Chapter 15
Alfred
After I have been yet against blessed with the glorious experience of Annabelle de Lacey coming on my tongue, I lay on the bed with her, resting.
I am unsure if she will let me hold her, so I do not attempt it. I would like to do so, but she has made it clear that it isn’t my place to make demands.
But we lie close enough. And given how sated I feel, and hope she feels, an air of peace and intimacy still prevail.
I worry for my soul. For my future. For my ability to continue in my profession after such depravity.
But I also feel such exquisite relief, such soft pleasure, that I can’t be unhappy.
“Did you always want to be a clergyman?” Annabelle asks, her voice low in the dim room.
I am surprised by the question. I had not expected she would ask such things of me.
“I suppose. I was always raised for it. And it seemed a good life—a way to get a good income, perhaps a very good income, by helping people.”
“Is that all the clergy do? Help people?”
“When they are occupying the office correctly, I believe yes.”
She is silent. It seems unlikely that she would understand my upbringing. Hers seems to have been very different.
“I have never said that I am sorry. For the loss of your father and brothers.”
She looks at me. Her eyes are wide and soft in the dim light.
“That’s not true. You did when we first met.”
“Well, not since then, I suppose. Not since I have known you better. It must have been a shock.”
She lets out a little huff.
“Yes, it was that. All three of them—dead in the same month. Typhoid. And my father went last. I did not care for my father, but even I can pity him. To watch his two heirs die before his eyes. And then become ill himself.”
“It is an unspeakable loss. Especially all at once. And it happened so recently. You must still be very affected.”
Annabelle shrugs beside me.
“I hadn’t seen them in fourteen years. And our parting wasn’t a sweet one. And to be honest, my shock at their dying was equaled by my shock of inheriting Trescott.”
I am confused by this statement. Though one of her brothers was married, his wife died with him, and they had no children. The other brother was a bachelor. As I understand it, Trescott was never entailed. Her inheritance seems the only natural outcome of these horrible events.
“I wish I had met them,” I say. “But your brothers were already sick when I arrived.”
“A morbid welcome to your new post.”
“It was certainly unexpected.”
“And then I came.”
“Everyone expected you to arrive sooner.” There are so many subjects that are embargoed between us—I cannot imagine telling her what the village gossips said of her, for instance—but this one seems safe.
“I couldn’t leave London quickly. I have my counting house. I had to make arrangements. And—”
She breaks off.
“What?” I want to understand her better. She is less fearsome with the flush of an orgasm still on her cheeks.
“I was not eager to see the place again, I must admit. My memories here…they aren’t good ones.”
Annabelle turns to face me. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
I am not inclined to agree with her. It seems like it still matters a great deal, given that we currently find ourselves in Trescott Abbey. But I am not going to press a subject that seems so sensitive.
And then she leans towards me and kisses me again. Her bare breasts press against me, her hands on my face—I am hard again, almost at once.
She reaches down and strokes me.
“Good,” she murmurs. “That’s very nice. Would you like me to ride you now?”
I nod, trying not to seem too eager.
I know my true ruin lies before me. But it seems like a smaller step now that so much has already transpired between us.
Perhaps I feel so little internal resistance because—by every standard I ever knew—I have already ruined myself. And I don’t feel very different.
I still want and burn and work and eat and talk to God as I did before.
At this point, I mostly want the wait to end.
And then a thought occurs to me. One that has never crossed my mind before.
“What if I get you with child?”
She takes her hand off me and I gasp at the absence of her fingers.
“You must withdraw, if you would like to be sure,” she says, her eyes on the coverlet. “But I have never gotten with child before. It may not be possible. So fear not.”
I furrow my brow.
“I am not certain I can withdraw. I have never—obviously—done such a thing before.”
“Then don’t,” she says. “As I said, I doubt any ill will come of you spending inside of me.”
I pause. I am not sure what to make of her casual demeanor.
“It would be a great inconvenience to you, if I got you with child,” I say tentatively.
“Yes,” she says brusquely. “But that is unlikely to occur.”
In truth, I do not understand. But I am the novice, and she is the master.
“We could use a letter,” she says. “I have one. But I suspect you are too large. It would burst.”
“A letter?”
I have no idea of what she speaks.
“A French letter,” she explains. “It prevents a man’s seed from entering the woman.”
The solution certainly seems practical.
“Can we try it? The letter?”
She sighs in exasperation.
“If you insist. But, really, you have nothing to worry about.”
She rolls away from me, reaching towards the little box on top of her nightstand. When she comes back towards me she is holding a translucent length, almost like a small stocking.
“Let me,” she says, slipping the device over my cock.
She smoothes the letter onto me. It appears to fit, although a little tightly.
“It fits better than I anticipated,” she says, with a frown. She seems displeased, which I don’t understand. Surely, she cannot want a child. But perhaps she merely thinks I am being overly cautious.
My cock looks strange through the letter. I can see that the device is not quite big enough for me and I wonder if I am really that large compared to other men.
“I am too large perhaps. I will hurt you.”
She laughs.
“Women dream of a cock like yours, Alfred. You will not hurt me. Especially since I have been with men before.”
“If you are certain.”
“If I scream, you can be certain it is not from pain.”
I look at her and she is smiling. A true smile. The smile that guts me.
“Do not worry,” she says, putting her hand on my chest. “Are you ready?”
She has already touched me in so many ways.
In truth, though this threshold is the one that everyone speaks of, it feels no more consequential than that first time I entered her carriage.
I am already a different person than I was then. But, still, I know it is a step I cannot take back.
But it is useless to protest. I made my choice. And there is relief in that.
It is hard to feel reluctant or regretful when Annabelle kneels before me totally bare.
God, she is beautiful. Her hair hangs down loose over her shoulders, light and slightly wavy.
She looks like one of the sinful beauties from a Rossetti painting.
Except she is more bountiful than those women.
I have always found women’s breasts particularly tempting—in the past, the glimpse of the cleave between a woman’s bosom was enough, in certain circumstances, to make me hard.
And Annabelle has glorious, large breasts.
To me, they are perfect in every respect.
And then the soft swell of her stomach, the light-dark hair between her thighs—she is too much.
“Yes,” I pant. “Please.”
She straddles me as she did before, but this time we are both totally bare. It is much, much more intimate. Through the letter, my cock strains to reach her, but she has not lowered herself onto me yet.
“Are you sure?” she says, looking down.
Her beauty is heartrending. I do not understand how other men were allowed such favors and did not perish. Although perhaps they did. I have no proof that they didn’t.
I realize, suddenly, that I need to speak.
“Yes.”
Her brows knit.
“You must be certain,” she says, irritation lacing her words. “You will not go to your future bride a virgin. You must live with that.”
I almost laugh. With Annabelle above me like this, the pale notion of a future bride means little.
I don’t care. Not when I can have her now.
If I care later, at least I will have the vision of the exquisite, incomparable Annabelle de Lacey about to lower herself onto my cock to satisfy me until the day I die.
“I said yes.”
Something flashes in her eyes—triumph perhaps.
But then it is gone.
She lowers herself upon me. She sinks by only an inch, but I can feel her tightness on the head of my cock.
I groan.
She feels amazing.
Better, somehow, than I anticipated. If I hadn’t already spent, I am sure I could not bear it.
“How is that?” she says, steadying herself on my shoulders. I can no longer see her face. Her breasts are there instead.
“Good,” I say, not wanting to appear overexcited. “May I touch you?”
“Yes.”
I cup her breasts—and she slides down another inch.
“Ahhh,” I say, unable to help myself. Her breast in my hand and her quim upon me is too much. I will spend, I am sure of it. So I relinquish her breast.
“Good,” she says, seeming to understand my predicament. “I do not want you to get overwhelmed.”
“You don’t want me to spend too quickly,” I say, gritting my teeth, a tendril of humiliation snaking through me. She has had other lovers, more experienced men, who could last for hours.
“I want to savor you,” she says. “Your cock is very fine.”
The praise makes me forget anything else.
“Really?”
“Yes.” She slides down further, this time a few inches, and I can feel more of her now. Her tightness, her slickness—it is unbelievable. I understand suddenly and with clarity why people sin and keep sinning and have no regard for anything other than earthly pleasures.
“Ah, Annabelle.”
“Are you in control?”
“Yes—just—give me a moment.”
I adjust to the feel of her.
“Take a breath.”
I obey her, letting air fill my lungs. But the pleasure is nearly overwhelming. The temptation of her sweet tightness cannot be ignored.