by Zoë Archer
His satin and smoke laugh. “A woman who takes charge. How delectable.”
“Stop talking. Start stripping.”
Still laughing, but with delight and not mockery, Bennett did as she bade him. Yet he had control here, too. With a leisurely pace, he slipped his arms from the sleeves of his jacket and tossed it onto a narrow chest of drawers. His waistcoat followed. Then, holding her gaze with his own, he began to unbutton his shirt. Slowly. London stared as his long, square-tipped fingers pushed each button through its buttonhole with the precision of a gem cutter. As each button slipped free, his chest was bared to her, inch by inch. Lord, but he was beautifully made. Nothing extraneous or too bulky, but sleek as a wolf, all strength and movement. She reached out to touch him, but he batted her hand away.
“Let me finish, woman. You’ll distract me.”
She let him be, for now, as he tugged his shirt free from his trousers and finished unbuttoning the garment. He pulled the shirt off and set it atop his jacket, breaking eye contact for only a moment.
“Why is it so blasted dark in here?” London demanded. “I want to see you.”
“See with these.” He took her hands and put them on his skin, his shoulders. As soon as her fingers contacted his flesh, he sucked in a breath.
Though she felt her head spin with the wonder of him, she managed to say, “Now I have permission to touch you?”
“Yes, minx,” he rumbled. “Now.”
She stopped wasting time with idle insolence and let her hands roam where they willed. He was tight silk, a feast for touching. Solid, capable arms, wide shoulders in exact proportion to his narrow waist. The planes of his chest, the ridges of his stomach, the chevron of muscle that ran from each hip to disappear beneath the waistband of his trousers.
Experimentally, London leaned closer and ran her tongue from just below his pectorals down to his navel. He made a sound, an animal growl.
“You taste very nice,” she said. “Warm, masculine.”
He gripped the back of her head and kissed her, hard and savage. “You’ve the sweetness of oranges and the spice of cinnamon in you.” He picked her up by her waist and sat her on the low dresser, unconcerned that she crushed his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt beneath her. “But there are other places I want to taste.”
She gulped. “You mean—”
“I mean. And I do.”
They came together in another kiss, he standing between her legs. He pressed against the heated, aching juncture of her thighs, and she moaned into his mouth. She felt her skirts being gathered up, her drawers being pulled down, until it was his hands on her bare skin, stroking her thighs. He touched her intimately. She jumped.
“Shh. Easy, love,” he crooned. “You’re so ready for me. So wet. What a beautiful pussy you’ve got here.”
No one had ever said things like that to her before. She and Lawrence never spoke when they’d made love, so it became an exchange between two civil strangers. To hear Bennett speak with such earthy candor, impolite words that were crass and wonderful, London felt her climax already begin to build.
“No, no,” he said, lightening his touch so that he only just brushed her. “Not so fast. I want you begging for it.”
London panted, “A gentleman…would never…make a lady beg.”
He nipped at her mouth. “I’m no gentleman.”
“Thank God for that.”
“In fact,” he said, gripping her skirts in handfuls, “no one but the worst scoundrel would ever do something like this.” Then he lowered his mouth to between her legs.
London clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. She bowed up from the dresser. If there had been any thoughts of coherence in her mind, they melted or else incinerated, leaving her sensation only, and that became everything. He sucked and stroked with long, velvet licks, down to the molten core of her, revealing parts of herself she never knew existed and now that he’d found them, she wanted his claim.
She writhed under his hands, and if he didn’t grip her tightly, she would have flung herself off the dresser. And when the tip of his tongue teased at her sensitive nub, she nearly slammed her head against the bulkhead. Again, her orgasm beckoned, a fiery point that grew and expanded and nearly engulfed her, until…it retreated. London gulped, surfacing. He’d stopped his wonderful torture.
“Now, please, now,” she nearly sobbed.
Even in the darkness of the cabin, she saw the gleam on his face where her juices covered him. And that smile of his, wicked and tormenting. “Not yet. Tell me what you want.”
“I want to…” She tried to force the unfamiliar words out. “I want…to come.”
“Anything you desire, but that. Remember? Only when I say you can come, will I let you.”
She could kill him. She wanted him. She forgot herself entirely and was only hunger, lust, demand.
She would make him suffer as she did. She thought about leaving, going back to her cabin, and letting him stew in frustration. That idea she discarded almost at once. She very much did not want to leave.
What else could she do?
An idea came to her, sinful and superb. But did she have the courage to do it?
In the darkness, his eyes were ink, but warm, so warm. He desired her, yes, as she did him. But she felt him pushing her toward something, toward a greater understanding of herself. She could find comfort in a quick release, and hide in that. This way, this suspension and play, brought her out, challenged her. And she would meet that challenge.
London pushed him back lightly, so he stepped away. His erection jutted up, pulling the fabric of his trousers tight. London curled her hands into themselves to keep from stroking him. She wriggled her way off the top of the dresser until she stood before him.
“Sit on the bed,” she said.
Though he raised a brow at her imperious tone, he complied, wide-legged, leaning back on his elbows like an indulged pasha.
“Is it bright enough?” she asked. “Can you see me?”
“I can.”
“Now,” she said with all the hauteur she could muster, “watch me.”
London set her mind free, as one might a bird from a cage. She felt herself take flight. I can be anything, do anything.
With a deliberate languor, she began to unfasten her dress. A series of small hooks ran down the front of the bodice—the sort of dress a woman might wear when traveling alone or far from a maid to assist her—and she started at the top, at the collar. Yet she did not proceed immediately down the bodice. London undid four or five hooks at a time, pulling the fabric open, then reaching in and lightly, very lightly, caressing herself. Her throat and chest were most responsive, since no corset guarded her skin there, and she made herself shiver. He watched her do this. Unhook, pause, caress. Again. And again. She reached such sensitivity, that, even when she did reach her corset cover, she still trembled at her own touch.
His eyes were hungry and bright. His breathing grew labored. Impossibly, he seemed to grow even bigger, his erection lengthening and thickening, as he watched her undo the fastenings on the side of the dress and step out of it. Then she removed her corset cover, and finally, slowly, she unfastened her corset and put it aside. Now all she wore was her chemise.
Yet even this wisp of cotton was too much. London trailed her hands up and down her body, beginning at her neck, the hollow of her throat, then the very top of her chest. Then lower. Beneath the fine chemise, her breasts were full and needy. She’d never truly touched her own breasts before, not without some measure of awkwardness, but now she touched them as she wanted him to, gathering them in her hands, feeling their roundness, their softness, the hard nipples that rasped against her chemise and palms.
A small moan curled from her mouth. He reached for her. She slid away.
“No touching,” she breathed. “Not until I say.”
She thought she heard Bennett’s teeth grind against each other. But he did not try to touch her again. Instead, he nearly set her af
lame with his gaze as he panted like a man who’d run up a mountain. His hands gripped the woolen blanket, knuckles whitening.
Power, the likes of which London never knew, filled her. She felt mighty and female. Eve and Lilith and Isis and Aphrodite and Lakshmi. All her.
Confident that he would do as she commanded, London resumed her exploration of her body. Just under her breasts, her skin was tight and sensitive, and she felt the narrowing of her waist, then the flare of her hips. She had not Athena’s abundant curves, but that didn’t trouble her, because she was herself and she was enough. Her belly was soft and feminine, a woman’s belly. And when she touched herself through the chemise, touched her pussy, as Bennett called it, ripples of pleasure cascaded through her, ever widening. She gasped.
“I can’t—” he growled. “Have to—”
Instead of trying to touch her, Bennett ripped open his trousers. His erection was straight, full and gorgeous. He stroked himself, his large hand on his own flesh. For a few moments, their eyes were locked as they each touched themselves. Seeing how aroused he was, that she had done that, worn away at this man’s control until he was forced to pleasure himself, made London lose the fragile hold on her own desire. She tugged off her chemise.
She stood before him, naked. The only man to ever see her thus.
“Touch me now,” she gasped. “Touch me everywhere.”
His trousers disappeared in moments. Now as nude as she, he swept her up in his arms and lay her down upon the bunk. He stretched out beside her, lean and hard, and they kissed with open mouths, breathing each other in, eating each other up. Against her thigh, she felt the rigid thickness of his penis, nudging her, leaving small slick trails of fluid on her skin. She’d touched him before through his clothing, but now she took him in her hand and reveled in the feel of him, the energy and life in him, and how, as she stroked him, he groaned into her mouth with the sounds of a man in ultimate rapture.
“You feel so good on my cock,” he growled.
“Pussy, cock,” she whispered with a laugh. “You will ruin my vocabulary.”
“That’s not all I’ll ruin. Say it again.”
“What?” she asked, feigning coyness. “Cock?” As she said this, she stroked him, hard, giving her hand a little twist. “Pussy?” She did it again. His hips surged.
“What a delightful strumpet you are,” he said, though his words were guttural, hardly words at all.
“I learn from the master.”
“Oh, no,” he said with a wolfish grin. “This is all you, my love. So is this.” His fingers dipped into her pussy, and she writhed. “Mm. Very small, very tight.”
A frisson of worry. “Too tight?”
“No such thing.” He moved over her, positioning himself between her legs, his cock at her entrance. He circled her, coating himself in her wetness, then, with her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his shoulders, her whole body vibrating with need, he sank into her.
She arched up with a cry. He stretched her, filled her, almost to bursting, but it felt so good.
“See?” he panted. “Perfect fit.”
London couldn’t have answered him if she tried. Words were gone. Self was gone. Everything was pleasure. And when he started to move, sliding in deeper, then pulling back with an exquisite drag, London felt her body dissolve, while at the same time she was all body, all sensation.
They moved together, learning angles and rhythm. She raised to meet his thrusts, pressing her heels into the small of his back, locking her ankles together so she clasped him to her, as if he might get up and leave. The only place he seemed to want to be was inside her, as far within her as possible.
Soon, they rocked together, hardly drawing apart. Even those seconds when he slid back for another thrust were too long to bear. His skin was sweat-slick, the cords of his neck tight, ecstasy carving his face into hollows. She loved to watch him feel his pleasure, for he gave himself to it utterly. As she did.
He shifted his position, so that, with each plunge into her, his hips rubbed her swollen, pulsing flesh. And all at once, she was lost. The orgasm hit her with the force of tempest. Everything contracted, then exploded with release, and a sound came from her she’d never heard before, a primitive cry issuing from the depths of herself, low and throaty.
Then he was gone, stiffening, groaning. On and on. London, in the after haze of her own climax, could only dimly marvel at the duration of his orgasm. He, too, seemed surprised, for when it was finally over, he collapsed on top of her with a startled laugh.
“I was very naughty,” she said when at last she could form words. “I broke the rules.”
He raised a questioning brow.
“I didn’t wait for you to say I could come,” London said.
He laughed once more. It was something he did easily. “Then we’ll just have to do it all over again, bad girl.”
She kissed him, then said with a smile, “Oh, I like being bad.”
Bennett spent most of his life avoiding expectations. They only led to disappointment, bitterness. Whenever he traveled, he kept his mind open to all possibilities, expecting nothing, glad for every and all eventuality. The same with people. He kept his expectations to a minimum, especially when it came to women. He made no demands on his lovers—other than what he exacted of them in bed, and they were eager to comply—and was happy to receive whatever was given. Everything was a gift.
But he was human, after all, and a man, so expectations were inevitable, despite his precautions. He did have certain preconceived ideas about certain paramours, and sometimes those ideas fell short while other times, he felt himself generously rewarded. A wonderful, unexpected treasure.
Yet, in his over sixteen years of sexual experience, he’d never, not once, had every single one of his expectations completely and utterly decimated as they had been this night with London Harcourt.
As they lay in the narrow bunk, twined together, suspended in the honey of afterglow, Bennett marveled. He’d had his suspicions, of course. He’d known, even in the marketplace at Monastiraki, that a passionate woman dwelt beneath the precise tailoring of her exterior. He’d seen the barely banked fires in her dark chocolate eyes. The kisses they had shared told him much the same. Here was a woman who, when given the chance, would burn down the world with the heat of herself. Taking her to bed would be an extraordinary privilege, a peerless, carnal delight.
Even that was nothing compared to the reality. Bennett was struck, awed by her. Her fearlessness. Her hunger. To see her grow and evolve before his very eyes into a woman who commanded the universe, itself.
This is what it’s like to see a galaxy born, he thought. Stars and planets and life, life everywhere, filling the sky with brilliance. What could anyone do but marvel.
An unaccustomed humbleness settled over him, that he, of all men, should be witness to her evolution, that he may have even had a hand in it. Hell. If he’d known that a lifetime of dubious behavior would net him such honor, he would have started his transgressions a good deal sooner. Say, shortly after birth. He could have crawled to the neighbor’s place and seduced their teenaged daughters, clad only in a nappy and a smile.
“What are you laughing about?” London asked drowsily.
“Childhood memory.”
“Something scandalous, no doubt.”
She snuggled closer, and he tightened his hold on her. She felt so damned good in his arms. Then he realized something.
“You didn’t bite me,” he said.
She laughed, and he felt the thrum of her laughter throughout his body. “Last night, I was trying to be quiet. Tonight, I forgot to be quiet. I’m sure everyone heard me.” Yet she didn’t sound particularly upset by the idea.
“I like that I can make you forget yourself.” Made him feel like a titan, actually.
“I am entirely forgotten.” She leaned closer and nipped his shoulder. “There. That should satisfy you.”
“Never satisfied.”
He
kissed her, first her mouth, then along her jaw and onto the tender column of her neck. Under his lips, her pulse throbbed like music.
She asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
His kisses stopped. “All the time.”
She pulled back a little to look him in the eyes. “I mean really in love.”
“The answer’s still yes.”
“What happened? Did things not work out between you two?”
“More than two, sweetheart,” he said, smiling. When she frowned in puzzlement, he explained, “I love every woman I’m with. Some of them I don’t even take to bed.”
“But that isn’t real love,” she protested.
“Why not? There’s no book that contains the one true definition of love, or, if there is, I sure as hell haven’t read it.” He started to kiss her again, both as a distraction and because he needed to.
Yet she was not readily distracted. “Can it be love if you feel that way for more than one woman? Love is for just one person, someone special. Or, at least,” she said quickly, as if correcting herself, “that’s what I have heard.”
Resigned now to the conversation, he said, “Every woman is special.” She snorted in disbelief, so he continued, “That’s not some scoundrel’s patter. It’s true. There’s something to love in each woman. So I do.”
“You love me, too?” she said, dry.
“Oh, most definitely,” he said readily, without hesitation. “I do love you, London.”
She gave a faint, melancholy smile. “I thought that when I finally heard those words, it would mean something.”
A hot rush of anger struck him, surprising him with its speed and intensity. “It does mean something, damn it. Or you think so low of me that you’d just toss away my words like tin trinkets.”
She looked down, contrite. “I’m sorry, Bennett.” She ran her hands across his shoulders, down his arms, to link their fingers together. “That is not what I meant. I do value what you say, what you feel. Yet, there’s a part of me that still believes love can only exist between two people. Maybe three, if they are exceptionally broad-minded,” she added with a smile.
