One Night of Surrender: The Brothers Mortmain, Book 1 (6 page)

And quite suddenly Katherine wanted to know them all. She wanted to be more than just a woman to spend his last night with. She wanted to be
the
woman.

“I didn’t wake up one morning and think: I want to be a highwayman,” he mocked, and she smiled as he’d meant her to.

“What then?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I come from a family of adventurers. My two brothers are like me, always seeking out some new madness. Always getting into scrapes of one kind or another. At least, they were…” He set down his food and wiped his hands. “My elder brother had an accident. He was blinded. No more adventure for him, unfortunately, and that has made him a bitter man.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was he a highwayman too?”

Gervais shook his head. He seemed disinclined to discuss it further.

“Being a highwayman is rather more than getting into a scrape,” she reminded him, mildly scolding.

He looked up in surprise, then smiled, as if he enjoyed being scolded by her.

Gervais hadn’t meant to tell her his life story; it wasn’t something he told everyone, but she seemed to be waiting and perhaps she had earned it. Even so it was a shortened version and not the whole truth, but Katherine would never know that. For some foolish reason he didn’t want her to think ill of him.

“My father was with the East India Company, away for most of our boyhood. There was no one to show us the right and proper way to behave, certainly not our gentle invalid mother, who died when I was quite young.” He shrugged. “We fell into bad company, the three of us. Excitement, danger, becomes a necessity. You find you can’t live without it.”

“I can understand that,” she said. Beautiful Katherine, who he was sure had never done a wicked thing in her life.

“When my father came home he threatened to disinherit me. I may be the youngest son but I am still worth a fortune.” He chuckled to see the expression in her eyes. “I’m not boasting, it is the truth. Look about you,” and he gestured at their luxurious surroundings. “Only the former Governor of Trinidad inhabits better quarters, and he has relations in higher places than I.”

“And your brothers?”

He looked away, feeling the weight of the despair his family must be feeling. They were due at Newgate tomorrow and he dreaded their last goodbyes. He’d have preferred them to stay away but he knew they wouldn’t. Didn’t he deserve to feel their pain and torment and regret? He
should
feel it.

“My elder brother is the heir and my father saves his deepest disappointment for him. He was sent abroad the last time he strayed but I don’t think he saw that as a punishment. Now he is blind he stays at home, drinking mostly, sunk in gloom. My second brother has a pact with his friends to deflower as many virgins as he possibly can before he dies.”

Katherine’s smooth brow wrinkled with disgust. He wished the words back but she
had
asked, and besides he’d only told her the abridged versions. But once again she surprised him.

“Do the virgins enjoy being deflowered?”

Gervais coughed to hide his laughter. “I-I don’t know. I’ve never asked them.”

“I ask because I didn’t enjoy it at all,” she said glumly. “It hurt and the act itself only lasted a moment and then Edward turned over and went to sleep.”

Gervais reached for her hand, twining his fingers with hers. He found himself staring at their linked hands and liking the way they fit together.

“Do you like what we’ve done together this night?” he found himself asking.

She glanced up at him under her eyelashes and gave a secretive little smile. “Yes,” she said. “I like it very much.”

“Then make sure you do as I said and find a man who wants to please you.”

Katherine composed herself, carefully removing her hand from his and folding both of them in her lap. With her loose hair about her and the flush in her cheeks she looked more delicious than ever, but when he moved to take her in his arms she gave him a cool stare.

“You were telling me why you became a highwayman.”

“So I was.” Leaning back and taking up his glass, he finished his wine while he considered how to end his story. “After my father washed his hands of me I went from one harebrained escapade to another. When a lady I knew dared me to hold up her husband’s coach and steal a kiss from her in front of him, I couldn’t resist.” He grinned. “Afterwards, waylaying the occasional coach seemed like a way to experience that thrill again. It had become necessary.” He shrugged, knowing it was impossible to explain to Katherine. Now, after his stay in Newgate, he found it difficult to understand it himself.

He wondered if she knew about his partnership with Edward and thought it unlikely. Edward must have kept that side of himself secret from Katherine or she would have mentioned it, and if his parents knew then they had kept quiet. Gervais’s lawyer, when he went to the inn looking for Edward, had found only blank stares and closed mouths wherever he turned.

Katherine’s sigh brought him back to the cell in Newgate which, despite all its luxury, remained a cell. She looked sad. “And now you must pay the price,” she said.

“It seems I must.” He poured more wine into his glass but didn’t drink it. He made a restless movement. “This conversation has turned blasted gloomy, Katherine. You are supposed to be cheering me up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well go on then!” he railed at her, pretending to be angry, fighting to stave off the horrors swirling in his brain. “Entertain me!”

Stumbling a little in her haste she started to her feet, clutching the covering to her breasts as it slipped from her shoulders. The back gaped low and he could see the delicate curve of her waist and the swell of her bottom.

“Take that off,” he commanded.

Could he really take her again? Yes, he could. This was a night like no other and he felt as if he were an extraordinary man, able to take her any number of times and still not be satisfied.

She was watching him, and where in the beginning she would have thrown off the covering at once, in haste to obey his commands, now she no longer feared him. Slowly, she let the cloth slip from her body. She was teasing him. Oh his Katherine had learned much in the past few hours. Now she was displaying the tip of her breast, now a length of thigh, until at last she allowed the cloth to fall to her feet, puddling about her on the thick rug.

In the glow of the dying candles she was magnificent.

“Touch yourself,” Gervais commanded, his voice husky.

“W-what?”

“I want to watch you pleasure yourself, Katherine.”

“But…”

“Do as you’re told.” His smile took the edge off his stern order and she hesitantly ran her fingers down her stomach and into the curls at the apex of her thighs. Sliding her fingers within the fleshy lips she found her pearl, already so sensitive. Slowly she began to stroke herself in the same way he’d done moments before. She was surprised at how easy it was—some instinct took over and if she listened to her own body, the building sensations, she knew exactly what to do. She’d closed her eyes to concentrate but now she opened them and saw him watching her, and as they gazed into each other’s eyes, she exploded in ecstasy.

The tremors made her cry out and it took a moment to regain her composure.

He drank her in for long minutes before he gave an impatient flick of his fingers for her to come to him.

Gervais thought she might resist—there was that hint of rebellion in the pouting bottom lip—but she came, slowly, gracefully.

He reached out to touch, running his fingers over the curve of a hip, the cinch of her waist, cupping her breasts in both hands to bring them to his mouth. She made that little sound in her throat he enjoyed hearing and he drew her closer, between his thighs, his rigid cock hidden by the coverlet he’d draped around himself.

Suddenly he heard voices, and the clanking of keys.

Katherine heard them too and they froze until the sound passed by. It was a reminder that their time together was finite and they both knew it.

Urgently he began to kiss her, suckling on her breasts, but she was tugging at his hands, pulling him up to his feet. The coverlet fell from him and tentatively, eyes shining, she reached out to clasp his cock where it reared up between them. Her fingers tightened and he groaned deep in his throat.

“What do you want me to do, sir?” she breathed.

He tried to read her face through his haze of desire.

She didn’t seem to be afraid. Instead there was a tenseness about her that spoke of need, of want, just like him.

“Take me in your mouth,” he commanded in a deep, rough voice.

She looked into his eyes, uncertain, trying to read his thoughts, and then she gave a quick nod of her head and sank down to her knees before him on the luxurious Turkish rug. She seemed to set herself before she leaned forward and began to lick the head of his cock, delicately, like a cat.

Gervais could see she was mimicking what he had done to her and he would have smiled if he could have. Clever girl. He thrust against her mouth and she opened her lips and let him in, and then a little more.

“Oh yes,” he groaned. “That’s it. And grasp the base…”

For a moment he was lost in the sensation, but as his pleasure built he knew he didn’t want to spill into her mouth. Not her first time—and her only time with him, he reminded himself, but hastily pushed the thought away. He reached down to raise her up and holding her close he kissed her mouth to mouth.

“Come to bed,” he murmured against her lips that tasted of him.

A sound outside. Were they readying the gallows?

He quickened his steps, pulling her along as if they were in a race, and they fell on the bed together, laughing as he rolled her over and on top of him, clinging, their naked flesh grinding together. He felt his cock brush against her thigh and she stilled, feeling it too. She lifted herself up with her hands pressing against his chest, and gazed down into his face.

Reading the question in her eyes he said, “I’m entirely at your disposal, Katherine.”

Chapter Eight

Katherine hesitated.

This was very daring of her, but during this night she’d become very daring. Gervais had helped her to do that. She’d felt as timid as a mouse when she arrived and now…now she was contemplating riding her man like a stallion.

She lifted herself upon his body, until she was kneeling on either side of his thighs. Gervais lay still and complacent, but he was watching her, his eyes half-open and gleaming darkly. Was he worried about what she intended? She smiled to think that her highwayman might tremble.

Reaching out she brushed his cock with her fingers, then held it more firmly. He liked that. She had been able to tell when she knelt before him how much he liked it. The way his face changed, his mouth softened, and he looked younger and less careworn.

This was for him, Katherine thought, but for her as well. For she’d discovered she enjoyed giving this man pleasure.

She leaned forward and nuzzled against his shaft. He was like velvet-covered steel and she ran her tongue from base to tip. He groaned, lifting his hips toward her. Creeping closer, she rose up on her knees and toes until she was positioned over his cock. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she sank down.

He reached to clasp her hips, steadying her, giving her support, but nothing more.

She let herself slide down a little, taking more of him, and then again. It felt so good, she felt so good. Her pearl slid along his cock, sending pleasure like a shock through her tense body, and with a gasp she did it again.

“It feels so…so good,” she managed to say.

Her sheath clenched about him. She instinctively worked her inner muscles in a manner she’d never thought possible. Gervais groaned and thrust upwards, filling her.

In this position she felt as if he was even deeper inside her, that he was even bigger. She rocked her hips and the sensation made them both groan. Then she tried to slide up and down him but it was hard work. Soon she discovered that by leaning forward slightly, resting her palms upon his chest, she could manage it far better.

Lifting and settling, experiencing the heat and length of him inside her, her own body thrummed with growing excitement. Her breasts were almost in his face and he began to kiss them, his mouth hot and wet, his tongue stroking her nipples. She was close, so close. His caresses were enough to begin to push her towards the edge.

As if he knew it, Gervais rolled her over, tumbling her down onto the bed, and he began to thrust into her with a wild passion. At the same time her own passion built again until she was almost senseless. He shouted at his release, his hips pummelling her and then his body went rigid as he spilled his seed deep inside her.

They lay together, panting, perspiration beading on their bare skin despite the growing chill in the stone room now the fire was out. Sex had a smell, Katherine had discovered, a hot, musky smell. It was the smell of pleasure and gratification and sheer bliss.

There was a knock on the door.

Katherine froze, but Gervais touched her face, waiting for her eyes to meet his. “I asked for water, to wash, before…” He let the words drift, then gave a wry smile as he climbed from the bed and, picking up one of the covers from where it lay by the table, wrapped it about him, at the same time calling for whoever it was to come in.