Addicted

Lindsay shrugged and looked away. As far as he was concerned, Rebecca Thomas was no damned good for his friend. There was something about the girl he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that unsavoury feeling was there nonetheless. He had never cared for Rebecca. She was manipulative and uncaring. Calculating coldness was always blatant in her eyes. Furthermore, he did not care for the way the conniving Rebecca had wormed her way into his gentle Anais’s friendship.

Anais, he thought, searching through the thickening smoke for the clock. “Well, then, I’m off,” he said when he saw it was nearing midnight.

“And where are you going?” Broughton asked as he stood, straightening his already immaculate waistcoat.

“I’m off to meet a charming young lady on the terrace.”

“Take care of her.” Broughton’s voice held a hint of warning that Lindsay did not particularly care for.

“I love her, Broughton.”

“I know, but sometimes…” Lindsay knew what his friend was going to say. Sometimes you’re not worthy of someone as goodas Anais Darnby.

“My Cambridge days are behind me, Broughton. I am no longer the neck or nothing youngblood you knew in university. Then I was searching for what I wanted in life and I know I was reckless. I no longer need to do that. I know what, and who, I want.”

Broughton reached for his arm and stayed him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who cares for her. Anais has been my friend as long as she has been yours. I would not want her feelings trifled with.”

“What are you implying?” Lindsay asked with a glare.

“I think you know what I mean, Raeburn. If your intentions are not honorable toward her, then do not pursue her.”

Lindsay brushed Broughton’s hand off his arm. “I would never dishonor her.”

“I would hope not. I would hope that you would strive— always—to be the sort of man she needs and deserves.”

With a brisk tilt of his head and the clenching of his teeth, Lindsay turned and made his way to the door, slightly disoriented from the heavy vapor of smoke hanging in the air. Opening the door, he let himself out, waiting for the fresh air to clear the cobwebs that were suddenly taking root in his brain.

Anais, he thought, reaching to the wall to steady himself. I’mnot like my father. I’m worthy of you. I can be the sort of man you need.I swear it.

“Good evening, Lindsay.”

He whirled around. The corridor narrowed sharply, making him experience a nauseating bout of syncope. The candle flames flickered madly, almost as if they were leaping from their wax stands and he reeled back as he watched the flames jump out at him, threatening to land on his clothes. The vision was gone as soon as it appeared, replaced by a kaleidoscope of bright swirling colors that clouded his vision.

Blinking, Lindsay looked up from the black-and-white floor that seemed to ripple like a ribbon in a breeze beneath his feet. And then he saw her, Anais, standing at the end of the hall dressed in a wonderfully seductive purple-and-gold gown.

“Anais?” he asked in a disbelieving voice. He tried to step forward but couldn’t. He could barely see straight or focus his gaze on her.

Bloody hell, what was the matter with him? The Passion Lips, he suddenly remembered. What had the houri fed him? Certainly nothing he recalled ever dabbling in before. He had never imbibed anything quite so potent.

“Lindsay,” Anais cried, calling his name and running toward him.

He caught her in his arms and pressed her against the wall. He ran his hands along her curves, delighting in her soft skin, in the flare of her hip above the low-slung skirt. His fingers became tangled in the filmy purple chiffon and he growled appreciatively, suddenly as randy as he had ever been in his life.

“Kiss me,” she purred in a low, hypnotic voice that made his already hard cock rear in his trousers. “Kiss me, Lindsay,” she said, over and over again, as if she were chanting a Siren’s seductive call.

He searched for her mouth and kissed her, slow at first, then more carnally as she slipped her tongue between his lips. He groaned as she rubbed her mound against his throbbing arousal. He couldn’t make himself stop. His blood was humming. His body felt languorous, as if he had all the time in the world, as if they were already back in his bedchamber and not standing in a hall where anyone may happen upon them.

She moaned and reached for his bulging trousers, stroking him boldly. Bloody hell, where had she learned that? “Touch me, Lindsay. Take me into your mouth as you did in the stables.”

“Mmm, yes,” he said, feeling the floor shift again. He lowered her bodice and cupped her. Opening his eyes, he struggled to focus on the pale breasts in his hands. But instead of two full, round breasts, he held four blurred globes, with nipples that danced and swayed before him. He blinked, trying to still the image so he could fasten his lips onto her and suckle her, but the more he blinked, the more his vision seemed to swim.

“Taste me, Lindsay,” she encouraged, filling his hands with her breasts—breasts that he had thought felt much bigger two nights ago. But then, he wasn’t in his right mind now. Something was ruling him. He was certain it wasn’t just the power of lust he felt rushing through his veins.

He tried to push the doubting thoughts aside. It wasn’t right to take her like this. He had taken her virginity in a stable, for heaven’s sake, she did not need to be taken against a wall. But he could not tell his prick that. He needed her, to be buried deep inside her. He needed to hear his name on her lips as she cried out in her pleasure. He needed to hear that she loved him.

Old fears crept into his mind. He shoved them away, but they came back, more demanding, clearer and more persuasive. No, he was not like his father. He would not destroy her in the manner that his father destroyed his mother. He loved her. He would love her forever.

Needing to show her, he lowered his head to her breasts and took her nipple into his mouth, suckling her greedily till she raked her hands through his hair and panted his name wantonly against his temple.

“I need you, Anais,” he murmured in a harsh voice. “I need you so much.”

Something was wrong. He could not keep that thought from snaking in and out of his head, despite the magic in Anais’s touch. There was definitely something about Anais that was not right. She didn’t feel right beneath his fingers—she was too thin. He wanted her to feel the way she had the night in the stable— all soft and curvy and voluptuous.

“Give me the words,” she coaxed, gripping his cock so that he groaned in pleasure and pain. “Tell me how much better this is than the first time.”

He couldn’t deny her, not with the way she was stroking his shaft through his breeches. He was ready to explode; yet his mind kept resisting. But he wanted to please her. He wanted so damn much to be the sort of man she desired. And he needed release. God, he needed that. To spill himself in her hand and press his face into her sweetly scented throat.

She unfastened his trousers and slipped her hand into the front of them, finding his cock and swirling her finger around the wet tip. “How aroused you are. You’re wet already and leaking your seed.”

His cock stiffened further and he shoved his hips forward encouraging her to stroke him. He was unable to believe that his shy little Anais was being so bold. But it excited him. The more she stroked him, the more aroused and reckless he became. “You’re a little cock tease,” he murmured as she cupped his cods in her palm.

“And do you like how I tease your cock?”

“I should think you know the answer to that, especially after the other night.”

“And am I better than the other night?” she demurred, inflaming him further. “Am I a better cock tease?”

He raised her skirt and stroked her bare backside. A backside that felt much different from the delightful heart-shaped derriere he recalled. But this was Anais. He sensed her as he always did. It was this damn thing that had poisoned his brain, making him think such crazed thoughts.

“What do you want me to do with this?” she asked boldly, cradling his shaft in her hand.

“Suck it,” he groaned, the words spilling out in a long rush of breath as he gave voice to his deepest fantasy. And then almost violently he captured her lips with his and kissed her, needing her in a desperation he had never felt before. “I have to tell you. I can’t wait. I love you,” he said passionately between long, hard, drugging kisses. “I always have. I can’t hide it anymore. I don’t want to hide it. It’s only ever been you—it will forever only be you.”

A heartrending gasp shattered the sound of their breaths. He looked up at the woman in his arms and blinked, his vision still swimming before him. And then, the image slowly danced into focus and he felt the contents of his stomach threaten to come up and spill onto the floor. He looked from the woman who was pressed against him to the sound of the frantic breathing he heard coming from beside him. His mind whirled with the impossibility.

Anais stood frozen, shocked, horrified. The implications of what she was witnessing spun with dizzying speed in her head. Her chest began to rise and fall too rapidly and she felt as though she were being choked by the blue ribbon around her throat. With shaking hands she tore the bonnet from her head. How could Lindsay have done this to her? How, after what they had shared with each other in the stable, could he so easily fall into the arms of another?

“Jesus, how long?” She wasn’t certain if Lindsay knew he said the words aloud.

“Long enough to see you with her and hear that you love her,” she whispered, choking back a sob. She looked away, sickened by the sight of him and saw, for the first time, the woman who was pressed against him.

“Why?” she asked in what was little more than a half-strangled whisper. But she could not finish the sentence. She could not look at Rebecca pressed against Lindsay, her breasts glistening from Lindsay’s mouth. She could not stand to see the woman who had been her trusted friend wearing her costume—the only thing she had ever owned that had not been designed or ordered by her mother. The only thing she had ever wanted Lindsay to see her wearing. Oh, God, what a stupid trusting fool she had been to think that Rebecca had picked up her muslin sack by mistake. It had not been by mistake, but by design—a cruel, ugly design.

“It was you I said those words to. I thought she was you, Anais,” he stammered. “Let me explain—”

“I don’t think the words are necessary, darling,” Rebecca purred, reminding Anais of the snake her friend truly was. “I think what Anais saw speaks for itself. We needn’t hide it anymore.”

“Don’t touch me,” Lindsay snapped, shaking off Rebecca’s hold on his arm. “Goddamn you, what have you done?”