by Jo Goodman
Ferrin removed her hand. “You have mistaken amusement for alarm.” He drew her wrist downward until her palm lay squarely over his groin. “I am but half the man I was a moment ago.”
Since he was still of a prodigious size, she was glad to hear it and told him so.
This time there was no mistaking that it was laughter that rumbled in his chest. He did not mind that Cybelline threw her arms around him and clamped her mouth over his to smother the sound. When she finally drew back, they were both breathless. They were also smiling a little drunkenly.
Cybelline undid the small cloth-covered buttons of his waistcoat and helped him shrug out of it. When she would have given it the same due care that he had shown for her gown, he plucked it from her hands and tossed it on the chest at the foot of the bed.
“What happened to action and reaction?” she asked. His low growl made her suppose that Newton’s laws had no place in the bedroom. “Very well.” She loosened his stock and unwound it, then threw it off to one side so that it fluttered like a streamer before it fell to the floor. “Your linen next?” she asked. “Or the breeches?”
“The boots.”
“Of course.” She indicated the bed and waited for him to sit, then she raised one of his legs and worked the boot free. The second one proved more difficult. She thought she heard him chuckle. “Is there a simpler way to do it?”
“Without using the razor, you mean?”
“Do not tempt me, my lord.”
“You only have to ask me.”
She released his foot and straightened, arms akimbo. “Will you be so very good as to remove your boot?”
Ferrin raised his booted ankle to the knee of the other leg and pulled the boot off. More tellingly, he let it thud to the floor. “Now the breeches, I think.”
Cybelline did not miss a beat. “Will you be so very good as to remove your breeches?”
“Saucy wench. Come here.” Ferrin caught her wrist before she could dance away and pulled her between his splayed legs. He drew her hand to the buttons of his breeches and waited, though he was sensible enough not to dare her.
Cybelline’s eyes dropped to where her hand lay over his heavy, straining erection. She was aware that he was watching her face, not her fingers, and she wished she were in better control of the color that was pinkening her complexion.
“Butter might not melt in your mouth,” Ferrin said, “but I could boil water for tea on your forehead.”
That was when she leaped at him.
Chapter Eleven
Cybelline could not miss that Ferrin welcomed her assault. He obliged her by falling backward on the bed and taking her weight on top of him. He did not try to escape when she planted kisses at the corner of his mouth, his jaw, and at the sensitive spot just below his ear, or even when her teeth caught his earlobe and nibbled.
She raised her head just enough to see him clearly. “You are not resisting, my lord.”
“That is because I know the futility of it. It is you, madam, who is the superior force.”
“I believe I like that.” Cybelline kissed him on the mouth. “Do you know you are not entirely comfortable to lie upon? Mayhap if you—”
She was given no opportunity to complete her suggestion. Ferrin rolled, taking her with him, and when they were at the center of the bed, the only force she applied was the one of attraction. Ferrin had her wrists at the level of her head and was giving her throat his undivided attention.
“That tickles,” she said when his mouth settled at the curve of her neck and shoulder. She wriggled, trying to avoid the little bursts of air that he was blowing against her skin. She stopped when she realized he was completely satisfied with her efforts to escape. “Oh, that is very bad of you,” she whispered. She tried to lie still, but what he was doing really did tickle and in moments she was attempting to escape again.
Made breathless by her efforts, her staccato laughter gave sound to Ferrin’s volley of kisses. “You must stop,” she told him. “Please. I tell you, I cannot breathe.”
He lifted his head to gauge her sincerity. She looked too innocent for his tastes. “I have one term you must satisfy before I’ll permit you to go.”
“State it quickly, then.”
“My name,” he said. “I want to hear you say my name.”
She blinked, surprised, then offered up a smile that was slight and slightly wicked. “Wellsley. Porter Wellsley.”
Ferrin was not proof against her sly cleverness. Grinning, he released her wrists and turned onto his back. Cybelline raised herself on one elbow and stretched out alongside him. She laid her free hand on his chest.
“Ferrin,” she said. “Is it enough? Shall I call you Christopher? Kit?”
“My family calls me Kit. My friends call me Ferrin. I can think of no one who has ever called me Christopher.”
“Then that is what I shall call you. Do you mind?” She leaned toward him and brushed his cheek with her lips. “Christopher.” Cybelline walked her fingers from the center of his chest to the waistband of his breeches. She felt him suck in his breath, leaving her room enough to tease him with the tentative foray of her fingertips. When she caught the fabric of his linen in her fist and began to tug it free, she heard him groan softly, though whether in disappointment that she had not set her sights lower or in anticipation that she would return, Cybelline could not be sure.
She instructed him to raise his hands, and he willingly complied. She hoisted herself to a sitting position at his side and helped him out of the shirt, then gave it a toss over her shoulder toward the foot of the bed.
“You are staring,” Ferrin said.
Cybelline nodded absently.
“You are still staring.”
Reluctantly, Cybelline lifted her gaze from his naked chest to his face. Her regard remained frank, but there was a certain reverence in her tone. “It is because by every measure that is known to me, you are an extraordinarily beautiful man.” A faint smile curved her lips as his complexion turned ruddy. Leaning forward, she kissed him sweetly on the mouth. “So you can be put to a blush,” she said, sitting back again. “I have often wondered.”
“I had not thought so, but you have the knack for putting me off my stride.”
Cybelline wondered if he knew how often he did the same to her. She reached out and carefully brushed back a lock of hair that lay against his forehead. Her fingertips strayed to his temple, and she held his eyes with hers. “If I were wearing Boudicca’s mask,” she said quietly, “I would torment you with a promising smile and tease you about your stride. But I am Cybelline, and that does not come so easily to me. I was sincere when I said you are a beautiful man, and I meant that in every way that it can be meant.” She cupped his jaw in her palm, and her thumb touched the corner of his mouth. “I thought you should know.” Bending, Cybelline kissed him again, this time with passion more keenly felt than before.
Her lips parted his; her tongue touched the ridge of his teeth. She tasted a hint of the whisky he’d had earlier and the salty sweet tang that was peculiar to him. She kissed him deeply and softly, sharply and kindly, and knew a response in this man that was equal to her own.
Ferrin caught Cybelline’s face in his hands and applied pressure that was both gentle and insistent to make her go still. “I can taste your tears,” he whispered against her mouth. “I meant that this should be different.”
“And it is,” she said on the same thread of sound. “You cannot imagine how different.”
She lifted her head, and it was then that Ferrin saw it was not merely a sheen of tears that lent her eyes luster. Here was radiance, as clear and brilliant as light could be, and he understood what it was to know the face of joy.
Ferrin slipped his hand through her hair and cupped the back of her head, drawing her down. “I am come undone.” Profoundly humbled, thoroughly aroused, he slanted his mouth across hers. Urgency and wanting defined the kiss, and the need to possess her was so deep-felt that he feared for them both
.
He grasped handfuls of her shift and began to raise it. She tore at the buttons on his breeches. He held up one corner of the blanket before it was hopelessly tangled around them and invited her inside. She made the same invitation a moment later. The covers crested and broke like wavelets coming ashore as they removed their drawers and stockings. Breathing hard, they flattened their naked bodies against each other.
Ferrin accepted the brunt of their combined force, lying back and pulling Cybelline on top. He palmed the rounds of her bottom and fit her snugly against him. He learned immediately it was not possible for her to be still; she rode up on him, rubbing the twin points of her breasts against his chest. Her lips found the curve of his neck, and she kissed him, drawing his skin into her mouth, laving it with her tongue. He knew she felt the rise and fall of his chest and the moment his breath caught.
He stroked the back of her thighs, urging them apart. He listened to the cadence of her breathing change. She made herself open to him and slowly, deliberately, took him inside her. The restraint she exercised made Ferrin think she meant to kill him, and he told her so. Her low laughter was not encouraging.
Cybelline found herself flat on her back, her knees raised around Ferrin’s hips and his cock settled deeply inside her. She simply contracted around him: her arms, her knees, her thighs, and even more tightly where she held him most intimately.
Ferrin demonstrated caution and control equal to Cybelline’s own on his next thrust. When she accused him of seeking revenge, he merely smiled.
Laughter was eventually their undoing. Hers first, then his. They surrendered control for spontaneity, execution for abandon, and were made breathless by discovery.
He learned that she liked his mouth on her curve of her shoulder. She found that by touching the base of his spine just so, she could make him draw in a sharp breath. Sifting her hair with his fingertips seemed to dissolve her bones, but a flick of his tongue across her nipple snapped her to attention. She realized that by gently scoring the arrow of dark hair from his navel to his groin with her fingernail, she could make him pledge to be her slave.
The very air in the room was charged. Their bodies rubbed and rocked, came together hard, then stilled. Their rhythm changed as they tried to draw out the pleasure past what they thought they could bear. It would be too soon that it was over, then not soon enough.
She met his thrusts and shared his heat. Current flowed and friction created tiny sparks just below the surface of her skin. He felt the same skittering along his spine and down the backs of his thighs. Tension pulled their limbs taut, and they rose and fell on the strength of the contractions.
Each time Cybelline felt her breath catch at the back of her throat, she thought it would be the last. She wasn’t certain she could be made to climb so high, yet Ferrin urged her on, and the pleasure became sharper and more keenly felt with each step. She kept going because he was always there, supporting and encouraging, and when he had to be, demanding.
She closed her eyes and imagined the pyrotechnics of Christmas Day, then she became her own Roman candle. She was both the source and the recipient of a shower of sparkling light. Twisting and spinning, she felt herself falling from an unimaginable height, weightless and almost without substance, accelerating in her descent.
And yet there was no landing, no abrupt, hard fall to Earth. She was simply tumbling, then she was not. He cradled her, and in time, she cradled him. The light and lightness faded, but the memory lingered more deeply than what she could see in her mind’s eye. It resided in her skin, on the tip of her tongue, in the very breath she drew, and finally in the thrumming of her heart.
“No,” she said when he made to leave her. “Not yet.” Embarrassed by her need, Cybelline’s eyes darted away. “I have no right.”
Ferrin followed her glance, caught it, and brought her splendid blue-gray eyes back to him. “You do,” he said. “Of course you do.” He supported his weight so that she would not take all of it, then after a time had passed, he slowly turned onto his back and brought her with him. He withdrew but kept her close at his side. Her head rested comfortably in the crook of his shoulder, and she hitched one leg to lie along the length of his. Ferrin wondered how aware she was of laying claim to him in this easy manner.
Cybelline glanced up and saw the last vestige of his smile before it disappeared. “What were you thinking?”
“That it is no hardship to be a rock when you are the limpet.”
She looked down at herself and realized she was clinging to him in precisely the manner he described. “You are certain it is no hardship?”
“If I had pockets,” he said, “I would invite you to live in them.”
“What an absurd notion.”
“Not if I kept my pockets in the wardrobe.”
Cybelline gave him a smart pinch, surprising herself as much as she surprised him. She was already forming an apology when he put a finger to her lips and halted her.
“Do you think I want your regrets?” he asked. “I don’t. Not at all. You are not so shy about tweaking me outside of bed; I do not mind if you tweak me in it. In fact, I think I prefer it.” He let his finger fall away from her lips and used it to lift her chin so that he might see her better. “You don’t know what to make of that, do you?”
She shook her head. “It seems that we are perhaps too comfortable.”
He noticed that she didn’t move. “Is that unacceptable?”
“I don’t know. This is outside my experience.”
“Mine also.”
Cybelline frowned. “But you have had mistresses.”
“And you have had a husband.”
“That is different.”
“In some respects, but comfort is comfort, and I am saying I have not known this ease of feeling with any woman under my protection.”
Cybelline said nothing. She tried to recall if she had felt this ease with Nicholas. It troubled her that she could not answer with certainty. Was it the passage of time that made her less sure, or had the letters shaded her thinking so that she questioned every aspect of what her marriage had been?
Ferrin gave her shoulders a light squeeze. “It is not always advisable to conduct an inquiry. I have had mistresses enough to know that.”
“Braggart.” But she said it without rancor.
Ferrin felt a gentle stirring against his chest. It was enough disturbance to rouse him from slumber but not enough to push him to alertness. An unusual torpor made his limbs feel pleasantly heavy. He was put in mind of sinking slowly to the bottom of a lake, bubbles of air rising as he drifted down. Time stretched endlessly before him, and the water was dark and warm and embracing.
It was with the greatest reluctance that he opened one eye—and immediately had cause to wish he hadn’t. The weight on his chest was quite real. He estimated it to be twenty-five pounds and some thirty-two inches long. It answered—when the mood was upon it—to the name of Anna.
“Bloody, bloody hell.” This softly spoken epithet did not move Anna to rouse herself. Ferrin glanced sideways and saw that it also had not roused her mother. “Cybelline?” She was lying on her side facing him, her knees drawn toward her chest. One hand rested beneath her head, but the other was stretched out under the blanket toward him. He could feel her fingertips resting against his naked hip.
Naked. He had the sense not to swear aloud this time. Lifting his head, he looked down at the silky red-gold cap of Anna’s hair. His breath made the fluff flutter, but she didn’t seem to sense the movement. Turning sideways, he regarded Cybelline again. He could imagine that there might come a time when finding himself abed with these particular females would bring him a sense of enormous well-being. What it filled him with now was something akin to dread.
It was not for himself that he minded. Indeed, he did not mind at all. Rather it was anticipation of Cybelline’s reaction that provoked the peculiar tightening in his chest. Anna’s twenty-five pounds felt more than twice that now.
&n
bsp; “Cybelline?” He saw her wrinkle her nose and was encouraged. Reaching for her hand under the blanket, he gave her fingers a careful squeeze.
“Mmm?” She stretched sleepily, then was still.
“Wake up.” He glanced at Anna to make certain she hadn’t heard him. “Cybelline!”
She stared at him owlishly.
Ferrin knew the exact moment Cybelline woke. Her blue-gray eyes lost their smoky appeal and became like flint. It was not precisely an accusation that she shot in his direction, but neither was it promising.
Cybelline dragged the sheet to her shoulders and tucked it under her arms as she sat up. She patted down the blankets, searching for her shift, and found it tangled with her stockings at the foot of the bed. Kicking out several times, she managed to toss it high enough in the air to make a successful grab for it without losing the sheet.
In other circumstances—ones that did not include a child sleeping on his chest—Ferrin would have felt free to comment on the acrobatics. Setting his jaw, he resisted the urge.
Cybelline eased into her shift, eying Anna all the while. Once modestly attired, she slid off the bed and began quietly gathering her clothes.
When Ferrin realized she meant to dress herself before she removed Anna, he nearly groaned. “Will you not take her now?” he whispered.
“She is perfectly comfortable there.”
“But I am not.”
“If I move her and she wakes, one of us should be properly clothed.”
“My vote is that it should be me.”
Cybelline picked up his shirt, walked to his side of the bed, and placed it in his hand. “Very well.” Turning her back on him, she carried her own clothes to the chair in front of the fireplace and began to dress.
Ferrin stared at his linen, wondering how he might manage to put it on without jostling Anna to wakefulness. Bunching it in his hands, he slipped it over his head and cautiously worked his arms into it. The bulk of the shirt lay uncomfortably around his throat and shoulders like the yoke on an ox. That picture did not cheer him.
