“It’s here,” he rasped against her breast. He pushed hard and rhythmically with his thumb until she recalled how to push in counterpoint to that most gratifying pressure. Seizing his self-control with both fists, Beck bit gently on her nipple and felt her body ripple with the pleasure of it.
And off she went, battering his self-discipline as she writhed and keened, letting him give her two long fingers pressed deep into her sex to send her back out of her mind just when he sensed her satisfaction might be cresting.
And God above,
He couldn’t recall when he’d come that hard, not even in the act, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive it if such pleasure befell him again.
“Beckman?”
Sara sounded as dazed as Beck felt, and he realized his fingers were still hilted inside her. He eased his hand from her and felt her shudder with an aftershock of pleasure.
“On your back, sweetheart.” He levered up and kissed her cheek. “Careful of the sheets.”
She pitched awkwardly to the mattress, leaving Beck to get up and fetch the basin and washcloth.
“I’m… buzzing inside,” Sara said, consternation in her tone as she waved a vague hand below her waist.
“Is buzzing a good thing?” Beck brought the basin to the night table, wrung out the cloth, and scrubbed it over his belly and groin.
“Different.” Sara lay on her back, knees drawn up, her modesty apparently not yet within reach.
“The water’s a little cool,” Beck warned her, wringing out the cloth again. She let her knees fall to the sides but turned her head as he swabbed gently at her sex. “Sensitive?”
She nodded, saying nothing until he’d folded the cloth against her and applied a comforting touch of pressure.
“And you, Beckman? You found… pleasure too?”
Beck smiled at her just for asking, and still pressing the cool cloth to her sex, leaned in and kissed her. “A wagonload of it. I hope I didn’t hurt you?”
“No. Overwhelmed and buzzing, but pain is not part of it.”
“You’d have to tell me if it were.” Beck believed her, but still… he hadn’t been anywhere near as gentle as he’d intended—and Sara hadn’t been restrained.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I’m happy,” Beck said, the truth of his answer surprising him. “Very happy. Now scoot over. Company is coming to call, Sarabande Hunt.” He tossed the washcloth into the basin and climbed in beside her where she lay on Her Side of the Bed.
“None of that tea-with-the-queen business, love.” He seized her under the arms and hoisted her back over him. “We’re friends now. Cuddle up. There’s my girl.” He patted her bottom, and then his touch shifted, stroking up her back. “What?”
“I feel like crying,” she blurted out, folding forward onto his chest.
“I’ll hold you while you cry,” Beck said, his brisk humor disappearing as tenderness swamped him. “Tell me honestly, Sara, was I too rough?”
“No.” She burrowed into his chest, and Beck had the odd thought that they were—finally—getting to the real lovemaking. “I’m just… sentimental.”
“It’s spring,” Beck finished the thought for her, “and it has been a long time for you, and your daughter is facing her birthday, and you have no one with whom to share these things the way you ought.” He gathered her closer and felt a sigh go out of her. “How was your trial ride, Sarabande?” Beck kept his caresses on her back slow and soothing, but—though he would leave any day and likely never see Three Springs again—her answer mattered to him. “Will I do?”
“You.” Sara’s breath puffed against his chest again. “You know very well you are not the one whose condition has to be assessed. You probably have a different dalliance for every season.”
Beck’s hands went still. “No, I do not. You would be mistaking me for my brother Nicholas, who has a different dalliance for every day of the week when he’s in a certain mood.”
“You’re not exaggerating, are you?” Sara raised her face to peer at him. “You’re not, I can see this. You must worry for him, this Nicholas.”
Worry was not the first sentiment that Beck would have named in conjunction with Nick, but it was… applicable. Maybe more applicable than exasperation, frustration, or even anger.
“I do worry.” Beck traced the dimples at the base of her spine. “Just when I think much of Nick’s reputation is merely gossip and rumor, another of his cast-off lovers will assure me the facts are understated, not overstated. I don’t know what drives him, but it isn’t a happy impulse.”
“You said you were happy a moment ago. Maybe your brother wants that happiness.”
“Maybe,” Beck allowed, but he wasn’t convinced he’d ever understand what drove his brother. “Are you happy?”
“Disconcerted,” Sara rejoined all too readily, “but not unhappy.”
“Talk to me,” Beck said, appreciating her honesty, even if her answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Tell me about being disconcerted.”
Sara rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Has it escaped your notice that we are naked, tangled upon each other, and having a discussion?”
“And which of those disconcerts you?”
“The three of them.” She raised up enough to frown at his chest, then settled back down, a bit to the left. “The three of them together. How do I face you in the morning?”
She fell silent, and then the quiet took on a busier quality as Beck felt her tongue slide experimentally over his nipple.
“Behave yourself, Sarabande.”
She did it again then settled back. “Does that make you feel the way you make me feel?”
Beck smoothed his thumb over her jaw. “Now how would I be able to speak for how you feel? I can tell you I like it, it’s arousing, and I can feel it right down to my vitals.”
“Good. I’d say the same, were you to ask me—which you shall not—but you’ve avoided my question.”
She sounded shy and brisk, and Beck found both appealing. “About facing each other in the morning?”
“The very one.” She batted her eyelashes over his nipple this time, suggesting an inventiveness that boded ill for Beckman’s remaining wits.
“You are a delight.” He closed his arms around her in sheer affection. “An absolute, utter, unequivocal delight.” A dangerous delight. A shaft of misgiving went through him, because leaving this delight behind when it came time to return to Kent would be difficult.
“But a housekeeper too,” Sara reminded him, “and delighting is not on my list of duties, though when you hold me like this, you make me want to rethink my list.”
“Delight belongs on your list, Sara,” Beck said in all seriousness. “I am not your lover yet, but I would dearly like to be.”
“You can be my lover, but only if I can discern a means of becoming invisible thereafter, Beckman. I cannot hold in my mind at the same time the way we are together now, the way I behaved with you earlier, and the need to ask you to please pass the cream at the breakfast table tomorrow.”
For a widow who’d just found her pleasure, she was peculiarly reluctant to experience it again. “So skip breakfast. Have me instead.”
Sara tongued him again for his insolence. “I can’t help but feel everybody will know. They’ll be able to see by looking that I’ve cast my morals to the wind and embarked on a life of dissolution.”
“Oh, indeed.” Beck drew his hand down her braid, which had gotten satisfactorily messy. “You spend one hour a week in my bed, and now you’re a flaming strumpet. How much time does Allie spend drawing and painting?”
“Hours and hours.”
“And in the past week,” Beck went on, “how much time has Polly spent in North’s exclusive company?”
