The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) (62 page)

She complied, forcing herself to hold perfectly still as he lifted her leg from his lap and wrapped his long fingers around her ankle. He pointed the razor at her. “Don’t move. I haven’t ever used one of these myself, but as they’ve done the job on my face hundreds of times it can’t be all that difficult.” He winked as she giggled, then started shaving in cautious, lingering strokes. He set his mind to the chore, replicating her gestures, alternately drawing the blade across her skin then rinsing her leg with the bath water, letting it run the length of her, causing her skin to flush.

His actions drew roused sighs from her parted lips, each stroke soothing her nerves as he deftly completed his task. When he finished, he lowered her leg back to his and released her ankle, letting her foot lay against his strengthening arousal as he closed the blade with a deep exhalation and set the razor aside. He caressed the smooth leg, running his fingers up and down its length.

She sat up in the bath and drained the water, then rinsed and refilled the tub. She reached for his neck cloth, her movements opening her body under the water for his hungry gaze. He wasn’t sure he could manage much more of this tease. His hands moved to grip the tub again, and she reached for his waistcoat and shirt, undoing them and pressing them open across his chest. The water from her hands streamed the length of his torso, soaking the fabric of his waistband. His stomach tightened.

His breath came faster, matching the rhythm of her pulse, and she grabbed him by the shirt, yanking him into the bath on top of her with a great splash amid her wild laughter. The dousing soaked the floor and sobered him. He rose to his knees between her outstretched legs, giving her an admonishing glare. He inspected her, open like the petals of an iris before him, her breasts rippling the water as she giggled.

Francine leaned forward and peeled off his shirt and waistcoat, kissing a stray ribbon of water at his navel before throwing the clothes to the tiled floor. She moved to his trousers, where the water had pulled the fabric tight against the contours of his body.

He stood in the bathtub, removing his soggy shoes and tossing them down on top of the other wet clothes that puddled on the floor.

She shifted to her knees and peeled his trousers down his taut, muscular legs, forcing them inside out as her breath came up against his naked arousal, making his lungs seize. She could almost hear his heart rioting inside his ribcage, pounding as she inspected the gleaming, wet erection poised in front of her. She could see the fluttering heartbeat that suffused it, making it grow.

He was transfixed like a moth to a flame, trying to hold his position as close as possible to the heat.
Let’s see if I can shatter his composure.
Mesmerized, she leaned in, placing a gentle kiss at the crease where the silken shaft rose to meet the head.

His jaw opened then clenched, and he held as still as Michelangelo’s muse as he looked down at her. Spurred on by his supplication, she gave a slow lick along the crease with the very tip of her tongue, then kissed her way down the base, wrapping her hands around his hips. She placed her palms in the half-moon indents in the sides of his buttocks while his breathing grew more and more audible, his impassioned groans meeting her attentions.

He grabbed Francine’s shoulders, digging his fingers into her flesh. He was torn. He wanted to hold her in place, but his need to possess her overpowered his want. He pulled her up from the bath and drew her mouth to his for a bruising kiss. His hands moved to the back of her head to hold it steady as he massaged the edge of her jaw with his thumbs, teasing her mouth open wider. He delved into the offering, tasting, licking, and exploring her.

He kicked his feet free of his sodden trousers then stepped from the bath, lifting her with him, forgoing the plush towel that waited. He kissed and stroked her wet body, rushing toward the bed.

She tripped in his hurry and he pulled her up, wrapping her legs about his waist as they tumbled to the mattress. He smoothed his hands over her wet legs as he shifted her beneath him, feeling the softness rushing against him, amazed at how supple and smooth she felt as she encircled his hips and drew him to her.

He was pliable, and she moved him, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They created heat together, his hair-dusted skin caressing her silky legs.

She rolled him to his back with a leg on each side of his waist. As they lay on the bed he yielded to her, allowing her to roam his body, exploring him with her fingers, her tongue, her lips. Without ever coming together fully, they discovered each other, testing the limits of their patience and arousal. His breath was heavy and full as she teased him.

He tried to caress her, but she pushed his hands away with a warning glance. His mouth dropped open and he groaned.

She released her hair, letting it drift over his skin like a silken curtain. She used her fingers to measure every length, every girth, every nook and cranny of his flesh as she crawled over and around him. “Francine.” She tested the feel of her nipples and lips against his bare chest, grazing his night bearded jaw and mouth, traveling back down his carved torso and stopping at his arousal.

He tried to catch parts of her with his mouth as they passed across his face, groaning at his failures. “Francine, I can’t take—” He cried out, his eyes clenched tightly against the inundation of his senses as she kissed, touched, and tasted all off him. “Francine— Oh God, Francine,” he grumbled as she wriggled, hovering over him.

He twisted below her and she gently reminded him to stay put, holding down his wrists with her hands. His hips thrust involuntarily as she leaned into him, matching her body to his, testing him with her hands, her mouth, and her breasts.

“Francine,” he roared, his passion unleashed. He pulled her tight against him, her hair spreading across them like a shiny web. His chest heaved, his muscles tensed uncontrollably, and he was spent.

She watched the strain in his features wash away as she rose above him. He reached up and brushed his lips against hers, then kissed her with all the passion of a man undone before letting his head fall back to the pillow. She lay upon him, the burning heat sealed between them, and moved her hands over his exposed skin. She looked up to his relaxed features and rested her head on his chest, savoring the minute adjustments they made as they fit curves into valleys, slowly stretching cramped muscles, moving closer and tighter together.

She couldn’t pull a lucid thought from her brain for the longest time. At last, she smiled. She had mastered him, disallowed his mastery of her, forced him to her bidding, and given him an unanswered pleasure.
So beautiful.
She glanced up at his chin as he slumbered. She smiled and shifted slightly, feeling the pulse of his manhood stir, growing between their bodies.

“My turn,” he said hoarsely. She felt the reverberation of his voice in his chest, rousing her nipples to firm peaks. She closed her eyes, waiting for his bidding.

He caressed her slowly, his hands searching her body for hidden points of tenderness and regions of undisclosed arousal. He gathered her hair, only to let it fall again to her back like rain. She moved and he grunted a caution for her to succumb to his explorations as he had hers. She relaxed upon him, more content than she had ever felt.

Her breath came slow and steady as though she slept. He gathered her hair up again then rolled her underneath him, straddling her waist and spreading her hair carefully across the pillows like a fan.

She tried to touch him and chirped a tiny complaint when he pushed his hands into her palms, lacing their fingers together. He pressed them back into the bed at her shoulders, then let go, and she trembled at the effort of holding her arms away from him as he arched over her.

“Watch me,” he said, holding her gaze for an instant. She obeyed as he kissed her nipples with wet, open kisses, weighing each breast with his hands then gently blowing across the tip, watching her skin tighten and flush. She saw them become roused beneath his touch and her heart stuttered at the feeling.

He roamed down her body, enjoying every inch as she opened to him. He touched her toes, then kissed the fading marks on each ankle and spent extra time gently caressing her soft, new-shaven legs.

The sweet whimpers that escaped her lips drove him mad, and he followed the patterns of her blush with his fingertips. He smiled at the display of color, the likes of which he had never before been witness to.

He encircled her belly button with his tongue, leaving a kiss in its depths as he moved over her. Her body shifted to meet the kisses he placed at the edge of her hips, eliciting a quiet cry from her. She grasped the pillows around her as he shifted up, tracing the line of her jaw with his nose, tasting the pulse on both sides of her neck and kissing the hollow of her throat, then tending again carefully to her breasts.

He ran his fingers into her hair, gripping her head and holding her neck for his mouth.

“Ah Gideon, Gideon. Oh God, please, Gideon,” she pleaded with him as he nipped and licked at her skin, his breath fanning over her strong and hot, and neither one of them could stand to be kept apart any longer.

He shifted, parting her knees and advancing slowly, his turgid shaft gaining entry as he pulled her legs around his waist. He lifted her up to his lap, impaling himself inside her as she held tightly to his shoulders.

His muscles vibrated with the tension of keeping his body still. He resisted the urge to withdraw himself and drive into her hard and strong. Instead he waited with his jaw clenched as he tried to extend the moment. He spread his knees, watching, waiting.

She tilted her hips against him, electric fingers spreading through her body and rejoining in her core, pulsing hard and close as she cried out his name. She concentrated on where they joined, the feeling of him inside her stretching and pushing. She tightened, feeling every hard inch of him, then released slowly.

His eyes flew wide and he groaned, his head falling back. “My God, Francine, where—”

She shifted and tensed around him again, lifting slightly as she did. Then she relaxed and sank again, his body shaking beneath her. She repeated and repeated the motion until she felt her own response, her body clenching and pulling at him, and she cried out in release as she came down on him fully.

He exploded without further stimulation and seized her, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her to him as he pulsed within her.

Her arms and head fell back and he suckled one flushed nipple. A passion-cry, the likes of which he’d never heard, tore from her as he felt her body surge around him again, and he held her tight. It was something he had never in his life experienced.

They collapsed to the bed on the piles of pillows, entangled in a sweaty mass of limbs, each gasping for air. He was heavy upon her, and she relished the weight of his body and the feel of his arousal still buried and hard. He moved with an impossible slowness of power, looking for the one prevailing spot that would cause her body to react.

Her breath caught and her eyes flew open, trapping his gaze as she cried out again, the passion strengthening. She pushed at his shoulders, the sensations too intense, but he pulled her tight against him as she fought. His arms were underneath her, holding her steady, refusing to let her give as he moved relentlessly within and without.

“Gideon,” she gasped.

“Don’t fight me, sweet. Come off for me again, Francine,” he said gruffly. “Again.” His hands slid up her back and he tangled his fingers in her hair, holding her to him as her body pulsed.

Her breath hitched and she cried his name as her climax broke and his followed. Tears streaked her cheeks while he continued holding her, allowing the insurmountable emotions to slowly subside. The moments passed languidly as he soothed her with caressing words and movements, both meant to pacify and quiet.

Shaw and Perry inspected the gaslights that had been installed in the main rooms and unoccupied suites, then the water baths. They returned to the library to look at the next step in the plans. The remaining guest rooms would be moved around, the walls shifted.

“If you look here,” Shaw said, pointing to the guest suites, “and then look at the grid, you can see that with the movement of just a few walls, the manor will finally be orderly.”

Perry nodded. “What was your question for me, then?”

“Well, these are all set up as guest suites. I wanted to ask about the sisters. I can easily change the plans to modify this last suite into a joined bedchamber, much like a marriage suite, and then I could add one more bathing room between the two here. I only thought to ask since you
all
came here instead of returning to Westcreek.”