Simply Forbidden (12 page)

“He always does. I should be used to it by now.” He stared up at the ceiling. “How the devil was I supposed to know how to run the estates when no one showed me? Even after I succeeded to the title they kept all the knowledge for William and Michael and shut me out.”

“Do you really believe his father cheated you?”

He glared at her. “Questions like that are why I try and avoid airing my family’s dirty linen at social gatherings.”

“Don’t tell me then. I was just trying to help.” She made as if to whisk herself away from him and he couldn’t bear that. He sighed and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“I’ve spent the last five years trying to wrest control of the estate away from the Granger family. William might not admit it, but ever since his father was declared my guardian, his family has bled me dry.”

“That cannot be right.”

“It isn’t, but I’ve made it harder by refusing to visit my uncle in person and sort it out face-to-face, in a genteel, gentlemanly manner. Solicitors and lawyers make it a very slow process, but at least I don’t have to look at him. I’m afraid I might try and kill him.” Gabriel sighed. “And William does have a point. In my efforts to keep away from his family, I’ve stayed away from the people who depend on me for a living.”

She stroked his cheek again as if trying to soothe him. “But you can change that. I know you can.”

“Perhaps your faith in me is misplaced.”

“Now you are just feeling sorry for yourself.”

He blinked at her. “What?”

She poked him in the chest. “You are perfectly capable of taking control of your own destiny. I suspect your reluctance comes more from your not wanting to hurt the family that brought you up.”

“Hurt them? They treated me like scum and they treated my mother …” He shut his mouth and struggled to breathe properly. “I don’t feel sorry for them at all.”

“Then you need to face them.”

He glared down at her calm face. “Easy for you to say.”

“That’s true, but you’ll have to do it eventually, so why not now?”

He considered her carefully, and tried to decide what to tell her and what to leave out. He didn’t want her thinking he was any more of a coward than she obviously did. “Because someone is busy trying to blacken my reputation again and make the War Office reopen an investigation into my supposed traitorous crimes. If the Granger family wait a while and the evidence goes against me, all that I own might revert back to them.”

“But you were imprisoned and almost died! How on earth do they think you were responsible for anything?”

He was shocked to see that she looked almost as angry as he felt. It made him feel curiously warm inside, as if she was still holding his hand. But this conversation couldn’t go on. He needed to get away from the ballroom and the stares of his peers.

On impulse, he bent his head and kissed her. She started talking so he kissed her again, this time outlining the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue. She made a low noise in her throat and opened her mouth to him. While he stroked his tongue inside, he captured her wrists and brought both her hands around to the small of her back and held them captive in one of his.

She sighed and leaned into him, melted into the kiss and let
him possess and explore her mouth at will. God, he wanted her now, wanted to repel the shock of his cousin’s appearance and bury himself inside her until he felt nothing but the need to fuck and burn. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and her belly against his cock.

He kept kissing her as he pressed her even closer until he suspected that the buttons of his waistcoat and the heat of his shaft would be imprinted on her skin forever.

“Miss Ross, will you meet me at the pleasure house tonight?”

She looked up at him, her lips swollen from his kisses, her hazel eyes so full of warmth that he feared he might drown in them.

“I can’t.”

He frowned, his sexual anticipation doused by her prosaic words. “Why not?”

“Because my father asked me to attend this ball with him, and I can hardly abandon him here.”

“But I want you.”

She moved away from him. “And tonight you will not have me.”

“And what am I supposed to do about this?” He gestured at his thick erection.

She dipped him a curtsey. “You have a hand, don’t you?”

“And you are an impudent baggage.”

Her smile was full of anticipation. “That is true. Perhaps I will see you tomorrow night?”

“You aren’t going to ride with me tomorrow morning either?”

“I have an appointment with my dressmaker.”

“Perhaps I should simply go to the pleasure house by myself tonight after all.”

Her smile dimmed at little but she still raised her chin at him
before she started walking away. “What an excellent idea. Good night, my lord.”

He caught up with her in two strides and took her hand. “I didn’t mean that.”

She wouldn’t look at him. “You are a free man, my lord. What you choose to do is scarcely my concern, is it?”

“It is your concern if I choose to make it so.”

“But you don’t, do you? You are too scared to settle on one woman in case she wants things from you that you are not prepared to give.”

He stared down at her as her words hit home, and he slowly released her hand. She deserved more than him. She deserved a man who would love her to distraction and give her as many children as she wanted. “Good night, Miss Ross.”

“Good night, Lord Swanfield.”

God, he couldn’t let it go like this, he just couldn’t. She’d gone halfway down the hallway before he found the courage to speak. “Miss Ross, if I was available just for you at the pleasure house, would that please you?”

She turned back slowly and studied him for a long moment across the distance. “Yes, it would.”

“Then that is what I shall do.” He bit his lip. “I’ll wait in our room every night until you decide to favor me with your presence. I won’t let anyone else bring me sexual release.”

She inclined her head a regal inch and then turned and left him standing there, his heart thumping, his cock aching in an unsteady echo. After a few moments, he turned and made his own way back up the hall. To his relief, Paul St. Clare stood right by the entrance to the ballroom holding both their cloaks.

“Miss Ross said you might want to leave, my lord. I’ve already summoned a hackney.”

Gabriel grabbed his cloak and hat and held them in front of his tented pantaloons as they edged their way around the ballroom. Whispers followed him like the lightest rainfall and he
kept his face blank, looking neither for William nor for Miss Ross, and concentrated solely on getting out of the front door.

In the hackney cab, he collapsed on the seat and allowed Paul to direct the driver and then follow him inside. Gabriel closed his eyes and fought the sensation that his world was shifting out of his control again. He thought he’d learned patience and the fickle nature of life and death in the prison cell, but some part of him was shocked at the randomness of events.

He shuddered as he became aware of Paul’s hand under his cloak lightly settling over his engorged cock.

“Do you need some help with that?”

“Paul …”

Paul immediately removed his hand. “I’m sorry, Gabriel, it was just so difficult to resist. If I got down on the floor and sucked you into my mouth, I’m sure I could have you all finished by the time we reached our lodgings.”

Just for a moment, Gabriel let himself imagine the strong pull of Paul’s clever mouth on his cock, the immense gratification of being able to come down the other man’s throat in thick pulsing waves….

“Thank you, but no.”

Paul sighed, the sound loud in the smelly confines of the cab. “Then can I just watch you do it?”

Gabriel managed a smile. “No.” He glanced down at his rebellious cock. “And stop talking about it. You’re making it worse.”

He’d wait until he found the privacy of his own bed before he touched himself, knew it wouldn’t take long for him to come hard. With a groan he rearranged his stiff cock in his pantaloons, glad that they weren’t as tight as the ones he wore at the pleasure house. Then he thought about Miss Ross and waiting for her to touch him and nearly came all over himself.

“Damnation!”

Paul laughed as Gabriel cursed. “It was much easier in the
prison cells, wasn’t it? No one asked if you wanted a hand there. You usually had to fight them off.” Paul’s voice grew quiet. “Sometimes I miss that.”

“I don’t,” Gabriel muttered. The carriage drew to a halt and Gabriel felt in his pocket for some coins and groaned again as his fingers brushed his cock. He promised himself that if he managed to get upstairs without coming in his pantaloons, he’d call the awful night a success after all.

“I
want to surprise him,” Lisette said firmly, her gaze fixed on Marie-Claude, who sat opposite her at the kitchen table in the pleasure house. “I want to make him my slave.”

“He already is your slave. He’s given up everyone else here just for you.”

“I know, but …” Lisette frowned. “There must be something I can do to him tonight, something deliciously decadent.”

“Like what?”

Lisette felt her cheeks heat up. “When I saw him with Lieutenant St. Clare last night at the ball, I wondered if perhaps Lord Swanfield enjoys a man’s touch more than he has admitted.”

“He certainly allows men to touch him, but I don’t think he is naturally inclined that way.” Marie-Claude put down her glass of wine with a businesslike thump and started to get up. “Do you wish me to find a man to help you?”

“No.” Lisette smiled for the first time and Marie-Claude sat down again. “I think I’ll play that part myself.”

* * * 

Gabriel paced the small bedchamber and watched the hands on the clock on the mantelpiece move slowly around the dial. It was past eleven now and there was no sign of Miss Ross. And in this place, he had no control over her tardiness and she knew it. He halted by the small fire. Was that what she wanted? For him to grow impatient with her and forget his place?

“Good evening, Gabriel.”

He turned around and found Miss Ross in the doorway. She wore a simple pink muslin frock without adornment, and her long, fair hair was gathered at the nape of her neck with a single ribbon. She managed to look both as pure as an innocent debutante and as sensual as the most experienced woman he had ever met. His heart rate sped up and sent tremors of lust pulsing through his veins.

“Good evening, Miss Ross.”

She nodded and crossed over to the bed, where she deposited a bulky silk bundle. “Please undress completely, Gabriel.”

He complied, taking his time peeling off the obscenely tight pantaloons, stockings, and shoes. When he straightened, she was still watching him. She patted the black satin counterpane of the bed.

“Get on the bed and kneel up facing the headboard.”

He walked toward her and climbed onto the bed, his breathing erratic as she surveyed him, her gaze cool, her hands remaining in her lap. He tensed as she moved behind him, urging him closer to the headboard, placing his hands flat on the wood and widening the gap between his knees. The tip of his erect cock grazed the wood and he flinched at the unexpected contact.

“Don’t turn around.”

He focused his gaze on the intricate grain of the mahogany as she fussed around behind him.

“Keep still.”

He shivered as the scent of orange blossom invaded his nostrils
and her oiled fingers caressed his shoulders and then his biceps. She continued oiling down his arms until her fingers laced with his and then withdrew, leaving a silky trace of warm oil all over his skin. She continued to massage his back, and then her arms slid around to his front and worked the oil into his furred chest.

His cock jammed against the headboard and stayed put, pulsing in time to the movements of Miss Ross’s skilled fingers. She circled his nipples, pulled and drew on them until they were hard and he hissed a curse. Her hands moved lower and he sucked in a breath as she touched his flat belly and then his lower back and buttocks.

“Do you like this?” she murmured.

He managed to nod, too caught up in the experience to do more than curse or beg her never to stop.

“Good.”

Her fingers moved between his legs to play with his balls and the soft skin behind them and he arched his back. He hardly cared when she slid one oiled finger into his arse and then a second.

“I should imagine you want me to touch your cock.”

He set his jaw as she added a third finger and started to move them back and forth, pushing his already tortured cock harder against the wood. He wouldn’t beg yet; he was much stronger than that.

“You don’t want me to touch your cock? Perhaps I’m not doing this correctly.”

Her right hand dropped away from his balls and he wanted to cry out.

“If my fingers aren’t enough to make you beg, perhaps one of these will work better.” Sounds of rustling and movement behind him made him wary and he shut his eyes. “Look down.”

He opened his eyes and saw a variety of dildos laid out on the pillow below him. They were made of different substances—
leather, glass, jade—and were a variety of lengths and thicknesses.

“Which one would make you beg?”

He bit down on his lip. Did she mean to try them all on him? A flicker of dark excitement stirred low in his gut. There must be at least six of them. She leaned around him and the bones of her corset pressed against his back. He realized she must have taken off her dress. She touched each dildo and rearranged them from smallest to largest.

“You don’t have a preference, Gabriel?”

He refused to reply, almost afraid to give away his complete slavish willingness to do whatever she wanted. She picked up the smallest dildo, which was made of glass and about seven inches long.

“Then I’ll have to try them all.”

Time blurred as she worked each dildo inside him in turn, narrowed to the sensation of the exquisite fullness, her soft voice, and what was happening to his beleaguered cock. He wanted to give in, wanted to beg, wanted to lie down and worship at her feet as she tormented him so pertly.

He shivered as her thumb brushed his lower lip.

“You’ve bitten this ragged. Is it so difficult to beg, then?” Helplessly he licked her thumb, drew it into his mouth, and tasted orange oil and his own blood. He felt more at peace than he ever had before. “What if I offered you another way to relieve your cock?”

He almost stopped breathing as she pressed the last and biggest dildo deep inside him and held it there. What did she mean? Damnation, he wouldn’t fuck her, he wouldn’t.

“What if you were able to slide your cock into my arse? Would you beg for that?”

He went still and tried to sort out what she offered him from what he’d thought she’d want. “Your arse?” he managed to whisper.

“Yes.”

“God …” And it was suddenly too much. He climaxed with such a jolt that he groaned out loud as his cock spurted his seed all over the hardness of the headboard. He crumpled forward until his head met the wood with a thud and he struggled to breathe. He realized she had removed the thick dildo from his arse. Would she be annoyed that he had come? Her fingers curled around his limp shaft and he groaned.

“Gabriel …”

“Yes?” He asked hoarsely.

“I still want you to slide your cock into my arse. Will you make sure I’m ready for you?”

“Yes.”

Lisette waited for him to turn around and really look at her. Watching his big, strong body convulse with the fierceness of his climax had made her wet and more than ready to have him inside her. Not that he would come inside her sex, she knew that, but at least she would get to feel him. And after seeing him come like that, she wanted it even more.

“I am sorry that I came, Miss Ross.”

“Why? I enjoyed it.”

He kept his gaze lowered to the bed. “Because you didn’t give me permission.”

“I’m not your master, Gabriel. If you wish to have a relationship like that I understand that there are several guests up on the third and fourth floors who would be more than happy to oblige you.”

He looked at her then, his indigo eyes serious. “I don’t want that.”

She licked her lips. “Good, because I am not the sort of woman who likes wielding a whip. Will you undress me now?”

“Yes, Miss Ross.”

“My name is Lisette.”

He reached for her then, his large, calloused hands gentle on
her skin as he undid laces and buttons and finally drew her corset and shift over her head. When she was naked, he simply stared at her, his mouth a hard line, his eyes almost black as his pupils dilated.

“I am not going to tell you what to do next, Gabriel. If that is what you want, I’m not the right person for you.”

His mouth came down on hers and he lowered her to the bed, his kisses as urgent and unfettered as she could’ve wished, his hands caressing, measuring, possessing every inch of her skin.

She gasped as he nuzzled her breast and then drew it into the heat of his mouth, teased her other nipple with his fingers. She opened her legs to him without thought and his heavy thigh shoved them wider, her wetness rubbing against his muscle and coarse hair creating an urgency and friction all its own.

She came then, pushing her hips higher to squeeze his thigh and gain the maximum enjoyment from her release. With a growl, he changed positions, his wide shoulders taking the place of his thigh, his mouth now feasting on the wetness and need of her sex. His oiled skin moved against hers, creating a slickness that eased his movements and made them flow together like the sea.

His tongue flicked over her clit and he eased two oiled fingers into her arse. She bucked against the sudden pressure, but he was inexorable, pushing his fingers deep, distracting her by tonguing and nipping her swollen bud, making her come and come until he had all four fingers wedged inside her, stretching and molding her.

With a sudden motion, he withdrew his fingers and rolled her onto her front over a pile of pillows. He came down over her, his stiff shaft erect again and rubbing against her buttocks. She grabbed his wrist and dug her nails into his skin until he grunted in protest.

“Do you want this?” she asked.

“Lisette …” He groaned and moved his hips against her again as if he couldn’t stop himself. “God, yes.”

“Enough to beg?”

He went so still she could only hear her own breathing and the frantic thump of his heart. He lowered his head until his lips touched the back of her neck.

“Yes, damn you. I’ll beg for this. I want to be inside you more than I want to breathe.”

Lisette smiled and let go of his wrist and heard him exhale. Then there was no more time to enjoy her victory as he positioned the thick oiled head of his cock against the tight entrance to her arse. She tried not to tense up as he slowly pressed forward, but he felt so big….

“It’s all right.” He nipped her ear and then licked it, nipped it again harder and gained another inch or two. “You’ll take me, you want to.” His hands roamed her body and his thumb settled over her clit and circled it hard. She came again and he thrust forward, until she felt the first dark stirring of need deep inside her and the urge to lift herself against him.

“More,” she whispered. “Give me more of you.”

Gabriel stuffed all four of his fingers into her wet sex and started to pump them back and forth. She reacted by opening up to him completely and the root of his shaft and his balls finally met her skin. He flexed his fingers and felt the answering pulse of his own cock lodged in her arse, massaged himself through the thin wall, until both of them gasped and then he was thrusting into her, each stroke as long and hard as he could make it. He forgot about caution, the need not to push her too hard, the need to obey, and simply fucked her arse the way he yearned to fuck her cunt and wouldn’t allow himself to.

Not that she was protesting at all. She moved with him, lifted herself into each stroke and gave it back to him, her muscles squeezing his cock and his fingers until he thought he’d go
crazy if he couldn’t come, that he never wanted to come, that he wanted to stay inside her forever….

She screamed his name and his fingers were almost crushed by the strength of her climax. His cock followed suit, pumping his hot seed deep inside her while he shook and trembled with the sheer basic force of it, the power of it and the primal need to fill her. For him, it felt far better than any man.

He rolled away and covered his eyes with his hand. His come was all over her and he liked the idea of that far too much. The way her scent mingled with his, the need to keep her filled with his seed so that every other man would know that she was taken, that she was his….

But she couldn’t be his.

He groaned and got off the bed and thoroughly washed himself before pulling on his pantaloons. He found a bowl and a clean washcloth and returned to the bed. Lisette now lay on her back, watching him. Without offering any explanation, he wet one of the cloths and used it to wipe her sex. He took his time, knew she was staring at him and simply let her.

“Are you cleaning your seed off me?” she asked, her voice husky.

“Yes.”

“Because you don’t like to see me like this?”

He winced. “I like it too much.” He gave himself another cursory wipe and threw the cloth into the bowl.

“But not enough to simply enjoy it and lie here with me instead of leaping up like a housemaid and cleaning up. But, of course, your primary concern is to make sure I’m not pregnant.”

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? “Miss Ross …”

Lisette sat up and her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. “It’s all right, I understand.” She reached across to grab hold of her shift and struggled into it. “Can you find my gown?”

She knew she shouldn’t care that he’d washed her. At some
deep level, she couldn’t help it. Her plan to get him to notice her had succeeded perfectly, but had only left her feeling more confused and frustrated than before. Because she did want him. She wanted all of him—his cock, his seed—and she wanted him to want that, too.

She picked up her corset and rolled it up as best she could, feeling unwanted tears prick the back of her eyelids. Would she ever be good enough for anyone? Would she always be second best? She jumped as Gabriel’s hand touched her knee.

“Miss Ross …”

She glared down at him, knew her rage was totally unfair and hated him anyway. “What?”

“I have your dress. Would you like me to help you put it on?”

“No, thank you. I can manage perfectly well.” She snatched the muslin gown out of his grasp and tossed it over her head, struggled to find the sleeves, and suddenly felt trapped.

“Let me help.”

She had to suffer the indignity of his hands moving competently over her like a nurse setting a child to rights. God, could this night become any more embarrassing? She’d made a fool of herself by wanting something that had clearly not been offered to her. And now she just wanted her own bed and the opportunity to weep alone.