Page 31 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Think. Think. Think.
Then the gates of her mind broke wide open and, like a torrent, everything came rushing through.
All of it.
The cup of tea she’d taken with her sister-in-law. The sudden hazy state, and the heavy feeling in Cressida’s limbs and head as her brother cheerfully explained he’d found an old duke for Cressida to marry.
The plans to have Cressidabroken infor her ancient bridegroom.
Plans that’d turned out to be an auction where strangers bid on her to handle the task of ridding Cressida of her virginity.
Her throat worked as she remembered the joy of seeing him there.
Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield, who was wholly out of place in the crowd of depraved, lecherous lords ogling her. He hadn’t bid upon her. He’d just intently watched her.
His presence alone and the steadiness of his gaze had steadied her, and she’d not taken her eyes from him, until he’d spoken words to Lord Dynevor next to him, who’d shot a hand up and brought an immediate end to the auction.
She’d been whisked off the stage—saved—escorted away from the mad show of which she’d been the leading lady and takenelsewhere.
Then whatever other drug Lady Marianne had laced her tea with had left Cressida shamefully aware of her body and craving things she hadn’t understood—until last night.
Until a night spent in the Earl of Wakefield’s arms.
Cressida swallowed back tears. These weren’t, however, the sorrowful ones.
Blinking didn’t help clear her blurred vision either. Through that sheen of moisture, she gazed reverently upon the earl.
No, Benedict. Given all the ways in which they’d come to know one another, how could she possibly refer to him by anything other than his given name?
A contented sigh eased past her lips.
Here she’d believed a nobleman of the earl’s caliber wouldn’t and couldn’t pick Cressida out in a crowded ballroom on account they rarely moved in the same social circles anymore. He rubbed shoulders with the most venerated ladies from the highest families. Cressida, on the other hand, had but a single brother—a heartless monster, notorious debtor, drunkard, wagerer, whoremonger, who, with his pursuits, blackened his reputation and darkened Cressida’s all the same.
Yes—the devil in her head taunted—he remembered you, but had you been a different lady, a sparkling beauty from the highest echelon of society, would he have done all the things he’d done with you, or whispered the vulgar words he had?
“…Your body was made for my cock. It craves it.Youcrave it…”
She winced.
But her mind refused to free her.
“…I’m going to bury my big cock so deep inside you, sweet, you won’t be able to tell where I end and you begin…”
Cressida bit her lower lip hard.
“…this isn’t what you truly crave…What you really want is my cock buried in your sweet, hot cunny…”
Unable to stifle her humiliated groan, Cressida crept under both sheet and coverlet and drew them over her head.
That shifting fabric broke into Benedict’s peaceful slumber. Cressida held her breath and went absolutely motionless.
Please, don’t wake up. Please, don’t wake up.
The memories of what they’d done, still clouded by whatever it was she’d been given, were still clear enough to recall his hands and mouth moving hungrily over hers. Snippets of scandalous words he’d uttered—most of which she hadn’t understood. Her shameful cries as she’d told Benedict how badly she wanted him. Her desperate pleas as she’d begged him to make love—
Cressida’s mind screeched to a stop.
Cringing, Cressida lay there until she’d managed to contain her mortification. She waited several moments more. The earl’s breathing came in the slow, even tempo of a man fully at rest. It’d been so long since they’d last been face to face—before last night, that was. Not since speculations had first started circulating around Town that his falling out with his best friend, Viscount Waters, was a deliberate result of the fact Benedict loved the other man’s wife.
