Miles Before I Sleep (29 page)

“I always thought about you when I did it. Moreover, I always hoped when I did marry, the man would be as handsome as you and smell as good. I thought if he did, it would make the marital bed more bearable.”

Coming from Andrea, that was a tremendous complement. He could not have hoped for more.

“Were you able to make your breasts tingle again?”

She shook her head. “I only feel it when you touch my breasts.”

He kissed her softly on the lips and was tempted to reach for her breasts, but he wanted to take her back to their cabin.

38

Andrea wore no unmentionables as they left the saloon. Miles had used her drawers to clean themselves up and stuffed them in his pocket.

He carried the lantern and held her hand as they entered the corridor. To her dismay, he did not take her straight back to their suite but went in the opposite direction. Was he doing it on purpose because he found amusement in her traipsing around without her unmentionables? Or did he have plans he had not discussed?

Her question was answered when he produced his keys and entered the galley.

“See if you can find a big bowl and a spoon,” he said, setting the lantern down and lengthening the wick. He glanced around the large kitchen and pointed Andrea toward one end of the room while he went to the other end. They were both opening cupboards and drawers. Andrea found the tableware and brought it to him as one by one he eliminated the cabinets he was searching.

“Ah,” Miles said finding his quest. He pulled out a large shallow earthenware pan and set it on the butcher block.

Andrea’s face lost all expression as she realized he had located the bread pudding.

“You lost a hand and now you must pay the boon.”

He took the bowl and spoon from her and filled the bowl until it heaped over.

“Please, not so much. I could not eat that much even if I were hungry.”

“It’s not all for you.”

She watched as he took one more spoonful right out of the center. “Your cook is going to be mad when he sees you have taken it from the middle.”

“We will make it right by telling him how delicious it was.”

She wasn’t so sure. “Maybe we should leave a note so no one gets blamed.”

“Do you have paper with you?” She shook her head. “Shall I leave your unmentionables as a calling card?” he asked, reaching his hand toward his pocket.

“No!” she squealed grabbing his wrist.

The alarmed look on her face made him laugh and he stole a quick kiss.

“I’ll tell him in the morning unless you think I should wake him.”

Miles carried the bowl back to their cabin to ensure none of it ended up in the sea due to an unfortunate, but no doubt, deliberate trip.

“You need new memories of bread pudding to replace the bad. Take off your gown and go lie on the bed.

Miles could tell by her expression and the slow fastidious way she undressed, she was unhappy. Nevertheless, she complied without complaint.

“Roll over on your stomach,” he said. “It is time for your next lesson. I shall call it, ‘Mouths are for more than kissing.’”

He moved her hair aside, took a spoonful of bread pudding and put it on her back between her shoulder blades. With two fingers, he smeared it down her spine leaving a lumpy trail of pudding.

“What are you doing?”

“You shall see.”

He began licking the dessert off her skin. He started at the top and worked his way lower to the end of the line–just an inch or two above her bottom. She held her breath as he licked and when she inhaled again, it was with an airy sigh.

He put some on the back of both knees and she gave a little giggle as he lapped it up with his tongue.

Before he let her roll back over, he gave all the places a quick swipe with a clean wet cloth so she would not be sticky.

“And where would you like it next?” he asked when he began on her front.

“You know where,” she said.

“Do I?” he asked trying to encourage her to say the word
breasts
. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to guess.”

He held a glob on his first two fingers and let his hand hover over different spots. Her breath would catch when his hand neared her breasts or womanhood but he wanted to tease her a little first and wiped it on her neck.

She moaned as his tongue found her throat. “You are wicked,” she said.

“Maybe you would like to show me how you would do it.”

He watched the silent debate cross her features as she tried to decide if it would be worth it to have to eat hated dessert so she could experience this new bedroom game. “Yes. Yes, I think I would. Lie down on your back,”

Andrea sat up and took the bowl from him as he reclined on the pillows and waited.

“I feel like a two-year-old putting my hands in my food,” she murmured under her breath as she swiped one finger in the bowl picking up a small amount of the offending food. She looked a bit disgusted as she put it on his nipple.

When she looked at her unclean finger with disgust, Miles took pity on her. He grabbed her hand and put her finger in his mouth, gently sucking at it as he licked it clean.

“How do you do that?” she said after a sharp intake of breath. “How do you suck on my finger and make me feel it down
there
?”

“I drew really hard,” he said in such a serious tone that it took her a moment to realize he was making a jest.

She wondered if she had the ability to excite him the way he excited her. With a frown, she eyed the small glob topping the dark circle. Taking a deep cleansing breath, she steeled herself to lick it off.

~*~

She looked a bit sick as she lowered her head. He planted his foot on the mattress in case she started gagging, so he could quickly roll away. Being vomited on would certainly ruin the mood. Maybe he should not have done this with bread pudding. He had heard honey could be fun.

Her mouth descended upon his flesh and she dragged her soft tongue over his nipple making him moan and shiver. Despite how amazing it felt, Miles forced his eyes to stay open to watch her reaction.

She froze in place, her eyes shut and her hand covering her mouth.

“Andrea?”

Her lashes slowly fluttered open. “God, I had forgotten how good it tastes.” A slow smile crossed her lips. Using two fingers, she scooped up more. Now she swiped it liberally on his other nipple and wiped a bit still clinging to her fingers on the first one. With a playful smile, she held her sticky fingers in front of his mouth and he complied by sucking them.

When he finished, she lowered her head and started licking the dessert from his chest. This time, he leaned back into the pillows and lost himself to the sensation.

~*~

She put the bread pudding on his nipples twice more before she moved on to his flat stomach, licking and kissing all those places she found enticing. As she moved lower, she kept encountering his large cock, which jutted proudly towards her.

She wanted to ask him if it was all right to lick bread pudding from his shaft, but was afraid he might say no, so she put a small amount on it. She became acutely aware that he was holding his breath as she lowered her mouth. Through lowered lashes, she watched his eyes roll as her tongue made contact.

“Breathe, Miles,” she said. She didn’t need to ask if he liked it. It was obvious he did.

Andrea reached into the bowl to get more. As she began smearing the last of the soft lumpy mess on him, he reached out and put his finger over the tip. “It wouldn’t feel good if it got inside me,” he explained.

She nodded and lowered her mouth to him.

“God!” exploded from between his lips as her tongue made a long lick from the base to the head along the vein. “Oh, dear God.”

Andrea stopped and looked at his face. “You like that?” she asked, knowing his reaction was from pleasure.

“God, yes. Probably as much or more as you like it when I lick you down there.”

“I can stop if you want me to,” she teased.

“Why are we having a conversation? Please, don’t stop.”

As she continued to lap the last of the soft globby mess off him, he writhed under her, twitching and breathing hard. He held a fistful of bedcovers in one hand as she continued lapping, coating his whole shaft with warm wetness that quickly cooled as she moved to other areas.

He wanted to beg her to put him inside her mouth, but he could not ask it of her. She was such an innocent, he could not ask her to do what his mistress would not do without receiving an extra bobble or two.

Suddenly, he felt her lips stretch over the large head of his cock. Her tongue lifted to caress him and he was nearly undone. His back arched and he could not fight his urge to thrust. He threaded his hand into her hair until it rested on the base of her skull.

“Don’t stop, Andi. Oh God, that is so good.”

As he felt his glans hitting the back of her mouth, he picked up her hand from his thigh and wrapped it around the base. He showed her the rhythm and pressure he liked.

“Stop!” he said suddenly. “I don’t want to climax in your mouth.” His hand tightened on her hair, but she refused to stop. If anything, her stroke increased in both speed and pressure. His eyes flew open when he knew the end was imminent, but the sight of her mouth open so wide to accommodate him sent him over the edge.

“Agh,” she said in a rather muffled tone as her mouth filled with his seed. She backed off then and the semen drooled out of her mouth in a stringy mess, covering and lubricating his shaft.

She looked at him accusingly.

“I told you to stop. I didn’t want to do that in your mouth.” His voice sounded unusually harsh.

Andi looked crushed. “I’m sorry. I’ll do it right next time.”

He sat up enough to put his arms around her, and pulled her across his chest. “Andi, I’m not mad. I just didn’t think you knew what was about to happen and I suspected you wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh.”

He reached up, swiped a bit of moisture from her chin and chuckled. “My God, that was phenomenal.”

“Was it?” Her whole body perked up with his praise and a wide smile spread across her face. “Then we shall have to do it again sometime.”

39

Miles estimated that more than 200 people crowded the deck as the eastern coast of New York Harbor came into view. He had taken Andrea into the pilothouse to experience the docking and now stood behind her holding her in his arms.

“Are you glad to be home,” Andrea asked, turning in his embrace.

He shrugged. “I shall miss our little stateroom,” he said, and kissed her lingeringly.

“So, we shall live in America?”

It never occurred to him that she might have questions about where they would reside. “Is that agreeable? We have plenty of room for your parents to visit and there is no reason why we cannot visit them anytime you would like. I am hoping your father will gradually move his home office here. It will make the merger easier.”

A genuine smile formed on her lips and he heard her tiny sigh. “What if my father wants you to move your company to England?”

“My home is wherever you live, Andi.”

Suddenly Captain Bloodworthy cursed. “What the devil?”

Miles’s head snapped up to see what Levi found amiss and followed his line of site to their mooring slip. Another ship sat in the place where the
Lady Fair
belonged. With only four ships and never all of them at home at the same time, the H & O only needed two docks. When they realized how big this steamship would be, they had dredged that section of the harbor to ensure it would be deep enough. Miles was reluctant to put her elsewhere.

“Sound the foghorn, maybe they’ll move.”

“There is no smoke coming out of the stacks. I don’t think they are going anywhere soon.”

Captain Bloodworthy reached down and gave his left pant leg a slight tug. It was at least two inches shorter than the other one. Over the next several minutes, he pulled at the fabric, stomped his foot as if to make the pant leg fall into place.

Miles gave Andrea a wicked, knowing grin.

“What has happened to your uniform, Levi?” Miles asked. “Surely, you don’t intend to see the passengers off looking like that.”

“I don’t know. The blasted thing seems to have shrunk just on one leg.”

“Oh, I bet I know what has caused it,” Andrea interjected trying to contain her smile. “Sometimes when a tailor runs out of fabric on one bolt, they use another to finish the garment. The mismatched material probably shrank at different rates. You know how bad wool is about shrinking. Maybe you can have them sew a bit more on the bottom.”

“I’ll just burn the blasted pair and have another made.”

~*~

The docks weren’t as full of people as one might have expected if they had been more able to predict when the new ship would arrive. The few people there appeared to be servants—no doubt given the task of waiting for their arrival. Sailors and stevedores made up the rest of the crowd. Carriages for hire would soon fill the streets, charging a premium to anyone who needed a ride to their destination.

A tall thin man separated from the others and began pointing at another slip.

“Is that Richard?” Miles asked, reaching for the spyglass. “How is that possible? The last time I saw him, he could barely lift his head off the pillow.”

Suddenly, Andrea gasped. “My parents.”

“I think not. How could your parents pass our steamship,” Captain Bloodworthy said. “Although now that I think on it, there was a tremendous bottleneck as we passed your father’s docks. But still, no wind vessel could surpass us.”

“They could if they traveled across on that other steamship,” Andrea said. She began to laugh as she saw the name painted boldly across its stern.
The Wedding Gift.

“Take her in nice and slow, Levi. Try not to run her aground.”

“Thank you for that, Junior. I’ve never done this before,” he said sarcastically as he threw the lever to tell the engine room to cut their speed.

Miles turned back to Andrea and found her carriage erect. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to face them. I don’t know what one says in a situation like this. An apology seems rather tepid when I know I have caused them so much worry.”

Miles gathered her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Rory was supposed to let your father know where you were a week after we launched. He must not have waited.”

Andrea used the time it took to dock the ship to formulate her apology in her mind. She wished she had more time to choose her words.

“It’s going to be fine,” Miles said trying to assure her. “I’m going to be by your side.”

“I’d rather hide behind you,” she said lightly, but Miles suspected she was only half-jesting. Andrea took a deep breath and slipped her hand into his as they left the pilothouse behind them.

“I can go talk to them first.” He stopped, looked into her eyes and smiled compassionately.

“No, I need to apologize. You can’t do that for me.”

“It seems to me, apologies are owed all around.”

Andrea took a deep breath as they waited for the passengers to clear the gangplank so they could go ashore. She pulled her trembling hand free of his. “Let me break the news to Mama first,” she said, her eyes on her parents waiting on land.

As they disembarked, Andrea walked as tall as any queen at her coronation. Rather than wearing the usual placid expression she displayed when upset, Andrea’s face bore her uncertainty. To Miles, seeing her not hide her mood was indeed an improvement.

Sebastian stepped forward and grabbed her in a big bear hug. “I missed you, girl,” he said, and planted a long kiss on her temple. “All safe and sound, I hope.”

“Yes, Papa.”

Miles could see her whole body relax as she realized her father didn’t hate her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Sebastian pushed away so he could see her face. “You scared us to death, running away like that. That was the worst twelve hours of my life not knowing where you had gone.”

“Twelve hours?”

“The cabbie came for the reward as soon as he saw the paper. I had men guarding you until you boarded the ship.”

Andrea extended her arms to embrace her mother. Lillian James suddenly slapped Andrea across the face.

Both men put themselves between the mother and daughter. Sebastian grabbed his wife by the arms and Miles placed Andrea behind his back, so he could shield her and keep his eyes on Mrs. James in case she got away from Sebastian.

“Please, tell me you haven’t done anything else foolish, you stupid girl. I had four titled gentlemen lined up and ready to marry you. Now only two are still willing to have you. Thank God your father is rich or you would have ruined us all.”

“We married a few days ago,” Miles said before she could spout any more venom.

“We shall get it annulled. Andrea is not old enough to marry without her father’s permission.”

“The union was my idea,” Sebastian said. “They had my blessings.”

“Please tell me that you did not let this foreign barbarian have his way with you. You have only been gone a little over five weeks; surely you didn’t give in to his lust after so short a time.”

“Yes, Mama, we have consummated our marriage. I hope his baby is inside me already. I love Miles,” Andrea said, slipping her arm through his and stepping closer to her mother. “How dare you tell me those lies about the marriage bed? I was terrified. I tried to run out of the cabin in my nightgown. You had no right.”

Lillian looked not the least bit contrite. A smile emerged on her face. “I was trying to protect your innocence. I planned to tell you the truth before your wedding. It’s hardly my fault that you ran away from home and into his bed.”

“What lies? What did you tell her, Lillian,” Sebastian demanded.

“I told her what every responsible mother should tell her daughter to keep her chaste.”

When Lillian did not elaborate, Andrea stepped up. “She told me the flowers Miles gave me were hers because you wanted to apologize for making her endure you. Every time she was under the weather, she said it was from the toll you took on her body. She made me think all men were monsters who could not control themselves when they were with a woman. It was my duty to accept the pain so I could have babies. I didn’t even know what she was talking about the first time she said these things to me.”

Sebastian cast an angry glare at his wife. She shrugged as if she didn’t care.

“I’m sorry, Andrea,” he said. “If I had known she was saying that, I would have put a stop to that nonsense.”

“I’m sorry I believed it of you, Papa.”

“For God’s sake, Andrea, stand up straight,” her mother said.

“Mrs. James, how Andi stands is no longer your concern.”

Lillian James’s lips formed a mulish line and her eyes narrowed at Miles. “
Andi
? How common. My daughter’s name is Andrea.”

“Andi,” Sebastian bellowed to talk above any objections his wife was about to spout from her blowhole. “Yes, I rather like that. Why shouldn’t the daughter of a sailor and an actress have a name that is common? Yes, Andi is the perfect name for my little girl. I wish I’d thought of it years ago.”

“Did I see Richard out here earlier?” Miles asked as he looked for his stepfather’s familiar form.

“I believe he stepped into the office with a passenger who had a complaint.”

Miles held out his hand to Andrea. “Would you care to come meet my father?”

She put her hand in his and they began the short walk into the office. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting the man whose letters I read. He’s very proud of you.”

“It’s because of him that I am the man I am.”

Sebastian James followed, leaving his wife alone on the docks. “I suppose I need to book passage back to London. I rather like traveling by passenger ship for a change.”

“You’re not returning on the steamship you came in?”

“Did you miss the name of the ship? She’s a wedding gift for my daughter and my new son-in-law. I thought you might like to take it around the world on a wedding journey before it carries passengers—at my expense of course.”

“I don’t know if Richard’s health is good enough for us to leave for that long.”

As they arrived in the H & O main office, Miles opened the door and let Andrea and her father enter first. Andrea stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who was in the office making a complaint. It was the Marquess of Ironwood. He had just turned to leave and stopped short when he saw Andrea. A smirk appeared on his face as he examined her red cheek, her mother’s fingerprints clearly visible displaying how hard she had hit her.

“Would that it was my handprint upon your face, Mrs. Huntington,” he said to Andrea before turning to Miles. “This one will need a firm hand. Let me know if you need instructions on how to discipline your wife.”

Miles didn’t even think for one moment before his fist flew into the man’s face knocking him out cold with one punch.

As Miles realized what he had just done in front of Andrea’s father, he felt his neck turn red with embarrassment.

“If you hadn’t, I would have,” Sebastian said as a low chuckle crossed his lips.

“Shamus!” Richard said wrapping his arms around his son in a firm embrace.

Miles had been certain that his stepfather would have passed away while he was gone. To see him seemingly recovered was unfathomable. He clung to the only man he had ever known as his father. “How? To what do I owe this miracle?”

“I may not have been as ill as I let on. You kept insisting that you wanted Andrea to have her season before you claimed her. You would not listen to reason. What would you have done if you found yourself married to a woman who was in love with another man?”

Miles lowered his brows as he was just beginning to understand his stepfather was not as sick as he thought. Was he sick at all? “But you were coughing up blood. I saw it on your handkerchief.”

Richard laughed. “Blood from the butcher and some old wig powder to make me pale.”

If Miles had not been so relieved to see Richard well, he might have been mad about his duplicity. “Thank you. I should have listened to you.”