Forbidden (64 page)

"I'd die of bliss… before a week."

"I wouldn't let you."

"Arrogant."

He grinned. "I read about this somewhere."

"In addition to volumes of empirical experience."

"From the day I met you, I've been faithful," he said, shrugging away her statement. "Now stand up and we'll get rid of—"

Throwing her arms around him, she kissed him in a great rush of love, overwhelmed by her emotions and his faithfulness.

"Did I say the right thing?" he asked, his mouth curved in a roguish smile as she released him.

"It had better not been smooth and consummate charm," she sternly charged, although she was teasing and he knew it.

"I brought you presents, too, as a measure of my consummate charm. I hope they work."

"In what way?"

"In the usual way," he teased. "Now don't pout," he playfully added, "or I won't give them to you."

"I'm not pouting," Daisy said, her lush bottom lip irresistibly rebuking, half playful and half serious, at the thought of all the other women he'd bought gifts for. "You've no doubt had previous success with amorous bibelots."

"You don't like presents?" he said, lifting her to her feet so he could slide her skirt and petticoats off. "You'll like my presents," he went on, immune to her small jealousy, as he placed her reclining against the snow-white pillows. "Soon."

He washed her then with warm scented water left ready on the washstand, the act itself erotic as he slowly smoothed the linen cloth over her thighs and upward to wipe away the residue of their lovemaking.

And she was content to let him care for her, redolent in her love, lazy in the aftermath of her climax, warmed by the heated room and her heated senses.

He washed himself afterward with an efficiency she admired and begrudged. How many times had he done that before in how many boudoirs before how many admiring ladies?

He was beautifully formed, his erection turgid and engorged. But he seemed detached from the phenomenon of arousal, and she wondered how he disciplined himself to subvert his obvious physical need to some rational chronology of gift-giving. But she discovered later, as he had years ago, that the ebb and flow of passion was enhanced by respite. Bringing over a small leather portfolio, he took numerous prints from it, spreading them across the bed. And with a punch for himself and warm almond milk for Daisy, they sat crosslegged on the white satin coverlet admiring Bonnard's seductive array of female nudes. In various stages of undress, small feminine women bathed or rose from bed, lay indolently, covered or uncovered their slender legs with long black stockings, admired themselves before mirrors, lazily brushed their hair.

"They're beautiful," Daisy said, gazing at the score of small prints, "and very stylish in their black stockings."

"They pale in comparison, love," the Duc replied, Daisy's voluptuous form, perfection, "but they've a sense of independence and charming freedom I thought you'd like. I've another in a different style," he added, rising to fetch a small painting that had been tucked away behind a chair.

The painting was of a mother holding a baby just out of the bath, a delicate, patterned composition derivative of Japanese prints, but imbued with a touching rapport between mother and child.

"This was done by an American woman painter—Mary Cassatt. I thought you might like it."

Both the mother and baby had dark hair, their heads close as the mother held the small child in an affectionate embrace, and Daisy felt a small heated joy at the tender scene… and at Etienne's thoughtfulness. "I didn't buy you anything," she softly said. "I feel guilty." Her fingertip ran over the elaborate gold frame.

"No gift could equal the child you're giving me." And leaning over, he kissed her, a long, slow, heated kiss of sweetness and love that deepened so she felt a glow begin to radiate in a seeping languor of arousal.

He felt her response, felt her mouth open beneath his, tasted her welcome, felt her low purr of desire vibrate delicately against his lips. With tender leisure he absorbed the resonance of her warming passion, his mouth and tongue toying and teasing, nibbling and possessing until Daisy wanted more.

Lifting his mouth, the Duc took the empty cup she held in one hand and placed it with his on the nightstand. "I don't know if Louis is aware or not," he said, taking in the sultry passion of her glance, "but the warm almond milk his mama prescribed as a soothing elixir is used for another purpose in the Arab world."

"Maybe that's why it's considered a panacea to fatigue," Daisy murmured, her smile warmly seductive.

"Perhaps," Etienne answered, pushing the prints and painting to the foot of the bed. "It's healthy certainly, with milk and honey, ground almonds and egg whites," he added, turning back to her, the tenor of his voice taking on a husky richness as he continued. "And we must keep you healthy." Both his hands brushed over the swelling rise of her breasts, slid around their flaring fullness where they touched her inner arms, and moved to the prominence of her nipples. He stroked the sensitive peaks gently, tugging them into flaunting stiffness, murmuring as he bent his head to take one into his mouth, "I'll accustom them to the coming baby." He sucked gently at first and then with more explicit pressure, first on one breast and then the other until Daisy collapsed on the pillows, her senses focused on the exquisite feel of his mouth, flagrant, palpable desire bombarding every nerve and pulsing receptor in her body.

"I want you," she whispered, conspicuous in her need, her fingers twined in the blackness of his hair, her back arching to raise her breasts to his touch, her eyes shut tight against the flaring pleasure.

He didn't answer, only nibbled and bit lightly and sucked the taut hard crests until she felt sensitized with a palpable torrid bliss from her flushed cheeks to the tingling bottoms of her feet.

And when he lifted his head at last, she couldn't move for a moment, the pressure of his raised head solid in her palms.

"Open your eyes," Etienne whispered, his hand sliding between her legs. And when she did languidly, letting her arms drop away, coming back with effort from the paradise of her senses, he added, "Look at this."

He placed a small wrapped package he took from the drawer of the nightstand on her stomach.

While she untied the orchid silk ribbon, the Duc's fingers drifted over the dark triangle of hair between her legs, glided downward over her dewy cleft.

"I can't concentrate when you do that," she breathed, stopping for a moment to absorb the delicious sensations.

"Here, I'll help," the Duc said, ignoring her admonition, opening the silver paper with his free hand. "Do you like them?"

Inside lay a dozen pairs of silk stockings in a rainbow of shades, in stripes and patterns or sheer luxurious hues, all sinfully delicate. "They're gorgeous." Touching them lightly, Daisy felt decadent just looking at them. She wore sheer white stockings normally or ones in a shade of taupe. These were stockings for seduction, for sultry rendezvous, for undressing before one's lover. With the tantalizing incitement of Etienne's fingers heating her brain, she was feeling as though she were meant to wear these vivid colors of wanton desire… forever.

"Put on the black ones—like Bonnard's nudes wear," Etienne said. "With the lilac garters."

"You'll have to move your hand." She spoke in a hushed voice, his directions and the sound of her voice separate somehow from the sensual intoxication centered between her legs.

He shook his head—minutely—his fingers sliding over her slick pouting lips, probing gently, penetrating slightly, then deeply.

She was melting away, she thought.

"Put them on," he urged, low and hushed.

She obeyed because he wanted her to, and she was obsessed with passion and desire and her need to please him. And herself.

When she drew up her knee and stretched down to ease the black stocking over her toes, his fingers slid in deeper, her position further opening her honeyed passage, and she had to catch her breath at the searing pleasure.

Since she seemed momentarily distracted, the Duc helped her slip the frilled lilac garter over her foot, aiding its slow ascent to the soft fullness of her thigh.

"I don't want to feel this slavish," Daisy whispered.

"Do you want me to stop?" His words were soft, polite, knowing.

She didn't answer at first, a tiny thread of obstinancy still operating beneath the flood of pleasure washing over her in heated waves.

"Do you?"

She shook her head because he'd begun sliding his fingers out and she wanted the feeling more than she wanted autonomy.

"Here's the other stocking then."

She thought she'd expire from intemperate ecstasy as she lifted her other leg to pull the stocking on. Could you faint from intensity this powerful? she wondered. And looked up into brilliant green smiling eyes.

"I'm going to make you wait for me," he whispered.

"You can't." How could he? How could he possibly control her arousal?

But he knew somehow exactly when to restrain his stroking fingers or move them more slowly or faster, deeper or less deep. He knew how to keep her suspended just short of climax.

And while one part of her brain was grateful for his virtuosity.

Another part hated the experience required to so finely tune that skill.

Short moments later her eyes opened wide because she was suddenly bereft of his sweet skill and like an addict craved more.

"It's the almond milk too," he softly said. "Don't blame me entirely," he added in a lush whisper.

"I'm insatiable." Daisy's voice was tremulous with discovery and need. "It
is
you," she said, recall of her weeks in Paris without almond milk vivid. The sheets beneath her were strikingly cool in contrast to the heat of her body, the temperature of the heated air so perfectly balanced she felt it like silk on her skin, even the sound of Etienne's voice seemed overtly three-dimensional.

He didn't disagree with her, he only said, "Feel this sensation." Placing both his hands around her breast, he exerted the smallest pressure so the soft flesh between his hands mounded in distinct display, so her nipple projected erect and flagrant.

It
was
different, she thought with a whimpering sigh, as though her breasts were swollen and quivering, objects of desire in themselves, autonomous, requiring satisfaction of their own.

"And feel this…" His palms drifted over the warm inner surface of her thighs from the terminus of the black silk stockings to the dew-wet sweetness he'd brought to pulsing flame.

She arched up into the feel of his heated hands, but he held her down, his palms burning into the flesh of her thighs like brands.

"Sensation's more vivid, the throbbing of your heart and racing blood noticeable, your nerve endings sensitized. Almonds are very nutritious," he added with a grin.

"How nice to know," she murmured, "As I expire from ecstasy." The tip of her tongue slowly, wetly traced the fullness of her lips.

"Do you want me to kiss you?"

"Among other things," she replied, her voice sultry with passion, a bewitching siren lying beneath his hands.

"I will if you open a few presents more."

"Must I?" She pouted, contrary and self-willed, but her luscious dark eyes were seducing him, like a concubine would, shameless in their power.

It took a great effort to refuse her eyes, but he knew what was in the boxes and she didn't. "You must," he firmly said, handing her two boxes, one small and one very large, both from Doucet.

Daisy recognized the couture house and knew what to expect, for their lingerie was resplendent, but the white lace corset she lifted from the silver tissue was constructed differently, the boning arranged to separate the breasts and cup them individually in the flower-petal scoops of lace. Holding it up to her, she smiled at him. "Would you like to see if it fits?"

He only smiled back, lounging at her side, his long lean body taking up a great length of space on the bed.

Her black-stockinged legs slid over the side of the bed. She cast him the flaunting look of an enchantress, and rising from the bed, walked, nude and long-legged, over to the cheval glass. Bending over slightly, she adjusted the fullness of her breasts into each of the half-shells of white lace, and standing upright again, tossed her long black hair over her shoulders. Holding the corset closed behind her back, she said with a teasing smile, "You know, of course, I'm going to need help with the lacing if I'm going to tantalize you with this erotic garment."

"At your service, ma'am," Etienne lazily drawled, his inflection perfect western Montana. And he rose from the bed to help her. The lacing was silver cord slipped through silver grommets, a contrast to the sheer white lace in terms of metallic ornament, as if the Industrial Revolution met decadent luxury. But the silver embellishment was elegant extravagance, too, for the silver was hand-crafted rather than machine made, each small eyelet engraved in decorative detail, the lacing woven by hand from fine silver thread.

"Tell me if the lacing's too tight," he said, pulling on the silver cords, the process forcing Daisy's full breasts high, the corset stays compressing her waist and accenting the flaring curves of her hips.