Tainted Love

by Louisa Trent

  "The damnable thing is interfering with your breathing," he grumbled.

  If only the cause and the remedy were that simple!

  The boned corset was discarded, and her breasts shifted under the plain chemise.

  "Christ," he said hoarsely, staring at her nipples. He went for the remaining undergarment.

  "No, please." Her breathing came in fits and gasps. "Not my chemise too..."

  "Place your arms behind your back, Lily."

  "Oh, Doyle, no..."

  "Now." His voice was deceptively mild.

  Her arms went behind her back, which in turn forced her elongated nipples to strain against the linen.

  Ruthless in his demands, he tore open her chemise. "I will have you bare-breasted. I will have all of you bare, and as free and eager as when you were a girl."

  Her breasts jutted out eager and free, the highly sensitive, reddened tips as sharp and piercing as arrow points. Doyle always got what he demanded from her.

  "Your choice," he said, his black eyes never leaving her chest. "Go back to the cottage right now before this thing goes any further or..."

  "Or what?" she whispered.

  "Or come here to me."

  She had taken only one step before his mouth descended.

  All of Doyle Donovan was in his kiss. All the passion. All the power. All the primitive parts of his nature he tried to hide by light of day.

  It was night now, and dark. And he worked his mouth over her mouth, her bared breasts crushed to his shirt. She forgot fear, forgot their surroundings, forgot her engagement, forgot everything save the feel of his tongue penetrating her mouth.

  "Where?" he demanded, breaking the connection. "Where can I take you?"

  "Oh Doyle! I ... we..."

  "Where, dammit? Against a tree? On the pine needles? In your bedchamber?"

  "We cannot," she cried, her breathless pants easily mistaken for passion.

  "Like hell!" he roared. "You want this as much as I do."

  In retaliation for her denial, he backed her up against the hardness of his erection and captured her small breasts in his hands.

  They moaned in unison.

  His hard, demanding fingers moved over her in a way designed to inflict...

  Pleasure. Deep. Luxurious. Pleasure.

  The pleasure went on and on, until she squirmed and begged and pleaded in unequivocal surrender: "Please, Doyle, please, Doyle, pleeease."

  "I lie awake at night in my bed and think of you." He drew the skirt of her gown up in back with one hand; his other hand still worked her nipples. "I waited so long for you to grow up, Lily. That time has come. There is no reason to wait any longer."

  Her gown was up around her waist in back; his maleness imprinted her linen-encased buttocks, so hot and hard there at the crevice.

  "Do you feel my cock?"

  She nodded.

  "No!" he roared. "Say it! Say: I feel your cock."

  "I feel your cock," she whispered, uttering the words that no lady would ever say.

  Her drawers were split to make necessary trips easier, and Doyle shoved his hand inside the open crotch seam, his big hand resting possessively on her belly.

  "Now say: 'I want your cock inside my deceitful, lying, cheating cunt.'"

  Anger, she realized, was to blame for his purposeful cruelty.

  She deserved his cruelty, earned his anger. And so, she repeated the crude dock language: "I want your cock inside my deceitful, lying, cheating cunt."

  "Now say, 'I want your cock inside my mouth too,'" He fingered her lips. "Go on. Say it."

  "I want your cock inside my mouth too."

  That same finger left her lips and slid between her buttocks. "Now what say you, my beautiful, unfaithful Lily?"

  Her chin dropped. "I say, yes," she said, agreeing to everything, even as her next breath caught in her throat.

  He turned her back around and began kissing her.

  She tasted his sexual frustration, his mouth to her mouth; it was as though he sought completion through the kiss, a merging of his body with hers. And despite her innate fear, despite the knowledge that she was not a whole woman, a yearning grew within her.

  If only they trusted one another...

  Only when she thought her lungs might burst did he let her come up for air, and then only long enough to take one quick gulp of oxygen before his mouth descended again. And again. And again.

  Black spots flickered behind her lids. If she continued on like this, she most probably would faint.

  Pulling back a fraction of an inch, she pleaded, "Softly Doyle. Kiss me like you used to."

  "It was a long time ago. I have forgotten how."

  Her breath moistened the small hollow in his chin. "Like this."

  Her arms slid up along his shoulders, her hands reached to his hair, her fingers combing those neglected strands, ameliorating the madness of his embrace with her touch. Their lips tenuously joined again, this time less harshly than before.

  One soft, yielding kiss later he lifted his head. "How do you do it? How do you manage to kiss as though every last ounce of your virtue wasn't corrupted years ago?"

  She swayed under this new verbal assault.

  He stroked the side of her face. "We might have had it all. We might have had a lasting love. But you threw it all away. And sometimes ... sometimes I could wring your beautiful neck for what you did."

  He glazed her cheek with his knuckles. "But I still desire you." Open-mouthed, he traced the contours of her bones. "I want you, Lily. I want to lose myself in your body. There I said it! Now are you satisfied?"

  "You make it sound more a curse than a gift," she said, cold as stone.

  "The way I feel is a curse! You betrayed me. Yet despite that betrayal, I would bury myself inside you. You are an urge. A compulsion. An obsession. And what I feel isn't pretty or sweet or tender. You destroyed any kindness in me when you left the way you did."

  He flicked his tongue down her jaw. "But your skin is soft and smooth," he whispered, his head dipping, his lips hot, oh-so-hot, on her nipples. "Your breasts are firm and succulent. And though your cunt may be had by any man, fucking you will have to satisfy me."

  "I am engaged." The insistence was ragged at the edges, to say the least.

  His rebuttal was laughed. "I don't care about your engagement. And obviously, neither do you. Fidelity was never one of your talents. It is not in your nature to be faithful to any man."

  Perhaps Doyle was right about her nature, for in the heat of passion, she had forgotten all about Charles. And when she did recall him only just then, her fiancé had served only as an excuse.

  Her reason for refusing Doyle was more a point of practicality than of honor: Her constricted lungs told her she was about to blackout. Like it or not, in a matter of seconds, she would find herself on the ground, not in a sensual swoon but in an ugly, gasping fit. Her choice was not to do the ghastly thing in front of him. She would not be an object of pity. Better contempt than compassion was her credo.

  With her last gulp of oxygen, she rasped, "Do not force me do something so shameful."

  Alarm for her diminished breath was apparent in his voice. "Force! You came to me, voluntarily."

  She needed him to retreat, and soon, or she would crumble. "I ... I ... cannot..."

  Doyle took a backward step. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  "Air," she mouthed through lips gone dry. "Cannot breathe." The chemical smell choked her, suffocated her. "Let me go...I will be fine if you would only let me go."

  He shook his head. Either at her or at himself; there was no way to know for sure. He touched her cheek.

  "Cold. Ice cold," he pronounced, removing his shirt. "Here. Take this." He draped the worn garment around her.

  The shirt was blessedly warm from Doyle's body; his scent lingered in its faded folds, blocking out the caustic, chemical smell that burnt her nostrils. Such a relief, such a wonderful comfort, to bury her nose in laundered cotton that ca
rried Doyle's heat and scent!

  "Put it on," he ordered.

  It sounded like the sensible thing to do. Alas, the task required more strength than she possessed; after wrestling with the task, she gave up, exhausted. She stood there, chemise dangling half off, half on, cold and humiliated.

  "Allow me." Doyle loosened the shirt from her fingertips; his voice was laced with the poison of compassion.

  Could pity be far behind?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Doyle stripped off her ripped chemise with swift efficiency.

  "This isn't the first occasion I have played lady's maid for you," he said, matter-of-factly guiding her arms into the shirt.

  "The time I fell off El Diablo. You took me to the doctor's office and cared for me afterwards."

  "Luckily, you hadn't sustained any broken bones or there would have been hell to pay when your grandmother came home."

  She smiled in memory, as he did the borrowed shirt up to the chin. "You removed my muddy clothes in the kitchen, washed me down, head to foot, as though I were a child, and then dried me off."

  "And you were grinning ear to ear from the laudanum the doc gave you."

  "You promised to marry me..."

  "I had to. You acted like I had never seen a naked lady before. You were cute as a kitten, and just as mischievous."

  "I asked you to sleep with me. You refused."

  And so, she had tried to seduce him. No inhibitions, because of the drug; no restraint, because she loved him...

  *

  She wavered on her feet.

  Dressed in the shirt and breeches she had worn horseback riding, now mud-filthy because of her fall, she began humming a church hymn, of all things, while Doyle filled the basin with warm, soapy water.

  "Take off your clothes. After I wash you down, it's bed for you," he said, over his shoulder. "For modesty sake, leave on your underpinnings."

  What modesty?

  For that matter, what underpinnings?

  And that part about washing her down--did he think her an over-heated mare?

  She tried to be blasé, about disrobing, but she had never been naked with the virile Doyle before ... well, not completely naked--mustn't forget that bare-bottom spanking in the woodshed. And here she was, alone in the cottage with him, getting undressed.

  When he turned 'round, she was nude.

  "Lily," he reprimanded. "I thought I told you, only the shirt and breeches were to come off."

  "Only the shirt and breeches did come off," she replied.

  "I see. A lady should wear underclothes, otherwise...

  "Otherwise, what?"

  "Hasn't your grandmother explained about the birds and the bees, Lily?"

  "Yes. She must have forgotten the part about the underclothes."

  He chuckled. "I think Doc Petersen gave you too much laudanum for your sprained wrist."

  Trying not to look, but seeing everything anyway, he gently washed off the caked mud from her fall.

  Her face first. The cloth was warm and wet on her cheekbones, but not dripping, as Doyle had strong hands and had done an excellent job wringing out the extra moisture. He wiped off the blood from her lower lip where she had bitten through.

  Well worth the pain of the horse unseating her for this attention, she decided.

  Next he did her throat. Arms. Underarms, where red hair grew in soft swirls.

  She thought he took an exceedingly long time over her breasts, giving them extra care and attention, though she discerned no specks of mud on her chest at all. Naturally, his lingering might have been wishful thinking on her part too. She giggled in amazement when her nipples changed in tensility; the formerly soft pink tips going achy hard when he drew the rough textured cloth across them.

  Her giggling stopped when her nipples started to hurt.

  "Andrew Taylor stares at my chest all the time." She moaned, liking the hurt. "Even in church. Your brother too," she said in an attempt to make Doyle jealous. "Do you think I should start wearing a corset?"

  "No. You have no need of a corset," he said coolly. "But you must start wearing a chemise and drawers."

  "Why not a corset? Is it because I am flat on top?"

  He laughed. "What a woman has between the legs is what counts, not the size of her teats. Though, yours are very nice."

  "And how nice it is of you to tell me." She thrust her nipples out more.

  He washed them with the cloth, like they were his to wash. But without emotional involvement. Detached from the turmoil she was feeling, he bathed around them, under them, across the tips.

  "I tell you only because laudanum produces forgetfulness as well as sleep. Come morning, it will be as if this conversation never happened, as if this occurred in a dream. Now be a good little girl and stop trying to seduce me."

  *

  How wrong Doyle had been! She recalled every word of their conversation, everything that had happened, everything he did...

  *

  She looked down at her feet.

  She did not wish to be shuffled off to bed. She did not wish to behave like a good girl either, not if that meant he might easily dismiss her. And eighteen was certainly not 'little'! She was a full-grown woman!

  He continued to move the cloth around her bosom.

  "These really are quite lovely," he said, almost to himself, the wet linen shelving one small breast so that the pink nipple stuck straight out. "I did notice you went without underpinnings, but you mustn't, honey. You are growing up now, and boys will do more than look if you do not behave as a lady ought."

  "You needn't be concerned about my breasts shifting--see," she said, and boldly wiggled her shoulders. "No jiggle."

  "Christ," he rasped. "Stop that, honey."

  "I just thought to show you..."

  Doyle's voice turned suddenly stern. "I know what you thought to show me."

  His gaze lowered. The washcloth rubbing, rubbing, low on her belly. Until her thighs opened of their own accord.

  Her hair had tumbled about her shoulders, and she wondered if he noticed that the coppery curls between her legs were a shade darker, especially now, when damp from the wash cloth.

  He did not avoid washing between the legs. Oh no, not Doyle. Though her thighs were parted and her femininity was open and vulnerable to him, the notch between her legs seemed not to faze him. He neglected not an inch of her skin, but showed no erotic interest in her, whatsoever.

  His disinterest angered her! Here she was trembling in excitement, and he was showing a complete lack of awareness of her as a woman!

  She supposed...Doyle had so many women. Beautiful, full-breasted women. Ladies who knew what to do in a man's bed. Thanks to her grandmother, and unlike most girls her age, she knew the mechanics of sex, but she lacked the practical experience she would need to attract and keep the attention of a man like Doyle.

  Still, she would not let this opportunity pass her by, for she might never get another. Seize the moment!

  Arms looped around Doyle's neck, she pressed her young healthy body against him and began placing sloppy, puppy-dog kisses all over his face.

  Doyle didn't kiss her back. He wasn't giving her--them--a chance!

  She had just turned eighteen. He was thirty. The age difference was too much, he had decided for both of them. And so he stood there, like a statue, while she rubbed herself over him.

  "You say it's what a woman has between her legs that counts--am I made as I should be between the legs, Doyle?" she asked flirtatiously, and moved slightly away from him.

  She opened her thighs wide enough for him to see.

  The move got the desired results; Doyle was now staring at her privates as though she was a woman, not a little girl.

  "You are made as you should be made, honey. Not a thing wrong with you."

  She touched herself, opened her labia. "Are you sure? It worries me that I might not be ... made right. You know, down here. How does one know...?"

  "Damn you, Lily! Doped up
or not, your mischief borders on sadism."

  She had looked that word up later in her dictionary and didn't care for the definition. She loved Doyle! Why would he not see that?

  "Would you look at me ... close. Allay my fears. Tell me, I am made like all other women."

  He threw the washcloth in the basin. Taking her hand, he led her to the kitchen table.

  He helped her get up on top, settling her hips onto the edge.

  "Slide all the way down toward me," he said, his palm flattened on her belly.

  She did, but knees closed.

  "Open your thighs," he said.

  Giggling, because of the drug, she opened herself to him.

  She thought he would just look. But she thought wrong. Unexpectedly, Doyle did more than look: He pressed a finger up inside her.

  The action was so inexplicable, and so explicit, that she cried out, tried to sit up, tried to close her knees, tried to dislodge his prying digit.

  He pushed her back down, held her down, his warm palm uncompromising on her belly. "You asked for this, Lily, and I shall do it. Now tilt up your pelvis. I need to see if you have let any lad--like my brother, for instance--get inside you."

  "No," she said swatting at him.

  He one-handed her arms over her head and held them there while he continued his examination of her person.

  His finger slowly circled her vulva, 'round and ' round. He made her ache between the legs. In her need, she raised her hips, rubbed her labia against his prying finger like a female cat in heat, her bottom lifting and falling in an exhibitionist quest for satisfaction.

  "Mmm," she purred, heatedly, her mons grinding against his digit, her hips rocking.

  When she was moist and squirming, he fingered her dripping vagina, probing her.

  "Christ, how is it possible that a hot piece like you is still a damned virgin!"

  His voice sounded harsh and raw, agonized, as he removed his digit.

  "But you won't stay virgin long if you keep this up," he warned. "Continue to behave promiscuously and some man will have his way with you. Once a cock breaks your membrane, the next step is a fatherless babe in your belly."

  Picking her up in his arms, he had carried her, not upstairs to her bedchamber, but into the front parlor, placing her naked onto the velvet settee.