Beckman: Lord of Sins

Eleven

By the time Beckman had returned to their rooms, the tub was gone, a tea cart laden with dinner had been set up near the window, and Sara was beginning to fret a little at his absence.

“Miss me?” He set down some packages and crossed directly to wrap his arms around her. “Your fragrances are enough to drive me to distraction, Sarabande.”

“You’ve bathed as well.” Sara got a nice whiff of bergamot, citrus, and Beck. She buried her nose against his sternum and wondered when his embrace had come to feel like home and a private adventure rolled into one.

She tilted back to peer up at him. “Just how tall are you?”

“A bit shy of six and a half feet.” Beck peered right back at her. “I’m not the runt in my family—that honor belongs to George, who’s all of three or four inches shorter. Nick is taller.”

“God in heaven. The poor man, no wonder he’s somewhat crazy.”

“Why do you say that?” Beck slipped his arms from her and moved to shrug out of his jacket. Sara’s hands went to his shoulders, helping him out of his coat then turning him to unknot his cravat.

“A man that size will have little privacy,” Sara said. “He’s always visible, and people likely see only his size, like people see only my red hair. You are tall enough to know what that feels like, to be seen only as an oversized physical specimen. Even North is regarded by most as more brute than gentleman, at least until they hear him speak.”

Beck lifted his chin, suggesting to Sara that other women had assisted him out of his clothes. His cuff links came next, and then his waistcoat.

“Tell me, love,” Beck said as she started on the buttons of his shirt. “Are we to allow me any clothing during our meal?”

Sara dropped her hands and stepped back. “I beg your pardon. I wasn’t… Oh, dear…”

“Dear heart,” Beck said, pulling her into his embrace, “you may undress me any time. My dressing gown hangs on the back of the bedroom door, and then I’ll be at least as unclothed as you.”

She nodded, face flaming, and Beck sat to tug off his boots.

“Were you your husband’s valet?” Beck asked as Sara brought him his blue velvet dressing gown.

“I was not.” She took a surreptitious sniff of his fragrance from his dressing gown. “I liked sleeping in your dressing gown. It’s very warm and soft.” She sniffed again, crushing it to her nose. “And it bears your fragrance.”

Beck grinned, rose, and tugged his shirt off over his head. “Naughty, but flattering. And here I resent your dressing gown no end and can think of nothing other than getting you out of it.” His breeches, stockings, and smalls were gone, just like that, leaving him naked in the middle of the sitting room.

“Beckman…” Sara turned her face away, another blush gracing her cheeks. “You are shameless.” Also beautiful and desirable.

“So you be shameless too.” Beck padded to her side and took his dressing gown from her hands. “Enjoy a little peek, Sara. Get some ideas for how you want to spend the rest of the evening, hmm?” He shook out his dressing gown and shrugged into it, while Sara did, indeed, risk a glance at him before he belted it at his waist.

Dinner was simple but satisfying. They talked as they ate, about the book Sara had read, about their shopping itinerary for the next day, about the city of Portsmouth, which Beck seemed to know thoroughly. They also talked of sights on the Continent they’d both seen, finding on at least two occasions they’d stayed in the same inns, though not at the same time.

“Why didn’t you use London as your port of call?” Sara asked. “Portsmouth had to be a little remote, given your family lives in Kent.”

“When one wants anonymity about one’s comings and goings, London is not one’s first choice. Then too, I got in the habit of putting in at the smaller ports.”

He crossed his knife and fork on the edge of his plate. “Shall we take in a little evening air?” He rose, not waiting for her answer but holding her chair for her and wrapping her hand in his. “It’s dark enough we’ll have privacy on the balcony.”

He was right on two counts. While they had talked and eaten and talked some more, night had fallen. Then too, their inn was on the edge of town and their room at the back. From their balcony, they could see the moon rising over the fields and pastures used by the inn’s dozens of coaching horses.

“Pretty night.” Beck settled his arms around Sara, holding her back to his chest. “And lucky me, I’m in the company of a pretty lady.” His lips grazed the side of Sara’s neck, and just like that, the pleasant meal with the congenial gentleman was over.

“Beckman, we need to talk.” She pulled away from his embrace, relieved he let her go without resistance.

“I’m listening.” He came to her side, where she stood against the railing, facing out toward the moonlit countryside. He didn’t try to touch her, but Sara was abundantly aware of him nonetheless.

“You asked earlier did I valet my husband,” Sara began. “And you let it drop when I answered in the negative.”

“I am bent on seduction, Sara.” Beck’s voice held a hint of humor. “What was I doing, bringing up the man you chose for your mate, and your intimate ease with the business of helping him undress? Not well done of me, but I was curious.”

“I never…” Sara glanced at him in the moonlight and saw his expression was cool, for all the humor in his tone. “That’s what we need to talk about. You need to understand the way I was married.”

“Unhappily,” Beck said. “I wish for you it could have been different, just as I’m sure you wish the same for me.” He didn’t want to belabor the subject, which sparked Sara’s curiosity regarding Beck’s brief and ill-fated marriage.

Sara crossed her arms over her chest and prepared to be more honest than she had thus far. “My marriage was not unhappy, Beckman, it was miserable, filled with bewilderment at first, and loathing, and then—thank God—a towering indifference to anything save the ways and degrees in which Reynard’s decisions impacted my survival, Polly’s, and Allie’s. He was my intimate enemy, by most lights.”

“You did not want to be performing on stage,” Beck concluded, and in the assurance of his tone, Sara understood that he was not merely being sympathetic. Beckman had been forced to perform somehow, perhaps solving the family problems, perhaps in his marriage.

Was he still being forced?

“I did not want to be performing on his terms, certainly,” Sara agreed. “And then Allie showed up, and it became perform or starve. I did not want to learn what desperate measures starvation might inspire in my husband.”

Beck tucked her braid over her shoulder. “That sounds ominous.”

Sara merely nodded, because the private performances were her most personal shame. Those and the things Polly had suffered because her sister could not protect her.

“I don’t like to think of it, though you need to know I do not come to this situation of ours with a great deal of experience.”

“Not with a great deal of good experience,” Beck said. “It can be my privilege to address that lack, if you’ll allow it.”

“I’m going to allow it.” The words were true, but they sounded far more confident than Sara felt. Far more calculating. “You have to understand, Beck, it’s… I’m selfish about this attraction between us. I’m indulging a curiosity, nothing more.”

He gazed out over the cool, silvery landscape. “You’re taking your pleasure from me, striking a blow at the weasel you were forced to support with your music. I understand.”

“You don’t.” Sara shook her head, amused at his words, sad though they were. Reynard’s teeth had been a trifle prominent. “But you aren’t wrong, either. You are a confection, Beckman. The male version of a woman’s dreams. Handsome, charming, kind, generous… It would be better for me did you scratch more in public, swear, have a fondness for cock fights, or put your muddy boots up on my tables.”

He turned so his backside rested against the balcony railing. “My sisters would skin me where I stood if I behaved like that. You deserve a man who is well mannered, clean, and considerate, Sara. Every woman does.”

“You aren’t simply well mannered, clean, and considerate. I think I’ve made my point as well as I’m able, particularly with you standing there in the moonlight in just your dressing gown.”

“Having trouble with rational discourse, are you?” Beck slipped an arm around her waist. “That’s a start.”

“Naughty man.” Sara rested her head on his arm. “We are agreed, then, our expectations of each other are low and transitory?”

“Are you trying to wave me on my way before I’ve even shown you pleasure, Sara?”

“In a sense, yes.” Sara thought of the letter she’d received a week ago, the letter she was going to have to deal with. “Your stay at Three Springs is temporary, and I might have reason to find a different post at any time. You’ve pointed out that Allie is isolated, and her art would prosper were we a little nearer civilization. This is a… frolic, Beckman. A frolic in which you’ve already pleasured me witless.”

He shifted, putting himself between Sara and the balcony railing. “Love, I haven’t begun to pleasure you witless.”

He eased his arms around her waist, the character of his touch becoming seductive. He didn’t merely hug her; he let her feel the slow glide of his hand on the thin material of her dressing gown, starting at her midriff and working his way around her ribs, down to her waist, over her hips, then around to rest on the upper swell of her derriere. “Let yourself come closer.” Beck tugged on her. “Much closer.”

She gave him her weight, her trust, and a bit of her heart, keeping her cheek against his chest. She could hear his heart beating a slow, reassuring tattoo and feel the tempo of her own heartbeat rising. One of Beck’s hands slid up her spine and rested on her nape, where his thumb made slow, languorous circles.

“You don’t have to be certain, you know.” His voice was suited to darkness, low, sensuous, and soothing. “If you’re uncomfortable, Sara, you tell me to stop, and I’ll damned well sleep in the stables.”

“I won’t tell you to stop,” Sara assured him, though it was almost as if he were daring her to reject him, so insistent was he on reminding her of this. She offered him assurances in false coin, though, because in the past week, between fits of worry over Tremaine’s missive, Sara had tried to puzzle out her reasons for consorting with Beckman Haddonfield. The best she could do, as she’d told him, was that she was using him in some manner to recover from her marriage. Reynard had left her dreams in tatters, her body exhausted, and her spirit hurting.

She would treat herself to the attentions Beckman offered, learn something of dalliance, and see what it was like to be held in affection by a man she respected—nothing less, and nothing more.

When his fingers stilled on her nape, she put aside her musings, waiting for his next word, his next breath, his next anything.

“A lady can change her mind, Sara,” Beck whispered, cruising his lips over her closed eyes. “At any time, she can change her mind.”

Provided she had a mind left to change. Beck’s hands framed her face, his thumbs feathering over her cheeks and jaw. The care in his touch, the unhurried, savoring quality of his explorations turned Sara’s knees unreliable and her spine into a lyrical, lilting melody. When Beck settled his lips over hers, she had a sense of sinking, of going under and drowning in pleasurable sensations.

He commanded all of her attention by virtue of showering all of his on her. He was touching her, breathing her, tasting her, wrapping his body around hers in such a way Sara felt him surrounding her every sense—sight, scent, hearing, taste, touch. She became filled with Beckman Haddonfield.

How long they stood there kissing, Sara could not have said. Long enough to leave her clinging to him, desperately needing more and clueless how to find it.

Beck broke the kiss and tucked her under his arm. “I’ve been waiting lifetimes for this, Sarabande Adagio, and for what follows now, we need and deserve a bed.”

Beck had not exaggerated. For him, his extravagant statement was simple truth. Sara wasn’t his usual fare—a discreet widow or a titled lady out for an evening’s romp. She wasn’t one of Nick’s hopefuls; she wasn’t anything Beck had allowed himself before.

She was decent. Good. She was choosing him for herself, and he wanted to be worthy of the honor.

He also—God help him—hoped she was choosing him, Beck Haddonfield, not simply a randy and convenient male whose discretion could be trusted in the morning, but a person. This was greedy and foolish of him—he invariably stumbled when dealing in sentiment—but he was honest with himself out of habit, and it wasn’t such a sorry thing to want.

To be a person to one’s lover.

And for that reason, he’d changed his mind when he’d gone out on his errands. He’d retrieved Sara’s packages and bathed, as intended, but he had not stopped by the common room and procured for himself enough brandy to ensure the evening would start with a pleasurable glow.

He’d taken his courage in one hand, his self-discipline in the other, and for the second time in his life, he’d resisted the temptation to get drunk his first night in Portsmouth. The decision was paying off, in the acuity of his senses, in the clarity of his will and the sure knowledge he would recall every sigh and caress Sara graced him with the whole night through.

He searched her face in the moonlight, seeing desire, but also uncertainty in her eyes. If he’d made that stop in the taproom, would he have missed the uncertainty?

“I want to see you. All of you, Sara.”

She nodded but made no move to take off her dressing gown. Ah, well, he’d ever been one to enjoy unwrapping pretty gifts.

Slowly, his fingers went to the sash belting her dressing gown. He tugged it free then pushed the robe off her shoulders and tossed it onto the foot of the bed. Her nightgown was old, plain, and, in keeping with the warmer weather, came only to her knees. He knelt before her and slid off her slippers, one at a time. Rather than rise immediately, he nudged the hem of her nightgown up and ran his cheek over the smooth skin above her knee.

Heaven help him, even her knees smelled good—tasted good.

Sara’s fingers tugged at his hair. “That tickles.”

“What about this one?” Beck nuzzled the other knee. “Is it ticklish too?”

“Yes.” He suspected she was trying not to giggle.

He wanted to hear her giggle. Wanted her giggling, laughing, crying, and yelling in his bed. He wanted her free there to be herself in every respect.

“Are you ticklish here?” he asked, rising and running the edge of his thumb along her ribs.

She flinched away. “Are you?”

“It will be your privilege to find out. Perhaps you’d like to start by removing my dressing gown?”

The humor left Sara’s expression, replaced by wary curiosity.

“You’ve seen me before, Sara. All of me, and not just across the barnyard.”

“We’re not in the barnyard.” Sara glanced at the bed fleetingly, as if it might burst into flames—which possibility Beck dearly treasured. She took a breath then reached out her hand and tugged the belt of his dressing gown free. It fell open, but she didn’t immediately take it from him.

She studied the bed this time as if it were a map, not a common piece of furniture. “We’re going to do this, aren’t we?”

“If you allow it.” Beck’s tone was level, as if he waited on her to choose between different flavors of ice. “As you allow it.”

Because God knew, left to his own devices, he’d toss her back across the bed, fall on her, and commence rutting. He was grateful again he’d not had that brandy, though Sara might have benefited from a tot.

Slowly, so slowly he wanted to scream, Sara’s hand flattened against the bare skin of his midriff then eased around to his back. Her fingertips left a trail of heat, and when she stepped closer, her scent came with her.

“You’ll have to tell me what to do.” Sara rested against him, only her nightgown between them now.

“You have only one responsibility.” Beck settled his hands on either side of her neck. “Enjoy yourself. You wanted to use me. I want to be used. Tonight, you say what you want, Sara, and you get it.”

She slipped the blue velvet from his shoulders, tossed it across the foot of the bed, then took a step back.

Beck unwrapped his gift, peeling the flimsy old nightgown off of her as if it were the finest silk, lifting it from her as if to reveal the most gorgeous courtesan, not a tired, no longer young housekeeper with a daughter nearing adolescence.

“Glorious.” Beck smiled at her, a glad, spontaneous smile shamelessly laden with lustful appreciation. She was not a girl; she was a woman in her prime, lovely, abundantly curved, and willing. “But your hair is up, Sarabande, and I promised myself tonight it would come down. Sit you in the middle of the bed and indulge me.”

He patted the bed rather than toss her onto it—this time—and went into the other room. When he came back, Sara sat in the middle of the mattress with the covers drawn up under her arms.

“That won’t do. Out into the lists with you, Sarabande. I’ve brought my weapon.” He brandished her hairbrush.

“Is there a reason why you can’t unbraid my hair while we’re in our dressing gowns?”

“Yes.” Beck’s great weight dipped the mattress as he bounced into position directly behind her.

“And the reason would be?”

“You’ll see,” he murmured, reaching for her braid. Except Sara wouldn’t see his reason, she’d feel it, as would he. Arousal was already pooling in his blood, so Beck silently admonished himself to slow down.

“Where did you get off to,” Sara asked, “before dinner, while I bathed?”

“I took care of my own ablutions,” Beck answered, relieved Sara was up to conversation. “And retrieved a few things I’d sent for. God above, I adore your hair, Sarabande.” He was unraveling her loosely plaited braid.

“It feels good,” Sara admitted on a sigh. “When you brush it like that. I’ve not felt my hair down on my naked back in ages, though.”

“Like it?” Beck picked up the mass of her hair and swung it lightly across her back. He played for a few minutes, bunching the abundance of her hair in his hands, burying his face in it, and draping it over her back and shoulders then letting it brush over his groin.

“I’m engaging in perversions back here,” Beck said. “Do you know how arousing your hair is when I brush it across my cock?”

“No.” She took in an unsteady breath, while Beck caressed himself again with her hair.

“It burns, Sara.” His voice had lost some of its teasing quality. “Brands me. Makes me want to brand you. Over and over again.”

He gathered her hair and swept it over her right shoulder, then shifted, kneeling up and bending over her. He intended that she feel his erection along her spine. He did not intend the wave of possessiveness that swept him when he embraced her like this.

“You are in this state as a function of brushing my hair?” She sounded curious rather than intimidated—curious and maybe a little pleased with herself. “Beckman?”

“Hmm?” He’d curled down over her so his lips were near her ear.

“Are you done with my hair?”

“Not nearly.”

“Are you done brushing my hair for now?”

This question took some time to absorb.

“Yes.” Abruptly he dropped his arms and sat back on his heels.

“Might we get under the covers?”

“God, yes.”

Beckman shifted again, and Sara scrambled around to climb under the covers with him. Her unbound hair took some managing, but the sensation of it sweeping along his shoulder and belly nigh unmanned him.

“Now what, Beckman?” Sara aligned herself to his side, her hair cascading over his chest and stomach.

Beck angled up off his back, gathered her against him, and rolled them. “Now, we make love.”

He didn’t give her a chance to reply but lowered his head to seal his mouth over hers. Polite teasing slipped from his grasp. He was kissing to arouse, and so—thank a merciful heaven—was she.

“Don’t hold back,” Sara whispered against Beck’s neck. “Tonight I don’t want you to be careful or restrained or gentlemanly. I want more, Beckman.”

“You’ll have it,” he assured her as she closed her teeth over a pinch of his shoulder.

He insinuated a hand between their bodies, only to have Sara seize it with her own. “Yes.” She clamped his fingers over her breast. “That. Please.”

When he gently squeezed then closed his fingers more definitely around her nipple, she pushed herself up against his cock. “Beckman…”

He kept up his attentions to her breast, until Sara was undulating rhythmically against him, flaying his self-control before he’d even gotten down to business. He’d wanted to go slowly, to savor and cherish and honor her with his caresses and his self-restraint. He’d planned to pleasure her, to pleasure them both, but gently, because she was without recent experience, and this was their first complete encounter.

His plans went up in bright, reddish-orange flames.

“Come here.” Beck shifted to his side, leaving Sara on her back. He could kiss the hell out of her this way and use his hands to better advantage. She took to the shift in positions like a duck to water, hooking a leg over his hips and rolling toward him.

“Better,” Beck growled as he filled his hand with the curve of her derriere and brought her closer.

“Beck, I want…” Sara’s fingers closed around his shaft, and Beck felt a moment’s panic.

“You can have that,” he assured her, gently untangling her fingers, “but later, love. Just a little later.”

When she would have protested, Beck spiked her guns by brushing the backs of his fingers over the curls at the apex of her sex.

“Beckman?” Her undulating ceased, surprise in her voice.

“I want this to last,” he tried to explain, exploring gently. “If you have your way with me precipitously, I won’t do you justice.”

Sara blinked, looking momentarily puzzled as he shifted his grip on her so his fingers could dip lower.

“You’re ready for me.” He didn’t keep the smugness from his tone as he swiped a pair of fingers in a long, slow caress up her damp sex. Sara’s body shuddered, and he repeated the caress, studying her as he did.

“You like that. What about this?” He dabbled at the opening to her body, gently, but not too gently for a woman becoming aroused.

“Do that again,” she said, closing her eyes. Beck obliged by easing a single finger shallowly inside her.

“Better?”

“Not better enough.” She arched her hips against him as he continued the same fleeting and shallow penetrations. When he limited himself to those teasing caresses, she pushed against him as if asking him to speed up, or for the love of God, to enter her.

Cautiously, Beck brushed his thumb over a spot higher up.

“Push harder,” she muttered, grasping his hand and anchoring it against her. “Right there, Beckman, ah, God, yes, right there.”

“And there we go,” Beck whispered, pleased and relieved, because God help him, Sara was so bloody snug, he hadn’t been sure quite how to go on.

“Don’t you stop,” Sara hissed through her teeth. “Please, Beck, you can’t…”

“I won’t.” He leaned over, kept up his stroking, and took her nipple in his mouth. He pleasured himself more than her, suckling greedily and drawing firmly in a rhythm that counterpointed the movements of his hand.

“Beckman…” Her fingers clamped around his wrist, her back arched, and her hips thrust up hard against his hand. His control nearly slipped when Sara began to make low, soft noises of pleasure and need and greater pleasure still.

“Everlasting, merciful…” Sara rolled to lay panting on her back, turning only her head to gaze at him. “God above, Beckman Haddonfield. You should be banned by royal decree.” She rolled back into him, tucking herself against his chest, and hiding her face against his body.

Despite the arousal roaring through his body, Beck was pleased. Pleased for her, pleased for himself. Embracing her, he was reassured he had the patience to see this through, and the determination. He gathered her against him and swept her hair over her shoulder.

“You’re all right?”

“Buzzing,” Sara replied. “Once more, in very short order, buzzing. You?”

“I will be,” Beck answered. God willing, he would be soon. “But I’m concerned.”

“Hnn.” Sara’s tongue found his nipple, and by the lazy way she stroked him, Beck knew he’d chosen his moment well. Sara would not know a concern now if it kissed her on the lips.

“It’s not a serious concern,” Beck went on, “but I’d like your agreement to humor me, Sara.”

Sara sighed contentedly. “Right now, you can have anything you please of me, Beckman. I am powerless to refuse you.”

Beck smiled, his imagination taking off with that offer. “I want you, Sara, more than I can recall wanting anybody or anything, but there’s only one way I will have you.”

She raised her face up to peer at him, the gravity in his voice perhaps penetrating her haze of well-being.

“What are you about, Beckman?” She reached up and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “And you needn’t be diplomatic. Have I disappointed you?”

“Does this feel like disappointment?” He wrapped her fingers around his shaft.

Sara smiled wickedly. “No. That feels like the sweet shop is still open for business.”

“Not to you.” Beck answered as sternly as he could, but he had to close his eyes as Sara’s fingers stroked lightly over the head of his cock. He caught her hand with his, stilling it, but not making her turn loose of him.

“What do you mean, Beck?” The beginning of hurt laced her tone, and Beck was relieved to know he had her attention.

“You have to promise me, Sara, you’ll let me have the reins for the next little while.” He kissed her cheek to soften his words and to take in a gratifying whiff of her fragrance.

“Didn’t I just give you my reins? And the whip and spurs, along with a few lumps of sugar?”

“You did.” Beck smiled despite himself. “But I want to be inside you, Sara. Want it so badly my eyes are crossing, and if you get to showing your enthusiasm, I could hurt you.”

“That is nonsense,” Sara began. “You are being overly…” But he held her gaze and slowly stroked her hand over the entire hard, thick length of him.

“I’ll sleep in the stables,” he threatened. “I’ll sleep in the Solent rather than hurt you, Sara. You can’t undermine my control on this, not this time.”

She frowned, maybe sensing there was a compliment, a reason to be pleased in his words, and then he saw her put it together: she could drive him beyond reason were she too enthusiastic. Her, Sara Hunt, retiring, rusticating, widowed housekeeper.

“I will abide by your direction,” she said gently. “No matter what, Beck. You can trust me on this, for this once at least.”

He kissed her to hide his relief. In bed at least, he’d never disappointed a woman. And he really would sleep in the stables before he’d start now. Carefully, he shifted over her and settled between her legs.

Sara’s hands came to rest low on his back. “What do you want me to do?”

“You can kiss and pet and carry on all you want above the waist.” Beck nuzzled her throat. “Below the waist, you don’t move unless I tell you to. Not a wiggle or a tease, Sara.”

“Below the waist, I am your statue. I will come to life only at your command.”

For several minutes, he tried to content himself with easy kisses.

“I like kissing you.” Sara brushed his hair back and levered up to capture his mouth again. “Like it a lot.”

As did he, but Beck’s concentration was fixed on the territory Sara had given into his exclusive control. As she settled into the kissing and let her hands roam over his back, Beck gradually eased himself more snugly against her sex. The urge to thrust—to push into her and keep pushing—was nearly overwhelming, but he contented himself with nudging, then nudging again.

“This is harder than I thought it would be, this holding still,” Sara said against his neck. He angled up on his arms to regard her.

“Is it too difficult?” Let alone hard.

“No.” Sara smiled slightly. “But what is the problem? I want you inside me, Beckman.”

“This is the problem.” He did flex his hips then, and by rights—she’d had a child, for pity’s sake—he should have begun to slip into the sweet, wet heat of her.

Sara cocked her head on the pillow. “It doesn’t hurt. Do that again.”

He did, watching her face closely, waiting for the telltale wince.

“Again.”

He gained a bit of entry but saw her expression change fleetingly. “I’m hurting you.”

“No. It’s just different, that’s all. Again.”

He complied, hamstrung between increasing arousal and the certain conviction—as closely as her body wrapped him—he had to be hurting her. She wasn’t hurting him, though; God above, just the bloody opposite.

“Don’t stop, Beck,” Sara said, but he could hear the caution in her tone as the head of his cock was now lodged blissfully inside her.

He tried to think.

“Close yourself around me,” he suggested, settling down on his forearms.

Sara hugged him to her more tightly.

“Inside, too, Sara. Here.” He gave her a minute thrust to demonstrate.

“Close myself?”

“Grip my cock with your sex. Like you don’t want me to pull out.” She comprehended that, and Beck felt the snugness of her contract around him. Had he been a Papist, he would have started saying the rosary on behalf of his disintegrating wits.

“Do that again, slowly, as if you could pull me into you, then let me go.”

She did it, and he experimentally eased forward as she relaxed.

“That works,” she reported, starting up again.

It worked too bloody well. It worked to arouse him to the point where his entire being was an exercise in self-discipline. By the smallest increments imaginable, Sara’s body eased around him and admitted him to her intimate depths.

“Are you in pain?” Sara’s hands were anchored on his buttocks, her face tucked against his chest.

“Bliss,” he managed. But as soon as he let go, the bliss would implode into ecstasy. He couldn’t do that until he was sure he wouldn’t hurt her. “Can you move just a little on me now?”

“Like this?” She rolled her hips conservatively.

“Just like that,” Beck rasped. “Until you’re comfortable.”

Or until he died, because all this holding back would surely kill him.

“I’m comfortable.” She set up a tidy little rocking. “I just…”

“What, love?” Beck dropped his forehead to hers. “Tell me. Please.”

“I want more.” Sara let go with a luxurious undulation and sighed against his neck.

Sainthood loomed within Beck’s grasp, but he declined for the greater pleasure of making love to the woman in his bed.

“I think we’ve earned a little more,” he said. “But you hold still now. I don’t want to take any chances.”

Immediately, she quieted and waited for him. When he flexed on a long, slow thrust, she moaned softly and melted around him. “Better,” she pronounced.

Thank you, God.

Beck found a rhythm, keeping his movements slow and languid but not letting himself open his eyes, not when the sound of Sara’s sighs alone was driving him beyond reason.

“I want to move, Beck.” Sara took his earlobe in her mouth and gently nipped him. “Just a little.” He nodded. His jaw was clenched too tightly for speech.

Sara didn’t warn him, though, that she was going to wrap her legs around him, lock her ankles at the small of his back, and use her considerable leg strength to anchor him to her. She added “just a little” movement to that shift in position, and Beck was lost.

His thrusting picked up depth and speed, and his arms locked behind Sara’s head.

“Don’t let me hurt…” He felt Sara’s fingers lace with his own, grounding him.

“Love me, Beckman.” She turned her head to kiss the heel of his hand. “Let go. It will be all right.”

She clasped him with the interior muscles he’d shown her earlier, and Beckman was undone, dissolved in pleasure and passion when he felt Sara’s body coming apart with him.

His restraint abandoned him as Sara’s body communicated its delight, gripping and pulling at him, proving to him graphically that his satisfaction was her own.

When he could not have sustained any greater experience of fulfillment, Beck hung over Sara on his forearms, stroking her hair as he pulled the breath back into his body by force of will.

God help him…

“Did I hurt…?”

Sara’s fingers brushed over his mouth then trailed around the back of his head to urge him down against her shoulder. While he waited, panting, for his wits to reassemble, she shifted her hips slowly, maybe treating herself to a little more pleasure, and surely answering Beck’s question the most convincing way possible.

“That’s all right then,” Beck said, realizing it might be a little afterthought of an orgasm making her quiver around him like that, not just erotic sensitivity. “You’re all right.”

She kissed his throat and cuddled into him.

He lifted up a little—the woman needed to breathe—but Sara’s fingers tightened in his hair, and so he lingered. He kissed her eyes and her cheek and her mouth, suckled her earlobe, and nuzzled her eyebrows. He closed his eyes and listened to her breathing, then buried his face in the fragrant cloud of her hair.

He could stay there, in that bed, feasting his senses on her forever. His cock was softening, but still Sara’s body held him gently, and he knew the temptation to start up again, to ease from the bliss of fulfillment to the bliss of anticipation, again and again.

She would not thank him, though. Not tomorrow, maybe not even the day after.

“I’ll be right back,” Beck said, kissing her mouth one last time. Carefully, he uncoupled from her body then crossed the room to retrieve the wash water. He tended to himself, his cock still sensitive, then wrung out the cloth and sat on the bed at Sara’s hip.

“Covers back.”

Sara complied, barely, so Beck had to reach beneath the covers to hold the cool cloth gently against her sex. “Now, I wish we had a chandelier hanging over the bed.”

“You want to peek?”

“I want to memorize the glory of you,” Beck said. “And I want to make sure you’re not… sore.”

“Stop worrying.” Sara’s smile in the moonlight was radiant. “I am not sore, and I will not be sore, and so far, I like this dallying business rather a lot.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Beck turned the cloth over, giving her the cooler side. “I did not want to spend our remaining nights here playing cards.”

Or drinking. The thought slipped past his postcoital glow, puzzling him, for all it was the truth.

“You’re frowning. We can play cards if you insist.”

“It isn’t that.” Beck returned the cloth to the basin and climbed in beside her. “Budge up.”

“As we’re truly good friends now, I suppose?”

He arranged her straddling him, and bless the woman, she snuggled right down against his body.

“We’re friends, at least,” Beck said, wrapping his arms around her. He wasn’t a man who begrudged his partners affection, but neither in the usual course was he exactly interested in lingering in a woman’s bed. Still, he didn’t question the pleasure he took in Sara’s willingness to fall asleep in his arms. Didn’t deny he enjoyed stroking that glorious hair down her back long after dreams had claimed her.

He did, however, wonder why he felt as if, for the first time in his life, he’d unwrapped a lovely package, chosen and decorated just for him, and had been utterly delighted with his present.

Incongruous as it was, he felt as if he’d made love to an innocent—not that he had any experience to go by there—to a woman who’d waited just for him, and saved all her passion and regard just for him.

Which, considering Sara was a mother well past the first blush of youth, made no sense at all.