“I don’t care about that—about what people say.” Not that she ever had, but certainly now with people dying all around her, and displaced as she was from her former life, social custom was paltry stuff.
“You don’t know how grateful I am for your—hospitality,” he gently said.
Did personal pleasure take on greater significance in times of crisis? She was rather of the mind that it did. “Perhaps you might show me your gratitude in bed tonight,” she said softly, her smile a siren’s smile old as time.
His smile, in contrast, was lush with promise. “I would be honored.”
“Lucky me,” she purred.
“Au contraire, darling. I am the lucky one. In the meantime, please be my guest,” he said, motioning to the bed. “We’ll finish our tea while we wait for further sustenance.”
They both took off their boots and, sitting on the bed, finished the tea—or in Darley’s case his brandy—talking of nothing as Darley so easily did.
In short order, two cabin boys carried in trays of food.
“Put them here,” Darley said, pointing to the foot of the bed, and after exchanging a few comments about mutual acquaintances, the boys left, each richer by a gold sovereign. An enormous sum.
“You are extremely generous,” Aurore said.
“I have advantages few people do,” he said, handing her a napkin and flatware. “Why shouldn’t I share my fortune?”
Her brows lifted slightly. “You are not the norm for your class.”
He smiled. “A position I have never aspired to.” He surveyed his cook’s offerings. “Hmm…wild asparagus. We are fortunate. Here,” he added, offering her a plate. “See what you think of Apostolo’s omelet.”
It was delicious. Like the tea dainties had been. That Gazi had only the very best staff was not unexpected.
They ate omelets first, then shrimp in white wine sauce with scallions, mustard, chili pepper, parsley, lemon juice and some excellent feta cheese. Rice with chickpeas and currants was delicious as well, and a small walnut cake with honey glaze finished the meal.
Darley ate all of his and whatever Aurore didn’t want, washing it down with a local wine. “What do you think of the wine?” he asked, as he poured them both another glass. “Rather good if I do say so myself.”
“Yes, it’s quite nice.”
He looked at her. “Now that was a qualified response.”
“I make wines. I’m fussier than most, but it’s very pleasant, really. I don’t mean to impugn your wine.”
“It’s not mine, so impugn away.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I even said that when you have been so gracious in every way—helping Etienne and me in any number of ways. And now this great comfort you offer here.” She lifted her hand in an encompassing gesture that indicated their small abode. “I am completely beholden.”
“How beholden?” he murmured, both his smile and roguish comment teasing by design. Her voice had held a note of melancholy. He understood; she was leaving her entire life behind.
“You are predictable at least, my darling Gazi,” she murmured, faintly sardonic.
“Forgive me. It was a crude attempt to divert you. Sleep if you wish. When you wake we’ll be that much nearer Paris.”
“Divert me instead.”
A plain spoken request, impossible to misconstrue. “It would be my pleasure,” he said with infinite gallantry. “Let me have these trays taken away.” After rising from the bed, he walked the few steps to the door, opened it and bellowed. “Sorry,” he said, turning back to Aurore with a rueful smile. “But the din on the vessel drowns out a normal tone of voice.”
He apologized to his cabin boys as well when they came running. “Not a problem, sar,” the oldest one said with a wink. “You have yerself a right nice night.”
“Eff’en you be need’n anything, sar,” the younger boy said, “I could sit outside here and wait.”
The boy received a scowl from his companion for his comment.
Darley only said, “Thank you, Bobby, but that won’t be necessary.”
Shutting the door, Darley turned and stood entranced by the sight of the lush, nude beauty in his bed. “Now what if we’d forgotten something,” he said with a smile, “and one of those boys would have had to come in?”
“I trust you would stop them,” Aurore said with an answering smile, arching her back slightly so her plump breasts rose temptingly, slowly spreading her legs in an even more enticing invitation.
“Damn right I would.” He was stripping off his shirt as he spoke. “You are for my eyes only,” he said in a low growl.
“I just love when you’re autocratic.”
No, you don’t. But apparently she did tonight—for the aforementioned diversion he surmised. “You must do as you’re told, Miss Clement, or I’ll put you to work in the kitchen. Do you understand?” He unbuttoned his breeches.
“Yes.” A delicious lustful jolt raced through her vagina. “Although, I confess, I don’t know how to cook.”
“You can scrub the pots and stoke the fire. Apostolo wouldn’t let you cook anyway. But if you please me, I’ll keep you in my bed instead. You must please me though. Is that clear?”
She nodded.
“Say, yes, sir. You must address me as sir.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with feeling, for Darley suddenly stood naked before her, his breeches at his feet, his erection at the ready.
He lifted his chin the merest distance. “Come here.” He stood at the foot of the bed, two steps from the door, or from any other area in the minuscule space.
Coming to her knees, she moved down the bed, stopping before him, trembling slightly as the pulsing between her legs heated her senses, her brain, her seemingly insatiable appetite for Gazi.
“You must pleasure me first and if I find you satisfactory, we will consider your pleasure next.”
She took a small breath in an effort to tamp down her lustful cravings and offered him a look of inexpressible innocence. “What would you like, sir?”
“If I have to tell you, you’re of no use to me. Perhaps you’d prefer scrubbing pots.”
“No—no, sir. I’ll think of something.”
“One would hope so,” he muttered. “I doubt a seductive little piece like you is undefiled.”
“I have known a man, sir.”
His gaze narrowed. “Indeed. A man?” Even playacting, the thought offended him.
Her lashes drifted lower for a moment before she met his gaze once again. “Perhaps more than one, sir.”
He bridled at her words while perversely his cock surged higher in lecherous response. “If I wanted conversation,” he grunted, “I’d call in my chaplain.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was just answering your question.” She was liquid with longing, shivering faintly, that which would give her surcease within reach and splendidly roused. Dare she ask for it?
“I’m losing patience, Miss Clement.”
She hesitated the merest fraction of a moment, not sure who was most impatient, the throbbing deep in her core echoing in her ears. But uncertain of Darley’s response in his current peremptory mood, she obliged him. Reaching out, she ran her fingertips up his towering erection and, grasping it with both hands, bent her head and slid the tumescent crest into her mouth. Then drew it in deeper and deeper still.
His eyes went shut as his cock slid into her mouth and he gave himself up to carnal sensations—her caressing tongue, soft skimming lips, the grazing friction of her teeth. The gratifying feel of his cock gliding in and out of her mouth. Shoving his fingers through her golden hair, he held her lightly captive as she serviced him, as her head moved slowly up and down in lascivious submission.
But before long, no matter how inspiring her performance, Darley found himself distracted by the sight of Aurore’s ripe bottom swiveling and dipping in a highly erotic oscillation. As the sway of her derriere quickened, he debated degrees of tactile friction apropos mouths and cunts as tho
ugh it was a technical exercise of equivalents. When obviously it wasn’t, he decided after only a few moments of contemplation. Passion and partiality got in the way. At which point, he eased his fingers past her lips and freed his erection.
“Turn around,” he ordered, gruffly. “And hurry.”
She willingly did, positioned on her hands and knees. And two seconds later he had his hands on her hips, her bottom was raised high and he was buried deep in her incredibly slippery cunt.
“No one can say you’re not ready for sex,” he whispered, withdrawing, swinging his hips forward once again, holding himself against her womb with practiced delicacy for a tantalizing moment. While she whimpered, fevered and overwrought. Repeating the slow, smooth penetration and withdrawal in a languid, sequential flux and flow he offered her ravishment and rapture in equal measure.
Over and over and over again—practiced and deft.
Slowly in and as slowly out. Then less slow, more forceful and compelling.
She matched his rhythm with an intuitive synchronism, yielding and tractable—deliriously unrestrained, gasping and whimpering impatiently as he withdrew, always eager for more. Waiting each time with wanton abandon to be filled full of his cock again, to be stretched taut, and pleasured.
There was something about her lustful, panting neediness that grated on his nerves, jealousy perhaps, although Darley was not about to acknowledge so aberrant an emotion. But something made him want to subordinate her excessive, gushing fondness for cock to himself alone. “Tell me your hot, fevered cunt is only mine or I’ll stop.” His voice lowered to a growl. “Do you hear?”
“Yes, sir, I mean, no, sir…that is…I’m only yours, sir!” Aurore cried, delirious, quivering, weak with desire, literally hovering on the brink of orgasm; she could feel the first tremulous flutters begin rippling up her vagina.
“If you dare fuck anyone else, I’ll lock you away,” he snarled, ramming full bore into her in a hard driving downstroke, marking her as his like some demented beast.
“I won’t, I won’t, I woooonnnn’t!” Her climax abruptly washed over her with such violence that her scream filled the room in a long, protracted, delirious sound of hysteria.
Hard-pressed as Darley was to contain his own orgasm, it seemed ages until she at last went silent and limp. But gentleman that he was, he managed to wait.
Just barely.
A second after her last orgasmic sigh died away, he jerked out and came on her back. If this was an apoplexy, he thought, it was a damned satisfying way to die. Gasping for air, his chest heaving, his heart pounding against his ribs, he blissfully absorbed the incredible pleasure.
Braced on her hands, rational thought having returned to Aurore before Darley for obvious reasons, she was currently involved in a losing debate with herself. How could she possibly live without the sumptuous sexual pleasure Gazi dispensed so freely? And yet, surely she must—for this wild rapture would soon be not only beyond her reach but irrevocably lost. “Are you awake?” she asked, because putting some distance between herself and Gazi’s talented cock was seriously required.
“Yes. Sorry.” Darley blew out a breath. “Let me find something to wipe you off.” Reaching for his shirt, he performed the requisite service with a kind of professional competence, then wiped himself and tossed his shirt under the bed. “I’ll have to find us some towels,” he said, easing her onto her back and dropping down beside her. “By the way, that was very, very, very good,” he drawled. “Matchless in fact.”
“Mine was in the superlative range as well. For which I thank you.” She was pleased she was capable of similar urbanity.
Drawing her into his arms, he lightly kissed the golden curls atop her head. “You make me feel that there is genuine goodness in the world.”
“While you, darling Gazi,” she whispered as she rested in his arms, “are the absolute master of diversion.”
“Your master, if you please,” he teased. “And don’t forget it.”
“And why would I want to when you offer such enchantment,” she answered in the same playful vein. “I am yours…”
For a startling moment he found the idea attractive. That she would be his and conversely, he, hers. But he had lived alone too long to succumb to such conceits; he quickly dismissed the notion.
She realized in the small ensuing silence that she had over-stepped her bounds. “I meant it in play only,” she said, arching up to drop a light kiss on his cheek.
“I know,” he said, his smile full of charm. “You are a most lovely playmate, darling. I mean it.”
“Tell me about these,” she said, tracing one of the scars running down his torso, wishing to change the subject. “Where and when and how did you acquire these marks of combat?” She touched another deeper laceration under his arm.
Perhaps because he too preferred speaking of things less fraught with emotion, he answered her question when normally he was reticent about his dueling. “That one,” he said, in reference to the scar she was exploring under his arm, “was over a senseless, drunken argument. I was young and stupid, quick to take offense. Someone alluded to my parentage in a disparaging way—you know how that goes. I damn near died, we both damn near died,” he added with a grimace. “I was laid up for nearly three months. Merjani, who has since become my good friend, almost lost his arm. He didn’t fortunately, and we are both older and wiser now. As for the others, the stories are about the same. I was operating on a hair trigger years ago.” Because he didn’t care if he lived or died. “The mountain warriors are obsessed with honor. It wasn’t a good combination.”
“You have given up dueling?” Hopefully, he had, she thought, his body marked with scarring. Lifting up on her elbows, she half lay across his chest and smiled at him. “If you haven’t, you should.”
“I have. No more foolishness.” For a second, he thought he was looking at Lucia, Aurore’s face in the twilight triggering a brief déjà vu memory. But the moment passed and he understood that while similarities might exist, the differences were vast. “Are you tired?” he asked, perhaps wishing to focus on other things, or perhaps responding to her heavy-lidded gaze.
Aurore smiled. “Not too tired. Why?”
“Just wondering.” At which point, apparently, his penis was wondering the same thing, for it began to rapidly rise to the occasion.
Her smile widened as the twitching crest of his erection brushed her rib cage. “I can tell.”
“So?”
“Need you ask?”
He was both pleased and displeased with her answer, but he chose to say in roguish sport, “What was I thinking?”
“I have no idea.”
“Since I have several, it’s not a problem.” Rolling over her, he settled between her legs and said, soft and low, “How about something conventional while we’re resting? Then later on, I’ll work you a little harder.”
“Promises, promises. I see why all the ladies adore you.”
“Hush,” he said, not sure he liked her coquettish tone. And then he kissed her and wooed and seduced her until she was no longer able to flirt and play, until she was capable of feeling only what he was feeling.
That night for the first time in a decade or more he recognized a pleasure of another kind. Attachment perhaps, or an ardor beyond the norms of passion, the kind of feeling that warmed his heart. He even contemplated tomorrow and future tomorrows instead of concentrating on the heated moment.
Or he did for a time.
Until cooler reason prevailed.
Chapter 20
When he first heard the muted sobs, he thought he was sleeping. He’d had a reoccurring dream since the first bloody battle at the Alma opened this spurious war—the screams, cries, moans and lamentations of wounded men; the deafening gunfire; the flocks of crows rising into the gray sky.
It never went away.
Like now. No…not like now.
Darley suddenly came awake. They were lying front to back, his arm around her, the sma
ll stirring of Aurore’s body echoing her plaintive weeping.
“Darling, darling,” he whispered, gently turning her so she faced him, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks with his fingertips. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, chivalrous and gallant, “and I’ll fix it.”
“You can’t.” Dewy eyed, sniffling, inconsolable.
For one of the few times in his life as he gazed at a tearful woman, he was inspired to seriously question how he might help. “Tell me what you need, darling. I’ll make everything right, you’ll see.”
“I don’t know what I need.” The merest wisp of sound, doleful and desolate to the core. Sick at heart, Aurore had been trying to come to terms with the grim reality of losing her home, telling herself it wouldn’t be for long—attempting to further bolster her spirits by reminding herself that unlike so many soldiers onboard, her limbs were all intact and she was in good health. But in the dark hours before dawn, her emotional defenses had reached a low point and she was no longer capable of believing the optimistic lies. That she and Etienne would return one day to the home of their birth and re-establish their lives.
That the passion she shared with Gazi would be easily forgotten—relegated to nothing more than fond memory.
“Your brother is safe if that’s what you’re worrying about,” Darley whispered, wiping away fresh tears.
She shook her head and wept some more.
“Are you missing home?” He could empathize; he had had his moments over the years.
She nodded this time, her bottom lip trembling, her sobs intensifying.
“Would you like some brandy?” His first choice for temporary oblivion.
She shook her head again, a fresh torrent of tears pouring down her cheeks.
Now what? He was at a loss. He didn’t suppose she was interested in sex, although he’d always found lust an effective opiate against cheerless memory. He doubted she would find it so, he decided, surveying her tearful face.
He groped for some remedy.
It suddenly came to him—prompted by recall of a mother’s touch perhaps or by other cues he chose not to recognize. Sliding up into a sitting position, he lifted Aurore onto his lap and leaning back gingerly against the flimsy headboard, he drew her close. “There, there,” he whispered, softly consoling. “Things will be better soon.” Offering various nebulous phrases of comfort that he could recall, he gently rocked her in his arms.
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