There Will Be Phlogiston (10 page)

His was lived-in skin. Not beautiful. He was never
that. But very real. She traced the long veins that wound down his
arms, feeling occasionally small pieces of roughness, scars and
burns, old hurts and injuries that had healed badly or not been
tended. His whole life, written on his body, laid bare for her.

If he had stripped her, she would have been pale,
pristine, blank. A book without a story.

He pulled her close, cradling her between his knees.
“You’re beautiful, Ros.”

“I know.”

He grinned, running his palms down her back, though
all she could feel of them was the pressure of their progress.

“I think,” she said, “we should have sex.”

He nudged the tip of his nose against hers. “We
are.”

“No, I think you should . . . you know . . . with
your member.”

There was a silence that Rosamond thought might not
have been entirely comfortable. The breeze snatched up a handful of
leaves and whisked them into the brook.

“I don’t think I should do that.”

Well, how rude. “Don’t you want to?”

“Yes, but there are lots of things I want to do, and
that’s just one of them.”

“What about what I want?”

He looked up at her, the shadows mixing grey into
the blue of his eyes. “You want to marry a marquess. And he’ll want
a virgin.”

“And how precisely will he tell?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never—”

“Well,” she snapped, “I
am
a virgin, and I
have put my fingers inside myself, on several occasions, and I have
discovered no particular barrier to ingress. So I don’t see why I
should be prevented from having sex if I wish to.”

His hands swept back up to her shoulders and
discovered the thin band of uncovered skin above her collar. The
brush of his thumbs over it made her shiver wildly, the pleasure
flooding her in heavy waves, almost hypnotic.

Don’t stop
, she thought.
Never stop doing
that
.

“And if I get you pregnant?” he asked.

Oh. A chill gathered inside her, settled over her,
consuming his touch. “That would be inconvenient.”

“Just a little, love.”

She was tired. Cold. And the colours in the glade
had shed their brightness. The trees huddled too close around them,
cutting the light to strips. She pressed her face against his
shoulder. “I want to feel something,” she whispered.

His arms came round her, enfolding her. “I don’t
need my prick for that.”

And the next thing she knew, she was on her back,
slightly dizzied from the speed of it, the rush of grey sky and red
trees that filled her eyes as the world turned upside down. Jones
was tangled in her petticoats and her hair, leaves and grass
clinging to his copper-dark skin, and he was laughing.

“I thought you were supposed to have facility,” she
muttered.

“I’m not used to so many clothes.”

“That is because you have disported yourself too
much with whores and other men.”

He pushed her hair out of his eyes and got a knee
between hers, which left her very little choice but to part her
legs for him to settle between. Her skirts rucked up against his,
well, his loins she supposed, outlining the shape of her lower body
in a manner as blatant as it was surely obscene. Thankfully, she
knew she had fine ankles, well-turned calves, and shapely thighs,
even if they were currently more inclined to wrap around Anstruther
Jones than display themselves to proper advantage.

He lowered himself to his elbows and kissed her
again. It was different like this, more awkward and more intimate
at the same time, the way they aligned and moved together, as if
their bodies wished to commune in the same fashion as their mouths.
There was something undeniably carnal in the silken infiltration of
his tongue, the way she could feel the evidence of his arousal
pressed against her even through all her damnable layers.

The hunger of it, the eagerness, and the
vulnerability of that desire was . . . frankly . . . thrilling. She
made an immoderate sound against his lips, and he swallowed it,
returned it, just as immoderately, her wanting echoed and
multiplied. She curved her hands over his shoulder blades—how
satin-smooth his skin poured over that ridge of muscle and bone—and
tugged him down, harder, closer, relishing his weight, his rough
strength, until all their desperate sounds were one.

His hand had somehow found its way under her skirts
and petticoats, and was fumbling with the fastenings of her
breeches. And then sliding into her drawers, the heel of his palm
nudging the unnameable place that ached for him.

“If that’s your intention,” she said, a little
breathlessly, “I can very well do it for myself.”

“It’s different when it’s someone else.”

She scowled. “I don’t see how. It is a perfectly
simple motion.”

“That so?” He parted her, not roughly at all, but
with a surety that was, in its own way, just as startling. “What
sort of motion?”

It was hard to think with strange fingers—
his
fingers—touching her so intimately. It made her almost unbearably
conscious of her own heat, her own dampness, how soft and swollen
and eager she was. “I . . . that is . . . I have discovered . . . a
particular place, not inside but towards the top of the—ah,
yes.”

Her head fell back against the leaves, her spine
arching. She had long believed this intense sensitivity a secret
peculiarity of her body, but Jones had somehow managed to locate
the area unerringly.

“What sort of motion?” he asked again, his voice
husky with passion and a hint of something that might have been
laughter.

“I usually— Oh.” She tried to catch her breath. “I—
Oh.
Oh
.”

How did he know? The way he touched her, gently at
first, tantalising but not teasing, like the opening notes of a
melody just before you recognised what it was going to be.

“Perhaps I could just do this?”

“That would . . . that would . . . be
acceptable.”

She lost all track of time, of everything in fact,
that wasn’t her body, and the ecstasies it learned. Jones had been
right, of course: with him, it was not the same. With oneself
pleasure was the destination. With a lover it was the journey. And,
although it was disconcerting, at least initially, to be unable to
exert much direct control over the pressure or the pace, she found
she could nevertheless influence it almost unconsciously through
sound and gesture. For Jones was quite remarkably attentive, his
eyes fixed unwaveringly on her face, his breathing just as
helplessly uneven as hers, his sinewy forearm sweat-streaked and
flexing as he worked between her thighs.

It was a provocative contrast, to feel at once so
powerless and powerful, exposed yet safe, as though one gave, and
was taken, in the same handful of moments. But it was also hard to
dwell on such matters—intriguing though they were—because she had
an incipient climax to attend. He had coaxed her carefully to what
seemed like the brink of one, on several heart-squeezing occasions,
only to reveal some new variation of bliss he wished to wring from
her. The physicality of it was quite wondrous. Truly, it was. But
more than that was how dazed
he
looked, how frantic, as if
it were his own pleasure he sought, not hers.

It filled her with a kind of possessive tenderness.
And that, strangely or not so strangely, that was what took her in
the end. Drew her tight like a falcon on the brink of flight, and
then set her free in a flash of heat and joy. Her wild scream
vanished into the roar of the waterfall, and for a moment the world
was jewel-bright in her eyes—almost more beautiful than she could
bear. And then there was just the dark rush of rapture, as
different to whatever satisfaction she had found with her own
fingers as the sun to the moon, the phoenix to the sparrow.

It was almost irritating.

Almost.

Somehow, he had seemed to know exactly the moment to
cease his more intimate attentions, and there was something rather
lovely in having instead his arms to hold her through the unseemly
violence of her dissipating ecstasies. His ardent mouth to press
kisses into the burning skin of her throat. It should, surely, have
been mortifying to be witnessed in such a state, but instead all
she felt was safe.

And whatever was the opposite of lonely. For which,
just at present, she could not find a word.

Trembling still, and breathless, she abandoned
herself to Jones’s embraces. It was, she discovered, more difficult
to trust him with her comfort than it had been to trust him with
her pleasure. The need, though just as great, was not as sharp, or
as urgent. But this was her afternoon. Hers. She would deny herself
nothing that she wanted. And Jones was as generous in this as in
everything else. His body surrounded her, still rigid, and flushed
with arousal, and she pressed her cheek against his chest,
breathing in the scent of his skin.

He smelled of the cold air, clean and sharp, fresh
sweat, and some deeper musk, heavy with salt, that she thought was
probably male desire.

She wasn’t sure how long they lay together tangled
in satiation and want, but the slight movement of his arm made her
open her eyes. He had his still-glistening fingers pressed to his
mouth. Shocked and perversely delighted, she watched him slowly
lick them clean.

“Sir, that . . . that is not gentlemanly.”

He grinned at her, as lazy as a lion in sunlight. “I
don’t give a damn.”

His erect appendage was pressed against her hip.
While it may have born very little visual resemblance to the Elgin
Marbles, in rigour at least there was some comparison to be made.
“Should there be some fashion of reciprocity?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“What if I wished it?”

He made a rather lofty gesture with the hand that
had previously pleasured her. “Then I’m told it’s a gentleman’s
duty to always oblige a lady. What do you wish of me?”

She felt that damnable, telltale blush heat her
cheeks. “I wish to watch you . . . bring yourself to crisis.”

He rolled carefully away from her, settling on his
back on the leaves, reaching down to encircle his own prick. His
expression was a little abashed as he muttered, “It won’t take
long.”

For some reason she found the notion pleasing. “Do I
stir you so?”

He nodded. “Always. But specially like this.”

“Sweaty and rumpled and—”

“Pleasured, aye.”

She smiled. Not like ladies were supposed to smile,
but like some monstrous thing, all teeth and satisfaction.

As Jones had warned, it was not a lengthy process,
though nevertheless fascinating to behold. He was all tight muscles
and unexpected physical openness, his head thrown back and his face
naked in bliss. It was a strange and powerful intimacy to see all
these secret, forbidden things. The glide of skin between a man’s
fingers as he caressed himself. The pearly moisture that gathered
to his touching. The helpless curl of his toes. The hitch of his
breath. The closed door of masculinity thrown wide, just for
her.

“Oh . . . God . . . Ros.”

His voice was little more than a scratchy growl.
Exhilarating. Stirring reactions in places that should surely have
been replete.

Wanting to kiss him, but not wanting to miss a
single moment of his climax, she touched her hand to his lips, and
that was how he found completion, his groan smothered against her
palm like the roughest, sweetest of kisses.

She gazed at him, absurdly, helplessly enamoured.
Slightly stunned by the realisation that she did, indeed, find him
beautiful. Or that the word itself was lacking if she could not
apply it to Anstruther Jones. A man of scars and wounds and gold,
garlanded in the pearls of his own pleasure.

“Oh my—” she swallowed a gasp of her own “—you are
most extravagantly bedewed.”

He laughed, and pulled her down, tucking her against
his side, her head nestled to his shoulder. And they lay there
awhile in love and bliss and silence.

“You were right,” she said, finally. “We should not
do this again. It . . . it would be too painful.”

He made a soft sound, frustration she thought, and
longing perhaps. “Or you could be with me. However you want.”

“Is . . . is that some fashion of proposal?” She
tried to make it a joke, but her voice trembled and betrayed
her.

“Yes.”

“It is not a very creditable one.”

“No, but it’s sincere. I’d like to make you happy,
Ros. I know you’d do the same for me.”

“What can possibly have given you that idea? We have
already established that I am spoiled, headstrong, stubborn,
and—”

“And I like you.”

Oh, why did she feel like crying? “I can’t. I’m
engaged to a marquess. To jilt him for you would ruin me.”

“And marrying him won’t?”

It was at once a reasonable question, and terribly
unfair. “You don’t understand.” She pushed away his arms, and the
world felt colder outside their circle. “It’s easy for you. You
don’t have anything to lose, and you only have to think of
yourself. I have my family.”

“Yes.” He still did not flinch from her. “Yes, you
do.”

Fuck
. Fuck fuck fuck. “I did not mean . . .
That is . . . I was clumsy.”

“It’s all right, Ros. I just think a family should
do more than take from you.”

She tried to smooth her hair into some semblance of
order. “I should like you to take me back now.”

His hands were gentle against hers as he helped her
corral her wayward tresses. “Anything you want.”

It took less time than she would have imagined for
them to make themselves respectable again. As if everything they’d
done, everything they’d said, was already slipping away from
her.

The journey back was somehow quite different.

And she rather feared she was too.