The Pretenders (20 page)

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he agreed amiably. We were in the bedroom, and he was standing at the window, looking out on the green park of the Steyne.

I eyed his back. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and I wondered what we could possibly find to do to fill in the hours until dinnertime. “Are you hungry, Reeve?” I asked him. “Would you like to have some tea?”

He turned to face me. The light from the window behind him lit his smoothly brushed hair and made it look like polished mahogany. He answered. “I’m hungry all right, but not for tea.”

There was a hard, concentrated look on his chiseled face. His eyes swept all over me, and I could feel color rush into my cheeks. I said a little uncertainly, “Well, the earliest we can eat dinner is six o’clock.”

He began to walk toward me. “I have no intention of waiting until dinner.”

He reached me and put his hands on my shoulders. It was then that his meaning registered.

I was truly scandalized.

“
Reeve
! You cannot mean to go to bed in the middle of the afternoon!”

“I most certainly do,” he replied. And before I could protest again, he bent his head and kissed me.

His mouth was hard and demanding, and it knocked the breath right out of my body. He wrapped his arms around me, bent me back so that my head was braced against his shoulder, and kissed me until I was so dizzy that I couldn’t think.

When he finally lifted his head and stepped away from me, my knees were so wobbly I almost fell. Huge-eyed, I watched as he went silently to the doors that led into both our dressing rooms and locked them.

I swallowed.

Still in silence, he took off his coat and his neckcloth and dropped them on the brown-velvet chaise lounge that was positioned nearest to him. Then he was coming back across the carpet toward me.

I pulled myself together, and said severely, “This is not at all how I pictured things happening on my wedding day, Reeve. I always thought that I would be wearing my nightdress and waiting for you in bed. At night. In the dark. That is how it is supposed to be done, you know—not in the middle of the afternoon.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Ah. So you have been picturing things, have you?”

“Not as much as you have, I’ll wager,” I retorted.

He stopped in front of me and grinned. “You’re right about that.”

He put his hands on either side of my head, his thumbs under my chin, and tipped my face up so that I had to look at him. He said, “You’re not afraid of what is going to happen between us, are you, Deb?”

“No,” I said truthfully.

With surprise, I realized that the expression in his dark eyes was worry. “It might hurt you at first. I would never want to hurt you, you know that, but I have to be honest and tell you that I’ve heard that a woman’s first time can be painful.”

I smiled up at him reassuringly. “I’m brave.”

He smiled back. “You are. And I am incredibly lucky.”

I turned my face and kissed his fingers which were cradling my cheek. His eyes turned black.

“Let’s get you out of this damn dress,” he said.

“You’re going to have to undo the buttons, then, Reeve. I can’t reach them.”

“Turn around.” he said tersely.

I presented him with my back and felt him fumbling with the small, covered buttons of my traveling dress.

“Damn,” he grunted after a few minutes. ”Couldn’t you have picked a dress with bigger buttons? I can hardly get my fingers around these.”

“I thought I was going to be wearing my night-dress,” I retorted. ”It’s not my fault if you are in such a hurry that you have no decency.”

“All right, all right, all right,” he growled. ”I think I’ve got enough of them undone for you to get out of it“

“I don’t want to tear anything,” I said, smothering a smile.

I had to admit that I was having fun.

“Will you take off the goddamn dress!” he roared.

“It’s rude to shout,” I said as I began to work the sleeves off my arms. I felt his eyes on me as I peeled the bisque-colored material away from my shoulders and breasts down to my waist. There was just enough room for me to slide it over my hips to the floor, where I stepped out of it. I bent to pick it up and went to put it on the brass-bound trunk that was placed at the foot of the bed. Then I turned to face Reeve.

The nipples of my breasts were easily visible through the thin cotton of my chemise. Reeve was staring at them, and for a moment the hardness of his face made him seem like a stranger. I had to restrain myself from folding my arms across my chest to hide myself.

He said in a hoarse voice, “You’ve changed from the little girl I used to go swimming with.”

The reference to our mutual childhood restored my confidence; it reminded me that this was Reeve who was looking at me and not some stranger. I felt myself relax.

He said, his eyes still on my breasts, “I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that you had grown up, but it wasn’t until I saw you in London that I realized you weren’t my little childhood friend any longer.” He raised his eyes to my face. “You had turned into a beautiful woman right under my nose, and I hadn’t even noticed.”

I said a little unsteadily, “The same thing happened to me with you.”

He started to approach me. “Did it, Deb?”

I nodded. “I realized it, I think, the first time you kissed me.”

He bent a little and scooped me up in his arms.

“
Reeve
!” I said, breathless with surprise.

He began to walk me toward the bed. He carried me as if I weighed nothing—which I don’t. He laid me down and bent to remove his boots. Then he joined me on top of the mattress.

“Now,” he said, “let’s get serious …”

I looked up into his glittering eyes. “Show me.” I said.

He kissed me again, and I opened my mouth willingly to the sweet invasion of his tongue. After a while his mouth moved away from mine to trail along my neck and down to my breasts. He pushed down my chemise and at the touch of his tongue on my nipple, ripples of sensation rolled down to my loins.

My breath caught in my throat.

“Do you like that, Deb?” Reeve murmured.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

His mouth left my nipple and moved to the underside of my breast. “God,” he said. “Your skin is so beautiful. It’s like touching silk.”

At this point, my hands were buried in his hair. My eyes were closed.

His mouth moved to my other breast.

Liquid sensation poured all through me.

I took my hands away from his head and began to pull his shirt away from his breeches. I wanted to touch his skin the way he was touching mine.

I slid my hands up his back and felt the strong muscles under the smooth skin. He felt wonderful.

He sat up for a moment and with one fluid motion he pulled the shirt over his head. Then he bent and ripped off his breeches.

I looked.

If I wasn’t a little girl anymore, then he certainly wasn’t a little boy.

“
Good
heavens,
Reeve,” I croaked. ”You’re simply
not
going to fit.”

“I think we’ll manage it.” he said.

I wasn’t so sure, but he was the one with the expertise in this area, so I didn’t say anything else.

Besides, I didn’t want him to stop what it was that he was doing.

He went back to kissing me, and now I felt his hands on my drawers, pushing them down. When he had got them to my ankles, I helped by kicking them fully out of our way.

“That’s my girl,” he said breathlessly, and then I felt his fingers come up between my legs.

I stiffened. I couldn’t help it.

“It’s all right, Deb,” he said. ”Relax. It will be all right.”

Relax
? I thought wildly,
How can I relax with him touching me like this
?

But after a minute I felt a paralyzingly sweet sensation begin to emanate from the touch of those long, clever fingers. He moved his body over mine. His tongue was deep within my mouth and now his fingers were also deep within my body.

I began to throb and, of its own volition, my lower body lifted itself upward toward Reeve.

“God Almighty, Deb,” he groaned into my mouth. “
God Almighty
.”

I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that I was wet and hot, and the sensation that was sweeping through my loins was building toward some indescribable climax.

“All right,” Reeve said hoarsely. When he spread my legs, I opened them willingly, and when he raised my knees, I let him. He positioned himself and his eyes met mine.

“All right?” he repeated.

The throbbing inside of me was crying out for him. “Yes,” I said.

He moved into me slowly at first, but he didn’t get very far before he stuck.

I almost cried with frustration.

He was sweating and breathing heavily as he said to me, “Hold on now, Deb.”

Then he thrust –
hard
.

My fingers bit into his shoulders.

He was in.

The two of us lay perfectly still, staring at each other, afraid to move. Reeve was sweating as if he had been out in the sun for hours.

After a while he panted, “Am I hurting you?”

“Only a little. It hurt at first, but it doesn’t feel too bad now,” I said cautiously.

I could see the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. He moved slowly back and forth inside of me.

“How does that feel?’

“It’s not too bad,” I said with the same caution as before.

He shut his eyes. Sweat was pouring off of him. “Dear God,” he said.

“I’m fine, Reeve,” I said. ”You just go ahead and do what you have to do.”

“I don’t think I have any choice,” he said hoarsely. And while my fingers gripped his shoulders tensely, he began to drive in and out of me, in and out, until finally he let out a noise that sounded like
Aahhhh
! – And went still.

Then his weight dropped on me and I put my arms around him and held him while he struggled to recover his breath. Finally he lifted himself up a little without completely disconnecting us and looked down into my face.

“Are you all right, Deb?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “It wasn’t bad at all, Reeve. Really.”

“Dear God,” he groaned. ”I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven and she says it wasn’t bad.”

“It was actually quite nice for a while,” I said with a laugh.

He rolled off me and gathered me into his arms. “It will always be quite nice from now on. I promise you.”

“Mmm. I just think I need to stretch a bit more down there.”

He cradled me close. “You will.”

I closed my eyes and cuddled against him and thought that perhaps he was right.

We had dinner in the hotel dining room. Both of us were ravenous, and the dressed lamb, buttered prawns, asparagus, sole with white wine and mushrooms, and apple pie tasted exceedingly good. Reeve ordered a bottle of champagne, and I drank two glasses while he had the rest.

After dinner we went for a walk along the Marine Parade, where we watched the sun go down and the moon come up. By the time we got back to our hotel room, I was so sleepy I could scarcely keep my eyes open. Susan got me into the nightdress I was supposed to have been wearing for my first sexual encounter with my new husband, and I got into bed, told Reeve a firm good night, and was asleep in less than five minutes.

I awoke the following morning with the sensation that someone was looking at me. I opened my eyes and saw Reeve lying on his stomach next to me. He was propped up on his elbows, his chin on his linked hands and his eyes on my face.