by Bryn Donovan
“Well, it’s not only that.” Will acted apologetic. “He’s not actually my coachman. My coachman apparently is ill, the poor chap, and so...it’s my butler.”
His voice lowered as though the man might overhear him, for all that he was a hundred yards away and on the other side of stone walls. “Of course I told him he didn’t need to drive, but he insisted, and I didn’t want to insult his pride. But he is a bit old to be sitting out in the damp, I’m afraid.”
Genevieve found herself charmed by this. A typical lord would probably order the butler to step in as a coachman, and never consider whether it would harm the older man’s health. A somewhat kinder master might tell his servant that he was too old to do such a thing. But it took a rare gentleman to be concerned about both a servant’s health and his dignity.
“Don’t worry about a thing, sir,” Flory assured him. “I’ll take care of...what did you say his name was?”
“Babbage. It’s Mr. Babbage. Thank you so much, Mrs. Tate.”
Will was a good man. He deserved good things to happen to him.
Genevieve felt a spark of mischievous pleasure. She was just the one to make that happen.
“Well, then, Mr. Creighton, won’t you come upstairs?” she asked sweetly.
She just closed the bedroom door behind them when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him, with a lover’s insistence and prerogative, bringing his lips to her own.
His kiss was deep, insistent, as if he were a parched man drinking her in. The immediacy of his passion surprised her only because it matched her own. She reveled in the feel of his strong back when she wound her arms around him.
His woolen coat felt slightly damp from the spring drizzle, and she pressed herself closer to him as though to chase away the chill. She explored his mouth and enjoyed the taste of him, no less enticing for being familiar now.
His hands went lower, spanning her hips, and pulled her against him as if to make her aware of his need. And no mistaking it—he jutted huge and hard against her. He still kissed her as if he could never get enough.
“Gen,” he said, when she pulled away at last. “God...what you do to me.”
She didn’t know what pleased her more: his proclamation, or hearing her name shortened into one intimate syllable, as sweet as any endearment. His ardor swept away every last bit of her shyness.
“Me?” she said innocently. “But I’ve only just started.”
He laughed softly.
“I’m going to light a candle. I can’t see a thing in here.” She found her way over to the nightstand, fumbled for a match.
“I believe most ladies prefer the darkness.”
“Most ladies are not with you.” She struck the match and lit the beeswax taper next to the bed.
“Thank you kindly.”
When she looked over her shoulder at him, he grinned. He seemed genuinely pleased at the compliment. It surprised her that it would mean that much to him. Surely he had ladies telling him night and day how handsome he was. She imagined them all ogling him across a ballroom floor, licking their lips like cats in the cream.
But what of them? Tonight he was hers alone.
“I think you had better take off your coat.” She came over to undo the buttons.
“I’m not getting undressed if you’re not,” he complained, even as she eased the coat from his shoulders.
“Have I said any such thing?”
He raised one elegant eyebrow. “So what are the rules going to be this time, Miss Bell?”
“I only have one rule.” She felt deliciously bad. She’d planned and looked forward to saying this to him. “And that is that you are to enjoy yourself.”
“Good rule,” he muttered as she unbuttoned his white shirt, then pulled the tails loose from where they were tucked in to his trousers. When she drew the shirt off his shoulders, he shrugged out of it and peeled off the undershirt beneath. His naked torso glowed gold in the flickering candlelight.
She’d never seen anything like him. The broad shoulders and powerful chest tapered to the ridges of his abdomen. His trousers were too loose, slung lower than his narrow waist, and without even thinking about it, Genevieve put her hands on his sides. He felt warm and solid under her palms. She loved the texture of his skin, loved the scent of him, like leather and bay soap.
Slowly, she stroked her hands up the hollow of his muscled belly and across his chest. She saw and felt his quickened breathing and the beating of his heart.
Genevieve turned up his face to kiss him again, but he grabbed her hands. “No. You next.” He caught up her white dress and urged it over her head.
“You ripped it,” she said with a muffled giggle as he tossed it aside. Her hair fell in her eyes, and she pushed it back. “You’re a brute.”
“I will buy you another one.” He put his arms on her shoulders, looking her over possessively. “I will order you ten more at the Dresses for Lady Artists shop.”
She stood in her corset and thin linen drawers. For the briefest moment, she was afraid that he wouldn’t like the way she looked. Maybe she looked ridiculous.
But when he kissed and nibbled at her throat and breast, sending lightning sensations from her flesh there to her lips and lower regions, making her breath shake in her lungs, she found it difficult to focus on the issue.
“Coventry said you didn’t wear a corset,” he murmured.
“Who’s Coventry?”
“Never mind.” He pressed a kiss near her cleavage, close to her heart, as his fingers nimbly undid the strings in back.
Oh, dear. She hadn’t been naked in front of a man since Adam, hadn’t even modeled for an artist since then.
“Now, I know you’re not shy.” Will must have felt her flinch.
She slipped out of the undone corset and allowed him to strip off her drawers, even though she trembled. She hoped he would make another lighthearted comment, some jest that would set her worries at ease. He didn’t.
He took both her hands in his and just gazed at her body. In the candlelight, it was difficult to read his expression, but he looked serious.
“What is it?” she demanded in alarm.
Will glanced up and met her eyes. “Ah, Gen,” he said softly. “You are just so beautiful. I...” He shook his head. “It’s not real.”
Happiness flooded her as he urged her toward the bed. “No, wait.” She tugged at him when he moved to sit. “Stay standing.”
Maybe he could have sat down, she realized as she said this. But she didn’t intend to get anything wrong. She wanted to see if she could make him feel the way he’d made her feel, the time in the parlor. And in the book she’d gotten from Ruth, the man had been standing up.
Her hands went to his sides again, but this time eased lower, past the waistband of his trousers. She traced the thrust of the hipbones, the smooth slope of his behind. Taking her time, she did what she wanted to do. She kissed his chest, tongued it, left a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his hard belly.
She’d never have guessed that she could be so bold. In a minute she kneeled in front of him. From there she untied one of his shoes, then the other. He kicked them off and she stripped off his socks.
“You are very thorough,” he commented.
Genevieve didn’t answer, but set to unbuttoning the front of his trousers. She thought she heard a grunt of approval in the back of his throat as she drew the trousers and the drawers down and he stepped out of them.
His cock stood up almost straight against his belly, startlingly thick, seeming to demand satisfaction. Good Lord, he was enormous.
For the first time she began to have doubts about doing the thing she read about. But she supposed other women encountered similar challenges, and managed.
Before she lost her nerve, her hand curved around his heated sex. Her other hand came up to touch his balls, brushing her fingers across the furred skin there. When she gripped his shaft more firmly, stroking him up and down, he groaned.
The sou
nd of his pleasure made her realize that her own sex was moist. In a moment of inspiration, she reached down and captured some of the dew on her fingers before continuing to stroke his straining cock. He made a choking sound.
She looked up at him. One of his hands gripped the bedpost. His head was tilted back, his eyes closed. He looked beautiful, and vulnerable, too, caught in the moment of sensual abandon. She exulted in her power to be able to bring him pleasure, and wanted to test it to its limits. Feeling as though she glowed all over, she lowered her lips to his cock.
He gasped when her mouth surround its head. “Oh, God, Gen. Yes.”
His fingers stroked her hair, grateful, undemanding. She swirled her tongue around the satisfying roundness, like a perfect plum. She sucked on it. Reaching her hands around him, to the small of his back, she felt how the cords of his muscles were strained and taut.
She tasted something like the sea—was that him? Her own essence? Both of them, mingled. “Mmmm,” she said, and wondered if he felt the vibrations of her utterance.
Now he reached down and dragged her up. He brought her over to the bed and pulled her down with him so they lay side by side. Despite any matter of money, he seemed unwilling to receive without giving in return. Perhaps it wasn’t in his nature.
He pushed up on one elbow, reaching his hand to caress her, but she refused to be so easily deterred.
She rose up and prodded his shoulder, urging him to lie flat. “What did I tell you the rule was?” she whispered, and reached down to take him in hand again.
He responded with a low growl. Genevieve moved down his torso again—pausing to land a couple of nipping kisses on his navel—and set to finishing what she started.
Things happened just as the book suggested they would, and Genevieve found this strange business not so strange after all. Her body seemed to know what it was doing. She took more of his length in her mouth now, and brought her hand around to stroke and caress him at the hilt, falling into a primeval rhythm as natural as breathing.
His hand traced the nape of her neck, her spine, and curved around her bottom. When she felt it tease its way between her thighs, she maneuvered herself away from him. She knew what he could do. If he started that again, she’d never get anything accomplished. Her lips ached, and she withdrew for a moment and pleasured him with both hands.
“Gen. Stop,” he rasped after a minute. He tried to grab hold of her wrist. “I can’t—”
Ignoring him, she took him in her mouth again.
In just a few moments, his lean hips rose off the bed, a harsh cry escaping his lips as he spilled his seed. His shaft pulsed, and she drank every salty drop of him, awed by the force of the climax she aroused, and thrilled at her triumph.
“Oh, God. Darling.” He panted, gathering her up in his arms, kissing her cheeks, her breasts, everywhere he could reach.
“Mmm.” She cuddled against his chest. He let his head fall back on the pillow, sighed a deep sigh of complete male satisfaction.
After a few heartbeats, she heard his soft, amazed laugh. “I’ve never had that before.”
“What?” The information startled her. For some reason, she’d assumed... “Truly?”
He nodded, eyes closed, the corners of his mouth turning up. “Lucky me. My first time was with an experienced mistress.”
Genevieve felt a sharp stab of sadness. She wanted to tell him that she’d never done anything like that before, either.
But she couldn’t. If he knew the truth about her, he’d think she was a lunatic. After all, what kind of woman pretended to be more wicked than she actually was?
Her stupid feelings for him had gotten the better of her. She might as well be honest with herself, at least: this second interlude probably wouldn’t have happened, had she not been infatuated with him.
And she might as well be infatuated with Prince Albert, for all her chances of having her regard returned.
Genevieve reminded herself that she wasn’t going to see Will Creighton anymore, not after this. She’d find a way to manage without the money. If she felt this way now, how much more foolish would it be to go on?
She wondered if he might have guessed at her feelings. That would be humiliating. Mistresses didn’t get starry-eyed over their lovers. He’d spoken tenderly to her, but that didn’t mean a thing except good manners.
“I suppose you will need to go soon,” she said.
“What?” Will had been stroking her back, but now he propped himself up on an elbow again and stared at her as if she lost her mind. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I just...”
“Oh, no,” he rumbled, running his hand along the curve of her body. “We’re not finished here.”
****
Will thought she might pull away from him. Throughout most of the evening, she’d been both playfully tender and boldly sensual, an irresistible alchemy.
Mistress or no, he’d not expected her to bring his desire to fulfillment, without a thought of her own. Her generosity stunned him.
But then she suddenly withdrew into herself, and he didn’t know why. Maybe that was the way of these arrangements that were matters of money rather than the heart. But still, he couldn’t leave it like that.
So he breathed a grateful sigh when he felt her body react to his touch, warming and yielding again like softened wax. Her smoky green eyes met his once more, but he couldn’t read the expression there.
“What do you mean? What else do you want?” The tone of her voice revealed nothing.
He loved the way her mouth looked now, so red and swollen and wet from the services she’d rendered him. He dragged one finger across her lower lip. Going lower, he traced a delicate circle on the pellucid flesh of her breast, encircling but not quite touching the shell-pink tip. The nipple tightened anyway into an emphatic point, demanding further attentions.
He obliged, bending low and cupping her breast to his mouth. She cried out and gave a sinuous writhe beneath him.
“That,” he said. “That’s what I want.” Her whole body aroused by him and begging for release.
When he kissed her other breast, she drew up her legs on either side of him, one of her feet brushing against him.
“Good Lord,” he said, glancing up. “Your feet are nearly frozen.”
She opened her eyes, frowning. “They are?”
“We cannot have that,” he teased her. “You’ll catch your death.”
In truth, after the experiences he’d had in Crimea, Will couldn’t stand the idea of her having even an ordinary chill. He sat up to take the foot into his lap. Starting at the toes, he smoothed his thumbs all the way down the sole of her foot.
“Ohh,” she sighed, and sounded surprised at the agreeable sensation. He repeated the stroke a few times. Her head fell back on the pillow again.
“You really are amazingly lovely,” he said as he massaged. “I thought so from the first time I saw that painting of you.”
She lifted her head to stare at him. “What painting?”
“The one where you had golden hair.”
“The Eve? But no one ever recognizes me in that. Ruth didn’t even know until I told her.”
He laughed. “It was immediately obvious to me.”
“I always liked that one.” She laid back again. “Despite the name.”
“What, Eve?”
“No...the painting is called The Temptation of Adam. The artist was an acquaintance of a painter named Adam Forsythe.”
There seemed more of a story here. But Will supposed he understood the kernel of it well enough, and he didn’t feel like hearing any more of the details at the moment. From the shadow that fell across her face, he suspected she wasn’t eager to share them, either. “Perhaps I’ll buy it, and then I can call it something different.”
“Mmm.” Her voice sounded lazy again, as if lulled by the pleasure of the foot rub. “You know, you ought to sit for me. It would be my first masterpiece.”
Will never considered him
self susceptible to flattery, but her words gratified him.
The pad of his thumb pressed into the space just under the ball of her foot and massaged there. She groaned. She continued making little noises of appreciation as he switched to her right foot.
“Why does that feel so good?” she mumbled.
“Feet are delicate structures. Do you know there are twenty-six bones in your foot?”
“How do you know that?”
“I started to study as a doctor.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and then moaned as his fingertips pushed against her high arch. Her knees, drawn up, now fell apart as her body went limp with enjoyment.
Unwittingly, she offered up a perfect view of her glistening rosy sex beneath the springy russet curls of her mound. Her hips shifted against the bed as she sighed in response to another stroke.
Her scent was like a warm tropical sea off the coast of some nameless Paradise. As he set her foot back down on the bed and picked up the other one, he moved so he had a straight-on view. He drank in the sight of her spread out before him. The sounds of soft pleasure murmured from her lips. His cock twitched to life again, though he did not expect to put it into action soon after such a staggering climax.
“It’s true, you know,” he said after a few minutes of shameless watching. “I know the proper names of everything.”
“Mmmm. Like what?”
“Like the bone here...” He traced the roundness of her ankle. “That’s called the fibula.” She had a charming ankle. He lifted it up and nibbled on it, making her giggle.
“What else?”
One of his hands went back to massaging her foot. She closed her eyes again, and he supposed she didn’t even know that she bit her lower lip. Certainly she couldn’t know how the sight aroused him.
With his free hand, he brushed the baby-soft skin at the back of her leg, just above the heel. “Your Achilles tendon.”
“Oh, no, you have found my Achilles heel,” she teased. “You know my weakness. Now you can conquer me.”
“Back here you have a fibular ligament...” He tickled behind her knee.
“Stop!” She laughed, trying to twist away from him, but he had her by the foot. “I’m very ticklish there.”