The River of No Return

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 expression was intent, and his hands slid up her wrists to grasp her hands, his fingers interlacing with hers. It was both caressing and possessive, the way he had her pinned beneath him, her arms above her head. She could feel how her breasts rose, only to be pressed against his chest. His eyes were almost cold with some emotion she couldn’t recognize. “What needst thou have more covering than this man?”
    Julia held back on her breath. “What are you asking me?” she whispered, gripping his hands tightly.
    Nick watched her mouth as she answered. His own response was broken. “I am about to make you mine. I want to promise you . . . but I cannot, in good conscience . . . not until . . .”
    It seemed a hundred years ago that she had stormed home in anger, intent upon seducing Nick just to show that she could. Now that she had him here, poised above her, she didn’t want to hear empty protestations or promises or excuses. “Do you know the motto of the earls of