Taboo Read online

  Fallon was too shocked to do anything other than chew. She only hoped she'd be able to swallow. The sight of Bridge sucking each finger clean triggered a strange tugging sensation in her womb. She swallowed with difficulty. “You have a napkin, you know”

  He glanced down lazily. “So I do. Your turn to feed me.” How had he done that? She could well imagine herself feeding him the way he had fed her. Her fingers tingled, imagining his strong lips sucking the juices from her skin, ravaging her palm the way he had earlier. She pushed her plate aside and clasped her hands tightly together in her lap, safe from temptation.

  “I do believe I challenge you,” he said.

  “Painting you shall be quite enough of a challenge, thank you.”

  “Painting me is a safe challenge. The other—”

  “There is no other,” she said.

  “That’s where you’re mistaken. The other challenge is the real one. The unsafe one. And the one with the greater reward.” He cocked a look. “You’ve hardly touched your meal.”

  “I’m not hungry. The hour grows late and I want to get an early start in the morning.”

  “Perhaps you’re too excited to eat,” he suggested. “Anticipating the unfolding of the next seven days?”

  She rose. “Don’t drink all that wine. I want you clear-headed and well rested in the morning.”

  He rose as well. “You shall have me any way you want me.”

  She crossed the room, aware of his eyes following her, riveted on the sway of her hips and the rounded curve of her bottom beneath her skirt. She paused, one hand on the studio door, and turned. “I want honesty between us always. What you said earlier was true. I need to know the man inside, to probe below the surface to do you full justice.”

  Three long strides brought him to her side. “I am an onion, to be peeled back layer after layer. I only appear transparent. I shan’t make it easy. But I never lie.”

  His closeness should have felt stifling. Instead she found herself stimulated anew, fascinated, half afraid that seven days in his company was far too long, yet would ultimately prove far too brief. Facing him, she felt alive in a way she’d never before known. Alive in far more than just the physical sense.

  “No. Somehow I didn’t expect you would lie.”

  “Am I confined to quarters?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Times when you don’t require my services—am I free to move about the gardens? I promise not to bolt.”

  “Feel free to enjoy the gardens at your leisure, Mr. Bridgeman. They’re rather exceptional, if I do say so myself.”

  “Thank you. And Mr. Bridgeman was my father.”

  Fallon nodded. “The settee is quite comfortable. I’ll have pillows and bedding sent over for you.”

  His gaze stopped her from leaving, almost as if he detained her physically. “Where will you sleep?”

  “In my room, as I always do.”

  “Next to your husband?”

  She paused for a moment, and twisted her wedding ring. “There is no longer a husband. He drowned. Is there anything further you require?”

  “Only this.”

  Bridge spun her around so her spine was pressed flush against the door, his length meeting hers at every juncture, his sheer strength anchoring her in place. “I require this.”

  He tilted her head back, ripped the pins from her hair, then plunged his hands through the silken silver-blond veil, his fingertips urgent against her scalp as he licked her lips, readied them to receive his kiss.

  “You can’t possibly paint me if you don’t know me in all the ways a woman knows a man.”

  His kiss was as strong and masterful as he was, possessing her, filling her completely. Hot and hungry, she felt herself being as helplessly devoured as the quail he’d picked clean earlier. Consumed. Emptied and refilled. There was mastery in the way he sucked the breath from her lips, then breathed for her when she forgot how.

  He captured her hands, linked his fingers with hers, and pinned her arms out straight. One knee nudged her legs apart, making contact with that burning inner core, the pressure further inflaming her senses.

  He pressed his pelvis against hers. She went up on tiptoe in an attempt to even out their heights, to feel the length of his erection where she needed it most. She rolled her hips from side to side, freed her hands and clawed his half-open shirt out of the way to touch his skin. To define each individually honed muscle. To commit him to memory. To paint him blind folded if need be.

  As her gropings grew more frantic his touch gentled, along with his kiss. Fallon melted. She trembled, weak and boneless and reliant upon him to support her, to hold her, to somehow extinguish the bonfire alight from within.

  He seemed to know her better than she knew herself. Where she liked to be kissed, how she liked to be stroked. Nibbling, teasing, coaxing kisses turned needful as she kissed him back.

  He broke the kiss. “What do you want?”

  She hesitated.

  “What do you want?” It was a question requiring an answer, and all the honesty she had demanded from him.

  “You know. What you did before.”

  “Made you come? I watched you come. A woman transformed. A woman in rapture. You want that again?”

  “Please.”

  “There are dozens of ways to make a woman come. Hundreds, perhaps.”

  “I want to experience them all.”

  He smiled a satisfied smile, a cat with tail feathers in its mouth and cream dribbling from its whiskers. “I will do my best to see that you do.”

  “I need to paint you, as well.”

  “Greedy Fallon. Hungry for it all. I suspect you’ve been half starved your entire life.” His words echoed through her with a ring of absolute truth. She had been half starved. Half alive. How had he seen? How had he known?

  “And you?” She stroked his hardened length through his trousers, watched him close his eyes, savoring the pleasure of her touch. She grew bold. “Will you teach me the ways to make you come? To truly know you?”

  “I’m yours to command.” He swooped her up in his arms, crossed the room, and laid her gently upon the settee. She watched as he removed his shirt, revealing the planes and angles that she longed to paint and yearned to touch. “Are you quite certain you wouldn’t rather paint me than fuck me?”

  “It’s too dark to paint.”

  “Yet never too light to make love.” He had just started on his trousers, when there was a knock at the door.

  Fallon started. “The servants. Your bedding.”

  “I’ll attend to this.” He readjusted his trousers and strode across the room, gloriously shirtless. She watched the movement of taut muscles in his shoulders and back, undulating ripples beneath a stretch of silken skin.

  In the wink of an eye she skimmed off her underpinnings, swept them out of the way, and smoothed her skirt down primly. The moist heat between her thighs prickled and throbbed in the most eager of ways, impatient for his touch.

  He dismissed the servants, dumped the pillows and bedding next to the settee, then knelt before her, darkly, boldly beautiful in the firelight.

  “Do you always scream when you come?”

  “Only the one time with you earlier.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  Considering that this afternoon was the first time she’d experienced such a phenomenon, she nodded.

  “No one else has ever made you scream?”

  “No one else has ever made me come.”

  “Never?” He sounded startled by her admission.

  “I am, however, more than willing to have you remind me exactly what I’ve been missing.”

  “My pleasure.” Deftly he grasped her stockings, unclasped them, and skimmed them down her legs, his touch as light as a butterfly wing against her skin. She felt a responding tightening low in her belly.

  Deliberately he placed her bare foot on his crotch. The heat and hardness of his erection blazed from the sole of her bare
foot up her leg and past the forbidden entrance to her inner secrets. “Oh, my,” she said, flexing her foot slightly, rubbing it along the length and breadth of his swollen cock.

  He captured her foot’s mate, kissed the instep, followed by each toe, while his hand cupped her bare calf, moving in an insinuating up-and-down motion that mimicked the mating act. With each stroke his hand climbed higher, past her knee, almost but not quite to the juncture of her thighs. As the pressure of his touch increased, so did the pumping of her foot against his cock.

  She was streaming wet, awash with needs she’d never before known, her senses heightened by the sensual way his day’s shadowy growth of whiskers rasped against her bare leg as his questing lips made the journey upward. Leisurely he nipped and licked, the rampant sensations rendering her lightheaded, near delirium.

  He froze upon discovery of her pantiless state, then smiled up at her, wicked approval on his face.

  “Mmmmm,” he said, fingers spreading her slick outer lips, watching her pleasure at his touch. “You have a surprise or two of your own, I see.”

  “Perhaps I’m just getting to know you.” She sucked in her breath as he brushed the swollen knot of her clitoris.

  “You like that?”

  “Mmmmmm.” Head back, eyes aflutter with ecstasy, she squirmed against his fingers, seeking release.

  He pushed her legs apart, opening her wider, making her aware of the cool air on her overheated, overstimulated flesh. “You have a beautiful pussy,” he murmured. “Good enough to eat.”

  The stroking, intimate touch of his lips and his tongue sent a searing white heat through her. She panted and moaned as fresh waves of fire lapped over her.

  “You’re allowed to move, you know.”

  And move she did. Flexing her hips, she shifted with him, against him, affording him better access to her secrets. Every last one.

  “You like that, I take it?” He was clever with his moves, pushing her to the brink, then withdrawing ever so slightly, leaving her breathless and begging for more, for the blessed release that he deliberately withheld.

  “I find it a most exquisite form of torture,” she said.

  He glanced up at her from between her legs, his lips moist from her juices. “You taste delicious. Here.” He teased her with his fingers inside her, then raised them to her lips. She opened her mouth obediently, unable to break his gaze. “Taste my fingers. Enjoy your sweetness.”

  Her hot, strong mouth pulled greedily on his appendages, first one, then two, then three, deeply, as if she would suck all of him until he was inside her.

  Gently he freed his hand, rose, and unfastened his trousers. His huge cock sprang free, with a tiny tear of neglect weeping from its eye. She circled her lips with her tongue, mouth open, eager to taste him as he had tasted her.

  “Open your blouse.”

  She did as she was bade.

  “Free your breasts.”

  She yanked at her chemise, not caring if it ripped, fumbling with the laces until her breasts tumbled free, milky-white, the nipples rosy and flushed. He rubbed the tip of his engorged penis across each rosy crest, and they hardened instantly. Then he brought his cock to her month, circled the outline of her lips, teased her with his luscious, velvety tip. She tasted him, slightly salty-sweet, not unlike herself but different. His smell was musky and masculine and mysterious. She opened her mouth wider, as if to take him all in.

  “Touch your breasts,” he said. “Show me how they like to be touched.” Her breasts overflowed her hands, soft and voluptuous. She teased the nipples with flat palms, slowly at first, then faster, feeling a fresh outpouring of heat between her legs.

  “Good,” Bridge said. “And here’s your reward.” He slid his hot, hard cock between her lips slowly, a half inch, then withdrew it. She rubbed her breasts faster. This time he eased in the entire tip, allowed her tongue to circle it once before he withdrew it. Thus he continued, a little deeper, a little faster, in and out, careful not to give her too much at once. Not to let her suck too hard or too deep.

  She whimpered in frustration, her eyes on his, pleading.

  “Very well, my impatient one.” He reached between her legs, separated the folds, and inserted two fingers inside her in perfect rhythm with his cock in her mouth—in, out, in, out.

  When his thumb brushed her clitoris, something burst inside of her. Fallon convulsed. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Bridge swore and pulled his cock from her mouth. He yanked her close and wrapped his arms around her tight, holding her until the spasms subsided.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked, when she could finally speak.

  “What you did is nearly damage the ego of a man who prides himself on his control.” He pulled her to her feet, skinned out of his trousers, peeled off her disarrayed garments, and led her to the fire. “Now that we’re done with the foreplay, I intend to fuck you silly.”

  Chapter 4

  Bridge lowered Fallon to the rumpled bedding before the glowing embers of the fire he had lit earlier. Her breasts were luscious and full, her skin soft and creamy and touched with a surprising spatter of freckles. She looked thoroughly kissed, well loved, and ready for more, her lips swollen, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, her skin tinged pink and still slightly moist from her orgasm.

  Bridge was no stranger to bedding beautiful women, but none had ever responded the way Fallon had, nearly causing him to lose his much-touted self-control. Just gazing upon her, he felt he might explode there and then. He took a breath and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, a technique he’d found effective for controlling the inevitable, and then, with a groan of pleasure, he buried himself in her welcoming warmth.

  He felt her muscles clench around him, the inner mouth of her so hot and tight, it took all of his control to withdraw, reenter, withdraw again.

  She rocked her hips to match his rhythm. He grasped her bottom and raised her hips to accommodate him more fully.

  He was buried. Lost in her. Buried alive, unable to breathe, and he didn’t even care.

  He watched the flutter of her eyelids, the softening of her features signaling her pleasure. Pleasure that soon turned to urgency as she pumped faster, her nails raking his back, her breath coming in sexy pants. He felt the internal pressure build as her muscles tightened. He wanted to hold off, to watch her come again and again, to watch his shaft drive in and out of that delicious, slippery slit of hers.

  But as he felt her start to come, his control shattered. Her vaginal muscles clenched and squeezed him tight. Semen shot from his cock with a force he’d never before experienced. He swallowed her scream and made it his own before he collapsed heavily atop her, sliding against her, both of them slick with perspiration. Even after it was over her muscles continued to milk him, squeezing out every last drop, greedily begging for more.

  Beneath him, he felt her breathing gradually slow. Absently her fingers ruffled his hair and stroked his back. Bridge was amazed that he was not only allowing such attention but even enjoying it. He, who’d never been one to laze about after the sex act was finished, lay there savoring the shallow rise and fall of his partner’s chest beneath his. The slow, steady beat of her heart. Or was that his? Could two hearts really beat as—

  Damn!

  He pushed himself to one elbow. Where had that thought come from? He was hardly some poetic bard or innocent youth in the first throes of infatuation, composing sonnets about his lady love. With an effort, he rolled off of Fallon and onto his feet. He added a log to the dying fire, the perfect excuse for him to get up. But why did he feel the need for an excuse? He never had in the past.

  They came, he went, had been his creed. Yet, at the sight of Fallon lying there, all rumpled and delectable and sleepy, he just wanted to crawl back alongside her. To curl his body against hers like the petals of an unopened rose, to hold her close and watch the sexual contentment on her face soften into sleep.

  The room felt cold once he was away from the
warmth of her body, the heat of their passion, the tangled blankets.

  “You have gooseflesh.” She reached out a hand, a clear invitation to rejoin her, to snuggle against her and let the rest of the world go to hell.

  “You’re right.” He reached for his trousers and stepped into them. He stabbed his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, once he found it beneath her frock.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out for some fresh air.”

  “Are you coming back soon?”

  He gave her a dispassionate look. “I don’t know about you, but I’m far too old to be spending the night on a cold floor.”

  Her expression changed, grew guarded. She sat up, bedsheet modestly clutched across her breasts, and pushed the tangle of hair back from her face with an unsteady hand. The firelight traced her beauty, its light and shadows enhancing the purity of her bone structure. “I’ll have a proper bed moved in here tomorrow.”

  “Hardly necessary. I’ll only be here half a fortnight.”

  “Nonetheless, never let it be said that I’m an ungrateful hostess.”

  “Nor I a difficult . . . houseguest. Is that the correct term for my stay?”

  She ignored his question as she rose gracefully to her feet, wrapping the linen sheet more securely about her. “Don’t be up late. I plan to get an early start in the morning.”

  “An early start?” He was baiting her most deliberately.

  “For our sitting,” she said primly. “Your portrait.” She managed to meet his gaze directly, despite her state of undress. “You were right about one thing. I can’t wait to paint you—now that I’m better acquainted with the man beneath the flesh.”

  The studio door slammed behind Bridge’s retreat and Fallon lowered herself to the settee with legs that still quivered. For years she had dreamed, wondered, fantasized about a physical encounter like the one she had just experienced. A sexual experience where she was lifted clean out of herself. Where she lost herself, lost her entire identity, where everything disappeared save the connection she had with her partner.

  She fumbled into her clothing, relieved to have some privacy in which to do so. She was not as easy with her nudity as Bridge clearly was. On the heels of her exhilaration came the realization that he was in her life for only seven more days.