It Stings So Sweet (3 page)

“No.”

It’s a lie. I’m trembling with arousal, but it has nothing to do with Ted
Morgan. It’s that the crueler Jonathan is, the more I seem to like it. I don’t understand, but I don’t
need to. I only know that the way he stares at me now makes me feel like the only woman in the room.
And I am intoxicated on more than liquor.

My husband calls out to the barrel-chested tycoon.
“Teddy! Take my girl off my hands for a spell, won’t you? She’s keen to dance tonight but I’ve had
a bit too much of the giggle juice.”

“Posilutely!” Big Teddy says, grabbing hold of my hand
in one of his meaty palms and yanking me towards the dance floor. He’s a fleshy middle-aged man. Jolly.
Too affable to notice the way my husband’s eyes burn holes in his back.

It’s a twisted game
we’re playing. It’s clear to me that Jonathan’s fury isn’t feigned. He’s been betrayed. He wants to
punish and humiliate me. The idea that another man put his mouth on me has ignited a fire in my husband.
But it isn’t only anger. I can read Jonathan’s body the way I’ve never been able to read his mind.
Looking at him now, I can see the sexual tension roll off his body in waves. I realize with shocking
clarity that he’s excited.

Jonathan
wants
me.

And maybe I
am
a vamp, because the jolt
of that realization makes me damp behind my knees, at all my pulse points, and between my thighs. What’s
more, my nipples tighten harder, creating bumps that must be visible against the thin drape of
my dress. My dance partner pretends not to notice, but when I glance down I see the enormous ridge of
Big Teddy’s cock swell under his pants. Under the searing glare of my husband’s scrutiny, I press
a little closer, trying to brush against Big Teddy with my belly and thighs as we tango.

I’m
rewarded by sexual heat that arcs through this other man’s body, across the dance floor to where my
husband is standing. Now it’s as if Jonathan and I are dancing together, this interloper between us.
Teddy’s hand dips lower on my back than is appropriate, but then, this is a graceful dance not meant
for the likes of him.

Perhaps my brazenness has encouraged him. I feel wild and licentious,
just as I did the first night I met Jonathan. And with my eyes locked on my husband, I do exactly as
he instructed, taking every opportunity to rub up against Big Teddy’s body.

And, god help me,
I like it.

Perhaps my obvious pleasure at the feel of this man’s enormous erection is proof
to Jonathan that I’m a tramp—that he can’t trust me to be faithful. But with every gyration, I feel
as if I’m touching Jonathan, not this other man. I half want to crawl up my dance partner’s body, and
the shock of my desire makes me stumble.

Big Teddy catches me, taking the opportunity to draw
me closer. “Had a little too much to drink tonight, Mrs. Richardson?”

The man thinks he’s taking
advantage. He even has the grace to be somewhat red-cheeked and ashamed of himself. But that doesn’t
stop him from pressing his erection against me. I feel it pulse against my leg.

“Mmm,” I say,
not sure I trust myself to speak.

The dance floor is crowded now and we’re jostled together,
so I angle my hips, grinding slightly against him. He’s wide as a bat and my clitoris pounds at the
pressure between my legs. I could come like this. Just rubbing against this thick prick. I am so near
the edge I think anything might push me over. What would Jonathan think of that? Would it please
him? Would it make him want me more? Or would it make him walk away?

Big Teddy’s voice lowers,
grows husky. “Between you, me, and the gatepost, what’s the story, doll? Your man two-timing you
and you’re trying to get a little tit for tat? Or don’t you get enough at home?”

There hasn’t
been
any
at home since I miscarried, but I say, “Some gals just can’t get enough.”

Teddy gives
a belly laugh that vibrates all the way down my body to the molten hot spot between my thighs. “May
I cut in?” Jonathan asks, tapping Big Teddy’s shoulder with a good deal more force than is required.

I hadn’t seen my husband approach, but I’m desperately grateful that he’s here now.

Big
Teddy releases me, his eyes averted as he adjusts the crease of his pants. “Quite a live wire you got
there, Richardson. Has she met the star of our party? I can introduce her to Clara—”

Jonathan
spins me away without letting the man finish.

My husband has always been a close dancer and
I melt against him when he grabs me tight against his body. His eyes are hot. Angry. I’ve never seen
him so furious. Rage makes him darker, sexier, more dangerous. My husband’s hand glides down my back,
snagging on the fastenings of my dress before resting on my ass. The gesture is lewd. Possessive.
Obvious. If people hadn’t been staring at us before, they are now.

The music changes to something
quick and peppy, so my husband shouldn’t clutch me, but he dances to a music of his own. A melody
fraught with danger and tension. “It wasn’t Teddy Morgan, either.”

I gasp, nearly insensible
with lust. “I told you it wasn’t.” I want him to undress me here and now. I don’t care what anyone
says or thinks. And the way he stares down at me, I think he means to do it. Jonathan’s body is hot
to the touch and, laying my head against his chest, I hear the gallop of his heartbeat, arousal and
fury running side by side.

“So,” Jonathan says tightly. “Ted Morgan must be as big as they
say. I saw your eyes go wide. When I’m gone, I’m sure he’ll come calling and shove that horse-cock inside
you and make you scream with pleasure.”

I should object, but my own shamelessness has robbed
me of my delicate sensibilities. I wrap my arms around my husband’s neck, as if to draw him down for
a kiss. “He’s not the one I want. I want
you
.”

These aren’t the words I meant to say. They
are, nonetheless, a true confession, and one that I’ve never made to him before. “I’ve always wanted
you, Jonathan.”

My husband’s lips start to curl with contempt as if ready to spit venomous
words at me. But he cannot do it. Instead, his lips brush mine with a tenderness completely at odds
with the rough grip of his hands. “Christ, Nora, you don’t even know who I am. You should have married
one of these pretentious swells. Your father would have been happier.”

But would I have been?
I doubt it. And since his lips are so close to mine, I capture them, trying to fill that kiss with
all the things I’ve never been able to say.

We both taste like liquor and heartbreak.

When we finally draw apart for breath, he says, “Why do you have to be so beautiful? Do you know what
you do to me? Do you have any idea?”

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t. I wish you would show me.”

He caresses my cheek, and I press against his palm and watch him struggle for words. He’s going
to forgive me, I think, because I see something that looks like love in his eyes.

I’m so lost
in that gaze, so hopeful, that I don’t see the man approach us until it’s too late. It takes me a
moment to realize that someone is tapping Jonathan’s shoulder, wanting to cut in. And when I look up,
all the blood drains from my face.

I’ve known Robert Aster all my life. Dapper in a white suit,
with his blond hair slicked back, he seems to have recovered nicely from what must have been an
outrageous hangover after the other night.

He was always a brash boy, now grown into a big
brash man, but even I didn’t think he had the nerve to do
this
.

My husband startles at the
interruption, but gives Robert a polite headshake, as if to say that he’s done sharing his wife tonight.
To Jonathan’s credit, he’s utterly composed . . . until he catches the expression on my face.

Jonathan said he’d be able to guess the man who kissed me. That he’d be able to tell. He isn’t
wrong.

Robert gets as far as, “So nice to see you tonight Nora—” before Jonathan thrusts me
away, turns, and lands a heavy fist square to the other man’s jaw.

The crack of flesh on flesh
is so loud that the musicians lose their rhythm and the song falls apart.

Robert staggers back,
but not before my husband is on him, fists flying. He isn’t the only one to land a punch. The man
with whom I’ve been unfaithful catches Jonathan below the eye, snapping his head to the side.

Several women scream and Big Teddy Morgan wades into the fray to break it up.

All this happens
before I can take another breath.

“Jonathan!” I cry, grasping hold of his sleeve.

“What?
What do you expect of me?” he asks, shaking his fist as if he’s broken every knuckle.

I think
he’s waiting to see if I’ll defend Robert Aster. If I’ll protect him, like a woman protects her lover.

I won’t.

“She doesn’t want you to cause any more of a scene,” Paul Kendrick says, grabbing
hold of my husband’s arms, trying to hold him back.

“Is that right?” my husband asks as everyone
crowds round. “Is that what you want, Nora? You don’t want me to create a social embarrassment?”

“Too late for that, man,” Big Teddy says.

Meanwhile, Robert Aster has his legs back under
him and red blood drips from a split lip onto his white suit. He looks at me, almost triumphant,
as if he thinks to win me back. He snarls at my husband, “Shall we finally have a fair fight for her,
Richardson?”

My husband tries to break free to attack him again, but I whisper, “It’s me that
you’re mad at.”

Jonathan’s eyes bulge. “You’re goddamned right I am.”

And when he yanks
away from the men trying to hold him, he doesn’t attack Robert Aster.

Instead, he grabs me.

CHAPTER

Three

As he drags me from the dance floor, my husband is
a rampaging bull. The crowds part with shrieks and shouts as he bowls over anyone in our way. He throws
open the door to the parlor, then pushes me inside. He gives a jerk to the crystal handle, and
the door crashes closed behind us again. Then he yanks the key out of the hole and throws it on the
floor.

We are alone.

Mesmerized by this stranger who looks li
ke my husband but rages like
a beast, I take three steps back and nearly stumble in my heels. He catches me before I fall, herding
me backwards. My calves hit a desk and we crash into it with such force that it hits the bookcase
behind it, sending a dozen volumes spilling to the floor. Jonathan has me pinned, his body wedged
between my knees, and a trill of fear makes me cry out.

Someone pounds on the door. “Richardson!
Open up.”

Jonathan seethes. “It had to be him. Of all of them out there. I should’ve known.
You’ve always carried a torch for
him
.”

Robert Aster is the man my father wanted me to marry.
The man I might’ve married if I hadn’t met Jonathan. But I did meet Jonathan and that changed everything.
“No. That was a long time ago.”

Someone jiggles the door handle. I think it’s Big Teddy Morgan.
“Now see here, Richardson. What you do at home to your wife is your own affair, but not at my soiree.
Don’t make us break down the door.”

Jonathan’s hands are so tight around my wrists that his
knuckles are white. Suddenly, he notices, and he lets me go all at once with an expression of horror.
“What am I doing? What the hell am I doing? . . .
Christ
, Nora, I never wanted you to see me like
this.”

I’ve wrecked him. There are tears—actual tears—in his eyes.

“I told Robert to stay
away from me,” I say. “He was a fool to approach us tonight. He
wanted
a fight.”

My husband
has now broken out into a sweat and yanks his tie to loosen it. “I shouldn’t have given him one. You’ve
got me so balled up, Nora . . . this isn’t who I want to be. This isn’t ever who I wanted to be
for you.”

Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but I say, “I never wanted you to be anyone but who
you are.”

His sharp look cuts me. “You need to leave me, Nora.”

“I’m not going to leave
you. You may want to leave
me
but I don’t want to leave you.”

“You would if you had any idea
what I want to do to you right now.”

“Tell me,” I say, breathless. “What do you want to do
to me?”

Jonathan cages me in with his arms. “I want to reach between your legs and see if dancing
with those men made you wet. And if you’re wet, Nora . . . by god, I want to slap you. And then
I want to fuck you like you’re a whore.”

A throb of outrageous arousal pounds through my body,
drowning out every other sound. I can’t have heard him right. Or, at least, I must be even drunker
than I think I am, because the words make me squirm. I can’t imagine what it might be like to be
slapped but my whole body roars to attention at the idea of something so . . .
wrong
. “Do it.”

My husband reels back. “I’m not going to hit you. I’m just trying to make you understand why
you should leave me. I don’t hit Janes and I’m not going to hit you.”

“I want you to,” I say,
brazenly yanking my dress up over my hips, exposing the tops of my stockings and the lacy step-ins
that leave little to the imagination.

At the sight of my wantonly splayed thighs, Jonathan
groans like I’ve dealt him a mortal wound. “No.”

“I want you to slap me,” I say. “I want you
to do
anything
you want to me.”

I’m desperate for it. Mad for it. I think it must be guilt
that drives me. I must be so desperate to earn his forgiveness that I
need
him to slap me. But what
if this mad desire is much deeper? Much darker. A need for him to reach me. I’m a girl who lives
inside her own head. Only this can break me out.

He cups my cheek tenderly. “I shouldn’t have
said such an awful thing.”

A frenzy builds inside me. “Why not? Because you didn’t mean it?
Please, Jonathan. I want you to touch me . . . and if I’m wet . . . I want you to slap me.”

I no longer hear the pounding of the door. I no longer hear anything but his breathing and the echo
of my plea. My husband and I are locked eye to eye, connected in a way we haven’t been since we first
married. No, not even then. I am, in this moment, completely and utterly sobered. And I see him.
He sees me, too, perhaps for the first time. He truly sees me.

In slow motion, he reaches
for my sex, and I’m so wet that I soak the fabric separating his hand from my flesh. He groans, and
the pressure of his hand nearly sends me right over the edge. When he speaks, his voice is almost a
sob. “You’re soaked.”

Then he does it.

I feel an explosion of sharp pain as his palm slaps
across my cheek. He’s held back his strength, but still the blow turns my face to the side, and
I wonder if the heat I feel burning is the shape of his handprint. The sound of the slap now echoes
in my mind. He’s done it. He’s actually slapped me across the face.

And I am dying with pleasure.

“Do it again,” I whisper. I don’t understand the rules of the game anymore. I only understand
the fierce hunger of my own body and the certain knowledge that my husband isn’t the only beast in
the room.

Jonathan takes a tortured breath. “It shouldn’t have even happened once.”

“I
wanted it to,” I say, glancing up at him with molten heat. “And I want you to do it again.”

He shudders. “Why?”

“Because it’s going to make me come.”

This makes him snap. His fingers
press hard against the soaked fabric between my legs, the scent of my arousal between us. There’s
no hiding it, no denying it. He slaps me again and this time, I fly apart. The intense pleasure of
my orgasm rocks me. My cry is high pitched as my whole body pulses with its shallow climax. Waves of
release roll over me and I make incoherent sounds of pleasure.

When he pulls his hand away,
I cry, “Please don’t stop. I can’t bear for you to stop . . .”

“I’m not going to stop. I’m
going to fuck you.”

I gasp with relief. I don’t care that there are people outside this room
who might be listening. I don’t care about anything but having him inside me. Reaching for his belt,
I kiss him and feel his mouth tremble under mine as if he were the one about to be ravished. Then
his hand fists my hair, and his teeth are on my throat while I open his trousers and yank his underpants
down.

He doesn’t take them off. Instead, he pulls my underwear down to my knees, literally
tearing the fabric, before throwing the sex-soaked garment on the rug. It’s pure relief when he positions
himself at my entrance. His isn’t the first, or even the largest, cock that I’ve had pressed against
my flesh tonight, but the feel of it nearly causes me to sob with desire.

He slams into my
body, pulling back only to shove inside again. I’m so wet, so ready, that I hadn’t expected any pain,
but it has been more than a year since he’s taken me and a startled cry tears itself from my throat
as he stretches me wide. Soon that cry is replaced with throatier sounds of pleasure. He bangs me
so hard against the desk that my teeth rattle and several more books fall from the shelf overhead. One
of them smacks him in the shoulder and rolls off his back, but he doesn’t stop pumping into me.

In the grips of some sex-starved fever, Jonathan tears at the hem of my gown to get it out of
the way. I kiss his mouth, his chin, his throat . . .

And then the door crashes open. I’m dimly
aware of voices. Of shocked gazes. Of people watching us. My insides squeeze with the unbearable
excitement of knowing men are feasting hungry eyes on my bare legs and bouncing breasts. Even those
who aren’t staring would surely hear my moans and the sounds of Jonathan’s body slapping against mine.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes but I don’t know if they’re tears of shame or frustration when
Jonathan stops.

“Beat it!” Jonathan shouts, throwing a murderous look at the intruders.

In the doorway, several men hover with expressions of leering astonishment. Paul Kendrick scowls with
distaste and says, “I suppose it doesn’t matter how much money he makes. You can’t make a working
man into a gentleman.”

“Out of my house, Richardson,” Big Teddy Morgan roars. “Or will you
make us give you the bum’s rush?”

Jonathan pulls out of my throbbing body, yanking me upright.
Then he removes his jacket. Given the tightness of his shoulders under his white shirt, I think
he means to start another brawl, but he takes the coat and spreads it over me, covering my ruined dress
and shielding me from onlookers. It’s a strangely gallant move, considering his mood, but it doesn’t
persuade the men in the doorway.

My dress is torn. My cheek still burns where he struck me.
This can’t look good.

Big Teddy says, “Leave your old lady here with us, Richardson. You can
fetch her when you’ve cooled off.”

“I’m not leaving her here,” Jonathan says. He’s ashamed,
I can see. For my sake, he’s ashamed. But he doesn’t say anything to defend himself.

Robert
Aster stands in the doorway, holding ice in a towel against his bleeding mouth and bruised jaw. “You’re
not worthy of her. You never were.” He holds a hand out to me like a knight ready to rescue a damsel
in distress. “Come with me, Nora. I’ll take you home.”

This shakes Jonathan. I can see it.
He glances at me as if afraid to find me huddled up, damaged and broken. But I stand up to my full height,
loop my hand in his arm, and say, “I’m sorry, Robert. I’m going with my husband.”

Normally, we would wait for a driver to bring the car around, but
tonight we walk together to where the cars are parked on the street. The night air tingles against my
oversensitive body and I hug
his coat jacket tight around me, overwhelmed by the scent of him. “I
don’t want to go home,” I murmur, seized by the terror that once we get there he’ll grab his suitcase
and I’ll never see him again.

“We’re not going home,” Jonathan says, his expression predatory
in the moonlight. He turns me so that my back is against the Bentley, arching me slightly over the
hood with a wolfish kiss that I am certain will bruise my lips. I welcome it, because I want it to
last. I want his mark on me. It’s too late now for either of us to have any shame.

“Into the
backseat,” he says, yanking the rear door open and helping me into the luxurious coachlike interior.
Then he’s on me, shoving me back. The breath in my lungs seems to ignite when he says, “I’m not finished.
Spread your legs.”

Splayed in the backseat, I can’t seem to find the right angle, and I struggle
to obey. He doesn’t wait. Yanking one of my thighs up over his hip, he uses his fingers to find
my slick opening. I’m still so wet, so hungry for him, so desperate. I need to come again, as if the
first time unleashed a bottomless appetite for him.

Thankfully, he shoves his cock back into
me, driving me against the seat in a relentless assault. He fucks me and fucks me and fucks me until
every muscle aches. And all the while, the fire of desire licks down my body while the car rocks
beneath us. “Jonathan.” I moan his name, my breath almost too fast to speak.

“Just lie there
and get fucked,” he barks, hitching my legs up over his shoulders.

It was like that the first
time. My knees near my ears, my body open to him. And I know he doesn’t want me to talk. He just
wants me to lie underneath him, but I can’t help but ask, “Do you remember?”

I think he hasn’t
heard me. He seems too intent on pounding into me, his pubic bone smashing against my sex with delicious
pain in every stroke. His calm and cool exterior has melted away in fevered sweat. But he says,
“I remember everything about you, Nora.”

To prove it, he grabs at the front of my gown where
two strands of pearls tangle between my breasts, and he yanks them off. The
pop
and
zing
of the
pearls as they fly accompanies the music of my tissue-thin dress shredding open under his hands. The
pleasure of the memory made new again is so intense that my insides melt in shuddering release. “Oh
god, oh god, oh Jonathan!”

His sounds are more primal than mine, a masculine growl that gets
louder just before he pulls himself free and spurts his seed on my belly.

It’s this last part
that destroys me. That he pulls out. His conscious decision not to risk another child. Nothing that
he’d done to me at the party—not the way he talked to me, not making me dance with those men, not
slapping me or taking me on a desk in the midst of a party—none of it shamed me like this.

He told me that he’d fuck me like I was a whore; I just hadn’t believed him until now.

Mopping
the semen from my belly with my chemise, I’m consumed by a feeling of degradation that forces tears
to my eyes. A few sobs escape me before I stifle them with the back of my hand. Jonathan remains
sprawled in the backseat, his tie discarded, head thrown back, eyes closed as if he might be asleep.
After a few moments, however, I know he’s not. “
Christ
,” he says quietly. “I promised your father
that I’d never do something like this.”