I didn’t wait to be told twice.
The party swirled and undulated around me, a sea of champagne glasses and feathered masks, and it was all so decadently gorgeous, so dreamlike. But what struck me as I walked toward the ballroom was not how out of place I felt, but how perfectly at home I was with it all. I was at one with this vision; I belonged here. I wasn’t shocked by the couples kissing openly on the dance floor, I wasn’t scandalized by the shirtless man—still masked—being chased by a group of similarly masked women. People pressed close together, in various states of undress, so that there were flashes of creamy white skin as the other dancers spun and stepped as if there was nothing different here than at the London assembly halls. The smell of wine and sex hung in the air as thickly as the trilling notes from the eight-piece band in the corner, and men and women licked their lips and beckoned to me as I passed, and I collected it all inside of me, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that was my new life.
How could I stay away from this? This state of ripe and unfettered sensuality, where wildness was not a condition to be tamped down and pruned away, but something to be celebrated and admired?
I passed by faces I knew—Molly, Silas, Helen, Adella, Gideon. I evaded their grasps and crooned invitations for now, only wanting one person. The person I came here for.
And there he was, standing by the far wall, leaning against the paneling and looking bored. He had on a simple mask of black cloth tied around his face, with two openings for his eyes. Even with his impeccably tailored suit and a silk tie that probably cost more than anything I’d ever owned before I met him, he looked roguish and untrustworthy. A pirate or a highwayman, an outlaw ready to commit another crime.
And, oh, how I wanted that crime to be committed against me.
I felt Ivy’s eyes on me. I don’t know how, across a ballroom of that size, and where, admittedly, a fair number of people had been looking at me all evening. But I felt it in the prickling heat on the back of my neck, in the way my body suddenly lurched into hyper-awareness, the way the mask felt against my face, the way the fabric of my clothes moved against my skin as I turned. Why my pulse pounded, I didn’t know, because she had told me she was coming tonight. I had expected it, prepared for it, but still—the enormous, wonderful, almost stupidly joyful truth of it was so much more than I had anticipated.
She was really here. She’d come back to me.
The ballroom was sunken two or three steps from the main floor, and she stood at the top step, her dark eyes pinned on me. My dick surged just seeing her; she looked beautiful in the way that only Ivy managed to pull off—both incredibly fuckable and unbelievably ethereal at the same time. Her gold silk dress was sleeveless, so I could trace the lean curves of her shoulders and collarbone right to the low bodice, where her breasts strained against her corset. I wanted to suck on them until she begged for me to fuck her. I wanted to press them together and slide my cock into them. I wanted to cup them as I took her from behind.
She came towards me then, descending the steps, and I stayed where I was. Every atom of my body screamed to go to her, to meet her and catch her up in my arms, to wrap myself around her and never let go, but I had already waited so long for her and I had to be sure. Had to be sure that she really wanted this, wanted me. Because after tonight, I was not letting her walk away again. I couldn’t. It would kill me.
She seemed oblivious to the stares of the other guests as she passed through the crowd, but I wasn’t. As always, the sting of jealousy only heightened my arousal, my need to reaffirm that she was mine in all the ways that counted. They may fantasize about that long dark hair—tonight curled up so elaborately and studded with diamond pins—but only I got to twist it around my fingers as she sucked on my cock. They may stare at the slim lines of her torso, but only I got to hold her down and come on her flat stomach as she lay panting from the orgasm I’d given her.
Mine mine mine.
And that’s what I said when she reached me. When she lifted her eyes to mine, her face half-obscured by a delicate black and white mask, I couldn’t restrain myself any longer and I yanked her roughly to me. “Mine,” I whispered in her ear.
“Yours,” she murmured.
And then she did something that nearly shredded me. She laid her head against my shoulder and sighed happily. It was like having an exotic bird land willingly on your finger or having a tiger purr under your touch. It was both magical and humbling.
“Christ, Ivy,” I said, my voice growing unexpectedly rough. “You’re really here.” I turned my face into her hair, smelling that scent that was uniquely hers—soap and flowers and something like rain—and breathed it in, wanting to spend my entire life with her in my lungs, in my blood.
“You were right,” she said, not moving her head. “You were right all along. I’m so sorry.”
I tucked my finger under her chin and lifted her face to mine. “You never have to apologize to me. Do you understand?” Her eyes searched mine as I spoke. “If you hadn’t left, you would’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if you had. You would've always had one foot out of the door, and this way, we both know. We both know that you came back, on your own.”
“I feel like I’ve wasted so much time. Being away from you. Being away from myself.” A tear welled and then slid under her mask to trail down her cheek.
I wiped it away with my thumb. “It was a waste, Ivy. I was desperate without you and I was furious that you hurt yourself.” I licked the tear off my thumb, wanting to lick more of those tears, wanting her to know that every single one belonged to me. “Because your heart is mine, wi
ldcat. You betrayed and wounded yourself and you suffered, and it’s my job to protect you from suffering.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes downcast.
I leaned forward to nip at the shell of her ear. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
She pressed against me, running a hand up my chest to cradle the back of my neck, and she pulled me down to her lips. I groaned the moment our mouths touched, unable to keep myself from grinding my erection into her corseted stomach. Her lips were so warm, so soft, and I devoured them, my hands sliding down to grip her upper arms as I moved my mouth over hers, parting our lips so I could taste her.
She tasted exactly like I remembered—perfect.
I had wanted to wait to make love to her the first time; I had wanted to bring her upstairs to a soft bed and take my time worshipping every inch of her body before I moved on to her punishment, but I had to be inside of her right now, and there was no way I could wait. Luckily, at the Baron’s, I didn’t have to.
“Follow me,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her behind me. I led her to a wide velvet bench obscured by a curtained alcove in the far corner of the ballroom. I sat and she followed, but I wrapped my hands around her waist and lifted her so that she was sitting sideways in my lap.
“Come here,” I growled, pulling her flush against me as I pressed my mouth against hers.
She made small sounds in the back of her throat as we kissed, kittenish noises of pleasure, and then gasped when my hand found the inside of her ankle. I continued moving up, her skirts hiding most of the activity, finding where her stockings ended, tied with delicate silk garters. And then there was nothing separating me from her pussy. Which was gloriously, perfectly wet.
She squirmed, trying to grind against my hand, and I pulled it back, amused. “So greedy, wildcat.”
