Captivated

Below her swollen bud was a taut ring of wet, pulsing flesh her surrounding him.

Robert had never realized before how thin feminine skin stretched to hold a penis… or how fragile was the bonding of a man and a woman.

She quivered as he rimmed her clitoris with the pad of his thumb. Her inner muscles told him all that he needed to know. They told him how hard to press, how fast, until suddenly the taut band of flesh surrounding him relaxed utterly. In the next instant it clutched him so tightly it was almost painful.

Abigail cried out.

Robert cried out.

But he didn't move. He had promised her he would not bring her any more pain, only pleasure, and he meant to keep that promise.

Before she had time to catch her breath, he rubbed her swollen bud again. Until her inner muscles again gripped and milked him in climax.

He used her pleasure to bring about his own peak. It took six orgasms in all. When he arched up into her, she collapsed over him in a blanket of soft hair and damp flesh.

Mustering up energy he had never known he possessed, he jerked the bedcovers out from underneath his body and pulled them up around her.

Holding her tightly in his arms, his flesh snugly encased in hers, he prayed that the storm would last another night.

chapter 4

Rain was a steady drum of sensation; it pounded against the walls and the ceiling, impaling Abigail's body on a shaft of raw heat. She shifted to find a more comfortable positionher pillow was fuzzy and the bed bone-hard.

The feeling of being impaled grew. As did the raw heat inside her lower body.

Her eyes flew open.

A mat of wiry black hair greeted her gaze. It covered a very broad, naked chest.

Stifling a cry of alarm, Abigail lifted her head.

She stared into pewter-gray eyes framed by ridiculously thick, long black lashes.

Every muscle in her body clenched in recognition at what filled her to capacity.

She had taken a stranger into her bed. She had taken him into her mouth. And she had taken him into her body.

Where he was still lodged.

Pale-gray light illuminated the dark stubble lining the oddly tensed face of the man underneath her. 'Good morning.'

In the dark heat of night Abigail had been a woman; in the cold light of day she was once again an aging spinster.

An aging spinster who had propositioned a strangerand then had begged and cried for him not to stop.

Abigail stiffened her spine. 'Good morning.'

He folded down the covers from around her shoulders and eased her upright so that she sat across his hips. 'Do you mind?'

Doyou mind ricocheted inside her headthe words she had asked before using his manhood to rub against her engorged flesh.

Flesh she had named.

Iwant you to touch myto touch mymy pearl!

Her muscles tightened in protest; she felt as if she sat on a fence post. His shoulders were brown against the white of the sheet and pillowtight little brown nipples peeped through black chest curls.

Which meant that her breasts were equally visible.

Breasts he had suckled like a starving infant.

She slapped her arms across her chest.

His hips surged upward with unmistakable intent.

Abigail gasped. At the sensation of him prodding the very depths of her body. At the realization that the intolerable pressure had nothing to do with what was inside her vagina and everything to do with what was inside her bladder.

Freeing her right arm, she braced her hand on the mat of wiry chest hairchest hair thatshe had rooted around in like a starving infant. 'Actually, yes, I do mind. You see, I need toto'

Words failed her.

She closed her eyes at the loss of whatever dignity she still possessed.

There simply did not exist a polite formula for informing a man buried deep inside a woman that the dictates of nature preceded the urges of the flesh.

A boisterous laugh penetrated her mortification. The motion of his body combined with that of the bed caused her to jiggle up and down on the extremely solid flesh planted between her legs.

Opening her eyes in pained outrage, she anchored herself to his chest with both hands; her freed breasts swayed unimpeded. Hard, calloused fingers dug into her hips while pewter-gray glinted up at her.

'A lesson for the both of us. Men wake up with a hard-on. Whereas women, I take it, wake up merely needing to relieve themselves.'

Gritting her teeth, Abigail attempted to scramble off him, only to find that her legs refused to movethey were numb from lack of circulation. 'I beg your pardon, but I seem to require assistance in gettingdownup'

The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled. 'My pleasure, but you reversed the order. First we lift you up' Strong hands circled her waist. 'Then we help you down.'

Robert jackknifed up in bed and onto his knees in one fluid motion. Abigail hardly had time to gasp before he was out of her body and she lay sprawled on the bed. He loomed over her with his manhood jutting in front of her face.

It was every bit as impressive in the pale light of day as it had been in the murky dark of night.

Grabbing the gray blanket at the foot of the bed, she pulled it around her naked body. 'Thank you.'

His grin widened. 'It's still storming outside.'

She was all too aware of the weather. 'Yes.'

'I take it you have a chamber pot.'

She did. Under the bed.

Supremely unself-conscious in his nakedness, Robert climbed off the bed and leaned down. The monotonous patter of rain was interrupted by the drag of smooth porcelain over hard wood.

Robert straightened. 'Shall I help you?'

The heat blazing in Abigail's face felt like it would burst into flame. 'I think not.'

'Abigail, there is no place for modesty inside a one-room cottage. Men and women share the same bodily functions. I have to make use of it, too. What is the difference, for God's sake?'

She refused to look away from him. 'The difference, Colonel Coally, is that women squat and men do not.'

His gray eyes widened momentarily; then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

He had very white teeth.

The laughter stopped when Abigail scooted out of bed slowly, carefully; the flesh between her thighs stung as though she had been impaled on a shaft of nettles. Her legs were like two slabs of wood, with no feeling in them whatsoever. Standing, bracing herself so she would not fall flat on her face, she reached for the faded green dress that lay heaped on the floor.

'Don't be ridiculous, Abigail.' It was the colonel's voice of last night, sharp and autocratic. 'It's pouring down rain outside.'

Firmly clasping the blanket across her breasts, she threw the dress over her headand got totally lost inside it. Her stilted reply was muffled. 'You may dictate to your men, Colonel Coally. I, however, am not ruled by military law.'