Tempting Gemma 3 Page 4

  “About sex, is it?”

  He shot her a chiding look. “Only in the narrowest sense. The Kama Sutra provides insight into an ancient and extremely important culture from which we, here in the West have a great deal to learn. Efforts to trivialize it stem from ignorance and even, dare I say, lamentable prejudice.”

  She had forgotten that in his role as a titan of finance in the City, he worked hand-in-glove with various government ministries, therefore was fluent in their right-speak.

  All the same, best to be clear. “So sex?”

  “Well, yes, pretty much. Have to say, the ancients really knew how to go at it.”

  Afraid that she already knew the answer, Gemma nonetheless asked, “What has that to do with exercise?”

  “You’ll see,” he said with a smile.

  She did but from a perspective she hadn’t anticipated. With Charles’ assistance, over the next few hours she worked herself into a variety of positions, all of which cleverly avoided the hula-hoop problem. Several were familiar--she suspected that he’d included those just to get her warmed up--but most were not.

  Certainly, she had cause to be grateful for her recent efforts at improved fitness as she stood with one leg stretched perpendicular above her head, balancing on the other foot while being vigorously fucked from behind. So, too, while folded over in half and holding her ankles.

  It was while her body was bowed--hands and feet flat on the floor, back arched--that her husband’s ever-agile tongue went to work on her clit. This brought on an extended series of moans and other guttural sounds interspersed with such pronouncements as, “Oh, my!”, “Whoop!”, “Crikey!”, and quite loudly, “Oh, god, yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, don’t stop!”

  Her ascent, yet again, into such unbridled ecstasy could be taken as evidence of a long-ago Golden Age in which humanity made love rather than war. Or she may simply have been high as the proverbial kite on the brain chemicals that were the inevitable result of too many orgasms. Assuming, of course, that there is any such thing as ‘too many’ in that regard.

  Whichever the case, by afternoon she was entirely amenable to anything her husband suggested.

  Which is how she came to find herself being anally fucked while performing a head stand up against a wall. It was quite the most strenuous exercise she had yet performed and it took some doing. If she hadn’t been so close to the edge already--and Charles so prompt--she doubted that they could have pulled it off.

  Afterward, the rush of blood to her head--and elsewhere--left everything a bit blurry. When she was next fully aware, she was lying on a chaise lounge beside the sparkling pool a short distance behind the house. The afternoon sun was slipping down below the tops of the poplars. A light breeze blew pleasantly from the south.

  Seeing that she was awake, her husband plucked her a smoothie from the table between their chairs and handed it to her. He’d already finished half of his.

  “It’s kale, chia and pomegranate,” he said. “You want to watch your electrolytes.”

  The concoction was vile but she drank it anyway. Among her very few pleasant memories of dear old Mary Magdalene were the illicit milk shakes enjoyed behind the old dairy barn. Good times apparently not to be repeated in her new, far plusher circumstances.

  Still, she supposed he meant well. In an effort to preserve the harmony between them, she swallowed a little more of the thick green sludge before directing her attention to him.

  Clearing her throat--which involved a bit of hacking--she murmured, “Kama Sutra, you said?”

  He nodded, looking pleased. “Indeed. Quite extraordinary, wasn’t it? To think, we’ve barely gotten started. There are pages and pages more, all chock-a-block full of--”

  Gemma stopped listening. All her attention was focused on resisting the impulse to bolt from the chair and race off hell-bent for nowhere in particular.

  As it was, when she belatedly realized that he had finished speaking, she said, “That’s fascinating. Still, you’re no doubt right that we should pace ourselves.”

  As he could not recall saying anything of the sort, Charles was puzzled for a moment. Still, it wasn’t a bad idea, especially not since apparently it was his.

  Having chugged the rest of his smoothie, he gestured toward the pool. “Care for a swim?”

  Feeling in dire need of refreshing, Gemma nodded. Swimming had been compulsory at dear old Mary Magdalene on the grounds that it kept the figure toned. She felt confident that the pool at Ardsley Manor would be considerably above the unheated, chlorine-saturated hell hole where she had learned how to avoid being drowned.

  And so it was. The water was a warm, silken caress over her body as she dived in. Surfacing, she found Charles only a few feet from her. He looked unusually thoughtful.

  “You’re really quite incredible,” her husband said. “Always game, never shirking. I had no idea a wife could be like that.”

  Touched and trying to hide it, she resorted to teasing. “Or you would have acquired one sooner?”

  “God, no! Never really wanted to be shackled, least not until I met you.”

  He paused a moment as tectonic plates shifted in his mind. They had been poised to do so for some time now, ever since he’d begun to become aware of his little wife as an actual person.

  That was still all very tentative, of course. In his world, there were people, i.e. men and then there were women, mysterious but necessary creatures, alternately cruel and capricious, best kept at arm’s length apart from their obvious uses.

  Changing a lifetime habit of thinking didn’t happen easily. Still, he had to start somewhere.

  When they had settled into their new positions, he heard himself ask, “What did you want? I mean, I suppose every young woman thinks about getting married, doesn’t she?”

  “I wanted to go to university,” Gemma blurted. “And then on to law school.”

  He stared at her as though she had sprouted a third eye…or possibly tentacles. “Why would you want that?”

  “I thought it would make it easier to fight for rights for women if I was a lawyer.”

  Unable to absorb what she had said and keep paddling at the same time, Charles sank beneath the water. Surfacing moments later, he sputtered, “More rights? Haven’t you got enough?”

  “Not really.” Patiently, she added, “You see, we want all of them.”

  “All? You mean entry into all the schools…workplaces and… Not Parliament or… the military, you can’t mean that?” He sounded aghast.

  Implacably, she said, “All. With the technology we have nowadays, the physical differences between men and women no longer matter in the vast majority of cases.”

  “I’m not sure I’d agree with that but never mind. The emotional differences override all else. Women simply aren’t suited to the more demanding jobs. You’re too soft, too tender-hearted and that’s just as it should be. We wouldn’t want you to be otherwise.”

  This last part was uttered with such avuncular heartiness that Gemma frowned. He had the example of his own mother and sister to at least hint at the varied nature of women and yet he remained willfully blind. That was quite irksome of him.

  Yet the better angels of her nature counseled patience. Or perhaps it was the lingering effect of all those orgasms. At any rate, she recognized that there was only so much she could hope to have accomplished in so short a time. Anything more would have to wait.

  “Let’s not fight,” she said.

  Charles raised a brow. “Were we? That wasn’t so bad. No slamming of doors or hurtling of bric-a-brac.”

  He looked pleased, as though he had stumbled upon a sure-fire strategy for matrimonial success--let the little woman vent harmlessly.

  “I shall have to contrive to get you into the pool more often.”

  A smile teased the corners of Gemma’s mouth, born in equal measures of tolerance and tentative affection. She swam the short distance to her husband and straightened beside him. Brushing against his magnificent bo
dy, she touched her lips lightly to his chest and gazed up at him through her lashes.

  The pulse beating in his throat was quite mesmerizing. Almost as much as indefatigable Brad, nuzzling hopefully between her legs.

  “Whatever you wish, my lord,” she said and drew him to her.

  Appendix:

  The Ardsley Pearls

  The origins of what have become known as the Ardsley Pearls are shrouded in mystery. However, a few rays of light do penetrate the obscurity of rumor, innuendo, slander, false trails, dead ends and deliberate misinformation surrounding what is surely one of the most remarkable collections of any gemstone existing in the world.

  Early on in the reign of His Royal Majesty, King James I, (1603-1625), the then Marquess of Ardsley was accused of having taken advantage of his presence at the death bed of the ‘Virgin’ Queen Elizabeth I to help himself to her prized pearls. That the pearls in question belonged to Her Royal Majesty is beyond dispute; she is seen wearing them in the famed Armada Portrait.

  However, the Marquess stoutly contended that they were a gift from the grateful sovereign for unspecified services. This explanation was apparently accepted by her heir, James I, who declined to hear charges against the handsome and vivacious Marquess. Instead, he made him a favorite at court, to the dismay of the Marchioness who complained bitterly thereafter of alienated affections.

  In the 18th century, several generations of younger Ardsley sons were associated with the East India Company during its commercial--and otherwise--conquest of the Indian subcontinent. The disruptions that followed the fall of the Mughal dynasty presented abundant opportunities to acquire wealth and power, particularly for those unburdened by any hint of scruples.

  In a well recorded incident, two members of the Ardsley family were entrusted with transporting the ransom for a captured Bengalese nabob allied to British interests. When the ransom--consisting largely of pearls--failed to reach his captors, the poor fellow was tied to the mouth of a cannon and blasted to bloody pieces.

  During the inquiry that followed, the Ardsleys denied all knowledge of the incident. Exonerated, they stayed on in India, becoming advisors to the rulers of various states while living as virtual rajahs in their own palaces. The pearls were never found but witnesses insisted that they were smuggled off a vessel making port in Southampton during the winter of 1755. From there they were transported to Ardsley Manor in a coach emblazoned with the family’s crest and accompanied by armed outriders.

  In the 20th century, the fall of the Romanov Dynasty and the consequent flight of those Russian aristocrats fortunate enough not to be shot in basements provided ample opportunity for the Ardsleys to further expand their collection. Although members of the British royal family were particularly aggressive in acquiring at bargain prices gems their desperate cousins had smuggled into exile before packing the dazed refugees off to live in France, others including the Ardsleys also benefited from the windfall.

  The configuration of a large part of the collection into a single roped necklace of remarkable length and purity was accomplished in the 1950s by the renowned House of Cartier. Today, the Ardsley Pearls remain in the gift of the current Marquess, recently married, who is rumored to have bestowed them upon his lovely young wife.

  Bonus Scene

  Several days after Charles presented the Ardsley Pearls to Gemma, he requested that she wear them at dinner. She was happy to oblige even after she discovered that he meant only the pearls.

  The evening being pleasantly warm, the tall French doors stood open to admit the night scents of the garden. After a surfeit of Cook’s best--seared scallops followed by pork tenderloins with honeyed figs and a salad of wild greens topped off by berry trifle, all accompanied by Gemma’s favorite Veuve Clicquot champagne--Charles stood and held out a hand.

  He looked quite dashing in more formal attire than he customarily wore at home. His elegantly tailored double-breasted suit was at once youthful and dashing. The dark navy wool complimented his guileless blue eyes which just then were studying her with familiar intensity.

  Anticipating him, she smiled. “Another surprise?”

  Boyish excitement peeked from behind the veneer of masculine confidence. “Of a sort. There’s a meteor shower tonight. I thought you’d enjoy watching it.”

  Rising gracefully in her nakedness, she put her hand in his.

  Together, they walked out across the stone terrace and onto the lawn. Ordinarily, the house remained well lit until after midnight. But on this occasion, almost all the lights had been extinguished, creating an umbra of darkness that extended well beyond the farthest reaches of the grass.

  Even so, the waxing moon illuminated a scene that made her smile deepen. In the center of the lawn, a Persian carpet in pale shades of blue, rose and ivory had been spread. Upon it stood a silken divan, also ivory, crisply modern in its lines but still evoking images of lounging courtesans and doe-eyed harem girls.

  She was vividly aware of the weight of the pearls against the curve of her breasts, over her belly and further to the cleft between her thighs. They whispered to her of secret delights.

  Charles lifted her and laid her on the divan. She breathed in the scent of soap and man, wine and fine wool as he bent over her. The brush of his fingers against the back of her neck made her tremble.

  He removed the pearl rope and held it for a moment before looping it around her wrists, drawing her arms together at the curve of her ass. She crouched, watching him as he undid his belt and freed his cock.

  Leaning forward, balanced on her knees, she parted her lips and sucked him slowly into her mouth.

  He groaned and stroked his fingers through her hair, holding her to him. Velvet over steel, hot, alive, electrifying, he tasted of the world from which the pearls had come.

  Greedily, she hollowed her cheeks, drawing him deeper and shortly felt the shudders of his big, hard body as he offered up the tribute she demanded.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Later, they sipped champagne drawn from the silver bucket beside the divan and watched as the first streaks of light appeared across the night sky.

  “Make a wish,” Charles said.

  Gemma did, though she hardly dared. Wishes, in her experience, did not come true. But perhaps this would be different. Perhaps he would make it so.

  Having freed her wrists, her husband found a new use for the pearls. Slowly, he eased the strand into her, an inch, another, a little more until her cunt was filled to overflowing with opalescent gems. The rest spilled from her, pale against the folds of her slick, pink labia, framing her swollen clit.

  “Perfect,” he murmured and bent his head to taste her.

  More streaks appeared against the sky, more and more coming faster and faster until they were beyond counting, a cold fire from the heavens.

  Gemma bowed her head back and gazed up, lost in them. She was, she thought, quite thoroughly debauched. Or perhaps not entirely yet.

  For surely, there was more to come.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  There comes a time in every new marriage when it is incumbent upon the bride and groom to allow the outside world into their charmed circle of connubial bliss.

  As their first house party descends on Ardsley Manor,

  Tempting Gemma

  continues in

  Book Four

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  His Lordship’s Downfall

  With profound apologies to Jane Austen, who through no fault of her own inspired this tale of dark contemporary romance. Although M/F, monogamous and HEA, this story is far more explicit than any I’ve written before. Sexual exploitation, casual misogyny, brazen revenge, graphic language including frequent appearances of the c- word, and the use of unconventional devices for intimate purposes are only a few of its many sins. Read solely at your own discretion.