September Moon

by Candice Proctor

  "God, I've wanted you," he said on an almost painful expulsion of breath. Tightening his knees around her, he brought up both hands and began rapidly to flick open the hooks of her corset. She was small enough that she had never needed to resort to tight lacing; she simply drew in her stomach, and the fastenings came open easily.

  "There," he said with a sigh of satisfaction as he stripped away her stays and tossed the stiff garment aside. "I've been wanting to get you out of that damned thing for a long time now." She chuckled softly as he untied her chemise and yanked that off as well. Then they both fell silent as his hands came back down to rest on her bare hips.

  She stood naked before him, shy, excited, quivering with expectation, her heart thrumming wildly. His hungry gaze roved over her, his eyes hooded, sleepy. "You are so beautiful," he whispered. "More beautiful even than in my dreams."

  She ran her fingers through his hair, her elbows spread upon his bare shoulders. "I dreamt about you, too," she admitted.

  "God." He drew her closer. "Why did we wait so long to do this?"

  She felt his lips on her neck, nibbling at her flesh, trailing kisses up the line of her jaw, across her cheek until he found her mouth, which opened beneath his. He wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her with him as he fell back. The mattress sighed and bent beneath their weight as he hugged her to him, then rolled with her until she lay flat on her back beneath him.

  Heat coursed through her as he bore her down and she took the weight of his hard man's body, pressing intimately against her, his bare chest flattening her breasts. She gazed up into his glittering blue eyes. Watched his eyelids slowly close as he dipped his head and kissed her.

  She gave herself to the hot, sweet meeting of lips and tongue, the entwining of bodies. Sighing with pleasure, she ran her hands down his back, reveled in the bulging play of hard muscle beneath the satiny surface of his skin. Her thumb snagged in the waistband of his trousers and she tugged at them impatiently. But they were still fastened.

  Keeping his mouth locked with hers, he raised his hips and reached between them with one hand to fumble with his trousers. He swore softly.

  "Be right back," he said, his lips moving against hers. He started to stand up, but came back to brush her mouth with his again. Once, twice more, before pulling away.

  She lay watching, fascinated, as his strong hands unbuckled his wide brown leather belt, then went to work on his buttons. He swore again, wincing as if in pain, then sighed with relief as the long, thick shaft of his sex sprang free.

  He lifted his head and watched her face as he shoved his trousers down, baring the tight curve of his buttocks and the leanly muscled line of his legs to her gaze. She was intensely aware of her own nakedness, spread out before him. Of the size and power of his male body, and what was about to happen between them.

  The mattress dented again as he straddled her, his sex nestling intimately in the crevice between her thighs. He took most of his weight on his own knees and calves, easing back on his bent toes as he placed his dark, working man's hands over her naked breasts, his brows drawing together in a frown as he gazed down at her. "Are you afraid?" he asked softly.

  "A little," she admitted.

  "Do you want me to stop?"

  She shook her head, deliberately running her fingers up and down his hard, outstretched arms. "No."

  "Don't be afraid," he whispered gently. "We'll go slow. And I won't do anything you don't want me to."

  And then he began to move his hands in a slow, expert pattern of arousal, palming her fullness, taunting her nipples until the fire within her leapt to new, almost unbearable heights. She whimpered and arched up against him, and he leaned forward, his hair brushing her shoulder, his hard chest pressing against her belly as he brought his mouth down to trace the curves of her breasts with his tongue and suck her nipples into his hot, wet mouth.

  "Oh, God," she cried, squirming beneath him, consumed by heat, racked by torturous tremors of desire. Her fingers twined in his hair, guiding his head first to one breast, then the other. But it wasn't enough, wasn't enough.

  As if he knew what she needed, his hand slid down across her belly, his weight shifting as he brought his knees between hers, shoving her legs wide. Then his fingers parted her, rubbed against the center of her desire, slipped inside her. She cried out, arching her neck, her shoulders lifting off the bed as she flew out of control, hurtling straight to a wild, throbbing, shattering release...

  That wasn't enough. That inner, wanting emptiness was still there. Her fingers wrapped around his wrists, clutching him, her gaze meeting his. "I need you," she said in a broken whisper. "I need you inside me. Now."

  He reared up, his big, dark body looming over her, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in air. "Amanda/' he said in a strident whisper. Her dim gaze fastened on his face, hard now with his own need and driving hunger. He slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her, fitting her against his smooth, hot tip. "Take me," he said. "Take me inside you."

  He was so big and hard, he probably would have frightened her if she hadn't wanted him so badly. She watched as he eased himself inside her, stretched her, filled her with his heat and his strength and his hardness. Slowly, slowly, until he was buried to the hilt.

  "You're so tight," he said hoarsely. "So tight and wet and hot." She felt him shudder, then lie still within her for a moment. His hands sought hers, found them, lifted them above her head, their fingers entwined, as he lowered the length of his body to hers. She gazed up at the ardent features of his face, and felt her love for him so intensely, it hurt.

  "Feel me," he whispered. "Feel me inside you."

  "I feel you."

  "You're a part of me now, Mandy. And I'm a part of you." His hands slid down the inside of her arms to smooth her tangled hair away from her forehead and cheeks. "There's no going back from this night. Not to the way we were before."

  "I told you," she said, looking deep into his eyes. "I love you."

  He raised himself on his out-thrust arms, easing some of his weight off her chest as he began to move inside her, the dimples in his cheeks flashing wickedly as he smiled. "Say it again," he told her.

  "I love you."

  He thrust into her, harder, deeper, his smile becoming something fierce. "Again."

  She gasped. "I love you."

  She clutched at his hot, sweat-slicked back, breathed in the gentle scent of his warm body as her legs came up and wrapped around his rhythmically undulating hips. She held him to her, drew him deeper and deeper into her as he pumped harder, faster, each rasping drag, each powerful thrust taking her higher and higher, until she was incoherent, wild with the exquisite sensation of what he was doing to her.

  He dipped his head, his mouth finding hers, his kisses catching the mounting cries of pleasure she hadn't even real- ized she was making. She was frantic with an unbearable onslaught of sensation, striving, straining toward a peak that hovered achingly within reach, tormenting her, tantalizing her, before it exploded over her in a shattering crescendo of noiseless sound and blind colors that went on and on and on in waves of rapturous ecstasy.

  Her vision had only just begun to clear when she felt his own tremors start, deep inside her. She saw his back arch, his muscles clench, his features contort as if with pain. He gave one last, violent thrust. And then, right before he shouted in triumph and fell forward upon her, she heard him say it.

  "I love you, too, Amanda."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  O'Reilly stood at the French doors of Amanda's room, one half of the slightly parted curtain clutched in his hand as he stared out at Katherine's garden, just visible now in the faint light of early dawn. An ache built in his chest. He sighed, trying to ease it, but it didn't help.

  A whisper of cloth, the light padding of a woman's bare feet on polished floorboards brought his head around. He caught a glimpse of flame-colored hair, felt soft hands creep around his sides as Amanda pressed herself against his back and hugged him clo
se. He smiled.

  "Good morning," he said, covering her entwined small hands with his own large one.

  "You're up early."

  "I couldn't sleep."

  She rubbed her smooth cheek against his bare shoulder. "What are you looking at?"

  "Katherine's garden."

  She didn't say anything, but he thought he felt her tense against him. He suddenly wanted to see her face, and turned in her arms so that he could look down at her.

  She was beautiful in the cool blue light of morning, her skin pale, her vivid hair loose about her shoulders. She had pulled on her embroidered sapphire Chinese wrapper, and he marveled at the unexpected quickening in his loins as his palms roamed over the swell of her hips, the curve of her waist, the silk sliding seductively beneath his touch. He'd spent most of the night making love to this woman, over and over again. And still he wanted her. Wanted her with a hunger he knew might mellow with the passage of time, but was never going to go away.

  Yet as intense as it was, that raw, physical hunger was still the lesser part of what he felt for her. And it was the other part of what was between them—the deep, soul-exposing love— that scared the hell out of him and left him feeling vulnerable and defenseless.

  She tilted back her head, her brows drawing together as she searched his face. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

  He ran one finger along the line of her collarbone, where it showed above the plunging neck of her wrapper. She was so tiny, so finely made. She didn't belong out here, and he knew it was wrong of him even to be thinking of asking her to stay. "I'm wondering if this was a mistake."

  She went quite still in his arms. "Do you think it was?"

  He turned away from her to stare, once more, at the garden. "I've been standing here, trying to imagine our future together. But all I can see is the past."

  "We can't see the future," she said quietly. "We can only know what we want now."

  He glanced back at her. "What do you want, Amanda?"

  She stared up at him, her lips parted, her breasts rising and falling gently with her breathing. He saw the shadows that darkened her clear gray eyes, saw her throat work as she swallowed, and knew she was feeling afraid and vulnerable, too. But she was braver than he was, he thought, because she answered him simply, honestly.

  "You."

  "Aw, Mandy ..." He gathered her to him again, nestling her head in the hollow of his shoulder, his fingers combing through her hair. "I come with a lot of baggage. Three children—"

  "I love your children already," she said, her breath warm against his skin. "You know that."

  "I know. But you don't love this place. And this place is my life. It's a part of who I am."

  In the silence that followed, he could hear the sweet, piercing song of a magpie, greeting the rising sun. Her hand crept up to curl around his wrist. "I don't... hate it the way I used to."

  "Katherine didn't hate it at first either."

  He was surprised by the violence with which she pushed away from him, her hair flying about her shoulders, her eyes huge in a white face. "Damn you," she said on a harsh, grating expulsion of breath. She wrapped her arms around her waist, hugged herself close as she faced him. "/ am not Katherine. I'm not Katherine, and I'm not your mother, and it's not fair for you to judge me by what they did simply because the three of us happened to share the same accent and the same place of birth."

  A tense silence descended on the room, ringing with the echo of her loud, angry words. They faced each other across a distance vaster than that measured by the floorboards; he made no attempt to draw closer to her.

  "I'm not judging you, Amanda," he said quietly, his arms hanging loose at his sides, "I'm just scared to death because I let myself fall in love with you. And I'm even more afraid to start thinking we might have a future together, because I know what it would do to me if I let myself believe in that, and then lost you."

  Her hand made a swift, jerking motion through the air. "Either one of us could die tomorrow."

  "I know. But death is different. It hurts when the people we love die, because we know we'll never see them again. But the love doesn't die. Their love for us, our love for them, it... stays with us."

  She looked at him through wide, dark eyes that suddenly filled with the glitter of unshed tears. "Did you love Katherine?"

  "Yes. It was a young love, but it was very real, very intense— at first."

  "So, what happened?"

  "We grew apart." He shrugged. "She never did like it here, and it wasn't long before she started hating it—and blaming me for bringing her here.- For not being able to give her a better life right away. But it wasn't just her fault. I started to see things in her that I didn't like, and I wasn't very ... tolerant."

  "Did you still love her when she left?"

  "Of course. We'd had three children together—lived six years of our lives together. She was my wife. I hadn't given up on her. And it hurt like hell to discover that she had given up on me."

  The light was stronger now, spilling warm and golden across the garden as the sun crested the horizon. She swung abruptly away to go stand beside her dressing table, her back stiff and straight. "Is that why you never divorced her? Because you're still in love with her?"

  "No. What I told you before was the truth; I never divorced Katherine because of scandal, for the children's sake. And now it's just one more bloody thing we need to deal with, isn't it?" He walked up behind her and put his hands on her rigid shoulders, nuzzled her hair with his chin. She quivered beneath his touch, but she didn't turn to look at him.

  "I want to marry you, Amanda, and I'll do whatever it takes to make that possible. As soon as I get back from taking this mob south..."

  He heard her draw in a deep breath of air that shuddered in her chest. "I wish you didn't have to go."

  Her voice sounded oddly strained, husky. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and pulled her about so that he could see her.

  "Aw, Jesus," he said, at the sight of her tearstained cheeks. "Don't cry, darlin'." He brushed her face with the backs of his hands, catching her glistening tears with his fingers. "Why are you crying? I love you." He stared down at her, feeling helpless and slightly lost. "Is it something I said?"

  Her eyes widened, and she surprised him with a watery gurgle of laughter even as she buried her face against his chest. "O'Reilly," she said on a rushing breath. "You love me, but you don't trust me."

  He could feel her tears, warm and wet against his bare skin. They made him feel inept, clumsy. He threaded his fingers through her hair, surprised to realize that his hands were shaking. "I want to, Amanda. I am trying."

  She tilted back her head to look up at him, and he saw her throat work painfully as she swallowed. "How long will you be gone?"

  "Not long. I'm hoping I won't have to go much farther south than Melrose." He bent to brush his lips against her temple. "But things are going to get bad here, Amanda. Summer is starting, and it's not likely we'll get any rain now until March or April. In the next few months, I think you'll probably see the worst of what you'll be getting yourself into, if you stay here and marry me."

  She tightened her jaw. "I'm not as weak as you think me."

  "I know how strong you are." He let his hands ease down to stroke her shoulders. At his touch, a gentle sigh escaped her lips, and he began to knead the tense muscles at the base of her neck. "I know how strong you are," he said again. "But I also know what this country can be like for a woman, and how different it is from what you're used to. And I haven't forgotten the things you said when you first came here, how desperate you were to get back to England. Are you really sure you could bear it, never seeing home again?"

  At his words, a deep, inescapable pain darkened her eyes. He saw it, and it scared the hell out of him.

  "It would hurt," she admitted softly. "But it would be nothing compared to the pain I would feel if I had to leave you."

  She captured his hand and cradled it against her che
ek with a sigh. "Love shouldn't have to be this hard," she said, her voice wistful and a bit sad.

  He nudged her chin up with the heel of his hand. "It'll be good," he said, dipping his head so that his lips moved against hers. "You'll see. It'll be good."

  He left a week later.

  He was so busy—seeing off all the guests who had congregated for the after-shearing festivities, loading the wool on the drays that would haul the bales to port, mustering the sheep for the drive—that she barely saw him that week. And then he was gone.

  December passed. Long, sun-seared days of relentlessly clear skies and parching winds that sucked the remaining life from the land. In January, the drays that had taken the wool bales to the port came back. The men said conditions in the south were a lot drier than anyone had expected. They said O'Reilly figured he might have to drive the mob he was trying to save down to Clare—maybe even all the way to Adelaide.

  Amanda gazed out over the dying land. And waited.

  But as January neared its end, she knew a swelling of uneasiness she could no longer ignore. He'd been gone too long. She noticed the men, looking at each other, watching the horizon, and knew they were worried, too.

  On this particular hot, breathless Thursday afternoon, Liam was reading Latin with Christian Whittaker while Missy went off to help Ching in the kitchen, and Amanda retreated to her room, to work on the new dress she was making herself. But it was too hot to sew. Too hot to do anything but stare at the cruel blue sky and wonder why O'Reilly had been gone so long.