Leslie LaFoy (41 page)

“Mind if I touch?” he asked, placing his hands on her waist.

“Not at all,” she said, her voice husky, her eyes darkening. “I was rather hoping that you would.”

Her hands continued to move down the front of his shirt, her fingers blindly, nimbly slipping the buttons free. Her gaze remained locked with his, and in the depths of her eyes he saw the smoldering embers of desire and that unmistakable spark of daring. He slowly moved his hands back and down, caressing the warm satin curves of her. He gently cupped her, the pads of his thumbs stroking lightly over her heated skin. He felt and heard her breath catch.

Leaning down, he brushed a feathery kiss across her temple, not trusting himself to take a more intimate taste of her just yet. The seduction was hers to manage for the moment, his to savor and enjoy. Her fingers faltered at their task and her eyes drifted closed as her lips parted to emit a soft sigh. Then, with a deep, languid quiver she collected herself and opened the first button on his trousers, her eyes still closed, a smile shadowing the corners of her mouth. Jackson felt the heat in his loins sharpen and knew that he was rapidly approaching the point when he couldn't bear the slow seduction any longer. He wanted Lindsay, wanted to make love to her with an intensity that he'd never wanted any woman before.

The last of his buttons was undone. Even as he contemplated stepping back and divesting himself of his trousers, Lindsay took the task upon herself. Her hands slipped beneath the fabric, and with warm and gentle certainty, she smoothed them down his hips and over his thighs. There was only the vaguest awareness of them landing around his bare ankles; Lindsay's touch obliterated everything beyond her. Her hands slid back and down, to hold him as he was holding her, to intoxicate his senses and unravel his sense of control.

Conscious thought staggered through the swirl of sensations. His shirt. He had to be rid of it. He wanted to feel her breasts against his chest, the heat of skin against skin.

As much as he didn't want to, he was going to have to release her for just a moment, for just as long as it took to shed the damn thing.

“My shirt,” he managed to get past the lump in his throat as he eased his arms from around her and took a half-step back. His movement drew her hands forward onto his hips, the friction so exquisite that he couldn't help but shudder in pleasure.

Lindsay waited, deliberately biding her time until he had the shirt worked down to his elbows. When he had effectively pinned himself, she slipped her hands down the sides of his thighs, and then slowly brought them up the fronts, her fingertips stroking the corded muscles beneath his heated skin. He stopped moving, stopped breathing as his eyes widened and filled with unspoken hope. She paused and waited until he forced himself to swallow and resume the effort to both breathe and remove his shirt.

With smooth and confident certainty, she trailed her fingers higher. The light in his eyes flared with barely bridled passion; his smile dared her to continue. Reaching his hipbones, she traced the angle of them downward and this time when he froze, she didn't give him a respite. She traced the hardened length of him with all of her fingertips; once, twice, three times. He swayed on his feet, his shirt forgotten as he closed his eyes and softly moaned. Only then did she take him fully into her hands.

The throbbing heat and the velvet strength of his arousal flooded over her in a molten, undeniable hunger she had never felt before. Her mind reeled and she abandoned the effort to think, surrendering herself to the heady waves of feeling and the primal desire dancing deep inside her. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss into the center of his chest. His heart hammered against her lips and his manhood surged against her palms, inviting her closer.

He was dying. Dying by magnificently torturous degrees of the most exquisite pleasure he'd ever known. He groaned in acceptance of his wondrous fate, submitting, his senses thrilling wildly as Lindsay slowly, boldly laid a path of searing kisses down his chest, to his abdomen, and then lower still. His heart stopped and his knees went weak.

He reached for her shoulders to steady himself, desperately needing to touch her, to thread his fingers through her hair, to thank her for the incredible wonder of her gift. He gasped in realization that his shirt pinned his arms to his sides and suddenly his patience, his willingness to passively endure was gone. With a snarl, he tore free of his bonds and when he'd flung them away, he reached down, took Lindsay's upper arms firmly, gently in his hands, and drew her up the length of him.

“Sweet siren,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers. He devoured her, his hunger so urgent that it defied control. She melted into him, heated satin, soft curves, and wild abandon, the passion of her kisses every bit the equal of his own, their demand beyond his power to resist.

He had to have her, and have her
now.
No more waiting, no more slow seduction. He couldn't endure another second of it. Kissing her deeply and hard, he slipped his hands lower behind her, cupped her, and lifted her up. She moaned in breathless sanction, brought her legs around his hips, and twined her arms tightly around his shoulders.

Guided by ageless instincts, they found each other, both gasping and shuddering at the heated perfection of their union, each clinging to the other, their kisses suddenly quick and breathless, a staccato accompaniment to the pulsing rhythm of their timeless dance.

Sheathed in her haven, Jackson nibbled a course down the slim column of her throat, his hunger building, his need for release tightening with every beat of her heart. He turned and leaned down, laying her on the bed with all the care he could, the depth of his possession easing as he did. She whimpered in protest and arched up, drawing him back, deeper than he'd yet touched her. God help him, there was no holding back, no slowing to love her sweetly and gently.

Lindsay arched into his embrace, threading the silken strands of his hair through her fingers as he suckled her breast and filled her body with his own, sending her senses on a dizzyingly swift upward spiral. She strained to ride the crest, softly crying in wonder as he took her higher still and the anticipation deep within her belly gathered tightly into itself. And then, just as she feared she couldn't reach any
higher, Jack whispered her name and filled her completely, shattering the tension within her. She was cast, gasping and astonished, into the oblivion of heavenly stars even as her bones melted in a deep pool of fiery sweet satisfaction.

The fading shudders of her completion drew his senses back from the sated realm of his own attainment. He reveled in them, in the incredible sense of happiness that settled over him in their wake. She lay beneath him, her hair a golden fan around her head, her eyes closed, a small smile touching the corners of her parted lips. Her breasts, passion-hued, hard-budded, and taut, rose and fell in a cadence that was as winded as his own.

“Lindsay?” he murmured softly, brushing the back of his hand over her cheek. “Are you all right, sweetheart? Did I hurt you?”

“No, Jack,” she answered dreamily, turning her head and kissing the back of his hand. “Nothing hurts. All I can feel is warm and wonderful.” Her legs slipped slowly down the length of his as she sighed long and with apparently deep contentment.

“We'll go at it more slowly next time,” he vowed, lying down beside her and gathering her into his arms. “I'll love you gently. I promise.”

Her head pillowed on his shoulder, she snuggled close to his side and laid an arm across him. “Any way you want to love me is fine, Jack. It doesn't have to be gentle.”

Jackson closed his eyes and breathed deep the faint scent of roses and their loving. He did want to love her gently. And hard and quick, too, like they'd just made love. And he wanted to give her all the variations of tempo and passion that fell between those two. He wanted to make love to her all day, all night, for as long as he could be with her. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and trailed his hand down the sweep of her side, stopping to caress the swell of her perfectly rounded hip. Everything about Lindsay was perfect. They fit together as though they'd been made for each other, only each other. It was going to be hell leaving her behind when he went home.
Maybe …
He resolutely closed away the budding thought. She wouldn't go and he couldn't stay. Some things were meant to be and
some weren't. He'd learned enough in life to know the difference, to know that trying to make the impossible possible always ended in failure.

Lindsay stirred in his arms and turned her head up to smile at him. She threaded her fingers through the mat of curls on his chest.

“Do I want to know what's going on it that pretty little head of yours?” he asked.

Her smile slowly widened and her eyes sparkled with mischief. “I'm thinking that I may have some difficulty in maintaining celibacy after all. It would seem that there's a great deal to recommend bedding a man that I didn't know about.”

The thought of her taking a lover other than him clenched his gut. But it would be her prerogative to do so once he left her, he quickly reminded himself. The admonishment assuaged his feelings only slightly. “Would it help to know that it wouldn't be as good with anyone else?” he offered, only half teasingly.

“My,” she said, laughing as she pushed herself up to rest her weight on her elbow and smile down at him, “don't we have a high opinion of ourselves.”

“I figure there's no point in false modesty,” he drawled. “You know the truth.”

“Well, thank you for being willing to share your
greatness
with me.”

“You're welcome,” he said, slipping his arms around her and hugging her close. “And I'd be happy to share my greatness with you again, any time you want.”

Arching a brow, she kissed him lingeringly, then drew back to ask, “How about now?”

The spirit was sure willing, but… “I'm not eighteen anymore, sweetheart,” he admitted ruefully. “Could you give me just a few more minutes?”

“If I must,” she agreed, chuckling as she eased down to rest her head on his shoulder again.

“I promise that you won't feel neglected in the meantime.” To prove that he was a man of his word, he cupped her breast in his hand and gently massaged her nipple with
the pad of his thumb. It hardened instantly and she made a purring sound deep in her throat.

“Like that, do you?” he asked, grinning and doing it again.

“Well enough,” she replied, “that if you expect a few minutes before I demand another performance from you, you should probably stop.”

He did, but reluctantly. He held her close, pressing kisses into her hair and listening, feeling, the steady beat of her heart.

“So, are you going to tell me what you did today while I was sleeping?” she asked after a long moment.

“I met a young man,” Jack supplied, nuzzling his cheek into her hair. “His name is Tiny and he's simple. I told him that you'd be glad to teach him how to make the numbers inside the hopscotch squares.”

“Oh,” she whispered, her voice filled with understanding and compassion. “Of course I will.”

Jackson smiled at her response, pleased that he'd so accurately predicted it. “Tiny's the Boston end of the game, Lindsay,” he went on. “His job is to sit on the steps of his boarding house—which happens, by the way, to be at the address of Little, Bates and Company—and wait for the mail. Every day, all day. He gets rent money weekly and every once in a while he gets a special piece of correspondence. Two pennies and an outgoing letter are inside. He hands both right back to the carrier, and Tiny's job is done.”

Lindsay clearly saw the thread and the pattern it made. But there was something about lying in Jack's arms that made it all seem so inconsequential, so beyond her real concern. “The outgoing letter was written in New York and sent here so that it could be postmarked Boston and look genuine.”

“Yep. And with it actually moving between the two cities, the timing is always right. No too-quick replies that might lead to suspicions and questions. You've got to admit that it's a good plan.”

She shifted her position, turning and half rising. Placing her hands one atop the other on Jackson's chest, she
propped her chin on them and met his gaze to ask, “Do you suppose there's a simple soul in each of the four cities?”

“It would be my guess,” he replied, slipping his arms around her. “Tiny can't read and he isn't complicated enough to even think of asking questions about what he's doing. He's the perfect accomplice. Whoever set it up did so years ago and through his mother. Tiny doesn't know anything about his employer beyond the fact that he wrinkled his nose the whole time he was talking to Tiny's mother.”

“I don't see that there's any point in trying to get our hands on the return piece of mail,” she mused aloud, acutely aware that Jack's hands were beginning to wander down the curves of her hips. Her heartbeat quickened in response and it took considerable concentration to hold the thought she'd formed before he'd set about distracting her. “It'll be delivered to us in New York anyway. We know what Percival Little's handwriting looks like already and it's not one I've recognized as anyone else's. It hasn't changed one bit in all the years I've been involved with the business, Jack. And it doesn't bear any resemblance to the correspondence from the other three companies, either. Each is distinctly different.”

“Which means,” he drawled, his hands moving up her back, “there are probably four people in New York who are paid to write those letters for whoever's behind the scheme.”

“But who are they?”

He threaded his fingers through her hair and drawled, “Well, we know that the packet containing the two cents and the return mail was probably sent by Otis Vanderhagen.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Lindsay said, trying to keep her wits about her as his fingers sent ripples of pleasure down the length of her body. “He stopped by the house to visit Richard the morning I was leaving. He asked me to tell you that he'd seen nothing amiss in your letter.”

“Then we wait with Tiny and see if it goes as it always has.” He let strands of hair slip through his fingers, his gaze riveted on the falling curtain of gold. “If it does, then we go back and ask ol' Otis some tough questions. One of which will be who's actually writing the letters.”