After the Kiss

by Karen Ranney

  “Red is for later,” she said softly. Her finger traced a line down his turgid length, back up again. His hands unclenched and he rubbed his palms down his thighs.

  “Touch me,” he said. “With both hands.”

  Fire traveled through her, made her skin feel tight. Her nipples contracted, her body felt as if it would burst into flame.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Perhaps later. Think orange,” she said. She bent over, blew a warm breath on him, watched as his erection responded by seeming to grow larger, to reach for her lips. His hips arched as if he wished her to swallow him.

  “Orange. Red. Blue. Green,” he rasped. “What else?”

  “Patience,” she said, smiling.

  She stroked him softly with fingers that were growing more adept at the task. With each of his harsh breaths, Margaret felt more skilled, more competent.

  “A magnificent instrument of pleasure,” she murmured. “That is what one of the women in the Journals said.”

  Montraine muttered something, a curse, a moan she wasn’t sure which.

  The modiste had brought a selection of ribbons and laces. Margaret walked to the case, and withdrew a long blue ribbon, returned to his side. She knelt in front of him on the floor.

  He stood above her, aroused and heavy, his flesh hot. She reached out and slid one trembling finger up the length of his erection. “Why do clerics say that Eve tempted Adam?” she asked. “Adam was the one with more allure.”

  “The true meaning of the serpent?” he asked, his voice tight.

  Her smile broadened.

  “Perhaps Eve seduced him with words,” he said. “And colors,” he said.

  He bent and pulled her up by both arms. Her head tilted back. Their kiss was a melding of open mouths, entwined tongues and heat.

  “No,” he said harshly, a moment later. “It was Eve.”

  She looked up, met his glittering gaze. His cheeks were flushed, his smile thin.

  “Lie down on the floor,” she said, her breath tight, her blood thrumming through her body in a flush of heat. “Please.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, a silent stretch of seconds. She was surprised when he complied, so fierce was his look.

  He lay on the floor in front of her, a banquet for her lips, a feast for her senses. One arm was bent beneath his head, one leg slightly drawn up. A picture of indolent perfection. Except, of course, for his tumescence. Exquisitely large and almost throbbing.

  “Put your arms over your head,” she told him. “And cross your wrists.”

  One eyebrow rose. He smiled, a particularly rapacious expression and held out his wrists to be tied. Margaret only shook her head. She pressed his arms back into place over his head, then leaned down and began to lace the ribbon around him, the ends wound around each of his thighs and tied with a bow. Her fingers were exquisitely gentle, barely touching him. The ribbon’s placement pulled his erection upright, a magnificent phallus adorned in a spiral of blue.

  She glanced at his face. His eyes narrowed, but his hands remained crossed over his head.

  “The most experienced courtesans in the Journals had a challenge,” she said, slowly tracing the spiral of ribbon with one gentle finger. “It was only offered to the most talented of lovers.”

  He remained silent.

  “It’s called the Hundred Licks of Love,” she said. “Shall we test your stamina?”

  Her tongue traced around the ribbon, up and around the head of his erection. She circled it slowly, deliciously prolonging the pleasure. Finally, Margaret raised her head, looked at him. “That’s one.”

  Michael closed his eyes.

  A few minutes later, she pulled back. His hands had flattened against the floor, the muscles of his arms flexed. His eyes were still closed; there was a look of such fixed purpose on his face that he appeared almost pained.

  “A lover who thought himself skilled could master only ten licks,” she said, returning to her exquisite task. A moment later she spoke again. “A man learning to prolong his pleasure could achieve thirty. But only the greatest and most proficient lovers could achieve forty or more.”

  She counted out each lick as she finished. At twenty-eight, she heard him moan, then cut off the sound with ruthless restraint. At thirty-three his hips arched up from the floor. His feet pressed against the floor and he pushed himself against her lips. She admonished him with a particularly intense thirty-fourth lick.

  “Thirty-seven,” she said a moment later, speaking against his flesh, trailing her lips and tongue across him.

  “Margaret,” he warned gutturally.

  “Thirty-eight,” she murmured.

  He was so hot that it was like touching fire. Her fingers slid to the base of his erection, felt how tight his scrotal sac. The ribbon was damp now, straining against his hardness. It felt as if he’d grown longer and harder in the intervening moments.

  “Forty,” she said a few moments later, raising her head and congratulating him with a smile. The expression on his face was feral, unrestrained. This was not a man who spoke of restraint and planning and schedules.

  “You wanted to know what the meaning of red was,” she said at fifty licks. She trailed her hand from his thighs to his chest. His eyes opened, his narrowed gaze focused on her face. “It’s the color of ecstasy.”

  He lunged at her.

  Michael had the loathsome thought that he would spill his seed trying to pull off the damnable ribbon, he was that desperate for her. His fingers fumbled on the bows. Finally, it was off and he was free.

  There was nothing of skill in this urgency. All he could feel was the pounding need to be inside her. Desperate for her as if she was water for his thirst and food for his hunger. He rolled with her until she was beneath him. When he entered her she was slick and hot, so tight that he thought he saw white suns beneath his closed lids.

  Supporting himself on his forearms, he trailed the tips of his fingers through the hair at her temples. Margaret, he was pleased to see, looked nearly as stunned as he.

  Her inner walls rippled against him. An intimate imploration. A beckoning to a distant place, one far removed from this sunlit room. His body was eager and more than willing to follow. His will wanted to surrender in the face of this clawing wonder.

  “I can feel you tighten around me,” he said roughly. “As if you’re trembling inside.”

  His fingers traced over her mouth and she opened her lips. An artless invitation he could not deny. He bent forward and kissed her, inhaled her trembling sigh as he withdrew and then slowly entered her again. Finally, he broke off the kiss, his breath tight, his blood pounding.

  He rose up, pulled slowly out of her. An excruciating pleasure. She made a choked sound of protest that he answered by entering her again.

  The sensuality of it, the ecstasy of the moment, was almost too much.

  Please, please, please. A mindless petition. He didn’t know to whom he pleaded, or for what. An end to this? It was too acute, almost too much sensation. Please. A breath escaped him and he stilled, captured on the spike of sanity. A moment. A moment, that’s all he wanted.

  Desire had an edge to it. The need became waves, undulating currents that swept through every part of him. He wanted this, needed this. Wanted her. More, he needed her.

  His fingers gripped her hips tightly and he counted out a cipher in his mind. Something to soothe him, calm him. Prolong this exquisite moment.

  He forced himself to still, bent his head and breathed harshly against her neck until he gained some command over his body.

  He heard himself murmur against her skin. Idiocies and foolishness. He was being catapulted someplace he had never been before. A world of mindless darkness and pleasure so acute he held his breath.

  He began to breathe rhythmically, slowly. The kind of breathing she’d read about in the Journals. Words emerged from between his lips. No, numbers that he exhaled against her ear. “17, 35, 14, 49, 12, 57, 6, 97.”

  “What are you sa
ying?”

  “I’m reciting cipher patterns. Do not, I beg you, ask me why,” he said tersely.

  The surge of tenderness she felt startled her. It was so powerful that it was almost painful.

  She placed her palm against his face, turned so that she could kiss him. Her internal muscles clenched against him. A sharp feeling so sweet that it was almost pain surged through her.

  He moved suddenly, no longer calm and restrained. His face was fierce, almost pained. He began driving into her again and again. Finally, she uttered a soft, helpless moan as she felt her body arch instinctively, her arms flung out as if to hold onto the sky. The sensation captured her and made her a prisoner, blinded her.

  So intense was the feeling that it was an eternity of exquisite pleasure. She was insensate, reeling from the blackness, lost in it. Captivated by him.

  Michael Hawthorne, Earl of Montraine, holder of properties and three estates, Code Master, rewarded with honors by the Crown for his contributions to his country, lay on the floor and felt an almost sotted wonder.

  His toes curled in absolute bliss. Dear God, he felt good. He turned his head and watched her. He wanted to kiss her lips off her face, and hold her so tight that there was no clear definition between where he left off and she began.

  A warning bell sounded in his mind.

  He was a descendant of a long and proud line. An earl. A man of some reputation. He had an obligation to his family to marry, and soon, an heiress who would provide for the financial stability of his earldom. He couldn’t keep doing this.

  He was being driven mad by lust.

  In addition, he was becoming very familiar with the ceiling of the morning room. Perhaps he should have it painted, at least, like the library. Some vista upon which to concentrate when he lay here, exhausted, sated, and incapable of moving.

  “I have a perfectly good bed upstairs,” he muttered, disgusted.

  He turned his head, glanced at her. Her eyes were closed, her arms flung above her head. Her soft smile transfixed him.

  The knock on the door was a shattering jolt back to reality. “My lord?” Smytheton’s voice. “The modiste wonders if you are ready for her now.”

  Margaret sat up quickly, staring in horror at the door. Michael instantly began to formulate a way out of this situation. Unfortunately, his mind refused to obey. Instead, it was a numb, gray fog.

  Anyone entering this room would immediately comprehend exactly what they had been doing. The fact that he had forgotten the place, the circumstance, and everything other than Margaret was one more peal of the warning bell in his mind.

  “There’s nothing else for it,” he said, the truth raw and inescapable. “We’re going to have to brazen it out, I’m afraid.”

  A few moments later, dressed, he opened the door. Margaret stood beside him, her garments similarly restored. He smiled at the modiste and nodded at his butler. It seemed to him that Smytheton scowled even more furiously, and the modiste appeared more than scandalized. Affronted, perhaps.

  “You’ll have to use the measurements you have, madam,” he said, his voice curt. He left the room with Margaret at his side. Once in the foyer, he turned and beckoned Smytheton to him. A quick instruction, and the butler nodded, returned to the modiste.

  “What did you tell him?” Margaret asked, after they had sought sanctuary in his library.

  “I paid her for the ribbon,” he said, grinning at her.

  They had, no doubt, provided enough fodder for the rumor mills of society for months to come. He should have been irritated by his own behavior. Or cautious about his apparent lack of control when it came to Margaret.

  Instead, he began to laugh.

  Chapter 18

  The journey to ecstasy is one that

  begins with a thought.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  "Peterson says he cannot spare the cook, your lordship,” Molly said, bobbing a curtsy.

  “He did, did he?” Michael frowned at the young maid. His irritation, however, was not addressed at her, but at his mother’s butler.

  “The countess is entertaining, your lordship, and he says that he can’t spare him. He says that since Smytheton thinks he can do everything in a household, there’s no need for him to borrow the cook.”

  He raised an eyebrow and frowned at her. She bobbed another curtsy.

  Evidently Peterson hadn’t understood. Between Molly and Smytheton, they did quite well normally, but Michael wanted tomorrow night’s dinner to be something special. The fact that Peterson was acting peckish annoyed him, especially since he employed the man.

  “You will have to return, Molly,” he said. He finished the note he was writing and handed it to her. It was a tersely worded suggestion that Peterson find some way to accede to the request, that it had come from him, not Smytheton.

  She bobbed yet another curtsy and left the room.

  Entertaining again?

  His mother saw nothing wrong with going through her entire quarter’s allowance in a month and then expecting him to be responsible for her subsequent bills.

  Wedding an heiress was becoming imperative. A leisurely courtship would not suffice. He needed an influx of capital now. Knowledge gleaned after he had gone through this month’s expenditures. Shoes, hats, gowns, flowers, a host of odds and ends purchased in order to impress or flatter.

  If he didn’t wed soon, there would be no money to pay all these bills.

  But the thought of being sacrificed upon the matrimonial altar, while once acceptable, now seemed particularly repugnant.

  He couldn’t, for example, conceive of being as abandoned with a wife as he had been with Margaret two days ago. Jane Hestly floated through his mind. She had pale blond hair and rather pinched-looking features, thin lips, and cheeks that sagged like premature jowls. He doubted if she would care to know anything about the Journals of Augustin X. Nor could he imagine her wanting to wind a blue ribbon around him.

  Margaret delighted him, and amused him, intrigued him, and incited his curiosity. More, he became someone he particularly liked in her company, as if she brought out his better nature. True, that man was unrestrained and decidedly irrational, but he’d never before felt so alive.

  There were some women destined to remain in a man’s mind forever. He had the somewhat unsettling thought that Margaret was one of them.

  But he couldn’t marry Margaret. He scowled down at the bills in front of him. For the first time, he was angry about his fate. Trussed up and delivered to the bride wealthy enough to purchase his title and his family lineage. A damnable future, one that stretched out almost interminably before him.

  London life had acquainted Margaret with noise, an almost endless variety of sounds. As if the world visited the City and finding it to be delightful, remained there. But here, in Michael’s house, it was almost as if she were in the country again, it was remarkably quiet. In the morning room it seemed doubly so. Her only companion was the faint whir and click of the mantel clock.

  The knock came only seconds before Michael opened the door.

  “I am so glad it’s you,” she said, looking up. “I had thought for a moment that it might be that dreadful modiste.”

  “Cannot bear to be measured again?” he asked, smiling and entering the room. Today he was dressed in black trousers and a pristine white shirt, neither of which looked the worse for wear, despite the unseasonably warm day. But then, he always looked perfect.

  “I don’t think I can ever look at the woman again,” she admitted.

  They shared a conspiratorial smile. It had been a difficult moment, but they had weathered it. The only result was that Smytheton had been even more formal ever since.

  “She no doubt feels the same way about us.”

  Margaret shook her head. “There is a rule in commerce that personal feelings do not matter. The fact that you may not like a customer is not important. You must still sell to him.”

  “A odd parallel to society,” he said. “Many
times you may not wish to converse with an individual, but are compelled to by good manners.”

  She smiled. “What, then, is the comparison when there is but one book and two customers wishing to purchase it?” she asked.

  “That’s easy,” he said, smiling. “One dance, two partners.”

  “Not enough money to pay for a purchase?” She entered into their game with a smile.

  “A suitor who does not come up to snuff. There is nothing to do but put the goods back on the shelf.” His smile broadened.

  “A book that has not yet arrived, and a customer who is anxious?”

  “You really must give me a more difficult challenge,” he chided. “A spinster waiting for a suitor. Regrettably, her eagerness is wasted.”

  She thought for a moment. “An author whose book does not sell?” she asked, smiling.

  He smiled. “An anxious mama with one season wasted and a daughter still to be wed.”

  “I give up,” she said, laughing.

  “Whatever her personal feelings,” he said, still smiling, “the modiste has sent one of your dresses,” he said.

  “One? There is more than one?” She shook her head at him.

  “I confess,” he said, not looking at all repentant. “I ordered a few.”

  He studiously ignored her look. Instead, he strode to the settee and bent over to kiss her lightly. “I was feeling very generous,” he said huskily.

  Heat traveled through her body at memories of that day. She had never done something so wanton. So thoroughly brazen. Her own wickedness had surprised her, almost as much as the stunning enjoyment of their loving.

  “What are you reading?” he asked, glancing at the book in her hands.

  “Something entitled Biographia Literaria by Samuel Coleridge. He calls himself a poet but styles himself a critic. But I think him rather impressed with the sound of his own words, more than with their meaning.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  She opened the book, and glanced up at him. “Listen to this. ‘Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need reforming.’ That is only chapter one. He does go on. ‘No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.’ I do think he is talking about himself.”