The Wolf of Mayfair

Tremblingly alive to a sense of delight, and unchilled by disappointment, the young heart welcomes every feeling, not simply painful, with a romantic expectation that it will expand into bliss.

—Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance

Because if you don’t, little kitten, I’m going to kiss you . . .

Helia’s heart, it pounded.

When Helia was a wee lass, her ma had told her the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, who befriended a wolf. In her trustingness, a deceived Red had allowed him to lead her into the bed, where he’d eaten her whole.

And in this instant, she understood all too well: How Red’s judgment had proven so weak. How that unsuspecting, trusting girl had found herself confronting the grisly fate she had. And that inexplicable draw possessed by the wolf, which had left the hapless Red unable to pluck herself from the danger awaiting her.

Go, leave, flee, run, a voice in Helia’s mind screamed. This place she’d run to in search of sanctuary couldn’t possibly offer safety, when this man posed a peril of his own.

Not because she truly thought Wingrave might do her actual harm. Nay, it was because she feared the overwhelming feelings he wrought—ones she’d never experienced and ones she didn’t understand.

For Helia prided herself on being rational, certainly not the sort of ninny who’d carry a tendre or, for that matter, feel anything for a man who at every turn sought to unsettle and scare her.

So how to explain any of this?

That scornful grin on his lips deepened . . . as if he’d sensed her inner turmoil and relished in that disquietude.

“You look about ready to faint, sweetheart.”

His breath bore the sweet hint of vanilla and mint, like he’d been sucking upon a peppermint candy stick. That innocent aroma had a dizzying effect; it clouded her senses and left her with a shameful yearning to know his kiss and taste of him.

Lord help her.

“I’m n-not the fainting sort,” she rejoined, wishing her voice had been as steady and unaffected as his own.

With a ponderous slowness that both allowed her and dared her to pull away, Wingrave—nay, Anthony—reached out the same hand that had stroked her cheek moments ago and cupped Helia, this time by the jaw.

His gently unbreakable grip bore an unexpected tenderness.

“You haven’t run, little kitten,” he said in silken tones that bore an underlining of steel and mockery.

His dark-blue eyes slipped to her mouth. “Dare I take that to mean you want my kiss this time?”

Her belly quickened.

I do. She did. She’d wanted it before, when the storm had raged, but she’d been too afraid of this pull he had over her.

Belatedly, Helia compressed her lips, in a bid to hide their tremble.

The glitter in his shrewd eyes silently mocked her for thinking she might have any secrets from him. He stroked the pad of his right thumb along her bottom lip.

It was just a touch. She’d absently rubbed her mouth any number of times, not even giving it so much as a passing consideration. And yet, his amazingly sure, bold caress choked out logic and chased away all thoughts. Helia found herself hypnotized by that back-and-forth glide of his finger across her lip.

Her lashes fluttered, bringing his coolly knowing visage in and out of focus.

“I will take your lack of denial and that hungry little way you’re biting at that flesh as an ‘aye,’ Helia,” he murmured.

Helia.

She drew in a shaky, breathless inhalation. There it was again, her Christian name uttered upon his beautifully hard lips. The sound of those three syllables huskily spoken was like a wonderfully warm caress.

And still, he did not kiss her. He did not ravage her lips, or take them in a punishing possession that robbed her of choice and put his own desires to the forefront.

“Nothing to say?” he taunted. “Do you intend to flee again, so I can’t take your body and mouth the way I wish?”

His words liquefied her, and surely she should possess horror that she responded to him so, but strangely, she didn’t. Existing in its stead, however, was a thrill born from the lamentations about her reputation.

Helia lifted her gaze to his and held his stare. “You can’t take what I freely give, Anth—”

With a savage growl, Wingrave brought his mouth down hard on hers.

Nay, Anthony.

And this, her first kiss, was not the tender, gentle meeting she’d always thought she would know. Rather, there was a primal rawness to Anthony’s claim.

He slanted his lips over hers again and again, plundering, punishing. Her? Or himself, for wanting her?

She rather suspected it was both.

He caught her wrists in one of his larger, powerful hands, and stretched them high above her head. Using them as if to steer her, he guided her so her back collided with the wall, so that his punishing grip and muscle-hewn frame kept her upright.

“Like that, do you, sweetheart?” he purred between each kiss.

Words failed, and she could offer him nothing more than a whimper in return.

A pleased-sounding, triumph-filled, husky laugh rumbled in his chest.

“Let me in,” he demanded, and she did as he bade, knowing intuitively what he sought.

She parted her lips.

“Very nice, kitten,” he praised. With his spare hand, he caressed his palm hard over her hip, then swept his tongue inside; that silken, hot flesh lashed against Helia’s like a brand.

He kissed her like he wanted to possess her, and she ached to belong to him, in this way.

In this way, or in other ways, too . . . a voice at the back of her mind murmured, sounding that alarm.

Helia thrust that uneasy and unwelcome reminder aside and gave herself fully over to his embrace.

His tongue danced around hers in a fiery pirouette that left her dizzy and struggling to keep up.

She touched the tip of hers to his, experimentally at first. Enlivened as she’d never been, Helia grew bolder in her movements.

Anthony’s chest rumbled, and Helia swallowed that primitive growl of approval and sagged under the power of it.

He kept her anchored between his strong body; the hard, punishing wall at her back; and his even harder erection at her belly. Anthony moved his hips in a circular motion so she could feel all of him. His rod, thick and long and rigid, prodded her belly.

For—before now—Helia may have been untouched, unkissed, and innocent in every way, but she’d grown up around livestock. She knew the act that occurred between the mounts and dogs they bred, all in the name of breeding, was no different from what transpired between a husband and wife.

She’d been wrong. So very wrong.

For this? This sinful but beautiful act wrought pleasure and a need that had nothing to do with babes and everything to do with the feelings this embrace stirred inside Helia.

Anthony drew her lower lip into his mouth and suckled that flesh.

She dropped her head back on a low, agonized moan.

A restless ache settled between her legs.

He tossed his head back in masculine delight, then filled his hands with her breasts. “You love that, don’t you, my pet? You like when I palm your breasts?”

He nipped lightly at her lip. “Or is it my violent kiss?”

She lifted her hips against his.

Anthony stilled his ministrations; he hovered his mouth over the spot right where her pulse pounded. “Or,” he dangled, sin and temptation incarnate, “do you like when I rub myself over you?”

His words were naughty, his tone somehow a jeer and a silky caress all at the same time.

All of it, she silently screamed.

She loved it all. She wanted all the things he did and spoke of . . . and more. Whatever more was.

Suddenly, Anthony stopped.

Helia cried out; her breasts heaved from the force of the breaths she drew; her respirations came in fast spurts.

In a bid to ease that hot pressure, of their own volition, her hips began to move against Anthony.

He chuckled. “Uh-uh.” Anthony drew himself back so that she was denied the feel of his body against hers.

Helia whimpered.

“Tell me what you like, kitten,” he demanded with a harshness that should have scared her but only sent a further wave of white-hot heat to Helia’s core. “Which one of those?”

“All of them,” she cried out. Her desperation-tinged voice rang around the room and pealed from the rafters. “I want you to do them all to me.”

“All you had to do was say it, Helia.”

With that, Anthony gave her everything she sought. Simultaneously, he devoured her mouth, toyed with the swollen peaks of her breasts, and rubbed his erection over the flat of her stomach. Until it was too much.

She shifted and swayed and stretched.

Helia didn’t know exactly what it was she sought; she knew only that this man was the one to help free her of this sharp yearning.

“Please,” she begged between each meeting of their mouths.

Wordlessly, Anthony yanked her silk skirts up about her waist in a noisy rustle.

The cool air slapped at her exposed limbs, in a welcome balm.

That relief proved all too short lived.

Anthony pressed a hand between her legs, and she cried out from the surprise and deliciousness of that forbidden caress. He cupped her in that most special of places, which she touched only—and only quickly—during her baths.

Never, however, had her touch felt like this.

Suddenly, Anthony slipped a finger through the curls shielding her womanhood.

Helia whimpered.

She shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t want this. Her body, however, cared nothing about what it should not do, and only about what it wanted.

She wanted whatever wicked, wonderful gift he promised.

Anthony continued to stroke her, moving that long, powerful digit in and then out of her channel. The slow, deliberate glide coaxed a pleasure so deep it crossed over to pain.

Panting, she lifted her hips, in search of some surcease from the unrelenting, urgent ache.

Anthony’s breath came quick and hard, as if he, too, were somehow a beneficiary of the gift he now conferred.

“Please,” she implored, unsure what she begged for, knowing only this man could show her.

Anthony took her mouth in another forceful, possessive kiss that only further deepened the persistent ache between her legs.

Helia angled her head to better receive him. She matched each lash of his tongue, swirling hers around and against his.

He groaned. “You learn quick, love.”

That praise should rouse shame. Except . . .

Love . . .

Uttered in the heat of the moment, that endearment certainly didn’t mean what she wished it would, but Helia sighed anyway.

Anthony added another finger and stroked her channel harder, faster.

Perspiration beaded at her brow. Helia found herself soaring toward some peak. Higher and higher Anthony took her, on a seemingly ceaseless climb. She bit her lip hard.

Close. I am so close . . .

To what?

And then . . .

Helia’s body tensed as she approached some invisible but gloriously brilliant peak.

“Come for me, Helia,” Anthony demanded; that rough command sent Helia tumbling over that precipice.

Yes! Yes! She’d follow wherever he led.

She wept his name and screamed, incoherent, desperate cries. All the while, she pressed herself against Anthony’s fingers, still buried in her channel until her body was replete with every last bit of pleasure he’d wrung from her.

Helia’s legs went limp.

Anthony swiftly caught her about the waist with an arm. His other remained firmly tucked between her legs, until she shivered and trembled in that place he’d touched.

Ever so slowly, Anthony withdrew his fingers. The shine of her fluid on those long digits gleamed in the sunlight.

Alternately shy and embarrassed, Helia buried her cheek against his shoulder and just remained that way, soothed and comforted by the feel of his arms about her.

With an aching tenderness, Anthony stroked his hand in a smooth, soothing circle over the small of her back. “Enjoy yourself, kitten?”

She gave a small nod against him.

Ever so gently, Anthony caught her chin in a delicate grip and angled her head up so their gazes met. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Helia,” he murmured.

Helia. There it was again. Somehow his saying her given name moved them to a deeper plane of intimacy. This man, who a short time ago had been a stranger. And yet, how quickly everything had changed. Reluctant friend though he may be, the care Mrs. Trowbridge said he’d shown Helia revealed a warmth he fought desperately to hide.

Helia examined the man who’d been her unlikely nursemaid and savior. Aye, she expected he did rouse terror in the breasts of most. She’d been no different.

In a short time, however, though gruff and nasty, he’d proven himself good-hearted.

Anthony had shown a crack in the mask he wore, and in so doing, he’d revealed glimpses of the man he truly was underneath his hard exterior.

I want to know everything about him.

She moved her eyes over the harsh planes of his gloriously chiseled face. He was nothing like the man she’d dreamed of for herself. That man would have been always affable, romantic, and uncomplicated. Anthony . . . he was none of those things, and yet he’d bespelled her.

That organ in her breast which had previously found a normal tempo resumed a dangerously erratic beat.

God help Helia. If she were not careful, she could find herself losing her heart to the last man who wanted it.