The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty Read online

  But no. No, I hadn’t missed Mercy. Missing only belonged to one person. The one person I came back for.

  Stop it, Silas. Shake it off.

  “Yes,” I lied again.

  “Good,” she said, and then she reached over and my lies faded from my lips. The moment her fingers brushed against my cock, it thickened, hungry for her, hungry for anyone, and then, alas, the train reached its stop.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  I stood and helped her into the aisle. “Would you like me to escort you home?” I asked in her ear.

  “I’d like you to escort me to bed.”

  Well, then.

  The walk was short and hot, and I did my chivalrous best to keep Mercy under her parasol as we went. And then we were inside, and then we were in her bedroom, and then she unbuttoned her dress in short, efficient movements.

  “Lay down,” she ordered.

  I complied, unbuttoning my trousers to free my erection as I did. I lay on my back, cock exposed, hands laced behind my head, and watched as Mercy swayed over to me. She was truly beautiful, especially naked, so very ripe and womanly and soft. But as she slid over me, as she positioned me and slid her pussy down my length, I was not struck by the pleasure or by her beauty or by the licentious delight of it all.

  I was struck by boredom.

  I don’t mean that I was bored with sex necessarily—as Mercy rode me with her slippery undulations, my body responded precisely as it should. But I realized for the first time how transactional it all was, how very much like scratching an itch or eating breakfast. There was no real spirit here, no real playfulness, no passion.

  And then out of nowhere, came the memory of Molly’s face when she’d caught Mercy and me together.

  God. Her eyes when she’d seen us. She’d been gutted.

  And to think that just two days before she’d caught us, the day before I’d betrayed her, we’d spent the entire day fucking. Sweaty, dirty fucking. Her rose-pink nipples in my mouth. Her wet, wet cunt like a vise around my dick.

  Above me, Mercy was still moving and struggling to get where she needed to be. Out of politeness, I helped, finding her clit with my thumb and coaxing an orgasm out of her. Her gaze never left my face as she came, but me, despicable scoundrel that I am, I kept my eyes shut when it was my turn.

  And as I pulsed inside of her, it was Molly O’Flaherty I pictured riding me, Molly O’Flaherty with her perfect breasts and her perfect mouth and her perfect, powerful right hook.

  The summer sun framed the Baron’s mansion in hues of sugar pink and deep orange, and music and laughter spilled out of every open window and door. The air already smelled like Molly, like something sweet and spiced all at once, like cloves and champagne. It smelled the way she tasted whenever I kissed her.

  Or maybe I was losing my mind. After my interlude with Mercy yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about Molly in precisely the ways I had forbidden myself all those months ago. The silkiness of her inner thighs. The light, girlish trill of her laugh. The exacting, almost savage, way she went over the daily ledgers, pen in hand, striking out figures and numbers like a vengeful goddess of commerce.

  I shook my head, scattering thoughts of her away from my mind like leaves before the wind. I’d visited the Baron for luncheon today, and he had mentioned the party and that he thought Molly might attend. I made my plan: I would go, make my business proposition and leave. No emotions, no touching. I would talk to her like I would talk to any other business acquaintance, and that would be the end of it.

  Or so I thought. Because once I saw her, whirling in a cyclone of red curls and blue silk, cradled in Hugh’s arms—damned Hugh—all of my careful, emotionless plans vanished.

  There were three things I promised myself this morning when I woke up.

  One, that I would find a way to defeat the board’s ridiculous demands.

  Two, that I would fuck someone tonight at the Baron’s party, and fuck them hard enough to forget the awful mess my carefully ordered life had become.

  And three, number three, that today was the day I would finally fall out of love with Silas Cecil-Coke. Silas, the callous, unforgivable prick who’d cozened me into caring about him.

  Fucking jackass.

  But today, like every other day since Silas had fled the country, number three wasn’t going to happen. And number one wasn’t going to happen.

  So I’d be damned if I was going to give up on number two. The night was still young.

  The Baron—properly known as Castor, Lord Gravendon—had thrown a large party tonight for no particular reason that I could discern, other than that he enjoyed throwing them and that he was bored. And even though I had more or less avoided the Baron’s house since the fateful evening I’d discovered Silas buried to the hilt in Mercy Atworth, tonight I’d decided to make an appearance. After months of tense negotiating with the board, and weeks of would-be suitors flooding my parlor, all I wanted was a night of music and dancing and orgasms.

  Was that so much for a girl to ask?

  “You are pensive tonight,” Hugh remarked, placing a flute of champagne in my gloved hand. “Is anything the matter?”

  Other than the fact that I must either lose my company or be sold into a loveless marriage?

  It wasn’t my habit to lie, but Hugh had been one of my closest companions recently, and it was his polite attentions and willingness to listen to me rail against the board that had gotten me through these last few months. So I didn’t want to ruin his night with my bitterness.

  “Only the usual,” I said, a bit dismissively, and took a short drink to hide my face.

  A gloved finger came up and stroked my upper arm—bare in the sleeveless silk dress I wore. “We could go upstairs. I could help you relax.”

  I turned to look at him—handsome, blond, and healthy in the sort of way that rich men look healthy, which is to say suntanned and muscular from travel and hunting. He’d come to London a few weeks before the board had laid down their edict and had been with me the entire time since. He was good-looking and loyal, and I came every time we had sex—what better traits could a man possess?

  So why didn’t I want him tonight?

  “Maybe later,” I evaded. “I’d like to dance some more.”

  He hid his disappointment well. “Of course.”

  I didn’t actually want to dance. I wanted to hold a man down and use his cock to drive away all the fears and worries of the day. I just didn’t know if I wanted Hugh to be that man, for whatever reason.

  But once the band began playing a lively waltz, I felt like I needed to shore up my excuse. I set my glass down and put my hand on Hugh’s arm. “Shall we?”

  He bowed and we drifted onto the floor, where he placed his hands awkwardly on my waist and shoulders. Though he was sure on a horse, he was not a very practiced dancer, and I could tell the activity bored him.

  “Molly,” he said as we began turning in unison with the other dancers. “Have you given any thought to our conversation yesterday?”

  Ah.

  Yes.

  I remember now.

  This is the reason I don’t want to take him to bed tonight.

  “I have,” I said carefully, keeping my eyes on the other dancers. The Baron was across the room, surveying the crowd, and I wished more than anything that I was next to him and not here talking with Hugh about the one thing I hated talking about.

  “And?” Hugh prompted.

  “And,” I sighed, “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “What is there to think about?” His voice was friendly, but the words chafed me nonetheless.

  “There’s a lot to think about,” I snapped. “This is my company, Hugh, and the rest of my life. Just because the board is forcing me to marry doesn’t mean that I will wed just anyone.”

  We spun and stopped in time with the music, now side by side, and Hugh’s mouth was at my ear. “But I am hardly just anyone, am I?”

  That, I had to concede. Afte
r all, if I had to marry, wouldn’t it be better to marry a friend? Someone I knew and didn’t mind sharing my body with? Hugh had money and connections, and adding those to the company would be a fantastic business maneuver. It was certainly better than marrying one of the mustachioed sops that kept calling on me at all hours of the day.

  So why was I holding back?

  “Is it Julian?” Hugh asked.

  I glanced to him, confused for a moment. “Julian…Julian Markham?”

  “What other Julian is there?” he asked impatiently.

  “What does he have to do with anything?”

  Hugh’s face pulled close to mine, so close that I could see the light from the chandeliers catching on his golden eyelashes. “Is he the reason you don’t want to marry me? Are you still in love with him?”

  A year ago—what felt like a lifetime ago—I might have said yes. I might have thought about those long Amsterdam nights, those shady Vienna days—weeks and months going from Paris to Rome to Brussels and everywhere in between, Julian and me and our friends. I might have thought of Julian’s brooding features or the short growls he made as he came.

  But the word love, the poetic, almost Biblical weight of it, revealed those faraway feelings for what they were—a schoolgirl’s obsession, though I had admittedly carried it long past my schoolgirl years.

  I knew the truth, even if I tried to forget it: what I had felt in three days with Silas was infinitely more than I had felt in ten years with Julian.

  “No, Hugh,” I said, meaning to sound dismissive, but instead sounding tired. “It’s not Julian.”

  “Then who?” he demanded.

  When had Hugh gotten so goddamned pushy? He’d only just made his sort-of proposal yesterday, and he had been the one to encourage me to take my time deciding, since there were still a few months left to the board’s deadline. Why did he feel the need to rush this all of a sudden?

  I opened my mouth to deliver a sharp retort—a rebuke, really, because nobody talked to Molly O’Flaherty like that, least of all a potential husband—and then the dancers whirled, me along with them. The dance floor cleared into a pattern of even, straight rows, the kind of rows that meant you could look all the way across the ballroom and see the spectators standing at the edges.

  See anybody standing at the edges.

  Like, say, somebody tall, with dark hair and a dimpled smile. Somebody with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, both the shoulders and the waist hugged indecently well by a black tuxedo.

  Blue eyes flicked to mine.

  “Our babies would have blue eyes.”

  A lone finger ran up the plane of my stomach, past my breasts, past my throat. Rested near my cheekbone.

  “You think I want babies?”

  That irresistible grin. “With me, you do.”

  My satin heel caught against Hugh’s foot and I stumbled. “Fuck,” I swore under my breath, and then for good measure, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “What?” Hugh asked, helping me steady myself.

  “Silas is here.”

  Hugh’s shoulders grew stiff and his eyes narrowed. “Where?”

  “At the far end of the ballroom.” I could no longer see Silas, but my heart thumped as if he were right next to me, as if he were touching me…tasting me. Every nerve ending, every pulse point lit on fire at the mere idea of his proximity, and oh God, I could hear his laugh now, that fucking contagious laugh. I knew how he would look laughing too, his eyebrows lifted slightly as if he were taken surprise at his own happiness, his teeth white and flashing, his dimples so deep and lickable.

  “I have to go,” I said abruptly and pulled away from Hugh. Thankfully, he didn’t fight me, and we exited the dance floor. I was shaking with adrenaline and rage and—Mother Mary help me, lust.

  Overpowering, flaming, burning, scorching lust.

  Stop. Think.

  But I couldn’t. I was too furious and too aroused, and the two sensations were so intertwined that I couldn’t begin to peel them apart. Because how dare he fucking come here, to England, how dare he show his face in this house again, the very house where he’d broken my heart? And how dare he look so delicious and tempting in his tailored tuxedo, laughing as if he hadn’t a care in the world? I wanted to scratch his back until it bled, I wanted to slap his face until my hand stung, I wanted him to pin my arms behind my back and bend me over and—

  No.

  Molly O’Flaherty didn’t let men bend her over. She didn’t let men fuck her—she fucked them, she rode them until she came and then she was done. And certainly she didn’t let Silas do either of those things. Not any more.

  My feet moved where my mind could not—away from Silas. I pushed angrily through the crowd, finally emerging onto the wide steps leading down to the Baron’s garden, gulping the still-warm night air as if it were gin—which was something I desperately needed right now.

  “Molly?” Hugh asked. “Would you like to leave?”

  I braced my hands on the railing, looking out over the wide expanse of the Baron’s estate, low green grass studded with bursts of flowers and capped by a large hedge maze at the end. “No,” I said firmly. I didn’t bother pretending I was upset about something else; there wasn’t a fashionable soul in London who didn’t know what had happened between Silas and me last year, and that included my would-be suitors. “I was here first. I am not leaving because of him.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t talk to him,” Hugh advised. “Let’s just avoid him for the rest of the night. And I can find out from the Baron how long he plans on staying in London.”

  I hadn’t even thought that far ahead—that he must be staying here in London, that all of my regular haunts might be extra haunted.

  And now he was making me feel like I needed to hide in my own city—damn him!

  My anger crystallized into something hard and cool. “Thank you, Hugh,” I said calmly. “I so appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  He gave me a small smile, the kind that could easily be called smug.

  I laid a hand on his forearm. “Do you mind getting me another drink? The dancing overheated me.”

  “Of course.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek, a gesture that felt oddly proprietary. I clenched my teeth together but made no reaction until he walked away, and then I gave the flagstones one hard stomp under my dress, like a little girl throwing a tantrum.

  I didn’t want to be kissed, I didn’t want to be coddled, I didn’t want to marry Hugh and I didn’t want Silas to be here. I stomped my foot one last time, shook my shoulders to rid myself of the rest of my anger, and then stepped back into the ballroom, my face schooled into a placid mask.

  I would find Silas. I would tell him to leave. And that would be the end of it. The end of my thrumming pulse and the end of the balled need in the pit of my stomach.

  The night had grown late enough that some of the more unique elements of the Baron’s parties were beginning to show. Skin uncovered, hair unbound. Dancing turning to kissing, kissing to fondling. I used to thrive in the midst of this, I used to be the princess of this scene, but now it merely irritated me. All these people basking in their frivolity, their escapism, and me stuck with my powerless, joyless future.

  I pushed past them all until I reached the end of the ballroom, where I’d last seen Silas. I couldn’t find him, and for a moment, I thought perhaps he’d left, and my heart soared at the same time as it split apart and withered.

  “—Provence is always beautiful, although not as beautiful as you, darling.”

  I froze. And turned.

  And right behind me, surrounded by a group of young tittering women that I didn’t know, was Silas.

  From this vantage, I could see the way his dinner jacket stretched across his wide shoulders. The way it tapered into his lean hips, hips that had once dug into my thighs, hips that I had bitten and licked and tickled. I could see where the smooth skin of his neck met the dark brown of his hair. I could see the angle of his cheek as he turned to survey t
he dance floor. His cheek was dusted ever so faintly with stubble, which was unusual for him, and unfortunate for me, because it only highlighted those high cheekbones and the square-carved symmetry of his jaw.

  I swallowed. It didn’t matter how square his jaw was or how delicious that neck would taste against my tongue. He was not welcome here.

  I strode forward and touched his shoulder, opening my mouth to speak the words, but then he spun and his eyes were so goddamn blue. His eyebrows lifted as if he were about to grin that beautiful, terrible grin, and instead of speaking, I raised my hand and hit him across the face as hard as I could.

  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Molly slapped me. I deserved it, for one, and for another, the look we’d exchanged on the ballroom floor earlier had not boded well for our reunion. Not because she’d looked angry when our eyes met, but because she’d looked hurt.

  What was surprising about the slap, however, was my reaction. I’d never been a man who’d liked things rough. I liked things pleasant and fun and easy. But in those three days I’d spent with Molly last year, something had happened. I had been fiercer and rougher with her than I had been with anyone ever before. And she—she had let me do things I would have never thought Molly O’Flaherty capable of letting be done to her.

  And so when her palm sent fire stinging across my cheek, my dick thickened and my stomach tightened and something like a growl came out of my chest. And before I knew it, I was hauling her away from the crowd, my fingers wrapped around her wrist, the soles of her dancing shoes hissing against the polished wood as I pulled and she fought.

  “Let go,” she snarled, and since we had reached my destination—a small curtained nook near the foyer—I obeyed.

  She crammed herself into the corner, silk bunching around her legs, and I yanked the curtains shut.

  “How dare you—” she started, and then I strode forward and sealed my mouth over hers, swallowing her words along with the sigh that followed, a sigh that was anger and pain and surrender all in one.