Shayla Black (8 page)

With her new plan, Brock would sacrifice his ambitions because she refused to be his pawn twice. And her plan was perfect, except…she had no notion how to seduce him.

The cottage’s front door squeaked open. She saw only the outline of Brock’s body, tall, taut, broad-shouldered—definitely all man. Apprehension and awareness curled in Maddie’s belly.

Please let this work.

Behind him, Brock shut the door softly, then his measured steps brought him across the tiled floor, slowly, slowly, until the candlelight illuminated his strong, expressionless features. His dark hair gleamed a deep mahogany.

“
Why did you ask me here? I am through negotiating, Maddie. I’m interested only in payment in full or your hand in marriage.”

His words were hardly encouraging. Maybe this idea was a mistake, maybe he didn’t want her... Then she saw his gaze touch her lips, linger on her breasts, measuring the span of her waist, her hips.

“
I think we have another possibility to consider, Brock.” Maddie purposely let his first name roll off her tongue.

His hot stare snapped to her face. His green eyes held anger, yes. But they also glowed with want. His body grew taut.

She sidled closer and placed a shaking hand on his chest—doing her best to ignore his firm, warm flesh beneath her hand and the rapid
thump-thump
of his heart.

“
What?” He stared pointedly at her hand upon him, jaw clenched.

Refusing to back down, Maddie swallowed her insecurities and curled her hand around his hard shoulder.

“
I will be your mistress for tonight, Brock. All night. Come morning, we could consider this matter settled.”

Shock flashed across his face. Then his eyes blazed with desire. His fists clenched and he started toward her—before he quickly doused his reaction with scorn. “Over six thousand pounds for a night’s tumble?”

Where was his lust, the unbridled acceptance she had imagined?

Maddie drew in a calming breath. Clearly, Brock would walk away if she did not sweeten her offer. As much as she was loathe to give him more of her time or soul, any part of her she gave this way would be better than legally enslaving herself to him for the rest of her life.

“
A month, then?” she countered.

He raised a cynical brow. “Even if I found the time and inclination to bed you each of thirty days, that amounts to over two hundred twenty-five pounds per day. I daresay, no one makes that kind of money for that kind of effort. Really, I should need at least a year to get the proper value out of such an arrangement.”

Clenching her fists, Maddie restrained the urge to slap him. The swine was deliberately baiting her. “Six months, then. I’m no used courtesan who’s let dozens of men bed her. I am worth more.”

“
You are less knowledgeable in the art of pleasing a man.”

Something Colin had pointed out mercilessly. Maddie didn’t know how to refute Brock.

He cocked his head and stared. “After six months, what do you ask for your future?”

She wound her free hand about his shoulder and leaned in. No way could he miss the perfect view of her cleavage. “I ask only for a chance to please you now.”

Brock shook off her touch. “Not a clever plan, Maddie. If anyone finds out, your reputation will be ruined.”

“
It will be clandestine, our secret. I shall come in disguise—”

“
There might be…other consequences to such an arrangement. Did you consider that?”

It was Maddie’s turn to smile. After birthing Aimee, the midwife had informed her that she’d suffered too much damage to conceive again.

“
Put your mind at ease.” Her enticing whisper was hushed like the rustle of sheets.

His stare was somewhere between perplexed and annoyed. “Once our arrangement ends, how long before you have need of funds again? How long before you find yourself on your back, legs open for someone else to take his pleasure?”

She sauntered behind him and pressed her breasts to his wide back. “Let me worry about that. Simply consider me your mistress, here to please you, for the next six months.”

Brock turned, catching her off guard. Before she could stumble backward, he caught her arms in his tense-fingered grip. “Perhaps I have no need of a mistress currently.”

Maddie looked into his mocking face and panicked. She had not considered that he might already have his pleasures engaged, and with someone who knew what she was about.

Maddie could not deny the pang in her chest, as much fear as it was jealousy. But she could not give up. Six months of sexual servitude to Brock was better than a lifetime.

“
You want me.”

Then she pressed her lips to his, fitting her body against his hard one until she felt each tense muscle, including his rigid manhood, against her. Ignoring the heat sweeping over her, Maddie rejoiced. He definitely wanted her. Maybe this mad plot would work.

He thrust his hands into her hair, strong fingers splaying against her scalp. He drove his mouth over hers and parted her lips with an insistent tongue. Helplessly, she parted for him. He took her mouth ravenously, tasting her thoroughly. Dear God, his kiss...hot, urgent, powerful. She felt utterly possessed.

Her legs melted beneath her. Her heart galloped. Maddie fought for control, trying to block the warm, encompassing feel of him. His manly flavor and scent spurred her deeper into the kiss, under the spell of that conquering mouth. She moaned.

Suddenly, Brock pulled away, panting, his eyes hard, hot, accusing.

Maddie grabbed his broad shoulders and clung. “You would enjoy such an arrangement.”

“
Do you think so?” He covered her shoulder with his hand, his clasp firm, as if he wanted to be certain she felt it.

Brock was up to something. Maddie tried not to panic, not to want. “Of course. That kiss... There’s still fire between us. That was only the beginning.”

“
If I took you as my mistress—” His palm left her shoulder to brush her collarbones— “Be assured I would...” His hands inched down, down— “bed you until you could no longer remember the feel of your body without mine. Until you could no longer breathe without me deep inside you.”

His words made Maddie feel faint. His burning green gaze fastened on her breasts just as she felt his warm hand slide lower still, finally to cup her. She gasped as sensation crashed over her. But Brock wasn’t done. He traced lazy circles with his thumb until her nipple tingled, swelled, stood glaringly erect. Desire jolted between her legs, and she let loose a moan.

Her knees nearly buckled beneath her. She melted toward him, swaying into his embrace. Maddie close her eyes, losing herself in his touch. But that voice in the back of her head wouldn’t let her forget that this was a game to Brock. He meant to unnerve her. Or test her. Likely, he believed that she would swat his hand away and chastise him, proving her offer a sham. At the moment, Maddie couldn’t utter anything more than a groan.

“
Of course,” he leaned in to whisper in her ear, still thumbing her nipple, wishing he would touch her lower, where she really ached. “I can bed a wife as well.”

As quickly as a flash of lightning, Brock dropped his hand, then turned for the door.

Brock was leaving? No! Her offer was supposed to entice him. Blast him, she had set aside her pride, her scruples, to protect her daughter and her independence from Brock’s ruthless control.

On trembling legs, she darted after him. “Stay. Consider my offer.”

Fury etched itself into every hard line of his face. Propelled by the force of it, Maddie stepped away.

“
We have nothing further to discuss on this subject. Marry me or face the consequences.”

He reached for the door. Maddie grew desperate.

“
I shall be here,” she blurted. “Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you.”

Brock shot her a narrow-eyed glance over his shoulder, riddled with anger and contempt. “You’re in for a damned long wait.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Maddie paced the floor of her late husband’s St. John’s Wood cottage, the clay brick beneath her as cold as Brock’s reaction to her idea of becoming his mistress.

An entire week has passed, and still he had not appeared to claim the passion she had been so certain he wanted. She’d been unable to erase the feel of his hot mouth possessing her own.

But she refused to allow the pleasure of Brock’s kiss to dictate her actions. He was her adversary. As ugly as it was, she had to use him, as he once had used her.

She had just one flaw in her plan... He still intrigued her.

Pace, turn; pace, turn.
Brock Taylor’s charisma, intelligence, and accomplishments intrigued her. At the most inopportune times, she caught herself thinking of him, staring even. Maddie sighed. She hated to admit that some part of her yearned for him. The young girl still inside her whose heart he’d broken, perhaps? Whatever the reason, he was forbidden. And the forbidden, Brock had taught her, was dangerous, just like the man himself.

Dangerous enough to throw her and Aimee into the Fleet? She wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. But with Brock, anything was possible.

She sighed and forced herself to sit on the overstuffed sofa in the cozy, firelit room. That clawing, panicked desperation in the pit of her stomach refused to relent. She focused on the burn of anger consuming her. That was safer.

Soon, the hall clock struck one in the morning. With a discouraged sigh, Maddie rose and donned her cloak. Brock hadn’t come tonight—or in the last week. But he would; she’d find a way to seduce him into accepting her offer before he destroyed her life.

How she would accomplish this, Maddie did not know. But determination pounded like a hammer in her gut. She would not rest until she had and freed herself from his matrimonial trap.

Then she would have revenge for his abandonment.

That was what her soul had cried for five years ago, what she needed now to purge him from her life and heart for good.

#

After making the trip to Hampstead again, Brock paused at Ashdown Manor’s door. The thought of seeing Maddie once more had his palms sweating.

Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you,
he heard her sultry voice whisper over and over. Her words haunted him during the meetings necessary to finalize details about the railroad, during important analysis of new securities that would earn more money and win new business, during sleepless nights when he craved the feel of her mouth beneath his. Damn! With one sentence, she had managed to shatter his concentration and threaten his future.

He’d always yearned for wealth. That fire to rise above his poverty-stricken boyhood was the only thing keeping him from accepting Maddie’s stunning offer in a mind-melting moment of desire. Sheer willpower had prevailed—so far. He hoped it would last until they made it to the altar.

Drawing in a deep breath of spring air, Brock knocked. Matheson answered moments later.

Within moments, Matheson, stepped aside to admit Brock. “Follow me, sir.”

The butler led Brock back into Maddie’s empty parlor, still somehow cold, despite the warm day. With a bow, Matheson left him alone with his thoughts.

Brock tossed his hat on the nearest table and strolled around the room. April sun poured through the west windows, shedding its golden light on the dust motes slowly winding down to the faded carpet. A rag doll with a smudged face, blue button eyes, and a Cupid’s bow mouth sat in an old chair.

Regardless of the manor’s shabby state, it held a comfortably elegant feel beneath the tall ceilings. Oh, Brock now had a fashionable town house. In Mayfair, around the corner from Park Lane. But he liked the idea of being master in a house in which he’d once been servant. He could see himself living here with Maddie. Raising children with love and laughter.

Shaking off his odd thoughts, Brock wondered if she would request another deferment of her debt. Perhaps offer him her paltry savings once more to postpone the inevitable? Or, dear God, would she offer herself again?

Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you
.

With a curse, Brock pushed the voice aside and sat on the worn sofa, feeling himself sweat. No matter when, where, or how often she lay in wait for him, he could not bed her without benefit of marriage. He must have her connections and her land.

If investors chose to overlook his services because they believed them inferior or unbeneficial to their fortunes, he considered it their loss. If investors refused to visit his offices simply because he had been born without connections or consequence, well...that kind of ignorance he objected to.

He knew he couldn’t change the prevailing attitude of England’s privileged class. Nor was he any crusader. But to have another blue blood lacking the good sense God gave most mutts look down his thin, patrician nose at him was more than Brock could bear.