The Proposition (35 page)

He slid his hand along her raised leg, going along it up under her skirts. Along a silk-stockinged calf that went forever, up underneath the humid warmth of her to a knee inside the wide leg of her knickers. Though it was as wide as a small skirt, her knickers snugged toward her hips. He smoothed his hand across her knickers at her abdomen, then around. He explored where they met her corset with the flat of his hand, front and back, trying to understand the construction of her underdrawers, while he fought a head-spinning delirium of lust. Her knickers buttoned down the back, he realized. Down the back all the way under the crotch to midway in front.

Well. What innovation. With the tips of his fingers, he found the strategic buttons and began flipping them through the buttonholes, opening her knickers down the low curve of her backside and under.

Then he slid his hand inside, touching the bare curve of buttocks, the cleft where the two moons of her rounded together—and the earth beneath his feet shifted under him. He gripped her as his hand found her bare bottom, the flesh soft, dewy, and smooth, like the petals of flowers. Oh, the pleasure of touching her. He thought he would die of it.

While Winnie felt herself alive with it. Her pleasure was nervous: excited, astounded; unknowing, apprehensive. Before, Mick had touched her through her knickers. Now his hand was inside them. Lord, what did that mean? This wasn't wild. It was impossible, unimaginable. And pleasure, oh, the pleasure of it.

He reached behind her and tugged her knickers out from under her corset. He found the rest of the buttons at the back. With one hand, he undid them completely, then folded them forward onto her own leg. Then, with no leave or hesitation, he slid his hand over her knickers, under her body, between her legs. His palm took possession of her naked pudendum.

She jumped then grew utterly still. Shame. That was what the word meant.
Pudendus,
the Latin for
worthy of shame.
And she felt it. Shameful, how her body sang at his touch. She wanted to close her legs for the disgrace of it, take her leg down; yet his elbow clamped her leg to his waist, holding it there, and she was glad.

"Let me," he whispered so softly it was without voice, just his air forming the words at her ear. More hushed sounds, he told her, "It will be all right." So quiet, she could hear the faint contact of his perfectly articulated T's.

She nodded, though her body kept spasming in strange reaction. Yes. If he wanted to, she trusted him. She let him have his hand under her skirts, her underthings down, her legs open to him; free rein.

Indeed, who else might she give this to but Mick? Who else could she follow into the world and all its experiences? Who else but the man she watched with unceasing interest? Whom she delighted in? The man who made her laugh and feel good, who responded sometimes more honestly than she did to her own hurt and joys?

Who else but the man she loved?

She let him slide his hand over her, inward, cupping, then out. In truth, she would have let Mick lay her down onto the cobbles of the alley, put his weight on her and do whatever a man did to a woman. All resistance left—she felt it go as if her veins opened—as he cupped his hand to her. If he had chosen to murder her in this moment, she would not have put up a fight.

She leaped slightly when his fingers burrowed slightly, then nearly climbed up over his back as they found her. So new, the sensation. And powerful. All her senses, her mind drew into focus on the spot where he pressed her flesh apart. His fingers touched inner layers. Slick. She was slick. Why? She was messy. That couldn't be right—

"Aa-ah," she said, her muscles jumping and jerking. His thumb found a sweet, secret place that, when he touched it, made her see stars. Little, ecstatic exclamation points of sensation.

She knew nothing of her body here. To find it all so sensitive amazed her. To discover he knew all about her body, more than she did, astounded even more. Thank God he did though. He stroked her exactly right; he knew better than she how to stir up pleasure, more than pleasure, a hypnotic, physical joy so compelling it absorbed every corner of her mind. She tried to analyze it, understand, but couldn't make her attention do anything for longer than a second. Her mind wanted to feel, simply feel, nothing else.

"Let go, Win," he murmured. "Stop thinking."

His head bent, his silky hair touching her chest as he lightly bit the tip of her breast. Then he slid his finger deeply into her, all the way inside her.

"H-hah, h-hah—" She jerked as her diaphragm sent spasms of air through her lungs. "H-ho, H-hooh—"

He drew his finger out, pulling more wetness along her flesh. Her knee buckled. He had to support her. He touched what she wasn't sure she'd even known about, didn't think about, a part of her own body she had never looked at or touched. Absurd. His finger hit upon where his thumb had been before. More star-bright bits sparked in her mind. By comparison, they darkened everything else. Sensation became only this. The dark fog of his knowing fingers, sliding, warm
…
making sparks of perfect pleasure along her nerve endings, bliss so pure and glistening it was blinding. It obliterated the rest of her senses, incapacitated all other awareness. A steady heat built, one made up of these sparks
…
snapping, becoming more and sharper
…
a rising rapture taking her up and up to God knew where.

She knew a tension
…
something coiling in her belly, tighter, stronger. Then it suddenly released in an instant of crystal-clear, physical euphoria at the center of her, a spilling of this so intense she let out a cry.

She tried to hold back her own voice, but sounds, soft animal noises erupted from her mouth, noises as she could never remember speaking. Low groans, strained mewlings that, had she allowed it, would have come out nearer to screams. Her body jerked from the effort of holding it back. The pleasure was so acute…

Once, as a child, she'd been stung by bees. Half a dozen minute, quick, angry stings that hit her nerves, shooting their little pinpoints of pain everywhere. Her pleasure was like that, though it spread more evenly, more liquid somehow, as if pinpoint droplets of stinging ecstasy dropped into her, a thousand tiny droplets of it hitting her then expanding across the surface of her senses until sensation ringed and rippled to silence.

She calmed slowly, smoothing out into a glassy peacefulness. She shivered once, then curved into Mick's chest. He kissed the crown of her head as he straightened her skirts, fixed her camisole at her shoulders; putting her right. She stood there inside his arms for a full minute at least, perhaps more, letting him rearrange her—aware that she had never in all her adult life known such a thorough trust.

Another person, a man—Mick, dear Mick—had done this to her. She'd given over all her defenses, and it had been just fine. Better than fine. Better than anything she could have thought of on her own.

"I'm taking you home," he murmured. "I'm taking you home and making love to you all night, Winnie." He lifted her face to him by her chin and kissed her mouth again, intimately but so gently this time. Mouth and tongue. Then softer still, he said, "Let's go rid you of your infernal virginity. I hate it. I want it gone."

Yes. She was absolutely in favor of the notion. She wanted to do away with it, too. She wanted to hand it to him like a gift. Here.

Chapter 23

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W
innie followed Mick into the tavern, his warm fingers wrapped around her own as he pulled her lolling self along a bit faster than she might have chosen. She felt dreamy, unable to focus. She kept thinking, Mmmm, make love to her all night. Yes. Mick, with his strong body and knowing hands. Make love. Whatever that meant, she wanted it in all its glory.

In contrast, the man who dragged her along by the hand was a man on a mission, focused enough for both of them. Without breaking pace, he picked up her blouse and jacket and hat, his own coat. They were almost to the door when the baron's son, who'd given them a bit of trouble earlier, decided to go for broke.

"Well, well, well," he said.

Winnie hadn't been aware he was near, till her grabbed her round the hips. She was pulled in two directions for a second, till Mick realized she was hung up somehow,

He turned, saw. Then even Winnie pulled back as far as his grip on her hand would allow. His face was frightening for a moment—she'd never seen such instant and open rage come over a man.

"Get your hand off her," he said.

The other man was drunk, she realized. He said, "Why don't we ask the lady? Perhaps she'd like someone who'd entertain her in the West End of town."

Winnie would never have believed what happened next it she hadn't seen
it.
Mick raised one eyebrow, lifted his head a degree, then his lip, a lordly sneer if ever she'd seen one. "You?" he said with a derisive snort. His posture changed. He was acting, but what an actor he was. He could have been on the stage. His stance became at once hostile and arrogant: the full male challenge of superiority.

The other man was briefly hesitant. He hadn't expected such an aggressive and immediate confrontation after Mick's last concessions to peace. Unfortunately for him, he recovered himself. He leered at Winnie—he honestly leered, which in a strange way flattered her. She hadn't realized she was sufficiently interesting to generate a leer. Then he floored her further: "I say the lady stays. I want to see her dance again with those long, beautiful legs."

Goodness, other men thought they were pretty!

To Winnie, the young blood said, "You are without doubt, miss, the most attractive"—he laughed—"and tallest woman I have seen all evening."

Winnie wanted to hug him, give him a big kiss for saying something so nice. Though of course such behavior would never do.

Mick, as it turned out though, wanted to kill him for saying the same words. He clenched and bared his teeth, then spoke through them. "You aren't seeing anything, except possibly my fist in your face. Get out of the way."

"A baron takes precedence over—"

Mick interrupted with a snort, a truly convincing display of contempt, and talked over him to say, "What makes you think you're the only blood to slum on a Wednesday evening? What makes you think you are and I'm not, you silly pisspot?" He took a step toward the man, pulling Winnie around and behind him. "And I do believe a viscount goes in to dinner before a man who's not a baron but only a baron's son. You go in dead last. And with this lady you don't even start."

Well. He'd learned his lessons on protocol. How nice. Though she could think of better circumstances for him to use them.

The fellow made the mistake of believing, however—now of all times—that Mick was truly a gentleman: that he had some restraint.

He moved a step toward Winnie, and Mick hit him: in the face, the stomach, then kneed him in the groin. The precious gentleman out to see the "low sights of London" saw the lowest—the floor—so fast, Winnie didn't have time to screech till he was down on it, and there was no point in saying anything.

The sound that came out of her was a high-pitched chirp.

"Come on," Mick said to her. He took her hand again. To his friends behind them, he said, "Can you get the bloke some water, help him up when he gets his breath back?"

Winnie left feeling dizzy. Two men had fought over her, a baron's son had been leveled for want of her. She'd been the toast of a tavern. She'd kissed the man she loved in an alley till her nerves were jumping like a warehouse of fireworks touched by a match.

What a perfectly wonderful night!

In the carriage, Mick kissed her fiercely. He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, but a strange thing happened. Instead of his doing all the horrible things he'd promised, as he kissed her he grew
less
ardent.

Till he suddenly stopped and moved away. For the last five minutes of the ride home, he stared out the window, not saying a word.

She'd done something, Winnie thought. She'd made him angry. She'd upset him. She'd behaved badly. Something.

Then no. It came to her: She had done absolutely nothing she could think of and, given that to be true, she needn't feel guilty about anything. She'd had a marvelous time and given him every—and she did mean every—consideration. He was being sullen all on his own.

Jealous. When the word came to her, it made her jubilant. Mick, so clever at everything he did, so smart and handsome, so convincingly anything he wanted to be.
He
was jealous of the baron's son—a real, if insipid, example of what he played at with more style and force than all the barons in the Doomsday Book. Well. She could deal with a little jealousy. How utterly delightful, she thought. She felt like Delilah—dangerously powerful: desired. She laughed to herself. It was the crowning cherry on top to a night of her ego's eating pure cream till it bloated.

Still, Delilah wasn't all that good for Samson. That wasn't the feeling she wanted most to know in any consistent way. What she wanted to feel again with the warm sense of herself when Mick looked at her and saw the real Winnie. She wanted him to
love
the real Winnie, the one with her ups and downs. The Winnie trying to become brave enough to reveal herself to him as completely as a person could.