by Nan Ryan
“I want you to make love to me, Hank,” Claire said, and did not flinch when he pushed the gown’s other strap off her shoulder. “That’s why I invited you here.”
The lace bodice slipped low, but caught and clung to her full breasts. Supposing that he would quickly push it down to her waist, Claire was surprised when instead he took hold of her hand, sat back on his bare heels and gazed at her from heavily lidded eyes.
“You are one desirable woman,” he said, examining her. “You have no idea how much I want you.”
“And I you,” she assured him. “There’s just one thing.”
Hank frowned. “Now what?”
Claire smiled at him. “It must be understood between us that this is to be but a brief summertime affair. Nothing more. No strings attached. No recriminations when it ends.”
Hank grinned. “You picked the right boy here, Duchess,” he said and meant it.
Slightly taken aback, Claire tilted her head to one side. “Oh? Are you so certain then that you won’t fall a little in love with me?”
“Just as sure as you are that you’ll forget me the minute you leave Saratoga. We’re two of kind, Duchess. We understand each other perfectly.”
Hank again rose into a kneeling position and drew her up against him. At once Claire felt her nipples tighten through the covering lace of her bodice.
“Let’s stop wasting precious time,” Hank said, “Kiss me, Charmaine. Kiss me.”
Claire nodded, put her hands to his ribs and kissed him lightly on the lips. To her surprise, Hank’s response was disappointingly tepid. Nonplussed, she tried again. Nothing. She playfully licked at his lips. She ran the tip of her tongue along the seam of his closed mouth. She bit his full lower lip. She tightened her arms around his waist and kissed him more aggressively, thrusting her tongue between his teeth to touch and toy with his. She kissed him over and over again.
Finally she took her lips from his, drew back a little, and anxiously asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?” Then she caught the hint of devilment shining out of his beautiful blue eyes and knew that he was dallying with her the way she’d been dallying with him. “No more games, Hank, I swear it.”
“In that case…” he said, easing her arms from around his waist and placing them at her sides, he peeled the lace gown down around her waist. A hot light instantly leaping into his eyes, he focused on her creamy breasts with their soft satiny nipples. But he did not touch them. Not yet. Instead he laid his hand on the outsides of her thighs and began to urge the lacy fabric of her nightgown up.
Claire helped free the gown, raising one knee, then the other. When it was no longer caught beneath her, Hank sat her back on her heels and pushed the lace garment up past her knees, but no farther.
Claire suddenly felt very vulnerable and uncertain. She was nervous as she’d never been before. She wasn’t sure what would happen next. She trembled when Hank impulsively lowered his head and kissed her right knee. Her breath grew short when his fiery lips moved slowly up her thigh, his handsome face nudging the lace out of his way as he kissed her.
Terrified that he would keep going higher and terrified that he wouldn’t, Claire released a pent-up breath when he lifted his head and smiled sexily at her.
Then wordlessly, they both rose up off their heels to put their arms around each other. Looking into her shining violet eyes, Hank said, “Kiss me again, Duchess, and this time I’ll help a little.”
Claire nodded and eagerly pressed her lips to his. Hank immediately took over, slanting his mouth across hers, parting her lips with his tongue, making her his own. Just as it had been on the veranda of the United States Hotel, Claire found his kiss thrilling beyond belief, so powerful and so shockingly intimate it was almost like they were already completely making love.
Her eyes closed, her naked breasts flattened against the firm muscles of Hank’s broad bare chest, Claire knelt there on that rose petal strewn, satin-sheeted bed kissing the most exciting man she’d ever known. It was pure heaven. The thought occurred that if the two of them never did anything more than what they were doing right now, she would be totally content.
Claire felt as if she could never get enough of Hank’s fiery kisses. The mastery of his mouth inflamed her, made the blood surge through her veins, made her bare nipples tighten and ache like never before. She hoped he couldn’t tell just how much his burning kisses were affecting her. Hoped he wouldn’t suspect that she was an inept novice whose sleeping passions he was all too easily awakening.
Claire became aware of Hank’s tanned fingers caressing her throat and sliding down to her breasts as the scorching kisses continued. She felt as if her entire body were on fire. His kisses were at once playful, teasing and demanding. His tongue delved deep, exploring the inner recesses of her mouth while she trembled and melted in his arms.
After dozens of hot, penetrating kisses, Hank finally took his lips from hers. Claire’s head fell back. Hank loosened his encircling arms, letting her go. She sank back down onto her heels, half dazed. Then looked up at him, filled with passion. Seemingly pleased with her response, Hank sat back on his heels.
He spread his knees wide, reached out and put his hands to Claire’s waist. He drew her forward until she was inside the V of his open thighs. He then lifted her, leaned forward and whispered shocking words against her bare warm flesh as he kissed her throat and moved slowly down toward her breasts.
Claire sighed and held her breath as Hank’s lips made a slow, tantalizing descent until at last they brushed a kiss to her tight left nipple.
At the touch of his lips, Claire emitted a little gasp of pleasure and automatically thrust both breasts forward. Hank gave the stinging nipple several plucking, playful kisses, then opened his mouth upon it and circled it with his tongue, licking it into a swollen bud of tingling sensation. Claire breathed shallowly and put her hands into his thick raven hair. She anxiously held him to her and laid her hot cheek atop his dark head.
Hank bit harmlessly at the rigid nipple, raked his teeth back and forth across it and gently pulled at it. Claire whimpered softly. Then he began sucking it until the nipple was swollen and erect and Claire’s eyes were closing with rising ecstasy. She murmured his name and kissed his silky raven hair.
Hank moved across her chest to the other waiting breast. When he’d kissed and suckled it for several long seconds, he finally released the pebble-hard nipple. Claire took her lips from his disheveled hair and sank weakly back onto her heels.
Hank raised his head and looked at Charmaine.
Never had he seen a more beautiful woman than this one. She sat there with the bodice of her lace gown down around her hips, her pale, perfect breasts bare, the nipples taut and gleaming wet from his kisses. Her golden hair was loose and spilling down around her shoulders, the white rose still stuck into the lustrous locks just above her ear.
Her eyes were shining with unmasked desire, yet there was, amazingly, a look of girlish shyness about her. Tremendously appealing. It made him want to take her in his arms and touch her tenderly and teach her patiently as though she were an innocent.
“Stay there just as you are, Charmaine,” Hank instructed and with a fluid grace that caused Claire to blink in bafflement, he swiftly moved around her. The next thing she knew, he was kneeling behind her, drawing her back against him. After wrapping a strong forearm wrapped around her waist, Hank began kissing the side of her throat and the curve of her neck and shoulder.
Claire closed her eyes when his encircling arm loosened and his tanned hand spread on her flat stomach and slipped beneath the lace where it was bunched around her hips. She felt those fiery fingers on her bare belly, stroking gently, moving lower.
Claire sighed deeply, lifted an arm up and hooked it behind Hank’s head. Her stomach was contracting sharply from the thrilling touch of his lean fingers. Her heart was throbbing in her naked breasts. Her entire body was tensed. Waiting. Yearning.
The slow, sure descent of Hank’s hand continu
ed. Beneath the cover of lace, he gently stroked and caressed her quivering belly. And when he reached that triangle of golden curls between her thighs, he raked through the springy coils and possessively cupped her, his hand gently closing over her.
“Mine, for tonight,” he said huskily. “Tell me this is mine.”
“Yours, Hank. All yours,” she said on a sigh.
He clasped her a little more firmly, his cupping hand lifting her a little, pressing her buttocks more firmly back against his pelvis. Hank kissed her temple and with gentle fingers spread the golden curls protecting that ultrasensitive feminine flesh between her open thighs.
“Ahhh,” Claire sighed when his long middle finger lightly touched that tiny nubbin of flesh, swollen with desire, aching for his caress. “Hank, oh Hank.”
With his middle and fore fingers, Hank began to slowly, gently circle that pulsing button of flesh, arousing Claire so carefully, so expertly she experienced an odd mixture of contentment and anxiety. She loved what he was doing to her. Loved the way she felt with his hand moving so coaxingly on her and the erotic sight of those lean dark fingers moving beneath the covering white lace. She hoped he would keep his hand there just where it was, that he would keep her at the thrilling level of ecstasy she was now enjoying.
At the same time she felt increasingly anxious, as if something were about to happen to her body over which she had no control. Something intense and frightening and foreign.
Hank was fully attuned to Charmaine’s ever changing feelings. Keenly aware of her rapidly escalating state of arousal. She was so incredibly hot and excited it was surprising. It was as if this very passionate woman had been without a lover for a long time. That couldn’t be, of course. But that’s how her body was behaving.
Hank smiled with satisfaction. It was going to be one wild night.
Whispering encouragement, Hank continued to give the duchess what she wanted. It was—for now—too late to take his hand away, get undressed, press her down onto her back and bury himself deep inside her. He and his aching erection would just have to wait.
“Hank, Hank, Hank.” Claire murmured his name in a breathless litany.
Hank continued to fondle and caress that most feminine part of her which was so distended, so fully aroused it was a throbbing point of pure sensation. Hank coaxed a silky wetness from her and spread it from its source over the spot where she was burning. And while he caressed her, he whispered to her in a low, soothing voice, told her how he longed to keep her like this for as long as she’d let him.
“An hour. A night. Forever, darlin’,” he said softly.
“Forever,” she echoed.
On fire, more excited than she’d imagined possible, Claire squirmed and sighed and grew ever hotter as Hank’s masterful hand pleasured her.
Feeling feverish and half-frightened, Claire again looked down and saw—partially concealed beneath the lace of her nightgown—that beautiful artistic hand moving between her open thighs. The sight of his lean brown fingers so expertly toying with her burning flesh was incredibly erotic.
Too erotic.
“Oh, oh, oh…” she began to pant and her eyes grew wide with fear and wonder. She felt as if she was going to actually explode, shatter into a million pieces and rain down all over the bed.
Hank kept her anchored with a forearm around her waist while his sex-wet fingers continued to caress and coax the coming orgasm from her. Within seconds the wrenching climax began and Claire cried out in ecstasy.
“Don’t! Stop! Don’t…don’t ever stop!” she pleaded almost tearfully, feeling as if she would surely die if he took his magical hand from her.
“Never, baby, never,” Hank soothed and continued to gently stroke her until her wild elation reached that fearsome crescendo and she splintered in sweet eruption.
As boneless as a rag doll, Claire sank back against Hank’s supporting chest, her breath coming fast, her hair in her eyes, her heart pounding. Throat dust-dry, body glistening with perspiration, Claire was struck with an overwhelming desire to laugh merrily because she was so incredibly happy.
She remained silent.
She didn’t dare let Hank Cassidy know that she had just experienced her first sexual climax.
Sixteen
Claire wasn’t sure when or how it happened, but as she came out of her lovely stupor, she realized that Hank was seated on the edge of the mattress with his feet on the floor and she was sitting on his lap. Her lace nightgown was missing. Where could it have gone? She had no idea. She was as completely naked while Hank, though bare chested, still wore his dark trousers. His arm was wrapped around her waist and his hand was draped across her knees.
“It’s too warm in here,” he said.
“Is it?”
“Let’s go out onto the balcony and cool off.”
Claire nodded happily. “Yes, let’s. The balcony is totally private. We can’t be seen out there.”
Hank grinned. “You checked it out, anticipating this momentous occasion?”
“I did,” Claire admitted, lifting a hand and touching his bottom lip with her fingertips. “From the first moment I saw you, my fondest fantasy has been to have you make love to me on this balcony in the moonlight.”
“Duchess, it’s about to happen,” he said and rose to his feet with her in his arms. As he crossed to the open double doors, Hank told her, “I first saw you the day you arrived at the Springs. You were getting off the train at the depot. Your hair was shining like spun gold in the sunlight and I wanted you then and there.”
Claire laughed and said, “I first saw you later that day. You were getting out of a carriage in front of the cottages of the United States Hotel. I stopped and stared. And I wanted you for my lover.”
“I wish I’d known. You should have called out to me. We would have made love that very afternoon.”
“I’m glad we didn’t. The waiting has made this night a special one. Admit it, you want me more now than you did that first day.”
Hank shrugged bare shoulders. “I wanted you then, I want you now.” He carried Claire across the room and out onto the moon-silvered balcony. He went directly to the wide railing, turned about, leaned back against it, and kissed Claire. As they kissed, he slowly lowered her to her bare feet.
For several long seconds the pair stood there kissing in the moonlight while the night breeze rustled the leaves on the trees in the garden below and cooled their pressing bodies.
At once the kiss became abandoned, ravenous. Hank’s hands moved eagerly over Claire’s body. He clasped the twin cheeks of her bottom and pressed her into his pelvis.
Claire could feel his awesome erection straining the confines of his tight trousers. She provocatively rubbed herself against him and felt him surge and seek her warmth. At last she tore her lips from his, raised up on tiptoe, and whispered in his ear, “You going to leave those trousers on all night?”
She pulled back a little and, looking into his flashing eyes, put her hands between their bodies and unbuckled his belt.
Hank made no offer to help. He stood perfectly still, arms at his sides, while she unbuttoned his trousers. Once the pants were undone, Claire put her hands into the waistband at the sides. She waited for a heartbeat, then shoved the trousers down over his flat belly and slim hips, releasing him. He sprang free and Claire stared in awe as the trousers whispered down his long, leanly muscled legs and came to rest around his bare feet. Hank stepped out of them and kicked them aside.
He drew Claire back into his arms and held her.
Claire gasped at the feel of him, hot and naked against her. His rock-hard erection was pulsing against her bare belly, its insistence stirring incredible sensations in her responsive flesh. At once there were circles of fire around her breasts and a strong ache was starting between her thighs.
Hank slowly lowered his head and kissed her.
Her arms looped around his neck, Claire stood naked in the moonlight, weak and willing, with this magnificent man whose lo
vemaking was ten times more thrilling than any fantasy.
Claire blinked when finally Hank’s lips left hers. His hands lifted, framed her face and he gazed at her, his eyes glowing like an animal’s in the darkness. Those gleaming eyes mesmerized, hypnotized and she trembled against him, feeling their power, struggling to resist being too easily conquered by him.
“Touch me, Charmaine,” Hank coaxed, his voice low, persuasive, and he set her back from him.
He dropped his arms to his sides again and waited. Claire didn’t hesitate. She immediately began an intimate exploration of his tall, lean body, her hands moving over his muscled chest and down to his trim waist.
Determined to act like the libertine he thought her to be, she found it to be amazingly natural. This ruggedly handsome man had her behaving like a wanton whose only desire was to have his fiercely masculine body possess hers.
Claire slid her hands back up Hank’s chest and placed her warm palms directly over his flat brown nipples. She kept her hands spread upon him for several seconds, relishing the feel of the firm muscle, the smooth warmth of his skin. She moved her hands aside, leaned forward, put out the tip of her tongue, and licked him.
She felt his body tense.
She lifted her head, looked up at him, lowered her hand, and circled his navel with her forefinger. Then she traced the line of thick raven hair leading down his flat brown belly, purposely allowing the back of her hand to brush his bobbing erection.
Hank waited with baited breath, then exhaled anxiously when finally she wrapped slender fingers loosely around him.
Claire thrilled to the size and the heat of all that male power enclosed in her hand. It was now in her possession, hers to do with as she pleased. The thought struck her that she was not the weaker sex at this moment in time. She was the dominant one. She had total control over this big, strong man. She felt giddy with delight.
She said impishly, “You’re throbbing in my hand, Hank.”
