Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (17 page)

U
pon their return to the castello, Nick followed her upstairs. Once inside her bedchamber, he leaned back against the door to the hall, shutting out the world and its expectations.

Trying to conceal her growing excitement, Jane went to her dressing table and began removing the pins from her hair. He came to tower behind her, looking immense and powerful.

“Will you assist me?” he asked, extending both wrists toward her where she stood at her mirror. She turned and un-clasped the gleaming studs at his cuffs and then clinked them on the table’s glass-topped surface.

“Why do you dismiss the servants every evening?” she asked, watching his reflection unfasten its clothing. “They should be here now, seeing to your comfort.”

He shrugged out of his shirt. “My ancestors set the rules centuries ago. It’s our way.”

“What of the night servants?”

His eyes sharpened on her, and secrets shifted in their depths. “Ah, yes. Faunus told me you’d become aware of them.”

“And?”

“They are a wary sort. It’s best they’re left under his supervision. Relay any direction you have for them through him, at least for now.”

“A rather inefficient way to conduct a household.”

“It’s our way,” he repeated bluntly. His hands came to rest on the points of her shoulders, and he fingered the straps of her gown.

He would see nothing of
her
secrets, she reminded herself. Her gown had been designed to rise higher in the back than was fashionable.

Dark sapphire met emerald in the mirror.

She’d been tense the entire night at the Cascardis’, waiting for him to do something scandalous. He hadn’t. But now, she sensed the moment had come.

“May I undress you?” he asked, already releasing the copper hooks cleverly hidden along her back.

She raised her brows. “My duties as mistress are certainly proving light. So far, you’re doing much of the work.”

“You may be sure I’ll find duties for you in the hours to come. But for the moment I find myself in the mood to rediscover you. To make love to you not as a wife but as a mistress.” His voice was full of wicked promise.

“How do the two methods differ?” she asked in fascination.

“For one thing,” he murmured, “a man doesn’t always make love to his mistress in bed as he would his respectable wife.”

He finished his task and brushed the fabric at her back wide to reveal her corset and chemise. Her bodice fell forward. She caught at the neckline and then let it gape and fall to the floor.

The back of his fingers stroked down the corset’s threading. “Shall I unlace it?”

She nodded. “But I’ll keep my chemise,” she added quickly.

He frowned, annoyed. She still hid her back from him.

His hands shaped her nipped waist, but her flesh was so constricted she barely felt his touch.

“Then you must also keep your corset as punishment,” he told her.

“What?”

A finger hooked itself under the crisscrossed lacings at her back and tugged. “They’re loose,” he noted.

“They loosen as the night wears on,” she said.

He found the leading strings. “We must tighten them.”

“But why, when the night is over?”

“In such matters, a mistress does as instructed,” he told her. “Now brace yourself against the dressing table and breath in deeply.”

Curious to see where it would all lead, Jane leaned forward, flattened her hands on the table, and dutifully sucked in. At his firm tug, the laces cinched aggressively. She silently cursed the metal eyelets that had come into use a few years ago. Before that, her corset could never have been tightened so decisively without ripping the surrounding fabric.

In the mirror, she saw that her breasts had been shoved violently upward. When she stood, they plumped above the top of the corset like a voluptuous shelf.

She raised her palms to cover them.

Nick tested the taut smoothness of her waist.

“How does it feel?”

“Too tight, of course. Will you untie it?”

He stroked her upper arms, looking contrite. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can allow your flesh such freedom. Unless it proves deserving of a concession.”

“Deserving?”

“If it performs well for me, it will earn leniency. However, if it fails me, you may sleep in your satin prison tonight.”

To her astonishment, his words excited her. It was a tremendous relief when she could remove her corset each night. The idea of being forced to sleep in it should have incensed her.

He reached his hands around to slide beneath hers. Taking the weight of her breasts, he gently kneaded. Lace scratched and teased at the nubbed tips. Her breath hitched.

Something queer was happening. Her nipples had begun to burn, licking fire straight to her core. She ducked her head and watched in horror as an unearthly glow began to suffuse them, turning their tips the palest of blue, almost silver. Oh, God, yet another part of her body now betrayed her!

Her eyes met his in the glass. He’d seen.

Would he cast her out now? Call her witch?

He did neither.

“Well, Jane?” he said, his voice gruff and low. “Do you think your flesh desires freedom enough to perform as I require?”

A dizzying relief swept her. He wasn’t even going to mention it!

“I’ll do my best,” she managed. “But it may prove a bit difficult to breathe during, uh, strenuous activity.”

“Ah, yes. Strenuous. Exactly.”

Suddenly she had an inkling of what he was planning. Would he take her here, where they stood? The vision she’d seen weeks ago in the tent returned, dashing her with images of his body hunched, straining, sweating, working in passion.

His fingers toyed with her sensitive nipples, now dipped in blue silver. The light was obviously some sort of gauge of arousal. Did it happen to all women when they were sexually stimulated? No one had ever mentioned it, but then, except for that one brief conversation with her aunt, no one had ever spoken of sexual things to her.

Lips traced the juncture of her neck and shoulder, distracting her. His hand slid lower across her abdomen and beneath her chemise to stir the curls between her thighs. Lower still, her private flesh contracted, a wanting void.

“I enjoyed watching your fingers here earlier tonight,” he said. “How did it feel?”

“Strange,” she admitted.

“What else?” he asked.

She averted her eyes.

“Stirring?” he prompted.

She nodded.

“You must learn to say it. To please me.”

“Stirring, then.”

The two long fingers of his left hand pressed against her pubic bone, pulling upward at the same time. Her slit lengthened, tautened. The fragile hood retracted from her clit, baring it.

His other hand palmed her pussy. A finger flattened horizontally along her opening, as though measuring its length. It pressed inward. It retreated and then pressed again, initiating a rhythm of moist suction. With each inward press, the fleshy mount of Jupiter at the base of this forefinger rubbed her naked clit.

Her head lolled back against his shoulder. From beneath her lashes, she watched the hands that were tucked between her legs flex with the movements of his finger.

This
was stirring her, if he really wanted to know. The words were still difficult, so she tried to tell him with her body, adjusting her legs wider and curving her hand to his thigh behind her.

His finger advanced and retreated, flexing, drawing moisture from her depths. It pressed at the far end of her slit and then dragged the wetness forward to paint slick circles over her clit.

“Oh!” she breathed, beginning to understand the thrilling depths of what his touch promised.

“Rest your palms on the table,” he murmured at her ear.

“Will you take me here?” she asked, brittle with excitement.

His heated gaze met hers in the mirror. “If you will allow it.”

The sound of her hands slapping the table was audible.

A much larger hand pressed the table alongside one of hers. His body hunched, forming a cage around her back. Reaching between them, he unfastened his trousers. His shaft sprang free, and its greedy thickness nudged between her legs from behind.

She tensed, expecting him to push inside her.

Instead, he palmed his cock in his free hand and rubbed it along her wanting folds like a plow trenching a furrow but not yet digging deep enough to plant a seed. In the mirror, she watched its ruddy head peer rhythmically from the thatch between her legs, like a prairie animal peeking from its burrow and then ducking away. It was big as a plum and shiny with her desire.

“Good. You’re slick,” his voice rumbled at her ear. “It’ll be easier to fuck you.”

She gasped. The word wasn’t unfamiliar. Guttersnipes and servants—even her own father—had uttered it within her hearing. But it had never been spoken directly to her before. Somehow it excited her under these circumstances to hear his dark, urgent voice use it to describe his plans for her.

His lips caressed the spot behind her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “You’ll let me fuck you, won’t you, Jane?”

“Yes. But—wait. The cream,” she begged, uncertain of what was to come.

“We won’t need it. Trust me.”

She wanted to.

He stroked her, whispering explicit, forbidden words in her ear, describing how touching her this way excited him, how soft her body felt against his harder one, and how much he looked forward to coming inside her, to spilling his seed in her.

Their bodies swayed as one, in time with the rhythm of the cock’s thrust between her legs. Long strands of her hair tickled her cheek, and her skin grew dewy and flushed.

Within the confines of her stays, her breath was shallow and quick. “My corset. I can’t breathe.”

“It’s exciting that way, isn’t it?” he growled softly. “The restriction, the limits, the lack of air so necessary for survival.”

She wavered, light-headed, stirred beyond reason.

“Don’t faint,” he murmured. “You’ll miss everything.”

His words shocked her as he’d meant them to. If she fainted, would he truly continue on this path without her conscious involvement? How deliciously appalling.

A rising tide of sensation shuddered along her dripping slit.

“Come for me, Jane,” he whispered. “Let it happen. Let go.”

At his words, her slit clenched fiercely, as though inhaling a deep breath before—before what? When he slicked the ridge of his crown over her defenseless clit, she knew.

That thing
was going to happen. Now. With him.

She arched as her tiny bud seized tighter and tighter, leaving her teetering on a dagger’s edge of want. Then it seemed to implode. A series of violent spasms took her breath, stilled her heart and then set it speeding. She fought for consciousness. Still, the wrenching went on and on and on.

The dizziness passed, and she came to realize that his body now rocked hers gently. Between her legs, his touch had grown soft—designed to enhance each convulsion, make it last.

Eventually her breathing slowed, and she lifted her head. “Now
that
was stirring.” It had been far more glorious this time with him inside her than it had been as a solitary occupation.

His smile came and went in a flash. All business now, he shoved his trousers lower, to his knees. Gripping her hip bones, he found her opening with his cock and pushed into her feminine channel, fathoms deep.

Her trembling tissues balked, unsure how to handle so much fullness but given no chance to reject it.

The dusting of hair on his powerful haunches rasped her inner thighs as he retreated, only to return for another taste of her. And another, and another.

Then he separated from her slightly, penetrating less deep for a time. The cloth of her chemise fluttered delicately as big, sure hands smoothed it upward. As though hypnotized, he watched the play of moonlight across her lower back. Watched her flesh gulp and disgorge his penis.

The vision she’d had at Villa d’Este had become reality. His eyes were predatory and hooded, his features rigid—exactly as she’d seen him then. The sculpted muscles of his shoulders and chest flexed and tensed as he worked in her. But now the sight was accompanied by sensory details—the ram of his invading cock, the lewd slap of their flesh, the heat of him at her back.

His passion tightened, and he moved impossibly close between her legs. His body was a furnace, his hands iron. His thrusts were powerful strokes that had her bracing a hand on the wall.

Their eyes met in the mirror and clung. Their bodies strained together, reaching…. She watched him climax, saw his features contort with it, and she gasped as orgasm rolled through her again, echoing his release.

Later that night, Nick opened the door adjoining his room, preparing to leave her at last. The family crest of the ring on his finger winked in the firelight as he rested his hand on the doorknob. His expression was enigmatic as he turned back toward her.

“Will you wish to continue in this vein after tonight?” he inquired with remote politeness.

Jane sat up in her bed and grasped the covers to her throat. Held it to skin that bore marks made by his mouth. Did he mean his tone to imply he didn’t want to?

Between her legs he’d left copious evidence he’d been eager. He’d enjoyed her before the mirror and thrice more since in her bed. And he’d removed her corset after their first coupling, which implied her flesh had indeed satisfied him as required.

But had he gotten enough of her? She couldn’t bear it if their relationship reverted to its previous state.

“Yes, if you want me to,” she hedged carefully.

He nodded. “You must let me know if at any point in the future you decide you’d prefer to relinquish the role of my mistress.”

“All right,” she agreed, her eyes lowering to the bed.

“But don’t delay too long,” he advised softly. “We’ll soon reach a point of no return.”

N
ick did his best to ignore Lyon’s smirk when they met the following day in the grotto overlooking the vineyard. It was obvious his brother had an inkling of what had transpired the previous night. Sometimes the sharing of emotions engendered by the linking of their Satyr blood had its drawbacks.

Lyon lounged on a stone bench, stretching his hands high before folding them behind his head.

“How’s Jane settling in?” he inquired with a knowing grin.

“Fine,” said Nick, flinging himself upon a bench directly opposite his brother.

“Good to hear it,” said Lyon. “I, uh, somehow sensed you two were getting along. It bodes well for the next Calling.”

Nick sent him a warning look. “Go ahead and mock. The boot will soon be on the other foot.”

But Nick was more worried than he let on. Worried at his impatience to have Jane last night. His impatience to have her again. Her. Not just any woman. Her.

It was unwise. Dangerous to become so needful of one female. So distracted by one.

A part of him had always held lust in check, mastering it so he could calculate how much of his need a woman could take. He prided himself on keeping a cool head in the heat of passion.

But last night, it had been all he could do to leave her instead of rutting the night away until she was bloody and raw from his taking. He’d wanted to act the animal. He’d barely restrained himself and couldn’t help fearing what tonight would bring.

When Jane’s monthly courses came again that afternoon, Nick seized the chance to keep from her in order to regain his equilibrium. How pitiful he was. How his brothers would laugh if they learned what he’d become.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said miserably when she informed him. “I truly am.”

He lay a hand on her shoulder. “A child will come, Jane. Don’t worry.”

At his kindness, a sob escaped her.

Startled, he drew her against him.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m often weepy at this time.” In truth it was guilt at the lie she must perpetuate that had her crying. If only she dared tell him why they must wait for a child and that she took herbs temporarily to prevent one.

“Jane, when I said I expected heirs of you, I didn’t mean you had to supply them with miraculous haste. You’ll be a mother soon enough, I promise you.”

She moaned against his chest, dabbing his proffered handkerchief at her watery eyes. “Even you cannot control such things, signore. Some women never can conceive, you know. What if I’m one of them?”

He tilted her chin and found her gaze with his. “You have my solemn word I shall get you with child within the month.”

She rolled her watery eyes at him, thinking he teased.