He wrestled his way beneath the cling of her skirts, but the press of her thighs challenged him. She bit back a murmur of disappointment as he withdrew his fingers, leaving her empty and aching. A brisk breezeskittered over her shoulders, whisked around her calves, and then—then the pressure of his fingers behind her left knee as he urged her to bend it and string her leg over his shoulder, making space for himself where there had been none.
For a moment she tottered on one foot, suddenly conscious of how tense her body had grown, how she had lifted herself so far into the strokes of his fingers that she had ended up precariously balanced upon her toes.
There was the warmth of his breath against the very heart of her, the minutest scrape of the edge of his domino mask against the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. His fingers found her again, delicately manipulating her quivering flesh, sliding deep within her once more. Her back bowed at the first touch of his tongue, a ragged gasp squeezing itself between the clench of her teeth. Her toes curled. “Yes,” she sighed. “There,there.” The pointed tip of his tongue caressed the bead of her clitoris as his fingers plunged.
Deep in his throat he made some sound—some hungry, feral sound of satisfaction—which vibrated along her every nerve. His head was buried beneath her skirts, and her fingers cradled his skull through the fabric, holding him in place where she needed him. Her inner muscles clutched at every thrust of his fingers, seeking to hold him deeper, longer. A spiral of pleasure coiled deep in her belly, crept up the arch of her spine.
Too fleeting a moment, when she had wanted it to last ever so much longer. But she was fast approaching what promised to be a magnificent climax already. “There,” she said again on an aching whisper, when his tongue circled her clitoris once more. “Suck, as you would on my nipples.”
The tender lash of his tongue ceded to the delicate pressure of his lips as he placed them around the taut bud, and sucked. In only a moment, fire streaked through her veins with the intensity of a lightning strike, lifting her once more onto her toes as climax struck, swift and brutal. The scream he had wanted to hear tore itself from her lungs, shrill and frenzied, as every muscle locked in an agony of the sweetest release.
It was a long, long moment before she came down once again with a tremulous sigh, wilting against the wall at her back and hearing the tear of fragile threads of silk as the stone connected with her gown. Her fingers scratched at his head as if to lavish praise upon him, praise he had well-earned in his efforts to please her.
He had ruined her for Cyprians’ balls. She would never be able to attend another without thinking of this moment. Ah, well—if it was to be her last, then at least it had been a grand one. Owing in no small part to him.
Anthony was going to make some lady extremely happy someday, shethought as he ducked out from beneath the folds of her gown and let her leg down from its perch upon his shoulder. Her feet steadied her once more as the last tingles of her climax faded at the sobering thought.
Somelady. Lady Cecily, in all likelihood.
But not her. Neverher.
∞∞∞
“Are you certain you wish to leave already?” Anthony asked as he watched the footman he had tasked with sending for his carriage dart off in the direction of the door. “It’s been—what, an hour?” He had, after all, promised her his company for the evening so that she could enjoy herself at an event she had not allowed herself to attend in years.
“An hour has been enough,” Charity said, her voice more than a touch breathless, her fingers clutching the sleeve of his coat where they rested over his elbow. “I’ve had my fill of it already. Will you take me home in your carriage?”
“Yes, of course.” It was safe enough at this time of night, he supposed, provided he did not accompany her inside. Which was not to say that she would have extended the invitation. But that she wished to leave so soon—had he done something wrong? Said something wrong, something which had soured her upon the evening? Of course he did not know how he was meant to comport himself at such an event, but he’d thought he’d done a fairly admirable job of following where she had led.
And yet she charged on ahead of him, to all accounts just as eager toleavethe ball as she had been to arrive at it, her grasp firm upon his arm as she sailed in the direction of the front door, skirting with effortless grace around those who had lingered to chat in the halls. By contrast, he felt large and ungainly, stumbling after her, nudging an occasional shoulder as they passed.
Presumably she would have dragged him all the way to the carriage, had she not been forced to a halt by the sudden clench of a hand upon her upper arm.
She drew herself back as far as she could, directing a withering stare at the offender who had dared to touch her without invitation. “My lord,” she said, in a voice so scathing it could have stripped the varnish from furniture. “Release meat once.”
Anthony did not recognize the man who had seized her arm, who wore a distinct drunkard’s flush and little enough else, but a distant recollection floated through his mind, the warning given to him by Charity’s last benefactor—that he had, on occasion, found it necessary to put the fear of God into some of the more persistent gentlemen who had pursued her past the point of reason and over her own objections.
His hackles raised at the affront of it, Anthony positioned himself just behind her; a steadying, reassuring presence at her back. Reinforcement, had she need of it.
The man flicked him only the slightest glance, swiftly redirecting his attention to Charity—or her breasts, at any rate, offering a leer that made Anthony’s skin crawl. “Charity,” the man said, his fingers tightening upon her arm to the point of whitening her skin beneath the pressure. “I had heard you were in attendance this evening.”
Anthony curled his free hand over her shoulder to make the point thathewas her chosen companion for the evening, and Charity drew in a deep breath, her shoulders easing from their rigid set. As if only that small touch from him had calmed her escalating ire.
“I have refused you already, my lord,” she said firmly. “Release me.”
“Whatever he’s paying you,” the man said, in tones of drunken desperation, “I’ll double it. Treble it.”
“The lady asked you to release her,” Anthony said, and the cut of his voice through the sudden stillness ought to have been in itself a warning.
But the man was inebriated past the point of rationality, past the point of good sense or the manners which ought to have been second-nature to a peer. “Lady?” An incredulous laugh issued from the offender’s mouth. “She’s no lady. She’s a whore.”
“She is more a lady than you could ever be a gentleman,” Anthony snarled. It was a matter of moments to pry loose the fingers that had imprinted themselves upon Charity’s delicate skin and ease her to one side, safely out of the way. He had only a half-second’s satisfaction of the fool’s shocked face before the strike of his fist sent the bastard reeling, tumbling arse over heels on his descent to the floor, where he ended up in an unsightly—and thoroughly undignified—sprawl. There was a spurt of blood from a nose most likely broken, but the only sound the man uttered was a low groan before he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Charity issued a single, surprised trill of laughter, clapping one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. But the raw delight in her dark eyes could notbe so constrained, nor could the tremble of her shoulders with the force of her muted mirth.
Had he been thinking clearly, it might have occurred to him in the moments prior that causing such a scene could hardly be beneficial—but it seemed that the interest they had so briefly commanded had waned nearly the instant the man had got his reckoning. The chatter resumed once again, and the party continued about them as if there were not a man—alord—laid out upon the floor in a shameful state of undress, unconscious as they milled about around him. And over him, it seemed, when his lax body had proved to be too much in the way.
“Let’s go,” Charity said, her eyes glinting merrily. And this time as she grabbed his hand, she interlaced their fingers as she led him through the front door and out into the night.
