Wicked Temptation Read online

  “I should like to see and touch your pussy again.” He pushed her gown higher. “Like velvet,” he murmured his approval after his fingers had parted and revealed her moist folds to his avid gaze. “You are so wet for me.” His fingers dipped into that wetness as he caressed the length of her slit and then up to the tiny nubbin nestled amongst the blonde curls.

  Pru felt the last of her self-consciousness leave her at the feel of those caressing fingers against her sensitive flesh. “Titus,” she gasped softly as that nubbin was stroked and squeezed until it was hard and throbbing.

  “Tell me what you need, darling girl,” he encouraged gruffly.

  “More.” She pressed her aching flesh against his caressing fingers. “I need more, Titus.” It had been sheer torture for her to care for his every need these past four days, including having one of the maids help her to wash his muscular and naked body, without being able to touch him in the ways she really wished to do.

  “Ride my fingers.” Titus used his digits to pump her rigid little organ, his chest filling with pleasure as Pru gasped and groaned, her hands clinging tightly to his shoulders as she undulated backward and forward on his fingers. “Harder,” he encouraged as her breathing faltered. “Faster,” he instructed, feeling that organ become stiffer still as Pru began to quiver and shake with the force of her release.

  She collapsed weakly against his shoulder, careful to choose his uninjured side even in her loss of control. “I believe I needed that after all,” she murmured self-derisively.

  Titus lightly caressed her hair. “I believe you did too.”

  “Would you like me to give you pleasure now?”

  “God, yes,” he groaned.

  Pru sat up to look at him. Titus had lost weight these past few days—no doubt he would say that was because he had been given no red meat to eat!—but otherwise, he seemed to have regained some of the color in his face today, and his arms felt strong about her waist. Still, she hesitated. “Are you sure you feel well enough?”

  “My cock believes it does.” He pushed his robe and nightshirt aside to reveal its long and throbbing hardness.

  Pru’s gaze was instantly captivated by the thick and heavy length rising from a nest of dark curls, the bulbous top slick with the release of his juices. A slickness she longed to taste again.

  She moistened her lips in anticipation of that sweet and salty release as she slid down between his parted legs to kneel on the floor in front of him. “You will just sit there and let me do all the work.” She wrapped her fingers about the steely velvet length of his cock.

  “I believe I might manage a thrust or two, if that is allowed?” he drawled.

  “Now you are mocking me,” she admonished.

  He touched her cheek gently. “If I am mocking anyone, it is myself,” he assured her huskily. “I am unable to walk more than a few feet without feeling tired, and yet my desire for you is undiminished. I must have your mouth on me, Pru,” he added ardently.

  Pru was only too happy to oblige, slowly pumping the length of his cock as she took the bulbous head fully into her mouth and laved it with her tongue. She heard Titus’s gasp and felt the jolt of his cock as her tongue explored the slit at the top.

  Titus’s breathing became ragged as Pru continued to alternately lick and lave his cockhead, her hand pumping that slick length, her other hand now cupping the tightness of his sac before rolling those balls in her palm.

  “Dear God…” He groaned, sliding farther down on the seat as Pru’s fingers ventured lower and along that taut and sensitive stretch of skin between the fullness of his sac and the cleft of his ass.

  The skin felt rougher there but was even more sensitive to the caress of her finger about that puckered hole. Titus’s breathing grew shallow, his thighs started to tremble, and his sac drew up tighter still.

  Pru sucked his length to the back of her throat, fingers tightening as she pumped that length harder and faster, the tip of her finger now pressing against that sensitive pucker.

  Titus’s release was immediate, his hands tightly gripping her shoulders as pulse after pulse of hot cum filled her throat to be swallowed down greedily.

  His cock didn’t soften but remained hard and aching as he continued to thrust long after those pulses had stopped, his sac drawing up tight again, incredibly in readiness for another release.

  “What is it?” he prompted as Pru suddenly removed her mouth and sat back, her expression one of alarm.

  “I believe I heard my mother’s voice.” She released him before rising abruptly to her feet and rushing to the door to open it slightly and listen for noises outside the room. Her face was slightly pale when she closed it quickly again and turned back to face him. “My parents have arrived.”

  “—cannot say how grateful my wife and I both are for your care of Prudence these past weeks.” Bryan Germaine, the Earl of Winchester, said warmly.

  “I am only sorry my presence here has inconvenienced your household in this way,” Titus returned smoothly, sure the earl would not be feeling quite so grateful if he knew what he and Pru had been doing when the other gentleman arrived home half an hour or so ago.

  His cock, still hard and straining as Pru caressed and sucked him toward a second climax, had deflated almost the instant he became aware of her parents’ arrival back in London. Pru had excused herself to hurry to her bedchamber to straighten and tidy her appearance before going down to greet her parents.

  “Not at all,” the older man dismissed. “Prudence has told us how you saved her life. I do not believe the countess and I could have survived losing our second daughter,” he added emotionally.

  Titus felt a return of his guilt in relation to both Priscilla’s and the butler’s deaths. He and Worthington had always known the risks involved in being agents for the Crown, but the Germaine family were only innocent bystanders who had now lost a daughter and a valued member of their household.

  The earl’s eyes narrowed. “Prudence says I am not allowed to ask you for details of the shooting.”

  Titus knew that was because, and despite everything, Pru was still trying to protect him and the other Sinners. “I am afraid that is the case, my lord.”

  The older man nodded gravely. “Nevertheless, my wife will be along shortly to offer her own thank-you for your protection of our darling Pru.”

  Titus felt discomforted by all the gratitude coming from the Germaine family. If not for him, they would never have suffered the death of their daughter Priscilla or their butler, and Pru would not have been in danger in the first place if his pursuit of her had not singled her out as one of the ladies suspected of being a traitor to England.

  None of which he was able to share with the Earl and Countess of Winchester. Not that a full explanation would make their losses any easier to bear, but it might have been some consolation to know that their daughter and butler had died in service to the Crown.

  To add insult to injury, Titus knew he had been on the verge of fucking their other daughter in their own home when they arrived.

  His feelings of guilt deepened when the countess came to the bedchamber to express her own gratitude, the redness about her eyes telling him she had been crying.

  Was it any wonder that Pru had refused to see him and seemed to hate him for those weeks following her sister’s death?

  No doubt her parents would feel the same way if they were to ever learn of the part he had played in Priscilla’s and their butler’s deaths.

  He and Pru had been living in a fool’s paradise these past two weeks. An exclusive world where it had seemed possible for the two of them to be together in whatever capacity they wished. Faced with the grief he and the other Sinners had brought down upon the Germaine family, Titus realized the utter impossibility of there ever being anything meaningful between Pru and himself.

  Besides, the traitor to England was still out there, and Titus’s continued involvement with Pru still made her a target.

  Whatever closeness he
and Pru had shared, it was now over.

  Chapter 10

  “You are not well enough to travel yet,” Pru protested as she watched Edgars move about the bedchamber repacking Titus’s belongings into the portmanteau he had brought with him. He’d already helped his employer to dress in black superfine, gray pantaloons, and white linen.

  “Leave us,” the viscount instructed his valet. He waited until the other man was out of the room and the door closed behind him before speaking again. “It is for the best if I return home now your parents are here with you.”

  “But—”

  “It is but a mile by coach,” he chided gently.

  Pru did not want his gentleness. She wanted Titus to stay here, where she could keep him safe.

  Ridiculous to think Titus would ever really need her protection, but the thought of him leaving, of not knowing when she would see him again, was almost too much for her to bear. “I will miss you,” was the most she dared allow herself to say.

  His mouth tightened. “It was foolish to think we could remain here as we were.”

  Foolish or not, Pru had grown accustomed to visiting Titus in his bedchamber each morning, to spending most of the day at his side, the two of them occasionally playing cards together or, if Titus was feeling especially tired, to reading out loud to him.

  It had felt right to her.

  Meant to be.

  Perfect.

  As if it might go on forever.

  Until her parents left Titus’s room a short time ago to inform her he had decided he was feeling well enough to leave today.

  “How can you think of leaving after the things we have shared? Or is the reason you are going because you wish to put those intimacies behind you?” Her tone was accusing, her chin tilted in challenge rather than allowing Titus to hear her heartbreak or see her tears.

  “I have things to do, Pru—”

  “More important than staying here and—and recovering fully?” she substituted for what she had really wanted to say, which was being with me.

  Titus’s gaze was hooded. “Stonewell informed me this morning that my men have a lead on who is responsible for killing Parker.”

  “You are not well enough to go in pursuit.”

  “I am well enough to direct my men as to the best way to do so.”

  Pru knew of her own feelings for Titus, knew that she loved him, would always love him. Just as he was making it clear he did not feel the same way about her. He would not be leaving her if he did.

  She had, after all, been nothing more than a warm and convenient female body for him to take and give pleasure to.

  Much as it pained her to let him go, Pru’s pride would not allow her to resort to begging.

  “Very well.” She nodded. “I trust you will send word if or when your men apprehend the murderer and he reveals his employer.”

  “Of course.”

  There seemed nothing more for Pru to say without making a complete fool of herself. Pride might be all she had left, but she was determined to hold on to it. “I will wish you a safe journey, then.” She gave an abrupt curtsey before departing with a swish of her skirts.

  Titus drew in a long and ragged breath, his hands tightly gripping the arms of the chair he sat in to stop himself from going after her. To do so would make null and void all that he was trying to do by leaving, namely protecting Pru and her family from coming to further harm.

  He had thought over this situation constantly the past four days, and leaving Pru and Germaine House, giving the impression to any who might care to know that the two of them were no longer friends, was the only way he could think of to protect her. His near proximity seemed only to have succeeded in drawing that attention to Pru and her family.

  Much as it pained him to do so, Titus had decided he must make a clean break of things. Until the matter of the traitor was settled, at least. After that, he would not hold back in taking what he wanted. And what he wanted was Pru.

  If his coldness toward her just now meant that she no longer wanted to be with him, then so be it. An alive-and-despising-him Pru was preferable to a dead one.

  For now.

  “You are moping again, darling,” Pru’s mother chided gently. “Although I doubt it is for the same reason,” she added shrewdly.

  “We buried Parker today, and I am also still in mourning for Cilla,” Pru defended.

  “We all mourn for Cilla and Parker,” her mother soothed. “But your restlessness these past three days and again today is not the same thing at all.”

  It was now four days since Titus left Germaine House without so much as a goodbye. Not that Pru had said a proper goodbye to him either after leaving his bedchamber; she had been too angry with him at the time to stand on the steps of the house and speak polite niceties as he departed.

  “It was noticeable that you and Romney did nothing more than nod a greeting to each other at the funeral today,” her mother added softly.

  Pru gave her a sharp glance. Today’s funeral had been a sad affair for the household staff and the Germaine family. The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that Parker had no close family to mourn his loss or demand an explanation as to why and how he had died. The Germaine family was his family, and they mourned him as such.

  She frowned. “Noticeable to whom?”

  Her mother smiled ruefully. “Me, darling.”

  Color bloomed in Pru’s cheeks. Her mother always had been able to discern her mood, and today it was one of anger as well as sadness. It was true she and Titus had not spoken at Parker’s funeral, but that was all Titus’s doing, not her own. Pru would have liked to approach him—reproach him, for his not having so much as written to her these past four days, even if it was only to tell her he had made no progress in his search for the traitor—but apart from that brief nod in her direction as he left the church, accompanied by the other Sinners, Titus had not acknowledged her as being anything more than a passing acquaintance.

  Possibly because to him, that was what she was?

  Not his lover.

  Certainly not the woman he loved.

  Merely another woman he had dallied with to satisfy his lust.

  Pru could not and would not accept being dismissed from Titus’s life with such cold disregard to her own feelings.

  Admittedly, Titus had said they had been living in a fool’s paradise before her parents arrived home, but she had believed that to be because of her parents’ presence. But if Titus had decided their liaison was completely at an end, then she at least deserved to have him tell her that to her face, rather than be forced to accept it because of Titus’s sudden and continued absence from her life.

  Pru came to a decision. “I am going out in the carriage for a while, Mother.”

  The countess’s brows rose. “Are you taking Mary with you?”

  Her mouth firmed. “No.”

  Her mother nodded after a brief pause. “Very well. But have a care, darling. Romney is not a man to be trifled with.”

  “He is the one that has trifled with me and my affections,” Pru defended, not at all surprised her mother had guessed where she was going.

  Her mother sighed. “I thought as much. He is…much older and more sophisticated than you, darling.”

  Pru gave a snort in recollection of the conversation she’d had with Titus on the same subject. “He has assured me that with maturity comes experience.”

  “Has he, indeed,” her mother mused. “In that case, you had best go and remonstrate with him for his tardiness toward you today.”

  Pru stepped forward to give the older woman an impulsive hug. “He is the one for me, Mother. I know it as surely as night follows day.”

  Her mother smiled. “And when my Pru sets her heart on something, woe betide anything or anyone who gets in her way.”

  She gave a beaming smile. “Exactly.”

  Her confidence did not last for long, however, once she was seated in the family carriage. Her cloak was wrapped secure
ly about her shoulders and covering the fact she was no longer wearing the black gown she had worn to the funeral earlier but had changed into a fashionable blue gown which perfectly matched the color of her eyes. Let Romney try to ignore her when her shoulders were completely bare and her full breasts were tumbling temptingly over the low neckline of her gown.

  “The viscount is not receiving visitors,” the butler answered loftily in answer to Pru’s request to see Titus.

  Her gaze sharpened. “Is he ill?” Titus had not seemed discomforted at the funeral earlier today, but that did not mean he was not suffering for the activity now so soon after being shot.

  “Not at all, my lady,” the butler assured coolly. “He has simply left instructions he is not at home to visitors this afternoon.”

  Not at home to all visitors, Pru wondered, or just her? Had he… Could Titus have dared to tell his butler to refuse her admittance if she should call?

  Anger, strong and acidic, rose to the back of her throat as she pushed her way past that gentleman and into the entrance hall. “Where is he?” she demanded of the stunned butler.

  “I— Well, really— I cannot allow—”

  “I will make sure to tell his lordship of your valiant attempt to refuse me entry,” Pru dismissed. “Is he in the library? His study? His study.” She nodded confirmation as the butler’s gaze widened slightly at her second guess. “You will see we are not disturbed,” she instructed before striding toward the hallway where she knew Titus’s study to be.

  She faltered only slightly when she reached the closed study door before straightening her shoulders and entering the room. She’d already barged her way into the house, and she saw absolutely no point in politely knocking to gain entry to Titus’s study.

  “What— Pru?” Titus was more than a little startled at the suddenness with which she had appeared in the room with no announcement or prior warning.

  Although perhaps he should not have been. Pru had made the anger she felt toward him more than clear earlier today with but a single glare across the church in his direction. An anger he knew he fully deserved.