Page 29 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Her body’s surrender to him somehow proved more potent than that of any of the other women who’d come undone in his arms.
“You are now on your second day alone with me, Helia, and as such, ruined.” He scooped her by the buttocks and pressed her more tightly against his cock. “You may as well allow yourself the rapture that comes with your ruination.”
Her eyes grew stricken.
Then, like a hellcat, she struggled in his arms.
Wingrave released her in an instant.
Her chest heaved, rising and falling furiously.
And without a word, Helia turned on her heel and fled.
Chapter 6
But a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands the mind, and elevates it to high expectation, is purely sublime, and leads us, by a kind of fascination, to seek even the object, from which we appear to shrink.
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Run. Flee. Hide.
Though she’d ignored the warnings her subconscious gave before, this time Helia heeded them well.
She ran from Lord Wingrave’s suggestive stare.
She ran and didn’t look back.
Except, no matter how fast she flew, and how much distance she put between herself and Lord Wingrave’s dangerously seductive offerings, they remained, ringing as loud and clear as the carillon of bells struck at the Collegiate Church of St. Giles.
Do you feel that, Helia?
Helia bit her lower lip. The pain didn’t help; it offered no distraction.
Feel how hard I am for you, sweet? Does this put you in mind of friendship?
Nay, it certainly hadn’t. What was worse and most shameful was that the furthest thought in her head that moment had been of friendship with him; instead, she’d felt a yearning to know his embrace.
Helia took a turn too quick at the end of the hall; her boots slipped along the marble floor, but she managed to right herself and kept on running.
The place between her legs ached still, in a way she’d known only on occasion when she ran a washing cloth over herself.
But that frustrated sensation dissipated quickly the moment she ceased touching herself so.
Lord Wingrave’s seductive words, however, had an even more powerful effect than any caress. They remained in her mind, on repeat.
You are now on your second day alone with me, Helia, and as such, ruined. You may as well allow yourself the rapture that comes with your ruination.
And God forgive her, she’d wanted that.
She’d wanted a taste of what he’d tempted her with—nay, taunted her with.
And most shamefully, she hadn’t cared that he’d mocked her with his desire and, worse,herdesire forhim.
Helia reached the back northernmost point of Horace House, and a row of windows, thirty feet from floor to ceiling, marked a crystal end to her flight.
She stumbled to a stop. Gasping and fighting for breath, Helia bent over her knees and struggled to fill her lungs with blessed air.
In the light of a new day, Lord Wingrave had proven no less horrid, no less vulgar.
