The Drifter

by Lisa Plumley

  Graham raised an eyebrow. “’Tis easily remedied.”

  Before Julia could so much as draw another breath, his shirt sailed through the air and landed on the bureau to join her things. They flopped together amiably, she saw, her feminine lace flung across his masculine collar and sleeves as though they were meant to be together.

  She smiled at the notion, and turned to him. Her lighthearted musings instantly fled, chased by the wondrous sight of Graham, naked from the waist up.

  “Oh, my!” Tentatively, she reached toward him. “Would you mind very much if I…touched you?”

  “I’d mind only if you did not.”

  Reassuringly, Graham clasped her hand and tugged it to the center of his chest, in heartwarming imitation of her earlier request. Biting her lip, Julia spread her fingers over him.

  His muscles, solid and hot, flexed beneath her touch. His crisp hair tickled her sensitive fingertips, and led her still lower, to his lean abdomen. Spreading her hand wide, she explored the whole length and breadth of his torso, from the hollow at his belly where his trousers stretched from hipbone to hipbone, to the warm curve of his collarbone and the unyielding firmness of his shoulders and arms.

  “You’re so warm. So strong. So different from me.” Julia pressed a kiss to his chest and gazed up at him from her position stretched beside him on the bed. She teased a whorl of hair with her fingertip. “I can hardly wait,” she said boldly, her shyness gone, “to see the rest of you.”

  Graham groaned and hauled her atop him. His kiss was thorough and deep, making her toes curl and her fingers clench on his upper arms. She was moaning when he’d finished…and still he wasn’t done.

  “You’ll be the death of me,” he said, his deep voice making his chest rumble pleasurably against her bosom. “With your lusty talk and that look in your eyes. Who knew you held such passion inside you?”

  You did, Julia thought instantly. On the day we met.

  But she only fluttered her eyelashes, and continued her explorations from her new position, half-sprawled atop him. From here, she could enjoy the rubbing of their legs, the solid press of his thighs…the unmistakable rigidity of him, threatening to utterly destroy the fit of his trousers. With the proof of Graham’s desire so obviously at hand, Julia had expected to feel hesitant. Even fearful. But because this was the man she loved, and because tonight was the only one they would ever have together, she felt neither of those things.

  She felt only love. And an eagerness to share it.

  “I am passionate for many things,” she told him, raising her foot to drag it seductively along his trouser-covered calf. She pressed against him, proving her claim. “It’s only uncertainty that’s made me hide it behind rules and proprieties. Until now.”

  “I’m glad you’ve come out. The brazen Miss Julia.”

  “The scoundrel, Mr. Corley.”

  “The beloved lady,” Graham said, “of my heart.”

  Beneath his renewed smile and stroking hands, she stilled. Beloved whirled through her head, as intoxicating as the flicker of his tongue against her skin. Dared she believe it?

  It didn’t matter if she did, Julia told herself firmly. They were here, together, now. That was all that mattered. And so she lost herself in their lovemaking, and swore to remember it always.

  “I hope this position suits,” Graham said to Julia, long moments after she’d first suggested this night together. With a trembling hand he cast aside the last of her underclothes, removed during a lengthy exploration of her curves and secrets, and forced himself to breathe deeply. To continue moving slowly. Even if it killed him.

  And it might.

  “This position?” she asked.

  Her voice sounded demure, despite its husky edge—and despite her bawdy position, naked and captured between his spread thighs. Thoroughly enjoying the glorious sight of her, Graham eased back on his heels so his straddled position would be comfortable for Julia, and nodded.

  “Yes,” he said, lowering his hands to his trouser-covered hips. He wanted his damned constricting clothes gone…but that would have to wait. He smiled so she’d know he was teasing her. Again. “You know I’m concerned with the condition of your knees.”

  “My knees?”

  Her smile was innocently seductive. Too innocently seductive. She twirled a lock of loose dark hair around her finger, and looked up at him. More than likely, she was unaware of the way her bare breasts bounced enticingly toward him…but Graham wasn’t. And he couldn’t wait to show her how much he appreciated it.

  “Your knees,” he confirmed. Slowly, he trailed his hands from her hips to her breasts, and cupped her. Her nipples tightened beneath his thumbs, exciting him still further. With difficulty, he went on talking. “Do your knees feel wobbly, as they did when we kissed in the past?”

  Julia considered it, mischievously narrowing her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

  “Hmmm. Let’s see if I can help you make up your mind.”

  Graham lowered his head, and kissed her. He scooted backward and kissed her neck, then the top of her breast. Moaning, he drew her taut nipple into his mouth, and savored the wonderful feel of it against his tongue. Her breathing quickened as he went on loving her, and many moments ticked past before Graham could summon the will to stop for another question.

  “How about now?” he asked, not raising his head as he pressed more kisses to the valley between her breasts, and moved to lavish equal attention on her other side. “Wobbly yet?”

  Her answer was a strangled sigh.

  “I’d better continue,” Graham murmured. “Just to make sure.”

  Julia grasped his head and held him to her as he loved her. Again and again he stroked her, kissed her, licked her. She tasted good, like a sweet he’d been denied too long, and for the first time in his drifter’s life, Graham could not get enough of a woman. This woman.

  “Now?” he asked, somehow finding the strength to raise his eyebrow in question.

  “Yes, yes!” she cried, finally surrendering their erotic game. She hauled him upward for a kiss. “Very, very wobbly! It’s fortunate my knees aren’t required to hold me now—” Julia paused, breathlessly clutching him against her “—for they’d surely fail in the task.”

  They shared a smile, one more tender and less teasing. Graham slid his hands to her hips and cradled her against him, kneading his fingers against her rounded derrière.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m here to hold you,” he said. “I’ll never let you go.”

  Her eyes darkened, nearly black in the flickering lamplight. For an instant, Julia looked troubled…but then she wriggled beneath him, and gave him another impish look. Graham decided he must have imagined that moment’s unease.

  “Tonight I’ll hold you just as tightly,” she murmured, and followed the words with a tantalizing movement of her hand. “So long as you’ll let me.”

  Her fingers caressed him through the rough canvas of his trousers. Graham jerked in surprise, then covered her mouth with his.

  “Yes,” he groaned when their kiss was through. “Anything. Everything. All that I have is yours.”

  “Thank you,” she said primly, and began unbuttoning his trousers.

  Graham held his breath in anticipation.

  Several long minutes later, Julia was still at it. Head bowed, she wrestled with the fastenings. A muttered “blast it!” slipped from her lips, making him smile.

  “This won’t work!” She raised her hands as though surrendering to the buttons’ steadfast barrier. “You’re simply too big for your britches.”

  Graham’s grin widened. “Music to any man’s ears.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Her cheeks flushed. “Oh, never mind! I’ll simply find another way to solve this problem.”

  She sat up, beautiful and bare, a determined jut to her chin. With a predatory air, Julia examined the contents of his boardinghouse room. Her gaze lit upon the bureau, where a pair of scissors lay half-buried amongst the writing supplie
s beside their clothes.

  “Aha!”

  “Oh, no.” Graham grabbed her just as she lurched upward from the mattress, setting the bed quivering. He tugged her backward, and rolled them both until she lay beneath him again. “I prefer my pants—and the rest of me—intact.”

  “But I want—”

  “No.”

  “The problem is—”

  He kissed away her next words, along with the rebuttal he didn’t doubt would follow. “There’s no problem.” With eager fingers, Graham worked at his buttons and then proved the fact to her. “Believe me.”

  He guided her hand inside the gap he’d made. Closing his eyes, Graham let his head tip backward as Julia’s palm covered him. Only the barrier of his thin drawers remained between them, and her touch was indescribably wonderful.

  “Oh!” she whispered.

  He looked to see her gaze, wide and curious, fly from his groin to his face, and then back again.

  “Does this hurt?” she asked. “You’re so…hard. That can’t be correct.”

  Decisively, Julia began to withdraw her hand. Desperately, Graham stopped her. “’Tis correct,” he groaned. “So very, very correct. Please, don’t stop.”

  She bit her lip, and studied him. “’Tis the only way I can love you,” he went on. “Truly.”

  Surely she didn’t require an explanation of what was to come. And, soon enough, Graham realized she did not. It was not the mechanics of their joining that confounded her…it was his pants.

  “You can’t be comfortable,” she insisted. “Your trousers must be disturbing your circulation. But that’s easily remedied.”

  The last thing he wanted was a conversation. Or a return to her scissors-hunting. Especially now. But obligingly, Graham asked—or more truly, rasped:

  “How?”

  “You must be naked, as well,” Julia announced. “Like me.”

  A man couldn’t argue with that.

  “You’re the expert,” he said on a grin.

  He helped her with his clothes, untying the draw-string on his drawers as she stood and dragged his trousers over his hips and down his legs. They landed with a rustle on the floor, then were followed by the smaller bundle of his underclothes.

  “You know what this means, of course,” Graham told Julia as she returned to the bed.

  “No. What?”

  She kissed his chest and moved her way up to his mouth. Graham rolled her over. They shared a long, soulful kiss before speaking again.

  “It means I’ll have to begin anew. If you have the strength to stand without wobbly knees then I’ve not done my job properly yet.”

  In the moments that followed, he did. He held her close, and gave to her everything he could. Driven by the need to make Julia happy, to make her remember this night, Graham loved her with his eyes, his hands, his mouth. He caressed her until she was breathless again…and she caressed him, in her turn.

  They were well-suited, he discovered, both passionate and uninhibited—remarkably uninhibited, in Julia’s case. If he’d expected his etiquette instructress to remain prim and proper beneath the bedclothes, he’d been mistaken. It seemed that once Julia had decided their early “wedding night” was to go forward, she’d cast away her reservations, as well.

  She was with him fully. Wholeheartedly. Giving, taking, and whispering of her feelings for him. She undulated beneath him, clutching at him for support. She quivered at his touch, and moaned her need for him. Now, in this, Graham was the tutor, and Julia, the student. But she was more…so much more, to him.

  She was his love. He knew it, as he touched her. As he kissed her, and felt her turn hotter beneath him. As he looked at her, and saw his caring reflected in her eyes.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, cradling her cheek in his hand. “So beautiful. It hurts to look at you, and to know—”

  To know I’m about to lose you. Before he could say the words, Julia’s lips pressed against his. ’Twas almost, Graham thought crazily, as though she yearned to keep the truth unsaid.

  A small, stifled cry shuddered through her. With an abrupt movement, he ended their kiss, and swiftly studied her face.

  “Julia? What’s wrong?”

  She turned her head against the pillow. Closed her eyes. And then rapidly swept her fingertips over her lashes, as though dashing away tears. When she gazed up at him again, though, Graham could detect no sign of weeping. Only longing.

  ’Twas a feeling he shared. More deeply than he’d known.

  “Just love me,” she begged in a thickened voice. “Make me yours. Please, don’t stop now.”

  He hesitated, fiercely aroused and acutely wary. Something, some inner sense warned him that something here was amiss. But however much he tried, Graham could not detect what it was. And so he cast aside his doubts, and concentrated on the moment instead.

  Julia deserved only the best from him. And he was determined to give it. When she’d gone, at least she would have that much to remember him by…and he would share those memories, as well.

  “If you’re not sure—” he began.

  “I am.”

  The upward tilt of her hips assured him of it, lured him with the slick heat of her most intimate, most womanly places sliding against him. Graham gritted his teeth, and resisted the need to join with her. Never mind that Julia, in her eagerness, tempted him with the seductiveness of a seasoned lover. ’Twas her first time, he knew. He would need to be gentle.

  To begin, he covered her body with kisses, whispering all the while of the loving things he had planned for them. Julia squirmed and blushed beneath his frank words. Then she moaned and panted beneath their matching, sensual, actions. By the time he slipped his hands lower for a final time, and stroked her even more intimately, Julia was clutching fistfuls of bedding. She twisted the sheets in her hands and cried out to him, her voice husky with desire.

  Graham answered her cry with a slowing of his pace, the better to savor her pleasure. He touched her with a kind of reverence, drinking in every sigh, every arch of her back, every flutter of her lashes as Julia closed her eyes with the feelings his movements inspired. Carefully, gently, he caressed her…and when at last Julia ceased quaking and stiffened in his arms to find her release, he felt her rapture as if it were his own. ’Twas as though their two hearts beat together, and would not function one without the other.

  She sagged beneath him with a little sigh, her skin warm and faintly damp. Her arms came ’round to hold him close, a gesture Graham loved. The pulse in her temple thrummed against his cheek; the feminine allure of other, more private places snugged up against his shaft. Breathless with wanting her, Graham nonetheless took a minute to nudge her chin upward with his fingertips.

  Her eyes opened. Vast and blue and filled with affection, they held a trust Graham devoutly hoped he could prove worthy of.

  “Don’t fall asleep just yet, darlin’,” he told her. “There’s more to come.”

  “More?”

  He nodded. Settling himself firmly between her welcoming thighs, he braced himself on his knees and spread hands. Graham waited for her assent.

  “Will it make me feel wobblier?” Julia asked. A small smile crept onto her face. “Because I feel very, very wobbly right now, and I’m not sure—”

  “Oh, yes,” he promised. “It will.”

  “Oh, my!”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Julia,” he felt compelled to warn, knowing of her innocence. “But—”

  “I understand.”

  She raised her hand to cradle his jaw, and swept her thumb tenderly over his cheek. ’Twas like a benediction, and Graham lowered his head to kiss her palm.

  “Sometimes,” Julia continued, “even good things hurt. I know that. Don’t worry about me, Graham. I—I want you. Tonight. Now. No matter what else happens.”

  A shadow passed over her face, then vanished beneath a loving look. No doubt ’twas a trick of the light, like the others he had seen this night. Putting aside hi
s thoughts of it, Graham held Julia closely and kissed her.

  “I will never forget you,” he vowed.

  “Nor I, you.”

  Her words stayed with him, driving him onward as Graham carefully prepared her for him and then, finally, entered her. He stopped partway, breathing hard, and simply…felt her. ’Twas amazing, and agonizing, and as Graham slipped past her maiden’s resistance and entered Julia fully, he was overwhelmed with emotion.

  His body demanded release. His heart longed for union. And all sides of him were satisfied when Julia pulled him closer still, and whispered for him to love her. Graham did, long and well, his gaze remaining upon her face as he thrust and withdrew, and drove them both toward an ecstatic finish. Even as he felt his body clench and shudder, Graham kept his gaze upon her, and prayed that Julia would understand what was in his heart and mind.

  I love you, he told her silently, with every increasing heartbeat. I will love you always.

  Release burst upon him, and Julia cried out, too. At last, Graham allowed himself to lower his head to the warm curve of her neck, luxuriating in the closeness they shared. ’Twas unlike anything he’d ever known, and more than that by far, he realized.

  ’Twas very much…like coming home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Long past midnight, Julia carefully and silently dressed. By the light of the waning moon, she gathered writing supplies from Graham’s boardinghouse room bureau and sat on the floor near the window with them, determined to tell Graham in writing what she had been unable to say aloud.

  You’re free. Our bargain is done. Leave me when you wish.

  She looked up from the paper, her fingers cold on the pen. Wistfully, Julia gazed through the shadows toward her bounty hunter’s sleeping form. The hours they’d just shared had been wondrous, unforgettable…and all the more perilous for it. Being loved by Graham, and loving him in return, had only made her feelings for him stronger. She didn’t know how she would find the strength to let him go.

  Yet she had to. It would cost her the future she’d hoped for. It would probably make her twice the laughingstock in town, once word got ’round that bookish Miss Bennett had hired herself a fiancé—and then had proved unable to keep him. And it would undoubtedly disappoint her papa and Aunt Geneva, who would be forced to hold their heads high in spite of it all.