6
I must have you. You obsess over me. Leave the Marquess of N——and become mine absolutely.
Finally, I had a duke speak those words to me.
“You are too cruel and too callous,” my viscount declared when he found out I had not refused the duke’s offer. “You’ve broken my heart long enough. I am finished with you.”
Then he was gone. I hugged myself and paced by the fire. Really, what was the loss? I had a duke!
I had a duke to please—
Indeed, I began to wonder if I could be more than a mistress. Perhaps my next conquest should be something of great accomplishment. Something on the matrimonial front. All I had to do was capture the heart of the right gentleman through my rather unique endowment—my mind.
I knew I should be able to become a duchess—if I played my cards with patience, skill, and cunning. For now that I had lost my viscount, to what else could I aspire? Not love, surely. It had proven itself to be the playground of fools.
—From an unfinished manuscript entitled A Courtesan Confesses by Anonymous
He needed to do this.
He needed to kiss her, and he needed to blank out that damned dream.
Cary cupped Sophie’s slender neck and threaded his fingers in her loose black hair. He drew her down and touched his mouth to hers.
Slowly, he caressed her lips with his, and he knew, from her shivers and shudders, that she felt the magical tingle. It would hit his lips, then rush through him like a jolt of lightning.
He let his tongue caress her lips, and he felt her quiver. Heard her moan softly. Breathlessly.
He wanted her to like this. He needed her to like it.
To prove—
Suddenly, he was in the melee of battle, surrounded by screaming cannon fire and the metallic tang of spilling blood. A horse went down beside him, and the great beast slammed into him, knocking him back. A bullet sliced along his left bicep as he went down, neatly parting his tunic and bringing forth a stream of blood—
The shot had been aimed at his heart. If the horse hadn’t hit him, the ball would have passed right through him, ripping his heart to bits.
Hit by the horse, stunned by the shot, he lay on the ground. The falling horse had pinned him.
Then something had slammed hard into his skull.
Next thing he’d known, he was in a in a cave, in a makeshift cell built of bamboo, and chained to the rock.
One by one, the other prisoners had died. They had been more badly wounded. Infection had led to fever. Dehydration had killed them. Two had gone mad, screaming like lunatics before dying in seizures.
He’d been tortured to force him to talk but, he hadn’t broken.
Mainly, because he’d found he couldn’t talk. Something had gone wrong in his brain, and no matter what his captors had done to him, he wouldn’t talk.
He hadn’t spoken until days after he’d been freed—
The memories surged up, swamping him.
Cary broke off the kiss, drawing his mouth back. He rasped for breath. His heart hammered. “I can’t,” he muttered. “You’re too sweet. Too innocent.”
He couldn’t kiss her, damn it. Sexual pleasure wasn’t strong enough anymore. Even intense desire didn’t push the memories away now.
This was why he couldn’t marry. A woman would guess, wouldn’t she, that something was wrong?
Sophie ran her tongue over her lips. The poor sweet looked afraid.
“But I’m not sweet, Your Grace! I’m very naughty. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m on fire. And I want you.”
Cary watched her hands move. They went behind her back, an action that thrust her breasts forward. Perfect, round little breasts that bulged over the scooped neckline of her dress. Two voluptuous swells like perfect peaches.
His tongue curled instinctively. It had been a long time, but he remembered the sweet, velvety, rubbery feel of a nipple against the flat of his tongue.
Her neckline loosened. She was undoing the buttons of her gown.
Then she stopped and pouted playfully. “I can’t go any further. And I want you so much. But I don’t need my gown all the way off to make love to you.”
Her knee dipped into his bed, and she pulled her shift up, revealing her sleek legs, her rounded hips—and the dark curls between her legs because she wore no drawers. She bunched the shift at her hips and swung her leg over him.
God, she was climbing on top.
“Don’t,” he growled.
But it was too late. Sophie straddled him, looking down at him, and she settled her rump down on his thighs.
Her sweet, flowery, warm scent wrapped around him. He picked up another scent too. Her arousal. He smelled it faintly as she wriggled, grinding her warm, sweet crotch against the semi-hard lump of his cock. He gave a ragged groan.
God, this was good. He loved the pressure on his cock, which was fighting to harden while trapped between her warm body and his abdomen.
She’d taken out her pins, and her hair showered around her in wild raven waves. What would it look like flying around her as she rode him?
She lowered, her breasts spilling over the brim of her bodice. Succulent, sweet, and he ached to lift his hands and touch them.
He was ready to do it—
Then his brain flashed to the past again....
Where he was pinned down and he couldn’t fight. Couldn’t protect himself.
“I can’t do this, Sophie,” he croaked.
“I told you I am not a virgin. I have experienced . . . rutting.”
“I’m sorry you lost your husband.” His heart hurt for her.
“Poor sweet,” he murmured. He knew the hell of battle—she knew the loss of it too.
Her sweet mouth was there. She bent just a little farther. He had a good look down her bodice at the swells of her breasts, the hot, tempting valley between them.
She’d been in love and lost the man she loved. No wonder she was impoverished. She’d married young, and her husband had been snatched from her, leaving her with nothing—
She kissed him—and reached down and wrapped her hand around his cock.
Suddenly, blood shot down so fast, he was light-headed. His cock went rock hard.
She was hurting. He was hurting.
He wanted to lose all his pain in loving her. Take her pain away.
She wriggled on his prick, and he felt like a lion in a menagerie ripping free of its chains.
He lifted his hips and ground his pulsing hard cock against her.
She did it! She had tempted the duke beyond control. And he was going to make her his.
Victory made Sophie heady. She giggled in sheer joy—a sound which got silenced as the duke put his lips over hers again.
He kissed her so hot and masterfully, her lips felt like they were sizzling and about to catch fire. Slowly, his hands moved down. One slipped with skill inside her loosened bodice and cupped her breast.
Her hand was wrapped daringly around his most intimate place.
Against her palm, his staff was rigid and so hot. His skin was like velvet, but beneath—oh, it was hard as iron. She stroked him and sensed him tense.
With each stroke of her hand, his finger brushed lightly over her nipple.
Goodness!
It made her sizzle everywhere.
She let her hand slide all the way to the head of his erection, fat and firm and velvety in her hand. She breathed in the ripe smell of him.
Sophie trembled.
This man was a hero to her, just as Samuel had been. And he was so decadently handsome.
And—
He pinched her left nipple, and the tweak made her cunny clench. She ached for him. Positively ached.
Gently, he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and sensation exploded. She’d never dreamed her nipples would like such rough treatment.
His tongue slipped into her mouth. His other hand slid down and nestled between her legs. Aching so much, she rubbed against his hand.
The duke’s fingers tapped a place under her skirts and between her thighs—a place that sent a bolt of lightning streaking through her and made her cry out in shock.
His hands did things. All kinds of things. Wickedly good things.
Then he grasped her hips and held her still as he ground his thick erection against her.
Sophie moaned as need hit her with a jolt that made her weak. She was so wet, it made her blush.
He wasn’t saying anything. But then Samuel hadn’t either on the night they had made love. He’d kissed her wildly and sloppily and made love to her, but he hadn’t said much.
She assumed men were like that.
Caradon’s kisses were playful one minute, hard and demanding the next. He would touch his lips to hers so gently, her mouth simply tingled, then his open mouth would take hers, and his tongue would come in and thrust inside in the naughtiest ways. She didn’t know there was so much to kisses. Caradon’s were . . . complicated.
They made her melt. She was shaking, so aroused she was almost sobbing with need.
He lifted her, moving her so she had to let go of his cock and grip his shoulders. Her quim settled down right on top of the ridge of his erection.
He must be eager. Beneath her—and there was nothing between the slick lips of her private place and his erection—he was as hard as a cricket bat. He felt huge where she pressed on him.
He kissed her hungrily, and she pushed on his shoulders to break away from his mouth.
Breathlessly, she looked into his lust-hazed eyes. “Do you want me to put you inside me now?”
He pulled her down roughly, his mouth coaxing her lips wide. His tongue surged in. It was a luscious kiss.
She wanted him so much.
She couldn’t wait any longer.
Now!
She reached down and wrapped her hand around his shaft again. Her heart galloped, and she took him inside.
He was so thick and so long, and she felt so full that she cried out. Her cunny gripped tight around him, and she planted her hands onto his shoulders to ride him—
“No, Sophie.” He jerked back from the kiss, his breathing ragged. “I can’t do it, love.”
“What?”
“We have to stop.”
No. Nooooo! “But—but why? What have I done wrong?” She was whimpering.
“Nothing,” he said hoarsely. He gripped her thighs and lifted her. She lifted off his erect cock, and it went twanging out of her like a bow.
Then he abruptly pulled her forward.
She had to slap her hands down so she didn’t tumble—though her corset was keeping her up. Her palms landed on the pillow beside his head, and her skirts spilled over his face.
He could see up her skirts, see her dark curls and the pink nether lips.
A slow smile touched his lips. “You have no drawers.”
It was a strange smile—the smile of a man who was in great pain. But she didn’t think that pain came from his wounds. “Of course not. Drawers are fast.”
His chest moved with a low, throaty chuckle. “Perfect.”
Then he moved her again and lowered her cunny—
Onto his mouth.
Shock speared her, making her sit bolt upright on him. How could he breathe? He was doing what the courtesan had done to her lover.
The wet caress stunned her. His tongue had licked her nether lips, had tickled her nether curls, then played with her, slicking over her, until he hit a spot—
“Good lord, what was that?” She gasped.
Pleasure rushed from her privy place and seemed to shoot all the way through her—to her toes and the very tips of her fingers.
He rhythmically flicked his tongue over that very sensitive spot.
Lightning shot past her eyes. Brilliant lights exploded. Her fingers curled, and she clutched his pillow as if she might fly away. She was weak, paralyzed, a captive on his mouth.
With his hands, he worked her quim against his mouth. She gasped. Too intense! Oh, just perfect! No, wait . . . that was too much....
He found just the perfect place, the perfect rhythm, but the tense, sensation growing inside her was something she didn’t understand.
It scared her, but it didn’t hurt.
It grew stronger. Her fingers almost tore the pillow to shreds. She didn’t just let him drive her cunny against his mouth. She started to rub against him. Her body seemed to know what to do—
Oh, something was happening. Her heart—was it even still beating or had it exploded—?
Goodness, her body was exploding.
Pure, glorious light seemed to consume her. Her body jolted and writhed on him, and a blinding, intense pleasure rushed over her. She was its slave, floating with it, dancing with it, and the duke’s hands cupped around her bare bottom and held her to his mouth while she gasped and squealed with every single second that passed.
“Oh God,” she cried over and over. “Oh. Ooooooooh.”
Her heart was bursting while ecstasy seemed to make her wits shatter into an explosion of light. It felt so good. So wonderfully good!
Nothing had ever made her feel this way. But he did. This glorious, gorgeous man who’d saved her and who’d made her feel this. “Oh, I love you,” she wailed.
He held her while she thrashed about on his mouth. Then it began to ease, and she panted for air. Her hair was a wild mess. Her heart thundered, and she made rasping sounds. “Good heavens, what was that?”
The duke lifted her off his face and settled her across his chest. He looked bemused. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Even though you were married?”
She knew she was blushing. She quickly explained, “We were wed truly just before he went to war. We had only one night together . . . our wedding night.”
“Ah.”
“I felt that strange tension, but it faded when we did that thing. When we rutted. It was nothing like what you did. I had no idea—” Bother, she was blushing more.
She was naïve, she knew. From the country. Untutored. Did she try to pretend she wasn’t? Or just admit the truth. “I am very willing to learn,” she said solemnly. Well, as solemnly and seriously as she could, since she was straddling him with her exposed cunny, which was slick and wet.
“You’ve never had an orgasm before?”
“A what?”
“An orgasm means the release you achieve with sexual pleasure. You’ve never touched your pussy, love? To pleasure yourself.”
“My pussy?”
“ ‘Pussy’ is cant for your quim, Sophie.”
“I’m not supposed to touch myself there. I wasn’t even supposed to when bathing. Only quickly and with a washcloth.”
“Sophie, love, how can you want to be a courtesan?”
She frowned. “Well, I don’t know everything yet, of course. But I do have the book.”
“This book again . . .”
“It’s a memoir written by a famous London courtesan. Anonymously.”
“And a courtesan’s memoir is your guide?”
“Yes.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “She wrote about a man eating her. Goodness, now I understand what that meant. I never knew before tonight that people used mouths.” Tentatively, she touched her lips. “I could use mine on you. I think.”
“No, Sophie.”
“But why not? Why don’t you want these things? I do wish you would tell me. I wish you would let me help. I think”—she gazed at him helplessly—“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Cary groaned. Sophie looked like a lost puppy.
“The truth is, you are not in love with me, Sophie. You know nothing about me. That was pleasure talking.”
“But it—” She broke off.
“You don’t want me, Sophie. You do not want to be the lover of a man like me.”
She giggled. “Of course, I do. You’re a duke.”
He shook his head. What did he do with the girl? “I’m damaged, love. And even being a duke doesn’t make up for that.”
“How are you damaged?”
He clasped her hand. “Climb off me, my dear, then help me sit up. I will explain while I undo your corset. You need to go to your bed and get some sleep.”
He lifted her from his chest, supporting her as she clambered off him and the bed.
As he struggled to sit up, he was aware how battered and bruised he was. Every inch of his body ached. Even his cock hurt—it ached from unfulfilled desire.
Cary managed to sit upright and let Sophie stuff the pillows behind his back. “Sit in front of me,” he directed.
She did. Then she tipped her head forward, caught her hair with a sweep of her hand, and pulled the whole shimmering mass over her shoulder to reveal the back of her gown.
He began to undo the fastenings.
“You aren’t going to tell me, are you? You were tricking me.”
“I will tell you.” He would give her the usual explanation he used for his strange, almost reclusive behavior. “In 1817, I left England to serve as an officer during the rebellions in Ceylon. I was held as a prisoner of war for several months. The experience proved brutal and grueling. Since then, I’ve found it . . . impossible to have female companionship.”
She half twisted around, her forehead wrinkled with a frown. “I would have thought you’d be more eager after going through something so awful.”
She was a clever young woman. She’d gotten at the logic—why would a man who had been through hell not want to fall into the loving arms of a woman? After being deprived of freedom, wouldn’t any normal man be eager for passion and pleasure?
“I was chained up, starved, beaten. Tortured. And I cannot put it aside. When you wanted to have sex with me, I felt a swift rush of arousal, but getting that near to pleasure brings forth all my bad memories. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t feel worthy.”
“How could you feel that?” she asked. “You are wonderful.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do! You rescued me from three footpads without even a thought for your own safety. But if you can’t have sex because of your painful memories, why were you at a Cyprian ball?”
“To see if I could heal myself. If I could change. I’m a duke. Expected to marry. To produce an heir.” He sighed. “Now it is time for you to go off to bed, Sophie. It’s close to dawn. I will ensure you aren’t disturbed until late.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“We will discuss that in the morning. I’m too tired to think right now.”
“Could I sleep with you?”
“That is not a good idea.”
“But I’m worried about you!”
“I don’t think I will develop a fever now. I think we’ve proven I’m still fairly strong.”
Yet she looked so heartbroken, he felt his resolve yield. “Sophie, I admit it would be nice to share my bed. It’s been a vast, lonely place for years now. But you have to promise you won’t try to ravish me in my sleep.”
She giggled. “Normally, that is what the woman fears. But you have my solemn promise: I won’t be naughty.”
It had been years since he had fallen asleep with a woman in his bed—back when his father was alive and Cary had his own bachelor rooms.
Sophie stood, and he caught his breath as she pushed her gown down and stepped out of it.
She sat again so he could unlace her corset. Then she said, “Your majordomo has been checking on you. To ensure you haven’t developed a fever. He last looked in on you when I first came in.”
“He didn’t see you?”
“I hid behind the bed.”
“I doubt he will return. Not until morning. But lock the door. I’d rather Penders didn’t have the shock of finding us together in my bed. There is no point in savaging your reputation when it’s my plan to send you home.”
“I’ve already accepted that my reputation is something that must be sacrificed to protect my family.”
“Sleep now. We’ll worry about that later.”
“All right,” she mumbled.
He shifted over, making room for her in his bed. “Go to sleep, love.”
Cary got out of bed.
He felt damned guilty. He’d intended to save her, send her home—not try to have sex with her.
He poured himself a tumbler of brandy and walked over to the grouping of chairs by the fireplace. He sat on a stool, grimacing as he settled down, and he watched Sophie. She looked so small and sweet in his huge bed—a bed used by four generations of Dukes of Caradon.
He’d learned a stark damning truth tonight: He couldn’t get past the hell of his memories.
It was more than what had happened to him as a prisoner of war in Ceylon. All that had done was release the secrets he’d kept hidden for so long.
When he was five years old, he had been kidnapped for ransom. He had been chained up in a decaying house. And his perverted captor had done things to him. . . .
He had almost prayed for death, since he had been forced to do sinful things. Then the day had come where the man had wanted more, wanted to completely rip apart his innocence and virginity. Cary had been young, but he’d understood that the man had intended to penetrate him.
For that, the man had unchained him, unafraid of a child.
But a child could move with lightning speed. He’d run, desperate to get out. But every door had been locked, the windows nailed shut. Sheer terror had led him to grab a weapon to defend himself.
He had hidden, armed with a fireplace poker, standing on a dresser so he could hit the man’s head.
He’d intended to knock the man out. But he was so scared the monster would wake up, he’d kept hitting and hitting....
After he’d been rescued, he’d been . . . different. He had never felt right afterward. He saw other boys growing up, and he envied the fact they had no idea what vile monsters existed in the world.
For a long time, he had been the wildest rake in London, and he’d managed to bury the past. Then he had been taken prisoner, and that had unleashed the memories of his kidnapping—the ones he had buried—
Cary downed his brandy.
What in hell was he going to do?
His mother wanted him to marry—she claimed it would kill her if he didn’t.
Sophie wanted to heal him.
Should he keep trying with Sophie? Should he make her his mistress and see if he could actually get over this?
But Sophie was naïvely in love with him. What about when he had to let her go so he could get married? He wasn’t the kind of man who could marry and keep a mistress.
She would find another man. Then another. After a while, she would be older and jaded and cynical.
He thought of Angelique and the other hardened, tough Cyprians. He didn’t want to see Sophie lose her sweet, innocent optimism.
No, he had to send her home.
Cary got up to pour more brandy.
In the morning, no doubt he was going to have an argument with her about that.
What he didn’t expect was the arrival of the magistrate, along with Saxonby, at seven o’clock in the morning—because he was suspected of murder.