by Tracy Sumner
He had unbuttoned his shirt for relief from the heat, exposing a light dusting of springy curls she wanted to feel against her skin. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, leaving his muscles forearms bare. She brushed her finger over a protruding bone in his wrist, down the vein to his middle finger. A sprinkling of black hair, neatly trimmed nails, a ragged cuticle. Her finger moved to his stomach, trailing lightly over the flat plane, pausing. Her hand, spotted with furniture stain she hadn't been able to scrub off, contrasted sharply with his white cotton shirt. She released an unsteady breath and let her eyes drift past his belt.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her hand twitched.
"Touch me, Irish," he whispered, his arm rising, hand covering hers and tugging gently.
Startled, she glanced up. Thankfully, his eyes were closed, his lips pressed in a tight line. She watched a line of perspiration trickle down his neck and into his shirt collar before returning her gaze to his face.
She was curious. Frightened but curious. Healthy, curiosity was healthy. And natural. Completely natural. She remembered that much from the books. Relaxing her shoulders, she gave the silent signal and let Zach guide her.
Hard.
He was hard and long beneath his wash-worn trousers. "My," she breathed, impressed despite her trepidation. This wasn't a child's toy or soft... like a banana. No, my, no. Resting against the side of the settee, she examined the shape, tracing and squeezing gently, feeling it twitch and grow. Amazing.
He groaned, a sound unlike any she had ever heard. Primal and quite gratifying. His hips lifted, a slight shift. She shot a quick glance at his face, not sure what to do, what he wanted. His lids fluttered, his pupils so large and round they seemed to spill over. "I'm going to kiss you, then...." Sliding the hand holding hers behind her back, he pulled her atop him. Her hair fluttered down, sheltering them like a curtain.
"Then?" She arched as he kissed his way from the open collar of her shirtwaist to her jaw.
He framed her face with his hands, his gaze drilling into her, giving her a chance to say no, to back out. He had no idea, she marveled, that she desired their union as much as he? She licked her lips, heart thumping hard enough for him to hear, she felt certain. "Then, Constable Garrett?"
A lazy smile curved his mouth, his eyes half closing as he drew her lips to his. He tasted of wine, mint, and smoke. "Then, Miss Connor... I'm going to do everything else."
She loved the feel of his mouth on hers, had loved it from the first. Soft yet firm, insistent yet gentle. However, this kiss was different than the others. Lying prone on a hard, flat body while being lured deeper and deeper into a blissful dream seemed akin to throwing rubbing alcohol on an already raging fire. Feeling his arousal lodged between her thighs only increased her need.
She feared not the act but losing herself in it.
He was proficient at lovemaking.
As colors burst behind her lids, a rush of pleasure made her scalp prickle. She moaned softly against his lips, willing to revise her verdict. Gifted. Steady. Deliberate. Measured, when she wanted to rip his clothes off, tug at his hair and will him to go faster. Move to my breasts, my nipples, she wanted to scream. And please God, ease the ache between my thighs.
How, after all these years without, could he maintain such endurance?
The competent leader held her hands just above her head with one of his while the paternal caregiver murmured gentle words in her ear. The covert lover unbuttoned her shirtwaist with an ease born from experience while the considerate friend stroked her shoulders and back in a calming rhythm.
She squirmed, pushing off the end of the settee with her toes and sliding up his body. She thought she might like to feel his mouth on her nipples, doing all the things he did so well to her lips.
He laughed softly and gripped her waist to still her advance. "Now why would I imagine you'd be patient?"
Through the flickering shadows, she watched his amusement build, felt her irritation follow. "After twenty-five years of wondering, to hell with patience. For you, it's been some time. Don't you, aren't you...." Her words drifted away, her face heating.
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he pressed a kiss to her throat. "I've missed this more than you can imagine. Mostly the simple, basic beauty of it that people take for granted. The smell of flowers on a woman's skin. Something sweet. Something a man would never smell like. The softness, the dips and hollows. The differences, I guess that's what intrigues a man. Slim wrists and ankles, fine bones, and delicateness. Long hair and the way it shines in the candlelight. Yours is the finest I've ever seen." He sighed, a contented release, his fingers skimming her back in resolute circles. "So as long as I can hold on, I'm going to. There's so much I want, too much to pack into one night. I hope you agree. I don't plan on this being a one-night event, me and you."
She arched like a kitten under his touch. Her nipple grazed the stubble on his chin, and it puckered into a tight bud inside her silk camisole. His eyes met hers, indecision there. She shoved hard against the settee, but in the end he held on.
"Please," she whispered.
"There's time, Irish." Taking her earlobe between his teeth, he sucked and nibbled. "We'll make it, find it."
"You want?"
"Hmmm... to caress the back of your knees and calves, kiss that soft patch of skin on the inside of your ankle." His fingers returned to her shirtwaist, freeing the remaining buttons until it hung open. "I want to see the shape of your hips without cloth covering, the length of your legs against pale sheets when you open yourself to me." He worked her camisole straps down her arms. "But if this is all we do, that's fine, too."
Flattening her hand over his heart, she lifted enough to see him in the dim shadows. "It is?"
Arm going around her waist, he rolled to his feet, carrying her with him across the room. She gazed at his face, her feet dangling inches from the floor. It seemed the height of vulnerability.
"Uh-huh," he murmured against her neck. "Stop me if it feels wrong. Or too sudden."
"You won't"—she shivered as he found a particularly sensitive spot just above her collarbone—"be angry if I do?"
"No." Halting beside the bed, he let her slide down his body until her toes grazed cool pine. Her knees threatening to buckle, she swayed into him, and he held on. Bringing her hand to his neck, he pressed her fingertips against the pulse drumming there. His lids looked heavy, but his gaze was clear and beautiful. "Never doubt how much I want you, because I do. More, I think, than I've ever wanted anyone." A fleeting shadow passed across his face, a remembrance of his wife, Savannah guessed. "But you have to make this decision. I can't make it for you. If we were courting, it'd be different. As it is, I can protect you only as long as you stay here."
Another woman might have been insulted. To Savannah, it sounded like the greatest grant of freedom.
For a woman who had fought for independence her entire adult life and had not found a man to share even friendship, a compassionate, considerate, handsome one entering her world at this stage and desiring her as Zach did seemed a gift.
"I want this," she vowed, holding his gaze so he knew she meant every word. "I want you."
Chapter 9
Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven.
~Mary Baker Eddy
Except for the jerky release of air from his lips, Zach made no sound. He didn't want Savannah to know how close he was to splintering apart at her feet. No matter how much she would have liked to think they were equal in this partnership, he understood that the responsibility sat on his shoulders. A virgin couldn't be expected to run the show.
Lifting her by the waist, he set her on the bed, the ropes protesting with a muted squeak. She watched him in heart-pounding silence as he tugged her shirtwaist from her shoulders and down her arms, careful to keep from ripping the delicate lace front. Crouching before her, he inched her skirt to her knee and reached inside, his fingers brushing her thighs. Dear Lord, her skin was soft. And
she smelled like the highest level of heaven.
She made a sound: a whimper.
His gaze met hers. He worked hard to keep his passion from showing. "Your stockings," he said huskily and began to roll them down her leg. "Unless you'd rather."
She shook her head, then let it fall back until it dangled from her neck like a rag doll's. That marvelous wealth of glossy chocolate trailed over the cream bedspread, just as it had in recent dreams. On the way down her legs, he paused to explore the moist hollow behind her knee, the round calf, the slim ankle he had caught glimpses of the day of their picnic. Underneath her clothing, she was more delicate than he'd pictured. More feminine, though he figured she would argue if he told her.
Captivated, he kept his touch light, fearful of moving too quickly, and recorded every inch of her.
"My stockings," she whispered, "I lost a pair at the beach." She shivered, sighed. "Save those."
Using both hands, he massaged her feet, skimming the stocking over her toes and to the floor. He didn't mention that her misplaced pair sat in the top drawer of his bedside table. Instead, he lost track of himself removing the other one, stopping every few seconds to kiss what he exposed. He was powerless. She had the thighs of a woman who walked often, firm and sleek. Like an athlete. Unique, like no thighs he'd ever seen. Or touched. Her legs, long for her height and well shaped, lay spread before him, open to his eyes and his body, a mind-boggling invitation.
Placing a last, lingering kiss to a spot on her knee that she seemed to respond greatly to, ignoring the upward shift of her hips and her murmur of encouragement, he stood. The room smelled of her. He breathed deeply; his hands smelled of her.
She lay sprawled on the bed, her arms thrown wide in surrender. After a moment, hearing only the sounds of their raspy breathing and the distant call of an owl, her eyes opened, held.
"The rest?" he asked, gesturing to her skirt and chemise. She had worn a minimal amount of underclothing in preparation. That didn't help his meager fortitude.
"Ummm, yes." She lifted her hips to help him, eager as a child. He wasn't about to ask a second time.
Her skirt hit the floor, her chemise a silky flutter behind it. He took a gulp of air and rocked back on his heels. Her breasts were larger than he'd thought. No, not larger, rounder.
Though her nipples were the icing on his fantasy cake. They were the color of a pink sunset the day after a furious storm, and looked to be hard as an acorn right now. He reached to palm one, then the other until she squirmed and quivered, lifting her hand to cover his. He loved nipples better than anything on a woman, hands down.
Before he could taste one, test his acorn theory, she sat up, placing her hands on his belt and working the strip of leather from the metal clasp with refreshing confidence. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see his erection straining toward her when he had no control over it.
Luckily, she was as relentless as he, pausing to investigate his arousal in between unfastening each trouser button. A finger down his length, a half circle around the throbbing head. When she leaned in and kissed his belly, her magnificent breasts jiggling and his trousers dropping to the floor, he called her off with a desperate oath.
She tipped her head, smiling, her hand snaking in to cup his testicles. Scooting forward, she wrapped her legs around his thighs and drew him closer, all the while continuing to fondle. Their groins were inches apart, inches from irrevocable contact.
"You're enthusiastic, Irish, I'll give you that," he said, the rasping voice not sounding like his own. His hand tangled in her hair. He had to touch her somewhere or go crazy. "But I like it."
She squeezed, testing his weight in her palm, her thumb moving to the vein running along the underside, nearly knocking the breath out of him. He couldn't remember a woman—even the occasional prostitute he had sampled as an immature young man—touching his balls. Cupping them so tenderly and with such interest.
"I'm simply undaunted, Constable. To you, heavens, to most men, that does appear senseless. As if women don't experience the same curiosity and impulses." She laughed, releasing him and moving her hands to his hips. He felt her smooth round nails digging in as she drew him forward.
She nodded to his jutting member. "I know where that goes, if you're worried. I've seen illustrations a number of times. I can't guarantee it will fit, but I know where it goes."
He grinned and lowered his body to hers, pressing them down into the mattress. He was relieved that she had some knowledge of the act, even if it sounded ridiculous. "Pictures? What kind of pictures?"
She adjusted her legs until they were hooked over his calves. "A book from Asia." Lifting her hips, she angled, searching for a good fit. "A book of... positions."
He felt a burst of pleasure at her words and her touch. Shifting his hips from side to side, he lodged himself in her moist folds, joining them like two interlocking pieces of a puzzle.
Jesus, he had missed this.
"A position like this?" he asked, flicking his tongue out to catch her nipple.
She stroked her way from his shoulders to his buttocks, pinching and pressing, murmuring praise for a part of his body he'd damn near taken for granted. "Like this, certainly. And more." Sucking a patch of skin on his shoulder between her teeth, she said in a garbled rush, "Sitting. Standing. Sometimes in a chair. In the water."
He jerked like she'd scorched him with a lit match, lifting his lips from her breast. "You'd do this? In the water?"
She hummed an affirmative reply, like she would, of course, make love with him in the water.
Well, hell, he thought, he had lived on an island his entire life and never really figured on making love in the ocean.
"Is this the point where I whisper big words to get you in the mood?"
He snapped back to find her deep green gaze fixed on his face, a teasing smile curling her lips.
Circling her nipple with his tongue, he worked his hand between their bodies. He stroked her sex, watching closely for her reaction when he gently worked his middle finger in as far as it would go. Her muscles clenched around him like a wet leather glove.
"Are you certain you'll... oh, don't stop. Don't... stop."
"I will fit, and I won't stop." Was she demented? Stop when she had begun to follow the motion of his hips and the thrust of his finger, matching step for step his rhythmic cadence? It was an instinctive dance, sex without entry. Sometime in the past, a long time ago, he'd thought the bump and grind could be almost as good.
Almost.
Capturing her lips beneath his, he invited her one step closer to bliss.
With a husky murmur, she agreed to come.
Their kisses grew reckless, their touches bold. Inflaming, inciting. A damp tangle of arms and legs, they explored each other from one end of the bed to the other. Zach imagined he had logged enough information in his brain to identify her without opening his eyes. The endearing chip on her front tooth, the tiny mole on the side of her breast, the inch-long scar on her belly. Her scent. Oh, yeah. Partly floral, married with an earthy something, a scent he could locate in a greenhouse full of fresh blooms.
He got the chance to focus on his favorite area when she rolled on top, her taut nipple bumping his chin for the second time that night. Capturing it in his mouth, he kept her still as he rolled it beneath his tongue, sucking and nibbling, feeling it pucker against his lips. Damn, was there anything in this world better than a woman's well-loved nipple?
"Now." Arching her back, sending her nipple in deeper, she gasped, "Now, Zach, now."
Hands coming up to cradle her face, he set her back a bit. "What'd you call me, Irish?"
She blinked, clearly dazed, more bewildered than he'd ever seen her. "What?" Her hand came up to push a tangle of hair from her face. Her fingers trembled against her temple. "Did I say something?"
Laughing, he rolled her to her back and settled inside her thighs. The sheets had come partly off the mattress and what was left on the bed was a wrinkled mess. Perspir
ation trickled down his back, and hers felt slick, too. A summer storm had blown in some time since they arrived and was sending a fierce sheet of rain against the windows, a ripping breeze into the room. The air, humid and salty, felt good skating across his skin. He hadn't heard the storm begin. It could have been hail, thunder, and lightning for all he knew.
Savannah's brand of loving was unlike any he had experienced.
Confirming that belief, she reached down and guided his shaft near where it needed to be to finish the job. "I'm ready. For pity's sake, Constable, let's go."
He dropped his brow to hers, smiling softly. "Oh, yeah?"
She wiggled her hips. "Definitely," she said, ruining the act when her voice fractured. Vengeful, her hand circled him, stroking industriously as she struggled to fit him into place.
He couldn't contain the tortured groan that spilled free, even as he thought he might be able to hang on long enough to tease her a little more. "Find it, Irish. You're close. But you still need me to bring it home. Independence isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it?"
She giggled. Knowing she wasn't a giggling kind of girl, he should have taken note. "What if I promise more than big words?"
"I'm listening." Listening while he counted to twenty and back.
"More than positions were detailed in my books, you see."
His fingers clenched, fisting around the sheet. She'd struck gold. "Like what?"
Stretching, her fingers walked across the mattress. Grasping a pillow by the edging, she slid it beneath her raised bottom. Then, one trifling boost, aided by the long legs anchored around his bottom, was all it took to have the head of his shaft edge inside her.
"My mouth," she whispered raggedly in his ear.
Fingers tangling in her hair, he tilted her head for a kiss. "This lovely mouth?" His tongue brushed against her lips, teasing, tasting. "Where?"
Her hands cupped his buttocks, driving him a trace deeper. "Where do you think?"
