A vivid blush mounted in Miss Trentham’s cheeks. She looked shy and self-conscious and awkward and apprehensive and embarrassed, all at the same time.
Icarus was abruptly ashamed of himself. He looked away from her. “Letty, we can’t do this. You should go.”
“But you agreed!”
He glanced back at her.
“Don’t change your mind,” Miss Trentham said urgently, laying her hand on his. “Please, Icarus.”
Icarus hesitated. Was it wrong to give her what she wanted? Or wrong not to? Or was this one of those times when every choice was wrong?
I would consider it a gift, Miss Trentham had said.
It wasn’t a gift an honorable man would give her. But they both knew he wasn’t honorable.
“Please, Icarus.”
He looked at her, and heard the plea in her voice—and knew that he was lost. He was going to do it. Because Letty Trentham wanted it, and because he wanted it, and because this could be the last night they ever spent together.
“You need some brandy. Where’s that bottle?” Icarus climbed out of bed and splashed brandy into the bottom of the vase. He didn’t want Miss Trentham self-conscious and awkward; he wanted her relaxed. He wanted her to enjoy what he was about to do to her. He gave her the vase. “It’s not enough to make you drunk, I promise.”
The first sip made Miss Trentham cough and choke. Her eyes watered. “You like this?”
“It has its time and place.”
Miss Trentham drank the brandy stoically. Icarus sat on the bed alongside her, and listened to the hard, fast beating of his heart, and felt heat gather in his groin, and knew that he had no honor. No honor at all.
“Do you feel a little more relaxed?” he asked, when she’d finished.
Miss Trentham bit her lip, and glanced at him shyly, and nodded.
He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. I’m going to miss you, Letty Trentham. He kissed her gently. After a faint hesitation, she kissed him back.
Icarus kissed Miss Trentham until all trace of her shyness had gone and she was warm and breathless in his arms, then he stretched out and patted the bed alongside him. “Lie here.”
She blushed, and did as he bid.
Icarus kissed her again, lingering on her lower lip, licking, nibbling, sucking lightly, making her gasp and tremble, and then he reached down and tugged her nightgown up to her knees.
Miss Trentham tensed slightly. “Relax,” Icarus whispered against her mouth. He kissed her again, and eased her nightgown up another inch.
He kissed her a dozen times, and each time he drew the nightgown higher, until her thighs were almost fully bared. One more tug, and her groin would be exposed to his gaze.
Hot blood hummed eagerly in his cock, but Miss Trentham was tense again. Icarus kissed her. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. You have a beautiful body.” And she did. Her bare legs were long and slender. He could easily imagine them wrapped around his hips, a fantasy that made his cock twitch strongly.
Icarus laid a hand lightly on her knee. “Relax.” Miss Trentham resisted for a fraction of a second, and then allowed him to part her legs and slowly stroke up her inner thigh. Her skin was impossibly smooth. Smoother than silk.
His cock stirred again.
Icarus let his hand slide all the way to the top of her leg. Was that the tickle of hair against his fingertips, or was he imagining that, too? He looked at his hand, brown against the creamy paleness of her skin, and at the bunched-up nightgown hiding her groin. It’s time.
He tore his gaze from Letty Trentham’s legs, and looked at her face. Her lips were rosy from his kisses. “You can return to your bedchamber if you wish. At any moment, if you want to stop, just say so.”
“If I stop, you won’t let me reciprocate. Will you?”
“No.”
“Then I shan’t ask you to stop.” And then she bit her lip and said anxiously, “You don’t have to do this, you know. Honestly! I won’t think you’re selfish if you don’t—”
“I want to,” Icarus said.
His need must have been audible in his voice, because her gaze dropped and she blushed.
“I want to,” Icarus said again, more softly, almost a whisper, and he pushed her nightgown up to her waist. His cock gave an eager twitch at the sight of that little thatch of hair. He almost groaned. God, how he wanted this.
Icarus bent his head and inhaled her scent. It went straight to his loins. His cock didn’t just twitch this time, it surged. If it had a voice, it would have barked an order: Hurry up! Do it!
Icarus settled himself between Letty Trentham’s long, slender legs, and bent to the business of reciprocation. He laid a trail of tickling kisses up her inner thighs, then let his fingers wander through that thatch of hair—surprisingly silky, silkier than any woman he’d lain with—and parted her inner lips, stroking and teasing with his fingertips, finding her hot and damp and responsive—and dipped his head to let his warm breath tickle over her sensitive flesh—Lord, but she smelled amazing—and then tasted her.
Letty Trentham tasted just as good as she smelled. Icarus closed his eyes for a moment, a silent hum resonating in his throat, savoring her scent, savoring her taste. His cock was rock-hard, furnace-hot. I might climax just from this. Then he opened his eyes and set to work, teasing her with his fingers, with his mouth, with his teeth and tongue. He didn’t need to look at her face to know that she liked it; her body told him—the tiny moans, the helpless shifting of her hips. She was hot and juicy and throbbing and absolutely ready to be bedded. Icarus felt a little spasm of pleasure ripple through her. He slid a finger inside her, licked—
Her body convulsed.
Icarus kept licking, kept stroking his finger inside her, until the convulsions died to mere tremors, then he sat up and drew her nightgown down and looked at her face. She wasn’t Miss Trentham, cool and aloof. She wasn’t Tish, lively and attractive. She was Letty, flushed and dark-eyed and indescribably tempting.
Icarus stared at her. His cock pulsed, pushing against his nightshirt, hot and aching. He wanted to mount her, wanted to sink himself to the hilt in her heat and ride her until they both cried out with pleasure.
Letty blinked, and moistened her lips. “Is that what it feels like for you?”
Icarus nodded.
“I understand why so many men have mistresses.” She sat up. “My turn.”
They both looked at his lap, where his cock tented his nightshirt. It looked as if he had a dueling pistol growing there. Icarus felt his face become scarlet with embarrassment.
“Lie down,” she said.
He obeyed, clumsy with anticipation and arousal and need and shame, resting awkwardly back on the pillows. Letty drew his nightshirt up—and there was his cock, thick and ruddy, straining to attention like a soldier on parade.
Icarus couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.
“Do you consent to this, Icarus?”
He dragged his gaze from his cock, and stared at her. His breath was coming short and fast, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears. Oh, God, yes.
Letty Trentham took his silence for assent. She bent her head and licked that smooth, crimson head.
Icarus’s breath strangled in his throat. Oh, God, oh, God.
She licked a second time. Every bone in his body turned to liquid. Icarus squeezed his eyes shut. This isn’t happening.
But it definitely was happening. He felt her soft lips, felt her warm, tickling breath, felt her tongue, supple and hot and velvety. Oh, God, her tongue.
Letty Trentham seemed to know exactly where to lick. Icarus heard himself panting, heard himself groaning. There was no space in his head for embarrassment or self-consciousness or shame. Every part of him was drowning in pleasure. Oh, God, oh, God. She drew him into her soft, hot mouth. His hips flexed helplessly. His toes curled in ecstasy. He heard himself whimper. Oh, God, oh, God.
Icarus managed one coherent thought—I must stop her before I climax—but then Letty Trentham sucked his cock lightly, and again more strongly, and he stopped being able to think at all. Time distorted, twisting in on itself, each second excruciatingly long, and then his climax burst through him like a thunderstorm, lightning bolts of pleasure burning through every vein in his body, illuminating him until he must glow like a bonfire.
Icarus didn’t notice Letty Trentham pulling down his nightshirt, nor did he notice her rearranging the bedclothes, tucking the blankets up to his chin. He felt as if he was floating several feet above the mattress.
“You are not dead, Icarus Reid,” she whispered in his ear as he plummeted towards sleep. “Do you hear me? You’re not dead.”