Lady Ruthless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 1) Read online

  Blast.

  “No,” he denied, still holding her against him. He could not shake the notion she would flee if he allowed her. “Come with me now.”

  “At least allow me to fasten my dressing gown,” she protested, her fingers already flying over the buttons he had undone.

  “I am going to see you naked when I bed you anyway,” he told her, amused in spite of himself. “What is the difference if I see you now?”

  She nibbled at her lip, and he fought the urge to groan and feast upon her mouth again himself. “There will be no gaslights then.”

  “Of course there will be lights,” he countered. “I want to see you. All of you.”

  In truth, he could see rather a lot of her now, thanks to his height and the manner in which the twain ends of her dressing gown had fallen apart. But he did not bother to point that out. He may have married her for her dowry, but she was his wife now, and he was enjoying his vantage point immensely.

  “Aunt Fanchette said there would be no light,” she protested.

  Gone was his docile kitten. As the pleasure ebbed from her, the stubbornness returned. Very well. Challenge accepted. He would just have to make her spend as often as possible.

  “What does Mademoiselle Beaulieu know of the marriage bed when she has never occupied it?” he demanded calmly, as if his prick were not harder than a block of marble, grinding against his wife’s delectable rump.

  “Please, my lord. I must insist you give me a few moments to compose and prepare myself.”

  She was not being unreasonable, he supposed. Except that he could see through her ploy. She was attempting to resurrect the walls he had just so summarily torn down when he had pleasured her.

  “You do not require composure for what I have in mind,” he told her, meaning it. “And the only preparation you need is the sort I have already done for you. But that is merely the beginning. There is more, much more.”

  His fingers still burned with the remembered feeling of her lush folds and the deliciously responsive bud of her sex. Of her tongue lashing his. Damnation. This was not helping matters.

  “More?” Her fingers were still frantically working over those bloody buttons, stealing his view from him.

  “More,” he repeated.

  At long last, she sighed, and then accepted it. “Very well. We may as well get the bedding over with. I am tired.”

  He stepped away from her at last, keeping himself from responding through sheer force of will. She would be even more tired when he was through with her, but he did not say so aloud. Instead, he admired her as she turned to face him once more.

  She was beautiful, this spitfire he had married. And he wanted her so much, he could scarcely breathe.

  “Come,” Sin told her, tangling their fingers together.

  Sensation skittered up his arm—a spark, a heightened sense of awareness. Each time he touched her, it was the same. There was something about holding a woman’s hand that was personal and intimate. It occurred to him that he had not done so since Tilly. Taking Calliope’s hand in his had seemed natural. Instinctive.

  Bloody hell. No more delaying. He had to consummate their marriage before he lost his damned mind.

  He tugged her through the door joining their chambers. He did not stop until they reached his bed. He had never taken another woman here. When he had been married to Celeste, he had always visited her in the countess’s apartments. But this was a new marriage. A new beginning, mayhap.

  With a woman who had tried to destroy him.

  He must not forget that.

  He released her hand as if it were made of flame.

  “On the bed,” he told her, rougher than he had intended.

  She moved toward it, still wearing the dressing gown.

  He caught a fistful of the silk, staying her. “Not this. Remove it.”

  She hesitated before opening the buttons and shrugging it from her shoulders. It pooled on the floor in a whisper of sound. Her hair cascaded down her back, dry enough that it had already begun to curl. He could not take his eyes off her.

  His bed was high, and Calliope was petite. She paused at the edge of it, which was above her waist, and cast him a look over her shoulder. “Do you have a step?”

  “No step.” He did not need one. Shaking himself from the trance that had come over him the moment she had removed the robe once more, he stalked toward her. “Allow me.”

  He grasped her waist in his hands and lifted her effortlessly onto the edge of the bed, spinning her to face him as he did so. Before she could retreat, he stepped to the bed, settling between her thighs. When she would have scooted away, his hands dropped to her smooth thighs, pinning her to the spot. He had a mouthwatering glimpse of the pink, beckoning flesh of her cunny. The urge to taste her there would not be denied.

  And he would.

  But first, he wanted her mouth again.

  “My lord,” she murmured.

  “Sin,” he reminded her, nettled by her return to formality. “We are about to be as close as two people can be. I will be damned if you are my lording me when I am inside you.”

  She chewed on her lip again, something he was coming to realize she did when she was anxious. “Why do you care what I call you?”

  Keeping one hand firmly on her thigh, he lifted the other to cup her cheek. “You are my wife. Should I not care?”

  “You hate me,” she said.

  He had persuaded himself he hated her. But that had been before. And now? Now, he was no longer certain he did. He did not trust her, to be sure.

  “I will not be able to fulfill my husbandly duty if you do not call me by my name,” he lied.

  In truth, nothing—not even an army—could stop him from bedding her tonight. He was ready. Now. He did not recall a time when he had ever been this desperate to fuck a woman. He had not even felt this all-consuming passion with Tilly.

  She chewed on her lip some more, watching him from beneath lowered lashes, silent. On a groan, he lowered his head and took her lips. He sucked her abused lip into his mouth, flicking over it with his tongue. And then he bit it too, before deepening the kiss. He slanted his lips over hers. She tasted so sweet. Her kiss was like an elixir and a poison all at once. He wanted to feast on her mouth forever, but he also knew she was no better for him than his last countess had been.

  One had pretended to love him and dealt him the cruelest of betrayals.

  The other had ruined him and then married him.

  He was going to make his new wife say his name again. Hell, he was going to make her moan it. Sin dragged his lips from hers, kissing down her neck. Her collarbone entranced him. He kissed a line over the delicate protrusion, then found the rounded slope of her shoulder. Her skin was so soft, floral scented, decadent.

  He kissed down her breast, gratified at the way she inhaled sharply when his mouth traveled over the sensual curve. He dropped his touch to her breast, caressing it as he sucked her nipple. Her legs tightened on his hips and she cried out.

  He bit her gently, catching her in his teeth and tugging. Her hands flitted to his hair. Instead of pushing him away, she held him there, arching her back, offering herself to him. Sin did not know if she did it with carnal intent or if she was merely acting instinctively. Either way, it sent white-hot lust roaring through him like a locomotive.

  He liked pleasing her.

  She was dangerous, his little wife.

  Far more dangerous than he could have predicted.

  He sucked her pebbled nipple, lashed it with his tongue, and then blew on it softly.

  “My name,” he somehow found the wherewithal to prod.

  But she was stubborn, too. She said nothing, maintaining her silence, aside from her uneven breaths.

  He nipped harder, then sucked, teasing her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger and simultaneously sliding his hand between her legs once more. Drenched, delicious heat greeted him. He ran his fingers up and down her seam, parting her, finding her pearl.<
br />
  “Sin,” she gasped, jerking against his hand.

  “Better,” he praised, holding her gaze as he swirled his tongue in slow, languid circles around the peak of her breast.

  Her breasts were gorgeous, just enough to fill his hands. He loved the way she responded to his mouth on her.

  “Oh,” she said when he rubbed her pearl again.

  It was deliciously swollen and slick. Each rotation made her hips buck. She did not want to desire him any more than he wanted to desire her. And yet, she was as helpless to the magnetism they shared as he was. His cock was rigid and demanding.

  But he ignored it and sank to his knees for her.

  He vowed not to make a habit of this. He could not afford to allow her to think she had any power over him. He needed control. His disastrous marriage with Celeste had taught him that painful lesson. He would wield every weapon in his armory against his second wife. He would break her with desire. He would ruin her the way she had sought to destroy him.

  Vengeance of the most delicious sort.

  He smoothed his hands over her inner thighs, spreading her wide, exposing her fully. The dark thatch of curls on her mound gave up its secret. She was pink and feminine and glistening. The sweet perfume of her excitement—spicy and feminine—hit him.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Surely that is not…you cannot mean to…it is indecent.”

  “Hush.” He kissed each thigh. Slid his hands to the treasure he sought. Using his thumbs, he parted her. Sin had never seen a more carnal, beautiful sight than Calliope, utterly at his mercy. Her hair was a wild cloud around her face and shoulders. Her lips were parted. Her throat bore the marks of his lovemaking. She wore his every kiss, suck, and bite like the finest Worth gown.

  Pretty, fallen princess.

  He lowered his head, flicked his tongue over her hooded pearl. Once. Twice. The taste of her blossomed on his tongue. God, she tasted good. Finer than any dessert. More decadent than chocolate. Sweeter than honey. He licked her in firm, steady pulses.

  “Sin,” she said again, writhing as if she wanted to get away.

  But she did not seek to escape him. Instead, she scooted nearer, burying his face deeper in her cunny. She was all he tasted, felt, breathed. They were one, joined in pleasure and darkness and rage. But anger had never felt so delicious. He sucked her clitoris, taking his time, savoring her.

  She whimpered. Her fingers were in his hair again, tightening, tugging. Pleasure and pain. Such a delicious commingling. Gently, he used his teeth on her. Not a bite—not yet—but just a tender abrasion. An introduction to the world of pleasure to which he could introduce her.

  Her cry echoed in the chamber.

  She was close—so close—to spending once more.

  She was exactly where he wanted her.

  Sin gave her another slow, thorough lick. And then he rose to his full height, towering over her. She was breathless and naked on his bed, her eyes wide, glittering pools of golden brown. The need to be inside her would not be denied.

  His fingers fumbled with the knot on his own dressing gown. In his haste, he tightened it. Frustration bit at him as he attempted to loosen the bloody thing.

  “Fucking hell,” he muttered. This was not part of the plan.

  “Here, let me help,” she said softly, taking him by surprise when she shooed him away and her small, nimble fingers made short work of the knot.

  His robe parted and his aching cock sprang free. He was obscenely hard, and he knew it. Sin felt like a satyr. His wife’s gaze was focused upon him, her countenance frozen with a combination of shock and curiosity.

  He knew a moment of uncertainty—quite rare in his long and storied experience with the fairer sex. He wanted Calliope to want him. He wanted her to like what she saw. He longed for her to embrace their union. To let herself be free.

  “Move into the center of the bed,” he told her, chasing away the doubt.

  The sooner he made her his, the better. It had to be done. But while his mind told him this was his duty, his body told the opposite story. It was pleasure. Anything but duty.

  She did not even protest, shocking him. Instead, she did as he asked, the effort making her delicious breasts move in maddening fashion. He dropped his dressing gown to the floor, not caring where it fell, and joined her on the bed, settling himself between her thighs.

  The tension he had felt in her body earlier was present once more. He saw it in her clenched jaw, her expression, felt it in the stiffness of her body beneath his. Although everything in him screamed with the need to sink himself inside her and make her his, to lose himself, he knew he could not. He had to go slowly. Temper his need.

  He kissed her. Gently this time. It was a tender exploration of her lips and tongue. She kissed him back after a moment of resistance, and then her hands settled on his shoulders. Her nails sank into his flesh, and he liked the sting.

  “Sin,” she said, turning her head to the side and breaking the kiss.

  His cock was burrowing into her belly. He was doing his best not to frighten her, but he could not last much longer. “What is the matter now?”

  “My family calls me Callie,” she said.

  Her family?

  For a moment, Sin was completely befuddled.

  What the devil was she saying?

  “I will call you Sin if you will agree to call me Callie,” she added, her eyes meeting his in the light of the gas lamps.

  Her defiance was still there, burning in the amber and mahogany depths of her eyes. But there was something else there as well. Acceptance? Desire? He could not say. And there was an answering something else within him. An unexpected surge of warmth at her asking him to call her what her family called her.

  “Callie,” he tried.

  The abbreviated version of her name suited her. It felt right on his tongue. Just as she felt right beneath him. The taste of her felt right in his mouth.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her gaze searching his.

  He did not know what she was looking for. Or if she found what she sought. He was desperate to be inside her now.

  “I am going to make you mine, Callie,” he told her, and damn him if those simple words did not make his ballocks tighten.

  She frowned and bit her lip. “It will never work.”

  “Of course it will,” he countered, uncertain if she was referring to their lovemaking or their marriage.

  “How can it?” she asked. “It is far too large.”

  Sin stifled a startled laugh. “It shall fit, darling, I promise you.”

  Her befuddled expression touched him in a place he had not believed existed. “How?”

  Curious woman.

  Delicious creature. How could he resist her?

  “Let me show you,” he said, and then he kissed her lips once more.

  He grasped his shaft and glided the head of his cock up and down her wet slit, making certain to coat himself with her essence to ease the breach. He was thick and hard, more than ready. But he was also cognizant that she was likely a neophyte, judging from her skittishness. He could not simply ram into her, no matter how much his body cried out with need.

  She emitted a breathy little sigh into his kiss when he dragged himself over her pearl. Her eyes were glazed, her lashes low. Beneath him, her body was soft and supple and pliant. The tension had slowly ebbed from her. Her lips clung to his.

  He had not expected to enjoy himself this much. To be so ensnared, so enamored. It was as if she had cast a sensual spell upon him. But Sin was beyond the point of caring. He would worry about his powerful hunger for his new wife later.

  He released himself and ran his fingers over her silken flesh, parting her. When he found her entrance, he swirled his fingers over her, testing her readiness. She jerked against his hand, her hips lifting off the mattress, seeking. She was so wet.

  He could not wait.

  He guided himself to her cunny and slid into her with a tentative thrust. She tensed and crie
d out into his kiss. Sin paused, white-hot desire searing him. Being inside her felt so bloody good. Her slick sheath constricted on him, bathing his cock in blissful heat.

  Her channel was excruciatingly tight. She was a virgin after all, in spite of all the rumors from her time in Paris and her dead betrothed. The knowledge should not have mattered, and yet, he could not stay the rush of primitive lust it sent arrowing through him. Remaining still was killing him. But he held tight to his control, simply breathing, allowing her body to adjust.

  He broke the kiss and lowered his head to her nipple, sucking on it, then blowing on the stiff peak. “How does it feel?” he asked against the soft curve of her breast.

  “Strange,” she whispered. “Is it over, then?”

  Hell.

  He did not know whether to laugh, cry, or slide his cock all the rest of the way inside her. He nipped, reaching between them to where their bodies were joined to tease her pearl once more.

  “Does it feel as if it is over, princess?” he returned when she moved her hips in response to his caress.

  She dragged him deeper inside her, her cunny clenching on him. And he was lost. He moved again, another shallow thrust. Then another and another.

  Callie was panting, moving with him, her nails scoring his back again. “Oh, Sin.”

  His name in a husky moan from her lips was the most erotic sound he had ever heard. The last of his restraint fell away. He swiveled his hips and seated himself all the way. She trembled beneath him, her cunny pulsing, making him wild.

  He took her mouth again, kissing her hard. And then he began to thrust in earnest. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her breasts flattening against his chest. He was a large man, and she was small and delicate and feminine. He felt like a rutting beast pinning her to the bed, but he was losing the battle. Slow and gentle was no longer possible.

  Desire pounded in his loins. She was his. Every stroke of his cock inside her said so. Every scrape of her nails down his back said so. Even the connection of their bodies, the way they fit together, felt so damned right. So damned good.

  He increased the pressure on the bud of her sex, sliding in and out of her, kissing her with all the raw hunger burning through him. His tongue sank into her mouth, and she sucked on it. She came undone on a ragged cry that he swallowed without breaking their kiss. She constricted all around him, milking him, bringing him to the brink.