The Beloved One (31 page)

"And do you mind if I touch you all over?"

His voice was deep, a little husky.  "You may touch me wherever you please, Amy."

"Wherever?"

He smiled up at her.  "Wherever."

She drew back and looked at him lying there, watching her every move from beneath lazy, half-lowered lashes.  His left arm rested across his abdomen; she picked it up and, raising his fist, undid the buttons of his sleeve while he watched her with a patient mixture of interest and amusement.

The sleeve gaped open, then slid all the way to the elbow, exposing his taut, lightly haired forearm to Amy's gaze.  He had strong, hard arms.  Wonderful arms.  She saw the tendons just beneath the skin, and, defined in the moonlight, the beautiful play of muscle.  And still he lay quietly watching her, his shoulders propped against the wall, content to let her do as she wished to him and promising with his eyes that he would do the same to her.  In time.  All in good time.  Still holding his fist in her hands, Amy smiled down into his eyes, lifted the underside of his wrist to her lips, and pressed it to her mouth.

She feathered her lips against it, and lightly, lovingly, touched it with her tongue.

She saw the exact moment something changed in him.  His eyes darkened.  His lashes lowered.  A slow, easy smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

Still kissing the underside of his wrist, Amy picked up his other hand and repeated the procedure.  She undid the button, and allowed the sleeve to whisper down his raised arm.  She put her lips against the slightly salty skin, then lightly ran her tongue all the way from wrist to elbow, chasing the sleeve and kissing, tasting, and licking as she went.

He swallowed, hard, and she saw that his smile had widened until a dimple appeared in his chin.  Beneath those long, sweeping lashes, his eyes were crystalline and gleaming with interest.

"Why, Charles.  I haven't seen you looking this relaxed since that day we got you half-drunk out on Plum Island!"

"I daresay I was not nearly as drunk then, my dear, as I am now."  His gaze held hers, steady, deep, and oh-so-warm.  "And this time, I
far
prefer the intoxicant."

Amy's own eyes glowed with answering warmth, and then she bent her head, feeling suddenly powerful in an entirely feminine sort of way.  As she released his hand and began to pull his shirt free of the waistband of his breeches, she felt a tugging sensation in her hair.

She glanced up, brows lifted in surprise.

"Your hair," he murmured, setting aside the little muslin cap he had just removed.  "Only once have I seen it down, and then, when it was wet and bedraggled after our escapade in the river.  You just told me how long you have waited for the chance to touch me as you're doing . . . well, Amy, that wait was no less difficult for me.  For nearly two years, I have fantasized about freeing your hair from its pins and running my hands through the entire length of it.  For nearly two years, I have tormented myself with wondering just how long it really is, how silky it must really feel, how thick and shining it might really be between my fingers.  Please — do not deny me."

He pulled a pin from her hair, and part of her pinned-up braid sagged against her ear.

Amy cocked her head and looked up, as though she could see the damage he'd just wrought.  "Well, if you get to undo something, then so do I."

"You've already undone something.  In fact, you are several steps in front of me, my dear, and it's only fair that you give me the chance to catch up."  He drew another pin from her hair, and dropped it against the wall behind him, where Contender would not step on it.  "There.  One pin for one sleeve."  He withdrew another, and the heavy, coiled mass of Amy's hair began to droop.  "A second pin for the other."  Grinning, he reached up and drew one, two, three more pins from her hair, and with a whispery little sigh, the entire mass came tumbling down around her shoulders, around her breasts, around her waist, and to the straw in which she sat in a gleaming fall of sleek, nearly-black satin.  He reached out and touched it, combing out one long, long skein with his fingers and admiring it with his eyes, with his hand, with his lips.  "And there.  That, I think, makes us even."

"Not quite."

Returning his grin, she pushed her hands beneath his shirt and slid her palms up the flat, hard expanse of his stomach.  He was deliciously warm, and she thrilled to the feel of silky male hair around his navel, of the concave tautness of his belly, of the curve of his ribs.  Here, a small bump; there, what felt like a tiny scar.  She splayed her fingers and spread her hands wide, running them further up his torso, trying to touch all of him, all at once.  Hard, slightly bulging pectorals.  Soft, wiry hair fanning across his chest and under his arms.  Tiny nipples that beckoned exploration, and warm, wonderful skin that begged her never to stop touching it.

"Mmmmmm," he murmured, his eyes drifting shut before he dragged them open once again.  "Your hands feel wonderful, Amy."

And then, reaching up, he caught a length of her hair and trailed it over his bare stomach.

"You're shivering, Charles.  Are you cold?"

"No, Amy."  He shook his head from side to side, slowly, and never took his steady gaze off her.  "I am not cold.  I am not cold at all."

She drew back, bringing her hands back down his chest as she went, feeling the tiny, involuntary shudders beneath her palms, beneath her fingertips.  And as she returned to an upright position, her hands came once more over his navel — and stopped, just at the top of his breeches.

There she let them remain.

He gazed up at her.  Watching.  Waiting.

She gazed back down at him.

And then, her face growing warm — not with embarrassment or maidenly modesty, but with the fire that was already burning hot through her own blood — Amy let her fingertips whisper over his waistband.  Down over the top button of his drop front.  And now, up and over the huge, hard bulge just beneath the butter-soft leather, where she let them remain.

"Oh," he said, taking a deep breath.

"I thought you liked to be touched."

"My dear —
like
is not quite the word I would use to describe the pleasure you are currently bringing me."

She smiled, and, still holding his gaze, exerted the faintest of pressure against him.

"Oh — oh, blimey," he said, on something of a surprised gasp.

Amy's lips twitched on a helpless, giddy giggle, and beneath her fingertips, she felt his arousal straining, swelling, craving her touch with all the concentrated desire that was in its owner.  He said that he liked to be touched.  He said that this brought him pleasure, but his heavy-lidded expression, the sudden dampness on his brow, and the hoarse, shallow little breaths he was beginning to take made her wonder how much of this he could stand.  How much of it he would permit.

No sense backing down now.  After all, he said he liked it.

She opened her hand fully, and hardening her palm, passed it against the swelling ridge, then traced its shape with her fingers.  He winced, and a soft groan escaped him.  He was very hot beneath the soft leather of the breeches.  He felt as hard as rock.  Did it hurt, to be contained so completely by the straining leather?  Was he uncomfortable?  Guided by compassion and instinct, she found the pewter buttons that closed his dropfront, pushing first one through its hole, then another.  He was breathing more raggedly now, and she realized, belatedly, that so was she.

"Amy — what
are
you trying to do to me?" he asked, in a hoarse, strained voice.

"I'm trying to make you more comfortable, Charles.  You must be in pain, all bundled up like that . . . I mean, we wouldn't want to cut off the blood supply or anything . . .  You don't mind, do you?"

"Mind?"  He gave a little half-laugh.  "No, no, I certainly don't mi —" he sucked in his breath as she undid the last button and his hard, hot flesh sprang free against her hand — "mind at all . . ."

"Do you still want me to touch you, Charles?  Does this part of you enjoy it as much as the rest of you?"

"Amy . . . yes . . . that part of me enjoys it more than all the rest of me combined, which is why —
oh
— which is why . . . dear God! — which is why you really cannot p-play with it the way you're doing . . ."

"I'm not trying to play with it, Charles, I'm just rubbing it to restore the circulation since it was pushing so hard against your breeches that it now looks a little blue."

He made a strangled sound.  "Rubbing it to . . . to restore the circulation . . . will, I think, put a premature end to this act —
oh-h-h-h
— Amy — Amy, I think I must ask you not to do that."

"Do what?"

"What you're doing . . ."

"You don't want me to rub it, then?"

"It's not that I don't want you to, it's that I'm about to crack a tooth with the force with which I'm clamping my jaws shut.  Please . . . I am not strong enough to hold out against such . . . such sweet torment, I swear, I am not . . ."

"What happens if your strength gives out?" she asked, cupping her hand around his hot flesh and exploring the tip with her thumb.  "What happens if you just let yourself go?"

"Amy . . . I want to make this special for you . . . magical . . . last time it was rushed, desperate, over too quickly.  If you —" he groaned beneath her ruthless caresses and, shutting his eyes, let his head droop sideways against the wall, his teeth bared with the effort it took to control himself —"if you show me just a little mercy, I can make this last much longer . . . much longer indeed."

Amy, learning for the first time that a simple touch could bring him to this, learning for the first time the extent of her own feminine power over this strong and virile man and revelling in the use of it, had no intention of stopping — or showing him any mercy whatsoever.  She went right on rubbing him.  "But we have all night, Charles," she said with false innocence.  "And you
did
say I could touch you, anywhere."

"I . . . think perhaps that I . . . that I. . . ."

She ran her fingers down the hard, hot length of him, caressed the twin sacs nestled in their bed of wiry hair, lifted them gently in her hand.

"That you what?"

"That I . . . that I . . . 'sdeath, I don't know."

Amy, stroking him with her fingers, sucked in her lips against threatening laughter.  She was making him mindless, and she loved this magical hold over him.  But even as she secretly rejoiced, she knew that down there beneath her petticoats, and high up between the junction of her thighs, she was feeling awfully hot and tingly as well, and that part of her ached with a prurient fire that wanted only to be filled by him, and filled soon.  But they had all night.  They really did.  And now she lightly squeezed the velvety knob of flesh until his entire body was rigid and tense, his cheek pressed against the wall behind him, and a muscle was quivering in his jaw.

"I . . . I don't know — 'struth, I cannot take much more of this," he groaned.  "God help me, I cannot!"

"Then I think you should just stop fighting it and let come what may."

He nearly choked.

"Just sit back and let me touch you, Charles.  I know you enjoy it.  You know I'm enjoying it.  Besides, you
did
say I could seduce you, so for just once in your life, stop trying to control a situation and just let what happens, happen."

He had drawn his leg up once more; she pushed it gently off to the side, running her fingers up the inside of his thigh, and now Charles squeezed his eyes, his fists, his jaw shut in a last, Herculean effort to resist that which she was pushing him towards —

"Amy —"

And felt her warm little fingers caressing his damp and throbbing tip.

With a hoarse cry, he felt the barrier of his self-control break, and a second later, his seed was pulsing out of him, leaving him gasping and shocked and completely mortified that he had not been able to stop himself.  His eyes opened, and, flinging an arm across his feverishly hot brow, he looked up at Amy, who was gazing down at him with an expression of satisfaction and amusement.

"You were right," she quipped.  "You certainly
do
like being touched."

He swore and shut his eyes.

She lay down beside him, facing him with her weight on one elbow.  He felt her playing with a lock of his hair, felt her lips brushing his temple, his cheek, his neck.  Her hair was glassy-smooth against his arm, his neck.  He could smell the soft fragrance of her skin, the muskiness of his own desire, and he could feel the blood returning to his member, could feel himself rallying once more.

"Good God," he said, half surprised, half grateful, as he opened his eyes.

"That was fun, Charles."

"Probably more so for me than it was for you."

"Oh, I don't know about
that
!"

"You were not offended?"

"Of course not.  Should I have been?"

"No," he said, pensively.  "No, you should not have been.  I think you are a very . . . a very bold and intuitive lover, Amy.  I daresay I like that in you."

"It was fun, to make you lose control like that.  I felt so — so
powerful
!"

He raised his brows, amused by her innocence, the wicked delight she'd found in her discovery.  "Yes, well.  A woman's feminine power will make her the victor every time, when it comes to testing the strength between the sexes."

Her hand traced little circles atop his belly, every so often roving down into the curling bed of hair from which his manhood sprang and was, even now, starting to harden once again.

He reached out and caught her hand.

"Oh, Charles," she giggled, kissing the base of his throat.  "Let me make you all confused again, let me make you lose control, let me touch and love and stroke you."

In one fluid motion, he rolled over onto his side, pushing her down on her back as he went.  "No, Amy," he murmured, arranging her long, heavy tresses in the straw around her head.  "It is my turn to touch and love and stroke
you
."

"But —"