by Cach, Lisa
“Damn, you keep floating away from me,” Nathaniel said.
“Perhaps the seals know what they are doing,” Valerian said.
“What?”
“The seals. They mate on dry land.”
He laughed, swam her to the edge of the pool, and hauled her up onto the smooth, clean rock floor. They sprawled there for a moment, feeling heavy and awkward out of the buoyancy of the water. The floor was cool on Valerian’s back, but not uncomfortable. Her body had absorbed too much heat from the water to feel cold. She closed her eyes.
She heard him fumble in the basket, a splash as of a hand in the water, and a moment later felt the slick gliding of a soaped hand across her belly. She smelled lavender, and opened her eyes to him leaning over her, huge and dark in the dim light.
“I feel as if I have been captured by Hades,” she said.
“Perhaps you have. And captives must always do what they are told. Raise your arms.”
She obeyed, clasping her hands together above her head, her breasts arching upwards, feeling thoroughly wanton. His soaped hands massaged her breasts, sliding smoothly over the contours of her body. She half-closed her eyes in pleasure. He dipped his hands in water again and continued soaping her, his thumbs pressing lightly as his strong hands slid up her arms, then back again to her chest and belly.
He did her hips, the outside of her thighs, brushed once, lightly, over the hair that concealed her womanhood, then skimmed down over her legs. He worked for several minutes on her feet, his fingertips finding the sensitive places between her toes and digging lightly into the hollows behind her ankles. She felt a pulsing tingle of pleasure run through her.
“I never knew it could feel so good to have a man touch my feet,” she whispered.
He chuckled softly in reply, and then his hands slid up her calves, over her knees, and pressed into the soft flesh of her inner thighs, urging her to open.
She obeyed, shutting her eyes in an embarrassment heavily edged with anticipation, but it was not his hand that touched her this time. She gasped and opened her eyes, seeing in astonishment the top of his head above her belly. She was about to protest, but then he moved his tongue against her and her head fell back as she writhed with pleasure.
She had never known that anything in life could feel this good. Her breath starting coming in short gasps, her mind silently pleading for him not to stop, and then he did. He gave her one long caress with his tongue, then lifted his head.
Valerian opened her eyes and stared at him.
“Patience, little wench,” he said, and smiled at her. He slipped back into the pool, but was out again in a moment, the water dripping from his large body. He lay down beside her, then pulled her atop him. She almost slid off, the soap covering her body mixing with the water on his.
“Now it’s your turn to wash me,” he said. “Only you can’t use your hands.”
Her soapy legs slid apart over his thigh, her womanhood pressing against the firm muscle, and comprehension dawned. “Whatever my master desires,” she said.
He stretched his arms above his head as she had done, and she knelt and looked down on him. She knew he would protest nothing she did, would welcome whatever touch she chose. The thought sent her imagination racing.
She rested her weight on her hands on the floor, and moved her hips against the thigh tight between her legs. Her woman’s flesh slid along his lightly haired skin, a gentle pleasure that it pleased her to take from him. She leaned down until her breasts were against his chest, and brushed her nipples against his skin, then pressed more firmly and slid her whole body down the length of him, until her breasts were on his thighs and his manhood was against her face.
She rubbed her cheek against the head, the skin as soft and velvety as that on her own face. Curiosity prompted her to taste the head, her tongue laving it like a piece of hard candy. He jerked in response, and she smiled despite the sting of the soap on her tongue. She slid back up his body until his manhood pressed against the jointure of her thighs, and she rubbed gently against him.
His arms came up, and he pulled her down to his chest, then rolled them both into the pool. The splash echoed weirdly with her laughter. “Little heathen,” he said, and rinsed the soap from her body.
This time when he pulled her from the water, there was no waiting on the stone. He lifted her legs around his hips, and guided himself to her opening. She felt the pressure against her, and her muscles tightened in memory of the discomfort of last time.
“Relax, my love,” he said. “You’re tight, but it won’t hurt if you relax.”
“I… I don’t know how,” she whispered. She could still feel him pressing against her, feeling too big to ever enter that small space. She wanted him within her, yet could not release the nervousness she felt.
He gently lowered her legs, so that her feet were flat on the ground, her knees bent. He leaned down and kissed her, gently. “I’ll go slow. If it hurts, I’ll stop. Now relax yourself. Pretend you are dropping your muscles down into the stone.”
She did what he said, concentrating on those tight muscles deep within her womanhood, the muscles she had had little reason to pay attention to for most of her life. She let them drop into the floor, and felt the tip of Nathaniel’s manhood slide slightly within her.
“Yes, that’s it,” he encouraged her and moved slightly in and out, each gentle thrust bringing him a little farther inside. “Do you hurt?”
“Only a little,” she managed to say, her breath forced out of her in little gasps by his movements. He stopped his thrusts, and she moved against him. “Don’t stop. It’s not a bad pain—it’s like a mix of pain and pleasure.”
“It’s because you are so new to this. In time you will loosen.” He was halfway within her now, and he thrust a little more deeply. “But I’m not complaining.”
Her eyes widened as he thrust farther, feeling herself spread to accommodate him. His thrusts took on strength as she moved with him, her body finally accepting his, and although it was not the same intense pleasure that his mouth had given her, there was a different pleasure, fainter, but wrapped in her whole body’s awareness of this man thrusting within her. She gave herself over to him and the strength of his body.
He froze above her, his hips pressed tightly to hers, then kissed her roughly several times, saying her name, and she felt the pulsing throb of his manhood through her woman’s flesh as he reached his climax. He collapsed atop her, his face pressed into her neck. She welcomed the weight of him and the sweaty heat of his skin.
After a few moments he rolled off her and cupped her breast in his hand. He kissed her check, then spoke into her ear. “I won’t leave you as I did last time.”
Before she could ask what he meant, his hand moved down and his fingers began to work their magic on her. She was slick from their lovemaking, her nerves sensitive and waiting. She turned her face to his chest as he leaned against her, her lips touching his damp skin. She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to pleasure, soft sounds rising from the back of her throat.
Muscles all over her body tensed as her climax neared, as if by straining she could urge it closer. She grabbed his arm and squeezed, her fingernails digging in, a plea for him to keep going, not to stop, to keep doing the same thing. He kissed her as she reached her final shuddering release, stroking her lips with his tongue even as his fingers echoed the movement below. She quivered as it came, and felt the undulations within her, a constriction of muscles four, five, six times, each contraction further away from the last.
She clamped her thighs around his hand, stifling his movements, and pulled him down beside her. He put his arm over her body and brushed the wet hair away from her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He kissed her nose. “Thank you. I promise you, each time it will be better than the last. Sooner or later I’ll learn to control myself with you, and we’ll have time to savor all the pleasures to be had between man and woman.”
; “Will you teach me exotic positions?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Will you put my legs over your shoulders? Or have me stand on my hands and knees, like an animal? Will you have me sit in a swing above your bed?”
“I beg your pardon?” He pulled back to look her in the face, his expression shocked.
“There’s a book in your uncle’s library, with drawings. Many, many fascinating drawings.”
The shock faded. “Ahh. So I recall. I discovered it myself when I visited as a boy. Those pictures played a large role in my nocturnal fantasies as I grew up.”
“Mine too.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You fantasized about what you saw there?”
“Of course.”
“But you’re a woman.”
She laughed. “Yes.”
“But women don’t—”
“Don’t what? Fantasize about men, about what a man and a woman do together under the sheets? Women don’t…” she almost could not say it, then felt the urge to shock him even as she shocked herself. “Women don’t touch themselves?”
He blinked. “Women are different from men that way. I thought.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
He looked into her eyes with interest. “Have you fantasized about me?”
She felt her cheeks heat. She had been daring enough for one day! “I don’t know that I would tell you, if I had. It might do irreparable damage to your opinion of yourself.” She rolled out from under him and back into the water. She kicked her way into the middle of the pool, watching him slide in after her. “If I said no, you would be crushed. If yes, your head would bloat so large I would not be able to get you out of the cave again.”
“Harlot!”
“Peacock!”
“You’ll pay for that,” he said, and lunged through the water at her.
She laughed, spluttering water as he caught her. “‘Tis what I count upon!”
Chapter Seventeen
“A guinea for your thoughts,” Nathaniel said, sitting down at the end of the sofa where she lay. They were in the drawing room of Raven Hall several days after the cave, a fire burning on the hearth, the two of them ensconced in the pocket of light thrown by the flames.
She tucked the soles of her stocking feet against his warm thigh. “That is above the usual asking price.”
“The better to tempt you, m’dear. I think there are depths to your thoughts that you do not share.”
She wiggled her toes against him, and he picked up her feet and stroked his thumbs along her arches. “If I laid myself bare to you, where would the mystery be?” she said. “You would find some other poor country wench with whom to while away your time.”
“You don’t believe that,” he said and massaged each individual toe.
“I suppose not.” But part of her did. She had been thinking about how much she had come to cherish the few hours she could snatch with Nathaniel, about how knowing she could lose herself with him for however brief a time made it easier to cope with what was happening to Aunt Theresa. And the more she cherished their time together, the more certain she became that each hour together would be their last: that he would tire of her, or that some unforeseen event would pull him from her.
His hands slid up her calves, and she let her lids droop shut. “If a guinea will not tempt you, perhaps there are other ways to lure forth your secrets.”
She smiled as his palms slid over her knees and touched upon the bare flesh of her thighs.
A pounding upon the front door, audible even from the drawing room, stopped Nathaniel’s progress up her skirts. They both listened as the door was answered, and a noisy tumult of voices and footsteps entered the front hall.
Valerian sat up, pulling down her skirts and slipping her feet into her shoes. It was hardly a secret any longer that she was intimate with the baron, but she knew better than to flaunt the fact. “Who do you think it is?” she asked him.
She saw his eyebrows draw together as he listened to the voices, then his face cleared in surprised recognition. “Of all the—” He broke off, and with a gesture for her to stay where she was, went out into the hall.
She sat for a moment, listening to the exclamations of greeting and delight, clearer now that Nathaniel had left the door ajar. Two voices stood out amongst the rest.
“La! We have missed you in town!” a woman trilled.
“Don’t listen to her, it was the stink that drove us to your door. The Thames has flooded again, and there is not a house in the city that does not have its cesspit bubbling up through the floorboards,” a man said.
“But I truly have missed you, Nathaniel. It is all so dreary without you.”
“Not to mention that the season is well and truly over,” the man countered.
Valerian stepped quietly to the door and peered out into the hall. A finely dressed man and woman in traveling clothes stood with Nathaniel, having the look about them of brother and sister. Four other people, in equally fine dress, were removing gloves and having their cloaks taken by servants, and as she watched yet another pair came in through the open front door.
“Since you have been so cruelly exiled from the delights of society,” the woman said, “we have elected to bring society to you. Now where is that terrible Mr. Carlyle? He did say he would be here.”
“Paul wrote to you?” Nathaniel asked.
The man answered. “He said you were languishing in these wilds, and verily, after this journey, I understand what he meant.” The man glanced meaningfully around the hall. “A bit gloomy for what you are used to.”
“It suits.”
The woman looked around, then her eyes lit on Valerian. “You, girl. Stop skulking in the shadows and come and help with our things.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth to speak, but then caught Valerian’s eye. She shook her head at him, and slipped back into the drawing room. There was nothing he could say that would not embarrass her as much as or more than the woman’s first assumption.
She gathered her worn wool cloak over her arm. Any minute those guests could enter the drawing room, seeking a place to warm themselves while their rooms were readied. She did not want to be here when they did. She gave one last look over the room, the fire crackling in the hearth, the sofa where she had been sitting with Nathaniel, and felt a twinge in her heart. Don’t let it be over already, she silently prayed.
When she got back to the cottage she was damp and thoroughly chilled from the walk through the woods, where the wet undergrowth crowding the path had brushed against her cloak, soaking it. Aunt Theresa was asleep in her bed, her snores reassuringly heavy. She had taken to dosing herself before bed to insure that she got the rest she needed. Valerian checked on her, then drew the bed draperies all the way closed and went to stir up the fire and light a candle. She doubted that she herself would find sleep for some time yet.
She busied herself making a pot of tea and cutting bread and cheese for her supper. She broke up some stale biscuits and put them in a dish of milk for Oscar, and the two of them sat at the end of the table and ate in silence. She could not finish her meal, meager as it was, and ended up breaking the cheese into pieces and rolling it into balls that she fed to Oscar from the tip of her finger, trying all the while not to think about what the arrival of Nathaniel’s London friends would mean to their relationship.
A futile endeavor.
She cleared away the dishes and took down a half-finished carving, no bigger than the palm of her hand, of a bear. She settled by the fire with her tools, the thick leather apron spread across her lap, and began working. It required almost all of her concentration to make the careful grooves in the wood, and to keep from a slip that could deeply cut her hand. The bit of her mind that floated free, however, taunted her without mercy, striking at her insecurities and ignoring rational argument.
You knew it could not last, you knew Paul Carlyle was right to try to keep you apart, you knew Nathaniel only took you
up because there was no one else for miles. Now that his friends are here, women of his own class, he will have no need of you. She sniffled, and a tear slid down her cheek. He let you leave his house without a word. That should tell you what you need to know.
She was working herself into a thick wallow of self-pity when she was distracted by the creak of the door. She looked up, sniffling, and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
Even before seeing his face in the darkness at the other end of the cottage she knew it was Nathaniel, and as he walked as quietly as he could across the floor and came into the light, she saw his expression turn from one of anger to one of exasperation.
She looked at him, her mouth quivering, and then he was on his knees beside her, pulling her into his arms, the wooden bear in her hand a solid lump between them.
“Foolish wench,” he rumbled into her hair. “I thought you’d gone ’round to my bedroom. Why did you leave?”
“You had guests,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I didn’t think I was wanted.”
“Uninvited guests,” he said, and held her away from him by the shoulders. “Look at me, Valerian.” She slowly turned her eyes to his. “Paul wrote to them suggesting that they come, not I, but now that they are here, I can hardly put them out and tell them to lodge elsewhere. If I had my way they would not a one of them have set foot in Raven Hall to begin with, but they’re here now and we must make the best of it.”
“You won’t have time for me now.” It came out petulant, and she hated the weakness in her own voice. Where was the calm, confident Valerian she had once thought herself to be?
“I won’t give you up simply because some friends I don’t particularly care for have arrived,” he said, offense in his tone.
Valerian suddenly recalled Laetitia, that other unfortunate young woman beneath his class with whom he had dallied. Despite herself, she wondered if he would eventually try to shake free of her, as well.
“I can’t come to you,” Valerian said. “Not with those people at the hall. I don’t want them to know about me.”