Sin (6 page)

“Chartrand’s orgy is a weeklong event. A week of men fucking any woman they can get their hands on.”

Her nostrils flared. “A week…they have…they rut for a week? How many encounters do they have?”

“Many.”

“Don’t they…tire?”

“The men, certainly. Women can enjoy, or endure, many partners. At the last one I went to, Chartrand wagered that a woman could not service one hundred men, and he paid a jade to do it.”

“One hundred men are there?”

“He rounded up fifty—she had each man twice. One of his favorite games is to assign six men to pleasure a woman at once—especially if the woman is a novice.”

Her startled look encouraged him to press. He lifted her hand to his lips. Kissed her middle finger. “One man’s cock in your cunny.”

He kept his tone casual, as though he was speaking of the latest Drury Lane play, not sex. If he lectured, she’d close her ears. Presenting sin so calmly would shock her all the more.

A light flared in her vivid eyes. Lust, desire, interest. A bewitching fire. Her breasts heaved in the most endearing and enticing way. He pressed his lips to her index finger. “One for you to pleasure with your mouth.” Kissed her thumb and baby finger. “One prick each for your hands to explore and one to explode and shower your breasts with come. And the last, of course, to be buried deeply in your ass.”

“I must be completely wicked…because I’m aroused.” To Marcus’ surprise, she turned the tables on him, sensually stroking his lips.

“The words excited you…the reality would be very different. Would you wish to lick the cock of a man you don’t know? Would you be willing to kiss his rump? Would you like to be tied up by a woman like Lydia Harcourt and have her kiss your quim?”

Her moan rippled down his spine. “I…I don’t know. You’ve enjoyed such adventures. You attend orgies.” Her soft voice teased his cock into painful hardness.

He fought to stay distant. “I used to find it diverting to attend orgies where men and women are indiscriminate with their pleasure. I don’t go anymore.”

“Have you made love to six women at once?” she asked.

The innocence of the question seared him. “No love, only three at once.” But even as the memory of it made his cock pulse, it was her curious face that made him hunger the most. He leaned back against his desk, shifting his hips.

She stepped toward him. “And you think it is perfectly acceptable for you to do it, while you condemn a woman for wanting to be adventurous? If a woman doesn’t expect marriage, if she is completely independent, why shouldn’t she enjoy erotic games?”

“And you think you would?” He’d never expected a woman to argue women should be as promiscuous as men. Usually women argued that men should learn to be faithful.

“Men will demand things of you. What would you do if a man did this to you?” He tipped up her chin and forced a kiss upon her. He quickly changed to the kiss to a sensuous melding of their lips, and slid his tongue within. Demanding. Filling her mouth.

She kissed him back until he broke it, breathing hard.

“I am not afraid of a kiss,” she said.

He grabbed her left breast. “Then I shall have a squeeze of your lovely tits, my dear.” God, he hated behaving like this—but at orgies, he’d seen it all the time amongst those drunk or fired by aphrodisiacs. Her breast was a lovely weight in his hand, ripe, soft, warm.

Her nipple hardened and poked into his palm. Her hand snaked out, grabbed his ballocks in his breeches and squeezed hard. “Christ Jesus!” he yelled, and he let her go.

“Try that at an orgy and you’ll only enrage a man,” he warned. “They think a woman is there to play.”

“Then I would tell the man I was ready to play, arrange a meeting and then slip away.”

“And what if he doesn’t want to wait.” His blood thundered in his head. “What if he tosses up your skirts where you stand?”

He felt her heat steaming through her dress. His head swam. Enough blood had surged down to his cock so he could barely think straight. “You are a beautiful woman. You tempt a man to madness.”

“I want you to toss up my skirts.” Desire—innocent, tentative, but fiery—burned in the hazel depths of her eyes.

“I won’t deflower you, angel, but there are many ways to pleasure you.”

“I know. Pleasures with mouths and hands.” Her voice was soft, throaty. “I’ve drawn many pictures of that—of women swallowing a man’s privy member, of men licking a woman’s quim.”

Her words played havoc with his soul. He didn’t debauch virgins. He would not do it.

But her hands slid down, between their bodies. Marcus heard her gasp as they slid over her breasts. She began drawing up her skirts. “Pleasure me, please.”

He glanced down. Her skirts were at her waist, lacy petticoats spilling over her arms. The erotic scent of her arousal flooded his senses. She possessed an abundant bush of sherry-red curls between her smooth creamy thighs. Demure white stockings and ivory garters graced her shapely legs. Her juices shone on her nether lips.

He cupped her naked bottom. Her skin was satin-smooth, her cheeks full, firm, enticing. Sweat beaded his brow, prickled along his collar.

He began to sink to his knees, then stopped. No, he wanted her on her back, legs spread, with her cunny displayed to him.

Scooping her up, Marcus carried her to the daybed.

Venetia tumbled gently back against the silky fabric. She felt as though she were floating, even though she was firmly anchored to earth by the earl’s strong, powerful body. Her dress was a jumble at her waist, her legs spread wide.

The earl kissed her lips, nibbled her ears, brushed his mouth down her neck, and licked the sensitive spot in the hollow of her throat. She arched with each touch of his tongue. Sensation swamped her senses. Her sensitive skin, his wetness, warmth. She wanted to see, smell, taste his naked skin—

With shaking fingers, she tried to push off his coat.

He took over, sliding his tight-fitting riding coat from his broad shoulders. She watched, breathless, as he dropped it to the floor, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. She wrapped her hands around his biceps, rock hard bulges beneath exquisite lawn. With one hand he undid his waistcoat buttons, with the other he cupped her breast. Her bosom seemed so small beneath his large, masculine hand. Pleasure sizzled from his touch. Like a firefly seeking light, it raced through her and burst between her thighs.
Oh!

She shut her eyes as he kissed her deeply. Their tongues twined. His hands slid between her back and the daybed, splayed wide over her. The buttons dropped from their loops. He pulled the neckline of her bodice down. Her breasts perched atop her crumpled bodice, lifted for his admiration and pleasure.

He licked the valley in between. “Lovely.”

“But not large.” In pictures, women possessed succulent breasts. “Don’t men favor large—”

“I assure you that you have beautiful tits.”

He nuzzled her nipples. He’d been shaved close, his cheeks and jaw wonderfully smooth, skimming over her sensitive skin. His mouth opened—her nipple disappeared inside. Her touches to herself had been nothing compared to the suction of his mouth, the swirling of his tongue. He laved, licked and suckled, and her dampened nipples gleamed in the faint daylight.

She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Freed the first. Then she sensibly let him do the rest. It was all she could do to breathe.

His shirt fell open, revealing ridges and planes of muscle, swirls of dark hair, dusky brown nipples. She stroked the soft curling hair, tracing it down over his flat, rippling stomach to the snug waistband of his breeches. Daringly, she coasted her fingers lower, and touched the hard ridge of his cock. She skimmed her hands back up. Her thumbs brushed his nipples, which tightened instantly. “Your nipples are so different than mine.”

“But they are as sensitive and they enjoy the same attentions. Stroke them, pinch them—”

“Suckle them?” she suggested softly.

“Yes, sweeting, but for now you are to lie back.” He moved off the end of the daybed and dropped to his knees. He was going to…to kiss her there. Yes, she’d drawn the act, had trembled with illicit desire each time she sketched a man’s head between a woman’s thighs, and now she was burning with anticipation.

Soft golden light traced his cheekbone, his firm lips. In the candlelight, his skin was the color of toasted meringue.

Her breath left in a whoosh as he kissed her nether curls.

His tongue tangled within them. Luxuriant pleasure washed over her. She dug her fingers into the smooth fabric of the chaise, curled her toes.

He slid his tongue down to her quim. Warm and slick, it flicked her nether lips apart. He tasted her juices, groaning as he did.

He watched her over her nether curls—she stared helplessly into his turquoise eyes, a slave to the pleasure he was giving. Then, above her mound, he winked at her.

How could she be so shocked—and suddenly worry about Maidenswode propriety—while arching and moaning on his chaise?

He slid his tongue into her passage, filling her with wet heat. Plunged it in and out and she cried out with each spearing thrust.

He lifted his mouth from her throbbing quim. “Tell me what you like, love. Do you like my tongue to slide inside your cunny?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Have you seen your beautiful pussy, my dear?”

Again she nodded. She’d held a mirror there to look. She’d been so curious. In paintings it was a mysterious oval-shaped opening. She’d had to know for herself.

“Have you touched your clit?” he asked wickedly. And with that, his mouth closed over her sensitive bud.

Her moan turned to a scream. “My lord!”

He licked her nub with demanding strokes that sent explosions of ecstasy and agony, shock and delight, racing through her. She was pleading for mercy. Crying “my lord” over and over, clutching at his hair.

But he wouldn’t stop. He stroked, stroked, stroked. The tide of sensation, of agony, was building in her. But it was too much.

He caught hold of her hands so she couldn’t push him away or pull free. Relentlessly, he suckled and teased. This was so much more intense than her caresses. She arched her hips up to him. She had to close her eyes, grip his hands.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! My lord!” She wanted him to never stop, to take her over the brink—

She exploded. Her body clenched and pulsed and she thrashed with it. Saw fireworks—worthy of Vauxhall—then sparkling darkness. She was screaming!

He stopped her shouts with a kiss, covering her mouth with his. His lips tasted of her quim, rich and primal and musky, and his fingers stroked her. She was still coming, still pulsing, still caught up in ecstasy. Then, she opened her eyes to find him leaning over her, braced on his muscular arms. He smiled down at her. She touched his cheek, and he kissed her palm. A gesture that made her heart tremble.

Then she realized she was half-naked, drenched in sweat and her juices, and had screamed his house down in the middle of the morning.

She sat up abruptly, almost falling to the side as she did. Her head was dizzy—lovemaking was as intoxicating as liquor. She must put herself to rights but her bodice was crumpled beneath her bare breasts, her skirts a wrinkled mess.

“What is wrong, my dear? Why the haste?”

“I—oh, what have I done? I am—” Horrified, she thought of his offer. “You see I’m not good and proper at all, my lord. I am not the sort of woman who should paint Lady Ravenwood’s baby.”

As she slapped at her skirt to try to smooth it, he kissed her cheek. “Marcus. After that intimacy we are Marcus and Venetia, my dear. And you aren’t wicked, love. However, you aren’t going to Chartrand’s.”

“I do not require your permission!”

“I could stop you in a heartbeat,” he warned, “Merely by telling your father.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I could dispatch a footman with a note immediately.”

He crossed his arms over his bared chest, forearms and biceps bulging—how could she notice such a thing when he threatened to betray her? How could he do such a thing after giving her an intimate French kiss?

To protect her. She almost laughed at the madness. He was the noblest man she’d ever known yet he had just licked her quim until she saw stars.

She stared down at her hopeless skirts. “Then you have won, my lord. I cannot go.”

“I
take it I am here to play Devil’s Advocate?” Viscount Ravenwood leaned back and sipped his brandy.

Sprawled on his leather chair, Marcus raked his hand over his jaw. “Miss Hamilton has every intention of going to Chartrand’s bacchanalia and I suspect that nothing short of chaining the woman to the bed would stop her.” The sudden scorching mental image of Miss Hamilton in playful bondage sent blood racing to his groin.

Firelight was the only light cutting the blackness of his library. Marcus wasn’t certain why he’d summoned Stephen here, and before his brother-in-law could counter, he said, “And you bloody well know I can’t snitch to her father. Miss Hamilton will hire an escort—some seedy ex-Runner who will likely rape her. Or Chartrand will find out who she is and make her the centerpiece of some perverse sexual display.”

Stephen grinned. “You’re looking for an excuse to go with her.”

“Hell and damnation, Stephen, she’s a virgin. If she wanted to drink an entire bottle of brandy, I’d stop her.” But he was trying to justify taking her, not stopping her. “She’s sensual…innately sensual, but innocent. And a day at Chartrand’s event should shock her into realizing she must give up her career.”

“And she needs a noble escort who won’t ravish her?”

He’d already ravished her—with his mouth. Rock-hard at the memory, his cock strained against his trousers. He would love to do it again. The delectable Miss Hamilton deserved to discover her sexuality. He could teach her without hurting her, without spoiling her future.

“I began with a kiss. A kiss to prove a point.” He lowered his head, unable to look Stephen in the eye. “I’ve never been kissed like that—it was more passionate, more heated, more explosive than any other kiss I’ve had. She was so…untutored, but so giving.” And then, in his library, he’d begun again to ‘prove a point’ and been overwhelmed by desire.

He launched to his feet to pace. “Damnation, Stephen, is it her innocence that tempts me?
Am
I the same kind of blackguard as my father?”

“Christ, no!”

The vehemence of Stephen’s cry gave him the answer he needed, even as Stephen assured him, “You are not the same kind of man as your father, Marcus.”

Marcus tossed back his brandy as he strode across the carpet. “Lydia Harcourt is blackmailing me.”

Stephen’s liquor sloshed over his ice-blue waistcoat. “Hades, over what? Everyone in England knows your reputation for bedding women. I believe it even extends to the Continent and the Americas.”

He frowned. That might be true if Venetia Hamilton’s book found its way there. “Father’s scandals.”

His brother-in-law’s face went stark white. “God, not—”

“Not Min,” Marcus lied. “Lady Susannah Lawrence, the young woman who got with child and killed herself. And the details of my father’s disgusting practice of having madams procure innocents for him. I’m terrified what having that in print would do to Min. To Mother.”

Stephen rubbed his temple. “Why in Hades would your father confess to Lydia Harcourt?”

“Drink. He spent his days in a brandy bottle and was possessed by devils. The witch—I quote from her letter—‘sought to ease his pain by encouraging him to confess his troubles’.”

The rest of the letter haunted him. A
subject of great delicacy…Lady Ravenwood…secrets…
Damn that bitch, Lydia.

“How much does she want?”

“Ten thousand.”

Stephen grimaced. His white hand gripped the glass. “Do you plan to pay her?”

“I’d like to wring her blasted neck. But I’m thinking of negotiating a trade. If I can get hold of her manuscript, I can trade it for her silence. I imagine she’s taken her book to Chartrand’s with her. I’ll burn it page by page until she agrees.”

“And Miss Hamilton?” Stephen prompted.

“Taking a pretty new mistress to Chartrand’s orgy would be the perfect disguise.”

“Take her because you want to,” Stephen advised. “Don’t take her as a way to punish yourself with temptation.”

Marcus swung open the door as his carriage clattered to a stop on the street outside Venetia’s narrow townhouse. A slim figure in a swirling black cloak darted out from the shadow and hastened down the steps.

Leaning out, Marcus reached for her hand. At this hour the street was deserted, save for his servants loading her trunks. Her delicate fingers slid across his palm. As he drew her up into his softly lit, private world, she pushed back her deep hood. He caught his breath as he gazed into effervescent hazel eyes.

Holding her cloak about her, she settled in the seat opposite him. He raised a brow—after the sensual session in his library, he’d expected her to cuddle up against him.

She smiled happily. “My father is much improved. His color has returned and he’s had no more pains.”

“I am pleased to hear that. So there is no need to take you to Chartrand’s?” Why did he feel the pain of regret?

She shook her head, curls bouncing. “He’s not well enough to risk travel. No, that wouldn’t be wise.”

“I suspected it wouldn’t be.” He couldn’t help but smile. “You might want to open your cloak. I’ve kept the coach heated.”

Slowly, teasingly, Venetia tugged at one end of the ribbon that tied the wool shut. His throat dried. He’d watch dozens of women undress, but the sight of Venetia playing seductress aroused him instantly.

She drew the sides of her cloak apart, revealing a stretch of pale satin skin.

It took him a full minute to realize he was looking directly at her bare legs. Not quite bare—she wore creamy white stockings and pale blue garters. Rigid with sudden tension, he gazed upward at the stretch of her bare stomach, the curves of her naked breasts, at her cheeky, hopeful smile.

Other than stockings, she wasn’t wearing a damned stitch beneath the cloak.

“What in damnation are you thinking?” Marcus demanded.

Venetia sat demurely, despite her nudity, her legs crossed at the ankles. On the seat opposite, Marcus was glorious. The buff breeches he wore displayed the hard muscles of his legs. Blue superfine fit like a second skin across a broad chest and broader shoulders. A heavy greatcoat lay discarded at his side. He was a man who had seen everything—done everything—and she’d gambled on a bold, wild tactic to intrigue him.

She took a deep breath. “I want you to understand that I am not a frightened virginal miss, Marcus.”

He gritted his teeth, growled between them, “You can’t travel to Dorset naked.” He rubbed his jaw and she watched the pass of his hand. Freshly shaven, his skin would be smooth, soft, and smell of his soap.

“Why not? This is our own private world in your carriage, is it not? Who will see me other than you?”

“What of meals?” he snapped. “Using the necessary?”

She hadn’t expected him to be so enraged. “I can just hold the cloak closed.”

“You plan to walk in public completely bare beneath your cloak?”

“No one would know but you,” she protested.

Agony flashed across his handsome features, twisting his sensual mouth. “God, and that’s the bloody magic of it, isn’t it?”

Venetia summoned her courage and stood in the lightly swaying carriage. They were making haste out of London before the streets became congested. She lowered to her knees on the floor, the comfortable carpeting and the thickness of her cloak cushioning her. Heat rose from bricks in the floor, warming her skin.

“Venetia—”

She cut him off by cupping her hand over the bulge in his breeches. “I painted a picture,” she told him in a breathy voice as she fumbled with the first button on his flap. He was so engorged the placket was pulled tight. “A picture of a man who looked like you being pleasured this way by a courtesan with auburn hair. In his theatre box in Drury Lane.”

When he didn’t immediately speak, she gazed up and saw turbulent thoughts behind his turquoise eyes.

“In front of the audience,” she whispered.

The solid ridge jumped in his breeches, straining against the buttons, making her task of undressing him more difficult. She couldn’t tell him more about her picture—that the earl fell in love with his ravishing courtesan.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” His voice was raspy, hoarse.

“Yes,” she whispered, freeing the second button from the loop. “I want to take you into my mouth.”

Her hands shook with expected nerves, but also with weakening desire. When she’d seen this act in pictures, she’d marveled. A man’s penis was so long, how could it fit in a woman’s mouth? It couldn’t go down a woman’s throat, could it?

With trembling fingers, she opened the last button. Parted the falls of his trousers, peeled down his soft linen underclothes. And gasped.

She was eye to eye with his cock.

She marveled at it, running her fingertip along the shaft. It bobbed at her touch like a top-heavy rose swaying in the wind. In pictures, rendered in purples and angry reds, it had looked enormous. Close up it was gigantic. Carefully, she closed her hand around the shaft, surprised to feel it swell and firm against her palm. A droplet of moisture gathered at the tip. The head was surprisingly adorable and begged for a kiss. It even possessed a small beauty spot—a dusky brown spot beside the glistening eye.

“Is it so fascinating?”

She met his gaze and noticed he was waiting, quite tense, for her response. Despite his power, his privilege, his experience, he was concerned about her opinion. Were both men and women always nervous in this arena?

“What do you call it?” she whispered.

“My cock, my prick…staff, rod, maypole…John Thomas…sometimes my Commanding Officer, for that’s what it often seems to be. So tell me, does it please you?”

She nodded. “It is very aesthetic, my lord.” She used his title, excited to play make-believe. To step into the erotic scene she had created where she was courtesan to his earl.

“Really?” He leaned back, obviously proud and pleased, and she had to giggle. “What makes it so? In an artist’s opinion?”

That was easy to answer. “The proportions of the head to the shaft.” She toyed with the surprisingly soft, velvety head. “Perfectly made to ease the beast into a woman’s cleft, allowing the passage of the thick steely shaft behind it.”

“Not too big?”

“The whole is very big, my lord. You have a fine cock of considerably generous proportions.”

He laughed.

She couldn’t believe she was having a discussion about his intimate parts. But it gave her courage, this teasing exchange. “And the color—”

“The color?” His black brows went up. “I’d never considered the color to be at issue.”

Some erotic pictures featured unattractive pasty white members. “It’s a lovely dusky tan.”

“I must remember to let it get more sun. Keep it from losing its appealing tanned look.”

Venetia giggled. Marcus was panting, and he no longer looked jaded like the earl in the theatre box. His fluid was flowing now, the heat taut and shining.

Closing her eyes, she bent down and pressed her lips to the head. She stuck out her tongue and licked him. Dabbed at him. Then she flattened her tongue, swirling it over his satiny skin. His juices wetted her tongue, tantalizing her with a taste both rich and slightly sour.

He gave a soft groan that sent a surge of triumph through her. Though she held power, she still wanted to please him. Flattening her tongue, she caressed the head, then licked the shaft. Oh, it was delicious, warm, beautifully velvet.

She traced a vein with the tip of her tongue.

His head arched back. “Temptress.”

She bobbed her head on him with no idea what he truly wanted. She sucked hard, then slow and teasingly, with lavish, slobbering strokes. She touched his ballocks, terribly afraid to hurt him. They squished when she lightly squeezed and seemed to scurry up, away from her hand.

His hand settled in her hair. To stop her? No, he moaned lustily and she fondled his balls with one hand while gripping the hilt of his cock with the other.

Gathering courage, she drew his cock into her mouth as deep as she could. She gagged in shock and pulled back.

She tried again. Tears drizzled from the corners of her eyes.

“Sweetheart, no, you needn’t do that.” He cupped her cheek and drew her back.

“In
A Gentleman’s Choice
, courtesans who could take the entire shaft into their mouths were highly prized.”

“Hades, you read that thing?” He caressed her cheek. “I don’t want you to think you must do that. It pleases me to be in your warm mouth as much as you desire.”

He stroked his thumb along her lip and a bolt of pleasure streaked from there to explode between her legs in a flood of wetness.

“Come here, my beautiful naked temptress. I want you to sit on my face.”

“Sit where?”

Within a moment, she understood. He lay on his back along the carriage seat as she slowly dropped her cloak to the other seat. She clasped her hands in his, swung her leg over his chest, and climbed aboard.

“Now move back, my sweet. Smother my face with your wet quim.”

“But—but how will you breathe?”

He laughed and she felt terribly naïve as she wriggled back. She glanced around, saw the heat in his eyes as he drank in the sight of her nether lips dangling above his face. Clamping his hands on her hips, he pulled her down so her sex sank down over his mouth. Pleasure swamped her as her aching cunny made contact with his wet, hot tongue. His tongue caressed her everywhere, and he rocked her so her fragrant quim rubbed over his face. His nose was buried against her derriere.

He held her hips as the carriage swayed on the road. She felt completely safe on top—as long as he held her tight.

She moaned at the forbidden eroticism of this—of sitting on an earl’s face. Fired by wanton naughtiness, she closed her eyes and danced her hips on him, twisting and grinding her wet, aroused, ripe sex into his mouth. His tongue slicked over her clit.

Ooh! Eyes shut, she arched back, pushing her privates even more aggressively on him. She felt a rhythmic pounding and opened her eyes wide to see his hips and bottom bouncing on the seat. His cock jutted toward her, his fluid dripping from the head.