The Playful Wanton Read online

  Almost without warning, her body exploded into the most powerful and all-consuming orgasm she’d ever felt. It was made ten times more wonderful with him thick inside of her. She cried out with the pleasure, wanting to scream his name as he’d demanded, but too overcome to remember what it was. He surprised her once again as her waves of pleasure began to die out by jerking away from her, flipping her to her back, and tossing her fully onto the bed.

  “I want to see your face when I come,” he growled, climbing over her like a wolf stalking his prey. “I want to see how much you like it when I spill my seed inside of you.”

  His boldness took her breath away even more than his hands as he stroked her body, teasing her breasts. Fucking was one thing, as she’d learned too well once in her life already, but Adolphus’s bold assertion that he was going to come inside of her with all the risks that entailed, was a declaration that no words of love could come close to matching. She found herself buzzing with pleasure all over again, a second orgasm whispering in readiness in the wake of the first one.

  “I could feast on your body for an eternity,” he whispered, bending closer to suckle one of her breasts. He took what he wanted from her savagely, filling her with arousal even as he dominated her beyond question. He left her breast all too soon and shifted so that he could devour her sex. “You like it,” he said, an accusation and a promise.

  She was helpless to resist him and far beyond the ability to speak as he wrenched her legs apart and buried his face in her sex. It was wildly arousing to find herself so close to unraveling so quickly after the first time. She felt like desire personified as he used his tongue and teeth to bring her right to the brink of orgasm a second time. When she crashed over the edge with a deep-throated cry and tremors of pleasure that made her lose her mind, he groaned in satisfaction.

  “Wanton,” he panted, shifting to bring his cock to her entrance once more. She caught a flash of devilishness in his eyes as he grinned and said, “I always liked wantons,” and crashed into her once more.

  The world of sensations his thick cock evoked as he mated with her in a different position was a revelation. True to his word, he watched her intently as he jerked into her, fast and hard. She whimpered with pleasure, submitting to him completely and crying out wordlessly in time to his thrusts. His face pinched harder and the tension radiating from him grew more and more intense with his thrusts until, at last, he let out an impassioned cry as his body shuddered and warmth filled her inside.

  With that rush, the storm of tension broke. He let out a heavy breath and sagged, his full weight pressing down on her. He was a firm mass of muscle, but she loved the feeling of him covering her. Every drop of his energy was gone, so much so that he didn’t pull out of her. That was perfect, as far as Eliza was concerned. She circled her arms and legs around him, holding him as though she would never let him go. He had been everything she could have hoped for and more.

  Her thoughts were fuzzy and she could barely remember her own name, but she had just enough presence of mind to say, “I’m warm now.”

  Chapter 4

  Guilt. Adolphus had never felt anything like it. It squeezed at his insides like a hundred vises clamped around every vital organ he possessed. It twisted and flayed him, making him feel like the worst sort of cad in existence.

  And at the same time, he had never felt a sense of contentment that reached so deeply into his soul. Time had ceased to matter. He had no idea how long he’d been snuggled under the heavy blankets of the abandoned bed—which was exceptionally comfortable at that—Eliza nestled against his side. No, nestled wasn’t the right word for it. She was wrapped around him like another blanket, their limbs tangled together, their skin touching everywhere. Her delicious breasts pressed against his chest and the soft heat of her sex warmed his hip.

  He felt as men must have felt when their bodies had been blown to bits by cannon-fire—too disconnected to recover and too far gone to care. Above him, a harder rain had begun to drum against the upward-facing window, its rhythm soothing. He was tempted to go back to sleep. He was tempted to roll Eliza to her back and bury himself deep inside of her again. Even the thought of enjoying her eager sweetness again sent blood pounding to his cock. Possessing Eliza as he had was the single most satisfying sexual experience of his life. He wanted more. He wanted to see how far he could push her, how far they could push themselves, before the act became obscene. He wanted to vent every one of his unnatural urges with her and to have her moan with wanton need as he did.

  Which, of course, only made his guilt flare hotter. What kind of animal would use a beautiful, high-born maiden as devilishly as he had? At least she hadn’t been a virgin. It hadn’t taken him long to determine that. But that didn’t alleviate his guilt. Eliza deserved more than the beast he was. She deserved—

  She sucked in a breath and stretched against him as she woke, banishing every one of his circular thoughts from his mind. When she let out her breath on a sultry, satisfied moan, his cock jumped in response. God help him, he wouldn’t be able to function going forward unless he had her on a regular basis.

  “Did that truly happen?” she asked in a sleep-hazed voice.

  “I’m afraid it did,” he answered, tensing.

  She hummed happily, snuggling closer to him. “Good.”

  Her words hit him like a knife in his gut. “No, it was not good,” he said, uncertain whether he should push away from her or stay where he was.

  Eliza’s eyes snapped open, and she lifted herself to frown down at him. “What do you mean it wasn’t good? It was glorious and wild and satisfying.”

  “Yes, I mean, no. I mean, it was satisfying—” More so than he was prepared to admit to her. “—but it was ill-advised.”

  “Ill-advised?” She arched an eyebrow, looking rather like the strict governess he’d had when he was a boy.

  “We are not married,” he explained, sitting up and willing himself to face the situation logically, though logic was next to impossible with the bedcovers falling down to Eliza’s hips, leaving her perfectly-formed breasts bared to him. He tried, and failed, not to stare at them as he went on with, “Though our marital state is something I intend to rectify immediately.”

  She blinked, making no move to cover herself. “I beg your pardon?”

  At last, he dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “We will marry at once. We can have the banns read at your home parish or mine, whichever you’d prefer. Or we could travel up to Scotland with all haste, as your friend, Miss Murdoch, or rather, Lady Whitlock, did.”

  She continued to stare at him as though he’d sprouted antlers. “Is that your response to every woman you’ve bedded?” Clearly, she was offended.

  “No,” he answered, scrambling for an honest way to express his feelings without making an ass of himself. “The majority of the women I’ve taken to bed in the past—and I should be clear that there have not been many—were of an ilk that did not require marriage as a rectification of the implications of the act.”

  God, he sounded like an ass even when he was trying not to. But he had no smooth words to describe the yearning in his gut at the sight of her, the hope that infused his soul at the idea of spending the rest of his life with her, and the joy that squeezed his heart, not to mention his cock, at the thought of having her beside him, in and out of bed, for the rest of their lives.

  Still, she blinked at him, her mouth going slack in disbelief. “Are you proposing to me, Mr. Gibbon?” she asked, bristling with incredulity.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “Our situation demands it.”

  She let out a humorless laugh, gaping at him. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said. Any hope he had of understanding her answer was blasted away when she surged toward him, pushing him back against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed and straddling him. She brushed her hands up his chest and rocked her open hips against the stiffening length of his cock. “No, I won’t marry you. Not if you propose like that.”

/>   He grabbed hold of her hips, unable to decide if he wanted to halt her movements or whether he wanted to thrust into her so she could ride him to another, shattering orgasm.

  “I’ve dishonored you,” he said, disturbed by how rough his voice sounded and how close the animal within him was to breaking free. “You are a lady of worth and dignity. You deserve more than to be treated like a whore.”

  She paused, raising her eyes slowly to meet his. Her cheeks flushed pink, and an unreadable wealth of emotions filled her face. For a fleeting moment, he thought she would weep. The moment passed, though, and she continued rocking teasingly against him. “What if I am a whore?” she asked, her genuine emotion covered over with playfulness.

  “You’re not,” he said, certain of it in a way he couldn’t explain. All he knew was that there was more to Lady Eliza Towers than met the eye.

  She stopped her seductive movements once more. This time, Adolphus sensed it was because something far deeper than lust had been opened within her. “I won’t marry you,” she said quietly, eyes downcast. “Not if you ask me like that.”

  “How shall I ask you, then?” He frowned, failing to understand why she didn’t jump on the offer the way she appeared to want to jump on his erection.

  She met his eyes, surprising him with the anger he saw there. “I want to be proposed to because you want me, not because you feel obligated or guilty.”

  Heat seared through him as she spoke aloud the shameful emotions he was feeling. “I do want you,” he explained. “I would have thought that much was obvious.” He flickered a quick glance down to his hard cock between them.

  Once again, she surprised and confused him by pushing away from him and climbing out of bed. “Not like that,” she said. “Though any woman of feeling would be ecstatic to have a man of your prowess in their bed for life.”

  He’d never had a compliment strike him with such embarrassment before. The pride of being told he was good in bed was nothing to his confusion at being rejected.

  “Eliza, do be reasonable,” he said, throwing back the covers and climbing out of bed himself.

  As he did, the ping of something small and metal hitting the floor distracted him. Eliza turned back to the bed at the sound. She blinked, then hurried to the side of the bed and bent to pick up a key.

  “Well,” she said, her brow lifting. “I have a guess what this goes to.”

  She skipped over to the locked door, fitting the key in the lock. Adolphus tried not to be distracted by the sight of her breasts bouncing with her steps or the pink roundness of her bottom as she turned the key. There was a click, she tried the handle, and the door inched open.

  “Why am I not surprised that the key was located deep within the bedclothes,” she said, turning back to him, her wicked, mischievous grin returning.

  Her gaze dropped to his body, or rather, his erection. The shoots of pride he continued to feel were strangled by self-consciousness. Not that he had anything to worry about. He knew full well what he looked like and how appealing that was. His job demanded that he keep himself in top physical shape, and Nature had given him the sort of size that made women lose their minds. But if he continued to display himself while she stared at him as she did, licking her lips, they might never leave the bedroom. He crossed to the wardrobe, throwing it open and taking out one of the robes.

  “Do you suspect this was all a deliberate ploy to get us into bed together?” he asked as he threw the robe around his shoulders. His clothes were far too wet still to dress in.

  “Yes,” she answered, her shoulders sagging in disappointment once he was covered. He felt the same disappointment when she retrieved a robe and hid her luscious body from him. “And I am eternally thankful to Caro for it.”

  “Thankful?” He sputtered. He frowned. He felt just as thankful as she said she was, though he wasn’t about to admit it.

  She shut the wardrobe door and turned to him with a coy smile. “I’ve never enjoyed myself more in all my life.”

  She was playing games with him, but he was determined to win. “Then accept my offer of marriage and I promise I’ll fuck you just as thoroughly every night of our married life.”

  Using vulgar language was a gamble, but it seemed to pay off when her eyes lit with carnal fire. She drew in a breath that emphasized her every curve under the thick fabric of the robe. For a moment, he was certain she would cave in to him. Then she let out her breath, sagging.

  “No,” she said, marching toward the door. “I will not marry you unless you propose to me in a manner I find acceptable.”

  “In a manner you find….” He sputtered and snorted, dashed back to the bed to retrieve their hunt clue from the floor, where it’d fallen hours ago, then hurried after her. “Would you prefer I bring you flowers and prostrate myself in front of your friends?”

  She stopped at the end of the hall, whipping back to him with a scowl. “I would prefer you propose because you want to marry me.”

  He gaped, throwing his arms out to his sides. “I do want to marry you. I wouldn’t have proposed if I didn’t.”

  She shook her head and continued on into the stairwell. “I shouldn’t have expected a man to understand what I meant.”

  “Please explain,” he said, storming after her.

  “No,” she said over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand my explanation.”

  “You think not?” He was grateful that the servants’ stairs were empty at that moment. As soon as they stepped out onto the hallway that connected the wings of the house, fear that they would be seen pummeled him.

  “I know you wouldn’t,” she said. She clutched her robe more tightly around her and darted looks up and down the hall, evidently as concerned about being spotted as he was.

  “We will speak about this later,” he said, catching up to her side as though he would escort her to a ball. “For now, we need to retreat to our rooms to dress.”

  “My room is on that hall.” She gestured across the very public landing they were about to cross to a hallway on the other side.

  “So is mine,” he grumbled, now seeing that his room’s location wasn’t an accident either. He was probably intended to sneak into her room for an assignation now and then. “Let’s just hurry and—”

  Everything stopped dead as they nearly ran into Rufus climbing the stairs. But it wasn’t Rufus that startled Adolphus and turned his blood to liquid iron. It was the fact that Rufus was escorting Henry Ward up the stairs.

  Of all the times to come face to face with the man he was trying to catch and bring to justice. Heat infused Adolphus’s face as the four of them—he and Eliza, Rufus and Henry—met at the top of the stairs.

  Rufus recovered from the shock first, bursting into a snort of laughter. “Look at the sight of you two,” he said, an impish glow in his eyes. “Did you enjoy the search for your clue?”

  Adolphus narrowed his eyes at the man, not so much because of the comment, but because Eliza suddenly seemed terrified and smaller than he’d ever seen her look.

  “You don’t happen to know anything about it, do you?” he growled.

  “Not a thing,” Rufus said, obviously lying.

  Adolphus could have strangled him. Either Rufus was the Trickster or the Trickster was operating on Rufus’s orders. But far more than the way his host seemed to be laughing at his expense, Adolphus’s ire was raised by the way Ward grinned at Eliza.

  “Well, well, Lady Eliza,” Ward said. “We meet again.”

  “Mr. Ward,” Eliza said, clutching her robe so tightly around her that Adolphus worried she would strangle herself.

  “And how is your brother?” Ward asked.

  Adolphus was inclined to pummel the man for attempting to hold a conversation with a lady of refinement when she was clearly in a state of distress, not to mention undress.

  “He is well, sir,” Eliza answered, meeting Ward’s eyes with a sort of boldness and defiance that made the hair on the back of Adolphus’s neck stand up. “E
dmund and my parents are touring Italy at present.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose they’d have to after the way your father’s debts were called in last winter, eh?” Ward winked at her.

  Adolphus saw red. It was outrageous for the man to speak of the difficulties Eliza’s family was undergoing, but to wink at her? More than ever, he wanted to bring the full weight of the law down on the man’s head.

  “If you will excuse me,” Eliza said, nodding to Ward, then sending Adolphus a frustrated look. “As you can see, I find myself in a state inappropriate for company after being doused with rainwater while in search of a clue. I must retire to my room and change as soon as possible.”

  She turned and dashed off before any of them could say a word of encouragement or goodbye.

  “I see the Trickster fooled you with his water trap, eh?” Rufus asked with a laugh.

  “Quite,” Adolphus grumbled.

  “I’ll have one of the footmen retrieve your clothes from the end room,” Rufus went on. The fact that he knew or had guessed so much about what happened and where were further proof that he’d been directly involved.

  “Your clothes?” Ward’s brow shot up. That expression was followed by a grin so smug that Adolphus wanted to punch his teeth out. “Good Lord. I knew Lady Eliza was game, but I had expected she would mend her wanton ways after what happened to her family.”

  Adolphus wanted to kill the man, plain and simple. He wanted to run rough-shod over him the same way Ward had killed the dockworker by trampling him to death after a night in the pub. Because there was no doubt in his mind that Ward spoke from experience. The way he rubbed his mouth as he stared down the hall where Eliza had disappeared was unmistakable. That, coupled with the fear in Eliza’s eyes, painted the very worst kind of picture in Adolphus’s mind.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met,” Ward said a beat later, offering Adolphus a hand. “Henry Ward.”

  Adolphus would rather have untied his robe and exposed himself in front of the entire assembly of the house party than take Ward’s filthy hand, but manners dictated he be civil. “Gibbon,” he said in a low voice. “Adolphus Gibbon.”