Corset Diaries Read online

  “Am I aroused?” Max looked at me like I had breasts sprouting off the top of my head. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not if you mean I am the one arousing you. You’ve been mad at me all day, Max. You can’t tell me you can be mad at me and be thinking naughty thoughts about me at the same time.”

  Max took another deep breath and closed his eyes for a couple of heartbeats. I liked what the deep breathing did to his chest. It also made the friendly part of him wave. I waved back. “Tessa, would you like to go into my bedroom and continue this conversation?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Are you propositioning me now?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Ah. That’s very sweet of you, but I’m going to have to say no. I’d like to, don’t get me wrong. You’re making all sorts of parts of me that I’d forgotten about do some lovely, warm things, but as I mentioned, I’m a widow.”

  “You want me.”

  “We just met,” I pointed out. “And there’s the age difference. I couldn’t possibly sleep with someone so much younger than me.”

  He took a step forward, put both hands around my waist, and hoisted me up and into the tub, pulling me forward until I was pressed up against his warm, wet body. The sheer silk of the peignoir didn’t stand a chance—it sculpted my flesh like a lover’s hands.

  “You want me,” he said again, his voice a low rumble deep in his chest that I felt all the way down to my toenails.

  “That, sir, is an understatement,” I whispered as he started nibbling on my neck, his hands skimming down my back to my hips, pulling me tighter against him.

  “Good. I want you, too.”

  “You can’t want me,” I gasped as his mouth found a lovely spot on the side of my neck. The steam of the bathwater was nothing compared to the inferno inside me, an inferno that he’d started without even touching me. My hands, of their own accord, I’ll have you know, slid up the slick, wet planes of his chest. They did a little dance, enjoying the feel of him, the ripple of muscles as his arm tightened around me, the silken slide of his flesh as they swept higher, swirling momentarily over two adorable nipple nubs, then up to the long, sleek muscles of his shoulders. The smell of the soap mingled with something that I realized was a scent unique to Max, a spicy, tangy scent that made my knees turn to pudding. “You’re angry with me, remember?”

  “I’m not that angry,” he said against my jaw. I turned my head until my mouth was almost touching his, his breath mingling with mine, his eyes no longer cold and chilly but burning with sapphire heat that fueled my inner fire even higher. I wanted to kiss him, wanted to do more than just stand in a bathtub, my hands on his shoulders. I wanted to touch him, to caress every wonderful sweep of muscle, to taste him, to welcome him into my body . . .

  “Thank you,” I said, swallowing back tears that came out of nowhere. I stepped carefully out of the tub, turning back to wring out the bottom six inches of my peignoir.

  Max tipped my chin up, his thumb sliding to my cheek to wipe away one of the tears that escaped. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why don’t I want to go to bed with you, or why am I crying?”

  His eyes were still warm, but there was puzzlement in them, too, and a touch of wariness that did much to cool the fire he’d started in my blood. “Both.”

  I tried my best to smile, but I doubt if it was very convincing. “I do want to go to bed with you, don’t get me wrong, I’d have to be dead not to want that, but I’ve never been the hop into bed with a sexy guy the second you meet him sort of person, and it’s too late for me to change now. I mean, sex is all well and good, but . . .”

  “It’s better when there’s something else to it?”

  I nodded, and sniffled back a few more tears before wringing out the front part of the peignoir. “I didn’t think men realized that. I’m not interested in a fling, Max. I like you, and heaven knows my body is demanding an immediate and thorough introduction to yours, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to, um, do anything.”

  His thumb stroked a line down my throat. “If that’s the case, why are you crying?”

  Tears immediately pricked the back of my eyes. I frowned down at the wet material wadded between my hands. “Because . . . because you’re nice enough to get an erection over me.”

  “Tessa—”

  I sniffled and looked up when his thumbs slid under my jaw. “Despite you being polite and all, I am chunky. I know men; they like skinny women. Even Peter, who was a wonderful husband, liked thin women. Which makes it particularly nice that you’d lie about liking—” I waved my hand around my stomach.

  His fingers trailed a path down from my jaw to my collarbone, then down lower to the valley between my breasts where the first of five pearl buttons held, the peignoir closed. I didn’t realize what he was going to do until he had two of the buttons opened and was starting on the third.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, dropping my wet hem to grab his hand.

  “Why?” he asked, tipping his head to the side in that cute way he had. “You wanted to see me naked, it’s only fair I should see you.”

  “I’m not nearly as nice-looking naked as you are.”

  He leaned forward to kiss me, but I couldn’t let him. I turned my head a little, just enough so that his lips were grazing the corner of my mouth. Beneath my hands, his fingers slid another button through the opening.

  “Max—”

  “Hush.”

  “No, I can’t. I mean, you’ll be disappointed, and then I’ll . . . woobah!”

  Max’s hand slipped inside the half-opened peignoir and cupped my breast. Damp tendrils of his hair slid against my skin as he pushed the silk off my shoulders, his mouth following his hands as both trailed fire across my breasts. The peignoir gathered on my hips for a moment before a sweep of his hand sent it down to my ankles. I stood there naked, totally naked, naked in front of a man I’d just met, my fingers digging into his biceps as he kissed a path from one breast to another.

  He stepped back and eyed me, all of me, every last bulge and curve. I thought momentarily of shoving him into the tub or throwing a towel over his head or clamping my hand over his eyes, but in the end I just stood there, my breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding with long-unfamiliar emotions.

  He finished his examination and smiled, stepping close again. “I think you’re lovely. I don’t seen any part of you I’d describe as chunky. You’re soft and warm and round in those areas that women should be round.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I sniffled, then burst into tears. He held me, his arms a comforting strength behind me, his hands gently stroking my bare flesh. He was still aroused, still hard as he pressed against me, a fact that made my tangled, confused emotions that much more complicated.

  He nuzzled my neck, nipping at my ears and scattering kisses along my jaw until I stopped crying. Twice he tried to kiss me. Both times I turned my head.

  “There are times when I think I’ll never understand women, and then there are times when I believe it’s more fun not to. Are you going to tell me why you won’t let me kiss you?”

  “I can’t,” I said, wishing I had a tissue to blow my nose. It’s really not fair—in the movies, women get to blubber all over their men without once having their nose fill up, but let a few tears form in my eyes, and whammo! I’m a walking snot locker.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I have to . . . oh, just a minute.”

  I grabbed the peignoir from where it was pooled around my ankles and wrapped it around myself as I hurried back to my bedroom. “You’d think the Victorians understood about tissues, but oh, no, they never had to blow their noses! Where did Ellis put that handkerchief . . .”

  I grabbed the item in question and dodged behind the peacock screen, blowing my nose as quietly as possible. After buttoning the damp peignoir again, I stepped around the screen, only to find Max leaning in the open door. Naked.
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br />   “I really like you that way, Max, but you know, if anyone was to see you here—”

  “No one will see me. Are you going to tell me?”

  I sniffled and dabbed at my nose with a linen towel I found next to the washstand behind the screen. “I can’t kiss you, Max. It’s too . . . too intimate.”

  He blinked at me a couple of times.

  “Don’t let yourself get into the habit of doing that; it’s a hard one to break,” I warned him.

  He looked confused. “What habit?”

  “Blinking when you’re taken by surprise. I know, I do it all the time, and it makes me feel like an idiot but I can’t seem to stop.”

  He leaned against the door for another couple of seconds, his arms crossed over his chest, his happy part less happy. He blinked once more, then strolled forward and pulled me into a loose embrace, his hands slipping underneath my peignoir.

  “Do you like this?” he asked, his voice low and a bit rough, like crushed velvet rubbing on my naked flesh.

  “Oh yeah!” I said, swallowing the last of the tears.

  “You don’t mind standing naked in my arms, but you object to me kissing you?”

  “It’s not you I object to, Max. Not really. I thought you understood that. It’s just that kissing . . . well, there’s usually tongues involved with kissing.”

  “It’s been known to happen,” he agreed, a small smile flirting with the corners of his mouth.

  “I’m one of those people who finds tongues more intimate than . . . well, seeing someone naked.”

  “And you’re not comfortable with that intimacy?”

  “No. It’s just . . . difficult.”

  “I see.” He looked like he really did see, like he understood what I was talking about, which was a miracle because I wasn’t the least bit certain I was making any sense. “How would you feel if I kissed you without using my tongue?”

  I looked at his lips. They looked like nice lips, lips I could trust, lips that weren’t threatening in the least. “How about if I kissed you, instead?”

  “If you like.”

  I pressed my mouth against his and waited for the guilt and pain and sickness to fill me, the same emotions that had to rush to the fore the two times I’d kissed a man since Peter’s death.

  It didn’t come. None of it, none of the feelings of doing something wrong, of betraying Peter’s memory.

  “Wow,” I said against his lips, my eyes crossing as I tried to look into his. His mouth was warm and soft and left me wanting more. “This is pretty good. I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  “I am delighted to know that kissing me doesn’t make you physically ill, especially after you vomited on my shoes yesterday.”

  “I’m really sorry about that. I was drunk.”

  “Ah.”

  Have I mentioned I like the smell of Max? I do. He smells spicy and male and very, very sexy. “I don’t normally get drunk. In fact, the last time I was drunk was about eighteen years ago.”

  His lips caressed mine as he spoke. “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I know. Is it distracting you?”

  “No. Would you like to try the kiss again, this time with me in charge?”

  “No tongues?”

  “No tongues.”

  “Promise?”

  “I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

  I squinted up at him. “Is your mother dead?”

  He gave me a crooked smile that melted all my insides into one big puddle of goo. “No, but my father is. How about if I swear on his grave that I won’t molest you in any way with my tongue?”

  I thought about that for a minute. “What if the day comes that I want you to molest me with your tongue?”

  “Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be. I won’t do anything you won’t like.”

  That statement required another few seconds to mull over. “How do you know what I like?”

  His lips thinned. “Tessa—”

  “OK, but I’m trusting you on this.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why? What are you going to do?” I asked suspiciously. “I’ll know if you try to slip a little tongue in there, you know. I might be an idiot, but I’m not stupid.”

  His chest rumbled with laughter. “You can trust me. Close your eyes.”

  I gave him one last suspicious look, then did as he asked. His breath steamed my lips for a second, then his lips nibbled the corner of my mouth, first one side, then the other, then they caressed their way from one end to the other. My lips parted, allowing him to suck my lower lip between his, a little groan slipping out of my throat as his hands slid their way up from my behind, stroking a lovely serpentine path up my back just as he bit down very gently on my lip.

  I froze for a moment, very aware that I was standing in an intimate embrace with a man who was not my husband, a man who I’d known for all of a day. My heart, already trotting along pretty fast by the nice things Max was doing to my mouth, kicked into a gallop when he said one word. “Relax.”

  I did. My legs went boneless under me, the scent and taste and feel of him melting away all the worries and concerns and nagging thoughts about smart women and how they conducted relationships, most notably that they did not throw themselves on men after knowing them only a couple of hours.

  Max returned my lip to its accustomed location, and smiled down on me.

  “Still with me?”

  “Oh yeah.” I looked around us, a bit dazed, and was startled to see that only a couple of minutes had gone by since I’d come in to blow my nose. It seemed to me like a short lifetime had passed. “Um. Somehow your lips disconnected my legs. Would you mind helping me over to the bed?”

  “Is that an invitation or a request for help?”

  I looked him dead in the eye, in both eyes, actually, both lovely light blue eyes. “You know, your eyes are just the shade of a blue topaz ring I have at home.” His arm tightened around me as I stumbled over to the bed. “It’s just a request for help, Max. I enjoyed kissing you, I really did. I don’t think my legs would have gone off and left me if I didn’t.”

  One ebony eyebrow cocked. I loved the way they did that. I had the worst urge to kiss them. “But. . . ?”

  “But we just met, and I’m five years older than you, and although I really think it’s sweet of your penis to be poking into my stomach, it’s not fair to either of us to do anything else.”

  He traced my lower lip with his thumb. I returned the favor, but midway across his lip, his mouth opened and he bit my thumb. Gently.

  “I’m still angry with you, Tessa.”

  I looked at my thumb for a second, surprised that a little bite on the end of it could send flames licking up my arm. “About Melody?”

  “Yes. It’s not easy to make me change my mind.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I blinked a couple of times.

  He smiled a slow smile, a wicked smile, a smile filled with all sorts of heated, sensual, seductive promises that made my uterus stand up and do a couple of back flips. “I look forward to you persuading me I’m wrong.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose, then left the room, closing the door to the bathroom very gently.

  “Hoo,” I said softly, then collapsed down onto the bed. “I am so in over my head.”

  Thursday

  September 2

  4:12 A.M.

  Awake, although still in bed (darned time difference)

  Spent the night dreaming about Max and his trained lips. Must stop. He’s too young for me.

  Thursday

  September 2

  4:19 A.M.

  Lying on bed upside down with head hanging over the edge

  (bored, bored, bored)

  He’s FIVE WHOLE YEARS younger than me. He’s still just a baby. Too young. Much, much too young.

  Thursday

  September 2

  4:33 A.M. />
  Floor next to bed, doing non-Victorian yoga

  The age difference between us is just insurmountable. When I was a ripe, womanly twenty, svelte and full of seductive glances and appreciation for the manly form, he was a spotty, adolescent fifteen, gangly and hormonal. Nope. It wouldn’t work.

  In dog years, our age difference is thirty-five years. THIRTY-FIVE YEARS!

  Thursday

  September 2

  5:03 A.M.

  On the fainting couch

  Mmm. That was a dilly of a kiss, though. And he smells so good. And his eyes; I love the way they go all dark when he’s aroused. He’s mature for his age, too. Very mature. A lot of men wouldn’t have understood why I couldn’t just jump into bed, but not Max. He understood because of his inherent maturity. I like his jaw, also. He has a nice, firm, manly sort of jaw, the kind of jaw you want to investigate in more detail. And, of course, there are his lips.

  Mmm. Those lips.

  What is five years, anyway? Nothing, that’s what it is; in the grand scheme of things, five years is nothing. When I’m seventy, he’ll be sixty-five. It’s a statistically documented fact that there is no difference between a man aged sixty-five and a woman aged seventy. It’s something to do with biology. Women age slower than men—everyone knows that. So, if you look at it like that, when a woman is, say, oh, let’s use thirty-nine as an example age, biologically she would be on par with a man who was roughly an eighth younger than her.

  Which would mean a man who was chronologically five years younger than her would really be equal to her age.

  Fascinating stuff, statistics.

  Thursday

  September 2

  11:50 A.M.

  At the escritoire (I love all the little drawers)

  You would think that putting on a corset is something that someone with reasonable intelligence and the full use of all four limbs could accomplish with only minor setbacks, but I’m living proof that it ain’t as easy as it looks.