Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Ido not think I have the strength for a second time,” Alice said with a light laugh, maneuvering herself out from beneath Marco.
He moved to allow her to sit up. She perched on the desk, and he stood before her with her legs on either side of his hips.
He could not stop his eyes from lingering on the flushed skin of her throat.
The desire to bend down and suck on the skin until it bruised was intense.
“Fair enough,” he said, leaning forward to smooth the hair back from her face.
He sighed when he caught the look of rapture on her face.
The look of complete satisfaction. He very much wanted to replace it with a look of desire as she squirmed under him, but he needed to restrain himself.
Alice was still unaware of the depths of his passion, and he did not want to push her too far today.
She tipped her head up and kissed him, making Marco's resolve falter with her boldness.
"But I think I would enjoy watching your pleasure," she whispered.
Marco's breath caught at her salacious suggestion. She blushed prettily as he regarded her. He stared deeply into her eyes, seeking the truth in them.
“Do you think so?” Marco whispered, his heart thundering.
“Yes.”
“Bringing a man to release is hardly a ladylike act,” he said, catching Alice’s smile and bending down to kiss the corner of it.
“Well, you already know that I am not really a lady," Alice teased, her fingers playing with the hair at the back of his neck. “Teach me how to pleasure you. Should I use my mouth as you did?"
The thought of her on her knees before him.
His hands fisted in her hair as her pretty mouth wrapped around his shaft was almost too much to bear.
His whole body jerked in response, and his arousal became painful.
He fought to keep his voice level and maintain his composure when he replied.
"As delightful as that would be, I think we should start with something less... advanced."
Marco glanced at the brass ormolu clock on his mantle.
He imagined they had a little more time before her mother would expect Alice to return from their ‘ride.’ When he turned back at her, he saw that Alice was looking at the bulge in his breeches with hunger in her eyes.
She reached between them and used her nimble fingers to undo the row of little buttons of his fall.
As soon as she freed the last button, she dipped her hand inside his clothes and brushed her fingers against his hot, eager flesh.
Marco groaned and dropped his head onto her shoulder.
He could no more stop her from touching him than he could move a mountain.
He simply did not have the strength. He moved his hips forward and pressed himself into her hand.
“Tell me what to do,” Alice whispered in his ear. Marco groaned again and let his fingers find her bare knees, digging into warm flesh as he settled more firmly between her thighs.
“Just… close your hand around me and stroke,” he muttered, keeping his eyes closed and his face pressed into the bare skin where her shoulder and neck met. He inhaled the scent of jasmine and musk, a heady mixture that almost brought him to his knees.
"Like this," Alice asked as she followed his command a bit too enthusiastically. Her grip on his engorged flesh was so firm he winced.
"Not quite so tight," he said as he moved back a bit.
"So sorry. It seems my instructor is not giving me proper direction," Alice said flatly as she loosened her grip.
Her tone made Marcus burst out in a chuckle, shaking his head, and squeezing her knee in a warning.
She slowly ran her fist up the length of his manhood, and his laugh turned into a moan.
“Don’t make me laugh right now, you saucy wench,” he teasingly said.
Then he ground his teeth at the need to thrust his hips.
He did not want this to end too soon. He would not spend himself in less than a minute like a green lad.
He had longed for Alice's touch, and he meant to keep her hands on him for as long as possible.
“Very well. Shall I instead tell you what I have been imagining?” Alice whispered; her voice suggestive but uncertain. The husky rasp of her voice sent a bolt of pleasure through him.
“God, yes!” he gasped out, unsure if he was responding to her question or the movements of her hand.
"Since the night of the opera, I have often fantasized about us lying naked together in a bed. Of having your hands on me and..." She trailed off, and her grip became slack, her movements stopping entirely.
He gritted his teeth, longing for her touch, and couldn’t stop his hips from bucking to shove himself into her hand. Her grip became firmer again, and Marco sighed.
“Of how we might bring one another pleasure with those touches?” He whispered back, continuing to gently pulse his hips to thrust his shaft into her fist. "Or perhaps of how we might be intimately joined?”
“Yes,” Alice breathed in his ear.
Marco was glad she was not some ignorant debutante, that her imagination could take the facts she learned from the maids she previously worked with and spin them into a decadent fantasy.
“You have thought of us coming together?” he asked breathlessly.
She continued to touch him as he spoke. Her soft fingers traced the head of his manhood before again fisting him and stroking down his length.
His hips began to thrust faster, silently urging her to quicken her movements, which she did.
“Yes," she whispered again. Her strokes became firmer, and Marco prayed that she would not stop. She was bringing him to the brink, and he felt he would die if she did not give him release. "I imagined having more than just your fingers opening me..."
Marco groaned loudly at the image she created.
Of him thrusting inside her tight body instead of just her hand.
The thought caused a bead of moisture to form on his shaft.
She swirled her fingers into the slickness of his desire and spread it around.
Her wonton words, her unbridled passion, were about to undo him.
She was indeed like a goddess, and he wanted to fall to his knees and worship her.
“How did it make you feel when you thought of that?” He gasped out, desperate to know if she was as affected by him as he was with her. His hips moved in a more broken rhythm now; his release was so close.
“It made me tremble, and I felt hot all over like I was in a fever and...”
“And?” Marco all but barked, needing her to finish her thought.
“And I felt as if I would expire if I did not have you inside me," Alice confessed in a rush.
Her words set his body and soul on fire.
He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket as he desperately thrust into her hand.
"God, Alice!" he cried out as he pumped one last time, then pulled back and spilled his seed into the handkerchief that he managed to get around his shaft just in time.
He did not know what he would have done if he had spent himself on her gown.
A stain such as that would certainly be evidence of their tryst.
His knees became weak, and he started to stumble back when Alice's strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him to her. She embraced him tightly as his breathing slowed and his body stopped shuddering with the power of his release.
“You have undone me, Alice," he mumbled, nuzzling the hair that had come undone from her pins during their interlude.
“Then I believe that makes us even, as you did the same to me,” Alice responded. Marcus rubbed his cheek against her soft auburn hair, thinking dazedly of how beautiful it would look spread across his pillow.
“Acts of love are not transactional, darling,” he whispered without thinking, not realizing the implication of his words until it was too late, and he felt Alice stiffen.
“Acts of love?” she repeated, and Marco could hear the shrewdness in her voice even if he could not see it in her face. “Were these not simply acts of pleasure?"
Marco's heart began to pound in his chest. How could he answer that question? He didn't know if he dared to reveal what he felt about her. He wasn't sure if what he was feeling was love yet, but he knew he had to be honest with her.
"They were certainly pleasurable," he whispered, pulling back, and raising his hand to stroke her silky cheek. “But I think perhaps they were also acts of love."
Alice looked at him steadily for a second, her eyes revealing nothing, and then turned away.
“Perhaps,” she repeated, and Marco wondered about the doubt in her voice.
He did not know if she doubted his feelings or was unsure of her own. He stepped back, not knowing what to say next. Alice eased herself onto the floor. As she did, the various objects she had scattered across the desk in her passion, including several playing cards, fell to the rug.
Alice bent to retrieve the items and picked up one of the cards. She examined it with a frown on her face. Marco realized too late that it was no ordinary playing card. The cards at their feet each had a name scrawled on them. Fife. Thompson. Branch. Hackman.
"What is this?" Alice asked quietly.
Alice stared at the card in her hand with the signature of Sir Reginald Hackman penned boldly across it.
She looked up at Marco, unsettled by the name of that despicable man intruding upon their time together.
It was bad enough that he marred the night of their engagement with his nasty insinuations.
“Why do you have a card with Hackman’s signature on it?” she asked.
"Oh, it was just part of a silly game," he said quickly.
He picked up the others, along with the rest of the objects that had fallen to the floor and tossed them on his desk.
“I suppose I should return you to your home now. Your mother will be wondering if I have stolen you away to Gretna Green; we have been gone so long.”