Tempted (17 page)

“Let's go,” he said.

They said their goodbyes to the bartender and set off side by side down the boardwalk toward home. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, so there was not much light to see by. She stumbled, catching herself on her cane, and Steven held out his arm.

But she hesitated.

“Come now, Annie.” His husky voice slipped out of the darkness. “We are past this, aren't we?”

“Are we?” she asked.

“Well,” he sighed, the good-natured sigh of a happy drunk. “We're working on it.”

She smiled and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.

“I'm sorry I fell asleep earlier,” he said.

“It's understandable. You hadn't slept all night.”

“No, but... I would have liked to talk to you. About what happened.”

“I would have liked that too,” she said.

“I want to thank you,” he said.

“I'm not sure for what.”

“Really?” he asked, and she could feel him looking at her.

She pulled her coat in a little tighter. The night was cold. And Steven beside her was warm.

“I don't have any parameters with which to measure the experience,” she said. “But for you... at the end... it did not seem... pleasant.”

“It was. It was more than pleasant. In a way that sex has not been for me since the war. But what I asked of you… to get there. It wasn’t fair.”

“I was happy—”

“Anne.” He stopped. “You were scared. I saw it on your face. I saw it, and I still asked you to do it.”

Anne began walking again, leaning on her cane.

Steven caught up with her, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat.

“Have…have I scared you away for good?” he asked. “No!” she said.

“That’s a start.”

“Have I scared you away?” she asked.

“No. You couldn’t. Not ever.”

She took advantage of the dark and the focus it took to make their way home. “Delilah gave me some advice,” she said.

“You asked Delilah? About us?”

“No, I asked Janey and Stella and the rest of the girls, but they didn’t have very good answers.”

“And Delilah did?”

“She did.”

“You are an amazing woman. Let me make that clear.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she said, pleased and shy all at once. “She says in matters—” She stopped as he made a low laughing noise. “Steven, this isn't funny.”

“Anne, we both went to the same madam to get advice about sex. With each other. If it's not funny, at least you can admit it's ironic.”

She smiled and then laughed. “I suppose you're right.”

“Suppose?”

“Do you want to hear her advice or not?”

“Of course I do.” He was only pretending to be serious. Drunk Steven was quite endearing.

“She said I should leave the light on. And tell you... how I'm going to touch you.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“It does?” She stopped to look at him, even though she couldn't seem him that well. The white glimmer of his teeth, the shine of his hair where it hung down beneath his hat.

He leaned forward in the dark, and unerringly his lips found hers.

How does he do that
, she wondered, sighing into the kiss. Stopping herself from sinking completely against him. Aware, every moment, of his boundaries.

“Shall we find out?” he asked.

“Should we get some food in you first?”

“I don't want to wait that long,” he breathed and kissed her again.

They made it back to her home in record time, and she opened her door.

“Someone didn’t lock it,” she muttered.

“Someone should give me a key,” he whispered. His breath playing with the hair at her neck. Sending ripples across her skin.

They stepped inside and she closed the door behind them, only to be pressed up against it by Steven’s weight at her back.

“Oh,” she gasped, leaning against the door, the cool wood against the side of her face. His heat at her back.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but the careful removal of her bonnet—the satin ribbons at her neck sliding across her skin as his fingers pulled at them—wasn’t it.

After he set her bonnet aside, he reached around her to undo the two buttons that kept her coat fastened. His fingers brushed her breasts, but did not linger.

He hung up her coat.

“Do you want my shoe hook?” she asked, trying to tease.

“I want you to go upstairs,” he said. He stepped away from her so she could turn, staring right up into his eyes, which were fever-bright in the dark hallway.

“Come with me,” she breathed, holding out her hand.

After a breath he took her hand, lacing their fingers together so their palms touched, the inside creases between their fingers—it was profoundly intimate.

And very exciting.

He led her up the stairs to her room. And both of them began the work of creating as much light in the room as they could. He stoked the fire and she lit the lamps and the candles until the room glowed, and when he turned to look at her, still drunk, he seemed to sparkle. He was a great big man. Cole, Steven’s brother, told her once that they used to call Steven the Bear. The blond bear.

It fit, though he was lean now. War and work and age had whittled him down some.

But he was still big, and she liked that about him. His size and the way he moved. It was exciting to her.

She heard Delilah’s voice in her ear, urging her to tell him that.

“You are so handsome,” she told him.

“I’m glad you think so.”

Say something else
, she heard Delilah’s voice urging her on.

But it was one thing to think that telling him what she planned to do and how she planned to touch him was exciting—it was another thing to actually do it.

I'm not sure I know the words
, she thought. And the ones she did know, like
dorsal vein
, she wasn't sure were exciting.

Their eyes met, and the clock on the mantel ticked away the minutes while they stood on either side of her room, watching each other.

“I'm nervous,” she said.

“Come here,” he said, and she did. She walked right into his open arms, and he slowly, carefully pulled her right into his chest. Until they were flush. Stomach to stomach. She felt his erection against her hip and instinctively shifted away, aware every moment that this was difficult for him.

“Stop,” he breathed.

“Stop what?”

“Stop anticipating that I am not going to want you to touch me.”

“But you haven’t wanted me to touch you for months, Steven. For most of our acquaintance you’ve made it very clear that you don’t want me to touch you.”

He knew it was the truth, and it made the words that much harder to hear.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” she said. “I just… this isn’t easy for me either.”

For a moment, just one moment, he was ready to give up. To wave the white flag. Because it was hard. And he couldn’t manage his own fears and doubts, much less hers.

But he had not come this far to stop now. He had a belly full of whiskey making him feel like he could do anything, and he wasn’t going to lose this opportunity. Because he and Anne may not have any more. He pulled her closer, slowly. Inch by inch until her body was pressed up against his, from knee to belly to chest.

“What if I don’t know the right words?” she whispered.

“Shall I teach you some?”

Her eyes lit up at the notion, and it made his blood pound hard in his veins.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

They both stepped back to take off their clothes as fast as they could. And soon she stood in her chemise and drawers, her stockings tied above her knees, her feet tucked into her shabby shoes, and he stood in only his pants, his braces hanging down to his knees.

They were both panting.

“I’m going to touch your arms,” she said. He swallowed and nodded, watching her small hand with every callus she’d earned reach up and touch his shoulder and then slide down his arm to his wrist.

“Is that all right?” she whispered.

He nodded, words and breath beyond him. It did help—the light and her telling him what she was going to do.

She did it again, running her fingers backward from his wrist back up to his shoulder.

“You’re so strong,” she said, her eyes following her hand. “Like a picture in an anatomy text. Bicep,” she said, touching the front of his arm. “Tricep.” Her fingers slipped around to touch the back of his arm near his armpit and he flinched.

“Ticklish,” he said when her wide eyes darted to his. She smiled, no doubt cataloging that for later use.

“Deltoid,” she said, her fingers finding the dents and divots of his shoulder.

“Trapezius,” she breathed, her fingers tracing the wide muscles across his back. “Superior.” Her fingers slipped lower down his back. “Trapezius inferior. These probably aren’t the words Delilah was talking about.”

“They work for me,” he said on an excited exhale. He’d been holding his breath under her careful, exploratory hands. “Keep going.”

“Pectoralis major,” she said, cupping her hands over his chest, her fingers touching his nipple. He jerked, the sensitivity of his skin suddenly too much. She lifted her hands away for a moment. “Pectoralis minor is underneath. You okay?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Serratus anterior.” She cupped the sides of his body. Up high, nearly under his armpits. “Abdominals,” she said, pulling her hands very slowly—he could tell she was enjoying this—to the front of his stomach. The heels of her hands were at the waistband of his pants. Her fingertips just under his ribs. Her hands rose and fell with every breath he took.

“There are more,” she said. “But I… I’d like you to teach me some words.”

He nodded and lifted his shaking hands to her shoulders. “I don’t know the muscles,” he said. “The proper names. But these are your strong and capable shoulders.” He traced the edges of the sleek muscles there, digging his thumb in slightly where he usually felt pain after a long day, and she cried out, closing her eyes in sudden bliss.

He rubbed and stroked a little more. “Oh my lord,” she said on a sigh. “That feels good.”

“How good?”

“Not as good as what you did last night,” she said, opening one eye. “But close.”

“So it did feel good?”

She opened both eyes and looked at him. “You must know it did?”

“I worry that what I asked you to do after might have ruined it.”

“Nothing could ruin it, Steven. It was just… unfamiliar.”

“Close your eyes,” he said, the intimacy of her gaze too much.

He slipped his hands from her shoulders down her arms, rubbing as he went until he could feel her like a ragdoll in his arms. She moaned low in her throat, her head tipped back, eyes still closed, and he leaned down to kiss her.

It was sweet at first. A drowsy, lazy first kiss—but slowly, intention crept in. Heat and excitement billowed between them and he wrapped his arms around her, his hands digging into her hips.

She gasped into his mouth, leaning fully against him. Her breasts a delicious weight against his chest. Emboldened by her earlier touch, the light in the room, the whiskey, he didn’t flinch as he wrapped her in his arms and lifted her off her feet, carrying her the few steps to the bed.

Still kissing her, his tongue in her mouth, tasting her, licking her, he slipped the chemise off her shoulders, pushing it down her body until it fell to the floor.

“These are your beautiful breasts,” he whispered, cupping them in his hands, lifting them to his lips so he could kiss the ivory curve, the perfect pink nipple.

She sagged slightly against him and he caught her with one arm around her back. “Does that feel good?” he asked against her skin, pressing open-mouthed wet kissed against her.

“Yes,” she sighed. “I need to hold onto you. I want—”

“Do it.”

Her hands clutched at his shoulders and he waited for some internal wince, some recoil, but there was none. Not in this room. Not right now. There was only her pleasure feeding his.

“What is this?” she asked, and to his delight, his shocked amazement, she took his wrist and guided his hand down her body, over the edge of her drawers to the heat between her legs. “What’s the word for this?”

“Annie—”

“Tell me,” she breathed, and when he leaned back to look at her he found her smiling. Excited. She liked this game. The dirty words.

“Pussy.”

“What else?”

“Quim.”

She wrinkled her nose, casting that name aside.

“Cunt.”

“Oh, that’s bad, isn’t it?”

“A very bad word, for a very bad girl.”

Her eyes flared slightly and he could sense how much she liked this game.

“I’m going to touch you,” she said.

‘Where?”

“Your… erection.”

“Hold on a moment,” he said and got out of his pants as fast as he could until he stood there naked but for one stubborn sock. “Now try.”

It was careful. Her fingers cold at first. So cold that he couldn’t help the breath he sucked in through his teeth. But she didn’t seem to notice, as focused as she was on his body. The hard flesh in her hands.

“You’re so smooth,” she said. “The skin seems delicate.”

“It is.”

“But you were so rough with it yesterday.”

“Sometimes… that’s what I need,” he said.

“In order to—”

“Come. Yes. I don’t know why, but sometimes it feels like I’m buried deep under my skin and it takes a lot to make me feel anything.”

“That makes sense to me.”

“Does it?” he said with a laugh.

She squeezed him hard in her fingers and he hissed, his blood suddenly turning to kerosene. “You like that?”

“I do.”

She did it again, working him hard with both hands, and he had a sudden image of her taking him in her mouth. And he had to pull away.

“What—”

“Trust me.” He took a deep breath and stood up straight. “Lie back,” he told her.

He saw the second of hesitation as she must have remembered last night.

“Your body is beautiful to me. Exciting. And I’m sorry—”

She shook her head. “No more apologies.”

And then she reached down and untied her drawers, pushing them down past her lean hips, her strong legs, the foot that bent inwards.