Chapter Seven
“Take me to the tower,” she said.
“—for one night.”
Heat flooded his nether regions. He pushed Livvy’s shoulders back, needing to see her face. Did she know what she agreed to? Copper-colored lashes drooped over exotically tilted eyes. The full bow of her upper lip tempted him, the middle nub of her top lip inches from his mouth. He’d suck on it. Gently. And taste her…though he dare not say that. There was a hint of innocence in all her sauciness.
Yes, Livvy needed a thorough kissing, begged for it, her body swaying against him like a shameless tart. A definite yes.
But her answer was too quick.
Logic and lust warred inside him. They were friends. Nor could he ignore that Livvy had consumed mulled wine tonight, and she was promised to another. Unofficially, of course. His mouth opened and shut, the chance for words crumbling when Livvy’s hands slipped inside his coat. She rubbed his chest, the whisper of skin on silk the only sound between them. Teeth clenched, desire surged hot and fast when she pushed his wool coat wide open. She took stock of his clothed chest, devouring him.
“Livvy…you’re sure?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “About the tower?”
Curious hands traced the dip between his heavy chest muscles. “There’s little room for interpretation when a man says ‘I want to undress you’ followed by a promise to kiss every inch of my skin.”
Fingers digging into her velvet clad shoulders, he stifled a smile. He was a cad twice over for propositioning a promised woman on a country road. His stay in Plumtree would soon end. He had no prospects, no will to stay, and he was jealous to boot. He wanted to crush the man who asked for her hand.
What he wanted made no sense, but he was in no position to fish for motive and reason. His brain absorbed lust for a certain redhead the way a sponge soaked water.
“What I said was pure desire of the flesh.” His voice was strained. “I didn’t think.”
“I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel…to speak freely with me.”
Speak freely? When he was always guarded? His carnal proposition had popped out, spoken from his heart or, more accurately, from his loins.
“A true gentleman would see you safely home to the bosom of your family.”
Livvy’s smile curled like a sated cat. “The tower is closer.”
He groaned. Pleasure numbed his brain and shot straight to his stones. He breathed in her fragrance, a hint of vinegar from her toils and rose-scented soap. Did her skin taste like rose petal jam? She was supple against him, her shoulders pliant under his greedy hands rubbing her. The velvet teased his palms; her bare skin would be softer.
Two of Livvy’s fingers drew a painstaking line down the middle of his waistcoat. “One…two…three—”
“Have you considered that the mulled wine has dulled your better judgment?”
Silky brown eyes smirked at him. “We can stay out here in the cold or you can trust me. It’s your choice,” she said. “Four…five…six—”
“What are you doing?”
“Counting the buttons I must undo to get you out of your waistcoat.” Her hand stopped above his navel and her gaze met his. “Will you believe me when I get to your breeches and count the buttons on your placket?”
His stones heard that. They clenched inside his smalls.
Laughing low, he turned around and crouched low. “Get on my back.”
She jumped on and slipped both arms over his shoulders, her voice light. “You’re carrying me to the tower.”
Jonas hooked both hands under her knees and began the hike. He’d carried her home in the same manner when she’d twisted her ankle chasing a butterfly. Was she eleven years old then? Twelve?
Livvy nuzzled his ear. “I was hoping you’d toss me over your shoulder. It’s what a pirate would do.”
His step faltered on a rut. Her voice, rich as warm chocolate, tickled him. She wiggled, pressing her breasts against his back, and his traitorous brain flashed images of a man’s shirt stretched across sumptuous breasts when Livvy was in his bed his first night home.
“I’ll pretend you’re a lusty pirate, then,” she said, oblivious to her effect on him.
He forced himself to focus on the toes of his boots. “Sorry to disappoint, but I was an honest sailor. If it helps, I did grow a beard and braid it in three parts for a time.”
“I would have loved to have seen that.”
“It was a passing fancy.”
“And your employer, the Earl of Greenwich, tolerated such an appearance?”
“Lord Edward isn’t your typical nob. Doesn’t care about appearance or status,” he said, trudging up the road, the flesh heavy between his legs.
Plumtree was pristine and white, a wintry purity. Livvy was warm at his back, a welcome burden. Would it matter to her that he’d never captained a ship? Or that the highest position he’d achieved was man of business in service to an earl? He’d seen the world as a law-abiding man, worked with his hands, the same hands he’d use to pleasure Livvy.
Bed sport leveled a man and woman…two naked bodies lost in hot, grinding sex.
He hugged her knees tighter. Being with Livvy would be nothing of the sort, and it scared him, made his heart thud. He’d tupped women, but this night with Livvy wasn’t a tup. Slow, deep tenderness or frenzied passion, there was much to explore with her—and this one night for it.
Her lips moved against the shell of his ear. “Why did you go by the name Jonas Bacon after you left Plumtree? Were you a naughty man in London?”
Quivers danced on his nape. He could get used to her whispers.
“Not much to tell.”
Cold-hot sensations rattled inside him. He put one muddy, snow-covered boot in front of the other. Livvy wanted more than fleshly pleasure. She wanted his secrets. What she asked came with torturous emotions, the kind that ripped a boy’s heart in two and molded him into a stoic man. He was good at keeping people at arm’s-length, a skill he’d first mastered when slurs followed him as a boy, spoken behind his back.
Bastard. Mongrel. Baseborn.
Followed by Big Ox. Big Oaf. And Brainless Beast said to his face.
The roof of Halsey Tower rose in the distance. He pushed onto the side of the road and stood before an elevation. There was no fence marking the Halsey meadow save the slight rise in the soil.
“Your family’s property.”
“Jonas?” Livvy slid down his backside.
He stepped over the rise and, turning around, he waited for Livvy. She stayed on the roadside, midnight bathing her set chin and wide-open eyes. He knew the look. It was common to the fair sex when they required a man’s answer.
“Are you avoiding answering me? Why did you go by the name Jonas Bacon in London?”
Snow lightened the darkness around them, the frozen bits sparkling like diamonds. London was a byword on his journey since leaving home. In it was the answer to his past and his future. London’s ships took him far away. Plumtree hemmed him in.
Except for Livvy. She was freedom itself with her copper hair and forward nature.
Her head tilted at a gentle angle. He caressed her jaw, the fur of her hood tickling the back of his hand.
“You’re not content for sex alone, are you?”
She cupped her hand over his. “I would have you.”
Throat dry, he swallowed hard. Her tenderness healed the edges of his sadness.
“What did you find in London?” she asked.
Denying a woman’s request for intimate knowledge was one thing. Denying Livvy was another. She was a friend, a childhood memory come to life as a woman full grown who knew and saw too much, a woman who could read unspoken words in his eyes. But, she wanted him to rip out his heart and give it to her. She’d be content with nothing less.
His hand fell away from her. “You won’t budge until I give you something.”
Until I give you all of me.
Her silent nod was his answer. From his side vision, he spied faint smoke streaming from her tower. The squat turret was easily a hundred paces, yet the distance could be forever. Chill air braced him, cooling his ardor.
“When I left Plumtree, I was never going to come back. My mother was shamed, and the Braithwaites were upstarts.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Setting fire to the Captain’s furniture shop—”
“Was an accident. You can’t keep blaming yourself for that. The Captain doesn’t. I know that for a fact.”
“It was still fuel to the fire that I was the ne’re-do-well Braithwaite. Jacob was at St. Mary’s College by then. I was Big Ox, remember?” He met her fixed stare with a hard one of his own.
“Big Ox bothers you. When we were children, you’d toss a jest back at them or turn away. But, tonight, you stood there and took it. Why? You could’ve told Will Halsey not to call you that.”
“Because the Will Halseys of the world aren’t worth the effort.”
“You mean to keep it all in,” she huffed. “Be a man, endure, and all that folderol.”
He smiled when she stepped into the meadow, using the Captain’s favored word.
“I am a man of few words. Jacob did most of the talking when we were lads. You know that.”
She toed a chunk of icy snow. “Who talks for you now?”
“I do well enough.”
It’d be easy to admit his size spoke for him. How often did he step into a room to men sitting up taller, shifting in their seats? To women giving their appraisal of his size? Might spoke when it was needed. Or he spoke rarely at all.
Speaking his heart and mind…he wasn’t fluent in that language. The idea was akin to wearing a poorly-sewn coat, the fit awkward.
“To be a man of few words has its merit.” Livvy linked her arm with his. “But sometimes, a man must speak what’s in his heart.”
“Other parts of me want to have their say tonight,” he teased.
Livvy bumped into him, her giggle sweet in the chilly air. They strolled through the meadow, their boots sinking ankle-deep in snow. Lust was a low hum between them. Comfortable, casual, at ease, this conversing with a woman he’d undress in a matter of minutes. Was this what happened when a man was about to have sex with a woman he counted as friend? Moments ago on the road, carnal need consumed him. His cock was heavy, hidden behind his placket, hungry to slide between Livvy’s thighs.
He could be happy, too, walking and talking at her side.
“But, why Jonas Bacon?” she prodded, her voice a gentle nudge. “The Captain knew the fire was an accident. You didn’t have to change your name.”
No. He didn’t. He’d run off one day, leaving the briefest of notes for his grandfather. Jonas shook his head at the choices he’d made. The Captain had been his anchor in childhood, and Jonas had left him.
His heart heavy, they rounded the tower. The window was dark overhead.
“I took the name Bacon because it was my father’s name.”
“Oh Jonas.” Her voice wobbled. Eyes shining up at him, Livvy twined both arms around his bicep.
“I was in London before I went on to the colonies where I spent much time…too much, it would seem. My speech changed. People thought I was colonial when I returned to England. I didn’t correct them. I wanted nothing to do with Plumtree or the Braithwaite name.”
Livvy’s brows pinched together. He’d hurt her, but it was true. It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Livvy that she wanted this confessional; instead, he opened the tower door, the iron hinges singing a light squeak as they stepped inside.
“I’d journeyed to London to find out what I could about him. The Captain would never speak of the man. Nor did my mother.”
“And what did you find?”
“A man named Mr. John Dean who’d sailed with him. Found him in a tavern near Wapping Wall. He choked on his ale when he saw me. Said he thought he was seeing a ghost.” He touched his nape. “Years I thought I had Braithwaite hair, but my father’s locks were just as black.”
“Was this man you met able to give your heart some peace?”
There she was going on about his heart again. Did she want him on his knees, baring his soul?
“Peace?” He laughed, the harsh sound echoing in the tower. “My father died when his ship, the Sussex, sunk off the coast of Africa…the month I was born. He was an East India Company man, ironically a third mate and an adventurer. According to Mr. Dean, my father never intended to marry,” he finished bitterly and shut the door.
He was no different than his father, a man of adventure, even serving as third mate. The parallel was uncanny.
Faint light from the upper floor crowned Livvy’s head. She was beautiful and healing in the dank, unlit entry. They were supposed to be on the verge of an illicit interlude, yet the air changed. His admission left him icy and raw. No fire could warm his bones. The gentle slide of Livvy’s hand on his arm did more to assuage the ache than any comforting words would.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“I should apologize to you. Talk of death isn’t romantic.”
“You don’t need to woo me.” She paused, her smile widening. “I’m the one who chased you down tonight, remember?”
Their voices were barely above a whisper. The passion diminished, but he couldn’t argue with what replaced it—a tenderness, endearing and affectionate. Was this what happened when friendship forged its way into deeper waters? He could think of other places for her to touch, but if he said so, it’d be crude…a thing that never bothered him in the past when he was on the verge of coupling with a woman.
Livvy deserved better.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Come. Let’s see if we can save the night.”
Holding her hand, he led her up the narrow stairs behind him. Shoes scraped stone. A new thrum pulsed inside him, not so frantic and needy but no less heavy in his loins. Livvy’s bare hand folded with his, the intimacy a treasure. There was no need for empty promises or false flattery. Livvy was his friend. She already knew the truth about him.
It was all very…comfortable.
They breached the upper floor, both eyeing the lone bed near the window. Rumpled sheets invited them to make a bigger mess. Embers glowed in one fireplace, the sole source of heat. He marched to the hearth and bent to stoke a fresh fire.
“Don’t. The smoke. It might alert others.” Furtive lashes dropped over Livvy’s eyes.
Others. Meaning her family, secure in the belief that she was dancing country reels and taking a much deserved respite in the Sheep’s Head. He rose from the hearth, his gaze shifting to the floor. He’d stood near this spot and assured Mrs. Halsey that her daughter’s honor was safe with him.
Tonight, he’d plunder it.
Livvy set a hand on the back of a chair and toed off one boot. “We’ll keep our clothes on for warmth.”
“A practical solution but less satisfying,” he said, dropping his hat on the table. “I’m sure you’d prefer skin to skin.”
Livvy’s laugh was skittish. “Skin to skin. Yes, of course.” Her boot landed with a thud.
Slipping free of his coat, his palms were damp and limbs stiff. He could be blundering his way through his first time with a woman. Livvy was no better. She fumbled with her cloak’s frogs under her chin, filling the room with aimless chatter.
“I’m acquainted with the buttons on your waistcoat. Thirteen of them…but the bottom four are undone. The ninth button…it’s near your…placket.” She glanced at that part of his breeches, her fingers shaky.
“Livvy…” He squeezed her hands and held them high on her chest in a gentle grip. “Our friendship will be as true as ever.”
Her eyes shined, big and brown. They stood together in the cold dark room, letting uncertainty wash over them. Being with Livvy sated him, the stillness of breathing the same air, of pleasant conversation, and the knowing. Only the deepest friendship gave that gift. No doubt, he wanted to slide between her thighs, but being with Livvy was its own kind of satisfaction. And, she needed gentling. Her heart fluttered a rapid tattoo under his hands. Lust had given way to tender nerves. She trembled. Gone was the confident woman who accosted him on Plumtree’s northern road.
He released her hands and set them at her side with care. It took all his powers of concentration to unhook her cloak. The silken frogs were slippery in his fingers.
“You’ve unmanned me.”
“I have?”
“I’m as nervous as you. This is a night of firsts.”
She gulped, her eyes rounding. “I, I—”
“Shhh.” He touched her lips. “It’s not every day friends engage in sexual congress. No matter what goes on here, you are my friend. I value that more than anything.”
Livvy fell against him, wrapping both arms around his waist. “Oh, Jonas…”
He cupped the back of her head and held her close. Their bond defied explanation. To call her a friend was inadequate. She was the childhood companion who never required a favor returned. She was there, always had been, wide brown eyes taking him in, her heart listening, caring. The gap between their ages had never mattered. They were the odd, youthful friendship in Plumtree that shouldn’t have made sense. Yet, the connection thrived.
“Livvy, we—”
“Don’t say it.” Big, glossy eyes stared up at him. “Don’t say ‘We don’t have to do this’.” Feminine fingers went to work on his waistcoat. She freed one button and then another, the effort jerky. “I wanted to be the one you kissed that day you left.” Her voice thinned with unshed tears. “I know I was only fourteen, but it should have been me. Not Elspeth.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. His absence these ten years hurt her deeply.
She was fierce, undoing his waistcoat buttons. Copper brows knit together. Her breaths came in fitful huffs. He didn’t fight her. Orange light traced Livvy’s head, catching the bright auburn hues of her bound hair. His waistcoat undone, she started on his placket, words rushing out of her.
“All these years, I had hardly any news of you.” Livvy’s hands grazed his erection tenting his smalls.
Air gusted out of him and he grabbed the back of a chair. Heat flooded his abdomen. His stones twitched and his tongue refused cooperation for the mad rush inside him. He should say something to redress his brash exit years ago, but the faster Livvy toiled to free him of his smalls, the less he could form coherent words.
Her frantic hands yanked up his shirt. “I thought you’d write to me at least once.” Lips quivering, she sniffled softly. “But, you never did.”
He drew her close. She sobbed against his chest, fisting his shirt with both hands. Years of separation and sadness, of loss and wondering poured out of her. If tears could tell a story, Livvy wrote hers against his chest. Each warm drop mended her heart while it tore apart his. Holding her racked him. He wanted her, desired her, and yes…he loved her.
His knees buckled. The truth thrashed him. He blinked at the dim chamber, looking but seeing emptiness. Everything hazed. His mouth wouldn’t work.
Grim facts were clear…he was piss-poor at speaking his heart.
Sensations swamped him. Words failed him. He needed Livvy. To feel her. To taste her. Tipping her chin high, he planted the softest kiss on her mouth. It was all he could do. He coaxed sweetness from her, his lips brushing hers, a whispery touch meant to soothe her and heal the storm inside him.
“Oh, Jonas.” She breathed his name. In it was contentment, the future, and a sultry promise.
Dipping low, he sucked on the plump center part of her upper lip. A taste, a nibble…a deeper suck. She moaned, swaying into him again. Welcome friction rubbed the tip of his cock, the pleasure a white hot shock to his brain. Her homespun breeches, the wool and the wooden buttons rubbed his skin. Separation was agony. He needed to seat himself inside.
He gripped her backside with both hands and hoisted her up. Livvy yelped into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his waist. They didn’t break their kiss. Mouths pressed hungrily. Tongues touched. He walked, carrying her to the bed.
“Your clothes,” he mumbled into her mouth and kissed a trail to her ear.
“My clothes.” Livvy shivered when his lips played with her lobe. “We should slow down.”
“No,” he rasped.
Her fingers bumped between them. She didn’t rush. She giggled when he nipped her earlobe. When his mouth ran into her formidable cravat, he growled his frustration.
A nervous titter spilled from her. “There is no rush.”
“I think there is.” He bit the cravat’s tie and yanked it with his teeth.
Livvy inhaled a hiss of sound. The mannish waistcoat parted. A cambric shirt covered her. The cravat loose, he searched for her shirt’s opening at her neck. Touching her throat calmed him. He dragged his splayed hand from her throat, to her collarbone, to the top of her chest, careful to memorize her shape. Livvy’s bare skin calmed him. This was only her neck and the top of her chest. She could be the tonic a sick man prayed for. Life-giving. Sustenance of the best kind.
What would happen when he touched the rest of her?
When he thrusted into her, her naked body writhing beneath him?
His body tightened painfully at that picture.
Breasts jostled. Pale thighs clenched his hips. Her brown eyes with their slight, exotic tilt watched him under heavy lids.
Livvy removed her coat and let it drop to the floor. “I’m counting on you to keep me warm.”
“I can do that.”
He lifted the hem of her shirt and tucked it under her chin. Whalebone stays cinched her. His hands spanned her ribs. Slowly, he dragged his thumbs down the whalebone, tracing the ridged lines until he landed on bare skin. No shift. This was nice. He tested the curve of her pelvic bones, following the dip into the waistband of her breeches. Her skin pebbled wherever his thumbs touched.
Livvy hissed, her shirt hem slipping free of her chin. Hands shaking, she wrangled the shirt in one hand, her the lacing of her stays with the other.
“Let me,” he said, brushing her hands aside.
Milk white breasts spilled over the top of her stays. He tugged the ties, working the top three tiers with impatient hands. The lacing parted and he had to stop. The valley of her cleavage showed between the lacing. He stared, slack jawed. Full, inner curves pressed inside the stays…firm and round moving each time she breathed.
He had to touch.
One finger slipped past the ties inside her stays and traced a pale curve.
“Your skin is finer than velvet.” He was awestruck. He had to explore the inner part of her breast again and again to assure himself of the truth—Livvy was made for his touch.
The texture of her skin, the softness…
And this was one finger on one breast.
She watched him, fascinated by his hand inside her stays. The garment slumped lower on her torso until two pink-brown nipples popped to view.
“Well, hello.” He grinned, his gaze locked on those two points.
The greeting was worthy of a cad. Base and obscene. He should be romantic. Instead, he honed in on the coin-sized peaks. With both hands, he twirled the tiny tips between his thumb and forefinger in barely-there circles. Breast play was an art form he’d not perfected. He liked them. Big. Small. Full and round. Or a slight curve the likes of a small dumpling. But, this was Livvy he was touching, pleasuring, if he went by her moans.
Her head was lax, tipping to one side. He kissed the exposed skin, breathing her warmth and the wash of clean rose-scented soap on her neck while his fingers circled her areolas. The tender nipples had turned a shade of raspberry.
“I could do this all night,” he said and dropped a kiss on her breast.
Livvy shuddered, a high, thin wheeze hissing from her. Her mouth went slack and a blissful hum tripped out of her again. She gaped at him. Tried to focus but her eyes were dark pools. Livvy grabbed the bottom of his waistcoat. Skin around her eyes tightened. Her face flushed and she breathed faster. Was she on the verge of finding her pleasure?
Her brown eyes begged him not to stop.
“Good, isn’t it?” He gloated. He couldn’t help it.
“Uh-huh.”
She was his puppet and he was the marionette master…all managed from gentle circles on her nipples. His erection poked out of his breeches. He itched to be skin to skin with her, to see if the rest of her body was velvet textured, but Livvy was right. The tower was cold. They would warm each other the best they could with hot sex.
His sluggish circles on her nipples spread wider. Ripe breasts, firm as Christmas pudding flushed a shade of pink.
“Livvy.”
She moaned. His hands feathered higher up her chest to her collarbone.
“Livvy.” He hooked a finger under her chin, calling her out of her sensual trance. “Your breeches. Push them to your knees.”
She licked her lips and tried to focus on his face. “You don’t have to stop.”
“I won’t.” He chuckled, a sense of control seeping into his limbs.
Livvy unmoored the wooden buttons on her placket. He wouldn’t be surprised if she counted the number she wore too. Coppery strands of hair fell wildly around her face. She stood with a boot on one foot, a plain stocking on the other, her languorous eyes feasting on him. Not once in unbuttoning her breeches did she break eye contact.
It was potent. More than sexual congress about to happen. A primal thing.
Livvy was laying claim to him.
He didn’t have to touch the seam of skin between her legs to know she was ready.
Cloth rustled. He glanced down and laughter rolled through his body. “Only you would be saucy enough to wear a man’s smalls.”
Could a man have it any better? Intimacy and humor with a woman. Another sign of the rightness of being with Livvy.
A satisfied smile broke her sex-hazed stare. It eased the corners of her eyes and lit up her face. “Doesn’t every Englishwoman wear smalls with her breeches?”
He pulled the string holding up that intimate garment. “A question to haunt many a man, I’m sure.”
She was a sight. Breeches down to her knees. Slender, naked thighs lightly muscled and pale in the unlit room. Shirt pulled up. Breasts peeking over her stays. And a dusky spot in the middle of her untied smalls. The sum total of a vision.
Playful. Sweet. Erotic.
He locked on to the thatch between her legs. “The smalls. Push them down.”
His voice was gruff. He couldn’t take his eyes off the juncture of her thighs shrouded in linen. Livvy hooked both hands in her smalls and wiggled her hips.
The bit of cloth dropped to her knees. For a second or two, he couldn’t breathe. A steel band could be crushing his lungs. The lack of air seemed to scramble his brain. A neat triangle of auburn curls was all he could see.
“Lay down for me.” The command left him taut as a fiddle string.
His skin was tight. Joints and muscles tensed. Desire wound him up.
Livvy seated herself on the bed and lay back. He bent over her, smelling her sex. His cock ached. A wet line darkened the feminine curls between her legs. He had to touch it.
One finger skimmed the dampness.
Livvy spread her knees wide, her stockinged foot freed from her breeches. Slick flesh opened for him. Fingers to her mouth, she watched him.
He stroked her hip. Words tumbled from him as he stroked every inch of her exposed skin, kissing a small bruise the size of a thumbprint on her thigh. His hand tucked under her stay, feeling the plane of her belly, the solid curve of her ribs. If he had a lifetime to touch Livvy, it wouldn’t be enough. He hungered for her.
“Jonas…I…” Emotions flickered in her eyes. Things unsaid. Their history. Years of friendship. And desire.
How strong she was to be this vulnerable with him.
It made him weak in the knees.
Lowering himself, he braced one hand on the bed and held her gaze. The other hand pushed his breeches and smalls to his knees. Measure for measure. They were equals. Always had been. Entwined. Connected. Full of secrets and memories.
This would be the best part of knowing Livvy.
He set the tip of his cock at her entrance. Her throat moved with a hard swallow.
“Do it fast,” she urged and rocked into him.
Blinding heat bounced from his genitals to his brain. He cried out. The sound echoed off the tower’s timbered ceiling. The shock of soft, wet skin closing tightly around the head of his cock. Her words reached through the lustful fog.
Do it fast.
“Livvy?” he croaked. His brain tried to make sense of the feeling assaulting him.
Her hips swayed into him. “Please.”
Livvy was practically begging him to impale her. He was a fraction deeper inside her. Slick, feminine flesh gloved the part of him inside her.
But…
The tip of his cock touched a barrier. His forehead rested on hers as he clutched handfuls of the sheets.
“You’re a virgin.” His voice shook. His body shook. He fought to control himself.
A stockinged foot snaked around his waist. “Not anymore.”
Livvy drove herself against him, whimpering. Her pained sob tore his heart. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands and held on tight. Her body quaked. She was panting.
“Shhh,” he soothed. Livvy’s hot, wet tightness was heaven for him, but it pained her. “Let your body adjust.”
Her breath came in fits. “It’s not so bad.”
“It gets better,” he said, stroking her hair.
They stayed locked together, their hearts pounding and breaths jagged. This was a night of firsts—of sex between two friends and the act itself for Livvy. His mind reeled at the implication.
She’d saved herself for him.
Nature’s urges wanted him to drive into her, but they stayed together, unmoving. It was killing him. The wait. The desire marching down his spin. His ass squeezed tight. Livvy needed this moment, and he’d give it to her. Her inner muscles gave a slight clasp to his shaft as if testing the feel, experimenting with what she could do.
Air wheezed past his clenched teeth. She needed to explore and adjust to him.
The tower was cold, but a drop of sweat trickled down his back.
Livvy tucked herself against him, her breath fanning his neck. “I liked when you touched my breasts, and I liked it when you kissed me.”
She pulled his hand free of its tense grip on the sheets and set it on her breast.
“If I touch you more,” he rasped. “It’ll be harder to not move inside you.”
“If you touch me more, it’ll be harder for me to keep still with you inside me.” She kissed his neck and wiggled her hips beneath him. “The ache is fading.”
He kissed her and braced one hand on the mattress. Staring into her eyes, his free hand feathered light touches on her breasts spilling out of her stays. His other arm shook from holding himself up. Need racked his body from the sweetest pleasure-pain.
His cock was buried deep inside Livvy.
“You are a good man,” she whispered, slipping her hands under his shirt.
Livvy’s fingertips drew light lines on his skin before raking his skin to his navel. He shuddered. Holding still was a feat. It tested the limits of his restraint. Weakness stole up his legs.
“Livvy…I…” His gut tightened when her fingers skimmed the nest of hair above his cock.
Her quim’s inner walls squeezed him again. Livvy rocked back and forth, making the bed ropes squeak. Little movements, gentle as a swaying ship. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“I like this,” she whispered, pulling him closer. “I want this, more of this…more of you, Jonas.”
His stones hurt and his cock ached from the waiting. But, Livvy was worth it. He ceased thinking and let his body feel. Nature was having its way between them. Need rushed him. His hips bumped against hers, rusty and imperfect. Livvy didn’t seem to mind. Her hips bumped against his. The mattress creaked louder. The bed frame banged the tower wall. Faster and harder. Their breaths mingled. He rained kisses on her cheek and mouth, hungry for Livvy. There was a world of things he wanted to say, and none of them he could voice. Clarity was lost.
Passion rushed fast and hard. Livvy’s blissful cries blended with his guttural moans, the purest music as they reached for their pleasure together.
The tower faded. His past and his future.
Life was this moment with Livvy. No one was going to keep her from him.
No one.