Addicted (21 page)

Her heart leapt at his kindness. He had always been so caring and thoughtful toward her. It had been his sensitive nature that had drawn her in the first place. Sitting down beside him, Anais held his hand gently in hers. “You need to take care of this, Lindsay. It’ll grow infected if you don’t.”

“I don’t need anything.” He cupped her face. “Just you here in the quiet with me.”

She saw how sleepy he appeared. How much had he smoked? she wondered.

“Angel,” he said as his hand reached for the tie of her wrapper, “come to me.”

She wanted to. Oh, God, how much she wanted to.

He sat up, leaning a little closer to her as he ran his hand down the curve of her breast, which pressed against the silk. “Rise up from this bed and walk to me amidst the smoke. Crawl atop me, just like the smoke does, Anais.”

She didn’t move, only closed her eyes against the wonderful sensation of his gentle touch. “Are you real, angel, or are you just anther figment of my mind? I can hardly tell anymore. Yet you feel so very real. So warm and alive. I can feel your heart beating against my palm. I can hear your breaths. Yet I know I must be dreaming, seeing you like this.”

She was weakening, feeling herself moving into him. What sort of creature was she? Some stranger in her own skin, a wanton who could not stop her gaze from roving along his sculpted chest and chiseled abdomen. A hussy who secretly hoped that he would tear the silk from her trembling fingers and finish what he had started? A fraud who wanted him to just take her, regardless of her ineffectual protests so that she would not have to admit that she truly wanted this—with him?

It would be so much easier to deny her desire and absolve herself of her own willing involvement. She could do it now if he would only prove himself the beast she tried so hard to believe he was. If he would only push her back on the divan and cover her body and protesting mouth.

But he denied her. He did not force his mouth on hers and ruthlessly plunge his tongue between her lips, but instead reached out with a finger that trembled, and stroked her flushed cheek, his eyes softening in the candlelight as he scoured her face.

He pressed into her, inhaling her skin, the scent of her hair.
She felt him nuzzle her riotous curls with his lips, and when he pulled away he took with him a handful of curls that he allowed to slip through his fingers, all the while studying the strands that glistened in the flickering light.

Her breath was rapid, short pants and her mouth parted when he pressed his lips against her face and grazed them, featherlight, along her forehead only to skate down to her cheek and over the bridge of her nose and finally down to her lips. He said not a word, not a sound. She only felt the barest brush of his breath against her tingling lips, felt the heat of his gaze as he searched her face, willing her to raise her gaze and meet his burning eyes. But she stood firm, pretending she was not moved, that she was not affected by his mastery.

His touch became more insistent and she refused to look at him and instead turned her face in an attempt to show abhorrence. But he was not persuaded to believe her disgust of him. Instead, he cupped her throat and ran his thumb along her bounding pulse, discovering for himself the extent of her deceit.

“How sweetly you enslave me, Anais.” Her lips quivered as he stroked them with the pad of his thumb. “With one glance from your beautiful eyes, one shy smile from your lush, welcoming mouth, I have, and always will be, your slave.”

He tilted her face upward so that she was looking into his eyes, eyes that were glazed with opium and passion, a heady, alluring mixture that called to the very depths of her soul. Never had she thought to have wanted him like this. Yet she could not deny the desire, the heavy pulse and throb in her blood. She wanted him, right here in his pleasure den. She
wanted this Lindsay, the secret side of him she hadn’t known existed. There was nothing to guard against his feelings for her, no safety net of propriety. The opium had freed him, made him uninhibited, and she wanted that. The sharing of bodies and pleasure without anything between them.

“‘I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion—I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more—I could be martyred for my religion—love is my religion. I could die for that. I could die for you.’”

Keats.
He had quoted the famous poet, recalled every word, even through the opium. After all this time, he still remembered that day by the river, when he had presented her with a volume of Keats’s poetry. He had read it to her as they lay on a blanket, surrounded by the remnants of their picnic lunch. He had kissed her, a tender, slow burning kiss that had promised so much as they had said their goodbyes. The next day, he had left for Cambridge, leaving her with the memories of that late summer day by the river. It seemed so long ago, yet her mind relived it as though it were yesterday.

“I just want it like it was, before I hurt you,” he whispered as he ran his hand down her side and along her hip. “I am so very, very sorry, Anais. I would tell you a thousand—no, a million times—if I thought it would ease the pain.”

“I know you are, Lindsay.” His heart was in his eyes. She could not deny him that or pretend that he didn’t mean it. It was there, shining down at her.

“How can I make it up to you? What words can I say to make it better? What can I do? Can I show you with my body?”

She weakened. There was no shame in desire. She was a
woman who had experienced pleasure, then it was gone. She had not forgotten the passion or the way her body had felt. She longed to feel that again.

It was so very, very wicked to do this. She was, in fact, using him. He was under the influence of opium. He might very well not even recall what he had said, or what they were about to do. But then, if there was a chance she thought he would remember, would she be contemplating this?

No, she would not. It was only knowing that the opium was inside him that made her bold enough to risk this.

What a flawed, horrid woman she was. So weak. But she needed to feel the passion, the way her body seemed to light up beneath his hands. She wanted sexual fulfillment once more.

“I have told you with words how sorry I am, now let me show you with my body, angel.”

Anais opened her mouth to him, allowing him entrance. He pushed her back onto the cushions, crushing her with his weight, reassuring her with his heat. It was silent acceptance of what they both wanted.

There would be no guilt or remorse. Tonight was just pleasure. A man and a woman sharing their bodies. In the morning she could remind herself how much of a fallen woman she was. How horrid she was. Because come the morning she would deny him—she must. But tonight, she would accept him just as he was.

His hands undid the sash of her wrapper. His fingers, trembling, unbuttoned her night rail until it parted over her body. The single light from the candle that sat on the tray had dimmed, the wick had burned low, creating an atmospheric curtain around them. It was a perfect setting for this dark seduction.

Unable to help herself, Anais raked her hands through his long hair as he bent over her, his tongue trailing a line from her navel to the valley of her breasts. Instead of licking her nipples as she expected and hoped he would, he nuzzled them with his lips, moistening them with his breath, then blew gently against them until they were so tight and erect she moved restlessly against him.

Her hands continued to slide through his silky hair while he held himself above her, bracing his weight on his forearms. He was still teasing her and Anais opened her eyelids a fraction—just enough to watch his bottom lip toy with the very tip of her nipple. His eyes, still glazed from the opium, met hers, and with deliberate strokes he flicked her nipple with his tongue. He continued to hold her gaze while his tongue crept out again. This time though, he circled the erect flesh in a slow, delicious swirl.

Her fingers continued to tangle through his hair, clenching when arousal coiled and tightened in her belly. She watched him lave her breasts, and whenever he looked up at her, he watched her face while wickedly swirling his tongue around her nipple, sending sharp pains of desire deep within her.

“I could feast on you for hours, angel,” he said while his fingers stroked her thigh. Drawing little circles on her skin, he made his way to her knee. With little encouragement, she let her leg drop so that her mound was exposed. He studied her there, not touching her. Then lifted himself off of her and pulled his shirttails from his trousers. Flinging his shirt down beside them, he undid the front of his pants. She met his gaze, then leisurely let her eyes roam the expanse of his chest, which was broad and heavily sculpted. The muscles of his belly were taut
and chiseled. A silky line of black hair swirled around his navel only to disappear below the waist of his trousers. How breathtakingly beautiful his body was.

As if he knew her thoughts, he smiled, a wicked, lusty grin, then slowly pushed aside the fabric. He grasped his erection in his hand. Anais felt her eyes widen at the size of him, but also at the way he intimately and shamelessly stroked himself. Impossible to believe, his shaft actually thickened and widened, and Anais looked up to his face and saw that he stared at her.

“Do you think I’ve never done this before while thinking of you? Always, only you, Anais.”

Empowered by his confession, Anais watched as his erection slid between the space between his thumb and index finger. Slowly at first, he stroked, up and down, reaching only as far as the pink tip. His grip was loose and slow, his hips moving in time with his hand. But soon his breathing increased, as did his hold. Soon he was gripping his shaft, working it hard and assuredly, watching her as she studied him. The sight was so erotic, that Anais could not help but reach out and glide her finger along the rigid length of him. Suddenly he stopped, deprived her of her feeling him and stood. Lindsay removed his trousers and stood naked before her, his shaft thick and throbbing between his thighs.

“Sit up, angel,” he commanded before walking behind her. When he was seated on his knees, he brought her knees up and spread her thighs wide. “Have you touched yourself, while dreaming of me, Anais?”

She nodded as he entwined their hands and placed them on her sex. “Show me, Anais, and let me watch,” he asked, kissing
the hollow below her ear. He slid his fingers along her sex and parted her. She felt his hot gaze there where his fingers played in her folds. “You’re already so wet, angel,” he said, touching her ever so softly. Then he stopped, brought his finger to his mouth and licked, “and you taste every bit as good as I remember.”

Lost in him, Anais luxuriated in the feel of Lindsay’s hand gliding down her side to her thigh, his gaze moving with the motion of his hand as it trailed along her pale skin, assessing her like a slave at a bazaar. His lashes flickered, then lifted to meet her face while his hand skated over her rounded belly.

“I have dreamed of this, Anais, this physical reunion between us. It was at once my torture and my salvation.”

Before she knew what was happening, her night rail and wrapper were pulled from her shoulders and Lindsay was lying on his back, urging her on top of him.

“Let me look at you, angel,” he whispered as she sat astride him. Anais crossed her arms over her breast and belly. The shadows, she was afraid, would not hide everything she wished. He forced her arms to her sides, and Anais noticed how his gaze hungrily devoured her breasts in one glance. With his palms he traveled along her body, cupping her breasts before sliding his fingers over her waist and allowing them to follow the curve of her hips. Over and over he repeated the action until Anais was moving slowly, gliding her hips back and forth. She was restless. Hot. Her back was arched and her arms were behind her. Her own hands were tangling in her hair as she began her dance of seduction.

Lindsay was whispering encouragement as he plucked at her nipple with one hand. With the other, he gripped his erection
and was brushing the silken tip along her plump buttock. She felt the warm wetness against her skin. He was already wet, leaking his seed.

It made her more wanton, and she writhed a bit more seductively, her movements less stiff, more sensual and undulating. She had lowered her arms and caught her breasts in her hands, massaging them as he watched. Pressing them together, she squeezed, then parted them in invitation.

With strong hands, he gripped her hips and lifted her up, bringing her higher onto his chest. “Lower yourself onto my mouth, Anais, and let me taste you.”

With a whimper of surprise and excitement she did. Her fingers clutched onto his shoulders, his hands anchored her hips, tilting them until her mound was angled toward his mouth. Then the sensation of his hot tongue brushing the length of her made her moan long and deep.

The thin beard on his chin abraded and sensitized her skin, making the sensation so much more consuming. Soon her fingers were pressing into his shoulders as she moved atop him, showing him with her hips the direction she wanted his tongue to move.

Anais looked down to find Lindsay’s black head between her thighs. A strangled sound escaped her and he looked up, his eyes wickedly gazing back at her as he slowly licked, showing her his tongue on her. She reached down and touched herself, sliding her fingers up to her clitoris, allowing her fingers to glide against Lindsay’s tongue. He licked her wet fingers while she played with her sex.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he watched her
fingers stroking herself. The pressure was building deep within her when suddenly she felt his fingers inside her. It was too much, he held her tight, pressing her sex to his mouth, trembling as he sucked—drinking all of her in.

“Lindsay!” Anais rocked shamelessly against him. When at last she stilled, she pulled away from him, sliding down his body and burying her face in his hard chest.

“Anais,” his voice was soft and soothing, much like his fingers as they raked through her tousled hair. “You were so beautiful and passionate. I’ll never forget the way you looked on top of me.”