Portia Da Costa (20 page)

They’d made her cry out in ecstasy, made those eyes that were spitting fire at him now go blank with lust, and the thought of that made him boil up, incapable of rational, reasonable thought.

He
had
to make her forget them, and to do so he had to blot them out by exceeding anything they’d done.

Because you’ve blotted out Coraline for me, Della. One brief interlude and you completely negated her, the woman I once thought I might marry.

That was another thorn in his primeval paw. Without even trying, Adela had reduced what he’d idiotically believed was the grand passion of his life to little more than a forgettable folly.

“Very well, then, have me!” she all but growled at him, not even blinking. She was panting, though. With anger? Or was it desire? Her shapely lips were parted, the lower one moist. She was so succulent he wanted to devour her.

Just as he pressed forward, so did she. Their mouths met as if they were perfectly engineered to engage. He gasped when her tongue pressed immediately between his lips and his teeth, seeking his.

Goddamn, she’d ever been the pragmatist. Now she was going to wring the best out of him in the course of achieving her goal. If he hadn’t already been kissing her, he’d have laughed out loud.
Bravissima!

He let her master his tongue, loving the fight in her. She was caught in his hold, and fully aware of his greater strength and his particular skills in subduing an opponent, but still she defied him. Vanquished him, even though he was the one with her hands captured tight.

His cock was an iron bar, aching and agonized.

Right. Now. I can’t wait.

But as he released her, and moved to take her in his arms to woo her rather than commandeer her, a sharp rap on the door made him curse into her mouth.

Goddamn the bloody coffee!

* * *

A
DELA
FROZE
. Oh, no, Teale was here with the coffee. It should have been a relief, the way that stopped Wilson completely in his tracks, but instead it was a frustration.

“Come!” called out Wilson again, and the door swung open. Teale took the tray from a small table in the corridor and strolled in, placing the fragrant coffeepot and all its accoutrements on a map chest just to Wilson’s right.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” The servant’s voice was silky. Did he suspect his master of having an assignation with this mysterious woman in black who’d never visited him before? There was no twinkle in Teale’s bland eye, but who knew?

“No, nothing, thank you, Teale. I’ll not need you or any of the other servants for the rest of the day. Simply tell cook to prepare cold cuts on a tray, and leave it in the dining room. You can all take a trip to the music hall, if you wish. Use the money from the household kitty and I’ll reimburse it tomorrow.”

“Thank you, sir.” The servant did smile then, but as if with simple pleasure in the kindness of his master. His step seemed lighter as he left the room and closed the door.

What are you doing, Wilson? Emptying the house so we won’t be disturbed.

Adela’s belly trembled, not in alarm, but with excitement.

“So? Clearing the house so you can have your way with me?”

Wilson regarded her out of the corner of his eye while he attended to the coffee. “Yes, precisely that. Why, have you changed your mind?”

Had she? In her heart and soul, she really didn’t think he’d do anything to threaten Sofia and her establishment, but still, there was a niggling suspicion inside her that he might have changed since his days as the provocative but high-minded youth she’d once adored. Life might have soured his principles over the years, so she had to give herself to him to be sure.

You’re making excuses for yourself, Della. Why lie? You want him...you want pleasure, and you’re entitled to take what you want for yourself. It might be a secret, but you’re an emancipated woman.

“Not in the slightest. Shall I disrobe now?” She plucked at her hat, sliding out the pins and removing it, then stabbing them back in before flinging it in the general direction of an armchair. Not even bothering to see if it had found its target, she started on the buttons down the front of her bodice.

Wilson stayed her hand.

“Much as I’d like to see your delectable body, Della, do drink your coffee first. It’s rather good and you’ll find it invigorating.”

Her fingers stilled, buttons unfastened to the lace-trimmed edge of her chemise beneath. She was trussed up today, corset and all. Mama always objected stridently if Adela attempted to leave the house in her rational apparel, despite tolerating it—under protest—in the confines of home.

“Why, is it loaded with exotic aphrodisiacs to make me pliant?”

Wilson laughed, handing her a small cup, then offering the cream jug. Adela nodded, accepting a little, but refusing sugar.

“No, but if you want a love potion, I can easily make one up for you,” he replied. “There are a number of herbs and compounds most efficacious on that score.”

“Is there anything you can’t make, brew, design or imagine? It’s as if you fancy yourself a modern da Vinci with your cornucopia of knowledge.”

“I simply use the gifts bestowed on me, Della. Just as you do yours.” He sipped his own beverage unadulterated, no cream or sugar. “The gift of drawing and the arts of sensuality.”

“They’re all I have,” she said simply, tasting the dark rich coffee. It was so devastatingly strong that it almost made her eyes water, but also delicious, and as predicted, invigorating.

“Not so,” countered Wilson. “Generosity, kindness, intelligence and loyalty. You have those qualities, and others, in abundance. And they’re probably far more valuable, ultimately, than simply being too clever for one’s own good.”

Adela almost reared back, shocked by the unexpected sincerity, and self-deprecation, of Wilson’s words. Did he mean it?

“You think I’m lying to you, don’t you? Sweetening you up for the kill.”

“It’s crossing my mind.” She sipped more of the robust coffee; it seemed more essential than ever to command her wits.

Wilson drained his cup and set it aside. “I want to fuck you, Della, obviously. And to do other things. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be honest about my general regard for you.” In a swirl of silk dressing gown he rose and strode across to the safe.

Adela finished her coffee, set the cup aside and leaned out to watch Wilson’s fingers dancing over the numbered dial. He spun it this way and that without even glancing at it, his head cocked to one side. It seemed as if he was listening to it, but that he didn’t need to look. After barely a moment or two, he swung open the heavy door and drew out her portfolio.

“It seems superfluous to give it back now,” Adela said as he strolled forward and put it into her hands. “You have other leverage to exert over me.”

“Very true.” Wilson’s silvery eyes were sharp, assessing. “But I thought you’d like it back all the same. Will you check to see that all is present and untampered with?”

Adela’s fingers shook as she negotiated the tapes that fastened the leather folder. Heat flooded her body as she thought of what she’d see. Wilson had seen them, too, and likely speculated and brooded, imagining her with the men she’d portrayed.

Lionel. Clarence. Handsome, mischievous Yuri. Why did she suddenly wish she’d never lain with them?

Anger boiled. She was
entitled
to her pleasure, entitled to frolic with her handsome, well-formed friends, and seek oblivion in their arms. Wilson had taken pleasure with women, and the sumptuous Coraline was not the only one.

I’m a New Woman. I can take what I want.

Adela flipped open the cover and this time she did rear back, despite trying to hide it.

The drawing at the top was superbly rendered, perfect in proportion and every detail of anatomy, as well as breathtakingly lewd and specific.

And it wasn’t one of hers.

16

A Practical Arrangement

“Y
ou drew this
.” S
he didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. She was sitting beside the most accomplished draftsman she’d ever met.

“Yes. I was inspired by
your
work.”

What she saw seemed to have more in common with the naughty drawings that had been done for the praxinoscope reel. A man was spanking a woman, his hand caught in flight, speeding down toward her vulnerable flesh, although in Wilson’s world, both parties were participating in the game completely naked, and posed like a god and goddess from Greek mythology. The woman knelt on a couch—not unlike the one on which Adela and Wilson were sitting—with her sleek bottom offered to the gentleman behind her. The most delicate of cross-hatching indicated that he’d already been at her, and if the work had been tinted there would have been a patch of pink.

Adela leaned in closer. The detail was preternaturally fine, almost as if it had been drawn under a microscope. The spanked woman’s hair was draped over one shoulder, to show her profile, her throat and her bosom, and on closer inspection, she wasn’t completely naked. Around her throat was something readily familiar.

The Ruffington diamonds.

When Adela saw the necklace, she saw a lot of other things, too. The woman’s hair was dark and thick, and her profile wasn’t the pristine, harmonious line of an Aphrodite or a Helen of Troy. Her nose was slightly kinked. Only a little, though, not nearly so much as the real nose it was no doubt meant to depict. The artist’s hand was kinder than a certain unforgiving tree branch.

The man, too, sported a familiar look when studied more closely. His hair was wild and dark, and his body exceptionally lean, though poetic in its power. Hazily sketched in behind his athletic form was a dressing gown, laid across a chair.

“Well, if the technological consultancy ever runs dry, and you ever run out of ideas and inventions to sell, Wilson, you could make your living drawing for a certain magazine I know called
Divertissements.
” She cocked her head, still studying the drawing. “Although you might like to make everything just a little less perfect. People are flawed and have small quirks of appearance. They aren’t immaculate constructions in alabaster.”

“I’m used to drawing diagrams, not people, and adhering to very fine tolerances. But I suppose I could learn to be a bit more slapdash, if it were required.”

“Oh, so you think my work slapdash, then?” Adela set the drawing aside and found a couple more examples of Wilson’s work, variations on the same theme, only showing the couple posed in different parts of this very same room. In one, the man—Wilson, why avoid the obvious—was right behind his paramour, his erect cock almost touching her as she lay prone, facedown over the large map chest. His hand was raised to spank, but his member looked as if it was finding its way to a target of its own, although which orifice, it was impossible to determine.

“I never said your work was slapdash,” said Wilson, reaching over and stacking his work to one side, to reveal Adela’s. She blushed on seeing a very full-blooded and decidedly unslapdash study of Yuri reclining on a daybed, fondling his cock, his eyes closed, near ecstatic. “Did you fuck him when you’d finished this?” Wilson added, flicking the study aside to expose another one, of Lionel this time, sitting on a chair, legs akimbo, member rampant. “And him?”

“No, of course not!” Adela snapped the portfolio shut and placed her hands flat upon it. “Work is work and...play is play. And I often draw entirely from memory, or even imagination, you know that.”

Wilson reached over, slid the folder from beneath her hands with barely any effort at all. Was he going to insist on reviewing everything? It seemed not, though. He set the thing aside.

“If I were the one posing, would you be able to resist then?”

No! No, I wouldn’t....

“You’re too busy and industrious ever to have time to spend lolling around stark naked long enough to be drawn.”

It was true. Adela had often wondered how he’d had the time to spend cavorting with Coraline, a famous sybarite and not known for any kind of productive or industrious activities. Had his scientific and technological consultations suffered from the liaison? Was that one of the reasons they’d parted, aside from the Italian duke?

“Ah, but even the most productive scientist or inventor needs to rest sometimes.” Wilson slanted her a look, his pale eyes sultry. “Sometimes a short period of repose, followed by an orgasm, can be most energizing. Don’t you find that, Della? Do you do your best work when you’ve diddled yourself...or been fucked?”

“Don’t be stupid, Wilson.”

He had a point, though. Release did revivify. She always felt lighter in spirit and had more zest when she’d spent.

“I’m not being stupid. I’m being rational.” He reached across suddenly and began unfastening the buttons of her bodice, taking up where she’d left off. “If you must continue to draw such esoterica for your paying customers, Della, I’m offering myself as a model, instead of these men. And I’ll save you a considerable expense, too.... I’ll fuck you for free.”

Adela’s mouth dropped open. In her mind’s eye, she saw it. Herself doing drawing after drawing of Wilson’s splendid body...then afterward, writhing in pleasure beneath that same body, naked, on this couch.

It was outrageous. But it was also, as he’d pointed out, completely rational.

“Don’t you see what a practical arrangement it is, Della?” he went on when she was unable to answer him. His fingers were still at work on her buttons, and a second later her bodice was fully open to reveal her underclothes. “We both get something we want. Nobody has to take risks. Nobody has to waste time doing the absurd courtship dance just to get the physical satisfaction they need.” Plucking at her dress, he began to push it off over her shoulders, and without thinking, Adela assisted him. It was like a dream.

“You make it all sound so clinical. So scientific.”

But as Wilson worked on her underbodice, it was far from clinical. She shuddered finely, the tips of her breasts tingling as she anticipated the moment when he finally breached all her layers. She wanted to rend her clothing like a madwoman, expose herself to him and be free. Petticoats, corset, chemise, the whole lot oppressed her. How delicious it would be to work in this room, sketching and drawing, wearing only loose, light, rational gowns...and nothing else. Then, when lust gripped her, she could simply fling the thing off, mount Wilson...and ride him.

“There’s nothing clinical about this.” His fingers drifted over the exposed skin of her chest, then dipped into the shallow cleft between her breasts, where they were pushed up by her corset. It was such a slight touch, but Adela almost growled, it stirred her so. Impatient, she knocked away his hands and attacked the next layer.

It was broad daylight in a room that was almost half windows, yet she wanted to be completely naked and unfettered. As she fumbled with buttons and hooks, Wilson slid to his knees and unfastened her boots. Within moments he was sliding his hands up her legs under her skirts, then tweaking down her garters and the stockings they held up.

“Yes...yes...” he said, his deep voice exultant as he ran his hands up and down her naked legs. Adela parted her thighs, hoping to entice his wanderings through the vent in her drawers, but instead, he stood up and pulled her to her feet. So he could attack the fastenings of her petticoats.

Within a moment, she was stepping out of them, only for Wilson to kick them away across the carpet.

“You look very bonny in your corset, Della...but I want to see you nude again. It’s been so long.” His nimble fingers flew to the hooks down the front of her corset, uncoupling a few. “Adorable,” he said, inserting a hand beneath the boning, and inside the fine lawn shift beneath so he could cradle her breast.

It was another slight touch, but the heat in his fingers made her gasp. The nipple he laid his thumb against was already peaked, aching hard, and as he lightly flicked it, a delicious, voluptuous welling sensation between her legs bore witness to her wetness, her lusty flow. When he pinched her teat, her clitoris seemed to throb with a life all its own.

“Don’t savage your lip again, Della. Groan if you need to.... You’ve never been silent in your pleasures. Please don’t hold back now.”

He beleaguered her nipple again and a sob broke from her lips. If only he would touch her between her legs now. If only...

Adela’s eyes shot open. To the devil with “if only.” Reaching down, she slid her own hand into the vent of her drawers, searching for her center.

“You’re a wicked girl, Della.” Wilson brought his face close to hers, and she smelled coffee and a spicy exotic shaving lotion. Probably yet another thing he’d concocted for himself. “If you touch yourself, I’ll be forced to spank you, you know that, don’t you?”

“But you want to spank me, anyway,” countered Della. Why draw a spanking scene, and show her it, if he didn’t want to enact one?

“You know me well, cousin.” He kissed the side of her face and she could feel him smiling, even as she rummaged in her linen, impatient to find her clitoris.

“It’s not difficult. You drew me a picture, you fool— Oh!”

As she pressed her most sensitive place, he tweaked her breast again.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Her sex rippled, not quite climaxing, but almost...almost...

Grabbing her wrist, Wilson wrenched her hand away quite forcefully. There was a silvery fire in his eyes. A thread of fear wound through Adela’s desire. Full grown, Wilson was far wilder than the boy he’d once been, but the sense of risk made him ever more exciting.

“Enough with the prevarication.” Holding her wrist firm with one hand, he pinched her nipple again with the other. She could have hit him and wriggled away, but she didn’t. And when he released her, she renewed their struggle with the fastenings of her corset.

“Here...wait a moment.” Wilson produced his ubiquitous penknife from his pocket, opening the silver cylinder with an arcane twist. Then, reaching over and behind her, he sliced her corset laces in a swift movement. “Don’t worry, I’ll lend you some string if you must put the stupid thing on again afterward.”

As the corset started to slip, he sliced again at the laces until it was completely free, then flung it toward the ever-growing heap of her discarded clothing. Then, with rough, jerky, impatient movements, he pulled off her chemise and unfastened her drawers, compelling her to step out of the latter.

He moved away and perused her. Eyes narrowed, he was both draughtsman and libertine, and Adela’s skin was instantly awash with raging heat. Perspiration gathered in her armpits and her groin, and looking down, she could see a blush of pink across her chest.

Her fingers seemed to burn, too, alight with the urge to touch her sex again. But this time she resisted the compulsion. Fondling herself while naked would be far too lewd...and yet somehow, she knew Wilson would shortly ask her to do it, or perhaps
order
her sooner or later.

He stepped toward her again, standing so close that the silk of his dressing gown floated against her breasts, her belly and her thighs in a tantalizing infinitesimal caress. Slowly, he pressed a soft kiss to her lips, barely stroking their seam with the tip of his tongue. Then, as he probed for entrance, she felt his hands come up on either side of her, to her hair. Unfastening and unwinding it, then tossing away the pins, he let the thick, slippery weight slide over her shoulders like a cape. Her own arms had no strength and she couldn’t move them. They hung inert at her sides, constrained by his will.

Wilson dug his fingers into the thick tresses of her liberated hair, gripping her head and holding her while his mouth plundered hers far more voraciously now. Adela shuddered right down to her toes, drenched in the overpowering licentiousness of being completely naked in this high, sunlit room, locked in the power of this most beautiful, dangerous man.

As Wilson drew back, still holding her face, her sex overflowed and silky fluid slid down her leg. The way he breathed in, and then smiled, told her he’d smelled her.

“You’re a very carnal woman, Della. A creature of the senses. I wonder how many men in society would believe you lead a secret life when they see you so prim and composed in your black gowns, and with your quiet manner?” He breathed in again, then slid his tongue around his lips as if tasting the air. “You hide your true self so well. You act the respectable, dutiful young woman and yet your appetites are as voluptuous as any courtesan’s.”

He slid a hand down her body and cupped her between the legs, squeezing. Adela gasped, and fought for composure. “Men in society don’t often look at me, Wilson. Because of the sober dress I choose, and the fact I don’t put myself forward, and because my looks are indifferent.”

“Well, they’re all fools, and I should beat
you
for being so willful and deliberately obtuse, you witch. Always persisting in this claim you’re not beautiful. I swear you only do it to make me feel guilty because you ran from me.” He gripped again, and Adela tossed her head, bearing down, riding his fingers. “And who needs common prettiness when they have a nature like yours?” His face was next to hers once more, and he held her close, by a hank of her hair. Still massaging her sex, he kissed her again, hard this time.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” he growled, almost into her mouth. “And yet you deny it...parade yourself as the grim, dried-up spinster, when really you’re a lush and juicy libertine. I’ll wager your paid-for boys think you’re a beauty. I bet they can’t believe their luck when you purchase their services.”

Swiveling around behind her, still clasping her puss, he grabbed her by the shoulder and walked her over to a mirror that stood in the corner of the room. Adela tried to turn her head and not look. The shock of her own reflection was too much, the column of her white body blatantly displayed against Wilson’s clothed form. She’d never been one for admiring herself in a glass before her nose was broken, and since then, she’d mostly avoided it unless absolutely essential.