Lyon (4 page)

Juliette's eyes rounded. Could they really be doing what it appeared they were doing? Right there in the open? And if so, why did no one object? Her gaze made a sweep of the park and of those nearby on the bridge who still pinned her. And a terrifying realization struck her.

No one objected because…no one but she could see them! Just as no one had seen the bright-children who'd stolen her page, and whose coming had portended this other strange sighting. Mischief and unearthly happenings had always followed in the wake of their intermittent appearances in her life.

Transfixed, she could only stare at the bodies copulating in the park. For without a doubt that's what the pair was doing. Fornicating, right there in the open as flagrantly as two jungle animals.

The man moved sensuously on his partner, grinding and rotating his hips. With the ardor of a salacious symphony, the slash of his spine arched and bowed as muscles bunched and slackened.

Juliette's teeth tugged at her lower lip and she put a hand to the erratic thrum at the base of her throat. How would it feel to find oneself the object of all that masculine energy, brute strength, and desire? To be covered and dominated by a man so overtaken by his lustful instincts that he'd heeded them with no care for his surroundings?

How would it feel to be wanted so desperately? She could only imagine.

Once, she'd longed for such things, but she'd been punished when she'd sought them. Or at least those who loved her had. And there would undoubtedly be repercussions were she ever again to act on her base urges.

She should look away.

Yet she didn't. Instead, she watched like one mesmerized, and an unexpected, forbidden yearning swept her chilled skin like a summer breeze infused with some exotic aphrodisiac. The folds gating her private channel pulsed gently, hinting at what that man could provide were she his.

She should look away.

Instead, she let desire swamp her, relishing its unfamiliar thrill. Her gloved hands fisted on the railing. Beneath layers of cloak, bodice, and chemise, her nipples tightened. And under her petticoats, high in her most secret place, she was a hollow void aching to be filled.

With each powerful thrust, the cheeks of the man's buttocks contracted. The well-defined muscles of his back, shoulders, and arms flexed and relaxed in fluid harmony. As she watched, his hips lifted slightly and his hand slipped between his body and the one under him.

She should look away. She should……Yet she didn't.

And slowly, so slowly, a touch came to her. As soft as a whisper, it caressed and comforted so tenderly that she hardly noticed it as something apart from her own body at first. It was as though a warm, knowing hand had worked its way high between her legs to gently cup her, offering to heal the hurt of her need. At first she ignored the sensation, thinking it only her unreliable imagination.

When the touch grew more tangible and masculine she wriggled and kicked out, thinking someone in the crowd was manhandling her. Whipping her head side to side, she could see that no one nearby seemed to be paying particular attention to her. Her slippers now rested on solid ground again, but she remained locked to the rail by the press of humanity behind her on the bridge.

The furtive hand molded itself to her unguarded flesh, its palm flattening against her feminine opening and its heel firm against her pubic mound. Still locked to the railing, she stood wide-eyed and perfectly motionless. Terrified and titillated at the same time.

Gently, the hand palpated her once, twice—sending waves of heat through her core. Its heel sawed at her clit as it pulled forward toward her belly, then shifted back again until its longest finger slipped just along her rear cleft, shocking her system more in this than all that had come before.

Lazily, it rocked back and forth and back and forth…back…and…forth.

Just when she thought she might be driven mad by the stimulation, it ceased and the hand folded in on itself. Its fingers brushed her intimate creases as it gathered itself into something resembling a fist.

At the very same moment, the man's hips drew back from his partner's.

She gulped as the fist aligned itself with her slit, its knuckles putting an upward, driving pressure on that vulnerable entrance to her channel.

The man in the park! Somehow, she'd become connected to him. To what he was doing to that other woman. A similar sort of transference had happened on occasion when she was a child, but certainly nothing so visceral as this!

Her fingers dug into the railing, fraying the tips of her gloves. She scarcely dared breathe as the fisted intruder insistently stormed her gate, wooing her with its erotic promise. Deep inside, her core began to melt for it, coating its nib with a natural feminine slickness meant to ease its way.

The crowds had ebbed around her enough to allow for breathing room, but she scarcely noticed for there was no question of departure now. Her body was weeping for this.

The muscles of the man's back and buttocks rippled with the effort of restraint as he slowly flexed his hips forward…

With a humid sigh, Juliette's nether lips succumbed, parting for him.

Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips drew inward over clenched teeth to keep from crying out as she felt herself give way to the masculine pressure. Her arms ached with tension and the grit of the stone rail grazed the soft skin of her wrists where sleeve and glove had slid apart. How it burned. And still the warm fist pressed on, languidly screwing itself into her.

Coiling need twisted and built, higher and higher until the innermost flesh hidden deep in her channel cried for want of the entirety of its hard heat. The sensation of it plumbing ever deeper was a completely foreign one. A wickedly delicious one. So this was what it felt like to have a man's member come inside one's body!

In this moment, she cared about nothing else—only that she wanted more of it. Would die if she didn't get it.

As if reacting to her need, the man bucked into the woman under him, so hard that she was shoved several inches across the grass. Shallows formed in the sides of his rear cheeks as muscles drove him deep.

Heat speared Juliette at the same precise moment, delving farther inside her than she could have imagined her body might accept. Butting at the gate to her womb. The impact of it lifted her to her toes. She covered her mouth, trapping a cry in her palm.

In the park below, brawny sculpted haunches as sleek as those of a stallion relaxed then clenched, relaxed, clenched. Again and again and again.

She became his puppet, dancing to the tune of his slamming rut. It wasn't just her imagination. Her body was physically yielding—opening when he bucked forward and pursing when he relented. At the mercy of sensation, she had no desire other than to go where he led.

Her thighs trembled. The tissues of her core were wet, swollen, and invaded by the man who fucked another woman down in the park. She could almost smell his male musk and feel his fresh breath on her cheek.

Somewhere behind her, the chain of dancers had doubled back on itself, retracing its path to stir the crowds again. To her right, a businessman was telling a story involving oxen, and his companions were hooting with laughter. To her left, a horn player was tuning up and two ladies were engaged in an argument over a gentleman they both admired.

Yet through it all she heard the sounds of fevered coupling—of the man's velvet murmurs and harsh grunts and the woman's groans and demands. His words—words meant only for the ears of the woman he caressed—were rough and carnal. Words no man ever spoke to a lady. Words meant to urge them both toward release. They tickled Juliette's ear and sent her reaching desperately for…something.

The sensation gathered within her less quickly than she'd imagined it might, like a slow tightening of a screw that sent a wave of heat through her each time it turned. It was at the same time excruciating and exhilarating and she both feared and wanted what it promised. The other girls at Valmont's had described this to her—this hanging on a precipice of ecstasy. But until now, she'd never truly understood.

Every ounce of blood in her seemed to recede as she waited there, unfulfilled. A single tear fell, trickling down her cheek. Her white-knuckled fingers clenched between her breasts, gripping the crimson wool of her cloak as she bent at the railing, her entire body locked tight. A mere breath away from her first orgasm.

Then a hoarse, anguished shout split the air, and the man in the park climaxed. A simultaneous, feminine wail from his partner echoed his.

Oh, God!

The avid wave abruptly broke inside Juliette and blood went
whooshing
back through her system. Hurtling through every vein and artery, it all rushed toward one tempestuous goal. High between her legs, the shiny-pink, hidden heart of her swelled with it and gaped in a silent, passionate scream.

With a muffled cry, she came! In rolling, wracking spasms that pounded and tripped one upon the next, scarcely affording her time to breathe. Her nether mouth gulped and gasped and choked in an ecstatic, creamy rhythm. Her hand crept low and she cupped herself through her dress, trying to hold onto the rapture of it, and hoping no one would see.

This! This was what she'd yearned for.

Forgotten were the reasons she'd denied herself this for so long. Forgotten were the guilt and the pain of loss that had led her down a path of celibacy for the past three years.

The press of bodies behind her lessened intermittently, but she was unable to take advantage of any slack. She was frozen in place, helpless to escape, her inner thighs welded to one another, as her furious coming went on and on.

Below her the woman's face remained hidden and anonymous, but now the man had shifted so that her legs had become visible between his sprawled ones. There was something unnatural about the woman's body, Juliette realized. In disbelief, she watched her legs curve upward between his in an odd manner that bent them in the direction opposite that which knees normally went.

Her legs—they were conjoined! And they finished in a tail whose slender fins had curled themselves around the man's calf!

No! Don't look! She squeezed her eyes shut, fearing what might happen if she allowed her imagination to overtake her.

But it was too late.

Horrified, Juliette slapped both hands on her thighs, gripping their long muscles through her skirts. The flesh between them, from groin to knee, had begun to tingle and soften. To reshape. One limb had begun to kiss the other, longing to join in imitation of the creature lying under that man.

Pressing her palms together in a position of prayer, she wedged them, and by her action the fabric of her skirts as well, between her thighs. She dug and wiggled and poked. But in spite of her efforts, the inner seam was turning gelatinous. Fusing.

Her legs crumpled, refusing to support her. Quickly, she hooked both arms around the rail, gripping it for dear life.

She was transforming! It had been three years since anything like this had last happened! She'd assumed she'd outgrown the ability. The curse, as her foster mother had termed it.

Oh, why had she ventured out today? Why had she stayed out so late? Why had she let herself ogle this couple for so long?

The man in the park shifted again, suddenly revealing the face of the woman under him. A pair of feminine eyes the exact shape and sea-green color of her own met hers. The woman's hands froze on the sloping hollow of her lover's back as their shocked gazes tangled.

Recognition slid an icicle down Juliette's spine. Her throat worked. Then a single word escaped her.

“Elise?”

Her near-silent whisper was one no human could have heard in the midst of the uproar on the bridge. But even as the syllables still hovered on her lips, the masculine giant shuddered under their impact. Rising on his arms, he arched his back turning his face upward.

In his shadow the woman still regarded her in dismay. But Juliette saw only the man now.

Bathed in moonlight, he was a handsome pagan god. Amber eyes as bright as jewels that might have adorned the crown of Croesus were set in a face limned by the faint bluish-white glow of the skin of woman under him. His jaw was square cut, his nose aquiline, and his throat was thick and strong with a distinct Adam's apple. Framing his face, his hair was a tousled, gilded halo, washed in moonlight and damp at the temples from his exertion.

His gaze narrowed on Juliette as though he were trying to make out her features. Gasping, she fell back a step and hit the back of her head against someone's shoulder.

Once eye contact was broken, she was swiftly released from the strangers' spell and her body began trying to right itself. Swamped with dizziness and feeling like a well-loved rag doll, she drooped her head to lie upon her forearm along the rail. She took great gulps of air, filling her lungs and trying to regain a sense of normalcy. For the last few moments, she'd almost forgotten to breathe. No wonder she'd been lightheaded. And likely hallucinating.

“Madame, are you ill?” someone asked from nearby.

“Wh-what?”

She lifted her head to stare blankly at the gentleman's hand on her arm, then followed it to the face of an elderly, whiskered man with concerned eyes. Coming alive, she groped at the offer of assistance, clasping his sleeve in a death grip.