The Bourbon Thief(50)
“Please,” she said. “I want to be your wife.”
“No.”
“You said you wanted to.”
“I said no such thing.”
“You did in the warehouse.”
“That was days ago.”
“Three days.”
“A man says things in an excited state that he repents of in his tranquillity.”
“You’re extra sexy when you use fancy words.”
“Good. Night,” he said again firmly, making two sentences of it. He marched into the pink bedroom. The lantern was still lit. By its light he saw the strawberry sheets on the bed, the pink-and-white-striped quilt, the horse in the window, the children’s books, the pink hat.
Levi turned and strode into the blue room. Tamara was still sitting up in bed, waiting and watching as he came over to her. He touched the waves of her hair loosened from the braid she’d worn all day. With a slow hand he brushed the strands back over her shoulder. Left shoulder, then right shoulder, uncovering her nakedness. She stared straight ahead and breathed quick shallow breaths through her soft parted lips.
“Levi?”
“You’re right. Pink really is an ugly color.”
17
Tamara had opened the window in the blue bedroom. Levi could hear the tinkling of wind chimes and smell clean salt air coming in from the ocean. He was George Maddox’s son. He owned an island. This house was little and beautiful. And he was about to make love to his wife.
One hell of a week.
Tamara rolled back onto the pillows as Levi sat on the bed next to her. He cupped her face, turning her to meet him in a kiss. Her lips trembled under his. He hadn’t expected virginal shyness from Tamara, but he sensed tension in her and vowed to go as slow as possible. His heart battered the inside of his chest, her fear infecting him. Wife or not, he knew he shouldn’t be doing this.
“Tell me to stop if you want to stop,” Levi whispered.
“I don’t want to stop.”
Levi kissed her forehead. Nothing could stop this train tonight. They were on a downhill track with no brakes, and God help anyone who got in their way.
He sat up and pushed the covers off her completely and gazed down the length of her naked body. Her breasts were a good size, a handful for a man with big hands, her nipples pale red, not pink. Her navel was the barest little slit. Her hips weren’t very wide, but her waist was narrow, giving her a slim hourglass frame. Long legs and strong calves and toenails painted purple, not pink. He cupped her between her legs, feeling her soft curls against his palm.
“Scared?” he asked. She wasn’t aroused yet. Spite and gumption alone had gotten her this far; he could see it in the set of her chin and the fire of her eyes.
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You’re allowed to be your first time, you know, Rotten.”
“That’s not why I’m scared.”
“Then why, baby?”
“Because it’s raining.”
It was such an odd thing to say Levi didn’t know how to respond. He glanced out the window to see, yes, it had started raining. He hadn’t noticed, but Tamara had.
“Do you want me to close the window?”
“No,” she said, smiling up at him. “I love the rain.”
He’d learned a long time ago that when the woman in his life was behaving strangely, his best bet was to take his clothes off. Levi stood up and unzipped his jeans. He pushed them to his ankles and kicked them off into the corner of the room. When Tamara raised no protest, he slid onto the bed again, straddling her waist. Her eyes were trained on the ceiling, but the moment he took her wrists in his hands, she met his gaze.
“Feel me,” he said.
He brought her hands to him, wrapping her fingers around his cock. He wanted her to see it, to feel it, to know what she was getting into, what was getting into her. At first she did nothing but hold it in her hands, lightly squeezing as if afraid to hurt him. Not a chance. Nothing could hurt him now. He was bulletproof, invincible. He owned an island. Who but a god or a king could make such a boast? Tamara touched the tip with a gentle finger, stroked the full length of it. Nothing had ever aroused him like the look of her as she looked at him, making a study of him, every inch, every vein, every contour of the head. As she touched him, he touched her, taking both breasts in his hands. He squeezed them, cupped them, molded them against his palms. Her nipples hardened as he brushed his thumbs over them in soft circles, and the color turned to a deeper hue, brick red like her hair.
Tamara released him, but she found new territory to explore. She touched his stomach, her fingertips spider-walking along the muscles. She moved up to his chest, to his shoulders and all the way down his arms until her hands covered his hands, which were still stroking her breasts.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. Levi looked down at her, puzzled.
“This part’s not supposed to hurt.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Levi smiled. He took her hands again and lightly pressed them back into the pillow on either side of her head.
“Then I guess I’ll have to teach you.”
Bracing himself over her, he lowered his mouth to one nipple. She inhaled sharply and Levi smiled against her skin. He took the nipple in his mouth and sucked on it, lightly at first before pulling it deeper into his mouth. Sounds escaped Tamara’s lips, soft gasps and softer sighs. As he nursed at her other breast, he lowered his hips to hers, letting her feel the full length of him between her thighs. Without telling her to do it, she opened her legs for him and he relaxed into the cradle of her hips and discovered as he did so that he’d never felt more at home.