It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “I have already told you so.”
“You spoke of a first kiss in a schoolroom over a mathematical text. That is the kiss of a boy. Have you ever kissed a man?”
She flinched away from the memory. The sea captain was buried in her memory beneath layers of black ink.
“I have not,” she said, startling herself with her boldness.
He grinned then spread his arms. “May I offer my services, then, as model? If you draw such things, you should at least know the experience of it.”
As he stood there, his hands open and his arms spread wide, the wind blew a gust against him. His clothes pressed tight to his body, outlining the muscles of his chest that she remembered. It also revealed a bulge in his pants beneath his falls. Larger than she remembered, thicker than she’d drawn. She wondered if the head expanded or just the stalk? How would it look now—how wouldhelook when not lost in a fever.
She itched to know.
She looked back at his face. He’d been studying her expression and must know what she’d been looking at.
Did she dare? “I want to see.”
He grinned and stripped out of his coat. When he pulled off his shirt, she realized that he intended to reveal himself here and now.
“But…we are outside!”
“No one comes here,” he said. “Not even Mrs. Hocking or her sons. It’s on the opposite side of the road and blocked by the wall. But it has a good view, which is why I brought you here.”
The view now was of him as he unbuttoned his pants and then his falls. She stood there watching, her heart accelerating and her eyes wide, as he undressed completely. Within moments, he stood before her in full sunlight, his very masculine body naked and erect.
Chapter Eighteen
The best andworst thing about Cornwall was how empty the whole place was. Daniel enjoyed cities where myriad cuisines could be found a short walk away. Dozens of people crowded around wherever one went. And he never, ever had to dwell in a silence that went on for days.
Cornwall was the exact opposite. It took an hour’s walk to find anyone. Here, he could see the stars and rest his body in utter stillness. And he could stand naked in the sunlight while a woman studied him as if he were a DaVinci statue.
His body throbbed, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She was shy at first, the color in her cheeks flushed to a dusky rose. But her eyes were greedy as she looked him over head to toe. She canted her head to the side as she studied one part of him or another. He expected her to shy away from his organ where it thrust proudly before him. She looked. He was sure of it, but her gaze lifted back up to his torso.
She walked around him and touched the slope of his spine. A single long stroke while his buttocks tightened in reaction. Then her fingertips seemed to measure the breadth of his shoulders and the length of his ribcage.
“What do you see?” he asked. Artists always surprised him with their answers.
“Bone,” she answered. “Your bones are set straight and solid. Without the frame, the muscles can’t hold.” She walked back to face him. “You have scars, but not devastating ones. You have rough hands from work and thick legs, but I see the gentleman in you whenever you move.”
Poetry. He smiled and wanted her even more.
Her gaze dropped to his organ. It stretched up to her, already weeping with need. She stretched out a hand, but hesitated, her gaze leaping back to his face in question. She didn’t voice it and he couldn’t speak beyond a curt nod. But inside, he was begging her to touch him.
She set a single finger to his cock. Her index finger tapped the mushroom head and lightning shot through him. His breath caught and his muscles rippled in reaction, but he held himself still as she did it again. And then she dropped to her knees before him, the image filling his mind with erotic fantasies that nearly overwhelmed him.
She was bolder as she touched him now. She pushed and moved, looked above and beneath. She even squeezed him while he trembled beneath the strain to control himself. The sensations collided in his body, crashing together as eroticism pummeled at the knowledge of her innocence. She was not touching him to seduce him. What she did now was akin to a painter learning an animal. He knew that, and yet the way she marveled at his body, the way she held him or moved him had his lust surging high enough to drown his reason.
Then she looked up. He had been telling himself that she was an innocent. That she knew nothing of a man, and this was the best way to make her comfortable with a man’s body. Until she glanced up at him, mischief in her eyes.
His breath caught, and if he were an artist, he would spend his life trying to capture just that look. Since he could not, he burned it into his brain. The side eye and slight smile, the way her white teeth bit into her bottom lip, all framed by strands of dark hair fluttering past her cheek from the breeze. She knew exactly what she was doing to him, and she was pleased by it.
“Minx,” he said with a groan.
He reached down and caught her arms. He drew her up to her full height and pressed his mouth to hers. She opened her mouth to his and when he thrust inside, she thrust back. Tongue to tongue, they dueled while her hands roamed over his chest and back. And his organ reveled in the friction of her body pressing against him. His hips pulsed against her. He couldn’t stop it. She was consuming him, mind and body, and he could only react to the siren call of her.
He ended the kiss, his need pushing him to taste her skin, her jaw, and down her neck. His hands framed her head, but now he let them explore. He pushed into the black silk of her hair, pulling it from the pins to let it cascade over his hands. She arched her head back, helping him shake out her hair. And as she did so, he felt her breasts push against him. Such firm, perfect mounds. His left hand supported her head while the right moved to her breast.
