Page 13 of What the Lady Wants
NUMBER SIX
He’d had an idea what number six was, he recalled. His body recalled it, too. He croaked, ‘You don’t have to do anything. I didn’t do this, any of it, in the expectation of some sort of?—’
‘I know you didn’t,’ she said swiftly. ‘But I want to.’ A glimmer of a smile. ‘It is next on the list, after all.’
‘Oh well,’ he said, trying to match her humour, ‘if it’s next on the list…’
He moved away from her – he hoped he hadn’t been crushing her with his weight, but if he had she hadn’t seemed to mind – and she slid to her knees at his feet and looked up at him. Her gown was still undone and he was glad she didn’t think to cover herself. She looked so beautiful, so infinitely desirable and so much more than that in his eyes. She put her hands on his knees and pushed them gently apart, then settled herself more comfortably between his thighs. He leaned back against the sofa cushions as she reached for him, stroking his visibly aroused member through the silk of his pantaloons. He shifted in his seat and throbbed under her caress. She’d feel that; the thought made him twitch again. She left her hand on him, she strokedhim confidently with her thumb, Jesus, and as she did so she looked up, saying, ‘Now it is my turn to ask you what you like.’
‘I like this. In fact, I can’t imagine you doing anything I wouldn’t like,’ he said honestly.
‘Very well.’ Her fingers worked deftly to unbutton him, and as she pulled away the fabric he sprang free. He had no time to be embarrassed, for she wrapped one small fist confidently around his width and ran her thumb, her amazing, clever thumb, very gently along the slit. He leapt under her touch again and made an inarticulate noise in the back of his throat. If she felt any awkwardness in seeing him, in touching him like this for the first time, she did not show it. Kneeling at his feet, her breasts exposed, her hand holding him, she was smiling. He didn’t care to imagine what manner of foolish expression he had on his face. And then he simply didn’t care about anything at all, because she bent her head and put out her tongue, and with the very tip of it, she licked him where her thumb had caressed. A bolt of electricity shot through him and his whole body jerked in a convulsive movement. She laughed in what sounded like triumph and took him in her mouth; he sagged back against the cushions and gave himself up to her and whatever she chose to do with him.
She sucked on him for a little while, just on the head of him where he was most sensitive, and her fist still gripped him and pumped him. It was wonderful, it was the best thing he’d ever experienced in his life, but it wasn’t going to last long at this rate. He couldn’t stop her – he wouldn’t dream of it, he’d have to be insane, but… She took her mouth off him, but not her hand, and looked up at him. She was still smiling. ‘I was going to ask you if you liked that, but I see you do.’ He whimpered assent, and somehow he must have managed to convey more than he knew, for she said. ‘Too much, too fast?’
‘I don’t want to… too quickly.’
Her fist relaxed, and now she held him in a much looser grip, her fingers spread wide. She bent her head to tongue him delicately as she had before, again he gasped at the jolt of pleasure she caused, and then she released him so that she could lick down his length, and up, and back down. He closed his eyes.
After a few moments he opened them – it pulled him back from experiencing the pure sensations, but he didn’t want to miss the sight of her, in case this never happened again and he had to survive on the memory of it. This was about so much more than simple physical pleasure. Although… She was licking him, having established a rhythm that appeared to please them both, and her left hand lay on his thigh; somehow his pantaloons had been pulled down to bare the upper part of his legs. Leo was a hairy man, much of his body covered in a thick golden down. He’d been teased over it frequently by friends, which had made him self-conscious about it in the past, and he would have been tonight if he had thought to anticipate her seeing him thus, but he never would be again, not with her, because it was clear that she liked it. She was stroking his leg as she pleasured him, and her right hand – good God – was on her breast, playing with her engorged nipple. He remembered that all this was happening because it was whatshewanted. Happening at her direction. It was all her. He could almost feel doors in his mind – that was how he pictured it, a thought strong enough to be a physical sensation – opening. It was a wonder, he realised later, that he didn’t spend himself then in sweetest release. He was entirely in her power, and it was glorious. It was exactly what he had always wanted, always needed, and he had never known it till now.
She must have become aware that he was watching her – perhaps he’d moaned or cried out, he couldn’t say – because she raised her head to say, ‘I’d like to suck on you now, if you are ready for that.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Yes, please do. But I don’t… I don’t want to spill in your mouth.’
‘Are you sure you don’t?’ Her wicked little tongue came out and slid along his slit again, and of course he gasped and jolted.
‘I do, but…’
‘You don’t think I’d like it?’ Again she tongued him. ‘You think it’s too soon?’ Again. ‘You’d like to do this again?’ He whimpered. ‘Oh! You want to come somewhere else?’
‘All of those things,’ he ground out.
Her hand was still on his thigh and she was still touching herself. He reached down with a shaking hand and caressed her lovely breast, the neglected one. Would she understand him? ‘If that’s on the list…?’ he said.
13
NUMBER SIX AND NUMBER FOURTEEN
She understood him perfectly. ‘Not if it isn’t?’ But Isabella could see that he was in no state for dealing with double negatives, lying here aroused and helpless as he was, so she added, ‘You don’t want to do that if it isn’t on the list?’
‘I do want to. But… Just tell me, please, is it on the list?’
‘It is, as a matter of fact. Much later. I wasn’t sure anyone, you, would want to…’ He groaned at the confirmation, and she laughed low in her throat, and rewarded him with another lick, more lingering this time. She was playing with him and they both knew it. The sense of power he gave her was intoxicating, there was no denying. He would obey her without question, she realised; if she asserted,That comes later, orThat is not something that I choose, do this instead, he would accept it. This was new, this was not how it had been for her before, but she did not have time now to think about how and why it should be so, or what it meant.
‘Very well,’ she said, her breath caressing his most tender flesh and making him twitch. ‘I will suck on you for a while, for that was my intention and I think you will like it too, and then, when I feel that you are close, I will pull back and let you spendyourself… where you desire to. This will mean, of course, that number six will have to be revisited, another time. Another time, I will taste you fully.’
‘Please…’ She could see that he was almost frantic with desire.
She relented, and put her mouth on him, closing her eyes and holding him lightly as she sucked and tongued him and he gasped. She knew he could have little control now and it was tempting to continue, but she had promised, and so she did not. When his breath was coming fast and ragged and she could taste the closeness of his orgasm, strange and yet familiar too, salty, she slid her mouth slowly, reluctantly from him and sat back on her heels, looking up at him, panting; he staggered to his feet almost by instinct, eyes closed still, and she rose up on her knees and pressed herself to him, surrounding him, her hands tight on her breasts, as he moved urgently against her, between her. His hands came down to clasp her head and she buried her face in his abdomen, inhaling the masculine scent of him and revelling in his warmth as he thrust into her flesh and soon cried out in powerful release. It was animalistic, perverse, fierce, wonderful. It was a powerful new memory.
A short while later he loosened his hold on her and sank back into his seat. She was still kneeling at his feet, exposed, and he drew her up to join him on the sofa. She was pink, flushed and sticky, and he whispered, ‘I should help you… Clean you…’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, you should.’
An hour or two later, Isabella sat in her chamber, crossing items from her list. Four, five, fourteen. Six she left alone; it could be fully scored out another time. On reflection, she crossed throughfive again. It was only right to be accurate. He had commenced wiping his seed from her with his handkerchief, but it had been insufficient, he had worried that it would abrade her tender skin, and so after a while, he had lowered his mouth to her again and with infinite care licked away all traces of what had occurred; after that, she had been so aroused that he had been obliged to put his hands on her again and bring her to a second orgasm. He had been less tentative this time, more confident in his ability to give her pleasure, but still – always – acting only at her direction.
They had stayed in the room for hours, all told, and lost themselves so deep in erotic reverie that it had been hard indeed to compose themselves at last and leave. They had both felt that their occupation must be perfectly obvious to any persons who saw them as they emerged – but then, everyone else in the house must be presumed to be in a similar case, and it was true that they drew no attention as far as they could tell. Once home, Isabella had gained her room without meeting Blanche or Eleanor and had no idea if they had returned before her or not. Her maid had helped her undress, and if she had noticed anything amiss in her mistress’s demeanour or appearance she had not betrayed any sign of it. She wasn’t an old family retainer, but a Londoner of foreign birth, hired recently; she was a well-spoken and enormously self-contained young woman, so much so that it was evident she had her own mysterious life and cared little for Isabella’s as long as she was properly paid for the work she did, and this seemed to suit them both.
