Steamed (21 page)

I stroked the fingers in question across the underside of what was evidently a very sensitive spot.

“Flang,” he repeated, his entire body trembling.

“I see.” I considered that part of him that overflowed one hand, but did not fill both. “So you enjoy my fingers around you? How interesting. The other men I’ve been with have preferred me to use my mouth, but if you receive more enjoyment this way . . .”

“Mouth?” he said, his eyes opening quickly. Hope was in their depths, a profound hope and a pleading, desperate need. “You do that?”

“Of course I do. It is part of the act of loving, is it not?” I asked, looking back at the part in question. “Unless you have some sort of disease that would prevent me from doing so.”

“No disease,” he said quickly, a hint of desperation entering his voice now. “By all means, if you want to use your mouth, go right ahead. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of any pleasure.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, flicking my fingertips again.

His body tensed. “Yes, yes, quite sure. Full steam ahead.”

“Steam?” I paused as I was about to take him into my mouth. “Mr. Fletcher—”

“Jack.”

“Surely you are not going to bring up your silly conjectures about this being a society of steambumps again.”

“Steampunk, sweetheart.”

“Now is not the time to demand goggles, or quiz me about the use of a steam abacus, or whether or not electricity is truly as dangerous as we know it to be. I am about to pleasure you. You will please attend to that, after which you may pleasure me, and then we will proceed onward to other, equally enjoyable activities.”

His eyes opened again to pin me back with a look of purest male impatience. “Do you always talk this much during sex?”

“We are not engaged in intercourse at the moment, sir,” I said in my most quelling voice, emphasizing the point by shaking that part of him to which I still held on. “I am in charge of this section of the oral pleasure, and as such, it is within my right to speak when and how I choose. Now, are you done asking questions so that I might continue?”

He nodded his head rapidly, his eyes pleading with me.

“Excellent. We will proceed.” I glanced at the clock sitting on the nightstand. “I shall time you, if you don’t mind. I recently read of some techniques that promised to increase a man’s pleasure while shortening the duration of the time needed to reach that point, and I’m curious to know if it works.”

“You want to
time
me?” Jack asked, his voice filled with incredulity. “You want to time how long it takes you to bring me to an orgasm?”

“Yes. The book I purchased was very expensive, naturally, given its illicit nature, and I’d like to know that I received my money’s worth from it. It promised that I would be able to speed up the act by as much as ten minutes, so if you don’t mind, I shall time you.”

“You are the strangest woman. . . . Whatever. Knock yourself out,” he said, closing his eyes again. “But I warn you—knowing you’re watching the clock is going to have the opposite effect on me than what you’re shooting for.”

I swirled my tongue around him. He froze solid for a second, then jerked me upward and flung me onto the bed, tearing off the shirt that I wore as he rose over me.

“That was much faster than I expected,” I said, blinking as his hands and mouth possessed my now bared breasts. I arched back into him, my legs sliding up the outside of his. “Much, much faster. Oh yes, do that again.”

His teeth nipped ever so gently on one nipple, causing streaks of fire to radiate outward.

“Octavia, I . . . oh, Lord, you’re so soft all over. You’re like satin. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know it’s my turn to do you, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to last.” His hips bucked as he laved his tongue along the underside of my breast, the light stubble on his jaw providing a pleasant friction. I felt proof of his impatience against my belly, hard and hot and demanding.

“That’s all right, Jack,” I said, kissing him as he slid upward. His lips were sweet, so sweet, and his mouth so hot, it made me burn inside for more. “There will be other times when you can reciprocate the attention. Oh!”

“Oh?” he asked, sliding his hand along my thigh to spread me farther, nestling himself at the source of my heat. “What oh? Or rather, oh what?”

“French Preventative!”

“What?”

“A French Preventative! I’m sorry, but I forgot about that. You don’t happen to have one with you?” I asked, aware that my own voice was now rather hopeful.

“A French . . . you mean a condom? Oh, Lord.” He quivered at my private area, his muscles tense and tight and poised to plunge inward. My muscles were trembling in anticipation of just such an event. “No, I don’t have one.”

“Damnation,” I swore, wanting to cry with frustration. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think to ask you before we arrived at the pensione. The men I’ve been with have always had them, so I just didn’t think. . . . But all is not lost.” I slid out from under him, grabbing for my petticoat. “There is a chemist a scant two blocks from here. I will simply demand that he open up his shop and sell me some French Preventatives—”

“Get back into bed,” Jack said, his voice grim as he picked me up and set me back onto the mattress. “I’ll get the damned things.”

“But you don’t know where it is—”

“I’ll find it,” he said in a voice that was almost a snarl. He yanked on his pants and boots with short, jerky motions.

“But—”

“Stay there, and keep your motor running,” he growled, pulling on his shirt.

“My motor? Jack—”

“It’s a euphemism,” he said, snatching up a handful of coins. “Don’t move one muscle. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

He was gone before I could protest any further.

“What a very odd man,” I said to no one as I settled back into the bed. “Keep my motor running. Ha!”

I had just enough time to worry about what might become of a man who was found on the streets of a city under siege before he eventually returned, out of breath, panting, and perspiring. He leaned against the door, his chest heaving, and just as I was about to ask him if he was all right, I heard sounds coming from the street.

“That sounds remarkably like several people running down the road,” I said, eyeing him as he doubled over, his hands braced on his knees. “And that sounds like the whistles that the emperor’s guards use when they are chasing someone. Say, perhaps, a man who let himself be seen by them?”

He grinned and straightened up, his breathing still rough and fast as he held up a small cardboard box. “Or one who was caught breaking into a drugstore for some emergency condoms.”

“Oh, Jack, you didn’t break into that nice Signore Martelli’s chemist shop,” I said, disapproval filling my voice even as I smiled at the sight of the box of French Preventatives. “I’ll never be able to face him again.”

“I left him all the money I had, so I’m sure that’ll reimburse him for damage on the window. Besides, he refused to come down and open up the shop, so it was break the window and get them for myself, or return here and stare at your luscious breasts knowing I can’t do anything else. And Octavia, there are many more things I want to do to them than just look.”

His voice dropped significantly on that last sentence, which, coupled with the look of molten passion he was giving me as he stripped off his clothing, caused me to shiver in delight. “Yes, but, Jack, this is serious. If the emperor’s men find you here—”

“They won’t find me. I told you I have some skills in losing tails,” he said, crawling slowly up the bed toward me.

I shivered again, and my breasts, impudent beings that they were, thrust forward to him.

“You see?” He paused as he crawled up my legs, his head dipping toward one breast. “Even your tits agree with me. They aren’t worried at all about some idiot guards who are out on the streets chasing shadows. They want me to lick them. They want me to hold them, and squeeze them, and rub myself on them.”

“Jack!” I squealed as he lay down on top of me. I was under the sheets, with only my breasts bared. “That word is not appropriate.”

“What word?” he asked, nuzzling the underside of my left breast. “Oh, tit?”

“Yes. You should refer to a woman’s upper parts as a bosom, or, if you must be specific, breasts. But never tit. That word is offensive when not referring to a small bird.”

“Ah, but you are a small bird, are you not?” he asked with a decided leer before he turned his attention to my right breast. “That is the vernacular, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know. I am not the sort of person who hangs out in bars in Marseilles, where such words and terms are bandied about,” I said with dignity, moaning only a little when he nibbled on my breast. “Jack, I don’t wish to complain, but you are not proceeding properly.”

He looked up. “I’m not?”

“No. For one, I’m trapped beneath this sheet, and you are above. For another, we left off with you needing a French Preventative, and now you have one, so you should put it on and we should proceed from where we left off.”

“Did it occur to you that a midnight run through a strange city in search of condoms might take the steam out of my engine, so to speak?”

I glanced at the part in question. “Your engine looks fully primed to me.”

“That’s just because I have you naked in my bed,” he said with another leer. “That’s enough to stiffen any man’s piston.”

“Thus you should proceed along the lines we were engaged upon before you left,” I pointed out.

He leaned back on one elbow, looking down at me with a curious expression. “You like to be in charge, don’t you?”

I blinked at him a couple of times. “I . . . I’m not sure what to say to that. In charge? I like to have things proceed in an orderly fashion, yes, but I don’t think I’m domineering or selfish, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“But you do like to call the shots,” he said, sliding his hand down my breastbone, pushing the sheet down as he stroked lower, over my belly. “That’s a new experience for me. The women I’ve been with have all been content to let me set the pace.”

I felt hurt even as I squirmed under the influence of his questing fingers. “I’m sorry if I am not as passive as your other bed partners—”

“Oh, they weren’t passive,” he said with another of those devilish grins. This one, however, I wanted to slap off his face. “A couple of them left scratch marks. But they didn’t try to give me directions. No, stop looking so offended and outraged. It’s nothing bad, Octavia,” he added, leaning down to kiss me. “It’s just a bit different. Tell you what—we’ll take turns. You let me take the lead this time, and you can have it the next time, OK?”

I was momentarily distracted by the heat of his mouth, the sensation of his chest against my breasts, the gentle tickle of his chest hair causing goose bumps to prickle along my arms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jack.”

“I know,” he said, his head dipping down to suck my lower lip. “But that’s all right. I’ll show you, shall I?”

“Show me what?”

He pushed the rest of the sheet off me, his hand sweeping down my hip, to my thigh. He stared down at my person for a moment before saying, “Thank God you don’t wear your corset so tight it damages you. You truly are beautiful, Octavia. You’re round and soft, and so silky, I just want to rub my entire body on you.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” I said, hoping he would stop staring at me and get to the business at hand. Perhaps he needed some encouragement. I wrapped my hand around the aroused part of him.

“Oh, no. You had your turn. Now it’s mine,” he said, pulling my hand free.

I frowned. “I thought we discussed this earlier? You said you couldn’t wait. I can see that you are quite anticipatory right now, so why don’t you put on the Preventative, and we can indulge in the natural conclusion of the evening’s events.”

“Oh, we’re going to indulge,” he said, moving to sit between my legs. He slid them upward until my knees were over his arms. “Rather, I’m going to indulge you. Just relax, Octavia. You’ll enjoy this.”

“I always have enjoyed it,” I said, watching as he nuzzled private, secret parts of me.

A slightly irritated look crossed his face. “Right, then, we’ll get started. Er . . . what time is it?”

I glanced at the clock before looking back at him. “You mean to time this?”

“Why not? You were going to time me.”

“Yes, but I had an expensive treatise that I was going to explore with you, not that you gave me much time to do so.”

“And how do you know, my fair little pigeon, that I don’t have a few tricks up my sleeve?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with lecherous delight. I raised my eyebrows at him. “So to speak,” he amended.

“I have no doubt that your numerous acquaintances with women have lessoned you in many ways,” I said coolly. “However, unlike you, I will not be so easily pleased. It takes me much longer to reach satisfaction. I don’t wish to tell tales, but in the past, it has taxed the stamina of my lovers to get me to that point, and then only after we had known each other for some time. I do not wish to stress you unduly, however, which is why I was—and still am—happy to proceed to the main course, if you will.”

“Is that a challenge?” he asked, rearing back, an outraged look on his face.

“What? No! Jack, no, I’m not challenging you, or impugning your masculinity,” I said, soothing his obviously ruffled feathers. “My intention was to simply warn you that I am not quite so easily aroused as you obviously are. I didn’t wish for you to be disappointed in what is lacking in me.”

The angry expression faded until all that was left was heat. Pure, masculine heat. “I don’t find you lacking in any way, my little squab of delight. And you haven’t had me at the reins. I think you’ll find I know what I’m doing.”

I was about to tell him I had no doubt of that, but at that moment, he lowered his head and addressed himself to the matter at hand. Instantly, my body was suffused with warmth, a deep, burning warmth that started in my nether parts, and spread in big, rolling waves of pleasure outward to the farthest points on my body. At first, events proceeded as I expected, but then he began using his fingers, stroking me, teasing me, tormenting me until I writhed on the bed in a fever of desire. But when he curled them into me, touching me inside, finding magic parts of me that I had no idea existed, I cried out his name in wonder and amazement.