An Unconventional Arrangement

Henry landed another slap across her ass and let his hand linger. Ada groaned as he dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her hip. He gingerly pulled the fingers of his other hand from her mouth and painted a wet trail down her neck and chest. He gripped her breast, still propped up lewdly by the corset, and squeezed her nipple between two fingers.

Ada licked her lips, impatient to taste his fingers again. Never had he touched her quite so ravenously; never had he clutched at her body, claiming her mouth and pussy simultaneously, as if he couldn't possess enough of her at once. It occurred to her—it thrilled her, actually—that Henry perhaps did not enjoy his obscene little diorama as much as he had expected. He did not, it seemed, enjoy lending her out.

She draped her right leg over his shoulder in a silent plea for her orgasm. Henry gritted his teeth as he smacked her thigh lightly before taking hold of her ankle and fucking her hard. The wet slap of his thrusts and his heavy, uneven breathing were the most erotic noises she thought she had ever heard.

"Ada," he said, reaching up and snatching her chin between his thumb and forefinger, "look at me while I'm filling you up."

She moaned at the sheer carnality of his words. No, she thought, that was the most erotic thing she had ever heard.

Henry's hand remained at her neck, clasping her throat as he slammed into her. Ada felt her desire crystallize to a moment of perfect tension—the moment that she knew was about to shatter into shivery waves of pleasure. Her pussy tightened hungrily around him; she watched his face as the tension lifted like the fluttering of countless tiny wings and she sank into her orgasm. She was still moaning when he came inside her, groaning each time he filled her. She felt the warmth of his spend, felt a bit of it trickle out even as his cock remained in her.

"Jesus," he said shakily as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Ada"—he withdrew gently from her—"did you enjoy that?"

She knew the answer this time. "Yes, Henry."

He helped her move her still-trembling legs to a more comfortable position. "Is there room on this bloody thing for both of us to lie down?" He looked up and down the daybed.

She laughed. "Perhaps if I lean my back against you."

"I'd rather face you."

"All right, then."

Ada lay on her side, nestled in close to him. He ran his hand sleepily up and down the smooth length of her back. She fully knew what he intended to do: he meant to lure her to sleep and eventually carry her to bed. She'd wake up in his arms and marvel at how effortlessly he could glide up the stairs with a woman in his arms. It was what he did if he ever fucked her late at night outside the bedroom, which he did often enough.

But she was determined to stay awake this time. She watched his face as she spoke. "Henry, this wasn't your first time to share a woman with Julian Hansard, was it?"

"No," he said. "But it was the first time I wanted to run him through." His eyes darted around the room. "Damn it, I should have had Darby get me my cigar."

"Henry—"

"Don't get too fond of Hansard," he said, sliding his hand down to her ass. "He's not the one who saw you at Bournemouth last summer and promptly lost his fucking mind."

Ada's eyes widened. "Bournemouth!"

She and her mother had certainly wondered whether Henry was at Bournemouth that month. They had gone to the resort town because her mother had read what a fashionable destination it was, but their primary aim was to give Ada opportunity to practice flirting with gentlemen at a safe distance from the gossip circles of London. One week into their stay, vases of flowers had appeared in their rooms. And the next day. And the day after that. They had had to throw out piles of fresh bouquets to make room for more; it had all felt so wasteful and so decadent. And upon going to settle their hotel expenses, they had been discreetly informed that the bill had already been paid.

She had been his mistress even then.

"It was you," she whispered.

"You could have stayed the entire summer, you know."

She wanted to ask why he had not simply requested an introduction at the opera one evening. She wanted to ask why he had waited so many months to pursue her again in London. She wanted to ask why a man who had "lost his fucking mind" over her would share her with his friends as entertainment.

She started with a simpler question instead: "Did Julian Hansard ask to borrow me?"

"Yes," said Henry flatly. "I told him he couldn't fuck you. Poor man looked as if I'd just called off Christmas." He laughed. "Told Weston, too, though I hardly had to. He was too busy picking his chin off the floor."

"Julian usually fucks your mistresses?"

He beamed. "I do love hearing you say 'fuck.'"

She slapped his chest. "You're insufferable."

He snatched up one of her hands and pressed kisses to her palm.

"But wait," she said, "you told me that Julian would do anything I wanted." She looked askance at him. "What if I had asked him to fuck me?"

"He would have tactfully declined," he said between kisses. "Probably while weeping."

Ada closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his lips against her fingertips, and tried to take the measure of the evening's events. Henry had willingly shared her, sent his friends away, reclaimed her in a fit of temper—though she was not complaining—and revealed that his attachment to her was older and perhaps more fervent than she would have thought.

It was becoming clearer by the day that this relationship was an odd one and that she rather liked the oddness. She thought of the afternoons her mother had naively envisioned—quiet hours of waiting in her pretty apartment, perhaps a visit and a gift from Henry, a perfunctory farewell at the door and a swirl of uncertainty—and smiled to herself. Nobody could tell her exactly what would happen at the end of the affair. She only knew it probably wouldn't be marriage. Not her own marriage, anyway.

"I need new clothes," said Henry, startling her.

"I highly doubt that."

He grinned at her. "You need some new frocks."

"That's not true, either," she purred, "but what are you proposing we do about it?"

"We'll put Bond Street through its paces tomorrow." He hugged her to his chest.

Ada stared. "We? The two of us? On Bond Street?"

"You'd prefer Burlington Arcade?"

"I—I don't think the shopkeepers would like to see me."

"They'd like to see my money," he snorted. "They'd also like to stay in my good graces."

That was another revelation, thought Ada. Henry Aldridge apparently had the power to ruin even snooty shopkeepers in the city's most upmarket districts. But she didn't want to sound the depths of that mystery tonight. Her body was spent and still faintly humming, and his hands were drifting up and down her back, soothing her into a heavy sleep. She imagined walking boldly up Bond Street, on Henry's arm, and waited to awaken to the sensation of being carried in Henry's arms up the stairs to a warm bed.