Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, Old Time Is Still A-Flying.
(ROBERT HERRICK)
“My restraint is as wheat stalks in the wind, when I’m with you.” Miles lips roamed to her shoulders and collarbone before they met the sleeve of her gown.
He hooked a calloused finger within and eased it lower, her breath exhaling with the slow slide of silk.
Then his mouth pressed to her decolletage, the swell of her breasts and that breath hitched, stopped entirely as his hand caressed her ribcage while the other sought the fastenings of her bodice.
A huff of exasperation warmed her skin.
So she sat up and twisted in his arms to face the lushness of the conservatory. “Tiny buttons instead of ties. Better closure and a nicer finish but can be a trial to undo.”
His lips nibbled her ear. “And I will delight in unbuttoning every single one, kissing all that is revealed.”
Such a statement of intent sent a curious sensation coursing – all shiver and sweetness and surrender – but no time for musing as his fingers slipped the first button free. Then a kiss upon her bared skin.
She felt each one give, her breath shallower with every release, every kiss upon skin then chemise, until the bodice slackened and the sleeves slipped. Then came the nudge of rough fingers at the laces of her stays before they too loosened.
Yet she raised her arm to keep them in place and, despite the conservatory’s temperate climes, she quivered, a sudden breathless hesitation for what was to come–
“I force myself to say this,” bit out Miles, a finger trailing her shoulder, “but if you wish to cease…”
She twisted back.
His eyes were dark with restraint, fist clenched at his side.
“Oh, no. You are in my domain now, Miles Firth. But I shall require guidance.”
And she stood, the dress and stays tumbling to the floor in a soft heap until she was only clad in her chemise, autumn petticoat and stockings.
Miles reached out and placed a heated palm to her waist. “You’re so beautiful, my Verity.” And he drew her to the chaise once more.
This kiss was deep and consuming, and now she could feel the heat of him through the thin cotton of her chemise, the muscles of his arms clenching around her, the leather of his buckskins abrading her thighs.
The petticoat slipped to the floor with nary a whisper and then his lips were at her shoulder, a place where he’d always paused as a youth. Yet now there was no hesitation as the chemise sleeves slipped to display her breast.
Before she could think to cover herself, Miles’ broad hand did so instead, cupping and caressing, his calloused thumb stroking the tip.
She couldn’t withhold her moan, head tipping back and before she knew it, his lips were there also, laving and teasing and feathering till she seized hold of his hair and yanked his head up, pressing her own lips to his in unabated need.
She knew enough of what would happen this night but she’d never imagined the intimacy, the frisson, the sheer hedonism that made one fevered with desire, and she hardly cared when her chemise was removed entirely.
Through his buckskins, the girth of his manhood pressed just so, and she wiggled, wanted…
He pulled back with a coarse mutter and her eyes widened as Miles threw off his shirt then yanked off his boots to fling them aside, one taking the flower head off a Plumbago rosea.
She grinned; he growled.
And then she was pushed backwards, the cushion meeting the back of her head as his powerful body hovered over her.
She still wore her stockings and felt sinfully wicked, endeavoured to tug him down but it was akin to tugging a boulder.
“Don’t want to crush you,” he rasped.
“I want to be crushed,” she whispered. “I want all that powerful strength on me. Surrounding me. Possessing me and–”
Her words were stifled by his lips as he sank down, her legs parting of their own accord to embrace his slender hips.
Hands brushed and caressed – too much and not enough – but when he dragged his mouth from hers, pulled his body away, she moaned and made to grasp him again.
“Wait,” he rumbled, a sound that caused such ragged feeling to flow within her – wits unsteady and disordered. And then the wait became heaven as his mouth lapped at her breast and his rough hand wandered to her stomach, then lower.
Her back arched as his broad palm slid between her thighs, pressed, his name a gasp as his fingers roamed, blunt and covetous.
Pleasure clutched at her, coiled, and she wanted more as a pinnacle hovered just within reach, but Miles drew away and she shunted her eyes wide, to watch him stand and yank at his placket before thrusting his buckskins down.
Verity blinked, as surely that was too–
But Miles’ body covered hers once more, naked skin to naked skin, and she instinctively knew that all would be well.
His lips returned, and she felt him there, pressing, seeking where she herself sought and yearned, until with a languid glide and a hand to her thigh, his hips pushed and he sank inside her.
It pinched and burned and incited carnal sweetness, all at once.
“Verity,” he gasped in her ear. “Say all is well.”
It was and it wasn’t, so all that came out was, “You’re inside me.”
Miles’ response was a guttural groan, his harsh breath at her ear causing her body to clench, which caused Miles to groan once more, a never-ending circle of agreeable cause and effect.
Slowly, she allowed a hand to wander his flexed back, felt the restraint within him, the leashed power. “Is there more?” she tentatively asked.
He raised his face from her neck, eyes the greenest she had ever seen, surpassing nature itself. And leisurely, he drew back a little, causing a gasp to escape her, before he sank deep in an act of possession that purloined her breath.
Sensation roiled and her knees instinctively encircled his hips.
“Anymore?” she couldn’t help but tease.
His lips curled. Not a smile. A wolf’s grin of hunger.
And he rocked, back and forth, slow at first… No words necessary as he showed her exactly how much more he could give her.
She cried out, arms enclosing his herculean shoulders as his mouth ravished her lips, then throat, all the time his hips gathering to a faster, deeper cadence, the burn now a thrum that pulsed in every nerve and limb.
His broad hand grabbed her thigh, yanked it higher upon his hip and so she did the same with the other, heard his groan as she pushed back and found the rhythm of it all.
Such a response spurred Miles to increase the tempo and she met it, shut her eyes against the fierce pleasure that was growing, spiralling like a vine to reach the sun.
And then Miles kissed her again, mouths open and wild, before his lips slid to her breast, lapped, and the tension within her unravelled in a sudden breathless bloom, back arching, cry muffled as the fierceness scalded throughout with its bright intensity.
Her name was groaned, Miles’ rhythm now short bucking thrusts, and she had to open her eyes.
His expression was shadowed in the lanternlight, strangled gasps escaping his lips, before he threw his head back, neck corded as a rugged harsh groan emanated from the depths.
With shudders still wracking him, he buried his face into the lee of her neck and shoulder, teeth grazing the sensitive skin.
She felt his body sink upon hers: the muscles in his arms loosening, his chest pressed tight to her breasts and his legs tangled with her own.
Every sense felt so deliciously alive, and she swore she could even hear leaves breathe, petals curl and stems grow.
Time seemed to slow and linger as Miles kissed the damp silken skin of his beloved’s throat.
He still lay atop her but had very little motivation to change that as Verity’s hands wandered up and down his spine, her artist’s fingers drawing curled patterns of vines and leaves.
Yet he knew he must be squashing her, the sole hindrance being the chaise which wasn’t wide enough for two.
“We need…” He cleared his throat. “We need to complete this manoeuvre in one. So hold on.”
She smiled languidly. “Hold on to what?”
“Everything,” he growled, before he wrapped one arm around her buttocks, another her shoulders and rolled so that he was beneath and she lay atop.
“That was very adept,” she whispered.
He kissed her hair. “From sleeping in tent hammocks. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with your arse on the ground.”
A breath of laughter warmed his chest.
For a while, they just lay there and a contentment such as he’d never felt surged through him like roots settling into rich earth.
He’d arrived on foot via St James’s Park behind and then hefted over the garden wall with some notion to climb the trellis to Verity’s window, not an easy feat considering the thorns on the roses, but then he’d seen the soft light glowing from the conservatory and knew where she was…
Prising open an ajar window, he’d found Verity fast asleep upon the chaise but her slumber had not seemed peaceful, hands fitfully clasping her dress, eyelids flitting.
So he had kissed away her distress and…
Indolently, she now raised her head and pressed her chin to his chest. “Would I like a hammock? Perhaps between two trees?”
Her lips gleamed red, hair black as night, and haloed in the candlelight with the lush jungle of the conservatory plants behind her, she appeared like some incarnation of Flora, the Greek goddess of flowers. Even though it had not been long since pleasure had crested, he felt stirrings once more.
Tamping them down, he focused on the question.
“Yes. They rock from side to side.”
“Hmm.” Her voice was husky and her breasts shifted against his chest. “Can two fit in them?”
He cleared his throat again. “Likely. Although a bit of a close fit.”
“Hmm.” One of her fingers trailed his chest before wandering to his lip and he now noticed a blob of red paint on her middle finger. Why he found that so erotic, and always had done, he’d no idea. She leaned up further, breasts grazing his chest. “We’d be tight as oysters.”
Miles narrowed his eyes as her hand now headed lower. “Are you teasing me, Miss Seymour?”
A sultry smile lit her features. “Well, I hardly had a moment to explore.”
“Forgive me if I was too rush–” Her hand stroked over his abdomen. “Rushed,” he managed to rasp.
“I wanted you so,” she whispered. “Here. Amongst the verdant plants and the scent of nature. And now I never wish this moment to end.”
Neither did Miles as her hand softly brushed over his manhood.
“Verity, you must be in slight discomfort and I don’t want to…” Her stroke became bolder and whatever it was he didn’t want to do, he couldn’t quite recall anymore.
“I feel fit as a fiddle.” She kissed him. “In fact, I feel like a flower that only blooms at night. Rather odd but special. My skin tingles and I feel so free. As though I could do anything.”
Miles cupped her cheeks, drew her down towards him. “My Amaranth. You can do anything you want with me.”
And so she did.