by Amanda Elyot
Darlington approached her and entwined his arm with hers, gracefully pulling them both to the floor, where they rested against the large, silken, tasseled cushions.
“‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,’ ” he murmured, tasting the sherry on her lips.
C.J. blushed deeply. “My dress is now quite dry, but these spirits,” she remarked, as she swirled the liquid in her glass, “are rendering me rather warm.”
“I have a remedy,” Darlington whispered, as he slipped both his coat and her own garment off her shoulders, freeing her from the semi-sheer column of white muslin and her undergarments within a matter of moments. The gown puddled about her ankles like the seafoam eddies that swirled around the iridescent shell of Botticelli’s Venus. He eased her back against the cushions and stroked her body with a featherlight touch. “So soft,” he whispered. “So soft.” He ever so gently extricated her feet from the discarded gown and removed each slipper, placing a lingering kiss on her instep before divesting her of her pretty white stockings and ribboned garters.
Self-conscious at feeling so much on display, she strove to pull him toward her, but he resisted the tug of her slender arms. “Shhh. No, love. There will be time for that soon enough.”
She was indeed a feast for his eyes. His hands roved expertly across her nude body, bringing into full relief every erotic sensation. C.J. had never experienced such an attentive lover. He aroused her every pore; every fiber of her being became more alive at his practiced touch. Darlington pulled her into his arms, and she felt the soft cambric of his shirt rub against her skin. They were on their knees, and while C.J. devoured his eager mouth with hungry, burning kisses, she sought to remove the fine linen barrier between them, tugging the shirt over the earl’s head, tossing it a few feet beyond where they knelt entwined in each other’s arms.
Everything was happening in hushed whispers. She smoothed her hands over his chest, noting the perfect contours, how the bronze of his skin tone formed a stark contrast to her own, how the dark patch of hair spread across his pectorals in perfect symmetry. She moved to unbutton his pantaloons, then realized they would be impossible to remove unless certain obstacles were eliminated. “Your boots,” she whispered, tugging one of his muscular legs toward her. C.J. placed his heel on her thigh as she struggled to find a posture that would not topple them both.
Darlington’s temporary distaste at placing the not-so-sparkling heel of his shiny Hessians on her soft skin was erased by the sensuous sight of the tall black riding boot, such an emblem of masculinity, resting against the creamy suppleness of the young woman’s bare flesh. Cassandra in her splendid altogether, deftly removed each boot, sliding the stiff leather shaft down the length of his calf, effortlessly disengaging it from his foot. “I cannot remember when I have had such an engaging valet,” he teased softly.
The boots were quickly disposed of and landed with twin thuds, joining the cambric shirt on the colorful Persian carpet.
The earl was immensely enjoying being undressed. In fact, no woman had ever done this for him—not even Marguerite, who had been quite a proficient lover herself.
C.J., who was in the process of skillfully unbuttoning his chamois pantaloons, looked up at him, distressed to catch a dark cloud dimming Darlington’s chiseled countenance. God, he was beautiful in the late afternoon half light, augmented by the candle glow; but his troubled look made her cease her progress.
It was not fair to her, the nobleman thought. “Stop,” he heard himself say.
“Is something the matter, Percy?” she inquired softly.
“It’s not right,” he murmured.
“What’s not?”
Summoning every dram of willpower, Darlington took C.J.’s hand in his and removed it from his loins, then entirely misread her look of distress. “Cassandra, you fascinate and delight me endlessly . . . but I cannot ask you to compromise your . . . to perform . . . to . . . desire you to behave in a manner . . . to do for me what no gently bred . . .” He had no words. Thought and reason had deserted him under her caress. “For God’s sake!” he finally exclaimed. “You are Lady Dalrymple’s niece, and here I am expecting you to pleasure me like a . . . like a cyprian!”
C.J. pulled away and rested against one of the large silken cushions. “Forgive me,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. Several moments of painful silence passed between them. To be fully honest with her sexuality meant that she would have to be fully honest with Darlington about her past, and she could never disclose how she came to be so carnally experienced.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her.
“That . . . it cannot possibly be . . . untoward . . . to obey the promptings of nature with the man one loves. Yes, I am Lady Dalrymple’s niece. And her ladyship—as well as her late husband—and my . . . and my father . . . are all ‘originals.’ Given where I came from, I can only be who I am.” God help me for that lie, C.J. thought.
“You don’t think me an ogre?”
“I think you my love!”
“My Cassandra. Come here.” Darlington opened his arms, into which C.J. melted with alacrity. Their mouths met in a passionate kiss, which deepened as they recommenced the exploration of each other’s bodies.
“What now?” C.J. asked when the earl seemed to shiver under her touch.
“No. N-nothing,” he responded, his voice straining as her hand found his most vulnerable spot—apart from his heart—and stayed there, learning him, stroking him. He was aching for her, and he knew she could feel it. C.J. drew the length of him through the placket in the buttery soft leather breeches.
Darlington moaned in anticipation when he felt her warm breath against his skin. Her fingers moved in skilled, smooth strokes, and when she placed her soft mouth over him, he fought not to explode immediately from the sheer perfection of the sensation. Concentrating on not succumbing to release too soon, Percy would give her a gift too, he thought to himself, to prolong their mutual bliss—turn each moment into a higher plateau on the journey to complete ecstasy—a total oneness of their bodies, minds, and souls.
C.J.’s tongue was as practiced as her hands as she varied her pressure and speed, sending electric sensations straight through to the core of his being. “Cassandra,” he cried huskily, drawing her even nearer as he clutched handfuls of her silken tresses. “My love.” He needed her now. He had to know, to feel what it was like to bury himself deep inside her softness. But he also knew how much more pleasure they could give each other if they took their time. Darlington cupped his hands on either side of C.J.’s face, easing her gently away from him so that he could remove the final fabric barrier.
He slid his skintight yellow-gray trousers over his thighs. God in Heaven! This encounter was not his first in the past seven years, Lord knew, but it was certainly only the second time in his life that he had ever cared so deeply for a woman. He owned that he had fallen hard for the extraordinary young lady who was wresting his breeches from around his ankles. Everything she said or did brought a fresh, unexpected, and highly pleasurable surprise. And what she had been doing to him with her soft hands, and her moist lips, and practiced tongue, was one of the most superbly delicious surprises he had ever experienced.
“I have always believed,” C.J. whispered, helping Darlington remove the remainder of his clothing, “that if you can get your tongue around Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, you can get it around anything.”
He had remained ready for her, despite the almost comical extrication from his trousers. When he clasped C.J. to him, and they had the first opportunity to enjoy such unimpeded warmth, the lovers found themselves moaning in low, short breaths, hungering to explore every contour of each other’s body. Darlington’s hands cupped C.J.’s full, rounded breasts, feeling their weight and exquisite softness. The suffused light from the candles turned her skin alternately rose and apricot, russet and peach.
C.J. arched her back. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, Percy. Now.”
He arranged her body over the cushions so that the two of them could lie side by side. Her hand trailed along the length of his firm, sculpted body, from the tender hollow at his throat, down along his breastbone, past his navel and down to his manhood, where she continued to stroke and tease him. His fingertips lightly played upon her lips, and she opened her mouth to take in first one finger, and then another, expertly sucking on them with the same dexterity she had demonstrated on a lower area minutes earlier.
She felt his hot breath in her ear. “I’m going to teach you something very special, Cassandra.” His clever hands played well-practiced arpeggios along her breasts and flat belly, coming to rest at the juncture between her thighs, which had been wet with anticipation from the moment she felt his first caress. “This,” he said softly, noting her wetness as he began to explore the deepest recesses of her sex, “is your yoni.” He took her soft hand in his and placed it gently on his fully erect sex. “And this is my lingam. Look into my eyes, Cassandra, as I touch you. No, don’t be ashamed,” he urged, when she turned her face away. His fingers began to titillate her until she cried his name, hoarse with desire, craving more. Needing release.
C.J. reached down and gently touched Percy’s hand, as if to temporarily halt his progress. “Percy?” she began tentatively. “I think you should know that I am not a vir—”
He slipped one, then two fingers inside her, feeling her slickness and readiness with no physical barrier to impede the taking of their pleasure. “Shhh, love. I know,” he replied softly, continuing to stroke her. “Keep looking at me, Cassandra. The rhythm of your breathing will begin to match mine,” he whispered. And when Percy excited her most exquisitely sensitive spot, just behind the pubic bone, C.J. cried out as she held his gaze. Tears, formed from the deepest recesses of her soul, coursed like summer rain down her flushed cheeks. It was as though she had lost all control of her own body and was no longer human, but had become color—pure color. First scarlet, then persimmon orange, then vibrant kelly green. “Everything is green,” she gasped in an astonished stupor as the tears continued to flow freely.
“It’s the Tantra,” Percy whispered. “The weaving of energy. An Eastern practice nearly four thousand years old. All of the energies of the body are brought into harmony, creating the highest form of pleasure possible. Green is the color of the heart—the anharta,” he added, tracing circles around her rosy aureoles.
C.J. reached up to wipe away her embarrassing tears. Percy stroked the outside of her sex, teasing her by gently tugging at the downy hair covering her pubis. The slight pinching sensation increased her craving for him. “It’s all right to weep,” he soothed. “When I touched you deep inside your yoni, your tears released your fears and opened your heart.” He continued to rhythmically caress her. “It is the fullest way to experience lovemaking. Your eyes—the windows to the soul—your heart, and your yoni all open to me at once, like a beautiful blossom. You give and receive completely at the same time.”
He kissed her eyelids, first with his soft lips, then bestowed butterfly kisses on her lids, cheeks, and lips by fluttering his lashes against her skin, provoking tiny tingles of electricity. Percy nibbled at her lips, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth and deftly continuing a southern migration down her entire body, marking her with tiny bites on her throat, breasts, belly, mons, and thighs. Every time Darlington lifted his mouth from her body, he left C.J. wanting more. Each caesura was an exquisite moment, rich and full, suspended in time; the reward that followed every pause became a revelation.
“I am marking you as mine, Cassandra. In India, these ancient sensual practices were codified in the fifteenth century in the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. It has never been translated into English. Imagine how much I could pleasure you if I were fluent in Hindi!”
Before C.J. could reply or ask him how he had come to know portions of the sacred sexual text—an answer she was unsure she wanted to hear—Percy had placed his mouth over her nether lips and was exploring the soft folds of her sex with his tongue. He continued to tease her into wave upon wave of ecstasy until she could swear she was floating above her own body.
She continued to come in colors as he brought her with each increasingly powerful orgasm closer and closer to nirvana. Sticky rivulets of amrita, her own natural love juices, ran down her thighs, and once again, she no longer felt earthbound.
Now. Now it was time.
Darlington eased himself on top of C.J., claiming her mouth with his as he entered her with a cry of relief commingled with the purest ecstasy.
Rising to meet his rhythm, her body responded to his as though they had been destined for each other. She felt her flesh shudder and explode; and as his hands reached behind her neck to take hold of her hair, she became a wild thing, giving in to an even more primal pleasure as he took her higher and higher. It was as though C.J. had become every element in rapid and rotating succession—first all earthy desire; then an unquenchable fire of unslaked ardor; then air itself as she soared to new heights of rapture; then water as her body turned to liquid, melting into and around him.
Covering her tender eyelids with kisses, honoring her flushed cheeks, her throat, and her searching mouth, Darlington cried his pleasure into her.
It was a celestial experience. C.J. was certain she was seeing stars. In fact, she was. As their lovemaking had progressed, day had become dusk and the slender wax tapers now illuminated the ceiling above where they lay satiated in each other’s arms. Where the candlelight captured the luminescence of the gold leaf, the constellations shone, creating a dazzling effect. C.J. released a throaty sigh of sheer contentment. She flexed and relaxed her muscles, gripping him, then releasing; gripping, then releasing. He was still rigid inside her while her gentle contractions squeezed every drop of fluid from him. “Mulabandha,” he whispered huskily.
“What?”
“What you’re doing down there. It’s called mulabandha. Very advanced.”
Darlington gazed down at his beautiful woman. Did he guess that the thoughts racing through her extraordinary mind consisted of the realization that this was light years better than any amorous encounter she had ever experienced? Not only that, but if there had been any doubt of it before, she was truly sure now that she was deeply, irrevocably, irreversibly in love with Owen Percival.
They lay quietly in each other’s embrace, enjoying the warmth their bodies produced. Percy reached for one of the sherry glasses and, dipping his finger into the wine, traced a wet path along C.J.’s lips, then proceeded to kiss the aromatic liquid away. He was without a doubt the most sensuous man C.J. had ever known. Her head was swimming with satisfied desire. Outside, it sounded as though the storm was making another appearance. “A coup de foudre,” she whispered, stroking his chest.
“What?” he responded, startled.
“A coup de foudre,” she repeated. “Not just the clap of thunder from the storm this afternoon—and now,” she explained, translating the phrase, “but what happened when we met.”
“I know what a coup de foudre is,” he said softly. “What I never knew . . . until now . . . is the extent of your mastery of . . . French.”
“Merci,” C.J. replied. She cradled him in her arms and smiled, then kissed his lips. “I have yet to find a better expression to describe what I felt when we were introduced in my aunt’s drawing room. It was exactly as though a clap of thunder echoed through the heavens, and in an instant, I believe I was head over heels in love with you.”
“I felt it too. The coup de foudre,” Darlington murmured, twining a tendril of her hair about his fingers.
She drank in his appearance in the firelight. “Percy?” she began tensely. “I must get back home.” Her voice was lower than a whisper. “I have been away for so much longer than I had anticipated that I fear Lady Dalrymple will be anxious for my return.”
“I shall have my carriage brought ’round and take you there myself.” Darli
ngton pulled her close. “Promise you will come back to me.” She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. He caught her wrist and turned it over to kiss her palm. She held his gaze. In the candlelight, his eyes sparkled like Indian sapphires. He kissed her tenderly. “What is your favorite color?”
“My favorite color? Why?”
“I should like to show you more of Bath, but my route cannot be easily accomplished on foot. Therefore, I propose that we ride out together.”
Her eyes shone. “I love to ride.”
“Well then, I must speak to Madame Delacroix about having a riding habit made up for you, since I doubt your aunt has seen to it that such an ensemble should form an essential asset to your wardrobe. Lady Dalrymple is not overfond of horses.”
“Is it too warm for a hunter-green velvet?”
He stroked her soft cheek, brushing his hands against her lips, for which he was rewarded with a gentle kiss along the back of his fingers. “I shall endeavor to see that my lady is accommodated in her every desire.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am already quite convinced of that.”
Darlington held C.J. at arm’s length, studying the play of the candlelight across her face. God, but she was exquisite. So yielding and sweet; so willing and enthusiastic a partner. How she came by her sexual knowledge was a matter more of curiosity than concern. Clearly, she was gently bred. And though it was uncommon for young ladies of her ilk even to evince lustful desire, let alone have any experience in connubial practices—in this generation at any rate—such things were not entirely unknown. As Cassandra had reminded him, her family were renowned for following the dictates of their hearts; and from there, he reasoned, it was but a short step before nature took its course. “Well then,” he sighed. “You now have something to look forward to.” He ran his fingers through her hair, once again creating a shivery sensation all along her spine.
