Taboo Read online

  Everything about the woman before him appeared tinged with frost, from her silver blue eyes to hair so pale blond as to be nearly silver. She wore it pulled back from her cameo-perfect face, not a single hair out of place. For now. Bridge smiled inwardly. Warming her up could prove to be a good bit of fun. In his considerable experience, those women who appeared outwardly icy tended to have the hottest core.

  “Where, exactly, are we?” Was it his imagination or did she pinken slightly at the boldness of his gaze?

  “You hardly need concern yourself with such trifling details,” she replied haughtily.

  “I meant this room, which is most curious in its appointments. I trust it’s to be my abode for the next seven days?”

  She worried her full lower lip slightly before giving a jerky nod of agreement.

  He stretched, arms toward the ceiling. Might as well make himself at home, then. “I shall require a hot bath. It was a devilish long carriage ride to get here.” She smiled, and he wondered what he had said to give her amusement.

  “I shall see to the bath later,” she said. “First, you’re to earn your keep. Kindly disrobe, if you please.”

  Now that was more like it. Bridge shrugged out of his jacket and started on the pearl buttons fronting his shirt. He didn’t see a bed anyplace. The settee, pushed off to one side, would no doubt serve. Unless perhaps the lady liked it standing up. Or bent over a table. Or . . .

  As he unfastened his trousers he licked his lips, envisioning the limitless prospects afforded by the unconventional surroundings. Yes, indeed. This adventure could prove very much to his liking.

  She was staring at him, seeming entranced, as he doffed his shirt. No doubt she was saddled with a neglectful husband, off seeing to other pursuits. As well as other women. Bridge sat down to remove his boots and stockings, then paused, leaned back on the settee, and extended one booted foot her way.

  “Some women prefer to help.”

  “You strike me as being eminently capable.”

  “In many ways, as you shall find out,” Bridge replied.

  “Shall I light the fire?”

  “Later, perhaps.” She paced before him as she spoke, here yes glowing and her cheeks flushed with excitement or anticipation, perhaps both, as she observed him from different angles. Animation gave her features an unusual beauty.

  “I’m honored that you think me, alone, capable of keeping you warm. However, I do enjoy the experience of fucking before a crackling fire. Don’t you?”

  She halted in midstride and drew herself erect. “You clearly have the wrong impression of the type of service I require.”

  Hadn’t he heard that one before? Come to think of it, what hadn’t he heard?

  “I need the settee moved closer to the windows. Facing like so.” She indicated her wishes with a graceful wave of her hands.

  “Britches on or off for the job?” Bridge inquired.

  “Please yourself.”

  Off, then. Quickly Bridge added his trousers to the tidy pile of his discarded clothing, aware that he cut a dashing figure, with or without the latest style draping his frame. But as he repositioned the settee as ordered, he was chagrined that she hadn’t really seemed to notice. Instead, she appeared to be fussing with several lengths of cloth across the room. He settled himself on the settee to wait.

  She turned and started toward him, a bundle of claret-colored velvet in her arms, then let out a startled cry at the sight of him draped decorously on the furniture.

  His cock responded the way it always did when a beautiful woman was in the room. “There, now. Is this what you had in mind?”

  “It’s a start, at least,” Fallon said, appearing to recover herself. “Kindly rise for a moment. I wish to lay this fabric beneath you.”

  And I want to lay you beneath me. Bridge rose and watched as she draped the fabric just so, tucking and bunching it in some spots, smoothing it in others. Why did she even bother when they were about to mess it up? Eventually she straightened, seeming satisfied with her efforts.

  “I think that will do.” Again, a graceful wave of her hand. “As you were.” “I’ll need a little help with that,” Bridge said as he resumed his pose. For his cock had deflated due to lack of attention. “Why don’t you come over here and make me hard?”

  “I actually prefer you flaccid for the time being.”

  “Can’t promise to stay that way for long,” Bridge said cheerfully. He was as good as his word, his member beginning to stir the second she moved closer. He could smell her heat, her slightly moist skin, her fragrance. Most of all, he could smell her excitement. That universal female smell of a woman aroused by passion.

  “One of us is wearing entirely too many articles of clothing,” he murmured. As she leaned in he reached toward her, attempting to pull her down upon him. “Don’t move,” she snapped, smartly batting his hand away. “Don’t you dare move a muscle until I say you can.”

  “So that’s how it is to be played, then?”

  She raked her fingers through his hair, and the feel of her nails against his scalp served to excite him further. He’d been tied up and ravaged a time or two, but never forced to hold a pose for an extended period of time. “How long do you expect me to sit like this?”

  “As long as it takes,” she said. “Now, if you would be so good as to stop talking and allow me to concentrate.” To his amazement and disbelief, she reached for a block of whitepaper and an unwieldy-looking chunk of charcoal and proceeded to sketch him. He truly was a magnificent male animal. A virile combination of outward domestication, yet obviously still half wild inside. Untamed and untamable beneath the thin veneer of civilized behavior. Fallon’s hand moved without hesitation as she filled sheet after sheet of paper till the floor around her was littered. She’d never sketched the human form before, having restricted herself to still lifes and landscapes. My word, what she had missed. A living, breathing form with its definition of muscle and sinew, light and shadow, skin and hair.

  She recalled the controversy generated by artists William Rimmer and William Morris Hunt, who offered classes for women that included life drawing. She had heard rumors that the female students were criticized and praised as frankly as any man, and wondered how that might feel. She had opted for safety, herself. Still lifes and landscapes and no one to criticize her work, save herself.

  Until now. And the pulse of raw, primal power surging through her. As if she had been born for no other purpose than the chance to capture the likeness of the man before her. Her blood sang and danced through her veins. She had never felt so inspired, so tapped in to her passions.

  Fallon sketched tirelessly until her hand abruptly spasmed with a cramp. She ignored it and pressed on, frenzied haste in her movements. The light was changing. Her eye saw but her hand refused to do her bidding, and the charcoal tumbled from her fingers to land at her feet. Reluctantly she laid aside her sketching block. She was primed. Tomorrow she would start using color.

  “May I move now?”

  “Of course. I’m so sorry.” Fallon stood, flexing her fingers to restore the blood flow, instantly contrite. If she was experiencing a cramped hand, think how her subject must feel.

  “I'm afraid I’m going to need some help.” He grimaced as he spoke.

  “I do apologize. I’m afraid I haven’t been so focused, or so inspired, in a very long time.” Several long strides brought her to his side, where she took hold of his arm and began to lightly massage the muscles stretching from forearm to elbow to upper arm to shoulder. She could feel the power beneath her touch.

  “Is that better?” she asked anxiously. What if she’d worked him too hard, to the point where he was unable to pose for her tomorrow?

  “Somewhat.” He struggled from his half recline to a fully seated position. Fallon tugged on his arm, attempting to help, unprepared for his playful tug back, which toppled her into his lap.

  “There, now. My turn to pose you.” He rearranged a dampened tendril of hair th
at curled near her brow. “You smell delicious.” His words, a slight rumble in her ear, were followed by the wet warmth of his open mouth against the sensitive skin just below her earlobe.

  His other arm rested comfortably around her midsection near her breasts, which had begun to tingle in a most distracting way. Even through the modest folds of her brocade gown and layers of underpinnings, she felt a masculine stirring beneath her.

  Her nether regions responded in a most unmistakable, shocking way. Waves of heat rippled through her, followed by a trickle of moisture from her heated female core.

  He continued to lave her neck, seeking the responsive dip between shoulder and neck, following it to the sensitive nape, one finger burrowing beneath the neckline of her prim gown. At the same time, his hand around her midriff quested upward, strong, capable fingers rubbing the hardened nubs of her nipples. She gasped softly in relief.

  Never before had she felt as if her nipples were attached directly to her inner sanctum, but the piercing rush of heat from one to the other was accompanied by a flood of liquid from that wellspring of femininity.

  “I knew you’d be a hot little thing—all that simmering heat just barely glossed over with a facade of coolness.”

  Fallon flushed more deeply. How could he know the fantasies that invaded her dreams, as well as her waking hours? The images of unclothed limbs entwined. Sex-sweat damp bodies. Moans and cries and . . . Carnal delights she would never know. But imagine them, she did, to the best of her limited knowledge. How, in mere minutes, had Bridge discovered her secret?

  As she attempted to pull away, she succeeded only in inflaming things further. Squirming in his lap, she felt his cock harden and lengthen with each slight movement, and her body responded with a melting wetness.

  “Don’t pretend you’re not wet,” he said. “I can feel it.” He pinched one nipple lightly as he spoke and Fallon heard her-self whimper helplessly. Wanting, needing more.

  “Open your legs. That’s it.” Impatiently he pushed her skirt out of the way. She felt the cool air of the room against the overheated skin of her inner thighs. He probed her slit through her damp knickers, knowing fingers teasing her over-heated flesh.

  “Please,” Fallon said, on a breathy sigh. “It’s not right.”

  “Give me a second,” Bridge said throatily. “I promise you I’ll make it right.” As he spoke, he slipped a finger beneath her lace-trimmed knickers. Such a contrast, his callused finger pad on her soft flesh. His cool skin against her heat. His dry finger now moist from her juices. With unerring aim he parted the weeping, pouting lips. Fallon sighed in pleasure. Had anything ever felt quite so wonderful as the pressure of his fingers? Now two, now three, teasing, tantalizing, torturing . . .

  As the tip of one digit brushed her clitoris, Fallon screamed, and her spine arched as blessed release hit like a wave, swamping her limbs and rendering her limp in Bridge’s lap.

  “Feel better now, I’ll wager,” Bridge remarked as her breathing gradually returned to near normal.

  She didn’t answer as she rearranged her clothing and pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, careful to keep her eyes averted from the swollen redness of his immense erection. Knowing, even as she moved away, how wonderful it would be to feel that fabulous cock embedded deep inside her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To order you a bath. Along with some supper.”

  “Order up a bottle of wine while you’re about it, would you?” Bridge rose and stretched, his magnificent cock ramrod straight in front of him.

  Never before had Fallon considered the male form to be such an object of beauty. Her own body, sated or not, responded to the sight in a manner so basic that it shocked her. Primal want. Her insides wept just anticipating their joining. His possession of her? Or her possession of him?

  Until now, she’d suspected but not fully realized Powell’s lack of knowledge about the female anatomy and its workings; Doubtless Bridge had serviced a great many women over the years, to be so proficient and yet so totally controlled.

  Even to consider an affair with him was sheer folly. He was years her junior, even if his sexual capabilities were far advanced. And any man who would allow himself to be bought and sold was clearly without scruples. It was up to her to ensure they had no further physical contact. She would keep things between them pleasant, yet distant. She would capture his likeness, that was all.

  Yet, as she made her way from the studio to the main house, she was already planning a series of delicacies for the upcoming meal, aware of the contentment rippling through her, her limbs relaxed, her stride easy. A lovely, tingly glow reminded her that Bridge was there for seven full days and seven full nights.

  Chapter 3

  Fallon deliberately delayed her return to the studio. She didn’t want to give her guest the impression that she could scarcely stay away. On the contrary, she was the lady of the manor, with all the responsibilities that accompanied that station. Unlike Bridge, who appeared to have neither responsibilities nor a sense of propriety.

  Had he still been bathing he’d be shriveled and frozen to the core. She found him neither. In fact, he’d made himself quite at home, having lit the fire along with several lanterns, which lent the studio a homey glow.

  He had also pulled out a good dozen or more of her completed paintings and lined them up side by side along the studio wall. The sight stopped her cold. She’d never looked upon her work all of a piece. Frowning at his forwardness, she advanced to where he lolled against a table, a glass of ruby-colored claret balanced in his hand as if it belonged there.

  He’d changed into dove-gray trousers—snugly fastened, she was happy to see—and a crisp white linen shirt that was only partially buttoned, baring more than a tease of his splendidly sculpted chest. Her frown was wasted. He didn’t even glance up at her entrance, but continued to study her work.

  “You’re not half bad,” he said, as if his opinion carried weight. “I prefer your earlier works. Less controlled, even if the technique is a little less polished. The more recent ones strike me as somewhat too careful. Artists need to take risks if they’re to grow.”

  When had she last taken a risk? “Are you an art critic, as well as a wastrel?”

  Two servants followed her inside, set the trays of food on a low table near the fire, and left. Judging from his cocky grin and the near-empty wine bottle, it was a good thing she’d arrived with food.

  “Just what makes you think I’m a wastrel?”

  “If you had responsibilities the way the rest of us do, you’d not be available for the type of shenanigans you’ve embarked upon.”

  He cocked a brow. “And here I rather thought you enjoyed our earlier shenanigans.”

  She abruptly changed the subject as she lifted the silver covers from the serving dishes. “I put my work away for a reason.”

  He sauntered over to join her. “You’re hiding.”

  She forced back a laugh that sounded hollow, even to her. “I’m hardly hiding.”

  “You’ve not been making the social rounds in the city. I’d have remembered you.”

  “I prefer to devote myself to my work and my responsibilities. Unlike yourself.”

  He picked up a baked oyster on the half-shell and devoured it in a single bite. “You don’t know a single thing about me. Why judge? Or presume?”

  “What makes you think I care to know anything about you?”

  He laughed and reached for a second oyster, brushing her arm most deliberately, it seemed. “My dear Fallon. May I call you Fallon? It’s a name which suits you most splendidly.” At her reluctant nod, he continued. “Up until now, you’ve only painted safe subject matter.”

  “You’re hardly to be considered a safe subject.”

  “And now, neither are you. For you and I are both aware you need to get to know the ‘me,’ inside as well as out. Only then will you be able to capture my true essence.”

  “What makes you think I even want to capture you
r true essence?”

  “Every artist longs to capture his subject’s true essence. The ability to do so is what separates the good from the truly great.”

  “You speak as if you have knowledge on the subject.

  ”If I’m an artist, then I’m an artist of humanity in general. Flawed. Driven. Bound to disappoint. People are my medium, as paint and canvas is yours. Shall we eat before the food grows cold?”

  “Of course.” Fallon had been so caught up listening to him that all else had receded from her mind, including social pleasantries and food. He had a very real depth, surprising in one so young. And, much as she hated to admit it, he was right on a number of scores.

  “Oysters. Quail. Trout.” Bridge lifted covers and inhaled with great gusto. “I applaud your choices. Food to be eaten with the fingers further stir the senses.”

  Oh, dear. Was that what she’d been thinking when she’d conferred with cook?

  “I wasn’t sure as to your tastes.”

  “You chose well. I consider food to be one of life’s many delightful sensory experiences. Come, let us eat before the fire.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m yours for seven days only. And you know I speak the truth. You do need to know me, from the soul out.”

  “I’m rather surprised to hear you haven’t yet sold your soul to the devil.” He responded with a satanic grin. “Perhaps I have. That, too, is something you must discern.” He splashed some wine into a goblet and placed it before her, then refilled his own glass, which he raised in a toast. “To the lady Fallon. And the mysteries she is sure to uncover.”

  She cocked her head, studying him. “You have a rather inflated opinion of yourself.”

  “Modesty was never one of my flaws. Nor circumspection.” Ripping a chunk of meat from the quail, he raised it to her lips. His grease-covered pinkie finger nudged her lips apart, and he slid the morsel into her mouth in a move that seemed even more intimate than the way he had touched her earlier.