A Hint of Starlight

by Connolly, Lynne

  “I want you. I will touch and lick every inch of you, kiss your mouth and everywhere else. I want to know what you taste like, and the sounds you make when I make love to you.” His body illustrated his words, as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to join the remains of their wedding finery. His nipples were as hard as hers.

  Her mouth went dry.

  He watched her, his gaze burning into her, branding her as his. She lay on her side, her upper body propped on one elbow, her legs modestly together. Her sex heated and dampened, as if it were swollen, and the little pulse inside throbbed, turning her body liquid with need. She dug shaking fingers into her hair, loosening a few pins. Her carefully ordered coiffure now hung in a tangled, curly mane.

  When he unbuttoned the fall of his breeches, his fingers shook, too. He rid himself of his breeches, underwear, shoes and stockings in short order after that, looking away from her in order to undo the buckles and buttons involved.

  He straightened, and met her gaze.

  Underneath the fashionable clothing, he was all male. Muscles undulated over his powerful form, flexing as he moved in a display of unconscious power, striding to the bed. She dared not look below his waist, although she longed to.

  As he approached, she rolled onto her back, her mouth dry, her limbs unable to support her. In one swift movement, he climbed onto the bed and over her, straddling her body. His erection grazed her stomach, leaving a patch of wetness. She had not realized men created the same kind of dampness as she felt forming between her legs. “This is what I want and where I want you.” He gazed at her, taking in her naked body with a hunger she had not considered possible before. All her life, she had come as one of three, part of a unit that had rarely spent time apart. Now she was on her own, and she loved it. Her husband was one thing she would never willingly share. Not with her sisters, or with any other woman.

  “I want you here, too.”

  “Do you?” Gently, he cradled her cheek, and brought his mouth down to hers.

  He did not linger, but bestowed a kiss that stole her breath, before he went on to her jaw and her neck, softly kissing his way down. Damaris cupped his shoulders, stroked his hot, satiny skin, and then dared to move her hands to spread them over his chest. He lifted his head. “Yes, touch me. Anywhere, everywhere.” She loved the feel of him under her hands, satiny skin over firm muscle, living flesh that rippled under her hands and responded to her touch. He nuzzled her breasts, the prickle from his incipient beard scratching her in a delicious touch of pain that added spice to the thick arousal flowing through her. He kissed her nipples and she flinched, gasping.

  “You like that,” he said, his voice deep and rich. He wasn’t asking, he could tell. She squirmed under him, wanting everything and still more. All at once.

  “Yes.” Her breath emerged on the last sibilant, hissing her approval when he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked. He plucked the other, teasing it to a peak while she smoothed her hands restlessly over his shoulders and back, discovering him.

  He kissed down to her navel, and then showed her how sensitive her hips could be when he caressed the hollows below, and traced a pattern across her lower stomach. On the return journey, he gave her other nipple the same treatment as the first one, reducing her to a quivering mass of sensation. He propped himself up, his elbows either side of her, and gazed into her face. “You’re lovely, Damaris. Every inch of you.”

  Some of her spirit returned. “I think we will discover enough to keep us amused on the journey.”

  “I may ask them to go around the country twice.” He smiled down at her. “Nobody can touch us here. No gossip, no news, no business. Just us and the stars.”

  She was so lost in him she’d even forgotten the firmament.

  He kissed her, and she responded eagerly, hooking her arm around his neck. She loved being surrounded by hot male flesh, adored the blanketing sensation as he rubbed his body slowly against hers. The sparse hair on his chest created a wonderful friction and she moaned into their kiss.

  When he pulled away, she tried to drag him back, but he firmly separated their mouths and resumed his previous position. “I could kiss you all night, but we have more to do.”

  “I may be a virgin but I’m not a fool. I know that part.”

  He let out of bark of delighted laughter. “What exactly do you know?”

  “That you will take my virginity.” A wave of something—guilt, modesty, she didn’t know how to describe it, except that she was uncomfortable, swept through her when she finally said the words.

  He touched her lips with his. “I’m going to make love to you. Now open your legs, sweetheart.”

  Tentatively, she did as he asked. He slid his hand under her thigh near her knee and urged her to lift it. She followed suit with her other leg, so he lay between them, framed by her knees.

  They gasped. The intimacy was almost too much. He was so hard, touching her softest, most delicate skin. With a grunt, he lifted his upper body away, and slid his hand down her body and readied her for his possession.

  When she flinched, he said, “Let me, sweetheart. Lean back, watch my face, and do not fight what is happening. Can you do that for me?”

  Swallowing, she nodded.

  He touched her some more. “You like that,” he murmured and she nodded. He did it some more, smiling when she responded with a small sigh. He dropped another kiss on her lips and carried on readying her for his possession. She rubbed her palms over the balls of his shoulders, the repetitive movement soothing and stimulating at the same time. She gulped. “Can you just—do it?”

  “And get it over with?” He finished the sentence for her. “No, sweetheart, I can’t. It’s worth so much more than that. I want you to enjoy this as much as I do, to become used to my hands on your body.”

  Firmly, he brought his body in contact with hers. “Push against me,” he said in a strained voice.

  Keeping his gaze, she did as he told her. He stretched her, but the tension felt good.

  Without warning, he drew back and thrust hard. Fear was followed by pain, sudden and sharp, piercing her to her core, and she cried out, her caresses turning to clutches.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead and he groaned, long and low. “How was that?”

  She swallowed. “Surprising. Astonishing.” His heart pounded against her breast, and hers responded. “Is that your heartbeat?”

  “I feel yours, too.” He watched her and moved infinitesimally.

  “Is that it?” She hadn’t meant to say that, and her level of dismay shocked her. She should be relieved that it was over. “This is lovemaking?”

  “It’s the beginning.” He slid back again, then withdrew, a little more this time, and plunged back in. The movement was easier now. But she had trusted him, and he had earned it.

  “Why are you working so hard for such little result?”

  His groan mingled with a laugh. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart, but my body is telling me to take you and make you mine. Every instinct I possess is urging me to claim you.”

  “You’ve already done that,” she said tartly. “Now you have to make love to me.”

  His smile broadened. “So I do.”

  He merged their lips again, kissed her deeply, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as, finally, he began to move with more purpose. Every touch sent spirals of pleasure skittering through her, a series of small shocks building to an end she did not yet know.

  But she would.

  His kisses grew wilder and his body heavier as he quickened and deepened, and the sensations evoked inside her became more pronounced. Tingles sparkled along her skin and, inside, a wild flame licked its way to her heart, and then further, until it encompassed her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

  Arching up, she cried his name, as he responded to her with cries of his own. Panting, he fell onto her, his body shaking with the aftermath. As hers was, too.

  Although he squashed t
he breath from her, she had no desire for him to move. When he tried to ease his body off hers, she grabbed him close and held tight, her arms linked around his waist. Breathlessly, he laughed. “You have to let me go, sweetheart. You can’t breathe. Do not try to tell me that you can.”

  His chuckle echoed intimately around the room. Only then did she realize that all the swaying was not just the result of her body rocking to its new rhythm. They had set sail. The window showed an expanse of gray sea, fringed by land on one side. “We’ll be out of the Thames soon and at sea. We have at least five days to learn each other and to begin our married life untrammeled by gossip and expectation.”

  “Can it last longer than five days?”

  This time, their laughter mingled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logan had not imagined such contentment. He sat on the long bench in front of the window, with his wife on his lap. She was training her telescope at the stars. “They’re much brighter than in London.”

  “That’s the smoke. It obliterates the view. That’s why I go out to Greenwich when I want to work and I’m in town.”

  “It’s also the telescope.” She glanced away, met his smiling gaze and dropped a kiss on his lips. She had become much more proficient at claiming kisses and caresses. He loved it. Any fears he might have had of taking the whole of the journey to teach her not to be shy, to take pleasure in making love was destroyed sometime during their first encounter. Her unabated joy delighted him.

  But he would never love her. The notion sent chills through him and he shivered.

  “What is it? Are you cold?” Lowering the telescope, she gazed at him in concern.

  He shook his head, searching for a distraction. He could not remind her, not yet. That would be cruel. But he could not allow her to fall in love with him, just as he was doing his best not to fall in love with her.

  He found his diversion when her robe gaped a little. She’d wrapped the light silk around her, the pretty, feminine garment more tantalizing than concealing, her delectable curves undisguised by the thin fabric. He slid his finger inside the opening and found her breast. With a sigh of contentment, she relaxed into his arms. He relished the way she did that. She’d taken to bed sport as if she were born to it.

  He pressed the telescope into her hands. “Keep watching the stars.”

  With a doubtful glance at him, she refocused the instrument. “I love Andromeda best, but it’s gone now. It was the first constellation I identified on my own.”

  He caressed her, her skin silk under his fingers. “Keep watching. Make verbal observations, as if I were taking notes.”

  The telescope shook, then she tightened her hold on it as he loosened the fastening on her robe. She sat in a sea of blue silk, totally naked, Ariadne ascending to the heavens, crowned in stars. He would make sure she had stars for her head. Diamonds. His family owned a collection of jewels, and she would have them all.

  When his mother’s reproachful face swam into his mind, he dismissed her firmly. That battle would come another time. She was the Dowager Duchess of Glenbreck and she would have to find a new place in the world. She would not oust his duchess.

  She thrilled him. He couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  She was new, that was the reason. It must be. He’d never initiated a woman to lovemaking before and he’d found the experience enchanting.

  Just enchanting, nothing else. He was not in over his head. He could manage this. He laid a trail of kisses between her breasts, circling her pretty navel with his tongue.

  “I can see Saturn. It’s in the southern part of Ophiuchus, near Antares. Antares is very scarlet tonight, bright.”

  He smiled. The observations would not bring her any prizes, but her voice flowed over him. Her hand touched his head. It was delicate, shaking a trifle. “Is this right, Logan?”

  He left her long enough to say, “Perfect, sweetheart. Now you have a choice.” From his kneeling position he gazed up at her. “You can watch me, or you can watch the stars.”

  She laid the telescope aside. Amused, he watched the way she stowed it carefully, and admitted to himself that he would probably do the same. She tucked it at the back of the seat, where it would not fall or become scratched. She deserved a reward for that.

  He gave it to her.

  When the last throb had racked her body, she sighed contentedly and settled against him. “I’ve never ridden astride before,” she said, her voice hoarse from her cries.

  “You’ll be doing that more often, sweetheart.” She’d driven him mindless with joy.

  “Logan?”

  “Hmm?” He was settling her onto his shoulder and preparing to carry her to bed when she said it.

  “I love you.”

  When Logan came into their cabin the next morning, Damaris was sitting up in bed with a shawl draped over her shoulders. He must have seen her look of dismay because he put the tray he was carrying down on a table and came to her, taking her hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “My c-courses—” She’d never had to tell a man before. Her cheeks heated and when she glanced past him to the mirror on the dressing table, she noted that she had flushed a fiery red.

  He did not appear perturbed. Quite the opposite. He smiled, and squeezed her hands. “I’m glad,” he said.

  “What?” Had he had enough of her already? Last night, when she’d plucked up enough courage to tell him she loved him, he had not responded. After he’d tucked her into the covers, he’d held her gently. But he had said nothing. He had heard her, for certain. She’d said the words clearly, next to his ear. He could not possibly have missed it.

  Perhaps he was waiting for the right time.

  He gave a short laugh. “I’m glad because we will be arriving at the port tomorrow. Our honeymoon is over. But we will have to keep trying to make an heir for the title, will we not?”

  She frowned. Was that what they had been doing? Well, yes, of course, but they were doing more than that. For the first time, doubt entered her thoughts. She had married a duke and she needed to provide an heir, but he could have married anyone for that. Lady Elizabeth, for example. “What we’ve been doing is more than making a baby, surely,” she blurted.

  He did not smile, and he did not draw her into his arms. Fear clutched her stomach. Was that it? “Yes it is.” His words eased her, but only a little. “We are wonderful, making love.” He’d used the word. She relaxed a little more. “Which is as well, because we need to make a clutch of children. I have no heir, so we need to do our best to make one.”

  “I—”

  He touched his finger to her lips. “Don’t say it. Please. Listen to me first.” He took a deep breath. “I am incapable of love.”

  Frowning, she tried to make sense of his words. Incapable?

  He continued. “I do not want the kind of love that turned my mother into a raving lunatic for six months. I do not want the devotion that has kept her a widow all these years, pining for a man who will never come back. A man who never existed.”

  “But you had a father.” She didn’t understand. Of course his father existed. His portrait was all over the London house, together with some of his personal items, gathered together on side tables.

  “You saw the portraits and relics. She has more in her bedroom, a plethora of them. She says goodnight to him before she sleeps.” His mouth twisted. “She forgets what he was and what he did. He became a martyr to her.” He sighed. “She had him exactly where she’d wanted him all along. Under her thumb, in her house and her bed.”

  “I don’t want that.” A man to control? No. All she wanted was a man to love.

  “My mother is a strong-willed woman. When she married my father, she thought it was a love match, even though both sets of parents had arranged it. But it was not. My father had other interests.” He grimaced. “She tried everything to control him, sulking, crying, screaming, denying him her bed, and worse, begging.”

  Damaris swallowed. Had her son seen everything? S
he knew Logan’s protective nature. He would have done his best to protect his sister. “I can be strong, but not as—manipulating.” She thought of Annie, and how much she admired her. Annie never tried to control them, but she gave her opinions when asked, and sometimes when she was not.

  “That’s a good word.” He grimaced. “My father’s constant betrayals infuriated her, and not without reason.” How would he explain this to her? The horror of discovery, and the constant recriminations, only to start again with another woman. “He was a satyr. My father seduced every woman who came his way, and he did not discriminate between maids and ladies. He plowed a furrow through society and the demimonde. A lady is supposed to ignore her husband’s infidelities, but my father’s transgressions were impossible not to know. Every time she discovered another, my mother went into a rampage of fury, not caring who was nearby.”

  Horror widened her eyes. “With you nearby?”

  He nodded, his mouth a thin line. “She threw things and screamed insults at him. He would shout back, and then leave to find yet another woman. Despite his behavior, she continued to adore him. You have heard her talk about him. She speaks of him as if he were a saint. He was a good duke but an appalling husband.”

  “Yes.” Many women spoke of their late husbands in terms of affection. But the duchess—now the dowager duchess—spoke as if he were still alive.

  Did Logan mean to take other women? The habit was considered usual, but she had foolishly imagined that they were different, that they would cleave to each other. She had to control her breathing.

  “You…” She bit her lip. If he meant to do that, it would kill her. She loved him and she could not stop it now. “Do you intend to take mistresses?”

  He withdrew his hands. “What would you say if I said yes?”

  “I won’t chase after you.” She had too much pride for that. “If you do that, I will not come to bed with you while you have a woman. And I will require proof of health before you return. I will do my duty, but no more.” The dukedom still needed heirs, and she was the only person who could provide them.