A chill snaked up her spine. Lord Ethan had insisted that ghosts did not exist, but according to Mr. Bailey, Nelly Nettles had seen Bloody Thom with her own eyes. Curiosity yanked at Xenia. If the manorwashaunted, shouldn’t she know about it…for her own safety? She could take a quick peek, and if anything was amiss, she would make a run for it.
Decision made, she grabbed her keys and headed to the forbidden room.
ChapterFive
“Pleasure is everything, darling.” Sirena’s husky timbre filtered into his side of the confessional. “Nothing is forbidden.”
Her voice was hypnotic, unlike anything he’d heard. And he’d been around countless women—swived countless of them. During the height of his popularity as a virtuoso, females had mobbed him, offering every carnal diversion under the sun. Drunk on music and success, he’d taken what was given.
He liked wicked women and the games they played. But when fame deserted him, they did too. He’d told himself it was a good thing because, to be frank, none of them had been the sort of female a man would want for a wife. It was time to settle and settle he did: for a lovely widow whose very name evoked what he now needed.
If the few times he’d bedded Constance had been less than inspiring, he’d told himself he was a different man now. Life was no longer his oyster, and he shouldn’t expect so much. The lack of a physical spark with his future wife didn’t matter as much as her other virtues. Constance was well-bred and would preside over his supper table with grace. She accepted his moods, never argued with him, and gave him space. She was perfect for who he’d become.
He’d convinced himself of all this…and then she ran off with his crony.
The fury that swelled in him was all the greater because of the humiliation. Because of his changed circumstances, he’d been willing to accept a marriage far from his ideal. Before his injury, he would never have considered such a thing—would have never questioned whether he deserved true and ultimate happiness.
Now he questioned everything, and he was bloody tired of it.
He’d held himself back sexually with Constance because she’d made it clear that she expected him to be civilized in bed. His beastly moods she could tolerate, but when it came to coupling, it was lights off and clothes on. Any deviation from her idea of normal had made her cringe…which hadn’t exactly been an aphrodisiac for him.
Well, he was done with Constance. Done with limiting his desires. He hadn’t had a satisfying fuck in three years. Yet the damnable truth was that being publicly jilted had spooked him and made him hesitate to get back into the saddle again…which was where Sirena came in. She was safe, and she was naughty: the perfect way to ease back into the depravities of bachelorhood.
“Tell me your desires,” she cooed. “Don’t be shy. I’ll do whatever you wish.”
Lust pulsed in his veins, amplified by his residual anger.
“I haven’t been shy a day in my life, wench,” he said sternly. “I want you naked in front of me. Now.”
The screen melted away, and Sirena emerged like Aphrodite rising from the waves. Her luxuriant flame-red hair tumbled over her creamy shoulders, matched by the fiery thatch between her thighs. Her rounded tits looked like they would fit his palms perfectly, her blushing nipples making his mouth water. She came to where he was sitting and struck a saucy pose.
“Like what you see, darling?”
Her smoke-and-honey voice heated his blood. He reached up and gripped her nape, dragging her onto his lap. She straddled him, her pussy pressing against his burgeoning erection. Devil and damn, she was wet. Her dew soaked through his trousers. He jerked her face close to his, and gazing into her eyes, he saw exactly what he craved.
Real desire. Feminine lust, raw and honest.
Her reaction burned away his self-doubt and misery. A fog lifted. He felt as if he were surfacing from a deep, dreamless sleep—and he awoke with a powerful hunger.
“I like what I see,” he told her. “And I’ll like touching it even more.”
He clamped a hand on her rounded hip, guiding her cunny against his lengthening ridge. She clutched his shoulders, tossed her head back, and gave a throaty whimper.
“Look at me,” he said.
Her lashes swept up. He took in her enlarged pupils and parted lips. Her breasts heaved, and against his throbbing prick, her cunny radiated needy heat. Her reaction gave him the same exhilarating satisfaction as an audience’s thundering applause.
She wants me. She is mine to pleasure, to fuck…however I want.
He drew his fingers along her rear crevice. When he teased her little pucker, she shivered and arched her back, her breasts bobbing tantalizingly by his face.
“You’ll give me anything I want,” he said.
“Anything.”
Her sweet submission enthralled him. He was hard as a rock as he drew his fingers lower. He circled the entrance to her pussy, pushing two fingers inside. The slick squeeze of her passage confirmed what he knew. The desire between them was real. Real and hotter than anything he’d experienced.
“Ride my fingers,” he said thickly.
