by Jo Goodman
If she’d been less of a coward, she’d have hinted to Bram that she wanted to dance with his brother. Perhaps she should have marched right up to Beau DeLong and asked him about his orders and when he expected to leave. Adults spoke to him at length, probably about all the things she wanted to know, but she never did. He’d been forbidding; worse, he’d been indifferent.
She understood her reaction better now. Bode had grown into his features; they were cut from a cloth that made him look older than his years at twenty-three and suited him perfectly at thirty-two. He would look much the same at forty-two and a decade beyond that. He didn’t worry about matters he couldn’t change, and he didn’t wear regrets like a hair shirt. What if he’d never been indifferent to her, only wary?
“Bode,” she said, liking the way it shaped her lips and made her tongue rest just behind her teeth at the roof of her mouth.
“Mm?”
“Just . . . Bode.”
“Do you want the lamp?”
“No. Moonlight becomes you.” She laughed because she’d startled him into raising both eyebrows. “It does, you know. The color of your eyes is extraordinary. More blue-silver than blue-violet just now. I’ve always wondered if you can see things beyond what is natural.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh. It seemed as if you might be able to.”
“I see you,” he said. “And it’s always been my perception that you’re otherworldly.”
Comfort was rather more pleased by that than not. “You’re going to kiss me again, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I can wait much longer. The Chinese woman . . . she gave me something to drink. It made me very tired, but it also . . .” She squirmed, uncomfortable in her skin again. “It would be better if you did it quickly.”
“I understand.” He bent his head and nudged her lips with his. He released her hand and slid his to the inner curve of her waist. It rested there while he teased and tasted her lips, but as he deepened the kiss, he moved it to cradle her breast. His thumb made a pass across the beaded nipple. She whimpered softly; the sound of it was her pleasure and her surrender.
Bode wanted both. Blood pooled in his groin. His fingers gathered her shift in bunches, and he pushed his knee between her legs. Her response was immediate. Her hips rocked against him. He was achingly hard. The warm weight of her pelvis rubbing against his erection made him bite off a groan. She was going to make him spend as quickly as a schoolboy getting his first glimpse of the sweet curve of a woman’s naked back.
Bode gripped Comfort at the hips and put her away from him. She still tried to move against him, but what she wanted was her own release, not his. He slipped one hand under her shift and cupped her mons. Her hips jerked. She reached for his shoulders. Her fingers fluttered just above his collarbone and then slid down his chest.
He waited until she stilled. Her breathing changed from ragged to steady. He would make it ragged again, would insist on it, but wanted her to anticipate the moment.
The heel of his hand rubbed her mons. His fingers slid between the cleft. She was damp. Her flesh was soft and warm and pliant. His touch was light, and she was quick to respond and easily maneuvered. He slipped one finger inside her, then two. He pressed another kiss to her mouth, and this time his tongue moved languidly, as slowly and deliberately as his fingers did between her thighs. She made the sweetest sounds of yearning at the back of her throat.
His thumb brushed the cowl of her clitoris. Touching that tiny nub of flesh fairly made her skin hum. She pressed herself to him, wanting him close, then closer still. Her fingers curled in the loose fabric of his shirt. The movement of his hand was gentle. It was also relentless.
Bode lifted his head. Comfort’s eyes weren’t closed in helpless bliss. They were open, open wide, and watching him. Sentient and responsive, those dark eyes were unrecognizable as the vacant and impassive ones they’d been hours earlier. They held his gaze, focused on it, really, as if he were the steady center of a world that was shifting around her.
Moonshine bathed her face, lending her features a transparent wash of light and silver-blue color that might have made her seem ethereal if he weren’t touching her so intimately that he could feel her pulse and her heat and her wetness.
He listened to the rise in her breathing as she sipped the air in tiny increments. The soft pitch of each breath changed, rising like a musical scale. Her fingers loosed his shirt, and her hands disappeared under the blankets. She did a surprising thing then, covering his hand with both of hers and holding him exactly as she wanted. Her single-minded attention to her own pleasure moved him to a rough, vaguely diabolical chuckle.
“There?” he asked, turning the pad of his thumb just so.
She bit her lip in earnest and nodded quickly.
“You have to say so,” he said.
“There. Yes, there.”
“And here?” He spread his fingers so they pushed against the damp walls of her vagina.
She squeezed his hand. When nothing happened, she understood he expected her to answer that as well. “Yes. Just there. Like that.”
“Just. Like. That.”
And just like that, every thread of tension that had been holding her together broke at once. She gripped Bode’s hand, afraid she would lose herself in the release of so much pleasure. Her back lifted. Her neck arched. Her heels dug deeply into the mattress. Every part of her quivered. She’d witnessed buildings collapse with less provocation. She thought it was possible that she’d do the same.
She did, of course; however, the aftermath wasn’t destruction, but a delicious languor that turned her bones to warm candle wax and made her glad she hadn’t come out of her skin.
Bode saw that she’d finally closed her eyes. Her lips were parted. He touched his mouth to hers and kissed her softly. Her hands slipped away from his, and he withdrew from between her thighs. She murmured something against his mouth that might have been a protest.
“We’re not done,” he whispered.
She nodded faintly, opening her eyes when he raised his head. “There’s you.”
“Yes.”
“All right.” Without being directed, Comfort swept aside the blankets. Her shift was already bunched at her thighs, but when she raised her knees, the hem gathered around her hips. She concentrated on arranging the material comfortably under her, lifting her hips and settling her bottom. When she’d finished, she glanced at him, prepared to say that she was ready, but the expression on his face was so full of astonishment that she quickly dropped her knees, pushed at her gown, and yanked the covers back over her for good measure. Less confident, but still curious, she asked, “Should I have let you do it?”
Bode’s eyebrows remained as high as they had been, but the rest of his face relaxed. “No. Oh, no. What you did was fine.”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. I surprised you.”
“Surprised” was perhaps too mild of a descriptor, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “Well, yes, but in a very good way. And I’m over it.”
Comfort reached out from under the covers and touched his eyebrows with her thumb and forefinger. She gave them a gentle nudge downward. When they were positioned properly, she withdrew her hand and studied her work. “At least now you look as if you might be.”
“I am,” he said. “I certainly am.” He had questions, but as she’d pointed out earlier, there’d be one after the other and perhaps answers he didn’t want to hear. Whatever he thought he needed to know could wait. “Again,” he said. And when she didn’t move, he added, “Please.”
Comfort didn’t throw back the blankets this time, but after considering his request and watching the centers of his eyes grow wider and darker, she did rearrange her shift and raise her knees. She found his hand and tentatively squeezed it, as much because she simply needed to touch him as to let him know she was ready.
He brushed his lips against hers and then sat up and knelt betwee
n her knees. Raising the tail of his shirt with one hand, he took her by the wrist with the other and set her fingers against his erection. Her eyes widened, but he’d never been disappointed by counting on her curiosity. Her fingers circled his cock, squeezed lightly, hesitantly, and then she slid her fist along the hot, pulsing length of it.
He had an urge to tuck her eyebrows back into place. Instead, he chose to be flattered.
Bode leaned forward, supporting himself on his forearms, and covered her with his body. He pressed his hips against her, and with only this for encouragement, she helped him find his way.
His first thrust was cautious. Whatever he’d seen her do, no matter how forward and experienced she seemed at times, he was guided by the belief that the truth was somehow different, and that what she required was care, not carnality.
Comfort felt an immense pressure in her chest, greater even than the one between her thighs. She pushed at Bode’s shoulders and turned her head when she thought he meant to kiss her. What he did was whisper in her ear.
“Breathe.”
She sucked in a lungful of air. Her chest expanded. The pressure eased. She was suddenly aware that he was in her more deeply than he’d been in the moment before. Clever man. Clever, considerate man.
She took the time he gave her to accommodate his entry, and then she nodded once. He moved slowly at first, just that little bit to help her understand his intentions. She felt the rocking motion of the ship and concentrated on that. The rhythm of his stroking was much the same. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.
In time, she no longer thought about it. She simply felt it.
Her hips rose to meet his thrusts. Nerve endings that had only just ceased to vibrate were jangled back to life.
Bode’s face was a study in pleasure denied. His features, shown in sharp relief by virtue of skin pulled taut across his bones, were those of an ascetic. His mouth was set in a grim line, and twin vertical lines creased the space between his eyebrows.
Comfort slipped her hands between their bodies and searched until she found an opening under his shirt. She pushed her fingertips into the smooth mat of hair that covered his chest and pressed the cup of her palm against his heart. The beat was strong. It pounded against her hand. She kept her palm in place as she would cup it over a seashell, and what she felt became a sound, and the sound was like the roar of the ocean in her ears.
But then again, it might have been Bode.
His shout made her eyes go wide, and she bit her lip to keep her from gaping. She was not unfamiliar with grunts of men finding their release, but she hadn’t expected his to be quite so loud or expressive. Had he really cried out “Brother of Cod”?
“Mother of God,” he rasped against her cheek. His body shuddered once, twice, and then was still. He lay heavily on top of her, but when he tried to heave himself away, her arms circled him. Her fingers walked the length of his spine. He didn’t think it was possible, but his cock stirred, his hips twitched, and he shivered again.
“I think you better stop,” he said.
“All right.” Comfort’s fingers stilled. His mouth was only a hairbreadth from her cheek. Her skin was warmed by his soft expulsion of air, and the weight of him covered her like a snug blanket. It hardly mattered that her breathing was a trifle labored.
It mattered to Bode. He pushed himself up, made a thorough job of kissing Comfort, and rolled away, sprawling on his back with such abandon that he took most of the sheet and all of the quilt with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her once again arranging her shift so she was modestly covered. His sigh was sincerely meant.
Comfort took one corner of the blue-and-green star-patterned quilt and tugged hard. She knew he let her have it, because she couldn’t have wrested it from him otherwise. Turning on her side, she edged closer to him and tucked some of the quilt around her back.
Bode patted his shoulder, indicating there was a place there for her head. She levered herself up just enough to nestle her cheek against his smooth linen shirt.
“There’s a washroom over there, on the other side of that forward door,” he told her. “If you’d like to use it.”
“I would. In a moment. Not just yet.” She was aware of the wetness between her thighs. She tried not to move. “Do you think I’m bleeding?” She cringed after hearing the blunt question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say—”
“No,” he said. “You should always say.”
“And have everyone know that I’m coarse and common? When Newt and Tuck needed to put a roof over my head, we all lived in the back of the Snow Palace with Bottle Betty and her girls. My uncles tried to keep me from seeing and hearing things, but you already know they were only modestly successful. Opium was traded in the alley behind the place, and Chin Fong, the master who taught me the cat stance and a great deal more besides, was employed to regularly clear out the opium eaters who tried to squat under Bottle Betty’s tent.”
As brief as her explanation was, Bode thought it explained a great deal. “If you’re concerned that childhood curiosity made you coarse and common, and you are convinced it must be hidden, then perhaps you should confine your more outrageous comments to the limits of my hearing.”
“I think I already do that,” she said quietly, finally. “It’s you, Bode. You provoke me to say astonishing things.”
“Well, that’s something, then.”
Comfort wasn’t sure what he meant by that, and she let it pass. “So,” she said, persevering with what was uppermost in her mind. “Do you think I’m bleeding?”
“I don’t know. Do you want me to look?”
That was too bold, even for her rather unconventional sensibilities. She brought up her knees and tucked her shift around her, pressing her thighs as closely together as she was able. He wasn’t going to thread her needle again so easily.
Laughter rumbled deeply in his chest. He pressed her head back to his shoulder. “I didn’t mean I was going to examine you,” he said. “I was going to look at myself.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that, and now that she considered what he was telling her, she changed her mind about leaving the bed. “Maybe I will get up.”
Bode would have liked to have lain with her a little longer, but he didn’t try to stop her. She seemed to know he was watching as she rose from the bed and crossed to the washroom. She kept tugging at her shift as if it already didn’t fall well below her knees, and her steps across the stateroom floor were hurried. He gave her what he thought was a decent amount of time to compose herself before he followed.
Comfort was staring in the mirror above the washstand. She looked as if she might have been doing that since she’d closed the door behind her. The washbasin was dry, and the linens hanging on the rod hadn’t been touched. The room was small, but it was able to accommodate a commode, a washbasin, a copper hip bath, and a tall, narrow cabinet that held more linens, soaps, and items for shaving and teeth cleaning. What it did not easily accommodate was two people.
Bode stepped behind Comfort and circled her loosely with his arms. He nudged the crown of her hair with his lips. His breath stirred silky, ebony strands. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing, really. Wondering if it shows, I suppose.”
“If it shows,” he repeated slowly.
“Didn’t you wonder after your first time?”
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, that.”
She looked at him in the mirror. “What did you think I meant?”
“Well . . . you came in here to see if you were . . .” The vaguely sheepish expression he saw reflected back was unfamiliar. Perhaps he should be the one wondering if he’d been changed. Something was different. Something showed.
“Were you as young as Bram?” she asked.
He’d never been as young Bram, but he knew what she meant. “I couldn’t say,” he told her. “I don’t know how old Bram was the first time he was with a woman, and right now I’m trying to recover from the notion that you do.”
“But mostly with you.”
“Yes. I think that’s true.” Her smile held a hint of amusement as she watched Bode mull that over. “It didn’t matter what he said to me. I thought it was because he believed I’d remain his friend, but I’m coming to understand that he knew all along that I was in love with him. He took advantage, I suppose you’d say.”
“I would say.” Bode felt as if she’d taken him to the very edge of a precipice. He wasn’t certain if he would jump or wait for her to push him. Talk of Bram could put him in that quandary.
“He was twelve, by the way.”
As easily as that, she’d pulled him away from the verge. “Twelve.” He raised his eyebrows a fraction. “Even adding a couple of years to that, supposing that he wanted to truly shock you, I will tell you honestly that I wasn’t as precocious as my little brother.”
“But you won’t tell me how old you were.”
“No. Some things about one’s first encounter should remain a secret.”
“But this was my first time.”
“Then it is a good thing I was there.”
Laughing, she turned in his arms, stood on tiptoes, and placed her hands on his cheeks. She pressed a warm, hard kiss to his mouth that set him back on his heels.
Bode steadied himself, then her. He bent his head and touched her forehead with his own. “A very good thing.”
“Mm.” Comfort tugged on Bode’s sleeve. “I still have to attend to . . . attend to certain . . .”
“Ablutions,” he said. “Yes, I’m aware. I’ll wait.”
She gave him a little push and pointed to the door. He backed up and leaned against it. “Bode.”
“All right. I’m leaving. But that’s only because I know what you can do with those dainty bare feet.” He turned the handle behind him and gave her the privacy she wanted.