Tainted Love

by Louisa Trent

"Enough, Lily," he said, black eyes narrowed as though he were pained too, and holding her around the waist, preventing her from sinking all the way down.

  "I ... need ... more," she said haltingly, suspended above him on one strong arm.

  "No."

  Hands flattened on his chest, she looked down to where their bodies were joined. The carnal sight of him buried inside her, even that scant amount, excited her, and she moaned, open-mouthed, in pleasured pain.

  He rubbed her clit, the friction making her crazed.

  "You need release," he whispered.

  "What of you? What of your release?"

  "Never mind me. This is for you."

  Almost immediately, she started to climax, pleasure far outweighing pain.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Lily awakened to tuneless whistling.

  It was early yet, barely dawn. The curtains were drawn back from the floor-to-ceiling window, and Doyle was gazing out onto the gardens and the sea as he dressed for the start of a new day, his back towards her.

  Yesterday, she never would have dreamt that today she would be lying abed watching the man she loved draw a shirt over his bed-mussed head. My, how the tide had turned!

  With a smile, she stretched, liking the sharp ache between her legs.

  Doyle wouldn't allow her any more lovemaking during the night. For a man naturally forceful, his restraint was truly astounding. Her restraint, on the other hand, was non-existent. She would have him again!

  "There is a hole in your shirt," Lily called to him from the bed.

  Doyle shrugged, not looking over his shoulder.

  Naked under the cover of bed linens, she ran a slow hand over her breasts, belly, then between her legs.

  Her nipples felt swollen, as did her sticky labia. She supposed she should wash. But frankly, she was in no great hurry to remove Doyle's semen. She liked the sticky swellings of her body, and intended to have more of the same.

  Unfortunately, Doyle obstinately refused to look in her direction.

  "I can sew the rip," she offered at his continued silence.

  Doyle kept his eyes on the window. "As can I. I will have you know that I am very accomplished with needle and thread."

  "Oh," she said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

  He darted her a quick glance, laughed at her pursed lips. "Now, don't pout, Lily. I do need you, but my need is not predicated on your mending abilities."

  When she stuck out her tongue, he laughed even harder. "Are you normally this sullen in the morning?"

  "Yes. Are you normally this damn chirpy?"

  "I do like the beginning of the day the best. Especially, if I start it off right, with a kiss from a beautiful lady," he said, dropping the second boot he had been about to pull on and walking lopsided to the mattress.

  Leaning over, he planted a reserved peck in the hollow of her throat. "I have an appointment in an hours time. Will you be all right while I am gone?"

  Lily scrambled up on one elbow, the sheet modestly draped around her mid-section. "You worry far too much, Doyle. I shall be fine."

  He poked his finger playfully at her nose. "Doyle is it now? Such familiarity after only one night!"

  He bent and kissed the spot where his finger had been, then unfurled his huge body to an upright posture. "I admit it's true that I worry about the ones I care about most."

  "If that includes me, worry no more. I shall have not a moment to fret your absence. Sketching this morning, working on my grandmother's Memory Garden this afternoon, I plan to stay very busy."

  "Sounds good," he said, turning his back again.

  "But with every stroke of my charcoal, with every perennial dug, I shall be missing you," she whispered.

  Two steps brought him to her; the mattress dipped under his knee. "I am not about to give you the opportunity to miss me. I return to you tonight." His hand winged its way across her shoulder.

  Her lashes lowered. "After last night, I thought perhaps you would wish to catch up with your rest."

  "You thought wrong."

  "I thought perhaps you would wish a polite way out..."

  "A polite way out? One would hope we had gone past mannered politeness by now."

  Well, in that case...

  She glided both arms above her head in a provocative pose. "Leaving...so soon?"

  He raised a knowing brow. "Where are you going with this, Lily?"

  "Anywhere you would like," she replied with a catlike stretch.

  "Is there ... something you would like me to ... do ... before I leave?"

  The sheet slid to her hips. "Something I would like you to do? My, whatever do you mean, sir?" One finger played coquettishly at her chin.

  "Because, if there is something you would like me to do, you will have to be more specific."

  His voice was hoarse, his raspy vocal cords indicating his thoughts, his hooded gaze hinting at his desire.

  That insight gave her the courage she needed. Gathering her hair atop her head, she urged him on with a seductive look.

  His eyes glinted. Hard. Excited. Seduced.

  But he made no move.

  Letting go of the topknot, she shook her head from side to side.

  Her hair came tumbling down, cascading around her in a way she normally wouldn't have allowed. She no longer cared that she looked wild. She felt wild. She was wild ... for him, only for him.

  "What I would like you to do, Doyle, is fuck me again. Is that specific enough?"

  He edged nearer the bed. "You make it ... hard ... for me to leave."

  She batted her lashes. "Your hardness was my intent."

  "It's not nice to tease a man."

  "I have never been more serious." Or more needy. Or more honest in that need.

  "It's cruel to make a man wish for what he cannot have."

  "Who says you cannot have what you want?"

  "Lily..." he warned.

  But she wouldn't listen. "Please, Doyle! Don't make me beg."

  "As if you ever had need to." He swept the sheet lower.

  His hungry eyes ravished her exposed breasts, still rosy from sleep, devoured her belly, before falling predatorily on the burnished triangle between her legs.

  She warmed at his lengthy, deliberate appraisal. Proud of her body, proud of her appearance, proud of the desire she had instigated in Doyle's eyes.

  "My God ... you are exquisite," he said, speaking hushed and torturously slow. "And it's not that I don't want to, because I do want to. Very, very much. But Lily, you were virgin last night--your cunt must be tender this morning. Be reasonable."

  She was tender. That sweet ache between her legs reminded her of what he had done to her last night, of how he had made her feel. No amount of post-virginal discomfort could diminish her need for him. Giving him full mastery over her body was the only way to prove to herself--and to Doyle--that she trusted him. "I have no reason when it comes to you."

  "Same here," he said softly, and lowered his head.

  His kiss was deep and thorough and fit her mouth perfectly. He captured her moans in his throat as he cupped a bobbing breast, and then thumbed the center, rolling the protrusion between two fingers, before pulling on it. He was about to part her legs, but she did that for him, opening herself, widening herself, making herself accessible to his intimate exploration.

  One stroke later, she was twisting the linen into bunches.

  He sent the wrinkled mess to the floor and pulled her forcibly to her knees. "Out of the bed with you, puss."

  Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

  "I am still wearing a boot. I can go through all the bother of removing it, which would waste precious seconds, or you can remove yourself from the bedding. Your choice."

  She removed herself.

  "After a night of intercourse, ladies generally must seek the necessary before they start relations anew. Relieve yourself first, little one."

  The directive was unexpected. Though, she acknowledged that her blad
der did indeed feel full.

  Smiling her gratitude for his consideration, she dropped to her knees, and scouted out the nighttime convenience under the bed. Finding it, she rose to her feet and made for the privacy screen, pot in hand.

  "Where are you wandering off to?" he challenged.

  "The dressing partition."

  He shook his head. "Use the pot out here where I can see you."

  Peeing behind the screen with a gentleman present is one thing; relieving oneself in the middle of the bedchamber with a gentleman present is quite another.

  "But..."

  She never completed the thought. At that moment, several pearls of pink-tinged semen rolled down her leg.

  She watched the strand's progress with awed amazement. "Why, I am bleeding."

  Doyle gently pressed her to a squat on the floor. Taking the pot from her clutches, he slid it under her rump, and opened her legs wide, watching as the pink gush rolled out of her and was caught in the pot.

  "This is most indelicate, sir! I fear you will not see me in quite the same light after this. I must have started my monthly..."

  "That is your virgin blood, Lily. Now pee."

  "Thank you, but no. I couldn't possibly. Not with you here."

  He smiled at her prissiness. "Your comment brings to mind how ladies differ from men. A male will piss in a communal troth in front of a full session of Congress and think nothing of it." He chuckled at her look of horror. "As soon as you finish, I intend to fuck you. Does that put any lingering doubts to rest?"

  "I suppose so," she said primly. While Doyle slanted his jaw for the best perspective, she let go, the resultant stream sounding like rapids in the porcelain.

  When finished, he patted her notch dry with his folded handkerchief.

  The pristine white linen came away red-speckled.

  "A goodly part of your maidenhead remained after your riding accident. I felt it lodged within you when I made the initial penetration. It was a very thick membrane. Considering my size, had you not lost part of it, intercourse would have been quite painful for you," he explained.

  Before her astonished eyes, Doyle pocketed the scant evidence of her innocence.

  A trophy. She thought. Damn him! Is that all she was to him, just another conquest?

  "I hated causing you pain, sweetheart. That said, no more regrets for either of us. Agreed? Fresh start, right from the beginning. We clean the slate..."

  "Lies are not necessary. We both know clean slates are not possible in life."

  "You are my heart, Lily. How can I lie to my heart?"

  "Such chivalry."

  "Is it chivalrous to say I have missed my heart? Would any man not miss the very center of his life? "

  At his words, her own heart beat a crescendo, even as she steeled herself against taking his comments ... to heart. His phrases, though gallantly spoken, were not of a serious intent: in the heat of passion, all gentlemen bestow such lofty compliments upon ladies. Much better to concentrate on the mundane, and forget the sublime; that way, she would avoid heartbreak when they went their separate ways--

  She smiled a little bashfully. "I feel so naked."

  "Your body is beautiful naked. But there is more to this than just bodies. I hope you realize that," he said, rubbing her tenderly between the legs. "That said, your pussy is warm and silky wet and I cannot wait to be inside you again." He fingered her. "I love how you come for me, Lily."

  Coherence was difficult, but she was honor-bound to try to make herself understood. "Doyle, there is something you don't know ... I fear that if we are found out, if our renewed liaison is brought to light, you might get hurt. You might lose everything..."

  "Silly, I lost everything when I lost you. And if it were all gone again on the morrow, everything I own, I would still come out a winner as long as I had you beside me. And you know what? I would start all over again, Lily, right from the beginning, from scratch, if you were there with me. Wealth doesn't matter to me, for without you, I have nothing."

  Here she was, squatting naked over a pee-pot, and Doyle chose this undignified moment to make her the most romantic of speeches. Damn him!

  Her lack of dignity mattered paltry little to her lover. Pulling her to her feet, Doyle led her naked to the same window where earlier he had pensively gazed out onto the green lawns and the sea beyond.

  "Let's share the dawn," he said, holding her close against his side.

  Forgetting all about her misplaced decorum, she lifted her face to catch the warm golden light as it pooled in around them.

  "My God," he whispered. "Is there anything you do that doesn't make me burn?"

  She savored his words, drank them in like mulled cider. Until the purveyor of that sentiment, added, "I must apologize."

  She turned to him. "For what, pray?"

  "I can tell where I was last night, just by looking at your skin. From now on, I shave twice a day. "

  At first she didn't comprehend his meaning, until she followed the direction of his gaze. Doyle was completely dressed. She was completely naked. The night before, in the dark, Doyle had rubbed his bearded cheeks back and forth against her. Breasts, belly, bottom ... especially, and repeatedly, between her legs. Now, in the morning light, the red scratches stood out like an accusation.

  "I wish I could wear the signs of your lovemaking forever," she admitted without first censoring her thoughts or weighing the impact of those thoughts on her listener--a new experience for her and one that was both heady and liberating.

  "Shall I make it all better?" said the rogue, dipping his head to the whisker burn on her elongated nipple and tonguing the abraded spot.

  After soothing the small hurt, he smiled at the way his handiwork glistened in the new-morning sun. "Better?"

  "Oh, yes. Much."

  Still smiling, he guided her into a graceful pirouette, his hands sculpting over her back, a lazy finger tickling down her spine, feeling like a feathery touch on her nerve endings. Save for the wild beating of her heart, everything else was happening in slow motion. Every caress of her lover's hand, every word he spoke, every breath he took, she knew she would cherish forever. There was not an inch of her skin he hadn't touched last night. That he hadn't owned. But his possession had taken place in the merciful darkness. It was now morning, and Doyle was learning all her secrets. All her mysteries. Although she had initiated it and their loving was at her invitation, her lack of experience grated. Doyle was a very experienced lover, and she knew she hadn't satisfied his hunger last night. Would she please him this morning?

  She would do anything to please Doyle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Nipping his way to the small of her back, Doyle licked the droplets of perspiration at the base of her spine. His wool trousers felt rough against the backs of her bare legs, his worn shirt soft against her skin, his palm investigative on her buttocks. After awakening from ten numbing ice years, she took keen enjoyment in the rebirth of her womanly sensuality, her uninhibited sexuality. Doyle had melted her coldness, turned her blood feverish. He took her outside herself and set her free to soar...

  While Doyle's feet had stayed stuck on the ground. It would make her so proud if he soared too, if she could give him that.

  "I wish to please you, Doyle. Let me?"

  Whimsically, Doyle gathered the white curtain between his fingers, and wrapped her in its folds. The fine webbing shimmered across her bare shoulders and breasts and belly like a transparent sari.

  Wedding finery, she mused, wholly aroused. For her lover now draped her in the curtain, the cool material rippling over her too-tight, too-hot skin, tugging at the tips of her aching breasts, tickling her loins. Her pulsating passion beat an urgent rhythm. Would he come into her now? Fill her to the womb?

  She couldn't mask her need, couldn't hide it. All her emotions, all her passions, were on the surface for him to see. Without guile, she shivered and moaned and groaned, until she was sobbing, quaking, writhing. The pleasure, bordering on
pain, was building, escalating; it consumed her.

  Daylight broke the sky when Doyle let the curtain fall between his fingertips, leaving her clothed only in the rays of the sun. The sun heated her naked flesh, but the sun didn't scald her the way he did.

  "Place your hands on the sill, palms down," he ordered.

  Woodwork divided the large window glass down the middle. As she braced her hands before her, she watched the waves come into the rocky beach, strong and fierce, elemental in their fury to fill the inlet.

  "The sea is rough today," he remarked. "It cannot always be placid and gentle, Lily. It's not in its nature."

  What was Doyle trying to tell her? That it wasn't in his nature to always be placid and gentle?

  That was something she didn't need to be told! She had always understood the two warring factions inside Doyle. If he expected his dual nature to horrify her, he was in for a surprise. Far from horrified, his passionate side excited her. She loved his forcefulness, just as she loved the sea during a storm.

  His labored breathing was harsh enough to lift the fine hairs on her nape. "Open your legs for me."

  When she did, he immediately stepped up to her. He must have released his erection then, for the bulbous end prodded her between the legs. He acted like a starved man who is suddenly offered a banquet to end his deprivation.

  Impossible for him to be starved, as Doyle slept with Tony's models all the time! She must have misinterpreted vigor for abstinence...

  Nevertheless, he homed in on her hungrily, male bluntness rooted to female softness.

  Lily bit her lip. Yes, Doyle's passionate side excited her but he was a powerful man, even when in control, and her teasing had driven him to the brink of that control this morning. His ever-tightening fingers on her hips told her he was ready to surge into her body. Could she satisfy him?

  As self-doubt crept into her mind, her muscles tensed.

  Doyle's forward advance stopped, as though the heat of his desire had chilled.

  Pride in tatters, Lily cried at his wavy reflection in the window, "You no longer want me?"

  Aligned to her so that not even air separated them, he pressed a soft kiss on her throat. "Never think that."