Improper Arrangements (7 page)

Resting his weight entirely on one arm, he reached under my bottom with the other, aligning our bodies at a slightly different angle. Immediately I felt the unmistakable pressure, the friction as he drove against that one elusive spot deep inside me. I pushed my hands under my bottom, eager to help him, and was rewarded when the delicious abrasion intensified and blossomed into the release I sought so avidly.

Waves of pleasure rippled through me, tearing the breath from my lungs, the sight from my eyes. I floated free in currents of bone-deep satisfaction, my only anchor the scent and heat of Elijah’s skin against mine.

Suddenly he pulled away and I opened my eyes to see him kneel above me, grasp his cock and rub it as I had done, only much rougher and faster. He came with a hoarse groan, his seed falling thick and white onto my belly.

After climaxing, he knelt between my legs for a long time, and it seemed to me he was fighting to regain control of his senses. Though undoubtedly very fit, he was breathing quite heavily and seemed almost dizzy from the effect of his exertions.

“Elijah? Are you quite all right?”

He smiled ruefully. “I’m fine. Let me get a cloth.”

I had to ask. “Why did you withdraw?”

“Better safe than sorry. The less seed I leave inside you, the less likely you are to fall pregnant.”

“That does make sense. Thank you.”

No answer, only another inscrutable smile as he gently removed the sponge from inside my body and wiped my belly clean with one of the napkins from our supper.

“Do you need anything before we go to sleep?”

“Only the necessary.”

“If I turn my back is that enough? Or would you rather I left the room?”

“Would you mind? It seems so silly—”

“I don’t mind. But hurry up. You’ve tired me out.”

Chapter Nine

When I woke the next morning I was alone in the bed. But Elijah was nearby; somehow I could sense his presence without being able to see or hear him. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, clutched the sheet to my chin and peered across the room.

He sat, already dressed for the day, with his back to me. As my eyes grew accustomed to the weak half-light of dawn I saw that he was writing in his notebook. Hearing me stir, he turned to look at me.

“Good morning. I thought I would wait until you woke before seeking out breakfast. Shall I fetch it now?”

“Yes, please. Thank you so much.”

I was safely dressed in a fresh set of garments long before he returned, and had even gone so far as to make the bed, although never having made a bed in my life I’d done rather a poor job of it. While a part of me knew we had to be on our way soon, another part of me, the wanton that beckoned me to recklessness in unguarded moments, desired nothing more than to wait for him, naked, in the bed we’d shared the night before.

Perhaps he’d had the same thought, for a flicker of disappointment crossed his face when he returned, tray in hand, and found me dressed and packed and sitting at the table, waiting for my breakfast.

But the moment passed—it had to pass, for I was here to travel the High-Level Route and to paint rare flowers and not, absolutely not, to cavort in bed all day with this annoyingly captivating man. We might yet have a chance for such an interlude, once we reached Arolla, but today was not a day for such delights.

We ate quickly and silently, I occupied with my thoughts and he with the notes he was making in his little book. After some minutes, observing how I watched him, he set aside his pencil and fixed me with a knowing smile.

“Glaciers. That’s what I’m writing about. The condition of the glacier we crossed yesterday. And the state of some of the rock walls we’ve passed.”

“I assure you I wasn’t—”

“You weren’t wondering if I was writing about last night? Whether you’d make an appearance in my next book?”

“Elijah!” I chided, but I couldn’t help smiling.

“I’m not going to write about it, Alice...but if I did it would be memorable. I promise you that.”

After that, the day passed in a blur. We walked downhill much of the time, along gentle winding paths that crossed a verdant valley, the exact sort of landscape I’d imagined when picturing Switzerland. One village, then another, then another, and still we walked, our pace slow and easy. Midmorning we stopped at a
buvette
in Sous la Lé to fill our waterskins, but otherwise walked without interruption until we reached Sembrancher, a larger village of stone dwellings built around a lovely square. There Elijah bought us bread and cheese and ham, which he tucked away until we’d left the village and were sitting in a sun-dappled meadow edged with beech trees. We ate in silence, he again busy with his notebook and I with my sketches.

I saw little in the way of interesting flora, though my observational powers were hampered by my heightened awareness of Elijah. Try as I might to harness my thoughts, reason had deserted me and I could think of nothing but him, hour after hour, mile after mile.

The sound of his voice. The tattoos that ringed his forearms. The strength of his callused hands. The mesmerizing beauty of his eyes. Even the scent of his skin. Had the rarest of all Alpine orchids sprung out of the path in front of me, I would simply have stepped over it and carried on, such was the state of my fevered imaginings.

I knew him well enough, at that juncture, to realize simply because he betrayed no evidence of anxiety or discontent that did not mean he was untroubled. For all I knew he was as stricken as I—or he might truly be unaffected. I would have to wait until we reached our lodgings for the evening to learn the truth of his feelings.

In one of our rare conversations that afternoon he’d mentioned we were stopping for the night at Le Châble, so when we reached it in the late afternoon I was greatly relieved. In appearance it resembled the other villages in the valley, though many of the buildings we passed had cattle horns mounted over the doorways. These, Elijah told me, were relics of the
combats des reines
, or cattle fights, which were a tradition in the region.

“We’re staying at the Pension de l’Abbaye,” he explained as we turned down a narrow side street. “Madame Fournier is an old friend of mine.”

The pension itself was unremarkable, little more than a private home with a pair of rooms to let. But it was clean, with good smells coming from the kitchen at the back of the building, and we were the only guests for the evening.

As I started up the stairs, I stumbled on the second step, and immediately felt Elijah’s arm around my waist. I turned my head, thinking only to thank him, and was struck immobile by the fierce, almost predatory look in his quicksilver eyes.

“Don’t stop,” he muttered in my ear, so I gathered my wits and scrambled up the stairs. “Second on the right.”

A few yards down the hall and we were there. He propelled me across the threshold, tossed our rucksacks on the floor and kicked the door shut behind us.

“Go to the bed. Take off your boots and pull your skirts up to your waist. Do it now.”

His words were rough, coarse, ungentlemanly. But they aroused me beyond measure, certainly beyond decency.

So I walked to the bed. I crouched low and unlaced my boots. I gathered my skirts around me and fell back on the mattress, my legs dangling over the edge of the high bed. And I waited for him.

Waited while he shed his boots and coat and waistcoat and tie, waited while he found the sponge and soaked it with the olive oil. Waited as he crossed the room, as deliberately as a cat stalking its prey, and stood above me, a looming shadow in the dying light of the day.

He bent a little, I thought at first to kiss me, but he only took hold of my calves and pulled me forward until my bottom was at the very edge of the bed. My legs were splayed wide, my pantalettes and drawers agape, concealing nothing.

“This may shock you,” he whispered as he crouched low before me, “but I can’t help myself.”

And it was shocking, for the next thing I felt was the unmistakable, satiny sweep of his tongue between my legs, pushing between the soft folds, licking and teasing until I thought I would soon expire from the joy of it. He held me open with one hand, and as his wicked tongue circled the swollen bead of flesh he had uncovered, pressing on it one moment, flicking at it the next, the forefinger of his other hand pushed the sponge deep inside me.

By that point I was largely insensible to anything beyond his tongue and what it was doing to me. It felt so different from the delicious friction of his fingers, for his mouth was so warm and wet, so wonderfully enveloping. I pushed up on my elbows, avid for a sight of his mouth between my legs.

I had never really looked at my most private area, and was at first alarmed by how pink and swollen were the lips of my sex. I made some noise then, a sigh or a groan, enough to make him look up.

Our eyes met; his held a question.

“Make me come,” I answered.

So he drew his lips tight around my pearl and sucked on it hard, pressing me into the mattress until I bucked and squirmed and climaxed against his mouth in the most violent and satisfying manner. He gave me a moment to regain my senses, no more, and then his cock was inside me, as far as he could go, the fabric of his trousers gratingly rough against my soft skin.

Though he was forced to bend his knees quite low, he seemed to enjoy the position very well. His hands gripped my bottom, pulling me against the base of his cock, his hips moving forward and back in a deceptively leisurely fashion.

He appeared to be captivated not only by the sight of our bodies where they were joined together, but also by my breasts, which bobbed and jiggled with our movements but were hidden from view by my high-necked gown. It seemed unfair to deny him the sight of my breasts, which he’d so obviously enjoyed the other night, so I unfastened my bodice, loosened my chemise and pushed down my corset just enough to let them bounce free.

“Beautiful,” he said, his voice thrillingly low. “That gives me an idea.”

He withdrew from me, a most disappointing feeling, but before I could protest he had flipped me on my stomach and was urging me onto my hands and knees. I remained ignorant of his intentions only as long as it took for him to penetrate me again, this time as he stood behind me.

“I don’t want to hurt you—let me know if this is too deep,” he whispered against my ear, for he had bent forward to cup my breasts in his hands.

It was deep, so deep that it bordered on discomfort, but delicious all the same. He was careful at first, moving in and out of me with keen precision, but I could feel from the way he squeezed my breasts and pinched at my nipples that he was growing restless. He wanted more from me—and I from him. So I abandoned all restraint and pushed back against him.

“Remember what I said last night?” I said, gasping a little. “More. I want more.”

“You do? How about this?”

Grasping my hips in his hands, he pulled back, far back, until his cock had almost left my body, and then he drove into me so hard I would have tumbled forward had he not held me tight. Again and again he thrust, filling me entirely, and despite my earlier climax I felt another one begin to take shape, growing and swelling with each passing second.

“Elijah...I want...”

“I know,” he said, and without breaking his rhythm he let go of my right hip and reached between my legs to rub me into the climax I sought. I so wanted to savor the feeling of the divine friction his fingers created, but it was too much, too much. I held it close, shutting my eyes against the knife-sharp moment of bliss, and so only dimly felt the moment when Elijah pulled away.

My limbs could no longer bear my weight. I fell to my side, drawing my knees tight to my chest, and closed my eyes against the return of reality.

I heard Elijah walk across the room and pour water from a jug. Outside, beyond the open window, passersby called out, carts rumbled past, birds perched on the rooftops and trilled out their joy. They might have been a thousand miles distant.

“Let me wash you,” came the soft timbre of his voice. I obliged, rolling onto my back so he might reach between my thighs. The cloth, rough and cool, felt wonderful against my overheated flesh.

“What of your seed?” I thought to ask.

“Caught in my handkerchief. I didn’t want to dirty your garments.”

“And the sponge? Shall I take it out?”

“Leave it be. I’m going to make love to you again tonight, and in the morning as well. It can stay where it is.”

Chapter Ten

He was true to his word. After we’d eaten our supper of soup, bread and apricots, he undressed us both and made love to me slowly, almost reverently, his hunger sated, or perhaps only dulled, by our frantic coupling earlier. I fell asleep in the cradle of his arms, my ear to his chest, the soothing beat of his heart my lullaby.

He kissed me awake at dawn, his cock heavy and hot against my bottom, and once I’d murmured my sleepy assent he entered me from behind, my body welcoming him without protest. At first he barely moved inside me, content with my slumberous state, but soon he became more insistent, his breath falling hot on my nape, his hand moving from my breasts to my woman’s mound.

“It’s past time we got out of bed,” he whispered. “I doubt we even have time—”

“Don’t you dare,” I warned him. “You started this.”

“I know. And I’d like you to finish it. Touch yourself for me. Show me what you like.”

His request, though outrageous, was scarcely less shocking than what he had done to me with his mouth the evening before. I reached between my thighs and began by tracing delicate circles around my pearl; I dared not touch it directly, not yet.

I reached lower, for our position allowed me to touch the heavy, enticing weight of his stones. I cupped them in my hand, squeezed them gently, then felt below them to discover the root of his cock, granite-hard and shivering.

Judging from the sounds he was making, I hadn’t much time. I began to rub the swollen place between my legs in earnest, delighting in how it throbbed beneath my fingers. The sensations were as lovely as I remembered, but many times more intense and far more satisfying.

I had always been able to make myself come quite quickly, and this morning was no exception. As my climax swept over me, I tightened reflexively around Elijah’s cock. He felt it as keenly as I, for he flattened his hand across my stomach, held me tight, and thrust sharply into me once, twice, then pulled out with a groan.

I wanted to see him come, wanted to see his seed leave his body. I rolled onto my back and watched as he worked his cock roughly, up and down, his hand holding it tighter than I would have ever dared, until his seed fell on my belly.

I would have loved to linger in bed that morning, let my mind and body adjust to all I had learned, but we had to be on our way. Elijah had told me that our route today would take us away from the valleys and their villages, so we had to walk quickly or risk a night sleeping rough.

I had every intention, however, of enjoying these last minutes before we set off for the day. As he wiped me clean, I stilled his hand with mine.

“When we make love tonight, I want to hold you. Hold you in my hand and make you come.”

“I won’t say no.”

“I’ll remind you.”

“No need,” he said, his voice gone gruff. “I’ll be thinking of nothing else the entire day.”

* * *

Today our path led us uphill, endlessly uphill, along narrow lanes, tracks and footpaths that were smooth and easy to traverse but increasingly steep. We passed through several tiny villages but only stopped once, late in the morning, so I might sketch a meadow bright with gentian, moss campion and monkshood. Another hour’s solid effort and we reached Les Verneys, where we lunched on bread and cheese from Elijah’s pack and filled our waterskins from the public
buvette
.

We walked through forests, evergreen rather than beech or oak, and as the path wound ever higher the trees began to thin, replaced by grassy slopes sliced through by forbidding monolithic rock faces. From time to time the path drew near to these cliffs, which on closer view were heavily fractured and overgrown by moss, lichen and even a few stunted conifers.

Although I knew Elijah was determined to press on, I found myself pausing again and again to stare up at the imposing rock walls that loomed over our path.

“How high would you say they are?” I asked.

“This cliff here? Not high at all. No more than a hundred feet. Perhaps a little more. It’s hard to judge from this angle.”

He stood there, looking up, seemingly lost in thought. I was about to ask if anything were wrong when he shrugged out of his coat, waistcoat and tie, rolled back his shirtsleeves and unlaced his boots. Crouching down to dig in his pack, he produced a pair of soft-soled leather shoes and pulled them on.

“I won’t be long. Stand back in case I bring down any loose rock—over by that boulder is safe enough.”

And then he was on the wall, his hands and feet easily finding purchase in the splits and cracks that fissured its surface, his progress so speedy that he was up and over the top in a matter of minutes. He hadn’t dislodged so much as a pebble.

He disappeared from sight, leaving only silence behind. Presumably he was finding his way back down again. I sat on the boulder, told myself not to worry and waited for his return. I had no pocket watch, but as the minutes dragged on it felt as if he’d been gone for a long time, perhaps longer than he ought to have been.

I didn’t hear his approach, likely because his shoes were silent on the gravel path, so I was startled when his voice came from my left.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice cheerful. “Took me a while to find a stable path. Nearly ended up climbing back down the cliff.” He must have noticed the expression on my face, for he was at my side an instant later. “I worried you, didn’t I?”

“Not so very much. Only...what if you had fallen?”

“On that? A child of ten could scale that wall without any difficulty. I assure you it was well within my limited abilities. But I’m sorry all the same.”

He dropped a kiss on my forehead and turned to the heap of clothing he had left on top of his pack, dressing speedily. After drinking at length from his waterskin, the only evidence of his recent exertion a slight sheen of perspiration at his temples, he shouldered his pack. “Off we go?”

We walked in silence for several minutes, but his last comment had piqued my interest. “You said ‘limited abilities,’ just before. Did you mean as a result of your accident last year?”

“Yes.”

“Do you care to speak of it?”

“Not especially. But I won’t bark at you if you do.”

“What happened? My brother told me only that you and Mr. Davies fell while climbing the Aiguille d’Argentière.”

“Descending it. We were leading a group of French and Swiss. Decent climbers, for the most part.”

“And?”

“We’d made the summit in good time, but the sun had waned and the temperature was falling. The surface of the glacier had iced over, so Peter descended first and cut footholds for the rest of us with his ice-axe. All was well until the man above him slipped. His feet hit Peter square in the chest. He fell, the man who’d slipped fell, and then one after another we were pulled loose.”

“Oh, Elijah—”

“Peter, and the two others who died, might still have survived, for I was the first in line and I’d been careful to secure the rope. But farther down, well below me, one of the Frenchmen panicked. He cut the rope with his ice-axe.”

“Did you fall?”

“I held on for as long as I could, but the weight of the men below me pulled us down. Peter was killed outright. I woke up a week later and they told me he was dead.”

“What of your injuries?”

“Broken collarbone and arm. Both ankles broken. There was a gash on my chest from a spur of rock I hit on the way down. Had a badly bruised kidney, so I pissed blood for weeks. That’s about it.”

He was fortunate to have survived. “Do your injuries still pain you?”

“Sometimes. Mornings are worst. Only thing to do is walk it off.”

“And what of Mr. Davies?”

“What of him? He’s dead.”

“You must miss him.”

“Of course I do. He was my friend. We grew up together.”

“Do you have any other friends as dear?” I pressed.

A pause. “No. I’m a solitary man, always have been. Peter...he made the effort to get to know me. Wasn’t put off by my miserable ways.”

“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” I said, hoping to lighten the moment. I didn’t succeed.

“My other friends, your brother included, I had because of Peter. And now...”

“Now?”

“I’m not certain how to go out in the world again. It’s easier, I suppose, to let things be.”

I reached out and took his hand in mine. “I understand.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, evidently skeptical.

“I
do
understand. I, too, tend to be solitary. And there are times when I ask myself if I’ve let life pass me by. Perhaps I ought to have married, had children. But I like my life too well to admit any alteration to it.”

“We’re quite a pair,” he murmured, some unknowable emotion alight in his eyes.

“When was the last time you saw one of these friends?”

“Months ago,” he muttered, looking away. “Strathairn stopped by overnight.”

“And was it pleasant to see him?”

“It was. We talked about Peter.”

“Was it unbearable?” I pressed.

“No.”

“Then why not visit your friends? Come back to England for a spell. I know my brother would be delighted to see you.”

“Not if he knew what you and I have been up to—”

“Oh, Elijah. You know what I mean. There’s nothing wrong in having a solitary disposition, but you aren’t meant to be alone. No one is. You must make the effort.”

“Yes, yes. I hear you. Enough chattering for now.”

I acquiesced, knowing I had pushed him enough for one day. We trudged on, my legs gradually devolving into what felt like jellied pudding, and a mantle of weariness wrapped itself around me.

At last we reached the crest of the slope we’d been climbing and were rewarded by magnificent views of the Mont Blanc massif to the west and, due south, the Grand Combin and its sister peaks. I’d seen many beautiful places since embarking on this voyage, but the mountains in every direction defied any description I might make.

“See the slope before us?” Elijah said abruptly. “The wisp of smoke in the sky above? That’s from the
cabane.
Not far now.”

Another half hour and the Cabane du Mont-Fort was in sight. The smoke from the fireplace was a good sign, signifying food and perhaps a quantity of hot water.

“May I have a bath when we get there?”

“Sorry, but no. No bathtubs. No plumbed-in water, for that matter. But you can have a sponge bath, if you like.”

“That will do.”

The cabane’s guardian, nearly as weathered as the building’s rough-hewn stone walls, appeared unperturbed by our arrival despite my being the only woman in residence. Within five minutes of our arrival we were served our supper at the communal table: vegetable soup with cubes of smoky bacon, cheese, rye bread and pickled summer cabbage, with beer or water to wash everything down.

After our meal was done we returned to our small, plainly furnished room. A tin of steaming water, a chipped ceramic basin and a stack of linen towels had been left out for us, perhaps the most welcome gift I’d ever received. Any thought I’d had of bathing in private evaporated the instant I looked Elijah in the eye.

“Of course I’m staying,” he said. “Take your clothes off.”

“It seems...immodest.”

“I understand. But I’ve already seen every inch of you naked. So take off your clothes and let me wash you.”

I complied. I removed every last garment and stood on the linen towel he had spread over the floor. He poured some water into the basin, wet a corner of one of the towels, and rubbed my bar of lemon-scented soap into the cloth.

Then he washed me from the soles of my feet to the tip of my ears and everywhere, simply everywhere, in between. When he was done, he dried me with one of the towels and bid me climb into bed.

“Aren’t you going to wash?”

“I am. Get into bed, Alice.”

“Let me help. Let me wash you.”

He made no protest, apart from an exaggerated sigh; perhaps this is what he had wanted all along.

I did as he had done, beginning with his legs, hard with muscle and covered with dark, silky hair, then, feeling nervous, I washed his outstretched arms.

I ran the linen over his shoulders and upper arms, then down to his forearms and over his mesmerizing tattoos, indelible reminders of just how different he was from ordinary men. Another woman might have deplored the markings, considering them nothing more than vulgar souvenirs. I thought them beautiful.

I moved to his hands, admiring them, too, though they were far from lovely. His fingers were battered, several crooked from what looked like badly healed breaks, and everywhere they were covered with scars, most no more than faint white lines. Relics, I supposed, of his adventures in the mountains.

The scar I’d noticed on the first night of our travels, the one from his injury last year, I washed tenderly, worried it might still be sensitive. With just a corner of the soapy cloth, I washed his face, marking the pleasure that softened his features for a brief moment.

“You don’t have to, you know,” he whispered.

“I want to. I do.”

“So get on with it. It’s freezing in here.”

I knelt before him, not sure how to proceed. He had washed between my legs, using the cloth to rub soap into my skin, then rinsed me clean with a fresh cloth. I would do the same.

Once I’d finished, I sat back on my heels to examine my work. His cock, already swollen when I’d begun, was by then fully erect, and his stones were drawn close up to his body. I realized it was an ideal moment for me to fulfill my promise from earlier, although that had been concerned with the culmination of lovemaking rather than the beginning.

I didn’t warn him. Didn’t ask. Simply rose on my knees and took him into my mouth. He flinched, just a little, but when I tilted my head back to look at his face, I saw he was anything but opposed to my actions.

There was a light in his eyes, shining hot and bright, the same light that blazed from my own. Had I truly felt desire before meeting him?
No
. I’d only ever known a thin, pallid, wretched shadow of this want, this need.

But if I were not careful, I knew—I feared—it would consume us both.