by Pia Tremayne
And yet, listening to his story, her heart had swollen fit to burst at the painful childhood he had endured. She had absorbed his pain, had wanted to go to him, take him in her arms, and shield him from any further hurt, no matter how slight. But he had deceived her cruelly once. She wouldn’t run to him again like a trusting fool, handing her heart to someone she didn’t even know, even though she still craved his touch, longed for him. She tightened her arms around her legs, feeling fragmented from wanting the touch of this man, this stranger she barely knew.
She heard a knock and lifted her head, thinking it had come from the door. She heard it again, a sharp rap, only it was from the window. Her heart began to race with instinctive knowledge, recognition. He had come. She pulled on a short silk kimono, tied it about her, and went to the window.
He was standing there, on the veranda outside the window, when she opened the curtains. They stood motionless, their eyes riveted on each other, his eyes demanding, hers attempting to deny.
“Open the window, Nicola,” he said distinctly through the glass, not looking away from her. Unable to tear her eyes away she reached out blindly and lifted the latch. As the two sides of the window swung open, he put one leg over the sill and was in the room. He stood still, breathing hard, looking down at her.
“Hate me all you want to, tomorrow,” he told her, his voice raw with need, “but tonight, I have to be inside you.”
He drew her to him hard, entwined her hair in one hand to pull her head back and ground his mouth over hers. She resisted for one split second before swaying against him, her arms reaching up to hold him, her fingers caressing his hair as his tongue invaded her mouth. She quivered as it danced with hers, then darted across her gums, caressing the lining of her cheeks, the sensitive roof of her mouth. His mouth left hers finally, only to bury itself in the side of her neck, the hollow of her throat, nudging aside the kimono to kiss the soft skin, travel across the delicate collarbone.
Her fragrance filled his nostrils, and seized with impatience to breathe in all of her, he grasped the kimono and pulled it apart. His lips raced hotly across her skin, hurrying to capture her breasts. She sighed, a soft sound of satisfaction, her fingers digging into his scalp as his mouth seized her nipple. His hunger for the feel and taste of it had tortured him during all those days and empty nights since she had walked out on him. He arched her away from him, one hand splayed over the small of her back, and seized her other nipple, sucking and nibbling and making her moan as her sex responded feverishly to the warning of his impending invasion.
He knelt in front of her, his hands around her haunches, and trailed hot kisses over her midriff and navel. He burrowed between the folds of her kimono, murmured something unintelligible into the hair of her mound, and stood up suddenly. He reached behind her to draw the curtains then picked her up in his arms like a child.
“I want to see you properly,” he told her, laying little kisses on her mouth. “My eyes are starved for the sight of you.”
He carried her over to the bed, laid her down and knelt over her. He kissed each breast gently, dipped his tongue into her navel, and buried his face in the curls of her mound, inhaling deeply. She trembled as he gently parted her with his hands, stroking her bud with his thumb until she was quivering with want. She lifted her head to look down at him and saw that he was completely preoccupied with examining her. As she watched, he spread her folds and his head descended again, his teeth fastening on her bud, scraping lightly. A spasm ran through her, a wave of pure pleasure that engulfed her belly and flooded down toward the source, making her grind against his mouth in mindless primitive response.
He lifted his head again from his pleasurable task, studying the perfection of how she was made, and experienced a kind of frustration at his inability to crawl inside her with his eyes open, to know her, to see, touch, and taste every inch of her.
“Anthony, please,” she said despairingly.
He knew what she wanted, needed. He dipped his head, thrust his tongue into her slit, and began to lick her thoroughly, broad sweeps inside her folds, then tugged her bud, feeling it distend between his tongue and teeth.
Her orgasm arrived in seconds, stampeding through her like a runaway horse, kicking its way ferociously out of her. She juddered as he held on and let her explode against his tongue, reveling in the taste of her.
“Stand up,” she said raggedly, even before her involuntary trembling ceased. He stood, shucked his clothes hurriedly, and stood in front of her, his cock painfully stiff and rampant. She moved to the edge of the bed, rested her feet on the floor, and reached for him. He groaned as her hands took hold of his buttocks and guided him into her mouth. Looking down at himself, thick and hard, sliding in and out of her juicy mouth, excited him beyond belief. She caressed his testicles, treasuring the soft silky feel of them in her palm. He tingled all over, even on the soles of his feet. She sucked hard on him each time, just before he slipped out, rounded her lips to receive him as he slipped back in. The dual stimulation made his toes curl in delicious agony as he moved his hips rhythmically.
He felt it breaking loose inside him, and he laid his hands on the crown of her head, trying to hold back to protect her even while his buttocks jerked frantically, hijacked by his body’s mindless rush to sexual fulfillment. “Sweetheart,” he groaned, “let me come inside you.”
She gave him one final, lingering suck that almost turned him inside out, then lay back, using her elbows as leverage to move her further up on the bed. He fell on her with a moan, and taking his aching penis in his hand, guided it into the wetness between her legs and thrust. They cried out together then exhaled sharply at the sweet perfection of their joining as her sheath embraced his penis in a sustained erotic and welcoming kiss.
He gripped her, holding her still like a receptive vessel as he moved rhythmically in and out of her, grunting with each powerful thrust until with a hoarse cry, he climaxed explosively, and drenched her with the copious seed of his pent-up emissions.
When their breathing was almost normal again, he flipped over on his back and pulled her over him so that she lay with her head and upper body across his chest. “What are you thinking about?” he asked her, after they had lain quietly for a few minutes.
“That I just had sex with a stranger,” she said and waited for his response.
He touched his lips to the top of her head, and stroked her hair all the way to the ends, smoothing it over and over with his palm. “You’re wrong on two counts, and I’ll tell you why,” he said at last. “First, I have never just had sex with you. In the beginning, that first night, I thought that was what I wanted to do, but it never happened. Every time I touched you, I ended up making love to you. And that morning, in Mayfair, when you gave me permission to just fuck you,” he said, his voice becoming a little rough, “that was the most exquisite love making of all, because you understood my lust and cared enough about me to indulge it. So no, I will never be able to just have sex with you any more than I could part the Red Sea.
“Second, I’m not a stranger. There are things I have to tell you that I couldn’t explain before, things I decided tonight that only you had to hear.” He told her then, about all the times he had spied on her, his childhood fixation with her, his determination to leave the estate after her father’s car had splashed him with mud.
She turned her face toward him, propping her elbow on his chest, her chin cupped in her palm. “I don’t remember it but I’m sorry we splashed you,” she said, tracing the line of his jaw with her other hand, a soft smile in her eyes. “Was that why you decided to buy me at the auction? To pay me back?”
“Sort of. Childhood wounds cut the deepest and are the most difficult to heal. But it was more complicated than that. It took a while before I could admit to myself what it was really all about, which was that it was simply going to destroy me if another man possessed you. The idea was intolerable.”
“But why couldn’t you have told me up front who you wer
e, that you knew who I was?”
“The truth?”
She nodded.
“I couldn’t risk your walking out on me. You were the little girl that all little boys dream of. As far as you were concerned I didn’t exist. I wasn’t in your league, would never have been if not for the Astonvilles, and I didn’t want to hear you say it or see it in your face.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered to me, Anthony. But I wouldn’t have walked out anyway. I wanted the money,” she said honestly.
He touched her cheek. “I know. And that used to bother me.”
“Was that why you hired the detective agency?”
“Partly.”
“Does it still bother you?”
“Do you still want the money?”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t,” she said.
His eyes held a somber light as he regarded her steadily. Then he touched her cheek again.
“We’ll talk about it some other time, not tonight.” She laid her head back down on his chest, and they fell silent again.
“What other things do you want to tell me,” she said.
Almost unconsciously, she dropped a kiss on his navel and flicked her tongue into it. He started, and his fingers reflexively tightened their hold on her hair.
“I want to tell you about my biological father,” he said, “because whether I like it or not, his blood runs in my veins.”
“The reclusive Felipe,” she said thoughtfully. She propped herself up again on her elbow, facing him, waiting.
“I never knew anything about him before we went to Brazil. Everything that I found out, I learned from Enrique after we went there. Felipe was not an educated man. He never finished high school. They were too poor. Eventually, he found a job in a textile factory but could barely support himself on his meager wages.
“He fell in love with a beautiful young girl named Consuelo who also worked at the factory and she fell in love with him. But his boss, not the owner of the factory, but his manager, a much older man, had his eye on the girl as well. He started giving her presents, showing her favors, and finally, she began going out with him, thinking he would give her a better life. It made Felipe angry.”
“That’s why you couldn’t bear to listen to Manon Lescaut,” Nicola interrupted. “It is your father’s story, an older man and a younger man who are bitter rivals over the same young woman.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “It never fails to depress me. Anyway, in the end this older man got her pregnant, and then he told her he already had a wife and wouldn’t have married her anyway and that he wanted her out of the factory. He did nothing to help her. She would have ended up on the street, pregnant and with no means of supporting herself. She couldn’t face it so she threw herself off a bridge.
“Felipe was heartbroken. From that day on he was consumed with hate for the manager who had taken from him the only woman he would ever love. Then one morning the manager was found dead in the factory parking lot, his head bashed in by a heavy blow to his skull. Felipe did not turn up for work that day and immediately became the most likely suspect. There were no clues as to his whereabouts, and his family never saw him again. But as we now know, he must have left Brazil right after the manager was killed and ended up in Jamaica. His leaving could have been just a coincidence, but we’ll never be certain whether it was he or someone else who murdered the manager. And the rest you know.”
“Did you hate him?”
“I used to think I did, but now I think what I feel is simply indifference. I would have given anything when I was a child to have him at least acknowledge my existence in some way and I hated him for not even wanting to know me, his only son. When the Astonvilles adopted me I banished him from my mind, and until I saw you, I had not thought of him for years. Seeing you brought it all back.”
His toyed with her nipple, and she stilled it and brought it to her lips, her eyes large and bright with empathy. “Do you know that you never say ‘my father’ when you talk about him? You always refer to him as your biological father or call him by his name.”
“I don’t think of him as my father. The only father I have ever known was Robert Astonville, and I thank fate or God or whatever deity is responsible for that.”
“Yet Felipe left you his property.”
“As I said, by default. I do not believe he did it as some belated gesture of acknowledging me as his son. He simply had no one else he wanted to leave it to. His motives had nothing to do with me, really. I certainly do not feel like his son and heir. I talk about him only because I want you to know everything there is to know about me, all the dark secrets that are mine to tell. I wanted you to know that the man you know is Anthony Astonville, but it is the hot blood of Felipe Torres that runs in my veins.” He was silent for a moment and then a small frown creased his brow. “Does that scare you, darling?”
“What? To love a hot-blooded man?”
“Yes,” he replied, unable to conceal his latent anxiety.
“I didn’t really know it until I met you,” she said, tracing his lips with her finger, “but you are the man I was waiting for. The only thing that scares me is the thought that we might never have met. Everything I want, everything I need, is in you.”
“And without you, I would be nothing.”
Simultaneously, they reached for each other in a loving passionate kiss, their souls thrilling in mutual recognition that their love was destined to be.
He cupped her face in his palms when their mouths parted at last.
“And so, you see,” he said, “I am not a stranger. You know everything you need to know about me.”
“Do I?” she asked, looking at him strangely.
“Ask me anything you want to know,” he said promptly, “and if I am at liberty to reveal it to you, I will.”
“How did you get involved in the Midsummer Auction?”
“Ah!” He regarded her thoughtfully. “Henrietta Colefax brought it to my attention,” he said after a pause. “She was the coordinator even before I met her and her invitation to join the group was a great compliment to me, in many ways. I don’t think there is much more to it that I can tell you.” He ran his finger along the length of her scapula from neck to shoulder.
It was at a private dinner many years ago that he had first laid eyes on Henrietta Colefax. He was by then one of the most eligible bachelors in England and a number of highborn young women were showing themselves to be more than willing to overlook the hazy details of his pre-Astonville background.
Henrietta had been one of the more adventurous. A few years older than him, she had regarded Anthony Astonville with great interest, and some unforgettable nights at his Mayfair town house had followed. Like many of her ilk, she had to work for a living. Her initial instinct that he had the right qualities to be a member of the exclusive group proved to be well founded. In addition to being affluent and moving in the proper circles, his view of what could pass between consenting adults was delightfully unorthodox and nonjudgmental. Not long after, she introduced him to the group and there was no possible way he could refuse the skillfully worded invitation to become a member without offending, nor did he want to. The relationship that had once existed between them was the other secret that he would have to keep, because telling it would be an invasion of Henrietta’s privacy. He felt an odd yearning, a wishing to undo the parts of his life that he couldn’t share with her, but the past could not be undone, nor could he change the life stories of other people, such as his adoptive parents who had given him so much. His future with Nicola was all that counted now.
“I understand, Anthony,” Nicola said. “I have no wish to pry into your past. But tell me, will you still take part in the auction?”
“I will still be a business member of the group, but my bidding days are over,” he replied. “Why would I want to waste time looking at videos of other women when I could be looking at you? Unless of course, you go up for auction again,” he ended teasingly.
; “Well, I might,” she said with a naughty little smile. “Don’t forget, I owe someone a great deal of money.”
“Well now,” he said, a gleam in his eyes, “seeing as how you’ve brought it up again, maybe there is a way you might be able to eliminate that debt very quickly, now that I think about it.”
“I’m sleepy,” she said, mischievously faking a yawn. “Would it require any physical activity on my part?”
“Yes and no,” he replied.
“Did you want to explain that?”
“Gladly.” He pulled her up, bringing her ear closer to his mouth and whispered into it.
She buried her face in his neck, feeling herself grow languid. Heat liquefied her bones at the utter sensuality of his promise. Hungry for him to fulfill it, she bit his neck and he immediately flipped her over, lifting her to all fours so that her pert little bottom was perched invitingly in the air. He studied it hungrily, taking in the perfect ovals, the cleft that marked the beginning of her sex. He covered her bottom with kisses and love bites then traced her cleft with his fingers until he reached the nub. She made a sound deep in her throat as he stroked it until it jutted out, throbbing with sensitivity. Still stroking her, he aligned himself along her back and penetrated her easily and slid deep inside her. He splayed one hand over her belly, pressed her buttocks into his groin, fucking her deep and hard.
She laid her head down on her hands, helpless with ecstasy at the rhythm of his entering and withdrawing, shuddering out breaths in sync with his as it gusted harsh and hot on the back of her neck. She cried out as her climax rippled through her. At the sound, a frenzy of passion whipped him and he thrust harder, deeper, faster, holding her tightly as his own climax tore recklessly through him, joining forces with hers in a churning tidal wave. They cried out together, repeated cries of ecstasy as it crashed down over them, leaving them helpless like so much flotsam in the aftermath of a shipwreck.