Lady X's Cowboy (22 page)

She moaned again and pushed herself against him.  Through the heavy folds of her dress, he felt the lush curve of her bottom press into him.  And damn, she had to know what he was about, because he was as hard and upright as a saddle horn, ready to take the grip of her hand or any other part of her.

“Liv,” he groaned along the bend of her neck, “if you want me to stop, you have to tell me now.”

“If you stop,” she said, husky and low, “I’ll go mad.”  She turned to face him.

He wasn’t in hell any more.  He’d call it heaven, but he didn’t think angels felt what he was feeling.  Because she was kissing him and he was kissing her, and he’d never, never in his whole life felt anything like what he was feeling now.  Their tongues moved together, their mouths opened, and she overwhelmed him.  She had so much to give, but she took from him, too.  And he wanted her to.  He wanted her to take as much as she wanted, and keep on taking until he had nothing left to offer.

She pressed against his chest while he moved his hands up and down the narrow span of her back, gripping her hard with palms spread wide.  And then her fingers were everywhere, deftly working at his vest and unbuttoning his shirt.  The cold night air stung him while the burning embers of her fingers touched him and he sucked in his breath at the feel of her on his skin, the way he’d wanted her for it seemed like the whole of his life. 

He needed to touch her, too.  But the damned dress she wore was covered in hooks and buttons and a hundred other kinds of fastenings.  Plus the corset underneath.  And the immense number of underclothes.  But unless they stopped what they were doing and spent the next thirty minutes carefully undressing her, there would be no way to touch her completely—and he couldn’t wait any longer.

He bunched her dress up in his arms as his hand reached for, and found, the slender form of her calf.  He growled.  He’d pictured her legs so many times in his mind and now that he could actually feel them, shapely and covered in silk stockings, he nearly exploded.  She mewled into his mouth as her hands continued to spread across his chest, moving to his stomach which quivered like a stallion’s.  He slid his hand farther up her leg, past the delicious bend of her knee, under the ruffled hem of her drawers, past the garter, finally reaching, Sweet Lord, the bare skin of her thigh.

She jumped, then panted into the curve of his neck, “Yes.”

A surge of pure possessiveness burned through him.  He wanted to brand himself into her, his skin against hers.

He glided his hand up, over the satin of her thigh and higher.  He palmed the surprising roundness of her buttock, more pert and full than he would have expected to find on such a slender woman.  She had the kind of behind men dreamed about, like a split peach, firm, and he stroked it proprietarily. 

But her fingers, God, also explored.  They moved over his stomach and then lower.  He groaned as her dexterous hand cupped him, tracing the outline of his shaft, which reared up under her attention.  He couldn’t think, couldn’t place himself past the sensation of her touching him through the fabric of his trousers.   

He didn’t think he could last much longer.  No—he knew he couldn’t.  Not without feeling her, too.  Not without touching her as intimately as he could.

Shifting his hand, he slid it over her thigh again until he found the juncture of her legs, her sex, slick and furnace-hot.  Dampness soaked through her drawers.  Her body jolted again, but she pressed herself closer to him as she set up a stroking motion of her own, up and down, as his fingers worked to find, and then entered her opening.

Olivia jerked and vibrated like a bow releasing an arrow.  She cried out into his mouth and he felt her contract around him as her own hand stilled.  For some time, she was like that, drawn taut, leaning into his hand, as thousands of small earthquakes shook her.

“Will,” she gasped, “Will Will Will.”

Yet even as the final tremors subsided, she was fumbling with the buttons on the front of his britches, pulling at them until they popped open.  His eyes rolled back as her bare hand wrapped around him. 

“Don’t make me wait for you any longer,” she breathed.

“No, ma’am,” he growled.

With a sharp, tearing tug, he removed her drawers.  He hooked one hand behind her knee and brought it up, settling his legs between hers.  His other hand gripped her waist tightly.  One deep thrust, and then he was inside of her. 

Paradise.

Olivia wasn’t a virgin, but she was tight, so damned tight that he saw stars.  Those same stars flooded him as he moved, slowly at first, finding their rhythm together.  An unbelievable sliding, a slight hitch and catch each time.  And she moved with him, her arms around his shoulders, words that weren’t words flowing from her mouth.

He’d wanted her naked, but having them both almost fully dressed made him burn with arousal.  Surrounded by clothing but joined together as intimately, as profoundly as possible.  And the sweet hotness of her, surrounding him but filling him, too, with herself. 

He rolled over onto his back, taking her with him.  Despite the dark, he felt her surprise as she straddled him.

“I’ve never...done
this
before,” she managed to gasp.  “But,” she added, adjusting her hips, “I like it.”

“I like it, too,” he rasped.  Which was as much as an understatement as calling the Grand Canyon a ditch.  He held her hips as she braced her hands on his chest and moved experimentally.  He nearly came then, feeling her discover her pleasure, learning what made her feel good and the power she had to make it possible.  But soon she knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.  Leisurely at first, and then with more and more speed, she rode him, throwing her head back and holding his hands against her.  He felt as wild as a mustang under her, but he wasn’t trying to throw her; he wanted her on top of him forever.

Forever came a little faster than he expected.  She tightened, arching, and her release triggered his own.  His whole body became condensed to one small point that burst outward like a meteor shower.  It seemed to go on eternally, his pouring himself into her welcoming body, a kind of pleasure he’d never experienced, never dreamed he would know.

She tumbled down onto his chest with a little “Oof” of release, limp and languid.  Spread out over him in a tumble of skirts and legs and arms, Olivia made the sweetest blanket.

“Will,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair and down the bridge of his nose, “so beautiful.  Such a beautiful man.”

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tight as he could without crushing her, wishing, wishing that everything could stop now.  That there wouldn’t have to be a tomorrow.  Everything would fall away and there would be only this, he and Olivia, still joined together, the stars spread overhead that saw without judgment, two people intertwined in the most profound communion.

A falling star shot by, and he made his wish.  But he knew that it could never come to pass.  He’d only been granted a brief taste of what could be; then tomorrow would come.  No wish could prevent the dawn.

She must have slept, because the next thing she knew, Will was gently nudging her awake.  He was true to his word to head out at dawn—the sky was just beginning to pearl with daylight.  Olivia unwound her arms from his neck; she had been lying across him as he stretched out on his back.  In the gray light, his face close to her own, she saw the shadows of stubble darkening his jaw and upper lip, and her hand went up to rub its roughness.

But he caught her hand before she could touch him.  “We have to go,” he said, hoarse and deep.

She slid her palm from his grip and sat up.  She brushed at the leaves clinging to her skirts and the top of her dress, dislodging only a few.  Abstractedly, she reached up to try to repin her hair, though it was a losing battle without a mirror or maid to assist her.  As she did so, Will stood and shook out his duster, then replaced his hat and gloves.  She couldn’t help but watch as he buttoned his open shirt and vest, catching only a glimpse of the bare chest and skin she had felt last night.

When she was fifteen, she and some of her giggling schoolmates had visited a museum, and she had been dared to touch one of the Greek statues of an athlete.  Will’s body reminded her of that statue, the flawlessly defined muscles, the hard-contoured plane of his stomach, the absolute symmetry and precision of his physique, but where the statue had been cold marble, Will was warm flesh, and that made him even more perfect.  She still felt his skin underneath her hands, even as she tugged on her own gloves, the echo of his bodily presence finally touched and experienced.

He reached out to help her to her feet, but both their hands were gloved, and there was too much fabric and leather in the way to feel him again except the guidance of his fingers.  Their gazes caught and held.

“I wish we could stay out here and not go back.”  Her voice was thick with morning and exhaustion. 

“We can’t,” he answered.

“I know.”

He went to get the horse, placidly grazing on the remains of autumn grasses.  She thought about retrieving her bustle and decided to leave it behind.  Putting it back on seemed like too much of a bother, and besides, why should she care?  Things like bustles became silly and inconsequential in light of last night.

Will helped her up onto the horse and then swung up himself.  “I think we should head east,” he said. 

She nodded.  “I put myself in your hands.”  She realized, too late, the many implications of this statement.  She had been, literally, in his hand, and she shivered recalling that pleasure.  Astonishing that a cowboy, a man who made his living using the strength of his hands, had been so gentle and yet so assertive uncovering the source of her ecstasy.  And he had found it, better than she had ever on her own.

They slowly picked their way through the forest as Will scouted a trail back to the road and civilization.  He kept one arm around her waist while he held the reins in his other hand.  Tension stretched between them, and the contrast between the intimacy of the night before and this awful morning nearly split her in two. 

“What happened between us felt too good to call a mistake,” she said finally.  It was easier because she sat in front of him, and she stared ahead at the Kentish woods as she spoke.  She felt Will stiffen behind her.  “But things will be different in London.”  Even saying the name of the city made her sit up straighter, as though invisible eyes were observing her posture. 

“I know.”  His voice was flat and hard.  “It’s going to kill me, havin’ you so close, knowin’ how good it is between us.  And not bein’ able to do anything about it.”  He swore softly.  “It’s like cuttin’ my own heart out with my bowie knife.”

Olivia’s throat tightened.  “I hate this.”

“Yeah.  Me, too.  But I have to stay away from you, Liv.  I don’t trust myself around you.”

His words made her heart both sink and lighten.  She understood well the temptation he offered, especially now that she knew what their passion could become.  Yet no man had ever desired her so much that they could not restrain themselves, and the knowledge that she could make such a strong, physically potent man like Will lose control gave her a peculiar pleasure.  Here was a uniquely feminine power she didn’t know she possessed.

“What about right now?”  She indicated their bodies nearly, but not quite, touching as they rode the horse.

A tiny smile quirked in the corner of his mouth.  She wanted to press her own mouth to that spot.  “Darlin’, I’m too tired and hungry to do much besides sit upright, let alone pull you off this horse and seduce you.”

She didn’t think it would take much effort on his part to seduce her, since she was most of the way there already.  But if he could keep his desire in check, she could, too.  And so they continued through the woods in silence.  Every fall of the horse’s hooves brought them closer to London, closer to the jeweled cage of society and away from the brief freedom of the woods.  She couldn’t help but let her mind wander back to last night and even further back, into her past.

Most girls were kept ignorant of what transpired between men and women in the bedroom.  She had been somewhat lucky in that one of the girls at the boarding school had stolen a few of her brother’s racy novels and they were circulated secretively.  In the pages of those anonymously written books, Olivia learned about a whole world of erotic experiences that she longed to have for herself.  When the time came for her to marry, she was excited, eager, to put into practice that which she had read about.

After a few months of austere lovemaking, she had shyly suggested to David they attempt a few of the postures she had read about in school.  He had been horrified by the suggestion.  Such actions were solely limited to loose women and debauched men, and as a respectable married couple, they were neither of those things.  Further, he questioned the morality of the school she had attended.  So she grew used to their routine, but never found the carnal inferno she had been anticipating.  On nights when David did not visit her bedroom, she gave herself pleasure, but it was not as satisfying as sharing it with another person.

What a revelation Will was!  The way he touched her, the way he made her feel—those French novels barely did justice to the experience.  A whole world had been opened to her.

And closed just as quickly.  She and Will could never give in to their desire again.  What liberty they had tasted in the Kentish wilderness had to be ruthlessly shoved aside, buried underneath the strict codes of propriety that governed every aspect of her life.  It seemed an impossible task.  How could anyone look at her and not know what she had experienced, and with whom?  Most of what had made last night so unforgettable was the fact that it was
Will
, inside her, around her.  She couldn’t think of any other man she wanted that way.

“Here’s the road,” he said, and in a remarkably short amount of time, they were cantering back towards the hops farmer’s home.  She couldn’t decide if she was glad to see the pointed bells of the oast house, or if she felt like weeping.  Civilization and its constraints lay in their path.  She made herself sit upright, her body not touching Will’s, as she slipped on the tight garments of propriety.