The Lover (2 page)

" 'To see angels,' " he silkily corrected her, monitoring her reaction. "It is a French expression for having an orgasm."

It was not the answer she expected.

"You named yourself because of your ability to have an orgasm?"

Slowly he poured champagne into his own glass, making her wait for his response. Thrusting the bottle deep into the ice—as if it were his phallus and the bucket her sheath—he snared her gaze. "I am named,
chérie
, for my ability to bring women to orgasm."

Shock gave way to blazing cognizance.

Of her sensual needs.

Of his ability to satisfy them.

Sex was an exciting game. A dangerous game.

One that even an unfashionable spinster could engage in.
If she could afford it
.

She played with the stem of her glass. "You have been with many women."

It was not a question.

"Yes."

First in France, then in England.

"Have you brought each one of them to orgasm?"

Echoes of passion long gone but never forgotten reverberated inside his head. Each woman made a particular sound when she reached her peak.

"Every woman." Michael curved his fingers around his glass, shaping it as he would a feminine breast. "Every time."

Sparkling liquid sloshed onto her hand. A dark stain spread over the back of her pale gray silk glove.

"I am a virgin."

Jesu
. Jesus. He had not expected
that
.

She was a plain spinster, but surely there had been someone in her life—a childhood friend to experiment with, a boy who was more interested in exploring the mysteries of femininity than in courting the local beauty. A footman, a stable boy,
someone
.

He had never had a virgin.

"Why?" he barked, Michael now, not Michel who had never slept alone.

Why would any woman give her virginity to a man who looked like him?

Her head snapped back, the chimera of sexual tension broken. "I beg your pardon?"

He leaned toward her, eyes narrowed, face only inches away from the candle flame that could so easily burn out of control. "For ten thousand pounds, any bachelor in this tavern will marry you. The Speaker of the Commons sits three tables away. Baron Stinesburg sits directly behind you. Why are you doing this? With me, of all men?"

Candlelight flared. It reflected off of a slender nose, revealed the tightening of pale lips that were neither full nor thin. "Perhaps, Monsieur des Anges, I have seen too much death to be cheated by a few scars. Perhaps I wish to see angels."

Michael's breath caught in his chest.

Death.

Desire.

It had come full circle.

She did not deserve this.

But neither had the ones before her.

Purposefully he set down the champagne glass and spread his hands onto the white silk tablecloth. "I will caress you with these hands. I will penetrate your body with these fingers. Can you honestly say you will not flinch at my touch?"

The candle flame lurched and hissed.

She tilted her chin. "I cannot say, sir, never having had anyone's fingers inside my body. I daresay it will depend upon how many you use to penetrate me with."

Michael did not want a woman's innocence.

"Do you know what will happen when I take you to bed?"

"If I did not, I would not be here."

Grudging admiration filled him.

There was strength in Anne Aimes; a strength born of ignorance.

She could not possibly know the pleasure that he would demand of her or the climaxes he would rend from her.

"It's not too late." He did not know where the words came from. Perhaps there still existed inside him a shred of the man he should have become. "You may still change your mind."

But even that unexpected bit of gallantry was a lie.

He would not allow her to walk away from this night. She had sealed her fate when she sent her solicitor to rouse him from his five-year-long sentence of solitude.

Her shoulders straightened beneath the concealing folds of the gray velvet cloak. "I have no desire to change my mind."

Michael imagined her naked, with no cloak of genteel refinement to hide behind. Breasts bared, thighs open, release just a scream away.

The sexual energy that he had so carefully leashed washed over him.

She felt it. Responded to it.

She was not beautiful, this woman who had come to him for her pleasure. But he did not require physical beauty.

Anne Aimes wanted him.

Despite his scars.

That was more than enough.

He would not disappoint her. For the allotted time they had together he would be Michel, the man who made women see angels, not Michael, the man who brought them death.

"One month. Of pleasure." Michael pushed his glass across the table. It connected with the base of the heavy silver candle holder with a crystal ring of finality. "I will do anything you wish. However many times you wish it."

She wet her lips, a quick flick of a pink tongue. "That is what I am paying you for, Monsieur des Anges."

A smile twisted his lips.

Anne Aimes had newly come to her wealth. She had yet to realize that money did not control men.

Sex controlled them.

Vengeance controlled them.

Money merely made it possible to act upon the two disparate needs.

"I assure you,
chérie
, I will not forget what it is you are paying for."

Sliding back his chair, he stood up and held out his hand.

She hesitated only a brief second before taking it.

Exultation surged through him. It was followed by a rush of lust so strong it nearly brought him to his knees.

Michael steered her through the candlelit rows of tables, careful to keep her face in shadow while he deliberately flaunted his own to the men whose sweethearts, wives, and daughters he had once fucked.

By the morrow word would have spread throughout the farthest reaches of England: Michel des Anges was back. And, disfigured though he was, a woman had purchased his services.

Anne Aimes balked when she realized their destination. "I was led to understand that there were rooms upstairs where we could… be together."

Yes, there were rooms upstairs. Opulent chambers lined with beveled mirrors and equipped with every device to bring men and women sexual gratification.

Michael did not want her first time to take place in a night house. He could give her that much.

Deftly turning, he backed her into the alcove outside the arched doorway and caught her face between his hands.

She did not flinch from the touch of his burn-roughened skin.

Coldly, calculatingly, he anchored her against the wall with the press of his groin.

Her body, underneath the cloak, was shielded in feminine armor. The whaleboned corset did not hide the thrust of her nipples. The layered petticoats did not mask the yielding welcome of her gently rounded stomach.

Her cheeks were soft and smooth, like velvet—softer even than her cloak. Blood thrummed beneath his fingers.

Fear.

Arousal.

A prostitute knew the dangers of giving in to unbridled passion. Outside a brothel or a night house, a woman was defenseless. She could be bound. She could be raped. She could be killed.

But Anne was not a seasoned whore; she was a virgin spinster who had yet to taste the pleasure—or the pain—that a man could give her.

She did not know that trusting a stranger could bring death.

He leaned his head forward, inhaled the commingled scents of soap and innocence. And beneath those, the tantalizing perfume of her desire.

Anne Aimes's hunger was not as great as his.
Yet
.

"You must trust me," he whispered. "By the time the night is over I will know every inch of your skin. I will explore every crevice, every orifice in your body. If you cannot trust me outside this house, then you will not trust me to bring you to pleasure. If you cannot bring yourself to trust me—completely, unconditionally—then the terms of our contract cannot be met. And I will bid you
au revoir
, here, now."

More lies.

He would not leave her.

Not tonight. Not tomorrow.

Lightly he kissed her, his lips, at least, untouched by the fire that had taken everything away from him.

It was a tease of a kiss, a whisper of breath, a flick of his tongue. A prelude and a promise.

Electricity arced between them.

Her need.

His need.

She wanted to lie with a man.

He wanted to lose himself inside a woman.

His body swelled to the point of pain, knowing that at least this night both of their needs would be fulfilled.

She gasped, her breath sweet with champagne, and underneath that, the caustic tang of tooth powder.

A curious pang shot through his chest.

She had brushed her teeth before their meeting. For fear that
she
might repel
him
.

Sidling away from the hard threat of his masculinity, she squared her shoulders underneath the velvet cloak. "I assure you, the terms of the contract will be met, Monsieur des Anges. Shall we go?"

Michael let her go ahead of him, outside the smoke-filled safety of the night house into cool spring air.

He wondered if she would still want him in a month's time.

He wondered if she would still be alive in a month's time.

Michel des Anges filled the grinding, jarring hack, stealing oxygen, usurping space. His body burned Anne through her cloak, hip to shoulder; the memory of his kiss burned her lips, inside and out. Orgasm was a living, palpitating promise.

Every woman, every time
, the carriage wheels grated.

Eighteen years ago she had thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Now he was hers, paid for with the money that would have been her dowry had she married.

Anne wanted to scream for the cabby to stop. Or perhaps she wanted to scream for him to hurry, so that she could get the night over with.

The man beside her spoke precise English, as cold and clipped as if he were an Englishman born.

He was not the man she remembered.

Save for those incredible violet eyes of his.

They blazed with raw sexuality.

"You said you will do anything I wish." Anne stared at the door of the hansom cab. Light briefly shone inside the grimy window beside her; the passing lamppost turned ominous darkness into worn brown upholstery. "As many times as I wish it."

The cracked leather underneath her shifted, creaked. She could feel his eyes upon her.

"That is what you are paying me for."

But she didn't know what to ask for.

She only knew that she wanted.

A man's touch.

A man's body.

Her own satisfaction.

"What if… what if a woman did not know what to ask for?" Anne's voice was unnaturally loud over the monotonous clip-clop of the horse's hooves and the singsong grind of the carriage wheels. Her shoulder throbbed where his rhythmically rubbed against it. "What if… she did not know how many fingers she wanted inside her?"

"Then I would introduce one finger at a time"—his voice was a dark rasp—"until she could not comfortably take any more."

Anne clenched her thighs together at the sharp stab of desire his explicit words evoked. She remembered his hands spread out on the white tablecloth, and saw not the scars—trivial flaws that did not cripple with arthritis or weep with cancer—but the length and the breadth of him.

"How many fingers does a woman normally require?"

"Three. Sometimes four."

His fingers had been long. Far thicker than her own.

"Surely that many would not be comfortable."

"Sexual pleasure is not always a matter of comfort. I assure you, when you are properly prepared, your body will accommodate that many fingers. And yearn for more."

Anne struggled to control her breathing. "How will you know when I am properly prepared?"

"When your body is hot and wet," he said bluntly.

Her body was already hot and wet.

"How many times can you… bring a woman to orgasm?"

A sigh of breath was followed by the slipping of her hood. She fought to keep her hands in her lap and not shove the hood back over her head.

He was no longer beautiful, this man who was named for his ability to bring women to orgasm, but he was darkly, dangerously attractive.

Her only attraction was her money. But even that, surely, could not blind a man to the threads of silver hair that marked her spinsterhood.

"However many orgasms she wants. However many
you
want,
mon amour
."

It was only when he uttered the odd French word that he gave away his heritage. His voice deepened, became melodic, seductive. It promised a woman everything she had ever wanted, sexual acts a virgin spinster could not even begin to imagine.

"Please do not call me that. I am not your love; I am your patroness."

And she was frightened.

By the strength of her desire.

By the man sitting beside her.

Of all the things he might do to her; of all the things he might not do to her.

Dear God
. What was she doing?

Her elderly, sickly parents had been dead for less than a year. Yet instead of mourning them she catered to her own selfish needs.

Needs that a spinster should not possess, let alone confess.

Hot breath tickled her ear. "You said you know what will happen when I take you to bed."

Anne sat perfectly still, perfectly straight, as she had learned during her one brief, disastrous season, a rich heiress in a sea of barnacles. Men and women had courted her to her face and laughed behind her back.

She did not want this man to laugh at her.

"I am not ignorant about the mechanical aspects of mating, monsieur."

"Really." Something hot and slick flicked her ear. "Describe to me what will happen when I bed you, mademoiselle."

Anne licked lips that were dry as coal dust—her ear burned and tingled. What had he done to it? "You will join your body to mine."

Like the animals.

But animals did not worry about failure or inadequacy.

Darkness enveloped Anne. It had nothing to do with the diminishing gas lamps lining the narrow London street.

Moist heat feathered her hair, fanned her cheek—his breath. He forced her to look at him by the simple act of blocking her view of the hansom door while his body curved around hers. "Have you ever seen a naked man,
chérie
?"

Anne should reprimand him for the familiarity. She was paying him to pleasure her body, not to ply her with French endearments.

She found that she could not.

No one had ever called her
dear
, or
darling
, or
sweetheart
, not in English, certainly not in French.

Her parents had called her Anne. The servants called her Miss Anne. Everyone else called her Miss Aimes.

As they would continue to address her for the rest of her life.

She inhaled the acrid aroma of tobacco smoke, and underneath that, the suffocating scent of clean, healthy masculinity—expensive soap and a hint of musk. "No, I have never seen a naked man."

It was only a partial lie. What she had seen was not a man.

"Do you know how deeply I will possess you, when I am buried inside your body?"

Anne did not look away from the black hollows that were his eyes. "If you mean do I know how deeply you will penetrate me, then the answer is no."

She did not lie this time.

"But I want to know, Monsieur des Anges. I want to know how deeply both your fingers and your body will penetrate me. Else I would not be here with you in this carriage."

It could have been her breath that caught in the darkness. Or it could have been his.

"Penetration is not possession, mademoiselle."

Fleeting light lit up the right side of his face—it starkly delineated the ridge of scars edging his cheek—and then once again he was swallowed in obscurity.

"Then I am afraid I do not understand your question."

"Physical penetration will vary—five to ten inches, depending upon the size of a man's erect penis. A woman can take a man into her body and still remain in control of her emotions. But when she lies underneath him gasping for air with only his breath to sustain her—with only his body to give her the orgasm that her very life depends on—at that moment,
chérie
, that man possesses that woman."

Anne gulped air—his breath.

She imagined his body filling her—
five to ten inches
—as his breath filled her lungs.

Completely.

Unconditionally.

A frisson of fear raced down her spine.

"That is only if a woman is not in control of her emotions. This is a business arrangement, monsieur, not an
affaire de coeur
."

"You hired me to overcome your control, mademoiselle."

Her heart skipped a beat, raced to catch up. "You make it sound…"
Dangerous
. Not at all like the business arrangement that they had. "I hired you to give me pleasure. As a man hires a woman to give him pleasure. No more. No less."

"There is a difference between a man's pleasure and a woman's pleasure."

Yes, men were freely allowed to pursue theirs, while women were not.

"And what is that, pray tell?"

"A man needs only a woman's body; he does not need her to bring him to orgasm. His own motions will do that."

Anger flicked along her nerves. "Do you think that a woman needs a man only because of his male appendage, monsieur?"

"If that were so, mademoiselle, then you would not be here with me in this carriage."

His silky response was a parody of her own.

Anne gripped her reticule. "I do not understand the purpose of this conversation."

"I am trying to prepare you for the coming night."

"By telling me that a woman needs a man and not vice versa?" Sharpness spiked her voice.

"I never said that a man did not need a woman; I said that a man does not need a woman's motions to bring him to release. But you will need me in the coming hours, mademoiselle. Your needs will render you far more vulnerable than my body will. No matter how deeply I penetrate you. And I assure you,
chérie
, I will penetrate you very deeply."

Desire. Fear. Anger
. Pain overlapped the myriad emotions his words provoked. And the realization that he did not speak to hurt her; he spoke the truth.

She would not be here
if she thought any man could satisfy her.

Her needs did make her vulnerable
—especially when she revealed them to a man who did not share them.

That was why she had chosen Michel des Anges, so that there would be no pretense.

"How deeply will you penetrate me, monsieur?"

"Nine and a half inches, mademoiselle."

Nine and a half inches
reverberated inside the cramped cab.

A thrill of alarm rushed through her body. "This is a business arrangement, monsieur," she repeated, more for herself than for him.

"This is a sexual liaison, mademoiselle. It is neither a romantic interlude nor a business venture. I will not present you with a bouquet of flowers and beg for the honor of a kiss. Nor will I shake hands with you come the morning and leave my card on your pillow. What I will do is give you pleasure beyond your wildest fantasies. Do not confuse carnal relations with love or business."

His words were harsh. Erotic.

Heat welled up inside her—and the hope that he would indeed give her pleasure beyond her wildest fantasies.

Her parents had been married for fifty-nine years, betrothed to align wealth instead of bodies. They had shared riches and sickness but no love or pleasure.

And then they had died. As lonely and miserably as they had lived.

Anne did not want to die, always wondering what she had missed.

She squared her shoulders. "I am fully aware of the nature of this liaison, monsieur. And I assure you it fulfills my every expectation. I want you to take my maidenhead, not give me flowers. Hopefully you will kiss me rather than shake my hand, but I do not expect you to beg me for anything, certainly not liberties that I am paying you to take. As for your claim of being able to please me beyond my wildest fantasies, that remains to be seen, does it not?"

The hack abruptly jerked to a halt.

For one heart-thudding second Anne thought she had shocked the very horses into stillness.

Without comment, Michel des Anges swung open the door and stood up, shoulders bent. Stepping out onto the small stoop behind the bobbed horse, he held out his hand for her to take.

The white and red welts were raw in the light of the carriage lamp.

What would they feel like inside her, those long, scarred fingers?

Would he give her three… or four?

How could they possibly prepare her to take an erect penis…
that was nine and one half inches long
?

She placed her hand in his—as she had done at the tavern.

Blistering heat penetrated her thin silk glove.

Would his fingers be that hot, penetrating her?
Would his erect male flesh
?

Suddenly Anne was free and she could breathe again. She dug into her reticule for coins to pay the cabby, only to find that the hack was already pulling away from the curb.

Heat blanketed her back—a man's arm. It was whipcord strong.

Her heart tattooed a painful warning against the confines of her corset.

Michel des Anges was seven inches taller than she.

He could hurt her in ways she had no knowledge of, as she had had no prior knowledge that a man used his fingers to penetrate a woman's body.

He could kill her.

And there would be nothing she could do.

For one heart-stopping second she thought about running after the cab.

Truth held her immobile.

Anne could indeed marry any bachelor inside the House of Gabriel—a surprising number of whom she had recognized, as this man knew. They would claim her inheritance by day, and by night they would go there, to pay for their pleasure with her money.