Pru’s smudged lids dropped in embarrassment. His cock had never seemed bigger. Pru had had that effect on him nearly from the beginning. He supposed his months of celibacy could be blamed, but he was damned anxious to bury himself in Pru’s tight, sweet passage. But not before she was prepared to receive him.
“Relax. Come lie with me.”
She settled back down in the crumpled linens, gripping the bottle. Darius gentled it away from her and poured a stream of the heady oil into the palm of his hand, setting the bottle down safely in the crook of her elbow. He covered his cock with the tingling liquid, stroking himself slowly to impossible stiffness. Pru watched as he pleasured himself, eyes wide. A cloud of fragrance invaded his senses—dark, spicy and decadent, just as Pru said. “Should I be touching you?”
The friction of his own practiced hand was bad enough—if she put hers on him now, he’d lose control. He shook his head. “No, love. But I want you to touch yourself. Coat your fingers and play.”
“I couldn’t!”
“If I can, you can.”
Pru lifted the bottle from the bed and dabbed a little on her fingertips.
“More, Pru.”
She frowned but followed his direction. Shutting her eyes, she lay back against the pillows and thrust her fingers into her curls.
Pru was already wet—he’d made her so, but she grimly poked at herself, feeling like a fool. Darius had brought her to climax with patient, well-placed strokes, but her own hand seemed clumsy and counterproductive. When she lifted her eyelashes a smidgeon, she found him staring at her center, his hand still working his rod. She closed her eyes again and bit a lip, trying to recreate his earlier rhythm, pushing away the awkwardness she felt to be so exposed.
Pru startled as a drop of oil fell on her belly, followed by Darius’s hand. He leaned over her, spreading the aromatic fluid from navel to crease. When he mounted her—if he mounted her—he’d likely slide right off.
She stopped rubbing. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Why should I do it when you are so much better at it?”
Darius chuckled. “It’s very erotic for me to watch you touch yourself, but you look like you’re puzzling over a difficult mathematics problem. I just thought you might be a little more delicate than I in lubricating yourself. Someday you may learn what your body needs.”
“What it needs is you!” she said in frustration. Why couldn’t he just stick his thing in as Charles had done?
No, not Charles. Charles had never kissed her and fondled her and made her crazy. Charles had never looked at her as Darius did right now, as though he was both amused and very, very amorous. As though he wanted to eat her up without a spoon.
“And so you shall have me, Pru. Hold yourself apart for me.”
That she could do. Another trickle of oil dripped over her nether lips, and then still more. Darius slid his fingers over and under her folds, teasing her opening. Pru supposed kissing her again down there was out of the question with all of the slippery liquid, and sighed. But soon she was making do very nicely with one of his fingers, then two buried deep inside her.
The oil made his touch feel entirely different. He skimmed and smoothed, continuing to drench her with the contents of the bottle—on her belly, on her thighs, even her buttocks. Warm, wicked, wonderful imprints raced across her skin. The knot of tension at the base of her spine loosened, and she was nearly in the flying state she’d been in when he’d kissed her breasts and pressed her bit of magical flesh into her pubic bone.
Her diamond. And she’d been wholly unaware of it before. In three days Darius Shaw had taught her more about her own body than any medical text.
He said one day she’d enjoy touching herself. She supposed she might, if it meant that Darius looked at her with the hunger she’d seen through her lashes. As though he loved every inch of her.
Not love. Lust. Desire. Need. They were enough tonight.
Darius withdrew his fingers so gradually she almost didn’t realize. He took one of her hands from her task and toyed with her fingers, oiling them as his were. Then he covered her hand with his and forced her to discover her swollen center, impelling her to circle under his expert pressure. Her hand was weightless, caught in Darius’s current, swirling and drawing her flesh to a hard peak. Pru was on the verge of her crisis, caused by her own hand as Darius’s fell away.
“You’ll want to keep your hand between us, love,” he said, his voice raspy. “My God but you’re beautiful.”
Pru couldn’t argue. She felt beautiful. Wanton, too. Her breath hitched. She was close. So close.
And then he was over her, his heavy cock poised at her entrance. She held herself open with one hand as the other continued its elliptical journey around her diamond. She knew there was another name for it, but diamond would do. Darius made her feel precious. Many-faceted. Sparkling. She was not plain old Pru, but a woman of the world, who touched herself with no inhibitions and waited for her lover to claim her.
He fisted himself and edged in, filling her with none of the discomfort or dismay she remembered. Pru watched him as he looked at their joining, dark hair to fair, her hand still busy. His face was a mask of pain.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill again?” she asked anxiously.
His rueful grin assured her. “No. Never better. Never better. You are so tight around me. It’s heaven. But I may not last long. You are a witch.”
Pru’s heart gave a little flip. Darius was a man who had known many women—not that he’d confided that inconvenient fact to her. But working for days with Malcolm had expanded Pru’s acquaintance with Darius Shaw’s past. She was no femme fatale, even if it had been fun dressing the part tonight. But she did seem to have an effect on him, even if it was spurred on by his illness. Lord knows, he had an effect on her. She was so distracted by his exquisite gliding in and out she almost forgot to touch herself.
It felt so good. Good was an entirely inadequate word. Her body was alive with electricity, from the tangled hair on her head to her toes. The toes that were curling as she felt a pull to her groin, a hot ripple across her breasts, her mouth drying. And then she was lost. Darius grabbed her shoulders and kissed her, flooded her, held her so close that her hand was crushed between them. Her diamond pulsated under her fingers, jumping like a live thing. Heat washed over her, the fragrant oil now absorbed in every pore. There was nothing in the universe but Darius, who was still kissing her as though she was the last woman in it.
When his lips left hers, he wasn’t finished. Her temple, her blackened eyelids, the bridge of her nose—all were feathered lightly with his kisses. He tumbled her over on top of him to ease his weight, and she lay drugged and breathless atop him.
“I am sorry,” he murmured, placing one last kiss into the corner of her mouth. “I forgot myself at the end. I should have withdrawn.” He paused, searching her face. “But I don’t think I could have. You really are a witch.”
Pru was perversely pleased, although the thought of a child should not make her feel quite so happy. But she had never conceived with Charles. Of course, they had only had sex less than seven times.
“Don’t worry. I am probably barren.”
He brushed a smudge from her cheek and his thumb came away sooty. She must look a fright. “You can’t know that.”
“I’m old, as you said.”
Darius snorted. “Not that old. But you’ll tell me if there are consequences, won’t you?”
Pru’s euphoria ceased as if it had never been. He was telling her good-bye as she lay on him like a slippery, stained rug.
She nodded, not that she had any intention of doing so. She had plenty of money and could see to a child on her own without tying herself to a man like Darius Shaw. She darted away from his hold. “I’m terribly tired, Darius. You should try to sleep as well.”
For a moment, she thought she saw a flash of disappointment, but then he arranged a bland smile on his face. “I suppose you’re wise not to want to sleep beside me.
Good night, Pru.”
She gathered up her bits of blue silk in a hopeless effort to cover herself as she ran up the stairs. Her experiment was over, and the day after tomorrow she would leave Jane Street and its temptations—most especially Darius Shaw—forever.
Chapter Eleven
Darius had dragged himself out of bed and was inspecting the furniture arrangement when Pru came downstairs, late. She’d had a difficult, near-sleepless night, reliving each kiss and stroke until she’d been compelled to touch herself again with surprisingly successful results. She had managed quite well without Darius—as he’d said the other night, once she got the hang of self-gratification, she’d never need a man again. It helped that she imagined him in her narrow bed, whispering his wicked nonsense. Charles had never spoken.
She wore one of her black dresses, as was fitting. The sapphire-blue slave girl had danced off the stage, and practical Pru was back.
“Why are you out of bed?” She couldn’t disguise the disapproval in her voice.
Chastened, Darius sat down abruptly on a spindly gold chair. The chairs, lined up like rigid soldiers, must have been delivered this morning. Darius was expecting quite a crowd—there was not an inch between the rows to spare. All of the treasures were set cheek-by-jowl on the dining table and makeshift display tables. Carmela’s naughty paintings were joined by Darius’s—he would sell whatever would bring him a profit from the Jane Street house. Let its next owner collect his own particular accessories to amour. An auctioneer’s podium, also rented, stood in the double doorway between the parlor and the dining room.
“Good morning, Pru. Are you all right?”
“Quite. Are you?”
“I’ve been better. But there are a few last-minute details to attend to.”
He made no mention of their night, gave her no lustful, warm looks. In fact, he appeared gray and tired. “I can help you.”
“No, you can’t. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’ve made arrangements to get you back to Bath today. I don’t want you here when my guests turn up.”
He really was done with her. She’d been stupid, thinking one night would change everything. No woman of mine. Pru guessed she didn’t belong to him any longer. She was back to being a woman like you.
She had too much pride to beg to stay. Let him fall flat on his face.
And then, before she could wish it so, he did. Darius slipped from the chair, knocking several over in his faint.
“Malcolm!” Pru screamed.
For once Malcolm moved like a youth half his age. He was in the parlor in seconds, clucking over his master like a nervous grandmother.
“I told him to stay upstairs, the young fool. Och, how are we going to manage tonight?” Malcolm loosened Darius’s tie and patted him gently on his white cheeks. “Out like a light. We’ll just have to postpone the auction. He has a list. Could you write notes before you go?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Pru said. Fairuza would come to the rescue.
* * *
In Pru’s opinion, the evening was progressing well. The parlor was packed—some gentlemen even spilled out into the hallway because there were too few chairs. Malcolm had set up a cashbox and wrapping station by the front door. Darius had been very clever. The auction was by invitation only, but it also cost the invitees a pretty penny to simply enter the Jane Street house to view the collectibles. They had milled around the two display rooms for a quarter of an hour perusing the objects, making ribald jokes. Pru was grateful she was veiled, in scarlet this time, so they wouldn’t see her blushes. She did not recognize anyone but discovered that perverts came in all ages, shapes, and sizes.
Pru had finally managed to settle the men down by shaking her bracelet-clad arms and banging on the gavel on the podium.
“Where’s Shaw?” someone shouted.
“My master, he is indisposed. Is I, Fairuza, his love-slave to do honors.”
“Honor me, love!” Raucous laughter followed. She tapped on the gavel to no effect.
“See here, gents,” yelled Malcolm from the hallway, “you quiet down and let Fairuza do her job or you’ll answer to me.” Malcolm had a fireplace poker between his hands and looked suitably ferocious.
Pru pointed to her left. “I begin with painting of vestal virgins and large red devil, Italian circa sixteenth century. See large titties. What bid?”
The room was dead silent. Pru touched the wicked necklace that matched her costume so beautifully. She stroked the diamond, larger than the one on her ring, circling slowly, then dipped her finger down into her cleavage. The tissue paper felt quite damp beneath her breasts.
“One hundred pounds!”
“Two!”
After more shouting, Pru made her first sale, squinting down at Darius’s list of reserve prices. The painting had gone for more than he’d estimated.
Her confidence soared, and she sold off a few more pieces. As she ticked the last off from her paper, a hush fell across the room. She looked up to find Darius striding down the aisle, white as a sheet and looking thunderous.
“Fairuza, you may go upstairs now and await me.”
Knowing chuckles followed his words. Pru thrust out her chin, although Darius could not see it beneath the scarlet silk. “I stay to help.”
“No. You will obey me.”
“I show treasures.”
“Let her stay, Shaw! We paid good money to see her treasures!” There was general consensus from the roar in the room.
Pru was now nose-to-nose with Darius. “You woke up, I see,” she whispered.
“Blast it, Pru,” he whispered back. “How could you put yourself at risk like this? You look like—a—a—”
“Love-slave?” she asked sweetly. “The auction is going very well. I’ve exceeded your reserve prices on six of the items. You may conduct the rest of the sale, but let me stay. If you fall ill again—”
“Fuck,” Darius said, most explicitly.
“Please. I truly think I can help you.” She twirled and jingled around and bowed deeply to the crowd, hoping her breasts would not spring forth from their scanty confinement.
“All right. But at the first sign of trouble, run, don’t walk upstairs. I will deal with you later.” He turned to his guests. “Good evening, gentlemen. Forgive my delay. I expect Fairuza has taken good care of you?”
“Not as good as she’s taken of you! You look half-dead, Shaw. She must be a tigress in bed.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Darius drawled. “Now then, Fairuza, make yourself useful. Fetch the silver chalice from Jerusalem. Now here’s the real Holy Grail, my friends. Or should I say Unholy?”
Pru had to admit Darius was skilled at disposing of his collection in record time. A few of the guests left early, happy with their purchases, but Darius kept promising a rarity that had never yet been seen on England’s shores as the final item up for bid. At last there was nothing left but a long painted papier-mâché box propped up against the wall that Pru had not noticed before.
“Here is the pièce-de-résistance, a one-of-a-kind object. Fairuza, lift the lid and show our guests this prize.”
She did. And swallowed hard. Inside the box was a doll. A naked doll, with enormous glass eyes. Pru’s eyes grew as huge as the doll’s. This was no antique, but an exquisitely hand-crafted stuffed velvet doll the size of a small woman, perfect in every detail from the lines on its fingers to the enormous cocoa-brown nipples on its enormous breasts—breasts that certainly defied gravity and nature’s laws. Its gleaming jet hair—real, she was sure—fell straight to the small of its back. Some poor girl had sacrificed a lifetime’s growth of her crowning glory. The doll’s eyes were made of almond-shaped blue glass, ringed in tiny black stitches meant to be kohl. Like hers right now, Pru reflected. Longer-than-was-ever-possible feathered eyelashes and arched eyebrows made the toy look perpetually surprised. Its plush embroidered red lips were held open in an O, and pink velvet lined an indentation large enough for an object
to be inserted.
Pru was pretty sure what that object might be.
Darius moved next to her as she froze before the thing and picked it up himself. Pru’s eyes swept downward, past a pert little bellybutton in a rounded stomach. The doll had no matching black hair at the apex of her thighs. Darius had said women in the East made themselves hairless there, and was even at this moment spreading the doll’s slender legs to point out one of its other available orifices, equally as pink as its mouth. An ankle bracelet of gold coins, the doll’s only “clothing,” jingled when he flipped it over and parted the arse cheeks. There was a great roar from the crowd, and the bidding started even before Pru could parade the doll up and down the aisle, not that she wanted to touch the obscene thing. This was somehow worse than everything else that had gone before it.
Pru felt light-headed. The doll stared back at her with sparking tip-tilted blue eyes. If this was all a man wanted out of life—a beautiful soulless, voiceless receptacle—Pru was doomed. She took it from Darius’s hands as if it were a dead rat.
Darius kept up his auctioneer’s patter, extolling the virtues and rarity of every hand-stitched bit of thread and fabric. It may not be old, but it was destined to be a classic, he said, a one-of-a-kind work of art. Sea glass eyes from the Mediterranean made of ancient Roman wine carafes, hair of a Chinese concubine, Egyptian velvet skin softer than a woman’s. Pru stifled a snort—velvet was damned difficult to care for. Excessive use and one was bound to flatten the pile and permanently wrinkle it. A few nights under a fat balding lord and the beauty of the doll would be history. Nevertheless, she held its mammoth breasts against her own inadequate-but-padded ones and glided down the row between the gaping men. Hands inevitably shot forward to touch the doll or her, she wasn’t quite sure—until she felt a deliberate pinch to her bottom. She stopped midstep and the doll jingled.
“Give us a closer look, love.”
Pru turned to the pincher, a cadaverous fellow who leered at her with no shame.
“But of course, sir,” Pru said in her fake accent. She thrust the doll’s left nipple into his right eye.
Lords of Passion Page 26
