The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

Julia got to her feet and helped him by pushing the jacket up and away from his broad shoulders. She could feel the muscles of his chest stretching as he shrugged off the blue superfine. She laid it carefully aside and looked at Nick in his linen shirt and red braces—the only splash of color in his sober clothing, color that no one ever saw. Except that now she was seeing it. As she watched, he pulled the braces from his shoulders with his thumbs and began to unbutton his shirt. But she found herself gently pushing his hands away. “I want to,” she said.

He let his hands fall to his sides. She reached up and slipped the first button through its hole, her fingers unsteady. A pulse was beating there among the sinews of his throat, and she could feel his chest rising and falling beneath her wrists. She continued, unbuttoning the second button, and then the third and last. The linen fell open to reveal golden skin, dusted with darker, bronze hair. She put a finger to the hollow of his throat and traced downward to where the buttons stopped. His skin was warm to the touch, and his breath quickened as she touched him. She slowly pulled the shirt from his trousers, and he sucked in his breath. She pushed the linen up, past his ribs, her hands skimming over smooth skin. Then he took over and pulled the shirt quickly over his head.

Her first impression was that he was beautiful. His chest tapered to his hips. His stomach was bisected by a wavering line of hair that plunged down to his navel, then disappeared mysteriously into his trousers. In spite of his obvious arousal he stood at ease, his weight on one leg, watching her look at him. She reached a hand out, stroking over his ribs, passing up and over his flat nipple. She heard and felt his breath quicken.

Then she saw the scar.

He had been shot through the shoulder. It had not been a clean wound. The scar was ragged. His skin was a paler gold than his hair, but the scar was a shiny, sickly white. She passed her hand across it and back, and felt its contours beneath her fingers.

“You are brave,” he said, and she could feel his voice in his chest.

“For touching your scar?” She laid her hand fully over it. “I am not brave. You are. It must have hurt dreadfully.”

“Yes,” he said simply. “But I am in no mood to discuss my scars. Especially since you are about to meet another one. If, that is, you wish to continue this lesson?”

“I do.”

He unbuttoned the fall of his trousers. Then he unbuttoned the waistband and looked up at Julia. “Do you know what my great-grandfather’s family motto is?”

“No, of course not.” She smiled at his stalling technique.

His answering smile was slightly lopsided. “Fear Garbh Ar Mait.” He began to push the tight breeches down his hips. “It is Irish. It means ‘Here is a good, blunt man.’”

“Oh, no.” Julia laughed and covered her eyes. When she peeked out from between her fingers, he was stepping out of his breeches and kicking them to one side.

“There.” He straightened, his hands open at his sides. “‘To teach thee, I am naked first.’” He stood amid the debris of his previously immaculate attire, gloriously naked.

His cock stood up, very proud. It was more . . . forthright than she had thought it would be. Best not to think about it yet. She let her eyes move to the scar that ran down his thigh. It was puckered and cruel, but it was part of him, and so she could not mind it. She let her eyes drift down his legs. She even thought his feet were handsome.

“Your turn, Julia.”

Her eyes flew up the length of his body to his face. He was not smiling. He stepped forward and quickly untied the ribbon at her waist, turned her round and undid the buttons down her back. His breath sent a delicious shiver all down the length of her neck and spine; then he pushed the dress off her shoulders and it simply fell from her like snow. She stood in her shift and turned to face him again. She raised her arms, and with a tickling thrill he whisked the fine linen up and over her head. Her slippers, stockings, and drawers followed, awkwardly and with a few laughs, but then she was in his arms. Never, in her entire life, had she felt anything so incredible as being one of two, standing naked together, wrapped up in each other’s arms. She closed her eyes, spreading her hands across the wings of his shoulder blades.

“Julia?” His voice seemed to come from inside her own head.

She opened her eyes. “Yes.”

He drew her back and down to the cushions. He stretched alongside her, one arm supporting her head, the other pulling her to him. She turned to face him, her hand on his chest. She could feel his cock pressing against her hip. She seemed more aware of it than he did, for he was looking at her almost sternly, though there was a twinkle way at the back of his eyes.

“You were mistaken about the last line of the poem, I fear,” he said in the schoolmasterish voice with which he’d teased her on their Hyde Park walk.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. It was a grave error.”

A few of the glinting golden hairs that dusted his chest curled over her fingers. She spoke in playful tones. “Then you must correct me, sir.”

With one quick twist Nick shifted both their bodies so that she lay underneath him, breathless. He had captured her wrists and was pressing them into the cushions above her head. “‘To teach thee, I am naked first,’” he said. “That’s the second-to-last line. The last line is, ‘What needst thou have more covering than a man?’”

Julia laughed, but Nick didn’t. His