“Yes,” she said on a noisy breath. “Kiss … Take… Take… it…Saber.”
Take it. A passionate female who would, unless he was much mistaken, be experiencing a taking of quite another nature shortly, one she had never known. He thinned his lips. How could he have doubted her innocence? And would it have mattered if she were not so?
No. No, he would trade his life and everything he had just to spend what time he could with her, like this.
Saber cupped her breasts while he kissed each of her tightly closed eyelids. He kissed her lips until she opened her mouth wide and kissed him back, fiercely demanding, echoing the cries of her body for release.
The path to her waist was silken. The wide opening of her shift allowed him to spread his hands on her belly, to slide his fingers around her bottom, to separate and lift her—and to absorb her gasp into his mouth. Saber breathed in her shocked excitement and smiled secretly.
Ella pushed his shirt from his shoulders.
Saber bent and took a nipple gently between his teeth.
Her fingers drove into his hair.
He flicked the tip of his tongue over the stiffly budded flesh.
Ella arched her back.
Holding her hips, willing his own restraint, he suckled, aware of his pounding pulse, of each dragging breath.
Perfection.
Passion laced with power.
He drew perfection into his mouth, held passionate power within his hands.
He was only a man.
Saber dropped to sit again. He pulled her feet, one each side of him, onto the seat of his chair—and he slipped her wisp of a gown up long, smoothly golden limbs. Bending his head, he kissed the inside of a slender thigh, laughed, and winced away from her pinching grip on his hair.
“Oh, Saber,” she moaned. “What are you doing?”
He kissed and nuzzled his way up her other thigh, nipping at tender skin, holding her still when she would have jerked.
“Saber?”
“You don’t approve?”
“It’s…I…Ye-es. Oh!”
In one swift move, Saber brought her knees over his shoulders and buried his face in the dark hair between her thighs. The tender mound beneath thrust helplessly at him. His tongue found the hidden place, found and curled around and beneath, and in forays into her passage.
His rod leaped. Soon. He must join with her soon, or die of his own need.
“Saber!” she all but screamed.
His need could wait. Tiny tugs with teeth and lips convulsed her supple frame, drew her closer and closer until she gripped his head with her thighs, held his neck rather than fall to her back.
Her taste made him drunk. Sheer sexuality, sheer womanly essence. Over and over he lapped at the ignited bud, and when she convulsed, he almost failed to catch and hold her. Ripples passed along her muscles. Her cries were small and incoherent—and amazed.
Saber stood over Ella, staring down at her, his vision blurred. Her head hung back, her black hair brushing the elegant desk and spreading over the paper upon which he intended to ask for her hand.
The shift was an alluring rag, tattered, torn completely from one arm, held about the other elbow by threads, a flimsy drape at her hips.
He eased her up to sit on the edge of the desk and held her against his chest while he shed his shirt entirely.
Ella reached up to smooth his face, pulled him down until she could claim his mouth in a searing kiss that bore only a lingering trace of uncertainty.
And while she kissed him, she rubbed her breasts slowly, languorously back and forth over his chest.
Haste made him clumsy. He tore at his trousers and sighed with relief when he could push them down.
Framing her face, he made Ella look at him. “You are my beloved,” he told her, clinging to the fragile remnants of his control. “You have said you love me.”
“And I do,” she murmured, her eyes beginning to drift shut again. “More than my life. Saber—”
“I love you more than my life, Ella. I care for nothing but you. I have asked you to be my wife. You said that was impossible. So I ask you again: Will you marry me?”
When she looked at him again, passion had rekindled in the depths of her eyes. “If you want me, I will marry you. I will do or be whatever you want of me. I am yours, Saber.”
“This should not be happening until we are wed.”
She smiled and nodded. “I am not a completely green girl.”
“No.” Despite his condition, he grinned. “Certainly you are no longer a green girl, and soon you may be even less green.”
Her regard became sharper. She glanced downward and her harsh gasp let him know she could see all there was to see of his craving for her.
The expression on her face changed to one of wonder. She ran the back of her fingers down his belly—a trail of fire so hot—until they came to rest against his shaft. “This is not all it’s for, is it?”
Saber frowned. “All?”
“This male part of you. It grows large and hard for a purpose other than to…to…Saber, I loved what you did to me. Is that appropriate?”
He would die soon. “So appropriate, Ella.”
“You know how it felt?” She inclined her head, watching his lips.
“I think so.”
“Have you ever felt something like it?”
“I could. A man and a woman. A husband and a wife join bodies and they both feel exquisite pleasure.”
Her gaze rose to his eyes. “So green,” she said. “Like the bottom of the sea, I should think. Your eyes—”
“Yes…. Ella, I should like to join my body with yours. Although I ought to wait, I’d like to do this now.”
“Ah.” She smoothed his shaft to its distended head, held it in one hand, and explored the contours with minute care. “And we join with this? Of course we do. Tell me how. In my heart we are already married.”
“I will show you how.” He kissed her gently on the lips, on each breast. “Watch me, Ella. I should like you to see.”
Dutifully, she watched him guide the head of his penis to the opening into her body.
He touched slick folds, saw her dark curls upon his engorged flesh.
Ella’s slight shifting made him glance up at her. She brought her hands to rest on his shoulders once more. Anxious questions filled her eyes. He flexed muscles in his jaw and kissed her until her tension yielded.
Staring into her eyes, he pressed inside her.
“Saber?” Her grip tightened.
He smiled reassurance—and met resistance. “Is there pain?” he asked. “Tell me, Ella.”
Ella bowed her head to watch once more. “A little. It doesn’t matter.” Her breasts rose and fell, vibrated with her tremulous breathing.
“The pain will pass, my sweet.” Saber thrust into Ella, firmly, but gently—drove deep, deep past a barrier he felt give way to him. Deeper to bury himself within her, to join with her.
“One,” she said softly. “To make us one. Oh, I never…I never knew.” Her hips shifted perilously close to the edge of the desk.
“Let me, my love,” he told her. He wrapped her arms around his neck and held her hips. Taking her mouth, he darted his tongue inside—and delved. He pushed far into her mouth—and thrust far into her body, only to withdraw until he all but parted from her.
She urged him back, threaded her hands beneath his arms and pressed her fingers into his buttocks, pressed and pressed with each drive of his rod into the heaven that welcomed him.
The room, his body, hers, all melded, melting together. His thighs were rigid, straining. He pulled her legs around his hips and no longer controlled the dance that he had not designed, had not practiced, not known since first he looked upon this woman.
Love had inspired him. Need long denied had driven him. Instinct had reminded him.
They were new together.
His seed spilled in a hot rush and his cry rent his mind. It was right.
“I lov
e you,” he shouted. “It is right, Ella. We are right.”
“Yes,” she said, so quietly he scarcely heard. “Yes. We are right and I love you.”
“We will marry. Tomorrow.”
She giggled and fell with him to the chair. Astride his hips, she sat, her body still joined to his. “We cannot marry tomorrow. Such a thing would not be possible.”
“Your family approves.” He stroked her face, her neck, her shoulders. “I will get a special license and it shall be done. You will be mine.”
“It can be done so quickly?”
“Yes.”
“And then you will be mine.”
“Always. I already am.”
She wedged a knee each side of him and rose a little.
He laughed and pulled her back to sit on his lap. “I like you exactly where you are.”
“And I like you exactly where you are. But can’t we do that again?”
“That?”
“The joining thingie.” She darted to nip one of his flat nipples. “Does that feel…Well, do you feel that as I do?”
He raised his hips, watched her sigh and open her mouth, and he said, “I feel it.”
“But not as much as…as the thingie.”
He chuckled aloud, and the vibration brought his teeth hard together. “No, not as much as the thingie.”
Ella planted her hands flat on his chest, fixed him with a serious stare, and began to lift herself rhythmically up and down.
“Insatiable,” he cried.
“Your fault,” she responded, lifting and sitting again, lifting and sitting. “You are a magnificent teacher. You will make me an expert.”
Saber’s energy began to seep back into his muscles and nerves. The fresh quickening he felt made him shake his head. “I will make you an expert, my girl? An expert and a magician.”
Her hips moved more rapidly, jarring her breasts until he could not bear to do other than fasten his mouth there again.
“A magician?” she said, gasping. “A magician?”
“Yes,” he told her, the white-hot rush beginning again. “A magician who has no need of any book to teach her to perform magic.”
Curled beside Saber in his big, comfortable bed, Ella settled a knee across his thigh and hugged him. “You should sleep.” Outside the sky was thick and black. “We should both sleep.”
Her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder and he played idly with a strand of her hair. “You will sleep soon enough. Are you happy?”
“You know I am.” Happy, and wonderfully sore—and barely able to wait to experience him again. He was rough and smooth, supple, and so hard, strong yet gentle, warm—
“Before you do sleep, I think there are things we must discuss. We have a busy day before us. I should like to know exactly what I must deal with—including last night’s episode when you left the house in that coach. Bigun explained Grandmama’s scheme to get us together—and how the notes were passed to us. Crabley told me the coach arrived and he had no reason to doubt that I had sent it since he had not seen me all day. He didn’t know I was here. Neither did Rose.”
“Someone knew I was supposed to go to the theater with you.” She didn’t wish to discuss this. “Someone knew and passed the information to another party.” The thought of that place, of Uncle Milo’s calculating blue stare, turned her cold.
Saber pulled her on top of him and stroked the length of her spine and back, repeatedly. “I shall discover who both knew and decided to use the information. Where were you taken?”
She pressed her face into the hair on his chest, stretched her arms up and threaded her hands around his neck.
“Answer me, Ella.” Saber rubbed her body, passing the heels of his hands over the sides of her breasts. “Where—”
“I was warned,” she said, and it hurt to swallow.
Saber waited, continuing to stroke her skin beneath the sheet. She felt him against every inch of her.
He said, “Go on.”
“Remember my mother’s brother? Milo?”
“You spoke of him.”
“Last night I saw him again.”
His hands stilled.
“He arranged for me to visit him so that he could tell me what I must do.”
“The devil he did. And by what right—”
“By right of family loyalty. According to him. He is in financial difficulty and requires my assistance.”
“He asked you for money?”
Ella sighed. Saber’s ministrations had begun to make her yearn for him. “He told me what I must do. And he threatened me with certain things if I failed to do as I was told.”
Saber’s hands grew still. “He threatened you?”
“With having my past revealed to everyone in the Polite World. With telling any man whose attentions I encouraged that I am—that I came from nothing.”
The only response she heard was the thud of Saber’s heart beneath her cheek.
“I was taken to Mrs. Lushbottam’s. That is the—It is a bad house, Saber, where women behave strangely. And men just as strangely. It is the house where I was—”
“I know which house it is. I cannot believe this.”
She told him the rest, all of it, and afterward, when he was silent a long time, she said, “So you see, if you were to marry me, there would always be the danger of some retribution.”
“You think I fear that?” He set her gently beside him and kissed her. “I have seen hell, my love. These cowards are nothing to me—nothing but carrion to be dispensed with. Sleep. With the dawn I shall see to the matter of the marriage. Later, I’ll deal with your uncle.”
Chapter Twenty-five
How much longer must he suffer the interference of others? Furious that he’d been unable to stop Precious Able from accompanying him, Pomeroy Wokingham assessed the women in each of Lushbottam’s windows before ringing the bell. A short creature dressed in pale blue interested him vaguely. She avoided his eyes. He liked that. The ones who were too willing bored him.
“Pommy?” Precious sounded excited. She’d intercepted him as he’d attempted to leave the Grosvenor Street house unnoticed, and threatened to awaken his father unless Pomeroy took her with him. “Pommy, is this the…Well, is it?”
“Shut up. You’ll find out what it is soon enough.”
She bounced. “It is. Ooh, how delicious.”
The door opened to reveal the contemptible Milo. Even at such a late hour the man still stretched his dry old lips in a smile too cheerful for Pomeroy’s taste.
“Why, Mr. Wokingham.” He narrowed his eyes when he looked at Precious, and Pomeroy saw the other man take her measure—accurately, no doubt. “And a lovely companion. What a delightful surprise, my friends. You come on in here. In need of something to tide you over, are you, sir? Well, we’ll just have—”
Pomeroy pushed past him, shutting the old fool up. “We’ll just have to talk,” he said.
“Surely I can interest you in a little entertainment first? We’re about to begin. A very interesting group offering, I assure you. Fresh from Persia.”
Pomeroy’s cock stirred, but he reminded himself not to be diverted from his purpose here. Not entirely diverted. “I had something more private in mind.” Business and pleasure—at the same time—could be so titillating. “The piece in the window should do, I’d think. Creature in blue. Blond. Get her and bring her to the sitting room.”
“Pommy!” Precious whined. “I thought we were going—”
“And we are. Soon enough. Some of us are capable of attending to more than one matter at the same time. Milo, perhaps you also have something for my friend, Precious?”
“Pommy?”
He glowered her to silence.
Milo clasped his hands together and bowed. “I do believe I’ve got just the thing. Something very nice. Yes, just the right thing for a young lady of such quality. Of course, it’ll have to be cash.”
Pomeroy fixed the man with a cool stare. “Do not have the temerit
y to discuss money, you Philistine. That will come later, when we discuss other matters.”
Affecting a mocking bow, Milo backed away.
Pomeroy swept into Milo’s dismal sitting room with its mismatched chairs and divans and appallingly annoying rose motif. “You’re in for a treat,” he told Precious, enjoying the anticipation of seeing her rendered silent for once. “Lushbottam’s is guaranteed to satisfy even the most energetic among us.”
Precious’s blue eyes darted nervously about the room. “Not very…Well, it isn’t, is it?”
He ignored her and sat on a small couch while she continued to stand.
“What’s going to happen, Pommy?”
Pomeroy smiled a little. “Hard to be sure—absolutely sure. Let’s just say we’ll leave with more to remember than when we came, shall we? Why not sit down? Try one of the divans—quite comfortable actually.”
She didn’t move.
“Here you are, then, Mr. Wokingham,” Milo said as he pushed the woman in blue before him into the sitting room. “Our little Blossom. Reminds you of a blossom, doesn’t she? Blooming all over, so to speak. I’ll just go for the other I mentioned. Why don’t you get acquainted while I’m gone?”
Blossom made Precious appear almost svelte.
“Come and sit by me, Blossom,” Pomeroy said. He could have chosen better, but no matter, he’d make the best of this piece. After all, a little idle diversion was all he intended.
The woman was older than she’d appeared at first. Probably at least five and twenty. Pomeroy preferred his females young.
Blossom sat beside him, her eyes still lowered. A simple enough pretense at a demure nature, unless Pomeroy was much mistaken.
“She’s fat,” Precious announced.
Blossom’s eyes flew open and no trace of shyness lingered in the malign glare she aimed at Precious.
“Hardly fat,” Pomeroy said, amused. “Nicely covered, what, Blossom? Round in all the right places, hmm?”
She slanted a knowing look at him.
“Blue becomes you,” Pomeroy said, enjoying the waves of jealousy emanating from Precious.
The thud of feet on carpet approached and Milo came into the sitting room. At a loping, graceful pace, two tall men followed him and he closed the door behind them.
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