The Greatest Lover Ever (30 page)

He just did not want to wear that blindfold.

“Georgie?” His voice was hoarse now. He licked his lips.

Again, silence so deep, it seemed to sing in his ears. She wouldn’t come out of hiding until he tied that bloody strip of black velvet around his eyes.

On some strange level, he understood that this was very important to her, to them both. If he refused to play along, it might … well, she might take it as a rebuff and become less … adventurous, take less initiative in future.

Vulnerability
. That’s what he’d seen in her face that afternoon. If he rejected this overture, he’d strike at something precious. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world.

An invisible band around his chest seemed to tighten as he reached out again for the blindfold. His hand actually shook.

Damn it! Put it on, you fool. What are you waiting for?
It was only a blindfold, not a scold’s bridle.

He snatched up the length of velvet. In jerky, rough movements, he pressed the blindfold to his face, tied it in place behind his head. Rather tighter than was comfortable.

The world went black. He knew several moments of acute disorientation, heard the harsh saw of his own breaths. The material seemed to suffocate him, even though it left his nostrils and mouth free. The knot bit into the back of his skull.

He sucked in air, forced himself not to rip the damned thing off again.

His voice was hoarse. “I’ve done it. Georgie? Georgie, you can come out now.”

*   *   *

Courage, Georgie.

She slipped out from behind the door that connected the boxing saloon to a change room. Silently, she watched Beckenham’s tall, broad-shouldered figure. She saw with approval that he’d dressed appropriately for the occasion.

She herself had stripped down to nothing but a thin lawn shift for this meeting. Feeling the cool air brush against her bare arms, she padded in bare feet toward him.

Mr. Mahomed’s baths had given her the idea. She’d wanted it to be a complete surprise, however, and until she hit on the notion of a blindfold, she’d been at a loss to know how to get Beckenham to the bathhouse without hinting at her plans.

The boxing saloon adjoined the bathhouse by a narrow corridor, purpose-built to allow Beckenham to move from training direct to a hot bath without exposing his overheated body to the cold outside.

On approach, she saw now that Beckenham held himself with an odd tension. She hadn’t expected him to react as he had to the simple act of blindfolding himself. But then, he was a man who liked to be in control, wasn’t he?

“Marcus,” she whispered, making him turn his head sharply in her direction. “I’m here.”

He gave a sharp gasp when she touched his shoulder. That pleased her. Determined to take this as slowly as they both might stand, she trailed her fingertips from his shoulder across his chest, until she met warm skin and the scribble of dark, springy hair exposed by the open V of his shirt.

Her desire ratcheted up a notch with that touch. He was hers, all hers, to do with as she wished. Hers to pleasure. Hers to love.

She glanced down. Whatever Beckenham’s feelings on the subject of blindfolds, the bulge in his trousers told her without doubt that he was as aroused as she.

He smelled of starch and a faint trace of soap and more than a hint of man. Georgie slid her hand beneath his shirt, explored the hard plates of his chest, caressed the smooth, burning hot skin. She stood on tiptoe and leaned into him, pressed a kiss to the place between his clavicles, saw the hard, convulsive movement in his throat.

He breathed heavily; she felt it, heard it, and yet she thought she might well be the first of them to break. She couldn’t wait much longer. Perhaps she might save this sort of thing for another time.

“Come with me,” she said.

Taking his hand, she led him slowly across the room and step by step, down the short connecting corridor. He waited, a muscle ticcing in his jaw, while she opened the door.

“Here we are.”

Steam greeted them in great rolling puffs. When it cleared a little, Georgie paused to admire her handiwork.

The room was an octagonal shape, with a massive round bath set in its center, built over a hot spring. Murals of bacchanalian feasts covered the walls; the ceiling was a pagan sky filled with angry-looking gods.

The curtains at the massive arched windows were drawn against prying eyes. She’d lit candles everywhere. Their flames were reflected like fairy lights in the pool. On the water’s surface floated a myriad rose petals of different colors, from deep burgundy and scarlet through to pink and white. The air was sweet and spicy, redolent of certain preparations she’d purchased from Mr. Mahomed’s in Brighton.

With Smith’s help, she’d ferried towels, robes, unguents, even fruit and cheese and wine for a midnight feast if they felt so inclined.

The fluttering in her stomach made her think she would not be hungry anytime soon.

She became aware of the labored breathing next to her. A sheen of perspiration lined Beckenham’s brow above the blindfold.

“Georgie,” he panted. “Georgie I can’t—”

He ripped off the blindfold and hurled it from him. With a violent shudder, he leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and gasped for air.

Chapter Nineteen

Georgie’s satisfaction gave way to horror. “Marcus! Marcus, what’s wrong? Here. Come here and sit down.”

She put her arm around his waist and half staggered with him toward the luxurious divan that had figured largely in her plans for tonight. He sat down hard upon it, ducking his head, wiping the sweat from his brow with his shirtsleeve. “It’s all right. I’m fine.”

Georgie knelt at his feet, her hands on his knees, her chest cramping at his obvious distress. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, my darling. Was it the blindfold?”

He shook his head but it seemed to her that the gesture wasn’t a negative, merely an attempt to shake off whatever had descended upon him just now. “Just give me a minute.”

Head still bowed, shoulders heaving, he put out his hand to her, clasped her fingers in reassurance. Distraught, she pressed his hand to her cheek.

How could she have so miscalculated? She’d seen he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the blindfold, hadn’t she? Why had she insisted he go through with that part of it? But how could she have known?

She’d thought his manner indicated leashed desire, not … not
this
.

His breathing soon calmed enough that she ventured to put up a hand to touch his cheek. “Marcus?”

Strong arms lashed around her. With a groan, he lifted her to him, kissed her long and hard, in a way that made it seem as if he were holding on to her for dear life, relying on her breath for air. That if she didn’t anchor him with her kiss and her body, he’d be swept away by some invisible force.

She didn’t understand his reaction, but she’d give him anything he needed, anything he asked of her. She was desperately sorry to have caused him pain.

He pulled her up and somehow, she was kneeling on the divan, straddling his thighs, kissing him back with all the love for him inside her, gripping his face between her palms.

His hands left her hips to fumble at his trouser buttons. Before she could pause to wonder how this would work or what she was supposed to do, he’d found her entrance and driven up inside her, impaling her to the hilt on his thick, swollen shaft.

She cried out at the wonderful feel of him filling her so completely, in such a novel way that she felt him in places she hadn’t felt him before.

Riding him was new to her, but after a little guidance she relaxed into the rhythm of it. Despite her concern, Georgie gloried in the feel of him, at the way their bodies worked together, with her setting the pace in the rise and fall of her hips, him grinding into her with his pubic bone on every upward thrust. She reveled in his closeness, at the intimacy of this act, at the sensations that spread throughout her body when he filled her to the brim.

His hungry, frenzied lovemaking had taken her by surprise. Yet she was so ready for him after all the planning and thought she’d expended on this moment, that her climax overtook her swiftly in a hot, heady rush.

He gripped her hips, steadying her as she convulsed and trembled, her head flung back, abandoned in her wild flight. Then he collapsed with her onto the divan, rolling them until he braced himself over her.

She watched his face, a dark flush high on his cheekbones, his eyes glazed with heat. He clenched his jaw and drove into her, over and over, in a hard, hot slide that seemed to go deeper with every thrust.

Incredibly, she felt the tingle in the soles of her feet again, and the low simmer in her blood as he stoked the flickers of pleasure to a blaze.

This time, when she came she took him with her. With a smothered shout of exultation, he buried his face in her hair, his big body shuddering with release.

*   *   *

When Georgie lay quietly in his arms and his heartbeat had resumed its normal pace and the panic that had closed his throat and the wildness in his body had subsided, Beckenham finally took in their surroundings. “I’m sorry, Georgie. I ruined your surprise.”

She shook her head, raising herself to a sitting position. “You haven’t. You just delayed it a little.” She stretched luxuriously. “And most enjoyably, too.”

He ran a hand down her torso as she arched into the stretch. He’d taken her like the veriest brute. He didn’t feel
too
guilty about it, however, for it hadn’t escaped him that she’d climaxed.
Twice.
Lucky for him that Georgie was a strong woman. She didn’t break easily. Not in a physical sense, at least.

Georgie met his gaze. “Will you tell me what happened to you just now? It was the blindfold, wasn’t it?”

After a hesitation, he nodded. “It was foolish. I don’t know why I—” But he did know. He did not like total darkness and he liked even less being made to feel utterly powerless in the dark.

He sat up also. “Nothing for you to worry about. I just don’t like blindfolds, that’s all.” He stood. “Let’s bathe, shall we? It would be a pity to waste all of this.”

He was playing for time; they both knew it. He thought she might insist on knowing everything immediately.

To his relief, after a slight pause, she said, “All right. Lovely.”

Thank God she was one of the few women who knew when a man didn’t want to talk. She’d get it out of him sooner or later, but she wouldn’t press him now.

Georgie had worn only a shift in which to greet him tonight. He hadn’t fully assimilated that fact until this moment. Now she whipped it over her head and dropped it on the floor. She moved to the enormous bath, completely and unashamedly nude.

His hands stilled on the waistband of his trousers as he watched her walk with that uniquely feminine gait to the pool. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, reaching halfway down her back. The roundness of her bottom, the dimples at the base of her spine that winked at him as she moved, made him stifle a groan.

Holding one slender arm out for balance, Georgie dipped her toe in the water to test it. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, a look in those sea green eyes that made his skin hot and tight. “Perfect.”

She stepped down into the water, sending rose petals drifting and spinning in her wake.

Beckenham rid himself of the remainder of his clothing in record time. He wasn’t far behind her, but he didn’t miss the frank look of appreciation she cast his naked body as he moved to join her.

The water was still warm, deliciously so, and the mineral tang of it filled his nostrils as he walked across the tiled floor of the bath toward Georgie.

He caught her around the waist and kissed her, running his hands over the water-slicked smoothness of her skin.

“Will you do something for me?” she murmured against his lips.

“Anything. As long as it doesn’t involve wearing a blindfold.” If he joked about it, he might feel less like a prize idiot.

She didn’t seize on the reference to probe him further, for which he was grateful.

“Sit on that ledge.” She indicated a wide step at the other side of the pool.

He obliged, setting his hands on the ledge and pulling himself up to sit facing her. Now they were of a height. The water lapped around her waist, and her navel played peekaboo with him as the water level rose and fell.

Those breasts, half hidden by her thick, bright hair, tantalized him, swung against him as she reached past where he sat to one of the small bottles on the side of the bath.

She poured some of the liquid into her hand, then set the bottle aside.

It smelled of jasmine and spices. She let some of the golden liquid dribble from her hands onto his chest. The contrast between its cool viscosity and his flushed skin made him shiver.

Then she touched him, working the unguent over him in firm, gentle strokes, kneading at muscles, skimming over the sensitive flesh of his nipples, up and over his shoulders, down his arms.

The last of the tension from his fight with the blindfold faded away. His bones slowly turned to jelly at her touch, even while his gut clenched with the effort of keeping his own hands to himself. She paid particular attention to his muscles, and he knew a moment’s gratitude for all the punishment he’d put his body through to keep himself fit for boxing.

“Mmm,” she murmured, framing his rib cage with her hands, then working inward, over the ridges in his belly. Languid, soft caresses that made his cock hard as a pole.

She made another appreciative sound at the sight of his member showing its interest in the proceedings.

Georgie glanced up at him, then back down. In a hushed voice, she said, “Can I touch it?”

“Please.”

Her fingertips fluttered over his cock, which jerked and hardened further at the contact. She gave a surprised chuckle, but did not let it deter her.

Slippery with unguent, even beneath the water, her hands explored his contours, made him groan as she touched the sensitive head, investigated the ridge beneath. A feather-light fingertip brushed his balls, making them tighten.