Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

“What, precisely, do you propose?”

“Propose? I didn’t really intend a formal negotiation, you know. I don’t have terms .”

Charlotte kept her eyes glued to the passing twilight view as though she could will herself into it. As though, if she concentrated hard enough, she might find herself outside the steamrail coach altogether and away from Dexter Hardison and the conversation he wanted to have with her.

It wasn’t that she found the idea abhorrent, far from it. She found it pleasantly diverting in the extreme to consider resuming physical relations with the Makesmith Baron. Whereas she had expected the time on the ship could be easily left behind, a fond memory fading like a dream, in reality she recalled every moment, every word. She could still feel him, his touch on her skin, inside her, wrapping her up and consuming her, as though they had just that instant tumbled out of bed. She thought she might go mad from remembering, and from wanting more. Or from the sense that she had somehow betrayed Reginald by enjoying it as much as she did.

The guilt was ridiculous, she reminded herself. The curiosity and attraction were normal. It was the timing she couldn’t ignore, the horrendous happenstance that they should find this inexorable force drawing them closer together when they needed detachment the most. It was all she could do not to indulge in what-ifs. What if they had met sooner, what if their correspondence had led them to one another as she’d occasionally speculated it might?

Reevaluation. What was there to reevaluate? She wanted him, and she couldn’t afford the complication of having him. That should make it simple. Her duty was to the mission, to Reginald’s memory. Not to this maddeningly appealing giant who seemed born to bring her pleasure but had arrived too late.

But even now, as he shifted his long frame a little closer on the wide red velvet divan they shared, her body responded. She felt herself turning toward him, a flower opening to the heat and light of the sun.

“Perhaps we need terms,” she suggested, finally abandoning the landscape to gaze on Dexter. Because she was tired, so tired of fighting this, and she didn’t think she could resist any longer. The resistance was becoming as harmful a draw on her attention as the act itself would be. She wanted to unfurl. She missed the sun. But she needed a way to make it all right, to convince herself that it would not become a liability to them both. She needed limits, conditions. “If we are to do this—”

“Charlotte!”

Dexter leaned in, a smile already breaking, to take her hands in his.

“We mustn’t make foolish promises we might regret later. No talk of when we return home.” She saw a flicker, a hesitation in his smile, before he nodded. “The mission comes first. Always. No arguments, no discussion. We’re here to do a job. This arrangement between us would be a convenience, nothing more. We must both assume it will end when the assignment does.”

The smile was gone entirely now, which made Charlotte a little sad. It was such a handsome smile. If anything, Dexter looked a bit angry. She tried not to dwell on the fact that if he was angry, or hurt, she was the one who had made him so.

“A convenience. Just mutual physical gratification, then? No bothersome emotional entanglements, and afterward we go our separate ways with our respective itches nicely scratched? That’s your proposal, Lady Hardison?”

She considered a moment, trying to decide whether he was sarcastic or in earnest. His jaw was flexed, suggesting his teeth were clenched, and his eyes looked steely. But he was clearly waiting for her response. Finally, Charlotte nodded.

Within a heartbeat, Dexter had her in his lap, his fingers already working at the pearl buttons down the front of her tidy emerald green traveling dress.

“Proposal accepted. Let’s get right to it, shall we?” he growled, and Charlotte had no time to catch her breath before he stole it with a harsh kiss. When he finally released her, it was only to stand her up before him, where she stood with legs that were wobbling from more than the motion of the train.

He still looked angry and perhaps even hurt. But resigned to taking what she had offered, even if he wanted more.

“Take your dress off.”

His own hands were at work on his trousers, tugging them loose and just low enough to free his erection. Charlotte glanced down and then had difficulty prying her eyes away from the sight of Dexter’s cock springing up defiantly from his lap, from the nest of fabric there.

“Take it off,” he repeated, “or I’ll take it off, and I won’t be careful about it.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s hands were trembling a bit as she picked up where he’d left off on her buttons, and she chided herself for reacting so strongly. It had been only a few days since the last time they’d done this, after all. But Dexter hadn’t been so angry then, hadn’t seemed so ready to take a bite out of her.

He’s magnificent like this. I should anger him more often . She clamped down on the thought as soon as it popped up, but it was too late to unthink it. And it was patently true. He sat there all jutting manhood and rampant impatience, and she craved what she saw. Once the dress had dropped to the ground she started on her underthings, enjoying the flare of surprise and heat in Dexter’s eyes as he watched her disrobe completely.

After the warmth of the day, it was cool in the darkening train car, and Charlotte felt her nipples puckering in the chill. She couldn’t blame the rest of her reactions on something as simple as the temperature. The wetness at her core, the flush she could feel building, slowly and then in a heated wave when Dexter raised one hand and beckoned to her. She closed the distance between them in a few steps, sighing at the sense of rightness she felt when Dexter palmed her hip to bring her the final few inches.

He shifted his other hand, bringing it between her legs and sliding it up slowly, pulling a sigh from Charlotte as he finally connected with her sex. Like their first time, but so different too. He had made educated guesses with her body then, very good ones. But now he knew where to press, where to stroke. How to bring her to the very brink of ecstasy then let her dangle there while he teased and played with gleeful cruelty.

As her need grew, Charlotte grew more and more shameless, bracing a knee next to his lap to give him more access, leaning on his shoulders in hopes of luring his attention toward her breasts. He gave her that and more, but the more he gave the more she only wanted to feel him moving inside her.

When her pleading turned desperate Dexter finally gave in, tugging her into his lap and down onto him with a few brusque moves. Charlotte barely had a moment to adjust, to savor the delicious fullness, before Dexter was touching her again. First his hands on her thighs and rear, cajoling her into a rhythm. Then his fingers between her legs, moving in short, skillful strokes that served their purpose quickly.

Charlotte came in a sharp burst of pleasure that peaked far too soon and left her wanting more. But no sooner had her body stopped its convulsive clenching, than Dexter lifted her off again.

Shifting forward to the edge of the divan, he nodded at the floor in front of him.

“Go to your knees,” he said. He didn’t sound quite angry anymore. Charlotte heard a different sort of urgency there. She knelt, coming to eye level with Dexter’s erection, uneasily aware of what he meant to do. Meant for her to do. Another new thing. Something she would never have dreamed of doing as recently as a few weeks ago, though she had certainly given it a great deal of thought over the past few days.