Where Destiny Plays, page 5
He stroked the length of his cock, rubbed his thumb over the head. She had put him in her mouth and, more amazingly, had enjoyed it. How rare to find a woman who enjoyed fellatio. He had been tempted several times to seek out a man in the catamite clubs but he hated whorehouses. Why would one catering to homosexuals be any less devoid of soul and emotion?
He squeezed his glans then languidly continued his strokes. She had let him take control, let him use her roughly, not seeking any rewards or promises for indulging him his letches because she shared the same desires.
The remembered thrill of slamming into her from behind stirred him into action, propelling him to pump harder. Her uninhibited moans, her freedom in reveling in her body’s sexuality, her frank expression of a deeply held emotion all spoke of a highly sensual woman, a woman he had been longing for, a woman he needed, a woman he was going to find.
He arced his back above the pillow, coming on his hand, remaining poised in the air a moment before collapsing onto the mattress. He stared at the ceiling, exhaling the last of his release.
He would find her. That coming Season he would attend every damn ball, soiree, luncheon, and tea to flirt with every unattached woman over thirty-five like a man possessed. Of course, there was no guarantee his odalisque was unattached, but the fact she was trying to forget a lover was a strong indication she was.
And once he kissed her, he would know exactly if it was she or not.
He sighed. That would be a lot of women. And what if he didn’t find her?
Well, there was one other woman who did attract. So be it. If he couldn’t find his odalisque, perhaps he’d pursue the lovely Lady Foxley-Graham. At least she wasn’t one of the adolescents his mother had been recommending to him of late. As a woman of experience, well, that meant she would know a little about what to expect in his bed.
And the shape of her mouth reminded him of another, recently wrapped around his prick.
Chapter Four
London, February 1880
Lavinia paced the Persian carpet in her morning room. Nicholas was in town and had sent a message he wanted to see her, to visit her at her house. She had thought to suggest they meet at a restaurant or café. But how would he have responded to such an unusual suggestion from an intimate friend? She was the one who had qualms, who worried that they hadn’t been alone since the wedding and wasn’t sure she would have complete control of her emotions.
Nicholas probably thought a visit nothing more than a visit.
And when he entered, he immediately went to her and kissed her on both cheeks. She had nothing to worry about.
Sims brought the tea tray and left it on the table before the sofa.
Nicholas strolled around the room. “I’m staying with the Phillipses. Helena and I have our own suite there.” He brushed his fingers across a fruitwood side table then picked up and examined a blue-and-white porcelain box. “Everything there is so modern. Everything in your house is so…familiar.”
“Will you try to acquire the former Atherley property in town?”
“No.” He looked out the window briefly then continued his pacing. “I thought about it, but I’m not sure it’s worth the expense. I hear the new owners have done a fine job with renovations. I’m glad of that. When Helena and I feel we need a London house of our own, we’ll find something.”
“And how is married life treating you?”
He sat on the other end of the sofa. “Vinny, I cannot express the utter joy I feel with Helena. It is pure heaven.”
“But surely you expected it to be, darling.” She handed him his teacup.
“No…no I didn’t think it would be like this. Not from watching my parents, not from what you said about how things were with your husband.” He took a sip. “It’s like being with my best mate from university days and a lover all at once.”
She and Nicholas had been just that a year ago. Or perhaps she had mothered him too much for him to think of her as a mate. “And to think it’s only been a few months.”
“I know! I can only imagine what a lifetime will be like.” He sipped his tea then placed the cup on the table. “And we have news.”
Lavinia gasped. “So soon?”
He colored. “We didn’t want to wait.”
She held out her hand. “Congratulations, Nicky.”
He squeezed her hand. “Oh, Vinny, it’s absolutely marvelous. I mean how many wives take such an interest in their own bodies when they are with child? We both find it utterly fascinating the changes day to day. We write everything down in a journal—how she feels, what she eats, even how big she’s getting. We measure her belly and well, other places. She’s more plump all over.” He grinned against a blush. “It’s quite amazing really. And to have a wife who is as fascinated as I—I’m still astounded.”
She laughed. “I see you’ve never stopped being a doctor.” It was wonderful to see him so excited, so joyful. “Darling, I’m so very happy for you. Helena’s parents must be thrilled.”
“They are. Mr. Phillips is crowing like a rooster in a hen house.” He eyed her. “You must know about Sophia by now?”
“I do. Mother and daughter pregnant at the same time is an unlikely occurrence. Is this why you came all the way to London?”
“It was important to me to tell you in person.” He turned a gentle smile to her. “You mean a great deal to me.”
She gulped down tea to quash the lump of emotion in her throat. “Nicky, you could have sent a letter. I would have understood.”
“Well,” he sighed, leaning back against the sofa, “there is the opening of Parliament on Thursday and I am the Earl of St. Albans now. I was advised by the Marquess of Richmond that as a new peer I should make an appearance.”
“Of course. Richmond is very astute. Although I gather he’s decided to stay in Lincolnshire?”
Nicholas chuckled. “He says old peers aren’t expected to show their faces in the middle of winter. Something about the chill in his bones.” A smirk twisted on his lips. “Although the marquess does not seem to be the kind of man to let a chill in his bones get in his way.”
“Politically, he lets nothing get in his way and he hates defeat.”
“I presume you’ve been on the other side of one of his battles.”
She smiled at the memories. “A few times.”
Nicholas reached for his teacup and stirred the contents absentmindedly. “Vinny,” he began with a hint of bashfulness, “there is something else.”
“Oh?”
“Since I left you last summer, I know there hasn’t been another.”
She flushed. “That’s really none of your concern.”
“Yes it is. You are my dear friend and I don’t want you to be lonely.”
“Are you going to play matchmaker this Season like Sophia?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Would you like me to?”
“No! I’m fine. I have plenty of friends.”
“But you lack a lover.” His gaze held an earnest intensity.
“I—” She stared at him, realization sending a stabbing chill up her spine. “Nicky, you have a wife and a baby on the way.”
“I have a most unusual wife. It was she who brought it up.”
Lavinia stood and walked to the window, turning her back on him so he wouldn’t see the tears dampening her lashes.
“Helena’s like her parents in that regard. Besides, I was yours before she met me so she feels you have some sort of right.”
“I no longer have a right, if I even had one to begin with.”
He came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Besides, you were never mine,” she said. “Our affairs have always been brief.”
He turned her to face him. “I will always be yours, Vinny.”
With his fingers under her chin, he tilted up her face as he lowered his. He pressed his lips to hers, tenderly yet persistently.
She wanted him, oh, how she wanted him. But it was wrong. He held her steady at her waist, continued his kisses down her neck, running his finger under the high collar of her dress to flick his tongue against her pulse point.
“Nicky, stop.” She tried to make it sound as if she didn’t want him but her words came out breathy.
“Tell me you don’t want me.”
He would know she’d be lying. Her cunt throbbed in anticipation. “I don’t sleep with married men.”
“Now you do.”
He pulled her close to ravage her mouth. She relented, letting him plunder her depths with his tongue, crushing her needful body against his, circling her arms around his neck.
“Let’s go upstairs, Vinny.”
“The servants will talk.” Well, that was a lie. She prided her staff on their unfailing loyalty and discretion.
“I very much doubt that. Besides, the scandal is mine to have. I’m a married man, remember?”
She led him up the stairs to her bedroom, closing and locking the door behind them. He wasted no time in tearing off his clothes, a distracting sight while she removed her own. In a few months, his body had changed, had bulked and thickened, his muscles more defined. She stared, slack-jawed at the wondrous sight.
“Vinny?” He stepped forward. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”
She ran her hand down his torso, along the ripples of his abdomen, stopping at the dark hair at his groin. A sensual thrill coursed through her. That he was already hard added decoration to the sculpted beauty. “Married life has been good to you.”
He chuckled. “More like being the earl of a dilapidated estate has been good to me.” He tugged open the fastenings of her corset. “Although I will admit a regular regimen of calisthenics in the bedroom has helped.” He pulled off her chemise. “Let me demonstrate.”
He scooped her up in his wonderfully thick arms and carried her to the bed, tossing her on the mattress before jumping on himself. He straddled her, propped on his arms and legs, a perfect position for her to continue her inspection of his glorious body. He smirked as his cock twitched playfully between them.
“I’m ready. What about you?”
She had been ready the moment he had kissed her, probably before. He slid a finger through her wetness, chuckling in satisfaction and victory.
He put his glistening finger in his mouth and sucked provocatively. “I see we can forgo preliminaries.”
He poised himself at her entrance and arched a brow, his expression one of challenge—which one of them would capitulate to the forbidden desire first? He jabbed the head of his cock against her, not bothering to direct his aim, a game to get her to do it for him.
She quirked a brow in response then tilted her hips.
He slipped in easily with a groan of approval.
Her last encounter had been months ago, with the sultan at the masquerade. Anonymous sex had its pleasures, but joining with Nicholas had so much more. His cock filled her like any man’s but the joy that accompanied it remained unmatched. He knew her body, knew to suck her nipple during his first few strokes, knew to massage her clit as he increased his speed.
And now the familiar joining was accompanied by a new visual treat.
“I want to see you, Nicky.”
He pulled back onto his knees and grabbed her ankles, spreading her legs wide. She held the position and reveled in the view of masculine perfection.
He released an ankle to move her hand to her sex. “I want to see you, too.”
She touched herself, her flicks and strokes quickly devolving to an unfocused frenzy as Nicholas’ lust overtook them both. He bent over her, his hair tickling her cheek, his breath loud in her ear, keeping her mired in the present as her orgasm built to transport her to ecstasy. She clenched around him with a cry. He raised his head to meet her gaze, his eyes glazed in hunger, his brow furrowed in uncontrolled surrender. She touched a finger to his cheek.
He jerked backward, tearing himself from her, spasming amidst growls as he came on the counterpane.
He curled at her side, his pounding heart music to her ears.
“Thank you for having the presence of mind to pull out, Nicky. Although I should have known a doctor would do such a thing.”
“You taught me how to do that.” He was still slightly breathless.
She laughed softly. “I suppose I did.”
He shifted onto his back, wrapping a strong arm around her and pulling her close. “And I seem to recall we had fun reviewing the lesson.”
She threaded her fingers through his chest hair then followed the new contours with her palm. Their affair of over a decade ago had been quite a bit of fun. Unwittingly he also helped her pick up the pieces of her broken heart, giving her confidence to pursue others.
“There’s one day in particular I remember about that summer, Nicky.”
“Oh God,” he groaned. “Not the pissing story again!”
She laughed. “No, dear. Afterward. When you told me you loved me.”
He smoothed her hair before kissing her head. “Yes, I do remember.”
There was a beat of silence, Lavinia expecting Nicholas to qualify his answer with a denial of current emotions. But he did not.
“Last year,” she continued, “I think I fell in love with you a little.”
His breath lay hot on her scalp. “I was a different man then. Nicholas Ramsay, ambitious doctor of independent means, distancing himself from his past.”
“Ah yes, but when you became earl and embraced that past, my heart did not change.”
He pulled her close. “I guess our emotions just weren’t synchronized.” He kissed her hair. “I’m a very lucky man to be loved by two wonderful women.”
Synchronized. That was an interesting way to put it. Her emotions had never been synchronized with a lover. She sighed and nuzzled against him. Perhaps one day her heart would match the beat of another.
* * * * *
Julius skimmed his hand over Grace’s nude body as she lay next to him in their bed. As they had been doing far too often recently, they had simply made love. No devices, no equipment, no creative positions. He had lain on top of her, between her legs. She moaned beneath him. They came moments apart. Then he had rolled off and they dozed. There was an unexpected satisfaction in the simple act.
A dream had woken him, a dream of her laughing, smiling. She did that so infrequently—there was not really cause for it in their lives—but when she did, it stirred his heart, a relaxing warmth overtook him, a feeling that matched one Grace had described as a cat stretching in a sliver of sunlight.
And then he had looked over at her, her brown hair spread over the pillow, and she really was smiling, lost in her own pleasant dream.
He cupped a breast, weighing it, then the other. They were heavier and fuller than a few months ago. Her belly, no longer flat, curved with a healthy plumpness. Of course living with him meant she ate regularly and healthily. She was no longer the skinny waif who had walked through his door, willing to participate in his sexual experiment for bed and board.
Perhaps another man wouldn’t have noticed the changes in a lover’s body. But he was a doctor and women’s bodies were his specialty. Missed menses, morning nausea, erratic emotions, increased appetite, the sudden craving for meat. The last was what had startled him to realization. She had not balked at his vegetarian diet when she had first joined his household. He had, at first, refused. An hour later he was instructing his housekeeper Mrs. Jennings to purchase a portion of meat for Grace. The old woman had done so without question. It was Julius’ diet that was unusual, not Grace’s request for a typical English dinner.
He rested his palm on her belly, letting his warmth penetrate her skin, a slight thrill teasing his loins at the knowledge that her body was changing because of him. She shifted, curling away from him, forcing his hand to slide over her hip and fall to his side, leaving him bereft of comforting contact…
Releasing a long buried memory.
A chill crept across his flesh. There had been only one other time in his life when a lover had carried his child. And that had gone badly. Very badly indeed.
This time, with Grace, he swore it would be very different.
* * * * *
Lavinia crumpled the Morning Post and threw it on the floor then stood and paced before the couch, trying to make sense of the restlessness that plagued her. Was it because most of her friends were still holed up in their country estates for the winter, leaving her alone?
No…it was because making love to Nicholas during the past week had left her with a vague sense of irritableness.
She stopped and stared at the clock on the mantel. It was already almost three in the afternoon. She needed to get out of the house despite the chill in the air and the late hour. But where to go?
Perhaps the milliner’s. A new bonnet often cheered her. Or the dressmaker’s to discuss ideas for the Season. She hadn’t purchased herself any new jewelry recently…
Nothing moved her from her spot. Her gaze wandered to the Post on the floor, the paper perfectly creased at the column for the Imperial Parliament.
She exhaled. What she needed was politics.
Before Nicholas, she had been a frequent visitor to the ladies’ galleries of both houses of Parliament. Years ago, the Earl of Thuxton, whose talent with his tongue went beyond his abilities as an orator, had made sure the porters knew exactly who she was and to treat her with the utmost respect. It might be hot and stuffy in the Ladies’ Gallery at the House of Commons but it afforded a change of venue with a bit of privacy.
Besides, it was always a fine thing to see dozens of men peacocking about, their displays of bald power having less to do with running the country than conceit and arrogance, their hubris of a type reserved only for other men. Behind the grille of the gallery—her presence obscured and forgotten—a woman could observe what a man would be like in the bedroom. Observing Parliament was not just politically enlightening…it was sexually arousing.
Plus, watching laws being discussed vociferously while making snide comments with other women would dispel the loneliness that had filled her otherwise busy days of late.
She quickly changed then took a cab to Westminster.
