"Maybe that's why it's considered a panacea to fatigue," Daisy murmured, her smile warmly seductive.
"Perhaps," Etienne answered, pushing the prints and painting to the foot of the bed. "It's healthy certainly, with milk and honey, ground almonds and egg whites," he added, turning back to her, the tenor of his voice taking on a husky richness as he continued. "And we must keep you healthy." Both his hands brushed over the swelling rise of her breasts, slid around their flaring fullness where they touched her inner arms, and moved to the prominence of her nipples. He stroked the sensitive peaks gently, tugging them into flaunting stiffness, murmuring as he bent his head to take one into his mouth, "I'll accustom them to the coming baby." He sucked gently at first and then with more explicit pressure, first on one breast and then the other until Daisy collapsed on the pillows, her senses focused on the exquisite feel of his mouth, flagrant, palpable desire bombarding every nerve and pulsing receptor in her body.
"I want you," she whispered, conspicuous in her need, her fingers twined in the blackness of his hair, her back arching to raise her breasts to his touch, her eyes shut tight against the flaring pleasure.
He didn't answer, only nibbled and bit lightly and sucked the taut hard crests until she felt sensitized with a palpable torrid bliss from her flushed cheeks to the tingling bottoms of her feet.
And when he lifted his head at last, she couldn't move for a moment, the pressure of his raised head solid in her palms.
"Open your eyes," Etienne whispered, his hand sliding between her legs. And when she did languidly, letting her arms drop away, coming back with effort from the paradise of her senses, he added, "Look at this."
He placed a small wrapped package he took from the drawer of the nightstand on her stomach.
While she untied the orchid silk ribbon, the Duc's fingers drifted over the dark triangle of hair between her legs, glided downward over her dewy cleft.
"I can't concentrate when you do that," she breathed, stopping for a moment to absorb the delicious sensations.
"Here, I'll help," the Duc said, ignoring her admonition, opening the silver paper with his free hand. "Do you like them?"
Inside lay a dozen pairs of silk stockings in a rainbow of shades, in stripes and patterns or sheer luxurious hues, all sinfully delicate. "They're gorgeous." Touching them lightly, Daisy felt decadent just looking at them. She wore sheer white stockings normally or ones in a shade of taupe. These were stockings for seduction, for sultry rendezvous, for undressing before one's lover. With the tantalizing incitement of Etienne's fingers heating her brain, she was feeling as though she were meant to wear these vivid colors of wanton desire… forever.
"Put on the black ones—like Bonnard's nudes wear," Etienne said. "With the lilac garters."
"You'll have to move your hand." She spoke in a hushed voice, his directions and the sound of her voice separate somehow from the sensual intoxication centered between her legs.
He shook his head—minutely—his fingers sliding over her slick pouting lips, probing gently, penetrating slightly, then deeply.
She was melting away, she thought.
"Put them on," he urged, low and hushed.
She obeyed because he wanted her to, and she was obsessed with passion and desire and her need to please him. And herself.
When she drew up her knee and stretched down to ease the black stocking over her toes, his fingers slid in deeper, her position further opening her honeyed passage, and she had to catch her breath at the searing pleasure.
Since she seemed momentarily distracted, the Duc helped her slip the frilled lilac garter over her foot, aiding its slow ascent to the soft fullness of her thigh.
"I don't want to feel this slavish," Daisy whispered.
"Do you want me to stop?" His words were soft, polite, knowing.
She didn't answer at first, a tiny thread of obstinancy still operating beneath the flood of pleasure washing over her in heated waves.
"Do you?"
She shook her head because he'd begun sliding his fingers out and she wanted the feeling more than she wanted autonomy.
"Here's the other stocking then."
She thought she'd expire from intemperate ecstasy as she lifted her other leg to pull the stocking on. Could you faint from intensity this powerful? she wondered. And looked up into brilliant green smiling eyes.
"I'm going to make you wait for me," he whispered.
"You can't." How could he? How could he possibly control her arousal?
But he knew somehow exactly when to restrain his stroking fingers or move them more slowly or faster, deeper or less deep. He knew how to keep her suspended just short of climax.
And while one part of her brain was grateful for his virtuosity.
Another part hated the experience required to so finely tune that skill.
Short moments later her eyes opened wide because she was suddenly bereft of his sweet skill and like an addict craved more.
"It's the almond milk too," he softly said. "Don't blame me entirely," he added in a lush whisper.
"I'm insatiable." Daisy's voice was tremulous with discovery and need. "It is you," she said, recall of her weeks in Paris without almond milk vivid. The sheets beneath her were strikingly cool in contrast to the heat of her body, the temperature of the heated air so perfectly balanced she felt it like silk on her skin, even the sound of Etienne's voice seemed overtly three-dimensional.
He didn't disagree with her, he only said, "Feel this sensation." Placing both his hands around her breast, he exerted the smallest pressure so the soft flesh between his hands mounded in distinct display, so her nipple projected erect and flagrant.
It was different, she thought with a whimpering sigh, as though her breasts were swollen and quivering, objects of desire in themselves, autonomous, requiring satisfaction of their own.
"And feel this…" His palms drifted over the warm inner surface of her thighs from the terminus of the black silk stockings to the dew-wet sweetness he'd brought to pulsing flame.
She arched up into the feel of his heated hands, but he held her down, his palms burning into the flesh of her thighs like brands.
"Sensation's more vivid, the throbbing of your heart and racing blood noticeable, your nerve endings sensitized. Almonds are very nutritious," he added with a grin.
"How nice to know," she murmured, "As I expire from ecstasy." The tip of her tongue slowly, wetly traced the fullness of her lips.
"Do you want me to kiss you?"
"Among other things," she replied, her voice sultry with passion, a bewitching siren lying beneath his hands.
"I will if you open a few presents more."
"Must I?" She pouted, contrary and self-willed, but her luscious dark eyes were seducing him, like a concubine would, shameless in their power.
It took a great effort to refuse her eyes, but he knew what was in the boxes and she didn't. "You must," he firmly said, handing her two boxes, one small and one very large, both from Doucet.
Daisy recognized the couture house and knew what to expect, for their lingerie was resplendent, but the white lace corset she lifted from the silver tissue was constructed differently, the boning arranged to separate the breasts and cup them individually in the flower-petal scoops of lace. Holding it up to her, she smiled at him. "Would you like to see if it fits?"
He only smiled back, lounging at her side, his long lean body taking up a great length of space on the bed.
Her black-stockinged legs slid over the side of the bed. She cast him the flaunting look of an enchantress, and rising from the bed, walked, nude and long-legged, over to the cheval glass. Bending over slightly, she adjusted the fullness of her breasts into each of the half-shells of white lace, and standing upright again, tossed her long black hair over her shoulders. Holding the corset closed behind her back, she said with a teasing smile, "You know, of course, I'm going to need help with the lacing if I'm going to tantalize you with this erotic garment."
"At y
our service, ma'am," Etienne lazily drawled, his inflection perfect western Montana. And he rose from the bed to help her. The lacing was silver cord slipped through silver grommets, a contrast to the sheer white lace in terms of metallic ornament, as if the Industrial Revolution met decadent luxury. But the silver embellishment was elegant extravagance, too, for the silver was hand-crafted rather than machine made, each small eyelet engraved in decorative detail, the lacing woven by hand from fine silver thread.
"Tell me if the lacing's too tight," he said, pulling on the silver cords, the process forcing Daisy's full breasts high, the corset stays compressing her waist and accenting the flaring curves of her hips.
"It fits," Daisy murmured, casting a smile over her shoulder at him.
The Duc made a neat bow at the base.
"And Doucet doesn't have my measurements." The proportion from hip to breast was perfect, the lace cups designed to display the extravagance of her breasts.
"I've a good memory," the Duc said, cupping her jutting breasts in the palms of his hands and smiling at her in the mirror. "And Doucet understood my description." His fingers moved upward to tease the peaked crests of her nipples. "It's designed for pleasure." The lace fabric was so delicate, the corset wasn't meant for practical use. The half-shells supporting Daisy's breasts only lifted their mounded weight, baring them, offering them for pleasure, and the ribboned, flounced lace at the bottom of the corset was designed to accent the juncture between a woman's legs.
Daisy leaned back into his body, her head lying against his shoulder, and she watched herself in the mirror being petted and fondled, the black silk stockings on her slender legs and the white lace corset framing the bounteous femaleness of her anatomy. She felt in the utter bliss of her abandon as hot desire flared through her senses, like a fertility goddess from ages past, flaunting her nourishing breasts and fertile womb.
Like the Bonnard prints and Cassatt painting, she was a combination of passionate wanton and fecund female. And both personas only wanted the tall dark man pleasuring them to consummate their passion. Turning, she faced him, her mounded breasts warm on his chest, the lower half of her body enticing him with the gentle swaying rhythm of her hips.
"One more package," Etienne murmured.
And when Daisy moaned in opposition, he lifted her into his arms, walked the short distance to the bed, and sitting down with her in his lap, turned her so she was facing him. Raising her enough so she could straddle his thighs, he lowered her deftly onto his rampant erection. "Is that what you wanted?" he softly asked as Daisy clung to him, waiting for the dizzy waves of pleasure to reach manageable proportions. "Is that better?" And he thrust fractionally upwards at the same time he exerted a downward pressure on Daisy's hips with his hands.
"Don't go away," he said, his husky voice teasing, all Daisy's quivering senses tuned to the rigid hard length of him filling her, impaling her like an offering to erotic pleasure. The world retreated, only sensation mattered, only her throbbing need, the focus of the universe momentarily centered in the hot, pulsing sweetness between her thighs.
Reaching for the large Doucet box, the Duc tore the ribbons away, tossed aside the cover, and pulled out a sunshine-yellow diaphanous robe, as though he were unaware of Daisy's ravenous delirium. He put her arms into the lace-drenched sleeves, gently dressing her like a child, pulling the flowing gauze garment up on her shoulders in a whisper of scented silk. Layers of creme lace ornamented the yoke and voluminous sleeves, fell in ruffled splendor down the open front.
"Etienne, I'm dying…" Daisy's voice was a heated whisper, the tight corset seeming to accentuate the sensitivity of feeling in her breasts and in the melting hot center of her being. She could feel him as he moved gently inside her and began lifting herself to augment the sensual rhythm.
"Wait…" His hands stilled her hips.
"No." She fought the pressure of his hands.
"Just a minute more." His voice was calm, as though he wasn't stiff and hard inside her, as though she weren't flushed and panting across his thighs, as though he knew how much better it would be if she waited.
She couldn't move with his hands hard on her hips and she shut her eyes as the splendor of her arousal heated her body like the hot sun in August.
He moved his hands a pulsebeat later, slowly… waiting to see if she'd remain quiet, and when she did, he tied the frothy taffeta bow at her neck with a meticulous precision. The robe fell open around her, framing her white lace corset and upthrust breasts, sliding over the soft flesh of her thighs, over the Duc's bare legs and feet.
"Do you like it?" He lightly caressed her nipples as he asked, forcing her wider with a slow upward movement, his legs flexing beneath her as he lifted her weight.
Her yes was muffled by a throaty sob of pleasure.
"I'm glad," he murmured. "Would you like to climax now?" he whispered, lifting her so she glided up his erection, sliding her down again, setting a slow rhythm of withdrawal and penetration.
She was past speech at the moment, but he understood her sighing exhalation and her fingers lacing into the silk of his hair. He sucked on her nipples when she raised herself up so she lingered for long moments each time on her knees. And he held her on the downstroke keeping her impaled for measured seconds more until she trembled. And expired like a jeune fille in sobbing release.
The Duc stroked her hair and kissed her, his hands gentle, soothing, conscious her insatiable need might last for several hours more.
It was, he knew, partly circumstances. For a sensuous woman like Daisy, weeks of celibacy were an inducement to greedy pleasure. But the almond milk was often strangely aphrodiasic. He'd been surprised the first time Louis had given it to him for fatigue.
But other times he'd drunk it, the milk had only soothed. And he'd not done enough scientific sampling to know conclusively, his previous partners in amour never the recipients of his valet's concern.
"I love you," Daisy said in a dissolving whisper, her words muffled against his shoulder.
"And I love you," the Duc said, the words he'd spent half a lifetime avoiding simply uttered. His paradise on earth was represented, he mused, by one beautiful dark-haired woman who'd captured his heart. "I'll make you happy."
She raised her head and smiled. "You have already…" She felt at that moment so suffused by love she wanted rose-covered cottages and swarms of bouncing babies by this man she loved to distraction. She wanted a lifetime of his teasing smile and gentleness and his magical passion too. Would his captivating smile be reproduced in his child, or the distinctive obliqueness of his dark brows—would he mind a girl? Some men did. "Do you want a boy or a girl?" she asked, wishing she could please him.
"What do you want?" he queried, lifting her from him and laying her against the pillows.
"Both."
"That's easy then. You're bound to be pleased either way. And you can always have another later."
"I'm going to lock you away so you can't leave me and go back to Paris," Daisy softly said, lying in a froth of pale yellow silk. "So you can give me more children."
He lay beside her, untying the bow at her neck, and bending low, kissed the softness of her mouth. "Come back with me sometime and we'll make babies in Paris too. But I like Montana so far," he quickly added, cognizant of the sudden anxiety in her eyes.
"You haven't seen much, but thank you," Daisy replied with a grateful smile, knowing he was allaying her fears.
"You're here. That's enough. And Justin can learn some of the business so I'll be more available to be locked away for your pleasure."
"A fascinating concept. Would you do my bidding?"
He grinned. "Probably."
She remembered the wrecked harem bed and smiled back. "Probably not, you mean."
"I'm being diplomatic on our first night together in months. Newport doesn't count." His grin widened. "We didn't do much talking."
And they talked that night between the playfulness and love-making. They curled up on the
couch before the fire or lay on the large rumpled bed and discussed their future, their child, their hopes and dreams and the irrepressible wonder of their love. Both practical people at base, even cynical at times about the extent of goodness in the world, they agreed that the spirits or shamans or unknown gods had taken a benevolent hand in their meeting that night at Adelaide's.
"I didn't like you when I met you," Daisy said, lying on the solid strength of his muscled body, her face only inches from his, her warmth reminding him of childhood security—and his nanny's sunrises from the nursery window. He'd loved ancient chubby Rennie McLeod with the same unconditional delight.
"I didn't like you either," Etienne said, lounging with his arms under his head, his grin roguish, "but then I wasn't looking for a friend. In other ways, of course, I found you fascinating."
"We have your lust, then, to thank for our fateful meeting." Her teasing glance was close and coquettish.
"That's about it." He nodded in a brief small movement. "And the Baron Arras's broken leg on the polo field. Although Valentin's persistence should be added to the catalogue. I'd turned him down three times before I finally capitulated. I didn't dine out often in those days."
"Why?"
She stirred on him slightly, her soft voluptuous form distracting him momentarily. He wanted her again. Not again, he drolly thought… but always.
"Tell me," she prompted, wanting to know more of the man who had become her world.
She looked so innocent at times, like a young girl in the openness of her expression, in her artless curiosity. It made him more careful in his choice of words, as though the cynicism of his life before meeting her might sully that wide-eyed eagerness. Dining out was too tame for him in those days; he preferred more direct seduction without the hours of flirtatious conversation over twenty courses at table as prelude. Although Daisy had fascinated him enough to alter his longstanding prejudice against society dining.
"I had an excellent chef," he said, stating the truth and evading the pointed reasons, "my clubs had very good wine cellars and," he added in explanation, "dinner conversation bored me. It invariably centered on society gossip."
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