Behind the Courtesan’s Mask Read online

  He was not married. He would not be here if he was. She took this in, and at the same time tried very hard to pay it no heed. It shouldn’t matter, but it did, and this had gone quite far enough. Constance was frightened now, not of him but of herself. Temptation was urging her, not to take the money, but to take the man, a persistent voice in her head, telling her that no one would ever know, reminding her that only a short while ago she had been wondering what it would be like to do exactly this. Temptation was prompting her to look at the dark-as-sin man in front of her, with his firm flesh and seductive lips. This not-married man would linger over their lovemaking. His touch would be sure. He would be knowledgeable, temptation was whispering urgently to her now. He would know how to make you feel the pleasures of sin, which until now you have only imagined. He would be expert.

  “Five thousand,” Troy repeated.

  “I cannot imagine what you would expect for such a sum.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can.”

  Could she? Oh, God, she should not even try. “No,” Constance said, more to her inner voice than to the man.

  “You wish me to elaborate then?” Troy asked. He was beginning to lose sight of the objective. He wanted to kiss her. He had to kiss her. “For five thousand, I’d expect a lot of this, for a start.”

  “A lot of what?” Constance asked faintly, but she already knew, for his arms were around her, and they were such strong arms. His body was pressed against hers, and it was such a hard body, so solid, so elementally male. And his mouth was descending upon hers, his eyes half-closed, a dark glint of need reflected in them.

  “Kisses,” Troy said. “I would expect a lot of kisses.” And then his lips took possession of hers.

  She had been kissed chastely, with the public affection of a man for his wife. She had been kissed in the dark of the marital bedroom, lasciviously. The former made her feel nothing, the latter a mixture of shame and disgust. She had never before been kissed with raw passion. She had never before kissed back with passion. But now she was and she did, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  A sheet of flame enveloped them at the first touch, as if the gods were furious, or perhaps celebrating. A flash of fire between them, forcing them together, crushing each other, pushing against each other, as their mouths melded, their tongues tangled and desire roared to life.

  His hands were in her hair, on her neck, on her arms, her back. His mouth was hot, dark, sinful, just as shockingly sinful as she had imagined. Heat licked through her veins. Her nipples hardened painfully. A need, a craving, an irresistible force, took her in its grip, leaving her gasping for breath.

  “No,” she said, because she knew she should, though she couldn’t imagine what it was she was denying, at the same time pulling him closer, reclaiming his mouth, her hands clawing at the sleeves of his coat. This was wrong. She had to stop. “Five thousand is a lot for mere kisses.”

  “Oh, I expect a lot more than kisses. Or at least a lot more than kisses such as these.”

  “What other kisses can there be?”

  Once again, he was almost fooled by her seemingly genuine innocence. Troy laughed. “There are other places I would like to kiss you,” he said, touching her skirts.

  It took her a moment to catch his meaning. Color flooded her face as she did, and heat flooded her belly at the very notion of such intimacy. “Sir! You cannot mean…”

  “Madam, I never say what I do not mean.” He kissed her neck. He kissed the delicious mounds of her breasts, rolling his tongue over the pearls.

  “Please, I cannot…”

  “Yes, you can. Charming as this ingenue act is, there is no need for false modesty.”

  “I really cannot…”

  “Ten thousand, then,” Troy said, a frankly ridiculous sum, though he barely registered it.

  Constance gasped. “You cannot mean it.”

  No, he did not, and she could not possibly expect him to offer more. No man in his right mind would have offered so much already, whether he intended to pay or not. “Ten,” he repeated.

  “And for ten thousand—what else would you expect?” She ought not to ask, but she wanted to know what more he could possibly expect, for she had absolutely no idea.

  He ought not to answer. He ought not even to think about it, for in thinking about it, he was simply torturing himself. Troy tried to assemble his thoughts, but his infallible logic, his cool business head, had completely deserted him. She felt so good. Voluptuous. Exotic. Enticing. And yet her kisses were beguilingly innocent, her touch alluringly chaste. She looked like a temptress and she kissed like a virgin. She went to his head. And other parts. He licked his way across her breasts, breathing deep of her scent. “For ten thousand, I would expect you to kiss me.”

  Constance frowned. “But…”

  “Here,” Troy said, and laid her hand on his pantaloons, over his aching erection.

  Constance remembered the dolls, the curved ivory shafts. This man put them to shame. Bigger. And more solid. And hot, even through his clothing. And he wanted her to kiss him there! Oh, God, don’t think about it. She snatched a breath, then she snatched her hand away. “I am afraid that ten thousand is quite—quite insufficient for such a request.”

  He ached to have her stroke him. Just stroke him. Nothing more. Definitely nothing more. “Twenty,” Troy said, a veritable fortune and a final test, though whether of her resolve or his, he was less than sure.

  “Thirty,” Constance said recklessly, thinking that surely now he would realize they were playing some mad game, for they truly were in the land of fantasy.

  He could feel her nipples, pressing hard against the satin of the dress. He ran his thumbs over them, relishing the way she shivered in response. He should leave. Regroup. Think again about what best to do to bring an end to this disaster in the making. That’s what he should do.

  His lips found hers again. She melted into him with a moan, twining her arms around his neck. Honey sweet, her mouth was. “What would you do for forty thousand? Would you let me put those pearls of yours to use? Lay pearls upon your pearl? Would you let me mount you like a stallion mounts a willing filly? And when we were done, would you beg for more?”

  His breath was ragged on her mouth. With each suggestion, the heat inside her grew, though she had only a hazy idea of his meaning. “For fifty thousand, I would do even more,” Constance replied breathlessly. Her body was lit up from the inside with this heady, sparkling, jangling feeling that must be desire. Never, in the five years of her marriage, had she had even a foretaste of this. Never in her life had she been so desperate to experience the sensation of skin on skin, of flesh melding into flesh, the prelude of which was Troy’s tongue tangling with hers, his lips enveloping hers. Never.

  He should not have started this, but now he could not stop, as the images being conjured inflamed him even further. “Tell me,” he rasped.

  She thought of the cabinet by the bed. “Swansdown manacles,” she said, “silken cords, velvet rope, I have them all,” Constance said, hoping that he would not ask her to elaborate. She was sure this must be very wrong, but she could not quite grasp how, not while every one of her senses was crying out for more, and she seemed to have lost her grip on what was real and what was fantasy.

  “For fifty thousand I would expect you to use them all,” Troy whispered huskily into her ear, tugging gently on her lobe, his fingers stroking the sensitive spot at the nape of her neck. “Though I warn you now, it will be you and not I who submits.”

  “I do not submit easily.”

  Troy laughed harshly. “You have already proved that to be so, but there is a time for resistance, and a time for submission. And if I am to pay you fifty thousand, I think I’m entitled to see a little more of the merchandise that is costing me a king’s ransom.” He pulled the pins from her hair, wrapping long hanks of it round his fist, angling her head back to kiss the pulse at the base of her throat. “I want to be certain that I’m not going to be disappoi
nted,” he said, telling himself that he would go so far and no more. Only enough for her to betray herself beyond doubt. No more. Definitely no more. He loosed the laces of her gown.

  Constance tried to collect her thoughts, she tried to muster her resistance, but he was pressing soft kisses on the mounds of her breasts, his mouth was tantalizingly close to the clamoring peaks of her nipples. A darkly silken curl of his hair trailed across her skin, and she shivered violently. “I fear there is no doubt but that you will be disappointed,” she said raggedly.

  “That is for me to decide,” Troy replied. He had all but lost his ability to reason, thinking only about the need, the urgent need, to feel her skin against his. He slipped her gown over her arms, down her body, where it pooled at her feet, leaving her in her decadent scarlet corset, her black stockings with their scarlet ribbons, her scarlet petticoat scalloped with lace and the long string of pearls. “Dear God, but you’re beautiful.”

  “No.” Constance made to cover herself. It had gone too far. Too far. And yet, inexplicably, not far enough. She was a vortex of beating pulses and jangling nerve ends. “No. I’m not—I’m not…”

  “Oh, but you are. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” He wanted to test her skin against his, to feel for himself if it was as satin soft as it looked. His coat was on the floor, his neck cloth too, and his waistcoat. He languorously stroked the soft, heaving mound of her bosom. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  Was she? The way he was looking at her, his sooty-black eyes with their heavy lids glittering with desire, she could almost believe it. He tore his shirt over his head, revealing a muscled torso, a broad chest sprinkled with dark hair, the skin stretched taut enough to show the flexing of the sinew underneath, and the fire filtered down from her belly, intensifying between her legs.

  Constance forgot all about the game. She forgot about the need to put him right as to her true identity. Instead, she reached out, running her palm wondrously over that skin, that heat, those contours. “Beautiful,” she said wonderingly. Essence of man. And he was looking at her as if she was essence of woman. Hungrily. Almost savagely.

  She pressed her cheek into his chest, feeling the rough hairs caress her tender skin, turning to press her mouth there, kissing, licking, quivering in response to his harsh moan. She forced herself to pull away. “Troy, I don’t want your money. You must believe me.”

  “But you do want me.” Her touch was like silk. His erection was straining so hard against his pantaloons that it was almost painful. Even if she did not agree to a sum, he would still have his proof if she would but admit that. And anyway, it suddenly seemed important that she did. “You do, don’t you,” he said, devouring her with his eyes. Scarlet underwear. Crimson lips. Skin that seemed more golden than olive now. Creamy pearls. Almond eyes lambent with desire that could not be false, could only be real. Tearing at the laces of her corset, he loosened it enough to free her breasts and caught his breath. Dear God in heaven, but she was perfect. “Say you want me. Admit it.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  He cupped her breasts in his hands, running his thumbs over her nipples. Puckered and dark pink. His mouth captured one, sucking deep, kissing and licking his way round the full shape of her, then sucking deep again. Her hands were plucking at his shoulders, her lips were hot on his throat. He trailed his fingers down the inviting slope of skin to her tiny waist, round to the satisfying curve of her bottom, pulling her tight against him, a sharp jag of pleasure jolting through his shaft as he felt the heat of her through their clothing.

  “Troy, I…” Constance was shaking. Feverish. Shivering. Goose bumps fluttered in waves over her skin like butterflies. His mouth on her nipples was forging a sparking path down, to the tingle in her belly, to the heat building between her legs, a fire that took on a new force when he pressed the astonishingly hard length of his arousal against her. She could not begin to imagine. She did not want to have to imagine. Wanting so fierce it took her breath away made her arch into him, cup his firmly muscled buttocks to pull him harder against her.

  “Say it,” Troy said urgently, barely registering how important it had become that she do. “Just say it. You want me.”

  His hand was lifting her silk petticoat now, finding the tender flesh of her thigh. She wore no other undergarments. Up, his fingers trailed, to the softer skin inside, and she thought she would scream with the agony of anticipation as he lingered there, until she dug her nails into his back, and suddenly he plunged a finger into her, into the wetness she had never felt before, into the welcoming softness that parted so willingly, that had before always been so unforgiving, resistant. She gasped. His fingers sank deeper. He kissed her mouth. He slipped his fingers up, to the source of her fire, and stroked insistently, feeling her swelling to the brink of climax, and she gasped again.

  “Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, dear God, yes.” Her voice was rough, harsh, guttural with desire, the words dragged from her, no longer able to be suppressed. “I want you.”

  He had her. He had his proof. He could leave now. He would leave. Though he made no move to leave. And then she touched him, placed her hand tentatively again on the length of his manhood, and he was lost.

  She touched him. Her fingers traced his length, felt the full heft of his girth, and it was not enough, and a blaze of white-hot elemental need shot through him. He ripped open the fastenings, kicked off his boots, the last of his clothing, careless of the tearing and stretching. He kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting, tasting, urging, warning. His fingers flicked mercilessly over the pulsing mound of her sex. His shaft pressed into the silk and lace of her petticoat. He felt her swelling, heard the first of those unmistakable moans, and, turning her round in his arms, steadied her over the back of a chaise longue, and thrust himself hard and high into the throbbing, welcoming heat of her.

  Constance cried out with shock and delight. Swept so violently along with the crashing insistency of her first-ever orgasm, swirled high into the starry heights with its intensity, she was still soaring when he entered her, thrusting higher and harder than she had ever imagined possible. The jolting shock, the shuddering rapture of it caused her climax to tighten and strengthen, made her own muscles pull him in, forcing her to arch back against him. His arm around her waist, he pulled her toward him and thrust again, making her cry out. Again, harder, though not hard enough. She reached between her legs to cup the heavy, potent weight of him as he thrust again, his grip moving down to her bottom, tilting her to open her, and he thrust higher. She felt him thicken inside her. She craved, with an intensity that astonished her, for him to plunge ever deeper. “More,” she panted. And again, “More…”

  Troy groaned. Harder. Higher. He had never, ever, ever dreamed it could be so… He thrust, felt himself swell, felt his seed muster, and at the last moment, pulled himself free, spilling onto the rumpled lace of her rucked-up petticoats with a force that shook him.

  The ecstasy of the moment suspended them only briefly in the blissful haze of rapture. Too soon, as the throbbing ebbed, as the heat that enveloped them cooled, as the mist that stopped them thinking cleared, they dropped abruptly back down to earth.

  “Goddammit all to hell!” Pulling himself free, he gathered up his scattered, rumpled clothing with indecent haste, disgusted by his lack of restraint, and began to dress before cursing again, using a colorful Anglo-Saxon expression that he rarely employed.

  “Sir!”

  Troy looked up as he shrugged into his coat. “It is a bit too late to play the prude, madam.”

  Constance flinched. He had a point. “Still, there is no need for such strong language,” she protested weakly.

  “On the contrary, my inclination is to use much stronger, I assure you.” He could not believe he had lost control. He was a master tactician. He never lost control. Never! He was appalled by the specter of his misguided, besotted younger self that this woman had conjured, furious with the temptress who had so befuddled him, with his a
mbassador for having embroiled him in this debacle, and with the ambassador’s son too, for being so damn foolish as to have made this whole episode necessary. And with himself. Most of all with himself.

  Why was he so angry? Constance wondered. “If it is the money…” she said hesitantly. She could not even remember the final ridiculous figure. Forty thousand? Fifty? Surely he didn’t think she actually expected him to pay. “I thought…”

  “You thought to offer swansdown manacles, silken cords and velvet ropes to justify the price? No, thank you. I have sampled quite enough of your wares,” Troy said cruelly. And quite dishonestly. She looked like a wild creature, all bee-stung lips and postcoital flush, braced herself on the back of the chaise longue for support, her pearls in a knot hanging down her back. Oh God, such a wildly alluring creature.

  His diplomatic instincts kicked in. When confronted with a delicate and potentially explosive situation, détente dictated that the best plan was to retreat and regroup. In his current state of mind he did not trust himself, he had to get out of here right now, before he made any more errors of judgment. Not a maneuver he usually had much cause to deploy, but a sensible one. Eminently sensible, he told himself, pulling on his coat and carelessly stuffing his neck cloth into the pocket. “I think it best if I bid you good day, madam.”

  Constance tried to stand upright, but her legs were trembling. She shook out her rumpled petticoats. Her lips felt swollen. Her sex throbbed. Her thighs ached. Mortified, she simply could not understand how she had become so carried away, deceiving herself into thinking she would go no further. Deceiving the man now leaving so hurriedly into thinking her someone quite other than the respectable woman she really was. Though she was beginning to wonder if she knew herself at all.

  He was in such a great hurry to be gone she could almost believe he felt as guilty as she. The reality of Annalisa’s life hit Constance like a smack in the face. Disgust with herself brought a rush of tears to her eyes. She blinked furiously, turning her head away lest Troy see them. She could not bear to face questions or recriminations.