Until You

36

A steady stream of luxurious conveyances were packed into Bow Street, waiting to pull up before Covent Garden's brightly lit facade to unload their passengers. "It looks like a Grecian temple!" Sherry exclaimed in delight as she peered out the window of their coach. "Like the painting hanging in your library."

Her enthusiasm was so infectious that Stephen actually leaned over and looked at the Royal Opera House's facade with her. "It was modelled after the Temple of Minerva at Athens."

Careful to lift her beautiful skirts, Sherry took Stephen's hand as she alighted from the coach and paused to look about her before they went inside. "It's wonderful," she said, ignoring the amused glances being cast her way as they made their way across the expansive vestibule and proceeded up a grand staircase past imposing Ionic columns and glittering Grecian lamps. It was the fashion in London to appear quite bored and blase at all times, but Sherry didn't care. Her face glowing with pleasure, she stopped in the lobby that led to the lower tier of boxes and looked about at the graceful pillars and arched recesses that contained paintings of scenes from Shakespeare.

Loath to rush her, yet conscious they were blocking the other patrons, Stephen touched her elbow and said softly, "We'll stay late so that you may look around at your leisure."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Only, it is hard to imagine that people can walk by all this without pausing to notice it."

Stephen's box was located for maximum view, and when they entered it, he actually peered around to get a look at Sherry's face, but she was gazing in admiration at the identical tier of elegant boxes opposite them, each with its own chandelier and with gold flowers and stars painted on the box's front.

"I hope you like the opera," he said, sitting down beside her and nodding casually to friends in the box on their right. "I try to come every Thursday."

Sherry looked up at him, so happy that she was almost afraid to trust it. "I think I do. That is, I feel excited, which must be a very good sign." His eyes had been smiling into hers, but as she spoke she saw their expression change and his lids lowered, his gaze dropping to her lips, lingering long on them, then lifting.

It was a kiss! she realized. It was a kiss, and he'd meant for her to feel it, to understand that was what he was doing. Without conscious volition, her hand moved imperceptibly, seeking his as it had the first day she'd returned to consciousness.

It was a tiny movement, one he might have missed, even if he had been looking instead of turning to greet friends who'd stopped into the box. And yet, as Sherry turned her head to do the same, his hand slid into her open palm, covering it, strong fingers lacing with hers. A jolt streaked up Sherry's spine as his thumb slowly rubbed her palm, brushing left and right, then back again. It was another kiss, she realized, her breath catching. This one slower, longer, deeper.

Her heart swelling, she looked down at the beautiful male hand partially covered by the open fan in her lap, watching his finger stroking while her body seemed to melt from the touch.

Below, in the gallery and pits, the crowd was noisy and curious, openly studying the occupants of the boxes, and Sherry tried to look perfectly casual, while the simple touch of a finger on her palm made her pulse continue to escalate.

When the movement finally stopped and her pulse slowed to normal, she felt very foolish to be so susceptible to what was very probably an idle touch on his part. Partly out of curiosity and partly for mischief, Sherry experimented. While he chatted with his brother, she stroked her thumb over Stephen's knuckles, concentrating far more on that than the conversation. It had no noticeable effect on him. In fact, he opened his hand, and for a second Sherry thought he was going to pull it away. Since he left it there instead, palm up, she dipped her gaze and thoughtfully traced each long finger from its tip to the vee where it met his wide palm, while he continued his absorbed conversation with his brother. Since he seemed not to notice or object, Sherry touched his palm, her fingertip following each intersecting line. I love you, she thought helplessly, telling him so with her fingertip. Please love me too. Sometimes when he kissed her or smiled at her, she was almost certain he did, but she wanted to hear the words, needed to hear them. I love you, she told him through her fingertip as it stroked his open palm.

Stephen gave up all pretense of trying to carry on an intelligent conversation and slid a glance at her bent head. He was sitting in a noisy public place, with a bulging arousal that felt as if he'd been indulging in an hour of intense sexual foreplay instead of merely holding hands with an inexperienced virgin. His heart was beating in the heavy, insistent tempo that came with denying himself a climax while he maximized his pleasure, and still he did not stop her. Instead he opened his hand more, fingers splaying in willing submission to his own torture.

He could not believe what she was doing to him, and he was deriving almost as much pleasure from knowing she wanted to touch him as from her sweet stroking.

In the glittering, sophisticated world he inhabited, the roles were clearly defined: wives were for the breeding of an heir; husbands were a social and financial necessity; mistresses gave and received passion. Couples who had nothing in common with their own spouses had affairs with other people's spouses. Stephen could think of perhaps twenty couples, among the thousands he knew, who shared anything stronger than mild affection. He could think of hundreds who shared nothing at all. Wives did not yearn for a husband's touch, they did not deliberately incite a husband's yearning for theirs. And yet that was exactly what Sherry was doing.

Beneath lowered lids, he gazed at her profile as she delicately traced something onto his sensitized palm, then traced the same thing again. The third time she did it, he tried to distract himself from the desire that was flowing from the nerve endings in his open palm throughout his entire nerve stream, and to concentrate on what she was doing. With her fingertip she drew an open circle on his palm and then two perpendicular lines joined at the bottom:

C L

Her initials.

Stephen drew a ragged breath and lifted his gaze to her profile while in his mind he dragged her into a darkened corner and covered that soft mouth with his…

He was mentally kissing her breasts when a commotion below heralded the beginning of the opera and he wasn't certain whether he was relieved or sorry to have her distracted, but distracted she was.

Sherry leaned forward expectantly, watching as the crimson draperies swept open beneath a graceful arch with painted figures of women holding trumpets and wreaths of laurel. And then the orchestra began to play, and she forgot the world.

Stephen held her hand on the way home, feeling a little foolish for his boyish pleasure in the simple touch. "I gather you liked the performance," he said idly as he walked beside her to the front door of his house, their path illuminated by a bright full moon.

"I loved it!" she said, her eyes filled with excited wonder. "I think I recognized it. Not the words, but the melody."

That piece of good news was followed by another: as Colfax helped Sherry off with her light cape, he volunteered the gratifying information that Stephen's mother had retired for the night. "Thank you, Colfax, I suggest you do the same," Stephen hinted flatly, his mind instantly replaying his fantasy at the opera. The butler took himself off down the hall, snuffing out all but the candles in the entry, and Stephen looked down at Sherry as she started to bid him good-night.

"Thank you for a wonderful evening, my lor-"

"My name is Stephen," he told her, wondering how in God's name he could have forgotten to ask her to use it.

Sherry tried it out, loving the strange intimacy of it. "Thank you, Stephen." There was little time to relish it, however, because he took her elbow and guided her firmly down the dark hall into a moonlit salon, closed the door, and turned to her instead of walking further into the room.

With the door behind her and his body in front of her, Sherry looked at his moonlit face, trying to imagine what he intended to do in the dark. "What-?" she began.

"This-" he answered. Bracing his flattened palms on the door on either side of her head, he leaned his body into hers and lowered his head.

Before Sherry could react, his mouth seized hers, stealing her breath while his hard body pressed into hers, his hips moving slightly, and the effect on her senses was stunning. With a silent moan, she slid her hands around his neck and kissed him back, welcoming the invasion of his tongue, glorying in the rasp of his breath as he kissed her harder, helplessly yielding her body to the insistent movements of his hips.