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  Knickers were easy enough; the chemise nearly came to her knees. After dropping those, she waited. He wanted to lead and she wanted to follow.

  “Chemise.”

  That was a surprising choice. She didn’t think her black stockings all that interesting, but perhaps he did. She dropped her chemise and his eyes flared wide. Once again he looked at her to his leisure, his gaze moving up and down and over and back as if memorizing every curve. It was bad enough when she was dressed, but now that she was naked but for her stockings, his searching perusal made her squirm.

  “Relax. Stand up straight, but relax.”

  She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

  “Do you wonder why I left you in your stockings?”

  “Yes.”

  “A few reasons. The first is that you have the shapeliest, longest, and most beautiful legs I’ve ever seen. The second is that the dark stockings and your dark hair frame such flawless peachy-cream curves. They draw my eye exactly where I want to go.” His eyes flit deliberately up her legs to the down of her sex, up her belly, and around her breasts, then up to her eyes. They were filled with a simmering satisfaction. “And it wasn’t what you expected. I like doing unexpected things.”

  After another pause, he asked, “Can you count?”

  “Yes,” she replied. She was indignant but her voice was scratchy and she sounded pathetic just then.

  “I’m sorry, Monica. I should know better than to underestimate you.”

  She nodded.

  “When I say begin, you’ll start,” he said, standing and approaching, “and count in your head.”

  “Fast or slow?” she asked.

  “I’ll leave that to you.”

  “What am I counting for?”

  “You leave that to me. Now you’ll undress me. Are you ready?”

  She nodded.

  “Begin.”

  One, she slipped his suitcoat off his arms. Two and she turned to the buttons on his waistcoat. Six, she was loosening his cravat. Eight and she began on his shirt. By twenty she was lowering his pants. All the while his eyes never left her body, naked but for her delicate stockings on her long legs. Finally she undid the buttons on his shoes and pulled his socks.

  “Are you still counting?” he asked as he took her stockings and pulled them, caressing slowly down her legs.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Keep going,” he said, standing and pulling each individual pin in her hair until it fell loosely to her waist. “And stop.” He cupped her face tenderly. “What number do you have?”

  “Thirty-three.” It had occurred to her to slow down.

  “Thirty-three.” He smirked. “We’d better get started.” He smothered her question in a kiss and lay her down on the bed.

  When he moved to kiss a wet trail down her neck, she asked, “What does thirty-three mean?”

  He cupped a breast and paused with his mouth over the nipple. “You’re going to have thirty-three orgasms before I’ll consider letting you move on to someone else.” Then he flicked her nipple with his tongue and began drawing a wet line around her areola.

  “Pardon me?” she asked, but the effect was lost in a moan. “I didn’t agree to that. One night, you said.” Then he slowly drew his cock along her sex. “Oh, God,” she moaned. His hard length sliding on her full sex, she began to squirm. “If you can give me thirty-three orgasms tonight…”

  He kissed over to her other breast and took it in his mouth, gently lapping and suckling while he cupped her bottom, pressing his cock into her throbbing nerve, dragging and rubbing, teasing.

  She wrapped her legs around him. “Please.”

  But he only smiled mischievously as he continued his merciless teasing. He kissed the corners of her lips, the tip of her nose and apples of her cheeks, along her jaw and over to an ear.

  “Please.”

  “M-hm,” he murmured in her ear even as he shook his head. “Please, what?”

  She squeezed her arms and legs around him. “I-I want you.”

  “Mm, that does sound serious.”

  “It is. I am.”

  “Do you want to come for me thirty-three times?”

  At that moment she would have agreed to three hundred and thirty-three if only he’d put his cock inside her.

  “Yes…I…please,” she croaked out. “Please.”

  “Mm, I love to hear you beg. I knew you’d love to please me. Now say my name.” He worked his cock closer and closer to her cunny opening.

  “Jonathan.”

  “Now say, ‘please fuck me Jonathan.’”

  “Please fuck me, Jonathan.”

  He tsked. “I’m not convinced.” All the while he slid his cock on her slit and pressed into her nerve while she panted and begged.

  “Now say it again and make me believe it.”

  She actually whimpered before she said, “Please fuck me, Jonathan.”

  And before she’d even finished his name, he thrust in so hard she shot up on the bed. “Oh, God!”

  It hurt and it was so good. He slammed into her repeatedly without let up until her body felt like it was melting into the bed.

  “I’m going to come,” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Pardon? I’m going to come.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She felt him slowing down and gripped him tighter. “No! What are you doing?”

  “Relax. You’ll come when I say.”

  “Are you mad? I come when my body says.”

  Abruptly he pulled out and sat on the side of the bed, his rock-hard cock glistening with her arousal. The man had the audacity to look at his fingernails. Her jaw dropped.

  “Are you playing with me?”

  “Yes,” he said evenly.

  She threw the covers back and went for her clothes when he pulled her onto his lap, his cock resting at her bottom.

  “Let me go.”

  “No, sweetheart, you’ll sit right here. Now just relax.”

  But she was so rigid with anger, she didn’t want to obey. His hand skimmed up and down her arm, the other cupping and pinching a breast as he pressed tiny, wet kisses along a shoulder.

  “Jonathan, I—”

  “Shh. Just relax.” He slid two fingers inside her sex. Reaching, swirling, pressing into the walls of her cunny until she couldn’t help it, her head fell back and she moaned.

  “Please let me come.”

  “I will. I want you to come. You’ve been a very good girl for me. I know you like to obey.”

  “No I don’t. I don’t like to obey.”

  He chuckled. “But for me you will, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” YesYesYes. For him she would do anything just then.

  “Yes,” he said, as if coming to a decision.

  He placed her on her hands and knees before the fire and thrust inside her again. He held her hard and fucked her harder. For excruciatingly long minutes he worked her nerve until she was dangling over the edge, desperate to let go.

  “PleasePleasePleasePleasePlease,” she moaned in an urgent chant.

  “Come for me,” he finally said.

  She cried out as she did and he continued to fuck her until finally he pulled out and came all over her back.

  “Don’t move,” he said, leaving and returning with a wet linen to clean her up. When he finished, he pressed tender kisses down her spine and back, turned her head and kissed her lips. “Are you all right?”

  She had no words, so she nodded.

  “Come to bed,” he said.

  He closed the grate on the fire, slid in beside her, and they fell asleep. The last words she thought before she drifted off—thirty-two.

  Chapter 9

  Jonathan sat in his carriage thinking about Monica. Four days since their first night together—he was determined it would be the first and not the only—and he couldn’t get that goddess out of his mind.

  Monica was submissive. But unlike most women Jonathan knew in that scene, sh
e didn’t keep her head down as a matter of course. The idea made her bristle. That made him smile. She was strong, stronger than any woman he’d ever known. From the heat of her washhouse life and the pressure of her abiding dream, she was forged as hard as a diamond. And like the name of the gem itself, seemed resistant to being tamed. He chuckled at that. He had merely to suggest her obedience and she curled away from the word as she beautifully submitted. He’d call it string or fork or sparrow if only she’d bend for him as exquisitely as she did.

  His mind retreated to the morning after. The sleepy gray light of early dawn crept into the room as he lay beside her, watching her sleep. She was on her belly, her arms crossed under her pillow. The cool in the room would almost certainly wake her if he pulled the covers back.

  He slid a soft hand down the tousled mane of her dark hair—It’s a crime to tie that beautiful hair up in a bun all the time—drawing the covers off her back. At the luscious curve of her bottom, he slowly stroked up and down as goosebumps lit her skin. Her back rose as her breathing changed. She shifted and moaned. He placed wet kisses on each plump cheek.

  God, she was beautiful.

  He adjusted himself. On his way to visit his ex-wife, the one woman he loved above all others, and he couldn’t get on for moments at a time without panting over Monica.

  Joselin had a small studio set up in her apartment and it was there that Jonathan found her. They exchanged greetings, then he sat on the divan as she went back to her canvas—another nude woman. She was getting a reputation as a sapphist and that irked her to some degree because on a list of things that were scandalous to her that was one. But when she’d consecrated herself to her art, a woman and against all odds, she made it clear that though she was not allowed in certain artistic societies and certain studios, though she couldn’t paint alongside men, she would not be reduced to painting the limited subjects of a woman’s sphere—the domestic sphere.

  She had nothing against children and the help and fruit, per se. It was only that it was what she was expected to paint. And in that, she took umbrage. Joselin was the very picture of refined elegance and she liked to paint. Two things diametrically opposed. She navigated it with a small chip on her shoulder. That chip manifested itself in the nude female form.

  “I hear you attended the opera the other night,” she began, swirling her brush in ochre.

  Jonathan smiled to himself. This was too perfect. Jos had set him out like a punished dog on the back step. But she was also a jealous sort, sniffing around when he’d taken up with Daphne. Now this. She feigned indifference as she dabbed at her painting, yet she was anything but.

  “Yes. Le Cid. It was quite good.”

  “And Madame Kohl is well?”

  “Fit as ever, last I heard.”

  They stared at each other.

  “I worry about you, Jonathan.”

  “Why is that, darling?”

  She tsked. “Because I love you, silly.”

  “Do you still? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You know I do. If you would give up your…peculiar interests, we could return to our deep friendship.”

  “Could we?” She’d hinted, but never so boldly declared it as this. “What would Monsieur Durand say to that?”

  “Erik’s gone on holiday. We’ve been…at odds lately.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He wasn’t, but it was the polite thing to say.

  “Are you really?” She gave him a look of scolding and skepticism.

  “You know the answer to that better than anyone.”

  “He doesn’t understand me like you do, Jon.” Was there something in her voice that sounded sincere?

  “Do we understand each other, Jos?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What manner is that?”

  She sighed and went back to her painting.

  Was it possible she had gotten beyond her affair with Monsieur Durand? She had insisted on divorcing, on making such a public show of their hostilities. Theirs was one of the first high-profile divorces in France when the practice was reestablished only five years before. It wasn’t enough that everyone knew they were splitting, she made sure they knew why. He wasn’t merely a deviant in the bedroom, but a brute as well. The idea that now they might have an understanding about anything was laughable. Still there was that persistent part of his heart that loved her. If he gave up his peculiar interests, might she really take him back?

  “And now you’ve taken up with this figure model.”

  Jonathan sat back and propped an ankle on a knee. “Are you jealous?”

  She cleaned her brush. “You know I am.”

  Did he? Why was she being so plain today? Could it all be because of Erik’s absence? Perhaps there was more than mere jealousy. His heart suddenly felt lighter. Could all his patient waiting be bearing fruit? Might she actually come back to him?

  “For more than a year I’ve been trying to find her so that I may ask her to pose for me. Suddenly there she was at the Salon, standing right beside me.”

  Her statement was so jarring in its disparate thread, so different from where he imagined this conversation going, that for a moment he had to consider it again. He felt like he’d been shot down from the sky and exhaled.

  “You’re not jealous of her. You’re jealous of me.”

  She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Every painter in this city wants her to pose for him. Why not me?”

  Jonathan chuckled, an unamused laugh, and shook his head. He heard a ringing in his ears and rubbed his brow. “She’s not a figure model, Jos. That’s why she’s not posing for you or anyone.”

  “Is she a demimondaine?”

  “Stubbornly, no. She’d surely be more manageable if she were a member of that set.” Though the idea didn’t seem to hold as much weight as it once had. Why should he make her into the most eligible courtesan in all France for other men to vie for her time and affection?

  “I dare say there are a few men who would be only too happy to build her her own hôtel particulier,” said Jos. “You, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” he acknowledged, guarding his gaze. That was an idea that was growing in its appeal.

  Jos came and stood before him. “Are you so taken with her?”

  He didn’t know what to say. On his way here, he could think of nothing but Monica. Yet Jos had only to hint and he fell too easily back. He was a cunt, letting his dick and his heart determine his mind.

  “No,” he lied. “She’s a dalliance. You know I need new flavors.”

  She stepped closer and he opened his legs. She kissed him as if dusting off her sweetness and he wrapped his arms around her, deepening it. When finally she pulled back, she stroked his cheek. He looked at her speculatively, wondering where her heart lay and his.

  “Do you ever think about us?” she asked. “I do. Sometimes I wish so strongly that we could go back. Maybe even start again.”

  Slack-jawed, he stared at her, feeling his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

  “Do you really?”

  “Yes.”

  She said it so firmly, he knew it was a lie.

  She returned to her canvas. “Will you see her again?”

  “Mademoiselle Fauconnier?” He felt whip-sawed by their conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “I think so.”

  “Could you give her my name, please, darling? Perhaps say a few words on my behalf?”

  His heart had been everywhere in that studio and now it cratered to his gut. Of course this was what she wanted.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Completely.” There was the sincerity he sought.

  “I told you, she’s not a figure model.”

  “There’s something charming in that. You saw it. She’s both sexual and sweet.” Sweet was not the first word he would use to describe her. “And perhaps she can be seduced to it. If anyone can do it, you can. Can’t you, darling. You’re very persuasive.” He was stunned by h
er audacity and didn’t know what to say. “It could launch me. Don’t you want to help me?”

  “Jos…I don’t know what to say…” He rubbed his neck. “Talac is a great talent. But more than that, I think he loved her when he painted that. There’s something to that. It can’t be recreated.”

  “But you’ll try, for me, won’t you, darling? I should be grateful for any entreaty on my behalf. Very grateful.”

  More than a week later Jonathan sat in the ultra-fashionable Grand Café once again thinking about Monica and that incredible night.

  Her hands were white-knuckled as she gripped the headboard. Do not let go, he’d told her. Her back was arched, her mouth agape as her breathing grew light and jagged. He cupped and played with her perfect breasts. Licking, teasing, back and forth.

  “JonathanJonathanJonathan,” Monica pleaded breathily as she squirmed.

  He held himself over her, hovering so close, giving her just enough and not nearly enough. She was falling apart and he loved it.

  “Monsieur Derassen?”

  A waitress stood smiling before him, jarring him from his memory. “Your guest is here.”

  The simple social graces required he stand, yet he was hard as a rock.

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. Then shifted. Thought about his grandmother. Tried to imagine her taking a bath. Worse, stepping out of it. Conjured awful smells. Anything.

  “Monsieur Derassen.”

  Monica stood before him in the garnet silk damask dinner dress he’d sent.

  “Monica.” He stood and they exchanged courteous kisses. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “You gave me little choice,” she said as they sat.

  Nearly two weeks had passed since their night at the opera and he found he had to see her. He’d asked his driver, after delivering the dress and a note, to wait for her.

  “What am I doing here? I can’t be at the Jockey Club. Not with you.”

  “Who can you be here with?” he asked with a bite in his tone, indicating the mostly ennobled men who sat in the dining room of the most exclusive club in Paris. That she’d added the last part made his dormant jealousy flare. He couldn’t remember feeling that way about Daphne.

  “This is a gentleman’s club,” she hissed.