He ran his hand lightly up her arm.
“I am sorry,” he said, feeling the gooseflesh dotting her arms. “’You’re cold. The fire has gone down.” He retrieved a towel and began drying her. The touch of the cloth, of his large, strong hands, caused her unsatisfied desire to flare painfully.
But his expression had turned serious, as though he were consumed by private thoughts. She began to feel him grow distant and they both remained silent.
“She’s really gone.”
His sudden willingness to speak of Aimee startled her and she glanced up at him. “Yes, I suppose she has boarded the ship by now.”
“They leave with the tide.” He stared at her, a blank hopelessness showing in the depths of his eyes.
The power of that unguarded gaze hit her full force. She daren’t say a word, lest he withdraw again. The sudden variance of his mood alarmed her a little. He’d been relaxed, maybe even a bit happy. At least, happier than he’d been in weeks and weeks. Yet that very happiness had caused him to open to her. Now he appeared so lost.
He was twisting the towel between his hands. “I look at her and I see myself… almost as though I’d held a mirror up to my own face. But when I try to speak with her, I find nothing of myself. She is their daughter. I mean she is so limited, Emily. In her vision of the world.“
He paused and stared at her as though he’d just said something he couldn’t believe, or something horrible… or both. “I may be damned for even thinking this.”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t put it into words.”
“We can talk about anything, just between us.”
He blinked at her a few times.
“Tell me, my love,” she said softly.
“She is wholly provincial in her outlook. She is not curious about the world around her beyond that which she already knows. The sphere surrounding her father’s shipyards.” He paused, briefly. “But why should she be? It is all she has known as a shipbuilder’s daughter.”
The bitterness in his voice resounded deep in her bones.
“I don’t know how to talk to her.” Now his tone sounded lost.
“Oh, Alex…”
“She doesn’t suspect that I am her father. Not in any way she is aware of, I am certain.”
“She’s just a child, why should she suspect?”
“Yes, of course. And if she were told, she would never understand. It would disrupt everything she believes about the people she loves most. It could traumatize her. I couldn’t tell her.”
“Of course you couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t tell her, ‘You had a mother who loved you. A mother who bore you in captivity and was destroyed by it.’” His voice broke and he turned away. “I lost Aimee years ago. I gave her up willingly. But I was too young… Oh, Emily, I was too young to know what I was giving up. I didn’t understand the permanence of it all. I didn’t understand how wholly she would become their very own flesh and how utterly I would lose her.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“They said it was for the best. They were older than me, they seemed so much wiser. I was so lost. I wanted the best for Aimee. They said it would be too confusing for her, as she grew, if it were known that I was her father and they only her adoptive parents. It is further proof of how supremely selfish I am. I should be happy for her that she lives such a happy life. But God help me, I… what has been taken from me… God help me, I am so angry and there is no target for that anger, none except myself.”
She rushed to his side and touched his arm.
He grew rigid and pulled away.
She followed him and forced herself against the front of his body. “Oh, Alex!” She hugged his hard muscled body fiercely. “We can start over, you and I. I can give you children, all the children you want.”
He caressed her buttocks. “My darling.”
“We can start, immediately. Right now, this moment.”
He laughed softly, the sound full of affection. “Surely, we can take the time to go to the bed?”
“Don’t tease me, I mean it.”
He chuckled again and drew his hand up her back in a slow, sweeping motion. “I love you, completely. There will be no one else for me.” He kissed her forehead. “You know this, don’t you?”
“There will be no one else for me either. Let me be everything to you.”
“You are everything. The beginning and ending of my world.”
Listening to his words rumble in his chest, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms about his torso. Long moments passed with just the pleasure of holding him being her only reality.
“Emily?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to make love to you.” He caressed her hair. “Let me make love to you, my beautiful claret-haired girl.”
“Yes, yes, please make love to me.” She embraced him more tightly. “Give me your child. Our child.”
“Our child.” He sounded so wistful.
“The best of you, the best of me. Just imagine it, Alex. We shall raise our children to share all our most cherished values.” She sighed. “Can you picture it?”
“Yes, I can.”
She could feel the increase in the cadence of his breathing. In the thrum of his heartbeat. Their talk was arousing him, just as it did her. She was becoming a little lightheaded with it and a steady warmth and tingling centered in her lower pelvis. She pressed against his rising erection.
“Here.” He took her hands and disengaged her. “Let us do this properly this time.” He stepped away and began to strip his clothes off.
She lay on his bed and watched him bare his body, just as she had done so many times before. She watched him bare his broad shoulders, his slim waist and hips, his powerful thighs. The dusting of golden hair on his muscled chest and flat stomach. He was simply beautiful.
And hers.
Would he really have gone to New Orleans and bedded other women?
Did it matter what he would or would not have done? They were together now. They had reconnected and she would do everything in her power to make sure they never came to such a separation again.
He approached the bed, his gaze fixed on her nakedness. She reached up to him and he stretched his long, powerful body over hers. The fine hairs on his torso tickled her stomach and his faintly spicy scent wafted over her. Everything was like coming home after a long journey.
He cupped her face and stared down at her. His eyes were as blue-gray as story skies. He put his mouth on hers, soft yet firm pressure. Happiness radiated through her.
He lifted his head. “Despite how ravenously I may have behaved earlier for your luscious little quim…”
Heat flooded her face and she giggled.
He pressed another quick kiss to her mouth, “I missed kissing you most of all. I would lay here in my cold, lonely bed and wish that I could just hold you and kiss you.”
His voice resonated with emotion and she could feel and believe that he had missed her, ached for her, just as much as she had missed and ached for him.
Happiness flooded her whole being, a golden, liquid warmth that was almost unbearable. His face began to blur in her vision. “Alex…”
He lowered his mouth to hers again, open mouthed this time. His tongue was like heated, honeyed velvet, sliding slowly, sensuously against hers. He stroked her hair and kept kissing and kissing and kissing her.
Oh, God, it was sweet, so very sweet.
Joy continued to flood her, overwhelming her, leaking out in tears from the corners of her tightly closed eyes.
He traced his fingertips over her collarbone, her chest, her breasts and flirted over her nipples.
Pleasure shuddered through her.
He pinched her stiffening peaks, teasing them even tighter. Gooseflesh erupted all over her body.
He lifted his head then moved his mouth down her throat to her breasts and kissed her, tasted her, teased her. Hunger flared in her pelvis, streaming into her loins and mak
ing her nub grow erect. She arched her hips and clutched his shoulders. “Please, Alex, please.”
“Hush, my love.“ He laid his hand on her belly.
Anticipation jolted like lightning though her stomach and downward. Her muscles jumped in response.
“How I have hungered for you. I want to do everything,” he said huskily.
His lips and tongue scorched a trail of fire over her stomach and mons. Desire pounded through her and her hips danced frantically. He grasped her, lifting her off the mattress, stilling her enough that he could place his mouth to her heat. Teasing and teasing her.
She begged and begged him and finally he ceased, rose above her and entered her.
He thrust into her over and over, the tempo growing faster, faster. Each stroke of his girth against her flesh brought a new wave of pleasure. Oh, just one more and she would—
One more stroke came.
And another.
And another.
She couldn’t…
He increased the tempo of his thrusts.
She tightened everything inside of her, trying so hard to will herself there to that place. Just a few more stokes, that was all she needed.
He groaned her name and repositioned himself. With the next motion of his body, his lower pelvis massaged her straining nub, his cock caressed her swollen flesh.
Yes, yes! She held her breath, waiting for the… Nothing happened. Tension coiled tight inside her. Devil take it, she just couldn’t fall over the edge.
He jerked himself from her body in one swift, sucking sensation. “Damn, oh, damn,” he said breathily.
Oh God, not the end! Not now, please not now.
She braced herself for his orgasm.
But he didn’t come.
The emptiness inside her ached.
“Please, please,” she said.
“Wait.” He panted. “Just wait.”
“Why?” She hugged his shoulders and pressed herself to his body. “Why?”
“Because…” Laughter sounded in his breathless voice. “I was going to come.”
“Oh.” Helpless to resist the need pulsing inside her, she writhed against him. “But we can start over now?”
He grasped her hips, his large hands ruthlessly firm.
“Be still.” He growled.
“Alex,” she pleaded.
“Do you want me to spill myself?”
“No! Please don’t!”
He chuckled softly. “Then do as I say.” He leaned into her neck and nipped her.
She had to work very hard to suppress a shudder, the sensation grew stronger because of the repression. She sighed.
He pressed his lips to her neck. “Relax, sweetheart, I won’t let you leave here disappointed. One of the things I do happen to be very good at is making a woman come.”
There was something almost impersonal about the way he said that. It put a chill into her belly.
But she could feel his erection still throbbing, hungry and hot, against her thigh.
He pulled away from her.
“Alex?”
“I’ll be right back. Don’t fret.”
She could hear him opening the chest at the foot of his bed. He returned with a flat black leather jewel case.
She sat up. “What do you have there?”
He opened the case and revealed four gleaming pearlescent beads threaded on a fine silken thread with a round silver ring at the end.
“I bought these for you.”
“Goodness.” She was a little apprehensive. What could such a thing possibly be used for?
“Great care must be taken in the crafting of this particular toy.” He ran a fingertip over one of the beads. “These must be perfectly smooth and—” He took the whole string by each end and gave it a vigorous tug. “—and the cord must be very, very strong. You should only allow such liberties with someone you trust implicitly to be skillful in its use.” He looked up at her and gave her a small smile. “I am experienced with these, you may trust me completely.”
“I trust you.”
“These beads are somewhat smaller than customary and there are usually six, but I thought it would be better to ease you into things.”
“What does one do with them?”
“They go inside you.”
“Inside my…” Her face flamed and she rolled onto her stomach to avoid having to look at him whilst having this discussion. “Cunny?”
He ran a fingertip down her spine, causing shivers to race through her. He continued down between her buttocks and stopped. “No, here.”
Nervous excitement pulsed through her, like a hundred tickling fingers inside her belly. She giggled softly. “Goodness, Alex, who makes these wicked toys for you?”
“I am sworn to secrecy, my love.” He stroked her buttocks. “I’ll make you come hard. Very hard.”
He traced a fingertip between her buttocks again. A tremor passed through her, followed by a heated sort of chill.
“Do you trust me?”
She caught her breath. “Oh, certainly.”
He put his lips to the base of her spine, a feathery-soft kiss. She sighed and sank into the featherbed. The wetness of his tongue made her startle. He grasped her hips and licked a path of fire downwards. She held her breath. Her heart hammered in her chest. But he kept moving, down to the crevice between her buttocks. He tongued her rosette.
She gasped and her hips attempted to jump off the bed of their own accord. But he held her firm and continued this very peculiar type of kissing.
A very wicked kind of kissing.
Oh, but it was heavenly.
She moaned and began to claw at the coverlet underneath her.
He reached forwards, his fingers oiled and gliding over her nub. She sucked her breath in. He entered her anus with his tongue.
Entered her there.
Anticipation swept through her and she shuddered.
He rubbed her, teased her. Her arousal increased rapidly and tension coiled inside her. She was close, so close.
He removed his mouth from her anus and began touching her there, his fingers dripping with oil. He coaxed her open, coating her entrance with the oil. She arched backwards at him.
“Be still for me,” he said.
A cool smoothness touched her there.
Those beads.
She caught her breath.
“Careful now. Be very still, sweetheart.” His deep, calm voice lulled her.
She relaxed and accepted the pressure of the first bead against her. More pressure and then it slipped inside. She gasped.
“Easy,” he said as he stroked her bottom. Then he worked the rest of the beads in one by one.
The sensation was strange. A little different than when he had entered her there with his cock.
But now he was entering her quim and he felt huge inside her. She cried out in surprise.
He caressed her neck. “I knew you’d like that, sweetheart.” He thrust back and forth within her. “Christ, you’re tight.”
She cried out again at the intensity of pleasure. She could hardly bear it. Nothing that felt this good could last long. She dug her nails into the featherbed and began moaning convulsively.
That string of beads moved within her. The pressure became exquisite. He was pulling them out! Shocks of sensation tore through her as each one pushed against the tight ring of her anus and then came free.
Everything within her contracted and then released. Starbursts of ecstasy shot through her pelvis, up through her belly and down to her toes.
****
The dainty breast, so soft and warm against his palm, was Alex’s first awareness—that and her rounded little arse fitted against his stomach. Tendrils of hair tickled his nose and he pressed his face closer against them. The scent of gillyflowers, her light, tangy-sweet sweat and the more pungent aroma of sexual congress engulfed him.
She smelled like a wife.
Seduced by the thought, he let the heavy blanket of sleepiness
settle upon him. This sneaking around was growing most tiresome. She could stay right where she was and he could simply take her tomorrow and wed her and be done with it.
And then a little ribbon of unease wound through his guts.
Oh, yes.
Everything had changed.
This afternoon had only proved that all the more.
She’d never had trouble feeling aroused with him. Never had trouble coming to completion with him. Her body was trying to tell her what her heart wanted to deny.
She didn’t really want a lifelong commitment to Alex.
He’d known that from her response to their first time today. That had been a gross mistake on his part. Then he’d gone and made it all the worse by taking her a second time. Piggish. He was piggish and selfish by nature. She was open and giving and accepting. Their union could only be disaster for her. This afternoon had proved it all beyond his ability to deny.
He had let himself be seduced by her sweet, open concern. God, he had been so cold, so empty inside, and she had been warm, so warm and welcoming. He’d wanted to hold her and be held by her. It had been a raw, gnawing ache inside him. He’d tried so hard resist the temptation but she had touched him. Her soft eyes, her submissive voice, promising him everything had provoked such lust inside him. Ravenous, insatiable lust.
He’d had no sexual outlets in all the time they’d been apart. He certainly had no taste for other women. He didn’t know when or if he ever would again. He hadn’t even had the desire to palm himself off. His dreams had been too full of pain for carnal fantasy. He’d dreamed of his youth, when he had still been responsible for Aimee. Feeding her, caring for her, loving her more than anything else before in his life. Wanting the best of everything for her.
But he had also dreamed of Emily, dressed in wedding finery, standing at an altar and promising herself to a nameless, faceless man.
But even his unaccustomed sexual abstinence was no excuse. He should never have taken advantage of her softhearted state. That he had done so twice was beyond unforgivable. Shame weighed heavily upon him.
The second time, he had let himself be swept away by the dream she spun of their children.
Their children.
His chest panged with the sudden craving.
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