For a moment, Lolly didn’t understand. She wanted a swiving, not to be his nursemaid. He caught her hand and pressed it against his chest. The washcloth splayed between them. That was when she caught the flare in his eyes. The break in his breath. And she understood.
This could be so much more than she had even imagined.
?
Lust was the same no matter in which country one found oneself. In Martin’s experience, it changed depending on one’s object, and he had never found a lightning rod quite like Lolly before.
He had been so hard after their garden escapade that he’d had no choice but to excuse himself early. Even a finger of scotch and an hour spent reviewing an agricultural magazine hadn’t reduced the problem. And so, after the household turned in for bed, Martin had taken himself in hand. He tried not to imagine Lolly, tried not to think of the swell of her breasts in his palms or the taste of her lips or her little sounds of delight, but it had been an image of her face screwed into pleasure that had ushered his orgasm.
And then, not five minutes later, the lady herself walked into his bedroom.
She was breathtaking. He had always found her so, but especially now, wearing nothing except her nightclothes and insistence. He was halfway back to an erection from her words alone.
But not quite. And he thought perhaps – by the slimmest margins – if he could delay for even a few minutes, his mind could settle the matter once and for all.
He had to close his eyes so that he wouldn’t see the desire pooling in hers as she dragged the washcloth across his skin. The water started warm, like the trail of a kiss, but went cool quickly, which helped keep his cock in cooperation. Martin tried to direct his thoughts with the washcloth: as she drew it down, he thought of his responsibility as a gentleman to guard her virtue; as she swept it back up, he wondered whether society had any right to dictate about her virtue. Her argument had several flaws, though at the moment, he couldn’t quite articulate them. He knew she was neglecting the risk of pregnancy, but if she really meant to fuck him just the once, he could protect her against it.
She was assuming her lust would disappear after the one experience. That their bodies wouldn’t keen towards each other in search of more and more and more. He should warn her of that. If she really wanted to make this decision without the mask of desire, she would do better to sail to Boston and decide from there.
But as to who had the right to decide how a woman should handle her virtue, Martin couldn’t decide. Couldn’t concentrate. Lolly’s spare hand braced his back, below his ribcage, and the washcloth was descending towards his drawers.
He wanted her. But did he have the right to?
Then Lolly pressed her lips, open-mouthed, to his skin, just above his waistband. Her tongue swirled against the trail of hair.
Martin’s eyes popped open as his cock stirred. Lolly had dropped to her knees. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders; before he could help it, he laced his fingers through its soft, endless locks.
He had always gone hard for a beautiful head of hair.
She smiled, the grin of a woman who knew just what she wanted. In a few quick gestures, she dropped both the washcloth and his drawers to the floor.
Martin was glad his cock was still recovering, otherwise he might have let her put her mouth around it. That was no way to satisfy her, not when he had only this night to change her mind. To convince her that she should marry him, no matter the circumstances of their engagement.
It gave him an idea, though, a compromise that would answer her desire without being entirely the wrong thing to do.
Catching her under the shoulders, Martin pulled Lolly into the air. She squealed and her eyes flashed, her hands landing on his bare shoulders. On the other side of the room, he tossed her onto the mattress. Her breasts bounced beneath her nightgown as she landed, and he nearly did it again just to relish the movement. Instead, he undressed her. He added extra force as he untied her wrapper and yanked it from her shoulders, watching as her whole face crumpled in need. He ripped her flimsy nightgown in two, just to see the near-orgasm ripple across her body.
“Yes,” she breathed, her legs wrapping around his hips, “take me like a barbarian. Ravish me. I want you to.”
Martin kissed her. He used his tongue and teeth and pressed his fingers hard into her wrists, as if he were punishing her. She whimpered in delight.
“Just like that,” she whispered. “Oh, don’t ever stop.”
Another idea. Straddling her hips, Martin reached for the wrapper belt he had just removed and bound her wrists above her head in soft, tight knots. The nightgown became a blindfold. “Is that barbarian enough for you?” he growled into her ear.
“Take me,” she moaned back.
Martin dismounted the bed just to admire his handiwork. Lolly lay on her back, completely nude. Her breasts were alive with desire, pert and round and begging to be suckled. She had spread her legs so he could see the brownish pink of her quim.
If he played the next half hour right, he could delight in this woman for the rest of his life.
“Martin,” she said, twisting her head blindly. “Why are you making me wait?”
He had never been one for games in the bedroom. He preferred conversation to flirtation, and more to the point, he preferred serious women to the ones who needed flirtation to get into bed.
But there was an electricity in the air tonight. Perhaps because he admired Lolly so greatly. Perhaps because she knew so desperately what she wanted. He sensed without thinking what she needed.
And he wanted to give it to her.
