A Gentlewoman's Ravishment by Portia Da Costa Page B

but still speaks explicitly of a man. The beauty of the fragrance only intensifies my trembling, and instead of cowering in a corner, I can’t help but gravitate toward the source of the scent. My unseen and also as yet unspeaking captor.
    A mouth settles on mine. A man’s mouth, with lips that are soft, almost velvety and yet muscular. Immediately he compels me to part my own lips and admit his tongue into the moist heat of my mouth. His tongue subdues mine, taking possession of me without effort and with no expectation of resistance. I’m rendered helpless but the sensation melts my belly.
    My kissing captor tastes as sweet as he smells, and if I were a weaker woman I’d swoon from the pleasure of it. But I’m strong. I don’t want to faint away and miss a second of this. Even though I’m in deadly danger, my senses are firing, my spirits lifting. So I enjoy him and his kiss becomes a laugh as my tongue seeks his.
    Am I too bold? Am I inciting my doom? Probably. But somehow I crave it. This is my fantasy, the one I described, brought to reality as if to order.
    The trundling motion of the speeding carriage is unbearably stimulating. Every nerve in my body is sensitized, and as we bump over cobbles, every knock and lurch excites the secret hidden parts of me that yearn for contact. Still kissing me, my abductor slides his hand under my short walking cloak and cups my breast quickly and roughly. Through my gown and my chemise, he flicks my nipple, coaxing it out from beneath the top edge of my corset. As he plays with it and rolls it between finger and thumb, my hips roll too.
    “So wanton,” he whispers against my mouth, his voice rasping and barely audible. He plucks at my nipple and I bounce on the seat as if my sex wants to press against him of its own accord. Still kissing me, he wrenches open the top of my gown, sending buttons pinging around the interior of the carriage, then reaches in with a bold, ungloved hand to touch my skin.
    His fingers are hot against my bare nipples, stroking and circling impudently, first one then the other. Tossing my head, I see his swarthy skin contrasted against the whiteness of my breast, and I make noises that no respectable gentlewoman should make outside the confines of her marriage bed. Noises that some probably never make in it.
    “You like that,” he growls. It’s an accusation, not a question, and I purse my lips wanting to shout, Yes, yes, yes!
    Bending over me, and divesting me of my cloak entirely, he presses his mouth against my breast, sucking a nipple between his lips and lapping at it with his tongue in a fast flickering action. I make those noises all over again, louder this time. As I gasp and moan, I wonder dreamily if he thinks this bold tactic of his will distract me.
    Divert my attentions from what his hands are now about.
    He’s pulling up my skirts and petticoats and I’m powerless to stop him because my hands are bound. Pressed back awkwardly against the upholstery, I can do nothing to stop him invading the world of my undergarments, pushing the layers of gabardine and flannel and linen aside to get to my drawers. With one last long, lewd sucking kiss to my breast, and a wicked nip of his teeth, he abandons my nipple in favor of focusing his attentions farther south.
    Being in darkness intensifies everything. Makes touch and scent and sound rule the realm of the senses. I hear his steady breathing as he goes about me. It seems so little affected by the excitement that grips me, as if he’s used to kidnapping women and making free with them on a daily basis. As if exploring their drawers is nothing exceptional to him.
    His scent seems to grow stronger and more intoxicating. Maybe it’s a special receipt? One that has narcotic powers to drug his victims and make them yield willingly to him? A blend based on rare spices that inflame a woman’s passions and prime her body for the most scandalous explorations…
    Touch…oh, touch.
    His fingers are deft,