Winston’s feet would not move. He shook his head and tried to clear the image from his mind. Emma slapped Grace, and Grace moaned. Grace likes to be slapped. Grace liked this kind of teasing and was doing it for him. The blood in his veins rushed south. No, no, no. This is Grace.
Winston closed the distance between them, wrapped his hand around Grace’s bicep, and pulled her from Emma.
“What are you doing, Grace? You do not belong here.” His voice came out harsh.
Grace stared up at him; anger, arousal, and tears shone back. She pulled and yanked on her arm as she tried to dislodge Winston’s grip.
“Grace, dear, are you well with him?” Emma’s firm tone slid through his fog.
“Let go of me, Winston.” Grace twisted her arm in his grip, trying to dislodge his fingers.
“She is fine, Emma.” Winston held his grip on Grace’s arm and turned from Emma. Grace didn’t resist as he pushed through the crowd, dragging her with him. Her slippered feet scuffed along the wood floor. They reached the edge of the ballroom.
“Winston, let go of me.” Her voice was a meager whisper.
“Not until we talk, Grace.” His mind spun. He wanted her to leave this place, and at the same time, he wanted to bed her.
“Let go of me.”
He reached the hallway and spun her about. Her slippered feet scuffed on the floor as he pressed her firmly up against the wood-paneled wall in the entrance.
“What in the devil’s sake were you doing in there, Grace?” His voice shook as he stared down into her upturned face. “Have you no idea who these people are?” He pushed a palm against the wood wall above her shoulder, and with the other, he continued to hold her arm.
“Do you, Winston? Do you? These people have been my friends for the past eight years. You have no idea how much time changes a person, Winston.” She turned and tried to pull from his grasp.
There was pain in her voice. She was widowed. She’s been a part of this set for the past eight years? Her words pierced his gut, and the urge to protect her bubbled through his veins. No matter how precisely she might fit his description of what he searched for in his personal temple goddess, he needed her to leave here.
She didn’t belong in a place like this. Not his Grace. Yet, this is where she had survived the last eight years. He closed his eyes. “These people have been my friends.” How? Why had she come to know this set of people? Damnation, he had no idea.
“Grace.” He slid his knee between her thighs and up against the wall behind. His hand on the paneled wall reached up and grabbed her chin. He turned her head to the side and forced her gaze to the door. “You see that door, Grace? You need to walk out it. You have never belonged with this set.” The heat of her pussy seeped through his silk pantaloons and dampened his thigh. God, if she didn’t leave, he would end up carrying her up the stairs and into his bed.
He held her face pinned to the wall as his eyes slid down the column of her neck and the ridge of extended flesh that the position accentuated. He leaned in, and inhaled. Sweet, creamy arousal filled his nose. Arousal from her kissing Emma? Or was her wetness desire from his touch?
His tongue slid out and glided along his lips, then touched her skin. Salt and lavender coated his taste buds. He held back a groan as he pressed more firmly to the smooth skin of her neck and slowly trailed up to her earlobe, savoring the feast of her. Curling his tongue about the drop of flesh, he sucked the small piece of her into his mouth and pressed his teeth into a button.
Grace moaned. Fisting her hands into his coat, she sagged against the wall.
“Are you staying, Grace, or walking out the door?” His words, soft, as he traced the cup of her ear with the tip of his tongue. She tasted so…erotic…so sinfully tempting.
She said not a word.
And his will for sending her home faded with each sense that she titillated. He wanted her…here now, against the wall as everyone passed by, but he couldn’t do the act with her here. His Grace. “If you are staying, Grace, you will not be going back into the ball. You will be joining me in my room for this night, and everything I ask of you will be taken without hesitation or question.”
Her arms and legs trembled against him and she moaned.
Her reaction to his words was what he craved. He never would have considered she could be the one. The tremble at his words, and the moan that spontaneously erupted from her—when Emma’s hand slapped her in the ballroom—indicated she enjoyed pleasing and firmness.
He swallowed hard. This situation was unfurling as if someone had searched his deepest fears and his wildest fantasies and meshed them into one. No matter, he always faced his fears, but only did so with control and determination. This called for nothing less.
“Well, Grace? The door or my room? Which shall it be?”
5
Grace
Grace swallowed hard, her throat working to find the words her mind could not. What had happened here?
Winston’s body pressed her to the wall. “The door or my room?” His words rang as some unsolved riddle in her mind.
Her heart pounded in her ears.
What did she want?
She came here tonight to be desired once again, to feel passion once more, and to retire with a single person for the night.
Winston preferred her to leave. None of this made sense. Maybe he didn’t prefer that. Maybe he wanted her in his bed, but his mind was telling him…No!
“Grace?” His thigh pressed up against her heated sex.
A ripple of dew waved through her cunny and her blood heated. She slid her tongue out and wet her dry lips, wanting more of the erotic sensation. “Winston, do you desire me in your bed? Or are you saying you would take pity on me and bed me rather than watch me play with others? Or is this some other game you learned in India?”
He pulled slightly back from her and gazed at her face. “No game, Grace.”
“I—if this is simply pity, I will scream, and you will be removed from my body by one of the footmen.”
Winston’s free hand slid to her hip and pulled her toward him. The friction as her cunt slid along his thigh shot straight up her stomach and she bit her lip, holding back a groan.
His fingers then trailed her thigh and he lifted her knee into his crotch.
His stiff erection pushed against the soft spot below her kneecap. “Does this feel like pity, Grace?”
“Mmmm, you are a man, Winston. Men get aroused simply by seeing a woman’s form.” Unable to hold her body’s reaction at bay, she trembled against his cock.
“No, you are wrong, Grace, and you just lost your chance to decide.” He let go of her face and wrapped a hand around her shoulders, pulling her to him. Heat caressed her every pore. He hefted her up like a child and she laughed.
“Winston, what are you doing?”
“Making your decision for you, Grace,” he answered, tilting her back over his shoulder and heading to the stairs. Her upper body hung partially down his back as he strode up. His hard shoulder pressed into her belly, and with each step, he made his intentions clearer.
Winston Greydon was about to bed her.
A smile curved her lips. He had turned into a sexual man. He certainly handled her as Oscar had—with presence, with knowledge, with ease. Maybe this time she should not be so easy to handle.
My goodness, Grace, you have known that about him all your life. Don’t fear him. He was your friend.
Reaching