In the Flesh

by Portia Da Costa

“Oh! Oh, my goodness!” Her lovely face contorting, Beatrice bounced on the bed, her fingers working furiously as she spent in front of him. Amidst the spasms, she let out a most unladylike oath, delivered in such a refined yet animal voice that Ritchie couldn’t help but laugh out loud, loving her free and uninhibited way of pleasure.

  “My dear Miss Weatherly, where on earth did you learn such a word as that?” he demanded as she subsided back against the mattress, hot and gasping.

  “I used to be a country girl, remember,” she panted, her pale hand still cupping her blazing red bush, “and stable hands and farm boys use much worse words than that.” Her coral-pink mouth curved in a smile as if she were chanting those wicked words in her head.

  “Well, I’m shocked, Beatrice. I thought you were a well brought up gentlewoman, and now it turns out that you spent your young womanhood in the company of rough countrymen, learning the bluest of language and the Lord alone knows what else.” Unable to stay away from her a second longer, he inclined over her prone, smirking form and looked deep into her laughing green eyes. As if she were unable to prevent herself, she licked her rosy lips, the sight of it almost unmanning him.

  * * *

  BEATRICE QUIVERED all over at the fire in Ritchie’s eyes. “Isn’t it my turn to get a treat now? It’s only right…I put on a show for you.”

  “Really? You think so, do you, Bea? That you deserve a treat?” He was sitting beside her, twisted at an angle, his head tipped to one side as he studied her. “After all that foul profanity and lolling about with your legs open, making free with yourself without my permission.” He pursed his lips for a moment as if containing a laugh.

  Beatrice huffed out a breath, then arched and stretched, her limbs languid with pleasure. “Oh, la-di-da, Ritchie, you know that you liked it. And by that token, you should grant me my reward.”

  Ritchie continued to stare at her, his eyes assessing her body. “Very well. Choose one thing,” he said crisply, smiling a challenge at her.

  She didn’t need time to think. “I choose that you take your clothes off. It’s only fair.”

  His hands stilled, and he looked resigned. Why was he so reluctant to disrobe? He was handsome as the devil and his body was lithe and strong. What had he to hide?

  Ritchie didn’t speak, but glancing away from her, he slid to his feet and began by flinging off his waistcoat. As trousers and dress socks followed, he moved with economy and no show of bravado. It was as if his body was just a mechanism to him, physical machinery that was fit for purpose, not a work of art to be admired…as Beatrice perceived it.

  At the stage of drawers and unbuttoned shirt, he paused, giving her a long, indecipherable look. Was he bashful? Surely not. But there was a hint of apprehension in the way he looked at her.

  With a shrug, he peeled his shirt off over his head.

  Beatrice’s heart thudded hard.

  Oh, he was beautiful. Sublimely formed, indeed, but that wasn’t what made her gasp.

  Ritchie had scars. They’d been hidden when his shirt was just hanging open, but now they were revealed and made Beatrice wince in her tender soul, and ache with sympathy.

  At some time, Ritchie had been subject to fire and it had left him with a number of burns on his arms and his shoulders. Was his back also marked, Beatrice wondered, and as if he’d heard her, Ritchie turned slowly.

  Astonishingly, somebody had taken a knife to him too, and he had a couple of angry red gouges across his shoulder blades, long and deep looking.

  Although she wasn’t aware of flinching, Ritchie’s eyes narrowed as if she’d cringed from him. “I did warn you, Bea,” he said softly. “Would you prefer it if I put my shirt back on?”

  “Why on earth would I want you to do that? I’m not afraid of a few trifling little scars and they…they don’t repulse me, if that’s what you’re so concerned about?”

  In a long pause, Ritchie seemed to weigh her words, her demeanor, everything about her. She knew he could detect a lie in her, but she hadn’t told one. Even so, his intense scrutiny made her tremble and wish for the courage to reach out and caress the marks that must have pained him so much in their creation.

  “I do believe you’re telling the truth.” His cautious expression dissolved into a slow, familiar smile. A sultry grin that made her tremble for a different reason.

  “Of course I am, you dolt! Now please stop plaguing me with half measures and get your drawers off and show me the rest!”

  Ritchie exploded in a guffaw of laughter. “You really are the living end, Beatrice Weatherly, as God is my judge!” Shoulders still shaking, he moved closer to the bed, giving Beatrice a better view of the considerable disturbance behind the flies of his drawers. There was an impressive bulge that seemed to be growing by the second.

  Beatrice knew he was used to women far franker than she in his amorous exploits, but now wasn’t the time play the dainty miss. “Well, you’ve teased me long enough as it is, Mr. Ritchie, so I’d appreciate it if you’d remove your undergarment.”

  “Very well,” he said, deftly divesting himself of it. As he flung the garment aside, his sturdy cock bounced upward, propelled by the momentum of the throw.

  Ah, here was an anatomical feature that bore no scars. It was immaculate in its strange, mammalian beauty. Beatrice’s fingers prickled with the urge to reach out and touch it once more, it was becoming such a friend.

  As she raised her eyes from the appendage that entranced her, she met Ritchie staring at her as if he too were entranced. She almost heard a metallic clash as their gazes locked.

  “Satisfied?” He slid onto the bed beside her, and Beatrice swore she could feel the heat of him before they even touched.

  “Not by a long chalk,” she shot back at him. “I have a feeling I should emulate a cook or a housekeeper, and test the condition of the provisions manually first.”

  “Is that so?” With a low laugh, he moved against her.

  “It is!” But touching without permission was a contravention of the game.

  “Presently,” replied Ritchie, his beautiful eyes flashing, “your treat is to look, but not touch, Bea. I want free run of your body, without your roving hands to distract me.”

  Beatrice wanted to protest, but Ritchie’s words and the heat in his eyes were too exciting. There was something deep and thrilling and strange about being vulnerable to him. As if he were a god, a flawed god, and she his willing sacrifice. Her skin tingled as if soft, cool flames were racing across it, and between her legs her cleft ached, her hunger for him gathering heavy and voracious. Instinctively, she reached out toward him.

  “Behave yourself,” he growled, and lay against her, half over her. His thick cock pressed against her hip and thigh, and one of his own thighs lay across her, the crisp tickle of his light body hair an extra stimulation. “Behave yourself,” he repeated as she stirred against him, instinctively moving and pressing. “Grip the bed rail if that will help.” Laying his lips against the exposed slope of her neck, he settled his hand across her aching nipples once more.

  Beatrice complied, gripping the rail, but she couldn’t keep still. She was a ferment of sensation, of frustration. Twisting her hips, she opened her legs and tried to press her sex closer to him.

  “Beatrice, Beatrice,” he breathed, lightly toying with her, moving his lips against her skin, causing a tingle of pleasure with just a simple exhalation and the dance of his fingertips.

  Her body cried for him. Screamed for him. Demanded him, and the solid bar of his penis where it butted against her. She tried to rub him with her thigh, but that was unsatisfactory. She wanted to know him with her fingers and her puss.

  Or perhaps my mouth?

  Her eyes shot open. What a voluptuous, daring thought. Her mind briefly sorted through images of Sofia sucking enthusia
stically on her beloved Ambrose’s sturdy organ, and Arabella Southern making a meal of the handsome, swarthy Yuri. Yes, those ladies had appeared to be having a perfectly splendid time with their lovers’ cocks in their mouths, even though there was no apparent stimulation for them.

  Oh, I should so like to sample you, Ritchie.

  Still clasping the rail, she twisted to look at him, and as if he’d heard her, his long lashes flicked up and he stared into her eyes from close quarters.

  “What is it, Bea?” His look was narrow and knowing, and her heart thumped. How could he read her so easily, and divine her schemes.

  Almost without thinking, Beatrice ran her tongue around the edges of her lips again, and against her thigh his cock leaped as if he’d read her salacious thoughts.

  “Nothing…just hungry for you, Ritchie.”

  His mouth curved, playful and a little smug. “Indeed. Would you care to specify how hungry, my delicious siren?” His hips rocked and his hard flesh slid to and from against her, hot and provocative.

  “Very hungry,” she answered firmly. “I should like to savor you, Mr. Ritchie. In fact the very thought of you makes my mouth water. Really it does…” She gave him a slow look out of the corner of her eye, hoping that he found the expression seductive. “In fact if you’ll allow it, I’ll show you just how much.”

  “Really?” His smile widened.

  “Really.”

  He didn’t answer, but kissed her very hard, his tongue pushing into her mouth as if to subdue her naughty tongue. Or perhaps suggest another possession, somewhat similar but more comprehensive. Beatrice accepted the intrusion, hoping it would confirm her intention to taste him.

  Still kissing her, and imposing his strong body over hers, Ritchie reached above her head and unwound her fingers from the rail, as if freeing a bond. Instantly, Beatrice grabbed for him, clasping at his back and muscular flank, arching her torso against him.

  After a long breathless grapple against each other, Ritchie put her face from his and looked into her eyes, his face alight with mischief. “So, Miss Weatherly, you want to savor me, do you?” This time it was his turn to run his tongue around the firm lines of his lips, and he did it so evocatively that between her legs, Beatrice’s flesh rippled.

  “Yes,” she whispered, sounding less sure than she would have liked. She was no experienced Sofia or Arabella, well schooled in giving pleasure with her tongue.

  Ritchie stroked her face. “Don’t worry, Bea, you’re a most adaptable young woman and an astonishingly quick learner. I haven’t the slightest doubt in the world that to be savored by you will be truly sublime.”

  Beatrice pulled away from him and sat up, blushingly aware of the way the action presented her naked breasts to him. Sitting around like this in her birthday suit with an equally unclothed man stretched out beside her was a novel experience, and it reminded her how much of an ingenue she still was, despite having posed naked for photographs.

  “I hope you’re right, Ritchie,” she answered simply, placing her hand on his thigh and letting it rest lightly there, an inch or two from his fine, upstanding cock. “Because I really don’t have a clue what to do.”

  “Use your instincts, Bea.” Ritchie’s voice was soft and infinitely kind, which seemed incongruous in this erotic situation, and yet very much him. “Anything you do to me is beautiful.” Placing his fingers over hers, he squeezed encouragement.

  Where to begin?

  Beatrice gazed at Ritchie’s cock. A man’s sexual organ was a strange thing really, but she found it intriguing. Well, she found Ritchie’s intriguing, and with little in the way of comparison, she deemed him an excellent specimen, neither too small nor too large, perfectly in proportion with his general dimensions. The proper size, and both elegant and primitive.

  Sweeping the thick curtain of her unbound red hair out of the way with one hand, she bent down and lowered her mouth toward him.

  * * *

  RITCHIE WANTED to shout, to whoop, to cheer. He wanted to reach out, cradle Beatrice’s head, his fingers plunged into the sublime tresses of her extraordinary hair, and guide her tender mouth toward his cock. He wanted to jerk his hips upward and push into her mouth, find bliss in its heat and wetness, then thrust and thrust until he spent on her tongue.

  But instead, he lay quiescent, showing nothing of his turmoil of pounding lust, not even clenching the bedsheets for fear he alarm or disquiet her.

  He nearly moaned aloud though, feeling her breath upon his glans. Knowing she couldn’t see his face for the brilliant swath of her lush hair, he bit down hard on his lower lip, battling for self-control.

  When her tongue touched the very tip of him, he had to shut his eyes tight and suppress a welling tear of tense emotion.

  “Ooh, salty,” she whispered, her velvety lips barely brushing him yet making every last inch of his body go rigid, and the inches that were rigid already harden into heavy, aching iron. He tasted salt himself in the blood from his bitten lip.

  Adjusting her position, she surveyed him this way and that, from the closest of quarters. As she did so, the cape of her Titian waves slid over her shoulders and her back, the soft ends sliding like silk along his belly and his thighs.

  Forward she went again, her dainty tongue extending to caress him. Tentative, yet clearly a natural sensualist of phenomenal intuition, she flicked and flirted around the crown of his cock, exploring and tantalizing him, then parted her lips and let the swollen tip enter her mouth.

  So warm, so wet, she engulfed him, still playing his flesh with her tongue as she sucked and bobbed.

  He couldn’t hide his pleasure now, even though for a moment, he clawed at the sheets, clinging to a last scrap of self-control. Then, with a darting thrust of her furled tongue, she sought the tender groove beneath his glans and he had to cry out loud. Questioning, she glanced up at him, her face gracious and beautiful, even with her mouth stretched around him, but when she saw him nod at her, she returned to her task.

  Ritchie plunged his hands into her thick fall of hair, guiding her, holding her, yet trying not to control or constrain her. His mind was spinning as he teetered on the brink of spending long and hard.

  But he mustn’t do that. He shouldn’t. Not to a young woman so recently a virgin, eager though she was. The temptation was huge, but he managed to resist and claw back the last vestiges of his reserve.

  “Beatrice…Beatrice…enough!” he gasped, gently nudging her away from his aching cock.

  Rising, she flung back her hair again, her expression perplexed. “What’s amiss? Was I doing it wrong? You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” She rocked away from him, pursing her lips and then running her tongue over them, as if still tasting him. Ritchie almost exploded there and then, it excited him so.

  “I was enjoying it, Bea… I was enjoying it so much I can barely describe…too much…” Hauling himself up, he reached out and cradled her cheek, his thumb stroking lightly over her moist lips. “But I didn’t want to take my pleasure selfishly… I’d rather share it with you, my sweet, not come in your mouth without pleasuring you.”

  Beatrice smiled, slow and creamy, like a contented little cat, her lips curving beneath the pad of his thumb. “You really shouldn’t worry, Ritchie. You’re always far more than generous in that regard. The deficit still lies with me, by a considerable margin.”

  Ritchie laughed. What a spectacular and tantalizing woman she was. How uniquely she saw things. His cock throbbed as she regarded him steadily, her green eyes twinkling.

  “I’m not keeping score, Miss Weatherly, and neither should you be.” He bobbed forward and kissed her on the lips, his mouth almost brushing his own thumb. “At the moment, I think we should forget all checks and tallies and simply fuck each other.”

  * * *

  RITCHIE’S HAPPY LA
UGH was like a warm breeze aross Beatrice’s face, and he kissed her until she was breathless, until she couldn’t think of anything but having him inside her. Her hands traveled over his body as their lips and tongues grappled, and this time he seemed to have no qualms about letting her explore the marks of his scars with her fingertips. Even as Ritchie’s hand slipped between her legs and found her ready again, a part of her mind was wondering what had happened to him and what or who had hurt him.

  But she knew now was not the time to ask. And as he fondled her clitoris, the questions dissolved like smoke.

  Excitement gathered beneath his fingertip, now familiar, but ever new and fresh. She could just have let him diddle her to her peak again. It would have been easy and sweet and without effort. But that wasn’t quite what she wanted.

  “Please, Ritchie,” she gasped as they broke apart, even while he was still touching her. “Please, Ritchie, I want you inside me.”

  Ritchie muttered an oath in response, but he was laughing, smiling. “And you shall have me, beautiful Bea. Indeed you shall.” He kissed her again, hard, and carried on stimulating her. Sensation tilted on the edge, like a vessel filled to the brim, almost welling.

  Beatrice pulled back. “No! With you! I want us to spend together.” She rolled onto her back, spreading her legs.

  “A delicious offer, Bea, but let’s try it another way.” He reached for her shoulder, and drew her up again, then reclined back on the mattress himself. “You can plow me instead.”

  Beatrice blinked.

  Oh! He wants me to ride him!

  Glancing at his cock, where it reared up as hard and eager as it had been when she’d mouthed him, she tried to imagine that sturdy engine pushing up into her. Her puss quivered in a long silky ripple, but whether in anticipation or apprehension, she couldn’t tell.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You’ll be in charge…you’ll have control…the upper hand.”

  “Indeed,” she murmured, still eyeing his cock.

  “But first we need to clothe this monster.” He gave himself a cheerful shake, which made Beatrice want to giggle, both at the way he swayed and the fact that even a man such as Ritchie seemed prone to an inflated masculine pride in his own anatomy. Although in his case, she deemed it well justified. “You’ll find a tin of French Letters in the drawer of the cabinet beside the bed.”