His Countess (Victorian Decadence Book 3) Read online

  Gideon shook his head and stood, his hands going to the placket of his leather breeches and then stopped. He turned to Jackson, his mouth curving into a smile. “Did you . . .?”

  Jackson nodded solemnly, an uncharacteristic twinkle in his eyes. “I placed a piece of string at the bottom of the panel.” He paused for effect. “It had been moved when I went to fetch your can of hot water.”

  Gideon grinned. “Ah, so I have an audience.”

  “So it would seem, my lord.”

  Gideon was so bloody hard he ached. What he wanted to do was go out into his bedchamber and fist himself for her viewing pleasure. But really, after all the effort she was going to she deserved more of a show. “Go fetch Lucy and Susan.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “And tell them to dress for an evening of exertion.” The women would know exactly what he meant.

  ☐ ☐ ☐

  Alys was the lowest form of life: a spy. A sneaking, peeping, spy.

  Well, what of it? She got little enough pleasure in life. Besides, the way his lordship displayed his naked, hard, muscular body at his window in the mornings—yes, she’d seen him again, thanks to some careful planning, although he’d not seen her—told her that he wanted her eyes on his body. Or anyone’s eyes, likely.

  She’d resisted the urge the last two nights, but she could resist it no longer. So, she’d sent Thursby off to bed early with her sniffling cold and lingered and loitered around his lordship’s rooms like some sort of lurking pervert. She’d known he’d not be home for dinner—indeed, she’d been pleasantly surprised by his courteous message to that effect—so she’d not expected him until late, although not as late as this. She’d flapped back and forth not once, but twice. This second time she knew he was in there because she heard him arrive when Mr. Pendleton’s gig clattered into the courtyard. She’d had to hurry to get into the passageway before he entered his room.

  It occurred to her, as she stood on the stool, her eye plastered against the hole, that she would burn in hell for such behavior, but that wasn’t enough to peel her away. She pulled an apple out of her dressing gown pocket and nibbled as she waited, her heart pounding in expectation.

  The moment he strode into the room Alys lowered the apple and stared. He was dressed for riding and his clothing had been cut as closely as every other garment she’d seen on him. His riding breeches were black leather rather than buckskin and something about that seemed wicked and erotic. Her sex, already sensitive with anticipation, began to thump and she instinctively clenched her muscles, which just made the throbbing worse—or better, depending on how one looked at it.

  His blond hair was overlong and brushed the collar of his black riding coat. His profile was toward her and she had to admit it was as exquisite as every other part of him. High chiseled cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a firm chin gave him his “angelic” aspect, his full lips providing the “fallen” part.

  Alys was surprised—but pleased—that he sported no facial hair, and guessed he was perfectly aware of his fine features and took pains to display them, rather than shroud them in moustaches and muttonchops.

  He shrugged his muscular shoulders and his valet removed his coat, leaving him standing in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

  His breeches fit lovingly over his narrow hips, the black leather stretching taut across his bottom which—she had to admit with a painful gulp—was quite shapely. Had she ever noticed a man’s bottom? Sebastian had been a sporting man so he’d been fit and muscular, but he’d been stout by nature and his bottom had been squarish and broad, his shoulders rather narrow—nothing to compare with the classical physique of the man she was currently ogling.

  Lord Taunton—Gideon, go ahead and call him by his Christian name as you’re about to watch him take his clothing off and—

  Alys squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, as if that might shake away what she was doing and what she hoped to see: this cripplingly sensual man cavorting with his two prostitutes.

  She swallowed loudly and opened her eyes just in time to see his lordship striding into his dressing room, his valet behind him.

  “Well, drat,” she whispered. The peep was over the bed, which made it perfect for viewing what transpired in the bed and that area right in front of it—the fireplace and settee and two chairs around it—but the rest of the suite was beyond her view.

  She resumed eating her apple, pausing again when Jackson—Gideon’s rather sinister-looking valet—stepped out of the dressing room and left his master’s chambers.

  Alys squinted and leaned closer, as if that would somehow allow her to see through the wall into the dressing room. But then he stepped out into the bedchamber. The apple slid from her fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.

  “Oh Lord.”

  He wore only his breeches—and he’d unfastened the catches, which allowed them to slide further down his narrow hips, exposing a remarkably tantalizing V of muscles. He extended his arms above his head and stretched in a way that sent every muscle in his body rippling—and also caused his breeches to drop even lower, until they exposed just a glimpse of dark blond curls.

  Alys felt as if her eyes were fogging up. He lowered a hand and lazily stroked the muscular ridges of his belly, his fingers slipping beneath his placket and—

  Oh. Lord.

  He shifted his obviously erect member and heaved a sigh, his body flexing with pleasure. And then he turned his back on her and sauntered toward the small sitting area.

  “Oh, please, God, don’t let him sit in that chair . . . no, no, no,” she whispered as he began to lower his bottom into the chair whose back faced her.

  But then, quite suddenly, he seemed to change his mind, heading instead toward the fire. He leaned his forearm on the mantle and took up the poker, the fascinating musculature of his back rippling as he stirred the glowing embers.

  Alys realized her entire body was clenched into a knot and forced herself to relax, swallowing repeatedly and taking deep breaths. She would have some kind of seizure if she didn’t breathe and calm herself.

  He replaced the poker and was leaning his head against his forearm, the position inadvertently displaying his body—his narrow, corded waist and the flaring muscles of his back and shoulders—to perfection.

  Never in her life had she felt so alive—especially parts of herself she generally ignored, the muscles in her own belly tightening, her sex swelling and becoming noticeably hot.

  The door to the bedchamber opened and Jackson ushered in not one but both women.

  Alys gaped. What could one man possibly do with two women?

  And then she noticed what they were wearing—how dare they traipse through the hallways wearing their only dressing gowns!

  Jackson disappeared into the dressing room again and Gideon turned from the fireplace toward the two women. He must have said something funny—sound did not travel through the glass-filled peephole very well—because they chuckled as they walked toward him, their hips swaying in a way no chambermaid would employ, their bodies clothed in dressing gowns no chambermaid could afford.

  He stopped them with a casual flick of his hand, their backs facing Alys and, inconveniently, blocking all but Gideon’s head and shoulders from her view.

  Again, he spoke and both women must have tugged at the sashes on their robes because the silk garments loosened and they shrugged them off with identical motions.

  A gasp slipped out of her as the garments fluttered to the floor. Both women were identically attired—if that was the proper word for it—in only black corsets.

  Gideon’s sinful lips curved with approval and he twirled a finger around in the air.

  They turned for him in slow circles, which is when she noticed the corsets were of a special design that lifted and exposed their astonishingly large bosoms.

  She swallowed hard, her throat hurting as she stared at their perfect figures. The sour stew in her stomach was largely composed of jealousy—or envy—or per
haps both. But it did nothing to dampen her arousal. Quite the reverse. Instead of seeing them, she imagined herself dressed like that. What would she look like?

  Her hand unconsciously went to her own waist, tracing a path up to her loose breasts, which were nowhere as large as Susan or Lucy’s.

  She’d had Thursby undress her before sending her away. She wore a heavy flannel nightgown—the nights were always chilly at Foxrun—and an older brocade robe. Neither garment, she knew, would elicit the smug smile of approval from the man currently studying the two women with all the cool expertise her dead husband had used to appraise his cattle. Was this how Sebastian had looked at his mistresses, too? Had her husband used two women at once, as well?

  Gideon gestured to one of the women—Susan—and all thoughts of Sebastian fled as the woman went to the settee—which sat at an angle that, thankfully, allowed Alys to see.

  Rather than sit, she knelt on it, her back to Gideon, and placed her hands on the high back, and then, very deliberately, spread her knees and canted her bottom up toward him, exposing a part of her body Alys had never seen—not even on her own person.

  “Oh my goodness.” Alys’s heart pounded so hard she felt it at pulse points she hadn’t known she possessed.

  Just then Jackson emerged from the dressing room, bearing something in both hands.

  The brunette went to take whatever it was and when she turned Alys saw they were straps of some sort—like the leads of a bridle, long strips of leather.

  Still facing away, Gideon took one strap and bent to slip it around the kneeling woman’s ankle. Alys watched in open-mouthed shock as he tugged on the leather strip, spreading her wider, and then secured the other end with a quick slip knot to the wooden settee leg.

  He did the same with her other ankle, pausing to tilt her bottom toward him in a way that left Alys in no doubt of what he would soon be doing.

  He quickly bound her wrists, moving around to the other side of settee to tie them to the other legs, bending her over the wooden sofa back to secure her. When he stood, she gasped: the shiny crown of his penis extended above the low-slung breeches and pressed against his hard belly, which glistened with wetness.

  She watched in a trancelike state as he tied Susan’s second wrist and then stood, coming around the settee until his back was once again facing Alys. He slid a hand between the bound woman’s thighs and her own sex tightened and sent her hurtling toward the exquisite sensation she’d been experiencing in her bed the last two nights, but only after a good deal of rubbing. She squeezed her eyes shut as her body shuddered with pleasure, wave after wave washing over her.

  Still trembling with tiny aftershocks of pleasure, she forced her eyes open, afraid to miss—

  “Ah, God—” she whispered, horrified by her blaspheming.

  He’d turned in profile to face the brunette, who came toward him and sank to her knees gracefully. She leaned toward his placket, until her mouth was hovering just above his exposed crown, and then she stuck out a tongue and licked his organ.

  Alys gripped her sex with one hand, as if that might stop what had already started to build again.

  Gideon shuddered at the woman’s gesture and he said something as he gazed down at her, one hand slipping into her hair while his other still moved between Susan’s spread thighs.

  Alys watch enrapt as the woman unbuttoned his placket and his breeches slid to the floor allowing his erect breeding organ to spring free. Without hesitation the woman lowered her mouth over the swollen head, taking only that part of him into her mouth, her cheeks hollowing with the force of her suction.

  Alys’s mind responded with revulsion: how could she do such a thing?

  But her body felt otherwise, and she shook with the force of what she was failing to suppress, the clenching and swelling almost primitive in its forcefulness, even as her brain rebelled at the low animal behavior she was witnessing.

  She’d found that book in the library—the one with all the drawings—so she had some inkling that things of this nature went on. But Sebastian had always behaved like a gentleman with her. He’d bred her regularly when he was at Foxrun, but he’d behaved like a civilized Christian, coming to her in darkness, entering her only long enough to spend his seed inside her, and then bidding her good night.

  This? She shook her head, unable to look away. This was . . . well . . . she had to force herself to blink, her eyes dry and scratchy from staring.

  Gideon’s mouth moved and his hips began to pulse. The woman opened her jaws wider and her head lowered and lowered and lowered—good God! How could she breathe?

  Alys could hardly breathe just watching.

  Lucy sank as far as she could go, not stopping until her lips rested against the curly hairs at his base. And then they froze in that tableau. Gideon’s tight abdomen was flexing with his rapid breaths. And then, impossibly, he spread his feet wider and bent his knees, his spine curving into a C shape as he flexed his muscular bottom, took the woman’s head with both hands, and flexed his hips in sharp thrusts—just as if he were breeding her mouth.

  Lucy’s body was pliant, her slightly bowed posture submissive as her big breasts jiggled with the force of his thrusts—how could she get any air in her lungs with that in her throat?

  He held her that way as he pulsed, gazing down on her body as if he were feeding on watching her as much as violating her.

  And then ever so painfully slowly, he began to pull out of her, stopping only when her lips tightened around the end. Still with his body curved and knees slightly bent he tilted her chin up so that he might watch as he slid in and out, his muscular bottom and thighs flexing.

  He plunged deeper and harder, his forearms tightening as his hips began to jerk with increasingly uncontrolled thrusts. Alys recognized the action—although far, far less savage—from her times with Sebastian and knew his climax must be impending. She waited in horrified fascination to see if he would spend in her mouth. Surely not? Surely even such a beast as this man would not—

  He froze, holding her still for a long moment and then slowly straightened, pulling himself out of her entirely this time.

  A strand of spittle linked the woman’s open mouth and his impossibly long and thick organ. He laughed down at her and used the slick, ruddy rod like a whip, slapping her cheek several times—hard—before pulling away.

  He was just vile.

  And Alys was even viler for wanting to be in there with him. Her mouth watered to taste him—to see how much she could fit inside her throat.

  She was a disgusting, immoral, repulsive, wanton pig.

  But oh, he looked so . . . virile, masculine, savage.

  His breeding organ was the only real one she’d ever seen. Sebastian had always worn his nightshirt and come to her in darkness, but she swore it had not felt as huge as what she saw before her now. Not only had she never seen her husband’s erect organ, she’d certainly never touched it, and she didn’t even know whether he’d possessed the slight sprinkling of hair that glistened on Gideon’s broad chest.

  He patted the kneeling woman’s cheek with a gesture of dismissive affection and spoke a few words. She immediately rose and went in the direction of the dressing room.

  He stood, as if in thought, absently stroking himself with one hand, while feeling his testicles with the other. For some reason this casual but erotic action seemed even more decadent than what he’d just been engaged in: he was so at home in his body, handling himself in ways she’d never dreamed of touching herself.

  Until these past few days, she’d only ever felt the itching between her thighs either in her sleep or those few times she’d looked at The Book. She shuddered at the mere thought of The Book and how she’d embarrassed herself with it. How Sebastian had treated her the night she’d told him about it. What a terrible night.

  Ever since that horrible, mortifying evening she’d simply tried to ignore her body. She did a fairly good job of it, unless the sensations came to her when she couldn’t
help it. Those were the nights she woke in shame to find her fingers wet.

  Watching him stroke himself with such confident arrogance also made her realize—quite pointedly—that she was watching another human in their most private environment without their knowledge or permission. Alys squeezed her eyes shut.

  She was worse than this man and his horrid, vulgar debasement of those women. She should go back to her room this instant—while the occupants were too busy with their depraved behavior to notice. She opened her eyes and lifted the skirts of her nightgown and dressing gown, preparing to step down. Her eyes drifted over the peephole without her brain’s permission and she gasped, leaning closer before she even knew what she was doing.

  He held a whip in his hand—a whip of a sort she’d never seen, with many strips of leather, like something she’d once read about, a cat-o-nines she believed it was called.

  Alys gave a loud squeak and quickly bit her tongue. In his bedchamber, Gideon cocked his head, as if he might have heard something. Alys cursed her stupidity—quietly—holding her breath. Oh please, Lord, don’t let him find me here.

  Her own prayer shocked her. Why would God condone such activity, not to mention protect her? He was far more likely to strike her down with a bolt of lightning.

  Run now! Run!

  But she couldn’t, her feet refused to move.

  He held still for a long moment, but then gave a slight shrug, and turned back to the bound woman.

  Alys watched in stupefaction as he commenced to whip her. The blows looked light enough, but he delivered them without ceasing, his muscular arm falling into a rhythm that was mesmerizing; a rhythm that seemed to pulse through her own body, once again concentrating in her sex.

  She had no idea how long he worked, only that his body had become slick from his exertions and the woman he was whipping began to shudder, her back a flaming red, but with no sign of broken skin or even welts.