Captured (6 page)

“Zander!” She screamed his name as he suddenly moved his tongue to her nub, circling with gentle pressure while fingers once again took up the rhythm inside of her.

“Come for me, sweet. Come, Lillian.” He groaned the order against her sex, then opened his mouth and took her nub inside, pulling and suckling until she had no choice but to obey.

She arched off the cushions, into his mouth as her body contracted violently around the fingers still working inside her. Never in eight years, in all the time that she’d been secretly finding ways to pleasure herself, had she ever come apart like this. Her nipples

ached, every nerve screamed out, raw with pleasure, and those few inches between her legs had become the center of her world.

“There’s no other like you.” He muttered the words against her slick skin, lapping away her moisture with gentle strokes of his tongue.

No, she was wrong. It wasn’t her pulsing sex that had become the center of the world, but the man who worked so fiercely to pleasure her. Zander. He was everything she’d longed for and more, a better lover than she could have dreamed up in a million years of girlish fantasies.

“Lil, my Lil.”

Her heart twisted. Hearing him call her by that long-ago nickname did something to her, made this both more bitter and more sweet. Sweet because she knew now that his feelings for her weren’t nearly as cool as he would have had her believe. Bitter because neither of them could ever let their feelings make them fools.

There was no future for them, even if she became daft enough to wish for one. “Zander, I—”

“Wonderful first session, Lillian. I’ll see you day after tomorrow. Come in the morning, near ten.” He pressed a quick kiss to her lips that tasted of her own salty musk, then turned and walked to the door.

Lillian watched him go, torn between begging him to come back and telling him to go straight to hell. In the end she just let him go, but made a silent promise to herself. The next time they met, she wouldn’t be the one left sitting, staring at his undeniably nice-looking bottom as he walked away.

Alexander’s studio had once been a carriage house in the 1830s. During the renovation, he’d had it fit with all the modern plumbing conveniences, including a large bathtub made of dark wood imported from England. The expense was extravagant, but paid for itself within a few years. Alexander lived at his studio as much as his home five miles away and appreciated a wash after ten to twelve hours spent processing film and prints.

But he’d never been more grateful to run a bath than he was today, knowing that soon the creamy skin of his Lil would flush pink as she stepped into the hot water.

Lillian… She’d shattered him with her openness, her passion. He’d been so close to pressing her back against the cushions and sliding inside her. He’d been dying to feel the slick heat between her legs gripping his cock, to possess that lovely little cunny that tasted like a piece of heaven and threatened to make his world a living hell.

Hell because he’d known after that night he never wanted to share her. He wanted to make her his own, just as they’d dreamed about so long ago. He’d been lost the second she spread her legs and looked down at him with blue eyes filled with equal parts fear and desire. And trust, mustn’t forget trust. She trusted him to help her, to be her friend and coconspirator, to aid her cause, not ruin her name.

She
would
be ruined if he gave in to the all-consuming desire to fuck her until they both forgot the reasons why they shouldn’t. Just as ruined as she would be if he actually allowed her to sell the photographs they’d taken. Paris was not nearly so distant a place as she assumed. Someday, those photographs would come back to haunt her and she’d be shunned by Society. Her father would cut her off and she’d end up working as a seamstress in a sweatshop or worse.

He couldn’t allow that fate to befall Lillian anymore than he could take her as his wife. He would continue this charade for a few more sessions, then threaten to expose her

if she didn’t obey her father’s wishes. Even more than he desired her body, he wanted Lil safe and cared for. Halewater could provide her with the kind of life to which she was accustomed. The only thing he could offer her were the snubs of family and friends, in exchange for a lover already married to his work. She deserved better.

“Alexander? Are you here?” Blast, just the sound of her voice made him hard. It truly would be a hellish few weeks if his kinder nature insisted on doing the right thing. “There you are. What are you doing?”

She leaned against the doorframe, staring down at him with a bemused smile. The puffed sleeves on her light blue dress somehow didn’t look nearly as ridiculous as they did on other women, but Lillian had a gift for making anything she wore look fashionable. Even her brother’s britches. Damn, shouldn’t have let his mind go there, to the way that tan fabric had strained across her—

“Zander?”

“I’m running a bath,” he stated brusquely, wincing at how irritated he sounded. He couldn’t let her get to him. Anger, passion…they were far too closely related. He needed to keep his cool.

As if that were likely with another round of erotic photos on the agenda, God help him.

“I see that, but why? We aren’t staying indoors today,” she said, whipping a parasol from behind her back and tapping it on the tile in front of her. “I have something different in mind, something I think you will like very much.”

“It doesn’t matter what I like, but what the consumer likes. Bathing photos are all the rage. You’ll be sure to sell them without a problem.” He turned his attention back to the water, casually pouring a bit of bubble bath into the warm stream as if he couldn’t care less whether she was about to disrobe.

“Alexander, I would think you of all people would realize the benefits of going
against
the rage. Sooner or later the public will tire of nude women performing their toilette and want something new and fresh and— What are you laughing at?”

He should have known his Lil wouldn’t be satisfied with the portfolio of an average erotic model.

“Nothing. So, what do you have in mind? I saw some very interesting pictures of
two
women bathing the other day. I could arrange for a friend to join us. I believe the ladies were kissing, caressing each other’s—”

“Zander!” The shock on her face made him laugh even harder. “You are wicked.” “But isn’t that why you sought me out in the first place?” Their eyes met and held,

the erotic charge in the air stiffening his already turgid member. “Don’t worry, Lil, I don’t want to share you. Not even with a member of your own sex.”

His foolish words hung in the air for a moment before she took a deep breath and dropped her gaze to the floor. Alexander’s resolve strengthened. She didn’t want him to lay any sort of claim. He was merely the means to an end, an end he would never allow her to achieve. He had to put a stop to this charade, the sooner the better.

“Lillian, I—”

“Meet me at your house within the hour. Give your servants the day off, and make sure we are completely alone.”

“We are completely alone here already.” “I want to make use of your garden—“

Lillian, nude among the flowers…

“I think something outdoors would be lovely.”

…legs spread, with a tulip pressed to her cunny…

“I haven’t seen many erotic portraits executed with natural lighting and I—”

No one around to see or hear when he pulls it away and pushes his cock deep—

“Lillian, I don’t think that’s a wise idea. I do have neighbors on either side.” Alexander shifted on his stool near the bath, crossing his ankle over his knee, hoping to conceal his raging erection.

“Nonsense, the wall is high, I had my driver take the carriage by your house yesterday and saw for myself. No one will see us. We’ll be completely safe from discovery.” She smiled and stepped closer, adjusting the rumpled collar of his coat with a

familiarity that caused a strange aching sensation to take up in his chest. “Haven’t you always secretly wanted to be nude under the warm sun?”

“Pardon?”

“I thought I’d be the one to teach the lesson today. The theme will be the importance of learning to work well with others, to lead, but also to follow.” She finished with his collar and set to work smoothing his shirt. He captured her hand in his, shaken by how good, how
right
, it felt to have her fuss over his appearance.

“Lillian—”

“Don’t be afraid, Zander. I promise to be a gentle teacher.” She bent and pressed the softest of kisses against his lips, then pulled her hand away. “See you soon.”

She was gone before he could think of a response, or give in to the urge to toss her into the bathwater fully clothed, and leap in after her.

“Probably for the best. It would be difficult to explain a drenched dress on such a fair day.” His voice echoed strangely through the washroom, which felt sadly empty without Lillian.

He had to follow her to his house and be done with this farce. He wouldn’t last a few more sessions without losing what was left of his common sense, not to mention his fast-waning self-control. And certainly not to mention his heart, that organ he hadn’t been sure he possessed, but which now thumped unsteadily in his chest, aching for the girl he’d lost and the woman he could never have.

•

Alexander burst through the elegant door of his Beacon Hill mansion and slammed it closed behind him, gratified by the fact that no butler was there to attend to his coat. He’d dismissed the servants not quite an hour ago and then gone for a walk around the Common, determined to work out the perfect words to convince Lillian to forget her foolish plan. She had to be made to see reason, and it seemed he was the only one who could save her from herself.

“Lillian, I simply must—”

Every reasonable word of the speech he’d carefully composed abandoned him as he opened the back door and stared out into his small, walled garden.

Lillian was already there and already completely nude, lying on a blanket in the shade of the small clutch of cherry trees at the far end of the flowerbeds. Her skin was as white as the profusion of blossoms that bloomed above her head, her long black hair unbound and strewn out on the grass behind her. She’d set up a camera a few feet away but didn’t seem to be posing at the moment. Instead, her face was buried in the pillow of her arms, her thin shoulders shaking.

“Lillian?” He crossed to her, feeling his feet sink into the damp earth below him. This spring had been unseasonably warm, but the ground itself was wet and cold. She must be half frozen if she’d been lying there for long on nothing but that thin quilt. He took off his coat and knelt beside her. “Here, cover yourself, you must—”

“Don’t touch me.” She raised a tear-stained face and pushed him away. “Dear Lord woman, it’s a coat, not a serpent.”

“No, you are the serpent. I’ve been waiting here for hours. I thought you weren’t going to come.” Tears welled in her eyes again and her lower lip trembled.

“It hasn’t been hours. A half hour at most.”

“It felt like hours,” she sniffed, running a shaking hand across her nose.

“Here, take my handkerchief. Your nose is damp.” He fumbled the scrap of linen and pressed it into her hand.

“You aren’t supposed to mention such things, Zander,” she said, nevertheless using his handkerchief on the body part in question. “I understand that you consider yourself above societal convention, but some things are simply a matter of good manners. It isn’t good manners to keep a woman waiting for hours—”

“A half hour! I swear it, Lil, it couldn’t have been more than—” “Even a half hour is too much! Or to mention her weepy nose.”

“What should I have done? Let the blasted thing run all over your lovely face?” He cursed as something he’d said made her weep even harder.

“You could have simply offered the handkerchief. You could have—”

“I could have turned you away on the beach last weekend as well. It’s what the ‘well-mannered’ would have done. If you want manners, you should go ahead and marry Halewater.” There, he’d said it, gotten the point of his message across, if not so elegantly as he’d hoped.

“I don’t want Halewater. I want you. I’ve always wanted you, don’t you see that?” Tears ran freely down her face now and Zander felt a strange stinging at the back of his eyes as he looked into hers.

Lillian drew a deep sobbing breath. “I thought that this— I thought I could pretend— Blast it, but I can’t.”

“Please, Lil, take my coat. Let’s go in and have some tea and—”

“No, let me speak! I adore you, have adored you since I was a girl. You’re all I’ve ever thought about. Since the day you left, every time I’ve brought myself pleasure, every time I’ve imagined a man’s hands touching me the way you touched me two nights past, it’s been you in my thoughts, in my heart. Don’t you understand? Don’t you feel—”

Dizzy from her words, he silenced her with a kiss that put them both off balance. They tumbled across the quilt, a tangle of desperate hands and lips. Her tongue demanded entry to his mouth this time and he gave it willingly, eagerly, anything to keep his mind off her words, and the feelings they brought surging to the surface. Memories of the girl she’d been, of that kiss, of that night that had meant so much more to him than he’d ever allowed himself to admit, flooded his mind.

What if he had gone back? What if he’d tried to take her away, despite her father’s threats? Could they have spent these last eight years as lovers? Maybe more?

“You were practically a child, Lil.” He murmured the words against her lips as he helped her with the buttons of his shirt.

“I was old enough to know I loved you, that you were the most treasured person in my life.” She gave up on the buttons and moved to the close of his pants. At this rate he’d be naked in moments, ready to do all those things with Lillian that he’d sworn he wouldn’t.

“I had no money, no home, nothing to offer you. You were only fifteen—”

“I’m not fifteen now.” She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against his bare chest. The connection of skin on skin took his breath away. “Make love to me, Zander. Do not make me wait another second.”