Gettin’ Merry

by CATHY L. CLAMP; FRANCIS RAY; BEVERLY JENKINS; MONICA JACKSON; GERI GUILLAUME

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know, Gray, but at some point one has to go on, and I’ve decided to do just that.”

  “Then you forgive me.”

  “No,” she chuckled.

  “No?!”

  “No. I will never forgive you for giving Anna Mae what was supposed to be mine.” It was the most daring declaration she’d ever made in her life, but the words were true.

  A surprised, amused, and, yes, shocked Gray stared at her with disbelief. “Lydia?”

  She replied with more confidence than she felt, “Women these days are being encouraged to speak their minds. I’m speaking mine.”

  “I see.” He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, though. “So, what are you telling me, Lydia Cooper?”

  She raised her chin and said with a sly smile, “That I want my dessert, Grayson Dane.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Gray wondered if she’d intended to sound so provocative. “Then that is what you shall have. . . .”

  Dessert was chocolate cake. It was her favorite, and when he brought the three-layer beauty out to the table, the sight touched her feelings. “You remembered.”

  Gray said softly, “Of course.” He set the cake onto the table, cut her a wedge, and placed it on a plate.

  She took the plate from his hand and beamed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Lydia forked up a small piece and as it melted into her mouth, she groaned pleasurably, “Oh my . . .”

  Gray’s manhood stirred at the sensuous sound. “That good?”

  “Oh, this is heaven.”

  Gray thought her heavenly, too, and found himself becoming more and more aroused. He thought back to what she’d said a moment ago about never forgiving him for giving Anna Mae what should have been her own. Her frankness made him smile. It also made the male in him wonder what it might be like to make love to her now. Here. “Were you really going to marry that Shaw character without being in love with him?”

  “Yes. There are very few love match opportunities for a thirty-one-year-old spinster.”

  “Is that how you see yourself?”

  “Yes.” Then she added, “I am who I am, and according to my former fiancé, I should add cold fish to my list of qualities as well.”

  Gray told her, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You were just with the wrong man. . . .”

  Lydia studied him. “How so?”

  “Any man worth his salt should have no trouble heating up his woman.”

  The bluntly voiced statement made Lydia’s heart flutter.

  “Shall I show you . . .”

  Lydia was already warm and he hadn’t even come near her.

  He slowly set his napkin aside, then rose to his feet. He walked around the table to her chair. When he reached her, he looked down and extended his hand. A shaking Lydia put down her fork and rose to join him. They stood no more than a breath apart.

  He stroked her cheek and said to her softly, “As beautiful as you are . . . you shouldn’t have to settle for anyone or anything.”

  While she reacted to that, he slowly traced a finger over her mouth, then leaned down and gently pressed his lips to hers. “Let me show you. . . .”

  He gave her a series of sweet short kisses that teased and beckoned, kisses that drew her closer to him, kisses that tempted her to join him and made her lips part so that he could dart his tongue languidly over the sensitive corners. The initial feel of his tongue thrilled her as she kissed him back, learning, following. Soon, the short sweet kisses ceased to be enough. Passion rose. Intensity flared and they both caught fire.

  Her arms circled him as the kiss deepened. Groaning with emotion, he tightened an arm across her back, pulled her closer, and let all the feelings he’d been forced to bury for fifteen years pour forth like a flood.

  Lydia returned the kiss joyously, welcoming him, inviting him, wanting to make up for lost time as well. Tears in her eyes, she savored holding him and being held in return. She’d dreamed of this moment and now knew that sometimes dreams do come true.

  Easing his lips from hers, Gray wrapped both arms around her and held her as if he would never let her go. “Lord, I missed you,” he said huskily as he rocked her against his chest.

  Ignoring the tears sliding down her cheeks, Lydia clung to him as if life depended upon it. “I missed you, too. So very much . . .”

  Gray was so overcome by emotion, his eyes were misty, too. “When no one would tell me where you’d gone . . .” The days following her disappearance had been terrible ones for Gray. Granted, Miriam had assured him repeatedly that Lydia was alive and well, but he hadn’t wanted words; he’d wanted to see her with his own eyes, even though he no longer had that right.

  Lydia could hear his heart beating beneath his soft wool vest. She, too, remembered how awful it had been being separated. “I cried every night for weeks after I left.”

  In response to her whispered confession, Gray tipped up her chin so he could study her face. He brushed away the tears staining her cheeks. “I joined the cavalry hoping I’d forget you, but it never happened.”

  She laid her palm lovingly against his strong jaw and confessed, “I never forgot you, either.”

  Gray turned her palm to his lips and planted a tender kiss in the center. He knew then that no matter where this reunion led, he would continue to love her until the day he died.

  Lydia could feel the woman inside herself calling for more kisses. “Will you do something for me, Gray?”

  He pressed his lips to hers and whispered, “Anything.”

  “Make love to me.”

  He drew away slowly. The four words were the most beautiful ones he’d ever heard, but he wasn’t sure she meant it. “That’s a mighty powerful invitation, schoolmarm.”

  “And not one I toss out lightly, soldier man.”

  Gray hardened instantly. “You’re serious.”

  Lydia said boldly, softly, “Yes, I am.”

  He searched her face for any doubts. “What about after?”

  Lydia shrugged. “I can’t become pregnant, so there will be no reason for an after.”

  Gray wasn’t talking about babies but decided they could discuss the future later. He traced her lips, then kissed her softly. “You’re supposed to be an iceberg.”

  Lydia could feel her body pulsing with newly awakened sensations brought on by his kisses. “But I’m not, am I?”

  Gray grinned. This was the sassy, outrageous Lydia he once knew and loved. “No, you aren’t.” The idea that such a woman lay hidden beneath the prim and proper exterior made all kinds of carnal desires fill his head.

  Lydia leaned into him and asked coyly, “So, will you do this for me?”

  He grinned and declared softly, “Oh, yes, ma’am.” Aroused by the scents and reality of her, Gray slowly lowered his head and kissed her again, like a lover this time, deeply, possessively. Leaving her breathless, he kissed her jaw, her throat. He brushed his mouth over the skin above her breasts, and Lydia melted into her shoes. His lips were hot, and that same heat burned a slow path back up to her jaw. His mouth claimed hers again. He slipped his tongue into the sweetness he found there, and his tongue mated hungrily with hers. His hands slowly mapped the lines of her back and waist; then his fingers skimmed over the skin around the cameo.

  Gray wanted to undress her and have her for dessert. Now. He wanted to raise her skirts, lovingly spread her angel’s wings, and show her the way to paradise, but he tasted an innocence in her fiery kisses, the innocent fire of a virgin, so he needed to let her set the pace.

  Lydia could hear her breathing mingling with the silence and the crackle of the fire. His kisses now descending to explore her throat had left her mouth parted and swollen. She was afire, her heart was beating in time, and she wanted this night to never end.

  Gray moved a dark finger over the heart-shaped décolletage and when her head fell bac
k in response he kissed her open mouth deeply. “Lord, you’re sweet . . . sweeter than I ever imagined.”

  Lydia thrilled to the words, then lost touch with everything but him when his hands possessively cupped the weight of her breasts and he brazenly circled his tongue around the edges of the ivory cameo. He eased down one side of her dress, freeing a brown nipple from her chemise to his boldy dallying fingers. As he pleasured her, Lydia died and went to heaven. He kissed her mouth, making heat pulse in her blood and the bud between his fingers harden like an exotic jewel.

  Gray was not the adolescent boy Lydia had left behind; the man fueling her senses this night was experienced in the gifting of pleasure. His touches were both potent and dazzling. As the virgin headmistress of a school for young women, she had no business encouraging such scandalous behavior, but she didn’t want him to stop.

  Gray’s eyes glowed malely at the sight of her body crooning to the tune he was so boldly coaxing from her nipple. “Shall I stop?”

  Lydia’s body pulsed with a warmth that was centered between her thighs.

  When she didn’t answer, he promised in a hot, thick voice, “If you don’t tell me to stop, Lydie . . . I’m going to touch you, and kiss you in places that are going to make you scream with pleasure. . . .”

  Fitting actions to words, he lowered his head and took her well-prepared nipple into his mouth. She dissolved. A strangled growl rose out of her throat. He rolled the bud around his tongue, then bit her gently.

  Next, he lowered the other side of her dress and helped himself to that passion-tightened bud as well. She could hardly stand. Her legs had all the strength of gravy, and her world reeled from his hotly worded promise.

  Gray’s manhood was hard as a railroad tie. The reality of enjoying her this way made him even harder. Still feasting on the jewel-hard points of her breasts, Gray moved his hands up and down her back, then over the yielding flesh of her hips. The gown slid smoothly, letting him savor the curve of her behind while his palms burned over her underskirts and then beneath them to the thin fabric of her drawers.

  Lydia trembled, but this was Gray, her Gray, and she might never be given this gift again. She whispered against his mouth in reply, “Teach me. . . .”

  Gray was rock-hard. He couldn’t stop touching her. He slipped his hand into the opening of her drawers and found her swollen, ripe, and responsive.

  That first intimate touch sent Lydia spiraling. “Oh, Gray . . .” She’d never had a man touch her so intimately before. She felt him toying, lingering; a storm was building, and its passion and heat made her widen her stance to better feel the thunder.

  Gray gazed down at her rucked-down bodice, and the sight of her nipples drew his lips, even as his fingers continued to explore and tease the flowing treasure between her thighs. He could feel her hips moving with the age-old rhythm of desire, could feel her trembling on the edge of completion. “Let’s bring you to pleasure. . . .”

  Lydia had no idea what that meant and was too buffeted by the storm to care, but when Gray fitted actions to words by easing a long lusty finger into the passage to her soul, the erotic claiming made the orgasm explode, buckling her, arching her body until she cried out in the silence just as he’d promised she would.

  His manhood roaring, Gray guided her with his touch and watched her ride out her pleasure.

  Lydia came back to herself on shaky legs and pulsing everywhere. Her harsh breathing finally slowed and she focused on Gray’s watching face.

  He gave her that crooked smile that made him look seventeen again and said, “Well?”

  She grinned. “Well, what?”

  “Guess you really aren’t an iceberg.”

  Still feeling the echoes of her orgasm, she said, “Guess not.”

  He echoed, “Guess not.”

  Lydia was immediately embarrassed and happy, and she dropped her head to hide her pleased smile. She never knew that a man’s touch could shatter her so. Her eyes lifted to his and she said teasingly, “It’s a good thing we never did this when we were young; otherwise my mother would have been the person standing over you with a shotgun instead of Anna Mae’s daddy.”

  He grinned and toyed a finger over her bare breast. “And I would have gone down the aisle willingly, knowing I could do this . . .” He ran a finger over her bare breast and watched her eyes lid shut in response. “. . . and this. . . .” He lowered his mouth to the hard, damp bud and sucked at it luxuriously until her head fell back and her lips parted. He asked hotly, “Would you have liked that? . . .”

  Lydia moaned with quiet pleasure.

  His voice was thick with desire, his blood pulsing. “You have to answer me, Lydie; otherwise, I can’t tell you what else I could have done. . . .”

  He raised his head and gazed into her passion-lidded eyes. His fingers played with her yearning nipple. “Do you want me to go on?”

  Entranced by him and all the heady sensations whipping at her from all sides, she whispered, “Yes. . . .”

  He gave her two soft kisses to reward her for responding. “Had I married you . . . we wouldn’t have had to wait years for me to lift your skirt like this . . .” He slowly raised her dress and petticoats to her thighs to expose her stockings, garters, and drawers. The shimmering Lydia braced herself against the sturdy edge of the dining table.

  “. . . so I could touch you here. . . .”

  His words and touch set her afire, and she widened her thighs shamelessly, willingly, so he could play.

  Gray had no idea Lydia would be this passionate or uninhibited. Each touch made him want to touch her that much more. Unable to resist, he slid to his knees and kissed the inside of each silken thigh. He ran his fingers up to the citadel of his pleasure and slid them over her until she widened the way even more. Only then did he gently tug down her drawers and assist her steps out of them.

  “Hold your dress aside for me, darlin’.”

  Lydia did as he asked. Nothing in life had ever prepared her for such an event, but this was what she wanted and she’d wanted it to be done by Gray. That in mind, she let him kiss the insides of her thighs, let his fingers touch and explore her in ways that made her mind weak and her senses soar.

  He whispered then, “Had I married you . . . I could’ve brought you home and kissed you this way. . . .”

  When she felt his finger open her and his lips give her the most sensual kiss imaginable, the shocked Lydia’s first impulse was to jump away, but it was too late; she was already in the throes of his expertise and so could do nothing but hold onto her dress, hope her legs would continue to support her, and ride the waves of his brazen, brazen magic. And it was that; she’d never known lovemaking could be so scandalous and yet so blissfully delicious. He lingered and teased, nibbled and seduced. He gave her a hot and glorious lesson in a subject she never knew existed, and the tutoring didn’t end until she screamed.

  In the silence that followed, the eyes-closed Lydia couldn’t believe the joy washing over her body. She thought him absolutely scandalous. Before she could fully recover he swept her up into his arms and began to walk her from the room. “Where are we going?” she asked, finally managing to find the words.

  “Upstairs to my bed. I want you here and now, but your first time shouldn’t be on my dining room table.”

  The words thrilled her. “What about the second time?”

  Shocked but pleased, Gray laughed. “You need a keeper, do you know that?”

  Lydia, still pulsing from his lessons, said, “I think you just got the job.”

  He grinned and said, “Just you wait, schoolmarm. The night has just begun.”

  Chapter 7

  The short journey up to his bedroom could have been accomplished sooner had Gray not stopped every few steps to steal more kisses. Lydia didn’t mind; she fervently returned all he had to give. By the time he carried her over the threshold, her passions were ignited again and she was eager to be schooled further. He didn’t disappoint. He began with the slow removal o
f her dress. The small buttons that ran the length of her back were tackled first, and he took his own sweet time. Standing behind her, he saluted each new inch of bared skin with a kiss that sent pleasure-filled shivers up her spine. When the gown had opened enough, he slipped his hands into the gaps on each side and cupped her breasts held up for his delight by her lace-edged stays. As he leaned over to kiss her raised mouth, his fingers dazzled her pebble-hard nipples until she arched back against him sensually. He continued to ply her and kiss her until she moaned softly. Only then did he draw the gown down and off.

  Gray gently turned her to face him. Against the backdrop of the fire in the grate and the wavering shadows, she made a lusty sight in her disheveled stays, stockings, and shoes. He looked at the dark vee of hair tempting him from the tops of her thighs and whispered, “You seem to have lost your drawers, ma’am.” And he touched her there, making her eyes slide shut and her thighs tremble.

  “A soldier took them,” she whispered just as hotly.

  Gray didn’t know how much more of this play he could take, but he wanted her ready when the time came, not afraid or unable to enjoy his size. “You shouldn’t let pony soldiers take your drawers.”

  Lydia didn’t know what was heating her more—his words or the ripening enchantment his fingers were stoking between her thighs. “He rewarded me, though.”

  Delighted by her, Gray slipped a finger into her now-flowing core and felt her flesh tighten around it in erotic response.

  Lydia mewled lustfully.

  Gray watched her and asked in a passion-thickened voice, “Would you like another?”

  Lydia couldn’t respond. Her virgin’s body had no stamina. When he slowly and deliberately removed his finger, then circled it wantonly over the swollen, throbbing treasure, she climaxed again, shaking and crying out hoarsely. She was still incoherent when he picked her up and carried her to the bed.