In the next minute his own robe was open and his trousers were about his knees. He entered her quickly and Claire gasped, startled. She had already forgotten what this new experience was like.
She put her head back and Trevelyan ran hot kisses down her throat as he held her hips in his hands and guided her in their quick, stolen lovemaking.
Claire’s passion built and built as he slammed into her. Her weight was supported by him and she felt his body move against hers, in and out, building until she wanted to cry out. But his lips on hers kept her quiet until at last they exploded together.
She clutched at him, weak and spent, feeling helpless and powerful at the same time. “Trevelyan,” she whispered against his neck.
“Yes,” he said. “Tell me.”
Claire shook her head. She wasn’t going to say anything. Nothing at all, in fear of what she would say.
He held her there, against the wall, both of them fully clothed, yet joined so very intimately. “Give me my days,” he said. “Give me these few days, that’s all I ask. No promises. No regrets. Live for the moment and the moment alone. Don’t think about tomorrow or about what anyone else wants of you. Can you do that?”
She nodded her head against his neck. What an extraordinary idea to think about living for the moment, to think of no one but herself. For an unknown number of days, she could stay with Trevelyan and not think about what her parents wanted her to do, about what she must do in the future. She could stop worrying about her sister’s future. She could stop worrying about her own future under the rule of Harry’s odious mother. She could laugh and talk to someone about things that interested her rather than pretend to like shooting and horses and dogs. For a few days she could stop trying to understand Trevelyan, stop trying to figure out who he was and what he was.
“You don’t touch Nyssa,” she said. When he didn’t say anything, she looked at him.
“Not
one touch? Not even kisses?”
For once she realized he was teasing her. “It’s enough that I’m allowing you to look at her. And no comments to my sister about sitting on your lap, either.”
“Only if you sit on my lap,” he said huskily.
“I think I’d rather like sitting on you.” She kissed him, then he disconnected them and stood her in front of him. Gently, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“Vellie?” she said. “Are there lots of ways to do…this?”
His eyes were bright when he looked at her. “Lots.”
“I guess you’ve tried them all,” she said bitterly and looked away.
“I have merely practiced for the real game.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I will give you your days. No, I will give myself the days. For the next few days, for as long as we have, I will think only of the present, not of the future or the past. Not your past or mine.”
He caressed her cheek. “My past need not concern you—ever.” He took her by the hand and led her toward the stairs.
“It’s your future that concerns me now. What do you plan to do with Nyssa?”
“My only plan for the future is to show you every position, every nuance of lovemaking that I have ever learned.”
Claire blinked at him. “I have always loved school.”
He laughed and led her up the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-one
They had four days before Harry returned. The four most heavenly days Claire had ever experienced in her life. More than that, they were days such as she’d never dreamed could have existed.
As far as she could tell, Trevelyan didn’t sleep. At least not enough to count. She thought that perhaps he made do with three or four hours of sleep a night, but that was all. He spent hours in bed with her, making love to her, keeping his promise to show her what he knew. He showed her positions. He touched parts of her body that she hadn’t even known she had.
But their actual coupling was the least of their lovemaking. It was the things he did before he touched her that nearly drove her mad. He used words to make her ready. He told her erotic stories. The stories weren’t vulgar; they always had funny little morals to them. They were just incredibly sexy.
Once Trevelyan told her one of these stories while she lay in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s bed and watched him undress. He took forever to take off his clothes, all the while telling her the story of the love affair between a beautiful princess and her father the king’s adviser. Had either of them been caught the king would have put them to death. But through the cleverness of the adviser, he managed to make the king allow him to marry the princess.
Trevelyan told the story slowly, telling in detail what the princess and her lover did in bed. By the time Trevelyan was undressed and ready to come to bed to her, Claire wanted to tear at him with her teeth. A naked, a magnificently naked Trevelyan walked toward the bed and Claire eagerly opened her arms to him. He stopped beside the bed and yawned.