The Irish Devil (20 page)

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Where did you learn to, uh…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find words. Sometimes the subjects she discussed with William Donovan were so unusual that the polite conversational phrases of a Cincinnati drawing room simply didn’t apply.

An elegant black eyebrow lifted. “Where did I learn what, sweetheart?”

“To pleasure women,” Viola managed. “To lead them on with your voice, then command them with your hands and mouth until…”

She stopped, swallowed. William’s face conveyed only courtesy as he waited for her.

She finished in a rush. “Nothing matters except the ecstasy of obeying you and reaching the peak. Was it here in America or in Ireland?”

“Ireland, sweetheart.”

She frowned. Could he have afforded prostitutes there? He’d been young, but he must have been just as beautiful then as he was now. “Who taught you?”

He tilted his head quizzically but answered steadily. “An English lady, the daughter and widow of earls.”

Another woman? An unexpected pang shot through Viola.

“She and her husband are my good friends now,” William continued. “They provided the funds to start me in business in California.”

Relief flooded Viola, as hard and fast as her earlier pain when he’d mentioned the English aristocrat. The woman was married, so William couldn’t have formed an emotional entanglement with her. “Ah.” She sipped her tea.

He began to coax the nut’s meat from its shell.

Another thought crept into Viola’s brain. She voiced it before she considered the implications. “What else did she teach you?”

William started to smile.

He glanced sideways at Viola while he wondered how much to tell her. She was a passionate and trusting filly, who’d blatantly enjoyed whatever he’d asked of her so far. He could tell her a little, so long as he was careful not to distress her.

“A great many things, sweetheart,” William answered her. “Positions learned from the great books of the Arabs, the Indians, and the Chinese. The use of ropes to bind and adorn one’s lover.”

Her eyes were huge as she hung on his words. But she didn’t flinch. Instead, she licked her lips. Encouraged, he went on.

“How to employ a flogger or whip to excite. And other trinkets, with a wealth of purposes,” he drawled, remembering some memorable fantasies he’d enacted there.

“Trinkets? Do you mean jewelry, like a bracelet or pin? How could you use jewelry for carnal effect?”

William’s cock stirred happily at her curiosity. He forced his voice to remain casual. “Remember the ivory dildo that filled your backside yesterday? That was a trinket.”

“Truly?” She blushed as her tongue crept out to touch her lip. “It was very exciting. It made me so aware of everything your hands and cock”—she turned an even deeper shade of red—“did to my pussy.”

The last words were little more than a whisper but she hadn’t changed the subject or run from him.

“That’s what trinkets are for, sweetheart: to enhance one’s pleasure. Would you care to see some others?”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes, please.”

“Come with me to the bedroom then.” He rose and held out his hand. She took it and accompanied him like an eager student.

He retrieved his chest of trinkets, a farewell gift from Mr. Fitzgerald. It had once been a money chest, and its iron bands and multiple locks still ensured the safety and privacy of anything William placed in it.

“Your chest reminds me of pirates’ treasure,” Viola breathed, staring at the sturdy wooden box as she hovered next to his elbow.

William smiled and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Some trinkets can be considered treasure, sweetheart. I have heard the Chinese emperor collects dildos, for example.”

“The emperor collects dildos?” Viola gasped. “Why, in heaven’s name, would anyone want to have very many of those?”

William chuckled softly as he opened the chest and removed a few rolls of trinkets. Each was carefully wrapped in colored silk, sometimes padded, and always tied with colored ribbons. The variety of sizes and colors represented meant he could quickly find what he wanted.

“A dildo’s size and shape can be greatly varied, as can the material, every combination creating a different sensation in the wearer,” he remarked, unrolling the first set and removing the carvings. “Or a dildo can be educational, to teach an inexperienced concubine details of what she’ll soon experience in the flesh. It can also be a work of art, as beautiful as any sculptured bronze.”

“But not something you’d expect to see in an exhibit hall. I can hardly imagine the good ladies of Cincinnati, for example, lining up to see an ivory dildo as an example of their city’s preeminence in the arts.”

“Not in public perhaps, where discretion rules. But many more things are possible in the bedroom.”

He produced the first carving, a dark green dildo. Viola gasped and her hand flew to her mouth as she stared. William saw her nipples harden under her tunic’s soft blue silk. He smiled privately; he looked forward to discovering how far her curiosity would take them both.

“Jade? And in so many colors, too. How lovely,” Viola breathed. Truly the half dozen dildos were beautiful as they gleamed against the silk in the lamplight. Two were ivory, the other four of jade ranging in color from deep green to a delicate pink. All of them appeared remarkably lifelike, even if noticeably smaller than William’s enticing cock. “May I touch them?”

“Of course.” William handed her the elegant green dildo.

She held it up to the light, fascinated by how the darker veins in the stone mimicked a man’s throbbing veins. She caressed it, exploring the smooth texture. Her hand easily fell into the same movement she used on William’s heated cock.

He choked. Viola glanced at him and caught sight of a very impressive bulge behind his fly. Her mouth twitched while her blood beat a little faster.

“You mentioned different sizes, but all of these appear to share the same dimensions,” she remarked demurely.

William unrolled two more cases from the chest. Viola gasped. “Dear heavens, what could anyone hope to use one of these for? They’re immense.”

He handed her the largest, exchanging it for the one she’d held. She explored it delicately, enjoying how its cold surface quickly warmed in her hand. She squeezed it experimentally but couldn’t wrap her fingers around it. It was, after all, slightly larger than William’s cock when fully erect. “And an experienced concubine can take all of this into her channel,” she mused.

“If you’d like to see something other than dildos,” William suggested with a faint rasp in his voice, “you might examine one of these.”

“Thank you.” His tone made her eyes widen briefly. She accepted a string of five jade beads, all the size of large marbles and spaced well apart on a stout linen cord. The cord had a long tail before ending in a wide braided ring. “What is it? Not a bracelet, surely.”

“Not designed for that, although you could wear them that way if you wished. They’re more often slipped inside a lover’s backside, to tease and stretch the senses.”

Viola considered the beads dubiously. “As you used the little ivory dildo? But that mimicked your cock, while these have no such stiffness. They’d be more likely to dance inside one.”

She glimpsed his face as she toyed with his beads. The hunger blazing from his eyes answered her question and ignited an answering heat deep in her core. What would it feel like to be his plaything, excited beyond endurance by the trinkets he could no doubt wield with fiendish skill? Ecstasy surely, especially when he studied her so closely, like a pianist considering his instrument before a concert.

Viola swallowed, her breasts firm and aching under the soft silk. For the first time, she was glad of how quickly the Chinese costume could be removed.

“What if a woman is bound by ropes?” she whispered, voicing her oldest fantasy. “Can she still be pleasured?”

“Sweet singing Jesus, of course she can be.”

“Perhaps we can try such a thing one evening.”

He chuckled, a soft rumble evocative of masculine anticipation. “Tonight, little temptress.”

Viola’s eyes met his. She blushed but didn’t look away from his lust. “Yes, please.”

William scooped her up in his arms and kissed her, a long sweet dance of lips and teeth and tongues that set her pulse racing. She swayed when he set her down, giddy and barely able to stand erect. He kissed her again, then steadied her.

She forced her eyes open to watch him when he turned to the bed. He returned with a thick coil of soft cotton rope, like a magician would use. Her eyes widened at the amount.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he soothed. “It’s very soft, with just enough roughness to hold a knot. It won’t hurt your skin.”

“I’m not afraid of that,” Viola denied promptly. “I’m certain you would never harm me. But what could you possibly need so much rope for?”

He grinned. “To dress you in, sweetheart, like an exotic sacrifice to a man’s hunger.”

Her fascinated pussy immediately throbbed. Viola gulped, unable to find words.

William kissed the top of her head, nuzzling her hair. “But for your first time, we’ll just use this single length of rope to bind your wrists.”

She bit back her disappointment and nodded obediently. He was always very concerned that she trust him, no matter what he did. Tying up more than her wrists might be frightening for some women, if they had no prior experience of how a man treated them while bound.

Viola longed for more than just a single bond, to be utterly helpless to resist his wicked hands and mouth. Her breasts ached at the thought of being entirely at his mercy. If not tonight, then surely they could do so on another night.

He dropped the rope onto the chair and set about undressing her. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to, not while his hands turned the release of every frog of her tunic into an opportunity to caress more of her skin, both over and under the silk. He licked her neck and nibbled her ear until she was nearly dizzy from excitement.

Finally William cupped her face in his hands. “Sweetheart,” he drawled.

A stray thought wished he’d just once use that lovely Irish accent of his throughout an evening, instead of his western drawl. Viola still managed to answer him. “Yes, William?”

“Place your hands behind your back, wrists overlapping each other.”

She glanced down to see where her hands were and squeaked in surprise at her dishabille. She didn’t have a stitch on and her breasts jutted strongly.

“Sweetheart,” William reminded, a faint thread of laughter softening his deep voice.

“Sorry,” she murmured, and quickly put her hands where he’d ordered. The posture made her flushed nipples even more prominent. She closed her eyes and shivered.

“Sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” Viola growled. She might not be entirely certain of everything involved but she knew quite well when she was aroused. As she was now.

He kissed her shoulder. “Little spitfire.” He wrapped a couple of loops around her wrist and tied a knot. “Comfortable so far?”

She tested the result. The rope was close to her skin but not nearly as tight as Hal’s efforts when they were growing up. He’d practiced every sailor’s knot on her wrists and ankles, striving to find a combination she couldn’t slip free of. “Quite comfortable,” she answered honestly.

“Good.” His voice had deepened, which her pussy thought was a splendid omen. Blood mounted to her skin and heat built deep in her core.

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “will the rope hold you?”

Viola blinked at him. “Do you want me to test it?”

“Yes, of course, sweetheart. Be thorough.”

She obeyed him. The ropes around her wrists definitely had more play in them than she’d expected. Still, she couldn’t reach the rope ends to untie herself.

“A dozen roses if you can free yourself, sweetheart.”

“You don’t think I can.”

“No, sweetheart, I don’t. But you must be certain the bond will hold before we can explore its possibilities.”

She tugged gently. Force wouldn’t free her.

“Are you sure yet you can’t slip free? Try again, sweetheart.”

Viola frowned. Perhaps she could reach the rope ends if she twisted and arched her back at the same time. She’d been very flexible during her tomboy childhood and adolescence. Plus, she’d worked long and hard in Edward’s various failed mines, burrowing through the rocks and earth. Perhaps some of those moves would help her here.

William choked softly. She glanced up at him, keeping her body in the same position. He seemed fascinated and startled, close to Hal’s expression the first time he watched her wriggle free.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked softly.

“Oh no, sweetheart, please continue. You simply surprised me, that’s all.”

She considered him dubiously for a moment. He nodded encouragingly at her and she returned her attention to the knot.

Rope brushed the heel of her hand but she couldn’t quite grab it. Encouraged, she tried again.