Apollo reared up wildly as a peal of thunder shook the earth. The sudden motion drove her and Archer apart, Brynn managing to grab Apollo’s reins before he spooked, and Archer doing the same with his horse. Water ran into his face and down his body, making the shirt beneath the open panels of his jacket stick to the muscled planes of his chest. Even in the rapidly falling darkness, the sight of him, illuminated by a streak of lightning, made Brynn quiver with want. Archer stared at her in a similar fashion, his eyes consuming her as greedily as hers devoured him. She gathered her breath, realizing the thin white shirt she wore wouldn’t offer much in the way of coverage. Her body burned at Archer’s ravenous gaze.
There were two choices open to them: he could go back to Worthington Abbey and she to Ferndale. Or…she could throw away every shred of decorum she had left and give in to the demands of her body—and her heart. She wanted him. She’d wanted him for so long, even before their encounter at Bishop House, when his hands and fingers had touched her to her soul. Brynn’s chest heaved with the force of the storm brewing inside of her. It surpassed the very real one howling about them. It was a storm only Archer could appease. Brynn closed her eyes and exhaled.
She climbed astride Apollo. “Follow me. My cottage. It’s not far.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Archer stoked the fire while Brynn changed behind a screen. He had tied the horses into the attached stall on the far side of the cottage, stocked with fresh hay and water for her horse’s use. Apollo didn’t seem to mind sharing his bed with a stranger.
The flames lent the inside of the cottage a warm, welcoming glow. He hadn’t been inside before, but everything about it felt like her. The cottage itself comprised a single room dominated by a bed on one end and the vestibule on the other. Books were crammed onto the bookshelves along one wall, and whimsical paintings graced the others. A tiny wooden table and a single armchair stood in one snug corner.
He shrugged out of his wet jacket, but kept the rest of his clothes on. Despite her suggestion of using the cottage to weather the storm, Archer didn’t want to make any assumptions. He wouldn’t touch her unless she invited him to. Because one touch, one taste, and it would be over. He wouldn’t be able to resist her, and he knew she, too, would give herself to him. Archer didn’t want her to make that decision in the heat of the moment, when her mind and her heart were in tumult. If Brynn wanted him the way he did her, he wanted nothing but her sober, self-possessed permission.
“There should be water in the kettle,” Brynn said, emerging from behind the screen. “For some tea.”
She had changed into a simple linen shift, a heavy blanket pulled around her shoulders. The sight of her made his breath catch. Like a barefoot duchess, she was fresh and innocent and completely beguiling. She joined him by the fire and combed her fingers through her damp hair. Catching the light, the wet strands gleamed like flame in her hands. Resisting the urge to gather her in his arms and bury his face in her hair, he did as she asked instead, boiling the water for tea while she sat upon a stool before the fire.
“Are you well? How are your lungs?” he asked, handing her a steaming mug. He remembered her draped in his arms, unconscious at the engagement ball, and a frisson of worry shot through him.
“The chill won’t take if I am warm and dry.”
Archer took another stool and moved to sit behind her. Her eyes flared at his nearness, but he did nothing more than run his fingers through the silky burnished coppery gold waves, holding them out toward the warmth of the fire.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He smiled. “Drying your hair.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
They sat in silence, the heat from the fire spreading quickly throughout the small room, and soon, Brynn’s hair was dry and soft, falling through his fingers like liquid flame. The sensual feel of it set his body on edge. He wanted to see that glorious hair spilling over her naked shoulders, feel it falling onto his chest as he brought her to the verge and back again. But first, he needed to clear the air.
“Brynn,” he began again. “I want to finish what I started to say earlier. What you did for me… No one has ever done anything like that. You put your life on the line to save mine, and to save my friend, with no concern for your own safety. I can never repay you for what you have done.”
“You don’t have to,” she said quickly.
He swallowed and nodded. “You were right when you said that I never intended to marry.” The wounded expression on her face had him rushing to continue. “I didn’t think I could be happy. And I didn’t want the burden of making someone else happy, especially when I saw what that had done to my mother. Until you stormed into my perfectly ordered life wearing naught but a pair of men’s breeches, I don’t think I knew what true living was. I don’t think I even knew what true happiness was.”
Archer sat forward on the stool, her hair still twined between his fingers. “I know only that when I am not with you, I am desolate. I know that I want to do everything within my power to make you smile and laugh. To make you come alive in my arms. I cannot imagine a second in my life without you in it.”
It was the truth, raw and honest. Every word spoken lifted a weight from his soul, until he felt lighter than he had for as long as he could recall.
Brynn drew a shaking breath. “What are you saying?”
“I went to Ferndale. Your lady’s maid told me that you had gone for a ride.”
“You came to find me?” she asked in an aching voice.
“Yes,” he said. “And to return these.”
Releasing her silky hair, Archer reached into his trouser pocket. Her eyes sparkled with tears as his hand appeared again, her grandmother’s pearl necklace and matching earbobs filling his palm.
“You didn’t sell them,” she whispered.
“No, and I realized why only a few days ago. I wanted to keep something that you loved close to me. It was a poor substitute, but my wretched heart couldn’t bear to part with them. I wanted your love, you see.”
“My love?” she repeated, her gaze sealing itself to his.
“Yes. Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?” he teased.
“You want my love.” She stared at him, her lower lip trembling.
“Of course I do. What do you think this is all about?”
“But…I assumed you felt obligated…”
He smiled at her. “No, darling, the only obligation I feel is to love you unconditionally for every last day of my life.” His hands rose to her cheeks, cradling them between his palms as he memorized every beloved curve of her face. “And in return, if you give me your love, your anger, your joy, your passion, your hope, your dreams, or any little thing you choose, I would be eternally grateful.”
Archer reached for her trembling hands, still clutching her pearls, and pressed his lips to her wrist. His heart nearly burst with the need to make her his in every single way. But he wanted her answer first. Her unclouded acceptance. “Marry me. For real this time.”
His fingers brushed away the single tear tracing down the apple of her cheek, his voice catching on his next words. “I am madly and foolishly and unquestionably in love with you, Lady Briannon, and if you don’t put me out of my misery by giving me an answer, I—”
“Yes. Yes.” Brynn pressed a finger to his lips with a tremulous smile, her eyes shining with the force of her emotion. “Will you please kiss me now?”
He groaned as he drew her into his lap and crushed her to him. He kissed her eyes, the slope of her cheek, her nose, before searching for the softness of her mouth. His bride-to-be parted her lips sweetly, offering herself to him completely. This kiss was the opposite of the one by the river, full of promise and love, but no less consuming. This time, Archer held no part of himself back. This brave and courageous woman in his arms was his sole reason for living, and he wanted her to know it as firmly as he did.
She set her pearl
s on her abandoned stool and turned her hands to his chest, unbuttoning the first button there and then the second. His breath grew shallow as her fingers brushed lower, freeing the next three in quick succession. “Brynn,” he groaned at the trail of heat her fingers left behind. “What are you doing?”
She smiled, mischief glinting in her eyes as she pushed the material off his shoulders. “We are engaged, are we not?” she said wickedly, repeating his words from the library in Hadley Gardens. Her palm grazed the naked skin of his chest, flicking past the ridged muscles of his stomach. He stopped its descent with one of his hands, his breathing harsh.
“I want you so desperately, I cannot trust myself to stop,” he rasped.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
Archer stared into eyes the color of clover and warm honey. The world tilted beneath his feet at the explicit invitation in them. The invitation he’d craved. The one he’d waited for, for an eternity it seemed. His hand curled into the lustrous silk of her hair as hers wound around his neck. He lifted her easily and crossed the room to the bed.
The blanket over her shoulders fell away, leaving her in only her thin linen shift. Her dusky areolas pushed against the cloth, already hard and hunting for his touch. Brynn flushed at his hot stare, but Archer wanted her to feel no shame in her body’s response to him. He wanted to suckle her and make her moan. He wanted to put his mouth on every inch of her body, just as he’d confessed in her study at Bishop House.
He set her down slowly at the side of the bed, inching her body along his until her toes touched the floor. His arms curved around her to release the string tie at the neck of her shift. The linen fell in a pool around her ankles. Without breaking contact, he lifted her and placed her on the bed. Clad only in sheer bloomers, she made no attempt to cover herself from him, even though she blushed furiously as his eyes swept her from top to bottom, devouring every sublime inch of her body.
“God, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he murmured, watching as the firelight played across her rosy skin. She looked doubtful at the compliment, but Archer meant every word, and he grew determined to prove it.
He had never seen anyone more perfectly formed. She looked like a wanton sprite with her hair fanning over the pillow. His sprite. Her breasts, fully bared to him, were as flawless as he remembered, even more perfect than his fevered memories. All the curves and hollows of her body were his to adore. Her long, shapely legs and the soft hourglass contours of her stomach tantalized and fascinated him. He wanted to make her writhe from his touch as she had in her study, see her eyes go dark with passion, feel her body convulse around him, bring her to blissful oblivion again and again.
Archer shrugged out of his shirt and shed his breeches, standing before her in nothing but his smalls. He didn’t want to alarm her, and the sight of his erection, already stirring underneath his linen drawers, could very well do just that.
But a slow, secretive smile crept over her lips—and Brynn clapped her hands to her face, smothering a giggle.
“Does something amuse you?” he asked, crossing his arms and waiting for her answer by the side of the bed.
“I have a confession to make,” she replied, biting back another grin, this one accompanied by her hands covering her face. “And I fear it may affect your”—her anxious gaze peeked through her fingers—“mood.”
Archer had no idea what her confession could be, or why she would choose now of all times to part with it. He was swollen and stiff, and these smalls needed to come off. “Brynn, my love,” he growled. “Unless it is a matter of life and death, I forgive you.”
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and the tantalizing sway of her breasts distracted him wholly as she reached for his leg. Archer remained still, the pad of her finger grazing the healed, shallow gunshot wound on his thigh.
“It’s nothing,” he said, dismissing the reddish-pink scar tissue.
She glanced up at him, her finger still stroking his thigh, making his body tighten with excitement. “It wasn’t nothing. You were shot.”
“You’ve been reading your father’s newssheets again,” he muttered, recalling once more the article on Lady Emiliah and her report that the bandit had been shot.
She shook her head. “I didn’t read them.”
He peered down at her. “Then how do you know?”
“Because I’m the one who shot you.”
His arms swung loose at his sides, and he caught her hand. “You?” He dragged up the murky recollection of the mysterious boy while staring at Brynn. Of course he’d considered the possibility, but at that time, she hadn’t known the bandit’s identity. He’d figured the Brynn he knew would have taken better aim—and then dragged his corpse off his mount and searched his pockets for her grandmother’s pearls.
“Yes, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t allow you to rob Lady Emiliah or her chaperone. And I was still furious with the marauder for robbing me.” She paused with a wry shrug. “I didn’t intend to kill you, just scare you a little.”
“You shot me!”
Brynn smiled again, clearly amused, as her fingers continued their exploration up his thigh. “In my defense, I did not know it was you at the time.”
“Would it have made a difference?” he asked, the soft titillating touches driving him to bloody distraction.
“Perhaps.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his scar. Her eyes rose to meet his, but they were waylaid by the telling bulge of his smalls.
Archer dimly recalled how the boy had shied away from removing his trousers.
“Why, Lady Briannon, how naughty of you,” he teased, loving the deep rose coloring of her cheeks. “Had I known it was you there in that cottage, I would have acted far differently.”
“What would you have done?” she replied in a breathy tone as he pulled her upward. He fitted her body against his and watched her eyes widen at the indelicate press of his hardened length.
“Why, I would have demanded you do the honorable thing and marry me at once!” He gave an exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes, imitating an artful coquette. “Think of my reputation. You lured me into a deserted cottage, manhandled my person; I could have been ruined.”
Brynn burst into laughter and threw a pillow at him. “You are a complete charlatan.” Tugging her back into his arms, he kissed her, and when they broke apart, she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Although I am sorry for hurting you.”
He grinned wickedly. “I know a way you can make it up to me.”
Taking her with him, he climbed into bed, the mattress sinking beneath their combined weight as he drew the sheet over them. He discarded the last of his clothing, and in a blink, the humor vanished from her face, replaced with apprehension.
“Don’t be afraid, love.”
“I’m not, but I don’t know what to do,” she blurted out, and then squeezed her eyes shut with embarrassment.
“Trust me,” he said. “Anything you do, I will like.”
Brynn peered at him through her lashes. “What if you don’t?”
“Do you like it when I touch you?” he asked. She nodded, her bottom lip pinned between her teeth. “Then you can trust that it will be the same for me.” He took her hand and placed it against his thudding heart. “Even the mere thought of touching you makes my heart race.”
“It makes mine race, too,” she admitted. Tentatively, Brynn ran a hand over his shoulder, the flat of her palm skimming down over his nipple and making a surge of raw pleasure spear through him. “Do you like this?”
His body clenched with desire. The woman had no idea what she did to him. “Yes.”
“And this?” She leaned over to seal her mouth to his, dragging her teeth across his lower lip. He felt the sleek push of her tongue, and tightened his hands in the sheets, forcing himself to remain still for every moment of her exploration. Her mouth traced a hot path to his ear where she nibbled his lobe, her hands skipping past his ribs to his abdomen. His entire body was on f
ire at her inexperienced, hesitant caresses. Her fingertips reached lower, brushing against his hips, and Archer couldn’t wait any longer.
“My turn,” he growled.
He settled his lips to her mouth, his hand sliding along the side of her breast until she arched against him. He kissed her slowly at first, and then with more fervor as her hands came between them to clasp his shoulders. He trailed kisses down her throat, her tiny moans exciting him even more than they had before. Finally, he set his lips to her breast, teasing the peak with his tongue before drawing it into his mouth.
“So incredibly sweet,” he said. “So perfect.”
This woman is going to be my wife.
This proud, beautiful, irresistible woman. And Archer loved her.
…
Awash in sensation, Brynn succumbed to Archer’s skillful caresses. Her fingers twined in his hair as he paid homage to her other breast before returning to her lips. He knew exactly how to make her burn for him. His kisses made sharp streaks of pleasure spiral through her as his tongue stroked hers, and his hands flicked down her sides to the waistband of her bloomers. His knuckles brushed against the velvety skin of her stomach to slip beneath the thin material. Brynn gasped at the intimate shift of his hands, and a knowing smile touched his lips.
“I’ve thought of nothing else since, too,” he told her. “The way you felt against me, the sweet, unhinged response of your body. I want to see you come apart again.”
My Rogue, My Ruin Page 36