“As tempting as a naked forest sprite in a painting,” he whispered almost reverently.
Fiona sat up and straddled him. “Erotic?” she mused aloud as he cupped her breasts and used his thumbs to graze the tips, teasing at first, then adding more pressure. Arousal erupted inside her and she thrust her breasts out and lay her head back against her shoulders. He twisted a nipple between his thumb and finger, causing a tremble of pleasure as she poised a breast over his mouth. He rolled his tongue over the hard peaks and suckled until she answered him with a deep moan of pleasure.
Archie rolled her under him as his fingers delved between her legs and caressed slick, perfumed petals of flesh. On her own initiative, Fiona opened wider and he asked, “More?”
“Yes, please.”
Somehow, he found this magical place and circled slowly at first and then faster. He slid one finger inside her, drawing wetness and swirling it over this swollen spot of pure pleasure. Her breath grew harsh and her words more pleading as her hips thrust against him. “God, oh Archie, please, yes.”
“My darling, shall I ease you back from the brink or let you fall past the edge of no return?” She let her cries tell him everything he needed to know. Something wicked and extremely pleasurable was building inside her—taunting and crying out for more. At times it seemed as if he was barely touching her. She growled in protest, brazenly lifting her breast to his mouth. His light touches only served to arouse her further, and before she could ask for more, her body thrust upward and began to shudder uncontrollably. Her hips rocked against his open palm as she wailed with pleasure. By the time Fiona uttered her last moan, she was quite positive the entire fourth floor of Whitehall Court had heard proof of her gratification.
“With love cries like that, this will not be a safe house much longer,” he whispered against her lips. Fiona grinned and exhaled a deep sigh. “Will you do that again, Archie?” Her senses were still alive, tingling.
“Again and again. So many times, in fact, that you will eventually lose count. I hope.”
A sudden new awareness revitalized Fiona. She straddled his torso, and his penis brushed up against her moist womanly parts. Could this man get much harder? “I wish to give you pleasure as well.”
Perched above him, Fiona appeared ready to mount his cock. Her nude body glistened with a lovely sheen of perspiration and she arched her back and thrust her hips forward—a nymphlike goddess ready for some lusty fornication. “Might this be called erotic?” Her delightfully naughty smile teased.
“Very.” He was struck by the thought that he indeed might be the luckiest man in all of London, possibly the world. He had found a woman who was his match in every possible way—student, scientist, as well as siren, for it appeared she enjoyed these lovely, pleasurable intimacies as much as he.
She gasped a small giggle and whispered again. “Erotic.”
He watched her play with the word in her thoughts. Archie swept his hand through soft waves of hair that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Absently he pulled a few dark-blond strands over her breasts. “You are almost a woman of the world.” He had taken up her hand in his and moved it to his cock.
“May I kiss it? That would be erotic, would it not?” Fiona was not entirely innocent about what she was asking, and the suggestion alone brought his phallus to near-painful attention.
“Not that you have any experience in these matters,” he teased.
“Of course I have heard talk of it. Read something of it.” She softly stroked him. “There was a popular manuscript at university everyone checked out.”
“Ovid?”
His cock felt the hum of her acknowledgment as her lips opened to cover the tip.
“I do believe in the education of females. Full university credits . . . degrees . . . oh God . . . please do proceed, Fiona.” Very soon thereafter, he found that his own speech had abandoned him, replaced by the guttural, inarticulate sounds of a growling, wild beast. She kissed parts of him that he would have never dreamed she would touch so early on in her instruction. Archie was in a near stupor of lust, all he could think about was how easily moved to pleasure she was and how much he enjoyed her. “Good God, Fiona—lick it—that’s it.” Christ, he was going to climax. He withdrew his cock and rolled her onto her back.
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He grabbed his trousers off the floor and dug in one pocket, then the other. “Ah, here you are.” He removed the small packet and climbed back in bed. “As I recall, you are quite accomplished at unrolling one of these.”
Fiona sat back on her heels, fully nude, with the exception of her unruly curls. Archie smiled. “You look like a woodland fairy in a painting.”
“Keep him still, please.” Archie snorted a laugh and held on to his unruly prick while she covered the tip and rolled on the rubber goods.
He laid her back on the pillows and he moved his fingers inside. Greeted by her soft moan of pleasure and a flood of wetness, he gently stretched her. His fingers delved deeper, then pulled out—playing at the edges of her opening, while his thumb engaged in circling and teasing. Hovering above her, for just a moment, he enjoyed the look of pure desire in her slightly glazed eyes. Firmly, he pushed his cock inside the moist warm sex of her.
“Slowly,” she whispered.
“Is it very painful? I can stop if you wish.” His voice was husky with need, and he knew full well he was barely in control.
“Don’t stop.” She wrapped her legs up around his body and began to moan. Her opening was tight and yet slippery with her excitement. Condom or no, he was aroused to the point of wanting to pound into her, and he mustn’t—not tonight. With one fingertip he stroked softly along her inner folds. Barely rubbing—circling the place that made her shiver and arch upward. The more pleasure he could bring her while he inserted his cock, the more she would enjoy this first encounter. Dipping his head, he was happy to nip at her nipples, while using his fingers to circle and tickle her favorite place. The place that caused her pleasure to soar and made her praise God and cry out for more.
Using firm, deliberate thrusts he concentrated on her arousal while his own fervor continued to build. Archie pressed deeper and withdrew. Without missing a single thrust, he pulled out enough to rub her pleasure spot with the tip of his cock. His fingers dug into the flesh of her buttocks, as he brought himself deeper inside. And she responded with the blissful gasp of her release.
This time he could not stop to cuddle and soothe her—this time, he was out of control. His breath was ragged, and his heart pounded out the need for his finish. “Good Christ, Fiona.” His thrusting grew rapid as he edged closer. He threw back his head as a violent shudder ended in the start of an explosive climax. With a low grunt he began to come, and he held fast to the rubber goods as he filled the receptacle tip with spurts of his semen. He rolled them onto their sides and rubbed out the last of his climax against her. She wrapped her legs around him and he ran his hands down the small of her back and over the curves of her bottom. After a short interlude, which allowed them both several additional moments of bliss, he suckled and released a rosy pink nipple. “Better, my young goddess of love?”
In so many ways, Fiona was a brave and honorable young lady who was his equal in both wisdom and maturity. For his part, Archie reminded himself that she was experiencing this kind of sexual arousal for the first time in her life.
Suddenly, his mind filled with the essence of a most agreeable epiphany. Archie realized that she was an inspiration to him. This ungovernable beauty made him feel like he was amongst family. And perhaps he truly had found his home with this extraordinary young woman. He tucked her in his arms and she exhaled softly against his shoulder. Absently, she stroked his chest.
His lips brushed a spot on her neck, just below her earlobe. “Miss Rose . . . I believe it’s time I call you Aphrodite.”
Epilogue
Five weeks later
Fiona sat on a bench in the hallway, outside the room wher
e she would take the viva voce for the major. She fingered a piece of paper Archie had given her last night, after she had experienced an oral exam of a different kind: he had helped her relax, take her mind off the afternoon’s examination.
Morning exams had gone swimmingly, which was expected. If only this could be over as well.
The door opened and a gray-haired gentleman of pleasant appearance poked his head out the door. “Miss Fiona Rose?”
She shot up from her seat. “Present, sir.”
“I’m afraid we’re running a bit late. It will be five more minutes.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Take your time, sir.”
The man peered over his spectacles. “You’re not nervous, are you?”
Fiona gasped a breathless, weak little laugh. “Well, yes, a bit, sir.”
“Deep belly breaths, Miss Rose, and answer on the exhale.” The gentleman closed the door and left Fiona to pace the corridor inhaling and exhaling. She fingered the paper again and fought off the urge to read Archie’s note. “You must solemnly swear not to read this until the very last second—just before you enter the test room,” he had bid her last night.
The door opened. “We’re ready for you, Miss Rose.”
Fiona tore open the envelope and read the front of the folded note paper.
My darling Fiona,
I only care about your answer to one question this afternoon.
Her heart thumped to an erratic beat—even more so than it had while she waited to be called into the examination room. She inhaled a deep breath and opened the note.
Will you marry me?
I love you, Fiona Aphrodite Rose.
I nervously await your viva voce answer in the square.
Archie
A slow smile crept across Fiona’s face. She exhaled a deep belly breath and raised her chin. In the space of a moment—the opening of a simple note—he had asked the first question, and there was an answer she could hardly wait to give.
Chapter One
London’s Theater District, 1887
“Clean as a whistle, these young lovelies. Sure you won’t have a taste, sir?” The dandy peacock tipped his hat and squinted to see inside the carriage.
Phineas Gunn sat in the darkness and regarded the street pimp for the briefest of moments. “Quite. Sure.”
“Take another gander, sir—you’ll find something comely that tickles the old Thomas.” The flesh peddler cocked his head with a wink. “Rooms by the hour, right behind me.” With bosoms near to bursting out of corsets, the rag-a-bed jewels of Princess Street posed enticingly for his attention.
“Bugger off.” Phineas slammed the coach window shut.
Twirling a crystal-knobbed cane, the fancy man swept his walking stick behind bouncing bustles. “Special this evening—two girls, three and six.” The pimp hawked his bevy of spoiled doves to every man jack and Prince Arthur prowling the backstreets of Leicester Square.
Finn gulped for air. A band of tension squeezed his chest.
Up the street, a couple of randy bloods stopped to negotiate with the flashy procurer. Finn exhaled as slowly as possible. According to the Daily Telegraph, at half past twelve, any night of the week, there were five hundred prostitutes working London streets between Piccadilly Circus and the bottom of Waterloo Place.
Gazing out at the blur of street smut, it appeared the newspaper’s alarming calculation had proved to be nothing less than an effective advertisement. The lane was popping with customers, men whose single-minded aspiration was to gamble, drink, and fornicate the night away.
Within the smothering confinement of the carriage, his heart rate accelerated. An intense wave of fear ripped through flesh and sinew—right down to his bones.
Damn it all.
His body was playing tricks again. It seemed nothing he could think or do could distract from this sudden assault on his nerves. He inhaled another deep breath and exhaled slowly, counting to ten. The shakes often came upon him without warning or obvious cause. Finn knew very well he sat safely within the confines of his coach, yet every fiber of his body told him he was being chased down a dark alley by a raving murderer, poised to thrust a blade in his back.
He was dying and there was no way to stop it.
All his symptoms were present this evening. Chest pain, shortness of breath, precipitous heart rate. The numbness and tingling were particularly bad. Paresthesia, Monty called it.
In actuality, he wasn’t altogether sure Dr. Montague Twombly was even licensed—more of a quack phrenologist, as it turned out. Monty had studied under a very unorthodox Austrian physician by the name of Freud. An inquiry into this new school of medicine had unearthed disturbing rumors, including the suspicion that this Freud character was a cocaine addict. Finn sighed and pushed his back deeper into the squabs of the plush upholstered coach seat.
In the middle of his search for a physician, he had simply chosen to stop. The damned talking therapy, as Monty referred to it, appeared to be working. This past summer Monty had brought him more relief than all the doctors in Harley Street combined—and there had been a good dozen over the years, all well-meaning professionals. Some time ago, Finn had discontinued the opium, and he had refused mercury treatments, but had otherwise subjected himself to the very latest in cures. From electrical currents to baths filled with ice—“shock the system back to normal,” his doctors agreed—all he’d ended up with was a head cold that lasted a week.
Ultimately, the much-lauded physicians had failed to have any lasting effect on his condition.
Again, Finn held his breath, then exhaled as he counted slowly to ten.
He had made progress under Twombly, even enjoyed several months relatively free of symptoms. But the spells had returned of late. Dabbing a pocket square over beads of perspiration, he donned his opera hat, sucked in one last deep breath, and lifted the door latch.
Finn wove a path through a crush of all-night lads and eager tarts. He was no more than half a block from Leicester Square, a brief jaunt on foot to the Alhambra Theatre. “Evening, sir.” The plainly dressed girl sauntered close. In the flickering gaslight he took a second look. Pretty for street quim. But her painted complexion failed to mask the pallor of frail health. And not a day over fifteen. Very likely this was a penniless, supperless girl willing to have a go for a pint and chop. She brazenly eyed him up and down. “A handsome, cocks-up gent such as yourself could use a boff before curtain rise, wouldn’t you say, sir?”
“Not this evening, love.” Finn slipped her a half crown and continued down the sink of iniquity that was Princess Street. Fleshbrokers, touting their whores, spilled out of every night house and café lining the block.
To escape the relentless commerce of vice, he took a shortcut between buildings. He concentrated on the glow that hovered above jagged rooftops and nearly tripped over a drunk. The electric lights of Leicester Square’s theaters illuminated the sky for blocks around, but not in this passage filled with dark niches for even darker deeds.
Finn pressed past a harlot being groped by a customer. “No money, no cunny, you old sot!”
“Pardon.” He jumped a puddle of unspeakable sludge. The clamor of wicked commerce gradually gave way to the echo of his footsteps on wet pavers. A wraith in the night stepped up behind and pressed a knife to his throat. “I say, Gov’nor, what’s in those pockets?” For a moment, Finn imagined stepping forward into the cruel cut of the blade. The slice across his carotid artery. A steaming spray of crimson. The metallic scent of blood. This keen sense of life on the edge stirred his heart into a gallop of frenetic beats.
Bugger all, something more primal took over. Finn backed into the man with such force the surly robber staggered. Ripping the knife away, he turned it against the thug’s throat and pressed the foolhardy bloke against the bricks.
Terrified, the young man’s eyes darted up and down the alley. “Please, sir, I would not have hurt ye. I swear it.”
Disappointed, Finn eased back. “No, I
think not.”
He slipped the blade inside his coat pocket. London was chockablock with amateur thieves. Rural lads, displaced by farm machinery, continued to pour into London. Once their meager savings disappeared, they turned desperate. “I’ve no time for a mugger’s game. Running a bit late—meeting friends at the music hall.”
No doubt the young man was down on his luck and had turned to thievery. “Get yourself an honest job.” Phineas pulled out his card. “Millwall docks, Isle of Dogs. Ask around for a man by the name of Tully. Tell him . . .” He studied the burly young thief in the dark. “Tell him you’re no good at crime.”
The stunned lad stared blankly at the card. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Exiting the alley, Finn jogged across a corner of the square. The garish lights of the Alhambra reflected off streets still wet from an earlier cloudburst. He wound his way past clusters of gentlemen assembled in front of the entertainment palace. The siren call this evening? A widely extolled troupe of ballet girls direct from Paris.
“Phineas Gunn.” Hand on his hip, Dudley Chilcott’s elbow swung dangerously close to skewering a passerby. “A rare sighting, indeed. I see the Ballet Royale de Musique has enticed you out of the house this evening.” Chilcott took a draw on his cigar. “These ballet girls have a bad reputation, which is in most cases well deserved.”
Finn did his best to ignore the dig at the rarity of his presence by acknowledging the gentlemen in Chilcott’s circle. Adopting an equally disdainful pose, he arched a brow. “Then, I can only assume, Dudley, you are here hoping for a backstage introduction.”
A guffaw of laughter from the circle of men prompted a grin. Trapped between Dudley Chilcott and James Oldham-Talbot, Earl of Harrow, Finn shifted uncomfortably and scanned the crowd assembled in the entryway. All of London, it would seem, was aware of his humiliating malady. The ever inebriated and opinionated earl snorted something between a laugh and a grunt. “Yes, I can’t imagine Dudley lamenting the ballet corps’ lack of morals.” The man exhaled a puff of tobacco smoke.
A Lesson in Chemistry With Inspector Bruce Page 11