by Jackie Ivie
“My mother wore one,” Raoul continued in a conversational tone.
“I think they’re out of style and outmoded. And uncomfortable. I had no idea Paris had such styles. That’s where we copy our fashions from, you know. How long ago was this?”
His silence went on so long that Linna turned to see why. He wasn’t looking near her face. He was looking at the curve of where her lower back met her buttocks.
“My parents were exiled aristos, Linna. As was my grand-pere. My family couldn’t have set foot in Paris for any reason. Loss of estates and titles is one thing. Loss of life...another.”
“Oh. I didn’t think—. Forgive me.”
“Mademoiselle, the past is gone. We cannot change it. We cannot mourn it. Tonight is what matters. Tonight. Come. Your groom awaits. You’re lucky to be wedding with such a man, you know.”
He grinned, bringing the small lines back into prominence about his eyes and a dimple to both cheeks. Linna moved her eyes away. She busied herself with lifting the sheet and sliding between them. She didn’t need the reminder of her luck, nor his handsomeness, nor how much male he was. She knew what his charms were. And the scope of them. She only hoped it wouldn’t hurt as badly as she suspected it might.
“Your shift? You’ve got to give it over, you know. No marriage bed is in need of such clothing. You won’t need it for warmth, either. You’ve got me for that.”
Linna nodded silently and slipped the chemise down, raising her knees to get it off her ankles. Then she slid her hand from beneath the covering and gave it to him. Raoul took the garment reverently, then he shocked her completely by bringing it to his nose and inhaling it. Linna had to look away and held the gasp inside where it wouldn’t be known.
The sheets were cool against her bare skin. Linna watched as the light dimmed behind her, plunging the room into semi-darkness. It was unnerving. She heard the whisper of sound as he slid from the breeches with ears primed for it. Her whole body felt tense, worried, scared.
The mattress barely moved this time with his entry, surprising her for such a large man. Linna breathed shallowly, so she could tell where he was. It wasn’t possible. Her own heartbeat was too loud, and it seemed to be increasing with volume and intensity.
“Raoul?” She whispered it.
“At your service,” came the reply from just above her ear.
Linna choked. She hadn’t know he was that close. He was chuckling at her reaction. The breath from it raised gooseflesh all along the exposed skin it touched. Linna scrunched her shoulder against it.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Linna love.”
“You promise?”
“It isn’t in me to do so.”
“But, earlier—”
“Trust me. I promise not to hurt you but rather to pleasure you. Beyond your dreams. Pleasure you’ll find impossible to resist.”
“Pleasure?” she asked.
He sighed heavily. Breath from it cursed her shoulder again.
“Oui. Pleasure. I promise. Because of our stupid bargain, this might be the only night I ever get. I have one night to make an impression that this is something you will want much more of. And that it will be me giving it to you. Do you think I want that tinged with unpleasantness and pain?”
Linna caught the sigh.
“You’re going to have to start this though.”
“Start...this?”
“Touch me. You’re going to have to do it.”
“I don’t think I can.” She was blushing so hotly, the sheets reflected the heat back at her.
“Well you’ll have to. I certainly can’t touch you. We’ve already seen what happens then, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” she replied, with just a touch of hesitancy.
“Then it’s to be you. Touching me. I’ll not move.”
“You promise?”
“Do you want out of our bargain?”
He didn’t sound like he was teasing. Linna already knew the answer before she gave it, but she made him wait. Her plan had succeeded. She was lying naked next to the most incredible male anyone could envision. He was the key to her freedom. He had wealth. He had status. He definitely had presence. He was handsome. He was manly. He was exactly what she’d been praying and hoping for, and he was promising to give her pleasure beyond her dreams. His was a foolish question. “No,” she said finally.
He exhaled a held breath before speaking again. “Bien. Then touch me. You’ll find I’m just normal flesh and bone.”
She snorted.
“Very well, I’m a bit larger than the usual, but just a man. You’ll see.”
Linna snaked her hand out and connected with skin almost immediately. She pulled back as though burnt.
“Merde! Your hands are like ice!” She could have sworn he gritted his teeth before speaking again. “Touch me. Again. I’m prepared this time.”
She complied, and then she was running her fingers up heated ridges that were clothed with satin-like skin. She recognized the area as belonging to his belly. Linna spread her hand open, filling her palm and fingers with the warmth and feel of him, and enjoyed the slight intake of his breath as she did so.
It wasn’t enough. Linna went to a kneeling position to reach him. That way she could let both hands roam about him. She’d never felt so wicked, so enchanted, and so bold. It was better than any amount of teasing in her past. In the dim with her eyes half-closed, no other soul knew where she was, and he wouldn’t stop her. All of that was heady.
He felt even more immense than he looked. She suspected it had something to do with her nervousness, inexperience, and the lack of light. She played with the crease in the skin defining the dual humps of his chest before searching for, and finding his nipples.
Raoul’s sharp intake of breath emboldened her even more, and Linna bent forward to touch her tongue to one. The man beneath her trembled at the first touch. The tremor transferred to her. Linna drew back and tucked her tongue between her teeth, engrossed despite herself. She reached forward and slid both hands to his shoulders then over them, leaning close in order to make the movement. When her own nipple flesh touched him, although involuntary, she jerked back as the contact sparked. Heated. Enticed.
These sensations were the ones she’d once toyed with, fantasized about, and dreamed of! She traced the sinew arching at the tops of his shoulders before wrapping about the back of his neck. How had he gotten so strong there? She didn’t know men grew muscles in the places this Raoul had them, and she’d been around slaves all her life.
Linna was going to have to stretch out atop him if she was going to reach his other side. The thought was exhilarating...fascinating. She opened her mouth, released her tongue, making it easier to breathe in the small excited gasps. She moved her hands down his arms, stretching out until her arms gave out and she fell atop him. Such heat met her own flesh that she cried aloud at the sensation.
Below her, Raoul twitched in non-rhythmic motions, but otherwise didn’t move. Linna got braver. She shoved her body along him, moving her hands down his arms. At the same time, she slid her own nipples across the valleys and hard knots of his belly. Her closest hand had reached him, and she entwined her fingers with his. Her breath stopped for the barest moment as his fingers gripped hers, pressured hers, and then relaxed; releasing her. Linna moved farther, flattening onto the span of stomach and chest he had, and still couldn’t get her other hand down to his. She wanted that embrace. She wanted to lock fingers with him, and she didn’t question why. She pushed farther and felt the dual muscles of his upper chest harden against her breast at the motion.
“You did that?” she asked.
Raoul groaned.
“You can make them move? How?”
In answer, he made first one side move then other as he tightened them against her. Linna rose and fell and swayed with the action before lifting away.
“You must stop now. You promised.”
He groaned again, deeper this time, and slackened his chest. Li
nna waited a heartbeat, then another, then she lowered to him again in order to reach his other hand.
“You’re too immense, Raoul. I want to hold your other hand. I can’t reach it. I’m not certain how.”
“Straddle me.”
Linna pulled away, and swallowed. She didn’t dare. It would be like that time beside the table, and she didn’t want it to be.
“You promise not to move?” she asked.
“If it’s at all possible,” he replied through what sounded like clenched teeth.
Linna cocked her head to the side as she considered it. Then she did as he suggested. She lifted away in order to swing a leg up and over the width of him, avoiding his hips altogether. Everything on him felt like it was straining toward what she was denying. That was heady.
There were more muscles in his stomach than she remembered, and her thighs were knowing each and every one as she perched atop him. Below her, Raoul panted, pulling in one breath after another. She knew he was doing it for her. He was holding back. Linna leaned closer to gain his other hand. At the movement, such intense bulk, rigidity, and heat touched her core that she broke out in sweat all along her hairline.
His groan this time came from the region of flesh she was astride. Linna could actually feel it.
“Raoul?” She knew what the length of him was, and she forced herself not to move, not by a twitch. It wasn’t going to make accepting it into her own body any easier. “Is something wrong? Does it pain?”
“At the moment it’s complete hell. Thanks for asking,” he replied, in a voice that didn’t sound remotely like him.
Linna drew her eyebrows together. She didn’t understand it at all. She sat upright and that moved her away from the source of heat. “I didn’t know. What can I do?”
“Don’t move away! Continue with your explorations. Don’t stop! Please? Don’t stop. I’m begging you.”
“But—”
“You can kiss me. That might work. Yes, that’s it. Kiss me. Now. Please? Now.”
Linna let go of his fingers and he let her. She would have complied quicker, but she had to find his mouth first. She ran her fingers over the slightly rough texture of his chin, found his lips with a fingertip, and lowered her mouth to his. He was probably the one gulping more at her lips than she was at his, but it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t know a kiss could be like that.
Linna helped him taste her, opening her mouth to gasp for air, but then holding it too long before releasing it, making a sensation akin to drowning and yet better than breathing. The tongue he slipped into her depths startled yet thrilled the moment she felt it. Linna moaned and writhed atop him, trying to take as much as he was demanding.
It wasn’t until she wrenched her lips from his and lifted her head, more to gain air than any other reason, that she realized how near she was to his manhood. It emboldened her when he did nothing about it except catch a breath and tremble. Nothing more. Linna slid herself down to sit at the front of his loins, leaving a trail of moisture the entire way. Beneath her, Raoul was sucking for air, taking one breath after the other. Every bit of him felt tightened to the texture of a coiled spring.
Linna had located what she was searching for. She went into an arch to slide first up the front of his rod and then down, moistening him and receiving his heat in exchange. Her innermost area was on fire and she didn’t know what to do about it. She slid up again, poised for a moment at the crest, and then went back down in an ooze of movement. Raoul wasn’t groaning anymore, he was making strangling noises from his throat.
Linna slid up again, poised atop him again, and tensed her thighs. The heat hadn’t abated. She was being consumed by it. She hovered in place, lowered herself slightly...and she didn’t feel him move. Hard hands seized her by the waist - pinning her in place, right where she was.
“Sweet heaven, Linna! Please? I cannot take much more. I’m begging you. Now! Oh, love....now!”
His fingers were like talons, his arms trembled, and he was lifting his hips at the same time, pushing the tip of himself into her, making her take it, testing her; tempting her.
“Aye,” she whispered back.
He didn’t give her another moment. Linna screamed at being impaled, as Raoul shoved so deeply, she might have torn even if she weren’t a maid.
The heat wasn’t fire, it was an inferno. He pulled her down atop him, lifted her, and then hauled her back, doing the motion again and again. Over and over. Moisture coated his body making it hard to find any kind of a hold. Her hands kept slipping from wherever she put them. She settled with gripping to the backs of his upper arms.
“Oh yes! Linna love, yes!”
His movements grew wilder. Linna no longer worried over pain. It wasn’t bad like before. She found she wasn’t being held in place, after all. She was doing her share of the movement. She didn’t question how it had happened. She just knew it had.
“Oh! Linna....I adore.... I needed this! I needed you! Ah...love!”
His words grew more garbled and hoarse. Linna didn’t know why. But something was happening. Something wondrous. Savage and yet ecstatic. Linna could sense it. Feel it. Growing larger. Nearer. Her entire body tensed, and then went skyward with sensation. There wasn’t any way to contain it.
It wasn’t Raoul’s cry of satiation filling the bedchamber with sound, it was hers. Raoul was grunting. Thrusting. Moving her. Again. Harder. Linna’s cry ended on a sob of sound, and she was grasping for the pleasure again. Raoul helped, maneuvering her. Up. Back down. Shoving again and again into her, in time with an increasing rhythm only he heard.
“Dearest...Linna! Dearest! Sweet! Loving—”
His whispered endearments choked off, turning into the longest, deepest groan. And he was arching up from the mattress, lifting her with it. The hands holding her waist shook as he convulsed over and over again inside her. She had to shut her eyes to the enormity of it.
She knew her words were going to be proven false every day of their life together, too. She’d been stupid to put such a condition on him. She’d been naive. She’d been foolish. She’d been fearful. To have this night be the only one she ever got with him? It was insanity to suggest it!
Cord stroked the tangled chestnut locks cascading over his chest and torso, caressing the woman perched atop him until her breathing deepened into sleep. He’d lost control. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never given a woman his seed. Ever. He’d been schooled better. He’d spent years giving pleasure and taking it, but that was all anyone ever got from him.
He still couldn’t believe what he’d done.
She stirred and he touched the pout of her lips with a forefinger, wondering how long he’d let her rest before he wouldn’t be able to hold it again. She had such a passionate mouth, just made for his kisses. He sighed, moving her body with it, and watched as she found a comfortable spot again atop him.
He’d control it better next time, because there was definitely going to be a next time. She could say different, but he knew women. This one wasn’t going to be satisfied with just one session. Cord trailed his finger from her lips, around her shoulder, down her back to her buttocks. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
He grinned, lowered his head, and took the kiss he was hungering for.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cord watched the girl asleep on his bed and knew the truth now. She didn’t deserve what he’d done to her, and she wasn’t deserving of what he still had left to do either. He only wished it bothered him more.
He’d been afraid he’d lost the capacity for love and compassion.
It was a shame to know it for certain.
“Linna? Love?” He bent over her and whispered to the ear just peeking over the coverlet.
“No more...please?”
Cord smiled. She’d said that less than an hour ago, too. He hadn’t cared. He only got the one night. She had to fulfill her part of their bargain.
Too bad he wasn’t going to fulfill his.
“It’s nearly mor
n, Linna. You don’t wish to be caught in my bed, do you?”
“No more,” she repeated.
“Come along. Sun’s about up. We’ve got to get you back to your residence. Come along.”
She slid strands of hair out of her face and favored him with a half-open eye. Cord sucked in on his cheeks as he looked. He’d been rougher the second time. Even more so the last one. Her lips were swollen, and there were several dark areas on her throat and chin where he’d sucked on her skin.
“It’s almost morn, then?”
“Tired of me already?” he asked in reply. For some reason the relief in her voice grated on him. He’d been rough, yes, but she’d been screaming words of ecstasy through most of it.
“Would you...turn aside so I can rise?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve pretty much memorized that body of yours. There’s nothing I haven’t seen and nothing I haven’t tasted. I’d like to see it again. Now.”
She started up and winced once she sat. Cord rolled his tongue along his cheeks as he watched her.
“Very well. Look...your fill. Then never...again, remember?”
She wasn’t moving very easily, and Cord watched as she gingerly moved her legs to the side of the mattress. She had shapely legs. He caught the whistle of appreciation before it sounded. “Oh, I don’t think I said a thing about looking, Mademoiselle. In fact, I’m certain of it. Touching, yes. Looking? Another story. Would you like to bargain again?”
“No.”
She stood unsteadily, holding the coverlet about herself. Cord approached her, his boots making little sound on the carpeted floor. She met his look well enough, although she paled.
“It’s not yet dawn,” he said softly when he reached her, “and I’m a hard man to satisfy. I might need more...if given the proper motivation.”
She dropped the material, where it trailed from the bed onto a puddle on the floor.
“Much better. I don’t suppose you brought a change of clothing last night, did you?”
“Why would I? I—I was attending a ball.”
“True enough. You’ll have to wear your gown. It’s a little worse for wear, I’m afraid.”