Chapter 11
Evelina had intended to speak to Vaughn about what she’d heard from the other courtesans.
She hadn’t wanted to, but she felt she was obligated to do so.
But when his arms came around her and his mouth claimed hers, everything else in the world became fuzzy and unimportant.
There was only sensation and oh, how she wanted that.
He was such a good kisser. Perhaps the best she’d ever experienced and that was saying something.
He devoured and claimed, giving her no doubt to how much he wanted her without being too rough or, God forbid, drooly.
And when his hands clenched at her back while he kissed her?
She felt like she was falling, or perhaps floating like a feather was a better description.
Just fluttering down on the softness of the desire that began to build in her.
He pulled away and there was the same stunned expression on his face that she felt on her own. “God, I needed this,” he whispered. “How did I not know how much I needed this?”
His words made her think again of what the courtesans had told her about Lady Blackburn and Harry. It was the only thing that could bring her out of the haze. She needed to tell him. But not right now. Not when he actually looked happy for the first time in months.
Right now was the time for pleasure and nothing else.
“I’m very happy to give you what you need,” she murmured, and returned her mouth to his as she pressed a hand to his chest. Even though the layers of clothing, she could feel his heart throbbing, feel the heat of him increasing.
She glided her hand down, testing the shape of him through his clothing and grumbling with pleasure at the firm muscle hidden there.
When her hand dipped lower still, smoothing over his hip, he let out harsh gasp against her mouth. “Evie.”
Her name was a warning and a plea all at once. She smiled against his mouth and cupped him, measuring the size of his half-hard cock. Well, he wasn’t going to disappoint in that department, even if it was more how the man used what he had that brought pleasure.
Somehow she doubted he could be anything but magical.
She stroked his length, memorizing how his breath hitched as he went from half-hard to fully hard in a few strokes. She wanted this man freed from his trousers. She wanted him in her mouth. She wanted him buried inside of her, bruising her with his fingers as she shattered around him.
She wanted him where she could take her time and fully enjoy him.
The thought had scarcely crossed her mind when they turned onto her drive and slowed to a stop before Arabella’s old home. The light from the windows gave a little more illumination in the dark of the carriage and she looked up at him.
“Come upstairs with me, Vaughn.”
“I couldn’t deny you if there were wild horses trying to drag me away,” he said, and reached past her to open the door. “Lead the way.”
She let the footman help her down and when Vaughn joined her she took his hand, threading her fingers through his, and guided them up to the door. Parsons opened it just as they reached it. “Welcome back, Miss Comerford, my lord. May I offer you any—”
“Nothing at all, Parsons,” she interrupted as she continued to tug Vaughn through the foyer. “I have everything I need right here.”
Vaughn chuckled as they started up the stairs together. “In some households that would cause a scandal.”
“There’s no room for scandal in the home of courtesans,” she said with a glance over her shoulder as they reached the big bedroom at the end of the hall. “The servants are accustomed to such things.”
“I suppose they must be,” he said, and then stopped as they entered chamber.
She knew what he saw. The room was enormous, done in sensual wine hues and velvet adornments. The bed was big enough for three if not four lovers to tangle in pleasure and the fire cast an ethereal glow over the bed.
“You…sleep here?”
She laughed. “Well, not every night. This was Arabella’s chamber, but once she went to the new house with Silas, she told me I should take it over. Many nights I sleep in my old room, but sometimes I come in here and try to remind myself I’m a courtesan and a seductress.”
He turned to face her and his gaze was hooded. “I can remind you of that if you’d like.”
Her hands trembled as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’d very much like that.”
His mouth was on her again, gentle but quickly giving way to passionate and more forceful.
He backed her toward that wonderful bed, his hands drifting from her waist and around to cup her backside and lift her more firmly against him.
She couldn’t help the moan that ricocheted between them when he did so.
His mouth moved away from hers with a chuckle and he dragged his lips to her jawline, feathering light kisses along down to her throat.
She dropped her head back and shivered at the electric pleasure he was creating with such simple touches.
“And now to take this off,” he said, and his hands found the back of her gown where the line of buttons danced along her spine. She shook her head.
“They aren’t real.”
“What isn’t real?” he murmured.
“The buttons.”
He stopped and then brushed the back of her gown as if testing the veracity of the statement. “Why?”
There was a loaded question and a more loaded answer that she had no intention of giving. Not tonight. Instead she pushed out of his arms and stepped back.
“A courtesan may need to dress or undress herself,” she explained.
“And there’s something so wicked, isn’t there, about knowing the secret that this gown…
” She found the hidden bow within the folds of fabric.
“…is held together…” She flicked the bow open and unhooked a few additional hidden spots.
“…by little more than a hope and a prayer.”
As she said it she let the silk fall away in an artful pool at her feet. She didn’t wear undergarments, so she was entirely naked before this man save for slippers and her stockings. It was curious how she’d been a courtesan since she was nineteen but in that moment she felt…vulnerable.
Vaughn stared at her from head to toe, then he swallowed hard and moved toward her. “Funny, because most of my recent hopes and prayers were you standing before me exactly as you are.”
“Then I suppose it’s time to let the fantasy become reality.” She took his hand and placed it against her naked breast.
He let out that same possessive growl he’d given in the carriage before he kissed her the first time and her body clenched in anticipation of what would happen next.
He didn’t disappoint. He fully cupped the breast she had offered, stroking the pad of his thumb over her rapidly hardening nipple. Waves of pleasure spread through her at that intimate touch and she lifted against him.
“You’re so soft,” he mused. “So exquisitely soft. And I wonder what you taste like.”
She lifted her mouth and he took it yet again, delving deeper this time, washing her away on rapidly increasing waves that would not be calmed by anything but passion and pleasure.
“Mint,” he whispered as their mouths parted. “Madeira.”
He drew his mouth down again, across her neck, lower to her collarbone, then just skimmed across the top swell of her breasts. “Flowers,” he said. “A little salt.”
“Vaughn,” she murmured, digging her hands into his hair and loving how the crisp locks curled around her fingers.
He glanced up at her and there was something filled with command that entered his expression. Like he’d just remembered how much power he wielded. She couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of it as he said, “You aren’t going to rush this.”
“I wouldn’t try,” she promised.
“Now to taste the next, I think you should be seated. On the bed?”
She nodded and climbed onto the high mattress.
She did it artfully, of course, giving him flashes of her sex as she crawled to the pillows and settled onto her back.
She spread her legs and rested a hand between them, hissing pleasure at the pressure of her own hand even though she hadn’t done anything.
That was how excited he made her and it had been a very, very long time since that had happened.
In that moment she realized how much she’d missed wicked anticipation.
She expected him to come to her, cover her, perhaps even take her fast and hard and over too soon.
Instead he winked at her, as wicked as any gentleman could be, and shrugged out of his jacket.
He tossed it aside and went to work on his cravat, unwinding it slowly before he let it fall with the jacket.
She sat up a little, working her fingers over herself absently as he moved to remove the shirt.
She truly wanted to see what was under all that propriety. A few times when she’d touched him, she’d felt the shape of him, unexpectedly toned and muscled for a man of his station, but imagination and reality were often very different things.
He tugged the shirt over his head and she caught her breath.
That body…it was a sin that he covered it.
He should have roamed around shirtless all day long, just letting hungry ladies and gentlemen enjoy the view.
He had broad shoulders defined by the curves of muscle and the arches of his collarbone.
They tapered into trim hips and lightly defined abdominal muscles.
And his arms. Lordy, his arms. Forearms corded with definition and biceps rippling when he slid his hands to his trouser buttons and lowered his fall front.
“Oh,” she gasped, hating herself for being so missish and yet unable to be anything but because the cock was just as stunning and exciting as the rest he’d revealed. He was bigger than Harry, thick, and in his excitement his member curled toward his belly.
“I’ll take that oh as a compliment,” he teased as he pressed his hands to the bottom of the big bed and then began a slow crawl toward her.