Page 286 of Once an Angel
To her embarrassment, as they started up the stairs the crowd began to cheer and shout encouragement. Barney emerged from his rat hole and hooted, "Poke 'er once fer me, mate!"
Howling in outrage, Emily reached over the banister and slapped the lollipop in his greasy hair.
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Emily bounced on Justin's back like a sack of meal. The muscled ridge of his shoulder cut off her
breath with each long stride.
"You . . . might . . . consider . . . putting . . . me . . . down," she gasped.
He ignored her. He paused at the first door they encountered and kicked it open, jarring Emily's entire body.
She heard an angry cry and a muffled squeak of protest.
"Sorry," he said, but his tone was unrepentant.
He swung away from the door without bothering to close it, treating Emily to a most sordid sight. She twisted her head to the left, then to the right, before slapping her hands over her eyes. "My goodness!
She must be frightfully agile, mustn't she? I saw something like that once in the circus."
Justin maintained his stony silence. His foot slammed into the next door. To Emily's distress, the room was unoccupied.
"I should really like to go home now," she said in a small voice.
He tossed her on the bed and strode back to bolt the door. She sat up and hugged her knees, curling into
a timid knot among the rumpled sheets. Stale perfume rose from their folds, and she tried not to think about what might have transpired there only moments earlier. A dank chill hung in the fireless room.
Justin whipped off his cloak and threw it over a chair, then turned to face her. Emily realized she had seen him angry before, but never so coldly furious.
He raked a hand through his hair. "I haven't slept for over thirty-six hours. I've spent the last twelve of those combing every lice-infested claphouse in London for you." A single word shot from his lips. "Why?"
She bowed her head, struggling to gather the threads of her pride, sensing she might need them. When
she lifted her head, her eyes were dry, her voice calm. "I no longer wished to be a burden to you. I wanted my freedom."
"Freedom?" His voice cracked on a disbelieving note. He crossed to the bed and snatched her up by the shoulders. "Is this what you call freedom? Spreading your legs for any man willing to lay down his coin?" His eyes blazed, giving her a harrowing glimpse of the raw hurt fueling his anger.
An uncontrollable shaking seized her. She couldn't look him in the eye.
He lowered her. "Fine," he said with glacial calm. "I've paid my coin."
He dragged off his tie and began to unbutton his waistcoat.
Emily scrambled back against the headboard. "Not you?" she whispered, horror-struck.
He stood with legs planted firmly apart, his fists resting on his narrow hips. "Any man but me, eh?
How gratifying. Didn't Mrs. Rose teach you to flatter your clients, not unman them?"
Emily could tell by the precise cut of Justin's broadcloth trousers that he was in no danger of being unmanned.
He strode to the bed and cupped her head in his palm. His long fingers tangled in her curls in a travesty
of tenderness. "Sorry, darling, but whores don't have the privilege of picking and choosing their liaisons. For a hundred pounds I'll expect a little enthusiasm." His lips came down on hers in a silken whisper. "Fake it if you must." Emily expected his kiss to be brutal, only to find it utterly ruthless in its gentleness. His mouth played over hers with merciless skill, teasing, tugging with his teeth, then laving her parted lips with his tongue, priming her for its deeper invasion. His was the kiss of the concubine, enslaving with its promise of erotic pleasures to come. It was a kiss to steal not only her body, but her soul as well. The first tear slipped from her lashes before he could pause to draw a breath.
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