Elisabeth Fairchild (17 page)

“How dreadful!”

Sad memories interested him less than her half-naked torso, tempting him from the sheets with the curve of exposed shoulder, the dip of supple waist, the soft texture of her unscarred skin. He had only to slip his hands beneath the coverlet to find greater softness, greater pleasures. Pleasures he believed she lay anticipating.

She might have asked her maid to remove the stitches, even her father seemed a more logical choice. It would have taken clever words to explain away the cuts, the stitches themselves, but she had words, and wit enough to use them. No, she wanted him here, wanted to lie with back bared, his hands on her. He knew his reputation, knew Lydia had warned her. Was this a test to prove him a libertine? Was she half in love with the painting of his character, he forbidden fruit, and she ripe for a taste?

Her breath came faster, as his lips melded hotly with her skin, hands slipping beneath the edge of the sheeting, along the sweet curve of her lower back, mouth following, raining damp kisses, tasting the humid sweetness of her skin.

With a startled inhalation, she rolled away, twisting to look at him, eyes wide, fearful of her own need.

“Wait.” A weak cry.

He took advantage of her fresh position, his mouth tracing a path of kisses along her neck, beneath the lobe of her ear, tongue darting out to lave soft flesh.

“No,” she moaned.

Head rising, fingers halted, he whispered, “Must I?”

“Yes.” A reluctant sigh.

“As you wish,” he breathed against her shoulder, giving it one last kiss, fingers trailing along with the sheets as he slowly covered her. “Forgive me, but this abused flesh begs to be lavished with affection. You are sure you want me to stop?”

“Yes,” her voice quavered.

He sat back.  

She sighed.

“I had better go,” he said. “You are not offended?”

“No.” She rose on one elbow, sheets clutched about her bosom. “It. . . it felt too good.”

“Yes.” He drew the word out in a sigh. It had felt good. “Can you not allow yourself to feel good?”

He took her by surprise with such a question. “Allow? But I am a virgin, sir, and would maintain that purity.”

“A wedding gift for your husband, perhaps?”

“Yes.”

“Fortunate man.”

Silence stretched between them, each lost in thought. He broke the stillness.

“And if I promised not to disturb that purity?”

“I do not understand.”

“I would bring you the heaven to be had at my hands.”

A sigh. A laugh. “Such a promise sounds too good to be true, sir.”

“Roger. You had best call me Roger if you intend to allow me continued use of your rainspout.”

“When I am not calling you George Edwards, or John Castle, you mean?”

He laughed and took her hand as she spoke, his thumb stroking the base of her palm, the sensitive spot at the heart of her wrist.

She shuddered, allowing his reach to spread. “You would stop again if I asked it of you, Roger?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward, his hand passing the length of tender flesh along her inner forearm, his face coming lee with hers. “In fact, I will wait for your agreement on every move. You have only to let me know by word or sound. All right?”

Soft, so soft he might not have heard had his head not been cheek to cheek with hers, she whispered, “All right.”

He need not be granted permission twice. He touched the hand with which she clutched the coverlet, asking, “Shall I touch you here?”

“But of course,” she said with a laugh.

With a smile he stroked the back of her hand, running his fingers the length of hers, rubbing the ball of his thumb around the peaks of her knuckles, turning her hand with a swirling motion that elicited a low moan, cupping her palm in his.

She inhaled abruptly, hand trembling when he bent his nose to graze the pad at the base of her thumb. Her fingers curled up to graze his chin.

He inhaled the scent of her with deep appreciation, and cherished the uneasy innocence of her fingertips as they tested the line of his jaw. Then he trailed kisses the length of her thumb, starting with the fingertip, ending at her wrist, where his kisses deepened, his tongue darting out to heat her pulse point.

“May I touch you here?” He placed a forefinger on the inner bend of her elbow.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

With a delicacy of movement he trailed his hand from wrist to inner elbow, relishing her surprised sound of pleasure, repeating his progression of hand, nose, lips and tongue. She smelled richly of almonds and musk. The full bouquet of the odor clung to his tongue when he tasted her skin, a sweet, marzipan-flavored explosion in his mouth. It startled him, made him hungry for more.

Her hunger grew with his. She whispered yes when his fingers trailed higher, to her shoulder, and while he nibbled at the silken swale below the ball of her shoulder she whispered yes again as his hands sought fresh flesh in her neck’s valley.

She arched when he nibbled at her ear lobe, made a high, falling sound when he  flicked his tongue in the hollow of her ear.

“And here?” He touched her brow, her cheek, her chin, trailing fiery kisses, ending his trek across the hills and valleys of her face with the soft yes of her mouth, warm, liquid, and honeysuckle sweet.

“Yes,” she sighed between kisses as his hands strayed to the upper swell of her breast--peaches, cloves and vanilla. His was a masterful touch. Years of practice had schooled him in the art of just how to push boundaries gradually, always pausing to wait for a sigh, a moan, a whispered yes. Each touch rendered her desperate for another.

She allowed him to test the limits of her gown’s low neckline, to draw the bodice lower, that his hands, lips, and tongue might explore the heady valley of her cleavage. Her back arched as he breathed heat through the fine lawn covering the peaks of her breasts, nipples straining against the fabric, rising to be touched, but he waited, knowing he teased her desire to new heights by moving suddenly to the foot of the bed.

She sat up. “Where are you . . .?”

“May I uncover your feet?” he whispered, hand on the coverlet.

“Yes,” she said, as he knew she would.

He flung back the coverlet, exposing her legs to the knee, exposing the unmistakable scent of her desire, musky and compelling.

She retracted her limbs into the covers, turtle-like.

“Come, come, he coaxed, cupping one heel in the palm of his hand. “I have seen far more of you than this.”

She did not resist his straightening of her leg, or the hand that clasped her calf. The thumbnail he ran along the arch of her foot brought gasps of pleasure. She stifled a sharp moan in the pillow when he suckled her toes.

“Yes,” she said, and yes and yes. The word flowed from her lips in a gratifying stream, as he caressed her ankles, and nuzzled her knees.

He knew better than to venture above the knee too soon. She clenched them too tightly together.

He returned, instead to her head, by way of the other arm, to touch her lips, pleased to feel them part for his kiss.

He introduced her to the darting caress of his tongue, and as he kissed her deep and moist, her breath and his becoming one, he allowed his hand to graze the raised peak of her left nipple.

He need not ask permission. She arched her back, encouraging him, and moaned into his mouth when he lightly grazed his palm in a teasing, circular motion against the turgid peak.

“Please,” she twisted away from his touch.

“Please what?” His voice rasped, harsh with emotion and need, afraid he had at last gone too far, that she meant to stop him.

“Please touch the other one,” she begged.

He almost laughed in the darkness, so pleased was he with her responsiveness. “My pleasure.”

He obliged her, touch exceptionally gentle. She arched again, moaning her delight, shuddering beneath his hands.

“May I kiss them?” He breathed his request into her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered back, uncertainty in the word.

He bent his head slowly, wary of spooking her this late in the game, his gaze appreciatively taking in the rise and fall of the sweet, ripe pear shape of the riches she offered up to him.

Delicious. She was delicious. His mouth watered in anticipation. His body ached for the heated brush of bare flesh to bare flesh.

 He kissed her lightly the first time, the nipple tight, like a hard, spring bud beneath his lips. He would make it bloom. The second time he lingered, dotting kisses around the expectant nub, breathing heat. His third kiss drew a startled cry directed at the Heavens from her, for he opened his mouth, soaking the lawn with his tongue. 

She stifled all of her following discussion with God in a pillow as he lavished the taut nipple with gentle suckling, fabric rough against his tongue, her pleasure evident in the way her back arched taut, in the thrust of her breast, deeper into his ready mouth.

He savored her cries of pillow-strangled abandon almost as much as he savored the softening of her nipples beneath the languid attentions of his tongue. He made them harden again, rising to new heights when he blew upon the wet fabric, first hot, then cold.

He pushed away her hands when she would fondle his cheek, and run her fingers through his hair.

His voice roughened with tight-reined need. “No. You must not.”

“Why?” She subsided in the bed, confused, perhaps a little injured.

He lay cheek to breast, took her hand in his, and drew it unerringly to his crotch. No mistaking the rigid evidence of his stiffened desire. He closed his eyes and went short of breath to feel her unschooled hand make contact with his need, then flinch away.

“You must not, because I want you too desperately,” he admitted openly, his body straining to be freed. “I shall lose all self-control if you further enflame me.”

“Perhaps we should stop,” she said.

He let go her hand. “If you wish.”

New at this, she did not further test his control. “You take no pleasure then?”

Her concern moved him. He might have lied. Many a man would have. Instead, he took a deep breath, shook his head to clear it, allowed his cheek to find the softness of her breast again, and told her the truth. “I enjoy pleasuring you, who has never been so pleasured before. I do love the noises you make and the freedom with which you offer yourself to me.”

She said nothing for a moment, made no move. He waited, listening to her breath rasp, savoring the rise and fall of her chest beneath his cheek.

He lifted his head at last. “Shall we stop?” he asked. “There is more.” His voice went husky with promise. “Much more.”

She sighed, and shifted in the darkness.

He prepared himself for rejection.

But she had no intention of rejecting him. She simply unlaced the bodice of her nightrail with one hand, and slid the other through the curls at the nape if his neck, that she might draw his head down.

The chair bottom creaked as he bent to kiss, to taste, and he paused, daring to ask, “May I lie on the bed? Next to you?”

Another pause. Again he wondered if he went to far as her hand slid away. But, no, she made room for him, retreating into the darkness. Heart thumping, blood rushing with desire, he pushed back the bed curtain, and lay himself in the warm hollow she had vacated.

He bent his head to her breast again, and she knew not to do with her hands, with her need to reciprocate the bliss of his mouth’s gentle questing.

She moaned into her pillow, his refusal to take any great part in this pleasure driving her to desperate heights of arousal.  She found release in offering herself to him more freely. “Yes,” she said, the blood pounding in her ears as he slid a palm along the flat of her torso, circling her tummy, fingers dipping into the crevice of her belly button. “Yes,” she said, and “Yes, and yes, and yes,” when his fingers slid lower, hovering above the hairline, making detour to the tops of her thighs, then cutting a path through the dark forest that guarded the gateway to her Eden.

“Oh God, yes!” she gasped, and fell for a moment completely still, liquid beneath gently probing fingers. Arching her need into the palm of his hand, by moan and movement she encouraged the disappearance of first one digit, then two, her throat releasing a torrent of sibilant, wordless appreciation, as he dipped again, deeper.

She balked only once, making a panicked grab for his hair when he would slide beneath the covers.

“Have no fear,” he said. “I would make a feast of you.”

“You would what?” She did not understand.

“It would bring me great pleasure,” he murmured, lifting the coverlet. “And you will enjoy these kisses beyond anything, if you will allow it.”

She so allowed, marveling at the strangeness of his request, brought to fresh awareness of her own levels of possible pleasure as his tongue delved deep, nose buried in musky peach, her passion cresting, back arching, breath short and sharp, gasping her release. Her hips lifted, bucking against him frantically, her gasps in the pillow reaching muffled crescendo.

“Color! You stir such color in me!” she whispered, shuddering, muscles slack, expression gone dreamy. She opened her eyes to him, pupils dark with pleasure. “Dear God. What have you done to me? To the world? There is only pink, pale as dawn, and saffron--” Her laugh was throaty. “Explosions of saffron.”

He smiled, a twinge of bitterness spoiling his pleasure, the need between his thighs explosive. “Would that I could see the world so rosy,” he said.

Her gaze softened as she framed his face with her hands. He backed away. “Tsk, tsk, my dear. You promised not to touch!” Voice thick with repressed desire he dragged himself from the seductive clutch of the bed, rising to stand beside the relaxed splay of naked femininity. Tempting, she was, and he determined not to be further tempted. His work was too important, the night still young. Straightening his clothing, he turned his back on the Venus who floated in the rumpled ocean into which he longed to dive, and readjusted the throbbing, fulsomeness in the uncomfortable prison of his breeches.

With a trace of embarrassment, she tucked herself beneath the covers. “Your animal magnetism is too strong to resist.”