Twenty-Two
Three hours into his aunt’s blasted tea service, Apollo was questioning every decision in his life that led him to this room overrun with debutantes competing for his attention with the zeal of gladiators in the Colosseum.
As it was, he should have nothing to complain about. When he’d announced he was in Paris to search for a bride, this was what he’d been after. Wasn’t it? Beautiful, well-bred, gracious girls…who left him cold. Guileless, smiling blank canvases for him to fill with his own tastes and preferences until they could anticipate his every whim. Well-cultured girls with enough sensibility to be stirred with just enough sentiment when taking in a particularly moving opera, but with not enough imagination to lose sleep over Apollo’s dalliances. Docile and malleable, the complete opposite of the woman who dominated his every waking thought.
How could he be content with any of these kittens, when he’d had a lioness in his bed?
“Your Grace, if I may.” With great effort, Apollo forced himself to muster up some kind of enthusiasm for the young woman calling his name. Lady Gertrude, if he remembered. The child of a destitute earl who had gambled away a fortune built on the backs of the people Gertrude’s ancestors kept in bondage.
“Lady Gertrude.” He nodded and took the gloved hand she proffered. It occurred to him that he’d likely encounter skin as supple and smooth as a baby’s under the satin. The thought made him sick with want for a pair of scratchy, battered hands. He would have Aurora in his bed tonight. He’d had about enough of this cat-and-mouse game. He was a damned duke, for God’s sake.
“I’d like to sing you a song on the piano,” Lady Gertrude offered with a girlish flutter of her eyelashes and an eager smile. He almost laughed at the round of eye rolls and pouts around the room at her coquettish efforts. He did appreciate the girl’s initiative, but he didn’t think he could tolerate this much longer.
Where was Evan with the damned cavalry?
“I’m afraid I must excuse myself, ladies,” he said in an attempt to suppress whatever plans Lady Gertrude had involving a wreath of what looked like silk tropical flowers her mother had pulled out of a bag.
“Per favore, Duca,” the girl’s mother pleaded in Italian. It would probably do no good to explain to her that he spoke Spanish. They’d only stare at him blank-faced and switch to French.
One of the most tedious aspects of his newfound popularity among the ton was their insistence on relaying their comfort with his “ethnic characteristics.” He could not swear to it, but he was certain that a couple of the women had applied some kind of darkening substance to their skin.
“Your Grace, we have also heard of a party you are hosting in Nice.” This came from the Portuguese matron whose lovely daughter had earlier impressed upon him her talent in speaking dead languages and reciting a plethora of poems by deader white men.
“Unfortunately, Senora Carmela, the guests to my house party are only residents of countries outside of Europe.” He took advantage of the stupefied look on all the faces in the room and stood up with every intention of ending this audience, even if he was branded as rude, when a knock on the door caught his attention and, for a glorious moment, shifted the focus of a dozen pairs of eyes away from his person.
He decided to use this distraction as an opportunity to escape when the thing flew open. Standing on the threshold was an extremely cross Aurora Montalban in her usual disheveled glory, and had it not been for the dozen or so ladies of leisure currently occupying every surface of the room, he would have grabbed her by the waist and kissed her senseless.
“What do you want, Annan?” she exclaimed with extreme outrage, after sending his butler a threatening look, while the man hovered behind her like a mother hen.
“Your Grace,” the butler pleaded, as he backed away from Aurora. Claude had a few inches on Apollo, which meant he was a good foot taller than his Fiera.
He would put his money on her, without hesitation.
“I can handle things from here, Claude, thank you.”
She whirled on him, her eyes flashing with menace. Not even the murmuring which suddenly erupted around the room could make him take his eyes off her. She was in one of her dark suits. For once, her hair seemed to be behaving and his hands itched to tug a curl loose. It was the first time in days he’d felt like there was blood, not ice, running through his veins.
None of these pretty girls with their breeding and lovely manners could hold his attention like this hellion could.
“You called for me,” she insisted, barreling into the room, then stopped short when she realized they had an audience. It took her a moment to register what she’d walked into, but he saw the realization descend on her face. Her expression went from annoyed to confused to…thunderous, in a matter of seconds. Then a very dangerous glint, much like the one he’d seen in her eyes right before she’d pulled her pistol, Juana Inés, on him.
“Ah, have I interrupted your tea, Your Grace?” she asked with concerning sweetness as she took in the women in the room and what had to be miles of tulle and taffeta. When she was done, she bared her teeth at the women. “Ladies, if you would excuse us.” She lifted her battered Gladstone and slapped it on top of the sideboard, making the small cakes and sandwiches on tiered trays shake ominously.
Apollo was mesmerized.
“I was about to sing for His Grace,” Lady Gertrude explained. His Fiera bared her teeth further. One of the ladies actually whimpered in fear.
“How quaint, but I’m afraid I will have to ask that His Grace cut things short.” Aurora Montalban could tell herself as much as she wanted that this thing between them was of no consequence, but the way she was looking at him right then was nothing if not proprietary. He sent her a look he hoped communicated that he’d love to see her stake her claim. “You see—” she turned to the women, with a contrite expression “—we’re in the midst of a quite rigorous treatment to rid the duke of a fairly nasty case of foot fungus. But don’t worry, he should be right as rain for the nuptials.”
A chorus of wails and horrified gasps swept around the room while Aurora positively beamed at him. After that announcement it did not take long to vacate the parlor, and within a few minutes, they were alone in the room.
His aunt would probably have an apoplexy when she re turned from her errand to find the house empty of maidens and their eager mamas.
Aurora, on the other hand, looked quite pleased with herself.
“You’re very well-versed in deception, Fiera. I’m impressed.”
“You were the one demanding I come to see you, only to be entertaining half of the unmarried women in Paris when I arrived.” She sounded more than a little peevish and he could not say he minded.
“I should make sure to have you around when I need to rid myself of unwanted guests,” he suggested, which earned him quite a bellicose stare.
“You didn’t seem to be in much distress when I arrived.”
“Have my female admirers put you in a cantankerous mood?” She threw her head back and laughed, as if the mere suggestion was ridiculous. Except she kept looking at a spot on his lapel as if she wanted to walk up to him and tear it off.
The same spot, he noted, Lady Gertrude had daringly brushed with her finger as she’d said her goodbyes. Doctora Montalban might have kept herself away, but indifference was not the reason.
“Why have you been hiding from me, Aurora?” Her head snapped up at his use of her name. There was a vulnerability in her eyes, a caged glint to them that made him want to reach for her, but from the hard set of her shoulders, he knew that would likely lead to another encounter with Juana Inés.
* * *
Apollo had a habit of asking questions as if he already knew the answers. It vexed her when he looked at her as if he could discern her actions, before she had herself.
And she could just tell him.
Confess the baggage she trailed with her everywhere. Her fear of what Philip might do to her reputation, to Apollo’s. But she could not bear his disdain, or much worse, his pity. Not after what felt like such a victory this morning.
“I haven’t been hiding, Your Grace,” she refuted, infusing as much tedium into her words as she could manage. “I have been working.”
Working and pining for him, wishing on those nights she could barely drag herself up the flight of stairs to her small room at Claudine’s that she was walking into the den of iniquity instead. Where he’d have a platter of something delicious waiting for her. But that man, those cozy rooms, none of it was real. This was what was real, the opulent residence of the Duke of Annan. Where the most well-bred ladies of Europe and beyond came in the hopes of being selected as his bride.
What was real, and never would cease to be so, was that she was the ruined bastard of a man who never loved her and a woman who didn’t love her enough. What she had was her work and her skill and herself. Nothing else.
“Jean-Louis said you had something to show me,” she said, for once opting for a noncombative approach with this man. She could not afford to lose more battles to her desires.
“Jean-Louis said—” Apollo spat his henchman’s name with an aggression she didn’t quite like “—that you’ve been running around in dangerous places again.”
That surprised her, she didn’t think Jean-Louis would divulge that information. Then again, the man was under Apollo’s employment. She’d known him learning about her affairs was a risk.
Now here they were entangled, impossibly knotted in each other, and the ripping apart would leave her bereft.
“What if I am?” She did not hold back, her voice as loud as she could make it. “Any trouble I might find, I will take care of,” she told him arrogantly, even when merely hours earlier, his protection aided her in helping someone to safety. It was fickle and wrong, but she was grasping at straws.
“I—” He echoed her exasperated tone, which only made her temper rise further. “Why do you insist on pretending there’s no one in the world that cares for you? Is it pride?” She’d never seen him angry, she realized. What she’d witnessed, those displays of temper, had been mere displeasure, because Apollo César Sinclair Robles in a fit of fury was something else altogether. He loomed so large, his face like a thundercloud. Not even a trace of that ever-present humor remained. “Is this some kind of punishment you inflict on yourself?” She flinched at the question, not liking how close it felt to the truth.
It vexed her that even when she was furious at him, she could not help but notice how the bow of his top lip dipped perfectly. That the memory of how his lips felt on her breasts haunted her like a wraith. It was devastating to know his kisses and his touch would be someone else’s soon.
“As much as I enjoy all this—” she waved a hand between them, to which he barely reacted “—can you please tell me what you asked me here for.”
He didn’t answer, his eyes roaming over her like he was taking inventory. Then he took a step closer. She could flee, the door was right there. But her feet would not move.
“One week, Aurora,” he said, when he was finally in front of her. The back of a settee dug into her rump. If she leaned back even an inch, she’d topple over the thing.
“What do you mean?” she asked, pretending not to know seven days had passed since she’d been in his bed. His finger traced the curve of her neck, up to her jaw, and she clenched it to keep it from trembling. “You’re toying with me, Apollo.” Her admonition was a little breathless, and she could not focus when he was looking at her like that.
“Do I look like I’m playing, Fiera?” he asked, and again her body reacted in ways that should’ve scared her.
“You’re certainly wasting my time,” she protested, clutching the finger he was using to make sensual circles around her nipple. “Stop it.” Her demand was feeble, barely a thread. When he leaned in and brushed a kiss to her neck, her hand fell away.
“Stop wanting you?” he asked huskily, then slid his tongue over her bottom lip. “Stop taking myself in hand whenever I think of the honey between your thighs?”
“Apollo.” It was a useless plea, because whatever he wanted from her, she’d give him.
“You’ve deprived me, Fiera,” he told her, before he brushed his lips on hers. And her throat clenched almost painfully. “Did you miss my hands on you?” She whimpered as her own hands scrambled for purchase behind herself. “Did you think about how deep I was inside you the last time?” Her sex clenched at the memory of how it had felt. He bit her lip and she moaned. “You remember how I took you?”
Her hands itched to undo buttons, to lift her own skirts, to open the placket of his trousers so she could see him, take him in her hand, her body.
“We said this would only be temporary, that it would have to finish eventually,” she countered, feebly.
“I’m not finished yet,” he growled, before he lifted her off the ground.
“Put me down, Apollo.” She deployed her most forbidding tone, but he was not listening and soon she found herself seated on a desk. “You’ll make me late for m…” Whatever else she was going to say flew out of her mind when he did something utterly wicked to her earlobe.
“This should not take very long,” he said amiably, sliding a hand under her skirts.
“You’re attempting to distract me,” she complained weakly, feeling the ghost of his smile against her lips.
“Is it working?” It was more than working, she was seconds from tearing off his clothes. This was why she had to stay away.
“Not at all,” she lied, pushing him away with very little conviction while he slid two fingers inside her. He was just on this side of rough as he thumbed her folds apart. “I’m utterly unaffected,” she told him, even as she canted her hips to feel more of his touch. The pad of his finger made wet, lazy circles around her clitoris, which promptly turned her limbs liquid.
“You like that,” he told her, his voice hot and low against her ear. “You’re so wet for me.” She was. Swollen and ready for everything he’d give her. “I think about this all the time.” He was tapping on that bundle of nerves now, each touch sending a current of the sweetest pleasure through her. “You might be cross with me, but your sweet, tight concha, she’s ripe and eager for me.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he was inside her again, those thick fingers preparing her for his entry.
“This is unseemly,” she gasped as he stroked her walls and suckled her nipple through the cotton of her shirt.
“What’s unseemly is you keeping yourself away when you need this as badly as I do.” He sounded furious and she didn’t bother denying it.
“Would any of your innocent little maidens let you have them like this?” she asked, unable to help herself, using her teeth on him, even as she parted her thighs farther, desperate for more of his touch.
“I’m a man from the tropics, Aurora,” he told her between biting kisses. “What use do I have for a gentle breeze of a girl when my blood requires a storm?” She was a storm in his arms, untamed, dangerous.
“I didn’t like their hands on you.” She fisted the lapels of his jacket. Right where that debutante slid her finger. A fris son of satisfaction ran through her as he grunted in approval at her possessiveness.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he ordered. When she sank her teeth into his shoulder instead, he pushed another finger inside her. “Now, Fiera.” With trembling hands, she undid three, enough for him to pluck one breast out and take the nipple in his mouth.
She arched her back at the searing delight of his lips and teeth teasing her. The way his tongue grazed the tip made it tingle all the way down to her belly. She circled one arm around his neck and held on as he brought her so swiftly to climax with his fingers.
“You’re clenching around me,” he groaned, lifting his head. He was so beautiful, those brown eyes that melted her and that mouth that made her want too much. “I have the plans for your building,” he informed her, right before he lifted her skirts up around her waist. His eyes fixed at the juncture of her thighs.
“I’d like to see them, please,” she replied in an equally nonchalant manner.
“Only once I’ve availed myself of what you’ve been depriving me of first,” he told her, licking his lips. She canted her hips for him and a feral sound rumbled in his chest as he caught a glimpse of her mound of curls. He tugged at them as her own hand gripped his hard length.
“So ready for me.” She was more than ready and quickly verging into desperation. All anger replaced by blind lust. “Where’s my Fiera?” he growled in her ear.
Here , she wanted to say. Wild and hungry for this thing we do. For the freedom this mad, frenzied lovemaking gives me.
“Now, Apollo,” she demanded while her hand stroked him. He cupped her bottom and lifted her to him.
“Take me inside you,” he ordered. She had him in hand and she guided him over her folds, her clitoris. The contact sent hot, feverish tremors through her. “Vamos carino,” he urged, and she could hear an echo of her own need in his voice. She pressed her forehead to his and took him inside, pressing into his thickness until he was fully seated. She shuddered happily, just as he rocked into her.
“There’s nothing sweeter than this,” he whispered. She palmed the sides of his face and brought his mouth to hers, taking greedy pulls of his tongue, nipping at his bottom lip. The thought of leaving sore spots and bite marks as reminders of what they’d done spurring her on.
“Esto es mio, Fiera,” he growled as he pushed himself so deep that she felt him pulsing inside her.
“Go to hell, Duke,” she shot back, as their bodies collided recklessly. Her hips met his with such force that the sounds of their crashing bodies drowned out everything.
“We’re going to have to find some better use for that smart mouth of yours, Doctora.”
“Try it,” she challenged, as she rocked her hips into his thrusts. She impaled herself on him wantonly. Fast, intense thrusts mingled with his slow, languid ones that made her sigh. She gasped when he slid his hand out from under her rump to the underside of her knee. He pushed her leg back and sank even deeper.
“Ah, demonios,” he gasped when she contracted her walls around him. He bent her over and pushed inside her in earnest. Her core pulsed as sparks exploded in her limbs, crawling up to the very core of her. Her climax washed over her like a summer storm. Powerful and swift. He let out a long, deep groan while his hips twitched against her.
“Fiera.” It sounded like a prayer, or maybe a lament. As he eased himself from her body, she closed her eyes and wondered what was happening to her. She’d just let the man have her in his parlor. She could make a scene and start another fight, but what would she gain by that? She was growing bored with her own resistance to this.
“We can’t do this in parlors,” she said without heat as she attempted to put herself back in order.
“We could be doing it in my den of iniquity as much as you like,” he rebuked, as he buttoned his trousers. She tried not to think of the flutter in her chest at the thought that he’d missed her. Then she shook her head at the absurdity of what they were doing.
She was still struggling with her shirt and jacket when he pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket.
“Let me,” he whispered, pushing the cloth between her legs. He didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed to be doing this for her. Somehow, this tending to, this gesture that took mere seconds, felt much more intimate than what they’d just done. When he was finished, instead of handing it to her, he pressed it to his nose, then slid it back into his pocket.
“I will dispose of it,” she said pointedly, with her hand extended.
“It’s mine,” he retorted, almost petulantly. Then that wicked grin tipped up his face. “I’ll keep it under my pillow for those nights when you disappear on me.”
“Why?” she asked, nonplussed.
He pressed the grin to her neck, then nipped at it. “Because your cunt smells so sweet, I’d bury my nose in it a hundred times a day if I could.”
“Apollo,” her voice came out needy at the blatant, uninhibited way he approached sex.
“A piece of cloth with your scent is a very distant second, but it’ll do.” A gently bred lady would be appalled, horrified at the crudeness of what he’d done. But she was fascinated, newly aroused by his unapologetic displays of ownership. He finally stepped away from her, looking refreshed and so handsome a greedy urge to claim him rocked her.
“You’ve made me a mess,” she complained as he settled her back on firm ground. When he didn’t reply with his usual innuendo, she looked up from straightening her skirts and what she saw in his eyes petrified her.
“What is that man to you, Fiera?” he asked, and she didn’t need to ask who. There was something so raw in the way he looked at her that her hands began to shake.
“I don’t care about your past,” he told her, making her heart hammer painfully in her chest. “But if he’s hurt you—”
“No one’s hurting me, Apollo.” But you will soon , she didn’t say, when you marry a girl with no Philips in her past . She swallowed that sorrow and reached for him, needing to kiss him.
“You keep too many secrets, Fiera.” If he only knew. He slid his strong arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet. His kiss was slow and sweet this time. Exploratory and thorough. A man like Apollo could make even her begin to dream of fairy tales.
She met him stroke for stroke, gliding her tongue with his. Her hands clasped behind his neck. She thought that maybe she could tell him. They would still part when he left to choose his bride. She knew who he was now. He would not judge her, or at least she didn’t think he would. If she was honest, if she spoke the truth now, she might save him and his aunt some heartache. She was considering doing that very thing when the doors to the room burst open and the worst possible thing that could’ve happened, happened.
“Aurora Montalban Wright, you little minx.” Manuela’s unmistakable voice rang through the room in an ominous mixture of delight and devilry as Aurora tried to pry herself from Apollo’s grip, and frantically tried to muster up some reason for finding herself in the circumstances she did.
“Well, Your Grace,” she said, breathlessly, her legs dangling in the air. “I hope my advice helps with that ailment.” She was much too disheveled for her attempt at saving face to work. Her cheeks were so hot she thought she could see smoke rising from them, but she bravely turned to look at her two best friends, Evan and Cora standing in the doorway. “I was just helping the duke with an issue.” She could only imagine the state her hair was in and hoped she was not flushing too badly.
“Was the ailment inside his mouth, and were you fixing it with yours?” Luz Alana asked, with a wide grin.
She ignored that and pinched Apollo on the arm hard enough that he finally released her. “Oh, Luz, you know how I feel about divulging patient information, and I should get going.”
“Oh no, you’re not,” Manuela exclaimed, extending both arms to block the entrance to the parlor. Luz stood next to her for good measure and for a second, Aurora considered launching herself out the window. Then decided that moving to Siberia was likely the only way she’d escape her friend’s interrogation.
“Fine,” she exclaimed in defeat.
“Pardon us, Your Grace,” Manuela announced, tugging on Aurora. “We will be back as soon as we hear the details on this new miraculous medical treatment that involves climbing men like trees and the use of tongues.”
Apollo’s lip twitched, even as he nodded solemnly. “Please take your time,” he exhorted. “I’ll be right here waiting to offer my testimony to the doctor’s skills.” The pendejo winked at her. He actually winked at her, right before she was flanked by her two friends and escorted out of the room like a condemned woman headed to the gallows.