Page 131 of Her Beast

Embarrassment flooded her as she took his meaning: the women were prostitutes. How could she be such a simpleton?

“Does that revolt you?” he asked.

Julia opened her mouth to confess the mortifying truth about her and Matthew, but then Malcolm stroked a hand down her throat in a way that was shockingly intimate.

She shivered with pleasure before she could stop herself, intensely aware of the huge body beneath and around her.

“Does it, Julia?” He stroked her again and she leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. He smelled sogood, like leather and some expensive cologne that was clean and citrusy and positivelyedible.

“Bloody. Hell,” he muttered, shifting beneath her.

Julia opened her eyes. “Am I too heavy?”

“No. Does it?”

“Does it what?” she repeated, pressing her neck against his motionless hand, needing more. Why had she never noticed how arousing it felt to be touched on the throat?

He flexed his hand, the fingers closing just enough to make breathing difficult.

“Mmmm.” Julia squeezed her thighs together, magnifying the already pleasurable pulsing in her sex.

His delicious grip loosened. “Julia?”

“Hmm?”

“Does it disgust you that I pay whores to pleasure me?”

She sighed when she realized he was intent on pursuing the point rather than continuing his lovely stroking. “No, it doesn’t disgust me.” She didn’t tell him that it made her burn with jealousy. That was thelastthing she could say—not without sounding like a schoolroom chit with her first infatuation.

He cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Really?”

Her face heated under his probing look. And also at what she had to confess. “I’d be a hypocrite if it disgusted me because I paid Matthew to, er, be with me.”

He looked so stunned that she gave a nervous laugh. “What?” she taunted with more bravada than she felt, “Does that disgustyou?”

“You paid your stepmother’s footman to take your maidenhead,” he repeated, his expression strangely flat.

Well, when put like that it did sound rather disgusting.

When Julia tried to turn away, he caught her chin and held it. “No, it doesn’t disgust me at all,” he said in a rough tone. His lips curved into a smile that was both sensual and cruel. “Tell me, Julia, did you like watching me these past few nights?”

“You know I did,” she shot back, annoyed and aroused by his confidence in such matters. “Will she be back again?”

“Who?”

“Are you being purposely obtuse?” she snapped. “Maisie, that’s who!”

“Maisie never left; she’s here, now.”

“What?”

“Well, not in this room, obviously, but—”

“Are you saying that sheliveshere?”

“Sometimes.”

Julia shoved herself off his lap—or tried to, but he held her in place with irksome ease, and she didn’t really want to leave, anyhow.

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