A Gentlewoman's Pleasure Read online

  As she wound herself around him, silently thanking him for his grace and kindness, Ethan stirred, then drew himself into a sitting position and looked down at her. She could discern a slight frown on his indistinct features.

  “How do you feel, dearest?” He brushed her hair back from her brow, fingers tender and careful, and then stroked her cheek.

  “Wonderful. I feel perfectly glowing. How about you?”

  He laughed, clearly amused by her assertive manner. Perhaps he wasn’t used to forceful modern women who asked questions, and asked for what they wanted, even if that included sexual servicing.

  “I feel the same.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I only wish I could have made it better for you.”

  “Good gracious man, what on earth are you talking about?” She twisted the hand that held hers, and kissed it in turn. “That was all quite sublime. Far, far better than I could ever have wished or hoped for.”

  He tilted his head. “But I wanted you to spend with me inside you. That was my goal. And instead you had to make your own pleasure.”

  Lucy sat up and faced him. “I’m completely happy, Ethan. I doubt that any woman could wish for a better initiation and more considerate lover.” She gave him what she hoped was a seductive and alluring smile. “But if you do feel that there were any shortcomings to your performance…as I said, we can do it again shortly, when we’ve both had time to recover.”

  Ethan’s smile was unmistakable, and when Lucy cast around for her spectacles, and fitted them on, it almost dazzled her. He really was the most stunningly handsome creature.

  “You’re the most splendid woman, Lucy,” he said, pulling her close again, and giving her a quick hard kiss on the lips that set the serpent of her desire, most dear and benign, a-coiling and a-twisting in her loins again, “And I shall endeavor to surpass myself, then, when we’ve recovered. But first, I think we should eat and recharge our energies…for I’m famished and I would imagine you are too.”

  Famished for you, thought Lucy, although even as the idea passed through her mind, her stomach rumbled.

  “I do believe I’m starving,” she cried happily. “Let’s take lunch and then we can reconvene.”

  What followed was the finest meal of her life, even though all it amounted to was bread and cheese, a couple of apples, and a glass or two of a rather indifferent wine. Taken with this man she suddenly so adored, it was like consuming the ambrosia and the nectar of the gods.

  “I’m afraid I’m still hungry,” said Ethan a short while later when Lucy had been convinced they were both replete.

  She glanced toward the remains of their repast, spread out across the bed, where they’d been eating, both still naked. There wasn’t much left. “Well, there’s a morsel or two of cheese remaining. I’ve had sufficient. Do take it.”

  “No, cheese won’t do. I have in mind something far more savory. More delicious and far more rarified.” He gave her a long, arch look that seemed to drift down her body like a mysterious beam of heat…and then settled unerringly on the cluster of curls at the base of her belly. When he licked his firm, lush lips so slowly and lasciviously that it made her heart skip, Lucy suddenly realized what it was for which he hungered.

  “Oh…”

  His answer was a quirk of his finely marked brows, and then in a sudden, swift and unequivocal action, her took her by the thighs and drew her across the bed, until her bottom rested at the edge of it. A knife and a plate bearing apple cores tipped off the edge of the bed, the latter rolling away across the carpet, barely noticed.

  “Relax,” he murmured, and pushing lightly on her midriff bade her lie back across the twisted, tangled sheets, “Rest back, take your ease…while I dine.”

  But it was impossible to relax. Excitement swept through her in a surge, washing toward her sex, building the tension. When he manipulated her, sliding her knees over his shoulders and his hands beneath her bottom, it was all she could do not to whimper aloud in lust.

  “Oh yes, my dear, yes,” she gasped as her positioned her. She understood what he was about to do, and she relished it. Here was another pleasure the Ladies’ Sewing Circle had whispered about. Eagerly she shuffled herself forward, enticing him to be swift about the business.

  “You’re an eager one, Miss Dawson,” purred Ethan, his breath hot on her thighs and making the soft hair of her puss ruffle. “In which case, you may help me…with your fingers.”

  Lucy’s sex rippled, just from the words. How deliciously lewd he wanted her to be. It was outrageous, but she complied happily, reaching down and prizing apart the curls and outer lips of her womanhood.

  “Very good…excellent,” pronounced Ethan as he dove straight in.

  The contact was exquisite, unusual, both what she’d expected and somehow quite different. Moisture met moisture. She was wet and so was Ethan’s tongue. It slid against her in a first long, sleek glide, and then seemed to end in a tiny flick of her trembling pearl that made her shout.

  “Oh yes! Yes! More!”

  With a laugh against her flesh that almost made her faint, Ethan complied and set about his task with his characteristic thoroughness, a quality which was rapidly becoming familiar.

  He licked, he flicked, he dawdled, he darted. Sometimes he tormented her with lingering leisurely strokes; sometimes he attacked with swift, hard, almost relentless stabs that set her heels drumming and kicking against his back. He feasted on her like the most opulent and succulent meal, making lusty sounds of appreciation directly into her puss, exhalations that became caresses in themselves as he uttered them.

  Holding her bottom tightly, he would not let her go, even when the stimulation became too great and she spent furiously, squirming and squealing. He pushed her onward, ever onward, driving her to the peak again and again with his nimble tongue, until she was barely conscious and her body was streamed with perspiration.

  “Please…have mercy…I cannot…” she gasped, with no strength left to complete the sentence and no mind left to remember what she wanted to say.

  “My darling,” he murmured against her, then set his tongue lightly and still, right on her pearl, as if to soothe and gentle her through the final searing crisis.

  Spent, more spent than she could ever have imagined it possible to be, Lucy just lay there for a long time, her legs still flung over Ethan’s shoulders. He rested with his cheek pressed against her pubic curls, his lips quiescent against her thigh.

  “I thought you said you were inexperienced?” she enquired when her own tongue would function properly again and form a proper sentence. “I fear you must have been misleading me…. You’re a proper virtuoso in that activity at least.”

  She looked down across her body at him, as he looked up. “I swear on your gorgeous puss that I’m not a Lothario and have relatively little pedigree as a lover.” He pressed a quick, chaste kiss against her sticky curls. “It’s just you, dear Miss Dawson, who inspires me. Your sensuous beauty rouses my instinct to give pleasure.”

  Lucy laughed, but this time, she didn’t attempt contradict him. She felt beautiful. She was beautiful. It seemed that Ethan had also rescued her from her own perceptions, as well as a muddy ditch, and even if her looks were not in the classic mode, she had a particular charm all of her own.

  After all, he surely wouldn’t be able to perform so enthusiastically between the sheets—and elsewhere—with a woman whose looks didn’t appeal to him. Even if she knew precious little else about Ethan, her every instinct told her he was scrupulously honest.

  Ethan nodded, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “I’m glad you’ve decided to accept the fact that you are lovely.”

  “Yes, I’m completely resigned to the fact now. I’m adorable. I simply need new spectacles, to see what I didn’t see before.”

  He rose between her legs, beautiful and graceful—and spectacularly aroused.

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again…if you can take it?”

  Astonishingly, she could. The
portions of her anatomy that she’d believed thoroughly sated, at least for the time being, were suddenly needful again. Her puss almost rippled of its own accord when Ethan took his mighty cock in hand and gave it an experimental frisk. “Of course, I could deal with myself, if you’re too tired, my sweet. I know it’s frowned upon in many quarters, but I’ve always found self-pleasure to be most beneficial.”

  “Me too,” replied Lucy, giving him a sultry look that she would never have attempted a few days ago, but in which she now felt completely confident. “And I would like to observe you in that particular pastime….” She paused, and then slithered back over the bed, lying down sideways again and parting her legs. “But I rather believe that I need servicing again.”

  “And then what happened?” demanded one of the Misses Gray, who were twins, and each one as inquisitive as the other.

  Lucy realized that she’d paused in her narrative, and had been silent for several long moments. She glanced around, seeing faces even more avid than when she’d first begun.

  “We fucked again, of course!” She flung the forbidden word out boldly, her body warming yet more just at the thought of it.

  “Bravo, my dear! I’m glad to hear it,” approved Sofia Chamfleur, beaming, “Your young man sounds perfectly delicious. Of course you fucked him. Who wouldn’t, in your place?”

  “And what happened after that?” Prudence Enderby leaned forward, sipping from her cup and grimacing. She’d obviously let her tea grow stone-cold during the story.

  There was so much more, but they would be here all afternoon and evening if she recounted it all, and husbands and families would be wondering where their womenfolk were.

  “Well, we made love again, and we ate again, and then Ethan mended my bicycle and conducted me to my cousin’s house in a borrowed horse and trap…and then we parted.”

  For a moment, a lump filled her throat. It had been hard to say goodbye, but she’d been prepared for it. Magical erotic idylls in secluded country hideaways could not last forever, and the protagonists would always have to go their separate ways. She’d cheerfully—and bravely, she thought—made her farewells, and not cried at all.

  No, she’d not wept until she’d discovered the letter secreted in her bicycling suit pocket, and then she’d sobbed for an entirely different reason.

  “Well, you’re a dark horse, Lucy Dawson,” proclaimed Arabella Southern, reaching over to pat her on the back. “With a truly scandalous imagination. I don’t think anyone here’s ever described a more risqué fantasy. Not even Prudence, who usually tells the tallest of tales.”

  Lucy beamed. She took off her spectacles, polished them and, on donning them again, looked around the circle, to see looks of awe and wonder, and a gathering understanding reflected back at her. It seemed that some of the ladies had already turned the page to see the next chapter of her story.

  “Ah, but it was no a fantasy, Arabella. It all really occurred and Ethan actually exists.” Her heart thudded, dancing anew as she hugged her good fortune against it. “And he gave me a letter, formally asking if he might call on me in London, in order to pay court me properly. He’s in town on business today, and tonight we dine together at the Café Royal.”

  Before she knew it, Lady Arabella had her in a most unladylike bear hug.

  “Good for you, my pet. Good for you. I knew you had it in you, so to speak.” The peeress winked, then paused while general giggles and merriment subsided. “Wait a minute…. ‘Oakley,’ you say? And he’s a builder?”

  “Yes, indeed. He’s an architect and a builder, and doing very well at it. The house he’s building in the country is his own. He only took the little cottage temporarily for convenience to be adjacent to the site.”

  “He isn’t the Oakley that did the Duchess of Tewkesbury’s new ballroom and west wing, is he? Apparently he’s very much the thing, and in demand with all the right people.”

  “Yes, that’s my Ethan, the very same.”

  “Capital! Not only have you bagged yourself a fine young stud, but a good prospect into the bargain.”

  “But I haven’t quite bagged him yet. Thus far, he’s only courting me.”

  “Nonsense! From what you’ve just told us, the fellow can’t resist you. It’s only a matter of time,” Lady Arabella pronounced firmly. “But do promise me two things, Lucy. For heaven’s sake, don’t wear your knickerbockers to the Café Royale, will you? And do try to avoid wearing your spectacles in bed.”

  Lucy nodded, and laughed, and accepted general congratulation, and reassured her friends that she’d be wearing feminine dress tonight. This was true, as she’d purchased a chic new ensemble especially, taking particular care in her choice of French lingerie.

  Ah, but I shall wear my spectacles in bed, my dearest Ethan, she told her darling silently, already counting the minutes and seconds until they’d be together again.

  How else can I observe every last detail of your magnificent, manly body and your handsome face…or see the look of love in your blue eyes?

  Imagining that, her heart fluttered, and she smiled again.

  THE END

  Watch for Portia Da Costa’s next short story from the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, A Gentlewoman’s Dalliance, from Spice Briefs. And don’t miss her full-length novel in the series, In the Flesh, from HQN Books.

  For even more scandal, check out the rest of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle series: A Gentlewoman’s Predicament and A Gentlewoman’s Ravishment, available now from Spice Briefs.

  Watch for Portia Da Costa’s full-length novel in the Ladies’ Sewing Circle series, IN THE FLESH, from HQN Books.

  Society already believes she’s a scarlet woman. Why not become one?

  Posing nude to appease her now ex-fiancé perhaps wasn’t the most prudent idea Beatrice Weatherly has ever had. With the photographs scrutinized up and down the ton and her brother running them into debt, Beatrice's hopes of making a respectable marriage are dashed.

  After one glance at Beatrice’s infamous racy cabinet cards, wealthy, powerful Edward Ellsworth Richie is soon obsessed with Beatrice’s voluptuous figure. His indecent proposal—one month of hedonistic servitude in exchange for enough money to pay her brother’s debts—is one she can hardly refuse.

  Determined not to let the rogue best her, Beatrice sets out for the infamous House of Madame Chamfleur to learn how to appease Edward’s well-known appetite. Soon the couple is playing out exquisite fantasies…and feeling emotion that goes deeper than flesh. But Edward harbors a shocking secret, and Beatrice must decide if she’s prepared to give up everything for a man who can offer her nothing, but who means everything.

  Hungry for more? Spice Briefs to suit every taste are available now at www.spicebriefs.com, including these recent titles:

  Gabriel’s Naughty Game by Madelynne Ellis

  Carnal Punishment by Mia Crawford

  Going Down by Saskia Walker

  A Taste of Chi by Alison Tyler

  The Revolutionary Mistress by Leia Rice

  Taking Liberties by Jackie Barbosa

  Tempting the New Guy by Alegra Verde

  Let Me In by Lauren Hawkeye

  His Desirable Debutante by Lynne Silver

  Lead Me On by Lauren Hawkeye

  For even more sexy stories—and to submit your own work—please visit www.CarinaPress.com!

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-2140-6

  A Gentlewoman’s Pleasure

  Copyright © 2012 by Portia Da Costa

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