Page 59 of The Smuggler’s Escape

A cold breeze blew across her naked nipple.

“No!” She broke the kiss, gasping and squirming in his hold. Richard chuckled, deep and low, and bathed her breast with his hot breath. He took the nipple in his mouth and sucked gently.

Oh. Noelle slumped in abandon against the wall.

Richard let go of her breast and raised his head. His hot, dark eyes glinted down at her. Those lazy circles had pulled her gown up past her calf. He gathered it in one hand while the other snaked up the back of her thigh. “I want you.” A finger found its way between her thighs. “And you want me, love.” He fumbled with the buttons of his breeches. “Now.”

The cold breeze blew from the cobbled yard straight up to her privates.

What had gotten into her? “Stop!” She pushed him away with all her might.

Richard laughed and stepped back, his chest rising and falling in time with hers. “Best not, I suppose. I’ve never been one to copulate in public.”

Noelle gaped at him, aghast.

“Some people like an audience,” Richard said, casually adjusting his breeches. His eyes lit on her exposed breast. He grinned crookedly. “Ripe and tasty as a melon. Would that your stays were always so delightfully loose.”

“Because I hadn’t finished trying on gowns.” Noelle crammed her breast into her bodice as she scanned the yard, Madame Lisette’s back windows, and the upper windows next door. No one was watching, but shame overwhelmed her all the same. She retrieved her fichu and with trembling fingers stuffed it back into place.

“Let me help.” Those dangerous hands reached for her.

“No!” Noelle shoved him away.

He grabbed her hands and held them firmly with one of his. “Don’t be silly.” He tightened her laces and did up the hooks on her gown, then tucked her fichu where it belonged, stroking her breast gently, setting her aquiver again.

“Stop touching me!”

“Why? Not only have I paid for the privilege, I like touching you. And you like it, too.”

“I don’t like it.” No, he’d never believe that. “I may seem to, but it’s only because I’ve drunk too much of Madame’s wine. I assure you, if I were sober . . .” She lapsed into confused silence.

“I have no objection to getting you tipsy, if it loosens you up,” Richard said.

“That’s disgusting!” Noelle picked up her hat and rammed it over her curls. “When did you become so vile?”

“When did you become so tedious?” He ran his eyes over her again. “If it weren’t for that luscious body of yours . . .”

“Don’t look at me like that!” Somehow, her fingers couldn’t manage the ribbons of her hat.

“You didn’t used to mind it. In fact, it used to inflame you delightfully. It still does, when you don’t have the will to prevent it.” Richard’s voice softened. “What’s come over you, my sweet love?”

She couldn’t let herself be taken in by that smooth tone. “Not mind it? You never looked at me in that foul way before, as if I was so much meat for your consumption. As if you own me!”

“I do own you,” Richard said. “I bought you, remember?”

“I’ve changed my mind!” Noelle raged. She closed her eyes as sudden dizziness swept over her.

Richard steadied her, but his tone was adamant. “It’s too late for that. The bargain is made and paid.”

She glared at him. “You won’t get the opportunity to find me pleasing or otherwise. Forget our arrangement. I’ll return the necklace.”

“Don’t you need it? Surely you wouldn’t demean yourself otherwise.”

“I don’t need it this badly. I don’t want it anymore.”

“I don’t want it either,” Richard said. “I want you.”

And he intended to have her. She saw it in his eyes, his stance, heard it in his voice, felt it in the way he tied the ribbons of her hat.

“You have made your bed and now you will have to lie in it,” Richard said. “Or in my bed, as it transpires. I have no idea why you have chosen this route, but it may well be for the best.”

So he could take her and then toss her aside like a used rag—and marry the beautiful and intelligent, kind-hearted and virtuous Miss Darsington.

A spasm of misery shook Noelle.

But it was her own fault. She had offered herself and been paid. She had to keep her end of the bargain.

Richard tucked her hand in his arm and guided her out of the yard into an alley. His smooth voice went on. “You’re letting your imagination run amok, Noelle. I have always looked at you as if I owned you. Nothing has changed—”

“Everything has changed, and I hate it!”

As if she hadn’t interrupted, Richard went contentedly on. “As I was about to say, now I look like a man who not only owns you, but expects to get exactly what he wants in the very near future. It’s unexpectedly kind of you to put yourself into my hands this way.”

“It’s nothing to do with kindness. I despise you!”

Again, Richard ignored her. They came out of the alley into the street. “I do foresee a slight difficulty, though. I can scarcely join you in your bedchamber at your deplorable uncle’s house, and midnight trysts in the wood will be insufficient for the delights I have in mind.”

Right there in the street, like a weak, silly fool, Noelle burst into tears.