“Wrap your legs around me.” Ilya helped her hook her legs over his hips, her arms wrapped around his neck as he kissed her deep and drove into her. Thrust deep again and again. Moving into her, finally finding the road to bliss.
He rode them so she panted his name, sobbed it as her legs tightened against his hips. He kissed her as he worked his hips to pump, one glorious thrust after another. He murmured all kinds of things in Russian he could not yet tell her. Promises of the life he’d give her, the happiness they would have, the joy they would share as he drove them past rational thought.
Ilya held back, held back till his back strained and his balls throbbed for her cry of completion. Held back even as his cock screamed for release and his jaw ached from being clenched so hard, holding back a storm. This was for her, he chanted to himself, for her.
With each thrust she blossomed, with each kiss, and each touch. Her body undulated, her skin flushed, her mouth going lax and loose as her eyes saw nothing but the wave of ecstasy heading for her.
When it came over her, she cried out.
“Ilya!” Her voice broke, her head pushed back. “I’m broken. The bliss…the bliss.”
He couldn’t hold on. How could any man? He let go and pleasure exploded through his body as he clutched her to him. The pulse of her around his cock as it throbbed in aftershocks, as he pressed his face to her neck and held her so close, he never wanted to let her go.
He carried her to the sofa, wrapped her in his arms on his lap and held her as she dozed the rest of satisfied lovers. He gazed at them in the mirror. He imagined them in ten years, in twenty, in forty if they were lucky. He would want her like this, wrapped in his arms snuggled against him trusting that he had her, that the world was a safe and benevolent place because he’d made it that way for her.
“Mmmm,” she mumbled into his chest and started to extricate herself.
Ilya helped her to sit up. He’d have been happy to have her curled up against him for the rest of the night. A soft bundle of woman, lax in the aftermath of sex. She was intoxicating. Her body a perfect fit to his own.
“I’ll help you with your panniers.” He walked over to where he’d placed them and brought them back to the sofa. “Turn around and lift your skirts.”
The soft scent of her strengthened as her skirts lifted and he fastened the panniers, left one then the right, then set about rearranging her skirts.
“There,” he said. “You look as if nothing notoriously untoward has happened.” He grinned up at her as she stood gazing at him. Her hands reached out and cupped his face, both her palms pressed his cheeks.
“Ilya…” She bent and kissed him, gratitude, soft pleasure, growing confidence. He tasted them all. “I want to do it all again,” she moaned the words against his lips.
“Now?” He asked and wiggled his eyebrows making her laugh.
“You said you never did that.”
“Since you suggested it, I thought you might find it charming.” Ilya stood. “Another set? You can gaze at me and remember the diabolical things I have just done.”
She laughed. “We could lounge in the library with a champagne and let me catch my breath. Play some chess.”
“God forbid you make me play chess. Worse still than trifle.”
Her brow creased and he escorted her to the door. Opened it and checked the corridors were clear. “You go first. I’ll come later to the library but none of that chess, for that you need my brother!”
She slipped out of the room and he watched her turn into the next corridor. Another breadcrumb and his little bird had caught it.
In the columns the next morning:
The exotic Prince gracing the social set can find no rivals for the remarkably beautiful and elusive widow seen with him at every venue. Is there something more in the wings than the tantalizing flirtation London is witness too? Will Russia lose one of its most eligible bachelors? But I wonder, has the widow heard the whispers?
Chapter 11
Snow fell as their group of carriages rolled out of Bath’s train station. The sound of carolers faded as they entered the bustling flow of carriages and trolley cars. Once out of town, the countryside filled with the jingle of Christmas bells attached to the horses. Fourteen miles and they arrived at Ston Easton Park, a twenty bedroomed Palladian Manor with its Tuscan Portico and thirty-six acres of land.
“I didn’t think house parties were your scene. This is a racy set.” Marsden said as he handed Seph down and guided her up the stone steps to the front door. “Or is it your Russian?” he said under his breath. “You’ve decided to have a taste.”
Seph slapped his arm with her purse even as her nerves gave a flurry.
“Maybe I’ve already had a taste.” She murmured so the other guests couldn’t hear.
Ilya…he was constantly on her mind, in her poems. Like a puppeteer with his marionette, he had somehow taken hold of her body because she dreamed of him every night. Fantasies born out of the things he had done to her, the promise in his voice, the look in his eyes, scorched through her body. Those recollected demands and pleasures were things her late husband never conceived of. “Besides, I was invited, and I was curious. And more importantly, if I don’t find it to my liking or grow bored with my Russian,” she leaned in closer to Marsden, “I have an escape route.”
“How so,” Marsden murmured back, “I am always in need of a useful escape route.”
She laughed. He was a reprobate and she loved him. “Never you mind. Make your own plans.”
“Oh, I have.” He reassured her and she didn’t doubt it.
The other carriages relinquished their guests who soon filled the foyer. The room hummed with voices and laughter as coats were taken. Viscountess Lonsdale, Lady Lowther, their hostess for the event, ushered them into the front room for warm eggnog and the blazing fire in front of a resplendent Christmas tree, while their luggage was brought upstairs to their respective rooms.
Seph scanned those who’d arrived earlier only to find no trace of Ilya. The churning disappointment was pushed back. He would be here soon.
Along with a handful of other guests she went upstairs to rest before carefully dressing for dinner. One didn’t start with an obvious call to seduction, but she could make a notable entrance. Seph selected a Christmas burgundy satin gown with jet beading; a long-flocked velvet jacket with fur edging, burgundy velvet slippers and burgundy stockings with black suspenders, leaving her pantaloons in the suitcase.
Seph imagined Ilya’s hands gliding over the fabric. Imagined his delicious rumbles in Russian as he collected the fabric in his hands and raised it to reveal how little she had on underneath. She wanted the heat of him against her. The feel of him pressed along her back as he murmured in her ear, as his hand caressed her breasts and flicked at her nipples. She wanted to lounge in a bed with no thought of the servants and spend hours exploring each other.
A ripple of excitement fluttered in her breast as she entered the parlor.
“You look stunning, dear,” the Viscount said at her elbow. “Let me introduce you around.”
“Thank you. I recognized quite a few familiar faces when I arrived.” She casually scanned every part of the room for the second time taking in all the hidden enclaves and turned chairs.