Cheryl Holt (7 page)

“How come?”

“Most men regard erotic pictures as highly arousing. The visual images increase a man’s sexual urges.”

“Does it work that way for you when you look at them?”

She was extremely proud of her ability to ask such a bold question, so he answered candidly and without vacillation. “Yes. I suppose it is due to my animalistic nature. I am a man, and men are simply beasts at heart, ready to copulate at the drop of a hat.”

“So I’ve been told all my life.” She laughed heartily. “Do you truly believe it?”

“Absolutely,” he responded, smiling. “No matter what we males pretend, mating is all we think about. Nature has endowed females with numerous charms that lure us to our doom. Bare skin, a woman’s lips, her breasts, the springy hair that cushions her alluring cleft”—he let his attention drift and linger on each site he mentioned, and she shifted uncomfortably under his bald assessment—“all of these are enormously stimulating to a man. Just seeing the curve of a woman’s bosom makes him think about nothing but the sexual event.”

“Perhaps that it why we dress so thoroughly, so that
there is not a hint of femininity remaining to be appreciated by male eyes.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said, encouraged by how easily she adopted the casual banter. “If we were constrained to gaze upon women’s flesh all day, we would very likely pass all our time rutting like creatures in the field.”

She laughed again and shook her head. “I can’t believe that I’m sitting here, discussing all this with you. If you knew me . . . knew what my life is like . . .”

“I have a fair idea.” He took in her coifed hair, her pale skin, her manicured nails, the hands that had never seen a day’s work. In every fashion, she was the grandest of ladies.

“May I look?”

She held out her palm, and he removed the contents of the portfolio. It contained only twenty portraits, each one executed on stiff, specially treated pieces of parchment. The figures had been originally sketched in stark lines with black ink, then bits of color and shading had been added for dramatic effect. He gave her the first drawing, and she studied it intently. To his jaded eye, the picture was simple enough, but for a woman with Lady Abigail’s background, it was probably fairly astonishing.

A nude female reclined on a daybed, her back propped against a pile of pillows. She was rounded and pleasingly plump, with full, heavy breasts, and large, elongated nipples. One hand was slipped behind her head, the other rested low on her stomach as though she may have just been touching herself or was about to. The hair under her arms and on her mound had been removed. From the gleam in her eye and the provocative pose, there was no doubt that she was awaiting her lover.

Lady Abigail peered at the rendering forever, and he waited impatiently, wondering what she was thinking. The silence became oppressive, and he decided she was never going to comment, so he reached to the illustration and stroked his thumb across the woman’s nipple, much as he
might in real life, circling slowly around the peach-colored tip.

“Have you ever seen a woman’s breasts?” he asked.

“No.” She was mesmerized by the motion of his hand.

“Have you ever seen your own?”

“No!” she answered more vehemently, and she reddened, the blush beginning somewhere deep inside, then working across her shoulders, her neck, her cheeks, into her hair. She was completely flushed, and he had the strongest urge to take pity on her, to leave off the discussion and fan her heated face, but he didn’t. He wanted her hot—but not really understanding why.

“A woman’s breasts,” he maintained, “are the most sensitive location on her body. A man fondles them, bites them, and pinches them. Her nipples, especially, are responsive, and a man sucks them far into his mouth, much as a babe would, only he does it roughly, using his tongue and teeth abrasively.”

“And this abrasion . . . this sucking . . .’tis pleasurable?”

“Extremely pleasurable. To both the man and the woman.” He glanced down at her chest, which was rising and falling quickly, her breathing unexpectedly labored. Even through all the layers of lace and fabric, he could see the shape of her nipples. They were irritated and pushing against the bodice of her dress.

“ ’Tis so difficult to imagine . . .” she whispered.

“Is it?” he queried, willing her to conceive of it in great detail.

He could almost hear her brain working as she continued to stare at the nude. Finally, she said quietly, “She has no hair . . . on her lower parts. . . .”

“No. ’Tis a French fashion.”

“How is it removed?”

“Some women keep a special maid to shave them, others visit parlors that specialize in waxes and other concoctions. There are several methods of having it accomplished.”

“Why would she?”

“Many men find it excessively stimulating to feel and
see a woman’s smooth, unimpeded skin.” He touched the woman’s shaven genitals. “They like to kiss a woman here, between her legs—”

“Truly?” she interrupted, her troubled eyes swinging to meet his.

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would a man want to do such an outrageous thing?”

“Pleasure, milady. ’Tis all about pleasure.”

“Have you ever . . .”

She swallowed. Paused. He knew exactly the question she wanted to raise, and he couldn’t help thinking that she was incredibly brave to be wading into these deep waters without a clue as to where it might all lead.

Calmly, he prompted, “You’re wondering if I have ever kissed a woman like that.”

“Yes,” she breathed as her cheeks turned another delightful hue of red. He hadn’t realized a woman’s skin encompassed so many different shades for marking the stages of her embarrassment.

“Ask me.” When she continued to hesitate, he said, “Go ahead. ’tis all right.”

“Have you . . . have you . . .” She looked prepared to jump from a high cliff into a raging torrent. “Have you ever kissed a woman between her legs?”

“Yes. I do it all the time with my lovers.”

“You find such a thing enjoyable?”

“Immensely.”

“And your . . . your . . . lovers, they derive satisfaction from it as well?”

“Well, I like to believe they do.” He laughed; he couldn’t help himself. “I do not brag when I say that I am quite renowned for my sexual prowess.”

Skeptically, she shook her head. “ ’Tis difficult for me to fathom that a woman would intentionally agree to undergo such attention, even if the man doing it to her is exceedingly experienced. It seems too personal.”

“That’s one of the reasons it’s so exhilarating.” He
flashed her a wicked grin. “ ’Tis also a bit naughty. I typically note that the
naughtier
something is supposed to be, the greater the gratification I derive from doing it.”

“You’re horrid.” She chuckled in response, then her brow wrinkled in consternation. “There’s one point I want to be clear on, though.”

“What’s that?”

“All this fondling and sucking and kissing . . . I assume it’s a necessary prelude to the marital act?”

“Well . . .” he mused, “I wouldn’t say
necessary
, but it certainly makes the proceedings more interesting.”

“But why must all this . . . initial touching . . . occur?”

“Simply because it is tantalizing; however, a woman is not as easily excited as a man, so it can be painful for her if he rushes to implant his hardened cock too quickly.”

“Aah . . .” she said pensively. “That’s the
pain
I’ve heard whispered about.”

“What you’ve heard talk of is a virgin’s pain on her wedding night. A woman is born with a thin piece of skin covering the opening to her womb. It is called her maidenhead. This a man tears when he enters her for the first time. The moment can be quite terrible if the woman is not properly relaxed. Even with adequate stimulation, it can still be . . . unpleasant.”

“So this
stimulation
results from all the caressing?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “A woman has many sensitive places on her body. When they are appropriately aroused, she is ready for mating.”

“And while the man is so busy, what is the woman doing?”

“She is kissing him and touching him in return. Usually a woman will take a man’s cock in her hands or in her mouth”—her eyes widened at this—“in order to stroke him in a sexual rhythm. It is extremely invigorating and increases the man’s anticipation for the coming event.”

“A man would expect the woman to touch his private parts?”

“Perhaps not during their early encounters, but . . . yes,
he would come to desire it on a regular basis as the woman learns more of her wifely duties.”

Her eyes worked their way back to the parchment again, but not before engaging in a quick inventory down his front, her furtive, curious gaze lingering briefly on his crotch. Luckily, he continued to lean forward, so she couldn’t detect the bulge she’d created. He was still hard as a poker, none of his sexual agitation having waned in the least.

While he loved the fantasy that she might one day slip a hand inside his trousers in order to manipulate him with those long, slender fingers, that she might eventually suck at him with those lush, ruby lips, now wasn’t the time for her to discover what size a man’s phallus could actually grow to be. Any illusions she had were best humored until she was equipped for a more intimate lesson.

He laid the first painting on the table in front of the sofa, then he handed her the second in the stack. “Look at the next.”

The voluptuous woman had rolled to her side, and a nude man had joined her. He was mostly hidden from view, stretched out behind her with a leg casually tossed over her thigh, a hand twirling her nipple. Lady Abigail stared for long moments before the obvious appeared to her.

“ ’Tis you!” she hissed, turning to him with accusing eyes. “The man in this picture is you!”

“Yes.”

“You’re naked!”

“Yes,” he said again.

“Is there more of you?”

“In nearly every portrait.” She reached out as though she wished to flip through the pile quickly, but something undefined prevented her from peeking ahead.

“So, I am going to see you in your . . . your altogether?”

“I’m afraid so.”

For that very reason, he’d debated endlessly on whether to show her the drawings or not. He couldn’t care less if
she saw him naked. In fact, he was hoping that she’d see the genuine article before too much time had passed, but he’d known the images would make her ill at ease. After much deliberation, however, he’d brought them simply because he didn’t have anything else. He possessed two other collections that were similar, in which he was also in the starring role, but they were much more risqué.

“Won’t you be embarrassed to have me gaze upon you like this?” She ran her hand in the air over the picture, indicating his bare state.

“Not really.” He shrugged off her concern. “Many women have seen me naked in my life. I have no great qualms about it.”

She studied his likeness. “You were much younger.”

“Nineteen years.”

“What caused you to do such a thing?”

“I was brash. Foolish. I had no better sense. As I said, the artist was a friend, and he asked it of me. It seemed a great lark at the time.” Once again, he chuckled at the memories of Paris. Ah . . . what a life he’d led growing up on the Continent! “I should mention that my mother brought me back to England shortly after she discovered what I was about. She decided that I had adapted to the French ways much too readily, and that my behavior had become entirely too indecent. She felt I could benefit from the more socially restrictive world I would encounter here.”

“Have you?”

“It’s been over ten years now, and I would say”—he grinned impishly—“that the jury is still out.”

“I think your mother was very wise in forcing you to return.” She sounded too fussy, too stuffy, and much older than her years.

“I don’t know that I would agree with you,” he said, and, unable to believe he’d admit such a thing, he added, “I seem to draw female trouble no matter the country in which I reside.”

“And the woman?” she eventually asked, after staring
much too long at how his hand manipulated that breast. “What was her name?”

“Lily. She was the artist’s wife.” Her eyes widened with shock, or perhaps dismay.

“And your friend did not mind?”

“We were young. In Paris. The times were more open. He considered the entire episode to be totally erotic.”

Without responding, she slid the second drawing onto the table, then she reached for the third. The couple had moved so that Lily was now on her back with James stretched out on top of her. They were embroiled in an animated kiss, their lips melded, their tongues entwined. James’s hand squeezed her breast as his fingers pressured her nipple.

“Your tongue is in her mouth,” she commented after a long perusal.

“ ’Tis the most passionate way to kiss a woman,” he answered, fixed on her profile, but her attention was glued to the enthusiastic embrace. “A man moves his tongue in and out of the woman’s mouth in a tempo meant to simulate mating.”

“More of the
preparation?”

“Yes.” She was so wrapped up in the lovers that he dared move closer. “Have you ever been kissed?” he asked.

“Once,” she replied, smiling with the memory. “My fiancé was allowed to kiss me, on the cheek, immediately after he proposed.”

“That was the one and only occasion?” He inhaled deeply of the scent of her hair, the smell of her skin.

“The one and only. . . .”

She finally managed to wrench her focus from the painting, and as she did, her breast brushed against his arm, her thigh crushed into his. He could see the gold flecks in her emerald eyes, see his face reflected back. Her pupils dilated, her nostrils flared at finding him hovering so near.

“So . . . you’ve never been properly kissed?”

“No,” she admitted.

They sat unmoving, paralyzed by the promise of what might happen.

“Would you like to be?” His heated gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered.

She seemed to surprise herself with her response. “I believe I would.”

“Would you like to be kissed by me?”