Powder of Sin (30 page)

Clermont beamed. “Reed! Here at last. Oh, just what
I’ve longed for. Deirdre, look who’s joining us.”

Like Trevner, Lady Williamsford was on her hands and
knees, but she was no passive actor. Her mouth was moving up and
down on one man, and one of her hands clutched the base of his cock
while her other hand moved between her own legs. Another man knelt
behind her, attempting to insert his cock into her swaying body.
Lost in her own ecstasy of sucking, she didn’t seem to hear
Clermont.

The man behind her put his hand on her lower back
and pressed. She obligingly pushed her bottom higher and shifted
her thighs farther apart. With a grunt, he located his goal and
pushed into her. He began his enthusiastic pumping. More slaps of
flesh against flesh.

The curve of Lady Williamsford’s back, the line of
her throat as she strained at the cock in front of her reminded
Reed of Rosalie.

He felt his own cock’s stirring. Trust that stupid
object to rise to these occasions. He could ignore it, and he could
ignore the way her breasts swayed. They were fuller than Rosalie’s,
and her nipples were slightly duskier. He looked away and watched
the banker for a moment. His face was squeezed tight and red. He
wheezed as he pushed into Trevner.

A candidate for apoplectic fit, Reed thought.

That was a potential lifelong consequence that
hadn’t occurred to him. Laws had been broken—were still being
broken just a few feet away—by that banker and Trevner. Scandal
loomed.

And in other bodies, so did the even worse
possibility of infants in nine months.

The woman on the floor, writhing and panting under
Clermont’s fingers, was young. Reed didn’t recall her name, but
she’d been wearing a pale green gown. God, please not a virginal
creature. Not married, come to that. Actually Reed couldn’t think
of a single situation in which tonight boded well for the needy and
naked woman.

“Reed, you’re looking at the gorgeous Maggie. Do you
desire a turn with her?” Clermont leaned down and kissed the
woman’s belly. “You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

The woman whimpered and shoved the lower part of her
body from the floor. In heat. Her pink inner lips glowed as she
offered herself. An animal, Rosalie had said.

“Yes,” said Reed. “Get up and let me have her.”

Clermont crowed with joy. He slid away and sat up.
After a moment looking around, he grumbled, “I’m generous, since
there aren’t enough females in here. Maybe I should go to another
room.”

“No,” Reed said.

Clermont studied his face for a moment and must have
seen the danger there, for he shrugged. He got to his feet, his
stiff member waggling as he walked across to Lady Williamsford and
tried to dislodge the man fucking her.

Reed stood over Maggie, who raised her arms to him.
“Please,” she said.

He squatted and allowed her to wrap her arms around
him. Then he straightened, pulling her weight up easily. Echoing
Rosalie’s earlier motions, she curled around him, legs wrapped
tight around his middle.

She pressed her thoroughly wet core against him and
rubbed. The dampness seeped through his clothes and was warm on his
skin. A lovely naked woman in his arms, and his cock responded, of
course.

The man at Lady Williamsford’s mouth gave a shout
and convulsed. He fell back, twitching.

“That’s the spirit, lad,” Clermont said. “My turn,
Deirdre. You’ll have to open wider.”

Reed didn’t stop to watch Lady Williamsford suck on
Clermont. His arms full of the writhing Maggie, he prowled the
room. He had no idea where the discarded clothes could be and
instead found some of the red cloth had been ripped from the walls.
With some difficulty, because Maggie clung to him and tried to get
at his mouth, he gathered the cloth and wrapped it over her back.
She whimpered in dismay as he tried to put the cloth around her
front.

“No. You touch me, not this wretched cloth,” she
said. “Touch me.”

Yes, what a good idea, his cock said. He ignored
them both and managed to cover her from head to foot in the red.
She tried to get down from his arms and shed herself of the
covering, but he held her tight. “Now, now, Maggie, just wait,” he
crooned. “Just a little longer.”

“Need,” she whispered and began to lick his jaw.

He opened the door again and got through it.

“Hey,” Clermont called. “I was looking forward to
watching you fuck her. I sacrificed some delicious fun for
you.”

Using his foot, Reed slammed the door behind
himself. As soon as he’d delivered this woman to Dr. Leonard, he’d
go back and either lock the door or put a guard outside it. Perhaps
he’d first give himself the satisfaction of pummeling Clermont.

Dr. Leonard was still in the room that contained the
dancers. He had some bottles and equipment out and was coaxing a
man to drink something.

Maggie lapped and nibbled at the corner of Reed’s
mouth. He had trouble twisting his face away enough to ask the
doctor, “What’s that?”

“A sedative. I think that lovely young lady you’re
carrying could use some.”

Reed eased the woman down his body, wincing as she
slowly slid over his erection. She clung to him still. He shifted
her to his side, unsure if he could safely let go of her. She might
rush back to Clermont’s attentions.

She didn’t seem to mind that he merely held her
against him. She leaned her upper body weight against his arm,
spread her legs, and rode his thigh, rubbing and panting as her
core pushed against him. Her head was thrown back, and her blonde
hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back.

The doctor gave a low whistle. “Jesus, man. Now
that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing more often.”

Reed glared at him. “Shut up. She’s in need of help,
damn it.”

“I can see that. Come here, dear. What’s your
name?”

She gave a thin cry and convulsed against Reed, her
legs squeezing so tight around his thigh, his knee almost
buckled.

“Yes, yes, oh please,” she shouted. Why did she have
to say almost the same words he’d heard from Rosalie?

He could feel the moist heat through his trouser
leg. This whole suit would reek of female excitement. He gave a
small sniff and realized he didn’t detect the musk of sperm from
her. Perhaps there would be no risk of a baby after all. Hopeful
thinking, he supposed as he gently disengaged her arms from his
body while trying to retuck her makeshift red garment so it
wouldn’t fall off her.

“She’s lovely,” the doctor said. “Some men have all
the luck.”

Reed couldn’t think of a reply that wouldn’t involve
obscenities, so he remained silent. He stepped away from Maggie but
kept his hands on her shoulders as the doctor carefully measured
some green liquid into a glass and handed it to her. She sniffed it
and threw it down. The glass crashed on the parquet floor. Arms
wide, she dived at the doctor, who caught her and didn’t seem to
mind as much as he should have. He murmured and stroked her back
and tangled his fingers in her hair. She clung to him and hungrily
met his mouth, and they exchanged a long kiss.

Reed grabbed the doctor’s shoulder and spun him
around so the kissing pair disengaged.

“Get her the medication. Now,” Reed said. “Even if
you have to inject it into her system.”

“I don’t know why you’re so angry about all this.
She’s not hurting anything or anyone. Not even herself.”

“Of course, she isn’t. But you of all people should
know this behavior isn’t her choice. I’m worried about her, you
idiot. I’m angry this is happening to her.”

“Oh, very well. You’re right. But I still say no
harm when it comes to my interactions with her. I’m not going to
spread the word that she’s in this condition. And she is so very
lovely. Delicious mouth too.”

Maggie moaned and wrapped her arms around the
doctor’s waist. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she
said. “You taste good too.”

Reed was startled that she was listening. He’d
almost forgotten she was a thinking human.

Animals.

“Please, Maggie. Drink the green stuff the doctor
gives you,” he urged. “Leonard, I’m not sure I trust you, but I
have to find someone to guard the door to the small parlor. And
I’ll get someone to clean up the glass. Take care of her bare feet,
will you? Doctor—damn it, no, that doesn’t mean you should pick her
up.”

The man who’d drunk a dose of the green medicine was
sprawled on the floor, snoring. Reed paused at the door. “Looks
like that sedative of yours works. Have you given any to Miss
Ambermere?”

“No, she said she hadn’t taken a huge dose of the
glandular powder and could control herself. Seemed to be in control
too.”

“How did you test her control?”

Leonard gave him a toothy grin. “Scientific
method?”

Reed quelled the urge to shake the doctor only
because he needed him. “No more scientific method when it comes to
attractive females,” Reed said. “I’m warning you.”

The doctor’s laughter followed him out the room.

Rosalie wanted to run, feel wind stroke her face.
Actually she wanted to feel a breeze on every inch of her skin. Air
bathing. But no, she dragged her mind from her body’s raucous
senses. Help her guests.
Now.

But perhaps she could take a moment to find Gideon
again, press her face to his neck and inhale, taste in her throat
and mouth and nose that essence of the man she already missed and
craved.

The small parlor door was closed. Oh dear. No
servants guarded it. She went to it and paused only a moment to
feel the delightful coolness, the ridges and curves of the brass
doorknob.

Inside the room, bodies writhed and groaned. So many
of them, she was taken aback for a moment, her usual inhibitions
and dismay rising from the place they’d been imprisoned. But then
the curve of a shoulder blade distracted her. A lovely, shifting
shape. Warm, no doubt. Not Gideon’s, so she didn’t have the
immediate heavy lurch of desire, but anyone would want to stroke
the smooth skin marred only by a few freckles. She tilted her head
to the side and recognized Mr. Trevner, the man Mr. Clermont had
brought to dinner.

Mr. Clermont would be in here, then. Yes, there he
was. Naked, of course. He would be. And not so unattractive. Pale
and thin, perhaps, with no body hair, which she associated with
masculine beauty. But he was muscular, and how happy he looked
because a woman’s mouth moved on his cock.

It never occurred to her that such a thing might be
possible, but then she remembered the swooning joy Gideon had given
her with his mouth. Her mouth began to water. A cock would be warm,
heavy, redolent of the rich scent of a man. Of course she wanted to
taste Gideon.

And the same woman who got to taste a man had
another man behind her, filling her with his cock. He reminded
Rosalie of a dog, the way he hunched and moved. So much skin for
the lucky woman with two men touching her body. Stroking and—

Rosalie’s breathing ceased. Oh. The woman on Mr.
Clermont’s cock. Rosalie couldn’t pull in a breath. No, this wasn’t
the right thing for her to witness.

Her head swam, and a wave of nausea filled her.

She must have stumbled from the room, because she
stood outside the door now, panting hard to make up for all the
breathing she’d forgotten how to do in the room.

Thank God Gideon was there next to her. “Are you all
right?” he asked. How many times had he asked that tonight?

He didn’t move away or protest when she put her arms
around his torso, under his jacket, and pushed her face against his
neck, just as she’d dreamed of doing. Only now the dreamy quality
and her delight in the senses had dimmed. She was aware of too
much.

“Rosalie?”

She didn’t want to move her face from the safe spot
between the edge of his starched shirt and the even stiffer white
waistcoat, so her voice came out muffled. “The doctor might like to
know,” she said, trying to sound calm, “a knock on the head and
fainting aren’t the only things to mute the effects of the powder.
Shock rather works, such as seeing one’s mother naked and
doing…various things also has a sobering effect.”

“My poor Rosalie.”

She shook her head, but not too hard. He’d cupped
her head against him, and she didn’t want to dislodge his hand. “I
have known of her nature for years. I haven’t been horribly
shocked, you know. Just slightly. More than enough, I hope.” She
pulled in a lungful of him and knew she was still under the
influence, because the smell roused her, made her want to unfasten
his clothes and get at the source. Her mouth on his cock.

But once again, she could think.

“The doctor is here,” she began. “Wait. You know
that because you were in the room when he arrived. He’s very
sympathetic and gentle.”

“Did he do anything to you?”

She did like the way his rich voice vibrated through
her, right down to her belly. “He embraced me. But very sweetly and
not demanding.”

“Huh.”

She dragged her mind back to her guests. “We needn’t
worry about the people in that parlor. None of them will be in
danger. The garden?”

“Hawes is at the back gate, making sure no one
leaves,” he said.

“Heavens, I’d completely forgotten about Miss
Renshaw.”

“Yes, I think she’s with him.”

“I hope he can keep his mind on the task.” She
recalled the night she’d first witnessed copulation—so many pumping
bottoms ago. Then she remembered the fiercely protective Hawes on
Coney Island. “They’ll be married, I think. And if it weren’t for
the powder, they’d never have discovered that they suit.”

“Do they suit?” He’d gently pushed her away and was
summoning a footman who loitered near the dining room door.

Would she hear the sneering tone in his voice if she
weren’t so alive to every detail of him? Of course she would. She
had from the start. Disapproving Mr. Reed. Why on earth did she
have to fall in love with him? Because he laughed with her. Because
of what he could do to her body. Because of the way he could
startle her, often by not being disapproving after all.