“A French . . . you mean a condom? Oh, Lord.” He quivered at my private area, his muscles tense and tight and poised to plunge inward. My muscles were trembling in anticipation of just such an event. “No, I don’t have one.”
“Damnation,” I swore, wanting to cry with frustration. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think to ask you before we arrived at the pensione. The men I’ve been with have always had them, so I just didn’t think. . . . But all is not lost.” I slid out from under him, grabbing for my petticoat. “There is a chemist a scant two blocks from here. I will simply demand that he open up his shop and sell me some French Preventatives—”
“Get back into bed,” Jack said, his voice grim as he picked me up and set me back onto the mattress. “I’ll get the damned things.”
“But you don’t know where it is—”
“I’ll find it,” he said in a voice that was almost a snarl. He yanked on his pants and boots with short, jerky motions.
“But—”
“Stay there, and keep your motor running,” he growled, pulling on his shirt.
“My motor? Jack—”
“It’s a euphemism,” he said, snatching up a handful of coins. “Don’t move one muscle. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
He was gone before I could protest any further.
“What a very odd man,” I said to no one as I settled back into the bed. “Keep my motor running. Ha!”
I had just enough time to worry about what might become of a man who was found on the streets of a city under siege before he eventually returned, out of breath, panting, and perspiring. He leaned against the door, his chest heaving, and just as I was about to ask him if he was all right, I heard sounds coming from the street.
“That sounds remarkably like several people running down the road,” I said, eyeing him as he doubled over, his hands braced on his knees. “And that sounds like the whistles that the emperor’s guards use when they are chasing someone. Say, perhaps, a man who let himself be seen by them?”
He grinned and straightened up, his breathing still rough and fast as he held up a small cardboard box. “Or one who was caught breaking into a drugstore for some emergency condoms.”
“Oh, Jack, you didn’t break into that nice Signore Martelli’s chemist shop,” I said, disapproval filling my voice even as I smiled at the sight of the box of French Preventatives. “I’ll never be able to face him again.”
“I left him all the money I had, so I’m sure that’ll reimburse him for damage on the window. Besides, he refused to come down and open up the shop, so it was break the window and get them for myself, or return here and stare at your luscious breasts knowing I can’t do anything else. And Octavia, there are many more things I want to do to them than just look.”
His voice dropped significantly on that last sentence, which, coupled with the look of molten passion he was giving me as he stripped off his clothing, caused me to shiver in delight. “Yes, but, Jack, this is serious. If the emperor’s men find you here—”
“They won’t find me. I told you I have some skills in losing tails,” he said, crawling slowly up the bed toward me.
I shivered again, and my breasts, impudent beings that they were, thrust forward to him.
“You see?” He paused as he crawled up my legs, his head dipping toward one breast. “Even your tits agree with me. They aren’t worried at all about some idiot guards who are out on the streets chasing shadows. They want me to lick them. They want me to hold them, and squeeze them, and rub myself on them.”
“Jack!” I squealed as he lay down on top of me. I was under the sheets, with only my breasts bared. “That word is not appropriate.”
“What word?” he asked, nuzzling the underside of my left breast. “Oh, tit?”
“Yes. You should refer to a woman’s upper parts as a bosom, or, if you must be specific, breasts. But never tit. That word is offensive when not referring to a small bird.”
“Ah, but you are a small bird, are you not?” he asked with a decided leer before he turned his attention to my right breast. “That is the vernacular, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I am not the sort of person who hangs out in bars in Marseilles, where such words and terms are bandied about,” I said with dignity, moaning only a little when he nibbled on my breast. “Jack, I don’t wish to complain, but you are not proceeding properly.”
He looked up. “I’m not?”
“No. For one, I’m trapped beneath this sheet, and you are above. For another, we left off with you needing a French Preventative, and now you have one, so you should put it on and we should proceed from where we left off.”
“Did it occur to you that a midnight run through a strange city in search of condoms might take the steam out of my engine, so to speak?”
I glanced at the part in question. “Your engine looks fully primed to me.”
“That’s just because I have you naked in my bed,” he said with another leer. “That’s enough to stiffen any man’s piston.”
“Thus you should proceed along the lines we were engaged upon before you left,” I pointed out.
He leaned back on one elbow, looking down at me with a curious expression. “You like to be in charge, don’t you?”
I blinked at him a couple of times. “I . . . I’m not sure what to say to that. In charge? I like to have things proceed in an orderly fashion, yes, but I don’t think I’m domineering or selfish, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“But you do like to call the shots,” he said, sliding his hand down my breastbone, pushing the sheet down as he stroked lower, over my belly. “That’s a new experience for me. The women I’ve been with have all been content to let me set the pace.”
I felt hurt even as I squirmed under the influence of his questing fingers. “I’m sorry if I am not as passive as your other bed partners—”
“Oh, they weren’t passive,” he said with another of those devilish grins. This one, however, I wanted to slap off his face. “A couple of them left scratch marks. But they didn’t try to give me directions. No, stop looking so offended and outraged. It’s nothing bad, Octavia,” he added, leaning down to kiss me. “It’s just a bit different. Tell you what—we’ll take turns. You let me take the lead this time, and you can have it the next time, OK?”
I was momentarily distracted by the heat of his mouth, the sensation of his chest against my breasts, the gentle tickle of his chest hair causing goose bumps to prickle along my arms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jack.”
“I know,” he said, his head dipping down to suck my lower lip. “But that’s all right. I’ll show you, shall I?”
“Show me what?”
He pushed the rest of the sheet off me, his hand sweeping down my hip, to my thigh. He stared down at my person for a moment before saying, “Thank God you don’t wear your corset so tight it damages you. You truly are beautiful, Octavia. You’re round and soft, and so silky, I just want to rub my entire body on you.”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” I said, hoping he would stop staring at me and get to the business at hand. Perhaps he needed some encouragement. I wrapped my hand around the aroused part of him.
“Oh, no. You had your turn. Now it’s mine,” he said, pulling my hand free.
I frowned. “I thought we discussed this earlier? You said you couldn’t wait. I can see that you are quite anticipatory right now, so why don’t you put on the Preventative, and we can indulge in the natural conclusion of the evening’s events.”
“Oh, we’re going to indulge,” he said, moving to sit between my legs. He slid them upward until my knees were over his arms. “Rather, I’m going to indulge you. Just relax, Octavia. You’ll enjoy this.”
“I always have enjoyed it,” I said, watching as he nuzzled private, secret parts of me.
A slightly irritated look crossed his face. “Right, then, we’ll get started. Er . . . what time is it?”
I glanced at the clock
before looking back at him. “You mean to time this?”
“Why not? You were going to time me.”
“Yes, but I had an expensive treatise that I was going to explore with you, not that you gave me much time to do so.”
“And how do you know, my fair little pigeon, that I don’t have a few tricks up my sleeve?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with lecherous delight. I raised my eyebrows at him. “So to speak,” he amended.
“I have no doubt that your numerous acquaintances with women have lessoned you in many ways,” I said coolly. “However, unlike you, I will not be so easily pleased. It takes me much longer to reach satisfaction. I don’t wish to tell tales, but in the past, it has taxed the stamina of my lovers to get me to that point, and then only after we had known each other for some time. I do not wish to stress you unduly, however, which is why I was—and still am—happy to proceed to the main course, if you will.”
“Is that a challenge?” he asked, rearing back, an outraged look on his face.
“What? No! Jack, no, I’m not challenging you, or impugning your masculinity,” I said, soothing his obviously ruffled feathers. “My intention was to simply warn you that I am not quite so easily aroused as you obviously are. I didn’t wish for you to be disappointed in what is lacking in me.”
The angry expression faded until all that was left was heat. Pure, masculine heat. “I don’t find you lacking in any way, my little squab of delight. And you haven’t had me at the reins. I think you’ll find I know what I’m doing.”
I was about to tell him I had no doubt of that, but at that moment, he lowered his head and addressed himself to the matter at hand. Instantly, my body was suffused with warmth, a deep, burning warmth that started in my nether parts, and spread in big, rolling waves of pleasure outward to the farthest points on my body. At first, events proceeded as I expected, but then he began using his fingers, stroking me, teasing me, tormenting me until I writhed on the bed in a fever of desire. But when he curled them into me, touching me inside, finding magic parts of me that I had no idea existed, I cried out his name in wonder and amazement.
“Four minutes and twenty seconds.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, I drifted down from the cloud of ecstasy and returned to the mortal coil. Jack’s laughing eyes and adorable grin were there to greet me.
“Eh?” was all I managed to say. My brain seemed to have ceased functioning, and was having difficulty starting back up.
His grin became even cheekier. “Less than four and a half minutes, my delicious Octavia. I don’t mean to cast any slurs on your previous boyfriends, but if they couldn’t hang on that long, then they definitely have issues.”
“Oh.” Cognizant thought finally returned. “That was . . . four minutes, you say? I’ve never done that in four minutes before. Perhaps it’s an anomaly. Perhaps I’m overly tired. No, that would affect me adversely, wouldn’t it?” I frowned as I puzzled over this new experience. “Four minutes. I can’t believe it. It’s always taken me much, much longer to get to that point. Something must be wrong. I wonder if I am ill?”
“You don’t feel sick to me,” he said, stroking his hand down my hip. My entire body hummed and quivered in response. “You feel like a woman who’s been pleasured within an inch of her life.”
“You’ve done something to me,” I accused, narrowing my eyes on him. “You’ve done something odd and foreign to me because you’re from elsewhere. That must be it.”
He laughed, and kissed my belly. The heat that had been simmering there began to spread again. My legs moved restlessly. “Sweetheart, much as I would like you to think I’m some sort of sexual superhero, I’m just a man who knows what women like. And you aren’t the cold fish you seem to think you are—you were moaning and thrashing within seconds of me touching you, so I think you’re going to have to let go of that claim, and move on to the one where you beg me to plant myself deep inside you, and make you scream out my name again.”
I am a woman who does not take to being ordered around. I prefer to think of my sexual companion as a partner, rather than someone who feels it appropriate to treat me as a mere sexual plaything to be commanded and dictated to. For that reason, I was going to give Jack Fletcher a piece of my mind.
I opened my mouth to do so, and said simply, “Yes, please.”
Log of the HIMA Tesla
Friday, February 19
Forenoon Watch: Two Bells
“There. What do you think?” I looked down. “I think I’m wearing my corset on the outside of my blouse.”
“Yes. Don’t you think it gives you a kind of dashing look? Somewhat devil-may-care? Something that says you’re not a slave to convention, that you set your own trends?”
“I think it tells more of a state of mind so confused, I would be safer locked inside an asylum than left to wander the streets with my clothing worn inside out.”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, his head tipped to the side as he considered the bizarre sight I made. “All the steampunk ladies I met wore their corsets outside their clothes. I never once saw one hide hers.”
“Whereas I and every other woman of the empire prefer to keep our undergarments hidden,” I said, undoing the hooks along the front busk of the corset so I could remove it and redon it in the appropriate manner.
“At this time, there are only two people whom I have approved to see me in my corset. You are one.”
Rather than give me one of those endearing grins, as I expected, Jack made a face. “And this fabulous Alan who can do anything is the other?”
“Certainly not,” I said, pausing for a moment. I decided Jack needed a little reward after having been true to his promise the evening prior. I had yelled out his name again—twice, both times the most amazing experiences of my life. I’d never before thought of myself as a particularly responsive woman, but with Jack, I seemed to go up in flames the minute he touched me. I pulled off my blouse, and handed Jack the corset. “I can do this by myself, but it’s easier with a second person. Help me?”
“Who’s the other person?” he asked, taking it.
I smiled to myself as he moved behind me, his arms coming around me as he wrapped the corset on my torso. “My corset maker. No, it goes beneath my bosom, not on it.”
“Ah. Poor little boobies. Did I squash them?” His hands immediately moved to comfort my breasts, dropping the corset. I leaned back against his bare chest, a little chill of pleasure zipping up my spine at the warmth of his breath on my ear as he caressed me.
“I believe they will forgive your ignorance on the proper method of donning a corset,” I murmured, amazed at the speed of my reaction to his touch. One moment I was perfectly myself; the next my mind was full of the most detailed intimate thoughts . . . thoughts of Jack splayed out in front of me, all of his delectable flesh just lying there waiting for me to touch and taste and slide upon it.
I turned my head, letting my lips nibble along his jaw. “Jack—”
He understood the warning. “We don’t have time for this.”
“No. Not if we are going to have time to reconnoiter before we meet Alan.” I turned in his arms, intending on giving him a consolatory kiss before continuing to dress, but somehow, the second my mouth touched his, I lost all thought but one.
“Octavia?” he asked as I pushed him backward, toward the armless chair that sat next to the narrow wardrobe.
“We’ll take a cab,” I said, my hands on the buttons on his trousers. “It’ll save fifteen minutes’ walking time.”
His eyes lit up. “A quickie? You want a quickie? Right now?”
“I don’t know that term, but assuming it means what I think it means, then yes, I want a quickie,” I said, pushing him on the shoulder. He sat down abruptly, his trousers gaping open, his hands on my waist as I hoisted up my skirt and petticoat, and settled myself on his thighs.
“Dear God, woman, you don’t know what this means to me. I’ve always been a big fan of quickies, and ever since we got out o
f bed, all I could think about was making love to you againnrn.”
His eyelids flickered shut as I sank down on him, my intimate self embracing and welcoming his intrusion. “Too much talking, Jack,” I said, gasping as I felt him deep inside me. “Thank heavens you are so quick to arouse. I wasn’t sure if you would be ready for me, but there you are, quite obviously so. A bit more ready than I expected, to be honest. Merciful saints, I can’t believe you can do that. Do it again!”
He flexed his hips again, his head lolled back so I could kiss his throat and adorable face, his fingers gentle but persistent on my breasts as they teased and stroked them. “You’re trying to take charge again, Octavia.”
I bit his lip as I moved on him, the rhythm neither slow nor gentle, but one driven by the intense need inside me that I knew he shared. “You said we would take turns. I am having my turn. Do it again.”
He laughed, but flexed again, touching me in that magical way he had that made my eyes cross with pleasure. “You had your turn earlier this morning. Now we’re back to my turn to be the boss, and I say do that swivel thing you did earlier.”
I rose up until just the tip of him was gripped, then slid down him again, swiveling my hips and gripping as hard as I could with intimate muscles. He sucked in his breath, his eyes snapping open, his breath coming hard and fast. “One more like that and it’ll be all over.”
I tightened my thighs around his hips, the rough material of his trousers rubbing against my sensitive flesh, our bodies moving together in a way that was familiar and yet foreign to me, as if he were a stranger that I had known in a previous lifetime. He pulled my head down to capture my cry of completion in his mouth, his fingers urging me on as he found his own moment of ecstasy.
It was at that moment I realized that we had forgotten the French Preventative.
“Octavia, I can’t stand this cold treatment. I said I was sorry. I didn’t think you were going to fling yourself on me, so I wasn’t . . . er . . . ready to go, so to speak.”