A screen. Decorative, she thought, designed more for the illusion of privacy than the reality of it. But it was made of thick wood, segmented into five panels connected by hinges, and it stretched from the floor to perhaps a few inches over her head.
“It was placed against the wall,” Thomas said, his voice pitched to a murmur. “I made some…minor adjustments. Nothing that is likely to draw attention, so distant as it is from the door.”
Of course. Meticulous, logical Thomas was the consummateplanner, the organizer, the architect of order even within chaos. In the darkness here within the corner, where the door would largely block the light’s reach, he’d pulled the screen away from the wall just enough to create a private alcove behind it. He’d sourced a chair from one of the arrangements of them peppered throughout the room, but there were so many that one chair would hardly be missed from amongst them.
“We’ll be effectively invisible,” he said, as he placed his hands upon her waist and pressed her down into the plush upholstery of the chair. “But notablynotinaudible,” he added, and his voice had come from much lower, as if he’d gone to his knees on the floor before her. “You really will have to remain quiet.”
Such an easy thing for him to say as he slipped his hands beneath her skirts, rifling through layers of petticoats to reach her stockinged legs. Chill bumps prickled along her arms as his fingertips slid up her calves, and her hands curled over the arms of the chair, nails digging into the smooth varnished wood.
Cool air whisked about her legs as he drew her skirts up, bunching them upon his arms to drape the bundle of fabric around her waist. Probably it wouldn’t wrinkle too severely, she thought inanely, as the heat of his breath burned through the silk of her stocking. Probably.
His lips touched her skin just above the line of her stocking. Mercy’s toes curled in the confines of her shoes as his right hand gripped her thigh, pulling her closer to the edge of the seat. He wedged his shoulders between the awkward splay of her legs, hooking her knee over his shoulder. The wool of his evening coat abraded the sensitive skin at the back of her thigh.
Warm hands slid beneath her bottom, and his thumbs coasted through private curls to find the seam of her body, spreading sleek petals apart. Too dark to see much of anything, she reassured herself, but she could feel the heat of his breath there between her legs, so close.
An odd tension stole through her limbs. Did she really mean to allow this?Here? Where anyone might stumble upon them?
His tongue touched her in a long lap, setting every nerve afire with a single stroke.
Yes. Yes, she did.
Mercy slapped one hand to her mouth, muffling the sound that clawed to escape. A whimper slipped through the cage of her fingers, and it sounded mortified—and aroused.
Thomas turned his head and touched his lips to the tender flesh of her inner thigh, and a low, dark laugh vibrated over her skin. “I am going to lick you until you come on my tongue,” he said. “And then I am going to bend you over this chair and fuck you until you scream.”
Her knees trembled. “I can’t scream,” she whispered desperately. “You can’t let me—ah!” Her nails bit into the wood of the chair as his tongue touched her again, laving her sensitive flesh with exquisite precision. “We’ll be caught,” she managed to whisper through a few frenetic breaths.
“We won’t be caught.” A little flick of his tongue, and her back arched.
Could he promise that? She couldn’t hold the thought in her head for longer than a moment. He found that tiny bead of flesh buried beneath the sparse curls, curled his tongue around it, and sucked. Mercy heard the harsh pants of her own breath, realized belatedly that she had removed her hand from her mouth to stroke his hair and tangle her fingers through the soft strands.
He made an approving sound, rather like a large cat enjoying the affectionate touch, and his hand released its grip on her bottom. Two fingers slid inside her in a firm glide, rendered easier by the skillful manipulation of his tongue.
“I can feel you, when you’re about to come,” he said, between flicks of his tongue. “I can hear you. Your breaths grow faster. You gasp.” Another plunge of his fingers. “You twitch. Inside,you clench around me. You pulse and tremble.” He seemed to have some instinctual knowledge, some innate understanding of exactly where to stroke, how much pressure to use. And shedidtremble and twitch and gasp and clench as sensation built in a coiling spiral, mere moments from breaking free. “So soon?” he murmured, and she fancied she could feel the smile upon his lips. “Come hard, then.”
That tension burst in a blinding array of fireworks behind her closed eyes, and her throat tightened around the first warbling notes of a scream. It never emerged. The cup of his palm flattened over her mouth, smothering it before it could begin. It died like a fire deprived of air, as her lungs deflated and her limbs went lax, her head lolling against the low back of the chair.
“You’ll scream,” he said, with a last kiss to her knee, which remained draped over his shoulder.
But he would ensure that she would not be heard, she understood at last.
“Can you stand?” It was a guttural growl in the darkness, and if not for the fact that the words had been intelligible, she might have been tempted to attribute it to some beast of the wild, some hungry predator coiled to pounce.
“I don’t know.” She licked her dry lips, managed to slide her leg off of his shoulder and plant both feet on the floor. Her knees trembled as her skirts drifted down over her hips once more.
Warm hands seized her waist, lifting her from the seat, and for a moment she felt like a child’s ragdoll, limp and malleable. Her knees locked to hold herself upright, and she listed against his chest, drawing what felt like the first full lungful of air since she’d entered the room.
A scrape, as of furniture moving across the floor. The sound was sharper than it ought to have been in the silence, burning in her ears.
“Turn,” he instructed gently, and his hands cupped hershoulders to move her through the motion she found she could not quite navigate without aid. The toe of her shoe touched something solid, and she stretched out her hands in the service of finding that obstacle in her path. Her fingers knocked against the back of the chair, grasping it on instinct. That scraping sound she had heard—it had been the legs of the chair sliding across the floor as he’d turned it, repositioning it with his booted foot.
The wall of his chest against her back seared her even through the fabric of her gown. Those hands upon her shoulders urged her down, firm but gentle, and slid along her arms, stretching her hands out to place them upon the arms of the chair. And he—he was stretched over her, his hips pressing against her bottom. “There,” he said in her ear. “This is how I want you.”
Mercy drew a shuddering breath through the constriction of the back of the chair against her stomach. Her hands curled into claws, clutching the arms of the chair for dear life. And she let him nudge her legs apart with the gentle pressure of his feet, let him draw up fistfuls of her skirt and petticoats, tossing them up over her back to expose her bare bottom to the cool air.
With one hand, Thomas caressed the curve of her rear, slid his fingers between her legs, and found the bead of her clitoris. Mercy shuddered, her skin prickling with the violent resurgence of arousal, her private flesh still aching with the sensitivity that had not yet faded. There was the soft sound of buttons falling free, and then the heat of his bare thighs so close to her own. The blunt head of his cock brushed tender tissues, teasing tender flesh. A gasp caught in her throat as he nudged inside her, and her body clutched at the very tip of him as he taunted her with only the smallest concession toward that thrust she yearned for. And still he tortured her, for a minute or more, enjoying with ruthless pleasure the way she strained to capture more of him.
“Please.” She didn’t know if he could even hear the raggedwhisper. Her lungs were starved of air, every bit of her straining for what he denied her. His palm, pressed between her shoulder blades, kept her pinned in place, motionless. “Please. Thomas.Please.”
