In the Flesh (20 page)

It was quick and hard and his tongue went straight in. And even as hers sought to fight back, he drew her fingers to his cock.

So it’s to be you, Mr. Brownlow.

But he confounded her. After a few moments of hungry, domineering kisses, he drew back and urged her by the arm toward their companion. “Gentleman’s prerogative,” he said with a laugh.

Polly needed little encouragement. Just as Charlie had never seen her naked, she’d never seen his unclothed body. But now that he was on show to her, she liked what she saw.

His skin was paler than Jamie’s but it had a creamy sheen to it, and boyish freckles in the most delightful places. For a gentleman of leisure, his musculature was surprising firm and well formed, and his cock was obviously as pleased to see her as it was to see Jamie. With a cheerful sigh, she threw herself into Charlie’s arms, and shuddered inside when he pressed her back against the pillows. He might not be the dominant partner when paired with Jamie, but he was still a man who knew what he wanted.

Charlie’s kiss was as enthusiastic as Jamie’s and just as stirring. She tasted wine on his tongue, but it was merely a trace, not the marker of intoxication. Twirling her tongue around his, she sampled him like a butterfly seeking nectar.

His hands were keen too, roving over her body as if excited by the new freedom they had to explore her person. He squeezed her breasts in the vigorous way she liked, and the lovely pressure shot to the place between her legs like a message transmitted by electrical telegraphy. Responding exactly as whim took her, she rubbed her belly against his thigh, then opened her legs to press her crotch hard against him.

Hugging each other hard, they rocked and swung against each other, tingling excitement building. Polly squeaked into Charlie’s mouth when other hands joined the dance, touching both their bodies. Her eyes snapped open and she saw Jamie looming over Charlie from above, kissing and nipping at his lover’s pale shoulder while slipping a hand beneath Polly to squeeze and play with her bottom. Charlie’s eyes were wide and he was groaning into her mouth, so she guessed that Jamie’s cock was rubbing against his groove.

Polly hugged them both, sliding her hands over all the male flesh she could reach, while she massaged her puss against Charlie’s hard-muscled thigh. When she reached down and grasped his cock it was a rod of iron.

Even as she touched him, other fingers explored her sex, curling around with clever deftness from the rear and making her wriggle and squirm harder, craving stimulation from whatever quarter it was presented.

“Come along, my dear pair. I’d love to see you fuck each other.”

Jamie’s voice was low and husky, ringing with desire. He manhandled Polly and Charlie apart with a magisterial hand.

“But first, we’d better wrap up the old man, hadn’t we? We don’t want lovely Polly to end up getting more from us in nine months time than she bargained for.” He reached for the patterned tin on the bedside chest.

Polly’s suspicions were confirmed. French letters. How grand. Now she could enjoy her bedmates to the full, and her sex surged with excitement as she watched Jamie deftly roll the prophylactic down the length of Charlie’s cock.

You’ve done that plenty of times before, haven’t you, my lad. And probably more than once with Mr. Charlie, I suspect.

Charlie’s face was a picture as Jamie handled him. His eyelids fluttered and his mouth went soft and dreamy. Polly wondered why she wasn’t envious of his so obvious pleasure at another lover’s touch. But she couldn’t seem to summon the green-eyed monster. She felt only pleasure and happy anticipation.

When Charlie was encased, Jamie sat back to admire his handiwork. Charlie’s cock seemed to sway and throb as if proud to be on show in its fancy rubber coat. Jamie touched it lightly and made the sway more pronounced.

“Very fine, isn’t he, Polly?” He smiled across at her, two fingers lightly supporting the other man’s organ as if displaying it as a treasure for her approval.

“Absolutely smashing, but I’d rather like it inside me now, gentlemen, if I may?” Sliding down on the bed, she opened her legs, then, in a moment of naughty merriment, she slid her two hands between her thighs and parted the lips of her sex.

“You’re a saucy madam, Polly Jenkins,” announced Charlie, his eyes wide open now and his face alight with hunger. Polly wondered whether she’d misconstrued the exact nature of the men’s relationship, because Charlie surged forward, full of confidence, reaching to touch the jewel she offered him. “One of these days, you shall have a spanking for your forwardness, young miss.”

Polly hid her grin. He was barely a year or so older than her, but there was confidence in his touch. It set her writhing and wriggling again, especially when Jamie moved alongside on her other flank, and took a nipple of hers in each of his fingers and thumbs.

“Oh my Lord…oh yes…ooh! Oh, oh!”

The pleasure was intense, all-consuming. She had two men playing with her. Tugging. Tweaking. Rubbing. Above and below. Squirming, she grabbed for both of them, the rubber-clad cock and the bareback one.

“Now, now…behave yourself.” But Jamie wasn’t really at all stern as he abandoned her nipples, grabbed both of her hands and then held them above her head. Against the head of the bed, he snagged both of her wrists in one of his big, capable hands. “Right, go at her, Mr. Weatherly, if you will?”

“Indeed. Right ho!” cried Charlie, utterly joyful to be ordered to his task. Maneuvering himself with a grace she’d never really appreciated in him before, he hopped between her thighs and fitted his cock against her sex.

Then, as he started to push, he turned his face to Jamie, and the other man kissed his lips in a deep kiss that made Polly shiver and tremble. She moaned, her eyes glued to the sight of the men’s dueling mouths as Charlie’s cock surged in deep and plumbed her cunny. The visible thrust of Jamie’s tongue in Charlie’s mouth echoed the thrust of the man inside her, and somehow seemed to lend it extra vigor. She churned her bottom against the sheets, boiling with desire, and when Jamie released her hands, she threw her arms around both of them, embracing as much of each man as she could reach.

“Kiss
me
now,” she growled after a moment or two, but to which of her two lovers, she didn’t really know.

Jamie obliged, while Charlie buried his face in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder and rocked his hips, fucking her deeply. His breath was hoarse against her skin, and Jamie was gasping too as he kissed her. Someone’s clever hand crooked at an angle and slid in between her belly and Charlie’s as they slapped together, then plunged into her sex, seeking and finding her aching clitoris. Every time Charlie plunged in, he knocked the fingertips against her.

Lost in each other, they slipped and slid and rocked and bounced and ground together, the experience so intense and rambunctious that she lost account of who was doing what to whom and with what. After a little while, Charlie cried out wildly and mouthed profanities against her neck, his hips beginning to hammer like the very pistons of a steam engine.

But even as Polly knew her gentleman was spending, the wicked finger on her clitty circled devilishly and she tumbled over the edge into supreme pleasure right alongside him. She sobbed and cried, kissing Jamie’s face as her body clenched and her sex rippled in long, delicious waves.

She was still in ecstasy as Charlie collapsed over her, the wind knocked completely out of him.

“Come along, Mr. Weatherly, that’s no way to treat a lady,” said Jamie with a soft laugh, and before Polly knew what was happening he’d hauled Charlie right off her and plopped him down on the bed at her side.

In barely a heartbeat he’d taken his companion’s place, drawing Polly’s hand down to his cock as it paused for entrance, to assure her that it too wore a jacket.

“Lovely girl,” he whispered, and with a strangely sweet sigh, he began to slide in and out of her in smooth, heavy strokes.

Pleasure surged again, welling up from the very depths of Polly’s vitals in a way that felt new and fresh and rampant.

How can I take on two men like this? How can it seem right and sweet and natural, all the three of us together?

Yet it was right, and as Charlie roused again, and rolled onto his side, he embraced and stroked them both, he and she. Feeling his touch sliding over thigh and flank, male and female, Polly turned to him, her body jerking against Jamie’s. On his face, she saw a look of befuddled happiness, as if he too wasn’t sure how this had come to pass, but was joyful and grateful all the same.

And as she spent again, Polly hugged both her men to her, chanting their names, Charlie and Jamie, one after the other.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Madame de la Tour”

NEVER HAD THE AFTERNOON
hours passed more slowly. Home from the Sewing Circle, Beatrice couldn’t settle any of her usual pastimes whilst waiting for her next amour with Ritchie. As she leafed through the
Illustrated London News,
the words and pictures were a blur to her, and even a rather unsettling novel, a work by Mr. Wilde in the latest
Lippincott’s
that had initially provoked her interest, couldn’t hold her. Abandoning
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
she thumped away at the piano for a while instead, but even attempting her favorite, “The Lost Chord,” resulted in far too many chords that were indeed far better off lost. And as for her “Wand’ring Minstrel,” it would have done music lovers a service by wandering as far away as possible.

Hour after hour, she struggled for composure, to no avail. Her body was sensitized and susceptible, a powder keg waiting for the spark struck by a certain challenging smile or a pair of dangerous blue eyes. She hardly dared think of him lest she ignite.

And everyone else in the household was acting oddly, too. Since the morning of Ritchie’s visit, there had been a strange, latent atmosphere at South Mulberry Street.

Cap more awry than usual, Polly smiled dreamily she helped Beatrice to undress. Awry herself, Beatrice eyed the maid, recognizing a mirror to her own state. Was it anything to do with the handsome Mr. Brownlow? Beatrice suspected as much, grateful that Polly’s abstraction made her less openly inquisitive about her mistress’s doings.

But from where did Charlie’s sudden good humor derive? For the first time in months he seemed at ease with himself, and had apparently forgotten his qualms about her and Ritchie. He’d made jokes and droll conversation over a breakfast far more substantial then he could usually manage due to post-alcoholic “delicacy,” and in an unstudied moment, unaware of Beatrice’s scrutiny, his smile had been almost beatific.

What on earth has happened to everybody?

Something had most definitely occurred, and at any other time Beatrice would have passed the hours mulling over it and devising clever questions from which she could deduce the answer.

But these were not other times. These were the times of Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie and the greater part of Beatrice’s mulling was over him alone.

At seven, the carriage arrived as he’d specified. On the front steps, as Beatrice attempted not to shake and dither, her heart thudded in anticipation of him being in the conveyance waiting for her.

But the interior was empty.

Her spirits dipped, then rallied.

Only a little longer, Bea. You’ll soon see him.

The quiet, efficient coachman had specified their destination as Belanger’s, a discreet and much muttered-about dining establishment in the heart of St. James. It was the haunt of the rich and the famous, and oft alluded to in
Marriott’s Monde
with hints of scandal and outrageous activities.

But will I be able to eat?

The prospect of Dover sole or guinea fowl à la russe didn’t excite Beatrice one bit; her hunger was for Ritchie and his touch…and his skills.

The well-maintained carriage was smoother ride than most, but still it trundled on the uneven surfaces of the streets and swerved hither and thither amongst the sheer press of cabs, carts and other coaches out even at night. Rocked in her seat, Beatrice barely noticed the throng of London’s humanity outside the comfortable interior. The sounds of street vendors and newsboys came to her as if from a distance, beyond the border of her secret, sensual realm. It was a country inhabited only by Ritchie, and herself, and the movement of the carriage seemed to mimic his caress, as did her clothing, sliding over her body with every sway.

Beatrice had never worn silk underwear before.

Back home at Westerlynne, serviceable cotton and muslin had always sufficed, and since her arrival in London there hadn’t been money to spend on extravagance. Finally out of mourning for her parents, Beatrice had relied on Polly’s skills with the needle to make over some older outfits, and all her meager clothing allowance had gone on one or two reasonably presentable new gowns, deemed essential purchases if she were to stand any chance of snaring a husband.

A husband!

Glad she was alone, Beatrice snorted in derision. How ironic that now she had plenty of money for spouse-luring finery, she no longer had a reputation suitable for matrimony.

But that didn’t reduce her pleasure in the clothing for which Ritchie had paid. The delicate fabric that whispered over her skin like a zephyr, and the carefully fitted chemise, and lace-and-ribbon-trimmed drawers sat beneath a featherweight and equally fancy corset designed by Sofia’s modiste. It was the most comfortable corset Beatrice had ever owned, and it barely felt as if she were wearing one at all.

Her petticoats were silk too, and they swished and slithered as she walked, or even just shifted on the carriage seat, recalling the magical drift of Ritchie’s fingertips.

All for you, my dear sponsor and protector. All for you, having purchased my virginity, too.

Perhaps she’d lose that particular asset today? She sincerely hoped so. What was the point of being a scandalous mistress if you didn’t get a good seeing-to for your efforts?

At last, the carriage pulled up outside Belanger’s, and Beatrice snapped out of her reverie. On stepping down, a doorman escorted her across the pavement like a visiting empress, and when she turned to thank the coachman, he was already atop his vehicle and pulling away.

Was the threshold to Belanger’s quiet, luxurious foyer another Rubicon? Her heart thudded as she advanced, head held high. Nerves would settle, she knew, as they always did. But they’d twang in an entirely different way when she set eyes on Ritchie. The prospect of seeing him again made the hushed atmosphere and the eyes of a smattering of fashionably dressed people—men, women and couples—in the restaurant’s reception lounge far less daunting.

A rather stout maître d’hôtel sprang forward to greet her. “Ah, good evening, Madame de la Tour, may I welcome you to Belanger’s. How gracious of you to patronize our establishment.” He bowed his head, then indicated the way ahead with an expansive, theatrical gesture.

Madame de la Tour?

Beatrice blinked. Surely he’d mistaken her for someone else? But seeing her hesitation, the maître d’ gave her a kind, twinkly look, his face both friendly and somewhat conspiratorial.

Ah, that was it. At Belanger’s people often didn’t use their real names and “Madame de la Tour” was a nom de voyage that Ritchie had fancifully bestowed on her.

Well, it would’ve been nice of you to inform me, you infuriating wretch! If I’m to have a high courtesan’s name, I really ought to know it in advance.

Smiling at the maître d’, she silently maligned Ritchie in an unladylike fashion as she followed her new friend into another sumptuous room.

It wasn’t like any restaurant Beatrice had ever visited. Not that she’d visited all that many. The large area was discreetly lit, the lamps imparting a gentle glow on the handkerchief of open space in the center of the room. For dancing, Beatrice wondered? Or some other entertainment? A musical quintet played softly on a small dais adjacent to the window. Selections from
The Mikado,
if she wasn’t mistaken. She smiled, wondering if Ritchie had influenced the program.

The dining tables themselves were not to be seen at first, but then Beatrice realized that they were all set in deep alcoves around the perimeter of the room. Each of these niches was hung with ruby-colored velvet curtains, and while some were caught back with gilded cords allowing the diners to view the room and enjoy the music, other alcoves were enclosed in a cocoon of tantalizing privacy.

As she followed the maître d’ around the edge of the pocket-size dance floor, Beatrice couldn’t help speculating on what might be going on within the closed alcoves.

Assignations like hers and Ritchie’s? Risqué activities in a semipublic place? Men aroused. Women, with bodices unbuttoned, panting as their paramours toyed with them. Skirts raised, and even sly fingers exploring the apertures in silk drawers just like hers.

Suddenly the light corset didn’t seem quite so light and an unbecoming sweat broke out beneath it. Heat filled Beatrice’s face, and between her legs a familiar heaviness gathered. In the space of a few heartbeats,
she
was the woman with the raised skirt, and Ritchie the man with the deft, exploring fingers.

“Here we are, Madame de la Tour.”

The maître d’ stepped back and allowed her to precede him as they reached what appeared to be the most spacious yet secluded of all the alcoves.

Trust Ritchie to secure the premier table, nothing but the best for him.

Am I the best, too?

Her qualms evaporated when Ritchie rose from his seat to greet her. His smile quelled all doubts and left only delicious anticipation. Every time anew he looked more handsome. Every time anew, he turned her head, made her heart race and her body quicken.

“Beatrice, you look wonderful!” Ritchie took both her hands, making her little bag swing wildly as he raised first one then the other to his lips, kissing them hard through the kid leather of her gloves.

“I must say that’s a very fine ensemble.” As he straightened, his blue gaze traveled from her toes of her new glacé kid boots to the very crown of her jaunty leghorn hat. “Have you arrived directly from the typewriting school? You’re looking fetchingly businesslike.”

“Thank you. One aims to impress.” Beatrice kept her tone light, but inside his compliment made her bubble. She’d put a great deal of thought into choosing her clothing.

Courtesans were supposed to wear sumptuous gowns, elaborate jewels, the best and most feminine of everything, but even though she was strangely glad to be a demimondaine, Beatrice didn’t want to look like the rest of her new sisterhood. To look as if her sole purpose in life was to please a man.

So Beatrice had selected garments she would still be able to wear when her month with Ritchie was over and done with. Her neatly tailored midnight-blue costume had almost masculine revers and an immaculate white under-bodice cut like a man’s shirt, and she’d even borrowed one of Charlie’s neckties and a pin. Sofia’s modiste had tut-tutted at her,
zut alors,
when she’d chosen the very serious ensemble, but Sofia had smiled and nodded, her face approving and knowing.

“With you dressed like that, Beatrice, I shall feel as if I’m corrupting the very sternest suffragette.” Ritchie beamed, still holding her hands, then leaned in. “And that’s a prospect I find
disturbingly
arousing.”

“You said you approved of women’s rights,” Beatrice reminded him as he ushered her into the alcove almost before she could feast her eyes on his ensemble.

“I do. Especially yours.”

Almost as if he’d anticipated her choices, Ritchie too had eschewed full evening dress. The stern cut of his attire seemed to complement her own and his dark gray frock coat, with just the merest hint of blue, made his eyes glow the color of a twilight sky. His waistcoat was the same shade, as was his neckwear, and today’s pin was a subtle golden bead.

I don’t think I want any dinner. I just want you, Mr. Ritchie. You’re so handsome I simply want to devour you!

The thought made Beatrice’s heart thud, and she felt intoxicated before wine had even been brought.

Ritchie assisted her as she slid along the plush banquette behind the exquisitely set table, then took his place beside her as she tugged off her gloves, struggling with what suddenly seemed like a surfeit of thumbs. The intimacy of sitting side by side, thighs almost touching, made Beatrice want to fidget with suppressed energy beneath the voluminous fine lawn tablecloth and wonder what activities might be concealed beneath its acreage.

If Ritchie felt the same agitation, his powers of self-control were far superior. He calmly ordered champagne, choosing a remarkable vintage, then consulted with Beatrice over the sumptuous menu, comparing dishes he liked with her preferences. He asked her opinion of the Gilbert and Sullivan, so finely played.

He even pointed out several exalted personages in the open alcoves. Personages who were dining with personages of the opposite gender with whom they really shouldn’t have been dining. He smiled and winked at her, nodding at alcoves where the curtains were tightly closed.

But he didn’t touch her. At least not with his hands or his strong thigh next to hers.

It was his only eyes that were attentive. He met her gaze courteously, but every now and again, his regard would drift over her, lingering at the line of her throat above her crisp white collar, or the curve of her breasts beneath the blue barathea of her jacket.

Studying her hair for a moment, his mouth curved in an unmistakable arc.

Blatant lust.

“What is it?” There was no use dissembling. “What are you thinking, Ritchie?” Anticipation bubbled in her like the delicious Veuve Clicquot they were drinking. With Ritchie, Champagne held no negative connotations.

“Your hair, Beatrice. I want to see it set loose and streaming over your shoulders. And then sweeping like a curtain of gilded crimson as you bend to suck my cock.”