The Devilish Trollop, page 6
Adolphus hummed. His brow was knit in a frown and he held his hands behind his back, as if he might be called on to give evidence in a trial about mischief taking place at the house party someday.
“They’re all quite pretty,” Sully went on, glancing from the Marlowe sisters to a pair of young women who had seemed desperate to catch any sort of attention all evening, to Felicity’s friends, Lady Eliza and Lady Ophelia, who were chatting amiably with a group of young lords that Sully had found quite dull. “None of them has much life to them, though,” he went on. “They’re all just so…marriageable.”
Adolphus sent him a sideways look. “What else would you have them be?”
Sully knew the answer instantly. He would have them be wicked. He would have them be daring enough to chase frogs in a freezing pond just after sunrise. He would have them be bold enough to pleasure themselves under his watchful eye, or merely glance mischievously at him across a crowded room. He would have them be something other than weak copies of each other and examples of the rules of society. In short, he would have them be Felicity.
But he answered, “I don’t know.”
Adolphus hummed again and returned to his observations. Sully contemplated continuing the conversation with him, but the moment he noticed that the man wasn’t watching the room in general, but rather was following the every movement and gesture of Lady Eliza in particular, he gave it all up as a lost cause.
“I’m going to bed,” he sighed at last, giving up. “I leave the field of battle to you.”
“Good night,” Adolphus said distractedly.
Sully was convinced he didn’t actually notice him leaving the room. He was convinced no one had noticed. Thusfar at the party, he had failed to find any woman other than Felicity even slightly impressionable, and in spite of what he considered valiant attempts, he had made few connections with the other gentlemen in attendance. It was almost enough to make him wish he was the sort of man, like Rufus, who made friends easily and amused everyone in any room he walked into. He wasn’t a dull or disagreeable sort of man, he knew, just…unremarkable.
That thought had his feet feeling like lead as he approached his bedroom. He’d failed. Yes, he knew that there were still weeks to come in the house party, but he couldn’t imagine anything changing if the company didn’t change. The one woman he found himself attracted to—and indeed, attraction didn’t begin to describe the way his very soul felt drawn to Felicity—was the one he couldn’t afford to give his heart to. He could practically hear his father’s censure from beyond the grave. “The fate of the family rests on your shoulders, boy. Marry well, or the Whitlock name will mean as little as the dust I am about to return to.”
He entered his bedroom, shutting the door softly behind him in spite of the sudden urge to slam it. At once, he loosened his cravat and unbuttoned his coat. He should not feel so ground down with defeat. It was unmanly to accept ruin so readily.
Then again, he thought as he tossed his coat over the chair beside his wardrobe and sat to remove his boots, perhaps poverty wouldn’t be such a disaster after all. He had skills that could prove far more useful than his blasted title. Perhaps he could marry Felicity and run off to America to start over.
But no, he sighed, dropping his boots to one side and standing to shrug out of his waistcoat, one couldn’t simply abandon a title and the responsibilities that came with it. He had sisters to think about, for one thing, and for another—
His thoughts stopped short as the strangest sound hit his ears. He froze in the middle of draping his waistcoat over his coat to listen. The sound came again, from the other side of his bed. It was almost like…almost like a frog? Or perhaps a very poor imitation of a frog.
Instantly, a wide grin spread across his face and his groin tightened. “Oh, dear,” he said, crossing slowly to the bed. “It seems as though someone has let a frog loose in my bedroom.” The horrible imitation of a frog continued. It was definitely coming from the far corner, behind the bed. “Perhaps I should call for a maid to chase the slimy beast away.”
“I am not a slimy beast,” Felicity declared, hopping up from the far side of the bed, brimming with mock offense. That was hardly the first thing Sully noticed about her, though. She was dressed for bed, if “dressed” was the right word for it. Her hair was loose down her back and she wore little more than a brocade wrapper, untied, over a thin cotton shift. It was not the way a woman who had come to engage in polite conversation dressed.
Sully climbed onto his side of the bed, intent on crawling toward her, like a wolf stalking his prey. If, indeed, wolves preyed on frogs. “I’m not so certain,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “I seem to recall you being quite slippery this morning.”
Felicity laughed low in her throat and climbed onto the bed with him. They met in the middle, reaching for each other without hesitation. He slipped his arms under her wrapper and up her sides, loving the feel of her curves and the way she acquiesced to him. She fit perfectly against him as he pressed her body to his and slanted his mouth over hers.
She tasted of sweetness and lust. The sigh that caught in her throat as he parted her lips with his and explored her sent his pulse soaring. It was madness to fall so completely for a woman of questionable morals, but he admired her forwardness in a world where women were told to be closed off, and her heat where most women were encouraged to be cold.
“You’re quite eager for a frog, you know,” he said, surprised at how breathless he sounded, as he slipped the wrapper from her shoulders and tugged at the ties holding the front of her shift together.
“Not all frogs want to hide from the men trying to catch them,” she said, tugging his shirt out of his breeches. “The only way we can transform into princesses is by being kissed, after all.”
The simple, teasing statement tugged hard at Sully’s heartstrings. If only he could turn her into a princess with a vast fortune simply by kissing her. Perhaps he could, if he tried hard enough.
She freed his shirt enough to yank it up. He caught it when she lifted it as high as she could and threw it aside. Her hands were already stroking his chest and exploring downward toward his bulging breeches when he lowered his arms.
“You have the most tantalizing body I’ve ever seen,” she said, starting work on the buttons of his breeches.
“And have you seen many?” he asked. A twist of anxiety hit him with his question. He didn’t want her to have experience at all. He wanted her all for himself.
She answered with a shrug, slowing the pace at which she unbuttoned him. She kept her eyes lowered as she answered, “A little. I was always a bit curious and wild. And my brother’s friends were more than willing to indulge my curiosity.”
Jealousy whipped Sully from the inside. “You have brothers?” he asked in a vain attempt to still it.
“Two,” she said, then glanced up at him with a naughty glint in her eyes. “But I don’t want to think about them right now.”
She followed that by slipping her hand into his halfway undone breeches to fondle his balls. It was the most wickedly delightful sensation he’d ever felt—far better even than the ministrations of professional ladies who had pleasured him in the past. Because it was Felicity’s hands caressing him and her eyes watching him as she did.
“What would Mrs. Wallace say if she could see you now?” he managed to grind out as she switched to stroking his shaft and bringing him dangerously close to unmanning himself even faster than he’d come that morning.
Felicity’s throaty laugh didn’t help his control one bit. “She’d probably be proud of me for going after what I want,” she said.
A heartbeat later, her hand stopped and her expression grew more serious. He sensed her mood shift and questioned her with a look of concern.
She glanced down for a moment, bit her lip, then lifted her gaze to him once more. “I’m afraid my chaperone has been giving the wrong impression of me,” she said.
“Oh?” Sully fought to pay attention, but it was hard when, well, he was. Even though she wasn’t moving, the way her delicate fingers wrapped around his throbbing cock had his blood pounding.
“I’m not as much of a trollop as she’s been putting it about,” she went on. A grin touched her lips and she let out a light laugh and continued to stroke him with agonizing slowness. “Well, perhaps I am a bit. But only for you.”
Heat and something deeper, something much more like love, radiated from his heart. He wanted her confession to be true so desperately. “You did not come to the house party to claim a slew of conquests then?” he asked, hoping she would think he was teasing.
“I came to find a husband,” she said, letting go of him long enough to finish unbuttoning his breeches and pushing them down over his hips to free him completely. “Perhaps I have found more than that?” She arched one brow at him.
He growled deep in his throat, the urge to flip her to her back and fuck her until they were both exhausted almost overpowering. He refused to fire off as fast as he had that morning, though. She deserved much more than that, especially since he couldn’t give her what she was so clearly hinting she wanted.
He rocked back, rolling clumsily to the side to shuck his breeches. As he did, she pulled off her shift, revealing her perfect, sensual body.
“I was hoping to do that,” he said as he twisted to pull the bedcovers down so that they could slide properly between the sheets.
“Next time,” she said, fire in her eyes.
He had just managed to push the covers aside and arrange the pillows, fully intending to capture her and roll her to her back under him, but she struck first. Within seconds, he found himself on his back with her pushing his legs apart and settling on her knees between his thighs. She spread her hands across his chest, humming low in her throat as she did.
“As I said.” She bit her lip and grinned at him as she traced the outline of his muscles and rubbed his nipples to points, then continued downward. “You are a fine specimen of masculinity.”
A thousand different kinds of lust pumped through him at her words, the touch of her hands, the way her gaze raked him with appreciation. He couldn’t help but feel ridiculously cocky. He rested his arms behind his head and grinned. “I do try to keep myself fit.”
“And you’ve succeeded,” she said. Her hands brushed lower, sliding closer and closer to his aching cock. He knew what was coming and it thrilled him, but even so, he sucked in a breath as she took his staff in hand and explored him. “What exercises do you partake into keep this particular muscle so large and strong?”
“I work it every day,” he told her with a prideful grin. “Twice or more, if possible.”
It wasn’t precisely true—although since it had been a while since he’d had female company, it was truer than it ought to be—and it wasn’t something to brag about, but Felicity seemed aroused by the idea. Her cheeks flushed pink as she watched her handiwork. In fact, her whole body flushed pink. He would need to draw on all of his powers of control not to come in her hands while studying the glorious sight of her naked body.
“Do you know,” she began, breathless, glancing from his eyes to his cock, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like….”
She didn’t finish her sentence. At least, not with words. She gave him one, final wicked look, then scooted back far enough to bend forward.
Sully nearly jerked off the bed as she brought her mouth down over the head of his cock. A completely uninhibited sound of pleasure escaped from him before he could control himself as her beautiful lips surrounded him. The delighted sound of discovery she made didn’t help his powers of self-control, and neither did the way her tongue flickered across the wildly sensitive tip of his head. He broke out in a sweat as she drew him in deeper—slowly at first, as if she were testing herself as well as him.
She could experiment all she wanted, as far as he was concerned. The raw pleasure that shot through him as she ran her tongue along the underside of his cock while drawing him in deeper still had him clenching his fists in the sheets at his sides in an effort not to shoot hard into the back of her throat.
“Do you like that?” she asked, panting, as she let him go to take a breath.
“God, yes,” he growled.
She grinned and brought her mouth back to him. “I’ve been told there are women who can contain a man’s entire member in their mouth, but I’m not so certain I could.” He was about to answer that she didn’t have to, he didn’t expect it of her, when she went on with, “Unless I practice.”
The pleasure of her mouth closing over him once more was so acute that he closed his eyes and writhed with it, praying he didn’t come too soon. He opened his eyes moments later, determined to watch her mouth do exactly the thing he’d imagined it could do. Every one of his fantasies proved a pale comparison to the reality of her sweet, pink lips stretched around his throbbing length, which disappeared deeper and deeper into her mouth. The determination in her eyes was humbling.
It was when she began to move on him, drawing him in and out quickly, that he knew he had to do something or shame himself and her.
“Enough,” he said, jerking his hips away from her and leaving her gasping. “I said we’d fuck this time, and that’s what I intend to do.”
He twisted, reaching for her and pulling her onto the sheets with him, then positioning her under him. She molded to his will, her eyes bright with excitement as she splayed across the bed. His plans instantly changed. He wanted so much more than to take her and be done with it. He wanted her to experience the same kind of pleasure she’d excited in him. So instead of plunging right in, he lowered his head to one of her plump breasts and drew her already pert nipple into his mouth.
Her sigh of delight went straight to his cock. The way she arched her back and wriggled under him spelled disaster for his stamina. As much as he wanted to tease and suckle her breasts, he could already feel pressure building at the base of his spine. So he moved lower, kissing, licking, and nipping the flesh of her belly as she strained so willingly toward him.
“This is so lovely,” she sighed as he neared her sex.
“It is,” he agreed. The scent of her musk was already driving him wild. The tension radiating from her was proof that she was as aroused and close to release as he was.
He pushed on all the same, lifting her hips and spreading her legs so that he could taste her honey. And it was far and away the sweetest thing he’d ever slipped his tongue into. She was dripping wet and hot with pleasure. She gasped and shuddered as he teased her sensitive flesh with his lips and tongue. Her clit was stiff with need, and he’d barely begun to lick and suck it when she throbbed into release with a sensual cry.
He moved fast, wanting to feel her pussy squeeze around him. She was so wet and overcome with pleasure that he expected to drive himself balls deep in one satisfying thrust. It was a surprise when he met resistance in his effort to lodge himself within her. Her cry of pleasure turned into one of pain, and her whole body tensed around him.
“Dear God,” he gasped, careful to hold as still as possible within her.
“It’s all right,” she panted, squeezing him between her thighs and digging her nails into his back. “I was warned the first time would hurt.”
A deep chill shuddered through Sully. The first time. The trollop was a virgin. At least, she had been a virgin. He’d taken care of that.
His shock gave way to a grave sense of responsibility that seemed to expand his heart to three times its size. He rocked carefully into her.
“How does that feel?” he asked, his entire approach to lovemaking instantly changed.
She made an uncertain sound. He could feel her inner muscles testing him as she decided how it felt. At last, she let out a breath and said, “Nice.”
“Good,” he said and increased the intensity of his thrusts. He was still teetering on the brink of orgasm himself, and in spite of the surprise, in no way did he feel as though she wanted him to stop.
All the same, there was no point in drawing it out forever. Particularly since she’d already come. He picked up the pace of his thrust, encouraged by her renewed sounds of pleasure, until he felt as though he would explode. Then, with one last shred of decency that told him Felicity deserved what little respect he could give her, he pulled out and jerked against her hip until he spent himself against her belly.
The blanket of post-orgasmic bliss descended on him moments later. He let out a breath and rolled to his side, taking Felicity with him.
She made a sound of heartfelt appreciation and snuggled against him. “That was everything I dreamed it would be and more.”
“It was,” Sully agreed, unable to keep his eyes from closing. Especially the “more”. He’d deflowered her. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined a woman who could behave so sensually would be a virgin. He’d felt the truth for himself, though.
“I just want to sleep for hours and hours now,” she said, nuzzling against his neck.
“Me too,” he said, giving up his battle against sleep.
He would enjoy the heat of her body entwined with his while he could, but as soon as the new day dawned, he would have to answer for his sins far more than she would have to answer for hers.
Chapter 6
It was glorious to wake up in a man’s bed. The moment sleep left Felicity, the warmth of Sully’s naked body next to hers, the scent of his skin, and the coziness of the bedsheets that they’d thoroughly rumpled the night before, was simply the happiest thing she could possibly have greeted a new day with.
Of course, it was also sheer madness. She’d known Sully for only a handful of days. It could be argued that he was a complete stranger to her. And yet, he wasn’t. She felt as though she’d known him her entire life, that they’d met long ago and fallen in love, and that he’d merely been missing for years. He was there now, in her life, in her arms, and in her bed. Or rather, his bed.
