Barnabas remained where he was, enchanted with the play of the firelight on the muscles in Freddie’s back. Beneath the ugly impressions left by the constraining bandages, her skin was smooth and fair, and when she twisted to clean the other side, she resembled a Greek marble. He couldn’t think which one. He could hardly think at all.
The braces she’d slipped from her shoulders earlier dangled at her hips, framing the view. Without their support, her trousers had slouched low to hang from her hips, accentuating the graceful sweep from hip to waist. His body responded to the angles and particularly the arcs of hers, hardening while his eyes lingered everywhere she was softest.
“Those trousers are still wet too,” he reminded her helpfully.
“Perhaps you’d like to help me with them.”
He would. Nothing would please him more.
When he stood to cross the room, however, he glimpsed Freddie’s face in the small mirror over the washstand. Eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip caught between her teeth. It was not an expression of lustful anticipation, but anxiety. Because she was, he remembered all at once with the sick thud of painful reality slipping back into place, not actually a brazen, daring, smuggler-defying submersible thief. Not just that, anyway. Primarily she was a young, sheltered virgin who was quite possibly making heat-of-the-moment decisions she would later regret.
She’d said it herself: She didn’t know what she wanted her life to be. He could only assume the rejected plans included everything obvious and conventional, such as marriage and motherhood and helping a husband manage a small but reasonably profitable estate in the Hudson Valley. Everything, in short, that a man like Barnabas could offer. And if she wasn’t prepared to do that, should he really be doing anything like taking off her trousers? His conscience told him no. His still-stirring erection and the tingling in his balls indicated there was room for debate.
Cautiously, he wrapped his arms around what he deemed the safest portion of Freddie’s anatomy, her waist. It was a mistake. As soon as his chest came into contact with her back and he felt her sigh against him, he knew his conscience would lose the argument, and for the worst reasons. He wanted to keep holding her because she felt like she was already part of him. Knowing he could never keep her should make him back away, not squeeze tighter.
“We don’t have to do anything next, you know. Not if you’re not sure.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, placing her hands over his forearms. “Don’t you want to?”
He shifted his grip lower, pulling her hips toward his, pressing his length against the exquisite cleft of her backside. “Of course I want to. I’ve wanted to all along. I want to every time I look at you. If wanting were all that mattered, the world would be full of naked people coupling on every street corner. Nothing else would ever be accomplished. In fact there probably wouldn’t even be street corners.”
Her giggle registered against him, delightfully vibrant against his body as well as to his ears. “Good, then. Because how often in my life can I expect to be stranded in a rustic inn overnight with a beautiful man who doesn’t mind that I’m wearing trousers?”
Barnabas trailed her waistband with his fingertips, finding the placket and unbuttoning the trousers in question. “Are you just using me because I’m convenient for playing out your little fantasy?”
“Convenient and beautiful,” she reminded him.
“I ought to be offended.”
The wet wool didn’t slide off; it had to be tugged and coaxed. They were both laughing by the time he finally yanked the garment free of Freddie’s foot and held it up with a triumphant “Ha!”
She grinned at him. Standing there, in a pair of damp cotton drawers that hid nothing.
“Ha,” he said again, letting the trousers fall from his fingers. They thumped to the floor, surprisingly loud.
“Shouldn’t you put those in front of the fire?” She smirked and started for the bed, flipping the counterpane back and climbing on while he retrieved the fallen trousers and spread them carefully among the collection of slowly drying clothing.
When he turned, Freddie had already made herself comfortable, propped on one elbow and watching him. Her feet were tucked under the sheets, but the rest of her was gloriously bare. She had removed her drawers at some point while he wasn’t looking. He had a fleeting moment of disappointment about that until he lost himself gazing at the swatch of auburn that decorated the crease where her shapely thighs met. Very shapely. Luscious, even, all creamy velvet and plump curves. Then that dip at the waist, and the delicate shell of her ribs, visible beneath her skin when she breathed just so. Vital, arresting. Her breasts were smaller than they appeared when she was clothed, objectively probably too small to properly balance out her magnificent derriere. His were not objective eyes, however. To him, she looked like everything he’d ever desired.
“Stop staring.”
“But there’s so very much that’s worthy of a good, long appraisal.”
“Barnabas?”
“Mmm?”
“Stop staring and come to bed.”
• • •
SHE’D USED UP her audacity, and as Barnabas stepped closer to the bed, Freddie closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing to something approaching a reasonable rate. It was little use. She could anticipate his approach, gauge his proximity as though her body had come equipped with special Barnabas hydrophones she’d only recently activated. She knew the second before the mattress dipped under his weight, and opened her eyes as he smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
“I shouldn’t have cut it, should I? It makes me look like a boy.”
“Nobody could possibly mistake you for a boy. Not without your boy suit, anyway. Certainly not right now.”
“You’re staring again.”
His gaze tracked down the line of her body, lingering here and there. “As I said. Worthy. I want to memorize every inch of you.”
He’d taken his drawers off while her eyes were closed. Not that they’d concealed much. She could see all of him now, though, the length of his penis pressed against his thigh as he leaned in, the way the hair thickened in a dark line down from his belly.
She’d seen a naked man once before, a wandering drunk on some crooked lane in London, who’d inexplicably peeled off his clothes in the middle of the pavement while belting “Rule Britannia” to a mostly amused crowd. He’d had a fine bass voice, a barrel chest the size of an actual barrel, and whatever manhood he’d possessed had been shrunken by liquor and obscured by his prodigious belly.
Then Dan had slapped his hand over her eyes and made her promise not to look in that direction while he steered the cart around the disturbance.
This occasion wasn’t remotely like that one. That man didn’t even seem like the same species as the lovely, finely drawn creature before her now. She decided Barnabas must have his own category, one in which distinctions like clothing or nakedness were simply irrelevant. He was beautiful no matter what he did or didn’t wear. The unclothed version did have some interesting features, of course.
Freddie closed the distance between them, tracing the long muscle in his closest thigh with her fingertips. He hummed at the contact, his dark eyes fluttering shut like a shy maid’s. Like her own had, she supposed. But he didn’t protest, so she reached farther, shaping her hand around his erection. It was firm and hot, and felt more muscular than she’d expected. Springy and resistant. She could assign it no corollary on her own body to help her understand its ways by association; she’d just have to learn it from scratch.
Barnabas stopped her before she’d got very far, removing her hand with great care before shifting position to lie alongside her on the bed, head on his hand, mirroring her. But his other hand was already busy, brushing against her ribs then up to cup a breast. She expected something more, a witty remark most likely, but he didn’t say a word, just tossed ano
ther smile her way and then bent his head to suck.
His lips and teeth felt like a series of small miracles on her flesh, pulling sensations from her that she hadn’t known existed. Something about the wet heat, and the intimate connection of a mouth to a nipple or the sensitive skin surrounding it. Something about the way his dark hair slanted across his forehead, obscuring his eyes until he looked up to meet hers.
That was too much. She couldn’t look at him with him looking back and his mouth still on her like that. She closed her eyes and laid back, letting novelty and delight wash over her as Barnabas went exploring. Her breasts, thoroughly, until she was almost ready to push him off to escape the attention but at the same time realized she never wanted it to stop. Her neck and ears, in a series of tiny nibbles that left her spine zinging with joy and had her twining her legs around Barnabas’s hips in an effort to wriggle even closer. Which was impossible, because he was already lying on top of her, but she had to try anyway. Then he worked his way down, all hands and mouth and the spirit of discovery, until he settled between her legs.
“We really should have called for a bath—”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, but—”
“Shh.”
When she would have said more, he licked her. Licked, from the veriest crux of the cleft between her legs up to that higher, keener spot. A slow, meandering line of liquid warmth and intention that took all her arguments and threw them out the window. She was reduced to breathy sighs, to wordless utterances that she could only hope conveyed her absolute approval of everything he was doing with his tongue, his lips and eventually his fingers too. Carefully, methodically, he unlocked her secrets until she lay open and revealed, allowing herself to give in to trust. When it finally grew to be unbearable, the eager pressure too much to withstand, she almost cried. She didn’t want it to be over. But Barnabas grazed his tongue over that aching spot again, and again and again, and worked another finger inside her and she came, slow and hard and sweet. Her legs trembled, even though they had no weight to support. But her soul soared, stronger and steadier than ever.
“Was that all right?”
How could he even need to ask? “Quite.”
“Oh. Good.” His lips brushed one quaking inner thigh, triggering a minor aftershock in the surrounding regions. “Never done that before.”
She wanted to come back with a snappy remark, but her brain seemed turned to candy floss and fireworks. Not an unpleasant state by any means, but not conducive to witty repartee. “Weren’t you going to . . .”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right first.”
Sweet. But she’d had a climax, not a debilitating illness. “Now.”
“Are you sure—”
“Now.”
He didn’t rush, despite her command. He crawled over her, kissing his way up, until he was in more or less the appropriate position, but he paused there. Freddie opened her eyes and stared up into his face, struck by a wave of tenderness. It was dear to her, that face. He was dear to her. She was glad to be doing this with him, regardless of what happened afterward.
She didn’t know where he mustered the patience or forbearance, but he entered her slowly, clearly fretting over her well-being even as he gasped at the pleasure. Limp, sated, she let him set the pace, and was aware enough to be grateful for it. Nothing hurt much, counter to her expectation. A slight twinge when his restraint failed him for a moment and he pushed forward the last bit all at once. Then only more pleasure, happy friction between them, and the wonder of discovering that her body had been designed to do this thing all along. Completed, she felt completed, not so much by Barnabas as by the act itself and the fact of their doing it together.
He buried his face in her neck and began to work his hips, not quite as gently as he’d started, and it was all the good things in the world together, all at once, right there in her arms.
“This is why people keep having babies,” she murmured.
Barnabas chuckled, his breath hot on the skin below her ear. “Please tell me that isn’t your plan here.”
“God, no. I meant in the abstract.”
“Right.” He braced himself up on his elbows again to look her in the eye. It should have been embarrassing, like when he watched her while he sucked on her breast, but somehow it wasn’t. This was a fine position for a conversation, apparently. “I mean to withdraw. Before I—Lord, that feels good.”
“Before . . . oh. All right.”
“Freddie . . .”
Whatever he’d meant to say, he lost track of it on his next thrust. A shiver went through him, and she clutched him tighter as he sped up. Faster, deeper, like a compulsion, the sensation overtook him and he had no choice but to follow it to his finish. A final moan—thrilling, primally wonderful sound—and a thrust deeper than before, and then he yanked away, ending with his face on her belly and his hips aimed somewhere between her knees and ankles.
His hair was flopping in his face again. Freddie combed it back so she could watch him return to the world, which he did with a smile she’d never seen on his face before. She quite liked it, as long as he never took it outside the bedroom. He could fell unsuspecting women at fifty paces with such a look.
“Beautiful,” she whispered.
His words slurred when he answered, as though he were tipsy on pleasure. “I think you’re supposed to call me handsome.”
“I don’t do what I’m supposed to.”
“Fair enough. But I think everything you do is wonderful. And I’m not just saying that because—”
“I know. I think you’re wonderful too.”
He propped one fist under his chin, getting a better angle to contemplate her. “I wish it didn’t sound sad when you said it.”
She swallowed back the tears that threatened to prick through. Those pesky, unwarranted tears again. “It’s not sadness. Nothing about you makes me sad. Least of all this.”
“Wistful, then. Least of all this? Do you suppose we could do it again sometime?” He reached up with the hand not under his chin, toying with the ends of her hair where it curled around one ear. It was such an affectionate, familiar thing to do. For a moment Freddie wished she could make a whole life of this. Just her and Barnabas, a room with a bed and a fire. Perhaps smelling less like the mouth of the Blackwater River and more like something romantic and fresh, such as clear ocean air or the aroma of a rainswept meadow.
“Of course. But we really should wash first.”
“Agreed.” He pushed up and away, sitting on his heels and surveying the wreckage they’d made of the bed. Blankets thrown to the floor, sheet in utter disarray, a generally questionable air to the whole scene. Barnabas nodded at the wadded linens next to him. “It’s a disaster.”
And it would just have to remain a disaster. Freddie crooked a finger at him, and he slid down next to her, trapping her legs between his and wrapping his arms around her. She snuggled against his chest, one hand curled against the soft mat of hairs at the center of his breastbone, and decided that rainswept meadows were probably not all that fragrant anyway.
EIGHTEEN
FREDDIE DIDN’T ASK where Phineas had obtained the velocimobile. It seemed safer not to question it, simply to climb into the precariously attached sidecar and hope the thing didn’t fall to pieces before they had traveled half the fifty or so miles from Mersea back to Tilbury.
Between the chattering growl of the engine and the wind in their faces, conversation wasn’t possible between Freddie in the sidecar and Barnabas, clutching to Phineas’s waist as he straddled the main seat behind him. She was practically alone with her thoughts for the three hours to Tilbury, which was plenty of time to do exactly what Mrs. Pinkerton would have once forced her to do, waggling a finger in her face until she did it.
You sit right there, young lady, and think about what you’ve done!
And so she did.
She had expected to feel transformed, somehow, as though something wonderful but at the same time cataclysmic had happened. Indelibly altered, perhaps marked in some mysterious way. Instead she felt more or less the same as she had before making love to Barnabas. Clearer about her reasons for wanting to do it again, certainly. A trifle sore between the legs, perhaps, though not from any rending of her maidenhead but from simple muscle strain. It had been ambitious of them to engage in that sort of romp, after sitting for hours in a cold submersible, then swimming to shore in clothes that grew heavier as they grew soggier. That was the sort of thing she wouldn’t have known to consider before, of course. The athleticism. The sheer physicality of the business. The surprising and pleasant absence of any rending whatsoever. He’d been so careful, so considerate.
She peered at Barnabas, taking a moment to admire his profile, much of which was obscured behind the thick goggles and leather helmet he wore. She and Phineas were similarly outfitted, so even if Barnabas had looked her way, the tinted goggles would hide her eyes and her undoubtedly foolishly tender expression. She knew she wore that face because she could feel it. And she wanted to feel Barnabas again, perhaps finishing what they’d had to call a halt to this morning. His warm skin against hers, the delicious friction of the hair on his thighs rubbing against the smooth backs of her legs, the sweet grind of his hips into her bottom as they both woke up. Already sliding together, meshing, as if they’d never stopped.
Then Phineas had knocked.
Did he look at her differently when he entered the room, see her new status on her face like a brand or a scar? It was impossible to tell. He hid behind that eye patch, as usual, and the alarming facial hair. Of course, he’d also left them alone in the first place, so perhaps he just assumed they’d already been engaging in . . . that.
Intercourse, she told herself boldly, refusing to accept her mind’s attempt to censor itself. Carnal knowledge. Sexual congress. She’d always thought “sexual congress” sounded like a particularly naughty method of government.
Gilded Lily Page 20
