“Do it then, Julian.” Her voice was deep and throaty, at once a taunt and a dare.
So bold, his Virginian. Such audacity. As his surprise dispersed, he could sense her bravado for what it was, but that didn’t mean her actions and words didn’t have their intended effect upon him. His cock was rigid, and he was desperate to bury himself inside her so deep and hard that they both lost every last splinter of control.
The thin thread of his restraint snapped. She was small and fine-boned, and when he hauled her into his arms he scarcely felt the weight of her. But perhaps too that could be attributed to the rush of desire coursing through him, rendering him all but mindless. Every part of her was curved and luscious. He buried his face in the fragrant curls piled atop her head as he stalked to his bed with her. He’d never again be capable of smelling the scent of orange without going hard.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but her, the blazing passion scorching the air, and the steps between where he stood and his bed. Six, as it turned out. Barely any distance at all but he rued each step for it stole seconds from him. Seconds where he could be upon her, stripping the rest of her undergarments away, parting her thighs.
Patience fled him.
He laid her upon the bed and allowed his dressing gown to fall away from his body, leaving him naked for her brilliant gaze. He’d never seen a lovelier sight than Clara half-dressed, stockings hugging her shapely calves, her ripe breasts about to spill from the top of her corset, mouth swollen from his kiss, and her gaze traveling all over him like a touch.
The ability to speak deserted him. Every practiced, pretty word vanished from his brain. Here he was, a man who’d fashioned fucking into an art, laid low by an inexperienced scrap of a woman. But then, words weren’t needed now anyway and his pride could bloody well go to the devil.
He joined her on the bed, and she reached for him, bringing him against her, holding him to her with a tenderness that undid him. He found her mouth, slanted his lips over hers, sank inside to drink in the dazzling wet heat of her. Sweet and delicious. He tore her corset cover away, his fingers tangling in the knot of her corset laces until it too was opened and gone. She helped him catch the hem of her chemise and shimmy it up over her body.
Finally. For the first time, he could see her glorious breasts unobstructed. No cloth hindrance now. Full and high, tipped with hard nipples as pink and inviting as her mouth. He lowered his head and took her into his mouth, sucking the peak, nipping it. A throaty moan wrung from her as her fingers tunneled into his hair, her nails raking his scalp.
Ah, Christ. She was a quick learner, his delectable tyro. He cupped her other breast, its yielding heaviness filling his palm as he rubbed the nipple with his thumb. His cock strained against the welcoming cradle of her cunny, reminding him he sought an even greater prize. He kissed his way down her creamy skin, his mouth learning the protrusion of her ribs, the curve of her waist, the hollow of her belly button. He pulled her drawers down over her hips, leaving her stockings in place, and pulled back to survey the bounty before him.
Pale thighs beckoned from above the wicked contrast of her black silk stockings. He swallowed as a fresh onslaught of lust careened through him.
At last, he could manage discourse. “Beautiful.”
A lone word and a vast understatement, torn from him. He skimmed her smooth hips, her warmth seeping into his palms. She was so soft, so perfect, and he needed to have her. To taste her. Gently, he began guiding her legs apart.
“Julian.” His Christian name again, a breathy drawl that sounded half rebuke, half plea. “You mustn’t.”
“I must.” He kissed her hip bone, thinking there was not a single part of her body he didn’t adore. “Relax, little dove.” His hand curved over her knee, still covered in silk, and urged it down to the mattress. She allowed him this liberty, giving in to his coax as her legs fell apart.
His hungry gaze sought the pink, glistening flesh of her cunny before traveling over her entire form. She was spread before him in erotic abandon, not a hair out of place in her coiffure, clad in nothing but her black stockings. He could gaze upon her like this a thousand times and it still wouldn’t be enough.
A strange heaviness shifted in his chest but he ignored it and bowed his head, worshipping her as she deserved. His tongue found the pearl of her pleasure. She tasted sweeter than he’d recalled from the brief hint in his carriage. Her hips jerked beneath him as he used his teeth. He soothed the nip with his tongue, gripped the swells of her arse in his palms, and angled her to him. His tongue played over her, seeking her wetness as though he could somehow take her in, consume her.
His balls tightened, warning him that it had indeed been too long since he’d had a woman. Though he wanted to prolong this torture for both of them, he wasn’t going to come on her thigh like some callow lad. There would be more time for exploring her. A lifetime, unless the person who’d had him beaten senseless had his druthers.
A chill skittered over him as he kissed his way back up her body. He wouldn’t allow ugliness to intrude on them now. This moment, this joining, was theirs alone. Battling demons could bloody well wait for another day. He kissed the place where her shoulder and throat met, dragged his mouth back to her ear. His fingers dipped into her slick, hot folds, building the pleasure he’d begun with his mouth into a crescendo.
“Spend for me, little dove,” he said into her ear.
She clutched at his shoulders, her body writhing and twisting beneath his. He knew that she was close. He tongued the sensitive place behind her ear and she shattered, crying out, shaking with the power of her release. With his free hand, he delved into her immaculate hairstyle, plucking all the pins he could feel until her long curls fell to her shoulders, unimpeded and glorious.
“Yes, love,” he whispered in encouragement when she began a tentative exploration of him. “Touch me. I’m yours.”
Her touch feathered over his chest, down his back to his buttocks. She kissed his cheek, his clenched jaw, his hair. “Wicked man,” she said against his throat. But there was no reproach in her tone. Only wonder mingled with desire.
He knew because he felt an echoing blend of the two himself, along with a fierce and unrepentant need to possess her. He couldn’t wait any longer. He positioned himself between her thighs, pressing his rigid cock to her slick entrance. “It will hurt, little dove. Only the first time.”
She shifted against him, bringing them closer together. “I’m yours,” she said then, repeating his words to her.
And he broke. He thrust into her in one swift stroke, tearing past her barrier. Clara stiffened in his arms and cried out. It took every shred of self-control he possessed to hold still and allow her to adjust to this new invasion. The primal impulses inside him screamed to conquer. She was so damn tight and wet.
He kissed her then, plundering her mouth as he longed to the rest of her, before breaking away. “I’m sorry, love.” Of course he never wanted to hurt her. He’d never taken a virgin before, hadn’t been one himself in more years than he could recall. His body and his mind were at war.
“Don’t be.” She moved, drawing him deeper inside her. Her breath hitched, the only sign of her discomfort. “I want this.”
Her reassurance was all he needed to hear. His hand caught in the heavy skeins of her hair, his fingers tightening instinctively, holding her still so that he could gaze down into her arresting beauty. He was no novice to fucking. Pretty nothings clamored in his mind, so many silver words he could string together and seduce her with. But as he sank deeper inside her tight sheath, his entire being splintered.
Suddenly, he was jagged fragments of himself. The old Julian, the experienced rake, the man who’d earned his keep by fucking his way through the ton, dissipated. All he was left with was what she’d fashioned him, a man desperate to claim the only woman he’d ever want.
So many wicked, seductive poetries he could have unleashed. And instead, only one word filled his mind as he thrust i
nto her, giving in to a primitive urge. Mine. He tightened his grip on her hair, making certain she met his gaze, making certain she understood the finality of their union. There would not be a Virginia for her now, not unless they went together. Not from this moment forward. “Mine,” he said.
She arched into him, her fingernails raking scorching lines up his back, then to his neck, before finally settling on his skull. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him in a mimicry of the way he held her. “Mine,” she repeated back to him before leaning up on her elbows to close the distance between them. They kissed, open mouthed and mutually ravenous. She dropped her head back to the pillow, falling away from him, breathing heavy. “Mine.”
Yes.
He was hers. Nothing had ever seemed so right or true. A growl in his throat, he took her mouth with his, just as he sank inside her soft, wet heat once more. Hard and fast and deep, he went, and then he did the one thing he’d never done with another woman before. He spent inside her.
Chapter 12
He strode down the hall, away from her, and a hollowness filled her breast. The grim disquiet of mourning infected her. She felt for a moment as if she watched his funeral procession, as though this was the last time she’d ever see him. And she couldn’t see his beautiful face, that wicked smile, the knowing light in his eyes. She didn’t even have so much as a lock of his hair to remember him by.
He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not ever. Her hands groped toward him but her body felt strangely heavy, as though her arms were held down by half a dozen unseen hands. Her legs too were stymied by something. She looked down for a moment to find her skirts sinking into brackish water. The hallway had turned into a sea.
Julian floated away from her, effortlessly gliding into the far shadows while she remained trapped, unable to follow. She tried to call out to him, but no sound emerged from her mouth.
Julian, she wanted to say. Julian, wait!
But all that left her lips was an animalistic noise of fear. Desperation coursed through her. He was leaving her, headed straight into the dark web of the dangers that had already attempted to claim him.
To kill him.
But she would not allow him to die. By sheer force of will, she escaped from the rushing sea waters, and they receded abruptly, giving way once more to the hall and its familiar, threadbare carpet. She gathered her soaked skirts in her arms and ran to him, attempting to stay his progress, to keep him safe. Finally, he was within reach. Her hands clawed through the air but she couldn’t touch him. She watched in horror as he pitched forward.
He tumbled down the curved staircase, end over end. Horror stole her breath. She tried to scream as she chased down the steps after him. His descent was too quick, and she too slow. By the time she reached him, he lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.
No! She clutched at him. There was so much blood. Everywhere. Red and copper-scented just as she remembered, hot and sticky on her hands. My God. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t bear it…
Clara woke with a start, disoriented, a terrified scream strangling her throat.
“Clara?” Julian’s low voice, gentle with concern, pierced the haze of half-wakefulness muddling her mind.
Sweet relief washed over her. It had all been a horrible nightmare. Awareness pierced the panic that immobilized her. He was safe, thank God. Alive and warm and here with her, his big body radiating heat into hers beneath the bedcoverings. Her hands fluttered to his broad shoulders, clutching him. Vital and real and more handsome than ever.
It occurred to her then that neither of them wore a stitch of clothing, their naked skins pressing together. The realization dashed some of her shock away, replacing it with remembrance of the wicked things he’d done to her. She drank in the sight of him, feeling simultaneously hot and cold. Cold from the awful dream. Hot from the man hovering over her.
He cupped her face and swept an errant curl from her brow. “Was it a nightmare, little dove?”
“Yes.” She still reeled from the aftereffects, the rational part of her knowing none of it had been true—a mere affectation of her mind, which had been so troubled ever since the attempt on his life. “A horrible one. You were…” she trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud.
“I’m here.” He gathered her to him, folding her against the hard sinews of his chest as if she were a small child who needed solace. “I’m here now.”
His unprecedented tenderness made her want to weep. It was a side of him she’d never seen. Hadn’t known existed. But the ugliness of her dream still tore through her, leaving her stomach knotted, her mouth dry.
“You don’t understand.” She pressed her face into his bare skin, breathing deeply of his divine scent, cologne and man and something that was undefinably him. “There was so much blood, just like when you were attacked.” She swallowed against a sob as emotions she’d kept firmly at bay threatened to emerge. She would not cry, would not be weak. Not now, not after what they’d shared.
He’d made love to her. Taken her maidenhead. She’d fallen asleep afterward, lulled into a peaceful, sated slumber by the intense pleasure he’d shown her. How disparate that she should wake again plagued by the violence that had befallen him.
Because fear was an angry beast, hammering inside her chest. Reminding her that whoever had tried to take his life would try again. He wasn’t safe. And perhaps neither was she. Those chilling realizations curled inside her heart like vines fashioned of ice. And after today, she was inextricably bound to him in the most permanent sense. No longer did she intend to leave him or annul their marriage. Something shifted inside her as she clung to him, foreign emotions sliding into place like the pieces of a puzzle. She feared for him.
And what of Virginia? A voice inside her asked. What of her dreams of returning to her homeland? Of her desire to live her life on her own terms? Would she sacrifice everything for a man she still scarcely knew? How could she bear to remain in a society she deplored for its inflexibility and unwillingness to accept change?
The questions clamoring to life within her mingled with the fear, chilling her even more. In her emotion-charged response to his attack, she’d forgotten to consider how she—with her rebellious nature and defiant spirit—could possibly be a true countess. If he expected her to develop a sudden affinity for proper manners, needlework, and vapid conversation, he’d be doomed to disappointment. She had every intention of pursuing her cause in England the same as she would have in Virginia. Women everywhere deserved the right to vote.
He seemed to sense her inner turmoil, for he withdrew to look down at her, an equally uncharacteristic sadness darkening his eyes and expression. “I’m truly sorry to be the cause of your nightmares, little dove.”
But he wasn’t the cause of the panic flashing through her now. What had happened to him was. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself, but the sight of him bloodied and laid low would haunt her forever. It had changed her irrevocably, and she was ill equipped to manage the aftereffects.
She held the bedclothes to her chest, seeking to put a mind-clearing barrier between them, and struggled to give voice to her misgivings. “It isn’t you that’s the cause. It’s what happened to you.”
His jaw hardened, but he grazed a finger over her cheekbone, belying the tenseness of his posture with such gentleness. “I’ve had enemies before, and yet here I am.”
“Enemies who attempted to smash your skull in?” she demanded, the rawness of her emotions colliding with the reverberations of her dream. He had yet to acknowledge the seriousness of what had occurred. He had nearly been murdered, for God’s sake. Before his own home. Beaten senseless, his broken body left to bleed out on the streets.
He flashed a wicked grin, ever his enigmatic self, and caught her hand in his, guiding it to the healing wound on the back of his head. “Not smashed, love. See? Perfectly intact, if ever it indeed was.”
She was grateful his wound had not been as grievous as it could have b
een and that he had not suffered infection or worse. But he seemed determined to tone down both the severity of his attack and the danger facing him. She meant to point as much out to him, to dress him down with precise words of condescension.
Instead, she allowed her emotions to once more get the best of her. “Do you not think whoever tried to kill you will realize he failed and try again? What if he succeeds the next time? What then?”
His grin turned wry and he released her hand. “Then you’ll be free to return to your beloved Virginia, won’t you? Perhaps you ought to relinquish your wifely concern. It seems my demise would do you a good turn.”
No it most certainly would not. The thought of him gone from her life forever—of the world without his engaging wit, magnetism, without him—seemed the most egregious thing imaginable. “How can you be so flippant about your own life?”
“Come now, little dove.” He trailed a finger over her collarbone, studying her in that penetrating way of his. “Am I meant to sit about crying in a corner? Don’t mistake just who it is that you married. I’m a man who has devoted his life to not giving a damn about anything, especially not my own worthless hide.”
Her heart gave a pang in her chest at hearing him speak about himself in such terms. What could have happened to him in his life to make him feel so contemptible? Perhaps it was the newness of the intimacy they’d shared. Perhaps it was the result of finally acknowledging she couldn’t turn away from the path she’d chosen. She’d sealed her fate when she’d lain with him. He’d seen, touched, and kissed her everywhere. He’d been inside her, had spent his seed within her. Even now she could be carrying his child.
The thought sent an odd, tingling warmth pervading her entire body. She stayed him when he would have trailed his touch lower, over the aching curve of her breast. She searched his shuttered gaze, wishing she could see within their blue depths an inkling of his innermost thoughts. “You are not worthless.”
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 44