by Enslaved
“Marry who the devil you want and may you both be damned!” She tore away from him.
He bounded after her. “Daisy!” A few weeks before, he would have been mortified to think his manservant might have overheard them, but now he couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn.
He caught up with her at her bedroom door before she could slam it in his face. Tears sparkling on her lashes like snowflakes and body aquiver, she rounded on him. “Yes, yes I’ll mind. I’ll mind terribly. Seeing you walk down a church aisle, or anywhere else for that matter, will tear at my heart, but because we’re friends, I’ll find a way to smile and bear it. There, you’ve won your precious confession and made me cry. Happy now?”
He shook his head, feeling as if his heart were overflowing with tenderness. “Not so happy. I don’t want to be the cause of your tears, Daisy. I want to be the cause of your smiles. Dearest Daisy, I want to make you smile, to make you happy. Won’t you give me leave to try?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a
holiday humour and like enough to consent.”
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Rosalind,
As You Like It
Behind the closed bedroom door, Gavin and Daisy stood facing each other by the bed, their clothes a collective pool at their feet.
Daisy had undressed many a man, but she’d never had a lover who came close to matching Gavin’s male beauty. His waist was narrow, his buttocks tight, and his legs long and well-muscled. For a night, this night, he belonged entirely to her.
His gaze ran over her and she felt the touch of those blue eyes like a physical caress. “You’re beautiful.”
She stared up into his eyes. “You make me feel beautiful. You always have.”
He touched her cheek with gentle fingers. “Your powder and paint, you washed them off after your audition, didn’t you?”
Removing the cosmetics had been a calculated act on her part, a small test of her courage. Cosmetics were one more prop in the ongoing charade, a mask, a concealing cocoon. She wanted to come to Gavin fresh, new—clean. If only her past might be so easily scoured away.
His gaze brushed over her breasts. He looked back up at her, a sort of awe shining from his eyes. “May I touch you there?”
If any other man had asked such a question, she would have laughed outright. Touching each other intimately was, after all, the entire point of going to bed. But this was Gavin, dear, sweet, honorable Gavin. And knowing what he was, who he was, she understood he wasn’t asking permission to touch her body so much as her soul.
She couldn’t give him her soul any more than she could give him her virginity—impossible to give what she no longer possessed. But for one night, this night, she could give him what he most wanted. She could banish Delilah du Lac to the wings and call Daisy Lake to front and center stage. For one night she would be the sweet, unspoiled girl who lived on in his memory. She could give him that much at least, precious little when she owed him so very much more.
Instead of answering with a laugh or cheeky retort, she looked into his beautiful, solemn eyes and for once spoke from her heart instead of her head. “If you don’t touch me, I think I’ll die,” she whispered because suddenly it felt as if they were, if not exactly in a church, some other sacred place.
“Don’t speak of dying when we’ve so much to live for.”
His hands were cold if not exactly shaking. When he touched her nipples with his thumbs, they budded on contact. She shivered, and he started to pull away.
She caught at his hand, holding it to her. “No, don’t. Please. I like it. I want you to.” I want you.
Bolder now, he bent his head and lapped at her nipples, then drew one tight bud into his mouth and suckled, the pull of his mouth bringing the ache between her thighs to crescendo.
“Oh, Gavin.” Arching against him, she slid her hands into his hair, the blue-black waves as soft as she remembered.
They fell back on the bed, Gavin coming down on top of her. She wrapped her legs about his waist, loving the rock hard feel of him pressing against her belly. “I’m not a virgin, you know.” She said it with a smile but she felt, if not exactly sad, a little wistful.
She’d lost her virginity at the age of fourteen to a Parisian stagehand with a head of tousled black curls and blue eyes that reminded her of Gavin’s. Since then, she’d amassed quite a repertoire of sexual tricks, positions and acts calculated to not only seduce but enslave. Before the night was over, she fully intended to use every one of them to make, if not love, than at the very least magic.
“I didn’t think you were.” He slid his hand over her hip as if learning the landscape of her body, the feel and shape of her.
“You don’t mind about me having … having been with other men?” She shifted on her bottom and spread her steepled legs wider, a silent signal for him to touch and taste her wherever he wished.
He shook his head. “Delilah du Lac’s lovers are said to number a legion. I shouldn’t like to think I’m competing with an entire legion.” When she didn’t reply, he added, “But nor would I necessarily want to be your first, the one to hurt you.” His stroking hand moved to the inside of her thigh, his palm warm now and his touch sure and knowing.
“You wouldn’t have hurt me. You would have been gentle with me just as you always were, as you are now.” Indeed, no lover before had ever touched her with such tenderness, such … reverence.
“You deserve to be shown only gentleness.”
He bent his head and trailed kisses over her neck, her breasts, and her belly. Coming to her thighs, he kissed the tops and then the insides and then slid a hand between, finding her with his fingers.
“You’re so beautiful there, so beautiful and wet.” He spread her inner lips and covered her with his mouth, sending pleasure rippling through her. Lifting his head, he said, “Show me how to touch you. It’s important,” he added when she still didn’t answer.
She opened her eyes and met his stark gaze. Holding it, she reached down and touched her clitoris. “There. I want you to stroke and kiss and suckle me just there.” She circled the hard nubbin, her finger slipping in slickness.
His head disappeared between her thighs. He teased her with the tip of his tongue, striking the sensitive spot again and again, the warm tingling in her lower belly and sex building to a hot, rhythmic ache.
The orgasm hit her fast, hard, furious. When she stopped shaking and opened her eyes, she found Gavin braced over her, watching her face. “I can’t wait any longer.”
She moved her head back and forth on the pillow. “Don’t wait. I don’t want you to wait. I want you now.”
His maleness slid down her belly. He was long and hard, thick and beautifully shaped. She felt the pressure of him against her belly, and the liquid ache of her body’s rapidly rising response.
He rose above her, a hand braced on either side of her head. “God help me, Daisy, I want you so much.”
“I want you, too, Gavin. She raised herself up on her forearms and lifted her buttocks off the mattress to meet him.
He entered her in a single thrust. Daisy clenched her legs about his waist, hips lifting to meet him stroke for stroke, milking his member with her inner muscles.
His blue eyes flashed open. “Oh, God, Daisy.” A final thrust brought him to climax. Body shaking, he collapsed atop her. Stroking his sweat-filmed back and running her hands along his sinewy sides, Daisy allowed she’d never felt quite so content in all her days.
So this is what it means to be perfectly, blissfully happy, she thought and then ruined it in the next breath by wondering how soon it would be snatched away.
Sleep, when it finally came, did so in snatches. Even slumbering, they reached for each other, legs twining, bottoms bumping, mouths meeting. Around dawn, Gavin awoke to Daisy’s slender hand grasping his cock. Gently disengaging her fingers, he eased her onto her back and braced himself atop her. She let out a little moan and spread her legs for
him, arching her back in silent supplication though her eyes were still closed. She was still more asleep than awake and yet as wholly aware of him as he was of her, he was certain of it.
Reaching down between them, he dipped a finger into her slickness and brought the digit to his lips, savoring her smell, her taste, her tightness, every remarkable sensation.
“So wet, so sweet.”
A taste of her wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy—why settle for a nibble when he might have the whole feast? He slid down the length of her until his head was level with her thighs. Spreading her open with his fingers, he bent his head to her sex and ran his tongue from the hood of her clitoris to her slit, a slow, velvet sweep.
Her eyes flashed open, a blaze of green foxfire that warmed his soul and all the rest of him. “Yes, Gavin, oh, yes.”
She smelled and tasted like new spring grass, damp with dew and succulently tender. He licked her again, laving her clitoris with the tip of his tongue. Shifting her hips, she reached down and ran urgent fingers through his hair, pulling him closer still.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“Oh, sweetheart, stopping is the very last thing on my mind.” Indeed, now he knew what she liked, how to please her, he couldn’t fathom wanting to do anything but.
He positioned himself over her and slid into her in one sweet, slow thrust that set her body quivering like a bowstring. She gripped her legs tight about his waist, a sweet vise from which he had no thought or need to escape. A few more thrusts had her coming, the rhythmic throbbing of her inner muscles bringing him to the brink. Even in the throes of it, he remembered his duty and withdrew. The final contraction hit him deep, hard. He squeezed his eyes shut and spilled his seed onto the sheet.
“God, Daisy!”
He collapsed onto his side, the cool press of the covers a welcome balm to his flushed flesh.
“Gavin, are you all right?” Daisy rested her hand on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes and turned over to look at her, hair splayed over the pillow and cheeks wearing the faintest trace of a flush, the loveliest of sights. “I’d say I’m a great deal better than all right, but then I just finished making love with Daisy Lake, the most sublime woman in the world.”
He’d never known it was possible to feel this wholly, perfectly happy. He wished he might stop time long enough to bottle this moment, a perfect, golden memory he might take out over the years and relive at will.
If only life worked that way.
“Sublime, am I? I don’t know about that, but I’m glad you like me, warts and all.” Her tone was teasing but, in the dim light, he caught her studying him.
Hearing the open question in her voice, he hastened to reassure her. “I don’t see any warts, only these—kisses from the moon.” He ran the knuckles of one hand down the smattering of small, pale white scars on her flat and otherwise perfect abdomen, glad she wasn’t entirely flawless. The small blemishes reminded him she was human, after all.
He felt her stiffen and stilled his hand. Gaze searching her face, he asked, “What is it, sweetheart?”
She shrugged, but the clouds in her eyes told him she was hiding something. “I suppose I’m like a cat. I don’t much care for having my stomach stroked.”
“Sorry.” He drew his hand away, wondering what bad experience she might have had and whether or not she would ever trust him enough to tell him about it.
She sent him a quick, tense smile and reached for his retreating hand, laying it atop her mons. “All my other parts are fair game, however.”
He smiled though something in her manner had shifted, setting him on his guard. Stroking her, he said, “So I’ve discovered. I’d be surprised to learn you harbored a single shy bone in the whole of that beautiful body of yours.” In point, he was finding he loved how open and free she was, how entirely unfettered by inhibitions or false feelings both in and out of bed. Mere weeks ago he’d thought to if not bend her will, at least bring her about to a more conventional way of behaving, but now the prospect of altering anything about her struck him as the height of arrogance.
He laid a staying hand over one creamy shoulder. “By the by, I’ve no intention of marrying Isabel Duncan.” He leaned over and ran his lips along the curve of her neck. “I far prefer this, you, just as you are.”
She tilted her head back, leaning into him. “I’ll never be that sort of woman, a proper English lady.”
Gavin brushed his mouth over her ear. Pleased when she shivered, he slid an arm about her waist, drawing her back against him, and whispered, “I don’t want a proper English lady. I want you just as you are.”
She shifted to face him. “How can I be sure of that?”
“If anyone should be feeling unsure, I rather say it’s me. If you’ll recall, I was the one with the cold hands—and feet.”
That softened her. “Oh, Gavin.” She brought his palm to her lips. “Cold or warm, shaking or steady, yours are the hands I want touching me.”
It was the closest to an admission of caring she’d come so far. Moved, Gavin kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m glad to hear you say so because you’re the only woman I can imagine touching this way.”
Her smile fell, her eyes taking on that icy glaze he hoped their lovemaking might have thawed. “You oughtn’t to say such things.”
She tried turning away again, but he caught her cheek in his hand. “The bald truth is you’ve ruined me for other women, Miss Lake. Ruined me entirely, and I’m very much afraid the damage you’ve wrought is irreparable. However shall I punish you?” He took his time, pretending to consider, giving her a chance to warm to the game. “Ah, yes, I could always lash these lovely slender wrists of yours to the bedposts, I suppose. Of course, if I did that, I would be deprived of your hands. And you have very talented hands, my darling, very clever fingers. Have you ever considered playing the piano?”
She looked up at him and laughed, the ice melting from her eyes, leaving them once again warm and glowing, and he knew that for the time at least he’d won her back from the darkness, back to him. “I’d rather play you, Mr. Carmichael. Your instrument may be in want of a bit of fine tuning, but all in all it’s coming along quite nicely.”
Daisy wasn’t much of a believer in living by rules but there was one rule she prided herself on following as though it was carved in stone: never ever under any circumstance let a man hold you after sex. Letting a man hold you meant letting him inside not just your body but your head and quite possibly your heart. It was simply best not to go down that path. For that reason, Daisy had always held firm that none of her lovers should spend the night. Whether a man finished with her in an hour or fucked her straight through to dawn, after giving him a few minutes to recover his faculties, she handed him his trousers and pointed him to the door.
But this time was different, this time was a first. This time her lover was Gavin, and the thought of sending him back to his own bed was something she simply couldn’t bring herself to do. It felt so very good, so very right to have him hold her, to trail her fingers down the length of his beautiful back and plant small, nuzzling kisses on his brow, the slope of his shoulder, even the tip of his aristocratic nose. And his lips … Dear Lord but she couldn’t get enough of kissing him, first one corner of his mouth and then the other, the smooth seam, the sexy indentation cleaving his firm chin. Kissing Gavin was akin to taking that first draught from a cool mountain stream, impossible to quench the raging thirst with one sip or even two.
He cracked open an eye and looked over at her. “Penny for your thoughts.”
She’d thought him asleep. Startled, she jerked her head from the pillow of his shoulder. “I was just thinking how warm you are, like a furnace.” That much was the truth, although of course there was so very much more she might have said, including how dangerously easy it would be for her to get used to this, to having him in her bed and in her life.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” The smile in his voice told he
r he knew what her answer would be and simply wanted to hear her say it.
“A good thing for me as I’m always cold.”
He lifted his head from the pillow. “You’re not ill, are you?”
“Oh, heavens, no, I’m healthy as a horse and always have been. It’s only …”
“Tell me, won’t you? You used to tell me everything when we were young.”
Back then she’d confided in him completely, but fifteen years was such a very long time ago. Deciding she could trust him this much at least, she said, “The first winter we were in Paris, it snowed so that the opera house where the Lakes worked closed its doors until the thaw. No performances meant none of the players were paid, and it wasn’t long before we ran out of the funds for fuel. It was so cold inside our flat that my fingertips burned even though I wore mittens. Ever since, I can’t abide the slightest chill, at least not without complaining bitterly. If I have my way, I’ll keep the stove burning well into spring.”
He slid an arm about her, drawing her back against the heat of his chest. “Oh, darling, I’ll keep you safe and warm for as long as you let me.”
Wrapped about him, Daisy tried to recapture her earlier ease only she couldn’t seem to settle. Her thoughts kept circling back to the feral kitten she found in the alley behind their Paris flat, coaxed inside, and tamed so he came when called and took food out of her hand. Puss, she’d called him, after the Puss n’ Boots character she so loved acting out at Roxbury House. The Lakes had insisted she release Puss when it came time to move on. He was an alley cat, after all, and would fend just fine on his own. The day before they left, she’d found him laid alongside their busy street, apparently struck dead by a passing carriage. Domestication had dulled the poor creature’s wits so he could no longer shift for himself. Daisy had cried all the way from Paris to Reims, but the experience had taught her a valuable lesson.