Page 38 of Enticing Odds
Mrs. Ellam met him at the door. He didn’t speak, didn’t pause, merely nodded his thanks as she took his hat and coat. Then he crossed the threshold to his study and locked the doors behind him. Immediately he collapsed in his chair and unbuttoned the fold of his trousers. He didn’t even glance at his locked drawer of lurid materials.
The image of her… of Lady Caplin, the elegant, graceful viscountess with her absolutely lovely tits, was more than enough.
His cock was already rigid, straining against his drawers. With a low sigh, Matthew pulled it out and ran his hand down its length, thumbing the feverishly hot head. Eyes shut, he conjured up a picture of Lady Caplin on her back, those glorious breasts bare, her gaze sultry. He groaned as he slowly stroked himself. The way she’d slid his handkerchief under her gown… had it brushed her nipples? Matthew bit his lower lip. What color would they be? In his fantasy he saw himself alongside her, teasing them erect, rolling them ever so gently between his fingertips. Taking them into his mouth, between his teeth.
With his idle hand, he reached up within his jacket, fishing around until he withdrew the still-folded square of linen. He held it up to his nose and inhaled deeply.
Hints of whatevereau de parfumshe wore overwhelmed his senses. Matthew wasn’t fool enough to suppose he could place it; he only knew it was light, it was floral, it was feminine, and it washer. Good lord, if only she’d run the handkerchief along her thigh, higher and higher until it smelled even more of her.
A pulse of even greater desire ran through him. With one hand he shook the handkerchief out to its full size. And then hebrought it to his throbbing prick, bunching it around the head. Matthew tightened his grip the slightest amount, and increased his rhythm just so.
He’d never wished to think of Harriet like this, never thought it right to draw her into the filth of his imagination. But Lady Caplin… something about her manner, the sly way she teased, the knowing look as she tortured him so.
Perhaps she might… perhaps she would enjoy—nay, even desire—this sort of thing.
Perhaps she’d wish for him to straddle her. Perhaps she’d gasp when he grazed her breast with the tip of his erection. Lick his length and take him into her mouth, using her saliva as a lubricant. Tongue that sensitive spot on the underside of the head.
Matthew breathed heavily, squeezing his eyes tighter, not wanting to lose this fantasy. Warmth was building in his middle, his groin, his thighs; an urgent and intoxicating sensation.
Then, with that devilish grin, she would place her hands on her tits and press them together. And he’d thrust in between. It was too much, thinking of her saucy smile, how she would watch first his face and then his prick, tucking in her chin for the best view as it slid up toward her mouth and then back down again. How he would then finish, releasing his seed upon her face, her lips. Her tongue darting out to—
“Christ… Lady Caplin…” he groaned as he finished into the handkerchief, his voice rough and hushed.
His heart hammered in his chest, and his entire body fell slack. He threw his head back, deepened his breaths. His limbs were heavy and warm, and he felt he could fall asleep right then and there.
But he couldn’t enjoy it. His mood came crashing down, unable to bear the weight of his shame, all forty years’ worth. He squeezed his eyes shut. For in this moment, with the clarity ofone who’d just indulged in a desperate, ruinous fantasy, all he could think of was one thing.
How could he ever face her again after that?
Chapter Ten
Cressida stared into theglass as her maid worked her long, thick locks into a charming, yet subdued creation. Something eye-catching, but still wholly appropriate for the unbearably dull meeting she was about to attend.
It had been four days since Dr. Collier had approached her in the conservatory.
Four days since she’d done the bawdy thing, calling attention to her lovely figure and its unladylike beads of sweat in indelicate places. It had been ill-considered, even for her.
What had happened to the Cressida who never broke the rules inside her own home? Who wore her plainest, ugliest garments to the most unfashionable and out-of-the-way hotels for her assignations, who rode across the city in ghastly public carriages to escape notice? Once she would have cut out her lover’s tongue out if he were to speak of her sons, let alone see them, or speakwiththem. But now she was blatantly seducing a middle-class doctor she’d engaged as a tutor for Henry? Within the walls of her husband’s garish London manse, no less?
She frowned at her reflection.
Perhaps she ought to consider taking the doctor right in the library, atop one of the tables. How better to insult her dead husband’s memory than to mount an actual intellectual of a lower social class in Bartholomew’s monument to his own idle and wasted life?
Her expression relaxed.
Perhaps that explained all of this. Vengeful, spiteful widow that she was, she couldn’t help but lust after the man who was everything that Bartholomew was not. Kind. Intelligent. Tall and well-built. Gentle. A handsome devil. Her gaze drifted to the gilt jewelry chest atop her vanity. Within would be her gold filigree earrings, the ones Bartholomew had gifted her. It had been nearly two months since she’d last worn them.
“You don’t like it, my lady?”
At the sound of her maid’s worried voice, Cressida snapped back to the present. The mirror reflected a twisted, deeply contemplative scowl. Immediately she brightened.
“No, it’s quite alright.” She turned her head to one side. “I imagine it’ll do, at any rate.”
A short time later, she found herself trying not to think of Dr. Collier as she rode in her carriage.
Unlike the Metropolitan Gardening Society, which she found engaging and looked forward to, Cressida dreaded each and every meeting of the Ladies Union for the Cessation of Social Ills. She—and the majority of the member body, she supposed—attended so as to appear noble-hearted. And to remain in the good graces of the group’s founder, Lady Louisa Ossington, a duke’s daughter with a head more for learning and philosophizing than gossip and social posturing.
Lady Caplin found her a sweet girl, even if her conversation was a dreadful bore. Or at least, that’s how she explained her decision to instead find a seat alongside Mrs. Rickard and her matronly relation, Mrs. Hartley. After all, it certainly hadnothing to do with Dr. Collier’s friendship with Mrs. Rickard and her husband. Cressida was not about to incriminate herself by asking after the doctor’s nature and history.
