Tempted (18 page)

Quickly he pulled off her shoes, but when she reached for her stockings he stopped her.

“Leave them.”

“My stockings?”

“I like how they look. So dark against your pale skin.”

She glanced down as if seeing them through new eyes and didn’t argue.

“There is more,” he said. “More than what we did last time.”

“I’m aware of how babies are made, Steven, and that we did not do the act required to make babies.”

“I’m not even talking about that,” he said. “There’s more that we can do that will still leave you a virgin.”

“I have no interest in virginity.” She sounded peevish, which shouldn’t be so exciting, but somehow was. He shifted her on the bed, lifting her and rearranging her so that she lay with her head against the pillows and he sat on the side of the bed, one of her legs over his lap. The other one pressing against his back.

There was a terrible, fleeting horror at the feel of her body parts on top of his, and some sense that he was stepping too close to danger, but he pushed it aside. His dick was hard for the second time in one day and he felt strangely confident that he could do this. He could lie here with her, with her touching him and him touching her, and it would be all right.

It should be all right.

Please
, he thought,
let it be all right
.

He put his hand between her legs and she jumped. Startled or excited, he wasn’t sure.

“Prepare yourself, Annie.”

H
is thumb brushed those curls, teasing his way inside to the melting heat and damp. The earthy smell of her.

Excited. She was only excited.

“For….what?” she sighed.

He smiled and bent down, pressing his lips against her curls. She went utterly still.

“What-?”

“Shhhh.” And then he licked her, the sweet seam there. And she jackknifed against him, her hands clutching his head, blocking out the light, surrounding him in the damp warmth of another person. For a second he couldn’t breathe.

He lifted his head and sucked in a quick panicked breath.

She jerked her legs away from him so she was no longer touching him in any way. “Don’t,” he said, trying to pull her legs back around him, but she resisted.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, not moving.

“No,” he said. “It’s… me.”

“Don’t leave,” she begged. “We don’t have to… do anything more. Just…”

“I’m not leaving, Anne. You couldn’t make me leave.”

“Are you—”

“Fine. It just surprised me.”

“I should have told you I was going to do that.”

“I don’t think you knew,” he laughed. “It’s okay. It was just… a moment. That’s all.”

He stroked her thigh, the soft skin above her knee.

“I’m going to touch you,” she said and he nodded. It seemed ridiculous, but truthfully it helped, knowing. Her hand covered his, her soft grip around his wrist. And the tension ebbed away.

“Can I ask you… about what you did? Where… you kissed me?”

He looked at her through his lashes. “Yes.”

She was beautiful, lying there. Her body a series of curves and plains, beautiful soft skin over every inch. “Is that… common practice?”

“You liked it?”

“I didn’t not like it. But you were right. It was shocking.”

He got a little more comfortable on the bed, leaning back on his elbow. “I think, Annie Denoe, you like to be shocked.”

Her lips pursed as if she were considering it. “I think you’re right,” she said.

She would be fun. As a lover. A wife. Life would never be dull. And his life had been painfully dull. Flat and boring.

Stay
, he thought.

He reached for her foot again, pulling it out from where she’d curled it beneath her body. She let him, her eyes wary. Watching. He tugged her down from her sitting position so she was lying across the pillows, reclining.

And then the other foot he pulled wide so he could see the pink skin. Slick and sweet—and he was hard again.

“You really do like looking, don’t you?” she breathed.

“I really do. Now, let me see if I can shock you again.”

Her smile was radiant, and he arranged them again on the bed, this time so he was lying on his stomach between her legs. He took a deep breath of air that smelled of mystery and woman and he pressed his hips against the bed, finding comfort in the pressure.

With his thumb he stroked her again and slowly he leaned forward and kissed her again, tasted her… again. He could feel the wired stillness. The tension in her body. She jerked as his tongue lapped at her, slipped inside of her.

She made a wild sound, shock and animal delight, and he groaned, pressing his hips down harder. Her hands fisted in the blanket and she spread her legs wider, as if to be sure that no part of her accidentally touched him.

Again he lapped and licked, sucking and finding those places that made her jerk against him. Made her flinch and moan. And he worked them with his tongue and his lips. His fingers. He sucked her into his mouth and she screamed, her hands thrown wide against the bed as if the world was tilting, and then she was caught up in one contraction, her body still and trembling.

“Breathe, Anne,” he told her and she gasped, sucking in air, and then relaxed against the bed, melted against it, her face sweaty. Her eyes wide.

“You okay?” he asked after a moment of her silence.

She smiled and then laughed. “That… I am…amazed.”

“Good,” he said, feeling smug and accomplished. Who cared about the railroad when he could bring this woman to such brain-clearing orgasms?

She sat up, and he resisted the urge to pat down the crazy mess of her hair, not wanting to make her in the slightest bit uncomfortable, and her hair was a bit of a sore spot.

“I want to do that to you,” she said.

He nodded, expecting that.

“Can we…try?”

“We can try. But Anne—”

“I know. It’s okay if it doesn’t work.”

“It’s… I think it’s always going to work, to some degree.”

“Tell me the words,” she breathed. “The bad words.”

“You’re going to suck my dick.”

She nearly levitated with pleasure, he could see it.

He stepped off the side of the bed. The bob and weight of his erection was viscerally satisfying. Her eyes watching him only added to his pleasure. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her knees spread wide, and he stepped forward into that vee.

“I’m going to touch you,” she said.

“Yes. You are.”

Her fingers were cool and shaking against his skin where she touched his hip, tracing the edge of the muscles where it dipped into his hips.

“Why do I feel like an anatomy textbook brought to life?”

“Because you are,” she said, glancing at him with wide delighted eyes. “You’re a perfect specimen.”

“You could go to medical school,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her fingers testing the muscles of his ass and the back of his thigh. Her hair brushed his erection and he nearly flinched, but he controlled it.

“You should go to medical school. College.”

“I don’t have money for—”

“I do,” he said.

“I can’t, Steven.”

“As my wife, you could.”

She gaped at him.

“What did you say to me the other day?” he asked. “Your surprise is insulting?”

“I’m not… it’s just—You want to talk about this now?”

She gestured to her nudity, his softening dick.

“Fair point,” he said. “But we will talk about it.”

“When I’m done sucking your dick.”

The words were incendiary out of her mouth.

“Go on then,” he said, stroking her hair.

Her grip around him was tentative. “Is that… okay?”

“It’s perfect.”

And it was. The damp heat of her mouth, the pressure and her enthusiasm. The low groans she made in the back of her throat that excited him beyond belief. It was all perfect. And made miraculous by the fact that he’d never thought he’d feel such pleasure again.

And made beautiful by the fact that it was her. Brave and daring Anne.

He watched, because he did like that. And while she couldn’t speak, he felt compelled to, telling her how beautiful she was.

Something shifted inside of him, some minor thing that he couldn’t name or put a finger on, but he suddenly felt distanced from the pleasure, not like he was watching it and not feeling, but as if he were deep inside his body and feeling it less.

No
, he thought, suddenly furious and sad.

It felt good, and he was not thinking of anything but her. Why did this happen?

He was suddenly dead in her grip, still hard, but only flesh, unconnected to him, and he wanted to scream. He wanted to roar how unfair this was.

She didn’t seem to have noticed. Her tongue and her lips still explored his hard length and she shifted on the bed, squirming for contact.

She was excited again. And suddenly he was back, filling out the edges of his body. It wasn’t exactly as it had been—he did not feel the pleasure as if on the edge of a razor. But he was no longer buried inside himself.

“You want more,” he said.

She moaned and nodded, and he reached down and gave it to her, slipping his fingers against her. Finding that hard knot that begged for such touch.

And she pushed forward against his hand while at the same time taking him deeper in her mouth.

And it was too much. All of it was too much. He put his hand against her shoulder and pulled away, slipping from her mouth one over-sensitized inch at a time. He kept touching her and she bowed her head, resting her forehead against his hip, her hair falling over him—it was an exquisite torture.

He shoved her hair aside and put his own hand around himself, his touch hard and familiar.

“Me,” she whispered. “Show me.”

On the edge, he took her hand in his and wrapped it around him, showing her the pressure he liked. Still damp from her mouth, their hands slid easily over him, and it didn’t take long before the orgasm was rolling through him.

And then splashing against her hand.

“Oh,” she gasped, lifting her hips, and he fell to his knees beside the bed, pressing his face into her. His lips and teeth and tongue. He gave her as much of himself as he could. He would give her everything.

And that was the truth.

He would give her everything.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling at him, and she cried out, shaking and wild and beautiful.

He fell back on his ass on the floor and she, arms and legs spread wide, laughed up at the ceiling.

“What a surprise,” she said, lifting her hand, and he could tell she was examining his semen.

He groaned and got to his feet. “Everything is an experiment with you, isn’t it?”

She sat up. “There’s so much we can do, isn’t there?”

“You’re talking about sex.”

“Yes! We haven’t even had intercourse!”

“After we’re married,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Let’s save something for the wedding night.”

He put on his clothes, rumpled and foul from the last few days. He needed to go back to the hotel for fresh clothes and a shave. Perhaps some soda bread. “Are you hungry?” he asked, stepping to the door. “I’ll go see what I can find.”

“Steven—”

“Stay,” he said, smiling at her over his shoulder. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, the sheets wrapped around her. “I’ll bring you something.”

Steven found cheese and bread. A jar of plum preserves and another apple.

He was looking for a knife when he heard Anne behind him.

“You were supposed to wait upstairs.”

She stood on the edge of the candlelight, her blue wrapper looking like a shadow around her body. Her bare toes glowed.

“I don’t want to get married,” she said.

“It’s a little late for that,” he said.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t lecture me about propriety and my reputation.”

“Don’t lecture me about independence,” he said. “Not if you’re using me to experience it.”

“I’m doing this wrong,” she said, her face turned away.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He felt as if what had seemed so securely in his hands, this wild fun woman and a future with her, was slipping away.

“I don’t need to get married.”

“Anne—”

“Listen. I don’t need you.”

Oh god, his chest was caving in.

“But I want you. And I want to marry you.”

He was reeling, hurt somehow that what she felt for him was as simple as want. He could show her how to masturbate, and their relationship would be over. Or maybe it wasn’t just the sex.

“Is this because of what I said about medical school?” he said, and even as the words came out of his mouth he couldn’t quite believe them. His Anne would not be so callous.

“No, Steven, I want to marry you because I love you. I have loved you… from the moment I took that bullet out of your side. And I have loved you every minute since.”

“Then what is this talk of not marrying—”

“But I won’t marry you if what you feel for me is… responsibility. Or gratitude. Or worry.”

Oh, his Anne, she stood there so resolute. So brave. So implacable and firm in her own skin. He was envious of her will. Inspired by her strength.

She doesn't know
, he realized.
She doesn't know what she means to me
.

So he spoke. “I feel… the last few days, as if you have brought me back to life. Thinking I might lose you to Dr. Madison, and then to Sam in that room… You have given me something to care about.”

“I’m glad, but there stray dogs you can adopt if you want something to care for.”

“Are you comparing yourself to a stray dog?”

“No, I’m saying being cared for is not enough.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I want what I feel for you to be matched.”

He stepped forward, drawn by her panic and his deep need to assuage it. To assuage all her fears. He met her there at the edge of the light. “I love you,” he said. “I have loved you from the moment I opened my eyes in that clearing. And every moment since I’ve been trying to ignore those feelings, push them aside. But you… You are not easily pushed aside. I had stopped… In Andersonville, I stopped caring about anything. Anyone. I let myself die a little inside so I could not feel the pain of survival. And it only got worse out of prison—I couldn’t let myself be touched. And then you came along with your bravery and your fierceness, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve you—”