“Two?”
“The first,” he hurried on, “I was eighteen, and on leave in the army, so it was a prostitute in Cape Town. The whole thing was a rushed, sweaty, rather disappointing encounter.”
“The first time usually is,” she assured him. “Mine was.”
“It was?”
“Oh, yes. It was quick, and painful, and I was quite disillusioned. Things got a little better, but not much. Cocaine, I can only assume, was what made him so unpredictable and moody. And when the mood struck Roger to visit my room, things were always far too rushed. Who was the second woman?”
“As I said, I was in the army. Most of the time, I was at some fort in the middle of nowhere, receiving dismally low pay, so I couldn’t keep a mistress, and after my first disillusioning experience, prostitutes held no appeal for me. After I left the army, I acquired a mistress,which was better, but we were never love’s young dream. I didn’t much care for the shallowness of that sort of arrangement. But this—” He paused, drawing a profound, shaky breath. “This is altogether different. I love you, Delia. I want tonight to be right for you.”
She stared down at him, taking in every detail of his countenance. His hair—burnished gold in the lamplight. His thick brown lashes—gilded at the tips. His face so stunningly handsome—filled with a combination of love and desire.
Looking down at him, his words echoing in her ears, she felt things she’d never felt in her life before. This, she thought, was love—not the calf love she’d felt as a girl infatuated with a moody poet; not the frantic, snatching love she’d felt while rebounding from grief; and not the warm, bland affection she’d felt for an older man. No, this was something new and altogether different. Because Simon was a man she could rely on, a man she knew she could absolutely trust, and that knowledge humbled her and awed her and made her—just a little—afraid. If she ever lost him—
She cut off that unbearable possibility before it could take hold. “It will be totally right, Simon,” she told him. “Just do what you feel.”
He leaned forward, wrapping an arm around her hips, cupping one of her breasts in his free hand, his thumb caressing her nipple. He played with her breasts, shaping them, toying with them. He suckled them, softly at first, and then harder, wringing sensation from her until she was moaning low in her throat and her hands were raking through his hair.
His arm was tight around her hips, anchoring her in place as his hand left her breast, and she shivered as his fingertips danced lightly over her ribs and stomach. As he moved his hand lower and lower, she could feel her tension rising higher and higher, but when he reached the apex of her thighs, he pulled back and she gave a moan of protest, arching her hips toward his hand in a desperate plea for more.
But he didn’t give it. Instead, his arm moved up around her waist, and he leaned his weight into her, settling the curve of her hip into the dent of his shoulder as he slid the tip of his finger into the crease of her sex. He touched her, his fingertip moving up and down in a light caress filled with promise.
She was close to climax, she knew, but it seemed to hover tantalizingly out of reach. She could get there, if only she could move. She tried again to wriggle her hips, more insistently this time, but his superior weight kept her still, and all she could do was stand there, helpless to move as he mercilessly lashed her with this teasing caress.
Suspended here, hovering on the edge of climax, was an unbearable torture. She wanted to tell him that, but she couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and the only sound she could make was a cry of frustration and need.
He seemed to understand what she was asking for, but instead of complying, he only teased her more. “Is there something you want?” he murmured. “Tell me.”
“More,” she managed, the only word she could say, but he merely laughed.
“Bastard,” she panted.
“Delia, Delia,” he chided, his breath warm against her dampness, making her shiver. “What an unladylike thing to say.”
“Damn it, Simon,” she ground out. “Stop torturing me!”
He laughed again. “Open your legs,” he ordered, easing back enough for her to comply.
She did it gladly, eagerly, expecting him to stand up and take her straightaway, but he didn’t. Instead, he nuzzled her intimate feminine place. He kissed her there, sending keen, sharp sensation through every cell and nerve ending in her body.
He stroked the crease of her sex with his tongue as his hand caressed her stomach. Free at last, she moved against the footboard,and her panting breaths mingled with the faint squeak of the bedframe as her hips worked against his mouth. His tongue lashed her with these carnal kisses until she was trembling all over and every breath she exhaled was a sob.
She came at last, a powerful wave of pleasure that flooded every part of her body with glorious sensation. Even before it could ebb, it came again, then again, and yet again, over and over, each wave more powerful than the last, until she finally collapsed.
His arm tightened to keep her upright, and she looked down, panting and wordless, as he pressed a last, tender kiss to her stomach. When he lifted his head, she could only stare at him in amazement, still rocked by the most powerful series of orgasms she’d ever experienced.
A puzzled frown creased his brow as he looked up at her. “Delia, are you all right?”
“Heavens,” she gasped. “For a man who’s only been with two women, you learned a lot.”
He laughed, his breath blowing warm air against her stomach.
“I’m a quick study.”
He pressed one last kiss to her navel and moved to rise. As he stood up, she saw the outline of his penis against the aubergine velvet of his dressing robe, and she realized just how much of an asset her own prior experience could be. Kicking her tangled nightgown sideways from beneath her feet, she stepped out from between him and the bed, grasped his arm, and came around, turning them both until their positions were reversed. “Two,” she said as she pushed him gently back a step, “can play this game, my love.”
He frowned a little as he hit the footboard behind him. “I sense trouble ahead.”
