Susan Johnson (16 page)

“You’re not getting dressed,” Teo hastily interposed.

“Only temporarily, darling, although it’s not often I’m neglected for a ham sandwich.”

“Forgive me,” she said with a rueful smile, “but I’m really famished.”

Dropping down beside her on the bed, he leaned over and kissed her and then very softly said, “If you like, we’ll have a cook travel with us so you’re never hungry.”

“Aren’t you pleased about the baby?” she whispered, a kind of awe and wonder in her voice.

“I don’t have your faith and it’s too early yet,” he said, pragmatic and long ago disabused of wonder. “But I’m pleased if you are.”

“He must like whipped cream.”

“Or
she
likes ham and bread.”

“Or
they
like whipped cream and ham and bread.”

His brows quirked. “Are you giving me twins?”

“I was a twin. My brother died in infancy.”

“Our children won’t die.”

“No,” she said.

And when the landlord arrived at the door, Duras ordered a breakfast to satisfy even a ravenously famished lover.

“You’re so sweet,” she said, once the man was gone, sliding her arms out from the covers she’d pulled up to her chin to conceal her nudity from the innkeeper.

“You can thank me later.” Taking off his breeches, he climbed back into bed, his grin wicked.

“Or now,” she whispered, his splendid erection suddenly creating an equally ravenous craving.

“We don’t have much time.” His voice was hushed, responding to her need.

“It won’t take long,” she breathed, already moving toward him, greedy, covetous, his magnificent arousal igniting instant lust, and two seconds later she was straddling his hips, reaching for him.

He helped her because he was as eager as she, sexual excess the normal outlet in the aftermath of battle. But infinitely more practiced, he brushed her hands aside and adjusted himself smoothly between the sleek, pulsing tissue of her labia. With a breathless sigh, she sank down his rigid length, impatient, feverish, wantonly in rut. Blissfully impaled on his enormous length, she lightly touched the very base of his erection where their bodies were joined and whispered, “I adore your cock.”

“And we adore you,” he softly replied, holding her firmly in place, his hands hard on her hips, resisting her initial upward motion, lustful beyond his memory of the word, forcing himself infinitesimally deeper by slow degrees.
“No,” he whispered as she struggled against her captivity. “Not yet. Wait …” He drove to the deepest depth of penetration, causing her whimper to end in a gasp at the agonizing pleasure. And then he moved a refined, inciteful distance more. Scarcely able to breathe, dizzy, melting, she emitted a small, suffocated scream.

With her body dissolving around him, he slowly lifted her at last and her sigh of longing drifted over him. And nothing mattered in the world for that stark moment as she trembled on the highest point of his withdrawal—neither duty nor reason, not with her senses overcome with an unbearable longing.

She was more sensational than a thousand victories, he thought, his libido flame-hot, and his fingers tightened on her hips, exerted a gentle downward pressure. On the languorous descent she began climaxing in a tantalizingly slow orgasm that intensified by exalted, tumultuous degrees. Panting, frenzied, she clung to him, moaning deep in her throat, absorbing the shocking ecstasy as he forced his hips upward. “Take it all,” he whispered, bracing his feet, driving upward, his climax surging, feverish with haste, irrepressible haste.

Eyes shut, her pale throat arched, she panted at each fierce ejaculatory thrust, ravished by sensation, on fire, her nails leaving half-moons in his arms.

He didn’t notice, no more than he noticed his throbbing wound. He only felt the hotspur shock of his orgasm, his feelings, raw, carnal—the intensity more acute this time, more ferocious, as if each violent sensation was a perverse reaffirmation of his life.

When the explosive tumult passed, they lay softly panting in each other’s arms. Neither was capable of movement. Birdsong outside the windows trilled loud in the sudden quiet of the room, which was pungent with the scent of passion and heated bodies.

“Lust takes on a new meaning with you,” Duras murmured, capable of speech first, although his eyes were still closed.

“I didn’t know lust existed.” Licking his earlobe, Teo resisted the impulse to say, mine. Languorously rolling across his chest, she smiled at him. “Thank you,
mon cher
, for the introductory lessons.”

“I’ve gained new insight into the ancient religions of priestesses.” And a new appreciation for life, he thought as he helped Teo move into a comfortable sprawl atop him.

“If I were a temple priestess,” she declared, her arms resting on his chest, “you’d be my only acolyte.”

“And I’d daily thank the gods for their favor.” His mouth quirked into a grin. “Or with you, hourly.”

“This isn’t usual, is it?”

“No.” There was a nerveless clarity in his gaze.

“Will we survive the chaos?” she softly asked, wanting him forever when a host of enemies besieged them.

He was too honest to glibly answer such a heartfelt question, his mortality too fragile. But after the merest hesitation, he said, “We have a very good chance.” Then he smiled to mitigate the seriousness of his response. “I can win over Charlie.”

She beamed back at him. “Good, because I need a father for our child.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

He was saved from having to assuage Teo’s apprehensions or deal with the implicit perils in his life by the arrival of their breakfast—for which he was grateful. The full array of their enemies required nerves of steel and an undaunted optimism. Not to mention the additional reserves from Lyon that had been promised him since February.

They ate in bed, or rather Duras ate and Teo tested the capacity of her stomach, which proved equal to her eyes’
appetite. When he set his plate aside and said “Are you sure?” to her third helping of a cheese omelet and second cup of chocolate, she only nodded, a spoon of whipped cream poised at her mouth. A delicious sight, he decided, as if she herself were a tantalizingly nude savory.

And sometime later when he politely inquired whether she could actually devour a fourth piece of toasted bread and honey, she said, “You should eat more, darling. You missed most of your supper last night.” She went on cutting a piece of ham to accompany another bite of cheese omelet. “They have a very good cook here. Did you taste the oatmeal bread?”

“Should I see if he or she could be lured away to Zurich?” he kindly asked, thinking her the delight of his life.

“Would you?” Her eyes glowed with interest.

“I’d be happy to.” He’d have this inn taken apart board by board and transported across the world if she wished.

“You’re a darling.”

“Thank you,” he quietly said, leaning over to kiss the honey from the corners of her mouth.

“Ummm,” she purred, opening her mouth, luring his tongue inside, offering herself with an enchanting artlessness. And when his mouth lifted after a time and drifted downward, gliding down the pale column of her throat and lower, she sighed in pleasure. He kissed a path into the valley between her breasts, stirring the bounteous flesh, his tongue warm on her skin. Slipping his palms under her breasts, he lifted them and, sitting upright again, he gazed at their plump beauty pinked with desire, the nipples succulent, peaked, the lush mounds weighty in his hands.

“Which should I kiss first?” He lightly squeezed the pliant flesh and the nipples and aureoles darkened, rose to attention. “Look,” he whispered. “They’re eager.”

“I’m eager,” she breathed, her body responding instantly,
her breasts so sensitive she could feel the air on them. “I crave sex like I crave food.”

“I can give you sex,” he murmured, leaning forward and taking one nipple between his teeth.

The infinitesimal pressure of his teeth flared through her body as if she were a slave to love. Her fingers slid through his dark curls, and firmly lifting his head until their eyes were level, she said, “I want you now.”

“Are you sure?” he whispered, sliding his hands over hers, easing them away from his head, placing them with delicate precision on her breasts.

She quivered at the imprint of her nipples on her palms, and she felt her body opening as though he’d tripped a sensual trigger.

“How do your breasts feel?” he queried, slipping a hand between her thighs, stroking the damp, swollen verges of her labia.

She moaned softly and rocked in his hand as a ravenous, throbbing ache spiraled upward from the lascivious contact of his fingers.

“Squeeze your nipples for me,” he prompted, slipping two more fingers inside her, forcing his hand higher, stretching her.

Please, Andre, she wanted to say but his exquisite expertise made speech impossible.

“How luscious you are,” he whispered, his fingers drenched. “All ready for me … But you haven’t touched your nipples,” he said in the softest of demands.

Instantly obeying, she grasped them.

“That’s better,” he murmured, sliding his fingers free, watching the peaked crests elongate and harden, brushing them lightly with the pearly fluid on his fingers. The crests of her nipples gleamed like jewels as he bent toward them. “My exotic fertility goddess,” he murmured, his tongue gently licking. “You’re quivering.” He nibbled lightly,
teased with his tongue, brought her to a panting urgency. And then he straightened and, framing her face with his hands, gently queried, “Would you like my sex now?”

Her eyes were half-shut.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

Shuddering with sexual longing, she opened her eyes.

“Say yes,” he commanded.

“Yes.” Hot, breathless.

“Then lie down,” he quietly said, “and spread your legs.”

His words struck some iniquitous chord because her gaze refocused, took on a sudden directness. “No orders.”

“It wasn’t an order.”

“You must ask me.”

“Would you lie down for me, darling?” he tenderly said.

She smiled, a seductive, lush sight. “On this?” she asked, surveying the breakfast debris scattered across the bed.

His answering smile was wicked, shameless. “Give me a second.” Brushing the food aside with a sweep of his hand, he helped her lie down and then parted her thighs, easing them wider with his palms, stroking the silken curve of her inner thighs, moving upward, touching her pulsing, hot center. Sliding a delicate fingertip up the sleek, engorged flesh, he whispered, “Tell me you want me,” needing a degree of capitulation in his current mood, not knowing why nor questioning his motives.

“I want you, Duras.” Impersonal, cool.

He looked at her, a flashing authority in his gaze.

“Andre,” she amended, her exotic eyes amused, “because I need you so.”

Gratified, he moved between her thighs, lowering his body over hers, gliding inside her effortlessly, because her pulsing tissue was slick with sperm, satiny. “Is this what you need?” he asked, driving in up to the hilt.

But she couldn’t speak. Her orgasm flared, peaked and
she came instantly, as if she were an unreasoning receptacle for pleasure.

“A shame I have a war to fight,” Duras softly said, holding her close as she trembled in his arms. “I could fuck myself mindless instead.”

She felt him swell larger as he spoke, felt her own wanton response, her new lascivious appetites astonishing. “I won’t be able to live without you,” she whispered, clinging to him.

“You won’t have to,” he said, adjusting her minutely for greater ingress. “I’ll find a way to keep you near.” She was temptation incarnate, he thought, sliding his hand under her thigh, slowly lifting her leg to gain deeper penetration as he drove in, knowing with deadly certainty that she was a rash and reckless whim.

But he meant to have her now, later … always.

He came quickly, once, twice, three times, oblivious to all but sensation, driven, obsessed as he often was with her, detached from everything but his need to possess her. And her orgasms blended one into the other, the intoxicating delirium feverish, agonizing, leaving her breathless, insensate.

And afterward as they lay together, he reminded her of the dresses, his imagination, the capacity of his mind and body, absorbed with sex. “Do you think these delectable breasts will fit in Cholet’s black lace gown?” he murmured, brushing a lazy fingertip around one nipple.

“Later,” she whispered, skittish at his touch, not sure her senses were capable of further stimulation.

“Now,” he whispered back, leaning closer, kissing her, his libidinous urges like a living flame inside him. Maybe it was the time or lack of it, the never knowing when next he’d see her,
if
he’d see her. Like a glutton fearing starvation, he wanted to fill his senses with her, feel her in his hands and under him, around him—now when he could. Rolling over her and off the bed, he landed lightly on his
feet and, pulling his saddlebags from under the bed, slid the black wisp of silk lace from one of the compartments.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he drew the filmy fabric down her body and her eyes slowly opened. “Indulge me,” he said with a faint smile. “I’m greedy.”

“As long as you don’t wake me,” she murmured, amusement in her gaze, incapable of movement.

“Go to sleep,” he offered, knowing better, knowing her better.

“Mmmmm.” Her eyelids were already closing, the feather bed gratifyingly soft.

He dressed her as one would a child, carefully lifting her head to slide the bit of lace over her head, slipping first one limp arm and then the other into the small capped sleeves, raising her gently to delicately guide the gown over her shoulders, past the fullness of her breasts, taking a moment to admire his handiwork before pulling the skirt over her hips and legs.

Cholet had a good eye for size, Duras reflected. The gown fit perfectly, the design à la mode but risqué, meant for seduction. The lace was so transparent the flesh tones warmed the eye through the black gauze, the dark hair between Teo’s thighs a shadowy suggestion, a lure, her pale, slender legs outlined beneath the voluminous skirt. But the captivating focus was the décolletage, deep and low, outlined in red silk ribbon, tied with a bow at the base of the sweeping curve. A bow that could be easily opened for access, for touching.