would be all right.
Heaving a labored sigh, he blew out the candles and exited, shutting the door with a sharp click.
Stirred, stunned, distraught, and overwhelmed, Sarah peered into the darkened room long after his footsteps faded.
Michael stared at nothing.
The enclosed space was permeated with the odors of raucous sex, sweat, and candle smoke. The ambiance was stuffy and suffocating, and he had an urgent need for a cooling, invigorating breath of fresh air. From the strident sexual intercourse, perspiration had wetted and snarled his chest hair, and he swabbed across it, striving to wipe away the stench.
He could smell the woman on his skin and taste her on his tongue. She’d adequately tended to his ever-present lust, but he’d not been attracted to her in the slightest, and now that he was sated, her lingering essence was nauseating, and he forced down a wave of repugnance.
Disheveled and unkempt, he gazed at himself in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall. The man reflected back was in a sorry condition. His cock had been meticulously serviced, and it hung useless and limp against his leg, but he’d gained only temporary gratification. While most men would have reveled in the chance to engage in such an indecent, debauched oral ejaculation with an anonymous partner, he was not one of them. Try as he might to pretendotherwise, he was sickened by the corrupt level to which his conduct had fallen.
Pamela had concocted the offensive amusement, readily grasping how it would appeal to his sense of the absurd, how it would fan the fires of his enmity toward the aristocracy. When she’d urged him to participate, he’d agreed, thinking himself so detached that he could fornicate freely and without restraint. In past years, he’d sporadically and gladly acceded to her bizarre offers of carnal recreation, but to his surprise, at this current party his misdeeds only increased his despondency, further ravaging his anguished mind and troubled heart.
The women with whom he consorted were so willing to debase themselves, and he abhorred them for it, but he detested himself even more. As though a stranger had inhabited his body, he was lashing out at them, with his words and careless attitude, abusing them—and thus their husbands—with his cuckolding, but despite how often he copulated, he was never going to find genuine contentment, because the animosity he fostered wasn’t for any of them specifically, or for the nobility in general.
He wasn’t fooling himself: the actual object of his anger was his father, Edward Stevens, the Earl of Spencer.
Of late, memories of his father—and what he’d brought about all those years ago—were floating on the surface, and Michael could no longer push them down. Wherever he went, he seemed bent on wreaking paths of destruction in his efforts to run from the disturbing reminiscences that constantly cropped up.
His father, the king of all bounders, the epitome of all cads, was the catalyst behind his raging. The esteemed nobleman had been a thorn throughout Michael’s life, jabbing and poking at his unstable existence at the most inopportune moments.
As a lad, Michael had loved Edward, had worshiped him with a godlike awe, but Edward was only a mortal man, comprised of human vice and bad behavior. When Michael was just three, his father had deserted their small family,had abandoned Michael’s mother, Angela, and her two young boys in order to do his duty to his earldom by marrying a girl of the
ton
.
Angela had never recovered from his callous, contemptible act. James and Michael had suffered, as well, as they’d struggled to overcome the inexplicable loss of their father. They’d grown up to be undisciplined, impetuous boys, had matured into brutal, dispassionate men who did not trust or love, who never formed emotional connections, who never allowed anyone close.
Michael had neither forgotten nor forgiven those ancient sins that had been so casually and
Heaving a labored sigh, he blew out the candles and exited, shutting the door with a sharp click.
Stirred, stunned, distraught, and overwhelmed, Sarah peered into the darkened room long after his footsteps faded.
Michael stared at nothing.
The enclosed space was permeated with the odors of raucous sex, sweat, and candle smoke. The ambiance was stuffy and suffocating, and he had an urgent need for a cooling, invigorating breath of fresh air. From the strident sexual intercourse, perspiration had wetted and snarled his chest hair, and he swabbed across it, striving to wipe away the stench.
He could smell the woman on his skin and taste her on his tongue. She’d adequately tended to his ever-present lust, but he’d not been attracted to her in the slightest, and now that he was sated, her lingering essence was nauseating, and he forced down a wave of repugnance.
Disheveled and unkempt, he gazed at himself in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall. The man reflected back was in a sorry condition. His cock had been meticulously serviced, and it hung useless and limp against his leg, but he’d gained only temporary gratification. While most men would have reveled in the chance to engage in such an indecent, debauched oral ejaculation with an anonymous partner, he was not one of them. Try as he might to pretendotherwise, he was sickened by the corrupt level to which his conduct had fallen.
Pamela had concocted the offensive amusement, readily grasping how it would appeal to his sense of the absurd, how it would fan the fires of his enmity toward the aristocracy. When she’d urged him to participate, he’d agreed, thinking himself so detached that he could fornicate freely and without restraint. In past years, he’d sporadically and gladly acceded to her bizarre offers of carnal recreation, but to his surprise, at this current party his misdeeds only increased his despondency, further ravaging his anguished mind and troubled heart.
The women with whom he consorted were so willing to debase themselves, and he abhorred them for it, but he detested himself even more. As though a stranger had inhabited his body, he was lashing out at them, with his words and careless attitude, abusing them—and thus their husbands—with his cuckolding, but despite how often he copulated, he was never going to find genuine contentment, because the animosity he fostered wasn’t for any of them specifically, or for the nobility in general.
He wasn’t fooling himself: the actual object of his anger was his father, Edward Stevens, the Earl of Spencer.
Of late, memories of his father—and what he’d brought about all those years ago—were floating on the surface, and Michael could no longer push them down. Wherever he went, he seemed bent on wreaking paths of destruction in his efforts to run from the disturbing reminiscences that constantly cropped up.
His father, the king of all bounders, the epitome of all cads, was the catalyst behind his raging. The esteemed nobleman had been a thorn throughout Michael’s life, jabbing and poking at his unstable existence at the most inopportune moments.
As a lad, Michael had loved Edward, had worshiped him with a godlike awe, but Edward was only a mortal man, comprised of human vice and bad behavior. When Michael was just three, his father had deserted their small family,had abandoned Michael’s mother, Angela, and her two young boys in order to do his duty to his earldom by marrying a girl of the
ton
.
Angela had never recovered from his callous, contemptible act. James and Michael had suffered, as well, as they’d struggled to overcome the inexplicable loss of their father. They’d grown up to be undisciplined, impetuous boys, had matured into brutal, dispassionate men who did not trust or love, who never formed emotional connections, who never allowed anyone close.
Michael had neither forgotten nor forgiven those ancient sins that had been so casually and
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