Temptation (14 page)

He sounded so hopeless, so full of despair that she just had to give him a reason to keep fighting for his life. Putting down the washcloth, she reached deliberately for his cock. “Some parts of you still work just fine,” she said, as she took it in one hand and stroked it gently. Under her gentle touch, its length quickly grew hard. “Some things are still worth living for.”

He made a sort of a splutter in the back of his throat at her touch, but he did not voice any complaint or try to move away.

Emboldened, she moved her other hand to cup his balls, to stroke their silky softness.

It was so long since she had felt a man in her hands. Far too long. A woman of her age ought to be beyond such passions, but she was not. She had missed having her husband in her bed. She had missed the touch of him lying next to her all night long, and the sound of his breathing as he slept. She had missed the bulk of him as he moved over her, into her, claiming her as his wife. She had missed the feel of his thick member filling the empty space inside her.

Now, with the sergeant-major’s cock in her hand, all her desires came rushing back into her body with the force of a passion long denied. Her breath came short, and she could feel her chest grow hot. Between her legs, an insistent ache started—an ache that longed to take the member in her hands inside her.

The sergeant-major’s face was purple and he was breathing in long, shuddery breaths. Another few strokes and he gave a cry as his sperm erupted, shooting up into the air with such force that it sprayed the bed linen. His face was strained with the force of his orgasm and his fingers clutched at the sheets as if he were holding his soul to his body.

Over and over she stroked him until he had no more left to give. Even then, she could not let him go. She still stroked him as his cock slowly deflated once more.

“I must apologize,” he said, as soon as he was recovered enough to speak. “It has been a long time since I have been near a woman. I did not mean to lose control like that.”

“I meant for you to find some pleasure in my hands,” she replied. Her own body was still humming with desire, and she could feel the dampness between her legs. “I am glad you did not mind my forwardness.” Reluctantly, she took her hand away from him, giving him one last lingering pat. “The water in the jug will still be warm. I will have to bathe you all over again.”

The water
was
still warm. He offered up no protest when she stripped him of his soiled nightshirt and ran the washcloth over his naked body, washing off all evidence of his pleasure.

Even when she was done, he did not ask for a clean nightshirt, and made no move to cover up with the sheets again. Instead, he pulled her to his side. “Come sit with me.”

She ought to get on with her work, but it was not every day that she got to spend in the company of such a man. Gladly she took a seat next to him, and made no resistance when he pulled her close to his side.

“I knew from your letters what a treasure you were. I have waited all my life for a woman like you.”

His embrace was warm and comforting. It made her feel cherished, looked after. She had spent her life looking after others—not being looked after herself. The feeling made her warm inside. “There is nothing terribly special about me.”

“I am a simple man, with plain wants and desires. In my eyes, you are everything a man could ever want.”

She allowed her head to sink down onto his shoulder. “You are too kind.”

He laid his free hand on her arm. She could read the hesitation in his face. He wanted to touch her, but wasn’t sure, even now, how she would take it.

Her breasts were aching for the feel of his hands, his mouth. She reached up and slowly unbuttoned her bodice, allowing her shirt to fall open.

His hand hovered over her, close but not touching. “You do not mind?” His face was lit up like a boy’s at Christmastime.

“I want you to.”

He laid his hand on her breasts then, and even though she was still wearing a corset and a shift to mute the sensation, she almost died of pleasure. After her husband’s death, she had given up hope that any man would touch her in passion again.

Her fingers shaking, she pulled open the ribbons of her corset and tugged down her chemise to free her breasts. She did not care that he was virtually a stranger to her—she wanted to feel his touch on her bare skin.

“You have such full breasts,” he breathed.

She arched her back and moaned with pleasure as his fingers found her nipples, teasing them until they had contracted into hard buds of pure desire. He, too, was affected by the heat between them. His cock was stirring again, lifting its proud head off his stomach and growing thick and hard.

The touch of her breasts and the reawakening of his own desire had made him bolder. “Come and straddle me,” he begged. “So I can see your beautiful breasts. So I can take them into my hands and bring them to my mouth. I want to lick you all over, starting there.”

“But your leg.”

“You will not hurt me. You could not hurt me. And even if you could, the plain would be worth the pleasure a thousand times over.”

With such an invitation, she clambered on to the bed and knelt over him, her petticoats bunched around her knees and her thighs cradling his stomach. In this position, her legs were forced open, and the whisper of air that reached her overheated pussy made her gasp. She was open to him. Open and wet and wanting.

She reached behind her and stroked his cock, with long, slow strokes. Hard enough to tantalize him and make him want more, but not enough to make him come. Not yet. She wanted him helpless with desire and desperate for release before she made him come again. She wanted his second orgasm to be even bigger and better than his first one had been.

When he leaned forward and licked first one breast and then the other with deliberate movements, she was undone. This wasn’t about him anymore—it was about her and what she needed from him. She was going to make love to the sergeant-major right here in his hospital bed. If she didn’t, she would explode.

She tugged her petticoats above her knees, took hold of his hand and guided it between her thighs to where she burned for his touch. She didn’t care if he thought she was a wanton—she needed him too badly for thoughts to get in the way.

“You are so wet,” he said reverently, as he stroked her gently. “So warm and welcoming. Too good for an old soldier like I am.”

She didn’t want his gentleness or his reverence, she wanted his passion. She guided his fingers to the entrance of her cunt, and pushed his forefinger inside her. Her muscles fought against the invasion, contracting around his finger, squeezing it.

“You’re going to kill me, woman,” he said, taking the rhythm from her and pumping his finger in and out of her with increasing enthusiasm.

She rose on to her knees and taking his erect cock in her hand, she gradually lowered herself onto him, until his head was pushing against the entrance to her pussy, demanding admittance.

He thrust his hands under her skirts and told hold of her hips. “Sit on me. Sit on my cock,” he begged her, pulling her down on to him.

Slowly she sank down onto him, not stopping until he was embedded fully into her, stretching her as she had never been stretched before.

“God, you’re so tight,” he grunted, bucking his hips under her. “You almost made me come just from pushing into you. Now ride me as if I were your horse. Ride me, and make me come all over again. Only this time I’m going to come deep inside you.”

Though they were both out of practice, they soon found their rhythm. He let her set the pace. Slowly at first she rose and fell on him, withdrawing almost until he slipped right out of her, and then sinking down onto him, forcing his cock so deep into her that it felt as if he would split her down the middle.

She couldn’t get enough of him. This was what she had missed for nigh on a decade, the feeling of a man making love to her. She quickened the pace a little. Now that she had rediscovered the passion that had lain dormant inside her, she had to let it go free. If she were to die in this moment, she would die happy, knowing that she had so much still to live for.

On and on she rode him, allowing him no mercy, no let up in the rhythm. She was reaching that elusive peak, she could feel it—the place where her late husband, despite his best efforts, had only ever managed to take her a few times. The sergeant-major was taking here there without even trying.

She was fighting now to hold off her pleasure, not to reach for it. The more she tried to hold it off, the higher the pressure rose, until with a little scream, she felt her muscles convulse into a pleasure she had thought was forever lost to her, the pleasure of coming to orgasm with a man’s cock buried deep inside her. Fiercely she rode him then, plunging him into her, milking every last drop of pleasure from his body.

He could not resist her last wild ride. As her pussy clenched him tight, throbbing with satisfaction, he exploded in his turn. His hot semen spurted into her, filling her with the very essence of him.

Suddenly embarrassed now that her desperate need was slaked, she tried to clamber off him again. She could not believe that she had practically ravished one of her patients. She had climbed on top of him and ridden him hard, forced him to fuck her until she came. If anyone in the hospital were to hear of this, she would be dismissed instantly without a reference. She would be lucky if they did not lock her up for corrupting her patient.

He held tight to her under her skirts. “Don’t leave me yet,” he begged. “I have only just found you.”

She relaxed into the comfort of his arms for just a moment. Truly, she did not want to leave just yet. “I cannot stay. I did not bar the door.”

Reluctantly he let his grip on her slacken. “I will let you get up just for long enough to straighten your skirts,” he reluctantly conceded. “Then you must come back and lie next to me.”

She stood back up and surveyed the mess they had made. The bedclothes were lying in a heap on the floor, the pillows had slipped off the end of the bed, and the sheets were wrinkled and hanging half off the bed. If someone were to come in now, they would see at a glance exactly what had been going on. “I cannot loll around next to you all day. I must change your linen, dress you in a clean nightshirt, make you presentable for your visitors.”

He caught hold of her hand and brought it to his lips. “Hang the visitors. I don’t want anyone but you.”

She smiled at the sincerity in his voice. His words warmed her from the inside out. She trailed a finger across his stomach, slick with sweat and semen, then brought it to her lips to taste him. “But first of all I had better give you yet another bath.”

Captain Carterton’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he pulled the door shut as quietly as he could and tiptoed away down the hospital corridor. The sergeant-major was far too pleasurably occupied to want visitors right now. Despite his bad leg, he had wasted no time in getting into the good graces—and under the skirts—of his buxom new nurse. Judging by appearances, the sly old dog would be occupied for some time yet.

He gave a sigh of frustration and ran his hands through his hair. Even the sergeant-major’s love life was more successful than his own. His week of grace was nearly over, and Beatrice was so far proving stubbornly resistant to his every overture. Every single kiss and caress he’d stolen had been bitterly fought for and hard won. And none of them had gotten him measurably closer to the main prize—Beatrice’s capitulation.

He was a soldier. A man of action. When he wanted something, he took it. It galled him to be made to cool his heels waiting on her pleasure.

He’d had enough of waiting. He clapped his hat on to his head and stepped out onto the street. It was time to force the issue. The sergeant-major’s shenanigans with his private nurse had given him an idea. He knew just what he needed to do.

That Friday evening Captain Carterton was once again waiting at the gates of the hospital when Beatrice finished her shift. He doffed his hat and then held out his good arm to her. “Let me walk you home.”

She hesitated a moment before taking it. He was more of a danger to her than any ruffian lurking on the streets of London.

The effect that he had on her was not diminishing with time, but growing stronger. Each time she saw him, her heart beat faster in her chest, and she could feel her whole body slowly melt under the heat of his gaze. She no longer felt like a woman of flesh and blood, but a pliable creature of potter’s clay, with no will of her own but what he allowed her to have.

Ever since he had given her such shameful pleasure in the park, her body had been craving more. Now she knew how the pitiful opium addicts on the streets felt—they would give up anything and everything just for another pipe, another high, another temporary retreat from the reality that only got more grim with every attempt to escape it.

She was a nurse, a professional woman, with a life of her own, her own friends, and a plan for the future that most emphatically didn’t include taking a man like Captain Carterton as her lover. She didn’t like feeling so caught, so helpless, as if he could mold her into whatever shape he wanted her to be, and she would have no choice but to remain that way.

But when she put her arm into his and he fell into step with her as they walked along the street toward her lodgings, the heat from his body was a powerful persuader. Whenever she was near him, she did not care that she had no resistance to him. That was what scared her most of all.

They had just turned a corner when, to her surprise, he caught her up in his good arm. A couple of passersby looked at them curiously, but made no move to help her.

Initially too surprised to struggle, she clung onto him as he strode over to a hackney cab, pulled up in the street. Only when he wrenched open the door of the hackney, did she collect her wits enough to struggle.

“What are you doing?” she screeched, as he deposited her inside the carriage and clambered in beside her, rapping on the front panel to indicate to the driver to drive on.

“Abducting you,” was his not-at-all reassuring answer.

The horses were moving at a sedate walking speed. She launched herself at the door on the opposite side, only to find it locked.

Captain Carterton was lounging back in the seat beside her, his arms folded over his chest, watching her with an amused expression on his face. “I’m a soldier. If I had gone to the bother of capturing you, I was hardly going to make such an elementary mistake as to give you an easy escape route.”

She flew at him next, pummeling him with her fists. Why did men always think they had a right to decide what was best for women? If he had asked her to come away with him, she may have been tempted, even against her better judgment, to agree. But to be given no other option but to go along with his daft plans made her furious. “Let me out. I will not be kidnapped. I will not be.”

“I don’t recall giving you a choice in the matter,” he replied calmly, taking a length of silk from his pocket and holding it up threateningly in front of her. “Now, will you stop attacking me, or will I have to tie you up?”

“You would not dare,” she hissed at him.

“I kidnapped you,” he reminded her.

“You are nothing but a ramshackle soldier,” she spat at him. “A rogue. A rake of the worst kind.” If he were to tie her up now, she would lose any chance she had of catching him by surprise and getting away. She sank down into the far corner of the carriage and pulled up the blind to see out of the window.

London passed by her eyes, so near and yet so out of reach. “I will lose my respectability,” she said, a little more calmly. “I will never be able to hold up my head in society again. And it will all be your fault. Would you have that on your conscience?” Even as she spoke, the thought of what might happen to make her lose her respectability made a blush rush to her cheek and gave her a tingle of anticipation in the pit of her stomach.

“I will not tell tales to the discredit of the woman I intend to marry,” he said stoutly. “Your reputation is safe in my hands.”

“On your honor as a soldier?” No decent soldier would break such a solemn promise.

“On my honor as a ramshackle soldier, a rogue, and a rake.”

She glared at him. He was not taking her or her concerns seriously. Did he not care that if word of this escapade were ever to get out, her life would be in ruins?

If she truly thought she was in physical danger from him, she would fight until her breath left her body, but she knew he would not hurt her. He was no monster to find pleasure in torturing women.

And he
had
sworn to keep her reputation safe. Having her good name sullied was her greatest concern. She would not be forced into a marriage she wasn’t sure she wanted. The worst of her fury began to subside. “Where are you taking me?”

“My brother has a cottage by the sea. Nor far from Brighton, actually. We used to take the train down there from London occasionally when we were children. Of course, I couldn’t abduct you and put you on the train, so I hired a hackney to take us all the way there instead.”

“Your brother will not care that you have kidnapped me?”

He gave an easy laugh. “My brother will never know. He hates the place. The cottage is left empty year round.”

The horses were still clip-clopping through the city streets, but they had entered a part of town she did not recognize. Throngs of laboring men in workers’ smocks crowded the roadway, fighting for space with men pushing handbarrows or the odd donkey cart. The women among the crowd looked desperately bright and brassy, as if they were hell-bent on making the most of their short time on earth. “How long until we get there?”

He caught her anxious glance out the window. “I wouldn’t try to get out of the carriage here. It’s a bit of a rough neighborhood. You’re safer inside the coach with me.”

“What are you going to do with me when we get there?”

“Nothing you will not enjoy.”

Even if she could get past him, which she doubted she could, she would not like to be wandering alone in this part of town. “I would like for you to take me home.” She made her voice sound as calm and rational as she could. “Unlike you, I am not on leave. I have a job to do. I have no time to play silly games with you. I have to be at the hospital at seven in the morning. If I simply do not turn up, giving them neither notice nor excuse, I will be dismissed.”

“This is not a game, Beatrice.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked her squarely in the eyes. “I have been in love with you for months, and yet you refuse to listen to me. You are on the verge of promising yourself to another man even though you do not love him. He is not the man for you and you know it. What else can I do to make you see reason?”

She was uncomfortably aware that it was her fault he was in love with her. If she had not led him on through her letters, she would be sitting down with Mrs. Bettina and the other girls to a hot supper right now, instead of trundling through the streets in a hired carriage on her way to goodness-knows-where. “I am not promised to anyone. I gave you a week to court me, to see if you could change my mind about you.” Even to her own ears, it was a feeble excuse.

She did not dare confess to him she had already decided she could not marry Dr. Hyde. At least not while she felt so strongly for the captain. He would take it as a sign that he had won, and she was not ready to promise herself to him, either. She might never be ready.

“I still have a day or two left. And I will command your undivided attention for the whole of that time. When we return to London, I have every confidence that you will agree you belong with me.”

“And my position at St. Thomas’s? How will you salvage that?”

“As my wife, you will have no need to work. In addition to my captain’s pay, I own a small estate in Surrey that I inherited from my grandmother. My brother’s steward looks after it. You will not want for anything.”

“I
like
my job. I
like
being a nurse.”

“You would have to give it up if you were to marry Dr. Hyde, as you seem so set on doing. Why would you not give it up to marry me, when I love you infinitely better than he ever could?”

He did not understand. Part of Dr. Hyde’s attraction had been that he understood that medicine was not an occupation, it was a calling. She could just as soon give up breathing or eating. “I would not give up my position to be married to any man.” Healing others is what gave her life purpose and meaning.

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then gave his head a bemused shake.

Just then, her stomach gave a loud gurgle. It was past suppertime and she was hungry. Keeping her from her dinner was yet one more sin she could chalk up to his account. At the rate he was clocking up sins, his soul would belong to the devil before tomorrow morning.

He grinned at the noise and pulled a basket out from under their seat. “I’m an old campaigner and I know that an army marches on its stomach. I have come prepared.”

Despite her anger with the way he had cornered her, she was grateful to see the food he pulled out. A French tart, fresh crusty bread with a wheel of soft cheese to accompany it, and a couple of pears. There was even a bottle of white wine that was still cold.

He handed her a portion of tart on a napkin. “I’m afraid we have no time to picnic by the roadside. I want to get to the cottage before the light goes.”

The tart was so freshly baked it was still warm, and the pastry flaked and melted in her mouth. She washed it down with a glass of the wine. It was stronger than the weak ale she was used to drinking, and combined with the motion of the carriage, it made her head swim.

When she was done, she leaned back into the cushions. For now, she was safer inside the carriage than outside it. Even once they reached the cottage in Brighton, she would hesitate about asking for help and having to deal with the scandal that would ensue. Maybe it would be best to let the situation ride until the captain returned her to London, and count on his conscience to help her deal with the consequences.

For consequences there certainly would be. The matron ran a tight ship. Nurses had been dismissed from St. Thomas’s Hospital on far flimsier grounds than unexpectedly not turning up for work for several days. She would have to concoct a believable lie and hope it would be enough to save her position.

He patted his shoulder. “You’ll be more comfortable if you lean against me.”

Her neck was already getting a crick in it. She shuffled over until she could rest her head on his shoulder. Her eyes started to drift shut. “Wake me when we get there.” It had been a long day on her feet, and she had not been sleeping well lately. Thinking about it, she hadn’t gotten a decent night’s rest ever since Captain Carterton had returned to England. Another sin to add to his tally.

She’d meant her words as a joke, but when she opened her eyes again the carriage had stopped moving and Captain Carterton was gathering her in his arms. Either the cottage was much closer to London than he had admitted to, or she had slept for several hours.

“I’m awake,” she murmured sleepily, but he did not put her down.

He carried her through the dark night and into the cottage. She saw no reason to protest. If he was strong enough to abduct her despite his wounded arm, he was strong enough to carry her.

A fire had been lit in the bedroom where he carried her and laid her down on the counterpane. Its cheery crackle lit the room with a dim light. Captain Carterton fetched a taper and lit a gas lamp. “You can sleep here tonight.”

She pulled a face. “In my uniform?”

“If you want to. But there will be a clean nightgown and some fresh clothes for the morning in the closet if you would prefer.”

A wardrobe of clothes to choose from? The thought disturbed her. “Do you bring many women here?”

His sigh spoke of irritation. “Do you trust me as little as that?”

“You have given me precious little reason to trust you.”

“The clothes here belonged to my sister-in-law. They are all clean and of good quality, even if they are no longer in the height of fashion.”

“Belonged?” She would not wear the clothes of a person who had died from a sickness. Staying in her uniform was preferable to running the risk of catching tuberculosis or pneumonia.

“She died here. A fall from her horse. That is why my brother never uses the place. He has avoided it ever since her death.”

Such stories always made her melancholy. “He must have loved her very much.”

“He loved her rather less when he realized she had not been alone in the cottage.”

Beatrice gulped. “Oh, I see.”

“It’s an old story.” He shrugged. “I visit the cottage whenever I am back in England. I was always fond of her. But enough ancient history. Can I heat you some washing water before you retire? Or boil the kettle for a cup of tea?”

He laughed out loud at her look of surprise. “Of course I can make a pot of tea. I am a soldier, not some ninny of a bank clerk who has no notion of life outside his stool in the office. Many’s the time in the field I have had to boil my own water and make my own tea or go without.”

“Then thank you, yes, I would like a cup of tea.”

As soon as he was gone, she rose from the bed and prowled around the room, all trace of sleepiness gone.

The bedroom was plain and sparsely furnished, but clean and comfortable. She drew back the curtain and looked out of the window, but the dark night hid the surroundings from view. She was certainly not in London. There were no street lamps—no lights anywhere in the distance.

It was quiet, too. Quieter than it ever was in London. No carts rumbling noisily across the cobblestones. No night soil men clattering and clanking through the streets. No cries of street vendors or whinnies of horses pulling a too-heavy load. And if she listened closely, she could hear the faraway whoosh and roar of the sea.