And Then He Kissed Her (24 page)

“Emma, listen to me.”

His voice sounded strange, strangled and harsh somehow, his breathing heavy, and her panic rose another notch. But then his free hand touched her face, and her panic receded. She turned her head and kissed his palm.

“It’s going to hurt, Emma.” As he spoke, his hips began moving slowly against hers and his breathing quickened even more. “There’s no way around that.”

As he moved, she could feel the hard part of him rubbing the place where he had kissed her moments before, and that delicious pleasure washed over her again at this strange, extraordinary new caress. She arched into him as she had done before, and the pleasure grew stronger, hotter. She moaned.

“Emma, I can’t wait,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I can’t hold back any longer. I just can’t.” He shifted his body to rest his weight on his forearms, buried his face against the side of her neck, and flexed his hips against her. That hard part of him pressed deeper onto her.
Into
her.

She wriggled beneath him, not quite liking this. He made a rough sound deep in his throat and turned his head to capture her mouth with his. He kissed her hard, and without warning, he gave a powerful thrust of his hips against hers that brought that large, stiff, jutting part of him fully inside her body.

Even though he’d warned her, Emma was shocked by the pain when only moments before there had been such pleasure. She gave a high,
thin cry against his mouth, her arms tightening around him, everything in her suspended by this frozen moment of violence.

Then he was kissing her—her hair, her throat, her cheek, her mouth. His breath was warm against her skin. “Emma, Emma, it’ll be all right,” he said, moving on her, pushing into her the same way she had arched against his mouth earlier. “I promise it will.”

The pain was already receding. “I’m all right, Harry,” she whispered, moving beneath him, trying to accustom herself to this very odd thing he was doing.

His movements were quickening, his thrusts against her stronger and deeper. He seemed to go into himself, almost as if he’d forgotten about her, his eyes closed and his lips parted. She watched his face, and it made her smile, for it was clear that she was pleasing him as he had pleased her. She pushed upward, and he groaned, his arms sliding beneath her as if to pull her closer, and she smiled again, liking this more now. The pain had eased to a sort of soreness deep inside, but it was nothing like before. She pushed again, matching the way he was thrusting into her as if they were dancing.

His breathing was harsh and ragged against her hair, his hips pressing hers into the mattress with quick, urgent force, and Emma began to feel it again, that wonderful thickening pleasure that he’d given her before, building, growing hotter, stronger.

Then, suddenly, shudders rocked him, and he
let out a hoarse cry. He thrust against her one last time and went still, his body covering hers, his face buried against her neck.

She stroked him, the hard, smooth muscles of his back and the thick, silky strands of his hair. When he kissed her hair and murmured her name, she felt an overpowering wave of tenderness for him like nothing she’d ever felt in her life before.

She was a fallen woman now, she realized, but she felt no regret, no shame. Just an incredible, overpowering happiness that opened and blossomed inside her like a flower turning upward toward the sun. This was what she’d hoped for, coming here to night. It was the happiness of being alive, of feeling vibrant and beautiful. Yes, she was a fallen woman now. Emma began to laugh out loud. How wonderful.

“E
mma?” Harry lifted his head, listening in amazement to the sound of her laughter, the last thing in the world he would have expected. As the waves of his orgasm had faded, reality had begun to intrude. Even with his body still on top of hers, he’d started to have apprehensions. Based on his only previous experience with a virgin, he’d expected tears, recriminations, at least regret. Her completely contrary reaction was quite a surprise. He raised himself on his
elbows, looking into her flushed, glowing face. “Why are you laughing?”

“I don’t know. I just feel happy.”

She looked it, too, smiling up at him as if he’d just handed her heaven on a plate. Relief flooded through him, relief and an overwhelming satisfaction.

She laughed again. “You look like a pirate in some operetta,” she told him. “As if you’ve just taken the ship, plundered it, and enjoyed the spoils of your villainy.”

“How apt a description.” He grinned, liking the comparison, loving the fact that she had been the one to make it. “How very apt.”

He kissed her, then lifted his body.

“Oh!” she murmured, clearly startled as he slipped his penis free of her. As he rolled to his back, she sat up, and though he tried to remove the condom quickly, she caught a glimpse. “What is that?” she asked.

He wadded up the bit of vulcanized rubber in his hand, not thinking a used condom at all worth seeing, especially with a virgin’s blood on it. But he appreciated her curiosity, and he reached over the side of the bed, feeling around on the floor for the red velvet packet. He handed it to her.

She opened it, pulled out one of the flattened rubber devices, and stared at it. “What is it for?”

“It’s to prevent you from becoming pregnant. It’s called a condom.”

“Oh!” Then, with a dawning awareness, “Ohhh.”

Color flooded her face, and she put the condom back in the packet. She handed it to him and ducked her head, plucking at the counterpane beneath them, frowning to herself.

He tossed the envelope back on the floor. “Your aunt never told you this is how babies are made, did she?”

When Emma shook her head, he felt a spark of anger. “God, why can’t people just tell their children about these things?” he muttered, and fell back into the pillows to stare at the ceiling.

“Did your father tell you, then?” she asked. “Oh, but he must have done. On your wedding day.”

“Wait ’til my wedding day? God, no! My father took me aside and told me the facts of life when I was eleven years old. Just the basic scientific facts, unfortunately. I wish he’d told me more about women.”

“My aunt told me nothing at all. No doubt she felt such discussions far too indelicate. I suppose you think that’s silly.”

“It’s more than silly. It’s harmful. Ignorance of this can destroy people.” He thought of Consuelo, remembering well her shock, her horror, her revulsion. He’d never forget that night. How could he? She’d lashed him with it often enough afterward.

“Harry, what’s wrong?”

He shoved his former wife out of his mind. “Nothing. I just think people ought to be told these things, not stupid stories of cabbage leaves and storks and God only knows what else. It
would save everyone a lot of grief if people were just told the truth.”

“I agree with you.”

That unexpected pronouncement had him looking at her. “You do?”

“Yes. I’d like to think Auntie would have told me before my wedding night if I had ever married,” she said slowly. “But I’m not sure she would have, even then.”

“I’m not sure of it, either. My wife’s mother never told her. It made things very unpleasant for both of us.” Abruptly, he rolled his legs off the bed and stood up. He crossed the bedroom and went into his dressing room. He wrapped the condom in paper and disposed of it in the wastepaper basket, then he poured water from the pitcher into the basin and washed his hands. He took up a fresh rag, wet it, rung it out, and took it into the bedroom.

Emma was still sitting up, her arms now wrapped around her knees. She looked at him as he came back to the side of the bed. He touched her, running a hand up and down her shin. “Lie back,” he instructed her, “and stretch your legs out.”

She complied, weight resting on her elbows. He nudged her thighs apart. There wasn’t much blood, just a smear on each thigh, but enough to remind them both of the enormity of what had happened. He wiped the blood away, and as he did, he had to ask. “Did it hurt?”

“A little.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He paused and glanced
up from his task. “It won’t hurt again, Emma,” and he could hear the fierceness in his own voice. He tempered it. “If any of this ever hurts, you have to tell me straightaway. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, Harry.”

Her conviction was rather shattering, especially in light of the fact that he had just done that very thing. Harry leaned down and pressed a kiss to her stomach, then straightened and took the rag to the dressing room.

When he returned, she glanced at his groin as he approached the bed, then she looked up into his face. “I’ve seen statues of men in museums,” she said, “and I remember one very clearly. The fig leaf had been placed over the…the—” She broke off, waving a hand vaguely toward his anatomy.

“Penis,” he supplied the required word as he stretched out beside her.

“Yes, thank you. The fig leaf had been placed over it, as I said, but they hadn’t done a very good job, because from the side, I could actually see a portion of what was beneath, and I was terribly curious. Wondering what it was, knowing that if it was hidden, it had to be interesting, I tried to get a better look.”

“And?”

“My aunt caught me,” she told him, sounding quite put out. She swerved her head, her indignant gaze meeting Harry’s amused one. “She bustled me away and I never got a really good look.”

He grinned, clasping his hands behind his head. “Look your fill.”

Emma rose up on her knees, swung her hair back over her shoulders, then she sat back on her heels, studying his naked body with a thoughtful face, seeming fascinated. She tilted her head this way and that, as if his cock were some sort of mystery to be figured out.

Striving for a straight face, he said, “It’s not that complicated a device, Emma.”

She reached out her hand, then drew back.

“Go ahead,” he invited, and the moment she touched him, his desire began to stir. He closed his eyes, savoring it as she ran her fingers over him, her touch light and exploring. His penis began to stiffen, and she felt it, for she immediately started to withdraw her hand. He prevented her, wrapping her hand around his shaft, guiding her in how to caress him. “Don’t stop.”

He opened his eyes and watched her face as his penis hardened in her grasp; he saw her eyes widen.

“Seeing that statue when I was a girl, I never realized…” She drew her hand back and stared at his erection in amazement. “I never dreamt it stands up like that.”

He gave a shout of laughter. “It salutes, too,” he told her.

She nudged his hip playfully with her knee. “Oh, it does not!” Then she bit her lip and met his gaze, looking doubtful. “Does it?”

He laughed again. He couldn’t help it, she was the sweetest thing. He pulled another condom
out of the packet on the floor, then rolled to his side and turned her around, positioning her on her side as well, with his arm beneath her and her back against his chest. Keeping the condom in his hand, he eased his penis between her thighs without entering her and began moving his hips, sliding back and forth along her opening to make her ready for him. He kissed her ear and the side of her neck, which he knew she liked, and caressed her breast with his free hand. By the time he slid his hand down over her belly and between her thighs, her breathing was quick and shallow and her feminine opening was lusciously wet. He spread her moisture over her in light, slow circles, then he deepened the touch, stroking her back and forth with the tip of his finger as he slid the condom between their bodies with his other hand and sheathed himself.

He eased the head of his penis into her from behind, then pulled back. He repeated the move several times as he caressed her in front, teasing and tormenting them both until she was uttering a frantic moan with each breath and her hips were moving in quick jerks that told him she was close to orgasm. So very close.

He entered her fully then, pushing deep. At the same time, he touched her clitoris, and she came immediately, crying out his name, her body clenching around his cock in tight, quick convulsions that brought his climax as well.

Afterward, he felt lethargy overtaking him, and he wanted to fall asleep just like this, with
himself inside her. But he could not give in to that desire, for they didn’t have much time. He stirred and pulled free of her. Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he said, “Emma, we have to get up. I have to get you home before first light.”

She nodded, and when he rose from the bed, so did she. They dressed in silence, but he knew there were things to be discussed before he deposited her at her door. It took him less time to dress than it did her, and while she finished, he went in search of his valet.

Cummings, being an experienced gentleman’s gentleman as well as a man of tact and discretion, had appreciated his master’s need for privacy this evening. He had foregone his usual sleeping space in the dressing room and gone belowstairs to sleep in one of the empty servant bedrooms. Harry went in search of him, and when he found the valet, he woke him, ordering him to locate a hansom cab.

Emma was dressed by the time Harry returned to his room. When he entered, she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She rose when he came in. “Is it time?”

“Almost.”

He fetched one of his mackintoshes from his dressing room. “It’s still raining,” he explained, holding up the heavy oilskin garment.

“Are we taking your carriage back?”

“My valet’s getting a hansom for us. I thought that would be better. I don’t want anyone in your street to see the insignia on my carriage.”

“Not a likely occurrence at this hour. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“I don’t want to take the chance. I’m much more worried about how to get you back up into your flat without anyone knowing.”

“There’s no need—”

“Your front doors are locked, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Mrs. Morris locks up at eleven o’clock, front and back, unless one of the tenants will be coming in late, from the theater or a revue. In that case, she leaves the door unlatched and has her maid wait up to lock it after the last person has come in. But—”

“You didn’t do that before you came here, I suppose? Invent some excuse to be out late?”

“No, but Harry—”

“Well, there you are. We shall have to figure out a reason why you’re caught out at this hour. Girl-bachelors might be allowed to walk with unmarried gentlemen on a public street at three o’clock in the afternoon, but somehow I don’t think it would be considered acceptable for them to be out with said gentlemen at three o’clock in the morning.”

“That is not a problem, as I’ve been taking pains to try and tell you, if you would just listen. I left my window unlocked. The
French
window, mind,” she went on as he continued to look at her uncomprehendingly. “The window that leads onto the fire escape. Heavens,” she added, shaking her head as she looked at him, “it’s a good thing I’m a sensible person and able
to think of these things, or we should be in dire difficulties indeed.”

She pulled the oilskin from his hands and began to unfold it. “I believe I’m going to be rather good at this illicit love affair business, Harry. Don’t you agree?”

Harry made all the arrangements. He found a cottage for them in Kent, a place only two hours from London by train, but one where she assured him she was not known. To keep away any village gossip they were to be known as Mr. and Mrs. Williams, a couple who highly valued their privacy.

They would journey there on Fridays and return on Mondays, he had explained during their most recent meeting at his office, a whispered conversation his secretary couldn’t overhear through the respectably open door, their secret plans fitted between his comments on her writings and her outlines of future Mrs. Bartleby articles. They would come by separate trains, he’d whispered, and would leave the same way. He’d have the cottage provisioned prior to their arrival, and cleaned during the week while they were in London. No servants would stay with them, but he assumed from all her wonderful recipes that the great Mrs. Bartleby knew how to cook? If not, he could always toast them bread and cheese over a fire.

By the time all these clandestine arrangements were made, two weeks had passed. During that fortnight, Emma discovered a new delight: an
ticipation. By the time her train reached the small village of Cricket Somersby, she was in a state of such giddy excitement, she could hardly contain it.

He was there on the platform waiting for her, and the moment she saw his smile, Emma’s heart gave a leap. She wanted to run to him right then, but even now, away from everyone they knew, they could not be so free. He took her portmanteau, and she followed him to a waiting carriage, where he gave her bag to the driver and assisted her into the vehicle. Once both of them were seated, the driver climbed up onto the box, and they were off.

Their cottage was a two-story, stone affair with a thatched roof, fat dormers, and a front door of bright red. It was surrounded by woodland, with a brook and pond nearby. There was a kitchen garden at the back, Harry told her as he carried her portmanteau inside, and it was comfortably furnished.

Emma paused in the small foyer, but she only had time to note that to her left was a parlor and to her right a dining room before she heard her bag hit the wooden floor with a thud. She turned around and looked at him as he shut the door, and her breath caught at the purposeful expression on his face. When Harry caught her up in his arms, bent her back, and kissed her, Emma pressed a hand to the top of her head to keep her straw boater in place and hoped those comfortable furnishings included a bed.