wet heat.
Even after she'd finished, and though he was about to explode, he took his time, delving inside her as she sagged against him. He wanted to accustom her to the feeling, to trust him to touch her this way.
Her response was so rewarding that part of him said to let this be only about her, to act as though he could give without taking. But when his cock ached like this he didn't feel very giving.
Unfastening the front of his trousers, he pulled himself free with a hissed breath. Then taking her hips, he pressed his shaft against her arse, his thumbs covering those dimples above her bottom. He groaned as he thrust over her plump curves, settling between them to grind against her. His cock head was so slick he daubed wetness against her lower back. He could readily come like this, but he wanted her hands on him. He choked out the words, 'I need you tae ease me.' He slid his cock against her hip. 'Touch it.'
She inhaled, trying to catch her breath, then nodded. Reaching down, she brushed the pad of her finger softly on the crown, making unhurried circles around the slit, but he grasped her wrist and put her palm to his shaft. 'No teasing. No' yet.' He met her eyes in the mirror. 'I'm starving for this,aingeal .'
'How should I…what do you want me to do?'
'Stroke me as you did that night in the carriage.'
When she wrapped her soft palm at the base and drew her fist up, a wave of pleasure and elation swept through him. How in the hell had he lived without this for so long?
'Tighter,' he commanded, and she gripped him harder. 'That's it.' He thumbed her nipples to urge her on. 'Good, Madeleine…,' he grated. 'It's so damned good.'
He squeezed her against him, covering her breasts with his hands, groans and coarse oaths breaking from his chest. 'Faster.' She did, pumping her fist on him as he bucked into it. 'Clever girl,' he rasped against her damp neck, 'you're making me come.'
At the last second, he placed his hand over hers, pressing down. Yelling out, he ejaculated, pumping hot seed directly against her wicked garter, over and over.
When he was finally spent, he shuddered and stayed her hand, astonished by the pleasure he'd just experienced, unable to remember its equal, but for the night he'd taken her.
He still held her against him and wanted to stay like that as they caught their breath, yet he expected her to disentangle herself. Instead, her head fell back against him, and he had the leisure of watching her breasts rise and fall with her panting, her flesh perfectly flushed.
She caught his gaze in the mirror. Between breaths she whispered, 'If you give me a chance, I'll be a good wife to you, Scot. Just please, don't hurt me again.'
'I will no',' he said, holding her tighter, and for the briefest moment, he might have meant it.
Chapter Twenty-five
Madeleine stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, touching his scar with her lips—not even seeming to mind.
Having never experienced this kind of gentle affection from a woman, he had no idea how to proceed with it. She seemed delighted by what had happened, humming as she strolled to thesalle de bain to freshen up and change into one of the previously tailored dresses.
When she returned, clad in her smart new clothes, with her shining hair braided atop her head, he found himself saying, 'We'll go to the garret now. If you want to take something to your friends, we can put a couple of bottles of champagne on the tab.'
'Really? For Bea and Corrine?'
'Aye.' And that one gesture earned him an expression from her that could only be described asadoring— the way she'd regarded him that night in London. He pulled at his collar.
The overjoyed modiste had used her break to tally their bill, saving him time when paying. He thought Madeleine was going to faint when she sneaked a glance at the total. But he would have spent twenty times that if he'd known how he was to be rewarded.
As the girls wrapped the bottles of champagne and fitted them into a narrow carrying basket, Ethan told the modiste that he'd wire directions for shipping the rest of Madeleine's clothing once they finished tailoring them. Whatever was completed today, they should send to his hotel.
When he and Madeleine exited the shop and he offered her his arm, she took it without hesitation. On the street, passersby gave them openly quizzical glances. He knew they wondered what she was doing with him, which reminded him that he used to be handsome. Before, he would have been a fitting match for her. Instead, he was a man who had to spend money on a woman to get her attention.
Ethan was feeling something for her, some kind of appreciation for what had just happened between them, but that only disgusted him. He was like a starving wolf that had been fed a scrap and was happy to get it—a thirty-three-year-old man grateful to have his cock stroked. He ground his teeth, seething. He was never supposed to have ended up this way.
And her parents were to blame for everything.
Things used to be black and white. He was a man not bound by any fixed moral code; she was the daughter of two people who'd wronged him.
How could there possibly be any hesitation or second thoughts about what he was planning?
There wouldn't be. All he cared about was getting her beneath him enough times to work her from his system.
'Thank you for today,' she said, smiling up at him. Was she pleased with him because he'd spent a fortune on her or because she'd enjoyed what had happened between them? Why did he even care?
'You're welcome,' he said, for probably the first time in his life.
When they arrived by cab in La Marais and he helped her down, the streets were harried and chaotic once more. Madeline stood out here like a diamond in dust.
'Oh, look, there's Berthé!' she whispered. 'The one who tripped me last night. Make sure she sees us.'
He hid a frown. Did Madeleine want to be seenwith him ? Or did she only want to show off her new finery? Just when he'd decided on the latter, he felt a distinctly proprietary patting on his arse.
'Madeleine,' he growled in warning, and she yanked her hand up.
'Sorry,' she murmured. 'I just couldn't resist.'
Why was he oddly…flattered?
At her building, he followed Madeleine inside and to the stairwell. 'Hold onto the rope,' she said, taking the bottles and hastening ahead of him as though she could see in the dark.
As soon as the stair head groaned, Bea's door swung open, but it was Corrine who rushed out to meet them. 'Toumard's men came by again,' she said. 'You have to get out of here, Maddy! They roughed up Bea—'
'What?' Madeleine cried. 'Bea?'
Corrine nodded. 'She wouldn't tell them where you'd gone, and then she had to go and spit in one's face. She'll be all right, but she's lying down now, resting.'
The news of this threat made that feeling of protectiveness for Madeleine surge in him again. 'Go check on Bea,' Ethan told her. 'Corrine will tell me what happened.'
Once Madeleine hurried to Bea's room and softly closed the door behind her, Corrine said, 'I see that look in your eyes. You really are going to take care of Maddy from now on.'
He hesitated before giving her a quick nod. 'Madeleine accepted my proposal.'
Corrine sighed in relief.
'But I need to know some things about her past, and the lass is tight-lipped.' When Corrine nodded ruefully, he asked, 'How did she burn her arm?'
'Oh, that was in the fire of forty-seven. Her building went up like a wick, and she was trapped upstairs. She very nearly lost her arm and came close to losing her life.'
If she had been eleven or twelve, she'd just been forced away from her home to move to a foreign city. Her father had just died….
