by Liz Carlyle
In response, Cecilia simply tightened her grip on her bonnet. Good, she thought. They were going to have it out once and for all. A proper row, she hoped, for there was much which wanted saying between them.
She had not forgotten David’s threat of marriage, made in the heat of a coming battle. He had apparently considered being shackled to him something she should wish to avoid, but she did not. It was what she wanted. Desperately wanted. She was certain of it now, bizarre though the thought would have seemed just a few short weeks ago. And yet, David resisted opening up to her, going so far as to cloak his proposals as either half-hearted jokes or, in this case, in the guise of a threat.
Cecilia suppressed the impulse to laugh. And then the fleeting temptation was gone, shoved ruthlessly aside by an overriding sense of wretchedness. She’d always assumed that David wasn’t the marrying kind, but now she was not so sure. Still, something dreadful and nameless lay between them, like a massive stone dropped immutably into the middle of a marriage bed.
In a few short minutes, they had reached his front door. Passing the ribbons to an expressionless servant, David hastened through the empty house and up the steps to his bedchamber, clutching Cecilia hard by the hand. Obviously, he seethed with emotion.
Swiftly, he pushed shut the door behind them, snapped the key in the lock, and leaned hard against the wood panel as if he expected someone might burst through unbidden. His gaze flicked down her length. “By God, Cecilia,” he said softly, “you are going to pay for this.”
Cecilia stepped away from the door. “P-pay for what?”
For a moment, he hesitated, his face angry and tormented. And then, strangely, his expression seemed to soften, then collapse. “Good God, I don’t know,” he whispered, squeezing shut his eyes. “For whatever it is you have done to me.”
Cecilia shook her head. “David, I didn’t mean to—”
Vehemently, he cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand. “Christ almighty, Cecilia!” he rasped. “You’re killing me. I cannot bear this—this thing you provoke inside my heart. It’s...fear. And desire. And rage, perhaps? I don’t know! I know only that it has begun to feel as if I might explode.”
She looked at him through the murky light, and in an instant, his face shifted yet again, into something which looked like an almost agonizing confusion. The intensity of it frightened her. His were emotions she could not begin to understand. It was as if he wanted her, and yet he fought against the wanting. Was this simply the way of men, she wondered?
Left with nothing but feminine instinct, she lifted an unsteady hand to his face. Sliding her fingertips across the turn of his cheek, she caressed David with the palm of her hand, brushing the pad of her thumb across the corner of his mouth.
Eyes still closed, his nostrils flared at her touch. And then, like a compass seeking north, David turned his head into her hand, pressing his lips into her palm, his breath coming rough and hard against her skin.
David felt the light, warm fingers skim over the hard planes of his face. Cecilia’s touch was gentle, sweet, and yet wildly erotic. His nerve endings were on fire. He felt hot and cold. Grief and terror. Anger and lust. Good God, he thought. If emotions had colors, my brain would be a damned kaleidoscope.
He had to slow down his thoughts. Greedily, his lips sought her touch, and David forced his mind back to the afternoon he’d given her the crate filled with porcelains—how urgently he’d studied her face, searching for any indication of what she wanted to hear. So he would know what to say. How carefully he’d measured his words, in some desperate attempt to give only as much as she demanded, holding back a part of himself. And wounding them both in the process.
But Cecilia would not demand. He understood that now. She was no cloying, grasping female. She would not demean herself by asking of him that which he was unprepared to give of his own free will. Certainly, she had not done so all those years ago when he’d let his pride and his shame keep him from speaking his heart. And she wouldn’t do so now. Perhaps it was time he stopped judging and measuring, and gave in to the torrent of emotions which flooded forth whenever Cecilia was near.
His silence frightened Cecilia. “David, I’m sorry,” she said softly, hardly knowing what she apologized for.
At that, he opened his eyes, and she saw the desire which burned there, intense and urgent. “I need you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh, God, Cecilia, I need you. And I need you safe. Can you not understand? And I need you...here. In my arms. In my bed. For you are already in my heart. You fill it. So much so, I sometimes fear I’ll choke from the need.”
Cecilia lifted both hands this time, reaching up to cradle his face between them. “David,” she said softly, “I’m sorry I frightened you. I love you.” She stared hard into the unfathomable pools of his deep green gaze. “Don’t you know that? I love you.”
“I love you, too, Cecilia,” he admitted quietly. “It seems I always have.”
Shakily, she laughed. “Oh, surely not always?”
“Always,” he insisted roughly. “Forever. And heaven only knows what I’ve done to deserve your kind of love, spiteful, mean-spirited wastrel that I am.”
She rose onto her tiptoes to kiss away the ugly words, but to her shock, he jerked his mouth from hers, turning his face to stare past her shoulder.
Puzzled, she drew away, and in answer, David jerked her back. “Oh, I want you, Cecilia,” he responded, his voice choking. “I want you beneath me. I want to ride you like a wild animal. I want to spend myself inside you so badly I can scarce draw breath.”
“Then have me,” she answered simply.
He closed his eyes and swallowed, the lump of his throat sliding up and down. David’s face was gaunt, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep, his cheeks bristled with a day’s worth of dark beard. It was as if his cool, elegant beauty had finally shattered, to be replaced by an infinite weariness. And yet, Cecilia thought him more handsome than ever.
It was almost dark inside the room now. Quietly, Cecilia turned away. She could not speak, for she did not know what to say. And so she answered his pain in the only way she could, dropping the skirt of her brown wool habit into a puddle on his floor.
David still stood against the door, quietly watching as she fumbled with the buttons of her coat. The rest of her clothing soon followed, until at last she was unfastening her shift.
He stood, simply watching her. “I think...” he began, stopping abruptly as the cotton slithered onto the floor. “I think, Cecilia, that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” He spoke with great difficulty, as if restraining some powerful force within himself.
In response, Cecilia returned to him, sliding her fingers into the knot of his cravat and carelessly loosening it. When that was done, she let it slide onto the floor, then lowered her hands to push both coat and waistcoat off his shoulders. His body was still rigid against the door.
“Come to bed, David,” she whispered, gently tugging free his shirt. “Come to bed, and show me how lovely you think me. There will be time later for sorting this out.”
As if manacles of steel had fallen from his wrists, David jerked violently away from the door and gathered her up into his arms, sliding one arm beneath her knees and lifting her as if she were weightless. Swiftly, he crossed to the bed and settled her onto the edge.
He knelt then, his brilliant green gaze desperately searching hers. He lifted his hand. It trembled. As if to brace it, he spread his palm across her knee, his fingers digging into her flesh. “Cecilia, I cannot promise you—” he rasped, choking off. “I cannot promise you tenderness tonight.”
His eyes were mesmerizing; the heat of his hand seared her skin. In acknowledgment, she nodded once. Rising over her, David drew off his shirt, the ruthlessly slashed fabric of his sleeve a testament to the horror which could have been. With an uncharacteristic awkwardness, he began to fumble at the close of his breeches. Then, urgently, he pushed her back into the downy depths of his bed.
Still standing, his head bowed, and one heavy lock of hair falling forward to shadow his face, David slid his hands beneath her hips. Roughly, he dragged her to the very edge of the mattress. With his knee, he shoved her thighs apart, and one hand went to his jutting erection.
“Ah—Cecilia!” he whispered as he entered her, swift and hard. “I’m sorry.”
Cecilia gasped at the intrusion. She had not, she belatedly realized, been fully ready. But David did not seem to notice. With another whispered apology, he drove himself deeper, lifting and spreading her buttocks to cradle him as his breeches slithered down his hips.
As her body again became accustomed to his, Cecilia twined her legs about his waist and drew herself against him. With her hands thrown back over her head and nothing to hold on to, she felt weightless, floundering and floating in the softness of his bed as he stood, loomed over her, shadowing her body, his face as savage and as hard as his erection. Beneath her, the edge of the mattress rocked with the power of his thrusts.
“You are mine, Cecilia,” he whispered, staring down at her. “Mine forever this time.”
A little frightened by the intensity in his eyes, she slackened her legs about his hips. In response, David lifted her higher, tighter, pressing himself into her softness. “Don’t pull away again, Cecilia,” he demanded harshly. “Not now.”
Strangely, she knew he spoke not of the recent past but of one distant—almost six years distant—when she had instinctively opened her mouth beneath his, and answered, ever so fleetingly, David’s need for her. Before fear and logic had overcome her. But logic clearly had no place in his bed tonight, and her fear was fast fading. Still, David was driven by something she could not understand.
Again, he deepened his thrusts, and she gasped, struggling backward. Sliding his hands to her shoulders, he pressed her down, deep into the mattress, willing her not to move. And then he raised one knee, crawling onto the bed, dragging himself fully over her, bracing his legs between her thighs, forcing her wide, giving her no quarter, no place to hide.
“Oh, yes, Cecilia,” he whispered thickly. “This time, I mean to have all of you.”
But it was too powerful, too new. “No, David!” she whispered, as he pounded himself inside her. “Not like—I can’t—not like...Oh! Oh! My God!”
Cecilia’s whole body surged toward him, and she felt release edge shockingly near. David’s deep, rocking rhythm went on and on, merciless, seemingly without beginning or end. Cecilia felt herself quiver as her hips and shoulders were borne down by the weight of his body, the power of his thrusts.
“Please...” she whispered. But there was no answer. And what did she want? For him to fill her with hot seed and passion, leaving her soul intact? Only the creaking of the bed and the rhythmic rasping of David’s breath answered.
On and on he went—stroking, plunging, coaxing with his cock and hands and tongue—the intensity too much to bear. Cecilia felt disembodied, his relentless, rhythmic thrusts driving her to a level of awareness—a place inside herself—which she did not know.
Suddenly, David’s hands left her shoulders, sliding over her breasts and up her inner arm until his fingers entwined with hers. His eyes were closed, she realized, as her fingers curled slackly into his. David’s head was turned slightly to one side, his jaw clenched tightly as he moved inside her. Flesh met flesh, sliding silkily in the falling darkness. She rose to meet him thrust for thrust. No candles had been lit, no fire burned in the hearth. And yet, sweat beaded on his forehead, trailed down his cheeks, and pooled in the hard-boned valley below his throat.
Cecilia quivered as he slid through her, pounding her. In the face of such furious need, she felt another shaft of uncertainty. And yet, she wanted to pitch herself into his flame.
He must have felt her hesitation, for David lifted himself, forcing his hardness high against her center. Wildly, Cecilia began to pant. “Please...” she breathed against the dampness of his throat.
“Not yet, Cecilia,” she heard him murmur into her hair. “Beg if you must, but not yet.”
Despite his words, Cecilia felt her own response take her, dragging her traitorous hips higher against him. When the shudder began in earnest, it absorbed her completely, pulsing through her thighs, her womb, her belly, dragging the breath from her body. She felt her head go back. As if her very nerve endings were exposed, she felt the dampness of David’s brow brush against hers even as she shook beneath him.
“Yes!” she heard herself cry. “Oh, David—yes!”
Still, he pushed her beyond need, beyond pain, and into a release so intense, she heard her own scream ringing through the room. Through the entire house, no doubt.
“Oh, Cecilia,” he whispered. “You are mine. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
He released her hands, his palms smoothing over her nipples, lightly stroking them as her trembling subsided. And then, she opened her mouth to breathe, and he took her again—with his tongue, thrusting inside, plumbing the depths of her mouth. He filled her in every possible way, as if he meant their bodies—no, their souls—to meld and become one.
To her shock, she felt her body rise to his again, and the sensation drew her down once more. As the flame of her passion rekindled from the ash, burning with his, she felt David’s teeth bite into the tender skin of her shoulder, felt his fingers claw into the flesh of her buttocks as he opened her. Cecilia cried out in the darkness, and his voice mingled with hers, low and guttural, as he thrust and pounded and poured himself inside her.
———
In the quiet aftermath, Cecilia could feel the stillness of David’s body weighing down the mattress beside her. Slowly, she rolled onto her side, inviting him to curl his body about hers, to lock his arms unassailably about her, as he had done two nights earlier.
It was full dark now, and she could hear his breath still rasping in and out of his chest. She could smell a day’s worth of male sweat on his body, and the scent of horse and road dust in his hair. It was a good, earthy aroma, very unlike the expensive cologne David usually wore. And yet, Cecilia found it just as enticing. Suggestively, she reached back with one foot, curling it about his ankle.
Still, he lay at her side, staring up at the ceiling, barely touching her.
“I love you,” she murmured into the coverlet.
As if in response, he rose smoothly from the bed and padded silently across the carpet to his desk. She heard the rattle of metal, the scratch of a tinderbox in the darkness, the sound of glass on glass. And then, the lamp on his desk sputtered to life. The soft chink of porcelain punctuated his movements, and finally, David’s weight settled back onto the mattress, and he rolled against her.
With a deep groan of satisfaction, she nestled her buttocks against his pelvis. David’s hand came about her then, and she felt the cold sensation of metal brushing her bare flesh.
“Cecilia,” he whispered, his lips pressed to the back of her ear. “Do you love me? Do you love...me?”
She rolled over and into him then, suddenly aware of what he had brought to the bed. “Yes,” she answered, her voice unsteady but certain.
“I know...” For a moment, his voice choked again. “I know I’ve asked before, Cecilia, and you have rightly refused me. But tonight, I put my heart into your hands. And I trust you, without reservation.”
Confused, she stared across the coverlet into his eyes, letting her fingers come up to smooth across his cheek. “I don’t understand.”
David uncurled his fist, and the ruby ring glowed in the lamplight. “Cecilia, I would have no false pride or half-truths between us. I want you to marry me, and this time, I’m begging. But there is something you should know.”
Cecilia closed her eyes. “That a part of you will always love her?”
“Who?” he asked simply. “Jonet?”
“She gave you that ring, did she not? I recognize the Kildermore crest.”
“Ah, yes,” he said on a cynical laugh. “Semper veritas. Always truth! A bit
of black humor, I often think. And as for my esteem for Jonet, I love her, but as a brother loves his sister.”
“You mean platonically?”
“No, literally.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sorry to say that the nobleman you think you’ve fallen in love with is little more than a Scottish rogue’s by-blow.”
Mystified, she stared at him. “A what?”
“A bastard, Cecilia,” he answered, the bitter mockery falling away. “That’s what I am, you see. In the literal sense, not just the figurative, which is so often—and not inaccurately—applied to me.”
Against the weak lamplight, Cecilia blinked. “But I don’t understand...” she whispered.
And so, David forced himself to tell her. He told her everything—the sordid truth of what his mother had suffered, the honor of the man he’d thought his father. The perfidy of Lord Kildermore. Of the letter, sent to him on the cusp of his manhood, which had so deeply affected him. And then he told her about Jonet, and of the strange and abiding affection they had found for one another.
For a long moment, Cecilia said nothing. But she continued smoothing her fingertips over his cheeks, his forehead, and his lips. “I am so sorry,” she finally replied, “for your mother’s pain.”
And with those simple words, David realized that Cecilia really did not give a damn about his heritage. In his heart, he had come to know that she wouldn’t. And yet her answer was like the lancing of a wound, the release of something hot, horrible, and fetid inside him.
“Oh, David...” Cecilia held his gaze with an infinite gentleness. “Surely, you did not think that I would care?”
“I care,” he said simply.
She touched him again, her hands smoothing over his brow, and David let his eyes fall shut. “There was a time,” he said in the tone of quiet confession, “when I feared that all I had once believed my birthright might be stripped from me. But as the years go by, I find that I care less and less. Any challenge to my title now seems remote. And my enemies—well, I daresay I can manage them well enough.”