Pure Sin

by Susan Johnson

  But tumultuous feeling overwhelmed any further insightful musing, for Flora’s hands glided over his arousal as she tugged his shirt up, and he suddenly lost interest in speculative theory. Her small hands were warm on his stomach, brushing his clothing aside, languidly spreading the fine wool of his trousers over his hips to expose his erection.

  A small cry escaped her, a swallowed, abrupt sound, the shape under her hand recognizable. “You’re carrying a gun,” she softly challenged.

  Adam drew the weapon from his pocket. “For the servants,” he pleasantly said, placing it under the chair.

  “The truth,” she firmly demanded.

  “Caldwell gave me his derringer at Morrissey’s,” he replied, his voice devoid of inflection.

  “Why would he do that?” Her hands rested on his thighs, her gaze held a critical scrutiny.

  He shrugged. “He’s the cautious type.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason, darling.” He smiled, brushing a light fingertip over her quirked brows. “You look delectable in your pearl earrings,” he said, flicking the pendant pearl dangling from her earlobe. “And nothing else,” he added in a hushed murmur. Shifting on his spine, he leaned foward, and taking her face between his hands, he kissed her, a long, slow, delicious kiss that made her forget the violence that was so much a part of Adam Serre’s life. And when he released her mouth and lounged back again, he’d forgotten Frank Storham’s disruptive presence.

  He waited then as she knelt between his legs, familiar with that look in a woman’s eyes—her gaze heavy with passion. And when her head lowered over him, he shut his eyes.

  Her mouth was warm, soft, engulfing, her hands on his erection skilled. The scent of rose and jasmine drifted into his nostrils, Saratoga vanished, the bedroom disappeared, his world narrowed to a gliding mouth and exquisite, intense sensation.

  His size intoxicated her, his readiness tantalized, like a personal invitation to sensual delight. She felt the heat between her legs, whetted desire restless in her blood. And a sense of power touched her too, offered its own degree of pleasure. She could hear his harsh breathing and the catch in the rhythm when she held him deep against the back of her throat. She could feel him lift his hips when she paused a lengthy moment at the apex of her ascent, and his deep groan of satisfaction as her mouth descended again evoked a small internal smile.

  His hands slipped through her hair, cradling her head, grasping incredible pleasure in his hands. And she held him in thrall.

  Until suddenly he lifted her head.

  “I’m not finished,” she murmured, looking up at him through tousled curls.

  “You’re finished,” he gently said, rising in a flawless fusion of muscle, sinew, and bone, pulling her upright, no longer uncertain about motive or purpose, sure of what he wanted.

  Carrying her to the bed, he settled her down and, swiftly moving over her, lowered himself between her legs. He entered her with dizzying speed, driving in with exactitude and force, pressing to the depth of her womb so she moaned in ecstasy, overpowering rapture so acute she held her breath to sustain the trembling splendor.

  Then Adam Serre proceeded to do what he did so well, clothed or unclothed, disquieted or resolved, regardless of setting or circumstance. Like an acquired skill with a lariat or the consummate artistry of a well-trained pianist, he knew how to make love. He knew how to move: how fast; how deep; how slow; how hard. He knew how to kiss a woman’s mouth and the tender warmth behind her ear; how to suckle her nipples and draw his tongue lightly over the curve of her breast or the pouty fullness of her lips. He knew when to lift her hips to meet his plunging invasion, when to be gentle and when not to be. He understood the delicate balance between violence and pleasure, between harshness and tenderness. He was accomplished at bringing a woman to climax simply by caressing her or talking to her. He was very good.

  But he did it a lot, Flora thought, as peaking ecstasy climbed through her body.

  It was one of his professions. And if she hadn’t been quivering just short of release with her own selfish pleasure, she might have resented his proficiency.

  Their climax when it came was like running downhill, breathless, bursting, wild. But immediately afterward, as if cooled by a sudden cloudburst of remembrance, Adam rolled away. Lying on his back, eyes closed, he struggled with his compelling need for Flora, with the obstacles and consequences.

  Sparks were still detonating in small flashes along Flora’s nerve endings, the heat of her body diminishing slowly from blue flame to red to flickering gold. And she didn’t recognize germane elements of reality, only her own pulsing enchantment.

  When she finally turned to look at Adam, he was sprawled beside her, his arms thrown over his head, his breathing still fast and hard. Undressed like a man in a brothel, she thought, with only the minimum clothing undone.

  “Do you want to leave?” she asked, sensitive to the cool silence of his pose.

  He didn’t answer, and she wondered if she really wanted to know. Rolling on her side, she noticed how close his eyelashes were, black silk, long like a baby’s but thicker. What would he do if she touched them? she incongruously mused, when she should have been considering his deadly preoccupation.

  Then his eyes opened, the pupils large in the semidarkness, shadowed by his heavy brows, and his smile appeared, sudden and warm. “Maybe I’ll leave in a thousand years,” he said.

  “In that case,” Flora murmured, cognizant of the difficulties in his life, her own smile ripe with delicate accord, “you’re overdressed.”

  She divested him of his clothing while he obligingly helped, kicking off his shoes, raising his hips to slide his trousers off, shrugging out of his coat while she tugged at the sleeves. But when she straddled his hips to unbutton his waistcoat, his concentration suddenly lapsed, her hot bottom instant enticement.

  “I’m glad you decided to walk to Franklin Square tonight,” she fondly said, slipping a fabric-covered button through a buttonhole.

  “I didn’t have a choice, bia,” he murmured with a lazily quirked brow.

  “Because this brought you here.” She touched his arousal, sliding her finger up the swollen shaft, circling the ridged pulsing crest.

  He smiled. “It’s stubbornly enamored.”

  “Of me?” She pulled his shirt loose from the diamond studs in a sweeping tug of her wrist.

  His grin offered instant delight. “As you see.” He lay beneath her, half-undressed, his shirt and waistcoat open, the white fabrics stark contrast to his bronzed skin, to the muscled power of his tall frame. “Are you ready?” His voice was a low whisper, the question rhetorical; she was soaking wet between her legs, her own honeyed fluids mingling with his ejaculation. And when he touched her breasts, she pushed herself against his hands and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her face lifted upward with a groan.

  He fondled the ripeness of her breasts, cupped them, softly massaged the nipples. Gently swaying as he caressed her, she glided back and forth over his erection in languid incitement, the rush of her breathing the only sound in the silent room.

  “Lift up,” he murmured, sliding his hands over to her upper arms and raising her. “Would you like me to come in you again?” he whispered, his fingers stroking her swollen labia. “Would you like that?”

  “Yes,” Flora sighed, luxurious feeling ravishing her senses, an insatiable hunger for him transcending all else. “Fill me to overflowing.…”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he lazily murmured, adjusting her on his hips, guiding himself into place, slowly penetrating her throbbing tissue, encouraging her hips with his hands once he was inside her, easing himself in by slow degrees until she’d absorbed him completely.

  Then, bracing his feet, he pushed deeper, surging upward so forcefully, she screamed, the sound ringing through the silent house—hot, insatiable, unmistakable.

  She instantly tensed under his hands, even while the savage heat of passion bombarded her mind, clashed with any fa
int-hearted apprehension, outstripped caution.

  Swiftly cupping her head, Adam pulled her facedown and kissed her. “No one heard,” he murmured against her mouth, covering her ears with his hands. “No one.” He had no intention of stopping or relinquishing this night of carnal passion—not, at least, this side of death. He softly kissed her, soothing, pacifying kisses, his hands lightly covering her ears, blocking out the world, the rhythm of his lower body persistent, bewitching, unsated.

  He didn’t care if the door came crashing down. He didn’t care if all of Franklin Square poured into the room. He was on fire, Flora was shaking, flowing with desire, both their bodies slick with perspiration, gratification shudderingly close.

  Surging upward again, he felt flame scorching his brain.

  She could feel her womb opening up, wanting him to come in and fill her, fulfill her, replenish, ravish her. She clung to him, felt him swelling, swelling inside her.

  The frantic rush of their breathing accelerated, flooding the shadowed room with the audible cadence of lust, and then their two fused bodies stopped.

  A second hung suspended in the filmy heat.

  Until their orgasms exploded, unspeakable pleasure melted through their senses, hot, rippling, fierce. With a small, inarticulate cry, Flora slumped across Adam’s shoulder, her hair streaming over his face, filling his nose, his mouth, covering his eyes.

  He smiled with her hair in his mouth.

  It tasted faintly of rose, like her.

  After they’d rested, after they’d kissed like adolescents, closemouthed, tenderly; after they’d murmured giddy love words to each other that made them giggle. After they’d smiled into each other’s eyes with the innocence of newfound happiness, they made love in the simplest of ways. With his body balanced between her parted thighs, he joined in her silky wet heat, moving in harmony, his palms warm on her smooth shoulders, her hands pressed lightly at the base of his spine.

  They explored and discovered, swimming and sliding, their kisses soft, warm, his sex harder and harder, plunging, withdrawing, thrusting, and rising until she couldn’t wait anymore, and sensing it, he moved in so deeply, rivulets of ecstasy seared her brain, dissolved into his as he followed her in orgasmic release.

  Enfolded in the tremulous overflow of rapture, Flora reached up and touched Adam’s cheek afterward, wordless, her eyes still filled with wonder. He was perfection. Dangerous as an addiction, an undiluted drug of pleasure, framed above her by a lemon-colored light that limned his wide shoulders and sleek head. As she basked in the exaltation of his allure and the charitable afterglow of lovemaking, his shadowed form suddenly slipped away, moving off the bed with a supple agility.

  “Where are you going?” Her voice sounded distant to her ears, a three-o’clock-in-the-morning voice, someone else’s voice.

  “Not too far without any clothes,” he said over his shoulder, the smile in his voice caressing her across the room. Moving with a horseman’s loose gait, he walked to her dressing table and, bending over, picked up the hairbrush she’d dropped on the floor. Returning to the bed, he kissed her gently, climbed back in, and lifted her docile body—the lethargy of climax still blanketing her senses—arranging her in a seated position between his legs. Kissing the curve of her shoulder, he murmured Absarokee love words into the soft curls behind her ears, his voice deep, hushed. And began brushing her hair.

  Aware of the momentous implications, Flora was enchanted by his devoted gallantry. But she found herself wondering with a modicum of skepticism, as he smoothly wielded the brush with a flowing deftness, whether he’d often indulged in such love play. Although a heartbeat later she debated whether she really wanted to know.

  Her natural curiosity overcame more sensible caution, however, or perhaps she was feeling immeasurably secure, with his prevailing spirit tonight so charmingly affectionate. “Have you ever done this before?” She’d half twisted around so she could see his face when he answered. “You don’t have to answer.” But then her voice changed mid-sentence to a more impassioned tone. “I want to know.”

  He smiled at the discernible change. “How serious I am? How enamored?”

  “You could say ‘love,’ ” she gently chided with a delicate, tantalizing smile. “I was just wondering if I should die of love right here, right now, or scratch your eyes out instead for your facile charm.”

  “Don’t die of love, darling. I want you too badly.”

  “Are we betrothed, then?” she playfully teased. “Should I select a wedding gown tomorrow?”

  “I’ve never done this before,” he said instead, a lifetime of evasion difficult to disregard.

  “Never?”

  He shook his head.

  “Not with all the scores of women?”

  Hundreds, he thought, and smiled no with a small shake of his head. But he gave no further explanation because he had none, no words to explain, no prearranged reason in his brain. He’d acted on impulse, but amazingly he didn’t feel dread at the consequences. It surprised him. He’d been waiting for the overwhelming terror to strike. A man attuned to the mystical rhythms of his world, he particularly took note of that lapse.

  But he only kissed her then, as she lay against his shoulder, and showed her in ways other than words how much he cared. And much later, when he finally had to leave or risk being seen, fully dressed again, Adam turned back to the bed where Flora lay in languid repose and, gazing down at her, said with a small sigh, “We have to talk … about … this … us. I don’t want to rely solely on chance meetings and lust.”

  “You needn’t be chivalrous, Adam,” Flora murmured, smiling up at him. She was beyond recriminations and demands, her body sated, her senses replete, enchantment pungent, like the scent of roses crushed in one’s hand. She knew he cared; she was content. “Come to me when you can.”

  “I don’t like the casual sound of that.” His voice was minutely curt.

  “I’m sorry, darling. Don’t misunderstand. I just mean I’m willing to meet you anywhere, anytime—your rules.”

  After their long weeks of separation, after their recent incredible hours together, he found he couldn’t risk having her sail away for Tikal or Timbuktu or even somewhere innocuous like the Midlands for the upcoming hunt season. More pertinent to a man who’d never viewed a woman with any degree of permanence, he couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching her. He softly exhaled, a decision reached sometime in the heated hours of their passion. “I don’t want that,” he firmly said. “I want more.” Then, smiling at his own seriousness, he murmured, “I’m beginning to think this insanity is love, bia.” Leaning over, he kissed her soft cheek and whispered, “I’ll see you at eight.”

  It was five-thirty when Adam reached his hotel room; enough time to bathe, dress, and visit with Lucie for a short time before he left to take Flora for breakfast.

  “Are we going to the track, Papa?” Lucie exclaimed when she came bounding into his bedroom shortly before six and climbed up onto his unused bed. “Should I have Cook find my clothes?”

  “We’ll go later today, darling. I’ve a breakfast appointment first.” Almost finished dressing after his bath, he slipped some bills into his trouser pocket.

  “Don’t forget you promised Flora a ride to Tiffany’s at nine. And if you go without me, bring me back something,” she added with the eternal request of children to their parents.

  “What do you want?” He picked up his watch from the bureau top and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

  “A toy.” Her answer never changed.

  “Is Cook keeping you entertained?” Loop the chain, snap it shut. He looked at himself in the bureau mirror; sleep might be useful one of these nights, he thought. His eyes were more heavy-lidded than usual.

  “She knows hundreds of stories about wild animals ’cuz she was raised in a cabin with her papa who trapped and she didn’t have a mommy very often like me, so that’s why she knows all the stories. Her papa told them to her.”

&nbs
p; Lucie’s knowledge of the staff’s personal lives never ceased to amaze him. He thought Cook had come from St. Paul with Mrs. O’Brien; they seemed of the same age, they both had grandchildren. “You’ll have to tell me some of the stories. I like animal stories,” he said with a smile, sliding a small gold signet ring his father had given him on the fourth finger of his right hand.

  “She had her own pet owl too. Can I have a pet owl? I’ll take really good care of it and it can sleep in my room.”

  “We’ll have to think about that, dear. I’m not certain an owl would like to sleep in your room.”

  “Could I have a squirrel for a pet, then? Cook had two squirrels for pets and a baby wolf and a chickadee who sang for its supper every night at the same exact time. Isn’t that the most amazing thing you ever heard?” Her voice trilled with excitement.

  “We’ll definitely have to get a pet when we return to Montana. Maybe Cook can help you train it.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair, shoved it behind his ears, and turned to his daughter. “Would you read me a story before I have to leave? I haven’t had you read to me in two days. And we’ll go on a picnic with Flora later, so you and Cook tell the hotel restaurant what: you want in the picnic basket and we’ll be back at noon.”

  “I know noon on the clock, Papa. That’s easy. I’ll read you the story about the little girl who travels with her baby doll to Paris. I like the pictures.” She spoke with the same energy that fueled her mind and spirit and small body.

  She sat on his lap in a chair by the window, and he helped turn the pages. She brought a peace to his life, a grounding, a joy. She knew the words practically by heart; he did too after rereading the book so many times. And when Cook came in later to check on Lucie’s wishes for breakfast, the plans for the day were arranged.

  “We may go back to Montana early,” Adam told Cook, who stood politely in the doorway, her starched white apron so crisp it crackled when she walked. “It depends on a number of things. So if you don’t mind looking out for Lucie for a few days, I think we’ll forgo hiring new nursemaids here.”