Unwrapped (17 page)
“Is this how you get all the girls to shut up?”
“Actually,” he said. “I’ve never had a girl keep talking this long before. It must be a trait of you future women.” My boots came off one at a time. “So you see, I am much in need of this sort of education.” He slid the dress from my shoulders. I let him, removing my bustle framework and petticoat myself, so that I was in nothing more than my corset, stockings and thoroughly futuristic boy shorts (I hated Victorian underwear.)
“You’re smiling now,” he noted.
“I’m smiling because I thought you could handle anything a woman said or did. I heard you were quite the capable rake.”
“I maintain an illusion that is so, but the pretending comes to an end now,” he said. His gaze swept over me hungrily. “I confess something this deliberate is a first for me. Before it has been hurried and…” his mouth quirked again. “Selfish.”
I pulled his tuxedo jacket off and slowly unknotted his bow tie. His eyes kept tracing the outline of my curves and I felt my body respond, my core tightening and my nipples hardening under my corset. God, he was handsome. And the warmth of his hard body underneath the tuxedo was driving me crazy.
“Future girls don’t like selfish,” I told him, unbuttoning his shirt.
“And how shall I be generous then?”
I forced him to kneel. He looked up at me, tossing the hair out of his eyes. I put a finger to his lips to forestall any stupid questions. Then I sat on the edge of the chaise, facing him, so close that my knees grazed his chest. I licked my lips. I’d never done this before. Well, I’d obviously never had sex in a Victorian opera house—but
this
, a man kneeling in front of me, poised to do my bidding, was entirely new. My past boyfriends had been decent lovers, but our lovemaking had never been this elaborate. Seeing Henry eager and willing and waiting sent thrills through me.
“Stroke my leg again,” I instructed quietly. He complied, running his fingers from the tips of my silk-covered toes all the way to the bare skin near my hips. This continued until my skin was pebbled with goosebumps, until I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Now kiss me where your hands have been.”
Warm lips through the silk and then they were on the bare skin of my thighs, working their way inside. He let his kisses drift to the sensitive crease where my thighs joined my center, then his lips drifted over my boy shorts—not touching me at all—and made their way down my other leg. His hands joined his mouth, and at each pass, his mouth came closer to the core of my need, until finally he grazed it and I let out a breathy moan.
“Touch me there,” I said.
“Your wish is my command.” It came out gallant and strangely possessive all at once. He brushed his fingers across my lace-covered folds, once, twice, and then he pushed them to the side, continuing the soft touches.
I spread my legs wider. “Here.” I took his finger and brought it to my clit, showing him how to caress it, how to rub it. With my hand still wrapped around his, he began rubbing me in small circles, his other hand still teasing my slick center as he did so.
I squirmed on the chaise, the pleasure becoming almost too much to bear sitting still. I was going to climax soon, but not yet. I pulled Henry’s hand away. “Kiss me there,” I said. He leaned forward, and the first stroke of his hot tongue made me grab his hair, pushing him closer to me. He began licking and teasing at me, his head moving between my silk-stockinged thighs. “Yes, like that,” I said. I kept hold of his hair, letting my own head hang back as I rode the waves of my mounting pleasure, feeling my curls pulling out of their pins and tumbling down my back.
I gave his hair a particularly sharp tug. “Such a good learner,” I breathed. “Keep going.”
He kept kissing and sucking and I could feel the tension building and building until I was on the precipice. “You’ll like this part, Mr. Devitt.” I took his hand and slid his finger inside of me and that was all it took. I came undone, my body racked with waves of release, convulsing around his finger and still pulling at his hair.
As my climax abated, I relaxed against the chaise, the glow inside my chest echoed by the glow permeating the air. Then Henry stood, his arousal obvious. I bit my lip. Seeing him hard through his tuxedo pants, his hair tousled from where I’d grabbed it, my scent still on his lips—I found myself ready again, ready and craving. Without a word, he scooped me from the chaise, carrying me to the corner of the room, where bolts of silk and satin and velvet had tumbled over and now spilled into a deliciously soft pile.
“I would like very much to be selfish now,” he said hoarsely, laying me on the makeshift bed. He unhooked my corset and tossed it unceremoniously to the side.
“Not yet,” I said. I brought his head to my breasts, and he took one nipple in his mouth. I arched my back and his fingers once again found my folds.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what to do again.”
I shivered with delight. “Show yourself to me,” I said, and I could recognize the hunger within my own voice.
He knew what I meant. Without hesitation, he unfastened the topmost portion of his tuxedo pants and drew himself out. He was thick and hard, so hard that even the curves and veins seemed etched in stone.
“Oh,” I said, unable to keep the raw need from my voice.
He knelt, slowly pulled my boy shorts off, and then laid himself over me, burying his face in my neck. I could feel him shaking with the restraint it took to not take me then and there, to not thrust into me, blindly following his need. I took hold of his shoulders and pushed him on his back, throwing one leg over him, now wearing nothing but my stockings and my choker. His hands slid up my thighs to cup my ass. I leaned down to kiss him and he groaned against my mouth as I started moving on top of him, rubbing my wet center across his cock. I traced kisses up to his ears and his cheeks as I positioned myself so that his tip rested against my entrance.
“Stay still,” I said, and although his shaking grew more pronounced, he did as I said.
I pushed down, feeling his thick crown glide inside of me, gasping a little as I sat back and took his full length. I stayed for a moment, watching his face as he watched me, and then started moving, slower at first, then faster and faster. “I’m going to be the selfish one now,” I whispered to him. He shuddered. “I’m going to use you, the man who’s used to using women. What do you think about that?”
A thin sheen of sweat was visible on his brow. “I think that sounds amazing,” he said.
Satisfied, I ground down on him, loving the friction on my clit coupled with his cock inside me, which teased and rubbed secret places that I’d never felt before. I reached a hand down to work my clit and used the other to pinch my nipple.
“If you don’t stop, I’m going to come,” Henry said roughly.
At that, my body clenched and then released, my muscles spasming around him in a cascade of delicious tensions and unravelings. I closed my eyes and rode the waves wildly, using his hard length and the memory of his knowing eyes to extend my climax further and further until I was limp and sated and barely able to keep myself upright.
“Now,” I whispered. “Now you can be selfish.”
In an instant, I was on my back and he was driving into me, deep and hard, his breathing ragged and all semblance of charm and manners and gallantry completely undone in the face of his lust. Our eyes met as he thrust, and I felt a third orgasm mounting suddenly—almost viciously—cinching the muscles deep inside my torso, threatening to pull me under, into an ocean of pleasure where there was no speech and no thought and not even time itself.
“Emilia,” he said, and then he cried out, coming long and hot inside of me. I came too, this orgasm almost too much to bear, biting his shoulder as it took me. For a moment we stayed that way, breathing hard, my teeth sunk deep into his skin. I finally pulled back to see his rich eyes looking into my own. His face split into a grin.
“I would call that a quality education,” he murmured.
He slowly withdrew himself and I was surprised at how much I missed it, the feeling of us joined. I’d only just met him and yet it seemed liked we’d known each other far longer. We dressed in silence, finally buttoned and hooked, though somewhat rumpled and flushed.
“Will they really take these hours from me?” He took my hand. “I can’t lose this time with you. I simply can’t.”
I pressed my hand to his cheek. I felt the same way, but there was a reason the Bureau had put these protocols into place. “It was magical, Henry. But it shouldn’t have happened. I don’t belong to this time, and the Vikings and pteranodons certainly don’t. It’s easier—and safer—that none of this will have happened for you.”
“No,” he said fiercely. “You are the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me, and you’re asking me to submit to an erasure of that?”
Footsteps on the stage, then on the stairs. The Bureau.
“Psst.”
I frowned. Bureau agents weren’t the type to psst.
“Guys.”
Sophie Wells emerged from the stairwell. She wore a completely different outfit and there was something strange about her, as if I was looking at a doppelganger or a professional impersonator.
“Sophie?”
“Duh. Who else?” She straightened her cap and smiled, nodding toward Henry, who looked very confused. “I came to smuggle him out.”
“What?” None of this was making sense. “I sent you back to fetch the Bureau. Are you with them right now?”
“In a sense, yes. But I’m also here.” She pulled off a glove to check a gold pocket watch fastened to her waist. Her wrist had a tattoo of a stupid song lyric from a stupid band. Sophie most definitely did not have a wrist tattoo sixty minutes ago.
Worry began to edge its way into my mind. “Sophie, what have you done?”
She beamed. “I finally figured it out. It’s driven me crazy, this past year, wondering why the hell the transmitters refused to work. When we got back, they ran all of these diagnostics and they couldn’t find a single malfunction or broken part or anything. And then, last week, I heard a technician in the company office theorizing that a hidden software virus could do it—mobilize any outward calls and then delete itself before it could be detected. But, the technician said, only a genius could have done it. A genius who knew transmitters inside and out.”
“Like Mason,” I said.
“Right! And once I realized that, I realized something else—that the boyfriend that you’ve been nipping off to see this last year was none other than Henry Devitt, which meant that he had somehow avoided having his memory wiped by the Bureau, which meant that he got out of the Savoy somehow. But how could he sneak out, when the Bureau was busy setting up waypoints and preparing to search the building?”
“With a portable platform, I presume?” Henry himself supplied this. Hearing the jargon from his lips made me smile.
Sophie nodded again. “Right! And then it all came together. Mason arranged the transmitter problem. I’m here to hide Henry from the Bureau. And now the stage is set in my time for you guys to—” Her face went mischievous. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“So I will see Miss Jenkins again?” Henry asked. “Soon?”
“Most definitely.”
Before I knew it, I was swept up into a heady kiss where our tongues flicked and danced together as his hands wound in my hair. The kiss was promise and hope and longing, my heart beating madly as the tachyon cloud glowed around us.
“Soon,” he promised.
“Soon,” I promised back, still completely boggled but willing to take tattooed-Sophie’s word for it. With all the charm and grace he’d exhibited the first time we’d met, he pulled off his top hat and set it on my own head. I reached up and adjusted it, liking the idea of having something of his to keep.
They made for the stairwell. Sophie stopped. “And Emilia?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t serve that shrimp chowder at your engagement party, okay? Victorian refrigeration methods are so unreliable.” There was a glow and a smell, and I knew they were gone.
I sat down on the chaise suddenly, fear and delight tangling together in my chest.
Engagement party?
But Henry and I had only just met…although this Sophie had come from my future, so we would have known each other a year. Could it really be true?
And when the Bureau agents found me, I was clutching Henry’s top hat, grinning like a fool.
September
It started in September, in a light breeze that carried the hint of popcorn and funnel cakes. It started at a carnival. Amidst the twinkling lights and undulating screams of people on rides, Mischa saw him. His hair was curly and the most interesting shade of brown. As soon as she thought that, she was embarrassed at the mundanity of her observation. Averting her gaze from his shaggy hair, she accidentally found his chocolate brown eyes. They crinkled at the corners as he smiled slowly.
That can’t be me he’s looking at
, she immediately thought, blushed, and turned away before she embarrassed herself by staring any further. As she trudged along, holding her small cousin by the hand, she committed the lines of his jaw, the strength of his shoulders, the slight slump of a man still uncomfortable with his height, to memory. She’d dream of him tonight.
She guided her cousin Carolina to a ride a few stalls down from the motorcycles, which was the one run by the cute guy. This one involved a dragon that swung like a pendulum. The young, less attractive guy running it turned away when she walked up. He yelled to the cute guy, who responded, she couldn’t quite make out what either of them had said. They were both laughing as she hurriedly pulled her cousin into the dragon’s belly for the ride. The songs of the summer that had just ended crackled through the PA system Gangsta’s Paradise, Waterfalls, and more welcome, Comedown by Bush.
The sky darkened rapidly during the brief ride, which thrilled her cousin and filled her with anxiety. She didn’t like these flimsy rides in daylight, but in the dark you couldn’t even tell if something was falling apart. As they were ushered off the rickety dragon, the lights and sounds began to shut down one by one as drops of rain went from sporadic to steady. Mischa pulled Carolina under the awning of a nearby game stall.
“Wanna throw some darts while ya wait? Prizes guaranteed!” yelled the toothless man manning the booth. His nametag said “Dennis” or at least she thought it did beneath the grime. He leered at Mischa and spat a glob of tobacco juice onto the grass.
“Oh, no, thank you,” she said to him, hoping the little one hadn’t been paying attention to hear the word prize. She considered how wet they would get jogging to the car in the rain. Maybe if she carried Carolina?
She glanced out at the carnival. Her eyes met dark brown ones. He was waiting out the rain at the next stall. This time there was no mistaking. He was definitely staring at her. She forgot any thought of leaving as his eyes raked her top to bottom.
Oh God
, she thought,
please let me look okay
. She took a mental inventory white baby tee, fishnets, a flannel shirt tied tightly around her waist served as a skirt, and her favorite 10-hole Docs. Not exactly dressed to impress, but far from the sweats she’d started the day and Tae Bo in. She shivered, partially from the sudden chill, and partially from the intensity in his gaze.
Mischa gave him a tentative smile. His whole face shone as he smiled back. Someone yelled something unintelligible, he cocked his beautiful head, and ambled off. Her little cousin was pulling on her hand, and it took a second to float down to earth again before she realized the rain had stopped.
“One more ride, kiddo,” she bargained with the little girl as they emerged from under the game tent, “but it has to be the motorcycles.” Damned if she was leaving without one more eyeful.
“Motorcycles!” Carolina shrieked, already racing towards the ride. Sometimes it was too easy.
Her heart beat faster and faster as she noticed him notice her approaching and gave another one of those illuminating grins. Silently, she handed over the tickets, flinching as his skin scorched hers when their hands met. Was it her imagination, or had he jumped too? Had to be her. It had been a long, long time since she’d touched a man, and now she was projecting her own long-unfulfilled desires onto some poor, gorgeous creature.
The ride lasted a hundred years while she contemplated whether to speak to him; it was over in a second when she realized it was now or never. The words were out before she realized she’d summoned the courage “Are you free after work?”
Shocked by her own audacity, she immediately began preparing herself for the rejection that didn’t come—“Meet me in the field at ten?” he asked.
Omigod. An accent. Now she couldn’t stop smiling as she collected her cousin and headed for the car. Scottish maybe? Should she change clothes? Was her makeup still okay after the rain? Sometimes it was hotter when the mascara ran just a little. Irish, could it be?
It felt like time had telescoped again when she pulled back into the field that served as a makeshift parking lot for the carnival. It was like she hadn’t left, except that she knew she had spent an hour touching up her eyeliner and turning around in front of the mirror before muttering a vague excuse to her roommate. Heather did
not
need to know what she was up to, nosy bitch. She was probably too wrapped up in Tekken 2 to even notice Mischa was leaving anyway.
She hopped out of the convertible and sat on the warm hood. It was ten on the dot. She leaned back against the windshield and gazed at the stars. They were bright out here in the country, brighter than they were back home in the ‘burbs, and obviously the city lights of her current home didn’t leave much glory for the stars. She realized she’d been gazing for a while. He was late. He wasn’t coming.
Mischa slumped, glad she hadn’t told her roommate the truth—in retrospect, meeting a carny she hadn’t even traded names with in a field probably wasn’t the best idea. Horror movies often had similar beginnings. She sighed, a little embarrassed. Even if he was a perfect gentleman, he was out of her league.
“What’s wrong?” asked a honey-sweet deep voice next to her ear.
She jumped, suddenly breathless with the silly joy of smelling his aftershave. He slid in next to her on the hood of the car, ignorant of her rapid pulse.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said in that gorgeous accent. “Sorry I’m late. Some idiot named Dennis from games managed to get drunk and kill himself falling off the Ferris Wheel.”
“Are you-- what? Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious. But I’m not going to let that ruin my evening, nor should you.”
An hour passed in their unexpectedly endless banter. He wasn’t Scottish, he was South African. She told him about her hometown, why she’d moved to the city to maximize her opportunities. A hairstylist in a small town is relegated to prom do’s and shampoo sets on the elderly, the occasional Mom-bob. That was not where Mischa intended to end up. Her painting hobby also felt stifled in a place where “art” was a
Footprints
poster. Plus, there was the fun of having her niece Carolina so close.
As for the mysterious stranger, he played rugby. It was, he said, his lifeblood, which was also evidently green in honor of his beloved Springboks team. He’d come to America to save money to join some sort of elite rugby club. As he described the game, his voice grew more animated and his accent thickened. She watched, delighted, as he jumped up and demonstrated several key moves. His biceps rippled under the snug thermal he wore. Never a sports fan, Mischa suddenly realized the error of her ways when he bent down in a mock scrum. The half-squat showed off his deliciously shaped ass, even through the blue jeans.
“I don’t understand why you call a touchdown a try. You’ve succeeded, it isn’t trying!” she laughed.
“Don’t question the great game.” He mock-tackled her. Her whole body tingled at his touch.
Too soon, it was time for him to go back to the tiny trailers the carnival provided its workers. She hopped off the car to say a reluctant goodbye. He moved in close, closer, as her back pressed into the handle of the car door and her heart began to race with his proximity and the suddenly overwhelming spicy scent he carried. He hovered above her, gazing into her green eyes with his chocolate ones for too long. Her legs could hardly hold her as his long body finally, finally folded down to the anticipated kiss. His lips were full and soft but pressed hard against hers. Their lips parted together, and her tongue found his. She kissed him boldly, exploring his mouth with the length of her tongue. He groaned, soft into her mouth, as his hands moved up her arms to entwine in her bleached layered hair.
The sound of him made her so wet that she worried—but also kind of hoped he’d notice. It had been way too long since she’d been laid if a simple kiss caused that kind of reaction. Her hands ranged over his muscled back, feeling it flex slightly as he moved against her. His mouth moved down from hers and into her neck. Her fingers tightened. His breath was hot and ragged between the kisses just beneath her jaw. She was growing so dizzy she almost
had
to move one hand into his curls and pull, just to keep herself upright.
She needn’t have bothered; he was already lowering her down to the grass next to the convertible. His arms easily supported her weight the whole way down, something no other guy had ever managed, she thought in a brief moment of coherency. Their lips and tongues danced together, pulled apart, tasted and savored each other. The shock of cool air on her stomach told her he was sliding his hands up her shirt. It was off almost before she knew it.
Unwilling to let him have all the fun, she pulled his shirt up and over his head. She gasped at the sight of his tanned torso in the moonlight. It was magazine-perfect, like… like Brad Pitt but more athletic. Rugby was good, she concluded. The sharply defined muscles of his shoulders melded into perfect pecs, a rippling stomach, and a surprisingly delicate V angling into his fitted jeans.
As he lowered his warmth back down onto her, she felt his hardness. It was her turn to moan when he pressed against her. She grasped him with her legs and pulled their pelvises tight. The thin silk of her string bikini panties rubbed against his denim armor futilely, so she began to fumble with his belt with one hand while simultaneously pulling his head in for deeper kisses with the other.
“Wait,” he managed, extricating himself. He started back to his original intent, taking first one, than the other nipple in his mouth slowly. She arched her back to let him have as much of her breasts as he wanted. She tried to hold back her noises of pleasure as her nipples hardened in the alternating wet heat of his mouth and slight chill breeze of the September air.
His kisses trailed lower as he grappled with her flannel skirt. She was aching for him, not sure she’d last, so she helped him slide it off before tangling her hands back into his thick curls.
His tongue met her wetness like nothing she’d experienced before. There was no holding back her sighs now. He licked her fast at first, like he couldn’t get enough. Then it was slow, as if he had all the time in the world, gripping her hips to keep her snug against his soft mouth. She rocked her hips closer against him involuntarily. He nipped her slightly with his teeth and she almost yelled with desire. He slid two fingers into her soaking wet opening and began to suck gently at the same time.
Mischa thought she might faint. There wasn’t a drop of blood left in her head, and she couldn’t even breathe. It was almost a relief when she felt him move back and fumble in his wallet for a condom. After an excruciatingly long minute of pants-removal and condom-positioning, he rose up and plunged himself inside her.
Then she realized how wide his cock was, and felt his fingers slide between them to caress her clit, and realized she would get no relief. His rhythm was slow, even lazy.
“Give me more,” she whimpered into his ear, but he only smiled again. He slowed down even further.
“Not yet.” Her legs tightened around his back fruitlessly. He held her in place with his strong arms and made her beg for it.
“Please, pretty please,” she sucked on his earlobe and whispered, perfectly willing to play his game. He moaned a little, and she knew she had him. “Make me come,” she moaned into his ear, “Please,” moving down to his neck and nibbling until he moved again. His fingers and his cock moved in concert. She licked his stubble-covered jawline and began to writhe beneath him.
Every nerve in her body was on fire. He was saying something in his native tongue that needed no translation. The language of lust is universal. Her moans had turned to near-screams somewhere along the line, and he was nearly as loud as he thrust harder and harder, almost pinching her swollen clit.
“Oh shit, oh shit,” he said in her ear, in English so she’d understand how she was affecting him. She yanked him back by that gorgeous hair to watch his face as he came. The first spasm of his cock started her own orgasm. They came together, pulsing, moaning, slick with each other’s pleasure.
As their heartbeats slowly returned to normal, he picked grass out of her hair and smiled at her. Mischa was a little surprised at herself, but still unwilling to let him slide out of her. With a final kiss, they finally untangled themselves and redressed. He opened the door for her. She pulled a pen out of the glove box and handed it to him. She was nothing if not polite. He wrote his pager number on her palm, closed her hand around it. She did the same for him. She drove off before he could say goodbye. Rip off the Band-aid, she reminded herself. That’s how these things work.
She glanced in the rearview once, pulling out of the field. He was still standing there, fist closed around the number she’d written, over his heart. She’d definitely dream about him tonight.
Clifford
, said the ink on her hand. She licked it, savoring the lingering taste of grass and his hair product, and wiped her hand down her flannel.
He’d dream too, before he realized the number she’d written was a fake.