Authors: Charlotte Featherstone
Addicted
ADDICTED
ADDICTED
Charlotte Featherstone
To Joe and Olivia, who have sacrificed so much for me to fulfill my dream. I love you more than words can say, and I thank you for being supportive, understanding and easygoing when the house looks as if a bomb has gone off, and we have frozen pizza or hot dogs for yet another dinner. I swear, I’ll make it up to you at Disney!
And for my sisters who make up The Line of Pigs.
Donna “Double D,” a kindred spirit, and Tinker. Gisele, whose brown eyes are always full of laughter and mischievousness. Lynda, who shares my “trashy romance” fetish, and Rhonda, who is fast becoming another romance junkie—told you Edward was hot! To Amy, the quiet one of the bunch, whom I hear giggling when we talk about “swords,” and another Edward groupie. Last but not least, Joanne, aka Daisy, the lady of the group. Where would I be without you to make the shifts tolerable? Thanks for the 4:00 a.m. chats and giggles. Please know that you’re more than friends, you’re family, and I could not imagine going to work and not having you there with me. Shift after shift, you keep me going, but more important, you keep me laughing, and isn’t that what life is all about?
Opium unites the souls of smokers who recline around the same lamp. It’s a bath in a thick atmosphere, a reunion in one bed with heavy covers, a veritable coupling that one can’t resist. There is, certainly, in each opium addict an unhappy or unsatisfied lover.
—Robert Desnos,
Le Vin est Tiré
Contents
Prologue
Slave. Minion. Fiend. The others who have come before me have been called such things, but I prefer to think of myself as a disciple; a devout follower of my voluptuous mistress.
They say my lover is a sinister beauty, and perhaps they are correct. But when caught in her heady embrace there is nothing sinister about her. How can she be evil, when she bathes my body in a thousand raptures? How can she be anything but a radiant sorceress when she takes me to heights never before experienced?
No, my mistress is many things, but not a succubus in a gossamer cloak. True, she demands much from me, but I know how to coax and coddle her so that her black flesh responds to my skilled hands. Between my fingers, she melts like a woman in the throes of climax.
I warm her, care for her, wait patiently for her to cloak me in her sensual and supple embrace.
I worship her.
My relationship with my mistress is uncomplicated. I know
what she desires of me; at the same time, she understands and fulfills my needs. As any mistress she is, at times, demanding to the point of suffocation, always wanting more—needing more. But when I come to her, she loves me like nothing—or no one—ever has.
All she wants is my return to her, night after night, hour after hour. And I do return with eager anticipation. She always welcomes my homecoming with outstretched arms and together, we make the sweetest, most decadent love, a love where two become one. Where I become so coiled in her powers that I never want to leave.
She is here now, I realize, as I see the gray fingers of her arrival begin to swirl up from the altar I have prepared for her. Soon she will be curling her fingers in my hair, caressing my face and covering my mouth with her evocative beauty. I will taste her heady fragrance on my tongue, inhale her bittersweet scent deep into my lungs. My mind will cloud, will begin to wander and float. I will fall back on my red velvet cushion, drunk with anticipation as I observe the couples surrounding me make love. I watch them like a disembodied voyeur. Not even the sounds and sights of an orgy surrounding me can arouse me so well as the thought of my mistress does.
Lush female bottoms, naked and pale, are before me. Breasts of every size and color attempt to beckon me. Quims, glistening, ready for the taking try to entice, but I wait for my mistress, as any dedicated lover would.
It is worth the wait, because when I am aroused and eager, my bewitching paramour will consume me with her fire and satisfy me with her skilled attention—ministrations that are
much more pleasing than watching the dreamy specter of couples naked and writhing before me. While they enjoy each other’s bodies, I can only find satisfaction and pleasure in the arms of my enchantress.
Among the gossamer tendrils my mistress rises like Venus from the shell. She beckons me and I allow her to take over, her greedy hands swathing my body and mind in a frenzy of orgasmic temptations.
With a smile I forget about the women at my feet. I no longer hear their moans, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. I no longer see them riding the staffs of men as they flick their hair over their shoulders and cast me glances that invite me to join their party.
Instead, I fall back and allow my mistress to fully shroud me until I feel smothered in her intoxicating perfume.
Soon her ethereal mist will begin to evaporate and part like the branches of a tree in the wind, revealing the flesh and blood woman my body desires. The flesh and blood woman who will never be found here in this den of pleasure.
This is the moment I live for with my mistress. This power she has to conjure up my most sacred, private fantasies. The beckoning enchantment she entices me with is the glimpse of the woman I crave, the woman who has ruled my heart for so long that I can see no others except her. Desire no one but her.
Through heavy-lidded eyes I will see my flesh lover, her pale skin tinted the color of cream, her long, golden hair glistening like corn silk in the sun as she stands before the candle and brass burner. Through the vapors, I watch her disrobe for me, her breasts spilling from her gown. Unbound, they are lush and full,
the pale pink nipples pearled, waiting for my hands and mouth to show her pleasure. Slowly, as if to extend my torment, she waits to reveal the rest of her lovely form.
But patiently I wait, allowing my mistress to keep her hold of me until the beauty can walk through the twisting tendrils of smoke and fall at my feet.
She is always naked, my angel, and she always desires me. The real me. The man I am. Even though my mistress is there watching, whispering into my ear.
It is always a ménage, this coming together. Always my mistress comes between my flesh lover and me. But in this world of red smoke and dreams, the two who hold me enraptured, live harmoniously side by side. There is no anger. No petty jealousy for my attention. No demands that I give up the other.
For I couldn’t. I need both like I need breath.
One rules my mind and my strength; the other, my heart, soul and body.
The one knows me as a man, an aristocrat with a secret.
The other knows me for what I am. An opium addict.
Slave, minion, fiend. I suppose I am. But I prefer to think of myself as a disciple. It is so much more palatable to believe that this path I walk is based on devotion and faith—not the bonds of slavery.
1
Bewdley, Worcestershire, England
1850
“Up and at ’em, milord.”
The valet’s gruff voice reached through the thick fog in his brain, disturbing the peaceful slumber and the lingering effects of the red smoke. “Sod off, Vallery,” Lindsay groaned.
His valet, ever the dutiful gentleman’s gentleman, groaned under Lindsay’s weight as he pulled him up from the brocade divan. “Any other time I would, milord, but Lord Darnby and his chits will be here within an hour and I’ve got a day’s debauchery to rid you of.”
Lindsay felt his arm being thrown around Vallery’s thick neck. His head lolled just a bit, forcing him to open his eyes. He was in his pleasure den, the remnants of last night’s bacchanal still surrounding him.
With his valet’s steadying hand and a few blinks of his burning eyes, Lindsay found himself slowly acclimating to the world around him. From the windows, he saw that the sky was not
bright with the sun, but dark, the color of twilight. Bloody hell, what time was it?
“’Tis nearly seven, milord,” Vallery answered as he saw Lindsay’s confused gaze focus on the darkening skies. “You’ve been asleep all day. Now ’tis time to clean up.”
Yes. A bath and shave would set him to rights. It always did.
“Now then, will you bathe in the waters or do you wish me to take you to your apartments via the servants’ stairs?”
“My mother is around, then?”
The coarse visage of his valet came sharply into the line of his vision. Vallery was no effeminate Frenchman who clucked over him and his clothes. His unorthodox background and up-bringing was what had made Lindsay desire him as his most trusted servant. It was Vallery’s steadfast loyalty that Lindsay appreciated most, not the intricate folds of a starched cravat.
“Would I be traipsing up those rickety old stairs carrying you if the marchioness was not about, flying high in the boughs?” Vallery grumbled.
Lindsay chuckled and removed his arm from his valet. He was sober as a monk now, although he could tell from the look in Vallery’s gaze that his appearance still lingered with a hint of debauchery.
“I think my mother is probably clucking about like a mother hen. She usually does when company is expected.”
“Thought you might like to know that the Duke of Torrington has already arrived.”
“And Wallingford?”
“Not yet, milord.”
Lindsay snorted as he pulled the already untied cravat from
his neck. “I’m not surprised. Wallingford has made it his solemn vow to never be in his father’s company. Why would things change today?”
Vallery said nothing as Lindsay continued to strip out of his clothes. Like the dutiful servant he was, his valet reached out for the wrinkled garments, draping them carefully over his arm. “So, it’s the baths then, is it?”
With a nod, Lindsay draped his trousers over Vallery’s arms and headed for the mineral bath. He stepped into the hot water and allowed it to engulf his body and soak his muscles. With a sigh, he looked up at the arched ceiling above his head, then back down to the water that bubbled around him. A hot mineral spring ran beneath the house, allowing him this small luxury. Naturally, he had designed his pleasure den around the baths, which now resembled a Middle Eastern hammam. It was something straight out of the Arabian Nights. The only thing it lacked was a lovely odalisque.
Lindsay smiled to himself. He knew exactly who he would like to have in that particular role. She was going to be there in his home tonight. Already desire swirled in his veins. He had denied himself for too long. It was time, far past time in actuality, to see if the lady desired him in the same manner.
“You’ll need to be quick about it this evening,” Vallery called over his shoulder. “You will not want your Lady Anais to see you in such a state.”
Lindsay closed his eyes against the prick of pain in his chest. He did not want her name soiled with his other vice. How well Vallery knew him, for the last thing Lindsay wished was for Anais to know how he dabbled in opium. Anais would not understand.
“You place your arrows well, Vallery.”
“I intend for them to wound, milord. Never kill.”
“And wound they have.” Lindsay knew what Vallery thought, but his valet was wrong. He could stop. He was not a habitué. He could and would stop. Once he had Anais in his life and in his bed he would have no further use for the opium.
He dunked himself beneath the water, no longer desirous to see his valet looking at him with what Lindsay knew was concern. When he arose he wiped the water from his eyes, shook his curly mane free of wetness and pulled himself out of the bath. Vallery was there, holding out a black dressing gown.