Pippa and the Prince of Secrets by Grace Callaway

23

Cull wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he wanted Pippa. More than he wanted anyone.

Then, now, and undoubtedly for the rest of his life.

“But we were apart for so long.” She lifted a hand to her bosom, her eyes wide. “Surely you weren’t thinking about me…”

“Not every minute. Not always consciously. But you were there,” he said gruffly. “A glow at the back of my mind, the memory of the girl who lit up rooms when she entered.”

“If that were true, why…why did you leave without saying goodbye?” Her voice was tremulous. “Why didn’t you find me sooner?”

“The same reason I wasn’t there for Maisie. I wasn’t in a place to give you what you needed. What you deserved.” He brushed his knuckles against her downy cheek. “You were a lady, and I was little more than an alley rat.”

“I never cared—”

“But I did. You were so sheltered and sweet; I didn’t want to take advantage of your innocence.” He exhaled. “As the years passed, my fortunes improved. Sometimes I would think there might be a chance…but my duty to the mudlarks always came first. Then when you met Longmere and had eyes for only him, and I had my accident, I knew.”

“Knew what?” Her words were whisper soft.

“That my mam was right. She told me that folk like her and me, we didn’t have lucky stars above us. She said that if I wanted to survive, I would have to find my way in the dark.”

“As a boy, wasn’t that frightening to hear?” Pippa asked with a shiver.

Given the other terrors he’d encountered in the stew’s dark alleyways, not really.

He shrugged. “She wasn’t wrong. I’ve found success in the shadows, and the dark is where I belong. But you, sweeting…you belong in the light. When you wed Longmere, I told myself it was for the best.”

Even though it had hurt like hell, and he’d drunk himself into a stupor for days afterward.

“It wasn’t for the best,” she said.

At the sudden lost look in her eyes, steel bands tightened around Cull’s chest. What he resented about his fate wasn’t his own travails. It was his failure to protect the people he cared about.

“If I had known how he would treat you—the pain he would ultimately cause—I would have stepped in,” Cull said in a low voice. “Done something.”

“What could you have done?” Pippa blinked at him, her gaze becoming focused and hard. “No one could have stopped me from following what I thought was my heart’s desire: not my family, not you. I had to learn the lesson the hard way.”

“What lesson?”

“The difference between love and infatuation.”

Cull went still, remembering what she’d said about crying for herself, not her husband. He had thought she meant that she was moving through her grief. But had she meant something else?

She drew a breath and carried on. “I’m beginning to see that I was in love with the image of Longmere—of the passionate, romantic artist—and not the man he actually was. How foolish is that?”

“Sunshine.” Cupping her jaw, Cull felt her trembling tension. “You’re not foolish. You were young, and Longmere…let’s face it. He was popular with the ladies for a reason.”

“He mostly talked about himself.” The words left her in a rush. “He wanted everything his way. In our daily life, in…our bedchamber. Whenever I tried to initiate anything, especially of a marital nature, he found it unbecoming. I bent over backward to please him, and it was never enough.”

The bleeding popinjay is lucky he’s dead.

Yet Cull knew his fury wouldn’t help her; she had enough of that aimed at herself already.

“Well,” he said after a pause. “Maybe you were a bit foolish.”

She laughed, just as he hoped she would.

“That is what I like about you, Cull.” The beguiling sparkle was back in her eyes. “You listen to me, and you’re honest. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m…enough.”

God, her vulnerability wrecked him. Made his chest melt and his cock rear to attention. Only Pippa had ever stirred these contradictory needs in him: he wanted to comfort her and screw her senseless at the same time.

“You’re more than enough,” he murmured. “You’re everything a man could want.”

“Even you?” The corners of her lips tipped up in invitation.

“Especially me.” As he leaned in to take what she offered, she brushed her fingertips over his mask.

“I’ve laid myself bare,” she whispered. “Don’t you think you ought to do the same?”

Resistance gripped him, and he hated it. Hated his vanity. Hated that facing an army of cutthroats was less intimidating than exposing his ugliness, even though she’d already seen his scars. But that had been in a dark carriage. Here, the lanterns cast a bright glow, and even the heavens seemed to be mocking him: the fog had melted away to a sky of stars, raining their light down through the glass.

Blasted stars would choose now to show up.

“Now who is being foolish?” Her dare was sweetly playful.

Exhaling, he untied the mask and threw it aside. He tried to keep his expression nonchalant even though his chest pounded as if he’d run for miles. He studied her for any sign of disgust…but she only smiled.

“There you are, Timothy Cullen,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

God, she undid him. And since he wasn’t actually a fool like her dead husband, he loved being undone by her. Loved her feminine passion…and wanted to unleash all of it.

“Care to show me how much?” he challenged.

Her smile lit up her eyes, her face, until he would swear that she was brighter than the starlight.

“It would be my pleasure,” she purred.

With giddy excitement, Pippa took in the sensual male before her. Lounging against the cushions, he was a feast for the senses, and she didn’t know what she wanted most: to taste or smell or touch him. But she didn’t have to choose, did she?

Since Cull had given her free rein, she could have it all.

Having never been in charge before, she wasn’t sure where to begin. Letting her instincts guide her, she knelt beside him and traced the straight line of his eyebrows with her fingertip. She stroked the bridge of his nose and around his lips. As if she were sketching him with her touch.

He flicked his tongue out, catching her fingertip. She responded by leaning in and kissing his forehead and the twin dents between his brows. She let her lips follow where she’d touched. As she cupped his strong jaw with both hands, she pressed her lips against his smooth cheek. And heard his breath catch when she did the same to the other side, feeling the rough texture of his scars, part of the tapestry that made up this unique and vital man. Whose beauty was more profound than perfection. Whose every wound and every hurt made him peerless in her eyes.

Her mouth hovering by his, she said, “I want to paint you someday.”

He stared at her, as if he didn’t believe she was serious. Although she was. Absolutely.

His breath caressed her lips. “One of ’em naked pictures?”

Laughter bubbled from her, and it felt like joy. She grabbed one end of his cravat, unraveling it slowly. “For a nude portrait, I need to do a thorough study ahead of time.”

He helped her to remove his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. With his hands planted behind him and veined biceps bulging, his broad chest rippling with muscle, he was a work of art.

“You really are beautiful, you know,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.

“Flattery is unnecessary.” He directed a meaningful gaze at his groin, where his arousal strained his trousers. “I’m what a betting man would call a certain thing.”

“I’m not flattering; I’m giving you a sincere compliment.” She grazed her mouth against his, their lips clinging for the sweetest instant. “All you have to say is thank you.”

“Thank you.”

His words came out a bit strangled, perhaps because she was peppering his jaw with kisses. His soap-and-sea scent whetted her appetite, and she searched for more along his corded neck. She nibbled gently on the ridges of sinew, loving his harsh pants. She ran her tongue down a groove, all the way to his collarbone.

She felt hungry and alive. More alive than she’d ever been.

She poked a finger into his chest; although her push didn’t have any force behind it, he fell back onto the cushions. He tucked one hand behind his head, gesturing at himself with the other.

“Feel free to proceed with your study,” he said with princely grandeur.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her skirts billowed as she made a space for herself between his muscled thighs. She stretched over him, brushing her lips against his, once, twice, the third time running her tongue along his seam. He parted for her, and she shivered at the reversed roles. At the heady power of having this potent male at her command.

She sank her lips onto his, and the kiss turned ravenous. A feast of tongues and lips and teeth. Their hot licking stiffened her nipples and sent a humid pulse of heat to her core. The need to have more of him took over, and she skated her lips down his throat to his chest.

His torso rose and fell with heavy breaths as he watched her, his eyes hotter than molten earth. She ran possessive hands over the blocks of his pectoral muscles, his wiry bronze chest hair a sensual abrasion against her palms. He had scars here as well, and she bent to kiss the healed hurts, his hands stroking her hair lightly as she did so.

Reaching his nipples, she circled them with her thumbs and, seeing his gaze flare, took it one step further. Bending, she kissed the flat brown nub and smiled when he shuddered.

“Do you like being kissed here?” she whispered.

“I like your mouth anywhere on me,” he said with guttural emphasis.

Taking him up on his carte blanche, she tracked the trail of hair with her mouth. It arrowed downward, bisecting the stacked muscles of his abdomen, and she planted kisses over his taut stomach all the way to his waistband. She paused, a tremor shooting through her as she beheld the long, thick ridge stretching the fabric just below.

Cull caught her chin, turning her gaze to his.

“You’re shaking,” he said huskily. “We should stop. Do only what you want to.”

She realized that he thought she was afraid when that was the furthest thing from the truth. She debated trying to explain what she was truly feeling, then decided it was easier to show him. Shaking with anticipation, she fumbled with his fasteners.

His large hands covered hers. “Pippa, are you sure?”

Seeing his concern, the arousal he kept in check for her, she’d never wanted him more.

“I want you, Cull,” she said steadily. “And I want this.”

She palmed his manhood, squeezing gently, and his eyes grew smoky and heavy-lidded.

“Then take what you want,” he rasped.

He helped her to shove down his trousers, yanking them off with enough haste to make her giggle. Then she was between his naked, muscular thighs, and even though she’d touched him in the darkness of the carriage, her eyes widened at her first unhindered view of his member. The thick column of rosy-brown flesh lay rigid against his muscled stomach, the head stretching toward his navel. Prominent veins girded the shaft, his bollocks hanging heavily in a nest of brown hair.

Heavens, now she really wanted to paint him. Portrait of a Lady’s Dream, she would call it. And she would covetously guard it from all eyes but her own.

Reaching out, she wrapped her hand around Cull’s manhood. Shivered when her fingers barely encircled the pulsing girth. His breath hissed as she carefully pried the shaft from his stomach and ran her fist gently along the length, then harder, the way he’d taught her to do it. Dragging the velvety skin over the core of steel, up and down. Down and up.

“How is that?” she whispered.

“Bloody paradise.” His gaze scorched her insides. “You frig my cock so well.”

As if to punctuate his praise, a drop of seed beaded on the fat tip. Pippa stared at it, remembering how good Cull’s mouth had felt. Wondering if she could give him the same bliss. She’d never done it before, never wanted to…but now, with Cull, she did.

With him, she wanted to feel and experience everything.

She leaned over his flared dome, the milky bead quivering with her breath. “What about my lips? Would they feel like heaven as well?”

The feral sound that scraped from his throat was answer enough.

With churning excitement, she kissed the tip of his cock.

Christ Almighty, she was going to kill him.

In his nine-and-twenty years, Cull had never felt anything as arousing as Pippa’s mouth. He could tell it was her first time performing fellatio; she didn’t exactly know what she was doing. Her brazen enthusiasm more than made up for her lack of experience, however. When she swirled her tongue around his head, bliss sizzled through his veins. He spurted another drop of seed.

Plenty more where that came from.

“Am I doing this right?” Her words teased his moist dome. “Is there more I should do?”

Since she asked… “You could take me deeper, if you want.”

“Deeper?” A furrow appeared between her brows. “How much deeper?”

“As deep as you want me inside you,” he said huskily.

“Oh.” She seemed to ponder his suggestion before making the sweetest request. “Show me?”

Weaving his fingers into her silky hair, he guided her head to his cock, groaning as he breached her softness. “Suck on me like I’m a sweet.”

She closed her lips around him, the gentle suction tugging all the way to his balls.

Releasing him with a pop that made him shudder with lust, she said breathlessly, “Like that?”

“God, yes,” he panted. “Relax your jaw and see if you can take more of me.”

When she did exactly that, he arched his neck. It was too fine. The feel of her hot little mouth, the sight of those delicate lips stretching around his veined meat. He couldn’t stop himself from sliding his fingers against her scalp, urging her to take even more. She bobbed her head, going deeper and deeper, driving him out of his mind. She couldn’t fit his entire length, but God’s teeth, it was enough. When she hummed with satisfaction, the vibration nearly triggered his release.

“Pippa, you have to stop,” he bit out. “I can’t hold back—”

He tried to pull her off him, and she swatted his hands away.

“It’s my turn to taste you.” Her eyes shone with sultry resolve. “Sliding down my throat.”

Jesus wept.She’d thrown his own words back at him.

He gripped her head as she sucked him. Her cheeks hollowed with her decadent pulls. The stars overhead blurred as white-hot pleasure streaked through him, threatening to burn him alive. Even as his hips bucked into her generous kiss and he spilled himself with a roar, he was aware of the part of him that remained hungry. The frenzied beast Pippa had awakened. And at that moment, he knew.

He would never have enough of this woman. He wanted more. Everything, everything.

Fear reared its ugly head. But desire beat it down, growling that he would have this moment—this one bloody moment—for himself. He dragged her mouth to his, the taste of himself a depraved thrill. She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a moan when he began tearing at her clothes. Between the two of them, they got her naked, and he wasted no time in hoisting her over him, positioning her cunny over his mouth. Clamping his hands on her hips, he guided her to ride his face.

He groaned at her dripping arousal. He licked the length of her juicy slit, from her pearl all the way to her pleated rosebud. She jerked in surprise, then moaned as he swirled his tongue there before going back and thrusting inside her proper entrance. He grunted as her quim clenched, shoving her hips down as he fucked her with his tongue. Her knees trembled against his jaw and she came, chanting his name.

Breathing hard, suffused with the taste of her pleasure, he slid her down his body. With her hair flowing loose over her shoulders, she was a sensual mermaid, her pink-tipped breasts bobbing seductively.

He palmed the flawless apple-sized mounds, grazing his thumbs over the ripe peaks. “I still have to make good on my promise to suckle you here thoroughly.”

“All right,” she breathed.

In her passion-flushed face, he saw his fantasy come true: she wasn’t nearly done. By God, she was perfect—and he had to have her. Now.

“I’ll do it while I’m inside you,” he decided.

“Oh.” Her eyes rounded. “But what about…”

“I have a French letter.”

He’d put one in the pocket of his discarded jacket.

She arched her brows. “Confident, were you?”

He grinned at her prim tone. Trust Pippa to sound ladylike while draped naked over him.

“Just optimistic.” Reaching down, he brought his cock to her cunny, dragging his crown along her silky-wet petals. Shuddering at how good she felt. “Was I wrong to be so?”

“No,” she gasped. “Hurry and—”

Hinges squealed, and Mikey’s voice called from the doorway, “You in ’ere, Cull?”

Biting out an oath, Cull rolled over Pippa, shielding her naked body with his own.

“What did I say about privacy?” he barked.

“This is important.”

At Mikey’s stark tone, Cull stilled. “What is it?”

“An ’our ago, that cove Hastings was shot dead.”