The Wolf of Mayfair

She shrunk from the new scenes of misery and oppression, that might await her in the castle of Udolpho.

—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho

Later that night, long after the entire household had taken to their beds, Helia sat on the leather button sofa in the ducal library. Everyone but the occasional squeaking mouse, and the mouser in pursuit, now slept.

Nay. Not all human beings residing here had found rest this day.

Unbidden, her gaze went to the office door. On her meandering through the household, she’d passed a parlor. From under the beautifully carved door, bright light had spilled in an indication that someone remained awake.

Anthony.

From where she sat, Helia drew her knees tight to her chest and rested her chin atop the fabric of her white cotton chemise.

After Anthony had pulverized the earl, he’d escorted Helia from the Frost Fair to the warm comfort of his household, where they’d parted ways. They’d spoken not a word.

She climbed the stairs to her guest rooms, and he stalked off in the opposite direction.

That’d been the last she’d seen of him.

Anthony had nearly killed her cousin.

Or maybe he did, a voice whispered.

Helia shivered.

Given the new earl’s cold, unfeeling ruthlessness, he deserved a dark fate, but . . . Anthony had almost ended the other man, and worse, he’d done so because of her.

As a man who so prided himself on his self-control, he’d resent that she’d gone out and he’d had to not only collect her but also fight a man on her behalf.

The fact he’d stayed away from Helia and only sent Mrs. Trowbridge to ask after her was proof of the marquess’s irateness.

Helia stared absently at the flames that gracefully swayed and danced in the hearth. Why would he want to see you? He believed she’d lied about her reasons for having come to Horace House.

No doubt all out of patience with her, Wingrave would, in the eventual meeting, turn her out for having gone off.

Being honest with herself, she acknowledged that cowardice had sent her into hiding.

Despise her all he might, Helia owed it to Humphries, John Thomas, and all the staff who’d shown her kindness to speak on their behalf and ensure their continued employment.

That didn’t make her dread this exchange any less.

Helia climbed to her feet, and her cotton skirts fluttered about her ankles. On stockinged feet, she padded across the room, making her way to its front.

She drew the panel open and dipped her head out into the hall, empty but for the shadows dancing on the satin wallpaper.

Helia made herself take the unwanted walk to the door she’d cowardly rushed past earlier that night.

Maybe the marquess was no longer there.

Why, it’d been hours.

Perhaps he’d since sought his chambers and retired for the night.

That would grant her a brief reprieve before she had to face him.

Too soon, Helia reached that pretty pink-and-white-painted panel. She hovered there. Angling her head, she leaned in and strained her ears for any hint of sound from within.

The thick hum of silence proved her only companion this night.

Immense relief filled her.

Tomorrow. She’d approach Anthony and speak about his staff tomorrow.

Helia had turned to go when the faint rustle of papers reached her.

She stopped in her tracks and closed her eyes.

Bluidy hell. She wasn’t going to get off that easily, after all.

Before her courage deserted her, Helia lifted her knuckles and knocked.

She waited for the room’s occupant to call out in his endearingly impatient tones.

And moments later, she remained waiting.

Helia tried again, this time louder.

She ceased her rapping and stared at the door.

He didn’t want to see her. Only a blistering fury could account for his intractable silence.

Battling herself, Helia worried at her lower lip, and then resolutely, she let herself inside.

Every thought left her head: Her reason for being here. The events of the day. All of it.

Anthony sat behind a mahogany desk, the smooth surface covered in neat stacks of papers. Engrossed as he was in whatever note he read, he’d failed to note Helia’s arrival.

Her gaze lingered upon him. Anthony, with his height and overwhelmingly powerful build, couldn’t be more out of place in this space. He couldn’t be more out of place on the delicate wood-cane desk chair he occupied.

Sans jacket and cravat, the marquess, from what she could see of him from the waist up, wore but a loose lawn shirt that gaped at the neck and revealed a whorl of black curls.

Her mouth went dry with something she wished were fear, but now—after his having brought her body to exquisite surrender—she recognized all too well as desire. That wicked yearning flooded her belly and stirred that suddenly sensitive place between her legs.

Go. Leave. Flee.

Fear didn’t urge her to take flight, but the inexorable pull he had over her did.

Helia drew the door shut softly behind her. Still, Anthony remained intently focused on that faded yellow page.

“Hullo,” she called tentatively.

It was only as she ventured deeper into the room and had reached several paces away from his desk that she realized—he’d not heard her.

All at once, Anthony looked up.

Surprise filled his usually stony eyes, which gave quick rise to annoyance.

“What do you want, Helia?” His hard lips formed an angry white slash.

She froze midstep, but then made herself continue her approach.

“I am sorry to interrupt,” she said softly, when she’d reached him.

He spoke sharply. “Not sorry enough to not interrupt.”

“No,” she acknowledged.

She told herself to not be offended by his irascibility. He’d shown himself to be a man who despised being caught unawares. He always behaved more churlishly in those instances, as if he were angry at her and himself for having failed to hear . . .

Helia stilled. Her mind whirled with a sea of thoughts and remembrances.

A tense exchange with Anthony.

“Don’t you knock, Miss Wallace?”

“I did and quite loudly. You didn’t—”

His black eyebrows snapped together. “What is it?”

She whipped her focus his way.

“Is this what you came for?” he whispered, coming to his feet with a menacing languor.

Thump.

Helia’s gaze darted to the black cat bounding out from behind the desk and thoroughly ruining any attempt from Anthony at scaring her.

Shock brought her brows up.

Anthony glared, silently daring her to mention the fact he’d had the cat on his lap.

“You were keeping company with him,” she whispered.

A flush dusted the edge of his cheekbones. “He interrupted my damned solitude, the same as a certain someone.” He looked pointedly at her.

She couldn’t suppress the soft smile that formed. “It is all right you love him,” she said thickly. “I shan’t tell a soul.”

“I don’t love anyone,” he snapped.

“Aye, I believe you’ve said as much.”

He narrowed his eyes. “But you don’t believe it.” There was another warning there.

She’d never been one to scare easily. “I believe it’s possible for one to tell oneself with words they don’t love anyone or anything, but that doesn’t keep the emotion from living in here.” Helia touched a fist to her chest.

“Why are you here?” he asked in a tone that indicated he’d absolutely no intention of continuing this particular dialogue.

“I came to speak on behalf of your servants. They are not to bla—”

“This is why you’ve come?” he taunted. “You storm my office—”

“In fairness, I didn’t storm it as much as knock, but you didn’t seem to hear me.”

“To save my delinquent staff?”

“They were in an impossible place. They were taking directives from me and received no specific guidance from you.”

“Taking directives from you, my dear?” He flashed a lazy, jeering grin. “That in and of itself is a sackable offense.”

Helia angled her head. Anthony sought to get a rise out of her. She’d come to know him well enough now to see that he buried his vulnerability in the form of harsh tones and steely grins. Inside, however, he, like anyone else, hurt. The marquess just concealed his far better than most.

“You won’t fire them, then,” she finally said.

“Is that a ques—”

“No,” Helia interrupted. “You won’t. I know it.”

He chuckled. “My, how confident you are, my dear.” With a panther-like grace, he slowly unfurled each of his six foot three inches, stretching. “On what grounds,” he purred, “have I proven to be a benevolent lord of the household?” He glided languidly from behind the desk.

He stopped just a foot away.

She knew what he intended. Still, her heart hammered and Helia had to dig the tips of her toes into the floor to keep herself planted where she stood.

Shaken by his nearness and her body’s awareness of him, Helia did not back down.

She lifted her eyes to his. “You allowed me shelter, Anthony, when I was nothing but a stranger who gave you only my word—”

“You’re still a stranger,” he jeered.

“And still, you let a stranger share your home.”

“It is not a home,” he spat.

Aye, she’d agree with him on that score. This household possessed none of the familial closeness and warmth that made a house a home.

She’d not, however, let him distract her from what they actually discussed—him and the goodness in him.

Helia raised her gaze to his. “You cared for me when I was ill,” she reminded him. “And then when you found nothing which linked our mothers, even then, you still did not turn me out, Anthony.”

Something flashed in his eyes this time. Not his usual annoyed or harsh glint but something vague and indecipherable.

“Enough,” he said, his warning whisper proving fiercer than any rage-filled shout. “I’m not some pathetically merciful lord.”

How very sad his views of life and love, in fact, were. “There’s nothing pathetic in showing mercy, Anthony,” she said gently. “And I do not want you to fire anyone because of me.”

His mirth faded. He locked a hard stare on her. “Caring about others and not yourself? It is a foolish thing to do.”

“I—”

“Let me guess,” he interrupted dryly. “You disagree?”

“In fact, I do.”

He again folded his arms at his chest. “Absolutely shocking.”

Her lovely lips only dipped down farther at the corners. “You’re being sarcastic.”

Anthony brought his hands together in a derisory little clap. “You are becoming somewhat more worldly, Miss Wallace.”

He stopped. A muscle rippled along his jaw. “I will not fire anyone.”

Helia’s heart swelled, along with the smile on her lips.

“I don’t want to hear anything else on—” He scowled. “Why are you smiling like that?”

Her grin grew wider. “How am I smiling?” She knew precisely what he spoke about. His reluctant goodness had an inspiriting effect, and she could not suppress a grin, even if her staying here were dependent upon hiding her joy.

Anthony scowled. “Do not get it in your head that I in some way care about those in my employ.”

Helia adopted a somber expression. “Of course not.”

His brows dipped menacingly, and he snarled like an angry lion. “I don’t even care about the people who gave me life.”

Her smile instantly fell. How lonely, how sad his life was. She yearned to take him and show him the good that existed in the world.

“The sole reason I’ve not fired them this time is because I’ve grown tired of having this discussion repeatedly with you, Helia. In the future, might I suggest if you’re actually worried about costing my servants their employment, you’d not put them in a position of doing something that will see them unemployed.”

For all his forceful protestations and repeated denials, there could be no doubting from the leniency he’d shown that he was not only the benevolent lord he insisted he was not, but that good dwelled within his guarded heart.

She bowed her head with an appropriate deference. “I understand.” Him. She understood him so very well.

He grunted. “Good. I am pleased that is settled.”

Going on tiptoe, Helia whispered into his left ear, “I am falling in love with you and ah’m scared to death.”

Anthony quickly turned his head. But for a frown, his face otherwise remained expressionless.

Oh, my god. And at last, it made sense. This was what the housekeeper had alluded to. “You cannot hear,” she breathed.

Rage tightened Anthony’s features, and his swift transformation into an angry beast sent Helia stumbling away from him.

“What did you say?” he raged. As soon as the question exploded from his lips, Anthony blanched, and as if he’d realized what he’d asked, he, too, retreated a step.

Helia bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. It was the first he’d ever faltered before her, and she hated the sight of his suffering.

A man as proud and strong as Anthony would see any loss of hearing as a complete failing, a sign of weakness and vulnerability.

How much did his partial deafness account for the guarded man he was now?

Helia found her feet and her voice. “It is all right, Anthony,” she said softly. “You are no less because of . . . of . . .”

His glare cut through her, and her words trailed off.

“Say it,” he seethed.

“Say it,” he repeated, in a deathly quiet tone, more dreadful than any of the thundering he’d done. He’d not, however, hurt her. She knew that all the way to her now anguished soul because she knew this man. He’d cared for her with his own hands.

“You are no less of a man because you cannot fully hear, Anthony,” she finally said.

Anthony’s body tensed.

He’d not thought she would speak those words.

And then, it was as though she’d imagined all hint of vulnerability in Anthony.

He donned one of his coolly sardonic grins. “Do you truly believe I see myself as a lesser man, my dear?”

Anthony used that “my dear” like Helia was a recalcitrant child. She recognized it as an attempt to protect himself.

“No,” she said calmly. “I have no doubt you are a man who knows his worth, strength, and power. You are a king among men.”

Anthony drew back.

Her avowal had taken the wind out of his ire, and it’d also restored the hard, square set to his broad shoulders and the usual swagger he wrapped himself in.

“That is right, Helia,” he purred. “I know exactly my worth. Others, however, see any imperfection as something to be pitied.”

“Others, such as your father?”

He laughed, an actual mirth-filled expression at odds with his next revelation. “The duke would have to be capable of something other than disdain for anyone he deems inferior.”

Disdain for his son? What a bloody monster. With every small detail Anthony had shared in Helia’s time here, he’d proven all the tales of the duke’s awfulness were true.

Anthony sharpened his gaze on her. “Now tell me, have there been servants with loose lips who’ve shared tales about how I lost my hearing?”

She shook her head. “No, they are loyal to you,” she assured him.

She’d come to learn Anthony was the reason servants remained on staff despite having a cruel employer. They knew the duke would not live forever and respected the duke-in-waiting enough to suffer in their services.

Anthony eyed her a long moment—no doubt he searched for the veracity of Helia’s admission.

“My brother,” he said suddenly, unexpectedly.

Afraid if she so much as breathed, Anthony would stop sharing parts of himself with her, Helia made herself remain completely motionless.

“One winter’s day, I urged him to join me for a skate at the lake. The ice broke and he disappeared into that opening. I went in after him. He fell sick and died. I fell sick and lost half my hearing.”

How succinct a telling for such a significant and tragic part of Anthony’s life. And how much the death of his beloved brother in fact accounted for the Anthony had become.

Everything hurt. Every single part of Helia, from her chest to her soul to her toes, ached.

“You needn’t look at me like that, Helia,” he said, with more unwarranted amusement.

“How do you believe I’m looking at you?” she asked quietly.

“As though I’m some poor street urchin in need of saving. Evander’s death nearly destroyed me.”

Evander. His older brother now had a name. Helia stored it in her heart.

Anthony slipped an arm about her waist and drew her close. “But I am stronger for it.” He placed his lips near Helia’s temple. “I may have lost hearing out of one ear, but from that day forward, I became invincible. Untouchable.”

And she absolutely believed he’d told himself that so many times as to believe it.

He flicked his tongue along the shell of her ear. Shivers of desire radiated from that tiny place he caressed.

Which was also likely why he now used her desire as a diversion from an uncomfortable topic.

She’d not be distracted. Helia laid her palms along his chest. “I—” Everything she’d intended to say fled her head. Her breath audibly caught.

Apparently she would be distracted.

God, he’d the chiseled hardness and beauty of a bronzed bust of David. Reflexively, she smoothed her hands over his warm, unyielding chest muscles.

The hard, mocking glint in those sapphire irises said he’d sensed her body’s awareness.

“I certainly don’t have any interest in discussing old memories. Perhaps you didn’t just come to plead for me to show my staff clemency, love?” he asked on a suggestive purr.

Anthony glanced pointedly at her hands, which still absently stroked him. “Maybe you came for another taste of what you had this morning? Hmm?”

She flinched, his vulgar words each landing like a well-placed barb. He sought to put up that wall between them. These words, they came because he sought to protect himself.

“Or,” he taunted, and rubbed a palm crudely over the hardness tenting his trousers and lawn shirt, “maybe you’ve come to return the favor and finish me off this time?”

Helia’s entire body burned with a blush.

Anthony gave a caustic laugh and let his arm drop.

Stop! He’s trying to elicit this reaction. This was the mechanism he relied upon to push away anyone who got too close. Helia swallowed several times.

She edged her chin up. “I know you speak crudely when you are trying to run me off.”

I know you speak crudely when you are trying to run me off . . .

It’d worked this afternoon. Funny how quickly she’d figured out Wingrave’s efforts. It unnerved the hell out of him. He, who’d always been impassive, should be nonplussed by this fey creature.

Since he’d found her at the Frost Fair, an altogether different focus—about not their mothers’ relationship but the company Helia had kept that day—had commanded his attention.

Determined to unsettle her and steady himself, he folded his arms at his chest. “Very well. I’ve allowed you your piece, Helia. Now it is my turn.”

Her brow wrinkled with a consternation that couldn’t be feigned. “What do you—”

“Surely you aren’t stupid enough to believe we will not discuss your meeting earlier, Miss Wallace,” he interrupted frostily.

“I don’t . . .” She shook her head.

“What?” He sneered. “Have any idea what I could possibly speaking about? Not the burly fellow I thrashed within an inch of his life today?”

At speaking those words aloud, Wingrave’s heart pounded hard against his ribs. I lost control. What is happening to me? What is this tiny, innocent imp of a woman doing to me? She was a fire in his blood and burning down the man he’d shaped himself into.

Enraged, with her as much as himself, he took a furious step closer. “Do you have nothing to say?” he hissed.

Her lips parted and formed a perfect little open-mouthed moue. “Oh,” she said weakly. “That.”

His cock gave another randy leap as he imagined slipping the head of his shaft between those lips and rage tunneled through him.

He drew in a breath through his nostrils and reined in his rapidly soaring emotions.

Except as he stood there, the clock ticked the passing seconds, and each grating beat sent his frustration spiraling and spiraling.

“That is what you’ll say, Miss Wallace?” he finally bit out, when it became apparent she didn’t intend to say another word apart from the useless response she’d just given him.

Helia hesitated and then gave a little nod.

And through the maddening rage and frustration, Wingrave found the first spot of amusement in longer than he remembered.

He laughed. “This is rich.”

“What?” she asked haltingly through his fit of hilarity.

“I, who would be content to never speak a word with you or anyone, now find myself compelled to hold a discussion, and you, who are chattier than a magpie, have of a sudden gone silent.”

He stopped laughing and sharpened a stern gaze upon her. “Very well, I’ll be first to do so. Why don’t we begin with an identity of your companion at the fair, Miss Wallace.”

Helia twisted her fingers in the fabric of her nightwrapper. “‘Companion’ suggests a friend,” she said quietly. “He is no friend.” She pressed her lips firmly together.

When it became apparent Helia would contribute not one thing more, he again crossed his arms and leaned a hip against a nearby sturdy, embroidered armchair.

“Who was he, Helia?” Wingrave asked, with gentleness he’d never believed himself capable of feigning.

It took a herculean effort, but he gritted his teeth to keep from demanding she spit out the bastard’s identity.

His forbearance paid off.

Helia nibbled at her lower lip a moment and then finally capitulated. “Cousin Damian.”

Cousin Damian? He furrowed his brow. “Who the hell is—” Wingrave stopped. The past interrupted the present.

H-he is n-not a guardian. He is my cousin, and h-he inherited after my da passed.

Wingrave rubbed the aching muscles of his nape. Christ. It’d all been true. Every last piece of it: the distant cousin, blackhearted enough to fit the page of even the most fatuous gothic novel.

“Cousin Damian,” he echoed, this time with a humorless laugh. “He doesn’t look—” Wingrave stopped short.

Helia lifted a smart auburn eyebrow. “He doesn’t look like you expected he would?”

Curse the minx for being the only person in the whole of the goddamned kingdom who somehow knew his unspoken thoughts.

She didn’t let up. “What did you expect, a paunch and oily hair and pockmarked skin?”

Amusement dripped from her question.

Wingrave resisted the urge to squirm. For that was the manner of man he’d envisioned.

Her eyes twinkled, and that captivating glimmer knocked the thoughts from his head.

Helia leaned up and in. “He isn’t a gothic novel villain.” Her expression darkened. “He’s a real-life one.”

A real-life one . . .

More of their previous discussion on Cousin Damian wrenched Wingrave back to the present.

“Never tell me? He locked you in your rooms and denied you meals until you consented to be his bride.”

“He didn’t d-deny me m-meals on a-account—o-on account, he—”

“He didn’t deny you meals on account . . . ,” he said between clenched teeth.

Confusion filled Helia’s gaze. She shook her head.

“You said he didn’t deny you meals on account of . . . and didn’t finish the thought. What were the reasons he did not deny you meals?” he bit out.

Understanding filled her eyes. “Oh. You remember that.”

She went quiet again.

“Helia, what were the reasons he did not deny you meals?” He snapped out each syllable of that question.

“He didn’t, on account that he didn’t want a wraith for a bride and couldn’t have me dying on him as he needed my dowry.”

An unholy rage descended over his vision.

A guttural, animallike growl escaped Wingrave. “Did he ever put his hands on you before today?” Because he’d end him. He’d hunt him down and rip Cousin Damian’s beating heart from his chest and make him watch while he consumed it.

Helia must have seen the promise of death in his eyes.

She gave her head a quick shake. “No!” she said with alacrity. “He didn’t. He only locked me in my rooms and . . .” She stopped short of giving Wingrave what he sought.

“Surely you don’t seek to protect the bounder?”

“I seek to protect you, Anthony.”

Protect him.

He drew back at the unexpectedness of a statement that should be ridiculous—her protecting him.

Wingrave attempted to scoff . . . and yet, no one had protected him. His mother had always been a coward—not that he didn’t understand why. Being wed to a cruel bastard like the current duke would do that to a woman. His father had himself caned Wingrave both for the slightest offenses and to make his unexpected heir stronger.

He tightened his mouth.

It was also how he’d come to discover he didn’t need anyone other than himself. Armed with that reminder, he dusted a speck of lint from his shirtsleeve. “My dear, I’m from one of the oldest, longest lines in the realm and future Duke of Talbert. I assure you, I do not require protection from anyone.”

Helia’s eyes sparkled. “How very fortunate for you that you may move through life without ever suffering any consequences,” she said dryly.

He gnashed his teeth in frustration.

How could she be so casual? How could she crack quips when they discussed the bastard who’d dared touch her today?

“I would regret you hurting someone on my behalf.”

An image slithered forward of Helia as she’d been locked in her rooms, at the mercy of that dastard. “Killing someone,” he corrected for accuracy’s sake. “I’ll feast on his fists for dinner.”

Helia paled.

Wingrave made another attempt to go, but Helia remained as tenacious as a stubborn weed.

“I won’t have you act in violence on my account.” She grimaced. “That is, any more violence. You are a good man—”

“And killing him would make me a better one.”

Helia’s lips twitched. “You don’t believe that, Anthony,” she said tenderly. “That’s just one more of those things you tell yourself.”

He stared at her for a long while. Who was this woman? “God, how could anyone be as naive as you?” he asked, in abject perplexity.

“I’m not naive. I just don’t believe violence is the answer,” she murmured, smoothing her palms over the front of his shirt.

The air grew charged, like the earth just before a lightning strike.

As one, they looked down, registering her tender touch upon Wingrave.

His pectoral muscles bunched under her innocent caress. His cock went instantly, painfully hard. From a virgin’s untried touch? What madness possessed him?

A detestable and incessant frustration beat within him—at himself. He possessed enough self-control to not be moved by a lily-pure innocent.

Wingrave glanced pointedly at her palms, which still rested on him. “What is it about you, Helia Wallace?” he murmured to himself.

He slid a palm over her hip, and fisting the fabric tightly, he drew her close. Helia went unresistingly.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered, her words tremulous, her voice breathless.

She clenched and unclenched her legs like one trying to assuage an ache that had built there.

He reveled in her desire.

“I was right, earlier,” he crooned. “You do want to come again. Very well. You do not have to toss me off.” Yet. “I’m more than happy to pleasure you, love.”

Wingrave guided Helia back until her buttocks rested on the edge of the desk and then dropped to his knees.

Never taking his gaze from her wide-eyed one, Wingrave grinned, and inch by slow, deliberate inch, he pushed her nightskirts higher. Ever higher.

“Wh-what are you d-doing?” she whispered throatily when he’d reached her knees.

“What am I doing?” Wingrave caught her left calf in his hand, and as he leaned down, he raised the smooth, graceful limb close to his mouth and paused. “Why, I am kissing you, sweet.”

Her eyes grew to the size of globes.

With that, he touched his lips to the place her knee connected with her sinfully lush thigh.

A low, hungry moan filtered from her lips. She caught the lower one between her teeth and bit.

Wingrave chuckled. “Oh, that is just the beginning, sweet.”

Helia trembled. “Wh-what are you doing?” she whispered again.

He’d long derided rakes and their pitiful fascination with deflowering debutantes. But with the hot, musky scent of Helia’s desire, he understood why they risked their bachelorhood for a taste of that forbidden fruit.

“You want me to tell you and ruin the surprise?” he teased.

She nodded.

Another low laugh rumbled in his chest. “Of course you do.”

Withholding that which she sought, he slowly kissed a path up the expanse of her thigh. He licked and nipped a trail higher and stopped.

With his head framed between her legs, and his mouth a breath away from her fiery thatch, he at last gave her the naughty words that, in her untried innocence, he didn’t even think she knew she sought.

“I’m going to take you in my mouth, sweet Helia. I’m going to bury my tongue in your tight, wet slit.”

At his words, she reflexively lifted herself toward him, and his mouth at last had a taste of what he hungered for.

“I’m going make you come so hard and so good you’re going to curse and scream like a naughty girl.”

His shaft grew painfully hard at the mental image he painted for the both of them.

Another low, slow, desperate moan escaped Helia, and she began to undulate wildly, grinding her muff against his mouth and taking what Wingrave still withheld.

A sweat broke out on his skin. He wanted to give her the climax he’d just promised. When he’d wrung every last bit of come from her honeypot, he’d shove a knee between her legs and sink himself ballocks deep inside her.

Tormented by a want he’d never known with any woman, Wingrave groaned long, low, and loud.

“Anthony,” she begged, arching her hips, “I have never felt the way you make me feel.”

He thrilled with a powerful sense of male satisfaction that he’d been the one to awaken her to the wonders of lovemaking. It wasn’t enough.

Wingrave placed a tender kiss on the inside of her right thigh. “How do I make you feel?”

Helia angled her body up enough so their eyes met.

“Like that feeling on the warmest, clearest summer day,” she said softly. “Where you lie upon the highest peak of the greenest hill and stare up at the clouds as they float past.” Her eyes slid closed, as if even now she witnessed the scene unfolding. “Only, this with you . . . it is like . . . I’m one of those clouds drifting past.”

He’d never done that. Even in those distant days before he’d lost his hearing and life had been more uncomplicated.

Cynical from birth, he wanted to taunt her with that childlike image she painted. Except, he found himself besieged by an even greater yearning to know that tableau with her.

With her?

His heart thumped weirdly in his chest. Why should he want to take part in such a simplistic passing, with Helia Wallace, at that . . . with anyone?

Helia opened her eyes. She moved her innocent gaze over Wingrave’s face in a tender search.

She stretched a palm out, and with an aching tenderness cupped Wingrave’s cheek.

He swallowed with difficulty.

For while he’d reveled in the skilled, sure touch of the most experienced courtesans, Helia’s roused something different, but no less powerful.

No, her whispery-soft touch proved even more profound for the nescience of it.

Done with these unnerving thoughts and feelings she’d roused, he ended the earlier sexual games he’d played with her, and gave Helia what she—and he—truly craved. Mindless sex.

Growling, he buried his tongue inside her sodden channel.

Helia hissed; her entire body tensed.

And then, as he teased her nub and lapped her, she rocked herself closer, pushing herself against him.

She had a mild, musky scent more potent than the opium mixed with spirits he’d favored in his university days.

Good. This was safe. This was something he knew. Something he felt comfortable with. Not the puling sentiments she’d roused.

Without breaking focus on her cunt, he stretched his hands up and filled his palms with her pert, tempting breasts. Through the thin fabric of her nightshift, her nipples peaked. Wingrave gave them a deliberately sharp yank.

Helia moaned and tangled her fingers in his hair.

“Like that, do you, kitten?” he whispered between each stroke of his tongue.

She pressed him closer to her core and rammed her hips up.

“Uh-uh,” he chided and drew back. “You know I like those naughty confessions from you, love.” Wingrave gave her another deliberately taunting lick.

“Yes,” she cried out. “I love it, Anthony.”

When he still didn’t give Helia what she craved, she gripped his head hard and pushed Wingrave where she wanted him.

Her wily power and determination sent another rush of blood to Wingrave’s already throbbing cock; his balls tightened.

He gritted his teeth against his body’s lustful yearnings and continued to withhold that which her body yearned for.

Wingrave released a long sigh against Helia’s soaking thatch. “I am afraid that will not do, Helia.”

She whimpered. In a clear attempt to steal what she sought from Wingrave, she rocked back and forth.

He chuckled and buried his nose in her curls.

Helia cried out.

Wingrave breathed deep of her salty juice. “Your sweet puss weeps for me, love.”

With a heroic effort, he stopped.

Helia’s rapturous shout gave way to an agonized wail. “Anthony,” she keened.

“Tell me,” he demanded in harsher tones. “Do you like when I’m rough with your nipples, Helia?” Wingrave followed that question with another sharp tweak.

“Yesss,” she sobbed. “I love when you are rough with my nipples.”

“Good girl,” he praised.

Rewarding her capitulation, Wingrave plunged his tongue inside her.

Helia collapsed on the desk and lay sprawled with her legs parting even more widely.

Around them, notes and papers fell to the floor like an ivory vellum rainstorm.

Wingrave intensified his ministrations. Alternately, he sucked her nub and swirled his tongue in a slow circle inside her. Fast and then slow.

Incoherent, gasping utterances spilled from her lush mouth. “Mm-hmm,” she moaned.

“Christ, Helia. You are so fucking wet.”

At his words, her juices flowed and coated his tongue. He licked up her salty wetness.

Growling and hungry for this innocent woman as he’d never been for the most skilled courtesan, Wingrave lapped wildly of her nectar like Helia was the first and last meal he’d ever know.

Gritting his teeth, Wingrave reached a hand down and gave his randy cock a tug.

That yank did nothing to assuage the discomfort of his raging lust. Instead, his blood fired ten degrees more.

Helia’s thrusting took on a greater urgency, her movements jerky. But still, she remained tense, her hips undulating wildly in search of the surrender she desperately sought.

“You taste so good, Helia,” Wingrave breathed, and stroked his tongue over her clitoris.

She whimpered.

Helia slowly, unevenly pushed herself up onto her elbows. She looked at Wingrave with confused, lust-filled eyes.

“Anthony,” she whispered pleadingly.

“Aww, you’re in pain,” he crooned. “I’ll help you, love.” Not breaking eye contact, he rubbed his painful erection. “I am, too,” he said huskily.

Helia’s eyes widened.

Stroking himself through his trousers, Wingrave dived back into worshipping her cunny. “I’ll suck you until you scream with pleasure and a blissful surrender,” he said, in a harsh, ragged promise.

Helia ground her teeth and pumped her hips angrily against him.

“You’re close, love,” he purred. “Come for me, sweet kitten.”

Then, Wingrave, still tormenting her with his tongue, inserted a finger inside her slick, tight channel.

Helia’s lithe, beguiling body tensed.

His head still buried in her cunny, Wingrave stole a glance up.

Helia’s eyes remained big, wide, unblinking circles.

He pressed his tongue hard.

That was all she needed.

Helia came. She screamed, cursed, and sobbed through her surrender—as he’d known she would, the naughty little thing.

The taste of her sweet nectar flooding his mouth left him half-mad, crazed with an insatiable lust. As he continued to wring every last drop of her, Wingrave’s cock trembled.

Wingrave gritted his teeth and fought the urge to come in his trousers like some pathetic green lad with his first whore.

Apparently, for all his previous doubting, the Lord proved real, after all, for Helia let loose one last small, delightful gasp and collapsed, depleted from Wingrave’s endeavors.

He gave her one final lick. She quivered.

“Good girl,” he praised, rewarding her with a gentle kiss upon her silkily soft inner thigh. God, how he wanted to fuck her.

She’d let him. He knew he could have her.

So take her.

A weak, shy, but grateful smile wreathed her lips, and that rakish voice in his head grew distant.

She’d be ruined if he did this.

She is already ruined. Take what you’ve been wanting since she stepped inside your goddamned household.

An inner war he’d never before faced waged within him.

The difference was, the lady might be ruined in society’s eyes, but she remained a virgin—in only the sense of the word anyway.

The thick fringe of her reddish-brown lashes swept low and concealed Helia’s stunningly bright green eyes.

Her heaving chest settled into a smooth, slow, even, up-and-down rhythm.

Like a cat who’d landed the cream, Helia burrowed into the letters that made a small, ineffective blanket under her, and slept.

Wingrave remained on his knees between her legs and stared up at her.

Of all the times to develop a fucking conscience.

He drew her skirts gently back into place—both to keep her limbs warm from the chill of the room and to save himself from the suffering of staring at her glorious cunny.

It didn’t help.

Wingrave clenched his eyes tight and wrestled for control of this all-powerful hungering.

I’m not a goddamned shad-bag who can’t control his baser urges.

Of course, with this insatiable lust, one would never know it.

His shaft pulsed and throbbed with a desperate hungering for a release of his own. Having coaxed Helia’s untried body to her first orgasms, however, proved too much for even his worldly experience.

Neither wanting to wake her from her rest or ask her to tug him off, Wingrave reached for his rock-hard length.

Never once taking his gaze from Helia’s delicate, freckled features, he freed himself.

Then, closing his eyes, he saw her as she’d been just moments ago, both shy and yet also possessed of a glorious lack of inhibition.

Wingrave gripped the edge of the desk in one hand and took his cock in the other and began to pump his shaft.

Gritting his teeth, he moved from base to tip.

All the while he saw Helia in her exquisite gloriousness as she’d eagerly lifted her hips in search of surrender. Using his thumb, Wingrave applied a light pressure to the underside of his cock.

His breathing grew harsh and harder.

He squeezed as he stroked himself, giving his base extra attention.

Only, the steamy words he’d drawn from her lips were not the ones he recalled as he pleasured himself. Instead, her soft, lilting voice while she’d tried to put her feelings to words whispered around his mind.

Like that feeling on the warmest, clearest summer day . . . where you lie upon the highest peak of the greenest hill and stare up at the clouds as they float past. Only, this with you . . . it is like . . . I’m one of those clouds drifting past . . .

At the back of his ballocks, pressure built.

Wingrave fumbled his spare hand about for his jacket.

He snatched the kerchief just in time.

Wingrave stiffened and then came in an exquisitely fierce orgasm. He groaned and continued to pump his shaft, until he’d emptied himself of every last drop of come.

Spent, he collapsed forward. His head collided with Helia’s legs. She stirred but remained sleeping.

It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough.

His breath settled into an even pattern and he cringed. Good God, he’d just brought himself off while she lay sleeping on his mother’s desk. Apparently, Wingrave was more depraved than he’d ever credited himself with being. He, of all men, possessed a moral sense.

With a disgusted grimace, Wingrave dropped the soiled kerchief still clutched in his fingers.

He stood, then carefully lifted Helia in his arms. She immediately curled against him like the cat he’d sooner chop his tongue off than admit he enjoyed petting.

Wingrave carried Helia to a nearby pale-green-and-pink silk brocade sofa.

He lay her down . . . and only so that she did not roll off the makeshift bed, Wingrave lay beside her . . . and soon, he joined Helia in sleep.