by Cat Lindler
“You are making a point, I presume?”
Turning sideways, he propped himself on his free elbow and traced her mouth with his thumb. His lips curved into a rueful smile. “Indeed. I fear I’ve created my own Frankenstein bent on destroying me.”
She pursed her mouth into a pout. “Are you suggesting I’ve become a monster?”
“Of course not. However, I’ve unleashed the fiery monster trapped inside you, and I’m very much afraid its flames will burn me to ashes.” He moved his hand across her shoulder and down to her hip. “Lie back,” he said, his voice descending into a rumble.
Samantha shifted onto her back, and he swept his palm over her shoulders and arms. Feathering his fingers over her face and outlining its contours, he skimmed them down her neck and around her ears. She closed her eyes. As his touch fanned the embers inside her, her limbs grew languid.
Throwing the blankets aside, he smoothed his hand down and around her breasts, neglecting their thrusting peaks, sliding to her waist and belly, sweeping circles and lines with his fingertips. When he reached the vee between her thighs, he bypassed it, causing her to groan and peer up at him. A little smile crimped his mouth, and he brushed his hand up and down her legs, massaging her calves and thighs. He worked his way back up in the same manner, bent over, stroked her lips in a light, lingering kiss. Lying back, he closed his eyes.
She wriggled about to lie on her side. “Is that all?”
He opened his eyes. “You wanted more?”
“Perhaps.” Through her blush, she sent him a devilish look. Coming up on her knees, she cupped her hands into a bowl. “Please, sir, I want some more.”
Christian laughed and rose back up on his elbow. “Very well, Master Twist,” he said, his voice husky. “I would not want you spreading tales I’m a stingy man.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Christian unbuttoned Samantha’s shirt, peeled it off her shoulders, and laid it aside. Grasping the edge of her camisole, he stripped it over her head.
Her stomach knotted, and she crossed her arms over her bare breasts.
Seeming to have no interest in her sudden mortification, he removed her boots and stockings, undid her trousers, and tugged them down her hips. Once he bared her to her pantalets, he looked at her, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Stop hiding yourself. I want to see you.”
His gentle smile shored up her nerve, and she slowly lowered her arms to her sides, though they remained tense, her hands knotted into fists.
Christian pulled off his boots and stockings and came to his feet to remove his shirt and trousers, gaze roaming freely over her form. Leaving on his underdrawers, which had short legs like his basketball pants, he stretched out on his side next to her.
She ventured to glance at his covered midsection.
“Once you release the tiger from its cage, it becomes difficult to control and impossible to lure back inside until tamed,” he responded to her silent question.
His words bounced around in her head, making as much sense as Egyptian hieroglyphics. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was using a metaphor,” he said with a chuckle. “Trust me. I’ll not take what rightfully belongs to the man you marry. We can still experiment with pleasure without the ultimate act.”
The ultimate act? She was dying to know more about that, but her tongue tangled up too much for her to ask.
Christian reached for her, fingers trailing over her skin, following the same route he explored before. This time, while his sultry gaze followed the path of his fingers, he circled one taut breast and spiraled inward.
Like a shark.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Sam, with a body so exquisitely small.” Though spilling softly from his mouth, the gruff undercurrent of his words made her flesh quiver. “But beneath your clothing, your womanhood is obvious. You have lovely breasts. Only a handful, but firm and tilted up, shaped like the bowl of a champagne glass, breasts that could besot a man. Your nipples are pink rosebuds, firm and silky, tightly furled and always slightly erect, as though your passion overflows into them even when you’ve not been aroused. They’re so responsive. Merely the touch of my gaze causes them to swell and lengthen, begging to be fondled and suckled. I feel your need—in your dusky golden eyes, the rosy hue of your skin, your quickened breathing, the pout of your nipples, and that sensual little thrust of your hips.”
His hands caressed her, and his voice poured over her like warm summer rain. Samantha’s eyes grew wider. Never had anyone spoken to her this way. No one other than Gilly had seen her undressed. Other men, boys in comparison to Christian, who fancied themselves in love with her, had plied her with sweet words and poetry. Their insipid prose had failed to stir her. The silky sound of Christian’s voice—never mind his words—dark with passion, threw her brain into disarray, accelerated her heartbeat, and boiled her blood, hastening the aching want inside her. His eyes smoldered, dark and smoky, and scorched a path of burning need on her skin.
Before touching her distended nipple, he paused and cupped his palm beneath her breast, weighing and massaging the curve.
It swelled and heated in his hand. When he flicked his thumb over the nipple, tongues of fire licked through her. He flicked faster and more firmly, strumming the tight bud, and she strained toward him, pressing harder.
Holding the nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger, he rolled it, tugged, and rolled it again.
A pulling ache raced to her groin. This time she knew what to expect and relaxed into the feeling. Instead of disconcerting her as it did the first time, the tugging produced sharp twinges of pleasure. The inner folds of her sex wept tears, dampening the crotch of her pantalets.
He slid his hand to her other breast, giving it the same attention.
By the time he paused, she panted, her heart beating frantically. Heat built up in her lower abdomen, and deep throbbing besieged the walls of her body’s cleft. She wiggled her hips against the ground, buttocks clenched, and arched her mons in minute upward thrusts, wanting …
Christian moved over her onto his knees and straddled her hips. Enclosing a nipple in his lips, he sucked gently and rolled it between his tongue and teeth. After tending to her other breast, he laved her chest and throat with his tongue, pressing heated kisses against her skin.
The fire in her core scorched her flesh, the pulsation in its walls coming deeper and faster.
He wedged a knee between her legs. “Open for me, Sam.”
She parted her thighs, and he knelt between them, resting back on his heels. His manhood—no, penis—strained against the thin linen covering. It looked huge! Her jaw slackened at the tumescent shaft stretching from his crotch to his waist. It had seemed so much smaller in the pond. She pressed her eyes closed, and her breath shortened, partly from a heightened excitement but mostly from a welling need.
Spreading her legs wider with his palms, he laid his hand flat on her heated furrow. Through the slit in her pantalets, he stroked the sensitive lips.
She gasped, keeping her eyes firmly shut.
Parting her with his fingers, he glided along the intimate folds but fell short of penetrating her passage. His finger moved up and circled a tender spot encompassing the heart of her passion, and he fondled it with a fingertip.
With a cry, she lifted her hips off the ground. He strummed rhythmically, and she gasped in great breaths. When he ceased and took his hand away, she whimpered.
“Open your eyes,” he said, “and give me your hand.”
Her breath suspended, Samantha inched up her eyelids and stretched out a shaky hand.
Christian positioned her fingertips over that mysterious spot, covering them with his own. A hard nub of flesh tingled when she touched it, and he guided her fingers in a gentle rhythm.
“This is your pleasure center, your clitoris,” he said. “The flesh is sensitive and easily hurt. Keep your touch light. If you feel pain, back away.”
Uncomfortable at first that he should
witness her perform such an intimate act, she soon forgot everything other than the storm buffeting her body and becoming more intense than anything in her experience. She lifted her hips in sync with her fingers’ stroking, and the quivering center of her womanhood coiled and coiled, tighter and tighter, and culminated in a glorious burst of light. Convulsions tore through her. She slammed her hips against the ground, arched high in the air, pushed against the hands. A torrent of heat poured to the tips of her toes and fingers. In the deepest recesses of her mind, she was aware of Christian pulling her hand away.
While she was coming down from her orgasm, he kissed his way up her belly and chest, taking her lips in a long, wet, hot possession. Slipping back to her breasts, he gently nibbled until her trembling subsided.
He lifted his head from the valley between her breasts. “Put your legs around my waist, tigrina,” he whispered.
More?
She could do naught but obey.
Samantha raised her weak legs, wrapping them about his waist and locking her ankles together behind him. He wedged one hand beneath her, cradling her buttocks in his palm, and thrust his erection against her core. Each thrust ground against her bud, and her hips soon picked up the rhythm, rising to meet him and bumping against his penis.
She could scarcely believe it; ‘twas happening again! The heat, pulsing, throbbing, and coiling took control. She arched and rose higher and higher on the edge of a cliff, straining to reach into the sky, to soar off the precipice and drift to Earth on wings of delight. The rapture became so intense her passage began small contractions almost immediately and took her by surprise.
“Chris,” she gasped. “Can you … ? Could you … ?”
Christian moved firmer and faster against her, adjusting his angle. His muscles and tendons tensed and flexed. He clenched his teeth, groaning with the effort of holding back. When she screamed and slammed hard against him, his head flew back, his neck muscles taut and stretching. He erupted, ramming her back, once, twice. His semen spurted out in a gushing stream, soaking through his smallclothes and wetting them both in a pulsing ejaculation.
He eased down on shaky arms, wary of crushing her with his weight but too shattered to move aside yet. His heart thudded against his ribs, and he dragged in ragged gasps of air.
Rolling off after a few minutes and onto his back, he threw a trembling arm across his forehead. He was soaked in sweat and semen and as wrung out as he’d ever been after a three-day drinking bout. He’d never felt so good. His orgasm had been incredible, stupefying. He had no conception of what it would feel like once he was inside her.
Once he was inside her? What was he thinking? The errant notion surely resulted from his cock’s wishful thinking. He had no designs on the willful innocent’s virginity. Once they found the Smilodon and her uncle, they would part ways. He would leave her wiser but none the worse for wear. Most likely, they would never cross paths again. Why did that thought bring a tightening to his chest? He had no inclination to pursue the source.
He peered over at her. “Are you all right?”
“I believe so,” she said in a wobbly voice, “but why am I so wet?”
His chest shook with laughter. “Ah, Sam, that necessitates a long story better saved for another time.”
He got wearily to his feet and pulled her up beside him. “Come with me. I know of a stream nearby. We both need a bath.”
During the following weeks on shipboard, Samantha and Christian sought out opportunities to be alone and continue their love play but with a restraint Christian enforced. He had aroused new, compelling feelings in Samantha, and now he paid the price. She tested his resolve at every turn, pushing him to the limits of his endurance and patience. Each day it became more difficult to adhere to the constraints he placed on himself.
Nights generally found them at the aft railing, watching the ship’s wake in the starlight or embracing in some shadowy corner of the ship. She tried to entice him into taking her to his cabin. Determined to leave her virtue intact, however, he declined, and arguments flared. Strained relations resulted for a few days following their disagreements, but the siren song of passion soon pulled them back together.
On a crystalline night during the dark of the moon, Christian came up behind Samantha while she rested her forearms on the railing and gazed out over phosphorescent ripples on the ocean’s surface.
Samantha pointed to the green and pink sparkles. “What causes it?”
“Tiny animals so small they can be seen only with a microscope. Some scientists believe the animals absorb sunlight during the day, store it inside, and release it at night.”
“‘Tis beautiful,” she said with a sigh.
His mouth teased the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Beautiful,” he mumbled against her skin.
She began to straighten, and he placed a hand on the small of her back. “Stay where you are.” He moved closer behind her, the hard length of his manhood pressing through her dress to rest along the cleft of her buttocks. His tongue tasted her neck and ears. His hands circled her breasts, fondling her nipples through the cotton barrier. He stepped back and lifted her skirt.
Samantha stiffened at cool air wafting across the backs of her legs. “Chris, someone will see us.”
Running the tips of his fingers up her calves and thighs, he caressed the bare skin below her pantalets. “No, they won’t. It’s dark here, and my body will shield you from view.”
His hands kneaded her legs and buttocks, and sparks sped through her veins. Reckless and wanton, she leaned over the railing with her skirt up around her waist. She’d not seen his face yet. ‘Twas as if a mystery lover accosted her in the darkness.
Moving his feet between hers, he spread her legs apart. The split in her pantalets opened to the night, and a breeze teased the lips of her sex. The muscles in her thighs tensed. When he rubbed his cloth-covered erection against her cleft, she moaned, hollowed her back, and lifted her hips.
He wrapped his arm about her, fingers finding the nub of her desire and stroking it until her sheath wept, and she moved rhythmically against his hand. With his other hand, Christian stroked her from behind. As Samantha moved closer to orgasm, a finger slid inside her, and she tensed at the unfamiliar sensation.
Christian whispered, telling her how good she felt, how hot and slippery, and her walls clutched his finger. He moved the digit, stroking her, dipping deeply and withdrawing, and when she relaxed, her body accepted the incursion with delight.
His finger moved faster, the rubbing on her clitoris more insistent, and she floated upward toward ecstasy and shifted her legs wider. Now two fingers moved inside her. Rivers of fire and ice flowed outward through her limbs, draining her of strength and will, and Samantha exploded inside, a cry breaking from her. She flew over the edge, splintering into shards of light, and collapsed across the railing.
Christian withdrew his hands and turned her quickly into his arms, holding her close. Aftershocks claimed her, body and breath, and her legs gave way.
While she regained her senses, his lips descended and pulled from her the last dark dregs of her passion. He still pressed heavily against her belly, and she looked up into his eyes.
“I want to touch you, Chris.”
He grew still, nodded. She tried to unbutton his trousers, but her shaky fingers were unable to manage the feat. Christian brushed aside her hands and released the buttons, leaving his underdrawers as a last barrier between them.
Eager fingers explored the turgid flesh beneath the cloth, and Christian moaned and arched his neck, the tendons stretched tight at Samantha’s light touch. She rubbed her palms across him and marveled at the heat, and his penis grew larger and harder, while her touch grew bolder.
Finally, with a grimace of pain, Christian pulled her hands away.
“Did I hurt you?” Samantha asked.
He uttered a short laugh. “No, tigrina, but if you continue, I’ll have to change my trousers.”
When she opened her
mouth, he stopped her. “Leave me alone now. Go back to your cabin.”
Soon she left his sight, departing with a pout on her face. He opened his drawers and, with swift, hard strokes, finished what Samantha’s naïve touch had begun, all the while imagining he was inside her.
After catching his breath and straightening his clothes, he debated the wisdom of continuing with this dalliance. He feared Samantha was falling in love with him, confusing passion with more permanent feelings, although the fault lay with him. He had toyed with her heart and body and was beginning to despise himself for his selfishness.
Christian avoided examining his own heart too closely, however. He had two options: stay away from her or marry her. Perhaps he would be well advised to pull back for a while, grant them some time to cool off. But he had tried that course before, and his good intentions fell all to hell and back whenever she drew near. His need for her took over, and he wanted only to bury himself in her heat and wetness. Even thinking of how she would feel brought his penis to attention again, and he cursed into the wind.
He never should have touched her. From the moment he saw her floating in that blue pond, all her charms and secrets revealed by her transparent camisole and pantalets, he became lost. Their game of “shark” merely had inflamed him. And he was a shark, Sam his unsuspecting bait. In the innocence of her awakening passion, he had caught her in his sharp teeth before she understood what was happening. Her virtuous beauty and fiery nature drew him like a moth to a candle flame. And like the moth, he would rather die than forego his own fascination.
He could not recall burning this hot for one woman, wanting her constantly and walking around in a permanent state of arousal. She possessed such natural seductive enthusiasm and a great deal too much misplaced trust. Little did she know that tonight he’d been only seconds away from releasing his cock and plunging into her virgin flesh. He dared not come that close again. He had to break it off.