Chapter Eighteen
Concentrating on one’s latest article on agricultural advancement was not an ideal—nay, not a possible—occupation for a man preoccupied with visions of Tha?s Magdalene wearing nothing but lace.
In one’s bed wearing nothing but lace.
Eden turned his attention—whatever shreds of it he could summon—to the latest broadsheets, making notes on developments pertaining to political issues he intended to take up in the next session of Parliament.
Still, he thought of lace. Pink nipples beneath lace. Red hair beneath lace. Creamy skin beneath lace.
The anticipation made a thrum of pressure tingle in his groin. He kept finding himself hard, daydreaming of the night to come. Were he guaranteed any privacy, he’d succumb to it, relieve himself. But Tha?s had caught him attending to this urge once before, and it had been embarrassing enough. He did not need her barging into his study to find him with his cock in hand. Or to hear him gasping through the door.
And there was something rather pleasant about the wanting itself. It was languid, enlivening. He was aware of his body and his skin in a way he could not recall being in the recent past.
He took a walk; Tha?s, of course, refused to join him. He cooked supper: roast beef with carrots and onions braised in the jus, and a simple cheese and pear tart.
He summarized his latest batch of reports on marriage candidates to Tha?s as they ate, listening to her reasons for rejecting every woman on the list.
He read a book in the parlor, or pretended to, as he watched her play patience, grumbling as she shuffled around the cards and, he suspected, cheating.
Darkness fell, and they sat companionably in silence until he yawned.
Tha?s looked up from her game.
“Shall we go upstairs?”
His instinct was to come up with an excuse. But why was it that he wanted to delay the thing he’d been imagining all day?
No. He needed to stop doing this. He needed to force himself to learn, even if it meant more slips of his control. Even if it meant her seeing him fumbling his way through something he had no practice at, and no inherent skill for.
He hated the idea of it, and yet he craved her. He wanted to see her in that lace, and by God, he would let himself.
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s.”
She flounced her hair and stood up, looking pleased. “Me first. To don my finery. Come up in a quarter hour.”
He took a deep breath as soon as she was gone.
This will be fine, he assured himself, not at all believing it.
He tried to read, but all he could think about was what he was about to see and how he would react.
He watched the clock as the minutes ticked past.
“Alastair?” Tha?s called down the stairs. “I’m ready for you.”
And he was ready for her. So ready that he wanted to bring his book upstairs with him to hide the unmistakable bulge in his breeches.
Tha?s was waiting on the landing of the staircase, holding a candle, absolutely resplendent in lace. It stretched across the peaks and valleys of her body in some miracle of tailoring, nipping in at the waist below her breasts and flaring out at the hips. Her hair was swept over one shoulder in a loose plait, exposing her long neck. Her nipples were so pink beneath the ivory that he wondered if she had rouged them. He’d heard courtesans did such things. The idea that she might do it for him made him tremble.
“My God,” he said. “You’re so beautiful.”
She smiled, put down the candle, and ran her hands down her body, stopping at her hips, which drew his eyes down to the fiery patch of curls between her legs—just as red as the dazzling hair on her head. He wanted to do as he’d seen in his erotic books: put his mouth there.
He wanted to put his mouth everywhere.
“Touch me,” she said.
He stepped forward, tentatively, and put his hand on her shoulder. He wanted to drag it down, feel the rest of her.
Listen to your body, she had told him.
And so, he did. He put his hands on her breasts and lightly stroked their contours. He had to hold back a groan at the sensation.
“Would you like to see them?” she asked.
Not here, on the landing, like an animal.
“Let’s go to the bedchamber,” he rasped out.
She nodded solemnly. “Yes. Take me to bed.”
Take me to bed.
He took her hand and led her to his room. She’d lit every lamp and candle she could find, giving it a golden glow. In that flickering light, her lacy gown was even prettier. She looked like a fairy, glimmering.
She shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“A little,” she said. “But I won’t be if you hold me.”
Hold me.
He knew she was saying these things because he responded to them. He knew that she was performing, doing what he paid her for. But by God, it was working.
He walked toward her and opened his arms. She stepped into them. He wrapped himself around her.
So soft. So plump and ripe, like a perfect, juicy summer peach. And so much more petite and delicate than she seemed in daylight. Her mouth and carriage gave her the illusion of a stature she did not actually possess. He wanted to bend down and kiss the top of her head.
So he did.
“Oh, Alastair,” she murmured. “You’re so sweet.”
She looked up at him, and he bent down and kissed her mouth. She murmured and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. When she put her tongue in his mouth, he met it. He didn’t know what to do, yet somehow, he also did.
His hand slid down to the small of her back, just over the cleft of her arse, and then he was cupping her bottom, reverently tracing its generous contours, hardly believing he had the privilege of feeling her soft skin. He belatedly realized what he was doing was forward and rude, and he dropped his hands down by his sides. He broke apart from her, breathing raggedly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“You needn’t stop,” she said. “I like to be touched. It feels wonderful.”
He wanted to believe her, wanted to resume what he was doing. But embarrassment was descending upon him once again.
He’d misjudged, cocked it up. His instincts were constantly the opposite of what they should be. It was alarming how bad he was at this.
Tha?s clearly saw his disappointment in himself. His bewilderment at what to do next. His shame.
“Let me show you,” she said.
“Show me how to touch you?”
“In good time,” she said with a smile. “But first, I think it might be better to show you how good it feels to be touched. So you stop doubting yourself and feeling guilty.”
The idea of it was unnerving. But he was paying for her tutelage, and if this was the lesson she recommended, he would defer to her superior knowledge.
“I, er... Yes. If you think so.”
She nodded. “I do think so.”
He stood slack, clenching his jaw, waiting to see what she would do. But she didn’t move any closer to him. Instead, she walked over to an armchair in the corner and sat down.
“Before I begin, take off your clothes,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Undress, Alastair.”
“Why?”
“You like seeing my body, do you not?”
“I do,” he admitted. “Very much.”
“Well, your lady will want to see you the same way you want to see her. And it’s important to know your lover’s body—by sight and by touch. How will you please each other if your skin is a mystery?”
He could not imagine why a woman would want to look upon him nude. The female body struck him as a work of art, all smooth curves one wanted to caress. The male form was stark and straight by comparison, except for the rude protuberance in the middle. Nothing to stir the blood.
Well, not his blood, he reasoned. But he supposed it did follow that there might be a parallel pleasure for the opposite sex.
Regardless, Tha?s had told him to undress, and so he would. He quickly removed his coat, hanging it neatly in the closet, and then his cravat, and then his shirt. He was about to fold them when Tha?s cleared her throat.
“That can wait until we’re finished. Never interrupt passion for tidying the house. Keep going.”
He nodded and kicked off his boots, then slid off his stockings.
Which left only his breeches, which were tented by the silhouette of his erection.
Her eyes were trained softly on exactly that part of him. His nipples hardened, and he could not say if it was from his exposed skin in the cool night air or the idea of her looking at his cock.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and undid the falls, kicking his breeches down and over his ankles.
There. He’d bloody done it.
He stood up slowly and felt her eyes tracing him as he exposed his full nude body to her gaze.
“Oh, Alastair,” she said. “You’re even more splendid than I imagined.”
This was heartening to hear, though he was not sure if she was saying it to be kind or if she really liked the looks of him.
“Thank you,” he said, to be polite.
“Let’s get in bed, love,” she said softly.
It was foolish, but his heart hitched every time she called him that. Love.
He obeyed her, feeling sheepish with his cock sticking straight up in the air. He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for Tha?s to join him.
“Lie back,” she said.
As he did, resting his shoulders against the feather pillows, she stretched out beside him.
“Now, then,” she said. “Can I put my itching little fingers on that chest of yours?”
He nodded.
“So strong,” she said, rubbing her hand over his breast. “But then, since you do the work of ten servants, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
He couldn’t reply, because his breath hitched at her nearness, her spicy scent, her hair brushing his bicep. Her hand on his abdomen, lightly stroking.
My God. If this was what it felt like to be touched in such a way, then he should have been touching her like this for days.
Her thumbs found his nipples, and he gasped. She sighed happily in response.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she murmured, stroking them in circles. “I like that too.”
Her fingers traced lower, to his rib cage and his waist. And then she landed on his stomach, just below his navel, and just above the place where all the desire was churning inside him, making his skin feel hot and strained. She lightly grazed him with her nails, going lower and lower ever so slowly until her thumbs rested on his hip bones and her fingers played with the trail of hair leading to his groin.
His cock jumped at this sensation, which felt like she was manipulating some chord deep inside him. She traced up and down, back and forth, teasing the skin above his pubic bone until he shook.
“Darling boy,” she said, “you look like you want me to go a little lower.”
If she went any lower he was going to black out.
“Oh, uh, maybe not just yet, because, you see—”
“Let’s just try, and if you don’t like it, only say the word, and I’ll stop, aye?”
“Uh, very well, yes, if you don’t—”
She slid her hand down. Right down past his cock and to his balls, which she held in her palm, stroking with her thumbs.
“Is that where you want it?” she asked innocently.
And he did—he truly did—but more than that, he wanted her hands up higher, on his erection, so badly that it was torture.
And she knew it, the wicked girl. A teasing smile curved over her lips, and her eyes danced with mischief.
“Is there anywhere else you might like me to venture?”
She was going to make him say it.
And he would. He had to. He couldn’t stand it any longer.
“My cock,” he groaned. “Please, Tha?s.”
With no further preamble she gripped his shaft in one hand and rubbed her thumb over his bellend.
He cried out. He wanted this, he wanted this, he wanted this, and she gripped him tighter, caressing the head of his prick, rubbing the wetness there around, and his stomach seized and his hips shot up and he moaned her name as he erupted all over her hand.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
The French called this the little death.
And it was true. He wanted to die.