trying to contain the scandal of it all, the pure, wet, unadulterated wickedness.
A sound from beneath the silk of her skirts and petticoats filtered through the night. A growl, or a groan, she couldn’t tell.
She couldn’t listen. She could only feel.
After that first sinuous lick, he paused. His breath a warm devastation against her sensitized flesh. His shoulders wide against thighs that had never parted before tonight. Beneath skirts that had never lifted.
She bit into her finger, forcing herself not to ruin the moment with incessant, anxious questions.
Was he uncomfortable under there? Did he have one taste and decide against more? Was she different than other women, or boring and the same? Better or worse? Did he want to stop? She’d understand, of course. Perhaps she hadn’t prepared properly. She’d bathed and used the finest perfumes and lotions, but what if such an act took a preparation she’d not thought of?
He was doing his job, she reminded herself. This was his vocation… and people often found parts of their jobs distasteful.
And did them regardless.
But the very idea painted her entire self with mortification. Because, dash it all, despite her intentions in coming here, she couldn’t help but want to please him. Because that was who she was. She wanted him to like what he was doing to her.
She wanted him to like… her. This masked man whose name she did not know. Whose eyes were as wintry as the Arctic and hot as blue flame.
And he didn’t. He hated her. She knew it. She’d read him all wrong and now that he’d tasted her, he was trying to figure out a way to extricate himself from the situation without causing either of them humiliation.
Too late for that. She should just—
“Get rid of him.”
“What?” Prudence realized her hand had muffled the question, but her skirts muffled his words so they might be not even having a conversation at all.
He shoved the ruffles and gathers of her skirt up to lift his head and spear her with a look of such brutality, such carnal dominance, she flinched. God he was… almost frightening. Even with his smartly contained golden hair, a stubbled jaw a few shades darker, and his regal demeanor, had she met him on the street she’d have been terrified of him.
He still held her thighs open, and the absurdity of their positions drenched her in unease.
And other things.
“Your fiancé. Get rid of him,” he ordered.
“B-but—”
“If there is a man on this planet who would prefer another woman to you…to this…” he thrummed a rough-skinned thumb over her slick and aching sex, eliciting a soft whimper from her. “He doesn’t deserve it. He shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce. Moreover, he should be shot. Drawn and quartered, and wiped from memory.”
Even as he growled the savage words, Pru felt herself take a breath of relief. He was being kind, of course he was. But the sentiment was appreciated.
Necessary, even.
All her boldness seemed to have deserted her and she suddenly felt like what she was. A hapless maiden who knew nothing of men. Of the world.
Who was at the mercy of this stark stranger, spread before him, waiting for him to dine upon her.
Lapping up his compliments like a starving animal.
It occurred to her to thank him for his kindness, but her words were lost as he bent back to her, this time pressing a reverent kiss to her sex.
Unable to stand the wicked view, Prudence tossed her skirt back over his head.
His chuckle was a sinful vibration against her, and it tightened something low in her belly. A warning of what was to come.
She gasped as he pressed his lips into her, delving through her folds with slow, languid licks.
He unlocked her with his lips. Undid her with his tongue as he stroked and slipped over the swollen, aching core of her, eliciting pleasure she’d never known existed. She’d the sense that he savored this as she did, which was ridiculous. He did this every night. To every sort of woman.
No wonder they gave him diamonds. He’d been at it all of two seconds and she’d have handed him her entire dowry had he requested it.
And maybe her heart.
She closed her eyes, escaping from the whispers of guilt and shame her upbringing instilled in her. Focusing instead upon the tactile sensations of the moment. The soft, almost intangible coolness of the fountain’s mist kissing her upturned face like snowflakes in the summer.