by Suzi Love
He retracted his finger from where it had still rested inside her tight secret passageway and, taking her hand in his, swiped both their fingers across the head of his penis, taking up his pre-come. He lifted his fingers between them.
“Open your senses, love, the ones you are so good at. Use your acute sense of smell and tell me what you notice.
“Yes. Musky. Salty.”
“That’s you and me. Our mutual desire. Swirling together. Mixed. The blends in that aroma, do you smell them? High note. Low notes. Isn’t that what you look for when you try to mix the perfect perfume? Two oils that blend seamlessly together without ever separating in the future.”
“Yes.”
“Then I want you to remember that tomorrow, and the next day, and every day thereafter. Whenever you try to tell me that you’ve run your extensive series of tests on me, on the odors my skin emits, and we’re not an ideal match.”
Ruthless now, desperate to make her understand his hidden message, he lowered both their hand to her own sex once again. “Yours,” he circled her swollen nub, delighting in the hard push of it against his finger. “Yours is so musky with your desire that it brings me to my knees. The thought of how much you want me.
“This lotion, as sticky as the cream you use on your hands,” he thrust her fingers deep inside herself, “it drips onto our fingers, as finely the best quality new honey from the abbey monks.”
“Richard,” she moaned again, and started those little upward pushes with her hips.
Each push thrust their joined fingers a litter further into her entrance, and he used his own digit to circle the sensitive nerves he knew rested around the rim. Short panting little gasp told him he’d found the right spots to arouse her even more, even faster. Not that his passionate little love needed any encouragement from him to enjoy herself. She was already in that self-absorbed space in her own mind where she could only concentrate on reaching that elusive goal. Freeing her body from this torment.
She grunted her impatience at him, as if his deliberate delaying tactics must cease immediately, or she would reprimand him in her normal daylight fashion. Bedding this woman every day for the rest of their lives would be a delight, as she’d never let him rest on his rakish laurels, would always demand more and more adventurous sexual behaviors to attempt with him. He couldn’t wait.
“Easy, love, easy. Let me stop your hurting.”
It took so little time that he was actually disappointed, wanting to prolong the bliss for himself, if not for her. But she was so ready, so ripe for her release that a few quick short thrust with his imbedded finger and a few swirls of his thumb around the exposed nub, and she shot to her peak like a shooting star in the night sky in the Pacific Ocean.
Her orgasm was prolonged and profound and he guided her through it with his fingers, until every twitch and shudder had subsided and she flopped back into the mattress with a loud whoosh of exhaled breath.
“That was so–so–”
“Soothing?”
“Exciting. Stimulating.”
She pushed up onto her elbows and beamed at him. Wide awake. By rights, he should wait until their wedding night to initiate her fully into the world of sex, knowing her passionate nature would see her adapt to it like a duck to water. He also knew he was in deep, deep trouble when she directed a knowing feminine smile at his bobbing erection.
She licked her lips. Bared her teeth. Her expression was that of a hungry dog about to gnaw on a meaty bone. His bone.
He held out his palm. “Oh, no, no, no. Whatever you are considering, it is not going to happen. Not tonight at any rate.”
She stared at him, her gaze intent; her intent clear.
“No, no, no,” he tried again.
Too late. She took his throbbing member in her hand and bent her head.
He’d had mistresses who’d never get this close to a man’s most private parts, who believed a penis the province of only street whores.
His breath caught. His mind reeled as tried to fathom her intention.
Her hair feel forward as she peered closer. One hand came out to the bedside table and she groped about, searching for something. He glanced down to see what it was she sought. From his position he had the better view, for what little light was thrown from the candle standing at the back of the nightstand slashed across in his direction. His body blocked her view.
“Glasses,” she muttered, still groping.
He passed the gold framed spectacles to her, placing them into her outstretched hand, and she pushed them onto her noise, securing the wire ear pieces and then bet once more to her intense study of his erection. She pushed him to one side so the light illuminated his manly parts better, caught its skyward lift.
“Aw, hell, Laura. You refuse to wear them when you go dancing and bump into all the other couples on a dance floor. You refuse to wear them for a walk in the park as would-be suitors might regard you as a blue-stocking. Yet now you’ll don spectacles to study my anatomy as if I’m one of your scientific specimens. I feel like Michelangelo’s statue of David in Rome, the naked one that all the schoolgirls giggle over in their father’s illustrated art books.”
“Oh, you’re far more interesting than any cold marble statue.”
He chuckled. “Thank you, I think.”
‘For one thing, you’re a lot warmer, and the tip of you glows blue like the color of those pretty worms that burrow into berry leaves–”
“Oh, for goodness sake. A worm?
You’re comparing my most precious bodily possession to a common worm?”
She giggled. “Not a common one, my darling, but one of those special ones the Chinese use to spin silk cocoons.”
He heard her words through a fog, for his mind had stopped at the name she called him. Did she realize what she’d said? Confessed. No, he was certain she didn’t. Although, he had a clear recollection that it was her exact expression. She’d not called him irritating, or arrogant. Or impossible. No. She’d called him, my darling.
Something that had been wound tight as a spring inside him for weeks, eased. The first around his heart loosened. It was going to be all right.
“What did you say? What will be all right?”
He looked at her and smiled, his inquisitive little nemesis. “I told you I’d enjoy you doing to me anything I did to you. Better than enjoying, your touch on any part of my body is a miracle to me.”
She gave him a suspicious glance but returned to her task. The one involving sliding the skin of his penis in a jerky, yet incredibly erotic, journey, up and down. She dallied over the tip, bending to study the underside and then stared, wide-eyed, when it jerked in response.
“I feel like an ant being watched by a small child who is lying on the ground beside it.”
She smiled briefly, but went back to her explorations, her examinations, giving little sounds of joy at each new discovery.
“Enough,” he finally cried, grasping her hand and setting it back into a strong and steady rhythm.
When he’d climbed those stairs, this hadn’t been his intention. But now, two choices lay before him. He could walk past Warren wide-legged, in agony from his blue balls, and suffer Warren’s knowing grin. Or he could spend a minute, for that would be the meagre amount of time required under her present ministrations, and relieve his weeks of celibacy.
He pushed aside his third choice.
His non-interest in several blatant female advances in recent weeks had become a topic of high amusement amongst his friends, only his closest, like his two cousins, guessing the reason. Bedding another woman held no appeal when his mind was filled from daylight to dark with this woman, the one gripping his shaft as if was the staff of knowledge.
His rational self emerged long enough to pull a handkerchief from his coat pocket and thrust it under the end of his cock, without a moment to spare. His entire body jerked, several times, his shaft thrusting over and over through Laura’s fingers to spill and spurt into his waiting linen.
With a deeply satisfied groan, he wrapped the evidence of the most incredible orgasm in his sexual life and thrust it into his pocket.
And without even being inside her tight passage. Without even the joy of spilling his seed high in her womb and praying they created a miracle together. Praying for their first babe. When he finally gathered strength, he opened his eyes to find her watching him closely again. He snorted.
“Don’t tell me. I shall be recorded in your notebook under, Species Studied in the Aftermath of Sexual Bliss.”
Her eyes widened. “Was it bliss?”
He bent to plant a light kiss on her questioning mouth. “More than bliss. A gift such as I’ve never given or received before.”
She worried her bottom lip.
“What’s worrying you now? More study needed? More tests to run on me? Feel free, use my body any way you wish. My anatomy is at the services of Madam Scientist.”
“What worries me is my intimate tests with you contradict every other study I’ve made. I’ve tried to predict if our chemical smells attract each other and they don’t. Never. Not once. Even in dog and cat populations, males and females find each other by smell. Those silk worms I mentioned: they have the same sort of sensory drive and release an odor to attract their mates. The fan bee waves her wings and wafts out an odor to attract the swarm to the hive.”
He sat up and rubbed his hand through his disheveled hair, trying to make himself presentable before he faced Warren’s stare.
“You are unbelievable. No wonder we always argue. I’ve just introduced you to pure pleasure. We both collapsed in each other’s hands. And you—you now want to debate whether or not animals and insects know more than our bodies do. Well, I can assure you, my little disbeliever, that I know more about your mind and your body than any research will tell. More than years of taking notes in notebooks and calculating the results will mean to you. We belong together. And if that little experiment,” he gestured to where her nightgown still lay high on her wide apart thighs, “didn’t prove it to you, I don’t know what else to do to convince you.”
Without saying another word, he checked that his gifts rested safely on the table and stood and left the room, and the floor, before he gave into the temptation to turn around and go back. Warren half-dosed in a chair in the tiny entranceway, but came to his feet at Richard’s footsteps.
Richard drew in a sharp breath and prepared for a fight. He held a hand up to the footman. “If you want to retain the shape of that nose of yours, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
“Well, I’ll be a sow’s ear. I gave you extra time, trusting you to do right, but thinkin′ all the same that you’d come down ′ere lookin′ a damn sight ′appier than went you went up. You gentry know how to make a mess of lovin′. It aint that ′ard to make a woman ′appy, you know.”
“And I don’t need you giving me lessons on managing a woman.”
“Huh! If you be thinkin′ to hustle milady, I’ll tell you now, you ain’t got a pig’s chance in hell. Need to talk to her smart side. With all them fat books on plants and insects and how they catch their wives and with writin′ rolls of men’s names like when we make a legal vote, milady’ll only fall under the spell of a man who outsmarts her on her own list making.”
Richard’s mouth dropped open in awe. The bloody footman was right. That was exactly how he needed to manage - oops, wrong word. How he needed to coerce that stubborn woman above them into his way of thinking. Ah, yes, now he felt better. He liked knowing he had control of the situation again.
“Warren, your advice is excellent. Fight fire with fire.”
The footman scratched his head. “That ′nother one of those nursery songs?”
“A proverb. Meaning I need to counter-attack. Assemble my own arsenal of scientific treatises to prove my side of the argument. Everyone who undertakes research knows things aren’t always what they seem, so we need to dig deeper, look at the wider picture. In this case, we need to sail other oceans to acquire new knowledge.”
“′Fraid you’ve confused me there, sir. What good will it do sailin′ off now, You need to be 'ere to fight off all those other la-de-da gents what comes deliverin' flowers every day of the week for milady.”
His eyes narrowed on the man. “Flowers? What flowers, and what men?” If a giant of a man with more scars than cheeks could blush, then Warren turned as red as tomato. Richard took a step closer to the footman, clenched his fists. “Tell me all of it. Now.”
“Well, twas a kindness really, from 'er ladyship to ye. She said ye didn’t suit her for a marriage, so she still needed to find other men to add to those lists of names of 'ers, ye know?”
“I know.” Richard nodded his encouragement at the man. “Lists, like on ballot papers.”
Warren nodded his huge head. “So, she said 'twere kinder if ye didn’t guess there were a lot of other gents, plenty of em when I adds 'em up, who fitted the chem– chemmie something or other–”
“Chemicals?”
“That'sit. Stuck with her chem-min-icales.”
His jaw clenched. “I am going… to throttle… the little twit.” He swung around to storm back up the staircase but Warren, despite his bulk, was light on his feet. The footman beat him to the first tread, and planted himself firmly in his pathway. Crossed arms completed Warren’s picture of impenetrable force.
“How dare Laura decide what might anger me, and what mightn’t.”
“Think milady got the right of it though, didn’t she? Ye’ve blue steam spoutin′ outta ye ears.”
When Warren put a beefy arm around his shoulders, he winced, but stiffened, determined not to display any weakness in front of the outspoken servant. He hadn’t yet decided if the man was friend or foe, but felt it better to err on the side of safety.
“Now, milord, why don’t ye go along 'ome? Spend the rest of the night ponderin′ that little thing about other oceans. See if ye can think of some way to make milady ′ave ye that don’t involve no sail boats heavin′' off to the seven seas.”
Richard blinked at the analogy, but then recognizing the wisdom in the man’s words, nodded. Furious as he was with Laura—nothing unusual there—he needed to hasten along the formal process to their marriage. Only by creating his own force of nature would he sweep Lively Laura into a fast decision, without giving her enough time to ponder on all the ramifications of marrying him. If she debated the wisdom of surrendering her prized freedom to a man she felt unsuitable, he’d he facing the same up-hill battle his cousin, Sherwyn, had had to face in getting Becca to agree to a date to meet him in church.
The Jamison women might be noted for their stubbornness, but the St. Martin men were noted for being able to outwit and out-maneuver the most formidable opponent. He’d not taken Laura’s virginity, but it was only a matter of time. Quite probably only hours until his unruly libido raised its head again, and refused to be pushed back into his trousers and ignored.
A single thought of Laura and her passionate nature stirred him to craziness, so in another week or two he’d be begging her on bended knee in the middle of Bond Street to become her love slave. Then he’d know true humiliation amongst his peers. Right now though, he had calls to make. His friend also kept strange hours, so he’d be up working on problems. Fine. He could help work on Richard’s instead.
He needed a solution, and he needed it quickly.
He needed someone smarter than himself when it came to science.
He cursed all the times his eyes had glazed over when Laura had set forth on her favorite topics. What were those terms he racked his brain to recall? Olfactory? Perspiring?
Damnation. There was nothing wrong with plain old sweat and plain old smelling.
Chapter Eighteen
“Where are you taking me?”
They were seated in his carriage, and she’d asked the question three times already.
“To meet a friend of mine. You’ll like him.”
“Why have I never met this particular friend be
fore?”
“Because Gerard tends to shun society.” He grinned. “Partly for the same reason all bachelors avoid it like the plague. Too many matchmaking mamas and far too many scheming chits with money and titles in their sights.”
“You seem to have avoided both quite nimbly for several years. At your ripe old age one would assume you’re too slow to outrun them any longer.”
He grasped his chest. “Oh. A direct hit. How you wound me speaking of my addled years catching up with me.”
She shook her head in mock reproof. “Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with you.”
He gave her a lecherous leer. “I can think of many things you could start with, my love.”
She burst out laughing, then stopped abruptly when the carriage pulled to a halt outside an opulent townhouse in a street she’d never been in before.
“Do I need to know the other reason he remains reclusive?”
“Umm. Better to let you perceive that for yourself. I can hardly wait to see your reaction.”
“By the way, I wanted to thank you for your gifts last night.”
He gave her a long leering look.
She reddened. “Not that one. The toffee you replaced for my aunt. You must have needed to waken the shop keeper in the middle of the night to buy a new packet.”
He shrugged.
“And thank you for the notebooks. My old one. And the new ones They are beautiful. So many vibrant colors.”
“They reminded me of you. I thought you might like to write about me in one sometime.”
“You mean you didn’t read the old one of mine? Not curious to see what I wrote?”
“Oh, I was eaten up with curiosity. But I’d never invade your privacy. Not without being invited. I hope you invite me to do so again. Soon.”
She swallowed. Loudly. Visibly.
Ten minutes later, a severe-looking butler guided them through an incredible number of hallways and corridors to the back of the house. Large double glass door opened into an enormous conservatory and, although he’d been there many times before, the sight never failed to impress.