Chapter 15
15
Penny was standing in the Marquess of Stoneway’s bedroom. Stark naked. With the Marques of Stoneway. Also stark naked.
‘Touch me.’ Liam leaned closer, brushing his cheek against hers, rubbing his scruff against her soft skin. ‘Please.’ His lips tickled the shell of her ear.
It was the please that undid her. Because even when he put on the act of powerful employer, she knew. He would never force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. A trait he showed with all his staff. He treated every domestic with a level of respect she’d rarely seen in a lord or lady.
How could a man such as this have committed terrible crimes?
But tonight wasn’t for her endless queries. It wasn’t for confusion or conjecture. Tonight was for Penny. And Liam. She pushed everything else from her mind.
Lifting her hand, she rested her fingers on his granite shoulder. He was impossibly hot. His skin stretched like silk over steel. Liam was a tall man – at least a foot taller than her – putting his nipples directly in her line of sight.
The Marquess of Stoneway has nipples.
She needed to stop thinking of him as the marquess.
Liam has nipples.
Not really better. Of course he had nipples. All humans had nipples. She’d just never given much thought to the matter before now.
Her hand drifted down his shoulder, over his chiselled pectoral muscle, so different from her soft breasts, until she circled the flat disc with her thumb.
He hissed a breath through his teeth. ‘Fuck, Penny.’
Fuck Penny. Yes. That is the idea.
But while it had seemed a good plan in theory, the practice of it was all rather daunting. She looked up and took comfort in his wild gaze. She wasn’t the only one flying apart.
‘The sheath…’ Embarrassing heat washed over her cheeks. But she wouldn’t risk pregnancy.
He lifted her chin, pressing a soft kiss against her lips. ‘As you command.’ Turning, he strode to the washbasin sitting atop a nightstand next to his dressing-room door. Opening a small drawer in the nightstand, he pulled something out and came back to her.
‘Will you put it on? I’ll show you.’
Alarm thrilled through her. Looking at his engorged cock was intimidating enough. She couldn’t imagine how that was supposed to fit inside her . But to touch him, wrap him in the French letter. What if she did something wrong?
‘Shouldn’t you do it?’
‘I can if you don’t want to.’
‘I wouldn’t know how… What if I hurt you?’
Liam’s choked laugh only increased her mortification. She hated being ignorant. Even in this.
‘I don’t want to do something wrong.’ She let the anger wash away her trepidation.
‘I’m sorry. Of course. You can’t do anything wrong, Penny. It won’t hurt me if you touch me. Did it hurt you when I licked your sweet cunny?’
The words he says!
She loved it.
‘No.’
‘It will feel similar for me. Not so intense, not like being inside you. But it won’t hurt. I promise.’
He was going to be inside her. Soon.
‘Oh my.’
Liam gripped her hand and flipped it over, palm side up. ‘We’ll do it together.’
He placed the funny little sheath in her palm.
‘What is it made of?’
‘Similar to the casing of a sausage.’
She giggled as a wild image of Mrs O’Brian stuffing sausages came to mind.
Liam’s brow raised and his mouth turned down in confusion. ‘What?’
Penny shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She looked more closely at the thin little sleeve. A scarlet ribbon was attached to the open end. ‘Is that a naked woman drawn on it?’
Chuckling, Liam licked his lips and Penny felt something heat and melt inside her. ‘Inspiration, I suppose.’
Men really were odd creatures.
Penny huffed out a breath. ‘Should I just slip it on?’
He took his cock in hand. A clear bead formed at the end. Penny felt unaccountably hot. A hollow ache bloomed and she clenched her thighs together. ‘Open the end and slide it on, then tie it at the base with the ribbon.’
‘Like a stocking?’
Liam chuckled again. ‘Yes. Like a stocking.’
Better image than Mrs O’Brian stuffing a sausage.
Penny reached out and held his cock steady. It was like heated metal, the skin as soft as a petal. A vein on the underside pulsed against her finger. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. ‘I didn’t think it would be so…’
‘Impressive?’ Liam’s hopeful smile alleviated her anxiety.
‘It’s hard to judge after only seeing one. I would have to view a large number before I could make a true assessment of its level of impressiveness.’ She raised a brow and gave him a wicked smile.
Who was this version of Penny Smith? Holding the Marquess of Stoneway’s cock in her hand and making jokes. She very much liked this woman.
‘Cheeky little minx.’
She laughed a breathy exhalation of sound then returned her attention to the task at hand. With shaking fingers, she carefully eased the sheath over his penis then tied the ribbon at its base. His hair was coarse and tangled in her fingers. She wanted to explore what was hidden from view but lost her courage. Glancing up to make sure she hadn’t done something wrong, Liam’s expression froze her in place.
Black pupils almost completely eclipsed his amber gaze. His breath came fast, and he clenched his teeth together, making his jaw muscles jump.
‘Are you well?’ She barely recognised her own voice, so rough with need.
‘Kiss me, Penny.’
An excellent idea.
She needed to stop thinking. To be swept away. To feel the riot of sensations cascading through her body instead of getting lost in her spinning apprehension.
Gripping his shoulders to steady herself, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his, opening for him and sucking his bottom lip between her teeth. He growled, wrapping her in his arms and pulling her close. The hot ridge of his erection pressed into her belly. His tongue tangled with hers in a delicious slide. Pulling back, he sucked, nipped, savoured her like a rare treat. Inviting her to play with him. And oh, did she want to play.
She ran her hands up his shoulders, along the tendons of his neck, into the thick curls where she gripped tight. He swept her up in a shocking moment of weightlessness, then fell with her on the bed, lifting and scooching her up to the centre.
Lying beneath him, Penny was a small, fragile thing. Something she’d never felt before. But instinctually, she knew he would not break her.
He nudged his thick thigh between her legs. The crinkle of his coarse hair rubbed over her delicate skin. An ache pulsed in her core and he pressed his leg harder, just there, easing some of her need, stoking the fire burning low in her belly, melting her reservations in a molten wave of desire.
Hot, firm lips sucked her nipple into his mouth. She cried out as he nibbled with sharp teeth then blew softly over the sensitised bud.
‘Liam!’
His growled response caused a new wave of need to wash through her, culminating where his thigh ground against the hard nub between her drenched folds. All sensation coalesced in that small little bundle.
Long, clever fingers trailed down her body. He lifted his hips to make room for his hand, spreading her open, rubbing the pad of his index finger in maddening circles. Hard. Soft. So close. Not quite. Tighter. Just. There.
She screamed as a wave of pleasure stole her thoughts, her breath, her soul.
Before she could come down from the heights, he spread her legs wider, making room for his body in the cradle of hers.
‘This will hurt, Penny. But only for a moment. Are you ready?’
She didn’t hesitate. She wanted this. Looking into his hooded eyes, she nodded. ‘Yes.’
She felt the nudge of his blunt head at her entrance a moment before he thrust.
Blazing hellfire!
He was right. It did hurt. Every muscle in her body clenched tight.
‘Fucking hell,’ he hissed.
Yes, exactly.
He froze inside her. ‘Just breathe. I won’t move again until you’re ready.’ Though his cock did twitch against her clenching walls. His arms also shook as he held himself above her. So much power held in check. It was a heady thing to know he held the beast at bay for her.
After a moment, her body softened against him in small degrees. She nudged her hips up in a tentative exploration. There was still a twinge, but not nearly as painful as the initial penetration.
Liam growled in her ear, his battle for control evident in every hard, quaking muscle.
She arched her back, then tilted her pelvis forward harder this time, creating a spark of friction that fizzed and danced through her blood.
‘Oh. Yes.’
Liam took her meaning. He pulled back, his hard flesh easing through her heat until he almost unsheathed himself, then slowly pushed forward again.
More sparks. A wet rush of need. When he was fully seated, he ground his pelvis against her in a tight circle. White lights flashed behind her eyes.
‘More.’
‘As you command, my lady.’
She was hardly a lady, but this wasn’t the time to argue the finer points of social hierarchy.
Because he gave her more. He gave her everything.
Thrusting into her with more force, and more, and more until their flesh slapped together and the sparks in her blood grew to an inferno. He pushed her higher up the precipice and on a final lunge, she flew over the edge. A second later, he followed.
Liam was a learned man. But Eton professors never taught him how to gather up the shattered pieces of his former self and sew them back together again. Because that is what Penny had done. Destroyed every notion of who he was, who he might be, who he feared becoming. And reassembled those pieces into who he actually wanted to be. A man worthy of her love.
‘Stay with me tonight.’
She was splayed over him, her soft breasts pressing against him, her fingers tangled in the sparse hair covering his chest. She paused in her lazy explorations.
‘I can’t. We might be discovered.’
‘What if we are?’ He wanted that. If someone stumbled upon them, he would have a reason. To marry Penny. Something he realised he very much wanted to do.
Insane. I can’t marry the maid. What about the mission?
Pushing off him, she pulled the sheet up and wrapped it around her beautiful body, hiding herself. ‘Liam, you are being nonsensical.’
Liam was a marquess. A lieutenant general. An esteemed peer in the House of Lords. No one had ever accused him of being nonsensical. Then again, he’d just called himself insane. But her refusal only increased his determination. ‘Why? Why is it nonsensical?’
Penny exhaled a long breath. ‘Don’t pretend ignorance. You know why.’
‘Because you are a maid, and I am a marquess. But what if you weren’t a maid?’
What if you were my wife? To have and to hold?
But that deliriously happy thought was quickly followed by a much more rational one.
I’m a secret investigator for the Queen. I can’t possibly marry.
Although, Killian and Drake managed to accomplish the task while fulfilling very similar roles for the prime minister.
Penny’s muted scream of frustration brought his attention back to the conversation. ‘What if the wind wasn’t cold? What if water wasn’t wet? It doesn’t matter, because these things are absolute. They cannot change. I am a maid. I will always be a maid. And asking me to stay in your bed is no different than asking me to sacrifice everything I have worked so hard to attain for your pleasure.’ She turned, slipped off the bed, and bent to gather her clothes.
He wasn’t asking her to sacrifice anything. He just wanted her to stay. The anger so familiar to him – so much easier to bear than the pain of watching her leave – surfaced.
‘What about your pleasure? Or were your screams just a ruse?’
This is not how he imagined things going. He’d planned to wrap his body around Penny and hold her until she fell into a peaceful sleep. Perhaps they would wake in the middle of the night, and he could show her new and clever ways their bodies could fuse. He would order a tray to be brought up in the morning and they would feed each other.
But who would bring the tray? Your maid is in your bed and calling for service would only expose her.
She pulled the painfully thin nightgown over her head and Liam tried not to be distracted by her jostling breasts. Jabbing her arm into one sleeve of her wrapper, she wrestled with the thing to get her other arm in the hole. If Liam wasn’t so mad, he would find the whole scene utterly charming.
Swiping hair out of her eyes, she narrowed them. ‘I’m no liar, my lord. My passion was not false. I did enjoy that. But I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. Of all the men willing to take my virtue, you should have been my last choice. And do you know why?’
Liam squared his shoulders and readied himself for her verbal assault. If she wanted to battle, he would battle. He liked fighting. It was so much easier than sharing feelings and being vulnerable. ‘Why?’
‘Because, while you moan on and on about your inherent evil nature, I’m actually the one who betrayed my own mother to be here tonight.’ Her anger morphed into something even more terrifying. Tears.
Shit. I thought we weren’t being vulnerable. I thought we were sparring. Sweet Penny.
His desire to engage with her in verbal war immediately shifted to wanting to comfort her. But she wouldn’t allow it. Not now. He softened his voice. ‘How have you betrayed your mother by being here with me?’
‘Harriet Smith. Inmate number 1348 1847.’
Liam shook his head, completely flummoxed. ‘Who is Harriet Smith?’
‘My mother. She’s in the Steel. Right now. Shivering in some rat-infested cell while I roll around on your feather-padded bed.’
Her mother was a convict. A dark, insidious worry picked at the edges of his brain. There were many reasons why a woman might be put in prison, but one in particular that could relate to Liam.
‘Why is she in prison?’ He didn’t want to hear this answer. But he must.
‘Because of you, Marquess of Stoneway. You signed the new Vagrancy Act condemning women like my mother. And your father signed the same Act in 1824, ensuring I was raised in the warm embrace of the Middlesex House of Correction. In that way, I suppose the two of you are alike.’
Ah, so they were battling after all. And she made a direct hit. Liam might throw up all over the sheets.
She seemed to realise how successful her attack was upon him. Pressing her hand to her perfect lips, she stifled another sob. ‘I didn’t mean… that is, I don’t think you are like your father.’ Closing her eyes tight, she shook her head. ‘No. I am not going to apologise to you.’ Watching her gather the frayed edges of her emotions together and weave it into a lash with which to whip him was masterful. ‘You stole my father from me, my childhood, my mother. And I should hate you. I did hate you. But you’ve stolen even my hatred.’ She gasped in a breath as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘You make it impossible for me to detest you, Liam. And now you ask me to stay with you. As if it’s just so easy? As if I wouldn’t be sacrificing every single part of myself to do that.’ She shook her head, swiping her tears away. ‘This was a mistake. I must go.’
Liam couldn’t imagine what Penny had suffered. All at his hand. Because he signed a stupid law he didn’t believe in to impress a father he hated. No wonder she was so adept at protecting herself against those two brutes in the alley. She’d grown up in a cold, cruel world where violence was commonplace. And she’d never had anyone to protect her except herself.
He swept aside the blankets and leaped out of bed, but she was at the door and through it before he could reach her.
He could have chased her down the hall, and very nearly did. But the last thing she wanted was for one of the footmen to see the marquess running naked down the hall after his maid. That would only hurt Penny more.
‘Bloody fucking hell!’ he bellowed, punching his fist into the door frame with a satisfying crunch. The pain blooming in his knuckles was a welcome distraction from the much larger wound in his heart.