Unexpected Pleasures (22 page)
Read Unexpected Pleasures Online
Authors: Mary Wine
“I am not some girl who should be so undisciplined.”
“Still, I think it looks quite well on you, an honest emotion.” He wasn't wearing his doublet, and he began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt until they were past his elbows. There was something intimate about the moment, a slant to his eyes that made her feel admired.
He plucked the linen from her fingers and gripped her wrist. “Neither are you that advanced in years, Justina. Your father wed you far too young.”
He pulled her wrist toward him and began to wash her arm. Sensation shot through her and she felt her nipples drawing into tight nubs.
His gaze went directly to the rose-colored points.
“Sixteen is not an uncommon age to be married.” Justina heard her own voice waiver, betraying that she had no faith in her own words.
He continued to wash her arm, working along the underside before picking the soap up from where it was floating on the surface of the water and rubbing the wash square against it again.
“I can wash myself.”
He flashed her a grin. “But you will enjoy it more if I wash you.”
“A wife washes her husband, not the other way around.” The words were out of her mouth before she thought about them. Synclair sent her a look that was full of challenge.
“But I am not your husband, am I, Justina? Nor have you agreed to marry me, so you shall have to continue to be only my captive lover, and I may do with you as I please.”
He caught her other wrist and smoothed the cloth over it. The soap made the fabric glide across her skin, and having his gaze on her heightened her awareness of everything. Her skin was becoming increasingly sensitive. She shivered with enjoyment as he swept the cloth up to her shoulder and along her back. Once there, he applied more pressure, his fingers beginning to massage her back.
A soft sound of enjoyment crossed her lips. She couldn't hold it in, and she leaned further forward to allow his hands to work lower on her back.
“It's rather unfair that women wash their husbands but they never repay the service.” He chuckled softly. “For I enjoyed giving you service, my lady.”
“I agree.” There was nothing else to say, not when his hands felt so good against her body.
“Ah ... did I hear you declare that you agree with me, sweet Justina?”
She lifted her head and looked back over her shoulder at him.
“You did, and gloating is not something a lover does.”
He slid his hands around to cup both her breasts. “Is that better?”
His fingers were slick with water and soap and her nipples were highly sensitive. Pleasure went through the tender globes as he toyed with the tight peaks.
“It is.” She turned around, folding her legs beneath her so that she knelt in the tub. Now she could toy with him in return, and she reached out to begin rubbing her hand over his cock. She could feel it growing harder behind the fabric of his britches. Lifting her head, she rose up so that she might whisper beside his ear.
“Do you prefer it when I agree with you, my lord?”
His expression was pensive. “Sometimes.”
She straightened her back and pressed her mouth against his. Just a brush of her lips against his, a teasing, flirting motion that drew a soft sound of male approval from him.
He suddenly stiffened. The water on his hands glistened in the candlelight. He opened his waistband and discarded his pants with swift motions.
“But I admit that I enjoy the challenge you so often throw at me, Justina.” Determination edged his tone, touching off excitement inside her, but she cast a look at the door and noticed that it lacked a bar to keep it secure.
“Someone might come in.”
His shirt followed the pants, baring him completely. He reached down and slid his hands beneath her arms to lift her onto her feet.
“I shall have to make sure you are making enough noise to keep them outside the doorway.”
“Synclair, that is too wicked a thing to say.”
He yanked a length of toweling off the table that was set against the wall and quickly dried the water from her skin with it.
“Even if I mean it, Justina?”
“Especially if you ... um ...”
His eyes glowed with passion, and her throat tightened until not another word could make it past.
He suddenly laughed and wrapped the toweling around her several times.
“I mean it, but I will bend to your will and take you back to my chamber where the door is solid.”
He grabbed his britches and stepped back into them. That was the only concession he gave to his modesty. A moment later he tossed her over his shoulder and strode without a care from the bath room and through the kitchen.
Someone dropped something when they passed, and there were several gasps that made her cheeks burn scarlet. But it was the giggles that she heard faintly drifting down the hallway that truly horrified her.
“Synclair, this is absurd!”
He began climbing the stairs and used one shoulder to push open the chamber doors.
“Aye, but its fun, too. I am beginning to see why the Scots cling to their ways. I never enjoyed chivalrous behavior quite as much as this.”
He tossed her into the center of the bed and she bounced several times in a jumble of hair and toweling.
“I see now why the stories tell of those harems using gold chains on their slave girls.”
Justina pushed her hair out of her eyes and fixed him with a narrow stare.
“I don't find the topic amusing. It was barbaric to chain me.”
He pressed his hands down on either side of the bed, his weight pressing the coverlet down.
“Oh, it is very serious in the harems, too. How else would a man keep multiple women for his own pleasure if not by chaining them?” He crawled onto the bed and captured the wrist that was still stained orange. A soft kiss was pressed against the discoloration and then another until he had kissed his way to the delicate skin of her inner wrist. He lingered there, teasing it with a lick and then a carefully controlled bite. She jumped, unable to control her body. Pleasure speared through her from that nip, jolting her like a bolt of lightning did to the eyes on a dark night. It was felt as much as seen.
“It delights me to think you could not take any steps to avoid conceiving my child.”
Justina gasped and pulled her hand from his grasp. Of course, she gained her freedom only because he allowed it.
“So that was your game.”
He turned over and sat back on his haunches. His cock was swollen and tempting her with the promise of deep satisfaction once again. All she had to do was stop thinking, stop talking, and fall back into the cradle of passion once again.
It was so very simple.
He lifted one finger up. “I also wanted you here when I returned with Brandon.”
She pouted at him. “That is unfair. I cannot remain cross with you when you mention bringing my son here.”
“Good.”
Victory edged the word and Justina pulled the toweling up to cover her breasts. “Nor can I remain in the grip of passion.”
He muttered something beneath his breath and the profanity pleased her. Synclair's gaze lowered to where her beaded nipples raised the soft fabric of the toweling. Something flickered in his eyes that sent heat back into her belly. She was beginning to know the look and her body recognized it, and there was no question of returning to passion's hold. Need rose up to surround her while her lover contemplated her bare form.
“If it's difficulty you are having remaining in passion's grip, perhaps I can employ a few tactics that I learned in the East to place the odds in my favor. Those Moors have some very interesting ways of entertaining all their women.”
“Moors? You met some?”
He chuckled and the sound was husky, hinting at something that her curiosity wanted to know. There was a dark promise flickering in his eyes, and it sent a quiver through her. The court was always full of rumors of the East. Stories of debauchery and sexual acts that made Henry the Eighth look like a puritan.
“Do they truly have harems with hundreds of women?”
One of Synclair's eyebrows rose. “Some men do, and they keep those beauties satisfied.”
“But ... how?” She shouldn't ask but she just couldn't stop herself. “One man can only do so much ...”
“So much fucking?”
He left the bed and walked over to the table that sat next to the wall. Her curiosity kept her gaze on him as he lifted the lid off one chest and searched for something inside it. He drew a fabric-wrapped bundle from it and turned to display a wicked grin.
“What is that?”
He held up the bundle and wiggled it back and forth on his way back to the bed.
“This, my lover, is a toy from a harem.”
She scoffed at him. “I doubt it. Some merchant probably just wanted you to pay more for it.”
“Ah, you doubt my skills at shopping.” He placed it on the bed between them and she couldn't help but look at it. There was something about the way he was grinning that sent excitement flowing through her veins. She was becoming addicted to being his lover because it allowed her to enjoy bed sport, something she had never thought possible. It drove up her excitement, making her breathless with anticipation. Her clitoris was throbbing between the folds of her slit, eager to be stroked until she climaxed again.
She was becoming addicted to him, just as she knew she would, and yet, for the moment she did not care to worry about it.
“With so many women to please, the Moors have invented a unique way to keep them all satisfied.”
He unrolled the fabric and she gasped when she looked at what lay hidden inside. The toy was made of marble and looked exactly like an erect cock. She had heard that many of the statues found in the ruins of Rome had full phalluses but this was only the male organ itself, carved with attention to detail. The head was flared just like a real cock and the veins ran down the length of it to the base where the wrinkled skin of the sac was etched into the stone. A long wooden handle was inserted into the base of it, making it a statue of a cock and only that.
“I hear the women compete against one another to win these for their use for one evening.”
“What use?”
He chuckled and she felt her eyes widening. “Can't you guess, my sweet? All of those women, doing nothing but waiting on the favor of one man. I hear that a harem master often takes more than one of his concubines to bed at the same time. Can't you imagine how that might build a woman's passion?”
Justina felt her lower lip go dry with anticipation, but that did not mean that she was going to allow him to silence her with his words.
“So why did you buy that phallus? Are you planning on keeping several mistresses?”
He picked it up, holding it by the handle so that the candlelight illuminated it. His eyes narrowed as he contemplated her.
“No. Yet I do plan to make sure that my wife is completely satisfied in my bed.”
Justina shook her head, scooting farther back toward the headboard without thinking about it. Her passage was suddenly hot and eager.
“Are you denying that you shall be satisfied, or that you will consent to be my wife, Justina?”
He followed her and captured one of her legs by laying over it. He dropped the phallus and stroked the inside of her thigh with one large hand. He spread her wider with that hand, until the folds of her sex separated.
“I enjoy the sounds you make when my touch pleases you.”
That was difficult to believe, and yet his tone convinced her in spite of all her years full of examples of men taking pleasure from women without returning it.
His eyes flashed with something that was white-hot. His fingers reached her slit and began to tease the sensitive flesh. Just a light touch but it sent shivers of delight across her belly and up to her breasts. A small whimper crossed her lips.
“Ah, the first sound.” His fingers brushed across her slit again, this time lingering and stroking the folds until he had coated them with the fluid easing down from her passage.
“I believe we shall have to see how many more I might coax from your lips.”
His fingertips delved deeply until he found her clitoris. The small bead was throbbing with excitement and he fingered it, gently drawing another sound from her. It became impossible to do anything but experience the pleasure his touch ignited. Her hands clutched at the bedding and her hips arched up toward his touch.
“I believe I have discovered a portion of the Moors' fascination with love toys.” Synclair's voice was dark and rich with promise. Justina lifted her drooping eyelids to look up at his face and gasped when she discovered his gaze centered on her spread slit. He was watching his finger as it teased her clitoris. Hunger brightened his eyes and his lips were thin with desire.
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