by Mia Vincy
“It’s marvelous the way you aren’t shy,” he murmured.
“Oh. I suppose I ought to be.”
“You ought to be exactly as you are.”
As he draped her hair over her shoulders and breasts, his hands brushed her nipples and his lips nibbled her neck. Her body roared to sensual life, demanding to be touched, demanding more of these hot sensations swirling inside. Her hands floated in front of her, useless and awkward because he was behind her and she was meant to— What?
“I don’t know what to do,” she cried, in a voice unlike her own.
Guy’s hands landed on her bare shoulders, warm and strong, with that luxurious roughness. Slowly, he trailed his palms down her arms, to her wrists, to her hands. He laced his fingers with hers.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he murmured, his breath caressing her temple with erotic promise. “You only have to feel. Feel everything I do, feel the way I touch you, feel the way your body responds to my touch.”
She closed her eyes, yielded to sensation. This was what she felt: his linen shirt teasing her, his warmth enveloping her, his lips against her ear, goosebumps rippling over her skin. The heat from the fire, the silk of the banyan, the peace in his arms, the fury of her lust.
“Feel everything,” he continued. “And if that splendid brain of yours starts thinking, ignore it and feel the sensations. That’s all you need to do. Just feel. Let yourself feel, and you cannot get this wrong.”
He freed his fingers and dragged them back up her thighs, over her hips. He must have leaned away from her, for cold air washed between them, and with the next pulse of her exasperated quim, she was arching, thrills racing through her, as his fingers burned a path up her spine.
“When I touch you,” he said, hypnotic and heavy, “I imagine leaving a trail of stars, all the colors in the world, exploding from my touch, like a thousand fireworks flying up from your skin.”
As he spoke, his fingertips roamed over her, sparking sensations, sparking light. She saw her own back through the dance of his fingers, saw his touch as fire and color and beauty, orange and blue and pink and green. Then all that color and light and heat were deep inside her too, swirling and rising, thousands of sparks igniting within, so her blood became a sizzling, colorful river of stars.
Those hands of his mapped her, like he was discovering her, remembering her. Skating down her back, shaping her waist, gliding over her hips and up her belly to cup her breasts and pinch her nipples and toss her hair.
Somehow she was lying down—she did not know when that happened—and his mouth joined the dance, his burning kisses sliding over her, those hands roving wildly, now fast, now slow, now firm, now soft, so much to feel that her mind could not keep up. He was everywhere: a callused hand on her shoulder, hot tongue at her navel, fingers whirling over her buttocks and her thighs, until she forgot about mouths and hands and thighs, until there was only sensation. Delicious, intense sensations tossing her about like a ship in a storm, the air alive with the crackle of the fire and the sounds from her throat, and his sounds too, soft growls and sighs.
Everywhere he touched her—but no, not everywhere! What was he doing, not touching her quim, when it was throbbing so hard it must make the house shake? He laughed and she grabbed him, but she caught only linen. Furiously, she yanked at his hateful shirt, and he bowed and shifted so it came off in her hands. She tossed it aside— What use was a shirt with no man inside? Again she tried to wrestle him, her hands frantic on his scorching skin, but one strong leg pinned her down. Again his palms roved over her stomach. Why on earth was he touching her stomach when she had more worthy places to touch?
A growl sounded in her throat. She met his eyes, green and glazed. The scoundrel was enjoying himself far too much.
“Something wrong?” he murmured.
“Curse you,” she hissed. “You’re not doing it right.”
“Oh, I’m doing it exactly right.”
“Do you need me to draw you a map? Can you not find my…?”
He flicked his tongue over her nipple; as if on command, she arched. “Find your what, sweetheart?”
“So help me, I’m going to kill you for this.”
But he only laughed, saying, “That’s right, just like that,” and dragged his traitorous lips over her ribcage, over her stomach. She parted her thighs to give the blockhead a clue, but he ignored her, his mouth lazily exploring her stomach and the crests of her hips.
“You villain,” she muttered. “You cad, you devil, you blackguard, you scoundrel, you… Oh.”
Oh.
He had finally found her quim. With his mouth.
Dazed, she lifted her head to stare at him. He lay between her thighs, caressing her with his tongue, and then he pressed his thumb—
Oh.
Her hips rose; he pushed them down, so she looped a leg over his shoulder and pounded him with her heel.
Flashing her a smile, his eyes held hers as he lowered his mouth to do it again. How contented he looked! And so infuriatingly pleased with himself! Oh dear heaven, she wanted to strangle him and kiss him and love him and kick him. A different pleasure arose, a new pleasure, deep inside where even his touch could not reach.
“Still want to draw me that map, sweetheart?” he said.
He nipped the inside of her thigh. Need rushed through her, and with an alien yelp, she fell back, her hands helplessly curling in the silk and velvet of his robe, as the firm warmth of his mouth continued the exquisite work that his masterful fingers had begun.
She closed her eyes and followed his advice: to feel, only feel. Sensation coursed through her veins like hot liquid gold, drawn toward her center by his insistent, commanding mouth. Sensation flowed from her toes and her fingertips, from her back and her breasts, flowed to her center, pooling, swelling, building, a hot heavy whirlpool of sensation, swirling in her core, right above where his mouth—
Stopped.
Everything stopped. The torrent of sensations swirled in place, neither rising nor subsiding. She raised her head and glared at him, meeting his wild eyes.
“Curse you,” she managed to say, the words a mangled cry of breath and torment. “What on earth are you doing? You can’t stop! You must… You have to…”
His eyes burned into hers. She watched, mesmerized, as her world narrowed down to his hand, to the touch of his tongue on his own thumb. That thumb became the center of her universe, as he pressed it firmly against her; she bucked, crying out with pleasure and need, and then his mouth was on her again, continuing his call. She had no idea what he was doing, but she didn’t care; what mattered was the insistent, swirling sensation, rising under his command, rising until it burst into hot waves that rippled back through every inch of her skin.
Arabella collapsed onto the rug, pleasure still pulsing through her with each thundering beat of her heart. Vaguely, she was aware of Guy extricating himself from her boneless legs. He stretched out beside her. She found enough strength to shift and flop against him like a cat.
Neither spoke or moved. The fire crackled and the clock ticked. Arabella’s heart calmed, the sensations subsided, and her brain began to work.
Just enough to note that she had asked, and he had given. Start with something small, he had said. So she had, with success, and already she felt stronger, the way taking action always made her feel stronger. Perhaps it was the dizzying thrill that came with knowing she had faced a fear, that he had been generous and caring and undeterred by her fury, that made her feel more like herself than she ever had.
Perhaps it was that same thrill that made her rise and study him, as he lay with his arm thrown over his eyes, that feeling of strength that made her press her hand to his heaving chest, like she was staking a claim.
Guy kept his arm over his eyes and tried to breathe. Arabella’s palm was exultant on his chest, and her lingering taste on his tongue clouded his last scrap of judgment.
“Now it’s my turn to touch you,” she said, her vo
ice husky and unexpectedly playful.
“I promised we wouldn’t.” He flung his arm away from his face. Her hair was a wild dark cloud, her lips swollen, her eyes languorous with erotic promise. “You asked to be touched; I touched you. That is all.”
“You’re being honorable again.”
“It’s a curse,” he agreed.
“Not for me.” She tightened her hand into a claw, scratched a tormenting trail over his sternum. “I don’t have to be honorable.”
“You…” It was a wonder he had sufficient wit left to form words. “You are a wicked seductress, a dangerous temptress.”
Her hand stilled. Her nails dug in ever so slightly. “No man has ever called me that before.”
“Because every man in the world is a fool.”
“Except you.”
“Obviously.”
Obviously, he was the greatest fool of all.
A new, deeper pleasure flooded him, while Arabella, supple and smiling and mischievous, let her hands roam over his belly to the waistband of his breeches. She could not have missed the bulge of his cock but she ignored it. He should have been more careful with what he taught her.
“I have you at my mercy now,” she crooned. “Wicked seductress that I am. I shall use you for my pleasure.”
Her nimble fingers tackled his falls. Guy closed his eyes, lifted his hips on command, and tensed every one of his tortured muscles as she dispensed with his clothing. Groaned as she moved back up his body, her fingers teasing and exploring, the heavy silk of her unbound hair sweeping over his naked skin.
It felt even better than he had imagined.
“It is delicious to be touched, but delicious to touch too. It is good that you like games.”
“Why so?”
“Because you make an excellent plaything.”
He opened his eyes to see her smile broaden, and then she gripped his cock firmly. Nothing tentative with her; no half measures. She had decided to do this, and do it she would, and all Guy could do was submit.
“Careful,” he groaned.
“Do you like this?”
She was studying him, stroking him, with almost scientific curiosity. Then she bent her head, brushed her lips over his belly, his hip, ignoring his cock against her cheek. Stars above, when had poised, prickly Arabella become this… this…
“Dangerous temptress,” she murmured, as if she had heard his thoughts. “Wicked seductress.”
“You’re going to torment me, aren’t you?” He was mesmerized by the sight of her perfect face so close to his cock.
Her eyes widened. “Is that an option? Oh. That’s an option.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Whatever I please.” Her heavy-lidded gaze roamed over him. “If I am a dangerous temptress and wicked seductress, what would I do to you next?” Her eyes lingered on his cock, gripped in her hand. “This, I should think.”
She bent her head and took him in her mouth. No hesitation, no half measures.
Closing his eyes, Guy let his head thud back onto the floor. Followed his own advice and let himself feel.
She had no idea what she was doing, and he was in no state to teach her. But her ineptitude didn’t matter. He was so aroused that she could have done damn near anything and still the pleasure would come.
He grappled for air, for something to hold onto, as pleasure and pressure dueled and danced in his loins. His desperate hands found his shirt, tossed it at her. Surprise made her lift her head, grip him harder. He fumbled for the shirt. Pleasure shuddered through him and he came, groaning, into the soft linen folds.
“Oh,” she said. “We keep ruining your shirts.”
The shirts were the least of his problems. She kept ruining him.
Collapsing, he closed his eyes while she dealt with the shirt, then she shifted to sit against him. Her hand returned to rest on his belly, as though helping him heal. Heal from the sweet-hot fire of release, as if an earthquake had ripped through him and his organs were still adjusting to the newly shaken-up world.
In this new world, he was not in charge of himself. He was sapped of energy, sprawled helplessly on the floor, feeling more naked than ever before in his life. How easy, how right, how natural it was, to surrender completely to her call, to the way she enthralled him, thrilled him, humbled him, magnified him.
And best of all: Arabella, naked too, comfortable by his side.
He reached for her and she fell half on top of him, skin to skin, pulse to pulse. He wrapped an arm around her, held her tight, basking in the mix of decadence and intimacy as they lay amid silk and fire.
“I do see you differently now,” he murmured, his hand tracing lazy lines over her back. She tensed ever so slightly, then once more became supple. Lowering her walls, or at least opening a door for him to find his way in. “But I still don’t understand London,” he added. “Explain to me. How did we get here?”
He felt her stiffen, come alert and wary, like a guard listening for bandits in the night.
He had misjudged. No. He had judged exactly right. Whatever lay behind London mattered to her—which meant it mattered to him. He needed to know.
He needed her to trust him enough to confide in him.
She pulled away and he let her go. She sat up and hugged her knees, her hair falling around her.
Guy sat up too. “Arabella?”
“Sculthorpe… He had an obsession, one might say. With my virginity. He prized it above all else, talked about claiming it. Claiming me. It repelled me.”
Immediately, he understood. “So you decided to claim yourself first. That’s what you wanted from me that night.”
“But Sculthorpe guessed,” she said softly. “Not you, specifically, but he learned I was no longer a virgin and he… He was angry.”
“Yet he left without saying a word. Maybe I misjudged the man but I would expect him to be so outraged he would make sure the whole world knew.”
“You didn’t misjudge him. That was his intention.”
He waited, but she added nothing. She merely rested her chin on her knees, studying him with unreadable eyes.
“Why didn’t he tell everyone, if he knew that about you?” he finally prompted.
“Because I knew something about him too.” Her voice was flat. “I told him that if he shared my secret with the world, I would share his.”
Her words caught him off-guard. His spine straightened with abrupt tension. In a single, swift movement, Arabella pivoted around to face the fire, still hugging her knees. Her hair washed over her back, parting to reveal the bumps of her curved spine.
“That sounds like…” He groped for words amid the confusing clamor in his head. “The way you phrase that, it sounds as if you blackmailed him into silence.”
For long moments she said nothing, the silence punctuated only by a crumbling log, breaking apart in a shower of sparks.
When she finally spoke, it was with her typical hauteur. “I suppose I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I could. Because it achieved the desired effect. Because I wanted to defeat Sculthorpe and I did.” She twisted and straightened to look at him directly, brows raised in a challenge. “That must appall you, learning I am a blackmailer, in addition to all my other sins.”
True: Blackmail was appalling. Yet all those other sins she had committed for a good reason. At least, he believed she had—unless she had indeed been manipulating him. After all, his father had been the most unprincipled person Guy had ever met, and his explanations always sounded reasonable too.
She was eyeing him defiantly, as if wanting him to agree that she was appalling. Using her sins to shut him out.
“But what did he do?” he insisted. “You’re not telling me everything.”
Her gaze veered away. “It’s enough.”
It wasn’t enough, and it never would be. Talk to me, he wanted to plead, but he had tried that and it had not been enough.
Perhaps she refused to
confide because she truly had done something unpardonable this time. How could he know? If Arabella wouldn’t confide in him, if she wouldn’t trust him, how could he trust her?
Neither wore any clothes, but their intimacy had dissolved like mist, and suddenly Guy felt that he was the much more naked of the two.
Why did he even bother?
Whatever she had wanted from him earlier, apparently she had received it, and now she wanted nothing more. Certainly, she wanted no future with him; that would be the worst thing in the world, she had said, that day by the lake.
Already he missed her, even as she sat nearby, so cool and defiant that he did not know if she was hiding herself or revealing herself, and the confusion tore at his heart. If only he could recapture their ease and camaraderie, their passion and intimacy—but there was a solid great bloody wall between them, and she had put it there, and if he kept beating his head against it, the only person he would hurt was himself.
He bounded to his feet, found his drawers and breeches, dragged them up over his legs. In silence, she watched him dress. She still sat on his banyan but he didn’t want to ask her to move, so he bundled up his stockings and the soiled shirt, prepared to walk bare-chested to his room. He paused, staring down at her, willing her to say something, anything, to put things right.
She said nothing.
He took a ragged breath, let it out. “This has to stop. I’ll leave tomorrow. I’ll write. Your scheme will continue as planned.”
The hollow inside threatened to overwhelm him. Without waiting for her response, he turned and stumbled out, into the cold, dark hall.
Arabella stared into the dying fire. Warm air caressed her bare skin, but still she shivered.
Barely minutes ago, she had lain against Guy, feeling warm, full, right. But of course, it could never have lasted. In all her efforts to fool the world into believing she was perfect, she had never fooled herself. When Guy listened to her, praised her, touched her, teased her, when she felt strong and desirable and accepted, alive and happy and free— She had known that would end, sooner or later, one way or another.
