Until You Read online

  It was not a feeling she liked in the least. She wished Stephen had told her he loved her. She wished he had said he didn’t see Helene anymore. Now that her memory was functioning, she had a vivid childhood recollection of Helene Devernay’s American equivalent—a lady in a startlingly low-cut red gown with feathers in her hair whom Sheridan saw sitting in Rafe’s lap one night when she peeked in the windows of a gambling house. The female had been running her fingers through his hair, and Sheridan had felt a burst of jealousy that was as nothing compared to the way she felt about the thought of Helene Devernay sitting in Stephen’s lap.

  She wished she had the courage right now to demand that he break off his relationship with the beautiful blonde if he hadn’t already done so. On the other hand, common sense dictated that such an ultimatum might be far more successful if Sheridan were to first make Stephen want his wife more than he wanted his stunning chérie amie. The only thing standing in her way at the moment was that she didn’t have the slightest idea how to make him want her without some guidance from him. Thinking of the way he’d ordered her to take her hair down at Claymore, Sheridan lifted her hands. “Should I?”

  Stephen watched her breasts threaten to spill over the low, square-cut bodice of the lace gown. “Should you what?” he asked softly, as he started toward her.

  “Should I take my hair down now?”

  Permission again. She was thinking about his callous demand to loosen her hair that night at Claymore, he realized with a fresh stab of regret. He put his hands on her shoulders, trying not to look at the rosy swell of breasts. “I’ll do it,” he said gently.

  She backed up a half step. “No, really, if you’d prefer that I do it, I will.”

  “Sheridan, what’s wrong? What’s bothering you?”

  Helene Devernay is bothering me, she thought. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “I would like to know how to please you,” she finally forced out. He looked as if he were struggling to keep his face straight and she said in an imploring voice, “Oh, please, don’t laugh! Don’t . . .”

  Stephen stared down at the temptress in his arms and, very reverently, he whispered, “Good God . . .” She was serious. She was glorious, and sensual, and sweet, and courageous. And she was very, very serious. So much so that he had the distinct feeling that a wrong answer, a wrong reaction now, could hurt her beyond belief. “I was not laughing, darling,” he said somberly.

  Satisfied that he understood and did not object, she began with the subject of clothing, her eyes searching his. “What is allowed?”

  He laid his hand against her cheek and ran it back, smoothing her hair. “Anything is allowed.”

  “Is there a . . . a goal?”

  Stephen’s earlier confidence that his prior experience with women had equipped him for this particular evening slipped a notch. “Yes,” he said, “there is.”

  “What is it?”

  He slipped his arms around her and put his hands lightly on her back. “The goal is for us to be as close as we can possibly be, and to enjoy that closeness in every way we can.”

  “How will I know what you enjoy?”

  He was beginning to get an erection just from enjoying the conversation. “In general, if you enjoy something, I will.”

  “I don’t know what I enjoy.”

  “I see. Then I think it’s only right that you have time to find out.”

  “When?” Sheridan said, afraid he meant “someday.”

  He tipped her chin up, and she watched his sensual lips form one word. “Now.”

  She waited with a mixture of embarrassment and anticipation for him to do something, to give her some sort of direction, but Stephen could only gaze down into her eyes, thinking that he had gone to heaven. He bent his head to kiss her, very slowly rubbing his lips on hers, letting his hand drift down her throat to her bare bodice, and he felt her lean closer to kiss him back. She liked that, Stephen knew. She liked something else, too, he realized as she tentatively put her fingers against the narrow vee of his open shirt. “Would you like me to take my shirt off?” he heard himself ask.

  Sheridan had a feeling that question was a prelude to having her own gown removed, but she was also certain that was going to happen anyway. She nodded, and Stephen complied. She stepped back, watching him unfasten the front of his shirt. When the last stud came free, Stephen put them down on the table. Then he slowly opened his shirt and removed it, surprised to find that the act of deliberately undressing while a woman looked on, watching, was strangely erotic.

  Sheridan gazed in admiration at the heavily muscled broad shoulders and a wide chest with dark, springy hairs. She lifted her hand, then stopped when it neared his chest and gave him a swift look of inquiry. He nodded slightly, smiling at the sheer joy of her; she put her hand on his rib cage, slowly spreading her fingers, sliding them upward toward his nipple, and then she put her other hand beside it. He was beautiful, she thought, like a statue of a Greek god, all hard planes and bunched muscle. As her hands slid upward and her fingers brushed his small nipples, the muscles beneath her questing fingers leapt reflexively and she stopped instantly. “You don’t like it?” she asked, looking into those heavy-lidded smoldering blue eyes.

  “I like it,” he said almost gruffly.

  “So do I,” she admitted without thinking, smiling at him.

  “Good,” he said as he took her hand and led her to the bed. He sat down and when she started to sit next to him, he caught her waist and drew her down on his lap with a muffled laugh. “Go on,” he invited, and Sheridan resumed the exploration of his chest and arms, mildly puzzled about his comment that it was good that she liked touching him there. A moment later, she understood what he meant. If you like it, I will, he’d said. Obviously, that was supposed to work both ways, because his large hand came to rest on the bodice of her gown, cupping her full breast, and Sheridan felt her pulse leap. She looked down, watching his long fingers sliding over her nipple as she’d touched his, and she wondered if her leaping pulse was the equivalent of the reflexive bunching of his muscles. She drew a shaky breath, and waited, but his hand stopped moving, his fingers at the frog-closing of her bodice.

  Stephen waited for her to decide whether she wanted to open it or wanted him to open it or if she wanted it left alone. Half expecting her to decide the latter, he waited, and to his infinite delight, she solved the problem by sliding both her hands around his neck and pressing her breasts to his bare chest. She wanted him to open it, he realized, but she didn’t want to ask. He had the complicated closing open in seconds, and he slid his hand into the open bodice, holding her breast, teasing the nipple, feeling it harden into a taut bud while the soft globe seemed to swell to fill his hand. . . . And his erection swelled and hardened with it.

  Stephen felt in charge again, in territory where his experience was of value to them both, and he bent his head, touching his tongue to the tight nipple, then drawing it into his mouth, feeling her swift indrawn breath. Sheridan looked down at the dark head at her breast, while sparks of feeling began shooting rhythmically from her breast to her knees and she slid her fingers into his thick beautiful hair. He switched to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention. Then his lips closed tightly on it and she gasped and clutched his head to her breast, suddenly desperate to make him feel the melting sensations he was giving her.

  As if he sensed it, he shifted her down onto the bed, so that her head was on the pillows, and he stretched out beside her. Sheridan turned into his arms, touching her tongue to his nipple, tightening her lips around it, and she felt his fingers sinking slowly into her hair as he gave her free use of his body.

  Stephen knew he was going to die before this was over.

  He had moved her to the bed because it was more comfortable and gave him freer access to the rest of her. He had not expected her to do what she was doing to him. Desire was exploding through his body and he