Delightful warmth bloomed under his caress, and her feet flexed restlessly. “Flower,” she said. “I like that much better than that other word.”
He lifted his head again. “I still can’t believe you didn’t know the name for your parts.”
She gave a shrug. “It’s not considered appropriate to know the names,” she said. “In any case, I prefer flower.”
He gave a shake. “What did you call her? Until today?”
“I didn’t.”
“But … how do you even think about a thing when you haven’t a word for it?”
She gave him a speaking glance. “One doesn’t, which is the point, I believe.”
He rolled to his side and propped up himself up on his elbow, his eyes narrowing at her. “But you must have thought of it.”
“It’s difficult to avoid,” she admitted.
He placed his big hand on her belly. “What of touching yourself?”
Well. “I think it would be considered sinful.” She must have looked shifty as she said it, for he raised a knowing brow. “So you do it, then feel ashamed,” he said.
“Possibly,” she muttered.
He moved his hand lower and began a gentle massage with his three warm middle fingers, and she gave a small moan. Yesterday, they had refrained from intercourse to treat the flower with some care, and Lucian had brought her to a lovely climax with his mouth. Then he had wrapped her hand around his thick length and she had satisfied him with her hand. It had been very wicked and exciting, but now she clenched around emptiness and yearned for the sensation of him inside her. Hopelessly debauched, after less than a week.
Lucian encouraged her moral decay. “What’s on your mind when you do it?” he asked, his eyes darkening by the moment.
“What a peculiar question.” Her voice was shaky. He was expertly skilled with his fingers.
“Tell me,” he murmured, “and perhaps I can make the bedding better for you.”
“I’m well pleased,” she assured him, but he smirked.
“There’s more.”
More. Her siren call. As luring as the caress of his now slippery hand.
“I thought of pirates.”
His hand came to a halt. “Pirates,” he drawled.
“And highwaymen. Sometimes Vikings.” In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Right.”
“Now you know.”
His smirk widened. “You like a bit o’ rough. I knew that already. We’d not be here, like this, if you didn’t.”
Perhaps she did. Perhaps she did like a bit of rough, as he put it, though she would have called it dark, determined, and a little dangerous. Someone bold and carnal enough to not drown in her desire for more but to match and master and pamper it.
“I thought about it,” she said. “And I think it is because a woman’s life in London … is complicated. Even the part where we lounge in a parlor and read books—they have to be the correct books and they have to be read at appropriate times. Propriety and etiquette rule every step we take, every word we say … One should think we habituate to this constant implication of potential slander, but I don’t. Every day I feel one fateful, clumsy misstep away from scandal. One slip-up and I’m losing my worth. The awareness is always present, a current in the back of one’s mind no matter how happy the days. I hadn’t ever seen it clearly until you brought me here … because what can I do wrong, here on the heather field, or in this strange inn? It’s dreadful having to live under someone’s eye, being steered toward the same things everyone should like and do. It feels like a constant pruning of my self. So occasionally I cannot stand it and I run away from Mr. Graves.”
“There are no pirates in this story,” Lucian said.
“A pirate is free,” she said. “He has seen the world and does bad things and doesn’t care. He just does and takes as he pleases; it’s who he is. There’d be no rules with him.”
Lucian cocked his head. “Not sure whether you want to be the pirate or want to be ravished by one.”
She closed her eyes. Thinking was difficult with need pulsing away between her thighs.
“Perhaps both,” she whispered. “But most of all, I thought of ravishment.”
“I see,” he murmured.
“I imagine them handsome and dangerous and undone with want for me. There’d be no choice but to surrender if a ruthless man stole me, would there? Who would judge me?”