Sutton's Seduction (The Sinful Suttons 4)

There it was again, that thinly veiled barb she could not like, for it took her far too close to utter ruin. Too close to the bitter reminder of who she truly was and why she was here. In the dreamy state of passion, it was easy to forget.

“I…” She hesitated, swallowing against a rush of longing as he caressed achingly near to the flesh he had just been tantalizing, but stopped short of stroking her folds. “I wish you would not call me that.”

His lips twisted. “Are you not a nob?”

“I am Emma,” she said. “And I am yours for the next six days. That is all that matters.”

“Not an answer.” His head dipped, and he delivered another series of licks to her swollen bud.

Punishment? She did not know, but her hips were moving of their own accord, seeking that mouth. Wanting more of whatever he would give her.

“It is the only answer you shall get from me,” she vowed, determined that he should not know her in any way other than this.

He stilled, his head lifting again. “You’ll have my tongue on your cunny, but not your name on my lips?”

Yet again, it was as if he had been privy to her thoughts. But she did not wish to answer, so she maintained her silence, biting her lip instead. Holding his gaze. If she told him her full name, the damage to Abigail and Cassandra could prove irreparable.

He pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, avoiding where she wanted him most. “Is this a challenge, milady? More of your games? You play the innocent and then throw yourself at me like the most seasoned courtesan. Which are you, I wonder? Where is the true Emma?”

What a question for him to ask. She had lost herself some time ago. Perhaps when her mother had died. Perhaps it had been when she had been drawn into the glittering temptation of the social whirl. When she had ruled the debutantes. When every lady whose path she had crossed had wanted to be her.

But they had all been waiting for her to fall.

And when she had, they had laughed and snickered behind their fans. And when the last of her father’s funds had been exhausted, there had been no friends for her to turn to. Not one.

The remembrance brought an unwanted rush of tears, replacing the desire, banishing the heady forgetfulness that had ruled while his tongue had been working her into a frenzy. She blinked them away. She would not weep. Not here. Not now.

“I am whatever you want me to be,” she told him honestly.

Because she was not herself. She had become as much a stranger to herself as he was.

“Why do you wait?” she pressed, needing to have the bedding over with.

Not because she was filled with desire; no, the thoughts of the past had thoroughly killed her ardor, obliterated her ability to forget. Because she could not bear waiting any longer. She knew what she was here for, and it was not her own pleasure. Nor was it to linger in the depths of sin with him. She had a purpose. A noble goal. She was here for Cassandra’s and Abigail’s sakes.

Here because she had no choice.

To her utter consternation, a tear squeezed free from the corner of her eye and slid down her temple.

Abruptly, he withdrew, rising on his knees as he reached for the discarded bedclothes and threw them over her nudity. His countenance was suddenly harsh, his jaw firm. Wiping his hand over his lips, he left the bed, and then presented her with his back as he stalked across the room, to the pitcher and basin.

She watched, bereft, as he splashed water on his face anew. Another tear seeped from her eye and trailed after the first. She scrubbed it away and clutched the bedclothes over her bare breasts, feeling more exposed to him than she had been when she had lain naked beneath him.

Emma waited for him to speak, to acknowledge the hasty manner in which he had abandoned her. The rush with which he had fled her side. But he maintained his silence, his movements jerky as he wiped his face dry and then used the discarded linen to mop his chest. With measured motions, he pulled a shirt over his head, hiding the beauty of his masculine form from her avid gaze.

“Why did you stop?” she asked at last, growing weary of the manner in which he ignored her.

He turned back to her looking wild and rakish, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, the tails still free of his trousers. “I don’t fuck the unwilling, milady.”

Without awaiting her response, he pivoted and strode from the room, the door slamming at his back.