Portia Da Costa (16 page)

“No, I bloody well don’t,” she growled, “but it can’t be worse than the treatment...or lack of it...that you’re dishing out.”

“Well, certain consultants employ various mechanical and electrical contraptions—devices that vibrate, and are applied to the clitty of the unfortunate hysteric, and then held there until she spends and becomes calm.”

Adela laughed.

Oh, Mr. Clever, you think you know everything, don’t you?

“What’s so amusing?” he demanded, and as he did so, he pushed his fingertip into her a little way.

Adela panted, so close to pleasure now. But she knew he wouldn’t give her satisfaction...not yet.

“The—the house I visit has one of those contraptions of yours.” She fought for breath. “Some of the ladies have tried it. I haven’t, though. I’m told it’s rather noisy, and can, um, put one off. Although one or two of my friends claim it’s the best thing ever!”

“Perhaps I’ll design an improved version of this marvelous example of medical engineering. What power source does this miracle employ? Electricity? A wet cell or a dry cell battery? Is your friend’s house supplied by a power company, or does she have her own generator?”

“How the devil should I know? You’re the technological genius, not me.” Adela suddenly wished she had the device here with her now, and could somehow whirl away from Wilson, use it and claim her own crisis, denying him the privilege of granting it. “And you really are the most aggravating lover!”

It was Wilson’s turn to laugh. “It should be easy enough to construct. I have electrical power installed in my home and workshop, with many advanced refinements...and I could use you as my guinea pig.” His eyes glittered in the dark. “Ah, yes, Della, that would be a very fine thing. To shackle you hand and foot to a bed, then treat you...and treat you and treat you and treat you...until you go insane from the pleasure of it or beg me to desist.”

“I wish we had such a mechanism here, in some portable format.” She pushed herself toward him, but he would not be tricked. “Then I could throw myself at it and not have to wait for you to oblige me!”

“Are you this strident and demanding with your gentlemen?” Wilson’s fingertip withdrew, and dallied, so close to the area where she wanted it that she almost screamed. “They must find you an incredibly taxing customer.”

She wasn’t. She was only an occasional patroness of the establishment. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Indeed. I’m voracious, as you well know. So if you’re going to service me, please make haste and do so.”

“Very well, then,” he said in a low, hard voice. Was his opinion of her so poor? Had he been harboring boyish dreams of her remaining pure and reticent for him? That was ridiculous. She’d never been reticent seven years ago, so why now? Surely an enlightened man like Wilson didn’t adhere to outmoded tenets of a “woman’s place” and suchlike?

Grabbing hold of her buttocks beneath the mass of petticoats, he kissed her voraciously on the mouth again, then pushed her back down onto the seat, setting her in place, then withdrawing his hands. It was cold where he’d parted her drawers and bared her bum, the wood rough and a little damp against her skin.

Adela shuddered. How lewd did it feel to have her naked buttocks pressed down on the old wooden bench? And worse yet, her roused sex hot and dripping against it? Wilson barely gave her time to absorb the sensations before he was pushing aside her bound hands and hauling at her linen from the front. Up and up the bunched mass of cloth came, until she was exposed at the front, too, her dark
motte
a shocking contrast to the white skin of her belly and the even whiter froth of muslin and discreet lace framing it.

“As I have no French letters about my person, I shall have to improvise,” said Wilson, dropping to his knees on the grass in front of her. “Dinner was indifferent, but I shall certainly enjoy
this
feast.” He grabbed her by the buttocks again, this time from beneath, and edged her toward the edge of the seat, opening her for his delectation.

Ooh! Oh, no! Oh, yes!

Not pausing, barely even looking at what he was doing, he plunged his face in between her thighs, nudging her damp curls aside with one hand, while he clung on to one of the cheeks of her bottom with the other, his fingertips wickedly brushing her anal crease.

Not wasting time on the niceties of exploration, he lashed her clitoris with his tongue, then encircled it with his lips and sucked hard.

“Oh...oh, God! Oh, dear!”

Pleasure blossomed instantly in her puss, too sudden, too soon, almost painful. She’d been aching to spend, but this quick, almost violent completion was as shocking as it was delicious. As her channel clenched and clenched, and her legs kicked out, she grabbed hunks of Wilson’s hair again with her bound hands. He grunted, but kept on sucking, making her orgasm into a fierce, relentless trial of the senses.

And just as he’d predicted, she had to bite her lips to keep in her ecstatic screams.

12

A Feast for the Senses

Something so intense could not endure long. And perhaps it was just as well, or she might have passed out. Within moments, Adela was descending again, not even sure whether she’d enjoyed the experience. She opened her eyes, unable to remember when she’d closed them. Amazingly—and disappointingly—she hadn’t wrenched out hanks of Wilson’s hair by the roots.

Had she hurt him? She
sincerely
hoped so. He’d given her pleasure, but he’d stolen it from her, too. Being compelled into a brief, hard, almost brutal release was a long way from being fully sated. “Unfasten this,” she commanded, tempted to cuff him on the side of the head with her bound hands. Especially when he lifted his face from her loins and grinned up at her, his lips wet and shiny.

“Why should I?” He ran his tongue round his mouth in a slow, provocative circle. “And why would you want me to? In my experience, ladies find that fulfillment is all the more intense when they’re constrained. Surely that’s common knowledge at this pleasure house of yours?”

He was right, of course. It was. She’d indulged herself, once or twice, but very safely. There was a world of difference between fur-lined cuffs with Yuri or Clarence, both so trustworthy and paid never to exceed a lady’s limits, and Wilson, who was not trustworthy and who dedicated his life to exploding limits in every sphere.

“Unfasten me, you clod!” She biffed him on the side of the face with the back of her hand.

He stared up at her, still smirking.

“I’ll do it myself, then.” Kicking at him with her heels, and tipping forward so he was compelled to shuffle back on his knees, Adela bit at the knot in the foulard. Trying to loosen the fabric with her teeth was an unpleasant experience, but after a few seconds of worrying at it like a terrier with a bone, she got some purchase and started to pull it free.

Only to have her hands drawn away from her face by Wilson. Gracefully, but with muddy trouser knees, he’d resumed his seat beside her, and now proceeded to unfasten the foulard and release her hands. Stuffing it into his pocket, he gently chafed her wrists as if they’d been cruelly bound with hemp rope instead of lightly constrained by a little piece of silk.

“Better?” he asked, bending to kiss each wrist.

Yes, better, but a perverse part of her still wished she was bound. This dark Adela
wanted
the danger only Wilson could offer, and low in her belly, desire still plagued her. She wanted to be tied to that bed while he tormented her yet again with his games. She didn’t care about any fancy mechanical device, though; she knew full well Wilson was more than capable of driving her witless with just hands and mouth...and cock.

“Yes, thank you.” She shook herself free, and tried to rise, but he retained his hold on one hand, folding his fingers around it, not forcefully, but in a light, sweet grasp. “Wilson, I should go now. This has been unwise. Surely you realize that?”

“I suppose so....” He raised her hand to his lips again, kissing it with exquisite delicacy on the back, then turning it over and doing the same on the palm, only lingering longer there. “And I haven’t been kind, have I?”

Adela blinked. She didn’t expect Wilson to be kind. Kindness belonged to their past relationship, way back beyond the time when they’d first lain together, when things were simple both between them and on the larger, familial scale. But he was being kind now, with his soft kiss still lingering against her skin.

She suspected a trick.

“You’ve dispatched the office of a lover. You’ve made me climax, which was the whole point of the exercise, I’d imagine, in order to show me how superior you are to my other...paramours.”

The expression on Wilson’s face tightened momentarily, but it was fascinating to observe the way he cleared it.

“I wasn’t superior at all, though, was I? What I did was rough and crude, and not, I suspect, fully satisfying.” He paused, then pressed a more open kiss to her palm. “Let me set the matter straight, and then if you wish it, I’ll leave you alone and not trouble you further.”

What? Did he mean to fuck her now? That was impossible. Unthinkable. But oh, how she wanted it.

Alas, there could be no intercourse without some preventative device, without a French letter. In her discussions with Sofia Chamfleur and her other close intimates of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, Adela had learned everything that Mama would never have thought it seemly to tell a woman without marriage prospects. Namely that even if a gentleman withdrew before completion, there was still a significant possibility that he could get you with child. Or worse.

“No, I can’t lie with you, you must know that. I might be an old maid by most people’s standards, but I’m still in my childbearing years.”

Wilson reached up and set his free hand across her lips. “Don’t be ridiculous, Della, you’re not an old maid.” His long lashes flickered. “And congress is not what I meant. My suggestion is to repeat what I just did...but do it better, and how it should be done.”

She wanted to say no, but the area where his mouth had lingered fluttered so hard in anticipation that she gasped. How would a slower, more sensuous examination feel? She had no doubt that Wilson had skills as well developed as those of any of Sofia’s boys. Demanding mistresses like
that woman,
and whoever he’d courted before her, would expect nothing less than manly excellence.

He seemed to sense Adela’s hesitation, and moved closer, his mouth near her ear now. His breath made wayward strands of her coiffure, which had tumbled when she’d shaken her head, drift and tickle her skin. “Come on, cousin, let me impress you. Show me you’re not afraid to indulge yourself. Make me believe that you’re really a libertine, not just playing at it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the sly challenge in his expression. The devil, he knew how to provoke her. She should get up and walk away now, but she was tempted, far too tempted. Why deny herself? Turning toward him, she took a kiss from his lips and enjoyed the surprise in his face as he drew away.

“Very well, then. Make recompense. But this doesn’t mean I permit unlimited liberties. Just this one occasion, then you must keep your word.”

It wasn’t that she trusted him. She was only using him. Wasn’t she?

* * *

W
ILSON
’
S
HEART
LEAPED
at her capitulation, conditional as he knew it was. Why was it so necessary to prove himself? What was it to him that she had other lovers, these men whose advanced lovemaking techniques she paid for?

And yet it
was
important. They might part tonight, never to have anything further to do with each other beyond dreary legal dealings, and he didn’t want her to consign him to the status of just one man who’d brought her to orgasm, among many. It was a matter of pride.

He kissed her again, slowly and more beguilingly this time, teasing, tasting, his tongue flirting with hers while he craftily eased up her skirts. No mean feat with such a volume of fabric. The two halves of her drawers had closed again, and that frustrated him. He wanted to be able to run his hands freely over her sleek thighs and trim buttocks as he kissed her, then pleasured her. Caressing her through the last muslin layer, he glided his hand up her haunch, over her hip and to her waist, finding the fastenings. Thank the Lord, she still wore this more old-fashioned kind of undergarment, rather than the buttoned one-piece some women affected. As deftly as he could with all the obstructions, he undid the fastenings that kept her drawers up, and slowly but determinedly began to tug.

“What on earth are you doing?” she squeaked against his mouth. She was alarmed, but he could feel her excitement. That was the difference between an inexperienced miss and someone like Adela, who now so obviously knew the score. Not that he’d been with any inexperienced misses lately. She’d been the only one, ever.

“Clearing the field of play... Don’t worry, I’ll help you put them back on again afterward.”

That seemed to mollify her, and she even helped him work the voluminous white garment off over her knees, her calves then her feet. As he set them aside, he noticed that despite their forlorn little trim of lace, the drawers had been meticulously mended in places.

This isn’t right. You deserve beautiful things, Della. New things...

Whatever happened, he’d ensure that she received some fancy fripperies, as a gift. Not, perhaps, the black silk he’d mused upon earlier.... No, despite the fact he was currently in the process of debauching her, he fancied something exquisite, white and pure, for his cousin. And he wouldn’t allow her to refuse them if she tried.

“Ah, that’s so much better,” he told her, sinking to his knees and resuming his position between hers.

Framed in the frou-frou of petticoats—also mended, he noticed, on closer inspection—her thighs, her puss and her belly were all adorable. Skin white, curls lush and a lighter brown than the hair on her head, every part divinely formed. The sweet arc of her abdomen was perfecton, and the slender yet curvaceous shape of her hips and thighs was almost heartbreaking. A man might die down there, whether kissing or fucking, and that prospect made Wilson feel wild and uncontrolled again. Wild to plunge in and wring savage pleasure out of her, just as he’d done before.

No! Contain yourself, man! Show some decorum. Take it slowly, give leisurely, measured pleasure. You promised....

Yet why should he? She was a voluptuary. She partook of carnal delight, and paid for it. Confused anger surged again at the thought of Adela pleasured by others. But he took a deep breath and steadied himself. Pushing aside her linen, clearing the decks, so to speak, he bent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the flossy hair of her puss.

Even that slight caress made her move, shuffle forward on the bench, rise toward him. Was this her favorite act? Most ladies, after the first shock to their sensibilities, quickly took to it. Surely Adela, the experienced connoisseur, was no exception?

He kissed her belly. He kissed the edge of her
motte.
He kissed the area where her hip met her thigh, on either side. Each kiss made her move, more and more. Parting her thighs wider, she seemed to invite, and demand, that he get down to business. He could sense her longing to command him, yet remaining silent.

Still resisting in your own way, eh, Della? In that case...

Taking hold of her legs, he manhandled her into position, opening her thighs wider so he could edge right in. Fingers probing, he parted the hair of her puss and bared the moist, sweet area. Then, reaching up, he tugged on the silver chain still dangling down the front of her bodice. With a flick and a jerk, he popped the little cylinder containing his knife out of her cleavage.

The small tool was precision crafted to his own design. The fit of the casing was perfectly machined, and required a secret series of twists, which only he knew, to expose the blade.

It couldn’t possibly hurt her.

* * *

“O
H
,
NO
,
W
ILSON
,
NO
!”

He wasn’t going to do it, was he? No, it was too wicked, too obscene.

“Yes, Wilson, yes,” he chanted back at her, and before she could stop him, or summon the breath to protest again, he swung the little cylinder on its chain, then caught it up and pressed it gently against her entrance. “Something to bear down on, my sweet, when you clench your flesh and spend.”

The silver casing slid into her sex, shockingly cool even though it had rested in her cleavage. The small hard shape was alien inside her. Not like a man, or even the erotic toys she’d played with, yet infinitely plaguing in a way that made her moan.

It was as if the very essence and spirit of Wilson’s dazzling intelligence was in her, mercurial and dangerous, a fine, bright thrill.

“There...isn’t that nice,” he murmured, his breath hot against her bare puss and exposed thighs. As she shifted uneasily, the little chain swung where it dangled from her body.

Furling his tongue to a point, Wilson dabbed it against her clit, then delivered one long stroke. A second later the chain swung again as he retreated and rearranged their position. With her legs slung over his shoulders, he dived back in.

This time the assault of his tongue was so, so different.

Before, Wilson had devoured her, attacked her puss almost cruelly and tormented her with pleasure. Now his laps were slow and sweet and tantalizing. Building up delightful layers of pleasure, he teased her with flicks and dabs. Only the way he lifted her, raising her bottom from the bench and opening her completely, was extreme. Like the feel of the knife.

He was feasting on her, yet like a fastidious gourmet, he seemed to savor and analyze ever nuance of her taste and form. His tongue glided over her inner lips, lapping and exploring. He teased her clit with slow little forays, then showed mercy with longer, more comprehensive slides.

Dazzling sensations built and built, as if energy was pooling in her belly, swelling in her sex and winding tight around the little silver casing. Wilson was being an agent provocateur again, but not in a cruel way now, only to enhance her experience. Rising to him, she reached behind her to grasp the back of the bench and brace herself, arching toward his hot, loving mouth. As he licked and suckled, her heels kicked and dragged against the back of his coat, the blows harder as his tongue swirled and tickled her flesh.

“You are delicious, Della,” he breathed against her moist membranes. “A feast fit for a king. I’ve never tasted a banquet more sumptuous and savory.” He plunged in again, this time sucking ever so lightly on her clit.

All thoughts of who he might be comparing her with, and how he was probably exaggerating and fibbing, dissolved almost before they could be formed. Her mind went empty, then filled with light as sublime waves assailed her sex and her belly.

She climaxed again, long and intensely, soaring to heaven, her thighs clamping Wilson’s head while her heels bashed his back. Her body bent like a bow, pushing her puss even harder against his mouth. She dug her teeth into her lower lip, holding in a scream.