Cheryl Holt (45 page)

“You look like a whore,” he asserted cruelly, lying, finding her sexy and dangerous, and longing to hurt her because of it.

“All for you, darling. I’ve been informed by a few of your other lovers that you like your women to be a bit nasty.” She winked, then lowered her attention to the drawings, and he couldn’t help but follow.

The rendering was of Lily, up on her knees and gripping the sides of the daybed. He was perched behind her, fully immersed. Their facial expressions were strained as they struggled toward release.

“You know, James,” Abby remarked, “we never finished going through the pictures together. See this one here?” She tipped it toward him. “You never took me in this fashion, and I—”

He ripped the parchments from her hands and pitched them to the other end of the couch, then he grabbed her beneath her arms and shook her—hard. “Why are you behaving so outrageously? What are you about?”

“I told you: I don’t have anywhere to go. I—”

“Stop it!” he commanded, shaking her again, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh surrounding her collarbone. “Just stop it! I can’t stand to have you acting like this! Or hear you talking like this! Or watch you offering yourself like some . . . some streetwalker!”

“I rather like myself this way,” she commented casually. “I think I’m much more interesting. Don’t you?”

She grasped his wrists and guided him to her breasts. For the merest instant, he remained there, covering the soft mounds, relishing her nipples as they poked the centers of his palms, then he jumped back as though burned.

He jerked away, brushing his hands across his trousers,
desperate to eliminate the lingering sensation from his skin. Feeling ridiculous, he recognized that he needed to calm himself, so he went to the table and poured himself a glass of wine, clutching his fingers around the stem. Drinking intensely, he used the opportunity to determine what his next statement should be, but nothing valuable occurred to him.

Eventually, he muttered, “You can’t stay.”

“I don’t belong anywhere else.”

“People will find out that you’re here.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” she said. “I had Arthur inform the staff that I’d moved in—”

“You did what?” He groaned, bewildered by her folly. Had she gone mad?

“The word is probably spreading from house to house even as we speak.”

“But everyone will think you’re my mistress!”

“Yes, I imagine they will.” She smiled and shifted like a contented cat. “Unless you’re ready to make an honest woman out of me?”

The question caused his heart to pound, the blood to roar in his ears. Abruptly weak at the knees, he wished there were a chair close by so he could brace himself. “I’m
never
going to marry you.”

“Mistress it is, then.” She shrugged a second time, as though being married or unmarried mattered not a whit. “And I must say, from how grouchy Arthur tells me you’ve been, you definitely could use one!”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. I’m available.” Stretching down toward her feet, she retrieved the lascivious pictures from where they had slid under a pillow, and she started leafing through them once again. “I don’t understand why we’re fighting,” she mentioned, “when we could be making love instead. We have our problems, but they’re not important when we’re together in a bed.”

“There is no
we.”

“If you insist . . .” She flipped to the last illustration,
then she sighed wistfully, as though she’d just finished reading the happy conclusion of a vapid romantic novel. In the painting, he was reclined on the daybed and cuddling with Lily in obvious postcoital serenity. “I’d never gone all the way to the end before,” she noted. “You look so satisfied, just the two of you, lying there. The way you’re so
attuned
to her is . . . is . . .”

“Lily was a magnificent piece of ass,” he concurred, aiming to wound. “I always liked her breasts the best. They were extremely sensitive, and I’d suck at her for hours at a time.”

She sighed again, ignoring what he’d said. After staring far too long at the final picture, her gaze slowly rose to meet his. “I miss this closeness,” she confessed quietly, running her hand along the image of himself and Lily, as if she could magically force herself into the drawing and actually
become
Lily. “Of all the things while I was away . . . what I missed most was having you hold me like this.”

At her wrenching disclosure, his heart skipped several beats. A thousand words flew to the tip of his tongue. Kind words. Cruel words. Loving words. But he didn’t articulate any of them. He wanted her gone!

“I’m going to wash,” he said, “then I’m going to bed.” He started for the dressing room, where the water from her bath would still be warm.

“I’m tired, too.” She emitted an unladylike yawn. “I’m not used to these late hours, but I guess I’ll have to change my schedule if I intend to welcome you home every morning.”

The woman was totally insane; there was no other explanation. “Please don’t be here when I’m through. My mother’s bedroom is next door, or there’s a guest room down the hall. I’ll sleep for a few hours; then, when I awaken, I’ll find you some suitable accommodations.”

Forcing himself to progress dispassionately to the dressing room, he closed the door behind him, relieved at how he’d handled her. He’d showed no emotion save rage, and he’d exercised enough control over his unruly body to ignore
her efforts at seduction. Without a doubt, she’d gotten his message and would leave shortly.

Deliberately, he stripped, listening for sounds from the other chamber but not discerning any. Finally naked, he dipped into the tub and had a quick scrubbing. He would have liked a longer soak, but he was too distressed, so relaxation was unattainable.

He stepped out of the water and onto the rug, but as he snatched at the towel, another hand was there first.

“Let me do that for you,” she volunteered. His back was to her, and he stiffened when she leaned in and wrapped her arms around his waist, which put her curious hands directly in front of his jutting erection. Without hesitating or requesting permission, she caressed him with one and cradled his sacs with the other. She’d shed her robe, so her breasts were bare, and as she pressed herself against him, he accepted that she’d won.

As long as she hadn’t touched him intimately, he’d been successful in keeping her at bay, but he simply couldn’t resist the pull of such overwhelming desire when she was standing so close and manipulating him in this manner.

“Abby . . . please don’t . . .” he whispered through gritted teeth. It was a feeble attempt at stopping her, but he might as well not have spoken.

He cursed his weaknesses in the damning silence, and she meticulously worked him over, until she had his hips flexing, his muscles straining, and his cock beginning to weep. She circled around his torso and dropped to her knees, nuzzling his balls, then licking a path from the base to the tip until finally, blessedly, she took him inside. His surge of pleasure was so intense that he feared he might spill himself then and there, so he pulled out after only one deliberate penetration.

“Don’t order me away,” she declared, “because I won’t heed your commands. And don’t demand that I quit loving you. Because I won’t do that, either.”

He stared down at her, naked and on her knees before him. Her expressive emerald eyes were open wide, and he
could easily behold her stark emotion. She was so foolish: trusting him, desiring him, adoring him.

How he hated her at that moment! For coming to his home and compelling him to remember how much he cared. For tickling his memory into recalling how much he’d missed her when they’d been apart. But most of all, he hated her for making him wonder if it might be possible to love her, to have her after all.

A wave of fury and frustration swept over him, and he needed to lash out, to drive her away. With his strong, solid body. With his harsh, stinging words. What game did she play, toying with him so heartlessly? She knew
who
he was and
what
he was, yet she was here anyway, demanding that he give some part of himself that didn’t exist, expecting him to pretend that he was a different sort of man from the one he truly was.

Gripping her by her forearm, he dragged her to her feet, spun her, and bent her over the tub. She braced herself on the rim, and he kneed her legs apart and positioned himself between them. He whisked his palm up her flank, her buttock, then dipped into her cleft. With her hair shaved away, her pussy was silky, baby-soft, and he fondled her until she dampened. Then two fingers slid inside, her inner muscles clenching around him, and he could sense how tight she’d be, how hot.

His cock reared, begging to enter, the blunt peak poised to proceed. With a swift shove, he could be buried to her womb. A few hasty thrusts, and he could spill himself, his seed flooding her and, perhaps, producing a babe.

The powerful thoughts raced through his mind, and he wailed his torment and pushed her away. She tottered, and almost fell, but he did nothing to help her regain her balance.

In the worst agony of his life, he veered to the bedchamber like a blind man and reeled to his bed, clutching the bedpost. His pulse roaring, his body on fire, his passion rampaging to a critical level, he closed his eyes and strove to stabilize his breathing, but he simply hadn’t the mettle
to regain control. His lust for her was so great that he truly believed he might rip her in half if she didn’t desist.

He heard her approaching, but he didn’t turn to face her. “Go, Abby,” he decreed. “I’m warning you. For your own good. Leave me be!”

“I won’t,” she said, unruffled, courting the danger, obviously not comprehending the peril in which she’d placed herself. “I’m not leaving. No matter what you say or how you act, I’m staying right here.”

“What do you want from me?” He moaned in anguish, whipping around to stare her down.

“Just this.” She gestured between them. “The two of us. Here, together. On any terms.” She moved closer. “I’d like the chance for us to build a family, so I’d be overjoyed to marry you, if you’d ask me. If you can’t, I’ll stay anyway. I’ll be your paramour. For a week, or a month, or a year. I’ll remain until this inferno has fizzled out, then I’ll go. But only then.”

“I don’t want to make a family with you,” he tried to assert, but the hitch in his voice belied his denial. “I can’t be the man you imagine!”

“ ’Tis not my
imagination
, James. You’re the finest man I know!”

“I’m not!” he shouted vehemently, but the deranged woman just took another step. Then another, until she was near enough to lay her hands on his chest, to tangle her fingers in the thick mat of hair.

“I don’t love you,” he protested zealously, pronouncing the terrible lie.

“You don’t need to,” she responded softly. “I have enough love for both of us.” She hugged him, crushing her nakedness to his. “Don’t drive me away again. I can endure anything but that.”

Her breasts were flattened against his chest, his thick, heavy phallus digging into her belly. The warm heat of her, the soft essence of her skin, enveloped him. In one motion, he lifted her and hurled her on the mattress, coming down on top. Roughly, he forced her legs apart, determined to
have her, no longer inclined to eschew such a staggering indulgence.

With no more preparation than that, he plunged to the hilt, and she whimpered and arched up off the bed, her body not equipped for his overwhelming size or eagerness, but he wouldn’t be denied, and he held her down while he propelled himself into her, over and over again, struggling and straining against her like a crazed man. He did nothing to alleviate the vicious invasion, thinking only that if he could probe deeply enough, descend far enough, he could eventually rid himself of this deadly urgency and find some peace.

Through it all, she cooed reassuringly, murmuring tender endearments. Treasuring him, accepting him. Loving him. In her serene, patient fashion, she took all he so brutally bestowed, letting him fill her to the brim with his loneliness and despair until he’d purged himself of all his heartbreak.

With a fervid rush, he spilled himself, and he intentionally allowed his seed to spew across her womb, some primal part of him yearning to plant a child. He cried her name, crushing her with the strength of his embrace, but he didn’t care.

“I don’t love you . . .” he persisted. “I don’t!” He buried his face against her nape as scalding tears blistered his eyes.

“ ’Tis all right, James,” she said gently, and she ran her precious hands in a soothing motion up and down his back. “Everything is all right now.”

“No, it’s not. . . .” He strove to relax his body, his but he felt as if she were the last lifeline tethering him to the world, and he dare not let go, lest he drift away. “Don’t make me love you. You’ll always regret it.”

“No, never. I’ll never be sorry.” She rested her palm against his cheek. “And neither will you.”

He wanted to believe her but couldn’t. To have her in his life, to be confident that she would always be his, was a joy too magnificent to count upon. For what if she left? What if he gave his heart to her without reservation, but she tossed it back? How could he continue on? The immense,
all-consuming dread, instilled by his father when he was a child, made him too afraid to seize what she was offering.

He only knew of one way to have her, one way that was safe.

Bending down, he found her nipple, latching on and nursing like a babe at its mother’s breast. Snuggled there, he suckled for a lengthy time, letting her scent and taste comfort him. But as he shifted to her other breast, he was past the need for consolation, and so was she.

Still implanted, his cock enlarged easily. Ready for her. For this.

He craved to feel her writhing and squirming, wailing out in ecstasy. Physical satisfaction he understood. Carnal pleasure he wasn’t apprehensive about sharing. So he blazed a trail down her stomach, to her woman’s spot, sinking his tongue into her pliant, wet recesses. The musk and salt of her sex enticed him, lured him, prompting him to long for things that could never be.