Private places, p.6
Private Places, page 6
So he had five in a suit as well with either the king or ace as his high card. She swallowed. “A sequence of four.”
“How high?”
She wet her lips. “King.”
“Good,” he conceded.
At least she’d get four points. Amelia wrote them neatly on the sheet next to her.
“Trio,” she said. “Tens.”
“Not good.” He grinned. “I like this game so far.”
“When you gathered the cards from the floor, did you tamper with them?”
“What a suspicious lady you are. No, I did not slide any queens into my pocket.”
He declared his point of five and his trios. Amelia obtained another point for starting the play.
As the game commenced she learned that at Preston’s house party, Michael had been going easy on her. Now he played like a man driven, forcing her to throw down cards she’d intended to hold back while he won trick after trick. He wanted the capot— winning all the tricks in the hand.
“By the by,” he mused, “what is in your box?” He nodded to the still-wrapped package at the edge of the table.
“You’ll learn that when you lose to me and I ask for a favor.”
“Ah.”
And suddenly she won a trick. She took it with an exasperated sigh. “Don’t cheat.”
“Not cheating—I made a bad play.”
“Michael.”
He gave her an innocent stare. “Yes?”
“It is cheating if you deliberately let me win. Like at Preston’s.” His expression hardened. “Damned if I was going to let him win. You needed that money, and I’d never have let you go to him.”
Her heart beat faster, and she felt suddenly awkward. “It was good of you.”
“It wasn’t good of me. I wanted you as much as I ever did. Ten years ago I imagined you’d be pathetically grateful enough to marry me, and I thought so this time, too. Proving I’m still a complete fool.”
“But I did marry you, as you can see,” she said.
His eyes flickered with emotion. “I am not ridiculous enough to believe that it was for any great love of me. You did not exactly swoon and fall into my arms.”
Her heart squeezed, but she spoke briskly. “Oh, do lay down a card, Michael. I have played the seven of hearts. Can you beat it? Or shall I wait until you retrieve the losing card from your sleeve?”
“When I win, you will regret your complacency, I promise you.” He tossed down the king of hearts and won the trick, but he’d have won far more points if he hadn’t thrown away a play.
Still Michael had fifty points, and she had a long way to go to catch up. She was dealer next, so he’d call his points first.
This time Michael wasn’t kind. He discarded and picked up new cards and arranged his hand, calling points she couldn’t match or beat. She was still able to squeeze in some points so he couldn’t pique, but he proceeded to win every trick and take his extra forty points to win the game.
“On the bed.” His voice was dark and brooked no argument.
Amelia calmly straightened her cards and rose, but not fast enough for Michael. He caught her around the waist and tossed her onto the bed on her back, then crouched over her and yanked her dressing gown open. She wore nothing beneath.
His hair hung over his face, his eyes nearly black in the shadows. She couldn’t read exactly what was in them, but the animal-like glitter unnerved her.
“You are still dressed,” she said.
“I had noticed.”
“You are supposed to claim your favor,” she pointed out.
“This is my favor. Lie back and spread your legs.”
She lay flat, her fingers clenching the bedcovers, unable to move. She wanted this; she’d longed for this, but now she went rigid, the reality of him overwhelming her.
His impatient fingers parted her thighs, and he dipped his head to lick across her abdomen, his tongue lingering in her navel. His lips traveled down until they pressed right against her quim.
She gasped. Michael was right—she was too innocent. He had knowledge that far surpassed hers, and he’d likely think her plans tonight were amusing and naïve.
Michael slid his hands under her buttocks and lifted her slightly, then he pleasured her with his mouth. He moved his tongue all over her quim, dipping inside her cleft, flicking it over her swelling bud.
He did not let her rest. He covered her quim with his mouth, licking, nibbling, biting. She arched to him again and again, pulling his hair until he shook her off, but he didn’t stop.
He took her to the edge she’d fallen over last night, and kept going. He plunged his tongue in and out of her as though he made love to her with it, then he trailed kisses across her thighs and came back to close his teeth over her nub.
“Please, Michael.” She panted. “You have to let me—breathe.”
He lifted his head, his smile so sinful that her words died on her lips. “Beg for mercy, love. Go on. You won’t get any from me.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re mine—I won you fair and square.”
He lowered his head to her again, his mouth doing beautiful things. A darkness washed over her, and she lost all sense of time and place. Nothing existed but the bed beneath her and Michael and the incredible madness he made her feel.
When he finally stopped, she was gasping and groaning, holding tightly to the bed as though she’d fall if she let go.
He pressed a final kiss to her quim and lifted himself to lay beside her. The huge hardness behind his cashmere trousers rolled against her thigh, but still he didn’t take off his clothes.
“I want to teach you some more words,” he said.
“Words?”
His chuckle was dark. He took her hand and guided it between her legs, resting it on her hot and swollen cleft. “Do you know what this is?”
Wonderingly she touched the hard wet point between her legs and shook her head.
“Cunny.” He said the naughty word as though there was nothing wrong with it. “Say that, love.”
She blushed, which was ridiculous after what she’d just let him do. He pushed her fingers across her opening, and she closed her eyes in pleasure. What he made her do was very bad, wicked even for a married woman. Courtesans knew these things; wives did not.
“Cunny,” she said.
“Very good. Remember what you said about me yesterday? You called me decidedly devilish, and you are right. You were right about me all those years ago when I did my best to take away everything you had, and I haven’t changed.”
“You have.”
“So, my sweet.” He went on as though he hadn’t heard her. “Any time you want me to pleasure you, you must ask me in the right manner, or I won’t know what you mean. If you want me to taste you, you say, Michael, please lick my cunny. Or pussy. Either one will do. Otherwise I shall refuse.”
“I can’t . . .”
“You can, love, if you put your mind to it.”
“I mean, I can’t take much more of this. I’ll never be able to finish the game.”
She tried to withdraw her hand, but he twined his fingers through hers, forcing her to explore herself. She felt her wiry hair and the hot, slick folds of her cleft. The tingle in her body was nowhere near what she’d had when he’d pleasured her with his mouth, but the daringness of it made her feel wicked.
“Don’t be afraid to learn yourself,” Michael said. “There may come a time when I ask you to pleasure yourself for me.”
And she’d had no idea anyone did that. She had a feeling if she’d given in to his demands years ago, she’d know a great deal more now.
To please him, she tentatively poked her forefinger inside herself. It was strange and a bit unnerving to feel her own body, but Michael’s fingers there with hers made it worth it. She passed her other hand over her breasts, the areolas silken, the nipples hard as pebbles.
“You see?” he asked, his eyes almost luminous. “Your body is beautiful, love. Treasure it.”
“I always thought myself too plump.”
“Not so. You are exactly right.”
“I will reserve judgment. May we resume cards now?”
He kissed her, long and slow, his mouth tasting of himself and her all mixed up. “Of course.”
He helped her sit up and arrange her dressing gown as though they were about to enter a ballroom together. Of course, at a ball, he wouldn’t cup her backside as he helped her to her feet or scrape her to him for another long, tongue-tangling kiss.
Or perhaps he might.
She felt the tension rise in the next game, in spite of the languor his pleasuring had given her. Now that she knew what was at stake, she wanted to win. So did he. On the second hand, she played hard and got a capot—winning every trick.
“I do believe,” she said as she wrote down her forty points, which put her far ahead of him. “That this entitles me to a favor.”
Michael ruffled the deck through his fingers. “True.”
He looked delectable and sensual, with his shirt open to the waist and loosened at the cuffs and his hair mussed. A lover risen from his lady’s bed. Her lover.
Hands trembling, Amelia unknotted the string that held the box closed and pulled off the lid. Inside lay an assortment of chocolate, the finest bonbons made by a Parisian chocolatier, the sweet shop in Berkeley Square had assured her.
Michael’s eyes widened slightly. They were ordinary bonbons, nothing odd about them, but she saw his intake of breath.
She smiled at him, pretending calm. “Please remove your clothes, Michael.”
NINE
Sin and Chocolate
Michael had always prided himself on his control, never letting the woman in his bed gain the upper hand. He was the pleaser and taught them what he liked, not the other way around.
Amelia sent all that to the wind. Michael’s heart hammered and his hands shook so much in his eagerness he wasn’t certain he could get his clothes off. His last few shirt clasps went flying across the room to ping into the fireplace.
He unbuttoned his trousers and kicked them off and got out of his underclothing. Finally he was bare. He turned to the bed, but Amelia’s palm was on his chest, fingers splayed, as she gently pushed him back onto the chair.
“Stay there.”
Michael sat down, the fabric of the chair prickling his backside. The sensual feel only heightened his readiness, and he hoped he could contain himself long enough to let her do what she wanted.
Amelia kept her dressing gown closed, smiling a little as her gaze roved Michael’s body. Michael leaned one elbow on the table and parted his legs, letting her look.
His body was tight, blood pumping rapidly, a dark feeling pooling in his abdomen and cock. That member swelled high, thick and dark, and Amelia’s gaze lingered on it gratifyingly. She touched her fingertip to her lower lip as she looked, which nearly drove him mad.
Before he burned up from the inside out, she pulled her gaze away and dipped into the box of chocolates. She held one bonbon between her palms a moment then placed the chocolate between his lips.
Michael sucked it into his mouth, liking the rich silkiness on his tongue. While he savored it, Amelia rubbed her chocolate-coated fingers down his torso.
He jumped in surprise, then groaned in sheer pleasure as she leaned to lick it off.
“Dear God, Amelia.” He swallowed his bonbon as he watched her busy tongue take chocolate from his skin and tight-as-hell nipples. Her teeth scraped one, and he drew a sharp breath. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You could have forced me, ten years ago. You could have ruined me utterly, and you chose not to.”
She straightened, her eyes triumphant, and reached for another bonbon.
He was going to die. He’d expire right here as she rubbed chocolate on him, and he’d go out a happy man.
“So now I’m a saint?”
“Not exactly. What you did was fairly horrible, and when I saw you at Preston’s I thought you still the same. But I’m changing my mind.”
Amelia held the bonbon as she had the first, then she tucked the chocolate into his mouth and grasped the full length of his cock. He closed his eyes as she smeared chocolate on him, and curled his tongue around the sweet she’d just fed him. He tilted his head back and swallowed just as she began to lick him clean.
He wasn’t quite sure what she meant about changing her mind about him, but he was damn glad. I never meant to hurt you, his thoughts bled. I loved you and wanted you, and thought I had to master you to get you.
She suckled and licked, her head moving as she devoured the chocolate from his skin. He laced his fingers through her hair, reveling in its satin softness. He liked imagining the diamonds he’d give her glittering in it.
He’d spend the London Season with this beauty on his arm, the tedious sessions in the House of Lords made easier knowing he would return home to her. Every day would be an adventure, every evening an adventure of a different kind. He’d love her and cherish her and make up for causing her so much pain.
Amelia kissed the tip of his cock as she withdrew. Michael couldn’t bear to be without her mouth on him, and he grasped her shoulders, feeling desperate.
“One more,” she said.
How could she be so serene? He was aching, needing to roll her onto the carpet and fuck her until he released.
But he’d hold himself back, play it her way. Innocent woman, her games more erotic than any courtesan’s because she did it for her own joy. She was not paid to entertain him; she did this because she wanted to.
He’d never understood the difference before. His first wife had been little better than a courtesan, having been mistress to an Italian count and an English army colonel before she’d lit upon Michael. Still raging from what had happened with Amelia, he’d insisted on marriage.
A fool and his dignity are soon parted, he thought. Anne-Marie had humiliated him at every turn, paying him back for everything he’d done to his sweet Amelia. She’d taught Michael hard lessons.
Amelia took up a third bonbon, but this time, she did not feed it to him. Instead she laid it carefully on top of his cock, balancing it near his tip.
“No . . .”
Amelia swirled her tongue around his flange, loosening the chocolate, then scooped the bonbon into her mouth and ate it.
He caught her face between his hands and slanted his mouth across hers. He tasted the deep bite of chocolate and the smoothness of fondant.
Michael lifted her to his lap, his hands parting her dressing gown to let him touch the woman beneath.
She tried to turn away. “We have more of the game to play.”
“I think I’ve already won this game.”
“You’re cheating, again.”
He nuzzled her cheek. “We haven’t much of the night left. I don’t want one of the maids banging in here to stir the fire while we’re sitting naked holding our cards.”
“That is a point.”
He pushed the dressing gown from her shoulders, letting the silk folds slither to the floor. He used his fallen cravat to scrub the remains of chocolate from his staff, then he turned her in the chair to straddle him.
Her eyes widened. “This is not the bed.”
“Good heavens,” he said in mock surprise.
“Don’t tease me.”
“But I adore teasing you.”
He lifted her slightly then repositioned her to slide her onto his hungry, slick cock.
Dear God. Last night when he’d entered her, they’d both been on the edge of release, and he’d pumped into her and finished quickly. Tonight he felt the slow goodness of her, her warm sheath squeezing him like a fist.
“Yes.” He drew out the word.
Amelia’s eyes half-closed, her hair skimming around him. He turned his face to it, loving it against his skin.
“Ride me,” he said. “Rock on me.”
She moved her hips tentatively and he guided her. She began to feel it, little cries escaping her lips. He lifted himself to thrust into her, catching her rhythm and matching it.
He loved this position, where he could control what they did while enjoying the long, slow build. She’d obviously never done this before—he imagined Basil had gone to her in the dark, done his duty perfunctorily while she lay on her back, and slipped away again.
How could any man not revel in every part of her—every stroke of skin, every kiss, every inch inside of her? Her naughty look when she’d brought out the bonbons made him both want to laugh and to seize her and devour her. He’d never get enough of her.
He was high inside her now, her quim swallowing him. He wanted to drown in her. His body was flushed with warmth, though his flesh rose in goose bumps.
This woman filled his heart and his body and the empty spaces in his soul. And he filled her, he thought with an evil smile. He wanted to fuck her and fuck her, and wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
Her cries were incoherent as she rocked on him, her nails drawing creases in his back. He clenched his teeth against the tiny pain and kept thrusting. The chair skidded a little on the carpet.
He reached for the box of bonbons and drew one out. He put it lightly between his teeth, and then he pulled her down for a kiss, both of them biting the chocolate. He swallowed his half, then licked the chocolate from her lips.
She smiled at him, eyes languid. He fed her another piece of chocolate, and this time, she licked his lips clean.
He loved her for a long time, swaying and rocking in the chair, playing with the chocolate or just kissing her. She was mastering kissing, learning how to use her tongue to engage his or to tease his lips and mouth.
His climax built, but he held it back, wanting to stay forever inside this woman. Tomorrow he’d have to face uncertainty. Tonight he had her.
But his body had other ideas. Amelia arched against him, far gone in pleasure, her nipples hard little nubs against his chest. He groaned out loud as he suddenly came, unable to stop himself.
As he did so, he reached between them and caught her berry between his thumb and forefinger. She moaned, bucking against him, squeezing him tight.
When his vision cleared, she was smiling at him, and he felt nothing but the warm goodness of her.
