Chapter 40
Neither of them did justice to their meal. Caroline, he was sure, must have felt the way his eyes dwelled on her, and as for him, desire had its claws embedded far too deeply in his flesh for him to care about assuaging any other appetite.
The cats feasted like kings on the leftovers and Gervaise took them downstairs, letting them out into the yard to answer the call of nature while he smoked one last cigarette. Reg had heated their washing water and was busy cleaning their plates when he came back inside.
Gervaise tipped him handsomely and carried the jugs upstairs as the cats did their best to trip him up on every step. Once they had washed and he had Caroline back under the covers where he wanted her, he insisted they revisited Vance Park once more.
“Follies are romantic, are they not?” Caroline whispered.
Were they? Gervaise shook his head to dispel his fog of lust. “Fuck, yes,” he enthused, rolling on top of her. He had pushed himself too far tonight, and now he ached for her almost to the point of pain. He shuffled back from her just far enough to whip off his nightshirt.
He had kept it on in the vain hope he could maintain some semblance of control.
Here in the darkened bedroom, that seemed not only unlikely but also unappealing.
He wanted to feel his bare skin on hers.
He took her in his arms once more, sighing in relief as their bodies made contact.
His cock throbbed against her hip. He could not resist kissing her, once, twice, thrice.
“Are you going to let me tell you now, Miss Halperston?” he asked.
“Tell me what?” she answered breathlessly.
“What a conquest you have made of me.”
“Yes, please do, Lord Atherton. I am all ears.”
“Caroline,” he said, “I’ve never felt like this before. You are all I think about, all I care about. I don’t give a damn about anything else these days. I want to—to do things I’ve never wanted to do before. To make plans. Plans for us.” He paused and drew back when she said nothing.
She looked quite dazed in the feeble candlelight, and he could not say as he blamed her. Where the hell had all that come from? Her breathing was coming fast now. “This is our first m-meeting!” she reminded him faintly. “Your feelings cannot possibly be engaged to such an extent—”
“Well, they are,” Gervaise said bluntly. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Um. Run away with you?” she suggested uncertainly.
He relaxed. “A bold but excellent suggestion, Miss Halperston. We will elope.”
She drew in a breath, no doubt to clarify it was not an elopement, but Gervaise prevented her from speaking with yet more kisses. “I will meet you at the bottom of your drive and we will run away together, yes?”
“Er, yes,” she agreed faintly and Gervaise felt a strange satisfaction seep through his bones.
They kissed and it was not remotely chaste, but open-mouthed and wet.
He groaned into her mouth, revealing the full extent of his need for her.
Pulling her up against him, he let her feel his arousal, his hand roaming proprietorially over her backside, urging her into closer and yet closer proximity with it.
Fortunately for him, Caroline showed no reluctance after his heated words.
If she had it would have felt like being doused in a bucket of cold water.
Instead, her hand drifted down his chest and stomach.
He broke their kiss, breathing hard. He glanced down at her hand which had stopped just above his belly button.
“May I…?”
“You may.” He took a couple of calming breaths and released her, sitting up and shifting up the bed to sit against the headboard, gesturing for her to join him.
He reached up to grip the top of the headboard with one hand and held the other out to her, guiding her to encircle his shaft.
“Stroke me like this,” he instructed, biting his lip.
“Like this?”
“Yes,” he answered, forcing himself to look away from the enticing sight of her fingers wrapped about his cock and back at her lovely face. Removing his own hand, he reached across to rest it on the back of her neck. Caroline leaned forward, lowering her face, mistaking his meaning.
Gervaise sucked in his breath. “What are you—?”
She looked up at the sound of panic in his voice. “What’s wrong? Do not want—?”
He exhaled noisily. “I do, but— If you do, I won’t be able—”
She tipped her head to one side. “I won’t mind if it happens again,” she assured him. “I didn’t mind it at all.”
If he concentrated very hard on her perfect face, he could hold himself together, he thought, swearing under his breath. “This time—” he began but could not bring himself to continue.
“What is it?”
“I’ll want something more from you. I’ll want—” He broke off frustratedly.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked suspiciously. When he would only shake his head, a stubborn look crossed her face. “I’ll just have to ask Gracie tomorrow, then.”
“You’ll do no such thing!”
“She told me about ventre a terre,” she told him.
“I know,” he admitted. “I overheard you that time.”
“She’s sure to know whatever it is. Or Vi will.”
“Very well, I’ll tell you,” he answered. “If we do this again, I’ll want to come in your mouth.” He squeezed his eyes shut against her inevitable horror.
“Oh!” She sounded surprised. He opened one eye. “Is that…?”
“A reasonable request for a man to ask?” he guessed. She nodded and he pulled a face. “Of his mistress, yes.”
She considered this a moment. “Well, I am your mistress,” she pointed out.
He gave another frustrated huff. But I don’t want you to be, Gervaise thought desperately. I want you to be my wife! He still had just enough self-control though to keep this thought to himself.
“You let me sit on your face earlier,” she stated calmly. “How can my mouth on your…” She could not quite bring herself to say it, he noticed. “Well, how can it be any more shockingly intimate than that?”
He groaned softly. “It’s not.”
“So then…?”
Instead of answering, he increased the pressure on the back of her neck, and she slowly lowered her face to his hard cock, her eyes on his face until the last minute. He would not actually do it, he told himself. There was not the smallest danger he would permit such a— Ah!
His hips bucked as Caroline licked him lingeringly from base to tip and then back down again. “Is that nice?” she murmured, and a cold sweat broke out on his brow. There was no way he was going to be able to withstand such treatment.
“Yes,” he ground out.
“Yes?” She sounded gratified. “What about this?” She rested a hand against his thigh to anchor her while her tongue gently traced a pattern over his balls. A figure eight this time, though it might as well have been her initials. He felt branded. Owned. And what’s more, he liked the feeling.
The trouble was, he wanted the official seal to confirm this status.
What the hell would it take at this point?
He ran his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, concentrating on the feel of her silky, dark hair against his fingertips to ground him against the sensation of her mouthing his shaft as she made her way back up his cock.
She was more confident this time, less cautious.
When she reached the tip she hesitated, breathing hard.
Was she…? Gervaise held his breath and bit back a groan.
But no, of course she wasn’t going to. He opened his mouth to tell her he had changed his mind, when she leaned suddenly forward engulfing his cockhead in her warm, wet mouth.
Gervaise’s eyes flew open wide, and he made a startled noise in his throat. He dared not move in case she spat him out. He was poised on a knife edge. Realizing he had twisted his fist in her hair, he struggled to relax his fingers. “Fuck, sorry.”
She made a querying sound around his cock that had it jumping and lodging further in her pretty mouth. “Fuck, Caroline,” he wheezed. Fuck. It felt too good. His vision flickered. He was going to come. He desperately wanted to, and yet to maintain this blissful, tortuous moment a while longer.
Her mouth felt incredible. Did she hate it?
He ran his hand comfortingly over the back of her neck and shoulders and tried to relax, to make it last. He would not ask her suck him, however much he was tempted.
Instead, he would savor this for what it was.
Sensible Caroline Halperston with her pretty governess charm had taken his cock in her mouth and— Fuck!
He grunted in surprise as he felt her questing tongue flicker along the underside of his cock. Gervaise’s nostrils flared. She didn’t want to comfort him, he realized, with her warm, wet mouth. She wanted to make him come.
His hand tightened on the headboard so hard he was surprised it did not splinter.
Fuck, she was going to succeed too. “Caroline,” he ground out, and barely recognized his own voice, fighting the urge to buck into her mouth, fighting the impulse to just let go and blessedly release, when she suddenly got the devilish impulse to suck him.
“Unnnnghhhh! Holy fuck!” He came with a yell and a series of groans which were so loud they could likely raise the dead, let alone the fellow inhabitants of the attics.
He grunted and spurted like a brute, noisy and uncouth, with little regard for manners or discretion.
All the while he kept his hand clamped to her nape as his hips thrust up, indecently vocalizing his pleasure.
He could not even bring himself to regret it as he slumped against the headboard, gasping for breath. Well, Effie and Viola (or whatever the hell her name was) would no longer wonder what he saw in Caroline, he thought, blinking down at the back of her head.
She had made him come so hard they likely had their pillows over their heads, cursing his loudness.
He was frankly surprised Caroline was not coughing and choking on his softening dick right now.
He forced himself to release her, and she sat up, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, her eyes bright and her face pink.
“Well?” she asked eagerly.
“Well, what?” he croaked.
“How was it?”
“Do you really have to ask?” His eyes fixed on her shiny lips. “Fuck, Caroline, did you just swallow?”
“Oh, was I not supposed to? I wasn’t really sure what else to do, and you took me by surprise, so I—”
He jerked her into his arms and put a stop to her words with his mouth.
She melted against him and he held her close, smoothing her hair down her back.
When their mutual breathing had evened out, he dragged the covers up and over them, rearranging the pillows.
“Comfortable?” he asked as they settled against each other.
“Mmm, yes.”
“Good.” Then because he could not help himself, he asked. “What are you thinking about?”
“That thing you once said to me,” she said in a low voice.
“That one time in the mail coach.” She reached across, taking his hand in hers.
“At the time, I scarcely knew if I could believe you, but now I know you were in deadly earnest.” She looked so sweetly serious that Gervaise felt his heart thud in his chest. What thing? When he had asked her to marry him?
“When you said you were my true friend,” she elaborated, and Gervaise tasted the bitterest kind of disappointment.
No, he had never asked her to marry him on their coach journey, fool that he was.
He cursed himself silently. If he had done, he might not be stuck now in this predicament where his feelings were far more engaged than hers.
She kissed his knuckles and settled her head against his shoulder.
The door squeaked and he heard the patter of paws, and the cats were leaping onto the bed.
Tomorrow, he would have to start convincing her of the necessity of marriage.
He would bring up the special license, he thought, and the smart townhouses that had just been built in Avenue Road.
There must be some way of convincing her. He just hadn’t hit on it yet.