But for now, all she could feel was the thrum of his heartbeat through the hot, turgid flesh inside of her. All she could think was that she wanted him to move.
She wriggled her body against his. Pushed and strained against him. Felt the muscles of her sex grip and goad him as she begged him for pleasure with everything but her mouth.
The sound he made was victorious, and a little bit cruel.
But he did as she bade.
He pulled away. Nearly withdrew. Then slammed forward. Again. And again.
Her body opened for him each time he thrust inside, and clenched with lugubrious pulls each time he withdrew.
Imogen looked up as her body was rhythmically, mercilessly ground against the leather of the trunk. The man in the painting watched her with lascivious copper eyes like a deviant voyeur. He was the only lover she’d ever known, and she dimly compared him to the one fucking her now.
How different they were. The Cole she’d painted had been confident and deferential, a bit inebriated, but selfless in his giving of pleasure.
The man behind her—the man inside of her—was a singular creature. A primal beast. One driven only by primary instinct and emotion. Lust. Hurt. Need. Rage.
But besides a name, a title, and a body, both men shared one other common trait. A desire for her submission. An inexplicable need to be inside of her, for which they had each gone to rather desperate lengths.
One had paid a small fortune. The other had broken into her home.
Truth be told, she’d wanted to make love to them both. To the haughty duke and the hungry wolf.
Past the painting, beyond the glow of the lantern, and even above the darkness, she could hear hoarse, high noises of encouragement. Of joy. And was astounded when she recognized those noises as her own.
A further jolt of surprise took her as he slipped a finger inside of her mouth, then another. Her eyes widened as he used his prosthetic to press against her ass, to spread her for him, to angle deeper. The chill of the metal against her soft, warm flesh caused her to clench her muscles, and she thrilled to the harsh sound he made. Almost a bark, if a man could produce such a thing.
A rogue wave of fire and force tore through her with such frightening speed, she feared she might faint. The ferocity of it so potent, her womb contracted with it. Spasm chased spasm in relentless pulses of bliss, uncoiling with such astounding force she distantly wondered if this was what dying felt like.
She bit down on the fingers in her mouth, not breaking the skin, and the noise he made was the most inhuman sound of pleasure she’d ever heard in her life. The sound mounted to a groan, then a growl, as his cock swelled impossibly larger inside of her before it erupted, bathing her womb in a quicksilver rush of release.
She realized dimly through her own pleasure that he wasn’t, in fact, growling in time to the tremors of his climax, but he was saying her name.
Her name. Not Ginny’s.
Imogen.
Her liquid shivers of gratification faded before his did, and she wilted against the trunk with muscles made of melted wax. She was slick with sweat and … other things. Warm, languid, and thoroughly pleasured.
They were quiet for a long moment after. Their breaths diminishing in perfect synchronization. She could feel the tension leaching from her muscles and his, and she relaxed into the scandalous intimacy of the moment.
Which was why she couldn’t believe he remained inside of her as he bent forward and said in the darkest voice she’d ever heard, “You lied to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was one thing to be naked and another thing entirely to be exposed. Uncovered. Laid bare.
When Cole pulled away from her—out of her—leaving his accusation stinging in her ear, Imogen thought that perhaps no one had felt as utterly naked as she did in this moment. Her secret had not only been revealed, but literally uncovered in a cloud of dust and discovery.
Rising to her knees, she glanced back in time to see him turn from her and close his trousers. Imogen didn’t at all relish the thought of being on her knees as he stood over her, a tower of wrath and indictment.
So they were going to do this now, she lamented with a weighty sigh, trying to pull her thoughts back from where passion and pleasure had scattered them like shadows before the dawn. Her pristine white nightgown was a cloud of tatters, but she snatched it from the floor with limbs as heavy as the silence between them.
Gaining her feet, she faced him. Lord, but she was tired now, and suspected that she was still perhaps a little inebriated, though whether on champagne or passion, she couldn’t tell.
“I imagine you have a bevy of excuses prepared.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest much like a mother would await an explanation from her unruly child.
Imogen clutched her nightgown to her breasts, letting the lace fall to her knees from the voluminous skirts. She noted the way his eyes flicked copper fire over her bare shoulders, her tousled hair, and what parts of her were left uncovered before he fixed them on some point behind her.
How could one person be both so beautiful and so bitter? It was as though he’d been kissed by some ancient god, blessed with uncommon strength and magnificence, and then cursed with loss and guile.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” he demanded. “You must have known I’d eventually find out.”
“In truth, I hoped you wouldn’t.” She knew before she noted the twitch of his jaw it had been the wrong thing to say. “What I mean is, I wanted to tell you but there was never—”
“You had two years.” He stabbed the appropriate fingers into the air, effectively displaying the number while simultaneously making a foul gesture. He probably meant both. “Two fucking—” The fingers curled back into a fist, and Cole’s head swiveled on a neck thick with straining veins, as though the need to destroy something overcame the ability to finish his sentence and he searched the room for a victim.
She took refuge behind the trunk, which only reached her thighs, so she held up a placating hand. “I know you’re angry.”
“You know nothing of what I feel.”
Imogen hesitated, remembering she’d said something very like that to him once. “You don’t understand what happened while you were—”
“I was scouring the fucking globe for you and you were next-bloody-door the entire fucking time!” With a strong sweep of his hand, the trunk that separated them went flying into the wall.
“Don’t, you’ll wake the house,” she begged.
“We can’t have that, can we?” He sneered, his handsome features arranging into a mask of ugly rage. “Can’t have poor Cheever finding out his precious countess was once a two-bit whore.”
All Imogen’s sorrow and guilt evaporated in the heat of her indignation. “Cheever already knows,” she revealed, though she had to quell a flinch as more of the color drained from his face, the lines around his hard mouth positively white. “He knows that I was bought once. One night. That you turned a virgin into a prostitute. That you paid twenty pounds. I may have sold myself to you, Your Grace, but I was never cheap.”
“You cost me more than you know,” he snarled.
“Likewise!”
His one blink too many was the only indication he gave that she’d stunned him. What she didn’t know, was if the word or the vehemence with which she said it was the reason he faltered. Either way, she wasn’t finished.