by Pia Tremayne
He digested this piece of information in silence.
“But I want to do something else after the abbey,” she said, getting back to the subject.
He quirked an eyebrow, wondering what tourist queue he’d have to line up in now.
“I want to wake up at the manor tomorrow morning, in Hampshire.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes. Are you okay with that? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, no. I want to,” he assented quickly. “I’d like that a lot, actually. The only reason I’m spending four straight days in London is because of that meeting I had yesterday and on Monday I’ll be tied up with business most of the day as well, which means incidentally that we’ll have to drive back in tomorrow night. I’m just surprised because I didn’t think…well, I just didn’t feel you enjoyed being way out there all that much.” He rubbed the flat of his hand over her nipple, feeling it spring to rubbery life under his palm.
She jerked and pulled the sheet over her, holding it protectively against her breasts and trying to ignore the flickering flame that he had brought to life so easily again in her belly.
“That’s the whole point,” she said, a little catch in her voice. “I was nervous nearly all the time. But this time I won’t be. So let’s get a move on, I’m starving,” she announced, throwing back the sheet and laughingly evading his attempt to grab her.
They stopped off for brunch at a small restaurant and then headed for the abbey. Mercifully, thanks to the season, the lines were a tad shorter than normal so the wait to get in was relatively short. To his surprise, it fascinated him as much as it had the first time his father had taken him there so many years ago. But being with Nicola added another entertaining dimension, because she absolutely refused to tread carelessly across the gravestones of men whose legacies had survived millennia. He smiled in amusement as she detoured around them to get from point A to point B.
“You can laugh all you want. I just don’t feel right walking on great men like Purcell and Handel,” she protested.
He found that so endearing it made him want to kiss her, right there in front of all the other tourists. They spent a couple of hours in the abbey and then drove out to Hampshire, arriving at the manor just before five.
“We’ll have to fend for ourselves,” he told her. “I told Hodgett I wouldn’t be back until Monday night.”
They foraged in the pantry, made up a dinner of tinned ham, mushrooms, cheese and crackers, and tinned peaches and washed it down with copious amounts of red wine. By the time they were finished it was almost eight and pitch black outside as only the countryside can be. They washed up the few dishes they had used, dried them and put them away. He stretched, suddenly wonderfully sleepy.
“How does an early bed sound,” he asked.
She thought it sounded just right. They strolled arm in arm to his suite, shed their clothes, pulled back the covers and got in. Within minutes they were dead to the world.
Sometime during the night, her eyes flew open. She looked around the room, just barely making out the various shapes of pieces of furniture she remembered only dimly from that first unforgettable night in his bedroom. It seemed so long ago, so much had happened since then. She put her hand down, felt the moisture, and knew immediately what had awakened her. She wanted him, needed him inside her.
She listened to his steady breathing for several seconds. He was sleeping soundly. Oh well, she still wanted him. She turned in his arms and clambered on top of him, holding his shoulders, cuddling her face into his neck, and rubbing her sex against his sleeping penis. It became tumescent, and he was wide awake and tightening his arm around her.
“Take it in your hand and put it inside you,” he instructed her, his lips against her hair.
She pushed the covers back a little and sat up halfway. She took the tumescent mass of him in her hand, fitting it against her center as it rapidly began to evolve. He grew thick and hard, and she guided him easily into her, slipping back down as he pressed her buttocks, pressing her into his groin, helping her to take all of him in.
“Move on me, love,” he whispered. “Pleasure yourself.”
She stretched out fully over him and began to ride the hard length of him. The feel of it massaging her insides, of her nipples grazing his chest, and the sensation of her bud colliding against the thick root of him was a trinity of stimulation so intense it gripped her by the throat and brought her to a resounding climax in record time. As her tremors and whimpers of satisfaction diminished, he rolled over on top of her and drove his erect cock into her, fucking her and groaning against her mouth as his climax gripped and shredded him in minutes. Sleep reclaimed them almost instantly.
Sunday arrived. They woke around nine thirty and yawned their way hungrily down to the kitchen. She made them pancakes while he prepared sausages. They polished it off down to the last morsel and finished up with coffee. They ate in the kitchen to minimize the cleanup, and then he gave her an official tour of the house, taking her into all the rooms, including the turret, which gave them a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding parkland.
“We’ll leave the east wing for another time,” he said.
The third floor was a warren of tiny rooms mostly used for storage and maids’ sleeping quarters when the manor was in its heyday, he explained.
“So you grew up being waited on hand and foot, maids running around to do your bidding?” she asked him mischievously.
“Not really,” he replied briefly. “The heyday sort of ended way before my time.”
“Do you have any tiresome old girlfriends stashed away up here?”
“They’re in the cellar, which is where you’ll end up if you keep bugging me,” he said, favoring her with a mock ferocious glare.
“I don’t think I like it much up here,” she said.
“You know what? I don’t either. Let’s go.”
They ran down the two flights of stairs hand in hand and wandered into the grand drawing room.
“This is such a lovely piano,” she said, smoothing her hand over the beautiful mahogany Steinway that stood near the window.
“It belonged to my mother. She played beautifully.”
“Do you?”
“Sort of,” he admitted. “They insisted I take lessons.”
“Play me something,” she said.
Without demur, he sat down and began to play. She leaned on her elbow on the piano, one hand propped under her chin, studying him as he played. His execution was flawless, his demeanor unself-conscious. The piece was hauntingly familiar, but she couldn’t remember the name of it. She heard the emotions of his volatile soul pouring out through his fingers, loss and nostalgia, the bitterness and anger of dissonance, his struggle to find resolution, his longing for what might still be possible, the yearning for that one perfect love. His eyes rested on her from time to time as he played, but she had the uncanny feeling that sometimes he wasn’t really seeing her, that his thoughts were somewhere else, somewhere sad. Something about the way he played it broke her heart, brought tears to her eyes, and told her that she loved him, would always love him, and would quite simply shrivel up and die inside if he didn’t love her back the same way.
When he finished playing they were still, looking into each other’s faces with something that might well have been described as mutual curiosity and wonder at what was happening, had happened, between them. Something so big they hardly dared acknowledge it. Then he sort of tilted his head and gave her a little smile.
“What is the name of that piece?” she asked.
“Chopin’s Étude in E Major,” he replied, “one of my mother’s favorite pieces. She was the true pianist in the family.” Emotion flitted briefly across his face. “I think the popularized name of the piece is No Other Love,” he said. He reached out and caressed her cheek then got up and closed the piano.
She followed him out of the drawing room and into the study, where he threw himself into the
chair at the big antique desk, looking somewhat moodily out the window. She sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and watched him, sensing that his mood had shifted into unpredictability. There was a framed photograph on the desk, a larger version of the one she had seen in his town house bedroom. She picked it up and studied it.
“These are your parents.” It was more a statement than a question.
“Yes,” he said, still looking out the window.
“You must miss them,” she said, replacing the photograph.
“Yes,” he admitted briefly. “They were remarkable people. They…died within three days of each other,” he said, as though it were an afterthought.
“Oh, Anthony,” she said, distressed.
He turned away from the window and looked at her. “I don’t want you to be sad,” he said. He got up and walked around the desk.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “Let us go to the sauna and after we’ll have a swim.”
They left their clothing in the change room and entered the sauna. She climbed up and sat on the top tier. He sat on the bottom one, his back to her, her legs on either side of him. Soon, the warm, dry air lulled her and she leaned her head against the cedar wall, surrendering to lassitude . He looped one arm over her leg and rested his head on her thigh. He caressed her leg lightly, and then she felt his kiss, as soft as a moth’s wing. Her leg twitched, the faintest of tremors, and her hand descended warningly on his shoulder. A few minutes later she felt his lips on her thigh again, and she squeezed his shoulder, a little harder this time.
“Don’t, Anthony.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t start. It’s too warm.”
He leaned his head back, then pressed the side of his face against her belly and closed his eyes. Their bodies were becoming dewy, and eventually, the moisture began to bead. A drop of perspiration rolled down from under the crease of her breast and dripped over his face. He turned and licked her skin where the drop had passed, stopping perilously short of capturing her nipple in his mouth. She closed her eyes, concentrating on controlling her breathing, containing the involuntary quickening in her belly that his licking the underside of her breast had induced. He could feel the sweat on her thigh pooling under his arm, mixing with his. He turned, facing forward again, the back of his head pressing on her belly, and this time draped both arms over her, one over each thigh. He pulled her knees hard against him, and they stayed like that for a little while.
He released her abruptly and climbed up on the top tier. He leaned against the wall, in the corner, sitting upright with one leg stretched out along the wall, the other resting on the lower tier.
“Come,” he said. “Come sit with me.”
She moved over and positioned herself between his legs, laying her head against his chest, just below his shoulder, secure in the circle of his arms with both feet stretched out on the bench.
He loved the feel of her sweaty rear end pressing against his tumescence. His head dropped into the crook of her neck as his fingers began to caress her perspiring breasts, stroking her nipples with the pads of his thumb. She stirred when his hands descended to her belly. She felt slightly panicky. It was too hot for this kind of exertion. What if they both passed out? She held on to his roving hand.
“Anthony,” she murmured, “this isn’t safe.”
“Just let me touch you. I’ll be slow and gentle. I would never let anything bad happen to you,” he said quietly. “Trust me.”
She let go of his hand and tensed as it descended to her mound. He stroked her gently, making no attempt to get inside her, just caressing the wet curly hair, and the soft skin at the top of her thighs just under her mound, accustoming her to his touch, making her wait, until she longed for it.
When his fingers slipped inside her she inhaled sharply and he cupped her hard, his thumb pressing down on her nub, desensitizing it, bringing down the level of excitation. Gradually, she relaxed, and he began to stroke her, playing inside her folds, rubbing her gently, stimulating her libido to a new level that seemed all at once to be wonderfully sustainable, a high she could live on. She leaned back against him, every now and then releasing a murmur of satisfaction that chimed in his ear like a carillon.
He felt her growing heavy, her breathing deepening as she leaned against him in total surrender to the lethargy that the heat, coupled with his sustained stimulation of her, had induced.
“Time for a swim,” he whispered in her ear.
He urged her into a standing position, and they climbed down off the bench and left the sauna. The change in temperature revived her almost instantly but the thought of diving into the pool was another matter entirely.
“You go first so I can enjoy watching you dive,” she said, as they stood at the deep end.
“Little coward,” he teased. “Come on. Give me your hand.” She complied reluctantly and he seized it. “Now,” he said. “One, two, three!” He pulled her with him into the water.
She sank to the bottom and came up, spluttering, shaking the water from her face when she broke the surface so she could open her eyes. He had already come up and was watching her, his teeth gleaming whitely with mirth.
“Did I ever tell you,” she said between breaths, treading water furiously, “that sometimes I really, really hate you.”
He roared with laughter. “Actually,” he replied, still grinning, “I thought you were going to say that sometimes you really, really love me.”
Her heart skipped a beat of wonder at hearing him say that and the need to tell him, to confess her true feelings, almost got the better of her. But what was at stake was so much more important. She couldn’t live the rest of her life wondering if, deep inside, he forever harbored the suspicion that she had come back to him only because of money. Worse, she couldn’t let him live the rest of his life wondering the very same thing. But how could she tell him the truth now? What would she say—“Believe it, dear, when I say I love you, but I still want the sixty-three thousand pounds”? No, there was no way such a thing could be said. She would tell him how much she loved him after she repaid her debt to Antonio. Her mind made up, she flashed her eyes at him.
“Dream on, lover boy,” she said and streaked away across the pool.
He swam after her, not really chasing her, thinking. He knew that secretly, he had said what he said because he was curious about what her response would be. The disappointment that nicked him so sharply when it came told him that it wasn’t the one he had been hoping for. He figured she liked him well enough and enjoyed having sex with him, but he couldn’t get past the fact that her main reason for returning to the game was much more prosaic. That would have been fine with him, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was totally obsessed with and in love with her. No matter, he’d have to learn to live with whatever she wanted to give, to let it be enough, because whatever it was, it would be a hell of a lot better than not having her at all. He swam on, wondering if she liked him enough to stay with him after the game was over.
They did a few laps, got out of the pool, and went to the shower.
“Let me wash your hair,” he said as she picked up the bottle of shampoo. She stood under the hot spray, leaning against the wall on her arm as he lathered shampoo in her hair and began to massage it in. Goosebumps embroidered her skin as his fingers described concentric circles on her scalp, her nipples erect under the dual onslaught of his touch and the stinging spray. Shutting off the shower, he concentrated on his task, working the foam into her scalp and along the silken strands of her hair. He squeezed out the excess then applied himself to washing the rest of her, massaging her body with his slick, soapy hands, being attentive to her armpits, the undersides of her breasts, down her back, and her buttocks before stooping to do the backs of her legs.
“Turn around,” he said.
She complied and he picked up one foot, soaping each toe carefully, then did her other foot. He worked his way up her legs and she leaned her head on the w
all, her eyes closed as he soaped carefully between them, his fingers touching her intimately. He heard the breath gusting shallowly through her mouth and clamped the lid down forcefully on his burgeoning desire. He stood, washing her breasts, passing his palm agonizingly over her pebbled nipples, her neck, and behind her ears. He exhaled, expelling some of the heat building inside him.
“Okay,” he said. “Stand away from the wall facing me, close your eyes and put your head back. I’m going to wash the shampoo out of your hair.”
She complied, sensing his jaw clench as his erection brushed against her, just above her mound. The spray descended and he smoothed her hair away from her face as the water cascaded through it, taking it all the way to the ends, leaving her hair clean and shiny.
He took his time washing the soap off her skin, stooping down to rinse her legs all the way to her toes. He washed the soap away from her sex, probing the hidden recesses as her fingers tightened their grip on his shoulders.
“Okay,” he said finally, “You’re done.” She looked up at him, her face wet. He returned her gaze quizzically then kissed her mouth. She swallowed her disappointment that he wouldn’t make love to her.
“Your turn,” she said. “I’ll wash your back.” She soaped his back, her fingers descending over his buttocks and between them, running her finger down the crack to punish him for not making love to her and smiling wickedly when she heard his sharp intake of breath. She continued down the backs of his legs and then stood up.
“Shut off the shower and turn around.”
He obeyed and she saw he was totally aroused, his shaft stiff as a pole. She brushed her sex up against it, ostensibly ignoring it while she shampooed his hair, rubbing some of it into the curly hair on his chest. She soaped his erection lightly, working it gently with her fingers. His breath gusted out and his belly shuddered convulsively. She went down his legs, finished up with his toes, stood, and turned on the shower.
She washed the soap off his erection first, not wanting it to remain too long on the delicate skin. She pulled back the foreskin, exposing it to the spray and heard the air whistle through his clenched teeth. She sheathed it, pulling the foreskin over, then moved into him, her arms upraised to wash the shampoo out of his hair. His erection stabbed at her mound, and with an exclamation that sounded suspiciously like a four-letter word, he pulled her hard against him, pressing it against her belly as her nipples tantalized his chest.