‘You are… you feel… oh, Isabella.’ For the first time, words completely failed him; there was no verbal way to express the deep, lustful want that filled him as he gripped her shoulders, pushing her back against the moss-covered wall of the garden. Moving back to her mouth, kissing her with a feverish need that was more than met by Isabella’s enthusiastic sigh of pleasure, Victor let his hands drift to her collarbone… then, with a low, deep sigh, down to the swell of her breasts.
‘Yes.’ Isabella’s fervent assent shocked him at first; how was it possible that she wanted this from him? But her hands covered his, eagerly urging Victor onward as he took the weight of them, stroking over their cotton-covered expanse as she whimpered at the feel of it. Victor ran his thumbs over the hardened points of her nipples, feeling Isabella’s excitement as he let his desire overcome any finer impulses, moving his mouth down to the valley of her cleavage as her delighted gasp flowed through him.
Yes. With a quick, animal movement that surprised him almost as much as it did Isabella, Victor pulled down the bodice of her dress. He took her bare breasts in his hands as soon as they were revealed, not wanting the cool of the night air to chill her; it felt right, her unclothed skin against his, too right, so right as to make any time without her feel atrociously wasted. Bending down, the intimate scent of her filling him like wine, Victor kissed his way over the smooth skin of her breasts until he reached the hard, flushed points of her nipples.
With a deep, ragged sigh he kissed one stiff peak, then the other, again and again, Isabella’s sudden moans music to his ears. It was only as he let his teeth graze against her nipple that Victor abruptly drew his head back up, worried beyond measure that he had let his passion overcome his reason.
‘I am sorry.’ He looked at Isabella carefully, trying not to avoid her confused gaze. ‘I am too quick with my attentions.’
Isabella, filled with quick, perilous heat that raced through every part of her, stared at Victor in complete astonishment. Could he really do that—give her so much pleasure with little more than the tips of his fingers, the heat of his tongue—and still think that she would not welcome everything he did?
Men were so odd. Pulling him closer, hoping that he didn’t take his hands from her breasts, Isabella decided to put him at ease.
‘Allow me to be clear. I am braver than you think me to be, and wish to do far more than you believe I wish to do. If you are holding off for fear of scandal, sir, there is no need to be so reticent.’ She murmured quietly in Victor’s ear, her body full of tingling, delicious thrills as his thumbs rested hot on her nipples, moving in slow circles. ‘I have been bored beyond measure for an eternity. I am due a large portion of excitement.’
‘There is something that I very much wish to do.’ Victor moved his head downwards, running his tongue along her breasts as if he couldn’t bear to leave them; Isabella bit her lips as her back arched. ‘But—and forgive me if this is presumptuous—I doubt you have much experience of it. I do not wish to alarm you.’
Possible amorous arts danced through Isabella’s mind; her knowledge mostly gleaned from classical friezes and whispered conversations. She looked at Victor, trying not to sound tentative. ‘How alarming do you think it will be?’
‘I think you will be surprised. But I also think you will be most gratified.’ Victor kissed her, his thumbs making their slow, teasing circles over their nipples. ‘You will stop me, yes? If you do not like it?’
‘Of course.’ Isabella realised she was straining her hips forward, her core aching for contact with him. ‘But I have liked everything you have done, Lord Bale. Very much.’
‘Good.’ Victor lifted her into his arms; Isabella gasped, laughing. ‘Perhaps I am being arrogant… but I believe you will like this too.’
Carrying her in his arms as lightly as if she were thistledown, Victor sent her gently on the bench. Isabella, relishing the deeply illicit thrill of the warm night air against her bare breasts, let her head rest against the wood of the seat—and stopped, biting her lip, as Victor gently spread her legs apart.
‘Will you not come here?’ She looked down at him kneeling before her, touched by a thrill of tenderness.
‘No.’ Victor’s crooked smile was oddly sweet in the close, intimate darkness. ‘But believe me, Miss Thurgood—my disobedience is warranted. Now… let your head lean back, as if was before.’
He was oddly splendid when he was being commanding. Isabella leaned back again, trying to find a fixed point among one of the hundred stars above her. She sighed in satisfied, glittering pleasure as she felt Victor’s hands sliding along her legs, moving aside the soft froth of her skirts and petticoats… and gasped, tensing as if a bolt of lightning had struck her, as Victor’s mouth rested against her calf.
This was unorthodox. Very unorthodox. But his kisses along her skin were trailing new, sweet fire, and Isabella was loath to extinguish it. She gripped the bench, nervous of the strength of her own reactions rather than the threat of discovery, as Victor’s mouth moved higher and higher.
‘Oh.’ She whispered the sound, full of tense wonder, as his mouth left slow, hot kisses along the line of her inner thigh. Yes, this was possibly the most unorthodox thing she had ever done; not only submitting to such an act, but trusting someone enough to do it.
Curious, that she trusted this man so quickly. A throb of new, strange sentiment knotted at her core; Isabella tried to pick it apart, to examine it… and stopped, gasping, as Victor’s mouth moved higher still.
It couldn’t be allowed, could it? To kiss there? A slow, deep shudder ran through her, beginning at the patch of curls that lay at the meeting of her thighs. Oh, such pleasure, such bodily hunger… she had felt hints of it before, thanks to her own fingers, but compared to this feeling it had been nothing more than play.
She bit her lip, tensing and relaxing all at once as Victor’s breath played over the curls of her mound. So teasing, so soft; Isabella felt her body aching for something, anything, to happen… then Victor’s hot, searching tongue was parting her secret lips, kissing her most private place with passionate attention, and Isabella knew that everything was happening at once.
With a soft, surprised moan of hard-won pleasure, she raised her skirts still further. If anyone was to discover the two of them, here, now, there would be a scandal beyond all comprehension… and goodness, there would be immediate need to marry the man between her legs.
Victor’s tongue moved deeper, finding and kindling a fire so white-hot it made Isabella cry out in unexpected bliss. If he kept doing that—exactly that, again and again, like that—then marriage seemed like an infinitely wise idea.
As minutes fell away, time dissolving into the leaves and stars and the folds of her own petticoats, Isabella concentrated on her own pleasure. There were so many kinds, competing for supremacy; the sensuous joy of Victor’s hands on her bare thighs, the illicit thrill of the stubble on his jaw scraping her delicate flesh. The strong, near-violent sensations that came with each long, deep lick, each kiss to her innermost self; Isabella felt something building, something sweet and terrifying in equal measure.
‘I…’ She reached down, taking Victor’s hand through her skirts. ‘Something is happening.’
Victor didn’t answer. Instead, with what sounded like a low sigh of pleasure, he moved his tongue higher still.
Oh. That small, half-hidden bud; the source of so many sleepless hours thanks to her own, questioning fingers—under Victor’s tongue, it became Isabella’s whole world. A world she felt bursting into stardust again and again, raw and shining as he covered it with his mouth.
She seized Victor’s dark, tousled hair, tangling it in her fingers, not caring whether it hurt. She had to keep him there, had to keep him pressed to that small, tightly-furled point where her pleasure lay, his tongue hot and skilled, demanding every rapid beat of her heart as he licked again, and again, and again—
‘Ah!’ She cried out, loud, eyes shutting tight as she shivered a
nd bucked. The cool of the night didn’t matter; the hard bench beneath her only made her body seem softer, more liquid as her pleasure came in sweet, shattering waves. Any lingering thoughts, any sensations not strictly physical, vanished in a burst of ecstasy as white as complete as a snowfall. All she could feel outside of her own bodily bliss was Victor’s mouth still on her; guiding her through this new, powerful threshold with slow, rapt kisses.
She slumped back, panting, her fingers loosening in Victor’s hair as her skirts fell to her feet once more. She had occasionally flown in dreams—she had always adored the feeling of freedom; the ecstatic clutch at the heart that came when her feet had left the ground. Now, lying prone on a garden bench, she dimly realised that the feeling she had felt in dreams was but a pale shade of what came with Lord Bale underneath her skirts.
‘No.’ She murmured the word, smiling widely as Victor resurfaced. ‘You now inhabit that region, sir. Do not venture beyond your borders.’
‘Forgive me.’ Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘I will return to my new home, if you have further need of me there—’
‘No. I do not require you at present.’ Isabella laughed; how wonderful it was to see Victor smile in response. ‘But stay close to the hearth. I may have need of you at any moment.’
Victor’s quiet laughter as he sat beside her made the garden crackle with life. Isabella, faintly aware that she should at least attempt to sit in a prim, ladylike fashion, tried to make herself a little more erect—and failed, melting again into the bench with another burst of laughter, as Victor’s hand slowly entwined with hers.
‘Do you know…’ She laughed despite herself. ‘I do not think we have ever been formally introduced.’
‘I see. Shall we meet one another at Hyde Park, and spend an afternoon quietly conversing as we walk side-by-side? Perhaps you could drop a handkerchief, and I could keep it.’
‘After having done what we have just done, I believe that any and all ladies and gentlemen taking walks in Hyde Park are wasting their time. I… I did not think I could feel such pleasure.’ Isabella said the words with a quiet, smiling wonder. ‘It is astonishing.’
‘You are astonishing.’ Victor squeezed her palm. ‘Utterly so.’
‘Thank you… but Lord Bale, know that I am not a completely ignorant maid.’ Isabella looked down at the bulge in the man’s breeches, biting her lip; she had never felt such curiosity, a level of focus that was almost animal. ‘I am aware that you must require similar attentions. Am I really not permitted to perform them?’
‘You cannot imagine how much I want you to. I know you think you can, but you cannot.’ Victor’s low, deep voice in her ear sent a jolt of want through Isabella’s core; a need for things she had never been able to express to anyone. ‘What I have dreamed of… what I have longed for. It is beyond the capacity of anyone as lovely as yourself.’
‘You can be awfully insulting when you are trying to be complimentary, your Grace.’ Finding her courage, Isabella reached downward; slowly, brazenly, she pressed her hand against his hardness. Victor growled, biting his lip. ‘Perhaps I long for things too. Perhaps I long to do things with you.’
‘You cannot mean it.’ The answer was automatic, but Isabella detected a glimmer of hope in it. ‘It is the most wonderful lie I have ever heard, but it is a lie.’
‘And why would I lie, here and now, to you?’ Isabella, fighting frustration, turned her head to face him. She pressed her hand more firmly against him; why was he being so reticent when his body betrayed every word he said? ‘What would be my motive, Lord Bale?’ Swallowing, she found another layer of bravery. ‘Victor?’
The catch in Victor’s breath let her know that she had got to him; that she had broken another barrier, opened another door inside the man. He stared at her, unblinking; his grey eyes reminded Isabella of a storm, unceasing, but with shafts of light beginning to pierce the clouds.
With a slow, shuddering breath, he moved closer. Isabella gasped as he pulled her atop him, his hardness evident against her thighs; his gaze was a still, certain point, even as the moonlit garden dissolved into nothingness.
‘You said you wanted me to quench your thirst.’ He kissed her; Isabella sighed with strange, dark pleasure at the scent of her own desire still clinging to his mouth. ‘Have I quenched it?’
‘No.’ How odd that she could answer so easily; Isabella knew that the worst of her need had gone, replaced with a drugged, bone-deep satisfaction. Something deeper still remained, though—a restlessness. ‘Not entirely.’
‘Then tell me how.’ Victor’s hands moved slowly up to cup her face, taking evident pleasure in the feel of her skin. ‘If you can.’
‘I… I want to feel you. To touch you. But not just that.’ Isabella knew her cheeks were beginning to burn; she felt them scorching Victor’s fingers. The words were on the tip of her tongue, unformed, too vulnerable to say to another living soul—any other soul but this one. ‘It is as you said. What you said before, to me.’
Victor’s thumb stroked across the line of her lips. ‘I do not understand.’
‘About being seen. You wanted me to look at you—to see you. See you completely.’ Isabella paused, gathering herself; she realised with an unwelcome shock that tears were threatening to fall. It couldn’t be right, to cry at the mere thought of saying something so intimate. ‘Have you ever considered that no-one sees me either? They see my fortune, my sudden fame… why, I think I could count on the fingers of one hand those who have seen me as I truly am.’ She stopped; a tear was falling, despite her every effort to stop it. ‘I… I want someone to see me. Really see me. I want you to see me, in… in a way that no-one else has.’
She stopped, eyes closed, as Victor wiped away a tear. Then, with a catch in his breath that made Isabella feel as if she were melting, she felt him whisper in her ear.
‘Know that I would take you here and now. Know that no power on this earth would stop me, if both you and I thought it best.’ He spoke slowly, deliberately; Isabella shivered at the dark, sensuous power of his voice, saying such forbidden words. Had any man been able to move her so profoundly with nothing but words? ‘Know that I would sink inside you and—and lose myself, lose myself completely, until I had given you all the pleasure you could take.’ His thumb traced the line of her jaw, his eyes full of rough waves and dark rain. ‘But I will not take you here, on a bench in a muddy garden. You deserve infinitely more than that.’
‘But I want to.’ Isabella’s core quivered; she was ready, horribly ready, despite the bliss she had already felt. ‘I—I need to.’
Victor’s awed, crooked smile sent another wave of pleasure through her. ‘And I do. But—but know that waiting will only heighten it. The beauty of it.’
‘I have been waiting for days.’ Isabella pouted. ‘I do not think I can wait any longer.’
‘Days.’ Victor’s laughter had a hint of sarcasm to it. ‘My lady… how long do you think I have waited?’
Isabella looked at him, newly silenced. The idea that he had been watching her, longing for her, gave her a thrill of illicit power that made her own need for him all the stronger.
‘Let me see…’ Victor mused, one hand on his chin. ‘I cannot come here. You cannot come to my residence, or my Club, without attracting comment.’
‘My maidservant could. You know I resemble her.’
‘There is no earthly reason why your maidservant would visit places anywhere near my residence, or Club.’ A note of brooding doubt had come into Victor’s voice. ‘I am more than open to suggestions.’
Isabella bit her lip. A truly devious idea had struck her; would Victor think her too wild, too hoydenish, to agree? Settling more firmly atop him, the feel of his warm, solid body sending quick currents of pleasure dancing through her, she let her body move back and forth as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
‘I know your friend Maldon keeps a house of Regent Street. A house where… where gentlemen and ladies go.’ She murmured in his ear, unab
le to keep her hips from moving in the slow, deep grind that kept her breathless. ‘I want to go there. With you.’
‘... You cannot.’ But Victor’s hands were tight on her hips, her skirts; his sigh was harsh and lovely in her ear as he encouraged the sweet, delicious friction of their bodies. ‘You are far too well-known.’
‘My maidservant isn’t. One of her sisters is working as a maid in one of the new houses on Regent Street—there is every reason for her to be seen in that part of London.’ Isabella trailed kisses along his jawline, biting his earlobe as he had done to her; Victor’s delighted gasp only fuelled her need. ‘No-one will expect Isabella Thurgood to be walking through dingy streets, in plain clothes, with a basket in her hand.’ She let her thighs rise and fall, her back arching as Victor’s hands moved back up to her breasts. ‘Walking to Regent Street, and to that house, and to—ah!—to you.’
Victor’s silence hung in the air. Isabella, frustrated beyond measure, kissed him with all the passion she felt flooding through her.
‘I can come to you there. Let me come to you—please.’ She kissed him again, gently biting his lower lip. ‘Let me come.’
‘I will talk to Wetton tomorrow—the very first thing. I will tell him that I cannot continue aiding him. I will tell him why it is impossible, without mentioning your part.’ Victor’s gaze was fierce in the moonlight; Isabella wondered fretfully why being honest with a man as evidently mediocre as Wetton was so important to him. ‘And then I’ll come. At sunset.’
‘Good.’ Isabella smiled. ‘I will come to meet you.’
‘Yes. You will come—but you will also come here, and now.’ Victor’s hand moved downwards; Isabella gasped as it vanished beneath her skirts, resting with brazen, pleasurable weight against her curls. ‘You will come again, right here, for me.’
‘Yes.’ Isabella rested her head against his shoulders, sighing happily as his fingers began to move with the same dexterity that his tongue had. ‘Yes… I rather think I will.’
Private Passions Page 87