by Eliza Lloyd
And all her parts were generous, soft, round and curvy through her hips and her breasts. Strong and lithe through her arms and legs. Made for weeks of sexual feasting.
Before she stepped in the tub, he pulled her into his arms, almost to reassure himself she was not an apparition. Her body was warm and smooth. Not a bit of perfume or soap clung to her skin. He sniffed along her hairline and behind her ear. His lips touched her neck and the sound of her sigh went straight to his groin.
He was already losing his head. How he was going to get through her bath without proving himself a beast? He wanted her slowly and completely. He wanted to sink in hard and deep and spill without regard for her pleasure or needs.
“Your bath is getting cold.”
Her genuine smile didn’t help. She twisted in his arms, grabbed the edge of the copper tub and threw one leg over the rim into the water. After that, her eyes closed and she sank slowly, the sound of her groan near orgasmic in appeal. He imagined that she had the same dilemma he did. Slow or fast? All or nothing?
His hands curled into tight balls at his side, and he stopped breathing for a moment as her sleek form dipped into the clear water.
When she was covered to her neck, Jack could still see every inch of her beneath the water. His feet seemed glued to the floor, but his tongue still worked. “Would you like some soap?”
“May I?” she asked like a proper English aristocrat. There were several jars on the shelves along with bars of all shapes and sizes. He could almost smell her with his sandalwood, but with something else... Not roses, maybe jasmine or lilacs.
He handed her the soap and took a step back. There was a letter to write followed by a night of carnal pleasure waiting on the other side of the bedroom.
Imogene Farrell might have wished for something so wonderful, except she didn’t know something so wonderful existed. Not for her. Even at the house on Fitzroy Square she only got to use the hip bath, and then only once a week because she hauled her own water and saw to it that the tub was emptied when she finished.
She felt as though she’d been starving her whole life and only now realized a banquet waited.
She could almost believe it was a dream, except for the part about Frank.
Her finger still throbbed from the abuse earlier in the evening, but the hot water gave her relief and then she ignored the pain—she’d been hurt a’plenty.
Warm water coated her as she sank all the way under, including her hair. When she came up again, she reached for the bar of soap and scrubbed. Jack approached as she crossed one ankle over her upraised knee and started working on her toes.
“Toes are ugly,” she said.
He had removed his jacket and the sleeves of his shirt were floppy around his wrists. His cravat was gone and his chest visible in the vee of his shirt. He’d seen plenty of her. She hadn’t seen any of his body except his hands and face and the length of his cock. His body would be new for her and, she thought, not unpleasant. She’d seen her brothers naked hundreds of time—not completely, but naked parts. Their skinny boy bodies were very different than the man in front of her.
“Are they? Let me have a look.” He knelt beside the tub and wrapped his fingers around her foot. His thumb rubbed the along the pads. No man had touched her foot before and Imo found it very disturbing. She gripped the side of the tub. His lips touched the arch of her foot and she nearly gasped at the exquisite pleasure.
“Don’t do that. It’s my foot.”
“I know.” He cocked his head sideways and stared at her. “You have lovely feet. Along with everything else. Are you finished with your bath or do you need help? Perhaps I can reach places you cannot.”
“Did you write my letter?”
He tapped his chest. “Right here in my coat pocket. Well, it was. It’s in my jacket. You have me thinking about other things, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t you think you should send it?” She bit at her lips, entering new and unfamiliar areas. She’d seen the fucking, the loving, a hundred times. Still, knowing what she had to do and doing it seemed as difficult as leaping over the Thames without getting wet.
“The footman will be along shortly with food and he’ll pick up the letter. He’ll hand deliver it to Fitzroy Square. You need only tell him the house number.” He rubbed her foot before he bent his head and sucked on her toe. She slid farther into the water, nearly melting at the sensation.
“What did you tell them?” she squeaked out.
His tongue slid along the arch. “That you were safe and that you would see them in the next day or two.” His hand slid along the outside of her leg. His shirt was soaked past his elbow. His palm rubbed along her hip.
“Can I? You don’t mind?” If he kept doing that, she’d disappear down the drain.
“Certainly. You’re not a prisoner here, Imogene. I want this to be your home. I want you to be happy here.” The hand holding her foot slid down the other leg except on the inside, reaching all the way to the apex of her thighs.
Breathing became more difficult and she burned where he touched. She didn’t think the warm water caused the sensation. “But you said I couldn’t leave without an escort.”
“You can’t. You need only ask one of the footmen and they will accompany you.”
“But what if I’m not here when you want to...you know.”
“Make love?”
She nodded. “Doesn’t seem like such a good deal if every time you want to fu...make love, I’m off being escorted...”
“We’ll just have to make sure we shag before you leave the house and again when you get back.”
His hand teased between her legs. The back of his hand rubbed against the plump flesh between her thighs, then his fingers stroked through the ugly hair down there. And he watched her.
“But I wake awful early, usually when the sun comes up. And I’m a terrible grump.”
“Do you? I go to bed awful late. So if I’ve got this right,” he said, and then slowly slid a finger between her legs and up. And up. “So if I’ve got this right, I’ll be coming in from a night at say, the opera, and you’ll be fresh from a night’s sleep, ready to service me, and that would certainly help you be less grumpy, before I drift off to sleep for the morning?” He stroked several times and her body went rigid. “Is that right?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in the tub.
“Finally, you have nothing to say,” he whispered.
She didn’t. She could barely think.
Jack lifted one of her legs from the tub, the water dripping and the air cooling her overheated skin. He draped that leg over the side of the tub. “Imogene, lift your other leg for me.”
“Oh, I can’t, Jack.”
She heard him chuckle, but the sound didn’t make her angry like she usually got when someone laughed at her. He lifted her leg instead.
“There. Are you comfortable?”
She answered with a hum. From the first time Jack touched her, she’d been like soft clay in his hands.
He played while she grew more breathless. And wound up. And anxious. He walked her up hills and let her relax into valleys until she started to squirm with a want that wouldn’t go away. “Jack?”
“Yes, Imogene?”
“Please.” It was the only way she knew how to ask. She didn’t know what she asked for.
“Imogene, I’m going to take you to the bed and make love to you. If you are a virgin, I may hurt you.”
“And if I’m not?” she asked, coming back to her senses with the utterance of those few accusatory words, blasted like a frigid winter wind. Curse him and his smarty way of accusing her.
“I’ll keep you anyhow.”
A different heat washed over her. He didn’t believe her. To him, she was a thief and a whore who just happened to have a body he wanted to use. She kept her voice controlled. “Well, then I guess the truth is best. I’m not a virgin. If that makes a difference for you, I can leave now.”
“Why the p
retense?” His voice was calm but his brow furrowed.
She clicked her tongue. “It suited my purpose for people to think so. It made you hot for me, didn’t it? Kind of a catchy name, too—the Virgin Whore,” she recited like she was reading from one of the overly dramatic stage plays she saw at the Hyde Park fair.
“So it did.” He pushed away from the tub and got to his feet. He yanked at his shirt, loosening it from his trousers. The bulge in his breeches hadn’t diminished and the look on his face was now lust combined with anger.
Dripping wet, she stepped from the tub and, not bothering to dry, she walked across the thick carpet and crawled over the bed coverings. She knew the house servants would hate her for her carelessness.
She rolled and spread her legs. Her body cooled from the night air. Her skin glistened in the candlelight. Whatever was going to happen, she wanted it to happen quickly. Jack hadn’t blinked as she passed him on the way to bed and still he stared at her—ready to fuck, ready to come.
“I’m very anxious to fuck you. I really like wide cocks, not the long, skinny ones,” she said. Imo pushed back the weighty, wet hair. “I’m cold, Jack. Come lay on top of me. Warm me up.”
Her bold words gave her some encouragement, so she kept up her dialogue.
Jack advanced, pulling his shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor and then working at the flaps of his trousers. He still wore his boots, but he removed them and the rest of his clothes quick enough.
The scars were visible, puckered along his neck in a strange pattern, and the same sort of scarring was on his hand from his wrist to his thumb.
“Once I had me this fellow who swore a girl couldn’t take him all, but I did. He paid me extra too.”
Jack’s cheeks were flushed. He was angry at all she’d said. Imo knew when a man was dangerously aroused. For a moment she worried he’d use her roughly. She suppressed the hope that it would be wonderful. Disappointment often followed her flights of fancy. Better she had no expectations, other than enjoying the feel of Jack for the first time.
He planted one knee on the bed and fell over her. His mouth swooped down on hers and she opened beneath him, just like at Vauxhall. This time she used her tongue like he did, tangling with his, slipping it inside his mouth, licking along his lips, biting, nipping.
One of his hands worked between their bodies. The warm, coursing pleasure from the tub returned quickly, aided by her own unreasonable pique.
She’d heard that the first fuck hurt. She didn’t know why, only that women bled when it happened. But she reminded herself she’d lived on the streets, had fallen from buildings, near drowned in the Thames, almost died in the dust-yards. A little pinprick of a cock wasn’t going to bring Imogene Farrell to her knees.
His fist surrounded the root of his cock. She felt his knuckles against the inside of her leg.
“Open your legs, damn you,” he said.
She obeyed, not realizing her pose was making it difficult for him to maneuver. She opened and lifted. She’d seen strumpets in alleys wrap their legs around their men, so she did too.
He had his eyes open, so she kept hers open. She wanted to see the look on his face when he found out she was a virgin. The arrogant nob, thinking all girls like her really were whores, not just pretend ones so they could make a few coppers.
Her chest heaved as she waited. The hard, hot intrusion made her panic. The soft, hot sheath made Jack a little crazy. She heard the excitement in his breathing and in the sounds coming from his throat. He shifted his hips and then thrust deep, groaning as he slid home.
Imo gasped, her body jerking off the bed and falling back again.
“Peter, Paul and Mary! You son of a bitch,” she yelped. She didn’t get to see the look on Jack’s face because her vision blurred with unshed tears. She turned her face away from him and bit her lip. Still it hurt. Still he was deep.
“Damn you, Imogene,” he said softly. “Damn you.”
Tense and unmoving, Jack kept his hips firmly between her legs. His lips found the side of her neck. He kissed along her jaw and behind her ear and across her collarbone.
“Why?” he asked, his lips still caressing her skin.
“Because you think I’m a liar. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a liar.” She wasn’t a virgin anymore either. At least that damn nuisance was out of the way.
“And evidently not a whore. I could have hurt you very badly.”
“Yeah, well, it takes more than a man’s cock to hurt me.”
His lips sought hers again, presumably to shut her up. She felt the slight shift of his body between her legs. “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes,” she bit out. Not much, just achy like it was the time of month when she bled.
“You’re not crying. Are you sure it hurts?” He moved his hips, slowly, and the expression on his face turned soft and languid—a look she knew well. Pleasure showed in every line of his expression.
Imo enjoyed the slide of his cock out of her body, and the push in didn’t hurt nearly so much by the third time. He went deeper. Inside her body, somehow he fit and it gave her a certain satisfaction that he wanted her. She didn’t want it to be coarse fucking with him, not of the kind she’d grown up with. Not like the women on the streets did the act. Shagging a man should be in a soft, warm bed.
Jack slid out and dipped back in again. Imo stifled a gasp, the feeling somewhere between pleasure and pain. He was too slow. She’d seen how men thrust hard against their women—the act finished in a few minutes, the woman dropping her skirts, the man tucking away his flesh, money changing hands.
She thought it would be over quick, as least much more quickly than Jack was going.
“Why are you taking so long? If you’re having trouble coming, I can put it in my mouth.”
Jack stopped the trail of kisses on her chest and glanced up at her. “Miss Farrell, you ask very awkward questions at the most inopportune times.” He bent back over her breasts and sucked one of her tits.
She relaxed on the bed and closed her eyes. Did she tell him how much she liked what he was doing? As his whore, was she supposed to tell him that she particularly liked his mouth over her tits? Breasts, she corrected. Instead of telling him, she let the pleasing sound of her delight escape from her mouth in a long sigh.
“You can touch me, Imogene.”
“Oh, I can’t. I don’t think I can move.” His mouth moved to her other breast and she thought she’d die from the sheer thrill of it. “No wonder there are so many whores in London.”
Jack laughed, his forehead dropping to her chest. When he looked up, she wanted to be cross with him, but the happy expression on his face made her feel like the best whore he’d been with.
“When I am making love to a woman, they usually participate—and not by talking. Are you not enjoying this?” He moved his hips. Her eyes fluttered shut. “I think that you are, but you need to stop that mind of yours and think about your body.”
“I’ll like it, Jack, I will...I do, but I didn’t think it would take this long.”
“It is more pleasurable if it lasts, especially for you. But I don’t think I’m going to last much longer, even with all your chatter.”
“But—”
He fastened his mouth to hers again and that was the end of their conversation. Jack’s hand cupped one breast and Imo stopped struggling and stopped thinking and just let him finish the taking. The tight ache low in her belly returned and she tried to think about Jack’s pleasure and ignore the uncomfortable pressure growing in her body. She wanted to jump out of her own skin. She wanted Jack to make love to her for a very, very long time. She just wanted.
Jack arched and tensed beneath her hands. He gasped into her mouth and at the same time pumped hard and deep into her, finally holding himself stiff for a long time before relaxing in her arms.
He’d come in her mouth before, his body tensing just the same way. She knew he was finished. Imo still felt as though she balanced at the edge o
f the cliff, just not close enough to slip over the edge.
When he rolled away, Imogene saw the stain of blood on him. His eyes were still open, but his lids lowered as if he contemplated the truth of what he saw. Without a word, he left the bed, turned and scooped her up, carried her to the tub and dropped her in the tepid water and reached for a cloth. He knelt beside her and gently washed between her legs. Imo didn’t feel embarrassed, only a curious pleasure that he was so gentle. Soon, he reached for her hands and stood her to her feet, the water sloshing around her. He handed her a towel and helped her step from the tub. She dried and then went to the bed. She heard the sound of water as his hands dipped into the tub and he cleaned himself as well.
She was glad it was over. Her virginity didn’t seem like such a prize. Whatever it was worth, it would at least save Frank’s life, and she thought she could grow very fond of lying beneath Jack without the drama of whether or not she was innocent.
Good riddance to that bloody trophy.
Chapter Four
The second time, he woke her in the middle of the night with his mouth on her breast. Stretching, she arched up into the warmth of his tongue and lips, wanting more. She was glad he liked it, because it made her feel as if she were floating.
She was too tired to talk—and too tired to think of anything important to say anyway.
Bare and naked over her, Jack’s hard body was all she wanted to feel. Imogene searched along the muscles of his back and down the soft, warm skin of his hard arse.
When he pushed into her body, Imo enjoyed the feeling of fullness. This time, he didn’t hold himself back. He thrust hard and fast. Underneath her hands, his hips bucked. His breathing had turned to harsh groaning, with every thrust, the wild sound that came from his mouth made her feel equally untamed. Even though she didn’t know about whoring, her senses told her what to do.
Imogene bit into his shoulder. She clasped one side of his bum, and with her free hand, she slid her fingers along the crevasse of his arse.