Wicked Temptation Read online

  “Did you expect it to have done?” he mused.

  “No,” she acknowledged disgustedly.

  He nodded. “Defiant and rude young ladies have that effect on me.”

  Pru felt the color heat her cheeks. “And certain…gentlemen bring out those particular traits in me, I am afraid.”

  He gave a snort. “You are afraid of nothing and no one. Least of all, it seems,” he continued harshly, “the possible scandal caused by visiting a single gentleman’s residence unaccompanied by so much as your maid.”

  Her dismissive laugh contained no humor. “Do not pretend you care for the dictates of Society any more than I do.”

  “That is hardly the point.”

  “Then what is the point?” she challenged. “I am in mourning, for goodness’ sake. I certainly did not come here with any thought of seducing you!”

  Titus clenched his hands at his sides to stop himself from immediately throwing this young woman across his knee before giving her bottom a sound spanking.

  A single glance at the haughty expression on Pru’s face when she entered the library had been enough to tell Titus he had been correct in thinking his and others’ gentle approach toward her out of deference to her suffering at the death of her sister was only succeeding in allowing Pru to become even sharper and more intractable.

  Kissing Prudence three days ago, fondling and caressing her breast until the nipple grew hard beneath his fingertips, had not been the right approach either.

  Especially when it had also left Titus hungering for more.

  More kisses.

  More caresses.

  More of Prudence.

  If anyone had ideas of seduction, then Titus knew he was the one who wanted to seduce Pru rather than the other way about.

  A desire he had done his best to put from his mind these past three days and nights.

  The days he could easily fill with estate business, visits to Gentleman Jim’s boxing saloon, and lunching at his club with one or two of the other Sinners.

  But the nights…

  Titus had tried visiting a house of the demimonde the evening after he had kissed Prudence, hoping to purge his sexual frustration that way. But none of the ladies there had Pru’s golden hair, blue eyes, and plump breasts, and after only an hour, he had excused himself and returned home. He had dealt with his own sexual needs that night, and drinking a decanter of brandy had succeeded in sending him into oblivion for the next two nights.

  Only that desire had come raging back, engorging his cock into throbbing life the moment he’d set eyes on Prudence again. The very idea of throwing up her skirt and spanking her bare ass made his cock ache.

  “I—” Titus was stopped from acting on that desire as Gardener entered the room carrying the tray containing the decanter of brandy and glasses. “Thank you.” He nodded dismissal of the elderly man and moved to pour the brandy himself. “Here.” He held one of the glasses out to Prudence once they were alone. “Drink it,” he instructed harshly when she made no move to take the glass from him.

  After a brief glance at his expression, she gingerly removed the glass from his fingers and into her black-lace-covered ones.

  “I said drink,” he bit out when she made no effort to do so.

  She frowned her displeasure of his tone even as she took a tentative sip before screwing up her face with distaste. “I do not recall you being quite such a bully as this.”

  “And I do not remember you being quite so irresponsible as to put yourself in danger of being completely socially ruined, but it appears we were each wrong about the other.”

  The color deepened in her cheeks at his rebuke. “How dare you—”

  “I am still waiting.” Titus calmly took a sip of his brandy.

  She looked totally bewildered. “Waiting for what?”

  “For you to show me the politeness our stations in life dictate is necessary for Society to be able to keep turning.” Titus derided Society’s strictures of etiquette, for which, as Pru had stated, he had not the slightest patience or time.

  She gasped. “You still expect me to wish you a good afternoon after you have insulted me?”

  “By telling the truth?” He carefully placed his glass on the mantel of the fireplace before adding softly, “Do not say I did not warn you.”

  Pru took a wary step back as the viscount stepped forward, knowing it had been unwise of her to continue to challenge Romney when he had already warned her there would be “consequences” for her actions. Quite what form those consequences might take, she had no idea, but neither did she like the expression of intent she recognized in Romney’s eyes. Those scars running down the length of his left cheek and the side of his neck added to his appearance of menace.

  Scars Pru knew Romney had received while trying to rescue Cilla and Worthington from the burning carriage. Something she should, despite his efforts having been in vain, have thanked him for before now. “I owe you my gratitude for your attempts to save my sister’s life.” She spoke softly, her gaze lowered to the carpet.

  “I am only sorry I was not successful in that endeavor.”

  Pru gave an abrupt nod. “As am I.”

  “Does that mean the two of us can be friends again now?”

  She raised startled lids. “I do not believe we were ever friends, my lord.”

  He nodded grimly. “Perhaps that is because the desire between the two of us remains…unsatisfied.”

  Pru lowered her lashes again, swallowing before speaking. “I would rather not discuss something of such an intimate nature as that.”

  The viscount snorted. “On the basis that if we do not talk about it that perhaps it will go away?”

  “Yes,” she answered vehemently.

  “And has it?” he taunted. “Has it gone away, Pru?”

  He was suddenly standing far too close for Pru’s comfort. So close, in fact, she was aware of the heat of his body and that invasive aroma of sandalwood, lemons, and earthy maleness she had come to associate with him.

  Her insides heated, the bodice of her gown suddenly feeling much too tight, constricting her breathing and making her conscious of the swollen ache of her nipples. Her cotton drawers chaffed against the slickly wet lips between her thighs and caused her to fidget in discomfort. The result of that was to have the cotton material rub against the hardened and highly sensitive bud above those plump nether lips.

  Was this the desire Titus talked of so scandalously?

  Pru knew that it was. She had been attracted to and desired Titus before the accident, and, despite everything that had happened, she knew she was still attracted to and desired him now.

  She ached for more of his kisses.

  Throbbed for the intimate touch of his hands.

  To feel again, as he had made her feel when he’d last kissed and touched her.

  Since that protective barrier about her emotions had been shattered, Pru had been filled with a restless longing for Titus to use his hands and mouth to satisfy the desire raging through her aroused body. To be able to forget, even for a moment, how alone and lonely she truly was.

  Titus watched the emotions flitting across Pru’s expressive face.

  The alarm.

  Followed by confusion.

  Then the heated glitter of desire burning in her eyes as she looked at him.

  The blush of arousal on her cheeks.

  The plumping of red and moist lips.

  Would those lips between her thighs be as plump, Titus wondered, and found himself licking his lips in anticipation of the sweet taste of Pru’s desire.

  For him.

  Yes, much as Pru might not want to feel the emotion, he knew she did still desire him.

  As he desired her.

  But he had spent much time in the Germaine sisters’ company before the accident, and as such, he felt he had come to know the two of them quite well. One thing he felt absolutely sure of was that both of them were still virgins.

  Not that it need prevent
him and Pru from being intimate together. There were other things, many other intimacies he and Pru could enjoy together, which would not result in the loss of that physical evidence of innocence.

  But first… “When did you last cry?”

  She looked startled by the question. “I do not understand.”

  “When did you last express your grief by crying?”

  She swallowed. “Never.”

  He nodded. It was the answer he had been expecting. “Bend yourself over the front of this table.” He shifted the piles of books to the floor before stepping back.

  Pru’s eyes widened incredulously. “And why on earth should I want to do that?”

  “Because I instructed you to do so,” the viscount rasped. “You may finish the last of your brandy first, if you wish,” he added dryly.

  Even the smell of the strong alcohol was enough to make Pru feel slightly intoxicated on top of the single sip she had already taken.

  But it was not the possibility of becoming more intoxicated which now bothered her, but Romney’s instruction she prostrate herself over the table.

  For what purpose?

  There was only one reason that Pru could think of. Well…two, but she doubted Titus intended ravishing her across a piece of furniture in his library. The other reason was even less appealing. “Are you intending to spank me?” She did not quite manage to keep the alarm from her tone.

  “Oh yes,” he confirmed with satisfaction.

  She gasped. “Why?”

  Romney leaned back against the table, his body relaxed and one booted foot casually crossed over the other. “For many reasons.”

  “Name them,” she challenged unwisely.

  “Hm, let me see.” He pretended to give the matter some thought. “Your disrespect and rudeness toward me. Your disregard for your own reputation. Most of all,” he added firmly as she would have spoken, “because I believe you believe you deserve to be spanked, and I am more than willing to fulfill that need.”

  Pru gave another gasp. “Why on earth should I think such a thing?”

  Romney’s mouth tightened. “For the same reason I allowed myself to be pummeled and pounded at the boxing saloon once my burns were healed enough that I could take myself there.”

  “And that is…?”

  “We could not save them.”

  She frowned her confusion. “I do not—”

  “Because we both feel the same guilt at the knowledge we lived and Cilla and Worthington did not,” he clarified gruffly.

  Pru felt all the color drain from her cheeks as Romney’s words hit home with the force of a hammer blow.

  Was he correct? Was that what was wrong with her? Why, now that the past six weeks of numbness had been stripped away from her, she had trouble falling asleep at night and woke every morning still tired and filled with a rage she had no idea what to do with?

  Was it possible she felt that way because of the reason Romney had stated?

  “Well?” he challenged.

  She swallowed. “Did sparring in the boxing ring make you feel better?”

  “A little,” he conceded softly.

  Was feeling a little less guilty worth the humiliation of being spanked?

  More to the point, was she really going to bend herself over the top of that table and allow Titus to spank her?

  Chapter 4

  Titus maintained a patient silence as he once again watched the emotions flitter across Pru’s expressive face. Indignation at the thought of allowing anyone to spank her. A brief glimmer of hope that if she did as he asked, it might, just might, succeed in helping her to get past the pain of grief and guilt that consumed her day and night.

  It had taken Titus several days of visiting Gentleman Jim’s boxing saloon, often choosing his opponents at random from the other gentlemen in attendance when none of the other Sinners were present, before he realized he was not exercising but deliberately punishing himself for not being able to save the lives of Worthington or Priscilla Germaine.

  He’d now had three days to consider Pru’s sharpness and coldness of manner, and the reason for it. He had no doubt Pru’s parents and other relatives had been gentle and understanding with her after Priscilla died, as Titus had been at the wedding and then again when he called at Germaine House the following day. None of that gentle understanding had helped to alleviate the guilt roiling within her.

  Pru was not angry at him or anyone else, but with herself. A sharpness and anger forged from the same guilt as Titus’s, and for the same reason.

  Allowing his sparring opponents to pummel him into semiconsciousness had helped to ease his own feelings of inadequacy for several hours a day at least, so perhaps punishing Pru with a sound spanking would assist her in the same way?

  That was his reasoning, anyway.

  Along with the knowledge he would also enjoy the palm of his hand making contact with Pru’s plump backside.

  “Well?” he prompted again at her continued silence.

  She glanced toward the window overlooking the garden at the back of the house. “What if someone should see?”

  He gave a hard grin. “That will only add to the…danger of your situation.”

  She seemed to shake off the last of her hesitation as she stepped forward and bent over the table, her face turned to the side as she gazed at him with apprehension.

  “Skirt up, drawers down,” Titus ordered briskly as he moved to stand behind her so that she would not see the effect her submissive posture was having upon him. His cock was so hard, it was a physical ache, his balls drawn up tight beneath, his sac full of heat.

  What he wouldn’t give to now instruct Pru to part her legs before releasing his throbbing cock from his pantaloons and sliding it between her nether lips and into her hot, sweet pussy. He closed his eyes briefly to block the image he had of then pounding into Pru so hard and so fast, she was rhythmically pushed forward across the table every time he thrust to the hilt inside her.

  However willingly she had acquiesced to his demand, Titus could not let his desire get the better of him and take her innocence in that brutal, savage way.

  “Titus…?” She voiced her uncertainty at his delay.

  The use of his given name caused him to draw in a sharp breath. That edge of nervousness in Pru’s tone had the opposite effect, Titus felt sure, to what she had intended.

  If he showed so much as a flicker of weakness in his resolve to spank her, then he had no doubt it would only put more distance between them. That Pru would become even more withdrawn and set apart from her family and friends than she already was. Pru needed this physical chastisement, and he needed to be the one to give it to her.

  “I said skirt up and drawers down,” he repeated harshly.

  With only the briefest of hesitations Pru’s hands moved slowly to her sides to lift and then bunch up the skirt of her gown to her waist, revealing she wore white cotton drawers beneath.

  “Pull them down,” he growled.

  “I do not see—”

  “You will feel the pain more on your bare flesh.”

  Pru released a shaky breath before lifting high enough so that she might undo the tie at the front of her drawers, then tug them downward.

  “That is far enough,” Titus muttered hoarsely, his gaze riveted on the erotic sight of Pru’s drawers resting inches below the swell of her bare ass cheeks. Such delicious and plump mounds, they made his mouth water to taste them. “Bend forward again, then grasp the opposite edge of the table with your hands before pulling yourself farther forward until only your toes touch the floor.”

  What on earth was he doing, Titus agonized, as again, after the briefest hesitation, Pru obeyed his instruction.

  Fulfilling his darkest fantasies, he acknowledged self-disgustedly.

  But he defied any man, gentleman or otherwise, not to do so when faced with the complete supplication of the woman he had desired for several months now.

  This new position allowed him to see Pru’s pr
etty and swollen nether lips peeping out between her slightly parted thighs. Wet as well as swollen, Titus realized as he spied the unmistakable gleam of that slickness on those plump lips and breathed in the heady aroma of her arousal.

  Proving Pru was no longer dismayed by the baring of her bottom but was as aroused as he was by both his instructions and her own physical vulnerability to those commands.

  The evidence of her arousal was unmistakable.

  He hoped it would become more so.

  Pru gave a lusty cry, followed by a low groan, at the feel of the first slap of Titus’s palm on her bared flesh. Not because he had hurt her, but initially from the pure shock of being struck at all, and then the unexpected pleasure that rolled through her before settling hot and urgent at her core.

  “Quiet,” Titus growled as he quickly moved to turn the key in the lock of the library door. “I doubt you want an audience any more than I do,” he added grimly as he returned to land another, harder blow to her already stinging flesh.

  Pru caught her bottom lip between her teeth to stop herself from crying out a second time. Titus was right. It would be utterly humiliating for anyone else to even guess what was occurring in the library at Romney House.

  She should not be allowing this, of course. Knew that, if she wished it, with one word from her, Titus would stop. But something inside her knew that he was right, that it wasn’t enough she could once again feel emotions, that she had a need for this physical chastisement too.

  Nor, Pru acknowledged with a groan, did she want the pleasure to stop…

  It seemed Titus had no intention of stopping as he rained smack after smack on her rapidly heating flesh, first one cheek and then the other, until Pru lost count of the number and the whole of her bottom was an inferno of burning flesh. That same heat had caused her to become slick between her thighs and the bud above swollen and throbbing with need.

  Pru was not innocent of the pleasures of her own body, knew that stroking that nubbin when alone in her bed at night at the same time as she tweaked and pulled on her nipples would result in a release that caused her body to tremble and shake and juices to flow from her channel. She would sometimes then scoop up some of that slickness on her fingers and rub her nubbin harder and faster until she climaxed a second time.