“It will work,” I assure her, pressing a kiss to her temple even while my lower body pushes hard to stay inside her. “Once you have more experience. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I am an animal. A savage. A brute.”
“I did ask for it,” she offers weakly.
“Not like this.” She wanted my patience and skill. She paid for it, but she’s getting a side of me I didn’t even know existed. I press my open mouth against her collarbone, tasting the salty sweetness of her skin.
A small sound, almost pain, but her lips are parted. There’s pleasure in her eyes, and I think that maybe she likes me this way. Not the way I’m a steel rod inside her, but the way I’m consuming her. And so I rock my hips gently against her, pressing my body against her clit.
Her hands unclench and fall back to the mattress. “So good.”
It’s like the scent of blood, the small proof of her pleasure. I’m a predator crouched over her, untamed, made ferocious by the taste of her. That’s the only excuse for what happens next, when I hold her hips in place and find the angle that I know will release her entirely. And I pound into her swollen body with every ounce of my passion, no regard for her newly lost innocence.
In the reckless thrusts that follow I hit the place inside her body that makes her head fall back, her breasts push up, her legs open wider. “Oh my God.”
Despite the intensity inside me, an unsteady laugh escapes me. “You are breathtaking. You are perfection. And I don’t think I can ever leave your body.”
For a moment she looks lost. “Is it always like this?”
In this moment there is only raw honesty. “It’s never like this.”
The thought terrifies me. This is supposed to be new for her, not for me. Never for me.
Then her lips are under mine, her body pliant and accepting, and I am lost. There’s only the drive to make her come, fucking into her until she moans and stiffens. “Yes,” I mutter. “Again.”
There’s a faint protest, I think. You don’t have to, she says, but she does not understand how much I want this. So I show her, with the unrelenting drive into her body, against the place inside her that makes her legs shake. She comes again and again, drenching my cock with her pleasure, testing unused muscles that might make her sore tomorrow.
I can’t think about tomorrow, when I definitely won’t be inside her. Won’t be in this large bed. Won’t be breathing in the air around Bea.
So I fuck her until her eyes are hazy with orgasms.
The jade green clears slightly and she places a hand on my cheek, impossibly soft and not quite steady. “Aren’t you going to?”
I don’t know why I haven’t already. I would have with any other woman, with any other client, after bringing her to climax a few times, if only to punctuate our evening. But I don’t want this to end. As soon as I spill inside her I have to leave.
Ripping my body away from her is an acute pain, the cold air like razor blades on my cock. I grab one of the white pillows, feeling the abrasion of lace. There are two of them, enough to pad my beautiful girl as I turn her over.
“Oh,” she says in lovely surprise.
There are a sprinkling of freckles coming down from her shoulders, like a shooting star fading into empty space. She’s pale white down to her lovely ass, where she’s peachy and flushed from my grasp. It’s a beautiful sight, but I didn’t flip her over to see this; I did it to hide myself.
“This will be an education,” I murmur against her ear, my body covering her back. “That’s why you wanted me, yes? Because of things I know. Things I can teach you.”
Her moan is tortured pleasure. “Yes. Please. More.”
I slide back into her as if her body was made for mine. She squeezes me in welcome, and it’s enough to make me curse in Arabic under my breath. “My name,” I tell her.
And thank the sweet Lord, she understands. “Hugo.”
“Again,” I say, reaching around to stroke two blunt fingers over her clit. She’s slick and wet and warm, and I never want to leave this, never want to leave her.
“Hugo!” So low and breathy I feel the vibration in my cock.
“One more time, sweet Bea. For me. I want to feel you come like this.”
Each one of my thrusts pushes out a little whimper from her, every strum of her clit makes her breath suck in. Mon Dieu, how am I going to last? Because I want one more.
I run the edge of my teeth along the curl of her ear and feel her shiver in response. “Do you know what it does to me? Having you like this? Helpless underneath me? I want to tear your pretty lace sheets into strips and tie you to the bedpost. I want to fuck you all night long, until we’ve made you come a hundred times. And even then it wouldn’t be enough.”
The words bring her close, but it’s the bite of my teeth on her shoulder that sends her over the edge. She comes with a scream that makes me insane.
I want to come on her pale back, on her plush ass, on the pretty lace sheets. But I can’t do that. This isn’t about what I want. This has never been about what I want.
The pulse of her chatte is ecstasy on my cock, fierce even through the latex, and I come with sharp, bright-light bursts that seem to go on forever, longer than can be borne, until I collapse, wrung out on her sated body.
Chapter Twelve
I’m alone at the Den the next day, because we aren’t going to meet again until Sunday. I could have called the other men in the Thieves Club, but that would have meant admitting how much last night meant to me. How hard it was to leave her with a kind but reserved, That was lovely, darling. So when someone sits down at the armchair beside me, I’m startled.
Damon Scott looks out the window at the blur of cars and glint of sunlight. He does not ask permission before taking the seat, because he owns the place. Though I’m not sure he asks permission for anything, regardless. Except perhaps to his pretty lady friend.
We sit in silence in the way that only men can do. A woman would have asked me twenty question by now. And normally I could field them with charm and seduction. Right now I’m only fit to brood.
“Beatrix Cartwright,” he says. “You didn’t know?”
“That she was rich, yes. Not about her family.”
“More than rich. She has one of the largest portfolios in the country. I knew she lived in Tanglewood but I never met her before last night.”
“She doesn’t get out much,” I say, my voice bland because I don’t wish to share the details of her personal struggle with this man, even if the information might be worth something to him.
“Because of her guardian? That’s what I always assumed.”
My curiosity is piqued despite myself. Her guardian. The missing link between when she lived in a mansion in California and when she was planted in a penthouse in Tanglewood. The person who must have raised her after her parents were killed.
Someone who must know the owner of L’Etoile.
“Who is she?” I ask, but it’s impossible not to appear interested. Not when I’ve been searching for this for so long. I’m leaning forward in my chair, any pretense of being casual long gone. There is a burn in my body, like acid. It fills every inch of my skin, singeing me from the inside out. The fire is revenge.