Steamlust (18 page)

“Might I offer you some assistance?” Laughter lurked under his politeness.

“No, no, I can manage.” The notion of a man undressing her was simultaneously shocking and arousing. Her hurried coupling with Freddy had been mostly clothed.

The bodice fell loose. She slipped it off her shoulders and set it on the table. One layer at a time she peeled off the ruffled
tablier,
the overskirt, the underskirt and several sets of petticoats. Finally she stood before him wearing only her corset, chemise and drawers.

She strained to reach the back lacing, without success. Pete’s eyes were glued to her near-naked form. She’d never had to deal with a corset without her maid. When she was breathless from trying, she swallowed hard and beckoned to her audience.

“Please, if you don’t mind…” She offered him her back. He was on his feet in an instant, his deft fingers plucking at the laces. She filled her lungs with a grateful breath when the corset released its iron grip on her torso.

“Oh, thank you…oh!” Pete had slipped his hands into the loosened garment and captured her breasts. He cradled their fullness, kneading softly. Waves of pleasure rippled through her. She relaxed against him, delightfully aware of his cock prodding at her bum. The scent of cloves tickled her nostrils.

“Caroline,” he murmured, burying his face in her blonde ringlets. “You are so very lovely.” He rolled her taut nipple between the fingers of one hand while slipping the other into her damp knickers. Her cunny ached for him but all he did was brush his fingertips across her pubic fur. Lightning sizzled through her. Her sex clenched and wept.

“Oh…please…”

“Yes? What can I do for you?” His fingers tapped gently on her mons, driving her wild, but still he did not enter her.

Caroline whirled around and pressed her barely clad body against him. “You know what I’m talking about!” His hard prick poked at her belly. She seized it and delivered a desperate squeeze. “Take me. Please, I need you inside me.”

One slender finger slithered into her soaked cleft. “You mean, like this?” He flicked his tongue across her earlobe.

“Yes! No! I mean, more! Please!” Caroline pumped his erection. A second finger slid into her, grazing her clit and making her writhe. “I want you—this—oh, god, please!”

She danced on his hand, pleasure coiling tighter with each breath. Then he did something—touched something—deep inside her, and everything exploded. Sensation drenched her, sharp, sweet and wet. It was glorious, intense, almost unbearable.

She would have collapsed had her partner not supported her. While she still shuddered, rivulets of delight trickling through her senses, he swept her into his arms and bore her to the bed. Her few remaining articles of clothing disappeared as if by magic.

“You astonish me,” Pete told her, kneeling between her spread thighs. “I had been led to believe that European women were cold creatures who cared more for propriety than the joys of the flesh.”

“Most are, I suppose…oh! Oh, my! What are you doing?” The question was rhetorical. Caroline understood, intellectually, that Pete was licking her cunny—she just couldn’t believe it. His lips fastened on her clit and sucked until she thought her hot little bead would burst. His velvet tongue delved into her, while she squirmed and moaned and begged for his cock.

Finally, when she thought she could bear no more, Pete relented. He crawled up her body, his flawless skin like satin against her heated flesh. He pressed his lips to hers. He tasted like raw oysters—like her quim, she realized. Meanwhile, his prick slid into her lubricious folds without the slightest effort, as though that was where it belonged.

With Freddy, there’d been some pain at first. Pete’s cock was pure delight. He filled her empty places, places she hadn’t known existed. His thrusts were fluid, unhurried, giving her time to appreciate each instant of contact. When he buried himself in her body, she felt complete. When he drew back, sweet friction across her clit tempered the loss—along with the knowledge that in a moment she’d be full once more.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to pull him deeper. He plunged into her, again and again, smooth and regular as a well-oiled machine. His face, hovering above hers, showed every nuance of feeling. He hid nothing from her. Lust, gratitude, joy, it was all there for her to read. His full attention focused on her. She understood, suddenly, that she was equally transparent. He knew her. He saw her hunger, understood her unconventional ways and did not judge her.

Little by little he picked up the pace. The climb toward release was so gradual that her climax took her by surprise, stealing her breath, welling up from her core and spilling over. When the pulse of pleasure finally died away, she opened her eyes to his smile.

“
Ti rak
,” he said. “Would you be willing to turn over?”

Caroline rolled onto her stomach. “Like this?”

“On your hands and knees,” he urged, grasping her hips to pull her into the desired position. With her naked bum in the air, Caroline felt deliciously lewd. He reached around to pinch her nipples. The tiny pain woke echoes of her climax.

“Sweet, you’re the answer to my every dream,” Pete murmured. Then he rammed his cock into her so hard she thought he’d split her open.

“Oh…!”

“Too much?” He paused, his bulk stretching her to the limit.

“No, no! I love it,” Caroline cried. She was not lying. “Argh!”

He drove into her again, forcing the breath from her lungs. Sharper pleasure bloomed in her depths. “Oh! Oh! Oh…!”

In their new position, he could penetrate to the very root of her. He jerked behind her, grinding his pelvis against her buttocks, his rhythm wild and irregular. Gone was the grace, the control, he’d exhibited before. He fucked her like a savage, like an animal. Caroline adored it.

She still felt connected to him, despite his frenzied lust. She sensed the growing tension in his body. She was aware of every detail. When the hot cylinder of flesh drilling into her swelled, burst, and flooded her, she rejoiced. Focused on her partner, she did not expect the whirlwind climax that swept her away.

Some time later, she regained her senses. Pete lay beside her, apparently asleep. His pale, oval face was the picture of peace. The corners of his mouth turned up in a half smile. She smiled herself, recalling their shared passion.

All at once, she remembered her mission. A pang of guilt shot through her. She hated to bring up the topic of the automaton. What if Pete thought that she didn’t care? She couldn’t bear to have him believe that her motives were merely political, that she’d tried to buy his cooperation with her body. For one thing, it wasn’t true. Right now, Caroline didn’t give a damn about the war. All she wanted was more time in Pete’s company.

“What are you thinking about,
ti rak
?” Pete put his arm
around her shoulder and drew her close. “You look so serious. Do you regret…giving yourself to me?”

“Oh, no!” Caroline raised her chin to catch the kiss Pete bestowed. “Not at all. It was wonderful.”

“You’d consider doing it again?” He circled a nipple with his forefinger, making her squirm.

“Do you doubt it?” She stroked his penis, which stirred at her touch. “No, I’m just concerned about my father, and the war. It’s not going well. If the French were to gain control of all the viridium on the moon…”

“Viridium?” Pete laughed. “That’s just so much green cheese! Who needs viridium?”

“You’re jesting, right?” Caroline’s voice was sharper than she intended. “I would think that a brilliant inventor like you would realize the importance…”

“I’ve discovered a new energy source, something better than viridium.” Pete tangled his fingers in her soaked pubic hair, pulling lightly. Caroline moaned. “A sort of bio-fuel. It doesn’t emit toxic vapors the way viridium does. It doesn’t need to be mined. We can grow a more or less unlimited supply—anyone can, not just wealthy countries like France and Great Britain.”

“Truly? You’ve tested it?” Caroline wasn’t sure how much of her excitement was intellectual and how much was sexual.

“What do you think powers my dancing girl? And my videog-raphy device? Of course they use tiny amounts, but I’m quite confident that my capsicum-based fuel could power airships in sufficient quantity.”

“Oh…capsicum? Ah—what’s that?” Caroline rocked back and forth on the fingers that impaled her.

“Chili peppers. Siam grows the hottest in the world, you know.” Pete grinned. “I’ve discovered how to turn that heat into usable energy.”

“Oh…oh, god…Pete… You can stop the war. You can save the world… When are you going to announce this?” Under Pete’s expert ministrations, Caroline was quickly losing the capability of coherent thought.

“Soon,” said Pete, as he found that special spot and launched her into ecstasy once more. “Rocket fuel is all very well, but right now, I want to get the video device and capture the way you look when you climax. I believe that’s the real wave of the future.”

Trembling with residual pleasure, blushing at the naughty implications, Caroline couldn’t help but agree.

B
enedict crashed his way into my workshop, not bothering to knock, as usual.

I’d become attuned to the sound of his key in the front door upstairs, though, so my hands remained steady as I soldered a terribly thin, delicate piece of copper wire to a switch plate. Only then did I turn.

He looked impeccable as always, square jawed and strikingly handsome with his dark hair curling neatly at the edges of his collar, his waistcoat straight and his cravat perfectly tied.

I, on the other hand, had on a dirty leather apron over my simple white blouse and everyday skirt, my bun was no doubt askew and my hands were rough and calloused from my work.

I was utterly besotted with him, with his thick-lashed blue eyes and his crooked rakish grin and his simmering energy, but if he were aware of that fact, he kept it well to himself. I preferred to think he wasn’t, to spare myself the humiliation.

He was determined to wed an heiress to up his standing in
the world, as only a third son could be. I was determined to make as much money from our venture as possible, because the time would come when our partnership would end and I’d be on my own.

I didn’t want to think about that right now, so I firmly pushed those thoughts aside.

I removed my magnifying spectacles and set them down, carefully away from the soldering iron.

“How is your latest incarnation of the table mechanism coming along?” he asked. He saved pleasantries for those he tried to impress.

“It’s nice to see you, too, and it’s nearly there,” I said. “Why?”

He rubbed his hands together. “We have a commission,” he said. “In the Lake District. A holiday in the country—won’t that be lovely?”

The prospect of a week away from my workshop failed to thrill me, but the prospect of a lucrative appointment went a long way towards piquing my interest.

Thanks to Benedict’s connections, my mechanical skills and the current rage of spiritualism, we had a most excellent scheme afoot. I posed as a medium, rigging the table and indeed the entire parlor with gadgets Benedict and I could control. Knocking, table shaking, a cold mist—and now, if my calculations were correct (and they usually were), an actual appearance of an apparition. Benedict apprised me ahead of time of the details I should know about the client and the dearly departed loved one they wished to contact—he was usually in their circle, after all—and we made a tidy sum.

And on the side, Benedict usually managed to pocket a few trinkets and baubles we could fence on the London market.

I didn’t really approve of the latter; that was common
thievery. Our deception, on the other hand…well, if Benedict’s friends with too much money and not enough sense were gullible enough to believe I was a Gypsy, then they deserved to be swindled.

I mean, me, a Gypsy? My father was Indian, to be sure, but my mother was Scottish through and through, and just because there was a dusky hue to my skin, it didn’t make me a Roma.

It didn’t make me a delicate English rose, either, just the disinherited granddaughter of a laird, without any prospects other than the ones I make for myself.

Benedict took my face in his long-fingered hands, and a delicious thrill ran through me.

“You are a wonder,” he said, kissing my forehead, and I closed my eyes and allowed myself to imagine him kissing my lips, my breasts and that sweet spot between my thighs.

And then I thought about another item I’d fashioned, one shaped like a man that hummed and buzzed, and how I’d put it to good use tonight, thinking of him.

The train journey to the Lake District passed without incident; Benedict slumbered and I wiled away the time alternately reading a scientific journal, sketching plans for a more efficient telegraph and fantasizing about hiking up my skirts and settling myself on Benedict’s lap after freeing his member and…

I jolted awake and cursed reality.

The house was large and rambling, right on the stony shores of a dark lake, the kind you could imagine harbored a kelpie in its depths (if you believed in that sort of thing). My mind wandered to thoughts of a contrivance that would allow you to travel underwater and quest for such creatures.

Something to ponder.

Everyone else was off on a ramble through the hills (and, no
doubt, down to the local pub), the housekeeper informed us, which was fine because it gave us uninterrupted time to set up the equipment.

As we did, Benedict provided more details about our client.

“You remember Jessamine, yes?” he asked as he held the green brocade curtains aside for me so I could attach the bits to make them sway just a bit, as if in a strong breeze.

I did remember her, a fair girl with pearls woven into her masses of red-gold curls—an artist and model, as many of his other friends were. Not the society ones, but the bohemian ones.