As she ate, she spoke of her daily activities, the new cattle she’d bought, the visits she made, the small entertainments she’d attended, leaving out any mention of Will, concentrating instead on the farm and livestock.
He listened without reply, quietly drinking and watching her from under his lashes, restraining his impulse to get up, lift her from her chair, and carry her upstairs.
“Am I boring you?” she finally said.
“Not at all. I like the sound of your voice. I like to look at you. I’d like other things as well, but I promised to behave.”
He might have reached out and touched her, her body’s response so hot spur. “Don’t,” she said on a caught breath, setting down her teacup with such force the tea splashed on the cloth.
“Forgive me. I’ve missed you.” He hadn’t known until then just how much.
“You can’t walk away like you did and then expect me to—”
“Make love to me?” he said with impeccable charm.
“I won’t,” she whispered, furious at his cool insolence, her astonishing willingness, at all the women in his life.
“How can it matter if you do?”
“Because I dislike what you are.”
“That doesn’t have to affect the pleasure or play.”
“No, Oz. No!”
She was holding her hands tightly in her lap, as if white-knuckled restraint would serve as a deterrent to desire. As if saying no actually meant no. Setting his glass aside, he slowly came to his feet to play gallant to her desperate passions. Workmanlike and competent, he knew the signs of arousal, could recognize them blind in the dark.
A moment later he was lifting the small table away, and a moment after that, he leaned over, took her clenched hands in his, and drew her to her feet. “Feel my heart race,” he said, placing her closed fists on his chest. “This is like the first time for me.”
“No. I’m the thousandth, not the first.”
He shook his head, the movement small and faint. “You’re wrong. I’ve been waiting for you.”
He shouldn’t have said that, she thought, because she’d been waiting for him, for this, for the feel of his body next to hers, with utter, unequivocal longing since he’d left. The realization was so undeniable, tears welled in her eyes, and she sniffed and hiccupped, struggling to discipline her emotions.
“Don’t cry,” Oz whispered, gently wiping away the wetness trickling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry for whatever I did, for all I did, for what I didn’t do—for everything.”
“It’s not . . . your fault . . . you walked into my room . . . that night.”
“But I stayed.” He smiled. “And then stayed some more.” Abruptly picking her up, he said, “You may chastise me upstairs in more comfort.” Carrying her effortlessly, he strode to the door, shoved it open with his foot, and walked toward the stairway.
How smooth he was, how pliant his conscience, how gracefully he offered pleasure. And if her heart wasn’t involved she might argue, reject, and refuse. But she loved him, she understood now if she’d not known before, if by some spurious logic she’d discounted the truth in the past days and weeks. “I love you,” she whispered, like some foolish, naive, overly sentimental female being carried off by her Prince Charming.
She felt him tense for a moment in his swift passage up the stairs.
“I love you, too,” he said a fraction of a second later, telling himself words were only words, there was no point in being rude. He had what he wanted, and if in some small corner of his soul he acknowledged more than his sham nuptial tie, he was quick to dismiss that incomprehensible thought.
The door to his bedroom had been opened by some invisible hand, she noted when they arrived, although no servants had been evident as they traversed the quiet corridors. And a fresh bottle of brandy shared space on a small table near the bed with a tray of sweets and a carafe of scented tisane.
“They anticipate your every move,” she said with a wave of her hand at the display. “Or are arrangements like this commonplace?” Did Nell like tisane?
He came to rest just inside the room, glanced at the delicate pastries, the mild aperitif. “On the contrary, this little offering is unprecedented. Achille wishes to please you. As do I,” he added softly. “You have but to tell me what you want.”
She knew better than to tell him the truth—that she wanted him beyond the perimeters of their agreement. “Would you think me terribly selfish if I asked for ten orgasms?”
Any other woman offered carte blanche would have been less modest in her demands; in his experience expensive jewelry generally led the roster. “No, of course not,” he agreeably said. “Is that all?”
Her expression brightened. “Perhaps more then if you don’t mind.”
He smiled. “How much time do I have?”
“I’ll let you know.”
He liked that her timetable was vague; he liked more that she was in one of her insatiable moods.
Carrying her across the broad bedchamber, he reached the high four-poster bed and seated her facing him on the stark white coverlet embroidered with colorful tropical birds.
“This is different,” she murmured, running her fingertip over a bit of scarlet silk embroidery replicating exotic plumage. The last time she’d been here, the coverlet had been pale blue.
“My mother’s large collection of embroidered linens. The house is relatively unchanged.” He shrugged. “I’m not home much.”
He was too polite to say he didn’t often sleep at home, she thought. “Your mother’s decorative sense is lovely.”
“Lovely like you,” he said, abstractly exercising his charm, his focus on consummation. “You look very stylish today.” He reached for the gold filigree button at the collar of her bodice.
“I found a new dressmaker.”
Aware of his comment about her previous modiste, he ignored her pointed remark. “She’s very good,” he mildly said, his gaze flicking downward to her breasts before returning to her face. “It takes superb tailoring to contain such voluptuousness. You turned heads at Tattersalls. In fact,” he added with a fleeting smile, “I expect every man there would like to be doing what I’m doing right now.”
“Speaking of Tattersalls and sex, how did you dispatch Nell?” A blunt question perhaps, but she knew he wasn’t about to throw her out in his current state of arousal—his erection impressive as usual.
His smile faded and he paused, his fingers motionless on the third ornate button. “She responds to money,” he mildly replied, resuming his unbuttoning. “Unlike you.”
“I have enough money.”
He glanced up. “Apparently.” He didn’t say, I know because you tried to buy my child.
“I’m jealous of her when I shouldn’t be, when your life is your own.” Isolde envied his cool restraint, her own feelings in tumult.
“She means nothing to me, nor I to her.”
How was it that he could cooly dismiss a woman linked with him by gossip and she didn’t see him as heartless. She only saw the man she loved. Although, she’d be sensible to remember that this occasion was about sex, not love, and to that purpose, she said, “I shouldn’t have mentioned Nell. It was tactless of me.”
“Say anything you like.” His smile was indulgent, his voice untouched by umbrage. “I’m just happy you’re here.” The buttons freed, he slipped the violet silk jacket over her shoulders, down her arms, and over her hands. Tossing the garment aside, he stood for a moment surveying her, a forceful sense of droit du seigneur suborning his better judgment. “Your breasts are—”
“Larger.”
My property by law. “Stunning,” he said instead, her splendid breasts straining the delicate silk of her chemise, his libido in a decidedly proprietary frame of mind. Locked rooms suddenly inviting his interest.
“Pamela tells me it’s the first visible sign of pregnancy.”
He took a small breath to steady his brutish impulses. “You’re sure then, about the pr
egnancy.”
She smiled. “Very sure.”
An unmistakable concern entered his gaze. “Is it all right—that is . . . would there be any reason to—”
“Sex is permitted if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He exhaled. “Good. Thank you,” he simply said. “I’m very much a novice when it comes to this.”
“We both are.”
“Indeed,” he softly agreed, the full impact of Isolde’s pregnancy suddenly undeniable. His gaze examined her with naked interest. “If I should touch you in any way you find uncomfortable,” he said, precise and delicate, “please let—”
“Oz, stop,” she said with exasperation. “I’m just the same. Other than perhaps being slightly more demanding sexually,” she added with a lift of her brows.
The term sexually demanding gave him pause when in the past he would have greeted it with delight. “Perhaps we should think about this. How can you be sure it’s safe?”
“Good God! Don’t tell me you’ve brought me this far to begin to equivocate! I won’t allow it! Do you hear?”
He looked at her for a considering moment. “So I must perform no matter what,” he said with a sliver of a smile.
“Surely it’s no hardship.”
“And if I don’t?” he lightly inquired.
“Then perhaps I’ll go somewhere else and—”
“Don’t say it,” Oz said in sudden anger, Will, too convenient, too available, as unmarried as he.
“I was joking. Unlike you,” she said, her blue gaze direct and open, “I’ve not been entertaining at night.”
He felt a fleeting surprise, followed by an elation he chose not to decipher. “I apologize. I spoke out of turn. Allow me,” he blandly replied, “to render whatever services you require.”
“I should reject such a cooly dispassionate offer. And if I wasn’t so famished for sex,” she said, leaning back on her hands and shrugging faintly, “I might. But you’re here and I’m here and—”
“You’re famished,” he finished with a practiced smile. “I remember your charming impatience.” Her uncorseted breasts were raised high in her languid pose, the taut nipples and plump contours conspicuous through the sheer white silk of her chemise. “And I’m not in the least indifferent to you. In fact, I’m deeply moved by your presence in my home and bed.”
“While I look forward to being deeply moved by your presence in me,” Isolde sweetly replied, amusement in her clear-eyed gaze.
“We always did agree on that,” he drily said. “Even when all else was at odds.”
He was standing quite still, his gaze unreadable. “I feel as though I’m negotiating something of grave consequence instead of an afternoon of sex,” she said just a trifle shortly. “Is my pregnancy prompting your reluctance?”
“No—yes . . . no,” he gruffly concluded. “I beg your pardon again.” He smiled faintly. “I’d be very much obliged it you’d make love to me.”
“Finally,” she said. “I thought I might have to attack you.” He grinned. “An irresistible concept. If only I didn’t prefer my own rules of war.”
“War? Should I have come armed?”
“You already are, darling, in every way known to man.” And reaching out, he grasped her bare shoulders, dipped his head, and kissed her with a fierce, pent-up desire he’d held in reserve the weeks past—apparently for her alone. His erection stood waist high, horniness and lust a hard, pulsing ache so intense he could feel the rush of blood coursing through his veins, his nerves oversexed and skittish. He attributed his unique response to Isolde’s long absence, although the uncharacteristic involvement of his entire nervous system was staggering. Not that he gave a damn, though, when he was moments away from burying his cock in the hot little cunt that had haunted his dreams for weeks.
While she kissed him back with frenzied yearning, he smoothly untied the ribbon at the neckline of her chemise, unfastened the small buttons running down its front, and unwrapped her arms from around his neck long enough to slide off her chemise. “Your skirt,” he said against her mouth as she clung to him once again. “Let go a minute.”
She was feverishly panting as he freed himself from her fierce grip, the small irresistible sound ringing every randy bell in his libidinous memory as he quickly disposed of her skirt and petticoats.
Smiling up at him, her gaze heavy lidded and heated, she whispered, “No one else makes me feel this way—desperate and ravenous, weak with longing.”
“Lucky me.” He took pleasure in her admission when even the hint of exclusivity had been anathema to him in recent years. Untying her drawers, he slid them off along with her silk stockings; his weeks of deprivation were nearly at an end. Inhaling deeply, he cautioned himself to restraint—her condition and the battering ram of his libido a ruinous mix. “Are you sure ten orgasms might not be excessive?” Had he ever in his life opted for sexual moderation?
Her rampant desires running high, Isolde took a moment to fully comprehend his question and a moment more to breathlessly say, “Excessive?”
“Considering your, er, condition.”
“Is ten too much for you?” Explicit demand in every acid syllable.
He smiled. “My darling little bitch.” He flicked a finger downward. “You tell me.”
The stretched fabric of his trousers sent an anticipatory shiver up her spine. “I thought London amusements may have sapped your vigor.”
Whether she was goading him out of spite or toying with him mattered little now that the rules were clear. Ten and carte blanche. Kicking off his shoes, he pulled off his socks and shrugged out of his jacket.
“Hurry.”
Ah, his imperious, randy wife of fond memory. “I am, darling.” Swiftly unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, he pulled them off and dropped them to the floor.
“Oz, have pity,” Isolde pleaded, her eyes half-shut, her hips undulating faintly, flame-hot need in her ragged whisper.
Wrenching open the last button of his trouser placket, he saw her clench her thighs together in an effort to repress the peaking turbulence. Experienced, he moved quickly, shoving her upward into the center of the bed, spreading her legs with an agile brush of his hands, and in seconds he was fully engulfed in her warm, honeyed sweetness.
Her blissful sigh echoed his soft grunt of pleasure.
“Please,” she begged, leaving nail marks on his back, urging him on with little importuning whimpers. “Please, oh God, please . . .”
Where would you like me to go? But never one to contradict an impassioned female, he cautiously eased forward.
She gasped and he recoiled, his heart drumming in his chest.
“Don’t you dare stop!” she hissed, bloodying his back in her impatience.
Ultrasensitive to the yielding resiliency of her vaginal tissue, scrupulously unselfish even in extremis, he moved forward warily—fucking pregnant women outside his area of expertise.
Not that there weren’t decided advantages to the situation.
Coitus interruptus was no longer required.
Sex au naturel in all its glory. A first.
Less intellectually engaged, Isolde was in the grip of a hot, roiling passion inundating her senses in overwrought waves of pleasure, warming her heart and soul, offering her unprecedented rapture. Filled to overflowing, utterly gorged, Oz’s virility and power gratifying every trembling nerve and cell, beguiling every impressionable sexual receptor, she was being transported toward orgasmic bliss with an expertise that anticipated her every wish.
Like now.
Sliding his hands under her bottom, he lifted her slightly, drove forward minutely, and reading her shuddering response, whispered, “Now darling, now.”
His voice alone was enough to incite her palpitating genital nerves into an orgasmic spasm that hurtled through her vagina, up her spine, and spiked through her fevered senses in a wild, violent, long overdue climax.
She wondered after that first fast and furious orgasm whether the raw,
breathtaking ecstasy was due to Oz’s long absence, her pregnancy, some flawless synthesis of hot lust and sweet love, or a combination thereof.
Then his grip tightened on her bottom, he dragged her closer, and shocked by the sudden prodigal sensation, her thoughts yielding to tempestuous feeling, she gave herself up once again to flame-hot avarice. Breathlessly clinging to him, her vagina silken with liquid desire, she melted around his hard, rigid length as he plunged deeper and deeper still, his rhythm practiced, facile, delicately expert.
In the ensuing velvety flux and flow, with her warm, soft body offering him all—bliss and ravishment, passion and raging fervor—the game of dalliance took on a capricious and volatile new scope. An unquenchable longing pricked his previous sangfroid; wistful sentiment overrode the sophisticated worldliness of carnal lust, and moments later, when he joined her second orgasm and poured his hot seed into her, the fury of his climax matched the ferocity of her screams.
Perhaps it was her wild cries that provoked his novel emotions, he decided afterward with postcoital pragmatism.
Or perhaps her voracious appetites gratified his vanity.
Or maybe she was nothing more than a rollicking change from Nell, he thought as his breathing slowed, reason returned, and he lifted his forehead from the mattress.
Isolde’s lashes fluttered upward, her gaze heavy with languor and only inches away. “I may not survive many more of those,” she whispered.
“I guarantee you will,” he murmured, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, amorous play replacing quixotic emotion. “As I recall, your record is more than ten.”
“Never like these. I feel as though I’ve been drugged.”
“A good drug apparently,” he drawled.
She shifted her hips the merest distance and smiled up at him. “You’re still gloriously hard.”
Oz smiled. “He likes you.”
“I can tell.” Oz’s erection was undiminished. “Take off the rest of your clothes . I want to feel your skin on mine—not just him”—she wiggled her hips—“but everywhere.”
“At your service, ma’am.” With a quick kiss, he withdrew, slid from the bed, and swiftly stripped off his trousers.
Sexy As Hell (Berkley Sensation) Page 26