by Joan Vincent
Be what? she asked.
Provocative.
Her thought stumbled. Maddie fingered the tails of the ribbon that gathered the night rail’s neckline close to her neck. She turned away from the mirror.
Summoning to mind the end of that mad night at Lime’s Point, she was again in Quentin’s crushing embrace, in the sweet swirl of their kiss which had been filled with a love so intense her heart soared then and now. Her nervousness fled.
Maddie sighed. She wrapped her arms about her as Quentin had done when he carried her before him on Perseus through the dawn back to Hart Cottage that early morn. They had both known he had duties connected with the fray that had to come first.
“Two days” he had whispered in her ear.
“Two days no more,” she said aloud and turned back to the mirror. Her imagination transformed the lawn night rail into a daring gown from the latest La Belle Assemblée.
When the image faded, Maddie frowned, then her gaze fell on the bow at her throat. She tugged on the ribbon, untied it and loosened the gathers until the neckline fell just below the beginning cleft of her breasts.
“Do I dare?” she asked her reflection.
Do you wish him to desire you as you desire him?
“Yes,” Maddie breathed, and tied the ribbons as they were.
She wandered about the room, pausing before her mother’s portrait. If only I knew what a proper wife did. Mother, how I wish you were here to help me. Maybe I should have asked Aunt Prissy. She chuckled at the thought of putting her maiden aunt to the blush with such a question.
Turning from the painting Maddie walked to the open double doors and looked up at the sky. The stars glittering in the black sky danced with a new brilliance. Behind her she heard the bedchamber door open. A tremor of anticipation ran up her spine.
Maddie stilled, wished with all her heart she were between the sheets and not so—so vulnerable. So unsure of how to please Quentin. She nervously began to wrap the tails of the ribbon falling to her waist about her fingers. She relaxed when she heard the dressing room door open.
The thud of boots falling to the floor produced a picture of Quentin using her father’s bootjack. With the rustle of linen on linen she saw his strong fingers untie his cravat, draw it from his muscular neck; his hands close on his jacket lapels and push it off his shoulders, and down his arms; those warm sensual fingers unbutton his shirt. Maddie envisioned him pulling his shirt over his head—one bare shoulder then the other. When she heard the shirt slither to the floor she could see in her mind’s eye the whole of his powerfully built chest.
She pressed one hand to her abdomen. What a marvel that the spiral of warmth could begin even before he even touched her. Closing her eyes, Maddie mentally trailed her hand along the long red scar running down his right side then moved it across his abdomen and down toward the top of his breeches.
* * *
Quentin’s mind was emptied of everything by the vision of Maddie’s curvaceous body, a dark outline beneath the thin lawn gown. The end of her hair brushed against the soft roundness of her derriere. Sudden need erased all he had intended to say. Growing ever harder, he reined in his desire, made love rule over lust.
But then, he was behind Maddie and his hands stroked down her long black hair, grazed the curve of her buttocks. Quentin repeated the action, combing his fingers through the long raven tresses. He revelled at doing what he had longed to do since he had watched her sleeping in that chair by his bedside. He visualized doing it through the years to come.
Maddie luxuriated in his closeness, at his gentleness. She straightened when his hands rested on her shoulders and he began to rotate his thumbs against her spine. She closed her eyes, settled back into the motion, let him carry her thoughts where he would.
The slow sure movement of his fingers against her tense muscles hypnotized, lured Maddie to a different place. When he began to gather her long black tresses into one hand, she breathed, “Good evening, my lord.”
“Good eve to you, my lady,” he answered, laying the black cloud across her shoulder, baring her neck.
Bay rum mixed with his own intoxicating scent swirled around her intensifying the effect he was having on her. His hands moved across her shoulders, inched down her arms barely touching yet provoking a sensation unlike any she had ever known.
His breath fanned her neck before his lips brushed across it. “Maddie, my love.”
She sank into his hold. Her heart tripped as he drew her back against him, and at the same time, stepped forward. His warmth joined hers.
Maddie trembled in his arms. “Are you cold?” He brushed his hands up and down her arms. He drew a steadying breath. “Are you cold?” he again asked.
“No,” she whispered, finding it difficult to breath, to think about anything but the play of his hands across her skin, the warmth of his body against hers. The peculiar pleasure he evoked began to twist into a spiral of ever rising heat. It began where his hands now rested on her bare arms and travelled deep within her. It was making everything different, sharper, clearer.
Maddie’s nervous fears dropped away like leaves before a storm. She yearned to turn in his arms, to cling to him as she had on that moonlit beach—to have him fall on her, press his weight into her as he had done so briefly on their wedding night.
Quentin forced his hands to rest on her elbows. You prepared a speech, he told himself. But the words shifted like sand washed away by the scent of roses snaking past his falling defences.
Closing his eyes, he tried to direct his mind away from his longing, but too many images of Maddie crowded in, broke through—drove his need.
James Vincouer, he thought in an effort to intimidate his budding passion, disclose all of it now.
Later, whispered Desire.
Perceiving the change in him, Maddie tried to collect her thoughts, tried to still her rampaging imagination. Her voice trembled. “Is something wrong?”
“We should talk. I promised we would get to know one another better—before ...” Clearing his throat he said distractedly, “I promised to give you time.”
At this jumbled offer a soft smile curved Maddie’s lips. Very slowly, all body contact possible maintained, savoured, she turned to face him. Curving her arms around his waist she found one hand entangled by the ribbon coiled around her fingers.
They both stared at it and then met each other’s gaze.
Quentin read her love, her need. Slowly, tenderly he reached down and unwound the ribbon from her fingers. Meeting her gaze with all his love, he threaded the satin width through his fingers.
“I am held fast,” he whispered. Quentin raised the ribbon to his lips; brushed a kiss across it.
“You are?” Maddie asked, her voice shaking with wonder. She placed a hand against his cheek, remembered the first time she had ever done so—how even then, before she had known anything about him, he had touched her heart.
“By shackles stronger than any metal that exists,” Quentin said. All of his good intentions slipped from his grasp. He feathered a kiss across her lips.
Maddie slid her arms about his neck. He began to pull away but she held him fast. “We have years to learn about each other’s families, about our past lives. This night,” she kissed the hollow at the base of his throat, “I wish to,” her lips caressed his chin, “discover,” her tongue tickled his ear, “you.”
Quentin answered her with a kiss—first gentle and reassuring. He increased the intensity, sought an answering heat. He swallowed Maddie’s sigh of satisfaction with his own, met the thrusts of her tongue.
Propelled by a rising hunger, Maddie pressed against her husband’s length, against the evidence of his desire. She answered his deepening kiss with a longing that had matured since their first embrace.
“Quentin, I love you.” She sighed his name again as he rained kisses across her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks.
He tried to draw back, to give them space, but his intent was forgotten beneath the sl
ow, tempting slide of her lips across his and the tentative flick of her tongue. He responded with a hunger he had not dared admit, not even during his two-day absence, through those nights of wild dreams he scarce could credit now to be coming true. Her fingers worked on the sash of his dressing gown, roused him further. Quentin captured her wrists and gazed at her. His ragged breath matched hers.
“Is something wrong?” Maddie whispered. She saw an inner struggle in his eyes. “Have—have I—done something—wrong?”
“Wrong?” Quentin chuckled wickedly.
The timbre of his voice sent a frisson of yearning through Maddie. She looked into the icy blue depths of his eyes and saw his need mirror hers. When he let out a long shudder of breath, she thrilled at this proof of his desire.
Damming himself for rushing her, Quentin forced himself to ask, “Are you certain you want—this? Want me?
“I am willing to wait.” He kissed her forehead, “until we are,” kissed the tip of her nose, “better,” kissed her eyes, “acquainted.”
The longing in his eyes, the hunger for his touch flooded Maddie’s heart. She dared to whisper, “I wish to be intimately acquainted with you now,” and boldly pushed her hand down between them until it rested atop his pulsing shaft.
Maddie traced its length at her leisure. She was amazed when a low moan escaped him. A thrill of feminine triumph coursed through her.
Hoarsely, urgently, he asked, “You are certain?”
“You have the oddest effect on me,” Maddie said, her hands splayed across his chest. “I’ve never felt this way before.” She met his gaze. “I have never wanted anything more than I want you.”
Quentin teased her lips, promised, “There is so much more.”
While he nibbled on her ear, Maddie unfastened the tie of his dressing gown. She pushed it off of his shoulders, trailing kisses across his chest. When her husband went very still, his hands locking on her arms, Maddie looked up.
“Do you know what that will get you?” he asked, his smile sensuous.
Maddie smiled with unconscious allure. “No, not quite,” she admitted and walked her fingers across his chest, brushed his nipples with her fingers. “But I trust my husband will demonstrate the consequence of my—folly.”
Watching Maddie draw her tongue across her bottom lip while her fingers fanned against his chest did nothing for Quentin’s self-control. He captured her hand and slowly drew her towards the bed. When they paused beside it, he took hold of the ribbons trailing from the bow between her breasts. At her smile he tugged on them.
Maddie watched the play of emotions in his eyes as the weight of the gown slowly eased the neckline wider, lower down her full, firm breasts. She felt rather than saw the crackle of tension flow through him as the line of fabric descended below her nipples. Letting her hands drop to her sides, Maddie felt no embarrassment beneath his admiring gaze as the gown slid down her shoulders, brushed the curves of her hips. The coolness of the air went unnoticed as it pooled at her feet.
“My God, you are so beautiful,” Quentin said in awed tones. He trailed his fingers across the top curve of her breasts, kissed her with deliberate leisure. His tongue touched the tip of her tongue while his fingers travelled between her breasts, around and up the sides. Continuing, he repeated the lazy eight patterns around them, he deepened their kiss.
Maddie gasped at the sensations his hands stirred deep within her and answered it with a growing passion. She pressed her lips against his and he seemed to read her mind, cupped her breasts, trailed his thumbs across her nipples. Raising her hands to his arms, Maddie met his lips in a fierce pledge of her love.
With each succeeding kiss, Quentin increased the pressure and intensity of his caresses, stirred her arousal with loving expertise. Reaching his limit, he paused, drew a steadying breath. He leaned his head against hers, ran his hands up and down her back, gritting his teeth when she responded by running her hands up his arms.
“Love, I do think it is time to be in bed,” he said huskily.
Kissing her agreement, Maddie swayed against him, slowly, unconsciously circling her hips against the bulge straining behind his breeches.
Quentin prolonged the kiss, enjoyed, responded to her movement in kind. When her hand went to the top button of his breeches, he laid his atop hers and pressed it down. At her surge against his mouth, against his body, he reached down and lifted the corner of the turned down sheet.
Obeying his guiding hand, Maddie slipped into the bed, hardly aware of its coolness beneath her rising need and the reply to it she read in his eyes. She watched him draw the bed curtain shut and followed his silhouette until he blew out the candles. Holding her breath, she listened to his soft footfalls, to the swish of the satin dressing gown as it glided to the floor, heard him push his breeches down his thighs. Met him hungrily as the bed sank under his weight.
Easing his body along hers, Quentin turned on his side, ran a hand down her arm, and brushed the peak of her breast. He felt Maddie’s sudden tenseness and closed his hand about it repeating earlier, gentle caresses. Kissing her he moved his hand to her other breast and smiled when she pressed to meet it.
Maddie relaxed as he kissed his way across her shoulders and down across her breastbone moving lower and lower. She never guessed what he intended until he nuzzled and his mouth closed over her breast, his tongue caressed, provoked new, stronger reactions.
“Quentin,” she breathed, her hands on his shoulders.
“Shhh,” he murmured and took his attention to her other breast while his hands roamed over her stomach, edged slowly down her thigh where his fingers came to rest. Quentin captured Maddie’s lips in a long slow kiss that spread heaviness through her muscles, a deep yearning at her core.
Fingering his scarred forehead, tracing the outline of his ears she closed her eyes and drank in the sensations his lips aroused, encouraged. His fingers trailed between her thighs to her knees while Maddie curled her fingers through his dark brown curls, traced his ears, tried to slow her uneven breathing. She wasn’t even aware his hand moved back up that path until it cupped her dampness. She arched, her hands tightened in his hair while he lightly stroked her. “Quentin?”
“Do you wish me to stop?” he breathed against her mouth, and cupped her once again.
“No,” Maddie shook her head. “No.” She closed her eyes, waited.
Quentin curled his lips and hands through her nest of black curls, pulled them through, and slid down into her hot wetness. “Touch me,” he whispered and guided her hand to his arousal. Then he put his lips to her nipple and suckled her breast.
The wonder of his hands against her body, of hers against his, enveloped Maddie, removed all awareness of time and space. Her fingers moved in response to his. She had no thought but to be closer and yet closer. That thought became a driving need; his hands and lips feathered, caressed, stroked, and impelled the tension growing in her higher, keener.
Maddie trailed her hand down the ridge of the long scar on his chest, going beyond it to play in the soft bristly curls on his stomach, brushed tantalizingly close to that part of him of so much interest to her. Now more daring, she drew a finger along his shaft, halted for a moment before she reached its smooth peak. Feeling moisture, she spread it. An erotic charge zinged through both of them. Her want turned to deeper need, to a demand for something more. There was no embarrassment, no strangeness—only satisfaction when he edged a finger into her dampness.
Quentin pressed the tip of his finger against Maddie’s clenching muscles, fighting his need to go faster. He eased his finger out, playfully circling the damp folds, whispered her name. Sliding two fingers in, he groaned at the thrust of her hips and began to slide in and out, in and out, easing her tightness, preparing her for his entry.
The leisurely movement lulled Maddie into a hazy enjoyment of the pleasures his fingers and mouth were evoking. Then suddenly, it was as if she turned a corner. She was caught up within the sensations aroused by his deep stroki
ng, they produced a driving need to get closer yet. Maddie arched her hips up again and again, her hands clenching his shoulders, her head falling back as he stoked the fire higher, higher. Then suddenly, his hand withdrew, his mouth left her.
“No, Quentin. Please, more—”
Capturing her lips, Quentin rose over her. He feathered his lips to her breasts, nearly convulsing when she trailed her hands down his ridged abdomen and grasped hold of his erection. Pressing his knee between her thighs, he pushed himself against her hand, murmured her name. Then once again he moved his fingers to the hot wet core of her, gliding in and out.
Maddie opened her legs. Her hands circled around his shaft, absorbed the texture, so hot and heavy, and mimicked the movement of his hands on her breasts.
“Slowly, love, slowly.” He reached for her hand and drew it away. Once again kissing her deeply, entwining his fingers with hers, he lowered his weight on her, nudging her entrance with the tip of his shaft.
His hand continued its magic as he pressed in the tip, then withdrew, going a little deeper with each stroke until his shaft met the proof of her virginity. Holding still, kissing Maddie deeply, his hands stroked, encouraged.
Maddie clutched his shoulders, felt the ripple of his muscles and her own contraction around him each time he entered. Moaning when he withdrew, she ran her free hand down his side, lower, lower still, willed him to return—arched against him when he did. The dance continued, pleasure rose, passion flowed.
Fighting the impulse to drive too far too fast, he held still, let her begin the rhythm, kissed her lips, her breasts.
Lost in the wonder of this ever-heightening sensation, Maddie moaned. “Oh, my lord, Quentin.” She tilted her head back thrusting her breasts to meet his descending mouth.
He twirled his tongue around her nipple as his shaft touched her barrier. Arching against him, Maddie groaned when he slowed his movements, came to a halt.