How to Wed a Warrior

by Christy English

  Her breasts were pushed up by her stays, waiting to be covered by his mouth. Her shift was so thin as to be almost sheer and hid little, especially with the firelight beside her. Robbie lowered his head and pressed his face between her breasts, taking in the scent of her. He felt her hands in his hair, and knew that he was close to losing his mind. There was something else he had wanted to talk to her about before he had her for the first time. Before he made her completely his.

  His lips toyed with her breast where her shift covered it. He drew her nipple onto his tongue, where he laved it lovingly, meditatively, as if it held the answer he had been seeking. He heard her moan then, and knew that if he was going to talk to her, it had better be now.

  He drew back again, and her hand tightened in his hair. “Robbie,” she whimpered, as his mouth left her breast. Her peaked nipple still reached for him, and its sister, too. He wanted nothing more than to answer their call, but he had to speak while he still had some semblance of his wits about him.

  “If I stay, you’ll be my wife.” That was too abrupt. It was not the proposal he had meant to make, nor was it the voice he had meant to make it in. He swallowed hard, thought to put his lust aside and try again, when she answered him.

  “I want to be your wife, Robbie.”

  Her voice was sweet, and her eyes, while filled with desire for him, were clear. Their indigo depths met his unflinching, and he drank in the sight of them, and the love he saw there. She had not yet given him the words that night, but he knew that she loved him. It seemed he had always known, just as he had always known that he loved her. Words were good, but the knowing was better.

  Just the same, something niggled at him—a fear that, come morning, loving him as she did, she still might turn her back on him and walk away.

  “Swear it,” he said.

  She blinked, but the blue of her eyes was clear, and her love shown there, a fire he might warm himself in for the rest of his life. “I don’t swear oaths.”

  “You will with me.” He brought her body against his, using his touch to soften the harshness of his words. All of his hard-won courtesy seemed to have flown, and all he could manage were harsh, simple sentences that spoke the bare, unvarnished truth.

  She swallowed hard, and took a tremulous breath. “I swear, Robbie. When tomorrow comes, if you still want me, I will marry you.”

  He let his own breath go, and realized only then that he had been holding it, waiting for her answer. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from between his shoulder blades, and a second weight from his heart.

  “Prudence Farthington, I want you for all my tomorrows. Now come here.”

  Thirty-one

  Pru had never felt as safe as she did in Robert Waters’s arms. She pushed aside all thoughts of tomorrow, all worry for her brother, all fear that she might bring the Waters family into ruin with her. She was grateful Albert was alive, and whether she and Robbie married or not, tomorrow they would rescue her brother.

  But now, for this blessed moment, she was alone with the man she loved, and she was going to enjoy every moment of it.

  Since she’d accepted his demanding proposal, Robbie had become much more focused on her body, as he had been the night before. He stared down at her breasts, which longed for his touch. She raised them higher, hoping he might take her silent hint. He caught her eye and smiled at her, then leaned down and took the second breast into his mouth, the one he had not yet kissed.

  Her hands were in his hair, and she heard herself moaning as if she were in pain. And the pleasure was so keen that it was almost pain as he drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked on it, his tongue rolling over it while his thumb played with the other.

  Pru had a deep ache in her nether regions, an ache that felt almost like a hunger for food, but no food she had ever eaten. She wanted his mouth on her again, and the pleasure it brought. But more than that, she wanted his body covering hers, shutting out the world, all the darkness of her past, and all the darkness yet to come.

  Robbie’s hands moved, and she pressed herself against him, writhing, unable to contain herself or to keep still. He murmured something soothing in Gaelic, his lips moving down her body over the top of her shift. His hands were callused, snagging at the delicate linen. She moaned and reached down, starting to draw her shift off.

  “No,” he said. He spoke against her throat. “Let me.”

  He reached down and took her hand in one of his large ones. She shivered as he helped her draw the soft, fine linen up the line of her body, caressing her skin with his hand and hers together. She shuddered, saying his name, but his mouth covered hers again as he tossed her shift aside.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  Pru knew that could not possibly be true, but thought that perhaps love had blinded him. Then she felt his lips on her breast again, and found that she did not care.

  He laved and caressed her with his mouth and one hand, and his other hand found the lacings of her stays. His fingers worked quickly so that they fell away, and she was standing in just her shoes and stockings, the firelight warm on her bare skin.

  She shivered again, this time with pleasure, and Robbie raised his head from her breast long enough to gaze down her body.

  “We’ll leave your stockings on.”

  He picked her up then and carried her to his bed. He did not toss her down or drop her, but laid her down very gently, as if her body were an egg that might crack. He let her lay there as he looked down at her, stripping off his waistcoat and trousers.

  She caught a glimpse of muscled thigh as he joined her on the bed, wearing only his long linen shirt. Her mouth went dry. Pru stretched out and ran one hand down his thigh to his knee, fascinated by the hard sinews and muscles of his leg. He was so different from her, and so beautiful. She wanted to look beneath his shirt, too, but when she ran her hand back up his leg in an attempt to delve under the linen folds, Robbie laughed and caught her hand in his.

  “Now, Lady Prudence, let us reflect on your name and use a bit of prudence here, shall we? A lady does not strip the clothes off a man.”

  Pru smiled up at him, savoring the challenge. She rose up on her knees, and pushed him back on the bed, so that he lay beneath her. “Is that so? Well, Robert Waters of Glenderrin, this lady does.”

  He chuckled a bit at that, but he seemed to lose his taste for humor as her hands went beneath his shirt again, drawing it up from his thighs inch by inch. His manhood was hot beneath her hand, but as she did not know what to do with it yet, she let it be. She drew the shirt higher, over his chest.

  His breath hissed out between his teeth, and he caught her hand in his when it grazed him, but when she did not try to touch him there again, he let her hands wend their way up his torso, to safer ground.

  Pru found that she could not get his shirt over his head and shoulders. He leaned up, his lips grazing her bare breast as he helped her raise the bundle of linen up and away from him. It fell somewhere on the floor, in a pile near his breeches on the plush carpet. Pru leaned down and pressed her nose to his chest.

  “No man should smell as good as you do,” she said. “It is probably illegal.”

  “Aye?” he answered, a little breathless. “Are the king’s men fit to burst in here then and break us up?”

  Pru frowned and looked toward the door. “I hope not.”

  He laughed and swung her beneath him while she was distracted. His lips trailed fire down from her throat to her breasts, where he stopped and ran his tongue over her once more. She began to lose herself again to his hands and lips, and she remembered that she had not finished looking at his body yet.

  “Robbie,” she said, as his mouth moved from one breast to another.

  He ignored her as he played, and she began to forget what she had been meaning to say in the first place.

  “Robbie,”
she said again.

  He murmured something incoherent against her skin.

  “Robbie, you’re beautiful. Let me look at you.”

  He raised his head then and smiled at her. “Is it not the gentleman’s part to say such things, Pru?”

  She answered his question, though as his fingers moved higher, her thoughts began to splinter like broken glass. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just want to look at you.”

  “Well now,” he said, his mouth moving down her body to join his hand. “You may look your fill. But I need you, Prudence, and I will not be stopped by trifles.” His hand froze, and his mouth came up from her belly. “Unless you have changed your mind, and find that you don’t want me.”

  Pru felt her body cry out for him. She had no way of explaining this to him, no words for what she wanted, so she simply said, “I want you with me, Robbie. Please.”

  “Ah, so it’s please now, is it?”

  His lips began to trail along her thigh, while his fingers moved lazily across the other. His mouth was close to her, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her there as he had the night before, but he did not. He simply blew on her and breathed on her, until she was writhing beneath him, all coherent thought lost.

  “What was that, Pru?”

  “Robbie, please.”

  “Please you? Is that what you’re asking me?”

  She gripped his shoulders, then moved her hands into his hair. Instead of laving her as he had the night before, he moved up the bed to lay down beside her, his tongue joining in play with hers. His hand stayed low, his fingers delving into the wet heat of her body, while the heel of his palm found the same point of pleasure that his tongue had found before.

  The pleasure was so intense at his touch that she would have shot straight up and off the bed but his heavy body rose over her, holding her down.

  “No, leannan, I will not let you go. You’re here with me, and here you’ll stay.”

  His fingers moved again and then his palm, and she fell apart, the pleasure fragmenting her mind into a thousand bits. She rode the wave of it, one after another, until she thought her breath would never come back.

  Robbie kissed her then, his fingers still working over her, his tongue caressing the inside of her mouth. She shuddered against him, moaning as he came up for air. “That should satisfy you for the moment, leannan, do you think?”

  His fingers trailed over her secret places, and she found that in spite of her pleasure and the intensity of it, she was still empty. She still wanted more.

  “Robbie. Please.”

  “Please you again?” His lips trailed down to her breast, where he drew her nipple into his mouth again, his hand still caressing her. “I will, if you want me.”

  “I want you, Robbie. Please.”

  “All right, then. You can’t say as I didn’t ask you twice.”

  She felt the heavy length of his manhood nudge her thigh, and then the opening to her body. She pressed her hips against him to urge him on, and he released a shuddering breath. Perhaps he was not as calm as he seemed. She splayed one hand on his chest, his heart thundering beneath her palm. She met his eyes and raised her hand to his cheek. “I want you, Robbie. Show me what to do.”

  “Take a deep breath,” he told her. “Then let it out, slow, when I tell you.”

  She did as he asked, and when he said, “Now,” she released it as his body surged into hers.

  Her body resisted him at first, and she felt a stab of pain. But as he kept moving, her body decided that it liked him there and opened for him, like a flower in the summer sun. He stopped moving then and held his breath, and Pru kissed him.

  “Don’t stop,” she said to him. “I want more of you, Robert Waters.”

  He laughed a little and kissed her, his lips devouring hers as if to stop her talk, and to drink in her breath. But if she did not have her voice, Pru found other ways to persuade him.

  She pushed her body up against his, and writhed. He shuddered then, his whole body shaking as with a fever. The muscles in his strong arms leaped and held while he groaned. “Don’t do that,” he said at last.

  “Don’t do what?” she asked him. “This?” She writhed against him again. “Or this?” She squeezed her inner muscles, and he swore under what was left of his breath.

  “That’s enough out of you, Prudence,” he said, kissing her. His body moved against her and inside her. She felt a bolt of pleasure again, like a shot of lightning that burned all her reason away.

  He pressed again and again against that same spot, until she was writhing mindlessly, unable to stop herself, unable to get away from her mounting desire. He moved again, and she fell apart, the pleasure rising so fast she almost did not know if it would leave air in her lungs. She clung to him, as to a rock in a vast, uncharted sea. She felt his body over hers, his lips on her hair, and even as she crested, she knew that she was safe.

  He pressed slowly against her once she began to breathe again, kissing her all the while, his hips lifting and falling on hers. She raised her legs to circle his waist, and he groaned but did not make her take them down.

  “I have wanted you beneath me since the moment I saw you,” he said. “I’ve thought of little else since I saw your beautiful breasts in that hideous gray gown.”

  He moved faster against her, and she ran her hands over his back, the muscles of his shoulders and arms damp with sweat. She wriggled against him again until he pinned her down, drawing her arms above her head, driving his body into her again and again. Her pleasure crested for a third time, surprising her, just as he cried out and lost himself in her.

  He shuddered, collapsing across her body as if he had been shot. She did an experimental writhe beneath him, and he roused himself enough to kiss her. “I love you, Prudence Farthington. Now stay still a minute and let a man catch his breath.”

  Pru wriggled just once more, to hear him moan a little. Then she kissed him back and did as he asked.

  Thirty-two

  Pru lay still beneath him until he roused himself and drew back from her, kissing her again. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  With his weight off, she could move again, so she stretched luxuriously and sighed. “I find I am more than all right, Robbie. But thank you.”

  He seemed not to know what to say after that. She watched him as he stood and crossed the room to go behind the screen. He was gone only a moment, and she found that she enjoyed the sight of his nakedness as much from the back as from the front.

  “The duchess is right, Robbie. You are a fine specimen of a man.”

  He grinned at her, with his crooked, wry smile, and she felt her breath catch.

  He brought a damp cloth and laid one hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down flat on the bed. She thought perhaps there was some odd bit of lovemaking he wanted to try with a cloth involved, but instead he parted her thighs gently and washed between them.

  “Robbie,” she said, her blush rising in her cheeks. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I do, Prudence. Now be still.”

  He was so gentle, she shivered with it. She felt her nipples peak at his touch, and at the cold of the cloth against her soft skin. He leaned down and kissed one of them, even as his member began to rise.

  “Robbie,” she said. “Will you have me again?”

  “I will,” he said. “Many times.”

  Pru smiled and reached for him as he tossed the cloth back into the washbasin.

  “But not tonight.”

  “Robert Waters, what madness is that?”

  “Now, Pru, don’t go screeching the house down.” He slipped into bed with her and drew her tight against him, even as he tucked the covers up and over them. “You don’t know it now, but you’ll be sore on the morrow. You’ll need a warm bath with some salts in it, and a good breakfast.”

 
“But we’ll be riding for London tomorrow,” she said. “To save my brother.”

  Robbie did not answer but patted her derriere.

  Prudence turned in his arms and started kissing his chest. He laughed and wrapped his arms tight around her, holding her still, so that only her lips were free. She kept kissing him.

  This time, his laughter vibrated against her cheek. He drew her up the length of his body until he could reach her lips, and he kissed her. “There’s time and enough for that tomorrow. For now, you need sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” she groused, feeling put out. “I want to plan our journey, and I want you to make love to me again.”

  “The plan is that you will stay here and watch over Mary Elizabeth while Alex and I go south and sort your brother out. Now go to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired. Robbie, I have to go with you.”

  He kissed her then, and she fell silent, as no doubt he meant her to. “We’ll speak of it in the morning.”

  She could feel his manhood press against her thigh, and she sighed wistfully at his stubbornness. She did not know men well enough yet to know how to persuade him to her way of thinking. She sighed again.

  “Now, what’s all that sighing?”

  “I want you, Robbie. And I am going to London with you.”

  “And I want you,” he answered. “But I am going to be a gentleman and let you sleep.” He pointedly did not speak of her journey, and she began to worry in earnest, all relaxation from their lovemaking draining out of her body one muscle at a time.

  Pru was silent for the length of a minute, and then she said, “Robbie, I’m afraid.”

  He pulled back then and looked into her eyes. “Of what?”

  She was afraid, because she knew she was going to make him angry when he woke. She also knew it could not be helped. He was a stubborn man, but she was stubborn, too. “I’m afraid you won’t want me tomorrow,” was all she said.

  “Nonsense,” he answered. “This is just missish prattle. I will always want you, for all my tomorrows. I love you. You are the woman of my life. Now lie down and let a man sleep.”