* * *
Emily bounced on Justin's back like a sack of meal. The muscled ridge of his shoulder cut off her
breath with each long stride.
"You . . . might . . . consider . . . putting . . . me . . . down," she gasped.
He ignored her. He paused at the first door they encountered and kicked it open, jarring Emily's entire body.
She heard an angry cry and a muffled squeak of protest.
"Sorry," he said, but his tone was unrepentant.
He swung away from the door without bothering to close it, treating Emily to a most sordid sight. She twisted her head to the left, then to the right, before slapping her hands over her eyes. "My goodness!
She must be frightfully agile, mustn't she? I saw something like that once in the circus."
Justin maintained his stony silence. His foot slammed into the next door. To Emily's distress, the room was unoccupied.
"I should really like to go home now," she said in a small voice.
He tossed her on the bed and strode back to bolt the door. She sat up and hugged her knees, curling into
a timid knot among the rumpled sheets. Stale perfume rose from their folds, and she tried not to think about what might have transpired there only moments earlier. A dank chill hung in the fireless room.
Justin whipped off his cloak and threw it over a chair, then turned to face her. Emily realized she had seen him angry before, but never so coldly furious.
He raked a hand through his hair. "I haven't slept for over thirty-six hours. I've spent the last twelve of those combing every lice-infested claphouse in London for you." A single word shot from his lips. "Why?"
She bowed her head, struggling to gather the threads of her pride, sensing she might need them. When
she lifted her head, her eyes were dry, her voice calm. "I no longer wished to be a burden to you. I wanted my freedom."
"Freedom?" His voice cracked on a disbelieving note. He crossed to the bed and snatched her up by the shoulders. "Is this what you call freedom? Spreading your legs for any man willing to lay down his coin?" His eyes blazed, giving her a harrowing glimpse of the raw hurt fueling his anger.
An uncontrollable shaking seized her. She couldn't look him in the eye.
He lowered her. "Fine," he said with glacial calm. "I've paid my coin."
He dragged off his tie and began to unbutton his waistcoat.
Emily scrambled back against the headboard. "Not you?" she whispered, horror-struck.
He stood with legs planted firmly apart, his fists resting on his narrow hips. "Any man but me, eh?
How gratifying. Didn't Mrs. Rose teach you to flatter your clients, not unman them?"
Emily could tell by the precise cut of Justin's broadcloth trousers that he was in no danger of being unmanned.
He strode to the bed and cupped her head in his palm. His long fingers tangled in her curls in a travesty
of tenderness. "Sorry, darling, but whores don't have the privilege of picking and choosing their liaisons. For a hundred pounds I'll expect a little enthusiasm." His lips came down on hers in a silken whisper. "Fake it if you must." Emily expected his kiss to be brutal, only to find it utterly ruthless in its gentleness. His mouth played over hers with merciless skill, teasing, tugging with his teeth, then laving her parted lips with his tongue, priming her for its deeper invasion. His was the kiss of the concubine, enslaving with its promise of erotic pleasures to come. It was a kiss to steal not only her body, but her soul as well. The first tear slipped from her lashes before he could pause to draw a breath.
* * *
He blew softly on her moistened lips. "Emily, sweet Emily," he whispered hoarsely. "You were made
for this, weren't you? Made to pleasure a man."
Not just any man, her heart cried. Only him. He slid his tongue between her lips, taking her mouth in deep possessive strokes as he eased her back on the bed. She felt herself sliding irrevocably beneath the lean, hard planes of his body. His hands glided down her sides, grazing the swell of her breasts, the slender dip of her waist. His palms cupped her rear, molding her for his pleasure, the sheer dress a gossamer web between them.
Emily felt herself losing to the consummate seduction of this cool, practiced stranger. Losing everything she had fought so hard to win. Her pride. Her independence. Even the anger that had kept the world at bay until she had washed up into Justin's waiting arms. She had outwitted the sea, only to find herself drowning in a deeper pool. She had leaned over to find her reflection in its still, cool depths and been dragged into a whirling maelstrom of passion. If she couldn't kick her way to the surface, she knew she would die a thousand shuddering deaths beneath his artful touch.
She tugged her mouth away from his. She was crying in earnest now, small convulsive sobs that
wouldn't stop. "Please, Justin. Not like this. '
"Shhh," he whispered. He gently stroked her breast, soothing her puckered nipple beneath his thumb.
His other hand wandered lower. "That's it, darling, open your legs for me. You're so sweet, Em. So
sweet and hot . . . and wet."
Her sob broke on a moan.
Justin smothered it with his lips, further beyond her reach than she realized. He had intended only to frighten her, to teach her a lesson. To show her she couldn't persist in her madcap schemes without suffering the consequences.
He had expected resistance to his crude assault. But when her soft, trembling lips had parted beneath his, he had become more lost than she. The lesson was out of his hands now. A primal lust overpowered
him. He had wanted her for so long . . . forever, it seemed.
Maddened by the promise of heaven cupped in his palm, he pressed his fingers deep inside of her, shamelessly ravishing her quivering warmth.
It was then that he realized how still she was lying beneath him. He lifted his head. She lay shivering,
her eyes shut, tears sparkling like gilt on her lashes. Dear God, she was going to allow him to do it, he thought. To take her in the punishing heat of anger. Her abject surrender was so alien to her proud
nature that he felt something inside of him twist in anguish.
Was it any wonder she was confused? One minute he was berating her like a child, the next fondling
her like a whore. He hadn't the courage to treat her like a woman because that might mean losing her forever.
Blood pounded through his groin in a primal protest, but he knew to take her now would somehow be
as cruel or cruder than rape.
She kept her eyes pressed shut as he wrapped his cloak around her and lifted her. Her arms crept around his neck with a lingering trust that reopened a raw wound in his heart. As Justin strode through the parlor with his burden, Mrs. Rose's clientele fell into an awed hush. Emily burrowed her face into his chest and he eased a fold of the cloak over her, shielding her from their stares and whispers. The footmen hastily stepped out of his way. Not a soul dared protest as he carried her into the sheltering darkness of the night.
* * *
Penfeld, God bless his proper English soul, didn't utter a word of reproach when his wild-eyed master came pounding on his bedroom door near midnight.