Chapter 18

London

The Boynton Hotel

Eleven Days Later

Corbin glanced out the big picture window at the end of the long hotel corridor. The storm that everyone had been expecting had finally arrived. Trees were whipping back and forth in the wind in the small park below and there were snow flurries. It made him shiver just looking.

A door opened at the far end of the hallway and Corbin quickly stepped back inside the linen closet, not fully closing the door behind him. He felt not only like a pervert, but also like the biggest fool in London as he watched through the gap. A couple—not Lady Io and Everard Gordon—left their hotel room and walked toward the stairs, laughing and chatting like normal people. Not like a desperate man who hid in linen closets for hours on end and spied on a woman he coveted.

Once the pair had gone, Corbin slipped out of his hiding place, which he'd bribed a servant to use, and leaned against the closet door, his gaze yet again turning toward the window and the snowstorm.

It was yet another day he had wasted shadowing Lady Io Hale and her lover.

It might be cold, but at least you have your jealousy and fury to keep you warm.

Corbin scowled but could not deny it.

He was yanked from his brooding by the sight of Lady Io's hotel room door opening and Everard Gordon—social scourge and infamous provocateur—stepping out. He was immediately joined by Lady Io in her dressing gown.

Corbin ground his teeth at the sight and watched with growing rage as neither of them made any effort at all to disguise the fact that Io—an unmarried lady—was alone in a hotel room with a scoundrel.

In her dressing gown.

When she stood on her toes to kiss Gordon's cheek Corbin's vision went black and for one irrational moment, he thought his head might actually explode.

When his vision cleared, he realized, belatedly, that he had not ducked back into his hidey-hole.

And Lady Io was leaning against her doorframe, arms crossed, smirk visible from even this distance.

Corbin was torn. Storm directly to Io and throttle her? Or follow Gordon and beat him to death. Slowly.

He chose the former. After all, he knew where Gordon lived and it would be far better to commit battery at the man's lair rather than in the corridor of one of London's most exclusive hotels.

As he strode toward her, her dark eyebrows arched and she gave him a look of unholy glee. "Fancy seeing you here."

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" he retorted, too furious to lower his voice.

She winced and glanced up and down the empty hallway.

"Oh, now you are worried about attracting attention," he raged.

She grabbed his arm and yanked him into her room, slamming the door behind him.

Corbin could not hold his anger in check for another second. "I know you have no care for your reputation, but a gentleman should make every effort not to cast shame on a woman. At least not one he respects or admires. By being with you in a hotel—alone—Gordon has irreparably damaged your reputation, my lady. And if—"

"You arealone with me in my hotel room, Masterson."

Corbin's jaw sagged.

"That is—that is different," he sputtered.

"Yes, it is. But not for the reasons you think."

"Why? Because I am not your lover but merely your brother's employee?" he lashed out, closing the distance between them and not stopping until his body was pressed against hers, his hands like manacles around her upper arms.

"No. Because he isn't."

Corbin goggled. "He isn't what?"

"My lover."

He remained riveted in place.

Lady Io shrugged and he realized he must be hurting her.

When he released her, she tugged on her sash and removed her robe.

Corbin gaped; she was fully dressed beneath the dressing gown. That seemed…odd.

He looked up from her staid navy wool walking costume and met her mocking gaze. He cleared his throat, scrambling for his outrage, finding only scraps remaining. Still, he pressed on. "If he is not your lover, then what was he doing in this room?"

"Two things. One, we were talking about the article I'm writing for his magazine. And two—as you have been so devoted to stalking me—I decided that I should use the opportunity to make you jealous."

"Jealous," he roared. "Oh, you only wish that were true. For your inf—"

"I know it is, Corbin."

His mouth hung open as his eyes followed her fingers, which were unbuttoning her bodice.

"What are you doing?" he demanded sternly, although to be truthful it sounded more like an asthmatic wheeze.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

He swallowed as she exposed the hint of a very plain chemise.

Corbin yanked his gaze back up, his eyes narrowing. "You are torturing me," he hissed and then stepped closer and put both hands around her slender throat. "You are always torturing me." His fingers flexed. "It would be so easy to choke the life out of you."

"Do it," she taunted, tilting her chin back and baring her throat for his hands. "I know you want to."

His hands tightened and her breathing roughened, her gaze as provoking and defiant as ever. "I should," he muttered. And then words he had never intended to speak spilled out of his mouth. "I should fuck you—get you out of my system—and then throttle you."

Her eyes blazed and her body went pliant at his crude words. Before he could open his mouth to beg her pardon for his unforgivable crude lapse, she gave a mocking laugh and said, "I suppose that is better than throttling me and then fucking me."

Had he been thinking about apologizing?

"But tell me, sir, do you think one fuck will be enough to exorcise me?"

Oh, her wicked, wicked mouth and the words that came out of it!

And what those words did to his cock.

You are a man, not a beast.

Corbin gritted his jaw hard enough to crack his teeth and reluctantly released her throat. "You are the very devil herself."

As she had done twice before, she laid her hand on his chest. But the expression was far different than those other times—not sly and challenging, but almost…yearning. "You must know that I want you."

"Damnation, woman," he said, his voice thick with desire.

She smiled, and it was a wry expression. "I think you want me, too."

"With the heat of a thousand suns," he blurted.

She laughed. And then she turned on her heel. "Then shut up, come to bed, and take me."

***

Io genuinely did not think Masterson would follow her. Indeed, she'd been far more certain that he would strangle her as he'd looked like a man demented and nothing like the cool, implacable, moral pillar of society she had met all those weeks ago.

She unbuttoned her gown enough that she could shimmy out of it as she walked from the suite's entryway to the bedchamber, pausing long enough to step out of the dress, leaving it on the floor behind her.

When she reached the bed, she wore only her shift, hose, and garters.

Io turned around, not sure of what she would find.

Masterson was only a foot away, his gray eyes so hot they were all but smoking.

Io watched the man in front of her war with himself. Morality clubbed desire over the head, but desire fought dirty and kicked the legs right out from under morality.

"You witch," he snarled, and then moved like a blur.

When his arms closed around her and his mouth crushed hers, Io melted into his embrace.

He was hard beneath her, the heat of him searing her through her thin chemise. His large hand slid over her body as if becoming reacquainted after an absence of years.

Io surrendered to his kisses, allowing him to set the pace. He plundered her with a deep, passionate desire that his normally cool, controlled fa?ade belied. She had long known a man lived beneath the layers of proper suiting and stern convention, but she'd never dared to hope that she would one day hold him in her arms.

He pulled away, breathing heavily, and plucked at her chemise. "I want this off."

She shivered at his heated, hungry tone. "And I want you naked," she said, lifting her chemise over her head.

The noise he made as his eyes swept up and down her body turned her already weak knees to jelly.

"You are exquisite," he said gruffly, raising ink-black eyes to hers.

Io was not shy about her body and knew she was attractive enough, but his consuming gaze made her feel like a goddess.

As much as she liked his admiration, she wanted to do some gawking herself. She jerked her chin at him, "Now it is your turn," she said, sounding far cooler than she felt. "Let me help you." She stepped close enough to work the buttons on his cuffs.

He paused at her order, but only briefly, his deft, elegant fingers tossing his hat onto a chair, his hand flying over the buttons of his overcoat, coat, and waistcoat and shrugging them all off as if they were one garment.

Io laughed at his haste and he startled for a moment, but then his lips twitched slightly as he saw the humor in the situation. She finished with his cuffs and quickly moved to the row of buttons down his chest while he toed off his boots.

When the last button on his shirt was unfastened, he shrugged his shoulders, the movement causing a fascinating cascade of muscles beneath his pale skin.

She allowed herself to gorge on him, drinking in the thick, chiseled slabs of his pectoral muscles before meandering down to the tight ridges of his abdomen, her sex clenching at the line of fine blond down that disappeared beneath the black trousers currently being unfastened.

And then his drawers and trousers hit the floor and the erection she had been fantasizing about sprang free.

"Hello there," she murmured, instinctively reaching for his thick ruddy shaft.

Masterson caught her wrist and she looked up to find him giving her a pained look.

"What is it?" she asked.

"If you touch me, I will humiliate myself."

Io laughed, both flattered and amused at his declaration. "Hmmm, I see. Well, then fetch a condom and we can make this first time quick." Her eyelids lowered. "And the next one more leisurely."

He frowned. "Condom?"

Her good humor fled. "Have you never heard of them?" she asked sweetly.

He flushed. "I have no diseases."

"They are not only prophylactics, Masterson. They are also for my protection. Against pregnancy."

His jaw flexed and he stared at her.

"Oh," Io said, taking a step away from him. "I see. If we were to fuck, then marriage would speedily follow." She cocked her head and asked with mock innocence. "Or are we already betrothed because you've seen my bare breasts and sex and I've had your penis in my mouth? And if we are engaged then it naturally follows that I will immediately wish to be plowed and seeded by you."

His face turned a dull brick red and he reached down and yanked the drawers and trousers he'd just dropped a scant moment before.

When he stood, his expression was as cold as a winter wind coming off the Great Lakes. "I. Apologize," he said, enunciating each word because he knew that she hated such masculine chivalry.

He made short work of buttoning his trousers and ruthlessly shoved his feet back into his shoes.

Here you go again, subverting your own desires with that razor-sharp tongue of yours.

The words were like a splash of icy water—both waking her up and cooling her sudden burst of temper.

"Oh, no you don't," she said when Masterson snatched up his shirt and began to shrug into it. She stepped up to him and claimed his hard, frowning mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him lower.

For one horrible second that seemed to last a lifetime he did not move—not to push her away, but also not to return her kiss.

And then he growled—a savage noise she would never have thought he was capable of making—and seized her in a crushing embrace.

Io released his neck and shoved her hands between their bodies, her fingers fumbling on the buttons of his trousers.

He groaned and grabbed her, leaving the undressing to her as he worshipped her body with his hands.

Only when she'd unbuttoned his trousers and shoved them down with his drawers did she break away and mutter, "Shoes."

Once again, he toed off his polished shoes, which had likely been ruined by today's cruel treatment. When he was naked, she held him at arm's length, holding firm to his bulging biceps when he tried to get to her. "Stand still, Corbin. I want to see you."

One moment she was staring at him and the next she was flying through the air. Io gave an undignified shriek as she landed on the bed.

"You will issue no more orders today, my lady. At least none that I will obey," he added darkly.

"But I—"

"I've had all I am going to take from you. On your back. Now," he snarled as he stalked toward the bed.

Io shivered at the raw domination in his voice and decided she liked it too much to defy him. Even so, she took her time obeying him. Just because.

Only when she was positioned the way he wanted did she look up and meet his crazed eyes as he loomed over her, his chest rising and falling far faster than was usual for the tightly laced Mr. Masterson. "Spread your thighs," he barked.

Her lips parted in shock.

"If I have to repeat myself, I will—"

Io quickly complied, curious and excited to see what would happen next.

Corbin yanked the low bench from the dressing table over, sat down, and then lowered his head between her thighs.

Any worry she'd had that he might not know what he was about fled at the first touch of his tongue.

Io was beyond stunned. She would have wagered a year's allowance that Corbin Masterson had never even heard of any sexual act beyond that involving a penis and vagina.

Sometimes, she thought, arching her back and moaning, it was nice to be proven wrong.

***

It had been ages since Corbin had wanted to engage in such an intimate act with a woman. But he'd been starving for Io Hale for what felt like years.

Part of him knew he'd be shocked by his coarse behavior later, when he wasn't consumed by lust, but his actions and tone had been just what she wanted.

Besides, he wouldn't have been able to temper himself if he'd tried.

And he was going to make this proud, arrogant woman beg him to make her scream his name.

She was so wet for him—so eager—that it knocked any vestiges of sense from his head.

Corbin teased her little nub just enough to make her shudder and murmur and then he drifted away, exploring the rest of her, licking and nibbling her outer and then inner lips before settling over her tight entrance, probing her in a manner that was suggestive of what he was going to do to her next.

Her hands slid into his hair. "Masterson… please."

He smirked, closed his lips around her pearl, and sucked.

"Yessss," she hissed, thrusting herself against his mouth while her hand pushed him lower.

Corbin released her, amused by her groan of disappointment and the way she tried to chase his tongue as he resumed exploring the rest of her.

Not until she growled, sounding just like an enraged mink he'd once heard while he'd been in the far north, did he look up and meet her furious gaze.

"Corbin," she said, making his name a quiet threat.

"Hmm?" he hummed, lightly licking.

"I am not amused."

He burst out laughing, earning a scowl. "I'm terribly sorry," he lied. "Am I doing something wrong? Why don't you instruct me?"

"You know what I want!"

"Tell me anyway," he taunted, using the very tip of his tongue to rub a part of her he knew would loosen her resolve and demolish her pride.

Her eyelids fluttered and she groaned. "My God. Just give me a damned orgasm."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Please," she snarled.

Corbin sucked the scowl right off her face, easily working her responsive body toward a climax. When she was lifting her hips off the bed and he could feel the contractions building for release deep inside her, he again pulled back.

Her eyes popped open, her look one of utter disbelief.

Corbin smiled. "Now, ask me again. Sweetly, this time. Like a good girl would."

***

Io was not nearly as surprised by Corbin's silky command as she was by her body's reaction to it.

Judging by the smug look on his face—which was twice as attractive as usual with his red, slick lips—he'd felt her body gathering for release and had purposely pulled away to deprive her.

The demon.

"Like a good girl? I suppose you will be wanting me to call you sir, next?"

His eyelids, already drooping, lowered even more. "Masterson will do nicely until I come up with something better."

Io had experience with men—more than most women her age and probably more than most men—but this, as the sailors on her brother's ocean liner might have said, was uncharted territory.

Who could have guessed that staid, conservative Corbin Masterson should have been marked by a warning sign: Here be monsters.

What a delightful surprise.

Io's body softened before her resolve. Long before. But neither took too long.

"Please…Masterson… won't you suck my clitoris and let me come?

His stunned expression was as satisfying as the feel of his hot, skilled mouth lowering over her sex.

Well, almost.

***

Corbin reveled at the shudders that shook Io's lush body, a feeling of achievement flooding him at having given this clever, taunting, demanding woman not just one, but two consecutive climaxes.

Now that she was sated, Corbin could please himself and take his time, slowly licking all evidence of her passion from her flushed body, carefully avoiding her sensitive bundle of nerves.

Clitoris was a word he'd always thought of as too clinical and sterile to describe the charming little bead of flesh. But then he had never heard it spoken by Io Hale before, either.

Please…Masterson… won't you suck my clitoris and let me come?

Corbin's eyes almost rolled out of his head just thinking the words. Words that surely deserved to be immortalized in stone.

He explored her silky petals until he reached a place he desperately wished to be, gently spearing her opening with his tongue, groaning at the rich taste of her.

When she did not stop him, Corbin settled into a steady rhythm, probing her a little deeper each time, his brain—normally an uninteresting, prosaic place to be—crowding with all the erotic, and even deviant, thoughts of everything he would do to her.

Corbin didn't recognize himself. He felt like a stranger in his own mind.

And he liked it.

He also liked this. He could stay between her thighs all day long.

Corbin had almost laughed hysterically when willful, wayward Io Hale had obeyed his command to spread her legs, opening herself without hesitation.

Who would have believed it?

And then later, when she'd begged him so sweetly…

He growled at the memory of it. Corbin had been called Masterson all his life—through boarding school, college, the war, and his career. It wasn't his father's name—men did not give their bastards their surnames—but his mother's. He'd never been ashamed of it, but neither had he been particularly glad of it. Always in the past it had been a badge of otherness proclaiming that he was not his father's real son. Not a real member of the group he was part of. Not the sort of man that any decent woman would want to marry.

But the way Io had said it? It had sounded like the most sensual word in the world.

Listen to yourself! a voice inside him scoffed. You are smitten.

Corbin had no problem ignoring the voice for once. Instead, he slid deeper, seeing how much he could get away with, tonguing her deeply, until his nose was nestled at the base of her clitoris.

She shifted, slowly pushing up on her elbows. Rather than look shy after screaming out her climax—climaxes, he mentally amended—her eyes were hooded and she was smiling even more wickedly than usual. Which was saying something.

"Are you going to stay down there all day?" she teased.

"I will if I please," he retorted.

She crooked a finger at him. "I like this—but we can come back to it later. Right now, I want to feel that thick cock of yours inside me."

Corbin choked on his own spit and had to sit up, wheezing as she laughed.

She grinned, unabashed. "I'm sorry. Was that vulgar?"

He could only shake his head, his eyes blurring with tears from his hacking.

She reached down and took his hand, drawing him up on the bed, and rubbing his chest soothingly while he caught his breath.

Corbin kept expecting her to claw or bite or insult him, but she merely stroked him almost…lovingly.

He was almost sorry when he stopped coughing like an idiot and no longer required her soothing patting.

But then she slid her hand down to his achingly hard shaft and he forgot all about gentle soothing.

"Mmm," she hummed, manipulating his shaft every bit as expertly as he did.

Just what did they teach these women at Canoga?

Corbin didn't want to think of that now. Instead, he gave himself up to the pleasure of her hot hand, his hips gently thrusting.

"You are beautiful."

His eyes, which had drifted shut, snapped open like Roman shades. "Beautiful?" he scoffed. "Men aren't beautiful."

"You are. Your chiseled handsome face, your hard, masculine body, and this magnificent thing."

Corbin gulped loudly.

She grinned at the mortifying sound and then squeezed his shaft so hard that it was almost painful.

Just the way he liked.

In fact, it was too much the way he liked it.

"I need to be inside of you," he said gruffly. "Before I give you yet another reason to mock me."

She laughed and laid back. "Put a condom on and fuck me, Masterson. There is one in my satchel," she added when he hesitated.

Corbin opened his mouth to ask what in the hell she was doing traveling around with johnnies in her bag but decided to leave it for later.

He found them tucked inside the folded pamphlets she always gave away—no matter the place or time—and heaved a sigh of relief, grateful that she did not seem to have brought them for Gordon.

He tore it open and was about to put it on when she called out, "Come here and do it. I want to watch."

Corbin bit back a groan. He would never make it through the next five minutes without ejaculating and embarrassing himself.

As things turned out, he embarrassed himself a lot sooner than that.

He took the rubber out of its packet and perhaps he gripped it too hard or pulled it too tightly. Whatever the reason, it tore.

Io's mesmerizing eyes narrowed as she stared up at him, comprehension dawning. "You've never used one of those before, have you?"

Corbin wanted to lie—to keep the sparkle in her gaze—but he could not bring himself to do it. "No."

She looked genuinely shocked. "Never?"

He ground his teeth. "No."

"Corbin Masterson," she said, making his name sound like an especially vulgar epithet. "You are such a typical, selfish, thoughtless man. If not for your own protection, you should always wear one for your lover."

He sighed and absorbed her abuse rather than take umbrage and storm from the room as one or both of them had done far too many times in the past.

"Are you finished mocking me yet?" he asked with exaggerated patience.

She ignored his question. "The only way you will ever put your tallywag into my nettle bed is with it covered in rubber."

Rather than lose his erection at her carping, not to mention her crude cant for human reproductive organs, Corbin got harder than ever and something else happened as he absorbed her abuse—something visceral and shocking.

He briefly closed his eyes, appalled as he put a name to the emotion that had been tormenting him for weeks—nay, months. Corbin had gone and done the most foolish thing in his life.

He didn't just want Io Hale. He'd fallen in love with the beautiful shrew.

Fortunately, Io didn't appear to notice the way the world had suddenly shifted on its axis.

"Get another rubber, Masterson," she barked. "This time I'll put it on you."

***

Masterson had looked so chastened, so guilty, about the condom that Io hadn't the heart to keep haranguing him—a fact that would have amazed her siblings, who wouldn't believe that she could be anything less than militant about contraception and prophylaxis.

He obediently returned to the bed with another condom. "Come closer, Masterson. Your trouser serpent is impressively long—it is my arms that are too short to reach you," she teased.

He gave a startled laugh, but came closer, a blush creeping up his truly splendid chest to the strong column of his throat. "Trouser serpent?"

"My sister is working on compiling the world's greatest lexicon of cant. I have learned a few things along the way."

"Most of them naughty, I'll wager."

"You would probably make money off that bet," she admitted absently, surprised and pleased that he was still as hard as he'd been before this lesson in responsible coitus. "Umm, what a delicious love wand you have, sir." Io smirked as he gasped—whether at the ridiculous term or her firm stroke, she didn't know.

His thick shaft jerked in her hand and the copious amount of pre-ejaculate flowing from the lovely fat crown told her that poor Mr. Masterson was on the edge, so Io had mercy on him and quickly pulled the thin rubber sheath over his length.

She had not been exaggerating when she'd complimented his size: he was stretching the device to the limit. The manufacturer needed to make more sizes, that much was clear.

When she looked up, she saw that he was staring at his cock, his teeth snagging his lower lip, his brow furrowed.

He looked… adorable.

Adorable?

I must be going soft in the head.

When he raised his dark gaze to meet hers a powerful bolt of desire shot to her core at the raw need she saw in his eyes. "How do you want me?" she asked in a husky voice.

***

Corbin was a bit dizzy from the emotions that had battered him over the past ten minutes.

Arousal, shame, embarrassment, more shame, continued arousal—against all logical odds—deeper shame, and, finally, so much desire he was surprised he hadn't already lost control.

How did he want her?

Good God.

"Are you trying to kill me?" he muttered climbing onto the bed and facing her. "I suppose it doesn't surprise you that I would choose the most mundane position."

She grinned. "Nothing is mundane with me, Masterson."

Hell. Was he now going to spring an erection whenever anyone said his name?

She slid her hands around his neck, her gaze suddenly softening. "I want you inside me, Corbin."

He took his shaft in hand and slid it through her flatteringly wet sex. It felt different—muffled—to have something between the most sensitive part of his body and the object of his desire.

Her legs spread wider in invitation and Corbin took her message to heart, lining himself up with heaven and then pushing slowly.

"Mmm," she hummed, tipping her pelvis toward him.

"You are so tight," he muttered without thinking, and then met her gaze.

Rather than be offended by his crude pronouncement, she looked sensually expectant. As if she liked what he'd said and wanted more.

Corbin had felt deeply for Emma, but their sexual relations—or at least his seventeen-year-old memory of them—had been nothing like this.

He did not stop until he'd filled her and his balls were resting against her hot, wet skin.

She tightened her arms and held him—not that he wanted to go—and whispered, "Stay a moment. The stretch is delicious, and this feels lovely."

It was beyond lovely. It was an epiphany.

Corbin felt a stab of guilt using a word typically reserved for religious experiences. But then…this was life-altering. Not just the physical sensation—which was, admittedly, amazing—but the act of bedding a woman as an equal. Of being bedded, himself.

Her arms went slack, and Corbin began to move.