The Virtuoso

Eight

Ellen sat on the bed, dropped onto it, more like, her expression thunderstruck.

“Ellen?” Val knelt to peer up at her where she sat. “Shall I leave?” He put a hand on her knee then slid it up to her hip, holding her gaze as he did. She laid her fingers over the back of his debilitated left hand. They’d been heading for this moment for weeks, but now that it was upon her, she looked not just surprised but stunned.

“I’ll leave,” Val said, settling back onto his heels and resting his cheek against her thigh. “If you ask it of me, I’ll get up and see about your locks, share a cup of cider and an apple tart, ask you your plans for the week, and understand.”

“Understand?”

He brought his other hand around her waist and held on, knee-walking in close to hug her middle on a sigh.

“Now isn’t the time,” Val suggested. “You don’t feel ready, you’re having second thoughts, or you don’t particularly relish getting involved with a man who’s the target of impending mayhem.”

Much less, he thought, one who had only one reliably functional hand, even after more than a month of abstaining from his music. He was pushing her, but he wanted out from under the uncertainty of his reception in her arms. It had been almost a week since they’d been what he could call intimate, and in the intervening days his desire for her had only grown.

“Now is the time,” Ellen said softly. “But if you let me think about it, I’ll lose my nerve and make excuses, and I don’t want…”

He pulled back to survey her velvety brown eyes, finding them so somber as to unnerve him. He wanted this joining to be pleasurable for her, joyous even.

“You don’t want?”

“To never have known what it’s like,” she finished the thought, “to be with you like that. To be your lover.”

Warnings went off in Val’s head, as her words could mean she wanted only a single experience of him, wanted a taste, a sample, nothing more. He wanted more, he wanted more than he deserved of her; he wanted to devour her, to make a feast of her, and to offer himself for her delectation too.

Ah, well.

A man worked with what life gave him, and life was giving him this opportunity with Ellen. He folded himself back down against her lap in gratitude and felt her hand stroking the back of his head. The moment was made complete and more memorable by the sudden gentle tattoo of rain on her roof, a showery patter that presaged a good, soaking rain, not merely a passing cloudburst.

“Valentine?” Ellen’s hand went still against his nape. “I don’t know what to do.”

He did not sit up. “About?”

“How do we go on?” she asked, curling down over him to press her nose against his back. “I’ve never… not in daylight, not here.”

“It’s better in daylight,” he assured her. “I can see your beautiful face and your lovely body and let you look your fill of me.”

“Will you undress?”

“Of course,” he replied, smiling with pleasure, approval, and anticipation when he sat back on his heels. “With your help.” He rose and sat beside her on the bed, settling a hand on her lap so she could remove first one cuff link then the other.

“Now what?”

“Unbutton my shirt?” He could have pulled it over his head, of course, but he wanted to communicate very clearly that they were in no hurry. So one by one, he had her remove each article of his clothing until he was standing without a stitch in her bedroom.

“Let’s get you comfortable, as well.” Though comfortable was going to be a stretch, he surmised. Her blushes suggested she could barely tolerate his nudity, much less her own.

“Don’t you want to get under the covers?” Her tone was almost hopeful, while her gaze was glued to his chest. She reached up a hand toward his sternum then dropped it back to her side.

Val picked up her hand in his own. “I would adore for you to touch me.” Carefully, he laid her palm over his heart then left it there so she could feel the steady, reassuring life-beat.

“I want to touch your heart too,” Val said, stepping in to kiss her cheek. “Clothes off, Ellen, hmm?”

She didn’t comply immediately but stroked her hand over his chest, his biceps, his belly, his shoulders. She was touching him with such wonder, he could barely stand still for it. When her hands fell to her sides, he kissed her cheek, let his hands settle gently on her hips, and waited.

And while he waited, he couldn’t help but kiss her. The way she fitted her curves and hollows to his was enough to send lust singing through his veins. When she sighed into his mouth and cautiously met his tongue with her own, he gathered the fabric of her dress in his hands. By slow, stealthy degrees, he drew her into the kiss even as he drew the worn cotton up around her hips. She gave a little gasp when the sensation of air on her legs must have registered, but Val held her hips still when she would have stepped back.

“Steady,” he whispered against her neck. She nodded, and he drew the dress and chemise up the rest of the way, leaving Ellen blushing in her shoes and stockings.

And even today, no stays. Val almost cried with gratitude at that discovery.

“There you are,” he whispered, running his hands down her sides and up her back. He wanted to look—wanted badly, badly to look—but he could feel the heat of Ellen’s blush where her face was planted against his collarbone.

“Under the covers now?”

“Let me get you out of your shoes and stockings.”

He’d been careful to keep his erection away from her midriff—he was more than ready for what followed. She’d not seen him erect, not the way she might now, and he wasn’t about to frighten her.

Impress, God, yes; frighten, no. Never.

He pushed her back with one hand on her sternum so she again sat on the bed, and then knelt to remove her shoes and stockings. On impulse, he leaned in and again embraced her around the waist, pressing his face to her thighs.

“It’s different,” Ellen said softly, her hand running down the bare plane of his back. “We touched, just this way, only moments ago, but it’s different.”

“It’s better,” Val murmured, cheek against her leg. “Closer.”

“Your back…” Ellen touched him again, a slow, smooth skim of her hand up the long muscles beside his spine, then over his shoulder blades and onto his shoulders. “I think I can see every muscle God put in here, as if you’re a perfect specimen.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to explain all that muscular articulation came from playing the piano, but that would have admitted a shadow to the bedroom, and the only shadows he wanted were those cast by the soft gray light filtering in from the rainy day outside.

“I want to see your back,” Val countered, straightening, “and for that, we can get into your bed.”

“Now?” Ellen’s hand lingered on his shoulder. “You’ll let me touch you more, later?”

“I’ll let you touch me any way you please, forever and ever, but in your bed, love.”

He knew she was stalling, nervous and uncertain, but she’d warned him that had she too much time to think, she’d deny them their pleasures. That, he would not allow. Could not.

Holding his gaze, Ellen shifted back, careful to keep her legs together when she turned on her seat and scooted across the bed. Val joined her in one movement, lifting the old worn quilt and the sheet beneath it to drape over her legs.

“We need rules of surrender here,” Val said, sitting cross-legged on his side of the bed. He wasn’t bothering with the covers, and Ellen had to notice his erection, enormously swollen where it arced up against his belly.

“Rules of surrender?” Ellen repeated, her gaze taking him in with an expression of trepidation.

“Ellen.” Val’s smile disappeared. “I won’t hurt you.”

Her gaze dipped to his groin then back up to his face, and he prayed he hadn’t lied. She’d been without a man for five damned years, and Val was… he was well endowed, and he knew this for a fact. Tagging along with Nick on this or that debauch, having four older brothers, spending a couple years at public school then several more at university… Val had seen enough to know his equipment was in proportion to the rest of him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said again, holding her gaze. “Because our first rule is you tell me if you don’t like something. Promise?”

She nodded once, but her gaze drifted back to his groin.

“If you can’t find your voice, then pinch me,” Val went on. “Pinch me hard, understand?”

“Pinch you,” Ellen repeated. “Hard.”

“Hard enough to bruise,” Val clarified. “And my arse doesn’t count, because when I’m in a certain mood, I like that.”

“Dear heavens.”

He smiled at her blush. “Rule number two.” He reached over and stroked a finger down her jaw. “We avoid conception by every reasonable means, but if there’s a child, you must tell me.” She grimaced, and Val wanted to curse, because at least one shadow had found them.

“I’ll tell you,” she said slowly, “but…”

“But?” Val waited patiently, because to him, to Ellen, to anyone, this should be important.

“It’s hard for me to conceive. If I do, I won’t do anything to harm the child. You promise you won’t ask it of me. Nothing to harm the child, no matter what.”

“I promise I will not ask you to do anything to harm our child.” The words were unhesitating and firm, the easiest promise he’d ever given. “I promise I will take such good care of you, no possible harm could come to our child.”

Ellen shook her head and pressed two fingers to his lips. “Don’t say such things.”

“I mean them,” Val rejoined, drawing her fingers from his lips. “I am not in this bed for a casual romp, Ellen. You matter to me, and any child of ours would matter to me very much.”

“That’s… good.” Ellen nodded, heaving a deep breath. “To me, as well.”

Val regarded her at some length, sitting beside him with the sheet tucked primly under her arms, her cinnamon hair down her back in a tidy braid. This discussion of children had to touch sensitive nerves for her, for she’d quite plainly considered the lack of a Markham heir her failing. He’d love to give her a child, to prove to her the shortcoming had not been hers.

But children deserved legitimacy, and that meant asking Ellen to tie herself not just to a man with a disability but to a man who came with a parent who thought nothing of bribing mistresses to conceive or footmen to spy on their masters. The Duke of Moreland considered such measures excused by his need to protect and control his children—not in that order. And His Grace considered grandchildren more than reason enough to force marriages where they ought not to be forced, no matter how much Val might wish to have Ellen for his own.

So, there would be no children. Another shadow, but one that haunted every coupling outside a marriage bed and probably many within one, as well.

“Any more rules?” Ellen asked, drawing her knees up to her chest.

Val shot her a bemused smile. “One.”

“And that would be?”

“You tell me what you do like. I can read your body to some extent, and will delight in doing so, but I cannot read your mind.”

“What I like?” Ellen’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think I understand this rule.”

“Do you want to be on the bottom, or would you rather ride me? Do you want my mouth or my hand, and would you ever want to use your mouth on me? Are your nipples more sensitive, or your lovely derriere? And what of toys, bindings, spanking?”

The look she gave him was such a combination of confusion, fascination, and bewilderment, Val realized if she didn’t have the vocabulary, she likely lacked the experience, as well.

“I see.”

“What do you see?” Ellen asked, uncertainty in her voice.

“How did you and Francis typically join?” Val asked, sliding down and crossing his arms behind his head.

“In the dark.” She glanced over at him, her gaze going to the soft down at his armpits. “In bed, at night. Without removing our nightclothes. We certainly did not discuss it, and I am not comfortable discussing this with you.”

“What did you like most about being with your husband?” Val asked, reaching out a hand to stroke her arm. “What do you miss most?”

She shot an unreadable glance at him over her shoulder, though Val could see longing in her eyes and… loneliness?

“He’d hold me,” she said very quietly, “afterward. At first, he’d just kiss my cheek and go back to his bedroom, but I asked him to stay, and it became… comforting. I had to make up excuses—I was cold, I had something to discuss, but eventually, he’d stay for a few moments of his own accord.”

Val kept his expression bland but surmised that dear Francis had left his wife hanging, and holding her was the only comfort she could ask for. Of course she’d want cuddling and comforting if her every experience was one of vague frustration.

“Let’s start there. Let me hold you. But, Ellen?”

“What?” She was regarding him warily, as if his rules had provided not the sense of control and safety he’d intended for her, but just the opposite.

“You can recall your husband with all the love you ever bore him,” Val said, holding her gaze. “You can be grateful for the years you shared, the affection and the memories, but in this bed today, you are with me.”

“I am with you.” Her reply was gratifyingly swift and certain. “Only with you, and you are with me.”

“Just so. Now come cuddle up with me on this beautiful rainy day, and be my love.”

She curled up against his side with a sigh that bespoke five years of fatigue and loneliness, five years of coping, managing, and wishing for more, even when more could never be.

Val heard that sigh and propped his chin on her crown. “What does an enterprising gardener do on a rainy Monday?”

“I can start seedlings or get some baking done. Tally my books, work on my mending or sewing or embroidery. I can clean this cottage, particularly the windows—they get dusty easily this time of year.”

“I see,” Val murmured, drawing a slow pattern on her arm with his index finger.

“What do you see?” Ellen closed her eyes, and Val felt her begin to relax.

“I see you are as bad as I am.”

“In what regard?” In imitation of her lover, Ellen began to sketch on his chest with her third finger, though she probably wasn’t aware of her own actions.

“I am accused of being too serious. If you were to ask me what I will do with this rainy day, I would mention correspondence with both family and business associates, the accounts, perhaps plastering, glazing the kitchen cabinets, laying new tile in the foyer, moving pots of flowers to the terraces, hanging hammocks, ordering this and that from London, tending to my horse, and a whole list of activities that fall sadly outside the ambit of fun or even pleasure.”

Though a month ago, his list of activities would have been much shorter: He would have been at his piano. For the first time in his recollection, that state of affairs struck him as… sad.

“You don’t play,” Ellen observed succinctly, and Val started a little at her word choice.

“Well put.” Val kissed her temple. “I no longer play.”

“Is this play to you?” she asked, waving her hand at the bed in general.

“It is pleasurable, and it can be playful—I’d like to see you playful in bed, Ellen—but it isn’t a mere frolic.”

“Folly but not frolic. So what do you like?” She completely spoiled the boldness of the question by burying her face against Val’s shoulder so he could feel her blush.

“I am easy to please,” Val replied, hugging her to him. “I like to share pleasure, to give it and receive it from a willing partner. Beyond that, I am fairly flexible and accommodating.”

In truth, he was what plenty of grateful ladies had called, “a generous lover,” and ironically, he attributed the ease with which he pleased his partners to the same skills he’d honed at the keyboard: He listened—to the pillow talk, to the sighs, to the silences, to the urgent, inarticulate sounds, and to the occasional tears. He was willing to take small risks, to care a little more than he should, to expose his vulnerabilities a little more than he should, to experiment beyond what might be strictly expected. In other words, he was willing to put a little feeling into even his casual liaisons.

And then too, there was the simple matter of virtuosic manual dexterity.

But with Ellen, there was going to be nothing of the casual. He knew that as he held her naked beside him in bed, discussing seedlings and ledgers and—God bless her—his own preferences.

“You know,” Val went on, “I haven’t been asked before what pleases me.”

“Valentine…” Ellen’s voice was repressive, and he smiled at her truculence.

“I don’t mean in bed,” he added, though it was it true there, too. “I mean in the larger scheme. You know you love to garden and put up your jams. I can see you enjoy embroidery, and you dote on that lazy beast who lumbers around your gardens ignoring the mice. I’m not sure I’ve given much thought to what I enjoy.”

Besides—would the thought never leave his head?—playing the piano.

“You ride very well and you dote on your beast, too.”

“I’ve always liked horses, and my father taught us to take care of our stock. As boys, we rode everywhere and often.”

“Do you enjoy horses, though?” Ellen’s cheek was pillowed on Val’s shoulder while she lazily spelled out words of a lascivious nature on his chest: w-a-n-t, k-i-s-s, t-o-u-c-h… Did she think he couldn’t feel the letters she was burning into his skin?

“I did,” Val answered her, “but St. Just became the family horseman, and one wouldn’t want to steal his thunder.”

“What about your manufactories, then?” D-e-s-i-r-e. M-o-u-t-h.

“I run them.” Val shrugged, suffering her spelling practice manfully. “They make a scandalous profit, but one can’t expect that to last. I know something I do like,” Val said just as Ellen stroked a finger across one of his nipples, perhaps crossing a t.

“What?” Her finger paused, and it was both relief and frustration for that finger to stop stroking over his skin.

“Kissing you.” Val shifted slowly, carefully, so he was poised above her on his knees and forearms. “I really like kissing you, Ellen FitzEngle Markham, but I’ve found that practice can make the enjoyable nigh sublime. Assiduous, unrelenting practice.”

He started with the softest, most fleeting hint of what was to come, just whispering his lips across hers. She sighed and brushed her lips over his just as lightly.

“I like kissing you too, Valentine Windham.” She repeated the gesture, and he settled in a little more closely to her—on her—preparing to besiege her mouth.

“I like it exceedingly,” Ellen said, closing her eyes as Val’s lips went cruising over her features. He inhaled the fragrance of her hair, nuzzled her ear, pressed his cheek to hers, and ran his tongue up the side of her neck.

He wanted every sense—scent, touch, taste, sight, and hearing—involved before he’d proceed further.

“Valentine Windham, you are,” Ellen whispered in his ear, “the most sumptuous man.” On his back, her finger traced out the letters m-o-r-e.

That little, breathy compliment settled into Val’s heart, just like her willingness to use his name, and lit a small steady flame of determination. This had to be perfect for her. He could not give her marriage or permanence or much of his future, but he could and would give her this day and as many others as she would permit.

“You are my feast,” Val whispered to her. “I hardly know where to start, you present me with so much to enjoy.”

“Kiss me more,” she suggested, pressing her lips to his cheek. “I want to kiss you everywhere.”

Blazes. Val seized her mouth with his own, angling his body up and over hers, the better to engulf her lips and teeth and tongue and mind. His hands found hers where they lay on either side of her head, and he laced his fingers through hers. She closed her fingers around his and arched up, offering more than kisses and asking for more than kisses.

By degrees, he let her have some of his weight, pressing his chest to hers. She seemed to need it, pushing herself up against him, asking him to anchor not just her hands to the pillow but her body with his.

Her mouth was open under his, her tongue seeking and exploring. Val gave her his tongue in a slow, sinuous rhythm, one she unknowingly began to mimic with her hips.

She was catching fire beneath him, and Val battled the temptation to merely slip himself inside her body. She would more than allow it. She would welcome him and let him worship her as intimately as a man could.

But not yet.

He was not going to leave her hanging, not like her sainted husband had time after misguided, inept time.

“Easy,” Val murmured, shifting up farther to rest his cheek against her temple. “We’ve all day and then some.”

She said nothing but turned her face and closed her lips over his nipple. Above her, Val went still, tensing momentarily then relaxing. He shifted just a little to the side, so Ellen could be more comfortable while she tasted and suckled and tongued him.

And bit him, with just the right hint of sting, before soothing him with her tongue and feathering a sigh over his wet flesh.

“I like that,” Val whispered, sliding a hand under the back of her head. “Don’t stop.”

She didn’t stop; she hiked her knees, though, and pushed her pelvis against his, shamelessly seeking his weight. He let her push and retreat against him, resisting mightily the urge to synchronize his own undulations with hers, while he enjoyed the draw and slide of her mouth.

“Both,” Ellen muttered, pushing at Val with her hands. He shifted to the other side, understanding she wanted to work at his other nipple.

And work at him, she did. God, what a mouth…

While her free hand came up to rub at the wet, exposed flesh she’d just abandoned, each caress sending a riot of pleasurable sensation to Val’s groin. He had to slow her down, as much as he didn’t want to disturb what had to be the boldest overtures Ellen had ever made to a man in her bed.

“My turn,” Val warned, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and rolling them both so he was on his back beneath her.

“Valentine.” Ellen blinked at him from her perch straddling him. “I want…”

“I know.” He leaned up and kissed her swiftly, hard, to shut her up before she could finish that thought. “And you’ll have it. Soon. But I get a turn, too.” He hooked his hands under her arms and lifted her bodily, thinking to position her breasts for his mouth. Needing to, in fact.

But her sex dragged along the rigid length of his cock, and they both froze at the contact.

“Oh, yes.” Ellen closed her eyes and let her upper body go limp, hanging on Val’s hands. “Again, please.”

She wasn’t waiting for him to reposition her; she was searching with her hips for him, and he was all too readily in evidence. Slowly, she drew her sex over him again and again.

Distraction, Val admonished himself desperately. If he didn’t distract her, he was going to finish before they’d started; damned if he wouldn’t. He lifted Ellen slightly, so her breasts were closer to his mouth, and captured one rosy nipple between his lips.

“Ah, God…” Ellen’s prayer was hissed through clenched teeth as Val began to play with her.

“Turnabout,” Val murmured against her soft skin. “Put your hands on my shoulders, love.”

She opened her eyes as if to locate these shoulders he’d mentioned, and complied by sliding her hands over his chest, particularly over his nipples, back over his nipples. She might have had every intention of repeating that caress until her fingertips were sizzling with the pleasure of it, but Val’s mouth prevented her.

He made love to her breasts. When she braced her weight above him, he used his hands to capture her breast and position it—by fondling, stroking, petting, and kissing—at his mouth. When he finally drew on her nipple, she groaned relief.

“Ride me,” Val whispered as he shifted to torment her other breast. His hands slipped down to her hips, where he applied enough pressure to show her what he meant. Firmly, he pushed her hips down and held her, so her sex was snugged down to his cock. Val rocked her slowly along the length of him, and Ellen whimpered.

“Make yourself feel better,” Val murmured. “Find relief. Use me.”

She made a few tentative passes over him, and Val sensed she was torn between relief and increased arousal.

“Trust me.” He urged her along him again. “You feel so good to me, Ellen. Just move on me a little.”

He bit her nipple, lightly, then bit and suckled at the same time, and Ellen’s body began to move with its own momentum. She arched, and he nipped her again so her nipple stayed in his mouth as her chest heaved up, and she let out a half groan, half sigh. There was frustration in that sound, and Val heard it.

“Let me help you.” Val anchored her to him, his arm a tight band low on her back to keep her close to him as she moved more and more strongly. And then, just there, where all the sensations of pleasure and torment should focus for her, Val worked a hand between them and brushed a thumb across her wet flesh.

“No.” She tried to shrink away, but Val’s arm trapped her against him, and his hips arched up to increase the pressure against her sex.

“Valentine,” she whispered. “Oh, God, Valentine…”

He could feel her body seizing, and bucked up hard against her, holding her tightly to him and aching with his own need to spend. He stroked over her again and again, until she was shaking and clinging to him, then crying softly against his neck.

“It’s too much,” she finally murmured dazedly. “It’s so much too much, and I never knew…”

It had been too much, Val silently agreed. He hadn’t intended that her orgasm be so… violent, but she’d resisted the pleasure, and he’d forced it on her, and he wanted nothing so much as to do it again and again until they were both sore and spent and mindless with it.

Until she’d been compensated for five years of marital frustration and five years of wasted widowhood.

“Just let me hold you. Take a moment to gather your wits.”

“I will never have wits again,” Ellen muttered, curling up more closely on his chest. “I don’t even believe wits exist at this point. What on earth did you do to me, Valentine Windham? That was different from what happened at the stream. You are an awful, awful man.”

There was such affection in her tone, such pleased, bewildered exasperation, that Val felt the very opposite of awful. “I didn’t mean to be so rough with you. You are a lady.”

“I was rough with you,” Ellen countered. “I became a beast.”

“An awful beast.”

“God above.” Ellen’s sigh breezed over Val’s heart. “I was awful, wasn’t I?”

She sounded so proud, Val hugged her tightly, odd feelings coursing up from his chest. “A tigress pouncing on her prey could not have produced more awe in me than you did.” He nuzzled her neck. “You have got such a mouth on you.”

Her tongue flicked out and Val flinched away.

“For shame,” he scolded. But when she merely nuzzled lazily at his neck, he stroked his hand over the back of her head in an easy rhythm. “Insatiable tigress.”

“Mmm.”

He let her find simple comfort in his arms for long minutes, because it appeased some need he had as well, to hold her, pet her, and stay close even as his own arousal still hummed through his body. He couldn’t go at her like that again, not so soon, and maybe not ever.

No matter she was pleased as punch with herself and he with her. On a sigh, she turned her head so her ear was above his heart.

“Does this mean I’m wicked?” she asked, appallingly serious.

“It means you are passionate,” Val corrected her, tipping her chin up and holding her gaze. “Passionate is a good thing, Ellen. It is the antithesis of being asleep in the midst of life.”

“Asleep.” She sounded as if she understood his use of the term and frowned at him. “I was falling asleep, you know, before you came. It hurt too much to stay awake.”

“And right now,” Val observed with dry humor, “not much of anything hurts, does it? And a nap sounds just the thing?”

“Hmm.” Ellen curled down again so he couldn’t see her face. “Is that why men like swiving so much? It puts one in charity with the universe?”

“Or one’s little corner of it. But there’s much to like about it.”

“Really?” Ellen stacked her hands and rested her chin on the back of them to survey him like the feline he’d compared her to. “Like what?”

“To see you overcome with pleasure. I have never beheld anything as lovely.”

He saw the wind drop abruptly from her sails.

“It felt lovely,” she admitted, closing her eyes. “You made me feel lovely.”

“No,” Val said firmly. “You are lovely, and you allowed yourself to see it and feel it and know it for a few moments.” He believed that with every fiber of his being.

“I want to be under you again,” she announced. “Please.”

She wanted sheltering and comforting, and Val could not have denied her one thing at that moment. If she’d asked for his right hand, he would have passed it along to her without a word.

“Are you going to cry?” Val asked quietly as he rolled them and obligingly crouched over her. She scooted down until her cheek was against his heart and she could wrap both arms and legs around him.

“I might. I don’t understand it.”

He held her tighter without being asked, and she clung to him more closely. “I am your friend, Ellen,” Val murmured, stroking her hair.

“And my lover,” Ellen reminded him, stretching up to kiss his throat. She reached around to stroke his nape, and beneath him, Val felt their sheer bodily intimacy calming her. She shifted and caressed him with her sex, and he didn’t for an instant mistake the invitation.

“You’re sure? I can see to myself, if you’re not.”

“I want you inside me. Please.”

“I want to be inside you, but you have to trust me on this, Ellen.”

“Trust you?” She licked his chest as if it were smeared with the brandy glaze from a hot apple tart.

“No dragging me back to your cave by my hair, hungry tigress,” Val teased, but his tone was serious. “I could hurt you if I’m not careful, and I will not be responsible for that.”

“I’ll try to behave, but you won’t hurt me.”

“Depend upon it,” he growled, shifting down to meet her eyes. “But recall you are to pinch me if you think I’m even getting close to the near occasion, right?”

“And on your… arse”—she managed the word—“doesn’t count, because in certain moods, you like that.”

“You were paying attention.”

She smoothed her hands up his chest. “And I expect in certain other moods you like to be pinched here.” She tested his nipples gently and was rewarded with a groan and closed eyes.

“Love it.” Which was a small revelation to him. “Adore it, but you said you’d behave.”

“I am behaving.” Ellen blinked up at him and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “You are stalling, though, Valentine. Make love to me, please.”

“Yes, love.” He lowered his forehead to hers, and the enormity of the moment threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted her desperately, and she was willing and even eager.

“Valentine…” Ellen singsonged his name as she lifted her hips, just grazing the tip of his cock with her sex. He didn’t flinch away but pressed minutely forward.

“Kiss me, Ellen,” he instructed sternly. “Now.”

Oh, ye bloody blue blazes… He teased and nibbled and flirted with her mouth as his hips teased and flirted his cock against her sex. She twined her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and let him manage as she rubbed her tongue over his and her breasts against his chest.

“Valentine, please…”

“Patience.” But to his own ears, his voice had a hoarse, distracted note to it, as if he were concentrating just as hard as she was.

And then, like an answer to a craving, the broad head of his erection was more than just teasing her, it was gently, so gently, pushing against her wet heat. Ellen shifted restlessly, maybe trying to impale herself on him, but Val went still and lifted his face from hers.

“You gave your word,” he reminded her, stroking her hair back from her cheek. “This is important, my love, and you promised.”

She nodded, meeting his gaze and drawing in a steadying breath. “For the love of God, please hurry.”

He had to smile, for she was flat out begging. “We will make haste slowly,” he assured her, dipping his head to kiss her cheek. “Hold on to me.”

She wrapped him closely and closed her eyes. He didn’t kiss her now, didn’t distract her with any other caresses or words or sensations, but let her concentrate on the lovely sense of being filled, joined, and physically loved by a man who treasured the privilege.

Treasured her.

He wasn’t quite thrusting, but rather pushing carefully then holding his position, retreating only minutely, and then pushing even more carefully. There was progress, but it was maddeningly slow.

“I want to move,” Ellen whispered.

“Not yet,” Val muttered, his teeth clenched with the effort of his restraint.

“You won’t hurt me,” she assured him, but on the next tentative shift of his hips, she fell silent.

“Close yourself around me. Inside, as if you’d draw me into you a little or hold me still.”

She made an effort to comply.

“God, yes.” Val drew in a slow breath. “Now let me go.”

Her body eased, and he pushed one small increment farther into her heat.

“Again,” Val ordered. She slowly caught his rhythm and slowly, push and squeeze by push and squeeze, he was filling her, joining with her, and sharing with her the most incredible depth of pleasure. Her second orgasm welled up without warning, barreling out of the quiet around them just as she was constricting her muscles around him.

“Valentine…”

“Yes.” His voice was a satisfied growl as he moved more strongly inside her, intensifying the orgasm even as he manacled his own lust in self-discipline. He was excruciatingly careful with his timing, and already he’d shown her how not to struggle against the pleasure, to go with it, to embrace the drowning glory of it, and even seek its greater depths.

As he let her catch her breath, Valentine waited above her, his hips moving in a slow, relaxed undulation. Her body could accommodate him now, easily and eagerly, because he’d been patient and careful. His fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead in a slow, tender caress, and then, sensing her emotions welling, he cradled her head against his shoulder as he kissed her temple.

“All right, then?”

“Undone. Hold me.”

“Bossy.” Val tucked her closer and hiked one of her legs higher on his hip. “I’ll distract you, good sort that I am.”

He rocked and petted and teased her from one orgasm to the next, balancing his caresses to both soothe and arouse. Then he shifted rhythm and angle and hooked one of her knees in the crook of his elbow, startling her into another orgasm. After another pause for Ellen to catch her breath, he went still, just studying her face for long moments as he traced her features with his fingers while his cock was hilted in her depths.

He gathered her close and twined his fingers with hers on the pillow. Knowing he’d already asked much of her, Val shifted to firm, measured thrusts. Beneath him, Ellen began to pant as her hips rose and fell in counterpoint to his.

“You too,” she got out, not yet having the sophistication to hold her pleasure at bay. She turned her face into his shoulder, and Val felt her teeth, not biting but pressed to his flesh in a hungry, silent scream.

“Ah, God… Ellen…” Val hilted himself against her and pushed hard repeatedly, spending in the depths of her body as his ears roared, his body shook, and his soul sang. The relief of it was tremendous, to not merely dally but to join. He thrust on and on, swamped by a transcending pleasure of not just the body but the heart, as well. And God bless the woman, she held him tightly through it all, even as his movements ceased and his world gradually righted itself.

“You won’t be able to breathe unless you let me go, love.” He kissed her temple. “I won’t go far, but you need a little room.”

Her hands unclenched, her legs slid down his flanks, and her body eased from his. He shifted up, maybe an inch, and immediately felt her cling more tightly.

“Not yet,” she said, pressing her face to his sternum.

Val went still and realized the unjoining was going to take as much forbearance and finesse as the joining had, particularly as he wanted nothing so much as to flop to his side, drag Ellen over him, and stay in that bed until Judgment Day.

Joinings, he corrected himself. Where he’d found the stamina to go on as he had was a mystery, as he’d never in all his years of dallying and swiving and carrying on been quite that virtuosic before. After weeks of abstinence, he should have been on a murderously short fuse, but with Ellen, the sheer pleasure of being inside her had been tremendous, and the pleasure of bringing her to fulfillment even greater.

Val’s own orgasm had come along as a rousing cadenza, a flourish at the end to dazzle and delight, but completely beside the point of the larger composition.

Ellen had been the point, and she still was.

“I’ll be back,” Val assured her, “but we’re going to leave a mess if I don’t bestir myself for a moment now.”

She went pliant in some indefinable way, letting him ease himself from her then from the bed. As he crossed her bedroom to a basin and pitcher on her hearth, his body felt looser, his skin more comfortable to be in than it had in weeks. He dipped a flannel, wrung it out, tended to himself, and dipped it again.

He sat on the edge of the bed, holding the dampened cloth in one hand as he tossed back the covers with the other. “Knees up, love.”

She lifted her knees, drawing in her breath as Val gently pushed them open and held the cloth against her most intimate parts. He watched as he did it, staring at her in frank appreciation as he first held the cloth against her then swiped at her in slow, careful strokes.

“You’re going to be sore. A soaking bath might help, but I do apologize.”

“Sore how?” Ellen asked, her gaze on his face as he refolded the cloth and placed it against her again.

“Here.” He reached over with his free hand and ruffled her pubic hair. “I am a greedy pig, and I belong in your hog wallow.”

“You are a tiger,” Ellen corrected him, pulling him down against her midriff. “Lovely, fierce, and not afraid to take what bounty you find before you. You belong in my bed.”

Her hands stroked through his hair, calming him, helping him adjust from passion to reality. But the leap was long and fraught, in part because Ellen had taken to lovemaking with stunning enthusiasm.

Lovemaking, with him. Val smiled against her stomach and crawled up her body to rest his cheek against her breast.

“Hold me,” he murmured against her breast. Her arms came around him, tentatively, as if she were just now considering he might feel the same need for comfort and cuddling she did.

She settled in to the embrace, spelling on his back again, and Val closed his eyes to picture the letters she made. Earlier, she’d been bold and naughty with her vocabulary. Now, she spelled his name, which pleased him. She spelled the whole thing, not just the conveniently brief “Val.” He let his mind drift toward slumber until he realized she was repeating a pattern on his back in the soft gray light of the rainy morning.

Like a finger exercise or a scale.

He focused, resisting the pull of sleep, and felt her fingers start the pattern over again: I-l-o-v-e-V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e-W-i-n-d-h-a-m.

He wanted to weep but held perfectly still, listening to her practice over and over again, until the rain on the roof, the gentle caress of her fingers, and the aftermath of passion conspired to lull him to sleep.

For the first time in her life, Ellen awoke in the arms of an intimate.

In the arms of her lover, she corrected herself, keeping her eyes closed the better to savor the sensations. Val’s chest was ranged along her back, his right arm draped casually over her waist, his legs tangled with hers. His left arm was tucked under her neck and splayed along the pillows.

She opened her eyes and peered at his left hand. “It looks improved to me,” she said, looking more closely. The thumb and index finger were still visibly discolored but not as swollen. The third finger looked almost normal.

Val flexed his fingers without moving any other body part. “It feels a little better, but then it should. Between wasting much of Thursday at Great Weldon and spending the weekend at Candlewick, that hand has seen a great deal of rest in the past five days. But perhaps”—Val’s voice dropped half an octave—“if you kiss it regularly, it might heal more quickly still.”

“Scandalous man.” Ellen wrapped her hand over his right forearm. “So tell me how we go about this.”

“About this?” Val placed a kiss on her nape and nuzzled her neck.

“This getting up, getting dressed, and going about our day, as if…” She trailed off, frowning at his hand.

“As if?”

When Ellen remained silent, he gently pushed her onto her back and peered down into her face. “As if?”

“As if we haven’t just misbehaved intimately.”

He cocked his head, his beautiful green eyes shuttering. “Are you going to castigate yourself and resent me now?”

“I am not ashamed. I am shy.”

His dark brows flew up and then down as his lips curved in a smile. “Shy. I am shy too, you know.”

“Shy you might be.” Ellen tried to roll back to her side. “You are not plagued by a great deal of modesty, though.”

“I am modest, for a man raised with four brothers. What are you really asking me?”

“I don’t know.” She subsided beneath him, not truly bothered by his show of… curiosity? Caring? With men, the two could be related. “I just don’t want… awkwardness. I find it amazing we’re here in this bed, not a stitch between us, and I can even look at your face without burning alive with mortification.”

“You amaze me too, in many ways. But tell me, do you think Axel and Abby Belmont don’t romp away the occasional morning? She’s expecting, and it’s no secret the child will not be born nine months after the wedding.”

“They anticipated their vows.” Ellen reached up to trace one of his perfectly arched dark brows with her finger. “It happens.” Then she had a disconcerting thought. “You said we’d take every reasonable precaution, Valentine. What precautions did we take?”

“You are not fertile for another few days.” He turned his cheek into her palm, so she felt the slight rasp of his beard. “Your menses started on Thursday, and thus you will likely not come in season for another few days. I would not have risked making love to you beyond tomorrow.”

She eyed him curiously. “How do you know this?”

“St. Just explained it to me when I was twelve, among other things. You are also not likely to conceive the week before your courses start, but there are those many women whose patterns do not fit the usual. There’s a name for them, in fact.”

Ellen’s lips pinched with disapproval. “What is this name?”

“Mothers.” Val grinned at her. “Or brides. Now, are you going to waste this entire day trying to locate your misgivings, or will you share an apple tart with a hungry tiger?”

Ellen smiled as he bit her neck playfully. “I do have misgivings.”

“I know, dear heart.” Val growled and teethed her shoulder this time. “But I’ve put them out in the springhouse where they will not trouble you as much. Did you know tigers are fond of apple tarts, particularly when consumed naked in bed?”

“I prefer my apple tarts properly clad,” Ellen rejoined, reaching around to pinch Val’s bottom.

“She pinched me.” Val sighed dramatically. “If I didn’t adore her before, I am thoroughly smitten now.”

“You are ridiculous,” Ellen said, though the sheer ease of his humor was marvelous to her. “I appreciate the effort.”

“What effort?”

“To tease and distract me, though I have to say I like the feel of you draped around me too. You are trying to preserve me from awkwardness.”

Val closed his eyes. “Is it working?”

Ellen laced her fingers through his. “It is, a little anyway, but you mentioned apple tarts for the tiger. Posthaste.” He let her shift out from under him this time, sitting back as she reached the point where she’d have to drop the sheet to rise from the bed.

“I love to watch you, Ellen. Clothed, naked, waking, sleeping. Love it, adore it, thrive on it. It’s better than apple tarts, just watching you.”

She nodded, grateful for the encouragement and willing to believe him, because she was similarly afflicted where he was concerned—God help her.

While it lasted, this business of being a tigress was going to be much more challenging than she’d anticipated. Thank goodness there was at least one very handsome male tiger in her personal jungle to make it worth her while.