A Most Unconventional Match (26 page)

Her breathing had accelerated too. More than anything, she wanted to keep him here…but how?

A flash of inspiration striking, she said, ‘I've been working steadily while you were gone—on one painting in particular. May I show it to you before you leave?'

Absently he nodded, his eyes focused as if mesmerised at her hand stroking his arm. Rising with him, she retained her hold on his arm. 'Twas a miracle she didn't fall on the stairs, so intently focused was she on his tall body beside hers, the faint warm brush of his breath against her cheek.

Carrying a branch of candles from the hallway into the darkened studio, she led him over to the painting on her easel. ‘I thought to do a classical study—perhaps a Roman senator, like the sculpted busts in the hallway at the Royal Academy. But I must confess that as I painted it, I envisioned…you. So much so that to make further progress, I need you to serve as my model. Will you pose for me?'

L
ooking faintly astonished, Hal blinked at her. ‘Me? Pose?'

‘'Tis not difficult,' Elizabeth assured him. ‘You merely need to stand and remain very still. It would be so helpful. I do want to improve my work, make it worthy of showing to a patron. Please, say you will!'

Looking at the flowing classical drapery over the figure's bare shoulder, Hal swallowed hard. ‘If…if it pleases you.'

If he only knew how much she wanted him to please her! Concentrate on the painting, she reprimanded. ‘Could we work just a bit tonight? With the angle of the posing. So that when I begin tomorrow, I can progress more rapidly.'

‘Now?' he asked doubtfully

‘Oh, yes. If you would?'

For a moment she feared he would enumerate all the very valid reasons why it would be most improper for him to serve as her model, especially alone in her studio with darkness beyond the circle of candlelight. But before she could implore him again, he nodded.

‘What must do?'

Elation filled her. ‘Just remain absolutely still. First you must remove your jacket, waistcoat and shirt.' She didn't name the garments without a blush heating her cheeks, but at least managed not to stumble over the words.

He stared at her. ‘Remove…' The word died out and he tapped his cravat, as if speech were now beyond him.

A fever of excitement driving her, she nodded. ‘Yes. And the coat, waistcoat and shirt.'

She was being restrained, she told herself. She made herself simply watch while he began unwinding the cravat, slowly and carefully as if savouring the gaze she'd locked on him. She had not attacked him with impatient fingers, tugging at his clothing, letting the buttons fly.

As she looked on, mesmerised, he unbuttoned his jacket. After he shrugged it off and laid it on a chair, he looked back, smiling. ‘Might mix paints,' he suggested.

‘Paints,' she repeated, the word for an instant holding no meaning whatsoever. ‘Ah, yes, paint.'

Quickly she walked to her workbench, grabbing her palette and beginning to prepare the pigment, trying to make short work of the process. When she looked back up, he had just finished removing his shirt.

The palette knife fell unnoticed from her nerveless fingers. She stood transfixed, mouth dropping open in awe as her gaze roved over the muscled contours of his arms and shoulders. Down to his hard, flat chest, where the taut nipples stood out in a soft matt of gold hair.

Her husband had been a tall man of sturdy stature—but at the time they married, he was no longer a young man in his prime. Hal was even more magnificent than she'd imagined, she marvelled as she walked over to him. If what lay beneath his breeches was as impressive as what he'd already uncovered, she might faint.

Dangerous as that knowledge might be to her consciousness, she couldn't wait to find out. In that moment, she admitted to herself that the notion of painting him had been just a sham. Seeing him, touching him, tasting him was what she'd wanted, craved, since he walked through the library door. What she'd intended when she lured him to her studio, though she'd not fully realised it at the time.

His face colouring under her rapt gaze, he fumbled for his shirt. ‘Sorry. Big lout.'

Her hand flashed out to halt his. ‘No, not at all. You're perfect. Large, commanding. A perfect Apollo.'

Nearly sighing with the joy of it, Elizabeth reached out to run her hands over his shoulders, measuring shape and contour down the muscled length of his arms, then slowly back up to his chest. He shuddered when she traced his collarbone, gasped as she trailed her fingertips over nipples that puckered under her touch, down the smooth flat plane of his abdomen toward the waistband of his breeches.

Before she could reach that goal, with a groan, he seized her hands.

‘Don't. Can't. Want you…too much.'

‘Don't you know I want you just as much?' she breathed, confessing it to herself as much as to him.

Her bravado nearly failed her when, simply staring at her, he did not reply. But having gone this brazenly far, she'd not lose her courage now. ‘Well, Hal Waterman,' she said boldly, ‘are you going to make me beg?'

He gave his head a little shake, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly. ‘You…want me?'

‘Oh, yes. Please. Now.'

Swallowing hard, he brought his big hands up to gently cradle her face. ‘Sure? Want you…so much.'

Brazen again, she stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down. Every sense exulted as she captured his lips.

He bent to give her better access, opened his mouth to her probing tongue. Then somehow she was sitting on his lap while he sat back, crushing his garments on the chair. He cradled her against his chest, pursuing her tongue with his own, exploring every soft depth and lush contour of her mouth, sending rivers of fire to every extremity.

She wanted the kiss never to end. She wanted to break it and move her greedy mouth over the stubble of his chin, nibbling and biting down to the hollow of his neck. Rub her cheek against the golden hair of his chest while she teased the tight, erect nipples with her tongue. Slide her fingers down under the waistband of his breeches and grasp the hard pulsing smoothness of his erection.

But first she wanted to feel her naked breasts against his chest, the soft broad expanse of a bed beneath her while he touched her and she sampled him and then took him into herself, moulded and melded until passion fused them, the two becoming one.

Finally he pulled away, his heartbeat thundering under her fingertips. ‘Madness,' he gasped. ‘Must…stop now.'

‘No!' She clutched his shoulders to prevent his disengaging from her and shook her head frantically. ‘Don't stop. Come with me. Please!'

There could be no doubt what she wanted of him. ‘Sure?' he asked again, his gaze riveted to her face.

She might have a hundred regrets tomorrow, but at this moment, the demon of need and longing drove every one from her head. ‘I'm sure.'

She almost sobbed with relief when, at last, he nodded. Easing her off his lap, haphazardly he threw on shirt, waistcoat, jacket, looped his neckcloth over them and took her hand. She led him to the door, opened it silently and peered down the hallway.

All the servants should be below stairs, relaxing after their evening meal. But with a guest still in the house, one footman lingered in the front entryway.

‘Wait,' she whispered to Hal.

Rapidly she strode down the hall. ‘James, would you fetch more candles for my studio? The ones there have burned low and I shall need new ones to work tomorrow morning. Then you may retire. I'll show our guest out.'

As the footman headed to the service stairs, Elizabeth ran back to take Hal's hand. Quickly she led him through the entry, up the stairs and into her chamber.

Before he could question her again, before any doubts could assail her at the wisdom of what she was doing, she locked the door behind them, then reached up to pull him to her in another kiss.

As if accepting her decision, there was no longer any tentativeness in his touch. Hunted became hunter as he nipped and sucked her lips before delving into her mouth, teasing her tongue, withdrawing and recapturing it again.

Whimpering, she tugged at his dishevelled clothes. Without breaking the kiss, he shed them until he once again stood only in breeches and boots. But before she could urge him to the bed and reach for his trouser buttons, he caught her hands. After scouring her tongue once more, sending a shower of sparks to her nipples, her core, he turned her and began undoing the small buttons of her bodice.

The garment freed of fastenings and pins, she would have tossed it aside and attacked her stays, impatient to be free of every impediment, but he once again stilled her hands and shushed her protesting murmurs. Drawing the bodice off her slowly, he palmed her through the fabric of her stays and chemise, his stroking fingers burning against her sensitised body. With equal tantalising slowness he loosed and removed the stays, then traced the outline of her ribs and breasts through the fine linen of her chemise, only that thin layer left between his hands and bare skin.

By the time he finally loosed her skirt, petticoat and slid down her stockings, she was nearly frantic for the feel of those warm hands upon her nakedness. But instead of stripping off her chemise, he knelt before her.

With agonising slowness, he raised the garment's hem. She shivered at the cool air on her skin, then trembled violently as he licked and kissed her toes, her ankles, the arches of her feet, leaving in the wake of his tongue a wetness that both chilled and inflamed her.

It was fortunate he then picked her up, for delirious from the incredible sensations induced by his nibbling lips and spiralling tongue, her legs went suddenly boneless. Catching her before she collapsed, he kissed her as he carried her to the bed, his tongue stroking deep, possessing her utterly.

Breaking the kiss, he settled her against the pillows and resumed his slow ascent of her body, tugging the chemise up as he went. Trembling with anticipation, shuddering as he explored and mapped each new inch of her with tongue and fingertip, she arched her back while he moved closer, closer, closer to the throbbing centre of her desire.

She cried out when he parted the glistening folds, sobbed as his tongue glided gently over and around that tender nub. Then she was gasping, frantic, as he deepened the pressure, stroking harder, faster. Tension spiralled tighter and tighter, propelling her upwards until she reached the peak and shattered.

Colours spun and whirled before dissolving into black as wave after wave of sensation shuddered through her. She must have fainted in truth, for when she grew conscious again, she was cradled in Hal's arms, her head tucked in the hollow of his shoulder.

Once her brain resumed functioning, awe and wonder expanded in her chest. She'd been seven years a wife, had slowly come to appreciate the tenderness and pleasure possible between a man and a woman. But though her coupling with Everitt had been gentle and joyous, he had never touched her, tantalised her and brought her to the pinnacle of ecstasy as Hal just had.

With one limp hand, she touched his cheek. ‘Wonderful,' she murmured, still too replete to move.

He smiled down at her, such an immense tenderness in his expression that her heart swelled and soared with joy. Surely he felt for her the love she felt for him!

‘You wonderful,' he whispered back.

For a few more languid moments he held her, then shifted on the bed. ‘Better go now.'

‘No!' she cried, clutching his shoulder. Her repertoire of lovemaking skills might be scant, but she knew that though he'd pleasured her, he had not reached fulfilment himself. How she wished to make for him the same journey he had taken for her! A journey that would be as unprecedented in her experience as the one through which she'd just been guided.

‘Not yet,' she repeated, pushing him back against the pillows. Conscious of—yet for once, unembarrassed by—her nudity, she straddled him. A little thrill streaked through her when the solidness of his erection rubbed against her. With a little gasp, she pressed down harder and felt him leap under her, sparking a stronger bolt of sensation.

Perhaps she was not yet fully satisfied after all, she thought with wonder as she pulled the rest of the pins from her ruined coiffure and let the tangled blonde mass cascade down over them.

Then, beginning at his chin, she brought to glorious life the countless dreams in which she had licked and stroked, nuzzled and nipped, descending the ridge of jaw to the plane of his shoulder, the hollow of his collarbone. He cried out when she kneaded the pebbled nipple between her teeth, tasted the salty tang of perspiration on his skin while she licked down his chest to his waistband. With trembling fingers, she finally unfastened the buttons and let his erection spring free.

Marvelling at its perfection, she drew awed fingers down its length, her inner passage quivering at the realisation that, soon, this silken hardness would fill her completely. But first, she simply must taste him.

He cried out again at the first touch of her tongue, then seized her and dragged her up on to his chest.

‘Can't…last,' he gasped, his face strained.

Tenderly she leaned down and kissed him before sliding back down to straddle him, guiding him into the passage that ached to receive him.

She felt stretched and gloriously full as she took in more and more of his length. Then, impelled by instinct as old as mankind, she began to move on top of him.

The sensation was familiar—and yet different, more intense, more exciting than anything she'd previously experienced. Joined with him from above, without the weight of his body binding her in place, she was free to move as swift and deep, shallow and slow as she desired.

Hal strained upwards and pulled her to him, capturing one nipple between his teeth. The throbbing between her legs intensified as he suckled her hard and fast.

The sensations built quickly this time, so powerful and intense that she was helpless to slow them. Within minutes she once again reached the peak, plummeting into the abyss as she shattered into a million shards of bliss, exulting as Hal's cry of completion blended with her own.