Cheryl Holt (14 page)

Throughout her life, she’d dispensed many massages, but they had been performed on seriously ill or dying females, so she hadn’t grasped that manipulating him would be so
different, that the mere act of touching him would titillate and arouse beyond measure. The caressing had her aching to do so much more, to accomplish feats she couldn’t describe.

She wanted him to render the same pleasure he’d managed in the dark, swirling water. Could it happen a second time? And so soon? Disgracefully, she prayed that it was something he could effect with regular frequency.

She patted his rear. “Roll again. Onto your back.”

Coming up on an elbow, he glared at her. Her legs were open, her thighs splayed, her hair unrestrained, and he shimmered with male admiration.

“You’re fortunate that I’m incapacitated.”

“Why?”

“Because if I was able, I would ride you as a stallion rides a mare.”

On her recognizing the sexual comment for what it was, the world fell out from under her. The indecent remark sucked her further into an eddy of lewd craving and confusion.

He spun over, and she focused on her ointment, scooping some out of the jar and applying it to his flaccid cock. She wasn’t certain where or how to utilize it, and she was dabbing it around the base of the shaft, when he stopped her.

“Do it as if you’re fucking me with your hand.”

She had no idea what he meant, and as he deemed her to be a widow, she couldn’t ask, so she was relieved when he folded his fingers around hers and began pumping up and down, showing her what to do.

“My balls,” he ordered. “Put some on my balls.”

As she slathered it across the two sacs, he jumped. “Easy, girl. I can feel what you’re doing, even if I can’t grow an erection.”

So . . . the sacs were more delicate than the phallus? From the way he’d lurched, she guessed they were, so she fondled them gently, as if they were a pair of precious eggs, and he reposed onto the pillows.

Deciding she was finished, she queried, “How is the cream?”

“Warm.”

“We’ll use it every evening.”

“Do you promise?”

“Lecher.”

“Absolutely.”

The jar was balanced on the mattress, and he daubed the lotion across his chest, his slender, devious finger going round and round in seductive circles.

“Suck my nipple,” he commanded, drawing her to him.

Though he guided her down, she went without resisting, wrapping her lips around the tiny nub. Were a man’s breasts as sensitive as a woman’s? What did the action feel like, when it garnered no accompanying response down below?

“Harder,” he coaxed, and she increased the pressure, using teeth and tongue to add stimulation.

He urged her to the other nipple, and as she played, he directed her hand to his cock, swathing it around the shaft, spurring her to restart the stroking motion.

Finally, he pulled her away, and he untied her robe, tugged it off, and pitched it onto the floor. They were lying together, blissfully naked, and he reached for the salve but, surprising her, he smeared it on
her
nipples instead of his own. The heat sank in and inflamed them so that they throbbed with each beat of her heart.

He spread the minty balm over her tongue, then into her sheath, the warmth flowing up to her womb. She was afire, inside and out, a burning whirl of agitation and excitement.

Dragging her down so that she was over him, he suckled her, an exploit that was even more tantalizing with the hot unguent inciting her private parts. The lotion stirred her until she was a writhing ball of ecstasy and agony. She hurled into the conflagration, spiraling with an ardor that was much
more electrifying, and much more potent, than it had been in the pool.

As she drifted down, he was holding her, and he kissed her sweetly, tenderly. She was astonished by how readily she’d succumbed, by how freely he accepted her conduct as appropriate and normal. Did all adults comport themselves with such abandon? Was she the only one who hadn’t been apprised that they did?

“What a gem you are,” he murmured.

The dear utterance was poignant, profound, and she couldn’t reply. Was he implying that he’d enjoyed her licentious display? That she was skilled at it?

She wanted to laugh. Up until he’d been plopped into her life, she’d never suffered an erotic moment, so how could she be adept at carnal activity? Such lustfulness couldn’t be part of her inherent nature. Could it?

“You rest now,” she said, and he studied her as if he yearned to say something, and she was so terrified that he would.

Her wishes were jumbled, her desires chaotic, and she couldn’t bear it if he expounded on a burgeoning fondness. What did she want? What did he? At that instant, she was too befuddled to know, or to discuss it rationally.

He saved her by shifting them so that she was spooned to him, his front at her back, and lazily, he draped an arm across her waist.

“Stay with me,” he pleaded, once more.

“For as long as I am able,” she relented.

He hugged her and, after a lengthy quiet, inquired, “What was your husband’s name?”

“My husband?” She caught herself and lied. “John.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yes,” she fibbed again.

“How lucky he was.”

She was too nervous to augment the fabrication, and he was content to let the matter drop, and she listened as his respiration evened out, as he fell into a deep slumber. It was the sole occasion she’d ever lain with a man, and she struggled to catalog every detail so she’d never forget, but her thoughts were in such disarray that she couldn’t relax.

Sneaking out of the bed, she donned her robe and went outside, hoping the fresh air would soothe her body and clear her mind.

The grotto beckoned, and she wandered to it, dipped her toes, and without thinking, she stripped and waded in. Floating, she let the current convey her to the end, then she swam to the other, repeating the journey.

Jittery, feverish, discomfited, she couldn’t decide what to do with herself. Stephen had unlocked a Pandora’s box of want and need. The Anne Paxton she’d always been had disappeared, and a wild, reckless female had taken her place.

Baffled and confounded, she pined for so many things she couldn’t identify. In a torrent of misery, a muddle of uncertainty, she exited, drying herself but not bothering to put on her robe. Naked, alone, she walked to the house.

Willie McGee lurked in the bushes beside Anne’s pool. She was undressed, her nipples poking out into the darkness, taunting him with the forbidden.

He was fascinated by her. By night, she frolicked in the pond, as comfortable with her nudity as any harlot would be. But by day, she passed herself off as a chaste, virtuous lady, and the dichotomy drove him mad. Was she whore or matron?

With scant effort, he could leap out, push her against the rocks, and have his way with her. He’d seize her from behind, perhaps even sodomize her, and throughout the episode, he’d whisper his name over and over so that she would realize it was he, that he was in control and could do whatever he liked.

He would gag her so that she couldn’t cry out and alert her Amazonian assistant, Kate. Kate had abnormal manly tendencies, and he conjectured about the two of them, about whether Anne didn’t cater to a more aberrant behavior, the type Kate would relish.

Though both women claimed to be widows, Willie had his doubts. He liked to picture them romping together in the water, kissing and caressing each other. He imagined himself vaulting out of his hiding spot, arresting them for their illicit transgressions, and incarcerating them in the gaol he’d built in a pasture on his farm. He’d shackle Anne to the wall, would use every technique at his disposal to coerce a confession of her most deviant misdeeds.

Ages ago, and by accident, he’d stumbled upon her nocturnal indecency. His property was a short distance from hers, and on an evening when he’d been tense and edgy, he’d gone out for a stroll and found himself in her yard. She’d been finished with her swim and brushing out her wet hair. Moisture had glistened on her skin, and she’d looked slippery, exotic, like a siren risen up from the sea.

At the time, he’d considered joining her, but he’d hesitated, and for his reticence, he’d been rewarded with regular prurient exhibitions. Whenever he was home, and had no felons to tend, he crept through the woods to seat himself in her shrubbery.

She had no clue that he watched her from the shadows, and he liked that she wasn’t aware. The furtive peeping left him excited, agog.

His hunger for her had developed into vicious realities, with his frequently acting out his fantasies against the female prisoners he detained. Feeding his insatiable, incorrigible passion for rape, he forced them to assume the role Anne Smythe would ultimately perform.

He liked to hurt women, to have them beg and plead for mercy. Their terror made him feel strong, invincible. He had
a knack for dishing out punishment, and he thrived on bringing to heel those who were weaker than himself.

His malicious methods had been learned from witnessing how his powerful father had dominated his foolish mother. She’d feared and obeyed the imposing tyrant, and Willie wanted others to show him the same deference. His mewling sister, Prudence, comprehended who was her lord and master, but Anne had never viewed him as capable and impressive, and the fact that she wasn’t fawning or adulatory, that she refused to be subservient, had him furious.

With sincere intent, he’d tried to befriend her, to court her, to bind her to him in a proper fashion, but she couldn’t be ordered about as his sister was. She never heeded his advice or followed his counsel.

He’d offered to marry her, an honor she’d tossed in his face, and he wasn’t about to graciously suffer such an outrageous slight. By fair means or foul, he
would
become her husband, and he had great plans for her. And her land.

After their wedding, he would own her mysterious hot springs that were reputed to have aphrodisiatic effects. Only a chap with his stellar business acumen could perceive of the most beneficial ways to utilize the facility. The spa would make him very, very rich, would provide him with decades of obscene, licentious, degrading entertainment.

When he finally took the extreme step of ravishing her, it would be carefully plotted so that she would have no chance of escape or rescue, and no opportunity to evade his scheme. She would be his, and so would her farm.

She stood and strutted to the house, and with a manic gleam in his eye, he observed her retreating figure. Her delicious ass swayed, the muscles in her legs rippled, and he envisioned himself rushing up behind her, tackling her onto the grass and defiling her.

The notion was so tantalizing that he had to grip a nearby branch to prevent himself from doing something stupid.

Patience
, he exhorted.
All in good time.

He tarried, wondering if she would light a candle in her bedchamber, so that he might steal further glimpses of her, but she didn’t.

Provoked, titillated, ecstatic over her looming subjugation, he slinked away.

 8 

Charles Hughes crept into the elegant salon at Bristol Manor. The earl, Robert Chamberlin, Lord Bristol, stood next to the hearth, by his very presence taking charge of the room. Luckily, it was just the earl. The other two Chamberlin brothers, Michael and James, were in London, which evened the odds. When the Chamberlin men ganged together, they were an indomitable wall of resolve, so it was much easier to breach their defenses individually.

Still handsome at age fifty-five, the earl had comfortably donned the mantle of wealth and power that birth had bestowed. He wielded his authority for maximum effect, certain none could decline to obey his dictates, and about the estate, it was oft remarked that going against him was like sailing into a hurricane. He made others tremble in their boots—or their slippers, as was the current case.

Eleanor confronted him, appearing tiny and fragile, which was an illusion. She was a tough nut, imposing in her own right, and Charles couldn’t understand why she let her father intimidate her. Perhaps, it was habit, ingrained after many decades of bending to the earl’s will.