At Her Service

by Susan Johnson

  Not that his unusual fascination with her was even remotely based on logic. But then what was in this bloody war zone.

  Fucking was, he decided. That was real. And with doctrinaire certainty on his side, he said in a fait accompli tone, “You’ll like this better.” Quickly adjusting her hips beneath him, he substituted his prick for his fingers with a deft, facile competence and plunged hilt deep into her delectably tight cunt.

  She cried out, but before he could decide whether her cry was one of rapture or pain, she seemingly concurred with his judgment, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist and whispered, sweetly, “Everything’s better with you, my dear Gazi.”

  “I am gratified to hear it,” he suavely replied, moving her upward on the bed with the force of his cock and a smooth, dextrous hoist of his arms.

  Resting on the pillows a second later, she exhaled in a luxurious, sensual purr and, holding him close, gazed up at him with warm anticipation in her eyes. “And now that I’m crammed full of you, what now?”

  “I thought I’d make you come again. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “Consider my approval total and complete,” she playfully murmured.

  “Such unsparing largesse, Miss Clement.” He grinned. “Does that mean there are no restraints?”

  Her gaze was covetous, her smile ripe with temptation. “I’ll let you know if there are.”

  His erection swelled inside her at such unqualified permission.

  “He liked what he heard,” she whispered, shifting her hips in a gentle side-to-side motion. “Ummm…you are quite wonderful, Gazi.” Her eyes shut, she pulled him closer and expressing her enjoyment of his wonderfulness in soft, breathy moans, she settled into a slow delectable undulation of her lower body.

  In his own definition of wonderful, Miss Clement proved to be so sensationally wet, his accommodating thrust and withdrawal was nearly frictionless. She felt like glossy hot silk around his cock—if there was such a thing. Although what was undeniably real was the fact that he was horny as hell—thin-skinned and oversensitive, frenzied beyond the norm—which may have contributed to the violence of his next downstroke.

  She gasped out loud as he forcefully hit bottom.

  Christ, a little restraint or she wouldn’t last the night. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her cheek, although his apology didn’t extend to actually moving from the gratifying location in which his nerve endings were on blissful overload. “I hope I didn’t hurt you,” Darley added with unimpeachable grace if not complete honesty.

  “Au contraire,” Aurore breathed, shifting her hips ever so slightly to entice him deeper, to sharpen and provoke her own exquisite sensations. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I don’t want to feel anything tonight but you inside me and this prodigal, licentious sense of abandon…”

  Who in their right mind would take issue with such unconditional magnanimity? Especially when his cock was so hard and engorged it was aching. “Let me know when you’ve had enough,” he whispered, not sure he would be capable of determining that precise moment in his current randy mood.

  “Maybe,” she said, soft and low and teasing. “And maybe not.”

  “I’m going to fuck myself to death,” he said with a grin. “So be warned.”

  Her blue gaze was hot as the summer sun. “How very nice…”

  He understood that they were both there for the same thing—for the forgetfulness and escape from reality offered by wild, mindless sex. And with cultivated expertise and keen understanding Darley gave Aurore what she wanted and pleased himself in the bargain.

  She in turn enthusiastically kept pace with his shifting rhythms, even as she fiercely clung to him. Tonight, he was her lifeline and safe haven, her escape from the explosive events that threatened to engulf her life.

  Only a millisecond after her second orgasm, he came the first time, ejaculating on her stomach with the finesse of considerable practice and a completely unaccountable slip of the tongue—Lucia’s name spilling from his lips in a low, suppressed exhalation.

  “Sorry,” he muttered through clenched teeth, both of them still shaking from orgasmic tumult, from skittish nerves, from a disquieting and hotspur ferment.

  “What?” she breathed, her gaze half-lidded, her voice weak from the violence of her climax.

  “Nothing.” Grateful no explanation was required, he nonetheless grappled with his blundering faux pas. It had been years since he’d so forgotten himself, and in hindsight he didn’t know whether to blame the late hour, his fatigue, an evening of overimbibing, the cloying scent of Miss Clement’s perfume or none of the above.

  That Aurore reminded him in some inexplicable way of Lucia was a possibility. Whether he cared to explore that dangerous territory was not.

  Sex was sex was sex, he reminded himself. He’d probably been fucking too much tonight—that was all. First with Zania and now with Miss Clement.

  He’d just forgotten where he was and who he was with.

  It could have happened to anyone.

  Chapter 11

  “Don’t move. I’ll get a towel,” Darley said, easing away from Aurore and sliding off the bed.

  “Don’t worry. I have no intention of moving. Who’s Lucia?”

  He’d not taken more than two steps from the bed and for a fraction of a second he froze. “Did I say that?” he asked, his long stride uninterrupted to all but the most discerning eye.

  “Yes, you did.” So she was curious. Why shouldn’t she be? It wasn’t often she was called by some other woman’s name in the throes of an orgasm. Actually, this was a first.

  “What if I said I didn’t want to talk about it?” Taking a towel from a shelf near a small corner sink, he wet it, wiped himself off and discarded it.

  “What if I said I didn’t want any more sex tonight?”

  He turned from the sink, a fresh towel in hand, a smile on his face. “As if you could.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  His smile widened. “Oh, I’m sure.”

  She smiled back. “Let me put it another way, then. If you tell me who Lucia is, I might be much more willing to, say—be experimental.”

  He walked toward her, his gaze amused. “I expect you’ll be willing to be experimental whether I tell you or not. I can be very persuasive.”

  “Nevertheless I will be sulky if you don’t.”

  “My cock doesn’t give a damn whether you’re sulky or not.”

  “You would have your way with me even if I were disinclined?”

  “Sweetheart, look,” he said, sitting on the side of the bed and beginning to wipe his semen from her belly, “you and I both know you are very much inclined.”

  “You’re much too assured, Gazi,” she petulantly said.

  “While you’re much too beautiful; I find myself obsessed.”

  “Only because I remind you of Lucia,” she retorted, meeting his gaze with unflinching directness. “So tell me about her and then we can proceed with our pleasure.”

  He frowned. “Why be difficult?”

  “And she wasn’t, I suppose.”

  He didn’t immediately answer. Outside of physical similarities, Lucia had been as different from the lady pinning him with her gaze as night from day. Wiping Aurore’s belly dry, he tossed the towel across the room into the basket beside the sink before looking at Aurore again. He wanted to say, You ask too many questions, but understanding such a reply would be counterproductive, he blandly said instead, “There’s not much to tell.”

  “I won’t be jealous if that’s what you’re thinking. You and I are quite unattached.”

  “Not completely unattached,” Darley replied drily.

  “You know what I mean.” Her voice, too, was sardonic.

  “I know very well what you mean since I have remained determinedly unattached all these many years.”

  “How many years?”

  He shrugged. “Lots.”

  “Good God, Gazi, you’re sec
retive.”

  “I don’t know you.” A mildly put but nevertheless blunt reply.

  “Tell me anyway.” Her smile, in contrast, was sunshine bright.

  Perhaps he was being unduly evasive, perhaps nothing in his past mattered when he might be dead in a few hours. Or more to the point, when he was unlikely to ever see Miss Clement again. “It’s been almost eighteen years,” he submitted, deductive reasoning having come to the fore.

  “That’s why you’re so good,” Aurore murmured. “You needn’t look at me like that. I mean it sincerely. You are quite the best I have ever had.”

  He tried to suppress a smile and didn’t quite succeed. “I might say the same of you.”

  “Pshaw. If you expect me to believe that, you must have been sleeping with the wrong women all those eighteen years.”

  “Maybe I was.” He found the thought less depressing than it might have been had not Miss Clement been smiling at him so appealingly.

  “The sooner you tell me of this paragon of womanhood,” Aurore prompted, Gazi’s reluctance intriguing, “the sooner we can return to our sexual pleasures.”

  He hesitated still, having suppressed his feelings about Lucia for so long. On the other hand, this fleeting encounter was by definition ephemeral as a bubble in the wind.

  Dilemma solved.

  “I was in love with Lucia a very long time ago,” he said, his voice expressionless, the bare facts no longer able to elicit the sharp pain they once had. “She died unexpectedly. Until tonight I had never been reminded of her so forcefully; I apologize for speaking her name aloud.”

  “Did she live in Parma?” Somehow Aurore knew that she had before he answered.

  “Yes,” he said in the same tempered way.

  “How did she die?”

  “Cholera,” he lied. “There was an epidemic that summer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you, but it was years ago and memories fade.” Another lie, but in amorous situations like this, prevarication was taken for granted. Words of love were never actually about love, while saccharine compliments were only a means to an end. Not that Miss Clement appeared to be a novice at the game. “Now then,” he said, his smile lightly teasing, “are you over your pet?”

  “Was I pettish?” She had been, of course, but to confess as much caused her a degree of unease inappropriate to their unattached relationship.

  “So it seemed.”

  “I apologize.”

  His gaze flicked to her enticing nudity, her white petticoats and green cashmere skirt framing her bare legs, smooth belly and golden-haired mons. “I accept your apology, and if you’re in the mood for more, perhaps—”

  “I am so very much in the mood,” Aurore interposed, a beguiling pink flush warming her cheeks, “I feel as though I have drunk some powerful aphrodisiac. When you leave in the morning, you must tell me if you have plans to return.”

  “I rather think I do,” he murmured, when until that second he had not. “The war allowing, of course,” he added, running his fingertip lightly over her silky mons.

  She lifted her hips into his touch.

  Taking his cue, he slid two fingers inside her honeyed cunt and stroked the hot, slippery tissue.

  Sucking in her breath as a shockingly violent, flame-hot desire hurtled through her senses, she clenched her vaginal muscles around his deft, gratifying fingers and basked in the stupefying pleasure. When at last she found the breath to speak, when, in fact, Darley had paused in his masterful massage, she looked up at him and whispered, “Where…have you—been…all my life?”

  “Waiting for you,” Darley answered without hesitation. He might even have meant it. Not that his current rapacious mood inclined him to analyze or examine nuances of meaning. “Although, I’m done waiting now,” he brusquely added, withdrawing his fingers and pulling her up by the arms. “Let’s get these clothes off. You’re not the only one who wants to feel the full skin-to-skin impact of this lustful wave.”

  Wanting what he wanted, perhaps wanting it even more since she’d not spent the early evening in bed with anyone, Aurore quickly obliged, twisting around so he could finish unhooking the back of her gown. As he lifted the soft garment over her head a few moments later, she swiveled back, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with giddy delight. “I am so very, very glad you chanced to come my way today,” she whispered. “You have dispelled all my demons tonight and brought in their stead halcyon delight.”

  If he had been poetically inclined he would have said she’d brought back the sun in what had been a sunless world for much too long. But he wasn’t the poetical kind, nor would he so forget himself that he’d actually say as much, no matter how appealing the lady. But he smiled and kissed her in return and obliquely acknowledged his feelings by saying, “You delight me as well, my little Miss Sunshine.”

  Her blue eyes were very close and affectionate. “Serendipity is in play, Gazi. There is no doubt.”

  He grinned. “Indeed—if not for that pothole in the road…”

  “I would not be sitting here insatiable and filled with longing.”

  “You should be filled with more than longing,” he roguishly murmured, reaching for the ties on her petticoat.

  “Posthaste if you please.”

  “Imperious little puss.”

  “I gather you don’t mind though,” she purred.

  “Not at the moment,” he said with a smile. “Although I do mind these many impediments to seduction,” he murmured, untangling a knot on one of her numerous petticoats. Fashion called for a multitude of petticoats under the voluminous skirts. “Did you actually dress yourself in all these layers?”

  “I had to. My maid wouldn’t think of leaving the house with this war raging.”

  “Your brother is fortunate you’re willing to brave the roads in these dangerous times. There, finally.” Untying the last ribbon, he slid the froth of petticoats down her hips and tossed them aside. Lifting her into a seated position again, he began to unbutton her chemise. “Although, I am fortunate as well,” he said with a flashing smile.

  “We both are,” she softly replied.

  “Love amid the ruins,” he whispered, dropping a light kiss on her nose. “Or as Virgil said—love overcomes all obstacles…even on occasion”—his brows rose—“grim reality.”

  “And we are living proof. Although,” Aurore added, with a measured gaze, “I wouldn’t expect such poetry from a Tatar. They are generally not so romantic.”

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Not personally, but through association.”

  “For your information, many of my friends are romantic. They love like any other man.”

  “And yet, you seem different somehow…”

  His defenses immediately went up. “I spent time in Europe,” he pointed out, hoping to allay her suspicions. “Education is a requirement if we wish to survive the modern age.”

  “Ah, yes, Parma.”

  “And Italian poetry, if you please. Now, raise your arms.”

  “Did Lucia like poetry?”

  “Do you?” He had no intention of discussing Lucia again. “Hafiz isn’t precisely Tatar, but close enough. What do you think of him?” Stripping away her chemise, he dropped it on the bed and turned his focus on more pertinent issues like sex. Whether Aurore was suspicious of his Tatar background, curious about Lucia, even actually interested in poetry, was irrelevant at the moment.

  Only sex and more sex was relevant.

  Until morning.

  At which point, he’d get on with his life.

  “I do like Hafiz, in—”

  His kiss effectively curtailed Aurore’s utterance, and very soon she was as focused as he. He saw that she came twice more in quick succession before he allowed himself to climax. After quickly wiping them off with the sheet, he rolled onto his back, pulled her up on his chest and said, slightly breathless, “Give me a minute.”

  “Take—two,” she panted. “I have—
to catch…my breath.”

  He liked that she was ready for more; it matched his own plans. Not that he hadn’t recognized a woman of urgent passions in their recent carnal romp. She was not what you’d call the passive type; she liked to fuck.

  “You feel—delicious,” she whispered, shifting slightly as she lay atop him, the slick skin-to-skin contact inexplicably gratifying as if their heated bodies were uniquely attuned, in perfect pitch, sexually at least. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she rested her head on his shoulder. “Don’t go away…”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured, responding to the hint of winsomeness in her voice. “I promise.” In fact, just as soon as his breathing was restored, he was going to fuck her again. Not that it wasn’t strangely satisfying as well, just holding her in his arms. A rare occurrence for him—that earnestness in regard to the finer feelings. Perhaps the lovely Miss Clement’s misfortunes were to blame.

  Whatever the reason, touch him she did—a considerable accomplishment when he’d thought his emotions numbed by both his past and the continuous tragedies of this war. At the moment, she was blanketing him in an outrageously snug content—her breath warm on his throat, her golden curls soft against his jaw, her breast cushioned against his arm giving rise to a bedeviling sense of delight.

  For a man who had lived—by choice—aloof from feeling for a very long time, that she so profoundly moved him required a new intellectual construct—or barring that—more realistically…evasion.

  Considering his history, his choice was inevitable.

  He reverted to form, tender sentiments jettisoned.

  With libertine ambitions comfortably restored, he gently caressed the naked woman in his arms, rousing her from her drowsy repose by slow degrees, kissing her softly, whispering in her ear—telling her what he was going to do to her. How he would give her pleasure.

  Darley was very persuasive or perhaps Aurore was easily persuaded, her body rapidly warming to his touch, her senses quickening at his erotic words, the hot glow of arousal beginning to pulse deep inside her. Raising herself on her elbows after a time, she met his gaze—more gray than green in the shadowed light—and said with a seductress’s smile, “You have a real talent with words, my dear Gazi. I am wide awake.”