Another Lover Read online

  He flipped his fingers through the steaming water, stepping out of the way when the menservants carried in a tri-fold silk screen that opened, protecting the bather from other eyes in the room. She was too thoughtful. He could not have cared less who saw him bathe.

  The servants took up positions on either side of the screen, facing him, their arms folded across their chests. Dorian sensed the challenge in their pose, but wasn’t certain why until he saw her.

  Isabelle entered the room from the door he forbade her to use. He fought back a smile. She marched past him without saying a word, her hands laden with plush-looking yellow towels. More noticeably, she wore only her sheer outer robe.

  Had he been a hunting hound, he would have howled into the air. Dorian took a step to follow her, stopping only when he saw her disappear behind the screen.

  He tilted his head, looking. Disappear wasn’t quite the word he meant. Her silhouette was visible from his side of the room. Her menservants didn’t bat an eyelash as she began to disrobe. The towels, he imagined, fell to the floor. Her body faced the fire, he saw only her profile in stark relief against the screen.

  How would he control his reactions to such a sight? He couldn’t. He didn’t want to. His body took immediate notice and reacted with swift, sexual hardness. Shit, he’d been in her house exactly four hours and he was ready to devour her, starting at her toes. Swallowing hard, his hand crept toward the full maleness throbbing inside his smallclothes.

  He wiped a hand across his mouth.

  She lifted her arms and bunched her hair up with a comb. Her breasts, merde, her breasts rose and bounced. He took another step closer to the screen, intending to knock it down. The two servants would prevent his approach, he knew it instinctively. Her game involved absolute want. He liked her game, but suddenly found himself in over his head.

  A puppet could have had more control, and he would not be her puppet. He clenched his fists. He firmed his resolve.

  Isabelle started a ditty, a few words and a hum. Then a splash as she lifted her leg over the side of the tub and sank into the steamy depths he’d imagined sampling a few short moments ago.

  He stared, hoping the saliva didn’t drip off his chin. The show could only be described as extraordinary—her limbs in and out of the water as she soaped and dunked and soaped again.

  Finally, he turned away. With silent tread, he picked up his shirt and slipped it on. He grabbed one of the periodicals and strolled into her bedchamber. He couldn’t watch another minute. It would be torturous enough sitting in her bedchamber knowing what happened in the room next door.

  Dorian gave in to the inevitable. He would not last the night.

  But then neither would she.

  Isabelle smiled with self-indulgent satisfaction. He’d be wound tighter than a clock by the time she finished. One strike to the tinder and he’d go up in flames.

  She stood, water dripping off her in sensuous runnels. She bent for a towel, giving him another display of her treasures. Walking around the screen, her gaze searched the room.

  He had disappeared.

  Anger ripped through her. She’d selected him to be her lover. She was his lover.

  She advanced across his bedroom with quick, determined steps.

  Slamming the door between their chambers, she notched the squib, locking him out. Marching into her room, barely covered with the large Turkish towels, she stopped when she saw him in front of her fire, in her chair, in her room.

  “Get out. This is not your chamber,” she demanded.

  “Mine was occupied.” He closed the book with a snap and set it on the floor. “Come here.”

  “No. I do not play in this room.”

  “I’m not playing. What do you want, Isabelle?”

  A melting fire started in her core at the sound of her name. The way a lover would say her name. She refused to answer.

  “Remove the towels,” he said.

  She shook her head, wanting to deny him. Trying to control the outcome of their arrangement—and failing.

  His shirt came off again. Then his smallclothes. She stopped breathing. His beauty was unlike that of any man she’d ever seen—sculpted, a scar on his thigh, dark hair in a thick V tapering to his bellybutton—and lower.

  Lower—to the reason they were here. The sight common enough to her. As she had discovered, men were pretty much the same. Dorian, however, wasn’t common. His upthrust cock was proud, beautifully wide and tapered to a round, ruby-colored head.

  Yes, the sight was common enough, except for one small factor. What could he do with it? she wondered.

  “The towels,” he said again, his brows rising in an arched command.

  Isabelle flung the one in her hand away from her. Across her shoulder, another was draped. She slid it down her arm and it floated to the floor. Unable to move, she bit at her lips. Her chest heaved. Never had she wanted a man the way she wanted him. This was truly whoring. All others were business arrangements. This wanting—this needful, pooling, burning ache in the pit of her belly confirmed what she’d always known. She was a whore to her very heart.

  If he gave her true gratification, she’d return his money. She’d never known the “little death”. She wanted to die in Dorian’s embrace.

  The money had blinded her to her calling. She wanted to know real pleasure, real intimacy with a man.

  Dorian had approached. His finger traced the edge of the towel where it caught under her arm. He tugged. The towel fell away, revealing her nakedness and the colorful dragon she had drawn.

  His gaze raked her body.

  “Merde! Who the hell did that to you?” He stepped back, the shocked look on his face and his thunderous words startling her.

  His reaction could not have pleased her more. She did it for him. Dorian Montgomery would get all of her skills, all of her knowledge, all of her enticements.

  His nostrils flared. His eyes squinted as he looked at the body painting she’d done. A green, red and gold dragon crawled up from her thigh, sprawling across her belly, one claw around her bellybutton. One of her Arabic house servants at her Italian villa had shown her how. It had taken Isabelle three days to paint. The tattoo would wash off after a month and she’d drawn it just for him.

  The same woman had shown her how to remove body hair. The first time she’d done it, she felt and looked like a young girl. The body hair she’d had as an adult, she now thought ugly.

  Dorian did not touch the dragon. He smoothed the back of his hand over her hairless, plump mons, staring as though he just now realized some grand secret, even though his fingers had already caressed between her legs.

  If he could resist her now, she’d failed him. His reaction told her what she suspected—he wanted her desperately in spite of his cool reserve earlier. His manhood bobbed and strained toward her, his breathing rapid and shallow.

  Isabelle waited for him to toss her on the bed and ravish her with quick, uncontrollable thrusts. She loved to push men to the brink of their endurance and then speed them to the quick, hard rush of their release. She knew how to do it. She also knew how to keep a man poised on the razor’s edge.

  The palpable air of desire floated around her and caressed her. He wasn’t immune to her charms. In fact, she suspected he wanted her more than any of the others had wanted her. She could not fathom how he had the fortitude to wait.

  “Sweet mother of…” he whispered as he turned her. His hands and fingers splayed across her waist. He pressed his body into her back, his hardness to her soft, yielding bottom. She felt his tender touch between her legs, then he stroked up her body.

  She arched backward, her breasts cradled inside his large palms.

  He nipped and kissed at her shoulder. The throaty moans she heard were all his.

  Now that she’d broken him, she didn’t mind so much they would enjoy their quick session on her bed. Soon she’d have him at her beck and call.

  Escaping his arms, she walked to the bed, her body swaying in a rhyt
hm designed to torment him. Men were fundamentally the same, she knew. Exotic and rare, hard and fast, free and unencumbered—it was all they wanted. It was all she provided.

  Near the bed, she climbed over the yellow coverlet on all fours. And waited. No man could resist her pose.

  The floor creaked. He stepped nearer. She smiled as she felt his hand touch the rounded, smooth skin of her bottom.

  One of his knees leaned against the bed, an arm propped alongside hers. He leaned close and whispered, sending a shard of excitement down her neck and spine.

  “Sweet, you are beyond temptation.”

  One strong arm wrapped around her stomach. He lifted and tossed her on her backside. She bounced in the center of the bed, her hands outspread as she fought to regain her perfected pose.

  Dorian hovered over her, his body pressing her into the soft mattress. So he would be a brute, she thought. She’d heard he had finesse and style in bed. He clasped one of her wrists and lifted upward.

  Isabelle forced her best do-as-you-please smile. What choice did she have? She’d sold herself. She was at Dorian’s mercy, as she had been for all the others.

  The cool silkiness of a cord around her wrist interrupted her thoughts. In a state of panic, she jerked her hand and found it tied to her headboard. Her chest heaved in desperation. Dorian worked at her other wrist, using the cords that held back the canopy curtains. She pulled. “Don’t please… I… I don’t…”

  “Shhh, my sweet. You may like two-minute couplings. I do not. You’re my mistress. We play my games. While I’m gone, I want you to think very seriously about what you want from me. And then you are going to ask me for it.”

  * * * * *

  Dorian left her struggling on the bed. Finally, she displayed some of the spark he knew her capable of.

  He had to get some air before he ravished the woman. His body made demands he did not want to fill at her tempo. Pacing had always been his strength. The longer he could go, the more pleasure he got. Of course, his women never complained either.

  Only Isabelle knew how to use a man’s weaknesses against him. He’d lit up—hot and hard—ready to plunge into her expensive and seemingly magical cunt. If he hadn’t known her game, he’d have given in without a second thought. But he wouldn’t be just another lover.

  He wouldn’t be like them either. He hadn’t paid eleven thousand pounds to have her control their liaison. He wanted to use her thoroughly, deeply and passionately.

  He strolled naked across the room. With a last backward glance, he sought Isabelle’s face. Her wild-eyed gaze shot through him. He’d roused her anger completely.

  “Don’t struggle so fiercely, Isabelle. I do not want you to be too exhausted for what’s coming.”

  Her nostrils flared. She bit back whatever response she wanted to hurl at him.

  Inside the adjoining chamber, her two servants were carting away the water and the tub. Upon closer inspection, he could see they were brothers. Dorian stopped in front of them, uncaring and unashamed. Their mistress was a paid whore who bathed in front of her male servants. Doubtless, they’d seen things more shocking than a naked man. Naked and without boots, he still stood two inches taller than either of them.

  “I want this house empty. If I see or hear either of you gentlemen over the next thirty days, I will find a way to make your lives very uncomfortable.”

  “But the mistress says we stay, so we stay. No matter what,” said one of the servants. They glanced at each other, hoping for reinforcement.

  “Be gone after dinner this evening. Oh, and I’ll make it worth your while.” He took the few steps toward his jacket and his pocket change. He lifted out a roll of cash and counted out the approximate equivalent of one year’s salary. They didn’t budge. He doubled the amount before he caught their attention. They glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

  “I won’t hurt her,” he said with utter sincerity. He wasn’t a man to abuse a woman, especially when he intended to enjoy her so completely, but men like Dane weren’t to be trusted. He agreed with her decision to have protection though the guards were inconvenient for what he had in mind.

  He saw the moment they gave in—he had paid them a ridiculous amount. Even Isabelle’s servants weren’t cheap.

  “We’ll stay out of sight, but we won’t be far away,” one of them said as he tucked the money in his jacket.

  “That seems only fair,” Dorian answered. He just did not want them in the way. They were both bobbing and yes sir-ing by the time they left the room. Undoubtedly, Isabelle would be furious when she found out. He’d just have to keep her busy so she didn’t notice.

  At the door, one of them stopped. “The cook and her maid are here in the morning, sir.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Dorian said. He couldn’t get rid of everyone, but they would know to do their duty and leave the mistress and her new lover to themselves. He’d see to it. Isabelle would not be bothered with the running of her household while she was on his payroll.

  A pitcher of water stood on the bureau. He filled the matching bowl then cupped his palms and doused himself thoroughly in the cool, cleansing moisture. It brought some clarity back to his Isabelle-fogged brain.

  The wild stirring of his physical needs also dampened a bit. Breathing deeply, he calmed the erratic beating of his heart.

  Planning for this moment over the past three years had produced some vivid and startling images in his mind. He hoped to act out every one of them, but only to Isabelle’s level of comfort.

  He returned to the door between their rooms. Isabelle St. Hillaire was tied to her bed waiting for him. Finally.

  Chapter Three

  Her beautiful, lithe body lay stretched out on the bed like a virginal offering on a yellow, downy altar. Her fierce-looking body artwork stared back at him, its reptilian teeth gleaming white along her hipbone. Who knew such a sight could arouse him so? And her hairless, smooth body tempted him beyond reason. He’d have to go slow. It would be torturous, but he could do it.

  Isabelle refused to acknowledge that he’d returned to the room. She wasn’t pleased.

  No matter.

  Strolling closer to the bed, he bent over, running his finger down the inside of her wrist, the length of her arm, touching the smoothness of her hairless underarm. Her breast he circled with slow motions meant to excite her. The rapid rise and fall of her chest betrayed her otherwise stoic expression.

  He traced a path down her stomach. Her muscles quivered at the slow, exciting touch. At the tattoo, he stopped. Isabelle stared at him now. He grinned before lowering his head and licking the dragon’s tail coiled around her leg, toward the inside of her thigh. She bunched her muscles, fiercely trying to keep him from intruding farther.

  “What do want, Isabelle?” he asked. “What can I give you?”

  Her expression surprised him. He imagined her cool disdain. He imagined her forced passion while he gave her orders, made her switch positions, touch him just so, all the while giving him the insane pleasure rumor suggested.

  What he saw gave him a satisfying shock. She wanted him. She wanted whatever he was going to do to her.

  “You have to tell me. You have only to ask,” he said.

  “No, I should be pleasing you. Let me. Please.” She tugged at the silken threads binding her hands.

  “I don’t want your kind of pleasure. The kind that takes only a few minutes of your time and very little of your effort. You’re good, you know. I know what you to do your men. How you make them want so insanely beforehand, only to have them squander their pleasure as soon as they’re inside you.”

  “I can do so much for you,” she suggested.

  “It’s all been done to me before, Isabelle. When I’m inside you, I’m going to stay there until the neighbors hear you scream.”

  She sucked in a steadying breath, licking her lips.

  “You paid for me, now let me do my job,” she said with breathy excitement.

  He
laughed. “Your job? As I suspected. You don’t take pleasure in what you do. Is that it, Isabelle?” He scooted closer, leaning one hand across her body, his bare hip next to her dragon. Or her bare hip next to his dragon.

  “I don’t like to be tied,” she said.

  “So?”

  “You said to tell you what I wanted. I don’t want to be tied.”

  “No, you’ll think of some other clever trick to get me wound up and spent before I’m ready.” And entice him in others ways, for which he also was not ready. Isabelle had all the perfect, practiced manners he’d seen with other purchased women. The women of the ton might not be purchased for money, but they never said no to jewels.

  What was it about Isabelle that captivated him so? For every last man, every lover he’d known that had purchased her favors had, indeed, fallen in love with her. The way they’d mooned over her when describing their time with her was laughable, except he was starting to understand how they felt.

  “I won’t do that. You’ve only to tell me what pleases you,” she said softly.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m used to men’s idea of hurting. I don’t like to be fettered. It makes me feel closed in. Trapped,” she confessed.

  “Ah, well, we’ll have to work through that. For now, what pleases me is for you to lie there like a good girl.”

  She relaxed at his soothing words. Or she was playing more of her game in an attempt to placate and seduce him.

  He placed his hand on her stomach and stroked upward. Her breasts had been tempting him through the entire conversation. Dorian bent low, opened his mouth over a hard little nipple and sucked inward.

  She gasped. Her body tensed.

  No, Dorian thought, she doesn’t know what real pleasure is. He gazed into her eyes and the dual sensations of fire and ice goaded him. “For now, what pleases me is for you to lie there like a very good girl and open your legs for me.”

  Isabelle arched off the bed, moaning with want she couldn’t control.