“Must you be so obtuse?”
He wasn’t trying to be. “Did you not enjoy yourself? Wasn’t pleasure the relevant point?”
“I did, and it was, but I want you to enjoy yourself, too.”
“I did!” That was understating the matter entirely.
“You know what I mean!” She huffed a sigh and tilted her head back as if seeking divine patience. He knew the feeling. “Archie, you are not a virgin, are you?”
He laughed, but quickly sobered as he didn’t want her to think he was mocking her. “No—alas.”
“Why ‘alas’?”
Why indeed? He had no idea why he’d said that. “Perhaps you would care to sit down rather than stand arguing just inside the doorway?”
He considered her question as he led her to a sitting area at the far end of the room, under the window. His tongue, without the approval of his brain, had added thatalasqualification because some absurd part of Archie, some soft inner core, wanted Clementine to be the first. The only. He shoved the thought aside. It would only muddle his thinking, and the sight of Clem in her yellow shawl with her hair down, as if she were rattling around her own house—with him, so it must be his house, too, in this flight of fancy—late at night was already distracting enough.
“Well, I’m glad you’re not,” she declared, and he realized she hadn’t followed him all the way across the room but had, in fact, stopped near the bed. “That way we’re not both clueless.”
He chuckled, which he was fairly certain had been her aim. “All right, Clem, but we shan’t be lying together in the sense you mean. There is too much risk of getting you with child.”
“But what about the methods to which you alluded? Did you not say there were ways to prevent that?”
“They require an intimate knowledge of your, ah, womanly cycles. They have to do with timing and are suited for a couple that is settled together for some time. And they are never entirely foolproof.” Though he supposed there were French letters, though he didn’t have any. God, though, the thought of getting to be inside her body, of being engulfed by her.
Archie generally thought of himself as an easygoing sort, but his imaginings were making him rather agitated. He cleared his throat. “However, I think I can offer a compromise.”
“How so?”
This kind of talk should have been embarrassing. With her, somehow, it was not. “We can pleasure each other. You can experience the release you did last night, and I can spend, too.”
“Yes, I want you to spend.”
Dear Heavens. She was only stating her desires, and doing so in a moderate, matter-of-fact fashion, but there was something about it that was making him lose hold of himself.
“But, tell me, how will that work?” she asked.
“I wonder if it is better to show you than to discuss it theoretically.”
“Yes.” She let the shawl fall, and although she wasn’t wearing her shift, she also was far from properly dressed. The back of her blue dress had been unbuttoned, so when the shawl fell, so did the entire front of the dress.
“Lord above.” She had perfect breasts. Perfect small handfuls of flesh dotted with the prettiest pink rosebuds. One of them had three freckles on it. He could stare at them forever.
He hadn’t realized he was standing there, frozen like a simpleton, until she, letting the dress slide down her legs, said, “May I suggest that you also disrobe?”
“Yes!” Because why stare at Clem’s breasts when he was allowed totouchthem? He made quick work of his clothing, and was gratified when, as he rose, he realized she was staring at him with her mouth hanging slightly open.
Smiling, he walked toward her, his prick at attention, and because they’d already established what was going to happen, he let it make contact with her stomach. That prodded her out of her trance, and she sucked a loud inhalation at the contact. “What do I do?” she said, wonder in her voice.
He bent his head to kiss her, smiling against her lips. “All in good time,” he whispered, walking backward toward the bed, pulling her along with him. She wound her arms around his neck and pasted herself against him as he laid back on it, and, God’s teeth, it felt sogoodto have the friction of her skin against him.
She was impatient, and wriggled away from him, sat up, and, Heaven help him, took hold of his cock and said, “All innowtime. Show me.”
So he did, showing her how to grasp him, and stroke, how to retract his foreskin and let her hand trail over his cockhead the way he liked. He heard a moan rip from his throat as he allowed his eyes to close and his body to go still. He allowed himself to surrender to Clementine Morgan.
But only for a minute. He needed this not to be over just as it was beginning. So he pushed her gently off him and guided her down so she was on her back, swallowing her protests with his mouth, stroking deeply into her mouth with his tongue, letting the throbbing of his prick be like a drumbeat exhorting him to kiss her ever more deeply. Soon, she was moaning, and he loved to hear it. He would never get tired of hearing it. He had to push away the thought. His feelings on the matter were not relevant because he wasn’t going to hear the sound of Clementine moaning anymore, not beyond this trip.
He had been so careful, up till now, not to involve his lower body in their coming together. He’d meant what he said about not wanting to risk getting her with child, not wanting to trap her. He had heard what she said about not wanting to marry. He wasn’t going to be the one to force her into it.
