“Yes.”
He started on the laces and she watched him. His green eyes were intent on his task. They bore slight wrinkles at the corners, and she could see more lines around his wide mouth. He glanced up and met her gaze, his lips twitching before he looked back down again.
She was glad—so glad—that he’d come here—that he’d come to her. No man had ever sought her out before, pursued her—so carefully—yet so persistently.
It was lovely to be wanted.
Her stays loosened and she inhaled as they did, her lungs and ribs and breasts free. Without waiting for his order, she raised her arms.
He drew off her stays.
Her chemise was lawn, fine and delicate.
Nearly transparent.
She daren’t look down. She kept her eyes on him, even as she began to tremble. She’d only been this exposed to a man once before—
She pushed the intruding thought from her mind, but couldn’t help the small shake of her head.
He looked at her, hesitated, then knelt before her.
He touched her slipper, holding her eyes. “May I?”
She nodded jerkily. She wanted this—needed this. She wouldn’t let the past control her future. “Ye-es.”
He pulled off first one, then the other of her slippers.
She was nearly shaking now.
He looked worried, a line imprinting itself between his brows. “Eve,” he said. “We can stop here. We needn’t go any further.”
“No.” She inhaled sharply. “Please.”
He nodded.
He slid his hand slowly up over her ankle, letting his fingers rest on her calf. “May I?”
“Yes.”
He reached up under the chemise and untied her garter.
She could feel his fingers, warm and reassuring, fumbling with the stocking, and she closed her eyes, concentrating on that.
Not on panting dogs or the wash of blood.
It was easier with the second stocking, and then he was rising.
She opened her eyes to find him standing before her, not touching her at all. “May I?”
She swallowed, grateful, relieved.
Heated. “Yes.”
He kept his gaze on hers, as if to steady her, as he took the chemise skirt in his hands and drew it over her head.
She was naked. Entirely naked.
Her hands immediately flew to her breasts, covering them, as she looked at him wildly. His lips twitched and he laid his hands over hers on her chest. “May I?”
Her mouth opened, but no sound came. She nodded instead.
He curled his fingers over hers, interlocking, and drew her hands away from her breasts, holding them wide.
She was too thin, too tall, too bony, her breasts too small—
He bent and kissed one nipple, the slight brush of his lips making it contract. Then he kissed the other.
She stopped breathing, watching him, astonished.
He opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and licked.
All thought fled her mind. This, this wasn’t at all what she’d expected. It was strange and foreign and…
Delightful.
He glanced up at her through thick eyelashes, his mouth still hovering over the nipple he’d licked.
“Do that again,” she said.
He chuckled, leaned forward, and took her nipple into his mouth.
“Oh,” she breathed. A tension was pulling, from her nipple through her body and somehow ending up between her legs and it was tart and sweet and… “Oh.”
He popped off her nipple and bent, suddenly lifting her into his arms like a baby. She stared at him, her arms raised, not sure exactly what to do with them, and this seemed to cause him some amusement, for he chuckled again. “Eve. May I?”
“Yes,” she replied, having no idea at all what she was agreeing to.
He turned and deposited her in her bed and then climbed in after.
She tensed as for a moment he was over her, but then he settled beside her and she relaxed again, watching him curiously.
He grinned and bent his head to her breast again, sucking her tender nipple back into his mouth. It felt… oh, it felt so lovely, like sparks lighting and flickering under her skin as he sucked and sucked again. Her legs felt restless. She curled her toes into the mattress as he lifted his head and moved to the other nipple.
When he sucked, she arched a little under him, feeling like a banquet, like an offering to a pagan god.
He grazed the tip of her breast gently with his teeth and then looked at her, his hair falling across his brow. “May I?”
His voice had lowered, gone into those gravelly depths.
“Yes,” she said.
And he licked from her nipple to the flat plane between her breasts. Swiftly he kissed down to her belly, tonguing around her navel, making her fist her hands into the sheets, and then he was just above her bush.
She looked down, wide-eyed. His tawny hair fell about his face, obscuring his mouth, but she could feel the tiny kisses, the sharp, thrilling nips as he edged her maiden hair.
He lifted his head and she recognized him then, as he stared with green eyes through the strands of his hair: he was Pan, god of all wild things.
God of male virility.
“May I?” he rasped.
“Please,” she whispered.
Watching her, he lifted his body, shifting apart her legs, and hesitated as if he waited for some objection from her. And when there was none, he settled between her thighs, big and male, dark and sensuous, a stranger and the man she’d come to know intimately in the last few days.
A dream, not a nightmare.
He lowered his head slowly until he hovered over her mons, his breath stirring her damp curls. “May I?”
She nodded wordlessly.
But it wasn’t enough anymore.
He shook his head sternly, still looking into her eyes. “Say it.”
She licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Good girl.”
And he bent and kissed her clitoris.
She froze because she’d had no idea what he was going to do and if she had—
He opened his mouth, licking her.
Oh, God!
One hand flew to her mouth. She bit down on her knuckles, trying to keep any sound from escaping. The other hand clutched at his hair, that tawny mane, as he ravished her with his mouth, licking, kissing, sucking.
She gasped, unable to fill her lungs. What he was doing to her was diabolical, something supernatural, an act so extraordinary she wanted to squirm away.
Wanted to hold him there forever.
How was it possible that he could give her such pleasure?
He tongued her and she arched into his face, wanting, wanting, rubbing herself against him, noises from her throat escaping around her knuckles. She was hot, trembling, shaking, waiting for a transformation.
He opened his mouth wide over her, thrusting his tongue again and again against her clitoris.
She fell apart, exploding from her center, moaning mindlessly, her hands filled with his thick hair as he licked her relentlessly.
She was scattered, her mind blanking, her body racked with undiluted pleasure for some long, unmeasurable time. She simply existed, a creature of wonderment.
And when all her parts finally resettled, when she unclenched her fingers from his hair, and gasped for breath, her body dewed with moisture, she knew:
She’d been born anew.
ASA LICKED HIS lips, tasting Eve.
He watched her eyelids flutter open. She sprawled before him, a sybarite, replete in her satisfaction, and he couldn’t help but feel proud that he’d shown her such pleasure.
Even if his cock was hard as marble.
He stroked her legs, her belly as she recovered. He still lay between her legs, so close to her cunt, open and wet like a blown flower. He could smell her salty sex, taste her still on his tongue, and he wanted—wanted with a deep twist of his gut—to lever hi
mself over her and shove his cock into that warm, wet, welcoming center.
But he couldn’t. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
The thought grieved him, tearing at a part of his soul he hadn’t even known he had.
Asa sighed and pushed himself up, slowly—and rather painfully—crawling from between Eve’s legs and to her side. He propped himself on one elbow and, wincing, adjusted himself in his breeches.
Eve opened dazed blue eyes. “Asa.”
“Aye, luv,” he murmured, leaning over her to kiss her gently on the mouth.
“That was wonderful,” she murmured, her words nearly slurred.
He couldn’t help the smirk, though it turned to a wince as he straightened.
She was more alert than he’d thought. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Her gaze drifted down his body and then widened when she saw the tent his cock was making in his breeches. “Oh. You didn’t… doesn’t that hurt?”
“A little.”
She arched those imperious eyebrows. “Then why don’t you do something about it?”
He arched his brows back. Before her he’d never touched himself in front of a woman—in front of anyone. It was a solitary activity, after all, one done out of boredom or desperation or because he didn’t have a woman to serve his needs at that moment.
Or at least he’d always thought of it thus.
That masturbation might be an erotic act between two people had never occurred to him before the carriage ride with Eve.
Now he felt his cock jump at the thought.
He lay back and, reaching down, unbuttoned his falls.
Her gaze dropped to his hands and he had to close his eyes a moment for fear that he’d spill in his breeches.
Gingerly he opened his falls and his smallclothes and pushed them down his hips. His cock bobbed blessedly free and he groaned at the liberation.
He was about to take himself in hand when he felt a hesitant touch.
He opened his eyes to see Eve tracing a finger down his throbbing shaft. Jesus! Her hand was so cool, so soft against his flesh.
“It’s hard.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes alight with curiosity. “I hadn’t expected it to be so hard. Can I—?”
He swallowed, nodding, clutching the bedclothes in one fist. He could endure this if it kept that happy expression on her face.
She bent over him, her glorious blond hair drifting over her white shoulders, and ran her finger over his balls.
Then she giggled.
He could only glare at her—he’d lost the power of speech many moments ago.
“They’re so hairy,” she said in explanation. “And wrinkly. Like prunes in a bag.”
She bit her lip as if to still further giggles as she peered at him.
Her gaze flicked to his. “Do you mind?”
How could he protest? She was unafraid in this moment and she was touching him.
He shook his head and spread his legs. “Be my guest, luv.” His voice sounded like charred gravel.
It didn’t seem to deter her curiosity, though. The tip of her tongue peeked between her lips as she leaned over him and rolled his balls in her slim fingers. Her gold hair fell over her shoulders in gentle waves, brushing the clear, delineated bow of her collarbone. Her breasts were delicate, pretty things, with just the barest curve underneath. They came to a sweet point as she hung over him, her nipples palest pink. And her fingers…
He swallowed and looked away for a moment, gritting his teeth.
Dear God. Her fingers, those prim, soft lady’s fingers, were wrapped around the crude, ruddy flesh of his cock.
He’d been handled far more expertly in his time—been handled by experts, come to that. But the very fact that she didn’t quite know what she was doing. That this must be the first time she’d touched a cock.
God.
He couldn’t remember ever having been so hard for a woman.
Her fingers trailed over his burning skin, so lightly they nearly tickled. He wanted to tell her to grip him, to make a fist over his damned cock and pull, and at the same time he wanted to endure this. To merely lie here, undone and aching, letting this virgin play with him.
He sneaked a glance, just in time to see her bend closer, tracing the foreskin drawn back tight around the head of his swollen cock, and bloody hell, he felt the brush of her breath on his weeping flesh.
“You’re going to give me apoplexy,” he rasped.
She looked up, her blue eyes wide.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her up, pulled her across his chest, pulled her into a kiss so filthily explicit his tongue might as well have been fucking her mouth.
They groaned in unison and he wrapped his hand over hers, forcing her fingers tight around his erection, showing her how to pull up, the loose skin sliding over his hot core—oh, sweet, sweet God—and down, fisting tight, moving faster, his hips pumping up into their shared grasp.
She moaned and his hips jerked at the sound.
And then she sucked his tongue and hot pleasure speared him. He convulsed, spunk spewing over his fingers, over hers. He smeared them both in it as he yanked himself through it, shuddering.
Groaning as if he were dying. Maybe he had. Maybe this was sweet death.
He released his flesh then, but he still clasped her hand, twining their fingers together, sticky with his release. A wild idea came to him, of rubbing his seed into her skin. Of marking her with his scent.
She sagged against him, sprawled over him, as he lazily explored her mouth.
Mine, a primitive part of himself whispered inside.
Mine.
He had to push the thought down and away, for that was impossible. Eve deserved to be the most important thing in some man’s life and that place was already taken in his.
By his garden.
Always his garden.
Plain and simple, she deserved someone more giving than he. More open, more gentle, more gentlemanly.
Someone who didn’t eat, drink, and breathe the theater, day in and day out.
He frowned at the thought and then pushed it away. For the moment—this moment—he had Eve Dinwoody in his bed.
Asa tucked her head against his chest and lay back on her perfumed pillows, closing his eyes.
If this was all he’d ever have of her, it was more than enough.
Chapter Fourteen
Dove laughed softly. “No wonder the leaves flee from you. Your touch is too rough.”
She knelt by the stream and slowly stretched out her hand, petting the shining leaves before gently plucking them. In no time at all she had filled a bag with the watercress.
“Huh.” Eric took the bag from her and tied it to his belt.
And then he turned and set off through the forest again.…
—From The Lion and the Dove
The dogs were at her heels, snapping with dripping fangs, when Eve woke that night.
They didn’t catch me this time, was the only thing she could think as she lay staring into the darkness. They didn’t tear me limb from limb.
She sobbed on an indrawn breath, and then realized she wasn’t alone.
Asa Makepeace held her to his chest, gently rocking her as if she were a child.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he crooned into her hair. “Hush, luv.”
She could feel the brocade of his waistcoat under her cheek, the warmth of his hands in her hair, on her arms, and she was glad—so very glad—that she’d not waked alone from her dream.
She curled her fingers into the collar of his shirt. He must’ve removed his coat at some point during the night, for he wasn’t wearing it. She could feel the warmth of his throat, the rasp of his chest hair.
He held her like that, rocking slowly, not speaking, for some long, interminable time—impossible to count seconds or minutes in the dead of night. She could hear the soft sigh of his breath, the slight creak of the bed, and nothing else.
br /> They might as well be the only people alive in the world.
WHEN NEXT EVE woke, the sun was shining through the windows. She blinked and realized a large male arm was thrown across her stomach, pinning her in place.
Oddly, she didn’t panic.
Instead she gingerly removed the arm and slowly, carefully levered herself up to peer at her sleeping bedmate.
Asa Makepeace was on his back, his arms and legs spread wide and taking up most of the bed. A sunbeam struck his hair, making gold and red strands glint in the brown. Dark reddish brown hair stubbled his jaw. His lips were slightly parted and on each exhalation was the faintest suggestion of a snore.
Eve smiled at the sound and reached for the small sketchbook and pencil that always sat on the table beside her bed.
She settled back against the pillows and began drawing him: the slightly overlarge nose, the eyes unlined in sleep, the slack, beautiful mouth. How was it possible that this man she’d at first found merely irritating, overwhelmingly male—frightening—should turn out to have so many sides to him? A lover of opera. A fighter of highwaymen. A shouter of arguments. A savior of stray dogs.
Stubborn, cynical, violent, and sometimes mean.
And yet a man who had tenderly shown her how to love.
No one had ever cared so much for her.
The pencil trembled in her hand at the thought and she carefully laid both pencil and sketchbook down.
Asa had made no promises. Indeed, he’d told her that he devoted his time to the garden and had never looked for either wife or family. Whatever they had between them, therefore, must perforce be temporary.
To allow herself to become… emotionally invested in him would be a very unwise thing.
Eve bit her lip. Still. Right now, right here, she could watch her lover sleep. She bent to her sketchbook again and for the next several moments the only sound in her bedroom was the scratch of her pencil.
The door to her bedroom opened and Ruth dropped her ash bucket on the floor.
Eve blushed as the maid stared at the very large male in her bed.
Asa opened his eyes, grimaced, and slammed them closed again. “What.”
Eve cleared her throat. “Good morning.”
He opened one eye again, squinting up at her. “Thought I heard a gunshot.”