Desire Wears Diamonds (29 page)

Michael leaned his head against a hand,
giving in to the enchantment of Grace as she spun her tale. The
story was wonderful but the glory of the woman telling it stole his
breath away. Her hands gestured elegantly to emphasize the dramatic
points as her words painted exotic landscapes transporting him to
the world that existed only inside her mind.

Her voice rose and fell and characters wild
and vivid took the stage as her eyes focused on a point far in the
distance that only she could see. The room dimmed as time passed
and Michael lit candles in the room and even started a fire without
interrupting her, then took his seat to smile at the charming
realization that when Grace was caught up in a story, he could
probably set off a gun without notice.

“Down came the icy shards from the cave’s
ceiling, a crystal avalanche of death and—“ Grace stopped suddenly,
covering her face with the long blades of her fingers. “When did it
get so late?”

“Is it?” he asked innocently, as if the
changes to the room were not of his making. He shifted off the
floor to sit next to her on the sofa. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I can’t believe this! I can’t believe I’m
rattling on about ice monsters and fire wizards and that
my
husband
is allowing it!”

“Not allowing,” he corrected.
“Enjoying!”

He leaned forward to kiss her impulsively
and the playfulness of the evening fell away. She tasted of wine
and cherries, the hot silk of her lips and tongue intoxicating and
Michael pulled her into his arms to drink in her kisses until his
head was swimming with a desire that made the room spin.

There was no hesitation in her response and
this time there was nothing to stop them. Not even his previous
naïve illusion that he was not going to bed his wife.

Grace pushed against him and he instantly
lifted his head to look into her eyes.

“H-how does this work?” she asked.

“How does it work in your stories?”

She blushed. “Michael, I don’t think it’s
the same.”

“Why not? I love your stories, Grace. Tell
me. If we were in a story of your making, how would you want the
tale of your wedding night to unfold?”

Grace’s mouth fell open slightly as she
absorbed the implications.
My story—he means to let me have all
the power.
All his words praising her independence and her
clever mind were more than words but coalesced in a gift that she’d
never anticipated.
Mine. Mine to squander or mine to employ and
discover what happiness might yet be possible.

There had been so much about Michael that
she had admired and so many of his qualities that she loved. But
now, her breath caught and she swallowed as hard as she could
because something inside of her broke free with a ragged cry of
silent relief.

She did not love his qualities.

She loved
him.

She loved
this man—
this man who
listened to her stories and smiled at her odd speeches, defended
her against Sterling and rescued her from a hollow life of lies;
this man who was so generous and caring it defied belief. She had
married a man she loved and the miracle of it set off a fire inside
of her that left her speechless from its raw power and irresistible
force.

“I…” Grace started unsteadily, and then
decided to seize the moment. Happiness was something she’d been
denied for a lifetime and she refused to allow fear to cheat her
out of a moment of it. “I would start by telling my husband a
story.”

“Yes?”

“And then I would hope that he would see
that I…am fearless.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be a
shy and retiring thing, fragile and ignored, like a porcelain
figurine that he will admire but never touch.”

He nodded, enrapt and she smiled, her frame
infused with boldness as warm tendrils snaked out across her skin
and awaking her senses.

“We would conspire together to create a
little island of our own. A place where there would be no shame in
finding pleasure or in…”

“Yes?” he asked, his voice low and level,
his grey blue eyes alight with approval.

“In embracing as naked as natives?” she
offered then covered her mouth with shocked fingers.

“I like this story, Grace.” He smiled and
then kissed her again to help her dismiss her nerves.

Michael reached up to pull the sprig of
lavender and Queen Anne’s lace from her hair, gently pulling out
hair pins to free her hair at last, his hands fisting in the curls
that fell down her back. Grace moaned, the simple act of loosing
her braids transforming her into a pirate queen or a fiery
sorceress or the wicked temptress seducing sailors in a storm. She
was Grace no more.

She was
his
.

The ivory buttons of his shirt gave way
beneath her fingers and she delighted at every discovery. Her burly
husband wore a delicate silver chain and key underneath his clothes
but before her imagination could catch at it, the impact of his
bare skin beneath her fingertips diverted her mind. He had a few
dark curls at the center of his chest but was very smooth, his
flesh fever hot to her touch. His nipples were dark, almost brown,
and every inch of him made her mouth water to taste and try.

Grace dropped her hands though when she
spotted the last remnants of a pale purple and green bruise the
size of a pie plate on his side. “The carriage…” she whispered.

“It’s nothing,” he bent over to kiss her
behind her ear and Grace yielded to passion. Their clothes began to
fall away and they were both smiling at the mutual puzzle of ties,
hooks and buttons that thwarted their race to achieve access to the
other.

Grace pushed his shirt from his shoulders
and reached around to embrace him but was startled to feel the
smoothness of his skin transform into a mottled and rough texture.
Grace stepped back slightly, curiosity burning through the fog of
her desires. “What is that?”

“Scars,” he said simply, his attention to
the tiny buttons running down the front of her dress unwavering.
His fingertips brushed against the rise of her breasts through the
thin silk of her chemise and Grace shivered with pleasure.

“How mysterious!” she sighed and leaned
against him, arching her back to invite more of his touch.

“You can look at them later but at this
moment, I’m wondering why women’s clothes have so many
buttons.”

She laughed and kissed his throat, her
tongue flicking out to tease his Adam’s apple. “To torment our
would-be seducers?”

He grunted. “It’s working.”

Grace’s hands dropped to help him and within
seconds divested herself of all of it, shamelessly allowing layers
of petticoats and clothes to fall onto the floor around her feet.
She untied the silk ribbons of her chemise and added it to the pile
and then stepped free. Candles flickered as the cool spring air
caressed her bare skin but Grace was warmed by the look in
Michael’s eyes.

She took a step forward and Michael simply
stood in stunned silence, forgetting that the sofa was directly
behind him. He was bare-chested but still in his trousers, though
Grace knew that this last layer was soon to go. She began to tug at
the button at his waist and he gently caught her wrist to stop
her.

“I’m…big,” he said cautiously.

She looked up into his face, puzzled at such
an obvious proclamation. Even so, he released her hands and she ran
her fingers lightly over the ridges of his chest and stomach,
testing the firmness of his muscles and marveling at how merely
touching the heated wall of a man’s torso could send hundreds of
fluttering butterflies loose in her chest. “You look like one of
those statues in a museum,” she whispered in awe. “It’s like I have
my very own…breathing sculpture to touch!”

Her hand slid down over the final barrier to
touch him through the cloth of his trousers, orienting herself to
the mysteries of male anatomy. Grace marveled at heat that almost
burned her palm and something deep inside of her began to spasm at
the promise of it; at the firm mass and power that moved underneath
her touch.

His breath whistled through his teeth and
she looked up to watch his face. “Am I…hurting you?”

“Not even close.”

Grace smiled and returned her attention to
the discovery at hand to free him, gasping at the reality of his
flesh in her hands. Heavy against her touch, this part of him was
velvet soft and paradoxically as hard as stone and nothing she’d
imagined. Her cheeks flamed with heated embarrassment as her next
thought was to comment that he was missing a bit of foliage and
that she liked him much better than the odd little marble
configurations she’s only caught fleeting glimpses of in books. Her
palms itched to touch all of him but she wasn’t sure if he would
appreciate such a brazen twist in the plot.

“Not made of stone,” he said softly,
gritting his teeth as he fought for control. “Careful, Grace.
I’m—all too human and very much at your mercy.”

With a smile she pushed him with a single
fingertip against the center of his chest until the back of his
legs bumped up against the sofa.
In my story, apparently the bed
is too far away…

He lost his balance willingly and seized her
waist to pull her down with him to kiss her so thoroughly that she
swore that the world fell away. Grace landed astride one of his
thighs and the gentle pace of his kisses gave way to a possessive
claim that made her moan into his mouth with a voracious madness of
her own. Her arms encircled his neck and her breasts were pressed
flat to his chest, their heartbeats matched in a mounting amorous
duel.

Her sex was pressed against his naked thigh,
the firm hard ridge of his leg the first touch of another to her
most private and tender flesh. Grace bucked against the erotic
sensation of friction and heat, squeezing her legs together to try
to contain or capture the bewitching arcs of electricity that shot
from between her hips and upward into her frame until she was sure
that she would either shatter into a thousand pieces or end her
existence.

Michael sensed the direction of her journey
and did all he could to make sure his beloved girl didn’t fall when
her climax reached its zenith, closing his eyes to try to corral
the lust coursing through his veins. Her sex was ripe satin and so
wet on his thigh, he had to fight not to follow her down the path
of carnal dreams.

She shuddered and fell against his chest,
kissing him again, then pulling away breathlessly. “Oh, my!”

Not. Made. Of. Stone.

Michael gripped her hips and lifted her up
easily, positioning her over him, holding her there for a second or
two until she looked into his eyes, her own expression slightly
dazed and she trembled with the after-effects of her first orgasm.
“Grace.”

She nodded, suddenly present and eager.
“Yes.”

Yes.

His cock jutted up and he fit himself inside
of her, the large head pressing upward toward the glorious heat and
saturated welcome of her body. She was so wet, so relaxed and open
that he started to shake. This was the moment of truth and he did
not want to hurt her.

But he no longer was sure he could stop if
he did.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her inner channel
stretched and shifted to accommodate him, and Grace threw her head
back like an ancient priestess reveling in a voluptuous ritual of
sacrifice. Without a single cry, her body accepted his and Michael
almost wept in blessed relief. She was very tight but her channel
was deep enough to take him inch by inch until he was buried to the
hilt. “Mine,” he whispered. “Oh, God, Grace, you are mine.” He
kissed her, and stroked the silken curtain of her hair that now
shielded from the world. He studied her face to look for any sign
of distress or regret but she was shameless and beautiful. The high
color in her cheeks accented her exquisite face and she made a
similar study of him.

“Am I bedded?”

He nodded slowly. They were locked together
but he was anxious not to move, fearful that entry was one matter,
and rampant jostling another game entirely. But his wife had other
ideas.

“Grace, wait!”

“No. It’s my story. And I wish to be wanton
and wild—and never forget how this feels.”

His hands had splayed across the soft rise
of her belly, a sensual cage that held her hips in place. But now
he freed her, to give her the freedom to move as she wished to
accept the thrust of his hips or shy from him.

With her legs around his waist, she began to
ride him from a slow cantor to a thundering gallop and Michael’s
mind slipped away to a world where there was nothing beyond the
primal connection between them, beyond this woman and his need to
possess her. The pert crests of her breasts rubbed against his
chest with every thrust of his body into hers and he caught them in
his hands, teasing the tips to roll them between his thumb and
fingers, stroking and fondling the sweet weight of each against his
palms.

Grace cried out as pleasure and pain mingled
until there was only pleasure. The coil of need inside of her grew
and pulled taut and she welcomed it with a shudder of anticipation.
She had already tasted release and now with the resplendently firm
flesh of her husband’s body pressing up against her core, she could
practically see the crest ahead. She was so close, it became less
of a race and more of a supple fall into an erotic ocean. She drove
herself up and onto him and the zenith broke over her, shuddering
and bucking while Michael moaned his own release.

Something hot and wonderfully molten jetted
inside of her and the muscles in her thighs tightened in response.
This! This was raw and real and…oh, god….how did I think to
live? But I never knew what life was…

It was several minutes before either one of
them spoke and then Michael lifted her up, gently disengaging their
bodies, only to carry her to the bed and hold her close. “There.
Bedded.”