Chapter One
“I have only one rule for our thirty days together,” Isabelle said.
Dorian Montgomery nearly shivered as her voice caressed him like fine Chinese silk whispering over his soon-to-be naked body. His immediate physical reaction pulsed between his legs, but he reminded himself he’d waited this long, there was no need to throw her to the floor and spoil the anticipation of their first fuck. He forced his mind back to her statement while he had some ability to function.
All relationships had rules. Dorian wondered if her rules involved diamonds or rubies. “And what would that be?” he asked.
Across the room, she lounged on an Adams sofa built with sturdy lion’s claw feet. She wore a flowing white rail covered by a sheer, blousy robe. The bodice dipped low. Naturally, her breasts were displayed with seductive prominence. The silken belt hung loose. She held a drink in one hand. She swirled the liquid, dipped her finger inside and licked away the golden elixir with a slow lap of her tongue.
“Don’t fall in love with me.”
He laughed. Yes, she would be as entertaining as all the gossips implied. Isabelle St. Hillaire. The Westminster Whore.
Her story mixed doses of reverent legend and ribald rumor. Supposedly, the then tender, young virgin had prayed at the Abbey for guidance when she received her first offer to be a kept woman. In the years since, no one knew where she had mastered her trade. Certainly not from the select English dandies she took to her bed.
“Trust me, sweet. I will not.” Dorian reached inside his navy cutaway jacket. A peacock could not have been displayed in such resplendent finery as he wore today. Yesterday, he’d been chosen as the Westminster Whore’s next lover.
And final lover, if rumors were to be believed.
Today, he was here to settle the arrangement in the time-honored tradition of purchased goods. He had to pay cash for her services. In advance.
He displayed a thick leather wallet bulging with all that she demanded. Currency. Crisp Bank of England notes, as she requested. She seemed uninterested in the funds.
Everyone knew it was strictly a business transaction. He bought a mistress. A courtesan of unparalleled reputation. Her exclusivity was one reason she was so damn desirable. One lover a year. For thirty days.
This year’s bidding had been a hopeless frenzy as she’d received multiple gentlemen callers with their written offers. Some had already purchased expensive baubles, which they gifted to her and she accepted with the demure blush of a would-be bride. Dorian offered only himself and the accumulation of the last two years’ bids. He hadn’t stayed to watch the hopeless fawning and posturing, although walking out as if he didn’t care whether he won her had been much harder than he had anticipated.
He had spent the next day with friends, trying to douse the flames of anticipation and to kill the dread of being turned away again.
Lust like he had never experienced tore through his groin even now, while he was fully clothed, knowing that he would get to satisfy those longings before the night was over. Every inch of his skin tingled and between his legs his cock felt heavy and uncomfortable.
Rumors had circulated through Brooks’s, White’s, Carlton House—anywhere men gathered and gossiped—this year would be the last year the whore took a lover. One muckraker hinted that she would return to Italy when it was all over—a certain truth in the swirl of speculation surrounding her. She always went back to Italy.
If he had to guess, she would attempt to make her final escape and remain quietly as far from England as she could comfortably live—put the past behind her.
If that was her plan, he hoped she’d saved her money or she’d be on her back again next year. He knew from experience it was hard to give up a lucrative business venture, but for the right things, it was always possible to give up the “what is” for the “what could be”.
Talking his business partner into managing the day-to-day affairs of their shipping company for thirty days while Dorian went off on his own had taken some persuasion. It wasn’t as if Dorian wasn’t already gone several months a year to their offices on the Continent and in Asia.
When Dorian mentioned Isabelle’s name, his married partner raised one questioning eyebrow and muttered, “So she’s back in London.”
“It’s spring.”
“A waste of good money,” he said then walked away.
Married or not, his partner was well aware of Isabelle’s reputation and what it might be costing Dorian.
For the moment, Isabelle ignored the leather wallet and the money that belonged to her. Her gaze searched the length of his body. Not his eyes though. She hadn’t yet looked into his face. Dorian refused to blush at his evident excitement, his arousal only partially hidden by his trousers. Nor did he change his pose. He would be as much hers as she would be his.
When he’d read the missive from her informing him that he was expected at her townhome, he’d sat in his chair for nearly an hour staring at the note and its feminine handwriting. Shock paralyzed him. He’d foolishly hoped Isabelle would be his this year. He’d believed that last year and the year before too. For several years, he’d watched in morbid fascination as the fools panted after her. For the last three years, he’d joined the fools with his silent pursuit. In the past, he’d been outbid. This year, he offered over three thousand pounds more than last year’s winning bid.
And he’d won her favors.
He’d wanted her in the hopes she might be his equal or at the very least be interested in some of his varied and prolonged pleasures.
She’d arrived in London a month ago and he’d been without a woman since that day. For what he was paying, he wanted to enjoy every ounce of pleasure she could coax from his body. He was primed and ready to fuck her. He hoped she could keep up.
Dorian’s steps rang hollow in her spacious drawing room. With a few strides, he stood over her. A small table containing a book of poetry and candleholders nested against the settee. Byron, he scoffed. A courtesan with a romantic bent. How novel.
As no servant offered to assist him, he lowered a small traveling valise to the floor, and then dropped the entire wallet on the mahogany table surface, rattling the trio of crystal votives.
“Am I allowed to speak of our arrangement?” he asked. As much as he despised how other men talked about her, he wondered if he was any better. If she entertained as other men boasted, Dorian knew he would be no different than her other lovers. His closest friends would hear of their sexual exploits. Last night, his friends had offered myriad suggestions to him as they’d drunk to his success. It was the way of men and their whores.
“Feel free. No one will believe you.” Her somnolent eyes smiled while her mouth mocked in a slight upturn. She enjoyed her own jest. She sipped at her drink. The money didn’t even rate a glance. She trusted her womanly powers. There was no need to count the payment. Or worry about her reputation after the fact.
“When do we begin our agreement?”
“It has already begun,” she said as she raised her gaze to his.
One blue and one green. Twice before, he had been close enough to see the rarity of her most intriguing asset for himself, but never was her gaze so intently directed at him. This close, the power of her gaze seduced him to her will already.
Isabelle let him stare into her eyes. Her mouth turned upward in a suggestive invitation.
Dorian frowned, the first hint of indecision forming in his mind. What did one do now? Now that he had the most famous, most desired, most elusive courtesan—no, mistress—in all of England? She would no longer be a whore to him. Nor would he allow her to be so in anyone else’s presence. He’d never had a whore, perhaps some remnant of his frugal Scottish heritage and his mother’s wish that he be honorable in a dishonorable world. And yet, here he was, bending the rules to satisfy a larger, more demanding need.
“I’m no ingénue. We can copulate now if you wish.”
That irritated Dorian. “No, I do not wish.” Subtle, sensual pleasure is what he bought. Not a dockside swive. Perhaps her direct, aggressive approach was part of her game, a game that, with the slightest push, she might win.
“Would you like to see your room? My home is your home,” she purred.
The implication was neat, tidy and delineated. Your home, come and go as you please. For the next thirty days only.
“Yes. I would.” He enjoyed the dance, the foreplay, the want—not a quick poke in her drawing room wearing his Sunday best. He glanced at her again, watching her unfold as she stood. Her bare feet were small. A flash of leg caught his attention before the billow of her robe and rail settled around her feet, covering her. The crystal glass landed with a clink next to the wallet.
“You may bring that along,” she said, pointing to his valise.
Isabelle floated by with an elegant, graceful stride. Her perfume, a mix of jasmine and woman, wafted upward, filling his nostrils. They hadn’t touched, not even a handshake to seal the agreement.
“How did you know?” he whispered after her. Jasmine reminded him of home. He’d always had an affinity for the flower.
“I asked,” she said, leading him to his pleasurable doom as they left the room.
He had noticed two servants hovering nearby. Guards? he wondered.
The wide black-and-white marble foyer led to a rounded staircase. His steps rang loud, hers were a mere whisper. While she had lounged in the drawing room, the length of her inky dark hair had remained hidden. As she walked up the stairs in front of him, her hair fell in wavy torrents down to the small of her back. He plucked at a curl and wrapped it around his finger before it bounced away to tease him as they mounted the stairs. The silkiness made him want to feel the satin caress of her hair all over his naked body.
At the top of the stairs, they came to an open door. Inside the portal was a man’s room fit for royalty. His domain while they transacted their business.
She pointed to an adjoining door. “My room is through there, but I think perhaps we will be much more comfortable here, don’t you?”
Draped in a navy and brown quilt coverlet, the four-poster bed stood like a schooner in the middle of an ocean. Other men had been here before him—walked the decks, sailed their Union Jack, dropped anchor. That thought turned his stomach. At times he wondered if he knew his own mind. Other men had been with Isabelle—he’d known it from the beginning and he should have no qualms now.
Just because he would not think of her as a whore did not really change the situation at all.
The bedside stand held two periodicals—The Sporting Magazine and The Noble Science of Fox Hunting. Picking up the red leather edition, he smiled, pleased at her thoroughness. The book had been endorsed by his club, the Hertfordshire Hunt Club. He moved on, silently impressed with her quick and thorough planning.
The bed erupted with six large pillows, the same number he had on his bed at home near Green Park.
He faced her. A measure of satisfaction and a sense of disquiet competed for attention. Speechless, he gazed at her.
“Surely you did not think you paid eleven thousand pounds for a woman who did not know what her man liked?”
Her man? It sounded intimate and bold. She claimed him without any sense of doubt. He was hers to please and so far, he was not disappointed with her efforts.
She stood before him, her hands clasped demurely in front of her stomach. “Would you like me to undress for you? I wish to please you in whatever manner you enjoy.”
“No. Not yet.” He fought back the urges, even though he’d been hard from the moment he’d entered her drawing room. The rumors suggested that Isabelle liked control of every situation, just as she attempted with him now. Well, he wasn’t a flaccid old man looking for a woman to give him five minutes of her time and think it ecstasy.
He wanted a woman with the body and the will to take him for the long hours he liked to play the game. He’d paid to fuck himself senseless and believed Isabelle was the answer to his perpetual erection.
His only concern involved the complete loss of his dignity if she performed anywhere near as well as rumors suggested. He’d never been good at begging.
* * * * *
Dorian Montgomery stood in her home, in the chamber where she planned to learn those sensual secrets that had escaped her.
He wasn’t the typical man she selected for a lover. He wasn’t a peer, but his success at fitting in with all but the most snobbish of noblemen had impressed her. That he had a long-running dispute with the reprehensible Marquess of Dane only added to Montgomery’s appeal.
Isabelle breathed slow and steady, trying to still the wayward beating of her whore’s heart. Elegant, powerful, rich enough for her and handsome in an out-of-doors, rugged way, Dorian exuded the raw sensuality her other lovers had not. Those lovers brought only one thing to bed with them, and it wasn’t their impressive manhood.
Isabelle did not sleep with men who could please her. She slept with men who could afford her.
She had plotted the conclusion of her story with what she hoped would be a satisfying end. Her happily ever after would come when she was able to live in quiet obscurity watching her brother build his family. Her own dreams for the future had never gone past her next lover, but now that she was taking her last lover, her imagination had started to provide tantalizing glimpses of what her life might be like.
Over the years, she had built a substantial nest egg including profitable investments, all of which now allowed her the luxury of freedom.
In Italy, she was respected. Everyone knew her to be the daughter of a successful cobbler who’d made the finest shoes for fussy English ladies and wealthy gentlemen. It was there she would live out the rest of her life while arranging a marriage for her younger brother, caring for her grandmother and eventually, marrying a successful merchant or perhaps a minor impoverished Italian gentleman.
Only her brother knew the truth of her affaires and he was of an age where his protective instincts demanded that she give up her sordid little pastime.
She wasn’t acting on his demands though, she had played the game long enough. The whoring had paid for a better, brighter life. She didn’t want to jeopardize her brother’s future now. And she was ready to begin living her life, as it should have been in the beginning.
So this final time, she had had to make sure Dorian bid on the opportunity again, as he had done the past two years. It was much like the last performance of a grand opera with a famed diva—a bel canto with extraordinary elegance—everyone had to attend, though only one man would get to come backstage for her grand finale.
But for the third year in a row, someone had made a higher offer than he had. Three men had outbid him, including the Marquess of Dane—the arrogant, aspiring fool. She’d live in poverty before she’d succumb to his vile offer. Keeping his gift of the teardrop diamond necklace would be her pleasure. Perhaps she’d even wear it when Dorian took her out tonight.
Only this year the money didn’t matter. Yes, she was pleased with the offer, but she would have accepted Dorian for the sheer possibility of promised passion.
The last several years she had made practical decisions. Her livelihood depended upon the generous, if not outrageous price men were willing to pay for her. As her own agent, she could accept or deny any man who wanted her. This year she wanted only Dorian Montgomery.
In addition to all of his outward qualities, he was reputed to be an outstanding, durable lover. Several years ago, she had strolled in the park with his most recent mistress who’d bemoaned the fact Dorian had tired of her in less than two months. She’d proceeded to describe one sexual encounter that had Isabelle wet between the legs for the next week.
This year, this last time she whored for a man, she would do it for herself as much as she would do it to secure her future. This year, she wanted a lover who would consider her needs. Pleasure her for a change. It was widely said Montgomery had God’s gift for a cock and the prodigious desires to go with it. She didn’t think his former lovers lied about him. They all wanted him back—desperately.
Oh, he would not be denied sexual gratification. She would make sure he fainted with desire at her merest touch. Isabelle St. Hillaire understood what drove men, what they wanted.
What they wanted was a woman who was unattainable. They were hunters all. Competitors and warriors in the mind, if not the body. All of the men who’d purchased her had succeeded in life, even Dorian, who had neither title nor privilege to bolster his success.
And if she were attainable to only the most wealthy the conquest would be all the sweeter. As a prize, she believed her skills and her determination were unmatched.
Her only fear was that Dorian’s skill and experience outmatched hers and that somehow he’d be disappointed. So she had planned the month with the utmost care.
Her reputation was legendary and her mirror did not lie. The once-a-year lover. The freakishly colored eyes—even she tended to gaze into one eye or the other but not both. The witch-black hair. Her body—she could not say what attracted men to it. She only knew that baring her limbs, her breasts, was often the only catalyst she needed to fuel passion. That, and the very helpful rumors.
Because she was rarely seen in public, her unique eyes and undisputed beauty provoked intense speculation. It added to her appeal.
And once her clients possessed the unattainable, she would never allow them to know her, or keep her, or satisfy her. It was all part of the wicked game of hunt and capture. Little did Dorian know, this year he was both the prey and the preyed.
Dorian walked to the bureau where a crystal decanter and four glasses were set out on a sterling silver tray decorated with scroll engraving. He reached for a glass. Isabelle heard the sloshing as he poured a hefty draught and then the tinkle of glass when he stuffed the plug back into the decanter.
“You are pleased?” she asked, feeling timid in a way she had not for many years. Misplaced sensibilities aside, she wanted Dorian to be happy.
The darkened room hid the secrets of her body, including the faint blush that covered her from head to toe. In time, he would see enough to tantalize and entice him.
She’d known with certainty who she wanted this year. She’d prepared so carefully—learning all there was to know about Dorian. She wanted it to be perfect.
She wanted to be the perfect lover.
Mechanical pleasure seemed to satisfy her other lovers. Robert Waldegrave, her third lover, had thrown the money on the floor of her drawing room, pushed her to the square handwoven carpet, lifted her day dress and ravished her as she lay on the money, the carpet and the slats of the hard wood. And she could do nothing about it. She’d been bought and paid for. The carpet of money added no cushion to the severe blows he’d given her body. It had taken a few days, but she had gotten him in hand. He’d begged and pleaded at the end of his thirty days. By then, she had hated the man. He was nothing more than a brute in breeches.
Her satisfaction knew no bounds when she closed the door behind him.
She’d had enough of selfish lovers, inadequate lovers and quick lovers. Her former lovers had other unsavory qualities she didn’t care to remember.
Isabelle wanted something that had been beyond her reach before. She hoped to find physical fulfillment. She’d yearned and wanted these past years, only to be left unsatisfied. She had had enough and she was determined to find more. Much more.
“Yes, I am pleased. Is this how you get men to worship you? You cater to their every need?” He sauntered toward the chairs near the unlit fireplace and lazed his way downward, sinking into a comfortable position, one of his long legs stretched toward the hearth.
The fire should be lit, she thought. Dorian must be made comfortable.
“Not every need. Only the ones that men want from their mistresses,” she answered.
“And what is it that you want, sweet Isabelle?”
“What you left for me on the table in the drawing room.” Could she tell him, truly, what she wanted? Or would he find offense in the fact a whore desired him?
She didn’t remember where or when she’d first heard his name or the first time she’d seen him, just that one day he’d absorbed her every waking fantasy of her last lover. Each spring for the past five years, she’d anxiously await the first time she’d see him, even though she’d never spoken to him. Hyde Park, Bond Street, Savile Row. Sometimes just a glimpse. She never understood how she could even have a fantasy about a sexual relationship. But there it was.
And the last two years, as he had made her serious offers, she’d gotten to speak to him. Then she appreciated his true form and features.
She took a few steps to the fireplace and knelt on the carpet. She had lighted the fire in her father’s shop since she was seven. It was one of her morning duties to ensure that the shop was warm when he started work.
The firewood lay ready to be kindled. Reaching for the flint, she struck twice. Sparks scattered over the dry tinder. A small fire caught. Pushing back her hair, she leaned forward and blew into the sputtering flames.
Isabelle sensed his gaze over her back and buttocks, aware of every gesture and posture. No doubt he could see the light coloring of her flesh beneath the flimsy robe, the fire outlining the gentle curves. But not all of her surprises.
“The money is enough for you?”
“It has been.” She leaned back on her haunches and stared up at him.
“So you will retire a rich woman?” he questioned.
“Wealthy enough.”
“Wealthy enough for what?”
“Wealthy enough for a life that you take for granted. Wealthy enough to change my circumstances and those of the people I love. Perhaps I will marry now that I have means,” she said without rancor. What did a whore have to hide? The entire ton knew her profession.
What they didn’t know was that when she had lost her parents and betrothed to cholera within a week of each other, the life she might have had—a simple but safe life—had all but disappeared.
Now she had the best clothes and food. She had a nice home.
At Drury Lane, she sat in the best boxes, mingled with a very select group of British peers.
Only those peers were always men. The men who would seek her out, make their offers and express their desires. Men who jested with crude references, men who swore, smoked, gambled, whored. The only kind of men she knew.
She did not know their wives or daughters or sisters. Very often she knew their sons, as if possession of her body were a family entitlement.
The sons could be the worst. They’d tried to poach on their fathers’ whore more times than she could count. At one time, the Earl of Sanford had taken her to his country home in Somerset. What had started as a lovely weekend turned into a nightmare when the earl insisted she school his son in sexual matters. She had refused. Since then, she had kept two menservants who traveled with her, who stood sentry outside her bedroom door or whatever room she happened to occupy.
They were brothers. For the two months a year she needed them in London, she paid them handsomely and they could return to their tenant farms and their wives and children in time for the spring planting. They’d been with her seven years now. They were almost like family—family who knew her secrets and respected her anyway.
All that Isabelle had now had been obtained at a very high price, but she had reclaimed most of what she had lost. The final things she wanted required that she give up whoring, not that she would miss the forced submission and unpleasant physical contact. Or the myriad other social problems caused by her choice of professions.
“And none of your other lovers would bother to marry you?” he asked.
Oh, it wasn’t so simple. She had been in a vacuum as her life, and her brother’s, spiraled into nothingness. Prayer had been her only salvation. That and the shocking offer that had changed the course of her life.
She had learned a few things as a cobbler’s daughter. That the higher the cost, the more people perceived value. That beauty had to be combined with uniqueness.
And that men could sometimes be blinded by their need.
Her first lover had been a very wealthy cit and he was pleased beyond measure to have such a beautiful lover that he hadn’t noticed her lack of skills. But she learned quickly. And what she didn’t know, she’d found out through discreet inquiry. It was astounding what women would share about male sexual proclivities. The molls at Vauxhall had been very willing to tell Isabelle their trade secrets, for a price.
Dorian held his glass between his hands, looking her over. She imagined he kept his innermost desire to bed her under control. He was reputed to be a virile man and she was doing her best to tempt him. His restraint was impressive.
“I feel certain that they would have been happy to give me all the bastards they could breed on me, but then that doesn’t make for a smart or wealthy whore, does it?”
He chuckled. “No, I suppose not.”
His voice made her feel safe. His laugh had come suddenly and made her feel warm and appreciated.
Still on her knees, she picked up one of his feet. He watched without saying a word. Tugging off one soft leather Hessian boot, she placed his stockinged foot in her lap. She bared his foot, placing the rolled-up stocking beside her on the thick Isfahan carpet. His toes wiggled at the freedom. The heat of his gaze burned warmer than the sputtering fire.
With one hand, she rubbed along the top of his foot, brushing the small hairs on his toes. Sounds of happiness were her stock in trade. She heard his sigh, his breath coming out in a long, relaxed release. His head lolled back against the chair.
Since she’d turned nineteen, she’d had to choose men for one quality. The fatness of their purse. And each and every one of them had had her within a half an hour of payment.
Dorian seemed content to let her rub his feet the rest of the afternoon. In the quiet of the room, the fire crackled. His breathing cadence added to the comforting prelude to seduction. Isabelle moved, then pulled at his other boot and stocking.
She sat cross-legged, massaging him from the back of his calves to the end of his toes. He sat with his eyes closed, occasionally lifting his glass to his lips for a sip of brandy.
When he spoke, she jerked in surprise. “What do you normally do in an afternoon?” he asked, peering at her from beneath lowered lids.
She grinned. A little over a month ago, she’d ridden her horse across the grassy fields at home, racing her younger brother to the stables, trying to get home before the rainstorm broke. They didn’t make it. “Ride my horse, Cleopatra. Race my brother. His horse is named Marc Antony. Sired out of Blacklock.” She’d been thrilled to buy the horse for her brother. Men and their horses—she knew the conversations that interested them.
A pleasant warmth suffused her skin as she thought about her home in Italy. Her grandmother, her only living relative besides her brother, lived there. Isabelle had purchased a lovely villa near Napoli where they all lived in modest comfort. Christian, her brother, knew of her trade and while he didn’t approve, he remembered their life before. She knew practicality outweighed his pride as he saw her off for England each year—that didn’t stop him from voicing his objections though.
Dorian cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with her answer. “I meant what do you normally do with your…”
“Oh.” She hung her head for a moment, embarrassed she’d shared something personal he didn’t want to know about. “Well, I guess I ride, but in the way of whores,” she said, her tone a bit more biting than she intended.
Dorian gazed into her eyes, intent and domineering. “I have a couple rules of my own. Don’t call yourself a whore again in my presence.”
She smoothed her hand over the top of his foot. “As you wish.”
He lifted his feet from her lap and leaned toward her. He peered at her upturned face, looking as though he wished to say something. Stroking her skin with the back of his hand, he rubbed the pad of his thumb along the plump flesh of her lips. The soft puff of her breath caressed the back of his hand.
He held out his hand, palm up. “Come.”
Getting to her feet, Isabelle stood before him. He tugged gently and she settled into his lap.
This she knew.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and slid her fingers through his hair. Her lips met his, only he didn’t respond. Her heart lurched. Men always responded.
Again, she nipped at his lips, but nothing.
“Would you like something else?” she asked.
Dorian shifted, pulling one of her legs over the arm of the chair. He gazed into her eyes while he slid his hot hand under her rail. Underneath, she wore nothing. “Isabelle, this isn’t about duty. This isn’t a job. It’s about pleasure.”
When his hand passed her knee, she swallowed back the sudden anxiety. She liked to be in control and suddenly she found herself with a man who seemed bent on controlling her. The tip of his finger brushed between her thighs. A small gasp escaped her lips.
A frown creased his brow. “So long at this game and you’re still as dry as the desert.” His hand still stroked. “And a pretty blush too. Are you really the Westminster Whore or an impostor?”
She pushed at her gown and struggled to extricate herself from his lap before he exposed the secrets that were meant for later.
Isabelle thought she was prepared for pleasure, but the idea of giving up control, allowing Dorian to do has he wished, suddenly seemed overwhelming and foreign. She had been the dominant partner. She was the one who pleasured.
She didn’t know how to give in or how to let go of her carefully measured seduction.
He held her tight. “What do you like, Isabelle? Tell me.”
“No. I—”
His finger slid farther, invading her. Circling. “Mmm, there. What are you thinking about?” The change in his voice sent shivers through her. It was a voice she could dream about.
She closed her eyes. She’d been sexual with many men, but never intimate. They didn’t know her. They didn’t get to be personal.
“There’s no hurry. I’m patient. Were you thinking about my cock inside you?”
Slowly he circled. There was no air in the room. She couldn’t breathe. She heard the rumble of laughter in his chest.
“You won’t admit it, but you like a nice cock. I can tell. I won’t disappoint you. What else do you like?”
Isabelle clutched his hand, trying to pull him away, but the soft stroking had her mind in a daze. He was supposed to throw her on to the bed and use her. Simple. She had assumed that’s what he would do, at least until she was ready for more.
What he was doing wasn’t simple. “You need to stop. Let me—”
“Let you what? Suck my cock dry in two minutes? Is that what you did for your last lover?”
She squirmed under his hand. A finger slid deep. Then a second one followed. “Oh Isabelle,” he said, honey and sex dripping from his voice, “you’ve a nice little cunt here. You’re tighter than I thought you’d be. Feel that? Now you’re wet. Hmm, I think you enjoy talking about it too. Do you, Isabelle?” he whispered. “Do you like it when I talk about fucking you? Filling you with a cock that won’t give out in ten minutes?”
He brushed away the silky material, allowing it to pool around her waist.
She forced her eyes open only to see her bare legs dangling over the arms of the chair while his hands coaxed her into submission. He’d leaned back, bringing her to rest against him while his fingers touched her intimately. His other hand stroked from her knee along the outside of her thigh.
Control. She had to take control of the situation. With others, there had been no warmth or reciprocal attention—she serviced her lovers thoroughly while keeping her mind on the task.
In her imagination, she’d seen Dorian naked. She wanted to lie with him, touch him, allow him inside her body while they shared long kisses in a candlelit room. This was wrong for her. This breathless taking.
Just as she prepared to vault from his lap, his free hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her to his body. He turned her so her back was to his chest. He lifted her other leg, letting it dangle over the other arm of the chair. She was spread in a revealing, susceptible pose, her cunt open to the heat of the fire.
“Relax,” he said.
She had no choice once his arm encircled her waist. Her heart pounded in her ears and the heat from the fire warmed her bare legs. She pushed the rail down to cover the colorful surprise on her thigh. He had yet to acknowledge the smooth expanse of her mons.
That might have had something to do with the hard erection she felt pressed against her bottom. She rubbed against his covered cock in an attempt to distract him, to control him.
Still his fingers explored. This was her fault, craving a man who had a reputation as a seducer.
“What are your desires, Isabelle? Do you want me to be your slave while you beat me? Do you want me to inflict pain?” His finger circled her sensitive nub and he bit at her ear. “Do you want me to take you from behind, hard and deep, while you scream with want? Do you want pleasure in new ways? Tell me.” His hands melted away, finding their way up her body to knead her breasts with slow, soft movements of his flexible fingers. “Or do you wish to take me in your mouth and tease me with your tongue until I spill down your throat?”
Her body, so used to the quick, unskilled hands and bodies of her previous lovers, seemed disobedient to her thoughts. She did not like to be out of control, or worse, under someone else’s. She hadn’t imagined this.
But she couldn’t stop her thoughts from following along with his suggestions, imaging him doing those delightful things and her being the willing vessel to his desire.