by Shana Galen
“Did you love her?” she asked suddenly. The words were out before she even realized she did not want to know the answer.
He snorted. “Half the cubs were in love with her either because she was the best thief among us or because she was the prettiest girl they knew.”
She moved to face him, even though she couldn’t see his face. “But did you love her?”
A scratching in the far corner broke the long silence.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Susanna said finally. “It’s none of my concern.”
Gideon took hold of her arm before she could turn away. “I would have loved her,” he said, “if I thought she’d ever love me back.”
Now her heart clenched for a very different reason. She heard the pain in his voice, and she wished she could take it away.
“She never knew I was in love with her. She was always oblivious to the way men looked at her. She didn’t think she was pretty, thought her…ah, bosom was an annoyance.”
Susanna shrank slightly. Marlowe was generously endowed, much more generously than Susanna herself. If that was the sort of figure Gideon preferred, she could not hope to catch his eye. “You never told her how you felt?”
“And have that between us? No.” Silence. “I kissed her.”
The knife in Susanna’s heart twisted. He had probably kissed dozens of women. He had probably done much more than kiss them, if the skill he’d shown with her in Des’s room was any indication. Why should she care if Gideon had kissed Marlowe? She didn’t want to care, but she couldn’t seem to persuade her emotions to listen to reason.
“I thought maybe if we kissed, she’d feel some of what I felt.”
Susanna understood his meaning very well. She knew how she felt when Gideon kissed her. How could Marlowe have failed to fall in love with him? “And?” she asked.
He answered, his voice too low to make out the words.
“Pardon?”
He jerked away from her. “I said, she laughed.”
Susanna gasped. And then she laughed. “I’m sorry.” She covered her mouth to stifle the giggles. “It’s not amusing. You poor man.”
“I was a boy then and my little heart easily crushed.”
“Oh.” She reached for his arm, but he shook her off. He didn’t want her sympathy, and she did not blame him. “How did you recover?”
“I swived every pretty girl I could find and drank myself into a stupor.”
Susanna caught herself before she toppled off the chaise longue. No one had ever said anything so shocking to her before. She’d never even heard the word he’d used, but it did not take much thought to decipher its meaning.
“A-and did that help?”
She could hear him smiling when he spoke.
“It didn’t hurt.” He sat beside her again. “She didn’t feel the spark when I kissed her. I couldn’t make her feel it. It’s either there or it’s not.”
A spark. That was an apt description of the way she felt when he kissed her. Her insides lit up, and her body felt as though it were on fire, burning with heat and vitality.
“Do you—” she began then clenched her fists.
“Do I…?” he prompted.
“Oh, it’s irrelevant,” she said quickly and hopefully lightly. “You were saying about Marlowe? Or should we call her Elizabeth? I never know what to call her.”
“Susanna.” His voice was low and teasing. “Ask me.”
“Ask you what? You mean what you call Marlowe?”
But he wasn’t fooled by her too-high pitch or her rapid speech. He’d known or guessed what she was thinking. Ridiculous that her cheeks were hot and probably bright pink, when no one could even see her blush.
Whatever creature shared the space with them continued scratching in the corner, its movements loud in the growing silence as he waited. And waited.
“Fine.” She huffed out a breath. “Do you feel any spark when you kiss me? I withdrew the question because it’s a foolish one. Let’s not discuss it.”
“But I want to discuss it.”
His thigh pressed into hers as he moved closer, and she felt him twine a long lock of her hair around his finger.
“You do?” There was that breathless quality in her voice again. How did he manage to do that to her every time he touched her? Every time he looked at her—and she couldn’t even see him looking at her at the moment.
“I feel more than a spark when I kiss you. I feel a hundred tiny sparks, lighting me up, burning out and sparking new fires.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“You feel it too?”
“I don’t understand how Marlowe couldn’t.”
He used her hair to tug her closer. “Because Marlowe and I weren’t right for each other.” His lips brushed her cheek, his warm breath flickering on her skin. She tingled inside, felt tiny explosions building.
“Neither are we,” she pointed out. “You’re…”
His lips kissed the corner of her mouth.
“And I’m…”
His hand slid into her hair and cupped the back of her head. “You’re?”
“Dying for you to kiss me.”
“Then I should do so with haste.”
His mouth met hers in a hot tangle of lips and tongues and heat. Shimmering sparks flooded her body and tingled through her. Her head swirled, making her dizzy with desire. Clutching his shirt, she hung on for fear she might lose her grip and tumble away.
Dimly, she became aware he’d taken her in his arms and lowered her down on the chaise. His powerful body, all lean, muscled strength, covered hers. She wrapped her arms around his back, dug her fingers into the hard contours of his flesh, and felt him shiver. His lips took hers more roughly, and his kiss turned deeper and more passionate.
He really did want her. He responded to her touch much as she responded to his. The thought sent more flickers of desire into her belly, and she slid her hand down to explore his body. His back was sleek and hard, his waist narrow and trim. His buttocks—
“What are you doing?” he asked, lifting his lips from hers.
“I’m sorry.” She pulled her hands away. “I only wanted to touch you.”
“Keep touching me like that, and before you blink, I’ll have your skirts up to your neck and my cock buried inside you.”
She should have been shocked by his words. She should have slapped him for speaking to her that way. Instead, she couldn’t resist putting her arms around him and pulling him back to her. This time she kissed him, her mouth taking his, tasting him, exploring the fullness of his lips and the rough stubble on his jaw.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you right now?” His voice was low and thick, and it rumbled through her as she licked a patch of skin on his neck. He tasted like wood and salt and man.
“As much as I want you, I imagine.”
He pulled back. “And what exactly is it you want? I don’t think you even know what you’re saying.”
“I do,” she protested. “I know what men and women do. I’ve read books.”
“Oh, books!” He shook his head, and she felt his soft hair tickle her forehead. “I’ve never read a book about…”
“Copulation,” she supplied, thinking perhaps he lacked a term that was not cant.
“Right. But I can promise you copulation in reality is much different than in books. So I ask again, what is it you think you want?”
She might have answered quickly. She might have said, You, and kissed him again. Instead, she considered. In the medical book she’d found in her father’s library, it had referred to the man’s engorged organ penetrating the woman’s body. Was that what she wanted? His organ inside her body?
It seemed a strange thing for two people to do, and yet she could not deny everything she’d done with him so far had been far more plea
surable than strange.
“I want to copulate with you. I know I’ll be ruined,” she added hastily. “I’ll be ruined anyway.”
“Give me strength,” he murmured and lowered his head to her shoulder.
“I know what copulation entails,” she said, in case he still thought her ignorant. “You penetrate my body with your engorged organ.”
His body shook, and she realized he was laughing. She smacked him on the back. “What is so amusing, sir? I know I’m correct.”
“Sir?” He lifted his head. “After all this, you call me sir?”
“Oh, never mind. Get off.” She shoved at him, and he caught her hands.
“Not quite yet, Strawberry.”
She stilled, held her breath. Her heart hammered as though it desired freedom from the confines of her ribs.
“Then you’ll…”
“Copulate you?”
“I think it’s more accurately said, copulate with you.”
“I don’t give a…shilling. I won’t do it.”
Her breath huffed out. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Why?” she asked, her voice small and high to her ears. “I thought…you said you felt sparks.”
His hands on her wrists relaxed. “Oh, I want to copulate you—copulate with—take you. But you deserve better than a tumble on a stolen couch in a dirty, rat-infested tunnel under Field Lane.”
“I knew that wasn’t a cat.” She shoved at him, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She’d all but thrown herself at him, and he’d rejected her. She would go home a virgin after all.
“Get off,” she demanded.
“I don’t think so.”
She stiffened. His tone had an ominous quality to it, a tone that said I’m-not-done-with-you-yet.
“I can’t let you go without teaching you something.”
“I read the book.”
“This is better than a book.”
Thirteen
His mouth touched her lips lightly while one hand slid down her raised arms. His other hand held them above her head as he kissed her. When his fingers reached the bare skin of her neck, she shivered, and his caresses changed to feather-light strokes. He stroked down her sensitive flesh until he reached the edge of her bodice. His mouth trailed after his fingers, branding her where her skin already burned from his touch.
“Gideon.”
“You’ll like this,” he murmured. He yanked her chemise down then tugged on her stays, freeing her breasts. They ached for his touch, and she bucked when his mouth settled on her nipple.
He suckled her with his mouth and fondled her with his hand, the tug of his mouth eliciting an answering pull between her legs. She was warm and heavy at the juncture of her thighs. Pressure built, and she squeezed her legs together in an attempt to alleviate it.
His mouth continued to work her, and the urge to move rose until her legs parted and her hips moved of their own accord. She wanted something, needed it. She was close. If he would only touch her…
She was appalled when she realized where it was she wanted him to touch. She’d been pressing against him, wantonly rubbing her body against his.
“Don’t stop now,” he murmured against her bare skin. “You must be almost there.”
His words were incomprehensible at the moment. “What are you doing to me?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“I…”
He released her wrists and ran his fingers down her arm, over her bare breast and then across her abdomen. When his fingers slid lower, she could not stop a moan. He moaned in response and reached for her skirts. His hand was warm on her ankle. He slid his fingers up, the calluses rough on her soft skin. When he reached her knee, she slammed her legs together.
“Problem?” he asked, his voice sounding light and affable.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing you something you won’t read about in books—at least not the ones you’re like to encounter.” His fingers slid up her leg, and she had to gulp in a breath.
“Do you want me to stop?” His fingers brushed across the tangle of hair at the junction of her thighs, and she squeaked.
“Tell me if you don’t want this, Susanna. I’ll stop if you ask.”
“I…”
His fingers walked down, and her thighs were moist enough that he slid between them. The shock of pleasure made her cry out.
“Open your legs, Strawberry.”
She shook her head. He couldn’t have seen the motion, but he must have guessed.
“I can do this with your knees locked, but you’ll like it better if I have more room.”
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“Oh, no, you definitely shouldn’t. This is the sort of thing you go to hell for.”
His fingers wiggled and slid back and forth. Her knees weakened.
“This is the sort of thing you should slap me for even thinking about.”
One finger dipped inside her, and her muscles clenched in anticipation. Pleasure and desire mingled until she couldn’t help but relax her muscles.
“Open your legs, Susanna.”
She gave in to the demands of her body and allowed her knees to fall open. He slid his fingers over her again, over a spot so sensitive she cried out when he stroked it.
“This is where my… What did you call it? Engorged organ? This is where I’d penetrate you.” He slid two fingers inside her.
She writhed as he slid in and out. She couldn’t hear him any longer. She could only feel.
“And then I’d thrust in and out, like this. And if I do it just right…”
He paused, slowing his movements until she moaned and every muscle in her body tensed.
“…if I slow down. You like it slow, don’t you? And rub my thumb right here…”
His thumb circled her, and the sudden explosion took her by surprise. Her entire body shuddered violently, and she saw actual sparks before her eyes. Pleasure like none she’d ever imagined spiraled through her, wracking her body, until she collapsed like little more than a doll.
When she could catch her breath again, she reached out for Gideon. “What just happened?”
“Climax,” he said.
From his voice, he was still located near her knees. She’d fallen back onto the longue, her head at an awkward angle at the base of the rising arm. She didn’t care. She couldn’t conceive of ever moving.
“That was almost too easy,” he said.
“The book didn’t mention that.”
He chuckled. “No. I imagine not. Let me show you something else the book didn’t mention.”
“Gideon.” She tried to sit and wished, for what felt like the tenth time, she had some light. Then she felt his stubble brush her thigh, and she shrieked.
“What are you doing now?”
“Something no proper lady would ever allow a man to do to her.”
She reached for his head, attempting to grasp his hair. “Then by all means, cease.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
He must have turned his head, because she felt the warmth of his breath there. Between her legs. His day’s growth of beard stung the skin of her inner thighs. Susanna tried to summon shock as she realized exactly where his head was located. She tried to tell him to stop.
But her body was already tensed for more of his touch. She wanted what she knew he could give.
“Shall I stop?” he asked again. She clenched her hands at the laughing tone in his voice. She wanted to tell him to stop just to spite him.
“No!” she flung at him.
He pushed her legs open, and she waited for the sweet assault of his fingertips. Instead, something soft and warm slid against her.
His tongue!
“Why are you doing
that?”
“I wanted to taste you.” He licked her again, his tongue flicking against her until she moaned.
“You taste exactly how I imagined. Sweet and ripe, like a strawberry.”
“This is wicked.”
He made a sound of assent and licked her again.
She gasped. “This is beyond scandalous.”
His tongue worked her, finding a particularly sensitive spot and teasing it until she panted with need.
“This is…” She couldn’t think. Susanna tried to tell him to stop, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she gripped his hair and threw her head back in ecstasy.
“Yes, yes, yes. Please.”
Her world shattered. Her body exploded into a thousand tiny points of pleasure, each sensation sweeter than the one before it. When she slowly drifted back into herself, she stared blindly at the darkness around her. Thank God for the darkness. She could not bear to look Gideon in the eye after what he’d just done. Susanna feared she’d never cease blushing.
“Move over.” He crawled beside her on the narrow chaise longue and gave her a small shove. She didn’t move. Her body was far too heavy to lift. Instead, he fit himself behind her, propping her up sideways, one arm draped over her midsection possessively.
She could smell her scent on him, and she could feel his erection pressing into her bottom. Why had he left her a virgin and himself unsatisfied?
“You’ll have to speak to me again at some point,” he murmured. He sounded completely normal, as though he hadn’t just had his mouth…his tongue…
“Too shocked to speak?” He chuckled. “I told you I’d show you a few things not in books. What did you expect, Strawberry, for me to behave as a gentleman?”
She rose to her elbow. “That’s rubbish. You’re far more of a gentleman than I think you like to admit.”
“Do you think so?” His hand moved up to cup her breast. She hadn’t bothered to pull her stays up yet, and his rough hand on her bare skin caused her to inhale sharply. “Want me to show you, again, how wicked I can be?”
