What Happened at Midnight(30)

“Are you saying that you don’t want to do this?”

He took her hand and guided it to his crotch, setting her palm against the wet fabric—and his hard member underneath. “I want this.”

He’d expected her eyes to widen in shock. But she didn’t leap back. Instead, she grew very still for a moment, not moving, as if she were just understanding what she had discovered. Then she traced her fingers gently down the length of him. He let out a hiss. Another stroke. Then another.

He set his hand over hers. “Mary,” he said, with the last ounce of decency that he possessed, “I don’t want you to do this because you believe you owe it to me for the role I played. I never want that.”

She tipped her head down, and her wet hair tickled his chest. Then she drew her hand from under his, running it up, up, past the seam of his trousers. She hooked his shirt with one finger and then pulled the fabric over his head.

“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” she said when she’d pulled the sleeves away from his wrists. “If we waited until we were married, you’d own the right to use my body. Now, I can say no.”

She ran her hand down his bare chest, brushing his nipple. He gasped.

“And I can say yes,” she whispered. “Not as a trade, not in compensation. Not because you deserve me.”

“Why, then?”

“Because I deserve you.” Her hand slid to the waistband of his trousers, and she gave a little laugh. “But you’re going to have to help me from here, because I’m not sure what to do next.”

“This,” he said, and took her face in his hands and kissed her. He’d learned her mouth, her taste, over the last days. But he hadn’t learned the feel of her skin, clammy at first against his, and then warming gradually. Her ni**les were hard buds. Her hips pressed against the wet fabric of his trousers. He ran his hand down her body, cupping her breast.

She let out a sigh. “It’s almost as if…”

“As if I loved you?” he whispered.

She nodded; he could feel her head move against his chest.

“There’s a reason for that.” His arms came around her, drawing her in. Pulling her close to his heart. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her neck, and for a few moments they swayed together in tandem.

“How can you be so warm,” she asked, “when you’re still in your wet clothing?”

“Blood flow.” Indeed. His blood was flowing with great vigor. He should go to the other room before his blood left him unable to do the right thing.

Instead, he ran his hands back up her ribs, chasing the remainder of the chill from her skin. He could scarcely see her in the dark, so he discovered her with his fingers—the arc of one hip, the swell of a breast. And she busied herself with him—first undoing his trousers and then sliding them down. Her hands brushed his thighs, then slid up to touch his hard cock. Her fingers were tentative, so light that he gasped to keep from laughing.

“So warm,” she repeated.

“Let me make you warmer.”

He leaned down and caught the nub of her nipple between his lips. She heated soon enough under his inspection, her pebbled skin smoothing but her nipple staying hard to his touch. She let out a breath and arched against him.

“Blood flow,” he repeated. “I think you could use more of it.”

He’d wanted to taste her for so long. She smelled of sugar and citrus, but she tasted of cool rain and woman. He started with little nibbles at her breast. Then he licked his way to the hollow of her throat. A few kisses there, and she threw her head back and relaxed into his embrace.

He wasn’t sure when, in the midst of her caresses and his exploration, they made their way to the bedchamber, or when he set her down on his covers. He wasn’t even sure at what point she spread herself naked before him.

But he did vaguely recognize the moment when they passed from mere naked caresses into the act of intimacy: when he spread her legs, fell to the floor in front of her, and set his mouth on her sex. She tasted as good as he’d always imagined—sweet and sensual all at once. He parted her folds with his hands and took her more fully, exploring every bit of her, listening to the ebb and flow of her breath as he did.

The rhythm of her breathing altered as he touched her between her legs. And when it did, he licked where his fingers played, again and again, tasting her until her fists clenched in his hair and her hips arched into his face.

He could taste her pleasure, could feel the waves of her orgasm building up, waiting to break through.

“Yes,” she said in a high drawn-out cry. “John—don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t. He took her over the crest until her pleas lost all coherence, until they became cries of pleasure. It was the sweetest of sounds—that, and the slow return of rhythm to her breathing after.

She set her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she said, and by the way she pulled at him, he knew she wasn’t referring to what he might do with his tongue. “Don’t stop.”

There was nothing she could have asked him at that moment that he would have denied her. He slid on top of her. Her body was slicked with sweat, still shaking with pleasure. She shifted beneath him. He was so far into want that he was almost beyond thought. He pushed inside.

Tight. So tight. So good. And slick from the work he’d done already—she was beyond ready. She tensed only momentarily at his intrusion.