She melted back on the chaise and gazed up at the twinkling stars as James cupped her breast with his hand, pushing it up and out of the confines of her corset so that only the fabric of her chemise and bodice separated her breasts from him. Elizabeth started as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the tip of her breast until it hardened against the fabric, then kissed his way down the front of her bodice, past the row of tiny buttons that kept her fastened inside her dress, and pressed his lips around the hard little nub in the center of her breast.
Fire, like the fire of a glass of brandy on an empty stomach, shot through, her, only this fire was a thousand times better than anything alcohol induced. Elizabeth gasped as the warmth of his breath against her breast made her nipple swell and harden even more until she ached in the dark secret recesses of her body—all the places proper ladies didn’t admit to having. Elizabeth arched her back, filling the night air with little incoherent sounds she made in her throat. She wiggled in his arms, moving steadily closer until she finally reached up, clamped her fingers into his thick black hair and held him pressed against her. She whimpered hoarsely as James dampened the satin of her bodice with his tongue, then forced his warm breath through the fabric, igniting spontaneous little brush fires of desire that flared throughout her body.
James chuckled deep in his throat, thrilled with Elizabeth’s impatience and heady with the powerful sensations swirling around them and with the incredible realization that she enjoyed his touch as much as he enjoyed touching her. He turned his head so that he might breathe once again, then slowly worked his way over the satin fabric, past the little jet buttons to her other breast. He wanted to bite off the buttons and tear the linen covering her breasts away with his teeth, but he fought to control that urge, freeing her breast from her corset, instead, by cupping his hand beneath it and pushing it up and over the top of the whale-bone in the same way he’d freed her other one. Once his mission was accomplished, James lavished her nipple with a rush of hot, moist air. God, but he wanted to touch her. All of her. He wanted to suckle at her breast and taste the sweet hot essence of her. He wanted to bury his length inside her warmth and to feel the heat of her surrounding him as he throbbed and pulsed within, and he wanted to capture her lips and swallow her cries as they careened toward the heavens and where desire and passion were forged like iron and carbon melded into steel, forming an exquisite blend of love and faith and trust.
James worked his way from her breasts back to her lips. His tongue, warm and rough, plundered her mouth as he slipped a hand under her skirts and worked his way through the sea of petticoats until he felt the lace of her drawers just above her knees. He reached beneath the lace ruffle at her knee and ran his hand up her silken-clad thigh as far as the give in the fabric allowed. Frustrated by his lack of progress, he withdrew his hand from the leg of her drawers and began again. His second foray yielded better results as he ran his hand over the top of her thigh and down into the valley between her legs. He located the opening in the fabric and gently eased his fingers inside it, through the nest of silken curls, to the damp swollen flesh hidden beneath them.
“James, please,” Elizabeth moaned and begged as she thrust her hips against his incredibly talented fingers while James traced the contours of her sleek flesh and teased the tight little bud hidden within the petal-like folds of her most secret place. There were no words to describe the shock of the myriad delicious and forbidden sensations she felt as James slid his skilled fingers into her soft folds. She felt the impact of those sensations deep inside her womb as her body clenched uncontrollably, yearning to fill the desperate emptiness that James had created with his touch. Elizabeth knew she should be scandalized by James’s familiarity with the forbidden places on her body, knew she should be alarmed at the way he played her like an instrument, coaxing sweet music from her. But he stroked and probed her with such infinite tenderness and such agonizing care that she couldn’t be outraged. How could she be shocked and angry when all he gave was unimaginable pleasure?
“Please,” she murmured again with such anguish that James couldn’t tell if she was inviting him to continue or begging him to stop. He deliberately deepened his caress and circled his fingers. Elizabeth immediately pressed her legs together in reaction, before opening them again to give him access. And James had his answer.
Elizabeth squirmed as pleasure—hot and thick and dangerous—surged through her body, filling her with urgent longings she never know she possessed. She thrust her hips upward as she moaned her delight and gasped out his name in short, frantic little breaths.
James continued to kiss her, gently at first, then harder, consciously matching the action of his fingers to that of his tongue as he feverishly worked his magic on her. He knew she was desperately close to finding wondrous satisfaction, even if she didn’t quite know what was happening to her. His body chafed beneath his self-imposed restraint. He ached to join her in blissful release, but James had to take his time. He pressed his thumb against her, soothing her aching core with the sweet honey she lavished on his fingers.
Elizabeth cried out against his lips, then shuddered deeply as her fragile control shattered, and she came apart in his arms, arching her hips wildly against his hand before collapsing on the chaise. She finally opened her eyes, and looked up at him with such an expression of sheer wonderment and joy that James’s breath caught in his throat. He was humbled by the look in her eyes and rewarded tenfold for his remarkable restraint.
Elizabeth blushed. “What happened to me?”
“I hope you touched the stars,” James said honestly.
“I not only touched them,” she said, smiling at him, “but I saw them and felt them and kissed them and fell through them.” Her eyes shimmered with emotion as she reached up and placed her palms on both sides of his face. “Thank you,” she said simply as she pulled his face down to meet her lips.
“It was an honor,” he whispered seconds before he captured her mouth with his own.
James kissed her again—this time with all the pent-up passion and frustration and longing he’d been holding in check so long. He kissed her until her breasts heaved with exertion, until her bones seemed to turn to jelly, until all she could do was cling to him while she fervently returned his kisses measure for measure. James’s mind reeled from the flood of sensations she evoked as her tongue mated with his.
Shaking with need, James finally pulled his mouth away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in confusion.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he answered.
“Then why did you stop kissing me?”
“Because I want you.” James leaned his forehead against hers and drew a shaky breath. “All of you.”
“You have all of me,” she told him.
James shook his head. “I’m not entirely certain you understand what I mean, Elizabeth. But I’m damned sure you weren’t as compromised as your grandmother believed.”
The smile Elizabeth gave him was beatific. “Then, why don’t you show me how it should be done? Compromise me.”
That was all the encouragement James needed. He scooped her into his arms, lifted her from the chaise, and headed toward his bedroom.
Elizabeth looped her arms around his neck and held on. They negotiated the distance from the chaise to the French doors leading to James’s bedroom between kisses. “James,” Elizabeth said as he entered his room and placed her on his bed, “not here.”
James groaned aloud. “Why not?”
“The Treasures.”
For the first time since he’d become a father, James remembered he was a man as well as a father and put his needs ahead of the needs of the Treasures. “What about them?”
“Cardinal rule number one: Never leave the Treasures alone.”
James’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled down at her. “Then, we’ve got a real problem, my love, because I don’t think what we’re about to do is something they ought to witness just yet.”
El
izabeth’s breath caught in her throat at James’s use of the casual endearment.
“That bad, huh?” she teased.
“That good,” he pronounced.
“It gets better?” she asked in a voice so full of wonder that James couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ve always thought so,” he said. “I’ve always thought that kissing the stars is a pasttime best experienced when two people do it together.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But you may disagree.”
“How can I disagree?” Elizabeth asked, her desire surging by leaps and bounds as James nipped her bottom Up with his teeth, then gently laved the tiny wound with his tongue. “When I’ve nothing with which to compare?”
James’s leer was positively lustful as he placed a knee on the bed and leaned over her. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He reached down and began unbuttoning her bodice. He kissed her hungrily as he fumbled with the tiny jet buttons that seemed determined to thwart his best efforts to slip them through their buttonholes. When she was finally unbuttoned, James searched the whalebone of her corset, feeling for more buttons or hooks or laces, anything he could undo. He had little experience with corsets. Mei Ling had quit wearing the torturous device shortly after they married, when she gave up Western dress and returned to her loose robes and silk and satin tunics and trousers.
“How do I open this thing?” he asked, his frustration rising along with his passion.
“Hooks,” Elizabeth gasped as he took advantage of her open bodice and traced the tips of her breasts with his rough silk pads of his fingers. “The hooks are hidden beneath the front flap.”
“Hidden?” James muttered. “Hidden from whom? You know where they are. And what man is going to look at hooks when he can feast his eyes on this magnificent bounty?” He felt beneath the front flap and groaned when he met with a hundred or so tiny hook and eye closures. “Bloody hell!”
Elizabeth should have cringed at his vivid curse, but she giggled instead. James’s honest frustration with her feminine accouterments was proving to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
He sighed with relief as he finally unhooked the contraption and freed her. He lifted her to pull her corset and the tight-fitting bodice of her dress from beneath her, then tugged the hem of her chemise from the waistband of her skirts and up and over her head, leaving her gloriously naked above the waist. Encouraged by his success with her corset, James unhooked her skirts, untied the waistbands of her petticoats and unbuttoned her lacy drawers. When everything was unfastened, he peeled the garments down her long, slender legs along with her silk stockings and frilly garters.
Completely nude and suddenly shy, Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to roll to the side of the bed to extinguish the lamp he’d left burning, but James wrapped his arm around her waist and stopped her. “Leave it,” he urged. “I want to look at you.”
“Please,” she began, “I’m—”
“So damned beautiful you take my breath away,” he whispered, genuinely awestruck.
Elizabeth opened her eyes to see if the expression on his face matched his tone of voice and was instantly gratified to see that it did. She blushed. “What do I do?”
James raised an eyebrow at her and grinned. “Lie there and enjoy while I see if you taste as good as you look.”
Elizabeth met his heated gaze, trusting that James meant to continue his intimate exploration with his fingers. She was startled when he stretched out between her legs and, resting his head on her thigh, turned and pulled her toward him. The feel of his hot breath came as a complete surprise. Elizabeth clamped her legs together. James raised his head and looked at her. “Trust me, Elizabeth. I’m not going to hurt you,” he coaxed. “I’m only going to love you. If you’ll let me.”
When he looked at her like that, Elizabeth found she couldn’t deny him anything—didn’t want to deny him anything. As long as he kept his promise to love her, her body was his to do with as he pleased. “Please do,” she begged politely.
“My pleasure.”
Elizabeth thought she’d kissed the stars while his fingers caressed her, but when James began to taste and tease the places his fingers had explored, she captured the stars and held them inside, her.
He drove her to the brink of rapture and beyond. James moved up her body and cradled her beside him, capturing her cries with his mouth as she shuddered back to the earth in his arms. He brushed her damp hair off her flushed face, wiped the tears from her eyes, and murmured love words of praise and encouragement in her ear.
She opened her eyes to find James staring down at her.
“Nice trip?” James remembered thinking, the first night they met, that a man could drown in those marvelous blue-green eyes of hers. Now he knew it was true.
“Hmm,” she murmured, snuggling beside him and stretching languidly, like a cat.
“How were the stars?” he asked, kissing the tip of her nose.
Elizabeth gazed at him. “Lonely,” she answered.
“Really?”
She nodded. “I’ve been told that the trip to the stars is much nicer when you have a companion on the journey.”
“Just a companion?” He sounded disappointed.
“Well”—she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue as she pretended to ponder his question—“a lover would be better.”
James sucked in a breath as his body tightened and the bulge in his trousers threatened to pop his buttons. “Are you in the market for a lover, Miss Sadler?”
“I’d like to think I just found one, Mr. Craig,” she said primly. “But you may disagree.”
“I am not complaining,” James assured her.
“I am,” Elizabeth admitted. A wicked little smile played about the corners of her mouth and her eyes sparkled with merriment. She reached up and pulled him down to kiss her. “Because only one of us is naked.”
James kissed her quickly, then reached for the buttons of his shirt.
Elizabeth brushed his hands away. “I’ve never undressed a man before,” she told him shyly. “Allow me.”
“Be my guest,” he invited, giving himself up to the pleasure of having a woman’s hands on him after so many years.
She untied the knot at his waist and slid his silk robe off his shoulders, down his arms, and over his hands, exposing the hard muscles of his chest and stomach. Elizabeth rubbed her hands over the mat of hair on his chest, then leaned over and indulged herself by allowing the tips of her breasts to rub against the soft hair.
James’s blood rushed downward. The hard male part of him throbbed with each beat of his heart. He ached to sheathe himself in Elizabeth’s warmth. He ached to end his exquisite torment. Wrapping his arms around her waist, James gently rolled her onto her back. Elizabeth followed the line of his spine, sliding her hands down his back and over his tight buttocks, then back to the waistband of his trousers. She followed the strip of fabric from his back to the front of his trousers. James groaned aloud as she brushed her fingers against him. She located the buttons of his trousers and carefully undid each one. James kicked free of his pants, moaning his immense satisfaction as the hard jutting length of him spilled into Elizabeth’s waiting hands. She caressed him, marveling at the velvety soft feel encasing his iron-hard length. And she would have continued her exploration if James hadn’t gently lifted her hands from around him, then guided her legs up over his hips, and pressed himself against her, delicately probing her entrance.
Lost in a frenzy of need, Elizabeth locked her legs around his waist and pulled him to her.
James thrust inside her. He closed his eyes, threw back his head, and gritted his teeth as he sheathed himself fully inside her warmth. His entire body shook with the effort as he fought to maintain his control.
Elizabeth cried out in pain as he entered her and tried to pull away. James realized too late that he’d just ruthlessly pushed through her veil of innocence. He held on to her to keep her from squirming and causing herself more pain as he soothed her with his words and kissed a
way the salt of her tears. “It’s all right, love, the worst will be over in a moment. Lie still. Let me kiss you.”
“It wasn’t supposed to hurt,” Elizabeth said. “It was supposed to be beautiful.”
“The first time always hurts, my sweet,” he soothed, “but the pain will go away soon, and I promise you, it will be beautiful. We’ll make it that way.”
Her pain subsided just as he promised, and as it did, Elizabeth began to move experimentally. James lost his battle to maintain control as her movement forced him deeper inside her. He began to move his hips in a rhythm as old as time. Elizabeth followed, matching his movements thrust for thrust. She clung to him, reveling in the weight and feel of him as he filled her again and again, gifting her with himself in a way she’d never dreamed possible. She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears of joy trickled from the corners, ran down her cheeks, and disappeared into the silk of her hair. And as she felt the first tremors flow through her, Elizabeth surrendered to the emotions swirling inside her, gave voice to her passion with small incoherent cries that escaped her lips as James rocked her to him and exploded inside her.
He brushed his lips against her cheek as he buried his face in her hair. He tasted the saltiness of her tears, then lifted his head and looked down at her face. God, but she was beautiful. James shuddered as a rush of emotions raced through him. He should have spoken words of love instead of words of passion. He should have cherished her and treated her tenderly instead of using her to slake his raging desire. Damn, but she’d been a virgin. She deserved more than he was willing to offer. James sighed. He wouldn’t think about tomorrow yet. He wouldn’t question his good fortune or ask for more than he deserved. He’d simply love her while it lasted.
Her eyes were shimmering with emotion as James leaned down and touched his mouth to hers in a kiss so gentle, so loving, so precious, it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“I captured the stars,” he breathed at last. “I brought some back with me.” He stared down at her. “And they’re shining in your eyes.”