chapter 2
"You're a virgin." The gravelly voice was flat.
Abigail's face flamed in the darkness. "Yes."
"And a lady."
No lady did the things Abigail did… or proposed to do. "No."
"What do you need to forget, Abigail?"
"In three weeks time I turn thirty years old."
And would forever leave behind her the vestiges of her youth.
"Turning thirty isn't the end of the world. You'll find that you won't feel any differently three weeks from now than you do tonight."
She stared into the bleakness that was her future."That is what I am afraid of, Robert."
"I haven't had a woman in over a year."
Abigail's heart thudded against her ribs. It sounded, incredibly, as if he was on the verge of accepting her offer. "All I ask is that you be gentle."
"And what if I can't?"
"Then I will no longer be a virgin," she said with a practicality she was far from feeling.
And she would at last know if there was anything beyond sleepless nights and endless frustration.
"Sex isn't fastidious." The disembodied voice was crude. "It's dirty and noisy and sweaty. Pain can become pleasure and pleasure can be painful. Once I start, I won't be able to stop. And I won't stop until I make you beg and cry for it."
A shaft of unadulterated desire stabbed through Abigail's stomach. It was chased by fear. And a blazing hope that what he said was true, that he could take her outside the realms of propriety and show her what her body cried out for.
She squeezed the rolled-up journal. "I sincerely hope not."
"Why?" he barked.
Abigail jumped at the sudden violence in his voice. And replied with quaint, totally incongruous logic. "Because you do not pomade your hair. And because I cannot imagine you insisting that a woman clothe a piano for fear the sight of its legs will overly excite her sensibilities."
She could sense his shock. Could feel the blood pumping through her veins and her heart pounding in her breast.
A shout of laughter cut through the darkness of desire. Beneath her, the bed shook and shimmied.
Suddenly all Abigail wanted to do was stop that laughter.
"Shall I disrobe?" she asked curtly.
The laughter abruptly died. There was a flurry of motion the mattress dipping, the bed creaking. She flung out her right hand to retain her balance, contacted hot, hard flesh. It was covered with wiry hair; there was bone underneath muscle, and a tiny, beaded nipple
She jerked her hand back just as long fingers closed over her hip. And held herself perfectly still as they skimmed her waist, her abdomen, a breasther heart gave a lurch beneath the touchthen curved around her neck. Calloused fingers forced her chin upward to the darkness.
"If I take your virginityif I touch your breastsif I kiss you between your legswhat will you give me, Abigail?"
"What do you want?" She was paralyzed by the starkness of his words and the closeness of his bodya body that was not wrapped up inside a blanket.
"Everything. You have to give me everything. Your body. Your needs. Your fantasies. Everything that you have."
Abigail sucked in scorching airhis breath. Then her lips were sucked inside liquid, velvet heat, and his tongue was inside her and Abigail's first fantasy was made into a reality.
Only to find that a French kiss had no bearing whatsoever to the anemic thing experienced in literature and fantasy.
Books did not describe the incredible intimacy of a man's breath fanning a woman's cheek while his tongue filled her mouth and his fingers cradled her chin as if she were infinitely desirable.
Fantasy did not conjure taste.
But Robert did. He tasted like brandy. And man. And hot, wet desire.
The journal slipped out from between her fingers the same time his tongue slipped out of her mouth.
"Let me be your fantasy man, Abigail." Hard skin whispered across her cheeka finger. "While the storm lasts, give me everything you give to him."
Abigail's breath caught in her chest.
He was accepting her offer.
His pain must indeed be great to bury it inside a thirty-year-old spinster.
She squared her shoulders.
The reason that he took her did not matter.
Shewanted him to be her fantasy man.
Shewanted to make him forget.
She wanted to forget… and for one night be the woman who he had made her feel like while he kissed her. Beautiful. Desirable. Young and full of hope.
She tilted her chin at a lifetime of denial. "My fantasy man undresses me."
"Think very carefully before you embark on this journey, Abigail. Because once we start, there is no turning back."
Abigail inhaled, breathing in the faint odor of brandyhis breath; breathing in the smell of rain and spicy muskhis body.
Tangible reality instead of bloodless fantasy.
"I have no desire to turn back, Robert."
The mattress dipped, shot up, leaving her alone on the bed. Then suddenly she was standing on the floor and the entire length of her body was bombarded by heat while intent fingers worked the row of buttons that lined the front of her dress.
She grabbed the invisible handshands that were nearly twice the size of hers. "But you have to live up to what you said, Robert."
The fingers stilled underneath hers.
"You have to make me beg and cry for it."
Burning fire enveloped her body: Embarrassment at her boldnessand a wave of incinerating lust that radiated from the man in front of her.
His hands slid out from underneath Abigail's. Her face was cupped between calloused palms, lifted upward.
"I will live up to what I said." Brandy-scented breath caressed her lips. "But remember this: As long as the storm lasts, your body, your needs, your fantasieseverything that you haveis mine. AndI will hold you to that, Abigail."
Abigail's heart skipped a beat. "Then I would say we have struck a bargain, Robert."
The voice in the darkness rang with finality. "Then let me undress you."
Chill air caressed her skin as one by one the buttons on her dress popped open. Instantly the chill of the night was replaced by heathard, hot hands slid inside her dress and peeled the faded cotton away from her breasts.
"You're not wearing a corset."
His breath was raggedas ragged as hers.
"No." It was inside a trunk, where she had packed it along with her chemise and petticoats immediately upon arriving at the isolated cottage.
The dress slid down over her shoulders, off her arms, a whisper of cool air and warm skin, to bunch around her feet. Then the hard, hot hands settled on her hips and gently pulled her forward. Equally hot, hard flesh prodded her stomach. "Do you always wear silk drawers?"
She hesitantly raised her hands and gripped his shoulders. The muscles were hardeverything about him was hardand hot. "Yes. I enjoy the feel of them."
"So do I." His voice was a husky murmur inside her right ear. Agile fingers sifted through the seamless vent in the back. He touched her in a place that made her knees buckle. "You're soft here."
Involuntarily she arched into his fingers as he repeated the caress, there at the top of her buttocks.
"And here…" He pushed deeper into the crevice, a tantalizing inch. "I never had time to learn a woman's body. But tonight, with you, Abigail, I am going to take that time. When the storm is over, I am going to know what every inch of your skin feels like."
She tensed underneath the unexpected invasion, his fingertips raspy hot against the tender flesh there. And determinedly smoothed her hands down the sleek, muscled flesh of his back to locate hair-roughened cheeks that were taut where hers were soft, concave where hers were plump.
She hovered over the place where his spine flowed into the crevice between his buttocks"When the storm is over, Robert, I am going to know what every inch ofyour body feels like, too"and lightly stroked him.
The
flesh pulsing against her stomach jerked while the flesh beneath her hands stiffened.
"I do not need a woman to know my body, Abigail."
She had gone too far to back down now. "ButI need to know your body, Robert."
"Do you often fantasize about fondling a man's butt, Abigail?" The voice in the dark was caustic.
"Do you, Robert?" she asked tartly.
"I can assure you, I havenever thought about fondling a man's ass."
It took Abigail a second to realize that Robert was jesting to hide his embarrassment.
It emboldened her, to think that he was as new to this kind of intimacy as she was. And equally vulnerable.
She continued to stroke the soft vee of skin at the base of his spine. "Is that what men think about during battle, then, fondling the posterior of a woman?"
His entire body stiffened. Black tension filled the air. "Men in battle are too tired to think. Or too scared. It's before the battle that men think. Or while they lie dying."
Abigail bit her bottom lip, momentarily diverted by the cold hostility in his voice. And the pain that it hid. "Before battle what doyou think about?"
The calloused fingertip lightly strummed up the small of her back, down into the crevice between her buttocks another breathtaking inch. A hard weight pressed down on her foreheadhis forehead.
"I think about how to keep my men alive. If you are asking if I will kill again, Abigail, the answer is yes."
"Only in battle, Robert," she said firmly. "And you are supposed to forget about that now."
Suddenly the deliciously erotic finger was gone and her silk drawers slid down over her hipshe had untied the tapes. He stepped back and she was enveloped in darkness and cold air. "Then make me forget, Abigail. Tell me what your fantasy man does after he undresses you."
Uncertainty warred with desire, urgent little voices telling her to turn back: She was too old, too small, too plump, a thousand and one reasons why he would not find her attractive. Bringing her arms to her sides, she straightened her shoulders. "He touches my breasts."
Heat grazed the tips of her nipples. She locked her knees to keep from falling.
"You're hard." The relentless friction was part caress, part prod. "I can feel where you are made to discharge milklittle puckered indentations on the very tipshere. Does your fantasy man suckle you?"
The flesh between Abigail's thighs involuntarily clenched at the evocative words. "Do you fantasize about suckling a woman?"
"Yes. I fantasize about suckling her until I make her drip with cream. Give me sustenance, Abigail."
Suddenly the insistent rasp of his fingers against her left nipple was replaced by a hot, wet, voracious mouth.
For a second Abigail was frozen with shock. Then the breath was sucked out of her lungs as the intense pulling, tugging sensation caused her entire body to contract.
Without volition, her hands came up and sank into silky thick, damp hair. Seemingly in response to her touch, Robert cupped her bottom in his left hand and pressed hard on her stomach with the palm of his right hand, as if to feel the rhythmical drawing inside her womb that his suckling mouth was producing.
And perhaps he did. Abigail felt closer to Robert, cradling his head while he hungrily fed at her breast, than she had ever felt toward any other person.
Just when she thought that milk would indeed drip from her nipple, the black world of passion tilted. She was swung up into his armsher right breast caught between their bodiesand then she was lying on the bed with her head sinking into a soft pillow and the cold knotting of the quilt pricking her back.
"Cream, Abigail." Hard, hot fingers delved between her thighs. "You're dripping with it. Do you ever put your fingers inside of you when you fantasize?"
Lightning shot up through Abigail's body. "Of course not!"
"Our agreement, lady." Slowly, gently, he mapped out the soft folds of flesh between her legs, overruling modesty, overcoming resistance. "I want to know every erotic thought, every touch."
Abigail held herself rigidly.
Everything, he had said. And she had agreed. But Robert was taking controland she did not know if she liked that. It was what her fantasy man didbut this wasnot fantasy.
She felt wet and exposed and there was nothing to do but… enjoy it.
And add to her bank of memories.
"No," she reaffirmed on a soft intake of air. "I do not."
"Does your fantasy man?"
"Yes."
Oh, yes…
"How many fingers does he put inside you?"
She closed her eyes, blocking out the black silhouette that was more than fantasy. "Three. Do you fantasize about putting your fingers inside a woman?"
"Yes." His fingers swirled and swirled, there at the entrance to her body, gathering moisture, creating heat.
She could hear the wet play over the staccato sounds of the stormor was it her breathing that was so uneven? "How many fingers do you fantasize about putting inside of a woman?"
"Five. I fantasize about sticking my whole fist inside her."
Abigail's eyelids snapped open. She remembered the length of his fingers in the circle of candlelight. Remembered the size of his hands, clasped between hers. "That… Surely that is not possible."
"Perhaps. Certainly not with a virgin. Perhaps after a woman has had a child or two… You're so small here." Abigail involuntarily squirmed at the deepening pressure. "Hold still. I can feel your maidenhead; you're taut as a drum. It hardly seems possible that you could accept Take my finger, Abigail."
Abigail took the entire burning length. And gasped into the fury of the rain and the wind.
It was raw invasion. It was his body becoming a part of hers.
It was the substance that books and fantasy lacked.
The foot of the bed dipped; she drew her legs up to counteract the motion, opening herself wider, forcing the finger more deeply inside her. A gust of heat seared her stomach. "Talk to me. Tell me what it feels like to have a man's finger inside you."
Abigail threw her head back, concentrating on the sensations serrating her body instead of the dark silhouette poised over her. "Your finger feelshot. And rough. It burns. I feel open. And stretched."
"Not stretched enough. Is this what you feel like when your fantasy man puts his finger inside you?"
"No."
Oh, no…
The reality of having a man's finger inside her bore no resemblance at all to the fantasy.
This was heat and cold and bone and muscles with the knotting of the quilt underneath her and the knot of his knuckle inside her.
"Take another finger, Abigail."
The burning fullness that was more than fantasy abruptly turned to painful intrusion as one finger became two. "Stop"
"Lie still. Relax. You are a virgin, there's bound to be some pain. It will passlet it become pleasure."
Abigail forced herself to lie still. She felt uncertain and vulnerable and stretched beyond endurance. This wasnot fantasy. Yet… Yet her body pulsed and throbbed around the invading digits, telling Abigail there was indeed pleasure beyond pain. Telling her
"I think my fantasy man has smaller hands, Robert."
A feather-light kiss ruffled the damp hair at the apex of her thighs. "I think my hands are exactly the same size as those of your fantasy man. What does it feel like having two fingers inside you?"
"I feelinvaded."
"You are. What do you feel like when your fantasy man has two fingers inside you?"
"I feellike I want more."
Hot breath fanned her nether regions. "And you are going to get more, Abigail."
An electric surge of awareness overcame the burning discomfort between her legs. He could smell her, with his head down there like that, he could
"I'm going to kiss you between your legs now. Then I'm going to give you three fingers."
Abigail sucked in air to tell him that she could not possibly take three of his fingers. At the same time he sucked her in
side his mouth and all thoughts of protest died. His lips and tongue were every bit as hot in this most intimate of kisses as they had been when he had French-kissed her.
She grabbed two handfuls of silky thick, damp hair and hung on to him as she had held on to the mane of a runaway pony when she was ten years old.
It had been frightening, plummeting across the countryside, and it had been uncomfortable with her bottom wildly bouncing on the saddle. But it had been exciting, too, with the world a blur of color and the wind whipping her cheeks.
Now the world was a blur of blackness and she had never before experienced such heat or an unrelenting drive for something to happen. His tongue circled her on the outside; inside her, there was more pressure, a stinging, popping sensation, and Abigail knew that he had added another finger, yet suddenly it did not matter because he was stabbing her with his tongue in such a rapid motion that she could not catch her breath. And then she did not need to, her body rose to catch it for her, bowing perfectly with the three fingers lodged impossibly deep inside her.
Abigail convulsed in a blinding spasm of raw, burning pleasure, lungs laboring, breasts heaving.
"What does it feel like now, Abigail?" Scorching breath there on her nether lips that were wet and pulsing and still swollen. The fingers deep inside her wriggled.
Abigail's breath caught in her throat. Hot blood rushed down from her cheeks and up from where his fingers gently agitated. It met in the center of her stomach and spread out over the rest of her body. She could not help bearing down on a fluttering contraction, opening herself wider.
A liquid trail of desire trickled from her body. "It feels"she gulped air, released his hair to clutch the more secure anchor of the quilt"like I have three fingers inside me."
"Shall I take them out?"
"Please do not."
"What does your fantasy man do next?"
"He comes into my body."
His fingers continued a silky flutter. "I do not have anything to protect you with."
The words rang a discordant bell of reason. Something was wrongbut then thought gave way to the sensation of her flesh pulsing around those three fingers.
They had gone beyond fantasy, beyond reality. This man had promised her everything, and for the first time in her life she was not worrying about breaking a code of etiquette or failing to make the prescribed marriage of money and title.Nothing was going to destroy this stormy interlude. Mentally she reviewed every erotic manuscript she had ever read.
Captivated Page 31