Orfeo (6 page)

As he slipped out of the bed beside her, part of him longed simply to lie there, to hold her tightly, wake her, fuck her again and again and then fall into a deeper sleep in her arms.

But no. It wasn’t possible. Being here was dangerous for him. There were plenty who would have wanted his blood just for being in this room. Sadly he shook his head and staggered onto his feet: there would be plenty of time to sleep later, when he was back in the derelict room that passed for home far from the dangerous, intoxicating delights of Xanadu.

Stretching out his long, powerful arms, he felt paroxysms of mild pleasure, mini-climaxes, shuddering through his body. His cock, as long and as powerful in its own way as his other limbs, ached and his balls felt drained of every drop. How many times had he orgasmed? She was drinking him dry, this auburn-haired fury, this pale-skinned lamia—and yet once he had rested, composing verses for his diabolical muse as he lay in his cot, he knew that he would return. Reason told him of the dangers involved in such a seduction but he was compelled beyond reason. That made him wonder which of them was the seducer.

Casting about for his clothes which she had literally torn from his body, he looked with wry amusement on the shredded shirt. Oh well, he told himself, easy come, easy go. His real treasure lay asleep in the bed.

With the tattered remains of his shirt pulled across his shoulders, he started to hunt for his jeans and shoes which had been thrown around the bedroom somewhere beyond his immediate ken.

“You don’t have to go.” Her voice was soft and quiet.

Turning, still half naked, he returned to the bed and sat on the soft mattress beside her.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was. You don’t have to go.”

He sighed. Inside him an angel and a devil struggled for possession of his soul, one longing to throw all caution to the wind, to mount her and dominate her as she devoured him. The angel, however, offered calmer advice.

“You know I do. I’ll come back, tonight.”

The words sounded weak even as he spoke them. She did not reply, but instead pulled herself toward him, her own hands surprisingly strong as she gripped onto his bare thighs.

“Ardyce,” he began to say, the angel flailing for purchase as the aching, hungry demon below once more responded to her touch.

Still she didn’t speak, but instead lifted her head so that it hovered above his own rising sex. Her lips were moist and wet as she kissed him and he stirred longingly against her touch, his fingers losing themselves in the softness of her hair.

Opening her mouth wider, she began to suckle him, taking the tip of him into her and letting her saliva form a slick coating. He groaned as she pushed her head down on him, taking him in deeper now, and his erection began to swell and grow inside her, his fingers convulsing as she began to suck him into the back of her throat.

She had arched her body like a serpent across his lap, and as her head bobbed up and down he admired the sinuous curve of her back, the muscles between her shoulder blades moving as she feasted on him. The edge of her buttocks was just visible beneath the hem of the sheet, a soft shadow leading into the cleft where so much joy lay. Reaching out with one hand, the other pressing down on her head as she sucked him, he slid his fingers across the soft, cool flesh of her buttocks and found the wetness of her sex. She wanted him—but then she always wanted him.

When he lifted her up at last, she resisted at first, fighting him so that he would not leave her again. He gripped her narrow wrists in his hands and she struggled fiercely, eyes blazing as she hissed with unfulfilled lust. But now his cock was iron, hard and strong, and when she saw it she knew that he would not—could not—leave now.

He pushed her onto her front, pulling away the sheet so that her bare legs were exposed as the gray light began to turn golden. She parted them, and he saw her slit, wet and open, a flower for him beneath the round muscle of her buttocks. Lowering his own body on top of her with one hand he gripped her hair, the thick locks coppery red in his black fingers as, with his other hand, he guided his erection down and into her.

She groaned and gasped as he penetrated her again. It must hurt her, he was sure, just as it ached for him to fuck so many times in one night, but that didn’t matter now. She was going to trap him here with the dawn. So be it. For that she would pay—gladly, willingly, a thousand times over.

He yanked back her hair, making her back and neck arch up so that he could force his mouth down onto her, greedily kissing her, eating her as his own buttocks began to move with short, sharp, savage thrusts. Her gasps became whimpers and her hands flailed about the bed, grabbing pillows and sheets as convulsions rocked through her hips and thighs.

Glancing across the room, he saw the two of them locked together in the mirror that was placed above her dressing table. Her own body, so white with rose-tinted hues, was half hidden by his large, powerful body, her legs splayed wide to allow him to enter her more deeply. She was murmuring senselessly now, unable to form any words other than the primeval language of lust as yet another orgasm began to flood her, and as he slammed his buttocks down upon her, the terrible ache in his cock becoming a rippling burst of pleasure, he howled like a wild beast.

When at last he collapsed on top of her, half-suffocating her, she lifted up one hand and began to stroke him soothingly. With that he could fight no more and, finally, drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When Ardyce entered the drawing room, she found Orfeo talking to one of her maids—the young girl, Beatrice. Ardyce had found out one of her father’s shirts for him. For some reason she had felt compelled to search for it herself, having insisted that the clothing that she had torn was no longer fit for him. In the meantime, rather than waiting for her in the bedroom as she had expected, Orfeo had gone wandering through Xanadu and evidently been distracted here.

He was seated on a chair, one leg nonchalantly resting across the arm. Although he now wore his jeans, from the waist up he was still naked, his dark chest broad and muscular, his arms elegantly powerful while he spoke with exaggerated gesticulations, speaking in Creole which took Ardyce by surprise. It appeared that she had disturbed him during some particularly amusing anecdote as Beatrice was laughing loudly. When she realized that her mistress had entered the room, she raised her hand to her mouth in an effort to stifle her laughter, flashing her dark eyes toward the other woman. For her part, Ardyce had never quite realized how pretty the young woman looked, in a rather coarse way, and her own eyes narrowed bitterly as unexpected emotions welled up inside her.

“Here,” she said, walking across the room and flinging the white shirt toward Orfeo. “This should fit. You might prefer to cover yourself up.” She turned her attention to the maid. “Beatrice—don’t you have work to do?”

Blushing, the maid dipped her head with a mumbled “Yes ma’am,” then scuttled away, still tittering as she left the room. Oblivious to Ardyce’s sudden iciness, Orfeo moved his bare foot to the floor and began to shrug the shirt across his thick shoulders, the black muscles shifting as he moved his arms through the sleeve. As he fastened a few of the buttons, his fingers lingered on the fabric, rubbing it between the tips.

“This is too damn fine for me,” he said with a laugh. “Something left by a former lover?”

His eyes glittered provocatively as he spoke. “My father’s,” she replied disdainfully. Immediately his smile faltered and he nodded his head in acknowledgement.

“Thank you,” he said, simply.

“You and Beatrice appeared to be getting on very well.” Despite herself, she could not stop her voice from becoming a touch colder with him and, catching her tone this time, Orfeo frowned.

“What is it? She’s a pretty girl—funny too, though I wouldn’t expect anything else in such a house, especially with such a mistress.”

“So is that your plan, then? To seduce me first and then make your way through all the other pretty girls in Xanadu?” As soon as she said it the words tumbled like dead petals from her lips, massacred by her stupidity. The effect on Orfeo, however, was instant.

Standing slowly, he buttoned his shirt completely up, covering the firm pectorals of his chest beneath the rich fabric. His face had become impassive although, for the most fleeting of seconds, Ardyce thought she caught a glimmer of pain in his eyes.

“I’ll thank you for your hospitality, Miss Dubois,” he said in a tone of restrained politeness. “I guess I should be leaving you in peace.”

Barely an hour before she had been crying in ecstasy as he lay on top of her, moaning all sorts of oaths as he brought her to yet another orgasm, his voice broken with lust in her ear. Now it was veneered with respectability, the effect of which was to freeze Ardyce in place.

As he began to move, his dark brown eyes watching her warily, at last her body moved by itself and her hand came up to rest on his arm. He paused, the bulk of his frame above her, so strong, so tall.

“No,” she said. “Don’t go. Not yet.” She swallowed down a final word:
please
. She had never begged a man before in her life and she was determined not to begin now.

He looked at her, nodding slowly. “I should go,” he repeated quietly. “And not because of this. It’s not safe.”

This astonished her and her laugh was high-pitched, a nervous reaction to such an unexpected observation. “Nonsense!” she said. “Xanadu is perfectly safe.”

He smiled a little sadly at this and shook his head, dipping his eyes away from hers for a moment. When he lifted them again, he did not look at her but instead stared out of the window. “Xanadu,” he repeated, his smile ironic and strangely undecipherable. “So twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and pillars were girdled round.”

For a few seconds she was at a loss, wondering what on earth he was talking about, and then the lines came to her: she had heard them before, from Baptiste.

“Yes,” she said. “From the Coleridge poem, though my grandfather was thinking more of Citizen Kane from what daddy told me.”

“And are you one who has always gagged on the silver spoon?” he asked, returning those deep, dark eyes to hers once more. Ardyce stared at him in incomprehension and he laughed, his face lighting up in glee. “I take it you are not a follower of the
oeuvre
of Orson Welles,” he remarked, his voice rumbling in mirth.

At last catching onto him, she smiled and gripped his arm a little more tightly. “I’ve always been more of a
Casablanca
fan myself. Of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, you walk into mine.”

His laughter was louder now at this and she responded to its infection, her own body relaxing as his shoulders shook beside her. Without thinking, she raised herself up onto her toes and kissed him on the cheek. He, equally thoughtlessly, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her small body closer into his, his mouth hunting out hers.

“It’s hardly a lousy gin joint,” he said at last when they parted, looking around admiringly at the room. “This is a beautiful house, and you most beautiful of all.” He smiled at her, his dark eyes sparkling.

She had heard such things many, many times before, but this time her heart beat more quickly than ever before. “Just you remember it,” she whispered. “Because you’re the most beautiful man I know.”

He nodded at this. “If I’m happy with your maid, it’s because you make me happy. I’d heard about you, you know, long before I saw you. One of the members of the band at Apollo’s, he told me about the divine Ardyce Dubois. He’d seen you, in clubs: he said you were the most perfect woman he’d ever seen, but that you always looked so sad.”

“Sad?” Ardyce pulled away slightly, staring up at him. She could feel her body trembling slightly in Orfeo’s hands as he held her gently but firmly. He nodded.

“Yes. Sad. And when I saw you, you looked even more melancholy—and even more perfect—than he’d led me to believe. When I saw you, I had never wanted another woman more in my life.”

His words were having a strange effect on her and she pulled away slightly from him, pulled away because part of her wanted so strongly to push him to the ground, to make him force himself upon her—but something wasn’t right, something didn’t quite make sense and she struggled to remember what it was.

Then her memory cleared. “You said it wasn’t safe, you being here.”

Now it was his turn to look somewhat mournful. He nodded again.

“What did you mean?”

He sighed and let her go, moving toward the window and staring out of it with his back to her. She watched him for a few moments, taking in his short, thick hair, the expanse of his shoulders and back as he stood there with his arms folded.

“When Jeb—he was the saxophonist—when he first saw you, it was at Hades.”

“Ah,” she said, understanding at last. “That.”

He half turned and looked at her, his face serious now. “Yes, that.” He returned his gaze to the gardens outside the window.

“Are you afraid? Of Earl?”

He said nothing for a while, then bowed his head. “Yes,” she heard him say, very quietly.

Coming up behind him, she slid her arms around his waist, pressed her head against his back. He was solid and firm in her grasp, immoveable, and she felt that she could just stand here, close to him, for an eternity.