His lips brushed hers, trailing a scorching path of openmouthed kisses down her throat. He plumped her flesh in his hand, the heat of his mouth enveloping the first aching peak. A strangled sound tore from her throat to blend in with the evensong of crickets and the haunting call of curlews. She clutched his head, fingers weaving in silken locks as his tongue spurred the tightly budded flesh, drawing the tip deeper. With each tender suckling kiss, connecting pulses throbbed between her thighs. And as he trailed a sizzling path to her other breast, licking and laving in erotic tugs on her flesh, she wondered dazedly if it was possible to die of pleasure.
“Le petite mort, but nothing altogether fatal,” he answered huskily.
Until that moment, she didn’t even realize she’d spoken aloud. “A little death?”
“Ummhmm . . .” he murmured, rising up to take her mouth. He teased her lips apart, the fine linen of his shirt abrading the tender peaks of her nipples. As he spoke, his hand skated beneath the bunched layers of her skirts, the heat of his palm warming the fine cambric over the top of her thigh. “At the inn, you referred to it as falling apart at the seams, right before you shuddered in my arms with my name on your lips. Did you like that little death, Ellie?”
She nodded wordlessly, lost under a siege of erotic sensation. And when his exploration reached the apex of her thighs, a wordless plea left at the first teasing pass against the opening of her drawers.
“Yes, sweetheart, just let me touch you here,” he whispered brokenly as his fingertips delved through the lace to the dark thatch of private curls. Her breath stuttered as he brushed the hidden seam, back and forth with tortuous slowness, until her shameless body was trembling with eagerness and tilting toward him. Then he slipped between the swollen folds, opening her slowly to his gentle prodding, expertly navigating the damply furled flesh. A tremor rolled through him and he expelled an oath on a strained breath. “So soft. So wet. So snug. And here”—his breath caught as the tip of his finger nudged inside—“is where I’ll fill you.”
His tender strokes eased into the velvety constriction, stretching her untried sheath until she welcomed the slick slide, her hips cambering toward the deep flex of his knuckles. Oh, oh, the torment was sweet and sublime. Her body arched, supplicant and aching. She wanted that cataclysm. Craved it.
But then he withdrew, and the night air swept over her dewy, throbbing sex.
“Wait, wait . . .” she panted, clinging to him, knees shaking with unspent desire. She gripped him, her hands coasting over his shirtsleeves and shoulders, needy and demanding.
He fastened his mouth to hers as if to soothe her, but it only intensified her desire. Unlatching her hands from around his neck, he slid them down the hard planes and ridges of his torso over the thick bulge straining against the fall front of his trousers. “Is this what you want, Ellie?”
There was no mistaking his meaning. If they continued on this path, there wouldn’t be any going back.
“Very much so,” she said without an ounce of trepidation.
Of course, that was before she began to trace the length of that hard column beneath the fine wool. In her mind’s eye, she was trying to imagine the museum statues that she, Winnie, Jane and Prue had once taken turns observing in depth while the others stood guard. However, this wasn’t the same at all.
She worried her bottom lip as she continued her exploration. Smoothing her hand down from the top fastenings to the taut mound below, she heard his breath stall as she cupped that part of him. Darting a glance to his face, she saw his eyes were heavy-lidded, hungry and dark, and slashes of color burnished the crests of his cheeks. He liked this, she realized, and a shiver of excitement clenched sweetly inside her as she nimbly worked the fastenings free.
The fall front draped open and his turgid flesh bounded free, proud and heavy. And intimidating. She couldn’t look away.
“But are you sure?” she asked. “You are, after all—and I don’t mean to criticize—rather considerable.”
A strained chuckle rumbled in his throat as she tentatively grasped the rearing flesh, hard and smooth like granite, hot like molten iron. “There’s nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid. But we’ll manage quite well. I’ll make sure of it.”
He covered her hand with his own, guiding her up and down the weighted shaft. Then he stopped, his breathing turned rough and labored. Lifting her hand to his shoulder, he stepped closer between her thighs and she felt the firm mushroomed head nudge her entrance.
A tremor rolled through her. But he kissed and caressed her again until her blood started to simmer in her veins, bringing her body to the very brink of ecstasy just before he edged inside the snug slickness. Just far enough to feel the stretch and burn of the intrusion. She heard his breath catch. She was holding hers. Then his hips jerked, pushing farther inside her shrinking body. Her fingernails bit into his skin. He withdrew and thrust again, and again until, finally, the seams of her maidenhead were torn.
He swallowed down her soft cry, kissing her tenderly as her virginal flesh clamped tightly around the stiff invasion.
“Breathe, love,” he said, his voice hoarse as if he were the one in agony.
How was she supposed to breathe? She felt surrounded with the marble niche at her back, and the man she loved impaling her from the front.
“Please, Ellie, please. Try not to wriggle just yet,” he groaned, his words stilted and strained and she went still. “That’s better. It will be easier now, I should think. Just kiss me again. Oh, how I crave these bee-stung lips, so soft and plump. Yes, love, yes. Give me your tongue. Mmm . . .”
She loved the way he kissed her, so tenderly, endlessly, while his hands massaged the stiffness from her nape, all the way down to the base of her spine, over her hips and thighs and fingertips. He touched and caressed her as if they had all the time in the world. As if the midnight sky wasn’t turning from black to violet to indigo and the moon’s descent wasn’t marked by the pale peach glow of the approaching dawn. Then he began to move within her in slow, gliding thrusts.
Ellie wasn’t certain when the pain shifted to a lovely ache, or when the ache turned into an awakening need, or even when she began to grip the taut muscles of his back. All she knew was that something altered. And it felt like the most natural thing to twine her arms and legs around him, giving herself over to the moment.
Somehow, she was moving with him, welcoming his driving body, clinging. Washes of sensation rippled through her. Their rasping breaths blended together. Perspiration bloomed on her skin, her fingers tangling in the damp locks at his nape. He gripped her hips, tilting her as he slanted in, deeper still, and stroked the pleasure-slick walls.
Her breath caught. Quickened. She saw the gleam in his velvet gaze as if he knew what was happening to her. A mewl left her, helpless and needy. He was relentless, drawing out stuttered pleas from her lips. The friction was exquisite and unbearable. Each thrust sparked spirals of heat, coiling tighter and tighter inside her until she wasn’t certain she could survive it . . . until she was sure death was imminent . . . until . . .
She shattered in a torrent of cries and unending spasms, her nails rending the seams of his shirt. Brandon drove faster, throat taut, staying with her until every last quake and tremor was spent. Then he gripped her hard against him and plunged to the hilt on a guttural groan, shuddering his own release in thick, molten surges.
For the long moments that followed, they remained joined, unmoving aside from the bellow-work of their burning lungs. Heads bowed to each other, their breaths converged, hearts racing in defiance of the little death they’d both suffered.
Then he kissed her again, fiercely, wordlessly, and then tenderly as he smoothed her hair away from her face.
She stared at him in wonderment as the pale light of dawn caught the burnished copper of his lashes. It was hard to believe this moment was real. She felt as though she’d awakened for the first time in a new world. And the way his gaze bore into hers with such intensity, she k
new he felt it too. Seeing that look caused a rush of warmth to rise beneath her skin, climbing to her cheeks. He smiled as he pressed a kiss to the pinkened crests, then lingered at her lips. And lingered some more.
Playful sips, nibbles and nuzzles, deepened into slow licks and deep tumbling kisses taking them headlong into another heady swell of passion. Her body clenched on a brief, sweet aftershock, gripping his flesh. He hissed, eyes squeezed shut, his hips pushing reflexively. And even though she could feel that he was not as hard as before, his girth and prodigious length still filled her and drew out her gasp.
She realized with a start that she wanted him again.
“You’ve turned me into a veritable beast,” he accused on a growl, seating himself firmly between her thighs. “Yet, as much as I would like to remain as we are for all eternity, if we tarry too long, I will end up taking you again. And that would be insupportable.”
Ellie was about to argue but he withdrew. A whimper of distress left her, not only due to her smarting sex but to the warm, viscous wetness that followed.
She was not so naive as to be ignorant of how babes came from coupling. But she’d never truly thought about it like this. In the past, she’d simply imagined herself surrounded by children—George’s children, to be exact. The sharing of breaths and heartbeats, the clinging desperation and soul-piercing intimacy of the act had never occurred to her.
It seemed foolish to her now, childish even, to not understand how much it would change everything.
Dazedly, she felt him gather her in the cradle of his arms, heard the echo of his boots strike the stones as he carried her across the folly floor and down the steps. “Where are you taking me?”
“Well, had I known you were going to declare yourself,” he said with a teasing grin tucked into the corner of his mouth, “I’d have come better prepared to see to your comfort. As it stands, however, it looks like the pond is to be your bath. Nevertheless, the cool water should soothe the tender flesh I ravaged.”
Embarrassment flooded her as reality rushed in. They had made love in the folly. Out of doors where anyone could have seen them! But she had been so swept away by an all-consuming passion that she hadn’t cared. Once that ebbed, however, she was only too aware of the repercussions of her actions. Of the proposal of marriage that would surely fall from Brandon’s lips. He was too much of a gentleman to leave it unspoken.
As he set her feet on the soft cushion of the clover bed by the pond and his hands coasted lightly over her body, she wondered how he would broach the topic. She was so distracted by the thought that she startled when he went down on bended knee. Then she blinked with another jolt to see that she was naked aside from her stockings and shoes, her dress and undergarments all pooled around her ankles.
Surely, he wouldn’t propose . . . not here . . . like this . . .
Shyly, she placed her hands in front of her sex and heard his low chuckle in response as if he’d read her thoughts. But he said nothing as he untied her garter ribbons and pressed a quick kiss to the bare skin just above her stockings. Then he lifted her foot, which forced her to move her hands to his shoulders, leaving her fully exposed before him.
He removed one slipper and then the other, before he eased the silken stockings down her calves. Slowly, he stripped them away and dragged the tip of his thumb along the bared arch, sending darts of tingles up along her inner thigh.
It stole her breath, the way he gazed up at her as if the universe formed in her eyes, the beginning and end of all creation. George had never looked at her that way.
A rush of guilt filled her as the thought entered her mind. She shouldn’t be thinking about George at a time like this. And yet, how could she not when she’d planned her whole life to be with him? Her love for Brandon was so new by comparison. But she did love him, and so much that she was still reeling from it.
Brandon shucked out of his trousers and kicked his top boots off to the side. He stood in front of her in his shirtsleeves for only an instant before he lifted his arms, elbows high, and reached back to his shoulders. Then, in one fluid motion, stripped out of his shirt and dropped it on the ground.
Any thought of George—or really any intelligible thought at all—left her.
Her gaze skimmed greedily over broad shoulders, tightly loomed arms and a firm chest lightly furred with bronze curls that shadowed the flat brown nipples. His rib cage looked solid and strong, completely impervious to harm.
Unconsciously, she stepped closer and her fingertips took the same path, feeling the exciting flex of warm muscles, the smooth texture of his skin, the crisp hair, the velvet discs that pebbled beneath her touch.
Her unabashed exploration continued down the taut horizontal ridges of his abdomen, seeing a slight ripple as she descended to the shadow of his navel where a thin line of hair trailed down to a darker thatch and the imposing jut of his erection. Fascinated, she stroked a fingertip along the hard length, the flesh bobbing toward her palm as he hissed in a breath, his hands fisted at his sides.
She gripped the heated girth that was like forged iron enrobed in silk, the dusky flesh slightly damp and glistening from their coupling. “Are you always thus?”
A choked sound left him, his voice frayed and ragged like old rope. “Only when I see you, or hear your voice. Catch your scent in the air. Touch you. Taste your sweet kiss”—he hissed as she glided toward the tip—“or think of you. In other words, Ellie, yes. Always.” Panting, he covered her hand and drew it away, his eyes dark and hungry. “I fear, I will never get enough of you.”
Her pulse quickened, as did other, more tender, parts of her anatomy. She thought that admitting and expressing her love would give her some relief. And it had. But it was short-lived. The need, that gnawing ache, seemed even greater now.
So, she stepped into his embrace. Twining her arms around his neck, she lifted her face for his kiss and she was rewarded when his strong arms cinched tightly around her, the heat of him throbbing against her midriff.
“Then take more,” she whispered. “Take all you need.”
In a flash, he unlocked her arms and withdrew as if scalded, his gaze almost accusatory. “You’re too new to this to understand what temptation you’re offering.”
An irrepressible giggle escaped her and he admonished her on a low growl, clasping her hand firmly then marching her to the water’s edge without further delay.
As if sensing the dark mood of a large aroused beast in their midst, even the frog-song quieted at their approach, a small splash following. She heard a distant drip and plop, felt the startlingly cool rush of water over her ankles and calves, and was surprised to realize that she wasn’t worried about what lingered under the surface. She was too caught up in watching the way he moved, the shifting of the muscles along his back, the firm flex of buttocks and thighs with each step past the lily pads.
He stopped abruptly beneath an arch of bending willow branches that dipped into the dark rippling water. Then he turned to face her and caught her looking.
She blushed and he cursed under his breath. The next thing she knew, he was pulling her against him. With a hand at her nape, he kissed her hard, roughly searching as if he’d lost all control. And she welcomed it, her own desperation building.
She loved the feel of him, the abrasion of his chest hair against her nipples, and she undulated against him until they were taut and achy. He kneaded her breasts to heavy fullness, spurring each tender tip as her womb fluttered and clenched. Then he cupped her sex, bathing her with the cool water, navigating every furrow, drawing out each sensation with deft strokes until she was gasping and writhing, then breaking in unending shudders.
She sagged against him, her knees seemingly made of bowing willow branches, too weak to support the sated, suddenly sleepy weight of her body.
Lifting her in his arms, he carried her up the bank and pulled his discarded shirt over her head. The scent of him filled her lungs as the linen settled in a soft embrace against her skin. She yawn
ed and blinked at him, passion-drugged and drowsy.
“It looks as though you’re in need of a nap,” he said, a hint of male pride in the curve of his lips. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, his thumb leaving a trail of tingles as it skated over the shell. “We’ll rest here for a short while.”
After donning his trousers, he left her for the barest moment only to return with all their clothes, and then spread the saddle blanket over the grass and clover. Lowering her to their makeshift bed, he arranged her body to face away from him until they were like spoons in a drawer. And with her head resting on his arm, he lulled her into a quick slumber with gentle passes down her arm to her hand, twining their fingers.
She’d never felt so sheltered or cherished.
* * *
Unfortunately, that did not stop the nightmare from coming.
She could smell the worms, the odor like mildew, rotting fish and death. Death was all around her. She could hear it in the strike of the hammer to the coffin nail. And when her dream-self opened her eyes, there was only suffocating darkness and the hollow patter of wet dirt falling on her coffin.
Gasping, she clawed at the wood, a scream lodged in her throat.
But something was different this time.
Brandon was there. She felt his arms around her in a comforting band, shielding her from Death’s grip. And she heard his voice whisper in her ear, “Shh . . . I’m here, Ellie. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
His hands wandered in a slow massage that worked away all the stiffness from her muscles. Caressing her endlessly, he knew precisely where to touch and soothe, until she was like pulled taffy beneath those skilled fingers. She melted against him, back to front, and felt his heat and hardness press against her bottom. But as much as she enjoyed this, it wasn’t giving her what she needed.
She wanted him inside her. Needed him to fill the wounded emptiness. To make the nightmare disappear completely.
She didn’t care if it hurt or if she was too raw from before. Time was slipping away from them. Time was the enemy of every person because it brought everything—even bright new beginnings—to an ultimate end. It hovered like a dark specter. She could feel it like the approach of a heavy rain.
The Wrong Marquess Page 30