“Yes.” A smile curved his wife’s full lips. “She did.”
Cristo, how he wanted to kiss her. “Did you, querida?”
Somehow, even as every part of him charged him to claim her mouth, to kiss her into oblivion, he did not. He wanted to prolong their interaction. And some part of him enjoyed the intimacy of their conversations. There had been a time when he had believed himself incapable of ever accepting another woman’s touch. His grief had been too strong, too all-consuming.
The fierce woman in his arms had changed all that.
She had changed him.
“I enjoyed watching the two of you,” she admitted, gazing up at him. “I do not think I have ever seen you so at ease, as if you had nothing weighing down upon you.”
It was how he had felt, as well. The glorious sunshine, the beauty of the river, the return to something which had once given him great joy but had been somehow forgotten in the madness of his manhood, the joy of watching the child take to it, seeing the happiness it brought his wife.
“It was a good day.” The best day he had experienced in as long as he could recall.
Best of all was being able to hold Catriona in his arms at the end of it.
“And you are a good man, Alessandro,” she said then.
How wrong she was.
“I am not a good man,” he felt compelled to correct her. “Taking a wayward orphan fishing cannot ameliorate the sins I have committed in my life.”
Her fingers were sifting through his hair now, her nails lightly traveling over his scalp. He had never before known such a touch would be pleasurable, but it was. Dios, how it was.
“And what sins have you committed in your life?” his sweet, innocent wife asked.
How trusting she was. How trusting she had always been with him, from the first moment, almost, they had crossed paths. She was hesitant of him, that much was undeniable, but she always enabled herself to get close enough to the dragon that it could breathe flames upon her and consume her whole.
He lowered his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes. “I have spent the last few years at war,” he began, even though he knew he should not. She already knew he had been fighting in Spain.
He had come this far. She was in his arms, warm and soft and willing. He should simply take what was his to take. He could have his desire fulfilled without this conversation. He could empty himself inside her without thinking about where he had been, what he had done, who he had lost.
“Many good men have been to war,” she said, tipping up her chin so their lips were only a breath apart. “Many good men have fought and spilled blood.”
“I was ruthless,” he blurted, and he did not know why. “There was a time when I had lost everything, and the French invasion began, that I did not care who I killed or why.”
“You were fighting in a war.” Her response was swift, soothing. Her hands had somehow found their way to his face, the moons of her palms cradling his jaw in the most reassuring caress he had ever known.
“Yes. But some of my men were even more ruthless than I was. Some of them committed atrocities I cannot begin to describe,” he admitted.
“We are not the sums of our pasts, Alessandro.” Still gently caressing his face as if he were beloved to her, her gaze burned into his. Searing in its violet intensity. “We are our futures. We cannot change what has happened, cannot undo what has been done. All we can do is live for tomorrow rather than for yesterday.”
She was right.
The rightness of it, the acknowledgment, settled in his bones. Worked straight through him. Found its unerring path to his heart. To the husk he had believed long dead. As if she could hear his thoughts, her hand was there, splayed over his steadily thumping heart, absorbing each beat.
“You do not know what I have done,” he rasped, compelled to warn her. To dispel her notions there were any lingering traces of goodness in him.
“I know the man you are,” she insisted. “You are a man compelled to fight for what he believes in, a man who loved his wife and son with a dedication I admire, a man who—”
He could not bear to hear any more. He silenced her by taking her lips with his. On a growl, he claimed her mouth. And with a heady feminine sigh, she kissed him back. He deepened the kiss, savoring the way she tasted, like the sweet, red wine from their earlier dinner and like something more mysterious and delicious.
Catriona.
He did not deserve her, but he was greedy when it came to this woman he had wed. And he was going to take anyway. Take because he could. Because he had to.
Deber, he reminded himself as he walked them to her bed, kissing her all the while.
Duty. He had a debt of obligation to the title, just as he had to this land.
But a small voice inside him said he was lying to himself. The blood coursing through his veins, the rampant desire stiffening his cock, the urge to drive himself home inside Catriona—none of these had anything to do with duty. Nor did the way he dragged his lips down her throat, or the way he cupped the inviting fullness of her breasts. Or the way he stopped everything to stare down at her, his breaths ragged.
Her lips were reddened and full from his kiss, her eyes glazed with passion. Her hair was a bewitching cloud falling around her shoulders, calling attention to the elegance of her fine-boned face. The freckles on the bridge of her nose called for his attention, and he could not resist dropping a kiss there, as if in so doing he could claim these tiniest parts of her for himself, too.
He wanted all of her.
Everything she had to give.
The knowledge astounded him as much as it terrified him. But he would not think of it now, for his need was monumental, bursting forth, demanding satisfaction. He tore at the belt keeping his banyan in place, and then he shrugged it from his shoulders, allowing it to fall to the carpet. He kissed her cheek before withdrawing enough to remove the sinfully tempting night rail.
She aided him in drawing it over her head.
She was nude before him, and though it was not the first time by far, he devoured every satin-smooth bit of skin. He could see her thus a hundred thousand times, and still his ardor would not be quelled, he was certain. His hands were on her, learning the hollows and dips, the curves and swells, the heat and the womanliness of her.
A different word stole into his wild thoughts then.
Delicious.
Everything about Catriona was worthy of worship. The flare of her belly, the beauty of her hips, the sweet mound between them. He had tasted her there before, but he wanted her again, just as much as ever. Perhaps more so. He kissed her, slowly, softly at first. Then with growing hunger. His fingers dipped into her sex, and she was already slick, the bud hidden within her folds swelled with her own need.
He played with her, listening to the quickening of her breath, drinking in the new urgency of her kiss. With his knee, he urged her legs wider apart, to grant him greater access to the honeyed cove he wanted most. He worked her pearl in slow, steady circles, all while making love to her mouth. What a beautiful mouth it was, and his, all his, just like the rest of her.
Hushed, hungry mewls were sounding from his wife’s throat now. He could feel her climax pulsing to life, ready to burst open. But he wanted to prolong the pleasure for both of them. He sank one finger inside her. Instantly, she tightened, jerking against him to bring him deeper.
He caught the pout of her lower lip in his teeth and tugged. “Not yet, querida. I am going to make you mad with wanting me first.”
*
Alessandro did not have to make such a promise to her, for he had already made her mad with wanting him. He was all she could breathe—his spicy, masculine scent—and he was all she could feel—his lips against hers in the most decadent kisses she had ever known, his finger teasing her.
After keeping him at a polite distance for the last little while, she could not get enough of him now. She was ravenous. But if his actions were anything to judge by, so was he. Somehow,
they wound up in the bed together.
Alessandro was pressing sweet, unhurried kisses all over her body. Down her throat, over her breasts. He flicked his tongue around a nipple. Her fingers sank into the thick, lustrous strands of his hair. The rasp of his beard against the underside of her breast made her quicken between her thighs.
He kissed down her belly, settling himself there. And then his tongue was on her. In her. Her body bowed from the bed, seeking more of his splendid torture. The pleasure was too great. It exploded within her, like fireworks erupting brilliantly across the night sky. Dazzling and brilliant and filled with color.
As the violence of her spend subsided, leaving her with a sated glow, a new determination rose within her. He kissed his way back up her body, but when he settled himself between her legs, she stopped him with a staying palm on his shoulder.
“No,” she said.
He froze, frowning down at her. “No, querida?”
“It is my turn,” she elaborated, pushing at him with the heels of both hands now.
His brow still furrowed, his eyes darkened with passion so they were the same color as his hair, he allowed her to guide him onto his back. She had not forgotten the day he had told her, seemingly a lifetime ago, that he was a broken man. He carried the pain and the scars of his past within him, a burden he refused to share.
She wanted to show him, in the only way she could, how thoroughly she worshiped him. How deeply she loved him. And maybe, just maybe, she could take away some of that pain. Maybe she could heal those wounds. One kiss at a time.
“Catriona, what are you…”
The manner in which his words trailed off gratified her as she threw herself into her task. His body was beautiful and strong. She kissed his shoulder first, the smooth, strong curve of it. Kissed her way to his throat, burying her face there, where he smelled most like himself. Across his strong jaw she traveled next, to his firm chin, loving the abrasion of his whiskers on her lips.
She had only just begun. His heart may belong to another, but his body was hers, and she was staking her claim upon it. Upon every part of him she could. Down his chest, where his olive skin was dusted with dark hair. Over his thumping heart. Down the ridged slab of his abdomen. Her hands found his thighs, her nails raking lightly over his skin.
She kissed his hip bone, inhaling the muskiness of his flesh.
“Querida,” he growled.
But she ignored the warning in his tone, for she had found his thick length. She took him in her hand as he had shown her before, kissing the blunt, velvet-smooth tip where a drop of liquid had escaped him. She licked her lips to taste it, and it was salty and sweet at once.
He growled. “Catriona.”
“Tell me how to please you,” she said, kissing him again. “I want to bring you pleasure the way you have pleased me.”
For a moment, she thought he would protest. She stroked him, meeting his gaze.
“Take me in your mouth,” he said, his voice low. Guttural.
On a surge of answering pleasure between her thighs and a surge of primal satisfaction, she did as he told her, drawing him into her mouth. Just the head of his cock at first, spurred by instinct to flick her tongue over him. His hips pumped, and she took more of him.
He was whispering things in his native tongue. She was sure they were wicked, and she loved them. Loved every growl, every hiss of his breath, each twist of his body as he showed her what he wanted. Faster. Deeper. His fingers sank into her hair, guiding her in the rhythm he wanted. Using her hand and mouth, she worked over him.
How she adored having this big man at her mercy.
Giving him pleasure made her achy with her own need. She sucked and licked and moved with him, giving him what he wanted. What they both wanted. He surged inside her deeper still.
“Cristo, I am going to come in your mouth if you do not stop,” he grunted. “You must stop.”
She liked the notion of him being powerless to stop the rushing tide of his pleasure. To know he was mindless in his need for release, that his control would break, that she would be the cause…
It was heavy.
Potent.
She surrendered herself to the act of pleasuring him, refusing to stop. She wanted him to fall apart. To submit to her. To give her his release, even if he would not give her anything else. He could deny her his heart, but this, this was hers.
“Fuck,” he said, thrusting again, taking her mouth the way he took her cunny.
And then he stiffened beneath her as he surged into the back of her throat, stealing her breath as a torrent unleashed.
“Querida,” he said afterward, his voice melodious, robbed of all the hard edges it ordinarily possessed. He looked relaxed, almost boyish with one arm thrown over his forehead. “You should not have done that.”
“I wanted to,” she told him softly, falling to the bed alongside him and curling against him.
He was warm and reassuring and strong. His arm banded around her, holding her close. “Gracias.”
She pressed a kiss to his chest. “De nada.”
And she realized, as she lay there with him, it was not just his pleasure that was hers. He was hers.
All she had to do was prove it to him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
From the study window, Alessandro watched absently as the new head gardener he had hired from London and his laborers set about the Herculean task of shaping the Marchmont gardens back into the image of grandeur they had once been. He was pleased by how much he had accomplished in his time in Wiltshire. Over the last few weeks, he had thrown himself into the task of righting the wrongs which had been perpetrated upon his estate.
He had also dedicated himself—with singular devotion—to getting his wife with child. He had been bedding Catriona at least twice a day now that they had settled once more into a truce. His countess’s appetite for pleasure matched his, and one of his favorite missions was plotting when and how he could get her alone so he could lift her skirts.
Thrice in the library.
Once in the gardens.
Yet again in the Temple of Artemis.
Two times in the drawing room.
Four times in the portrait gallery. The chairs in that room were generous and quite accommodating. He had discovered there were few greater joys in life than convincing his wife to sit upon his lap and ride him whilst he suckled her nipples.
He frowned, scarcely taking note of the panorama before him, one of the laborers pruning a particularly wild rosebush. The endless lust he felt for his wife was becoming something of a problem.
It never diminished as he had imagined it would.
Instead, it grew.
And it was growing still, every minute, every hour, every day, with a persistence that concerned him. He was not certain what he could do about it, save continue bedding her as often as possible in the hopes she would soon be carrying his heir and he could move forward with his life.
A sudden commotion from the hall beyond the study reached him. He spun on his heels, about to investigate the source, when the door burst open, and there stood Olivia, her face pale, eyes wide.
“Come quick, m’lord! Something has happened to Lady Rayne!” she said.
Dios.
His heart was instantly hammering, fear clenching his gut. “What do you mean something has happened to her, child? What is it?”
“She swooned, and she won’t wake up,” said the child.
As he moved closer, he detected the faint shimmer of tears on her cheeks. He had seen his wife only hours ago, and she had been hale and hearty, her cheeks painted a sweet pink from the exertion of their morning lovemaking. What the devil could have happened?
“Take me to her,” he said grimly.
*
She was going to lose him.
It was all Catriona could think as she watched the doctor Alessandro had summoned to her side take his leave of her chamber. How strange the heart was, to be capable of bursting with happin
ess and breaking all at once.
She had been so busy these last few weeks, between the endless tasks occupying her at Marchmont, taking Olivia on as her charge, and navigating the complex marriage she shared with her husband, she had failed to notice she had missed her courses.
But miss them, she had. She had been due for them a fortnight after Alessandro had consummated their marriage. How had she failed to note all the signs? The sudden churn of her stomach in the mornings? The extra urge for dessert? The dizziness which sometimes assailed her, as had happened earlier.
All of it normal, the doctor had assured her, for a woman who was with child. The reason she had failed to come to initially was that she had knocked her head upon the floor in her fall. But though she had a throbbing ache in her skull to show for it, the doctor assured her that after a day of rest, she would be fine.
How wrong he was. For she would not be fine. Not when this discovery meant her life as she had come to know—and love—it was about to change irrevocably.
Catriona closed her eyes against the swift prick of tears. A strange barrage of emotion pounded down upon her, like a punishing hailstorm. Maternal longing, a rush of awe, followed by regret and a bittersweet, searing pain.
For if she was going to bear him a child, Alessandro would be leaving her.
Soon.
It was not enough time.
And while she had spent every moment since falling in love with him with that horrible knowledge impinging upon her happiness, it had never felt as final or as real as it did now, as she lay in her bed, the new life they had created together growing inside her.
The door to the chamber opened, but she kept her eyes closed. She already knew who had entered without bothering to look, for she had become so attuned to her husband, she recognized the sound of his prowling walk. The bed dipped as he sat upon the edge.
“Catriona,” he said softly. “Look at me.”
Hot tears scalded her eyes, sliding from beneath her lowered lashes. Still, she would not obey. Nor would she speak. She did not think herself capable of it in this moment.
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