“A bookstore?” Dominic said, laughing. “At this time of night? You did not quite strike
me as a bluestocking, Sophia.”
“It’s not just any bookstore.” She tugged on his arm, urging him to follow her to
the door. “Just for a little while. I want to see it.”
“Are you sure they’re even open?” he said.
“Of course.” Sophia pushed at the door latch, and it swung open with a jangling of
bells. Dominic shook his head, but he followed her.
The shop appeared to be deserted. The haphazard piles of volumes on the shelves were
covered with a light, snowy layer of dust, as if no one ever touched them. Library
ladders leaned against the peeling paint of the walls, soaring up into cobwebbed shadows.
Sophia made her way to the doorway half-hidden in the corner, Dominic close beside
her. When they stepped into the back room, it was like an entirely different place.
Wall sconces cast a soft amber light over the shelves and the chairs scattered over
a plain green carpet. There were several people there, well-dressed couples who could
have just come from the Café de Paris, as well as
shady-looking men in caps pulled low over their faces. A display just inside the door
showed what appeared to be the newest, most popular volume—a thin, lightly bound tale
called
Therese Awakening, or one girl’s escape from the convent into a world of sin and riches
.
The pen-and-ink sketch under the title showed a slender young woman with an improbably
large bosom well-displayed in a tight corset. She leaned over a stool, her petticoats
tossed up as a masked man wielded a switch over her bare, and copiously striped, buttocks.
“I do hope the riches are great indeed,” Sophia murmured. She scanned the shelves
and found a neat row of similar titles.
Dominic laughed. “I see what you mean, Sophia. This is no ordinary bookstore.”
“In London they would have been raided by now. But surely you have visited such places
before.” She drew out another volume,
A Guide to the Prevention of Vices
, and found that it showed a myriad of things a virtuous person should not do. In
great, colorful detail.
“I have, in other cities,” he answered. “There hasn’t been much time for—exploration
here.”
“Nor for me. Goodness, but doesn’t this look interesting! How is such a thing even
possible?” She showed Dominic a two-page illustration of two men and three women in
various poses, all of them extremely athletic.
Dominic laughed again. She was glad he seemed to be enjoying himself. “Oh, believe
me, it’s possible.”
“Indeed? How intriguing. I definitely think I need this volume then. My education
is quite lacking.” She handed it to Dominic to carry and went on to the next display.
It was a low, flat glass case like in a jewelry store’s, but
rather than diamonds and pearls it showed a range of finely wrought restraints, wrist
cuffs and chains, and a selection of beautiful glass and ivory dildos. One looked
especially realistic, with a tracery of veins carved in the smooth, pale stone. A
ring of tiny rubies curled around the head.
“I’m sure the author of
A Guide to the Prevention of Vices
would have a great deal to say about the use of these,” Sophia said, tilting her
head to examine them more closely.
“Would madame care to examine this one?” the proprietor of the shop, a tiny, gray-haired
gnome of a man, asked softly.
“No, madame would not,” Dominic said, taking Sophia’s hand.
Sophia pulled away from him, laughing. “Of course I would! I quite like this one.”
Dominic shook his head, but he stayed with her. Sophia had the distinct sense he was
amused by her explorations.
And she was having fun, too. She could hardly remember the last time she really had
fun. Yet with Dominic, the world always seemed new and amusing. He didn’t even draw
away from her wilder fancies.
“An excellent choice, madame,” the proprietor said approvingly. He drew it out of
the case and laid it out on a piece of velvet, as if it were a necklace or a ring.
“Seventeenth century, from Venice. Ivory and cabochon rubies. Perfectly carved from
life, as you can see. You would never be disappointed with such a fine piece.”
“I shouldn’t think so.” Sophia slowly ran her fingertip along the ridge and swirled
it over the head. “Lovely.”
Beside her, she felt Dominic grow tense, his breath turn harsh. “The lady will take
it,” he said.
“Dominic,” she murmured. “I can’t afford it…”
“It’s my gift,” he said firmly.
Sophia stared up at him. His face was smooth, smiling. He gave no clue why he would
buy her such an extravagant gift. “Dominic, no,” she whispered.
He just laughed. “Please, Sophia, let me. There are few experiences I have not had
in life, but one of them is buying a beautiful lady a jeweled dildo. Consider it a
thank-you for an amusing evening.”
Sophia looked down at the gleaming ivory. All the wicked, alluring things that could
be done with it flashed through her mind, and she was very tempted.
“Very well,” she said finally. “Thank you.”
“You won’t be sorry, madame,” the proprietor said.
After he had wrapped up their purchases, Sophia let Dominic lead her out of the shop
and back onto the street. It was just as crowded as earlier, and a quartet of fabulously
dressed, bejeweled people brushed past them into the store.
“A very popular place,” Sophia commented as they turned toward home.
“Justifiably so,” Dominic answered. “His stock is quite extraordinary.”
Sophia laughed and clutched at the paper-wrapped package. She still couldn’t quite
believe she had let him buy it for her. It seemed like the perfect end to a wonderfully
giddy evening. They didn’t say anything on the walk back to the club, just strolled
along arm-in-arm and let the evening swirl around them.
“Here it is,” Sophia said when they came to the side door of La Reine d’Argent. They
looked at each other in heavy silence for a moment, and suddenly it was as if they
both knew what had to happen next. Dominic bent down and caught her up in his arms.
He carried her up the stairs and along the shadowed corridor, lit only by the lamp
the maid had left on one table. It was so silent there, so dark, as if they were wrapped
up alone in their own world.
Dominic nudged open her apartment door with his foot and slid inside before kicking
it shut again. Sophia barely had time to drop her precious paper-wrapped parcel on
the sofa before he carried her through to the waiting bedroom.
He dropped her lightly onto the bed, and Sophia laughed as she sank back into the
piles of blankets. She tried to sit up, but Dominic fell on top of her, pinning her
down with the hard, lean heat of his body. He braced his arms to either side of her,
holding himself above her as if she was his prisoner.
His prisoner.
It was a delicious thought, to be Dominic’s to do with as he pleased.
“What were you thinking, Sophia, to drag me into a place like that?” he said roughly,
as his fingers tangled in her hair and drew the strands free of their pins. The roses
there scattered around them. “Were you trying to drive me crazy with lust?”
Sophia laughed. “Did I shock you with my knowledge that such shops exist?”
“Oh, Sophia.” His hands slid closer, gently cradling her face between his palms. She
looked up at him, and his eyes glowed with laughter, lust, and—admiration. Or perhaps
she only wished for that, imagining it there.
“I doubt anything about you could shock me,” he said. “Everything I discover only
makes me want you more. Damn you.”
Before Sophia could let those words sink in, Dominic bent his head to kiss the pulse
that beat at her temple, the tip of her nose, her chin. “Your skin is so soft…” he
whispered hoarsely.
And then his lips brushed her eyelids as they fluttered closed. In that perfect darkness,
she fell down and down into a soft, velvet abyss where there was only pure sensation.
Only Dominic.
His open mouth slid down her neck, hot and hungry as she arched back beneath him.
He nipped lightly at the hollow of her throat, as if he would absorb the life that
beat there into himself.
“Sophia…” he whispered, and she sat up so he could reach behind her to unfasten the
tiny pearl buttons of her bodice. Halfway down, he lost patience. With a low growl,
his hand twisted in the soft silk and tore the rest free. The pearls scattered across
the floor, and Sophia laughed as she slid her arms free of the tight cap sleeves.
Dominic drew the gown away until she lay beneath him in her petticoats and corset.
His mouth was suddenly back on her skin, his teeth lightly scraping over the curve
of her bare shoulder. Sophia shivered at the sensations that danced through her, and
she drew her knees up tight to either side of his hips as her petticoats fell back
around them in a lacy white froth.
She pressed herself up against him and smiled when she felt how hard he was. But his
kiss was too soft, too gentle. His tongue lightly circled the soft curve of her breast,
closer and closer to her aching nipple, until he slid teasingly away again.
“Dominic,” she moaned, and he lightly pressed one finger against her lips.
“Patience, Sophia,” he said with an infuriating smile. “Be still, let me touch you.
We have the rest of the night…”
She sucked the tip of his finger between her lips and caught it in her teeth to suck
at it. His breath hissed in his throat, and he sat up between her legs.
“You are being very naughty, Sophia,” he said. He slowly slid his hands up her legs,
beneath her petticoats. His touch was hard and hot on her body, and she wanted more.
So much more.
His fingers slid under her satin ribbon garter, and he untied it to draw her silk
stocking down her leg. His caress lingered on the sensitive spot at the back of her
knee.
“Dominic!” she cried. “Enough teasing. I want you inside me—now.”
He rose above her, and Sophia felt exultant that he was finally going to give her
what she wanted, what had been building between them all night. But he didn’t move.
He suddenly grabbed her wrists and forced her hands above her head, binding them together
with her stocking. He wound the loose end of it tightly around the bedpost, holding
her still.
“Dominic,” she protested. His name seemed to be the only word she had left. She tried
to wrap her legs around his waist to pull him back to her but he slipped from the
bed. He drew her other stocking slowly down her leg and tore it in half to tie her
ankles to the other posts, her legs spread for him.
“I warned you to be still,” he said, smiling as he quickly stripped away his own clothes.
His skin gleamed in the candlelight, his face half-hidden in the shadows.
“Dominic…” she cried. She pulled at her bonds,
longing to be free of them even as they kindled a strange excitement in her. “I want
you now, damn it all!”
Dominic slowly lowered himself between her legs again, laughing at her struggle. “You
have to learn patience, Sophia,” he whispered, and took her aching nipple between
his lips to suck at it hard until she moaned.
His tongue circled the erect, sensitive flesh, until he caught it between his teeth.
He bit at it lightly, and then soothed the wonderful sting with the tip of his tongue.
His hand flattened on her taut abdomen, just above her navel, and slowly slid lower
and lower as she gasped with the pleasure of his touch.
“Tell me what you want, Sophia,” he said against her breast. One fingertip lightly
caressed the damp curls between her legs, teasing her. “Do you want me to touch you
here?”
That finger delved gently past her slit, a rough touch that slid against her most
sensitive spot.
But it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Yes,” she said fiercely, her head arching back on the pillows as hot sparks of pure
sensation shot through her body at his skillful touch.
A second finger slid deep inside her. “Would you like it if I kissed you here as well?”
“Yes…” Sophia sighed, remembering how his mouth had felt between her thighs. So perfect—so,
so good. Her body ached for it again.
His open mouth, hot and wet, trailed along her skin. He nipped with his teeth over
her hip, circled her navel with his tongue, his hand touching her harder, deeper,
until she cried out wordlessly.
Then finally he moved between her legs, and she felt
his mouth on that most intimate, sensitive spot. His fingers spread her wide for his
kiss, and the tip of his tongue licked lightly up her wet seam before delving deeply.
She cried out his name. And suddenly her desire for him, that desire that blotted
out everything else, frightened her. Her whole life had been marred by losing control;
she didn’t want that now, even as she wanted it more than anything.
“Dominic—stop!” she cried as the crashing waves of pleasure threatened to consume
her.
But he gave her no mercy. He just tasted her deeply, giving her pleasure even as he
seemed to take it. Sophia let the sensations explode within her.
Only as she sank back to the earth, the tremors of her climax slowly ebbing away,
did he rise above her on his knees. He looked down at her as she lay there, helpless,
and he smiled.
He finally released her from her bonds, and she surged up to wrap her arms around
him, their damp heat winding around them, tying them together even more than the silk
bonds. He kissed her, open-mouthed, as if he was as hungry as she was. She tasted
the scent of herself on his lips, his tongue, and it made her excitement grow all
over again.
He wrapped his hands around her hips and tried to drag her closer, but she slid away
from him. She moved down his body, skin against skin, and reached between them to
wrap her fingers around his hard cock. He throbbed under her touch, and she lowered
her head to take him deep into her mouth.
“Sophia,” he groaned. His fingers twined through her hair as if he would push her
away. But she liked having
him at her mercy for once, and she wouldn’t let him go. She traced the length of him
with her tongue, tasting the musk of him. She wrapped her hands around his tight backside
and drew him closer to her eager mouth.