by Megan Mulry
Sarah shook herself slightly to clear her head.
It also helped that he was buzzed enough that he wouldn’t even know it was her first time. As long as she kept her mouth shut. Because she had to confess she did tend to err on the side of narration, especially when she was a little nervous. One more reason she probably excelled in business, because instead of cowering in the face of questions or criticism from potential buyers and investors, she simply launched into lengthy downloads of information that she had committed to memory for just such occasions.
What did one talk about while kissing? Well, nothing if lips and tongue were otherwise engaged, of course. But the whole rest of the time… silence? Idle chat? Sarah looked down at her lap and smiled to herself. She was more worried about topics of conversation than the actual doing of the deed.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about how much or how little to talk, and if so, about what—”
And then there was no more talking.
Devon’s right hand, which had been idly resting against the cold glass of the car window, reached across to Sarah’s mouth. He dragged his thumb across her lower lip, his skin transferring an exhilarating chill. He moved it back and forth. Maniacally slow. And that other hand was still making those lazy tracks along her left breast.
His thumb went tentatively into her mouth, tugging on the soft inside of her lower lip as he slowly pulled it out. “Your lips are insanely gorgeous, you know. I kept trying to decide where to look at you tonight. So many excellent parts…”
She closed her eyes and gave mental thanks to all that was holy that she would not have to come up with a single topic of discussion for many hours to come. If this was how it was going to go, he could just talk and talk. Her body responded to his voice like it responded to his touch, with deep, warm waves of pleasure.
When his full lips touched her for the first time, it was right at the base of her neck. “Like this part,” he whispered with that delectable British accent, husky and prim somehow. “It is just a simple” (kiss) “meeting of neck and shoulder” (kiss) “but there’s something utterly delightful” (sucking kiss) “about the way it all fits together.”
The kissing on the neck, the finger in the mouth, the hand along the breast.
Sarah started to laugh.
Devon stopped everything. “What is so funny?”
“Please don’t stop,” she whispered, putting her hand at the back of his neck, the crisp fold of his shirt collar catching into the strong neck, then the silky fine hair, then her hands were wandering on their own.
“Are you laughing at me?” he pressed.
“No, I was laughing at me. Why would I be laughing at you? You are making me feel better than I’ve—well, better than I’ve felt in a very long time.”
He didn’t seem satisfied; clearly, the Royal International Seduction Society did not take kindly to real or perceived slights.
Or mockery.
“If you must know”—Sarah let her hand drop from behind his neck and folded both of her hands into a prim clasp in her lap—“I was enumerating… pleasures… thumb in mouth… lips on neck… hand near breast… I suppose I was narrating.”
Devon shook his disobedient light brown hair out of his face with an efficient jerk and moved to look out the window again as the limo turned into the entrance of Sarah’s hotel, then he shifted back to meet her questioning look. “I like you.” The way he said it hinted at a strange combination of gratitude and reluctance. How was she to know he hadn’t actually liked someone in a very long time?
He gave her a perfunctory kiss on the lips that would have passed the ratings board in any G movie and hopped out of the car as it rolled to a stop in front of the extensive forecourt of the Relais & Châteaux country castle hotel. Before Sarah got her bearings, Devon had spoken quickly with the chauffeur and was standing at attention next to Sarah’s open car door. “My lady,” he said, proffering one gloved hand to help her out.
“My lord,” she replied, then smiled up at him as she exited the car and unconsciously licked her upper lip, which had gone inexplicably dry.
He pulled her into an embrace, gripping his arms firmly around her waist and nuzzling into her hair. He whispered into her ear, “If you are prone to narration, I had better keep this lively,” and with that, he grabbed her bottom in both hands and gave her a delicious squeeze, then swept his lips down to hers for a very thorough kiss. Right here in the driveway, she thought vaguely, and very non-G-rated.
***
By the time they got up to Sarah’s hotel room, the brisk night air and long flight of steps seemed to have rid Devon of any residual inebriation. He felt particularly focused. He stood with the door closed behind him, watching Sarah James move tentatively into the unfamiliar room. His weekend plans just got a whole lot better.
He moved slowly, the moonlight coming through the windows enough to allow him to avoid tripping over the furniture and to appreciate the silhouette of her gorgeous full figure as she bent over to take off one perfect shoe.
“Let me do that,” he said lightly as he came up behind her. With his hand barely touching her lower back, he guided her over to the window seat, where the waxing autumn moon created a cool, romantic glow. He put his hands on her shoulders and sat her down on the firm cushion that covered the built-in frame and doubled as a cover for the radiator. The gentle warmth from the heater started to come through the bouclé knit and silk lining of her cocktail dress. The brisk autumn air seeping through the antique windowpanes grazed her upper shoulders in a lovely counterpoint.
Devon dropped down on one knee, then wrapped both hands around her right calf. The smooth silk of her stockings evoked a tantalizing friction against his palms. He moved both hands slowly up her leg, passing the turn of her knee, letting one finger loiter at the sensitive back of the bend, and then continued with relentless care. When he reached the lacy elastic edge of the stocking, immediately followed by the butter-smooth skin of her inner thigh, Devon’s eyes closed in momentary pleasure, for the moment itself and for all it promised in the very near future.
“Thank you to the genius who invented the garterless stocking,” he whispered with a grateful sigh.
Sarah was also sighing in response, her head dropping forward, her hand reaching out mindlessly to run through his thick, light brown hair. It was a little bit longer than she had realized; earlier in the evening, it had been slicked back, and now it was falling in loose waves into his eyes. His cheekbones were hard by comparison.
He moved his hands to the other thigh, her dress riding up her legs, one of his fingers tracing maddeningly close to the elastic of her lacy thong. She made some sort of inarticulate groan as his hand moved away and back down the left leg.
He smiled like a devil and said, “I think we might leave the stockings on for a little while.”
Then his deft fingers reached for the tiny clasp of her four-inch heels, which she had hand-trimmed herself with black Russian sable around the ankle strap. The effect was one of wicked, sensational proportions: Anna Karenina’s welcome manacles. The scooped neckline of her dress was similarly trimmed in the luxurious black texture. He paused before actually undoing the shoes.
“These shoes are very, very naughty, Miss James.” He ran his middle finger between the fur and her skin. “What were you thinking?”
She hummed a sweet, nonverbal reply of approval. Devon smiled and brought his lips to her ankle, kissing the sensitive skin just above the bone through the thin membrane of her stocking. She inhaled with renewed pleasure.
“I think the shoes will stay on for a little while also,” Devon declared as he set her foot back down.
Sarah practically whined with frustration. “If everything is staying on—”
“Those are the only items that are staying on.” He pushed her dress up her thighs and removed her useless underwear in one quick pull down her legs, tossing them carelessly across the room. He pushed her d
ress farther up over her hips, letting it bunch around her waist.
The effect was devastating.
From the waist up, she was completely clothed: she could have been sitting at her desk or across the dining table at Dunlear Castle and she would have looked totally appropriate.
Perfectly normal.
And her stockinged legs and perfectly shod feet were still in pristine condition. The simple removal of one tiny thong and she was entirely exposed to this veritable stranger. It was intoxicating. Then terrifying.
Her legs tensed momentarily against his firm hands. “Are you cold?” he whispered as he breathed a warm stream of air between her legs. Her legs relaxed completely into his steady hold. “That’s better,” he said.
He readjusted his position so he was between her legs, on both knees. She had been lulled into some sort of passive state of pleasure, but when his lips touched her there, she nearly leapt off the seat, banging the back of her head against the medieval lead windowpanes behind her skull. She rubbed the back of her head with one hand and tried to repress her nervous laughter.
Devon’s hands rested on her knees and he retreated somewhat, sitting back on his heels.
“What was that about?”
“I just… it was unexpected, I guess… I wasn’t prepared…”
Devon tilted his head to one side, trying to discern if this woman was once again making fun of him or if she was for real. “Unexpected?”
She smiled again, her eyes glittering with amusement and residual pleasure.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Devon proceeded carefully, “you invited me here. I think we need to be pretty clear on your, er, expectations.” He paused again. “On your terms. Because even though we are from two countries separated by a common language, as they say, I think the phrase sure thing has a universally accepted meaning.” His hands were massaging her thighs again, his thumbs kneading her soft skin, smoothing away her startled moment of a few minutes before. “So…”
Chapter 3
“I’m a little skittish, I guess. It’s been a while…” She let her voice trail off with uncertainty.
He perked up with a jaunty smile. “Like how long is a while? Are you one of those revirgins?”
“What?!”
“You know, someone who hasn’t had sex in so long, it’s like being a virgin again… a revirgin.” Devon held Sarah’s eyes.
She smiled cryptically then answered with a broad smile and a slow nod. “It’s exactly like that. How have I never heard of that phrase?”
“I think I heard some bloke on the tube using it a couple months ago. I am so pleased to be the one who gets to repop your cherry, then!” He reached his hands around her backside and rather forcefully moved her hips to the edge of the seat, nearly growling as his lips made their way up her inner thigh.
She had to balance herself with one hand, the other grasping his thick hair as he resumed his task with avid purpose, his hands holding her very firmly in place and gleefully ignoring all future jumps and starts from his very willing, if restless, accomplice.
She was so responsive and ready for him, in fact, that he almost took her right there on the window seat, but since it had been such a long while since her last toss, he decided to be chivalrous and get her properly and well taken care of before moving to the bed. He let his tongue tease her mercilessly, first with long, leisurely strokes, then with deep, penetrating thrusts, then narrowing to her tender, swollen center. He felt her nearly cresting several times and cruelly returned to the long, slow pass. She was becoming desperate.
He was about to bust out of his pants.
He finally gave her exactly what she wanted and what she was, by this time, quite boldly begging for. With a thrust of his tongue that caught the edge of her entrance, then a harsh little sucking tug, he cast her into wave after wave of shrieking bliss. He tried to go in for one more lick, or even a quick kiss, but she pushed his head away with almost primitive ferocity.
“Too much…” she forced out, her voice raspy from her hot, dry breathing. “Holy… oh… my…”
He rose back up on his knees, quite pleased with himself really.
“Come on, love,” he murmured softly. “Let’s get your quivering, delicious body over to the bed.”
He helped her up. She pulled her dress back down over her hips, and then Devon turned her around toward the enormous tester bed with its turned mahogany posts.
“Lean here, lovely.”
He guided her hands to the smooth wooden post so her back was toward him. Then he ran his fingers down her neck, the curls of her disheveled blond hair coming loose in delectable disarray. He wrapped one curl around his finger and brought it to his lips, then he let it drop and continued toward his original goal of removing her dress. He unzipped the long side zipper then raised the surprisingly light woven fabric over her head. He turned and put it down gently on the window seat, then turned back and paused in astonished appreciation.
Sarah was standing there, arms extended languidly against the bedpost, head resting against her upper arm: a wilted, satisfied, wanton woman, slowly stretching out her back, in nothing but bra, stockings, and the most erotic black fur, ankle-cuffed shoes he had ever come across.
The moon was limning every curve.
“Where are you?” she whispered into the darkness.
“Right here, goddess.”
“I am so not… a goddess…”
Her voice trailed off weakly as the waves of pleasure were starting to dissipate and the cool air from the centuries-old windows started to chill her skin. She stretched her back and started to look over her shoulder, her confidence waning.
“Stay!” he barked, before he realized what he was saying.
She stopped in the exact spot, her head partially turned, her hands tightening their grip on the hard post, her hips tilted by the unnatural angle of her four-inch heels.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked, no longer minding the cool gooseflesh that was creeping up the undersides of her arms. His voice had a demanding, predatory timbre that warmed her from the inside out.
“I could think of a few things.”
She could hear the sound of his clothes unbuttoning, unzipping, and flying in various directions across the room. She closed her eyes in anticipatory delight.
His warm, strong hands took her by the waist, slowly coming up under her breasts, then back around again, unhooking her bra and taking the shoulder straps slowly down her arms. She let her hands fall away from the bedpost, and her head fell back gently into his chest. He reached around to her stomach, and she had a moment of feeling like Ingres’s The Source, all loose flesh and unmuscled torso, a Botticelli long after that shape was considered beautiful. And then she felt the deep thrum of his voice as he cooed in her ear and the strength of his pleasure against her back as he stroked her skin and pushed himself against her. The pure pleasure. No social mores. No visual prerequisites. His simple—their simple—mutual gratification. This was heaven. At long last, for the first time in her life, her body was a trusting friend, rather than an insecure enemy.
Before she knew what had happened, the two of them were a tangle of limbs, hair, tongues, fingers, and desperate caresses tossing around on the oceanic, faux-medieval, king-size bed. Perhaps the champagne had gone to her head after all, because, looking back, the rest of the night turned into a jump-cut viewfinder of some highly charged emotional snapshots interspersed with strangely beautiful, abstracted colors and shapes: the pleats and patterns of the maroon canopy-bed fabric above her in a flash; Devon perched in readiness, resting on his elbows, glaring at her silently the moment before he was inside her; the hourglass shape of the carafe of water with the matching glass resting upside down over the opening on the antique bedside table: a Vermeer still life captured in that split second when she turned her head away from the intensity of his gaze and felt him thrust into her in one clean, smooth stroke.
It was all happening.
It wasn’t
happening too fast, she thought; it was just (finally) happening.
***
Sarah rolled over the following morning fully expecting an empty bed. She had known last night that Devon would have to leave early to make his way back to Dunlear to spend the day with his soon-to-be-married only brother. So when the knock on the door woke her from her delicious half-dream, half-reenactment of the night’s antics, she assumed it was room service with the breakfast she had ordered the day before. She rolled out of bed and made her way across the room, stopping at the closet to pull on one of the complimentary robes. “Coming,” she added.
Just as Sarah unlocked the door, Nelson James bounded into his daughter’s room, barely waiting for her to fully open it. His conservative steel-gray hair was combed to precision. His cashmere green turtleneck sweater and gray trousers were immaculate. He was in full captain-of-industry-on-British-holiday mode. Jane had probably organized his packing, individually wrapping each ensemble with a little note that read “Country Outing” or “Dinner in London.” He and his overeager wife were apparently ready to tour the local countryside, and he didn’t want Sarah wasting time lying around.
“It is well past 9:00,” he boomed. Sarah looked dazedly at her bedside table and saw it was 9:04. “And we agreed to meet downstairs in the hotel lobby at that hour.”
She was so disoriented, she couldn’t even think of anything to say. Enough was enough, his impatient silence seemed to suggest.
“Sarah! Wake up! What in the world are you doing just standing there…” His voice faded out from a bellow to a mere whisper as he looked around the expansive hotel room and noted a veritable spin cycle of clothes flung in every direction. “Uh… your mother, uh, stepmother, and I will…”