Stroke of Genius (30 page)

Then deep in her core, she did. She drew a ragged breath. When something inside her snapped, rings of bliss radiated out from her center, turning her limbs to jiggling pudding. She suspected she was pulling Crispin’s hair, but she needed to if she was going to remain on her feet while her insides spasmed with joy.

Before the last contraction ended, Crispin threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and rose to his feet.

All the breath rushed from her lungs.

“Where are we going?” she asked shakily.

“I’ve wanted to swive you on the floor from the moment I met you, Grace, but I’d rather not take your maidenhead there unless you insist.”

He deposited her on a tufted velvet fainting couch. Then he made short work of removing her pantalets and stockings. Grace laid back and let him do as he liked. She was still too drunk with bliss to care.

Alarm bells clattered along her spine, but she ignored them. She knew what she was doing. Her decision was made. There was no going back. If she didn’t give herself to Crispin Hawke now, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

She just meant to see he gave her himself, too.

Grace lifted her arms to him and he settled between her splayed legs.

The tip of him pressed against her. She kissed him, tasting a musky, salty tang that she realized must have come from her. She squirmed down, urging him to enter. He gave a quick thrust of his hips and drove himself in all the way.

Pain ripped through her and she tore her mouth away from him, biting her lower lip. She didn’t want to cry out with anything but bliss. She’d heard there was pain involved in the process of ridding oneself of a maidenhead, but after the joy she’d experienced with Crispin, she’d forgotten to expect it.

“Did I hurt you terribly?”

“Yes,” she said, blinking up at him. “Is it always like that?”

“No.” He shook his head and kissed her tenderly. “Only the first time. I’m sorry. I should have been more gentle. I’ve never been with a virgin. There is probably a better way to do that.”

“But now we’ll never know, will we?” she said, reaching around him to give his bottom a swat. She hoped she sounded like it didn’t matter, that she didn’t regret a thing.

Because she didn’t. At least not now. It was impossible to care about anything but the wonder of holding him inside her.

She just hoped he was right about it not hurting every time.

Crispin held himself still, propping most of his weight on his elbows, looking down at her with wonderment, as if he feared she’d disappear if he looked away.

He was huge, filling her, stretching her, making her inner walls contract once reflexively in honor of his intruding presence. She felt his heartbeat galloping between her legs.

“Tell me when I can move,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck and suckling her earlobe.

The pain dissipated and was replaced by that familiar ache. She rocked her pelvis experimentally.

“Oh, that feels wonderful,” she said, thrilled to have re-entered the kingdom of bliss with him. “Move however you like, sir.”

Crispin didn’t need to be told twice. He took her in long strokes, setting a comfortable rhythm. He slowed, making her ache to take him in. She rocked with him, peppering his neck and shoulders with kisses. Then he rode her hard, galloping hell-for-leather to a point of ecstasy for them both.

She crested again with the same heart-pounding intensity but this time, Crispin came with her. His back arched and he growled his pleasure. She fisted around him as his life pumped into her, hot and strong. Then as the last convulsion wracked them, he breathed her name.

Reverently.

Lovingly.

And settled his head between her breasts.

She ran her hand over his hair, smoothing the dark curls and swiping them back out of his eyes. His breath feathered over her nipple and it tightened pleasantly, but she was completely satisfied. His body relaxed on her and she wondered if he was asleep. She sighed when he finally slipped out of her, severing their beautiful connection.

He raised himself on his elbows again and peered down at her. “What are you thinking, Grace?”

“I’m just wondering how long we have to wait to see if you’re right.”

“Right about what?”       

She smiled up at him. “About it not hurting the second time.”

Chapter 32

Lust was understandable. Hadn’t he fashioned Galatea to suit him perfectly? But surely an artist shouldn’t love the work of his own hands. Not when Pygmalion knew he’d have to release Galatea to the world without any claim on her at all.

“Help me snuff the candles and we’ll find a more comfortable spot,” Crispin said, rising from the fainting couch and extending a hand to help her up. Her smile washed over him like warm rain.

Grace was a wonder. A mercy. A sensible female who didn’t seem at all troubled about losing her maidenhead to him.

He, however, experienced a twinge of guilt at the streak of blood on her inner thighs.

Did she realize yet what they’d done? Her whole life was turned on its head and yet, she skittered from one candelabra to the next, snuffing candles in glorious nakedness as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Crispin watched her stretch to reach a wall sconce, standing tiptoe, the long clean lines of her unhindered by crude covering. She lifted one curl-toed foot and he ached to place a kiss on her sole.

If Adam had been able to watch Eve run about in such a splendid state of undress all the time, no wonder Eden was considered paradise and Original Sin such a calamity.

Grace stooped to pick up her discarded clothing. She finally seemed to have discovered, as Eve had, that she was naked.

“Leave them,” he said, wanting the chance to look at her longer.

“But won’t Mr. Wyckeham find them?”

“He’s not here. There was room for him in the big house in the servants’ quarters and I figured he’d be happier there, close to your Claudette.”

“How thoughtful of you, though I should warn you, she’s very unhappy with Mr. Wyckeham at present.” She let the armful of clothing drop back to the floor. “Still, I never figured you for a romantic.”

Her nipples were rosy and taut. He forced himself to meet her amber-eyed gaze.

“There are lots of things you don’t know about me.”

“But I’m very willing to learn.”

Crispin took her hand and led her toward the bed chamber that had been set up for him on the ground floor. As much as being relegated to the cottage had stung his pride, he had to admit Lord Dorset’s staff had set up the space to suit his needs admirably. A bedchamber he could reach without climbing stairs was a thoughtful touch.

Once they reached his chamber, he lit a lamp and she noticed the pitcher and ewer on the commode in the corner.

“Do you mind if I clean up a bit?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “Let me do it for you. Just lay down and I’ll take care of you.”

He reasoned it would ease his conscience to remove the evidence of her loss of purity. Besides, if she cleaned herself, she might be dismayed at the sight of her virginal blood and their carnal odyssey would lose its joy.

“All right.” She pulled back the counterpane and treated him to a lovely site of her upraised bottom when she bent over. Then she climbed into the bed and sank into the feather tick.

He spread a towel over his shoulder and poured some water into the ewer. Then he carried it across the room to her side of the bed, along with a jar of lavender-scented soap. He dipped one end of the cloth in the water and lathered it up with a dollop of soap. Then he settled a hip beside her on the bed.

“Knees up,” he said and she complied. He eased her knees apart and soaped the insides of her thighs. Then very gently, he cleaned all her delicate folds. “I’m sorry the water is cold.”

Her eyes were closed and her lips turned up in a little smile. “It feels wonderful.”

He would have said, “Amen,” but she might have considered it blasphemy and he didn’t want to do anything to ruin the mood. But he’d never felt anything as miraculous under his hands as her vulnerable feminine parts. All soft and wet and soapy and opened to him so trustingly.

“You’re beautiful, Grace. Every bit of you.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him her smile turning impish. “Even my hands. You said they weren’t my best feature.”

“That’s like saying the Mona Lisa’s eyes aren’t her best feature because her smile is so beguiling. You’re the work of a Master, Grace. And altogether lovely.”

He rinsed off the soap and she sighed in contentment.

“This is altogether lovely too,” she said with a lazy cat stretch. “No one has bathed me since I was a very small child. And never like this.”

She sat up and pulled her knees under her. “Now it’s my turn to bathe you.”

He’d planned to give himself a brisk scrub as soon as he finished with her. “No, it’s not necessary—”

“Yes, it is, and if you’re afraid I’ll faint dead away at the sight of a little blood, you don’t know me very well.” Her smile trembled a bit. “I know full well what we’ve done, Crispin. And I know it’s something that can’t be undone.” She palmed his cheeks and kissed him softly. “I wouldn’t undo it, even if I could. Now let me have the pleasure of taking care of you. Lie down.”

He settled into the spot she vacated. Her body’s warmth and scent still clung to the space. He closed his eyes, his whole body thrumming with awareness, waiting for her touch.

Once in a while, when he was a boy, one of the girls at
Peel’s Abbey
would catch him and throw him in a tub when he became too pungent to ignore. The soap was always caustic and the water tepid, too warm to be refreshing, too cold to be comforting. Since he was the last one in the hipbath, the bathwater was always dark and scummy. When they were done scouring him, he always felt like a half inch of his hide had been scrubbed off, especially in his private parts, but he never felt really clean.

Now Grace washed him with tenderness. She cupped his scrotum experimentally and lathered him, her fingers writing a love sonnet on his flesh. Then she dipped the cloth in the water again and wiped off the soap. Grace’s touch on his penis was tentative, but gentle. Even so, he roused to her.

“Oh! Does it always do that?” She ran the wet cloth along his entire length and his cock rose to meet her fingertips of its own volition.

“Like clockwork,” he said.

She wrapped her hand around him and slid his whole length. The effect was electric. Even though it hadn’t been five minutes since he poured himself into her, his body was ready for another hard swive.

No. He wouldn’t class what he and Grace had done with that crude word. His chest still ached with the sweetness of her beneath him. With the memory of her every desperate whisper, every sigh and hitched breath. It was pure glory to watch her come and know that he’d given her such pleasure.

That was no swiving. They had made love.

Love.
The word rose to his mind unbidden and should have scared him spitless. Love was something women invented to bind unwary men to them. Something to give poets a living. Something for the weak-willed to claim they’d succumbed to when animal passions were really what got the better of them.

Now, he could think the word without sneering or cringing.

I love Grace.
He tested the thought, poked it for any hint of cynicism or falsehood and found none.

“I—”

He was just about to tell her, but she picked that moment to lower her mouth to his cock and all rational thought fled.

Her hair tickled across his belly and shielded her face from his gaze. She peppered him with little kisses from just above his balls, all along his ridgeline and up to the tip.

Ah, she used her tongue.

Crispin still couldn’t seem to make his work. He fisted the sheets, every muscle in his body clenched, waiting to see what she’d do next.

She found that spot of rough skin near the head and swirled her tongue over it. His balls bunched tight. If he hadn’t just emptied himself into her, he’d have spewed all over his own belly.

Then, God help him, she pushed her hair behind her ear so he could look down and watch her lick and suckle him. Her virginal experimentation and obvious delight in that part of him made his chest ache afresh.

Crispin Hawke had grown up in a whore house, but he’d never seen anything more erotic in his whole life than Grace Makepeace flicking her pointed little tongue over his cock. He had to have all of this woman.

And let her have all of him. 

He sat up and pulled her down on top of him. Her skin was cool and smooth and soft. Her mouth found his. She breathed her life into him.

Without conscious volition, their bodies connected again. She was incredibly tight, but so wet, he glided into her dark embrace with a long slow thrust. She sat up, astraddle him, and he pressed her hips down, pushing deeply into her. Grace threw her head back, her mouth passion-slack, her breathing erratic. 

He palmed both her breasts and teased her nipples while his hips quickened the pace of his thrusts. Her brows tented on her forehead in obvious distress, but it was the kind of agony he could fix. He found her little sensitive spot again and rubbed it with the pad of his thumb.