To Disappear (25 page)

She gave him a lazy smile as he approached. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, which indicated that he was heading towards the stables.

‘Care for a ride?’ he asked.

‘Depends on what kind of ride you’re talking about,’ Lydia replied pertly, and then blushed slightly at the bold insinuation of her words. But to her relief Gabriel merely chuckled. ‘I was thinking about horseback riding, but obviously you have something else in mind.’

He lay down beside her in the hammock. His weight caused the slackness of the ropes to give, rocking Lydia closer to him so that she could feel his body heat. She shifted onto her side, her gaze scanning his sharp profile.

‘How often have you seen her?’ she asked.

‘Seen who?’ he said.

‘Helen.’

Gabriel turned to look at her. ‘This is the second time you’ve asked me about her. Why?’

‘I’m curious,’ Lydia said, then admitted, ‘and a bit jealous.’

Something softened in his expression. ‘You have no reason for jealousy, Lydia,’ he said. ‘We only have a social relationship.’

‘So did she stay overnight during the party?’

‘Not with me.’

Lydia fell silent, aware of relief blooming inside her like a flower. She looked at the curve of his mouth, the dark eyelashes framing his green eyes, the disheveled thickness of his hair.

‘Gabriel,’ she said.

‘Hmm?’

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘I think you just did.’

Lydia smiled. ‘I mean, a different question.’

‘You may.’

‘Why haven’t you ever…’ Lydia blushed as she tried to think of a way to phrase the obvious question. ‘Both Preston and Kruin have had intercourse with me, but you haven’t. I wanted to know why.’

His gaze broke from hers as he stared at the leafy canopy above them. For a long moment he didn’t respond, and a hint of both fear and regret rose in Lydia as she wondered if she had overstepped her boundaries again.

But finally Gabriel turned to her again and reached out to cup her face in his hand. Without speaking, he leaned towards her and pressed his lips with infinite care against hers, and warmth burst through her like concentrated sunlight.

‘I haven’t made love to you,’ Gabriel murmured, ‘because I was afraid that if I did, I would never want to stop.’

Lydia lifted her face to stare at him, as stunned by the expression in his eyes as she was by his words. ‘Oh.’ Her heart filled with an emotion so intense it was almost painful. ‘If only you knew how much I’ve longed for you,’ she confided. ‘I thought there was something wrong, that you didn’t want me—’

‘Ah, Lydia,’ Gabriel said, his voice husky. ‘I’ve never wanted anyone more than I’ve wanted you.’

His words were like a melodic song to her ears. Lydia placed her hand against the side of his face, wanting to drown in the emerald depths of his eyes.

‘Then take me,’ she whispered. ‘However you want to. Do whatever you want to do.’

Although it sounded like a request, she knew deep inside that she was somehow giving him permission, which made no sense since he didn’t require her permission to take any action whatsoever. But by allowing her to make the request, Gabriel was returning to her yet another small measure of control.

His hands went to her hips as his mouth met hers again. Lydia was becoming so accustomed to receiving orders she didn’t touch him until he took her arms and slid them around his body. Her hands trembled as she flexed them against his back, as she parted her lips under his and accepted the sweeping glide of his tongue.

Together they descended slowly onto the grass. Her legs parted in invitation as Gabriel moved over her, his hands delving into the glossy strands of her hair. Their mouths met with increasing hunger. His tongue erotically traced the line of her lips, their breath mingling lusciously between them.

Lydia’s fingers trembled as she unfastened the buttons of her dress to give him access to her unfettered breasts. She blushed as she realized her nipples were already taut with desire, protruding from the creamy mounds like juicy cherries. She gasped when Gabriel fastened his lips greedily around one, eliciting a shock of pleasure clear down to the pit of her stomach.

She stared up into his eyes, which were darkened to all the colors of a rainforest. He grasped her skirt and hitched it up over her hips to bare the apex of her vulva. His breath began to come rapidly as his fingers sank into her heated depths, pressing into her as if stoking her inner fires.

Lydia was almost embarrassed by the extent of her moisture, which she’d felt since she first saw him approaching her. Gabriel only smiled, muttering something low in his throat as his thumb began to circle the foamy bud and his fingers parted the soft pleats.

A delicious mist invaded Lydia’s mind, one that washed away all extraneous thought. Her entire being became focused on the taste, scent and feeling of Gabriel as she slowly unfastened his jeans and took his hard male flesh into her hand. He throbbed against the surface of her palm, echoing the sound of her own heartbeat.

Lydia looked in fascination at the contrast of her pale fingers against his veined, rigid cock. Her thumb stroked over the bursting tip, massaging seepages of fluid back into his skin.

Gabriel let out a groan as she guided him towards her sex. She parted her legs wider, her pulse pounding as she felt the moist knob pushing into her welcoming passage. Her body reveled in the sensation, so wholly different than that of Kruin and Preston, and made all the more precious by Gabriel’s admission.

He pressed her into the earth, his veined stalk thrusting into her body with augmenting urgency. Lydia moaned, her eyes drifting closed with ecstasy as she felt the tight globes of his testicles beating rhythmically against her, as the pumping movements drove her own need to impenetrable levels. She lifted her hips to match his cadence, her sheath gripping him hungrily, her breasts bobbing with every eager thrust. Even in the profundity of her arousal, Lydia grasped onto a sliver of thought about the decree of her orgasms.

Gabriel gripped her supple thighs from beneath, pushing them upward and opening her even more fully for the carnal penetration of his sturdy penis. Gasping cries broke from Lydia’s throat in tempo with their united rhythm. Her feminine oils coated Gabriel’s shaft with a glistening sheen, and she clutched his sinewy forearms as his pace increased even more insistently.

‘G-Gabriel,’ she panted, her full lips quivering as she looked up beseechingly at him. ‘Please… oh, please…’

‘Please what?’ he grated between clenched teeth, even as his fingers sought between their bodies to the slippery button of her desire.

‘Please let me come,’ she begged. ‘Please…’ Her words died in her throat, lost in the maelstrom of bliss. Pressure built inside her like a dam about to burst, and only one artful flick of Gabriel’s finger would be enough to send her over the edge. His lips pressed hard against hers, his tongue delving deeply into the hot cavern her mouth.

‘Do it,’ he hissed into her mouth, and she did, shrieking as rapture exploded through her body. Then she felt Gabriel spilling deeply into her, his responding groan reverberating from deep within his chest, and he collapsed heavily onto her, his breath hot against her throat as they slowly recovered in each other’s arms.

When Gabriel eventually rolled away he gave Lydia a slow, satisfied smile.

‘Well?’ she murmured dreamily. ‘Do you want to stop now?’

He chuckled. ‘I don’t intend to, no.’

Lydia smiled and tucked her body against his. When she first arrived at the plantation, she had never imagined she would ever feel this way. She hadn’t thought she was even capable of such intense layers of emotions.

‘You’re lovely,’ Gabriel said. ‘And I’m glad you’re here to stay, Jane.’

Lydia smiled again and lifted her head to look at him. She brushed a disheveled swath of hair away from her brow and bent to give him a lingering kiss.

‘Lydia,’ she whispered. ‘My name is Lydia.’

‘Delicious.’ Preston patted Lydia’s bottom affectionately and folded her skirt back down off her hips.

Lydia pushed herself up from bending over the arm of the sofa, her sex throbbing deliciously from Preston’s masculine plundering. She was learning to appreciate each man’s unique sexual style, even Preston’s frequently coarse and aggressive manner.

He fastened his trousers and gave her a satisfied smile. ‘See how wonderful our little arrangement is turning out to be?’ he said. ‘All you had to do was truly submit to your circumstances.’

Lydia looked at him for a moment; the sharp planes of his face, the malicious glint in his blue eyes.

‘I’ve never thanked you,’ she finally said.

‘Thanked me for what?’ he asked.

‘For what you did,’ she explained. ‘Your offer came with a heavy price, but if it wasn’t for you…’

Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged before concluding, ‘You gave me a whole new life.’

A slow smile spread across Preston’s face, and he cupped her face and affectionately pressed his lips to hers in a languid kiss.

‘And you have fulfilled my fantasies of you,’ he replied. ‘And believe me, Lydia, there are many more to come yet.’

She blushed. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she smiled coyly.

He gave her a wicked grin and left the room, and Lydia quickly went upstairs to her room and collected together her riding clothes, realizing she was already late for a riding date with Gabriel. She hurried back downstairs and outside, pausing when she saw Kruin sitting on the verandah.

His attention was fixed on a newspaper, but he looked up when she approached. His dark eyes skimmed over her, assessing the curves of her breasts and hips underneath her dress.

‘Let me see what Preston did yesterday,’ he commanded abruptly, so placing her riding clothes on the nearby table, she turned her back to him and lifted her skirt. The crimson ridges of a crop swept across her white buttocks, but rather than the usual embarrassment she felt a glimmer of pride over the punishment she had borne and its visual evidence.

‘Quite nice.’ Kruin’s fingers pressed against the welts, making her wince. ‘Perhaps I will try that soon, too.’

Lydia turned back to face him, strangely gratified by his approval. She suspected she would never grow tired of Kruin’s endorsement, just as she would never stop seeking it. Although they had reached an unspoken level of respect and understanding in their relationship, his degree of power over her remained as stronger – if not stronger – than ever.

‘You’re an interesting man, Kruin,’ she remarked.

His eyebrows rose. ‘Am I?’

She almost smiled. ‘You don’t know that?’

Kruin lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug and picked up the newspaper he’d been reading.

‘I… I’ll be grateful for anything you want to do to me,’ she confessed rather shyly, and then silently admonished her foolish comment when for a moment he didn’t respond, or even appear to hear her.

But then he said, ‘You’d better go to the stables; I believe Gabriel is waiting for you there.’

Lydia nodded, then picked up her riding clothes and started to leave the verandah, his voice stopping her just as she reached the steps.

‘Lydia.’

She turned back to him. ‘Yes, Kruin?’

He continued looking at a newspaper article. ‘You look very pretty in that dress.’

She stared at him for a moment, her heart swelling at the compliment as if he had granted her benediction. ‘Thank you,’ she said humbly, and knowing she would wear this particular dress more often now, she skipped down the verandah steps and headed for the stables.

The sun fell warm and comfortingly upon her bare arms, and corresponding warmth filled her heart, the latter elicited in part by Preston’s sustained control over her and the variability of his malicious streak. She was beginning to find a deep, sensual excitement in his sheer unpredictability.

Her warmth was also evoked by Kruin’s enigmatic yet affectionate power and by Gabriel’s gentle authority and tenderness. Her relationship with her dark triad was beginning to acquire a strangely natural rhythm, as if she had always belonged with them.

As she continued walking, her blood flowed with the anticipation of an exhilarating gallop that would agitate her welts into a rich, delicious discomfort, and numerous other possible scenarios, the mere thought of which thrilled and unsettled her, would follow the ride.

She saw Gabriel waiting for her by an oak tree, leaning languidly against the stout trunk. Quickening her pace, she felt the wind whipping through her hair, the ground firm beneath her feet, the lingering soreness of her bottom, and her soul soared like a bird on the breeze.

Yes, she had learned to fully live at
La Lierre et le Chêne
, even to stretch the boundaries of what she had once thought living really was. This was no longer about her arousal; it was about becoming the role that had been assigned to her. It was about finally realizing that she was – that she had always been – Lydia.