Susan Johnson: Again and Again

His laughter filled the room and then he grabbed her hand and shook it soundly. “I accept, although I don’t believe I’ve ever been propositioned with less enthusiasm.”

“I’m impelled by circumstances,” she said with restraint.

He grinned. “Me too.”

“You mean you’re next to a woman with a heartbeat.”

“Come, Caro,” he murmured. “Stop sulking. We both want the same thing.” His voice went soft “And it has nothing to do with proximity,” his brows rose faintly, “or at least for me it doesn’t.” He could send for one of the serving maids if he just wanted a woman. He’d received enough sly looks downstairs to know they were interested. “I consider myself the luckiest of men to have been driven off the road by this storm and to have found you.”

If only his charm weren’t legend; if only she could believe him. But suddenly she wanted to believe. Whether it was weariness that persuaded her or whether she’d been alone too long, she simply wanted to be held in someone’s arms whether they cared or not. “Perhaps the storm was serendipitous for us both.” She looked at the man who had once meant so much to her and gave in to her impulses and his allure. “I’m going to kiss you, now.” A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready from the moment I saw you in the parlor downstairs.”

She had been too, if she cared to admit it. Which she didn’t. “You’re persistent I’ll give you that”

And you’ve become cautious, he wanted to say. “I had good reason,” he said instead.

“Stop talking.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A second later, she brushed his cheeks with her palms, a light, petting touch. “You’re scratchy.”

“Should I shave?”

A tiny frisson shimmered through her senses. She shook her head.

“I’ll be careful, then,” he whispered.

And they both remembered how he’d always shaved twice a day for her and why.

She drew him near, her hands warm, her breath delicate against his mouth and it took every shred of willpower he possessed to keep from pulling her into his arms. He waited for her lips to touch his, feeling as though a decade had rolled away and he was waiting, with bated breath like this, for Caro’s first kiss.

Finally, her mouth grazed his in a velvety caress, the tiny flecks of gold in the green of her eyes so close he could count them. “Do you remember our first time?” he whispered, feeling as though he were going to burst.

Her heart lurched and letting her hands fall, she eased back as though putting distance between now and then.

Leaning over, his hands at his sides, he kissed her gently like he had that night because she’d been trembling then too. “It was my eighteenth birthday,” he said, sitting upright again, not wishing to frighten her.

“It was stormy like this.” Her voice was barely audible, her hands clenched in her lap. Every detail of that night was etched in her memory.

“And our parents never got out of London because of the snow.”

She smiled because he had and she’d gained control of her susceptible emotions. She wasn’t fifteen anymore; she’d learned how to guard her heart “The cook had made you a cake,” she said in a normal tone.

“But you were my best present”

You were the best everything, she wanted to say, but too many disappointments clouded their past “Thank you,” she said instead. “I regarded you as a wonderful present that night as well.”

“You weren’t wearing a nightgown though.” He touched the top button near her collar and then ran his fingertip down the row, hesitating at the last where the button lay on the swell of her breast.

She drew in a sharp breath, his touch inciting an answering tremor in the heated core of her belly, treacherously reminding her of all she’d missed since leaving England.

“Our coats were covered with snow.” His voice was rough but soft. “We’d just come in from the stables. Remember?”

She nodded her head and leaned into the slight pressure of his finger, wanting more, wanting everything he had, like she had that night so long ago.

The pad of his finger sank into her soft flesh, and she moaned, the imprint, however light, riveting to senses so long denied. Her body was aching with desire, opening of its own accord, immune to principle or caprice and after five long years and a night of wavering indecision, she could no longer wait.

“I want you now,” she said, because she wasn’t an innocent like she’d been that snowy night long ago and she wanted him for reasons that had nothing to do with romance. Or at least so she told herself. “Hurry,” she charged. “I don’t want to wait”

He generally took offense at females giving orders, but what he wanted was immune to scruple. She could insist on being master of the world and he wouldn’t have cared. “Yes, ma’am. Right away ma’am.”

But the difference between logic and male prerogative was evident in the brusqueness of his tone.

Her eyes widened for a moment.

“Actually, now is good,” he added in an altogether different tone, an obliging tone he’d perfected in countless boudoirs on countless occasions when he’d seen women look at him like that. He was deftly unbuttoning her gown, another competence acquired over the years in boudoirs. And a moment later, he murmured, “Lift up your arms.” When she did, and he’d tossed her nightgown aside, he thought-how could he have forgotten?

Her breasts were magnificent, opulent; she’d not changed while abroad… except perhaps- were her breasts larger? Her graceful pose with her hands crossed before her, her arms framing the mounded fullness of her breasts, called attention to them. Or perhaps the way she sat, almost as though she were presenting herself as some lush female ornament or plaything, emphasized their glory?

Suddenly gripped by a stabbing jealousy, he wondered how many men had gazed on her splendid, nude beauty? How often had she displayed herself with such natural grace?

“Hello there…” she whispered into the silence, and reaching out, she took Simon’s hand and placed it on her breast.

Her courtesan’s gesture did nothing to mitigate his resentments and mounting jealousy. He was about to say something rude when she guided his hand over the plump swell of her breast, the sensation exquisite, warm, his rough palm grazing her silken flesh, his erection particularly taking note. And he was instantly reminded of more important things.

She smiled, a familiar smile from his youth and he was able to relegate his umbrage to some lesser sphere, banish the last five years to some amorphous netherworld and smile back. “Sorry. You were in a hurry.”

She didn’t recognize such reticence; Simon had never been a man of reserve. “Let me,” she said, no longer a passive young girl and reserve or not, she was too heated to care. Leaning over, she pulled away the blanket covering his legs and paused, the quilt still gripped between her fingers. “You’re looking… spectacular,” she purred. “At least what I can see.”

He slipped out of his shorts with quick finesse.

Too quickly, she heatedly thought, knowing how familiar he was with occasions like this. But the allure of his rampant penis hard against his stomach curbed her displeasure. Dropping the quilt along with her qualms, she leaned back on her hands, and opened her thighs. “It’s been a long time,” she murmured.

His eyes narrowed. “I may not want to,” he said, surly and resentful, wondering whom she’d entertained with that artful pose before.

“Don’t be childish.” If she could overlook his life of excess, certainly he had no reason to take issue with hers. “It’s just a fuck,” she said, deliberately provocative, letting her thighs fall open, offering him a tantalizing glimpse of paradise.