Seductive as Flame

by Susan Johnson

  He stood very still for a moment. Then he said, “Care to go for some records in feeling good?” His smile was offensive.

  “How tempting. Under other circumstances I might be inclined to agree.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, I like men who actually smile when they offer me sex.”

  It was the worst possible thing to say when he was choking on jealousy. “Men?” he said in a dangerous voice.

  “Is that a problem?”

  He didn’t answer for so long she opened her mouth to speak again. “It might be,” he said, arresting her comment.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said in a tone that wasn’t in the least sorry.

  “A pity, I agree.” A tight smile, followed by a tick over his cheekbone, followed by a small breath of restraint. “If I can’t offer you sex, perhaps you’d like to bring yourself to orgasm. You said you liked to masturbate.” His cool blue eyes were expressionless. “And I like to watch.”

  “No, thank you.” Her response was neither cool, nor expressionless. She was less skilled in artifice.

  “Perhaps I can change your mind. Actually, I know I can.”

  “Really, Alec, you’re much too familiar with willing women bent on pleasing you. We aren’t all submissive. In fact, I don’t—” Her sentence ended in a long throaty moan. Alec had elevated her wrists slightly, exerting a deft pressure on her clitoris, maintaining the contact—with professional finesse—just short of discomfort or climax.

  He knew the exact equation.

  “Submission can have its rewards,” he whispered, a faint smile on his lips with her breathy moans resonating in the air. “Come, darling, you can do it yourself. I’ll show you.” He slowly raised and lowered her wrists in a smooth, gentle rhythm, his gaze on her face, triumph in his eyes. “See . . . like that—not too fast.” He watched her take a deep breath, then he gently stroked the slippery knot just enough to make her tremble. “Now try it yourself. There—that’s the way.”

  She was sick with humiliation as she obeyed; sick with longing, too, and insulted and disgusted and awed by the inexpressible magic. Desire, hot and insistent, flared deep within her, a kind of desperation melted through her body and brain, all her senses overwhelmed by an impossible craving. No other man had ever made her feel this way: insatiable, consumed with longing, mindlessly compliant. But then no other man rivaled the earl’s stark beauty, sexual ingenuity, and matchless capacity for pleasure.

  A shame he was utterly faithless.

  “I’m going to watch you now. Don’t stop,” he said, exacting his own form of punishment for the jealousy he couldn’t escape.

  It was an order no matter how softly put. She should stop. She should refuse. She should open her eyes, tell him she wasn’t like all the others, that he was the least redeemable man on the face of the earth and she was done. But he bent down just then and gently kissed her and stroked the knot over her clitoris, and she wasn’t offended anymore, she was shaking. Then he set her hands into the appropriate rhythm again, whispered, “Show me what you can do,” and she did.

  Pulling up a chair, he dropped into it, slid into a sprawl, and eyes half shut, contemplated the obscenely sensual lady in his bed pleasuring herself. Her nipples were erect, her large breasts soft, pinked, made to suckle babies, her voluptuous form made to bear babies, and he half swore under his breath at the infinite and dangerous possibilities. He shut his eyes briefly, waited for the hair at the nape of his neck to subside, and setting aside his indefensible train of thought, resumed his survey with a more familiar dispassion.

  An abbreviated dispassion as it turned out.

  At first, he told himself that it couldn’t possibly matter that she came so swiftly and often. He liked lascivious women. But by her third orgasm, his frown was in place and his lips were set in a grim line. After her fifth orgasm, he forcibly reminded himself that Miss MacKenzie was no different than any other woman—a transient pleasure, no more.

  He tried to warn himself off. But the pulse beating at his temple negated casual and not so casual reminders, and his cock was so stiff it was seriously affecting his judgment. So much so that he surged to his feet when he hadn’t meant to and grabbed her wrists to stop her.

  In the afterglow of a particularly satisfying orgasm, Zelda lifted her gaze and sweetly smiled. “My, my, do I detect some ill humor? Was it something I did?”

  A mutual resentment vibrated in the air.

  Two intractable individuals crossing swords.

  Dalgliesh studied her for a moment where she was lying splendidly female, ripe and yielding, her skin flushed from passion, her eyes still half lidded from orgasmic surfeit, and realized he was about to succumb to savage impulse for the first time in his life. “It wasn’t anything you did,” he said, in a deliberately calm voice. “It was rather something I didn’t do. But that can be remedied.” Leaning over, he picked her up with a powerful sweep of his arms and dropped her face down on the bed.

  She was momentarily speechless. Then she glared at him. “Must you be such a brute!” The words were scathing.

  “As if you’re some goddamned tender maid,” he said with irritation. “Instead of—” He stopped himself. It didn’t matter.

  “A libertine like you?” she insolently returned, beginning to scramble up on her knees.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.” He checked her upward movement, his palm hard on the small of her back. “I shouldn’t try to rise any higher,” he said, holding her in place. “Although it’s up to you.”

  “I appreciate your advice, but I’ll do as I—” She gasped and dropped back on her forearms, the shock to her clitoris stunning.

  “Very sensible.” He sounded impatient. “Now lift your bottom. It’s my turn.”

  “No.” A venomous hiss.

  “You must.”

  “I won’t!”

  “Of course you will,” he said.

  “I will not!”

  “Would you prefer my help?”

  He spoke in a low, brutal tone that should have frightened her but instead aroused her, as if some barbarian had come to claim her as his conquest of war.

  “Must you humiliate me?” Although the shimmering heat stirring between her legs contradicted her snappish query.

  “You find fucking humiliating?” A sardonic smile of disbelief. “Since when?”

  “Since I feel a certain repugnance at the moment. To you.”

  “You’re not allowed.”

  “You won’t allow it?” Soft as silk mockery from a willful woman.

  “Yes—me.” He made a dismissive gesture, as though to forestall his inconvenient obsession with who she’d fucked. “Consider, darling. You’re in my home, in my bedroom, tied up, in case you haven’t notice. You’re hardly in a position to oppose me.” His brows lifted slightly. “Have I made my point?”

  “Very well,” she retorted with a huffy little sniff. “You have the whip hand. Do what you must, you fiend.”

  He laughed so long if she hadn’t been angry before she would have been now. “Such lovely theater,” he finally said, still chuckling. “Whip hand? Nice touch from a woman who likes to climax a dozen times in a row. Or are you really interested in whips?” Suddenly reminded that other men might have wielded whips with her, his amusement abruptly vanished. “Now then,” he said in a different tone, “this shouldn’t take long. Feel free to participate, or compose a list of my lamentable sins while I’m fucking you, if you prefer,” he added, climbing up on the bed. “But I wouldn’t suggest you resist. It could be uncomfortable.”

  Nor would she resist, she decided. No more than she’d move. She wouldn’t respond in any fashion whatsoever. He could play the damned lord and master to his heart’s content.

  Bent only on swift consummation at the moment, Alec took no notice of her inertia other than to acknowledge it as sensible. Quickly positioning himself behind her, he raised her to her knees, smoothly adjusted her bottom so her moist, swollen cleft was conv
eniently in position, slid aside the silk cord with a twitch of his fingers, and after guiding his erection into place, plunged forward without preliminaries.

  Not that a liquid cunt like hers required priming.

  Bottoming out in her slick flesh a second later, he gave voice to a low, raspy groan, the radical pleasure spiking up his spine and exploding in his brain a true wonder of wonders. God in heaven, she was amazing: hot, wet, smooth as silk, a perfect fit like a well-tailored glove. That perfect fit divinely tight and pulsing around his cock.

  He felt his erection swell in appreciation of Miss MacKenzie’s superlative cunt and her readiness to accommodate him. As a connoisseur of both qualities in a woman, he was capable of recognizing her exceptional fuckability. And had he been less disapproving of the other men she’d entertained, he might have been more grateful.

  He might have noticed as well that the lady was trembling, inside and out.

  As it was, sulky and discontent, he was only interested in a precedence-setting retaliatory fuck. For all the worst reasons. For alarming reasons, had he been in the mood for reflection. But reflection wasn’t on his agenda at the moment. That the resplendent, oversexed Miss MacKenzie was at his mercy was resolutely front and center in his brain.

  “Can you feel me?” A rude, meaningless query with his cock stretching her tissue taut and her breathing labored. When she didn’t answer, he rammed in deeper, forcing a response. “Tell me.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes . . .”

  Her voice was breathy with passion, damn her. “Do you want more? If you don’t, I’ll stop.” He waited for her reply, knew what it would be, was enraged because he knew what it would be.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

  But he heard, had predicted her reply. “Don’t say you didn’t ask for this,” he growled like an angry, newly virtuous clairvoyant and, holding her tightly pinioned, pushed deeper.

  Her scream was one of pure ecstasy.

  With his normal self-restraint already pricked and goaded, her sensual cry was like a trip-hammer to his seething impulses. Suddenly beyond caution and thought, he plowed into her silken heat with uncompromising fury, thrusting and withdrawing, roughly, violently, marking her as his in the most unjustified manner, like a savage, an animal, his lower body plunging in over and over again in primitive, renegade aggression.

  When he felt her moving to meet him, matching his pace, heard her feverish breathing, he thought of all the other men who’d done what he was doing to her and clenched his teeth to keep from calling her all the rude, indecent names that came to mind. Names he never before would have considered calling a woman. Base, obscene names provoked by raving jealousy.

  How many had there been? What had they done to her and her to them? Did it matter or didn’t it? Of course it did.

  Then a delirious jolt of sensation put period to further reflection. The edge of the knot jammed against Zelda’s clit was raking the length of his cock with each powerful thrust and withdrawal. He felt it vividly coming and going, more so a second ago. He knew she felt it coming and going, too.

  His reaction was instinctive perhaps with the question of Zelda’s intemperate libido perversely affecting him. Or perhaps it was nothing more than the fact that he’d recently spent some time with his little duchess who was still very beautiful. Were the ladies the same or different when he put his fingers . . . just so?

  Zelda jerked under his hand, screamed, and instantly climaxed.

  Fuck. As if he hadn’t known.

  She came on command.

  Which was a problem when it shouldn’t be, when it never had been before, when a woman’s promiscuity had always been an asset. But rather than face the reasons for his incoherent anger and recently acquired righteousness, he chose to ride roughshod over all the baffling enigmas. Forcing her thighs farther apart with the pressure of his body, he rammed in farther, penetrated deeper, made it clear who was helpless and who was not. Who was directing the carouse, the sport, this particular roll in the hay.

  Damn her—she was feverishly panting, catching her breath at each brutal downstroke, meeting his rhythm like some obliging, harem-trained cunt.

  Zelda was trying not to think about how shamelessly she wanted him, how she was utterly without pride. How he had but to touch her and her body responded like an enslaved addict waiting for her next allotment of pleasure.

  She could feel the heat of his breath on the back of her neck, hear his muffled grunts at the depth of each powerful thrust, feel him move and swell inside her, and felt helpless, overwhelmed, and damn him, desperately aroused.

  Equally resentful of his bondage to the passion that Zelda so freely offered, Dalgliesh chose to obviate the emotional chaos in his brain in a predictable fashion. Substitute sex for feeling, quickly climax, and put an end to senseless introspection.

  Fornication was the path to Nirvana after all.

  And he knew every signpost on the road.

  Sliding his hand over Zelda’s left hip and stomach, he neatly disposed his fingertips over a particularly sensitive area. His right hand was installed with his fingers lightly touching the decorative knot. This he knew well, this artful arrangement of his hands. He now controlled the lady, her passions, her randy cunt and randier clit. Marginally adjusting the pads of his fingers, he exerted a modicum of pressure in preparation for his long-delayed orgasm. Then, moving with dispatch, impatient now with any further delay, he settled into a wild, selfish drive to orgasm like some customer doing business in a whorehouse. He no more heard Zelda’s screams—as she climaxed over and over again with his fingers deftly placed for a simultaneous vaginal and clitoral orgasm—than he heard his voice of reason reminding him not to ejaculate in her.

  So he did.

  Ejaculate in her.

  Rather quickly and profusely as it turned out.

  Like a customer in a whorehouse.

  Then, postcoital, his reason was instantly restored and he was scandalized by his actions, contrite, remorseful, and God help him, in too deep. Quickly untying Zelda, he lifted her into his lap and held her while she trembled like a leaf. He apologized in all the ways he’d learned in his dealings with women and in more sincere, abject ways particular to Zelda. He was a brute, a beast, an inhuman knave. He’d make it up to her. He’d do anything. She had but to tell him. He actually meant it when he never had before. He actually cared for her more than he wished as well—more than he comfortably could afford.

  When Zelda finally stopped shaking and found her breath, she touched his cheek. “Stop apologizing. You didn’t hurt me. On the contrary, as you could tell from my screams,” she said, smiling. “I must have wakened the house.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” he politely replied, knowing Miss MacKenzie would be the topic of conversation below stairs for some time. Not that it mattered; his servants were discreet.

  “I should apologize, too,” she surprised him by saying. “I’m sorry I’m so beastly jealous about all the women you’ve known. I wish I could help it, but I can’t. Forgive me for being so foolish.”

  “We’ll be foolish together,” he kindly said.

  “Oh good. I don’t want to fight. I adore you too much.” She gazed up at him with a luscious courtesan’s smile. “And naturally, your glorious cock as well.”

  He laughed. “Little wanton.”

  “I’m not little.”

  “You are to me.”

  It wasn’t often she heard that. Or ever. “How very nice. Then I may continue to adore you and your, er—lovely assets?” she purred.

  “Christ, who would say no to that? Don’t tell me,” he quickly said. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Since I rather immodestly declared my love for you a day after we met, you may rest easy. I’m not in the habit of adoring penises at random.”

  Her plain speaking always charmed him. No subterfuge with Miss MacKenzie. You knew where you stood. “I consider myself very lucky then. And you’re adorab
le as well.” He wouldn’t be making any declarations of love even though she’d given him some of the most remarkable moments of his life. “Every delectable part of you is adorable,” he pleasantly said.

  “Some parts more than others?” she teased, having no expectations other than sex from Dalgliesh.

  He grinned. “It depends.”

  “On?”

  “Whether my heart is still beating,” he drolly replied.

  “I know what you mean. We could just stay here until we expire from passion.”

  “It’s definitely a thought.”

  “Lord, Alec, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m completely mad and infatuated, mindlessly obsessed. I can’t get enough of you.” Stretching up, she kissed the line of his jaw.

  “Ready again, are we?” He knew that look.

  “We don’t have to if you’re tired.”

  “In your company, darling, my cock will be the last thing to give up the ghost.” He glanced down. “As you can see.”

  “How wonderful, how very, very wonderful,” she murmured, swinging around on his lap and coming up on her knees. Drawing his erection away from his belly, she arranged herself with his help, then sank downward with a contented sigh. “I do thank you from the bottom of my heart and from other more susceptible regions as well,” she murmured, wiggling slightly to better experience her gratitude. “I feel as though I have to gather my rosebuds while I may with you. I hope you don’t mind I’m sticky.”

  “Not in the least,” he said with an amiable smile. “And gather away to your heart’s content.” He offered up a prayer to all the gods in heaven and elsewhere who’d brought the delicious Miss MacKenzie to his attention. Then, he embarked on his countless journey to orgasm that night. His lovely houseguest was, as always, wild and untamed, offering herself completely, opening her body to him to ravish and possess. Until very late, finally exhausted from fatigue and sensory overload, she whispered, “No more.”

  Holding her close, he watched her doze off quickly, like a child does who’s played too hard. She was flushed from her exertions, her skin hot against his, her damp hair cool on his shoulder, her breath soft on his chest.