by Jadyn Chase
“God, no!” she exclaimed. “They’re all as anti-social and bumbling as I am. I could never consider any of them.”
“What type of man would you consider?”
She beamed across the table at me. For all her blushing and averting her gaze, she suddenly locked her deep penetrating eyes on me and didn’t look away. “I don’t know. I guess I always just believed I would know one when I saw one.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Was she suggesting, as I sincerely hoped she was, that she thought that way when she looked at me? Could she ever consider me a prospect?
I never stopped to wonder if I should consider her a prospect. My parents would never approve and she certainly didn’t rise to my social standing. In the midst of all those routine thoughts, the simple fact came to my mind that none of that meant a thing anymore.
I wasn’t in Victorian England anymore. I might be in England, but the rules of social class and approval no longer applied. I could never hope to meet a more beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, helpful, and insightful woman anywhere.
Gazing into her eyes, I imagined what she would look like in a tight, corseted gown with her hair piled on top of her head in stupendous curls. I pictured her gliding through a ballroom packed with others dressed the same way. If I transported her back to 1840, if by some miracle she did come from my social class, I would jump at the chance to court her.
The concierge came back and handed us some slips of paper. I let Allison order the wine. I didn’t say anything until after he left us alone again.
While I still considered how to proffer myself as a prospect for her consideration, she propped her chin in her hand and examined me. “We’ve been talking a lot about me, but I don’t know about you. Do you have a fiancé or a sweetheart back in 1840—or did you have one?”
“I had a fiancé if you must know.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You did?”
“Yes. Her name was Constance Amelia Partridge. Her father was the Duke of Cumberland.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Did you love her a lot?”
“I never met her. My father arranged things with her father. Like you, I never thought too much about it. It seemed the prudent thing to do at the time.”
She gaped at me. “You never met her?”
“Never. At the time I…. went to sleep, our two fathers were in the process of organizing some ball or social occasion or other to introduce us to each other and to society. You know how it is. That was to be the first time, but I suppose she’s long dead now, so there you are.”
She blinked.
“Are you quite all right, Allison? Did I say something to offend you?”
“I just… I,” she stuttered. “I guess I never really realized…..I didn’t think of you as engaged.”
“I’m not engaged,” I returned. “I just told you my fiancé has been dead for two hundred odd years—unless you’d prefer to think of me as engaged to a corpse.” I laughed in spite of myself.
She burst to life. “Of course! How silly of me. Let’s drop the subject.”
That bright expression of glowing radiance returned to her demeanor. She ordered our food, and throughout the meal, I continually checked on her that it stayed there. Each time I raised my head, I discovered her eyes shining across the table at me.
When we finished, she handed the waiter that stiff card of hers that got her anything she wanted. Afterwards, she put it in her handbag, but I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to delve deeper into her and find out what made her think the way she did. Most of all, I wanted to find out whether she could ever consider me a prospect for her affections the way I considered her.
Out on the footpath, we both paused to sniff the sea air. The ocean surged out of sight The sound inundated the whole town exactly as I remembered it. Like the Cliffs, that would never change. Carriages might turn to cars. Ships could turn to planes. Dover remained Dover for all time. It would never change or become anything else—at least I prayed not.
I glanced at Allison at the same time she turned to look at me. She smiled again. “Do you feel like taking a walk?”
I offered her my arm and she took it naturally. She didn’t hesitate now. She felt good beside me. We strolled along the waterfront without saying anything. Her holding onto my arm seemed to say everything there was to say.
10
Allison
The stairs creaked underfoot when Thomas and I climbed up to our second-floor rooms. The hotel lay dark and silent around us. I went to my door and unlocked it. Thomas went to his door and unlocked it, but he didn’t enter.
I turned on the threshold. A streetlamp outside revealed his silhouette in the corridor. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
He stood there curiously still listening to something in the silence. Did he even hear me? I started to say something else when he swiveled and crossed the hall to where I stood. He loomed tall and mysterious in the night. “I need you, Allison. I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you since dinner. You’ve given me everything I need ever since I met you. I can only dream a day might come when I will win your heart, but I can resign myself to live without it due to these deplorable circumstances. I recognize that you would want someone who understands your world and all the little idiosyncrasies that make it up. I am indeed a poor substitute for that. You can rely on me to withdraw my suit graciously. Only understand my affections shall not wane in spite of the…..”
I couldn’t listen to any more. I lunged at him and kissed him with all my might. All through dinner, I kept thinking how nice it would be if I ever got a chance to tell him that I wanted him, how disappointed I was to hear he had a fiancé, and how relieved I was to realize he wasn’t, in fact, engaged.
I kissed him. I couldn’t stop kissing him. He felt the same way. I slipped my arms around his middle and leaned into him. I’d been dying to do this all day—all week, in fact. I didn’t have to worry about doing it right or making a fool of myself. There was no right with him.
That sense of flying without a net freed me from all the awkwardness that held me back in the past. If I ever considered kissing a guy—which I didn’t—I would obsess about making a mess of it or approaching someone who didn’t feel the same way. I judged myself out of it before I ever worked up the courage to go through with it.
I didn’t have to worry about that with Thomas. For one thing, I had no way of knowing what would happen to him. He might vaporize out of my life at any second. Then none of this would matter and I would never see him again.
On the other hand, a part of me didn’t even care whether he wanted it or not. I wanted it. I made the decisions here. I kissed him because I wanted to. Never could I have dreamed I could feel so free, so wildly uninhibited. None of it mattered. I just didn’t give a hoot in Hell if I did it right. I wanted it. That made it as right as it needed to be.
At the same time, I understood in the depths of my soul that whatever I did would be right with him. He would never judge me—for anything. He accepted me in a way I never accepted myself. That made me right for the first time, too. I didn’t have to prove anything to him, so I must not have to prove it to myself, either. I was already good enough just the way I was in all my awkward, bumbling ways.
I pulled off his mouth. His shadowy outline appeared smoky and enthralling in the dark. I took his hand and inched backward.
“Allison, I really think we should…..”
“Come inside.” That voice rose out of the very bottom of my being.
He glanced right and left. “Are you quite sure that’s a good idea? I wouldn’t want to encroach on your propriety. Perhaps we should wait until we can find a proper chaperone.”
I grinned to myself. He couldn’t see me and that was just as well. I didn’t want him thinking I was mocking him. Chaperone! He really had a lot to learn.
“Come inside, Thomas,” I whispered. “I want you to.”
He stiffened, but I didn’t gi
ve up. I pulled him into the room and kicked the door shut. Every move I made grew out of my own desires, my own wishes. No one could tell me not to. I wanted this. I wanted him and nothing stood in the way of me getting him.
I drew him toward the bed and turned him around to sit down on it. Ghostly light from the window set off his cheekbones and jawline. I stood over him and traced the curve of his brow down to his cheek. His beard set off his mouth and made it so inviting.
I swayed there before him, drunk on my own smoldering hunger. If I looked at myself from outside, I would have called myself a slut and a depraved animal. I no longer cared about any of that. I wanted what I wanted.
The light glanced off his eyes and made them shine. He didn’t say anything. A soft gasp escaped his lips when I brushed my thumb across them. His warm hands materialized on my hips. They fired licks of flame through my flesh and made me ache.
No man ever enticed me like this. No man ever ignited my passion like this. If someone had, I would have gone out of my way to get him. I had to wait for this man to fall in my lap to wake me from my decades-long slumber.
Inescapable gravity hauled me toward that mouth. Cosmic inevitability sealed our lips together in a swirling rapture that consumed all else. I clasped his face in both hands steering his mouth where I wanted it. I probed his throat with my tongue and moaned with every blistering lash of torturous heat burning me up inside.
The instant our lips touched, I knew what would happen. My body caved to my fate. I would go through with this. I would go all the way with him and I wouldn’t let anything hold me back.
When I broke away from him this time, I did it in the full knowledge of exactly what I was doing. I never felt so powerful and confident in my life. I straightened up before his shining eyes and pulled my shirt over my head. I unclipped my bra so he could see me for what I really was.
His eyes bored into me, but I never stopped to wonder if he liked what he saw. I liked it. I liked him seeing me take my clothes off. I liked him seeing me ready and wanting it. I wanted him to know that I wanted it.
He didn’t say anything more about a chaperone or propriety. He just sat there gazing up at me. He didn’t pay much attention to my chest. He kept his gaze riveted on my face. Did he see the change coming over me? Did he realize what a revolution this moment caused in my life?
I pushed his jacket off his shoulders. One button at a time, I took off his shirt and slipped it over his arms to bare his chest. Now, for the first time, I could admire that body I first saw behind my garden shed.
He really had a nice body. A lawn of soft brown hair covered his upper chest, narrowed over his sternum, and plunged down his stomach to disappear into his waistband. I already knew what was down there. I didn’t have to hide it from myself anymore. Now I let that knowledge fuel my passion.
I hooked my thumbs into my pants and scooted them down my hips. I stepped out of them still mesmerized by his eyes. I laid both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back on the bed at the same time I draped my body across him. This was my moment.
How soft and warm and welcoming he felt. My lips found his and I swam into a dreamy delightful fantasy of our bodies coming together.
His arms closed over my back and invited me in. He twisted over to shift me onto the mattress and his knee slipped between my legs. All the juicy craving gushed out of me. I welcomed the tight pressure against my box that released the escalating paroxysm of need.
I couldn’t imagine him doing anything more right. Everything he did blended seamlessly with my deepest cravings to bring me to completion. I rubbed my body against his leg. He tore free from my mouth and burrowed into my neck. He nibbled down my collarbone to my breasts. Every scorching bite drove me out of my mind with delirious pleasure.
I spread my legs. I didn’t care about anything but satisfying that inner yearning. I didn’t care if that made me slutty. I spent the last ten years with my face glued to a book. I cloistered myself in the dusty halls of Academia. I deserved a little pleasure in my life, God damn it!
If I didn’t get it from him, I wouldn’t get it from anyone. I felt this way, this tormenting, insatiable need, because of the way I felt about him. I didn’t just select a warm body at random off the streets. I wanted him and only him.
I dragged my fingers down his spine. Every inch of him felt good—all except his pants chafing between my legs. I had to get rid of those. I touched his belt, but before I could wonder how to get them off, he lurched over onto his back. He yanked the tongue and unzipped. In a second, he shucked them off and kicked them away.
When he turned over again, he whipped down the bedspread and folded back the sheets. He dove inside and held out his arms to me in a wordless invitation I could never misunderstand.
My heart leaped and I hopped in. His arms folded me in a blissful bubble of perfection. He covered my bare back with the bedding and there we were, naked together in the same bed.
Our lips joined. Our chests joined. Then all the space between us vanished in a halo of togetherness with nothing in between. He rocked me in his arms in mind-blowing contentment. Not even his package getting hard against my delicate tissues shattered the illusion that everything was all right.
I knew what I wanted to do with that hardness. It didn’t make me uncomfortable or bumbling now. Male anatomy always flustered me before, but not now. I climbed on top of him and steered him into me where I knew he belonged.
He sucked air between his teeth against the impossible tightness of it all, but I didn’t stop. I needed him. I needed that flood of euphoria washing through my very cells when his shaft forced its way inside.
I sat down on it and came to rest in a floating miasma of bliss. My body took over doing what it knew it needed to do. It moved to its own rhythm. Every pulsing throb sent a fresh wave of rapture through me. The ebbing surges built on each other until I couldn’t stop them. They increased their pace until they launched me into the stratosphere on ever-increasing tremors.
I dug my fingernails into his chest. From a great distance, I sensed him tensing for a climactic release, but not even that could snap me out of my trance. I wanted this and now I got it.
So this was what I’d been missing out on. Still, I couldn’t see anything I might have done differently. I never met a man I wanted to do this with.
His mid-section contracted and he thrust his shaft into me from below. The stabbing sensation pierced my insides, but at the same time, it fired fresh bursts of ecstasy that ruptured my mind. I erupted into climax and a hot surge of moisture flooded out of me to ooze around his hardness.
He arched back his head baring his teeth and groaning. His fingers whitened on my hips pushing me back and forth. The power spiraled higher out of control, but I already lost myself in pulsations of drunken lust tearing me apart.
The wave crested and broke. It crashed over me and towed me under the lapping sea. I couldn’t maintain an upright position in that overwhelming catastrophe of emotion and sensation all churned up together. I collapsed onto his chest and swayed in the dark reverie of fulfillment.
11
Thomas
Allison rolled over in bed. Her hair cascaded over her cheeks and she moaned in her sleep. All at once, her eyes popped wide open and she stared at me in horror.
I experienced a moment of sheer, stark terror. What if Allison regretted what she had done last night? What if she ran screaming from the room, or worse, informed the local constabulary about what we had just done?
Instead, she flopped onto the mattress. She buried her face in the sheet and groaned. “Oh, man!”
I studied the top of her head trying to understand her distress. “Don’t you mean ‘dude’?”
Her shoulders started to shake. I thought she might be sobbing in regret and shame. All at once, she picked up her head and combed her hair out of her face. When she did, I realized she was laughing.
“Sorry. I’m not laughing at you.”
“What are you laughing
at?” I dreaded to ask.
“Just this whole wacky situation.” She waved her hand. “I’m exhausted from not getting any sleep last night and now I have to go back to the Castle to check on something for your family.”
“Let me come with you.”
“I think it’s best if you stay away from the Castle.” She brought her sharp eyes around to study me. “The tour guide who originally called security to have you arrested might recognize you.”
“But my family could still be somewhere around the grounds,” I pointed out. “They could be in the tunnels or in danger. I would be the best one to talk to them and explain things to them.”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I have to disagree with you there. You might do something to attract more attention to them and yourself. I should be the one to talk to them. I can smooth things over with anyone they come in contact with. I can help them blend in. Knowing you, you might get yourself shot or something.”
I twisted my head around to examine her. “What are you implying, Allison? I haven’t gotten myself shot yet.”
“You know what I mean.”
She started to sit up, but I didn’t want to let her out of my sight just yet. The heady perfume of last night still clung to me. I wanted to taste it one more time. Oh, who was I kidding? I wanted to taste it a thousand more times.
I grabbed her arm. “Don’t go yet, Allison. Stay just a little longer.”
She tilted her magnificent, voluptuous body toward me. Her scented mouth fell against mine. “I think you know it wouldn’t be just a little longer.”
“You don’t regret last night, do you?”
She leaned back to lock those eyes on me. “No, I don’t. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I don’t regret it at all.”
“Should I….” I glanced around in search of someone who might disapprove. “Should I write to your father asking his permission to court you?”
