She murmured some wordless reply, adrift in pleasure, wanting this to go on forever She seemed to be floating above herself, looking down at a strange, lucky woman being pleasured by her man. She'd never imagined people talking when they did things like this, yet his soothing tones freed her from the bonds of restraint, and the lover she watched from above answered her consort, "Sometimes all I have to do is think of you and they get that way. Once it even happened in church."
He chuckled softly against her neck, but it was all he could do to keep from tumbling her backward and delving into her, deep and hard and now. He felt like he would burst from his skin! He wanted to taste her, smell her, hear her whimper, feel her flesh surround his. But he restrained himself, knowing it best to make it last long and good for both of them. He plied her with more kisses, running a hand up her back, then low along her spine. His fingers slid to her waist and pulled her bare hip up hard against the erect evidence of his desire, giving her time to learn the newness of a man, teaching her the difference between himself and her He eased a hand onto her stomach, the other to the base of her spine, and sat as if praying, with her between his folded hands. Then his large palm swallowed up her breast as he took her with him, back, back, onto the softness of rumpled sheets. She fell atop his hard chest, but he rolled her onto her back, dipping his head down to kiss her shoulder, her collarbone, then the warm swell of skin below it. She felt his soft moustache, pictured it vividly as his hot, wet tongue trailed nearer and nearer a nipple until at last he was upon it, receiving the cockled tip beneath his stroking tongue, making her gasp, arch her ribs, and reach blindly for his hair. He tugged and sucked, sending billows of feeling flowing outward, downward from where he taught her skin to crave the moistness of his loving. He left one nipple wet, and she shivered as he moved to the other, her palm now guiding his jaw. With his ardent kiss upon her breast, all of her long-unused senses came to life, sluicing downward in a grand, liquid rush. Her nipples ached sweetly for more, but he stretched out beside her then, bending an arm beneath his ear, tickling her chest with a single playful fingertip. Goose bumps erupted all over her body, then she laughed girlishly and rolled a little bit, pushing the teasing finger away.
"I want to touch you all over," he said. But, curiously, he had removed his touch from her altogether, making her long greedily for its return. They stared into each other's eyes for a long, intense minute, neither of them speaking or moving. She sent him a tacit invitation to come back and try again, unable to say it in words. His hand lay down along his hip. He lifted it slowly and saw her eyelids flinch and widen as he touched her stomach lightly with the tip of an index finger, drawing tendrils and grapevines around her navel, up her ribs, around her nipples, up to her throat. Then, still with that single fingertip, he surveyed the line along which the fine hairs of her body met, joined, and pointed like nature's arrows, to the place which wept for want of him. He pressed her stomach, letting his fingertips trail into Spanish moss, lingering there while she lay with the breath caught in her pleasured throat. But as his fingers moved lower she recoiled, instinctively protecting herself against intrusion.
Realizing what she'd done, she felt awkward and stupid, covering herself that way, but she was suddenly, inexplicably afraid. Surely he would get disgusted now and think her utterly childish and realize he'd been wasting his time with her.
But instead, he whispered near her ear, "It's all right, Abbie, it's all right." He looped an arm loosely about her waist and kissed her again, exploring her back, shoulders, and the firm rises at the base of her spine.
He lifted his head, looking down into her face. "Abbie, have you changed your mind?" he whispered, husky and strained. Her wide, uncertain eyes looked up at him, but she could not speak. Sensing her last-minute fear, he soothed her with whispered words, running the backs of his knuckles down her shoulder and around the outer perimeter of a breast. "Your skin, Ab, I never felt such skin. It's like warm custard pudding… smooth… and soft… and sweet." And as if to prove it, he leaned to take a taste, just inside her elbow where the soft pulse throbbed. He took the velvety skin gently between his teeth, tugging at it tenderly, then buried his face in the hollow of her abdomen. Her spine went taut, so he eased up to whisper into her mouth, "Don't be afraid, Abbie."
Then gently, insistently, his hand flowed downward, warm, slow, but sure. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath and held it tightly, envisioning the exact length and strength of his fingers before they sought, found, and entered.
She was sweetly swollen and wholly aroused, all sleek, wet satin. He braced up on an elbow, the better to see her. He moved his finger, watching her face all the while—the eyelids that trembled, the lips that fell open, the cheeks that grew hollow. She arched and gasped at what was happening within her. He plied her with the certain knowledge that she was ripe with the need for this. He teased her knowingly until, in abandon, she flung an arm over her head, eyes hidden now behind her elbow, her breath fast, hot and urgent.
He smiled, watching her go all sensuous and stretching.
Then his touch slipped away.
She opened her startled eyes to his smiling face above her.
"Jesse…" she choked, dying of need.
"Shhh… we have all night." He circled her with a strong arm and turned them onto their sides, pulling her up tightly against his hot length. His knee slid silkily between her legs, rode up high against the place his hand had abandoned. With the sole of his foot he caressed the back of her calf and the softness behind her knee. Even in the vague light he could see the look of longing in her eyes. He kissed her just enough to keep the fever high, then pressed her shoulder blades back against the sheets again. With agonizing slowness he slid his hand along her belly, her ribs, her breast, her armpit, then on up, up, up the length of her loose-flung arm, finally closing over her palm, carrying it down between their two bodies. He felt her tense as she sensed where he was taking that hand.
"No…" she uttered before she could stop herself. Her fingers strained against his grip, leaving him doubtful of how to proceed with her. At last he laid her hand upon his ribs, leaving the choice up to her.
But to tip the scales in his favor he used ardent words and a timeless language of body to tempt her.
"Touch me, Abbie," he encouraged, "touch me like I just touched you." His voice was a racked whisper, his kisses trailed fire paths across her face, his knees and hips spoke intimate promises against her. The hand remained on his ribs, trembling there, warm and slightly damp. "That's how it's done, Ab, we touch each other first. Did you like it when I touched you?" He heard her swallow convulsively. "It was good, wasn't it? Men like it just as much as women do."
A fearful timidity swelled her throat but the hand would not move. Do it! Do it! she told herself, her heart leaping and lunging within her breast. But nothing had prepared her for this. She had thought to lie passively and let him do what he would with her The thought of fondling him made her palm burn to know him, but she was afraid once she reached, touched, her mother's spirit would somehow know what she was doing.
"Just a touch, then you'll know." He reached to titillate her again, hinting at bestowing the fire that had driven her wanton before, and she found herself thrusting up in welcome. But his teasing fingers left again, and she understood frustration as she never had before. She swallowed and made her hand move. He fell dead still, waiting. But when at last her fingertips came into contact with his tumescence they retracted into a quick clinch: he was so unexpectedly hot!
He lost all sense of caution then and moved swiftly, capturing her wrist between their bellies. "Just take it, Ab, just touch," he begged in a strident whisper Fear lodged in her throat. The back of her hand now rested against that soft-hard heat, but timidity crushed her will to do what he asked. She pinched her eyes shut as he relentlessly forced her fingers to close around his engorged flesh and showed her how he would have her please him. A racked sound fell into the night and her eyes flashed open to find him raised on an elbow, his head flung back, mouth open almost as if in the throes of pain. He groaned raggedly and she jerked her hand away guiltily.
"Jesse, what is it! Did I hurt you?"
He swooped over her in a rough, swift enveloping turn, clutching her hand back where it had been.
"Lord… no, no, you didn't hurt me. You can do anything you want… Do it… please." His lips smothered hers, almost violently, his tongue and hips thrusting rhythmically while his hand slid over her stomach in a frantic search now.
Her senses were torn between the sinuous ebb and flow within her grasp and the warm hand sliding up her thigh, the faint feather strokes with which he again quickened her, his knowing fingertips never faltering. Femininity had lain fallow within her for thirty-three years, planted by nature, nourished by time, until it took now but a kiss-breadth to make it erupt and flower.
She was dimly aware that he roughly jerked her hand off his flesh, but her eyes could no more open than could her body control the volcanic climax which he brought to it so effortlessly. And all the while he chanted murmurously, leaning on an elbow above her, kissing her eyes, stroking her flesh. "Let it come, Ab… let yourself fly… fly, Abbie… fly with me…"
His name escaped her throat as spasms of heat pulsated from deep in her stomach downward, downward, and her hips reached high, yearning. When the final seizure gripped her, she was unprepared for its force. She had never, never guessed… aaah, the power of it, the rapture… Jesse, she thought, ah, Jess, it's so good… Jess, you were right… Mother, why did you warn me against this?
Her nails cut into his arm. A rasping cry of ecstasy was wrenched from her throat and even as she shuddered his body covered hers. He spoke her name as the silken hair of his chest pressed upon her bare breasts, absorbing the faint sheen of moisture there. His tumescent body searched, probed, and found its home. He flanked her narrow shoulders with his hands, bracing away.
"Abbie, it's going to hurt, love, but just once, I promise."
Hot flesh entered her; her own resisted. She started to struggle, pushing against his chest. "Relax, Abbie, relax and it'll be better. Don't fight me, Abbie." But her fists pummeled him, so he captured them and pinned them to the mattress. "I want to make it good for you," he intoned as his weight pressed heavily and he plunged. She gasped and a cry of appeal tore from her throat, but he smothered it with his kiss, then spoke her name in loving apology.
From the ecstasy of a moment ago she was seared by pain. Her shoulders strained up off the mattress, but he held her helpless, moving within her. Delicate membrane tore and sent stabbing anguish through her recently pleasured limbs. She struggled uselessly, for her every resistance was controlled by his awesome strength and size. His breath scraped harshly with each thrust until at last she gave up, throwing her face aside, waiting passively for the torment to end.
As Jesse moved, each stroke brought shards of glassy pain to him, too. The long-unused muscles of his leg flamed as if a hot poker had been thrust into his wound. He gritted his teeth, his hands clinching her wrists like talons, thinking of how small she was, causing himself more misery by shimming his weight high to keep from hurting her. He fought pain in an effort to derive the most from his pleasure, but the faster he moved, the more it hurt. Sweat broke out on his brow as pain slowly but surely got the upper hand. His head sagged down, and his efforts at release grew grim. His arms shook mightily and a deep groan escaped him when finally he collapsed upon her, burning jets of white-hot fire searing his loins. He sighed, but it was not a replete sound, it was filled rather with relief.
He fell half off her, one leg still sprawled across her thighs, and she knew even in the depth of her naivete that something was wrong. It had not been good for him as it had been earlier for her. He groaned into the pillow beside her ear and rolled himself away, limb by limb. But she could hear him gritting his teeth, and could feel his tensile muscles still shaking. She reviewed it all and knew exactly whose fault it was.
His sudden withdrawal could only have been caused by her lack of prowess. Unsure of what she'd done wrong, she knew beyond doubt it was something, for it came back to her how he'd roughly jerked her hand off his body. He lay now with the back of a wrist over his eyes, obviously greatly relieved that it was over. Chagrined, she rolled away, cursing herself for being a stupid virgin of thirty-three, unable to perform even the simplest act to his satisfaction.
"Where are you going?"
"Upstairs." She began to sit up, but a long arm pinned her flat.
"What's the matter?"
"Let me go." She could already feel tears gathering in her throat.
"Not until you tell me what's wrong."
Her eyelids stung. She bit the inside of her lip, disappointment, anger, and guilt settling in with a sudden, deflating whump.
"Thank you, Mr. DuFrayne, for a heartfelt performance," she said stingingly.
"For
what
!" His neck crimped up, his fingers bit into her arm.
"What else shall I call such a sham?"
"What's wrong, Abbie, didn't I do it to suit you?" he asked sarcastically.
"Oh, you suited me fine. I fear I'm the one who did not suit."
He instantly softened. "Hey, it's your first time. It takes time to learn, all right?"
She pried his fingers from her arm and rolled away from him, thoroughly ashamed now of all the moaning and groaning she'd done when he had, in his turn, acted as if he couldn't wait to be done with her. He'd rolled off and out of her as fast as he could, then just lay there like a big, silent lump, saying nothing. All right then! If he had nothing to say, neither did she! She stared at the moonlit window, battling tears, remembering how he hadn't wanted to make love to her in the first place, how she'd practically had to beg him. Mortified, she lurched up as if to leave, but he got her by the shoulders and toppled her back down.