Cheryl Holt (26 page)

As he’d invariably seemed reluctant to kiss her, she’d thought he would end it abruptly, but for once, he didn’t. He treasured and sampled, and she relished the attention he’d suddenly decided to lavish on her. This was
kissing
as she’d always visualized it, at its most magnificent and exciting. Their breath mingled, their hearts beat in unison, his very essence flowed through her. The embrace went on and on, and she savored the display, letting him feast for as long as he was inclined.

Gradually, the interlude spiraled to a conclusion, and their lips separated. He gazed at her with such an intense, dangerous expression that she was completely unnerved.

Struggling for levity, she smiled and queried, “How do you do that to me so easily?”

“I take it milady was . . .
satisfied?
”

“Yes, you bounder,” she grumbled. “Don’t look so damned pleased.”

Unrepentant and overconfident, he was positively lethal to someone of her limited ability, and she heartily wished she’d steeled herself against his onslaught. A mere woman could never successfully contend with such potency.

He chuckled, then stole another stormy kiss. “I adore
how I make you come,” he said impudently. “You call out for me . . . right at the end.”

“I can’t abide such arrogance in a man!”

“Get used to it, love.”

Once again, he’d tossed out the endearment as if it was of no import. Handsome as the devil himself, his sapphire eyes blazed with desire, an abominably alluring dimple creased his cheek, and she pondered how she’d let her poor heart get into this fix. After she left for home, she would never be the same.

“You are horrid. I don’t know why I permit you to abuse me.”

“Because I’m irresistible?”

“Too true,” she retorted. “More’s the pity.”

“Oh, Sarah . . .”—he chuckled again—“you are so good for me.”

“Am I?”

“Absolutely.”

The air was charged as before a lightning, storm, full of promise and foreboding. Powerful emotions roiled through her, and she was unable to ferret out a suitable rejoinder.

“I am so hard for you,” he ultimately said.

He pressed his phallus against her, and it dawned on her that whenever their verbal repartee became too intimate, he reverted to talk of the sexual. She didn’t mind, though, because she wielded the most authority over him when they were naked. The more he lusted, the greater her chances to lure him toward the bond she hoped would eventually develop.

She partook of a slow flex of her own. “I like feeling you close, but it’s not enough.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“The normal conclusion for your orgasm would be for me to penetrate you.” He cupped her, fondling the silk crotch of her pantalets, then a finger slid underneath the hem, easing into her animated cleft. Sounding pained, he huskily noted, “You’re so tight.”

“Will you . . . ?” She didn’t possess the necessary vocabulary to interrogate him as to whether he would make love to her there. Now that he’d explained her emptiness, she recognized that her body was anxious to be relieved of its virginal condition.

“Not today. Maybe not ever,” he asserted. “I don’t know . . .” Appearing baffled and bewildered by his reticence, he let his voice trail off as he rolled her onto her back. “I’m going to put my mouth on you.”

“What?” He caressed her moist pantalets, leaving no doubt as to his purpose, and her eyes widened in shock.

“When I come, I want to have the taste of your sex on my tongue.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Oh, but I am.”

Before she could prevent it, he was tugging her drawers down her thighs, and he had them over her toes and on the floor. He dropped down and centered himself, geared to advance, and she squirmed, flustered by his bizarre request.

“Michael!”

“When you say my name like that, you sound like an expensive whore.”

The odd compliment grated; she didn’t care for the coarse comparison, at all. “Whatever you’re up to . . . I’m not ready for . . . for . . .”

The tip of his tongue dipped into her navel, and she writhed with trepidation, and he halted. He wrenched his torrid gaze up her torso, his blatant assessment calculated to remind her of her previous acquiescence, of how promptly she’d succumbed, of how overwhelmed she’d been.

“You trust me, don’t you?” he asked.

“No, I don’t!” She didn’t trust him any further than she could throw him.

He had the audacity to laugh at her candor, then he continued with his ministrations. Lower, past her navel, to her feminine hair. He nuzzled his cheek in it, rubbed his nose
in it, rooting and sniffing as though implanting her scent in his consciousness.

“Michael . . .” she tried again, “this is too personal.”

“I told you”—he lifted up from his precarious perch—“that nothing is forbidden.
Nothing
, Sarah.”

“But I had no idea you’d contrive something so . . . so . . .”

“Depraved? Outlandish? Improper?”

“Precisely.”

He merely shrugged. “Having you in this manner will make me happy. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

As he was unerringly correct, protest seemed futile.

Somehow, despite her objection, he’d managed to inflict himself betwixt her legs, and he settled her thighs over his shoulders. When he spread the mysterious folds, she arched up, seeking escape, but he was holding her down, and she couldn’t get free.

“Relax,” he murmured soothingly. “Close your eyes and just feel.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You will,” he insisted, cheeky knave that he was.

Baldly, he scrutinized every aspect of her feminine opening. Then . . . his tongue. There and meddling and invasive, and she flung an arm over her face, hiding, longing to disappear. She felt humiliated, ravished, yet strangely intrigued by his thrust and parry.

He kissed her leisurely as he had her mouth, piercing her in an unremitting rhythm, and the unyielding seduction began to take its toll. Her thighs parted further, offering him more space in which to perform his devious, tricky assault. Try as she might not to enjoy the maneuver, she couldn’t resist being drawn in. Her traitorous body reacted until she was straining against him—not in an attempt to get away, but in another skirmish toward carnal release.

“No, I can’t” she wailed, when she detected where he was leading her. “It’s too soon.”

“It’s never too soon. Do it again. Just for me.”

The invidious rogue! He acted as if she was doing
him
a courtesy by finding sensual gratification.

His fingers were at her breasts, furiously kneading her ravaged nipples, as his tongue focused on the sensitive protuberance that he finessed with such devastating effect. With minimal effort, he—once again—hurled her over the ledge of desire.

As the stimulation abated, he was towering above her, imperious cock in hand, and he guided the ample crown across her cleft. “Can you imagine how it would be if I entered you now? I would ride you so hard.”

For the longest time, he didn’t move, poised on the brink of a terrible impasse, and she bit against her lip, incited, prepared for the next, but it never ensued.

Sweat pooled on his brow, and he meticulously fondled her, her bodily moisture wetting the tip, then ever so slightly, he inserted himself. Vividly foreseeing what could transpire, he stared at the spot where they were barely connected. She looked down, too, agitated and aching, contemplating that his presence seemed so appropriate.

Her hips clenched, and he jumped back as though burned, but he’d been forced beyond his limits of restraint, and he demanded immediate satiation. He clutched her to his chest and stroked his cock against her, twice, thrice, then he spewed himself on her stomach and leg, the fiery liquid blanketing her, its pungent aroma filling the air.

“Oh, Sarah . . .”

Moaning, he collapsed on her, and he held himself motionless as his breathing and pulse slowed to tractable levels. Finished, he strove to slip away, but she wouldn’t let him, snuggling him to her bosom, his beautiful face nestled between her breasts.

The act of mating created such a unique serenity, and she wanted to sustain the moment, but unfortunately, the lull provided plenty of opportunity for reflection about subjects best forgotten—like a home and family of her own. She’d perpetually insisted she didn’t require either, but now, with the smell of his sex in the air, and the sweet
sound of her name reverberating off the walls, it was perplexing to remember why she’d shunned her chances for such contentment.

How had it resulted that she was twenty-five and so alone? Why had she settled for a pittance? She always believed her existence was eventful and consequential, and it had never occurred to her that she was lonely, or that she would like to live happily ever after with the man of her dreams—that man having a suspicious resemblance to Michael Stevens.

Shutting out reality, she wished for all the things that could never be, but concluded that she wanted them anyway. What was the harm?

Then, she kissed the top of his head, and he stretched and groaned languidly.

“Are you married, Michael?” The interrogatory popped out before she could snatch it back.

“No, why?” He peeked up at her. “Are you worried about my character?”

“I’m unequivocally
worried
about your character, you cad,” she remarked, “but not because you might be cheating on your wife. You have many more severe flaws.”

“You’re right about that.”

“I’m just relieved that marital infidelity is not among them.” She said it lightly and, from the way he grinned, he’d taken it as a jest, but she sincerely meant it.

“I was just curious; I know nothing about you.” And in the pause that followed, the rat didn’t supply any information, though she’d presented the perfect excuse. She sighed. “Do you ever think about getting married?”

Her heart skipped several frantic beats. Where had that come from? If only the mattress would swallow her up so she could vanish! What a ninny he must deem her to be! A few tumbles in his bed, a few lessons in carnality, and she was babbling about matrimony! After she’d waxed on for days prior, feigning sophistication in affairs beyond her ken and supplicating for a meaningless fling!

“No, I never do,” he answered more gently than she
deserved. He kissed the underside of her breast, then he balanced himself on an elbow. His seed was drying, and he toweled it away with her nightgown. “Is that what you’re hoping might happen between us?”

There was no censure or rebuke in his tone, so perhaps if she was prudent, she could worm herself out of this debacle before she made an even bigger fool of herself. “I’m just beginning to grasp that I missed much by not marrying.”

“It’s only natural. Sex stirs many new and strange emotions. Particularly in a woman.”

“But not in a man?”

“No. Women confuse sex with love, when they really have nothing to do with one another. For a man, fornication is simply a physical discharge.”

“Is that how you see it?”

“Yes.” The truth hurt her, and he added, “I’m sorry to be so blunt.”

“That explains why a man can have different lovers.”

“Yes.”

“Why a man can purportedly love his wife, but keep a mistress.”

“Exactly.”

“Why you can go to the hidden room and cavort with women you don’t know.”

He stirred uncomfortably. “Aye.”

She’d totally positioned herself to weather the frank statements, staring into his blue eyes and showing as little interest as he in the laborious topic. “Was this just
physical discharge
for you?”

“It was a good deal more,” he puzzled her by acceding, “but that doesn’t mean we’ll wed when we’re through.” He ran a finger across her cheekbone, her chin, her lips. “Be careful where you allow your heart to wander,” he declared tenderly but firmly. “Guard it well, for I will assuredly break it if you lose it to me.”

“As if I would!” she commented dryly, nudging him in the ribs. “I’d like to think I have better sense.”

“I would be a very bad mistake.”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

She was lying horridly, but he had the decency to pretend that he didn’t know it, and when she held out her arms, she was immensely gratified that he burrowed himself into them without hesitation. They lay together, his leg draped over her thigh, his wrist on her waist, and he scrutinized her as if committing her to memory.

“Why have you never married?” he queried, and his examination was as startling and as peculiar as when she’d posed hers.

How wonderful that he would inquire! Schooling her features, she affected a bored demeanor, even though she was dying to confess so much.

“I always supposed I would. I even had a Season in London.”

“Really?”

“When I was seventeen, but it was quite terrible.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just be kind and say that, back then, I wasn’t a beauty.”

“I find that very difficult to believe.”

The compliment was as welcome as it was astonishing. As he was not given to flattery, especially over something as nebulous as a woman’s comeliness, she grabbed onto his words as though they were a merciful benediction. He kissed the tip of her nose, but the soft touch dipped down to her very core where so much of her past heartbreak lingered. The sentiment sank far inside, comforting her, and she yearned for his sympathy and approval for the woman into which she’d matured. The old torments were pieces of the whole.

“Back then,” she offered, “I was all gangly limbs and red hair, and I was so unprepared for what London would be like. They ate me alive.”

“Your peers can be a vicious lot,” he concurred wholeheartedly.

“Yes, they can.” God, but she loved him for agreeing!
“And my father was pressuring me to choose one of the boys, but they were all so unacceptable. I couldn’t decide.”

“You wouldn’t let him pick for you?”

“No!”

“So you refused them all?” The twinkle in his eye was genuine. “You defied your father?”

“I can be extremely stubborn.”

“I’ve noticed that about you.”

She could have lain there forever, hugging, and laughing and trading jibes, and she was struck anew by how much she’d lost out on by denying herself this closeness with a man, just as she appreciated that this was the sole occasion she’d ever have to endure such bliss.