In the Flesh (11 page)

“Indeed, he
has
failed. He’s failed you, my dear,” said Ritchie. He sounded solemn but his eyes were twinkling. “But fortunately he has a sister who’s much cleverer than he is. One who’s unafraid to use her peerless assets.” Visibly amused by his own analysis, he dove forward for a kiss, and took it before Beatrice could draw breath, or reflect on the darker aspect of “using assets.”

Within moments, she was almost swooning with pleasure. Just from the kiss. How could the simple pressure of lips against lips, and the exploration of a tongue, seem so spectacular with this one particular man? He used the same anatomy as Eustace had, and dear Tommy before him, yet created an entirely new experience, like an angel or a god.

While his tongue played in her mouth, Ritchie’s hand moved just as deftly, squeezing first one of her breasts, then the other, in a light and teasing action as if his fingers were saying good-morning to her nipples. With the introductions over, he turned his attention to the frogged fastenings down the front of her dressing gown, and dispatched them with ease before moving with purpose to the defensive line of mother-of-pearl buttons that fastened the front of her nightdress.

He negotiated those little discs blindly too, his fingers whipping down the tight row, pop, pop, pop, right down to her waist. Beatrice moaned and clasped at the edge of his waistcoat as cooler air inveigled its way into the newly opened gap, and she was compelled to wriggle again as he prized apart the bodice of her nightgown.

“Oh yes…oh yes,” he whispered, pulling the opening wide in a ruthless gesture. “Tut-tut, my dear, your nipples are hard. How very scandalous.” His warm palm settled over her breast, enclosing it gently. “Although I must say, I’m far from complaining.”

Even after only one previous encounter, Ritchie’s touch was as familiar as if he’d fondled her a thousand times, yet just as thrilling as the first time, last night. The sensation of bare skin on bare skin took her breath away even more than his kiss did.

Beatrice trembled like a filly at the gallops. A man had pulled open her nightdress. He was handling her. Caressing her, and exerting the rights he’d just purchased. A miss more cognizant of life’s proprieties would have been gritting her teeth to endure it. But instead, she was loving every second. Moving excitedly in his lap, she edged forward, pushing her breast into the curve of his hand.

“Ah, my sweet, sweet Bea,” Ritchie murmured, the breath of the words right inside her mouth. “So willing. So eager. I adore a woman who’s honest about what she wants.” His tongue pushed in, the action unmistakable. Like the raw thrust of a man into a woman. Beatrice hadn’t felt that yet, but she had the instincts of every woman down the ages. Ritchie’s muscular tongue made her quiver between her legs. “You must never hide how you’re feeling from me, dearest. I want no hypocrisy. I’ve paid for the truth.”

Another reminder of money. But it still didn’t repulse her.

How modern I am.
Smiling inside, Beatrice essayed a thrust with her own tongue and garnered a grunt of approval from Ritchie.
Not long ago, I’d have been frantically trying to pretend to myself that this was a pretty relationship, with an ardent but respectable suitor. But now…well…the truth is more exciting.

Ritchie’s tongue was relentless, dueling with hers, pushing in and possessing her mouth like an explorer in a foreign land claiming territory for the Crown. And all the time that he was kissing her, his hand was moving with the same sure confidence on her breast, squeezing and stroking, cup and release, cup and release. His other hand was at her waist, his grip unyielding.

A few breaths later she understood why he constrained her. With the tips of his finger and thumb, he took hold of her nipple and pinched it lightly until she squeaked against his lips.

Oh, that was piquant. It hurt quite a bit. But between her legs, her sex jumped and clenched, tingling with a rush of liquid heat. At his second pinch, her flesh rippled in a wave of sublime sensation and she jerked so hard on his waistcoat that she could swear she heard a seam burst.

“You like that, don’t you?” His mouth moved across her face and settled against her neck, beneath her ear. He licked her skin there as he tugged at her nipple again.

Beatrice felt as if she might ignite, explode. Wild energy filled her, an excitement and amazement that made it impossible to keep still. Her legs moved of their own accord, her thighs rubbing and scissoring, trying to bring ease to the delicious heavy aching right inside her.

Longing to reach down and enclose her sex in her own hand, she prayed that Ritchie wouldn’t squeeze the tip of her breast again, because she wasn’t sure she could bear it much more. Silently, she begged him to stop…and the same time to go on and on, because if he didn’t, she would die, she was convinced of it.

“
Do
you like that?” His voice was stern, insistent. It could have been mock sternness, but she wasn’t entirely sure. Either way, it excited her more than ever. She grabbed at a fold of her dressing gown, her fingers on fire with the need to touch herself, or to reach down beneath herself, search for Ritchie’s cock, and touch that instead. “Answer me.”

“Yes! Yes, I do!” She swallowed, drowning in a sweet maelstrom, yet coming up for air and the light of revelation. The dawning of the libido’s complexity. “I don’t know why, but I like it very much.”

“What does it make you want to do?”

Wriggle. Touch herself. Press herself against him. Do all those things and more. Much more.

But her throat seemed to have closed up. She couldn’t form the words, only move uneasily on his lap, jerking and pulling at his clothing and hers, while the infernal tugging on her nipple continued.

“Tell me, Beatrice. I will have an answer from you.” He tweaked harder, with a demonic twisting action.

“Ah! Oh my goodness!”

In a cooler moment, she would have acknowledged that really the pain was minimal, but the jolt of it made her sex ripple like a pond in a summer breeze. Was she spending? It was difficult to tell, the careening messages along her nerves were so confusing.

“I…it…it makes me want to touch myself,” she gasped. “It makes me want to rub myself…the way I do when I’m alone in bed at night.”

“Good, Bea, very good.” He carried on, relentless. She squirmed faster, clenching muscles she was almost afraid to clench. “Is this more stimulating than looking at those photographs and journals?”

“Of course it is, you idiot!” she cried, driven mad with impatience for more, more, more.

Ritchie laughed loud, kissing her neck again and again, muttering her name in a broken, husky voice. “You’re a treasure, Beatrice Weatherly, an utter delight. I knew you would be the moment I saw that photograph.”

“And I knew
you
would be a dangerous, unprincipled voluptuary the moment I saw you across the ballroom last night.”

“Very astute, Bea. Very astute.” He nipped her neck, then the lobe of her ear, tugging on that with his teeth as he carried on with his infernal manipulation of her nipple.

She was almost bouncing on his lap now, the entire cradle of her belly in ferment, racked by the grinding ache in her sex. She had to have relief. She
must
have relief!

“If you need to spend, my darling, you really need to do something about it.”

Suddenly, shockingly, he abandoned her breast and relaxed back in the chair, still holding her around her middle and pulling her with him. Beatrice could feel her face burning. She wanted to look down at herself, but she hardly dared. Her nipples felt like little stones, painfully hard, and she knew that where he’d tormented her, that one would be cherry-red.

“The solution is in your hands, Bea,” he whispered, his tongue flicking out again, tickling her ear, teasing the lobe and darting inside as if faking the act of sex. “If you want to have an orgasm, you must reach between your legs and stroke your own clitoris.”

Orgasm? Clitoris?
How stimulating those words sounded aloud.

Against her will, Beatrice whimpered. She’d read about orgasms and clitorises, but to hear Ritchie speak of them thus in his warm, roughened voice was like performing the very act that he’d described.

She wanted to do it. Her body ached for it. But still she balked. The act was taboo, private, somehow more intimate even than letting Ritchie touch her. She imagined his eyes on her, devouring the way her fingers moved, how they glistened when she paused. Screwing up her eyes, she turned away from him, her heart thudding.

“I…I’m not sure I can…please don’t ask me to.”

“But you’re mine, Beatrice. You
must
do what I want.”

Again, his voice rang with that hint of stern, thrilling domination. She trembled, wanting to obey. Wanting it so very much, but somehow still not quite able to push through that invisible barrier and put on a show for him.

“I wasn’t expecting us to begin this very morning, Ritchie.”

There was a long pause. Would he insist? She almost wanted him to, really.

“You’re not a coward or a prude, Bea. We both know that, don’t we?” He kissed her neck again, very softly. “You’re a young woman with hot blood in her veins. I think you can do anything at any time. If it pleases you.” His lips brushed her skin again, an inch below her ear, as delicately as the wing of a tropical hummingbird. “And what pleases you, pleases me. Always know that.”

“Is that so?” Beatrice trembled. The kiss was so delicate, yet infinitely stirring. It excited her as much, in its small quiet way, as his attention to her nipple had.

“Yes, indeed.” He continued to kiss, as if it helped him think.

“So, have you pleased hundreds of women before me, simply in order to receive pleasure in return?”

He laughed, sending heated air fanning over her throat. “Nowhere near that many…Not by a long way. Certainly, far fewer than the scandalmongers would have you believe.”

She twisted, turning toward him, searching his face. There had been an odd, almost sad note in his voice. He gave a little shrug, as if shaking it off, then smiled at her, as greedy as a pirate.

“Come now, Bea, have mercy on me.” He reached up and brushed her hair from her brow, tucking a long red strand behind her ear. “Just show me a little of what you do, just for a few moments. You don’t have to persevere to completion. I’ll do that for you, if you’re shy. Just show me a morsel.”

He plucked at a fold in her skirt, tweaking encouragement.

Beatrice bit her lip and looked down at her blushing chest, and the curves of her bare breasts. Her nipple, where he’d fondled it was as vivid as a cherry and the other almost as pink and as pert.

A moment or two wouldn’t be so difficult, would it? Lord alone knew she wanted to be touched. What was the difference between his hand and her own?

Quite a bit actually, but she’d endeavor to try. Sliding her hand against Ritchie’s, she took hold of her fine cotton nightgown, and began edging it upward.

CHAPTER NINE

Playing in the Grove

“BEAUTIFUL…
beautiful,” murmured Ritchie.

Beatrice Weatherly’s thighs were just as sweet and sleek in the flesh as they were in his most fevered imaginings, her skin as smooth as the surface of a bowl of cream. When she hesitated in the process of pulling up her nightgown, the hem still guarding her modesty, it was almost enough to be simply able to gaze on her.

Almost.

Still uncertain, she tensed and moved on his lap, the rounds of her bottom cruelly jostling his aching erection.

“Hush, nothing to worry about. You know you can do it.” He ran his hand up and down the immaculate expanse, exploring the texture of her skin, imagining blood flowing wild beneath, and nerves sending messages of excitement. Fraction by fraction of an inch, he let his fingertips slide higher with every stroke, edging ever closer to her center.

Last night she’d been delicious and responsive and he knew she could and
would
be just as willing soon. Yet still she seemed nervous about exposing herself.

How strangely contrary. You’ll pose unclothed for photographs that are circulated to hundreds of avid men, yet you won’t show your naked puss to me in private. You’re a conundrum, Beatrice Weatherly, a veritable mystery.

Again came that bizarre notion. That she was pure, somehow, despite her willingness to take her clothes off for the camera.

The possibility shook him hard. He’d thought her games of advance and retreat were just that, the feminine wiles of a woman whipping up a prospective lover with the thrill of the chase. Perhaps a woman who hadn’t had all that many lovers…but certainly some.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

He’d made it a rule never again to be intimate with a woman who didn’t know exactly what she was doing. His few very carefully chosen mistresses had all been accomplished married women or experienced luminaries of the higher demimonde.

And now here he was. With Beatrice Weatherly. A creature who had the face and body of a Pre-Raphaelite love goddess, but who was wriggling on his lap like a country virgin on her first tryst with the plow boy.

“Don’t you want to show me your puss, Bea?” He slid a fingertip higher, beneath her stalled nightdress. “I’m going to have to see it sooner or later, you know.” The light cloth rumpled, and he swore he could almost feel the brush of soft hair against the pad of his finger. “And if it looks as sublime as it felt last night, I know I’m in for a treat.”

“Very well. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. How remiss of me to shortchange you so soon, Mr. Ritchie.” Her voice was tart, but had a hollow ring of nervousness that only added to his doubts.

On the point of asking if she wanted to call a halt, he groaned out loud. Somehow in the churning of her thighs and buttocks, she’d managed to trap his cock beneath her in a confinement of delicious pleasure-pain. A rod of torment, it was a hair away from ecstasy.

What if she made him come, beneath her, inside his clothing? The perversity of it made him shudder, edging closer.

She was a minx. A beautiful minx. And he’d see her touch herself or he’d expire from lust in the process.

“There you are. Satisfied now?” she cried, hauling at her voluminous nightgown in one final wrench, her face and chest as pink as a garden peony.

“Well, not completely, Bea,” he gasped, almost undone by her, floored as much by the fire in her expression as the feel of her bottom against his thighs and the sight of the anticipated prize, her brilliant bush.

Red. Crimson. A dozen shades of sweet and fecund autumn.

The hair at the base of Beatrice’s belly was as bright, dense and lustrous as the startlingly vivid hair that streamed from her scalp. The photographer’s poor attempt at hand tinting had been a pale intimation of the vibrant curly cluster.

“What a divine little fleece you have, my sweet,” he blurted out, aware that he sounded almost like callow lad, as if he’d never seen a woman before. But she stunned him and she moved him, out of all proportion.

“I’m so glad you like it,” she shot back at him. “I’m sorry that the forestry down there is probably somewhat more untamed than you’re accustomed to. If I’d anticipated your call, I would have done a little pruning.” A second later they were both laughing out loud like fools.

“It
is
spectacular though,” he said at last, straightening his expression and pulling her toward him. Kissing the side of her face at the same time, he took the opportunity to cup the untamed treasure. The hair felt just as soft as it’d seemed last night, silky but with a spring to it. He couldn’t wait to part the waves and dive in deep. Fingers or tongue, he didn’t care, he had to be there.

But first he had to coax her into touching herself.

“I’m waiting, Bea,” he purred against her temple.

She breathed heavily, and he could see and feel her biting her lip. He gave her a little squeeze, then sought her hand and drew it gently but firmly between her thighs. Just as he’d hoped, she lifted her hips toward the contact, rather than retreating.

“Well, here we are once more, my beautiful Bea, playing in the grove again.” He slid his fingers over hers, matching digit for digit, then pressed her middle one through the soft hair, and into her fluidity to settle on her simmering clitoris. She groaned and stiffened, her legs kicking when he found it.

“Ritchie…oh…” she gasped as he bore down on her finger. It slipped and skated around, she was so wet.

“Do it, Bea! Take your pleasure.”

She nibbled her lip, passed her tongue across it, first screwing up her eyes, then relaxing. But finally, her finger flexed of its own accord and began to work. Ritchie withdrew and let his whole hand rest lightly over hers.

Tiny liquid sounds seemed to fill the room, a counterpoint to her broken gasps and moans. Every adjustment of her jostling buttocks terrorized his cock in the most exquisite way possible.

“You like that, don’t you?” His voice was hoarse as he felt her flicking and flicking, working in a pattern no doubt long practiced. Her finger moved then in a circular motion and her efforts made her growl like a tigress, the fierce sound shocking in his ear.

Dear God, had he ever been with a woman so responsive? Whatever she might lack in terms of artistry and sophistication, she more than made up for in unfettered, animal enthusiasm.

Her entire nervous system and her luscious puss were created for sex.

He knew it. She knew it. Listening to her labored breath and her little moans, the desire to see her climax swelled and gripped his senses. The desire to come himself made him almost cross-eyed.

“Spend, Bea…do it…come for me.”

She tossed her head, making a little murmur of resistance, then buried her face in his shoulder. Even now, she was defying him.

“Do it for me, Bea,” he repeated, flexing his hand over hers. “Do it for me, and I swear you’ll unman me, woman. I’m so close, I’ll come in my drawers when I feel you spend.”

“Really?” A sly, beautiful face looked up at him, eyes almost calculating above her pink cheeks.

“Yes. There’s no doubt about it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To know you’d driven me so far to distraction that I disgrace myself in my undergarments in your honor.”

With a slow smile, she closed her eyes, lay back in his arms and began to rub in earnest.

* * *

IT TOOK BUT A FEW MOMENTS
, intoxicated as she was by Ritchie’s kisses and his rude, explicit words. He was hard beneath her, almost like a separate living entity with a life of its own, and the excitement of having power over it was as potent as wine.

She circled and played, with her fingers and bottom both, then cried out with pleasure as the hard white glow of fulfillment burst inside her. Wave after blissful wave rippled through her, cresting in her sex but radiating out as far as her fingers and her toes and the very curling ends of her hair.

As she groaned and wriggled, she felt Ritchie tense, his neck arching back as he let out an oath. She tried to squirm more, and grind down upon him, but he gripped her hard, almost roughly by the waist, and held her immobile.

“Stay still,” he growled, fingers digging into her as his hips bucked once, twice, three times, and then with a long, broken breath, he subsided. “Don’t move,” he said, more softly now, his lips against her face then settling on her skin in a sudden kiss.

Beatrice didn’t move. She just lay and trembled, her body vibrating with a low, incessant energy. It was like being washed overboard in a storm, then suddenly finding oneself safe again and stunned, on a wide soft beach.

As the cyclone subsided, Beatrice grinned, unable to stop her lips from forming a smirk. Ritchie’s eyes were closed, still a mystery to her, but she could barely contain her private bubble of glee.

I made you spend, you devil.
I
did that. You might think you’ve got control of me, with all your money, but I’ve got powers too.

He’d told her to stay still, and she did for the moment, but that didn’t stop her dwelling on the masculine organ nestled beneath her bottom. It was softer now, and didn’t feel as big, but it still had presence. Beatrice tried to imagine it, quiet and sated and sticky, presumably, with the seminal fluid it’d just ejected.

She had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing.

“That was rather pleasant. Did you enjoy yourself, Bea?”

How could he know she was watching him if he had his eyes closed? Was he the Great Mesmero, reading her mind? His eyes fluttered open now, as if he’d heard that thought too, and their depths of midnight-blue were hazed and sultry.

“Yes, of course I did.” Why lie? For a month she was committed to revealing things to him she’d never believed she’d have to expose to anyone. Not even a husband, although chances of securing one of those now were rapidly diminishing.

“Splendid. I’m really glad, Bea. Pleasure is tonic for the constitution. It relaxes the body and eases the mind.” As if demonstrating his theory, he grabbed her by the waist and urged her onto her feet. As her nightgown and dressing gown slithered back down again to cover her, she felt almost disappointed, and in an act of defiance, she didn’t immediately fasten the buttons up top.

Ritchie’s lips parted. Had he gasped? Did he admire her daring? It seemed so. Snatching up her hand, he kissed her fingers like an adoring swain. “I want you to have as much pleasure as possible, my dear,” he went on, his nostrils flaring over her hand. Beatrice blushed—again—knowing he could smell her odor. “I have to go away on business for a few days now, but I want you to promise me that you’ll play with your pretty little puss often while I’m absent. And perhaps think of
me,
instead of some fictional cove in a book.”

How could she suddenly feel so hollow? They’d barely started the month he’d paid for and now he was going. Oh, men were so contrary! They accused women of fickleness and flightiness, but they were just as unreliable themselves, if not a good deal more so.

She drew away her hand, trying not to snatch. “So, these ‘few days’ of yours? Do they count as part of the month? Or does the calendar resume its forward motion when you return?”

Ritchie’s eyes narrowed, but his expression was more admiring again than hostile.

“You’re quite a businesswoman, Bea, aren’t you? It’s a shame you weren’t put in charge of your family fortunes. I’m sure you and your brother would have prospered very nicely if you’d held the purse strings.” He shrugged, his fine shoulders lifting beneath the common cloth of his jacket. “But then again, perhaps it’s a good thing after all. How else would we have arrived at our arrangement? Unless I could have coaxed you into a month of sin purely on the merits of my dazzling personality and my legendary amorous skills?”

Beatrice narrowed her eyes back at him.

“Perhaps not,” Ritchie observed lightly, “but in respect of those days, perhaps they can tally toward the total if you promise to give me a good account of your private pleasures in my absence and my imaginary role in them?”

“I’ll attempt to do so, Ritchie, but it’s not always possible to order the imagination. It does as it will. Mine certainly does.” She watched the tiny intricate shift of muscles in his face as he absorbed this, still holding her hand, and found herself again wondering exactly what he was thinking. “It may not be possible to avoid fancies of being ravished by a Knight of the Round Table or a dashing Prince of Araby.”

“Try, Bea, try,” he murmured, his voice fierce as he drew the tips of her fingers to his lips again and kissed them with a slow, meticulous pressure. She imagined she felt the passage of air against her skin as he also inhaled again.

“Very well. I will,” she whispered, shaken anew as his tongue slipped out to taste her.

It only took but a moment, then he released her, reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and took out his fob watch. With compressed lips and a frown he studied it.

“Time to go, dearest Bea. Though I really don’t want to.” He glanced to one side, and she could almost see the cogs of his intelligence whirring as he marked out a series of tasks in his mind. Had he separated himself from her already? Was he all the man of business now, not the lover?