Powder of Sin (22 page)

“You, I think.”

“What will you do with me if you have me?”

Her laughter was rich with amusement—and promise
too. “I’m embarrassed to say,” she said. “May I show you?”

If only he hadn’t spent months following Clermont.
If only he hadn’t watched so much. “I’m not certain it’s wise,” he
said and gently grasped her hands.

“You don’t want me?”

“I want you more than I want to breathe,” he said.
“But…I have come to regard matters of the flesh more solemnly than
I used to. Only as a reaction to what I’ve witnessed, you
understand.”

“No.” She rested her head against his chest. “I
don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to be careless like Clermont.”

She nodded, and her hair tickled his cheek. “And you
think this is careless?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh. How will you know?”

He wrapped his arms around her again, let her burrow
against him, breathing, almost panting against his chest, heated
breath coming out, chill as she breathed in. Hot and cold, he
thought.
She must think I’m a maniac. I am, I suppose.

“Gideon.” Her voice was muffled against him.

“Yes?”

“Should I stop?”

“No.” He put his crooked finger under her chin and
raised her face to look into her eyes. “Never mind wisdom. I want
to remember the way you look. Rosalie.”

“Remember? Because soon you won’t be able to see the
original? Are you going somewhere?”

He only shook his head. At the moment, he was not
going anywhere, and to hell with the future. Now was far more
interesting.

Her moist lips parted, the slightest flash of her
teeth in a tentative smile that died at once, the tip of her tongue
nervously running over her lips.

He needed another kiss and tilted his head to taste
her better. Her sighing groan was too much. He lost all the
propriety, all the resolutions for a purer life. All gone because
of desperate need.

She didn’t wear a bustle, only a slight padding
above her waist that he could ignore, and he slid his hands over
her. The stiff corset, and then below only a few layers of cloth,
sweet, pliable flesh. She started but didn’t pull away as he rested
his hands over the perfect curves of her bum. He lightly caressed
her with his palms as he pulled her close, hard against his aching
erection. But he resisted the need to move and feel the friction of
her body on his. He didn’t want to shock her. Holding her was
enough, he reminded himself.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and squirmed
against him. Inexpert but eager, she unbuttoned his waistcoat and
slid her hands over the thin shirt beneath, then reached around
him.

“You’re hard and hot.” She splayed her hands on his
spine, and he realized the part of his anatomy she meant was his
back.

She whimpered, and he held her head so he could kiss
her again, harder and longer, until she panted and grabbed at his
shirt—either to hold him close or herself upright. She scrabbled at
his clothing, trying to get at his skin. The eagerness was new to
him. The other women he’d been with were more coy and more
experienced. Her obvious desire to touch him was an aphrodisiac
that put that damned powder to shame.

As she tried to unbutton his shirt with trembling
fingers, he found the tiny buttons and hidden hooks on her gown. He
slid his hand down her arm to find the three tiny buttons on her
sleeve.

“Please,” she said.

He didn’t know what she meant, so he went still,
even took a step back. And then she was yanking off the bodice of
her dress, pulling it down impatiently. “My skin on yours. I’ve
dreamed of it,” she said. “That’s all I want. Your bare chest
against mine. Nothing else.”

He didn’t bother to argue and, more calmly, removed
his coat, his waistcoat, and his collar, then undid his cuffs and
the few buttons that she’d left. He unlooped the braces, and with
aplomb he could imitate but not feel, he removed his clothes from
the waist up.

She stopped unhooking her corset to stare at him.
She blushed, but she didn’t look away, and then she walked to him
to lay her hands on his clavicle and smooth her fingers over his
skin. She trembled and wouldn’t look up from where her hands
touched him.

He supposed he was as much an object to her as women
were to Clermont, but he didn’t mind. Reed stood still and let her
touch him, half amused and thoroughly aroused. He put his hands
behind him to stop himself from reaching for her and interrupting
her tentative, absorbed exploration. She must have seen his
arousal, but her interest remained focused on his shoulders, chest,
and belly.

At last, after she’d run her fingers over him,
touching his flat nipples until he drew in a sharp breath, she
switched to running her palms over his belly and then his back. She
looked into his face and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I have
wondered so much about you.” She shyly stroked the trail of hair
that ran from his chest down. “This,” she murmured. “It’s so…
It’s…” She explored the muscles of his stomach and side with her
hand. “You’re lovely. Hard and hot,” she repeated.

He had to laugh and reached for her hands at last.
“You have no idea.”

He pulled one of her arms up and, holding her
fingers in one hand, wrapped his other hand around her wrist. He
explored the skin of her arm to her nearly bare shoulder. Only a
chemise and corset covered her, and her body glowed under the
impossibly thin cloth. Her breasts were still held high and close
by the partially undone corset.

“
You’re
lovely.” He let his fingertip trace
the top of the corset, her yielding skin above the stiff fabric. A
light touch might allow him to ignore the demands of his body to
seize her. But he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You did say
bare chest to bare chest.”

She nodded and bit her lip. And then with expert
fingers, she reached behind to finish loosening the corset. She
tossed it aside and pushed down the chemise so it lay over the
dress, held up by her slender hips.

He couldn’t speak as he drank in her perfect curves,
the dusky rose of her nipples, the pale gleam of her skin. He
couldn’t touch her because it would drive him over the edge, into
that insane need, and he’d have to pull off the rest of her
clothes. Nothing more, she’d said. Just the bare skin above the
waist.

So she had to take the three steps to him and wrap
her arms around him. They gasped simultaneously as their bodies
grazed and met, naked at last. She squeezed him so tightly, she
pushed the air out of him. He lifted a tentative hand and laid it
on her shoulder blade, then slowly moved it over to trace the curve
of her spine, running his hand up and down her back.

She was far less hesitant. She opened her mouth and
tasted him, kisses and delicate laps at his front, then allowed her
breasts to move over him. Her nipples hardened against his
skin.

No, this was a mistake, he thought.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s too much to bear,” he said.

“We’re only partially bare,” she said, and the tip
of her tongue circled his left nipple.

“Jesus.” His body jerked in response.

She stopped and even backed away. “I’m sorry. I
thought perhaps it might be something that would feel good.”

“It did. It does.”

“Oh?” She looked down at her perfect breast and then
up at him.

“Rosalie. Listen. I have only so much self-control,
and I have much less than I imagined.”

“The powder doesn’t have any effect after a while.
You know that,” she said.

“No. It’s all you,” he said. “Nearly naked and all
over me.”

“Oh no.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and
shivered. “I didn’t want to be that way. I didn’t want to.” She
scowled. “I am, though.”

“You are perfect,” he said. “And stop. There is no
reason not to enjoy your body.” He despised hearing Clermont’s
words in his mouth, but hearing her anguish was far worse.

She shook her head. “Many reasons,” she said. And to
his horror, her eyes were bright with tears.

“No, no.” He pulled her into his arms, and her body
was chilled against his. “Please. Don’t cry because I’m a great
brute who wants you too much.”

“No, I’m sniveling because I want
you
too
much. I thought perhaps if we did this and no more, I could stop
thinking about you.”

“You think about me?”

“All the time. I imagined your chest and shoulders
and arms, and thank you for showing them to me. You’re even more
wonderful than I imagined.” Her voice was stronger now. “How does
one get over this silly lust?”

“Going away from it,” he said. “Going west, for
instance.”

“You do make it clear. That’s what you’re going to
do, is it?” She sounded weary. “You’ll leave New York, then, and go
away?”

“Yes. I think about it,” he said. He didn’t add
to stop myself from thinking about you.

“I’ve wanted to flee as well.” She touched the
corner of his mouth with her fingertips and followed the line of
his jaw. “Is that the only solution? To go away?”

“Solution to what?”

“This infernal…hunger.”

“No, there’s also giving in.”

“Committing the ultimate act again and again and
never stopping until we are satisfied. But this hunger is so huge,
we might never be sated.”

A dismaying thought came to him. “Why do those words
sound familiar?”

“You said something like that when you’d been
exposed to the powder,” she said.

“Good Lord.”

“It’s haunted me to be wanted like that,” she
whispered.

“Surely men have wanted you and have been less
obscene about it.”

She shrugged. “But it’s not the same. You… It’s like
an infection. I’m feverish with it.”

He nodded his agreement. And then all that he’d
learned from Clermont came to him. He touched her cheek, ran his
fingers along her throat. “I can help you with the fever and not
take your virtue.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are ways for a woman to gain
fulfillment.”

She still looked puzzled.

“Gratification,” he tried. “Relief from the urges of
the body.”

She blushed. “I only want to touch your skin.”

“And I want more. But we can do less than the
ultimate act. For you. For you,” he repeated and wondered if he
could control himself. But he let himself taste her skin now. He
kissed her mouth, her throat, and down, allowing his mouth to
settle at last on her breast, as he’d dreamed. Her nipple hardened
in his mouth. He sucked greedily and loved the way she moaned, the
feel of her breast, soft under his hand, hard in his mouth.

She shuddered, and her hands were in his hair. He
stopped when she swayed on her feet.

In the corner was a settee, and he led her to it.
Very carefully and slowly, as if undressing a sleepy child, he
pulled her gown off. And then undid her petticoats. She watched,
fascinated, and did nothing to help except step out of the gown
that pooled at her feet. He spread the chemise on the leather, sat
her down, and knelt between her legs so his head came to her
breast. She opened her legs wide, and he laid his hands on her
thighs to look at her. Unashamed and naked, she stared down at him,
breathing hard enough to make her breasts quiver with the rise and
fall. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

His own body was screaming for release, begging him
to bury himself in the naked flesh, but he only used his face and
hands. At last, though, he could touch her and marvel at the body
he’d imagined, so much better in reality. Any reality he’d
known.

She was more passive than he’d expected, but he felt
her tremble, could hear her gasps, and he knew that though she was
quiet, she was on the edge of exploding. He tasted her breasts
again and kissed the small indentation next to her navel. Down,
through the dark curls, he kissed her skin. When he reached her
sex, she gasped and put her hands on his forehead to push him
away.

“You cannot want to do that.” She was firm again,
the Miss Ambermere he knew.

“Yes, indeed I do,” he said and gently pushed her
hands away. He was surprised by how much he wanted to kiss her
there, lick and suck as he’d heard for tedious hours of Clermont’s
descriptions. This was far better. It was real.

“Do people do that?” She groaned as he found her
clitoris and lapped at it. She tasted warm, sweet and sour and
perfect. He wondered why he’d thought it would be disgusting.
Pushing closer, he greedily sucked and licked.

She gave a keening moan. He so wanted to put his
fingers inside her and feel the slick tunnel he dared not use. Yet
he could see from the small opening to her body that she was indeed
a virgin, and didn’t want to erase the evidence of her virginity,
so he contented himself with the taste of her and running his hands
over the moist folds of her flesh. But she suddenly pushed
forward—hard—and his thumb, stroking the tantalizing view, slid
inside her.

“Oh,” she squeaked. But then she rolled her body on
his finger. “That’s your hand inside me,” she said with wonder.
“Your mouth on me. Your hand in me. It’s so…ah…” She pushed again,
as if trying to fit more of him in her.

He couldn’t resist. He slid two fingers into her,
ignoring his cock’s angry ache. He’d memorize the feel of her.

“It’s you,” she said. “You. Thank you, ah!”

He could feel her body shudder and tighten, and the
passage in her grew even tighter and slicker.

Reed gave up the fight. He’d trade everything he’d
ever own and years of his life to put his cock in that lovely,
tight place. She wanted him. She wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t come
inside her. He’d have her at last.

He was even reaching down to his trousers when her
shaking body went limp and she grabbed his head again. Her grip on
his hair was enough to distract him from his single-minded move
toward her body. She moved her trembling hand to his cheek, trying
to direct him up to her.