Cora (Virtue & Vice #4)

Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

GIDEON

G ideon fought his way out of a sleep like the dead. He kept being caught by the undertow, dragged back into unconsciousness. The first time he surfaced, he felt a warm presence beside him. No, sprawled on top of him.

Cora, he thought with satisfaction, and drifted off again.

The second time he came to, it was because she had shifted, turning away from him. Gideon rolled over and pulled her back against his front, with his cock pressed beneath the curve of her bottom and his arms around her waist. A seed of guilt took root in his sleep-fogged mind. But he wasn’t letting her go. Not this time.

She didn’t know. He’d ruined her brother’s bank, and he was on the cusp of saving it. Paperwork. The missing countess. He would deal with it later. In this moment, all was right in his world. He held his sleeping woman in his arms.

Until the next time he awoke, and she was gone.

Gideon sat bolt upright. He was alone in his massive bed. Had he imagined the whole thing? Had she somehow discovered what he’d done?

A motion from the corner of his eye was all the warning he got before a small wet dog in a too-tight red-and-white jacket bounded onto his lap.

“Oof.” He grunted. Titania attacked his face with licks. “You have terrible breath.”

“If someone didn’t feed her table scraps all the time, then maybe she wouldn’t,” Cora admonished gently. She bustled into his room clad in her nightgown and the white cloak she had worn to their wedding. Gone was the frozen distance she had worn like armor that day. In its place was warm affection that made Gideon’s pulse quicken. She removed the cloak and draped it over a chair, then collected her pet and locked Titi in her private chambers.

“I thought you’d left me.” He reached for her hand. When she took it, he pulled her down into the bedclothes.

“Titi couldn’t wait any longer, and this is Miss Marnie’s half day. I took her into the garden. I wasn’t going to horrify your mother by parading around Belgravia in my nightgown.”

She dropped a soft kiss on his lips. “You looked so exhausted. I couldn’t bear to wake you.”

He scrubbed his face. He’d been losing himself in work for weeks trying to avoid the guilt and heartache of having won Cora’s hand but not her heart. Now, he had both. Her hand covered his heart, and he placed his over hers. She laid her head on his shoulder.

You should tell her what you did.

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to pop the bubble of this blissful moment. Instead, he brought her in for a kiss and reveled in her softness.

“Must you work today?” she asked.

Gideon thought of all the papers on his desk waiting to be dealt with. He thought of his new business partner’s ceaseless efforts to reassure his depositors and quell the panic. Of the gray smudges beneath Eryx Wilder’s eyes and the haunted fear in those of his wife’s, that had only just begun to ease as the bank’s condition improved. By midsummer, this would be a forgotten incident, but its memory would scar their first year together forever. If Mrs. Wilder passed in childbirth, a risk every woman took with pregnancy, their brief time together would have been marred by the crisis Gideon had manufactured.

All because he couldn’t work up the nerve to apologize for his own actions, or face Cora’s condemnation.

What was done, was done. He was already undoing as much of the damage as he possibly could. No, he would stick with his original plan. As long as she never found out the truth, everything would be fine.

“Have I been neglecting my wife,” he teased. A smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. “Your brother can handle matters. I would much rather spend the day here with you.”

“All day?”

“As long as you’ll tolerate me.”

He gripped the fabric on either side of her hips and inched the fabric upward. She twisted, aiding him, until he could strip the dress over her head and toss it aside. Gideon was already naked, having slept that way, and the glide of her smooth skin against his made his cock surge with need.

“Tolerate you.” She chuckled. “Believe it or not, I enjoy spending time with you, Gideon.” Her smile broadened into a grin. “Especially this part.”

She squeezed his cock. His incipient erection turned rock-hard at her touch.

“Come here. I want to show you another part of me that you’ll enjoy spending time with.” He wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to taste her again. Cora allowed him to guide her leg over him until she straddled him, then inched her toward his face. “Sit.”

“You won’t be able to breathe.” She gripped the headboard for balance. “How is this supposed to work?”

“Watch.” He parted her folds and inhaled deeply as her perfume wafted over him. Cora’s eyes widened as she stared down at him. He brought her lower with a gentle stroke along her outer thighs. She obeyed.

He loved it when she obeyed his commands. He loved it when she fought him, too, resisting out of pride and defiance, but her surrender was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

Her thighs trembled when he licked her glistening pink flesh. Her hips tilted; her gasp muffled but her eyes still fastened wonderingly upon him as he feasted.

There’s a good girl, he thought. Cora’s delicious, needy whimpers sent his blood pounding through his veins. He added his fingers to the mix, tracing her slit reverently before thrusting two fingers inside that tight, velvety place. His cock ached. He moved his free hand down to stroke himself.

“Oh! Gideon.” She squirmed. He repeated the pattern he had made on her clit with his tongue and she sank down further. Her climax came quick and hard, her legs tensing, her belly trembling as she gasped for air with his name on her lips.

When she was finished, unclenching bit by bit, he nipped her inner thigh and worked his way out from under her.

“That, darling, is worth waking up for. I intend to begin every day with my face buried in your cunt.”

A rosy flush burned her pale skin from her cheeks to the tops of her breasts. “What a thing to say.”

“I’ll say worse things. Stay where you are. I want to fuck you from behind.”

Cora obeyed. She let him pull back her hips and stroke the generous curve. A wicked idea took hold of him. A thread of control he’d been clinging to snapped.

Gideon snaked out a hand and smacked her ass.

All the air whooshed out of his lungs. Shock coursed through him. He’d spanked his wife. Without asking.

Her yelp of surprise was followed by a low moan and an unreadable glare cast back over her shoulder. Cora rested her chin on the headboard, her dark hair falling in waves over her shoulder and the bright color on her cheeks deepening. She wiggled her bottom. The sight of her pink sex was nearly as shocking as the fact that he’d smacked her—and that she liked it.

“That was all right?” he asked in astonishment.

“More than all right.” She wiggled her ass.

Emboldened, Gideon swatted her again. Cora peeked coyly over her shoulder, still clinging to the headboard, her elbows bent and her breasts hanging like ripe fruit. Her wink cut right through his remaining restraint. He cracked his palm against her skin hard enough to redden it, then slotted the tip of his cock against her dripping entrance.

Cora turned when he didn’t thrust forward. “What are you waiting for?”

“You have my cock. You fuck me.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it, but saying filthy things to his wife caused his balls to tighten. If he tried to take her like this, it would be over in minutes. He wanted to draw this out for as long as possible.

They were not leaving his bed today. Not until she was so sated she could hardly walk.

Cora groaned, this time with annoyance. Nevertheless, she obeyed, tilting her hips, finding the angle to take him in. He made her work for it, refusing to help no matter how desperately he wanted to be inside her. Seized by the possibility that years of fantasies could finally come true, he deliberately made things more difficult by twisting her hair around his fist, her face tipped up at an awkward angle.

Completely in his control, the way he liked her best.

He held her there until she sobbed with frustration and he knew he could make her come with a few hard thrusts.

“This isn’t working,” she moaned.

“You want me to take you like this?” He demonstrated, slamming deep into her. “Rough?” He dug his fingertips into her soft flesh, anchoring her hips.

“Yes,” she gritted out, arching her back to give him better access. He obliged. The slap of their bodies echoed in his ears, barely audible over the roaring of his blood.

“You like it when I’m dominant, don’t you?”

Her wordless sound of assent was music to his ears.

“Ordering you around. Telling you what to do.”

She sobbed a broken, “Yes.”

Pleasure pooled at the base of his spine, the promise of a blinding release. He had to get her there first. He slipped his hand between her thighs and circled her nub with hard strokes. Cora broke. She tensed and gasped, clinging to the headboard, sinking down as he wrung every pleasure he’d ever dreamed of from her body. His release kicked like a mule to the spine, stealing his breath and sight. He surrendered to the pleasure raging in his blood and cried out hoarsely.

* * *

Elsewhere in London…

The shouts and cheers of Etonians as they waved to Queen Victoria upon her departure from Windsor Station lightened the Queen’s oft-heavy heart—until the sound of a pistol shot rang out.

Pandemonium erupted. She sighed heavily and demanded of her head guard, “Where is Hawke?”

“Your Majesty, you must get into the carriage and to safety at once .”

“Do not order Us about like a child,” she snapped. Two minutes ago, she had been delighted by the young men of Eton’s attentions. Now, she was being herded about like a lost sheep surrounded by an entire pack of sheepdogs. No one was in charge.

“Your Highness, I must insist you get into the carriage?—”

“Insist all you wish. I give orders, not you. Find Hawke. Figure out who attempted to shoot me this time. What is it, the sixth attempt?”

“Eighth, actually.”

Victoria hated nothing more than men who actually- ed her about details of her own life. She flopped down onto the carriage seat and tugged her skirt straight.

“A couple of the Eton boys have caught the shooter. His name is Roderick Maclean. They’re beating him with umbrellas until the officials can make a proper arrest.” The man made a circling motion beside his ear. “Appears to be a nutter. Says he sent you poetry.”

“Who doesn’t send Us poetry?” Victoria could not resist a very un-queen-like eye roll. “We should get nothing useful done if We read all the dreck mailed to Buckingham Palace. Just find Hawke. We were fortunate that this attempt upon Our life was as unsuccessful as the last several, but all it takes is one, and he is supposed to be protecting Us. Where is he?”