'Absolutely. '
'Are we… I mean-do you want to-' Embarrassed, she blushed.
He gently brushed his fingertip over her pinked lower lip. 'We are and I want to and strangely my toes really are tin-gling.'
'Oh, good. That's
'Sex?'
She smiled. 'Yes. That.'
'You can say the word, you know. We're quite alone.'
'I'd rather not.'
He moved against her so the imprint of his erection was clearly felt. 'Sex is really a very nice word.'
She moved her hips in a faint answering undulation. 'I can see how it could be with you. The ladies must love you,' she murmured, the grand length of him sending a shiver up her spine. 'Don't make me wait,' she blurted out.
She was a young ingenue, he realized, in the voluptuous body of a woman. 'Of course not.'
'I've waited a lifetime,' she murmured, her lavender eyes filled with longing.
'That's long enough,' he whispered, taking her hand and drawing her toward the bedroom.
Hope and delight sang through her senses. 'Do you believe in luck?'
'Always,' he replied, smiling at her. A risk taker to the core, he viewed life as a gamble.
'I never did until tonight.' She made a small moue. 'Probably with good reason.'
'I believe in being open to the possibilities.'
'I love this,' she murmured, squeezing his hand. 'Doing something without thinking too much or worrying about-'
Turning, he swept her up into his arms, curtailing her litany. 'You're not allowed to worry tonight.' A sparkle of mischief shone in his eyes. 'Or even think.'
'No thinking?' Wide-eyed, she grinned.
'It's absolutely not allowed. That's an order.'
She wrinkled her nose. 'I hate orders.'
'Then, consider it a suggestion,' he quickly improvised.
She laughed. 'It would be quite enough for you to be just gloriously beautiful, and you're incredibly sweet besides.'
He had not been called sweet in recent memory or ever to be precise. 'You're a remarkable woman, Miss Greenwood.'
'Please, call me Felicia. After all… we're going to be more than acquaintances soon…'
'Then, call me Flynn. My friends know me by that name.'
'You don't like Thomas?'
'It was my father's name.'
'I see.'
'No, you don't, but then it doesn't matter much anymore. I've been on my own for a long time.'
'As have I. Do you believe in fate? As in our meeting tonight?'
Having reached the large canopied bed, he lowered her to the riotous flower-print coverlet. 'I believe in my own good luck.'
She ran her finger across the broad width of his hand as he sat down beside her. 'I believe in your good luck probably more than you. It brought me my life back.'
'Pleased to be of service, my lady.' Bending low, he gently kissed her.
'Speaking of service,' she murmured, kicking her slippers off. 'You really didn't mind my asking you tonight, did you? I mean, you're not just being polite?'
'No man with breath in his body would
'You must do this often, I suppose, considering how handsome you are and… all.'
He glanced back at her as he tossed his jacket on a nearby chair. 'More often than you, I suppose.'
'More often than every five years.' She slid a garter down her leg.
With the view so fine, it took him a moment to answer. 'That would be a safe assumption.' Unclasping the diamond cufflinks from his shirt cuffs, he slipped them free.
'You must have lots of women asking you.' She lifted her other leg to take off her garter and stocking.
'Not really,' he lied, fascinated with the pale expanse of inner thigh before his eyes. Reaching out, he slowly slid his palm over the warmth of her thigh, coming to rest on the simple white linen covering her mons. 'Let me buy you some silk lingerie.'
'Mine's too plain,' she ruefully noted.
'It's very nice. Prim and proper and ever so tempting.' Easing apart the two sections of her drawers, he slipped his fingers inside and stroked her silky curls. 'Has it really been five years?' he murmured, his middle finger sliding down her dewy cleft.
Her breath caught in her throat, and when she didn't answer, his gaze lifted. She nodded to his raised eyebrow, and he smiled. 'Five years is a long time,' he whispered, gently sliding his finger in a lingering path from her turgid clitoris down one side of her sleek, plump labia and up the other side. 'I'd think you'd be ready to come without much foreplay…' Easing a single finger inside her only as far as the first knuckle, he circled the pulsing, wet tissue.
She moaned and lifted her hips to draw him in.
Forcing her back down, he held her in place with his palm and slipped a second finger into her vagina, farther this time, midpoint in depth, two knuckles deep. 'Can you feel that?'
She was hot and wet and beginning to pant, and the suffocated small sound she uttered brought his head up.
'Say that again?'
'You heard me.' Her heavy-lidded gaze held a hint of temper.
'Was that an order?' His voice was incredibly soft, the merest whisper.
'It was.'
His gaze narrowed. 'I may not want to.'
She swiftly reached out and ran her palm up his erection, her fingers closing at the last, squeezing hard.
His eyes shut against the surge of lust, and a suppressed groan rumbled deep in his throat.
'Changed your mind?' she murmured, rising to a sitting position, easing away from his hand. 'And I'm sorry I offended you.' Lifting her skirts, she slipped her drawers and petticoat down and kicked them aside. 'Now, if there's anything I can do to make amends, dear Flynn,' she purred, leaning back on one elbow, her silken cleft and pale legs framed by the crushed folds of her skirt, 'I'd be more than willing to concede to you.' She slid a finger down the slick flesh of her labia. 'I've never had a man like you. And I'd very much like to feel you inside me. So much better than this…' She eased her finger inside marginally. 'I've never, ever had an orgasm with a man.'
Her words spiked through his senses, his erection surging larger at the thought of her lush body having been so long deprived of satisfaction. 'You've had an orgasm, though,' he murmured, forcibly restraining his lust.
'The French have so many books on the delights of the flesh. I've learned. But I doubt it's the same.'
'So you read books and masturbate.'
'Don't you?'
Not since he discovered women. 'Not lately.'
'I suppose not. How lucky you are. I've often thought it quite unfair-how men can sleep around and women can't.'
'Women do.' And he should know, having serviced a great many ladies from every walk of life.
'So I'm simply naive. A shame, then. You'll have to tell me how to meet such-er-partners.'
'Walk down the street, darling. Surely, you know you're a great beauty. '
'I've been told flame-red hair is quite declasse.'
'You've been told wrong.'
'My husband deplored-'
'He was lying.'
