Cheryl Holt (21 page)

“The
petit mort.”

“Yes. I’m going to show you today how it can be. If that is still your desire.”

He turned to the next picture. Lily had reclined, her legs splayed wide. James knelt between them, his mouth and tongue on her. One of his hands was at her breast, pinching the extended end. Her back was arched, her fingers frantically gripping the edges of the daybed. Eyes closed, lips parted, there was an expression of pure bliss upon her face.

When James had first described this kind of oral animation,
she hadn’t been able to imagine it, and she certainly hadn’t been able to envision it as an agreeable occurrence for either party. Yet, when she saw how well the artist had captured the physical tumult, it was easy to understand why a man and woman would engage in such an act.

Their enjoyment was readily conspicuous, and surprisingly, observing the two of them inflamed her. At her womanly core, she felt sticky and moist in a manner she now associated with rising lust.

She wanted this, what Lily had encountered with James; she wanted it desperately, with an enthusiasm that went beyond rhyme or reason. As with all the previous occasions she’d reviewed the drawings, she could shut her eyes and become the female in James’s arms, and she craved the opportunity to endure Lily’s obvious rapture. Even if it meant James would do something as shocking as
kiss
her scandalously, she had to know what the experience was like.

“Show me,” she whispered.

“Gladly.”

With a toss of his wrist, the collection of illustrations was gone. He burrowed into the pillows and hauled her over him. His legs wrapped around her own, his feet hooking behind her calves and locking her in place. The position forced her to spread and to directly expose herself to his erect phallus.

“I’m going to make love to your breasts,” he announced as they dangled directly over his eager, waiting mouth, “until I have you begging me to cease.”

“Never!” she insisted. “I’ll never ask you to stop—”

Her breath left her lungs in a vicious
swoosh
as his rabid tongue deftly pulled her far inside. Nibbling, trifling, biting, he sucked greedily, and he stayed until the nipple was swollen and raw, continuing on far past the point of comfort.

Just when she decided she could bear no more, he shifted to the other nipple, giving it the same drastic attention. When he had it crimson and distended, he migrated back and forth between the two, using his fingers to stroke
and caress until he had her squirming and writhing.

Her inner cleft wept, her womb stirred, and her carefully ingrained inhibitions detached, then fled, causing her to wish they could create a babe together. Her entire being cried out with the need, the feeling so intense that only a full-blown coupling would suffice.

Perilous, atrocious thoughts, she knew, but she cared not. At that moment, she’d have let him do anything to her, and happily joined him in the doing.

As though her body recognized the direction she must travel, her hips flexed, hoping to welcome him to her interior, though clothing barred his route. Slowly at first, then more vigorously, her pelvis drove against his, and she could relish every inch of his rigid cock, and she found herself deliriously anxious for the ecstasy he’d promised would come next.

Down below, he was busy, untying the ribbon at the waist of her drawers, then slipping inside. He feathered across her abdomen, and her stomach muscles clenched as he tangled in the cushion of hair that shielded her privates. She was wet, slick, and for a few minutes he simply rested his palm, cupping her and letting her acclimate to his familiar fondling.

As she mellowed, he slid into the folds, and one long, slender finger discovered her mysterious path. Another joined it, and she bowed up off the bed, but he held her immobile, allowing her no liberation from the brutal sensation he inflicted.

“Feel it, love,” he murmured. He stroked back and forth, and her hips perfectly matched the age-old rhythm. She was melting, the flood from her center dripping onto his hand and across her thighs.

The tempo magnified. A third finger merged with the first two, and she wailed aloud at the startling maneuver. His thumb crept to the nub of her sex and sketched deliberate, piercing circles. She jumped from the impact of it, but James had her pinned down, so there was no escaping his barbaric torment.

A strange pressure started to build deep inside, radiating out across her stomach and chest, shooting to her extremities. Her breasts were rock-hard, her nipples beyond sensation, her flesh tensed, her fingers grasping the bedcovers, her toes twisted into the mattress. She seemed to be standing at the brink of a cliff, geared to leap into space.

“ ’Tis time, Abby,” James advised. “Let yourself go.”

With that, he increased his demands at her nipple, sucking forcefully, and the extra bit of stress pushed her over the precipice to which he’d led her. She recklessly vaulted over the crevasse that beckoned, then she was falling, shattered and flying free and unimpeded across the universe. From somewhere far off, she heard a voice crying out with an extraordinary sort of joy, and in a hazy glimmer of perception, she realized it was her own.

The surge of pleasure went on and on, until gradually, it abated. She reassembled, her muscles calmed, her frantic breathing diminished, and she was once again within the small bedchamber, cradled in James’s arms. As though he knew she couldn’t tolerate any more handling, he’d extracted his mouth from her breast and his hand from her genitalia. His damp fingers just grazed her lower abdomen.

She hoped he would say something, but he didn’t. He simply looked at her; then, almost against his wishes, he bent down and kissed her. It was tame, almost chaste, and she kissed him in return, as she concluded that this quiet interlude following the excess of excitement was more wonderful than the raucous act itself.

Eventually, he pulled away, but he was gazing at her with an abiding fondness, almost as though he profoundly cared. Tears surged to her eyes and a few dribbled down her cheek. The aftermath was much more stirring than she’d supposed, much more special than a person could ever appreciate without having experienced it.

She was severely embarrassed by her show of emotion. Her innocence was humiliatingly conspicuous, for surely none of his other women would carry on so, and she was terrified that her bald display of sentiment would irritate
him. Lest he storm out in a huff, she struggled to get her careening passions under control.

Offering him a watery half smile, she tried for lightness. “I’m sorry,” she asserted. “You must think me a complete ninny.” But as she cautiously met his eye, she saw only affection and something that had to be very close to love and, if she didn’t know better, a hint of male pride that he’d reduced her to such a disconcerted state.

“I don’t mind,” he insisted. “All of this is very new to you. It can be overwhelming.” He gently kissed her lips again, then raised one of the covers and dabbed at her cheeks, wiping away the tears that had managed to escape, then he nestled her against his chest.

With her ear pressed tightly, she listened to the steady beating of his heart, the sound soothing her tattered nerves. If she’d had any previous doubts, she had none now: She loved him, heart and soul, and always would.

James held Abigail in his arms, while he struggled with the intimacy of the moment. Something had happened between them during the intense journey to her first orgasm, though he wasn’t quite sure what. From the way she was staring at him, her eyes wide with wonder and serenity and some other indefinable emotion that looked very much like
love
, he could tell that she sensed it, too.

From the beginning, he’d been blatantly, masculinely aware of his physical attraction to her. But apparently he was forming a deep romantic affinity, as well. He’d imprudently believed that he could manage the assignations by having them proceed on a superficial basis. That he could merely pronounce his commands—to disrobe, to let her hair down, to bare her superb breasts—and then nonchalantly watch all, an indifferent voyeur and teacher. Little had he understood how unfeasible it would be to travel the aloof course he’d charted.

As he’d lain on the bed, immobile and apart, he’d been forced to recognize the flaw in his plan. In all his days, he’d never witnessed a sight as erotic as Abby stripping herself for his carnal perusal.

Throughout the years, he’d experienced the most arousing instances of which any man could possibly imagine. But nothing compared to Abby’s blending of bravado and hesitation. Virgin and temptress, innocent yet adept, she’d casually and valiantly—yet timidly—exposed herself until he’d grown hard as stone, provoked past comprehension, needing and wanting her beyond logic or reason.

How he’d disciplined his impulses sufficiently to keep from tearing off her drawers and stealing her maidenhood was a mystery. They’d certainly come far enough to consider her virtue as completely destroyed. The knowledge
was a lodestone around his neck, one he could hardly carry.

By allowing herself to go to completion, she’d given him her absolute faith and confidence, assured that he would lead her safely through the scary path of initial passion. As he’d suspected, she was a sensual woman, one who was unafraid of her burgeoning lust. She was eager to learn, and with a minimum of practice, her awe and delight would turn to a feminine ability that she would wield with devastating effect. Yet he couldn’t conceive of a future where she might take the skills she’d garnered and use them with another man, a lover, a husband. The very idea was unthinkable.

In the past, he’d always stridently insisted on no strings in his relationships, but after a handful of trysts with Abby, he was totally bound to her in a manner he’d never visualized. Though he hadn’t perceived it about himself, he yearned for the completion and connection that he’d only ever felt with her. He caught himself fantasizing as to what it would be like to have a true wife, a family, a home, children. He’d convinced himself that he wanted no ties, but now familial attachment—to Abby—seemed to be not only a worthwhile goal, but a happenstance he couldn’t live without.

An ache began in the center of his chest and worked outward. Stunned to the core, he acknowledged that he . . . he . . .
loved
her. That had to be it. This overpowering pathos to cherish and protect, coupled with his unceasing thoughts of her, his inability to sleep, his disrupted dreams, his frantic, raging lasciviousness made him decide that
love
was the only explanation.

As he’d never endured anything close, he was amused, bewildered, and apprehensive. Previously, his foremost reaction to any sort of developing entanglement was to flee at the earliest opportunity, to run fast and furiously without ever glancing back.

Astonishingly, for the first time, he didn’t wish to depart; he longed to remain. Like the most immature boy, he craved the opportunity to confess his undying devotion, to
shower her with endearments, gifts, tenderness. Mawkish words were poised on the tip of his tongue, begging for the chance to spew forth so that he could make a great fool of himself. For if he spoke of love, what then?

In her naïveté, she’d probably profess the same, and there they’d be, in a coil of ardor and emotion from which there seemed no logical retreat.

As though conscious of his weighty distress, she asked, “Are you all right?”

He hated that she read him so effortlessly, that she noticed so much about him, because such inherent enlightenment came from a strong, abiding regard of the type he shared solely with his mother and brother. They were the only two people with whom he’d ever been close, and they were apt to uncover his thoughts before he grasped them himself, and he was discomfited to have her doing it, too.

“Yes,” he lied. “I was merely wondering how you’re feeling.”

“Rather overwhelmed.”

“I expect you are.” He smiled, relishing the way she relaxed against him after such a short association, her level of comfort far out of proportion to what it should be. “ ’Tis difficult to describe what occurs.”

“I can see that now.” She stretched and purred like a contented kitten.

“And as you grow accustomed to my touch, the passion will overtake you quicker and easier.” Suddenly he was terrified that, if he wasn’t careful, he’d start babbling like a love-struck moron, unable to stop himself from confessing how different this affair was for him, how much she varied from his past paramours, how much he treasured those contrasts.

He didn’t want to talk! He didn’t want to discuss what had just transpired! He simply wanted to purge himself of these inexplicable urges and wrongful impulses.

So he kissed her. Madly. Passionately. His lips, tongue, teeth, sparred with hers in a torrid dance that frazzled his intellect and stretched his tattered nerves to the breaking
point. He couldn’t help but hope that if he persisted long enough, thoroughly enough, some of these disturbing responses would abate.

While he played with her mouth, her hands were in his hair, on his shoulders, down his back, until she boldly found his buttocks and spurred him closer. He burned with an out-of-control fire, as his hips began thrusting, and their attempts at joining were so furious he could barely discern that fabric was serving as a barrier.

He set himself to her breasts, fondling and pinching at the swollen, raw nipples until she was panting and writhing anew, then he burrowed under her chin and traced a sizzling trail down her neck, her bosom, until he was sucking against her once more.

“James . . .” She sighed on a ragged breath. “James . . . no, I can’t go there again.”

“You
will
, just for me,” he declared, his own breathing unsteady, his voice sounding as though it belonged to someone else.

His lips closed over the extended tip, and her back arched, even as her legs were spreading to welcome him. He accepted her invitation, sinking his fingers to her moist folds, and as he continued to labor at her breasts, he tugged her drawers down her thighs, over her ankles.