Saving Grace (Fair Cyprians of London 1)

He laughed softly. “I hope I can last a little longer the next time.” He paused, then asked awkwardly, “Why did you have no one to turn to?”

Surprised by his interest, she decided to lay herself bare.

“My family refused to have anything to do with me after I … disgraced them. My mam gave me what savings she had and sent me to London, making me promise I’d never contact them again.”

His warmth was comforting, the familiarity taking her back to the days when they could speak of so many things as he sketched or painted her: the many injustices Mrs Medley meted out and David’s troubles concerning his controlling mama.

She snuggled closer and he reached across to pull the covers over her as she went on. “In London I became apprenticed to a milliner until she, too, dismissed me when I could no longer hide my growing belly. I used the last of my money to pay the midwife and was going to take the babe to the foundling home. I had no means of supporting either of us, of course, but the babe became sick and as I nursed it, I grew to love it. I couldn’t let it die so I called a doctor but I couldn’t pay him … or get medicine.”

He frowned, indicating for her to go on. “The doctor suggested … I pay him in kind.” She swallowed painfully. “I had no choice. He took me against the wall in the room where I slept because my baby was screaming on the bed. He came

often after that—” She breathed deeply, “—until my baby died.”

She glanced across at him. David’s eyes were dark with sympathy as he lightly caressed her.

“Were you not able to get respectable work?”

“I tried.” Oh God, she wasn’t going to cry, was she? “But I’d been dismissed without a character. No one would employ me so I had to return to the streets until I was procured by Madame Chambon.”

“Is she a good employer?”

“I can’t complain, I suppose, though she knows how to make her money out of us girls. Nevertheless she’s taught me how to hold my own with a duchess. I now speak like a lady, am fully versed in proper etiquette and I can converse on the current affairs of the day in order to entertain the customers. That’s why Madame Chambon charges so much for one of her girls.”

“And that is why you are here.” Carefully he ran gentle fingers over her eyes, cheeks, jawline. “And for once I’m glad of my interfering mama and her high standards.”

Smiling, he moulded her buttocks with the barest pressure. But the pressure she felt inside her was like nothing she’d known before. She’d been drained by the telling of her story but he’d not reacted with revulsion. He still wanted to touch her. The excitement she’d felt during their lovemaking was returning, and with even greater force.

She’d told him everything and it seemed he was ready to repeat the intimacies of earlier.

Now he raised himself, feeling his way over her until his body caged hers. One hand traced her hips. As if studying their shape and form, he stroked the jutting bones before sliding his hand into the juncture between her legs.

He grinned and murmured, “Oh, you really do like it when I touch you there.” He slid his fingers deeper into her heat. They glided through her moisture and she shivered all the more.

He moved his face closer to hers and for a moment she thought he was about to kiss her, then he drew back, perhaps remembering her stricture.

But, oh how she wanted to be seared by the heat of his passion—and it could be ignited by a single kiss, she knew it.

“That is … heaven,” she gasped, opening her eyes to see his glazed with passion.

A great poignant need gripped her heart. She had him in thrall. He was her slave, and how she longed to enjoy him again in the fullest sense. To feel him stretch out his responses. To claim responsibility for tutoring him in how to be the best lover he could be.

She brought his face down and kissed him deeply.

His response was immediate. Electric. His arms went round her, crushing her to him, his mouth encompassing hers completely. She could feel his heart beating fast and furious as he sucked her lip, burning her with the heat of his passion, his tongue tangling with hers, until she could take no more and thought she would drown of need.

“I want you,” she whispered. “Now! Take me!”

“With pleasure, Miss Fortune.” He felt for her entrance so he could position himself. “I’ll show you I can be both willing slave and obliging master,” he breathed with a touch of the old humour she remembered.

Over his shoulder her gaze raked the length of their bodies, so nearly joined as one. Just as she’d dreamed of for so long. He dipped his fingers once more into her silken heat before she felt the swell of his erection begin to breach her entrance.

“Oh!”

They gasped in unison, the sound a catalyst for the cataclysmic reactions that followed as he sheathed himself fully in her.

“Dear God,” he moaned, twining one hand behind her head to keep her face close to his while the other gripped her bottom. Her skin burned at his touch, her heart beat furiously and she thought she would die of pleasure as she felt his fullness inside her, a testament to his possession and, she could pretend for a brief moment, his love.

“Oh, David,” she whispered on the faintest breath as together they bucked and rode each other to the summit of their pleasure.