Maggie Robinson - Mistress by Mistake

What wasn’t surrounded by moisture was eased with warm strokes. She found her stride, teasing him, tormenting him, drawing him in so far until he struggled for balance. She was the embodiment of every man’s dream. Or his, at any rate, and that was all that mattered. Her lips curled slyly around his cock, her breasts rose and fell with each gasping breath, her tongue was beautifully busy.

As if she knew he was close, she raised her eyes, the blue quite overtaken by black desire. She would deny him nothing. Wordless and grateful, his fingers threaded through the wildness of her hair as he selfishly held her in place. She startled only a little when he came, didn’t disappoint him by trying to pull away. Through heavy lids, he watched the column of her throat as he spent. He’d never in his life seen or felt anything so sensual.

Ah. Yes, she was addictive. He was totally enslaved. He lifted her wet body up against his and kissed her, claimed her. Her dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks as he foamed lime froth along her curves, over her nether curls, into the cleft of her arse. Unsteady from the urge to taste her everywhere, he slipped back into the water, seating her back-to on his lap to wash her fall of ebony hair. She fitted perfectly, felt perfect against him, her softness yielding to the hard muscle of his body. She tipped her head back like a trusting child as he poured water over her. When she gave a little sigh of contentment, his cock twitched in response.

They sat together in their own liquid fiefdom, his thumb grazing her nipple as his other hand found her tickler plump and erect. He pressed and pinched, stroked and strummed until she broke apart. It seemed impossible so soon, but he was marble-hard. He lifted her hips and drove in, the cooling water sloshing onto the carpet. Without a word, he slowly raised and set her down on his shaft. She was pliant, yielding, all irritation forgotten. Her muscles contracted in a dizzying series of shocks, compelling him to spill into her with hardly any effort. She settled back against him, her body lax. The only flaws in the process had been that he was unable to kiss her mouth as he emptied himself, and that the water was now damned cold. She was shivering.

“We’re turning into prunes.” He kissed her temple, brushing away damp hair. It was springing up into a sable puff. Most reluctantly, he disengaged and turned her face to him. Blissful, her blue eyes sleepy, she placed her lips on his throat.

If only they could stay so at peace with each other. Bay knew it was unlikely. “I’ve got to leave you for a few hours. Take a nap, my dove, for when I come back I want you wide awake.”

“You are a fiend.” This time it didn’t sound like an insult so much as a compliment.

He helped her out of the tub and wrapped a bath sheet around her. If he stopped to dry her off, he’d wind right back in her bed and inside her. For two middle-aged people, they were behaving like randy youths.

Bay dressed quickly in some spare clothes and headed home. Home. Odd. Now that Charlie was there, Jane Street seemed more like home to him than anywhere he’d ever lived.

Bay’s town house was a modest affair. As a single man he had no need for a vast quantity of bedrooms or servants. He’d lived in bachelor apartments when he sold out, spending most of his nights in the arms of either his mistress or a willing widow. He’d won the leasehold on Jane Street in a spectacularly lucky card game a little over two years ago. Lucky for him, at any rate. The Marquess of Angleton had been unhappy, his mistress even more so. Rumor had it she was so furious at Angleton for her eviction from “Courtesan Court” that she stabbed him with a fork. The man’s hand had been bandaged for weeks. Puncture wounds were the devil to heal.

But last year Bay had felt the need for more permanence and privacy, a place to hang the collection of paintings that were stacking up against the walls in his bachelor quarters for lack of space. He couldn’t spend all his time underfoot at Jane Street. Angelique and then Helena required their own privacy. Part of the mysterious allure of a mistress is that one didn’t see them all the day as they did whatever mistresses do to kill time. Cleaning their teeth. Applying honey masques to their faces and lemon juice to their hair. Reading gothic romances. Clipping their toenails. The extraordinary observed doing the ordinary soon loses its appeal.

He had enjoyed bathing with Charlie, however. And brushing her hair. He wondered how she would spend the rest of the afternoon. She seemed bookish. Perhaps he could order a set of novels from Hatchard’s for the house.

Bay’s front door opened before he even mounted the first step. His old batman, now butler-cum-valet, actually closed the door behind him and rushed Bay off the steps.

“Trouble, Frazier?”

“Aye, Major. Your wife is in the parlor.”

“I have no wife.” He did, once. For a little less than five months. And then her dead husband returned very inconveniently, making her an adulteress and Bay brokenhearted. He’d been too young to marry anyway. Just twenty. Anne had been twenty-two and the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Black hair. Blue eyes. Skin as white as milk and as smooth as cream. One morning she’d been snuggled in his bed in Dorset; by the evening she was being escorted back to Whitley’s estate by her papa. The scandal had been fierce. After a month of it, Bay had enlisted and directed his anger at the citizenry of France.

He placed a hand on Frazier’s and squeezed to stop him from dragging him down the street. “Halt. I’ll not run away.”

“Now, Major, you told me after the last time that I’m to talk sense into you. I’m just doing my duty.”

Bay pulled away and ran a hand through his still-damp hair. “How long has Lady Whitley been here?”

“Over an hour, sir. I tried to get her to leave but the b-woman won’t budge.”

Bay thought to reprimand Frazier for his hostility, but had learned when to pick his battles with the old Scot. To be fair, Frazier had every reason to dislike Anne. The man had dragged Bay away from enough bottles and beds after encounters with her. Bay had gotten better over the years, but Anne still had the power to make him feel like a jilted schoolboy.

“What does she want?”

“What she always wants, not that she’d bother to confide in me. You watch yourself, Major. Since that husband of hers died, she wants you back. And not just to diddle this time.”

Bay shut his eyes, hoping his neighbors were not peering out their front windows while he argued with his manservant. He was thirty-three years old. A decorated soldier, some might even say hero. The owner of three properties and sound investments. He was not going to let his past get the better of him, no matter how Anne’s lips moved in entreaty or her lush body beckoned. He had a mistress for all that.

“Tell you what, Frazier. Station yourself right outside the parlor door. When you hear me say-” He paused. What would make a good code word he could work into conversation?

“Bloody cow,” Frazier offered.

Bay cast him a stern look. “Hyde Park. Come in and tell me I have an urgent message. Speaking of which, any word from Mr. Mulgrew?”

“Aye. I meant to tell you that, too. Said he’s been to see the earl, and he has a lead. Has a man on his way to France. He’ll call on you tomorrow morning.”

Damn. He devoutly hoped for Charlie’s sake Mulgrew had not spilled the beans about Deborah taking the necklace. He’d definitely have to have a chat with Arthur’s father now, on some pretext or other. They didn’t precisely run in the same social circles.

Bay nodded and turned back toward his house. Frazier pulled on his sleeve again.

“Stay strong, Major. You’ve been in tougher battles.”

Bay barked out a laugh. He’d almost rather don a uniform again than face Anne Whitley in his own parlor.

He straightened and slid open the pocket door. She really had not changed at all since the last time he saw her. Of course, that was only weeks ago, soon after Whitley died and before he went to Dorset. She looked magnificent in black, like the ultimate chess queen carved by a master craftsman. She looked even more magnificent out of her widow’s weeds. It had not taken her long to shed them then, and would not take much to persuade her to go upstairs right now. Were he not so exhausted from his interlude on Jane Street, he might have been tempted for old times’ sake. They had fallen into such a routine over the years that he almost dreaded coming home on leave. She was sure to find him, and he was sure to wind up right where he knew he shouldn’t be.

But Whitley had been a bastard to her, or so she said. It had eased his guilty conscience some at the time to cuckold the man, but had not eased his heart.

“You look well, Lady Whitley. How may I be of service to you?”

“Bay, don’t be silly! Come sit down right next to me. I have been waiting for you for ages and ages.” She patted the sofa with a black-gloved hand, but she had removed her hat. Her hair was coiled neatly, wayward curls deliberately escaping around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were the color of the autumn sky. He’d once placed a sapphire just their color on her finger.

“I’m afraid I’m not home for long.” There was no sign of a chaperone. He took the red brocade chair opposite. Even from across the room he could smell the rose perfume she had always worn.

“Surely you have time for me.” She smiled, both cheeks dimpling. She did not look like a woman of five and thirty, and knew it.

“What do you want, Anne? It’s not proper for you to be here.”

She frowned. “You don’t sound very friendly today. I thought you’d be pleased to know I’ve come back to town. Whitley Abbey was so dull and grim. Even though I’m in mourning, I cannot be expected to deprive myself of every pleasure, can I?”