Powder of Love (I)

by Summer Devon

  “Reed, you’re looking at the gorgeous Maggie. Do you desire a turn with her?” Clermont leaned down and kissed the woman’s belly. “You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

  The woman whimpered and shoved the lower part of her body from the floor. In heat. Her pink inner lips glowed as she offered herself. An animal, Rosalie had said.

  “Yes,” said Reed. “Get up and let me have her.”

  Clermont crowed with joy. He slid away and sat up. After a moment looking around, he grumbled, “I’m generous, since there aren’t enough females in here. Maybe I should go to another room.”

  “No,” Reed said.

  Clermont studied his face for a moment and must have seen the danger there, for he shrugged. He got to his feet, his stiff member waggling as he walked across to Lady Williamsford and tried to dislodge the man fucking her.

  Reed stood over Maggie, who raised her arms to him. “Please,” she said.

  He squatted and allowed her to wrap her arms around him. Then he straightened, pulling her weight up easily. Echoing Rosalie’s earlier motions, she curled around him, legs wrapped tight around his middle.

  She pressed her thoroughly wet core against him and rubbed. The dampness seeped through his clothes and was warm on his skin. A lovely naked woman in his arms, and his cock responded, of course.

  The man at Lady Williamsford’s mouth gave a shout and convulsed. He fell back, twitching.

  “That’s the spirit, lad,” Clermont said. “My turn, Deirdre. You’ll have to open wider.”

  Reed didn’t stop to watch Lady Williamsford suck on Clermont. His arms full of the writhing Maggie, he prowled the room. He had no idea where the discarded clothes could be and instead found some of the red cloth had been ripped from the walls. With some difficulty, because Maggie clung to him and tried to get at his mouth, he gathered the cloth and wrapped it over her back. She whimpered in dismay as he tried to put the cloth around her front.

  “No. You touch me, not this wretched cloth,” she said. “Touch me.”

  Yes, what a good idea, his cock said. He ignored them both and managed to cover her from head to foot in the red. She tried to get down from his arms and shed herself of the covering, but he held her tight. “Now, now, Maggie, just wait,” he crooned. “Just a little longer.”

  “Need,” she whispered and began to lick his jaw.

  He opened the door again and got through it.

  “Hey,” Clermont called. “I was looking forward to watching you fuck her. I sacrificed some delicious fun for you.”

  Using his foot, Reed slammed the door behind himself. As soon as he’d delivered this woman to Dr. Leonard, he’d go back and either lock the door or put a guard outside it. Perhaps he’d first give himself the satisfaction of pummeling Clermont.

  Dr. Leonard was still in the room that contained the dancers. He had some bottles and equipment out and was coaxing a man to drink something.

  Maggie lapped and nibbled at the corner of Reed’s mouth. He had trouble twisting his face away enough to ask the doctor, “What’s that?”

  “A sedative. I think that lovely young lady you’re carrying could use some.”

  Reed eased the woman down his body, wincing as she slowly slid over his erection. She clung to him still. He shifted her to his side, unsure if he could safely let go of her. She might rush back to Clermont’s attentions.

  She didn’t seem to mind that he merely held her against him. She leaned her upper body weight against his arm, spread her legs, and rode his thigh, rubbing and panting as her core pushed against him. Her head was thrown back, and her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back.

  The doctor gave a low whistle. “Jesus, man. Now that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing more often.”

  Reed glared at him. “Shut up. She’s in need of help, damn it.”

  “I can see that. Come here, dear. What’s your name?”

  She gave a thin cry and convulsed against Reed, her legs squeezing so tight around his thigh, his knee almost buckled.

  “Yes, yes, oh please,” she shouted. Why did she have to say almost the same words he’d heard from Rosalie?

  He could feel the moist heat through his trouser leg. This whole suit would reek of female excitement. He gave a small sniff and realized he didn’t detect the musk of sperm from her. Perhaps there would be no risk of a baby after all. Hopeful thinking, he supposed as he gently disengaged her arms from his body while trying to retuck her makeshift red garment so it wouldn’t fall off her.

  “She’s lovely,” the doctor said. “Some men have all the luck.”

  Reed couldn’t think of a reply that wouldn’t involve obscenities, so he remained silent. He stepped away from Maggie but kept his hands on her shoulders as the doctor carefully measured some green liquid into a glass and handed it to her. She sniffed it and threw it down. The glass crashed on the parquet floor. Arms wide, she dived at the doctor, who caught her and didn’t seem to mind as much as he should have. He murmured and stroked her back and tangled his fingers in her hair. She clung to him and hungrily met his mouth, and they exchanged a long kiss.

  Reed grabbed the doctor’s shoulder and spun him around so the kissing pair disengaged.

  “Get her the medication. Now,” Reed said. “Even if you have to inject it into her system.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so angry about all this. She’s not hurting anything or anyone. Not even herself.”

  “Of course, she isn’t. But you of all people should know this behavior isn’t her choice. I’m worried about her, you idiot. I’m angry this is happening to her.”

  “Oh, very well. You’re right. But I still say no harm when it comes to my interactions with her. I’m not going to spread the word that she’s in this condition. And she is so very lovely. Delicious mouth too.”

  Maggie moaned and wrapped her arms around the doctor’s waist. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said. “You taste good too.”

  Reed was startled that she was listening. He’d almost forgotten she was a thinking human.

  Animals.

  “Please, Maggie. Drink the green stuff the doctor gives you,” he urged. “Leonard, I’m not sure I trust you, but I have to find someone to guard the door to the small parlor. And I’ll get someone to clean up the glass. Take care of her bare feet, will you? Doctor—damn it, no, that doesn’t mean you should pick her up.”

  The man who’d drunk a dose of the green medicine was sprawled on the floor, snoring. Reed paused at the door. “Looks like that sedative of yours works. Have you given any to Miss Ambermere?”

  “No, she said she hadn’t taken a huge dose of the glandular powder and could control herself. Seemed to be in control too.”

  “How did you test her control?”

  Leonard gave him a toothy grin. “Scientific method?”

  Reed quelled the urge to shake the doctor only because he needed him. “No more scientific method when it comes to attractive females,” Reed said. “I’m warning you.”

  The doctor’s laughter followed him out the room.

  Rosalie wanted to run, feel wind stroke her face. Actually she wanted to feel a breeze on every inch of her skin. Air bathing. But no, she dragged her mind from her body’s raucous senses. Help her guests. Now.

  But perhaps she could take a moment to find Gideon again, press her face to his neck and inhale, taste in her throat and mouth and nose that essence of the man she already missed and craved.

  The small parlor door was closed. Oh dear. No servants guarded it. She went to it and paused only a moment to feel the delightful coolness, the ridges and curves of the brass doorknob.

  Inside the room, bodies writhed and groaned. So many of them, she was taken aback for a moment, her usual inhibitions and dismay rising from the place they’d been imprisoned. But then the curve of a shoulder blade distracted her. A lovely, shifting shape. Warm, no doubt. Not Gideon’s, so she didn’t have the immediate heavy lurch of desire, but anyon
e would want to stroke the smooth skin marred only by a few freckles. She tilted her head to the side and recognized Mr. Trevner, the man Mr. Clermont had brought to dinner.

  Mr. Clermont would be in here, then. Yes, there he was. Naked, of course. He would be. And not so unattractive. Pale and thin, perhaps, with no body hair, which she associated with masculine beauty. But he was muscular, and how happy he looked because a woman’s mouth moved on his cock.

  It never occurred to her that such a thing might be possible, but then she remembered the swooning joy Gideon had given her with his mouth. Her mouth began to water. A cock would be warm, heavy, redolent of the rich scent of a man. Of course she wanted to taste Gideon.

  And the same woman who got to taste a man had another man behind her, filling her with his cock. He reminded Rosalie of a dog, the way he hunched and moved. So much skin for the lucky woman with two men touching her body. Stroking and—

  Rosalie’s breathing ceased. Oh. The woman on Mr. Clermont’s cock. Rosalie couldn’t pull in a breath. No, this wasn’t the right thing for her to witness.

  Her head swam, and a wave of nausea filled her.

  She must have stumbled from the room, because she stood outside the door now, panting hard to make up for all the breathing she’d forgotten how to do in the room.

  Thank God Gideon was there next to her. “Are you all right?” he asked. How many times had he asked that tonight?

  He didn’t move away or protest when she put her arms around his torso, under his jacket, and pushed her face against his neck, just as she’d dreamed of doing. Only now the dreamy quality and her delight in the senses had dimmed. She was aware of too much.

  “Rosalie?”

  She didn’t want to move her face from the safe spot between the edge of his starched shirt and the even stiffer white waistcoat, so her voice came out muffled. “The doctor might like to know,” she said, trying to sound calm, “a knock on the head and fainting aren’t the only things to mute the effects of the powder. Shock rather works, such as seeing one’s mother naked and doing…various things also has a sobering effect.”

  “My poor Rosalie.”

  She shook her head, but not too hard. He’d cupped her head against him, and she didn’t want to dislodge his hand. “I have known of her nature for years. I haven’t been horribly shocked, you know. Just slightly. More than enough, I hope.” She pulled in a lungful of him and knew she was still under the influence, because the smell roused her, made her want to unfasten his clothes and get at the source. Her mouth on his cock.

  But once again, she could think.

  “The doctor is here,” she began. “Wait. You know that because you were in the room when he arrived. He’s very sympathetic and gentle.”

  “Did he do anything to you?”

  She did like the way his rich voice vibrated through her, right down to her belly. “He embraced me. But very sweetly and not demanding.”

  “Huh.”

  She dragged her mind back to her guests. “We needn’t worry about the people in that parlor. None of them will be in danger. The garden?”

  “Hawes is at the back gate, making sure no one leaves,” he said.

  “Heavens, I’d completely forgotten about Miss Renshaw.”

  “Yes, I think she’s with him.”

  “I hope he can keep his mind on the task.” She recalled the night she’d first witnessed copulation—so many pumping bottoms ago. Then she remembered the fiercely protective Hawes on Coney Island. “They’ll be married, I think. And if it weren’t for the powder, they’d never have discovered that they suit.”

  “Do they suit?” He’d gently pushed her away and was summoning a footman who loitered near the dining room door.

  Would she hear the sneering tone in his voice if she weren’t so alive to every detail of him? Of course she would. She had from the start. Disapproving Mr. Reed. Why on earth did she have to fall in love with him? Because he laughed with her. Because of what he could do to her body. Because of the way he could startle her, often by not being disapproving after all.

  “Rosalie.” He spoke sharply. “You’re drifting again.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Your eyes grow heavy and so does your smile.”

  “Never mind me,” she said. “You were trying to do something, weren’t you? I can’t recall.”

  “Find you,” he said.

  “I’m well. I think I’ll go search the bedrooms.” That’s where she would have gone if she’d been a guest in this state, all proprieties lost.

  “Good idea. Take a footman or the doctor with you. No, take a maidservant. And perhaps a footman. Never mind. On second thought, I’ll go with you.”

  “You and I on a bed. No stockings this time.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

  “Ah damn. You should go take some medication from the doctor. I’ll go alone,” he said, still in that spiky tone.

  “If you find ladies, I might help then.”

  “Come on,” he said and strode quickly away. Such long legs. Had she seen his legs? She’d examined his belly and chest and cock. Especially his cock. She’d have to taste him next time. And she’d have to run her hands over the muscles in his legs.

  Next time? Enough of her sanity returned that the phrase seemed ridiculous. He seemed to loathe her. Perhaps in the morning she’d loathe herself, but now it seemed laughable to suppose she could ignore the screaming need. Not act upon it again. Yes, she could control it. But pretend such a thing didn’t roar through every fiber of her being? She might as well deny the existence of her arms and legs.

  She sighed and went after him, first pausing at the bottom of the stairs to rip off the shredded stockings, and for a moment, run the cooling silk between her fingers. Oh, and the garter too.

  She would have kept on loosening and removing more layers under her gown, but Gideon reappeared at the landing. “Are you coming?” he asked.

  She dropped the stockings, the garters, the starched petticoat, and went up after him, pressing her toes against the cool, polished wood on the stairs.

  He opened and closed doors swiftly, and she trailed after him, feeling useless. At her room, he stopped and stared, then closed the door when she drew near.

  “It is your friend Mr. Wentworth,” he whispered. “And the lady who sat on his other side.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Mrs. Lark? She’s at least fifty.”

  “Is her husband here?”

  “She’s a widow. Mrs. Lark and Mr. Wentworth.” A giggle rose in her throat, and she darted ahead of him to the next door—her mother’s room. “Mr. Wentworth and Mrs. Lark. I hope they enjoy themselves.”

  He’d caught up with her. “Please, allow me.”

  She let him set her aside and peer into rooms only because it seemed important to him. It gave her a chance to watch his shoulders shift under the dark jacket as he opened doors, pushed his head into the rooms, and closed the doors again.

  “No one,” he reported.

  Two servants, hearing them, caught up with Gideon, who sent them to search the servants’ quarters at the top and back of the house.

  She attempted to engage Gideon in conversation, but he was too busy with his work and didn’t seem to want to talk about the violin music floating on the wind or the strange way the lamplight made deep shadows in the corridor.

  At last they were trotting down the back staircase. A great weariness had seized her. She wanted to go to her room and throw the covers over her head. She couldn’t as long as Mr. Wentworth and Mrs. Lark were using the bed.

  She wondered what would happen if they should fall asleep and then wake up together. “What should we do when they come to their senses? If they forget what they did. I told Emily—Miss Renshaw—what she’d done. She thought it was a dream. But do I need to tell them all?” Again she didn’t know that she spoke aloud. “I might not remember myself.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that.” At least he didn’t ignore her. They came out in
the back corridor. He looked around, then said, “For some, like Mr. Trevner, I think it best if no one mentions it. The situation is fraught with perils for him.”

  She tried to recall and, with a spasm of merriment, did. “He was playing leapfrog with Mr. Gramble.”

  “Exactly,” said Gideon.

  “I wonder if I’ll recall you. In the library,” she said and smiled wide at that lovely memory. “Twice. You will be the only one who can remind me if I forget.”

  He didn’t answer. They came out into the kitchen, which had contained a couple of harried scullery maids. They looked up and then backed away.

  “Has anyone been giving you any trouble?” Gideon asked sharply.

  “No, sir.”

  Rosalie stood next to him and heard the quiet “thank God.”

  “Mr. Beels told us to scream for help if anyone tried anything.”

  “Good for Beels.” Gideon went on, less urgent now. “You’d best go off to bed now. It’s past two a.m.”

  How did it get to be so late? Rosalie wondered. Time didn’t seem affected, but she’d so enjoyed herself.

  Gideon was talking to the servants. “If you have a lock on your door, use it. Otherwise, wedge a chair under the door handle.”

  “Yessir.”

  She and Gideon were alone in the kitchen.

  “It’s almost over,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  Somewhere in the distance, someone yelled. A cry of delight, Rosalie guessed. That moment when the body went out of itself in pleasure. She wanted that again.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Rosalie hoisted herself onto the large, flour-sprinkled table. “You are good at ordering people about,” she said and drew a pattern in the flour, then sucked the end of her finger. Soft wheat gummed her mouth, bland but pleasant.

  He’d gone, and she supposed he was investigating the yell. She considered following him, but he had no need of her.

  She pushed some of the pans off the table, and they landed with clangs, thumps, and rattles.

  The violin music filled her. The scent of the kitchen fire, the last of the feast prepared and mostly abandoned. She put her hand near her nose and sniffed. Yes. There he was, the musky scent of him. She curled on the broad wooden table and breathed the faint trace of Gideon as she dozed off.