Bella's Touch Read online

  He swore he could even hear her swallow when she drank.

  That brought the memory of the last time they’d made love before the war clearly into his mind. They’d desperately loved each other throughout the night. Exhaustion finally took its toll and they’d slept. But just after dawn he’d felt Bella scoot down to his feet, her naked body wedging its way between his legs.

  He kept his eyes closed enjoying the feeling of her silky smooth flesh sliding along his calves and thighs. Her blonde curls were a tumbled mess that teased his skin as she moved forward.

  When her hand wrapped around his rapidly growing erection, he grabbed both pillows and shoved them under his head so he could look down to watch her. Leaning on her elbows, she slowly licked her way from the base to the tip, her blue eyes filled with mischief but never leaving his gaze.

  It never failed to amaze him how she could look so seductive and so innocent at the same time. She opened her mouth wide and drew the head in, slowly working her way down until the entire length of him was buried deep inside her, still watching him with a mixture of pleasure and need in her eyes.

  He allowed her to pleasure him orally for a few minutes, but wanted the last time he came in her to be inside her pussy, joined as one. When he couldn’t take any more, he reached down and ran his hand through her hair, slowly bringing her mouth off his cock.

  “I want to be inside you, Bella. Ride me.”

  She climbed up to straddle him. Her hands on his chest, she lifted her hips so that the tip of his cock just teased the opening of her pussy lips.

  “Is this where you want me, Michael?”

  “Yes, love. Take me inside you.”

  With that she leaned up and slid her pussy over the entire length of him until she sheathed his shaft. She sat up straight, her breasts firm and full, the pink nipples pointing slightly up as she lifted her hands behind her head to hold the thick blonde curls away from her neck and back. Then slowly she began to rock back and forth, letting him slide in and out, deeper each time.

  She was magnificent.

  No matter how he tried, he’d never be able to capture the beauty of her soul and her passion on canvas.

  The memory burst like a giant soap bubble.

  He slammed his hand on the table and took evil pleasure in hearing her gasp of surprise. “Where’d you hide the whiskey, Bella?”

  “They’re in the box by the door.”

  “Get me one.”

  “If you’re planning on getting drunk, you’ll have to get it yourself.” Her voice trembled a bit and the sass in it told him she barely had her anger under control.

  Good. He didn’t need a damn nursemaid. He’d rather have one pissed off hellion on his hands than the patient martyr who’d served him dinner.

  He shoved the chair back and turned on his heel, counting the few steps to the door, stopping when his foot came in contact with the crate. Reaching out he lifted the wooden slat into place on the door, bolting it from the inside. Then he scooped up two bottles and cradled them carefully against his body. Turning, he made his way to the bedroom, counting the steps as he went and one arm out in front to keep him from slamming into the table, a chair or Bella.

  He stopped at the door, turning his head in the general direction of the table and hopefully where she still sat. “There’s a chamber pot in the bedroom. Don’t try to go out to the outhouse tonight. It’s too dangerous.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he made his way into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

  Seated on the bed, he set one bottle on the small table beside it and kicked off his boots. Uncorking the other bottle as he scooted back on the bed, he took a long slow drink.

  If he were lucky, he’d get completely pissed and passed out before Bella tried to get in the bed. For his own sanity, he hoped it worked.

  Chapter Five

  Soft, feminine fingers slid up his thighs, slowly, sending shivers of desire straight to his cock. Nothing better than an erotic dream to wake him.

  He tried to reach down to cup his balls, but couldn’t move his arm. He tested his other arm. Then his legs. Nothing moved.

  What the hell?

  It took a minute for the whiskey to clear from his mind. Someone had tied him spread-eagle to the posts of his bed. He tugged on his bindings. They weren’t rope. They felt…silky.

  “Relax.”

  Bella’s voice drifted from the bottom of the bed, her breath warming the cool skin of his left hip.

  “Untie me, Bella,” he said, still trying to clear his head.

  “No, I don’t think I’ll do that.”

  He pulled on the bindings, realizing she’d tied them very securely. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Teaching you a lesson.”

  Shit. She was going to get even for his forcing her to submit to him earlier. Like the air hissing out of one of those hot air balloons he’d seen used for air reconnaissance in the war, he went limp in the bed. Whatever punishment she meant to deal out, he owed her.

  “Do you know there are hundreds of muscles in the human body?” she said as she traced her finger up his calf.

  He swallowed hard. “And you know this how?”

  “My father suggested I take an anatomy class, hoping it would help me focus on my sculpting while you were off in the war. I needed something to take my mind off worrying about you, especially after your letters stopped coming.” She pinched the skin just inside his knee. “It didn’t help.”

  He gritted his teeth a moment at the pain before answering. “I’m sorry, Bella. I tried to write when I could. Then there was no time, no paper. Then no sight.”

  “I know, Michael. But I did learn quite a bit in my study.” She slid her fingers up the inside of his thigh. “For instance, this is the vastus medialus muscle. And this is the Satorius.” She traced the spot from his inner thigh to his hip.

  His cock responded immediately to her touch, thickening and rising to attention.

  “Did learning this help your sculpting?” he asked, trying to sound more relaxed than he felt.

  “No. Not really. I am still pitifully untalented.”

  He’d disagree. He’d always thought she was quite talented, but now wasn’t the time to get her into an angry discussion on the topic.

  “What I did learn was that the body can respond to the slightest touch.” She reinforced this by sliding her fingertips over his abdomen. “The slightest caress.” Her fingers traced his ribs with just the right amount of pressure. “The slightest pain.”

  Without warning she pinched his left nipple. Arching his back, he moaned and strained at his bindings, this time from the zing of pain and heat her actions sent to his balls and cock.

  “Earlier today you told me how losing your eyesight had turned you into an animal, remember?”

  “Yes,” was all he could manage.

  “Remember saying that blind, you couldn’t be an artist again? And that was why you were no longer a man?”

  “Bella, I know what I said. I still believe it.”

  “Well, I don’t agree. An artist’s talent doesn’t just lie in his ability to paint pretty pictures. It resides in the soul. A true artist uses all his senses, not just his eyes.”

  Suddenly, something soft rolled teasingly down the muscles of his stomach to his groin then over his balls. He clenched his hip muscles and thighs.

  “What is this?” She asked.

  “A feather.”

  “Yes, but what kind of feather?”

  What kind of game was she playing? A feather was a feather. “I don’t know.”

  An exasperated-sounding sigh came from his left. “You’re not even trying. Is it soft?”

  “Yes, it’s soft.” It was his turn to give into frustration as he tugged on his bindings again. “Untie me. I’m tired of this.”

  “I don’t think so. You haven’t begun to understand what I’m trying to teach you. Once again she pinched a nipple, a little stronger, more punishing than ple
asurable this time.

  “Bella,” he growled in warning.

  “This is important, Michael. I want you to cooperate.”

  The air beside him moved, cool gusts caressing his heated skin. He strained to hear her skirts rustle as they had earlier, but not one bit of silk moved. Nothing but the soft pad of her feet on the wooden floorboards.

  Damn. She was naked!

  The image of Bella stark naked filled his mind. He’d painted her that way so many times he’d memorized every detail. If it was possible his cock grew harder.

  As he still grappled with the idea of Bella naked, her lips slipped over his. Warm, supple, intoxicating. She teased his lips with her tongue, just liked he had the first time they’d kissed, coaxing her to part her lips for him. It was his turn to submit. He parted his lips and moaned when she slipped her tongue inside his mouth.

  Heat filled every inch of his body.

  Slowly she lifted her lips.

  “What do you taste?”

  “You.”

  “Yes, but what else?” She pressed her lips to his again, quickly slipping her tongue inside.

  He tasted her and…peppermint. He moaned deeply and sucked on her tongue. Oh, God, peppermint. Dressed in a pink and white confection of a dress she’d teased him unmercifully at a symposium by sucking on peppermint rock-candy stick, her pink lips pursed and sliding up and down the striped piece of candy. When he’d gotten her alone, he’d practically ripped her clothes off to get inside her.

  “What did you taste?”

  “Peppermint.”

  “Very good.” Humor laced her voice. She was smiling.

  A different kind of warmth flooded him. Bella’s smile always lit up her whole face and the very air around her. Or was it the warmth caused by the pleasure it gave him knowing he’d been the reason behind her happiness?

  “You’re remembering that symposium, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are your memories black and white, Michael?” she asked as she trailed her hand back down his chest. “Or are they in color?”

  “Color. Just like my dreams.”

  “You know,” she said, the sound of something splashing in water coming from beside the bed, “most people dream in flat, black and white images, not color.”

  “We’ve had this discussion before,” he said, trying to concentrate on hearing what she was doing.

  “Yes, we did. That’s when I knew you had a true artist’s soul. As much as I want to create something magnificent and awe-inspiring with my sculpting, I can’t convey my thoughts to the clay or the stone.”

  “I’ve seen your work, Bella. It isn’t that bad and you do have talent.”

  A warm cloth settled right between his legs, over his ball sac. The heat relaxed his body at the same time sending another thrill of pleasure to his thickening cock. He sniffed. Sandalwood. She was using his soap. Cleaning him. She could’ve simply asked him to bathe. She didn’t need to restrain him for that.

  “My talent is small. Yours is immense,” she said as she slid the cloth over his balls in a firm, massaging motion then up the shaft that now pointed toward his belly.

  “And it was taken away with one cannon blast.” This time he sounded less defensive. How could he feel badly when she was working his rod from base to tip?

  For a few minutes he enjoyed her hands and the warm, soapy cloth massaging his cock. Just as he thought he couldn't fight it anymore and would let her bring him to fulfillment with her hands, she stopped, removing the cloth. Cold air hit his feverish skin, sending shivers through his body. Or was it need—the need he’d always had for this one woman, his Bella?

  A moment later splashing occurred beside him again and then the warm, wet warmth returned. This time with no sandalwood scent. He lost himself to her ministrations, even moaning at the pleasure of her cleaning him so intimately, his hips bucking up and down, legs pulling on his restraints.

  Again, before he could spill his seed, she stopped her stroking.

  “The cannon blast took your vision, Michael, not your artist's talent or soul.” She laid one soft hand on his chest, branding him with her touch. “Those are still right here. All of your senses have kept them alive. Once you accept that, you'll be able to open up to alternate ways to create art, using all your senses.”

  He bit his lip to keep from asking if he agreed with her, would she return to working his balls and shaft?

  Footsteps sounded to his left, disappearing out the door. Where was she going? Why did the vision of her padding naked through his house increase his desire to tear free of the bonds and claim her? What was she up to?

  He cleared his mind of the questions and strained to listen for her movements.

  A soft pop. The opening of a bottle? A clink. Glass connecting against the china his mother had brought to the Ohio valley on her marriage to his bastard father? Soft flesh striking the floorboards, coming closer. China thudding oh-so-softly on the wooden table beside him.

  “What do you smell?” Bella asked.

  At her question, he sniffed. Drawing his eyebrows down, he tried to focus, but the heat of her body so close to his distracted him. He sniffed again. Nothing but the obvious. “Oak burning in the fireplace?”

  She chuckled, the sultry sound teased his nerves once more. “You can do better than that, Michael.” She leaned closer, her breasts grazing both his chest and the spot where his arm extended over his head to be bound to the post. “Sniff and tell me what you smell.”

  He obeyed and immediately a sense of warmth and comfort filled him. “Cinnamon.”

  “What image does it bring to your mind?”

  “Mama making apple pie on Sunday. I can hear her humming as she worked. It was the only day my father wasn’t out drinking. It was her favorite day of the week.” The only day they knew the bastard wouldn’t use his fists on either of them. Both thoughts, his mother and his sire, relaxed the need straining in his cock, thank God.

  Bella moved, the scent leaving, and then she was back. “Now what do you smell?”

  He sniffed again. “Orange blossoms and ginger. Your favorite scent.”

  “And the vision?”

  He couldn’t stop the smile. “You, standing in the doorway of the cotillion before I left for the war. I removed your wrap and you were a vision of cream and orange. I nibbled on your neck just to see the blush heighten all your lovely skin. You slapped me on the arm in mock punishment.”

  “You always were the devil of temptation. I wanted to leave and spend the night with you, but father insisted we attend the dance.”

  “And dance we did, scandalously close, your intoxicating scent driving me wild.” He wiggled his hips a little. “Just like it does now. Release me, Bella.”

  “Not yet, love,” she whispered. A soft pop sounded and her scent faded slightly. She’d closed the bottle.

  The air beside him stirred. Another soft sound. Flesh along flesh? Was she touching herself? Another vision popped into his mind. Bella lounging on the settee—naked, one leg bent, her head resting on the back of the cushions, her arm draped over her body, her fingers spreading the tender folds of her sex—exposing the pink heat to him as he painted her.

  A catch in her breath sounded.

  God, she had her fingers inside her pussy, sliding her fingers into the moist heat.

  A moan escaped her. It was like lightning to his body, sending lust, desire and need straight back into his groin.

  Another movement.

  “Michael,” she whispered right into his ear, her fingers against his upper lip and below his nose, “what do you smell now?”

  He inhaled.

  “You, Bella, all you.”

  “What does it make you see?”

  “You with your legs spread wide as I eat your pink slit.”

  “Mmm, I love it when you talk like that, my love. When you were painting and you would call it so many things. The words made me hotter, wetter, more…needy.” The last word came out in a s
igh and he had to wonder if she was using her other hand to tease the little button of her pleasure?

  A moment later the air beside him shifted again. What did she have planned now? He couldn’t take much more of this delicious torture. If she wanted him to beg, he was nearly there.

  A weight between his spread thighs made the mattress sink. It undulated.

  Bella was crawling between his legs.

  He bit down on his lower lip even as his hips clenched and thrust his sex happily toward his torturer’s approach. Dammit, he would take what she was about to do and take it like a man. No, a man would keep from letting her control him and send her away. Soon he’d be begging her like a simpering fool for more.

  Her soft hands settled against his inner thighs. “I’ve always loved your thighs, my love,” she said as she pushed them slightly wider, forcing his knees to bend and pull the cloth binding them to the post tight. “They are so powerful, each muscle delineated as if chiseled from marble.”

  A moment later her tongue slide up the muscle of his right thigh to his groin.

  “Ahhhh.” As much as he tried, he couldn’t help the sigh escaping.

  “Mmm, I remember how much you love this. Almost as much as I do.”

  She shifted and ran her tongue up the other thigh then latched her lips to the junction of his thigh and groin. Sucking softly, she pulled another moan deep from inside him.

  He knew what was coming next. He’d taught her just how to pleasure his sex.

  As she leaned in closer, the outside swells of her breasts slid along his thighs, the tendrils of her blonde curls flowing over his flesh like a silken curtain. Then her nose pressed into the top of his sac, and her tongue swept over his balls. First one, then the other, laving them over and over, like a cat with cream—the pleasure soaring through him another form of her delightful torture.

  With every pass of her tongue on his heated flesh, he wanted to sink his fingers into her hair and guide her up to his raging erection, but she’d bound him much too securely. All he could do was endure her achingly slow ministrations.

  A few more minutes of the circular tongue motion on his balls and she shifted. Her hands left his thighs to straddle his hips, her hair teasing all his upper thighs and hips as she pressed her breasts with their taut nipples into the flesh she’d just cleaned with her tongue.