Painted Trust Read online

  Instead, panic. That’s what she’d felt. She’d panicked both at the level of contentment she’d felt lying there in his arms afterward, in the calm as he’d held her; and at the longing. She’d wanted that life, a life that could warrant such a connection, and in those moments she’d hungered for it so deeply that she had closed down, backed off.

  What he had done—what they had done—had changed her forever.

  She now knew what she’d missed, what those liaisons felt like. Recalling those moments through the day had made her body tight and restless, and she’d been short with staff over dinner. Her wayward mind continued to go back to the feel of him on her mouth, the taste of him, his hand between her legs as it drove her to oblivion. The hard, demanding thrusts as he pressed her down on his lap and found his own release. She was embalmed in the memories, soaked in them as her body stored them away and preserved the sensation to be drawn out over the celibate years to come.

  So, here she was. Trying desperately to come to terms with the fact that he was now giving the same kind of pleasures and more to his exotic blonde.

  She should have handled the encounter better.

  Yet, there was Rule Number One: Show no one your body.

  What if she lost her sense of self and he disrobed her? How would she explain her tattoos? They made a lie of the prim and sheltered miss he expected her to be, even though, for all intents and purposes, she was.

  You can work around that.

  Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe they could have. But there was more at stake than just being seen.

  Vaughn was a worldly man, perhaps he could take her tattoos in his stride but what then? She was being hunted and he would not live if word got out that he had housed her, that he had learned her secrets and those of the world she came from. If nothing else, she needed to keep her secrets to protect him.

  The swing doors whooshed in the background.

  Her body spiked.

  Blood raced through her capillaries at double the usual pace.

  There was no organ or sensory system which told her it was him, yet she knew with absolute certainty.

  And. He was home early.

  Ridiculous hope flared in her chest.

  Edith stopped folding; her hand shook as she checked her buttons. Nerves rioted, sending and retracting messages across her synapses.

  What was she going to do?

  Everything you can, said that voice she never listened to.

  His steps walked toward the light in the linen room. The door creaked.

  Rule Number Three: When in doubt, run. Run, run, run.

  But she didn’t want to.

  Stay. Don’t let this chance goby, that wild and desperate part of her yelled. You have eight days, use them.

  The steps resumed in her direction.

  Her heart pounded while she watched his elongated shadow precede him.

  Then, he was there, standing in the opening before she reached a decision.

  The light cast shadows under his brows, one side of his nose and under his chin. He looked wonderful, black coat and pants, white shirt, black tie and ivory-handled cane. It was impossible to look away as he glowed with an intensity that left no doubt what was on his mind, what he wanted. Just like when he kissed her, only more open.

  More carnal.

  “You’re back.” Her voice sounded calm. A lie.

  Stay or run?

  “I am.” His voice called to all those wicked things she’d seen at those Collector parties. If she was ever going to do anything so graphically erotic as she’d seen at those events, it would be with him.

  But she knew already what she’d do if given a second chance. The tension in her shoulders eased and a siren rose from some unknown depth and took charge, remembered all the things the other Painted Sisters had talked about, had laughed and shared.

  Her lips were dry.

  She licked them, sucked her lower lip slowly into her mouth. There was something she wanted to try, something that had never made any sense before, yet now the thought burned her with heat.

  His face darkened. The air around them sizzled.

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard to learn.

  “Is there something wrong, Doctor?” Her usually practical voice was gone, and she ran her hand down the front of her dress, tracing the path his had already traveled. Twice.

  “No.” There was a wonderful trace of strain in the sound. He gave an enigmatic smile as his gaze pointedly followed the downward journey of her hand and he leaned the cane against the wall. “You know why I’m here.”

  He was here for her.

  She knew that.

  He was here for another dalliance, more if she wanted; his awkward offer ‘I’ll marry you’, her panicked response, not forgotten yet perhaps pushed aside.

  A delicious wave of anticipation broke over her breasts.

  Eight days left, and she would take them.

  “Did you forget something? Gurney ties? Mouth clamp? Rubber gloves? Stethoscope?” Inside, her autonomic nervous system was slicing away at her false calm with impunity. “Or don’t you play ‘doctor’ with your blondes?” Heat flushed her face at the look he gave her.

  “Mouth guard and gurney straps? Playing doctor?” Vaughn shook his head then stepped into the room, tugging his necktie loose. “A very dangerous game you’re playing, Apple.”

  Her hand touched reassuring buttons.

  His jacket came off.

  “Come here.” His eyes promised all of the wicked things she was imagining.

  She didn’t move.

  He sighed, stepped forward and reached for her.

  Edith stepped back, heart hammering with excitement, trepidation as hands retouched buttons. “What happened to your taste for voluptuous, giggly and obedient?” Her voice was embarrassingly vulnerable.

  His expression softened. “I find my tastes have changed.”

  “To?” Her voice was all breath.

  His gaze roamed over her face, she felt their burn as they slid over her cheekbones, her hair, her mouth, her breasts. The intensity of his need was unmistakable.

  “To prim, proper and very disobedient.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Vaughn reached for her and Edith stepped back again, her heart racing. He scowled and put his hands in his pockets. “I take it there’s more?”

  Edith nodded breath tight. “Clothes on.”

  “Again?” Scowl still in place, hungry eyes imagining what lay beneath. This was a man to love over a lifetime, not simply taste over eight days.

  “That’s how it has to be. I’ll do anything we want but with my clothes on.”

  “Your clothes? So, I could be naked?”

  She nodded.

  His look was assessing, hands still deep in pockets. “Are you shy?” His voice had again softened and her heart skipped.

  “Yes . . . but that’s not the reason.” She could see his mind racing, considering all possible reasons for her request. How was he reconciling this need to stay covered and her clear desire to be intimate with him? Her face got hotter. “So, you agree?”

  Vaughn nodded, and a spike of excitement was followed by a skittle of nerves.

  Shrewd, clever eyes still assessed her. “For now,” he added, then those wildly talented hands came out of his pockets.

  Her skin scorched at the anticipated touch, already she wanted the layers between them removed, wanted to feel his palms on her skin as he held her, as he touched her.

  She pushed back the ache of what she was not and what she would not have, focused instead on the boon she had won. Him for eight days and whatever they could do with her clothes on and even she knew that was a great deal.

  Edith made herself lean back in his hold, held his gaze as she made the rule clear, a rule that might save his life if she was ever caught. “Just to be clear I mean every time.”

  “Shhhh,” Vaughn drew her closer and looked down at her yet didn’t make a move to kiss her. Edith started to raise
on her toes to kiss him and he shook his head.

  “I didn’t do anything with her, Edith, I left her with Felix.” His finger traced her lips, sending sparks of sensation across them. “I wanted to. I wanted to wipe the taste of you from my mouth, the feel of you from my hands. She was very beautiful . . .” Edith screwed up her face. His eyes softened again. “. . . but not you.”

  It was ridiculous, but she beamed. “Enough,” she whispered as her fingers clutched his shirt and dragged him down to her lips. The taste of him, the feel of his full sensual lips as they moved against hers making her dizzy. She clasped him closer, shivered as he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight against his chest.

  “I want to feel your skin,” she whispered against his lips between nips and licks. Her heart beat very fast, that wasn’t exactly what she wanted to ask, but it seemed that asking took practice and courage.

  Vaughn moved back just enough to have some freedom of movement, then removed his waist coat, unbuttoned his shirt and removed it to stand in his undershirt and trousers. Trousers that showed a thick long shape pressing against the black fabric.

  She bit her lip. She couldn’t draw her gaze away from that shape. She could imagine his phallus, she’d seen many at the Collectors’ parties, had seen medical books and cadavers. However, it was something altogether different to see the erect organ of a man she wanted.

  Her sex throbbed as she imagined how that shape would feel pressing in, the thickness of him, the fullness. But not tonight. Tonight she wanted something else, wanted something to make him forget his blond. She had read about acts and techniques women like that didn’t even know existed, all she had to do was be brazen enough to do it.

  His hand went down and clasped himself. Edith squeezed her thighs together and flashed a look at his face, it was raw with need; the sight fueled her own.

  Edith stepped forward and ran her hands over his chest, slipped her hands under the edges of his undershirt then ran her fingers against his belly, up his chest. Under her palms the heat of his skin drew her in closer to him. She wanted to press her face against him, press the warmth of him deep into her and wrap it around the part of her that was frozen, always frozen.

  Instead she pressed her face into his neck, smelled him, and gave him slow kisses up his neck as her fingers traced over tight nipples. Her own nipples burned against the cotton of her underclothes, her skin aflame.

  His fingers threaded through her hair and pulled her head back firmly, then his mouth was there, with those lips that demanded she dance with them, demanded she open and give him more.

  There was no way for him to know what she’d seen, what was in her mind. He thought her shy, a respectable woman. And in an odd sense she was both those things and yet not. If she was to experience everything she wanted in only eight days, she would need to have the courage to instigate those acts.

  Her pulse raced, and her throat tightened again. “Open your trousers.”

  He groaned her name. His fingers were already unbuttoning his trousers, she gazed down between them and stared at his long, thick, and shapely cock. Her breath shuddered in then out of her. What she wanted made her heart race and for the briefest moment she wasn’t sure if she could ask for it.

  Vaughn reached up and guided her hand out of his undershirt wrapping it around his shaft. She sighed as he moved their joined hands up and down his length, then bent his head and kissed her.

  “Just say it, Edith.” He murmured against her lip as his hand continued to guide hers on his shaft.

  “Say what?” her throat tightened as she bought a few seconds more to build courage.

  “It’s all over your face, you want something.”

  She bit her lip and his gaze softened. “I’ll go first . . . I want you to reach down with your other hand and cup my balls, wrap your hand around them gently and give them a tug as you continue to stroke me.”

  Edith leaned against him as her free hand traveled down, then filled with the soft fullness of his testicles.

  He made a sound, a rumble at the back of his throat as she wrapped her fingers around them then gave them a soft pull downwards once, twice and again, and she felt his body tighten.

  “Good. That feels very good,” he said between kisses. “Now your turn,” he whispered as he moved his head to look at her.

  Her throat tightened. “I want to take you into my mouth, I want to pleasure you that way,” she whispered against his chin, heart pounding. His cock pulsed in her hand.

  “Have you done that before?” There was interest in his eyes, interest and want.

  She shook her head. “But I want to.” Her face burned as he lifted her chin up to look at him.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  Edith nodded as her hands released him and she felt instead the reassuring shape of buttons in her fingers. She wanted to rub his cock over her lips, taste the fluid as it seeped out, wanted him to press it into her mouth, wanted to look up the length of him and see his face as she sucked. Watch a man who wielded a knife in the battle of life and death go weak at the knees and let go because she sucked him. The thought made her sex throb.

  He kissed her soft and slow. “You’ll need to get down on your knees. Use your hand around my shaft to control how deep I go, I’ll be careful. Don’t worry about the saliva, wet is good, very good.” He kissed her again. “Do what feels right, anything you do will feel extremely pleasurable for me, Edith.” Then he smiled, the cat who got the cream. Her breasts were already aching and her legs restless with the want pulsing between them.

  “You’re flushed . . .” he groaned. “You’re aroused.”

  She nodded, oral pleasure was perhaps the most intimate acts she’d seen. She’d seen a woman bent backwards over a Chesterfield as one man moved between her legs and another pressed her head back and moved his cock deep into her mouth, tears had run out of her eyes, mucus from her nose and drool from her mouth as she made sounds of uncontrolled pleasure; she’d seen girls join together to suck a man to completion; had wondered what it felt like.

  But what she remembered most was a woman who loved and cherished the cock in her mouth, who’d slowly and confidently kissed, licked and sucked it, squeezed and pumped it with her hands and lips as the man gently stroked her hair and came. That memory had stayed with her; the way the woman had loved not only the man but the cock. That was what she wanted to give Vaughan and that’s what she wanted to feel.

  “I . . .” she hesitated.

  “Anything Edith.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “Will you stroke my hair while I . . . do it?”

  He was still for just a second and in the next moment pulled her up against him and kissed her so intensely she could hardly breathe. Deep strokes of his tongue as his hand cupped her head. His arm around her back pressed her closer and closer to him. Her heart swelled at the feelings his actions expressed, swelled so much she felt the threat of tears as the intensity of what he felt saturated her. They were both panting when he lifted off and held her face with both hands. His gaze traveled her face, searched while conveying feelings he couldn’t afford to have, feelings she couldn’t afford to reciprocate.

  “Yes, it would give me great pleasure to stroke your hair.”

  And, despite the soul deep pain in her chest, she beamed.

  Edith sank down to her knees and the task ahead was suddenly daunting, she gravitated to something she knew. She ran her hands up his thighs, taking her time to feel the shape of muscles underneath.

  “Vastus lateralis,” she traced its shape as she looked at his cock in front of her, “rectus femoris, tensor fasciae latae . . .” tracing until she came to the base of his erection and again wrapped her hand around the base of him. She flashed a look up at him as he adjusted his stance to widen his legs. His face was concentrated, watching her with a raw need that sent a hot throbbing ache deep into her sex.

  Sticking out her tongue, she held his gaze and leisurely licked up his shaft, leisur
ely licked over him as if he were her favorite shaved ice from Hyde Park and she was in no hurry to end the experience. Licked then sucked the head of him, its shape and feel in her mouth delicious. Small suction kisses as her tongue played with the small slit on the top.

  She moved the shaft with her hand, guiding the head back and forth over her wet lips, pressed it past her lips then pulled back, pressed it in then pulled back, mimicking entry into her sex.

  Above her he swore under his breath, and a thrill rippled through her sensitive breasts and down to her engorged sex.

  Her heart lurched as his hand came down to rest on her head. Edith lifted her eyes to his, his pupils blown into intense dark orbs. His hand nudged her head to continue. Instead, a smile wrapped across her lips as she continued to gaze at him, made him wait as she rubbed her cheek softly against him and her hand rolled his testes in her palm.

  His other hand came down and with both hands guided her attention back to his cock. She took him into her mouth, her lips wrapping around the shaft as she sucked, bobbed and licked. His hands alternated between stroking her hair, and holding the contours of her skull as if needing an anchor. He murmured sounds of pleasure, sounds that might have contained words of encouragement and desire but were impossible to discern.

  Her heart soared with a feeling of wellbeing, of closeness as she pleasured him. It was as if each stroke and squeeze of his fingers relayed his pleasure, his attention right there with her and the pleasure she gave. Each touch encouraging and acknowledging that she was responsible for his enjoyment.

  She kissed along the seam of his shaft, soft open-mouthed kisses. Edith positioned her mouth over the head, licking with the flat of her tongue, then looked back up at him, confidence growing with every glance at his tightened muscles, the strain on his face and the lust in his eyes.

  Her own need was almost too much to bear, Edith slipped a hand under her skirt, found the slit in her drawers and touched herself. For a moment she stopped everything else she was doing as her fingers slid over damp folds and up to the tight bud of her clitoris and caressed it.