‘If you put me down—’
‘Not an option.’ The lock gave up the fight, the door sprang open and they fell into the hallway. Having had it drummed into her by Karen that a woman coming home alone should takesensible precautions, she’d left a lamp burning in the bedroom, and Martyn followed its light like a moth, his arms fending off the walls to protect her from bumps.
The walls faded from blue to grey outside the oval pool of light and the bed quilt glowed white. He came to a halt, hands hot, breathing fast. She kissed his throat and he groaned. ‘This is where I’m supposed to give you time to think—’
‘Don’t do that!’ she gasped, scared that thinking might wake her conscience.
He kissed her again, urgent, almost savage. Then pulled back. Slowed down. ‘I’ve wanted you since that first day.’ He let her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor and then he was stooping over her, fingers busy as he unknotted her shrug and slid it down her arms. Touching her with his eyes as well as his hands. ‘I’d love to undress you slowly but I don’t think I can bear to. This dress has been begging all night to be whipped off over your head.’
She reached for the hem.
‘Don’t! That pleasure’s mine. Lift up your arms.’ And as she did, the dress whooshed up past her face and her hair flew around in a blast of static. For several moments he held the dress around her wrists, just looking. Then he let her hands down and turned her so he could slide open the catch on her bra. He slid the bunched fabric off her arms and she found herself in nothing but her panties.
‘Whoa,’ he breathed. ‘You are beautiful.’ He wrapped his arms around her, gave a quick breath out and suddenly she was standing on the end of the bed, her breasts level with his mouth. A mouth that was hot. She forgot to breathe as he used it to explore her, plucking gently at her nipples with his teeth then sucking them hard, making her jump and thread her fingers through his hair, just in case he had any ideas about getting away.
His hands ran up and down her back. ‘OK?’
She gulped. ‘Sure am.’
He stroked her waist, her hips, her buttocks; his fingers against her skin awaking her to almost unbearable sensitivity. His fingertips ran around the high leg line of her underwear. ‘What do you call these? They leave so much of you uncovered. I love them. If I’d known they were all you had on under that short dress, I think I would have exploded.’ His breath shivered across the wetness left on her breasts by his tongue.
‘Cheekies,’ she gasped. ‘Cheeky panties. Don’t you guys have Victoria’s Secret, here?’
‘I don’t know but it ought to be made law that we do. We don’t have panties, we have knickers.’
‘Knickers?’ She didn’t mean to make it a question, she knew perfectly well that the British called them knickers, but his prowling hands made her voice somehow squeak up at the end of the word.
‘Mmm. As in, “I’m going to take your knickers off.”’ His fingertips hooked themselves in the elastic, drawing them down.
‘But you’re getting all behind,’ she protested, shakily, making her fingers, which had been gripping his shoulders, move to the top buttons of his shirt.
‘Let’s catch me up.’ He began working up the buttons as she worked down, his mouth keeping up a deliciously damp contact with whatever came close enough, her wrist, her nipple, the inside of her elbow, until he could shrug the shirt on to the floor. Then, in the impatient way of men, flicked open belt, button and zipper and somehow the beautifully cut trousers hit the deck, and he was running his tongue up and down her abdomen as he swung her up and fell with her sideways on to the bed. ‘Height difference more easily overcome when horizontal.’
In college, Honor’s roommate had invariably referred to sex as ‘rolling around in the sack’. Until now, Honor had neverbeen able to equate the phrase with the act, but Martyn was so relentlessly physical, hauling her around until she hummed with excitement, that she totally got it. The pillows scattered and slid, the quilt joined their clothes on the floor and Martyn complained, ‘This bed’s way too small,’ as his long limbs kept ending up in thin air.
Then, suddenly, he changed gear.
The night went into slow motion.
He stared into her eyes. He positioned himself. And began a slow slide, hot, hard, until he was inside her. Transfixed by his gaze and by the sensation of him taking her over, she stilled. And just allowed herself to feel.
‘I’ve wanted to do that for so long.’
‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘Oh, fuck. Oh, wow. That’s good.’ Her muscles flexed around him, accommodating, feeling, wanting.
His eyes flickered as his breathing increased. ‘Yeah. Do that again.’ He dragged in air. ‘No, you’d better stop! There’s only so much—’
But then he was moving, helplessly, ‘You’re still doing it! But don’t stop.’ And his eyes closed as slow became fast, then faster, and she held on tight as she was picked up and carried on his wave, and they crashed, together, into a whole new world.
During the night, when they’d made love again, slow and intense, he curled around her on his side, hooking her legs over his so that he was snuggled nicely against her behind, his chest rising and falling warm against her and joked, ‘I was right, you’re hot, Freedom Lefevre.’
She stilled. It made her feel toe-curly to hear him speak that name out loud, so casually, as it might have been used if her life had run along a different track. ‘I’ve always been Honor. Not Freedom.’
He kissed her ear, then licked it. ‘I like Freedom. It’s part of you, the whole you. The you that you were born to be as well as the you that life made you.’
She stared into the darkness. ‘I guess I’m acting a lot more like Freedom than like Honor, right now.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
