Stroke of Genius (18 page)

Pygmalion threw himself into other work, but only wore out his chisel. So long as Galatea held his imagination captive, the only thing he created was a great pile of slag.

It wasn’t a simple matter to slip out of Lord Dorset’s grand home. Not only was its colossal size an impediment, but Grace was forced to dodge servants making their sleepy rounds in the dark watches of the night. Finally, after much trial and error, Grace was able to sneak out an unlocked door off a breakfast room that opened into the garden.

Crispin was still hard at work. As she picked up her skirts and ran toward the sound, the hammer strikes grew louder. Her only fear was that he’d lay his tools down and she’d lose her way to locate the cottage.

If anything, the ringing blows grew more insistent. She stumbled past a garden maze, past the stables and through the exercise yard. The full moon silvered every blade of grass and lent a dreamlike quality to her headlong dash through Lord Dorset’s estate.

Beyond the duck pond, the land fell away. The cottage was tucked below the hillock. A small herd of sheep was penned in a fold near the dwelling. One room on the main level was ablaze with light, sending long shafts of illumination on the close-cropped grass.

A pair of French doors was thrown open to the night. Grace crept in there. Crispin pounded away furiously
on a larger-than-life piece in the center of the high-ceilinged room.

He stood with his back to her, naked but for the leather apron tied at his neck and waist. Sweat made his skin glisten in the light of dozens of tapers. His shoulder muscles bunched and flexed beneath smooth flesh. His buttocks clenched with each strike and the musculature of his long legs stood out in stark definition.

He was magnificent, an Adonis in leather. His body called to hers. Then his right leg began to tremble.

“Damnation!” He threw his hammer and chisel down with a clatter to the unprotected wood floor and bent to massage his thigh.

Grace saw a shadow of his private parts dangling between his spread legs and drew in a sharp breath. He turned suddenly toward her, his face wild and proud and feral.

But he didn’t seem surprised to see her.

He didn’t speak. He just returned her steady gaze. He straightened and slowly untied the apron at his neck. The leather flopped down revealing brown nipples and a dusting of dark hair over his hardened chest. Then he reached behind his waist to untie the last knot. He let it fall.

Grace was winded from her wild flight down here but now, never mind how badly she needed it, she seemed unable to draw a deep breath. Her gaze wandered down his body, past his flat belly to the mystery of maleness artists normally kept hidden behind fig leaves.

His long, thick shaft strained toward her, magnificently erect, its skin purpled with his coursing blood. Beneath that wonder, his testicles were bunched in a nest of dark curls. His whole body tensed with the effort of holding himself still while she studied him.

She’d never seen anything finer or more miraculous
than Crispin Hawke, just as God made him, in her entire life.

Grace looked back up at his face.

“If you intend to leave here a virgin,” he said, his lips barely moving, “you must leave now.”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving.”

They met midway across the space in a tangle of limbs.

Grace suddenly understood lotus-eaters. His lips on hers were an addiction. There was nothing else in the world. She wanted him more than anything and she’d never break free of wanting him. She surrendered her mouth to him. Their kiss spiraled into a madness of dark heat, but she didn’t care.

His skin was warm, almost feverish under her touch. And she touched him everywhere, grasping his arms, splaying her fingers over his chest, reaching around to smooth her palms along the length of his spine. He growled in her ear when she cupped his buttocks.

He kissed her neck, the tops of her breasts while his fingers worked furiously at the row of buttons down the back of her gown.

“Turn around,” he ordered, his voice rough with frustration.

She obeyed and faced away from him, but she reached behind herself and grasped his shaft just to see what he’d do. To her surprise, he ripped the back of her gown, popping off the remaining buttons and shredding the seam down to the top of her buttocks.

She drew a shuddering breath. His lack of control should have scared her, but instead a thrill coursed through her from head to toe.

“Unless you want to see how a woman can be violated without removing her clothes, don’t touch me again until I rid you of these,” he snarled.

She stood perfectly still then.

Except for the trembling. She couldn’t control that, as he shoved the gown over her shoulders and worked the hooks and eyes on her stays.

It wasn’t fear. Well, not entirely.

She was trembling for the sheer aching joy of his hands on her newly exposed skin, for the heat of his breath on the back of her neck, for the crisp male smell of his honest sweat. Every bit of her ached to enfold him, to take him in.

To make him hers.

He peeled off her stays and then reached around to untie her chemise. His mouth was on her shoulder, then sucking at her neck. He nipped at her earlobe as he hefted both her breasts. She leaned back into him, feeling his smooth, hard length pressed against her bottom.

There weren’t enough pleasure faeries in the world to distribute all the bliss he unleashed in her.

Crispin bunched her chemise in his hands and drew it up and over her head. She turned to him, wearing only her pantalets and stockings. Crispin stepped back a pace while she toed off her slippers.

The pantalets left her sex completely exposed to his view and he looked down at her now, a wild, feral gleam in his eyes. He cupped her mound with one hand and she throbbed beneath him. He drew her closer with the other, bending her back over his arm so he could take a nipple in his mouth.

He matched the rhythm of his mouth with the gentle massage of his hand on her mound. His tongue flicked her nipple. The suction grew deeper and Grace felt as if she were a bow being drawn taut. He bit down on her and she arched herself into him, surrendering to the madness.

He gave her other breast the same loving, rough attention while she struggled to remain upright. His fingers on her sex separated her folds and teased her intimate crevices.

She cried out when he grazed that blessed little spot of needy flesh that had risen to be stroked. This time, her parents weren’t a wall away. And even if they had been, she didn’t think she could keep from letting her need escape her throat.

He seemed to love hearing her incoherent pleas. He kissed his way from the valley between her breasts and down her ribs. His tongue circled her navel. She twined her fingers in his hair as he knelt before her.

His kisses kept moving down.

He couldn’t possibly…

He’d stop soon and move back up her body.

An insanely wicked idea burned across her mind for what might constitute the good use of a man’s tongue.

Surely that’s not what Claudette meant…a man wouldn’t do such a thing, would he?

He grasped her buttocks with both hands, pulled her close and pressed an openmouthed kiss on her sex.

Evidently, he would.

And he made such appreciative noises as he devoured her, as if she were the most delectable delicacy ever to meet his tongue.

“Oh,” she said once so softly she could barely hear it herself.

Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she was passion-blind.

His tongue circled. It flicked. His lips massaged and suckled that little center of the universe between her legs.

“Oh.”

“Just there.”

“Yes, harder.”

Then she heard someone pleading and repeating Crispin’s name. It took her a moment to realize she was hearing herself as if from a great distance.

His fingers dug into her flesh, bruising her backside, but pain didn’t matter.

“Just don’t stop.”

The world faded around them. No sound. No light. Only friction and heat and tension mounding up like a wind-tossed sea. If a rogue wave hit, she thought she might snap in two.

Then deep in her core, she did. She drew a ragged breath. When the bow inside her snapped, rings of bliss radiated from her center, turning her limbs to pudding. She suspected she was pulling Crispin’s hair, but she needed to if she was going to remain on her feet while her insides spasmed with joy.

Before the last contraction ended, Crispin threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and rose to his feet.

All the breath rushed from her lungs.

“Where are we going?” she asked shakily.

“I’ve wanted to swive you on the floor from the moment I met you, Grace, but I’d rather not take your maidenhead there unless you insist.”

He deposited her on a tufted velvet fainting couch. Then he made short work of removing her pantalets and stockings. Grace lay back and let him do as he liked. She was still too drunk with bliss to care.

Alarm bells clattered along her spine, but she ignored them. She knew what she was doing. And her decision was made. There was no going back. If she didn’t give
herself to Crispin Hawke now, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

She just meant to see he gave her himself, too.

Grace lifted her arms to him and he settled between her splayed legs.

The tip of him pressed against her. She kissed him, tasting a musky, salty tang that she realized must have come from her. She squirmed down, urging him to enter. He gave a quick thrust of his hips and drove himself in all the way.

Pain ripped through her, and she tore her mouth away from him, biting her lower lip. She didn’t want to cry out with anything but bliss. Claudette told her there would be pain, but after the joy she’d experienced with Crispin, she’d forgotten to expect it.

“Did I hurt you terribly?”

“Yes,” she said, blinking up at him. “Is it always like that?”

“No.” He shook his head and kissed her tenderly. “Only the first time. I’m sorry. I should have been gentler. I’ve never been with a virgin. There is probably a better way to do that.”

“But now we’ll never know, will we?” she said, reaching around him to give his bottom a swat. She hoped she sounded like it didn’t matter, that she didn’t regret a thing.

Because she didn’t. At least not now. It was impossible to care about anything but the wonder of holding him inside her.

She just hoped he was right about it not hurting every time.

Crispin held himself still, propping most of his weight on his elbows, looking down at her with wonderment, as if he feared she’d disappear if he looked away.

He was huge, filling her, stretching her, making her inner walls contract once reflexively in honor of his intruding presence. She felt his heartbeat galloping between her legs.

“Tell me when I can move,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck and suckling her earlobe.

The pain dissipated and was replaced by that familiar ache. She rocked her pelvis experimentally.

“Oh, that feels wonderful,” she said, thrilled to have reentered bliss with him. “Move however you like, sir.”

Crispin didn’t need to be told twice. He took her in long strokes, setting a comfortable rhythm. He slowed, making her ache to take him in. She rocked with him, peppering his neck and shoulders with kisses. Then he rode her hard, galloping hell-for-leather to a point of ecstasy for them both.

She crested again with the same heart-pounding intensity but this time, Crispin came with her. His back arched and he growled his pleasure. She fisted around him as his life pumped into her, hot and strong. Then as the last convulsion wracked them, he breathed her name.

Reverently.

Lovingly.

And settled his head between her breasts.

She ran her hand over his hair, smoothing the dark curls and swiping them back out of his eyes. His breath feathered over her nipple and it tightened pleasantly, but she was completely satisfied. His body relaxed on her and she wondered if he was asleep. She sighed when he finally slipped out of her, severing their beautiful connection.

He raised himself on his elbows again and peered down at her. “What are you thinking, Grace?”

“I’m just wondering if we can see whether you’re right.”

“Right about what?”

She smiled up at him. “About it not hurting the second time.”

Lust was understandable. Hadn’t he fashioned Galatea to suit him perfectly? But an artist shouldn’t love the work of his own hands. Not when Pygmalion knew he’d have to release Galatea to the world without any claim on her at all.

“Help me snuff the candles and we’ll find a more comfortable spot.” Crispin rose from the fainting couch and extended a hand to help her up. Her smile washed over him like warm rain.

Grace was a wonder. A mercy. A sensible female who didn’t seem at all troubled about losing her maidenhead to him.

He, however, experienced a twinge of guilt at the streak of blood on her inner thighs.

Did she realize yet what they’d done? Her whole life was turned on its head and yet, she skittered from one candelabra to the next, snuffing candles in glorious nakedness as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Crispin watched her stretch to reach a wall sconce, standing tiptoe, the long, clean lines of her unhindered by crude covering. She lifted one curltoed foot and he ached to place a kiss on her sole.

If Adam had been able to watch Eve run about in such a splendid state of undress all the time, no wonder Eden was considered paradise and Original Sin such a calamity.

Grace stooped to pick up her discarded clothing. She finally seemed to have discovered, as Eve had, that she was naked.

“Leave them,” he said, wanting the chance to look at her longer.

“But won’t Mr. Wyckham find them?”

“He’s not here. There was room for him in the big house in the servants’ quarters and I figured he’d be happier there, close to your Claudette.”

“How thoughtful of you, though I should warn you, she’s very unhappy with Mr. Wyckham at present.” She let the armful of clothing drop back to the floor. “Still, I never figured you for a romantic.”

Her nipples were rosy and taut. He forced himself to meet her amber-eyed gaze.

“There are lots of things you don’t know about me.”

“But I’m very willing to learn.”

Crispin took her hand and led her toward the bedchamber that had been set up for him on the ground floor. As much as being relegated to the cottage had stung his pride, he had to admit Lord Dorset’s staff had set up the space to suit his needs admirably. A bedchamber without climbing stairs was a thoughtful touch.

Once they reached his room, he lit a lamp and she noticed the pitcher and ewer on the commode in the corner.

“Do you mind if I clean up a bit?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “Let me do it for you. Just lie down and I’ll take care of you.”

He reasoned it would ease his conscience to remove the evidence of her loss of purity. Besides, if she cleaned herself, she might be dismayed at the sight of her virginal blood and their carnal odyssey would lose its joy.

“All right.” She pulled back the counterpane and treated him to a lovely site of her upraised bottom when she bent over. Then she climbed into the bed and sank into the feather tick.

He spread a towel over his shoulder and poured some
water into the ewer. Then he carried it across the room to her side of the bed, along with a jar of lavenderscented soap. He dipped one end of the cloth in the water and lathered it up with a dollop of soap. Then he settled a hip beside her on the bed.

“Knees up,” he said and she complied. He eased her knees apart and soaped the insides of her thighs. Then, very gently, he cleaned all her delicate folds. “I’m sorry the water is cold.”

Her eyes were closed and her lips turned up in a little smile. “It feels wonderful.”

He would have said, “Amen,” but she might have considered it blasphemy and he didn’t want to do anything to ruin the mood. But he’d never felt anything as miraculous under his hands as her vulnerable feminine parts. All soft and wet and soapy and opened to him so trustingly.

“You’re beautiful, Grace. Every bit of you.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her smile turning impish. “Even my hands? You said they weren’t my best feature.”

“That’s like saying the
Mona Lisa
’s eyes aren’t her best feature because her smile is so beguiling. You’re the work of a Master, Grace. And altogether lovely.”

He rinsed off the soap and she sighed in contentment.

“This is altogether lovely, too,” she said with a lazy cat stretch. “No one has bathed me since I was a very small child. And never like this.”

She sat up and pulled her knees under her. “Now it’s my turn to bathe you.”

He’d planned to give himself a brisk scrub as soon as he finished with her. “No, it’s not necessary—”

“Yes, it is, and if you’re afraid I’ll faint dead away at the sight of a little blood, you don’t know me very well.”
Her smile trembled a bit. “I know full well what we’ve done, Crispin. And I know it’s something that can’t be undone.” She palmed his cheeks and kissed him softly. “I wouldn’t undo it, even if I could. Now let me have the pleasure of taking care of you. Lie down.”

He settled into the spot she vacated. Her body’s warmth and scent still clung to the space. He closed his eyes, his whole body thrumming with awareness, waiting for her touch.

Once in a while, when he was a boy, one of the girls at Peel’s Abbey would catch him and throw him in a tub when he became too pungent to ignore. The soap was always caustic and the water tepid, too warm to be refreshing, too cold to be comforting. Since he was the last one in the hip bath, the bathwater was always dark and scummy. When they were done scouring him, he always felt like a half inch of his hide had been scrubbed off, especially from his private parts, but he never felt really clean.

Now Grace washed him with tenderness. She cupped his scrotum experimentally and lathered him. Then she dipped the cloth in the water again and wiped off the soap. Grace’s touch on his penis was tentative but gentle. Even so, he roused to her.

“Oh! Does it always do that?” She ran the wet cloth along his entire length and his cock rose to meet her fingertips of its own volition.

“Like clockwork,” he said.

She wrapped her hand around him and slid his whole length. The effect was immediate. Even though it hadn’t been five minutes since he’d poured himself into her, his body was ready for another hard swive.

No. He wouldn’t class what he and Grace had done with that crude word. His chest still ached with the sweetness of her beneath him. With the memory of her
every desperate whisper, every sigh and hitched breath. It was pure glory to watch her come and know that he’d given her such pleasure.

That was no swiving. They had made love.

Love.
The word came to his mind unbidden and should have scared him spitless. Love was something women invented to bind unwary men to them. Something to give poets a living. Something for the weak-willed to claim they’d succumbed to when animal passions were really what got the better of them.

Now he could think the word without sneering or cringing.

I love Grace.
He tested the thought, poked it for any hint of cynicism or falsehood and found none.

“I—"

He was just about to tell her, but she picked that moment to lower her mouth to his cock and all rational thought fled.

Her hair tickled across his belly and shielded her face. She rained little kisses from just above his balls all along his ridgeline and up to the tip.

Ah, she used her tongue.

Crispin still couldn’t seem to make his work. He fisted the sheets, every muscle in his body clenched, waiting to see what she’d do next.

She found that spot of rough skin near the head and swirled her tongue over it. His balls bunched tight. If he hadn’t just emptied himself into her, he’d have spewed all over his own belly.

Then, God help him, she pushed her hair behind her ear so he could look down and watch her lick and suckle him. Her experimentation and obvious delight in that part of him made his chest ache afresh.

Crispin Hawke had grown up in a whorehouse, but he’d never seen anything more erotic in his whole life
than Grace Makepeace flicking her pointed little tongue over his cock. He had to have all of this woman.

And let her have all of him.

He sat up and pulled her down on top of him. Her skin was cool and smooth and soft. Her mouth found his. She breathed her life into him.

Without conscious volition, their bodies connected again. She was incredibly tight, but so wet, he glided into her dark embrace with a long, slow thrust. She sat up, astraddle him, and he pressed her hips down, pushing deeply into her. Grace threw her head back, her mouth passion-slack, her breathing erratic.

He palmed both her breasts and teased her nipples while his hips quickened the pace of his thrusts. Her brows tented on her forehead in obvious distress, but it was the kind of agony he could fix. He found her little sensitive spot again and rubbed it with the pad of his thumb.

She cried out, but he didn’t relent.

He was deep inside her when she came, limbs bucking, incoherent sounds escaping her throat. Her inner walls contracted around him. He joined her climax, pumping into her with surprising force for one so lately sated.

Then she collapsed on his chest, dragging in the huge breath she’d been unable to take while locked in passion. Her whole body trembled.

He made hushing sounds, comforting sounds, but was capable of no real speech. She stole his breath and his voice as well as his heart. Their connection made speech unnecessary.

Grace quieted and relaxed on him. She was so still, if he hadn’t been able to feel the steady thump of her heart on his chest, he might have been concerned. He stroked her hair and enjoyed the slow rhythm of her ribs expanding and contracting with each long breath.

Then he heard it. A small, very ladylike snore.

She’d fallen asleep with his cock still inside her.

He resisted the urge to chuckle. It might wake her. There was time enough for more later. They had all the time in the world.

He pressed his lips on the tousled crown of her head. “I love you, Grace,” he whispered and joined her in dreams before their bodies had a chance to separate.

“Mam’selle! Are you there?”

Crispin’s eyes opened. The rap on his bedchamber door made Grace pop upright beside him. Dawn was breaking through the slits in the heavy damask drapes.

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She scrambled off the bed and pulled the coverlet off with her, wrapping her body toga-style. “Yes, Claudette. I’m here.”

Her maid opened the door, but froze at the threshold when she saw Crispin in the bed. Her pink French lips formed an O.

“If you came here to find your mistress, you can’t be truly surprised, can you?” He tucked the sheet around his waist and laced his hands behind his head on his propped-up pillows. “Don’t stand on ceremony, girl. Come in, if you’re going to.”

She bustled in then, all business.

“Mam’selle, when I saw your bed, she was empty, I was overcome with the worries. Here. I brought these.”

She opened a small valise and pulled out a fresh chemise and stays for Grace.

“Thank you, Claudette. You’re a godsend.” Grace took the undergarments and disappeared behind a chinoiserie dressing screen.

“What time is it?” she asked, while her maid pulled a morning gown of sprigged muslin from the valise and gave it a vigorous shake.

Claudette draped a pair of pantalets and stockings over the screen. They disappeared behind it amid a rustle of unseen activity.

“Time for your father and his lordship to go fishing,” Claudette hissed. “They are sure to see you on their way to the pond. You must say you woke early to take the air or to walk or…”

“Wanted a quick swive or two with a member of the riffraff before you settled into ladyship in earnest,” Crispin finished for her.

Grace’s head popped up over the dressing screen. “That’s not fair.”

“No, that’s honest,” Crispin said, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. “It’s life that’s not fair.”

“Crispin, it was not—”

“Please, mam’selle,” her maid interrupted, scurrying behind the screen with the morning gown. “
Vite! Vite!
There is no time.”

Crispin folded his arms across his chest and waited for Grace to finish dressing. Then he rose from the bed, sheet wrapped around his waist. He didn’t want to plead with her. If he had to demand she choose him, it wouldn’t be her free choice. It would be a cheat. And if ever he’d needed to win the game without cheating, it was now.

Either he was important to her. Or he was not.

“Hurry, mam’selle.” Claudette buzzed around her mistress like an angry bee. “We tuck your hair under this bonnet so and
voila!
You are fit to greet the preacher.”

The maid all but shoved her toward the door.

“Grace.”

She stopped at the sound of her name and turned to look at him, her eyes huge, dazed, as if the enormity of what they’d done was finally real to her.

“What will you do?”

She ran to him and threw her arms around his waist, burying her face in his bare chest. He hugged her close, daring to believe she’d made her choice.

“Mam’selle!”

Grace looked up at him then, her face crumpling. “I will do what I must. Please be patient. I have to—”

“You have to go now, my lady! Or it is ruin for you and the sack for me for letting it happen.”

The maid actually took her arm and Grace let herself be dragged away. Crispin limped after them, the muscle in his thigh throbbing in agony for the first time since Grace slipped through his French doors last night.

He walked to the large open room he’d been using as his studio and stood at the multipaned window where the dawn streamed in. Grace and her maid were making their way across the meadow at a sedate pace. Grace even stooped to gather a bunch of bluebells to bolster the maid’s story of an early-morning ramble.

He watched her as she zigzagged up the hillock until she disappeared over the crest. She never turned to look back.

Crispin was still standing at the window, even though his leg trembled with the effort, when Wyckham came bearing a breakfast tray from the main house. Cook had sent him a “plate of something,” as Addison had promised. The riffraff was firmly in his place and all was right with the Dorset world.