The minutes lengthened and her fingers clawed into his hair, a growing rigidity in her body, the slick wetness telling him what she needed. One moment or two and he would have her, ripe like a summer fruit. Readied.
He was driving her to madness, every part of her body reaching for that place where nothing mattered, where the room fell away behind tightly shut eyes as she concentrated on what her body was saying. More. More. More. Further. Harder.
And then gone.
She opened her eyes in surprise, breathing fast, barely able to speak, not wanting the end, the slither of red-hot feeling in the pit of her stomach unwilling to let go of what she had been so near to finding.
Delight.Why would he stop? Was that it? Was there not more?
He stood and lifted her easily into his arms and laid her down on the thickly tufted rug in the salon next door, a green room of little furniture but with long curtained windows down one whole side. Stepping back, he removed his shoes and trousers.
The shock of seeing him like that sent shivers of surprise through her. Lionel had looked nothing like Phillip Moreland. He’d been a man with red hair, a fat belly and skinny legs, and his private parts had reflected those characteristics.
Phillip Moreland on the other hand was like an Italian marbled statue and all in perfect proportion, so much proportion in fact she wondered if they would even fit together. That thought made her breathing deeper, because there was a certain anticipation that could not be denied within it.
As he knelt he took her hand and allowed her to feel him, his hardness and his length. The candles burned in their sconces above this makeshift bed; there were no blankets, no closed doors either. It was as if he had fashioned a tryst, with all of her needs for delight furnished. She would not be able to hide and he would let her discover him without shame. An open, honest pleasure with no time limit, the whole night before them in his empty house.
As he came down beside her she felt the warmth of his body fully along hers, his hands bringing her face to his as he kissed her, more quickly this time before his fingers turned to other places. Her nipples, her bottom, feeling his way around her until she could no longer lie still.
In response she ventured in the same manner across him, stopping as he looked at her.
‘Is this allowed?’
‘Everything is. There is nothing forbidden in any of it. Only choice.’
She licked his throat and tasted salt, and then she sucked his skin in the way he had hers, leaving a red whorl, marking him as hers. The joy in it was exhilarating. She could play with his body without censure? Her hands crept lower and she stroked him, his sex moving with each ministration and hardening further. Power consumed her. Making love was something donetogether, with consent, with gladness, with the building passion guiding her, letting her know the way.
She wanted him in her, holding him there, and she moved against him as he came across her and opened her legs.
A finger slipped inside, and then another and then his member was pushing up and up until the largeness filled her and she felt him in all the places no one had ever touched before, every nerve inside glowing and reaching and wanting.
Her release came on his final push as they strained together, rigid with passion and never wanting an end.
Paradise.
She had been transported there, the wetness between them attesting to the beauty of it, even as she kept him within.
Lust had a language that was undeniable and wonderful. She could feel neither guilt nor shame nor worry.
Much later she woke in another room on a wide bed with a velvet cover pulled across her and the moonlight slanting in.
He was sitting beside her, watching. He still wore his white shirt, wrinkled now from their exertions, and there was a smile on his face. He looked so much younger like this; gone was the stern aristocrat and in his place was the quieter version of a contented lover.
‘How did we get here?’ She rubbed her eyes and looked around. ‘And where is here?’
‘You are in my bedroom and I carried you up.’
Her petticoat had been removed and her hair fell all around her face, the pins gone. The memories of the evening rushed in and she felt the blush on her cheeks rising. They had made love three times after the first at various hours of the night and in different ways. He was not a prig in the art of sex and she was very glad of it. She felt sated and sensual and satisfied.
‘Delight was everything I had hoped for.’ She stated this quietly because truth seemed important between them.
The smile on his face broadened. ‘I could say exactly the same.’
Bringing her in against him, she felt his fingers tracing shapes softly across her skin and in the darkness honesty seemed important.
‘My husband was always angry with me, especially after he realised I could not conceive a child.’
His fingers stopped their tracing and rested on her. ‘In all honesty I am probably the same, as Gretel and I tried hard enough to conceive at first. This way there are no complications in our delight, no extra worries. A simple, easy and sensual life. What could be better?’
