Romancing a Stranger (5 page)

Warden hadn’t seduced her; hadn’t fed her meaningless words to get her naked. He’d pushed her over the desk and penetrated her body, and she didn’t want it any other way.

Every thrust, every moan and groan bonded them, not just physically but emotionally as well. She knew it, felt it, as sure as she felt him.

Her thighs began to shake, and the heat sluicing through her body threatened to explode into bursts of light. She felt light-headed from the rush and deliciously aroused. All the sexual encounters she’d had before, put together, didn’t compare to this.

Their bodies came together explosively.

She moaned when he groaned. When he surged forward, she pushed back.

With their gazes and bodies connected, Milli felt like she belonged to him, and Warden held onto her as if she were his lifeline. She felt his need, his passion, his desperation, and she basked in the passionate joy he gave her.

“Come for me. Come inside me,” she coaxed, reaching down to toy with her clit. She rubbed it fast and hard, eliciting shivers of heat and tingling spasms.

Sensing her orgasm approaching, Warden filled her to the hilt, harder, nearly moving the desk from the impact.

And then it hit her. “Ah—oh!” The orgasm blazed through her, and she couldn’t contain the scream that burst from her lips. Milli trembled and pulsed, clamping down on his driving cock. After a few more pumps, Warden’s body stilled. He glided upward, deep inside, coming inside her with a pained growl.

Warden leaned over her, panting. He kissed her neck and shoulder, still pulsing inside her. “After all this time…
my god
.”

Milli gasped as Warden pulled away from her. On trembling legs, she managed to stand up and smooth her dress. A hot blush stung her cheeks. She averted her gaze, which halted on the globe lying on the floor.

It was glowing.

She rushed over and knelt down, forgetting about Warden standing behind her. Forgetting about what they just did. “Take me home. Take me home,” she chanted.

“Millicent?”

Warden stood powerless behind Millicent. After what they had just shared, he was shocked and surprised by what she was saying to the amethyst ball.
Take me home?
What was that supposed to mean? Home is right here, right in front of her.

He should have been angry with her. After all, he felt like she had simply given him what he wanted and would now go back to her old ways. But he could not be angry with her. He was concerned by her behavior, by how she held the globe like her life would end without it. Why?

“Millicent, are you all right?”

She turned and looked up at him. Seeing the tracks of her tears made his emotions come dangerously close to the surface.

He had gone to another woman’s home. Had planned to use her to fulfill his baser needs. Would have kept her until he grew tired of her. But when he had arrived at Vivian St. Claire’s apartment a week ago, and the tall, dark-haired vixen raked her gaze over him like he was fit to be eaten, he could not do it. He turned away instead, pretending to have the wrong address.

Some men may be able to tumble under the bed sheets with another woman, but he was not that type of man. Millicent meant too much to him. Now that they had come together in a fiery explosion and he felt the power of her ecstasy, he was glad he had turned away from Vivian St. Claire. He was determined to make Millicent see how much he loved her, no matter how long it took or how many of his hairs turned gray from it.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he whispered.

Millicent looked at him like she did not understand. Then her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “You didn’t hurt me. I just…” She looked down at the globe in her hands. “It was glowing.”

A strange feeling overcame him as he stared down at the globe. In the study, before he had gone to Vivian’s apartment, he too thought the globe was glowing. And now she saw it. Could that crazy old gypsy be right, that the amethyst ball brought love to two lost souls?

He crouched down on the floor behind her and kissed the back of her head, rubbed her shoulders and down her arms. “Will you let me stay with you tonight?”

After a long pause, Millicent nodded. He smiled against her hair.

Finally.

He helped her stand and settled his arm over her shoulder, holding her close as they left the study and made their way up to her bedchamber. Even though her odd reaction after they made love still festered in his stomach, a feeling of contentment swept over him knowing that tonight he would finally lie beside his wife and hold her all night long.

“I like this new you,” he said, smiling.

Millicent looked up through watery eyes. “Really?”

“And I must say, when I found you in your nightgown the other morning, that disheveled look made me hunger for you.”

He opened the door to her chamber, took her hand, and led her to the bed. He cupped her shoulders and gently guided her onto the mattress. “You captivate me.” Her eyes glinted from the lamp light. They looked like jewels for a thief. He kissed her lips, gently, exploring the sweetness of her soft mouth. When she sighed and lay back, he took the globe from her hands and placed it on the nightstand.

“We need to remove your dress. I think I deserve your naked flesh.”

“Oh, really?” she teased. “Well, I think I need some persuasion…”

Warden chuckled, enjoying their little game of cat and mouse. He removed his boots, slid off his coat and tossed it on the floor, and then worked the fastenings of his trousers, all the while staring at her. “Am I convincing?”

The trousers slid down his legs, gaining her rapt attention. Next, his shirt and underwear slid to the floor until he stood naked and hard before her.

Millicent licked her lips. “Oh, yes.”

This was all new to him. Though he’d had many sexual encounters before his marriage, with a variety of women from innocent ladies to practiced actresses, this was the first time Warden had shed his clothing before a woman. It was surprisingly exhilarating.

Millicent crawled off the bed like a feline in heat and bent down. She did not give him the chance to ask what she was about before she took him in hand and rained kisses all over his cockhead.

He stared down at her in shock. When did she suddenly want to do this? But he would not argue. No. He was no fool, and his cock was so stiff he could hang his wardrobe from it. Hadn’t he wanted her to make love to him? To shed her cold exterior and give in to the heat he knew she was capable of?

She knelt down on the floor before him, wrapped a fist around his shaft, and gently stroked his manhood.
Good Lord.
He gritted his teeth, trying to maintain control as Millicent impaled her mouth on him, over and over again, with such precision he nearly fainted. Her soft hands gently massaged his balls in stride with her sucking.

He groaned as his world tilted. Heat crept up the back of his spine, and when the sudden orgasm erupted, it nearly shook him to the core.

Warden cupped her shoulders to keep from falling over, still trembling from the intensity, and when Millicent swallowed, he looked at her in complete shock.

“Where did you learn this?” he asked, completely befuddled. He took a seat at the edge of the bed, waiting impatiently for her response.

Millicent blushed and turned her face away from him. “Um…”

Her lack of an answer pricked a nerve. The heat of anger and betrayal came over him. “Have you done this with another? How could you know what to do otherwise?”

“No!” She whirled around and cupped his face in her hands, her eyes wide, pleading. “I haven’t been with a man in a long—” She let out a sharp breath. “I’m not the wife you think I am, Warden.”

He pulled away from her and stood up. “All this talk of not being the wife I think you are is really testing me, Millicent. Yes, you have changed, but that does not answer my question.” He reached down and grabbed his clothing, prepared to leave. “How did you learn to do
that
? We made love once on our wedding night. Suddenly, six months later you are on your knees like a greedy streetwalker?”

Tears slid down her cheeks. He hated himself for being so harsh, but nothing hurt more than believing his wife might have betrayed him.

“I know these things from my life before,” she cried.

“What life?” he shouted. “You were untouched when we married.”

“If I tell you the truth, you won’t believe me.”

“Try!”

“I came from the year 2010.”

Warden stared at her, open-mouthed, thinking she really had gone mad. He slid on his underwear, his mind spinning with questions. It was time to call on Doctor Crumpler and get to the bottom of this. Millicent was not making any sense. “This is ridiculous. Going back in time belongs in fiction.”

“I can prove it! I was in the library one day doing research for the column I write. That’s right. I’m a writer!”—her voice rose to a shout when Warden’s eyes widened in shock—“I came across an old newspaper article from the Boston Globe. In two days’ time, a team of horses will be electrocuted on Boylston Street.”

“Electrocuted—how?”

“From traveling over the conduit track which was poorly installed. You’ll see. I’m not lying. By the end of the year, Boston Rapid Transit will begin training its conductors.”

Warden had heard enough. He turned to leave. She grabbed his shoulders and tried to pull him back when he headed to the door, but he shrugged her off.

He opened the door, paused, and glanced over his shoulder. “I thought this change in you was a good thing, but now, I’m not so sure. You seem to be a completely different person. You speak of things that do not make any sense. Nevertheless, to claim you came from the future is…madness. Pure madness, Millicent.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I do not know you anymore.”

As he strolled down the hallway in his underwear, the sobbing from Millicent’s room brought his own tears to the surface.

* * * *

After the fiasco with Warden, Milli desperately wanted to go home. She was fucking embarrassed. If she had known giving him a blowjob would open up so much animosity from him, obviously she would’ve pretended to be a lady instead.

But their explosive encounter in the study was a memory she’d keep forever. Heat crept up her neck and face just thinking about it, and her body still glowed from his touch.

He’d enjoyed every second of her little gift in her room, his reaction said it all, but to accuse her of cheating because she could suck dick was a little overboard. Actually, a man of his time wouldn’t understand what women in her time did in bed. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. Still, he had made her feel cheap.

Now he thought she was a crazy floozy who probably belonged in one of those institutions Josephine talked about.

Maybe Josephine would know how to handle this. Better yet, she should be asking around about that gypsy. It couldn’t be too hard to find a Finnish Roma camp. She’d bet her life he knew exactly what was going on with her, and how to fix her dilemma. It was rumored that gypsies held mystical powers. Some people believed in it, others not so much. Considering her situation and the connection she had with that amethyst ball, she couldn’t afford to have any doubts.

“There you are, Madam.”

Milli broke the trance the globe had pulled her into and looked up to find Samson standing on the threshold of the living room—or parlor, as they called it here. She offered a smile, having come to love the portly man. “How’s it going, Samson?”

He quirked a brow, looking confused. “
Going
, Madam? Where?”

She giggled, still finding it hard to speak like a proper lady. “I meant to say, how are you doing on this fine day?”

The elderly man smiled and entered the room. “Very well, thank you. Would you care for tea?”

“Actually, I need something stronger. Can I have a drink in the study?”

Samson’s lips curved slightly, and he cleared his throat. She had the distinct impression he wanted to laugh at her. “You don’t need my permission to go into the study, Madam.”

“Oh. Right. Will you join me? I need some advice.”

Samson seemed genuinely happy to offer his help. “Of course. Please, allow me.”

He offered his arm and she gladly accepted, allowing him to lead her to the study. To think, just over a week ago she lived in a time where men rarely opened a door for a woman, never mind held out an arm.

If not for the tension between her and Warden, she might want to stay here. Now that she had some time to think on it, what she had in the past was far more rewarding and exciting than what she had in the future. To think, how amazing would it be to write her columns in this day and age when women writers were a rarity? What a thrill!

But her destiny entailed more than making up with Warden, or being a woman writer in the past. She had to get some answers.

Once inside the study, Samson went directly to a cabinet.

“Pour one for you, too,” she added.

With a smile, Samson did as she ordered. She took a seat on one of the wingback chairs in front of the fire, sinking comfortably into the plush, velvet seat before taking the offered glass. “Thank you, Samson. You should get a raise.”