His head dipped lower, and a groan tore from his chest. “Damn, Linnet, you have the sweetest breasts I’ve ever—”
She didn’t hear what he said because he had her breast in his hand, and his mouth on her nipple. It felt lovely, intoxicating and—he suckled. She gasped. Or perhaps screamed. Or that was too hoarse for a scream. She shouldn’t be making noises like that, she should—
“Stop it,” he said, raising his head, rearing over her and looking down into her eyes.
“Don’t stop,” she begged.
“You started thinking again. You went all rigid.”
“No.” She drew her fingers over his chest, just as she’d imagined, over the broad muscles, and the flat bronze nipples. “You’re beautiful.”
“And you’re cracked if you think so,” he said flatly. Her fingers brushed over one of his nipples, and a ragged sound came from his throat. She did it again, more firmly. His neck dropped back, which gave her room to slide down and put her mouth where her fingers had been.
She could feel him shaking, so she tried this and that . . . licking, even a little bite. Anything that got him to throb against her. Half her mind was on him, and half was on the way she felt every time he bucked against her.
“Enough,” he said, rolling off her onto his back and bringing her with him.
“Your leg!” she gasped. “I’m sorry, I—”
He thrust a knee between her legs. The words died in her mouth. Every sensation in her body focused on the sweet spot between her legs. “Oh,” she moaned. “Please . . .”
Dimly she heard him chuckle, but his lips were on her nipple again, feasting, licking, tasting. Moving to the other nipple, suckling there until she was pulsing against his leg, crying out.
She braced herself against his shoulders, eyes closed.
“Want to come?” he said, his voice raspy and low.
His thumb rubbed across her nipple again, and she moaned.
“I think I could make you come just from this,” he said.
Linnet caught his voice, the detached, physician tone, and knew what he was doing. She leaned over and bit his lip. “You’re being an idiot again.”
“Why?” He played with her breasts, making her shake.
“Observing,” she gasped. “You do it when you’re uncomfortable. Oh!”
“I’m not uncomfortable. Neither are you.” A hand slid down her stomach to between her legs. He nudged her backward. “Though I think I could make you a good deal more comfortable.”
Linnet’s mouth fell open, but nothing came out. She quivered all over. “More comfortable on your back,” he said, flipping her over as easily as if she were a pancake. “More comfortable, if I kiss you here—” He put his mouth to her breast “—while I touch you here.” His fingers dipped back between her legs, coaxing, caressing.
Linnet didn’t know whether he was observing her. She hardly noticed when his mouth left her breast and trailed down her stomach. What he was doing with his hand was making her twist, her hips bucking against his fingers, hoarse moans flying from her lips.
But then he pushed her legs wider.
She raised her head, dazed, to see his dark head between her legs. “What are you doing?” she cried, trying to push herself away. “That’s—what—stop it!”
Too late. His lips turned to the sweet curve of her inner thigh. A tongue trailed delicately, closer and closer.
“You smell so good,” he said dreamily. “Essence of Linnet along with a touch of the ocean. And you taste . . .”
She gasped.
“You taste like the sweetest honey.” He turned back to what he was doing. He shoved her knees up, and his tongue claimed her, took her, threw her into the fire. Her head turned from side to side, and she strained against him, crying out, over and over, with each soft stroke.
A finger thrust inside her, and she broke, screaming so loud that she heard only the sound of her own pleasure, rather than the wind.
Then she heard the wind again, but also the whisper of Piers’s voice as he kissed her, very gently. “Oh so delicate,” he said, crooning. “Such good working order.”
“You’re diagnosing me!” she said, managing to pry her head off the pillow so she could look down at him.
He looked up at her, the devil in his eyes. “I’m diagnosing the pinkest—” he dropped another kiss, and she quivered again—“sweetest”—another kiss—“most delectable part of Linnet.”
Chapter Eighteen
Linnet scooted backward, pushing herself up against the headboard. Piers let his hands fall away from her legs, and she pulled her knees together, against her chest, reflexively thinking to cover her most intimate parts.
She could hardly believe that she had allowed such a thing to happen. Her stomach was curdling with embarrassment. “That was very improper,” she stated, apportioning some of the blame to him. “I’m sure that people don’t—where did you learn to do such a thing?”
“How would you know what people do or don’t do?” Piers rolled over on his side and propped his head up on one hand. “As a doctor, I can tell you that they get up to all sorts of things that you and I haven’t tried yet. Has anyone ever instructed you as regards the proprieties and improprieties of the bedchamber?”
She shook her head.
“I thought not,” he said with satisfaction. “Given that there are some obvious holes in your education.”
“What do you mean?” Against all common sense, her body was still quivering.
“Do you know what just happened to you?”
Laughter escaped from her mouth before she could stop it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Well, the first rule is that nothing is improper between lovers.”
“You sound as if you’re instructing the Ducklings,” she objected. “I’ve heard you haranguing them with questions that were meant to trap them into foolish answers.”
“Trust me, I’d never consider lecturing them on intimate matters. For one thing, they have far more chest hair than I like in my partners.”
Linnet wrapped her arms around her knees. “You’re absurd.”
“Not as absurd as the fact that you are a young woman who knows nothing of the reproductive system.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“I suppose your mother died before she could get around to explaining the basics.”
“I know the basics,” she protested.
“Oh? Then why did you think that men hang down in the front? Just how would that work? Like stuffing a sausage?”
“A minor error,” she said, her eyes sliding to that part of him. The tablecloth had long ago given up the fight. “My mother was obviously speaking metaphorically.”
“This”—he said, running his hand down himself—“is an erection. And I, by the way, am not incapable, as you should have known the moment you saw me standing up rather than flopping around.”
Linnet’s throat tightened. She would rather like to touch him that way herself.
“A man gets an erection only when he would like to bed a woman. If not, he hangs.”
“Oh. My mother was correct, then. Can you make yours hang, so I see what it looks like?”
He ran a slow hand over himself again. “No. Impossible.”
“It’s not within your control?”
“Not at the moment, and rarely around you, to my surprise.”
Linnet felt a little better hearing that.
“In case you’re wondering, I’m no virgin,” he said, conversationally. “Not that I would say I’ve made love to a woman. I’ve been with one, or two, or more. But obviously, you are a virgin, and a remarkably uninformed one. Why don’t you tell what you think the basics are,” he said, his eyes provocative, “and I’ll correct your inaccuracies.”
“So you can shout at me the way you shout at the Ducklings when they guess something wrong?” She shook her head. “No.”
“Do you want to skip the lecture and go straight to the demons
tration? I’m touching myself.” Instinctively her eyes returned to his hand and what it was doing. “I could use some help.”
“I truly believed that you were incapable,” she whispered. “I thought you couldn’t do this.”
“Think about it,” he said. “I suspect you have enough knowledge to know exactly what I would like to do with the tool at my disposal. It’s in functioning order.”
She took a deep breath, still watching his hand. “You might not fit,” she pointed out. “I would say not, myself.”
“I would say yes, myself,” he retorted.
“But I thought you, that is, your father told me . . . Is it just that you can’t sire children?”
“You’ve asked me one or twice how I injured my leg,” he said, watching her. His eyes were as dark as the blackest velvet.
“I’ve asked three times,” she corrected him. “Maybe four.”
“One day my father was in a euphoric state due to opium intoxication. I entered the room—I was six years old—and he thought that I was a fiend come to do whatever it is devils do. Steal his soul by various nefarious means.”
“He thought you were a devil? At age six?”
“Bizarre, isn’t it? Any number of people might agree with him now, but I assure you that I was quite pretty at that age, without a hint of sulfur about me. Though apparently I was the right size for a smallish devil, to my everlasting regret. At any rate, he hurled me into the fireplace, thereby protecting his soul. I suppose I should be glad that he’s such a devout Christian.”
Linnet gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Happily, it was unlit, but there was a pair of forged andirons, one of which gave me this lovely memento of the occasion.”
She scrambled to his side. “That’s horrifying. You must have been so terrified and hurt. How awful for you. For both of you, actually.”
“I don’t remember much,” Piers said. “Flying through the air, some pain. But the aftermath . . . I remember that. Because the pain just wouldn’t go away.”
“So your mother took you to France.”
“Followed by Bavaria. Better doctors there. Still, no one could understand why the leg didn’t heal. It didn’t. And it won’t. While we were gone, my father instituted divorce proceedings. It cost him a good quarter of my inheritance to have his wife—my mother—legally declared a degenerate.”
“He wasn’t himself,” Linnet said, stroking his leg with her fingers again. Her fingers slipped over the ravaged skin. “As a doctor, you know that.”
“As a son—” He shook his head.
“And so you told him that you were incapable! Because he’s so proud of his family history. You knew precisely what would hurt him the most, the idea that he himself was the cause of his line dying out.”
“It doesn’t sound like a very intelligent thing to have done, now you say it.” His hand was on her leg too, tracing fiery little circles on her thigh. “I might have to consider reconciliation.”
“I think you should.”
“This was all just to say that I’m not really incapable. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t break into snuffling tears and dash off to comfort Papa this very moment.”
Linnet concentrated on his leg, her fingers moving from the scar to skin that was roughened with hair and stretched taut over muscle. She didn’t look at his face. “We agreed to end our betrothal, such as it was.”
He nodded. “That means that you should make up your mind about what we do here. I have nothing to lose, whereas your virginity hangs in the balance.”
That was so characteristic of Piers. Another man might lie to her, or finesse the fact that he wanted to sleep with her, yet not to marry her. Not Piers.
“What would you say if I refused?” Her fingers spread over the roped muscle of his thigh, and she knew already that she wouldn’t refuse. This might be her only chance to make love to someone she truly desired.
He shrugged. “You’re an intelligent woman. You have a commodity that is extremely valuable on the open market, doubly so because of your beauty. Why on earth would you give it to me, for free?”
“You make it sound as if I’m for sale to the highest bidder.”
He was silent.
“Well, I may have been for sale to the highest bidder,” she said, “but the bidding dropped because everyone believes that I no longer own this oh-so-valuable commodity of mine.”
Still, Piers said nothing.
“If I choose to give it to you, can you guarantee that no child will result?”
“No,” he said. “This house doesn’t have all the amenities one might desire.”
There was a thread of amusement in his voice that woke a smile in her eyes. “What if there is a child?”
“We’ll marry,” he stated.
She nodded, feeling terribly shy.
Piers pulled her down onto his chest. “I think we should investigate exactly what we’re proposing to do.” His lips settled on hers, aggressive and delicious. “After all,” she heard him say a few moments later, his voice muffled by the way his lips were skating over her skin, “where there is a chance of marriage, one must proceed with care. Deliberation. Make absolutely sure that neither of us has the slightest qualm.”
She arched against him, not interested in careful thought. She couldn’t even concentrate on touching all that skin she had been furtively ogling. She felt inebriated, drunk, as if brandy were pouring through her veins and pooling between her thighs.
She wanted more.
In fact, the only thing she was really interested in was pressed against her thigh. Piers was still talking, in that sardonic kind of way that she found irritating. So she slipped her hand down by her leg and grabbed.
He went abruptly silent. He felt hot and smooth in her palm, pulsing with life, and far too large.
He eased back. “You’re holding me like a prize cucumber that you’re planning to pick.” But something in his voice indicated that he wasn’t as blasé as he sounded.
She let her fingers ease, slide up and down, the way he had been doing. A broken moan came from his lips. It was fascinating the way his skin moved . . . her fingers tightened again. Piers’s head fell back.
He was soft and hard at the same time, an odd combination that her body understood better than she did. She curled her fingers more tightly and stroked him again. The feeling of it made her shudder, and the breath caught in his throat, emerging in a strangled moan.
Desire lanced through her again, making her breathless, exhilarated. “I think this will suffice,” she whispered, letting him go and pulling his body toward her. “I have no doubts.”
“Suffice?” He was laughing again, but she was too busy tasting his neck, running her tongue up that strong column, and incidentally, bumping her hips against his.
“Come on,” she said, trying to pull him on top of her.
“We should be slow,” he whispered, his tongue sliding across her lips while his fingers did the same thing below. “You’re a virgin. You may well have an impediment inside. You must have heard about the pain caused by losing one’s virginity.”
Linnet hardly heard him, so entranced was she by how he was stroking her. Still, what she wanted wasn’t strokes or caresses or even sweet kisses. So she pulled hard at his shoulders. “Now,” she said fiercely.
She felt him there, and arched toward him instinctively.
“Slow,” he whispered.
She didn’t want slow. She felt a deep hunger for heat, and rush, and possession. The feeling was so intense that she couldn’t find words, just sobbed once, against his shoulders.
He knew . . . somehow he knew what she was thinking. A strong hand lifted her hip higher, fingers biting into her curves, and then he said into her curls, “You’re sure?”
Linnet didn’t bother answering, just growled in his ear as if she’d lost the ability to speak.
Apparently he knew how to interpret that because he came to her, in a smooth ferocious rush, with
a twist of his hips and a lunge.
“Pain?” he said a second later, his lips on her cheeks.
It wasn’t pain. She felt stretched, occupied, possessed . . . delirious.
Linnet arched her hips, took him deeper. “Could you—” She lost her breath as he shifted, sending cascades of fiery sensation down her legs.
“I can stop,” Piers gasped. “Wait for you to adjust. Your body will accommodate me, if you give it a moment.” His voice was deeper than she’d ever heard it.
Linnet hardly heard him. She was arching again, trying to get back the sensation, the fire. It felt good but . . . She clutched his shoulders. “Is that it?” Then she realized how her comment sounded. “It’s very nice. Really. Very—” Her voice cut off when his hips shifted.
He was laughing again, a kind of deep, breathless laughter. His elbows were just by her ear so she could feel his body shaking . . . She opened her eyes and stared at him, annoyed.
“I don’t think laughing is appropriate.”
“Mmmmm,” he said, reaching down and nipping her lip. The motion of his body made another ripple of sensation spread from her middle to the very ends of her toes. Her eyes started to close again.
“Are you feeling comfortable?” he asked her.
Really, was this all there was? She was comfortable. This couldn’t be all there was.
“Quite comfortable,” she said, tilting her neck to kiss his chin.
“In that case, do you suppose I could start to move?”
“Move? Move where?” Instinctively she clutched his shoulders. She might be slightly disappointed by the act, but she definitely didn’t want him to go anywhere. “Is it over already?”
He dropped his head into the curve of her shoulder, but she could hear the snort of laughter.
“Stop laughing at me!” she ordered, thinking that maybe she would just shove him off, before he had a chance to leave. That would show him. She pulled up her knees, bracing her feet on the bed, and the breath caught in her throat. Pleasure spread out like slow liquid ripples, right down her legs.