Geranium
Part Two

‘ ‘Oh, me!’ [she] cried, ‘When is this?
What strange tumultuous throbs of bliss!
Sure, never mortal till this hour
Felt such emotions at a flower!
Oh, serpent, cunning to deceive,
Sure ‘tis this tree that tempted Eve.
The crimson apples hang so fair
Alas! what woman could forbear?’ ’

---Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Geranium

“Will I come in then?”

Archie’s words lingered in the air as she allowed him to descend before her and to hand her out of the carriage.

“It would not be wise,” Kitty said at last, her voice low and tinged with regret. Archie held on to her hand and slipped his curled fingers beneath her chin so that she could not turn away.

“I suppose I cannot argue that it is. But, Katherine, should we not seize whatever time Fortune has given us?”

He was not pleading with her; he sounded supremely rational. The sound of her name on his lips sent a delicious shiver across her shoulders, and she hesitated, glancing up at the coachman. She had only to call out to him that he should take Mr. Kennedy to his lodgings and the moment would pass.

“Katherine,” he said again, his tone full of promise and desire.

Oh, God. He was so beautiful and so earnest. She was only human. In the end, she bargained with herself, linking her arm with his to enter the house, but took him only as far as Lord Whatsis’s affectedly bookish sitting room on the first floor. Archie stood near a white-painted bookshelf and she sat on the edge of the damask sofa while Milord’s elderly and annoyingly solicitous manservant stoked up the fire, produced a tray of coffee for them both to ignore, and was given leave to retire.

Each had been looking anywhere but at the other. Kitty, who was rarely at a loss, could feel herself beginning to flounder, just a little. However, the moment the door closed, Archie gave her the sweetest smile. His countenance fairly glowed with anticipation but a certain shyness remained and she could see that he while he clearly had hopes, he had made no assumptions. So much harder to resist him than if he had been the least bit cocky. Her heart took a small irregular beat while her mind fell to ripping up her metaphorical bargain and tossing its scraps in the air.

He crossed the room in two strides to seat himself beside her. Kitty sighed and relaxed into the soft cushions, her eyes a dark sapphire in the firelight, full of mystery. He burned to kiss her, even a kiss would quench some of his thirst, but how to--

She reached out to trace his jaw with one finger, smiling tenderly and he stopped thinking altogether and the next moment had gathered her into his arms and covered her mouth impetuously with his own. He could taste her smile, which bubbled into laughter, and raised his head to look at her quizzically.

“Kiss me again, Archie,” she said. “Slowly.”

“Ah.” He could only grin in return, for her expression was as encouraging as could be. He leaned his head back against the sofa, but his eyes never left her mouth as he slipped his hand beneath her hair, caressing her cheek with his thumb. As the fire crackled in the grate he fancied he could hear his own heart thumping, but if it was an unhurried pace she wanted, that was certainly what he intended to give her.

This time his embrace was light, his movements measured, though Kitty could sense the ardor coiled within him, feel her own heartbeat begin to quicken. Her arms encircled his neck seemingly of their own accord, her fingers twining themselves into his fine burnished hair.
He was proving far too adept a pupil, deliberately making her wait for his next kiss. Instead, he nuzzled her neck, murmured her name, pulled her close to him until her bosom was pressed against his sturdy chest and she could feel the heat of his hand on her waist even through layers of silk and whalebone.

By now she was hungry for the taste of his kisses and she sighed again as he at last slid his lips along her cheek toward her mouth. Slowly, slowly he brushed his mouth against hers, deliberately teasing her with the lightest friction, hardly any pressure at all. She parted her lips with a craving sound deep in her throat, asking for his tongue as eloquently as though she had spoken.

He gave it her, but slowly as well, with tiny soft licks and the gentlest probing exploration before he shifted her half onto his lap and curled his smooth tongue firmly against her own, entreating her to respond in kind. She squirmed in his arms, slipping her pointed little tongue into his mouth, lapping at him like a cat. He would not have been surprised to hear her purr.

In his arms, she seemed as delicate as a cat as well, fine-boned, almost ethereal, though he had always thought of her as strong, even earthy. Archie had not had anything to drink for hours, but his head spun as the blood rushed to his ears. He wanted nothing more at this moment than to trail his lips down her throat, to venture lower with his kisses until his lips and hands came together upon...Oh God, what delightful agony this was....

His agony increased as Kitty wriggled again and began to disentangle herself. She stood, and as he sat looking up at her, an expression of such desire and longing crossed his face that her knees nearly buckled.

“You needn’t look so bereft, love. I’m only going to leave you for a short time.” Her slender hand cupped his chin as she bent to kiss his cheek, her hair falling about them, her pale bosom gleaming at him from only inches away.

“Come upstairs,” she invited. “Wait a bit, and then come up.”

And then she was gone in a swirl of silk and perfume and he was left staring at the fire, his cock hard as a belaying pin, while his brain was apparently full of mush.

How long was “a bit”? Archie had no notion, so he sat for some indeterminate period of time, willing his blood to cool even just a little, enough anyway that he could stand and walk without contorting himself. There was a decanter of brandy on a side table and he downed a glass on his way to the stairs.

He had no trouble finding his way; candles still burned in sconces along the stairs. On the second floor, a dignified maid passed him in the hall, gave him the briefest curtsey and a ribald wink, and then was gone. Soft light spilled through a partly open doorway, affording him a glimpse into Katherine’s bedchamber, where silver candlesticks provided a beneficent glowing ambience to supplement the flickering light of the fireplace.

It was a room as comfortable as it was beautiful, with rather worn turkey carpets and handsome old furniture, including a truly magnificent black oak tester bed hung with deep blue velvet curtains. Archie could not have cared less--if he could be with this woman he would have been happy in the humblest inn, under a shrub on Hampstead Heath, in a cell at El Ferrol, on the gun deck of a rolling ship...though a large, soft bed was inarguably better.

And there she was, standing beside the bed with a most welcoming expression on her winsome face. Her hair was brushed to a gleaming halo and she was clad in some pale filmy garment and an open flowing dressing gown the exact color of a robin’s egg. Her bare toes gleamed against the dark pattern of the carpet.

Later--much later--he cast his mind back to this moment but had no idea how he had managed to get from the door to Katherine’s side, because once he was there, he found that the state of affairs in his britches had very nearly immobilized him.

Katherine had not seemed to mind; he rather thought she liked being in control. He was no poppet, but for the time being, he was content to follow her lead. He recalled thinking bemusedly that it must have been her theatrical training, because she turned out to be a dab hand at undoing buttons and ties and fastenings of all kinds. Archie could not remember ever having shed his clothes quite so quickly, with or without help.

Oddly enough, it was no burden to stand stark, raving naked in the middle of the room as Katherine sighed and took a long, satisfied look at her handiwork. The man before her put Florentine statuary to shame. Just for a moment, she found the rational part of her mind taking inventory: The rampant state of his burgeoning affair, his callipygian form, the light copper mat of hair upon his chest, his manly shoulders and the tender, yearning look upon his face. She imagined that he that he blushed easily on account of his coloring, but in the end it was his blush that won her heart.

He found it a simple matter, too, to push Katherine’s wrap off her shoulders and tug a time or two at her diaphanous nightgown before it fell in a soft little heap around her ankles. She was well aware that candlelight and firelight flattered any woman’s nudity, and it would be dishonest to deny that she had to some extent set the stage for this encounter; but she was confident that Archie regarded her with a lover’s rather misty vision, that he would find her beautiful even if she was no longer in the bloom of youth.

But Archie’s mind, or what was left of it, was not presently taken up with comparisons. In fact, so much blood had left his brain for his nether regions that he had become downright light-headed. Getting into bed seemed like an awfully good idea and, what was even better, a step in that direction brought his knee between Katherine’s thighs and his cockstand up against her belly. Her shapely breasts brushed against his chest in such a tantalizing manner that he cast about for a temporary distraction and began boxing the compass in his mind, though not very accurately.

He lifted her up, his hand sliding down across her bottom, and boosted her onto the bed, a huge expanse of white sheets, soft coverings and impossibly plump feather-filled pillows. As he clambered up to join her, she snatched off the ribbon binding his bright hair, which fell loose to tickle her bare skin. Her arms came about him and pulled him down to her and he had a fleeting thought that at this moment he was farther from a sailor’s cot than any fevered dream had ever taken him.

Go to Part 3