by Thea Devine
He waited; it seemed to him that he was pushing himself beyond that which any man should have to endure, particularly a married man. Ah, there, something was wrong with the toe of her left stocking, and she angled her leg once again to give him a good full view between her legs.
She was the consummate temptress, he thought, girding himself to fight her to the ultimate moment. She knew exactly when to tease and when to entice. She revealed everything and left him panting when she withdrew for just one palpitating moment.
The arrogant look in her eyes challenged him, goaded him, commanded him to bend to her, and he swore he would never bow to the imperious queen of predators. She would eat him alive, and what he wanted, as always, was to devour her.
He poured himself a cup of chocolate, ignoring her blatant provocation, and lifted it to his mouth. The scent of it and the lingering taste shot him back to the first time in London in Lucretia's parlor, to the taste of her and the texture of her kisses.
He felt the treacherous desire in him rise like steam, enveloping his senses, fogging his judgment. Through the haze and the throb of his pounding heart, he saw the slave of his desire and the subtle little undulations of her body beckoned him like a siren call.
376
He wanted to drown her in chocolate and feed on her forever.
There was no middle ground, there was only the heat of his volcanic passion flowing like lava all over his soul.
She held his eyes, her body in languid repose, her leg still angled to reveal as much as possible, her smile still playing lightly, arrogantly around her lips as if she could see the very war within him and she was enjoying every minute of it.
Perhaps she was; perhaps she thought he would finally break and come crawling on the bed to her, but he knew he was stronger than that, stronger than she and that the power lay in the way one wielded it.
In a sudden panther-like move, he reached across the bed and grabbed her foot, and with one herculean tug he pulled her body toward him until she was laying flat on her back before him, and open to his every desire.
"Here is the middle ground, Diana. It lies on my side, in my hands."
She was angry now, her eyes sparkling with vindictiveness as she struggled to sit up. "Indeed, my lord. Your handling is all that could be desired."
"I expect it is," he murmured, holding the cup up to her lips. "Drink."
"The elixir of power," she spat. "I have no need of it."
"But I do," he said with a small predatory smile, and he tipped the cup and poured the thick clotted chocolate all over her breasts.
The liquid molded against her like a sheer fabric, surrounding the contour, dripping over the hard tips and puddling between her legs.
"Lay down," he commanded as she made a movement of protest. He pushed her and she fell back onto the soft lush velvet. "Don't move."
"And what would you do?" she demanded snidely.
"Don't beg the question, Diana. Just enjoy my lust."
Oh, but was it lust, or something deep and carnal driving him? He ripped aside the encroaching fabric of her robe, and poured another cup of chocolate all over the lower part of her body, along her belly and down around her mound, on her thighs and down her
377
legs. And her naked body soaked up the sweetness as if it had been waiting for this all her life.
He shucked his clothes, a matter of tearing off his shirt and removing his breeches. Naked and elongated to bursting, he climbed over her and began to drink.
Just below the knee, and gently lapping at the sensitive places behind them, above them, working his way up, sucking and licking and running his tongue along the sweetness of her body creamed by the chocolate; along the flat of her belly and in the cradle of her hips, his tongue pursued the sweet clotted taste of her to the very taut tips of her breasts where he suckled the sweetness until she almost exploded from the wet pull of his mouth.
He eased away just in time, just in time, his body winding itself around her with the hard granite length of him between them, and he settled his mouth unerringly on hers.
The taste of her was endless, fragrant with chocolate and promises to come.
He reached behind him for the chocolate pot; he wanted to envelop her in this sweet smear of his greed to possess her, and he poured it again, without looking, all over her, all over him, and he let go the pot and began massaging the thick clot of it into her skin.
His manhood yearned to taste her, but not before he had drunk his fill. He moved to her breasts again, lapping at the luscious sweetness of her hard nipples one after the other and back again as she thrust them willingly into his mouth.
Her hands reached for him but he wouldn't let her: her body wet with the fragrance of chocolate and passion was his to command. He worked his way downward, with thick slurping kisses, and light little suckings across her belly until he reached her chocolate-perfumed bush.
And here, and here ... he straddled her now to face her feet so that he could meet the sugar fragrance of her womanhood. He buried himself in it, sliding his arms under her and lifting her into the carnal kiss of his exploring tongue.
She had never felt anything like this in her life. The taut point of his tongue possessed her as tightly and neatly as his manhood. She reached for him, as rivulets of liquid feeling streamed through her veins. She could just reach him, and the thick ridged tip of his
378
thrusting maleness, she could just hold it and stroke it while he worked the magic of his mouth against the lush open center of her.
She rolled slightly to one side, so she could hold him, she could kiss him, she could contain the whole of his maleness in her hands; she could bear down on that singular wet point of pleasure deep within her core. She could give herself to it and take him with her as well.
She undulated against him, and pushed herself into that point, and then she was there, with her mouth positioned above the rock hard thrust of him, angled in such a precise way that it seemed as if he were made to be caressed by her mouth.
She grasped him with both hands and brought him to her kisses, surrounding him with the wet heat of her willing mouth. She could not get enough. She wanted the whole, and the gods did not make it possible for her to possess the whole the way he possessed her.
But it was enough, enough: the intensity of her feeling for it aroused her to a fever pitch. She held the essence of him in her hands, in her mouth. Her tongue explored the thick hard muscularity of him, with a heat that reacted to every last lapping convulsion he pulled from her.
It was coming, once again, it was coming, and the newness of this way of coupling heightened the keen thready sensation that wound its way downward to his greedy mouth and erupted into a starburst of shimmering pleasure that exploded every which way.
She bucked against him, reaching for the feeling, her lips pulling and tugging against his ramrod length, sucking the very essence of him into her as he convulsed against her rapacious mouth.
And then, as always, it slowly eddied away, subsiding into a buoyant feeling of triumph, because both of them had won.
******************
"I knew you were the one to come to," Annesley said complacently as he lolled in Edythe Winslowe's massive tent bed with Charlotte Emerlin, his arm around her, idly fondling her while he waited eagerly for Winslowe to begin some of her erotic little tricks. "This is perfect, Charlotte, perfect."
"It has been perfect," she cooed, her hand stroking his as he reacted to Edythe's amusement as she watched their by-play with a
379
patronizing little smile. She loved the feeling of shaping Annesley in her hands just like potter's clay. How malleable he was, how urgent.
"Well, that she-bitch thinks she has won," Edythe said poutily, "but little does she know. She thinks Southam's name will protect her, even against me, and I suppose, in a way, she is right. No door will be closed to her certainly, but there are subtleties which come into play, aren't there, you big lusc
ious man, and that is why I am so glad you came to play with me."
"It was obvious we must join forces to defeat her," Annesley said, smirking as Edythe's avid gaze focused solely on him.
She smiled at him, a slinky knowing little smile that promised untold delights to come; he smiled back, aware that her sensual pull was much more intoxicating than Charlotte's: she was the courtesan, and Charlotte was the acolyte, and he was the most fortunate of men to have them both at his disposal.
"Yes . . ." she murmured, "we will spread the nasty rumors in just the right places." She reached out to touch him. "How she plotted—ah—and deliberately ... um ... set out to ensnare the poor innocent ascetic Southam. Ah, what man can resist—" she sent him a sidelong look of pure knowing lust, "a pair of blue eyes and such a blatant bosom? No man can, Max, isn't that so?"
"That is so," he growled, taking sensual advantage of her words and the invitation in her voice.
"Exactly. Now, this is how we play: we do not start to spread rumors with the Griswolds or the Chevringtons—there is too much support for her between them. However, the Ottershaws are another matter, and the mothers of all the girls whom she cut out this season who were on the catch for Southam. I truly believe that is all one has to do: just the most intimate little disclosure that she was a gaming house doxy on the edge of penury looking to trip up any man with money. And I know, because I advised her just what to do, my friends. Did you not know? Oh yes, I was there, I told her when Southam came and I told her exactly how to get him."
"Brilliant," Annesley breathed, coming to life once again at the thought of the lady-harlot being tutored by the lady-whore.
"True," Edythe avowed. "There need be little else but innuendo in just the right ears and they will snub her for the next twenty
380
years, and no one will be the wiser. And I will start with the chubby Lord Ottershaw and set things in motion."
The thought of Ottershaw and Edythe in bed amazed, amused and aroused him, yet Edythe had dropped his name in such a matter-of-fact and commonplace way, and was already on to the next part of her plan.
"Your mother, Charlotte, your mother is the person to take this information and do the right thing with it."
"You can be sure," Charlotte said dreamily, her imagination liquid with the image of the bow-legs standing in the midst of an elegant room with all backs turned to her and facing dead silence. "It is wonderful. Just wonderful: Lady Southam, the cynosure of London and no one speaking with her let alone inviting her anywhere she does not have to be. It is perfect, just perfect."
"Then we agree," Edythe said complacently. "We will set the thing in motion tonight."
"So soon tonight?" Annesley murmured insinuatingly.
She met his lust-fogged gaze. "Perhaps not so soon tonight, Max," she agreed huskily, and coquettishly, she allowed him to lure her into bed beside them with kisses, caresses, and the amorphous promises of a willing conspirator.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a sensual war between them, and a state of being which shut out everything else. He sent back every invitation with his regrets; he wanted no one else to have her.
How inventive she was in enticing him. He was consumed with the thought of possessing her night and day; she wanted only for him to claim her whenever he would.
Every word between them became an invitation. He took her everywhere: on the dining room table after the servants had removed the service; in the reception hall at night, on the steps and in the parlor and while Trenholm waited outside their bedroom door.
He dressed her and undressed her, and wound the satin strips around her body and possessed her. He entered their bedroom one evening to find her naked on the bed, the strips wound around the posters, and her hands grasping them for purchase, awaiting the moment when he would come to claim her.
She had Marie alter some of her clothing to make her gowns more revealing to seduce him still further. The lowered bodice, the subtle slit in the skirt, the back of a dress lowered until it nestled on the curve of her buttocks, still another gown altered to display her breasts much like the robe he had given her, compressed and thrust forward to invite a man's caress.
She remembered the exact day she had worn it for him. They had planned to attend a party, she had promised him that she would be dressed and waiting for him. Her excitement was uncontrollable as she put on the dress and adjusted the bodice. She loved the thought of it, for here she was fully dressed, from stockings and chemise to
382
jewelry and gloves and the contrast of the feeling of being thoroughly gowned against the feeling of her naked breasts pushing out against the frame of the bodice was positively voluptuous.
She was only awaiting his voice as she stood poised at the window, her back to him when he finally entered the bedroom.
"Diana . . ."
"My lord," she said breathlessly, turning slowly to face him.
He would never get used to the sight of her naked breasts against the fullness of a dress; it had been his fantasy, his dream, and she acted upon it time and again to please him. But perhaps not tonight?
"Is something amiss?" she asked gently, a faint tremor of excitement coloring her voice.
He couldn't keep his eyes away from her and her taut tight nipples. "Not a thing. Come look at yourself in the mirror and tell me if we do not make a handsome couple."
She walked slowly toward him, letting him look his fill of her exposed breasts in the brightly lit room.
She came right up to him and pressed her breasts against his chest and offered him her mouth for a kiss. And the kiss went on and on and on until she felt weak with languor and he eased away gently and murmured: "We must be going."
"Yessss," she breathed.
"Look at us," he urged her, and gently pressured her to turn and face the mirror.
"We do well together," she whispered, awed at the sight of the dress and the voluptuous fullness of her breasts defining it.
He slipped behind her and reached around to cup her breasts. "We must go."
"Whenever you are ready, my Lord," she murmured, loving the look of and the feel of his hands on her.
"Am I not ready now?" he wondered, nudging her buttocks with his hard hot resolution. "Your nipples beg for my caresses," he whispered as he encircled first one and then the other taut tight tip.
"But we must be going."
"But are we not embarking on something now?"
She caught her breath as the first crackle of sensation jolted through her. Her body sagged against him, and she arched herself
383
against the sinuous feeling of his fingers playing with her and the visual glimpse of it in the mirror.
It was the most erotic sight she could imagine, the two of them standing there, bonded body to body, his hands to her breasts, caressing the nipples in full view of both of them.
She felt the flowing connection between them as he stroked and squeezed just the very tips of her nipples into stiff tight points of pleasure from which there was no escape.
Her body writhed against him as the molten flow of honeyed pleasure began the slow inexorable slide to her very vitals. She had to get away from him, she had to: the flexing pressure of his fingers on her nipples was both joy and pain; she had never dreamt that her body could respond this way, spewing forth this shuddering glissade of sensation that took forever to settle deep in her womanly core.
And that was the whole of it, that his hands could evoke those sensations that needed nothing more, and the newness of it and the faint chafing of her nipples when the pleasure had subsided and the molten flow had gone.
"And now, Diana," he murmured, swallowing her breasts in the palms of his hands, "and now . . ." as he held her against the tartness of his body and the thrust of his desire which would temper itself for another time, "we must prepare to go."
She swallowed hard and put her hands over his. "Yes," she said, the light back in her eyes as she watched
them in the mirror. "See how I will make the change to respectability." She pushed away his hands and took up a length of satin from the bed and wound it around her shoulders.
"And now, my lord, you will see the first vestiges of modesty: I will tuck the ends in and around my breasts and no one will be the wiser. Only you, my Lord, who will know what lies beneath this swath of satin around my neck. Only you will have the memory of my naked breasts to carry with him throughout the night. Only you will be able to strip away the pretenses and caress my nipples again this night."
She was so clever, so adept at arousing him at every turn. They went out together into the night to the party of the evening and at he sat opposite her in the carriage, he thought of her body beneath
384
the dress, and he thought of the response of her nipples beneath his caress. So clever, so sly. Diana on the prowl again, with her husband as prey.
He did think, that night, that it was the first time she had been complimented on her restraint, and he smiled arrogantly because he knew that Diana had no prudence whatsoever, and as she intended, only he was aware.
He almost could not walk through the company alone for the burgeoning size of his erection every time he thought about her.
She would smile at him from across the room and he would know what she was thinking; her eyes would flicker downward, and he would know what she wanted. She would brush by him in passing in the thick of the crowd, and he would feel the intensity of her ardor in the caress of her hand. She would arch herself slightly forward as she would be conversing with someone, and he could see the outline of her nipples against the soft lustrous pull of the satin material.