by Kate Bateman
He groaned against her lips. Emboldened, she stroked her hands around his ribs, then over the intriguing ridges of his abdomen and up, over the swells of his chest. He was so warm. Her fingers slid over the rough circles of his nipples.
He pulled back with a muffled curse. “God, Maddie. We have to stop.”
They were both panting hard. His lashes were a dark tangle in the candlelight, and a faint flush heated the jut of his cheekbones. His lips were wet, glistening from the kiss, and she leaned in to capture them again, desperate for another taste, but he caught her arm, keeping her away.
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if praying for strength, then with a half groan, half laugh he rested his forehead against hers.
“I never thought to hear myself say this, but we can’t do this. Not here, at any rate.” He leaned back and stared at her, his fingers tightening at her nape as if to impress on her the sincerity of his words. “Believe me, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I’d rather be doing than making love with you, but we can’t do it here, on the rocky floor of some bloody cave. Your first time shouldn’t be like this.”
A wave of recklessness seized her. The chances of them getting out of here were minimal. And if she was going to die, she bloody well wasn’t going to die a virgin.
She caught a fistful of his hair in her fingers and tugged. Gryff was so chivalrous—at least where she was concerned—he’d probably refuse her even this one, last, scandalous request. Still, what did she have to lose?
“You’re right. My first time shouldn’t be like this. But it might be the only chance we get.” She leaned closer. “It’s not the location that’s important. It’s the person.” She traced the seam of his lips with her tongue. “I need you to save me from the dragons.”
“What?” His confusion was clear in his tone.
“You said dragons only liked virgins. So make me safe.”
His entire body stilled as he grasped her meaning. “What?” he repeated stupidly.
“You heard me.”
He let out a sharp bark of disbelief. “You must be joking.”
“I assure you I’m not.”
Suddenly bold, she straddled him, and she couldn’t fail to miss the bulge of his arousal pressing against her belly. He was hard, ready for her. Her, Maddie Montgomery! Not one of the sophisticated London matrons. Not some highly skilled courtesan. Her.
It was a miracle as impossible to believe as her lightning strike, but she wasn’t going to question it. She wanted him too.
He kissed her again, hard, but disappointment swamped her as he gently moved her aside. She was about to protest, to beg, until she caught sight of his face.
“You realize this is the worst possible location?” he growled. “A man can’t be expected to do his best work under such circumstances.”
She bit her lip, torn between apologizing and laughter. “I know it’s not ideal, but I was hoping a man of your … experience … might be able to overcome the difficulties.”
She’d take his worst efforts over anyone else’s best.
His brows drew together in an exasperated frown. “Damn it all, Maddie. Couldn’t you have asked me somewhere less … dank? A bedroom. Or a library. God, we could have done this so well in my library.”
The sensual promise in his tone made her pulse flutter. “Well, yes. I realize that now. But still … this seems to be where we are.”
“You really want to do this?”
“Positive.”
His hungry gaze roved her face, and she saw the exact moment he gave in. Her stomach somersaulted in excitement.
“Well then. Far be it from me to deny a damsel in distress.” In a sudden flurry of movement, he shrugged out of his jacket and spread it flat on the ground, then caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head.
Maddie sucked in a gasp of delight as he exposed his muscled chest. Oh, he was beautiful, all shadows and ridges in the candlelight.
Seized with the same urgency, she slipped the satchel off her shoulder and wriggled out of her own jacket, then stilled as Gryff reached out and tugged the bottom of her shirt from her waistband. He unbuttoned it with agonizing slowness, holding her gaze captive, his eyes filled with heat and teasing challenge. The slide and pop as each button slipped from its buttonhole seemed unnaturally loud in the still air.
Dear God, they really were going to do this!
When he pushed the material from her shoulders, revealing the bandage tied around her upper arm, she sucked in a breath.
He bent and kissed the side of her neck. “Now, this is the kind of archaeology I like. Removing the layers to find the treasure beneath.”
His fingers found the ribbons of her stays, and she smiled when they resisted his attempts to untie them. She pushed his hands away and undid the knots herself, and when the constriction fell away she was left in just her thin lawn chemise and her skirts.
There was no time to feel exposed. Gryff’s lips found hers again and she closed her eyes and slid her fingers into his hair, sinking into glorious sensation. She lay back and he followed her down, stretching out beside her, and she ran her hands over the muscles in his arms and chest, greedy for the feel of him.
When he pushed her chemise down to her waist and cupped her breast she shivered in delight. It was hard to see his face clearly in shadows, but there was no mistaking the reverence in his tone as he rose up on one elbow and looked at her.
“God, Maddie, you’re perfect.”
He brushed her nipple with his thumb, then dipped his head and caught it in his mouth, and her limbs turned to water. Heat raced through her veins. The rasp of his tongue brought her out in goose bumps and she arched her back, shamelessly offering more.
He transferred his attention to the other breast.
“Beautiful,” he sighed.
Chapter 38
Gryff groped around for logic. For honor. For some reason why they shouldn’t do this. But Maddie’s floral scent was clouding his brain and making it hard to think. The desire he’d been tamping down for so long roared back to life with a vengeance. His blood was pounding in his veins. All he could feel was her.
He took her mouth like a man dying of thirst, as if the taste of her could slake the need inside him. She was nectar. Ambrosia. He couldn’t get enough. He gave her lower lip a gentle tug with his teeth and then delved inside, stroking his tongue against hers, drinking her in. Her fingers tightened in his hair and she wriggled against him, fanning the flames with her innocent ardor.
His heart felt like it was being crushed in his chest. That day, when he’d ridden over the hill and seen her waiting for him on the bridge, when he’d kissed her that first time and it had felt so bloody right. Why the hell hadn’t he just swept her up onto Paladin, ridden back to Trellech Court, and taken her to bed for a week?
He was a bloody simpleton, that’s why.
There were so many things he wanted to teach her. So many things they’d never have the chance to do. All those dreams he’d had of making love to her in his bed, in a cornfield, under the stars. A hundred thousand places. None of them would happen now. There was only this. This moment. This woman.
But if this was all they had, he’d take it.
He’d take anything from her.
He sucked in a breath, trying to control himself. Maddie lay beneath him like some pagan goddess, her hair a dark cloud around her face. Shadows painted flickering crescents beneath the curve of her breasts and danced over the smooth lines of her throat.
God, he’d dreamed of this a thousand times.
Each time he’d been about to ride into battle, each time he’d thought he couldn’t walk another step, he’d allowed himself this fantasy. It had sustained him for years and he’d sworn that one day, if he could just survive, he’d make it back to England and make love to Maddie Montgomery until they both saw stars.
He wasn’t sure if he’d truly believed it. It had been an impossible dream, something to keep him going in his d
arkest moments. But now it was actually happening, and reality was a thousand times better than his paltry imagination.
He watched, almost in a daze, as his sun-browned hand stroked down the center of her chest and covered her breast, dark against light. She watched him out of half-closed eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly, wary and yet so trusting.
Her skin was soft, so soft.
In his fantasies he’d seduced her with the silver-tongued words of the Welsh poets. But the poetry of his ancestors had deserted him. He could only think in monosyllables.
Mine. More. Now.
He leaned down and kissed her, drowning as she filled every one of his senses. He stroked her ribs, her hips, loving the way she writhed beneath his touch, then moved lower, bunching up her petticoats and sliding his palm up her stockinged leg. She tensed when he passed her garter and stroked the top of her thigh, and her fingers tightened in his hair as he slid inward and found the slit in her drawers.
He skimmed the springy mound of hair at the apex of her thighs, then slid one finger through her feminine folds, exactly as he’d dreamed of doing in his library. She moaned against his mouth.
God, she was slippery and wet. So ready for him. Her back bowed and her fingernails dug into his biceps, and when he stroked her she almost jolted out of his arms.
“Oh!”
The base of his throat felt hot and tight. He circled the entrance to her body, loving the way she squirmed against him. His blood pounded heavy through his veins, hot with anticipation.
“Oh, that is … unghh … don’t stop,” she breathed.
He pushed his finger into her, barely an inch, catching her little gasp of shock with his lips, loving the way the heat of her welcomed him. Her arms tightened around his neck as she tried to move upward, away from his hand, not knowing what she wanted.
He showed her. He pushed deeper, mimicking what he wanted to do with his body, and her inner muscles clenched around him as he started a slow, rocking rhythm he knew would drive her to distraction.
“Gryff!” Her voice held a brittle, demanding edge as she squirmed to get closer, to end the torment.
He swirled his thumb, and with a hoarse cry of pleasure she convulsed in his arms. She melted against him, utterly boneless as he gently withdrew his hand and hugged her tight to his chest.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed against his neck. “I had no idea.”
His smile widened at the sheer wonder in her tone. “There’s more. Let me show you.”
He kissed his way down her body until his broad shoulders were between her legs, then he leaned in and tasted her. She bucked so hard she almost dislodged him, but he curved his arm around her thigh and bent her knee to give him better access.
“Let me. You’ll like it. I swear.”
She subsided with a shuddery sigh.
He licked the entire length of her, softly, and the taste of her made his head spin. He found the little pearl and flicked it with his tongue, then added his fingers, savoring every hitch in her breathing, every fevered moan. Her grip on his hair tightened to the point of pain, but he relished the sting.
“Gryff Davies!”
His name on her lips was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. Her limbs stiffened, and her inner muscles contracted around him. A deep masculine satisfaction filled him, but his blood was still pounding in his veins, a steady insistent drumbeat that centered in the head of his aching cock.
With a fumbling hand he unbuttoned his breeches and palmed his own length, stretching out over her. She was still panting, her gaze unfocused, but she reached up and pulled him down for a kiss. He propped himself up on his forearms, careful not to crush her, aware of how small she was, how fragile. How precious.
The thought checked him for a moment. Christ, he needed to slow down. This was her first time; she was a virgin, for God’s sake. What was he doing, tupping her on the hard ground like some common trollop at Vauxhall?
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, as if she sensed his sudden indecision. “Not now.”
The pleading in her voice was his undoing. With a groan, he moved against her. The blunt end of his cock slid along the seam between her legs, nudging at her entrance. He angled his hips and pushed into her, his muscles quivering with the effort to go slow, when what he really wanted was to pound into her and never stop. Never stop.
Her eyes widened at the intrusion and he kissed her, hard. He slid in another blissful inch and almost blacked out with pleasure as she softened and relaxed, accepting him. She wriggled her hips and he slid in even more, then held himself still within her as he waited for her reaction.
She let out a shaky exhale, and he braced for a complaint, for her to tell him to withdraw, but she just wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“So that’s how much you hate me,” she breathed.
Her voice was a mixture of wonder and wicked laughter, and he let out a surprised snort. The cheeky minx.
“Hate me some more.”
Power and elation washed over him. He rocked his hips to punish her for her insolence, and enjoyed the way her eyes widened in shock.
Oh, the things he was going to show her.
Chapter 39
Maddie’s body wasn’t her own. She moved, driven by instinct, lifting her hips to try to recapture the glorious sensations Gryff had shown her with his hands and mouth. The feel of him inside her was a strange sensation, and yet it felt so right. So good. Each rock of his hips sent shivers of pleasure coursing along her limbs.
She wanted that elusive peak he’d shown her with a desperation that made her hold her breath, half agony, half bliss. She dug her nails into his shoulders, silently urging him on, but before she could get there he stopped moving and dropped his head to her collarbone.
“Why are you stopping?” she gasped.
Was that it? Was he finished? Surely not—he was still rock-hard inside her.
He let out a groan like a man being tortured on a rack. “Bloody hell. I don’t have any French letters.”
She frowned into the shadows. “What?”
“To prevent a child.”
Ohh. Disappointment made her belly swoop. “So we have to … stop?”
He raised his head. The change in position slid him even deeper, and the delicious friction made them both gasp. He rested his forehead on hers and she could feel the tremors in his arms as he fought for control.
“We don’t have to. I can pull out before I finish,” he said. “Do you trust me?”
Maddie didn’t fully understand what he meant, but she definitely didn’t want him to stop.
Perhaps their close brush with death was responsible for this primal need, but she suspected it was more than that. She’d wanted this for longer than she could remember, before she’d even known what she craved. And she did trust him. Not just with her body, but with her life.
She pushed a lock of his hair back from his forehead. “Don’t stop.”
He let out a shaky sigh, and she saw a flash of humor as he smiled. “As the lady commands.”
He moved, the smallest, most insidious of slides, and his smile grew knowing as a shiver of pleasure ran through her.
Oh, he was a tease. A shocking, shameless rogue.
And she loved it.
He reached down and pulled her leg up, over his hip, and the new angle sent the promise of ecstasy skimming through her limbs. He filled her with slow, lazy strokes, perfectly relentless. Each push wound her tighter, tighter, like the coiled spring in a pocket watch.
Maddie closed her eyes, lost in carnal sensation. She pulled him down and kissed him, loving his taste. He slid his hand between them and another climax rushed up to claim her. Stars exploded behind her eyelids and her body pulsed with pleasure, beat after beat of soul-burning joy.
Every muscle in her body went lax, and she was vaguely aware of Gryff, pressing his face to the hollow of her throat with a muffled, impassioned groan. He thrust again, all power and urgency, then withdrew with a h
arsh groan. The hardness of him pressed against her belly and he shuddered convulsively. With a sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, he collapsed on top of her, utterly boneless.
Despite his crushing weight, Maddie smiled at his helplessness; it was such a contrast with his normal, invulnerable state. She loved the fact that she’d reduced this man to such a helpless case. The feeling mellowed into a deep rush of affection, a sense of repletion she’d never experienced before.
She tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his head and stroked him lightly, like a child. Her heart was full, her senses reeling with the wonder of what they’d just done.
After a few moments he seemed to come back to himself. He rolled off her with a groan, and the cool caress of the air immediately had her wishing for the warmth of his skin. She cast about for something to say, but her brain was a barren wasteland.
“Bloody hell,” he panted.
That seemed as good a phrase as any. She let out a soft, incredulous chuckle. “Bloody hell.”
Her body was still shaking with aftershocks. What Gryff had done to her was beyond anything she’d ever expected, anything she’d ever imagined. It was like fireworks going off in her blood, the exhilaration of leaping off a bridge and crashing into icy water. His scent was in her nose, his beautiful body next to hers, and she realized she’d never felt this safe, this sated in her life.
So … happy.
Which was ridiculous, because they were still stuck in a cave.
But at least she was safe from dragons.
She tried to summon regret, and failed. She might be “soiled goods” now, according to the strictures of the ton, but she couldn’t really care. She appreciated that those rules existed for her own protection, but they paled into insignificance when faced with matters of life or death.
Gryff turned his head and sent her a wry, regretful smile. “We can’t stay here, much as I’d like to. We’ll catch our deaths. Come on.”