She thought about that for a minute as she stroked his chest. “I’m not certain all right is a proper descriptor. At least I finally understand what all the fuss is about.”
“I didn’t hurt you?”
“Oh, you hurt me. But as odd as it sounds, it was a good hurt. It’s good to have it over with. Next time I can enjoy it even more.”
He lifted his head from where it had been lying on her breasts. “Next time?”
“That is what you said.” Her grin was pure seduction. “We have at least three more hours.”
He dropped his head back down again. “If I live that long.”
She stroked his damp hair. “I’ll be sure of it.”
* * *
She knewshe had no business feeling so cherished. When morning came, Beau would leave her behind. She couldn’t deny that. She couldn’t avoid it. But he was here now; he might have even fulfilled every woman’s fantasy for her, leaving her replete and limp, still wondering how in the world they had fit together so well.
Just to be certain, she decided with an impish grin, they would have to replicate the experiment. In the meantime, she kept stroking his chest, surprised for some reason that he had hair there that curled across and then down like an arrow directing one’s attention to her new favorite attribute. The attribute that was even now beginning to stir again.
Without waiting for permission, she reached down to gather it up.
“I’m not going to be much use for a while,” Beau protested, winnowing his own hands through her hair, his eyes closed.
“That’s all right,” she murmured against his chest. “I am content to keep you present while we wait.”
She was content to test the width and scope of him as she wallowed in the waning ecstasy that still warmed and periodically electrified disparate parts of her body. Her toes. Who would ever imagine toes tingling from such activity? She had expected to revel in his touch, to survive cascades of shivers in places she didn’t even know how to name. And she had survived, even though she felt as if those places had melted entirely, even as her body began to wake again to nothing more than the touch of his skin and tickle of the hair on chest and legs and arms. It was something so new, a sensation she had never expected, even with the lessons her mother had given on the basics of procreation. She knew it was supposed to feel wonderful with the right person. She hadn’t expected it to feel at once so alien and so very, very right.
Just when she thought Beau couldn’t have proven a better, more thoughtful lover, he gave her a quick kiss on her nose, and climbed past her out of bed.
“Beau…”
He smiled. “Hush. If I know your Joyful, she left us prepared…ah, here.”
And before she knew it he was carrying back a flannel he had wetted in the warm water. Climbing back into bed, before he pulled the covers back up, he nudged her legs back open and attended to her with the wet rag. Pip knew how bright her blush was. How could you feel mortified and beloved at once?
“Better?” he asked, disposing of the rag and covering them up.
It took all her courage to face him, which an hour earlier she never would have imagined. “Does this mean we have leave to begin again?”
She could think of nothing in her life more precious to her than the smile on Beau’s face as he bent to kiss her, long and thoroughly, his hand cupping her cheek and his body cupping hers. She had imagined him loving her like this, although even with her mother’s instructions, she had never truly envisioned the particulars. She couldn’t have known how truly intimate and urgent this was. She had experience with hunger. She had hungered for Beau almost as long as she had loved him. She had had no experience with the triumph of completion. Of the unbearably intimate act of welcoming him inside her.
Blessed Bernard’s benediction, she could still feel him stretching her, filling her, surrounding her until she didn’t know where she began and he ended. Until she felt unpardonably integral to him. And worse, he to her.
He would never accept that; she had known it the minute he had pulled out to spill his seed where nothing would grow. But just for these few moments, she decided that it was an act of courage to pretend he would. Without another word, she curled up against his body and reached down to once again wrap her hand around him. And reveled in the fact that just her touch caused him to swell.
If only she had more time. If only she had forever.
But she didn’t. So, she made do with what she had, and relished every sensation they unleashed.
14
She would have wished for more time. More time loving, more time simply sleeping wrapped about each other. She wished she could have convinced Beau to leave her with the chance of a child. When Beau climbed out of bed and reclaimed his clothing, though, she knew she would have to consider what they’d had to be enough. So she watched him in the bare flickering light from the fireplace and memorized every shadow and plane, the flex and flow of muscle and tendon as he moved.
She greedily ingested the sight of his body, his broad shoulders and taut chest and belly, that devilish nest of hair from which delight sprang. Literally. And those horseman’s thighs, oh, those thighs. She even cherished the sight of his feet, long and lean and precise.
She took special care to stay quiet as he turned to slip on his unmentionables, because she didn’t want him to catch her ogling him. But how could she not smile at the sight of that deliciously tight bottom? How could she not want to reach out and cup it in her hands?
She knew what a good person she was when she closed her eyes long enough to pretend she hadn’t been watching and let him kiss her good night before he left to relieve Billings at his watch. She knew she was a lost woman when she spent the next hour silently weeping for what she had just lost. She knew she was a survivor when she woke to hear a horse clattering to a halt in front of the Dower House door even before the sun topped the hills and rose to prepare for what she knew would be a very long day. A longer life with only a night to sustain her.
