Page 41

T he look in Silas’s eyes was so intense, Ophelia could hardly keep her legs from buckling under her.

She held the edge of her chemise up like a cabaret dancer, her legs and pussy bare to Silas who sat back on his heels before her, palms spread wide on his thick thighs.

His long fingers flexed against the muscles of his legs, and she could see the bulk of his erection hard against the fabric of his trousers.

His eyes darted up to hers, seeking permission, and taking a deep breath, she nodded quickly before her nerve deserted her.

Silas’s golden head ducked toward her and she felt his breath fanning out over the inside of her thighs.

He slid one hand up the side of her leg, his long fingers spread over her backside, his thumb anchored in the crease of her hip, under the edge of her corset.

The other, he began moving up the inside of her thigh with strokes so light she barely felt them.

A heavy aching pulse beat between her legs, and she rubbed them together trying to ease it.

“Please,” she said, “please.”

Instead of replying, Silas pressed his mouth to her, then used one finger to part her lips, his tongue hot against her wet centre.

The pleasure of it sang through her and she bowed up against his mouth.

He gripped her behind harder to keep a hold of her and swept his tongue through her lips, surprising a cry from her when he flicked over her clitoris.

He paused for a moment and she felt him smile against her, humming a sound of understanding, then he pressed the flat of his tongue experimentally to the tiny nub and she writhed against him, breathing out his name.

The sensation was so intense she felt her mind go black, every molecule in her body focused on that tiny patch of friction between the knot of nerves and his tongue.

She held him to her, legs shaking with the effort of staying standing, nipples drawn exquisitely tight.

She could feel the release building, threading like quicksilver along her limbs, gathering like a storm cloud.

It burst upon her, fast and furious, his tongue still licking and pressing as she came.

“Oh,” he said after a moment, drawing back, lips slick with her. “It isn’t as I thought at all ... it’s so much better.” He smiled lazily at her; pupils blown wide with desire. “Incredible ... you’re...” He trailed off, stroking the curve of her hip.

She didn’t know what to say, felt turned inside out by all of it.

Silas on his knees before her felt entirely too good to be true, his eager attention to her pleasure felt like a gift she hadn’t known to want.

But her body didn’t care, wasn’t interested in parsing the finer points.

It only wanted Silas with a single-minded ferocity.

“ You’re incredible, Silas, God, how did you know how to do that?”

“Not sure, really,” he said a bit sheepishly. “I just tried to listen to the sounds you made ... and your body let me know when it was good, I think.”

“It was so good,” she said and knelt down to him, kissing him deeply, their tongues finding each other quickly now, tangling in the dark heat of their mouths.

He pulled her into his lap and then breaking apart for air, said, “I don’t think I’m ready for you kneeling on the floor, Fee. Up on the bed with you.”

She nodded and let him lift her, his arms tight under her shoulders and the backs of her legs.

He stood and swung her gently down onto his narrow bed.

She scurried back to make room for him, but he only stood watching.

His hair was wild around his head, tousled by her fingers, his clothes rumpled, the front of his trousers snug against the thick ridge of his erection.

Ophelia swallowed and sat up, coming to kneel at the edge of the bed.

She ran her hands down the front of his shirt, over the placket of his trousers, feeling the hot pulse of him beneath the linen.

Silas hissed a breath, his stomach muscles tightening under the fabric when she slowed, pressing a hand to his length and squeezing gently.

She wanted to follow his lead, to pay attention and learn how he liked to be touched, to know the feel of him, how to take him apart as completely as he had her.

Before she could ask him, Silas motioned to her corset, saying, “Shall we take this off, love?”

The endearment settled like sunlight in her chest, warm and golden. She nodded and came off the bed, reaching behind her to unknot the laces.

“Give you a hand, if you like,” said Silas.

“I’ve taught myself to do it, but I’d like your help anyway,” Ophelia said, turning to smile at him.

Silas slid the laces loose until Ophelia could unhook the metal busk at the front.

Laying the corset on the trunk at the foot of the bed, he reached for the hem of her chemise, slowly sliding it over her head, and adding it to the corset and her discarded stockings.

Entirely naked now, Ophelia thought she might feel nervous or ashamed, but the dark heat in Silas’s eyes pushed everything else away, and she let herself sink into the warmth of his desire.

He stroked down her back and over her bottom, his hands coming back up to linger on the fleshy curve of her hip.

He kissed her neck, sucking gently at her skin.

Trying not to be distracted, Ophelia began to unbutton his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders to reveal a muscled chest, firm from work.

She ran her fingers down his sternum, moving across his pectorals to the coppery discs of his nipples.

He shivered when she brushed a fingertip across one.

She smiled, enjoying his tight groan and the way the flesh puckered at her touch.

Without thinking, she leaned forward, flicking her tongue across it.

The reaction was electric; his hands came to her jaw and he pulled her to him, his mouth taking hers in great greedy kisses.

Still kissing her, he manoeuvred Ophelia back onto the bed.

Unbuttoning his trousers, he pushed them to the floor and followed her down, his light cotton smalls doing nothing to hide his erection or the long, tight muscles of his thighs.

Ophelia caught a glimpse of the scar rising up the side of his left calf to his knee, but before she could see it clearly, Silas was looming over her and she was lost in the beauty of him.

He brushed her hair back off her forehead, pressing kisses to each of her eyelids, then cheeks, and finally, her lips.

She opened for him and he swept his tongue into her mouth, his lips almost bruising in their ferocity.

Ophelia felt excitement thrum through her, and she arched up against Silas, kissing him for all she was worth.

Desperate for more of him, she reached down to push at the band of his smalls and he wriggled out of them, laying bare between her spread legs.

“Silas, I want, may I touch you?”

Her words felt clumsy compared with the incandescent light that was filling her body, the easy conversation she and Silas seemed to have through touch, but she persevered, determined to make this moment fully hers, theirs.

“Will you show me how?”

He had been gently rubbing himself against her thigh as he brushed seeking fingers over her clitoris and through her lips to her entrance, but he stilled now, raising his head to look at her. His grey-green eyes were nearly black, pupils flared wide and dark.

“Uh, oh, aye, I’ll show you. Pretty simple, really,” he said, a cheeky grin lifting one side of his smile.

She laughed and thought that he was still, always, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

A giddy thrill shivered through her at the thought of what she was about to do, what she had decided to do with Silas.

She was taking ownership, taking it by the horns, as Hannah always said, and making this about pleasure and not ownership.

There would be no “before” and “after,” no change in her value.

Silas thought it was simple to pleasure him, to know what he liked, and Ophelia desperately wanted that knowledge, to feel his body respond to her the way she could feel hers responding to him.

She leaned up to catch his mouth with hers, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth so she might nip at its fullness.

He let her pull at him, then kissed her back, licking into her mouth when she opened for him.

He took her hand in his, wrapped it gently around his cock, then began squeezing and stroking so that she could feel the slip of his foreskin against her palm and the warm rasp of his callouses against the back of her hand.

He murmured into the skin of her neck, curses and praise that made the tips of her ears burn and a flood of heat pool between her legs.

She never wanted him to stop. His length was heavy and satiny in her fist, and she found she couldn’t look away from her hand on him.

“Okay?” she heard herself whisper. He didn’t answer with words, and she didn’t ask again, just took in the bellows of his chest above her, his shuddering movement when his foreskin pulled back to reveal the ruddy, swollen head of his cock.

“Jesus God, Fee,” he breathed raggedly into the space between their bodies, hips thrusting into her hand in earnest.

Looking up at him, Ophelia felt awed by their intimacy, suddenly aware that her bare-bones knowledge of sex had prepared her for something entirely different, something mechanical, transactional, not the raw beauty and terrifying purity of Silas in the throes of desire.

She wasn’t afraid, but overwhelmed by her reaction to him, to the frenzy she felt holding him in her hand, feeling his mouth on her thighs.

She wanted him like this, naked, spirit and body bared to her always, but she feared that Silas would continue to want to protect her with marriage, shield her from judgement by giving her his name.

She hoped she wasn’t being unrealistic in thinking they could find a way to share a bed, but perhaps not a name.

Pushing the sharp sadness away, she concentrated on Silas moving more frantically against her, one elbow supporting his weight, his hand fisted in the tousled mass of her hair.

“You’re so beautiful like this, Si,” she whispered.

His face, sheened with perspiration, softened instantly, and he brushed his lips gently across hers.

“Please ... don’t stop,” he mumbled, pressing soft kisses to the centre of her mouth, one at each corner, finally nipping at her bottom lip until she opened for him.

Sinking against her searching lips, he shuddered, and she felt the warm spatter of his orgasm coat her hand and belly.

They moaned into each other’s mouths, their kisses becoming softer, slower, more tender.

Pulling back from her, Silas reached for his discarded shirt, and sitting up to kneel between her legs, began cleaning her, carefully wiping her stomach, then her hand.

He pressed a long kiss to the centre of her palm and Ophelia felt an invisible string tighten between her legs, desire sliding warmly around her belly.

She smiled up at him, heady with lust and triumph.

His eyes were unfocused and hazy, his mouth a languorous curl up into his cheek.

She pulled his hand and he tipped toward her, coming to rest his head on her breast, his legs long against hers, one hand resting warm and solid across her middle.

He sighed contentedly and turned his head to kiss her breast. Ophelia felt every single point of contact between their bodies, the roughness of his chest hair against her ribs, the press of his kneecaps against her calves, the cool satin of his hair against her shoulder and chest. It was perfect.

He was perfect. She hadn’t expected that they would fit together so well, his body against hers like the last piece of a puzzle.

And he hadn’t even been inside her yet, which, if she was honest, she was now looking forward to with a great deal of anticipation.

She ran a hand through Silas’s hair and snuggled farther into him.