently, was too far. I cried out as Markham’s hand found not me as I craved, but the doorhandle. He fell back, I fell forward, as the door to my bedchamber opened.

The room where no man had ever been.

Oh, I’d had men court me. But I’d always welcomed them downstairs in the morning room. It was less…intimate that way. When I tired of them and they realized I wasn’t going to simply give in and hand them all my money, I could retreat here, to the one place I felt safe.

The place I’d now brought a stranger from Ferncombe’s.

“Damn, Briar,” Mr. Markham breathed.

I glanced about my bedchamber. I’d tried not to get too wild in my decorating. Everyone—at least, I thought everyone—already knew about my wealth. I didn’t need to exactly advertise it. I’d gone for chic, elegant, rather than flashy.

“It’s just—” I stopped as I realized he wasn’t looking at my bedchamber. He was looking at me.

I probably looked a state. Hair mussed, no jewelry, lips parted, and…

Oh, God. My gown had fallen so low on one side, my breast was out.

“You’re not even wearing a corset,” Mr. Markham growled, moving toward me. “Well, you don’t need this any longer.”

I gasped as his nimble hands tugged at the other strap of my gown. The silk pooled by my feet, leaving me?—

“Christ, Briar!”

“What, you thought I was wearing any underclothes?” I tried to smile as boldly as other women would in this situation. “Now get on the bed. No, wait.”

Mr. Markham has hesitated, a teasing smile on his face. “You don’t know what you want, do you, Briar?”

It was the same old thing I heard day in, day out. Everyone thought I was an idiot. Dim. Just a woman with money.

Although of course, in this one area I was entirely innocent. No man had ever seen me like this, and I was careful not to quiver with the weight of his gaze. But I wanted this. I wanted to do something for myself, for once, without my advisors knowing.

I smiled sweetly. “Oh no, I know perfectly what I want. I just wanted to make sure you took all your clothes off first.”

Mr. Markham’s dark eyes widened, but the desire in them only increased. He almost fell in his efforts to pull off his shoes and socks.

“And the rest,” I breathed.

My voice didn’t quiver, thank God—but it was a close thing. Markham grinned just as he revealed…

It was my breath that hitched as he dropped his breeches to the floor.

Damn. Had anyone ever looked so good? How had I managed to find London’s most delicious gentleman?

“Ready for me?” he said, tilting his head with that mischievous smile.

If I could have pooled onto the floor and melted before him, I would—but I couldn’t let him see just how damned attractive he was. He knew that. He didn’t need someone like me telling him that.

“Ready,” I said, hating how stupid I sounded.

It didn’t matter. All thoughts that self-censured, worried about how I sounded, thought about how I looked: they were all blown away by a single kiss.

Oh, God, Mr. Markham knew precisely how to kiss. His lips burned into mine as though I’d been waiting all my life for him. My fingers pressed into his shoulders, his muscles fighting back but I held on.

I could do nothing else.

His tongue parted my lips, scalding red hot lines along them until it met my own. They melded together, sparking pleasure throughout my body, tingling from my nipples down to my inner core.

Hell, I wanted him.

Before I knew what was happening, I was clinging to his neck as my left leg lifted to encircle his waist. His hands weren’t idle either—his palms splayed into my buttocks, lifting me up.

The kiss he was burning into me didn’t end as Mr. Markham lifted both my legs around him. His manhood was pressed hard into my inner thigh, and its wetness matched the aching wetness between my legs.

I wanted him. He wanted me.

For the first time in my life, something was going to be simple.

“You’re strong,” I gasped, breaking the kiss to look into Mr. Markham’s eyes.

His grin was half teasing, half threat. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

With a strength I could feel in his arms, Mr. Markham lifted me just a few inches—and I knew in that moment what he was going to do.

“What the…” I breathed as he lowered me, slowly, onto his manhood.

Oh my, he filled me so well, even I stretched to accommodate him, a slight burn the only pain I sensed before pleasure overwashed me. Mr. Markham breathed heavily into my neck as he tried to control himself, but I could sense his wild abandon.

I flexed ever so slightly and I watched the color drain from his face.

“Oh, Briar,” he moaned.

And then we’d fallen onto my bed, and I was still in him, and Mr. Markham was above me, moving deeper into me than I could ever have imagined. The ripples of ecstasy were more than I could bear, and I threw back my head as Mr. Markham’s mouth captured my nipple.

“Markham!”

“Come for me,” he moaned as he sunk himself harder into me.

I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t have stopped the peak if I had wanted to—and by God, I didn’t want to.

It crashed over me like nothing ever had. I came hard and I felt Mr. Markham pour into me, seemingly unable to help himself as my guttural cries filled the bedchamber.

I looked up, breathless, satisfied yet somehow aching for more.

Mr. Markham was grinning. “Ready for round two?”

It was the sunlight that woke me. Even this late in the summer, dawn was early enough to rouse me, even after a late night.

I opened my eyes. I was in bed. It was empty.

Just for a moment, regret washed through me. I’d never experienced a connection like that—something so instant, so powerful. The way he’d touched me, like no man ever had. It was like Mr. Markham knew just what I wanted. How I needed to be pleasured.

I sighed heavily into the silence. “Well, that was nice.”

It was nice. And it was over. I hadn’t even got the man’s full name—and he certainly didn’t know mine.