Hard flesh surrounded Rose’s fingers . . . took from Rose the fork.
His lashes lowered. Metal scraped china.
Lashes opening—gaze pinning hers—Jack offered the fork. “Open your mouth, Rose.”
“It is open, Jack.”
She had not realized a woman’s body could be so open to a man.
A look of near-pain hardened his face. He leaned forward, mattress dipping.
His lips were hot, his tongue hotter yet.
He kissed her mouth open while her vagina leaked desire onto his thighs and lethean rain pelted glass.
“Keep your mouth open,” vibrated her tongue.
Sharp, pointed metal entered between her lips.
She was suddenly, acutely aware of the damage that could be inflicted with the forked tines.
A single jab could pierce the back of her throat.
“Close your mouth,” Jack said, voice a dark rasp.
Rose closed her lips tightly; egg and sharp cheddar replaced the taste of Jack.
Slowly he pulled out the fork, metal dragging against her inner lips.
The gentle scrape pierced her thighs.
“Which postcard most surprised you?” he asked, gaze fastened on her lips.
She remembered the blunt heat of his penis, pressing against the back of her throat. She tasted again the salty spurt of his sperm.
She knew that he, too, remembered the cab ride to the furniture store.
He had come in her hands, against her tongue.
“I think I was most surprised when I first saw a postcard of a woman spanking another woman,” Rose said unevenly. It was on the tip of her tongue to add that the card had been brought to a club meeting by James Whitcox: She swallowed the name. “I hadn’t realized that men took pleasure in a woman’s pain. The bookshop possessed a wide selection of such cards, with both sexes featured. I realized then that it wasn’t a woman’s pain that titillated men, but the idea of inflicting pain.”
“Pain is a form of power: It can be titillating for both the administrator and the recipient,” Jack said enigmatically. And fed her another bite. Fork deeply entering her mouth. Like his sex. “Which postcard most intrigued you?”
Metal dragged between her lips, squeezing out of her vagina another trickle of desire.
Rose swallowed. And took from him the heavy silver utensil.
“I think it would be the one in which a man was being pleasured by two other men. One man knelt before him, kissing his sex,” she said, sharp tines cutting. The image of Jack, naked—sex reaching—superimposed itself on the shadowy V of omelette. “Another man—I could only see his hands and forearms—stood behind him and caressed his nipples. The man who was being pleasured held out his arms and gazed at the camera, as if saying, ‘See how splendid is man.’ ” Lashes lifting, she offered Jack the fork. Sincerely, she added, “I think you’re a splendid man, Jack.”
He took the fork deep into his mouth. He clamped his lips around the tines.
He let her see the naked need that she evoked in him.
“Which postcard most aroused you?” he asked.
Rose offered Jack the last bite. “One that depicted two men and a woman.”
“Ménage à trois,” he said, holding her gaze.
“Yes,” Rose said, experiencing again the curious blend of need and longing that had fluttered inside her womb when gazing upon the postcard. “Have you ever engaged in the act?”
But Jack didn’t answer. Instead he took the fork from between her fingers and set the plate onto the nightstand.
China thudded. Metal clanged.
Warm hands clasped her hips and tugged her forward, hair-studded thighs scraping her vulva.
She was not a doll, diminutive though she was. But Jack had never treated her like a doll.
For the first time in many years, Rose felt like a woman.
Her thighs embracing his hips. His sex nestling between her sex lips.
A curl of his chest hair ringed her nipple.
“What did you imagine when you looked at the third postcard?” he probed, the hard intent of desire softened by greenish-gray shadow.
“I thought how fortunate a woman would be”—Rose threaded her fingers in his hair; it was thick and baby-fine—“to have the love of two men.”
The white surrounding a pupil glinted in the gloom. “You have three mouths, Rose.”
But only one of which her husband had been interested.
“Here,” he whispered.
A scalding tongue licked the seam of her lips and laved her womb.
“Here.”
A tapered finger dipped into her open vagina and prodded her heart.
“Here.”
Fingertips feathered the indentation at the top of her buttocks.
Jack’s gaze was dark and stark. “Which two did you imagine that the men filled?”
“My vagina and between my buttocks.” Her vagina nipped his finger. “If you were one of the men in the postcard, which mouth would you fill?”
“All three,” he promptly returned.
“You have filled all three.”
“Not at once.”
“If you had three cocks, Jack”—the yearning Rose felt for Jack clenched her vagina—“I would gladly take you in my every orifice.”
“I do have three cocks.”
Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against his.
“My tongue.” Moist heat seared her chin. “My prick.” Hard, pulsing flesh flexed between her nether lips. “My fingers.”
He dipped a tantalizing inch into the dark crevice between her buttocks.
Jack invited her to reenact her fantasy. But he far superseded insubstantial flights of fancy.
“Where would you first fill me?” she asked, breath quickening, rain unceasing.
“Your vagina.”
Jack lifted her buttocks. Rose guided his penis.
She took his sex deep inside her sex until he kissed her womb and her perineum cushioned his testicles.
“Your arse.”
A tapered fingertip breached her buttocks.
Rose clasped his neck, her gaze holding his.
Inside his eyes she saw the fragile barrier that separated his penis and his finger.
Stretching. Ballooning.
A curious expression that was neither pain nor pleasure carved his face.
“Your lips.”
He filled her lungs with his breath and her mouth with his tongue. At the same time he gave her a second finger.
His oxygen snagged inside her throat.
“Do you like being filled with three cocks?” licked her lips.
With each breath his chest hair prickled her nipples and his pubic hair tickled her clitoris.
The pain and the pleasure that was Jack contracted her womb. “Yes.”
“Is this how you imagined it would feel?”
The tears leaking from her vagina burned her eyes. “This is exactly how I imagined it would feel.”
He probed within her, touching a place deep inside her body where a man should not be able to touch a woman. “Do you feel loved?”
Cold rain pelted the window. Gray shadow weighted the air.
“I have never felt as loved, Jack,” Rose said truthfully, his heart pounding inside her body, “as I feel now.”
Chapter 29
Morning had dawned.
Jack had to leave, but he couldn’t.
Rose bonelessly slept on his shoulder, thigh sandwiching his thigh.
He traced soft skin; underneath flesh was sharp bone.
Rose buried her cheek into the palm of his hand. Jack buried his face in Rose.
Smelling her. Smelling him.
Smelling the unique scent their sex created.
Warm fingers tangled in his whiskers. “It’s Monday.”
Jack nuzzled a shell-shaped ear. “Yes.”
“I like your whiskers,” Rose whispered against his cheek. “How long have you grown them?”
His sex reached for the comfort of her sex.
“I thought they befitted a member of Parliament,” he thickly volunteered. “I grew them when I first stood for office.”
“When was that?”
“Ten years ago.”
Two years after her husband had contracted the mumps.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she murmured.
But Sunday was over. And Monday had dawned.
“I have an arraignment at eleven.”
Her combing fingers tightened. “It’s raining.”
“I know,” Jack said, accepting the pain.
“But you don’t have an umbrella.”
He had left it in his office, prepared for sunshine.
“I’ll manage.”
For the first time in forty-four years, he wondered if he would.
He wanted this woman, but she belonged to another man.
A slamming door vibrated the bed.
“The servants are here,” she said. Pelting water underscored their loss of privacy. “We’re not alone.”
Jack felt the invasion as deeply as Rose. “No.”
“When will we have a court date?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack had needed to see her husband. But by confronting him, he had compromised his position as her attorney.
“What did you mean, yesterday,” seared flesh and bones; her fisting fingers once again became a comb, “when you said you hadn’t thought it would be like this, either?”
But Jack could not answer. He was not yet ready to confront the consequences of their weekend.
Twisting, he flipped their bodies so that he lay between her thighs, forearms caging her narrow shoulders.
Soft, moist flesh sandwiched his hard flesh.
A pulse that matched his heartbeat throbbed against his glans.
Rose stared up at him, the tension of sexual need replacing the compliance of sleep.
“Love me, Rose,” Jack said tautly.
He did not want to fail her. But he could see nothing but failure.
A sharp clang pierced two floors, an iron skillet impacting an iron burner.
Gaze holding his, she reached between their bodies—Jack lifted his hips—and grasped his cock.
“When I take you inside me, Jack,” she murmured, vagina kissing his glans, swallowing his crown . . . Jack lowered his hips; her pupils dilated, embracing the full length of his shaft, “I am loving you.”
But Jack wanted more.
Metal coils squealed. Thunder rumbled low and angry.
Jack took more.
He swooped down and took her cry of orgasm. He gave her his cry of orgasm in return.
He rolled over onto his side and held her—one body, one heartbeat—until her sobbing breath quieted and his cock slipped free.
The sheets were wet with their sex and sweat.
“Will you meet me tonight at the Houses of Parliament?” he asked raggedly, cradling the back of her head.
Sharp fingernails dug into his shoulder blade. “Shall I bring you supper?”
Jack thought of the reporters, always hungry. Jack thought of the position of Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, soon to be available.
Jack tasted her temple, damp with perspiration. “Please.”
Warm fingers massaged away the half-moons her fingernails had made. “What would you like?”
“You, Rose.”
Moist heat gusted his cheek; damp pubic hair tickled his glans. “Roasted or flambeaux?”
“Spitted,” he said bluntly, moist cock hungrily reaching.
“In which mouth?”
“All three.”
His name—the cry of her orgasm—had vibrated his tongue and his cock and his fingers.
Her lashes fluttered against his cheek, briefly caught on the stubble of his beard. “I still taste you.”
The admission squeezed his chest. Jack squeezed her buttocks. “I’m glad.”
But the courts did not care about a woman’s satisfaction.
“I have to go,” he said regretfully.
Her clasping hands lowered, pulling his hips forward until the glans of her clitoris kissed his glans. “I know.”
He should not ache with desire; he did.
Faint voices pierced the bare wooden floor. They were chased by a three-quarter chime.
Jack did not want Rose walking in the rain.
“I’ll send a cab for you tonight.” Quickly—afraid he’d give in to the temptation that was Rose—he extricated her hands and bussed her lips. “Go back to sleep.”
She did not protest his departure. Chill air nettled his skin.
Hurriedly he dressed. He just had time to brush his teeth and shave.
Jack pulled open the top drawer in the bathroom cabinet.
Emotion . . . part tenderness, part possessiveness . . . reamed him: His toothbrush and razor set beside her personal artifacts.
The blade in the razor was new: He nicked his neck.
There was no time for pain.
He dried his face, surrounded by Rose.
Wool abraded his cock, his thighs, his buttocks, every place Rose had touched him.
The top stair creaked.
Each descending step built the unease that thrummed through his temples.
Dark peripheral motion snagged his attention. “Mrs. Dobkins.”
The housekeeper turned and gazed up at him. “Mr. Lodoun.”
She was not in the least afraid.
Neither was Rose.
But she should be.
“Remember,” Jack curtly instructed, “no one enters this house except with Mrs. Clarring’s approval.”
“Aye, I remember.”
Jack resisted the urge to visit the drawing room and the kitchen.
The house would not be the same when he next saw it.
Icy rain pounded the brim of his hat and trickled down his collar.
Rose followed Jack.
Her smell. Her taste.
The muffled clank of a muffin boy’s bell vibrated the air.
Another hansom trotted by, wheels spraying muck and water.
There were no vacant cabs.
A billboard-plastered omnibus pulled in to the curb, wood creaking, leather reins wetly slapping.
Grimly Jack stepped up into the dark enclosure.
Damp wool and perfume leadened the air. Streaming water patterned finger-smeared windows.
With each stop men and women entered the front and exited the back. Men talked politics and sex. Women talked economy and children—
“ ’E don’t last no longer than a sneeze. . . .”
—and sex.
Jack stepped off the bus into driving rain.
A sea of sexless black umbrellas parted before him.
“Good morning, Mr. Lodoun.” The navy-uniformed lift man eyed Jack in surprise. “Left our umbrella at home, did we?”
Jack remembered the vulnerability inside Rose’s eyes: He had pleasured her, and then he had left. Jack remembered the laughter inside Cynthia’s eyes: She had pleasured him, and then she had left.