Eye of the Beholder (9 page)

“Soon,” he murmured to her whimpered pleas.
“I want you ready.”

Another finger joined the first, stretching
her, causing a twinge of discomfort before he began sliding them up
and down, in and out, in much the same way he’d pushed his cock in
her mouth. The rhythm of fucking.

Anxiety tightened her stomach. His cock was
much wider and longer than his two fingers. Would it hurt? Was all
the pleasure to be had on the outside of her body? Why did her quim
long to be filled?

Grayson released her mouth and dipped his
head to sip her nipple between his lips, drawing on it, and she no
longer cared about the possibility of pain, only wanted his sex
inside her, showing her what pleasure he could. She threaded her
fingers through his hair, holding him to her breast, parting her
legs wider. He rewarded her by sweeping his thumb over the little
button of pleasure, and she pushed against his hand, taking now
three fingers deeper into her. He rubbed his cock against her thigh
and she shifted toward it.

“Please, Grayson. Please.”

He lifted his head from her breast and
removed his touch from between her legs as he moved over her,
kneeling between her legs, the rough hair of his thighs brushing
against the tender insides of hers. She held her breath as he
positioned the broad head of his cock against her entrance, then he
swept her hair back from her face as he pressed forward, stretching
her, filling her, and once the pinch of discomfort eased, stroking
against sensitive spots she didn’t know she had.

“Sarah?” he asked, his voice strangled as he
looked into her eyes.

She realized then that she wasn’t breathing
and quickly took a breath before nodding and tightening her legs
about his hips, pushing hers into his, testing his depth, his
breadth. His breath hitched and he drew back slowly, the drag of
his erection along her inner walls exquisite pleasure. Her muscles
clenched, holding him inside, and he slid deeper, the hair at the
base of his cock pressing against her tender folds. He rolled
against her, so deep inside her body he took her breath away. She
tightened her grip on his shoulders and looked up into his green
eyes, saw the patience, the desire as he moved over her, in
her.

Then he lowered his mouth to her neck, to her
collarbone, his soft lips and beginning of his beard such a jarring
contrast, and her skin was so tender, each rasp sent another pulse
of arousal to her sex, tightening her around him, making her
slicker. He coursed down the slope of one breast to take her nipple
into his mouth, his tongue rubbing, lips drawing. She arched toward
him, wanting more. He closed his teeth over the tip and she gasped,
gliding her hands down his back to hold him closer. He released her
breast and rose over her again, his strokes increasing in speed,
pushing deeper and deeper into her. The intensity of the pleasure
increased, but like before, something was missing. She wanted to
climax, and the way his cock filled her—and seemed to grow inside
her—was exciting, and felt so good. The way he kissed her skin felt
so good. The way his sweat-slickened skin rubbed over hers felt so
good. But maybe there was something she was supposed to be doing to
bring about her own completion.

As if he sensed her frustration, Grayson rose
on his knees, his hands cupped around her bottom, parting her legs
wider as he plunged into her. His gaze flicked from her face to her
spread legs.

She cried out as her body tightened around
him, but she needed something she didn’t know how to ask for.

“I’m watching my cock move in and out of
you,” he murmured, as if he knew she needed something more.
“Christ, you’re so wet and hot and tight around me, squeezing me.”
His fingers clenched her bottom as if to show her. “Does it feel
good to you?”

“Touch me,” she gasped in desperation.
“Grayson, touch me.”

He stopped thrusting and studied her a
moment. Heat crawled up her skin. Had she done something wrong? But
then a grin split his face and he dragged his hands around to tease
the crease between her hips and thighs, making her sex swell. Then
he stroked his thumb over the swollen nub as he pumped slowly,
watching her face as he teased her, ramming his full length into
her and circling his cock as he circled his fingers.

Tension made her muscles tremble, tighten,
before she flew apart in a million pieces, melting against his
hand, crying out in a voice she didn’t recognize as he drained the
last bit of pleasure from her, his body plunging into hers until he
stilled above her, his seed pulsing into her.

Then his hand was on her face, his fingers
smelling of her. He stroked her cheek, her lower lip, and covered
her mouth with his in the most tender of kisses, his lips soft and
reverent as they moved over hers. She let her eyes drift shut as
his fingertips traced her face, and then he slid free.

He ended the kiss and lay beside her, his arm
looped around her waist. Curiosity getting the better of her, she
opened her eyes. His eyes were closed, dark lashes fanning over his
cheeks, his lips parted, his hair damp around his temples and
forehead. His shoulders and chest were slick, too, and
well-muscled, so beautifully defined in the light from the
fireplace that she couldn’t resist tracing them, her fingers
skimming over his skin and eliciting an indrawn breath. His stomach
was flat with a line of soft hair descending from his navel to
flare out around his cock, which now rested against his thigh, no
less fascinating in a flaccid state.

He captured her wrist before she could
explore further. “A few moments, if you please.”

She lifted her gaze to his. He smiled and
threaded his fingers through her hair.

“Was it not everything you expected?”

“It was, and more.” She only wished she had
the words to describe how—complete she felt at this moment.

“You look stunning just now,” he said, then
tensed suddenly and rolled away. “I must draw you.”

She blinked and lifted her head from the
pillow. “Now? But--”

He hushed her and drew a sketchpad from
beside the nightstand, opening the top drawer to retrieve charcoal.
“Stay as you are.”

Grayson sat in a nearby chair and propped the
pad on his naked lap, first tracing the outline of her body as she
reclined on his bed, wanting to capture her replete pose, wanting
to show the effects of a woman well-loved, the marks of his mouth
on her body, her swollen mouth, dreamy eyes. She watched him as he
drew her, and his cock began to swell again, as if aware he was
touching her remotely, through the charcoal and paper. He should
send her home, not fuck her again, but he had to, could already
feel her sex squeezing him, welcoming him, milking him.

He forced himself to put the finishing
touches on her face before he set the pad aside and rose to return
to the bed, fully erect. He half-expected she would recoil or be
frightened. Instead, delight lit her eyes and she pushed to a
sitting position to reach for him. He let himself enjoy her
delicate caress before removing her touch and kneeling on the bed
beside her. She stretched out on her back, spreading her legs in
welcome. He bent to kiss her, the head of his cock rubbing her
inner thigh before he pressed it against her quim, but he didn’t
enter her.

“Do you trust me?” he asked against her
mouth.

“Of course.”

“Get on your knees and place your hands on
the headboard.”

Her eyes widened, but when he straightened to
give her room, she did what he asked, presenting him with curvy
white buttocks. He smoothed his palms over them as he knelt behind
her, between her parted legs, and lowered his mouth to her
shoulder, eliciting a gasp from her. He smiled against her skin and
coasted his hands up her waist to cup her full breasts, toying with
her nipples as he nudged at the crevice of her buttocks with his
cock. She opened herself wider and shifted to invite him inside,
but he denied himself a moment longer, trailing his hand over her
flat belly to pet her soft sex, slick with fresh desire. He teased
her swollen clitoris with a few strokes, until she moved into his
touch, and then he removed it, settling his hands on her hips
again. He angled her forward just a bit, making her vulnerable, and
slid home, his groin grinding against her buttocks, his length
swallowed in her hot wet channel.

“Christ,” he muttered against her shoulder
when her muscles tightened around him, when he felt the vibration
of her moan all along his body. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.” Her voice was pitched lower than usual.
“No. Please.”

“Please what?” He rubbed his mouth across the
line of her shoulder.

“Move. I need to feel you move in me.”

He clenched his teeth as he fought for
control against the desire her words elicited. “I’ll show you, and
you move with me. Yes?”

She nodded her head frantically, her hair
falling forward. “Yes.”

He drew out of her, then, guiding her hips,
pulled her toward him as he slid deep again, showing her the
rhythm. She was a quick learner, and when she rocked against him
with confidence, he released her hips to stroke her breasts,
plucking the nipples, wishing he could reach them with his mouth.
But he loved the sight of his cock plunging into her this way,
loved feeling the curve of her buttocks against his groin, loved
the freedom to touch her and make her wild.

He glided his palm down her belly to play
with her clitoris through the curls, not a direct caress, but one
that had her rolling her hips, at once wanting his touch on her
swollen button, and his cock fully seated inside her. It made for
an exquisite sensation along his sex, and her channel grew slicker,
her breathing more ragged. His own control was held by the thinnest
of threads as her tight little quim moved up and down his length,
gripping him like a slick fist. He parted her folds with his
fingertip, letting her ride it as he pinned her body against his,
his cock buried deep in her as she wriggled against his finger
seeking her pleasure.

She found it with an expulsion of breath and
a quiver of muscles, and with his finger still on her clitoris, he
pushed her forward and slammed his hips into her, driving deeper
and deeper into her pulsing flesh before his balls tightened and
the orgasm ripped out of him, taking part of his soul with it.

He dropped over her back, panting, his
muscles no longer able to follow his commands. He managed to curl a
hand around her waist and pulled her down to the bed beside him,
nestled in the curve of his body. He was aware of her heavy
breathing before he fell asleep.

***

Sarah stood in the entryway of her home, her
reticule clutched in front of her, her mother on the stairs in
front of her as dawn’s light illuminated the disappointment in her
mother’s face.

“What have you done, Sarah?”

“I’ve—decided to make my own choices.
I’ve—decided I don’t care to be part of English society.”

“And you won’t be if anyone saw you walk in
at this hour. Do you have any idea of the damage you have done? Not
only to your reputation, but—you’ll never marry now. No man wants
another’s leavings.”

“Mother, I was never going to marry in any
case. I’m one and twenty, much too old for any man to want me.
Until tonight.”

“But he didn’t propose.”

Sarah’s face heated. “No.”

“Only flipped up your skirts.”

So much more than that
.

“I need to send you out of town before
everyone discovers what you’ve done. It will be irregular to leave
in the middle of the Season, but we can claim illness or some such.
We can stay in the country for the rest of the year, and hopefully
by next year everyone will have forgotten. Unless he’s planted a
child in your belly.”

Sarah planted her feet. “I don’t want another
season. I don’t want another year in society, another moment. But I
don’t want to go home. I want to go to Italy.” Even if it meant
being away from Grayson.

Her mother gaped. “What?”

“I want to travel in Europe, see the world. I
want to know more than England.”

“I despise Europe. You know that.”

“Then let me go alone.”

“After what you just did? How can I ever
trust you? And if you refuse to marry, your behavior will reflect
on me.”

“Then hire a chaperone.”

“So you can slip away from her as well, do
whatever you have a mind to do? No, we’re going back to Cumbria.”
She turned to go up the stairs.

“No.” Sarah didn’t know where the word came
from, but she would die before she’d go back to the isolation of
their country home in the Lake District. Beautiful, yes, but
lonely, and so much more restrictive than even London. “No, I’ll go
to Europe, but I’m not going home.”

Her mother pivoted and stared. “Who are you?
I don’t even recognize you.”

“Because you don’t look.” Sarah took a step
up toward her mother. “Please, Mother. If you must send me away,
send me someplace I can be happy, not someplace to punish me.”

Anger tightened her mother’s features, then
sorrow softened them. “I wanted so much more for you.”

“But you never asked me what I wanted, and I
never could tell you because I didn’t want to disappoint you. Now I
know what I’ve done. I’m content with my choices. But I want to
make my own now. Please.”

***

Sarah stepped off the train onto the platform
in Paris. She had hardly blinked on the ride from the coast to the
city, but now that they’d arrived in the city, she couldn’t stop
staring. Even the glass and stone station was more exotic than
anything in England. Her chaperone, Miss Worthington, called to her
as she moved along the platform, taking in the sights, absorbing
them as if they restored her broken heart.

She hadn’t heard from Grayson after their
night together, but to be fair, she hadn’t contacted him, either,
until the last minute when she sent Lily with word that she’d be
leaving town for France, on her way to Italy. Perhaps, though,
she’d discounted Paris as a destination. Perhaps she could stay
here a little longer than planned. She moved through the crowd and
into the building, following the architecture with her eyes, and
not even realizing she was drifting until she bumped into someone.
Firm hands clasped her upper arms.