Starlight & Promises (21 page)

They crossed the desert again, and this time Samantha’s pack rode lighter on her back. She assumed Christian had transferred most of her gear to his pack. He also padded her straps so they no longer bit into her shoulders, and she silently thanked him for his consideration. He kept pace with her shorter strides, pointing out and naming the plants and animals they encountered, entertaining her with their habits and behaviors, and teaching her which plants, such as aloe, were edible or useful in other ways. With his kind acts on their return trip, she soon forgave him his comments at the pond.

They camped at sunset, and finally, after innumerable tries, she started a fire with twigs. He kept his promise to teach her survival skills and demonstrated setting snares for rabbits and ground birds and how to extract water from cactus. That night around the campfire, he regaled her with stories of the animals he had pursued and discovered throughout his long career and thrilled her with accounts of narrow escapes from warlike natives and sea pirates.

At the end of the long day, Samantha tossed on her bedroll and mused on Christian, the pool, and her … what did he call it? Her
orgasm
. No wonder London’s morality mavens made such a big ado over intimacy. And if the act was as pleasurable for men as for women, ‘twas no surprise they sought it with such abandon and so many young girls compromised themselves. She now had no reason to wonder why the details were guarded so secretively—to save women such as her from falling into wanton ways. Clearly the knowledge had come too late for her redemption.

Her musings brought her body to life, and her breasts tingled. Moisture gathered between her legs. Oh, she was incorrigible and surely beyond all hope!

She peered at Christian, who slept on his side with his back to her. With great hesitation, she touched her breast. When she rubbed her hand over it, the nipple tightened. Her flesh swelled and ached.

Oh, Lord!

Was he truly asleep? It suddenly seemed important she know.

“Chris,” she whispered, “are you asleep?”

“No.” His voice came back so suddenly, she jumped.

“May I sleep next to you? I’m cold.”

Strained silence descended like a shroud. Face heating, she chewed on her lower lip.

“Very well,” he finally said. “Come here.” He rolled over and lifted the edge of his blanket.

She climbed out of her bedroll and rushed over to him, crawling in and cuddling up to his warmth. When he turned onto his back with her curled into his side, she rested one of her hands on his chest.

Lifting his head, he touched his lips to her forehead and skimmed a hand down her arm. “You lied, Sam. Your skin is as hot as the center of a volcano.”

“Though I’ve never been in the center of a volcano, you could possibly be correct,” she replied.

“Have you ever read Mary Shelley’s novel
Frankenstein?”

She shook her head.

“In the story, a scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, attempts to create the perfect human and bring it to life. Purely for scientific achievement, you understand. He assembles his creature and gives it life, but it turns into a monster he cannot control. Eventually it murders him, and the frightened townspeople kill it. Since the book’s publication, the name ‘Frankenstein’ gained a new meaning, referring not to the misguided scientist but to any uncontrollable creation that destroys its creator.”

“You are making a point, I presume?”

Turning sideways, he propped himself on his free elbow and traced her mouth with his thumb. His lips curved into a rueful smile. “Indeed. I fear I’ve created my own Frankenstein bent on destroying me.”

She pursed her mouth into a pout. “Are you suggesting I’ve become a monster?”

“Of course not. However, I’ve unleashed the fiery monster trapped inside you, and I’m very much afraid its flames will burn me to ashes.” He moved his hand across her shoulder and down to her hip. “Lie back,” he said, his voice descending into a rumble.

Samantha shifted onto her back, and he swept his palm over her shoulders and arms. Feathering his fingers over her face and outlining its contours, he skimmed them down her neck and around her ears. She closed her eyes. As his touch fanned the embers inside her, her limbs grew languid.

Throwing the blankets aside, he smoothed his hand down and around her breasts, neglecting their thrusting peaks, sliding to her waist and belly, sweeping circles and lines with his fingertips. When he reached the vee between her thighs, he bypassed it, causing her to groan and peer up at him. A little smile crimped his mouth, and he brushed his hand up and down her legs, massaging her calves and thighs. He worked his way back up in the same manner, bent over, stroked her lips in a light, lingering kiss. Lying back, he closed his eyes.

She wriggled about to lie on her side. “Is that all?”

He opened his eyes. “You wanted more?”

“Perhaps.” Through her blush, she sent him a devilish look. Coming up on her knees, she cupped her hands into a bowl. “Please, sir, I want some more.”

Christian laughed and rose back up on his elbow. “Very well, Master Twist,” he said, his voice husky. “I would not want you spreading tales I’m a stingy man.”

C
hristian unbuttoned Samantha’s shirt, peeled it off her shoulders, and laid it aside. Grasping the edge of her camisole, he stripped it over her head.

Her stomach knotted, and she crossed her arms over her bare breasts.

Seeming to have no interest in her sudden mortification, he removed her boots and stockings, undid her trousers, and tugged them down her hips. Once he bared her to her pantalets, he looked at her, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Stop hiding yourself. I want to see you.”

His gentle smile shored up her nerve, and she slowly lowered her arms to her sides, though they remained tense, her hands knotted into fists.

Christian pulled off his boots and stockings and came to his feet to remove his shirt and trousers, gaze roaming freely over her form. Leaving on his underdrawers, which had short legs like his basketball pants, he stretched out on his side next to her.

She ventured to glance at his covered midsection.

“Once you release the tiger from its cage, it becomes difficult to control and impossible to lure back inside until tamed,” he responded to her silent question.

His words bounced around in her head, making as much sense as Egyptian hieroglyphics. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was using a metaphor,” he said with a chuckle. “Trust me. I’ll not take what rightfully belongs to the man you marry. We can still experiment with pleasure without the ultimate act.”

The ultimate act?
She was dying to know more about
that
, but her tongue tangled up too much for her to ask.

Christian reached for her, fingers trailing over her skin, following the same route he explored before. This time, while his sultry gaze followed the path of his fingers, he circled one taut breast and spiraled inward.

Like a shark
.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Sam, with a body so exquisitely small.” Though spilling softly from his mouth, the gruff undercurrent of his words made her flesh quiver. “But beneath your clothing, your womanhood is obvious. You have lovely breasts. Only a handful, but firm and tilted up, shaped like the bowl of a champagne glass, breasts that could besot a man. Your nipples are pink rosebuds, firm and silky, tightly furled and always slightly erect, as though your passion overflows into them even when you’ve not been aroused. They’re so responsive. Merely the touch of my gaze causes them to swell and lengthen, begging to be fondled and suckled. I feel your need—in your dusky golden eyes, the rosy hue of your skin, your quickened breathing, the pout of your nipples, and that sensual little thrust of your hips.”

His hands caressed her, and his voice poured over her like warm summer rain. Samantha’s eyes grew wider. Never had anyone spoken to her this way. No one other than Gilly had seen her undressed. Other men, boys in comparison to Christian, who fancied themselves in love with her, had plied her with sweet words and poetry. Their insipid prose had failed to stir her. The silky sound of Christian’s voice—never mind his words—dark with passion, threw her brain into disarray, accelerated her heartbeat, and boiled her blood, hastening the aching want inside her. His eyes smoldered, dark and smoky, and scorched a path of burning need on her skin.

Before touching her distended nipple, he paused and cupped his palm beneath her breast, weighing and massaging the curve.

It swelled and heated in his hand. When he flicked his thumb over the nipple, tongues of fire licked through her. He flicked faster and more firmly, strumming the tight bud, and she strained toward him, pressing harder.

Holding the nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger, he rolled it, tugged, and rolled it again.

A pulling ache raced to her groin. This time she knew what to expect and relaxed into the feeling. Instead of disconcerting her as it did the first time, the tugging produced sharp twinges of pleasure. The inner folds of her sex wept tears, dampening the crotch of her pantalets.

He slid his hand to her other breast, giving it the same attention.

By the time he paused, she panted, her heart beating frantically. Heat built up in her lower abdomen, and deep throbbing besieged the walls of her body’s cleft. She wiggled her hips against the ground, buttocks clenched, and arched her mons in minute upward thrusts, wanting …

Christian moved over her onto his knees and straddled her hips. Enclosing a nipple in his lips, he sucked gently and rolled it between his tongue and teeth. After tending to her other breast, he laved her chest and throat with his tongue, pressing heated kisses against her skin.

The fire in her core scorched her flesh, the pulsation in its walls coming deeper and faster.

He wedged a knee between her legs. “Open for me, Sam.”

She parted her thighs, and he knelt between them, resting back on his heels. His manhood—no,
penis—
strained against the thin linen covering. It looked huge! Her jaw slackened at the tumescent shaft stretching from his crotch to his waist. It had seemed so much smaller in the pond. She pressed her eyes closed, and her breath shortened, partly from a heightened excitement but mostly from a welling need.

Spreading her legs wider with his palms, he laid his hand flat on her heated furrow. Through the slit in her pantalets, he stroked the sensitive lips.

She gasped, keeping her eyes firmly shut.

Parting her with his fingers, he glided along the intimate folds but fell short of penetrating her passage. His finger moved up and circled a tender spot encompassing the heart of her passion, and he fondled it with a fingertip.

With a cry, she lifted her hips off the ground. He strummed rhythmically, and she gasped in great breaths. When he ceased and took his hand away, she whimpered.

“Open your eyes,” he said, “and give me your hand.”

Her breath suspended, Samantha inched up her eyelids and stretched out a shaky hand.

Christian positioned her fingertips over that mysterious spot, covering them with his own. A hard nub of flesh tingled when she touched it, and he guided her fingers in a gentle rhythm.

“This is your pleasure center, your clitoris,” he said. “The flesh is sensitive and easily hurt. Keep your touch light. If you feel pain, back away.”

Uncomfortable at first that he should witness her perform such an intimate act, she soon forgot everything other than the storm buffeting her body and becoming more intense than anything in her experience. She lifted her hips in sync with her fingers’ stroking, and the quivering center of her womanhood coiled and coiled, tighter and tighter, and culminated in a glorious burst of light. Convulsions tore through her. She slammed her hips against the ground, arched high in the air, pushed against the hands. A torrent of heat poured to the tips of her toes and fingers. In the deepest recesses of her mind, she was aware of Christian pulling her hand away.

While she was coming down from her orgasm, he kissed his way up her belly and chest, taking her lips in a long, wet, hot possession. Slipping back to her breasts, he gently nibbled until her trembling subsided.

He lifted his head from the valley between her breasts. “Put your legs around my waist, tigrina,” he whispered.

More?

She could do naught but obey.

Samantha raised her weak legs, wrapping them about his waist and locking her ankles together behind him. He wedged one hand beneath her, cradling her buttocks in his palm, and thrust his erection against her core. Each thrust ground against her bud, and her hips soon picked up the rhythm, rising to meet him and bumping against his penis.

She could scarcely believe it; ‘twas happening again! The heat, pulsing, throbbing, and coiling took control. She arched and rose higher and higher on the edge of a cliff, straining to reach into the sky, to soar off the precipice and drift to Earth on wings of delight. The rapture became so intense her passage began small contractions almost immediately and took her by surprise.

“Chris,” she gasped. “Can you … ? Could you … ?”

Christian moved firmer and faster against her, adjusting his angle. His muscles and tendons tensed and flexed. He clenched his teeth, groaning with the effort of holding back. When she screamed and slammed hard against him, his head flew back, his neck muscles taut and stretching. He erupted, ramming her back, once, twice. His semen spurted out in a gushing stream, soaking through his smallclothes and wetting them both in a pulsing ejaculation.

He eased down on shaky arms, wary of crushing her with his weight but too shattered to move aside yet. His heart thudded against his ribs, and he dragged in ragged gasps of air.

Rolling off after a few minutes and onto his back, he threw a trembling arm across his forehead. He was soaked in sweat and semen and as wrung out as he’d ever been after a three-day drinking bout. He’d never felt so good. His orgasm had been incredible, stupefying. He had no conception of what it would feel like once he was inside her.