Page 49 of Miss Dignified
“Are you frequently in bed with a willing partner?” Lydia’s question was carefully neutral.
“No, I am not.” Dylan considered that answer and considered the utter passivity of the woman around whom he was draped. “Until recently, I haven’t considered the distraction worth the reward. Then some managing female in lacy caps came along, adding kittens to my domain and forcing regular meals on me. My priorities have changed.”
He ought to propose. The notion popped into his head, as all his best ideas tended to. Careful study of the maps, long hours in the saddle learning the terrain, and much staring off into space trying to think like a Frenchman had yielded one clever strategy after another.
In Lydia’s case, Dylan found himself thinking like a suitor, a very determined suitor.
Except that winning Lydia’s heart was not exactly like battling across Spain and up over the Pyrenees. That had been a fairly straightforward exercise in claiming territory, town by town and valley by valley.
What did Lydia crave that she would never ask for? What did sheneed? Dylan pondered that question as his body recovered its equilibrium, and Lydia’s breathing slowed.
He shifted his hand experimentally upward to close gently around a bare breast. Lydia moved into his touch minutely, a mere whisper of an invitation, and Dylan had his answer.
Lydia drifted, wrapped in the warmth and strength of her almost-lover, and in puzzlement. Why had she chosen to limit intimacies with Dylan as she had? Was her decision the result of guilt, because she had not been honest with him about her connection to Marcus, or was some more complicated motivation at work?
Had she been driven by a need to remain in possession of her wits, or to for once give the orders and set the expectations? Dylan had offered her exactly that. And yet, he had not surrenderedtoher, he had surrenderedwithher.
Rational thinking was made difficult by unabated desire, a yearning both soothed and enflamed by Dylan’s embrace. Lydia was lecturing herself about the necessity to get adequate sleep when she felt a sweet, subtle caress to her breast.
Dylan’s breathing was regular, and he hadn’t stirred. Lydia arched into his touch ever so slightly, unwilling to awaken him if he’d fallen asleep.
His touch became a caress. “Did you think I’d simply nod off and leave you unsatisfied, Lydia?”
She could feel his voice rumbling from his chest. “I like sharing a bed with you, but we need our rest, and…” And she wasn’t sure what he’d alluded to when he’d referred to satisfaction. One kissed and enjoyed the kissing, in the best case. Caresses were lovely, and desire was… Desire was not something Lydia had much experience with. Halfway between an itch and an ambition, of both the body and the spirits.
Dylan sat up and began rearranging pillows. “If you give a man pleasure like that, Lydia, you inspire him to return the favor. I have an idea I’d like to try.”
“A naked man with ideas.” Lydia eyed him, though he wasn’t in a state of great arousal. “What sort of ideas?”
“Scoot up.” Dylan knee-walked to a place behind her so she sat in the V of his legs, her back to his front and a hairy male knee on either side of her. “Let me be your pillow.” He urged her against his chest, which was… odd. Intimate, but frustrating.
“I can’t see you,” Lydia said. “I can’t touch you. I don’t know what you’re about.” She could feel him, though, a bulwark of masculine muscle and bone.
“I’mabouttending to your pleasure. Pull the covers up if you like, and tell me if I’m doing it right.”
He palmed both of her breasts at once, and Lydia’s question—doing what?—flew straight from her head.
“This position has possibilities, don’t you think?” Dylan punctuated his query with a kiss to Lydia’s shoulder. “The view is lovely too. Next time, I’d like at least one lit candle, Lydia.”
“Hush.” Lydia wanted silence in which to concentrate on his caresses, on the slight percussion of his heartbeat against her back, on the exquisite sensations he created with his hands.
Dylan ceased chattering, but what he did instead… One hand remained on Lydia’s breast, while the other stole south, over ribs and abdomen, provoking crosscurrents of longing and restlessness to go with the pleasure he’d stirred up.
“Spread your legs, Lydia. Please.” He stroked her curls lightly, and a notion that had been unthinkable ten minutes before became an inspired suggestion.
She arranged herself so Dylan’s thighs cradled her own, and while the faint voice of modesty suggested pulling the covers up, Lydia was more interested in pulling Dylan’s head down so she could kiss him.
He was tall enough, and determined enough, and ye gods…skilledenough. As he stroked her intimate flesh, Lydia felt at once the need to scramble off the bed and gather her wits and the need to consume a man whose touch conjured such fire.
When Lydia broke the kiss, Dylan had both hands between her legs, so he held her immobile at the same time that he caressed her in a manner more arousing than she could bear.
And yet, she did not, could not, andwouldnot tell him to stop.
Her breathing became harsh, and she delighted in the room’s chill as Dylan’s touch shifted, and the pressure increased. One moment, she was writhing in the grip of a need that eclipsed comprehension, and the next, yearning coalesced into sensations of stunning, silent pleasure.
Lydia gave in to the clamoring of her body, no dignity, no words, nothing but need and glory and wonder. Dylan held her through it all, until Lydia had curled to her side, panting against his chest. He kept a hand over her sex in a grip both firm and oddly comforting. A connection of sorts, an anchor.
What did one say? How did one even discuss…?
