Chapter 2
2
CHAPTER 2
C assandra tasted of tea and fire. Derek drew her into his arms, his palms pressed against her back so she had no choice but to fall against his chest and warm his entire body. Her arms draped over his shoulders. Her hands sifted through his hair, one delicate palm rested against the base of his skull. She held him in place as they plundered each other’s mouths, tongues probing and seeking. A moan vibrated deep in her chest and his heart threatened to thunder from behind his ribs in answer.
Her knees rested on either side of his legs as she leaned over him and met him kiss for kiss. His lungs fought for air and when he pulled his lips from hers, he gasped and fought to speak. “Tell me to stop. Tell me this is madness.”
“Do you want to stop?” She ran her fingertips across his cheek and rested her thumb against the corner of his mouth.
“I’d rather die.”
“Then let us run mad together, my lord, if only for tonight.”
“Derek,” he said and laid his palm against one side of her neck whilst he ran his teeth down the other side. She shivered and his cock went rock hard in an instant. “Say my name, Cassandra.” He nipped at the spot where her pulse quivered. She pushed out of the chair and stood his hand clasped in hers. His heart stuttered. Her expression was unreadable. What had he done?
“Come to bed…Derek.” She pulled him to his feet and led him down a short corridor away from her sitting room. Her bedchamber was lit by the fire in the hearth alone. Cassandra turned and opened her mouth to speak. Derek pressed two fingers to her lips.
“Why?” he asked softly. He feared her answer more than nearly anything he’d ever feared his life. A completely foreign idea to him, but he would not think on it now.
“Do you not want me?” Her sudden uncertainty nearly broke him.
“More than anything in my life.”
She smiled a small, sad smile. “Is that your heart talking?” Cassandra caressed the cock stand tenting his breeches. “Or this?”
“I don’t know. I only know I have wanted you for a long time, and as much as walking away is the very last thing I want to do, I will do so if you ask me.”
She reached up and began to pull the pins from her hair. “We would not be standing in my bedchamber if I did not want you. Do our reasons matter so very much?” She placed the handful of pins on her dressing table and shook her head. Her thick, dark hair fell down her body in a silken river to well below her hips.
“I…” He stepped close enough to wrap one arm around her as he gathered her hair in his fist.
She kissed him. Hard. “You said you need me. Tonight, I need you. Neither of us knows what new hell tomorrow will bring. Tonight, you are mine, Derek Welkirk. That is all you need know.”
“Cassandra.” He pulled her against him and slid his hand to the back of her head. This time when their lips met, there was passion, but also something more. Something infinite and ancient and powerful enough to stop his heart from beating as she drew his tongue into her mouth and curled hers around his in a promise of what was to come.
He reached around her with both hands and worked at the tapes at the back of her dress. She tugged at the still slightly damp shirt until she worked the tail out of his breeches. His fingers fumbled to open her gown and once the bodice sagged forward, he stripped the sleeves down her arms until the dress clung to her hips and then slid to the floor. Her stays fastened in the front, and he made quick work of them, so they soon joined her gown. Their lips seared and sought at every chance as they stumbled towards the bed, ridding each other of clothes along the way.
Cassandra whipped his shirt up over his head. She pressed her hands to his naked chest, and he gasped at the sensations shooting through his body at her touch. The light of the fire behind her showed every curve and line, but Derek wanted to see more. He backed her toward the bed and lifted her onto the mattress where she sat legs dangling, leaning back on her hands studying him with a fierce hunger in her eyes. He went to the hearth and lifted the branch of candles on the mantle. Once he’d lit them, he placed the candelabra on the bedside table.
“I want to see you,” he murmured as he returned to Cassandra and worked her sensible wool stockings down her legs. She grabbed the hem of her chemise and raised it slowly over her head. His throat went dry. His heart stuttered. Completely bare, she had the body of a siren, ivory skin against the dark counterpane on the bed. Her hair pooled at her hips. Her full breasts rose and fell, a temptation too erotic to resist.
Derek braced his hands on her thighs and lunged forward to take one hard nipple between his lips. Cassandra gasped. She raised one hand to caress his head as he suckled and nipped. He slid his palm up her thigh until he reached her other breast which he cupped and then squeezed. She moaned and grasped his hair as he teased and tortured her tender flesh. When he pulled his lips from her nipple, she made a noise of protest until he devoured the other breast and pushed her down on the bed.
He kissed his way down her body and lifted her legs over his shoulders.
“What are you—” Cassandra’s inarticulate cry went straight to his cock which grew hard to the point of pain. He grasped the backs of her thighs in his hands to raise and hold them in place to deliver a long, hard kiss to her nether lips. He licked and sucked and feasted on her cunny like a starved man. She fisted the counterpane on either side of her and writhed first to try and escape his relentless attentions and then to press closer into his seeking mouth.
Every cry she uttered, every time she called his name Derek renewed his efforts. His entire being existed to bring her pleasure. Never in his life had he wanted anything more than the shivering, shuddering woman beneath his lips. Her legs shook in his hands. Her gasps quickened. She pumped her hips from the counterpane to urge him for more.
“Derek, please,” she begged. “Please.”
He sucked the spot at the top of her cunny and plunged first one finger and then another inside her, pumping and reaching just as she reached. Her body spasmed and locked as she arched off the bed. He held her in place whilst one hand continued to drive her higher as her cunny tightened around his fingers. She screamed his name and collapsed, trying desperately to breathe. He kissed his way back up her body and crawled onto the bed next to her. For a space of time he could not measure he lay on his side stroking her velvet-soft skin with the backs of his fingers.
As she lay there, eyes closed and skin glistening, he wished he had his friend Atherton’s skill as an artist. What a magnificent portrait of womanhood she was. Her prim dresses and tightly wound hair gave her the appearance of a much older, much more sedate woman. His Cassandra was flame and desire, and his greatest fear was he’d never have enough of her.
She murmured one word in a soft, smoky voice.
“What, my love?” he whispered before he could stop himself.
She turned over and threw one leg over his body. In one swift graceful move she sat up straddling him. When she leaned close to kiss him, her hair fell around them, an ebony curtain against the light. She made short work of unbuttoning his falls and began to shove his breeches down his legs. Once they were below his knees he kicked them to the floor.
“More,” she said between kisses. “I want more.” She nipped his chin and then took his earlobe between her teeth as she reached between them and grasped his cock. She stroked him, once, twice. He groaned and pushed himself into her hand. With her other hand she braced herself on his shoulder and rose in and effort to fit him at her entrance. He took himself in hand which allowed her to use both hands to push up.
“Oh…God…” He let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a hiss as she took him in a bit at a time until he was completely sheathed in her. “F-u-uck.”
“That is my intention, my lord.” She pushed up on her knees and slid down his length again. “Do try to keep up.” She grasped his shoulders so tightly, her fingernails dug into his skin. After a few strokes she found a rhythm that had her moaning, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. Derek reached up and rolled one nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She threw her head back and increased the rhythm of her strokes.
He fought to keep his eyes open. Shards of pleasure suffused him. His bollocks tightened and begged for release. No. not yet! Derek wanted this sensation to go on forever. She was passionate. She was wanton. And she was his, in this moment, she was his. He leaned up and replaced his fingers with his lips at her breast, drawing hard and steadily. Her little cry and the way she shifted as she rode him had him grasping her hips and lifting his own hips to meet her.
Faster and harder they came together. The room was filled with the sound of their bodies joining and their gasps and moans of pleasure. He still tasted her on his lips as he suckled and licked her glorious plump breast. The scent of sweat, smoke, and her juices invaded his senses more potently than the finest brandy. He had no memory of a woman loving him so utterly to the point everything but their bodies disappeared. The world shrank to the place they fitted together.
Her cunny began to quake around his cock. She rode him hard now as if reaching for a destination she craved as much as he did. He could no longer hold back. He released her breast and grasped her hips to quicken her pace. She threw back her had and called out his name over and over. That was all he needed to hold her in place as he pumped into her again and again before he finally fell onto the counterpane with her name falling from his lips in a long, exhausted groan. She draped herself across him, her lips pressed to his ear and her sweet breath caressing his neck.
If he died in this moment, Derek would somehow consider fate to be kind. Wrapped in the arms of this woman, he was surrounded in a cloud of what he’d never thought to feel again. Peace. He closed his eyes against even the hint of such an idea. He did not want her to be his peace. Whatever God was in control of his life had ever stolen his peace from him in the most brutal and final of ways.
He sat up so quickly, he dislodged Cassandra onto the counterpane and set the candles on the bedside table to flickering violently. She sat up and pressed herself against his back.
“What are you thinking, Derek?”
“I should go.” Not the thing a wise man said after the most shattering experience of his life with the woman he could not imagine ever leaving. “Rutherford will be battering down your door with more sandwiches or some other excuse.”
“At this time of night Young Rutherford is likely enjoying the favors of the maid, Molly. If one of his brothers has not beaten him to her. Our Molly is enamored of all things Rutherford, including their father.”
“Good God, Cassandra. I have you managing an establishment to rival Goodrum’s upstairs and down. How have you kept my life from becoming the scandal of the decade?”
“Who says it isn’t?” She kissed his shoulder which made him shiver.
Derek let loose a bark of laughter. “And how have I missed the chaos of these houses and all of my secrets you have kept, even from me?” He turned and pulled her into his lap. Her skin was warm and soft and sent waves of emotion crashing through him.
“You spend so much time paying attention to the dangers all around us that you don’t see the joys and thoughts of the people in your life. You keep yourself separate, Derek. When all people want to do is draw you in and share those dangers.” She drew a finger down his cheek and rested her palm over his heart.
He made her no answer. He had no answer to give. She was right, of course, but his reasons were something Cassandra would never understand. Hell, sometimes he didn’t understand himself. He needed to leave. Now, before he told her all of the things he kept stored in his heart to protect himself.
“Do you want to go?” She met his gaze and did not look away. Her expression showed neither regret, nor hurt, nor any hint of her own desires. The decision was his to make. He had no strength to think of tomorrow or of anything really beyond this moment. He pressed his palm to her cheek and pushed the clarion call of alarm in his mind aside.
“May I stay a while longer?”
She touched her lips to his in a whisper of a kiss. “Come to bed, Derek, Rest for a while.” She gave him a wicked smile. “You’ve earned it.”
He laughed as she backed off his lap and scooted to the head of the bed. Derek drew back the counterpane and sheets, and they crawled into the bed next to each other. Cassandra settled her head on his shoulder and rested her hand on his chest. He pulled the covers over them, and she slid one leg across his.
“Tell me again how I earned this rest,” he murmured. “Ouch!” She had tweaked his nipple and her smile moved against his skin.
“Sleep. I have no intention of flattering your pride any further. You must leave before the servants begin to stir.”
“Yes, Missus Collins. I hear and obey.”
“Not bloody likely.”
Damn!
He’d not meant to sleep so long nor so deeply. Derek hopped around Cassandra’s sitting room on one leg as he tried to pull on his boot. He narrowly avoided crashing into a marquetry table of battered porcelain dogs before he finally conceded to the hour, the dim light, and his own clumsiness by dropping onto the settee. With a few more wrenching tugs he managed to shove his foot into the still slightly damp leather top boot.
Of course, wrestling into his now mostly dry clothes was nothing compared to the struggle he’d had leaving the comfort of Cassandra’s bed. He’d fought the urge to wake her for what seemed like hours. In slumber with her hair spread across their pillows and his chest she was a fey creature not of this world. She was a goddess he wanted to kiss and caress to wakefulness, to make love to one more time before taking his leave.
He would have kissed her goodbye, but he knew in his bones one kiss would not be enough. And so, he’d extracted himself from her arms in slow degrees, slid off the bed and gathered his shirt and breeches before withdrawing to the sitting room to dress. He was cold and the chill had nothing to do with the dying fire in the hearth. Their relationship would never be the same. They’d crossed a line and there would be no going back.
She was his dearest friend and closest confidante. Had last night cost him all she was to him? He scrubbed his hands over his face. Now was not the time to contemplate that sort of heartache. He needed to remove himself from her rooms before he was discovered. He strode to the door to her bedchamber but stopped on the threshold. He touched his palm to the door and listened.
“Cassandra.” Somehow her name sounded different on his lips this morning. Different and frightening and wonderful all at once. “Time to go, Derek.” He walked quietly to the door to her sitting room and slowly opened the heavy oak panel. Halfway down the short corridor to the kitchens he heard voices and a cacophony of activity.
“Fuck.” He glanced back to the window high on the corridor wall. The first light of day had already crept over the windowsill. Now what? He spotted the sturdy wooden chair beneath the window. Once he climbed up, he sighed with relief to discover the window was unlatched and pushed out into the gardens behind Number Five. The chair rocked a bit, but Derek managed to balance on the seat as he pulled himself high enough along the wall to wiggle through the window. The gravel bed beneath the window didn’t offer much comfort; however, nor did the stones make a great deal of noise as he slid across them onto the grass. He rested his head on the ground for a moment.
“Morning, Framlingwood,” a familiar voice said. “Need a hand?”
Shite! Shite, shite, shite!
Obadiah Lassen, first mate to Captain El Goodrum, now the Duchess of Chelmsford, and husband to Derek’s former mistress, Adrienne Godet, reached down to take Derek’s hand and pulled him to his feet. As if Obadiah’s presence was not bad enough, the husbands of three more of those former mistresses stood behind him, grinning like bedlamites.
“Front door not working?” Joshua Norcross, composer, opera impresario, and now husband to Sophia Hawksworth, asked whilst the other three exchanged knowing glances.
“Can we take this inquisition to the back of the garden out of hearing of the servants?” Derek walked past them and headed toward the mews.
“One thing, lad. Should you do any harm to our Missus Collins, earl or not, you’ll be residing in the back of this garden permanently. Do you take my meaning, my lord?”
Derek turned on his heel and was nearly run over by Saida’s Scots mountain of a husband.
“What Doctor Douglas means to say,” Ari Barker-Finch, husband to Lily Venable, said in his best barrister tone. “Is as much as we appreciate your generosity to all of us and your care for our wives, we have been given instructions by those wives to put you to bed with a shovel should you cause even a moment’s trouble or pain to Missus Collins.”
“Not to worry,” Obadiah said with decidedly false cheer. “They’ve already chosen a lovely spot under the willow tree by the little temple as your final resting place. They want you to be near enough for them to tend your grave and mourn you properly.” He actually pointed toward the small temple across the way.
He stared at them for a moment and shook his head. “I suppose I should be glad they don’t plan to have Her Grace dispose of me in the Thames.” He flipped the collar of his coat up against the biting December wind.
“Apparently Her Grace has a quota of bodies she disposes of each year and our little run in with your blackmailer has put her over that limit.” Doctor Douglas extended his arm and indicated the gate that led to the mews and the lane behind the Grosvenor Street townhouses.
“You titled gents attract too much attention,” Obadiah added. “Especially popping up in the Thames at inconvenient moments.”
“How rude of us.” Derek stopped in his tracks at the sight of his largest town carriage sitting in the lane with his head coachman on the box. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit and the apparent commandeering of my carriage?”
“Get in, Framlingwood,” Norcross said, as the others climbed inside and made room. “After yesterday’s news we need to talk.” He got in behind Derek and closed the door. Obadiah knocked on the roof and the carriage rocked into motion.
“News? What news?”
They all stared at him and then began to look back and forth at each other. Apparently, none of them wanted to tell him, and Derek’s blood ran cold.