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And yet, she couldn’t stop. This heat, the brushing of his lips against hers, the burning need to keep herself plastered against him, inhaling him, was irresistible. His scent, so male, so heady, the feel of his hard, muscular arms around her, the heat of his body radiating against her heightened her senses.

The distant hum of the club under the floor and the voices, laughter, and yells that came through the street-facing window faded away. There was no one but him.

Nothing but this incredible hunger.

She’d wanted to reassure him when she’d kissed him, that was all. She’d seen what distress the news had brought him, and she’d hated to see him like that.

And she’d succeeded. He’d seemed to forget all about his distress.

Now, like Little Red Riding Hood, she was caught in the paws of the wolf.

And there was no place she’d rather be.

His mouth never leaving hers, Richard walked her backward, the scraping of their feet muffled by the carpet, until her ankles bumped against the low board of her bed. He pressed, and they both fell onto the bed, the mattress sinking under them. His weight was delicious on top of her, and she moaned right into his mouth.

“Janie,” he murmured. “Keep making sounds like and I’ll go mad.”

She wanted him to go mad, just like she was. He left her mouth and planted sweet kisses down her jaw, down her neck, sending shivers of delight through her. She arched her back as he went even lower, and when he traced the line of her collarbone with his tongue, something quivered deliciously deep inside her.

“You like that, darling?” he asked.

“Yes…”

“Good.” He kept kissing down the modest line of her bodice and towards the tops of her breasts. “Let’s see how you like this.”

He pulled down the edge of her bodice, and the busk of her corset, and took one of her breasts in his mouth. She gasped from the shock of it, watching the decadent image of him suckling her nipple, one hand cupping the breast, as the most intense waves of pleasure quivered through her like fire.

“Richard…”

She’d seen patrons grapple the sex workers’ breasts in Elysium just now, even kissing them, but she hadn’t imagined that would bring pleasure to the women, or that it would ever happen to her.

“Hmm,” Richard murmured and smiled up at her, his blue eyes dark as sapphires, his auburn hair ruffled on his forehead. “You like it.”

With that, he returned to her breast and started to circle her nipple with his sensual tongue, while taking her other breast with his free hand and doing the very same with his thumb. She cried out, her eyes closing, rolling inside her head as she took in this new pleasure, these new sensations, trying not to die from the intensity of it all.

He kept teasing her in that way—licking, sucking, scraping her nipple with the edges of his teeth—and then moving to her other breast and doing the same with it while playing with the previous one. She gripped the silky cover of the bed with her fists. Her hips moved and squirmed as her sex ached and burned and something within her squeezed, wanting more and more. She felt herself grow wet down there—very, very wet—and pressed her thighs tightly together.

Oh good Lord, had she just…had an accident?

Heat scalded her cheeks, and she sat upright, pushing Richard away.

“Richard, stop!”

He rolled on his side, his cheekbones flushed and his lips puffy from all those kisses, his eyes impossibly dark. “Why?” he asked and looked at her legs, one of which was pressed tightly over her other one. He frowned in confusion, then smiled. “What is the matter, love? Are you”—he licked his lips—“wet?”

She hid her face in her hands so that she didn’t have to see him. “I am!”

He gave out a long, rumbling sound of pleasure, then gently pushed her hands away from her face and lifted her chin so that she could meet his gaze. He slid closer to her.

“That is not the wet you’re thinking of, sweetheart,” he said. “That is the wet that means you want me. And”—he swallowed hard, suddenly looking like he was in pain—“that you’re ready for me.”

Something about those words planted a deep, aching desire in her very depths, and she stopped breathing. Suddenly she was hot for a very different reason.

“Oh…” she said. “Is it not—?”

He chuckled softly and brushed his hand up her thigh over the fabric of her dress, spreading warm tingles through her. “No, it is not what you thought it was. This wetness is nothing to be ashamed about, Janie.”

She would have felt quite silly now, for confusing whatever wetness she’d produced with the other bodily fluid, if his gaze, dark under his thick eyebrows, wasn’t burning her, consuming her. She inhaled sharply as his hand went down her leg. “Darling, you’re quite remarkable. You live in a whorehouse, and yet you’re so innocent. Let me show you exactly how good this kind of wetness is for you.”