Addicted

Addicted
Charlotte Featherstone

Friends since childhood, Anais Darnby and Lindsay Markham have long harbored a secret passion for one another.When they finally confess their love, their future together seems assured, sealed with their searing embrace. But when a debauched Lindsay is seduced by a scheming socialite, a devastated Anais seeks refuge in another man's bed while Lindsay retreats to the exotic East.There, he is seduced again–this time by the alluring red smoke and sinister beauty of opium. Back home, Lindsay's addiction is fed by the vogue for all things Oriental–especially its sensual pleasures–in fashionable London society. In his lucid moments, Lindsay still lusts after Anais, who can neither allow him near nor forget his smoldering touch.Tortured by two obsessions–opium and Anais–Lindsay must ultimately decide which is the one he truly cannot live without.

ADDICTED

CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE

www.spice-books.co.uk (http://www.spice-books.co.uk)

To Joe and Olivia, who have sacrificed so much for me to fulfill my

dream. I love you more than words can say, and I thank you for being

supportive, understanding and easygoing when the house looks as

if a bomb has gone off, and we have frozen pizza or hot dogs for yet

another dinner. I swear, I’ll make it up to you at Disney!

And for my sisters who make up The Line of Pigs.

Donna “Double D,” a kindred spirit, and Tinker. Gisele,

whose brown eyes are always full of laughter and mischievousness.

Lynda, who shares my “trashy romance” fetish, and Rhonda, who is

fast becoming another romance junkie—told you Edward was hot!

To Amy, the quiet one of the bunch, whom I hear giggling when we

talk about “swords,” and another Edward groupie. Last but not least,

Joanne, aka Daisy, the lady of the group. Where would I be without

you to make the shifts tolerable? Thanks for the 4:00 a.m. chats and

giggles. Please know that you’re more than friends, you’re family,

and I could not imagine going to work and not having you there with

me. Shift after shift, you keep me going, but more important, you

keep me laughing, and isn’t that what life is all about?

Opium unites the souls of smokers who recline around the samelamp. It’s a bath in a thick atmosphere, a reunion in one bed withheavy covers, a veritable coupling that one can’t resist. There is,certainly, in each opium addict an unhappy or unsatisfied lover.

—Robert Desnos, Le Vin est Tiré

Prologue

Slave. Minion. Fiend. The others who have come before me have been called such things, but I prefer to think of myself as a disciple; a devout follower of my voluptuous mistress.

They say my lover is a sinister beauty, and perhaps they are correct. But when caught in her heady embrace there is nothing sinister about her. How can she be evil, when she bathes my body in a thousand raptures? How can she be anything but a radiant sorceress when she takes me to heights never before experienced?

No, my mistress is many things, but not a succubus in a gossamer cloak. True, she demands much from me, but I know how to coax and coddle her so that her black flesh responds to my skilled hands. Between my fingers, she melts like a woman in the throes of climax.

I warm her, care for her, wait patiently for her to cloak me in her sensual and supple embrace.

I worship her.

My relationship with my mistress is uncomplicated. I know what she desires of me; at the same time, she understands and fulfills my needs. As any mistress she is, at times, demanding to the point of suffocation, always wanting more—needing more. But when I come to her, she loves me like nothing—or no one—ever has.

All she wants is my return to her, night after night, hour after hour. And I do return with eager anticipation. She always welcomes my homecoming with outstretched arms and together, we make the sweetest, most decadent love, a love where two become one. Where I become so coiled in her powers that I never want to leave.

She is here now, I realize, as I see the gray fingers of her arrival begin to swirl up from the altar I have prepared for her. Soon she will be curling her fingers in my hair, caressing my face and covering my mouth with her evocative beauty. I will taste her heady fragrance on my tongue, inhale her bittersweet scent deep into my lungs. My mind will cloud, will begin to wander and float. I will fall back on my red velvet cushion, drunk with anticipation as I observe the couples surrounding me make love. I watch them like a disembodied voyeur. Not even the sounds and sights of an orgy surrounding me can arouse me so well as the thought of my mistress does.

Lush female bottoms, naked and pale, are before me. Breasts of every size and color attempt to beckon me. Quims, glistening, ready for the taking try to entice, but I wait for my mistress, as any dedicated lover would.

It is worth the wait, because when I am aroused and eager, my bewitching paramour will consume me with her fire and satisfy me with her skilled attention—ministrations that are much more pleasing than watching the dreamy specter of couples naked and writhing before me. While they enjoy each other’s bodies, I can only find satisfaction and pleasure in the arms of my enchantress.

Among the gossamer tendrils my mistress rises like Venus from the shell. She beckons me and I allow her to take over, her greedy hands swathing my body and mind in a frenzy of orgasmic temptations.

With a smile I forget about the women at my feet. I no longer hear their moans, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. I no longer see them riding the staffs of men as they flick their hair over their shoulders and cast me glances that invite me to join their party.

Instead, I fall back and allow my mistress to fully shroud me until I feel smothered in her intoxicating perfume.

Soon her ethereal mist will begin to evaporate and part like the branches of a tree in the wind, revealing the flesh and blood woman my body desires. The flesh and blood woman who will never be found here in this den of pleasure.

This is the moment I live for with my mistress. This power she has to conjure up my most sacred, private fantasies. The beckoning enchantment she entices me with is the glimpse of the woman I crave, the woman who has ruled my heart for so long that I can see no others except her. Desire no one but her.

Through heavy-lidded eyes I will see my flesh lover, her pale skin tinted the color of cream, her long, golden hair glistening like corn silk in the sun as she stands before the candle and brass burner. Through the vapors, I watch her disrobe for me, her breasts spilling from her gown. Unbound, they are lush and full, the pale pink nipples pearled, waiting for my hands and mouth to show her pleasure. Slowly, as if to extend my torment, she waits to reveal the rest of her lovely form.

But patiently I wait, allowing my mistress to keep her hold of me until the beauty can walk through the twisting tendrils of smoke and fall at my feet.

She is always naked, my angel, and she always desires me. The real me. The man I am. Even though my mistress is there watching, whispering into my ear.

It is always a ménage, this coming together. Always my mistress comes between my flesh lover and me. But in this world of red smoke and dreams, the two who hold me enraptured, live harmoniously side by side. There is no anger. No petty jealousy for my attention. No demands that I give up the other.

For I couldn’t. I need both like I need breath.

One rules my mind and my strength; the other, my heart, soul and body.

The one knows me as a man, an aristocrat with a secret.

The other knows me for what I am. An opium addict.

Slave, minion, fiend. I suppose I am. But I prefer to think of myself as a disciple. It is so much more palatable to believe that this path I walk is based on devotion and faith—not the bonds of slavery.