Chapter 28

"We'll have to get a patent for it, immediately. We'll have to present it to the Royal Society. We'll have to throw a huge ball and invite everyone there is to invite, have a demonstration, and prove that people don't have to use poor little dogs in the kitchen!"

Andrew merely smiled and, carrying the comparatively weightless Celsie, strode easily down the hall.

"We'll have to enlarge the kennels so we can take in all the dogs that will be out of work once your wheel goes into production. We'll have to print broadsides informing the general public. Oh, and Andrew, we simply must make a present of one for the king's household, because if he endorses it, all of England will want one!"

"Yes, Celsie."

"Oh! You just passed the door, Andrew. Go back a few steps!"

He did, carrying her over the threshold and kicking the door shut behind him as he moved toward the bed.

"We'll have to start a company to manufacture it. We'll have to take it on tour throughout England. In fact, we'll have to take it all around Europe so that everyone there will also —"

She never finished. His mouth came down hard on hers, crushing her lips with blistering intensity. His tongue forced her lips apart and his breath was hot against her cheek. Ohhhhhh, Celsie thought, and began to melt. As he laid her down on the bed, she felt her spine sinking into the plush coverlet, her eyes closing, her head falling upon a paw.

A paw.

Freckles was in the bed.

Her eyes flew open. "Andrew, we can't make love here, Freckles will see!"

"Freckles can close his eyes."

"But Andrew —"

He scooped her back up, carried her to the elegant, claw-footed settee, and laid her down on it instead. Her body angled across the rich red damask, one leg bent at the knee, the other just resting on the rug. One of her shoes came off. Her layers of petticoats spilled from her hips and tumbled toward the floor in frothy yards of quilted cotton, of heavy, serviceable wool. She felt his mounting urgency to have her. She felt his fingers pulling her stock from her neck, his lips against her throat. And she felt his hand palming and stroking her breast where it swelled above her stays, warming her skin, firing her desire.

"God and the devil, I hate these things," he muttered. "Must beauty be contained in such a damnable cage?"

He couldn't reach her; not without turning her over and unlacing her. And he had neither the patience nor the ability to wait. He crowded onto the narrow sofa, too much man for so little space, his knee driving against the outside of her thigh, his hand reaching down to find the hem of her petticoats and pull them high —

"Lord save me, you're wearing breeches under these things!"

"Well, I did ride astride, Andrew . . . Did you want the saddle to chafe my legs to ribbons?"

"The last time I saw you in breeches . . ."

"Was altogether memorable. Go ahead, Andrew. Let's make more memories. But please don't undress me fully — it's dreadfully cold in here."

"It won't be for long," he promised.

She unfastened the breeches and lifted her bottom, inviting him to tug them off.

He did, tossing them to the floor. She saw his slow, appreciative smile as he found that which he'd been expecting to find — stockings, garters, and bare naked thighs. Oh, she loved when he smiled like that! And she loved the feel of his hand skimming up her stocking-clad calf. His mouth was warm against her breasts, swelling above the tightly laced stays, and now Celsie could feel his hand moving across her knee, fumbling with her garter, finally cursing and tearing it down her leg and peeling the filmy stocking off with it.

"Is this what ravishment feels like, I wonder?" she breathed faintly, loving every minute of it.

"It's what not being able to wait feels like."

His hand, so warm against her flesh, so delicious, stroked up her inner thigh, his fingers searching, searching . . . and finding.

Finding her already hot and wet for him.

Finding her slick and ready and eager and wanting.

"Oh, God," he said hoarsely, and with one quick movement, he tossed the heavy fall of her skirts fully up and over her stomach, exposing her long, white legs — one bare, the other still wearing its garter and stocking — and her naked femininity to the pale, late afternoon sun.

To his smoldering, intent gaze.

He stared; Celsie saw his chest rising and falling, his long lashes coming down to veil eyes that had gone suddenly dark. His knee pressed uncomfortably into her outer thigh; his arousal was fully evident beneath the flap of his breeches. She felt exposed and naked and shameless and wanton as he stared down at her, not saying a word, just looking. Just admiring. And then he lifted his gaze and in his eyes she saw desire burning so hot that it nearly scalded her with its intensity.

"Damnation," he swore, on a little laugh.

"Damnation?"

"How the hell am I ever going to find the time, to find the incentive, to find the will to pursue my science when I have you around to constantly tempt me?"

"I guess you're just going to have to practice a little restraint." She smiled up at him. "Though I certainly hope you won't."

"Damn right I won't. By God, Celsie, you're going to be the death of me, I swear it."

She giggled. "Where's that potion, Andrew? I thought we were going to try it topically."

"Don't know . . . don't care."

"Oh, get it. Get it, and let's see what it does."

He got up, opened his coat, fumbled in the pocket and found the tiny vial. Celsie lay draped over the sofa, bathed in the glow of the sun coming in from the window above, her long legs framed by white underpetticoats and wool overpetticoats and the rich red damask of the settee. She could feel her body temperature rising. She could feel an empty ache in her arms, in her belly, in that spot between her legs where desire throbbed hot and moist, aching to be fulfilled.

She began to tremble with need.

To breathe a little heavier.

He returned with the vial, forcing a space for himself on the seat beside her, his hand stroking the velvety skin of her inner thigh, coming near to but never quite touching the part of her that needed him more than any other. He held the vial up to the light, examining it, prolonging the ecstatic inevitable.

"Shall we try it on me or on you?" he asked, his hand skimming back up her thigh and now gently pushing the leg that hung off the seat, further away from the other.

"You choose."

"All right, then."

He pushed her thighs even further apart.

"Andrew, you're going to split me right in half," she gasped, a little breathlessly.

"I want to see you. I want to see all of you." His fingers were playing with the silky hair of her mound now, gently stroking the hidden folds within, making her entire body thrum with sensation. He looked intently down at her, watching everything his fingers were doing. "And I want to see just what happens when I put a drop or two of this solution right here between these pretty pink folds — and touch it to this hard little nub."

His erotic suggestion caused Celsie to melt yet further into the cushion. Just the thought of that fervently potent aphrodisiac against her most intimate flesh was enough to double her already pounding pulse.

"Well, then . . . go ahead," she managed, stretching an arm over her head and gazing up at his handsome, intent face.

He slowly uncapped the vial, the deliberate delay in his movements causing the anticipation to build all the more. Celsie felt the room's cool, unheated air drifting around her exposed thighs . . . her knees . . . kissing her shamelessly exposed cleft. Trembling, she curled her right toe into the floor rug and pressed the other leg, still bent at the knee, to the red damask that covered the back of the settee.

"You're not cold, are you?"

"No — just incredibly impatient to have you inside of me."

Her gaze followed Andrew's hand as he put a finger over the top of the open vial and briefly turned it upside down. Then he took his finger away, a drop of the liquid standing upon the pad of his forefinger, shimmering in the fiery afternoon light.

She gazed up at him.

He gazed back, smiling a little wickedly.

He reached down and parted her with one hand; then he touched his finger to her opening, and dragged it down the inside length of one damp petal of inner skin.

Dragged it back up the length of the other, painting her with the solution.

Celsie, her gaze still locked with his, began to shake.

"Do you feel anything yet?" he asked.

"Nothing but you . . . Which is erotic enough in itself."

He smiled. Again, he put his finger to the vial, this time opening her with the other thumb and forefinger, observing her while the drop of potion stood upon his finger. Somehow he managed to recap the bottle. Then, slowly, torturously, he forced her inner lips wide, touched the drop of liquid to that hard, swollen button that hid between them — and keeping his finger there, pressed hard.

Celsie moaned, sucking her lips between her teeth.

He increased the pressure. "Now do you feel anything?" he asked softly.

"It's . . . it's starting to tingle down there."

"Hmm, yes."

"It's — I think it's starting to — to burn."

"Does it hurt?"

"Oh, no. It's not that kind of burning . . . if you know what I mean."

"Ah, yes. I know what you mean." His smile was positively wicked. "I must remember to make a note of that."

He kept the pressure against her, pushing down with his finger, watching her flushed face as her head began to move slowly back and forth on the satiny red pillow.

"Andrew," she managed, on a choked little gasp.

"Yes, dear?"

"Andrew, I think I need you to be inside of me now."

"I'm not done observing, Celsie."

Heat was building within her, all of it centered around his finger . . . and every inch of flesh the aphrodisiac had touched. "To hell with the experiment, Andrew . . . I'm getting desperate."

He merely caught her nub between thumb and finger and began gently rolling it.

"Oh —" Celsie moaned, fingers clenching and unclenching, toes curling, the sensation beginning to feel like a thousand little needles all stabbing into that one fiery spot, screaming for pressure, screaming for release, screaming for his mouth, his tongue, his finger, his manhood, anything. And now he was rubbing that hard bit of flesh a little more forcefully, intently watching her face, intently watching the nub itself. Celsie choked back a moan and grabbed at his hand, trying to push it against her all the harder. "Oh, Andrew — I think I'm going to die if you don't do something!"

He was smiling, one brow raised as he observed her reactions, his eyes glowing with passion as he kept on. "Hmm, yes — you're blushing down there."

"To hell with the science stuff, Andrew, take me — oh please, take me, I'm burning up!"

Little whimpers began to escape her and she started to pant, to squirm, to struggle to get her legs together if only to put pressure against that keening, ravenous pins-and-needles ache that was screaming for fulfillment.

"Touch me, Andrew — oh touch me, I'm going mad!"

She shoved his hand against the burning flesh, crying out and twisting her hips against him as she fought for release.

"I say, this is a most unusual reaction," he teased.

Celsie couldn't take any more. In one swift movement she lunged upwards, spilling Andrew off the sofa and onto the floor. He landed with a hard oomph on his back, the fall knocking the breath out of him and sending the vial skittering across the floor. In a flash Celsie was on him, her hand ripping at his breeches, little sobs coming from her throat.

She was maddened, desperate, strong, but no match for him. He caught her flailing hands, rolling her over onto her back and kissing her hard on the mouth. She broke free, one hand sliding up his nape and through his hair, the other raking his back through the shirt.

"Celsie, hold still —"

"I can't — I'm trying, Andrew, but I just can't!"

He fumbled with his breeches, but she was thrashing too much, whimpering with need, heels digging into the floor and her body shaking violently. She tried to reach him through his breeches. Andrew grabbed her arm, pinning her to the floor, trapping her before she could reach for him and send him careening over the edge.

And then he looked down and saw that her wild fighting had sent her skirts up, and there was nothing between him and the rug on which she lay but long white thighs, downy curls, and a damp slit of pink, plush, flesh.

Andrew groaned, pulled her up a foot or two on the floor, and holding her legs open with both hands, buried his face between them.

At first touch of his bristled cheeks scraping her inner thighs, she arched upward on a half wail, half sob. His hands anchored her thighs apart, the thumbs pressing into her flesh, and a moment later he was kissing her, his tongue hot, his mouth wide-open against her inner flesh. Celsie gave a harsh cry and arched her back, one hand breaking free, her nails clawing at the rug and bunching it in one fist. She felt his tongue darting out to probe and excite the nub of flesh that still burned out of control from the potion, felt him stroking and kissing and licking, and now everything inside her was gathering forces and careening toward a violent explosion.

"Andrew — I need you inside me, need you inside me, now —"

He only pressed his mouth harder against her, his tongue sliding between her wet folds in search of the very core of her, stroking, stroking —

"Andrew —"

And then Celsie cried out as everything inside her splintered and blew apart. Convulsing, she bucked upwards and tumbled Andrew onto his back, clawing at his breeches, ripping away the drop front with desperate fingers. He sprang hard and free against her belly, already thundering toward climax himself; just in time, Celsie got him inside her, and he came with a hoarse, ripping groan that mirrored her own cries as he fell with her over the precipice.

She lay there atop him, damp with sweat, her face buried in the curve of his neck and shoulder, and both of them breathing like winded horses.

"You and your damned experiments!"

"You asked for it!"

"Yes, well, next time, you're the one who's going to see what it feels like!"

He guffawed. She laughed. And then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pinned her to his spent body.

"If I survive a month, let alone a week, of being married to you, it's going to be a damned miracle," he said. And then, flinging out an arm, he caught the corner of the rug, dragged it over the both of them as a makeshift blanket, and for the first time in days, finally shut his eyes.

Beneath his back the floor was hard and drafty, but they were exhausted.

"I was wrong, Celsie," he murmured, feeling sleep rushing down on him as he snuggled her tightly against his heart.

"Wrong?"

"About being only half in love with you . . . "

She smiled. He put his lips against her cheek.

Oblivion came quickly to them both.

And on the high, soft bed, Freckles, snoring deeply, slept on.