by Shirl Anders
I am, Nia thought, living in the perfect bonny fantasy. Radford was her prince come to save her. She was the somewhat tarnished princess, saved and redeemed by love. “He does love me!” she argued, gazing out at the sun-dappled roses. “I’m just not sure that he likes me.”
She thought she had evidence too. Radford would never say that he loved her, and then just stop loving her. However, he’d never said anything about liking her, and the way they had met and fallen in love was so chaotic. It wasn’t as if they had spent great amounts of time discovering what they had in common.
“Hmm, let’s see, what common interests could a tart and a Duke have?” she exclaimed, slouching back irritably in her chair. Not that she’d been a practicing lady of the night for years. “Blimey, it was only weeks,” Nia paused, “But, I was good at it!”
It seemed that sex was the only thing she and Radford had in common, earth-shattering ground-shaking sex. But it was not enough and that is why Radford was so quiet lately. He actually brooded now, and he had never done that before. Now, he barricaded himself in his study for long hours in the evening, where before they would spend their evenings together. He never came to bed anymore unless he thought she would be asleep.
“In fact, we never make love, but in the deep of the night,” Nia muttered with the realization. They only made love now when Radford woke her early in the morning, then he always left before they really talked. “It is because he has discovered he has nothing to say to you,” she mumbled.
Had the class distinctions finally settled in, she wondered? What else could she expect? She had been a professed tart, and they were good for sex, but not for talking too. She wiped a small tear from her eye, blinking into the sunlight. Blimey! She was not reduced to crying? Was she? Hard-nosed Nia O’Shea from the best Irish stock ... weeping!
“Och!” she exclaimed. This was daft. She did not know how to be a wife with a brooding husband, a husband that did not like her. Nia tossed down the quill pen she’d held in her other hand. She’d been trying to write poetry, hoping the sunlight would improve her mood. She stood in a flurry, casting her papers and pen to the ground. Then she turned and fled into the mansion.
Radford rocked back on his heels, one hand hitched in his pocket, the other clamped to the silver knob of his cane. His blurring one-eyed gaze tried to follow his wife’s hurried leave taking. He had been watching her, hidden behind the large oak, his favorite in a well-planned landscape. At the time, his wife had been sitting still as a lovely vision in the sunlight, and he’d been able to see her more clearly. But her rapid movements just now had blurred his faltering vision, yet he had heard her sobs.
“Damnation,” he cursed. Perhaps, Nia was pregnant and over emotional? Yet, he knew that was a lie. She could be with child, yes. However, that was not the cause of her emotional state. He knew it was him.
How had he let everything go so far? He had trapped them both, because he was so afraid of giving her up. Now everything loomed, and still he’d not found the courage to tell her, and then release her. The evil part of his soul had hoped that she would become pregnant, and it would be added leverage for her to stay with him, when she discovered that he was going blind.
Yet, that was illogical and unreasonable, because he wanted her gone in that case. He intended to demand it! She was young, beautiful, and vivacious. How could he limit her? Because she is your wife until death do you part! Radford blinked his one eye up into the sun. But Nia had not had the truth when he’d foolishly and greedily married her. No one had. Somehow, in his arrogance and happiness, he’d thought his eyesight would improve. Now, he was left on the edge of a steep cliff. He had to jump. He had to tell his wife and he had to tell the Archangels. Still, he hesitated with such control in his hands to completely change his life forever.
“You, arrogant imbecile,” he berated himself. The control was out of his hands and had been out of his hands each month by darkening month as his eyesight worsened.
Radford tapped his cane in disgust, then he moved toward Nia’s strewn papers. It was a mission to read while he still could, to love for as long as he could hold on. Radford reached down and picked up Nia’s papers, lifting them up to the sunlight to read slowly.
“Passion would keep one eye blue. Love would linger with sight deep in our souls. Naked together we see our desire. Breasts to chest, loins slick. We need no light. Our sight is but love.” Radford’s fingers curled, crimping the papers with a tremor. “Damnation.” His wife knew.
His one-eyed gaze jerked upward to the windows of their bedchamber. He thought that he caught sight of a cream-colored flutter. The color of the gown his wife had been wearing. She could be looking down on him right now and he would not know it, but his heart did. His heart knew it, and shakily he lifted the papers to his lips and kissed them. Then, he started forward into the mansion to find his wife.
When Radford entered their bedchamber still holding Nia’s poetry in his hand, he could see that his wife was quite discomposed. She fluttered with agitated movements, apparently haphazardly throwing her stocking, garters, and other frilly accessories onto their large four-poster bed.
“I would try to learn about the things that interest you, Radford,” she said, glancing at him, then glancing away as she lifted two mismatched pairs of stocking with jerky movements. “I could talk to you about anything you like, really, if you would just tell me what it is. Help me along. Anything that interests you interests me.”
Radford tilted his head in confusion, raising the papers in his hand higher into view. “You knew,” he stated, in mixed wonder.
Nia tossed down the stocking with a vexed motion. “Of course I know!” She turned partially toward him, then jerked partially away again. “How could I miss that you do not like your own wife?! That we never talk!”
Radford felt the slight wish that he had two eyes so that he could cross them at the moment as he stepped closer. “Cherie, I love you. I meant that you know about my going blind!”
“Of course you love me!” Nia exclaimed, grabbing two pairs of garters upward as though she were about to try to strangle them. “You love to have sex with me. You love the color of my red hair. Blimey, you love my laugh. But, Radford! You do not like to talk to me!” The garters sailed across the large expanse of the bed, and she turned to him, with her color high and her light green eyes bright.
“No! I meant about going blind, Nia. That you know in regard to that.”
“You see!” Her hands rose upward in an expressive gesture. “There is something we can talk about. Surely you must want to!”
“But you knew!” he said, with his voice rising in exasperation. “I mean that you know!”
“Of course I know. I am your wife.”
“Of course.” he said, with an incredulous voice, as she interrupted him.
“We could talk of that, Radford. That and...” She paused, “The Archangels. This newest mission. You can tell me how I will help you. You have to tell them, and we can discuss that. Then, we can talk about what you need for me to do, by your side, to help you accomplish your mission.”
“I cannot do it. I won’t!” Radford said, setting the poems on the edge of the bed.
Nia’s hands fell from their expressive dance as she stilled. “You won’t? Why not?” She suddenly seemed to hear him. “Of course you can do it. You are the organizer. You can do that and anything else you can just direct me to do.”
Radford was awed. His wife knew that he was losing his sight, it seemed a second fact to her, old news, as it were. She assumed he would work with the Archangels as before and with her help obviously. She seemed just naturally to assume that she would help.
“My going blind does not bother you, Nia?” He seemed unable to trust himself to say or ask anything else.
“Bother?” Her expressive hands went to her hips as she tilted her head. “I’m sad for you...” Then, she added quickly, “No pity though. You will remember all the colors of the world, people’s faces
and so many things. Y-You are so capable though that I predict there is barely anything you did before that you will not be able to do.”
So matter of fact. So accepting. Radford was rocked back. “I did not know that you knew.”
“You did not? How silly, of course you did.” Nia stepped closer to him. “You know I was thinking as well, sweetheart, that your other senses will be heightened. Do you want to talk about this with me then?”
Damnation, he was an idiot, in love with the most wonderful woman. Radford clasped Nia’s hands bringing them to his lips to kiss, then he looked at her, “Cherie, I want to talk to you about everything.”
Her peach-tinted bottom lip trembled as her light green eyes shone with the hints of tears. “You do?”
He smiled slowly, releasing her hands to reach for and grasp her waist. “I do.” Then suddenly, he lifted her and tossed her into the pile of frilly under garments. She squealed in surprise, then laughed as he climbed up on the bed after her and he pinned her to the bed with his longer body. “What was this about that I adore having sex with my wife?”
“You rogue!” Nia grasped his cheeks and pulled him close for a zealous kiss.
When Radford broke the rising passion of their lips, he cleared his throat. “Seriously now, Nia, if you think on it you will realize that it has only been the last two weeks or less that I have been rude and unemotionally unavailable to you.”
Nia looked over his face thoroughly, then she reached up to caress the side of his hair. “What happened two weeks ago, Radford?”
He settled in more closely between her thighs, leaning to his right to lift his left hand and caress the side of Nia’s face. “Saxon told us about The Order of the Satyr and I knew that a new mission was afoot. Really, Cherie, our combined thinking misses each other completely at times.”
“It seems more than, ‘at times.’” Nia giggled. “It never occurred to me that your loss of sight would worry or hinder you with this new mission looming.”
Radford set his chin to her chin, looking down at her, “Blind is blind, love, a hindrance for a spy. I am not the man I used to be.”
Suddenly, Radford felt Nia’s hand on his ass as she groped it warmly. “You’re better, I say Gov’,” she teased. “I wager that before ye were all soft and young. Now yer all hard. And all man!”
“You, imp!” He dipped his head and licked her lips, then he settled his chin on her chin again. Her hand stayed, fondling him at leisure.
“Seriously,” she said, using one of his most used segues. “It’s your mind that is of more use, from the stories you tell me. Let the others take care of the bobbing and weaving of fancy footwork. You must let them decide, when you tell them. You would have realized this if you were not so close to the situation. I know that none of them could do without you or would want to think of it.”
“Hmm.” He was too close. Too emotional. Yet, with Nia by his side, all things seemed possible and not so overwhelming. “They, well ... and I agreed also... We all decided that none of the wives or lovers can be involved with this. It is too dangerous.”
“You bounders!” She exclaimed, slapping his ass playfully. “Gabriella predicted that, but I did not believe her. There is no way Joelle is out of this!”
He chuckled. “Let one of you in and the rest...”
“We will follow!” she exclaimed with a tart smile.
Radford realized that he was in not a position to argue the point. Nor did he want to. His life was changing. It had changed. Different things were important to him now. The Archangels acceptance and use for him as he went blind were not as certain as Nia believed. Each and every one of them would always remain his friend, as close as brothers. Yet, his faltering eyesight could easily prove a dangerous liability. And, it seemed that he could accept that now, gracefully and without bitterness. That was because he had the one thing that mattered more, Nia’s love and acceptance, so much more important.
“Mm,” Nia purred, lifting her other hand so that both her hands were massaging Radford’s tight, sinewy buttocks. Her husband was made so bonny fine. “Think how sensitive your touch will feel, my love, so much more intense.”
Radford rolled his compact ass with the motions of her kneading hands. Even through the layers of her silk skirts and his trousers, she could feel his hard cock pressing interestingly into her pussy. Her bonny lord, handsome husband, was always so hard! She knew that it could not possibly be true. However, every time she looked, he was.
He lifted his chin from her chin, and she saw that, “look” in his crystal blue eye as he reached for one dark-black stocking. Ooh, her husband’s thoughts were turning to sex! She watched him hold one end of the stocking in one hand and the toed end in the other as he lowered it toward her eyes. He stopped with the stocking material stretched out above her blinking eyes.
“Shall we try?” Radford’s voice was like a deep red mulled wine sliding down one’s throat, she thought, licking her lips.
She tried to appear hesitant before she blurted with a smile, “Yes!”
She and her husband laughed and tumbled each other out of their clothes and her corset. Then, Radford knelt above her to put the stocking blindfold over her eyes. “We should clear off the bed,” she said, feeling nervous at the darkness.
“Leave it. Better to feel.” Radford’s voice was rich and sexy. “Lay back, we will use it.”
The silky things tickled and caressed different places on her body as she laid back. She felt as though she were nude to Radford’s clothed, because he could see all of her, every inch and she did not know where he was looking.
“It feels intense,” she said, with her fingers clutching silk stockings on one side.
“It looks delectable,” he murmured. “As though you are an exquisite feminine feast laid out just for me.”
She felt the heat of his mouth moving closer and closer to her lips as he spoke, then he was kissing her. Intensely. Her hands touched his bare skin and she felt the explosion of hot male flesh on her fingers and palm. The feeling was so much more profound without her sight as she rubbed his hairy chest. Then, she felt the lightest of caresses gliding between her lower thighs, moving upward. Her skin shivered as her nipples peaked more, and Radford’s tongue filled her mouth. The delicate and enthralling touch slid over the lips of her shaved pussy. Her returning moan was rapt and excited as she began sucking long draws on Radford’s tongue.
Radford trailed a silk-stocking over his wife’s flushed cunt lips, while her hips rolled in seduction and her thighs unfolded with open invitation. Looking down at the raspberry peaks of his wife’s breasts, at her white-satin skin, and her long flowing body, he thought, she was so beautiful. He was a lucky bastard. But his wife was as lusty and uninhabited as he was. Her hands trailed over his body, groping and fondling until she found his hardy cock. He’d never met a woman before that loved his cock. But, Nia did! She had taught him what it meant. It was incredible, but at times he could nearly be jealous of the stiffly engorged appendage his wife cooed and lusted over.
“Oh mm, so hard. So hot, Radford,” she purred, with her hand and fingers taking hold. She pumped him from the head to the base, fondling his balls warmly in passing, then she gripped and drew her tight hand up the shaft again. His breathing increased as his finger found her cunt with the silk stocking in between. His mouth latched onto one of her taut nipples drawing a long moan from her. “Oh mm, love, love.”
Nia’s pale and lush body arched beneath him as his finger covered with a silk stocking became soaked with the nectar of her increasing arousal. Her fingers battened down on his cock, drawing more rapid heat and friction.
“Lady Fire,” he moaned, humping against her hands arduous motion as he plunged his silk-encased finger into her sheath.
“Oh, blimey, love!” she exclaimed as her legs jerked upward, spreading out widely. “I have never felt anything so intense,” she gasped, while her hips rocked to his wet silk finger fucking her heat deeply, as her hand pump
ing his cock grew slick with his leaking seed.
“I want you inside me! Please, love, give me your cock,” she begged with her lips panting and her body humping against the motion of his mating finger.
There was little in life more powerful than hearing the woman you love begging for your cock, Radford thought, as he followed the pressure of his wife’s insistent hand guiding his cock to the swollen ardor of her cunt. Just the feel of her smearing and pressing the head into fitted position, extracted a groan from his throat. Nia’s heels blindly sought leverage and landed flatly on either side of his chest. He burned the view into his memory, to last a life time, of Nia urging his cock to her open cunt, while he pushed forward. The first ring of tightness flexed down over his cock-head and blurred the vision in his one eye with ecstasy as Nia cried her pleasure.
“Yes! Oh! Fuck me, fuck me!” She humped eagerly against him with her sheath clutching and drawing on his cock as he thrust to the base. He could feel Nia’s fingers between them rolling around, touching their connection and he knew rubbing her clitoris. He grasped her left breast and he pumped his hips.
“Oh, Radford!” She followed him, meeting him with a smack in the middle. “Your cock’s so hard. So hot. Fuck me, fuck me,” she mewled.
Nia was like wildfire, enthusiastic and earthy. She liked her man fucking her hard and deep, and she writhed every step of the way. Dragging her nails over his body, digging her toes into his chest, rocking and lifting her hips with each plunge to meet him, as her fingertips rollicked over her clitoris. They panted together as her cries became shriller, and her nails scraped him.
He could hear it, feel it, and breathe it. Nia’s climax was leaping to the edge, and he followed it, driving it on with hard and rapid thrusts, until she shattered. The sound punched him in the gut with pleasure and he let loose of the control he used holding his ejaculation back. He just relaxed, and his cock exploded seed, making him grunt as pleasure pounded through his body to each recurring release. Long plunges later, he came to rest over Nia’s slick panting breasts as his lips brushed against her lips through his own pitched breathing.