Laura Lee Guhrke (32 page)

“Yes,” he admitted it freely. “I do want you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you. You were telling me all about some murder that hadn’t happened yet, and I thought you were crazy, but I wanted you. The last time you were here in my flat, and I had my hands on you, while I was thinking you had just shot a pistol at me, I wanted you. Even when I searched through your room, found that necklace, and thought you were a thief, I wanted you. I had your stockings in my hands, and I couldn’t think about anything but what it would be like to have you. That night in the conservatory, I wanted to just unbutton that nightgown, touch you, feel your naked body move under mine. That afternoon in the carriage, I almost lost my head and did exactly that.”

“What stopped you?”

“Christ, Sophie, what do you think I am? I may be from the streets of Spitalfields, but I’m not about to take a girl’s innocence, especially on the seat of a carriage during a half hour ride.”

“I’m not a girl.” She moved, her body edging between his knees, threatening to decimate whatever self-control
he had left. She cupped his face in her hands. “I’m a woman, and this isn’t a carriage, and we have more than half an hour.”

Mick closed his eyes, and he almost groaned aloud under the feel of her hands on his skin. “You don’t know what you’re saying. If you keep touching me like that, I’m going to take you right here, right now.”

“Go ahead,” she whispered. “What are you waiting for?”

Seventeen
 

Mick inhaled the scent of her skin as she bent closer to him. Above the low neckline of her gown, he could see the generous swell of her breasts. He closed his eyes against the tantalizing sight, trying to remind himself of his duty as an officer and his honor as a man. “God, Sophie, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Perhaps, but I know what I want,” she murmured, running a hand through his hair. “I want you.”

She tilted her head to one side and moved to kiss him, but he grasped her chin in his fingers to stop her. “Sophie, you have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” Her brown eyes looked straight into his without embarrassment, “just because I’ve never been with a man doesn’t mean that I don’t know what happens.” She smiled faintly and grasped his wrist,
pulling his hand down to her breast. “I am psychic, you know.”

Mick opened his hand, savoring the full, round shape of her breast even through layers of fabric. The contact sent shudders of pleasure through him, but when she slid her arms around his neck and pressed closer to him, he knew he had to end this while he still could. Seizing her wrists, he pulled her arms down, then shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. Knowing the possible consequences of what she was asking for, Mick forced himself to be blunt. “Sophie, my friends always say I’m not a marrying man. I keep denying it, but deep down, I know they’re right.”

“I know it, too.” She stood on her tiptoes, bringing her lips closer to his. “But it doesn’t matter, because I will never marry. That’s why I want this night, Just once in my life, Mick, I want to know how it feels. I want to feel you touch me. I want to feel your hands on me.”

She stood on her tiptoes, and he bent his head to meet her kiss before he could stop himself. She touched her lips to his. Against his mouth, she murmured, “Make love to me, Mick,” and he knew he was lost.

Her mouth opened under his, soft and warm, tasting faintly of oranges, and when she touched his tongue with her own, the tentative contact sent shudders of pleasure through his body. The other times he had kissed her, he’d taken the lead, knowing her inexperience, but right now she was in charge, and Mick found the combination of her innocence and seduction incredibly erotic. He wondered how far she would go on her own.

Sophie grabbed the silk facings of his jacket and pulled them back, sliding the jacket off his shoulders. She tossed it aside, then unbuttoned his waistcoat and undid his tie, and those garments soon joined his jacket on the floor.

Sophie lifted her hands to the collar of his shirt. He stood still, rigid as a sword, as she unfastened the buttons. She pulled his shirttails out of his trousers, but when she tried to remove his shirt, she faced an obstacle she clearly hadn’t expected. She was unable to free his arms from the sleeves.

Mick couldn’t help smiling. “I’m wearing cufflinks,” he pointed out.

“Oh, of course.” She laughed, but Mick heard the nervousness behind it. She fumbled with the gold stud at his wrist, and he decided to help her a bit.

“Let me do it,” he said. Within seconds, his cuff links were in the pocket of his shirt, and his shirt was on the floor. He faced her and waited for her to make her next move, but she didn’t seem to know what that move should be. She hesitated, biting her lip as if suddenly uncertain. She looked up at his face with a questioning glance. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands to his chest.

“Touch me, Sophie,” he said hoarsely. “Touch me.”

He let go of her wrists, and she pressed her palms flat against his chest. Mick closed his eyes as she ran her hands up to his shoulders, down his arms and back up again, then down his ribs and lower still. He sucked in his breath, the pleasure of her touch washing over him in waves, but when she began unbuttoning his trousers, he knew he’d let her take the lead long
enough. If he let her go on this way, the two of them were going to end up on the floor, her skirts would be up around her waist, and her first experience with lovemaking would not be what she was hoping for. He was not going to let that happen.

“Enough,” he said with a half-laugh as he grasped her wrists and pulled her hands away.

“What do you mean?” She looked up at him again, a puzzled frown drawing her brows together. “Didn’t you like it?”

“I liked it a little too much.” Bending his head, he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “You asked me to make love to you, not the other way around, remember?”

“Oh.”

She stood perfectly still and closed her eyes as he began unfastening the hooks of her dress. As the dress came apart Mick trailed kisses from her neck to her shoulder. Sophie shivered as he tasted her skin with his tongue. He pulled the brocade ball gown down her arms, and it fell in a puff of satin and lace to her feet.

Sophie knew this was the only time in her life that she would have this experience, and she savored every move he made as he undressed her. Her corset, petticoats, slippers, garters, stockings—one by one, he removed them from her body.

The sureness of his movements told her he must have undressed many women before, but she knew that tonight she was the only woman in the world he wanted. Tonight would have to be enough to last her a lifetime. When he grasped the hem of her chemise,
she instinctively lifted her arms above her head, and he pulled the garment off, baring her breasts to his gaze.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, letting her chemise fall from his fingers. “Sophie.”

He slid his hands along her ribs to cup her breasts, and his thumbs brushed back and forth across her erect nipples. She moaned, lost in a sensuous haze at the exquisite pleasure of his touch.

He opened his mouth over her breast, suckling her, teasing and toying with her nipple, sending jolts of sensation through her entire body. Startled, she cried out, and her knees buckled beneath her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tightly and shuddering with the mindless pleasure of it.

When he sank to his knees in front of her, she put her arms around his head, cradling him, pulling him closer, exhilarated by the brush of his hair against her bare skin, the glide of his fingertips across her ribs, the warmth of his breath as he kissed her navel.

He untied the ribbon that held up her drawers, and soon they had joined the other clothes at her feet. But then he stopped, and she opened her eyes, suddenly aware that he was no longer touching her. “Mick?”

He didn’t seem to hear. He was sitting back on his heels, staring at her, his gaze running up and down her body. Sophie suddenly realized she was standing in front of him as naked as the day she was born. She moved, thinking to cover herself, but he grasped her hips in his hands, stopping her.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “Sophie, you are so beautiful, you take my breath away, I—”

He stopped and drew a deep breath, then let his hands fall away. He looked up, and his gaze locked with hers. “Take your hair down.”

Sophie reached up and began pulling pins from her hair as he resumed his slow and deliberate perusal of her body. She realized he had imagined this moment a dozen times, and that knowledge banished any shyness she felt. She dropped the pins and shook her head to loosen her hair. She relaxed and let him look his fill, exhilarated by the knowledge that he meant what he said. He thought she was beautiful.

Then he leaned forward and wrapped one arm around her hips. He pressed slow, hot kisses to her stomach as his free hand slid between her legs. He began to caress her in a way that made her feel as if she were melting. She cried out and grasped his shoulders to keep herself from falling, moving with his hand, unable to stop herself, unable to stop the moans that he was tearing from her throat with each stroke of his fingers. Exquisite pleasure washed over her in waves, higher and higher, until suddenly everything seemed to explode inside her.

“Mick, Mick,” she cried as she felt herself collapsing, but he did not let her fall. He held her hips in his hands to keep her on her feet, his breath hot and quick against her.

After a few moments, Mick stood up. He took her hand in his and led her across the room to the bed. Flinging back the counterpane and top sheet, he gave her an inquiring glance. Sophie knew he was giving her one last chance to change her mind, but she didn’t want to change her mind. The sheet felt cool and
smooth against her skin as she lay clown on her back, still looking at him.

Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he took off his shoes, then began to unbutton his trousers.

The mattress dipped with his weight as he stretched out naked beside her on the bed. He turned on his side, facing her, and his hand spread over her stomach, then moved lower, sliding again between her thighs. She stiffened as she felt his finger push against her, into her, a stretching sensation that was quite strange, but not unpleasant.

His finger moved, stroking her inside as his thumb brushed her curls in a tiny circle that teased and toyed with her. “Mick,” she gasped, shivering as if she had a fever. “Oh, oh, Mick, please.”

He withdrew his hand and rolled on top of her, his weight pressing her into the mattress. He held himself suspended above her, his weight on his arms, his mouth a harsh line in the dim light, his hips moving slowly against hers. She could feel the hard and aroused part of him rubbing against her where his fingers had touched her moments before, and the pleasure washed over her again at the extraordinary caress. She gasped and shivered as the feeling rose within her, growing stronger, hotter, until she was arching against him, straining, feeling that wild euphoria, that flooding sensation that made her shudder with exquisite pleasure. She cried out at the peak, her hands convulsively kneading the powerful muscles of his back.

He slid his arms beneath her back, lowering himself onto her. He kissed her hair, her throat, her cheek, his breath quick and hot against her skin.

“Sophie, it’s time,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I can’t hold back any longer.”

Instinct guiding her, she parted her legs, and the movement seemed to ignite something inside him. He made a rough sound deep in his throat as he turned his head to capture her mouth with his. He kissed her hard, and without warning, he gave a powerful thrust of his hips against hers that brought him fully inside her.

Startled by the stinging pain, she cried out against his mouth, and she broke the kiss, turning her face away. She thought she’d known what to expect, but she hadn’t expected it to hurt.

He stilled on top of her, rigid, unmoving. He nuzzled her neck, tasting her skin. He kissed her ear, her hair, her temple, her cheeks. He touched her, caressing her anywhere he could reach, “Sophie, Sophie, it’ll be all right.”

The pain was already receding, and she heard the regret in his voice. She didn’t want him to regret anything. She moved beneath him, trying to accustom herself to the feel of him inside her. The sharp pain was gone, and all she felt was a slight soreness deep inside. She wrapped her arms around him and moved again.

“Sophie, don’t,” he said through clenched teeth. “Luv, be still. I’m trying to wait.”

He held himself so rigid above her, as unyielding as stone, and she could feel the tension within him. The realization that he was striving to hold back for her sake, to let her get used to this, made her love him all the more, but she did not want him to wait. Guided by
instinct, she rocked her hips in a way she hoped would push him over the edge.

Oh, God,” he groaned. “Sophie, wait, wait.”

With a sudden knowledge of her own power, she arched upward against him, bringing him fully inside her again. He gave a harsh cry, and then suddenly he was thrusting into her, again and again, his weight pressing her into the mattress.