Page 10 of The Seduction of Viscount Vice

Her breath hitched. What he meant was having her taken away by the Watch. And yet all she could imagine was him dragging her inside and tearing off her men’s clothing in front of everyone. Roughly parting her thighs and fingering her soaked pussy to prove beyond a doubt she did not possess a cock.

Sizzling heat swept through her body, and she barely suppressed a moan at the thought of an audience staring at, and being transfixed by, her nakedness. Watching as Iain teased and stroked her. Coveting her. Silent with greedy lust and anticipation as he led her to the center of a raised dais, pushed onto her hands and knees, and fucked her hard and deep until she screamed in ecstasy. Then they would cheer and applaud and their appreciation would dance along her skin like a cloak of warm mist, and, just for a moment, she would know how it felt to be loved.

“You wouldn’t.” She almost choked on the disappointment that her fantasy would never be a reality.

“Wouldn’t expose you? On the contrary. You’d be stripped bare.”

Mairi whimpered, the words licking her skin like a flame. He was talking about something completely different, but if he kept saying things like expose and stripped bare, she’d be forced to attend to her throbbing clit right in front of him.

“Witch,” he snarled, and seconds later his lips were mastering hers. Unforgiving. Brutal. Expert.

Grabbing the lapels of his jacket as an anchor, Mairi surrendered to the kiss. One hard, muscled thigh forced itself between her legs, spreading them and allowing her to grind her aching pussy against it. She groaned in helpless, grateful need. It wouldn’t take much. If he opened his trousers and she opened her breeches, the engorged cock nudging her belly could be plunging deep, filling the emptiness inside her. “Iain.”

His mouth moved, his teeth scraping her earlobe. “These breeches fit well enough to be made for you. Did you bring a tailor from Paris as well?”

“No,” she gasped, mindless. “I made them. I do all the sewing.”

“They’re good. Stage-worthy.”

“Everything has to be.”

Iain hesitated, then his hand splayed down across her stomach, his fingertips agonizingly close to her clit. “The stage is about selling pretense. Is this real? If I ripped open your breeches, would your cunt be so wet, so ready, that you drenched my fingers and tongue in juice?”

She shuddered at the blunt, erotic words, her whole body straining for the orgasm hovering just out of her reach. “Yes. Please. Please.”

Abruptly, he was gone, lounging against the side of the balcony several feet away. “You missed a glass, laddie. Hey. You, there! Wherever did you find such a lackluster beginner?”

What?

Mairi blinked rapidly, her legs threatening to buckle, and the perspiration on her skin cooling rapidly without Iain’s warmth. Really, there should be less breeches and more breaching right now. This was altogether not right. “I…I…” she stuttered.

“Terribly sorry, my lord, as you know, temporary staff can be most inadequate.”

Her gaze flew to the right, then back to Iain. No. He had oh-so-casually called in the same haughty senior footman from before, and the older man was now standing in the doorway leading back to the ballroom.

“Don’t I know it,” said Iain in a bored tone, his fingers running along the lapel that she’d crushed with her grip. “A compliment to the host that footmen for hire are necessary, but this one has outstayed his welcome. Not overly helpful.”

Oh, the feral skunk.

“Get to the kitchens, boy,” said the footman in an awful voice. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to pay you, in light of such poor service.”

Sketching a bow, Mairi leaned down and picked up her abandoned tray with shaking hands. Her body practically screamed in displeasure at what it had missed out on. “Beg p-pardon, sir. My lord.”

Iain might have won this time. But she would pay him back for this tenfold.

He could count on it.

Chapter Three

In less than a quarter hour, he would don gloves and begin a third round with Mairi.

Shifting restlessly on his carriage squab, Vice watched the streets of London fly by. Truth be told, he was both exhausted and on edge after a restless night. How could he sleep after the Castlereagh soiree? Bloody hell. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to keep asking her questions and eventually pull away from her on that balcony. The urge to forget his interrogation and lose himself inside her tight, wet heat had been overwhelming. At this point, his cock was probably about to petition parliament for a divorce; two nights in a row of being left in agony definitely bordered on excessive cruelty.

But today he would finally unravel the mystery that was Mairi. No more footman encounters, no more lies, but her, as herself, in the place she was hiding. Then he could concentrate on his Fallen duties tonight instead of obsessing over her.

“This is the place, m’lord. I swear it.”

Startled out of his reverie as his carriage came to a halt, Vice stared hard at his recently hired private investigator, then dubiously across the road at the three-story Charlotte Street townhouse the man pointed to. It looked like a furniture cannon had exploded on the footpath and front steps. Drapery, rug, and paint cannons, too. Christ. If he were in charge, everything would be inside the house, not outside getting faded by the afternoon sunlight. And that crowd of laborers and carpenters wouldn’t be talking and laughing as they packed up their tools for the day. They would be goddamned working until the job was done. “Tell me about the occupants then.”