St. Raven (21 page)

“You know me too well,” she whispered, tugging the shirt out of his loose trousers. When the shirt was loose, she slid her hands beneath it, onto his hot, firm flanks, slightly dizzy just from that.

“You can take over now.”

“Carry on. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

He did know her well. No, he knew women well. Or knew this mystery well. That, by the laws of propriety, should deter her but for the life of her she couldn’t imagine why. An experienced guide seemed an excellent idea when slip-sliding down into this torrid jungle.

She should probably undo his cuffs and take the shirt off, but she wanted to discover him first by touch. Eyes closed, she let her fingers wander, let her palms stroke and feel.

Other senses would not be denied. Her sense of smell still reveled in him, and her hearing caught his rough breathing along with the slither of silk.

Or perhaps it was just that she could feel his breaths beneath elegant bone, supple muscle, and silken skin. The change from hard ribs to firm abdomen seemed a marvel, and the soft indent of his navel made her smile.

She pushed the silk up and touched her lips there, inhaling his scent. Then she reached with her tongue to taste…

Distraction. His hands light on her shoulders, then sliding into her hair, stroking the back of her head, raising her hair. She straightened, arching her neck, moving her hands behind him, to skim there, to run her fingers up the bedazzling hollow of his spine.

She’d never seen his back.

She fluttered her eyes open and stared up at him, having trouble focusing for a moment. His eyes spoke of desire even to her, who scarcely knew the language.

He kissed her forehead.

She swayed, but then she turned all her attention to his right cuff. She undid the three buttons there, then did the same on his left. Then she tried to take the shirt off, but it was awkward because of his height.

“You’ll have to do it.”

He dropped to one knee.

So. She walked behind and eased it over his head as carefully as if he’d been a child.

Then she had his back. A work of art, all hers. Slowly, she stroked across wide shoulders and back to his nape, drinking it in with every sense she possessed and a few she was just now discovering.

Her head buzzed as if that potion still maddened her, but this intoxication was him, and him alone. Her eyes didn’t focus quite as they should, and her heartbeat, her pulse, beat an urgent rhythm.

Shaken, she clutched his shoulders. “I’m falling…”

He rose slowly, letting her hands fall away, and turned to her, kissed her. “My name?”

“Tris. Tristan Tregallows.”

“I was that all my life until last year. Sometimes I’m afraid he’s lost, poor Tris Tregallows. Find him for me, Cressida.”

He kissed her, gently at first, as if they’d never kissed before, then carried her deeper into dark and dangerous places. She swirled down with him, not realizing her legs had given way until he lifted her and carried her to the bed, to place her there.

He stood back and untied his sash to drop it, slithering, upon her. “You can tie me up with it later if you like.”

Her dreamy wits stilled on that. “What?”

“Only if you want to.” Eyes on hers, he loosened the tie holding up his trousers and let them drop. A shiver rippled through her, part nerves, but part knowing hunger.

His expression seemed wary, as if he thought she might retreat. She could see why, but all she felt was an aching hunger. A lustful man was so beautiful it was astonishing artists could resist portraying it.

“I’m feeling somewhat impatient, guide.”

Watchfulness gave way to sparkling, wicked delight. “Anticipation, wench. The key to everything.”

He pulled her up to her knees, then pushed her nightgown off her shoulders. He stripped her slowly, eyes on the skin he revealed, pausing when the white cloth was beneath her breasts. She looked down to watch his hands holding the cloth there, to see as well as feel his lips trace across the upper swell of each.

She thought of Crofton, and Miranda Coop, and what a debasement that had been of this.

“Most men adore the mystery of a woman’s breasts, Cressida. Such sweet softness. Such pliant firmness. Wise nature has arranged that a man’s touch here gives a woman pleasure, but men being men, we’d play with them anyway for our own delight.”

His lips moved down to her left nipple to brush, finding a new, exquisite sensitivity in her. Then his tongue teased. She waited breathlessly for more, but he turned his attention to the other one, then left it equally unsatisfied.

She stifled complaint. She would be satisfied. She knew that. He was mapping the path that they would take, preparing her.

Her nightdress was down to her hips now. His mouth followed, down a line to her navel, where his tongue played. Then he straightened to lift her free.

Free of cloth.

Free of thought.

Free of anything but anticipation.

He whirled with her in his arms, dizzying her so that she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Still turning, he kissed her, swirling every sense down to the place where she was open to his heat.

Walls could shatter, fire could rage. Nothing mattered except this.

He broke the kiss, eyes dark and dazed as she felt, and lowered her onto the bed, gently freeing himself of her hold. One knee on the bed, he stroked up the insides of her spread legs, ending with his hands between her thighs, his touch so close, so close…

Then he was beside her, an arm cradling her, his hand where she ached for it to be.

She remembered the orgy, the tormenting itch, the need to press, but this was nothing like that. As strong, perhaps, but nothing like.

His mouth on her breasts again.

“Tris?…”

“Yes?” he murmured.

“What do I do?”

“I’m the guide, remember? Come where I take you.” His hand still circled between her thighs. “In this new land, there is a treasured custom. We throw ourselves off high cliffs into mist. Those with the courage to fall free find it worth their while. Let go, Cressida. Let go.”

He brushed his lips back to her breast and sucked. She felt pushed, pushed to an edge, but she clung, afraid. Afraid to fall, afraid of the mist, as if she would dissolve there, die there.

His mouth, his hand, would not let her retreat. They were forcing her on, arching her to breaking point.

She could break, or she could fly.

Trust.

She let go and fell, screaming in her mind as she spiraled down, down, down through the mists and into a deep, dark peace.

With him. Pressed to him, kissing him, holding him one knee up over his hip. Claiming him. Needing him…

“We can’t, can we?”

His breathing seemed ragged. “We won’t.” He kissed her hair, stroked her, but his hands shook.

“Tris…”

“Hush.” He moved off the bed, pulling her with him, tugged back the covers, and settled her onto the sheets. He covered her. “I won’t be a moment.”

Then he walked out of the room, magnificent enough, her dazed mind registered, for a marble statue.

A warrior.

No, an athlete.

Cressida pulled the covers higher, suddenly cold and bereft.

It was only night air on sweat.

“More intimate with another person since the day you slid messily from your mother’s womb.”

Oh, yes. But it hadn’t been complete. And now he wasn’t here. She must have done something wrong. Had he left her for the night? Would she not get another chance?

It seemed an age, but she didn’t think it was long before he returned, a wicked smile on his face and a red glass vial in his hand. He didn’t look angry or disappointed. He also didn’t look… rampant. He had been when he’d left. Like a rod.

She looked a question at him, and he shook his head.

“Always curious. I couldn’t trust myself so I… got rid of it.”

“Got rid of it?”

“Dammit, Cressida, do you have to question everything!”

He was blushing. The Duke of St. Raven was actually blushing.

A part of her wanted to laugh with delight at that, but she focused on the vial in his hand. “What’s that?”

“Oil. For massage.”

Cressida’s skin tingled with anticipation.

But then he said, “I am hoping that you are willing to rub it into my skin.”

Oh.

Oh, yes!

He’d given her such pleasure. Now she could pleasure him. She smiled, knowing she probably looked too tender, showed emotions she mustn’t have, but she couldn’t help it. She slipped off the bed and took the vial from him. “Lie, my sultan.”

He pulled the covers all the way down but then paused, looking at her.

“When a man desires a woman, his penis enlarges and becomes hard. So he can enter her. It’s pleasure, but also close to pain. Being like that can make control difficult. The ideal relief is a woman’s body, but a hand can serve.” His lips twitched. “Sometimes it’s called an encounter with Mrs. Palm and her five lovely daughters.”

Cressida bit her lip, but then let the laughter escape. “Thank you. For telling me.”

His smile might be a little wry, but it was tender all the same. “We’re past protecting your purity, so you might as well be informed.”

She’d remembered something from the orgy. “Or a mouth?” she asked.

He winced. “Or a mouth.”

She stared at him. “That cucumber!”

“Quite. Now can we progress?” He lay down on the sheets, head pillowed in his arms.

She held back her laughter this time, but ideas were stirring. She didn’t know if she’d be brave enough to put them into action, but they intrigued her.

For the moment, she had oil and what she wanted more than anything was to give him a gift that was at least a little as wonderful as the one he had given her.

She took the glass stopper out of the vial and sniffed. A subtle smell, neither flowery nor the familiar sandalwood.

“What is it?” she asked, pouring a little into the palm of one hand.

“Various eastern spices.”

“With interesting effects?”

He just smiled.

She put the vial aside, rubbed her hands together, then raised them to her nose. It didn’t instantly drive her mad with lust, but it wove sweetly into her mind.

She climbed on the bed and began circling her oiled hands on his back. Her intent was to give him pleasure, but soon the glide over seductive curves and hollows had her drifting into delight herself.

She closed her eyes and lived in feel alone, pressing a little harder to test the firm resilience of his muscles, to feel his bones. Then lighter, skimming.

Too light?

She looked at him. Eyes closed, mouth relaxed, he looked as blissful as she’d wanted him to be. Then he said, “Write your name on my back.”

“How?”

“With your nail. Lightly.”

She began in the small of his back and wrote upward—
Cressida
. Up his spine she wrote
Elizabeth
, then on the skin closest to her she wrote
Mandeville
.

Beneath her hands he moved, like a cat stretching.

“It feels so wonderful?” she asked.

“I’ll show you later.”

Her skin hummed with anticipation and her mouth dried, but surely there was more she could do here for him. She reached for the vial and reoiled her hands. “Do you have any other suggestions, Suleiman?”

“It’s simply Tris and Cressida, naked and honest.”

She rubbed her hands—the warm; elusive scent encircling her—recognizing hovering tears, then pushing them away. “What more can I do to please you, Tris?”

“There are parts of my available skin as yet unoiled.”

His long, strong legs.

She shifted to his ankles and rubbed oil there, then circled up his legs, up onto his thighs, aware of approaching his buttocks. His rump, as Henry VIII would doubtless say. Round, firm. Teeth in her bottom lip, she slid her hands there, up over the high curve.

He tensed beneath her touch, and she froze. “If it hurts when you desire—”

He chuckled. “I can bear it.”

Temptation stirred again. This massage had aroused her as much as it had him. She ached to give him the true release, to experience that completion herself.

It would plunge them into disaster, however. They were sharing wild magic here, but they had to be careful. Neither of them wanted this night to bind them.

Not really.

Not really…

There were delights that were safe, and this was one. She kneaded his firm flesh, tears aching behind her eyes.

Safe! They skimmed a knife blade of disaster, and she knew it—and the biggest danger was her weak will. How unfair of fate to bring her to this place, to this man, but make marriage impossible.

A spasm in her leg jerked her back to the mundane. Her body was complaining at her position. She straddled his thighs. Ah, much better. From here she could skim, press, or knead as she wished, and even rise up to put her weight behind it.

She did that to work at his shoulders, pressing harder and harder. He didn’t complain and he wouldn’t break, so she worked out some of her frustration there before sitting back on her thighs to circle his buttocks and the hollow of his lower back.

So, she would never visit this land again. Even if she married, it would not be like this. Decent people didn’t do things like this.

So, she would experience everything she could tonight. She leaned down and pressed her lips into his lower back, tasting oil, and Tris, and magic.

Lazily, loosely, he began to turn beneath her. She sat up and saw that he was firm again.

She looked away, but then she looked back to study the long veined column, the darker cap divided by the cleft where his seed must come from. Finding the courage to do as she wished, she touched, with just her fingertips.

“It’s so very hard. How?”

He laughed. “If you’re asking about physiology, I’m not your guide.” His hand covered hers, wrapping her fingers around him. “If we’re talking other things, then it’s you, Cressida. You.”

Sweet misty sentiment. She found she had no taste for it.

“That would imply you’ve never hardened before we met.”