Madness (27 page)

“I noticed. I was there with you. It was magnificent.”

He winked at her. “And something I would like to spend the rest of my life trying to surpass.”

She laughed in delight. “No complaints from me, except that Clarissa will be here soon. So let me just tiddle you until she arrives.”

But she was already on her back on the cot before she even knew he had moved.

“No, definitely not wet enough,” he said, his voice muffled by the skirts over his head.

“Oh, you must be teasing. I feel like I’m gushing like a geyser.”

He was already licking and caressing her to madness once more. “Wonderful. I adore nectar and honey for breakfast.”

“You’re so wicked.”

“Only with you, pet.”

She nearly fainted as he hauled one foot onto his shoulder and began to massage it with his hand as he devoured the peaks and valleys between her thighs. The other leg followed, opening her up to him completely. Oddly, she felt no shame, no reservations. It was as if they were suspended in one perfect moment in time, and she was willing to make the most of it, for who knew how long it would last.

He rubbed his way down her ankles and calves to her knees with
 
alternating hands, while all the while tasting teasting and testing with his fingers. He tapped her questing nubbin wth his fingers and then nibbled it with his teeth until she shamlessly rammed her hips upwards and took in all of his tongue.

He glided it in and out, and wiggled it until she squealed and cried out. He only stopped when they could hear footsteps approaching.

She sprang off the bed ducked behind the door and tried to calm her rapid breathing and pulse. She had been so close.....

She could feel her nipples thrusting through the fabric of the gown, her pearlescent honey saturating her thighs. She had to press them together to stop them from trembling.

It was only the food tray for Simon. As soon as she heard the scrape of the metal and the footsteps recede, she came out from behind the makeshift curtain in relief.

He stared at the odd light in her eyes as she came towards him, flattened him on the bed, and yanked his trousers down. She took his huge length and width in her hands worshipfully for a moment before bending her head.

“And I adore sausage from breakfast. I’m going to devour every morsel.”

Finally he begged hoarsely to take him in before he spent, and she slid down upon him at last. She had wanted to simply pounce and straddle him from the moment she’d come out from behind the curtain, but he was just as deserving of teasing and prolonged pleaure as she. She huffed out a little breath as he drove right up into her, and then she was yanking open her chemise.

“My breasts, please.”

 
He massaged them to even more urgent fullness and she angled herself so that the thick ridged veins of his shaft glided against her folds and peaks with the maximum friction.

He struggled to stay with her, and drove on, watching her climax once, twice threee times. Finally she was about to collapse on top of his chest when he rasped, “
N’arrête pas
!”

Through her passion-induced haze the meaning of the words filtered through.

“
N’arrête pas!
Don’t stop!”

He was gabbing at her hips to push them up and down even more urgently, and gave the command again even more raggedly. “
N’arrête pas!”

He flipped her onto her back and dragged her knees up around his shoulders. Now he felt so full inside her he almost couldn’t move. A few careful movements in and out slicked him enough to proceed and then she was almost screaming at the powerful sensation, so much so that he clamped one hand over her mouth as he watched her in awe fascination.

“Go on,
cherie
, come for me again. Go on, do it again.”

“I can’t,” she panted, feeling as if her whole body was unravelling with desire.

“I’m going to leave you if you don’t do it for me again.” He started to withdraw slowly, but she begged him to wait.

“There you are. I can feel your quivering as you take in all of me. Oh, lovely. Do you feel what you’re doing to me? And now this? Can you feel me? I’m going to pour into you like a rainstorm. Are you ready for me?”

“Oh, yes,” she gasped.

“Then come for me again. That’s right. Gorgeous.”

Her body tautened desperately. She could feel the tension vibrate in every part of her body. She climaxed again, but the sensation only seemed to build.

“That’s right, another one for me. Go on, another one. I’m not going to let you go until you let me have another one. Oh, that’s right, squeeze me right there. Oh, this is heaven. Come for me, love, come all over me. Surround me, devour me.”

She did then, and felt her whole body floating upwards on a puffy white cloud. She finally wafted back down to earth clutched tighly in his arms as he too allowed himself the ultimate joy at last.

When she could speak she said, “They might have said you were mad, but I must have something wrong with me to be like, well, like
this
.” She swept down the bed with one hand.

He shook his head, smiling at her lovingly. “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s beautiful. Don’t fear it. It’s part of your infinite power as a woman. Only an inferior or selfish man would not understand that. You flow over me like a river and I never want to leave your body.”

“You never shall. I can feel you within me always.”

He sighed, and his golden eyes grew shadowed with concern. “That may be true already. I mean, your friend gave you those sponges we discussed the other day, but we've been most lax and—”

She kissed his cheek and gave her most reassuring smile. “I’m not afraid. I know things will be just fine no matter what happens. As soon as you’re well, we’ll leave here and start anew. Maybe even get married some day if that’s what you’d like.”

He kissed her hard. “I want that more than anything in the world. But as for leaving, and—”

“One day at a time," she advised him, not wanting to spoil the moment. "You’re still in the throes of the addiction.”

“I think I’m rapidly developing a new one,” he said, stroking her bare belly and nuzzling her neck.

“Not a harmful one, anyway,” she panted.

“Only if I get too carried away.”

She shook her head and smiled up into his earnest face. “Not even then. I know I’m very new to all this, but it feels, well, perfect. Strange too, but perfect. I think we’re well-matched. So long as you don’t keep driving me to climax like that and er, holding your own pleasure back all the time. I want to make you the happiest man in the world.”

Simon kissed her on the brow and held her close. “You have. Pray God we will have many more days and nights like this. But I fear—”

She silenced him with one finger on his lips. “I know. So do I. But we will find a way, I swear. Rest now.”

“They will come,” he said quietly.

“I know," she said with a sigh, stroking his shoulder. "I do believe you, my love. But I refuse to be afraid. I have to believe that our love, though sudden and very unexpected, can defeat them. I'm not without friends, you know, powerful friends if the need ever arises. I won't forsake you.
We
won't forsake you.
 
We’ll decide what to do when the time comes. Whatever happens, we will face it together.”

Gabrielle held that thought all day as she did her chores and spent time with Simon, helping him with his toilette and the throes of his illness.

When Clarissa came that evening, she told her all she had learned about Simon's past thus far to relay to Oliver. Then she asked her if she had the right contacts to secure a brace of pistols.

Clarissa’s eyes widened, but she promised she would see what she could do. “It’ll cost you,” she warned.

“I know. Just do your best.”

Then she returned to Simon and held his head while he was violently ill, and began to rave anew.

Thus a pattern was set, with Simon's more lucid moments alternating with periods of great illness and total torpor. But he seemed to be ever conscious of Gabrielle’s presence, even when he was asleep, clinging to her hand or arm as if he were terrified to let her go for fear she would vanish forever.

If she sat in the corner to try to widened the hole into her sister’s cell, he would awaken and search for her frantically. When he was able to sit up he helped with the chore, and soon it was large enough for her to wriggle through if she didn’t care about her clothes too much. But it would have to be a great deal larger to fit Simon through, and he shook his head when she suggested he try.

“They’ll notice. And if they move my cell we’re done for.”

“It’s all right. We just have to move the cot in front of it, and we’ll dig downwards, not upwards, so it doesn’t rise any higher on the wall. And with Clarissa taking the debris out in her baskets and dumping it near the back wall, no one will suspect you had any help even if they did. Then I'll find you again and—"

"It will be too late, my love. They’re coming for me.”

This time the words had an edge to them she hadn't heard before. She nodded. “You’ve said that every day since I came. But Angela and the other women are keeping your guards busy as best they can, night and day, and they obviously haven’t reported to your masters yet for fear of losing their privileges.

"After all, it's not exactly an arduous job handing you food twice a day and looking in your cell to make sure you're still alive. So far as your minders are concerned, you haven't tried to escape, and you’re docile. Why would either of them care if you came into money and did manage to get the cell looking nicer and they spotted a whore in here?”

"How would you say you got in if they're the only ones with the keys?" he pointed out.

"I can say they weren't at my post and my big burly pimp is a great picker of locks and insists on his customers all being satisfied. That should stop them asking any more questions. And Oliver can come to play the part with a few girls still in the trade if need be to support the story."

He gritted his teeth. “I should be grateful for you being so resourceful, my love, but I hate to think how the fates have tainted your life since we last saw one another in Dorset. You were such a bright, pure little thing."

"And I'm not now?" she demanded, pulling away from his grip.

He sighed heavily. "I didn't mean in that way, darling, and you know it. I just mean I'm so sorry that your life has taken this turn, that our paths should cross again here, of all places, rather than some respectable drawing room in London or Lyme Regis."