Trouble With Harry (13 page)

“No,” she said, leaning forward to nip at his lower lip. “You've had your turn. Now it's mine.”

Harry knew he'd never last through Plum's exploration of him. He was nigh unto bursting now, and just the look in her dark, liquid eyes almost made him spill his seed.

She stroked her hand along his chest. “You have such a lovely chest, Harry. It has just the right amount of hair, not too much, not too little, and your flesh is very firm.”

His muscles flinched beneath her fingers as she stroked down the length of his breastbone to his belly, leaving a fiery path in their wake. She leaned forward and gently kissed his collarbone, her hands on either side of his ribs, stroking and petting him.

“Your skin is so warm, so very warm. I like to touch you. I like to feel your muscles ripple beneath my fingers. You make me feel wild inside. You make me want to do things I didn't know were possible. You make me want to—”

A thousand places he never knew existed suddenly kindled into flame as she stopped speaking and bent her head to kiss the breadth of his chest, her hair trailing little streaks of fire and ice as it brushed his skin. She paused for a moment over one of his nipples. He held his breath. Previous to Plum, he had never been a nipple man, had never really enjoyed women fondling him there. A nipple was a nipple was his motto. They were well and fine on women, enjoyable to tease and a sure way to arouse a woman, but his own set were nothing more than decoration as far as he was concerned. All that changed the night Plum pressed hot kisses to his chest. Now she was doing more than kissing, she was tormenting him just as he had tormented her. Her little white teeth closed gently over one brown nub of a nipple, converting Harry on the spot.

“St. Peter's cods!” he bellowed, tears coming to his eyes with the burst of pleasure that burned through his chest. “Is this what you feel? Dear God, woman, do the other one before I expire!”

Plum chuckled a throaty chuckle that vibrated down to Harry's toes. She leaned over to tickle his other nipple with the tip of her tongue. “I like the way you taste, Harry. You taste just like I thought you would—hot and masculine and very, very pleasing.”

Harry gulped air as Plum's sweet little mouth closed over his nipple, sucking it and tugging it gently until he thought he would burst into flame.

“Enough,” he said hoarsely, trying to twist around so he could plunge himself into her depths.

“No, not yet,” Plum said, pushing him down into the bed. “I haven't finished. I haven't looked at the rest of you. You're made so finely, every part of you in perfect accord with the rest. I want to touch you. I want to feel you. I want to kiss you as you kissed me. I want to take you into my mouth and taste you, husband. Will you like that?”

Harry's brain ceased functioning at her question. He couldn't speak, couldn't think, could only stare at her with wide, hopeful eyes and nod his head vigorously. Plum smiled a smile that made his legs stiffen with the effort to keep from spilling his seed right then and there, and then she lowered her head and kissed his belly. He groaned his pleasure at her touch.

“You're so hard, Harry, everywhere but your belly. Have I told you how much I love your belly?” She kissed the thin line of hair where it led down his stomach to his manhood. “I love your legs, too. You have a horseman's thighs, all long muscles and beautiful contours.”

He gritted his teeth as she trailed kisses across one thigh, her hand closing around the two globes of softness between his legs. They contracted instantly, anticipating her touch elsewhere, enjoying the light scraping of her nails against the soft flesh.

“God in heaven,” he moaned, every muscle straining, waiting for her touch. Her breath steamed over the length of him as he stood hard and ready and near to bursting. It was his turn to grasp big handfuls of the bedding to keep from grabbing her, thrusting brutally into her, claiming her for his own.

She touched the very tip of him with her finger, spreading the moisture that had gathered there, gently pushing the outer layer of skin back. “It doesn't look comfortable to be so very hard, husband. And you're hot, I can feel the heat radiating from this part of you. I never thought it possible to be so hot, but you are, hot and very hard and yet your skin is like velvet here. You match the fire inside of me, you make me burn hotter for you.”

Her hand closed around the base of his shaft, squeezing slightly as her mouth descended upon him, her tongue rasping his length.

“St. Genevieve's cods, Plum, you're going to unman me!” Harry gasped, senseless to all but the euphoria she generated in him.

“You are so very different from what I remembered,” Plum murmured, sliding her hand along his hardness, stroking him as his hips thrust his length through her fingers. “Touching you like this makes me feel quivery inside. Do you feel quivery as well? You are enjoying this, are you not?”

Harry's head snapped back as he thrust in time to her strokes, unable to keep himself still, oblivious to all but the ecstasy she was giving him. A gargled moan came from his throat as she bent over him again, her hair spilling like ink around his hips as her tongue teased the underside of his most sensitive spot. He moved twice, three times, and roared a wordless roar of elation as he reached his climax.

“Oh, my!” Plum said a scant few seconds later. Harry lay twitching slightly on the bed, too exhausted to open his eyes. He knew what he'd see when he did, and a faint flush rose over his cheeks at the thought of it. She had done what no other woman had: she had unmanned him.

“How interesting. I've never actually seen that happen before. This has been very enlightening.”

Harry felt the bed shift slightly and cracked one eye open to see his wife pad over to the washstand, her long hair sweeping just above her adorable behind. She wetted a cloth and brought it back to the bed, cleaning him with a tenderness that almost undid him. His cheeks reddened even more under her ministrations, and he was heartily glad when she finished and went to replace the cloth. He knew what he had to do, but every instinct within him cried against it. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right that he should have to apologize for a natural reaction, since it was entirely her fault he had succumbed to the lure of her hands and mouth. He wanted to proceed upon proper lines, but she had insisted, and he being a gentleman, naturally let her have her way. And now just look what he had to show for it! He had to apologize to his wife for his selfishness when it was really all her fault for making him lose control!

“You have my apology, madam,” Harry ground out, rolling to his side and giving her his back.

“Apology? For what?”

Good God, did she have to make it more difficult? “You have my apology for my thoughtless act just now.”

“What thoughtless act?” Plum queried. She placed a hand on his hip and tugged, but he would not be moved. He wouldn't look at her, couldn't look at her, probably would never be able to look at her again in his whole, entire—now miserable—life. “Harry? Are you angry about something? Did I hurt you? You seemed to be enjoying yourself—have I done something wrong? Would you like me to touch you again?”

Harry groaned in a breath and lurched as his wife's hand closed around him. He was still partially aroused, still wanted to bury himself in her heat, to feel her silken folds closing around him as he thrust into her. He wanted to watch her eyes mist with passion as she found her own release, wanted to feel her buck and arch beneath him as he filled her. He shuddered with the effort to remain in control as her hand explored him, caressing and stroking him to full arousal.

“Harry?” Her breath was hot on his ear. “I'm glad I gave you pleasure. I felt how much you enjoyed it, and it made me happy, too. Perhaps we can share that joy again?”

Harry's muscles quivered for one indecisive moment, then the choice was made. He whipped around, pulling her underneath him even as he was spreading her legs and settling himself at the entrance to her center.

“Look at me, Plum,” he demanded, the tip of him pressing against her heat. She arched her hips in invitation as her eyelids fluttered open. “I want to watch you as I take you. I want to watch the passion fill your eyes as I slide deep within you. I want to watch you lose your control when I pound into you, thrusting myself deep within your body. I want to watch you gasp when your pleasure overtakes you. I want to watch you as I make you my wife.”

He stroked slowly into her, his soul singing with joy as her body yielded in welcome, a thousand little muscles gripping and holding him tight, parting with him reluctantly when he pulled back. He moved in time to the rhythm she set, her hips thrusting against his, her mouth welcoming when he bent his head to sip her sweetness. The bite of her nails stung his shoulders as she gripped him, crying soft little moans of delight, urging him wordlessly to move faster, deeper, stronger against her. Her hands slipped down the slickness of his back to his behind, clutching him and pulling him tighter to her. He grunted with the effort of holding back his own climax until he had brought her to satisfaction, denying himself and taking his pleasure in her cries of joy. His head dropped to her neck as he gasped for air, fighting the need to pour himself out into her, wanting her fire to fuel his own to a height he had not known before. As her hand slipped down over his behind, she wrapped her legs around his waist and bit his neck.

“Sweet St. Peter!” she cried, taking him deeper into her heat until it seemed as if he was touching her womb. “I love you, Harry. You are my life, my being, my everything. Dear God, how I love you!”

As her slickened muscles tightened around his length, he took her ecstasy into himself and with an effort that had to be nigh onto miraculous, pulled out of her body just before he spilled his seed. Her words echoed in his ears, fulfilling him, making him whole, joining him with her in a way he had not known possible. He shouted her name as he poured his life onto her thighs, and knew in that moment that he could not live without her. She was his homecoming, his safe harbor, and he knew with a knowledge inborn of man that his soul was inexorably bound to hers, that they were twined together, and nothing could ever part the two of them into separate people again.

She was his own true love.

Plum was not happy.

Oh, she knew she had no right to be unhappy—everything she'd ever wanted had been handed to her: she had a husband, a kind man with whom she suspected she had fallen in love; five children who, if they weren't exactly what she'd imagined when she thought of her ideal family, were at heart good children…
relatively
good children; she had a home and security and was free from want or need; but despite all of the many blessings she counted as she lay snuggled up against her husband's chest, the soft rumble of his snore ruffling her hair, she was not happy.

She felt particularly ungrateful when she thought about the reason she was so unhappy—Harry was not impressed with her mothering skills. She dismissed his explanation about not wishing her to die in childbirth as simply Harry being kind and not wanting to embarrass her in front of Thom and Temple by admitting that he thought she was a poor mother.

“I am ungrateful,” she whispered as she traced a finger along Harry's bicep. “What does it matter if he doesn't think I'm as good a mother as his first wife? Del is right, mothering isn't everything. I have other qualities, other talents. My whole life does not revolve around being a mother. I am a person unto myself, and do not need to be judged either by my ability to bear children, or my ability to raise them. I am me, Plum. That should be good enough for anyone.”

Brave
words
, her inner Plum said in an annoyingly mocking tone.
The
truth
is, being a mother is what you want, it's what you've always wanted, all you've wanted. A family—that's what you've craved your whole adult life, and now you have one and you're not happy
.

Plum told her inner voice to go take a long walk along a short cliff, and turned her attention from self-pity to proving her excellence as mother to both Harry's existing children and the ones she hoped to bear.

One thought leading to another, Plum's fingers found themselves stroking a path from Harry's arm, down his side, over his hip, to that part of him that lay nestled in quiescence along her thigh. She knew full well why he had spilled his seed outside of her body the previous night, but she had been too caught up in the moment of passion, in the knowledge of her love for him, to beg him to give her a child. Instead she said nothing while he gently cleaned her off, reluctant to ruin the warm feeling that came when he settled back into bed, pulling her up against him, their arms and legs entangled as if their bodies could not be separated.

Plum tipped her head and glared down at the part of him that was the cause of all her woes. “You're not even handsome like the rest of Harry. To be truthful, you're a bit funny looking.”

He stirred (all of him), his arousal stiffening and growing before her eyes.

“
Funny
looking?
” Harry sounded annoyed. Plum smiled at his cute little belly. “What sort of comment is that for a wife to make the morning after a wedding night?”

She kissed his chest, then tipped her head up to smile into his disgruntled face. “I didn't mean it as an insult, husband, but you have to admit that part of the male anatomy is rather…comical.”

His eyes widened. His nostrils flared. His arousal hardened. “My rod is not comical! It's an extremely fine specimen of its kind.”

“Harry, I'm sorry if you're offended by my opinion, but I can't help it—it looks…funny. Look at it!” They both looked. It waved at them. “You see? It's all red and purple, and has that silly little bit of skin that slides back and forth like a purple visor on a helmet.”

“Plum,” Harry said, breathing loudly through his mouth, “you will cease deriding my rod. It is not comical or funny looking. It is manly. It all but throbs with virility. Vigor is its byword. I'll have you know that women the world over have been known to swoon before it. I have had nothing but praise and gratitude from all of the women it has pleasured.”

Plum's giggle died a cruel death as she narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, really? Women the world over?”

“There are legions of women out there who would be happy to write up affidavits attesting to the completely
un
-funny nature of my rod,” Harry continued, waving his hand at his crotch. “It is a majestic thing, a masculine testament to the act of love, a warrior, if you will—”

“A purple-helmeted warrior of love,” Plum snorted as she wished all of those women who had shared Harry's body to the devil. “You sound like the very worst sort of prose, husband. I didn't say it was not a thing of great enjoyment—”

“You mocked it! You derided it!”

“I did not mock—”

“It's a wonder you haven't shredded my confidence in my use of it,” Harry said as he rolled her over onto her back. “In fact, I believe you owe proof to my rod and me that you still believe in it. Me. Us.”

“Women the world over?” Plum asked, her body melting wherever Harry touched. “
Affidavits
, Harry?”

He nipped her nose. “Perhaps that was an exaggeration.”

“I fervently hope so,” she answered, wrapping her legs around his hips, moaning softly as he claimed her mouth. His breath was hot and quick on her lips, but not nearly as rapid as the wild beating of her heart. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, and Plum thought she was going to cry with the pleasure of it. He nipped the corners of her mouth, wordlessly demanding she part her lips to him, and she thought she would faint. His tongue plunged into her mouth, sweeping all objections before it, tasting her, teasing her, stroking her own tongue, and she thought she would die. But when he began to suckle her tongue, when he coaxed her tongue into exploring his mouth, when she tasted his groan of sheer delight, she knew she was in heaven. She pulled him down onto her body, pulled his head closer, trying to taste him, feel him, join with him all at the same time. Her senses swam with the contact, too much too quickly, too much stimulation, too little control, but none of that mattered as she arched up against him when he plunged his tongue into her mouth, little whimpers of pleasure gathering at the back of her throat.

Harry heard those whimpers and lost the thin shred of control that had kept him from plunging himself into her body. “St. Peter's cods, woman! I'm just a man! I can't stand such temptation.”

She blinked at him, her eyes misty with desire, her skin heated with passion. She knew he was speaking, but she didn't understand the words. “Why are you talking? Now is not the time for talk, Harry. Now is the time for making love.”

“Stop that,” he ordered as her legs moved restlessly beneath him, rubbing against him in a provocative movement. “Don't move, don't kiss me, don't breathe. Just lay there, and perhaps I'll be able to get through this without shaming myself a second time.” He bent to caress her breast with his lips. She slid one leg out from beneath him and wrapped it around his calf.

Harry reared backward like he had been shot in the behind, his eyes positively feasting on her flesh, his look so heated she swore she could feel its touch. “So soft,” he said hoarsely as he looked at her. “Everywhere I look, creamy white skin, glistening, a veritable playing ground of delectable flesh, and it's mine, all mine.”

Plum couldn't stop the laughter from burbling out. Harry looked like he was about to rub his hands with glee. “Yes, I'm yours, all yours. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“I want to touch you everywhere, I want to taste you, I want to plunge deep into your silken folds and lose myself in your heat.”

She ran both hands up his arms. “And what's stopping you?”

He made a noise deep in his chest. “I'm a gentleman. You must have the choice of what you want first. Touching, tasting, or plunging?” His voice was rough, gravel-edged, and it thrummed deep within Plum.

Harry kissed her again, a deep kiss, a demanding kiss, a kiss that gave no quarter. “Make up your mind. Quickly. I don't have much time before I…er…I don't have much time.”

“Mmm. Perhaps I can do something to help.” Plum squirmed out from beneath him, pushing him over onto his back. “What a perfect opportunity for the Steeplechase.”

Harry stared at her in delighted surprise as she straddled his thighs.

She smiled. “You're absolutely right, Harry.”

“Yes, of course I am. Er. About what?”

She put out a hand to touch him, and he groaned deep in his throat. “You're hot and hard and velvety smooth, but not funny looking. Not anymore.”

He grabbed her wrist and stopped her exploration. “For the love of God, woman, not now. Not unless you want it all to be over,” he ground out. Plum smiled and slid herself forward on his lap until the tip of him teased her heated core.

“In the Steeplechase, the jockey—me—has absolute control over the stallion. That's you,” she added, just in case he missed that point. “The jockey's responsibility is to make sure her stallion doesn't run himself out before the end of the race.”

His eyes opened even wider as she slid herself a little more forward.

“Timing is everything in the Steeplechase. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Harry stared at her, speechless, a pulse pounding furiously in his neck as she slid along the length of his arousal where it pressed stiffly against his leg.

“I've found that by delaying our gratification, by prolonging the sweet torment, the final moment of ecstasy can be heightened tenfold.”

She slid down his thigh, her body tightening in anticipation. “A hundredfold.”

Harry whimpered hopefully as she moved upward toward his groin.

“A…a…” Their combined moisture provided a delightful friction, a friction that coiled tighter and tighter inside her until Plum opened her eyes very wide, positioning him against the center of desire. She looked deep into his hazel eyes, eyes that spoke louder than any words, eyes that told her how much he wanted and desired her, and with a sob of happiness that at last she had found him, the ideal man to share her life, she took his lower lip into her mouth, nipping it as she suddenly plunged downward. “…a thousandfold!”

“St. Peter and all the saints,” Harry gasped as she sank onto him, holding his shoulders and panting slightly as her woman's flesh quivered around him.

Plum closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the sensation of having him buried so deep inside her, but opened them again when her husband uttered a garbled, strangled choke. His fingers flexed into her hips, holding her tightly down against him, prohibiting her from moving the way she wanted to move. She felt muscles she didn't remember she had twitching around him, gripping him tightly, wringing harsh moans of pure masculine pleasure from Harry's throat. His head had lolled back against the pillow, his eyes were fixed on her face, but she could swear they were unseeing.

He had also stopped breathing.

“Harry?
Husband?
” She shifted forward to administer a rousing slap, but the sensation of sliding along his hard length made her pause. Harry's chest heaved once, then again. Plum sat back, her eyes narrowed with pleasure as he slid back into her. She gripped his shoulders hard, her fingers digging into his muscles as he shuddered beneath her. She rose up, pressed her forehead against his, and eased back down, inch by slow inch.

“Stallions in the Steeplechase,” she said as she experimentally flexed a set of inner muscles, smiling a slow, knowing smile when Harry growled in response, “can be run for a very great length of time if the correct pace is set.”

Harry seemed to have other ideas. By the time she had found a rhythm that made him moan nonstop deep-throated moans, he suddenly flipped them both sideways until she was on her back again, her legs hooked around his hips, as he plunged into her so deep, she thought he had pierced her heart.

“You're mine!” Harry snarled possessively as he pounded into her heat. Plum didn't care that he was acting like a primitive, possessive, dominant male. All she cared about was that he was hers! All hers!

“Mine!” he said again and seemed to want some sort of response from her, but she wasn't capable of words. That delicious tension, that coil wound up inside of her was tightening and twisting and spiraling her out of control again. She lifted her hips to him, pulling her knees high on his back, taking him in deeper than before, nipping his neck with joy. The coil was starting to unwind and she had no idea when it was going to stop.

“My wife,” Harry groaned, plunging into her again and again. Plum began to sob a litany of nonsense, words that had no meaning, only emotion as she felt her being come loose from its moorings and merge with Harry's. Their two souls together lit up like a bonfire behind her eyes, and she cried out his name, sobbed it against him as he suddenly withdrew from her body, shouting his own declaration of fulfillment into her neck as he thrust himself against her belly.

“I…believe…you…won…that…race…” she gasped against his shoulder, holding him tight against herself.

“Bloody right, I did.” Harry responded into her neck, his voice as shaky as she felt. “You helped a little, though.”

Plum didn't have the strength to smile. Truly, she had no strength for anything, not even to protest his withdrawal from her body. She knew his reasoning for such a ridiculous act had nothing to do with his own pleasure, but she also knew that she would have to redouble her efforts to prove her worthiness as the mother of his yet unborn children. She didn't have much time left to her, biologically speaking. It was now or never. “And I choose now,” she said softly, mustering enough strength to turn her head and look at her husband.

Harry's chest rose and fell quickly as he struggled to catch his breath, his skin slick with perspiration, his eyes closed. He raised a hand as if to protest her words, but it fell back to the bed, lifeless. “Now is completely out of the question, wife. You killed me. I am dead. I am deceased. I am a former Harry. Later, perhaps in a year or two, after I've recovered from this insidious method of murder you chose to destroy my poor man's body, we'll discuss my resurrection, but not now. Now is not possible. Now does not even exist for me. See? I am no more.”