She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and her hand closed over his, asking him to touch her more assertively. Gently, Val disentangled their fingers and untied the bows at her bodice. It was the work of a moment to loosen the front of her dress and ease the décolletage and chemise down, so the fullness of her breasts was exposed to the soft summer air.

No stays. God bless the woman; in this heat, toiling in her garden, she’d not worn stays.

“Valentine.” Ellen’s voice was faintly questioning but not scolding, and Val looked up to see her watching him soberly as he beheld her naked breasts.

“You are beautiful.” He leaned in and kissed the slope of one pale treasure. “Lovely.” He slid his mouth down to nuzzle the underside. “Breathtaking.” He grazed his mouth along the furled pink flesh of her nipple. “Beyond glorious.” He settled his mouth over her and felt her whole body gather itself toward the sensation as he drew on her softly.

She arched up and pressed his hand to her other breast, hard, beseechingly, and Val understood that at least five years of sexual solitude was driving this surrender on her part. She was in a torment of longing and asking him for relief.

It humbled him and gave him the determination to ignore the feel of her hand slipping down his back to dive into the waistband of his breeches, pulling him closer, begging him to cover her with his weight.

He’d be lost if he allowed that. Beyond control, hopelessly cast to the winds of his own pleasures. He eased his hand from her breast and stroked down her body, provoking an undulation of Ellen’s torso that turned into a subtle, rhythmic press of her body against his.

“Part your legs for me,” he whispered against her heart. “Just a little. Let me touch you.”

He had to nudge at her thighs with his hand before his words bore fruit, but then she complied, her legs falling open in a boneless, welcoming sprawl. God in heaven, what he wouldn’t give to settle himself between those thighs and start…

He would not trade her satisfaction for his own. Would not, so he let his hand stroke up Ellen’s thigh by slow degrees, ready for her to stop him, as wanting and allowing oneself to have were two different things. His mouth at her breast no doubt quelled some of the last-minute clamorings of her conscience, and perhaps the feel of his erection pressed against her hip obliterated the rest.

Ellen’s hand stroking his face went still as Val’s fingers brushed over her curls. Soft, springy, he wished with all his heart he could see what he was touching, what he was parting and caressing and tactilely treasuring.

“Lovely,” he whispered again, drawing a finger up the crease of her sex. She involuntarily drew her legs together, not to shut him out, he knew, but to brace herself against the pleasure.

“Let me,” he murmured, repeating the caress. “Let me give you this.”

Her gaze when he met it this time was clouded with desire, though bewilderment was there, as well. Her legs eased apart, and Val knew a spike of possessiveness and a sense he’d breached the last of her defenses. He tucked her tightly against him and resettled his hand over her sex.

“Hold on to me.” He kissed her palm and set it on the back of his neck then cradled her sex firmly, so she’d have no illusions. He could not hold out much longer, but he was damned if he’d leave her hanging, so he eased his fingers up to the apex of her sex and found the seat of her pleasure.

“Hold tight,” he reminded her, drifting his fingers over her. She shivered and clutched at him reflexively then clung as he set up a rhythm. When he felt her body beginning to hum with arousal, he eased off, teasing her with shallow penetrations of first one then two fingers.

“Valentine.” It came out as a moan, burdened with frustration and desire and such pure longing, Val’s own arousal spiked again.

He leaned in, took her nipple in his mouth, and drew hard, letting his hand work her firmly in the same rhythm. In moments, she bowed up, pleasure wracking her then drawing her more tightly still. Val drove her relentlessly higher, giving quarter with neither hand nor mouth nor body. Before her pleasure waned, her tears were wet on his chest, her nails had scored his back, and her leg had snaked tightly around his hips.

She’d stunned him, blown to pieces his notions of what pleasing a woman meant, and torn at his composure. He shifted off her and cursed his clumsy left hand, but somehow managed to get one side of his falls and three buttons on the second side undone. Ellen burrowed into his embrace, hiding her face against his chest when Val wanted desperately to see her expression. She seemed upset, but a lack of familiarity with his partner, her shyness, and his own pounding, unsatisfied lust conspired to render Val incapable of frustrating himself further.

But given that she’d been celibate for five years, neither could he merely heave himself over her and start rutting.

Self-gratification for Val had always tidily restored the balance of his bodily humors. It left him feeling relaxed, in charity with life, and best of all, it took only a few minutes.

As his hand closed around his swollen cock, he sensed dimly there would be nothing tidy about it this time, not with Ellen panting and sated beside him, and lust igniting at the base of his spine like a lightning strike.

Just brushing his hand over the glans of his erection was enough to make his breath seize in his chest. Four strokes along the length of his shaft, and his ears roared, his vision dimmed, and his entire awareness converged on cataclysmic spasms of pleasure radiating from his cock to his balls, and outward to every particle of his being. His body shook with it, until he comprehended for the first time in his life why an orgasm could be called a little death.

When it was over, he lay dazed, very indelicately untidy, and heaving like a race horse. Ellen was wrapped against his left side, her face pressed against his shoulder, and Val knew only that he had to hold her soon. Had to.

He fished in his right pocket for his handkerchief and tried to clean up the mess he’d created on his belly and chest. Gently extricating himself from Ellen, he crawled down the blanket until he could dip his handkerchief in the stream then tried again to put himself to rights. He rinsed, dipped, and squeezed out the hankie, and sat back on his heels, head nearly spinning from that simple exertion.

Ellen’s feet, dusty, elegant, and bare, came into his view, and he had to stifle the urge to kiss them. He sat there, his body humming, until he realized Ellen was propped on her elbows, bodice loosely drawn over her breasts, watching him curiously.

“Valentine, what are you doing?” Her tone was so rife with affection and befuddlement, Val almost blushed.

“I don’t know.”

“Let me hold you.” She smiled at him, stole his pillow, and lay back, clearly confident he would comply.

He rinsed his handkerchief again then crawled back up to her side and slid an arm under her neck. She scooted closer and wrapped her arms around him, urging him down until his cheek was pillowed on her breast.

“Are you all right?” he asked, lacing their hands and resting them on her stomach.

She tucked her face against his temple and shook her head.

“Well, neither am I,” Val confessed, his tone conveying both pleasure and confusion. He was… torn. Wracked between profound contentment and a need to be closer to her; between feeling utterly drained and perfectly satisfied. Between confusion that he should have experienced such intensity of sensation when not even having intercourse and the certain knowledge that with Ellen, intensity would be the norm.

“I will be all right,” Ellen said softly, “but you have quite, quite knocked me off my pins in a manner that puts new meaning in the term.”

“Quite, quite,” Val murmured, nuzzling her breast. “I am off my pins, as well, then; in fact, my pins are scattered from here to blazing Halifax.”

“You’re well rid of them.” Ellen kissed his cheek.

Val levered up onto his elbow and peered down at her. “Are you all right? You cried.”

She ran her fingers over his jawbone. “Sometimes one cries for relief and for sheer… wonderment.”

Val nodded, somewhat reassured—he was suffering a case of wonderment himself. “I did not come over here today thinking to seduce you.”

“And for that, I can be grateful. Your spontaneous efforts were impressive enough.” Val felt her sigh against his cheek.

“It wasn’t enough.” This bothered him exceedingly. “I didn’t even make love to you properly, and you deserve at least that.”

“You are not the judge of what I deserve,” Ellen said, sounding smug and replete. “I was married for five years, Valentine, and did not merit the kind of pleasure you just visited upon me.”

“Five years?” Val grimaced, not knowing if he should thank old Francis for his ineptitude or castigate the lazy bugger.

“I will not discuss it,” Ellen warned him.

“Of course not.” But five years? “You inspire me, Ellen. That is a warning, by the way.”

“I am too content to be alarmed by it,” Ellen said, but then she fell silent.

Val traced a finger down her nose. “Your mill wheel is back in motion.”

“Spinning freely,” she agreed, turning her face into his palm. “So this is your idea of forty winks?”

“Twenty apiece. But having had my twenty, I now want to stay and poach another forty.”

“You shall not.” She framed his face with her hands and leaned up to kiss him soundly on the mouth. “I might want you to, but we’ve borrowed enough time and privacy from fate, and the afternoon is advancing.”