Song From the Sea (34 page)

Adam gave Plimpton five minutes to clear the hallway of all extraneous servants. He didn't need any curious onlookers watching him go to Callie's room.

He had to admit that if anyone was nervous, it was he. As desperately as he wanted Callie, he equally wanted to be sure that he gave her the best possible experience and didn't rush her in any way. At least they'd dispensed with her virginity, for that was never a pleasant experience.

His wedding night with Caro had been difficult, for she had been terrified, poor girl, and little wonder, given what her mother had put into her head about the horrors of the sexual act. He'd felt like a beast when he'd penetrated her stiff-limbed, trembling body, and he'd spent much of the rest of the night trying to calm her tears and reassure her that he really wasn't a monster.

Months passed before Caro was able to welcome him with open arms instead of fear, and then when she'd become pregnant with Ian, he hadn't been able to go near her at all, for she was certain that he'd do the child harm. Three months after Ian's birth he'd finally persuaded her to let him back into her bed, but he had to start from the very beginning again, for as much as Caro enjoyed being a mother, childbirth had nearly undone her, and he'd begun to wonder if he was going to have to live a life of celibacy.

Callie had no such fears, as natural with her body and her sexuality as she was with everything else, and he thanked God she hadn't been brought up in England. Her unorthodox life and her father's equally unorthodox teachings had done her a world of good.

Adam couldn't wait another minute. He slipped down the hall and knocked on her door. “Callie? Are you alone?”

He'd expected to open the door and find her demurely sitting up in bed, covers pulled up to her chin, but instead Callie opened the door herself, wearing her usual night shift and an enormous smile.

“Adam,” she said pulling him into the room. “I thought you'd never come! Look—you're not going to credit what Mrs. Simpson put on my night table, for it could only have been she who would have thought of it.” She held up a vial of smelling salts. “Can you believe it?” she asked with sheer delight. “I'm surprised she didn't leave a feather for you to burn and wave under my nose. Oh, Adam, just when I think life couldn't get any better, it does.”

She slipped into his arms and gazed up at him, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Do you suppose maybe Mrs. Simpson left the salts for you? But don't worry, I promise not to hurt you or make you swoon.”

“You had better not,” he said, returning her smile, and grateful beyond belief for her sweet, unaffected nature. “If you hurt me I shall scream, and then you'll have some explaining to do to Mrs. Simpson.”

“I will try to be gentle,” she said merrily, opening the buttons on his shirt with facile fingers and pulling the material out of his trousers, exposing his chest and running her hands lightly down its expanse, then slipping them around his bare back. “Oh,” she sighed in contentment. “You have no idea how much I've longed to do that. You feel wonderful. You smell wonderful too, just exactly of yourself. I think it's the nicest scent in the world.” She reached up and pulled his shirt back off his shoulders and down his arms and tossed it to one side. “That's better,” she said. “You are wearing too many clothes altogether.”

“Am I?” Adam wrapped his arms around her, savoring her own sweet scent that made him think of attar of roses and the earth after a good rain. He relished the feel of her slight, warm body against his own, the soft press of her rounded breasts against his naked chest. Kissing her temple, he ran his mouth down her cheek and claimed her mouth, so soft, so giving, tasting of honeyed wine.

His senses swam as she returned his kiss, her tongue lightly twining with his, her hands restlessly moving on his back, pulling him even closer, and he couldn't help cupping one lovely, perfectly shaped buttock.

“Callie,” he murmured, raising his head. “I think I might need those smelling salts if I don't lie down very quickly.”

Callie danced away from him and reached her hands out for his, pulling him toward the bed. “You look fevered, Adam. Your face is flushed and your eyes are overly bright. Here, let me help you.” She positioned his back against the bedpost and unbuttoned the flap of his trousers, releasing his aching erection. “There, that's better,” she said. “You have developed a mighty swelling, my lord, and I know just the cure.” She knelt, pulling his trousers down to his ankles. Adam quickly stepped out of them before he lost his balance, which was already precarious. The sight of Callie on her knees, her face only inches away from his erection, nearly undid him altogether.

“Callie … oh, Callie,” he groaned, reaching down for her, but she held his hands away.

“Is it permitted to kiss you there?” she asked, looking up at him. “I should so like to see how you taste.”

Adam couldn't believe his ears or his good luck. “It's permitted,” he managed to say, “but be little careful, for I need to keep up my stamina for what's in store. And it's only permitted if I am allowed to taste you as well.”

Her mouth curved up. “Fair is fair,” she said, then lowered her head and delicately ran her tongue over his exquisitely sensitive and engorged flesh, circling the blunt tip and drawing it between her lips, one hand supporting the weight of the shaft and intuitively moving on it in a slow and perfect rhythm.

Adam thought he might die with pleasure, and Callie's innocent eagerness made the experience all that more intense.

He gently disengaged her, knowing that he couldn't take very much more. “That was very, very nice, but I believe it's my turn now,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Pulling her to her feet, he ran his hands up her hips and waist, taking her night shift with him and pulling it over her head. The shift landed on top of his trousers, and he quickly lifted her in his arms and laid her on her back, straddling her hips with his own.

“Ah, Callie, you are so beautiful, so very lovely,” he said, running his hands up the sides of her ribcage and cupping the delicate mounds of her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples until she gasped and twisted under him in pleasure.

Adam didn't think his groin could take any more direct stimulation for a while, so he moved her knees aside and shifted a little lower between them, then bent his head and took her mouth with his, kissing her until they both gasped.

Faced with such a cornucopia of delights, Adam decided to start at the top and work his way down. He nuzzled her ears with his mouth and then her neck, sliding his tongue down the silken skin and over the notch of her throat, which Callie had obligingly arched back for him, relishing her little sighs of pleasure.

Her breasts were next on his list of feasts, and he circled his tongue around the outside of one creamy orb, honing in on the nipple and drawing it in between his lips. He knew he was doing it right when she writhed under him and tangled her fingers in his hair, moaning in a highly satisfactory fashion, so he moved to the other breast and subjected it to the same delectable treatment.

“Oh,
Adam
,” she cried, and he rubbed his mouth back and forth on that taut peak and suckled it again until she sobbed and dug her fingers into his shoulders.

Having completed his first course, he shifted his weight and edged down on the bed, his mouth tracing a line of fiery kisses over her soft belly as he went, his hands trailing up the soft inner flesh of her thighs and pushing them further apart.

He could smell the lovely, musty scent of her arousal as he approached that sweet nest of damp curls and he kissed her there as well, his tongue slipping lower to slide over the slick, honeyed flesh of her womanhood, that mysterious delta of female wonders, so soft, so wet, so absolutely perfect, a peach in full bloom. He filled his mouth with her nectar, using his tongue to lap up her dripping juices, suckling the tight little kernel of flesh that eagerly quivered beneath his touch, just as her body quivered and trembled beneath his own, her heat matching his.

He glanced up to catch sight of her face and reveled in her excitement, for her eyes were closed and her head moved frantically back and forth on the pillow, little moans and gasps escaping from that rosebud mouth.

Slipping his hands under her thighs, he lifted them higher and drove his tongue home, feeling her muscles contract as she received him. He stabbed it into her again and again in a hard, fast rhythm, and Callie's body tightened, her hips pressing up against his mouth as if she could draw him even deeper.

Callie shook as every muscle tightened, and she suddenly jerked and cried out, a sharp, high keen that went on and on until all she could do was gasp for air.

Adam softly kissed her one last time and lifted himself up over her. “Now, Callie?” he asked, positioning his hips back over hers, supporting his weight on his forearms.

She nodded, her breath still coming in short pants, and murmured something he couldn't quite make out.

Adam didn't waste another moment. He didn't have another moment to waste, for he was ready to explode. Using one hand he guided himself to her entrance and he slid slowly inside her tight, heated flesh until he was fully buried in her. He waited a moment to make sure she was comfortable, but he didn't even have to do that, for Callie immediately wrapped her legs around his waist and began moving her hips back and forth in a languorous rhythm that Adam was happy to match.

He kissed every available piece of her flesh that his mouth could find as he loved her fully and without restraint, Callie giving back to him everything she received and more. He was consumed by her, lost in a mutual passion and need as the world diminished behind them until it consisted only of this bed, their bodies locked in a frenzied dance, their skin sliding across each other as they spiraled higher and higher into oblivion.

He felt Callie's body tense, her arms tighten around him, and he drove into her, holding her shaking body hard against him as her inner muscles tightened and then released, Callie's frantic cries echoing inside his head as her body convulsed around his in great spasms of release, sheathing the steel of his flesh with molten fire.

Adam gritted his teeth against the flood of sensation that threatened to overcome him, a tidal wave that rushed through his blood, gathering height and speed until it crested and broke, and he helplessly fell with it, his body pouring into Callie's, shattering his senses, his groans torn from his body as he surged into her again and again, washing him back and forth on the shores of home. The wave finally released him, leaving him helplessly gasping in its wake.

“Dear God,” he murmured, collapsing onto his side and drawing Callie against him as if he were helping her back onto the safety of the shore with him.

He turned his head. “Are you all right?” he asked, still struggling for breath.

“Callie?” he said, when she didn't answer.

He raised himself onto his elbow and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed and her face still, her hair tangled around her arm and shoulders and falling over her naked breasts as if she were a mermaid, which seemed perfectly appropriate, although he hadn't realized that mermaids were quite so dangerous. Maybe she was a Siren. Ah, yes. He should have remembered the Sirens, who would lure you to death on the rocks with their seductive song. He had taken her from the sea, after all.

“Callie? I didn't hurt you, did I?”

Callie opened her eyes and hazily regarded him. “Hurt me? Don't be silly, Adam. That was wonderful. Why would you think such a thing?”

“Because I nearly broke myself,” he said with a grin, relieved he hadn't done her any damage.

Callie sat up abruptly. “Adam—you're teasing me, aren't you? You can't break that wonderful appendage, can you?” She glanced down at his groin with alarm. “It doesn't
look
broken, just a little limp.”

Adam hooted with laughter and flopped back down on the bed. “No, I don't think you can break it, or at least I've never heard of such a thing.” A very wonderful idea had just occurred to him though. “I think I just tired the poor devil out. Maybe I even bruised it a little. Do you think you could have a look?”

“Certainly,” Callie said, and leaned over, picking up Adam's limp flesh as gently and tenderly as she might a bird with an injured wing. “I don't know much about it, mind you,” she said, giving her subject the gravest attention, “but I don't see any signs of damage. Actually,” she said, shooting Adam a look of suspicion, “it seems to be recovering all by itself.”

Adam looked down in pretended surprise, for he knew perfectly well he was already stirring again. Callie's touch apparently was irresistible, no matter how worn out he thought he was. “Look at that,” he said. “Well, that's a relief. I thought we were going to need to administer Mrs. Simpson's smelling salts.”

“I don't think you or your appendage are in need of smelling salts in the least, Adam Carlyle.”

“Perhaps not,” he said, wrapping a lock of her hair around his hand and gently pulling her down to him. “Perhaps I just need a little more of your own special brand of medicine. You say you know how to ride, Callie?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Are you saying that you will finally let me? I'd love to give Gabriel a try, for he seems a most amenable horse.”

“Absolutely not,” Adam said with alarm. “I'm not putting you in any danger of falling. But if you want to ride,” he said, relaxing again, “you can always practice on me. I'll catch you if you lose your balance.”

Callie ran a finger over his mouth. “Ah, I see. You would like to be mounted, my lord?”

“I would like to test your equestrian skills,” he said, “and I can think of no better way.” By now he was fully standing, for the thought of Callie riding him like a stallion had stirred his blood. He regarded Callie speculatively, waiting to see what she would do.

Callie sat up, turned around, and swung one leg over him, settling onto his hips with her knees resting on either side. She reached back and guided him directly into her. “I've always preferred riding astride,” she said with a smothered laugh. “Giddiyap, my lord, and show me your paces.”