And he had come prepared. Marko turned to find his clothes again and retrieved a condom folded inside a paper from some hidden place. He unrolled it as she watched, handling the thin membrane carefully as he slid it over his massive rod.
“You are a gentleman.”
He looked up from his sensual task. “You are worth it.”
Marko slid over her in another second and Severin grasped his cock to guide him in. Their eyes met. Something in his look made her shiver. With pleasure. And also with an edge of fear.
She positioned the head at her cunny and he thrust in with a sound that was almost a roar. He was huge. She was eager—and ready. She pushed her hips to take it all.
Marko fucked her sweet and slow, reaching down to grip the condom and keep it on. That he would bother with one meant a great deal to her. She had been so aroused, she almost had not cared, and had not asked him to come outside her body.
He had been ahead of her on that. Ah, he was a man she could love…Severin reached around him to stroke his back, then let her hands move down to his buttocks. They clenched with every stroke and she grabbed them, holding on tight, pulling him still deeper within her until he moaned.
“No…not yet…no!”
Marko pulled out of her. Severin reached up to him but he was too tall for her to easily capture. “What is it?”
“I said I wanted you both ways,” he said, his voice raw with desire. “Get on all fours.”
Severin was happy to do his bidding. He positioned himself this time, taking a little time to catch his breath before the first thrust in this new position.
This time he did not move slowly. She could feel his fingers encircling the base of his cock, hanging on to the condom for dear life as he fucked her with wild abandon.
Severin put her head down and reached back, teasing her clit, stroking his slick balls. Marko’s whole body was shaking. The smooth, extremely deep thrusts, the balls that touched her fingertips when she slid her fingers over her clit had her crazy with pleasure. She cried his name over and over as she came, and he was—yes—right behind her. He let go of his cock and grabbed the front of her hips with both hands, not thrusting, staying rammed all the way inside to feel her pulse around him, giving it to her all the way, almost lifting her off the bed.
Marko howled when his orgasm hit. The sound was primitive, more animal than human.
Slowly, slowly, almost sobbing, he came back to being a man again. He pulled out and collapsed on the bed. Spent. Sweating. Blissful. The condom had miraculously stayed on.
Severin marveled at him. Even when he was trembling, Marko looked powerful. She wiped the sweat from his brow and blew gently on his furry chest to cool it.
Eyes closed, he growled his thanks.
It was odd how like an animal he could seem, but he was very much a man. A glorious, incredibly sexual man.
Not her man, though. Her conscience pricked her. She had only lain with him to satisfy her physical needs, she told herself. At least at this most vulnerable of moments for both of them, she did not have to look into his eyes.
An unexpected wave of tenderness for him nearly made her cry.
Not yet, Severin, she told herself fiercely. Not yet.
2
The next day…
Seduction. There was an art to it. A woman who wished to intrigue a man must present herself just so, preferably seated, her pale hands curved in a silken lap and her hair swept up with artful carelessness as if a lover’s hands could easily let it down. Her smooth neck ought to curve submissively, adorned with only a ribbon or a thin chain. A poor beauty could forgo both and make do with a spiraling kiss-curl, perhaps. But rich or poor, her gaze must be demure and downcast, the brilliance of her eyes shadowed by the gentle angle of her head…followed by a raising of her pretty chin and a heated look upward, lasting no longer than a fraction of a second, through long eyelashes.
There was no man approaching and they were not in a ballroom, but Miss Georgina Lennox managed the trick well enough on her third try. Severin studied her pupil. At nineteen, Georgina did not possess the porcelain-doll beauty of her mother Mary, an actress, but she had potential, fortunately. Mary herself had just married an elderly earl, who’d requested that Georgina, an inconvenient reminder of his wife’s wayward past, be married off as soon as possible. He’d let it be known that a handsome dowry would be settled on the girl.
The new-minted countess, grateful for her escape from the creaking, dusty boards of a Covent Garden theater and sudden elevation to ladyhood, was watching.
“Georgina, you are a gawk,” she said to her daughter. She nodded at Severin. “But she is coming along. It is good of you to take her on.”
Severin only inclined her head, not wishing to embarrass the girl by thanking her mother for paying in advance for instruction. The agreed-upon fee was enough for Severin to live comfortably on for the next year. And it was not the first such assignment she had undertaken.
“I congratulate you on finding an honest way to earn your bread,” Mary said to Severin.
Was that a dig? Severin was not quite sure.
“You have done very well for someone who started out as a modiste, my dear.”
Not a dig, perhaps, but certainly condescending. But true enough. However, Severin had moved up from there to teach the niceties of style, fine speech, and gracious manners for women of the demimonde. She was so good at it that aristocratic women now paid her to work the same magic on their behalf. “Thank you, Mary.”
Her father, an eccentric Englishman, had seen to it that both of his daughters were relentlessly groomed for a worthy marriage. To that education, Severin’s mother had added a knowledge of the secrets of womanly beauty from her Persian maidservant.
“You are good at what you do, Severin.”
She smiled at the countess in reply. “I try my best.”
“Georgina will benefit from your knowledge of London society.”
“I am more of an observer than a member of it.”
“You know everyone, my dear Severin, from those with a precarious first foot on a rung at the bottom of the ladder to the climbers at the very top.”
“I suppose I do.”
“And you are the height of fashion when you want to be.”
“Sometimes I don’t.” Today Severin wore a flowing gown of plain linen, adorned only with a narrow sash of golden silk.
“Well, you have your pick of beautiful gowns.” Mary clucked disapprovingly. “Those vain women who wear them once or never wear them at all! But it is to your advantage. You could pass for a lady any day of the week.”
Severin answered her with a thin smile. She didn’t care if she was taken for a lady or not.
Her singular trade conferred a curious half-invisibility that she found pleasant at times and irksome at others. At balls and assemblies, Severin was sought out by the most dashing men as a dancing partner, but she was ignored in public by most of the women. The most formidable mamas regarded her as unsuitable for their sons and competition for their daughters.
So be it. Her name had been whispered in connection with some fascinating scandals but she made it a point to ignore gossip and do as she pleased. She lived by herself and was happy that way. The one marriage proposal she’d received had come to nothing years ago. Her lovers—and she had not had many, unlike her half-sister Jehane—had been unconventional men. Adventurers. Second sons forced to seek their fortune however they could. Lone wolves, really.
Marko was an