The Companion (41 page)

As she collapsed he moved his mouth’s attention back to hers and pressed his palm against her mound. With one wet finger, he searched inside her.

“Ohhhh,” she managed, into his kisses. “I had no idea.” She opened one eye. “You did not tell me.” An echo rippled through her, forcing a little gasp of pleasure.

“What would I have said?” he whispered, holding her against his muscled chest.

“How about, ‘This is wonderful and women who say it is only a duty are very wrong’?”

“I . . . I don’t think some women like it very much.”

She put herself up on one elbow. “How strange! I wonder why not.”

“Perhaps you have to be a little . . . open to the world to allow yourself to enjoy it.” His eyes were not serious, though his mouth managed serious quite nicely.

“I expect you are right.” She looked at him shyly and smiled. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “The least I could do,” he murmured.

“Now, it is your turn, Ian.” His given name was still so strange to her. She had a thought. “Is men’s enjoyment the same?”

He looked surprised. “How would we ever know? The . . . result is similar. Though not quite as long lasting, I think.”

“Interesting,” she declared. “Now, what must I do to give you the maximum enjoyment and length?” She snuggled into his chest. Cinnamon and ambergris washed over her. She ran her hand down his belly and touched his erect member tentatively, running her hand along it. A drop of moisture quivered at its tip and she slicked it down his length.

“You have good instincts,” he gasped.

She ran her hand downward and cupped his testicles.
Yes
, she thought as she felt them tighten. She wanted nothing more than to give him the pleasure he had given her. If she could, even in her inexperience, come anywhere near sharing that pleasure, then surely he would want to do it again and again, as she did even now, and their marriage would be
very convenient. Then maybe he would begin to feel for her what she felt for him.

Ian lay beside her and wondered how he would restrain himself from coming the moment he entered her, if indeed he could last that long. He had never known a woman so open to the sexual experience, so innocent and yet so wonderfully eager to be pleased and to please in return. Especially as it was her first time. He had half-hoped that all that riding about on camels might have broken her virginity, but it was intact, which meant that it was his job to break it—gently, if he could. He had made sure she had her pleasure before the deed was done, in case it proved so painful she drew back. He had never had a virgin before. His early experiences were with village women glad to oblige him, and later he had graduated to fair cyprians and married women with as much experience as he had and more.

The ache in his loins was such that he knew he had better prepare her as best he could before he tried to enter her. It was like to be over fairly quickly after that. He wished he had time to take Beatrix’s advice and find a willing partner or two before he came to Beth, all pulsing male need.

He cradled her and kissed her hair. Her small hand stole to his cock and her thumb took the semen seeping at its tip and rubbed it along the length. He gasped. God, let him find strength! She cupped his balls and they tightened even more, though the pain from holding himself in had already done its share of tightening. Her hips began to move unconsciously against his, and he thought she might not need much more preparation. He eased his hand into her moist folds and found that her nub was already swollen with passion again. He kissed her and murmured, “Don’t be afraid,” as he touched the inside of her knee.

She opened to him instantly, a soft look in her eyes. “I’m not.”

He took his cock in his own hand, the better to control its entry. She was so very small! Still, he found her passage. His
cock felt the barrier. Hanging above her, his weight carefully supported on one elbow, he bent and kissed her, deeply, thoroughly, to focus her attention on her mouth. Then he pushed against the barrier, once and out, again and out. She arched against him, and he pushed through. She gasped once. He slid almost out. Then she opened her knees flat and gripped his buttocks, pushing him back into her with a sigh.

She was so tight around him. He slid in and out. She pulled him down, demanding kisses. Then she kissed his neck across the scars made by Asharti, his breast where Asharti had opened him and sucked his blood. “Deeper,” she moaned.

It is not a command
, he told himself.

She pulled him down against her breasts, her mouth searching for his. Her teeth scraped across his lips and down, down toward his neck.

Memories flooded him. He could smell his own blood in the stale, hot air inside the tent.

He knelt on all fours in front of her, head hanging, his knees spread wide, just as she liked them. His cock was throbbing, demanding, erect, as it hung down, vulnerable to her. She stalked around him, naked, occasionally striking him with a supple switch to make him flinch. She was haranguing him in a language he did not understand, but her tone was derogatory. He knew she was reviling him. She put her hands on the welts across his buttocks and slid one down to slap his cock sharply from behind. Then she sank her sharp canine teeth into his left buttock and began to suck. He groaned. She both kept him filled with lust and bottled up his release, or he might have come with the very rhythm of her sucking. When had he come to find it . . . stimulating as well as disgusting?

After a moment she withdrew her canines, allowed the blood to seep a little, and rubbed it across his buttocks. Then she sat astride him, her own wet slit sliding over his buttocks to the small of his back. Her juices mingled with his blood. She pulled up his chin, so that his back arched and pressed her breasts against his shoulders. Then she raked her teeth over the places in his neck where she had fed before, tantalizing him with the promise of attack. She rocked her open female membranes against his back as she finally struck and sucked and sucked
.

Ian rolled away with a guttural cry and pressed his hands to his temples.

“What is it?” The girl’s voice was worried. “What have I done?”

“Nothing,” he croaked. “Not your fault. It’s mine.” He rolled over to hide his softening cock and shut his eyes tight. Asharti had won again tonight. In some ways he was still her slave. His refusal to make love to a woman for all this time was because he was afraid of this, though he had not admitted it. Maybe he would never be able to come again unless the woman he was with whipped him and sucked his blood. Or maybe he would never enjoy a woman at all, because
she
would stand between them with her demanding and her humiliation and the fact that she had made lust into something shameful.

Beth sat up in bed, the sheets clutched to her breast, aghast. What had happened? One minute he was kissing her thoroughly while his member claimed her virginity, and the next he was clenched up tight, his delightful man-part shrunk.

“I . . . I failed you. Tell me how.”

He opened the eye she could see, and it was fierce with hatred. “
I
failed.”

“But I don’t think so,” Beth persisted. “I am definitely not a virgin anymore.”

At that, he chewed his lip and sat up, his wavy hair cascading to his shoulders once again. “Are . . . are you all right?”

“Yes.” Beth did not quite know what to say. She was fairly sure he had not experienced the pleasure that she had
known tonight. Unless she had missed it altogether. But then he would not be so miserable, would he?

“Did, did it hurt?” he asked.

“A little. But the rest of it was nice,” she said earnestly. “
Very
nice. Did you . . . ?”

He shook his head.

“We could try again.” She hated sounding tentative, but she knew so little.

“The result would be the same,” he growled. “I’m afraid you have married a eunuch, my dear.” His face was so closed and hard she hardly recognized it. “My apologies.”

He did not give her time to reply but pushed out of bed, grabbed his clothing from the floor, and disappeared into the dressing room. He did not come out again.

Nineteen

Beth endured a long and sleepless night, wondering what was best to do about what had happened and wishing she had someone to advise her. He had called himself a eunuch. But she had met many eunuchs in Africa, usually black slaves of Muslim owners, and she knew that eunuchs had all or parts of their male equipment removed by a blade. They did not get erections, even if they were lucky enough to retain the part that got erections, which most of them weren’t. White slaves had only their testicles cut off. But she had felt his sac last night and it seemed full to bursting. So he was not a eunuch, and he must know that, too.

Was it a figure of speech? He meant he could not do it anymore, but not necessarily due to a physical condition. It wasn’t that he found her so unattractive that he could not bear to consummate their marriage. He had wanted to lie with her at first. She was sure of it.

In the deep of the night with the house quiet, she remembered what he had implied about his experience with Asharti. Even then, Beth had guessed that the vampire woman forced him somehow to sexual acts he found distasteful. Were the scars of that experience preventing him from taking his pleasure now? Beth grew more certain as the
sky promised dawn. It was Asharti and what she had done to Ian that stood between them. The Countess said that Asharti had damaged Ian. She thought Beth could help. But how? The mere fact that she had seen his failure might prevent him caring for her. She would give up that part of married life wholly, even though it had been wonderful to lie in his arms, if only it would not poison all their friendship.

A servant roused her quite early in the morning with a cup of chocolate and a scone and the news that the carriage was waiting and that the maids had packed her trunks for the journey to Portsmouth. She must have slept in the hour before dawn.

Beth gulped her chocolate, washed herself from the basin, and dressed hastily in the Pomona green sarcenet traveling costume left out for her. It was decorated with darker green braid, with hunter half boots and a matching pelisse. He had even provided a matching knit reticule, as well as a fetching military-style beaver hat with a dashing pheasant’s feather.

She hurried down, regretting she was late, though it was so early. Why hadn’t the servants woken her earlier? She might have had a breakfast with him. She might have been able to say . . . what? What was there to say?

There was no time to have a word with the Countess, either, for her hostess was not yet risen, though what Beth would have dared reveal she did not know. She dashed into the breakfast room for tea and toast, to find Major Ware pacing there.

“Major!” she exclaimed, startled.

The Major bowed. “Mrs. Rufford, a word if you please.”

“Of course,” Beth murmured, and forced herself to quiet. What could the Major want?

The man’s pale blue eyes blinked repeatedly. His shoulders were stiff with disapproval. “Rufford has engaged his brother Stanbridge and me to . . . to ensure that the settlements he drew up are executed in your favor in case . . . in case his task does not go . . . well.”

“He contacted you? Last night?”

“Send us word and one of us will hasten to your side and provide you escort home. He has provided handsomely for you.”

“You don’t think he’s coming back, do you?”

“As he said, there is a chance. There is always a chance.” Ware’s eyes did not agree. He gathered himself. “I cannot persuade him to leave you in England. How can he be so selfish? I ask you now to stay behind.”

Beth was shaken, but she dared not show it. “He wants to take me no more than you want him to do so. But he cannot do it without me. You have too little faith in him. He will prevail.”

“I have faith in his courage,” the Major said, going pale. “He knows what he faces and yet he goes. He will not run shy.”

“No, he will not. Neither will I. I thank you for your kindness, Major. I must go now.” The carriage drew into the graveled drive just visible outside the breakfast parlor.

The Major sighed and followed as she rose. Her boot heels clicked on the marble of the foyer. He handed her into the carriage laden with trunks. She had hoped Ian would unburden himself to her during the long journey to Portsmouth, but she found she was to go alone and he to follow after the sun had set. That meant they could have spent the day together inside a darkened room if he had wished it. He did not. Major Ware saluted and the carriage pulled away.

The drivers and outriders took the greatest care of her. But the journey was most miserable. She was installed at an inn, knowing she would not see her husband until near dawn.

He came. His face had not softened. They were whisked to the ship by a small launch in the hour before sunrise with hardly a word between them. This time the boat was a cutter in the service of His Majesty, arranged, apparently, by Major Ware’s friends at Whitehall.

“Weather’s like to be foul this time of year, so it should give us some ripping good wind once we make it out of the Channel. I’ll wager we make more than two hundred miles a
day.” The Captain, whose name was, regrettably, Stilton, was a lanky youth who had taken a cutter as command rather than be put ashore now that the Royal Navy was standing down with Bonaparte’s defeat. The ship was ever so much tidier than the merchantman they had last sailed in. The bright red coats of the marines and the navy blue of the officers’ uniforms made a pretty show. “You will find your cabins aft with mine,” the Captain added. “We have moved the bulkhead a bit. There ain’t much room in a cutter,” he apologized, “but room is what you sacrifice for speed.”

“A welcome sacrifice,” Ian remarked.

Beth for her part could not but focus on the plural of the word
cabin
. Sure enough, when a Lieutenant showed them to their berths, there were two, and it became clear that they were not to share a bed. She stole a glance to Ian’s face, but it was as closed as ever.