“I shall be embarrassed if she knows.”
“She won’t know.”
“And how are we supposed to prevent her from finding out?”
“The towels will do their work. Now, stop asking questions and do as you’re told.”
He dipped his finger in the bowl of cream and placed it at her mouth. She lapped at it, licking the remnants from her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes not once leaving his face.
He groaned. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Absolutely certain.”
Adam trailed cream from the base of her neck, sliding it across her skin and leaving peaks on each of her nipples. He topped them with halves of juicy strawberries and slowly bent his head.
“Adam!”
“Yes, what is it now?”
“I’m not sure…I don’t think we should—”
“But you wanted to know.”
“Yes, but—”
“Be quiet and keep still or I’ll have to tie you down.”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Come to think of it, that might be a better way to—”
“All right,” she said hastily. “I’ll keep still. Do whatever you will with me.”
“What a delightful invitation.”
He flashed a wolfish grin and bent his head. Not to the creamy confection that adorned her breasts, but to the base of her neck. The start of the tantalising trail. He rasped his tongue across her skin in elaborate trawls, nipping gently as he slowly drew the cream into his mouth. She squirmed, her inhibitions evaporating as curiosity gave way to desire. This was one of the most erotic situations she’d ever found herself in. A moment ago she’d felt rather shocked when he decorated her breasts. Now she couldn’t wait to for his tongue to reach them, and she bucked impatiently as he worked his way too slowly toward his goal. His response was a sharp nip at her collarbone.
“Keep still or I’ll carry out my threat.”
“Sorry.”
So slowly that she thought she’d go out of her mind, his tongue travelled downward, avoiding her breasts and lapping up the cream that had left intimate pathways in the valley between them. She’d been anticipating the moment when his lips would finally close over her strawberry-clad nipples. Thought she was prepared for it. But when, with no warning, his mouth swooped, she cried out in surprise.
And elation.
Pleasure spangled as he licked the cream from her aureole and worked his way toward the strawberry. Her breath left her body in an extravagant whoosh when he closed his lips on it. He lifted his head, the strawberry clenched between his teeth, and offered it to her. She took a small bite, her lips brushing against his, juice and cream running from the corner of her mouth. He licked it up with sensuous strokes of his tongue, his eyes burning with desperate-seeming passion as they locked with hers.
Appearing to sense her urgency, Adam punished her by taking an inordinate amount of time dealing with her other breast. She felt sticky. Wildly abandoned. Helpless. Desperate. She wanted more. Much more.
“Don’t stop,” she said breathlessly.
“That wasn’t my intention.”
He drizzled more cream down her stomach, watching for her reaction as he covered the hair at the apex of her legs. She gasped when it trickled tantalisingly onto her clitoris, setting her senses on fire. With a raffish smile he started working his way downward, overt sexuality in his every movement.
“Adam, I can’t—” The cream was sliding off her sides, in danger of soaking through the towel. “Quick, my left side.”
He responded at once, again using just his tongue, and prevented the spillage. “Anywhere else?” he asked with deceptive innocence.
“My legs.”
“Liar!”
“Well, that’s how it feels. Besides, I can’t wait much longer.”
“Yes, you can. You’re to do exactly as I tell you.”
An intense feeling of disappointment gripped her as he stood, leaving her a sticky, incorrectable disaster, squirming with a combination of impatience and frustration. He smeared a generous amount of cream over his genitalia, placing two strawberry halves at the very pinnacle of his erection.
“Your turn to taste me,” he said, straddling her body and offering himself to her.
Florentina had never done anything like it before. But she didn’t hesitate. Taking a leaf from his own book, she ignored the strawberries and lapped gently at his creamy testicles, drawing an exaggerated grunt from their owner. She smacked her lips together and smiled at him.
“A most unusual taste.”
“But not unpleasant?”
“Oh no, but it’s a bit like fine wine, I think. Better left to breathe.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Now you have to do as I say.” She tilted her head to one side. “I wonder if the other one is equally palatable.”
With a bark of laughter, he placed a hand at the back of her head and guided it in that direction. She applied her lips to his other testicle, sucking it as far into her mouth as it would go, rasping it with her tongue, tugging at the hairs on his scrotum with her teeth. Adam drew in a sharp breath and tried to disengage from her mouth. But she wasn’t ready to let him go. She now had him at her mercy and intended to exact maximum revenge.
He wasn’t the only one who could tantalise and tease. She worked her tongue slowly beneath his sac, catching drips of melting cream as they fell from his penis. She examined his face as best she could, anxious to know if she was doing this right and giving him pleasure. What she saw reflected in his expression stole what little breath she had remaining. His eyes were as black as obsidian, his chest rising and falling with increasing rapidity, as though he was struggling to control more than just his breathing. He gritted his teeth, flung his head back and swore.
“Perdition, Florentina, enough of this torture!”
She removed her lips from his genitalia for just long enough to answer him. “Now who’s disobeying the rules? Keep perfectly still, my lord, or I shall have to punish you.”
He groaned. “God’s teeth, Florentina, have mercy.”
“What is it that you want me to do?”
“Taste me, darling, and be quick about it. The cream’s melting.”
She giggled rather wildly. “So it is. And the strawberries are gone with it.”
Florentina reached for replacements and arranged them to her satisfaction. She then closed her lips about his head, sucking the first of the strawberries into her mouth. A guttural moan and further colourful swearing sprang from Adam’s lips. He now appeared to be straining every sinew to remain in control. She was equally determined that, for once, he would act on impulse. The veins in his forehead were standing proud as blood pounded through them and she knew he was teetering on the brink. “Don’t! I thought I could take it but you must stop or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?” She slowly swallowed the strawberry, cast her eyes meaningfully at the remaining one and bent her head.
“For the love of God, don’t!”
But she did, briefly removing her lips in order to suck the second strawberry between them, chewing it with slow deliberation. Watching her, Adam groaned aloud. She had barely taken him back in her mouth before he spluttered to a climax at the back of her throat.
Sweating, he moved away from her as soon as his breathing returned to normal. “I’m so very sorry.” He dropped his head and appeared unwilling to meet her eye. “That shouldn’t have happened. Not like that.”
Florentina was genuinely surprised by his contrition. “Why ever not? It seemed like the natural consequence of our actions. Your bayonet was rock solid. You must have known what would happen when you asked me to taste it.”
“I thought I could remain in control but your tongue, the way you ran it over my balls…I just couldn’t hold it.”
“Shush!” She tousled his hair, much as she did with her siblings when they were upset. “It’s of no consequence
.”
“No lady should be subjected to that.”
“Adam, at this moment I have no desire to be treated like a lady.”
He quirked a brow. “Then what would you prefer?”
“I want to be a trollop. A doxy. I want to give and receive pleasure. But most of all, I want to learn.”
“Well, Mrs. Smith. Your demands seem reasonable enough to me.” He stood up. “And I shall enjoy educating you.”
“Then do it.” She glanced down at her pubis and giggled. “That cream appears to have melted. It’s in danger of sliding beneath me.”
“Then we must do something about it.”
He turned her over and applied his tongue to the cheeks of her bottom, lapping up every last drip of cream like a greedy cat. When his tongue slipped between the crease in her cheeks she tensed, and then relaxed, losing herself in sensations she never would have imagined possible in such a location. She clearly still had a lot to learn.
When he was satisfied with his work, he flipped her over again and brought the bowl of cream across to their position on the rug. Then he set about lathering it all over her lower body. She watched, and waited, in silence, acutely aware that he was already erect again. She had anticipated what would happen, but it was still the most scintillating sensation when he drove himself into her, pushing the cream as far as it would go before it slowly trickled out again. The cream on her torso adhered to the hair of his chest and they slithered in unison, no longer caring where the moisture finished up.
“What do you feel?” he asked.
“Abandoned. Stultified. Debauched.” She shivered. After this she’d never be the same person that she once was. “Wonderful! I never imagined it could be like this.”
“I’m glad to hear it because we’ve hardly started.”
“There’s more?” She could hear the surprise in her voice.
“Oh yes.”
She lifted her hips and invited him deeper still, desperation building as he drove them both ever closer to the brink. Then he slowed the pace, taunting her, making her aware of the moistness still seeping out of her. She would never be able to view the humble strawberry in quite the same light ever again.
Florentina tried to store his every action away in the recesses of her brain for reevaluation when she was alone. But the pressure of one of his hands on her breasts, the ferocity of his thrusts, caused everything except her awareness of the here and now to desert her. Her body was charged, ready to explode, just as his had been a short time before.
As though sensing it, he gave a primeval thrust and her world shattered in a burst of heady sensation that made their previous trysts seem mundane by comparison. She wrapped her legs ’round his waist and cried out his name. Adam’s lips claimed hers as he pumped his seed into her, pulsating deep within her liquid heat until he, too, was finally spent.
The lay side by side afterwards, sweaty and temporarily satiated. But it wasn’t long before Adam again turned his attention to their rapidly dwindling supply of fruit.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said.
At first she hadn’t realised what he meant. But when more cream was spread over her pubis and he bent his head to remove it, she didn’t hesitate to tangle her fingers in his hair and encourage him on.
“Patience,” he said, chuckling as he reached for the strawberries and applied them to strategic places.
Slowly he lapped at the cream, taking the first of the berries into his mouth and offering it to her. She hadn’t previously realized that a humble fruit could be put to such an erotic use and extended her tongue to take the berry from his lips. She bit into it slowly, juice dribbling down her chin. Her eyes locked with his as he licked it away with slow, sensual sweeps of his tongue that curdled her insides, making her yearn for him.
“They taste of you,” he said.
And so it went on. She climaxed twice more, just in response to the touch of his tongue, beyond being shocked at what it was possible to achieve with a handful soft fruit. All she cared about was the here and now.
Time enough to feel guilty tomorrow.
Adam wrapped a towel ’round his hips and rang the bell. A short time later two servants appeared, lugging a bath between them. It was placed before the fire on the rug that they’d just put to a very different use and filled with pails of steaming, scented water. As soon as the servants left, Adam helped her into it and joined her. He washed every corner of her body, taking infinite care.
As it transpired, her best efforts to keep the rug in good condition were futile. She was unable to remain still whilst Adam made love to her from behind in the fragrant water, and what seemed like half of it finished up drenching the floorboards. And the unfortunate rug.
“Now we’re for it,” she said as Adam helped her to get dry. She met his gaze and laughed so much that she almost fell back into the bath.
Chapter Sixteen
Adam could sense the brittle atmosphere at the Court the following morning. The servants crept about their duties, doing their best to make themselves invisible. He assumed Philippa’s mood must account for it. She could be a tartar when roused and tended to take her disappointments out on them. He sighed, accepting that she wouldn’t have taken kindly to his abrupt disappearance the previous night. He considered going off somewhere and giving her temper the opportunity to cool, but quickly dismissed the notion. The fragile truce between them couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. It would be better to clear the air between them once and for all.
He wasn’t surprised when she sought him out in the library halfway through the morning. She entered the room without knocking, her features set in a rigid line of determination that could only spell trouble. She closed the door firmly behind her and leaned against it.
“Where did you go last night?”
“I beg your pardon.” He put his quill aside and took his time rising to his feet.
“I believe you heard the question perfectly well.”
“Oh yes, I heard it. It’s just that I’m having trouble understanding what makes you suppose you have any right to ask it.”
“You left my dinner without offering any explanation. That was unpardonably rude and gives me every right to ask you what you thought you were about.”
“I made my apologies to your husband. Unexpected business called me away.”
Annoyance flashed across her face, presumably because Adam wasn’t intimidated by her ill-humour. “Oh yes. He told me you’d received a note from a woman and that whatever it contained necessitated your immediate attention.”
“Well, there you have it then.” Adam resumed his seat with a nonchalant shrug and returned his attention to the papers on the desk. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to.”
“So do we.” She walked toward him and leaned both hands on the desk so that her face was mere inches from his. He chose not to extend her the courtesy of standing for a second time, even though she was now looming over him, her features twisted into a bitter expression. “You went to Lord King’s masquerade and deemed it necessary to rescue Mrs. Grantley, even though she was there of her own free will with a contingent from Chamberleigh.” She lifted her shoulders. “That being the case, I can’t imagine why you thought she required rescuing. I dare say she missed the opportunity to make a good deal of money thanks to you.”
“If you know where I went,” Adam said, with an air of unruffled calm, “I’m surprised you troubled yourself to ask.”
“Ah, so you don’t deny it then?”
“Certainly I don’t deny it.”
“I don’t understand you, Adam.” She removed her hands from the desk and drew herself up to her full height. “I warned you that woman’s not to be trusted and yet you appear to be fascinated by her. You run after her like a tame dog and don’t judge her for what she really is. And yet I’m an innocent victim of your brother’s lust, and you give the impression that I’m beneath your notice.”
“You’re many things, Philip
pa, but innocent is most decidedly not one of them.”
“What do you mean?”
She couldn’t completely disguise her fear and Adam was compelled to quell a grim smile of satisfaction. So King hadn’t thought to enlighten her about everything that had occurred at his masquerade. “Precisely what I say. Far from being a victim, you jumped upon James’s bereavement as a means of extricating yourself from a difficult situation that would otherwise have resulted in your social disgrace.”
“That’s a slanderous lie! Withdraw it at once.”
Adam finally rose to his feet. “I stand by every word I’ve said. You flew up into the boughs when you couldn’t persuade me to remain here instead of joining my regiment.”
“You have a very high opinion of yourself.”
“And so you sought to overcome your fit of pique by running wild with your brother’s friends. You and King recognised kindred spirits in one another, which eventually culminated in your attending one of his masquerades. The type of affair that you have just condemned Mrs. Grantley for attending.”
“That’s outrageous! How dare you?”
“I dare because it’s the truth. Once you were at King’s there was only ever going to be one outcome and you knew it. No lady goes there for any other purpose.”
“Which is why I think so poorly of Mrs. Grantley. I myself was never there.”
“Oh, you were there all right. And when you discovered your condition, it must have seemed like a gift from God that Julia had died and James was a widower. I dare say it was easy enough for you to convince him that he’d fathered the child you’re carrying.”
“I deny that assertion absolutely.” But she smiled in a manner that implied just the opposite. “And what’s more, you can’t prove it. Even if you’ve heard some scurrilous gossip, it can’t be substantiated. Besides, James would never believe it. He’s overjoyed at the prospect of fathering a son at last.”
If this assertion was supposed to elicit some defeated response from Adam, then Philippa was to be disappointed. He looked at her with a contemptuous expression but remained implacably calm. “Perhaps it will be a girl,” he suggested.
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