My eyes fluttered open and I gave a long sigh.
Sam tutted and turned me in his arms. “I told you I wanted to hear you say my name.”
“I’m not going to announce my climax to the whole of Nassau, Sam.”
“I want you to,” he said fiercely, pulling me back into the room. “I want everyone to know that you’ve finally been shown what real lovemaking is, now that bastard husband of yours has found his rightful place in the grave.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” I started to protest, my mother’s religious influence still having a hold over me even though she’d died when I was young.
But Sam ignored me, pushed me back against the wall, and covered my mouth with his.
I groaned, opening my lips as he stroked them with his tongue, and let him invade me. He plunged his tongue into my mouth, hot and wet, sending my heart racing once again at the sheer heat of his passion.
Tearing his mouth from mine, he tugged expertly at the pins that held up my hair and tossed them onto the floor. Releasing my hair, he let it tumble around my shoulders before separating the strands with his fingers and then sinking one hand into them to cup my head. “I want you, Maddie, more than I’ve ever want anything in my whole life.”
My chest heaved with emotion, and tears pricked my eyes as he kissed me again. I knew his words to be of the moment, but that didn’t mean they held no meaning. Tomorrow, he would probably be lying with another woman, but right now he wanted me. The years we’d spent watching each other, exchanging teasing comments, catching each other’s eye, and wishing things were different, made this coming together as sweet as pineapple fresh from the tree.
He kissed me again, and I lifted my arms around his neck and gave myself over to the embrace, pressing up against him and enjoying the feel of his hard body against my soft one.
Pulling at the ribbons on my bodice, he unlaced the front, then tugged at the ties of the skirt until the whole lot fell into a heap onto the floor. His fingers made similar deft work of the ties holding up my petticoats, and then he unlaced my stays until that item loosened and he could remove it as well.
Leaving me in my linen chemise, he undid the ties of his shirt and tugged that over his head, unbuttoned his breeches and kicked them off, divested himself of stockings and shoes, and took off his linen undergarment to stand before me naked.
Taking hold of my chemise by the hem, he drew it up my body, then threw it onto the heap of clothes without a second look.
He rested his hands on my hips, his gaze sliding down me like warmed honey. “Maddie...”
His voice trailed off, and he stared. I followed his eyes down to where they’d stopped at my navel.
I had a small silver piercing through the tiny fold of skin above my navel, and in the dip below it sat a bluish pearl.
His eyes came back to mine. “Is it...?”
“Yes. I figured it was safer if I kept it on me at all times.”
He laughed and brushed his thumb over it. “It looks sexy.” He slid his hand lower, cupping my mound. “Not as sexy as this, though.”
I swallowed hard. I felt naked in more ways than one. Until then I hadn’t understood how taking off one’s clothing removed more than a physical barrier. Tom had rarely bothered to take the time to discover what lay under my dress, and in fact sometimes I’d wondered whether the sight of my young, curvy body had made him ashamed of the way he treated me.
In taking off my clothes, Sam had also stripped me of all pretension. He’d removed my carefully constructed facade, along with the weight of the past that I carried on my shoulders. Standing like this, wearing nothing but a nervous smile, I was no longer the blousy and confident owner of the tavern but just Madeleine, a hesitant and somewhat shy twenty-three year old girl rather than the knowing woman in her thirties people took me to be.
“You look so young,” he said with a measure of awe in his voice. “How old are you?”
“Old enough.”
He gave me a wry look and brushed my waist with his thumbs. “And no babies?”
“It never happened.” Mainly because Tom had preferred to either take me anally or for me to go down on him. I’d never protested, glad at my failure to fall pregnant each month. I wouldn’t have wanted to bear Tom a child, although sometimes I wished I had someone of my own, someone I could love and care for.
“Do you want me to make sure I don’t father a baby?” Sam asked huskily.
I thought of the way he’d spilled into Liza’s hand, and how much I’d yearned to feel him come inside me. Even though the tavern was one of the worst places I could think of to bring up a child, I shook my head.
“If it happens,” he said huskily, “let me know, won’t you? I would make sure you were well provided for.”
He would make a terrible father, spending less than a month at home over the year and with the constant threat of death hanging over him. But something raw and primeval was rising through me, and without another word I sank my fingers into his hair and pulled his head down for a kiss.
He slid his arms around me and pulled me close, and I reveled in the feeling of his warm skin against mine. “I dreamed about this,” I whispered when he kissed around to my ear. “It was a fantasy that got me through some dark days.”
He cupped my breast and rubbed his thumb across my nipple. “I tried to picture you without clothes but I swear, Maddie, the truth is more marvelous than the dream.” Placing his hands beneath my bottom, he lifted me onto the dresser, and I opened my legs so he could stand between them.
“Your skin is like silk,” he said with a measure of awe. He nuzzled my neck. “And you smell like a lady.”
I’d spent an hour bathing and rubbing my skin with perfumed lotion, but I wouldn’t tell him that. I was pleased he’d noticed, though.
He kissed down my neck to my breasts and lifted one in his palm, feeling the weight before he covered my nipple with his mouth. I leaned back on my hands, tipping my head back and arching my spine to push my breasts toward him. He sucked, his mouth hot and wet, switching from one nipple to the other until they gleamed like pebbles fresh from the ocean floor.
“Sam...” I was spiraling out of control, lost in sensations both physically and emotionally new to me.
He dropped to his knees, and I groaned and fell back onto my elbows as he kissed up my thighs to between my legs and, without further ado, buried his mouth in me. “Fuck,” I said, feeling wanton as I spread my legs and opened up to his searching tongue.
Instead of berating me for my curse, though, he gave a murmur of pleasure and said, “Yes, let me hear you, Maddie.”
Placing his hands on either side of my folds, he parted them to give his tongue better access and slid it inside me, as far as he could reach. I cried out, and he removed it and replaced it with two fingers, turning his attention instead to my clit. Covering it with his mouth, he swirled his tongue around the swelling, and the combination of the hot, wet pressure there and the stroking of his fingers sparked the first, delicious tightening of muscles deep inside yet again.
“Oh...” I said with a groan, and sank my fingers into his hair.
“Jesus, Madeleine, you’re so wet.” He plunged his fingers in and out of me, giving appreciative comments as I covered his hand with moisture.
Tension built inside me, and I widened my legs further, conscious that I now lay sprawled on the dresser, my legs wrapped around his shoulders as he returned his mouth to my clit. “I can’t... oh...”
I squealed and came hard, clenching around his fingers, and he sucked on my clit and flicked it with his tongue, drawing out the orgasm until I was a shaking, shivering wreck.
I release the tight grip I’d had on his hair and fell back. “Sam... for God’s sake...”
He laughed, kissed the pearl in my navel, and pushed himself to his feet. “Come on Maddie,” he scolded, pulled me upright. “We’re only getting started. I expect you to have at least another six orgasms before the end of the evening.”
“Sam, I couldn’t possibly come again, I’m exhausted...”
He wrapped my hair around his fist and tugged it, pulling my head back so I looked into his eyes. “You can, and you will,” he said. His eyes had lost their usual humor and held a measure of flinty, erotic hardness. It told me that although he loved me and he wouldn’t hurt me, he wasn’t being completely altruistic. He was there to use my body, and if giving me pleasure was what turned him on, he was damn well going to do it as many times as he liked, whether I wanted him to or not.