A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  Her breasts felt full, heavy. She drew his hand toward them. Her thought was that his palm would fit nicely there as well. She didn’t find out, not just then. Instead of covering her breast as she encouraged him to do, he stopped short and used his thumb to tug at the loose ribbon that closed the neckline of her gown. It required only a few passes before the material parted. Anticipation made drawing air difficult. In the end she simply held her breath.

  He nudged the material aside, exposing one pink-tipped breast to the lamplight, but it was not his hand that closed over her aureole. It was his mouth. Ridley resumed breathing but only because Ben’s humid mouth and the damp tip of his darting tongue made her gulp great drafts of air. Her rib cage swelled with that indrawn breath, her breast lifted, and the suck of his mouth drew a guttural cry. It was at once too much and not enough. She felt an ache deep in her womb, a contraction that she recognized as emptiness closing in. Her heels searched for purchase against the mattress. She rose, arched into him as much as she was able. Without words, she told him what she wanted until he showed her that she wanted something else.

  Ben’s attention wandered from her breast to the hollow of her throat and then to the curve of her neck. He sipped her skin, laved it with his tongue, and kept her restless and wanting under him.

  His mouth retraced a line from the underside of her jaw to the shallow valley between her small breasts. He slid the parted neckline to the other side and gave his full attention to the swollen pink rosebud he had neglected earlier.

  If Ridley thought she was going to come out of her skin, it was no different for him. She’d found the drawstring to his drawers, yanked, and then frustrated both of them because of the knot she made. He rolled her nipple between his lips. Her fingers scrabbled with the drawstring to make it right. Ben lifted his head and looked her in the eye. “Get it done,” he said. His voice was barely recognizable to either of them, coming as it did from deep in his throat, but the message was intelligible. His flat belly retracted when her knuckles brushed his skin. He put his mouth to her breast again, drawing on the nipple in a way that made her toes curl and her fingers go still. He stopped, waited for her to catch her breath and begin to work the knot before he lowered his mouth once more to her breast.

  “Hah!” Ridley produced a throaty cry when she loosened the knot. Her fingers dove beneath Ben’s drawers and he produced a cry very much like her own, though there was perhaps a thread of relief running through his.

  His erection had been pressing against her thigh since he first put his mouth to her breast, but her gown and his drawers and the occasional awkwardness of their position made for a volatile mix of frustration and heady anticipation. Whatever mystery Ben’s body held for her, Ridley ended it by curling her fingers around his penis. It swelled, throbbed in her hand. She understood the mechanics but had no use for them now. Dr. E. Ridley Woodhouse preferred the miracle.

  Her knees lifted on either side of his hips and she cradled him between her thighs. Ben levered himself on his elbows. He dipped his head, kissed her. He did not intend to linger there, but he did. He nudged her upper lip and nibbled gently on her lower one. He made the kiss slow and long and deep.

  Ridley’s thumbnail scored the underside of his erection. His breath hitched. She released him to push his drawers past his hips and then regarded him expectantly. He was hot and heavy against her belly. “I’m ready,” she said when he lifted his head. “I am.”

  Ben smiled crookedly. “All right, but only because I want to be convinced.”

  She didn’t know exactly what he meant until he pressed for entry. There was more discomfort than pain, but there was a lot of discomfort. She sucked in her lower lip, bit down.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. He heaved away as best he could under the tangle of blankets. Her knees collapsed as he snapped and straightened the covers. A moment later he disappeared under them.

  Ridley watched his head move. There was his mouth at her shoulder and again at the soft underside of her elbow. He trailed a line of kisses down the center of her abdomen. She knew where he was going. She wished he would get there.

  Ben lifted her thighs and settled between them. Her calves rested against his back. He lowered his head, found that sweet, sensitive kernel between her lips, and flicked it with his tongue. He did it again and again. Her hips rose and she pressed her heels hard into his back. Her fingers fisted in the sheets. She breathed shallowly and quickly, sipping the air in fractions of a full breath. Her lungs never felt quite full. She felt light and light-headed. It never once occurred to her to ask him to stop.

  She hovered on the edge of pleasure that was so sharp it was almost painful, but he cared more for her than to make it that. He held her when it felt as if she would shatter and eased her into feeling whole once she was still. He gave her time, but not too much, and then pressed his entry for the second time.

  It was not that there was no discomfort for her; only that she did not mind it as much. Her eyelids were heavy, her gaze slumberous. This was in contrast to her limbs, which felt weightless. She knew her body would accommodate him. It was biology, the way it was meant to be, but she’d held him in her hand and so it seemed more fantastical than simply the usual course of nature.

  Her gaze widened when pleasure began to stir again. That was unexpected. Ben’s thrusts were measured, powerful yet restrained, and there was a tautness to his features that bore evidence of his self-possession. If he saw her surprise, he gave no indication of it. If there was a smug smile behind the set of his jaw, he was clever enough not to reveal it now.

  From beneath the dark fan of her lashes, she watched him. From inside her body, she felt him. She ran her hands up and down his arms. His muscles bunched under her touch. The same thing happened when she caressed his shoulders. He stretched, arched, plunged. The cord in his neck became defined.

  Ridley felt heat blossom in her belly. It was softer this time around, spiraling instead of rising. There was warmth in the tips of her fingers, in her toes. She rubbed the sole of her foot against Ben’s calf and pressed her trimmed nails into his shoulders. Inside, she contracted, not because she thought about it, but because she didn’t. Ben moaned and she recognized his pleasure in the sound. She contracted around him again, this time on purpose. He growled and that pleased her as well, and when he came deep, pushing into her hard, and finally shuddered as she had earlier, she was there to ease him down and into the cradle of her body.

  Ben lay heavily on top of her, full of agreeable lethargy. His breathing slowed, became inaudible. His heart ceased to thrum and resumed its normal rhythm. He lifted his head and began to ease away from her.

  “No,” she whispered. “Don’t. Not just yet.”

  “Ridley.”

  “A little longer. It’s nice this way.”

  He gave in because she was right. A minute passed and then another, and when she didn’t ask him to move or push him away, he realized she was asleep. It was encouraging, he supposed, that he hadn’t suffocated her.

  Ben rolled sideways and then left the bed. Except for an abrupt little snore, she didn’t stir. Grinning, he held up his drawers in one hand and crossed to the dressing screen, where he ducked behind it. He scrubbed his face at the basin and stared into the mirror above it. He was still grinning, stupidly, he thought, but then he was a happy man and allowances could be made for that. Ben wondered if he would feel differently after he had time to reflect on how things might have changed between them.

  He completed his ablutions, tied off his drawers, and padded barefoot to the corner stove. He added some split wood to the meager fire and waited for it to begin its burn before he returned to the bed. The room was cold enough to raise gooseflesh on his arms. He slipped under the covers. Ridley attached herself to him like melting wax, and she was about as warm.

  That was all right, then. He closed his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-four

&n
bsp; “Ow!” Ben swatted at Ridley’s hand and rubbed his arm where she had just pinched him. “What was that for?”

  “You were sleeping.”

  “Yes. So were you.”

  “Not for a while.”

  Ben looked at the oil lamp to gauge how long it had been burning. He guessed he had slept for at least a few hours, certainly longer than he’d meant to. “There are kinder ways to wake someone from a dead sleep.”

  Ridley propped herself on an elbow and shrugged one shoulder as she looked down at him. “I kissed you,” she said, tapping her forefinger against his lips. “Right here. You wrinkled your mouth as though I were a pesky fly.”

  “Clearly you should have tried again.”

  “I did. I was rebuffed three times. It was humbling.”

  “You don’t sound humbled.”

  “Time heals some wounds and revenge heals others. I pinched you harder than I had to. That helped.”

  Ben’s mouth twisted wryly. “I’ll just bet it did.” He raised his arms outside of the blankets and stretched. His yawn was so prodigious that his jaw cracked and he had to work it side to side. “Sorry.”

  She shook her head and knuckled his stubble once he settled his jaw in place. “You make it seem . . . I don’t know . . . as if this were not the first time we woke up in the same bed. I thought it would be awkward.”

  “I imagine that pinching me helped that, too.”

  “We should decide on a better way of waking you in the future.”

  Ben was encouraged. “You can always say my name. That’s surprisingly effective.”

  “Oh. Of course.” She hesitated. “I think I must have embraced some romantic notions.”

  “I blame Felicity Ravenwood.”

  Ridley nodded; her eyes were grave.

  Ben caught her hand, threaded his fingers through hers. “Ridley, I was teasing. I don’t object to romantic notions. I’ve been known to have them.”

  “Have you really?”

  “Mm-hmm. I used to wash Amelia Trainer’s slate when we shared a desk. I carved her initials in the side of the schoolhouse. The heart was sadly lopsided but recognizable.”

  “That is romantic. How old were you?”

  “Ten or eleven. You need to know that Bob Coffield liked her, too, and he was blamed for it. I didn’t speak up so he got the punishment and the girl. They live over in Stonechurch. Five children, the last I heard. I like to think my cowardice led to their courtship.”

  “Huh. I suppose you can justify anything when you’ve had a long time to think about it.”

  “That’s right.” He looked over his shoulder toward the window. The curtain was pulled closed, but he could tell that outside it was still dark. Curious, he asked, “What was so important that you couldn’t let me sleep?”

  “I thought you might want to go home before it’s morning and someone could see you.”

  “Uh-huh. Do you want me to leave?”

  “No, not if you’d like to stay, but I don’t want anyone happening upon you. I have an appreciation for how news is spread in Frost Falls and it isn’t Drew Abernathy’s weekly paper.”

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “When I looked, it was a bit past two. That was just before I woke you.” Before he asked, she added, “I consulted the pocket watch in the jacket you so carelessly discarded.”

  “Oh.” Ben wondered when he had last slept so soundly. He hadn’t heard or felt her leave the bed. “All right, but it’s not necessarily less likely that I won’t be seen at this hour.”

  “I know. I’ve thought of that. That’s why you should exit through the surgery and enter your house through the back door.”

  “You’re suggesting stealth.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “I see. And who do you imagine is walking around out there at this hour?”

  “Anyone staggering out of the Songbird.”

  “Yes, of course,” he conceded with a laugh. “But who else?”

  “Your deputy takes a stroll when he’s on night duty.”

  “Damn, but you’ve given this some thought.”

  “I had time,” she said dryly. “And then there are the hotel guests who can’t sleep and stand at the windows. You might have noticed that some of those windows face your house and mine.”

  “They are probably more interested in your bedroom window.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am.”

  Ridley sighed. “Ben, people expect to be able to find us when they need us. Someone comes looking for you far more often than me, but there’s an expectation that we will respond to whatever the need is. You only have to recall Hannah Salt coming to get you at her brother’s request or Frankie Fuller running here to ask for help.”

  “That’s a fair point, but no one’s ever come looking for me and been quiet about it. I’m confident that one of us would hear something. I would then make a stealthy exit, appear at my front door minutes later, and no one would be the wiser. And if someone comes for you, I don’t have to do anything except pinch you awake. You can manage your patient and I can go back to sleep.”

  Ridley fell silent, considering. “Is it as simple as that?”

  “What I know is that it doesn’t have to be complicated.” He smiled when the space between her eyebrows puckered. “You’re not convinced.”

  “I want to be, but the more I think on it, the less certain I am that there is any circumstance in which you can be stealthy. You’re very straightforward. I don’t think you’d mind at all if you were caught sneaking between our houses.”

  “I’d mind sneaking around, and I’d mind getting caught, but that’s not what you meant. I wouldn’t care for myself if we were found out, but I’d care plenty for what folks would say about you.”

  “Ah, yes, the stain on my reputation. Did you know I bled?”

  Ben stared at her. His eyes widened fractionally. He understood how her thoughts leapt from the first thing she said to the question she asked, but that did not mean he was prepared to talk about it. If she thought he was straightforward, then how in God’s name would she describe herself? He had an image of a train coming at him full throttle.

  “I’ve made you uncomfortable,” she said.

  “It was unexpected, is all. There was always plain speaking about women in the bunkhouse, but I never figured I’d hear the same so plainly from a woman. To answer your question, yes, I knew. I got up to wash. You’d already fallen asleep. I saw there was some blood. Is it because you were a virgin or did I hurt you?”

  “You can ease your mind. You didn’t hurt me. I didn’t think at twenty-eight there would still be any evidence of virginity, so that was interesting.”

  “Uh-huh. Interesting.”

  She chuckled, dropping her elbow and laying her head on her arm. “You’re staying, then?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Ridley inched closer, snuggled. “Martha usually arrives at seven thirty.”

  “This time of year it’s hardly light by then. I’ll be gone or hiding under the bed.” He turned his head, kissed her brow. “Do you remember how to wake me?”

  “Ben.”

  “Good. Go to sleep.”

  And she did.

  * * *

  • • •

  In the morning, Ben left the surgery a full five minutes before the widow arrived. That was too close for Ridley’s comfort, but then she hadn’t tried very hard to stop him when he tumbled her back in bed. He drugged her with leisurely kisses, the kind that muddled her brain and made time both relative and unimportant. He whispered outrageous things in her ear, only half of which she understood, and he made her laugh, slowly tracking a line from her belly to her breasts and calling it stealthy. She lifted her nightgown, hugged him with her knees, and sighed deeply as he entered her
with the caution of a thief.

  He took care with her and moved with an almost hypnotic rhythm that she followed in like measure. Her breasts swelled. She touched them when he didn’t, and when she saw his eyes darken as he followed the movement, she did it again. The second time was as much for his pleasure as it was for hers.

  He came noisily and then so did she, but her release was very close to a shout of laughter. In between moments of catching her breath, she said, “My name’s not Ernestine. That’s what you called out, isn’t it?”

  “I did. Are you certain that’s not it?”

  “Quite certain. You intend to amuse yourself with this for a while, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  She couldn’t help but grin. “I think I will look forward to that.”

  He swooped to kiss her splendidly curved mouth and then rolled out of bed to finish dressing. He wished her well before he left. He also called her Evelyn.

  Shaking her head, because what else could she do, Ridley rose and put on her robe and slippers. When Mrs. Rushton arrived minutes later, Ridley asked for water for a bath. They dragged the tub into the kitchen and took turns filling it. While they waited for multiple kettles to boil, the housekeeper poached an egg and made toast and gave Ridley the weather report as she had it from Maxwell Wayne.

  “When is the thaw?” asked Ridley.

  “April. Not much chance of seeing grass or scrub more than a few days at a time before then.”

  “I don’t remember Doc saying anything about this much snow in his correspondence.”

  “If you wanted someone to come here, would you mention it?”

  Ridley saw her point. “Probably not. It’s beautiful, though, even if it is relentless.”

  “Speaking of relentless, Mary Cherry’s been pestering me about Lily Salt. She thinks you need to see her.”

  “You’re only telling me now? How long ago did she say something?”

  “I guess it’s been a few days. You weren’t well, so I told myself to wait until you were. We both know Lily can’t come here, and it won’t do for you to see her in her home.”