And yes. She was wet. Wantonly, wantingly wet.
Her breath left her in a rush when a finger probed her opening. This was so lewd, so wrong! Yet her body had responded. Rutledge had awakened her dismay, distracting her with pain and mortification only to tease her into another revelation entirely: the aching pleasure he had hinted at was taking affect. She didn’t resist the finger he inserted.
“Ohhhhhhhh,” those around her breathed, anticipating their own release.
Rutledge slipped his finger out, but when he penetrated her again Camille felt two additional fingers…thick, inquisitive fingers that stroked her deep down inside. Without warning, he pulled them out.
When Camille groaned, her body’s betrayal became complete. Then suddenly, Rutledge plugged her with his thumb. Thick and blunt, it plumbed her wet depth until it found a spot where all her nerves connected, jangling her core to make her limbs vibrate wildly, as well. Camille clung to Lord Bentley’s leg. Sharp spasms made her hips buck against his hand, insisting—no, begging—that he drive his thumb deeper.
And like a sly puppeteer, Rutledge pulled physical and emotional strings that made her jerk and writhe and cry out until she forgot she had an audience. Camille wiggled helplessly on her husband’s lap, driven by intense inner need that fanned the flames of her climax. As the currents jolted her from the inside out, she shuddered and bucked until the pleasure exploded within her.
She went limp. Mindless. Oblivious. For delicious moments, his thumb remained inside her, poised to provide more pleasure.
Rutledge chuckled. When he eased his thumb from her cunt, warm honey trickled out. “No doubt some of you would love to lap her juices, but your wishes shall be denied. My wife’s surrender is complete.”
Camille bit back a retort. Once again she became aware of her spectators…their unfulfilled longings…an acute embarrassment that throbbed within her. Her ass stung so badly, it might be days before she could sit on it.
“You are to back away now,” he told their spectators in that irritatingly controlled tone. “And when Camille has dressed herself, you are to remain in your places as she returns to her room.”
Damn that animal! Instead of dismissing them, he was allowing them to witness her final degradation: not only would they watch her dress, they would see how she shook as she covered herself…would observe the rivulets running down her legs and know that Rutledge Bentley had had his way with her even though he’d remained fully clothed.
And fully in control! That part grated her nerves as much as the way he’d bared her private parts to the servants—as though he believed her on their level rather than anywhere near his. Once more he’d reminded her that he’d saved her from the squalor of Parisian alleyways. Even though she shared his name, she would never attain his social status.
“Bastard!” she muttered. Camille rolled from his lap, wadded her drawers between her quaking hands, and fled the music room. Snickers followed her, taunting her long after she closed her bedroom door.
8
Colette prickled with her twin’s indignation. Yet despite her irritation, the flesh between her thighs throbbed as Heath’s hands spanned her waist.
“We must take up where we left off when we were interrupted, minx,” he breathed against her ear. “The sight of your sister’s reddened backside whets a whole new appetite for—”
“If you so much as try to bare my ass in front of the servants, I’ll nail your nuts with my knee,” she muttered. “I’m going to tend Camille’s backside, so forget about your appetites. The poor girl didn’t deserve such humiliation! Such—”
“Had I found you alone in the darkened shop with Palladino, sweet Colette, I’d have made him watch while I took out my frustrations on you right then and there!”
She looked Heath in the eye. Passion had flared again in his dark, probing orbs, but it had nothing to do with her—how she attracted him or appealed to him or satisfied him. The younger Bentley had been born with needs she couldn’t satisfy even if she never again put on clothes or left his bed. And as she glanced toward his father, she noted the same proprietary arch to the older man’s brow…a precursor to the base, self-serving curmudgeon his son would become. Rutledge had punished her sister for his own titillation…more for the fueling of his servants’ perversions than for Camille’s correction. And what had her twin done that was so terrible?
Lifting an eyebrow, Colette waited for those watching her to step back. Then she marched from the music room, her back straight and her head held high. Her footfalls reverberated down the marble hallway toward the staircase, and she didn’t miss a beat when her father-in-law called her back. Heath tailed her at a distance, but she didn’t spare him the turn of her head.
Men! So arrogant and crude! No doubt her husband and Rutledge would be whispering about tonight’s incident with Manfred, and Richard Tetley, the butler, recounting the number of smacks and her poor sister’s reactions to them. While the sexual display had held her interest more than she cared to admit, the reason for it—the demeaning spectacle of it—disgusted her. She and Camille might have married into the upper echelons of London society, but the Bentley men’s ideas of respect and proper behavior toward their wives appalled her.
“Oh, Co-lehhhhtte!” a voice hailed her from behind.
She topped the stairway, turned left at the landing, and kept walking.
“Co-lehhhhtte!” came the sinuous whisper again. “I can help you, my darling, if you’ll only allow me. I agree completely that Father was heavy-handed. Improper and indiscreet.”
Colette rolled her eyes. Past the locked double doors she walked, and then continued down the corridor, which served as a gallery for Bentley family portraits. Why on God’s earth had Rutledge constructed his home with its main wings so damned far apart? And why did he insist on keeping the central wing sealed, forbidding anyone to enter it? Secrets! Probably more than she really wanted to know about. Across the Aubusson carpet runners Colette strode, past elegant tables polished to a gloss.
But it was all just a surface sheen in this household, wasn’t it? And while it might appear to those on the outside that the Bentley wives led privileged lives, the veneer was wearing thin. With her sister’s doorway in sight at last, Colette sped up—only to be accosted by a husband who’d shed his trousers along the way. Heath raced ahead and then whirled to a halt in front of her, his face alight with playful intent. His unbuttoned white shirt fluttered around his firm torso while his manhood pointed at her, accusing her of being far too serious about this evening’s events.
“How much do you want me?” he teased with a quick tickling of his cock.
Colette stopped, crossing her arms. “Heath, I told you I was tending my sister’s blistered backside—”
“And even with her reddened, spanked skin she’s only half as rosy and heated as you, my love.” Heath braced his legs to rock his slender hips toward her in blatant invitation. “I’ll let you go to her after I’ve wet my wand. Why are you ladies so offended by a display of discipline? The sound of skin smacking skin—the crackling of anticipation between strikes—why, it sets any red-blooded man’s blood a-boil! And you were watching, too, Colette! Don’t tell me the sight of your sister, bent over Father’s knee with her twat exposed, didn’t excite you!”
Colette
