Sophie’s mouth met him there, and together they ate the ambrosial fruit, licking it from one another’s lips, savoring it on one another’s tongue. Their eyes continued meeting, even as Sophie rubbed against him, even as she reached around Crispin and plunged one of the slices of peach almost entirely into the cream.
“Now it is my turn,” she told him. “Lie down.”
Crispin knew this was not a good idea, that he was near bursting merely from looking at her, but he could not stop her, did not want to stop her. He lay still while she unfastened the ties on his robe and pushed it from his shoulders. All his muscles were tight as she straddled his waist, letting her spectacular breasts hang just above his lips and then, with the dripping peach in her mouth, traced a cold line down his body.
She did not stop at his chest, but dragged the fruit all the way to his navel, leaving a small pool there, and then continued down, to his tormented member. It rose to greet her, and she ran the peach along it, leaving long creamy lines, and Crispin gasping. When he realized what was happening, when he felt first the peach and then, dear god, her mouth on his member, Crispin groaned and prayed for control. She rubbed her lips lightly along his shaft, rubbing them in the cream, tickling him with the lightest touches of her tongue, then opened her mouth and drank him in, surrounding him with warmth, her lips massaging him and sucking at him. He looked down at her, watched her full lips move over him, watched the creamy line of her mouth glide over his tip and then fall to suckle the base of his organ, felt her tongue lap over him, and could not stop himself from raising his body and pressing deeper into her mouth.
Sophie was completely consumed with the joy of pleasing him, lit by his noises of pleasure, kindled by his groans. She drank his shaft in deeper to feel it throb, let her fingers follow her mouth up and down its length, exploring its surface, tickling over the tip. His body, his reactions to her touch, thrilled and excited her. She wanted to make this last, to go slowly, but she could not wait to hear him call out to her in climax. She moved her lips up his length faster, following them with her fingers, stroking him and sucking on him from tip to base, pushing him into her mouth as deeply as he would go, until Crispin jerked powerfully and pulled himself from her.
“I want to be inside of you,” he gasped, dragging her up, over his chest. “I want to feel you around me.”
Crispin did not know what he was saying, only that it was true, that he wanted to lose himself entirely in this woman, to feel her body pressing against him, challenging him, wrapped around him, when he climaxed. He rolled her onto her back and mounted her, using his hand to open her for him, sliding into her wet passage.
The vines that had been growing inside of Sophie erupted into life, into blossom, and Sophie felt as though she were expanding, bursting out of the bounds of her body. Crispin immersed himself in her, riding her forcefully, plunging his shaft between the hot, firm walls of her body, letting the curve of his member roll over her nub as he pushed in and out of her. The golden hair that surrounded his organ brushed over her arousal, teasing it with each dive he made into her, pulling it down with him and then pressing it back up. He withdrew himself to run his full length over her until she called out to him, and then he immersed himself in her again. Sophie wrapped her legs around Crispin’s waist, burning to take him into her more, to have him drown completely, unreservedly into her. He set her on fire, she was alight for him, she could hear the flames lapping at her, feel the heat between them, smell the smoke of the fire kindled by their lovemaking, taste—
Sophie’s eyes snapped open, and at the same moment Crispin stopped moving. The room was filled with black, acrid smoke that burned their eyes and their throats. And the bed, the bed on which they were lying, was completely engulfed in flames.
Chapter Fifteen
The hangings of the bed were a wall of fire, and flames crept along the edges of the coverlet toward Crispin and Sophie at its center. Crispin sat bolt upright, rolling off Sophie and pushing away the smoldering coverlet beneath them simultaneously. The black smoke stung his eyes, his throat, as he turned from side to side, seeking a way out of the scorching inferno. The fire and smoke blocked the rest of the chamber from his view, and he did not know if it, too, was alight, but it had to be their destination, because their only hope was to get off the raft of fast-moving flames that drew ever closer. He saw a small gap in the flames to his left and was pulling Sophie toward it when one of the beams from the canopy of the bed came crashing down in front of them, flaming, blocking their way, and setting fire to the sheets. The only way out now was through the fire. Crispin, coughing, dragged an only slightly smoldering blanket over his shoulders, covered Sophie with the rest of it, gathered her into his arms, and pushed backward through the flames.
His skin screamed in protest as it passed through the sheet of fire. He felt like he was being boiled, scorched alive, like he was being peeled, jabbed by a thousand hot pokers, and then, abruptly, it was all over. They were through the wall of flames.
The rest of the room was mercifully untouched, but as he stood looking at the bed, another piece of the canopy broke off with an awful noise and slid to the ground near where they were standing, sending out sparks and streams of flame in two directions. Crispin was too furious, too filled with wrath at whoever had done this, to notice that Sophie was not moving at all, that she was staring transfixed at the flames, a haunted, glazed expression in her eyes. She neither clung to him nor looked at him but lay, tense and terrified, in his arms.
Even if he had noticed, there would not have been any time to think about the strangeness of her behavior. He had to summon the household to help him put out the fire before the entirety of Sandal Hall was a pile of ash. But first he had to conceal Sophie.
The privy, just through the library, was the best place to hide her, he concluded—no one would have cause to enter it—and he hauled her there, depositing her gently in the middle of the room.
“Stay here, make no noise,” he commanded.
She did not nod, gave no indication of having heard him, but just stared into space, standing where he left her as he quickly shut the door behind him.
In the hours that followed, the entire household, the entire neighborhood, went to work dousing the blaze. Even the old beggar woman who lounged on the Strand came to help, looking furtively around as she passed pails of water in a long relay from the well in the kitchen yard up to the bedchamber. When the fire was out, nothing remained of the bed and not much was left of the rest of the furnishings of the chamber. Miraculously, the library was untouched, but the flames had been so fierce in the bedroom, their heat so powerful, that the wooden moldings of the room had turned to ash, and several of the panes of glass in the windows that led to Crispins private garden had melted. Surveying the destruction, Crispin could not believe that he, they, had survived. It was clear they were not meant to.
The night sky was already growing light when he finished thanking and shaking hands with each of the people who had come to his aid. He gave the hunched beggar woman a gold piece, and as he bent to look into her face, mostly concealed by her hood, he felt a flash of recognition, of something familiar. But it was gone as quickly as it had come. By the time she had lowered her odd, goldcolored eyes and shuffled off in the direction of the door, he had forgotten all about it, thinking now only of Sophie.
His fury, which had galvanized as he stood in the middle of his destroyed bedchamber, changed when he opened the door of the privy and saw her. She was curled into a ball in the corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, the same fearful, half-wild expression in her eyes as when he had left her. She looked like a hunted animal, tense and terrified and ready to strike if attacked. Anger gave way to concern as he looked at her, concern and also confusion.
“Everything is fine now,” Crispin said gently, moving toward her. “The fire is over. You can come out.”
She did not spea
k, just shook her head and pressed herself farther into the corner.
“Sophie, can you hear me?” He kneeled down to her. “You are safe. There is nothing to be afraid of.”
Her voice was toneless when she spoke. “He was here. He found me. He said I could never escape him, and he was right.”
Crispin sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She tensed for a moment, but then relaxed. “Who?”
Sophie closed her eyes now and leaned into Crispin. “I am so sorry, my lord.”
“Why?” Crispin leaned back against the wall and rested her head on his chest.
“This is all my fault. I should have left. Your beautiful chamber was completely destroyed because of me.”
“I will acknowledge that your touch sets me afire, but I don’t think it does the same to my bedclothes,” Crispin said lightly.
She looked up at him. “This is not a joke, my lord.”
“I was not joking. How else could you be at fault for this fire?”
“He set it because I was here. Because he knew I was here and he wanted to punish me, to remind me that I am wicked. To remind me that I am his.”
This caught Crispin’s attention. “Whose? Who do you belong to? Who is this man? Are you married?”
“No, nothing like that.” She sat quietly, trying to decide how much to tell him. The beating of his heart echoed in her head, and the smell of him—sweaty and sooty and Crispin-y—soothed her slightly, and she began speaking. “When I was fifteen, my mother and father died in a house fire.”
Crispin pulled her closer. “I am so sorry, Sophie. I had no idea.”
“Very few people know. But that is not why I am upset. It is what happened afterward.” She stopped for a moment, and then decided to go forward. “There was a man. A man who said he loved me. He is the one who rescued me from the fire, and he took me someplace, he said, to help me.”
Sophie took a deep breath. “The man locked me in a room with no windows, more like a closet, a small, completely dark box.” She shuddered at the recollection. “For three weeks, until I escaped, he kept me there, alone, in the dark. Long, terrible days of darkness, of nothingness. I tried pounding on the door and screaming, begging, pleading with anyone to help me, but no one ever came. Except him. Every day he would come to the closet and sit for hours, whispering to me through the door.” There were tears running down Sophie’s face, but she ignored them. “I tried to cover my ears, to hide my head, cowering in the farthest corner of the closet, but his words kept coming, filling the darkness, until I could no longer tell whether they were in my mind or in the air, whether they were his or mine. He told me that I was wicked, that I used my body to tempt him, that I was trying to make him vile, to lure him to unnatural acts. He said I was trying to charm him into succumbing to me, but it would not work, he would not fall for my wiles. He said I was filthy, that my body and mind were corrupt, that I was possessed with villainous urges.” Her voice cracked. “He told me…” Sophie could not go on.
Crispin hugged her close, letting her tears spill down his chest. When her sobs had somewhat subsided, he asked, gently, “What else did he say?”
Sophie still had tears coming down her face as she continued. “He said he knew I had to be punished, that I had to be shown the danger of my wantonness, of my unnatural desires. So he had set fire to the house. He said that our parents’ deaths were my fault, that I killed them with my lustfulness.” Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, tightly, to stop the tears, and the pain. She was trembling against Crispin’s chest. “He said that as long as I obeyed him, he would tell no one of my wickedness. He told me that no one would ever want me when they heard what I was, how I was. That I was his, that I would always be his, only he knew how to love me and I could never escape from him. And then tonight—”
“But you did escape from him,” Crispin interrupted her. “You got away. And you are safe. He cannot get you now.”
“He has, don’t you see? He burned your house just like he burned my parents. To get me. To remind me. To show you. What I am.” She pulled away from Crispin but could not bring herself to look at him, to see the disgust in his face.
Sophie heard his breathing change and instinctively felt his muscles tighten in his chest, tighten in horror at what he had been harboring in his house. She had been afraid to tell him even that much of the story, afraid that he would now see her for what she really was, afraid that he would confirm what the man said, but hoping he would deny it, deny every word.
He had not. Instead, he stiffened beneath her, obviously cringing away from her, obviously corroborating that everything was true. She was wanton, she was responsible for so much pain, for death, for the mess his apartment, his life, was in. Sensing that he was about to speak, Sophie stopped him, careful not to touch his mouth with her upraised hand. “Please, do not say anything. I understand. I will go.”
“Why do you persist in saying that? And what do you understand?” Crispin spoke harshly. His fury about the fire had been transformed, instantaneously, into a different kind of rage. Rage against anyone who could treat Sophie, his divine, wonderful, sensuous Sophie, that way. Anyone who would dare to abuse her, abuse her desire, abuse her person. “Who was the man?” he asked finally, planning to kill him before another hour was out.
Sophie hesitated. The face she knew so well danced before her eyes, mocking her, laughing as she struggled not to lie and yet not reveal the shameful truth. “I cannot tell you who he was,” she whispered. “I hardly saw his face the night of the fire, and afterward,” she fumbled, “afterward it was dark. I wish I could tell you, if only so you could thank him for warning you about me, but I really cannot.”
Overwhelmed by incredulity, Crispin missed the double meaning in her words. “You think I wish to thank him?”
“No,” Sophie rushed on, “I guess not, after what he did to your lovely bed.” She rose to her feet. “I am sorry. I should go. I can only imagine how you are feeling, how you must see me now.”
“Really?” Crispin asked, quite sure she did not know how she looked to him at that moment as she stood over him, naked in the moonlight. “How do I see you?”
“There is no need to be cruel, my lord,” she said flatly, but he saw that she was trembling. “I do not blame you. I can tell you find me distasteful. Even disgusting. That you wish I were gone. That my presence makes you”—Sophie sought for the right word—“uncomfortable.”
There was a moment of silence, a moment during which Sophie dared to hope for a denial, but her hopes were crushed.
“Uncomfortable,” Crispin repeated finally. “Yes, you do make me uncomfortable.”
She could not have asked for more unequivocal corroboration of her worst fears. “Good-bye, my lord,” she said, turning quickly so that he could not see her tears, and moving toward the door.
“Wait,” Crispin called, and she stopped with her fingers on the handle. “You did not let me finish.” He rose and walked toward her.
“I have heard it all before. I do not need to hear it again. Especially not from you.” Her voice broke on the last two words.
“Yes, you do. You especially need to hear what I have to say.” Putting his hands on her shoulders Crispin turned her so that she was facing him, then raised her eyes to his. “In your presence, Sophie Champion, I feel pleasure unlike any other I have ever felt. In your smile I see beauty I could not have imagined. With you, I laugh like I cannot remember laughing. Around you, my body behaves uncontrollably, my mind is not my own, and I cannot convince my mouth that anything tastes as good as your lips.” His expression as he looked at her was serious. “All of that makes me damned uncomfortable. But also happy.”
It took a moment before the words settled in and Sophie echoed, “Happy?”
Crispin nodded. “Very happy.” He caught one of her tears on his fingertip and br
ought it to his lips. “Please do not go, tesoro. I like being uncomfortable with you.”
Sophie stood trembling, unable to believe what she was hearing, what she was seeing. He was standing in front of her, one long dimple now framing a crooked, irresistible smile. And he was saying that he liked her. Her. Sophie Champion.
“I like being uncomfortable with you too,” she just managed to whisper through her tears before his lips closed over hers.
Their lovemaking that late night was gentle and sweet, and astonishing to them both. It began slowly, Crispin languishing inside of Sophie, and built, minute by minute, hour after hour, into a frenzied race. It was long past dawn when they clutched each other desperately, unwilling to let their lovemaking end, unable to prolong it, long past dawn when they reached their crescendo together, riding the long, sinuous waves of their pleasure until they ebbed completely.
It was long past dawn when Sophie, checking to be sure that Crispin was asleep, pressed her lips to his chest and whispered, “I love you.”
The man looked up angrily from the document he was writing. “I asked not to be interrupted,” Lawrence growled at the serving boy hovering on his threshold.
“I know, sir. I am very sorry, sir. But it is Lord Sandal, sir. To see you, sir. He says it is urgent.”
Frowning, Lawrence set aside his pen. “Send him in.”
By the time Crispin entered the office, no trace remained of either the document or Lawrence’s frown.
“I hope I am not interrupting something, Lawrence, but I had to see you,” Crispin said as he seated himself on the opposite side of Lawrence’s desk.
“You know you are always welcome,” Lawrence told him with the beginnings of a wide smile. Then he stopped abruptly and looked skeptically at his friend. “You seem very chipper.”