A deep blush rose in her cheeks.
“Please answer me.” She had meant to speak the words with frosty politeness, but all she could manage was a kind of breathy whisper.
Corwin bowed but did not release her hands. “Are you familiar with the idea of glamour?”
“From fairy tales. It’s a form of magical disguise, is it not? A way to make someone think a ruin is a luxurious castle, and so on.”
“Yes. The Fae do it easy as breathing. We human Sorcerers can work a version of it, outwardly or internally. I can make a vision for the whole world—of the two of us dancing politely, for instance. Or I can make a vision just for you ... a most particular, most private vision.” His smile grew sharper, and slier, and Miranda could not help but remember that first vision, that premonition of what was to come, of herself, naked between Darius and Corwin ...
Her breath was coming fast and shallow. Corwin ran his thumb over her fingertips, and that tiny gesture was giving rise to the most remarkable level of heat.
“Miranda, you blush so beautifully.” Corwin touched her cheek. “Truly, I think I shall find it impossible not to kiss you.”
“Don’t, Corwin,” she whispered, even though her lips had parted the instant he said “kiss.” “Someone might see.”
“Miranda, Miranda, what were we just discussing? No one will see a thing if I do not wish them to.”
Before she could protest again, he pulled her into his arms and his mouth covered hers. He ran his tongue around her lips, savoring them before pressing for entry. She opened eagerly, longing to feel even this much of him inside her. His tongue slid along side of hers, stroking dexterously, creating a delicious sensation that somehow reached all the way to the very center of her. It robbed her knees of any strength so that she was forced to lean against his hard chest, or fall backward.
One kiss was not enough. She’d known it wouldn’t be. Of their own volition, her hands caressed his face, running up his jaw to his temples and finally knotting into his hair so she could prevent him from moving his enticing mouth from hers. He held her tight with one arm while his other hand glided down her back to stroke her hips and the curve of her ass. Miranda shivered and pressed against him, close enough to feel the ridge of his burgeoning erection beneath his breeches.
“Oh, Miranda,” gasped Corwin. “I knew I would not be able to resist you.”
He tipped her backward, kissing her mouth, licking, stroking nibbling, while with the back of one hand, he brushed the tip of her breast. Miranda’s nipple tightened instantly. At once, he engulfed her breast with his whole hand, massaging and plumping, reveling in the feel of her.
He backed them both up slowly until she was pressed against a broad tree trunk. She was grateful for the support, because she could no longer stand on her own. She was dizzy with her own heat and his kisses. She was already wet and she wanted desperately to lay herself down entirely, right here on the green, so he could be on top of her and enter inside.
And yet, when he lifted his mouth from hers to draw breath, she asked, “What of Darius?”
This caused Corwin to smile, but his hand did not cease its maddening attention to her breast. “I am not sure I understand, Miranda.” He lifted her breast upward and planted a silken kiss on the exposed skin right at her gown’s neckline. As soon as his lips touched her there, Miranda could not remember what she’d asked.
But it was important. It was. “Should we ... without him?”
Corwin drew back, his face a study in wounded pride. “Do you doubt my ability to satisfy you without Darius’s assistance?” He leaned close again, his breath hot against her ear. His hand worked her breast, his ceaseless bold caresses filling her with the sweetest agony she had ever known. “Miranda, you have only begun to discover what I can do with you and to you.” She tightened her thighs to try to stop her pussy’s straining, but this proved to be a mistake. It only trapped her wet heat, and even that felt good.
“I will make you come with my mouth on your pussy; then I will make you come again with my fingers inside your sheath,” Corwin whispered, and each word seemed to invoke the sensation it described. “I will teach you all the delights of servicing a man’s cock, and I will drive you to the heights of pleasure while you have me in your mouth.” Miranda moaned at his words and rubbed her thighs together. She could come like this, with just his words and breath burning against her skin. “Only then will I enter your sweet, sweet pussy. I will fuck you long and slow until you beg me to make you come again. Then, for doubting me, I will make you wait while I take my full pleasure of you, sheathed so tight inside you, stroking your ass and your clit ...” A thought seemed to strike him. “Do you know what I mean by your clit, Miranda? It is just here ...”
His hand thrust between her thighs and pressed the fabric of her skirt right into her slit, and his fingers found the sensitive nubbin of flesh there. Delight lanced through her and she moaned.
“Or perhaps I’ll just tease you like this.” Corwin circled his fingers, rubbing her own skirts against her. “Perhaps I’ll show you I can make you come for me without even removing a stitch of clothing.”
Miranda groaned, and Corwin laughed, a low, throaty, intensely exciting sound. He pressed his fingers closer, rubbing harder. She gasped and arched her hips, and he caught her ass with his other hand. Now she was trapped. He was rubbing her hard with both hands, one front and one back, a wicked, burning massage.
“Touch your breasts, Miranda,” he urged. “Caress yourself. It will feel so good. You know it will.”
She did know it. She ran her hands over her breasts, capturing her own nipples through the fabric of her demure day gown, pinching and rolling them as Darius and Corwin both had. She sighed with the pleasure flooding her, and this only made him rub her harder. The pleasure sharpened, stretching to fill her, raising her up toward her limits.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. “Oh, Corwin!”
“Tell me what you want, Miranda. Tell me what you need.”
“I want to come! I want you to make me come!”
“As my lady commands.”
He cupped her ass tight with one broad hand and pressed the heel of his other palm firmly and suddenly against her throbbing clit. Miranda squeezed her breasts and the pure hot pleasure burst through her, splintering her awareness and driving her body into spasms. It seemed an age before they faded, bringing her back down to the world of sunlit warmth and to Corwin cradling her against his strong chest.
“Miranda.” He kissed her softly on her cheek, on her brow, as she wilted against him. “My beautiful Miranda. You will not, I trust, doubt me anymore?”
“No, oh, no. But ... that wasn’t why I was asking ...”
“I know.” She felt him smile wickedly against her temple. “But I could not resist.” He kissed her throat. “Well, perhaps I could, but I did not wish to.”
“But ...” Guilt threatened. She had done so much that was beyond the pale in the last forty-eight hours—in the last forty-eight minutes—that she felt in danger of losing all sense of right and wrong, at least while this man was near her. “But, aren’t you and Darius ... together?”
“We are lovers, and have been for several years. You knew that, Miranda.” He took her hands and backed into the woods, drawing her with him.
“Yes, I did. And that’s why ... if you and I ... That is ... if we continue ...”
He arched his brows. “Are we betraying him? Specifically, am
I
betraying him with you?”
“Yes. You must be aware, this ... situation ... It is a little complex.”
“And highly unorthodox.” Corwin sat down in a nest of ferns with his back against an ancient oak and stretched his legs out in front of him. From this angle, Miranda could see the outline of his hard cock clearly, and it was a most distracting sight. “To answer you, no,” said Corwin. “Being here with you is in no way a betrayal of my relationship with Darius.”
“I don’t understand.” He still held both her hands, and now he was looking up at her with the most absurd lopsided smile on his face. Drat the man, this was
important
! Even now, with him so hard and her still so wantonly, wickedly hot.
“You don’t understand wanting to make love with Darius? Really, Miranda, you certainly had me deceived ...”
“Stop it.”
“I’m sorry, but, my dear, you do turn such a wonderful shade of rose when you are teased.” He let go of her hands, and began to take his gloves off, tugging at them one finger at a time. It was a simple thing, an everyday sight, but Miranda couldn’t take her eyes from his hands. Her breath grew shallow and her dress felt far too tight across her breasts.
“I don’t understand how you could be with him, and still want me,” she said hoarsely.
“And I don’t understand how anyone could see you and not want you,” he replied frankly as he removed his hat, dropped his gloves into it and set it aside. “Or Darius either. You are both so strong, so passionate and so very beautiful.” He took her hands again, drawing her down to him. She moved to sit beside him, but he guided her straight onto his lap, not astride, but what she could only think of as sidesaddle. “I do not deny I am unusual in that I have no preference in whether my bed partners are ... crested or cloven, shall we say. I enjoy the delights of both men and women, and both at once if all parties are willing. It is not something that has always been easy.”
“And Darius? Does he play this game because of you?”
“It is no game, Miranda.” Corwin lifted her dangling—and somewhat squashed—bonnet off her shoulders and set it down beside with his hat. “Not to me, and I hope not to you.” He raised her right hand and with his very capable fingers undid the buttons on her gloves. He was undressing her, and himself, in daylight. She should have been shocked, she should have been at least distracted, but as it was, she felt ever-so-slightly impatient.
“But what of Darius?” she pressed.
Corwin stopped what he was doing and looked up at her. “You care a great deal about what he thinks.”
“I have no wish to hurt him, or to ... come between you.”
A new light shone in Corwin’s dark eyes, something softer and gentler. It felt for a moment that she had seen through to something deeper than she had yet known from him. “You are a good woman, Miranda Prosper, and you have a good heart,” he said with a true tenderness in his voice. “I cannot tell you all I know, because there are some things it is only right that Darius tell you himself. But I can tell you this much. Darius is like me, although he does not choose to admit it. He wants—he needs—both men and women. But he does not give himself as ... lightly as I sometimes have. His heart has been broken in the past, and broken badly. Now he guards himself from harm by pushing those around him away.” Corwin tilted his head to one side. “Again, in this I think you and he are very much alike.”
Which was truer than she wanted to consider at this time. “But ...” she began.
“Miranda.” Corwin wrapped his arms firmly around her waist. “I have been most patient with these questions, but the time for talk is long past. I want you, my dear, and I will have you.”
She had no idea what mischief made her raise her brows. “Will you indeed, sir?” She started to scramble to her feet.
The world spun. Miranda suddenly found herself flat on her back amid the ferns. Corwin held her wrists pinned on either side of her head and he straddled her, his hard, muscular thighs trapping hers.
“Yes, I will.”
His kiss was hard, hot and merciless. He gave no ground, gave her no chance to respond in kind; he simply took and took until breath and sense were gone and Miranda could only yield before his onslaught. It was wonderful. He was magnificent, and her surrender to his thrusting, stroking tongue sent a fresh wash of delight through her sensitized body. His weight should have overwhelmed her, but it didn’t. She welcomed him, arching her hips against his, reveling in the tight press of his body. She wanted to touch him, to caress his ass and his thighs, but he held her helpless, intent on taking all he wanted of her mouth.
All at once his arms were around her shoulders and the world spun again. Now he was the one on his back, and Miranda was on top and astride him. His hands stroked her back, and lingered on her ass, cupping, massaging, wantonly enjoying the soft flesh there.
Miranda wriggled, rubbing her breasts against his chest, and her pussy against his cock. She sat up, which, she found, pressed her ass more firmly into his eager hands. She could see his face now, his wicked and delighted grin, his eyes made bright by passion.
Miranda ran her palms down his chest, feeling how hard he was breathing, and then she dragged them in slow circles over his bulging cock. She’d never get enough of touching him there. It was as exciting and fascinating as the feel of his hands on her, especially when he sighed as he did now, and arched himself underneath her.
All of which turned her mind toward their previous conversation. “You said you would teach me ...”
Of course he knew instantly what she was talking about. “So I did, and so I will. But not now, my dear, we have not the time I wish to devote to that most-pleasant lesson. No, for now, we must take the road we have traveled before.” He reached beneath her skirts, running his hot hands up her thighs. Miranda sighed and closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on his touch. His hands splayed across her thighs for a delectable moment before he found her curls and stroked, dexterously fondling her folds. Then, all at once, he thrust two fingers into her and she gasped and rocked forward, forcing him deeper.
“Naughty, naughty, Miranda.” His fingers wriggled inside her, sending ripples of pleasure through her and at the same time making her giggle. “You are so eager to touch me, my dear, why don’t you put my cock into this lovely, wet pussy?”
It was difficult to move with any kind of conscious volition while he stroked her, long and slow, as he’d promised. Only the understanding that his cock would feel even better inside than his hand gave her the ability to work the buttons on his breeches’ fly, to reach inside with both hands to cup and caress his hard, thick cock.