by Anh Leod
Yet, she clearly enjoyed it. This was no tender widow who’d only known the love of a much older husband. This was an experienced woman, and her head fell back as if she had forgotten every part of herself but her cunny.
Sweat glistened on her throat around the necklace and the green glass caught winks of firelight. Distantly, he heard the creaking of a door as he leaned forward, losing upper body strength as his orgasm caught him unawares.
Celeste groaned and shook, her body’s response triggered by his. The bed shuddered, sending him into what felt like a second release, as his cock slid out of her on a river of his cum. For the first time, he smelled the heavy scent of coal around him. The motor sputtered and turned off, all the fuel exhausted.
Celeste sighed and stretched her arms over her head, then settled around his shoulders again. Her inner legs slid up and down his legs.
“Need me to move?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” sounded a man’s voice. “I never need to see that white arse of yours again.”
Brace jerked up, then slammed down again over Celeste to cover her from Jonathan’s ironic gaze.
“Should I come back?” said his friend. “I have a room in the house warming for you, though you seem to have found your own heat.”
“We couldn’t resist the vibrating table,” Celeste said, muffled by Brace’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you appreciate it,” Jonathan said. “I think it needs a larger motor though. I can last twice as long as it can.”
Brace wondered if his friend was criticizing his own performance, but then he had climbed London roofs during a storm and been up all night.
Celeste grinned at him, as if she knew the path of his thoughts. “You were divine,” she whispered.
“If you want me to last longer, hold off on the spanking,” he said in a low voice.
“I did wonder why your arse was reddened,” Jonathan said loudly, making it clear he wasn’t going to give them any privacy. “I like a good spanking myself.”
Brace pulled up his clothing as best he could, attempting to prevent commentary on his dripping cock. He reached down and grabbed Celeste’s gown and tugged it over her head, then felt something hit him on the back.
“A robe for your lady,” Jonathan said. “When you’re ready, come inside.”
The door shut and they were alone again. Brace jumped off the table and helped Celeste dress, tying the sash of the thin wool robe himself.
“I do apologize,” he said. “I should have known we wouldn’t be done before he came back.”
“I don’t mind,” Celeste said. “I have done it all, after all.”
“But that isn’t your life anymore.”
She pressed her lips together. “I know nothing about making a home for you. I hardly even know how to cook. Are you sure you want me?”
“I’ll always want you,” he promised, pulling her against him.
Her head rested along his shoulder. She felt soft and dainty in his arms, a perfect handful of woman. “I loved you as a child loved a playmate once. I’ll never be so innocent again.”
“You’re still that young girl, but your experiences have made you the brave woman you are today. That strength of character will see you through. I don’t want some soft girl who cannot manage life. After what you’ve survived I know nothing can break you, dearest.”
She lifted her face to his. A tear streaked down her cheek. “I always knew you could be this man. How lucky I am to have found you.”
He smiled and caught the tear with his index finger. “I’m the lucky one. You’re no longer ruled by clockwork. Our life can run on love alone.”
She nodded. “I never want to see a clock again, so I hope you have a good instinct for time.”
He laughed and picked her up so her legs dangled down from his arm. “The fire is dying and it’s getting cold in here. Let’s go into the house and cuddle in a big, warm bed for the first time.”
“Away from prying eyes,” she agreed.
He left the inventor’s shed in his wake as he dashed to the house, his lady in his arms. She laughed as he splashed through a puddle and stumbled. He heard a horn and stilled, remembering the alarms on the clockwork medallion, but soon realized it was only a train whistle. Progress kept coming, but sometimes technology was misused. He vowed to keep Celeste, and any family they might have, free of dastardly inventions in the future. But also, to take advantage of the good ones, like the sensual devices he’d found in the shed.
He pulled his booted feet from the muck and plunged forward, toward the house, the warm bed, and an eternity of love.
~*~
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Shoshanna Evers, Moriah McCormick, Mae Pen and Katie Hiestand for editing this story. Thank you to Jacquie Rogers for facilitation. Thank you to David Hiestand for the scientific research. All errors and steampunk fantasy are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anh Leod is the author of many novels, novellas and short stories. She is an Amazon Romance Anthology Bestseller. She lives in Washington with her husband and son. She also writes as Heather Hiestand. Find Heather Hiestand online:
Website: http://www.heatherhiestand.com
Blog: http://blog.heatherhiestand.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/hahiestand
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-HiestandAnh-Leod/24271017921?ref=ts
Thank you for purchasing this Coffee on Sundays Press publication. For other books, please visit our website at www.coffeeonsundays.info.
For questions or more information contact us at [email protected].
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MORE BY ANH LEOD
Anthologies:
Even Naughtier Nuptials
Some Like it Sweet
Novellas:
Lucky Number Seven
Bijou’s Bonds
Fire Wolf
Aphrodite’s Necklace
Aphrodite’s Tattoo
Ex Factor
Men of Myth: Claudia’s Pleasure
Playing Lycan Games
Christmas a Go-Go
Clockwork Captive
Novels:
Recreating John Doe
Men of Myth: Cherokee’s Playmates
Men of Myth: Holly’s Pledge
MORE BY HEATHER HIESTAND
Anthologies:
“The Burro” in Murder Across the Map
“Victoriana” in Holiday in the Heart
Looking Forward, Looking Back and Other Stories
“The Bachelor” in Cupid Gone Wild
Novellas:
Victoriana Adventure
Steampunk Smugglers 1: Captain Andrew’s Flying Christmas
Steampunk Smugglers 2: Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine
Novels:
Cards Never Lie
One Juror Down
Gunshot Grange
Two on the Hunt
In Flight
Read an excerpt from Heather Hiestand’s Steampunk Smugglers romantic steampunk series
Captain Andrew’s Flying Christmas is available now
CHAPTER ONE
London, December 24, 1892
Linet Fenna shivered in her attic bedroom as she stared out the open window. Downstairs, all was merry and bright with evergreen branches, mistletoe and handmade garlands festooning trees and mantles. Under the eaves here, wind blew through a crack in the undecorated wall and rustled in the chimneys above.
A fever had made the first housemaid take to bed just after breakfast and Linet, the second housemaid, had been run ragged all day by her demanding mistress and her ever-arriving family. Now, finally done with work, she just wanted to stare at the stars and dream.
“Close the window,” Ann-Marie said, coughing from her iron bedstead in the darkest corner of the room.
“In a minute.” Linet took one last breath of chilly air and ha
d her hand on the sill when she heard a metallic chugging in the distance. The sound came from outside, and wasn’t likely to be Father Christmas.
The automen who secured England for Prime Minister Gladstone had yet to master the skies. Linet had once known the world above the streets well, as daughter of the famed smuggler Rhys Fenna. Some had called him a sky pirate, and his neck had been broken on a gibbet three Boxing Days ago. She had become a maid of all work to support herself in the aftermath of his death. This position in a larger home had seemed a blessing at first until she realized she’d moved into a house owned by an automen manufacturer. The factory, only steps away, belched smoke and steam into the air at all hours, and it kept the brass fist of authority ever alive in her mind.
As Ann-Marie coughed behind her, Linet pulled at the tight high collar of her black dress and leaned forward into the open window, looking for the source of the sound. She darted back a step instinctively when something pinged against the glass above her head. A bird? Surely none were about at this late hour.
When she looked up, the astonishing sight took her back three years. No wonder she’d heard chugging. “A ladder?” she whispered.
“What?” Ann-Marie croaked.
“Nothing, go to sleep.” Linet hurried to the washstand by the sick girl’s bed and blew out the candle. “There, that’s better. You need to rest. I can’t manage alone with all these guests.”
“Do you want to go to sleep so soon?”
“Of course. That will make Father Christmas come all the sooner.” She felt the girl’s forehead. Not dangerously hot, thankfully.
“He doesn’t come for the likes of us,” Ann-Marie muttered. A rustling told Linet she had turned over.
Linet dashed back to the window. Yes, a rope ladder, just like the ones she’d climbed thousands of times to her father’s dirigible, the Christmas, dangled outside, a little lower now. Ladders had been the staircases of her life until she was seventeen, carrying her from earth to sky, larceny to freedom.
Who had found her? Her father had enemies, to be sure, but no enemy would be visiting her on Christmas Eve. No one from her old life had crossed her path in all this time. Perhaps her sister Terrwyn had finally reappeared?
She reached through the window and grabbed the ladder, then frowned. That knot with a gash on the left side looked familiar. One run was painted red, the next, green. Her gaze rose, unbelieving.
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