Had she ranted at him, like he thought she might, he could have stood his ground. But her disappointment changed him, and he suddenly realized he wasn’t ready to give up.
“All right. But again, I want you to promise you won’t get upset or angry at anything I might ask you.”
She looked at him as though he were witless. “Dante, I’m not asking for a lifelong commitment,” she reminded him. “I have already promised, haven’t I?”
On a sigh, he said, “Yes, you have promised. But I seriously doubt you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for.”
Had Eleanor been a weaker woman, she might have taken his reluctance more personally. She might have rued the day she was born plain and intelligent instead of beautiful and dumb. Not that his unwillingness had not affected her, it had—on some level. But she quickly went beyond that. She truly wanted to learn from him.
That evening, after they had dined on lobster that had been cooked over the fire, Dante began in earnest.
“Eleanor, how long has it been since you’ve been with a man?”
She was grateful her clothing had dried; she somehow felt safer wrapped in all of her garments. ‘“A man’?” she asked, unable to curb her sarcasm. “You mean Amos, don’t you?”
His look was steady. “You have never slept with anyone else?”
She straightened, ready to issue a sharp comment until she remembered his warning. “No, I have never slept with any man but my late husband.”
“How often did he bed you?”
A flush stole into her cheeks. “Really, Dante, what does this have—”
“Eleanor,” he warned.
She listened to the penetrating sounds of distant gulls, amazed at how eerie those sounds were when the birds could not be seen. It was like they were mere figments that the fog had conjured up, that they were not real at all.
“Well, since I was a whaling widow for the first four years of our marriage, I imagine it worked out to be about once every couple of years.” Actually, she could count the number of times on both hands with fingers left over.
“And when you joined him on the St. Louis?”
She lifted a sardonic brow. “Not at all.” Glancing at him across the fire, she added, “I was pregnant, remember?”
“Pregnancy does not prohibit intercourse, Eleanor.”
She was honestly surprised. “Really? But, he said—”
“I don’t care what he said. It’s not true. When a woman is carrying a man’s child in her womb, she often becomes even more beautiful, at least to the man who has planted his seed there.”
Eleanor thought of her dreams, of the perfect partner who would be the mate to her soul, who would love her, laugh with her, kiss her each night before bed. She had never imagined such a man might feel as deeply as she did. Amos certainly hadn’t.
“As long as the woman is healthy,” Dante continued, “intercourse is possible until very close to the date she is due. Many men find it extremely erotic.”
Eleanor made a soft, disgusted sound, finishing it with a quiet curse. “Well, obviously Amos didn’t have that problem.”
Dante’s lingering gaze caught hers. “Amos had a lot of other problems, Eleanor.”
Eleanor shrugged, letting thoughts of Amos drift away like smoke on the wind. Suddenly curious, she asked, “Have you ever sired a child?”
He chuckled. “Not that I’m aware of.”
She felt braver. “When was the last time you had intercourse?” The word sounded foreign on her tongue, but she forced herself to say it.
He leaned back and looked into the bleak sky. “We’re not discussing me.”
“I thought it was a fair question. I only want to know how often a man feels the need for a woman.”
“All men are different,” he commented. “Some men sleep with their wives out of duty, then have their needs fulfilled by a mistress or a prostitute.”
She had a long string of cutting remarks for him on that subject, but held her tongue. “If you ever marry, will you keep your mistresses?”
He exhaled deeply. “It’s a moot point, Eleanor. I don’t ever see myself as a husband.”
“But if you did,” she urged.
“It’s a common practice.”
Eleanor grew pensive. “I couldn’t live with that. It would be more hurtful than anything I can imagine.”
“You might have no choice,” he warned her.
“Then I would leave him.”
He laughed softly. “And where would you go?”
“To the orphanage,” she answered, realizing that was exactly what she would do. “I would ask them to let me work with the children for my room and board. Maybe I’d even become a nun.”
He guffawed, the sound echoing in the misty air around them.
“And what’s so funny about that?”
His gaze was warm and filled with humor. “Eleanor, you might be prim and prudish on the outside, but I guarantee you that on the inside, you’re seething with an abundance of passion. Once it’s awakened, you could never accept the life of a nun.”
She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. “You think I have passion?”
“I do, indeed.”
They sat quietly, Eleanor mulling this news over and over in her brain.
Dante broke the silence. “I think we’ve covered enough for now. Tonight, dear Ellie, I will teach you a couple of things every good wife should know about keeping her husband’s shoes from appearing under another woman’s bed.”
They rested against the wooden lean-to that he had made earlier, sipping the last of the brandy before the fire. Dante realized he actually liked Eleanor. Yes, she was straightforward, outspoken to a fault, and brusque, but she could be charming and naive, and even funny.
What he knew about Amos would hurt her. He no longer wanted to. As far as he was concerned, she need never know.
“Dante? What do you usually sleep in?” Before he could answer, she added, “I can’t quite imagine you in a cap and nightshirt.”
He moved to get more comfortable. “When I’m aboard ship, I often sleep in my clothes because I don’t want to be taken off guard by a storm or some other surprise.”
“And when you’re at home?”
Her question stirred him. “Nothing.”
“And…and your mistresses? What do they sleep in?”
He grunted impatiently. “This session isn’t supposed to be about me, Eleanor.”
“I know, I know. Just answer it.”
“It isn’t what a woman wears that touches a man’s erogenous zones—”
“Erogenous zones?” The word slurred very slightly.
“Something that awakens all of his carnal instincts,” he explained.
“What are they?”
“Do you want them all?”
She snuggled against him, a purely feminine reaction, and one that no longer surprised him. “Just name those you think are the most important.”
He stroked her knee through her gown. “In women, I think the most sexually arousing erogenous zones are the mouth,” he said, softly touching her lips with his fingertips, “the ears,” he continued, blowing into hers very lightly until he heard her laugh quietly and move away, “and the neck,” he finished, dragging his lips over the skin just below her ear. He felt her shiver, and was tempted to continue.
“What else?”
He decided to get brave. “Nipples are very erotic.”
“Show me again,” she ordered, her voice soft.
Dante held his breath, then touched her breast through her layers of clothing, not surprised to find a considerably erect nipple beneath his fingertips.
Eleanor gasped and quickly pushed his hand away. “Oh, my. That sensation forges a path all the way to my toes.” She slanted him a curious look. “How can that be?”
“What do you mean?”
On a sigh, she said, “We don’t mean anything to one another, yet…your touch moves me. Why?”
Da
nte swore under his breath. She was so damned practical and businesslike. “Do you have to analyze everything?” he asked, more sharply than he’d meant to.
“Well, it puzzles me, Dante. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Feelings and emotions never make sense. They can’t be explained. That’s why they don’t call them ‘facts’ or ‘certainties.’ Now, where were we?”
She rested against him again. “You were explaining erogenous zones. Tell me another.” Her voice was breathy, her words a little fuzzy.
He swallowed and cleared his throat. “The inner thighs.”
She made a soft sound. “No one has ever touched me there.”
“Probably because they were afraid of castration,” he said wryly.
She hit him with her fist, then rubbed the area, as if to erase the aggressive gesture. “I’m trying to change. Where else?”
He went for broke. “The vaginal lips and the clitoris.”
“Oh, yes,” she said on a whisper. “That last thing—”
“The clitoris,” he repeated. “Say it, Eleanor.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath, then, “Clitoris. Is that what gives a woman pleasure?”
“If it’s stroked, it often brings a woman to orgasm,” he advised.
“That’s what it’s called? Orgasm?”
“It is,” he answered.
“Exactly what is it, this pleasure?”
Dante cursed under his breath. The conversation was bizarre, to say the least. “It’s intense sexual excitement.”
“You can’t explain it any better than that?” she asked, sounding disappointed.
“It’s one of those things that is better experienced, than simply talked about,” he answered dryly. Although sometimes, like now, talking about it could make a man pretty damned horny.
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “A woman doesn’t always experience that, does she?”
“No, I don’t suppose she does.” Good Christ! No one he knew would believe this conversation.
She was quiet again, then admitted, “I’ve never had an orgasm.”
He wasn’t surprised, but didn’t say so.
“And even if I marry, I might not have one.” She gazed into the night. “I could live my whole life and not have an orgasm. Do you realize that?” She straightened and looked at him, her eyelids a little heavy; the brandy had affected her.
“After all,” she continued, gesturing dramatically, “most men are primarily concerned with their own needs. How could I be sure the man I marry would care about mine?”
He almost said something, but she rambled on.
“Oh, sure,” she continued emotionally, “a man might promise to make her the happiest woman alive, but that doesn’t mean he really knows how, does it?” She sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve.
She turned to him again and shook a finger in his face. “I’ll just bet gentle, sweet Sylvester doesn’t even know what a clitoris is, and saying the word ‘orgasm’ out loud would probably send him into apoplexy.
“Oh,” she continued with a shudder. “I can’t even imagine him without a shirt and trousers on. He would probably undress beneath the covers, for fear that I would see his pasty, freckled skin, and he would turn scarlet with embarrassment if I ever asked him the questions I have asked you.”
Dante laughed, in spite of his efforts not to. He grabbed her finger and squeezed it gently. “Eleanor, you’re drunk.”
Pulling from his grip, she said, “Not yet, but hopefully I will be soon.” She drained her cup, smacking her lips as she tossed the tin vessel onto the grass.
She rose, weaving slightly as she moved in front of him, parting his knees so she could get closer. “So,” she began, all businesslike again. “Have you seen one, and if you have, what does it look like?”
Dante groaned. “Eleanor—”
“My rules, Dante. Answer me.”
He wanted another cup of brandy but decided one of them should stay sober. “Yes, I’ve seen a clitoris.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And?”
“It’s an erectile structure similar to the corpora cavernosa of the penis.” He had lifted this from a translated version of a Chinese book on sex.
She stared at him. “It’s an erectile ‘what’ similar to the ‘what’ of a penis?”
Realizing his mistake, he said, hoping she wouldn’t punch him in the mouth, “Like the penis, it gets hard when you’re horny.”
To his relief she tossed her head back and laughed, expelling an indelicate snort as she did so.
“All right.” He had some experience, to be sure, but much of what he learned had been from ancient readings and descriptions during a time when such things were discussed quite freely.
“An average one is perhaps an inch long, but most, if not all, of its length is hooded, or covered by a flap of tissue. But the size doesn’t matter, Ellie, because it’s liberally endowed with sensitive nerve endings which make it the kind of button that, when stroked, will cause a woman to scream with pleasure.”
She made a disparaging sound in her throat. “Scream?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Did your mistresses scream?”
Actually, none of them had. “I don’t have to answer that.”
She turned between his legs and rested against him. “I’d like to have an orgasm.” Her voice was wistful.
He gave her a fatherly pat on the arm. “I’m sure you will one day.”
“No,” she said, turning slightly. “I mean now. I want you to give me one.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. “Eleanor, you’re an extraordinary woman”
She turned, her expression wary. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he explained, “since I’ve known you, you’ve laughed at me, slapped me, nagged me, and generally tried to emasculate me. Now, you’re asking me to bring you to orgasm.”
“Well, I’ve learned you’re not such a bad person,” she admitted, “even though you sleep with married women, which,” she added sternly, “is not a nice thing to do, Dante.”
He was beginning to realize that more and more, but they were still safer than single ones.
“So? Will you do it?”
“You’d kill me once you sobered up,” he reasoned.
“You won’t do it.” She slumped against him, disappointed. “So, I’ll never have one.”
He pressed his nose against her hair, which hung down her back in a long, thick braid. She had always smelled good to him. Clean, without artifice. “I love your hair, Ellie. Even that first day I met you, as I watched you leave my office. The sun glinted off it, making it shine like nothing I’d seen before.”
“Yes, yes,” she answered impatiently. “We weren’t talking about my hair. We were talking about my orgasm.”
He expelled a gust of air. “I could give you one, but—”
“But, what?” she interrupted. “But…you don’t want to touch me there? Why not? I’m asking you to. Dante, if you don’t, I may live the rest of my life never knowing that kind of pleasure.”
That would be a crime. But she had to understand something. “Eleanor, lovemaking should flow like music,” he explained. “Does that make sense?”
“You mean, things should change and progress easily from one thing to another.”
She was remarkable. So often he found they were on the same page, the same plain, the same sheet of music. “And to force something to come makes it stilted and mechanical.”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“And if I were to reach under your skirt and attempt to arouse you without preparation or seduction, neither of us would be satisfied.”
She expelled an exasperated sigh. “I suppose you’re right, but—”
“Why don’t we just wait and see what happens?” he suggested. Suddenly he wanted to do it. He wanted to see the surprise and the pure lust on her features when she felt it coming. He wanted to know what kind she would have. He
needed to know if she would be loud and uninhibited, or quiet and demure. Never for a moment did he even consider that she might not have one at all.
Fourteen
Sometime during the night, Dante woke, cold. “Eleanor,” he whispered, “you’re hogging the blanket.”
She rolled onto her side. “Spoon,” she murmured, settling against him.
He pulled her close, tucking in the blanket over them as she wiggled her bottom into his crotch.
“Better?” she asked, her voice croaky with sleep.
“Much,” he admitted, but he immediately hardened against her. All the talk about orgasms had sent him to bed unsatisfied.
Eleanor lifted her arm, allowing his hand and forearm to rest against her stomach, while she brought her arm down on top of his. “Warm yourself,” she whispered. Both nights of their isolation, she had slept in her bloomers, her chemise, and the flannel shirt he had in the provisions kit.
He moved his hand around, finding her bare stomach through the opening in her drawers. She sucked in a breath, but did not push him away.
“Your skin is so warm and soft,” he said without thinking, for it was true.
“And your hand is cold,” she volleyed, but did not remove it.
“It will warm up fast,” he promised her.
She emitted a low chuckle. “And what will you do with it in the meantime?”
It wasn’t a blatant invitation, but it was a start. “I shall be a perfect gentleman,” he promised, the fingers on his unoccupied hand crossed at the lie.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered, so softly he wasn’t sure he heard her.
Her fingers stroked his forearm. “I’ve admired your arms, Dante. You’re strong. The veins stand out like paving stone.”
Her movement brought one breast in contact with his arm, and he moved his hand up to cup it. She gasped, then sighed. “And I saw your breasts the day after we arrived,” he admitted. “They jiggled so sweetly and should never be hidden beneath so many ugly pieces of clothing.”
She chuckled, a husky, sensual sound. “And what should I be doing with them? Baring them for all to see?”
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