by Elsa Holland
“She’s not Henrietta, even I can see that. Listen, get her out of her clothes. Maybe that will give you the answers you need. It might even remove whatever barrier she has against your offer of marriage. How long have you been at it?”
“Since the first night she came to the house.”
“Damn it, man, you’re a beast. Poor girl probably thinks it’s a condition of her job. How far have you gone?”
“Damn it, Felix. A ways . . .”
“So, your other option is to let it go, no harm done. You had a taste, now let her go and keep an excellent nurse. There’s trouble under those skirts of hers if you don’t turn back.”
The door to the bedroom opened and the butler came in with a tray laden with black pudding, eggs and toast.
Felix had confirmed Vaughn’s own doubts but it didn’t diminish his elation at the advances in their affair, didn’t diminish her attraction. It simply helped him to see the playing field, while the bulk of his blood and intelligence resided outside his corpus and down in his pelvis.
Felix picked up his knife and fork and began to eat.
“Now, let me tell you how my night went . . .”
Vaughn grinned despite himself and picked up a slice of toast. He would drop in on a few patients on the way home, then he would spend the day with Miss Apple and devise a way to get her out of her clothes.
CHAPTER 39
You are stationary, I am mobile. Vaughn’s response to her earlier request to accompany him to Scotland Yard apparently did not seem to apply to his visit to the charitable hospital.
Upon his return from an early morning meeting, he’d quite literally dragged her from the kitchen table, where she’d been enjoying morning tea with the other staff. “A quick visit, you’ll like it,” he’d promised.
Being outside—and at a hospital, no less—was dangerous for Edith, but he would not take no for an answer. She reasoned with herself that her Collector was not a charitable man, so it was unlikely he’d be at this hospital. The honor of his medical degrees was wasted on the vile man, loath as he was to do anything towards the betterment of mankind.
It had been exhilarating as well as devastating to see corridors lined with beds, the respect on the faces of the patients as they listened to the doctors, the students with their questions and the ensuing debates.
Edith had watched as Vaughn quizzed his students.
“Master Jorgensen, please enlighten us: In your estimation, where do we direct the scalpel once it is half an inch in the skin to remove the growth we see before us if it enters at this point?’ Vaughn’s eyes had reached over the heads of his students and he’d smiled at her. He’d looked happy and in his element.
He was a mesmerizing educator with a mastery of his craft that inspired the young doctors and gave confidence and comfort to the patients they saw.
The ache of an old dream resurfaced, to properly study medicine with others of like mind and passion, rather than alone with tutors as she had done. To sit exams and be pushed to be the best she could be in the service of humanity. She envied the young men around her.
Vaughn’s hand tugged gently on her elbow. His touch, as usual, sent flurries over her skin; her secret, un-viewable skin. “Come with me,” he whispered into her ear then turned and slipped out of the room, leaving the students to continue their rounds of the ward.
He led her down several flights of stairs to a basement floor. Each step increasing her excitement of what they might do. Seven days . . . just seven days left.
“Where are we going?”
“To a supply room.”
“What for?” She smiled. She knew the ‘why’, but perhaps not the ‘what’.
Vaughn looked over his shoulder and smirked. “You’ve thrown down the gauntlet.” Her smile tugged wider as she remembered his roar, remembered how his cock had jerked in her mouth.
He stopped at a door a little further down then looked up and down the corridor to check that they were alone. He opened the door. “In here. It’s a little-used storage unit.” They wouldn’t be disturbed.
Her breath came faster as she slipped inside.
The room was full of shelves containing mainly boxed items. A small station was positioned near the door to test various instruments with a wall-mounted power unit, along with a notebook for recording all borrowed items. Small sturdy shelves beneath were empty.
Vaughn came back with a box, a long rubber feeding tube and a number of surgical clamps. As he neared her, he reached over and switched three of the four light switches out. He left one light at the far end of the storage room on, leaving them in a dim, hazy darkness.
“Your usual mood lighting.” His eyes creased as he teased her, and she felt again that longing he gave her.
Vaughn placed the items on the station, drew the box closer and opened it.
“That’s a hysteria vibrator!”
He laughed. “Keep your voice down.” Vaughn reached out and turned the lock on the supply room door, his chest brushing her as he leaned across, giving off the soft scent of soap. Oh, what would it feel like to press her full body against his, all clothes gone, just flesh to flesh, heat to heat? Her chest ached again, longed for that which she would never feel. He brushed back past her again and she leaned into him, her skin alive with need.
“What are you doing?” Her hands ran down her front, ending at her buttons, the wardens of her secrets.
“We’re testing it. Which of the attachments do you think we should try?”
Her heart pounded faster in uncertainty, but her sex was now full of awareness, warm and needy for the pleasure he was most certainly planning for her. All of the attachments held an odd appeal.
“Are they safe?”
He grinned. One of those very rare shows of pleasure, it softened her heart, made her brace at the loss she knew she would feel when the time came to run.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
“What about this one?” She pointed to a phallic-shaped attachment, one that would move deep into her. Just touching it made her dampen between her legs.
He shook his head. “Always wanting to race ahead.” Vaughn picked up a round textured head, clipped it onto the machine, then plugged the machine into the wall outlet and switched on the power. A low whir of the motor sounded between them and her internal muscles clenched.
Vaughn switched it off and placed it back on the station. “Give me your hands.” He turned her around to face the station, then took the rubber feeding hose and tied her wrists behind her back.
“What are you going to do?” Her breath quickened. There would be no way to stop him if he wanted to override their agreements. “Don’t undo my buttons.” Panic mixed with want, with the excitement at what was coming next.
“I thought I told you to trust me,” he purred in her ear.
Vaughn lifted the front of her skirt then clipped it in place with the surgical clamps. Edith wriggled. It was possible to see the darkness of her tattoos through the thin linen of her underwear.
“I am not sure I am comfortable with this . . . you might see.”
“Easy,” he whispered, “I have only bunched it up at the front. I can’t see anything.”
Vaughn moved to stand behind her, so close his body pressed against her back, his lips at her ear as his arm wrapped around her, holding her close. Then she felt him, his hard length pressing against his trousers moving over her tied hands. Feel me Edith. Touch me as I pleasure you but focus on your won please today.”
Her fingers clasped the shape of him. Wondered when she’d feel it press into her, feel that close connection as he became a part of her.
“I’m going to show you how to come, Apple,” he whispered into her ear, pressing the hard length of his cock against her hand. Her fingers felt him, pressed and rolled against him, making her sex scream to be touched. It seemed there was something about touching a cock that sent all kinds of primordial messages to your sex.
“Make you come like you did me
, so hard your eyes stop seeing, your legs stop working and there’s not a coherent thought left in your wondrous mind.”
His free hand kneaded her breasts and pinched at her nipples, lighting them with sensitivity and sensation. Pinch, squeeze, pinch, squeeze as if he had all the time in the world and yet her sex got wetter and tender with need at each touch as if there was some kind of connection between the two places on her body. Breasts, nipples and sex.
Her pelvis rocked against air. Hungry for a touch, needy for pleasure as her breasts blazed with heat and sensation.
Seemingly satisfied with her moans, his hand moved down her body. “Medical journals on hysteria are not as specific as a young doctor might like.” He said as his free hand slid down over the bunched fabric at her front and pressed the apex between her legs.
She cried out, pressed at his palm. Rubbed at it wanting more as each movement made the material over her breasts scratch and abrade in a delicious over sensitive stimulation.
“Medical journals?” Her thoughts tried to catch up. “You read them?” Her breathing was labored, her voice strung tight. Her hand struggled at her bindings wanting to take some control. Instead he pressed his cock against them, rotated his thick length against her until she clasped her fingers around it as best as she could.
“I devoured them.” He nibbled into her neck as his hand pressed and circled her sex through her undergarments. She relished the heat of his palm as he cupped and fondled her. Moved to try and have some pressure on her nub but to no avail. He knew what she tried to do and avoided the hot throbbing peak.
She growled and he chuckled then continued.
“Eventually I got to know a doctor who specialized in treating hysteria. It took many toddies over many nights, but he told me all his secrets.”
“Like what?” She moaned as he rocked his shaft into her palms.
“A woman’s sex is more sensitive on the outside, so you must not be in too much of a hurry to press into her. You must take your time to make the blood flow into her labia, into her pleasure bud, the clitoris.” His fingers slipped into the opening of her drawers, moving over her folds as he spoke. She arched into his touch, felt the wash of sensation overtaking thought as he squeezed, pressed and pinched at the lips of her sex making them as hot and full as he had her breasts.
“Much like an athlete needs to warm up or an orchestra needs to tune, a lover needs to flood the genitals with blood and sensitivity before the main event.”
His fingers glided, pinched and flicked until the lips of her sex ached, until her nub filled and throbbing to be touched.
“More,” she moaned, pressing her hungry sex forward to make him give her more.
“When her legs have relaxed and naturally opened wider,” and they had, “when she undulates, chasing your touch,” and she was, “when her lips are engorged, the blood filling the outer petals and naturally pulling them apart, drawing open her sex, then you can dip into her dampness, then she is ready for more.” His fingers drew her lips open let them go then drew them open again.
“Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.” She whispered the chant under her breath, turned her head and found his face as he leaned closer in to her. Her legs shuffled wider.
“Ready Edith?”
She growled, her head pressed back against him and fingers clasping his cock with want and he slipped his fingers in. And just like that she broke apart. Pleasure flooded her body, weakened her muscles and made her cry out. Her sex pulsed, throbbed around fingers that had done nothing more than push firmly and surely into her.
He swayed her in that haze, moved gently from side to side as she leaned back on him, relied on his arm, still firmly round her, to hold her up.
Before she could gather herself, he slapped her sex, slapped in a few quick slaps creating stinging heat then pressed his palm over her and moved rapidly from left to right and another orgasm washed through her.
Gradually she surfaced and went to pull away, but his arm held her against him.
“Oh no, little apple, not yet. The first orgasm and it’s after shock,” he said against her neck and he kissed the oversensitive skin, “as satisfied as you might be—were you satisfied Edith?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her fingers again stroking that hard length of him.
“The first,” he continued, “is like the first crepe of a French chef, merely a tester before making the real thing.”
His fingers moved between her legs, more than one, two maybe three pressed in stretching her wide, slipping deep inside her and staying there.
“There’s very little knowledge about where female pleasure comes from,” he rumbled. “In fact, common belief is that women do not feel sensual pleasure, not decent women anyway.” He nuzzled again into her neck and those fingers pumped into her as she panted and clutch his cock. “Are you decent, Apple?”
She shook her head, couldn’t speak as his fingers, thrust inside her, sending waves of blissful sensations through her. Tension built and built, her muscles clasping round his relentless fingers. And then he stopped thrusting, just moved those fingers somehow inside her, curled rubbing a place inside her that made her shake her head from side to side as the pleasure built and built erasing all thought.
“I’m waiting for my answer: Are you a decent woman, Apple?”
It took all her effort to answer, the swell of her orgasm was just about to crest.
“No,” she shook her head, “no, I think maybe not.”
Then her muscles contracted and she again called out. His finger slipped out of her.
“Maybe not.” He muttered next to her ear and touched her clitoris in firm tugs and pinches and she shouted out as another wave came from nowhere, as she bucked against his hand as pleasure convulsed through her. His hand cupped her sex, held her sensitive flesh while she let out a sob and found it hard to stand.
Some indistinguishable time later she opened her eyes, unable to move. Could the body really generate that much pleasure?
Vaughn reached out to the vibrator then, the whir filling the air again. Edith whimpered but her body was already springing to life as her insides tightened. It could not conceivably be possible, to have another orgasm.
“Trust me. Put your leg up on the lowest shelf and drop your knee out.” He said, then moved the vibrator over drawers and her sex. The sensation was nothing she’d felt before, concentrated and . . . very satisfying. He moved the head over her nub, then down, pressing it against her opening and back up, following the path back and forth.
“I want you to contract your inner muscles, and I want those playful fingers of yours to clasp my cock,” she did as he asked. Clasped her inner muscles as the vibrator moved up and down, pushed against her sex and then back up.
“Now, I want you to imagine that my cock is pressing into you.” He pulsed the vibrator at the opening of her sex. She squeezed her inner muscles and her fingers felt the shape of his cock.
It was inexplicable, but it felt as if she was squeezed around him, as if he was inside her. Her hips moved as if he were, moved to thrust with him as the vibrator traveled over her, as it pulsated, as her muscles got tighter and tighter.
He was saying something, some words of encouragement, moving with her as she thrust. Then she screamed as her muscles clamped together hard and the pleasure burst through her body and exploded into the top of her head. She might have heard his cry of release but could not be sure, caught up in her own state of erotic bliss. Her legs gave out beneath her, her eyes closed, and her sex convulsed with aftershocks.
The whir of the vibrator stopped, his hand again cupped her between the legs and she whimpered in earnest.
“Are you alright? Do you need a drink of water?” He asked.
They were both sitting on the floor, Edith between his legs. Her eyes flew open and she saw that her skirt was down, the clamps gone. Vaughn stroked her hair. She tried to move and groaned as her body failed to move.
“I think we’re even,” she said in a croa
ky voice and he laughed, a sound that blossomed both joy and pain in her chest.
They went back to his rounds, her face flushed, his full with satisfaction, softening the usual strain that sat at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth.
Half an hour later, they left the hospital, her legs shaking as they descended the wide row of steps leading down to the road. There were small patches of blue between cantankerous grey clouds, but somehow the day was bright.
“So how was our first outing?” A roguish smile washed his face.
“Outing?” Edith tugged on her gloves and looked everywhere except him. Inside, she was a conduit of conflicting emotions. Imprudent, unfulfillable hopes circled like a hawk around her foolish heart. In seven days, she’d pick up the forgeries.
Then she would run.
“I have been told the first outing can be the make or break of a man’s hopes if he fails to impress.”
Heat pinched her cheeks as they began the walk back to the surgery. His hand reached out and wrapped around her elbow. She wasn’t ready to turn, to see that face. He tugged lightly. He wanted an answer.
Edith braved a looked, hoping the feelings she had for him—foolish girlish feelings—would not show on her face.
“Have I failed to impress?” Was that a hint of uncertainty in the man who ruled the balance between life and death? Something in her chest slid, softened dangerously.
Her cries of passion in the storage room echoed silently between them; his eyes, dark and full of need, told her he was remembering them too.
“I think you have surpassed yourself,” she whispered.
Her reward was an unexpected and devastating smile.
CHAPTER 40
There were sounds downstairs, human sounds. Morrison had rigged the whole house to alert him of movement. Hunting for a living made him very aware of what people were capable of, and occasionally the people he hunted liked to hunt him back. However clattering about to wake him wasn’t likely to be someone after his blood. So given that the housekeeper wasn’t due until tomorrow, it had to be the pup.