The Pursuit of Pleasure (15 page)

Then he bore her back down; his mouth, his weight, his hands were everything she needed. Ah, yes. She let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding in a long sigh, wondering at herself: so strange that his constraint of her body should fill her with such comfort and ease. Perverse, that’s what she was.

Because she liked it when his hand slid up the soft underside of her arm to intertwine with her fingers and hold her hands still above her head. Hold her open to his mouth, exploring along the side of her neck, and lower, his lips making giddy bursts of pleasure flash under her skin.

She sighed again with the wondrous ease of it, the skill with which he could play her, could pluck her nerves and make this beautiful music between their bodies. He did it now with his tongue and his hands at her breast, wetting her skin. Her flesh felt heated and stretched. So hot, when the night air was so cool.

He eased himself up by parts, as loath as she was to have any space between them. But he had to push off his breeches and kick them away so he was naked at last. His hands twined with hers once more, to hold her pinned and stretched out beneath him. He eased up to look between them, and she did so as well.

So different were their bodies; his sculpted musculature thrown into stark relief by the silver wash of twilight, her smooth, slight curves small beneath him. His hands were so big, so wholly masculine against the pale skin of her breasts. She watched as his hand moved over her nipple, teasing it before he dipped his mouth to suck lightly at the pink flesh. Such bliss. It pulled her body upwards, towards him, into his control. She was arching up, moving, rocking her hip bones almost frantically against him, searching for the sweet pressure.

“Sweet, sweet Lizzie,” he murmured at her mouth.

He was wrong of course. She wasn’t sweet at all. She was tart and ascetic, all sharp, uncomfortable edges. It was he who was all smoothness and grace. His body, taut and beautiful, covered in smooth muscle, powerful and sure. It was the pleasure he could make between their bodies that was sweet.

She twisted again, her hips moving and searching for him, for that part of him that could ease her ache.

He shifted his position between her legs and she could feel him, the hard, thick length of him, pressed into her belly.

“There.” She sounded desperate and impatient. She was. She clutched at his hands, when instead of listening to her and doing what she needed, he pulled away. But then his hand was on her, swift and sure, opening her with merciful efficiency. She was already wet and slippery, her body weeping for release. She bucked up into his palm. It was not enough. It could only begin to fill her emptiness. And then his hand was gone.

Did that sound, that needy groan, come out of her? She was pulling at his shoulders, trying to bring him back down, but he ignored her.

“Hush, Lizzie. Easy.”

“Jamie.” She heard the plea in her voice and she didn’t care. She would beg. “Please!”

“Easy, love. Easy.”

His hands were rough at her hip bones, forcing her arching body down, holding her still, pinned against the floor. And then he was there, finally, the blunt head pushing against her flesh. Her quim. Yes,
there.

He covered her mouth with his own in a nearly savage, biting kiss and plunged swiftly in, straight into her scalding heat, rocking her with the force of his possession.

She made a harsh sound, a sharp exhalation of pain he swallowed into his throat, his mouth on hers, licking, kissing, and his hands tangled with hers over her head. Strung out beneath him.

Yes. There. Finally.

His body inside hers, filling her, pushing into the emptiness. Hard. Once, twice. Once more.

“My God. Lizzie.”

And the cold glass inside her shattered like ice, melting, flowing along her veins, down rivers of icy hot pleasure. She floated on it, swept along by the rippling current, swirling softly in eddies of bliss. Finally.

When she opened her eyes, she saw stars, and then Jamie. Above her, watching her as she floated downstream on the pleasure. It was so strange that when she felt so peaceful, he should look so anguished. He frowned, almost winced, as he continued to rock into her. She smiled, to help him, to ease him, and reached for his dear, familiar face, such a poignant contrast to his glorious, naked, unfamiliar body. She ran her hand along the rough edge of his cheek and jaw. He closed his eyes and turned his face into her palm and then out again, rubbing against it. Her flesh prickled from the abrasion of his whiskers, but she liked it. It felt hard and rough and good. Like him.

Her fingers found their way around to the back of his neck, and then up, raking through his hair. She pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him, sucking his taste, his spice into her.

His skin glistened with a sheen of sweat, and he slid all along the length of her body as he rocked relentlessly against her core. She felt sated, filled with him. His lips brushed against her neck, below her ear, softly and then, not so softly. Rougher still were his teeth nipping at the hollow low on her collarbone. His arm wrapped tight around her neck, holding her close, so close she could no longer feel where she left off and he began.

She clung to him like a lifeline, as if he was the only thing keeping her attached to this world.

She felt his hand between them, reaching down to sweep his fingers across the sensitive nub hidden in her flesh. The feeling was less than a touch, just a suggestion of warmth, yet it reverberated through her until she was lost.

Then when the heat again exploded into flashpoints of molten ecstasy burning from under her skin, she took his lip into her mouth and bit him.

She felt his release pound through him as he spilled himself deep inside her body.

“Lizzie.” His voice was a shout, full of wonder and thanks.

He was hers. No matter where he went, no matter how long he was gone, he was hers. He would always be hers. Nothing could take him away from her now. Nothing.

Lust—dark, erotic, and fierce—roared through him at the sweet metallic taste of blood on his lips. He had no idea if it was his or Lizzie’s, but at that moment he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but shoving himself deeper and deeper into her, over and over. He was lost to everything but the pullof her body and the chant of her name in his head. Over and over.
Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie.

When she arched beneath him, taut as a sail and flying away on her pleasure, he lost the rhythmic cadence and surged into her, the hot slippery friction of her body drowning out everything else as his release sent spasms through him.

Marlowe didn’t know how long it took him to come back to himself. Dark gray-green twilight had come with the end of the storm, blotting out the sun, leaving them adrift in time. At some point he had flung himself off her so he wouldn’t crush her, leaving him strung out on his back, staring unseeing up at the darkened ceiling.

He filled his lungs with a deep draft of air and waited for reality to return. Nothing he had thought, nothing he had done, had prepared him for the way he felt. Spent, exhausted, exhilarated. Empty.

Shaken to his core.

His release had felt cataclysmic, but the triumph, the finality he had expected was absent. He had thought he would feel … complete. He thought he would have finally come full circle with Lizzie and could move on. Could go back to his duty, to the career he loved.

Instead he felt as if the world had shifted below his feet. As if nothing would ever be the same again. As if what he had done were irrevocable.

And Lizzie. God in heaven, Lizzie. He turned his head and found her fighting to calm her breath, staring at him in glassy-eyed, sated wonder. She smiled slowly, her face lighting with impish delight. Her eyes continued to move over him, cataloging each and every detail of his appearance and anatomy. Collecting him into her memory.

That’s what Lizzie did. What made her unique. She collected sights and sounds and experiences the way other people collected botanical specimens or seashells. All he had to do was keep giving her new and interesting experiences to collect.

“Let’s do that again.”

Oh, God, yes. Lizzie was definitely made for hedonism.

In only a few hours, Marlowe watched the first gray light of early dawn slowly illuminate her features. The time had finally come. But not quite yet. He could still watch her while she slept.

He tried to recall just how many times he had made love to her during the night before she had finally drifted off into spent, contented exhaustion. But he hadn’t slept. Not for a long while.

He’d stayed awake, watching her as her breath became shallow and she fell into sleep. In the warm mellow light of the single candle she had slept on, oblivious to his disquiet.

He supposed it had been his first real chance to look at her, really look, without any restraint. And without having to work double time to keep up with her clever little mind and devastatingly witty tongue. Without having her look back.

He could simply enjoy her.

She was like a cat. Not a kitten, all curled up and irresistible, but a cat, long and sleek and comfortable in her own skin. She stretched across the mattress like a sunbeam. No, not a cat after all. The image of that bright otter, lolling on the riverbank, came back to him. That’s what she was. Sleek and slippery. Inquisitive and aquatic. Last night, very nearly acrobatic.

He rolled on his elbow to look at her face. It was so strange to see it softened by sleep. She almost didn’t look like herself. He’d never seen her without animation, without humor, intelligence, or passion blazing out of those eyes.

What an extraordinary beauty she had become. Not one of your milk-and-water English misses. No, everything about herwas vibrant, from her vivid orange hair to the glowing whiteness of her skin and the emerald fire in her eyes. Even her nipples were the saturated coral pink of ripe apricots. God, she was glorious.

Lust poured over him like sunshine.

He’d always preferred his women, well, womanly—all lush curves and pillowed comfort. It was almost indecent, the erotic lust that shot through him at the sight of her sleek, animalistic body.

His Lizzie. He’d never have thought it would feel like this. As if it weren’t finished. As if it never could be. As if he’d only just started to get her into, never mind out of, his system. He’d certainly got more than he bargained for in marrying her.

He reached out to move a lock of bright hair back off her forehead.

“Talk about your early risers,” she mumbled, eyes still closed.

“Ah, you refer, of course, to my body’s stunning reaction to waking up next to you.”

She blushed. Lizzie Paxton Marlowe actually blushed, the flood of blood coloring her skin from her chest upwards, until her cheeks were stained with it. It was rather gratifying to know he could make that happen.

He could make other things happen, too. He snugged her back against his chest so she couldn’t escape, and so his erection was pressing into the small of her back, just above her luscious bottom. He nosed aside her hair to kiss her lovely neck.

“Blushing, Lizzie?” he teased quietly. “You needn’t be embarrassed by your remarkable suitability to conjugal bliss. I, for one, am exceedingly gratified by your charming and enthusiastic reaction to my ministrations.” He let his hand wander across the silken skin of her taut belly. “And I would be further gratified if you would do that exquisite little thing you did last night when you bit my lip. I very much liked that.”

Her head turned up and she opened her mouth to him, slowly sucking his bottom lip between her teeth and biting down ever so slightly. The remembrance of her doing the same last night, an erotic combination of pain and pleasure, forked through him like lightning. It was bliss. She was bliss.

Exhausted bliss. She stifled a yawn. “What time is it?”

“The sun’s only just up.”

“Why are you so awake?”

“I have to leave. Soon.”

Her eyes snapped open, sharp green against her suddenly pale face. “How soon?”

“As soon as I make love to you one more time.”

“Jamie!”

He turned her onto her back and brushed her fiery hair off her face. “Handsomely now, Lizzie,” he warned. “I want to take my time with you.”

“Sentimental.” But her eyes began to soften.

“Yes, very sentimental. I desire to be sentimental all over your breasts.” His warm breath blew over the peaks, which tightened. “You see, they’re sentimental, too.”

“Jamie.” She moved, undulating against him, her body already stirring with desire.

“Shh.” He covered her with his body and whispered into her ear. “Don’t. Lie quiet. Don’t do a thing. Don’t make a sound.”

He coaxed her with quiet words and gentle, firm touches. But she held herself back, trying, he thought, not to break, not to cry. Poor Lizzie. She could let her body go and fly away before her, but not her heart. Not her emotions.

But it was beautiful anyway. She was beautiful. And he was careful and quiet with her, willing to give her that one last gift, letting her hide in peace.

They went on quietly afterwards, when the light in the sky told him he must rise to dress and get on his way.

His uniform coat, fetched up from his trunks, felt strange to him, as tight and foreign as the first time he had put in on years ago. He tugged at the sleeve, easing his shoulders at theseams, putting off the moment when he would have to don his gloves and take her down to the carriage sent from the Admiralty.

Lizzie was brushing her hair before the windows. She had retrieved a stunning bright azure blue carriage dress from one of those trunks of hers. It was the color of the ocean in the Caribbean. Beautiful and exotic and so very lovely. She turned and made a surprised little pout with her mouth.

“Look at yourself.” She sounded vaguely put out.

He looked down to check the uniform, to make sure everything was correct: braid and button in place, his sword properly hung on his left hip.

“What’s wrong with the way I look?”

She tossed him a smile like a present. “Absolutely nothing. What on earth am I to do with you?”