Realizing it was in her completely, she gasped. With his tongue on her and her quim filled with the dildo, she was forced to reconsider her earlier expectations. He moved the glass object back and forth in a steady rhythm as if he were actually fucking her.
“Do you like that, my darling?”
She moaned.
He touched her anus, his finger circling and circling, slathering her with oil. He worked first one then two fingers inside. She was so tight, so filled. His tongue on her, the glass dildo, his fingers inside her. It was all too much. Her womb, her internal muscles spasmed in release and she cried out.
He moved up her body and held her a moment. She lay in his arms, stunned that she’d actually come from being fucked with a glass phallus. She’d never imagined such a thing.
“Now roll over and kneel for me.”
She complied. He slapped his hand on her buttock “Spread your legs wide for me.”
She did. He was behind her in an instant. He withdrew the dildo from her cunt.
“My God, you’re gorgeous like this.” He grasped her hips.
Her heart rate jumped. Oh, God, was she ready for this? Her throat went dry and she swallowed tensely. His crown slid over her rosette, igniting sensations that took her mind away from her misgivings. She wanted him to take her, to fill her, to claim her. The sensation of utter submission to him mingled with her anxiety only served to heighten her excitement. Her breath hitched and lubrication flowed like honey from her core.
He pressed, gently but firmly.
It hurt. She wanted to do this with him. To give him what he wanted and to be this close to him. But it hurt like fire. He stopped pushing forward and caressed her back. “Relax.”
She breathed slow and deep, trying to ignore it, but it hurt. Losing her virginity had hurt and continued hurting and she’d ended by crying into his shoulder after. Would this be the same? Would she disgrace herself the same way this time?
He reached beneath her and touched her nub. She closed her eyes and moaned, while straining to his fingers. He knew how to touch her in just the right ways. He was capable of bringing her climax quickly, as he did this time. Intense pleasure surged, followed by relaxation.
The head of his cock pushed against her anus again, applying steady, firm pressure. Pain blossomed and she gasped.
“Bear down, love.” His voice was hoarse, telling her how much he wanted this from her.
She bore down and his thickness breached the tight ring of flesh. The pain intensified.
He paused, caressed her back. “That was the worst of it. Just relax yourself and let your body accept me.”
He sounded so confident. He must have done this with other women. Of course he had. Everything they did was new and unique to her. But he had all those memories to compare her to. How did she fare against them? What good did it do for her to fret over it? She had to believe he loved her and that his feelings would make this unique for him too. But, without knowing his past, it was hard to have confidence in that.
“Are you ready for more?” His tender, husky tone broke through her anxiety.
“Yes,” she said, forcing a note of confidence into her voice.
Alex considered the slender lines of her body and hunger raged through him. She was being so submissive, so brave. He inched forward slowly. She was so tight, so hot. He fought the urge to thrust harder. He had to take care with her. He didn’t want to frighten her or hurt her more than was absolutely necessary. He particularly enjoyed fucking a woman in the arse and he’d never experienced someone so utterly snug. He wanted her to like this. He wanted her to be compliant for it again.
But his body trembled with the effort it took to hold back. He leant forward and caressed her neck and shoulders. “You’re doing beautifully, my love. Just relax.”
He continued to inch forward into her body. She was relaxing now, her body opening to him. He reached to touch her nub. It was erect and slick with her juices. He smiled in relief. He had expected she might not enjoy it this time but maybe she could. She moaned and her internal muscles squeezed his erection, sending shafts of fire up his cock and into his stomach and down his thighs. He closed his eyes. This forbidden act was always so delicious but this time it was making his head spin.
He forced himself to wait, touching her and feeling her arse constrict once more upon him. She moaned and writhed her hips, her wetness flowing onto his hand, her inner muscles tightening and tightening as he brought her up close to her orgasm. He drew his hips back then pressed down slowly into her again. There would be other times he could plunge into her and experience the sensation of tunneling hard and fast into those cock-hugging depths. This time he had to remember her inexperience.
As he sheathed himself to the hilt, her hips arched up to his pelvis and she moaned. He drew back and pushed forward again, slightly faster this time, while continuing to stimulate her quim. She cried out. Her body trembled in the way he recognized.
“That’s it, my love, let yourself go. Come for me now.”
Her breath hitched several times and she shook all over, rocking him all the way to his balls. His whole body tensed in anticipation of her orgasm and he groaned. Her cunt began to contract spasmodically, the tight ring of her arse squeezed his cock and her body quaked like he’d never felt before. The surging began deep in his cock and his seed rushed up and released itself in an explosive series of jets, pleasure so all-consuming that he shouted with it.
****
Emily considered how strange it was to be in the kitchen alone with Alex, especially to be naked, together in the huge brass bathtub.
“I think we should simply have no servants all the time,” she said.
“And what would they do for their living then, my love? Cato is old and Mrs. Webbs isn’t too far behind.”
“Oh dear, I hadn’t looked at it like that.” Guilt rent her and she stared down at the suds floating around his midsection and bit her lip. How could she have even jested about such a callous thing as dismissing his loyal servants?
“Oh, you’re so soft-hearted.” He laughed quietly. He smudged a fingertip of suds on her nose. “I was teasing you. I have a house in the country. We will go there sometimes with no servants and have each other all to ourselves. We’ll even be so selfish as to leave our children here with the servants.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She took the soap into her hands and made lather and smeared it on the inner wall of the tub above the water line.
“When the time comes, you’ll be ready for a trip away, believe me.”
She wasn’t sure so she kept quiet. Because even though they were sitting here in the tub, physically close as could be, and they were teasing each other, something had shifted between them. Every time they made love, he showed her something different, took her higher and revealed parts of herself she hadn’t known existed. And yet, this time, it was different. He looked at her differently… no, he avoided looking her in the eye. At least, it seemed that way. Very odd. She drew her eyebrows together. What was going on inside of him?
“You didn’t like it.”
His words startled her. Heavens, what to say? She traced her initials into the lather.
“Emily, I asked you a question.”
What else could she be but honest? “No, I didn’t.”
“Why?” He caressed her shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”
“Not after the first but…” She shrugged him off then erased her initials with a swipe of her hand.
“But what?”
She glanced up at him. “I enjoyed it vastly when we did it but now, in retrospect, I don’t like it.”
He frowned. “What changed your mind?”
“I don’t like it now because you think it is wrong.”
Chapter Six
Alex’s heart rate kicked up. What the devil did she mean by that? “I think it is wrong?”
“Yes, you do. At least you think it is wrong to do with me…” She shrugged her bare, water-sl
icked shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Ah, here it was. The pain of being this close to someone else. He could lie to himself. He could lie to her. But she would always know. Coldness rippled through his belly, and in his mind he could see Nicolo nodding with that damnable sympathy. Anger burned through him.
Because there some truth to her accusation.
Sodomy.
The word carried so much darkness. Decent people viewed the act as perverse. Unclean. Evil.
He had, previous to this night, limited his indulgence of the act to women like Alicia McConnell. Women who had lost their purity long before coming to him.
Emily was completely different from Alicia. He could hardly hold the two women together in the same thought in his mind. So why had he brought this side of himself into his relations with her?
A sudden urge to escape to his study and get half-seas over seized him. He stood, water and suds sloshing down.
She looked up at him. Her eyes accused him. “You did it to degrade me.”
Shock paralyzed his brain and his mouth dropped open. “Degrade you?”
She nodded calmly. It was her calm that undid him the most.
He shook with anger. Not trusting himself to speak, he picked up a towel and briskly rubbed his body dry. Then he pulled on his banyan.
“Alex, you asked me. I told you. Why are you—?”
Women never knew when to let something go. He hurriedly finished tying his belt then rounded on her. “Degrade you? How dare you accuse me of such a thing.”
“Should I have lied?”
Gentlemanly manners forced him to offer her a hand out of the tub and also to turn his back while she dried herself. However, when she had done so and was dressed in her nightgown, he reopened the discussion.
“Emily, how can you believe I would ever willingly do anything to—God, what was that word—degrade you?”
“I don’t know… I just know that it is true. I don’t know why you’d wish to do that. Won’t you explain?” Her eyes implored him.
His heart began to hammer in earnest now. She’d trapped him, pinned him to the wall and he sought escape. “There’s nothing to explain. It was a type of closeness I wanted to share with you and you didn’t favor it. We shan’t do it again—nor need we discuss the matter.”
He pulled away from her, strode through the mudroom and threw open the door. He opened it and frigid air rushed in, clearing his churning emotions. Had he wanted to degrade her? No, he had not. He had simply wanted to experience her like that. All right, wanted was an understatement. He had desperately longed to experience her in that manner. However perverse the action, it had simply been the fulfillment of a personal desire.
You wanted her to be—how did you put it? A shade less pure.
He couldn’t deny the inner accusation. But wanting her to be a shade less pure wasn’t the same as degrading her? It was no different than encouraging her to give him oral gratification in his carriage or indulging her liking for rich wine. It was just a way of sharing a little naughty enjoyment with her. Wasn’t it? Damn it, he didn’t know.
But he was playing semantics with himself now. He did know.
By sodomizing the woman he held above all others, the woman he intended to marry, he’d crossed a line that he never should have crossed.
The light suddenly dimmed. She had blown out the lamp and the only light remaining was the fire. He turned and saw her, a ghostly glow of white flannel and pale ivory skin as she huddled in the kitchen doorway.
Oh, damn it. What had he done? He had enjoyed their sharing and she had too. She had had strong misgivings. He had plainly seen that. It had made her trusting submission all the more precious a gift. The most precious he’d ever been given. But he had infected it, ruined it with his darkness. Now he had made her feel degraded by the experience.
“If you must freeze, I shall leave you to it.” Her voice was brittle.
He’d hurt her. Deeply. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, ruffling his queued hair. Christ, he had never meant to hurt her. What the devil was the matter with him?
He closed the door then turned back to her. “Go upstairs and get into bed.”
He banked the kitchen hearth then followed the spill of moonlight from the windows upstairs. He entered his own chamber, expecting to lie in a cold bed. But no, there she was huddled under the heap of quilts she favored. She got cold so easily. She was so delicately boned, so slender. The need to protect her rose in him like fire in his blood.
Protect her against himself.
He took off his banyan, got into bed and pulled her close. She remained stiff in his arms.
“For God’s sake, Emily, don’t be this way. It was a mistake. Let it pass.”
“Something stands between us. Not what we’ve done this night but something within you and you refuse to share it with me. It darkens and taints everything.”
He stared at her, his heart contracting with pain and contrition. Yet he didn’t know how to fix this.
How might he tell his young and yet innocent intended the horrors he’d known as a boy? Could he deal with it if afterward she saw him as less than a man? If pity—or worse—scorn replaced the love that shone in her eyes now?
No, what had been wounded at his core lay scarred over thoroughly all these years and must remain so. If he moved through life stiffly as a result of the scarring then that was his burden to bear. At least in bearing it he would still be a man, not a crawling, weak creature as life had once reduced him to. He’d promised himself that no one would ever know his shame and no one ever would.
“Nothing stands between us… Nothing that truly matters,” he said. “Now let us get some sleep.”
****
The pungent odor of ginger tea from the steaming cup was most disagreeable. Emily pretended to take a sip and then placed the exquisite china cup back in the saucer. She let her gaze flicker around Cornelia Hazelwood’s parlor. The women crowded about were all staring at her in the way one stares at any girl rumored to have met her benefactor in a disorderly tavern. With equal parts curiosity and disapproval.
A touch on her hand startled her. She turned and looked into sharp sky-blue eyes. Mrs. Hazelwood was standing at her side, her tiny, birdlike frame dressed in a robin’s egg blue muslin gown and her hair covered by a simple, lace-trimmed cap.
Nervous about what the woman might want, Emily smiled, trying to steady her trembling lips.
“Girl, take a walk with me in the garden,” Mrs. Hazelwood said.
People didn’t refuse the old dragon. Emily had enough social sense to know that. She stood and followed her outside. They walked along the roses.
“I understand that your project with Mr. Dalton is completed,” Mrs. Hazelwood said.
“Yes, it is,” Emily replied.
“Well, then, it is time you thought of other employment. I am in need of a companion. Someone to read to me in the evenings when my eyes are tired.”
Emily stared back at her dumbly for a moment. “I am an artist. I am currently taking instruction to improve my skills. I intend to find a new project.”
“Yes, certainly. But until you do, you will need another place to reside now that there is no possible excuse for you to continue living in the Dalton home.” Mrs. Hazelwood touched her hand. “You seem rather naïve. Gentlemen like Mr. Dalton often become confused by such naivety. They forget themselves. I would hate to see your youth and inexperience taken advantage of.”
Emily gaped at her. “I assure you, I have not been taken… advantage of.”
Mrs. Hazelwood smiled pleasantly and patted her hand. “Of course, of course. You must forgive an old lady for her worries…”
The older woman’s stare intensified. Emily became uneasy. Then it appeared that Mrs. Hazelwood was staring beyond her and she opened her mouth in an expression of shock. “Ah! Why, look at you, you wicked girl!”
A childish giggle sounded like music on the breeze. Emily turned and caught a glimpse o
f sunlight shining through silver gilt curls, a torn, muddy frock. Dirty bare feet with wiggling toes. Large, dancing sky blue eyes.
Elizabeth.
The child of Mrs. Hazelwood’s deceased servant. And Peter.
But no one ever spoke of it. Alex had made that clear. A flicker of discomfort twisted into Emily. She smiled at the girl.
But Elizabeth had already taken flight.
Mrs. Hazelwood shook her head. “Such a chilly day and no cloak, no shoes. Like a wild savage—she must have sneaked past the maids again! That child has the very devil in her.” She spoke as if to herself then turned back to Emily and regarded her for a moment. Her sharp, snapping gaze softened, appearing almost wistful. “Yes, gentlemen certainly can take advantage of girls from the lower sort. I aim to do what I can to prevent it from happening under my nose. You think about my offer. It will remain open. Promise me you’ll consider it.”
“Yes, of course,” Emily lied, to be polite. She shivered and hugged herself.
“Pardon me, I must go see to that wild girl of mine before she chills herself into a fever.” Mrs. Hazelwood hurried off, at a surprisingly brisk pace given her frail appearance.
****
In the carriage, on the way home from Cornelia’s house, the coffee and cakes soured in Alex’s stomach as he watched Emily.
She was so pale, holding her body so brittle, as if she might shatter if he touched her more than to take her hand to escort her.
“Come now, Emily, you are breaking my heart,” he said to her.
She turned stricken eyes to his. “I can’t marry you with this unspoken, unknown thing between us. Because I don’t k-know—” Her voice cracked and her eyes went shiny. “I don’t understand why you’d want to debase me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper on the last.
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