She had sent away another woman, Sloan reflected with amusement. It was a curious situation. Who was this Brianna—and just what was going on? Had old Brice decided to send him not just one woman, but several?
Brianna was awkward with her hooks, almost as if she were reluctant to disrobe. Yet she was beguiling as she did so. Her shift came slowly up, baring long, shapely legs that were as lovely as alabaster. She hesitated again with the hem just at the top of her thighs. Sloan realized a bit foolishly that he had held his breath while her fingers hovered there … anticipation created a rush of blood within his ears. He exhaled as she raised the shift again, uncovering to his view firm, rounded buttocks that were as shapely as her legs. Her waist was tiny, emphasizing that subtle and evocative flare of hips, drawing attention to her long ribcage, sleek shoulders, which were proud and square, and the hint of the swell of her breasts that he could just see as she tossed back her rich mane of ebony hair.
Darkness was falling, he realized regretfully. How he longed to light a candle. But he did not, sensing that she needed to come to him in shadow.
She didn’t glance his way, but hurriedly climbed into the bed. He caught a quick glimpse of the front of her and he was suddenly aware that his breath was as ragged as the wind. A shudder tore through his body, and he was made very acutely aware of his almost painful reaction to her. His muscles tensed; his manhood throbbed.
A loud shout from the street pierced the web of sensual enchantment that was spinning around him, and he twisted to glance out the shutters once more.
Matthews. That damned raving lunatic!
Sloan had seen him before, finding “witches” in Liverpool by order of King James.
Matthews shouted something again. He and his men turned down the alley. They slowly disappeared.
A slight sound, a shifting of long limbs against the sheets, attracted his attention. He returned his gaze to the bed, and the stunning woman who lay upon it.
Her hair was spread upon the pillow, a dark silken fan against the white linen. Her eyes were closed. His eyes roamed to the elegant length of neck and ivory throat. She was flushed a tender pink, and her luxurious dark lashes swept low over her cheeks.
Just a glance at her, he thought incredulously, and I feel that I am touched by fever.
The roaring in his ears began all over again, and thought was swept cleanly from his mind. He wanted his cravings soothed and his mind cleansed. It could happen.
Even in the darkness she appeared pale as new-fallen snow and her enigmatic eyes were as wide as a pair of gold doubloons. But then that look was gone—her ink-black lashes slid lazily over her eyes, a subtle curve touched her lips, and a tremor suddenly riddled his body.
He moved lightly to her. She glanced up at him, blue eyes widening again. He saw a pulse beating furiously at the base of her throat and again he found himself wondering just who was this most unique female? Too fine, too beautiful, for her calling.
He touched a silken lock of her hair. Her eyes stared into his, deep and mysterious, slightly glazed and luminescent. Her lashes brushed over her cheeks and her fingers curled over the sheets. He moved his gaze over her, haunted by the round, full beauty of her breasts, and the valley dipping between them.
He found himself smiling at her, impatient, his rushing blood seeming to come alive with a smoldering fire. Yet he was equally willing to go slow and prolong his own torture to touch and explore all that made up the perfection of her form. He had wanted nothing more than a quick, uninvolved bedding; now he wanted to make love, to tease her senses as he allowed his own to soar.
He knelt down beside her, taking her gently into his arms.
“I need you, Brianna,” he whispered to her.
She flinched at his touch but so faintly, he might have imagined it. He began to touch her, savoring the softness of her flesh. She jerked slightly as his fingers grazed the crest of her breasts, then settled between them to find the erratic beat of her heart. She was still as he allowed his fingers to explore, massaging her throat, the slope of her shoulders, the length of her midriff to the curve of her waist. He found the cleft in her back, the slight dimples that shadowed her buttocks just below her spine.
Brianna barely dared to breathe, staring, as if compelled, at his eyes. It had taken all her willpower—and the rampant fear of a burning death—to remain still at his first touch.
It was becoming more than willpower and fear that held her. If there was truly a devil who could lure and seduce the innocent, it was he. Conscious thought slipped slowly but surely away from her. A part of her mind darkened to oblivion; a new part awakened vibrantly. Her flesh came alive, and the heat grew within her, spinning from some undefined center.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to stop him! She wanted more!
“Search! Search every street! Suffer not a witch to live!”
The cry came to them faintly from the streets. Brianna, hearing the words, willed herself not to stiffen. She offered Treveryan her best attempt at a sultry and seductive smile and pressed her nakedness closely against him, slipping her arms around his shoulders, allowing her nails to graze and tease over his shoulders.
“How I want you,” he murmured.
“And I you …” she replied, again grateful that the fear in her voice created a huskiness that could pass for sensuality. And she was aflame—torn between the exotic new sensations of his caress and the terror that kept her blood pounding mercilessly through her system.
He was gone suddenly—she opened her eyes cautiously to see that he was stripping away his shirt. He paused then, drinking in her beauty as she lay there, the rouge crests of her breasts provocative as they darkened and hardened in sweet reply to his care, the natural seduction of the curve of her hips, the shadows of her abdomen. One of her knees was slightly raised over the other, creating a haunting and intriguing mystery of velvet ebony where the shapely length of her legs converged.
He lay beside her again, slipping his arms around her and crushing her breasts against his bared chest. Her head tilted backward, her eyes widened as her arms responded instinctively to his hold, slipping around his neck. Despite the fever that gripped him, straining his masculinity against his breeches, he was still too fascinated to hurry his torment to an end. He lowered his head slowly over hers, feeling as if he were drowning a bit in the fantasy of her blue eyes. His lashes closed only as he touched her lips with his, tasting her natural sweetness more potent than wine. With the lightest touch he caressed her mouth, vaguely aware that he had stumbled into quicksand and he would sink farther and farther into a magical abyss of no return.
It didn’t matter. He traced her lips with his tongue, and then the fever overwhelmed him and he delved deeply into her mouth, tasting a nectar that drove him wild. He was compelled to consume, and his mouth hungrily ravaged hers, his tongue delving deeper and deeper, demanding all. A soft, strangled moan escaped her, but she was not fighting him. Her lips were forming to his, her fingers threading through his hair.
“Brianna …” he said softly, the word on his lips a caress, “You are, my sweet, a witch …”
Her body, so sweetly pliant beneath his, suddenly stiffened. Her eyes widened until they seemed to encompass her face.
“What?” she gasped, a croak that sounded strangely of terror.
“A temptress, my sweet,” he assured her, “enchantress, seductress. You have ensnared me in the spell of your beauty.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled, and—as she did, the tension left her limbs.
“Oh …” she murmured softly. When her eyes met his again he saw that they were veiled, her cheeks were flushed.
Sloan stood to pull the string on his breeches and remove them. She returned his gaze at first, but when he stood naked before her, the flush in her cheeks became crimson. As if suddenly aware of her own nudity, she closed her eyes with a shudder and reached nervously for the linen bed coverings.
“No!” he cried, startling himself with the sound o
f his voice. But her action had stunned him. It was almost as if his nudity had frightened her, where her own did not.
Earlier, he could have let her go. Not now. She would not turn away from him. He had offered her every option, but she had insisted on her game, and now he was finding the touch-me-touch-me-not plays to be fraying upon his temper.
He was beside her, wrenching linen from her grasping fingers, pulling her into his arms, beneath his weight, before she could even begin to muster the strength to fight against him.
His mouth found hers. The gentle, seductive quality was gone, but this kiss seduced Brianna no less than the first. It was hungry. It ravaged and demanded and swept her into a tempestuous windstorm she was helpless to resist. His mouth left hers to find her breast, to caress the nipple with lips and tongue and teeth. Again the lightning knifed through her, leaving her trembling, clinging to his shoulders, her nails curving convulsively into flesh. She sobbed out a broken moan, of dismay, of yearning—of something she had never experienced before—the burning ache that blazed from a secret place deep within her.
She was unaware that she tossed her head upon the pillow, back and forth, emitting soft little moans. The world for her had ceased to exist; she was adrift upon a sea of sensation, and he was the sensation that overwhelmed all else. His lips and hands moved down her torso, still hungry, still demanding, and she could do naught but swirl along with him in the vortex of his storm. She wondered vaguely what would have happened if she had had the will to resist him. It probably wouldn’t have mattered in the least. He was like the steel of a forge, heated strength, and his limbs, the hard-muscled arms, the lithe, corded thighs, were like the finest blade. He could have subdued her, had he wished, at any time, with the long fingers of a single hand.
A gasp escaped her as his hand spanned over her thigh, fondling, exploring. His lips burned against the shadowed hallow of her abdomen beneath her hip. Unwittingly she tore her fingers into his hair again; he caught her wrists, and laced his fingers through hers, and held her hands at her thighs as his mouth continued to taunt the vulnerable flesh of her belly. His tongue drew moist patterns, following the line of her hips, circling lower and lower until he brushed against the blue-ebony curls that were the frame of her innocence. She should have been shocked at the intimacy, but it was her body that responded now, not her mind. And her body writhed and arched.
A shudder went through her, an incomprehensible cry escaped her. Her fingers tightened, knuckles white, upon his. She writhed to escape him, the sweet glory of the liquid fire that swept her, but he held her hands firm. In seconds her writhing was not to escape him, but to have more and more of him.
His mouth came to hers again; the heat and strength of his body enwrapped her. His chest crushed against her breasts, and even that sensation was intoxicating, as was the shaft of his sex, pulsing powerfully against her. She shivered beneath him, vaguely aware that they had passed a point of no return.
Sloan exulted in her. Her exquisite form heightened his desire unbearably. He had never known a woman to give pleasure so unthinkingly, whose innate sensuality alone could send a man into tempest. He slipped his hand between her sleek thighs, parting them. They trembled slightly, and gave to his touch.
The invitation of her body totally severed the fine line of his control. He groaned aloud as the floodgates of his restraint shattered, leaving him totally at the mercy of his need. He entered into her with explosive force, and was stunned as the scream tore from her throat, shocked at the message that vaguely filtered into his mind.
But he couldn’t withdraw from her. Nor would any purpose now be served. Questions would have to come later. She had come to him, and her innocence was irretrievably lost. He could only hope to gentle his approach, coax her along as he would have had he known …
It was too late to ease the pain he had inflicted with his first explosive thrust—it was equally too late to leave her.
“No. Dear God, no! Leave me!” she pleaded brokenly. And then her voice rose in anger. “Leave me!”
She suddenly pitted her strength against him like a madwoman.
Sloan was startled, and then furious. No man was expected to come—to be seduced—to this point and then to withdraw with chivalry. He had given her every opportunity to leave his chamber.
He smiled grimly at the glazed fury in her eyes as she struggled against him. “Mistress,” he said softly, “the damage is done.”
“No,” she denied with a shake of her head; and yet the fury left her eyes and pain replaced it. He eased his hold upon her and gently soothed her hair.
“Shhh …” he murmured to her, able to pause only a minute, but gaining control again. “I will be gentle, Brianna. He moved against her slowly, fluidly. She clasped her arms around him as he held her still beneath him, her teeth grazing into the muscle of his shoulder, her nails lightly raking his back. He felt the tenseness that had seized her slowly begin to ebb, and he whispered to her, promising the pain would go away, that the rapture would come again.
And his strokes within her were velvet and smooth. He was right; the pain did begin to ebb. But when it had come, it had been a slap in the face. It had reminded her what she had done. Where she was. What she had lost.
“Brianna …” His voice was a whisper of air. A husky sound that touched inside her again. As the pain faded away, the fire began to lap at her again. And suddenly she realized that his thrusts were deep within her again, steel and fire.
The smoldering fire became a flame. The flame rose surely to a blaze. And she was holding him, fusing with him. Arching with a hunger all her own. He took her with him, and they were flying.
Then everything ebbed except for blinding sensation. She was gasping for breath, half sobbing as she clung to him, arching, emitting a strangled cry—an echo of the shattering ecstasy that convulsed her body, flooding it with the most wonderful, volatile, delightful sensation she had ever known. For long moments the feeling held her in wonder, and then it slowly began to fade. All that was left was the comfort of the man who held her through it, smoothing her hair, his steel power cooling but losing no strength.
She was alone, naked in bed, with a stranger.
Brianna choked back a cry of pain and fury and twisted from him, stunned and so miserable that she was almost numb. She knew that he was watching, that she was risking his fury—and her own expulsion. She felt so coldly wretched that she couldn’t care.
Sloan was watching her. He made no move to touch her, but frowned as he observed her slender shoulders, moist with the dampness of their passion, tremble with emotion.
Why had she come to him, he wondered—irritated and confused. He finally reached out to touch her shaking shoulder. “Don’t!” she demanded in a low, cold voice.
Stunned, Sloan felt his anger grow along with the deathly silence that seemed to fill the room. Perplexed, and thoroughly annoyed, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and raked his fingers through his hair.
A shout, clear and thunderous, rose from outside the window again. Heedless of his nudity, Sloan stalked over to the shutters.
“That damned Matthews,” he muttered beneath his breath. “It’s a pity the devil doesn’t rise up in a wall of flame and consume him.”
Sloan heard the sharp intake of her breath and turned back to the bed. She was staring at him now—and her face had gone as white as the sheets she had drawn about her.
He frowned curiously, then added, “I believe he’s gone.”
She relaxed visibly; a small, soft sigh escaped her.
Sloan’s sharp gaze narrowed reflectively. He crossed his arms over his chest and strode back to the bed as she watched him warily, her blue eyes wide with alarm at the speculation in his stare and cynical, knowing half-grin.
“You’re the witch,” he breathed.
“I’m not a witch!” she protested desperately.
“Oh, you are a witch!” he laughed, “but not the type Matthews is hoping to burn. Are you?”
/> If possible, her face went whiter.
“Brianna,” he persisted, the teasing smile leaving his face. “Are you the woman Matthews is out there searching for?”
She dropped her head hopelessly against the pillow, staring sightlessly up at the rafters.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked softly. “You could have saved yourself the apparent misery of my person.”
She swallowed and touched her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “I … I didn’t dare tell you. You might have …”
“Turned you in? Please, madam! What do I look like? A fanatic like Matthews?”
Brianna bit her lip, trying to weigh her desolate reply. “You’re a lord,” she told him tonelessly. “You might be a loyal supporter of King James.”
He chuckled softly. “I’m a Welsh lord, my sweet. One who does not feel he owes loyalty to James. And anyone who thinks the devil dwells within innocent women, be he Welsh, English, Scot, or Frank, is either sadly misguided or a raving lunatic.” He paused reflectively for a moment. “Matthews, I believe, is definitely the latter.”
“Welsh,” she murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Welsh,” she repeated tonelessly. “I had no idea who or what you were. I didn’t know whether I could possibly trust you. I don’t even know your given name,” she added bitterly.
The wicked smile came into play. “Sloan,” he told her. “Captain Sloan Michael Treveryan, mistress, Fourteenth Duke of Loghaire. It is a Welsh title, not always recognized by the English. We have been “united” for over a century, but the English still have a penchant for acquiring Welsh lands. Nevertheless, my father was a close friend of the late and well-lamented King Charles, and therefore the Treveryans’ fortune has done well of late.”
Brianna was amazed to hear herself laugh, but she sobered as he did. He grinned wryly in return, and yet she sensed a tension in him, a bitterness, when he spoke of the English crown. It was apparent that he had loved Charles II, and equally apparent that he did not bear that same love for James. It appeared that he despised James—deeply, personally.
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