Lady Scandal (16 page)

“You will?”

“With the patience of a saint. But we’ve another lesson to finish now. One you charged me with earlier—that of showing you passion.” Her eyes glinted then somehow found a spot beyond his left ear fascinating. “And you might as well know, I take my assignments seriously.”

“Assignments? That’s how you view me? What I’ve become?” And suddenly she became all soft hesitance.

“Nay, not
you
. But helping you, aye. As in teaching you to read. As in rebuilding Amherst.
Together.
” He offered the commitment, and by association, himself, sincerely. “As in teaching you all about
my
protrusions and paraphernalia, so you have no need to ever again inquire about another’s. About—”

“As if I would!”

“About how well I’m going to love you.”

“Ahhhh.” Her gaze flicked back to his. “And how do you propose to go about something so very challenging?”

With alacrity! “Touch yourself.”

When she stared at him blankly, Zeus angled to the side and pressed his buttocks into the back of the settee to give her maneuvering room, unintentionally squishing Henry’s tail. With a sniff, the cat jumped down.

Zeus breathed a tad easier. It wasn’t necessarily that he minded an audience—Juliet’s earlier amorous appreciation had shown him that—but with the cat out of sight (and hopefully his hindquarters out of claw range) he could finally get back to the business of loving his bride-to-be.

Indicating her cleft by skimming the pads of his fingers over the sunset curls he doubted had ever, before now, seen the light of day, he again instructed. “Touch yourself for me.”

“Umm, pray,
where
exactly?”

“Where might you think?”

“Here?” Obviously stalling, the tide of red sweeping across her features telling the tale more clearly than any loquacious bard, she slipped one hand between them and pinpointed her index finger on the very tip of her sniffer.

“J-u-l-i-e-t.” He spoke as deeply as he could, drawing her name out with grave intensity.

“Z…eu….eu…us…s…s.” The little minx matched him, in timbre and tone.

Snagging that impudent finger perched atop her nose, he attempted to draw it lower. “You know I mean your quim.”

“Touch my…?” The adorable baggage beneath him sputtered. She resisted, rebelled. And judging by the unholy light in her eyes, damn near howled in horror.

“Come now—”

“Zeus! You— I cannot!” The hand he loosely guided downward balled into a lead weight and refused to budge beyond her navel. “A lady
never
— She absolutely never!” The man above her choked on his own laughter. “’Tis not funny!”

“Aye, it is. From my vantage point, absurdly so.” He released her straining arm and settled in beside her. He even refrained from freeing a sigh when the marmalade purr bucket hopped up behind him once again.

She must’ve seen it in his expression though. Wrinkling her recently emphasized nose, she apologized, “He thinks you’re usurping his position. As my champion.” A quick swish of a fluffy tail confirmed she had the right of it. “He’ll learn to share me. He likes you, I can tell.”

But Zeus refused to be distracted. A man on a mission, he plowed straight ahead. “A
lady
courageous enough to advertise for a husband, to forfeit clothing and exchange kisses for a taste of passion can do anything she damn well pleases.” He let that sink in. Then he added, “Especially when her chosen husband requests it of her.”

As if daring her to deny his assertion, he raised her shift to her waist. Exposing her charms completely. “Now, my lady, touch yourself. No more balking, hmm?”

Mayhap I’d rather touch you.

The naughty thought took Juliet by surprise.

Mutinously, determined not to give in to his demand, at least not quite yet, Juliet remained motionless. Henry just gave her a single slow blink—of chastisement?—and jumped down when the wind blew in a few errant raindrops.

Traitor.

To Zeus, she said, “I should call you a brute, a beast.”

“You should’ve called Jacks,” Zeus chided, heaving a sigh. He came onto his knees, one on either side of her torso. “Called him long, long ago, and had me tossed out on my ear.”

“But I like your ears.” And that wasn’t all Juliet liked, she knew, given how she couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of Zeus’ erection. From the way he’d just knelt above her, the thick column swung heavily between them. So close she could reach out and touch it.

So she decided to, swallowing her apprehension, easing her arm forward ever so slowly. And in so doing, received an unexpected boon—avoiding that
other
place he’d requested.

Touch
herself
? Down
there
? Really! The bossy, beastly brute forgot himself.

Ladies hardly dallied and rarely explored skin typically blanketed by garments even during bathing. And that was under the cover of night and night rail! How could she fathom delving deep and discovering her own intimate parts—and in front of him no less?

“My lady?” His upper body was bowed, the corded muscles of his stomach rippling invitingly as he hunkered lower to look into her eyes. “Lady Juliet?”

She noticed how his voice had gone all raspy. His breathing all ragged.

She noticed more the unfamiliar weight of his glorious…prominence, brushing the backs of several fingers once she’d extended her hand.

A sharp flash of white illuminated the window side of him above her, bringing home how dark the sky and evening had grown. But more than that, it highlighted his nude thighs surrounding her. And how her hands had moved to either side and now rested firmly, solidly on each.

His strong muscles shivered beneath her untutored caress. His legs. His
thighs
.

No longer was she simply thinking or saying the taboo words designating his manly form. She was touching him, her virgin fingers mapping the warmly textured territory he’d only recently bared to her avid gaze.

Had that just been this afternoon? Then how was it that it seemed so long ago? As though she’d been yearning to clamp her fingers on these powerful legs forever?

Seeing the bare, usually gloved, hands that she knew belonged to her traversing over not marble but pliable, heated,
flexing
muscle brought home how very far she’d come in such a short time. All thanks to the man above her.

In a resounding hiss and crackle, lightning spiked in her periphery.

“Juliet…” The husky sound of his plea was answered by the dip in her stomach, by the outstretched arms that refused to lower.

The thunderous rumble that crashed outside didn’t faze either of them.

She was too busy scraping her palms up the coarsely soft hairs on his thighs and over the smooth, pale skin of his hips…

“Oh God.” And poor Zeus, he looked as though he was occupied trying not to keel over. “Are you…? Saints be praised, are you…about to intentionally touch my dirk?”

The undeniable pleading in his hoarse whisper encouraged her onward.

“I believe I am…” Juliet answered the question she wasn’t sure Zeus knew he’d asked out loud, given his stunned expression when she anchored her fingers deeper into his muscles instead of shying away.

The slight trembling of his legs as he straddled around her gave her the temerity to continue, loosening her grip on his thighs. She was startled when Zeus moaned, “Oh, God. Stop licking your lips like that.”

Stilling the involuntary motion of her tongue, she slowly inched her fingertips higher, furrowed them through the dense golden hairs at his groin. She stopped just before reaching his…cock. She thought it. Then she said it. “Your cock.”

“Oh, God. Juliet!” Shifting, he clenched his jaw, grasped his shaft in one hand, and fell forward on the opposite arm, bringing the reddened tip closer to her face. Closer to her lips.

“Could you?” he rasped. “Would you?”

It appeared so, because Juliet found her curiosity and desire to please him, as he’d pleased her in countless ways today, overrode inbred caution. Overruled years of repression.

“You don’t have to,” he said swiftly when she made no move toward him.

How could he know observing him from afar was vastly different from seeing him up close, where the heat of his body nearly poured off his skin, the searing allure of his erection simmering between them? Where the single sparkle of fluid emerging from the slit fascinated and entranced? She caught herself and just barely avoided licking her lips again.

But she’d waited too long.

On a harsh exhalation, he edged back. “I can wait. I did promise you patience.”

“You did.” She slid her hand around one hard thigh and tugged him forward.

“My lady? I meant it. You do not—”

“I now want to,” Juliet said, repeating what he’d told her about reading his character. “Need to, I am thinking.”

Zeus watched, awash in amazement, as she took the clear drop from his slit and wiped it across the upper swell of one breast. Her dainty hand returned and she closed it over his own white-knuckled death grip.

Both of them holding tightly to his dirk—his arm quivering and fingers cramping from the restraint he exuded, hers resting lightly on top—she brought him to her mouth.

Where she kissed him!

Placed the puckered bow of her lips to his crown with a barely audible
smack
.

Just when he wanted to howl, to bellow his dismay and disappointment for he’d been dreaming of so much more than a chaste kiss, she opened her mouth and her tongue made an appearance.

Zeus stopped breathing.

Hesitant at first, only an infinitesimal swipe. Then her tongue returned, licked again. Just the very top. Then the side. And once more, that tiny pink temptation leaving a path of wetness down the entire shaft exposed above their joined hands.

And then—thank God Almighty—a circular swipe round the crown that had his lungs remembering to inhale on a gusty intake of air.

A subtle
mmm
emerged from her throat, the exact meaning he couldn’t decipher, but the intent clear enough.

Especially when she dug her fingernails in one buttock and urged him closer. Ever closer. Which only made his head spin because he hadn’t even realized she’d clutched him there. But Zeus was happy to comply, lurching forward to join the tip of his cock with her waiting mouth.

As long as he lived, he would never forget the precious moments of agonized anticipation. The sight of her tongue-slicked lips opening wide to encase his body…

The sublime ecstasy once the moment was realized.

The experience of watching his dagger, his bodkin, his penis, phallus, pr-prick—to use her terms—disappear past her lips…

The feel of the tongue he’d only barely begun to taste now tasting him. Licking, if not with skill, then with artless abandon.

Her touch bathed away every lingering hurt, physical and emotional. She made him a new man.

When her motions altered from licking and exploring to sucking, to drawing him so deeply, so fiercely, inside Zeus felt the wash of acceptance in every particle of his being, he worried he was about to embarrass himself—again.

And that would never do.

He slipped his hand from beneath hers and brought both to her temples. Tunneling his fingers through her hair, he took hold of her scalp and gently pulled her head back.

Open-mouthed, she released him and his nearly sucked-dry staff emerged, red and thick and shining from her depths.

Blazes! He wanted to thrust back inside and come for a sennight.

Had to do something quick before the stirring in his ballocks came spewing out on another unplanned, ungallant display.

She gazed up at him in the darkening room, face flushed, hair in a tangle over the arm of the settee. “Why?” It was a whisper. “Why did you stop me? I believe I found it rather enjoyable.” And sounded totally surprised by that admission.

“Because, my sweet, ’tis your turn now.”

“My turn?”

While she was all soft and subdued and submissive, he took up her hand and scooted backward, trailing their intertwined fingers over one beaded breast, past the thin muslin gathered at her waist, and to her naked abdomen. Where he paused. Waited. Then said huskily, “It’s your turn to touch yourself.”

“Zeus. I don’t…” She protested halfheartedly, but she didn’t fight him when he guided her hand the rest of the way to the juncture of her legs.

Didn’t do anything more than give a slight wiggle to her hips, a little sigh of surrender.

“Here now, we’ll do it together.” Zeus allowed her a moment. When she slowly nodded, he worked her fingertips just inside the swollen folds. Then, with his fingers still directing hers, he fluttered them up and down.

Though the nails that had seized his arse earlier now clutched at his shoulder, she didn’t shy away. Not from him nor the sensations he wrought forth, the hitch to her breath, the flinching of her pelvis, both indicating how receptive, how responsive she was.

“I— Oh!”

At the awkwardness that threatened when she touched a part of her body she’d only before ever grazed through a washing cloth, Juliet admonished herself. There was no need to freeze, to fear the unknown. Not anymore. Because it was Zeus taking her there. Showing her something new.

Showing her…

As the fury outside waned, stormy day turning to peaceful night, the tempest inside wept harder and understanding dawned. “I’m wet! Slick…”
Sticky and wanton and yearning for your possession.

“You are indeed.” He released her hand but kept up the sensuous torture with his own. “Dampened.”

“Your…dampening ‘praiseworthy actions’.”

“Exactly. Your body preparing the way for mine.”

And with that he leaned in between her thighs for the most intimate of kisses. After plying her with several, Juliet comprehended. “Your delightful tongue!”

“Mmmm.”

Her hips bucked against his mouth and she embraced the rolling waves that grew with each languid lick and furious flick. She craved that other part of him though. The one she’d just touched and tasted. And was now ready to claim for her own. “Zeus?”

“Hmm?”