Page 80 of One Night with a Prince
The word “customer” made him flinch. “Then you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, or you’dknow the difference.” He leaned forward. “I spent my entire boyhood around whores. You’ve never had a man beat you until you were blue. Or break your arm with impunity because he knew nothing would be doneGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlabout it. You’ve never had to go out hunting for men just to gain the blunt to purchase a few hours sleep in a flea-ridden bed with three other women huddled together because there’s no heat. You’ve never had to watch while a gin-soaked workman in the depths of despair slits his own throat, which, by the way, is the method of choice for killing oneself in Drury Lane—”
“Byrne, enough.” Her heart ached at the thought that he’d seen such things probably before he was old enough even to understand them.
He breathed heavily, his eyes almost feral. Slowly, he calmed himself. After a few short breaths, he said,
“The point is, you’re not remotely a whore.”
She hesitated. Should she continue to press him when he was so upset? She had to; he still didn’t understand. “You seem to be saying that the difference between a whore and a mistress is one of station. Granted, the life of women in Drury Lane is pitiable, but that doesn’t change the fact that both mistresses and whores take money in exchange for their favors.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “You’re forgetting that one has a choice, and the other doesn’t.”
She thrust out her chin. “In what way does a mistress have a choice?”
“She can refuse to share her lover’s bed, for one thing.”
“She won’t last long as a mistress if she does that often,” Christabel said dryly. “And a whore can choose not to take a customer if she pleases.”
“Damn it, you are not a whore!” he cried, clenching his fists in his lap. “Fine, you don’t believe me? I’ll show you the difference.” Jerking down the window shades, he settled back against his seat, his eyes icily bleak. “Unbutton your gown.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“You’re my whore, remember? I bought and paid for you. So unbutton your gown. Now!”
Her eyes narrowed, but her pride wouldn’t let her back down and let him win the argument. “Fine.” She did as he bade. “Anything else, sir?” she said, the words deliberately sarcastic. His face was a rigid mask. “Show me your bubs.”
Though the crude word brought her up short, it had another entirely unexpected effect. It aroused her. She couldn’t imagine why, unless it was because it reminded her of stripping for him when they’d played Whist for the Wicked.
So although it took her some effort to get her gown and chemise unfastened and lowered to her short corset without any help from him, she managed it. And she gained a measure of satisfaction from his surprised look that said he really hadn’t expected her to comply.
“Now touch yourself,” he said hoarsely.
“I beg your pardon?”
The chill had left his eyes, replaced by a heat that sent the blood roaring through her veins. “Caress yourGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlbreasts. Your nipples. So I can watch. That’s what I like. To watch.”
Fire leaped up through her, blooming into a blush in her cheeks. But she couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t called them “bubs” again. “All right,” she said, her voice coming out sultry rather than merely compliant. Gavin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Moment by moment he was losing control of the lesson he’d meant to teach her, but how could he have known the bloody wench would take to this so well? Her eyes heavy-lidded, she rubbed first one breast, then the other, until the nipples tightened into tempting peaks. Until he had to forcibly suppress the urge to leap across the carriage and suck her lush breasts until she begged him for more.
He wouldn’t do it, damn it! He wouldn’t let her bloody stubbornness turn this into a seduction. He meant to prove to her once and for all that what they had wasn’t the same as the sordid association between a whore and her customer.
Unfastening his trousers and drawers, he shoved them down just enough to free his rampant erection.
“Now,” he ground out, “suck my cock.” Somehow he managed to add in a choked tone, “Whore.”
That certainly had the desired effect. She blanched, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t…understand.”
“What’s there to understand? You take my cock in your mouth, and you suck it until I find release. The same way I find release inside your…honeypot.” He couldn’t bring himself to use the crude word for that with her. He just couldn’t. “Get down on your knees and suck my cock. That’s one of the ‘favors’ I paid for, remember?”
For a moment, he was sure she’d balk. Even the most adventurous of his mistresses rarely performed that service for him, so he knew for damned sure Christabel would never do it. Even after she fell to her knees on the floor between them, he thought a jolt of the carriage had thrown her there. But he should have known better—apparently Colonel Christabel would do almost anything to keep him from winning an argument.
He stared in unmitigated shock as she leaned forward and took the crown of his cock in her mouth. Bloody, bloody hell.
He caught her head in his hands, meaning to drag it away, but instinct made him urge it closer, until she’d enfolded most of him in her hot mouth. God, it felt so good. But when she began to suck, he knew he was in trouble, for it was all he could do not to explode right then and there inside her mouth.
“Enough,” he growled, pulling her head back until his cock slipped free of her mouth. “You can’t do this.”
“Why not?” She gazed up at him with a mocking smile. Then abruptly it faded. “Oh, I’m doing it wrong.”
Belatedly, he remembered what she’d said about her husband, about how she thought she hadn’t pleased him in bed. “If you do it any more right, you’ll pleasure me out of my mind, lass. That’s not the point.”
