Ridley came up from behind. Reaching around her, he set each large hand beside hers against the wall she faced, his heat pulsing into every inch of her skin as he pressed his fully clothed muscled body into her nude backside.
His nearness was overwhelming.
The room swayed and she with it.
He didn’t move.
Only his regimented breaths in her hair made her aware he really was there. He stayed behind her as if trying to make her aware that even without touching her she was his.
A shiver of desperate need flooded her with a wetness that she could feel dewing between her thighs. “At this pace, you won’t be there at eleven, either,” she choked out, her mind leaving her. The base of her throat throbbed along with her exposed skin as she waited for his response.
His large thumb traced one of her fingers still pressed against the wall. “Don’t talk.”
She inhaled sharply at the contact as if he’d penetrated her to the bone.
His finger traced and tingled her one finger, his calloused touch rough. “Don’t move.”
She breathed lightly, roused by his words and his nearness.
He set his lips against her hair nudging it, while keeping her contained to the wall. “What happens to you now? Do you know?” His mellow baritone was edged with control. His one hand left the wall, skimming her arm and shoulder, as his forefinger now traced down, down the back of her spine.
She almost stumbled into the wall.
“I said don’t move,” he bit out into her ear.
His hand struck her derriere hard, startling her into gasping against the sting.
She quaked, her breaths almost puffing out, half expecting to be struck again.
“That is for attempting to seduce me. Do you think your body means more to me than your fucking life?” His hand struck her derriere hard again, startling her into gasping again. “Do you?”
They hadn’t even gotten to the penetration.
A part of her was frightened out of her unhinged mind.
His hand rubbed her derriere hard, digging his fingers into it and making her writhe as she stumbled to stay upright against the wall.
“Is pain your game? Is that it?” he asked hotly into her ear from behind, his hands unbuttoning his trousers and shoving down the flap. “Do you want it to be?”
She closed her eyes in riled yearning, her breaths audible and shaky. She tried to hold up equally quaking limbs, chanting to herself not to slide before he even got to her.
The velvet tip of his rigid cock traced and dragged across the area of the skin on her bum he had earlier struck.
She swallowed.
He lingered close behind her again, the open flap of his trousers grazing her rear and taunting her with its heat. “Don’t move.” He dipped his head toward her bare shoulder, letting the tip of his tongue slide across her skin and entire shoulder.
Her nails scraped the wall as she swayed.
Positioning himself behind her, he gently gripped her nub, holding it between his fingers. He flicked.
Her body rattled against the core jarring sensations. She gasped.
Leaning more heavily into her, he dug his head into the curve of her arm and fingered her hard without letting her breathe past each rising wave.
With legs quaking, she dug her nails hard into wall, writhing.
He slowly wedged his large finger into her wetness. “Breathe.” He pressed his finger deep into her, thrusting it hard up to the hilt.
She choked against the sharp pinch.
He eased the depth of his hold and pumped her wetness gently, circling and dipping, as if simulating his cock. He introduced another finger and pumped, and another, working and working it in, angling against her nub so she could feel it.
She gasped, spurts of coiling pleasure rattling her.
Quaking breaths escaped her knowing three of his fingers were inside of her.
He removed them, sliding his well moistened fingers toward the crack of her rear and sucked her throat from behind. Tilting his hips into her, he now used his other hand to grab his exposed cock, tracing its thick, stiff velvet length up against her backside.
She instinctively pushed back against that length.
He tapped it twice against her rear as if to announce he understood her need, but shifted his hips away so that his cock was outside of reach. His hands now curved upward and toward her front, grazing her breasts. Circling her nipples. His two hands veered downward between the wetness of her thighs again and its heat that pulsed in need.
“Remember this,” he rasped. His fingers spread her folds with one hand as his other hand, dipped his finger against her moisture and then rubbed her nub again and again. First slow, then intent, then faster, then frantically.
A tremor overtook her body that seized her breath. It was a tremor she knew that was going to make her yell far too soon, far too quickly and without any control on her part. He wasn’t stopping. His fingers flicked her nub so fast, she was choking for air.
The pulsing knot within rose as she cried out against the waves assaulting her body, too strong for her to fight. She staggered, hands sliding against the wall as her closely nearing peak shook her limbs.
He flexed, his body tensing as he frigged her relentlessly. “What do you want? Say it.”
“You,” she gasped. Moaning in a desperate effort to remain upright against the sensations, she tossed back her head to ready herself for the swelling roar of release.
She staggered.
He caught her, his muscled arm jumping beneath her to keep her from falling. He removed his fingers and dug his teeth into her. Hard. Harder. Too hard!
She flinched, the pinch reminding her that he hadn’t even mounted her.
He slowly released his pinching hold of her skin. “No.”
Raising her upright, he molded her against the mass of his still clothed body, and dragged his hands down her throat and to her breasts whose nipples he grazed before cupping them both his digging fingers. “I’m denying you for not respecting me,” he whispered, his lips buried into her hair. “I’m denying you for erasing my peace. Do you understand?”
She swallowed, his muscled body holding her tighter.
He kissed her head hard and released her. Buttoning his trousers, he towered behind her for a lingering moment. “Good night, my love.”
With that, he turned away and stalk-limped through the moonlit darkness of her room. Opening the door that separated their rooms, he stepped past it and slammed it, leaving her alone in the darkness.
A click resounded, announcing he had even bolted the door between them.
In between heaving, disbelieving breaths that he had denied them both, she slid onto her side on the floor like jelly being shaken from a spoon.
Her face blazed from the heat of knowing his fingers had been inside of her.
She heard his heavy steps cross his room.
Jemdanee sat up, nude, and edging forward, turned her hot cheek against the coolness of the wall and knowing he could hear her, said, “A part of me knew you were going to do that.”
He paused and said through the wall in a low tone, “I’ll breathe better knowing I didn’t hurt you.” Something hit the wall hard followed by a crash against the nearest wall, shattering and sending a tremor through the floor.
She stilled, knowing it had to do with his limp. “Ridley?”
“I’m drunk.”
An exasperated breath escaped her lips. She awkwardly crawled across the marble floor naked to her robe and with quaking limbs barely managed to tug it on.
“Bonne nuit,” he rasped. “I have to be out of the stables by seven to…oversee file cases for the Field Marshal. I’ll see you at eleven.”
She stood, after stumbling. “Good-night, Ridley.”
He said nothing.
Blinking rapidly, she resorted to the one thing she thought she never would.
In the light of the moon that peered in through the open shutters, she dug t
hrough the banyan box that held the amulet Kalpita had given her.
Jemdanee dragged out the peacock bone dipped in gold, wound it around her wrist and secured the leather string to ensure it stayed in place. She kissed it knowing Ridley needed the magic her gods were known for. If he thought he knew the true meaning of passion, she was about to redefine it for him in a way no woman had ever dared.
I protect thee from harm by becoming the very bone lodged in your sternum.
For this was now a war to protect his life and she was waging it.
* * *
Well before the sun rose, Jemdanee dressed, chalked her teeth and braided her hair tight. Gathering Chunmun into her arms, she quietly left Spence’s and crossed the dirt road past the gates to the Government House where she had left a key hidden in a nearby pot to permit access.
She used it and entered the back servant corridors, veering into the massive kitchens to do something she hadn’t done in a long time.
Not since her days with maa.
Chunmun darted out and toward the direction of the gardens, as he always did.
She, on the other hand, made sour black bread.
Slapping and kneading dough on the stone slab, she eventually tossed the prepared dough onto the fire and thought of nothing but Ridley and the sort of father he would make.
He would offer that child the world.
Knowing time was fleeting, she gathered several more items from the kitchen, including the bread she had freshly made, and slipped the key back beneath the pot, then turned toward the vast gardens. “Chunmun!”
He darted toward her and climbed up her sari, making her smile. She cradled his head and murmured, “We have to ensure he knows he is loved.”
Chunmun perked at the wrapped bread and mangoes she carried.
“This is not for you.” She smoothed his head and crossed through the gates with him, back toward Spence’s as the quiet of the morning settled.
Veering into the stables, Chunmun hopped off her shoulder and disappeared into a stack of hay.
She watched through the hinged door as the sun started to smear the vast copper sky with color and light beyond the tamarind trees.
The muggy heat of the day was already ebbing in with the warmth of the breeze.
Seating herself on a crate with her gathered items, she waited by Ridley’s stallion.
She eventually rose.
Readying his saddle, she tucked the sour black bread she had made into his leather satchel, along with a few mangoes and a flask of water.
The quaking in her limbs and the feel of his hands and his lips in her hair and on her body surrounded her. It was bittersweet, for she knew it had only resulted in her pleasure but his pain.
A pain she swore to erase.
Hearing heavy steps approaching beyond the stables, she tapped her forehead and lips in a quick chant to the gods asking for strength.
With the whirl of a dagger he sheathed into the leather belt fastened around his waist, Ridley hefted his weight onto the cane and stalked into the shade of the mud-walled stable. Tucking a ledger beneath his arm, he adjusted the stiff sleeves of a uniform with the flexing bulge of his biceps.
Her mouth went dry, knowing she hadn’t even seen any of him or that muscle or nudity last night. It had been dark and he had made her face the wall. “Namaste, Ridley.”
He paused, his dark hair falling into eyes that were the eerie color of gold amber.
Jemdanee set her hands together, pressing the tied amulet on her right wrist momentarily between both wrists. To blind him with her light. She held his gaze for a long moment to show him his soul was hers to protect.
He adjusted the ledger beneath his arm. “I have to go.” His husky voice was final.
Smoothing the mane of his horse, she offered, “You still owe me a lesson on your shadow language. You have not taught it to me. Oleald Ekcle Surogou. Freedom is mine. That is what you once told me. That is why I have the freedom to protect you and I will.”
Ridley rounded the horse and veered in close, taking the reins. He said nothing.
“I will only marry you if you take me to London.”
“Might we not do this right now?” he rasped. “I have a headache of the worst sort.”
“That is what happens to a man who imbibes.”
“I thank you for yet another useless lecture.”
She sighed. “Are you in need of a restorative?”
“No.” Turning away, he dug through his leather satchel attached to the saddle, inserting the ledger he held into it. He paused at seeing the wrapped black bread.
He eyed her. Surveying the amulet, he slowly shifted toward her and lowered his chin.
She dragged in a breath, sensing the peacock bone dipped in gold was already thawing and molding and whispering to him. In that moment, she felt like she was eight, waving her god-carved rod and chanting the world to kneel to her command. “I snuck into the kitchens of the Government House and made bread for you this morning.”
She felt stupid saying it, but leaned in and pointed to the bread in case he didn’t know what she was referring to. “I also packed a few mangoes and a flask of water. Be certain you eat.”
“One would think we were already married.” Pulling out the wrapped bread, he set it aside on the stall and retied his satchel, turning his horse away from it.
Jemdanee’s lips parted. “Are you not going to eat it?”
Ridley leaned in, while holding her gaze. “Are you saying you want to watch me eat it?”
She pulled in her chin. “A thank you would have been appreciated.”
“I thank you in French: merci.” Unravelling the bread, he tore a piece off, which he pushed into his mouth. He chewed and paused. Tearing off a bigger piece, he pushed that into his mouth, as well, and chewed more enthusiastically. “You made this?”
Sensing he liked it, she brightened. “Haan. Maa and I used to make it every Thursday morning and sold them to neighbors. We made it so often, the recipe has stayed with me.”
He widened his muscled stance, stiffening against his leg. “It’s good.” In between chews, he held her gaze. “The breaking of actual bread between us is a bit of a cliché.”
She bit back a smile.
He veered in close. “You, my dear, should not have given yourself to me last night. That was incredibly stupid. You could have gotten hurt.”
She leaned in, not in the least bit intimidated. “What is stupid is leaving behind the other half of your soul known as me. You need me. Smashing glass in your name is only the beginning of what I will do.”
He stepped back. “Don’t do this. Don’t.”
Swinging a muscled leg up and over his saddled horse, to which he adjusted his leg with the grit of his teeth, he glanced toward the entrance of the stables, then down at her. “A peacock bone amulet. How utterly…pittoresque. Do you even know how to use it?”
She glanced toward her amulet and back up at him.
“Is it yours?” he asked.
She eyed him. “No. It is Kalpita’s.”
He rumbled out a laugh, startling her.
For him to laugh (a sound she’d never heard!) meant it truly was enchanted. His eyes had brightened and his face became doubly glorious. “Why are you laughing?”
Shaking his head as he rolled his tongue against the inside of his cheek, he smirked and slowly shook his from side to side. His amusement faded as he adjusted the reins in his hands. “I’ll see you at eleven.” His amber eyes captured hers. “May the gods love you for being what you have always been. Hope and humor and c’est la vie.” He glanced toward the stables and whistled, holding up bread. “Chunmun.”
Scrambling out of the hay that scattered and clung to his fur, Chunmun peered up at them, then jumped up onto the wooden railing, landing onto Ridley’s shoulder.
She blinked rapidly. “What are you doing?”
He held her gaze. “Say good-bye to him. He won’t be coming back. It will hurt, but his life will ho
ld more meaning. He will still love you.”
Tears overwhelmed her, feeling as if she were saying good-bye to far more than Chunmun. A sob escaped her as she held out her arms. “Might I…hold him one last time?”
He nodded and leaned down, passing off a piece of bread to her fingers.
Chunum jumped toward her and nuzzled his furry head into her shoulder, yanking on her hair hard. She grazed his small hand which took the bread and watched him eat it. Cradling his warmth one last time, she whispered into his fur, “I will miss you, Chunmun. Name your children after me and tell them about all the fruit I gave you.” Swallowing hard, she kissed him one last time and passed him back off to Ridley.
Ridley held out more bread to Chunmun, whose tail wrapped around his throat. Ridley smoothed that small head, still holding her gaze. “He knows the jungle. He survived it well before you ever came into his life. Don’t forget that.”
She dashed away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Do you speak of him or yourself?”
“Both.” His voice grew faint. “Be there at eleven at the Registration Office. 15 Larkin’s Lane. If you are not there, Jemdanee, you are choosing to end what we share and that is for you to decide.”
Fisting the leather reins, he turned the horse and kicked his boots into its sides, riding past her and out from the stable. With the trail of dust, he disappeared through the iron gates with a gallop into the already crowded street with Chunmun.
Sobbing, she almost fell against the stall and touched the amulet with trembling fingers.
It made…Ridley laugh. That, in and of itself, had been magic.
She never thought it possible.
Eyeing the empty stable, she hurried out into the heat of the sun and back toward the grounds of the Government House to find Kalpita whom she knew was somewhere outside. She’d seen her.
Kalpita was always out this time of morning.
She eventually found her twenty minutes later sitting beside one of the fountains with her bare feet in the water, her sari hitched up to her knees and a bowl of sliced papaya at her fingertips. Her face was upturned to the shade of the trees and the wind that rustled through, her eyes regally closed.
The Devil is French: A Whipping Society Novel Page 20
