Naughty Bits 2 (31 page)

FOG HOVERED ABOVE THE WET GRASS, SWIRLING
until it wrapped itself around her body like a shroud. The light from the sun, struggling to break free of the black clouds that hung low overhead, cast her in an incandescent glow that made her appear more ghostly spectre than woman.

As if in a trance, Adrian pushed open the black-and-gilt iron gate. It protested on its hinges, but with a scrape along the fieldstone path, the gate swung open. He stepped into the cemetery, his feet carrying him over to Emmy.

The mist grew thicker, engulfing her so he nearly lost sight of her in the gloomy cocoon of fog. But then a cloud parted, revealing her as she sat on the bench, her head lowered, the long, black veil billowing softly in the crisp spring breeze.

She was holding a book and he saw that her hands were bare. His gut reacted to the sight of those small white hands. It was strange that such a simple thing should arouse him so.

As he neared her, his gaze remained focused on her delicate, pale hands; his mind filled with images of her palms sliding along his chest and traversing over his belly. Three little brown freckles lay enticingly between her thumb and index finger, spaced far enough apart so that he could kiss each one. He wanted to fall to his knees and clutch her hand to his mouth,
kissing the freckles then stroking his tongue along each one, wetting her hand for the easy glide along his skin. He imagined that hand—her left hand—with its freckles, sliding up his shaft. He wanted to feel her fingers stroking him, soothing his flesh that burned. It had been too long since he enjoyed the simple pleasure of touching—of being touched.

He stood beside her, looking down at her bent head, which was covered with her plain bonnet. “I despise the dawn. I loathe it with a passion. It is only the thought of meeting you that draws me out of my bed to brave the morning light.”

She raised her head and studied him from behind her veil. “I adore the morn. It is a time of peace and tranquility. A part of the day for quiet reflection and memories. It is truly the only time that is entirely mine.”

What drove her here? Was she grieving for a fiancé? A lover? Had she been meeting someone else here all this time? The thought tore him apart and he was amazed at how damned jealous he felt.
She was his….

“Walk with me?” he asked, offering her his arm while fighting to contain the riotous emotions inside him. He would not think of other men, would not imagine her waiting here in this secluded spot for any man other than him.

She stopped them before a weathered statue of a woman kneeling, her stone hands cupped before her in supplication. The statue was garbed in a long, flowing robe while a veil shielded her features.

“This one is my favourite.”

He felt those words, said in Emmy's quiet voice. He felt that touch as he watched her hand, slight and freckled, skate down the length of the wind-worn sculpture. He was entranced by that hand gliding over the shoulder and waist of the statue. It was as if he could feel that same hand caressing his naked flesh. And he burned. Christ, every inch of his flesh grew hot as he imagined Emmy's white little fingers trailing along his body.

Touch me that way
, he wanted to say.
Look at me that way
. But he kept silent, and instead allowed himself to become mesmerized by the sight of Emmy's gentle hands and imagining her soothing touch roaming along his aching, lonely body.

“How forlorn she looks residing over this tangled patch of overgrown shrubbery and brambles. It is as though she has been utterly abandoned—sentenced to years of loneliness until she crumbles to dust. No one will remember her and her presence here. No one but me.”

Reaching for Emmy's hand, he covered it with his, watching with a sense of power how his large hand engulfed her little one. Never had his body been so hard with anticipation, with passion and simple seduction. Never had he felt a more visceral connection to a woman. It was more than lust that drew him to her.

“From the moment I first glimpsed her through the brush she captured my heart. She has been left all alone, abandoned to this beautiful but lonely spot.”

Had Emmy been abandoned? Left alone in the world by a husband taken too soon, or a man who no longer cared for her? He experienced a mad, almost desperate urge to ask her, but then she spoke, her voice so quiet and without artifice.

“It is her face, I think, that draws me. It is veiled and concealed from us, yet one can imagine what she looks like beneath the veil and her crown of blossoms.”

He stepped closer to her so that his coat caressed her cloak and the toe of his boots touched the tips of her half boots. “What is the purpose of the veil, do you think?”

“I know little of art.” She smiled tremulously and lowered her head, as if she were ashamed of that admission. He tipped her face up and brushed the pad of his thumb along her cheek as he looked through the lace to the blue of her eyes.

“You needn't know anything of art to appreciate it, Emmy. You only need to feel it and experience the emotion the work gives you.”

“Perhaps the sculptor thought her too beautiful to be standing in such a sorrowful place. Perhaps the veil is there so we do not see her lack of beauty, so that we look beyond the physical and into the heart of her, so that we may take the time to know her as something more than a physical beauty. What do you see in her?”

“Sadness. Loneliness.
Need.
” He was not looking at the statue, but at Emmy, her shrouded face showing those very same things. “She needs to be understood and loved by a man who would protect her. A man who could pleasure her. A man who would guard her secrets and not allow her to crumble to dust.”

A faint smile broke from her lips and she lowered her head to study her hands, which were clasped before her. He tipped her chin up once again, wishing he could lift the veil from her face to see just how beautiful Emmy truly was. For he knew she was.

She had eyes a man could drown in. Lips made to be kissed for hours and designed to provide immense pleasure to a man. Her skin was the sort men wanted to touch over and over, and each time he would marvel at the softness, the suppleness, the astonishing purity of it.

She looked at the statue once again. “‘Because thou has the power and own'st the grace to look through and behind this mask of me, and behold my soul's true face.' The words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They're beautiful, aren't they?”

He pressed closer, felt her sway ever so slightly into him. He wanted to touch her. To feel her beneath his hands before she melted into the gray fog, leaving him alone, frustrated, yearning to see her once again.

“Emmy, you cannot know what you do to me with your honesty. It empowers me,” he said, unable to control his thoughts. “I can't explain it. You give me such strength. Somehow you have been able to reach deep within me and touch
the man. It is more than a physical attraction between us. It is something I have never before experienced. Something powerful and beautiful—”

“Shhh, don't say it,” she begged, pressing her cold fingertips atop his lips. “Words are so very difficult to take back and forget. Memories fade with time, but words never do. They linger in our minds, our hearts, haunting us. Right now, silence and memories would serve us much better.”

“What I feel right now defies words, Emmy. I have never felt so vehemently about anything as I do about you.” She swayed again and he gripped her arms, holding her tight.

“You must release me,” she said in a breathless sob. “You must. You don't understand. I am not who you think I am.”

“Are you a widow, lonely for your husband? A scorned woman, searching for a man to make it right? Tell me who you are, Emmy. I want to know. I
must
know.”

“I am nobody.”

“No, you are not. When I close my eyes all I can see is you. Even now I can smell you, almost taste you…Christ, how I want you, Emmy.”

Amelia allowed herself to sag against the hard breadth of Adrian's chest. The inner struggling, the war waging so deep inside her was almost over. Today she would go against everything she had ever believed—would toss aside every fear she had ever clung to. Today, she would allow Adrian to take her on a journey he had begun and only he could complete.

Only Adrian made her feel this way; like a woman in every sense of the word. In this little copse she was nearly his equal in mind and beauty. In station and wealth. Here in this little spot she was simply Emmy, and he Adrian. Nothing of their lives outside of this spot intruded.

Droplets of cold rain began to fall from the sky and Adrian reached for her hand, pulling her so that she was running behind him as he steered them toward the secluded alcove,
where there was a roof of carved stones and pillars that resembled obelisks. They would be dry. It would be dark. And they would be utterly alone as the rain fell down around them.

CATCHING HER AROUND THE WAIST, ADRIAN
pressed her against the stone wall as another echo of thunder rumbled across the sky. The scent of cool, spring rain and fresh churned soil saturated the air. She could also smell him—Adrian—the scent a mixture of spice and wool and a hint of tobacco. She could feel him, the heat radiating off his broad, tall body as he stood before her.

His head was bent to hers and his breath ruffled the tendrils of hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet. “Let me see you,” he asked in a whisper as the pad of his thumb caressed her lips that lay hidden beneath her veil.

Fear and pride ate away at her confidence and Amelia struggled to hold on to the only shield that prevented him from seeing how very ordinary she truly was. And even if she were a beautiful woman, she couldn't remove the veil. Her face, her name, must forever remain a mystery to him.

“I mustn't allow it.”

“I must see you,” he said in a hard rush of breath. “
I must
.”

He pressed a kiss to her brow as his hands slipped beneath the edge of the lace. His bare fingers grazed along the column of her neck as one finger hooked beneath her chin, drawing her face up to his.

Thunder rolled once again and the sky grew dark, casting a murky, forbidding shadow. The alcove was now dark, her identity safe from discovery. Adrian's face was shielded, as well, and without her spectacles, his features were blurred and cloudy.

The rain continued to pour down from the heavens and for long, unbearable seconds only the unrelenting sound of the rain could be heard above their breathing.

Then at last, he spoke. “Tell me what you love, Emmy. What you desire. Tell me who you are. I will tell you anything you want to know about me. I will not demand your secrets and give nothing of myself in return.”

“I know all I need to know about you. I can feel what I need to know while I am standing in your arms, craving the touch of your hands—
needing
your touch.”

“Is it anonymity you need? If it is, I will give it to you, if that is the only way you will allow this. I will be only Adrian, and you will be Emmy, and we will come together here, at Highgate, where no other soul shall ever discover us.”

Amelia closed her eyes, unable to believe she was actually here with him. It was her most secret fantasy come to life. Yet she hated knowing she was deliberately misleading him. She was not this person, this woman of mystery. She was not what he believed her to be.

“Have you ever wanted to be someone else, Adrian? To be anyone other than who—
what
—you are?”

She felt him shudder against her. “Yes. Nearly every day of my life I have longed to be anyone other than who I am. And when I am with you, Emmy, I am someone else. Someone infinitely better than who I really am.”

“I…I have never done this, met a stranger and given so much of myself. In fact, I have never let another see so much of my soul.”

“Neither have I, Emmy.”

“I want this,” she gasped, biting her lip. “I know I should not. I know what you do not—how wrong this is of me.”

Reaching for her hand, Adrian brought it to his chest, flattening her palm against his waistcoat. His heart was beating hard; she would feel it. He was breathing hard; she would feel that, too. He moved her palm lower over his breast, down over the flat hardness of his belly, where it rested at the waistband of his trousers. He pushed her hand lower and made her feel his cock that was hard as iron beneath his woolen trousers. She went utterly still, but did not attempt to pull her hand from beneath his. She could if she wanted to. He barely held her hand against him now.

“Take what you want,” he said, brushing her hand against the placket of his trousers. Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth, savoring the feel of her hand on his prick, despite the fact it was still innocently covered. He was so damn hard. So hungry for the feel of her flesh against his flesh.

“I can give you what you need, Emmy. I can give you everything you could ever imagine.” She whimpered, a husky, throaty sound that told him she was struggling with what she wanted to do, and what she knew she should not. “Take this, Emmy. Take what you need.”

She was watching him and he saw the acceptance shining in her eyes, despite the shadows that cloaked them. “Take this for yourself, Emmy. For me. For us.”

Angling his head, he captured her face in his hands as he cursed the clouds and the rain that engulfed her face in shadow. Only her vibrant eyes, the color of precious lapis lazuli, could be seen in the gloomy shadows. He could drown in those eyes.

As their gazes locked, he inched his head lower. Felt her breath caress his lips, felt every nerve in his body tense and tighten as he lowered his mouth to hers. As he clutched her face in his hands, Emmy opened her mouth to him, allowing him to search between her lips with his tongue. He kissed her
long and slow, his tongue moving and tangling lazily with hers as his hands slid down the column of her neck to the little lace choker she had tied around her throat.

It was a kiss with no ending and soon she was so needy, so reckless that she was grasping him to her and rubbing her mons against his body and the large erection straining against his trousers.

Adrian tore his mouth from hers and set his lips against her pounding pulse. His fingers sought the edge of the lace she had bound around her throat. “You smell of innocence,” he murmured before untying the ribbon and pulling it from her neck. “But you taste of sin. Such tempting, forbidden sin…”

Tipping her head back, Amelia allowed him to suck at her neck with his hot mouth, knowing he was going to leave marks that she would be forced to conceal, but she didn't care about any of that now. She only wanted more.

“How long, Emmy?” he asked, kissing his way down her throat to the opening of her cloak. “How long has it been?” His fingers worked on the buttons of her black cape, parting it and pushing it back over her shoulders. She felt him reach around her waist for the buttons that secured her gown. He undid them slowly, teasing her with the movements of his fingers and his breath against her neck. Her legs shook as he slid the wool from her shoulders and kissed his way down her arm, until the bodice of her gown fell to her waist.

She gasped in pleasure as Adrian's large hand reached into her corset, past her thin chemise, to cup her breast, pulling it from the harsh confines of muslin and whale boning. Once free, his hot palm rubbed the flat of his hand along her nipple, sending it straining against his smooth skin.

His gaze passed over her face, then down to where he held her breast in his hand. “It has been far too long since a man has loved you, hasn't it, Emmy? I can hear your body crying out for it.” He traced the contour of her breast that rested in
his palm. “Beautiful. Breasts made for a man's pleasure. Made to be drawn into a man's mouth.”

Unable to stand the torture, she looked down and saw how he used his fingertip to trace the circle of her nipple; her areole puckered in response to the featherlight caress. Sharp stabs shot through her, straight to her belly, as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, lengthening it as he gently tugged and plucked at it.

She was wet between her thighs, restless with the need to curl her fingers in his hair and guide his mouth to her breast. As if aware of her desires, Adrian lowered his head and ran the tip of his tongue along her nipple. Sharp sparks of desire ignited deep in her belly and she gasped, clinging to him, her fingers biting into his upper arms—arms that felt so solid and strong beneath his jacket.

He freed her other breast so that he could nuzzle the scented valley and bury his face between them while his palms skated down her waist to grasp her buttocks. He cupped her bottom, pulling her forward while he took her breast into his mouth and suckled her hard and greedily.

Amelia purred, called his name as she ran her hands through his hair, holding and tugging with the rhythm of his mouth. He moaned and grasped with impatient hands the fabric of her gown. Cool air suddenly kissed her buttocks as he raised her skirt and petticoats from behind. His palm glided over her bottom, squeezing and rubbing, gently slapping at her full cheek.

“You've a beautiful bottom to play with, Emmy,” he said against her throat as he traced the cleft of her derriere through her drawers. “Soft and plump. The sort of bottom I like to hold and caress—and grip—in the throes of passion.” His fingers skated along her crease, probing at her opening before his palm came around the front of her drawers to cup her sex. “Warm. Wet. A hungry quim. God, you're perfectly made for pleasure, Emmy. Designed for hours and hours of fucking.
Could you do it for hours? Could you fuck me for as long as I wanted with this lush body?”

Burying her face in his hair, Amelia closed her eyes, unable to bring herself to answer him. “Have I shocked you?” She shook her head and allowed her lips to trail along his neck, feeling the stubble of his morning beard brush her tender flesh. “You shouldn't be shocked, you know. In my dreams I've had you every way possible. I've seen myself between your thighs, Emmy, my mouth tasting and licking your cunt. I've heard your cries of pleasure.”

What agony it was to discover that there had been times when she had been so close to him, so close she had heard his breathing and felt his warm breath against her, and he had never known, never known it was her—his lover he came to meet on Tuesday mornings. And yet he had thought of her—had fantasized about her. It was more than she had ever dared to hope for.

“Do you want that, Emmy? Hours of pleasure? Do you want me—my body?”

“Yes,” she cried as he pressed his palm against the muslin of her drawers. She was aware of her hands on his arms as she pushed him down the length of her body. She moaned in anticipation as he slid down and rasped an uneven breath against her. Then he put his mouth to her sex, blowing hot breath through her dampened drawers as he held her skirts in his hands. He blew again, this time closer, harder, and she felt her womb begin to ache and her thighs begin to dampen and quiver, and she thought she might have discovered heaven then.

“Oh, God.” She breathed deep as she felt his mouth press against her. She felt the firm flick over her clitoris, wanted to beg him to rip the gown from her body so that she could feel that hot, hard tongue all over her.

So in tune was he to her needs, he pulled at the opening, ripping the slit of her drawers so that his mouth entirely
covered her. Wantonly she moaned, fisting her hands in his hair, rubbing her pelvis against his seeking tongue. He pulled her toward him and lifted her leg over his shoulder. Parting her with his hand, he spread her wide while his tongue lapped at her.

Writhing in pleasure, Amelia closed off all thoughts. The tension continued to build inside her. Despite her trembling legs, her limbs seemed to stiffen. Her nipples tightened and her breasts bobbed freely in the air as she rocked against his mouth. Mercilessly he drove her on, ruthlessly tasting her until she was shaking. She could not stop. Could only hold him to her, forcing him to finish her off until she could no longer stand without his help.

He tugged her gently down onto her knees, seeking her mouth with his as his fingers slipped deep inside her. He did not stretch her slowly, but gave her two of his fingers and plunged deep—so deep that she moaned into his mouth.

“I want to be inside you,” he groaned. “Let me inside, Emmy.”

She heard the rustling of her skirts at the same time she felt his hand moving between them. The sight of his trousers being opened made her blood hum in her ears. He sought her fingers between the layers of wool and cotton and brought them to his trousers. Instinctively her fingers curled around his length. She was stunned by the size of him, the satiny texture of him, the fierceness of the blood she felt throbbing inside his shaft.

Sliding her hand down the length of him, she stroked him, taking pleasure in his erratic breathing and the way he hungrily sought out her breasts. He sucked at the nipple and she gripped him firmer, quickening her strokes. His breath rushed out and he pressed forward, his lips nearly touching hers, his breath bathing her mouth as his breathing escalated in his excitement.

“Yes,” he rasped as his hand came up to cup her cheek. His fingers, long and warm and gentle, slowly curled around her
throat as he breathed faster and faster, his lips a hairbreadth away from hers. “Christ, yes, Emmy. I want your hand tossing me off,” he groaned, flexing his hips and encouraging her to work him faster and harder. “I'm so close—your touch—Christ, your touch is like magic. And your breasts, God, I can see them beckoning me.”

“Beckoning you how?” she purred, teasing him.

“Let me,” he said, breaking off. Reaching for her hand, he pulled it away and moved up to bring his shaft to her breasts. Stroking her nipples with his cock, he watched in the thin rays of light how his cock slid up and along her milky skin. He slapped at her nipples, heard her moan, and he slapped a bit harder. Christ, he grew thicker and longer, and the sight and sounds of what he was doing was driving him mad, close to spilling. But there was one more thing he wanted, and she had the perfect breasts for it. Shoving against her, he slid his cock between her breasts while she pressed them together, cradling his cock.

“Have you ever been fucked this way?” he growled as his gaze locked with hers, and then his eyes became hooded as he felt his seed snake up the length of his shaft. “Have you ever seen hot seed coming out of a cock that you've made want you? Have you had it splash on your beautiful skin?”

Christ, what was he saying? He'd scare her with his aggression. Yet he couldn't stop, couldn't be tender. He'd waited too long, and like a caged animal, he was going on pure male instinct.

“Would you let me, Emmy? Would you let me mark these beautiful tits?”

He didn't give her time to answer. Instead, he shuddered, and Amelia felt the rushing pulse of his hot seed spilling into her hands and her breasts.