The Water Nymph (16 page)

“Lie down,” he instructed, reaching out at the same time to slide her robe from her shoulders.

Sophie was in a trance, a trance in which every fiber of her body came to life, tingling. Everything her body touched had a marvelous new texture, everything it came into contact with aroused her more. The smooth, silky fabric of the coverlet sliding under her felt like lover’s hands gently massaging the globes of her backside, the lightest brush of Crispin’s robe against her breast became the most amorous of caresses, Crispin’s breath on her neck as he moved close to her was a forceful, passionate kiss that made the place between her legs ache uncontrollably for his touch.

Sophie watched, her eyes opened wide, as Crispin dipped another slice of peach into the cream. He brought it toward her, toward her lips, and her mouth opened for him, but he did not stop there. Instead, he moved it over her, not touching her, tracing lines in the air that echoed like veins of molten gold in her body, until one drop of cream fell into the valley between her breasts. He dipped his head down to lick it with his tongue, and his soft golden hair brushed against Sophie’s breast, tickling the tip, making her arch toward him.

“Be still or I will stop,” Crispin commanded, and she relaxed immediately.

He dipped the peach into the cream again and this time brought it to rest lightly on her lips. Her tongue darted out, hungry to taste it, but Crispin dragged the slice away, dragged it down over her chin, down her neck, leaving a line of cool cream and boiling desire. He drew a circle around her left breast, then smaller circles, until the peach rested on her nipple. The cold fruit playing over her warm body drove Sophie wild, and she had to clutch her hands into fists to keep from moving.

Her fingernails dug into her palms as Crispin began to lick the cream from her body with his tongue, flicking it over her lips, down her chin, across her chest, spiraling around her breast to her nipple. He used his whole tongue now in long, slow strokes as he lapped the cream from there, wrapped his tongue around her nipple and felt it grow hard in his warm mouth, then turned his attention to the other one. He took a bite of the slice of peach and, holding it between his lips, used it to stroke her right nipple, its cool, uneven texture winding Sophie into a fever pitch of excitement. Small rivulets of juice ran down the sides of her breasts, rivers that made Sophie’s body tingle, made her want to cry out, cry out louder as he took her nipple between his lips and touched it lightly with his teeth.

Crispin recorded ever tremor of her body, every swallowed moan, memorized the places that he could tell drove her wild, lost completely in the act of pleasuring her. The ache in his member grew with each touch of his mouth to her skin, suffusing his entire body, straining his restraint almost beyond bearing. Without taking his mouth from her breast he reached a hand toward the silver tray and managed to cover another slice of peach with the cream. This time he brought it to her thighs, running it up from her knees, along the sensitive skin between her legs, using it to coax them apart, until it rested on the pearl of flesh nestled between her curls.

His mouth still danced on her nipple, doing wondrous things there, sending out pulses of sensation, which were doubled, tripled, quadrupled as Crispin increased the creamy cold pressure of the peach against her. He pushed its curved surface down over her nub and into the petals that surrounded it, and Sophie could no longer contain herself. Her hips arched up to meet him, and he pressed into her harder. She felt the soft, lissome flesh of the peach gliding over her, then inside her, felt it between the lips of her passage, felt its coolness even through the glaze of her arousal that covered it, felt its creamy tip massaging her bud.

Crispin turned it then, so the wide part of the slice rested directly on her most sensitive place, and slid it back and forth over her, pulling her left, then right, as his tongue traced the same path on her nipple. Something burst into life inside of Sophie, swelling from a tight seed of sensation into a full-grown plant, tendrils spreading from her nub, swollen, aching, down into her legs, up into her arms, wrapping around her breasts, being fed by Crispin’s kisses, by his caresses. It spread through her body until she tingled from head to toe, more alive than she had ever felt before, and more desperate, desperate to explode, to let the vines blossom into a thousand flowers. She pushed her hips more insistently against the peach, moving up and down as Crispin moved it back and forth, spreading her burning, aching bud, the pressure inside her mounting uncontrollably. The slick fruit moved over her, dousing her in its sweetness, its juices mingling with her own, running down her petals in tingling rivers. Crispin’s fingers around the peach delved into her creaminess, massaging at her along with the fruit, sliding the peach into her, letting it stroke the sensitive place just inside her passage as his fingers gently pressured her swollen nub in a wide circle, until she began to cry out, until she was at the very edge of exploding.

Simultaneously, Crispin lifted his mouth from her breast and slid the peach from between her legs. Trembling from head to foot, it took Sophie a moment to understand what had happened.

“No,” she cried, plaintively. “No, Crispin, please, do not stop. I am so close—”

“I know,” Crispin replied. He settled himself along her body, stretched out to his full length, and slipped his arm under her head. “So am I. That is why we must stop.”

Instead of replying, he held her eyes with his as he brought the slice of peach up to his lips. He breathed in deeply, breathed in the mingled scent of her arousal and the peach, a perfume so powerful, so sensual that Crispin was almost undone. The slice of peach was wet with Sophie’s moisture, and he brought it to his tongue to sample.

Sophie’s mouth met him there, and together they ate the ambrosial fruit, licking it from one another’s lips, savoring it on one another’s tongue. Their eyes continued meeting, even as Sophie rubbed against him, even as she reached around Crispin and plunged one of the slices of peach almost entirely into the cream.

“Now it is my turn,” she told him. “Lie down.”

Crispin knew this was not a good idea, that he was near bursting merely from looking at her, but he could not stop her, did not want to stop her. He lay still while she unfastened the ties on his robe and pushed it from his shoulders. All his muscles were tight as she straddled his waist, letting her spectacular breasts hang just above his lips and then, with the dripping peach in her mouth, traced a cold line down his body.

She did not stop at his chest, but dragged the fruit all the way to his navel, leaving a small pool there, and then continued down, to his tormented member. It rose to greet her, and she ran the peach along it, leaving long creamy lines, and Crispin gasping. When he realized what was happening, when he felt first the peach and then, dear god, her mouth on his member, Crispin groaned and prayed for control. She rubbed her lips lightly along his shaft, rubbing them in the cream, tickling him with the lightest touches of her tongue, then opened her mouth and drank him in, surrounding him with warmth, her lips massaging him and sucking at him. He looked down at her, watched her full lips move over him, watched the creamy line of her mouth glide over his tip and then fall to suckle the base of his organ, felt her tongue lap over him, and could not stop himself from raising his body and pressing deeper into her mouth.

Sophie was completely consumed with the joy of pleasing him, lit by his noises of pleasure, kindled by his groans. She drank his shaft in deeper to feel it throb, let her fingers follow her mouth up and down its length, exploring its surface, tickling over the tip. His body, his reactions to her touch, thrilled and excited her. She wanted to make this last, to go slowly, but she could not wait to hear him call out to her in climax. She moved her lips up his length faster, following them with her fingers, stroking him and sucking on him from tip to base, pushing him into her mouth as deeply as he would go, until Crispin jerked powerfully and pulled himself from her.

“I want to be inside of you,” he gasped, dragging her up, over his chest. “I want to feel you around me.”

Crispin did not know what he was saying, only that it was true, that he wanted to lose himself entirely in this woman, to feel her body pressing against him, challenging him, wrapped around him, when he climaxed. He rolled her onto her back and mounted her, using his hand to open her for him, sliding into her wet passage.

The vines that had been growing inside of Sophie erupted into life, into blossom, and Sophie felt as though she were expanding, bursting out of the bounds of her body. Crispin immersed himself in her, riding her forcefully, plunging his shaft between the hot, firm walls of her body, letting the curve of his member roll over her nub as he pushed in and out of her. The golden hair that surrounded his organ brushed over her arousal, teasing it with each dive he made into her, pulling it down with him and then pressing it back up. He withdrew himself to run his full length over her until she called out to him, and then he immersed himself in her again. Sophie wrapped her legs around Crispin’s waist, burning to take him into her more, to have him drown completely, unreservedly into her. He set her on fire, she was alight for him, she could hear the flames lapping at her, feel the heat between them, smell the smoke of the fire kindled by their lovemaking, taste—

Sophie’s eyes snapped open, and at the same moment Crispin stopped moving. The room was filled with black, acrid smoke that burned their eyes and their throats. And the bed, the bed on which they were lying, was completely engulfed in flames.

His skin screamed in protest as it passed through the sheet of fire. He felt like he was being boiled, scorched alive, like he was being peeled, jabbed by a thousand hot pokers, and then, abruptly, it was all over. They were through the wall of flames.

The rest of the room was mercifully untouched, but as he stood looking at the bed, another piece of the canopy broke off with an awful noise and slid to the ground near where they were standing, sending out sparks and streams of flame in two directions. Crispin was too furious, too filled with wrath at whoever had done this, to notice that Sophie was not moving at all, that she was staring transfixed at the flames, a haunted, glazed expression in her eyes. She neither clung to him nor looked at him but lay, tense and terrified, in his arms.

Even if he had noticed, there would not have been any time to think about the strangeness of her behavior. He had to summon the household to help him put out the fire before the entirety of Sandal Hall was a pile of ash. But first he had to conceal Sophie.

The privy, just through the library, was the best place to hide her, he concluded—no one would have cause to enter it—and he hauled her there, depositing her gently in the middle of the room.

“Stay here, make no noise,” he commanded.

She did not nod, gave no indication of having heard him, but just stared into space, standing where he left her as he quickly shut the door behind him.

In the hours that followed, the entire household, the entire neighborhood, went to work dousing the blaze. Even the old beggar woman who lounged on the Strand came to help, looking furtively around as she passed pails of water in a long relay from the well in the kitchen yard up to the bedchamber. When the fire was out, nothing remained of the bed and not much was left of the rest of the furnishings of the chamber. Miraculously, the library was untouched, but the flames had been so fierce in the bedroom, their heat so powerful, that the wooden moldings of the room had turned to ash, and several of the panes of glass in the windows that led to Crispins private garden had melted. Surveying the destruction, Crispin could not believe that he, they, had survived. It was clear they were not meant to.

The night sky was already growing light when he finished thanking and shaking hands with each of the people who had come to his aid. He gave the hunched beggar woman a gold piece, and as he bent to look into her face, mostly concealed by her hood, he felt a flash of recognition, of something familiar. But it was gone as quickly as it had come. By the time she had lowered her odd, goldcolored eyes and shuffled off in the direction of the door, he had forgotten all about it, thinking now only of Sophie.

His fury, which had galvanized as he stood in the middle of his destroyed bedchamber, changed when he opened the door of the privy and saw her. She was curled into a ball in the corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, the same fearful, half-wild expression in her eyes as when he had left her. She looked like a hunted animal, tense and terrified and ready to strike if attacked. Anger gave way to concern as he looked at her, concern and also confusion.

“Everything is fine now,” Crispin said gently, moving toward her. “The fire is over. You can come out.”

She did not speak, just shook her head and pressed herself farther into the corner.

“Sophie, can you hear me?” He kneeled down to her. “You are safe. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

Her voice was toneless when she spoke. “He was here. He found me. He said I could never escape him, and he was right.”

Crispin sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She tensed for a moment, but then relaxed. “Who?”

Sophie closed her eyes now and leaned into Crispin. “I am so sorry, my lord.”

“Why?” Crispin leaned back against the wall and rested her head on his chest.

“This is all my fault. I should have left. Your beautiful chamber was completely destroyed because of me.”

“I will acknowledge that your touch sets me afire, but I don’t think it does the same to my bedclothes,” Crispin said lightly.

She looked up at him. “This is not a joke, my lord.”

“I was not joking. How else could you be at fault for this fire?”

“He set it because I was here. Because he knew I was here and he wanted to punish me, to remind me that I am wicked. To remind me that I am his.”

This caught Crispin’s attention. “Whose? Who do you belong to? Who is this man? Are you married?”

“No, nothing like that.” She sat quietly, trying to decide how much to tell him. The beating of his heart echoed in her head, and the smell of him—sweaty and sooty and Crispin-y—soothed her slightly, and she began speaking. “When I was fifteen, my mother and father died in a house fire.”

Crispin pulled her closer. “I am so sorry, Sophie. I had no idea.”

“Very few people know. But that is not why I am upset. It is what happened afterward.” She stopped for a moment, and then decided to go forward. “There was a man. A man who said he loved me. He is the one who rescued me from the fire, and he took me someplace, he said, to help me.”

Sophie took a deep breath. “The man locked me in a room with no windows, more like a closet, a small, completely dark box.” She shuddered at the recollection. “For three weeks, until I escaped, he kept me there, alone, in the dark. Long, terrible days of darkness, of nothingness. I tried pounding on the door and screaming, begging, pleading with anyone to help me, but no one ever came. Except him. Every day he would come to the closet and sit for hours, whispering to me through the door.” There were tears running down Sophie’s face, but she ignored them. “I tried to cover my ears, to hide my head, cowering in the farthest corner of the closet, but his words kept coming, filling the darkness, until I could no longer tell whether they were in my mind or in the air, whether they were his or mine. He told me that I was wicked, that I used my body to tempt him, that I was trying to make him vile, to lure him to unnatural acts. He said I was trying to charm him into succumbing to me, but it would not work, he would not fall for my wiles. He said I was filthy, that my body and mind were corrupt, that I was possessed with villainous urges.” Her voice cracked. “He told me…” Sophie could not go on.

Crispin hugged her close, letting her tears spill down his chest. When her sobs had somewhat subsided, he asked, gently, “What else did he say?”

Sophie still had tears coming down her face as she continued. “He said he knew I had to be punished, that I had to be shown the danger of my wantonness, of my unnatural desires. So he had set fire to the house. He said that our parents’ deaths were my fault, that I killed them with my lustfulness.” Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, tightly, to stop the tears, and the pain. She was trembling against Crispin’s chest. “He said that as long as I obeyed him, he would tell no one of my wickedness. He told me that no one would ever want me when they heard what I was, how I was. That I was his, that I would always be his, only he knew how to love me and I could never escape from him. And then tonight—”

“But you did escape from him,” Crispin interrupted her. “You got away. And you are safe. He cannot get you now.”

“He has, don’t you see? He burned your house just like he burned my parents. To get me. To remind me. To show you. What I am.” She pulled away from Crispin but could not bring herself to look at him, to see the disgust in his face.

Sophie heard his breathing change and instinctively felt his muscles tighten in his chest, tighten in horror at what he had been harboring in his house. She had been afraid to tell him even that much of the story, afraid that he would now see her for what she really was, afraid that he would confirm what the man said, but hoping he would deny it, deny every word.

He had not. Instead, he stiffened beneath her, obviously cringing away from her, obviously corroborating that everything was true. She was wanton, she was responsible for so much pain, for death, for the mess his apartment, his life, was in. Sensing that he was about to speak, Sophie stopped him, careful not to touch his mouth with her upraised hand. “Please, do not say anything. I understand. I will go.”

“Why do you persist in saying that? And what do you understand?” Crispin spoke harshly. His fury about the fire had been transformed, instantaneously, into a different kind of rage. Rage against anyone who could treat Sophie, his divine, wonderful, sensuous Sophie, that way. Anyone who would dare to abuse her, abuse her desire, abuse her person. “Who was the man?” he asked finally, planning to kill him before another hour was out.

Sophie hesitated. The face she knew so well danced before her eyes, mocking her, laughing as she struggled not to lie and yet not reveal the shameful truth. “I cannot tell you who he was,” she whispered. “I hardly saw his face the night of the fire, and afterward,” she fumbled, “afterward it was dark. I wish I could tell you, if only so you could thank him for warning you about me, but I really cannot.”

Overwhelmed by incredulity, Crispin missed the double meaning in her words. “You think I wish to thank him?”

“No,” Sophie rushed on, “I guess not, after what he did to your lovely bed.” She rose to her feet. “I am sorry. I should go. I can only imagine how you are feeling, how you must see me now.”

“Really?” Crispin asked, quite sure she did not know how she looked to him at that moment as she stood over him, naked in the moonlight. “How do I see you?”

“There is no need to be cruel, my lord,” she said flatly, but he saw that she was trembling. “I do not blame you. I can tell you find me distasteful. Even disgusting. That you wish I were gone. That my presence makes you”—Sophie sought for the right word—“uncomfortable.”

There was a moment of silence, a moment during which Sophie dared to hope for a denial, but her hopes were crushed.

“Uncomfortable,” Crispin repeated finally. “Yes, you do make me uncomfortable.”

She could not have asked for more unequivocal corroboration of her worst fears. “Good-bye, my lord,” she said, turning quickly so that he could not see her tears, and moving toward the door.

“Wait,” Crispin called, and she stopped with her fingers on the handle. “You did not let me finish.” He rose and walked toward her.

“I have heard it all before. I do not need to hear it again. Especially not from you.” Her voice broke on the last two words.

“Yes, you do. You especially need to hear what I have to say.” Putting his hands on her shoulders Crispin turned her so that she was facing him, then raised her eyes to his. “In your presence, Sophie Champion, I feel pleasure unlike any other I have ever felt. In your smile I see beauty I could not have imagined. With you, I laugh like I cannot remember laughing. Around you, my body behaves uncontrollably, my mind is not my own, and I cannot convince my mouth that anything tastes as good as your lips.” His expression as he looked at her was serious. “All of that makes me damned uncomfortable. But also happy.”

It took a moment before the words settled in and Sophie echoed, “Happy?”

Crispin nodded. “Very happy.” He caught one of her tears on his fingertip and brought it to his lips. “Please do not go,
tesoro
. I like being uncomfortable with you.”

Sophie stood trembling, unable to believe what she was hearing, what she was seeing. He was standing in front of her, one long dimple now framing a crooked, irresistible smile. And he was saying that he liked her. Her. Sophie Champion.

“I like being uncomfortable with you too,” she just managed to whisper through her tears before his lips closed over hers.

Their lovemaking that late night was gentle and sweet, and astonishing to them both. It began slowly, Crispin languishing inside of Sophie, and built, minute by minute, hour after hour, into a frenzied race. It was long past dawn when they clutched each other desperately, unwilling to let their lovemaking end, unable to prolong it, long past dawn when they reached their crescendo together, riding the long, sinuous waves of their pleasure until they ebbed completely.

It was long past dawn when Sophie, checking to be sure that Crispin was asleep, pressed her lips to his chest and whispered, “I love you.”

The man looked up angrily from the document he was writing. “I asked not to be interrupted,” Lawrence growled at the serving boy hovering on his threshold.

“I know, sir. I am very sorry, sir. But it is Lord Sandal, sir. To see you, sir. He says it is urgent.”

Frowning, Lawrence set aside his pen. “Send him in.”

By the time Crispin entered the office, no trace remained of either the document or Lawrence’s frown.

“I hope I am not interrupting something, Lawrence, but I had to see you,” Crispin said as he seated himself on the opposite side of Lawrence’s desk.

“You know you are always welcome,” Lawrence told him with the beginnings of a wide smile. Then he stopped abruptly and looked skeptically at his friend. “You seem very chipper.”

Crispin was feeling wonderful. His bed had been destroyed, his house had almost burned to the ground, his life had almost been taken from him—and might yet be in four days—but he could still hear Sophie’s laughter in his ears and still taste her on his tongue from their kiss good-bye. “Being in England agrees with me,” he responded evasively as he sat down. “Or at least some aspects of it.”

“Aspects such as Sophie Champion?” Lawrence asked with real interest, and then burst into laughter when he saw the expression on Crispin’s face. “My god, you are in love, aren’t you?”

“Are you trying to get me to commit so you can start taking bets in your red book?” Crispin asked with a raised eyebrow, narrowly avoiding the question.

Lawrence ignored this distraction. “It figures that you would fall in love with one of the only interesting women in England and not even bother to admit it. But I want you to know that I am not jealous. And I approve entirely.”

“I cannot tell you how relieved I am,” Crispin said sarcastically. “However, what I—”

Lawrence interrupted him. “I know it is not in your nature to recognize such things, but Sophie Champion really is marvelous, Crispin. She almost took my breath away when I saw her here for the first time, when I saw that little crinkle in her left cheek when she smiles—”