The Hallucinatory Duke (2 page)

Pain and confusion and everything else in the world was forgotten when he touched her. She’d had her share of lovers, but no one had ever caused her to feel this hot this quickly. “Oh my, yes,” she screamed as her hips shot off the bed.

He moved his finger away from her. “Easy now. You don’t want to find your release too quickly, do you? I can’t stay to make you come again.”

“I just want… I just want… I just want…” She couldn’t finish the sentence because he was playing with her. A flick to her clit, then withdrawal, then back again to spread her moisture all around her pussy. Then to her clit again, then withdrawal.

“Please, please, please.” She’d never begged before, but then, no one had ever created this kind of hunger in her before.

“I’ll agree to continue if you’ll agree to stop using unladylike language.” His voice had deepened, and where it had once felt like velvet caressing her skin, it now scratched like sandpaper.

“Hell, yes,” she muttered, then almost cried when he withdrew his hand completely.

Her pussy clenched in response. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I was teasing. I’ll stop saying
hell.
I promise.”

“Very well. I’ll hold you to that promise.” He eased his fingers back into her folds, but he had slowed down, never touching her clit, just circling it.

She rotated her hips, trying to find his finger, and heard him chuckle.

“You’re quite the passionate woman,” he said. “If I had more time, I’d torment you until I forced you to explain why you’ve been searching for me, but I have to leave soon and even I’m not so cruel as to leave you without your release.”

He again touched her clit, gently for a few seconds then with enough pressure to have her thrusting her hips into the air until she—at last—climaxed, a climax that went on and on and on. When she stopped gasping out her pleasure and opened her eyes, he’d disappeared.

“Thanks, my imaginary friend,” she murmured. “Obviously I was exceptionally horny.” The second she stopped talking, she drifted into a restful sleep.

Chapter Two

Jack Durban lifted his hips off the mattress and pulled his extra pillow close to his bare chest. “Oh baby, that’s it, that’s wonderful,” he murmured, groaning as his balls tightened and his cock hardened.

The woman—who’d been licking his balls—paused to raise her head, then pushed herself into a sitting position. One of her deliciously large tits had escaped the confinement of her bodice and dangled tantalisingly close, almost within Jack’s grasp. At that particular moment in time, he wanted nothing more than to get his mouth on her berry-sized nipple, but a discordant sound brought a quick frown to the female’s brow and she quickly stuffed her breast back into her ball gown.

Wait a minute. Ball gown? Why is the woman in my bed dressed in a ball gown? More importantly, where did she come from and why is she trying to make me come?

Although aware in the back of his mind that something was seriously out of kilter, Jack desperately tried to cling to his dream. The female might be overdressed, but she was as beautiful as any creature he’d ever seen. Shiny brown hair fell in wisps around her oval-shaped face, with huge brown eyes, a tiny straight nose, and generous lips—lips that had been wrapped around his cock right before she’d redirected her attention to his balls.

“Damn it to hell,” he muttered as the dream faded completely and his cell phone continued its tinny rendition of The Devil Went Down to Georgia. “Uncle Ben calling,” he said through clenched teeth. He should know—he’d purchased that particular ring tone with Ben in mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his uncle, it was that his uncle could irritate the hell out of him. He lay still, waiting for the phone to kick over to voicemail. In his aroused state, the last thing he needed was to endure a conversation with Ben Durban.

Propping himself up on his forearm, he gazed down at the clock sitting on the floor beside the bed. Six-fifteen in the morning. Knowing he’d never go back to sleep, he sat up, stretched, and blew his breath out in a sigh. It was time to get up anyway. After only three weeks on the job in his new location, he didn’t want to risk running late.

Besides, he needed a long, cold shower.

Half an hour later, with just a towel wrapped around his waist, he carried a bowl of cereal to the living room and plopped down on the edge of his recliner to watch the local weather. He really needed to buy some furniture one day soon, although the simplicity of living with just a bed, a chair, and a big-screen TV wasn’t all that bad.

The weatherman faced the camera with a folksy grin. “Good morning, fellow Atlantans. Bring out your sunscreen ’cause it looks like Hotlanta is gonna be an appropriate name for us today. Yep, we’re in for another scorchin’ and muggy one with the usual chance of thunderboomers in the late afternoon. Highs today should be in the mid to upper nineties, with a low tonight around sixty-five, so strap yourselves in and hang on.”

“Same ol’, same ol’,” Jack said as he grabbed the remote and clicked over to a sports station. He’d heard rumours that the catcher for the Memphis Redbirds was being promoted to play for the Cardinals, but if so, the news hadn’t made the big-time sports shows yet. “Guess I’ll have to check the Commercial Appeal online,” he muttered.

Shovelling in the last bite of his corn flakes, he switched off the TV, stood, then turned. “What the hell?” His bowl and spoon slipped out of his suddenly numb fingers. The plastic bowl bounced across the hardwood floor, stopping only when it rolled into a small, slippered foot. The woman from his dream was back, and he wasn’t asleep this time.

She stood in the doorway to his bedroom, wearing the same ball gown as in his dream, but now she’d pulled her arms out of the cap sleeves and pushed her bodice down so that both her breasts had been freed. Smiling, she slipped her hands under her huge tits and lifted them so that the nipples were pointing straight towards Jack.

Fear had dried his mouth and set his heart to racing, but his stupid cock seemed unaware of the incongruence of a strange woman appearing out of nowhere. It stirred and then bobbed up and down, seemingly wanting to wave at the two large nipples that were surrounded by dark areolae. Fortunately, it was still hidden behind the bath towel he’d wrapped around his waist.

“Who are…” Jack paused. “What are you?” He didn’t expect an answer, which was just as well, because she merely smiled and glided across the floor towards him. He backed up a few steps, but when it became clear she intended to follow, he decided to stop and stand his ground.

He had to clear his throat twice, but he finally managed to rephrase his question. “What do you want with me?”

Her only answer was to latch onto the front of his towel and tug. Jack grabbed for it, but he was too late. She’d pulled it away from him and tossed it to one side.

“Look, lady…” Jack had started to speak when he suddenly realised he couldn’t move. He felt as though he’d been encased in a hard shell of plastic—only his eyes and cock seemed capable of movement.

He dropped his gaze to his quivering cock and watched it grow to a degree he’d never achieved before. Seconds later, his balls started aching with need, and if he had been able to speak, he suspected he would have begged her for relief.

Perhaps he had begged, at least in his thoughts. He began to fear she could read his mind, as she encircled his cock with her hand and squeezed. He might not be able to speak, but he could certainly moan.

And moan he did. Repeatedly, while she tweaked his balls and played with his dick, teasing him until he thought he’d surely lose his mind.

If he hadn’t already.

At long last, she dropped to her knees in front of him and took him into her mouth. If he hadn’t been rendered immobile, he feared his legs would have given way. As it was, he was forced to stand there like a statue while she sucked and ran her tongue along his length, licked his balls, then sucked some more.

When he finally came, his ejaculation was so powerful it was almost painful. The intensity of his groans increased, and only when he’d emptied himself completely could he stop moaning.

The woman stood, pushed her tits back into her bodice, and grimaced. “There, I hope that satisfied you,” she said, just before she faded away.

Finally free to move, Jack dropped to his knees, still gasping from the intensity of his release. His muscles felt as though they had been through the most strenuous workout of his life.

His heart pounded much too fast, so he eased himself onto the floor and lay there for several minutes, wondering what in the hell was happening to him. When he could stand again, he returned to the bedroom, grabbed his cell phone, and called his uncle’s number. He wasn’t particularly surprised to get voicemail. “This is Professor Durban. I am unable to take your call at the moment. You can try me later or leave a message.”

Jack impatiently waited for the beep. “Uncle Ben. I need to talk to you. This damn research you’ve got me doing is… Well, I’m not sure what the hell is going on. Call me.”

He flung his cell phone onto the bed and headed back to the bathroom. He was running late but he couldn’t leave before showering again. He couldn’t recall ever having felt quite this dirty.

* * * *

When her cell rang at eight o’clock the following morning, Amelia awoke feeling more rested than she had in months. Just for an instant, though, she didn’t know where she was.

She let her phone ring while she took stock of herself. She lay naked under the bedclothes, so obviously she’d covered herself up during the night. Bright light poured through the bedroom windows, and Wellington sat in his usual spot on the sill, surveying the birds perched on electric lines outside her apartment window.

Just before the phone kicked over to voicemail, she grabbed it from her bedside table. “This is Amelia.”

“Amelia, it’s Ben.”

“Hey, Ben. What’s up?”

“I was wondering if we could have lunch today.”

“Sure. When did you get back?”

“Early yesterday morning. The plane was late getting into Hartsfield, as usual. I took yesterday off to deal with the jet lag. I brought some papers back for you to go over.”

“Okay. What time do you want to meet, and where?”

“The diner, of course. Is noon okay?”

“Noon’s fine. But don’t you teach today?”

“I do. My class is over at nine-thirty, so I may go straight to the diner as soon as I can get away from the students. I don’t want to eat that early, but I can grab my favourite booth and go over some papers I brought back from England. See you at noon.” He hung up before giving her a chance to respond.

She closed her phone, then pushed herself up in bed. Her nightshirt lay on the floor where it had fallen the previous evening, during that unbelievably realistic dream. Or hallucination. Or whatever it was. She almost blushed just thinking about it. Obviously she’d spent way too much time lately researching the damn Duke of Durbane.

“Gotta get him out of my mind for a few minutes,” she muttered while climbing out of bed. Wellington jumped off the windowsill and stood staring up at her. His tail twitched.

“Okay, okay, I’ll feed you, just as soon as I grab a glass of tea.” Amelia had never cared for coffee, so she started her day with a cup of hot chocolate during the winter months, or a glass of iced tea during the summer. Late August in Atlanta definitely called for iced tea.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back in the bathroom preparing to shower. She’d adjusted the water temperature to lukewarm and was about to step over the side of the tub and under the spray when her gaze paused on the top of her right thigh.

She stared open-mouthed at the clear patch of skin where her tattoo had once been.

“What the hell?” she exclaimed. The words were barely out of her mouth when the spot started burning as though someone was holding a match to it.

She screamed and jumped under the cool water, then remembered the curse word she’d used. “All right, all right,” she yelped, leaning back so the water could spray directly on her thigh. “I’m sorry, already. I forgot that I’m not supposed to say the word
hell
. It just slipped out.”

The burning sensation ceased immediately, and when she propped her foot on the side of the tub to examine her thigh, not even a red spot marked the area where seconds before there had seemed to be fire.

“Psychosomatic,” she murmured. “Gotta be psychosomatic.”

But that still didn’t explain where her tattoo had gone.

* * * *

Ben Durban, as usual, had claimed the far back booth in the popular eatery near Emory’s campus. Amelia estimated he’d arrived at least two hours earlier, based on the number of crumpled-up artificial sweetener packets piled beside his coffee cup. A brown briefcase occupied the bench seat between him and the wall, and half a dozen stacks of paper were spread out around him in a semicircle.

Ben had been her mentor in undergraduate school, her committee chair when she was working on her dissertation, and was now her benefactor, since she’d graduated and discovered there was little call for history professors in the current economy. He paid her well for the research she was conducting for him.

He looked up as she approached, half stood, then motioned towards the opposite side of the table before dropping back onto the crinkled vinyl bench. As usual, his high brow was furrowed, as though he’d been in deep thought for so many years that the wrinkles had taken up permanent residence there. His white hair was a little longer than usual, almost touching the collar of his dress shirt.

Amelia slid into the booth. “How was class today?”

He rolled his striking blue eyes and scowled. “They’re not real students. They’re a bunch of know-nothing nincompoops who couldn’t tell you the difference between the Restoration and the Regency.”

“Western civ class?” Amelia asked the question, knowing that he didn’t teach freshman classes, but she enjoyed goading him just to watch him clench his square jaw. He’d obviously been a handsome man when he was younger.