He’d had no idea she would even think of it, of pandering to his senses, his passions in such an overtly immodest way. In such a blatantly wanton way. Battling to mute the groan she drew from him, he wondered if she’d guessed what her being wanton, so utterly abandoned, did to him.
It was more than torture to stand still and force himself simply to accept all she pressed on him, to look down at her pale head moving against him, her flaxen locks spreading and tangling, catching as she worked, and not respond, not grasp, seize, and demand more.
Simply to receive.
To not have to issue any demands at all, but to have many of the wanton thoughts he’d indulged over the years brought to life. To have caresses he’d dreamed of lavished upon him.
Because she wished to.
The thought very nearly brought him—and her—undone. He endured for ten heartbeats, then, gasping, sensually reeling for the first time in more years than he could count, he guided his hands to her face, slid his thumb into her mouth, and withdrew his erection from that gloriously wet haven. “No more.”
The words were so gravelly Penny could barely make them out, but through her hands on his thighs she sensed the tension in him—more than she recalled evoking in him before—and knew enough to heed it. But she’d learned enough for now; the maids she’d overheard whispering hadn’t been wrong.
Rocking back on her heels, she rose, trailing her hand up as she did, closing it around his jutting length. With her other hand, she prodded his chest. “Sit on the bed.”
His eyes met hers; she glimpsed the predator in him, but he complied. Obligingly, he sat back. She followed, clambering up, setting one knee on either side of his hips, straddling him. Then she locked her eyes with his. One hand on his shoulder for balance, the other wrapped about his erection, she slowly, deliberately, entirely at her own discretion, impaled herself on him.
And he let her.
She felt the effort it cost him, saw how clenched his jaw was, saw his lids drift down in surrender as she sank fully down, her softness sheathing his hardness, her body sliding down his to finally come to rest breasts to chest. Draping her arms over his shoulders, she set her lips to his, slid into his mouth, danced her tongue over his, then started to move upon him.
A dance of a different sort.
It wasn’t the same as when he’d lain flat; although she experimented, she couldn’t find quite the right angle…
Desire had already burgeoned within her; she needed more, soon.
Drawing back from the kiss, dragging in a gasping breath, she clung and pressed closer; her head beside his brought their bodies even tighter against each other, but no…
“This”—she had to haul in another breath—“isn’t quite right.” She whispered the words beside his ear. Dragged in another breath. “Is it?”
She felt rather than heard a chuckle that came out more like a groan.
“You saw this in some book, didn’t you?”
She bit his earlobe—hard. “How else?”
“You’re too tall—there’s a better way for us.”
She licked the spot she’d bitten. Purred, “How?”
His hands, until then loose across her back, slid down to grip her bottom. He held her to him as he shifted, swinging his legs up, holding her against him as he came to his knees, then sank back to sit on his ankles.
Resettling her over him, straddling his hips, he resettled himself within her. Brushed back the veil of her hair and met her eyes. “How’s that?”
Her hands on his shoulders, she rose up, then slowly sank down. Her knees and thighs now at a different angle, she had much better purchase on the bed. Their bodies entire seemed much better aligned, at least for their present purpose. Sliding her hands up, she framed his face, smiled her answer—and kissed him.
Let go all restraint and gave herself over to the now driving need to love him, to meet him on the physical plane, match him and experience all that together they might know. That together they could share.
And he went with her, but still at her command, following not leading, letting her set the pace and the direction, letting her ride them both hard, furious, and unswerving toward the sun.
She reached it, and burned.
Charles let the conflagration take her, let it consume her. Watched it claim her. He found a strength he didn’t know he possessed and held back from the beckoning blaze.
And waited. Until release had swept through her and away.
My turn. He didn’t say the words; she wouldn’t have heard them if he had. Holding her to him, he fought to free enough of his mind from the heat of her slick sheath to direct his hands and rearrange her limbs.
Her limp arms he draped over his shoulders, her legs he straightened one at a time and wrapped them about his waist, then he took her bottom in both hands, supporting her weight, tipping her hips to him.
And smoothly drove into her. Embedded himself to the hilt, then gripped her bottom and moved her on him. Worked her hips over his. In this position, he only had to thrust a little to fill her, to penetrate her forcefully as deeply as he could. She was fully open to him, totally his, totally helpless to resist. Totally and completely in his power.
Penny awoke to that jolting reality on a rush of intense sensation. Surely he was deeper, farther inside her than he’d ever been?
She gasped, eyes closed, clung tight as she assimilated their new position—assimilated the devastating impact it was having on her already heightened senses. And at some deeper level, on her very being.
The rhythm he set was neither fast nor slow, but perfectly gauged and relentless. Her senses spun. She tried to squirm, to press ahead still faster, to gain even more delicious pressure for her suddenly clamorous nerves, but instead his fingers tightened; he held her immobile, suspended half-off him for a heartbeat, until she sobbed and clutched in desperation, then he filled her, deep and hard and shockingly thoroughly, again.
Oh, yes, her senses sobbed.
Her breasts, riding against his hair-dusted chest, had swollen until they ached, the nipples so tightly ruched and sensitive she longed to feel his mouth soothing them. In desperation, she clutched his shoulders, extended her arms, and leaned back so her breasts were no longer so excruciatingly abraded.
He bent his head and set his lips to one breast, found her nipple, took it into his hot mouth, and suckled.
Lightning streaked through her; she screamed, gasped, and arched in his arms. He held her easily, continued to work her hips, continued to thrust into her body, continued to feast on her breasts…until she shattered.
More completely than she ever had.
For long moments, she was floating, out of touch with any world but the sensate, aware only of him, his touch, his…worship.
There seemed no other word for it. Even now, he didn’t seek his own release, but sought to lengthen and heighten hers. She didn’t know the ways, but felt the results, felt the golden pleasure well and swell and buoy her on.
It seemed eons, but could only have been minutes before she drifted back to earth, and found herself wrapped in his arms, secure and safe against his chest, her head on his shoulder. He was still hard and rigid within her.
She shifted her head, found his ear, caressed it with her lips. Murmured, “Lay me down. Take me now.”
He drew back to look into her eyes. For a moment, their gazes locked, and she wondered what he saw, what he looked for when he searched her eyes…what he wanted from her.
She could sense his heartbeat, feel his tension, yet it wasn’t desire that stared at her from his eyes.
But then he shifted, lifted her from him, laid her on the pillows. His touch was assured as he settled her, flicked her hair out, laid it about her, then drew the covers from beneath her and let them fall where they would. She was suddenly aware of the flaring emptiness within her, the emptiness he’d filled, that when he was within her she was whole, in some way complete. His eyes, his hands, never left her; as he spread her thighs
and loomed over her, that emptiness swelled to an ache.
Then he filled her.
Relief fell from her in a soft sob. Braced above her, he looked down at her as he moved, and started a slow ride of his own.
Long, slow—how a compulsion so fraught, so driven, could feel so languid in execution was something she couldn’t comprehend. He made it seem so, yet it wasn’t. He seemed almost relaxed as he rhythmically drove into her, yet he was very far from that.
Reaching up, she ran her hands over his chest, over the locked muscles in his upper arms, over the broad sweep of his shoulders, then she tugged, arched as he drove deeper, harder, then he groaned and obliged.
He lowered his body to hers, and she stopped thinking.
Her existence shrank to just him and her in the soft shadows of her bed, to shared breaths, gasps, to the wonder of swift shared glances in the dark, to their bodies flexing, merging to the dance they performed it seemed instinctively. She didn’t need to think to know what to do, but could simply let instinct guide her.
Could be with him in this way without thought or concern, or restraint, could simply give herself up to him. As he gave himself to her.
In the end, wholly, completely, without reserve. The wave reared, then crashed, and swept them both away.
They clung, held tight to the moment, to sensation, to each other.
The wave receded and left them, for a moment adrift on a sea of their own making, then they sank back to earth, to the earthly comfort of her bed.
Wrapped in each other’s arms, they slept.
She woke in the deep watches of the night with no idea what had roused her.
She lay still, and listened…realized as she registered her breathing and his that she hadn’t, not even in that fleeting moment of first awareness, felt surprised to find Charles beside her, to feel his arm lying over her waist.
The moon was now high; silvery light streamed through the open curtains, the bright shaft striking the floor beside the bed, throwing enough light for her night-adjusted eyes to see clearly.
No ripple of the unexpected disturbed the stillness about them.
All seemed peaceful. Comforting. Right.
As it should be.
She shifted just enough to look at him. He was slumped facedown in the bed beside her, deeply asleep. Even so, one arm lay flung over her, long fingers relaxed against her side; she wouldn’t give much for her chances of sliding from the bed. Of leaving him.
That odd look she’d seen and even more sensed in his eyes returned to haunt her. Frowning, she tried to fathom what it meant. In that moment, she was perfectly sure neither he nor she could have pretended anything. He’d sworn he was no longer capable of pretense, not in that sphere; she now understood enough of his past to believe him.
Sinking into the soft mattress, she thought back over the night…smiled at the success of her strategy.
That strange look floated once again across her mind.
She shook it aside. She knew what they were doing this time; it was a physical engagement, an affair with no emotional strings on either side. That was the mistake she’d made last time, imagining something that hadn’t been, not understanding how he saw it. He hadn’t felt for her as she’d thought—not as she’d felt for him—and that’s how he’d always see her. They were close friends indisputably, lovers in the physical sense, but nothing more.
This time she accepted that that was how it would be; she’d gone into this with her eyes open. They would share and indulge in physical pleasure as they would, until they grew tired of it; she had no doubt that whatever transpired they would remain forever friends. He would go off and do whatever he would do, and she would continue as she had been, but with a wealth of memories to warm her, to reassure her that she was as female, as feminine, as desirable as any of her sex.
She knew, this time, what she wanted from him; this time that matched what she could expect to receive. This time, she hadn’t put her heart on the table and expected to receive his in return.
Her gaze drifted to his face, the section she could see. His dark hair lay in heavy locks over his forehead; his beard was starting to shadow his jaw.
Again, that odd, lingering, wanting look of his filled her mind…
He’d spoken of a jigsaw with pieces that didn’t fit; this seemed more like one thread too many for the tapestry she’d thought they’d been weaving. That look was evidence of an extra strand, something she hadn’t expected, something that didn’t fit with the picture of them she’d assembled in her mind.
But that look had been real, not imagined, not something concocted for her distraction. It had been raw, undisguised, unshielded.
Which was why it wouldn’t leave her mind.
Charles came awake in the instant the tumblers of the lock on Penny’s door clunked. He sat up, looked across the room, aware she was awake, too.
The latch lifted, the door swung noiselessly open—all the way open.
The moonlight streaming in was bright; the unlit corridor was pitch-black in contrast. All he could see was the vague outline of a man.
He swore and leapt from the bed.
The man ran.
Grabbing up his breeches, he yanked them on, stomped into his boots. Penny had sat up, covers clutched to her chest, staring at the open door. The sound of running footsteps receding along the corridor reached them.
“Stay there!” He was at the door on the words; he paused only long enough to grab the key from the inside lock, fit it to the outside, then he slammed the door, locked it, and pocketed the key. And raced after the shadowy figure he glimpsed at the head of the stairs.
The man pelted down the stairs, leaping, swinging from the banister. Charles reached the top, and flung himself after him. The man was making for the front door. The bolts would slow him.
Except that the front door stood wide open.
Charles slowed in disbelief as he ran into the wide swath of moonlight pouring into the front hall. Realizing, he swerved to the side, out of the light. He heard the scrunch of booted feet fleeing—then nothing.
Walking out onto the porch, he looked in the direction of the last sound, but as he’d expected, the shrubbery was a mass of dense shadows. The man could be standing there or fleeing through it; it was impossible to tell.
Hands on his hips, he stood waiting for his breathing to even out, and softly swore. He was far too wise to give further chase. The man had come to Penny’s room; if he left the house, the villain might circle around and try for her again. He wasn’t leaving her unguarded, not in this lifetime.
But why the hell had the front door been unlocked? Not even the best locksman could get past its heavy double bolts.
He was turning to check the bolts when a shifting shadow made him freeze. Then he stared. Hands in his pockets, Nicholas came walking up along one of the garden paths, one easily reached from the rear of the shrubbery.
Charles waited where he was, in full sight.
Nicholas saw him from some distance away; reaching the steps, he started up. “What are you doing here?”
Charles paused long enough for Nicholas to sense how very wrong things were, then said, “Some man broke into Penny’s room.”
Nicholas stepped onto the porch. His jaw fell. “What?”
It was a convincing performance, yet Charles wasn’t sure, and wasn’t taking any chances. He waved inside. “The front door was left unbolted.”
Nicholas looked at the double doors, both standing wide. “I…I left them shut when I went out.”
“Shut, but not bolted?”
“Well, no…I had to get back inside.”
“Where have you been?”
“Out.” Apparently stunned, he waved vaguely toward the gardens. “I couldn’t sleep—I went for a walk…” Suddenly, he focused on Charles’s face. “Good God! Is Penny all right?”
Charles almost believed him; his horrified expression appeared very real. “Yes.” He paused, then added, “I was with her.�
� He started back into the house. Still apparently in shock, Nicholas trailed after him.
Hauling one huge door shut, Charles added, distinctly grim as he thought things through, “Just as well.”
Nicholas closed the other door; he stood back as Charles threw the bolts. “We’d better check the other doors, I suppose.”
“Yes.” Charles did, confirming that the other doors and windows on the ground floor were secure. Not that that meant much; any trained operative could find a way in, and he was sure, now, of the caliber of the enemy.
Nicholas trailed behind him, watching but not volunteering, also just as well. Aside from the fact Charles knew the house better than he did, Charles wouldn’t have accepted his word for anything, not even that a window was locked.
Finally, Charles climbed the stairs. Nicholas followed. Charles halted in the corridor at the stair head; Nicholas’s room was in the other wing, in the opposite direction from Penny’s.
Nicholas stepped up to the corridor; his gaze moved over Charles’s bare shoulders and chest, slid down to the knee buckles on his breeches, hanging free. Halting, he stared at Charles through the dimness, transparently making the obvious connections.
Charles simply waited.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Ah…you said you were with Penny?”
Crouched behind her bedchamber door, her ear to the keyhole, Penny heard his question and the inference behind it.
“Damn!” She’d already sworn in both English and French at Charles for having locked her in. Panic of an unfamiliar and unprecedented sort had attacked her when she’d heard the thuds as two men—Charles and the mystery man—had gone flying down the stairs. After that, no matter how hard she’d strained her ears, she’d heard nothing. Her window gave onto the courtyard; she’d seen nothing either.
Now she listened with all her might. The door was old, solid, and thick, but so was the lock; the keyhole, with no key in it for Charles had taken it with him, was large. With her ear pressed against it, with night’s quiet prevailing through the rest of the house, she could hear their words. She had no idea where Nicholas had come from, but he and Charles were standing along the corridor, she thought near the stairs.
A Lady of His Own bc-3 Page 27