He grinned lazily at her and answered her unasked question, “So I can do this.”
He rose up to reach behind her and swiftly unfastened the row of tiny buttons at her back. Her loosened bodice dropped low across her breasts. With a shy gasp, she reached a hand up to catch it.
“Because you’re beautiful,” he murmured, taking her hand and gently pulling it away to place it on his chest. “Because I want to see you, Danielle. All of you.”
She bit her bottom lip, yet she didn’t stop him as he crooked a finger inside her drooping neckline and tugged, pulling the dark-blue satin down her front.
When she shrugged her arms out of the dress and let it fall down around her waist, he reached behind her again, this time to feel for the laces tying her short stays. His gaze remained locked with hers as he worked to pull free the lace zigzagging up her back, then carefully removed her corset and tossed it away, leaving her in nothing from the waist up but her thin chemise.
She closed her eyes. “I’ve never…”
“I know.” He brushed her hair over her shoulder. Instead of dropping his hand away, he teased at the chemise’s thin shoulder strap. “And you know that I would never purposefully hurt you.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“That I care about you,” he admitted sincerely. “That I only want to make you happy.”
Another nod, this time with a curl of her lips in a nervous but happy smile.
“Then trust me, Danielle.” He pulled the chemise down her arm, baring her right breast to his heated stare. When he grazed the already taut nipple with the pad of his thumb, she shivered. “And let me make you happy.”
He leaned up and placed an affectionate kiss to her nipple. She stiffened for a moment, her fingers digging into his chest, then the tension eased out of her when his lips closed around her and suckled. With that silent permission, he tugged down the other shoulder strap to bare both breasts to his seeking lips.
“This,” she forced out between quickening pants, “makes me happy.”
He chuckled against her flesh. The sound formed goose bumps on her bare arms, like magic. Which made him wonder where else he could make her tingle with his touch.
Pulling her skirt up around her waist, he slipped his hand between her open thighs to caress her intimate folds as she straddled him.
“And that?” he murmured.
Her ragged mewls of desire answered him. If this was happiness, he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his days making her happy.
Good God, she was so supple and warm against his fingers as he stroked her intimately, her folds wet with arousal. When he flicked his fingertip against her sensitive little nib, she gasped, and her thighs clenched against his hips. With a soft exhalation, she relaxed and smiled, an expression of such joy and trust that it melted him.
Tonight would be wonderful for her, he would make certain of it. He would ensure that she found her pleasure first—
When she wiggled out of the chemise and pushed it down around her waist to bare all of herself to him from the waist up, he groaned at the hot yearning that little movement shot down his cock.
If he survived that long.
She stilled. “Is this…all right?”
More than all right. “Perfect,” he rasped out huskily and felt the tension drain from her. “You are absolutely perfect.” He suckled at her breast as he continued to tease his fingers between her legs. “In every way.”
To make his point, he slipped a finger inside her tight warmth. She gasped at the sensation of having part of him inside her, then the sound turned into a throaty moan as he began to tantalizingly stroke in and out of her.
Unable to sit still, she began to move her hips over him to meet each thrust of his finger. He rewarded her by slipping a second finger inside her, stretching her feminine lips wider and filling her even more.
“Marcus.” His name fell from her lips, half the sound a guttural cry of passion, the other half a begging plea for more. She grasped at his shoulders for leverage as she instinctively began to ride his hand, to claim the pleasure waiting for her.
“That’s it, darling,” he encouraged as he rested his other hand on her hip to guide her. “Take whatever you want.”
Instead, she surprised him by raising her hips so she could reach between them and unfasten his trouser buttons. Yearning for her tight warmth, his hard cock sprang free, and he sucked in sharply as his sensitive tip grazed the smooth flesh of her inner thigh.
She leaned down over him to place a kiss to his neck as she shyly whispered, “I want you.”
With a growl, he pulled her into his arms and rolled her onto her back. He nestled his hips between her wide-open thighs, clasped his length in his hand, and guided himself inside her.
* * *
Dani drew in a mouthful of air as he sank into her. There was no pain like she’d expected. But he filled her so completely that she was stretched uncomfortably wide, with his weight pressing down onto her pelvis.
But then he began to move in slow and exploring little plunges and retreats of his hips against hers. The stretching eased, and the discomfort faded until all she knew was the wonderful sensation of him gliding smoothly inside her.
“Marcus,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to hold him close.
This wasn’t at all how she’d thought this moment would be. Not in an old, empty building with only his coat beneath her to protect her from the hard, cold floor. Not with both of them still wearing their clothes, with Marcus fully dressed and the fabric of his trousers rubbing against the insides of her thighs with each plunge of his body into hers. And not any other night but her wedding night.
But even though tonight was none of those things, it was still simply wonderful! Because of Marcus. Because she lay in the embrace of a man whom she had loved since she was a girl, a man who had promised to protect her and make her happy. Tonight, he was doing just that.
There was no other man she wanted to give herself to, and no other place she wanted to be in all the world but right here in his arms.
Wanting to bring him even closer, she wrapped her legs around him.
He groaned at the way the new position opened her even further to him, and his movements grew more intense, more urgent. With every deep plunge, he gave a teasing swirl of his hips against her before retreating, which brushed against that sensitive little place down there and nearly drove her out of her mind.
She bit back a cry as a throbbing ache pulsed relentlessly between her legs at that place where their two bodies joined. He’d touched her there before…kissing her with his mouth, caressing her with his fingers. But this—oh, this was simply divine!
“I want you,” she whispered, burying her face against his bare neck and drinking in the wonderful flavor of man and the musky scent of sex.
“I think you have me,” he returned with a chuckle.
“I don’t…” she explained between labored breaths, “mean…this way…”
“You have me, darling,” he repeated. “In every way.”
He punctuated that promise with a searing kiss that left her panting for more even as he never slowed his steady thrusts between her thighs.
Happiness burst through her, and she shuddered from the enormity of it…and from his body inside hers, her desire for him winding impossibly tight, like a coiling spring.
This wasn’t only sex, only the surrendering of body to body. It wasn’t even making love, although she certainly loved him. There was no doubt inside her about how much. No, what they were doing was so much more. Tonight, they were healing old wounds and absolving whatever threads of grief and guilt yet remained from the past.
“I’ve wanted this for so very long…with you…” She panted out that confession, unable to keep it inside. The words were a benediction for the new trust they were forg
ing tonight, a way forward into the future. “Only with you, Marcus. Only with you.”
When she arched her back beneath him, to bring him as deep inside her as possible, a masculine groan tore from the back of his throat. He shoved his hand down between them, to that spot where their bodies joined, and teased—
He touched the aching center of her, and she jumped beneath him, her hips bucking up against his. Electricity sparked through her. With a begging whine of need, she clenched herself around him like a vise, including all the little muscles deep inside her that tightened around him as the first ripples of release bubbled up from deep within her. He touched her there again, this time rubbing her hard and fast.
Stars burst behind her eyes, as brightly as fireworks. His name tore from her lips in an explosive cry as she broke around him, all of her releasing in a lightning strike of pleasure and joy that shot through her to her core. To her soul.
He stroked deep inside her one more time, his hips jerking before he yanked himself out of her and thrust his length between their two bodies. A groaning shudder gripped him, and he spilled himself against her belly. The fierce tension inside him dissolved, and he lay languid over her as he rested his forehead against her bare shoulder, as the shivers of passion that still lingered inside him now seeped into her.
Keeping her arms and legs wrapped around him, she protectively sheltered him in the cradle of her embrace. She clung to him, holding on tight and never wanting to let go.
Eighteen
Marcus tightened his arms around Danielle as they lay together on the old settee. In front of them, the small fire that he’d built in the large hearth cast a flickering golden glow on her bare shoulders as she draped her naked body over his. He pulled his overcoat across her to keep her warm, the only cover in the place that could serve as a blanket. But her body was warm and supple as her arms and legs tangled with his, all of her relaxed from making love a second time.
That time had been here on the settee, after taking their time to properly undress and thoroughly savor each other. She’d come that second time not with a passionate cry of need but a sigh of satisfaction. He placed a kiss to her bare shoulder—perfect.
She laughed, the dulcet sound fading into the silence of the large room around them.
He lifted her chin to touch his lips to hers, unable to stop kissing her, even though he’d just spent hours doing exactly that. “What is it?”
With a smile like the cat who’d gotten into the cream, she traced her fingertip in an invisible pattern over his bare chest. “We were supposed to have had a long talk about how we keep throwing ourselves passionately into each other’s arms.” She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, an expression of such happiness on her face that his gut ached at the sight. “We seem to have neglected that.”
He arched a brow at their naked state. “Apparently.”
“Now we don’t have to have that talk after all.”
No, now so much more than she realized. He’d ruined her tonight, unable to deny himself from finding happiness inside her. But then, he also had every intention of marrying her.
And that talk needed to wait a bit longer, until they were both fully prepared for it.
He stroked his hand between her thighs to distract her from any stray emotions that might have crossed his face. She whispered his name and shifted to spread her legs wider in wanton invitation.
He bit back a groan. If she kept that up, he’d have her on her back again. Already, he’d satiated himself with her more than he should have, knowing how sore she would be in the morning from losing her innocence, and on a stone floor, no less.
He placed a light kiss to her lips and slipped from her arms to sit on the edge of the settee. When she wrapped her arm around him from behind, his pulse spiked beneath her hand as she strummed it lightly over his chest.
“The fire’s going out,” he offered as an excuse for why he needed to put enough distance between them to tamp down his lust.
She trailed her hand down to his cock and purred with amused irony, “Oh, I don’t think so.”
With a strained chuckle, he grabbed her hand and placed a kiss to her palm. Then he snatched up his trousers from the pile of their clothes at his feet and stood before she could touch him again and once more send him reeling out of his mind. He chastised teasingly as he yanked on his trousers, “Insatiable.”
“Thank you.”
When he turned around with a quip on the tip of his tongue that she’d exhaust him to death before dawn at this rate, he halted. Her stare focused below his waist, and disappointment dulled the brightness of her eyes that he’d covered himself from her sight.
As he finished buttoning his fall, he grinned at her with masculine pride that she found him so desirable. God knew he certainly felt the same about her.
She tore her eyes away, letting her attention drift around them at the old building. “What is this place?”
“An old armory.”
As he knelt in front of the fireplace to stir up the coals and toss in more wood, he followed her gaze in an attempt to see the building from her perspective. That is, what could be seen of it in the dark shadows at the edges of the octagonal central room. But the fire was bright enough to reflect off the metal weapons on the walls, to show how thick and sturdy the old place was, even now after so many decades of being abandoned.
He’d spent uncountable nights here since he’d purchased the place, not falling asleep until the first light of dawn had shone through the windows at the top of the tower, because he hadn’t been able to face the ghosts haunting Charlton Place. On those nights, he’d been alone.
Tonight, though, Danielle was here, and for once, he didn’t dread the darkness.
“But you have a key to this building. Why?”
Balancing on the balls of his feet, he jabbed the iron poker into the fire to stir up more light and warmth for her. He’d found his own comfort in this place, and now he wanted her to feel welcome here as well. And safe. “Because I own it.”
When she said nothing to that, waiting for him to continue, he tossed in a few more pieces of old wood from the bin beside the large hearth and watched as the flames bit into them as he decided how much to tell her.
“I had just returned to London and was taking my business ventures and accounts back under my control. They’d been in the hands of accountants and other caretakers while I’d been away, and it was time for me to oversee them again.” He’d also needed something to do to keep busy, and he’d hoped that conducting business would do that. Good Lord, how wrong he’d been! Managing the accounts had barely scratched the need growing inside him to have a sense of purpose, to make a real difference in the world, the way he had during the wars. “I saw that this building was for sale and bought it to turn it into a warehouse. Now that the wars are over, normal trade will resume with the continent—and the Americans—and London’s docks will be bursting at the seams with incoming goods and no place to put them. What better to do with an old building like this than turn it into a giant warehouse?”
“But you didn’t turn it into a warehouse.” She swung her legs over the side of the settee and sat up, one hand keeping the coat in place over her. With the other, she gestured at the weapons on the wall.
“No, I did not.”
He frowned into the fire. Her curiosity wasn’t at all satisfied; he could feel her bewilderment as tangibly as he could still taste the sweetness of her on his lips. But he wouldn’t provide any more answers about how he used this place than that.
Instead, he purposefully misunderstood her comment and answered as he rose to his full height, “We’re safe here for the night. This place was meant to withstand invading armies.”
“And Vauxhall assassins?” she challenged. “They might roll in like a troupe of acrobats.”
Gallows humor. Her attempt to lighten the seriousn
ess of their situation, yet he heard a trace of fear lingering behind it.
He explained as he stepped up to the side table along the wall and patted his hand against the bricks, “The walls are ten feet thick and built to survive direct cannon fire at less than ten yards, and it’s built on a foundation of solid Dartmoor granite so it can’t be undermined.” He reached for the bottle of brandy sitting on the table and pointed it at the central tower overhead that stretched four stories high, the roof impossible to see in the darkness. “The only windows are all the way up there and covered with bars made from the same iron that was forged for both the outer and inner doors.” He poured the brandy into a glass. “No one gets in or out unless we want them to.”
“Impressive. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you have a portcullis at the ready to drop.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Two.”
She paused for a beat, as if trying to determine if he was bamming her or not. Then she commented, “So this place is a fortress, then.”
“I suppose you could say that.” He brought back the glass of brandy and held it out to her. “One fit for an old soldier.”
She arched a brow. “Or a new duke.”
As she took the glass from him, he answered that silently with a glower. Damn her sharp mind. It was one of the things he liked best about her. Until right then.
When she lifted the glass to take a sip, the firelight reflected in the crystal and shone onto her hand—
A cut on her palm. A long slice and still pink-raw.
He snatched away the glass just as it reached her lips and earned himself an irritated scowl. “What do you—”
“You’re wounded.” Concern spiked inside him. He took her hand and turned it over, exposing the cut to the firelight.
“It’s nothing, really. It’s not even bleeding anymore.” She lightly closed her fingers into a fist to hide it. When he refused to let her pull her hand away, she lowered her shoulders in capitulation. “I fell as we were leaving the gardens and cut my palm.”
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