This was what he wanted—his most potent desire—to have her spread beneath him, his to plunder, yet with her with him, an active participant, every heated inch of the way.
He filled her forcefully, repeatedly, unrelentingly. Yet even as he reached for her knees, she lifted her legs, wrapped them about his hips and tilted hers, inviting him deeper yet, luring him further yet, riding him as he rode her in an unreservedly primitive consummation.
Taking unreservedly.
Being taken unreservedly.
But as he sensed their climax roaring down on them, as the wave of release reared, about to crash, as her body clung to his, abandonly enticing, he realized . . .
Then she screamed his name and shattered, and her release brought on his own, and all thought was drowned beneath an orgy of sensation.
Bliss rolled in on a heavy wave of aftermath.
In the instant before he succumbed, he acknowledged defeat.
She hadn’t drawn back. She hadn’t been frightened—not the faintest lick of even reticence had touched her.
She’d loved every minute, every intense second.
On a long-drawn groan, he slumped on top of her.
He’d achieved the opposite of what he’d intended—and more. Worse.
Only one thought, one reaction, managed to surface in his exhausted brain. How the devil had it come to this?
H e should have guessed she’d revel in the power, the passion, the intensity. She was like no woman he’d ever known, ergo . . .
Some untold time later, when he’d managed to lift from her and settle them in the bed, with her curled beside him, he lay staring at the shadowed ceiling—thinking. Of what, beneath all the heat and fire, courtesy of the power, the passion, and the intensity that had undeniably ruled, had actually occurred.
Had happened.
There was no going back.
It had definitely not been what he’d intended—almost certainly not what she’d expected, either. But she’d stubbornly brought it on, engineered the encounter, and it had happened, come to pass, and so here they now were.
Somewhere they hadn’t been before.
He’d thought that being so dominant a personality, she’d recoil from being dominated—that she wouldn’t like it, would draw back from it. Instead, she’d gloried in his possession, welcomed and embraced it, and him, and wrapped him in something akin to heaven—an angel’s embrace. He’d thought she’d run screaming, at least figuratively. Instead . . . he was the one conquered.
The one now addicted.
She’d satisfied every dream—every potent desire—he’d ever had.
Even if he dreamt up more, and he could—definitely could—he felt certain, now, that she would happily fulfill them.
After what had happened . . . things between them had changed. Irreparably, irretrievably. He wasn’t going back, could no longer step back. Not now he knew what it was like to touch heaven and come to rest in an angel’s arms.
Even if she was, very definitely, no angel at all.
Seven
December 14, 1822
Mon Coeur, Torteval, Guernsey
L innet woke, once again, to the sensation of being filled, of being swept away, smoothly, irresistibly, on a tide of pleasure and quiet passion, of being taken, whisked high, and shattered, drained, then suffused with indescribable glory as she sank to rest, sated and blissfilled, in her lover’s arms.
As she slipped, helplessly, back into slumber, Logan slumped by her side, and felt his lips curve. His new direction was irrefutably right. Satisfied, reassured, he surrendered to the combined lure of her warmth and his satiation and let sleep have him again.
He woke as Linnet slid from the bed. Opening his eyes, he raised his head, looked at her. Arched his brows.
Linnet stared into his dark blue eyes—into the smug, distinctly masculine, self-satisfied expression inhabiting them—and nearly panicked.
She never panicked.
“Don’t get up—it’s early yet. You should rest.” After your amazing exertions of the night. And the morning. Desperately ignoring her naked state, she walked to where she’d dropped her clothes, swiped her chemise from the top of the pile, and tugged it on.
Better. She could still feel his gaze—all over. The flimsy chemise didn’t dull its edge. Donning her shift helped, gave her a touch more confidence.
Enough to ignore him as he rolled over the better to watch her dress.
She’d told him to go back to sleep, so she wasn’t going to talk to him. Talking could wait until her mind was working again.
It was early, earlier than usual, but she had to get away. Had to get out of sight of him, out of reach of him, before she did something stupid.
Like grab him again, demand he make love to her however he wished again.
Foolish, foolish , but how could she have known? No one had ever told her “making love” could be like that—something that seized you, sank claws so deep you couldn’t escape, then turned you inside out with need.
Before satisfying every last iota of that need with mindbending pleasure.
Her mind had definitely been bent. She didn’t think she could trust it to work again, not where he was concerned.
She kept herself facing away from the bed. Yet—damn it—she was already thinking, mentally flirting, with notions she shouldn’t. Like imagining what it would be like to keep him in her life. To have him there to satisfy . . . all he’d shown her, the deep cravings she’d never known she had.
Now she knew, and she couldn’t undo the damage. She would know she craved that—preferably with him—for the rest of her life.
Her lonely, largely solitary life. The life that stretched before her, much as the life she’d had to date—the one without a large, naked, entirely capable man in her bed.
Without a man by her side to share the day’s burdens . . . oh, this was not good.
On a personal level, she was alone, and always had been. She’d survived before, and she would again—once he’d left and she’d recovered her equilibrium.
Annoyance and irritation came to her aid. Annoyance at him for being all she’d never known she desperately wanted, irritation at herself for wishing for something that could never be.
Pulling a dark navy gown from her armoire, she yanked it over her head, tied the laces as she headed for the door. She was almost surprised to reach it without some comment from him, but she told herself she was inexpressibly grateful. Don’t look back.
She put her hand on the knob—and glanced at the bed.
Arms crossed behind his head, like a dark Adonis he lay watching her.
“I’ll see you at the breakfast table.” Opening the door, she stalked out, and shut it carefully behind her.
Any day—perhaps today—he would remember the missing pieces of the jigsaw of his life, and then he would leave.
That was the one thing above all others she had to remember.
The one thing she couldn’t afford to forget.
L ogan lay in her bed, lips slowly curving in a knowing smile.
It might not have been obvious, but his angel who was no angel had been flustered—that’s why she’d beaten such a hasty retreat. He doubted she approved of having her senses, let alone her will, suborned so easily.
He hoped this morning’s interlude had given her something more to think about, another perspective on what they’d shared last night. The same possessive passion, but a gentler, less blatant version.
Gradually, his smile faded as the challenge that lay ahead of him solidified in his mind.
He didn’t think he was married. He was starting to feel sure enough of his reactions to believe he couldn’t be; if he had been, his Calvinistic upbringing would have him writhing with guilt, regardless of whether he could remember or not.
He was almost certain he didn’t have a wife, almost certain he could ask Linnet to fill the role.
He was even more certain that when the time came, he could convince her to agree
.
One trait that became clearer, more pronounced, every day, was that he wasn’t the sort of man who gave up. Not when he’d set his mind on something, on attaining something.
And he wanted Linnet with a passion beyond anything he’d felt before.
In a few short days, she’d made him—forced him to—face his future, to understand and accept that she and this place of hers were elements he couldn’t do without. That they fulfilled him in ways, and to a depth, he hadn’t before thought possible. That his place there, securing it, was vital—that he had no choice but to incorporate her and all that was hers into his life.
She would be the lodestone around which the rest of his life would revolve.
How to make that clear to her, how to persuade her to accept the inevitable consequences . . . of that he wasn’t quite so sure.
Tossing back the covers, he rose and stretched, feeling more alive, more energized, than he could ever recall feeling before. Lowering his arms, he glanced at the door. Regardless of what Linnet might think, he already had a place in her life, one he was currently filling. No matter what she thought, he wasn’t going to surrender it, wouldn’t give it up.
He wasn’t going to let her go.
W hen he joined her at the breakfast table, he decided he might as well start as he meant to go on. After taking his usual seat on her left, and smiling and thanking Molly, who came rushing up with a plate piled with sausages, ham, and kedgeree, he looked at Linnet, met her eyes. “So what are we doing today?”
She stared at him, then repressively replied, “I haven’t yet decided what I need to do.”
“Whatever you decide, I’ll come with you.”
“I was thinking it might be better for you to rest after your disturbed night—perhaps help Buttons with the children.”
He held her gaze for a second, then glanced at the windows, at the gray day outside. “The weather’s closing in—the children will most likely stay indoors. I think it would be more useful for me to go with you.”
He returned his gaze to her face, scooped a forkful of kedgeree into his mouth, chewed, and kept his gaze leveled on hers.
Eyes narrowing, Linnet baldly stated, “I believe we should do whatever we can to prod your memory, but I’m not sure what else we can do.”
He nodded, finally gave his attention to his plate. “There must be something. I’ll think about it.”
Linnet bit her tongue against the temptation to reply; if he’d decided to stop baiting her—she was fairly certain that’s what he’d been doing—then she’d be wise to let sleeping dogs lie.
From across and down the table, Vincent asked Logan about cavalry mounts and stabling. While Logan answered, Linnet glanced around the table, confirming that none of the others had seen their exchange for the clash of wills it had been.
Head down, she finished her meal, absorbing the conversations bandied about the table, hearing more the sounds than the words. Buttons and Muriel chatting at the far end, their voices brisk, but light. Edgar, John, and Bright discussing something about the crops, voices low, while the boys’ bright, eager voices joined the conversation Vincent had started. Even Gilly piped up with a question. Logan’s deep voice was a rumbling counterpoint running beneath all the others, balancing and connecting the others into a harmonious whole. . . .
She inwardly shook herself, wrenched her mind from that track. No matter how well Logan fitted , he wouldn’t stay.
Exasperation tinged with frustration bloomed. She might want him to remain, might want that, and him, to a degree she hadn’t mere days ago thought possible, but realistically, she knew it wouldn’t work. If he stayed, there’d be problems. He’d want to lead, he was that sort of man, while she would never consent to handing over the reins—to stepping aside from the position she’d been born and raised to fill.
She ignored the niggling fact that he’d already shown a certain sensitivity over not stepping on her toes, that he might be intelligent enough to see and accept the need for compromise on the who-was-leader front. If he stayed they’d have to make their relationship formal, and that was where the intractable problems lay. This was her place; she would never leave it, but his home was in Scotland. And then there were the issues of gentility and expectations of ladylike behavior. He was a gentleman, an officer, yet while she’d been born a lady, certainly qualified as gently bred, she had neither the inclination nor the training to play the role of lady-wife.
And she certainly didn’t have the temperament.
With one last, dark glance at Logan’s black head, she pushed back from the table, rose, and followed Muriel into the kitchen.
She felt Logan’s dark gaze on her back, but he remained at the table, chatting with the other men while Buttons gathered the children preparatory to herding them upstairs for a full day of lessons.
Mrs. Pennyweather, Molly, and Prue were busy in the scullery. Muriel, a cup of strong tea in her hand, stood at the window looking out over the kitchen garden. Pouring herself a cup of the fragrant black brew from the pot in the middle of the big table, Linnet sipped, then went to join her aunt.
Her gaze on the garden, Muriel murmured, “I’m not going to ask, and you’re not going to tell, but . . . you’re fond of Logan.”
Looking out on the brown beds, Linnet sipped. Took the instant to consider her words. “Fond is as fond might be, but regardless, once he remembers the rest—the missing pieces—he’ll leave.” She hestitated, then added, “I’d rather that was sooner than later.”
So she could limit the hurt, the disappointment that she, and the children, too, would feel.
Muriel nodded. “Yes, that’s wise. Not a pleasant prospect, but inevitable.”
Linnet said nothing, simply sipped and fought to keep that looming prospect from dragging her spirits down.
“Smell.”
Linnet glanced at Muriel, saw her aunt frowning in concentration.
“I heard somewhere that smell is the most potent trigger for memory.”
Before Linnet could respond, heavy footfalls had her turning.
Logan halted in the doorway. “The others suggested we check in L’Eree to see if anyone or anything from the wreck turned up there.”
In terms of finding something to jog his memory, it was a reasonable suggestion, but of course he’d need her to introduce him to the locals, and ask the questions, too. She didn’t want to spend more time alone with him, but the sooner he remembered and left . . . the sooner this—her restless, chafing, disaffected mood—would end.
Setting down her cup, she nodded. “Very well—let’s go.”
Muriel stood at the window and watched Linnet and Logan, cloaks flapping, stride toward the stables. Behind her, Mrs. Pennyweather came out of the scullery, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Pennyweather,” Muriel said, her gaze still on the figures walking to the stable yard, “what spices do you have in your pantry?”
A longside Linnet, Logan rode back into the Mon Coeur stable yard in the early afternoon. The ride had been refreshing, exhilarating in parts, but their hours in L’Eree had been disappointing. In more ways than one.
No one in the small town had even realized there’d been a wreck, so they’d made no advance of any kind on that front.
A drizzling rain had settled in during the long ride back. After leaving their mounts with Matt and Young Henry, he and Linnet strode swiftly, heads down, to the house.
In the small hallway inside the back door, he shrugged off her father’s cloak, hung it on a peg, then reached for hers. As he lifted the cloak, heavy with damp, from her shoulders, she shot him a sharp, irritated glance, then stiffly inclined her head. “Thank you.”
He swallowed a snort. Her politeness was so thick he could whittle it.
That was the way it had been between them all day, a battle of sorts in which neither would yield. As far as he could manage, he’d seized every opportunity to underscore—to make plain to her—his view of her vis-à-vis him, and she’d bee
n just as relentless in holding firm to politeness and her “arrangement,” depressing his pretensions with haughty distance.
He followed her into the parlor as determined as she to prevail, equally irritated and, he suspected, a touch more grumpy. The rest of the household were already gathered, passing around delicate cups and mugs of tea and a plate of—he sniffed—some sort of spiced biscuit.
Eschewing the armchairs, he joined the children on the floor before the hearth. Buttons handed him a mug of tea, which he accepted with thanks, along with the plate of biscuits Muriel handed him. He set the plate down before the hungry children. “So what did you learn today?”
Accepting a cup of tea from Buttons, Linnet sat in her usual armchair and doggedly kept her gaze from the large male sprawled a few feet away. Their recent interactions reminded her forcibly of a battering ram thudding on a pair of castle doors—unrelenting force meeting unbending resistance.
From the moment they’d left the house, his attention had been constant. His gaze had rarely left her, his awareness of her had never faltered—any more than had hers of him. That hyperawareness irritated, but there seemed nothing she could do; the curse seemed an inescapable outcome of the heated engagements in which they’d indulged.
The sooner he left, the sooner her nerves, her senses—and her foolish, wanton heart—would recover.
Disinclined to make conversation, she found herself listening to the children, to their interaction with Logan. . . .
Damn! How the devil had he drawn so close to them so quickly?
Shifting, she studied the group, and a chill touched her heart. Not only because of the happy, engaged look in Will’s eyes, and the eager hero-worship on Brandon’s and Chester’s faces, or the settled content in Jen’s—but more than anything because of the outright adoration in Gilly’s innocent eyes.
She was supposed to be their protector. It was unarguably her duty to protect them as best she could from the disappointment, the distress, that would come when Logan left.
Glancing at Buttons, then at Muriel, Edgar, and John, she realized her entire household had, each in their way, fallen under Logan Monteith’s spell.
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