"You’re the most exciting woman I’ve ever known," he said in a guttural voice.
She gave him a weary smile as he kneeled naked above her and without any preliminaries plunged into her full-length. Straightaway she toppled over into another climax. Better this time because he was with her.
"Oh, yes," she gasped as he moved inside her, seeming to penetrate so deep, he reached her very heart.
She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his back, feeling the way they flexed with every thrust. She crossed her legs over his buttocks, angling up to take more of him. She felt his crisis approaching, and this time, she couldn’t bear to exile him to his effortful, lonely relief.
"Stay," she forced out.
***
Not sure he’d heard her aright, Brock went stock still. He raised his head so he could see her face. "Selina?"
She brought him down for a desperate kiss, even as her body gripped him tighter. He was so close, he nearly spilled.
"It’s our last night, Brock. I want all of you."
Blazing excitement crashed through him. The idea of giving Selina everything he had was intoxicating.
He stared into deep brown eyes that glowed with some profound emotion he couldn’t put a name to. "Are you sure?"
Her lips lengthened in a smile that threatened to break his heart. "I want to know how it feels when you give yourself to me. I want to remember when we were truly one."
Even through his physical extremity, her bravery and her vulnerability touched his black soul. "Selina, you humble me," he said in a voice that cracked.
He bent his head, and she greeted him with another of those earth-shattering kisses. Curse it, he’d planned to spend days on end kissing her. Now they came to their last few hours, and he realized that he hadn’t kissed her nearly enough.
A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.
"Come inside me, Brock. I want to take that away with me."
He knew what a concession she made with that request. Within little more than a week, she’d share Cecil’s bed. When she asked this of him, she gave Brock her ultimate loyalty.
He’d promised her joy, but compared to what she’d given him in return, that was an insignificant gift. She turned him into a man he didn’t recognize. A better, wiser, more principled man.
"Selina, I may leave you with child." He hated that his conscience, so quiet through his adult life, awoke now.
"I’d love that," she said fervently.
"But if the child looks like me…"
"I’d love that, too."
He frowned, even as his unruly appetites urged him to accept her offer before she thought better of it. Most of his life, he’d been at the mercy of those appetites. Selina tugged on his desire more than any other woman ever had. But she also called on his heart and mind in a way unheralded in his reckless, selfish existence. "What about Cecil?"
Tears glittered in her eyes, and she bucked her hips toward him with an insistence that smashed through him like cannon fire. "Don’t talk about Cecil." Her voice broke as she went on. "In fact, don’t talk at all, damn you."
He couldn’t help settling deeper into her body. The effort of holding back became agonizing. "But you…"
Eyes bright with tears bored into his, as though she struggled to drill all the way to his soul. If she did manage to catch a glimpse of that unimpressive entity, she’d find her own reflection looking back at her. "Please, Brock. Please."
Knowing it was wrong, knowing he might cause her untold damage – Cecil wouldn’t take kindly to a cuckoo in his nest – Brock couldn’t resist her pleading. Nor could he resist the prospect of giving himself to her in the most profound way he knew.
After a brief, hard kiss, he began to move once more. It wasn’t long before his crisis built, flooding his head with dark heat. The rush started at the soles of his feet and flowed up his legs and focused on his aching balls.
Brock lifted his head from where he’d buried it in her shoulder. He needed to see Selina’s face when he gave himself into her keeping as he never had before.
She looked strained and on edge. Her eyes were heavy with the rise of her own climax, and her lips were satiny and full, parted to allow him a glimpse of her small white teeth.
He shifted again and watched her expression change to triumph as she crossed the barrier into feminine ecstasy. Then thought deserted him entirely. His muscles contracted in a wild spasm, and his seed spurted into her womb.
She cried out and dug her fingernails into his shoulders. The sting became yet another part of the incandescence. He moved over her, until he’d given her every ounce of the man he was.
It had been a week of unsurpassed pleasure. But nothing had prepared him for this blazing union when Selina became his blood and his bone and his flesh. She might leave him in the morning, but somewhere in eternity, they were united forever.
As he slumped over her in a haze of satiation he’d never felt before, she wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you, Brock," she said in a choked voice.
Chapter 10
Selina stirred from a restless doze with a premonition of looming disaster. She was sprawled across Brock, one arm crooked on his chest and her leg flung over his. It was as if even lost in oblivion, she couldn’t bear the idea of letting him go.
"Oh, no," she gasped.
With a gentle hand, Brock smoothed the tangled hair away from her face. "What’s wrong?"
She jerked away to sit up and stare down at him in horror. "I went to sleep."
The fire had burned low and the candles guttered, but there was enough light for her to see his tender smile. "You were tired."
She’d been silly with exhaustion. After that unprecedented moment when he’d filled her with his seed and she felt like the world exploded in a conflagration of light, they’d lain together in perfect communion, only talking now and again. Accepting his essence into her body had been a transcendent experience, one she’d treasure as long as she lived.
After a while, he’d begun to touch her, giving her another climax with his hand. She’d used her mouth on him again. That time, he lost himself between her breasts. Then, plague take her, she’d fallen asleep.
"But I don’t want to waste a moment." A horrid fear twisted her stomach. "Is it time for us to go?"
With a late sunrise and the curtains drawn, it was impossible to know how late it was. If she frittered away her last minutes at this house in sleep, she’d never forgive herself.
Rolling over, he lifted his pocket watch from the bedside table. He clicked it open and angled it toward the fire so he could see the dial. "No, it’s not five yet."
Two hours until they were due to leave, then. It wasn’t much of a reprieve. Selina had to reach London tonight, so they needed to be on the road before dawn. She couldn’t bring herself to contemplate the thought.
With a sleepy sigh, Brock set his watch back on the table and turned to curve his hand behind her neck. "Come here."
The low purr and the sensual gleam in his eyes told her he had plans for what time remained to them. She had no objection. How could she refuse one last chance to experience that radiant closeness?
The taste of his lips was delicious. The kiss soon turned carnal, and Brock crushed her into the sheets. She reached down to encircle his erection, and a growl of pleasure escaped her. "I don’t know how you do it. We’ve been going all night."
He caught her hand and drew it to his lips. "You’re all the incentive I need, my bonny."
She wriggled until she cradled him between her thighs. "Then don’t wait. I need to fuck."
His laugh was wry. "You’d better forget I taught you such dirty words."
As she bent her knees on either side of his narrow hips, she regarded him without smiling. "I never want to forget a single second of what we’ve done together."
His amusement faded, and she saw that he was doing his best to place a brave face on their forthcoming separation. The prospect of imminent parting left him devastated,
too. She should feel better to know that this affair had branded him, but she was too heartsick.
"Selina…" He kissed her again, a turbulent expression of desire and regret that had her heart cramping with poignant emotion.
She ripped her lips away from his and gazed into his face. The first time she saw him, she’d noticed his striking beauty. Now she saw so much more. Kindness and humor and intelligence. And care.
She wondered what Brock would look like when he was old. If he persisted in this life of idle debauchery, it would mark him. The cynicism he shed in her company would set a permanent sneer into his features. Whereas if he found purpose and happiness, his beauty would endure.
I could make you happy.
Selina capped that thought before it drove her to despair. Wishing for what she couldn’t have was the sure path to madness.
"Put your cock inside me," she whispered, despite everything a little shocked at such words leaving her lips.
He smiled down at her with the affection that she’d tried so hard not to rely upon. Because while he might be fond of her, she had no delusion that this affair would change his life. Once she was gone, he’d take another woman into his bed, then another. And despite her strictures to herself that jealousy did her no good, right now she was sick with jealousy. She wanted to hunt down those unknown hussies and rip every hair from their no doubt empty heads.
She supposed she’d hear about his new amours. The papers were quick to print any gossip about the disreputable Lord Bruard and his scandalous exploits.
Every time she saw his name, her heart would break all over again.
But that was in the future. A future that seemed as bleak and empty as a desert. At this moment, she had the man she wanted in her arms and he desired only her. She refused to let bitterness infect their last hours.
"Aye, with pleasure, my sweet lassie." His brogue was thicker this morning. Always a sign of strong emotion.
Reveling in the perfect union, she rose to meet him as he slid inside her. She’d spend the rest of her life feeling as though half of her soul was missing.
Brock propped himself up on his elbows and stared down into her face with intent green eyes. He set up a slow, relentless rhythm, penetrating to the hilt, before withdrawing in a smooth glide that made her quake. She reached her peak twice while he kept up that incessant rocking motion. With every thrust, he laid claim to her.
They didn’t speak. Their bodies said everything they needed to.
Only toward the end when Brock’s chest was heaving and his skin was damp with the effort of holding back did a guttural question escape him. "Shall I pull out?"
She firmed her grip on his hips and pulled him closer. "No."
Even then, the deep strokes continued, until Selina shattered into another exhausted climax. She was swollen and aching after all these hours of passion, but this final consummation was sweeter than honey. Sweeter yet was the moment he went still and groaned in release.
When it was over, he stretched out behind her, holding her in a loose embrace, as they’d lain so often in this bed. She blinked back acid tears and placed her hand over his where it caressed one bare breast. "You’ve given me joy, Brock. Such joy. Just as you promised."
She waited for him to respond, but with a broken sigh, he buried his face in her disheveled hair. His hold tightened, and they lay in silence as their last minutes together ticked away.
***
Brock glanced out the carriage window. "We’re not far from the Blue Wagon."
Yesterday’s break in the weather hadn’t lasted. The sky lowered heavy and gray, and sleet flew in the biting wind. The coachman would be as cold as an icicle and must curse his master for making him drive on such a bitter day.
So far, the roads had remained firm, frozen after the snow, but Selina knew the trip back to London would turn into a muddy nightmare. Even now, the coach showed a dangerous tendency to skid, and they were more than an hour behind the time she said she’d reach the Blue Wagon.
Selina sat up from where she leaned against Brock’s shoulder and smoothed her hair. Compared to the journey to the marshes, this trip had been uneventful. There had been no breathtaking sensual encounters. There hadn’t even been much conversation. Selina couldn’t bear to put the profound experiences of the last week into words, and the idea of discussing forthcoming plans made her feel ill. So she’d rested against Brock, trying to draw strength from the warmth of his arm around her.
He shifted across to the opposite seat. "Your carriage will be waiting?"
He’d asked her this already. She supposed there was some satisfaction in knowing he, too, was on edge about their imminent parting. "I hope so. I assume Kitty will be there, too."
"Gerald comes home from school tomorrow morning."
"Yes."
"That will be nice."
"Yes. Although it’s going to be a busy week."
Brock looked discontented and folded his arms over his chest as he kicked the base of his seat. "Because of the wedding."
"Yes."
The atmosphere between them turned thorny, although what else could she say? They both knew that in a few days, duty necessitated that she became Mrs. Cecil Canley-Smythe. As she drew on her gloves, her hands shook. In her private dictionary, duty had become a synonym for desolation.
Brock went back to staring moodily out the window. After a while, he released a deep sigh and directed his attention to her. "Don’t go back to him, Selina."
Shock struck her motionless. A silence crashed down between them, filled only with the creak of the carriage and the thud of the horses’ hooves.
She struggled to summon a response. "But you know that I…"
One elegant hand sliced the air. Brock was pale, and his jaw was set like iron. The green eyes glittered with furious determination. "Stay with me."
Brock, why are you torturing us both like this? It was difficult enough sticking to her purpose, without having cruel temptation thrown before her.
Her hands clenched in her olive green skirts. "You know that’s impossible."
"Why?"
What was his game? It seemed almost spiteful that he brought this up now. Because he must guess how it tore her apart to leave him. He knew all about women, and she’d done very little to hide her feelings.
So anger edged her tone when she replied. "I have Gerald to consider. I can’t become your mistress. I can’t tar his future with scandal." Her voice softened. "It would be different if I just had myself to consider. I’d stay with you and dare the world to despise me. Any price I paid would be worthwhile."
"Is that true?" He looked startled. "You’d give up everything in return for no guarantees?"
Her lips turned down. "I’d gain more than I ever lost. My good reputation has been a cold companion. You, on the other hand, make me feel as if I live every minute to the fullest."
He leaned forward to seize her hands with an eager desperation that threatened to break her heart. Who knew that a heart could break over and over? Each time the wound cut deeper. How in heaven’s name was she going to survive the years ahead? The thought of Gerald had kept her strong for so long, but even her stalwart love for her son quailed at the barren existence stretching before her.
"You would give me that?"
"Gladly." She gripped his hands hard. "But there’s Gerald. You can’t ask me to put what we have above what I owe my son."
"I don’t." He paused. "But hearing those words is something I’ll always treasure."
She blinked back idiotic, useless tears. "So you must see why I can’t stay with you."
His expression remained intent. Over the creak of the carriage, she heard distant shouting, but it couldn’t penetrate the fraught atmosphere inside the vehicle.
"I honor your devotion to your son." She knew he must think back to his own mother. The shouts outside grew louder. "But you’re a woman as well as a mother. What about you and what you need?"
Feeling stupid, she stared at
Brock. "I…"
The sentence ended in a sharp cry, as the carriage slewed to the left. Battling to keep her place on the seat, she heard confused yelling, the screams of frightened horses, and the crack of the whip.
"What the devil!" Brock surged forward to wrap her in his arms so when the coach swerved again and tilted onto its side, she smashed against him and not unforgiving wood.
"Brock?" she screamed, as the world turned topsy-turvy. Her ears rang with the crack of shattering wood.
His body was the one solid thing remaining. She clutched at him, as the carriage tipped even further and came to rest at a drunken angle.
When she caught her breath enough to open her eyes, she and Brock were huddled against the door. Broken glass showered them. Outside, it sounded like utter chaos reigned. Angry voices and neighing horses.
Brock’s embrace tightened. "For God’s sake, Selina, are you all right?"
"Yes, I think so. Are you?" She raised her head and through her dizziness, she saw that his face was stark with worry as he stared down at her. "You’re bleeding."
From under his disordered black hair, blood trickled down his forehead. "Am I?"
Dear God, let him be all right. Let him not be hurt.
Her shaking hand touched the sticky wetness. His quick thinking had saved her from injury. But she couldn’t bear to think that in protecting her, he’d sustained serious harm. "Does it hurt anywhere else?"
"I’m damned uncomfortable, but I think I’m fine. Some of the window glass must have caught me. I’m sure it’s just a scratch."
"Head wounds can be dangerous. Did you black out? Any double vision?"
The carriage lurched and settled further on its side, pitching Brock and Selina harder against the door which creaked in protest. She dared a glance out the shattered window and saw a muddy ditch below them. Her stomach dipped with vertigo.
Before she could right herself, the door on the other side slammed open and a stranger wearing a thick greatcoat stared down at them. "Are you hurt, maister, mistress?"
"Nothing serious," Brock said with admirable coolness. "What happened?"
The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress Page 13