by Sandra Heath
Her slit had clenched wildly in a way she had never experienced before, and she’d had to curl up on the mossy ground among the bushes, her hand working urgently against her intensely aroused bud. The excited muscles twitched over and over, as if she were being invaded by Jake’s cock. It was the most explosive peak she had ever known. But when she recovered enough to kneel up in the hope of seeing him again, he was already walking up through the stepped gardens toward the house.
The memory of that tiny moment had rewarded her time and again since then, but she knew that nothing would ever compare with being with him in the flesh. Sabrina sighed again, her gaze wandering across the orgy and coming to rest on the evening’s host, her elderly uncle Nereus. As guardian of this stretch of the Severn, he was fiercely proud of the lavishness of his entertainments. He didn’t like to be naked, however, feeling too old to be comfortable with that. What he and his wives did in private was one thing, but public acts of coitus were not on his personal table d’hôte, and so he was well covered by a shimmering rainbow-hued fish-scale mantle. He occupied a modest seat beside Neptune’s grand throne and there was a satisfied beam on his wrinkled face, for he did not grudge the small fortune the occasion was costing him. His efforts this year—which, although only 1814 to the humans of Britain, was 6777 by merfolk reckoning—were already being spoken of as the best ever. And as always, the peaceful venue was perfect.
The green denizens of the deep did not care that they were trespassing on private land, for the only laws they obeyed were those of Neptune, and so confident was Nereus that Winterleigh Court was unoccupied, that this year he had only posted a few lookouts. However, not only had Sir Jake’s carriage just arrived unexpectedly, but at that very moment he was strolling out of the unlit grand parlor onto the stone terrace that stretched the entire frontage of the house. From here he could look down toward the river.
Chapter Two
Winterleigh Court remained in darkness from the crowded riverside, because the only lighted lamp was in the entrance hall on the other side of the building. The servants, at present with their families in Blakenham, would be notified in the morning, but for the moment, Jake was content to have the house empty.
He’d traveled all day, and most of yesterday, and his body ached, especially his backside, which could surely no longer lay claim to being the most admired in London. As for his loins, well, they must be permanently compressed by his skintight gray corduroy breeches. If he could extricate his dick from between his balls, he’d be a fortunate fellow. God damn all country roads, they were surely created to be instruments of torture for the long-suffering traveler. His ears still rang with the rattle of hooves and wheels, but at least after all the summer heat of recent weeks he could be assured of a well-aired bed.
He strolled to the balustrade to admire the moonlit valley. Discarding his wine-red coat, marcella waistcoat and neckcloth, he draped them over the stonework before hanging his top hat on a stone urn. There was only the lightest of breezes, but he felt its welcome freshness through his thick dark hair. Unbuttoning his shirt to the waist, he breathed in gladly as the breeze cooled him. He felt able to relax for the first time since leaving the unbearable oppression of London. Damn London, and damn Lady Evangeline Bellington, the most untrustworthy but desirably beautiful widow in all England. He’d naïvely believed she was in love with him, but Evangeline knew nothing of love.
“You bloody fool, Jake Cranwell,” he muttered, “your cock should never be your master.”
His mind returned to the time he’d first believed himself to be the most fortunate man in all creation. It had started when he’d escorted Evangeline home from Drury Lane. He’d been dressed formally, of course, in a purple velvet coat trimmed with golden embroidery, an elaborately frilled shirt, a quilted white silk waistcoat, white silk breeches, stockings and black shoes. A dress sword swung against his left thigh, and there was a folded, three-corner hat under his arm. Such togs were de rigueur at the theatre, and his appearance was faultless. Hers was divine.
Evangeline had long golden hair that was twisted up in the latest mode, and her magnificent body was displayed almost to the edge of impropriety by a very daring sky-blue taffeta gown. She always wore blue. It was her signature. Her diamond earrings were a wedding gift from her first husband, and her sapphire necklace one of many presents from her second. Her silk evening cloak was lavishly trimmed with pure white arctic fox fur sent to her by an admiring Russian grand-duke. She was the sort of woman upon whom gifts would always be showered by admirers, all of whose advances she had otherwise spurned. He, fool that he was, truly thought she was his, and only his. But however gullible he may have been at the outset of that evening, he certainly wasn’t by the end of it.
It had been snowing heavily, and Mayfair was quiet as his town carriage pulled up outside her Berkeley Street home. He’d handed her down, and her taffeta gown rustled excitingly, so that he could imagine it whispering against her white silk stockings. He remembered how his cock had twitched and begun to respond in a way that might be embarrassingly evident once they entered the brightly lit house. But then, as she stepped to the snow, her fingers pried where they shouldn’t. In fact they closed around his nascent erection and squeezed it most knowingly. She smiled, the falling snow clinging to her fur-trimmed hood. “I trust your chap is finally going to come out of hiding tonight?”
He’d struggled to hide his shock, because until this moment, low-cut gowns or not, she’d been the very soul of propriety. He’d been worshipping her as a devotee worships a goddess, but the feet of this beautiful deity were apparently made of clay. Elegant clay, but clay nevertheless.
She smiled again. “Come now, I think we both know what we want. I certainly want you, James, and I see no reason to keep up the polite pretense. My puss has a great need for a good stroking, and your chap is just the one to see to it.”
His shock increased. He’d been propositioned in the same way by harlots! “I— Well, I’m sure my chap is up to any requirement,” he’d managed to reply, embarrassed by the speed with which said chap now stood to quivering attention in the silken confines of his evening breeches.
“Mmmm, how very much you want me,” she murmured, moving close enough to start undoing his breeches right there on the pavement.
Jake remembered how mortified he’d been. The coachman was looking, as was the butler at the front door. Even the horses seemed to turn their heads to observe. He clamped his hand over hers. “For pity’s sake, Evangeline! Have you no shame? I have no wish for the world and his horse to see my old man waving around like a flagpole in a breeze.”
Her lovely gray eyes shone as she smiled, and her sweet face was so beautiful, framed as it was by golden curls and the white fur trimming of her hood. Then she put her lower lip out in mock petulance. “Must I wait for the privacy of my bedchamber?”
“You must indeed.”
“How very vexing.”
“There has to be some decorum, madam.” He managed to inject a little lightness into his tone.
“That’s not what I’ve heard from Lavinia, Marguerite and Dorothea,” she replied.
He froze, for the three ladies in question had numbered among his conquests. He hadn’t realized they were acquainted with Evangeline. “Am I the subject of shameless gossip?”
She raised an eyebrow. “My darling James, how could a delicious man like you not be the subject of gossip? Especially among close girlfriends.”
“I had no idea… Well, they may rest assured that I certainly wouldn’t discuss them with anyone.”
“You wouldn’t even mention Lavinia’s double nipples?”
He colored. “Certainly not.”
“Or Dorothea’s enjoyment of anal buggery?”
“Evangeline! Any more of this and I’ll leave you at the door.”
“Oh dear, we can’t have that. Be assured that my lips are sealed from now on,” she whispered, and then ascended the steps to the front door, where the butler stood a
ttentively and the lamplight behind him streamed out into the snowy night.
The butler bowed sedately. ““Good evening, Lady Evangeline, Sir James.”
“Good evening, Johnson.” Evangeline nodded imperiously, and then sailed grandly toward the footman, who waited to take their outer clothes.
Jake nodded. “Johnson.” He overcame his cock’s noticeable rampancy by thinking of something boring. The title deeds and other dull documents pertaining to Winterleigh Court fitted the bill very nicely, and he was as limp as a wet rag by the time he’d been divested of his cloak.
Another footman waited by the entrance to the kitchen stairs door, and a maid scurried discreetly to attend to the fire in the drawing room. Jake could hear the cook shouting orders in the basement kitchen. The house seemed to positively seethe with an unseen army of servants, all of them intent upon his imminent indiscretions with their mistress. He expected Evangeline to at least go through the motions of etiquette and polite conduct by adjourning to the drawing room for a time, before creeping upstairs when the servants had been dismissed for the night. But no, it seemed she had no shame, for she waved them away and then mounted the sweeping black marble staircase, her sky blue taffeta hem hissing over the treads.
Realizing he hadn’t moved, she turned to beckon. “Come, sir, for I have much for you to do.”
Mortification seized him, and he knew his face was aflame. He, who’d been the lover of numerous women, had become as awkward as a schoolboy, but it later became clear that Evangeline’s servants were all accustomed to her prolific sexual adventures. It was a mystery how she’d fooled society into thinking she was a lady in all respects. She and her three cat friends presented a gracious, superior front to the world, and there wasn’t so much as a tiny whisper about their morals, but they were all no better than they should be, and their lovers were without exception remarkably reticent.
Her bedchamber was a bluebell-hued nest, all velvet drapes, silken net and satin frills, with French furniture fit for Versailles. It was illuminated by a dancing fire and two dainty, crystal-hung candelabra, and a bottle of champagne waited in a bucket of ice, with beside it two elegant glasses. Evidently Evangeline had correctly anticipated the voluptuous outcome of the visit to Drury Lane. The bed, needless to say, was vast, and now that Evangeline had revealed herself to be far from prim and proper, instinct told him it had catered for threesomes and probably foursomes as well. He was now prepared to believe anything. His cock was thoroughly in charge of him, and it wanted to be inside her. Deep inside.
Evangeline indicated the champagne. “Please do the honors, sir, and fill the glasses to the brim, for I abhor small measures,” she said, and then whisked away into her boudoir to prepare.
There was clearly no need for her maid, he thought, catching a rewarding glimpse of her reflection in a floor-standing mirror as she slipped out of her low-cut gown and then wriggled it down to her feet. She was not one to bother with undergarments, for the gown was all she wore! For the first time he saw her magnificent body. Sweet lord, she was perfection, with shoulders that were just right, neither too short or too wide, and firm breasts that were full and upturned, their erect nipples rosy and in need of a kiss. Her figure narrowed to a slender waist, and then curved out over her hips in an almost sinful way. The line of her back was graceful and flawless, and her buttocks pert and rounded, ideal for cupping in a man’s hands, and in the mirror he could see the neat little copse of brown hairs guarding her crotch. Below that, he could only anticipate the charms that were hidden away within the apex of her thighs. And those thighs, dear heaven, they were endless, and as exquisitely formed as the rest of her. Her knees were dainty too, and her calves of just the right curve to flatter her neat little ankles. She was matchless, and his penis agreed, jutting out from his breeches as if it would split the white silk.
She caught his eyes in the mirror. “I trust you’ve poured the champagne, sir?” she purred. Yes, purred, for there had been a feline note in her voice.
“Er, yes, of course,” he answered, belatedly attending to the single small task he’d been given. To the brim, she’d said, and that was what he did.
She sprayed herself with lily-of-the-valley scent, loosened her hair until it cascaded over her shoulders, and then returned to him. Taking the glass of champagne he held out, she sipped it and then replaced it on the tray before pressing the second glass into his hand. “Drink, James. All of it, for I do like to taste champagne on a man’s breath.”
He drained the glass, and she refilled it immediately. “Another,” she whispered, stretching up as if to kiss him but then putting the glass to his lips instead. He didn’t hesitate to drink it all again, nor did he notice that she had still only sipped hers.
She bestowed a lustrously seductive smile upon him. “Have I shocked you tonight, James?”
“Well, it has come as something of a surprise,” he admitted.
“But I’m sure I’m making your dreams come true.”
He could not deny it, although the crude force of his desire was not what he would have wished to feel for the woman he loved. There was no tenderness, no deep feeling, no anticipation of joy, just a primitive urge to fuck her until his cock was worn out.
“I love to undress a man, James, and I’ve been waiting a long time to undress you.”
“Hardly that long,” he answered softly, closing his eyes because his cock seemed on the point of igniting.
She smiled guilefully. “Longer than you imagine. More than three years, as it happens. For instance, I once drove all the way to your Gloucestershire lair, intent only upon your seduction, but you’d had the ill grace to leave for London the day before. We must have passed each other on the highway. And then you indulged in that irritating liaison with that Italian whore. Most tiresome.”
So she knew about that too? “She was hardly a whore, she was the wife of a diplomat at the—”
Evangeline waved a hand dismissively. “She was a whore, and must have slept with at least twenty men before she became your latest inamorata, and twenty more afterward. She put horns on her husband at every opportunity.”
He wondered just how many men Evangeline herself had slept with. Her two husbands must have sported enormous pairs of antlers.
“Oh don’t let’s speak of the whore, for there are much more exciting things we can do.” She reached up to remove his neckcloth, drawing it away with a long, soft, erotic sound. Next she unbuttoned his waistcoat and tossed it away. Then it was the turn of his shirt, which took longer because she kept slipping her fingers inside it to stroke his chest. She sighed, her nipples so pert that when he cupped them in his hands a fresh surge of need lanced through him.
She moved from side to side, so the nipples rubbed against his palms. “Oh James, James,” she breathed, “I’m so ready for you. When I think of what awaits me inside those handsome, superbly tailored breeches…” She allowed herself a delicious shiver as, just for a moment, she put a hand against his cock. “Only white silk separates us, my love,” she murmured, grasping the iron-hard shaft. She gave a low laugh. “Oooh, I see that all I’ve heard is true.”
“Does the entire female sex of London know the details of my equipment?”
“Only the exclusive circle that matters, my darling. And tonight I have you all to myself.”
“I hope so, unless you have your closest friends waiting in the wings?”
“What an intriguing thought,” she whispered, standing on tiptoe to put her soft lips to his. She nibbled his lower lip, and then her little tongue slipped into his mouth. It was a simulation of copulation, he thought, except that he was passive and she dominant. Oh, how skillful her tongue was, moving gently here and there, caressing his tongue, sliding over his teeth, exploring, always exploring, and so slowly that his senses seemed to dissolve. She tasted of peppermint, he noticed, whereas she would find he tasted of cloves and champagne.
Her fingers went to work on his breeches, and the moment his cock sprang
free, she broke from the kiss and sank down to take the tip deep into her mouth. She moaned with pleasure and her tongue commenced a new exploration.
He closed his eyes, because the experience was so intense he feared he would come. He mustn’t permit that to happen! He had to be in command of himself, and exercise restraint until the moment was perfect. Only then would he allow himself to come. And how he’d do so! For the moment, however, there was this exquisite overture.
She rolled his head around in her mouth, sometimes sucking it to the back of her throat, sometimes releasing it in order to lick the moisture that welled so freely from the little hole. Her tongue explored still more, moving around the ridge behind which his foreskin had withdrawn.
Abruptly she drew back and rose to her feet. “Take off the rest of your clothes, James, for it is time we lay on a sumptuous mattress.” She poured him another glass of champagne. “Let us relax to the full,” she breathed, and put the glass to his lips again.
Three glasses in almost as many minutes. The bubbles fizzed all the way down to his stomach, and it felt good. Why hadn’t he noticed that he was the only one drinking? Perhaps the draught that had been put in the bottle had already begun to banish his inhibitions. Yes, most probably it had, for he certainly felt strangely uninhibited.