Bodice Ripper

He was already hard. It was difficult to be close to her for long without having an uncomfortable reminder of how he felt about her. She looked up at him, her eyes heavy-lidded.

"Can we celebrate now?"

Every part of his brain screamed to tell her no, to stop her. He pressed his lips against hers, instead, and pressed his aching need into her hand.

James had had scant few chances to loose a woman's corset, but he proved more capable than he had imagined at undressing Mary, and she laid back on the bed, propped up on her elbows, and smiled at him with a welcoming glint in her eyes.

He'd meant to take off his own clothes, but seeing her lying there he found himself distracted by her beauty, the way her breasts lay on her chest, each tipped by a rosy bud of a nipple. He crossed the room in a single long stride and picked her up easily to pull a breast into his mouth.

He heard her gasp and pulled her nipple between his teeth lightly, to be rewarded with a soft moan. James could feel himself straining against his trousers, but he stopped himself and pressed a finger against her wetness. It went in easily, and he started probing deep inside her.

Mary pushed against his hand, slowly at first, and then when he added a second finger to the first, with increasing vigor. James kissed her breasts, and then her neck. When her body tensed underneath him, he pressed his lips against hers and kissed her deeply.

Mary lay back on the bed, panting and staring at the ceiling, and then he started to undress, coming up to stand between her parted thighs. Then he pressed himself against her and took her.

She wrapped her legs around him as they moved together, both of their breathing coming in ragged bursts between kisses and whimpered moans. James could feel the pressure building up, the feeling that any moment he was going to lose himself. It was all he could do to pull out and spill himself on her belly.

Mary reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him in close for another kiss. James grabbed a handkerchief and wiped himself off of her, then lay down beside her.

Lord, he thought, but she was beautiful.

They pulled the covers aside and lay down beside one another, still naked, and he held her in his arms.

It was too late, now. Too late to tell her that they couldn't do this again, that she was better off without him. He teased a hardening nipple between his fingertips.

It was going to be a long night.

19

Mary

The sun was streaming in through the cracks between the closed curtains when Mary opened her eyes. It seemed as if they'd been up all night, but she couldn't remember a day that she'd felt better.

She looked at James as he slept beside her. He scowled when he slept, she saw. Like he looked during the day, only less guarded. She smiled. That was just like she'd imagined.

She didn't want to wake him, not right away, so she laid there, watching him sleep softly. He looked more relaxed than she'd thought him capable of, in the week she'd known him. It was all she could do not to kiss him, but then he'd wake, and she'd feel bad all day.

The birds chirped outside the window, and she wanted to open the curtain to look, but that would have woken him, as well. She slowly eased her arm out from around him, and slid out of bed as slowly, as gently as she could. She finally let out her breath when she was standing over him and he was still asleep.

James deserved his rest, after the week he'd had. They both did, but she was awake now, and she didn't want to get dressed and go back to her life without him. For a little while, she could be with him, and he couldn't be sour about it.

She heard something from the hall. What might have been someone walking, down the hall a ways. But it was her imagination. Still, her ears strained to catch another hint of the noise, to confirm her fears, or to assuage them when nothing was heard.

The sound came again, closer this time. Someone was here. As she listened, she realized. Not someone—someones. People. There were people in the house, and they weren't walking quietly.

She rushed to the bed, her bare feet padding against the ground. It was too quiet to have heard from outside the room, but to her heightened nerves it seemed as if her steps were thunderous. She could be caught any time.

James came awake with only a light shake on his shoulder, and she put a finger to her lips to hush him.

"There's people, James. People in the house. Someone's here."

He looked distant and confused by the information, as if she'd told him that she was going to start standing on her head. She repeated it again.

"Get up. We're not alone."

His eyes slid into focus and he threw the covers off himself. The pair of them were a blur, pulling clothes on as fast as they could manage. Neither of them spoke, not right away. They both knew that dressing was more important than having a longer-term plan.

Finally, as he started pulling the strings on her corset tight, James started whispering, only centimeters from her ear. The feel of his breath on her ear lit a fire deep down inside her, but it wasn't time for that.