The Gamble (I) (61 page)

“Scott... I...”

His hands stilled but remained at the button. “Are you shy? Don’t be shy, sweets,” he said, touching her cheek.

“Be warned... I’m... I’m crooked.”

His brows lowered. “You’re what?”

“I’m crooked. My deformity... my hips... one is lower than the other and I... I pad one... and... and...” She had stammered only once in her life, after she had been attacked in Proffitt. How disconcerting, how embarrassing to be doing so again, half-undressed before her bridegroom.

But he attacked the problem directly. He put both hands on her hips and squeezed. “Is that what this is about? This puny wad of battin’ I feel here? Let’s see.” In an instant her petticoat lay at her feet and her secret was exposed. He held her by the hips, dipped his knees and bent back, inspecting her. “I knew a woman once who put these in her bodice. Stuck my hand in there and came up with a bale o’ cotton instead of a breast, and you can imagine what I... oh, damn my hide, I don’t think I was supposed t’ say that on my weddin’ night, was I?”

Long before he finished she was laughing. She flung her arms about his neck. “Scott Gandy, I love you. I was so worried about it. So terribly worried.”

“Well, worry no more, my lady. The point is, nobody’s perfect, includin’ me.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. Come here and sit down.” He hauled her toward the portable steps beside the high bed. “You’re not shy about your feet, are y’?”

“My feet?”

“Because I’m goin’ t’ take your shoes off.”

He nabbed a buttonhook from the bureau and squatted before her wearing nothing but his wrinkled ivory trousers. Taking her heel in hand, he placed her foot flush against his crotch, and she couldn’t help staring at the unexpected sight. Each time he wielded the hook, her foot bobbed against him. Heat rose in her body and her imagination ran wild. The shoe came off and he set it aside carefully,
taking her silk-clad foot firmly in both hands, massaging it. She lifted her eyes to find his rising from the dark patches at her breasts to her own eyes.

“Anybody ever taken your shoes off before?”

“N... no.” Her eyes skittered down again, drawn against her will to the seam of his trousers, then up his corded arms to the scar on the left one.

He kissed her instep. She felt her face grow hot, her insides liquefy, as he regarded her with apparent calm. When he spoke, his voice was unnaturally silky.

“You have very pretty feet. Did y’ know that?”

She stared at her white-stockinged foot in his dark, kneading fingers and couldn’t think of a word to say. Feet? All this could happen inside a woman while a man fondled her
feet?
When her eyes flashed back up to his, he was grinning. Then he dropped his attention to her second foot, removed the shoe, and rested his elbows on his knees... still squatting as before.

“Take off your stockin’s. Y’ won’t want t’ get them wet.”

He made no pretense about doing anything but enjoying the sight of her rolling the silk down her legs and plucking it off. But he waited until she had finished the task before rising and reaching for the button at his waist. “I like watchin’ you do that,” he mused, while she wondered what protocol demanded at a moment like this. Before she could decide if a woman watched or turned away, he shucked off his trousers and stood before her in thigh-length cotton-knit drawers. He reached for her hand, abruptly changing moods. “Come on. Let’s go swimmin’.”

They made the journey in haste beneath the black shadow of the magnolia, along the white ribbon of driveway, across the road, along the dew-laden grass to the swimming house.

“Scott, we forgot the lantern.”

“Should I go back for it?”

Foolish question, after what he’d been doing to her in the bedroom. As if she wanted to waste time any more than he.

They swam in the dark, plunging in with scarcely a thought about the icy water or any dangers it might hide. They cleaned themselves secretly, thinking of the soft glow of the gaslights in the bedroom, the thick, high mattress, the
filmy white netting, the rich scent of lemon lilies. She heard him go under and come up with a toss of the head that sent splatters across the water. He heard her strike out for the far end and followed. Then they turned together and swam a lap back to the marble steps, with him pulling ahead all the way. He was waiting when she got there, and caught one wet, slippery arm and hauled her against him, stealing a hot, wild, impatient kiss while pressing his turgid body full against hers.

She broke away, breathless, holding him by two handfuls of hair. “What were you doing back there in the bedroom, Scott Gandy?”

“You know. Don’t tell me you don’t know.” She heard the seduction in his voice. “Tell me what it did t’ y’.”

She could no more have voiced it than she could have kept the color from leaping to her cheeks while he placed her hand on his intimate parts.

“Scott, you’re wicked.”

“Not wicked... in love... in rut... doin’ matin’ dances with my wife, who loves them but is too shy t’ admit it. I’ll show you every step before I’m done.”

He kissed her. Their lips were cold, their tongues hot. Her sleek arms caught him about the neck and their wet skins glided sinuously. And there, in blackness as absolute as space, he caressed her cold, shivering body through the wet cotton—breasts, hips, and, for the first time, the intimate spot between her legs. Water streamed down their noses, cheeks, through his moustache, into their mouths, along her back, and over his arm. Silken water that bonded them together like a liquid coil. His left arm caught her just below the shoulder blades, and she flattened her hands on his sleek back, while his free hand roved where it would.

“Gussie... Gussie... I want you. I’m goin’ t’ be so damned good for you.”

It was good already, having his hands on her. Even through cold, wet cotton he made her gasp, and he covered the sound with his own mouth, then uttered, “Say it, Gussie... say what you’re feelin’.”

“I love your hands... on me... I feel... beautiful... whole.”

It struck her how coupling need not be reserved for rosewood beds with their counterpanes turned down and their meticulously laundered linens—how a body, when incited, might settle for a sleek, wet marble slab, if only this agony of waiting could be brought to an end.

Without a word, he led her from the pool. A cursory toweling, an impatient kiss, and they were hurrying through the ebony night to the great white house that took them in once again.

Their gaslights waited, casting a thin band of yellow across the balcony spindles as he carried her again up the curving staircase. When their bedroom door closed he stood her on her feet and caught her close in a single movement, their lips and arms clinging. The long, plodding hours of the day had served their purpose. Two aroused bodies, denied too long, strained together.

She had no time for shyness; he would allow none. When he stepped back it was without compunction, to free the buttons at her shoulders and roll her wet undergarment down to her hips, where it angled and clung. Cupping her breasts, he lifted them, looked down, adored.

“Look at you... ah, Gussie.” He dropped to one knee, took a cold puckered nipple into his mouth, and warmed it with his tongue, plucked it with his lips, caught it lightly between his teeth. Her eyes closed. Her breath caught. Tendrils of feeling coiled downward and a gamut of incredible sensations became hers. He warmed her other breast as he had the first, his moustache prickling faintly as he played the same arousing game with it—teeth and tongue, ebb and rush.

Her head fell back, her eyelids closed. The awkwardness she’d expected was nowhere to be found. To be a woman so loved took away all but the lightness of standing before a man while his lips ran over you.

He kissed the hollow between her ribs, caught the recalcitrant cotton undergarment, and rolled it past her hips until it dropped to the floor.

She lifted her head and her eyes came open. In them he saw that she was stunned by her own arousal, by each
touch, each new plateau of passion he awakened in her. He touched her again, deliberately, while she looked down, a passing brush of his fingertips up her hair, stomach, breast. Then he stood and rolled his own wet drawers down and kicked them aside.

Her eyes locked on his face.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“No.”

He waited, watching her pale eyes flicker with hesitation. “Would you tell me, if you were?”

“There’s no reason to be. I love you.” But her voice shook and her eyes refused to lower.

He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her wedding ring. “Perhaps we shouldn’t disappoint Violet. Would you like your new nightgown on? I’ll only take it back off again, but that can be fun.”

Without awaiting her answer, he crossed to the bed, brushed the netting aside, and picked up the nightgown. She watched him—naked and lean and unashamed—and thought,
I am twice blessed. Not only a beautiful man, but a gentle one. Gentle and patient with his ignorant virgin bride.

He returned and she watched him, understanding that he was giving her time to acclimate, to study, to learn.

“Lift your arms,” he ordered, and slid the nightgown down to cover her, then gathered the blue ribbon beneath her breasts and painstakingly tied it in a bow.

She touched his hands as they finished the task. “You’re a very beautiful man, I think.”

He took a long moment to study her face, slowly scanning the green eyes, the broad forehead, the mouth and jawline he’d first admired. “And you’re a very beautiful woman, I think. We should do well together, shouldn’t we?”

He picked her up and carried her to the bed, placed her on the high mattress, and joined her. Beneath the tester it was shadowed and private and the scent of the lilies drifted about their heads. Beyond the netting the moths continued their dance, while within it bright dark eyes held pale green ones.

He had a way about him—oh, indeed, a way. Easy and natural, taking her in his arms and lying full-length against her, kissing her languorously, while his hands began once more the magic they’d worked in the pool. She had expected moments of awkwardness, but how could one feel awkward with such a man? Ah, such a man.

He gave each part of her body its due—hair first—plucking the magnolia from it, laying it on her breast, while discarding hairpins until her tresses lay like a pool of copper beneath her. Lips next—warm, lush kisses in which his tongue invited hers to dance. Ears, neck, and breasts, brushing them first with the magnolia petals, then bestowing textured kisses through Violet’s white cotton handiwork, biting her gently, wetting the cloth, and her, and bringing a murmur to her throat. He freed the blue ribbon he’d so recently tied and explored her flesh beneath the gown. Just the surface, skimming flat hands lightly over thighs, stomach, breasts, collarbone, as if memorizing the exterior before delving deeper.

“Mmm...”

“You like that?”

“Oh, yes... your hands. I know them so well. Behind my eyelids I’m seeing them while they touch me.”

“Describe them for me.”

“Beautiful hands with perfect long fingers, black hair—enough to make them incredibly masculine—reaching down from a narrow wrist, a wrist with a white cuff showing beneath your black jacket. That’s how I pictured them while we were apart.”

“You pictured my hands while we were apart?”

“Always. Lighting a cheroot, holding a poker hand, tousling Willy’s hair. I used to go to bed at night in my apartment and think about your hands and wonder what it would be like if they did this.”

“And this?” She held her breath and shifted in accommodation as he touched her intimately again.

“Ohhh, Scott...”

She felt the gown being jerked over her head with much greater impatience than it had been donned. They lay with nothing between them but time to explore.

“Touch me,” he told her, “don’t be afraid.”

He was a revelation—firm, hot, and resilient. And when she reached he fell still. Still as the hand of a sundial while the world swirled on. He took her in hand to tutor her, and at her first stroke his breath grew labored in the quietness of the room. He rolled against her, and away, touching her with promise soon turned to fulfillment. Within her, spring arrived—a bud swelled, burgeoned, blossomed, and made her call out mindlessly as she reached the peak she’d been too ignorant to expect.

“Scott... oh, Scott...” she appealed afterward, wondering at the tears in her eyes and the slackening shudders that had claimed her.

“That’s what it’s all about, Gussie. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

She had no form of expression to convey all she felt—the wonder, the discovery, the newness. So she threw her arms about him and kissed him, squeezing her eyes shut. And before the kiss ended the miracle happened—she was at last filled, virgin no more. His body joined hers with the same ease and grace of all that had come before. He rested within her, unmoving, letting her adjust.

She felt his presence and spoke a single word, whispering it at his temple while he poised within her.

“Welcome.”

“Gussie... my love...” he replied.

And all that followed was beautiful. His agile movements, his tensed muscles, the murmurs, the approval, the shift of position, the pause to appreciate and study each other at close range... then the beat again carrying them both on strokes of silk, restoring in her once more the wondrous charm of desire that burst its bounds a second time moments before he shuddered... and lunged... with teeth bared.

In the after minutes they fell to their sides, replete, touching each other’s faces as if for the first time. They lay still as the shadows of the netting that textured their skin, giving the moment its due.

“Are you all right?” he whispered at length.

“Yes.”

“Your hip?”

“Yes.” She had forgotten all about her hip.

He took her to his breast, looped his leg over hers, and molded their bodies together like the wilted petals of the magnolia that lay crushed beneath them. He sighed, long and satisfied, and toyed with the fine mahogany hair at her nape, and she brushed her fingertips over his back. The moths beat against the netting, their shadows dancing over the entwined limbs of bride and groom.