Tides of Love

by Tracy Sumner

  He knew he should run as quickly as his quaking legs would take him. Instead, he tugged the last bit, the mattress edge cutting into her bottom. He angled his hips and burrowed. Warm velvet folds enveloped the strongest erection in memory.

  “I know I asked you—” He swallowed, the words catching in his throat. Helplessly, he shifted to the right... to the left. So slight a movement, but he throbbed with each measure.

  “Ask me again,” she said, her hands sliding toward him. Her eyes snagged his, the eagerness in them stoking his hunger.

  “Can I, sweet?” He skimmed his fingers along the outside of her thigh, hesitating over wadded muslin. He would never be able to sleep in this bed again, he surmised, curling his hand possessively around her hip. Not with the scent of lemon and honeysuckle and rich, brown earth driving peaceful slumber out, inviting carnal dreams in. “Can I touch you like I’ve dreamed of touching you?”

  In answer, her lids skimmed low.

  He inserted his thumb under the tattered hem and gave her thigh a languid stroke. “What would you do if I stripped this from your body?” He drew a deliberate circle. “I want to, if you’re wondering. Desperately.” He raised the nightdress an inch—an inch closer to ruin for both of them. “What would you do? What do you think I would do?”

  A rushed breath; a raspy, meaningless sound. She tried again, a teasing accent threading her words. “I... I don’t know... for sure. But, I think I’d like it.”

  He snapped his head up and slammed into a sizzling, emerald wall. A powerful surge, privilege inspired by her reckless words, ripped every remaining shred of caution from his mind.

  The mattress dipped as Noah washed over her. Knee, hip, stomach, chest. Points of startling, scalding, rain-drenched contact. His hands skimmed her arms, her back, fingers tangling in her hair. She made a noise he must have mistakenly interpreted, because he halted, shoulders quivering, his face hovering an inch above hers. His jaw tensed, flushed skin stretching over high cheekbones. With a willful shake of his head, he leaned in.

  She prepared herself—oh, heaven, she really did.

  Then, he claimed her—possessive and wild—and her preparedness vanished.

  A hoarse groan rumbled from his throat, rattled beneath her fingertips. Pricks of sensation, a provoking, restless intensity. Heat pooled in her belly and between her legs, flooding her thighs and her buttocks. She pinched them together and burrowed into the mattress. Noah followed, pressing his hips against her. Her legs disengaged at pressure from his knees, embarrassingly weak pressure.

  Then he fell into place.

  Oh, merciful heavens, this was what she’d imagined in the alley. Height mattered little. And he knew it. Rocking, perfecting the fit, he knew it all.

  “Sweet Jesu, you feel amazing,” he said against her cheek.

  In response, she explored with a vague, indefinite movement.

  “This is what you’re looking for.” He tilted her hips and shifted between her thighs. A sense of fullness, one she didn’t know how to describe, pervaded her, in a part of her body she knew next to nothing about. Saturated, a sponge filling with scalding water, while he, all angles, rigid and impenetrable.

  Not understanding why she was compelled to, and never considering she’d shouldn’t, Elle skimmed her hands down his back, grasped his buttocks, and arched against him.

  In return, he attacked, ravishing everywhere at once.

  “Open for me, sweet,” he said, kissing his way along her cheek. “Only for me.” He drew her earlobe into his mouth and sucked. His tongue swept inside, sending a bolt of heat to her toes.

  A sigh slipped from her. He moved quickly, covering her lips and swallowing the sound. Color, sensation, exploded behind her sealed lids as he invited her to play. He tasted of mint and the faintest hint of whiskey.

  Delicious.

  The occasional boom of thunder and the soft tap of rain against pine shingles intruded little. Moist, openmouthed kisses, impatient bites, fierce sucking. Whispered sighs and ragged groans. His hands and lips worked, in faultless accord. A nail skimming her cheek, a finger dipping into her bodice. Muslin lowered; a rush of air crossed her breasts.

  His breath warmed her. Then his tongue. An abrasive, skin-clinging stroke, a lazy rotation.

  Her nipple fairly sizzled.

  Why she craved this loomed far beyond her meager knowledge.

  That she would beg if he stopped astounded her.

  She attempted to speak but found she could utter nothing more than a dazed moan of entreaty.

  He released a pleased groan and shifted to the other nipple, his fingers finding the spot his mouth had vacated. Arching, she presented her body to him, her tortured whimper breaking free, the sound echoing off the bedroom walls.

  With a teasing flick to her nipple, he pulled back, the cessation she had feared. She blinked to find his gaze fixed on her; an engrossed expression. The same he wore when she caught him with his head buried in a textbook.

  He slipped his spectacles from his face and swung them in a deliberate circle. Then he startled her by smiling, a mischievous quirk of his lips. Wicked, and very, very sensual. Licking her own, she fought to regulate her breathing by counting to ten in French and in English.

  Shifting to the side, he stroked his toe up the inside of her calf. She could not suppress the weak sigh. His smile widened, and in a wonderfully inventive, astoundingly impulsive action, he circled her nipple using the rounded end of his spectacle frame.

  A shudder racked her body. “Please.”

  He leaned in. So close, his breath grazed her mouth. “Please, what?”

  She twisted her head from side to side, wadding linen behind each ear. “I don’t know.”

  “This?” He brushed the cold lenses against the protruding nub.

  “No,” she panted.

  “This?” His thumb fondled, circled once, fondled again.

  “N-no.” She placed her finger over his lips, then lowered her hand to her breast. Blinking past the haze surrounding her, she looked to see if he understood.

  As she watched, his controlled blankness slipped away. As did his smile. His spectacles clattered to the floor. His hands cradled her face; his mouth captured hers. Parting her lips easily, his tongue swept inside.

  She did not fight, did not care to try.

  The kiss grew rough, rougher than any before. Tongues and teeth, a singular taste, one to dwell in her mind for eternity. Passion had never played a commanding role in her life, and she questioned, vaguely, if she would be able to live without it after this. Her fingers spread over his back, nails digging. Her hips matched his steady rhythm. A drag and pull like the tides. A rhythm the kiss followed, a rhythm that increased.

  Moisture cleaved his naked chest to hers, the patch of hair stirring her nipples as successfully as his fingers and his tongue had. She moaned in delight and frustration, plunged her hands into the mussed locks on the crown of his head, and directed him lower.

  He wrenched his mouth from hers and nibbled down the arch of her neck, a rich sound creeping from his throat. His chin brushed her ribs, the scrape of stubble making her shudder. Flicking a molten, heavy-lidded glance at her, he stared through golden curls untamed by pomade. Stared until her cheeks heated and pleasure thumped at the apex of her thighs.

  Weak lid drooping, his gaze slithered low. Again, he displayed that wicked smile. “This, ma chere fille, is what you want. What we both want.” He bent his head, she tilted hers, watching her erect nipple disappear between his lips.

  Sweet mercy. Elle gasped and closed her eyes to the sight of him looming over her, helpless to ignore the heat, the frank intimacy, of his touch. Scarcely aware of the lumpy mattress beneath her, rather, she felt suspended in air.

  Adrift on a sensual sea.

  His mouth spread over her breast, his groan muted against her flesh. Animalistic, the things he did to her, the way he sucked her nipple between his teeth, rolled it beneath his tongue. Waves of ecstasy combined with shar
p stabs of awareness. Ah... he was right, she concluded, pitching into a bottomless pit of carnality, her arms tumbling to the bed, her legs splaying wide. He’d given her exactly what she’d wanted: craved.

  Juste Ciel, the man was remarkably skilled.

  Sensation pressed in upon her. Noah’s hips grinding into hers in a gradual figure eight. The crisp hair on his arms. The strain and release of muscle. His generous weight atop her. Damp cloth covering his arousal, a part of him she had never imagined, in all her dreams, would be so long, or so hard. His hands stroking the sides of her breasts, curling to cup them, kneading, drawing them into his waiting mouth. Callused palms gliding along her stomach, seizing her waist. Fingers plucking at her nightdress, tugging it higher. His tongue warming her, his lips welcoming her. His touch robbing her of thought or purpose, command or design.

  Mental pictures provided taste and smell: fields of green, dark, red wine, sapphire clouds. A stormy blue-black sea stretching to the horizon. A slender boy nudging spectacles high atop his nose, his smile comforting and compassionate.

  She invited the images into her mind, opened her legs to invite him into her body.

  Pounding. Her heart slamming against her ribs. Pounding. Her pulse ringing in her ears.

  Noah jerked atop her. Dazed, Elle watched him search for his spectacles, frown to find them missing. He straightened, his knees hugging her waist as he sat astride her. The hand he dragged through his hair trembled. His chest rose in rapid catches beneath the dangling strip of cloth covering his wound, the tattered end tickling her breast.

  Bewildered, he looked completely bewildered.

  The pounding inside her head started again. Then she realized someone pounded on the door.

  Chapter 13

  “This, however, seems scarcely satisfactory.”

  C. Wyville Thomson

  The Depths of the Sea

  Except for the heavy footfalls on the staircase outside, the room was eerily quiet. Elle hiked to her elbows and glanced at Noah. Slowly, his look slid past her chest, to her hips, which were still wedded to his. He stared for a long moment, then muttered a ragged oath, and rolled to the floor in one smooth motion.

  He strode to the window, his stride noticeably unsteady. He flipped the curtain aside, pressed his nose to the pane. “Caleb, I think,” he said, his breath fogging the glass. “Looks like he’s swaying on his feet.” He swabbed the circle of vapor away using the ball of his hand. “Blessit, he lets everything upset him.”

  Elle waited for him to turn, perhaps finish what he’d started, but he showed no sign of doing either. Drawing the neck of her nightdress to a modest level, she lifted her bottom and yanked in an awkward attempt to cover her legs. A deafening rip filled the silence. With a sigh, she fingered the tattered piece of material. “Well, we can’t all be as composed as you. Don’t worry. He won’t go to Widow Wynne’s, see I’m missing and put two and two together. He’s not that suspicious.”

  Noah turned, a sharp torque from the waist. “Right where he’s headed,” he said, sounding both shamed and flustered. “He’s looking for me, and he knows I’m stalking you like some damned bloodhound.” Again, he peered out the window when she understood good and well he couldn’t see a thing.

  She rubbed her eyes, breathing in the smell of rainfall and man. Feeling disappointed and unsatisfied, she considered Noah’s ramrod posture, the tangled mat of hair on his head. It took considerable effort on her part to keep her hands where they should be and not where they wanted to be: tracing the muscled ridges of his back, the round curve of his buttocks. He had an extremely nice physique, sleek with just the right measure of muscle.

  Scooting to the edge of the bed, Elle wriggled until her feet touched cool heart pine. Her knees wobbled when she put weight on them, but they held. Her toes curled from the chill. “Why do you suppose this is?”

  His fingers knotted as he dropped his brow to the pane. A sweep of air fluttered the trailing end of his bandage. “Why, what?”

  The soft pad of her feet reverberated through the room. She stooped to grasp his spectacles, moonlight sparkling off metal. Thankfully, he’d put no cracks in the lenses. “Why do you suppose we”—she pressed her lips together, figuring how to say this—”we react like this? I never felt this, hot and... and itchy about Magnus. About anyone.”

  A minute passed. Thunder rumbled in the distance. “How do I know? Happens to people every day.”

  She traced the wire frames with her fingertip, remembering what he had done with them. “Much like your married lady friend, isn’t it? I’m not ignorant of life’s basic truths. Most men have a lover and a wife. Extreme appetites, Christa told me.”

  He tapped the pane: three hard knocks. “You shouldn’t be listening to Christabel. And, you’re wrong about Caroline.”

  “Oh yes, I witnessed, firsthand, how wrong I am.” Even now, she saw his hand folded in both of Caroline’s, the woman stroking his fevered brow.

  Another knock. “You’re confusing what you witnessed.”

  “No matter. I kept her from your bed tonight. In fair recompense—”

  All at once, he stood before her, his hands closing about her shoulders. “Don’t say that.” He shook her. “Don’t even think it.”

  “How can I not?”

  “I told you, before. I’ve never touched her.” His gaze lingered on her breasts. “Like I just touched you. Never touched her at all. Whoever wrote your father’s report wrote lies.” His fingers tensed. “The desire I feel for you is more than I’ve experienced in my life. Nothing has ever come close. No one has come close.”

  For a long moment, they stared, caught in a world of their creation, a world Elle wanted to dive into, even as the rational part of her mind rebelled, begging her to remember they would not be in each other’s lives much longer.

  Wanting to test his resilience, she brushed the front of his trousers, curling her hand around his rock-hard flesh.

  “Stop.”

  She dropped her hand.

  “Stop looking at me like that. And touching me there.” He shook his head. “Do you want me to go completely mad and—and tear your clothes off?” His gaze flicked down, then shot up. “What little you’re wearing, of course.”

  Sinful images stormed her mind. Her lips curved against her best judgment.

  He stumbled back. “Dammit, Elle.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, part of me thinks this is all a very bad idea. That part”—she shrugged—”I’m inclined to ignore. I usually do.”

  “For once in your life, listen to what the discarded fragment of your brain is telling you, because you and I are not going to happen.” His eyes cut away. “Don’t make this out to be something it isn’t. You’ll only end up hurting us both.”

  “What do you make this out to be?”

  He wedged his shoulder against the bedpost and crossed his ankles, gazing past her, the wheels in his mind spinning as he reasoned in his systematic, professorial way. All right, two can play this game, she asserted, and struggled to allow her features to slide into lines of indifference. Hard to do when he stood before her half-clothed, hair mussed, charmingly undone. She chewed on her lip, fighting the urge to touch him.

  As a clock counted off time, his eyes lightened, his fists unfurled, and his splendid arousal withered. Her hold over him, whatever that constituted, diminished with each annoying tick. “Elle”—he tapped the bridge of his nose, threw a quick glance at the spectacles dangling from her fingers—”I think we should stay far, far away from each other.”

  The edges of her temper crisped and curled. “That’s what you came up with? Stay away from each other?”

  A spark of fury lit his gaze. “What the hell do you want me to do? To say? I can’t answer every question, find a solution for every problem. That blessed professor nonsense is a myth. I thought you understood better than anyone.” He took a fast step forward. “Understand this. I want you. I sit awake, night after night, crammed in a stiff leather
chair, lust eating me alive, picturing you twisting beneath me, or God help me, beneath another—”

  With an angry oath, he swept his hand across the marble-topped bureau. The troublesome shelf clock struck the floor, a deafening shatter. Shards of glass glittered amidst the raindrops blowing in the window. “Forget him and let this... situation between us die.”

  “Him?” She pointed to the rumpled bed. “You believe this is still some sort of youthful obsession?”

  Over his shoulder, his tormented gaze met hers, his chin lowering in what she had to assume was a positive reply.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe everything I feel is for that boy. The one who walked me to the doctor and held my hand while he set the splint. The one who helped me speak his language and protected me until I could do it well enough to avoid getting knocked around in the schoolyard. Maybe I’m yearning for him. Because I see his face when I look into yours. A figment of my foolish, sentimental imagination. Exactly what you expect from me, Professor? Fickle, flighty Elle Beaumont.”

  Noah flinched and jammed his hands in his pockets, as if the words he had practically begged her to utter disturbed him. “No, no, that’s not what I expect from you at all. It’s just, this attraction between us can’t work. Some things don’t make sense if you take a moment to examine them. We don’t make sense. We’re too different, you and I. And, the lure, the excitement, well, passion and—and love, love which comes from deep inside, are different beasts. Love is, love makes intimacy special. Inversely, lust roars around in your chest like a bear, clawing and slashing its way out. I guess I don’t know... honestly, I don’t know if one has much to do with the other.”

  Oh, how she wanted to tell Noah Garrett where he could stick his bungling rationale. Instead, she prolonged her departure by slipping his spectacles on her face. The room melted into ribbons of black and white. Seeing the world through his eyes deepened the ache in her chest. She swallowed hard and forced herself to say, “Then, what just happened between us was simply a spontaneous reaction to a—what would a scientist call it—some kind of primitive stimulus?”