by Gayle Eden
“I wanted to rip that gown from you all day and do that.”
She understood that. Her want of him was like a constant burning in her blood. It was there with every breath and heartbeat. At dinner, or anytime their paths crossed, it was difficult to hide the hunger. It was a palpable thing between them. For Juliette, knowing the weekend was approaching and she would leave him—it was doubly intense.
He would go to London too, but to his own house. She assumed his season would be consumed with Lady Harrison. Whatever it was, she would not be a part of it. Though their whispers, their touches, the feel of their bodies, taste of their kisses in the dark, temporarily sated the ache, it did not assuage the core of the ache. That only grew larger and deeper.
The final day they had together started for Juliette by Jahi catching her after her morning ride to tell her he was leaving early for London—going up to get things in order, for Monty, who would be hiring a new secretary.
Reading that he knew full well what was going on in his eyes, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Jahi. I do love you. Please promise me you will not leave before we see each other again.”
“I promise.” He smiled crookedly. “I know you will never forget me.”
“Never.” She felt her eyes sting.
“I will stay until your birthday. And we will celebrate it together?”
“I’d love that.”
Later that evening, he was in the study with Monty so she and Henny packed the last of her trunks. Juliette was not shocked that Henny knew what was going on too and said nothing against it. The woman had known her all of her life, and Juliette remembered being brought home after wondering off, spying on normal people, at their normal lives, homes where people laughed and loved—where hers was so hollow, so grim and empty. She remembered Henny singing to her, trying to soothe her overset state, trying to make her feel, not so alone. Henny knew her. Her life had never been like others. There had always been an endless void in her aching for love.
Juliette took dinner on a tray, and then was walking in the back lawn later. The moon rode high. She had dressed in trousers and shirt, her boots. She went to the Gazebo.
Monty joined her later, striding across that dark lawn with his white shirt open and flapping on the gentle breeze—displaying his honed body. He was as beautiful tonight as he had been the moment her little girl eyes opened under that tree. Now, knowing him better, knowing him as her lover—his beauty magnified in her eyes.
He told her, “I’m not foxed but I’ve had one too many brandies.”
“What exactly is that state, then?” She grinned, sitting up on the railing at the back, watching him enter and discard his boots. “Too many brandies?”
He padded to her. “Hungry, famished, tense and eager—”
Her gaze went from his taut abs to his wide pectorals and then up to stare at his disheveled hair.
Knowing the risk, something they had openly talked of, he still husked, “I want inside you, tonight.”
A shiver went through her. Fire and adrenaline pumped through Juliette’s blood. Yes. Yes, it was what she craved from the moment he had touched her. Their pleasuring was wonderful, erotic, satisfying in many ways, but there was always that moment when he almost would, and she would urge him to, and they would stop. Tonight they would not stop.
Her hair was loose, the wind ruffling it gently and moonbeams slanting in to catch and light the strands. Easing off the rail, she lowered her boots to the floor. Walking over to the seating that ran around the inside of the structure, she sat and pulled off her boots, and then began unbuttoning the blouse.
Wolford was there before she finished. He whispered her name and tore the last one away. His hands were soon on her generous backside, lifting her, while he kissed her senseless. Breathing tight and harsh afterwards, they looked at each. Mutually they acknowledged again the intense desire and hunger between them.
He released her to unlatch her trousers. She shoved off his shirt.
Monty wanted her necked in the spill of moonlight. When he had her that way, he stepped back, looking at her, over her, tracing every line of her body, before he met her eyes again. Her effect on him was there, in that gaze.
She touched his hard sides when he came near again.
He peeled off his trousers while kissing her.
“Monty!” Juliette gasped, her hands buried in his hair.
He lifted her upwards, his mouth wrapping first one nipple then the other.
“Oh—God.”
He was—ravenous, hungry. Lowering her, kissing down her body, then going behind her and doing the same, moving her hair aside, and kissing her neck as he cupped her breast and tugged her nipples. She could feel a shudder work through him. Juliette felt his primal aggression, his needs, and they matched her own.
Trembling, afire for him, Juliette was surrounded by his height, his strength, the sleek hard muscle—drowning, melting into in his virile body and touches. His palms were molding, his mouth and tongue skimming and laving, his white teeth when they bit her throat. He bathed her, worshipped her with his hands and mouth, and made her feel him everywhere.
His breathing darker, Monty laid her on the cushioned seating. He bent her legs and spread them, before tasting her. Her hand in his cool hair, Juliette’s soft cries of pleasure were lost amid the now drifting fog. Raising his torso, Wolford kissed her mouth, his eyes flashing a masculine heat before his cock was at her entry.
Juliette sucked in a breath, her fingers digging into his arms, body amazed at the difference between a fully-grown man and young Peter suddenly. Teeth in her lip, eyes rolling back, the sound Juliette made in her throat when he fully entered her, was stunned at the fullness.
“Juliette.” He grit above her head, his body dewing and tense. “I heard you say you—weren’t a virgin.”
“I wasn’t...” She managed. “But you are a man—in um…form and strength.”
Monty pulled back and went in again. “Christ, Juliette. I cannot be tender this time. I cannot help myself.” Even in the fog over moonlight, her creamy body taking his inside had Wolford out of his head. The sight of them joined, the snug heat of her, it was all he could do to speak.
Juliette caressed his forearms. “No, no. It feels wonderful. It feels perfect. It feels right, like you belong inside of me. Oh—Monty.”
He muttered something, and then pulled back again, thrusting, once and twice, and when she arched up to him — his hips ground and thrust. Wolford rode her fully, sexually, erotically, to sound of both their groans of bliss and terse whispers.
Monty braced himself higher, and looked down at her body, urging her to hold her legs further apart, he arched his strokes short and fast—jolting her and feeling such exquisite pleasure as her sex stroked his.
Head slightly back, eyes feverish she moaned, “We knew this, did we not? We knew it would feel this intense, this good, this wild and burning. I cannot feel where I end and you begin. I cannot take more and yet I feel as if I shall never have enough.”
“Yes. Yes. I cannot get deeper and yet I would have you consume me in this pleasure. Juliette…I cannot hold back longer.”
“Don’t hold back.” She dug her nails into his flesh and hissed in pleasure, “Give it all to me. I want it all.”
He closed his eyes tightly, and rode her until he had to pull out— and spill his seed between the lips of her sex, distantly feeling her sooth his back as he gasped for breath and went under the exquisite tow.
Shaking all over from the hard release, his muscles jerking as they shed tension, Monty cleaned her with his shirt and lay with his back slightly raised against the seating. He pulled her between his legs. Eyes closed, he reached down rubbed her clit while he whispered huskily, sexily, the truth of what being inside her felt like, what the pleasure in his cock felt like, until she moaned climaxed.
They lay nearly a half hour; she cuddled in his arms, until the chill of night seeped in. Dressing hasty, Monty took her up to his chambers where using tepid water
, they bathed before he lay across his bed with her.
Juliette was bundled in one of his dressing gowns and he in fresh knee-length linen drawers. He was warm enough inside. Wolford’s gaze took in hers, her face still flushed and the sight of her slightly swollen lips reminding him of their taste, feel, the kisses they had exchanged. There were shadows too—he always hated to see in her eyes, too.
Her hair was damp in the front where she had washed her face. The curls against her creamy skin were truly appealing. Her body was magnificent. That fire, spirit, passion, that woman who let her head fall back, her body luxuriating in climax, whose eyes were lighter, cattish, when she was sexually hungry. Yes, she was there. However, so too, was another. He enjoyed the woman—enjoyed being an understatement, but the urge was always there to comfort the child.
Her foot found his muscled calf. She caressed him with it. Her lips curved a bit while her own eyes when over his face. He heard her say, “Take me again, Wolford. Be inside me again.”
He was helpless to that sensual plea. The woman in her was spirited, strong, passionate, and it called to everything in him. This time, he opened the dressing gown she wore, discarded his drawers and moved his big body over her with deliberate slowness. He kissed her longer, licking her lip, bathing it and biting it, holding it in his teeth. He touched her deeper, and when he was inside the contracting core of her sex, he rocked and stroked with exquisite slowness.
Monty almost hated himself for deliberately summoning the tears he saw form in her eyes. Almost—but not enough to stop his gentle and yet passionate possession of her. Her knees went higher on his sides, her neck arched. Juliette was nearly sobbing when he finally went hard and deeper, hard and deep, repeatedly. He pushed them both to the emotional brink.
The emotion in him came through clearly, until the sweetly rough ending. He drove into her and touched her face, her lips, stroking her legs and hearing her whispers—cries to please, please do not touch her that way—the mindless cries of someone lost but trying to hold on to control—of someone having their defenses completely broken down.
His own were shattered.
Though he spilled himself again outside her body, Monty gasped for air, the fire having kindled and exploded in him too. His frame shuddered. His arms were holding her tightly.
Wolford pretended sleep afterwards, feeling her tears wet the pillow they shared. He kept his arm around her yet knew better than to try to offer comfort. He felt in need of it himself. He would not want Juliette any way but willing. He was an older, wiser man and not for the first time did he tell himself that Juliette had more life to live. She deserved it. Wasn’t that what he had risked his relationship with his parents for? To preserve her freedom and give her back her spirit, her passion, to let her flower and fly.
* * * *
At dawn, Juliette arose from Monty’s bed and sought her own.
In a few hours, she was awakened, bathed, and then she and Henny headed off to Wimberley Court, and the next day to London. Despite the good company, constant laughter, talk, rather rowdy debates the siblings held, Juliette’s mind drifted over the surreal week with Monty.
It had been so intense, living for intimate moments; she was just now replaying his deep voice in her head. (You are beautiful, Juliette. your lips and tongue taste of heaven. I could feast on your breasts forever. Your skin is like fine silk, so sleek, so perfect.) Moreover, the sweetness that nearly killed her, that look in Wolford’s brown eyes when he said, (You look at me and I am undone. You have always had that power.) The final moments when his taking of her body felt like a taking of her soul, she had heard him utter hoarsely (I do not know which of us needs saving now, or which is more lost. God. I do not know how we will ever stay away from each other.)
Yes. How would she keep her word, unless she ran again? She could not. It was in his eyes that it was her choice. The physical being new between them, she was once more in the midst of chaotic emotions, her selfish needs and wants warring with even deeper layers now that they had been lovers.
Juliette looked around seeing the rich and fashionable gowns the women wore; hearing them laughing over some prank the younger girls had played on a dowager in the park last season. She would run to something. Somewhere, there had to be a place for her. Wolford—would do what he was born to do, with a woman worthy of him. He was a man of the world and knew his own better than anyone too. She was not his first lover and he would be able to separate it in his mind much quicker than she would. Nonetheless, the reality of how the duke felt, how the odds lay, had not changed. She should be good at getting on with life by now, and she had gotten what she had not expected to ever taste. She must be the mature woman she believed herself to be—about everything.
Chapter Four
In London.
Juliette attended Lady Wexler’s salon one night. The wealthy widow was one of the first people Lisette introduced her too in London. Her salons were eye opening. It did not matter if one came for an hour of stimulating conversation with a scientist or poet, or an evening of cards, a discreet meeting with a lover, or to indulge oneself. It was an oasis in the cold and dreary city.
The elaborate mansion catered to every hedonistic pleasure, true. However, it was also an escape from the formality of society functions. Its indoor fountains, solariums and chambers recreating some of the sumptuous places the widow had experienced in her world travels.
In one part there could be intellectuals and poets seated on loungers by her Ladyship’s exotic fish pond, in another, a Greek spa, with women being treated to a massage, with handsome young men playing music nearby—or serving them wine and fruits. There were grottos and airy places with exotic birds, and there were people dancing, laughing, and talking, some lovers whispering or snuggled on the velvet ornate seating. Scents mingled of perfumes, incense and flowers, some earthy, some light and cool, but it stimulated the senses as much as the visual did. Once she’d been introduced to the woman and become accustomed to the atmosphere, Juliette found it became a haven for herself too, a place without the restrictions and eagle eyes of high society, the stifling parlors and crowded ballrooms and oh-so dry gatherings most were expected to attend. Some things never changed, and Juliette certainly found her tolerance level for going through the motions had not expanded much.
“Juliette.”
“Jahi.” She smiled and went to greet him, admiring him in his linen trousers and loose tunic. His hair was tucked behind his ears, throwing his already handsome face into prominence. Anything flattered his dark looks, but the loose linen certainly displayed his honed body just as well as pantaloons. If not more. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Nor I you. I thought you were at the theater. Come and relax.” He led her over to the deep red circle of seating, padded and big as bed.
She laughed, kicking off her shoes, and dragging up the hem of her white and gold gown silk to join him.
“Wine?”
“Thank you, yes. I slipped away. Lisette was meeting someone. I had already seen the play. I vow, that new friend of mine is more daring than I ever dreamed of being. She is forever climbing out the windows at night or running off from some ball.”
She pulled the pens from her hair and sighed, then put them by her shoes, looking around as she shook out her curls and then sipped the wine. “Not that I blame her. It feels so very good to relax and enjoy oneself.”
The walls were a deep green silk and the paintings gracing them, lovely, erotic and some lush. She particularly loved the art, because the women in them were generous in size. There were palms in planters around, and brocade screens where others were gathered beyond them.
Jahi lay on his side and pat the space, so she lay the same, watching the flicker of light on the dark ceiling created by candles burning inside star shaped holders. Juliette turned her head at one point, to find him looking at her. His deep eyes were as sensual as his lips.
He murmured, “I want to kiss you.”
Juliette
finished the wine and set the glass down, then watched him do the same. It warmed her blood and relaxed her.
He raised and she lowered to lay further back, Jahi came down to meet her lips with a lush and wine flavored kiss. He kissed well. His tongue knew how to sensually taste her. They kissed for some time, before his leg was sliding between hers. He raised his head at some point so they could catch their breath. Dark eyes with lids at half-mast, Jahi touched her lips and kissed her softly again before sitting up fully and pouring them more wine. She drank more. They kissed more. Juliette enjoyed when her hands were under his tunic, and when he removed it. His body was superb, his dark skin, warm, against her palms. His muscle was long, lean and taut. Every now and then, he would lean up and whisper in her ear, something sensual, beautiful, and sexual.
Filled with sluggish hungers and heady from the wine, completely wrapped up in her body’s tingling and the euphoria of attraction, that was there naturally between them—leaning up on her elbow, Juliette smiled when he released a heavy breath and lay beside her on his back, his knee bent and his flat abdomen tense, his breathing hard.
“You make me drunker than the wine.” He laughed huskily.
“You’re a beautiful man,” she murmured honestly and ran her finger from his brow to his jaw, then down to play at his hard nipple.
“It’s your birthday.”
“I forgot it was my birthday,” she said honestly. Most days she tried to forget everything. It was the only way to survive.
He grunted and then sat up, regarding her for silent moments before confiding, “I’m leaving—England…in the morning.”
“I see.” Her gaze searched his face.
His smile was gentle. “Are you not going to ask about him?”
“What should I ask? I understand he has been seen everywhere with Lady Harrison. She is a beauty and well liked. I understand— the duke and duchess are coming up around the holidays and they’re all going back to Crawford.”
Jahi’s brow rose. “And you were going to make love with me.”
