Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo (28 page)

He gasped something as he came. She couldn’t hear him, not really . . . but it sounded like her name.

He left her there, tied to the bed, her sex glistening and plump between her splayed legs, his leavings sticky on her skin. He made Fernand go with him, and there she stayed, unsatisfied and needy, until Charlotte found her the next morning.

Yet, despite her thrumming, exhausted body, and the unseemly position in which she was found, Mercédès was complacent.

Monte Cristo had not succeeded in his desire for revenge. For in the end, it was he who’d given in.

ELEVEN

Maximilien Morrel’s fingers curled around the iron grate as he pressed his eye against it. “Val-entine, my love,” he murmured, wishing his fingers were long enough to touch her soft blond hair. “Are you well?”

She was, of course, sitting on her favorite bench, which had been angled more closely to the gate since the last time they’d met—but was still too far for him to reach. Her cheek curved with pleasure, and her thick lashes swept down, and as always, Maximilien was struck by her humble beauty. “I have missed you, my own love.”

“And I you. But how are you? How is your grandfather?”

“He has given his blessing to our marriage,” she said, suddenly turning her face directly to his so that he could see the full beauty of her smile. It took his breath away. “In eighteen months, we shall be wed, with his blessings.”

Maximilien had never felt so full, so joyous, in all his life. “It is so? Oh, Valentine! I am the happiest man alive! And what of your father, Monsieur Villefort?”

Her expression checked, and her happiness faded a bit. “He is not so well. He isn’t ill, but . . . of course with the three deaths in our house, and then the breaking off of my engagement to Franz d’Epinay . . . but surely you heard of that.”

He nodded, feeling the cold, rough iron against his forehead and wishing with all of his might that it was her silky flesh that pressed against him, and not the bars between them. “The news has trickled out that your
grandpère
Monsieur Noirtier was the man who killed d’Epinay’s father in a duel, many years ago during the Napoleonic uprising.”

“Yes, it is true. And of course d’Epinay could not marry me after that—and as sorry as I am for him, truly, Maximilien, I must thank my grandfather for divulging this fact. But my father is devastated that such a profitable marriage has been canceled.”

Maximilien couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease, for he knew Valentine’s marriage to him would not be nearly as advantageous as her father would want. But Valentine was Monsieur Noirtier’s heir, and if he gave permission, all would be well.
All would be well!
He would have her for his own.

“I have heard of another betrothal being broken in the last days,” he said, hoping to ease the sadness in her face. “Come here, please, Valentine. . . .Let me touch you, and I will tell you that you are not the only one whose father’s hopes have been dashed.”

To his relief, she smiled again, those plump pink lips curving daintily, so delicious he was overwhelmed with the urge to taste them. But he had to settle for the tips of her fingers, tucked beneath his, through the small holes of the gate.

“Tell me, Maximilien. I love to hear your voice, and it has been so difficult this last week without hearing it. Things are so . . . strange . . . in my house, since those three deaths. I . . . the doctor . . . the last time he was here, he looked at me so strangely. As if he believed it could be I who did such a horrible thing as to kill my own grandparents!” Her last words caught on a sob, but she swallowed it back and looked through the grate at him.

“Oh, dear Valentine . . . no one who knows you could ever consider that you would harm anyone, let alone those you love. Please do not worry on it. All will be well, and we will be married in less than two years, and we will no longer have this terrible
gate
between us!”

“Thank you, Maximilien. . . . Now tell me the gossip so I have something else to think on.”

He pressed a kiss to the tip of one of her sweet fingers, and as he nibbled on it, unable to let her pull it away, he spoke. “My dear friend Albert de Morcerf was intending to marry Eugénie Danglars, daughter of the bank baron. But earlier this week, Danglars told Count Morcerf that there would be no wedding between their children, and refused to tell him why. Albert, who didn’t want to marry Eugénie in any case, told me that Danglars only said to his father, ‘Be glad that I refuse to give you the reason.’ ”

He swiped his tongue gently into the webbing between her fingers, and she responded by giving a delicious little shiver. “Maximilien,” she sighed, leaning against the iron grate. Little parts of her body and gown seeped through the diamond-shaped holes, and Maximilien pushed himself up to the grate, likewise also pressing himself against it.

“Kiss me, darling . . . please . . . ,” he said, finding a place where his mouth would fit at level with hers.

“Maximilien . . . ,” she sighed, and as well as they were able, they kissed. Lips and tongue, cold iron bars between them, danced, receded, and thrashed together again.

He felt through the grate, his fingers brushing against and then curling around the silk of her gown where it fit to her waist, and he felt . . . he swore he did . . . the give of her gentle flesh beneath it. “Oh, Valentine,” he sighed against her lips, against the cold iron, trying to bring her body even closer into the gate with the tips of his fingers. “So sweet . . . so sweet, you are. . . .”

She pulled away, and their noses bumped between the iron diamonds. They looked at each other, and he felt as though he might drown in her deep blue eyes. They shone with love and hope and, not for the first time, Maximilien wished he’d brought a saw to cut through the bloody bars between them.

“Tell me more,” she whispered, her breath soft and sweet with mint.

He traced the silk hollows of her cheeks with fingers from both hands and said, “Danglars is said to have moved quickly and betrothed Eugénie to a young man named Andrea Cavalcanti, a poor young man who had been separated from his father since birth, only to find that he is a prince of Italy. The Count of Monte Cristo was the one who reunited him with his father.”

“How kind of the count,” said Valentine, but for the first time, Maximilien sensed a bit of hesitation in her voice.

“Monte Cristo is a good man,” he told her. “He has already promised me that if we need any help, he will move heaven and earth to see that we are together.”

To his surprise, she reached through the bars and touched his face. Maximilien sighed and let his forehead clunk against the gate, feeling the light, sensual touch as she brushed over his cheeks and jaw, then moved to another hole and, with one finger, traced over his lips, still plump from kissing her.

“It is just that . . . he seemed so friendly with my stepmother, Heloise,” she said, then gave a lovely little gasp as he opened his mouth and her finger slipped in. “When he . . . visited . . . several weeks ago. And . . . well, I know she does not like me much, and would prefer that Father pay more attention to their son, and it seems . . .” She caught her breath as he flicked his tongue around and between her two fingers, just as he dreamed about doing to her quim.

The very thought made his cock strain harder against his breeches, and he nearly lost track of what she was saying. “It seems . . . ?” he prompted with a little laugh. “Come now. . . . Am I distracting you, my love?”

“Oh . . . indeed, you are . . . ,” she sighed, “but you must take care, or I shall do the same to you.”

Her voice carried a rare note of mischief in it, and Maximilien felt a fresh wave of desire and love course through him. Beautiful, bewitching, and lighthearted. What more could a man ask for in a wife?

“It just seems that if he is friends with her, and she does not care for me . . . then they’re too much alike. I know that you’re very fond of the count, but ...”

“I respect him more than you can know,” he replied. She’d pulled her fingers away, leaving Maximilien straining for more . . . another taste, a deeper one, a longer, more erotic one. But then he noticed what she was doing and he felt faint. “Valentine!”

She’d begun to tug at her bodice, pulling it down low over one breast so that . . .
mon Dieu!
. . . so that more of that beautiful swell was revealed . . . and then the upper edge of her dusky pink areola. . . . Maximilien thought he might faint, but she stopped and looked at him. “Are you distracted, my love? Please . . . continue.”

“I . . . he . . . the count is a good man, he is intelligent and kind, and he loves me—I’m sure of it.” His words seemed to be forced between two very swollen lips and around a tongue that could not move properly. Suddenly her nipple popped out from the tight bodice, and there it was: her whole glorious, beautiful, plum-sized, pearlescent, blue-veined breast. There.
There.

“Valentine . . . ,” he groaned. His hand went to the iron bars, trying to reach through, but she stood just far enough away that he could only just brush over the tip of her nipple. His brief, bare touch caused her to snatch in her breath and straighten up.

“Go on,” she said. But her voice was breathy and seductive, and when he glanced up, he saw that her eyes were focused down where her breast shone virginally white in the shadow of the wall and surrounding foliage.

“And . . . I cannot remember what I was saying, Valentine. Please! Have pity on me. . . .” He sagged to his knees before her, fairly hanging from his fingers on the grate, so that his face was even with her breast . . . and when she pressed herself against that very gate, her soft pink nipple and most of her areola poked through one of the holes . . . . Maximilien thought he would spend his seed right there in his trousers.

He didn’t wait for an invitation. . . . He moved, putting his mouth on that luscious pink tip. At first, tentatively, like a first kiss, he pressed his lips to it, then swiped his tongue around. She caught her breath, then gasped, and she pulled away and he nearly cried out . . . but then, as if realizing that she’d aborted her own pleasure too, she came back, pressing herself even harder against the iron grate.

“Valentine,” he sighed, drawing that delicate pink nubbin into his mouth as if he were a babe . . . all the way in, gently but firmly, delighting in her little gasp of delight, her little surprised sob . . . and he felt it grow hard in his mouth as he sucked and licked and mouthed against her. His own passion throbbed in the form of a cock raging against his trousers, pressing into the iron bars for relief.

“Oh, Maximilien . . . ,” she sighed, shuddering against the grid so that it rumbled quietly in its hinges and against its chains. “Please . . .”

She could have no idea what she was asking for, but Maximilien did. “Come closer, love,” he whispered. “Your hips . . . closer . . .”

He reached through the diamond shape where her quim would be, trying to push through the layers and layers of fabric there to find the place where her legs separated, and she helped by spreading them in a most unladylike manner, moving her feet apart. Maximilien looked up and saw that she was clutching the grate with her little fingers, sagging against it as he sucked at her breast and tried to find the way to her sex. The weight of skirt on top of crinoline on top of shift was too heavy for his fingers to move, levered as they were through the damned small hole.

“Please . . . ,” she whispered again, and the grid clinked again as she pressed harder against it.

“Lift up your skirts,” he whispered, his mouth dry, his voice raspy. Dear God, it was broad daylight, in the back of Villefort’s garden. . . . The roof of the house could be seen in the distance, over the trees. . . . They could be discovered at any moment . . . but . . . oh Lord, he didn’t care.

When that heavy mass of fabric—of lace and sky blue silk and the stiff crinoline and the finely woven chemise—when all were bunched up in her hands, pushed off to the side and held at bay as she sagged against the gate, her breast no longer poking through, he was able to slip his fingers through and find her.

Mon Dieu
.

Oh! So warm and soft and wet . . . dear Lord, she was dripping and swollen and hot. He closed his eyes, pushed away the pain of his tight, shiny, purple cock and slipped his fingers around and through, into those secret, sweet folds and into her deepest part. . . . She caught her breath when his two fingers shot inside her, then eased out again, and then in again. . . . He used his thumb to find her tiny, hard pip; he couldn’t see it, but as he rubbed it between his thumb and finger, he imagined it peeping shyly out from beneath its little hood and nearly ruined his trousers right then.

“Valentine . . . sweet . . . Valentine,” he said, gently jiggling the little nub with the pad of his thumb, slipping around and pressing on it, and he felt her tensing, and her breath stopped and she seemed to wait. . . . He flipped his fingers out from inside her, around the hard, shiny pip, and suddenly she gasped and was shuddering against the iron bars, crying and shaking and laughing. . . .

His breath was heavy and fast, and when he drew his hand away from her warmth, he brought it immediately to his nose. . . . He had to smell her, to taste her . . . musky and sweet and feminine . . . Valentine . . . oh, Valentine!

“Oh God,” he said, and fell against the gate. He kept his moist fingers by his nose, breathing in her smell and struggling to subdue the insistent, angry erection that he smashed up against the iron bars.

“Maximilien,” she said at last. Her voice was a rough, surprised whisper, barely audible over the rustling breeze through the bushes around them. “I . . . that was . . . I love you.”

“I love you too, Valentine,” he said, bravely keeping his voice strong and steady. There would be time someday . . . someday for him to experience the release . . . but today was hers. “I will never survive eighteen months until we can wed,” he added in a sudden burst of desperation. “I pray God something will happen to change that.”