Silent Night, Sinful Night Read online

  She looked over her shoulder at him, and for the first time, Winston saw her unmasked gaze, raw vulnerability laid open. He understood how crucial this moment was. With one more step, he closed the distance between them completely and rested his hands next to her on the parapet.

  “I don’t know how you do it. How you always throw me off guard. It’s a mystery to me how you can so easily shatter the barriers I’ve set.” Winston felt her body give a little. “And yes, I accept your apology.”

  “Will you tell me your real name?”

  She turned her head forward again, watching the guests below. “I’m Rosie Archer.”

  Winston felt the corners of his eyes curl upward. Rosie was a lovely name, fitting such a delicate and precious woman. “You look stunning tonight, Rosie. I must say I felt an unfamiliar, territorial violence churn in my gut when I saw every man in the room lusting after you.”

  Her breathy laugh was low, sensual. Winston’s cock stirred. “Now, we can’t have you bashing their skulls in. They didn’t do anything but look.”

  “Reason enough for me.”

  “I sought to impress but one man.”

  “Did you?” Winston could see her heart banging heavy in her chest as the globes of her breasts, pressed against the stiff corset, quivered seductively with each drumming beat.

  “Yes.” The word came out on a shaky puff of breath. “Did it work?”

  His swelling cock sought to snuggle closer to her buttocks.

  “Aah,” she sighed. “It did.”

  “I want to take you. Here. Now. Soft and slow.”

  Tilting her head back, he saw the surprise in her huge eyes. “Here?”

  “Yes.” Reaching down, he began to pull up her skirts inch by inch.

  “No.” She licked her lips, her lids sliding down. Her body gave a light shiver when he touched the soft skin of her naked thighs. Winston loved how much she was thrilled and aroused by the forbidden.

  “I will be clever enough so those illustrious guests two stories down will see only you, so if you act like nothing’s going on, they won’t know.”

  “They will hear!”

  “So you’ll have to be silent.”

  Rosie moaned.

  “But you’ll have to watch out for anybody who might come this way.”

  Alarmed, her eyes snapped open.

  “I don’t want to be interrupted once I’m in you.” Fingers splayed, Winston spread her cheeks, the tips dipping into the welcoming moisture spreading over her sex. “I’m not going to stretch you with a finger—or two or three—before I bury my cock in you so sluggishly you’ll think you’ll go insane by the time I’m halfway in unless I fuck you faster.”

  More of her dew wet his fingers.

  “Once I’m up to the hilt in you, I’ll make you glow. Breathe in, slide in. Breathe out, ease out.”

  “Glow?” Her breathing was reduced to short, sharp puffs.

  “When people look at you, they’ll know. You’ll glow like a woman who’s just been fucked well.” With one hand, he reached for the fly of his breeches, popping the buttons open one after the other. “You’re so wet, Rosie. I can’t wait any longer, but I will if you tell me to.”

  “No!” Rosie hissed over her shoulder. “Do it already!”

  Winston clucked his tongue. “Wanton.” Rolling his hips up, he sank inside just as he’d promised. She stretched around him, the muscles quivering just before they opened and allowed him in. He pushed a little more. Obediently, her pussy swallowed his cock, gripping him and trying to suck him deeper inside. But Winston held back and fed her bit by bit only.

  When he was halfway in, he heard her whimper. She balled her hands into fists and he burrowed deeper. A shiver raked his body at the exquisite torture for both of them. The desire to take her hard and fast, slamming his cock inside her as far as it would go, was almost overwhelming. Gritting his teeth, he held back.

  Finally, when he’d driven his cock into her up to his balls, he gripped her hips to hold her in place. Then he began to move out, counting. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. And he slid back inside. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

  “Are we still safe?”

  “Uh-huh.” She thrust her bottom out, meeting him halfway. Winston held her tighter, fucking her just a little faster.

  “Good. I want to come in you. When we return to the party, I’ll have you walk around well oiled and smelling of sex. Of me.”

  Winston gritted his teeth to hold back the groan when her body quivered, her pussy starting to flutter. The spasms around his cock made his sliding back inside a little harder, and he sank deeper in a relentless stroke, quickening his rolling thrusts only just.

  “With every trickle down the inside of your thighs, you’ll remember this, remember how I made you come up here while watching the people below and how they will never know what happened here. Between us.”

  This was wicked beyond anything he’d ever done before. His head spun. She was so wet. Felt so good. When she caught her breath, her head fell back to rest on his chest while he continued to rock gently against her.

  Next she leaned forward with a low moan, thrusting her hips up more to meet him stroke for deliberately slow stroke. Her body stiffened, and Winston knew she’d crest any moment now. When her orgasm hit, his Rosie didn’t make a sound other than a tiny sob.

  Winston whipped up one arm and, hand cupping her chin, he brought her closer for a kiss. When his lips settled on hers, he instantly thrust his greedy tongue into her mouth, purring as she answered in kind.

  Her pleasure ignited his own. His climax burst upon him with such ferocity he couldn’t have prepared himself for it. He buried himself deep in her in one last thrust, closing his eyes to fully experience her pussy contracting around him and milking him. He saw bright dots swirling before his eyes as he spurted into her.

  Winston lost track of time. He didn’t know when his frenetic heartbeat returned to normal or when her rapid and shallow breathing slowed down. When his cock slipped from her sheath, he opened his arms, giving her room to gather herself, and stepped back to right her petticoat before he closed his breeches.

  Somehow he didn’t want to return to the party only to have to deal with superficiality, conceit, and deception. He’d much rather spend the evening in—

  Rosie gasped loudly. “Oh. My. Goodness!”

  “What?” Winston grasped her upper arm and turned her to face him. As far as he could see, nothing was wrong with her. “What is it?”

  “I just realized something.”

  Winston waited for her to elaborate. But nothing came. She just stared into the distance, her eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Rosie?”

  She shook herself out of the snail shell of her thoughts. “Yes, sorry. When we were downstairs in the room, I saw Lady Ponsonby. At first I didn’t understand, but then I realized sparks flew between her and—well, actually no. Only she threw sparks in your father’s direction.” Wrapping both her hands around one of his, she looked up. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? I have known since I was a boy that he wouldn’t kick a woman from his bed unless she was my mother.”

  Rosie winced.

  “And what is it you’ve just realized?”

  “That if you don’t have the necklace, because you’re no thief, and I happen to know I certainly don’t have it, maybe it hasn’t been stolen. Only misplaced.”

  Why would Lady Ponsonby take the necklace off and forget where she put it if it were so valuable? Unless . . . “She didn’t take it off.”

  “No, she didn’t.” She shook her head.

  “She lost it during her tête-à-tête entanglement with Father.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, yes. It must be what she’d wanted to tell me in the gardens.”

  With that new information, finding the necklace should be easy. “Now all we need to do is find the perfect spot for a discreet dalliance.”

  Her smile was so bright it was blindi
ng. “So, where should we start?”

  “We?” Winston saw the beginnings of a scowl on her face and hurried to add, “Don’t you want to get back to the party?”

  “And do what? Roaming the house in order to solve a mystery promises to be much more fun.” At that, she stood on tiptoes for a moment, impatient to start what appeared to be a much more exciting adventure than a dull party. Once more, a smile spread over his features in response to her charming giddiness.

  Rosie fell into step beside him. “Where do you suggest we start?”

  “There’s an alcove on the second floor of the west wing that’s perfect.”

  “Could people pass and interrupt?”

  Winston had never thought about it, but now that she mentioned it . . . “If someone lost their way, yes.”

  “Then we needn’t bother.”

  Winston felt the question on his mind wrinkle his forehead.

  “Lady Ponsonby isn’t as adventurous as . . . erm . . .”

  “You?” Winston offered, slowing his strolling down the stairs to match her speed.

  Rosie snorted a laugh. “As us. Isn’t there someplace more private you can think of?”

  When he reached the end of the stairs, he stopped in his tracks. There were many places they could have gone to. When Winston was still a boy, he’d occasionally caught servants in alcoves, under stairs, and other places providing enough shadow and privacy for a quick humping and groaning and sweating.

  But where would his father take his paramours except for the town house he provided for his current mistresses or the local bawdy house? It had to be somewhere he felt safe and secure enough to take her. His father was mistrustful and easily suspicious. He always had an eye in the back of his head.

  Except for one room where he felt completely at ease. Nobody dared enter there.

  “His study,” Winston murmured, catching Rosie when she teetered after his unexpected turning into a different hallway leading to the aforementioned study.

  When they reached it, Winston found the door locked. Just his luck, he thought, and looked around to find suitable tools to pick the lock. Rosie was quick to help; she had one of the pins from her hair in one hand and fished for something between her stomacher and corset. She produced what looked like a stiletto.

  “May I?” Elbowing him aside, she knelt in front of the door, her gaze fixated on the lock.

  Winston watched out for her while she stuck the instruments into the lock. She had the door open on the third attempt. One last look left and right to make sure nobody had seen Rosie slip inside, and he followed, careful to avoid making any noise when closing the door.

  The study was darker than he’d anticipated, with only a sleepy crescent moon illuminating the interior. But Winston knew the room well enough to maneuver around without bumping into furniture.

  Now, where would he hide if he was about to ravish a married woman? Where would they be least likely discovered?

  His gaze was drawn to the one large window in the right corner, half of it hidden behind a curtain, the other half kept secret by the bookshelf right next to it.

  “There,” Winston whispered, and pointed to where he thought they should start searching.

  Rosie pressed herself against his back. “It’s perfect. Let’s go find ourselves a ruby necklace.”

  In three strides he was there, lifting the first cushion on the windowsill. Before he looked under the second pillow, he felt eyes on him. But only Rosie was there in the room with him, so he tilted his head in her direction.

  She approached him with a seductive swagger to her hips. “I think it would be much easier if we did what they did to find the necklace faster.”

  All of a sudden, his hands clawed the cushion to keep from shaking. Stretching her arms, she put her hands flat on his chest, pushing him into the wall behind him. Rosie laughed at what had to have been one of the dumbest expressions he’d ever had on his face in his life; then she ripped the cushion from his death grip.

  Throwing it onto the floor to kneel on, she busied herself opening the fly of his breeches, the tip of her tongue burrowing into the tiny crevice in the middle of her upper lip.

  Dumbfounded like a randy boy who was about to feel a woman’s mouth on his cock for the very first time, Winston could only stare, watching her reach into his britches to free his cock, which was already as hard as granite at the prospect of such delight.

  “Rosie, you”—Winston exhaled audibly as she pumped his cock—“you don’t need to do this.”

  “I know.” She met his gaze just before she bent to lick around the head of his cock. Winston felt his knees wiggle at the sight of her mouth so close to his—

  “Fuck,” he snarled as the tip of her tongue swirled over and into the tiny slit in his head. He felt a drop of precum erupt.

  Then her lips were on him and Winston forgot to breathe. Her hot, wet mouth engulfed him and sucked him deep into her throat. He didn’t dare move his hips and drive his cock too deep into her warm and talented mouth.

  Her hand closed around him and followed her lips up and down, up and down his cock. Sucking, licking, trailing loosely and sucking again, slowly licking all his strength and reason away. There was nothing slow or playful about her sensual foray.

  His eyes rolled up as the determined rhythm of her mouth and tongue brought him to a fever pitch. He was ready to burst right about now. Desire swamped him as the pleasure in him kept on building with every touch of her, every caress of her lips and teeth and tongue, until he was sure he might go out of his mind.

  Lifting her chin, Rosie met his gaze. Hunger beat at him, merciless and unyielding, urging him to move, to drive his cock into her mouth and spill his seed down her throat.

  With a groan, he cupped her head between his hands, and even though it felt like ripping his soul out, he nudged her away from him.

  Biting her lower lip, she stood, raising her arms. “Lift me up. Against the wall.”

  “Rosie.” Winston felt his voice degenerated to a croak. “I can’t.”

  She gazed at his hard cock. It was plain to see that he could, because he didn’t think he’d ever been so hard, or so horny for that matter, in his life.

  “No, I mean, if I take you now, I’m not sure I can draw it out long enough for you to enjoy it as well.”

  Rosie laughed and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and rubbing her pussy against his cock. “Winston. I know there’s not a selfish bone in you. I know you’re a generous, giving, and nearly indefatigable lover. Let me do this for you. Just for you.”

  “I . . .” God, it was hard thinking with her rubbing her wet folds against him, teasing him by taking just a little of his head inside every now and then. Hard and fast he needed her. And now. “Are you sure?”

  “Yesss!”

  He didn’t need more. He plunged into her and pistoned away, trying to not care whether he fucked her in the right angle that he’d bump against that spot inside her that would make her wild, make her purr and scratch and moan in ecstasy.

  Instead of holding her tight in his arms, he opened them and braced himself against the wall. She probably held on to him for dear life with her arms and legs crossed at his back. He was pumping hard, his rough thrusts jolting her each time. He loved those little noises and wicked little cries that left her throat.

  Heat. Pounding her. His cock viciously hard.

  The desire to crest gripped him. He tumbled into another shuddering, earth-shattering climax. And the tremors kept coming, his mind splintering to pieces.

  Despite having difficulties getting enough air into his lungs, Winston groaned, wrapping his arms around her as he spoke. “Rosie. You’re . . . you’re like a part of me I didn’t know was missing.” Whether it made sense to her or not, to Winston it did.

  He set her down and let her stand on her own only when he was sure her knees wouldn’t give out anymore.

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” Winston
followed her gaze.

  There, behind the third cushion, wedged into a crevice in the windowsill, something shiny and sparkly reflected the moonlight.

  6

  Awake and fully dressed in a navy ribbed silk traveling dress and matching jacket, Rosie took a flint and steel and lit the lowburning, cut-glass lamp on the bedside table. Wanting to make sure the light didn’t wake Winston, she stopped and watched his barrel-like chest rise and fall with a low and steady, peaceful rhythm. Peace was not something she could relate to at the moment at all.

  Her stomach fluttered, her heart raced, and her mind was alive with countless thoughts all jumbled together. It was hard to reconcile the man she now knew with the presumptions she’d had when she’d turned around that night of the first ball and saw him standing there. It was ridiculous now to think of him as an easy mark, as a spoiled, lazy heir who would be simple to manipulate. He was none of those things.

  But much more disturbing than that was how different she was. The change in her own mind was frightening. For the thousandth time that night, she wished she’d never come here. How one man, one arrogant, strong, cunning, caring, and generous man could rock her to her core in such a short time was deeply touching and horrifying at the same time.

  And now she was about to do something she’d never thought she would do since she stepped out of St. Nicholas’s Hospital for the last time. Rosie opened the small velvet bag she’d brought, picked up the necklace from the table, and slipped it inside. She cinched the drawstring and placed it around her wrist before she picked up the lamp by its ornate base and moved through the room without making a sound.

  She shut the door as silently as she could. Careful not to run into any other guests on their own clandestine missions, Rosie looked up and down the hall. She made her way down the noiseless dark hallway.