Lyon (13 page)

Her head fell back and she closed her eyes, rising to her knees. Warm hands slipped around the backs of her thighs to wrap themselves just below the rounds of her bottom. Fingertips leisurely stroked the sensitive depressions high along her inner thighs.

“Juliette,” he growled.

At the sound of his voice, she swayed slightly over him like a willow wishing to bend his way. Combing her fingers from her temples to the back of her scalp and beyond, she ripped out the pins binding her hair, then shook it loose to fall in waves of almond, wheat, and flax around her.

Then she brought both her hands to her breastbone, cupping them together as if they held a crystal ball between them. A snapping, sparkling sphere of wintry radiance formed where the ball might have been.

Her eyes opened and found his.

“I have something for you,” she whispered.

He was ready. The food he'd eaten had prepared him to receive what was to come. Slowly and with great care, she spread her hands apart, letting her gift spill forth.

Glitter burst from among her fingers like a bevy of frenzied fireflies freed from captivity. Because it must normally be kept leashed, these rare scatterings of magic were a joy and she breathed deep, for she loved the scent of her own glamour.

Mesmerized, Lyon watched the jewel-like mist hover in the air above him. His hands lifted and she thought he would try to touch it. But instead he curved them at her bodice, taking the weight of her breasts. Beneath his palms her skin heated and tingled as though the magic had somehow discovered them as well. She drew a quick, uncertain breath.

Then her finely woven tapestry of deceit drifted lower to drape itself over him. Twinkling lights sparked on his skin here and there for brief seconds. One by one, they began to wink and fizzle out.

His expression turned oddly satisfied, as if she had just confirmed some privately held suspicion of his.

“Faerie,” he murmured. “I knew it.”

She froze, arms still widespread. “What did you say?”

But he only yawned once, displaying perfect, white teeth. Then his eyes turned witless. Lashes fluttered lower, spiking shadows on his cheeks.

His hands released her breasts and slinked down her sides. Settling on her upper thighs, they squeezed gently. Once. Then they fell limp upon the bed linens on either side of him, palms upward.

As always, the unleashing of her magic left her exhilarated, but this time an unsettling hum entwined the feeling. Why? Everything seemed to have gone as planned.

And then she looked down, seeing what those hands of his had done to her.

J
uliette clasped her bodice tight to keep it from gaping, hiding her breasts in her open palms as she scuttled off his supine form. Leaping from the bed, she tripped, tumbling to the floor in her haste.

Scrambling across the rug, she felt the skin of her knees chafe and burn. Halfway across the room, she managed to pull herself upright, then stumbled backward a few steps to lean against the wall.

Breath heaved in and out of her lungs and her heart attempted to thump its way out of her chest as she lifted her fingers away from her skin. Under them, she no longer saw anything extraordinary. But a mere moment ago, her rose-colored nipples had been suffused with a strange luminescence. One induced by
his
touch. God, what was he that could do such a thing to her?

Turning her back on him, she monitored him warily over her shoulder as she refastened hooks and ties she hadn't even realized he'd opened.

His jaw clenched and unclenched and his head rocked back and forth on the pillow, mussing his shimmery tresses. He was fighting her spell harder than most. Would he remain caught in its snare?

“Sleep. Sleep!” She whispered the mantra over and over, willing her magic to do its work.

His dark, gold-tipped lashes batted rapidly at first, then more feebly…then one last time before they stilled. He'd lost the battle to remain awake.

She straightened from the half-crouch she'd assumed. If he'd wakened and expressed a desire to carry on, things might've taken an ugly turn, and she'd wanted to be ready to take flight.

Even from a distance, she could see that the bulge at his groin was every bit as tremendous as it had felt against her. She'd previously run across men who'd stuffed the crotches of their trousers to accentuate their masculinity, and that had to be the case here. No one was this well endowed, except perhaps a horse. He hadn't seemed the type who needed to prove himself in such a superficial way, but one never knew what drove men.

Though she wanted to move closer and give his assets a more thorough study, she made herself turn away and leave the room. Heading downstairs, she began mentally checking off the duties on her list.

First, she poured an inch or so of Sangiovese into each of the two goblets they'd earlier discarded in the dining room. Taking the bottle, she then opened a window, and leaned over the iron-work banister with her arm extended outward. Upending the wine, she emptied the remainder of it, watching its ruby contents drain away into the garden far below. However, the fact that she was wasting the money of yet another wealthy man who'd sought to buy her proved less gratifying than usual. The man upstairs was different than the others. Less deserving of what she would do to him next.

Setting the empty bottle on the table, where it could not be overlooked by him tomorrow, she hurriedly gathered all of the dishes and utensils she'd brought and took them to the kitchen. After packing them haphazardly in her baskets, she selected a sharp knife from the sideboard. Carrying that and the two partially filled goblets, she returned to his bedchamber.

Pausing just outside the door, she peeked inside. He lay as before, with one leg slightly bent and his arms at his sides. It appeared Lord Satyr still slept, but she would take nothing for granted.

Keeping a close eye on him, she ventured into the room and set one goblet on his dressing table. Setting the other on the floor near the bed, she then nudged it with her foot so it tipped and sloshed a few drops on the carpet.

Her hand clenched reflexively on the knife as she approached the end of his bed. Watching his face for the slightest indication he might be stirring, she pricked the point of the blade along the tender sole of his left foot. He didn't flinch. She poked him with it again. Twice. Nary a twitch.

Satisfied that he remained under her spell, she went around to the side of the bed. Stepping close, she lay the flat of the blade on his skin just below his ribs, so it pointed toward his feet. Its tip slid easily under the waistband of his trousers. It was sharp, ready for the purpose she intended.

Eyeing his crotch, she shook her head in amazement. Surely it had to be padding.

With a brisk jerk of the knife, she rent the fabric, slicing neatly along the outside of his trouser leg, from waist to ankle. The front of his pants burst open with the force his erection applied. The bulge at his groin unfolded, pushing the lap of the fabric away.

Her knife clattered to the floor.

“
Mon Dieu
!” she whispered, covering her mouth with a hand. His
service trois pièces
was a
service quatre pièces
!

She squeezed her eyes shut, then reopened them. Nothing had changed. He possessed the usual two balls like other men, but, amazingly, instead of a single cock—there were two!

One extended high from the dark golden thatch at his groin, where it should be. But an inch or so directly above it, another identical cock angled from his pelvis! Both were ruddy and hard and begging. And both were, by far, the largest specimens she'd ever seen.

Eyes glued to this alarming display, she retrieved the knife and circled the end of the bed. At its opposite side, she hesitated for a moment, suddenly reluctant to go near him. What did he do with two? she wondered. Ruminating on various possibilities cost her precious time and confidence.

Eventually she made herself move closer and slip the knife just inside the waist of his other pants leg. Her hands were shaking so badly by this time that she nicked him, drawing a beaded line of blood. Ripping the blade in one long slash through the fine wool, she cut the second trouser leg full length.

Then she tossed the knife away, aiming it in the general direction of the door, to be reclaimed later upon her departure. Tugging and shifting, she managed with great difficulty to completely remove the trousers from him. She stood at the bed's foot then, clutching them to her chest as she realized she'd uncovered yet another oddity.

He was furred! A dusting of sepia down lightly covered both of his legs! It looked soft, like the pelt of a young deer and was thicker on his haunches and calves than on his ankles where it lessened, then disappeared. It grew sparser toward his hipbones as well, meshing and disappearing in the thicket of a somewhat darker color at his groin.

“What are you?” she breathed, shaking her head in bemusement.

She tossed the ruined trousers toward the door as well, not bothering to watch where they landed. Drawing another pair from his armoire, she crumpled them in her hands until they were creased enough to appear he'd worn them this evening, then she dropped them on the floor beside the shirt she'd earlier helped him remove.

Finding his jacket, she considered giving it a similar treatment, but in the end only folded it over the back of a chair. The thought that he might have worn it especially for her was one she would cherish, and she couldn't bear to ruin it.

With an efficiency born of practice, she untucked the bed linen at one corner and stirred the bedcovers into a bedraggled heap on either side of him. Afterward, she stood back and gazed at the scene, weighing the effect she'd created.

Returning to the bed, she flung one of its pillows to the floor. It was a nice touch, she decided, definitely adding credence to the portrayal of debauched disarray. With any luck, her efforts would convince him he'd fully succeeded in his intentions with her. She inhaled a fortifying breath, and allowed her gaze to locate him where he slumbered amid the disheveled linens. She was almost done here, but the most difficult task still lay ahead.

Unable to help herself, she drew closer to the bed and studied the penis
á deux
that sprang from him. One was slightly longer and of greater girth than the other, she realized—the lower one that was rooted in the thatch at the apex of his thighs, where a male rod usually grew.

She'd seen the bodies of more men than she'd cared to. But she'd never seen a man built in this way. He was made like some sort of beast.

Why didn't it terrify her? Why didn't it repel her? Why, oh, why, did it only tempt her instead?

Of its own volition, her hand reached out toward the lesser shaft of the two to determine whether it was a figment of her imagination. Mesmerized, she ran her fingers up its bumpy-smooth column and around the circumference of its blushing cap. At her touch, a pearly bead of fluid pumped, welling in the small slit at its tip.

She snatched her hand back, her guilty eyes flying to his. His lips parted and a sigh soughed from between them. But he slept on.

Her gaze swung back to its fascinated study of his privates.

She should stop this and return to her work.
In a minute
, she promised herself.

Daringly, she pressed the pad of her thumb on his tip, widening the squishy mouth and smearing the pearl over him. He was huge, but this was nature's method of helping him to ease his way inside a woman without damaging her.

Some prurient compulsion had her lifting her wet thumb to her lips, and suckling it.

Oh!
In startled reaction, the feminine slit high between her legs clenched. A single time, like a hand contracting to form a tight erotic fist. With an appalled glance at his face, she crumpled forward in a half-bow, wrapping a forearm at her waist. The taste of him had acted on her like some bizarre kind of aphrodisiac!

Slowly, the fist released. A residual buzz of sensation continued to tickle at her nether lips for long seconds, then it faded away. Stunned, she uncurled, her avid eyes riveted to his groin. Would the other one taste the same? Would it have a similarly glorious effect on her?

No! It was time to concern herself with other matters.

But like a helpless addict, she found herself drawn back to him. Just one more taste, then she would get on with things.

She watched her hand reach out again. As if it belonged to someone other than she, she saw it wrap snugly around the girth of his lengthier shaft. In long, gentle squeezes, it worked its way upward along his prick and still higher, forcing the tiny mouth at its crest to open. Another bubble of seed pooled.

She darted a look at Lyon's still face. He was oblivious. Vulnerable. She could do as she wished to him.

This was wrong. So wrong of her to want this. Though carnal longing was her constant companion, she'd never even considered doing such things with the others she'd duped.

Her tongue slipped out, wetting her lips. Waves of almond hair drifted over his belly and snagged in the fur of his thighs as she leaned forward…

…and gently kissed him.

Ohhh, Dieu!
Orgasm swelled—fierce and so overwhelming this time that it buckled her to the bed. Her cheek fell to nest in his masculine thatch and her white-knuckled fingers knit themselves in the linens between her chest and the mattress. Under her skirts, her ankles crossed and her knees pressed together. So tightly that knobbed bones bruised flesh as she tried to capture the all-too-brief series of magnificent, lovely convulsions.

Though she desperately clung to it, the intoxicating pleasure ebbed away all too soon. The room grew quiet except for the sound of her breathing and his. Pushing herself to stand, she nudged her hair back over her shoulders to gaze down at his handsome face.

Last night, she had wanted him. But now she ached for him, desperately and in private places no man had ever ventured. She'd been foolish tonight, and because of that, she knew this yearning for him would remain with her for a very long time.

However, he would forget. She would help him to. She gazed at him, sad. But it was past time to begin.

The mattress gave slightly under her weight as she sat beside him and began to caress his face, feeling the slight bristle of his evening beard. Valmont had given her an assignment. She must steal now, and steal wisely so her victim wouldn't suspect.

Palm and cheek began to warm to each other and then heat, and Juliette imagined herself transforming into something more fluid. Something that slipped easily from her own flesh and into his. Something that moved effortlessly inside him, becoming one with the frothy rhythmic spurts of blood that traveled along a maze of fibers and synapses whirling in his brain.

Moving deeper through minute passages and microscopic caverns, she soon located the archives she sought.

His memories.

With unfocused eyes, she stared into space, listening. Observing.

The first vision that came to her was that of an extensive, flourishing vineyard. Scenes of it in every season strobed like illustrations on a deck of playing cards that was being fanned.

She saw the patchworked rows covering hillsides and valleys, and the workers toiling among them. And estates—three of them. And a curious ring of statues…

Then there were the two brothers. She saw them clearly—one tall and dark and commanding with charismatic blue eyes, and the other more reserved with eyes that were a cool, intelligent silver
…

And then she saw Lyon with his beautiful body and jeweled eyes and charming ways. He was in some sort of temple with…
Her brow knit…
women! Women of every shape and size and demeanor. Their hands and lips were caressing him and he was smiling at them, wanting them…