Amanda Quick - Mistress

Marcus said nothing. "Do you know what I think?" Iphiginia said. "I believe that if she had lived, Nora would have grown up and fallen deeply in love with you. She would have learned to love you when she was mature enough to comprehend your finer qualities."

Marcus stated at her. "For an intelligent female, you sometimes spout the most outlandish nonsense. What in the name of the devil makes you believe such a ridiculous thing?"

She sniffled. "Because I know how very easy it is to fall in love with you, my lord. Indeed, I have done so myself."

MARCUS FELT AS THOUGH THE GROUND SHIFTED around him, leaving him in a different place than he had been a moment earlier. The light from the stars seemed to come from a slightly different angle. The moon had altered its position in the sky.

Iphiginia had said that she loved him. Again.

Quite clearly. Marcus studied her very closely. She did not appear to be overwrought as she had the other night in the Temple of Vesta when she had thought she'd murdered him.

"Marcus?" Iphiginia frowned in concern. "Are you all right, my lord?"

"No." But he could not explain what was wrong or changed or different. He could not even form a coherent sentence.

He reached out and caught Iphiginia around the waist. He dragged her off the seat and into his arms.

She uttered a small, delicious gasp of surprise and then dropped her fan when he crushed her mouth beneath his own. Her shawl fluttered to the floor of the carriage.

"Marcus." Her arms stole around him. She sighed softly and nestled close.

Without taking his lips from hers, Marcus closed the carriage curtains. The cab was Idled with soft darkness.

He kissed Iphiginia deeply, hungrily, with all the consuming need that he had kept tamped down since the night in the Temple of Vesta.

She did not appear to mind his desperation or his lack of subtlety. She clung to him. Her hands moved in his hair. Her head fell back against his shoulder.

Marcus put his hand on her stocking-clad calf. He slid his palm up to her knee, past her garter, and all the way to the warm, silken flesh above. Her delicate petticoats foamed around his arm and cascaded across his legs.

He found his way to the heated place between her thighs and groaned when he discovered that she was already damp. She smelled of roses and feminine desire. It was the most intoxicating scent he had ever encountered. His whole body clenched with need.

Marcus realized that his hands were trembling. He fought for breath and control. He would not throw himself on her the way he had last time, he vowed. He would not act the rough, clumsy farmer. He would make it good for her.

He wanted to please her. He was desperate to please her. He had to please her.

He eased her to a sitting position until she straddled his thighs. Her white skirts pooled on the black velvet cushions. He reached down to unfasten his breeches.

Iphiginia braced her hands on his shoulders. "Marcus, what are you doing?"

"Making love to you." His erect shaft sprang free. "In your carriage?" A narrow sliver of light from the crack in the curtains revealed her wide-eyed expression.

"It must be either here or on your front doorsteps. I cannot last until we find the comfort of a bed. Touch me."

"Yes. Oh, yes." Tentatively, she removed her hand from his shoulder. She took the tip of one gloved finger between her teeth and tugged. Then she went to the next finger. Slowly she eased the white satin glove off her hand.

Watching her strip the glove from her fingers was one of the most excruciatingly erotic sights Marcus had ever witnessed.

She finished the task. The satin glove that dangled from her teeth gleamed in the strip of fight. She reached down, fumbled a bit, and then gently curled her fingers around him.

"Marcus." The glove dropped from her teeth. For a moment Marcus thought he would disgrace himself just as he had on the last occasion. He sucked in his breath and wondered if he would survive.

"Marcus?" Iphiginia sounded anxious. "Are you all right? You are not about to collapse again, are you?"

Marcus nearly choked on his laughter. He smiled faintly. "No. At least not just yet. I want to he inside you, Iphiginia. But I don't want to rush you. This time you must guide me."

"Very well. But I warn you, all I know of this sort of thing is what I have learned from our last experience together and what I observed during my tour of Lartmore's statuary hall."

"It will be enough, I promise you." He cupped her with his palm and felt the moist beat that awaited him. "More than enough."

"You're certain?" She ran her thumb across the end of his shaft.

Marcus steeled himself. "Quite certain." He moved his fingers through the soft nest of hair between her thighs until he uncovered the swollen bud. He stroked gently.

"Good heavens, Marcus." He felt the tremor that went through her. It was a sweet, powerful signal of her response to him. A fierce joy seized Marcus.

Her fingers tightened convulsively around him. Marcus winced and caught his breath.

"Did I hurt you, my lord?" "You are going to he the death of me, Iphiginia." "Oh, no, I'm so sorry. Are you all right, sir? I did not mean to do you an injury." Alarm briefly doused the sweet intensity of passion in her husky voice. "I warned you that I did not know precisely what to do."

"I was merely jesting," he assured her. He took another deep breath. "I'm nowhere near death." He continued to stroke her carefully, drawing forth the dew until his hand was slick with it. "In truth, I do not know when I have ever felt more alive."

Iphiginia's tentative, experimental caresses threatened to demolish his defenses and scatter his senses to the four winds. He was sweating now, every muscle tensed.

She moved slightly in his lap, adjusting herself. She tightened her legs. Her inner thigh brushed against his engorged shaft. His whole body clenched. Her whispered sighs and quickening breath told him of her increasing' excitement.

Then, when he was beginning to wonder if she would ever finish the business, she guided him awkwardly to the exquisitely soft, hot place between her legs. Cautiously, slowly, carefully, she fitted herself to him.

She was so tight. Marcus wondered if he would, indeed, expire before he got inside.

She eased herself downward, drawing in her breath sharply at one point. Then her passage closed snugly around him. Marcus shuddered and held himself unmoving.

A distant warning bell rang somewhere in his fevered brain. He reminded himself that he must withdraw before he spilled his seed. He was not using one of his specially modified French sheep-gut condoms.

And then Iphiginia began to move on him and all rational thought dissolved in Marcus's fevered brain. More demanding than any goddess from classical times, she clutched at him, whispered his name, pleaded, begged, scolded, demanded.

Marcus teased her gently, tormenting himself in the process. And then quite suddenly she shivered and convulsed in his arms.

«Marcus.»

She collapsed against him with a tiny scream of surprise and pleasure.

The warning bell sounded again somewhere, but Marcus was unable to respond. He gripped Iphiginia's thighs and surged upward. He bit back the exultant shout of satisfaction that threatened to erupt from his throat.

Several moments later he sagged back into the corner of the carriage scat. Iphiginia sprawled on top of him.

There was silence. Marcus listened to it while he inhaled the unique, earthy scent of sexual satisfaction that drifted in the air of the closed cab.

The carriage turned a corner and came to a halt a few minutes later. Marcus stirred reluctantly and lit one of the interior lamps. He allowed himself a few seconds to savor the feel of Iphiginia nestled against him and then reality struck him,

"Iphiginia? We have arrived at your home." She mumbled something indistinct and snuggled closer. Her skirts rustled softly. Marcus realized that she had fallen asleep. He smiled.

"Wake up. Hurry, my dear." He shook her gently, urging her to a sitting position. He heard the footman clamber down from the box to open the carriage door. Marcus hastily reached out to latch it.

Iphiginia. "What is it?" She patted back a charming yawn and blinked with sleepy languor. Her skirts were crumpled around her thighs. One neat coil of hair had come loose. It dangled over her ear. A white plume bobbed at an odd angle. "Is it morning?"

"No, it is not." Marcus quickly set himself to rights. "It's the middle of the night and you look as though you have been tumbled in a carriage."

Iphiginia giggled, "Fancy that, my lord." Marcus paused in the act of shoving his shirttails into his breeches. He gazed at her, riveted by her happiness.

He was responsible for this, he thought with a sense of awed wonder. He had made her happy. It was an infinitely more satisfying achievement than the creation of a clockwork butler or viewing stars through a telescope.

The footman rapped on the carriage door. "M'lord, do you wish to descend?"

"One moment, Jenkins." Marcus shook himself out of his momentary reverie. "Turn around," he muttered to Iphiginia. "The bodice of your gown is twisted and that plume looks as though it's about to fall out of your hair."

"Yes, my lord. I cannot imagine how I came to be in such disarray." Iphiginia obediently turned her back toward him and sat patiently while he fumbled with her gown.