He halted, bemused. “Whatever madam wants.”
He unfastened his cuffs, and her mouth went dry. She really was going to do this.
Yet it felt strange to just stand here and watch him undress. Glancing nervously about her, she noticed the disordered sheets on the bed. “Have you been sleeping here?”
“Last night, that’s all.”
“But I went to your bedchamber one night—” She stopped, realizing how that sounded.
He paused to shoot her a burning glance. “Did you?”
With a defiant little toss of her head, she muttered, “Yes, and you weren’t there.”
“You must have come too early. I haven’t been sleeping much lately.” As he dragged his shirt over his head, his voice grew muffled. “I labor in the forge to the point of exhaustion, then fall into bed in the wee hours and rise at dawn.”
“Why?”
Tossing the shirt aside, he stepped close to fold her in his arms. “You have to ask?”
The stark need in his face spoke volumes. “No,” she whispered. “I haven’t slept much myself this week.”
With a pleased smile, he bent his head to kiss her, but she pressed her finger to his lips. “Not yet. I want to look at you first.” The faintest irritation flickered in his eyes, filling her with a mischievous delight. “You don’t like giving up control, do you?”
“I didn’t expect you to take to it so well, you teasing minx,” he grumbled.
Easing back from him, she ran her hands down his chest as she’d wanted to do earlier in the forge. It was as eloquently crafted as any of his pistols, and far more dangerous to her peace of mind. She rubbed her thumbs over his flat male nipples, and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing madly.
Her heart leaped at that sign of his vulnerability to her touch. She could get used to holding the reins. Knowing his reluctance to relinquish anything, she’d best take full advantage of this opportunity, since she might never have it again.
She let her hands roam his ribs, his trim belly, even his shadowed navel. “You have a magnificent body, you know,” she told him.
“So speaks the woman with the wealth of experience,” he choked out.
She gave his chest a little shove. “It’s too awful of you to throw my inexperience in my face.”
“Trust me, sweeting, you make up in enthusiasm for what you lack in experience.”
“Somewhere in there is an insult, I think.” She skimmed her hands down to the fall of his breeches. “But I don’t care.”
“I meant no insult at all.” He sucked in a sharp breath as she unfastened two buttons of his breeches. When he spoke again, he sounded as if he were strangling. “I like enthusiasm. I love enthusiasm. I much prefer it to the opposite.”
“Even if decent, respectable young ladies aren’t supposed to—”
“Yes, even if.” He shivered when she slipped loose the other two buttons. “I…I prefer an enthusiastic woman to a respectable woman any day. Decent young ladies can be deuced boring.”
She laughed. “I suppose they can.” Being a respectable young lady had gained her nothing but loneliness. Decency did seem highly overrated at times.
She stared down at his breeches, satisfied to see them bulge every bit as obviously as they had that day in the conservatory. “And do you find me boring?” she teased.
His gaze burned into her. “You know the answer to that.”
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
That was all it took to have his arms around her, his mouth on hers. She met it with all the eagerness of a wanton, and oddly enough felt no remorse. She was about to abandon everything she’d been taught, and she didn’t care.
Because she knew no one else would ever satisfy her. That was why she’d never considered any other man from the day she’d met him. It was why she now prayed she could accept his explanations. The thought of life without him had simply become too unbearable to contemplate.
His hand slid up to fondle her breast through her chemise, and for a moment she rose to it, reveled in the deft caress. But when he then slipped his hand beneath the muslin with a husband’s possessiveness, she shoved him away.
He was breathing heavily, his eyes black as the devil’s soul. “Let me touch you,” he whispered. “I want to touch you, sweeting.”
She shook her head wordlessly. She was probably being perverse, since she wanted him to touch her more than anything. But she didn’t want him taking it as he took everything else. For once she wanted to give it to him. “You said I could hold the reins.”
His hands fell into fists at his sides. “Indeed I did. Though I’m starting to regret it.”
With a chuckle, she considered what to do next. Not tell him to touch her, because then she’d be falling in with his wishes. Instead, she flicked her hand to indicate his breeches. “Take those off,” she ordered. “The breeches and your shoes and stockings.”
His eyebrows arched high on his forehead. But he did it, all the while keeping his eyes on her with wary uncertainty. “Aren’t you going to remove your chemise, sweeting?” he asked in the compelling thrum of a voice that usually dissolved her insides.
“Not yet,” she responded, though she blushed. “I get to look my fill first.”
“Then shall I remove my drawers, too? Or is that too much for you?”
The hint of mockery in his smile told her he knew very well that it was. Which was precisely why she would make him do it. “Y-yes, take them off.”
She couldn’t believe she was doing this shocking thing, ordering him to strip down to nothing for her. She couldn’t believe he was letting her.
Apparently, he couldn’t either. With a faint look of surprise, he divested himself of the glove-tight scrap of stockingette and set his “thing” free. He stood motionless while she gaped at it transfixed, fascinated by its nest of dusky hair, its smooth length…its immensity.
What had he called it before? His John Thomas. Leave it to men to name the thing, as if it were a person. And such a respectable name, too, for what looked terribly improper—bold and reckless and belligerently male. Anything that could lie so dormant inside a man’s breeches, yet in an instant become this amazing wonder of flesh, had a dangerously unpredictable nature.
The longer she looked, the more it stiffened, so she prolonged his torment, strolling around him in a circle to survey his physique from every angle. My oh my oh my. So this was how Sebastian looked beneath his breeches—all muscle and taut skin and impossibly hard flesh.
When she returned to the front of him, she marveled again at the astonishing rigidity of his “thing.” “C-can I touch it?” she whispered, remembering what she’d done in the conservatory.
“Oh God, yes!” he growled.
Tentatively she stroked a finger along his heated length. When it jerked beneath her touch, she yanked her finger back, murmuring an apology. But he grabbed her hand and closed it around him, urging her to grip it tightly.
“You like that?” she asked uncertainly.
“More than you can imagine.”
He showed her how to stroke him, and when she mimicked his motions, she was rewarded with his deep, heartfelt sounds of pleasure. His hand dropped away from hers. “Ah, sweeting, you handle this pistol as well as you handled the other.”
A pistol. Yes, it was like a pistol—sleek and hard and wicked. Buoyed by his clear enjoyment of her caresses and delighting in her newfound power, she squeezed more firmly, stroked more quickly. He gave a guttural sound and thrust eagerly into her hand.
After a moment, he grabbed her wrist to stay her. “That’s enough of that for me, my sweet goddess.”
She stopped, but didn’t release him. “Why?”
“You do any more of that, and I’ll lose control.”
“You’d lose control?” A smile curved up her lips as she resumed her motions. “I’d love to see that.”
His eyes blazed down at her. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Oh yes, I would,” she said
stoutly.
He tightened his fingers around her wrist, and growled, “Not like this.”
“You said I could set the pace.”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean—”
“Are you going to renege, Sebastian?”
“No, but—”
“Then let go of my hand.”
He released her wrist, but grumbled, “You don’t understand…I can’t…I don’t want to—”
“Lose control. Oh, but I do understand.” Though she didn’t. Not really. All she knew was that she had him in her power as never before, and she wasn’t about to give that up. Especially when her every stroke made his breath quicken and his body sway.
“You truly don’t understand,” he choked out. “Damn it, Juliet…I want…Oh God, stop…stop…stop!”
Suddenly, he yanked himself out of her hand and turned to the bed with a hoarse cry that sounded almost like pain. She saw his back spasm, heard him curse as he caught up the sheet and pressed it to the front of him.
At once contrite, she hurried to his side. “I’m sorry, Sebastian, did I hurt you? Are you all right?”
He was holding the sheet around his John Thomas, but his expression was unlike any she’d ever seen—a strange blend of bliss and anger.
“I did hurt you!” she exclaimed, horrified.
“No, you didn’t hurt me,” he snapped. “But I wanted to be inside you when—” He broke off, looking as if he fought to restrain his temper. “Think of it like this—your stroking made my pistol fire too early, all right?”
She stared at him, perplexed, trying to remember what Rosalind had said about lovemaking. How a man put himself inside the woman and released his seed…And Sebastian had wanted to be inside.
So that’s what he’d meant by “losing control.”
“Ohhh,” she murmured, coloring to the roots of her hair. “And now your…um…pistol can’t fire again.”
“It certainly can, and it will, believe me.” Eyes blazing, he tossed the soiled sheet to the floor, then turned to lift her onto the bed. “So if you thought to get out of it—”
“I don’t want to get out of anything,” she protested as she landed on her knees.
In a flash, he knelt before her to tear loose her chemise ties. He still seemed angry.
“I-I didn’t know…” she whispered, “and you did say I could take charge—”
“Yes, I’m a blasted idiot, I am. Remind me never to put you in charge of my pistol again.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t mean to ruin everything.”
His hands gentled. “Ah, sweeting, forgive my temper. You didn’t ruin anything.” Sweeping the long fall of her hair aside, he dropped a kiss on her collarbone. “It’ll take me a while longer to reload, that’s all.” He hastily dispensed with her chemise. “But that gives me plenty of time to make you lose control, my willful Aphrodite.”
Her pulse did a little jig to think of how he might make her lose control. Would he touch her in that secret way of his again, as he’d done in the conservatory? She’d liked that. She’d liked it very much.
Suddenly he was tipping her head up for an endless, searching kiss. As she met it with a surge of excitement, he tumbled her back onto the bed. The kiss went on and on, and when she came up for air, she found him rising to his knees next to her so he could remove her half boots.
In moments, her drawers followed her half boots to the floor, and he was kneeling between her stocking-clad calves, smoothing his hands over her knees as his gaze swept with greedy delight over every inch of her. Wherever it touched, her body reacted. Her nipples tightened into hard knots, her belly quivered, and between her legs a rush of some mysterious fluid dampened the curls that hid her most secret place. Even that did not escape his frank look.
“By thunder, I knew if I ever had you naked, I’d find you perfect in every way.” His voice was half worshipful, half wicked. “I knew it the moment I met you.”
“In Stratford?” she whispered.
His gaze lifted to hers, searching, hesitant. Then he echoed, “In Stratford.”
Her heart leaped at this evidence of trust, and with a blazing smile of sheer joy, she reached for him. “I thought you were supposed to be making me lose control.”
Gladness filled his eyes, too, and he lowered himself to her with a growl of satisfaction. His lips roamed her breasts, caressing and teasing, and his fingers sought out her hips and the tender cleft between her legs. From there the two of them fell into a fever of touching and exploring and fondling.
She’d never dreamed it could be like this with a man, although once or twice she had wondered how it would be with Morgan. Sebastian. Her Sebastian. Now she could think of him that way, because she believed in her heart he could never do anything really criminal. Not the man she’d come to know and respect, the man who would give up control over his own body if she asked it of him.
She wished she could memorize every smooth touch, every startling flick of his gifted tongue, every luscious, sinful kiss he pressed to her belly and arms and breasts. Soon his fingers delved inside her in that scandalous caress she craved, marvelous strokes that made her squirm and beg beneath him.
“Losing control, are you?” he growled as his hand worked its amazing magic.
“Not…in the…least,” she gasped, then made a liar of herself by adding, “Please, Sebastian…like that…yes…”
“Whatever madam wants.” He thumbed the secret spot that sent her out of her mind. “I love how you give yourself to me so freely, how you shake and tremble. I love how you arch your neck and thrust your pretty breasts up for me…”
With wicked comments like that and even more wicked caresses, he soon had her writhing beneath him, feeling the pleasure grow to a fever heat inside her until it splintered her into a million blissful pieces, and she cried out her enjoyment like a shameless wanton.
But she’d scarcely floated down into consciousness before something bigger pressed inside her, stretched her. She looked down to find his stiff John Thomas half buried between her thighs. Obviously, he hadn’t needed much time to reload after all.
He hovered over her with his hands braced on either side of her shoulders, his eyes gleaming in a face sheened in sweat. “You know there will be pain,” he warned in a guttural voice, as if it cost him a great deal just to speak.
Still awash in her previous satisfaction, she flashed him a contented smile and brought her arms up about his neck. “I’ll risk a little pain to get what I want.”
Fire leaped in his face. He bent to brush a kiss over her lips, then murmured, “I’ll make it as little pain as I can manage, sweeting.”
And he did. The twinge that accompanied his initial tentative thrust hardly made her wince. But the sensation of being opened impossibly wide wasn’t quite so easy to ignore. Slowly, he inched his way in, planting himself inside her as thoroughly as a rooted oak, and the mad thought entered her mind that she might never uproot him again.
Especially when he looked so very happy to be there. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to be inside you,” he said hoarsely. “My darling angel, you have no idea.”
“I certainly don’t,” she muttered, a little peeved. It hardly seemed fair that it should feel so good for him when all she felt was this invasive pressure. Why in creation did Helena and Rosalind praise lovemaking so much? Only because of what went before? To be sure, that was wonderful, but this…
As if he guessed her annoyance, he smiled. “Hold on, it gets better. Give me a chance.”
To do what—split her in two?
Then he began to move. At first, she felt only an uncomfortable friction. But that soon became a comfortable friction, then an agreeable friction, then an absolutely glorious friction. Like a brush fire, pleasure leaped from her thighs to her belly, smoldering wherever it landed, sparking more delights, more amazing sensations.
And when he brought his hot mouth down around her nipple, his tongue teasing the heat to the surface until sh
e whimpered and strained beneath him, she began to understand what her sisters had hinted at.
Down below, it was like with his fingers, but better. As the inside of her loosened to accommodate him, her skin thrummed with life and her blood hummed through her veins. She clutched at his arms, stamped kisses on whatever parts of him she could reach—his shoulders, his whisker-shadowed chin, his strong neck.
“Not so bad now, is it?” he choked out as he increased the pace of his thrusts, pounding, thundering into her like Hephaestus hammering the molten metal with stroke after stroke after stroke…
“Sebastian…oh…dear heavenly God…I’m on fire…”
“Then we’ll burn together.” He stared down at her, an all-powerful creature, the giver of fire whose every driving thrust heated her to boiling point. “Now…forever…just we two…”
Reaching down between them, he flicked his thumb over her sensitive secret place, and she exploded at once, crying out his name, erupting into ecstasy.
“Ah, yes…yes!” he growled, then drove so deeply that she clutched him close and held on for dear life. The hot flood of his seed flowed into her, and his body spasmed as it had before. But this time she knew what it meant, and it gave her immense satisfaction to think she could drive him to lose control not once, but twice.
For a moment, they strained against each other, taut and clinging. Then slowly they drifted back to normalcy and sank back onto the bed. Relaxing, he rolled off to lie at her side. He tugged her over until they lay facing each another, arms entwined.
He brushed the hair from her eyes and rubbed his thumb along her damp lips. “So how do you like losing control, my dearest Juliet?”
She raised an eyebrow. “As much as you do, I think.”
He chuckled. “That much? Then I suspect we’ll do very well together as husband and wife.”
“If we marry. You haven’t yet fulfilled your part of the bargain, you know.”
His amusement faded at once. “Thanks for reminding me.” Sighing, he rolled away from her to lie on his back and stare up at the ceiling. “You certainly know how to put an abrupt end to a man’s pleasure.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “That was rather unfair of me. I’ve waited over two years to hear this. I suppose it won’t hurt to wait a few minutes more.”
After the Abduction Page 21