Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  "There now," he said, lifting his weight completely free, moving back on his heels to survey her lying trussed where he had so recently lain. His smile was pleasant when he added, "I wouldn't move too much. Those slip knots tighten under pressure."

  "Untie me, damn… you!" Daisy vehemently protested. But her voice caught at the last as the rope cut sharply into her waist.

  "Relax, darling," Etienne softly suggested, slipping his finger under the knot to ease the restraining loop. "I wouldn't want to leave marks."

  "The voice of authority speaking?" Daisy's icy voice matched the chill in her eyes.

  "Only in terms of breaking polo ponies, darling, despite your insinuations." His smile was angelic. "I'm careful with their skin too. Although," he added, reaching out to touch her, "yours is—" He caught her raking fingers just short of his face, her second hand intercepted with equal ease, his voice unruffled as he finished, "more precious."

  With deft speed and a cheerfully facile apology, her wrists were tied together with one of the ropes the Duc had torn from the bed. Loosely attaching them to the silk cords binding her waist, he quietly said, his voice like velvet, "Now then, why don't we familiarize you more intimately with the Sultan's toys. For educational purposes only," he added in a whisper, taking a dildo of exquisite aquamarine glass imbedded with spun-gold threads from a leather case lined in blue velvet. "Or what was it you said? For… practice?"

  "I'm sorry I didn't untie you when you asked."

  He grinned. "Is that the attorney negotiating? Look at the color next to your skin," he went on, placing the sleek glittering glass on her stomach, ignoring her overture, smarting though he wouldn't admit it, over her remark about Absarokee equivalents of the Sultan's aquamarine toy. "This one's larger too. You might enjoy it more."

  "I don't like this." Her dark brows were drawn into a scowl.

  "You will. This has the endorsement of a great number of harem beauties."

  "And your lovers too?"

  "I wonder if this would be an appropriate time to discuss those young men you've introduced to pleasure. Although personally, I've always preferred leaving the instruction of virgin females to their husbands. Tell me, do you find a young man's eagerness enough to compensate for his lack of experience?" His words were uttered with a mildness contrary to the heat of his temper when he thought of Daisy with other men.

  "Eagerness has its charms." She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing the truth.

  "How does it compare with this," he murmured, sliding the glass dildo down her stomach, over her painted labia with exquisite deliberation… so anticipation of its penetration was tantalizingly prolonged, "… in terms of charm." The smooth rounded glass invaded slightly, the pressure of the Duc's hand slight. Daisy inched backward but he followed relentlessly. The sea-green cylinder glided into her heated wet interior, sleekly, easily… deeply despite her small squirming protest.

  "I'd suggest restricting your movements to a minimum, darling. This hand-blown glass is fragile," he quietly advised.

  Daisy instantly calmed.

  "You see. Anyone can be tamed." His smile was smug as he pressed the dildo upward a fraction more, forcing her heated passage wider.

  And she felt her muscles contract with shimmering sensation, felt the slick lubricant of desire flow, oozing profusely in cool minute drops down her thighs, felt the heat of desire flare higher—inundating her body with peaking pleasure. She shouldn't be responding to the Duc's insolent invasion and domination; she should ignore somehow the rapturous feeling engendered by the Sultan's Venetian toy. But she couldn't and he knew it, damn him. Because all the women before couldn't ignore it either.

  "Damn you," she whispered.

  But she didn't say stop, he noted, easing the green glass out slightly to test her interest, wanting too to command her body's response. As if it broadened his authority over her life.

  "No…" she moaned very low in her throat, closing her legs around his hand, raising her hips to follow the sensation of pleasure eluding her.

  "No, you don't want this or no… what? Tell me," he whispered, pressing for an answer with a perverse, ungovernable resentment for all the men in her past who had garnered this same tempestuous response.

  "I want…" she hesitated, weighing her nonexistent alternatives. She could deplore the women in his past or envy them or hate them but she hadn't Etienne's restraint. "… I want… you," she softly implored.

  "For someone who likes to play teasing games…" He slid the dildo back in, the green glass coated with the pearly essence of her need.

  "I'm sorry… Lord, Etienne, I'm dying… please let me feel you…" Her dark eyes lifted to his. "I'm begging."

  He was pouring oil into a small brazier.

  Her eyes opened wider. "What are you doing?"

  Striking a match, he lit the oil. "Taking off your paint." Covering the shallow vessel, he put out the flame, then pouring a few drops into his palm, he rubbed his hands together. With glistening fingertips he massaged her nipples, smoothing the oil with sensuous pressure over their rouged tips.

  She squirmed against the bewitching enchantment, rapture. racing downward to the distended quivering flesh surrounding the Sultan's impaled toy.

  "Careful," he cautioned. "Lie still."

  And she quivered under his hands, so close to orgasm with the dildo pressed deep inside her, all she felt was fire racing through her blood.

  His hands moved downward to spread warmed oil over her rouged pouty labia, smoothing the soft tissue against the hard green glass. She shuddered as a hot inexpressible urgency built inside her. Wiping away the scarlet paint with a linen towel, he bent his head and ran his tongue over the taut flesh encircling the harem toy.

  And with a gasping incoherent cry, she climaxed.

  Lifting his head, he raised himself so his face was close to hers. "Are you satisfied?"

  Her lashes came up slowly, sensuality vivid in the darkness of her eyes. "No," she whispered, the pulsing between her legs strong, steady, urgent still.

  "No? You climaxed."

  "I want you," she whispered, her pulse pounding in her ears, wanton need still at fever pitch.

  "In here?" His fingers stroked her slick pouting lips, sliding over the stretched tender flesh, catching the pearly fluid discern able on the verdant glass.

  She nodded, a shiver of uncontrollable desire vibrating through her body as he touched his fingertip to his mouth, licking away a drop of her essence.

  He gazed at her for a moment over his raised hand, his expression shuttered. While he might deplore his need for her, he couldn't ignore the intensity of his feelings. He was as much in thrall to her as she was to the passion driving her impulses.

  The sensation was lust, pure and simple, he recognized with a sybarite's experience, but more as well for Daisy filled his mind and senses, overwhelming the ordinary rhythm of his life so completely he'd lost touch with the measured order of his existence.

  His hands moved toward her, closing over her shoulders as if she were his rightful possession, his frustration evident in the cool pressure of his fingers and palms as they drifted down her shoulders and breasts. He stopped his progress to test the weight of her full breasts for a moment against some personal vetting before continuing his journey downward, cupping her tied hands briefly before slipping his hands between her legs. For an infinitesimal moment he paused with his palms hard on her thighs, as if debating who was in fact most overcome. She saw the minute grimace, unveiled only briefly before he abruptly extracted the glass dildo, tossed it aside, and untied the knots at her wrists and waist without comment.

  The feel of his hands subtly altered, a new tenderness replacing the previous repressed violence. Etienne's fingers drifted over Daisy's face and throat and shoulders as though none of the explosive violence had occurred, as though he hadn't ruptured metal welding, or artfully exacted his revenge for her teasing games, as though the sweet and pastoral harmony of the shepherds and shepherde
sses on the walls and ceiling were echoed in their hindered and difficult relationship. His mouth followed moments later where his hands had led, his lips and tongue tasting her as if in appreciation. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry for everything; I'm sorry for the women too," he apologized, kissing her eyelids gently, "because it angers you."

  His tone was wrenching in its heartfelt sorrow, his need utterly exposed.

  When Daisy gazed up at him in sudden wonderment at the simple apology, he softly added, "You're the first I've ever loved."

  A captivating sudden joy shone from the darkness of her eyes, his words vindication to her unreasoning immoderate jealousies. "I'm deep in love myself," she softly whispered and reaching up, she kissed him on the finely drawn curve of his mouth. "And. I'll try," she went on in a small voice, her smile playful, happiness gloriously exultant, "not to hit you again."

  The Duc sighed, his nostrils flaring gently. "We could both develop some moderation." His smile was kind; he understood her jealousy with his own so new and alarming. "I'm mad for you, Daisy," he whispered, light-headed with desire, stroking the smoothness of her thigh. It was no excuse for his behavior, but an explanation perhaps.

  His hand was large, warm, and the gentle pressure he exerted traveled back on pathways of sensation to her brain and fingertips and toes and deep inside to the trembling center of her being. Daisy arched up against his hand and body, her arms sliding around his neck, her mouth reaching up for his.

  When he slid gently inside her, his eyes shut briefly as her sweetness closed around him. He no longer had control over his existence. This strange, beautiful woman from a culture as different from his as day was from night, held his life in her hands.

  My world is forever changed, Daisy thought, by my compelling need for this man who with a touch or a simple look upsets the placid reasonableness of my life. Desire infused her mind, blazing hot, overcoming sense and sensibility alike. It only mattered they were together and they held each other in blissful content, moving in a sensuous lazy rhythm of seductive arousal, the afternoon sun golden on the shepherds and shepherdesses, and on the Duc and his lady. They spoke in kisses and smiles, they touched with a heated magic, they loved each other with a completeness neither had understood existed. Their lips met, and their hearts—and in the end, with something that could only be called violence, they found a common melting point in paradise.

  * * *

  They swam in the river to cool off as he'd promised and then lay in the damaged golden bed, damp and refreshed, drinking the champagne François had left. They spoke of mundane things, the fishing at Poilly, the Duc's gardener, the village school he supported, Daisy's friendship with Adelaide, the style of horse best suited for hunting. And when the sun's shadows began lengthening, he carried her back to his cottage through the willow grove and flower gardens up the curved staircase to his austere bedroom so different from the sumptuous ornament of the river barge.

  "I've redone the cottage," Etienne said when Daisy mentioned the stark difference in decor. "Accumulating my own preferences for comfort. The original interior relied rather heavily on eyelet-lace and pink." He smiled at her seated Indian fashion in the middle of his bed, dressed only again in his white shirt, her hair hanging loose on her shoulders, the picture of natural beauty. "You wouldn't have liked it. Are you tired?"

  She shook her head no. "Happiness must be an antidote to fatigue."

  "You must stay," he said very simply.

  She didn't pretend not to understand. She only said, "Yes, I know," as simply.

  They lay in bed while the sun gave way to twilight, holding each other, kissing and smiling and agreeing the world was the best of all possible worlds.

  "Marry me," Etienne quietly said, tracing the silky curve of Daisy's brow with his fingertip.

  "I surely would if you didn't already have a wife." Daisy was so ecstatically happy no dark cloud, however real, intruded.

  He wanted her like this always—beside him and smiling, making him whole, giving him joyful reason to think of his future. "Don't joke, I'm serious. I'll see my lawyer tomorrow. For enough money, Isabelle will be practical. Good God, our entire marriage has been practical."

  "Are you sure?" Daisy wasn't referring to Isabelle exclusively. Was he sure of permanence with her, this man known for fickleness? His answer wouldn't matter though. Regardless of his reply, magnanimous in her utter love, she would allow him anything.

  Etienne didn't want her to be blas� or even practical because, for the first time in his life, he wasn't. He wanted her to feel as totally committed as he. "Would you share me?"

  "If I had to."

  "I won't share you. I won't," he repeated, his voice a low growl.

  "Nor would I," she softly said. "If you must know."

  He smiled. "Good."

  She smiled back. "I was trying, I thought I could, I wanted to, I would take you for five fleeting minutes a week, I thought, if I must. If that was all I could have. But I would have made impossible demands ultimately, I suppose. I'm not the passive type."

  "I noticed," he said with a lavish grin.

  They made plans, joyful plans for their future.

  Etienne Mattel, Duc de Vec, had never been so happy in his life.

  And Daisy Black understood the nature of bliss.

  * * *

  "You must be joking."

  Isabelle said the next afternoon, seated behind a silver tea service in her private drawing room, cool as the ice blue of her gown.

  "Believe me, I've never been more serious in my life. I want a divorce."

  Full of his plans, happy, the Duc had gone to see her directly when she returned from Deauville. He was determined to present his case in an objective, open way. Determined also, to pay Isabelle handsomely for his freedom.

  She could initiate the divorce; he would take full blame; whatever grounds she chose to cite, he would not contest. She had simply to name her price.

  "There has never been a divorce in our families. I won't hear of it."

  "The world is changing, Isabelle. Even the Church lost its power to restrict divorce in France. The law was passed seven years ago because the population demanded it."

  "Which is precisely what is wrong with politics in this country today. The rabble are allowed a voice. And you see what happens. No, Etienne, there has never been a divorce in the Montigny family and there never will. Milk or lemon?"

  The Duc took a calming breath, gazed for a moment at the pattern of the parquet floor beneath his feet and said, "Lemon."

  "Charles asked for you at Deauville." His wife handed him the cup of tea. "I told him he should remember you dislike salt air." She said it with a sense of propriety and her usual rudeness.

  "I don't dislike salt air. I was busy."

  "With this new paramour of yours?"

  "I intend to have this divorce, Isabelle," he said, ignoring her question. "If you won't institute it, I will."

  "She must be very special, this one." Her smile was gelid. "Tell her, though, I have no intention of divorcing you. Furthermore," she went on, her voice rising slightly in pitch when she considered the whispers and humiliation divorce proceedings would entail, "if you proceed with this madness of yours, I'll fight you in court... forever!"

  "Can't we be reasonable about this, Isabelle? Our marriage hasn't been"—he stumbled over the wording in his attempt to maintain a degree of courtesy—"friendly in years."

  "Two of the oldest families in France were united in our marriage, Etienne. That was the basis of our marriage and it will remain the raison d'être of our union. I don't recall the nuptial vows requiring 'friendship.'"

  "Perhaps I require friendship."

  "And surely that hasn't been lacking in your life." Her pale brows rose quizzically. "Or do you call that something else?"

  "I'm determined, Isabelle." He set his teacup down untouched.

  "No, you're just made for a young woman again," she spat out. "Do you know how many times I've seen th
at light in your eyes? Do you realize how many there have been?" Her voice was shrill on the inflections. "I've lost count, you've lost count, but they're invariably young and pretty and available." Her indignation mottled the whiteness of her skin, set the Montigny diamonds bobbing emphatically. "You're infatuated again! You don't need a divorce. This is business as usual for you, Etienne."

  "Daisy's different." There wasn't the remotest comparison with his past escapades.

  "Good God, Etienne, look at yourself. You're old. She doesn't want you. She wants your money."

  It wasn't true, of course. Etienne was still the most handsome man in Paris. In France. She didn't know the rest of the world but she suspected he'd win out there too. Her voice was more reasonable now, like it always was when she felt an argument was settled. It was never won with Etienne. He simply let her have her way. And he would again. She felt it.

  He shrugged then, as he always did. "Maybe you're right," he said, his voice mild. All he wanted to do was get away. From her shrill voice and the gilded room that had housed de Vecs for four hundred years, from the modulation of Isabelle's anger into an artificial reasonableness that always grated. "I'm promised at Valentin's tonight so I'll stay at the flat. Tell Hector I'll send him a new toy tomorrow." He would have liked to go up to the nursery and hold his grandson and tell him to come and see him at the Quai du Louvre. But it wasn't fair to disturb the child with the chaos of his life. I won't be back to the Hôtel de Vec, he thought, whatever happens. Whether I win Daisy or not, I won't be back.

  He couldn't face another day of the chill, cool reasonableness.

  "Good-bye, Isabelle." He didn't say au revoir. It would have been hypocritical. But his polite courtesy was still functioning, his affection perhaps for all the years at least. "If you need anything, let me know."

  She didn't realize the finality of his leaving. Etienne had been gone sometimes more than he was home. "We're promised for a weekend at the Prince Chaubords the next fortnight," she said. "Alphonse expects you."