The Scandalous Miss Howard

by Nan Ryan

Sutton saw where her attention was directed. He chuckled, walked up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist and said, “Don’t worry, love. While the chains may look like something from a Chinese torture chamber, they’re really quite harmless.”

  Skeptical, she leaned back against him and placed her hands on his forearms. “I believe you, but what on earth are—?”

  “I’ll show you,” he interrupted, released her and crossed to the open doors. He reached up above his head, clasped his hands through the steel loops, raised himself up from the floor by bending his arms. He then lifted his legs straight out in front of him and held them there. “This is how I exercise, it keeps me fit.”

  Laurette had ventured forward. She stood nearby, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. She stared as he perfectly balanced himself, his arms bent, the muscles standing out in bold relief. He looked at her, winked and said, “I have to keep my arms good and strong so I can hold you tight.” Shortly, he straightened his arms and lowered his feet to the floor. Still holding the iron loops, he asked, “Want to give it a try?”

  “May I?”

  “Come here.”

  Laurette got into position and listened carefully as he instructed, “Now stretch your arms up and grab the iron rings.” She nodded and, bottom lip caught beneath her teeth in concentration, raised up on tiptoe, grabbed hold of the heavy rings and looked to him for further instruction. “Now, bend your arms, try and pull yourself up.”

  She complied. “Ohhh,” she complained, “that hurts!”

  “I know. I’ll help a little,” he said and stepping closer, put his hands to her narrow waist and hoisted her up. “Now, sweetheart, raise your legs and stretch them out directly in front of you.”

  “Oh, good lord,” she exclaimed, as she strained and pulled and attempted to lift her legs, which seemed as heavy as lead, up the way he had done.

  “You’re almost there,” he encouraged, as she struggled.

  She managed to hold her legs up and out for less than a second before lowering them and admitting defeat. “I’ll find some other way to exercise,” she told him.

  “I’ve a suggestion,” he said with a devilish grin.

  “Oh, you!” she replied in mock disgust. “I haven’t even finished looking around yet. Where is the kitchen? I want to show you that I really can cook.”

  “Not necessary, love,” he told her. “Before they left, the staff prepared our dinner.”

  She tilted her head and put her arms around his trim waist. Looking up at him, she said, “You are spoiling me, Sutton Vane, and I’m afraid that I am getting used to it.”

  “That’s the idea, sweetheart,” he said and kissed her.

  It was dark.

  Pitch-dark.

  He could hear the rats scurrying inside the stone walls. He shuddered. He hated the rats. He tried to sleep, but couldn’t. He lay wide-awake on his thin cot, fighting the panic that was threatening to overcome him. He felt as if he was losing his tenuous grip on his sanity. He’d been here alone in this deep, dark dungeon for too many years. He wasn’t certain that he could stand one more night of the thick cloying blackness that enveloped him. That, and the never-ending loneliness.

  All at once the heavy cell door opened and hope filled his heart as he leaped to his feet. The Captain of the Guards filled the portal. LaKid had one arm behind his back and there was a nasty grin on his ugly face.

  “Please,” Ladd begged, “let me out. Let me out for just a few minutes, then you can lock me up again. Let me go outside and see the stars and feel the wind on my face, then I’ll—”

  “Let you out?” mocked LaKid and he threw back his big head and laughed. “You’ll never get out of this dungeon, Dasheroon! Tigart and I have seen to that! For crimes against the Union you will die here, you sorry piece of Southern trash.” Licking his fleshy lips with anticipation, LaKid took his arm from behind his back and Ladd’s eyes widened in fear and dread. In his huge hand, LaKid held a long poker with a fiery red tip.

  “No, please, no. Dear God, not again. Show a little mercy,” said Ladd. Suddenly too weak to stand, he sank to his knees before his beefy tormentor.

  LaKid showed no mercy. He kicked Ladd over onto all fours, tore this tattered trousers apart and laughed maniacally as he slowly lowered the red-hot branding iron toward Ladd’s thin buttock.

  “Stop, damn you, LaKid! No more, no more!” Sutton shouted loudly, then screamed with unbearable pain as his flesh was seared. “I’ll kill you, LaKid!” he shouted through his agony. “When this is finally over, I’ll get out of here! I will, I’ll live and I’ll find you and kill you! So help me God I’ll kill you!”

  “Sutton, Sutton,” Laurette cried as she shook her lover. She’d been awakened by his screams and shouts.

  He bounded straight up in bed, trembling, his heart hammering, his body drenched in perspiration. His breath was coming in shallow gasps and his eyes were wild.

  Alarmed, Laurette wrapped her arms protectively around him and said, “Darling, darling, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. We’re here alone on your island, nobody can get to you. No one can hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise.” She tightened her arms around his trembling body. “It was a dream. A bad dream.”

  Starting to calm a little, Sutton attempted to take deep, slow breaths. Finally he pulled free of her arms, lay back down and, annoyed with himself, said curtly, “Sorry I woke you.”

  Sutton gritted his teeth and silently cursed himself. He knew he shouldn’t have brought her here to spend the night, to let her sleep in the bed with him. He had hoped that the nightmares were behind him. He hadn’t had one in months, so he had thought it was finally safe. He should have known better. The bad dreams would never end. Never.

  Laurette, holding him again, murmured soothingly to him, “My love, it was a terrible nightmare. Nothing more.”

  “Yes, just a nightmare.”

  “What was it, Sutton? What was happening in your nightmare?”

  “I don’t remember,” he lied.

  “Who is LaKid?”

  Sutton stiffened. “LaKid?”

  “Yes, you were shouting at LaKid, telling him you were going to kill him. Then you screamed and—”

  “I know of no one named LaKid and I have no idea why I was screaming.”

  She leaned down and kissed him. “Bad dreams are like that, they go away the minute you wake up. Thank goodness. You’ve already forgotten yours, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” he assured her. “Can’t remember a thing about it.”

  “Good. That’s good,” she said. “Now you can go back to sleep.”

  Sutton reached up, clasped a portion of her loose blond hair, wrapped it around his hand and said, “I don’t want to go back to sleep. I want to make love to you, Laurette.”

  “Oh, darling, of course.” She kissed him and let her hand slide down his dampened chest to his groin.

  As they had done earlier in the evening, they made passionate love in the big square bed as the moonlight slowly crept into the room and across their entwined bodies. The tide, controlled by the moon, was coming in, loud and fierce, pounding the sandy beaches below.

  Sutton pounded into Laurette with the same fierce rhythm as the moon-driven surf. It was a wild, almost savage coupling that left both lovers entirely spent.

  Afterward, Sutton fell tiredly asleep in Laurette’s loving arms. She was no longer sleepy. She held Sutton to her, stroked his deeply clefted back and stayed awake for a long, long time, slightly troubled.

  She wondered what horror had caused him such fear in his nightmare. She also wondered at the potent sex they’d shared following his nightmare. It was almost as if he were…punishing her instead of making love to her. He had gazed directly into her eyes throughout and held her wrists tightly, pressing them against the mattress. He hadn’t murmured a word as he thrust forcefully into her, and when she’d cried out in ecstasy she was sure she’d caught a fleeting look of triumph on his handsome face before he groa
ned with his own release.

  Laurette shivered inwardly and her forehead creased with concern.

  She knew so little about this man she loved with all her heart and soul. His past was a puzzle. He was a puzzle. His abrupt appearance in her life seemed almost as if it had been planned, was not simply happenstance. It was if he had moved to Mobile for the sole purpose of seeking her out and making her fall in love with him.

  Laurette gazed worriedly at his handsome face as he slept peacefully in her arms. She immediately chided herself for her foolish doubts. How could a stranger possibly know that if he came to Mobile he would meet her and they would fall in love? He couldn’t. He didn’t. It was simply the hand of fate that had brought them together and she was being silly to think otherwise.

  Laurette finally sighed and smoothed a wayward lock of raven hair back off Sutton’s high forehead. This was, she suddenly realized, the very first time that she and Sutton had slept together all through the night. His handsome face would be the first thing she saw when she awakened in the morning. What a wonderful way to start the new day. Wishing that she could sleep with him every night for the rest of her life, Laurette exhaled heavily and stretched and pressed her naked body to his. She was where she wanted to be.

  She yawned, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Thirty-Four

  The beach house became Laurette’s favorite place on earth. The barrier island’s beauty and privacy made her feel young and free and totally uninhibited. Indeed, when they were on the island, both Sutton and Laurette went about in a state of near undress.

  With the coming of June, the humid summer heat descended with a vengeance and the only armor against the sizzling hot weather was to wear fewer clothes. Sutton was partial to low-riding white duck trousers, rolled up to his knees, an open shirt, no shoes. Laurette favored one of Sutton’s fine linen shirts, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, with little or nothing beneath.

  While the Old Guard spent the hot summer weeks across the bay at Point Clear, Sutton and Laurette were more than content to be alone at the beach house. Whenever Laurette had a day or two off from her duties at the hospital, the couple headed for the beach house where they could unwind and relax.

  There, in their own private getaway, they played like happy children. They roughhoused and wrestled, tumbling about on the carpeted floor, pinning each other down, tickling, laughing and finally kissing until the child’s game turned to adult lovemaking.

  Their passion was such that often they didn’t wait to reach the bedroom—they made love wherever they happened to be at the time. On the drawing room floor. In the big white hammock swinging back and forth on the front veranda. In the white marble tub. On the sandy beach. In the choppy waters of the Gulf.

  They surrendered to every desire without reflection or shame. There was never an occasion when one wanted to make love and the other did not. There was a fierce heat between them that had nothing to do with the blazing summer temperatures.

  When they were on the island, they were both selfishly hedonistic, living only for the pleasure of the moment. They were satisfied to do nothing but enjoy delicious food and drink fine wines and sip brandy after dinner while watching a spectacular sunset across the water.

  It was like living in a beautiful dream and that sometimes frightened Laurette. She often wondered how anything so marvelous could possibly last.

  It was a sweltering July evening, the heat intense even at the beach house.

  The huge ball of fire that was ole sol was slowly sinking, turning the choppy waves of the Gulf to a bright golden hue. Laurette, just out of a bath, walked into the bedroom. She was wearing a white silk robe, but even that slippery, lightweight fabric was hot against her flushed skin.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  She untied the sash and shrugged out of the robe, tossing it across the foot of the bed. She then crossed the room to the set of double doors where the chained loops hung. She reached up, grabbed the rings and stood there naked in the open doorway, facing outward, hoping to catch a breeze off the calm water.

  There was none.

  It was totally still. And hot. Muggy, sticky hot. So uncomfortably hot, Laurette was perspiring, her body moist from head to toe. She stood there clinging to the iron rings watching the blistering sun make its slow descent toward the horizon.

  Just then Sutton entered the bedroom. He was wearing a black silk robe and nothing else. In one hand he carried a silver bucket filled with ice in which a bottle of champagne was chilling. In the other were two stemmed glasses, snagged between his long fingers.

  He immediately saw Laurette standing naked in the open doors, clinging to the steel loops, perfectly silhouetted against the dying sun. And he was instantly aroused. He hurriedly set the ice bucket and glasses down. Laurette heard him, turned and glanced over her shoulder.

  “Stay as you are,” he said, shedding his robe. “Let’s play a while.”

  “What will we play?” she asked and gazed back out over the golden waters of the Gulf.

  Sutton gave no answer. He reached into the silver bucket and picked up a chunk of the ice. Walking up behind Laurette, putting his lips near her ear, he said, “Darling, I’m going to cool you off.”

  “Ah, that would be sooo nice. I’m most uncomfortable.”

  Sutton moved closer, put an arm around her narrow waist and said, “Lean against me, sweetheart.” She did, letting her head fall back against his shoulder.

  Sutton took the piece of ice and rubbed it to her lips, first the lower, then the upper. Laurette sighed her approval and licked at the cooling ice. When her lips were gleaming wet, Sutton moved the ice to the hollow of her throat.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured, “that feels good.”

  Sutton slowly slid the ice down to her breasts. Laurette held her breath as he teasingly circled, then gently pressed the ice to a sleeping nipple. He rubbed the ice back and forth over the nipple and it quickly awakened and became stiff and full of feeling. Laurette squirmed against him, enjoying this strange exercise. When her left breast was wet, he leisurely dragged the ice across her chest to give the right nipple a cooling caress. While he toyed with her, playing this new game with the ice, Laurette lifted her head and then, looking down, saw that her upper body was wet from the ice bath while her lower body was shiny with perspiration.

  Sutton began to slide the ice down her rib cage to her flat stomach. He stroked the ice against her bare belly until it glistened.

  “Cooler, sweetheart?” he asked huskily.

  “Mmmm, yes,” she murmured, but it wasn’t quite true. The ice was cold but, strangely enough, it was making her hotter.

  Laurette started to let go of the steel loops. He stopped her. “No, baby, keep holding on, let me cool you all over.”

  The summer sun finally sank below the bay as Laurette watched Sutton’s lean brown hand slip the ice into the blond coils between her thighs. She automatically moved her bare feet farther apart. He dripped the ice on her and rubbed until the curls were damp and springy. Then he kissed the side of her neck and slid the ice into place between her parted legs.

  She lunged at its first touch against her hot burning flesh. Sutton caressed that tiny button of passion with the ice while Laurette gasped and trembled. She closed her eyes and totally gave in to the new sensation: it was strange, it was thrilling, it was cold and hot at once. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She was being stroked deliciously with cooling ice and yet she was burning up from the cold.

  “Oh, Sutton, Sutton,” she whispered as her head again fell back against his shoulder. “This is surely decadent, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” he said, sliding the melting ice farther back between her legs. “It’s enjoyable, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, clinging tightly to the steel loops, her grip on logical thinking dissolving by a well-placed piece of ice.

  When Laurette was in danger of climaxing, Sutton took the ice from her. She moaned in protest. He rel
eased her and went around to stand in front of her. Expecting him to take her in his arms and carry her to the bed, Laurette started to let go of her hold on the rings. Again he stopped her.

  “Don’t let go, Laurette. Whatever I do, just keep holding on. Tight.”

  “Yes, master,” she teased, so hot and aroused she would have done anything he asked.

  “Time for me to cool off,” Sutton said, taking the rapidly melting chunk of ice and quickly wetting his chest and belly. Laurette watched, fascinated. As he had done with her, he dripped water into the raven-black hair of his groin. The dense curls were soon damp and beaded with diamond drops of water. He then began rubbing the ice up and down the length of his fully formed erection. When that potent male power was gleaming wet, Sutton tossed the ice away.

  He stepped in closer, put his hands to Laurette’s waist and kissed her ice-wet mouth. She clung to the rings and kissed him back. He bent his head and sucked her wet nipple. Holding her with both hands at her waist, he moved to the other breast. Raking his teeth over her nipple, he acted as if he was going to bite it.

  Sinking to his knees, Sutton moved his hands down to rest on Laurette’s hips. When he leaned forward and kissed her wet belly Laurette knew what was coming next and she tensed in eager anticipation. She would never in a million years have told anyone—not even Sutton—but the truth was, she was absolutely wild for the forbidden touch of his talented tongue on her sensitive female flesh. There was no greater ecstasy than that which she derived from this particular brand of lovemaking.

  Her hands tightened on the steel rings when at last his nose and mouth nuzzled in the damp golden curls between her legs. She held her breath when he eased her right leg up and draped it over his shoulder. He turned his head and kissed the inside of her thigh, then lifted her other leg up over his shoulder. For a fleeting second Laurette considered with shame how indecent she surely looked, clinging to the steel bars with her legs draped over her kneeling lover’s shoulders while he made love to her. And then, that exquisite moment when his hot mouth was upon her and his sleek tongue was stroking her into a wild sexual nirvana.