Captivated

by Bertrice Small

  "I havethere is a sponge by the sink."

  The fingers made another gentle flutter before slowly easing out of her. She winced. With pain. With loss. Then she grabbed the bedcovers to keep from catapulting out of bed.

  He soundlessly maneuvered through the darkness. The pulsations inside her body counted the seconds he was gone, gently contracting, relaxing, contracting… Harsh liquor fumes intruded on the delicious ripples of anticipation.

  Abigail lifted herself up onto her elbows. "What are you doing?"

  "I had a flask of brandy in my jacket. A sponge is more effective if soaked in something, usually vinegar, though this will do. But it's going to burn a little. Lie back and lift your knees up."

  The mattress dipped, forcing her body downward. Something icy cold and wet brushed her most private parts. She instinctively closed her legs, but an arm was there, wedged between her knees, holding them wide.

  Danger.

  Desire.

  For a second, Abigail could not differentiate between the two.

  This man had killed.

  This man was about to take her virginity.

  She would never be the same after this.

  "Have you ever done this before, Robert?" She gulped calming air, feeling old, feeling gauche, feeling terribly, terribly frightened. "Put a sponge inside a woman?"

  "No. Does your fantasy man do this for you?"

  "Of course not. Women donot get pregnant by fan"

  The words caught in her throat as the sponge breached her opening. Then it was in and his fingers were gently prodding the unaccustomed fullness inside her and somewhere in the process the stinging discomfort blossomed into abject need.

  She stared at the dark silhouette that knelt between her knees and clung to the self-control that was fast slipping away. "Robert."

  "Abigail."

  "You said you rode out into the storm looking for a woman."

  The fingers prodding the sponge inside her stilled.

  "I find it hard to believe you would make such a journey without bringing along certain… necessities."

  "I have French letters." His voice in the darkness was flat again, emotionless, as if he had not just given her the most intimate pleasure a man can give a woman, as if he did not now have his fingers inside her.

  "Why did you say you had nothing to protect me with?"

  There was a harsh intake of air. "Because for once in my life I wanted to feel a woman's flesh wrapped around mine without benefit of a rubber galosh."

  Her heart fluttered inside her breast. "What would you have done if I had not possessed a sponge?"

  "Then I would have introduced you to a brandy douche."

  Abigail wincedthe brandyhad burned. "I think I would prefer the rubber galosh, Robert."

  "Shall I get one?"

  The stillness and the darkness were absolute. Outside, the storm itself seemed to wait for her answer.

  She was a substitute for another woman, a younger woman, the woman whom he had rode out into the storm to find. And yet…

  He wanted to feelher flesh…as she wanted to feel his, every vein, every pulse, everything that he was.

  For a second, she was overcome by the thought that perhaps he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  But of course that was impossible.

  The storm would end and this was all she would ever have andshe was going to take everything he could give her.

  "No. Will you come inside me now, please? I feelquite prepared, thank you."

  "Quite prepared isn't good enough." The dark voice throbbed. "I want you wide open. I want you so wet that when I thrust inside you, there won't be anything you can do to stop me. Starting now. When I pull my fingers out of youlike thissqueeze as hard as you can."

  There came a soft slurp as he slid from her body. Abigail squeezed, first to contain the long, calloused fingers, then to restrain them, there were too many, surely

  "Relax, Abigail. Three fingers, you had them beforethere, just the tipsnow bear down." Warm lips nibbled her knee, an unexpected caress, her body opened with a will of its own, swallowing the three fingers in their entirety, first knuckles, second knuckles. "The first time was to stretch your maidenhead, but this is to stretch you. Now squeeze again… relax, bear down. I'm your fantasy man, Abigail. Don't fight it, open up, I will be far larger than thisthere.Squeeze… relax. It's a rhythm, a dance. Let me open you up, Abigail, let me make you so wet I'll drown inside of you."

  It felt as ifshe was drowning, she was so wet, so stretched, squeezing as he instructed, opening for more.

  It was unbearably intimate, what men and women did together. Better than fantasy, better than literature. The burning, churning sensation inside her and the harsh rasp of Robert's voice drew Abigail out of her pristine Victorian world into the place of forbidden sensuality that she had always dreamed of.

  Throwing her head back, she let his fingers drive her, open her, become her, faster, harder, deeper, until she was gasping for air and

  "How does your fantasy man take your virginity, Abigail?"

  Robert's voice was a harsh intrusion. She dug her fingernails into the quilt to gain enough composure to speak. "He… He takes me while I lie on my back."

  "Do my fingers still hurt you?"

  "No." She lifted her hips to take him more deeply.

  "What do you want, Abigail?"

  Her response was one of mindless pleasure. "More!"

  Suddenly his fingers were gone and the pillow on either side of her head sank down while hard, hairy legs pushed wide her thighs and she could feel him between her legs where his fingers had been, huge as a stump and hot as a poker and pulsing with life.

  "Like this?" The voice above her was feral. "Is this how your fantasy man takes your virginity, Abigail? With his legs holding you open so he can get to you?"

  "Yes." Abigail clutched at his shoulders; they were slick with sweat. Muscles rippled underneath her palmsreal, not fantasy. Hungrily she smoothed her hands over his back, tested muscles that women did not have, sank her fingernails into those small, taut buttocksmemorizing him for all the empty months and years ahead. And all the while, that male part of him pulsed and throbbed against the feminine part of her and she was wide open and completely accessibleand things were progressing far too fast. "You feel very large, Robert," she gasped. "Are you? In comparison to other men, I mean."

  Moist breath fanned her cheeks, her lips. Callused fingertips soothed aside the tangled, damp hair that had escaped her bun they trembled against her skin, as if it was he who was about to lose his virginity and not her. Then his right hand slid down between their bodies. "You be the judge, Abigail."

  Without warning, his mouth swallowed her breath and his tongue was inside her andoh, he was plunging inside her down there, too, and yes, he was large, far, far larger than his three fingers and there was nothing she could do to stop him as he plowed through the open, liquid heat that he had made of her body. Deeper and deeper he slid, stretching her wider and wider until he could not possibly go any deeper or stretch her any wider but he did and she had never imagined anything like it.

  It felt as if he touched her soul.

  She tore her mouth away from his. "You said sex was dirty."

  "I lied."

  She arched her back, momentarily overwhelmed by the heavy weight of his body pressing down on her. "Robert"

  Instantly the hand between their bodies slid over and under her hip. He supported her there in the middle of her back where she arched. "Hmm?"

  Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. "Nothing. I just… I feel… sofull."

  Whisper-soft lips brushed her mouth. Again. And again. And again. "You are. Relax, Abigail. Hook your legs around my waist."

  Abigail tried. She really did. But every movement made him slide deeper and deeper and he was bigger than a fence rail inside her and

  "Robert, the limbs of a woman arenot made to"

  He nipped her lip. "Butyou are not just any woman, Abigail.
For the duration of the storm you aremy woman."

  Suddenly her legs were locked around his hips and they were no longer two bodies but one.

  "Stay open for me, Abigail."

  Abigail strove to catch her breath. "I do not believe I have a choice, Robert."

  She could feel a fleeting smile, there against her forehead; it was followed by a fleeting kiss, on the tip of her nose. "Then come for me."

  "But you have yet to fulfill your part of the bargain."

  That stillness again. "What is that?"

  "You have yet to make me beg and cry."

  Without warning, the body pinning her to the bed shifted. The thick shaft that filled her to capacity drew out and up, so that it sawed between her swollen nether lips. The angle stretched her unbearably as he slowly thrust back inside her, and again withdrew, thrust harder, withdrew, sawing back and forth, taunting and teasing the engorged bud at the top until suddenly

  Raw heat replaced all traces of discomfort.

  "Robert, please!" She dug her fingernails into his back.

  "Please what, Abigail? Tell me. Shall I do it harder? Faster?" Robert matched words with action. "Slower? Deeper?"

  Gritting her teeth in frustration, she churned her hips in a most unladylike manner. "No, no,do not slow down, harder, Robert, please, do it harder! Faster! Harder, Robert,harder!"

  The breath whooshed from her lungs as he plunged inside herhard, fast, deep; harder, faster, deeper, a fantasy more compelling than any she had ever imagined.

  "There! There!" She clawed at his slippery back and pumping buttocks to keep the necessary friction, the necessary speed, even as she wondered if she would ever be able to walk again. "Do not stop, Robert,please don't stop!"

  "Open wider, Abigail. Beg me some more, cry for it.Make me forget that I have killed, damn you. Give memore. Let me know you want more. Come for menownownow!"

  Rage. Pain. Desire.

  Abigail should have been frightenedshe could not tell if the man inside her was the colonel who commanded obedience or the lover who wanted forgetfulness or the soldier who killed out of duty. Nor did she think that Robert could tell who he was in that second. But suddenly the black rage of the storm split apart under the pistoning pressure and Abigail screamed Robert's name as he demonstrated that a man can indeed give a woman pleasure.

  Robert! carried through the night.

  Just as she fell back inside her body, he ground his pelvis into hers. As if to become a part of her. Or perhaps he was trying to bury his past inside her. Then a scalding jet of liquid spurted into her and a strangled cry erupted from Robert's throat.

  Her books mentioned a man's ejaculation; they failed utterly at describing the feel of it filling a woman's body.

  A fantasy man did not drip with sweat or fall bonelessly atop a woman's body in the aftermath of passion while his breath gusted inside her ear like a bellows and his satisfaction echoed in the wind.

  A fantasy man did not take away loneliness as well as give pleasure.

  Abigail rubbed her hands down his slippery spine. "Thank you, Robert."

  chapter 3

  Before Robert had joined the Army he had been Robbie; once in the Army he had been Coally. Private Coally; Corporal Coally; Sergeant Coally; Lieutenant Coally; Captain Coally;sir. After a lifetime of doing other people's killing he had become Colonel Coally. Outside of battle with the occasional whore or even during battle with the occasional camp follower, he had remained anonymous. No one save Abigail had ever used his christened name.

  No woman had ever screamed for him when reaching her pleasure.

  No woman had ever thanked him for fucking her.

  Small, firm breasts heaved against his chest. Tiny little contractions continued to ripple about his spent manhood.

  Abigail's pleasure.

  She was a ladythere was no doubting her accent or her mannerisms.

  She was a twenty-nine-year-old spinsterwho had willingly sacrificed her virginity.

  She had accepted his pain and his passion and given him the gift of her body.

  Without her he would not have survived the storm.

  And he knew, just as surely as he knew that he should get up and spend the rest of the night in the privy, that he would hold her to her promise. By the end of the storm there would be nothing that he did not know about her.

  Including the reason she lied about her genteel status and hid herself in an isolated cabin with nothing but erotic literature for companionship.

  Carefully levering himself onto his elbows to take the brunt of his weight off her, he pressed his mouth to her ear.

  A bittersweet surge of pleasure washed over him.

  It was such an innocent thinga woman's ear.

  He suddenly wanted to know that ear, to taste each nook and cranny, to make it a part of himself.

  He wanted to make Abigail a part of himself.

  Her ear was shell-shapeddeceptively cool and delicate on the outside, like Abigail herself. He mapped the interior, slowly thrust the tip of his tongue into the hot, narrow channel.

  The ripples in her vagina increased.

  Shifting his weight onto one elbow, he swept his right hand down the length of her side, then burrowed between her and the quilt to grasp a soft cheek. The motion pushed him deeper inside her. "Did I hurt you?"

  "A little." Her voice was husky in the night, the prickly formality mellowed by passion. "I think you hurt me more with your fingers than you did with the… other."

  "That's because I used my fingers to stretch your maidenhead." He found her lips, swollen lips, sensitive lips that instinctively softened against the pressure of his. Lips that only he had kissed.

  Gently he circled inside her, his tongue and his manhood.

  Then, "What does your fantasy man do after he takes your virginity?"

  "He… shares his body with me."

  Impossibly, Robert felt his manhood stirring to life. Deliberately he flexed inside her. "How does he share his body with you?"

  Her breath escaped in a small gasp. Short nails carved half-moons into his back. "He lets me touch him. And kiss him. And taste him. Everything you did to me."

  Whores had kissed Robert and whores had taken him into their mouths, all for money. No woman had ever expressed a desire to do so out of pure pleasure.

  Gently he disengaged his body from hers and rolled over onto his back.

  He wasn't prepared for a woman like Abigail. His fantasy woman took his passion and his body and gave him only her pleasure. She did not seek to know his body as he did hers.

  The mattress dipped. Cool fingers tentatively rested on his stomach, trailed up his chest. "Do men have feelings in their…" She lightly swept his chest in a searching motion, found him, and was instantly distracted. "You are smaller than I am."

  He stared up into the darkness. "I am a man."

  "But just as hard. When you touched my nipple, I felt it deep inside my womb. What does it feel like when I touch yours?"

  She ran the pad of her thumb over his nipple. Again. And again. And again.

  White fire shot straight to his groin. He grabbed her hand and held it flat against his chest, breathing in the scent of her body, of his body, of sex.

  And wondered why a woman like Abigail, a woman who was filled with clean, innocent passion would take into herself a man like him, a man who had killed and confessed he would kill again.

  "Does your fantasy woman suckle you, Robert?"

  "All I need, Abigail, is a woman to give herself to me." His voice was even, remote. "I don't fantasize about giving myself to a woman."

  "But you would?"

  Not before tonight, he thought bleakly.

  "Your fantasies, Abigail. Whatever you want."

  "Then I want to suckle you, Robert."

  Robert's chest swelled at the feel of her hot, wet mouth rooting through the coarse mat of his hair for his nipple. He was inexplicably overcome by a surge of vulnerability.

  Women gave their breast
s into the care of a man that he might nurture off her gentleness.

  Men who killed did not nurture.

  Men who killed had nothing to offer a lady.

  Closing his eyes, he curved his hands around her head.

  And realized that her hair was still caught up in the ugly bun that told the world she was a staid spinster, while inside her burned the same needs and wants that burned inside him, she caught up in a society that denied her womanhood, he caught up in a career that he had chosen when he was too young to know better.

  He found a hairpinpulled it out.

  The wet heat nuzzling his chest was abruptly replaced by cool air. A hand reached upgrabbed his that was searching for another pin.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Unveiling you."

  Without warning Abigail scrambled up, mattress dipping, bed creaking. She gasped with dismay.

  He opened his eyes, instantly alert, a soldier prepared for action.

  "What is it?" he asked sharply.

  "Nothing."

  He reached outfound her knee. She was kneeling on the bed.

  "Our bargain, Abigail." He tightened his grip. "Talk to me."

  "It is just…" He could see her, a dark silhouette, head thrown back toward the black ceiling. "Oh, for heaven's sake, it is nothing, really. When I sat up, something…you… came out of me."

  Robert's manhood leapt to full life.

  Sitting up, he followed the line of Abigail's knee, soft and slender, growing softer, softer… Their fingers met on her thigh.

  A cool, viscous fluid was smeared on it. Her fingertips rested on the outer parameters.

  "My sperm." His voice was flat in the darkness.

  "I know." Her voice sounded more like she was nine going on ten instead of twenty-nine going on thirty.

  "There's still some inside you." He linked his fingers between hers and guided their hands between her legs. "Feel. Me. And you."

  She gasped when he brought their joined fingers up to her hot, swollen lips.

  There was more of him. And her.