To Bed the Bride

by Karen Ranney

  Finally, he pulled back. He didn’t speak for the longest time, his eyes searching her face.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  Her heart felt as if it stopped, then started again. “Do you?”

  “Yes, in violation of every whisper from my conscience. You should leave.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then we’ll both be fools.”

  “Is it really important to be wise?” she asked. “I haven’t been very happy lately, but I’ve been very wise.” She placed her hands on either side of his face. “Can’t we both be fools together, Logan? Please kiss me.”

  A second later she was back in his arms, his mouth on hers.

  She wanted to stop time itself, memorize these moments so that she could always recall them.

  He hadn’t kissed her often enough. They hadn’t done this as many times as she’d wanted, as often as she’d thought about. In her dreams his kisses had led to even more scandalous things. Then, he touched her everywhere, learning her, causing her body to heat and her mind to simply stop.

  She wanted to match the dream to reality, make all of that happen. She wanted to stroke her fingers over every part of him.

  Long moments later he ended the kiss, pulling back, but keeping her within his embrace. They were both breathing hard but they still didn’t separate, as if each needed the other to keep standing.

  When he spoke his voice was harsh. “Stop me, Eleanor, because I’m not certain I can stop myself.”

  “Must we stop?”

  She’d never been as brave as she was at that moment.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, I do. I know what happens next. You forget what Hearthmere is. We breed horses. Growing up there I couldn’t help but learn about nature.”

  His cheeks were bronzed, his smile wry. “So I’m a stallion now, is that it?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  Her hands rose to her collar. She unfastened one button and then another. This bodice had entirely too many buttons, a thought she’d had this morning when dressing. At the time seduction hadn’t occurred to her. If it had she would have chosen another outfit.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Undressing,” she said. “Unless you want me to simply toss my skirts over my head.”

  “Eleanor . . .”

  “Logan.” My love.

  Once her bodice was unfastened, she grabbed her skirt with both hands, pulled it over her head, and threw the garment onto the nearby chair.

  Bruce barked at it, thinking this was a new game.

  She laughed, glancing at Logan.

  “I would say that we should put him out in the hall,” she said, “but I know Bruce only too well. He would bark to be let in.”

  “That he would.” Logan hadn’t moved. His eyes were still fixed on her.

  Her fingers went to her corset cover, removing it without one hint of embarrassment. That garment joined her dress on the chair. Bruce barked again.

  “I have to admit, however, that when I considered this moment, I never thought that a dog would be witness to it.”

  “You considered this moment?” he asked.

  She nodded. “In a general way. When I was growing up. I think girls always visualize their first time. It’s exceedingly important to us.”

  His hands reached out to hold hers.

  “Eleanor . . .”

  She pulled free, unfastening the busk of her corset before letting it fall. There were only a few garments between her and nakedness.

  His gaze hadn’t left her, but he was shaking his head slowly from side to side.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I sincerely wish to be deflowered. Isn’t that what they call it? I want you to be my lover.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Good, she didn’t need him to speak. All she truly wanted was for him to kiss her again. Kiss her and then rid her of her virginity.

  When he didn’t move, she went to him and began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. His hands came up to stop her, but she shook her head.

  “No, on this I am quite insistent. Pretend that I am one of your constituents and I’m demanding that you act on my behalf.”

  “My constituents are men, and I doubt one of them would come to me with this demand. If they did, I would have to respectfully decline.”

  “Then just pretend I’m a fellow Scot who has it in her head to be loved by you. No one is here. No one would know.”

  “I would know,” he said.

  She dropped her hands and stepped back, looking up at him.

  “I’ve never felt this way with anyone, Logan. If you truly wish me gone, say it now before I humiliate myself further.”

  “You don’t understand, Eleanor.”

  She turned and reached for the corset on the chair. She would simply get dressed, get back in her carriage, and pretend that this afternoon never happened.

  He placed his hand on her upper arm and gently turned her to face him.

  “You don’t understand. This moment is the culmination of a great many dreams, but I can’t take advantage of you.”

  “Take advantage of me? In what way? Didn’t I kiss you back? Did you take my clothes off, Logan? Or did I? How would you be taking advantage of me?”

  “By allowing you to be rash.”

  She was heartily sick of everyone deciding how she should act.

  “I’m not a child,” she said, “to be lectured about my behavior. No one compelled me to kiss you, Logan McKnight. I did so because it was something I wanted. Loving you is something else I want. My great mistake was in thinking it was something you wanted as well.”

  “Eleanor.”

  “Oh, don’t say my name in that way. As if you’re an elder statesman and I’m some naive, foolish chit. I misunderstood. I thought you were as enchanted by our kisses as I was.”

  “Of course I was.”

  She shook her head. “Evidently not.”

  He didn’t say anything. She stepped forward once again, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her cheek against his chest.

  “Must loving me be so difficult for you?”

  “I am holding on to the dregs of my honor with more strength than I knew I possessed.”

  “And if you loved me, you’d regret it?”

  “Would you?”

  “Never. How could I ever regret anything so wondrous?”

  “How do you know it would be wondrous?”

  “Because of the way you kiss me. The way you touch me, gently and tenderly. I want the memory of you loving me, Logan. I want that experience. But I won’t beg you anymore. Your honor is evidently stronger than my need or my wishes.”

  “What about Herridge?”

  That question just ratcheted up her temper. “What about him? He has nothing to do with this, with us.”

  “Doesn’t he?”

  She blew out a breath. “Right now, Logan, I’m Eleanor from Scotland. I’m not the pale imitation who lives in London. I’m not the silent, acquiescent nobody who fades into the background. I know exactly what I want, and it’s this afternoon with you. Don’t talk to me about honor. I don’t care about honor. I only care about what I feel here and now. Words can’t possibly measure it.”

  She pulled his head down for a kiss. This, this was what she wanted. To feel this connection, this closeness, this gate to another place, another experience she’d never had.

  When the kiss was over she stepped back and looked up at him.

  “Don’t tell me you feel differently.”

  “Damn it, Eleanor, how can I?”

  He pulled her into his arms, so tightly that a thought couldn’t come between them. She laughed. Then he kissed her and every thought simply disappeared.

  He helped her remove the remainder of her clothing. She continued to work on his buttons. When they proved to be stubborn she wanted to say one of the oaths she’d heard the stable boys use. Logan smiled and rep
laced her hands with his. In seconds he’d removed his trousers and the rest of his clothes.

  His hands were shaking and that had never happened to him before now. The voice of his conscience was getting louder. He should kiss her on the forehead and leave the room. He should say something conciliatory, something that would explain his bizarre, ravening behavior.

  She smiled at him as he helped her off with her petticoat, holding out his arm as she stepped delicately out of the pool of lace.

  There was no fear in her expression. No hesitation, either. No doubt her conscience was speaking loudly to her as well. Yet she was more adept than he at silencing it.

  “Eleanor . . .”

  She reached up and placed two fingers on his lips. Just that wordless gesture as well as the look in her eyes. One that said as clearly as speech, Don’t banish me, Logan. Allow us this pleasure, please.

  He should have taken her to his room, but then the threat of scandal would be even greater should the lone maid see them enter or leave. He couldn’t imagine a less romantic bower than his drawing room, but at the moment it simply didn’t matter. All he cared about was Eleanor.

  Bruce yawned, bored by their antics.

  Logan bent and scooped Eleanor up into his arms, struck by how perfect she felt there. Gently, he lowered her to the sofa, grateful that it was long and wide enough for their lovemaking.

  He knelt there for a moment, confounded by his own wonder. Her skin was alabaster, the perfection of her body only hinted at beneath the style of her dresses.

  She was exquisite from her full, rose-tipped breasts to her perfectly curved hips and down the long expanse of her legs. He reached out one trembling hand and placed it on her abdomen, following up that gesture with a kiss. Eleanor put her hand on the back of his neck before trailing her fingers down his shoulder.

  Rising up, she kissed him. In that moment his conscience was silenced. He could no more dress and leave this room than he could command night into day. A sense of rightness flowed through him, a feeling that he was destined to be here on this day with this woman.

  He wasn’t going to waste any more time on second-guessing or questioning.

  She thought she’d feel vulnerable being naked but the opposite was true. A sense of power rushed through her, as if in shedding her clothing she also dispensed with the person she’d become in the past few years. The woman she was now, fearless Eleanor, was the woman she’d always wanted to be.

  Never once had she considered that she might want to touch a man everywhere, that she might need to do so with an urge she’d never before felt.

  In her imaginings about her wedding night, about those nights her husband would demand his rights, she believed that allowing him into her bed would be an act of duty.

  This was different. There was no duty in this loving, only excitement, and the thrill of being human and alive. She felt as if her body was burning up, her breasts full, her nipples taut and acutely sensitive.

  She’d never imagined that she would feel a surge of joy, or gratitude that flowed through her like heated wine. She was grateful for being a woman, for Logan, for this perfect afternoon, for the solitude and seclusion, and especially for the freedom to give herself to this man.

  His hands stroked her everywhere, learning her, memorizing her for when she was no longer with him. He knew, with a precognition alien to him, that he would never be able to forget this blissful afternoon.

  His lips closed over one nipple, pulling gently. When she moaned, the sound was tied to something within him. While he explored her she did the same with him, her hands finding places he’d never known were sensitive to touch: his buttocks, the small of his back, his throat. She kissed her way across his body in a way that surprised him given her innocence.

  Eleanor never thought that when she lost her virginity, it would be on an overstuffed sofa, or that she would be carried away by passion. She felt desperate and hungry for him, something she hadn’t expected. She wanted to be kissed all over and he did that, making her marvel at all the sensations her body could produce. Kissing her ear made her shiver, but when Logan touched her breasts with his fingers or mouth, heat raced through her body. His hand skimming down her leg sent icicles down her back. His fingers trailing a path behind her knee made her smile. Each touch caused a bell to ring in her mind, a rounded sound that made note of that particular feeling to recall it in the future.

  Whatever he wanted she would give to him. She was both his acolyte and his accomplice.

  Let this feeling last; end this waiting now. Two needs fought each other.

  When he rose over her, Logan didn’t ask if she was sure that this was what she wanted. They were eons past that point. He was driven by an incalculable need and nearly desperate desire.

  He entered her slowly, grateful that she welcomed him by lifting her hips, cradling him between her legs with a gentle rocking movement. Her hands gripped his shoulders; her fingernails marked him as hers.

  Time slowed before racing. His blood pounded in his ears. Every muscle, every nerve was focused on completion, on the sounds Eleanor was making deep in her throat, on her hardened nipples grazing his chest.

  He had never needed anything more than this joining, this coming together. Nothing would ever mean as much or destroy him as completely.

  Her body bowed beneath his, her hips rising to demand more of him. A lone keening cry left her lips as his vision grayed. Seconds later he collapsed next to her and only then did his conscience wake from its imposed slumber.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Eleanor kept her eyes shut a long time, feeling Logan beside her. They were skin to skin from head to toe. His hand rested on her waist; his leg was between hers.

  She wanted to cry again, but she didn’t understand the tears. She didn’t regret what she’d done. How could she? She’d always remember these moments with Logan.

  If she hadn’t already decided to end her engagement, this act might have been one of disloyalty and betrayal. Instead, it was an affirmation of the freedom she’d decreed for herself.

  Perhaps all the cascading emotions were responsible for her sudden wish to weep. Love for him overwhelmed her. She was suffused with sadness because she had to leave soon. Then there was the joy because of the perfection of their coming together.

  She’d expected pain, but there had been none, only an uncomfortable feeling of fullness that had eased within moments.

  This, then, was passion. You lost any sense of yourself. Your body heated. Your soul incinerated. If anything came between you and the object of your desire you would simply step over it or around it or kick it out of the way. Mere mortals didn’t have a chance against such an overwhelming set of sensations.

  She opened her eyes, turning her head slightly to find that he was watching her.

  What words were appropriate at this moment? She didn’t know because what she wanted to say was forbidden.

  I love you.

  She placed her hand on his cheek, rose up, and kissed him lightly. Would it be permissible to say thank you? Would he understand how much she appreciated that he’d put aside his honor in order to give her this experience?

  “I have to leave,” she softly said. “I’ve already been gone for some time. I’ll be missed.” Especially since she was supposed to be feeling ill, too sick to be attending a fitting.

  When she was questioned about her absence, she would say that she needed to get some air. She would find some excuse.

  She doubted that would be necessary for long, however. The actions of this afternoon would soon fade beneath her news. When she told her family that she wasn’t going to marry Michael, no one would remember her absence.

  She wasn’t going to lose everything that her father had built up for years. She wasn’t going to turn over the management of Hearthmere to anyone else. Nor was she going to allow the horses, the very bloodline her father had perfected, to be sold. She was going to choose a single life rather than becoming a countess and
she wasn’t going to regret one single moment of it. Nor was she going to regret this afternoon, either.

  She’d thought about her decision for hours. Disappointment wasn’t a strong enough word to describe what her family would feel, but it was the only way to keep Hearthmere intact.

  She sat up, reaching for her shift, conscious that Logan was still behind her, naked.

  Finally, he sat up beside her. Did he feel the same reluctance to speak?

  She finally found her corset cover, but she’d lost one garter. Logan dressed and helped her look for it, but it was nowhere to be found.

  Bruce had moved and was now sitting to the side of one of the chairs.

  “Did you take my garter, Bruce? Did you think it was a new toy?”

  He tilted his head and gave her a little whine.

  “Where is it, silly?”

  He came and licked her fingers.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I just won’t wear my stockings.” Her skirt was voluminous enough that no one would know.

  She put her two stockings and the remaining garter in the bottom of her reticule. Standing, she wished she had a mirror, the better to put her hair in some order.

  “You look beautiful,” Logan said.

  She turned and gazed up at him.

  “There’s a faint flush to your skin,” he said. “And your lips are pink.”

  She wanted to go to him and kiss him once more. That would only make her departure harder. She wanted to stay here for the rest of her life, and wasn’t that a silly notion?

  “I have to leave,” she said once more. If she didn’t get back soon she wouldn’t need to inform Michael of her decision. Gossip would end their engagement.

  Logan nodded. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  How do you stop a whirlwind? That’s what it had felt like. As if she would die without touching him or being touched.

  “Will it help?”

  “Help?” she asked, not understanding.

  “Will this afternoon help you get through your wedding night, Eleanor?”