Daring Time Read online

  When he felt her begin to move against him, pushing his shaft further into her heat with each small thrust, he released her hip and dipped his finger between her drenched labia once again, stimulating her. Her pussy clamped around his cock. Ryan looked up. Her head was still turned but her chin rested on her shoulder. He studied her rigid features turned in profile and knew she was about to explode.

  He thrust hard at the same moment that the first wave of orgasm hit her, shouting out uncontrollably at the sensation of being buried in her sweet, tight flesh to the hilt while she quivered around him in release. Her clinging sheath milked him as she came, the resulting shivers that crept up his spine making him think he'd reached the limit of his control and was about to come deep inside her.

  The realization dismayed him. He'd promised himself not to come inside her. Dammit, why hadn't he thought to use a condom? Women in the year 1906 didn't have birth control pills at their disposal. Regular condom use was such an ingrained habit for Ryan, he could only figure that the quality of miraculous otherworldliness to his encounters with Hope had been the reason he hadn't automatically reached for a condom before he'd single-mindedly looked into the mirror tonight.

  He clenched his eyes shut and endured the most intense version of blissful agony he'd ever experienced in his life as Hope's heat gushed around him and her pussy squeezed his cock ruthlessly.

  Sweat poured off his abdomen. He panted like he'd just sprinted the last leg of a marathon. When the exquisite torture of being buried in the midst of Hope's fires waned, Ryan pried open his eyelids. He stroked her hip softly before he took her in a firm grip.

  He flexed his muscles and began to thrust in and out of her with short strokes. He grunted in satisfaction when he realized that the barrier between them had thinned sufficiently for him to hear his hips smacking against her thighs and ass with each downstroke of his cock. He wanted to caress her bottom more than anything, but she was so tight he required a firm hold on her body. He tried once again to penetrate the mirror with his other hand, growling in frustration when he was once again rebuffed.

  His eyebrows drew together in confusion when Hope turned as fully as she could and he saw surprise in the dark pools of her eyes. If he'd needed any further evidence that she'd been a virgin until tonight, he'd just got it in spades. Her lower lips dropped open in aroused incredulity while he pumped into her more forcefully. She might have thought she understood the mechanics of intercourse, but this gorgeous, amazing woman clearly just now comprehended what it meant to be fucked.

  But just as in all things, it was best she learned the lesson right off the bat, Ryan thought as he held her gaze and jackhammered his cock into her.

  He saw her cheeks flush even redder. It may have been a new experience for her but she was a quick learner. She bucked her hips in perfect synchrony to his driving thrusts, creating a burning friction along his cock that made his eyes roll back in his head.

  "Fuck," he sputtered in desperation when he felt Hope start to convulse around his pummeling cock yet again. His eyes sprang open in disbelief but the evidence of her immense cache of sensuality was writ large on her strained, beautiful face.

  Ryan wondered briefly what would be most painful: plunging a knife into his own flesh or jerking his cock out of Hope's clamping vagina at that moment. He roared as he erupted in a scalding climax. His consciousness was temporarily engulfed by the fiery blasts of pleasure that wracked his mind and body.

  But when he gained a measure of awareness he realized that he held Hope's smooth, firm hips with both hands, his fingers digging demandingly into the soft flesh as he continued to shoot his seed on her lower back and in the crevice of her ass.

  When she suddenly started and tried to stand, he held her tightly, consumed by the most powerful orgasm he'd ever experienced.

  "Don't. . .don't move, honey," he grated out as he shuddered violently. He pressed his spasming cock more tightly to her satiny, warm flesh. He gasped for air as a measure of sanity sluggishly wormed its way into overwhelming pleasure. He was touching Hope with both hands.

  Step through. Now, he told himself.

  Ryan lifted a foot in preparation to do just that—to step into Hope Stillwater's world in the year 1906—when her struggling against his hold penetrated his awareness more fully.

  "What the hell?" he muttered in rising confusion when she twisted in his hands. Had he harmed her in the mindless midst of his orgasm? He automatically released her, stunned and alarmed by the wildness of Hope's actions ... by the wretchedness of her expression when she spun to face him.

  EIGHT

  Hope had never imagined anything like it in her life.

  As much as she'd wanted to join with Ryan, doubts had swamped her in all directions when he'd pushed his thick, throbbing member into her body. He stretched her delicate tissues, overfilled her until Hope had become desperate.

  It hurt.

  But then it didn't hurt. It just burned. Soon she'd been shuddering in climax yet again and Ryan pressed to the very core of her. She'd been shocked when he began thrusting his penis in and out of her, having no idea this was how things were done.

  It was as if he kindled a fire inside of her with the friction of their rubbing flesh. The burning, tingling sensation had escalated until she felt it in the strangest places: her flaming cheeks, her throbbing nipples and the soles of her feet.

  She knew what it was to climax, but this was different. This sensation was even more imperative. The fat, delineated head of Ryan's penis rubbed somewhere she could never hope to reach, a place that made fire shoot up into her belly, created a sizzling sensation in that piece of flesh Ryan had stimulated with his finger and even tingled at the tail of her spine. It was unbearable, wonderful... so mandatory to her very existence she'd thought she'd die from the sheer physical necessity of reaching that divine pinnacle so she could fall gloriously.

  He held her in a steadfast grip and plunged into her ruthlessly. She loved it. Needed it.

  She closed her eyes and cried out sharply as she reached the peak of her desire .. . and tipped over into sheer bliss. Her entire body vibrated in an electrical storm of pure pleasure that completely stole her very identity for a blinding moment.

  She gasped wildly for air, her eyes opening wide at the sensation of Ryan jerking his penis out of the tight embrace of her body. Her heartbeat hammered so loud in her ears she couldn't at first differentiate the separate sound of someone pounding on her bedroom door.

  Her panting ceased, her breath burning in her lungs. Ryan's heavy, swollen member thumped onto her lower back. He held her with both hands as pleasure shuddered through him, his penis spasming next to her skin. Mrs. Abernathy called out worriedly as Ryan's hot seed spurted along her spine.

  "Miss Stillwater. Miss.Stillwater! Are you all right?"

  Hope choked back an instinctive cry of wonder at the sensation of Ryan climaxing—all that awesome fierceness exploding in a single moment of concentrated power.

  "I—I, yes, I'm fine, Mrs. Abernathy," she called breathlessly. Ryan shifted his hips, causing his still spasming penis to press deeper between the cheeks of her bottom. Mrs.

  Abernathy knocked again. Dear God, she had locked the door, hadn't she? Her heart resumed beating when she saw the knob turn but the door remained stationary.

  "Come quickly, dear. It's your father. He fell in his den. He's quite ill."

  Hope tried to stand in rising alarm, whimpering softly when Ryan held her tightly, still in the midst of his release. Her father's health had not been good recently. He was having increasing periods of fatigue and exhaustion.

  "Oh, I'm sorry, Ryan," she whispered desperately as she once again tried to stand. Her mother had died of a particularly savage form of influenza when Hope was a child of twelve, and she was quite anxious about her father's health as a result.

  Nothing else could have made her move away from Ryan at that moment.

  "I'm coming, Mrs. Abernathy," she called loudly. "Please sen
d someone to get Dr.

  Walkerton!"

  "I already have, dear. Hurry now. He's asking for you," Mrs. Abernathy called through the door, the slight trace of condemnation spicing her tone causing Hope to struggle more forcefully in Ryan's hold.

  Ryan must have finally sensed her rising panic because he released her abruptly.

  He'd held her with both hands, she thought miserably as she spun around. Even though they lived in different centuries, they'd breached the barrier. They'd been so close to being able to touch and speak to one another at will.

  She stared into the empty mirror. Even though her flesh still tingled in the aftermath of ecstasy and Ryan's seed was still warm on her back and where it pooled in the crack of her bottom, Hope was utterly, completely alone.

  She stifled a sob of anguish as she knelt to retrieve her forgotten robe.

  Hope fastened her lined forest green plush coat while Mary stood waiting with her muffler and hat. It would be chilly as she made her usual rounds at the Central Station, but the cold Chicago weather had never put off Hope in the past. This afternoon she was more worried about her father, although Dr. Walkerton had proclaimed after his examination last night that Jacob Stillwater would be fine.

  "He's just been working too hard, that's all," Dr. Walkerton had explained to Hope last night as she anxiously hovered by her fa-ther's bedside.

  "But, Dr. Walkerton—"

  "He has an upper respiratory infection, Miss Stillwater. Nothing more. Jacob needs several days of quiet and rest and he'll be as good as new," Dr. Walkerton had interrupted with his calm, authoritative manner. He'd given Hope a sidelong glance, letting her know that he realized she thought of her mother's death thirteen years before.

  "How is he?" Hope asked presently when Michael approached. She had asked her father's manservant to go and check on her father and report to her before she left on her almost daily missions to Central Station and later to Hull House. Her father had laughed and rolled his eyes earlier when she told him of her intention to stay home because of his bout of dizziness last night. Nevertheless, Hope had put off her errands in order to see how he fared after his midday meal.

  "He is doing very well, miss, and was up reading by the fire when I left him just now."

  "Are you sure he should be out of bed?" Hope fretted. "I'm still not convinced it isn't the right thing to do to cancel his birthday celebration next week."

  "Come, miss, Dr. Walkerton says there was nothing more to Mr. Stillwater's weakness than a bad head cold and overwork. Surely a party would do him some good if he's mended by then," Mary assured her.

  Hope chewed on her lower lip doubtfully. "My mother died of nothing more than a case of the influenza, you know."

  Mary's kind face collapsed. "Oh, miss, I didn't mean—"

  "I know you didn't, Mary. I'm sorry for being so melodramatic. Forgive me," Hope said gently before she took her hat from the maid, giving the young woman an apologetic smile. She tied the velvet ribbons beneath her chin. "My father is undoubtedly right to recommend my usual activities. It will hopefully alleviate my boorishness. A brisk walk is precisely what I require."

  "But, miss . . . you're not taking the carriage?" Mary asked as she opened the front door for her.

  "I've asked Evan to follow. It's the exercise I need, Mary, to clear the worries in my head."

  She marched down the limestone front steps, determined to see to her daily duties instead of hover over her father—who was clearly doing well following his spell of near fainting last night in his study— or to alternatively stare like an idiot into the mirror searching for Ryan.

  What did Ryan think of her struggling to be free of him? Would he never try to reach her again? The thought was so unbearable that it made her pace quicken and her shoes tap more forcefully on the pavement. She gave a polite nod to a waving Mr. John Glessner as he proceeded sedately in his carriage down Prairie Avenue. Although she picked up her step, her anxieties and questions would not be so easily chased away.

  She'd slept restlessly last night, haunted by dreams, tossing and turning until her bedclothes grew damp with perspiration and tangled around her legs like a snare. For some strange reason Ryan's warning that she was in danger had melded with the dread associated with her father's illness, creating a profound sense of foreboding that she could not shake.

  Once she'd heard Ryan call out to her, clear as a trumpet's call. She'd gasped at the sound and sat bolt upright in the mussed bed.

  "Ryan?" she'd answered shakily.

  The fading light from the fire in the hearth had told her she was alone in the large bedroom, however. Although she'd left the wardrobe door open, the mirror remained impervious, reflecting everything it should and nothing she most desired to see.

  The coachman Evan tipped his hat to her from where he waited on Eighteenth Street. He allowed her a head start down Prairie Avenue before he followed slowly in the shiny black brougham. Hope's breath created a cloud of vapor around her mouth as she progressed down the quiet, tree-lined avenue.

  The silence was short-lived, however. She paused and considered crossing the avenue when she saw a young man trying to get into his carriage, staggering and laughing uproariously as he tripped and fell forward. His driver hopped down and drew the man up off the carriage steps. She knew she was too late, however, when she saw Colin Mason, the sole inheritor of the Mason Haberdasher fortune and known Prairie Street reprobate, had noticed Hope as she walked down the sidewalk.

  "Well, if it isn't that rose o' purity, that angel o' the mount... or is it that angel every man in Chicago would like to mount? He'p me out, Agnew ..." Colin queried his driver as poor Agnew tried desperately to keep his wavering employer standing. Agnew winced involuntarily when Colin Mason exhaled an alcohol-saturated breath into his face. Colin pointed his walking cane at Hope, his action causing both men to lose balance again.

  Agnew barely prevented his employer from causing them to spill headfirst into the carriage. "... Should a woman who looks like her be polishing the neighborhood's virtue or polishing her appreciative neighbor's cock with her tongue?"

  "Sir" Agnew exclaimed, turning bright red as he glanced around at Hope.

  Hope's chest swelled with angry indignation. It wasn't the first time she'd been insulted by Colin Mason after he'd taken his daily gin bath. She felt nothing but pity for the frail, seventeen-year-old heiress from Schenectady who had married him earlier this year.

  Hope was vaguely aware of Evan's concerned eye as he approached in the carriage but she wasn't worried about her safety from a drunkard louse like Colin Mason. She gritted her teeth as she neared him and his gaze rolled over her body, the effect similar to the crawl of a gin-soaked slug on her naked skin. She waited to speak until he finally looked up into her face again, his mouth slanted into a lascivious sneer.

  "In your drunken state, Mr. Mason, it might be pointed out that the polishing of either your soul or the other item you mentioned would be an utter, dismal failure and therefore should be considered a waste of time, not only for me but for every individual alive on this planet. I will no longer detain you, sir, from an undoubtedly wasted trip to the Levee District."

  Agnew made a loud choking sound and turned his wide grin into his shoulder. Hope spun around and continued her journey down the street.

  "Frigid li'l viper," Colin yelled after her, ignoring Agnew's attempts to quiet him. "Take me to the Sweet Lash this instant, Agnew. I'll show every damn whore in that place the only good use for a female's mouth!"

  Hope stewed in anger as she progressed down Prairie Avenue and then turned left on Seventeenth Street. Before Colin Mason's marriage had been arranged, Colin and his puffed-up, arrogant father had both approached Jacob Stillwater in an attempt to arrange a marriage between Hope and Colin. Hope's father had proclaimed in no uncertain terms, however, that the choice was his daughter's to make.

  Hope had been shocked and highly discomfited when she'd turned down Colin's proposal to learn he'd actually
believed she would agree to marry him. She'd known Colin since they were children. He'd always been a sullen, selfish boy. He'd begun being sexually aggressive with her when they both turned fourteen. Hope had never made it a secret how much she despised being in Colin's presence, so the realization that he genuinely seemed to think she'd agree to be his wife had left her stunned.

  Colin Mason was the sort of specimen of manhood who might put a thinking woman off the concept of marriage forever.

  Her temper had mostly calmed by the time she reached Indiana Avenue. It was foolish to waste one's energies on the likes of Colin Mason, after all.

  Reaching Michigan Avenue was like making an abrupt turn from sleepy suburbia into the crashing liveliness of the proud, industrious city of Chicago. A parade of carriages progressed down the street, their ironclad wheels hitting the macadam pavement causing a ceaseless clatter. The chill of the November afternoon had set the city's coal furnaces to full-out action, inevitably deepening the gloom of an already cloudy day.

  Visibility was so poor that Hope couldn't even see the thirteen-story clock tower of Central Station until she was a block away. Near Central Station the passage of trolley cars, trains and the calls of newsboys joined the cacophony of continual sound and movement.

  Hope walked along briskly, as at home amidst the young, brash city as she was in the elegant silences of Prairie Avenue. Several of the mainstay families of Prairie Avenue had begun to migrate to the north shore to places like the suburban town of Lake Forest, disgusted by the industry and crass urbanization encroaching on their somber, august neighborhood.

  Hope and her father were determined to stay in the midst of the city they both loved, however, even if some of their more elegant neighbors found their preference to be odd.