He raised his lashes for an instant. She could not meet his gaze-for her own cheeks were scarlet at the secret impulse which had overcome her. Hurriedly she dropped her own dark eyes… but she had seen, for just a moment, such a devouring hunger and gleaming anticipation in his gaze as roused sensations of both passion and terror deep in her heart.
“1 should think,” he decided, “that if you held your garments even higher… clear up to your armpits… and then walked around the room in front of me… you would be paying off some more of your debt.”
The hesitation of the distracted woman was evanescent. With an effort she raised her crumpled attire as high as was possible… till even the slopes of her lovely breasts were revealed to his watchful eyes.
She walked-or rather, faltered… across the room. She did not, perhaps fortunately, since her shame and bitter confusion were already so great as almost to deprive her of the power of locomotion, hear the gasp of delight he gave as he watched the nakedness of her lovely buttocks swaying as she walked.
She turned again towards him. Catching his mood and so feeling herself under the necessity of catering to it… and feeling stronger too as little thrills arose which she found just would manifest themselves when she thus exhibited her nudity-she walked all about the room.
She was more conscious of the utter indecency of the picture she presented… shod and stockinged but nude from her bosom to her long hosiery-than of the fleshly loveliness of it. Yet she knew this beauty to exist-and she knew too that she was setting this man's senses on fire-and this knowledge added poignancy to the involuntary thrills which overran her as she paraded round the room with bowed head and flaming face.
Francis Freeman halted her with a word. “Come here now!” he said slowly. “You know what you have to do! I want you like an opened package directly beneath my eyes…”
Not venturing to lower her attire, Rose stumbled over towards his chair. With a gesture he showed that he wished her to lie transversely over his parted knees. She lay thus-and her nakedness shivered ripplingly under his inspecting eyes.
And then with touches that not only suggested but aided her in acrobatics of the most licentious order, he caused her to raise her knees and spread them apart Her feet rested on the arm of his broad chair. Her naked thighs were widely parted-and little quivering and involuntary movements flexed their muscles in a most suggestive manner.
“More-more… still more!” he ordered. “That's it! Now raise your bottom… hang your head and shoulders over the arm of the chair! I want your crotch right under my eyes!”
Chapter VI
ROSE succeeded in achieving the infinitely indecent posture he demanded. She was trembling like a leaf as she yielded him thus every inch of her intimacies for closest personal inspection. Her legs were so distended that the delicately rosy slit which began on the lower slope of her plump and delicious mound and continued downward in seductive charm within her crotch-was pouting visibly.
Further back he could discern the puckered brown of her tight little rear opening. Although her eyes were shut tight, she seemed to sense the flame which shot from his inspecting eyes. His gaze seemed to scorch her intimate flesh. For several minutes-perhaps three or four-he sat there and scanned her charms.
Beneath her back that swelling protrusion in his lap seemed to be more formidable than ever-an unbelievable monster of throbbing flesh. And Rose was not aware that, despite the shame born of her odious compliance with his demands, she was vibrating now as much from sensuality as from distress.
She did not realize this-until he touched her. And with the thrill of that almost imperceptible touch on her warm pouting cleft, the unhappy woman quivered violently — and moaned with passion. For once more her state of tense lust was such that his merest touch sufficed to drive her wild with desire.
And now he was more cruel to her than ever. For just when she could have screamed aloud for more precise caresses, just when she would have welcomed the invasion instead of the mere caresses of that finger-just when he could have thrown her on her back on the rug and taken her body without any protest-he desisted from touching her any further.
He closed her legs and raised her to a sitting position. His left arm held her by the bare waist-but he smoothed down her garments quite decorously in front, save where her naked thighs peeped out from her disordered skirt One hand still remained with its controlling fingers buried within the patch of curling hair above her crotch. And those same fingers moved mouldingly… forbidding her senses to entirely subside.
He released her, at last with words which astonished her. “You may show me these books-these accounts- that are pertaining to your business. Sit here by my side and show me.”
She slipped from his lap-and shook down her garments about her body. But Francis Freeman was eyeing her as she prepared to take her chair beside him-eyeing her and shaking his head.
“For a woman who is noted for the beauty and good taste of her attire, Rose…”he observed, “you are certainly in a sad state now. Just look at the crumpled condition of that pretty gown! You should at least be suitably dressed when you are working with me!”
Rose flushed and hung her-head like a child. She could find no words with which to reproach his mockery.
“You may discard the gown,” he said tranquilly. “And your shoes and stockings as well. You will sit here beside me in whatever underwear you chance to have on.”
Another ordeal to go through-and she underwent it with a fascinated submission that astonished hen Clad in her still unbuttoned panties, with the silken strap which should have closed them hanging downward between her legs, she sat and removed her shoes and stockings under his interested gaze.
“Your feet are really very pretty,” he said simply. And he made her lift one naked foot after the other to his lap for a pleased appraisal of their soft whiteness and symmetry and of the manicured pinkness of her small toes.
They sat now-and he pored over her books. Uneasy at first over her scanty apparel-which seemed even more shocking not that she was engaged in a business way-Rose soon became absorbed in replying to his real sharp queries as he ran rapidly through her files.
Yet even in his absorption in business, he continued to dismay Rose by a sudden display of sentiments having very little bearing on such transactions. For she gave him some erroneous information regarding overdue payments. And he detected her blunder instantly.
“You must not waste my time. Rose!” he reprimanded her, “by giving me any such misinformation.”
He eyed her once more Bushing face and the lovely body so gauzily clad. Through the lace and silk at the bosom of her garment the delicate curves of her breasts were more than visible.
“I think that you shall strip off that last garment as a slight form of reprimand,” he said. “And in atonement for your mistake, you shall sit by my side quite naked while I check through the remainder of the accounts.”
Poor Rose gasped with dismay when she heard his harsh decree. Never yet had she been entirely naked before him. But she staggered to her feet and obeyed him-hesitantly letting her last garment, and displaying all her lovely nudity to the full.
Francis Freeman seemed quite matter of fact about the situation, and from his expression you might have thought that he was quite accustomed to holding business meetings with a lady who was stark naked. He waved the scarlet faced and embarrassed Rose to her chair.
“Now then,” he said, “remain entirely silent for a few minutes, if you please…” And he selected a number of documents and began to run through them with rapidity.
Rose… looking like a bashful and ashamed young girl from the shoulders up — and far otherwise from the shoulders down… stole fleeting glances at his face. The fact that he did not look at her at all — that he had not paid her any attention since she drew her last remaining garment over her head and dropped it to the floor… made it somewhat easier for her to sit thus at his side.