"I don't like short hair on women."
"More reason then," she said, swinging back to him.
"Don't be childish."
"Don't be feudal."
He wasn't, of course; he was being infinitely polite. Sighing, he wondered what it was about her that tantalized him despite her tedious desire for independence.
"Tell me about your Lisbon lady friends."
Her audacity startled him. "Why would I do that?"
"I'm curious."
"A gentleman doesn't discuss the ladies he knows."
"'A
gentleman
doesn't fuck all the ladies he knows."
"Don't be tiresome, darling." His voice held a new edge.
"I shouldn't ask?"
"No." He disliked being pressed.
"And
if
I
do?"
"You're wasting your time and mine," he brusquely said, grasping the chair arms. "I'll call for Mrs. Moore."
"
/
'// summon her back," Serena quickly interposed. "Don't move," she ordered, overwrought at his damnable availability, resentful of his curt dismissal. "You stay there like a good little boy and do what you're told for once in your life."
Beau went utterly still.
"There. See how easy that was," she drawled and with a satisfied smirk she turned and began walking toward the door.
He was on top of her before she'd moved two strides, the scissors pulled from her grasp and tossed aside, the weight of his body propelling her backward until she came to rest with a soft thud against the silk-covered wall.
"Now we'll see how easy
this
can be," he whispered, his face only inches from hers, his forearms flat on the wall, framing her head as he leaned into her. "But you already know how well we fit." His smile was flinty, his body pressing into hers unyielding.
"Don't you dare."
His gaze drifting over her face was impersonal. "It's not that difficult," he said, pushing her petticoat aside with a swift, impatient gesture, baring her to the waist. "Since you're so passionat
e
—
a
s
always
,
"
he murmured. "Are you panting for
me,
darling, or just any cock?" he insolently queried, brushing a lazy fingertip over her parted lips.
Jerking her head aside, she breathlessly said, "I'm not panting," contradicting the scandalous quickening of her body. "And if you try this, I'll scream."
"Scream away." He was already unbuttoning his breeches, his voice so detached and indifferent she realized no one would come.
"This is too rash, Beau, even for you," she exclaimed, struggling against his solid weight. "They'll hear; everyone'll know."
"They already know. They knew from the moment we walked through the door," he qualified. "Come, darling, open up and let me in," he murmured, inserting his knee between her tightly clasped thighs, forcing them apart.
And as he moved between her spread legs, she could feel him hard against her belly, his rigid length triggering a thousand memories of pleasure. Like quicksilver, an answering heat flared inside her treacherous body addicted to his touch. "You can't, Beau," she softly protested, attempting to deny her volatile passions, trying to ignore his erection hard and warm on her flesh.
Heedless to her remonstrance, he slid her chemise down her shoulders, freeing her breasts, his fingers gentle on her skin, familiar.
"Your nipples are hard, darling," he murmured, stroking the swollen pink tips with deliberate delicacy, glancing up at her with a fleeting look. "Does that mean you want me?" he gently added, capturing the taut crests between his thumbs and forefingers, squeezing gently, forcing a small, perfidious moan from her lips.
Her body was eager and aroused even if she didn't care to admit it, he thought, smiling faintly. "This won't take long. . . ." he whispered.
"Please, not here," she pleaded, trying to pull away, but his fingers only tightened on her nipples, spiking pleasure downward into the pulsing core of her body.
"Yes,
here,"
he whispered, feeling her tremble. "Now," he lushly promised, releasing her breasts, grasping her firmly around her waist with one hand, his other sliding between her legs, his fingers slipping inside her.
She cried out, reeling with desire as he touched her to the quick.
She was shamelessly wet, sleek and lubricated and so ready for sex he felt his erection swell powerfully in response. "You need someone to make love to you," he whispered, his fingers stroking, knowing just how to touch her, what she liked, where, how deep. "And I can help you," he softly said, his expertise masterful, his timing impeccable, her body opening for him, wanting what he wanted.
Skillful, adroit, he devoted himself to her pleasure, stroking, massaging, his long fingers buried deep in her incited flesh, teasing her, tempting her . . . leaving her breathless with need, nearly orgasmic.
And then he abruptly withdrew his fingers.
As she shuddered at the sudden deprivation, he held his hand lightly before her face. The fragrance of desire was unmistakable."There's no point in waiting, is there?" he impudently murmured, trailing his damp fingers over her mouth.
Their eyes me
t
—
h
ers restive, his intractable beneath his insolent pose.
Fretful, in turmoil, she swore at him.
"I'm not sure that's physically possible," he said with a grin, "but I know what is." And placing his large hands around her waist, he lifted her slightly for better access, bent his legs, shifted his weight upward, and without further preliminaries entered her.
Her sigh was sanction. He knew the sound.
"You always need this, don't you," he softly said, feeling her sleek warmth yield, her breath a light panting rhythm in his ear. "Tell me how you like to feel my cock filling you," he murmured, thrusting upward until he was sunk deep inside her. "Like this ..."
She moaned, shamed by her flagrant response, the pleasure spreading outward from the deepest recesses of her body, instant, inflammatory, all-consuming.
"If you want me to stop," he said, his voice a husky rasp, "just tell me. If you don't want to climax," he went on in a velvety hush, withdrawing slowly as he spoke, "I'll understand. ..."
She wished him in hell, but half feverish with desire she could no more have him stop than she could cease breathing.
"What do you want to do?" he whispered, poised at the extremity of his withdrawal stroke, wickedly perceptive and waiting.
A small panic suffused her senses; her body throbbed, frantic for release. "Please, Beau," she entreated and then mortified, she dropped her gaze.
"Please?" He feigned incomprehension, wanting more.
Her lashes fluttered up for only the briefest moment. "Stay inside me." Her voice was so soft he had to bend low to hear her.
Lifting her chin lightly with a fingertip, he forced her to look at him. "How far inside?"
Her eyes held his for a shuddering moment. "To infinity," she whispered.
A wild rapacious jolt surged through his body at the possibility of such uncurbed possession. His fingers curled around her chin, his mouth came down on hers in a harsh, tempestuous urgenc
y
—
f
or only a brief moment. Then his head lifted, his hand dropped away, and flexing his thighs, he arched his back, driving upward, wanting to reach the farthest, absolute extremity. And when he'd attained that inexorable limit, still rampant and unrestrained, he forced himself deeper still.
"Christ," he murmured, lust raging in his blood, his brain about to explode. "Sweet Christ . . ." She was excruciatingly tight as he held himself for a raw moment against the very mouth of her womb, her smooth, silken flesh according the most paradoxically caustic shock to his senses.
Almost light-headed from the rarefied sensation, he finally remembered to breathe again, at which point a shaky kind of reality intruded and he slowly withdrew, the shuddering friction exquisite. Slipping his hands gently under her bottom, he found himself acutely aware of her skin on his palms, of her scent and warmth and pure sensuality, as if his perceptions were refined, honed to a rarer pitch. He reentered her then in a luxuriously slow ascent, taking his tim
e
—
f
or himself, for her, for the
m
—-intent on regaining that intangible feverish rush.
Trembling against the silk-covered wall, Serena was dizzy with need, waiting for what he was waiting for, almost faint from the fierce, savage pleasure. Her arms were locked around his neck, her body clinging to his with abandon, her inadvertent whimpers a small sobbing rhythm of expectation and gratitude.
"You can't scream when you come," Beau breathed, his voice caressing. "They're all listening."
Scandalized, Serena opened her eyes.
"Mrs. Moore keeps score," he salaciously whispered, "of wantonness and ravishment. . . . You have to be very quiet."
Even as she went tense under his hands, he felt her engorged flesh flutter around him, the illicit, the forbidden exciting her. "My little bitch in heat," he gently murmured, the pressure of his hands on her bottom increasing. "I'll keep you safe," he whispered, bending to nibble on the ripe fullness of her bottom lip, "because I'm going to fill you now with sperm until you can't hold anymore . . . until it runs down your thighs and leg
s
—
a
nd puddles at your fee
t
—
a
nd then if you're very good, I'll let you come again. How would that be?" he softly queried, his erection coming to rest inside her with gratifying sublimity, his hands hard on her bottom.
"Blissful," she gasped, waves of pleasure already beginning to swell inside her.
"Do you think you can take this all?" he softly asked, penetrating more forcefully, raising her up on her toes.
She nodded, no longer able to articulate the simplest response with the flood tide about to burst.
"My ravenous little glutton," he murmured, brushing a kiss over her mouth. "Next time we'll take off your petticoat too so you'll be nude in front of all these mirrors," he whispered, "and I'll make you watch when my prick disappears inside you so you'll feel it and see it an
d
—"
Her orgasmic cry broke in a high, breathless, lingering cry that rippled across the pink and gilt room and echoed down the corridor outside and brought a knowing smile to Mrs. Moore's face. A heartbeat later, Beau met Serena's climax, pulsing into her sweet, welcoming body, filling her as he'd promised, inundating her with white-hot rivulets of sperm that spilled over and ran down her parted thighs.
It was a long, pure, exaggerated interval of sexual ecstasy, their bodies suspended weightless in the universe, their senses indulged, then voluptuously overindulged, as if they were drenched in dissipation before falling at last into a trembling satiety.
And when it was over and disengaged and they were panting in each other's arms, Beau summoned enough breath to murmur, "I'm not finished with you yet."
"Lock the door," Serena ordered on a wispy exhalation.
"You can't cut your hair," he decreed, ignoring her command.
"I won't if you don't want me to," she murmured, her sultry glance flagrantly flirtatious.
"You
are
a little bitch," he said, grinning.
"And you have to be put in your place occasionally."
"Any special place?" he playfully inquired.
"I was thinking about the divan." Her voice was a purring vibration.
"Which divan?" His gaze was roguish.
He was much too beautiful and much too assured, she thought, but she was ultimately more hedonistically selfish than aggrieved. "All of them, my dear Glory, if you think you can keep up."
Slipping
out
of
his
jacket,
he
began
untying
his neckcloth. "I think I can manage," modestly replied the man who was called Glory for a particularly brilliant performance one night with the entire corps de ballet.
******************
He didn't lock the door as it turned out because Serena forgot about it in the libidinous act of helping him undress; but they weren't disturbed as he expected. They dallied on all the divans per the lady's request and the young Earl of
R
ochefort's inclination and also on a chair commodious enough to accommodate their licentious play, as well as on the rose-patterned carpet when they slipped off a pink satin sofa in the course of their amorous romp. It was the most pleasant style of shopping conceivable, both agreed on more than one occasion that morning. And some lengthy time later when desire was quenched at last and Beau had redressed Serena in her petticoat and chemise, retying bows and buttoning buttons while blissfully exchanging numerous kisses and smiles, he set his own clothes to rights and left the room in search of Mrs. Moore.