In Bed with a Spy (13 page)

“Only some of them. Rest your weight on both legs. And don’t do anything until I tell you.” He moved to face her. “Equal weight on both legs.”

“Jeremy said to put my weight on the left leg.” But she shifted her weight as he’d asked.

“I’m not Jeremy. Bend your knees a little more.” He demonstrated and she followed suit. “Some believe that the weight should be equally distributed, so that you are planted more firmly on the ground.”

She danced forward. “It feels different. Stronger.” Her stocking feet moved over the floor, flexing, pointing, a blur of silk and skin. “And I know you are not Jeremy.”

“Good. You and me, Lilias. No one else.”

Her feet paused in their movements, then started again. “No one else.” She met his gaze, but he could not read the emotion in her eyes. “Am I standing correctly?”

“Ultimately, the choice of stance will be made by your body.” He smiled. “You simply need to let your body tell you.”

Her gaze swept over him. “My body has already told me what it wants.”

Desire flickered, a low burn that spread like wildfire through his blood. To counteract it, he raised his sword. “Follow my lead, then.”

He lead her through a parade of carte, step-by-step. His borrowed breeches moved against her buttocks, stretching, molding. Delight lit her eyes.

And it was he that helped put it there. Something warm bloomed in him, something that wasn’t lust or admiration.

When she parried his thrust and then neatly counterattacked to put him on the defensive, he laughed aloud and let that warmth ring in the sound.

“You know more than you let on,” he puffed out, pulling the mask from his head and dropping it on the floor. He wanted to see her face.

Her form was rough, but she knew the positions, the moves. And she made little breathy sounds with each thrust. Sounds he’d heard before. Her breath had hitched in, then stuttered out when he’d slid into her body.

She stepped back. Her own mask landed on the floor beside his. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a disheveled mass of blond.

“More,” she said, her eyes dangerous and bright.

It was impossible not to think of taking her, right there on the floor. He was hard, and feeling reckless enough to try the fencing bout without the masks.

“En garde.”

And they began again, more delicately, but this time he could see her eyes more easily. Watch her cheeks flush with pleasure.

“You’re looking at me in that way, Angel.” She parried his thrust, their foils paused in midair. She stepped toward him, her blade sliding down so that the hilts locked. For a moment, they simply stood, sword to sword, toe to toe, mouth to mouth. “When you look at me that way, I can feel it in my skin. In my blood.”

Lust could be brutal. A merciless need that swept a man’s feet from beneath him and sent him to his knees.

He couldn’t stop himself from taking her mouth. She tasted sweet, and faintly like wine. Her lips were soft and warm and opened beneath his. He wanted to be skin to skin, to feel her against him. In a bed this time. No barriers of clothing.

His arm came around her, his hand pressing into the small of her back. To draw her forward, draw her in. But their blades still crossed. Always, there was a battle between them.

He eased back and looked into that magnificent face. Her lashes swept up, a gold arc revealing bright eyes. Slowly, those kiss-reddened lips smiled.

“An interesting way to end a bout, Angel.” Her tone was silky and low.

“Is the swordplay over, then?”

“A very, very bad jest.” She laughed and stepped away. The foil in her hand dipped to the floor. “Can you think of nothing more original than that?”

“Come to bed, then.”

“O
NLY A BED?”
Laughter danced in her eyes. “How unadventurous. Surely a spy can think of somewhere better.”

“Bed.” He pictured her there, hair spread over the pillow, arms opening to draw him in. Unhurried, so he could feast on her. The half arousal plaguing him this last hour sprang full.

“Then we shall be traditional.” She walked to the table, hips moving under the loose breeches. A silent temptation.

“Perhaps women should wear breeches regularly.” He cocked his head and watched the light sway of her hips.

“I can’t imagine it.” The foil clinked against wood as she lay it down. “Too provocative.”

“So they are,” he said, unable to find a fault in that.

She looked natural wearing them. Her body moved with a confident awareness that spoke of knowledge. Of her body, her sexuality, her figure. Herself. Perhaps it was her awareness of self that caught him. It was an intoxicating combination. What man would betray his country—become an assassin—and risk losing this woman?

Christ, those breeches would make a dead man hard. What it did to a live man—well.

She held out her hand, palm up. He set his hand over hers, closed it around delicate bones and soft skin. It felt strange, as though he accepted more than her body. What he had just been gifted, he could not say.

Stepping backward, he drew her from the room, ignoring the foils. They could be dealt with later. He could not ignore Lilias when she looked up at him through her lashes in just that way.

The quiet hallways and dark stairs leading to his room seemed impossibly long. When they reached it, he closed the door behind them. There was no fire in the grate, no candle lit. Just darkness. Offering sensation, concealing secrets.

Her hand was small in his. He shifted his fingers so they entwined with hers. Brought them to his lips. A kiss, another, over a finger, then a knuckle. He found that lovely hollow between thumb and forefinger, tasted.

He set his other hand on their joined ones, then skimmed it over her arm in slow ascent. He could not feel her skin beneath the sleeve of his shirt, only the shape of her. The narrow expanse of wrist. A forearm that curved just so. A surprisingly delicate elbow. Then the lightly muscled upper arm, the arc of her shoulder. She tipped her head to the side as his fingers rasped over her collarbone. Delicate there as well.

He found the nape of her neck. Curling wisps of hair flirted with his fingers. He drew her forward, hands still entwined. Her scent met him first. Bright and clean. Then her lips touched his. Soft. Full. Opening beneath his mouth without even the slightest urging.

Now he tasted her. Wine. Woman. The essence only she could create. Her tongue played with his, as bold as the hand that snaked up his shoulder to tangle in his hair. She pressed herself against him, eliminating that small space between. Breasts were marvelous, he decided, when they were free beneath a man’s shirt. Pointed nipples pressed against his chest and he could feel the fullness of her breasts.

She wanted him, and that was a satisfying thing. The knowledge of it beat a rhythm inside him. Throbbing just beneath his skin.

He could not see, was blind to all but sensation. His hands roamed. Skimmed over her cheeks. He had not realized cheekbones were composed of peaks and valleys. Beneath his thumbs was a mountain range of female bone and skin. He had to press his lips there. To touch those crests. From there it was easy to find the line of her jaw. And that led to the hollow between her collarbone. Another valley to explore.

Her fingers dove into his hair. The constraining leather cord slipped away and landed somewhere near his left foot. He did not care. The body pressed against his was lithe and pliant, the fingers tracing his jaw frantic to touch him. The moan low in her throat vibrated against his lips.

It seemed impossible that such need could resonate inside a woman and then shudder through a man. Could sexual hunger flow from one person to another?

“Lilias.” He needed more of her. He could not touch enough of her. The ridges of her spine beneath the linen shirt. The smooth skin of her back. The roundness of her buttocks.

“You
are
bent on seduction, are you not?” Her words were barely more than breath.

“Only if touching you equals seduction.” But he understood, with an utter clarity that comes from being in darkness, that seduction meant more than sex. It was not seduction she feared. It was the connection running beneath it. The edge of her shirt—his shirt—was an easy barrier to defeat. She raised her arms so he could remove it. A silk chemise still lay between them, so he tugged that until it pulled free of the breeches.

Hot skin. The dip of her waist. Ah, but there, that was the curve of a breast brushing against his thumb. And there, a tight nipple just begging for attention. He brushed a palm across the tip and she arched back, pressing that glorious, full breast into his hand. Her sound of pleasure was music on the air.

Her breast lifted, moved beneath his hand as her arms rose. The chemise billowed around her torso, a whisper of silk against his hands, leaving the scent of lavender in its wake. Then it was gone, over her head, and her breast settled easily in his palm again. Warm as a peach in the Grecian sun.

“Too many layers,” she breathed into the dark.

He laughed lightly. “A woman after my own heart.”

“No,” she corrected, and he could hear the amusement in her voice. “Just your body.”

Cool fingers traveled up his arms to his shoulders, then down to flutter around the waistband of his pants. Thumbs slid between cloth and skin, around to the front to undo the top buttons of his breeches, then the exposed drawers beneath. The action was practical rather than seductive, but dear God, it aroused him. When she shimmied the breeches over his hips and down, his cock sprang free at full tilt.

And then she touched it, before his breeches even met the floor. Just the right pressure, here, there. A skim of fingers. Her fist closed around it. His hips jerked forward, bucking against that delicate, strong hand. She laughed delightedly. Utter feminine approval. A long stroke, another. He struggled to hold himself in check.

“If you continue that, my lovely Lilias, you’ll be disappointed this evening.” His voice was little more than a rasp.

Her hand fell away. Through the darkness he heard her tiny chuckle.

Reaching for her, he drew her in against him. His cock pressed against her bare belly, his legs against hers, still clad in borrowed breeches. Not close enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

His shirt was a rush of linen over his flesh. He barely felt it. He was listening to her movements. Her breath. The rustle of fabric. A soft vibration in the thick rug beneath his feet. Her breeches had fallen to the floor.

And there she was. One long, lean line of woman. Warm skin, smooth and soft. Against him, around him. His hands slid over her buttocks, just there, at the slight dip where they met her upper thighs. Such a feminine place. He would learn this place, and whether it pleased her. He ran a finger along that crease. Ah yes. Pleasure indeed. Her muscles quivered. Thigh, belly. Her breath quickened.

The bed. It had to be here somewhere in the dark. He’d lost all sense of space and could not tell door from bed from floor. He moved slowly, drawing her with him. Her thigh brushed against his as he sought the bed. Thick rug gave way beneath his feet. She laughed low into his ear. Could a man be harder than this?

“Wait,” she whispered, stepping back.

“If you don’t want—”
Dear God, would she end it now?
In a thousand years, he could not stop. But he stepped back because he must. Dropped his hands, though they throbbed from the need to touch her flesh.

“My hair. It is still pinned up.” Displaced air sighed as she moved an arm, perhaps both.

He grinned, relief surging through him. He would have her, after all. “Let me.”

He tangled his hands in her hair. He could not see it in the deep of the night. But he could imagine that mass of bright blond. How long was it? he wondered. How thick? One hairpin was eliminated, then another. Tiny spears of women’s fashion. He let them fall where they would on the carpet.

Then her hair was free. A mass of waves he knew to be the color of wheat in the sun tumbled down. He rubbed the strands between his forefinger and thumb. His fingers traveled the length of the strands. Long, longer. To her hips. Did they tickle her skin? Did they touch that crease where buttock met thigh and arouse her? He hoped they did, so that she felt pleasure with her own body.

She shook her hair back, pulling the strands free from his hold and his mind free of his musings. Her hands were delicate against his shoulders, but there was pressure, too. Pushing him toward the bed. Or he hoped it was the bed that hit his knees, because he was powerless to do anything but tumble them both to whatever surface was behind him.

She rose over him, invisible in the darkness, but still a siren as her thighs trapped his hips. He made no effort to move from his back, but let her keep that position of power. Let her choose the position, the angle. He wondered what she preferred. Deep or shallow, fast or slow? He’d had no opportunity to learn those things the first time. He would now, by letting her guide him.

But she did not take him into her. Her hands began to roam over him. Down his chest, curling in the hair as though it were a new sensation. Her body slid over his in a symphony of curves and dips and hollows. Her sleek hair ran like a waterfall over his face, shoulders, chest. For a moment he could not draw a proper breath. Lips settled against the center of his chest. Her tongue darted out. A taste. She must have approved, as her lips moved to one side, laved his nipple. His cock twitched against her buttocks and she laughed aloud. The minx.

So he began his own exploration. He skimmed a hand up her torso, found the indentation of her navel. Then a narrow line that ran horizontally across her rib cage. No, not a line, a ridge. Thin and just slightly raised from her skin, about four inches long.

Her hands stilled. She straightened, tension reverberating through the muscles that trapped his hips. “A bayonet cut from Waterloo,” she said into the revealing dark. “It was shallow, and the mark has faded now. But, still, I bear a scar.”

“Ah.” He set his hand against the mark. It ranged just shorter than the width of his palm. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” She was shrinking from him. Pulling back. Not physically, but he felt the retreat of her emotions as though it were her body.

“I have a scar myself. Several in fact.” He took her hands, entwined his fingers with hers. Bringing her back to the present. “Here,” he said, guiding her hand to the back of his shoulder. A knife fight in the wilds of India. It was only one of a dozen scars he bore, but it would match hers. Her fingers skimmed the scar, curiosity evident in their smooth pads. “It does not hurt, either. But I think of it sometimes, when the weather turns.”

“Yes. When the weather turns.” She bent, and pressed her lips against his shoulder. So thoughtfully, so easily, that he could not find words to respond. But perhaps he did not need to speak. Perhaps all that was necessary was a touch. A gift.

Her thighs were supple, shifting beneath his hands as she rose above him once more. His fingers searched in the dark for the juncture between her thighs. Her breath was a quick intake as he found the curls hiding all of her womanly secrets. But there, ah yes. That was the most secretive place of all.

Her breath heaved in and out as he moved his hand, playing between the curls, finding that little spot that would break her apart. He grinned into the dark when he felt her hips press forward against his hand. Christ, he could slip into her if she moved just right. She was wet, hot and—he bit back a groan and gritted his teeth against the need to be inside her.

She shuddered against his hand, and her quick little moans spiked into the air. He almost expected to be able to see her, as her skin was so heated she should be glowing with it. Neatly filed nails dug into his hips, flexed, clutched even as her thigh muscles quivered. He felt her climax almost as though it were his own. Her head fell back and her hair brushed against his legs, those thighs squeezed, trembled. He could not wait any longer. He needed to have her beneath him. Willing and open, with her arms and legs wrapped around him.

He rolled, almost before she could recover, until he was ranged over her. She welcomed him with those slender arms, the leanly muscled legs. He felt the wetness of her, the scalding heat. Then, dear God, he was finally sheathed in her. Was there any place as divine as being inside a woman one respected? One admired? This woman could wield a sabre on the battlefield. This woman made him think of music. This woman made him want things he’d forgotten he wanted.

He could not smell the lavender on her skin now. Only Lilias. The scent that was uniquely her. It mingled with his own scent, until they smelled of something belonging only to them. A scent no one else in the world would share.

He buried his face in the lovely curve of her neck, pressed his lips against her pulse.
In and out, slow, deep.
Her inner muscles clenched around him. Her arms tightened across his back. She arched up, gave a triumphant cry that spurred him on. Just one more thrust, one more time to touch the center of her. And then he, too, fell over the edge and into oblivion.