Sensation

by Thea Devine

  It couldn't be hard enough for her. His ever-lengthening penis pressed deep down inside her. The nestling, nuzzling and nipping enchanted.her. The feel of him rutting between her legs made her nearly faint with excitement.

  Her body responded involuntarily, her legs widened, her hips moved in a primal dance of invitation. She knew these things. She didn't know how or why, but she knew them, and she knew in­stinctively what pleased him: her cunt tight and wet, and wel­coming the forceful penetration of his penis.

  She didn't feel raw from his using her—she felt as thick and rich as honey, her whole body sweet like molasses, every nerve tuned, primed, creamy with anticipation.

  He moved.

  An indescribable wave of pleasure undulated through her, poured through her as he felt her response and began the rhyth­mic pump of his primal possession of her.

  This, this, this—there was nothing ever in life like this, this pleasure, the feeling of being joined and utterly enveloped and be­yond herself.

  How—how she could ever do this with anyone else, she just couldn't conceive—well, she wouldn't—it had to be him. He had to marry her, he must—and that was ... was—

  Was—is ...

  Her body seized. Her mind went blank under the lush surging

  pleasure of him hard and driving between her legs. It billowed like a rolling wave; it caught her in the undertow and quickly broke over pure hard rock as she bore down onto his penis and let him carry her away.

  He pounded harder, taking her response, pulling it up and out and into himself so that he felt the crackling body-scoring plea­sure of her taking him and her cunt soaking in every thick creamy ounce of him that he poured deep and unceasingly into the very feminine essence of her.

  Silence. A thick, sex-suffused rolling silence. The weight of him covering her body. The curiously enfolding twilight in the room. The street noise outside, reassuring, faraway, a backdrop to the permeating pleasure of him holding her, possessing her.

  It was perfect. He was perfect. She didn't know how, but somehow fate had put him in her path, and he was meant to help her and save her from Wroth.

  But he was so wrung out, he couldn't even save himself from himself.

  The chocolate virgin was too delectable, too responsive, and far too confounding. He had no time to spend on figuring her out, he didn't know what to do with her, or about her, and he didn't want to let her go.

  She had to stay with him until he could sort through every­thing. Everything. Her strange and unbelievable story about needing to get married. Why she'd come to the Bullhead—twice. Why she had been at the Venable funeral and flat, and who those men had been. If there were any connection between her and his mission. And all those coincidences involving sevens.

  She had to stay—just for this day, because he had to pursue the clue of the Good Samaritan and the ghost coachman. He couldn't wait another day, another hour. He needed just this after­noon, if it even was afternoon—time seemed suspended and unreal when he was burrowed this deep inside her—just this afternoon to track down the Good Samaritan at the Seven Sisters and find .some answers.

  Which he would already be doing if he hadn't got sidetracked by—his lust for her.

  It was a good plan. She would be shielded from the ghastly fi-

  ance, if indeed he wasn't a fiction, and she would be here where he could protect her, where he could ... feast on her, suck on her, devour her...

  Oh, God—he didn't want to move. Everything concerning Tony Venable seemed to recede into the fog beside the fact of her here in his rooms. This was beyond anything he ever expected, and he didn't know how to cope with it. It was playing havoc with his mission. It was disloyal to old loves. And it disproved his imperviousness to the lure of the flesh.

  Goddamnit, he was NOT like his brother, Lujan.

  Except...

  He was. About her.

  Goddamn. Caught wholly and fully where a man is most vul­nerable .. . that was the other thing—he couldn't afford this; he couldn't get involved with her, as luscious and enticing as she was.

  And it was going to take every ounce of willpower to remove himself from her. To leave the heat, the wet, the pleasure, the searing sense of self divided and conquered .. .

  Shit and hell.

  He moved ... and she immediately reached to bring him back.

  He broke the joining between them, and he broke the silence; he had to as he lifted himself off of her. "No, listen. Angilee ..."

  Her body tensed. That tone of voice did not bode well. She didn't like him right then. How could he just unceremoniously leave her like that?

  "What?"

  "I have to—"

  Of course, all men had to. She knew that. Every time a man left a woman, be had to ... She couldn't believe he—the perfect he—was giving this putrid excuse to her—after all that. He had to.

  "Me, too," she said stonily. "I have to also."

  "Have to what?"

  "Whatever you have to do."

  "Angilee..."

  She decided to give it one last try. "I still need your help."

  He said nothing.

  She girded herself, because she could see by the set of his face what the answer would be. "I need you to marry me."

  He hated this. He felt a surge of need and lust. He wanted to, he couldn't. There was Jancie, always, deep in his heart. And there was Tony Venable, hovering like a malevolent ghost, haunt­ing him, mocking his impotence.

  And there was the fact he still didn't know if he could trust her .. .

  "I have the money," she reiterated. "I can pay you. Just for a month, two. No more. I need a husband. Now."

  She sounded so true, so sincere. A woman like that, for a month, two, just his, all alone, in the sacred bond of marriage ... forsaking all others—

  All others. And his quest and his mission. His cause.

  "I can't."

  Even after all that pleasure? After .. . everything? She went very, very still. All right, then. She'd find that chaperone; she'd go into hiding until she found that other man. Somewhere. Somehow. There would be another man, someone she could stand. They didn't have to do that. She'd make certain he under­stood that, this other husband man.

  "All right," she said.

  He hated that all right. It was a dead, dull, flat, horrendous disappointment; he'd failed her, and for some reason he hated that, too. But there was no other course. None. Except that she stay here.

  "No, it's not all right. It's just. .. there are things ..."

  There were always things. How much she had learned from her father. He always had things. Didn't he have things from the moment they arrived in London? Men things that women just couldn't understand?

  "You have to stay here."

  "I do?" Not for another five minutes, she thought furiously.

  "You'll be safe here. No one could find you here. I need to go out for a couple of hours. Only a couple of hours, and then we can ..."

  A couple of hours when he could be with another woman doing all the things he'd done to her? After all, by all the evidence she had seen, he was exactly that kind of man.

  What a fool she was.

  "What—do that all over again?" she said bleakly.

  "Angilee—I'll help you however I can. I just can't marry you."

  It made sense to him, she could see that. The knight-errant who was the habitue of a brothel, who looked like a prince and behaved like a libertine—what had she expected if she lay herself bare for him in his own lair? Of course he'd devour her and spit her out.

  She was such a naive simpleton—maybe she deserved nothing better than a life of servitude with Wroth.

  "You have to stay here. It's the only thing you can do right now."

  Surely he was jesting. Oh, fine, I'll stay, I'll be waiting, I can't wait for you to come back and do all that naked pleasure again and then give me nothing in return.

  Well, she was a quick learner—Zabel always said that some­times a man had
to fail in order to succeed, and that if you got nothing from the bargain, it was no bargain. She was the living example of the truth of that.

  So what did you do? You lied. "All right. I'll stay."

  "You have to."

  He was so sincere, an absolute prince among men with a re­lentless penis-for-hire to prove it... and he expected to furrow between her legs as much he wanted just because he thought she needed him? Ha. She needed NO ONE. Not him, not her father. Not Wroth.

  She had her own good common sense, foolish as she could be, she had money, she had a plan, and now she knew all about that experience that would come in mighty handy when she found that next man who would willingly marry her.

  She smiled her best Southern lady smile. The one she'd used when Zabel was entertaining business associates, the one she used when they got a little too frisky.

  "You're right," she murmured. Men loved to be right. She knew that from dealing with Zabel. "I'll stay right here until you can figure something out."

  "Good." Maybe. He didn't like that smile. Maybe not.

  Maybe she'd capitulated too quickly. How did he know he could trust her? Lust did not equal trust.

  Damn. This all was spinning so far out of control, he couldn't

  think straight. But that coachman ... he couldn't set that aside for another day. He had to find that Samaritan. He had to know.

  He scrambled for his clothes, aware of her gaze following his every move. Aware that there was still something skeptical in her eyes, something he shouldn't take on faith, but he had to.

  He should take her clothes, he thought suddenly. He should just take her clothes and dump them somewhere, and then she couldn't possibly get out of the flat at all.

  She saw that look in his eye, saw him glance at the pile of her clothing near the bed, saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, saw that flash of determination, and she knew what he was thinking in­stantly—he'd grab her clothes, and she'd never get away from him.

  Oh, dear God—and the money—he'd know exactly where it was, and he wouldn't need her anymore—

  And she was lying there as submissive as an odalisque.

  Dear heaven, now what? Stupid. She had done this to herself, put herself in this horrible position, and she had to get herself out. Had to wait for the right moment to get herself out. Not look as though she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  She held her breath, and she looked away only so far as she could watch him from the corner of her eye. He was still slowly getting into his shirt. Hadn't reached for his trousers yet. That would be the moment—she thought—when he was putting on his trousers ... he'd be neutralized for mere seconds .. . the moment to pounce—

  She was certain he could hear the pounding of her heart.

  ... Taking a damned long time to get to his trousers. Watching her like a cat, as if he didn't trust her, as he shouldn't, but she didn't trust him either—what would she do if he got to her clothing before she could? He was so much stronger than she ... so de­termined—

  No more than she ... she purposefully softened her body, turned, twisted, soft subtle movements to distract him as he reached for his trousers, his eyes still on her, watching her, wanting her—

  That was her key, the thing that gave her control: he wanted her; he wanted her to stay, to be with him, to have sex with him— he just didn't want to marry her .. .

  He shook out his trousers, both hands on the waistband, his gaze intensely fixed on her.

  But that one moment, when he was stepping in, when his whole concentration would be on balancing himself—almost... almost—he was looking at her suspiciously—

  He didn't trust her; she didn't trust him ...

  He had to get those trousers on ...

  . .. He wasn't sure he wanted to put those trousers on... he was torn, she could see it. Things were warring inside him— whether to grab the clothing or continue dressing, to stay to go to succumb to lust and longing—

  Lifting his leg...

  .. . lifting ...

  She dove, grabbing her shirtwaist, her skirt, especially her skirt, the money in the skirt, the thing he didn't need to know. "Oh—" she said in her best sugar-coated voice, as his foot thumped down heavily on the floor. "I am so cold . .. you'll excuse me, I'm sure, while I dress?"

  Another moment. .. everything inside him knew he should get hold of those clothes. Every instinct screamed it was the only way to keep her here. But now it meant grabbing her, forcing her, tearing the garments away from her.

  And there he was, with one leg in his trousers, the other bare, and how effective could he be, hopping after her like a lusty hare?

  It was too late. She'd slipped into the other room, slipped into hiding, slipped away from him altogether.

  Another moment later and he was clothed, but she hadn't come back into the bedroom.

  Damn. Fuck. Hell. Trust a lying bitch like that—

  He sprinted for the sitting room.

  Son of a bitch—she was gone.

  Not that long gone either .. .

  He raced down the steps and out the door—into the smoky pall of a still-hovering fog.

  No one there. No one running, no one walking. Not a soul on the street. How could she disappear so completely and thor­oughly in the space of five minutes?

  Goddammit—was everyone in his life a ghost?

  Where the hell—?

  He raced down the street, the fog wisping by his face like the touch of ghostly fingers.

  Hellfire.

  "Hey, mate—need a cab?"

  The hansom had rumbled up behind him like a phantom from the fog. He hadn't heard it; he hadn't seen it. He felt as though he were operating in a dream.

  Of course, in the dream, the driver would be the ghost coach­man, and every question would be answered. But he wasn't. He was just a grizzled old man with a cap over his eyes and a mean-looking whip who couldn't answer anything except where he might want to go.

  "Did you see a woman running down the street?"

  "Can't say as I did."

  Of course. She'd just vanished. Right into the fog. It was all of a piece. Hell and gone. Now what? No point to returning to his rooms.

  Shit. Get back to business. Stop being haunted by the damned coachman and hen Time to find the Samaritan. Time to root out Tony Venable's weaknesses. Time to stop rooting in the chocolate virgin's excesses.

  She was the one thing in his life that could wait.

  He climbed into the cab.

  "Where to?"

  Where? To? He didn't know. He said the first thing that came into his head: "The Seven Sisters."

  "Eh? The park?"

  A park? "The park."

  "Here we go."

  Drab, dreary day. As the cab got over the bridge, the fog thick­ened, got grayer, more ominous, hovering so that the only thing visible was the road and, just barely, what was just ahead of them.

  "Not going to be fast," the coachman shouted to him as they came to a standstill just over the bridge.

  Everything was fog-shrouded, dark, gloomy.

  "I'll walk. Where am I going?"

  "Over toward Shoreditch."

  Kyger threw him a pound note and vaulted out of the carriage.The city was curiously still, as if the fog had utterly paralyzed everything and everybody. Objects loomed, buildings, street lamps, people, coming out of the gray smokiness like ghosts, like smoke.

  Maybe it wasn't the fog. He started to see that people were gathered on street corners, huddling in storefronts. Traffic wasn't moving. Not an inch. Everything was at a standstill. Everything was hushed.

  What—?

  He felt as if he were the only one moving and it was the dream.

  He crossed the broad boulevard in the company of two or three others who looked as disoriented as he. But no one said a word. No one made a comment. So strange. Eerie.

  Something was going on, but it seemed almost sacrilegious to break the silence, to ask.

  ... Holy shit. .. This was so odd, al
most spooky.

  And when he finally approached a small knot of people on the corner, he found himself whispering. Goddamn, he was whisper­ing . .. into the silence and the hush, in the eerie straining after­noon of stillness and fog.

  "What's happening?"

  "Oh, my God, oh, my God—you haven't heard?" They couldn't believe it. They turned, all of them, to face him, their eyes hollow, their faces pale.

  "What? I haven't heard. What? What happened?"

  They all looked at each other and then at him. And then the eldest among them whispered, "They took him. The heathens. The infidels. The skeptics. They took him. Tony Venable. They dug up his grave in the dead of night—his body is gone ..."

  Chapter Nine

  She was a woman alone. For the first time ever in her life, she had no one to depend on, to lean on, to tell her what to do. He would have, the brothel house bull, had she let him, had she stayed, but what good would that have done?

  She didn't know his name, still. She didn't know where she was, even. She had dashed down the staircase half-dressed and crouched in the shadows of the first-floor hallway, terrified he would find her, terrified that he wouldn't.

  But then he was gone. And he didn't come back. He thought she'd taken to the street, expected she'd found someone to take her on almost immediately because he thought she was that kind of woman.

  It was good he was gone. He didn't trust her; she surely didn't trust him, especially now that he had refused to help her. She didn't need him, she didn't.

  She waited a very long time before she emerged from the shad­ows in the hallway, and that was after she finished pulling on the remainder of her clothes and made certain her money was still in­tact in her skirt lining.

  Only then did she tiptoe out the front door. And into the soupy fog. It seemed more oppressive even than the previous

  night. It felt as though it was a living entity, as if it was moving of its own volition, low to the ground and predatory, subsuming everything in its path.