He smiled at her. She did not smile back, but there was a softness and an openness to her that he knew was deliberate. She was allowing this, both for him and for herself. She had chosenhim,he thought in some wonder. There must have been other men in more than eight years, other candidates more worthy than he. He knew of a couple right here in this neighborhood. But she had chosen him—just for now.For a little while.
Perhaps because she knew he would go away as soon as his family left? Perhaps because she knew there was no chance of permanence? He was not a permanent sort of man. Or perhaps because she really did not want permanence but merely a brief affair with good sex.
Did it matter why she had chosen him? Or why he had chosen her?
He reached behind her and undid the fastenings of her dress. He drew it off her shoulders and down her arms. It slid to the floor to pool about her feet. She was not wearing stays. He had realized that downstairs earlier. She did not need them. He kneeled down, removed first one slipper and then the other, rolled her silk stockings down over her calves and off her feet. Her legs were long and well shaped. He stood. She was wearing only her shift, which barely covered her bosom and reached not quite to her knees.
He drew a slow breath and reached for the hem, but her fingertips came lightly to his wrists.
“I would be uncomfortable,” she said.
With her own nakedness? He nodded. He would make her comfortable when they were on the bed. There was no hurry. Experience had taught him that, and he was glad tonight to be experienced, though his mind did not even touch upon all the women with whom he had acquired it.
For tonight there was only her. Imogen. A bit of a clumsy name, he had thought at first. Now he thought it perfect for her. Individual. Strong. Beautiful. Imogen.
He did not have any inhibitions about his own nakedness. He undressed while she watched, setting his clothes on a chair beside the window. And he did not stop when he came to his drawers, his last remaining garment. He removed them, then came back to her and cupped her face with his hands, and brushed his lips across hers. He was almost fully aroused, but she was no virgin to become vaporish at the sight. She had seen a man in his desire before.
“I knew you would be as beautiful without your clothes as you are with,” she said, sounding almost resentful.
“I am sorry if I offend you.” He smiled. “And I will wager you are as beautiful without yours as you are with too. A man does not necessarily like to be described asbeautiful,you know.”
“Not even when heis?”
Her shoulders and her arms, he noticed, were pebbled with goose bumps.
“But I leave you cold, do I?” He moved his hands down to her shoulders and drew her against him. “I must be losing my touch.”
“I very much doubt it,” she said, her hands—hercoldhands—spreading over his chest.
“Come,” he said, leading her to the bed and throwing back the covers. “Let me warm you up.”
It did not take long. Not that he did all the warming. She had decided that she would let this happen, he had already realized, but there was nothing passive about the letting. She was going tomakeit happen, and abandoned herself to passion as soon as her back encountered the mattress. He doubted she even realized when her shift was peeled off over her head or that they had left the candle burning. She kissed him as though she would never have enough of him—just as he kissed her, in fact. And when his hands and his mouth explored every inch of her, teasing and arousing as they went,herhands and mouth were busy on him. They did not need either a fire in the hearth or blankets on the bed. They created their own roaring furnace of heat and desire and passion.
When his hand went between her legs, she opened and lifted to him. She was hot and wet to his fingers, and his thumb caressed her to an almost instant cresting and release. She sighed out loud and rolled into him, relaxed for the moment but unsated. Her mouth found his.
“Percy,” she whispered against his lips.
It tipped him over the edge—just that, the sound of his name on her lips.
He drew her beneath him, slid his hands under her as she lifted her long legs and twined them about his, and went hard into her. Experience almost let him down then. He almost went off in her like a randy schoolboy. She was hot and moist and welcomed him with a slow, firm clenching of inner muscles.
It took him a few moments to control himself while he held deep in her, in a near ecstasy of pain.
And then they made slow, deliberate, exquisitely satisfying love. He had never before thought of sex with that particular euphemism. There was no love involved with having sex. It was purely, earthily, wondrously physical. But with her—with Imogen—sex was more than just that. Not love, but... But there was a deficiency of language.
It was strange how the thoughts were present in his mind even while his body was fully concentrated upon the sex act. Or upon making love. Or whatever the devil...
Then her inner muscles clenched as he thrust but did not unclench as they had done for the past several minutes in perfect rhythm with his withdrawals. And it was not just the inner muscles. Her whole body was taut and straining and lifting harder against his. He pressed deep again and held still. And...
Good Lord. Heaven help him...Good Lord.
He had been going to wait for her to climax and then continue toward his own release. But there was some sort of explosion that happened simultaneously inside his head and in his loins—and in her too.
And sometimes there was no experience to draw upon.
And absolutely no vocabulary.
He lay spent and heavy and panting on her, and she panted beneath him, all relaxed and hot and sweaty, and what had happened to all her goose bumps?
