When they finally stopped for a picnic, Diana pulled Earnestina away.
“Darling,” Diana asked, “are you really having an affair with the colonel?”
“Ash told you that?” Earnestina laughed. “The wicked man, you know he’ll do anything to get into your bed.”
“What a laugh!”
“No, truly.” Earnestina held her gaze. “In London, Ash and I were sharing our secret fantasies, you know, as a way to spice up things in bed.”
Diana raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t that strange. As far as she knew, the pair had been faithful since their wedding day. After five years it seemed natural for a certain…malaise to set in.
“Exactly,” Tina confided, as if Diana had spoken her thoughts. “And I could hardly blame him for finding you attractive. As succulent as you are, there have been times I’ve found myself attracted.”
Oh, no, Diana thought, her eyes instantly drawn to Earnestina’s mouth, to her wide lips which suddenly looked like an erotic toy, which suddenly she could imagine pressed against her own hot flesh—the tongue that even now wet Tina’s lips, licking her creaming slit. Diana was no stranger to sapphic love; her husband had enticed her into that as well, until she had no longer minded the strange familiarity of another woman’s body in her arms.
Tina flushed and looked away with a nervous laugh.
“I’m flattered,” Diana managed, “and what was your fantasy?”
Tina grew even pinker, and after a quick glance at Diana’s face she kept her gaze on some object in the distance as she spoke.
“Lydia, you know, Lady Feachem.”
Diana nodded with a dawning understanding of where this was leading.
“Well, just last week, after Tiptain arrived, we were all trying his private stash of opium, just that once you know, and she told me that she’d been to that…that club.”
Harridan House, where as far as Diana knew neither of the Ashburtons had ever been. However, Lady Feachem frequently accompanied her husband there.
“She told me that because she thought I might like it,” Tina whispered, drawing closer to her ultimate confession. “Because I’d said I wondered what it would be like to have two men in my bed at once. And she’d said she knew.”
Diana took a deep, steadying breath to calm the new wave of warmth spreading through her body, settling between her legs. It was always this way with her—the suggestion of sex, the reminder of past experiences, aroused her immediately.
Two men kissing her breasts, a mouth on each nipple, fingers thrusting into her pussy, hands on her belly, thighs, hips. And in her hands, two hard, velvety cocks, each with their own unique shape and feel, throbbing against her fingers.
That had been a month after Roger died, when she celebrated her freedom, celebrated it by engaging in all the activities he’d taught her—beyond what he’d taught her.
“So that is your desire?” Diana said, her even, silky tone betraying nothing of the swirling sensations memory had ricocheted through her body.
Earnestina nodded, her face ridiculously red against the paleness of her white-blond hair.
“I told Ash,” Tina continued with a small smile.
“And what did Ash say?” Although clearly, if Ash was saying that his wife was sleeping with his cousin, he must have not minded so much.
Tina trilled a laugh that sounded strained to Diana’s ears. “Why, that as long as we were exchanging confidences, he rather fancied you.”
Chapter Sixteen
There was a card assembly at Tilt’s, and even though Diana had just been at the Castle Tavern assembly rooms the night before for the last ball of the races, she entered the room with a restless energy.
She had thought she would see Jason at the ball, but if he had been there, he had avoided her. Somehow, Diana felt that he would not have done that.
Unless that was his game—to make her aware of him, to taunt her, to play at seduction.
The rooms were filled with the sounds of glasses and laughter, cards shuffled, skirts rustling and chairs scraping on the wood floor.
She didn’t wish to play at cards. She rarely did. She still remembered what it was like to live with much fewer funds and the high stakes of friendly games held no interest for her. Earnestina, on the other hand, had found a table early in the evening and sat there still.
Diana passed from acquaintance to acquaintance, the restlessness making her impatient with conversation. Where was he? When would she see him?
It was when she’d stopped by an open window for a breath of air that he came up behind her.
“Do you know, Diana, that I’m here in Brighton for you, because you were right, because I do want you.”
Heat flooded her, and she pressed her thighs tightly together, against the growing damp.
And she was so primed, so ready for him, from all the talk that morning, from all the nights in the last week she’d spent wondering what if…what if he had unbuttoned his breeches and thrust into her?
“The offer is closed,” Diana said, though she didn’t mean it. But it had to be said, so he would understand that in any game they played, she was the one who made the rules.
She heard his intake of breath and waited for what he would say next. Would he make love to her with words, the way he had threatened to last week? She thought briefly of Ash’s words that morning, about wanting to lick her nipples in the middle of a crowded ballroom. She had been aroused even though she hadn’t wanted Ash, wasn’t particularly attracted to the man.
But she wanted Jason. She’d desired him from the first moment she’d seen him, two years ago. Could he really make her come just by speaking?
“I’ve wanted you since I first saw you in your widow’s weeds, looking more lovely in black than any woman should. For two long years I’ve fantasied about every way in which I’d make love to you if I could. I imagined you undressed. I imagined the shape of your breasts and the curve of your hip. I want to see if my dreams were true. Or if you could possibly be even more perfectly formed than I’ve imagined.”
She didn’t doubt his words. It seemed utterly right that he should have been attracted to her as intensely as she had been to him. But where he had let her in to haunt his dreams, she had pushed the thought of him away. He’d rejected her and the life she led, but still he wanted her.
“If there were no one else here I would place my mouth where your neck meets your shoulder.”
She could practically feel his breath on the place he spoke of.
“I would lick your skin, make small circles with my tongue. I would move up, across your neck, slowly, licking my way, sucking my way to that sensitive spot behind your ear. And I’d touch the tip of my tongue to that place.”
She felt his tongue, felt the hot trail of sensation even with him three inches away. She felt the echoes of that sensation throughout her body, in the puckering of her nipples and the gooseflesh on her back.
“And then I’d place my left hand on your hip, to draw you close to me, to feel every curve of your body against mine. Do you know when you walk, your hips sway, and I keep seeing the pale gleam of your bare backside when you offered yourself to me? Bent over with your pussy inviting me in, you were as beautiful as you are now, standing in front of me fully clothed.”
“You could have had me then,” Diana said archly, trying to ignore the seeping warmth between her legs at the image he placed in her mind.
“I should have, I was an idiot,” he admitted. “But if I could, while I taste your neck, I’d place my right hand over your breast. I’d stroke you through the cloth, feel the weight of you and anticipate how your bare, round flesh will feel in my hand.”
Diana caught herself from leaning back against him, from urging him to do all he said right there in the assembly rooms.
“I’d pull down this silly fabric covering your breasts. Just one tug and I could free them to view, I could touch you.” He broke off, his breath a hoarse gasp.
She waited for him to continue, hoped h
e would continue.
And then he did, veering from the methodical path he’d laid out. “Diana, when I think of the soft mound peeking out between your legs, I want nothing more than to lift your skirts and taste you.”
Dear Lord, she wanted that too! Diana thought, as the flesh he spoke of grew heavy with desire.
“I want to know how you smell. I want to know how your juices taste, how they feel on my tongue. I want to thrust my tongue inside you and feel your muscles clench, and know that in time I’ll feel those same muscles gripping my cock.”
Her pussy clenched involuntarily and Diana breathed in deeply. It was getting hard to stand still, to maintain her posture. She felt weak with need and lust. She wanted his tongue to do all those things he said, to thrust into her like a pointed little cock.
“I want to lick every inch of your pink, wet folds and know that all that is for me.”
It was far too hot in the assembly room. Sweat beaded at her temples, under her arms. And it was pointless for her to even think about the hot gush of liquid coating her pussy and even now dripping to the outer folds, to the crevice of her thighs.
She was slick and ready for a man—for Jason.
“I want you wet and yielding, pulsing for me. And then I want to slide my fingers into you, deeper than my tongue can go, while I suck on you. I want you ready for me, I want you on the edge.”
She was on the edge. He had exactly what he wanted.
“I’ve caught your scent, Diana,” he said, his voice strained. “Tell me how wet you are.”
“You’re touching me, Jason,” she whispered. “You can feel just how wet I am.”
He sucked in his breath. “That’s right. You’re slick on my fingers. When you’re trembling, when you might explode, that’s when I’m going to thrust into you as deep as you’ll take me. Diana, I can practically feel you right now.”
She felt him, she felt his cock inside her, stretching her, pushing her over that edge. Her body jerked suddenly with the force of the orgasm, her pussy clenching again and again at the emptiness where there should have been his cock. Everything tingled, everything in her body vibrated with pleasure.
Jason caught her before she stumbled forward. He swept her up in his arms, settled her against his chest and, carrying her, made for the exit.
“She’s fainted, needs some air,” he managed to say, aware of the gasps and stares that followed their progress. She seemed to wilt in his arms, playing along with his story.
The hallway outside the ballroom was equally crowded, so Jason continued till he found an alcove with a bench, thankfully deserted, away from prying eyes.
He didn’t want to let her down, to release the delicious burden of her body. He looked at her flushed face, desperate to kiss her.
But they weren’t that far from the ballroom and at any moment their hideaway could be stumbled upon. He let her down slowly, keeping his arms around her until she was steady on her feet. Then, finally, he dropped his arms.
She didn’t move away. Instead she pressed herself more fully against him, so that the hard ridge of his aching cock pressed against the slight curve of her belly. Then she stretched up, on her tiptoes, so that he fit right in the junction of her thighs.
“I am a thousand times impressed,” Diana whispered. “I wonder, if you can give me such pleasure without your touch, what else you are capable of?”
Jason groaned at the thought of it, of sliding inside of her. He’d imagined the moment countless times and while he’d described what he wanted to do to her, he’d imagined doing each and every act.
“I’ll show you,” he suggested. This time he would not walk away. This time he would plow her as thoroughly as he’d fantasized.
“But you won’t.” Diana laughed and stepped away. The places where her body had pressed against him felt cold and empty. “I told you the offer is closed. My curiosity will have to remain unquenched.”
“Why play this game?” he challenged, coming toward her, to close the gap between them, but she stepped back again. And again, until he had her up against the wall. Purposefully he thrust himself against her, grinding his hips against her, letting her feel every inch of him through the layers of fabric.
Then her hands were sliding between them, working at the buttons of his breeches, unfastening the falls.
“I want to see you.” Her eyes were glazed over with what he thought was desire and she sounded rather desperate. It made him even harder, but he knew very well that only a dying potted plant and the corner of wall kept them out of sight of anyone else. He started to move away, but when the palm of her hand brushed over him, he stilled. He wouldn’t move away if the Prince of Wales and his whole entourage came rounding the corner.
The cloth fell away and his cock sprang free, into the warm touch of her hand.
He moaned at the pleasure of her silken glove caressing his skin. He watched as she touched him.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, admiringly, and a drop of fluid pearled at the tip of his cock.
He had never thought of his penis that way, as something aesthetically pleasing. It had always been a tool, a mass of sensation, but the way she regarded the thick, straight rod, fingers tracing the slightly bulging veins, made him feel as if he were a sculpture, a work of art.
As if a man, too, could be beautiful.
She slid down the wall till she knelt on the floor and her lovely lips were in line with his cock.
She was going to take him in her mouth, here in the hallway, with some two hundred people playing cards just yards away.
And he was going to let her.
Her tongue touched him, licking the fluid from his tip, and then retreated.
“Your scent, your taste, is delicious,” Diana said, her words floating up to him, “and I’m a wicked woman to tease you so, here in public. So I won’t tease you anymore.”
Intense disappointment filled him at the thought of her retreat, but then her lips closed over him and she sucked him into the hot, wet cavern of her mouth.
There was no doubt that she knew what she was doing. Her tongue unerringly found every place of heightened sensation. Her lips tensed to create a deliciously tight sheath for him, an incredible friction.
And her hands…her hands caressed his inner thighs, the soft skin at his groin, between his legs, the twin heavy sacs between. Each touch drew him closer, higher, spiraling toward orgasm.
He wanted to slow her down, slow this down and savour it. But the passion of the moment was underscored by the illicit nature of their actions, by the idea that any moment they might be caught.
She moaned around his cock, as if merely the act of giving him pleasure brought her an equal erotic pleasure. As if simply having him in her mouth made her wet and yearning with need.
And maybe it did. The thought of licking her moist folds had made him hard nightly these past two years.
He laid his hands gently on the back of her head, wanting to pull all her pins loose and wind his fingers through the curling waves. With effort he kept his touch light. But finally, when his balls tightened and he slipped over the edge, he pressed her to him, pushing deep into her mouth, needing to be completely engulfed while he emptied himself into her.
She took everything he had, her hands cupping his buttocks, keeping him deep till every last drop of fluid had passed from him to her.
He fell limp from her mouth and she pressed her cheek against the soft, damp flesh. They stood there, silent, listening to the distant sounds of laughter and music echoing down the hall.
Then she leaned back, lifted the flap of fabric and fastened it back into place. He held out his hands to help her stand.
All the heated desire had passed. Diana tried to gather her thoughts, but her mind felt as soft as her jaw, stretched and weak.
“Thank you.” Jason moved to her side, leaning against the wall, regarding her under heavy-lidded eyes.
The emptiness of the moment made her feel…strange. Cheap, even. As if
now that this passion had been spent, there was nothing left between them.
“I was merely returning the pleasure,” she said distantly.
“I feel it too.”
Diana stared at him in shock. Did he mean the pleasure, or perhaps, just maybe, was he referring to this strange moment, this awkwardness?
He shifted, pushing himself away from the wall, straightening his clothes.
“Sometimes anticipation makes the other side seem…less,” he stated, holding her gaze with his own. “But it isn’t over between us. This was merely the aperitif.”
She nodded, not pretending to deny him. And then she watched him bow and walk away.
She did not want it to be over. Not until she’d tasted him again. Not until she’d had him inside her. Not until…
She blinked away sudden, appalling tears.
Not until she knew what it was about him that attracted her. That made her feel that sweet sensation in the vicinity of her ephemeral soul whenever he neared.
The attraction had never been just to his physical form. Since the first moment she met him, Jason had called to her like no other man had or did.
But she hardly knew him.
Chapter Seventeen
Jason walked away from her because it was the only thing he could do. Because he needed some air, he needed some space. He needed to compose himself and understand just what had happened.
What happened, numbskull? What happened is that you did exactly what you intended to do and you received more than you imagined.
Jason laughed at himself. The others who stood out on the street in the warm night spared brief looks at him and then went back to their own conversations.
He broke past the crowd and turned toward Air Street. Daniel and Lizzie wouldn’t be home yet and his daughter would be fast asleep, and all of that was perfect. What he needed was a quiet place to sit, to think.
Again, what was there to think about? He hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in a year. No wonder he was so unsettled.
As he’d said to Diana, after intense anticipation there was the inevitable letdown.
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