Mistress by Midnight by Maggie Robinson Page A

meet him, tumbling together atop the fine linens in a sensual dance that made her dizzy. At the start, it was a country dance with little finesse but much enthusiasm. But he had found his rhythm, and she followed where he led.
    Con had taught her to dance, had been her first partner. In everything. She had given him her heart as a child and he still held it. She opened her eyes to watch Con’s exquisitely agonized face over her. His teeth bit into the fullness of his lower lip, his eyes crinkled shut, his brow beaded with drops of perspiration. His wild dark hair hung damp at his shoulders. His arms were corded with muscle and braced on either side of her. The cross tattoo leaped before her eyes. Con was
working.
She was the center of all his attention and glad of it.
    He owned her. Bought her for ten thousand pounds. She should be fighting him off, but couldn’t. He possessed her body without the house on Jane Street or the clothes or the servants. She had given up trying to keep him at bay. A time would come when their arrangement was over, so she’d best let him have his way. It was as good for her as it was for him. Maybe better. She’d lived in solitary confinement. While he’d spent his seed all across Europe and Asia like some pagan god, she was on her knees praying for redemption. Release. But she might as well have her own tattoo of
Conover
inked upon her breast.
    She gazed down her body where they joined. They were waltzing now, his thick cock gliding out of her slowly and just as slowly reentering. She ached when he withdrew, but the anticipation of his return caused her skin to prickle.
    Laurette breathed in the air around them, vestiges of sexand sweat, his sandalwood cologne, her rosewater, the fragrant wood burning too hot in the hearth, the beeswax applied so earnestly by one of the servants, the exotic garden through the open window all blending in a heady single scent.
    She was in a haze of languid sensation. It was as if she had been shut off for years in grayness, and suddenly the world was in bloom inside her, bursting through her pores and straight into Con. As if he knew, he opened his eyes and watched her as she came apart. He smiled down at her, triumphant.
    But he was not done, and neither, it seemed, was she. When she thought he could not coax one more frisson of joy from her, he amazed and exhausted her, his hips grinding and rolling her to welcome oblivion. She was spinning from his dance, lightheaded, love struck. He bent to kiss her sobs away, swallow up her soul. She felt him stiffen and flood her. She couldn’t be sorry.
    They lay in each other’s arms, the heat of the room and their exertions coating them in slippery sweat. Con took a corner of the sheet and wiped her face, throat and under each tender breast. Laurette stared at the mirror over the bed, wondering who the flushed and foolish wanton was who smiled back at her.
    “I went blind, you know.” Con’s voice was still ragged. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
    Laurette looked at him in alarm. He hadn’t meant to tell her. It was old news. He and his school friend William John Bankes had traveled a hazardous, indeed deadly, journey to see the sites of ancient civilization, and he had been struck with blindness. Ophthalmia was the medical term, but whatever one called it, it was devilishly painful and could cause permanent loss of sight if he was unlucky.
    Of course, Con had felt unlucky for some time. Perhaps it was his failure to fully appreciate the wonders he had seenthese past eight years that Allah decided he needed a lesson in humility. The fact that Con thought now in terms of Allah might have been an additional reason his Christian God had punished him, but Con had found it more convenient to pay lip service to the god of the people surrounding him.
    William had clung to his English gentleman’s mode of dress, but Con had succumbed to the robes of the natives. With his black hair and eyes and skin tanned