One Week As Lovers Read online

  His teeth scraped her neck and made her moan. When he pulled his finger from her body, she whimpered in need.

  “Shh,” he whispered, and suddenly there was pressure as he slid two fingers in.

  It was almost too much. Cynthia tried to push away and found that she couldn’t move. He slid his fingers out, then slowly pushed them deeper. “Oh, God. Nick.”

  “Is that good, love?”

  Was it good? It almost hurt, and yet as the pressure reached toward pain it somehow became something else. Every stroke came closer to unbearable pleasure.

  Her body grew more slippery, and the resistance to his fingers was suddenly gone. He slid easily in, and then very slowly out. She didn’t want him to go.

  “No,” she whispered, her sex suddenly empty. This was how she’d felt in the hidden passageway, when he’d suddenly stepped back and left her panting. “Don’t stop.”

  “I won’t,” he said, even as his wet fingers dragged up her belly.

  “Don’t!” she protested, but he didn’t obey.

  His hand slid higher and cupped her breast. Nick kissed down her neck to her shoulder, then sucked her flesh between his teeth as he teased her nipple with his thumb. When he pinched her, she cried out and pushed hard against his manhood.

  She could feel the cool touch of wetness on her nipple, and knew it was from her sex. That seemed terribly improper, somehow, which only made her squirm harder.

  “Nick!”

  He ignored the pleading in her tone and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. A coil deep inside her body tightened.

  “You can’t know how good you feel, Cyn,” he murmured. “So warm and soft and right. I wish…” He let the words fade away.

  When he dragged his hand back down to slip it between her legs, Cynthia pressed the heel of her palm into his wrist to urge him on. Perhaps that decided something for him, because instead of teasing her further, he put his hand on her hip and pushed her around, so that her belly touched the bed. He spread her legs with one knee, then knelt between them.

  This was it then. He would have her now.

  He crouched over her to kiss her shoulders and her back. The hot weight of his arousal dragged over her bottom.

  It was Nick above her this time, so she knew it would be different. Not beautiful or magical perhaps, but better than it had been with James. And yet as he gripped her hips and urged her up to her knees, Cynthia cringed. What if it wasn’t different at all?

  Lonely horror welled up inside her. She didn’t want this with him. Didn’t want to feel alone as he rutted at her. Didn’t want to feel dirty as he grunted and groaned and spent himself inside her. She’d felt like a used handkerchief after James had finished. Why had she not considered that Nick might leave her feeling exactly the same?

  His hand smoothed down her buttocks and Cynthia cringed. She pressed her hands into the mattress and stared hard at the scrolls of the headboard, and when the tips of his fingers touched the most secret part of her, Cyn felt a tear drop from her eyelashes to vanish into the rumpled sheets below.

  He stroked her again, drawing a slow line along the seam of her body. When his hand slipped forward, he touched a spot so sensitive that she jerked against him. His other hand tightened on her hip as he rubbed more firmly.

  “Oh,” she sighed, relaxing just a little. Whatever else might happen, this was quite lovely.

  He shifted behind her, and suddenly something else rubbed her there. His long arousal slid over that spot as he rocked against her.

  “Oh, my.” Perhaps the thing wasn’t entirely awful. It felt rather nice and smooth as it rubbed along her. Cynthia was shocked to find that she had lost the desire to brace herself and hold her breath. Instead she pushed back against him and rocked on her knees to set the pace of his rubbing a little faster. That coil inside her made itself known again. “Mm.”

  Then, quite to her surprise, it was actually happening. Nick shifted, and when she pushed back, he was sliding into her instead of along her. There was pressure and stretching, and she would have pulled away but, strangely enough, Nick was already pulling back.

  She was so shocked that she simply froze and blinked down at her hands. It wasn’t until he pushed forward again and sank deep into her body that the realization hit her. His sex was inside her, pushing in, and it felt…good. Smooth and sliding as it had been before, but this time it was tightness too. But no pain. None at all. She didn’t need to hold her breath and bite her lip and beg him to please stop because she’d changed her mind and…

  Nick thrust a little harder, and Cynthia gasped in pleasure. The muscles inside her tightened at the shock of it.

  “Ah,” he gasped. “Cynthia, you…You’re…”

  Heat washed over her at his broken words. He thrust harder and faster and it felt better and better.

  She wasn’t lonely. She was filled with him.

  He thrust hard and deep and then held himself there, snug inside her. His low gasps echoed through the room. Sweat slicked the skin where their thighs pressed together.

  When his breath had calmed a bit, Nick leaned over her and curved one arm around her chest to lift her up to her knees. The other arm curled around her belly and he pressed his hand over the curls of her sex. His chest flush against her back, Nick circled his fingers over that little pearl at the top of her sex, and Cynthia cried out.

  “That’s it, Cyn,” he murmured, lowering his hips before he thrust up high and hard.

  “Oh, God,” she groaned and spread her knees wider.

  “Yes.” His fingers teased her as he drove deep. “That’s it, isn’t it, love? That’s what you need.”

  “Oh, yes,” she moaned. This was exactly what she needed, and she’d had no idea. But now she needed it so much. Her body was tightening up into one great pulsing pleasure that wanted more and more.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please, Nick.”

  He thrust faster. “Say it again. My name. Call me by my name, Cyn.”

  “Nick.” Her belly wound itself tighter. “Nick, you feel so good.” And then she couldn’t make her mouth form words. She could only scream as the pleasure inside her swelled up and devoured her soul. The world went black and bright at the same time.

  She heard Nick cry out her name as he pulled free of her body. Heat splashed against her back and dripped down her bottom. His fingers dug bruises into her flesh and she didn’t care in the least.

  Cynthia exhaled for a very long time and let her chin fall to rest on Nick’s arm. Thank God he still clasped her to his chest, or she would have crumpled into a useless pile of limbs.

  It seemed ages before his breath returned to normal. “Cyn, are you all right?”

  She nodded, too weary to speak. When his arms eased her down to the bed, she nuzzled her face into the cool pillow with a brand new kind of pleasure. A weakness that made her sigh.

  He was quiet behind her for a long time, but she couldn’t manage to lift her head to see his expression.

  “I’ll just…” he finally said, then cleared his throat. “Don’t move.”

  No chance of that. She thought she’d only just closed her eyes, but suddenly the bed dipped and a cold cloth touched her back.

  “Sorry,” he said when she gasped out a little shriek. The towel caressed her lower back and then her buttocks and thighs. “I got you a bit, um…”

  He finally lay down at her back with a deep sigh. When his arm snuck around her waist, she smiled. This was a better kind of happiness than she’d dreamed.

  Lancaster was rather worried about the state of his heart. It had pounded like mad when they’d made love, of course. But it still beat so hard and fast that his chest began to ache. It wasn’t quite anxiety, though that was part of it. Mostly, it was an excess of pleasure. Physical pleasure, yes, but something emotional as well.

  He’d never felt quite so…connected during sex. He’d never felt treasured or even valued, because he didn’t let women that close.

  O
ver the years, he’d learned how to manipulate his sexual encounters. Unless he was paying a woman specifically to indulge his roughest desires, he made sure his partners weren’t aware of his need to control. But these machinations kept him distant. Always removed even in the friendliest of encounters.

  He’d manipulated Cynthia in the same way, and that made his gut burn with shame, but somehow he’d felt her joy too. Her joy in him.

  No one had ever felt joy just to have him near. Desire, yes. And lust and satisfaction and maybe amusement if it was a rare encounter that didn’t involve coin. But not joy.

  Pressing his forehead to Cynthia’s shoulder, he breathed in her skin. He felt almost…normal. Almost peaceful. Until Cynthia spoke.

  “That wasn’t at all what I expected,” she sighed.

  His heart finally slowed. Actually, it stopped entirely. He held his breath, but Cyn seemed happy to leave it at that. “Oh?” he croaked. “How so?”

  “It wasn’t anything like my first time.”

  He pressed his forehead a little more firmly to her back and squeezed his eyes shut. She’d realized. She’d known.

  Her first lover had probably laid her down in a field of wildflowers. He’d probably kissed her all over and held her to his bosom and whispered of love and moonlight and stardust.

  While Lancaster had taken her from behind like an animal. “I’m sorry,” he breathed into her skin.

  Cyn laughed. “Sorry? You must be mad. My first time was horrid. This was…Well, this was rather spectacular.”

  He opened his eyes and stared hard at the pale peach skin in his vision. “Really?”

  She flipped to her back, forcing him to pull away. “Are you fishing for compliments, Nick? Come now. You’re the more experienced one here. Shouldn’t you be petting me and telling me I was lovely?”

  He couldn’t quite believe she was smiling at him. His brain hadn’t made the transition from horror to relief yet. “You were lovely,” he answered stupidly.

  “Thank you.” When she laughed, his brain finally caught up with the conversation.

  “Why was your first time horrid?”

  The smile faded a little. “It just was.”

  He supposed he should feel glad that her first time had been with someone else. He hadn’t been the one to cause her pain. But he didn’t like the sadness in her eyes. Lancaster stroked a finger down her cheek. “Because it hurt?”

  “Yes.” Her gaze flickered down to his chin.

  “And?”

  “And,” she sighed, “because it was a mistake. An awful mistake.”

  When he laid his hand against her cheek, Cynthia closed her eyes and nuzzled closer.

  “Well, I can’t disagree with that,” he said. “First, because you were with another man. And second, because it makes you look sad to speak of it. Will you tell me?”

  Though she shook her head, she opened her eyes and began to speak. “He was an artist. While he was working on a commission in Scarborough, he engaged in a bit of gambling. When he lost to my stepfather, they agreed he’d pay his losses in trade. Not that my stepfather was happy about it, mind you, but what could he do?”

  She shrugged, her shoulder rubbing against his chest. “So James painted my portrait. And we flirted. He kissed me a few times. It was very exciting. I was seventeen—”

  “Seventeen,” Lancaster growled, but Cynthia ignored him.

  “And he was very handsome and sophisticated. I’d already been offered up to Sir Reginald, and Harry was being discussed, and I decided to make myself unmarketable.”

  “By losing your virginity.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were too young.”

  “Old enough, I gather. Regardless, he finished the portrait, but there was some argument as he was leaving. The agreement hadn’t covered the cost of paint and canvas, only James’s commission, but my stepfather refused to pay for the supplies. I saw James storm out and followed him to the stables, knowing it would be my last chance. I asked him to take my virginity, and…he did.”

  Lancaster waited for more, but she offered nothing else. “Well, that’s a fine way of saying nothing at all. What do you mean ‘he did’?”

  “I mean that he did. I thought it would be romantic. He was an artist, after all, and I’d very much enjoyed our kisses. But it wasn’t romantic at all, and I’d been stupid to think it would be, I suppose. He kissed me a few times, and I was rather…interested. But then he began to chuckle, and he pulled me into a stall, leaned me over a barrel, and—”

  “He did what?”

  Cynthia jumped at his shouted question. “He was still angry, I think. Feeling foolish for being tricked out of his funds. And I’m sure he thought a girl willing to give herself so cheaply didn’t deserve kindness.”

  “Cyn,” he gasped in horror. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? I asked for exactly what I got. I didn’t believe myself in love with him. I didn’t even try to couch it in feathery language. I simply said, ‘Will you have me?’ and so I was had. And when he finished, he buttoned his trousers, tucked in his shirt, and said, ‘Tell your father we’re squared away then.’ And he left. That was it.”

  Lancaster couldn’t speak. Cynthia didn’t have tears in her eyes, but he felt like weeping for her. He smoothed the hair away from her forehead. “Tell me his name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I shall hunt him down and beat him half to death.”

  She laughed. How could she laugh when his heart was breaking? “He was only being a man, Nick. There’s no punishment for that.”

  “Being a man?” he sputtered. “He acted like an animal!”

  “He only took what—”

  “Do you think I would ever do that to you? To anyone?”

  She met his eyes easily. “No, not you.”

  “What kind of man would hurt a woman that way? You must have been terrified.”

  This time her eyes did fill with tears, and Lancaster felt so much rage fill his soul that it frightened him. He could kill this James, easily. “Don’t cry, Cyn.”

  She turned her head into his neck. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Hush.”

  “I wish it had been you. You were beautiful, Nick. It was beautiful.”

  Beautiful? He wrapped her tight in his arms and tried to calm his raging heart. Beautiful. He should kill that bastard just for making her think sex with him was beautiful.

  But despite his anger, he wanted to ask her to repeat that over and over again. You were beautiful. It was beautiful.

  Maybe with Cynthia it was.

  “Nick?”

  “Yes?”

  She tipped her face up to look at him. “Why didn’t you want me to touch you?”

  All the air in the room drew away from him, eluding his lungs. It belatedly occurred to him that there was a problem with this genuine connection. A friend would notice things a stranger would not.

  Why didn’t you want me to touch you? What could he say to that? He could only lie to her. Familiar as he was with falsehoods, the words still felt like cotton in his mouth.

  “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

  “I wanted to touch you the way you touched me.”

  Lancaster swallowed hard to clear the truth from his throat. “Men do not care for that kind of attention.”

  He’d hoped that her inexperience would prove to her disadvantage, but Cynthia pulled her chin in and gave a brief laugh. “Pardon? As far as I can tell, men enjoy every bit of attention they can get. And you. You used to sit at your mother’s foot and read while she stroked your hair like a cat.”

  “I was a child,” he muttered, and that was the truth at least. “And men are not…Men are not conditioned to need that kind of touching.”

  Her nose scrunched up in doubt. “Are you quite sure?”

  “I think I would know.”

  “Well,” she scoffed, “we may have to work on that. I’
m keen to pet you a bit.”

  Lancaster laughed in that way he’d perfected. A laugh that sounded real because he’d trotted it out for nearly ten years of deceit. “I’m flattered. But you’ll have to leave the petting to me.”

  “We’ll see,” she answered ominously. She hesitated for a moment, and Lancaster braced himself for more poking and prodding, but she managed to surprise him. “So…what was your first time like? Very exciting I’d suppose.”

  “Er…” Good God, the woman had some sort of awful gift for uncomfortable topics.

  “I’ve listened to the village boys speak of their conquests for years. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

  “I…As your first lover was, at best, a miserable failure, I feel it’s my duty to explain that the warm glow of pleasure one feels after lovemaking is best sustained by quiet contemplation or perhaps even sleep.”

  “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Aren’t you sleepy at all?”

  “No.” But she quieted down, nuzzling her nose into his chest and relaxing with a deep sigh.

  He was a fraud. He knew nothing about the proper way to behave after making love as he always simply pulled on his clothes and left. There had been no sweet whispers or warm embraces after his first time, nor had there been any in the years since. Until now.

  Breathing in the scent of her hair, Lancaster let himself feel the way her naked skin pressed his. How hot their bodies were together. She shifted her knee, sliding it a few inches up his thigh.

  He could smell her skin and her sex. He could feel her from her toes all the way to the top of her head. Her breath tickled his chest. Her heart beat close enough to hear.

  Lancaster closed his eyes.

  “It was awkward,” he said softly, and she went still beside him. “Exciting and frightening at the same time. And I wish…I wish it had been you.”

  Chapter 14

  “’E’s a right odd fellow,” the old boat maker said. His tongue poked through his teeth as he considered his own words. “Strange.”

  “Strange how?” Lancaster did his best to hide his frustration. Everyone seemed to agree that Bram was an odd man, but no one could explain why.