Lessons and Lovers (15 page)

There was a long moment of silence. Hettie felt stunned by her own outburst and numbed to a state of inertia as she leant on the parapet, grateful for its support. The scent of flowers drifted up from the beds below and yet their perfume seemed to be coming from an entirely different world.

At long last Starr answered her, his cool eyes burning suddenly as he turned to her. Blue fire of almost unimaginable heat. “It is my privilege to serve you, Milady. My privilege and my joy… More than I can adequately describe.” His voice was low and in a rare, revealing moment, reminiscent of the one in his bedroom, Hettie detected a tremor of real emotion.

He does care!
Jubilant, she wanted to hug him and kiss him but knowing he wouldn’t welcome it—especially with their companions still watching curiously, their own conversation temporarily forgotten.

Once again, she’d finally broken through to the unflappable, unfazable Starr and the thrill of it gave Hettie back her strength and purpose. He cared for her. He wanted her. Perhaps even loved her. But some bone-deep, archaic streak of chivalry was still preventing him from declaring it.
She
would have to make the moves from now on!

But not right at this moment.

The evening went very smoothly after that considering that everyone—Starr included—was obviously tired. Hardly surprising in Darryl’s case, thought Hettie with a grin, enjoying a glass of excellent wine as she eyed Stevie’s handsome “pupil”.

You and Stevie made love this afternoon, didn’t you?
Her smile widened and she took another sip of wine to hide it.

It was crystal clear that something had changed with Darryl. There was a twinkle in his eyes all the time, in spite of his occasional yawns, and a new and quite blood-stirring sensuality to his every movement. Put in its simplest terms, when they’d left London this morning he’d still been sexually unsure of himself…and now he knew exactly what he was doing. He’d always had that uncanny sense of poise about him, but now he was flirting with Stevie like an experienced ladies’ man and parrying her sexual sophistication with an effortless charm and playfulness.

While Starr had been plying them all with perfectly grilled steaks and succulent deviled chicken breasts, Stevie had slipped away briefly and come back with goodies of her own. Volumes of erotica she’d plundered from Dragonwood’s library—which was even more extensively stocked with titillating literature than the one at Pengilley Gardens was. And now the doctor and Darryl were studying the books together and laughing and joking as they turned the provocative pages.

She’s giving him ideas, the devil!
Hettie grinned inwardly at her ingenious friend the doctor.
Working out what they’re going to try next!

And they made a wonderful couple tonight. Stevie so offbeat and sexy in her wacky sportsman’s outfit, and Darryl all insouciant and sensual in his muted Italian designer casuals.

He’s in good hands
, Hettie decided firmly, sipping her strong white wine and realizing she was the very slightest bit tipsy.
We’re all in the hands of fate tonight and we’ll end up in whatever bed we end up in!

At one in the morning, Hettie was in her own bed and awake again after an hour’s fitful sleep. The night was hot but that wasn’t what had wakened her.

Her bed looked like a battlefield. The quilt was on the floor, her old-fashioned white linen sheets were all tangled and crumpled down by her feet and her black satin nightshirt was tangled around her waist. But what had really woken her up was her own hand, jammed between her thighs, fingers furiously working. She couldn’t remember any dreams but if there had been any their content was obvious.

The funny thing was, she hadn’t felt all that horny when she’d gone to bed. Nobody had, it seemed. They’d all retired their own separate ways with sleepy “goodnights” and nothing more erotic than a peck on the cheek.

She felt turned on now though, her clitoris swollen to the touch and the whole of her sex engorged and aching. Why hadn’t she just orgasmed in her sleep? What was it that had woken her? Withdrawing her sticky fingers, she sat up in bed and listened to the night.

Nothing. Well, nothing unusual or unnatural. There was the hoot of an owl from the woods, the rustle of trees and the fluttering of the lace curtains at the open French window but nothing making noises that shouldn’t be making them.

Hettie shivered in spite of the heat, her alerted sixth sense playing games with her imagination. Someone was calling to her. Silently calling… Sending a message to her cunt not her ears. And the answer was wet and glistening on her thighs. Feeling strangely wonderful but also uncomfortable, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

Barefoot, she padded out of the room through the French window and onto the balcony. All the bedrooms on this side of the house opened onto this veranda and she could see two other sets of curtains fluttering like pantomime ghosts in the brilliant moonlight. Two other sets of French windows were open to the fresh night air and without consciously thinking or choosing, she tiptoed to the one on her right.

When she stepped soundless over the threshold the sight inside brought a grin to her lips.

Great minds and libidos think alike.

In a shaft of moonlight, Stevie was sprawled naked and uncovered on her bed with both her elegant hands clasped tightly between her legs. She was clearly fast asleep, but the smile on her face and the occasional sensuous undulation of her body said that the dream she was having was sensational! A magazine lay on the bed beside her open at nude male centerfold, and Hettie wondered if the hunk depicted there was the source of her friend’s nocturnal pleasure—or whether it was someone much closer to home!

Someone only the length of a balcony away.

In Darryl’s bedroom the picture illuminated by his bedside lamp was somewhat different. If he was having erotic dreams they were of gentler, less turbulent kind than the doctor’s. He looked utterly relaxed and the peace and freshness of his smooth handsome face was strangely affecting. Noiselessly blowing him a kiss, Hettie walked stealthily back out onto the balcony.

But somebody or something had woken her up and as she looked out from the veranda towards the gardens, the shimmering pool and the moonlit terrace, the sight of a familiar and motionless figure was the answer to both her question and her sexual restlessness.

Negotiating the narrow steps at the far end of the balcony, Hettie descended to ground level. Once there she walked as silently as she could along the short path to the terrace, keeping to the grassy edge rather than the gravel. She felt deliciously aware that there was only a short and very sheer silk nightshirt between her heated skin and the mystery of the night.

When her feet felt cool stone beneath them, she paused, undecided. The man leaning on the parapet looked even more aloof than ever and she wondered if he would resent her breaking into his solitude. But when he lifted a cut glass tumbler to his lips and took a sip of its contents, she began to move slowly forward. She guessed that it was scotch in his glass, and this was someone who rarely if ever drank spirits. The only time she’d seen him drink scotch before was the day that Piers had died.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it, Ma’am?” Starr observed conversationally, although Hettie was convinced she hadn’t done a single thing that would have given her away.

“Yes, Starr, it is,” she answered, moving towards him and out into the area where the terrace lamps added extra luminosity. Nervous and excited, she tugged at the hem of her nightshirt. It came barely a quarter of the way down her thighs and she wore no panties beneath it. The mischievous breeze seemed to stiffen and flick at the material, not to mention the moist and tender tissues of her pussy.

Starr was still fully clothed, although his silky black shirt was unfastened and its tails pulled out of his jeans. Hettie noticed that he was barefoot as she was and found the sight of his strong narrow feet almost unbearably erotic. His naked chest shone pale gold in the blended light and she felt a powerful urge to kiss his skin. To lick and bite his small dark nipples. Didn’t he realize what a turn-on he was, standing there with his whisky and his silent passion, his pure, hot, unselfish lust unquenched? It was so obvious to her now why he was drinking.

“Couldn’t you sleep?” she inquired, cautiously edging closer and almost swearing she could feel his heat.

“I’ve a few things I need to mull over,” he answered, the very noncommittal nature of his answer revealing. He drained the last of his whisky, his long throat undulating, then put the glass down on the parapet.

“What things?”

“Nothing that should worry you, Milady.” She could feel him retreating, mentally running for a bolt-hole even though he stood perfectly still.

Damn him! He
did
care! He’d already revealed that. There was something there as well as the sex, even though at present the sex seemed to be tamped down as well.

And he looked so gorgeous in the moonlight, so hard and graven. Implacable. Remorseless. A dominator. A man to surrender to and be humble before. This was no servant, despite his claims. That was just another of his masks. His irresistible erotic masks. Without thinking she took that last step forward and lifted her face for a kiss.

He gave the kiss with all the power and ruthlessness that he’d displayed in his bedroom, his whisky-tasting tongue plunging deeply into her mouth as he drew her into his arms and let his hands rove freely over her body, displacing the filmy silk of her nightshirt.

Hettie felt shamelessly wanton as she writhed against him and let her own hand travel over his back and the muscular rounds of his cloth-covered buttocks. He was so ironclad, so immovable sometimes, and it brought out the worst in her now—and the best. She wanted to shock him, offer him something so extreme and intense that it would shake his senses and crack the wall of reserve he’d built around himself.

When his fingers closed around her own soft buttocks, she shimmied against him, wiggling her bottom in his grip to show him how much she enjoyed it. His fingertips got the message and delicately stroked her crease, caressing her through the insubstantial silk. Hettie felt moisture slide heavily down her thigh as her body responded to his indecent probing at her rear. She parted her legs and rubbed her crotch on the unyielding muscle of his thigh, drenching the black fabric of his close-fitting jeans.

Unwinding her arms from around him, she opened the front of her nightshirt and then pressed her breasts against his naked chest. He mumbled something deep in his throat, and though the word was muffled she felt the vibrations through the burning tips of her nipples as she ground them against him.

“Milady. Come on,” he urged against her lips, between the devouring kisses, “Let me take you to your room.”

Hettie wanted to scream in triumph. He was so hungry, so frantic, so hard as a rock against her belly.

“No,” she said tightly, using his own hunger against him. “Here! I want you here! Now! Immediately!” There were other ways being “mistress” than simply being driven around or waited on or cooked for.

As ever, he obeyed, and she could see the same daring fire in his eyes that she knew must be lighting up her own. It wasn’t obedience she saw there. Far from it.
He
wanted the danger and outrage of it just as much as she did. There was a delicious ruthlessness in his fingers as he slid them into her sex and started rubbing her clitoris hard and fast.

She moaned and clung to him, her bottom pressed against the parapet as he rocked against her using the weight of his own body to add momentum to his ravaging fingers. Hettie could feel her juices pouring out onto his hand. She was inundating him and almost embarrassed that her readiness was so blatant.

“Starr, please!” she hissed, half plea, half command. She ached to be filled and stretched, to be splayed wide open. She wanted to be taken rudely. Primitively. She wanted to stop being “Milady” and just be breasts and cunt and ass for him to use and possess exactly as he wished.

His answer was to carry on fingering her. Circling her clitoris, slicking between her slippery labia, then pressing one then two then three digits inside her. She moaned, wanting more, much more.

With an incoherent cry of his own, a noise not like Starr at all, he grabbed her by the hips, placed her poised on the edge of the parapet and then swiftly and deftly unzipped himself. He took a half second to free himself from his underwear, and then his cock was out and pointing at her, huge and red and fierce, its tip dripping, the slit open and distended. With great care, he eased her further forward and put her legs right over his shoulders, positioning himself perfectly, right against her cunt. There was another cry—his or hers, she didn’t know and couldn’t tell—and then in a long smooth power lunge he was in her right to the hilt.

Hettie felt her inner walls tighten and grip him hungrily at the very moment second her body started tipping backwards. There was an instant of crazy falling vertigo then Starr’s strong arm was at the nape of her neck controlling the rate of her tilt.

With infinite gentleness he eased her down onto the stone, the back of her head just resting on the broad parapet, her hair hanging loose and free in the air. She felt him place his hand flat on the slab beneath her scalp, making a pillow for her head with his fingers while his other hand returned to her clitoris. For her own part, she scrabbled wildly at anything. The parapet. Starr’s arms. His back. Anything to grant her purchase against his thrusts.

And thrust he did, sliding into her doubled up body, his cock going deep into her loins. It was fabulous and she shouted as an immediate orgasm claimed her, her clitoris and womb beating in time as the controlled force of his onslaught ground her bottom against the stone of the parapet. She would have grazes tomorrow but tomorrow was centuries and light-years away.

For minutes on end she orgasmed almost continuously, crying and groaning like an animal gripped by pure pleasure. She was conscious of him iron-hard right inside her, his erection unfaltering, un-waning, almost inhuman.