Page 10 of Prescription for Sin

“Do you need a moment to gather your thoughts, Mr Hughes?”

The wench was challenging him. He chuckled at her sauciness. “Are you certain you wish to hear my reply?”

Her composure wavered for a moment before she resumed her stoicism. “I am ready. Do your worst.”

Everett guffawed at this, unable to contain his amusement. He stood and circled around the room once, then leaned against the wall to gaze at her from a distance. She waited patiently with her spine ramrod straight and her eyes looking in his direction. Her hair glowed copper in the orange light. How small she looked.

He wondered for a moment if he could use her delicate form as his insatiable appetite demanded without breaking her. But first thing’s first. There was the issue of her query.

“The short answer is no,” he said.

“No?” Her surprise was evident in her wide eyes and puckered lips.

“The long answer is that it depends on the woman,” he said as he approached. “For instance, if the lady required prolonged intercourse to achieve her aim, my stamina would certainly help.” He observed with satisfaction that Miss Brown’s mouth fell open in spite of herself. He, then, leaned against the table only a few feet from her, just to be an arse.

“Sometimes, I want my woman to be completely at my mercy,” he said conversationally without looking at her. “Fortunately, there are ladies who welcome such a position of helplessness. I might tie her to bed as you had so freely offered earlier. While I love teasing her, so she’d beg for my cock, I also love holding her up against the wall while I fuck her senseless. There’s something very primal about testing one’s strength while she screams my name in ecstasy. I should point out that the hard surface allows me to hammer into her more forcefully than the bed.”

Everett crossed his legs, acutely aware of his stirring member. He continued in a conversational tone. “It’s not often that I am satiated, but I was lucky enough once, to bed a lady who needed me to be inside her for hours before she could achieve orgasm. I gladly obliged for seven hours, give or take a quarter of an hour. Multiple orgasms for her, mind you, while I maintained my erection. I certainly did not complain. The climax was…” he let out a wistful sigh, “heavenly, one of the most intense sensations I have ever experienced.”

A memory came to him, and he chuckled, repositioning his hips away from her view. His cock was whining for attention quite uncomfortably now. Still avoiding looking at her so he couldn’t give himself away, he rolled up his sleeves. Heat was creeping up from his groin to his neck. He planted his hands on the table behind him and leaned back further.

“I tell you, Miss Brown. Nothing pleased me more about my gymnastics training than the time I had an unplanned rendezvous with a woman in a dark alleyway between two brick walls. Unfortunately, the walls were such that we could barely squat. The lady was quite eager to suck my cock, so I did a handstand. I’m—” Everett turned his head sharply toward Miss Brown as the wooden legs of her chair screeched. In his commitment to his role, he’d quite forgotten to monitor the lady’s response.

Blood had drained from her face and her hand was pressing against her stomach.

“Are you quite all right, Miss?” he asked, suppressing panic. He’d gone too far and may have damaged his chances of accomplishing his mission. Would she demand he take his depraved arse elsewhere this very night?

When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat awkwardly. He then added in a dignified tone, “The long answer, therefore, is that if the lady wishes it, my strength, flexibility, and stamina would undoubtedly help bring her pleasure. However, if it is tenderness she needs…” he rubbed the back of his neck as she brought the wineglass to her cheek, “…then my physical training is not as essential.”

She knew nothing of passionate coupling, Emma realised. Her attention had already been drifting from Mr Hughes’s rich baritone to the way his throat moved when he spoke. When he leaned against the table, rolling up his sleeves, she caught herself studying the deep lines of his forearm musculature and the thick veins pulsing beneath his skin.

Her breath quickened traitorously as he chuckled and began to describe his past encounters in detail. Heat bloomed across her chest and warmth spread through her veins, pooling between her thighs. The savage way he spoke of coupling—multiple orgasms, his erection, and seven hours… Oh God. His words evoked in her mind images of his powerful body pressed against her, stirring dizzying rush of heat that both thrilled and alarmed her.

Her legs began to tremble as she tightened her muscles. The delightful sensation made her ache, that made her want to press her sex against his body and moan… And when he said those words, “…sucked her cunt,” she shot up from her chair before the sensation could surge. She must not lose all decorum, she told herself. Salvaging what little dignity she had left, she lifted her chin and straightened her spine.

“Are you quite all right, Miss?” he asked,

"Merely warm," she managed, though her skin tingled and she was soaked between her legs. She pressed her hands flat against her stomach, mortified to have reacted in such a fashion to a stranger’s words. Mere descriptions! Yet her pulse continued to race, and she found herself wondering how much pleasure his body would bring if his words could shatter her control.

Heaven help me. A handstand!

This was madness. She was a physician, not an innocent, and her medical knowledge of cunnilingus and intercourse could fill a book. But even as she reached for her professional composure, he smiled that devastating half-smile that seemed to bypass all her careful defences.

A research. A specimen. Seven days.

Everett watched Emma’s fingers trace the rim of her wineglass, mesmerised by their precise movements. The same fingers that had stitched his wounds now seemed oddly vulnerable in the candlelight.

“I… I must turn in—” she began.

“What drew you to nursing?” he asked hastily, surprising himself with his genuine want of her company. He told himself it was part of his investigation, but the warmth in his chest when she smiled suggested otherwise.

Emma seemed taken back by the question, but she sat back down as her eyes soon grew distant. “My mother died shortly after I was born,” she began, her voice carrying an old sadness. “My father had been ill with a mysterious affliction but had managed quite well when Mother was alive. After her passing, he deteriorated rapidly, and the illness bound him to a wheelchair and clouded his mind.”

Everett sat across from her and leaned forward, struck by the honest emotion in her voice. Beneath her professional tone lay the wounded heart of a daughter.

“I watched everything,” she continued, her earlier shock and embarrassment forgotten. “The parade of doctors, each with their own theories and treatments. Some made him worse—the laudanum particularly. His mind grew foggy, his speech slurred. But then one physician recognised the true cause of these symptoms.” Her eyes brightened with remembered wonder. “Within months of changing his medicines, Father could speak clearly again. His mind returned, though his body never fully recovered.”

“That must have been remarkable to witness,” Everett said softly.