Elspeth jerked, startled, watching him even as he watched her.
“Did it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Pressure. Not pain.”
“Good. If it ever hurts, you tell me.”
“I will.”
The intensity of her pleasure had ebbed as he had taken her, but his touch on her breasts, the movement of his hips brought it back in full force. She never would have believed that every touch, every thrust could bring nothing but the most splendid pleasure. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, hoping to hold him ever closer.
Timothy watched her, his blue eyes—those eyes!—alert to her everyresponse. As her breathing deepened, her heart racing as her peak closed in, he slipped a hand between them, between her legs, his thumb finding the swollen bud at the top of her sex, pressing hard.
Elspeth’s world seemed to shatter. Her body bucked and shuddered as waves of drowning pleasure cascaded through her. She cried out, a moan borne deep inside her, her head pressing hard into the pillows.
For a moment, Timothy continued to thrust, but he too gave a low cry, and he pulled away from her, rolling to one side as his seed spent onto one of the blankets.
Even as her own pleasure still throbbed through her, Elspeth watched him, as the white fluid spurted from his cock.
“Why?” she whispered. It was the only word she could get out.
He shifted onto one side and gave her a silly, exhausted, and affectionate grin. “No children.”
“Ah.” She sighed and reached for him. “Hold me?”
He did, wrapping his arms around her. With a sigh of contented relief, she melded against him, absorbing his warmth, relishing the sensation of his strength, and inhaling an aroma of sweat, soap, and pine—which she found oddly erotic. Or perhaps it was simply the man that she found erotic. She nuzzled his chest, the dusting of dark hair there rough and sensuous against her cheek. “Do you plan for us to spend all night up here?”
“As a matter of fact”—he swung his arm wide, his hand closing on the telescope—“I have more stars I want to show you. And Scorpius may be visible by now.”
Elspeth watched as her husband turned his telescope toward the sky, then she joined him. Together they looked up—and forward.
Epilogue
Sunday, 21 May 1820
Aboard theHMP Lady Mary Pelham
Dawn, Departing Falmouth, England
“It will onlylast a few days.”
Timothy watched his lovely bride, now rather green in the face as well as in her eyes, straighten away from the packet boat’s rail.
Elspeth swallowed hard and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. “Do you promise?”
“I think Ella got past it in three days. It took me four, if I remember.” He also recalled the other advice Gordon had given him and repeated it to her. “Stick to the water crackers for a few days. They are just water, salt, and flour, so they should not bother you too much if they come back up. Oh, and never toss your accounts into the wind. You will regret that immediately.”
“What a charming detail.” She gagged again, but this time only spit launched over the rail.
Timothy chuckled, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back, relishing the sensation of another launch. The light banter of the crew, the groaning of the ship’s boards, the snapping of the sails and rigging as the wind took hold of them. “You will grow to love it.”
“As much as I love you?”
Timothy opened his eyes and looked down on her, his heart soaring. “No. But it will come close.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You have been freed from your cage, Lady Elspeth. Just as I have. And you will love every moment.”
THE END
