CHAPTER2
He was lost in her.
Lost in his mystery woman who had intruded upon the calm quiet of his evening with the seductive fury of a mythical Siren. She was calling him to the rocks. Calling him to disaster.
And he did not give a bloody goddamn.
Wolf prided himself on his restraint. He had been tempted many times. He’d been born and raised in the rookeries, and Wolf had been presented with the sordid opportunities which inevitably offered themselves. But nothing about the lady in his arms felt sordid. And not one thing about the sweet, seductive play of her mouth against his was like any kiss that had preceded it.
He had always stopped before temptation led him astray. Because unlike his father, Wolf believed in duty. And his duty was to his family, the Suttons. To his siblings, their collective livelihood, the thriving and ever-growing business empire they had built and grown together. Petticoats were a distraction he did not require and could not afford. He had believed himself in love once, and what a bleeding fool he had been. The sting and the bitterness of his youthful folly had taught Wolf everything he needed to know.
He had a perfectly able hand, and he employed it regularly, to much satisfaction.
Which was why he never did what he was doing now, feeding off a woman’s mouth as if his very life depended upon it, his hands roving her body as if she were his to please. He was perfectly content to watch over The Sinner’s Palace, tend to his family as they needed, and distract himself with physical exertion that involved neither quim nor faithless hearts.
So why could he not stop? What was it about this lady, whose full name he did not even know, whose business here at The Sinner’s Palace remained shadowy and unspoken, this widow with her pristine kid gloves and slippers and her ball gown and jewels, that made him want to take her in his arms and carry her away to his bed? A bed where he had never taken another. What was it about her that made him long to keep her there all night? To eschew every responsibility, all the warning within his very soul for this woman?
Portia.
Her name was Portia.
It was lovely and elegant and clearly the name of a lady, just as her dress and manners suggested she was. But despite that and his own determination to avoid all entanglements, Wolf was kissing her. Her breasts were full and lush, crushed into his chest, her hip a decadent curve molded perfectly to his palm. And her response to him.
Lord God, her response.
She was kissing him as if she were desperate for him, as if she were starved for the feeling of his lips, as if she were breathing him in and out. Her mouth was hungry and skilled, hot and lush, and the answering lust she inspired in him was not just voracious, but heady. She was making needy little sounds low in her throat. Her fingers clutched at him, her nails biting into his flesh through the layers of civility separating them, tongue mating with his in a furor of longing that threatened to bring him to his knees.
They were moving.
Wolf could not be certain which of them initiated the advance. Perhaps it was mutual. All he did know was that they were traveling over the sumptuous carpets, their lips never parting, their kisses unending. Headed for the desk. Lurching into the damned thing, actually.
In a daze of desire, he realized the pain in his hip was the bite of the massive, carved desk connecting with flesh and bone. Not even the ache was enough to stop him. Whether it was the spur of her eager hands passing over his body, the throaty mewls as they kissed, or the nature of this meeting, her identity cloaked in mystery, he could not say.
But he was beyond the point of stopping himself.
Wolf caught her waist in his hands and lifted her until her rump was on the desk. Without breaking their kiss, he found her gown and petticoats, crumpling fabric in his fists, raising the layers up her calves, past her knees. And there he lingered, for he had forever been helpless to resist the forbidden allure of the sheltered bend behind a lady’s knee. He had not often had occasion to caress a woman thus; indeed, only one had preceded her, but paradise awaited.
His fingers dipped into the warmth, and though her silken stockings kept him from the soft flesh he longed for, her moan of need spurred him on. He caressed higher, skimming over her garters, and finally found the glory of her skin. Supple and smooth and curved. Her thighs parted in an invitation he readily accepted, drawn to the blazing heat of her cunny.
Wolf was about to go too far, and he knew it. But her arms wound around his neck, holding him tight to her, and she deepened the kiss, sucking on his tongue. The act, so lewd and hungry, could not help but to make him think of her mouth elsewhere. He groaned and pressed his aching cock against the desk between her legs, seeking relief and finding none. Not even the sharp hardness of the wood could provide sufficient distraction.
All he could think, all he could feel, all he wanted was her.
More of her.
And the beckoning warmth radiating from her quim.
Quim.
He was a scant inch from the heart of her, and the urge to see her was every bit as fierce as the need to touch. He wanted to stroke her silken flesh, to discover how wet she was. To make her writhe and moan with desire. But he also wanted to look. To feast his eyes on the sight of her flushed and disheveled on the desk, lips swollen from his kisses, her hems raised, thighs open. If he was going to go this far, he wanted everything, wanted to become drunk on her.
It was reckless and wrong, going against every guiding principle that had led him through his life thus far. He had no notion of why of all the women in London, this one should tempt him beyond control, but she did. Her boldness, her beauty, the rightness of her curves aligned so sweetly to his body—he had no notion. It hardly mattered.
Why had he been waiting?
Who had he been waiting for?
In this moment, it seemed irrevocable that he had been waiting for her, for this mysterious lady who had barged into his world and kissed him first. This gorgeous goddess of a brunette whose height nearly matched his and who kissed with such potent eloquence that he thought he could cheerfully spend the rest of his days doing nothing but worshiping her mouth.
All questions died when his touch slid unerringly higher, to the apex of her thighs. Taking command of the kiss, he cupped her mound, a surge of possession unlike any he had ever known colliding with the desire. She might as well have been fashioned of flame, for her heat seared him, and the dew seeping from her bathed his fingertips.
Wolf could not resist.
His middle finger stroked up and down her seam, dipping between her plump folds where she was even slicker and hotter. His seeking digit found her entrance. She moaned into his mouth and her hips jerked as he lightly circled her there, taunting them both with light pressure, nothing more than his fingertip driving against her in a slow, shallow thrust.
More.
It was a litany in his mind. A pounding in his heart. His entire chest was seized in the grip of something indefinably wondrous, as if he were going to fly out of his skin at any moment.
More, more, more.
His prick was harder than a marble bust, rising to rude prominence against the desk, and it felt so bloody good—everything felt so damned good—that he rocked against the piece of furniture, as if he were fucking her instead of a lifeless hunk of carved wood. Like a simple-minded beast, he pressed nearer. He followed her slit as he finally tore his lips from hers, burying his face in her throat, where she was soft and floral scented and her pulse beat a frantic rhythm against his questing mouth. He opened, tasting her sweetness on his tongue, sucking her creamy skin until she sighed.