Captured (8 page)

“It didn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“So it’s true what my father said? You decided to leave of your own free will?”

“Hardly! Your father assumed we’d done more than exchange a few innocent kisses, Lil. He thought I’d already ruined you, snuck into your chambers every night since I’d been a guest in his home. Curtis thought the same.”

“But that wasn’t true! I tried to tell them. If you’d told them as well—”

“I did tell them, Lil. They didn’t believe me, or they didn’t care, one or the other. They wanted better for you than a penniless boy who might someday—through some act of God—be an equally penniless duke.”

“It doesn’t matter what they wanted, you knew what
I
wanted. We could have found a way to be together. If you really cared for me as I cared for you.”

“Lillian, don’t push this matter.” There was a warning in his voice, a warning she ignored.

“No, Zander. It is time for us to—”

“It is time to put this matter aside. The past belongs in the past.”

“No it does not, not when it’s still shadowing our present.” She took a deep breath, unable to keep from asking the question that had burned in her mind since the day he’d kissed her on the beach. “Tell me true, Zander, would you want me now if we had no past? If my father—”

“Damn your father!” His volume made her flinch, but she didn’t back down. “Zander, you can’t blame my father for all of this. You had free will, you could

have—”

“Your father threatened to have me arrested, Lillian, for a crime punishable by twenty years of hard labor.” Alexander ran a frustrated hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut as if he wished he could force the words he’d just spoken to evaporate into the ether.

“What?” Lillian sat on the couch behind her—hard. Surely he couldn’t be telling the truth.

But why would he lie? Zander had never lied to her, ever. Wasn’t that part of the reason she’d felt so guilty for deceiving him?

“The first citation we received that night was for homosexual display with intent to commit unnatural acts. Do you know what that means?” he asked, softly.

“Of course I do, I mean— But that’s ridiculous. Once they discovered I was a female—”

“Once they discovered you were female, they wrote another citation, but the officer didn’t dispose of the first. By the time the policemen left your house that night they were already in your father’s pocket. He swore to me he would have me charged with committing unnatural acts with another man if I dared to speak to you again.”

Lillian stared into his troubled face, her mind racing. He was telling the truth. Dear God, he was telling the truth. Her own father had stooped to that level, threatening a man who was not much more than a boy, dependant on him as a sponsor, with no one to turn to for help but an aging aunt with no prospects of her own.

“Even if the charges were dropped, if I wasn’t prosecuted, the scandal would have ruined me. Can you imagine any of the wealthy people of Boston wanting their portrait taken by a deviant?” He sat on the sofa across from her, a bitter smile on his face.

“I’m so sorry, Zander. I can’t tell you—”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Lil. It wasn’t any of your doing.” He reached out and took her hand, twining his fingers through hers in an intimate caress that made her insides quiver. “Besides, you’re right. I could have made contact with you eventually, but by that time years had passed and I’d convinced myself…”

“That what we felt wasn’t real. That it was nothing but a childish fantasy.” Lillian finished the thought and squeezed his hand.

How could she fault him? She’d done the same. Even when she’d first seen him on the beach, she’d convinced herself that lust was all she felt for Alexander Darian. She’d been certain that she bore no scars from years past, that those nights spent lying awake in her bed aching for him had merely been the product of adolescent fancy, nothing more.

“Twenty years of hard labor for kissing another man? It’s hard to believe,” she said finally, simply to break the tense silence that had settled between them.

“Believe it.” He smiled and lifted her hand to his mouth for a kiss. “We could actually be prosecuted for our activities two nights past. Kisses on cunnies are also unnatural acts so I’m told.”

“Truly?” she asked, trying to ignore the way her sex throbbed simply from hearing him speak the word “cunny”. She was hopeless where this man was concerned. Completely hopeless.

“Truly.” His mouth left her hand, kissing up to her wrist, nibbling at the sensitive skin.

“That’s…so strange.” She should leave here immediately, head for home and confront her father with what she’d learned. Instead she found herself wanting to stay, to draw out this afternoon as long as possible, fearing it might be the only they’d ever have. “And what of kisses to pricks? Are they unnatural as well?”

He sucked in a breath, hot against her skin. “Most unnatural.” He pushed the table between them aside with one foot and pulled her into his lap. “There are also other things we should be sure to avoid.” His hands pushed up her skirt, playing along her bare thighs. She hadn’t bothered with her stockings either.

No corset, no stockings… It was plain that she had intended on having more than tea this afternoon, whether the decision had been a conscious one or not.

“Like what?” Lillian tried not to squirm as his hands feathered up and down her legs, petting her until her quim grew decidedly damp.

“You should never take the leather phallic in my bedroom in hand and play with yourself in front of me. You shouldn’t push it into this sweet puss while I watch you rub your little nub with your fingers.” His fingers trailed lightly over the legs of her drawers to where the fabric slit open near her sex, drawing a moan from her lips despite her flaming cheeks.

Reading about these things was one thing, hearing them from Zander’s own mouth, imagining the scene he described, was quite another.

“You should never let me press you onto your belly and lift your hips, or mount you from behind.”

His hand moved to the opening in her drawers, one blunt finger testing the molten liquid pooling between her legs. Lillian closed her eyes and spread her thighs, willing herself not to be ashamed at the excitement his words brought her, or the bliss tightening her womb from that single touch.

“You should never allow me to spread your cream back to your second hole, or penetrate it with my fingers.”

Good Lord, surely he couldn’t mean— “Or lick it with my tongue.”

“Zander!” Her eyes flew open as she tried to snap her legs closed, fearful that he might try to make good on that wicked threat.

“I wondered how far you’d let me go.” He laughed, a deep, rich, genuine laugh that made his eyes crinkle at the sides.

“You were poking fun at me?” She smiled and narrowed her eyes.

“Never, Lil. I was just playing with you a bit.” His finger plunged deeper, making her squirm against his hand, wanting more than one thick finger to fill her.

“I understand.” She shoved his hand away from her and turned on his lap, sliding down between his legs to sit before him on the floor. “Now I’ll play with you a bit. Surely, that is only fair?”

“Entirely fair.” He watched with dark eyes as she worked the front of his trousers. His cock, hard and thick, sprang free seconds later, its mushroom head swollen, pointing toward her, practically begging to be kissed.

He groaned as she pressed gentle lips to the soft skin covering his hardness, trembling hands coming to cup her face as she let her tongue flick out over his burning flesh. Lillian sighed and licked him again, surprised by how wonderful she found the taste. His desire, her desire, both mingled on his skin from their earlier coupling, making her sex clench between her legs.

“Will you take me in your mouth, Lil?” he asked, running fingers through her hair, pushing her tangled locks away from her face.

She rolled her eyes up to meet his, wanting to watch him as she gave her wordless answer. She knew the passion on his face—the wonder mixing with lust as she parted her lips and took his shaft into her mouth—was not a thing she would ever forget.

“Lillian.” He said her name, but his eyes said so much more.

As she suckled him, pulling him as deep as she could before running her lips back to his tip, she imagined she read the same longing in his eyes that filled her heart. Just for a moment, she wanted to believe that this afternoon was a beginning, not the end of a childish dream.

Again and again she took him into her mouth, just a little deeper each time. Eventually she found a rhythm that coaxed the hint of salty essence from his cock and a moan from his lips. She increased the power of her suction, drunk on the intimate taste of him, aching to feel him shoot his seed into her mouth. She wanted to swallow every last bit of him down, to hold some small piece of him inside of her.

“Stop, Lil, you have to stop.”

She ignored him, instead moving faster, her jaw aching.

“Stop, blast it.” He fisted his hand in her hair and pulled, wrenching her away from his cock with a gasp.

“You didn’t like it?” Shame washed through her, even as her sex gushed more hot cream, responding to the feel of his hand clenching powerfully at the base of her neck, immobilizing her, forcing her to tilt her face up to his.

“I loved it, but I love being inside you even more.” He pushed her back onto the carpet, his mouth bruising as he kissed her, but it was a sweet pain that only built her fever.

In seconds, his hands were flinging up her skirts and spreading her wide. He shoved his pants to his knees and gripped the base of his cock, preparing to enter her when she wiggled out from beneath him and rolled onto her stomach. She lifted her hips as he’d described and peeked over her shoulder to see how he would respond.

“God, Lil, I love you.” His voice was thick with need, and the eyes that met hers glassy with what looked like unshed tears.

Before she could wonder why he felt like crying or fully grasp the meaning of the words he had spoken, he was filling her, thrusting into her from behind with a force that made her knees scoot across the carpet. His strong fingers dug into the flesh of her hips, pulling her back to him, forcing his cock deeper than ever before. Then he began to take her, not gently, but with a raw hunger that thrilled her even more than his tenderness in the garden.

Soon every rational thought left her mind as she arched her back to meet his thrusts, her breath coming in desperate pants, overcome by the new way he filled her. His cock felt even larger from this angle, stretching her almost to the point of pain, hitting a spot deep inside her that sent shockwaves through her entire body. Every nerve ending sang with pleasure and her cunny grew hotter, wetter.

“Zander!” She screamed his name as her sex clamped down around him with a fierceness that was frightening. For a moment she was terrified that her entire body would fly apart, that she might embarrass herself, but then the pleasure coursing through her became too great. She ceased to care about anything but the way he made her feel, the bliss that blurred her vision and made her lips tingle with a wondrous numbness.

“God, yes Lil.” He came with a cry. She felt the hot stream of his release as he spent himself within her, his cock pulsing softly. He pressed her to the ground and lay on top of her, his weight as comforting as the hands he stroked over her body and the kisses he pressed to her neck.

As her soul came back into her buzzing flesh, Lillian became aware of the tears flowing down her cheeks and swiped at them with the back of her hand. She didn’t want Zander to see her tears, didn’t want to explain how every intimacy they shared affected her heart as deeply as her body. She’d been a fool to think she could drink her fill of easy passion with a light heart. She wasn’t like the merry lasses in the stories she read. She was a woman who ached for love, companionship, understanding, as much as she yearned for sensual fulfillment.

“Did you mean what you said, Zander?” she asked softly, not wanting to do anything to ruin this moment but knowing she had to know the answer.

He paused a moment, took a deep breath, but didn’t pull away or pretend he didn’t know exactly what she spoke of. “Yes, I did. I’ve always loved you, Lil.”

Her next breath came out as a sob and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into fresh tears when he sweetly shushed her and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“I will probably love you for the rest of my life, but what does that change?” He pulled his softening cock from her body and rolled onto his side. She turned over to look at his face, not bothering to straighten her skirts.

“What do you mean? It changes everything, doesn’t it?” She pulled in a breath and forced her tone to be even.

“I could never be the husband you’d want Lillian. I’m married to my work, spend hours in the darkroom and at my studio. You’d be alone—”

“I’d come with you. I love photography, Zander, you know I do. I could help you, be your assistant.” She smiled, trying to ignore the way his eyebrows pinched together.

“And what of your father, your family? Could you bear to have those once dear to you snub you for the rest of your life? To never sit on a blanket with Marjorie, or play chess with Curtis, or be invited home for Christmas dinner?”

“They would not be so cruel, Zander, I—”

“What if you’re wrong, what if they are? Would you grow to resent me for stealing your family away from you?”

“Never. We could be each other’s family then, Zander. I know it.”

“What if we have children, Lillian? What then? Would you want them to live on the fringes of polite society, the product of two parents whose peers find them too unseemly to invite to dinner parties?”

“Our children would be happy in our home if we were happy,” Lillian said firmly, though she could see that the matter was already decided in his mind. Whether he believed his own arguments, or perhaps some other secret concern assailed his mind, she would probably never know.

“Lillian, I—”

“No, please, don’t. I understand.” She stood stiffly and shook her skirts, grateful that she had left her corset and stockings near the back door. She would get them, fetch her camera from the garden, and leave. Then she would try to forget she’d ever been foolish enough to be swept away by her own machinations.