The Lover (3 page)

She would be a wife—perhaps even a mother—and still know nothing about the satisfaction that a man could give a woman.

And she would yearn for more.

As she had yearned for so very many years.

This man was renowned for his ability to please women. A stallion, he was called. The most expensive stud in England.

Ten thousand pounds would be his at the end of a month.

He would not hurt a woman who laid the proverbial golden egg. Especially when the liaison had been set up by a solicitor.

Spine rigidly straight, she allowed him to guide her up the concrete stoop of a tall, narrow town house. He did not fumble with the key, easily fitting it into the lock as if he had as much experience opening a door as he did a woman's body.

Dimly she surveyed a small foyer lined in rich oak paneling. A large hyacinth plant occupied a side table, variegated blue petals in full bloom. Silver glinted in their shadow—a tray waiting for the morning post. Beyond the foyer, marble steps flanked by intricately worked iron balustrades marched up into darkness.

It did not look like an abode of ill repute, this house where she would lose her maidenhead. It looked like a home.

Beeswax polish and flowers scented the air.

Her house in Dover smelled of illness and carbolic disinfectant; her town house in London of age, dust, and mildew.

Silently he turned off the gaslight. His hand pulsated with heat at the base of her spine; it urged her up the dark abyss that was the stairway.

An elusive luminescence cast the top landing in dull shadow.

She gripped the wrought-iron handrail that could not be seen, only felt. Legs trembling, skirts swishing, she ascended the stairs toward the waiting light.

A corridor hung with pale silk cloth ran the length of the first story. Their heels clicked a hollow litany on the mirror-smooth oak floor:
Penetration, possession
. A fan-shaped wall sconce at the end of the long, narrow hallway battled encroaching darkness.

A cream-painted cornice and closed doors measured their steps: the stilted gait of a woman determinedly taking control of her sexuality and the confident pad of a man who brought every woman to orgasm,
every time
.

He pushed open the solid oak door that the lamp guarded; a massive four-poster brass bed gleamed in the crack of light.

Shutting off the gas to the wall sconce, he gently, implacably, nudged her inside the bedchamber. The pitch-black darkness was heavy, sweet, stifling. For one panic-stricken moment she thought she had stepped inside a greenhouse.

Or a wake.

Soundlessly he maneuvered ahead of her. The sharp strike of a safety match splintered the silence.

Warm light spilled from a stained glass globe, starkly delineating an oak nightstand and a crystal vase filled with bloodred roses. Immediately to the left of the hurricane lamp stood the brass bed; white silk sheets and a leaf green velvet quilt were turned down in readiness.

Dropping the flaming matchstick into a small, green bowl, Michel des Anges turned, face dark, black hair haloed by golden light. He noiselessly, purposefully closed the distance separating them. "Let me take your cloak."

Anne stared at the jagged shadows digging into his cheeks. She steeled herself against the image of him exploring her every crevice and orifice. "Thank you."

Scarred hands reached for her, a jarring reminder that he was not the man whom matrons and debutantes alike swooned over eighteen years earlier. One by one he released the buttons on her cloak, there at her neck… lower, between her breasts…

Heat spiraled through her nipples.

Things were progressing too quickly.

"I didn't bring a nightgown," she blurted out.

His black eyelashes slowly lifted. Anne was trapped by startlingly violet eyes.

"You won't need one," he murmured. He tugged her reticule from between her clenched fingers and tossed it behind her. A small plop sounded in the flickering light. Her cloak followed the reticule, a heavy
whoosh
of velvet.

Anne felt naked and immeasurably plain in her modest gray silk gown, a peahen to his peacock.

She closed her eyes. The look in his left no doubt whatsoever as to what he would next remove.

She did not want him to see her breasts that were too small and her hips that were too large.

But she wanted to see him.

She was paying a considerable fortune for the privilege of doing so.

No matter what he said, this was business: the business of pleasure.

Her pleasure.

Anne opened her eyes and stepped back on trembling legs. "Please undress for me."

Violet fire flared in his eyes. "You want to see me… naked?"

She drew herself up to her full height of five feet, five inches. "I am a spinster, monsieur, but I am also a woman, with the same desires as any other woman. Of course I wish to see you undressed."

The lamp blazed; light and shadow wildly leaped around him. "Do you know how a man is fashioned,
chérie
?"

She defiantly tilted her chin. "I will not faint at the sight of your male appendage, monsieur, if that is what troubles you."

"But will the sight give you pleasure?"

"Does it not please other women?"

"You are a virgin, mademoiselle. If you have never before seen a naked man, you might be… alarmed."

She firmed her lips. "I will not know, will I, until I see you?"

Cold calculation glittered in his eyes; it was followed by hot deliberation. "And if you are alarmed?"

"I will not frighten other inhabitants of this house by running screaming into the street."

The brightness of the lamp dimmed as abruptly as it had flared. "No, mademoiselle, I do not believe you will."

Skillfully, deliberately, he shrugged out of his black dress coat, let it slither to the floor in a seductive whisper of silk on silk. Without taking his gaze away from hers, he unfastened the top button on his white waistcoat.

No doubt many women had requested that he disrobe for them.

Beautiful women, experienced women.

Anne focused on his hands instead of his painfully intense gaze.

"Does it hurt?" she abruptly asked. "Your hands, I mean. Would you like assistance?"

His scarred fingers stilled.

Resolve replaced Anne's nervousness. This was familiar, something she knew how to do. All her life she had assisted her parents. In the drawing room, at the dinner table, and, ultimately, on their deathbeds.

Stepping forward, she brushed aside his fingers.

The small, pearl buttons refused to come undone.

She had never been this inept in the sickroom.

Frowning, she pulled her gloves off.

Iron-hard fingers cuffed her wrists; the gray silk gloves fluttered free of her suddenly nerveless hands.

Alarmed, she jerked her head back.

His face was only inches away from hers. The scars that rode his high cheekbone were livid.

"I have no need of a nurse, mademoiselle."

Paralyzing awareness swelled over her.

He
could
hurt her.
And no one would know until it was too late
.

She licked her lips, tasted his breath, hot and moist. "I have no desire to be your nurse, monsieur."

"In the cab you said you did not know what you want."

She would not look away. Nor would she pretend to misunderstand him.

"No, I asked you what would happen if a woman did not know what to ask for. I never said that I did not know what I want."

He lowered his head, lips just a kiss away. "What do you want, mademoiselle?"

It was a challenge.

How far will you go, spinster woman
? was what he really asked.

How prepared are you for the attentions of a man who is named for his ability to bring women to climax?

Anne took a deep breath.

This was all she would ever have, this one month of pleasure.

She would not back away, not from him, not from her silly virgin fears.

"I want you to bring me to orgasm."

"How many times?"

"As many times as my body will allow."

"How many fingers do you want?"

"As many as my body will accept."

"How deeply will you take me?"

"However deeply you can penetrate me."

His violet eyes burned. "Has a man ever touched your breasts?"

How difficult it was to admit the truth. "No."

Men had wanted her parents' fortune, but no man had ever wanted the woman she yearned to be.

"Has a man ever kissed you with his tongue?"

Anne swallowed remembered revulsion. "Once."

"You did not enjoy it."

No, she had not enjoyed it. The young gentleman who had stolen the kiss had bragged to his friends that Anne was desperate for a beau, claiming that only a man desperate to wed an heiress would kiss such a homely cow.

She stared at the thick fringe of his lashes. They were black as soot, and so long that the ends clustered together. "He gagged me," she said stiffly. "And he… drooled on me."

"I will not gag you,
chérie
. Nor will I drool on you."

The heat blistering her face and banding her wrists abruptly disappeared.

He stepped back and shrugged out of his waistcoat.

The withdrawal was so abrupt that Anne could only stand and stare.

Black lashes veiling his eyes, he reached behind his neck to unhook the band of his white dress tie.

Her lips and tongue throbbed.

She had wanted him to kiss her, as he must know she had.

A brazen, reckless energy overcame her. "What
will
you do, monsieur?"

"When I kiss you, I will suckle your tongue." Arms lowering, he dropped the banded tie to the floor. His thick black lashes swept open. "When I remove your dress, I will suckle your breasts. And when you are naked"—he deftly plucked free the first of the three gold studs securing his white silk shirt—"I will suckle your clitoris."

Anne's breath caught in her throat.

Suckle your breasts
reverberated in the chill night air. Immediately it was followed by
Suckle your clitoris
.

He removed the second gold stud. "Do you know where your clitoris is, mademoiselle?"

She struggled to keep her gaze trained on his face and not on the black hair peeping through the ever-widening vee at the neck of his dress shirt. "I am not ignorant, monsieur."

Shortly after returning from London eighteen years earlier, she had stolen a conspectus of the medical sciences from her parents' physician in Dover. It had named the parts of her body that desired attention, but it had not told her what to expect from a man.

It had not told her what a man expected from a woman.

He freed the last gold stud and thrust the three into his pocket, purposely drawing her gaze to the front of his trousers. "Do you know what will happen when I lick and suckle you?"

Her nipples and clitoris throbbed at the image his words conjured. She jerked her gaze away from the large bulge in his black trousers.

She would not be embarrassed by her needs.

Anne squared her shoulders. "No doubt I will experience an orgasm. The first, I hope, of many. Is that how you gained your name, monsieur? Because of your expertise at licking and suckling a woman?"

"Among other things," he returned enigmatically.

Crossing his arms, he grasped the sides of his shirt and jerked it over his head.

Anne's heart slammed against her ribs.

His cheek and hands were scarred, but his body was perfect: all dark skin, curly black hair, and sculpted muscles.

Without warning, his dark head reappeared and the silk shirt joined the rest of the clothing scattered across the oak floor.

He knew the effect he was having on her, the effect he must have on all the women who purchased his services.

She didn't want to be the only one shocked and titillated this night.

"Are you fully erect, monsieur?"

"Yes," he returned, seemingly undaunted by her daring. "I am fully erect."

Hot moisture pooled between her thighs.

"Do you always… get erect when you are with a woman?"

"Yes," he said flatly.

"I would like to see you."

"Then take off my trousers, mademoiselle."

His violet eyes dared her to touch him—and see exactly what she was paying for.

All nine and one half inches.

"Very well, monsieur," she retorted evenly. She stepped forward.

Heat radiated from his body. Anne fought the memories of a diseased, dying man, and then she fought silk-covered buttons. Her fingers fumbled, as they had when she had tried to remove his waistcoat. But now she could not blame her clumsiness on gloves.