“When is your half-day?”
“Tomorrow.”
A blaze of emotion crossed his face, was reflected in his eyes for an instant before he reined it in. But she had already seen it and rejoiced.
“Meet me.” Again a demand, and, even had she wanted to, Jane wouldn’t have been able to resist. “I have a friend, an artist, with a studio in Wood Street, near Cheapside. He will let me have it for the afternoon if I ask.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a slip of paper, his eyes never leaving hers. “Shall I ask, cara mia?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Once more he closed his eyes as though collecting himself, and Jane knew she had never seen anything more beautiful than Sergio Fontini wanting her so badly he did not dare even look at her in a moment such as this. When he opened his eyes, he carefully placed the slip of paper on the nearest table before capturing her with the intensity of his gaze again.
“Come to me then.”
Oh, but how was she to wait so long? Already the following day seemed an eternity away, her need so passionate she did not know how she would be able to bear the delay.
“But I want you now.”
She hadn’t meant to say it but couldn’t stop the words from whispering out. Sergio’s eyelids grew heavy, his face taking on a look of such seductive force, Jane’s body trembled.
“Are you wet for me, cara mia? Have you been remembering what we did last week, imagining what I would do today?”
Jane nodded, swallowing against the dryness of her throat, pressing her thighs together, seeking surcease from the interminable craving for him.
“And did you touch yourself while you thought of me?”
Heat rushed to her face, and she gasped. But again she nodded, saw a stain of color touch his cheeks too as she did.
“Show me how, sweet Jane.” As she watched, he began to loosen the buttons on his placket. “Turn your chair toward me and open yourself to me. Show me how you touched yourself, and I will show you how I touched myself, as I thought of you night after night.”
She did as he directed, shuffling the chair around and then lifting her skirts. There was a growl of pained approval when he saw she was bare beneath. Sliding her bottom to the edge of the seat, she leaned back and opened her legs, letting him see between, showing him how desperate she had become waiting for him.
“Ahhh.” His sigh seemed to come across the room and touch her nub, so her hips jerked in reaction. “How you tempt me, sweet girl. How I long to throw caution aside and taste you again.” He pulled out his cock, let it rest on one palm, as though offering the taut length to her. “Do you remember how I fucked your mouth?”
“Yes,” she moaned, putting fingers into her slick folds, already on the verge of release, yet wanting to wait, to draw these precious moments out. “I remember. And I remember how your thumb felt in me, rubbing and thrusting.”
As though recreating the moment, she plunged two fingers into her channel, heard the hiss of his breath as he watched. Working them back and forth, she let the sheer carnality of the experience wash over her and sank into an erotic state of heightened bliss, where culmination was not the main goal. Rather it was pleasing and pleasuring him that mattered.
“Do you like watching me, Sergio?”
His fingers fisted around his cock, began a slow slide down toward his balls. “Yes, cara mia.” How she loved that velvet whisper, the thickening of his accent, the roll of the words from his lips. “Seeing you finger yourself is more enchanting than I can say. Do it harder.”
So she did, lifting her arse to meet the plunge of her fingers. Hearing the wet slap each time she went as deep as she could, feeling the sharp pulse of pleasure each time the heel of her palm made contact with her nub. And she watched him watch her, the expression on his face as she fucked herself for his delectation more wonderful even than the sensations sparking from between her legs.
“Sweet Jane,” he crooned. “I am so hard for you. Tomorrow I will lick and kiss and suck every inch of your sweet body. And then I will fuck you, over and over.” His voice was rougher, strained, and she knew he was nearing completion. “I have dreamt of being in you, looking down into your beautiful face as you spend, your cunt milking the seed from my body.”
She’d been trying to hold back her release, but the image he conjured, the raw nature of his words and tone pushed her past the point of all restraint. Body shuddering and jerking, eyes tightly closed, she came, his low, pleasure-laden sounds of appreciation echoing in her ears.
Boneless, she sank back, her hand falling away from her cunt, trying to catch her breath. Cracking open her eyes, she saw his hand fisted around the base of his erection, looked up to find him staring at her, his face flushed, tight and ravenous.
“Ti adoro, cara mia. Ti desidero. Giorno e notte sogno solo di te.”
She didn’t need to understand the words. His expression, the timbre of his voice said all she needed to know.
“Let me come to you, Sergio.” The plea was unmistakable, her need to touch him almost painful. “Please.”
“Non.” He shook his head, seemed to speak through clenched teeth, his lips barely moving. “Stay where you are.”
“Then spend for me.” She spread her legs as wide as she could, reached down and used her fingers to open the lips of her still-pulsing cunt, saw his hand start to move again. “Imagine you are on your knees between my thighs, fucking me, watching your cock plunge into my body.” Jane shuddered, aroused again, stopping to swallow before she could continue. “That is what I think of when I touch myself in bed, Sergio, when I have to bite my pillow so as not to scream your name as I come. Waiting until tomorrow to know what that is like will be torture to me.”
He had a handkerchief in his other hand, but it seemed as though release caught him by surprise. His eyes widened briefly before snapping shut, and a thick spurt of seed arced from his prick before he caught the rest in the square of white linen. But it was his expression Jane watched with avid excitement, the way his lips drew back to reveal clenched teeth, the strain of ecstasy tightening the sharp planes of his face. She committed it all to memory, knowing this was the image she would bring forth in the future as she masturbated and spent, for it was the most glorious sight she had ever beheld.
Slumped back against the door, he opened his eyes just a slit, surveyed her, as his mouth lost the softness of satiation and firmed into an almost grim line. Her stomach clenched, not with fear but with a strange, tender emotion she refused to even attempt to name.
“Mi hai stregato.” It was just a murmur, hot and harsh and more thrilling than even a touch. “You have enchanted me.”
Slowly she dropped her skirt and shook her head. “If there was a spell cast, Sergio, it was by you.”
Gaze steady on her face, he cleaned himself and tucked his cock back into his pants. In moments, he was once more his usual, immaculate self, although his face seemed paler than normal.
“Domani, sweet Jane.” It sounded like a threat and a promise, all at once. “Tomorrow we will find out what this thing”—his hand inscribed a graceful line toward her and then came back to point at his chest—“is between us.”
Then he was gone, slipping away before she could even blink.
“Yes,” she whispered into the silent, empty room. “Tomorrow.”Chapter Eight
Looking around the studio, Sergio was struck once more by how cluttered it really was. Despite being a large room, somehow he and Gustav had managed to fill it with a variety of odds and ends. His corner was relatively neat. All he really needed was his drafting table and art supplies, which, although various, he somehow managed to keep all contained in a chest of drawers he’d bought on Portobello Road. Yes, he’d added a comfortable armchair and two of the best gas lamps he could afford, but, in reality, those were but a small fraction of the room’s contents.
Besides the obligatory easels, paints and brushes Gustav needed to produce his art, as well as dozens of painting
s at various stages of completion, there were a hodgepodge of other items. The painter was constantly bringing in what he referred to as “props”—bits of furniture, fabrics and sundries he used as backdrops for his portraits. They made use of the old Chinoiserie screen, setting it up in a corner to hide a small washstand and commode, and the brass bedstead on which Gustav often painted nudes doubled as a place for either man to sleep, should one of them work late into the night. But the rest of Gustav’s oddities? Sergio shook his head. Even worse than the often ugly furniture were the vases of dried flowers, glass cases holding strange arrangements of diverse natural items, bibelots, trinkets and random found bits and pieces that seemed determined to take over the entire room. Gustav was a magpie, his compulsive collecting leaving the place looking like the worse example of an overdecorated parlor.
Sergio had tidied as best he could, glad the charwoman they employed to clean once a week had been there the day before. Clearing away much of Gustav’s paraphernalia, putting it on shelves and in drawers, he’d spread a tablecloth over the paint-stained table, ready for the cold luncheon he’d brought. Opening the windows to try to get rid of as much of the oil paint smell as he could, he’d quietly cursed his friend for not being in the habit of using watercolors or pastels. Then he exchanged the bedsheets for ones he’d brought from home and draped a colorful shawl over the foot of the bed.
Originally he’d bought the large silk square with its knotted fringe from one of the small shops selling Far Eastern goods, thinking perhaps to give it to his mother as a gift. Now all he could think of was seeing it wrapped around Jane, her burnt-umber hair and pale complexion set against the rich colors. Perhaps he would use it to tease over her skin—softness on softness—tickle her with the fringe until she twisted and writhed with pleasure.
Dio. He was already hard for her, had been almost constantly since the day before, and he couldn’t even be sure she would meet him today.
If she were wise, and he knew her to be a woman of keen intelligence, she probably wouldn’t, but he prayed desire would win over caution. He needed her, his yearning a constant ache in his belly. His world felt off-kilter, as though the ground shifted and shook under his feet, but just seeing her yesterday, even for that brief time, being reassured that what they shared existed and wasn’t just a figment of his dreams, had steadied him.
For so long he’d strived to build a life that could satisfy him, fulfill the parts of himself he knew to be lacking. When he was with Jane there was no need to be anything other than he truly was, and he was content. Why it was so, how it was achieved, didn’t concern him. The sensation was too wonderful to question, but had to be appreciated just as it was, for what it was.
Could it endure?
Sergio didn’t know, couldn’t guess and wasn’t ready to contemplate that. Today would be one of passion unleashed, and would hopefully sate this interminable hunger even for a little while.
Closing the window against the autumnal air, aware his attempt to clear the studio of the paint smells had made it cold, Sergio stoked the fire and added more fuel, hoping the room would warm up before Jane arrived.
If she arrived.
He pushed the thought from his mind. Despite everything, somehow he knew she would come as promised. Yet that knowledge didn’t stop him pacing back and forth from the window to the door, unable to sit still. And when there were quiet footsteps in the uncarpeted hall and a soft tap on the door, there was no mistaking his raw rush of emotion as anything but relief.
Striding across the room, he flung open the door to reveal Jane, bundled in a blue wool cloak and peeking up at him from beneath the brim of a simple, demure hat. It struck him that the expression in her eyes was almost shy, the slight smile on her lips seemed hesitant, and he wondered if already she rued the impulses that had brought her to him.
Wordlessly, he held out his hand, and his heart leapt as hers immediately rose to settle on it. With the slightest tug, he urged her inside, closed and locked the door behind her.
She unwrapped the cloak from around herself, and Sergio eased it off her shoulders, turning to hang it on the nearby coat tree. When he turned back toward her, she was unpinning her hat. This too he took from her and put aside, still without a word passing between them. The tip of her nose and apples of her cheeks were pink from the cold. A surge of protectiveness and concern had him guide her to a chair near the small coal fire.
“Sit here, cara.” As she subsided into the seat, Sergio went to stir the coals, wanting to make sure she was warm enough. “How cold it has suddenly turned.”
“Yes,” she replied, in that calm, steady voice he so adored. “Winter is soon upon us.”
Putting the poker on its stand, Sergio felt an icy trickle down his spine, for her words seemed somehow prescient—a harbinger not just for the changing of the seasons but also of their association. When he looked at her, found her gaze focused on her hands as she removed her woolen gloves, the feeling grew stronger.
For a moment, he stayed where he was, frozen, insidious fear raking his belly, making his heart race. When considering this afternoon, imagining what would occur, his thoughts had been consumed with carnality. He had pictured himself unwrapping her, finally gazing on her unclothed body, touching, kissing and caressing her, bringing her as much pleasure as he could. Now, seeing her downturned gaze, the unusual jerkiness of her movements as she tugged her gloves off, those thoughts faded, overwhelmed by the need to know what she was thinking, feeling.
On slightly unsteady legs, he stepped closer to her and sank down onto the ottoman next to her chair.
“Tell me,” he demanded, not reaching for her, not daring to touch her until he heard whatever it was she had to say. He braced himself, suddenly aware that no matter what objections she may espouse to their being together he would fight to overcome them. “Do not be afraid. Just tell me.”
Jane raised her gaze to his. It was steady, but her gray eyes were clouded, unsure, and her fingers seemed unable to stop twisting the gloves back and forth.
“What are we doing, Sergio?” Beneath the calm words lay a wealth of emotion, not fully suppressed. “What is this madness?”
Love.
The word came into his head instinctively, but the fear in her eyes stilled his tongue before it could be uttered. Everything he knew of her said she would not believe him, and her estimation of him would be lowered by what she conceived of as a lie. The defenses she had built up around herself, which he had begun to demolish, would be redoubled. Somehow he would convince her—with his body and actions first—before declaring what he now accepted to be the reality of why they were so drawn to each other. Before him sat the woman who held his heart, was the companion and lover he had longed for and had hardly dared hope of ever finding.
He would not let her go but, for now, the best he could do was get her to voice her reservations, so he could destroy them, one by one.
“Is it madness, sweet Jane?” He smiled as he asked it, joy coloring the words so they were like the lyrics of a song. “Is it lunacy to want you as much as I do?”
Her eyes darkened, and she moistened the corner of her lips with the tip of her tongue before she replied. “It must be. How could it be anything else but insanity to risk everything we are, just for a few moments of pleasure? I would never forgive myself if harm should befall you because of me.”
Her voice wavered slightly on the last words, and Sergio was unable to resist covering her hands, where they fidgeted on her lap, with one of his. Her fingers stilled, and he squeezed them, trying to impart to her the strength of his determination, his knowledge that what they were doing was absolutely, undeniably right.
“You have even more to lose, cara mia, and yet you came to me. Why?”
“I cannot resist you.” How stark was her voice, almost despairing. “I could not stay away.”
Rising, Sergio tugged on her hands, bringing her to her feet. Holding her gaze, hoping she could see in his all he wanted to say but
held back, he replied, “And if you hadn’t come, I would have been forced to skulk outside the servant’s entrance of the Lowells’ house, waiting for your return, desperate to know why you abandoned me, furious with disappointment. Heartbroken.”
It was as close as he could come without declaring himself, and he saw the way her eyes widened slightly at his words, the wash of color that stained her cheeks. The sweet pink lips trembled, but all she said was, “You could never skulk, Sergio. They would have the Bobbies on you in a thrice.”
“I would become a character in a music hall skit—the spurned lover dragged away, crying out his beloved’s name.” He smiled, just a little, at his own absurdity, yet feeling he would make himself out to be the fool if it would make her his.
The small huff that broke from her lips was one of mingled amusement and disbelief and, to his relief, she smiled too. “You have too much dignity to make such a display of yourself.”
“Ah, cara mia, per te farei di tutto.” Before she could ask him to interpret, he shrugged, and lifted his hand to cup the softness of her cheek. “I would do anything for you.”
And bending, he covered her lips with his, not gently but with the masterful pressure he knew she loved and found irresistible, his tongue demanding entrance to the moist heat of her mouth. Immediately she granted it, a soft moan flowing from her open lips into his, to be joyfully absorbed.
It was not a lustful kiss, although his deep need for her would always be an underlying melody to the symphony of his emotions. Instead he tried to impart his sincerity, the tenderness welling in his heart and the intense possessiveness she inspired. He didn’t fool himself into thinking it would be an easy path to keep Jane in his life. There were too many impediments, not the least of them Jane’s belief that their association would be brief, transient. He would somehow have to convince her otherwise, for with her in his arms, the sweetness of her responses making his heart pound, Sergio knew without doubt she was his and always would be.
He gentled the kiss, lifting his mouth away and resting his hands on her shoulders to hold her in place when she leaned in, her lips trying to follow his. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes like delicate fans against her cheeks. Her lips were softly pink, slightly swollen, delectable. But he didn’t take them again, only stroked her cheek, murmured her name. Jane’s eyelids fluttered, lifted, and Sergio smiled down into the passion-hazy gaze.
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