by Jo Goodman
“Yes.” There were points of heat where they touched. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm to arm. She felt as if she had brushed up against the stove. “Why did you call me virtuous?”
“Hmm?”
“You called me the virtuous Widder Berry earlier.”
“Oh, that. Well, aren’t you?”
“I value honor and honesty, but I don’t hold myself out as a model of those virtues. I told more lies this evening than I can properly count, but they’re hardly the first ones I’ve ever told. You cannot ruin me in that regard.”
“Perhaps there’s another regard.”
“That would lead to my ruination?” She smiled wryly. “I don’t think so. I thought I made my bargain with the devil. Imagine my astonishment when I realized that I made it with a decent man.”
“You’re talking about Nat Church.”
His voice lacked inflection. Raine truly could not tell if he was pretending to be obtuse or sincerely believed what he said. “I’m talking about you.”
“I’m not decent.”
“And I’m not virtuous.”
Kellen said nothing for a moment, then a soft, husky chuckle rose from the back of his throat. “Decent. Virtuous. They are not precisely stains on a person’s character, are they?”
Raine’s quiet laughter mingled with his. Her head dropped to his shoulder and rested there. Her smile lingered for a long time after her laughter trailed away. “It’s a considerable burden to be so damn upright.”
“Puts a crick in my neck.”
She sat up. “Show me.”
Kellen leaned forward and placed one hand at the base of his neck. “Right here.”
Raine brushed his fingers aside and replaced them with her own. “Here?”
“Mmm.”
She massaged the spot with her fingertips. “Most people don’t appreciate that being so decent can put your muscles in a bunch.”
He rolled his shoulders.
“There, too?” she asked.
Kellen nodded. “All across my back.”
Raine nudged him forward then she got up on her knees and moved behind him. She laid her hands on his shoulders and pressed her thumbs into the taut muscles of his back. She made circles with her thumbs, kneading coils of tension. She pushed, but there was very little give. She curled her hands into fists and used her knuckles to glide up and down on either side of his spine. He arched a little, but not in a way that suggested he wanted to escape. If she had any doubt about it, his soft groan was proof that he was grateful.
Neither of them spoke while she worked. Raine’s approach was methodical. What relief she gave him on the right, she also gave him on the left. He began to anticipate where her fingers would alight, and sometimes he sighed when her hands were only hovering.
Raine tugged on his nightshirt. He shifted his weight so she could pull the tail free. He felt her gather it in bunches and raise it to his shoulders. He ducked his head and she pushed the shirt over and off. She released it and let him decide what he wanted to do with it. What he did was pitch it to the foot of the bed.
Raine laid her palms flat against his back. A shiver somersaulted down his spine. Her thumbnails followed that trail until they came to rest at the small of his back. She pressed to keep him leaning forward and massaged the area all around the twin dimples near the base of his spine. She slowly worked her way up his back until she reached his neck.
Kellen expected to feel her fingers slide into the curve of his neck and shoulders. What he felt, though, was her mouth, and he thought he might slip into liquid at the pleasure of it.
With her hands still warm on his back, Raine pressed kisses across his nape. Her lips followed the line of his shoulder. His skin was warm, and in spite of that, she felt him shiver again. It was a proud, powerful thought that she was the cause of it.
No, she was not virtuous.
Lowering her head, she whispered that truth in his ear.
Kellen gave her no time to reconsider her confession. He twisted, pulled her around, and put her flat on her back before she finished drawing her next breath. She stared up at him but not in a way that reflected surprise. No, Raine’s steady regard held more than a hint of humor, and what remained after that was all heady satisfaction.
“And I’m not decent.”
“Thank God,” she whispered.
He kissed her hard. In any other circumstance it might have been a punishment, but now it was about need. His and hers. Desire was a flame that flickered, licked, and then burned steadily between them, hot and bright. He caught her wrists, pinned them to the bed, and ravaged her mouth. She offered no resistance, but then he had not captured her to win concessions. He held her because he could not imagine letting her go.
He was naked. She was not. He flanked her and threw one leg over both of hers, careful that he claimed without crushing. His open mouth worked over hers. They shared a breath. He caught her full lower lip between his teeth and nibbled. His tongue swept the sensitive underside. She challenged him, pushing at him with her tongue, spearing him. They battled for a while, fiercely at first, then more slowly, altering the deep rhythm of the kiss to something that vibrated through them with the heavy resonance of kettledrums. Their hearts pounded. Blood roared in their ears.
Raine’s hips bucked. She felt his groin hard and hot against her. As thin as the fabric of her shift was, it was still an irritant and a barrier. Her fingers curled. She wriggled, trying to work the shift up her thighs. He chuckled against her mouth, maddening her at first, and then calming her with a kiss that eased into sweetness.
He released her wrists, and she stretched her arms as wide as a pagan sacrifice before lifting her hands to the back of his neck. She stroked his nape, wound her fingers around the curling ends of his hair, scored his skin lightly with her nails.
Kellen’s hands fisted around her shift and began to tug. He had to lift himself away from her to pull the shift above her knees and over her thighs. Raine lifted her bottom and felt the whisper of soft muslin sliding past her hips. He let go when it bunched around her waist, and she took over, brushing his hands out of the way. She shimmied out from under him, sat up, and pulled the shift over her head. He made a grab for it as it sailed over the edge the bed, but his fingers only clutched air.
“I’m not crawling out of bed to get that for you later,” he said as Raine scrambled under the covers.
“If you keep me warm, I won’t need it.”
Beckoned by Raine’s husky voice, Kellen joined her. In moments his body was flush to hers. He hovered over her, supporting himself on his forearms. “Warm? That would satisfy you?” He kissed her before she could answer, and as long as the kiss went on, and as thorough as it was, he left her wanting something more. One of his eyebrows kicked up as he looked down at her.
“I could stand warmer,” she said.
He lowered his head as if he meant to kiss her again, but at the last moment, he ducked under the covers and found her breast with his mouth.
Raine did not recognize the strangled sound that lodged in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes, dug her heels into the mattress. Her fingers curled like talons into the sheets. When his tongue darted across her nipple, her skin ignited.
Kellen poked his head out long enough to reveal a wickedly amused smile. When he disappeared, it was to give equal time and attention to her other breast.
Raine released the sheet and made deep furrows in Kellen’s thick hair instead. He laved her aureole, drew her nipple between his lips. Even the slightest tug made her womb throb.
She ground against him, lifting, pressing, circling. There was no consciousness behind it. Need guided her. When he left her breast a second time, she expected him to come back to her mouth. What he did was go lower. The damp edge of his tongue made a trail down the center of her abdomen. He dropped kisses like breadcrumbs along the way. Her skin retracted under his touch. Sometimes he made her breathing catch. Sometimes he made her lips part and breath left her as
quietly as a departing thief.
She raised the covers when his mouth drifted even lower. “What are you—” But then he was, and the point of asking the question seemed absurd. She was on the cusp of whimpering and pressed her lips together to silence it. She inhaled sharply. He pushed her knees up and apart, making a tent of the blankets. She released them and looked for purchase by pressing her palms flat against the headboard.
It banged the wall, startling her and making the bed shudder.
The next time she started and shuddered, it was because of what Kellen did to her. His darting tongue was like a dancing, licking flame. His breath fanned the fire. A rosy flush stole across her skin, climbing up her chest and throat and coloring her cheeks. Her arms and legs prickled with sensation and grew taut. She arched her neck, closed her eyes, and felt every muscle grow taut.
Pleasure hovered, teasing her. It was always within her grasp yet eluded every attempt she made to embrace it. This, too, was Kellen’s doing. He maddened her with his mouth, the change in rhythm, the deep caress, the exploration that was so intimate that she would have called it a violation before it was done to her.
Her breathing quickened, and sounds that she meant to swallow would no longer be contained. She cried out softly. She lifted. Stretched. Pleasure alighted briefly, skipping across her body like a hot spark. She felt it at her breasts, at the hollow of her arm, skimming over her belly, and then suddenly, finally, settling with certainty in the nub of flesh that Kellen’s dedicated attention had made slick and swollen and sensitive.
Pleasure spread from the center like a prairie fire. She was not meant to escape it, rather to embrace it. She did, absorbing the shiver that rolled through her instead of shaking it off. She wanted the memory of so much pleasure to go deep into sinew and marrow, to be there for recall when she was alone and comfort was a hug that she had to give herself.
In spite of her wish for it to be otherwise, pleasure passed. Her body quieted, her breathing slowed. When Kellen raised his head and shrugged off the blankets, she had a weak, crooked smile for him but no words to accompany it.
“We’re not done,” he told her.
“Mmm.”
He took that as agreement and settled himself between her thighs. He lifted her hips and tilted his own. He told himself that he would be careful, not gentle perhaps, but careful, but it was only a fleeting thought, not a plan, and when Raine’s hand found his cock and circled it with her fingers, there was no thought at all, not even a fleeting one.
She was ready for him or believed she was. Certainly she wanted him. When her fingers closed over him, the hot pulse and hardness made her hesitate. She stared at him. His face was already taut with pleasure denied. A muscle jumped in his cheek. His eyes were dark and focused and naked in their need. He wanted her.
His hips jerked. She gave herself over to instinct. They found their way together.
Kellen’s first thrust met resistance. Raine bit down hard on her lip and made no sound that might cause a decent man to reconsider. She breathed again when he was deep inside her. Her hands cupped his buttocks, held him close. Her ability to accommodate him was a revelation. Without quite releasing her lip, she managed a tentative, wary smile and nodded faintly.
Kellen had had women who offered more encouraging signs, but none that were more sincerely given. He lifted his hips, withdrawing just enough for Raine to sense the loss before he rocked forward again.
There were initial moments of awkwardness when Raine tried too hard to help, but he was patient, watchful, and he knew the exact moment that she stopped thinking about what she was doing and gave herself over to it. Her trust was absolute, in herself certainly, but also in him.
It only took time to find the rhythm that suited them, and Kellen would not be hurried. Their movements were easy at first, carefully measured, but eventually they were more deliberately accented until the cadence beat a steady tattoo, and offered Kellen no choice but to surrender to it. His body demanded that he give in. Raine demanded it as well. She held him so tightly, so warmly, that being inside her was deeply satisfying while leaving her made him ride the sharp edge of a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.
He wanted both to last, and he fought the quickening, but his thrusts came sharp and shallow in spite of his efforts, and tension seized the muscles of his neck, his back, and his thighs. The contraction held him immobile for long seconds before the trigger was pulled. The kick and shudder rocked him, and when the vibration left him, it went into her.
Raine absorbed all of his fierce energy, locking her legs around his hips and not allowing him to pull away when he would have done so. From the beginning, perhaps from the first kiss, she knew that accepting this experience meant accepting all of him.
He caught himself before he collapsed on her, rolling slightly to one side and anchoring her with one of his legs. Or maybe, he thought, he was anchoring himself. He’d always believed he traveled with purpose, but what if he had merely been drifting?
His breathing slowed. He watched the rise and fall of her chest as hers did the same. She caught the slant of his gaze and reached for the blankets. He laid a hand over hers and shook his head.
“You’re lovely.” He smiled then because she blushed. She couldn’t seem to help herself. For all the straightforward, give-no-quarter staring that she turned on him to pin his ears back, Kellen liked knowing that he could rattle her with a sideways glance. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“You never slept with your husband.”
“No. I never did. I told you that. Not the way…” She hesitated. “We didn’t. Couldn’t. I’d rather not…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He slid his leg away from her, searched for his nightshirt with his toes, and flipped it toward him with a sharp jerk of his foot. He caught it neatly in one hand, shook it out as he sat up, and pulled it over his head and arms. He levered himself over her and climbed out of bed. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
He thought Raine might ask him where he was going, but she either wasn’t interested or she knew. His absence presented her with an opportunity to make a grab for the covers, and she was cocooned before he reached the door.
Chuckling too softly for her to hear, Kellen made for the bathing room. He ran the hot water but ended up washing while it was still only tepid. He collected a basin of warmer water for Raine, tossed in a sponge, and threw a towel over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure that she knew that she needed all of it, and she might very well flee to the bathing room on her own, but he could not think of a more delicate way to broach the subject.
Holding the basin carefully in front of him, Kellen headed back. He hadn’t reached the door to Raine’s bedroom when he heard her coming at a run. He stepped aside, gave her plenty of space to charge past him, and simply shook his head as he watched her go. He could hardly fail to notice that she was clutching an armful of bed sheets against her chest. This particular embarrassment had not put color in her face. She was as pale as the shift she was wearing.
Kellen changed direction and followed at a slower pace. She kicked the door closed just before he got there. He stared at it at close quarters for several moments until discomfort with his own indecision forced him to action. Balancing the heavy basin with one hand, he rapped on the door with the other.
“Go away.”
Kellen recognized that this was a command, not a suggestion. He ignored it anyway. “At least take this bowl of water. You’ll probably want the sponge, and I have a towel.”
“Go. Away.”
He didn’t move. He heard her turn on the taps in the tub, and he had to speak over the sound of running water. “Some women bleed more than others the first time.”
There was a pause then her voice came to him from directly on the other side of the door. “Stop. Talking. Go. Away.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait over by the bed.” He didn’t know if she heard him because she didn’t answer. He forgot himsel
f and shrugged. The movement caused water to slosh over the rim of the basin and puddle around his feet. He expelled a soft curse because the moment seemed to call for it, and he felt marginally better afterward. The curse wasn’t directed at himself anyway. Neither was it meant for Raine. Lately, all of his curses were variations on a theme.
Damn it, Nat Church. Christ, Nat Church. Hell and Jehoshaphat, Nat Church.
Kellen wondered if Nat Church ever suspected he’d be cursed roundly and regularly, and if he’d suspected, would it have made a difference?
Kellen moved aside some items on the night table and set the bowl down. He used the towel to swipe at the water on the floor. Raine would shoot him where he stood if she slipped on her way out. She deserved a dignified exit.
He tossed some coals into the stove, warmed himself in front of it for a while, then sat down on the bed and hooked his heels on the frame. It was tempting to go after her, tempting to believe she did not know what she wanted, but being raised by a mother whose equal rights rallying cry was that women did know what was good for them, Kellen thought he should honor Raine and his mother by staying put.
Goddamn it, Nat Church.
Kellen could feel himself beginning to nod off. If she meant for him to fall asleep while he waited for her and thus avoid a confrontation, it was a respectable plan, even a diabolical one. He determined he could wait her out.
Raine approached the bed quietly when she saw he was sleeping. She took a woolen blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed and drew it over him. She was just tucking it around his shoulders when his hand slipped out from under it and caught her by the wrist. She gave a slight tug, not enough to pull away from him, but enough to see whether or not he would let her go. He didn’t.
“You were sleeping,” she said.
“And now I’m not.”
She thought he looked unnaturally alert for someone who had been breathing so deeply moments earlier. He didn’t even yawn. “I’m sorry I woke you. You can sleep here. I’ll stay in Ellen’s room. I’m not going to put fresh linens on your bed tonight.”
