Rough Surrender (20 page)

“Erm.” Just the touch of his fingers on hers sent heat washing over her. “You know I have. Sir.”

“You liked what I did to you last night?” He turned her hand over and met her eyes as he ran his fingernail up to her wrist, and back to her palm, then round and round in gentle circles.

Her jagged exhale surely gave her away. Saying this brought back so many
good
feelings. “You know I did.”

Slowly, he took her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Then I have you for five more days. Consider yourself mine, Miss Evard. I promise to take very good care of you.”

Those words, the way he said them and the unwavering certainty in his eyes made her want to squirm. After a moment, she did, discreetly, squeeze her thighs together. Mr. Meisner’s promises would be set in concrete...or perhaps in steel...steel and chains.

That didn’t worry her at all. What did were the niggling thoughts that seemed stronger every time they came to her. What was her life going to be like after this? From being aware of her sexuality but resigned to being left a spinster and unfulfilled, she’d found the outer layers of her
self
peeled away until her raw needs were there in front of her, and they were
needs
. Indeed it seemed as if she should be asking how could she live without him? And that made her miserable.

Because she didn’t, surely, want to live with him?

Chapter 22

The stands and pavilions at the aerodrome were packed with half of Cairo–the rich, the royalty and the affluent middle classes. By the time Faith had been steered through the crowd to a private pavilion constructed of aquamarine silk, she was sure she’d met every second person who lived in the city. Jeremy Henleyson was here, as were several other friends of Mr. Meisner. The Prince and the Khedive of Egypt’s arrangements had brought together a great number of like-minded people for his Great Week in Aviation. What a pity she couldn’t, as yet, share in it.

Even as she stood there, rooted to the spot by the revving of nearby airplane engines, her soul yearning to take off with them when the aircraft soared skyward, she couldn’t help but remember all the hopes she’d held of participating in this wondrous event.

The Voisyn team took off one after the other–the airplanes appearing from the left and accelerating along the airstrip into the sky. The harsh puttering of the engines slowly diminished as they wheeled away to the southwest and the pyramids. As one passed overhead the wings and tail formed the shape of a white cross. The wind was picking up already and the pleated red skirt she’d chosen to wear wrapped about her legs. She prayed for lighter winds but dark clouds on the horizon looked to bring worse.

“I hear there have already been a few accidents.” Mr. Meisner stood next to her, resplendent in a rust brown frock coat and pinstripe trousers, cane and top hat.

“It’s a hazard of the sport of aviation at the moment,” she said, turning to him. “The more we fly. The more we learn. Progress doesn’t happen without someone making an effort. Even you must know that, sir.”

Casually, he reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her eye. She started. Being touched in public was so different from what happened in private...in the bedroom.

As if he read her thoughts, Mr. Meisner’s mouth curved. “You mean progress doesn’t happen without someone being killed. I fear that may happen sometime this week.”

She opened her mouth to reply but he merely put a gloved hand to her back and urged her on. “I assume you would like to see your airplane, Miss Evard?”

Would she? Yes and no. Dread niggled at her.

When they arrived at the cleared area to the north of the main viewing stands, where her craft was parked inside one of the aircraft sheds, dismay shrouded her. Though assembled with her wings attached and sheltered from the winds where she sat at the back of the building, without her engine the Bleriot looked gutted–like an animal without a heart.

Only one other airplane shared the vast shed with her–the Bleriot that was the grand prize in the lottery for the show. Faith went behind the wing of her Bleriot and examined the struts and the fuselage. All looked so ready.

“I’m
hors classement
, you know, Mr. Meisner–an outsider without classification. I’m not on a team, and I don’t even have an official pilot’s licence yet, and if the engine stays missing I may as well have stayed in Paris.”

“Oh? Then you value our relationship so little?”

“No!” She spun and shot a glance at him. Though no hurt showed in his voice the accusation stung her. Besides, he was only human. A question like that...well, she wondered if she had hurt him. “No. I do value it. I’m sorry, I was distracted. I–”

“I understand, Faith.” Those brown eyes regarded her kindly. “I’ve seen how your passions distract you.”

“Ah.” Was that a double entendre? She pursed her lips.

Someone walked across the light-flooded entrance.

“Hello! Miss Evard. Mr. Meisner.” Jimmy Whitrod came over to Faith’s side. “Ah. She is beautiful, but I still haven’t found out where the engine’s gotten to.”

Faith gave him a rueful smile then leaned back in the angle of wing and fuselage. “Keep looking, Jimmy. We may still salvage a day or two of flying if it turns up.” She looked him up and down. In gray overalls and carrying a bag of tools, he was clearly ready to go tend to another’s plane. “If you’re helping someone else out, best you go do it.”

He touched his cap. “Thanks, miss. I’ll be back on the job for you tomorrow. Good day, Mr. Meisner, nice to see you again. I trust the flying lessons were to your liking, sir?”

“Yes, thank you, Jimmy. I learned a great deal.”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir.”

What?
Faith turned to Mr. Meisner and stared at him across the wing. Though almost ready to grasp his lapels and shout the question, she waited until Jimmy had gone. “Lessons, sir? You’ve had flying lessons?”

“Yes.” He took off his top hat, ran his hand over his bald head and laid the hat on the white canvas wing of her Bleriot, then did the same with his cane. “I have.” His eyes held a hint of merriment. “I always like to do my study before I make my decisions. Not that I’ve altered my opinion. These things are death traps. The only difference is now I know it.”

“You took off and landed?”

He stepped along as if measuring the length of the wing then rounded the wingtip, all the while watching her. “I did. And luckily I landed well. Very luckily, though I only managed thirty feet of flight.”

With a casual air, he approached her and suddenly she realized he was now on the same side of the plane and she had nowhere to go. Her back was against the airplane. Already the man crowded her. Something about his scent and the warmth that preceded him like wave made her pulse accelerate. The noise of the crowd in the stands, the revving engines and the megaphone announcement of the next pilot–all faded to a muffled blur.

“What are you doing, sir?” She flicked her gaze from his eyes to the breadth of his shoulders, and oh, the size of the man sent a thrill into her, and made her try, at least, to back away. Her sore bottom bumped into some protuberance on the Bleriot and she hissed at the pain.

“What am I doing? I’m going to kiss you, dear.” He put his hand to her neck and the weight of him settled, fastening her to the spot.

“Here? In public? Sir...I must protest!”

“No, you must not. There is no one watching. They’re all out looking at the air show. The shed is dark compared to out there in the daylight.” With his other hand he wrapped his fingers around the side of her face. His thumb ran along her cheek then nudged at her lips until she opened and let it inside. “I know how you like being held.”

She wavered between wondering if he was right about no one watching, and being aroused by the very same idea.

Sure that the world had somehow turned inside out and shrunk because his face seemed to be all that was in front of her, she slowly let her tongue explore the thumb, tasting him, while he avidly watched her.

“Bite it,” he whispered.

She did and found her cleft seeping wetness into her drawers. As his thumb pushed farther into her mouth she opened and let him, felt it probe across her wet tongue and her teeth and push deep inside. Why did this feel so erotic? As if his member was in her mouth? She shuddered, remembering how that had been, and lifted her half-shut eyes to meet his amber ones.

“Don’t move.” His other hand swept down her, over breast and stomach.

Then she felt the front of her dress being pulled up and snapped open her eyes, tried to stand straighter, to resist him. With just the thumb in her mouth, wedged along her teeth and his fingers along her jaw, he held her...and also with the two fingers he shoved into her slit, her saturated pulsing slit that contracted down on him in an instant.

This was blistering, heart-seizing control. “
Mmm
!” Fingers inside her at both ends.

Her body wanted him there even if she knew this was bad, and wrong, and poor etiquette in every sense of the word. She moaned around his thumb and curved her mound upward, seeking more of his hand, his fingers...
him
. When his thumb pulled out of her mouth and his lips descended on hers she merely opened up wider in an
O
of surrender, and let him plunder her. His tongue explored every portion of her mouth, fucking her as his cock had fucked her down there only hours ago. Whatever instincts made her do this had taken her over, had offered her up for his pleasure.

When his thumb ground onto her clitoris she stiffened then climbed minute by minute under the rough pump of his hand, like some over-powered aircraft to the searing heavens and she came, silent, open mouthed, almost choking as she juddered...and came again.

The wracking waves took forever to leave her.

Then he kissed her gently, dragged out his fingers and rearranged her dress.

“Lick them clean, Faith,” he said softly, holding his slick fingers before her mouth. Those were her juices. She looked into his eyes and did as he’d ordered, licking off every trace of herself. The hard satisfaction in his gaze made her chest hurt and fulfilled her in a way no orgasm ever could have.

Then he enfolded her in his arms. So safe. So nice. So completely his.

As he led Faith from the airplane shed, dazed-eyed and bruised of lip, with her arm tucked through his, a Voisyn scraped in along the landing strip and burst into flame. It slid to a crumpled stop. The pilot jumped out and ran to the side, standing there hands on hips while his craft was devoured by blue-orange fire.

* * * *

Leonhardt inhaled through his nose.
Vindicated. A near disaster.
“That is why you should not fly, Faith. The very first day and we have a crash. How would it be if you were in the air and your airplane caught fire?”

“The risk is negligible, and see, he has not been harmed. Besides, mine is a far safer craft.”

Ah, she’d regained her senses. He looked down at her, smaller by a foot, with that petulant yet assured expression. If it hadn’t been for the crash, he would have been amused. He’d made her orgasm only minutes before, and so close to this horde of people, and those facts alone were enough to keep him hard for a week. But, he swung his mind back to her statement. How easily she distracted him.

Of course, it was true, in a way–the Bleriot did seem far better constructed than some of the bits of paper and stick he’d looked at. He’d spent the last three days checking out the airplanes, as well as that flying lesson, and doing the small amount of work he had to do for the company before this day arrived.

Flying lessons
. He almost shuddered. What devil had invented airplanes? The Wright brothers were either insane or inspired, and he knew which conclusion he leaned toward.

“Good day, Mr. Meisner!”

The voice was distinctive enough to make him tense. Sydney Smythe.

“Good day, sir.”

Smythe was arm in arm with a florid, blue-gowned matron with a feathered hat broad enough to trail plumage a foot out the back and make it dangerous to approach too closely from some directions.

Despite the fresh memory of how Smythe had treated Faith, politeness demanded he not punch the man. Not here, anyway. The increasing number of Europeans and British holidaying in Cairo must have attracted this snake of a man. Now if only he’d vanish back where he’d come from. His political connections made it impossible to touch him.

“I hear there’s at least thirty thousand spectators here today, Leonhardt. Good for business, I’d say.” Smythe flashed a knowing smile then studied Faith in a very thorough way. “Have my card, dear fellow. I can tell you’re still in the game. Do visit some day when the novelty wears off of your new pet.” He tipped his hat and strolled on, limping slightly.

Perhaps some irate patron had got the man with one of his own whips? One could only hope. He took the card out of reflex politeness, glanced at the writing on it. The words there in neat blue calligraphy made him stare for several seconds before he tucked the card into a pocket. That his hand had clenched down he only became aware when Faith tapped urgently at his hand.

“Sir! Mr. Meisner! Leonhardt! You are crushing my arm.”