On These Silken Sheets Read online

  She held him tight in her arms and hugged him tighter inside as she’d learned to do, her muscles clenching. She understood his possessiveness and she reveled in it.

  She wanted to scream when she came, hard, arcing up against him, but she bit his hand instead.

  He grabbed both her arms then, lifted them up over her head and held them there as he kept thrusting until he too climaxed and collapsed over her.

  Their ragged breaths sounded like thunder in the quiet room.

  Then Carolina laughed. After a moment, Henry’s low rumble joined her. He leaned up on his elbows and stared down into her smiling face.

  “So, whom do you drive out with tomorrow?” Henry asked, before dipping back down for another kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Something changed between them that night, and they were both aware of it. The halcyon days were coming to an end, so they played games and teased each other more than before. Every look was a seduction, every moment a secret shared. And in between the sexual explosions, Carolina began to learn about her lover.

  He’d spent the last four years since his brother’s death up in Yorkshire, putting the ancestral estate to rights, because even though his brother had disparaged Henry’s town ways, James himself had slowly been bleeding the land dry.

  Henry didn’t care for politics but he did care about the people on his land, the people who relied on the Bosworths for their livelihood.

  “It’s the very least I can do,” Henry said, his arms bent behind his head, Carolina’s head on his chest. “Those men and women make my way of life possible.”

  Silently, Carolina traced circles on his bare skin, enjoying the texture of his hair on her fingers.

  “That’s why my father…” she said, after a while, “…that’s why he wants to marry me off so quickly. Because we’re short of funds.” She finished the last in an embarrassed, barely audible whisper.

  Henry let out a breath of a laugh, still aware that they were in her father’s house, that he couldn’t make too much noise.

  “When I was younger, I used to live off your father half the time, as I never had funds of my own,” Henry explained. “I never imagined Alistair couldn’t afford the life.”

  He slid out from under her and turned onto his side. The drapes were open and he could just make out her face in the moonlight.

  “You’re all the currency he has left,” Henry mused, running his hands over her curves. “And I took the priceless virginity.”

  “Thief,” she teased, spreading her legs for him.

  “Greedy girl.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Henry told himself he didn’t feel guilty. He did feel, however, the same desperation that Carolina felt, the sense that things couldn’t go on this way much longer. And the thought made him wild and reckless in his need.

  Carolina was his but she wasn’t, and in his need to possess her, he felt he had to show the world he possessed her as well.

  Under the smirking gaze of Jack the footman, Henry secreted her out of the house. Once in the privacy of his closed carriage, he handed her a plain black cloak and a silk mask, as if she were going to a masquerade.

  “But where are we going?” Carolina asked yet again, laughing.

  “Someplace where we can indulge your desire to watch.”

  She stopped laughing. Her blue eyes, under the mask, widened.

  “You may see people you recognize while there, but with your disguise they won’t recognize you. Do not acknowledge anyone,” Henry instructed.

  She nodded, taking it all in.

  “But what is this place?” she asked for the fifth time.

  “Harridan House,” Henry revealed as the carriage drew up to the curb. “A place of decadent sin, where I spent much of my youth. This, my greedy girl, I share with you.”

  The carriage door opened.

  Henry ran a teasing finger along the lower half of her cheek and then climbed out. Firmly on the ground, he turned back, reaching up to assist her. She held his hand tightly, looking all around her as she stepped down.

  The stone building was in a respectable part of town, if not entirely fashionable, and looked just like every other building on the street. If it weren’t for what Henry had said, she would never have guessed that it was a house of sexual indulgence. Henry made it sound impossibly wicked, as if what happened inside went beyond the passionate acts they did together. She couldn’t even imagine.

  The entryway was dim, lit by infrequent candles, and Carolina thought a great many of the guests must stumble over themselves.

  Two young women and a young man greeted them in strange costumes reminiscent of ancient Greece but hardly covering any skin at all. Henry waved them away and led Carolina deeper into the house.

  They entered a room to their right, where a dining room might normally be situated, and Carolina found that, indeed, a long dining table took prominence in the room.

  Laid out upon the table were two women, head to head, as if they were that night’s meal. One of the women looked rather bored, but at the sight of Henry and Carolina she began running her hands down her body with growing enthusiasm, seducing them, urging them to touch her.

  To touch her, perhaps like the woman behind her was being touched, with a man’s head nestled between her legs and an ardent tongue feasting on her folds.

  Carolina found herself stepping forward to get a better view. Henry followed, his hand resting possessively on her hip.

  She watched the stranger’s tongue disappear inside the woman.

  “Henry?” Carolina whispered, questioningly, leaning back against him, slightly dizzy.

  “There’s much more, love,” he whispered back, “come.”

  As they left the room, she looked back over her shoulder. The woman who was alone brought her hand back up to her mouth, her gaze locking with Carolina’s as she licked her finger.

  Completely, utterly shocking, Carolina thought, swiveling her head back. And utterly arousing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They climbed a staircase and entered what in a respectable house would have been the drawing room, but in this house was a melee of decadence.

  There were sofas and chaises, all occupied, but Carolina was most startled by the appearance of three beds out of their normal habitat, the canopies and gauzy draperies offering the only privacy. Henry led her toward one where the gauze was pulled back. Writhing on the bed was a face she recognized.

  She pulled Henry back and leaned close to his ear to whisper.

  “That’s Lord Sedgwick!”

  She thought of what Agathe had told her of the man’s proclivities.

  He was buried to the balls in a woman, his movements only curtailed by the man behind him, who thrust into his backside as if Sedgwick were a woman and that hole meant for such a thing.

  “Yes, and his companion is Lord Stanley Broughton,” Henry revealed and Carolina giggled.

  “I’ve heard the man’s name before, but it’s different to suddenly be able to put a…a body to the name.”

  “Yes, I imagine when you do finally meet the man, you’ll look at him quite differently.” Henry smiled, sharing in her amusement. But then he pulled her away from that bed as well.

  “Have you ever done that?” Carolina asked, hesitantly.

  “Used an ass as a cunt?” Henry said crudely, and she blinked at the words.

  “Cunt is another word for…for my…” she stopped, realizing she had no good word for that area.

  “Yes.” Henry grinned, wickedly. “It is. Quim is another, but it has such a different sound to it. Wetter, don’t you think?” Her eyes glazed over and Henry knew just what effect his words had on her. “Next time you beg me to fuck you, ask me to fill your cunt as well.”

  “All right,” she agreed, looking forward to it.

  “But to answer your question, only with a woman, and it is not my preference.”

  She nodded and he was suddenly glad that he was truthfully able to say
that because he thought she looked a bit relieved.

  Out of the corner of his eye he spied Alistair in one of the other beds and Henry carefully guided Carolina out of the room. That was something she didn’t need to see.

  He led her up another set of stairs, to the smaller, more private bedrooms. The first door on his left was open and the room occupied.

  It was a much simpler scenario, a man flat on his back, a woman sucking his cock into her mouth. Both man and woman glanced at the new arrivals but with lazy smiles returned to their business.

  Henry stood just behind Carolina, listening as her breathing quickened. This she liked. He encircled her with his arms, opening the cloak, tugging on the bodice of her dress until her breasts eased free of their constraints and filled his hands.

  She startled at first at the exhibitionism of it and then relaxed against him, pushing her breasts against his palms. He rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, bringing them to their full extension, pleased with her response.

  “You like watching this?” he asked quietly as he licked the sensitive skin behind her ear.

  “Yes,” Carolina breathed. “And I like your tongue and your fingers.”

  He ran his hands down her sides till they came to rest on her hips, then he turned her around and leaned her against the open door.

  He lowered his head to her right breast, ran his tongue across the nipple, then lightly grazed the sensitive flesh with his teeth.

  He knelt down before her and inched her dress up, past her knees, past where her stockings began, up to her waist.

  She took the material in her hands as if he had instructed it. She parted her legs unconsciously. Wanting. Needing.

  He kissed a trail up the naked flesh of her thighs. He heard the climaxing groans of the man on the bed and knew Carolina was watching that man. Her thighs glistened and he breathed deeply the scent of her arousal.

  Henry licked the thin skin where her thigh met the triangle of dark curls.

  And then he drew back.

  “Tell me what you want,” Henry demanded.

  “Your tongue on my cunt,” she said without hesitation, now that she had the vocabulary for her desires.

  And he gave it to her.

  He licked her, ran his tongue up the wet slit, delving inside, enjoying her panting cries. He moved his mouth up to her clit and brought his fingers up to fill her while he concentrated on the nub.

  Her hands found purchase in his hair, playing with the thick waves, and he echoed the massaging circles of her fingers with the movement of his tongue.

  “The man on the bed,” Carolina said with difficulty. “He’s watching us, and he’s doing to that woman what you’re doing to me. He’s imitating us!”

  The fresh gush of hot juices filling his tongue let Henry know just how aroused she was. His own cock was painfully hard, his balls tight and begging for release.

  He focused his movements into small hard circles over her clit and used his hand like his cock, three long fingers filling her. The rippled muscle clenched him hard and he stroked her gently, separating his fingers slightly, changing the sensation.

  Her moans came faster, sharper, louder. Her hands gripped his head almost painfully and she screamed, clenching tight around him again and again as she climaxed.

  He kept his hot, open mouth on her, his tongue now stilled. Slowly, he slid his fingers out and then back in again to pull more tremors from her. Finally, he took his hand away, released his hold on her hips, and she slid down the door to join him on the floor, her skirts falling down around them.

  She looked at him through dazed, sated eyes, lips parted, and he brought his wet hand up to her mouth.

  “Taste yourself,” he instructed, and slid one long finger into her mouth like he had her cunt only moments before. She sucked on it slowly, her eyes widening at the taste of her own arousal and then her tongue licked the sensitive length of his skin.

  He slid his finger out and cupped her cheek in his palm.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

  Her lips quirked up in a small smile. “I feel that way when you look at me.”

  The other couple squeezed past them, stepping over Henry’s legs as they left the room.

  The room was silent in their wake. Carolina could hear laughter, moans and low conversation. But all distant, all far away.

  Henry’s green eyes were yielding, open, saying things that she wasn’t certain he meant, that she so desperately wanted to believe.

  “What are we doing, Henry?” she asked. Then those beautiful eyes shuttered, grew dark, and he moved his hand away, wiping it idly on his pants.

  “There’s still more to see here,” he answered, his tone devoid of emotion.

  Henry stood up and offered her his hand. She put hers in his and stood as well. Then pulled her dress back up over her naked breasts.

  They left the room and found the hallway further down crowded with people, all peering into another room. Henry led her that way and she followed, wishing she had said nothing.

  They moved to the edge of the raucous crowd, gaining a sliver of a view into the room where on the bed, Sir Robert George, naked, sat astride a rather large woman with very large breasts. He straddled her abdomen, her breasts wrapped around his cock and he pumped back and forth.

  There were all sorts of ribald jests about how the woman was bigger than he was. Carolina looked away. She thought of Sir Robert asking her if she rode. She would never be able to look at the man without thinking of this. If she had any say, she would accept Oakley as a husband over him.

  A hand touched her breast through the dress and instantly, Carolina knew it wasn’t Henry’s. She shied away, looking back at the man who’d touched her.

  She didn’t know him, had never seen him before, but he reached his hand out again as if he thought she wouldn’t mind.

  “Don’t touch her again,” Henry said suddenly in a low, dangerous voice.

  “I’ve never known you to be possessive, Stanton,” the stranger said.

  “She’s mine for now,” Henry responded simply and led Carolina away.

  They moved quickly through the house, down the stairs and waited in the entry hall while the carriage was brought around.

  Side by side, they stood, the silence palpable until finally, Henry took her hand in his.

  Later, as Henry walked her to the service door of her father’s townhouse, he pressed up close behind her and whispered harshly in her ear, “Until you marry, you are mine only. No other man will touch you.”

  “But I’m not yours,” Carolina returned, looking straight forward, struggling to not tremble. “I’m not your mistress. We’re lovers and my body belongs to me. And when I marry, my body will be my husband’s.”

  She knew her words infuriated him but he said nothing else and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty

  She wasn’t at any of the balls the following evening. Henry knew this because, after spending much of the night at the soiree she had mentioned attending without so much as a glimpse of her, he had made an appearance at almost every event in town.

  So she was angry with him. What of it? Henry thought. So she wanted to make some sort of point.

  He tried to stay away but he knew very well his days with her were numbered. Early in the morning, when the servants would be waking and he shouldn’t be sneaking into the Hargreaveses’ house, he did.

  He furtively crept into her room, locking the door behind him.

  “Henry?” she called out. There was no anger in her voice. Relief swept over him, stunning him by its very presence. He moved quickly to her side, his hands reaching for her. She flung herself into his arms. “I’m so sorry, I had no way to let you know.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked slowly, feeling the clammy skin of her forehead against his chin.

  “I feel as though I’ve been turned inside out. I was so violently ill when I woke up yesterday.” After a pause she added in a pitiful little vo
ice, “I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “If you ever need to reach me, send Jack. I pay him well,” Henry said.

  Carolina laughed. “And I’m certain my father doesn’t, or his loyalty wouldn’t be so cheap.”

  She fell away from him, back onto the covers, and curled up in a ball, moaning.

  She looked so small—small and frail. His chest aching, he lay down beside her, drew the hair back from her neck, and slowly massaged the tight muscles of her shoulders.

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. He worked his way down her spine, kneading the muscles, caressing the tension away until he heard her deep, even breathing and knew that she slept.

  A bemused smile on his lips, Henry pulled her close. He rested his arm on the curve of her hip, breathed in the honeysuckle scent of her hair and listened to the sounds of her sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Carolina woke up, hours later, Henry was gone. She sighed deeply, touching the still warm imprint of his body.

  It wasn’t fair. As a child she’d thought she’d loved him, thought that lust was love and confused the two until when the man stood before her, she let him take whatever liberties he wished.

  Now, Carolina knew that her childhood self had known nothing. In fact, two months ago in that library she had known nothing. If she’d known that love could be as painful as this, she would have run away.

  Last night when he’d tried to claim her as his own it had made her angry because all she wanted to be was his!

  She’d thought stupidly that she could be mature and adult about this affair. Enjoy this time for herself with the man she lusted after and then go contentedly to whatever marriage her father dictated.

  She would never be content.

  The thought was underscored by the pain of her stomach clenching, and Carolina stumbled out of the bed in search of the chamber pot.

  Chapter Twenty-Two