Adrien, standing with his back to her in a dressing gown and pajama bottoms, lifted a bottle of wine from the table and took a swallow right out of it, which surprised and amused Isabel. He’d always seemed like the type who would not only use a wineglass when he was drinking alone, he would use exactly the right glass.
From the defined musculature of his shoulders and back through the thin fabric of his robe, she could tell that he wasn’t wearing anything else on top. She loved the shape of his shoulders; she always had, even when he was a lanky adolescent. The low drone of arousal she had felt all evening at the prospect of making love to Adrien again morphed into liquid-hot lust within seconds; God bless hormones.
He set the bottle down and lifted a scroll, pulling it open so he could read it.
“Adrien,” she said.
He turned and stared at her, the scroll popping shut.
She swallowed hard, thinking back to that night in the bathhouse last August, when their long-sublimated feelings had erupted in frenzied lovemaking—which he’d immediately regretted. It had been an excruciating reminder of the way he’d suddenly distanced himself from her after their first chaste kiss as teenagers, initiated by her. She knew now that he had put her aside at the encouragement of Darius for the good of the Follets, whom he was duty bound to spend his life protecting—just as he was duty bound to produce gifted offspring with a gifted wife. He was being responsible and dedicated, sacrificing his personal happiness for the greater good. Still, rejection was rejection; it hurt regardless of the reason.
That pain had been echoed, on a smaller scale, this afternoon in the Sub Rosa garden, after she’d impulsively invited him for a dip in the koi pool. His hesitation had spooked her into bolting instead of staying and giving it the old college try. Upon reflection this afternoon, she realized she’d squandered a golden opportunity.
Adrien’s gaze shifted from her eyes to a point just slightly above her head, and back again. Her aura would be like a banner to him, broadcasting blatantly sexual vibes. He looked as if he were about to say something, then thought better of it.
She said, “Please don’t tell me it was a mistake for me to come here.”
Adrien looked down at the scroll in his hand, a palpable reminder of his sacred obligation to devote his life dibu e debu—to the gods and goddesses. He raised his gaze to her, his grim expression saying it all.
Isabel stood there for another few seconds, trying to think of something to say that didn’t sound totally lame, or desperate, or sappy, heat sizzling up her throat and face. “Shit,” she whispered.
She turned and made her way to the front door as quickly as she could without actually running, her throat clutching. Asshole. You fucking asshole.
She opened the door. It slammed shut with concussive force.
Adrien spun her around by her shoulders, crushed her to the door, and kissed her, hard.
The flashlight dropped from her hand, clattering onto the tiled floor. He yanked at the sash of her robe, whipping it open. His hands were everywhere on her, hot and reckless.
She felt him tugging at his own clothes, and then he lifted her against the door and wrapped her legs around him. His initial thrust was shallow, an exploratory probe. On finding her already wet, he lunged into her. She clutched him to her, meeting his grinding thrusts as the pleasure shuddered through her, stealing her breath, squeezing her heart . . .
She came hard, bucking against him. He rammed into her as if he were trying to batter down the door, and suddenly he stilled, groaning low in his throat, his fingers digging painfully into her hips, his cock jerking inside her. She felt the semen shooting against the mouth of her womb in gradually diminishing jets, and smiled.
Adrien’s knees seemed to give out as his orgasm waned. He slumped to the floor still connected to Isabel, both of them with their arms still tight around each other.
“Mon dieu,” he whispered. He kissed her through a breathless chuckle, his mouth tasting like wine.
They uncoupled awkwardly and straightened their clothes. He stood, raised Isabel to her feet, and kissed her again.
“You’re shaking,” he said, chafing her arms. “Come into the hunting hall. I’ll stoke the fire. I’ll pour us some cognac, and we can talk. It’s been a long time since we just talked together, comfortably. Our thoughts used to be so in sync, remember? That Christmas?”
She nodded.
He stroked a tendril of hair off her face. “And then you can come upstairs and sleep with me.”
She looked up into those big, molten chocolate eyes and felt her stomach twist with guilt. He wasn’t fretting, as he had that other time in the bathhouse, about not using protection. She had told him then that she was on the pill. He undoubtedly assumed she still was.
“Men feel threatened by the idea of fathering a child on a woman they’re not involved with. They just won’t go for it.”
“I don’t know, Adrien. Maybe . . . maybe we shouldn’t, you know. Encourage something between us that—”
“There already is something between us,” he said gently. “I’ve spent the past ten months trying to deny it, trying to put you out of my mind. It’s pointless. It will always be there.”
She looked down and closed her eyes, stinging with tears.
“Isabel.” He stroked her face, lifted her chin. “We don’t have a future, but we can have tonight. We can sleep together and make love again—properly this time, in my bed, taking our time about it. And in the morning, I’ll make you breakfast.”
“You cook?”
“I cook very well. I’ll brew us a big pot of strong coffee, and I’ll squeeze you some orange juice and make you some crêpes with berries. Or if you prefer cheeses, we can have that, and I’ll get a fresh baguette and some croissants.”
“Adrien . . .” Isabel hadn’t planned on this, on him trying to hang on to her for a while longer. If anything, she’d assumed he would exhibit the same postcoital misgivings as last time. That would have made this easier—much easier.
“Twelve hours, Isabel. At”—he squinted at his watch in the semidarkness—“eleven forty-five tomorrow morning, we’ll go back to how it’s been. And that will be the end of it. We’ll lift our chins and carry on, as your father would say. In the meantime, we can have our twelve hours, twelve hours where it will be just us, and we won’t talk about . . . afterward. We won’t think about it. We’ll just be together and be happy.”
She sighed.
“Come on, it’s raining,” he said, and she could hear that it was. “Stay. Just till noon tomorrow.”
“You’re stealing an extra fifteen minutes,” she said.
He smiled. “Can you blame me?”
She stayed.
He lowered the needle on another LP, of Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio, and they sat curled up together under a cashmere blanket on an old velvet sofa in front of the fire, sipping cognac and talking about things Isabel hadn’t ever talked about to anyone, because no one else would understand them, no one else would really care, no one else was the other half of her.
They shared lazy kisses in the glow of the fire to one of their favorite songs, “I’m Glad There Is You” . . . Two lovers caught in amber for one isolated moment in time, a moment they would have to keep and hold, preserving it in their hearts for an eternity, because it was all they would ever have of each other.
She undressed him under the blanket, touching and exploring, memorizing the topography of muscle and bone, the smell of his scalp, the way his hips tightened when she stroked his erection, pressing, pleading . . .
He pulled off her robe and made slow, dreamy love to her with his hands and his mouth, until by the time he entered her, she felt as if her entire body were one quivering, breathless nerve. He took his time, stoking her pleasure as he’d stoked the fire, bringing her right to the point of combustion, then backing off, again and again and again, the muscles of his chest and shoulders and arms flexing as he reared over her, his gaze growing more and
more unfocused . . .
It’s perfect. That was her only coherent thought as she basked in sensual delirium, her heart thudding so hard in her ears that she could barely hear their pants and moans. It’s perfect because it’s Adrien. He’s the man I was meant to make love to, the only one.
She came first, he close on her heels, his groans sounding almost anguished as he clung to her, his back hunched, his body hard. They held each other, gasping for breath, as the record ended, the needle scritch-scritch-scritching around the played-out album.
“I thought we were supposed to make love properly this time,” she said, “in your bed.”
He chuckled; she felt it deep in her womb. “I’m getting around to it.”
They took a warm bath together, then went to bed and held each other and whispered and kissed and made sweet, drowsy love, and sailed off to sleep in each other’s arms.
He sailed off to sleep. Isabel lay awake until his breathing was deep and heavy and regular. At two o’clock, she carefully extracted herself from his embrace, got out of bed, put her robe and slippers back on, found her flashlight, and stole out into the night.
While Isabel was walking back to the château in the rain, sobbing, Elle and Lili were standing over Jason MacKenna’s empty and tidily made up bed.
“I was afraid of this,” Elle said. “Didn’t his mother say he’s a night owl? I’ve gone through The Change for nothing.”
It was never easy. The softening of her muscles and the compression of her bones was always accompanied by pain, and there was the temporary but harrowing sense of having the breath squeezed out of her as her rib cage tightened around her lungs. Worst of all was the awful nausea—what she called the Change Sickness—as her physiology morphed from male to female. Her thought processes remained much the same—she was still Elic, after all—but those feelings that were governed by body chemistry, such as sexual arousal, were now those of a female.
“Just because he’s not in his bed doesn’t mean we can’t find him and tap his seed,” Lili said.
“Are you sure Isabel would want this?” Elle asked.
“She said, ‘I’ve decided to try and scare me up some high-quality spermatozoa.’ I should think Jason’s would fit the . . . Hmm . . .” Lili was staring through the window behind Elle. “Those lights aren’t usually kept on at night, are they?”
“What lights?” Tracking Lili’s gaze across the courtyard, Elle saw that the gymnasium windows were brightly lit. “No, they aren’t, but somehow Jason doesn’t quite strike me as the workout type. It’s probably Karen or Hitch.”
A figure crossed the gym, almost as tall as Hitch, but much broader, carrying a barbell.
Elle and Lili looked at each other and smiled.
“Now where is he?”Lili asked as they scanned the empty gym.
Elle pointed to a T-shirt and a pair of shorts on the floor by the sauna. The view through its glass door wasn’t helpful—all she could see of the sauna’s interior was the other glass door on the back wall leading to the adjacent steam shower—but where else could he be?
“Feel like getting hot?” Elle asked.
“When am I not eager for a little rise in temperature?” said Lili as she untied her lubushu.
Jason, lying naked on a towel on the higher of the two wooden benches against the sauna’s left-hand wall, bolted upright when Elle and Lili, also naked, entered the little wood-paneled oven of a room. Hastily wrapping the towel around himself, he said, “Oh, hey, sorry. I, uh, I wasn’t expecting anybody else at this hour, so, um . . .”
“No need to apologize,” Lili said as she laid a pair towels on the bottom bench, one on either side of his feet. “And please don’t cover yourself on our account. A sauna can only be properly enjoyed sans vêtements, non?”
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he said, but he made no move to uncover himself, probably because of his physical reaction to their presence.
Lili smiled up at him through those thick black lashes as she seated herself by his left leg, her eyes glinting with sexual interest that wasn’t feigned—for Jason MacKenna sans vêtements was a revelation. The body that had looked thick under sweatshirts and baggy jeans turned out to be composed mostly of muscle, with just a modest layer of what Inigo liked to call “comfortable upholstery.” He was a big man, but in a good way, with a sturdy jaw, beefy arms, and shoulders like a prize stud bull. Without glasses to obscure his eyes, Elle could see that they were green—not hazel, but a remarkably vivid green—set off by dramatically arched blond brows.
Lili slid Elle an amused little look that said, I know you didn’t think I’d view him as a gabru, but now I do, and you’ll just have to deal with it. Whether in her male or female persona, Elle didn’t think she would ever get used to Lili making love to exceptionally desirable men. On the other hand, Jason’s unexpected hunkdom would make the collection of his seed a much more diverting enterprise than it otherwise would have been. Lili wasn’t alone in finding him suddenly very hot. His scent, enhanced by the heat of the sauna—shea butter soap, Johnson’s baby shampoo, a little hair pomade, and lots of aroused male—excited her intensely.
“Do you mind?” Elle asked Jason as she dipped the ladle in the wooden bucket next to the heater.
“Oh. Um, no. No, of course not.”
She poured a stream of water onto the hot rocks atop the heater. It evaporated instantly, steam billowing into the sultry air.
Jason was clearly trying not to stare at Elle as she came to sit on the bench, on the other side of his legs from Lili. Elle smiled inwardly, knowing what this young man saw when he looked at her: a six-foot, blue-eyed blonde with a spectacular centerfold body. Spectacular and naked, as was the exotic Lili, with her sheaf of glossy black hair, her drowsily seductive eyes, her golden skin. She was as narrow-waisted as Elle, her breasts not quite as large, but round and high, with nipples the color of wine. In keeping with current fashion, Lili had her pubic hair waxed into a sleek black strip. Elle’s was more or less au naturel, just neatly trimmed, since anything she did to it when she was a woman would remain that way when she turned back into a man.
“Elle,” Lili said, “this is the one I was telling you about, the genius with the wonderful hands.”
“You kidding?” he said, holding his hands out in front of him. “They’re freakin’ pot roasts.”
“No, they are merveilleuse, so masculine.” Lili tended to dial up the French when she was seducing Americans. Twisting around on the bench, her breasts brushing his leg, she took his jumbo-sized left hand in hers and caressed it. He bunched the towel in front of him.
Still holding his hand, Lili said,“Jason, this is my friend Elle. She’s been wanting to meet you.”
Elle turned and shook hands with Jason. She held on to his hand, grazing the big palm with her thumb; he drew in a breath. “Oh, you’re right, Lili. I can feel the strength in it.”
Jason looked back and forth between them as they stroked his hands, the wheels turning behind those crème de menthe eyes.
“Are these yours?” Lili asked, lifting the wire-rimmed glasses sitting on the bench next to her. Wincing, she dropped them and blew on her fingers.
“That’s why I’m not wearing them,” he said.
With a mischievous smile, Elle leaned closer to Lili and stage-whispered,“He can’t see us. We can do whatever we want.”
“My vision’s actually not that . . .” Jason trailed off as Lili touched her mouth to Elle’s.
They kissed with genuine passion, a delicate caress of their lips and tongues, their bodies pressed against Jason’s legs. Elle cupped Lili’s right breast, tugging the nipple erect as Lili fondled Elle’s already damp sex. It was a singular pleasure to be touched so intimately by Lili, a pleasure they reserved for when Elle—or Elic—would be taking a human, since that was the only way a dusios could climax. Unless it was foreplay for inter-course, that kind of direct sexual excitation could be frustrating to the point of pain.
The heat of the sauna pe
netrated Elle’s body, making her skin prickle with perspiration and heightening the stimulation of Lili’s deft fingers. Her pussy felt sizzling hot, the flesh there ultrasensitized. Lili’s skin grew slick to the touch, Elle’s hand gliding over it as if it were oiled. Elle stroked a fingertip along the cleft between Lili’s legs, which drew a soft moan from her.
Jason said, “Um, do you girls want me to get lost, or . . . ?”
“No, of course not,” Lili said in her throatiest bedroom voice, smiling into his eyes as she stroked his leg. “After all, you were here first.”
“Then, deal me in.” Jason levered himself down onto the bench between Elle and Lili with a self-assurance that Elle found surprising and sexy. He put his arms around both women, who immediately transferred their attention to him, kissing him as they writhed against his big, slippery-hot body.
“Have you ever done this before?” Lili asked him as she ran her fingers lightly up his rigidly erect cock.
“A threesome? Yeah, twice, but those girls didn’t hold a candle to you two.”
Elle and Lili looked at each other and then at him. They had speculated that the brainy bear was a virgin. Elle had even been prepared to use a liggia spiall on him if he proved resistant to seduction, so that he would not only submit willingly but remember it all as a dream. Clearly, no such measure would be needed.
“Coed dorms,” he said. “Greatest educational advance of the twentieth century. Listen, I’ve got some Trojans in my room. I can be there and back in—”
“We don’t need them,” Elle said. “It’s taken care of.”
“Um . . . Yeah, but . . .”
“Up to and including the clean bills of health,” Lili added. “So just relax and go with it.” Elle knew that Jason’s stock had just risen even higher in Lili’s eyes. A true gabru had brains as well as brawn.
Whispers of the Flesh Page 20