by Gayle Eden
“You can afford it, the repairs?”
“I can afford it.” He nodded abrupt and then turned.
They both heard a team outside and the voice of Mrs. Millington greeting them. As they stared for silent moments, Johanna discerned he was torn between insisting she leave for the comforts of her family, and remaining with him.
She finished her own drink and got to her feet. Walking over, she reached around him to set her glass beside his, their bodies close when she gazed up at his face. Unyielding, save for his incredibly expressive lime eyes.
Lifting her hand, she caressed his cheek, feeling the sinew jump. “That will be your help arriving. Why don’t you go and direct them.”
His eyes searched her face. He rasped, “This is you being stubborn, isn’t it, Johanna?”
“Yes. It is.” She smiled softly and dropped her hand. “I love a challenge. I am staying. And I have every intention of working right along with you.”
* * * *
Jo was as good as her word. Sascha learned that, observed it, the first two hectic days. Whilst he directed the masons and saw to repairs, she helped Agnes cook meals for all of them. Distracted, tired as he was, and depressed with the reality of what he’d invited her into—Sascha could not help but observe that she treated it as if it was no great inconvenience and joked and laughed often with everyone.
At the table, under the awning, or carrying a pail of water to someone, Jo was comfortable enough to jest and make light. Whilst he knew, he was being rather grim-faced, trying to get things done so the whole week would not be wasted; it became apparent the newly hired men enjoyed a rapport with her, too. He was almost jealous of the weathered faced, hardened men, who made her laugh.
When the house staff and other chore men came the next day, he was busy. Jo took over—with the help of Agnes, directing and assigning their duties inside.
On the third morning, a mist still hung over the landscape when Jo, wearing her trousers and shirt, her boots, and having her hair in a braid, met him under the awning with her own cup of strong coffee.
“House linens need to be ordered. In fact, we’ve a long list for the drapers, as well as other necessities.”
Across from him, her palms cradled her cup on both sides, her gaze, going over him in a way that heated his blood. He had bathed, shaved, and donned a fresh linen shirt and clean leathers and boots. Her clothing was fresh also, but her face intrigued him for lost moments, whilst he did hear her words, conversation about what was needed in the house. The curly hair, no matter how confined, managed to escape in light strands around her beautiful face. Her eyes looked deep green and her face dewy fresh. God but he wanted to lay her on the ground, on the table, anywhere, and kiss her, bury himself inside of her.
Sascha heard every word and heard too how carefully she said it, apparently worried about the expense.
He broke in and murmured, “Make the list. I’ll send for everything.”
“Very well. I was wondering if I might go into the village later, with one of the maids—”
“Yes. Sign my name to any purchases.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. His body stirred. His nose breathed in the misty air and pungent coffee. His senses were open and very conscious of her.
When he lifted his gaze, at her murmured (thank you) he saw her own eyes moving up from his mouth.
“What are you working on today?” Those words sounded from her, but her eyes were speaking things that brought that husk to her voice.
Likewise, he answered, “The men will tackle the back lawn and gardens, and I’ve some repairs on the roof…”
She nodded, took a sip of the strong brew and Sascha had his eyes on her mouth, her throat, at the opening of the shirt, before he raised it again.
Gazes touching, holding, whilst birds were singing their dawn’s song, the current between them built. Each was clearly aware of the other’s tightening arousal. It was the attraction, the knowledge—that they now shared of each other after the intimacy. How one tasted, kissed, touched. How their hunger exploded. How skin on skin felt…
“It wasn’t the week I planned for us.”
“I know that,” she acknowledged. “But you’ve a staff now and everyone is making progress…”
“We’ll make time the next few days—”
“Yes” Her gaze searched his face, and then clung to his eyes again. Wetting her lips, Jo husked before rising with her cup, “I look forward to it.”
Later, on the roof with workmen, he saw her leave for the village. Sascha pushed himself, and the men, though finding every leak was no easy task. Sometime during a break later in the shade, he smelled the acrid scent of burning weeds and watched servants carry damp paper and other items out to be burned. There was also the smell of the cook fire, of the hearty stew bubbling.
He looked into the cold cup of well water and then around and up at the house. Oddly, he felt only a sense of relief at the stripping away and starting from scratch. There had been times, in the past days, as more was found wrong and the repairs mounted, that he asked himself why he bothered with it. He could buy a newer, bigger estate, and it was not as if his memories here were good.
Left to his own devices whilst attention was showered on Alan—who in truth needed it, he had found ways to amuse himself. However, after boarding school, he was not home that often. He did not blame or loathe his parents. He had some fond memories of them both. Wed young, an arranged match, they had no siblings themselves and lived simple, unambitious. They did with Alan what most did with heirs, gave him a sense of being owed something from the world.
It took him getting back to work and a few hours later to realize what it was that gave him a sense of satisfaction. It was that same building of his life, accomplishing and paving his own way that he had felt after leaving England. True, it was his home before, but he was making it completely his. Stronger, better, more efficient, and bringing it alive…making it flourish.
Darkness edged as the buggy returned, piled high with packages. His sleeves rolled up, Sascha was washing his face and hands in a pail, patting his face with toweling when Johanna exited and the men began to carry things inside.
She was dressed in a casual light beige suite, although he knew she would have gone in trousers had the mood struck her. Her hair was up in some sort of pouf with curls by her ears and nape escaped. She turned his way before following the others inside and he felt her eyes going over his damp white shirt and lingering. He felt his body ignite. His heart began pounding deep in his chest. She had been on his mind often too, and their night together, the night of Hawksmoor’s party.
Jo had long vanished before he stopped staring at the spot. Staying outside to eat, before going in and breathing beeswax, hearing the sound of females talking, laughing upstairs and down, he went upstairs first, finding his chamber—the one adjoined to hers, and took his time bathing and shaving, changing into clean white shirt and black trousers, better boots—so as not to track up the polished floors.
Back down again, Sascha turned to the parlor to have his brandy—and spied Johanna there, in her white lace blouse and skirt, the jacket absent. She had her back to him whilst lighting a lamp.
He studied her upswept hair, her nape and shoulders, the neat waist.
She turned, blinking a moment at spotting him.
He kept walking, toward the table. He poured a drink, offering her one, which she accepted. The lamplight flattered the polished wood base of the walls and doorframes, the floor. The scents of mold and dust were now banished completely. He knew she had directed the servants, and done it well. Johanna was a woman who liked a challenge indeed. She liked to get things accomplished, and her up for anything attitude astounded him.
She half sat on the arm of a chair when he took her the drink. Standing there, in front of her afterwards, both of them were transparent in remembering that night in her father’s study when she had sat just that way before her first climax, their first sexual experience with each other.
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There were still servants moving from room to room at tasks, so no words were spoken, although none was really needed. Each watched lips touch against the glass rim, throats working to swallow brandy, and a tongue licking the dampness. A pulse was throbbing at her throat, at his, and the only touching Sascha did, other than with his eyes, was to reach out at some point and finger one of those curls spiraling just behind her ear.
She shivered. He felt his body tighten. Sascha’s legs felt that tingling inside his thighs. His scrotum drew tighter and his sex harder. Muffled voices, a laugh, a door clicking closed. It was distant, growing more so, when he became aware that her breathing turned shallow and his own thicker.
Her eyes were slightly heavy when she finished the drink. His fingers brushed hers while he took her glass and turned to place both on the table. Walking back to her, he watched her stand, a hand to the back of the chair, as if her legs were unsteady.
Silently he reached for her hand, his own harder, and more calloused. Hers, despite her days of work, felt soft, feminine, whilst he led her to the small study. It was dark save for the arc of moonlight rising. Sascha locked the door and gathered her in his arms where they stood, before his father’s old desk.
His kiss, supple at first landing, very soon it turned carnal when their mouths opened and their tongues caressed. Warm, brandy flavored, uniquely Johanna, in the way she tasted him, and demanded subtly that he give her equal access.
Her arms around him felt like heaven. The body against his warmed, lightly scented with her perfume. He could feel the coil of her arousal tightening.
Breathing thick, fast, their noses, the flames leapt higher. His hand buried in her hair, disturbing the pens. The free one found her shapely backside. She moaned deliciously.
Lifting his head, their lips clinging a second before parting, and his lashes lifted seconds before her own. In a quiet husk Sascha offered, “It seems too long ago that we’ve done that.”
“Yes.” Her hand skimmed up his back and down again, her whisper hoarse with need. “Although, absence makes it more potent.”
It did. His head was not light just from the brandy. Sascha moved his hand to her cheek, his thumb caressing before he tilted her head back and kissed her harder, deeper, unmistakably erotic.
Her fists were filled with his shirt when he parted. He parted, only enough to move her hands and undo the buttons. Shivering a bit himself when her palms smoothed over his pecs and sides, touching his stomach.
“Your touch feels like heaven.”
Jo lowered her head and tasted his skin, kissing softly across his collarbone and down to his nipple. Hands carefully cupping her head, he closed his eyes and indulged a moment, his skin feeling tighter, more sensitive, and his arousal going up several notches.
When Sascha could not take more, he urged her head up, dipping to kiss her repeatedly. The kisses were wild, not as smooth as they were hungry and erotic, intermixed with nibbles and laves.
At some point, his hands worked at Jo’s blouse, getting it undone, pulling it free. After smoothing his palms over her satin camisole, he was cupping her sides, forcing the camisole up until her breasts were exposed. He broke the kiss, lowered his mouth to taste the mounds, then all around the peaked nipples, letting his tongue lave until she whimpered and pulled his hair.
He rimmed the nipple with his lips and suckled her, feeling her tremble, the more aggressive press of her hands in his mane. Attending both, moaning himself at the cool softness of that secret flesh stroking his tongue, Sascha could have done so at leisure had their hunger not been so urgent.
He had planned that, long hours of teasing her, loving her, but things had not worked out. Promising himself he would spend one whole day in carnal bliss with Jo before they left, he realized now they had an urgent need to be satisfied.
Lifting his head, he kissed her before urging her further in the room, and to the supple chaise angled just under the long window. Moonlight struck them, shadows and amber beams of it, while he lowered her onto her back and began to undo her skirt. That discarded, he freed her of the camisole and admired every exposed inch whilst taking her shoes off and setting them aside. He rolled down her stockings, kissed her trembling legs, his palms caressing exposed skin.
“Sascha…” Her groan echoed softly.
He stood, pulling off his shirt while he watched her arch her head back, her hands running up her creamy body in a sensual signal that threatened every bit of control he had. By the time he stood nude, bare, at the end of that chaise, she was half raised on her elbow, those emerald eyes going over him several times.
“You’re magnificent.”
“Thank you.” He needed that compliment as all lovers did. More so, because he knew he was not perfect. Too dark, too marred with scars, but glad for them because it toughened his muscle and frame.
She, on the other hand, looked creamy and silken against the mellow black suede. Her hair undone and mussed in a riot of burgundy curls, her breasts peaked, quivering, with the breaths she drew, and those hips, those silken legs, were exquisite. His gaze lingered on the curls between those legs, before he lowered himself astride the end of the chaise, facing her.
He floated his touch up her thighs, bringing them over his own, raising her bottom off the cushion. He watched and heard her hiss, saw her teeth bear down on her lip when he began to caress closer, lightly touching between those curls. Their eyes held in the ocher light, holding still as he felt her moist and warm juices. He eased a finger inside her and began to caress her like that.
Johanna’s hips moved, greedy and eager. Her body was so stimulated, she wanted him desperately. His finger thrusts quickened as did her breathing. When he eased back and bent her knees, pushing them wide before laving her there, she groaned and let her head fall back.
Warm, wet, silken, his skilled lips and tongue drove her mad with pleasure. He was erotic and inventive, nibbling, licking, thrusting his tongue inside her, and then suckling where those nerves were most sensitive.
Reaching down, she grasped a hand full of his mane, hearing his sound of masculine satisfaction. “Please…please…” she panted softly, knowing what that glorious climax would feel like.
Sascha did not give in right away. What he did was straighten and position her so that his thick cock slid half way inside, teasing her with shallow thrusts.
Jo groaned, cursed, hearing his low sexy laugh. Her nails bit into his back muscle when he stopped and poised over her, his lips touching hers, scented, and tinged with her own.
“Don’t tease me, please.” The breathless plea whispered over his damp mouth.
“It’s going to be over quickly,” he told her, “Too quickly for either of us.” However, he went back again to laving and suckling, bringing her over the edge in mere moments, moaning through her shudders and gasps.
No sooner had she calmed, than Jo’s heart was pounding again. He lifted her and sat himself back against the chaise, turning her away from him as he lowered her onto his sex. Spine slumped so he could thrust up as she undulated on him. Breathing accelerated. His hands skimmed from her spine up under her hair and down her back. They flexed on her hips when she became swept up in it and arched her neck, her hips thrusting, riding him with quick movements.
“Christ. Johanna…” His hoarse cry came as he matched her, holding her tighter by those flexing hips.
She gasped loudly. He cursed and lifted her off him, his sex sliding along her buttocks while his warm seed pumped out.
Breathing as if they had ran for miles, it was awhile before they washed up. Still, she only dressed in his open shirt. He held her with her bottom between his legs, both of hers over his, on the chaise, her body against him and his fingers sifting through her hair.
Head on his chest, Jo closed her eyes, her body lax from the release of tension, her nose appreciating his manly scent. His heart beat a deep and steady rhythm under that slab of muscle. She knew his head was back, his eyes closed, but he was not asleep
. The other hand resting on one of her thighs, caressed now and again too, feeling her skin, but too, conveying a lover’s gesture of having been gratified.
The house quieted and moonlight flirted between passing clouds. She refused to analyze and think. She was too content however, laying like that, letting him pet and caress whilst a steady shower began and bathed the windows, tapping against the glass and house.
Her mind was by no means as still as her body though. She had images of him, of watching him labor, of the passing glances this week, and of finding herself arrested by his walk, his voice, the focus with which he worked. She also had images of him seconds ago, spreading her legs, his head between them, and his mouth on her. Images of herself astride him, remembering the feeling of his sex, filling her snug and completely, stroking her deep and the primal way he counter thrust.
Jo was not sure if he sensed her thoughts or had his own, but she became aware of his hand slipping between her thighs. He tested, and obviously found her wet and slick. His mouth brushed her brow before Sascha sat up enough to reposition them. She saw his fully aroused sex, saw his light eyes heavy with hungers before he stood and lay her down. Again astride and facing her, he fit their bodies together, bending to kiss her as his hands held her knees apart and wider, his cadence at first slow and steady, building faster—until she could only arch her head, gasp and hold to the sides of the chaise.
“I could stay inside you forever.”
She managed just as tight, “I could let you.”
His grunt came before he circled his hips and then plunged into her hard, repeatedly. She was caught up in the pleasure when he pulled out and spilled himself between her curls, his lips parted, gasping.
He rose at some point and cleaned her from the water decanter, then held her again before he brought her to the peak with his fingertips. Jo reached it, soaring so intense, she was limp afterwards.
It was the wee hours when they slipped to their rooms, kissing at the doorway.