by Thea Devine
And nothing was what she had found after having gone through the rest of the house, she had no idea what her next step should be.
Ooww. There is an answer.
Emily was purring. Jancie hugged her tightly. Emily was always right. There was an answer to be found—she just hadn't looked in the right place. The upper bookcase shelves, for one, where no human hand had handled a book in years.
She set Emily down resignedly and pulled the ladder around to the far side of the room.
She was doing something. It felt good to do something.
But then, and she ought not discount this, she'd also made a decision—the absolutely correct decision—not to love Lujan. Although love was not a faucet, to be turned on and off at will.
But a woman could choose to set those feelings aside, and fall in love instead with the sex and the pleasure.
The startling thing to her was how easy it was. She'd had several days to come to grips with it, and she had concluded that, for her, there were no negatives, and that not loving Lujan would save her a lot of heartache in the end.
And she also found that she was feeling a certain urgency to couple with him again. As if she, too, could separate the desires of her body from the emotions in her heart and her mind.
Just like men did.
So that conceivably she could couple with any number of men, and still come back to Lujan with that same obsessive need and desire that he had brought to her after his week of London debauchery.
That was a liberating thought. It struck her that it meant she never had to be a hostage to needing love or the need to give love, ever again.
She didn't have to love Lujan, she just had to spread her legs for him, and be perfectly willing to service him and thereby pleasure herself.
******************
She was on the rolling ladder, propped up against the far bookcase, painstakingly examining every book on the uppermost shelf when she heard a crusty sound that could have been, "Ahhemmm."
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She nearly dropped the book; her hands started shaking and she felt heat suffuse her cheeks. Bingham did that to her. Made her feel less than the mistress of the house, made her feel like a dirty girl caught in a tuition girl's room.
But there was no reason she shouldn't be perusing the more inaccessible volumes in the library, no reason she shouldn't be curious about them or climb the steps to explore the upper shelves... no reason, except—
Never give away anything. Especially to a servant. So she hoped her tone was cool and dismissive. "Yes, Bingham?"
Bingham seemed even more paper-thin and disapproving from up above. "Mr. Lujan is asking for you, madam."
"Thank you." She waited, he didn't move. "Is there something else?"
He took a step. "No, madam."
"Thank you, Bingham."
He moved, reluctantly, out of the room, looking as if he wanted to say more.
Oooowww. That was a most emphatic wail. Emily did not like Bingham any more than she did. Jancie climbed slowly down the ladder, the random volume still in her hand, and set it on a nearby table in order to scoop up Emily.
Mrroow. Emily's body was stiff in her arms, her back arched. She didn't want to be held; she pushed off with her hind legs, jumped to the table, knocked the book onto the floor, which scattered a handful of photographs on the carpet, and disappeared under the sofa.
Photographs. Of a child. No more time to wonder who— Bingham could be watching. Jancie swooped down and gathered them up quickly . .. shoved them into the book. Looked around. Everything silent. No sound. Everyone off doing something else. She could examine the photographs here, but.. . what if someone walked in?
She tucked the book under her arm and walked casually to the staircase, driven by a certain cautious urgency.
Lujan was waiting . . .
Just get up the steps, and decide what to do after that. Simple, and not. Because she was intent on listening for Bingham's slow
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step, she didn't even see Kyger until she felt him grasp her free arm.
She almost jumped out of her skin. He turned her face-to-face with him, which meant he was standing three steps below her, and he was staring at her as if he could see into her innermost thoughts.
Thank God, he was so focused on her, he didn't even see the book tucked under her arm. How many more things could trip her up?
"Are you sure?"
She knew what he meant even if she didn't dignify it with a response. Lujan had called and she was going to him, and it was her choice, and Kyger knew it.
She didn't answer him; she pulled her arm away, clutched the book, and continued up the steps, aware of him watching her. Aware of his frustration with her.
She was Lujan's wife, committed to Lujan and the course she had set. And now, with the unexpected discovery of the photographs, it was more imperative than ever that she firmly establish her place at Waybury.
But what was most interesting to her was the wash of mounting desire as she climbed the steps.
This was something she hadn't expected so soon, that her decision to focus on the pleasure and the sex would trigger this shuddering excitement at Lujan's summons.
But the book with the photographs was the most important thing right now—she ran upstairs, intensely aware of Kyger's gaze, her excitement warring with her need to look at the photographs and put them someplace secure.
God—now what? Hide the book. Look at it tomorrow. Lujan was waiting.
No. Too curious. It would just take a minute to look at it, to hide it.
Olivia's room . . . she darted inside.
It was dark in there—still a shrine, still full of the sense of Olivia's presence. She pulled back the curtain, and sank into the chair that Olivia had always occupied when she used to read to her.
At least there was still some light. She examined the album,
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which had been made to look like a book with its rich blue binding and scrolled gold decoration.
Inside, there were five loose photographs, each of which showed a very small boy posed in five different scenes: dressed in a sailor suit; with a pony; with a much younger Hugo stiffly posed in the parlor; with two boys who had to be Lujan and Kyger, very young; and one with Olivia, so beautiful and serene.
Gaunt. Sweet baby, mischievous face.
Still intact in the hinges, there was a photograph of his christening; of his first birthday, as detailed in Olivia's perfect Spenserian script; his communion; and one more of the family stiffly posed all together.
Nothing more.
Gaunt. Four or five years old and mysteriously gone, only living on in this photographic memorial that had gone to dust in the uppermost shelves of the library where nobody could find him.
Closer to heaven?
They couldn't bear to bury him for real.
Olivia couldn't.
This was all anyone would ever know of Gaunt. By now, not even his brothers remembered him all that well, just the circumstances of his disappearance and the aftermath.
Jancie wondered if they knew of the existence of the album.
Maybe Olivia saved it and hid it up there when Hugo would have obliterated all traces of his missing son.
Or Hugo had, against the time when the wounds would not be so fresh, and Olivia might want to see all that was left of her last and youngest child.
Who could fathom the reasoning of the human heart?
Lujan was waiting.
What to do? This was something she never should have seen, never should have found- It was too personal, too hurtful to Olivia's memory to be prying into what was left of her missing, probably deceased, son.
But she couldn't stop examining the photographs, couldn't stop searching for the minutest detail that might give her a clue as to why this child had vanished off the face of the earth.
And what she had neglected to do, she thought suddenly with a twinge of terror, was arrange the shelf d
ownstairs so that the
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missing book was not obvious. And she would hide the album in here, give Olivia back her son, let her help find the answers.
She tucked the photographs carefully back into the hinges, and then looked around. There were so many places in this room she could just tuck a book and no one would be the wiser. No one ever came in here.
Not even Hugo, himself missing now for over a week, drowning his sorrows in the sin pots of London. A peculiar kind of mourning, one that hardly honored his wife, or even his honorable proposal to her.
But what did one expect? Like son, like father. And it took only something catastrophic to bring out the worst in him, and in Lujan.
Don't think about that; you've come to terms with what you need to do about Lujan, at least.
Where to hide the album?
Quickest, least likely place to be searched? Under the bed.
Dusk had fallen. The room was steeped in shadow. She didn't want to turn up the light, so she knelt at the foot of the bed, and slipped the album just under the footboard, where no one could see, no one would think to look.
I'll find some answers, she thought. For Olivia. For my father.
For Gaunt.
Lujan was waiting .. .
She knew what he was waiting for.
For myself.
******************
When a man was down, a woman would always step all over him.
Where was Jancie?
Lujan had prepared himself for her; he sat naked, propped up against the headboard, flexing his rigid shaft which grew tighter and harder the longer it took Jancie to come.
It had been too long since Jancie had come. The curtains were drawn, the fire banked, the lamps had been turned down to a sensual, flickering glow—and whatever it had been that had laid him low, it was well over, and he wanted Jancie. Now . . .
This was the last day he was going to stay in bed unless Jancie
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was naked with him. It was part of the strategy. Maybe the only part he had really thought out. Jancie, naked in bed with him forever. It sounded good. It sounded possible.
The grandfather clock in the lower hallway struck nine. She was taking too long. He'd sent Bingham an hour ago, more. Damn. Bedtime already, and his wife was nowhere to be found.
He yanked the bell cord. "BINGHAM!!!!"
A moment later, Bingham opened the door, oblivious to his nudity—or pretending to be. "Sir?"
"Miss Jancie."
"I told her, sir."
"Where is she, then, with my brother?"
"No, sir. Mr. Kyger has gone out."
"Where—is—Jancie?" Lujan asked painstakingly.
"I will find her and remind her," Bingham said carefully.
"Remind her???"
The door swung shut on his indignation.
Damn it all to hell. If Kyger had gone out, it was reasonable and possible Jancie had gone with him. Which meant she was gone for the evening. Gone forever?
Then what would he do?
His imagination was running riot. This was inconceivable that he was so besotted, so top over tail about Jancie.
Well, then, he wasn't. He was infatuated with her innocence, her beauty, her tight, hot cunt, her fresh, unused virgin's body, and her submissiveness in bed.
A man couldn't buy such a partner for a thousand pounds, even at the Bullhead. Couldn't purchase that kind of virgin flesh in the most exclusive catered sex clubs in London. Wouldn't be sitting here, in a sweat, wondering if she'd chosen someone else.
What a career she would have if she ever left him. But she wasn't going to leave, ever. That was what marriage was for—to bind that luscious, lubricious naked flesh to a man whenever he was fortunate enough to find it.
Where is she??
He felt ridiculous suddenly, sitting there naked like that and Jancie nowhere around.
. .. Jancie would be free .. .
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What?
The door opened slowly and she was there, her body clad in a diaphanous nightgown, limned by the soft hallway light.
Finally,
"I'm here—"
"So am I," he said, with a soft break in his voice that was just a small intimation of his excitement, but he wasn't sure he didn't want to inflict some punishment before pleasure because she had kept him tantalized and waiting.
He grasped his shaft. "I need you right here—right now . . ."
Fascinating to watch a naked man handle himself. She inched toward the bed, transfixed by the sight, her excitement escalating.
"Jancie—"
"I'm here ..." What could she say?
"I'm here ..." He flexed his penis. "Get over here."
Just the pleasure, just the sex . . . There was something different about him now—a shift—as if he were both master and supplicant. It suited him. It suited her. It made her even more eager for the pleasure to come.
She climbed onto the bed, and settled herself between his knees. Bent over his penis. Enclosed the head in her mouth. Heard his hard-suppressed groan. Squeezed the tip hard between her teeth and lips. Tasted a spurt of his come, and began the serious work of manipulating him to climax.
It came so soon. It took no time at all, as if he'd been poised on the brink for hours. A pull and tug, a suck and squeeze, a long, drawn-out groan of pure release, and he filled her mouth with buttermilk until it dribbled down her chin.
He reached for her mindlessly, for it, to rub the thick ejaculate into her bare skin. He tore off the thin nightgown and stripped it from her body.
"You will never again put anything between your naked body and me," he growled into her ear, bending over her, as she hung onto his bulging penis head with her lips and tongue. "I'm always naked for you, you will always be naked for me."
She made a guttural sound and pulled hard on his penis tip, hard, harder, grasping his shaft, pulling the last spurt of ejaculate from his shuddering body.
"Come ..."
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She made a sound that sounded like, "not letting go . . ."
He fell back against the pillows, watching her. No more ravishing sight than a naked woman hanging onto a man's penis with her mouth. Positively succulent. Utterly enslaving.
Made a man hard, thick, tight with voluptuous need.
Need her. Can't wait one minute longer to soak her with my cream . . .
"Jancie— "
She couldn't deny the note in his voice, the urgency of his hands as he grasped and pulled her mouth away from his penis.
"Mount my penis, now—"
He was so long, so thick, it took a little maneuvering to center herself over him at just the right angle for penetration. And then, inch by inch, with his hands on her hips guiding her, she slowly seated herself on his thrusting hardness until she enfolded him entirely and her mound pressed tight against the girdle of his hips.
Breathless, taking him this way. Face-to-face, where Lujan had never wanted to be, staring at the rapt expression on his face which must mirror her own. Feeling his hands cupping her breasts, flipping her nipples with one finger, knowing he had the total freedom to caress them however he wanted . . .
Just the pleasure . . . beyond words, beyond description . . .
She shifted her body as her nipples responded to his play and a tingling sensation coursed through her.
"God, I wish I had five hands," he muttered, moving those provoking hands to her hips again to ease her movement.
"What would you do with them?"
"You know."
"Tell me anyway." Now she was moving in a rhythm, tutored by his hands stroking her hips and thighs.
"One hand each for your breasts to finger your nipples, one hand each on your hips to feel you move, one hand deep between your legs, feeling you up there ..."
She bucked at the sensuous words.
"Just like that." Her breasts, bouncing in tandem to her move
ments, fascinated him. He caught one in his mouth, and ground her hips down more tightly on his shaft. Pulled at her tantalizingly hard, naked nipple. Licked it, covered it with saliva and pulled at it again, felt her body straining, shifting, undulating like
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a belly dancer trying to get away from the almost unbearable pleasure swirling inexorably downward between her legs.
Just like that, just like that... he wanted every inch of her, he couldn't put his hands enough places to feel her every movement—her grinding hips, her pumping thighs, into her crease, all over her lush, writhing buttocks, all the while they moved in tandem to his hard, tight, incremental thrusts.
She was coming. Coming. He felt it, felt her body seizing up, felt her careening toward her orgasm. Another thrust. Another pull of her nipple. She felt creamy in his hands, creamy between her legs.
Just like that, just like that.. . she sank down on his penis one last time and erupted, her body pumping, humping his penis, and pitching her into orgasmic oblivion.
He caught her as she fell, spewing into the eddies of pleasure that engulfed her, and drowning in his turn.
******************
He lay flat on his back, with Jancie faceup between his legs, her head on his chest, her thighs draped over his, his hands cupping her breasts gently, asexually.
It was a moment of pure repletion, almost too much pleasure. Or maybe not enough. He wasn't sure. He didn't want to define it, or analyze it. Except he did.
It was Jancie. From this angle, his head raised slightly because of the pile of pillows, he could admire the long, lean line of Jancie's naked body, and the seductive tuft of hair that curtained her secrets, that now was drenched with his cream.
Instantly he had the voluptuous desire to dip his fingers between her legs, to feel his cream co-mingled with hers. To stroke and feel those cunt lips that were so enveloping and snug around his shaft. To pull apart her secrets and know every inch of her inside and out.
He maneuvered himself upright against the headboard, and pulled her up higher against his chest, keeping her legs draped around his thighs.
So much better. This way, he could see everything, he could stroke her arms, play with her nipples, or slide his hands down between her legs.
