Make Me Beg

“You never cede that control?” she asked.

“Only at the right moment. When I’m sure I’ve satisfied the lady in question. When I know for a fact that I can make her climax with me.”

Any woman proud of her virtue would slap him for that, but she only bit her lip again.

This time, he gave her an easy smile. “That won’t work, Mrs. Trent.”

Her eyebrows rose in frank surprise. “I beg your pardon.”

“That thing you do with your mouth. It’s very persuasive but only if used in small doses.”

“Well, Mr. Boulton, I am impressed.”

He gave her a tiny bow.

“You are experienced with women,” she said. “You’d make an able opponent.”

This time, she’d set him back with her remark. “I don’t normally think of women as my opponents.”

She waved a hand. “Don’t be silly. Of course, you do.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Men and women always play against each other in the game of seduction. How much can I get from him while giving up the least myself and vice versa? It’s the same in business.”

“I don’t think I’d like to compete with you in anything.”

“Too late,” she answered. “We already are.”

“Perhaps you’d better explain the rules to our game.”

“Both of us have had our fill of the standard seduction,” she said.

“True.” Only moments before he’d set foot in the library and found her among the books, he’d resolved to make his cock wait until it honestly craved someone before he’d indulge it. He might have gotten to that point with Mrs. Trent in the ordinary passage of social intercourse. The twinkle in her eye now promised much more if he engaged in this new sport.

“Then, let’s resolve not to have sex with each other,” she said.

“That makes no sense as a game,” he said. “I could have simply left you alone with the book.”

She raised a finger to command his silence. “Unless one or the other of us begs.”

“Begs? My good woman, what are you talking about?”

“Do you know how you sound saying that?”

He humphed. “I imagine you’re going to tell me.”

“You sound like every other prig I’ve met ever since I found myself in society here. ‘How perfectly ghastly,’ they say. ‘Utterly, utterly shocking.’”

She did that last so well, he couldn’t help but laugh. Her accent was impeccable, her impersonation of faked moral outrage spot-on.

“You don’t want to act like the pompous clowns in the ballroom, do you?” she said.

“Not if you put it that way.”

“Then, let’s have some fun. Engage in sex play until one of us can stand no more.”

“Until one of us begs.”

“And then, we’ll fuck,” she concluded.

“Agreed.”

She rose and extended her hand. When he bent to kiss it again, she shook. Not a lady but an equal closing a business deal. The action only surprised him for a second, then he returned her grip with a firm one of his own.

That seemed to please her, as she set aside the book and smiled. “Now, you may take me back to the party.”

“Anne, what do you know about Thomas Boulton?”

Olivia’s maid stopped brushing out Olivia’s hair in midstroke. “Mr. Boulton, ma’am?”

“He’s notorious among the ladies I met tonight. You must have heard something.”

“It’s not my place to know about such as him, Mrs. Trent.”

“Hogwash. Footmen see and hear everything during those balls, and they pass it along to the rest of the staff.”

“What our betters do is none of our business.”

Olivia turned. “They’re not better than you because they have more money. And as to breeding…pfft.”

“American ideas, ma’am. They won’t fly here.”

“Be that as it may. I need information about Mr. Boulton, and for that I need your help.”

Anne gripped the brush, and her gaze darted away. Clearly, she felt torn between sharing some juicy gossip and fear she’d overstep her bounds.

Olivia pressed her hand to Anne’s. “I’d never give away anything you told me in confidence. But, I’m at a disadvantage without information.”

“How so?”

“Everyone else here knows him. Who his family is, his likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. I’m a stranger.”

“You shouldn’t think to make a husband of him, I can tell you that much,” Anne said.

“Not good marriage material.” No surprise there, but then, neither was she.

“Lord, ma’am.” Anne fanned herself with one hand. “He’s been in and out of more beds than the rest of his type combined. Slippery as an eel, he is, and silent as a cat.”