But Garrick Stanley Breckinridge Throckmorton the Third was not most men.
Keeping his eyes firmly shut, he lay among the cushions in the conservatory, suffered the sensation of her mouth on his skin, and considered his dilemma.
There was nothing about the evening before of which he could be proud. Equally, there was nothing about the evening before that he regretted.
And he should. Blast it, he should. He had, in sound mind and in total sobriety, taken the virtue of a young lady, a sweet woman, the daughter of one of his employees, and exulted in the process.
Of course, she had claimed to know her mind. She had claimed to love him.
He swallowed.
Sadly, he wanted it to be true. She was the gardener’s daughter, yes, but as he’d told her the night before, he considered the difference in their stations immaterial, a product of the aristocrats’ need to set themselves above everyone else for no reason other than their heritage. He judged people by their characters, and Celeste was everything he wanted in a woman: clever, beautiful, witty, open.
His.
No other man had had her, and the sentiment wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t respectable, but pride and possessiveness held him in twin grips.
Celeste stroked her palms along his ribcage, following the grooves toward his back. She moved lower, pressing her fist hard against his abdomen, seemingly fascinated by its unyielding quality.
What kind of man was he? Not the man he’d believed himself to be. He had thought himself a responsible businessman of dignity and good sense. Instead, he’d proved that dignity and good sense didn’t stand a chance against temptation, true temptation. Temptation with the name of Celeste.
She ran her hands down the tops of his thighs, then down the outsides, then in a slow, strong glide, she traveled up the insides, and finally she rested her cheek against one.
For some reason, she seemed obsessed with his thighs.
For some reason, pride made him flex his thighs.
Vanity, he supposed.
He hadn’t ever thought about his body. He was big, and for that he was thankful for his size gave him an advantage in a fight. He rode, he fenced, he practiced boxing with a retired boxer; all requisites for a man who lived with the threat of danger. But those activities had honed his muscles, and right now, as Celeste examined him, he was glad, for like a child with a new toy, she inspected everything. She rubbed his calves, lightly touched each toe, glided all the way back up his leg . . . he tensed, waiting, hoping . . .
Temptation had kept him awake half the night, tormenting him with the need to take her again. He imagined sliding into her from behind as she slept, wakening her with his gentle thrust. He imagined kissing her lips, fondling her breast, waking her with arousal, facing her and taking her. Mostly he had imagined spreading her legs, entering her from above, and coercing her, once more, to acknowledge him as her master.
Celeste’s fingers glided over his hip bones and down into the sculpted concave of his belly.
He wanted to dominate this woman, engrave her with his possession, make sure she never doubted that her place was by his side. There was nothing to admire about such an archaic instinct; nevertheless the need burned in his gut.
This morning he needed to stop imagining and show some bloody wisdom. He firmly believed if a man made a mistake, he should accept the consequences and do everything to set the matter straight. He, Garrick, had to face the fact he’d gone wild for Celeste, breaking all the rules of society and civilized behavior, and reparations must be made. He knew what those reparations must be; he would face what must be done and do it like a man.
As he made his resolution, Celeste stroked his diabolical cock. His erection stood at stiff attention, just as if he hadn’t blasted his seed into her last night like some youth with his first woman.
In his adolescence, he would never have been able to hold back as he had, for like all youths he had thought what worked for him would work for her. He knew differently now, and last night, once he had surrendered to his baser needs, he had been determined to show Celeste all the pleasure a woman could find. After all, what was the use of giving into temptation unless he embraced it wholeheartedly?
Of course, when she had approached climax, she’d tried to evade it, and him.
That hadn’t surprised him. Before, in this very conservatory, he’d forced her to climax. It had been a lesson for him in his own beastly nature, and a lesson for her, too. She hadn’t easily accepted that her body could turn traitor to her good sense. Moreover, he had not joined her in ecstasy, but compelled her to experience it alone.
So for all her openness and pledges of love, she had been wary, and was still. Instinctively she knew that, for her, surrender was not the giving of her body, but the acceptance of pleasure, the yielding of the self.
She explored him with a light touch, weighing his testicles in her palms, discovering the shapes within with a succinct, “Gracious!”
Today in the light, her curiosity led her, but she didn’t understand. She thought maybe last night had been a fluke, or that she hadn’t really cried out and convulsed in his arms, or that now she could control herself.
He knew better. She would yield again, and each time she’d come closer to knowing that he wouldn’t harm her, or ever betray her. He’d teach her to trust him, one climax at a time.
A difficult task, but one to which he would willingly—no, eagerly—apply himself.
She licked his nipple, once, twice, then stopped. He peeked beneath his lashes to see her, nose wrinkled, taking one of his curling chest hairs off her tongue.
He wanted to laugh. Blast her! He had been gravely considering how he should make amends, then she made him forget both restraint and the momentous topic at hand. She had made him want to laugh.
Glancing up, she caught him watching her. Dropping the hair off the cushion, she asked in the most prosaic tone possible, “How do you avoid this?”
Sunlight leaked through the curtains, showing him a rumpled Celeste: hair tangled, lips swollen, and proudly naked. She sat on her heels, her skin glowing brighter than the golden roses that bloomed in their pots. “It’s a constant hazard,” he admitted.
“Only for me,” she said grumpily.
Now he did laugh. Bless her for an innocent! “For me, too.”
“Why? I don’t have hair on my chest.”
“No.” He tucked his hands beneath his head. “Not on your chest.”
“Well, where else would you . . . oh!” She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at him with huge, appalled eyes.
He smiled at her with wicked delight—and that was another change she’d made in him. He’d never been any kind of wicked before.
Worse, he liked it.
She realized he liked it, too, for she straightened her slim shoulders and folded her hands primly in her lap. In a lofty tone, she announced, “You can’t be serious.”
He sat up, a slow flexing of muscles, a purposeful message of intent. He was bigger than she, stronger than she, more experienced than she.
She didn’t stand a chance.
Which she realized at once. “No,” she said.
He reached for her.
She didn’t waste any time. She scrambled backward. “No.” She sounded a little more desperate.
He caught her around the waist. He picked her up—she weighed no more than a feather—and carried her to the sofa.
“No, no, no!”
But she wasn’t really fighting. She struggled more from a combination of shock and the maidenly embarrassment that made her insist, “No!” as he sat her on the sofa.
He sank to his knees before her. Holding one ankle, he straightened her leg, lifted it to his mouth and kissed her toes.
She caught her breath. “No.” But she lost her tone of unequivocal denial.
He slid his lips along her arch, up her heel, up her calf.
“Garrick, no.” Her voice had lowered to that husky, knowing-woman tone.
He lingered at the soft skin of her inner knee, kissing it, wetting it with his tongue.
She put her other foot on his shoulder and pushed, but not hard enough to shift him.
He kissed his way up her inner thigh.
Her head fell back on the cushion. She breathed his name.
Placing her leg over his shoulder, he carefully, tenderly, parted the lips to reveal her sweet, inner core.
Her eyes closed. Her breath came quickly.
“Beautiful.” Last night, he had bathed her with his handkerchief and water from the pitcher, pressing the cool cloth against her to ease the ache. But in the dim light, he’d not been able to see. Now he could, and he smiled. How pretty she was, pink and fragile, everything shyly hidden, the feminine opposite of his bold genitals. Unable to resist, he stroked each place where he had been last night, where he would go today.
Cheeks aflame, she moved restlessly. He enticed her, yes, but he embarrassed her, too. How peculiar women were, that they would allow the deepest intimacy yet be uncomfortable to show themselves! Women were inscrutable creatures, never revealing all of their hearts, their minds. He could be with Celeste for years and never discover all her secrets.
But he would reveal at least one now. With delicate precision, he placed his mouth against her. She tasted like woman. His woman. With slow, sweet, hot caresses, he found each sensitive spot. He entered her with his tongue again and again, imitating his kiss, imitating coitus.
Her hips surged beneath him. The foot braced against his shoulder trembled.
He wanted her. He wanted to be inside her.
Yet there was another place, one he’d already proved to be responsive. Moving up the scant inch to her feminine nub, he coaxed it into his mouth and traced its outline.
She made a sound; perhaps a protest, perhaps involuntary encouragement.
Meticulously, he suckled.
“Garrick.” She bucked beneath him. “Garrick!”
She was on the verge when he pulled back.
She cursed him.
“No, love. I’ve got to be inside you. I’ve got to feel each tremor and ripple.”
On the edge of climax himself, he awkwardly stood and pulled her to her feet.
She blinked, swayed unsteadily, unsure what he expected.
“For you.” His voice was hoarse, probably because all his body fluids were elsewhere. Sinking down on her seat, he added, “It’s your turn.”
She still didn’t understand; probably she’d had too many surprises to comprehend, but he pulled her down on his lap, her delightful bottom right on his bare thighs. “Face me,” he instructed, and noticed with a distant amusement that she could still look shocked.
Shocked, but not confused. She comprehended now, and with wary curiosity she slid around to look toward him. Her thighs opened and embraced his.
Hands on her hips, he urged her up on her knees. “Take me,” he said.
She looked down at his cock. She looked up at his face, and in the tone of an interested pupil, asked, “Does anyone else know about this position?”
He couldn’t laugh now. It was impossible when his cock was only inches from paradise. But he did, a laugh that cracked in the middle. “It is perhaps not as common as the other, but I didn’t invent it.”
Reaching between her legs, she took his cock and guided it to the entrance to her body. “Where did you learn it?”
How could she talk now? She couldn’t be impervious to this fever. Not when he’d prepared her so well.
Not when he was so desperate.
She paused, holding him, taunting him. “Where?”
Her voice slurred a little, he noted. Her lids drooped, her cheeks flushed. She did want, but he had given her power and she was going to exercise it. That was what he’d wanted, for her to know the freedom of coupling; but did she have to take advantage now?
Of course she did. She was a woman. Goaded into speech, he said, “India.”
“Ah.” She lowered her weight on him.
His balls ached with need. He wanted to thrust his way inside her body, take her quickly, spend himself violently.
But she’d been a virgin. Last night he’d proceeded deftly; he had still hurt her.
So now he allowed her to move about, pressing on the head of his penis, learning how to accept him into herself. He’d aroused her with his mouth; she was damp and ready. Nevertheless, the penetration proceeded inch by wary inch. Only her expressions of caution, then pleased surprise made the torment bearable. When finally, finally she slid all the way onto him, her look of triumph warmed him . . . when he was already about to go up in flames.
Tentatively, gingerly, she lifted herself, sliding up his shaft almost to the tip. With a little more confidence, she slid back down. The measured pace quickened. It was almost worth the agony of waiting to see her alive with delight.
He loved that about her, that she showed her emotions rather than conceal them. She was totally open, totally the opposite of him. She smiled, her lovely, carnal mouth alive with wonder. She held his shoulders for balance, leaned back and leaned forward, experimenting with the stroke. Her breasts, small and firm and round, swayed in unconscious licentiousness, and inside she wrapped him in the warm, rough silk of her body. He no longer remembered his other liaisons, but he knew he’d never craved any woman like this before.
Catching her around the waist, he lifted her long enough to catch her breast in his mouth. She gasped, paused, suspended and scandalized. He drew strongly, suckling for his pleasure and hers. Her nipples tightened. Her breath grew harsh, and she moved now with insistent urgency.
He kissed her shoulder. She arched her neck and he kissed that, sliding up to her ear, her cheek, giving her a brief buss on the lips. His heartbeat thundered as they moved toward completion. He fought the urge to grasp her hips and overrule her pace. Instead he moved as she commanded, so taut with pleasure he groaned with each stroke. She was going to kill him. She was going to kill him with sex.
At last, she cried out, her entire body convulsing as with earthy exhilaration she gave herself over to orgasm.
And he, fool that he was, held off and savored the sight and the sensation of her sheath constricting on his cock. Not until she collapsed on his chest did he allow himself to plunge, and plunge, and fill her with his seed.
For moments after, he could think of nothing. Nothing but the sweet, damp body in his arms, nothing but his absolute satisfaction.
Then, oh most horrible notion, he began to plot how to do it again.
This wasn’t him. He couldn’t be like this, lured by Celeste and her marvelous body—he smoothed his hand down her supple spine—to abandon discipline for the pleasures of fornication. He had his duty . . .
His duty.
“Celeste.” Her head rested on his shoulder. He whispered in her ear. “Celeste, listen to me.”
Slowly she turned to face him. She smiled, that trusting, open smile that flattered and charmed, warmed his loins and notified him he had better do his duty now, or he would never remember to do it at all.
From the first, he hadn’t enjoyed involving Celeste in the business of espionage, but he had always ruthlessly used the tools at hand. With her knowledge of Russian, she had been a very useful tool indeed. Later, he’d realized how dangerous she was to his control, and he had wished to be rid of her regardless of her value. Now conscience spoke. A man didn’t exploit the woman with whom he made love.
Darting a kiss to his cheek, she asked, “What, darling?”
“We have to get dressed.” Throckmorton didn’t have a choice. He had to employ her. Stanhope had already taken the first message to London and given it over to another man, an English merchant of good standing who had left the country at once. Stanhope had returned, had enlarged the stash under his bedchamber floorboards, and no doubt eager to hear the contents of another letter. He would return to Celeste for those contents. “We must leave here.”
She groaned like a child dep
rived of a treat. “Must we?”
He kissed her as reward, a kiss that started as nothing more than a peck and ended with a long, slow, deep provocation, the kind that made his cock, which should have known better, twitch and try to rise. But no. He subdued it sternly.
Stroking Celeste’s hair, he said, “The morning is advanced. We’ll be lucky if we are not met and conclusions drawn.”
She showed none of the appropriate dismay. “The right conclusions?”
“No doubt the right conclusions. We both missed the closing ball. I fear we are already the objects of speculation.”
She groaned again, but this time she gradually sat up in his lap.
Surely it wasn’t so bad, to utilize her knowing this was the last time, that after this, communication would be routed through another agent and deciphered, and the messages which would come to Stanhope would lead the Russians into disaster. She was a reasonable girl. Probably, if she knew her role, she would agree to it avidly. “I beg your forgiveness for abandoning you after such a night, but I have to ride out.” He was trifling with the truth, but he needed to be away from the house while Stanhope interrogated her. “I received letters yesterday—”
“That’s right, I forgot.” After all their activities of the night before, she looked guilty over a task left undone. “Do you want me to translate them now? Or rather, after I’ve bathed and changed into a morning gown?”
“No need. They came from London already partially translated, and by comparing them to your previous work, I managed a fair approximation of the contents.” A fair approximation? He glanced at her sideways. He knew exactly what the letters said. He’d written them in English and sent them to London to be translated into Russian, then received them back. Only she had refused to come to his office, and then all hell had broken loose.
“See?” she said encouragingly. “Translation isn’t so difficult. It’s just a matter of applying what you know and interpreting the rest.”
If it were only that simple. He eased out of her, carried her to the cushions, and laid her down. Standing, he stared down at her and thought himself a dunce. A wise man would stand her up and shake her until his seed spilled from her. Throckmorton wanted Celeste on her back, his seed safe within her womb. He was far gone; a man who had lost all judgment. Only professional ethics remained to him, and by this afternoon he would have satisfied those ethics. Then he would set matters right with Celeste, and all would be well.
In My Wildest Dreams Page 23