The Admiral's Heart (5 page)

The moment his lips touched hers, hard,
demanding, hungry, Pippa knew she was lost, that she would leave
this room changed forever, for she felt as though she had finally
come home. There was no other way to put it, no other way to put a
name to the feelings that were aroused just by being in this man’s
arms. She moaned softly as his tongue came out to push against her
own and his mouth ground against hers, seeking closer contact, a
fusing of kindred souls and two hearts that beat to the same drum.
His hands pressed harder behind the small of her back, roved down
and over her bottom, and brought her close, so close that she could
feel his arousal shoving hard against her pelvis, even through the
layers of her skirts.

Desire flared through her.

Bliss was his mouth against hers, the heat
of his body engulfing her, his hands so warm and strong as they
held her against him. Anticipation was the hot, solid length of him
pressing against her, the feel of hard chest muscles beneath his
waistcoat, the bed that waited just a few feet away.

Slowly, ever so tenderly, he broke the
kiss.

“Turn around,” he murmured, and as she did,
she felt his hand, so warm, so roughly calloused, so tender,
brushing her nape. She was keenly aware of the heat of his body
just behind her now, dwarfing her. Elliott, right here in this room
with her. Elliott, for whom she had always held a candle, even
throughout the short years of her rather dull marriage. Elliott,
who was running his hand up the side of her neck, gently tugging
her ear lobe between thumb and forefinger, leaning down to plant a
kiss there, his breath warm against the sensitive skin. She
trembled deep inside. A moment later, he slowly began to pull the
pins from her hair.

“Do you know, Pippa, the loneliness a man
feels while all alone out on the vast ocean?” he murmured.

“I confess, I do not.”

“There were many nights, out under the stars
on the open Atlantic, when your face would come into my mind, and I
would wonder what you were doing at that very moment. If you ever
thought of me. If you had found happiness, joy, love.” She shivered
as he dropped a warm kiss on her nape, the brush of his faintly
bearded chin sending a lightning bolt of feeling straight into the
pit of her belly. “I moved on, of course. Lost myself in my work
and my ambitions, in the every day and mundane workings of my life.
But I never forgot you, Pippa. And you, I hope, will not forget
this night.”

She took a deep and shuddering breath,
feeling her hair beginning to tumble down around her shoulders now,
each silken, weighty tress still heavy with powder.

“And to what purpose, Elliott?”

He gathered up the heavy fall of her hair in
one hand, shook it, and powder whispered from it and onto the bare
floor. She felt him running his fingers through it now, loosening
what was left of the powder, pulling at her scalp in a way that
felt immensely pleasurable at the same time it only built the
sensations of sexual awareness. He made her want to purr like a
cat.

“To what purpose, Pippa? Do you really have
to ask?”

She leaned back against his chest, sighing
with pleasure as he reached around to fully enclose her body within
the mighty circle of his arms; looking down, she saw him undoing
the tiny hooks of her bodice, moving slowly down between her
breasts, going lower and lower until the front of the silk garment,
lined with the softest cotton and embroidered with tiny flowers,
gapped open in his hands. Her skin quivered in longing. Her nipples
tightened in immediate response. How she ached for the feel of
those fingers against her flesh, shielded, still, from their touch
by her stays, her chemise.

Slowly, he turned her around to face him,
and his eyes smiled down into hers. She could see the heat in them
now, and her own blood fired with answering desire.

“I have wanted to undress you from the
moment I saw you this evening,” he said softly, pulling one fitted
sleeve down over her wrist, her hand, her fingers, and freeing her
arm. His fingers whispered over the elaborate fall of lace that
draped from her elbow, gently pulling at it, and then he went to
work on the other sleeve, freeing that one, too, until he had
removed the garment and was holding it in his hands.

He smiled, brought it to his nose, and
closed his eyes.

“Lilac,” he said. “You wore that a long time
ago, too.”

She reached out and with a trembling hand,
touched his waistcoat, buttoned down over his chest beneath his
uniform coat.

“You remembered?” she asked, smiling.

“I don’t think I will ever forget.”

His fingers were working on the laces of her
stays, now, pulling at the long ties until the bow came free and
the restrictive garment sagged from her shoulders. He turned her
around once more, pulling her spine back up against his chest, her
bottom against his arousal, and the sensation filled her with such
desire that the chill of the room was suddenly forgotten.

Elliott’s lips, beneath her heavy fall of
hair, nuzzling against the warm curve of her neck. Elliott’s hands,
reaching up beneath the gaping stays to cup her breasts, his thumbs
gently stroking each nipple even as his tongue came out and began
to touch, to taste, to lick the sensitive skin behind her ear.

Pippa sighed deep in her throat, deep in her
soul, and leaned her head back against the cup of his shoulder, her
bones going soft, her knees going weak, as he repeatedly stroked
each budding, hardening nipple beneath her chemise, gently rolling
them between thumb and forefinger, making her want to squirm with
longing as he kept up this delicious torture.

She closed her eyes, the breath coming a
little faster through her lungs.

Outside, the rain began to ping harder
against the glass panes of the window as it turned to sleet, but
Pippa only registered the sound as though from a long distance
away, because Elliott had the heels of his hands against her rib
cage, pressing her backward against him, his skilled, warm,
delicious fingers coaxing her body into a hot mess of jumbled nerve
endings.

And then he was gently turning her in his
arms to face him, lifting her chin to his own bent head, and he was
kissing her once more.

She kicked off her slippers, first one, then
the other. The bare floor was cold beneath her feet, but she didn’t
care. Somehow, the stays came off and were cast aside. Somehow, her
fumbling fingers managed to slide beneath his uniform coat and
remove it, to unbutton his snug-fitting waistcoat, and both landed
in a heap beside her discarded stays and bodice. Somehow, his hands
were roving behind her back, pressing her up hard against his
arousal, his fingers already untying the tapes that held her heavy
silk petticoats up, the panniers beneath, and with a rustle, both
fell to the floor to pool around her ankles until she stood before
him in just her chemise, her stockings, and her desire.

“Elliott,” she said simply, her eyes
mirroring the longing of her heart, and with one hand, she reached
out to touch his waistband.

His eyes darkened, and a smile touched his
mouth. “I’m glad you decided to come to the ball tonight,
Pippa.”

“And I’m glad that you found me before I
could run away once more.” And then, with a bold but shaking hand,
she found the buttons of his flap front, pushed them through their
holes, and as his breeches gapped open, he sprang out hot and hard
in her hand.

She smiled. Widely.

His eyelids lowered.

And then he reached out and, ever so gently,
removed her spectacles, folding them and placing them on the
bedside table as her fingers began a tantalizing exploration of his
shaft . . . the warm, velvety head . . . the rigid, iron-hard
length . . . his testicles, warm in their wiry hair.

He bent his head to kiss her once more, and
suddenly the cold floor beneath Pippa’s feet fell away as she was
swept up into the admiral’s strong arms. Her own arms looped around
his neck, and she felt the brush of his queue against her knuckles.
It was a dizzying, heady, arousing thing, to be carried so easily
in a man’s arms, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of
being gently laid down on the bed, spread out like some treasured
gem on a jeweler’s table, to have this man, so powerful and perfect
in form, so hungry for her, and her alone, step out of his
breeches, pull the shirt over his head, and climb up into the bed
beside her.

He lay down alongside her, and she felt the
hot, hard length of his body against her own, dwarfing it. His
mouth found hers once more, his arm pulled her close, and she
hungrily met his kiss, breathing hard now, her blood beating
through her veins as his hand skimmed down over her ribcage, into
the concave dip of her hip, up over her pelvic bone, down, down,
her upper thigh. His thumb hooked in a garter, peeled away the
stocking, his finger trailing sensuously over her leg. Off came the
other a moment later. How warm and strong that hand, against her
silken flesh. How agonizing, the wait, as that hand slowly moved
back up her leg, warm against her calf, warm against the back of
her knee, now catching the bunched up hem of her chemise and
pulling it up, up, up, toward that part of her that was doing a
slow burn for him and made her squirm with wanting. And now, oh, oh
yes . . . his hand, the palm warm and calloused, dragging up her
inner thigh until his fingers were gently playing in the warm, damp
curls at the junction of her legs.

He did not need to ask her to open for
him.

He began to stroke her. It was a slow,
measured thing, just his thumb moving over her slit, once, twice,
until his finger parted her gently and began to slide through her
dampness, back and forth, torturously slow, until Pippa’s body, of
its own accord, began to squirm and the breath came through her
lungs at a pace that left her unable to catch it.

He drew back then, and gazed down into her
dazed eyes.

“Ten years is a long time to wait for the
love of your life,” he murmured.

“Ten years and five months . . . “

“And fourteen days.”

“Fifteen, now.”

“My heart has never stopped beating for you,
Pippa.” His gaze was direct, and very intense. “All these years and
it still belongs to you. And you, alone.”

She just swallowed and stared up at him,
watching the soft orange flames of the candle flickering against
his skin, making his eyes look very dark in the semi-gloom.

“Will you marry me, Pippa?”

“Make love to me, Elliott, and then we will
talk . . . it is unfair to ask such a question when you have me at
my most vulnerable.”

He merely smiled, a gentle, patient gesture,
and bent his head to nuzzle and kiss the hot curve of her neck. She
shut her eyes, threaded one hand up behind his head, cupping the
back of his skull as he moved lower, now dropping kisses on her
collarbone . . . atop the swell of one breast . . . and there, the
nipple itself, hard and aching as he took it fully into his mouth
and began to suckle her through the thin fabric of the chemise.

“Oh, Elliott,” she breathed, trying to draw
breath.

Soft, suckling sounds as he pulled the
swollen nipple up into his mouth. Sweet anguish as his tongue
licked and laved it through the wet fabric, pulling a hot, tingling
ache from ever cell in her body, causing her to drive her heels
down into the mattress, to moan with need as his other hand roved
down her body and once more found the center of her passion.

And then, his mouth left her breast, was
kissing her abdomen through the fabric as he moved lower down the
bed, and then, oh, God help her, he was sliding his hands beneath
her hips, pushing the chemise up, up, past her hips and to the
level of her waist, until she was shamelessly, deliciously,
wantonly bared to his gaze.

“You,” he breathed, “are the most beautiful
creature that God ever made.”

She saw his Adam’s apple move as he
swallowed, hard, and then he was moving down between her thighs,
his hands gently parting them, wide, wider, wider still, as he
gazed at her most inner and private flesh. He looked up, once, and
met her gaze, and with a dark look of intent, parted her with his
thumbs and lowered his head.

The first touch of his tongue against her
flesh nearly undid her, and she caught desperately at the sheet as
his mouth went to work on her. A sob rose in her throat and stuck
there, and a sound came out of her that she did not recognize as
her head twisted on the pillow and her fingers frantically laced in
the thick waves of his hair. Her skin went hot and everything
inside her started to burn as his tongue began to lick at her seam,
up one side, down the other, his thumbs still holding her
shamelessly, impossibly wide. Above her, firelight danced on the
plastered ceiling, swam, and Pippa shut her eyes against it, trying
to hold back the rising tide of sensation that was building in the
floor of her pelvis, a rising, burning ache as his tongue stroked
her over and over again. The balled sheet grew damp in her hand.
The bed sighed beneath her as her body began to writhe. She felt
his breath against her most inner flesh, soft, hot, coming now as
hard and fast as her own. He spread her a little wider, and then,
just when Pippa knew she could not take this sweet punishment
anymore, he dragged the tip of his tongue over her swollen nub, and
her world began to splinter as climax rushed down on her in an
unstoppable wave of feeling.

“
Elliott”—

He only pressed his tongue against her, and
then, as she cried out and began to spasm out of control, sucked
her engorged bud deep into his mouth and held her there in its hot
recesses as she arched and keened beneath him, not letting her go
until tears of joy were coursing down her cheeks and she was
reaching down to pull him back up against her body, to seek his
erection with her hand and gently, firmly, began to stroke him.