The Corrupt Comte (13 page)

Not daring enough to reach out and touch him, though she wanted to.

He took in her hesitation, and she had the feeling he enjoyed it. His blue-green gaze warmed as his hips shifted again, subtly. “Remember what I told you.”

She met his eyes questioningly.

“In the closet.”

Ah, yes—that there were rewards in submission, in ceding control. Oddly enough, this didn’t feel like submission. This felt like the game she hadn’t wanted to play but needed to continue, if only because he’d promised her a
story
in exchange for the words she had painstakingly pulled from the recesses of her soul.

Such secrets were never meant to be shared aloud.

Settling her palms on his thighs, she leaned forward. The muscles beneath her hands tensed, and a glance at his face revealed that his mouth had fallen open, his breathing hastening between his parted lips. The faint flush coloring his prominent cheekbones was visible in the dim light.

Realization blinded her. She may be the one on her knees, but
he
was the one submitting. He was the one who shook when she’d barely laid a finger on him.

Not yet.

He wanted her to do this for him, and he wanted it badly.

Slowly, not wanting to miss a single sensation as heady power traipsed along her nerve endings, Claudia slid her hands up the lengths of his thighs. The fine weave of his trousers proclaimed his obvious wealth, but it was the muscles beneath that stirred her interest, and her greed. When her fingers slipped over the dips between hipbone and groin, she curled her fingers into what little extra fabric there was to be found. Her thumbs began to move inward, toward that rude bulge, pulling the placket taut around it.

She leaned in, wanting a better look at him, wanting to be nearer as she tentatively plucked open his trouser fall. The winter wool fell away with a careful tug, revealing the tented linen smallclothes beneath.

The
comte
sucked in a harsh breath as she stroked a fingertip down the still-hidden hardness of him.

That hardness jumped, pulsing.

She smiled and inched forward on her knees, but paused with her hand hovering over his twitching erection. “You owe m-me a st-story,
Comte
.”

Not looking up at him—not looking anywhere but at the intriguing front slit in his smallclothes—she waited. Waited while his flat belly rose and fell as he fought for control, waited while she listened to him slow his breathing.

Eventually, he made an indistinct but very male noise that spoke of frustration. “You want to know how I will ruin you.” His accent grew thick around the English words.

“Yes.” She reached a hand through the slit in his underthings and grasped him. Firmly.

His fingers flexed on his hips.

He scalded her, silky skin all hot and smooth over a core of iron. She squeezed before she could think not to, pumped him once—then again because it felt natural to do so, and as he muttered something into the cool air of their darkened hideaway, she tipped her head forward until her parted lips hovered over his length.

He shuddered at the first hot breath to escape her lungs and puff against his sensitive flesh. Her fingers shifted around him, trying to maintain their grip as his body tilted.

He slapped one palm against the wall and widened his stance. “Go on,
chaton
. Suck me.” A menacing tone, low and gravelly. “
Suce-moi la bite.
” Suck my cock.

She’d never heard a voice as arousing as his. Her breath caught in her chest, but her tongue darted out, dragging over her fingertips and along his length. He smelled musky but clean, as if he’d bathed tonight, and she settled herself between his strong, spread legs and dropped her weight back to rest on her heels.

Her free hand curved around his hip, while the hand holding him so intimately drew his erection away from the shirttails covering his abdomen and nearer to her open lips. Her hold on him lowered, pulling back the thin skin covering the head of his cock.

When her nose nuzzled the satiny, reddened head, he dove his fingers into the mass of curls braided at her crown and fisted them there, tugging deliciously on her scalp. He used his hold to move her mouth scant centimeters away from where she wanted it to be, forcing her to look up at his face.

His eyes gleamed gold in the faint light. An uncontrollable shiver wracked her. He was like a tiger, magical and cunning and utterly exotic.

And just as much a king. “Suck it,” he commanded in a brutal whisper, and her lips surrounded him.

Her mouth watered immediately at the salty taste of him, and without thought, she swirled her tongue around the thick, spongy head. Her eyes slid shut as she heard him groan. It was a wholly masculine sound, a growl that reverberated from deep in his chest down, down, until she swore she felt the vibration of it where her lips formed a tight ring around him.

“Move. Move your head up and down. Yes. Yes,
oui, comme ça
,” he muttered, guiding her with his hand. Every tug on her braid made the embers at her center pulse with heat, again and again until slick wanting wetted the tops of her inner thighs.

His hips thrust forward suddenly, and her eyes flew open as she jerked instinctively away from him.

“Do not stop.” His hips rolled again, shallower this time, gentler, and she felt the tips of his fingers begin to massage slow circles against her scalp, snared in place by the now-snarled strands. “Do not stop…and I will…tell you…my plan.”

Claudia didn’t care about his words anymore. All she wanted was to burrow her hand beneath her skirts and rub herself to orgasm. She swirled her tongue around his head, then bobbed a couple of inches down his length, her eyes squeezed shut as she fought to concentrate on this task and the power rippling through her with each of his stuttering breaths.

She reveled in the sound of that particular stutter, so different from her own.

“When I ruin you,
chaton
, it will be in that big bed covered in red and white.”

An image of her temporary bedchamber hovered in her mind. She sucked him harder, tonguing the slit and gathering the trickle of salty liquid she elicited before it slid down her throat.

“I will taste you again. Drink your sweet cream.”

His mouth had felt like heaven on her wet folds, his lips a wondrous torment locked around her needy clitoris.

“I will slide between your pretty thighs and push my cock inside you.
Ma bite
, my cock. Do you want my
bite
inside you, Claudia?”

Something low in her abdomen clenched tight at the thought of being filled by him. She had no idea how it would feel—would it hurt, with that sharp momentary pain she’d experienced when his fingers entered her in the linen closet? Though it hadn’t hurt last night, when he’d entered her with his fingers again. Last night, it had been nothing but bliss.

God, she felt so empty.

“Once I am in you”—his hips whipped forward, sending him deeper into her mouth, and she took him gladly—“I will fuck you.” His accent curled around his words, as hot and thick as the cock she so eagerly sucked. “In and out. Like this. But better, because I will be lost
in
you
. Tight, wet you. Claudia…” He was breathless, panting.

A glorious sound.

“I… I will…
Dieu
, you look…right now…
Une ange, bébé,
wrapped around my cock. Like sin.”

Strange pride slithered down her spine to fan her meandering arousal until the flames leapt and sparked. She drew him deeper into her mouth with every controlled thrust of his hips, her lips stretching wider in accommodation. He was thick, so thick, her fingers barely encircling him, and when the smooth head nudged the back of her throat, she moaned.

Moaned, and swallowed. Her clit pulsed, and her hand left his hip to fumble for the trapped hem of her skirts. She shifted on her knees, never releasing him from the back of her mouth as she jerked and rent the delicate fabric of her gown in an effort to get a hand between her thighs.

Suddenly, he shifted, and her teeth scraped lightly—accidentally—along the silky length of his cock as he withdrew from her aching throat. His fist in her hair tugged her back, growling, “Are you
touching
yourself?” His tiger eyes flashed blue as he leaned down before shimmering with gold fire again.

Her lips throbbed when she parted them to answer. Her throat was parched and sore when she tried to swallow. She shrugged, helpless, her fingers caught midway up her thighs, the heavy layers of skirt an uncomfortable weight against her arm.

Blinking up at him, she released his cock, unable to forsake the fingers that were almost where she needed them, almost almost almost there. She grabbed the tidy cravat at his throat, rising up on her knees as she yanked his lips to hers.

The kiss was angry, desperate and clumsy. Teeth scraped, tongues dueled, and she sent breathy whimpers skittering into his mouth while her mind clouded with stinging pinpricks of unmet need. His hands moved to hold her head in place, a large, scarred paw on either cheek. The need he poured back into her was just as catastrophic as her own.

“P-p-please,” she whispered, whimpering when he caught her upper lip between his teeth. “Pl-please,
Comte
…”

She thought she heard him mutter “Gaspard” as he crouched down to lift her skirts, plucking her hand trapped between her thighs away as his fingers pushed into the slick juncture and fumbled near her entrance.

No, not fumbled. Shook.

The
comte
shook.

“Open your legs,” he hissed, and she complied, gripping his shoulders as her balance atop her knees threatened to topple. He bunched the frothy layers of pink silk in his fist and twisted it around until his hand was at the small of her back, leaving her hips and thighs completely exposed to the air and to him.

Then, evidently assured she wouldn’t fall, he thrust two fingers sharply inside her.

His mouth descended on hers again as she cried out, her knuckles gone white as her fingers clenched at his coat lapels. He silenced her moans and, seconds later, her screams as her inner muscles clamped around him, a searing blaze of pleasure singeing her from head to toe.

The
comte
disentangled himself with quick, jerky motions, a growl audible in every harsh breath as he labored to his feet. Claudia opened hazy eyes, sated and bemused, and saw his heavy cock bobbing in front of her. It looked angry.

A glance at the
comte
proved that he looked angry too, a mean set to his lush mouth and his brows drawn together in an expression of agony.

Without preamble, he parted her lips using the two fingers he’d just pulled from her sheath, still slick and musky sweet with the remnants of her wetness. Her tongue flicked against the rough skin, tasting herself on him, and she hummed her approval without thought.

His free hand fisted in her braid, holding her steady. “Open.” Those fingers stiffened, widening her jaw, and then his cock was back in her mouth. Each thrust was fast and shallow, and her lips stretched around him in welcome as his scent intoxicated her already addled senses once more. His taste grew stronger with each slide of his cock over the flat of her tongue, and she remained still in his hold, sensing that something was about to happen.

What happened was that he started talking again.

“I have not…had a woman…in eleven months.” He slowed his thrusts, a pained grunt slipping free as the hand in her hair clenched and flexed convulsively, tugging taut the tangled strands. “The women I take are whores. I pay for them. Do you know why?”

She didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, but she stared up into his face, his wretched, handsome face, and waited for him to tell her. Her hands settled lightly at his hips.

“Because Paris thinks I am…something less than a man.” His words crawled inside her to seep into her consciousness, insidious and raw. “Perhaps I am. Less. Perhaps I am less. But I am the only man I know how to be, and that man…he wants only you, Claudia.”

Her head was beginning to clear, the last dregs of ecstasy fading with every pump of his cock between her lips. But she was still greedy for him. She still wanted him.

She wanted him more than ever.

So, as one large hand covered his cock, glistening luridly from the attentions of her mouth, she leaned her head back. Her gaze rapt, she watched as he jerked himself hard—once, twice, a third time. He brought the plump head of his erection back to rest between her lips, and when hot spurts of semen coated her tongue, she sucked him until he was spent, drained, listening to him stifle his moans of pleasure. She swallowed what he gave her and nipped teasingly at his thumb when it moved to wipe away a drop that had leaked from the corner of her mouth.

She let him draw her to her feet and fuss with her gown, though she knew the wrinkles would never come free. She let him put himself to rights, fixing the knot of his cravat and smoothing his hair as best she could.

After so many words, silence was a blessing. Her mind was only just starting to make sense of the jagged, jarring scene that had taken them both prisoner in its whirlwind, but Claudia couldn’t think it all through here in the alcove. She needed a bath, a bed, some privacy.

She needed to tremble a bit, and she didn’t want the
comte
to see.