Wild Heart (28 page)

The cords in his neck were stretched tight from tension. She had taken him off guard; he hadn't been expecting this. "Because of the aunt," he guessed.

The memory of her spinelessness that day could still make her blush. "Yes. Because of my aunt."

"She's not here now."

"She certainly isn't." His skin where she stroked him felt like hot satin. "I was so stupid. It took almost losing you to realize how big an idiot I was."

He made soft circles on her cheek with the side of his thumb. "It's okay. The aunt scares me, too."

She captured his hand and pressed kisses into the center of his palm. "I'd like to make love with you. Right now. Do you know what making love is?"

Michael closed his eyes, trying to contain himself, trying to believe what he was hearing. "It's a euphemism."

"What?"

He opened his eyes. He could see he had broken the mood. "Philip said that." It was embarrassing to confess. "I don't really know what it means."

Her smile came back. "It's only a euphemism if the two people making love don't love each other."

"I love you, Sydney."

She touched the sides of his face with her hands so gently. "That's good. Because I love you, too."

He kissed her the way she had taught him, softly, slowly, while inside, his heart filled and grew until it felt too big for his chest. She loved him. Sydney never lied. She loved him. He whispered her name, holding her in his arms, pulling her close so he could feel her, all of her, the whole front of her pressed up hard against him. She had on hardly any clothes, and when he took his hands over the soft material of her night robe, he could feel everything, her round bottom, her shoulder blades, the way her hips curved into her little waist. "Will we really make love?" he whispered, still hardly able to believe it. It was too much like a dream.

"I want to." Sydney was trembling when she drew back from his kisses and his hot, seeking hands. "Michael," she said, surprised when it came out an unsteady croak. "Have you, um . . ." She laughed weakly. "Have you ever done this before?"

"No. But I've seen it."

She blinked at him, watching his ears turn red. "You've
seen
it?"

He cleared his throat. "Philip and I," he muttered, then trailed off, keeping his eyes down.

Philip again. She decided to think about that later. "Just tell me one thing. Do I need to show you what to do?"

"Yes," he decided after thinking it over a few seconds. "I think you'd better."

She pulled away to see if he was joking. There was a light in his eyes, and the longer she stared at him the more his lips twitched. She couldn't really be certain what that meant, though. All at once she smiled full in his face. "Oh, I'm so happy. I've never been so happy as I am right this minute."

"Good. I'm happy, too. All my life I've been waiting for you, Sydney, and now . . ."

"Now you've got me."

They drifted into the bedroom and sat down on the bed, side by side. When he didn't touch her, she put her mouth in the warm hollow of his throat and kissed him. "First," she breathed, tasting him with her tongue. "First we take off our clothes. But you probably knew that." He kept his eyes down and didn't acknowledge that one way or the other. Except by slowly letting out his breath. When he reached for the top button of his shirt, she took his hand and redirected it. "And sometimes it's nice if we ... do this for each other."

Michael smiled, thinking of the girl in the window at Mrs. Birch's house, how she had taken the man's clothes off for him. What those two had done was a
euphemism,
though. This wasn't going to be anything like that. He watched Sydney's face while he untied the bow at the collar of her robe and started to undo the buttons. He had never seen her eyes like this, heavy-lidded and dark, sexy, and loving. He liked undressing her. But how was he going to stand it if they kept doing everything this slowly?

Her nightgown had buttons down the front, a hundred of them, all the way to the hem. When he got them undone to her waist, though, she slipped her arms out of the sleeves and let the gown fall down around her hips. Oh, God, she was beautiful. He had known she would be. But seeing her like this, a naked lady . ..
his
naked lady ... he couldn't breathe right anymore.

"You can touch me," she whispered.

He wasn't sure he could. His hands cupped the air, copying the perfect shape of her breasts without quite ' touching them. And then one pink tip grazed the center of his palm, and he had to hold her.

The way she sighed surprised him. She let her head fall to the side and let her eyes close; she looked as though she was dreaming some slow, sweet dream. He put his lips on the silky skin of her neck, breathing in her smell, keeping his hands full of the soft weight of her breasts. "You're so beautiful," he told her, wishing he knew better words.

The caress of his hair on her throat tickled. Sydney slid her fingers into it, behind his ears, rubbing him softly.

Raw need slammed into her, making her grit her teeth and press her knees together hard. She pulled him up and found his mouth, gave him deep, hungry kisses, nothing like the soft kisses she had taught him before. She was starving for him. He took his hands off her.

Cloth ripped; buttons popped. He tore at his shirt and pushed her down, and she couldn't wait for the hard, heavy press of his weight on her body. He lay between her legs, and what shocked her was how natural it felt. She broke away from one of his ravenous kisses to hold him, just hold him, because she was afraid it was happening too fast. "Michael," she panted, "wait, wait. Let's wait."

"Why?"

"Because. It's better that way." She blew a strand of hair out of her eye. "Besides, we still have our clothes on."

He rolled to his side, unbuttoned his trousers, stripped them off, and kicked them on the floor.

"Ha," she said, breathless. "That was quick." Leaning over her, braced on his elbow, he hooked his fingers around a fold of her bunched-up nightgown and tugged, uncovering her stomach. "Sure you haven't done this before?" she asked with a shaky laugh.

"Take off everything, Sydney. I want to see all of you. I can't wait any longer."

"Oh, Michael." What a time to feel shy. But she couldn't help it, and she wished it was night, not broad, bright daylight for their first time. Feeling brave, she slithered out of her nightgown and threw it in the direction of his pants.

They came up on their knees, pressing together, holding tight. He couldn't get enough of the feel of her bare bottom; he took his hands over and over the warm, sleek skin, squeezing her tight flesh, kneading her. She rested her head on his shoulder, making soft sounds, tickling his neck with her tongue.

He sat back on his haunches so he could look at her. They both had navels and nipples and hair between their legs, but after that the resemblance ended. Where he was hard, Sydney was soft; where he was straight, she curved. And she had skin like flowers, like warm water. He put his hands on her thighs, stroking his thumbs along the soft, soft insides, just brushing the red-gold hair at the top. He wanted to touch her there, bury his face there, taste there, but he was afraid to do anything until she told him, afraid of making a mistake.

He lifted his head, catching a look in her eyes he wasn't expecting. She tried to smile, but it wasn't real. "What's the matter, Sydney?"

"Nothing."

"No, something. Did I touch you the wrong way?" She shook her head, but now he couldn't believe her. "I'm sorry. I was too quick."

"It's not that." She sat back on her heels, and when he started to take his hands off she held them still. "It's this," she said. "And this. And this." Light as a feather, she ran the tips of her fingers over the scar on his chest, the long one across his stomach, the scar between his ribs. He had more—he was covered with them—but she didn't touch the others.

He turned his head away. "It's ugly."

'Wo.
No.
Oh, Michael, don't look like that." Sydney wrapped her arms around him and held him, kissing his cheeks, desperate to explain. "It's just that I think of what happened to you, how hard it was, how lonely, the things you must have suffered—and I can hardly bear it. It hurts me. It just
hurts."
Her emotions were too ragged, too open; she hated herself for crying now,
now,
of all times.

"It wasn't so bad." He smiled at her, trying to make her smile back. "Shh, Sydney, don't cry. Don't be sad, not right now. Let's do this now."

His singleminded tenderness brought her around. She laughed, a thick, teary sound, and dashed the moisture from her eyes. "You're right. Let's do this now."

They lay down, facing each other in the center of the bed. At first they were content with just touching each Other, playing and fondling, exploring and inspecting. Michael was fascinated by her breasts, but Sydney grew restless as one of the finer points of erotic stimulation kept eluding him. "These are the most sensitive places," she finally revealed to him, "here, and here"—a sentence she could not have uttered to another human being, not even Spencer, had he needed such a lesson. But to Michael she could say it, albeit with a blush, because . . . well, because he liked all of this so much.

"Here," he murmured, brow furrowed, watching her nipple crinkle and curl under his curious fingers.

"Right. . . there." He made her toes curl.

"Animals don't do this," he noted. "As far as I know."

"They don't know what they're missing."

"The mother's breasts are just for feeding milk to the babies.
After
the lovemaking."

"Ha," she said with her eyes closed. "Well, humans are different."

"Is it the same with men? I have breasts," he said, looking down at his chest.

"Let's see." She tickled his left nipple with her fingernail.

"Hunh." His eyes lit up in surprise.

"Aha. Interesting. But . . . it's more so for women, I don't know why. And . .." Oh, this was excruciating. Could she really say this? "You know the way baby animals suckle their mothers for milk?"

"Suckle," he repeated—a new word. He went back to playing with her nipple.

"Well," she said to the air over his shoulder, "when a man puts his mouth on a woman's breast that way ... as if he were suckling her ... it gives her a great deal of pleasure. When they're making love. As ... we are."

He looked into her eyes, amazed, and it was all she could do not to hide her face, or kiss him to distract him, pretend she'd just been kidding. Frowning with concentration, he bent his head, and at the first soft tug of his lips on her bosom, she gasped. "Like that?"

"Yes—" He did it again, and she moaned.

"This is good, Sydney."

"Isn't it, though."

He pushed her onto her back and moved to her other breast, nuzzling and nipping and tonguing her—the cleverest pupil, so quick—drawing strongly on her hardening nipple and making her groan. It was a relief to stop directing and just let it happen. Nothing she could have told him now anyway, nothing he needed to know. He was like a storm, lashing and battering at her senses. She gave herself up gladly to the force of his passion, because she had no choice.

But he was holding himself back. And she wanted more, she wanted everything, and he
must
know what came next. But he wouldn't proceed until she told him to. And even though it frustrated her to madness now, it was what she loved about him the most—that animal wildness in him that he controlled with his absolute humanity. O'Fallon's brutality, her father's tests, his own desire for her—in every case he had checked his impulses by an act of will. In truth, Michael was the most civilized man she had ever known.

She couldn't stand not touching him, even though it might shorten this act of love and end it too soon for her. But she needed that deeper intimacy with him now. Murmuring his name, she fumbled her hand between them until her palm brushed the satiny tip of his penis. His whole body jerked; he sucked in air through his teeth. She squeezed him lightly, playfully, but he didn't relax. "You can touch me, too," she invited in a tense whisper, hoping she wouldn't have to say where.

She didn't. But she had to say, "Soft—soft," and he gentled his hand instantly, opening her as if she were a delicate shell, a flower. "Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael."

"You like it," he noticed, pleased with himself.

Two could play that game. "You like this." She stroked the velvety underside of his cock until he gasped. She stopped at once, afraid she had gone too far, succeeded too well. "Not yet," she whispered. "Not until you're inside me."

"I want to be inside you."

"I know. But not yet."

"Why?"

"Shh."

She tortured them both a little longer, teasing him with her slow fingers, which had never felt so clever, so flawlessly inventive. Each time she paused, he explored her very gently while she held her breath and watched his face, his eyes downcast, a fixed, concentrating half smile on his lips. Knowing that he had never touched a woman this way gave her the tenderest feeling, of power and good fortune, and nearly unbearable excitement.