Always in My Dreams (28 page)

Skye had to raise her face to look at him. "He made advances."

"What does that mean?"

She gave him a sour, disbelieving look. "You know perfectly—"

"I'm asking you."

"He kissed me."

Walker waited for Skye to say more. "And?" he prompted, drawing out the single word when she remained silent.

Skye's green eyes darkened. The narrowed look was both stubborn and defiant. "And I didn't want him to."

Walker exhaled slowly. "That's all I had to know," he said quietly. He sat beside her. "Are you all right?"

Staring at her hands in her lap, she nodded. "I was able to get away from him. Did Mr. Parnell tell you I welcomed his advances?"

"No. He didn't tell me anything like that." What Parnell had done hardly fit the category of setting Skye up.

She turned her face to look at him, her expression anxious. "You believe me?"

"Yes," he said.

Skye saw the truth of it in his face. It was important that he didn't doubt her now, not about this.

Walker took Skye's hands and raised them from her lap. He turned them over, examining the wrists. The skin around her small bones was still red. "Did he do this?" he asked.

She looked down at herself. By tomorrow she would have a bracelet of bruises on each wrist. "I suppose he did." It had all happened so quickly. She hadn't had time to think of what was being done, only that it was being done to her. Closing her eyes, she thought about it now. She could see herself being bent painfully backward over the workbench, her arms jerked hard behind her. He had forced her down so that her own weight pinned her arms. His mouth was a weight on her, too. Mashing against her lips, her teeth, her tongue.

Skye shuddered.

Walker was watching her. She was not so unmoved by the experience as she would have had him believe. He let go of her hands and cupped the side of her face with his palm. Her eyes opened. For a moment she simply looked at him blankly. When her eyes focused she gave him a weak smile. His fingers drifted over her face lightly. He touched the arch of her cheek, her temple. He let the tips follow the curve of her jaw and his thumb passed back and forth across her lower lip.

The touch was gentle and sweet. In the dark of night, in her own room, Skye might have been repelled by the very lightness of it. But this was afternoon. Pale winter sunshine filtered in the French doors and cast a long rectangle of light on the hardwood floor. She could see the man touching her was Walker and there was nothing insubstantial or otherworldly about the tautly carved edges of his face or the slightly crooked line of his nose. The centers of his eyes were darkening as he searched her face. There was desire there... and a question.

Skye leaned into him. She rubbed her cheek against his palm, turning into his caress. His head lowered a fraction. Her own hands lifted and slipped behind his neck. Her fingers threaded in the hair at his nape. She raised her face and urged him forward with her fingertips. The air fairly hummed between them.

Walker's mouth fit itself to hers. There was a hard and heady hunger sustaining the kiss. His lips moved over hers insistently, greedy for the taste of her. His tongue pressed for entry. It wasn't enough to touch the corner of her mouth or trace the line of her lips.

Skye's hands slipped from Walker's neck to his shoulders. At his sweetly urgent stroking, her mouth parted wider. The kiss deepened. She answered it, thrusting against him, not only with her tongue but with all of her body. The intimacy of the kiss was being repeated all along her length. She felt herself falling backward, cradled first by Walker's arms, then by the bed. He followed her and she took his weight onto herself. For a moment his chest was flush to her breasts and it was her flesh that yielded. She knew the hard length of his legs by the separation of hers and the broadness of his back when her arms clutched him close.

He shifted, twisting so they lay stretched across the bed. His hard, deep kiss had become a dozen swiftly pressing ones. She felt the imprint of his mouth on her eyes, her cheek, at the base of her throat. His tongue found the sensitive spot just behind her ear. His touch there made her body arch and her fingertips whiten against his shirt.

Walker had no patience for buttons. He tore at the ones at Skye's back. He pushed the loosened neckline over her shoulders, along with the straps of her chemise. His hand slipped beneath her bodice. She flinched, not from the intimacy of his touch, but from the heat. Still, he paused and looked at her. She didn't avert her eyes. He held her racing heartbeat in his palm and the edge of his hand cupped her breast. She turned slightly so that the heart of his palm only held her breast. His thumb passed lightly across her nipple and when Skye's breath caught he bent his head and kissed her again, giving her the breath she had lost in that moment.

It felt good. His weight. His mouth. The shape of his hand against her skin. Pleasure hummed through Skye. She tugged at tails of Walker's shirt, pulling them free of his trousers. Her hands slid under the material and stroked his skin. His flesh retracted under her sweeping touch. He sat up long enough to rid himself of his shirt. It sailed over the edge of the bed as she was reaching for him again.

Walker pushed the edge of her bodice below her breasts. Where his thumb had grazed her nipple, the nub was like a hard pink pebble. He bent. His mouth closed over the tip, worrying it gently between his teeth. He felt the shudder that rippled through her as if he had tugged on ribbons of pure sensation. Her fingertips trailed upward along his spine. He raised his head. She tried to say something but the words never came as he gave equal attention to her other breast. Her fingers tightened in the curling ends of his hair at his nape.

He laid a trail of kisses between her breasts. They went upward, ending at the curve of her neck. He sipped her skin. When she moved under him her thigh was pressed to his groin. Of their own accord his hips thrust against her.

"Sweet Jesus," he groaned. Her skin seemed to vibrate against the moist heat of his mouth. He raised his head a fraction. Skye was watching him, her eyes dark and wide, alert with passion rather than sleepy with it. There was a certain willfulness in her desire. Her sensual maturity had not quite outstripped her innocence. She wasn't challenging him, he thought, she was daring herself.

Skye sensed his hesitation. She raised her face and touched her mouth to his. Her lips moved over his mouth in the manner he had taught her. Her tongue traced the edges and slipped along his upper lip. She let his shudder pass into her and the weight of him cocooned her again. They engaged in a sweet battle where his mouth was a formidable weapon and her hands were no shield at all.

Her gown was pushed to her hips, then lower, past her thighs, her knees, until it was sliding over the edge of the bed. Her chemise gathered at her waist. Her petticoats were already a tangle about her legs, hiked up to the level of her knees. Her calves lay bare and smooth against the bedcovers. She raised one leg and wound it around his, stretching with feline grace to feel more of him against her. He groaned softly as her palms stroked his back and arms. Her fingers edged along his waistband and sometimes dipped beneath it. His skin burned where she touched him.

Walker rolled away from Skye and made short order of his clothes. He made no attempt to hide his arousal but turned toward her, unashamed by his body's response.

Skye's flush covered her entire body but it never occurred to her to look away. In truth she was fascinated, frightened, and a little awed. "Oh my," she said softly. She glanced at Walker's taut features, the creases at the corners of his eyes, the muscle working in his jaw, and asked worriedly, "Does it hurt?"

He stared at her a moment, a little amazed himself. A wicked grin slowly transformed his features as he bent over her. "More than you know," he fairly growled. Kissing her full on the mouth, his hands finished with her undergarments until they were both splendidly naked.

Skye's hands trailed to the small of his back, then over his buttocks. The texture of his skin delighted her. She kissed his shoulder and she moved lower. Her fingernail flicked his flat nipple. Her tongue aroused it. Whatever happened in this bed, she thought, was not simply being done to her. She was doing it, too. The power of it was heady.

Walker's hand traveled over the length of her thigh. The caress was insistent and a shiver of desire coursed through Skye. His mouth covered hers while his fingers teased the underside of her raised knee. He drew them across the back of the thigh, then the soft inner side. Her lips parted. Her legs parted. He touched her intimately, his fingers making a gentle exploration. She was tense now, but not resistant. When he lifted his head to watch her she drew a ragged breath.

The response of her body surprised her. She was warm and wet where he touched her. Her hands fell away from the back of his neck and curled in the covers beneath her. His hand was between her legs, but he was watching her. She couldn't look anywhere but at him, feel anything but the heat. It was growing white-hot just beneath his fingers and there was a certain way he would touch her that would make sparks skitter along the surface of her skin. She drew in her lower lip as she sipped her next breath. Sensation started to coil in her. She lifted her hips slightly, pushing with her heels against the mattress. Her fingers tightened. Her eyes fluttered closed.

He nudged her mouth, kissing her softly. "Open them for me," he said against her lips. She raised her lids. Her legs parted more. He was satisfied with both responses. "You're so beautiful," he whispered. He eased a finger inside her. She was tight but accepting. Kissing her again, thoroughly and deeply, he removed his hand. Walker changed his position, parting her thighs wider with his knees. His hands slipped under her bottom and lifted her. Her eyes had dropped away from his and she was watching their bodies now. She reached out but her arms fell away uselessly and her fingers curled into the covers again as he entered her this time.

Pain, not passion, darkened her eyes now. He held his entry and gave her time to adjust before he moved again. He leaned forward and pushed into her with a single hard thrust. She would have cried out save for the mouth that covered hers. Her body trembled beneath his. She struck at his shoulders. He quieted her with gentle words. His breath was sweet and soft against her skin. His mouth nudged her ear and he kissed the tears that spiked her lashes.

He held himself very still and denial etched lines in his face. He felt Skye relax under him, and even shift slightly to accommodate him. Her eyes were still faintly accusing.

"You hurt me," she whispered.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Skye's eyes clouded. What wouldn't happen again? The pain or the pleasure? She was on the verge of asking him when he began kissing the side of her neck. Her breasts seemed to swell against his chest. He was moving in her with slow, deliberate thrusts, and her hips were rising to meet him separate of any thought she had to the contrary.

The spiral of pleasure was rising from the exact point where it had stopped. The initial rush of it was intense, and it only increased from there. The driving of his body was rhythmic, and Skye was captured by the seductive cadence, even her breathing was rising and falling in the same arc of desire.

She held his shoulders, his upper arms, then ran her hands along his torso. She held him to her. Her neck arched. He kissed the hollow of it and the underside of her chin. Her thighs pressed the sides of his buttocks. She found purchase in the mattress and pushed herself against him.

He rocked her. She cradled him. There were moments when she thought she could not bear the pleasure and others when she could not bear it to end. Sensation rose swiftly and powerfully, and at the very apex of it, she cried out. He thrust into her harder, then more rapidly, pushing himself over the same edge where he had driven her. She watched his face as pleasure twisted it, then she shared his shudder and accepted his seed.

Skye's body fell quiet slowly. Her muscles released tension by degrees and they trembled again when he eased himself out of her. She was reluctant to let him go but did nothing except let her fingers drift across his shoulder as he rolled away.

Walker turned on his side. The angle of the sun had changed and now light slanted across the edge of their bed. The curve of Skye's shoulder was caressed by it. Where it touched her hair the color looked bright enough to burn her skin. Fascinated, he wound and unwound the lock around his finger. He bent his head and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were pliant and soft. The kiss lingered.

"Mmm," was all she said when he withdrew.

Walker smiled. Her eyelids were heavy and her full mouth had a sleepy, pouting look to it. He reached around her and pulled part of the coverlet across her thighs and midriff. Her eyes closed completely and she stirred without energy. He rolled off the far side of the bed, then wrapped the rest of the coverlet around her. The last glimpse of her breasts actually made him sigh.

Walker chuckled under his breath. The last time he'd been moved to sigh at the sight of a bosom was fifteen years ago. On that occasion he had surprised the daughter of the ambassador to China by letting the stableboy sample her not inconsiderable charms. He'd sampled them himself much later in life and had not been so impressed on his second viewing.

Walker gathered up his clothes as he rounded the bed. He washed at the basin before he dressed. His eyes kept wandering to Skye. He hardly knew a thing about her, except that she wasn't a housekeeper. She knew even less about him. For what had just taken place in his bed hadn't seemed to matter. It had never bothered Walker before. He wished it didn't now.