He grinned. “And there’s something wrong with that?”
She laughed. “Touchй. I’m definitely not in the mood to complain.”
“So, if I were to keep you orgasmic, you’d be disinclined to complain?”
“You say the nicest things,” she murmured, lazily stretching, arching her back, reveling in the sweet afterglow.
“It’s pure selfishness, darling.”
Her green gaze was sportive. “Am I your darling?”
“Without a doubt.” They were by chance or happenstance or the aimlessness of fate physically matched-as in a perfect fit. And he should know.
“I rather like the idea,” she whispered, reaching out and sliding her finger up his only marginally diminished erection. “And him, of course, and his very credible talents.”
There was something electrifying about the lush Mrs. St. Vincent, he decided, drawing in a small breath, sumptuous pleasure still pulsing through his penis and gonads-albeit in lesser measure. “We thank you for your inspiration,” he murmured, leaning forward slightly to kiss her, a politesse learned at his French governess’s knee. Literally.
“How nice you are. Thank you, too.” Rosalind smiled at the conventional courtesies. “Did we just finish a waltz?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He grinned. “You’re a very good dancer.”
“And you’ve done this once or twice before.”
“Yes, once or twice,” he said, not sure where she was going with her remark.
“I should be grateful, I suppose.”
What had she expected? That he was some saint? “I certainly am grateful for your participation.” His voice was urbane, his smile charming. “You’re quite amazing.” Women were prone to talk about their feelings after sex. Why should Mrs. St. Vincent be the exception?
“So your reputation remains intact, does it not?”
“Are you complaining?” For a woman who’d just climaxed three times, he rather thought he’d done her a favor.
She had the good grace to blush. “No.”
“Good,” he softly said, slipping a finger under her chin and holding her gaze. “Because we’re not anywhere near finished.”
As if on cue, she saw his erection begin to swell, and quite removed from reason or intellect, an answering ripple of arousal shimmered through her vagina.
“This is sheer madness,” she said much too softly.
Her equivocation in word and tone was a flashing semaphore to an experienced cocksman like Fitz. “Probably,” he said as softly. “Because I’m thinking about taking you into the country for a month.”
Her eyes flared wide. “You wouldn’t!” But even as she protested, the pulsing between her legs accelerated, her nipples stiffened, and a wild lustful flame burned through her body.
“I would,” he said, pointed and deliberate.
“You can’t.”
“I can do anything I want.”
He was a duke and rich. She understood rules didn’t apply to him. “You have no compunction about coercing a woman?”
“Until now I would have said yes.” He suddenly smiled. “You affect me differently.”
Gratified to see his teasing smile, she said, “It’s only lust. You’ll get over it.”
“I hope so. Now then, you were looking for adventure. What did I do with my tie?” Rolling off the bed, he walked toward the pile of his discarded clothing. “Maybe we’ll play harem after all.”
He didn’t ask her permission; there was something provocative in his assumption of authority. Was he her eunuch come to life? Or was he the master of the harem, or simply Groveland in the flesh? Or didn’t it matter who he was after he’d said What did I do with my tie? because her body had instantly responded to the lascivious suggestion in those words?
“Here we go.” Holding the strip of white silk aloft, he returned to the bed. “I’ve only heard about slave markets, so we’ll have to improvise.” Leaning over, he lifted her to her feet, drew her hands together before her, and bound them with a loose slipknot. “What is it that appeals to you about harems? Stand there.” He indicated a point near the bed with his finger.
“The exotic atmosphere, I suppose,” she said, moving the few steps. “Where women are-”
“Sexual objects, receptacles for a man’s pleasure?” His brows rose. “How does that appeal to a woman of your independence?”
She shrugged. “The departure from the norm or the blatant sexual content or-”
“Being tamed and mastered and forced to have sex?”
She took a small breath to contain the prurient rush of lust flaring through her senses, felt a need as well to meet the challenge in his soft query. “I’m not sure,” she said, holding his gaze. “Does it matter?”
He smiled. “Not to me. You’re the one on the auction block. I’m just here to make a purchase. Should I find you pleasing.”
“Then I must do my best to please you.”
This time it was he who required a small inhalation to suppress the ruttish surge bringing his penis fully erect, Mrs. St. Vincent’s whispered reply shocking in its impact. He didn’t particularly like the feeling, the lack of control she provoked. Perhaps taming her wouldn’t be exclusively a game. “Where do you come from?” His voice was crisp. “Circassia with your auburn hair?”
“Tripoli,” she said, smiling faintly, liking that she’d rattled his cool nonchalance. “And I can cook, my lord.”
“I have a cook.”
“I can also sew.”
His mouth slowly curved into a smile; the lady had an imagination. “If only I was looking for a seamstress.”
“Perhaps you need someone to warm your bed.”
“I have a large harem.”
She bit back the comment that came to her lips, his statement much too true. “I could give you fine sons, my lord.”
“What if I have enough sons?”
She held his gaze. “You don’t have mine.”
Nor did he intend to. “Open your mouth,” he brusquely said, changing the subject. When she did, he ran his finger over her teeth as if checking a horse for its age. “Adequate,” he murmured. “Turn around.”
Astonished at the fierce passion aroused by his soft commands, she hastened to comply.
He swept his hands over her shoulders, down her back and legs with a brisk efficiency. “You must not have been in the harem long; you still have muscle tone. Face me again.”
She swivelled around so quickly, her breasts quivered with the motion.
Ignoring the provocative tremor, he cupped her large breasts in his hands and cooly said, “These are serviceable. You haven’t suckled a babe, I gather.”
“No, my lord.”
“You could be barren then.”
“My late master was old and impotent.”
“And his sons didn’t want you?”
“They did, but the chief wife didn’t. She sent me away to be sold.”
“So you’re relatively untried.” He lifted her breasts slightly, weighing them in his hands. “Were you beaten?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer; a certain ambiguity echoed in his voice. “Very little, my lord.”
“For what infractions?”
“Speaking out of turn.”
He laughed, let his hands drop away from her breasts, and said, “I’m not surprised. Perhaps I could teach you obedience.”
“Perhaps you could.”
“Are you being impertinent?”
“No, my lord. On the contrary I’d find obedience to you most interesting.”
“Why don’t we find out. Turn around, bend over. Brace your hands on the bed. Let’s see if you’re worth buying.” His instructions were gently put, a mildness in his voice as if he were ordering a cup of tea.
But an underlying command echoed beneath his words, and her senses instantly responded to that unspoken presumption, as if knowing how delectable the compensation. Quickly moving into position, she suddenly understood the true meaning of
unslaked lust, the concept directly related to Groveland-or rather, his highly rewarding cock, she decided with a frenzied little shiver.
Walking up behind her, he surveyed the pale expanse of opulent female flesh with rich satisfaction. That Mrs. St. Vincent offered him the ultimate submission was gratifying after her parting words this morning. That he was pleasantly anticipating having sex with her an even better feeling after experiencing a surfeit of ennui of late. “Are you ready to show me your usefulness?” he mildly inquired, even as his penis swelled larger at the prospect.
“Yes, yes.” Flushed and feverish, ravenous for him when she’d only written of the feeling before but never felt it, she breathlessly added with a quick look over her shoulder, “If it please my lord.”
“That depends. Show me what you can do.” He didn’t touch her, not so much as a steadying hand on her hips before he entered her in a swift, hard thrust and buried his erection deep inside her.
With his huge cock straining every frenzied sexual receptor in her pulsing vagina, motivated by inexorable orgasmic pressures, she quickly obeyed, swinging her hips in a swift, rocking rhythm, back and forth, side to side, undulating her bottom with hot-spur urgency. Shuddering at each thrilling, exquisitely tight downstroke, drawing in a sustaining breath at each slow withdrawal, subject to a pleasure beyond her wildest dreams, Rosalind had crossed the impressionable boundary into the untrammeled world of Lady Blessington.
By ordering Mrs. St. Vincent to service him, Fitz sought to gain control over his unnerving cravings, restore normalcy to this sexual encounter, persuade himself that her submission acquitted him of involvement.
But his involvement couldn’t be long denied, no more than Rosalind could pretend that it was someone else and not Groveland who aroused her every pleasure center and made her greedy for what he offered.
“Faster,” he murmured, thinking selfishness would absolve him of entanglement.
Shameless in her need, she complied, her lower body pumping like a piston, every swinging back stroke eliciting a little ecstatic gasp from her parted lips.
“Roll, spin… that’s it, that’s better-just like that,” he directed, gently guiding her plump bottom with his fingertips. “Good. Perfect. You follow instructions well.”
It was clearly Groveland’s voice she heard-no fantasy lord or sultan.
If his resplendent cock wasn’t sliding in and out of her, ramming and cramming her full, if she wasn’t so near to orgasm she could see nirvana through a rosy haze, she might have disputed his gross absolutism. Or ignored the flame-hot spasms of lust spiking through her body.
“Don’t you dare climax,” he growled. But leaning forward as he spoke, he freed her hands with a tug on the slipknot, slid his palm over her belly, and delicately caressed her clit.
Whether it was his rough threat or his tender touch, she felt as though he’d pressed some orgasmic button, and with a skittish, suffocated cry, she came.
Just as he knew she would.
With scarcely less restraint, he waited only until her first orgasmic frenzy had swept over her before he jerked out and climaxed in a violent, unruly trajectory. “Sorry about… that,” he murmured, breathing hard. Christ. What a mess. Although better than coming inside her. “Where are… your towels?”
She’d collapsed facedown on the bed so her reply was muffled.
Finding his underwear on the floor, he wiped himself off, used a portion of the sheet to do what he could to clean up his semen, and went in search of a bathroom and towels.
A short time later, he returned with towels, two peaches, and a half-empty bottle of champagne to find her sitting on the side of the bed, dressed in a robe, her back ramrod straight, her hands clasped in her lap. A determined look on her face.
“Forgive me for making a mess,” he said, coming to a halt near the bed. “I’m usually not so juvenile.”
“You’re forgiven, but I’d like you to go now. I dislike feeling so dependent on that”-she pointed at his crotch-“particularly with a man like you.” His penis even in repose was impressive, she grudgingly noted.
“Whatever you say. Would you like one?” He held out the peaches cupped in one palm.
“No. Now please go,” she firmly said before she could change her mind. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. An assessment quickly seconded by her libido that was beginning to divorce itself from her pragmatic resolve.
“I actually know someone who’s been in a harem,” Fitz observed, dropping the towels on the bed and sitting beside her. “If you’re interested. Champagne?” He offered her the bottle.
She shook her head.
A taut, restrained gesture, he decided. One open to equivocation, he also decided, since she’d not repeated her dismissal notice. “A lady I know accompanied her family on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople.” He didn’t say her husband in the event Mrs. St. Vincent had become prudish about fidelity as well as making love. “She became friends with several of the sultan’s concubines. The harem is a world unto itself apparently-very luxurious if not for its lack of freedom, of course. Many of the women were quite content, though, Sally said.” He set the bottle on the floor, one peach on the bedside table, and took a bite out of the other. “Your peaches on the kitchen table reminded me of her stories,” he said a moment later. “Apparently, peaches are favorites in the harem.”
“Was she actually inside a harem?”
Ah, that first nibble of curiosity. Gratifying. “Her family was at the court of the sultan for three years. Very eventful years for Sally.” He smiled faintly. “She became very fond of hashish as well as peaches.”
“She smoked hashish?”
He was delighted to hear a modicum of excitement in Mrs. St. Vincent’s voice. “Everyone does, I’m told. It helps with the tedium of the harem.”
“Does it enhance sensation as rumored?”
“She says it does. I could have brought some if I’d known you’d like to try it.”
“Oh, no, no… That is, stories tell of a heightened imagination under the influence of the drug.”
“There’s hashish dens enough in London. Wales likes to end his evenings there-or he did when he was younger. It’s another amusement for the haute monde. If you’d like to try it sometime, let me know.”
“No, thank you. I was wondering though”-an impetuousness in her voice again-“did she tell you anything about eunuchs?”
“Let me think. She did mention two. One was a very large Ethiopian, the other a Greek, I believe. Both were favorites in the harem.”
“Do you know why?” Avid interest in her query.
He told her all he’d learned from Sally, racking his brain for details that might intrigue her, remaining scrupulously polite during his recital, although he was pleased later when she agreed to several sips of champagne. And in time, when he moved to sit back against the headboard and said, “Come sit with me and I’ll describe all the costumes Sally brought back from Constantinople,” she didn’t resist. Fortunately, Sally had modeled several of the harem designs for him so his descriptions were detailed.
“I’ve read many travel accounts of Constantinople, but to hear firsthand from someone actually having seen a harem and returning with all those wonderful clothes”-she gave him a small smile-“is quite wonderful.”
“Diplomatic credentials open doors otherwise closed to visitors, not to mention, England’s influence is considerable at the sultan’s court.” Fitz offered her another drink of champagne. “It’s still moderately cold.”
While they finished the champagne, Fitz answered more questions about harems. All with cultivated grace and scrupulous self-restraint, taking care not to so much as touch her as she sat beside him.
“You’re extremely informative,” Rosalind commented, when at last she’d run out of queries. “And restful as well”-she made a small moue-“when you’re not making me feverish with lust.”
“It’s always a good idea to take a break. It makes it better th
e next time.”
“There shouldn’t be a next time.”
“Why not? It makes you feel good.”
There was no reasonable answer to his simple statement. “I suppose I shouldn’t bring up moral arguments.”
“You could if you like.”
With an agreeable contentment warming her senses, she said with a soft sigh, “Maybe later.”
In the interest of curtailing such an event, Fitz said, “There’s something else I heard about the harem. If you’d like to try it.”
The sudden silence was pregnant with possibility.
“You’ll like it.” His voice was velvet soft.
She hesitated, bit her bottom lip.
“I was told it can be very arousing,” he lied, thinking Sally wouldn’t mind sharing one of her favorite treats.
“How do you know all this?” She turned to meet his gaze.
“Sally talks a lot.” He smiled as he perjured himself; he and Sally did more than talk. “Really,” he added at Rosalind’s skeptical look. “We’ve known each other for years. She grew up near me; we spent summers together when we were young.”
Rosalind wasn’t sure she could picture him young, this elegant, polished seducer. “How old were you?”
“When Sally and I roamed the countryside?”
She nodded.
“I suppose we were eleven or twelve. What did you do during your childhood summers?”
“Searched the countryside for fossils and plants. It wasn’t work,” she said to his pained expression. “I enjoyed it.”
“And yet here you are in the city.”
Rosalind shrugged. “One never knows. Have you planned your life?”
Fitz chuckled. “Hell no. Things happen, I’ve discovered.”
“Like this.”
“Yes.” She was right, despite his ulterior motives. “Like this.”
“So then?”
He turned to her, enticement in her innocuous phrase.
“Since we seem to be engaged in a serendipitous adventure.” Her voice was very soft. “And I’m experiencing a curious sense of addiction…”
“I must not be derelict,” he softly drawled.
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