Free Three Little Secrets by Liz Carlyle

volition, Merrick’s hand went to her shoulder, dragging the fabric down as stitches popped and silk tore. And why not? He was in a strange, black mood, the mood to tear something asunder, and if one thing was out of his reach, might not another do as well?
    Beneath Bess’s gown, she wore no chemise—and likely no drawers, either. Instead, one round, bare breast poured from her black corset, which was cut in a fashion long out of style and laced tightly enough to impair her breathing.
    Bess did not seem troubled by its restraint. Beneath his gaze, her nipple peaked, and hardened. The areola was large and dark. Merrick looked away. He wished that her breasts were not so lush. He wished that they were smaller, paler, and that he could trace the fine, blue veins beneath her flesh with his fingertip. Indeed, he wished she was someone else altogether. The thought served only to make him angrier.
    He set her away a little abruptly. “Take off your clothes,” he gritted. “And lie down on the bed.”
    “But what if I don’t wish to?” she whispered, a challenge lighting her eye. “What if you have to force me?”
    A sneering smile curved his lips. “Aye, with that black leather whip of yours?” he suggested. “Is that what you want, my dear?”
    Bess picked up the whip in one hand and drew the lash across the opposite palm almost erotically, as if she enjoyed every bump and twist of the braid. “Kitty says you’ve scars.” The words were but a raspy whisper. “Lots of them. Deep, wicked ones.”
    “Kitty talks too damned much.”
    Bess drew her tongue across her lower lip. “Take off your clothes,” she said, her eyes quick and greedy. “I like a man who’s marked. Let me see, MacLachlan, just how much you can take.”
    More than you could dole out in a thousand years, he thought. More than was humanly possible. But he was damned if he meant to discuss it with her. “I think you forget, my dear, just who is being paid to perform a service here.”
    She took a step toward him, and made a moue with her brightly painted lips. “Poor Mr. MacLachlan,” she cooed. “You’ve been bedding that bland, boring Kitty for far too long. I know you. I know your type. I know what you need. I can smell the rage on your skin.”
    He caught her wrist and jerked her hard against him, then crushed her mouth beneath his. Still holding the whip, she thrust her tongue deep into his mouth, then drew out again and viciously bit his lip.
    Rage exploding in his head. He jerked back. “Why, you little bitch!”
    Her eyes glittered dangerously. “That was very cruel of me, was it not?” she returned. “You are angry.”
    MacLachlan touched the back of his hand gingerly to his bleeding lip and stepped back. “You’re goddamned right, I’m angry.”
    Bess chuckled quietly. “You were angry the moment I walked into the room,” she returned. “I have merely given you a place to spend it.”
    “Hush up, damn you.” Merrick kicked the bandbox into the floor. She was closer to the truth than he wished to admit. “Just be quiet and take off your clothes. I want a quick, hard fuck. Then I want you out of here.”
    Bess Bromley slowly drew down the other sleeve of her tawdry black gown, revealing her shoulder, and then her breast, pushed high and held fast by the harsh restraints of the corset. The thing was laced up the back with leather cording, he realized when she turned to toss the gown onto a chair. And beneath it, she wore nothing but black stockings, rolled high and tight on slender, milk white thighs. The contrast was startling. Erotic.
    She turned back around, and smiled seductively. “I have been very cruel,” she said again. She set one knee to the mattress, then slowly crawled onto the bed on all fours, her arse as bare as the day she was born. “I have made you angry,” she went on, lying down on her stomach.
    “I begin to think you might be mad,” he remarked.
    “Perhaps I am.” Her eyes drifted to the whip,