For his boots, he had to sit, but he held her gaze as he backed onto a chair near the bed. He struggled with the Hessians, breaking her gaze only as necessary to get the job done.
The breeches followed. “I’m afraid watching a gentleman divest himself of boots and breeches, especially without the assistance of a valet, isn’t a very enticing sight,” he said as he lifted his hips and tugged the tightly fitting breeches over them.
On the contrary.She did not verbalize the thought because she didn’t know if she was supposed to be finding Archie enticing. Perhaps that was not the done thing in a situation like this, an assignation out of wedlock.
He came to her with his shirt still on. His legs were magnificently sculped things, the muscles in them so plainly apparent under his skin. There was a kind of leashed power in them, she realized, just as a horse at rest has within its body the potential to gallop away. He pulled the shirt over his head, revealing a chest covered in hair, more than she would have expected, though she had to remind herself that Archie’s was only the second male chest she had ever seen. He stopped just shy of the edge of the bed and let the shirt join the rest of his clothes on the floor—the carpet behind him was dotted with islands of fabric and leather.
His shirt had hung low, and now it was gone, and he was all there was. In her line of sight, in her world. Earlier, she had wished the world would shrink so that it contained only Archie. Clementine was not accustomed to getting what she wanted. It was a heady feeling.
Not as heady, though, as when, before her eyes, his male appendage. . . well, it twitched.
He came closer, close enough for her to touch him, so she did. She raised a shaking hand and touched his chest, but she didn’t—couldn’t—lift her eyes.
He inhaled sharply when she let her hand trail across his chest to a shoulder, and the appendage grew.
She laughed, delighted. “Did I do that?”
He took himself in hand. The sight was utterly thrilling. It made her mouth go completely dry. “You did indeed.”
“What do you call that appendage?” Her mouth was so parched, her voice sounded odd to her own ears.
“I suppose there are many names for it, none of them suitable for polite company.”
“Well, good thing we aren’t in polite company just now.”
He laughed.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“Prick. Cock. Less commonly, the silent flute. The gaying instrument.” He smiled wryly. “I’ve heard it called the middle leg.” She smiled, too. “Or even the lady’s delight.”
“The lady’s delight!” she echoed. How . . . well, howdelightful.
“Yes, but enough talking, I think?” He crawled onto the bed, slowly, calling to mind the way a fox might stalk a fawn. Perhaps this was a sort of hunting she could endorse. She laid back as he advanced over her, trying to keep her wits about her. She wanted to remember every detail.
“Enough talking,” she agreed just before he lowered his mouth over hers. This time, though, he touched her body while he kissed her, let his hands, so rough but so gentle, slide down her neck and trace her collarbones. She hardly knew where to focus her attention as sensations from both fronts assailed her. But then, “Oh!” A finger grazed a nipple, and she jerked involuntarily.
He pulled back, studied her face.
She responded by reaching for his hand. “Come back.”
As he grazed her again—and again and again—she had an almost violent reaction. It was just so . . . much. But also so wonderful. But also so much.
Just when she felt she couldn’t take it anymore, his hand came down more firmly, kneading the flesh of her bosoms. “Clem. I want to put my mouth here. Is that all right?”
“Goodness, yes!” It wasn’t something she would have thought to want; it wasn’t something she would have thought of at all. But as soon as he’d mentioned it as a possibility the nipple in question grew taut, painful almost, and she somehow knew that his mouth would soothe it.
They both groaned when his lips made contact. The pressure wasn’t soothing, it turned out. It was, in fact, discomposing, but it was providing a focus for her agitation. As if she were walking along a road with many branches but now the road was narrowing into a single pathway as she approached her destination.
And it was a good kind of agitation, thoughgoodseemed too anemic a word to describe what was happening. It occurred to her that racking her mind for words with which to characterize this experience was probably detracting from the enjoyment of it. She ought to treat it, she thought, like being in the woods. She ought to justbe.
In doing so, she began to feel a kind of heartbeat, but not one that was emanating from her heart itself. It was akin to waves rhythmically hitting the shore, but the waves wereinsideher.
She let herself ride those waves. After a few minutes, Archie lifted his head from her breast. His hair was disheveled and his face was damp, and he wasbeautiful. “Clem,” he rasped, his voice having gone as scratchy as his whiskers, “I want to touch you here.” His fingers fluttered gently over the area between her legs. “This”—his fluttering fingers seemed to be searching out a particular spot, and when he found it, she gasped—“is the source of much potential pleasure. May I touch you here?”
“Yes.” As she’d done with her head chasing his touch before, she now felt the most powerful instinct to lift her hips to meet his hand.
“That’s right,” he murmured, so she did it again, and soon theybecamethe waves, she and Archie, his hand and her hips. They were working in unison, undulating together. The waves inside her were getting stronger, and somehow she knew Archie could feel them, too.
