In the Flesh

by Portia Da Costa

  Now he wasn’t so sure.

  He’d made it a rule never again to be intimate with a woman who didn’t know exactly what she was doing. His few very carefully chosen mistresses had all been accomplished married women or experienced luminaries of the higher demimonde.

  And now here he was. With Beatrice Weatherly. A creature who had the face and body of a Pre-Raphaelite love goddess, but who was wriggling on his lap like a country virgin on her first tryst with the plow boy.

  “Don’t you want to show me your puss, Bea?” He slid a fingertip higher, beneath her stalled nightdress. “I’m going to have to see it sooner or later, you know.” The light cloth rumpled, and he swore he could almost feel the brush of soft hair against the pad of his finger. “And if it looks as sublime as it felt last night, I know I’m in for a treat.”

  “Very well. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. How remiss of me to shortchange you so soon, Mr. Ritchie.” Her voice was tart, but had a hollow ring of nervousness that only added to his doubts.

  On the point of asking if she wanted to call a halt, he groaned out loud. Somehow in the churning of her thighs and buttocks, she’d managed to trap his cock beneath her in a confinement of delicious pleasure-pain. A rod of torment, it was a hair away from ecstasy.

  What if she made him come, beneath her, inside his clothing? The perversity of it made him shudder, edging closer.

  She was a minx. A beautiful minx. And he’d see her touch herself or he’d expire from lust in the process.

  “There you are. Satisfied now?” she cried, hauling at her voluminous nightgown in one final wrench, her face and chest as pink as a garden peony.

  “Well, not completely, Bea,” he gasped, almost undone by her, floored as much by the fire in her expression as the feel of her bottom against his thighs and the sight of the anticipated prize, her brilliant bush.

  Red. Crimson. A dozen shades of sweet and fecund autumn.

  The hair at the base of Beatrice’s belly was as bright, dense and lustrous as the startlingly vivid hair that streamed from her scalp. The photographer’s poor attempt at hand tinting had been a pale intimation of the vibrant curly cluster.

  “What a divine little fleece you have, my sweet,” he blurted out, aware that he sounded almost like callow lad, as if he’d never seen a woman before. But she stunned him and she moved him, out of all proportion.

  “I’m so glad you like it,” she shot back at him. “I’m sorry that the forestry down there is probably somewhat more untamed than you’re accustomed to. If I’d anticipated your call, I would have done a little pruning.” A second later they were both laughing out loud like fools.

  “It is spectacular though,” he said at last, straightening his expression and pulling her toward him. Kissing the side of her face at the same time, he took the opportunity to cup the untamed treasure. The hair felt just as soft as it’d seemed last night, silky but with a spring to it. He couldn’t wait to part the waves and dive in deep. Fingers or tongue, he didn’t care, he had to be there.

  But first he had to coax her into touching herself.

  “I’m waiting, Bea,” he purred against her temple.

  She breathed heavily, and he could see and feel her biting her lip. He gave her a little squeeze, then sought her hand and drew it gently but firmly between her thighs. Just as he’d hoped, she lifted her hips toward the contact, rather than retreating.

  “Well, here we are once more, my beautiful Bea, playing in the grove again.” He slid his fingers over hers, matching digit for digit, then pressed her middle one through the soft hair, and into her fluidity to settle on her simmering clitoris. She groaned and stiffened, her legs kicking when he found it.

  “Ritchie…oh…” she gasped as he bore down on her finger. It slipped and skated around, she was so wet.

  “Do it, Bea! Take your pleasure.”

  She nibbled her lip, passed her tongue across it, first screwing up her eyes, then relaxing. But finally, her finger flexed of its own accord and began to work. Ritchie withdrew and let his whole hand rest lightly over hers.

  Tiny liquid sounds seemed to fill the room, a counterpoint to her broken gasps and moans. Every adjustment of her jostling buttocks terrorized his cock in the most exquisite way possible.

  “You like that, don’t you?” His voice was hoarse as he felt her flicking and flicking, working in a pattern no doubt long practiced. Her finger moved then in a circular motion and her efforts made her growl like a tigress, the fierce sound shocking in his ear.

  Dear God, had he ever been with a woman so responsive? Whatever she might lack in terms of artistry and sophistication, she more than made up for in unfettered, animal enthusiasm.

  Her entire nervous system and her luscious puss were created for sex.

  He knew it. She knew it. Listening to her labored breath and her little moans, the desire to see her climax swelled and gripped his senses. The desire to come himself made him almost cross-eyed.

  “Spend, Bea…do it…come for me.”

  She tossed her head, making a little murmur of resistance, then buried her face in his shoulder. Even now, she was defying him.

  “Do it for me, Bea,” he repeated, flexing his hand over hers. “Do it for me, and I swear you’ll unman me, woman. I’m so close, I’ll come in my drawers when I feel you spend.”

  “Really?” A sly, beautiful face looked up at him, eyes almost calculating above her pink cheeks.

  “Yes. There’s no doubt about it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To know you’d driven me so far to distraction that I disgrace myself in my undergarments in your honor.”

  With a slow smile, she closed her eyes, lay back in his arms and began to rub in earnest.

  * * *

  IT TOOK BUT A FEW MOMENTS, intoxicated as she was by Ritchie’s kisses and his rude, explicit words. He was hard beneath her, almost like a separate living entity with a life of its own, and the excitement of having power over it was as potent as wine.

  She circled and played, with her fingers and bottom both, then cried out with pleasure as the hard white glow of fulfillment burst inside her. Wave after blissful wave rippled through her, cresting in her sex but radiating out as far as her fingers and her toes and the very curling ends of her hair.

  As she groaned and wriggled, she felt Ritchie tense, his neck arching back as he let out an oath. She tried to squirm more, and grind down upon him, but he gripped her hard, almost roughly by the waist, and held her immobile.

  “Stay still,” he growled, fingers digging into her as his hips bucked once, twice, three times, and then with a long, broken breath, he subsided. “Don’t move,” he said, more softly now, his lips against her face then settling on her skin in a sudden kiss.

  Beatrice didn’t move. She just lay and trembled, her body vibrating with a low, incessant energy. It was like being washed overboard in a storm, then suddenly finding oneself safe again and stunned, on a wide soft beach.

  As the cyclone subsided, Beatrice grinned, unable to stop her lips from forming a smirk. Ritchie’s eyes were closed, still a mystery to her, but she could barely contain her private bubble of glee.

  I made you spend, you devil. I did that. You might think you’ve got control of me, with all your money, but I’ve got powers too.

  He’d told her to stay still, and she did for the moment, but that didn’t stop her dwelling on the masculine organ nestled beneath her bottom. It was softer now, and didn’t feel as big, but it still had presence. Beatrice tried to imagine it, quiet and sated and sticky, presumably, with the seminal fluid it’d just ejected.

  She had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing.

  “That was rather pleasant. Did you enjoy yourself, Bea?”

  How could he know she was watching him if he had his eyes closed? Was he the
Great Mesmero, reading her mind? His eyes fluttered open now, as if he’d heard that thought too, and their depths of midnight-blue were hazed and sultry.

  “Yes, of course I did.” Why lie? For a month she was committed to revealing things to him she’d never believed she’d have to expose to anyone. Not even a husband, although chances of securing one of those now were rapidly diminishing.

  “Splendid. I’m really glad, Bea. Pleasure is tonic for the constitution. It relaxes the body and eases the mind.” As if demonstrating his theory, he grabbed her by the waist and urged her onto her feet. As her nightgown and dressing gown slithered back down again to cover her, she felt almost disappointed, and in an act of defiance, she didn’t immediately fasten the buttons up top.

  Ritchie’s lips parted. Had he gasped? Did he admire her daring? It seemed so. Snatching up her hand, he kissed her fingers like an adoring swain. “I want you to have as much pleasure as possible, my dear,” he went on, his nostrils flaring over her hand. Beatrice blushed—again—knowing he could smell her odor. “I have to go away on business for a few days now, but I want you to promise me that you’ll play with your pretty little puss often while I’m absent. And perhaps think of me, instead of some fictional cove in a book.”

  How could she suddenly feel so hollow? They’d barely started the month he’d paid for and now he was going. Oh, men were so contrary! They accused women of fickleness and flightiness, but they were just as unreliable themselves, if not a good deal more so.

  She drew away her hand, trying not to snatch. “So, these ‘few days’ of yours? Do they count as part of the month? Or does the calendar resume its forward motion when you return?”

  Ritchie’s eyes narrowed, but his expression was more admiring again than hostile.

  “You’re quite a businesswoman, Bea, aren’t you? It’s a shame you weren’t put in charge of your family fortunes. I’m sure you and your brother would have prospered very nicely if you’d held the purse strings.” He shrugged, his fine shoulders lifting beneath the common cloth of his jacket. “But then again, perhaps it’s a good thing after all. How else would we have arrived at our arrangement? Unless I could have coaxed you into a month of sin purely on the merits of my dazzling personality and my legendary amorous skills?”

  Beatrice narrowed her eyes back at him.

  “Perhaps not,” Ritchie observed lightly, “but in respect of those days, perhaps they can tally toward the total if you promise to give me a good account of your private pleasures in my absence and my imaginary role in them?”

  “I’ll attempt to do so, Ritchie, but it’s not always possible to order the imagination. It does as it will. Mine certainly does.” She watched the tiny intricate shift of muscles in his face as he absorbed this, still holding her hand, and found herself again wondering exactly what he was thinking. “It may not be possible to avoid fancies of being ravished by a Knight of the Round Table or a dashing Prince of Araby.”

  “Try, Bea, try,” he murmured, his voice fierce as he drew the tips of her fingers to his lips again and kissed them with a slow, meticulous pressure. She imagined she felt the passage of air against her skin as he also inhaled again.

  “Very well. I will,” she whispered, shaken anew as his tongue slipped out to taste her.

  It only took but a moment, then he released her, reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and took out his fob watch. With compressed lips and a frown he studied it.

  “Time to go, dearest Bea. Though I really don’t want to.” He glanced to one side, and she could almost see the cogs of his intelligence whirring as he marked out a series of tasks in his mind. Had he separated himself from her already? Was he all the man of business now, not the lover?

  “Use those funds I’ve given you on yourself, Bea. Buy gowns, shoes, whatever you want and need.” He smirked, and the lover reappeared. “Some new items of lingerie would be nice. But nothing woolen by Dr. Jaeger, please, or other unbecoming stuff. I want to see you and feel you in silk and lace from now on, although you’re perfectly at liberty to wear more rational items in your own time.”

  “Why, that’s most accommodating of you. I’d hate to have to give up my woolen combinations all together. I’m extremely fond of them.”

  “Of course you are.” Ritchie pursed his lips, obviously trying not to grin.

  “But seriously, Ritchie, what about these creatures who occasionally lurk outside? Charlie might have debts in some very obscure quarters that even you might not have tracked down. Goodness knows who’s likely to turn up looking for payment. Surely I can use some of this money you’ve left for that purpose?” She patted her pocket, thinking what a relief it would be to actually have funds to silence any threats.

  “Don’t be alarmed, Bea. I’m leaving an associate of mine in charge of the greater financial affairs. He’s an expert in dealing with difficult types. Mainly because he used to be one himself.” Ritchie nodded, as if mentally ticking off his list again. “But Jamie is an astute and intelligent fellow, loyal and honest in my service. Consider him the steward of your household, if you like. Clearly your brother can’t be trusted with money matters, and even though I know you’ve a sharp, intelligent mind, my dear, I don’t want you distracted by mundane matters during our month.”

  Beatrice opened her mouth to protest. Of all the high-handed arrogance! But then, she thought better of it. In some ways, Ritchie was right. Charlie was worse than useless at being master of a household, and at keeping hold of money. And how could she make a good fist of being a pleasure-loving courtesan if she was worrying about the price of chops and cabbage and whether to air the carpets or not? Ritchie’s precious steward could take over all that if his master insisted on installing him. She smiled, suddenly picturing some big brawny type in an apron, sweeping the front step. If she was hors de combat servicing Ritchie’s sexual whims, Polly and Enid would need an extra pair of hands.

  “That’s extremely thoughtful of you,” she murmured, still finding it difficult to keep her face straight.

  “Oh, I think of everything, my dear. You’ll soon discover that.”

  “I don’t doubt it, Ritchie. I don’t doubt it.”

  Just what else lay in the depths of his labyrinthine intelligence? A finger of icy doubt tickled her spine as she watched his dark eyes. She had a whole month of discovery ahead of her.

  But as she shivered, he took her in his arms and kissed her. Hard.

  It was indeed almost as if he’d reached in and read her mind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cupboard Love

  POLLY SWUNG OPEN the door to the cupboard. The passage itself was dim, lit only by a small stained-glass skylight over the back door, but the cupboard offered a black hazard of cleaning paraphernalia—mops and brooms, and galvanized buckets to bark the unwary shin.

  Yet somehow, the dusty little niche still had a clandestine allure and its close darkness was her sometime venue for trysts with Charlie. Not that she planned to let that get in the way of her seducing her handsome new friend. Jamie followed her willingly as she drew him along by the hand, and a dense darkness enveloped them both as he pulled the door shut.

  “Are you sure we won’t suffocate in here?” he whispered, his hands already upon her, searching for the curves of her breasts and buttocks.

  Polly leaned against the wall, nudging a sweeping brush out of the way. “We’ll be all right. I think there’s a ventilation brick somewhere, and it doesn’t usually take that long anyway.”

  The moment the words left her lips, it was as if she’d dropped that ventilation brick right into the middle of their conversation.

  “Now, now, now, Miss Polly, what other lucky fellows have you lured into your Stygian lair?” He grabbed her by her right bottom cheek and pulled her up hard against him, and Polly’s sex leaped when she felt the sturdy bulge of his e
rection.

  Should she tell him? Could she trust him? The Weatherly household had scandals enough, but then again, the tale of a young master poking a parlor maid was hardly news, was it? The same thing probably happened in most Belgravia houses on a regular basis, and Polly knew of at least two similar arrangements in South Mulberry Street alone.

  She wound her arms around his neck and put her lips against his ear. “It’s not always a roast beef sandwich that Mr. Charles comes down here for, you know.”

  There was a long pause, and even though Polly couldn’t see Jamie’s face, in her mind’s eye, she saw a considering expression on it. Had her revelations given him pause for thought after all?

  “So, Charlie Weatherly likes the girls too, eh?”

  Too?

  Now it was Polly’s turn to consider. She’d long had a suspicion that Charlie liked his bread buttered on either side, but she had no absolute proof.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you mean to say that you didn’t know the young master likes to bat for both teams?” Jamie chuckled, hauling steadily at her skirts until he had them up, and his hand inside the vent of her drawers at the back.

  “Well, I’ve had that notion.” His knuckle brushed her anus and she let out a breath. “But I’d like to know how…how you know,” she stuttered as he rubbed her there softly but with authority.

  “Oh, a man like me recognizes certain characteristics.” He plunged in for a kiss as his fingers rode the wicked groove.

  Polly gasped into his mouth. It was as if someone had lit a lamp.

  “When did you meet Charlie? What do you mean ‘recognize’?” she demanded when he freed her lips and leaned down to kiss her neck above the collar of her frock. “Are you an invert too?”

  “Would it revolt you if I said yes?” His mouth opened against her skin, his tongue sweeping hot over it. The way he kissed her throat showed her he liked a woman’s taste.

  “Not in the slightest, Mr. Brownlow. It takes all sorts,” she gasped as his fingertips curved around her sex from behind and dabbled in a tantalizing rhythm against her entrance. Of their own volition, it seemed, her hips tilted, trying to nudge him in the direction of her most sensitive part. “I’m a country girl at heart and you’d be amazed what goes on out of town. Sophisticated London folk think we don’t know anything, but we do, you know, we do.”