Passion Wears Pearls (25 page)

He lifted his head to eye it like a general surveying an enemy on the field.

Eleanor started to offer to help, but before she could protest, he simply put his hands firmly around her waist, and in once quick motion as she exhaled, Josiah popped the busk and sprang her free from the corset’s hold. “There!” His smile was pure wicked triumph. “So much for wrestling with all those hooks and laces.”

“You … are a very naughty man.”

“It’s a compliment when you say it like that, Eleanor.” He tossed the bulky undergarment onto the floor off the dais, unwilling to trip over the damn thing later, then turned his attentions back to the reward at hand.

“God, you’re beautiful!” he whispered, stroking her through the thin cloth of her chemise, the tiny ribbons frayed and coming loose at the lightest tug of his fingers.

Her breasts weren’t overly large, but were like firm, ripe peaches tipped with pert nipples the color of red clay. They jutted into his hands, grazing his palms like hard pebbles, and he gently circled each one with his fingers until Eleanor’s fingers entwined in his hair and pulled his mouth down to give them the attention they demanded.

As clear as his vision had been all day, he didn’t trust his eyes. He wanted to touch her as much as he could, feeling each move that she made, to map her with his fingertips for a lifetime of nostalgia and longing.

He suckled each one through her chemise, then deliberately pulled the cloth back across each sensitive crest, the cool, wet friction across her warm flesh making her shiver and tremble against his chest. Josiah lifted her again, this time to sit her on the sofa, pushing her gently back against the curve of the fainting couch to recline.

He knelt down next to her and began to unlace her boots, then peel off each woolen stocking in turn.

“Josiah!” She tried to pull an ankle out of his grip, but he wasn’t relinquishing any ground he’d gained.

“Shh! I must see these perfect feet of yours. Why—I see no sign of a farm hand! They are delectable, these feet!”

“You cannot be serious!” She was breathing hard, astonished at the effect he had—his hands caressing the sensitive
curve of her foot. He lifted one foot to kiss the arch, and she squeaked in protest before moaning in pure ecstasy at the shower of electric sparks that swept up her leg. “I’m sure that this is—highly irregular, Mr. Hastings!”

“Is it? And what of this, then?” He tongued the indent of her delicate ankle only to gently bite the meaty rise of her calf.

“Oh, what are you doing?”

“I am feasting on you, Miss Beckett. I am memorizing you from the toes all the way up to the top of your prim and proper head—although I admit I may be diverted along the way. As promised, I intend to kiss you out of every inch of your clothing until there is nothing of you that isn’t bare and offered up to me.”

She didn’t care anymore. Whatever plan he’d prepared, she knew she had already acquiesced. If any of his “diversions” were half as startling and wonderful as the feel of his mouth as it trailed wet kisses upward along her calf, she had no complaints.

For this was heaven!

He worked his way up from her calves, lingering a bit to kiss the crease behind her knee to make her squeak again in a weak protest. Her skirt and petticoats were pushed up easily as his hands traced the plump curve of her thighs, pillowed and welcoming, and Josiah wondered if his muse had any idea of what the feast’s main course would entail.

He parted her thighs and Eleanor threw her head back, riding the sweet agony of anticipation and satisfaction at its bite. Her hips writhed and bucked as she instinctively tried to urge him to hurry. But Josiah was in no rush.

Eleanor was an active participant, following his lead but then pursuing her own passion and virginal curiosity—fearlessly innocent in the game. Touching his hair, massaging his shoulders, and stroking any part of him she could. She was openly responsive to what he was doing, instinctively communicating her pleasure and spurring him on. It was an aphrodisiac he had never experienced before.

He bent over her, unfastening her skirt’s waistband and
untying her petticoats, kissed the soft, gentle rise of her belly only to work ever so slowly up her rib cage. His hands began to leisurely trace the lines of her body, circling back to caress her skin, each pass of his fingertips whispers of trespasses yet to come, making her porcelain skin taut and sensitive. Down her arms, over her shoulders, he skirted the rise of her bare breasts only to drop down and press his palms against her ribs to follow the hollows and curves of her frame.

She bucked up, her back arching in frustration at the touch of his hands everywhere but the most sensitive peaks and junctures of her body. She moaned, fighting the rolling wave of raw hunger that threatened to make her come apart at the seams. It was a strange kind of torture to be in the throes of pleasure but to feel denied.

“Josiah!” she cried out, only to add with a whimper, “Please.”

And it came to him that his intention to be playful had unknowingly been cruel. He had pushed her too far. She could no more name her desires than describe the dark side of the moon. “Forgive me.”

He could smell her arousal as it intermingled with the perfume of her skin.

His beautiful spitfire, so reserved and polite, was molten mercury, volatile and unpredictable. Josiah decided he’d teased her enough for one encounter. He began to unbutton his own shirt when Eleanor’s hand caught his wrist.

“Please. Let me.”

It was his turn to yield, and the game took a turn he hadn’t anticipated.

She sat up to unbutton his shirt, pushing it back off of his shoulders and mirroring the way he’d touched her to explore Josiah’s broad frame and lean masculine lines. His skin was hot and the swirls of hair on his chest were crisp like coarse silk. He was muscular, a creature of taut sinew and male strength, and she was breathless with the thrill of touching him at will, electrified by the glory of his form as it was revealed to her.

He groaned as she threaded her fingers through the hair on his chest and then clenched her hand into a fist. “Careful.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. You can’t hurt me, Eleanor. But you can make a man forget himself.”

Silence answered him, but she kissed him before he could interpret the fire in her eyes at his revelation. Her breasts pressed against his bare flesh and his body’s reaction was primal.

She grew impatient to see all of him. To touch more of him. To taste his skin as he had tasted hers. He was lean and muscular, as if chiseled from warm stones, so different from her own yielding form. She marveled at the earthly beauty of him and relished the appeal of his body to her senses.

“What are you thinking over there, Eleanor Beckett?”

She blushed, and he loved the contradiction of it. She was so naturally earthy and voluptuous, but could still color like a peony just to pique his interest.

“I am thinking that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, Josiah Hastings, and I … I don’t wish to say any more.”

“How do you imagine it, Miss Beckett? Your first time with a man?” he asked, attempting to gauge if she were still fearful or anxious about the moment at hand.

“I never imagined speaking of such a thing. … I imagined it would just … happen.”

“What would happen?”

“You don’t know?” she asked miserably.

“I’m extremely familiar with the course of events, Miss Beckett. But I’m asking only in a quest to make sure that my very procedural-minded Eleanor isn’t disappointed or shocked.”

Her eyes widened as the blush swept up from her breasts. “I sincerely doubt that—I’ll be disappointed.”

He smiled. “Agreed. We shall make it a goal not to disappoint.”
Or delay things any longer …

He pushed her back onto the sofa and returned to his position between her thighs, this time pulling off her skirts and the last layers of her petticoats and flannels to reveal every last inch of her.

She was as exquisite as anything he’d ever seen, and Josiah reveled in the sight of her body, every shade of pink glistening like a flower, her skin tightening and changing color as her sex opened up in front of him. The musky sweet scent of her made patience nearly impossible, and he lowered his mouth to sample the delights of her flesh.

She’d prepared herself for the return of his touch, expecting his fingers and anticipating him to simply pick up where he’d left off three days ago. She was eager to experience the culmination of the arc of electric heat she’d gotten a taste of—but when he exhaled over the wet flesh between her legs, Eleanor was nearly undone. Here was an impossibility she had never envisioned and couldn’t fathom that he would actually think to—

It was bliss.

“Th-this cannot be—the usual course of it, Mr. Hastings!” she exclaimed, her hands clutching at the cushions beneath her as he hovered just above her, fanning the flames of her desire with every breath he took.

“There are no rules, Miss Beckett. Lecture me later.”

He splayed his hands against the insides of her thighs to hold her in place, and then gently kissed the ripe lips of her sex, his tongue darting out to chart the folds before trailing up to circle her clit. With each pass of the tip of his tongue winding up and around the tiny bud, Eleanor trembled and moaned. He added more pressure, working the sensitive pearl in a dance of unrelenting taste and touch, and lost himself in the quest for her first release. She was ambrosia in his mouth, and Josiah drank in all of it.

Instead of fighting it, Eleanor felt like laughing at the delicious cascade of pleasure he was creating inside of her. “Yes! Please, yes!”

Josiah needed no more encouragement. Impediments would have better aided his cause to make sure that he’d
readied her for what was yet to come, but it took every fiber of discipline he possessed to keep from rushing things. Faster and faster, he circled her clit, until she was writhing against him, held in place by the firm grip of his hands on her hips.

Eleanor was lost to it. She climaxed in a fast, sharp rush that opened a thousand doors to a hunger for more. She’d tumbled over the edge of release before she’d even had the chance to realize there was a precipice, and Eleanor was in awe at the limitless passion he’d gifted to her.

She was still coming in a cascade of rapture when he freed himself from his breeches, intending to take her completely. Eleanor roused, emboldened by the aphrodisiac of her first orgasm, and opened her eyes to see what had robbed her of his touch. Her eyes widened in wonder as his sex sprang free from the confines of his clothes, her hands filled with the heavy weight of his cock. It was like nothing she’d expected, and her admiration was as potent as it was innocent. She gasped at the velvety softness of his skin over a molten thick core. It seemed massive to her innocent eyes, and as her fingers struggled to wrap around him, she accepted that appearances weren’t deceiving. The head was a deep color, like a plum, atop the firm column of his sex. She squeezed him and then ran her fingers gently down its length to test its resilience, liking the way it jutted and bobbed at her touch—as if this part of him had a will of its own. His body’s masculine beauty was unparalleled in her limited experience, and her innermost muscles clenched involuntarily with the greedy desire to possess him completely.

“Wait, I have … French letters.”

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Do you?”

“Minx! Only because ever since I asked you for that first kiss and you said no, I had a premonition that nothing with you would be predictable, and since I would
never
need them with a proper lady like Miss Eleanor Beckett, I did the opposite and put a good supply under the cushion here and in my bedroom.”

She laughed, a husky, unguarded sound that made his body vibrate with lust.

He made quick work of it, encasing himself in the condom, and then returning to position himself between her thighs, notching the round head of his cock up against her molten slit, and aligning himself to press up into her.

Total trust. No questions asked, her thighs were parted wide, her ankles digging into the small of his back.

“I want you to forget yourself.” She looked up at him, her green eyes clear and beautiful. “I want to forget myself. Let us be lost together.”

Let us be lost together.

Eleanor’s legs tightened around him even as he began to press forward one slow inch at a time. Josiah’s jaw clenched at the challenge of holding himself in check, fighting the urge to just drive forward into the slick, hot well of her core. He had no wish to hurt her.

But he’d underestimated Eleanor’s needs.

In one smooth, graceful movement, she arched upward and enveloped his cock in a tight velvet sheath that left him breathless at the carnal grip of her channel. He groaned and she pressed upward again, completing the act as her maidenhead gave way and rendered herself open to him.

He looked into her eyes, and they were free of any pain or anxiety. Instead there was a small glint of mischievous pride that she’d managed it. He kissed her softly, relishing the way she fit him so perfectly, and then moved again, rewarding her for her boldness with deep, long strokes that metered out pure ecstasy. Eleanor instinctively matched his movements, and Josiah rocked into her, driving forward, relentlessly claiming her body and soul with every thrust of his body into hers.

Every internal lecture about gentility was forgotten. There was only Eleanor and his need to possess her completely, to fill her and mark her as his. Harder and harder, faster and faster, the drive to release took over, and at every turn, she was with him, clinging to him and matching his
every move with her body’s own desire to be filled completely, to be claimed—and to claim him in return.

She cried out again, spending in long, shuddering spasms that pushed him over the edge. Josiah grit his teeth as he pushed past the zenith of sensation, coming inside of her in white-hot jets of crème, the orgasm so strong it was as if lightning had arced down his spine in a storm of pleasure and pain.

It was several long minutes before he trusted himself enough to speak, his breath coming in long, ragged bursts, and he withdrew as gently as he could, rolling over without relinquishing her to cover himself with her body, praying that she was unbruised.