Page 63 of A Devilish Element
“But surely not, you being such an upstanding and studious gent.”
“I fear I’m not the man you believe me to be, although I am both upstanding and studious.”
“And what man is that, besides the one I want?”
“Eliza.”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Just kiss me again.”
Her hands clamped around the back of his head, pulling him closer. For a second a fear stole through her of what he must think of her brazenness, but all that dissipated as she heard his groan, and his lips caressed hers.
-18-
Jem
The effects of the nitrous oxide were curious. To begin with, Jem found them irritating and somewhat dulling. His thoughts became woolly and thick. That sensation had quickly passed to be replaced with one of muscular power and invincibility that stole through his body, starting in his chest and spreading out through muscles and tendons to his extremities.
Clarity of vision, a sharpening of his senses followed, or rather his mind became unburdened. When he stubbed his toe as he moved, he found it did not hurt. No wonder Davy had collected a coterie of poetical barnacles to his person.
And then… Then there was Eliza. Eliza who was all and everything. His greatest desire and a folly he ought not to commit. It would get back to Linfield. The man had no real talents to speak of but a nose for sniffing out subversion, and Jem couldn’t let that happen. He had to protect Eliza, ensure her reputation.
Simultaneously, he would not pull away from this. Here she was in his arms, a dream come true, groaning from their kisses, her agile fingers tugging on the front of his shirt as if she meant to tear it from him. This could be his one and only chance to be with her. The events Linfield might demand of him this very night were rapidly spinning his future out of control.
Lord help him. Knowing she wanted him as ardently as he wanted her only made holding back so much harder.
Would she hate him come tomorrow?
Why was everything so monstrously muddled?
He’d put such hope into the gas, imagining it was his route to freedom, but realistically, while it certainly brought a pleasant tingling to his extremities, he couldn’t swear that it was responsible for his current rise. No, in all truthfulness, his current priapism was down to her. To Eliza. Her taste. Her presence. The sweet promise of her honeyed cunt enveloping his prick. She did not need to touch him. She simply needed to be. Of course, when she did touch him… Well, then there was no escaping the thrall she held him under, and nor did he desire to. Every little thing about her called to him. Her voice, the sweet-luscious curves of her body, her mind. Predominantly her mind. He loved that she was not meek, nor a mild-mannered infant dressed up and paraded as breeding stock. She had her own thoughts and her own plans, and if there were a way to give her all that she desired, he would do it in a heartbeat.
Pity then, that in truth he could offer her little more than this moment. To promise more was impossible. He had not the funds to keep her, and besides, if he was forced to comply with Linfield’s diabolical plan, then she’d likely hate him forevermore.
Dammit! The only reason he’d ever fallen into Linfield’s trap was because he’d been so desperately trying to relinquish his desire for Eliza… and forget Joshua, and all that had happened between the three of them that day.
Lord, did he ever want to tup her, but he was not such a cad as to go ahead and do it, not knowing that she would regret it come the morrow.
Jem broke off their kiss. Her eyes were glittering brightly. Her skirts spread all around them while she rose her puss against his eager cock. “I’m going to shuffle down the chaise. I want you to stay right where you are.”
“And do what? I’ll be perched practically on your shoulders if you lie flat.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You could perhaps grasp the back rest here.” She cocked her head perplexed, but obeyed. Jem shimmied his body down between her thighs, until his head was lost beneath her skirts. A smooth expanse of bare skin stretched from where her garters held her stockings in place to the thatch over her muff. Jem tickled the split of her cunny with his tongue then dived in deep, covering himself with her honey. It’d been a long while since he’d lain with a woman, and there’d never been any he’d cared strongly about. Such occasions had been fleeting transactions, indulged in to service an itch. This was different. Each inch of him wanted every inch of her. His cock was like rock and the rasp of his shirt over it almost painful. He didn’t let it dissuade him from his goal. He meant to bring her to bliss with his mouth in the way she’d dissuaded him from doing the previous night.
“Oh! Oh!” Her gasps which started out as mere murmurs were like a siren’s call to him. They spurred him to greater effort. He sucked on her nub and licked it until it stood out taut and eager for his touch, until she trembled with each passing of his tongue and then wrenched all her skirts aloft so that she could tangle her fingers in the strands of his hair and watch what he was about. “I hardly know what you are doing to me, but don’t stop. I beg you, don’t stop. It feels…”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like everything is becoming tight. Like it’s building towards some sort of crescendo.”
He purred against her skin. “Well, that is the idea. I like watching you come, Eliza. He’d left her the previous night with fire in his veins after watching her spend on his fingers, and since facing Linfield with such a stick in his breeches would have led to much hellish awkwardness, he’d tossed himself off ahead of rendezvousing in the drawing room again. Bell had won the game and compelled them all to their beds as his prize alongside taking their guineas.
“Come…” Eliza echoed, tipping back her head and giving in to the sensations. “What a curious way of putting it.”
“Does it not make you feel as if you’ll come apart into a myriad of pieces?”
“I think… I don’t know. I may need to experience it again to properly quantify the experience.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m here to serve.”
