For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

In seconds, his coat was off, then his big white shirt. Years of training had given him a chest delineated by muscle—and all of it on top of those tight trousers that slid down into knee-high leather boots.

“Now I know why the Regency ladies swooned,” Toby said, and Graydon gave her a grin that was appropriately rakish.

He took a few seconds to pull off the boots, then he stretched out beside her and very slowly began to undress her, covering every inch of newly exposed skin with his lips. Stockings and garters went first, then he slowly rolled the half-slip down her body to expose her modern underpants. Toby couldn’t help thinking that she’d discovered why Regency women didn’t wear anything beneath the slips. Between her corset and his tight trousers, there was an urgency created that made excess undergarments an unnecessary hindrance.

Toby ran her hands over Graydon’s chest, his arms, marveling at the hardness of his muscles, the curves of his body: so male to her female. She ran her hands down his body, over the backside of him, felt the power of him.

Feeling greatly daring, she moved a hand to the front and he groaned at her touch. She’d heard and seen all that she thought she should know, but the reality of it was different. She liked the way her touch made Graydon react.

“Toby,” he whispered, “I can’t wait much longer.”

All she could do was nod. She wasn’t going to let him know that she was a bit afraid of this unknown event.

He slid his trousers off and she was nude from the waist down. When he entered her, her eyes widened in surprise. She’d heard so much about the pain of the first time, but all she felt was pleasure.

“Am I hurting you?” he whispered.

“No,” she said. “Oh, that’s lo

vely.” He was slowly moving inside her. Gently at first and watching to see if she was hurt. But Toby put her head back and gave herself over to Graydon’s long, deep, slow thrusts.

Gradually, something inside her began to react and she raised her hips to let him deeper inside her. She was awkward but Graydon’s hands cupped her buttocks and held her, then guided her as she began to move with him.

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, yes!” She opened her eyes to see him smiling at her, but then his eyes changed, darkened, he buried his face in her neck, and seconds later his body stiffened. Groaning, he collapsed against her.

Toby lay close to Graydon, snuggled in his arms. It was nearly dawn and there was a blueish light seeping in around the closed wooden shutters. They’d made love all night, exploring, caressing, holding each other. Weeks of being close but forbidden to touch had left them with an insatiable need to hold, to feel, to caress, just to be together.

There were minutes during the night when Toby had wanted to talk, to ask questions of Graydon, but the feel of him removed all words from her mind. Besides, Graydon was showing her other things to do with her lips besides talk.

Now, at dawn, they were clinging to each other. The question of What happens now? hung between them.

Graydon untangled himself and got out of bed to open a shutter. The light nearly blinded her and she put her arm over her eyes. When she peeped through them she had a glance of a nude Graydon before he threw back the covers to expose an equally nude Toby.

Her first instinct was to cover herself, but she didn’t. He sat down on the side of the bed and she lay there quietly while he looked at her from toes to head. When he reached her face, he smiled at her, then gently turned her onto her stomach.

He ran his hand over her body and stopped along her left side. He caressed her ribs, and bent over and ran his lips along her side. “How did this happen?” he asked softly, sympathy in his voice.

“I was born with it,” Toby said, perplexed by his tone. Were a few pale birthmarks offensive to him?

“This isn’t …” he began but stopped. “Can you feel this?”

She reached back to run her hand along her side and felt the deep ridges of skin. Twisting, she tried to see what was there.

Graydon got up, removed a small mirror from the wall, and held it so she could see the long, wide scars down her side. “I think you were burned, and badly.”

Toby handed him the mirror and sat up in the bed, pulling the sheet over her. “I have no burn scars but I do have a row of small pink birthmarks running down my side. My dad used to say they were a map of undiscovered islands.”

Graydon sat on the side of the bed holding the mirror. “You are in Tabby’s body,” he said softly. “Last night I could feel the ridges on you and I thought of what you must have been through to leave such deep scars. But it wasn’t you who had endured the pain.”

The idea that she was in someone else’s body was almost more difficult to comprehend than the idea of time travel. Right now it seemed that she and Graydon were in some historic inn, with a very authentic bed—except that everything was new. Two hundred years hadn’t passed, so the furniture didn’t have that years-old patina that made it into antiques.

“What about you?” Toby asked. “Anything different?”

“I don’t believe there is.” His eyes began to twinkle. “But perhaps you would like to search.”

“I think that would be best,” Toby said solemnly.

When he leaned toward her, she ran her hand over his hard, flat abs, across his shoulder, and down a muscular arm. “I have nothing to compare you to, but you look and feel fine to me.” She put both her hands on him. It was wonderful to see and touch him. “Do you feel any different to yourself?”