Tempting Gemma 5 Page 4

  It was only a matter of time and very little of that…

  The climax that seized him followed his sweet little wife’s by milliseconds. He had sought to repay her trickery in getting him to agree to all that redecorating business that was turning staid old Ardsley Manor on its head. Not that he wasn’t grateful that she had done so; he could scarcely wait to hit the bowling alley. But a man had to be master of his own domain or he might as well hang up his balls and be done with it.

  Even so, all he really managed to do was experience--yet again--the sensation of the top of his head coming off even as the balls in question were wrung dry. That being the case, he was hardly in any condition to absorb the obvious lesson that a wife of Gemma’s sterling quality was always going to win in the end. But he did sense it far in the back of his mind and found it oddly comforting.

  Having only just managed to roll to one side to avoid crushing her, Charles lay for a few moments until his shattered senses collected themselves enough for him to recall where he was…and why. Propped up on an elbow, he removed the blindfold and gazed deeply into his wife’s lovely eyes.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked.

  Gemma blinked. Think…? Oh, yes, to employ one’s mind rationally and deliberatively. As though she was in any shape for that.

  A giggle escaped her but she did manage to take a quick glance around. Given what had just occurred, she might be pardoned for expecting something altogether different from what she encountered. Hanging suspended from the ceiling being so delicious tormented, she had imagined a playroom of a very adult sort. More for balling than bowling.

  She giggled again only to press her fingertips to her mouth as the full extent of what surrounded her took hold.

  A large, high-ceilinged room bright with southern light. Easels of varying sizes, a large drawing table, storage racks, cabinets, stacks of blank canvases, and so much more. There was even a gizmo hanging from the ceiling designed to hold and maneuver the larger canvases. Or to restrain a wife while she was deliciously tormented.

  “Charles…” His name was a caress on her tongue. She sat up, still looking all around, and shook her head in disbelief. Her vision had become just a bit blurry.

  Blinking back tears, she asked, “You did all this?”

  “Well, technically, Ricci came up with the design and had his workmen do it. I just told him that I wanted a place for you to paint, draw, whatever you like.”

  He smiled in that way and added, “Course then I thought it wouldn’t hurt to add one or two embellishments.”

  Like the wrought-iron bed where they were sprawled on red satin sheets? Or the chaise lounge on the other side of the studio, very much like the one in the Boar Room, where a weary artiste might rest her bottom while her irrepressible husband pleasured her.

  “This was very good of you.” It was oddly difficult to speak but she managed all the same. “Thank you so much.”

  When he would have reached for her, she eluded his grasp and slipped from the bed. Not bothering with anything so silly as a sheet to conceal her nakedness, she said, “Stay right where you are.”

  Her husband raised a brow but he looked too well satisfied--for the moment--to mind her being just a little bossy.

  “Why?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Because I’m going to sketch you. Then later, who knows, a life-sized portrait perhaps.” She was already seeing it in her mind, Charles in all his glory. It might have to be a series.

  “Brad will want one of his own,” he cautioned with a fond glance at his momentarily sated appendage.

  “Not a painting, something in bronze perhaps,” Gemma agreed. In her mind’s eye, she could already see it. “Six feet tall at least and perfectly proportioned with every exquisite detail. We can put it in the garden where people can admire it while they pretend to be shocked.”

  “Marvelous idea,” Charles said but what he was really thinking was how very pleasant it was to see his little wife so taken with what he had given her. More than pearls, more than diamonds, this gift was an unparalleled success. He would have to set himself to the happy task of discovering what else she might like.

  “But I don’t think they’ll have to pretend,” he added with a grin.

  Gemma scarcely heard him. She had found a notebook and a set of pencils, and was eagerly at work. Already, she had decided, it would definitely have to be a series.

  Chapter Six

  Tillie’s visit continued most pleasantly. She and Charles had hit it off at once; the fact that she so clearly liked him reassured Gemma that her hopeful instincts regarding her husband were not wrong.

  The greater surprise was the ready friendship that sprang up between Tillie and Antonio. A decade her junior, he was nonetheless obviously smitten by her beauty and the warmth of her nature. For her part, Tillie took his admiration in stride even as she returned it in full measure. Gemma quickly learned to knock before entering any room they were in.

  While Antonio worked miracles in the house, Tillie made several suggestions regarding the gardens that improved them considerably. But much more importantly, she found the spring.

  It emerged from beneath the ground in a little grotto not far from the pavilion overlooking the lake. Almost as quickly, it submerged again, but not before spilling into a stone basin set into the mossy soil and surrounded by a copse of ancient oak trees.

  Having returned from a trip to the village where she had found much to discuss with Mrs. Bambridge, among other things the vegetable mongers’ wife, Tillie said, “Unless I have misunderstood and I don’t think that I have, the inhabitants of Ardsley consider this spring to be sacred. Their devotion to it appears to go back centuries, if not far longer.”

  “You don’t say,” Gemma murmured. While that was no surprise given the unorthodox goings-on in Ardsley, she was reluctant to chat about it with anyone from outside, even Tillie. Someday perhaps, just not quite yet.

  She was staring down at the softly gurgling water when a thought occurred to her. “Do you think there’s any way to track the course of this spring?”

  Had it run along the surface, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Underground water was, she had to assume, much more difficult to trace.

  Even so, Tillie didn’t hesitate. “Of course, you just need a good dowser.” With a smile, she added, “Fortunately, I happen to be one.”

  Gemma recalled just then that her dear friend did have an unusual knack for finding the best sources of water. Such was her skill that she had a nice side business consulting for several well digging companies throughout the south of England.

  Accordingly, later that day after Tillie had found and acquired a forked willow branch that she liked, they set out. Seeing what they were up to, Charles and Antonio decided to come along. Optimistically, they brought shovels with them.

  Beginning at the grotto, the four made their way in a meandering course over the Ardsley estate following where Tillie led. To an uninformed spectator, their behavior would have looked quite odd, rather like four adults playing a children’s game. Yet they were all quite serious about it, Antonio because Tillie was, Charles and Gemma because they had firsthand experience with the ineffable something that inhabited the manor.

  So far as Tillie could divine, the spring ran first east, then south. It appeared to extend over the greater part of the property surrounding the estate.

  “That’s interesting,” she remarked after they had covered several miles. “I thought the wellspring was in the grotto but the water is actually flowing toward there from another source.”

  Having paused at noon for a picnic lunch provided by Cook, they continued on with renewed determination. It was mid-afternoon when they came to a stop in the shadow of the south wall of the manor house.

  The willow branch, its forked ends grasped in both of Tillie’s capable hands, pointed downward.

  Softly, she said, “The wellspring is here. I can feel it most powerfully. It is rising from deep within the earth d
irectly under the house.”

  “How extraordinary,” Charles said. “What are the odds that my ancestors would site the old manse right over it?”

  “What indeed?” Gemma murmured but secretly she was delighted.

  At the first opportunity, she drew Antonio aside and had a private word with him. He understood at once what she desired and assured her that it could be done with no great difficulty. With her permission, he would consult with Tillie to determine the best way to go about it.

  Within the week, a small portion of the powerful flow from deep within the earth had been diverted into the special surprise that Gemma had planned for her husband.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The idea had come to her during their star gazing expedition a few weeks before. After recovering from the lascivious use to which the Ardsley pearls had been put, Gemma fell to thinking. As much as she had enjoyed their interlude on the lawn, she could not help but wish for a place where they might indulge themselves without concern for a sudden rain squall, an invasion of ants or the wandering gaze of curious neighbors. Not to mention that the lawn was out of the question in any season apart from summer.

  Of course, there was the master bedroom but while Charles was amenable to some redecorating there, he had specified that the bed was to remain. For sentiment, he insisted. More likely for his fond memories of her and that damn knob, Gemma thought but she was loath to say so, preferring instead to dismiss the entire incident.

  Instead, she had decided that what was needed was neutral territory. A place created just for the two of them together. With the further inspiration provided by several particular fantasies she had involving her husband, the details had come together quickly.

  Antonio truly was a marvel, she thought scarcely a fortnight after the discovery of the wellspring beneath Ardsley. Standing in the manor’s newly extended wing on the other side of the gym, she looked around with a deep sense of satisfaction.

  All was exactly as she had hoped it would be. A sparkling, stone-lined pool filled with the water from the spring faced a glass wall with a view over the rolling lawns and beyond toward the grotto. Nearby was a birch-lined sauna with an equally appealing view. But her favorite part was the circular island at the center of the pool, its surface well-padded and perfect for what she had in mind.

  Satisfied that all was at it should be, she went in search of her husband.

  “Turnabout is fair play,” Gemma reminded him as she stood on tiptoe to secure the blindfold over his wary gaze.

  “What have you done now, woman?” he grumbled even as he came along uncomplainingly. His congenial mood was no surprise. They had spent the previous evening watching an old movie in the new screening room followed by bowling. She blushed to think of what he had persuaded her to do with one of the pins.

  Now she had a different sort of amusement in mind.

  Music was playing softly as she guided him into the spa. Something New Age with harps and flutes. The air system was pleasantly scented with a mix of sage, ginger and a hint of citrus. The sound of splashing water filled the large, tranquil space.

  “What’s this?” Charles inquired. His head came up, nostrils flaring. He looked a cross between a mastiff and something even larger and more leonine.

  “It’s a surprise,” Gemma said. She reached up to undo the blindfold and removed it with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

  He blinked, looked and blinked again. At her, not at what she had accomplished with Antonio, Tillie and the legion of workmen’s help. Really, he could be most trying.

  “Did I pick that out for you?” her husband asked. He appeared quite fixated on what she was wearing, his jaw slightly agape and his eyes laser focused.

  She sighed. “I assume you did. It was in my dressing room.”

  Had she realized that the stretchy black lace one-piece cut high on her hips, low on her tits and lacking a crotch would be so distracting she might have worn something else. Although probably not.

  While it was undeniably appealing to be the singular focus of her husband’s admiration, she felt a need for him to appreciate more than just her body.

  “What do you think of the new addition?” Gemma prodded.

  He ignored the question and reached for her. “I think, Lady Ardsley, that you are thoroughly fuckable and--” he added more softly, “that I’m a very lucky man.”

  Yes, well that was fine so far as it went. But she wanted a good deal more. Without a hint of embarrassment, she coaxed, “You like it, don’t you? I was so sure that you would.”

  “Like what?” Alerted to danger by her budding pout, Charles recollected himself. He took a quick look around only to stop when his gaze hit the pool lined in green travertine marble and sparkling in the sunlight filtering through the wall of glass.

  “Is that--?”

  “A heated soaking pool fed by the spring that Tillie found? Yes, it is and it’s marvelous. Something in the water makes it so soft and soothing. We can try it later but first--”

  Swiftly, Gemma undressed her husband. As he was wearing only his favorite cargo shorts that didn’t take very long Even so, she made a little production of it, swaying downward slowly inch by inch until the shorts were gone and she was on her knees, gazing up at him fetchingly.

  “This place is growing on me,” Charles said.

  “Good, because there’s something I’ve been dying to do.”

  Brad bobbed encouragingly. “By all means, sweetheart,” his spokesman said. “What’s mine is yours.”

  Her smile turned coy. She stood, wrapped a hand around Brad, who nuzzled her palm affectionately, and said, “No, not that. Come with me.”

  The expression ‘led around by his cock’ was not one that the Marchioness of Ardsley would ever have wished applied to himself. Not that he objected to Brad showing initiative, not at all. Still, a man liked to know that he was in command.

  Or perhaps not. Especially when he took note of just where his sweet little wife was leading him.

  “Lie down,” she said, gesturing to the padded surface of the island at the center of the pool. “I’m going to give you a lovely massage.”

  A built-in caddy held an array of scented oils. Various other implements were close to hand. Charles smiled. He was prepared to indulge an amateur effort for a few minutes before taking control and rewarding her with a good rumpy-pump.

  Half-an-hour later, stars were exploding in his field of vision. His roars of ecstasy reverberated off the walls of the spa. Every muscle, tendon and vessel in his body strained in the grip of a relentless orgasm that simply would not release him from its merciless hold.

  It was her thumb up his ass that had done it. That and every other sinfully delightful touch, stroke and caress. Not to mention the lashing with the bundle of birch twigs. His ball were still stinging from that.

  Brad was standing at full attention and saluting while doing his best imitation of a volcanic explosion. The kind that devastates the surrounding countryside, spews tons of matter into the atmosphere and produces extraordinary sunsets for months to come.

  Even after the eruption had slowed to a mere staggered trickle of final spurts, waves of bliss continued to swell and crest in Charles’ poor, addled brain. Whole areas of knowledge were destroyed in the conflagration--all that damned poetry he’d been required to memorize at school: The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled, that sort of rubbish; Latin verb conjugations --ego sum, tū es, is est, nōs sumus, vōs éstis, iī sunt--poof, gone. Not that he’d ever been good at that sort of thing.

  He would discover later to his great relief that his encyclopedic grasp of cricket statistics remained intact, as did his store of limericks.

  But first there was something else he needed to clarify. When he finally regained the power of speech, Charles said a bit diffidently, “If you don’t mind, where exactly did you learn how to do that?”

  His dear little wife snuggled against him, her silken limbs entwined with his. She was such an un
expected delight and he was becoming so fond of her. Yet, she was certainly full of surprises which was good, in its own way. A fellow didn’t want to be bored. But he did want an explanation when one was so obviously and flagrantly due.

  “Why at dear old Mary Magdalene,” she said. “Where else?”

  Charles managed to raise his head just enough to peer down at the top of hers. “Seriously, you learned that at school?”

  “What did you imagine they teach there? Political science, economics and the like?”

  “Well, no, I didn’t think that. But still--”

  “The curriculum is quite varied. Would you like to hear about it?”

  Charles was undeniably curious, one might even say eager to learn what other skills his wife had acquired. As he was scarcely able to move for the moment, it seemed as good a time as any to indulge her fondness for storytelling.