Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Beck slid a cautious hand to Sara’s waist. By degrees, as their kiss grew more heated, he stroked his hand up, over the nip of her waist, to her lowest rib and up farther. His tongue found its way into a slow, penetrating rhythm just as his palm settled over the fullness of her breast.
She arched into his hand, and Beck felt a spike of simple joy in her response. Without breaking the kiss, he offered her a cautious pressure with his fingers, and her hips stirred restlessly.
Thanks be to heaven… He raised his hips, the better to accommodate her, and immediately, Sara’s body thanked him by settling more firmly on his cock.
“What are you…?” She tried to lever up, but Beck caught her by the back of the neck.
“Kiss me, love.” He urged her back down. “We’re just getting started.” She hesitated, her mouth a half inch from his, but then he gave her breast another gentle squeeze, and she closed her eyes and found his mouth with her own.
And that was just fine. Beck adored his prize with his fingers then went so far as to brush his thumb over Sara’s nipple in slow, languorous teases that drove her to moans and whimpers.
“Move on me,” Beck whispered, curling up to get his mouth on her nipple. She cut off in mid-whimper, her hands cradled the back of his head, and she moaned outright when he suckled her.
In his heated, lusting bones, Beck knew he was with a woman who could come and come hard, just from attention to her breasts.
By why should she have to? He rubbed his cock teasingly against her sex. She was damp for him now and not the least shy about the contact.
He cruised to her other breast. “Please yourself, love. Move on me.”
She might have heard him, she might not have, but she did begin to slide her sex over his cock, forward and back, a deliberate, purposeful stroke to which Beck could time the way he drew on her breast. Her hand came up and closed over his, showing him she wanted more pressure—a lot more pressure—and held longer, more tightly.
“Better?”
But she was beyond forming any answers, other than with her body. Beck’s body had become a torrent of articulation too, screaming at him to bury his cock in her wet heat and have her over the edge in three hard strokes, but he held back.
Trial ride, he reminded himself. Trial ride; you promised her.
If she decided to change the angle and plunge down on him for her own pleasure, Beck would enthusiastically oblige, but the decision had to be hers.
“Beckman…” Sara ground against him and trapped his fingers around her nipple with her free hand. “I can’t stand…”
Somewhere in the mental brawl between carnal need and self-restraint, Beck comprehended that Sara did not know how to enjoy and prolong her own arousal. She was hurting with a lack of satisfaction, and he had to show her where relief lay. Anchoring one arm around her back, he slipped his hand between their bodies and got his thumb into the wet folds of her sex.
“It’s here,” he rasped against her breast. He pushed hard and rhythmically with his thumb until she recalled how to push in counterpoint to that most gratifying pressure. Seizing his self-control with both fists, Beck bit gently on her nipple and felt her body ripple with the pleasure of it.
And off she went, battering his self-discipline as she writhed and keened, letting him give her two long fingers pressed deep into her sex to send her back out of her mind just when he sensed her satisfaction might be cresting.
And God above, she was snug. Her sex clamped down on his fingers, hard, repeatedly, until Beck gave up and let his own orgasm go rocketing through him. He barely got a hand around himself to deflect the worst of the untidiness onto his own belly before he was groaning quietly with the sheer, wringing pleasure of his release.
He couldn’t recall when he’d come that hard, not even in the act, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive it if such pleasure befell him again.
“Beckman?”
Sara sounded as dazed as Beck felt, and he realized his fingers were still hilted inside her. He eased his hand from her and felt her shudder with an aftershock of pleasure.
“On your back, sweetheart.” He levered up and kissed her cheek. “Careful of the sheets.”
She pitched awkwardly to the mattress, leaving Beck to get up and fetch the basin and washcloth.
“I’m… buzzing inside,” Sara said, consternation in her tone as she waved a vague hand below her waist.
“Is buzzing a good thing?” Beck brought the basin to the night table, wrung out the cloth, and scrubbed it over his belly and groin.
“Different.” Sara lay on her back, knees drawn up, her modesty apparently not yet within reach.
“The water’s a little cool,” Beck warned her, wringing out the cloth again. She let her knees fall to the sides but turned her head as he swabbed gently at her sex. “Sensitive?”
She nodded, saying nothing until he’d folded the cloth against her and applied a comforting touch of pressure.
“And you, Beckman? You found… pleasure too?”
Beck smiled at her just for asking, and still pressing the cool cloth to her sex, leaned in and kissed her. “A wagonload of it. I hope I didn’t hurt you?”
“No. Overwhelmed and buzzing, but pain is not part of it.”
“You’d have to tell me if it were.” Beck believed her, but still… he hadn’t been anywhere near as gentle as he’d intended—and Sara hadn’t been restrained.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I’m happy,” Beck said, the truth of his answer surprising him. “Very happy. Now scoot over. Company is coming to call, Sarabande Hunt.” He tossed the washcloth into the basin and climbed in beside her where she lay on Her Side of the Bed.
“None of that tea-with-the-queen business, love.” He seized her under the arms and hoisted her back over him. “We’re friends now. Cuddle up. There’s my girl.” He patted her bottom, and then his touch shifted, stroking up her back. “What?”
“I feel like crying,” she blurted out, folding forward onto his chest.
“I’ll hold you while you cry,” Beck said, his brisk humor disappearing as tenderness swamped him. “Tell me honestly, Sara, was I too rough?”
“No.” She burrowed into his chest, and Beck had the odd thought that they were—finally—getting to the real lovemaking. “I’m just… sentimental.”
“It’s spring,” Beck finished the thought for her, “and it has been a long time for you, and your daughter is facing her birthday, and you have no one with whom to share these things the way you ought.” He gathered her closer and felt a sigh go out of her. “How was your trial ride, Sarabande?” Beck kept his caresses on her back slow and soothing, but—though he would leave any day and likely never see Three Springs again—her answer mattered to him. “Will I do?”
“You.” Sara’s breath puffed against his chest again. “You know very well you are not the one whose condition has to be assessed. You probably have a different dalliance for every season.”
Beck’s hands went still. “No, I do not. You would be mistaking me for my brother Nicholas, who has a different dalliance for every day of the week when he’s in a certain mood.”
“You’re not exaggerating, are you?” Sara raised her face to peer at him. “You’re not, I can see this. You must worry for him, this Nicholas.”