Page 94 of Always to Remember
He lifted his gaze to her chest where her fingers were busily giving freedom to her buttons. The valley widened. “I don’t think they’re as small as I thought.”
She eased out of her blouse, exposing her shoulders to the night. He tugged on the ribbon holding her chemise together. The bow disappeared, and the material parted.
She rose to her knees and slipped the straps off her shoulders. “You do the rest.”
He fumbled with the buttons, ribbons, lace, and cotton, but she didn’t seem to mind. She moved slightly to accommodate his needs, to give him easier access to her clothes. He didn’t know how his trembling hands managed to remove her clothes and pile them up beside her, but they did.
Unbraiding her hair and fanning it over her bare shoulders, she laughed lightly. “I’ve never been quite so bold.”
“I’ve never felt quite so timid. I wish you didn’t have any experience at this.”
She pressed on his shoulders until his back hit the quilt. “You’re not competing with anyone tonight. It’s only you and me.” She skimmed her hand over the front of his trousers. “No ghosts from my past.” She unbuttoned his trousers. He lifted his hips, and she deftly removed his remaining clothes.
Clay was breathing as though he’d just run to the top of a mountain, and she was sitting there as calm as the dawn, trailing her fingers up and down his thigh, touching his knee and moving her fingers closer to his groin with each sweep. The woman was an expert at torture.
“Has any woman ever touched you?” she asked as she splayed her fingers over his thigh.
“No.”
“Do you want a woman to touch you?” “No.”
She stilled, and Clay pushed himself up. He cradled her cheek in his palm. “I want you to touch me.” He kissed her deeply, with more urgency than he’d ever experienced. The curve of her breast brushed against his chest, and he wanted to crush her against him, to feel her weight on top of him.
Her hand slowly caressed his upper thigh, circling higher. His breathing stopped altogether. Her fingers journeyed across his stomach, trailed along his other thigh, then cut across the pass, and stroked him with an intimacy that caused his body to buck with a series of nearly violent spasms. Lost in the fiery sensations, he buried his face in her hair until his body was replete, and his breathing slowed. “I’m sorry,” he rasped.
Cradling his cheek, she moved his face away from her neck. “It’s what I wanted.”
Slowly as his senses returned, he realized that her other hand was still stroking him. If she’d been repulsed by his body’s reaction to her touch, she had a strange way of showing it.
“I’m the one with the experience.” She kissed him lightly. “If you’ve never been with a woman, I didn’t think you’d be able to hold out long. My body doesn’t react quite as swiftly, so I was hoping to even us out.”
“You might have warned me.”
“That I’m a brazen hussy who enjoys a man’s touch?”
“That you were gonna take me straight to heaven.” He gave her what he hoped was a devilish grin. “Now it’s my turn to take you to heaven.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t think you had any experience.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
“You might start by pretending you just finished carving me from stone. I love to watch your hands move over the stone after you’ve carved it.”
Using his fingers, he brushed her hair off her shoulders so her curves were a visible silhouette in the night. Slowly, he skimmed his hands along her shoulders, down her side until he could feel the weight of her breasts nestled in his palms. “You’re nothing like stone, Meg. Stone’s harsh and rough. Countless times, it’s made my palms bleed. It’s toughened my hands so I often forget there are soft things in this world. You make me wish I’d never run my hands over stone, that I’d kept them soft for you.”
“I’ve told you before that I like your hands. I like the way they feel on my skin. I feel like they’re whispering secrets.”
He eased her down to the quilt. “Is there something special I should do?”
Meg studied the shadows of his face. Even in the dark, he appeared older than he was; even his innocence had been tainted by the war. “Just touch me … with your hands … with your mouth … with your body.”
He laid his body partially over hers. “I want you to enjoy being with me.”
“Then kiss me.”
He swooped his mouth down to cover hers. Meg welcomed him with a desperation that unsettled her.
He swept his tongue inside her mouth as he brushed his thumb along the underside of her breast. She felt her breasts swell and the warmth travel through her body. Rolling slightly, she pressed up against his bare thigh.
