by Lisa Plumley
Something loving. He hauled in a breath, then turned.
Rosamond stood with her dress partly unbuttoned. The curve of her breasts was fully revealed, beckoning him with smooth skin and wonderful roundness and bold, impertinent femininity.
“Is now the right time?” she asked him.
Miles swallowed hard. The ribbon fell from his hand.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Rosamond.”
“I’m counting on you to teach me.” Keeping her gaze locked trustingly on his, she lifted her hands to her bodice. She undid another button. Another. The gap she’d made widened, showing him her corset. Just visible above that garment’s lace-trimmed edge, he caught a scandalous glimpse of her pink areolas.
Miles drank in the sight of her, feeling nearly undone.
“Now?” Rosamond asked, cheekily continuing. Another button slipped free of its buttonhole. “I confess, Miles, I can’t go much further. Not in this dress. But if I lift it up here…”
She bent to collect her dress’s hem. She lifted it with audacity, showing him her shoes, her stockinged ankles…
“Stop.” Miles rushed to her before she could show him more—before she could go too far. He covered Rosamond’s hands tightly with his, depriving himself of everything she was offering.
That didn’t stop his imagination from delivering it to him, though. That didn’t stop Miles from envisioning Rosamond’s long, shapely legs, her stocking-clad thighs…even the junction of those thighs, warm and sweet and waiting for him. He wanted her. She seemed to want him. But was it too soon? Taking a ragged breath, Miles made himself focus on her cherished face instead.
“Maybe we should reconsider this.”
“Reconsider? Now?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Miles was losing this fight. He looked at their joined hands, absurdly holding her dress half up and half down, then regrouped. He had already warned her that his mother had raised a dastardly son, hadn’t he? “Are you sure, Rosamond?”
“Don’t I look sure?” Her saucy gaze met his. Meaningfully, she directed his attention toward her gaping dress’s front. Her partly raised full skirts. “I honestly don’t know how much plainer I can make things.”
Miles relented. He had to. “Maybe an inch plainer?”
He refused to be the man who reawakened Rosamond’s awful past. But those hurtful events seemed to be years and years behind her as Rosamond smiled victoriously at him…as she raised her dress an inch higher. Another inch higher. With his hands still atop hers, Miles implicitly cooperated in her unveiling.
Under other circumstances, he would have already undressed her by now—and she would have willingly let him. In a different world, he would have already wooed her, married her, taken her to his bed and pleasured her. “I should be undressing you.”
Rosamond shook her head. Trust and love shone in her gaze. “Those aren’t the rules,” she reminded him. “Besides, I want to do it myself. This way, there can be no doubt what I want.”
There was even less and less doubt as she proceeded.
Miles released her hands, giving in completely.
Rosamond rewarded him by pulling off her dress altogether. It fell to the floor, faster than he could have hoped. Her shoes and untied bustle came next, followed by her drawers, her stockings and her frilly white petticoats. Duly discarded, those garments made a frothy, lacy pile on his pine-plank floor. They left Rose standing before him with just her chemise and corset to cover her.
Defiantly, she tilted her chin. That one gesture, so uniquely hers, was Miles’s final undoing. His breath left him. His knees quivered. He felt positively overheated.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And I’m a little dizzy.”
“Ah.” Her smile was both shy and exultant at once. “Well, you know what you should do if you feel dizzy, don’t you?”
Miles couldn’t remember. Because he could see almost all of Rosamond now. He could see her breasts, mounding demurely above her corset. He could see her waist, nipping in above her rounded hips. He could see her legs, outlined beneath her chemise’s sheer fabric. If he’d tried, he could have glimpsed even more. Silently, Miles blessed all the light in the room. He gave thanks for his glowing lamp and for the absolute joy-causing, brightening effect of Rosamond’s presence.
“I don’t have the faintest idea about dizziness,” Miles confessed huskily. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
“I see.” While he watched, Rosamond pulled a hairpin from her upswept auburn hair. She tossed it aside. A few more pins followed. Ping. Ping. Luxuriantly, her hair tumbled down.
She took his hand. “You’re supposed to just feel what you feel. Like this. Like you showed me before. Remember?”
Utterly bedeviled, Miles let her take his hand. He let her place it on her smooth silken shoulder. With his heart pounding, he watched as Rosamond drew his hand down, lower and lower…
“How about those all-over kisses?” she asked, twining her fingers with his as she looked up. “Is now the right time?”
The faith in her gaze made it impossible for him to refuse her again. Miles simply didn’t possess the stamina.
Not for that, he didn’t.
“Soon,” he promised, feeling himself leap to new and even more rigid alertness at the idea of what was to come. “There.”
He looked to his waiting bed with its downy coverlet.
Rosamond did, too. She swallowed. She nodded.
With her hair tumbled free around her shoulders, she looked to him like another, even more bewitching woman. She looked like the private version of herself—like the woman only the man who loved her could see. Miles liked that idea. He loved her.
“I’ll need your help with my corset,” Rosamond said.
Lithely, she strode to his bedside. Alluringly, she lifted her hair from her neck. Invitingly, she turned her back to him.
Miles studied those miles of corset laces. He took in the shapely curve of Rosamond’s derriere, just discernible through her fine chemise. He wanted that damnable teasing garment gone.
“I’m yours to command.” He reached her within his next breath. His fingers plied her corset laces with a deftness that would have shocked a lady’s maid. Her undergarment came undone with satisfying speed, leaving Miles with two hands full of hooks and eyes and whalebone stays. “Are you sure about this?”
He couldn’t help asking again. He needed to know.
But Rosamond only nodded. She released her hair.
“Maybe…you could take off my chemise for me?”
As she turned to face him, Miles gladly agreed. He’d have agreed to anything she wanted. “Only if I can do this first.”
While she looked at him questioningly, he kissed her.
Afterward, she touched her mouth. She smiled at him. “It still works, just like before. I still feel like dancing.”
“Ah. You think you’ve won, then?”
“With you?” Her smile broadened. “Always.”
She did want him. Just him. Just the way he wanted her.
Suddenly overcome by a torrent of feeling, Miles couldn’t summon a reply to that. All he could do was kiss Rosamond again. All he could do was fill his hands with her hair, luxuriate in its uninhibited disarray, kiss her again and again and again.
Gently, he stroked her cheek. “Tell me if you want me to stop. If there’s anything I’m doing that you don’t like—”
“If I ever come across such a rare event, I’ll tell you.”
“I only want to please you, Rose. If I hurt you—”
“You won’t.” With equal gentleness, she touched his face. She gazed into his eyes. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Do you think I haven’t thought of this? I have. Over and over again.”
Humbled by her trust in him, Miles smiled. Warmth swirled between them, heady and full. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Because a lady might wonder, given al
l this prevaricating, whether a man—”
“I do know what I’m doing.” To prove it, Miles kissed her again. Stirringly and erotically, he lost himself in Rose’s mouth, in her scent, in her heat and her generosity and her spellbinding courageousness. He lifted his hands to her breasts and stroked her there; he drank in the delighted moans that escaped Rosamond when he did. He kissed her again and again.
“I may have underestimated you,” she murmured a long while later, wriggling atop his bunched-up, mostly forgotten coverlet.
“‘May have’?” Miles offered her a wicked arch of his brow. With concentration and caring, he lowered his mouth to her neck. He gave her a tiny, gentle nip, then kissed his way to her breasts. He could scarcely believe how remarkable she felt. How long he’d waited and how good this was. “You have underestimated me. You’ve seriously underestimated me. You’ll see.”
Typically, Rosamond would not admit to being wrong. “Maybe.”
Her breathless, aroused tone said more than her words did, though, and Miles savored that, too. With his heart and his mind, with every bit of his lost, forlorn soul, he loved Rosamond. He stroked every part of her, from her toes to her head. He lavished praise on her perfectly shaped toes, on her lithesome knees, on her soft belly and her pleasing thighs. He lulled her with words and seduced her with kisses, and by the time Rosamond was sprawled on his mattress beneath his seeking mouth and searching hands, boneless with delight and thrumming with anticipation at the same time, Miles knew he had done well.
It was time for more. Slowly, he slid Rosamond’s chemise higher. It lifted as if by magic, first revealing more of her thighs, then showing him her dewy femininity, then coming off all the way to divulge her creamy pale skin and pink-tipped breasts. Fighting for breath, Miles gazed at her in wonder.
“I’ve never known anyone more beautiful, Rose.”
Dreamily, she smiled. “I could say the same to you.”
But that was preposterous, and Miles knew it. “I’m just a man,” he disagreed roughly. “Just like any other man.”
Rosamond shook her head, her hair flowing against his pillow in a way he’d envisaged countless times. “You’re unlike all men. Because you’re you. Because you make me feel…”
“Safe? Beloved?” He grinned rakishly. “Satisfied?”
“At home,” Rosamond told him. “That’s why I need you. Because you make me feel more like myself than I do on my own.”
Unaccountably moved, Miles closed his eyes. When he opened them, Rosamond was studying him with a dangerously curious look.
“Can I see you?” She gestured tentatively toward his britches. “You know…before we go any further?”
He knew what she meant, but not why she’d asked.
His confusion must have shown, because Rosamond added, “I’d like to touch you, too.” She swallowed. “If that’s all right.”
She wanted reassurance, Miles realized. He could no more deny her that than he could stop wanting her. Or loving her.
Wordlessly, he stood. To make things easier, he tugged off his shirt first. He tossed it to the rug, then brought his hands to the waistband of his britches. He unfastened the top button.
Rosamond’s rapt expression stopped him.
“You are beautiful,” she declared in a self-certain tone. “I knew I was right! Look at your arms! And your chest. And your stomach! You’re strong and fit.” She scrutinized him, shaking her head. “I can only imagine how the rest of you might look.”
Her gaze shifted to the front of his britches. Her eyes grew wide, undoubtedly as her overzealous imagination took over.
“Don’t get carried away.” Hastily, wanting to reassure her, Miles unbuttoned his fly. “I’m not so fearsome as all that.”
He wrenched off his britches and drawers, leaving himself wholly exposed to her. He stood in the combined unforgiving glow of the lamplight and the daylight, standing tall and naked.
Rosamond appeared…fascinated by him. Also, a bit alarmed.
“You are fearsome,” she declared with a shake of her head. “I know what’s meant to happen, Miles. Given the size of you—”
“I’ll make sure you don’t mind.”
“I’m not convinced you can. Just look!”
Her wave indicated that most manly part of him…which chose that moment to swell to even more impressive proportions.
“Maybe you should stop looking,” Miles suggested.
“You’re right. I should just feel. Just like before.”
Uh… At the notion of Rosamond deliberately feeling him, Miles grew weak-kneed again. But since he’d already agreed…
“Go ahead.” Attentively, he watched her. “I want you to.”
Rosamond sat up. Cautiously, she reached out. Her hand hovered an inch or two away from him. She gazed up at him.
She hesitated. “Will I hurt you?”
“Only if you keep making me wait.”
“Oh.” Rosamond drew in a breath. “All right.”
At the sight of her markedly working up her courage, Miles had to stifle a fond grin. She was so intrepid. He loved that.
“Are you ready?” she asked, her hand a fraction nearer.
His answer was a heartfelt groan. “Rosamond…”
“Ah.” She sounded enlightened. But her gaze didn’t lift from him. She appeared to be visually estimating his length and girth and firmness. “Now I understand why you kept asking me.”
“And I understand why you got so impatient.”
“We should have had this conversation earlier.”
“Rose…”
Her impish gaze lifted, briefly, to his. She inhaled.
She stroked him from base to tip. He bit back a moan.
“Oh!” Delight sounded in her voice. “You’re soft! But hard, too.” Then, puzzlement. “Smooth and hard.” Rosamond seized him fully. She squeezed, then stroked again. “Quite hard. Very—”
He was going to die. Miles knew it.
“—very hard,” she concluded. “I feel relieved, Miles. I was a little worried about…well, you know. But now I feel fine.”
“You,” he promised, “are about to feel better than fine.”
“More kissing?” Her face brightened. “I love kissing you.”
“More kissing.” Miles nodded. “All-over kissing.”
She appeared confounded. “We’ve already had all-over kissing.” A rosy blush appeared on her cheeks. “It was nice.”
“It’s been too long since you’ve experienced it,” he countered, “now that we’ve had all this friendly conversation.”
“I definitely don’t think I could forget any of this.”
“No, I’m sure it’s possible.” With sham regret, Miles shook his head. “We’d better start over again.”
Carefully, he settled over Rosamond, supporting himself on his elbows and knees. He gave her a minute to adjust to the remarkable feeling of their bodies being so close together.
Deeply, he kissed her. “I need you so much, Rose.”
“I need you! Oh, Miles!” Rosamond clutched his head, holding him to her. “I just feel so…I can’t describe it.”
“Why don’t you try?” Miles suggested. Deliberately and slowly, he made his way down her body, stroking and kissing and awakening every good feeling Rosamond could possibly have.
“I can’t try! I can’t think while you’re doing that.”
He arrived at the joining of her thighs. He kissed her there, too—very softly, very sweetly and very erotically.
Rosamond gasped, tensing. “Miles!”
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “Just feel.”
She sounded wobbly. “I’m feeling too much! It’s so—”
A low moan broke from her, redoubling Miles’s desire.
“This is how I’m going to make sure you enjoy yourself,” Miles explained. Intimately, he glided his fingers over her. He loved the way Rosamond arched her back as he touched her…loved the way she drew him nearer to her. “Just feel
. Trust me.”
“I do trust you. But I just—” Rosamond broke off, tossing her head. Her gaze met his, filled with mingled passion and discovery. “I just never imagined such a feeling.”
“I did. For you. I wanted to give it to you.”
Miles lowered his mouth to her again, losing himself in that most intimate kiss, coaxing her to new heights of ecstasy.
Whatever else happened, he would give Rosamond this. He would give her the knowledge that lovemaking was beautiful. That it was necessary. That it could bond two people in a way that nothing else could—not promises, not words, not a ring.
Although he wanted to give her those things, too. He did.
“If you’ll let me, Rose, I’ll give you everything.”
Even as he made that promise, Rosamond came undone beneath him. He’d scarcely formed the words before she clutched him to her…before she cried out with desire and pleasure and surprise.
Not long after that, Miles did give Rosamond everything—everything he had and all he was, long into the afternoon and then beyond it. He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t care.
From here on, he knew, everything would be different.
Chapter Thirteen
Everything was different now, Rosamond realized as she strode through town, feeling free and strong and complete. Now that she and Miles were together—really together—the sun felt warmer and the breeze felt fresher. The trees looked greener and the birds sounded chirpier. Even the dusty streets of Morrow Creek, chock-full of midday traffic, seemed more vivid somehow.
Miles loved her. Truly and completely. He loved her!
He had loved her, too, Rosamond remembered as she turned to give her friend Savannah Corwin a final goodbye wave. Miles had shown her so much during that magical afternoon they’d shared. Even now, days later, Rosamond couldn’t help blushing.
“You seem…different,” Savannah had observed during their teatime meeting at the Lorndorff Hotel. “Did something happen?”
Several things had happened, but Rosamond hadn’t known where to begin explaining—not even to Savannah, one of her most worldly friends. She liked Savannah. She liked her independence and her verve, her friendliness and her ability to rise above her very challenging and colorful past. Even though Savannah had married her erstwhile mail-order groom, Adam Corwin, she’d still stayed on in her demanding job as a telegraph operator.