Darker Than Love (33 page)

Clarissa uttered soft repeated cries. The onset of her crisis, sumptuously thick, swam deep in her loins, rolling to an ever tighter coil. His head dipped between her thighs and he possessed her with his mouth, nibbling and sucking. He plunged his tongue into her ready opening, trailed it over her lips and burrowed into every
crease. He sought her clitoris, nudged back its hood, and lapped at the inflamed, peeping bud.

It was enough, too much. Clarissa’s orgasm soared, an intensity shivering open, consuming her utterly. She cried hoarsely, hanging on a euphoric peak, before tumbling into the fall of shattering ecstasy, of a thousand melting pulsations.

Gabriel kissed her inner thighs then edged up to lie beside her. He trembled almost as much as she, and he studied her face, his brown eyes searching and intense. Clarissa lay silent, the spreading afterglow of her peak soothing away the shudders from her limbs.

‘Say you won’t ever leave me,’ he whispered. ‘Even if you don’t mean it, just say it. Make this moment perfect.’

‘I won’t leave you,’ she replied quietly, holding his gaze. ‘I promise that with all my heart.’

He kissed her, his lips rich and sweet with the taste of her sex. His jutting phallus pressed insistently against one thigh, and she let her hand drift over his body, teasing him with soft sinuous strokes.

She drew back a little to admire his strong, spare physique. His chest was a wedge of muscularity, smooth and firm, with nipples like bronze halfpennies. She traced curves there, sliding down to his ridged abdomen and sweeping over his hard, slender hips. His cock reared from his thatch of dark hair, throbbing with virility, straining for her touch.

But she lingered as he had done, moving around his body, massaging his tight, lean buttocks and swooping her hands over the polished, beautiful plane of his back. Her wet hair trailed on his skin as she kissed his shoulder blades, the nape of his neck, the insides of his elbows, his wrists. She blew gentle breath over his prick.

A droplet of fluid formed there, as clear and smooth as a cabochon moonstone. She licked it away and Gabriel groaned, tormented and needy. He rubbed his fingers into her scalp and his pelvis lifted in a tiny, questing jerk. She moulded her lips to the flushed crown of his
knob and suckled there, her tongue teasing around the collaring foreskin. Slowly she moved down his warm shaft, taking him deeper into her mouth with open, pulsing kisses.

Gabriel gave a guttural cry, and he pressed at her shoulders, urging her away.

‘I cannot bear it,’ he rasped. ‘Stop.’ His breath was shallow and he gazed up at her, his eyes burning beneath lust-heavy lids. ‘I remember when you would suck me to my crisis because your maidenhead was sacred. Please, do not continue for I fear you might do the same. And I want you.’

He brought her down into his arms, and rolled her on to her back. She spread her thighs, her sex gaping in moist invitation.

‘I’m yours,’ she whispered. ‘Take me.’

As she spoke she felt him penetrating her. The domed head of his cock was easing past her entrance, pushing into her yielding depths with a slow, steady force. He stifled his urgency, and when he had buried himself to the hilt he was motionless, the thick flesh of his prick lodged solidly within her.

Clarissa released a low feverish groan. Her groin tingled and she squeezed her vagina around his hard girth, clutching at his embedded stiffness with rippling inner muscles. She looked up at him and saw his mouth open in a silent inhalation of pleasure. His eyes fixed on hers, Gabriel began to move, driving gentle bumps against the neck of her womb, his pelvis lunging tensely, rocking into hers.

She moaned and gasped, and gradually his withdrawals became longer, his glans teasing at the warm rim of her sex before gliding once more into her sheathing heat. Each stroke was exquisitely controlled, powerfully stern. She lifted her loins, her wetness slipping up to meet his slow-shunting cock. It was as if they were caught in quicksands of bliss, their shared, heavy movements
drawing them deeper into a realm of delight, prolonged and unbearably sweet.

In a surge of mutual lust, they ground against each other, their rhythm accelerating with their eagerness. Gabriel slammed himself harder and harder, his chestnut curls flicking about his face. The hair at his groin scoured her naked mons, and his pubis nudged at her clitoris, quickening it to a wild, demanding beat. His passion thrilled her.

Hot sensation lapped at her core, taking her to a second climax. She peaked, and Gabriel dropped his mouth to hers. He drank in her cries of joy with fierce liquid kisses. His muscled chest, humid with sweat, rubbed against her softness, and his swollen phallus thrust on, pounding into her quivering sex.

She felt the pulsations of his cock, his kisses groaning against her neck, kisses with teeth. And as he climaxed he called her name, his voice a splintered, dry sob.

‘God, I love you so much,’ he whispered.

He gathered her to him and they rolled to lie chest to chest, Clarissa’s thigh over his. The strength of his penis slowly ebbed away. Their breathing grew steadier and their lips moved constantly, kissing, murmuring endearments, and sometimes just touching.

‘I want to leave now,’ said Clarissa. ‘I want us to be far away from here.’

‘So do I,’ replied Gabriel. ‘But we seem to be in Kitty’s hands, my angel. And until she opens that door I want to fill every moment with pleasure.’

He stroked her throat, trailed his fingers down her breastbone then swooped a caress below the underswell of her bosom.

‘Tonight’s your betrothal party after all,’ he said, printing kisses to her shoulders. ‘We should honour that commitment, celebrate it anew.’

Clarissa looked at him, frowning, then buried her face in his mane of dark hair.

‘Oh, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘My father –’

‘Hush, hush,’ he whispered, holding her tightly. ‘We’ll run away, live elsewhere. I can support you with my painting.’

‘Yes,’ she breathed, looking at him steadily. ‘Anything.’

‘Then, for now, this is our night,’ he said, stroking damply curling tresses from her face. ‘I hope you don’t mind the paucity of guests.’

It was dark. The gas lanterns of Chelsea Embankment cast split reflections of light on to the Thames’ inky surface. A carriage, its side-lamps burning, rumbled along Cheyne Walk and drew up outside the quiet Longleigh household.

Without waiting to be handed down, Alicia Longleigh gathered in her skirts and stepped out on to the pavement. She breathed deeply, the chill night air refreshing her senses. It was an appalling time to arrive, and the unlit windows proved their passage had been quicker than their letter’s. She’d predicted as much and, if Charles’ bed was not made, his room unaired, then he could blame no one but himself.

She tiptoed up the stone steps and fitted the key into the lock. Charles, escorted by the coachman, limped after her. In the gloomy hallway, Alicia fumbled for a tinderbox and lit the oil lamp, turning the wick high. Its white luminosity glowed on dusty wood. She wiped a finger on the oak table, frowning at the gleaming stripe she left.

Lantern in hand, Alicia bustled from room to room, her anger rising at the sight of evident neglect. The carpets had not been shaken, burnt coal was scattered in the hearths, and nothing shone. In the dining room there were unwashed plates stacked on the sideboard and the table had not been cleared of an unfinished meal.

Had everybody died? Their return was not expected but that was no excuse for such filth. She stormed up the stairs. This could not wait until the morning. What
the devil was Hester Carr thinking of to allow this disgrace? If the old maid could not manage affairs then why hadn’t Clarissa taken charge? At the spinster’s door, she quietly turned the handle, and glided into the room.

Alicia gasped as the pearly haze of the oil lantern fell upon the bed. There were three people there: Hester Carr, the footman and Clarissa’s lady’s maid, limbs tangled, all breathing the rhythm of deep, contented sleep.

No sound came when Alicia first tried to speak, then she cried out in a high-pitched rage: ‘What the hell is going on here? Wake up! Wake up at once!’

The figures stirred and groaned. She set down her lamp and impatiently shook Miss Carr. The woman’s eyes slowly opened and she frowned in confusion. Then she smiled, her thin, pendulous cheeks lifting.

‘Oh, you’re home,’ she murmured, patting her long greying hair and looking at Alicia with a beatific vagueness.

‘Gracious heavens,’ snapped Alicia. ‘You’ve taken to laudanum again. Pascale! Ellis! Explain yourselves.’

The Frenchwoman came to her senses with a start and struggled to pull a twisted bedsheet over her nudity. Ellis cursed.

‘I asked you to keep her occupied,’ hissed Alicia, close to his face. ‘I did not ask that you allow the house to fall down while you were doing so.’

From the hallway downstairs Charles called out self-pityingly.

‘Get dressed,’ ordered Alicia. ‘Then make our room decent while I divert his attention.’

The two servants sullenly pulled on their clothes and Alicia shouted down to Charles, reassuring him she would be there in a flea’s breath.

‘Where is Clarissa?’ she demanded of the threesome. ‘I cannot believe she would live in such a pigsty.’

Pascale smiled, infuriatingly triumphant. ‘I did my job
so well that she could not wait for her wedding night. She has gone to live with Lord Marldon.’

Alicia looked at her doubtfully. She could not quite believe it, but then the Longleighs seemed to have a taste for strangeness. And Clarissa’s absence would go some way to explaining the chaos.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well at least some good seems to have come from this shambles. Now start acting like servants.’

And after that I shall fire you, she thought, swishing out of the room.

Dawn was just breaking, and Green Park was an expanse of spectral violet light. Hand in hand, Clarissa and Gabriel ran across the dewy grey lawns.

No one had seen them go, no one but Kitty. She had found clothes for Clarissa, guided them through scenes of calcified dissipation and past slumped, drunken servants. Lord Marldon, she’d said, was still out cold, and Lucy and Julian were slumbering happily in a laundry room. It seemed Clarissa’s friends had not turned traitor as she’d once thought. They had tried; they were true to her.

As the two lovers neared Constitution Hill, they slowed, breathless. Clarissa glanced back across the soft, shadowed landscape. In the phosphorescent gloom everything was still and sombre, and Clarissa felt as if they were the first people to walk the earth. She looked at Asham: just a bit of brick peeping above the trees.

‘Don’t,’ said Gabriel, touching her cheek and turning her gaze to his.

The half-tones of daybreak gave him an unreal air, making his face paler, his hair and eyes darker. He seemed an essence rather than a physical thing, a beautiful essence.

Clarissa shook her head. ‘I just wanted to see how small it was.’

Gabriel held her close and printed a kiss on her forehead.

‘The things you did there …’ he began. ‘The things you said were deplorable –’

‘Please,’ she interrupted. ‘I want to forget everything.’

‘No,’ said Gabriel firmly. ‘It’s wrong to deny what you enjoy. I want you complete, Clarissa. I don’t want you to hide your desires from me, however terrible you think they are. Because love can make all things beautiful, even obscenities. And, when trust is involved, they can only be better.’

He swiftly grasped one wrist and twisted her around, bending her arm behind her back. ‘Do you trust me, Clarissa? Do you?’

Clarissa squealed in pain and surprise. ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Yes.’

Gabriel sank his teeth into her neck and urged her forward, shoving. She stumbled and protested, unnerved yet excited by his sudden brutality. He pushed her up against a vast elm, pressing heavily behind her so her breasts were crushed against the trunk. The rough bark grated against her cheek, and scraped at her arms.

‘I want you now,’ he hissed, ruffling up her skirts in a flurry of white lace.

He held her layers high with his body, the bulge of his cock digging into her buttocks. She wriggled and cried, begging him to stop. Someone might walk by; they could be seen; they ought to go home. But Gabriel paid her no heed.

He snatched at her drawers, tugging until they dropped to her ankles. Cool air wafted against her bared cheeks and breathed into the folds of her naked sex. It was thrilling to be so exposed, and the risk of being discovered aroused her greatly. She struggled, for decency’s sake, and for the added pleasure of having him conquer her.

He pinned her to the trunk with his slender strength, his hands swooping down to clutch her inner thighs.
His fingers dug into her flesh and, with remorseless insistence, he spread her legs wide. She felt the head of his prick nudge at her swelling lips, and then he drove himself savagely into her tingling passage.

Clarissa groaned. His thick rigidity, so quick and fierce, filled her completely. Her body lifted with the surge of his penetration, and her breasts slammed into the tree bark. Again and again he thrust, plunging furiously. His pounding hips made her soft buttocks bounce, and then she felt a wet fingertip, very wet, sliding down the cleft of her cheeks.

Clarissa wailed, knowing what he was about to do, relishing it. He sought the rosy pit of her anus then drove his moistened digit deep into her narrow tunnel. As his engorged cock thundered into her, he worked his finger in her darker hole, pumping eagerly.

‘You like that, don’t you?’ he hissed. ‘Don’t you?’

‘God, yes,’ she breathed.

She felt a rush of pride, of delight in her wantonness. The tide of her orgasm billowed and she moaned frantically, crying aloud when ecstasy possessed her. Gabriel chased her crisis, driving fast, and caught it with a deep shuddering thrust. He gave a roar of exhilaration then fell panting against her body.

His ragged breath puffed against her neck and he covered her skin in tiny, exhausted kisses.

Above them, the canopy of leaves rustled in a soft breeze, and birdsong, shrill and urgent, shivered across the park’s tranquillity.