Daring Time (7 page)

Or sheer beauty.

Not just of his genitals, Hope thought as her color deepened. All of him. There'd been a scar on his left shoulder, the whiteness of it contrasting with the darker surrounding skin.

She'd ached to touch that old injury, to feel his smooth, thick skin and the beat of his heart beneath her fingertips. He was male power personified—all those firm, rounded, delineated muscles on his chest, shoulders and arms, those strong thighs dusted with dark, crinkly hair. His testicles had hung like ripe, round fruit between his thighs.

And his penis .. .

Surely it wasn't possible to put such a large member inside of a woman, was it? But it must be so, Hope thought with wonder and increasing arousal as she lifted the hem of the Marlborough gown and stared at the thatch of hair between her thighs. The thought of Ryan's penis coming into such close, intimate contact with her body made her groan in stark arousal.

That forbidden piece of flesh that nestled so secretly between her thighs ached with longing. She slid a finger between the tender folds and found herself to be creamy. Her finger glided easily over her aroused genitals. She understood why she'd grown wet—that her body instinctively readied itself to accept a man when she became excited.

Her body prepared itself to receive
Ryan.

Even though she couldn't see or touch him, she trusted the knowledge of her body. She rubbed herself with increasing desire, thinking of those electrifying, steamy moments as she looked her fill at not just any naked male, but the most glorious specimen of manhood she'd ever conjured up in her admittedly overactive imagination.

Would it hurt to have intercourse with Ryan? Hope wouldn't are if it did. She had learned from various sources—the most honest and matter-of-fact of which was Addie Sampson, the madam of the Marlborough Club—that if the man was patient and skilled at arousing a woman, the discomfort for her the first time was minimal and short-lived.

Hope had little doubt that Ryan would be a skilled lover. He made her so aroused and hungry and he'd never so much as touched her
.

She burned to join with him ... to discover the raptures of sex. surely it must be awe-inspiring if everyone thought about it so much—whether they be preaching the sinfulness of it or lining up to spend a last hard-earned dollar on it at one of the Levee District whorehouses. Even her idol William Shakespeare seemed quite preoccupied by the topic.

She closed her eyes and imagined touching Ryan's hard muscles with her fingertips. She pictured the hot look that would gleam in his eyes if she placed her lips on his chest, ribs and belly and discovered his textures with that sensitive flesh as well.

A soft moan vibrated her throat when she imagined him pushing that engorged pillar of flesh into her body.

She wanted to touch him, to merge with him so much that her desire focused her will to a powerful white-hot flame. Something flashed in her room and her eyelids flew open in surprise. She looked around in slight disorientation only to find that everything was as it should be—

She gasped. Everything was
not
as it should be, or at least, not as it
had
been. Her room looked as it always did, with the fire crackling in the fireplace and her bedclothes tossed back on her bed. But it was no longer her own reflection that looked back at her through the looking glass.

"Ryan," she called out in shock when she saw him standing in the mirror, their distance from each other only two or three feet. She was so stunned at the apparition that it took her a moment to realize what he was doing and to recall what
she'd
been doing the moment before she saw him. She gaped when she took in the swollen organ in his hand.

Her own flesh sharply twanged with arousal beneath her fingertips.

She took a step forward and reached in blind need for him, her face collapsing in anguish when it encountered hard glass.

"No," she whispered in profound frustration. But at least his image hadn't disappeared.

Her hand tightened into a claw on the mirror. When she saw his tensed expression she noticed that her fingertips had smeared a thin coat of liquid on the glass.

The juices from her sex smeared on the mirror, put on display for Ryan to see. '

His stare on her fingers felt palpable. His lips shaped the word
Hope,
but she heard nothing. He released his penis. Hope watched in fascination as the heavy head of his member pulled the stalk down, although it still remained suspended in the air at a downward angle.

She licked her lower lip in nervous excitement, starting when Ryan pressed his hand to the other side of the mirror.

She glanced up, held prisoner by his gaze.

"Hope," he repeated, although she only saw his lips move, never hearing the sound. The degree of longing and frustration she saw in his singular eyes made her want to weep.

"Ryan, why can't I touch you?" she whispered shakily. She was hardly aware of what she was doing as she pressed closer to the mirror . . . closer to him. She whimpered in desperate need when she saw his erection spring up at her movement. He came closer, too, and lowered his dark head. He stood so near his eyes looked like millions of sea green, cerulean blue and aquamarine points of light when she looked up at him. She saw that the continuous beard and mustache had been clipped very short and neat. The nearly black hair looked sleek as it encircled and highlighted his hard yet sensual mouth. It would be such a pleasure to trace her fingertip over it.

She raised a hand and pressed her finger to the glass just over his angular chin. He inched even closer. Hope glanced down and saw that the smooth head of his penis pressed directly against the glass. She looked up quickly, her cheeks heating with embarrassment and arousal. He said something. She strained to read his lips, but out of everything he uttered she only comprehended one word.

Danger.

Her lack of comprehension and confusion must have shown on her face because Ryan cursed silently.

Damn.

She'd understood that word perfectly well, especially since she shared in the stark frustration behind his exclamation.

For a moment he seemed indecisive, but then he glanced pointedly at his hand where it pressed against hers on the glass, as though he tried to tell her something. The barrier of the mirror and 102 years separated them, however, and she felt uncertainty swell in her breast as she followed his gaze.

His hand was so much larger than hers. Her own fit in his palm, her fingertips reaching only his second knuckle. She shivered with excitement when she realized this was the same hand that had been holding his dense erection when she first spied him. Was it her imagination, or could she feel heat emanating from the cool surface?

She started in surprise.

It'd seemed for a split second that her hand had sunk into the surface of the mirror.

She glanced up into Ryan's face and could tell by his rigid expression that he had felt that give in the solid object as well. His lips shaped her name once again. He held her gaze and began to lower his hand. Hope followed his movement even as her gaze remained fixed on his fiery eyes. She definitely sensed heat now coming from the smooth surface of the mirror and followed it unerringly.

They both glanced down when their hands reached the area over their bellies and continued to slide down the mirror. Hope stopped breathing when Ryan fisted the stalk of his ruddy penis and pressed the head directly into the space over her opened palm.

She cried out sharply, raw need scraping at her throat. Heat scorched the center of her palm, but she pressed closer . . . desperate with wanting. His arm moved and she realized he stroked himself as he shared in her arousal. Her fingers rose to her own sex. She strummed slick, burning flesh.

He lowered his other hand and made a protective cupping motion over the juncture of her thighs. Hope whimpered shakily.

They pleasured themselves, separate but connected. Their eyes held. Ryan's hot, almost furious gaze left her in little doubt that he longed to be touching her as much as Hope wished she could touch him.

When his hand moved more rapidly between his thighs, her actions matched his pace.

Desire swelled both in her sex and her chest, feeling like it would burst out of her.

She cried out in alarmed excitement when she felt a new, divine friction between her thighs. Her hips pressed instinctively against the pressure even as the fingers over Ryan's cock reached more insistently.

The solid pane of the mirror gave way to her desire.

Her fingertips pressed against steely flesh encased in warm, surprisingly soft skin. Her gaze sharpened on Ryan. Did he feel it, too? His mouth had fallen partially open. His nostrils flared. Hope felt his penis surge beneath her moving, curious fingertips.

He felt it, to be sure.

Which means he must feel her as well. She glanced down in Wonder, and sure enough four long fingers protruded from the mirror. The first two were buried in her labia and making small, firm circular motions over her tingling flesh. She moaned shakily. It felt delicious ... like he knew precisely what he was doing, exactly how to stroke her to make her burn.

She jumped when he suddenly raised the hand that wasn't playing in her heated flesh and slammed it against the mirror. The strike made a distant, hollow thumping sound. Hope tried to penetrate the glass over his splayed, pressing hand but felt only the smooth surface of the mirror.

He wore an almost frightening look of intensity as he looked down at her and his fingers rubbed and fired her sensitive flesh. Hope understood that he'd tried to reach through the mirror to her to feel her more fully, but whatever force was restraining their contact continued, only the area above their aroused sexes thinning enough to allow this minimal contact.

Her thoughts made her sharpen more on the miracle of actually touching Ryan. The head of his penis felt incredibly smooth. She looked down and used her thumb to outline the circumference of the thick ridge beneath it. When she pressed gently against the slit at the tip, a stream of clear liquid leaked onto her forefinger.

Ryan's fingers slowed on her sex. Hope glanced up in dazed arousal. He held her gaze while he reached down and touched her fingers. They rubbed their fingertips together in a slippery, sensual quest, his seed spreading on their skin.

While they gently discovered one another's touch, Ryan began stimulating her sex again.

He burrowed his long forefinger between her folds and moved the hard ridge of it up and down and in tiny, firm circular motions. Hope bit her lip to stifle a sharp cry of pleasure.

He stroked her so masterfully, as though he knew her flesh even better than she.

He once again fisted his erection and began to stroke himself with long, sure movements, twisting his fist slightly when he reached the area just below the fat, plum-sized head.

Hope watched him, wide-eyed with excitement, still clutching the damp tip of his penis.

She started out of her trance when she realized he was showing her how he wanted to be pleasured. She closed her hand into a fist, frustrated she couldn't completely encircle his girth like his own large hand did.

She began to stroke him. His movements on her sex grew more rapid. She found herself spreading her legs, wanting more of the sensation ... more of Ryan.

He watched her hand pumping his penis and Hope realized he did it for more than mere pleasure at the visual stimulation. Ryan wanted to see how far she could penetrate through their window into each other's reality. She gripped his penis tightly and slid along the dense shaft. She spied his testicles nestled just above the cotton pants that he wore and longed to stroke them. Just like the classical sculptures of the male nudes she'd studied so intently, his testicles were free of hair, hanging like round, succulent fruit between his thighs.

A more arousing, awe-inspiring sight Hope couldn't have imagined if her life depended on it.

She slid her hand along his penis but a few inches from his testicles she encountered a strange barrier. It gave to pressure, but no more than a half an inch or so.

Hope groaned. She wondered if Ryan did the same thing in his world when she glanced up at his face and he wore a pinched expression of frustration ... and something else. Her hand gripped him tight and stroked him long and hard when she recognized what she saw was arousal near the breaking point.

She may not be able to stroke his entire length or his testicles but her touch clearly gave him pleasure. It was an intoxicating experience, to realize she had the power to put that hot, almost wild look in his eyes.

He pressed as close to the mirror as he could while still giving her room to pump her hand up and down his shaft. She twisted her hand just below the head like he'd showed her. She pounded her hand over his straining penis again and again even as his fingers made her burn unbearably. She would explode any second she was so excited to touch him and to be touched by Ryan in return.

Her hand paused in its rapid pumping motion when he suddenly pressed his middle finger to her slit and pushed into her. A shaky cry leaked past her lips. Her forehead fell against the mirror with a dull thump. He continued to stimulate that burning piece of flesh between her swollen outer lips but at the same time he insisted upon entrance to her body.

She saw him spread his long legs, bringing him down closer to her height without altering her hold on his penis overly much. His face lowered to hers. He watched her, their eyes less than an inch apart even though they were separated by the barrier of the glass and 102 years. He gently worked his finger into her. Her lips fell open and she gasped softly, her breath causing a patch of circular mist to grow on the mirror when he twisted his finger and impaled her to his knuckle.

She beat his erection with her hand, wild with cresting desire. She clenched her eyelids shut as the tension broke and pleasure ripped through her flesh. Her body tightened around Ryan's stroking finger but he continued to plunge into her, faster and faster.