Vanquished (20 page)

Ugly laughter greeted that statement, and then the cold, wet smear of grease slathered fingers between his buttocks. "My dear boy, I don't give a tinker's damn if you like it or not. But if you fight me, it'll go hard with you and that slut of a mother of yours. Now be a good lad, and it'll be over soon enough."

Be a good lad, a good lad, a good lad. . .

Blunt pressure and then a sudden knife-sharp pain seared through him, threatening to rent him in two. He squeezed his hands into fists until the nails drew fresh blood from his palms, bit down on his bottom lip until he tasted the metal of blood there too. Anything, anything, to keep from crying out.

A big hairy hand reached around the front of him, fondling his balls. As if it had a mind of its own, his cock stiffened. In his ear, hot breath hissed, "You said I couldn't make you like it only I think you do like it, my little whore."

My little whore, whore, whore . . .

Another few blunt, burning thrusts, a hoarse shout of triumph and release, and then it was over. The mattress dipped then steadied as the man climbed off him. Harry curled onto his side, cool air brushing his backside. Hot cheek pressed to the pillow, he listened to the sounds of clothing being adjusted, a satisfied grunt, and then footfalls heading back to the bed. He tensed, waiting. Please, God, no more.

Paper, a five-pound note, floated down to the vacant patch of pillow by his head. "Next time show a bit more enthusiasm, and I'll make it ten."

Next time, next time, next time . . .

He waited until the door closed, then stuffed the money beneath the pillow and rolled onto his back. Beyond that, he couldn't muster the energy to move. How long he lay staring up at the ceiling he couldn't have said. It might have just as easily been hours as minutes, but at some point a soft knock sounded outside the door.

"Mum?" He pushed himself up on his elbows.

"No, it's me. Can I come in?" The whispered voice coming from the hallway belonged to his friend, Sally, one of the new girls and three years his senior.

Sally, how could he face her now or ever again? He flopped back down on his back without answering, hoping she would give up and go away. No such luck. The door opened partway, and she slipped inside. "You all right, Harry?"

He found solace in sarcasm. "Bloody grand. The best day of my life, don't you know it?" He fixed his gaze on the ceiling but not before he noticed her face was free of paint, which could only mean she wasn't seeing any "gentlemen callers" today.

She sat down on the bed beside him. "He hurt you, didn't he, the lousy bugger?" Her tone was a soothing balm of outrage and loyalty.

He dropped his gaze from the cracked plasterwork and turned on his side to look at her, hot tears of shame rolling down his cheeks. "Oh Christ, Sal, Jesus Bloody Christ." Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, he willed the back flash of images to stop.

"First time's always the hardest." She reached down to pat his shoulder, the bodice of her castoff gown dipping open. Through the waterfall of tears, he caught an eyeful. Breasts, big as melons and tipped with nipples the soft pink he'd seen in a rainbow just the week before.

He shook his head. "There isn't going to be a next time. I like girls. I like you, Sal." All at once, the tears stopped and against all odds he found his smile.

He reached up and slipped a hand inside her gown. Soft and supple as he imagined a cloud might feel.

"I like you, too, Harry, but you know we can't. House rules and all." Despite her protest, he noticed she didn't pull back.

"No pay, no lay," he repeated, heartily sick of Madam Dottie and her rules.

Sally nodded, solemn as if they sat in a church pew instead of half-naked on a whore's bed while he played with her breast, the nipple hardening beneath his thumb.

But not as hard as Harry's cock, miraculously come to life and standing out straight as a pikestaff.

"Oh, what the 'ell." She lifted his shirt, looking at him long and hard before taking him in her hand. "My, you're a big lad," she said, licking her lips in a way that had him shivering.

He dropped his hand. "Is it . . . all right, then?"

She giggled. "Better than all right, I'd say, so long as you know how to use it." Her hand began moving up and down him, smooth, sure strokes that had him pulsing against her palm.

She lifted her skirts and moved to straddle him. Other than her stockings and garters, she wasn't wearing undergarments. He stared at the triangle of dark hair between her full thighs, at the dark core of pink inner lips, and felt his mouth go dry.

Arching his hips, he poked around her thighs, sweat breaking out on his forehead when he didn't immediately hit home. "Easy, ducks, it's not a race." She reached down between them and guided him to her.

"Will it hurt you?" he asked, going still, reminded of his own stinging bum. Sally might be a girl, but she was his friend, too. He didn't ever want to make her cry.

"No, silly, I'll like it." She came down on him hard, taking him full inside her, or at least he thought so--he still hadn't chalked up the courage to look down.

Lying still, he closed his eyes and let her ride him, thinking nothing in his life had ever felt this nice, this good. Then she did something with her hips and pleasure so stark it bordered on pain bolted through him. He came, losing himself inside her.

Afterward they lay facing each other atop the sheets. Hands pillowed beneath her tousled auburn curls, Sally was the first to speak. "He'll be back for more, you know he will."

"I won't be here when he does." Reaching beneath the pillow, he pulled out the money he'd stowed there. "Come away with me, Sal. I'll take care of you."

She shook her head. "My place's here, at least for the time and sure there's worse places I could end up. Only promise me that someday when you're a fine gentleman, a photo . . ."

"A photographer," he said to save her from stumbling over the word.

She smiled, but her eyes were sad. "Yes, that. Promise me you'll visit me sometimes, will you? And you can take my picture again, if you like."

"I swear I will."

The first lights of dawn streaked the coal-fogged sky when, belongings tossed into an empty pillowcase and the five-pound note folded into his pocket, he climbed out the bedroom window under Sally's watchful eye. He waited for her to give the all clear, three sharp raps on the window pane, before skirting the ledge of gabled roof. Reaching his chosen spot, he dropped down into the alley.

Straightening, he turned to look up at the window but the room had gone dark. "I won't forget you, Sal, I swear I won't. Someday I'll be back, you'll see." He turned and walked out into the cleansing mist.

Hadrian shot upright in the bed, the echo of a scream dying on his lips, the shattering of glass ringing in his ears. Sweat slid down his chest, drenching the sheet he'd let drop to his waist. He wrapped shaking arms about himself, a solitary hug, torn between relief that he'd woken alone and a terrible fear that alone was what he always would be.

He raked a trembling hand through his damp hair. As always, his first thought upon waking from the nightmare was:
I have to have a woman.
Sally kept a clean house and when she wasn't occupied with one of her regulars, she was always happy to oblige. When he had money he paid her and when he didn't, she did him for free. But going out in search of a quick coupling, soulless sex, struck him as entirely too great an effort to expend for such scant, temporary reward. He still wanted release, that hadn't changed, but he just possibly wanted something more, too. He wanted someone to hold, someone to hold him, to feel something, not just with his body but with his heart, too.

His thoughts turned to Callie, a condition that was becoming more and more common of late. By God she'd felt good in his arms, her generous figure fitting to him like a hand to a tailor-made glove. Though he'd yet to see her without her clothes, touching her through them had given him the feel of her. Imagination, his at least, was a potent force and his mind was more than capable of filling in the missing details.

Closing his eyes, he reached beneath the covers to take hold of himself, imagining the creamy whiteness of her thighs, the thick thatch of curls framed between them, the moist inner lips hidden inside. In his mind's eye, he saw himself burying his face in that musky heat, pleasing her with lips and tongue and teeth. The fantasy was becoming so real he could swear he tasted the brine of her on his tongue.

He squeezed his eyes tighter, letting his imagination carry him further along as he worked his turgid flesh. Eventually he would enter her. He would wait until he felt the first telltale tremors tickle his tongue and then he would take his mouth away and replace it with his cock. He was large, he knew, and very thick, not a conceit on his part but a simple acknowledgement of fact. One look at his open trouser front and the women he'd brought upstairs with him hadn't been able to get their clothes off fast enough.

Callie, however, would be a virgin. He'd never been with a virgin, but he imagined that she would be very tight at first, perhaps a bit dry. He would take care with her, be gentle but not overly so. At the core of all pleasure was some degree of pain and if she was anything like him, she would prefer to take hers sharp and fast. He would breach her with one clean thrust and then hold himself back until she got used to him. Once she did he would ride her, slowly at first and then faster until she was as wild for it as he was and then and only then would he let himself go.

Hadrian's eyes shot open as the first spasm overtook him.
Oh, God, Callie.
A few more rough strokes completed his release. He fell back against the pillow, wiping his hand on the empty sheet next to him.

Oh, Callie, do you sleep soundly, the slumber of perfect innocence, or lie awake in your lonely bed as I do?

Were he a normal man with an intact heart to offer, Callie Rivers would be very easy to love. As it was, how could he possibly work to destroy someone so pure of heart, so perfectly
good?

Dinah jumped up on the counterpane, butting her head against his chest. He reached out and stroked her silky back until she arched, mimicking the silhouette of a perfect witch's cat. "What am I to do about her, Dinah? More to the point, what am I to do about me?"

One Week Later:

"Callie, my dear, what am I to do with you? These past days, you've not been yourself at all." Lottie looked up from the typed letter she'd just folded into precise thirds.

Callie hid a yawn behind her hand. She'd passed yet another restless night but then at this point she'd stopped counting. They were at the Langham Place office. She'd shooed Harriet and the volunteers off to lunch, not because she was being noble but because she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Lottie, true to form, had refused to budge. By way of a compromise, they'd sent out to the sandwich shop across the street.

Seated across from her at the mahogany conference table cluttered with typewriter, stacked petitions, and the handbills advertising the upcoming march on Parliament freshly back from the printer, Callie quipped, "If not myself, then whom do I seem?" She knew she sounded snappish but lately she was too restless to care.