Bed of Roses (26 page)

Her offer all but stopped his pulse.

“I know you cannot love me, Sawyer. But you have said that you like me. That you care about me. That is enough to have a sexual union of mating with me, isn’t it?”

He felt sweat trickle off his forehead.

“You will leave me one day,” Zafiro murmured, sliding her hand down to his lower belly. “When you go I will miss you very much. I… During the time you have been here I have liked being with you. When you leave, I would like to have beautiful memories of you. Memories of mating with you in a sexual union.”

He felt her breast press against his upper arm, and her hand felt so good on his belly. His hunger for her rose to near starvation.

“You see, Sawyer,” she continued, moving her hand lower, the tips of her fingers touching his groin. “When you are gone I will be able to remember how you taught me to mate. How you gave me pleasure, and how you showed me how to give you pleasure as well. How a man puts his hard part into the tunnel between a woman’s legs. There will be no one else in my life who can teach me these mating skills. You are my one, only, and last chance to know.”

Oh, God, he groaned inwardly. If she said one more word, he’d lose all control.

“Sawyer?”

That was the word.

He curled his arm around her. Before her breasts even met his chest he was kissing her. Hard. Deeply, as if she would disappear before he could get his fill of her sweetness.

And she returned his kiss with equal abandon, parting her lips for his sensual foray and meeting his tongue with her own when the invasion began. Wanting and needing to feel his bare skin against hers, she squeezed her hand between her body and his and began to unfasten the buttons on her blouse. “I want to feel you against me,” she whispered.

Sawyer moved her hand away and saw to the task himself.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“What’s a knight in shining armor for?” Deftly, he worked at the fastenings, and when they were open he helped her remove her blouse.

They both smiled when they realized they couldn’t take the garment completely off, but had to leave it wound around their bound wrists.

“Well, at least we will not have this problem with my skirt and your pants, Sawyer.” Zafiro cast a glance at his breeches. Her eyes widened when she saw the huge bulge beneath his pants. “Oh, Sawyer.”

“It’s not a snake, got that? Don’t go grabbing at it again.” When she didn’t reply he wondered if she was afraid of what she was seeing. “Zafiro,” he said gently, “if you’re afraid—”

“I am not afraid. I…I am only curious about all of this.”

He reminded himself to go slowly. Enthusiastic as she was, she was still a maiden.

And the last thing he wanted was for her first time to hurt or frighten her. “Let’s kiss for a while longer.” He tried to pull her head down to his.

But she resisted. “I will kiss you some more, Sawyer, but I told you I wanted to feel your skin against mine. Will you take your breeches off now?”

He decided the best experience was hands-on experience. “You do it.”

She sat up, and with her free hand, she began to unfasten his breeches. “You do not wear undergarments,” she said when she saw the thick mat of tawny hair that covered his loins.

“Oh, and you do?”

His sweet sarcasm made her smile. “Only in the winter. In the summer, underwear makes me too hot. Why don’t you wear any?”

He picked up her sapphire, held it for a moment, then curled his hand around her breast and began to knead the soft, lush globe. “I’m always prepared. After all, a man never knows when he’s going to meet a crazy woman who handcuffs him to her and then wants him to bed her. Thinking of that, I figured it was probably safer not to wear any underwear. Makes things easier when you’re hot and handcuffed, you know.”

She giggled. “It is all right for people to laugh when they mate in a sexual union?”

“Sweetheart, it’s more than all right. In fact, sometimes laughing makes it all the more fun. Depends on the mood, I guess.”

His explanation pleased her; she smiled broadly and continued trying to release him from his constricting breeches. “I understand that you want me to do this myself, Sawyer, but I think you will have to help me by lifting your hips. Do you think it would be too much work for you to do that?”

Pretending the task was one of the most strenuous he’d ever performed, Sawyer grimaced with feigned exertion, flexed all his muscles as if lifting a great weight, and slowly raised his hips off the mattress. “Hurry,” he panted between clenched teeth. “I can’t hold myself up like this for long!”

Giggling once more, Zafiro pulled, yanked, and jerked at the waistband of his breeches, finally succeeding in slipping them over his hips and down to his upper thighs.

Her giggling faded instantly.

Sawyer lowered his hips back down to the bed. “Zafiro?” He tried to understand the reflective expression on her face.

“I…I am sure you have the biggest man part in the world, Sawyer,” she murmured, still staring at his fully erect masculinity. “It is not a wonder that I thought it was a large snake.”

Though he felt flattered by her words, he remained undecided about what she was thinking. “Are you afraid now?” he asked as softly as he could.

Her fingers trembled over the long, velvety length of him. “I will never be afraid of you, Sawyer. Or of any part of you.”

Her answer wrapped around him like a pair of soft, warm arms, even as her gentle touch caused him to shudder with need for her. He kissed her again then, slowly, and with all the tenderness he felt for her.

And while his lips nuzzled hers, Zafiro deftly unfastened her skirt. As soon as she had pulled the garment down over her bare hips, she felt Sawyer’s desire burn into her lower belly.

“Oh, Sawyer, I am—”

“I know,” he answered, reading her thoughts as if from a page. “Me too.” He tugged her skirt off, then shed his breeches as well.

And when they were naked, heartbeat to heartbeat, Zafiro knew the most wondrous feelings she’d ever imagined could exist. Sawyer’s skin was warm, his body hard. His size made her feel small, secure, and his scent of wind, pine needles, fresh wood, and hay played further havoc upon her emotions.

She noticed how very still he lay and realized he was giving her the opportunity to do as she wished. Tentatively, she began to explore the bare length of his body with her hand and her eyes.

And her thoughts. Slowly, she mused. There was no need to rush. “You were right,” she whispered to him, her hand on his chest. “Azucar does not have a part in what we are doing now. Tonight is my night to learn, Sawyer, and I will learn by doing whatever my instincts lead me to do.”

“Then I place myself in the hands of your instincts.” Threading his fingers through her raven hair, he smiled at her.

Dios mío,
she thought. His smile could melt the snow from the mountain peaks.

Mesmerized by his voice, his scent, the very aura of sheer masculinity about him, she traced his nipples with her finger, then with her tongue, surprised and pleased when the sensitive flesh pebbled beneath her touch. Pushing her knee between his legs, she felt his male parts on her thigh and heard his low moan of raw need. She moved her hand from his chest, down the side of his torso, and gently kneaded his firmly muscled buttocks.

Swearing she could hear his body calling to hers, she inched closer to him, closer still, and her own body moistened with the sheen of desire, trembled with the need for the same pleasure he’d given her in the barn.

But she wanted to please him too. Wanted to gift him with whatever bliss men were capable of feeling. The question was, how did she give it to him?

She wouldn’t ask. She would experiment. Try a multitude of things until she sensed she’d found the right one.

The mere thought of what she was about to do excited her immensely, and she realized that Sawyer had been right when he’d said that giving sensual pleasure was pleasing all in itself.

Deciding that his ecstasy would most likely stem from the same place hers had, she drew her hips away from his and sat up to look at his man parts. She slipped her fingers through the tawny hair of his loins. It felt thick, soft, and wonderful, and she lingered there for a long moment before moving her hand lower, down to the soft pouch that lay beneath the base of his manhood.

“Careful,” Sawyer murmured, stiffening slightly. “Do not even
think
the word snake while holding me there, all right?”

“This is a tender part of you?” She curled her fingers around the velvety-soft sac.

“Zafiro,” he began, doing his damnedest to relax. “Uh—”

“You are at my mercy.” Smiling, she began to examine the sensitive part of him she held. “There are two round things inside.”

“That’s so if some daft woman yanks one off, I’ll have a spare.”

Laughing at his apprehension, she bent over him and placed a gentle kiss upon the vulnerable pouch, then let go of him. “I am merciful.”

Merciful? he thought. She was torturing him with her innocent play! The hardly there kiss she’d given him there made him so hot that he could barely find a shred of control.

He wondered if she’d kiss him elsewhere. He hadn’t taught her
that
aspect of sensual foreplay yet, but perhaps her instincts would tell her for him.

“I am doing well, Sawyer?”

“If you were doing any better this would be all over in only a few more seconds.”

She struggled to understand what he was talking about. “What—”

“Never mind. Just listen to your instincts, sweetheart.” Obeying, she clasped his arousal. “Do not worry. I will not pull at it.”

He stifled a chuckle. “A
little
bit of pulling there feels good.” Tilting his hips, he slid his erection through the tunnel of her hand, then drew it down again.

Understanding what he wanted her to do, she grasped him a tad more tightly, then imitated the motions he’d just shown her, watching her hand glide up and down his hardness. The sight fascinated her. This was the movement a man used when he bedded a woman, her intuition told her. Yes, this way. In. And out.

A man stroked a woman inside, she realized. And in turn the woman stroked the man right back.

She continued to fondle him, her pleasure growing when he grew even harder. Hotter.

A bead of moisture appeared at the tip of his length. She stopped her caresses and stared at the shimmering droplet. “Sawyer?”

He saw the reason for her confusion. “It means I’m ready. That you’ve done a very thorough job of making me want you.”

“But what—” She broke off when he pushed his hand between her thighs and touched her intimately. When he withdrew from her she saw that his fingers glistened.

“See?” he said. “Women do it, too.”

“So I am as ready as you are.”

“Come here, Zafiro.” Hands at her waist, he lifted her over his body so that she sat on his thighs with her legs spread slightly. Her position affording him perfect access to her femininity, he took full advantage and began to stroke her as she had him.

In only moments Zafiro heard a moan escape her own lips. As her pleasure heightened, her hips began to rock back and forth, seemingly of their own volition.

“That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it,” Sawyer urged her softly. He watched her face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was set in a grim line of concentration and determination. Every muscle in her body that he could see was contracted.

But it was the low, throaty sounds that whispered from her that excited him the most. God, how he loved those involuntary sounds of desire.

And he wanted his own to mingle with hers.

Gently, he moved her back down to the bed again, and when she was lying on her back he knelt between her knees.

“Sawyer,” Zafiro breathed when she saw him position his hard man part at the opening of her body.

No further words would come to her. She felt the tip of him probe at her, push at her.

Enter her.

His hands grasping her hips, Sawyer prepared to penetrate her further, fully. Every fiber of his being throbbing with need, he drew his hips back, and—

“Francisco?” Tia called from out in the hall.

“
Santa
Maria,
Sawyer, Tia is coming!” Zafiro squealed quietly. Frantically, she groped for the covers, her efforts hindered by the fact that she was handcuffed to Sawyer, who was groping for the blankets just as wildly.

“Be still and pretend you’re asleep!” he hissed at her. With his right hand he jerked the blanket out from under her, then threw himself down beside her.

He’d just yanked the blanket up beneath his and Zafiro’s chins when Tia opened the door and waddled into the room. “Zafiro?” she whispered. “You are still awake?”

Zafiro remained as quiet and still as a corpse.

“Francisco?”

Sawyer made not a move. He didn’t even breathe. “Oh, how sweet the two of you look,” Tia murmured, smiling as she looked down at them. “Like two innocent angels, both of you.”

Leaning over them, she kissed them on their foreheads, watched them for a few minutes longer, then left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Sawyer opened one eye, saw she was gone, and began to laugh. “Innocent angels!”

“How can you laugh? Do you know how upset she would have been if she had seen what we were doing?” Sawyer gathered her into his arms and smiled into her hair. “But she didn’t see us.”

“What if she had adjusted the blanket and seen that we are naked? Oh,
Dios mío,
Sawyer—”

“But it didn’t happen, sweetheart.” Sawyer began kissing her cheek, her temple, her eyebrow.

“We were almost caught with our hands all red,” Zafiro said, casting another glance at the door. “It was enough to put my teeth on the border.”

Sawyer chuckled again. “Yes, we were almost caught red-handed, and it was enough to set our teeth on edge. But it’s all right now, sweetheart.”

“We cannot—”

“Yes, we can.
You
can, anyway.”

Before she could make sense of what he’d said, she felt his hand between her thighs, his fingers quickly finding her most sensitive spot.

Her nerves still a bit rattled, she wanted to resist him. But her pleasure began almost instantly, and all thoughts fled her mind. Arching her hips into his hand, she surrendered to his sensual skills and released a loud moan.