Bastian's Surrender (Regency Club Venus 1) Page 6

  The sight of her plump and naked breasts down the gaping neckline of the shirt further added to his desire.

  He gave a groan as his fingers threaded through her hair, gripping tightly, feeling himself lose control completely as he held her head in place and his cock pounded rapidly in and out of her mouth and throat.

  His balls drew up tight, a familiar tingling at the base of his spine, as warning that he was going to shoot his cum. The question was, where? In her mouth and down her throat? Or over her face and breasts?

  The choice was taken from him as Gail released her grip on his cock and it became even thicker and harder. The heated cum shot down his length to explode in Gail’s mouth in pulse after pulse of a release so hot and prolonged, Bastian thought he might black out from the intensity of it.

  Abigail sucked up and consumed every last drop of Bastian’s release, licking up the last of it as his cock began to soften, if not lessen in size, before she sat back on her heels to gaze up at him.

  Bastian looked totally debauched. His hair was tousled. His cheeks flushed. Lips slightly parted. Bronzed and engorged nipples visible among the dark hair on his muscular chest. His lengthy cock was no longer fierce and throbbing but rested along his abdomen, as depleted at the man.

  Abigail was congratulating herself for having reduced him to this state of physical satiation when she looked up and saw that his eyes were no longer closed but glittering down at her with fierce intent.

  But intent to do what?

  Chapter Ten

  Bastian was not fooled for a minute by the innocence of Gail’s expression as she rose agilely to her bare feet to walk over to the window. Not that there was anything for her to see, being full dark outside.

  She had set out to seduce him just now, and she had succeeded, but to what purpose?

  Considering the state she had been in when she collapsed on his doorstep, was she now hoping to extort money from him for sexual favors granted so that she could once again be on her way?

  Or something more than that?

  Bastian sat up straighter to refasten his pantaloons before standing to pull his shirt on over his head. What had happened between the two of them just now had been more intensely pleasurable than any other sexual experience Bastian had ever indulged in, even the more debauched ones—perhaps because it was Gail’s lips and hands pleasuring him?—but now the two of them did need to talk, and he did not wish to cloud the issue by being half-naked when they did so. Bad enough she looked utterly tempting dressed only in one of his shirts.

  His mouth thinned. “Why were you not wearing drawers when I undressed you earlier?”

  Her shoulders stiffened, the lengthy silence telling him of her likely inner debate as to whether to tell him the truth or invent some fabrication which she hoped might satisfy his curiosity.

  She drew in a deep breath before answering him. “I was attacked last night. By three men. They held me down and ripped off my drawers. I believe they intended to…to rape me, and would probably have done so if another man had not interrupted them.”

  She had decided on the truth, Bastian decided. “Where did this occur?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Yes, it mattered. Because Bastian intended to have these men apprehended and ensure they did not attack another young woman who might not succeed in escaping them.

  “I am more interested in the bag I was forced to leave behind when I ran away,” Abigail insisted when Bastian told her that. “It contained everything I own in the world.”

  He nodded. “I will see if there is some way in which we can retrieve it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You have been sleeping on the streets these past three nights?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are these men responsible for the bruises I noted on your arms and legs when I undressed you?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands clenched at his sides. “But you are otherwise unharmed?”

  “I am.”

  Bastian breathed his relief. He was also becoming more and more frustrated with Gail’s refusal to turn and look at him. He wanted to see her face, gauge her expression, when she answered him. “Look at me,” he instructed gruffly. “Gail!” he bit out harshly when she made no effort to respond.

  She turned slowly, her cheeks no longer flushed with her own sexual arousal and her gaze wary.

  His jaw tensed at the latter. “Why did you leave Club Venus without telling anyone you were going and why?” He knew Blackborne had questioned the other ladies extensively, but they had seemed as surprised by Gail’s unexpected departure as Gabriel and Bastian were. “If you have been sleeping on the streets, you obviously did not leave because you had somewhere else to go.”

  As she had nowhere else to go now either, or she would not have come to him at all.

  Had Gail just serviced him as a way of persuading him into helping her further?

  Bastian gave a wince of self-disgust at the thought that might be the case. “I demand the truth, Gail, not fabrication,” he rasped as there was another lengthy pause.

  Abigail debated how much of that truth she might confide. Her mother had always told her not to lie, but that if she must do so, it was best to stick as much to the truth as possible.

  Her chin rose. “I had believed I had satisfied the duke’s requirements for working in Club Venus. I agreed to a medical examination and am of an age to make my own decisions. I was led to believe he would make no other demands for information.”

  “That is the usual arrangement, yes…”

  Abigail nodded. “I overheard the two of you talking after Dr. Winter left yesterday. Heard the duke say he intended to check into my family background.”

  “And you disliked that idea so much, you decided to run away?”

  “I did not run, I walked,” she snapped. “And the duke has no right to make enquiries about me or my family.”

  Bastian’s eyes narrowed. “What can you possibly be hiding that is so bad you would rather live on the streets than have that secret become known? Did you kill a member of your family before you ran away?” he mocked.

  Her eyes widened. “Of course not!”

  “What, then?”

  “I-It is only…” Her chin rose another notch. “I do not have to tell you any more than I already have.”

  Bastian breathed out deeply. “If you have not committed murder, I do not see—”

  “I wish you would stop saying that!”

  “Why?”

  Because she had seen a man murdered, not committed a murder herself, and the memory of that still haunted her waking hours and filled her nights with vivid dreams.

  Abigail had been in the house the night the men came for her stepfather. She had heard them break in, followed by her stepfather’s demand for them to leave. She had watched over the bannister at the top of the stairs as one of those men then seized her stepfather about the throat and held him up against the wall, Daniel gurgling and clawing at the other man’s wrists.

  The man hadn’t relented until Daniel ceased gurgling and clawing and had instead slumped over, no longer breathing.

  Which was when Abigail noticed that one of the other two men had placed a chair in the center of the sitting room. The second man then stood on the chair so he could loop a rope over the small chandelier at its center and secured it at one end, having first blown out the lit candles.

  She had watched as they then looped the other end of that rope about Daniel’s throat and let go of him so that he dangled from the light fitting with the noose about his neck.

  In what, Abigail had realized with horror, looked like an act of suicide on Daniel’s part.

  She had not been overly fond of her stepfather, nor he of her, but she had never wished him harm either. Certainly not for him to meet his end in such a violent way.

  The third man laughed as he kicked over the chair. “All nice and tidy like,” he said with satisfaction. “Just as the earl instructed.”


  They had been instructed to do this? Abigail had realized then that this was not a random robbery, but someone had sent these men here to kill Daniel.

  Her stepfather had been muttering insulting remarks about the Earl of Shaftesbury for the previous week. Bemoaning the fact the man was asking him to repay a debt of a few thousand pounds when the earl was one of the richest men in England.

  A few thousand pounds had sounded like a lot of money to Abigail, no matter how rich the earl was.

  Although not enough to end a man’s life over.

  Having now met Bastian, she had to admit to finding it difficult to imagine him having been involved in that wicked deed.

  Could she have been mistaken? Jumped to an erroneous conclusion based on the superficial evidence of her stepfather’s debt to the Earl of Shaftesbury and those three men having mentioned being employed by an earl? After all, there were several dozen earls in England, and Abigail very much doubted Shaftesbury was the only one Daniel owed money to.

  If that was the case, then she had seriously misjudged Bastian.

  “I did not kill anyone,” she answered him quietly. “Did you?”

  He scowled darkly. “What the bloody hell sort of question is that?”

  Indecision racked her. If she told Bastian the truth about herself and he had instructed those men to kill her stepfather after all, then she could be putting herself in a position where Bastian needed to silence her.

  But if he was not responsible…

  Bastian had watched the expressions flitting across Gail’s face as she obviously considered her options, to tell him the truth or continue to lie. Nor had he missed the wary glances she had shot his way as she contemplated those choices.

  He crossed the room in several long strides until he stood mere inches in front of her. “Whatever you have done, whatever you are running away from, I promise I shall help you.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I have not— Why would you want to help me?”

  His expression softened. “Because I care what happens to you.”

  Bastian questioned whether or not he more than cared for her.

  There was no denying she had intrigued him from the first—notwithstanding that knife she had held in her hand!

  Nor could Bastian deny the response he’d had to her four nights ago, and his jealousy over Winter having touched her so intimately, and the thought of Evesham taking her virginity.

  Or his concern earlier today when he found her collapsed on his doorstep.

  And his unprecedented pleasure this evening when Gail sucked his cock until he came more explosively than he could ever remember doing before.

  Were those things indications he was falling in love with her rather than only desiring her?

  Not having ever been in love, Bastian had no idea how or what that felt like. Perhaps—

  “My name is Abigail Barton, not Brown as I told the Duke of Blackborne.” She spoke again softly. “I do not remember my father, as he died when I was still a baby. My mother has since died too. But she was not, as the Duke of Blackborne suspected, anything more than a moderately wealthy widow of a vicar, a third son, and she later became a seamstress. The reason for my manners and ladylike air is because my mother worked for ladies, not because she was one.” There was another short pause. “My mother remarried when I was still very young. My stepfather has also recently died.” She chewed briefly on her top lip before her head came up and she met Bastian’s gaze. “His name was Rafferty.”

  He recoiled as if she had struck him. “Daniel Rafferty?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are the child who disappeared after his death?”

  “I would hardly call myself a child—”

  “Answer the fucking question!” Bastian could barely contain his impatience and rising excitement.

  “I was Daniel Rafferty’s stepdaughter, yes,” she confirmed warily.

  Bastian chose to ignore that wariness for the moment and instead concentrated on the fact that the child he had been seeking these past three months was standing in front of him. Not very young and defenseless as he had thought she was, even if Gail was a little battered and bruised from recent events, but a fully grown and beautiful woman.

  Rafferty’s child, his stepdaughter was alive, damn it, and entirely safe within Bastian’s own household.

  Chapter Eleven

  Abigail gave a gasp as Bastian, after giving a triumphant shout, now swept her up into his arms and his mouth came down to claim hers with the strength and possession she had come to expect from him.

  He was not angry or suspicious of her motives for being here, as she had thought he would be, but was kissing her instead, and with great gusto.

  Confirming, if Abigail had any lingering doubts, that Bastian was not responsible for Daniel’s death. Because a guilty man would want to distance himself from the stepdaughter of the man he’d had killed. He would not be kissing her so passionately and deeply, devouring her, as if he wished to take her inside himself and make her a part of him.

  Those doubts and fears removed, Abigail had no defense against such an onslaught of emotion, and her arms moved up to cling about Bastian’s neck and shoulders as she returned the intensity of that kiss and allowed her emotions to roam free, as they had so longed to do since she’d come to know Bastian.

  The desire she had felt earlier as she pleasured Bastian returned with a vengeance now that she knew Bastian was innocent of Daniel’s murder, and she was able to feel Bastian’s own rapidly hardening cock as evidence of the return of his desire for her.

  She gave a choked sob at the relief at Bastian’s pleased reaction to her identity.

  Bastian wrenched his mouth from hers to trail his lips down the length of her throat. “I have been searching for you for months,” he murmured intensely.

  Abigail tensed. “For me?”

  He nodded. “For fucking months and months! My inability to find you is the very reason I have behaved so recklessly in establishments such as Club Venus.”

  “I… But… Why were you looking for me?”

  He pulled back slightly so that his hands might cup either side of her face as he stared at her intently. “You have to know the truth, Gail. My conscience will not allow any other. I pray you will not hate me once you know.”

  “I could never hate you,” she stated with certainty.

  Indeed, despite everything, Abigail believed she had strong emotions for Bastian. He did not know her, nor anything about her, and yet in his own way, he had championed and attempted to protect her from the moment they met.

  Many gentlemen, having been found in such a compromising position as being strapped helpless to a bed, might have wished to have all memory of that humiliation erased. Namely by having demanded the Duke of Blackborne dismiss her for having found him in that state, along with the woman who had tied him up and left him there.

  Bastian had not done that.

  Nor, after he had fed her oysters and watched as she pleasured herself, had he made any attempt to molest her while she slept.

  As many other men would.

  Nor was it Bastian she had run away from when she fled Club Venus, but the duke’s intention of delving into her past.

  A past which would have revealed to Bastian she was Daniel Rafferty’s stepdaughter, something she had believed might have resulted in her paying for her stepfather’s crime. Something that might still happen, although she did not think so. Bastian looked too relieved, too jubilant at learning her identity, and not in a way that wished her any harm.

  Even more telling was that, when she had been too cold and tired to hide anymore, it was Bastian she had come to for assistance and not the Duke of Blackborne, who truly had shown her nothing but kindness.

  “I pray that is still true when I have told you everything.” Bastian swept her into his arms once again. “I have been looking for you because, having inadvertently pushed Rafferty to suicide by asking he pay a gambling debt, I believed his
very young son or daughter to now be defenseless against the cruelties they might have encountered on the streets of London. But here you are.” He gazed at her with triumphant pleasure. “Alive and well and so utterly fucking beautiful.” He claimed her lips in another earth-shattering kiss.

  Abigail was the one to pull back this time. “But Daniel did not…” She gave a shake of her head. “My stepfather did not commit suicide.”

  Bastian frowned down at her. “He hanged himself.”

  “No.” She gave an emphatic shake of her head. “Three men came to the house and arranged things to look as if Daniel had killed himself.”

  His eyes widened. “You were there?”

  “Upstairs.” She nodded. “Once they had… Once Daniel was dead, I hid and locked myself in a wardrobe. As soon as the men left, I packed the few things I owned and, I admit, that time I did indeed run,” she said ruefully. “In the interest of truth, I must now admit that I believed, until today, you had sent those men to kill Daniel.”

  Bastian released her before stepping away, his emotions at war inside him.

  On the one hand was the relief of knowing Rafferty’s child was alive and well and also that he had not pushed Rafferty to commit suicide after all.

  On the other was the knowledge that until now, Gail had believed him guilty of having her stepfather murdered.

  But that had not prevented her from coming to him now. Or from making love to him.

  Meaning what?

  Did it really matter what Gail had believed when they were both powerless to resist the attraction between them?

  Could it be love Bastian felt for her?

  He certainly felt more possessive about Gail than he ever had any other woman.

  Could she ever grow to love him in return?

  Only time would answer those question. For the moment, it was enough that they were together, and that Gail was safe.

  He nodded. “I want you to remain here with me, at least until these men, whoever they are, and whoever they work for, are found.”