Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0]

by The Spy

  “So you can speak!” He maneuvered to lie between her thighs and took his weight from her by leaning on his elbows. She felt him press a softly ravenous kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Tell me your name,” he pleaded as he stroked his fingertips down her neck to toy with the gold filigree about her throat.

  “Amilah,” she whispered back. Dream.

  “My Amilah.” His breath feathered across her lips. Mine.

  She nodded, knowing he could feel the motion of her agreement. She was his, irrevocably. What they were about to do could not bind her to him any more than she was already, for she would forever bear him in her heart, no matter the nature of his feelings.

  She brought her hands to caress his face and kissed him once more in the openmouthed way he had shown her. His mouth was so hot and male, their stroking of tongues so intimate and outrageous, that she could have kissed that mouth all night.

  But for one thing. She wanted to kiss the rest of him as well.

  She pushed him to his back. He laughed as he sank unresisting into the downy depths. She rolled on top of him, relishing even the cold bite of his waistcoat buttons on her skin. To writhe naked upon him as he lay fully clothed might be greatly diverting had she the time, but there was far more that she wished to accomplish tonight.

  “I still hear the bells,” he murmured. “Yet I am quite sure you are as bare as a winter elm. Have you bells in your—”

  She kissed him quiet, unable to stop a muffled laugh against his lips. “Be still,” she whispered in Arabic. “You shall find my chimes soon enough.” She began to untie his cravat. Discovering that she needed more leverage, she sat up to straddle his hips.

  “Oh, Amilah,” he groaned, pressing his groin into hers. “Have you any idea what you are doing to me?”

  She pulled his cravat free and unbuttoned his waistcoat. His shirt studs were next. Finally she scrambled off him to pull him to a sitting position. He yanked his clothing off without her help at that point, obviously impatient to proceed.

  She helped him with his boots and trousers until he was as naked as she. More so, for he wore no golden adornment.

  How she wished she could see him.

  “How I wish I could see you,” he whispered. “But you will not allow it, even had I candles in every pocket.”

  She bent over him, trailing her hands over his skin. He shivered under her touch. “I see you,” she whispered. “I see every strong and virile line of you. You are mine, my gentle warrior-king. You are my moon and my sands and I shall travel you so well this night that I might never forget an inch of your skin.”

  James lay back upon the pallet, both mystified and exalted by the words she whispered on his flesh. She was his every dream, but she touched him as if he were her heart’s desire. How could her caress be so laden with aching emotion? He must be imagining it, mistaking passion for love in his loneliness and lust.

  No matter. He would accept this moment out of time, this interlude in the darkness, for he ached for her. He ached to be loved, even for one night.

  And perhaps, this time, he could convince her not to disappear.

  Her caressing hands found his erection and faltered in their motion. Then slowly, with a mind-altering delicacy of touch, she explored him with critical curiosity.

  Phillipa was not prepared for what she found. This was not quite what she had expected from viewing statuary in Greece and scrolls in India. This rigid shaft of male flesh was significant. Almost appallingly so.

  Yet so fascinating. The silken feel of his skin entranced her as she wrapped her fingers about him and instinctively slid them up and down. His warm hands came up to cover hers. “Amilah, I fear you shall disappoint us both if you continue.”

  She pulled her hands from beneath his reluctantly. He found them again in the darkness and replaced them. “Please. I want your caress—only not that particular motion.”

  Phillipa returned her attention to that fascinating rod of male difference for a moment, then reluctantly left it. There was so much of him to know.

  She passed her palms lightly up his muscled thighs, as they had figured prominently in many a fantasy since the night she’d touched him by the fire. And his chest, that brawny expanse of hard ridges and hollows that she had longed to explore since she had seen him fresh from his bath.

  And that furrowed iron expanse of abdomen, which rippled so invitingly under her light trailing touch.

  “Amilah, I must touch you. Now.”

  Phillipa smiled in the darkness. He was not a subtle man, her James.

  His large hard hands came up to encircle her bare waist and she found herself on her back once more. She wrapped her arms about his neck and pulled him down for a deep and breathless kiss that left them both gasping.

  “You are so passionate, Amilah. How I wish I knew if it was only for me that you pine.”

  Phillipa dragged her fingers through his hair as he kissed his way down her neck to that delicate spot where it became shoulder. The heat of his mouth there made her quiver within. “I am only yours,” she whispered, longing to spill her heart to him. “I dance only for you. I dream only of you.”

  His hot mouth moved down to her breasts. She started when he took one air-chilled nipple between his warm lips. The heat of him tingled through her as his teeth raked ever so gently across her tender flesh.

  The other breast was covered by a hard and gentle palm, and he teased both nipples in time, one with tender bites and sucking, the other with soft plucking caresses. When he traded nipples she let her head fall back, awash in the tingling pleasure. Her thighs tried to tighten, to press together of their own volition, but she only succeeded in wrapping them snugly about his bare hips as he wedged himself between her open legs.

  He was large and broad above her. Her hands explored his chest and shoulders, stroking through his waving hair, pressing slowly down his back as he kissed lower still upon her belly.

  He found the jewel she had pasted in her navel with honey in the tradition of the Bedouin bride and sucked it free. “I wondered how you kept this in.” She felt his chuckle against her lower body as he dropped it into his hand. “Finders, keepers,” he whispered, and tucked it away somewhere she couldn’t see. Then he made sure to remove any trace of the honey glue.

  A thorough man, James Cunnington.

  He kissed from one hipbone to the other, leaving a trail of hot, damp skin that quickly cooled to send shivers absolutely everywhere.

  Then he stopped to fondle the golden belt that had once held a rather demure collection of scarves and now held nothing but very fond memories.

  “I don’t know how you keep this on when you move the way you do,” he murmured. “Yet another delicious mystery for me to unravel. In time.”

  She felt a lancing ache of regret at his assumption of a future. It melded with her growing desire, adding a depth of poignancy to his every touch.

  He kissed his way to the tops of her thighs, then stopped to press her legs wide with his palms. “I want to taste all of you,” he murmured. “I’m afraid I won’t be stopped.”

  She had no intention of stopping him, although she did not know why he thought she would object to more kisses—

  He found the bells.

  When his tongue slid past the thin gold chain to delve within her, Phillipa arched in ecstatic disbelief. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—

  Pleasure. More pleasure than she could have dreamed. The shivers grew to tremors, then grew to shudders of racking ecstasy as his nimble tongue slid within, up, around, flicking endlessly at the core of her sex, driving her helplessly onward.

  She clutched at the puffing sides of her velvet prison, mindlessly kneading the fabric in her searching hands. She was flying into the diamond-studded sky—

  Phillipa shattered, pieces of her spinning off into the void. There was no Phillipa, there was only light, and pleasure and the flowing, growing tide of radiance that sprang from her center and shimmered to the tips of her fingers and toes. />
  James felt Amilah shuddering and pulsing beneath his caressing kiss and knew she was ready for him. He continued to taste her gently as she drifted back down to him, not stopping until the last pulsing spasms had slowed.

  Now. Finally.

  James rose to his hands and knees to crawl back up her body, dropping a kiss here and there as he went. He settled himself between her thighs, allowing his erection to press slightly into the slick folds of her.

  “Are you ready for me?”

  In response, she stroked her hands up his arms to dangle loosely around his neck. She said something breathless and exotic, and shifted her hips invitingly. Thank heaven, for he felt as though he might embarrass himself by bursting at the mere touch of her hot, wet center.

  He drove himself in, parting her easily enough at first. Then, astonishingly, there was a barrier. Not a firm one, for he could feel it start to give way when he first pressed himself to it. Nonetheless, he backed off.

  Virgin? He could not seem to grasp the meaning of the word. This mad, passionate, wild, and exotic flower of the fleshly world—virgin?

  He must stop. He must think. There was something not right here. Something that his instincts had warned him of but he had been too lust-crazed to listen to.

  God, she was so hot and tight around him. She wriggled a bit as he hesitated. A brief question in her outlandish tongue. Damn, he couldn’t think!

  Phillipa breathed a gutter word in Arabic. He had discovered her virginity. Would he leave her? There was such a thing as being too bloody honorable!

  She didn’t think she could bear his leaving her. This man, this strong, gentle, dark man was her destiny. He was the reason for her journey, the reason for her very birth.

  Already she was thrumming inside at the feeling of his shaft beginning to spread her. If he stopped now, she would bloody well clout him one!

  He began to withdraw from her. “Amilah, are you—”

  “Not this time, my stallion,” she muttered. Wrapping both calves about his buttocks, she drove him into her with all her strength. He gasped and bucked away, but the damage was done.

  Ow. He was so large within her. She felt herself burning, stretching . . .

  She kept him tightly captured by her thighs and forced herself to take deep slow breaths. This was no worse than boxing and she had faked her way through that well enough. She became aware that he was holding her, kissing her as he stroked her face.

  “You should not have done that, darling,” he whispered against her ear. “I did not want to cause you pain.”

  She wriggled experimentally beneath him. The burning ache was ebbing, though the fullness only seemed to be growing.

  “Shh. Hold still a moment, my dream.”

  She could not. When she rotated her hips against him, pleasure burst through her once more. Oh, yes. She let her head fall back and ground herself into him again.

  His breath left him in a rush that warmed her skin. He wanted more, she could feel it. His entire body was held rigid and his breathing quickened. He raised himself upon his elbows and gently bit the lobe of her ear.

  “If you will release me from the iron grasp of your thighs, I might be able to give you more pleasure.”

  To make sure he didn’t leave her, she pulled his head down for a kiss while she slid her legs from around him. He laughed hoarsely against her mouth.

  “Amilah, I’m not going anywhere. Good God, do you really think I could?”

  She eased her embrace, finally allowing him the freedom to move within her. He withdrew almost entirely, then slowly thrust into her once more.

  She ached. Hot, pulsating pleasure burst through her. She reached for him, grasping his wide shoulders to keep from spinning off into the void of ecstasy once more. She didn’t dare speak, even to urge him on, for she’d never be able to remember what language she was supposed to be using.

  Another deep thrust. Another sweetly agonizing withdrawal.

  Again.

  He was within her, inside her, possessing her. She turned to liquid for him, easing his passage and increasing her own rippling pleasure. She wrapped her arms about him and locked her legs loosely about his waist, holding him in every way. She wanted nothing more than to be his conquered country, to submit to his invasion forever.

  The pleasure that arced through her with each thrust began to increase until there was no end. The bursts of pleasure mounted, until she was climbing her way up once more.

  Yes. More.

  She clung to him, her mind going blank and primal.

  More.

  He gave her more. He took her higher, thrusting her through a shimmering lake of silvery rapture until she broke the surface in a great splash of radiance. She cried out, dimly aware of the sound but caring not. His lips found hers, covering her high song of ecstasy with a hot, openmouthed kiss.

  She clung to him as she drifted down once more. Drawing rasping breaths as if she’d truly been submerged in a lake, she became aware that he had gone still within her and was holding her tightly in his arms, murmuring to her.

  “Shh. Just breathe, darling. You’ll be fine in a moment.”

  She didn’t want to be fine. She wanted to go back there. Soon.

  Or at least as soon as she caught her breath.

  She wished she could tell him. “I saw the stars” she whispered breathlessly. “Like a great swath of silver across the sky . . .”

  The power of that stunning moment notwithstanding, Phillipa knew something had been missing. She felt him flex within her, still large and still most interested.

  Was there more?

  Dear God, she didn’t think she-could survive more.

  The darkness was folded about them, hiding them from the world, but also hiding them from each other. She wished she could see his face and read his eyes. She wished she could ask him why he remained rigid within her, and why he seemed to not have felt what she had felt.

  She wished she could tell him that she loved him.

  James could feel her relaxing. Good. He wanted her back with him. She had gone so high, and he doubted she’d ever flown before tonight.

  Yet she was so passionate, so responsive. Her mystery deepened, but he did not want to ponder that now. She was still hot and tight around him and he wanted to take her anew.

  He began to move again. She gasped slightly and he kissed away the small noise. She was not so sophisticated if she did not know what he was about.

  Soon he would unravel her every knot, but not now. Now he was her lover, not her investigator. In this moment he was not a spy. He increased his pace, his gentle motions becoming more demanding, less controlled.

  Phillipa reveled in his wildness.

  “Fly with me,” she urged softly.

  They flew.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Phillipa became aware of something smothering her and fought it off sleepily. Her fingers encountered something filmy and she opened her eyes, blinking at it in the dimness.

  Oh, it was only the scarf from her headpiece, the one she wore in lieu of the long hair that dancers wore rippling down their backs. She flicked it away from her face and snuggled back down into the warmth of James’s embrace.

  The velvet was delicious against her naked skin, but not as perfectly satisfying as the feel of James’s skin on hers. She lay there, mind not moving quickly yet, gazing sleepily above her at the curious tower of shelves. The storage room looked very different in the dimness. When she’d been wrapped in James’s passion in the dark, it hadn’t seemed nearly so mundane—

  In the dark. Why wasn’t it dark any longer?

  She’d fallen asleep. Cold shock jolted the last sleep from her mind.

  It was morning. Light from the window in the hallway must be shining in under the door. At any moment James could awake and see her here!

  It didn’t take long to ease her way out from under James’s encircling arm, though it seemed like an hour. Every time he so much as paused in his breathing, her hea
rt had stopped its beat.

  Her body was somewhat sore from James’s . . . ah, delightful incursion, and she was more than a bit sticky, but there’d be no opportunity to wash until later.

  She dressed quickly in Phillip’s gear, which was neatly tucked behind a bin, where she’d left it last night. Then she gathered up the bits of her Bedouin dancer’s costume that lay about the tiny room. Those she stashed high on a shelf behind a box. She could fetch the costume later or ask Button to get it for her.

  If she ever needed it again, which she doubted. Yet if Amilah must disappear entirely, she ought not to leave bits of herself about like a bread-crumb trail.

  The light was growing clearer. She should get out as quickly as possible. She didn’t think Phillip would cause any comment exiting the club, but still she hoped to get out unseen.

  Her hand on the knob, she turned for one last look at her sleeping lover. He lay sprawled across the pallet of red velvet where they had lain together. His naked body was covered only by a flap of fabric he’d pulled across his groin. Sinewy legs stretched far, his feet trailing right off the pallet. One arm was flung up beside his head, the other still clutched the wad of bedding she’d used to fill her space.

  He was holding her still.

  No, not her. Amilah.

  Abruptly, she hated the dancer she had created. She was no Bedouin goddess. She was only thin and ordinary Phillipa, who had not even her own hair to boast of. James had been seduced by his own imagination, not by any real charms she possessed. If he were to meet her as herself, he likely wouldn’t take a second look.

  Pain sliced through her. Why had she done this to herself?

  She took a step to look down on him, sprawled there in his manly grace and power. He looked like a tawny sleeping predator. He would certainly become dangerous if he knew what she had done.

  The light grew brighter. Something glinted in the rumpled velvet by his thigh. Phillipa bent, peering. The bells. Damn.

  She should leave them. They didn’t matter. But Amilah was supposed to disappear . . .