Page 64 of The Rakehell of Roth
It was indecent and wicked, but his mouth watered with the need to sink his teeth into either of those perfect handfuls. God but she tempted him—with that pert, bitable rear, her tiny waist, and those perfect peach-like breasts that he also couldn’t wait to get into his mouth. His cock jerked convulsively against his palm in enthusiastic agreement.
Christ.
If he wasn’t careful, it wouldn’t take much to spend in his trousers like a sodding greenhorn. Just watching her was a study in arousal. He shoved his hand down harder on the falls of his breeches, a raw growl rumbling through him at the intense sensation. Isobel’s eyes met his from where she stood, concern in them.
“Are you well, Roth?”
“Quite,” he bit out.
Her gaze fell to his palm-covered groin, and a blush stained her cheeks as if she was remembering the last timeherhand rested over him. Then his vulgar words in the carriage. Winter let out a breath. She had to be a complete innocent if she wasn’t aware of the effect she had on him. Then again, shewasan innocent. He’d been the only one to have her. Unless she’d had a secret lover, which he highly doubted because Ludlow would have flungthatin his face by now.
Pushing off the edge of the desk, he moved toward the relative safety and privacy of his chair. At least his inability to control his overexcited body would be hidden from view. Distracting himself with moving around some account ledgers on his desk, he didn’t immediately see the thin book she’d removed from the shelf until it was much too late.
“Don’t, that’s not—” he began and then stopped when she opened the first plate of erotic illustrations, her cheeks flaming the color of poppies.
He knew exactly what she would see. Etchings upon etchings of Thomas Rowlandson’s more risqué works. It was an art collection. Depraved and utterly filthy art, but it’d been a gift from Westmore when they’d opened the darker side of The Silver Scythe. The drawings they’d passed in the corridor by the very same artist her first time at the club would be tame compared to these, which depicted sex in ways that would make a grown man blush. To his surprise, his sheltered little wife didn’t immediately fling the book back, but continued paging through its contents, rolling her lips between her teeth, that sultry flush of hers in full bloom now.
“Interesting,” she said, though her eyes didn’t meet his as she replaced it and selected another. It was Cleland’s,Fanny Hill, a flowery erotic novel about the adventures of a prostitute. To his eternal shock, a smile quirked her lips. “I’ve read this, though not this early edition, a later expurgated one.”
Winter was well aware his jaw had hit the floor. But he almost groaned at the next book she chose—one of nearly a dozen volumes by the disturbingly violent and cruel Marquis de Sade—La Nouvelle Justine. It was a graphically depraved account of one girl’s sexual encounters.
“Wasn’t the Marquis de Sade imprisoned for these by Bonaparte?” she asked.
“He was.”
She shot him a glance. “And yet you have them in your possession.”
“I do.” Despite the order to have the books destroyed by the Royal Court of Paris and the author’s imprisonment, Winter did not feel the need to defend his possession of the volumes, though the subject matter was one of extreme debate. However, he couldn’t stand to see any judgment in her eyes. He cleared his throat. “Hence the hard and fast rule of engagement at this club: permission and consent. As you might have gleaned, parts of this club cater to sensual play and fulfilling certain needs.”
Isobel replaced the book and moved on to the adjoining shelves. “Like flogging.”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“I saw some of the earlier sales with members auctioning off their services. One Lady Renly who enjoys the occasional birch switch and the cane went for quite a high sum. I’m surprised the regent wasn’t here to avail himself of your offerings.”
Curious fingers trailed across a decorative paddle carved from onyx as well as a birch rod, and once more, when his cock leaped, Winter was grateful for cover of the desk. The last thing he wanted was for her to assume he was any kind of sexual deviant, not that she would, but some people tended to shy away from the unfamiliar. The thought that she was not the prude he expected slid like silk through his mind.
“Lady Darcy covered that subject in some detail in one of her letters,” she went on. “She thought that switches were better kept green and in water for easier use.”
Winter’s groin tightened past the point of pain. He was aware. Those letters had brought on a slew of new members. He could barely get out a word as Isobel continued, oblivious to his worsening state.
“She was of the mind that the fetish probably had to do with all those young boys being sexually shamed and lashed at Eton or elsewhere,” she explained. “Or perhaps it stemmed from wanting to escape the rigid rules of thetonoutside of the bedchamber?”
Hell, he wanted to put that well-informed mouth of hers to practical use.
But then she chuckled, holding a familiar periodical aloft. “I see you’re also a collector of Lady Darcy’s work.”
“I collect many things.”
Pale blue eyes regarded him over the top edge of the volume. “You said you didn’t think I could be her because I was too innocent. In truth, I fear you don’t know me at all, Lord Roth.” His mouth dried when she clasped her hands behind her back, causing the fabric of her waistcoat to pull tight over her breasts, as she sauntered back to the front of the desk. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m here?”
“Howdidyou get here?”
She grinned. “Clarissa stole Oliver’s invitation.”
Thatwas why he hadn’t seen his brother. “Is Clarissa here, too?”
“No.” Isobel shook her head, propping her left hip on the desk and giving him her profile, her right leg swinging. One hand reached up to unknot her cravat. He was so distracted by the long, elegant lines of her exposed throat that he barely took in her next words. “She’s at home playing nursemaid to your brother.”
