His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1) Read online

  So, here Edward was, back at Tosca’s, repeating his folly.

  It simply had to stop; he had to break her—tear her apart and examine her inner workings. There had to be a point at which he grew tired of her and he would do whatever was necessary in order to find that point. He had to exorcise her from his mind and free himself to move on to other women, to move on with his life.

  Edward set down his empty glass. “Come stand in front of me, Belinda. Nora, undress her.”

  The women moved quickly to obey him. Nora was perhaps three inches shorter than Belinda and looked more boyish than ever beside the other woman’s lush figure. Edward knew such a comparison must rankle—must pain her—and he smiled.

  She loosened Belinda’s gown with nimble fingers and bent low to the floor while the other woman stepped out of the circle of fabric, wearing only a chemise so fine as to be transparent. Belinda’s large nipples were tight and pebbled, two dark points that formed a triangle with the shadow of her sex.

  Edward was full hard now, his body thrumming with the pent-up sexual desire of the past weeks.

  “Remove her chemise—no, push it down over her shoulders,” he said when Nora would have lifted it over Belinda’s head.

  She slid the loose straps over the gracefully sloping shoulders and the insubstantial fabric drifted to the floor without a sound, giving him a view of naked perfection.

  Edward’s breathing accelerated. “Very nice,” he said, his voice raspy with suppressed want. “Spread your feet to shoulder width,” he ordered. She kept her private hair closely trimmed, which gave him an excellent view of her puffy lips and the tip of her clitoris peeking out between them.

  Edward swallowed the moisture that flooded his mouth and shifted in his chair, the fine wool of his trousers doing nothing to hide his arousal. He gave his swollen prick a languid stroke, the fabric already damp from his excitement. He forced himself to wait and wait and wait before he allowed himself a quick look at Nora.

  A surge of lust almost doubled him over. Her delicate nostrils were flared and her gaze was riveted to the ridge of his erection, which jumped and strained under her attention. Her eyes rose to his and that’s when he saw it—that flash of yearning that worked on his mind and body just like opium must enslave those it eventually destroyed. Just as she would eventually destroy him, if he let her.

  The look came and went in a heartbeat, leaving him with an ache so punishingly deep he would do anything to ease it.

  If only he knew how.

  ❈❈❈

  Nora couldn’t believe she was actually here. With him.

  She had been about to knock on the door to the Silesia room when it opened and Madame had come out.

  “Wait here but but do not enter,” she’d instructed Nora. “I’ll return shortly.”

  When Tosca had returned, she had Belinda with her. Seeing the exquisite woman had been like a knife in Nora’s stomach. Once Mr. Fanshawe saw Belinda, he’d never want her. She turned to go.

  “No, we will wait here,” Madame instructed her, opening the door and ushering in Belinda before closing it again.

  They’d stood in silence while they waited—for what, Nora didn’t know. All she could think about was him with Belinda, his blunt, powerful, cruel, hands on Belinda’s soft, feminine body. The other whore had a ripe sensuality that had quickly made her a favorite at Tosca’s. Mr. Fanshawe would be finished with Nora now.

  Nora told herself it wasn’t agony twisting in her gut but regret at losing a very lucrative client.

  But that was a lie.

  It was the same pain she’d felt every day he’d stayed away, even though she’d tried to root him from her brain like weedy, pervasive vines from a garden.

  It had taken him far longer than she’d expected to tire of her, not that she didn’t have her small stable of admirers. Given her particular skills Nora had always managed to keep her customers for longer than average. There were not many women at Tosca’s who would submit to the type of treatment Mr. Fanshawe craved, even for the money.

  Nora knew exactly what her colleagues would think if they learned she would submit to him without payment.

  She shivered at the thought of all the teasing Charles would mete out if he ever learned her true feelings for the man on the other side of the door. A man who would now be as accessible to her as the moon.

  He was so vibrant, demanding, and devoid of sentimentality that she’d always assumed he would one day move on to a woman who was more beautiful and challenging. Well, today was that day.

  This is your job; these are your customers and you merely engage in commercial transactions. Nobody is interested in your mind—many of them are not even particularly interested in your body. All they want is what you give to them: your pain.

  That was true. Madame employed Nora for two different types of customers: young men who came to lose their virginity, whom she would not intimidate and with whom she was very patient, and those men who took sexual pleasure in causing pain to their lovers.

  The first rule of whoring—or at least the first rule Nora had learned from the old woman who’d taken her under her wing at the bawd house where she’d started out—was that you should never look for love in your work. It was a bad thing to expect in many ways: mostly because it rarely came a whore’s way. She’d even been cautioned to never expect pleasure, although that warning she’d ignored frequently over the years.

  For the most part, Nora had done well controlling and concealing her desires. She had even managed to hide them from her first madam. But Madam Tosca had looked right into Nora’s sin-blackened heart and seen the truth. She’d seen the secret Nora had always worked so hard to hide: she liked being a whore—or at least certain aspects of it.

  Being the excellent businesswoman she was, Madam Tosca had immediately turned Nora’s weakness to her economic benefit. As a result, Nora was almost always booked even though she was the least comely of all the women who worked there—and even most of the men.

  She’d learned that the shameful thing she’d always tried to keep hidden deep inside—the gnawing hunger to be punished and humiliated—was as visible as a bonfire to those men who needed what she had to offer.

  Over the years Nora had come to terms with her sluttish desire for certain parts of her job: a desire which had once mortified her. She’d known since she was fourteen that once she took the first step, there would be no way back; she’d never regretted her decision. Life was short and brutal and if deviant sexual acts were something that gave her pleasure, she refused to castigate herself for snatching at happiness where she could find it.

  Until Mr. Fanshawe.

  Nora looked at him now and devoured his brutal, heartless expression, her gut bound up in that combination of arousal, terror, and all-consuming lust that overwhelmed her whenever was with him—or even when she allowed herself to think about him in the privacy of her bed.

  Sometimes, she even thought about him while she serviced other clients. What those other men didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, would it? But she suspected her obsession with him had long ago started to hurt her.

  Mr. Fanshawe was not a handsome man. In fact, the first time she saw him she’d thought him ugly. He had a head of black wiry hair that was liberally salted with gray, even though he couldn’t be much more than forty. He was a big man, perhaps an inch over six feet, certainly a head taller than Nora. His hands were massive and could span her waist and he often picked her up with no visible effort.

  His body was raw-boned and heavily slabbed with muscles, his build that of a laborer, which is what he’d once been, according to whore gossip.

  His hooded eyes were dark brown, opaque, and pitiless. Everything about his features spoke of excess: thick, sensual lips, a big high-bridged nose that dominated his face, and a square jaw that was as hard and heavy as an anvil.

  And yet the garments he put on his too-big body were those of an aristocrat: fine soft woolens, snowy, insubstantial linens, soft,
supple leathers. The gentleman’s clothing should have looked incongruous on such a body, but instead it just added to his aura of wealth and power.

  For months they’d done unspeakable and intimate things to one another times beyond counting and still Nora knew nothing about him beyond his surname and what he wanted in the bedchamber.

  And why would you ever need to know anything more than that, Nora?

  She didn’t need to know—shouldn’t want to know. But late at night—when her spirits were at their lowest, between three o’clock and dawn, she imagined what might be behind his cruel, iron-clad façade.

  “Belinda, undress Nora.”

  She startled at his voice, realizing she’d been lost in her thoughts. He was watching her with lazy amusement—as if he knew she was fantasizing about him. He dominated the big black leather chair like a king did his throne. He held her eyes with his as Belinda’s graceful hands worked at the tapes, ties and buttons.

  The other woman was the same age as Nora, almost twenty-four, and had been in this life just as long. But while Nora only appealed to a certain subset of men, Belinda was every man’s fantasy.

  She was competitive but also friendly, so Nora had instinctively liked her, especially when some of the older—more jealous—whores had been unkind to her at first.

  But right now, she hated her.

  She hated her lush beauty, her confident sensuality, the mocking, pitying looks she gave Nora as she undressed her with painful slowness, her expression saying more clearly than words what she thought about Nora’s boyish body.

  But what made her hate the other woman even more was the look on Mr. Fanshawe’s face as he stroked his erection.

  Did he sense Nora’s tightly leashed jealousy? Was that why he was looking at her with such smirking amusement, his eyes probing her in search of her pain, her humiliation, which were like nectar to him?

  Her chemise slid to the floor and she stepped out of it, watching his face for a flicker of . . . anything. But there was nothing. His eyes moved over her body with the unsurprised gaze of a longtime lover: he’d seen everything she had to offer and Nora held no more secrets for him.

  He sat in his chair, one hand absently stroking while the other held the glass. His eyes moved between them, as if he were comparing them; Nora knew how she would come out of such a comparison and the agonizing realization made her even wetter. What kind of woman became aroused at such humiliation?

  Her kind.

  His lips curled into an acquisitive smile as his eyes roamed Belinda’s body, his obvious desire sending a spike of lust and yearning to Nora’s already swollen sex.

  He set down his glass, spread his powerful thighs, and pointed to the spot between his legs. “Belinda, kneel.”

  Not only was Belinda beautiful and sensual, but she moved like poetry, lowering herself to her knees in one smooth motion.

  “I want you to suck me off.” His vulgar words were at odds with the low, velvet of his tone and only through Herculean effort did Nora suppress a shiver of desire. He had the crassest vocabulary Nora had ever heard. She loved it.

  Of course he knew that, too.

  Belinda gazed up at him, her wide-eyed ingénue expression appeared incongruous with the salacious curve of her lips and Nora could not believe Mr. Fanshawe was taken in by such an act. But he gave Belinda an approving look before turning to Nora, his indulgent expression dissipating as his eyes focused on her.

  “Stand right there.” He pointed to a place close enough that he could see Nora’s face and she could watch the other woman pleasure him. And then he turned away, dismissing her as if she were an inconvenience he’d had to deal with and could now forget.

  Her body responded the way it always did when he degraded her: eager and hot and wanting, while her mind cried out like a prisoner trapped behind unbreakable bars.

  Nora prayed he simply thought her behavior an act; not that God listened to prayers from a woman like her.

  He cupped Belinda’s rounded jaw in one hand and stroked her smooth skin with his thumb. “Proceed,” he ordered.

  Her hands went to work on his buttons and he shifted his hips to let her pull down his trousers and drawers. “Do you enjoy sucking cock, Belinda?”

  She gave a rather dramatic shiver that conveniently caused her perfect breasts to jiggle enticingly. “Oh . . . well, I—”

  “Shhhh,” he murmured, his full lips curving as he rubbed his thumb on her lower lip. “Why are you so nervous, sweetheart?”

  Her body jolted and her hands froze. She swallowed hard enough for Nora to hear it. “I—haven’t, well, I’m new, sir.”

  Nora would have rolled her eyes if she hadn’t been so furious.

  Mr. Fanshaw’s nostrils flared. “I see. Are you telling me you haven’t sucked a cock before? Do you need Nora to show you how?”

  Nora’s sex clenched in anticipation, the contraction sending ripples of pleasure through her body.

  Belinda’s stiffening posture gave her away. Nora knew that she’d realized, perhaps too late, that she might have overplayed her hand. “N-no, sir. I know how. I—I just want to please you.”

  No, what she wanted was to steal him from Nora. Mr. Fanshawe was an outrageous client when it came to gifts of money.

  Nora could tell by the way he smiled that he knew that, too. But his thumb kept stroking and probing the seam of her plump lips, which opened to accept him. She drew his thumb into her mouth, her cheeks hollowing with the force of her suction.

  Although Mr. Fanshawe pointedly ignored her, Nora knew he was aware of what she was feeling right now. He would know how badly she wanted him, how she hated to see another woman supplant her and how she despised herself for feeling such things.

  The right side of his mouth pulled up into a slow, cruel smile. Yes, he knew exactly what he was doing to her.

  Belinda lifted the hem of his shirt, which had been covering his erection.

  Nora couldn’t help staring, even though she’d seen him over one hundred times—one hundred and seventeen, to be precise.

  His cock was among the largest she’d ever seen, and she’d seen many. It was built along the same lines as the rest of his body: thick, heavy, and long. Already the fat bell-shaped head glistened with proof of his arousal and Nora could almost taste his salty slickness and feel the silky hardness of his shaft. Her mouth watered and her throat tightened convulsively, as if she were the one who’d be taking it.

  Belinda’s hand looked small curled around him and he grimaced as if in pain when she tightened her grip and stroked him from root to tip.

  “Ah, God, yes.” The last word came out in a hiss and his powerful hips lifted. “Lick me—tongue my slit and taste me.”

  His order sent a shock wave through Nora’s body and fury battled arousal at watching this other woman touch what was hers.

  No, not yours, never yours.

  Belinda leaned low and kissed the weeping slit, her gentle touch causing him to shudder and groan.

  “Yes,” he muttered, his eyelids fluttering shut and his hips pushing up while his huge hand slid around Belinda’s skull, the roped muscles of his exposed forearms flexing as he pulled her lower and filled her.

  Nora felt like she was being torn apart by vicious winds. She hated her treacherous body and was powerless to stop its shameful, humiliating reaction. Why were her thighs wet watching a man reject her and take pleasure from another? What was wrong with her?

  “Are you wet?”

  Her head jerked up. He was looking at her and his shrewd stare reminded her of where she was and who she was with—and of what she was: a whore.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Show me.”

  She spread her feet, her heart thrilling as his jaw tightened and his pupils flared. It came to her, then, in a blinding flash. How stupid she was. He didn’t just feed off her humiliation and pain, he needed it.

  He needed her just as badly as she needed him.

  The realization was almost enough t
o drive her to her knees, to push her over the edge and drown her in pleasure.

  “Nora.” The word was a sharp, harsh bark, and she met his hard, glittering eyes. “The next time I have to say something twice, you will leave.”

  Nora slid her feet wide, slipped her fingers between her swollen lips, and held out her hand for his inspection.

  ❈❈❈

  Edward’s control began to unspool as he stared at her glistening fingers.

  He shouldn’t have waited four bloody weeks.

  It wasn’t the girl sucking him. No. Despite her come-hither ways and blatant sexuality Belinda’s technique less than impressive.

  Nora—on the other hand—had the hottest, softest mouth he’d ever fucked. She had no gag reflex and worked him so hard he often straddled the border between pleasure and pain.

  He hated to admit it, but Belinda, for all her beauty, was as bland as gruel.

  There was no comparison between the two women.

  It was Nora, always Nora, her eyes opaque and unreadable, but something about her bleeding pain and want and humiliation. Just looking at her after these last barren weeks had him teetering on the edge.

  But the last thing he wanted to do was come in Belinda’s mouth less than five minutes after she’d begun. While an orgasm was almost impossible to resist, this—this whatever it was between him and the homely, naked girl who stared at him with such ravaged wanting eyes, such exquisite suffering? Well, that was his opium. And he wanted it to last and last and last.

  How could you make this last when the only way to take it further will end it?

  Edward ignored the thought and wrenched his eyes from her; too much of her would make him spend.

  He might not be able to feast on her anguish, but he could stoke her humiliation—and their mutual pleasure—higher and higher.

  Edward slid a second hand around Belinda’s head and picked up the heavy braid, winding it slowly around his fist, knowing how the familiar gesture would be gutting Nora, savoring the thought of her cunt and how it must be clenching with need as she was forced to watch him, powerless and wanting

  “Yes,” he said, rocking into Belinda. “That’s right, deeper. I want your throat.” He thrust and felt her gag reaction before he was anywhere close to sheathing his length. Well, so much for her intimations of expertise.