Written on Your Skin (28 page)

“We are going to enjoy each other,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she whispered back. She did not back down from a challenge.

She broke from his hold to pull away his suspenders and yank his shirttails from his trousers, pushing his shirt from his shoulders. His upper body, bared, was an expanse of golden skin, chiseled with muscle. She touched his abdomen lightly, astonished by its sculpted flatness; she had thought these segmented bands of muscle a figment of artists’ imaginations. When his belly contracted, she could see the working of his physique; she laid her palm flat against it, to feel how it moved. “You are beautiful,” she said. She had never said such a thing to a man, had never understood the word could be so applied. The idea pleased her fiercely; it seemed powerful to her. “Very beautiful,” she amended. And then, on a sudden weird burst of humor, remembering all the times she had been so praised, she added, “Why, you’re a pocket Venus writ large, Ashmore.”

He laughed, which surprised her; she looked up at him, and surprise turned to amazed gratification—he understood exactly what she meant. “I will not return the compliment,” he said. “Venus was a hell of a lot less trouble than you are. But Helen…” He reached for her shift, and she raised her arms to help him. A silent breath came from him, passing over her forehead as he looked at her. “Helen,” he confirmed softly, and then went to his knees in one fluid, soundless movement, to kiss her waist and then her breast.

Her arms came around his head, touching the softness of his wild hair. She wanted to close her eyes, but when she did she felt dizzy; she opened them and watched his tongue touch lightly to her nipple, and then his lips close over it. It drew an intense, almost violent feeling from her; her arms tightened around him, and then she wondered at herself, clutching him close as if he provided her balance, when she was standing on her own two feet. She did not want to be standing, suddenly; she wanted to be lying next to him, or no, she wanted to watch him, naked, walk to the bed. “Take your clothes off,” she said hoarsely.

His teeth pulled at her nipple one more time before he stood. His hands moved to the fly of his trousers, but she pushed them away, unclasping the hook and sliding the fabric over his hips. She told herself there was no need to disguise her curiosity; he did not expect shyness from her. But she had never seen a man in the light, and it unsettled her to see him so openly bared. She put a hand around his cock, and realized the differences between men; she would have more trouble with him than with Henry, although her body seemed to like his better.

She tightened her grip, and he gasped. She exhaled, too, because the feel of him leaping in her palm made something within her pulse deeply. She felt open and clutching, ready for him. She wanted to tell him that. She wondered if she dared. The words were ordinary, but their order and meaning would be unprecedented for her; perhaps they required rehearsal, although she could not envision failing right now. Her fingers tightened again. “I want this,” she said. It was the best she could do.

It served. He scooped her up from the floor—and she did not like that; she did not like the reminder of how light she was, or how easily he could carry her. But when he dropped her onto the bed, she saw the full length of him, his calves corded with muscle, his thighs flexing as he sank onto his knees on the mattress, and she forgot her irritation. I am a woman of the world, she thought, bedding this man, the unwilling man of intrigue, and she felt her lips curve; there was no harm in being pleased with herself, and anyway, it brought him up to her, his tongue into her mouth. Maybe he wanted to taste her smile; he himself tasted like ale, and dark hallways in times before she had learned to fear the darkness; she had gone running into it, in fact, full of plans and hopes that night, wanting him even when he had not wanted her back.

It all seemed to twine together now, their limbs, his low moans, her own murmurs, this hunger inside her writhing and swelling as his hand stroked between her legs, past and present, Hong Kong, a country village. She touched his cock and squirmed until the head of it brushed against her wetness, a solidity her body craved. Lust, she thought, this was not simply desire but lust, almost too large for her body to contain. What matter if the lights were on or off when one felt this way? She thrust her hips, and caught him off guard; he said something low and too garbled to understand, and she felt the pressure of him, caught at her opening. She took him by his hard, muscled buttocks and pulled him in, thinking strange thoughts that made no sense. Anchor me. I have waited for this.

His full width penetrated her slowly, little muscles in his face registering his effort to restrain himself. She knew a moment of burning discomfort, almost as sharp as the first time, when all she had felt the whole way through was pain. She had thought then that it was no wonder they called it a deflowering—flowers felt no pleasure when their heads were chopped off—but this time, a little revelation worked its way up from the place of their joining, and her body jerked once in the discovery of pleasure. Her thighs fell apart, then closed hard on his hips; he shut his eyes, lashes thick and finely arranged, orderly of course, falling somehow sweetly over his cheeks. Wrong to think, in this moment, that he looked as innocent as a boy. The body over hers was nothing boyish; her arms came around him and he was more solid, harder than anything she’d ever grasped, vibrating from the tension of his own private drama. She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and tried to move with him. The rocking rhythm struck some nerve; a bead of sweat fell from his face, and it felt like a caress as it rolled down her shoulder. She was moving toward something, him pressing inside her so deep and with such intensity, again and again.

But the mounting sweetness was too liquid and formless to be trusted. She found herself clenching against it—taken, suddenly, by some strange fear that if she submitted to it, she would shatter against him, a million little pieces she would never manage to retrieve. I don’t know you, she thought. This was the time for darkness, so they could be strangers. She realized with an unpleasant shock, almost of fear, that his eyes were open, resting on her face. Even now he was waiting for something from her. She did not like that. She would not give it to him. He whispered to her, “Come,” and she did not understand the request; what more could she give him than this? “Mina,” he said, but he had no right to demand anything of her; this act was done of her own accord.

And perhaps he saw the answer in her face, for the deep kiss he gave her then seemed more complex and sober than the wild assault of a few seconds ago. His thrusts strengthened, as though he had grown tired of it and wanted to be done. She dug her nails into his back and waited, beginning now to notice how his hip bones ground into hers, more painful than she had realized, and how her own joints ached a little, and how she could feel the soreness already coming on and anticipate the way, afterward, she would feel loose and drained, as though she had given away something that she missed and wanted back and had gotten nothing in return for.

He tore himself away from her and fell onto his stomach at her side, his breath coming in silent, fierce pants against her shoulder. Stupid, as she stared at the whitewashed ceiling, the giant crack running through it, the faint discolorations from a recent rain, to feel disappointment. She had set out to be wanton and seize the moment, and so she had. She had felt new things she’d never experienced with Henry; when Ashmore had taken her by the hair and reached between her legs, she had understood Cleopatra, and Jezebel and Eve.

She started to sit up. His hand caught her arm. “We are not done,” he said softly.

She yanked out of his grip and pushed at his lean hip until he rolled onto his side, coming up on his elbow. Taking pointed note of the damp patch on the sheets beneath him, she lifted her brow and said, “I think we are.”

He showed his amusement openly. “Very knowledgeable, aren’t you?”

Was he mocking her? “Maybe I am.” She reached for the sheet that had spilled to the floor, pulling it up over her breasts. He was still watching her. “What of it? Do you disapprove?”

“Not at all,” he said easily. “But it seems to me that your education is incomplete. You didn’t climax, did you?”

She looked away, up to the crack in the ceiling. Now that her body had cooled, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to feel foolish, and a little disoriented. It seemed as if she were waking from some performance she thought she had mastered, only to find the audience staring at her, bewildered, no applause. Ashmore looked slightly incredulous that she had thought she was doing well. Damn him for it.

“My apologies if you weren’t pleased,” she said.

“One could argue it has nothing to do with me, apart from the blow to my vanity.” He paused. “Or is that it? You think this has to do with what I want?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” And maybe she didn’t; as he continued to study her, she felt weirdly stubborn, and a little angry. She wanted to blame him for something. He seemed so determined to draw her out. But he’d already done so; she was naked, and he’d had his fun from her. He could look elsewhere if he needed additional entertainment.

“Sit up,” he said.

“You already had your view.”

“Such a worldly woman, afraid to flash her tits at me?”

She glared at him. “There’s your filthy mouth again.”

He gave a shrug of one well-muscled shoulder. “I can get filthier.”

“Don’t sound proud of it.”

He began to smile. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” He reached out and yanked the sheet away, exposing her entirely. “Spread your legs, Mina.”

A quiver stirred in her stomach. She couldn’t say whether it was the sound of her name, all done up in gold by his low, husky voice, or the command that made her hot. “Why? You’re done.”

“You’re not.”

Ah. He was going to try to impress her now. She held still as he touched her knee, nudging her legs apart. His survey was frank. “To be dirtier,” he said meditatively, “I could use several names to describe this sweet little slit of yours. Have you any particular preference?”

She could feel a flush creeping down her throat. “No,” she managed. She knew no names for herself; Henry had only addressed his own bits. “I don’t care,” she added. “Whichever you like, if you must speak of it.”

One brow lifted. “If I must speak of it.” He met her eyes. “Why not speak of it? You’re a sophisticate, not wholesome at all. Less jam than foie gras or caviar, no doubt, and much”—his lips curved—“to my delight. We’ve no need to dance around sensitive matters, then, do we. Touch yourself.”

His meaning registered, and her throat closed. Oh, this was far more than she’d imagined when she’d realized he was not going to draw the curtain. This was…beyond imagination. “I don’t take orders from you,” she said thickly.

“I noticed,” he said. “You’re afraid to give an inch, which is why I’m sitting here, keeping my hands nicely to myself, despite this banquet laid out before me. Do it for yourself, Mina.” He paused. “Unless…unless, of course, you didn’t know that you’ve no need to depend on a man for your pleasure.”

She felt pinned by his steady, hot regard. He purred the words, as though he was inordinately pleased with her, but although his voice seemed to cast some sort of sticky spell that kept her eyes glued to his, her hand would not move. To touch herself in front of him seemed beyond shameless.

But shame was not meant to concern her, was it? She had no truck with that emotion. She cupped her hand over herself, feeling her own heat, the moisture that lingered from their encounter. She did it defiantly, lifting her chin, and he watched her do it. It was appalling; her cheeks stung; she could not have felt more exposed had he peeled her skin away, bit by bit, the way Italians did with their grapes over breakfast, neatly with a knife and fork.

“Pretty picture,” he said softly. “But not quite purposive, is it?” He reached out, and his fingers settled over hers, closing in a warm, hard grip that sent a shock through her, although it was such an everyday sort of touch that it should have felt like nothing after the more intimate contact they’d made. He moved her hand, pushed it up her body, so her middle finger brushed against an exquisitely sensitive part of herself. Her strangled sound won his immediate attention. “Yes,” he said, “and now stroke.”

He had shocked her. There was a piquant pleasure in startling a woman so determined to remain unmoved, and later he would savor the memory of her expression, the mounting flush on her cheeks and the sweet glimpse of her tongue between those parting lips. But at present, his awareness had contracted too tightly to allow for the contemplation of irrelevant victories. All that mattered was this: the unrealized promise of her flesh, her own stubborn refusal to pursue her pleasure, and his mounting conviction that another piece of her mask trembled by a string, ready to drop away if only he gave her a push.

He took her hand by the wrist and directed her fingers.

The feel of her heat and dampness stirred a growl in his chest. He bit down on the sound, focusing instead on her muffled breath. She was trying to hide her own noises. He guided her finger over her clitoris, feeling a moment of fierce satisfaction as her hips jerked slightly.

But then she grew abruptly paler, and her teeth closed around her lower lip. She was fighting, by habit, a battle that he was not going to let her win. Her eyes fixed on his, their glassiness sharpening into resolve. He gritted his teeth and exhaled and very gently removed her hand, pressing it to the mattress by her thigh.