by Lydia Dare
“What are you doing, Madeline?” the duke asked, his voice low to keep other guests from hearing.
But she didn’t answer him. She just gazed at Wes. And the pause between her words became pregnant with expectation. He waited. Then he said to her father, “Perhaps you should take her to bed. She might be feverish.”
“The only person I want taking me to bed is you, Weston Hadley,” Madeline’s voice echoed through the room.
Nervous laughter from those assembled followed. The duke leaned down and asked, “Are you certain this is what you want?”
But she ignored him again. “Take me to bed, Wes,” Maddie asked softly, but loudly enough that everyone could still hear her. More laughter ensued. But it wasn’t humorous to Wes. Not at all.
“Well, when a lady asks for someone to take her to bed, and the object of her affection refuses to step up…” Archer said as he started toward Madeline.
Damn his jackass brother! Wes would kill him for sticking his snout in where it didn’t belong.
Wes turned and started toward Madeline. Then he stopped. His head warred with his heart.
But Madeline started to talk. She said her words loudly and crisply so they could be heard by one and all. “You see, everyone. What you don’t know is that Weston Hadley is my husband.” She took a dramatic breath. “But then he decided he didn’t want me after all, and he returned me to my father.” She reached for her father’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “And my father has done his best to end the marriage. And I have tried to end the way I feel about Mr. Hadley, but it seems to be an impossible task.”
“What are you saying, Madeline?” Wes asked from where he stood several feet from her. The two of them were the only ones in the center of the ballroom, as everyone else moved back.
“I’m saying I want to be your wife, Weston Hadley.” She raised her nose in the air. “And I want you to bite me, too.” She took another fortifying breath. “And I want you to hold me in your arms. I want you to tell me you love me again. I want you to keep me.” She smiled broadly. “I want you to do that thing you did, when you made me feel…” Her voice trailed off. “You were there. You remember.”
He remembered. He’d never forget the smell or taste of her.
“I want you beside me day and night. I want you to hold me while I sleep. I want to have your children.”
Was that what this was about? Was she forced to make this declaration because she was with child? Wes hadn’t even considered the ramifications. “Are you?” he breathed out.
“Not yet.” She shook her head. “But I want to be,” she softly.
“You don’t know what you’re saying…” Wes began.
She held up one finger. “On the contrary, I know exactly what I’m saying.”
“But you can’t,” he hedged. She couldn’t. Could she? Dare she? Would she?
“I do,” she said succinctly. Then she dropped to her knees in the middle of the ballroom. She held her hands up as though pleading. “Do you want me to beg you?”
“Get up, Madeline!” her father hissed. But she didn’t. She stayed there on her knees, probably getting her gown all dirty in her quest to… do what?
“You said if I wanted you to kiss me, all I had to do was ask.”
***
If he didn’t accept her soon, Maddie would be forced to rip her clothes off and stand there in the middle of the ballroom naked. She hadn’t realized until she’d gotten her monthly courses how disappointed she was not to be with child. It had come as a complete shock, the utter loss she felt when she’d realized she lost her only tie to Wes. He’d cut all the rest of the strings. What else was she to do?
She inhaled deeply, wondering if he would abandon her again. If he truly didn’t want her after all. “Wes?” she asked softly. “Will you kiss me?”
Wes sank down on his knees before her and took her face in his strong hands. He caressed her jaw with his thumb as he gazed at her, his eyes brimming with… tears? Certainly not. He coughed gently to clear his throat. “You’ve always been too good for me, Madeline,” he said.
Her heart fell. “Only because you’ve put me on a pedestal that I don’t deserve, Wes.” She held her hands out to the side, indicating her current state of subjugation. “I’m already on my knees begging. I can’t go much lower.”
“Stand up, Maddie.” He stood up and pulled her to her feet.
Had called her Maddie? A smile tugged at her lips. Dare she hope?
“I love him,” she said more to the crowd than she said to him, as she needed for everyone to know. She rose up on her tiptoes, captured his face in her hands, and pressed her lips to his.
He gaped at her for a moment. But then she pursed her lips in a kiss and waited for him to come to her. How could he refuse? He clutched her tightly to himself. He pressed her body against his, his hands pulling her closer than she could have ever imagined being. And he did it in front of everyone. Maddie’s heart soared. He finally pulled back and rested his forehead against hers.
“We should go somewhere and talk,” she whispered.
He scooped her up in his arms without even a word and spun around so quickly that she squealed with the joy of it. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, making a path for them. Maddie reached out and touched Sophie’s fingertips as they passed her, and her friend smiled. At least she had one friend who was happy for her. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, her father looked happy. Relieved, even. The rest could all go hang. Wes carried her out into the garden and didn’t stop until he’d kicked the door shut behind him. He set her on the garden wall and pushed her hair back from her face. “What have you done?” he asked softly.
“I’ve fallen in love,” she said with a quick shrug. There was no other explanation. “With you,” she said for clarification.
“It had damn well better be with me,” he chuckled. “Why did you do that in there?”
“Because I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”
“You have all my attention.” He sipped at her lips with tiny touches to her mouth. “I’ll ruin your life, Maddie.”
“Kiss me? Hold me? Love me? Be mine forever?” she said with a laugh. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was too late to take any of it back.
“You made them all think I didn’t want you. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“You could have fooled me,” she said as she dragged her skirts up and wrapped her legs around him. He pressed against her warmth, as though he was meant to be there. He was. God, he was. She pointed to the place where her neck met her shoulder. “I want you to mark me.”
“I can’t,” he said, but he did press his lips to the spot and suckled her skin lightly. It made her belly drop to her toes.
“I want to be yours in every way. I’ll be proud to be a Hadley. To be your Lycan mate. To be the mother of your mutts.”
He cocked his head at her and grinned. “Mutts?”
“Lycans,” she clarified as she rolled her eyes. “Mutts. Whatever they are, they’ll be mine and yours, and they’ll be perfect.”
“Yes, they will,” he agreed. He looked into her eyes. “Do you really love me?”
She smacked at his shoulder. “Would I have done all this if I didn’t? I just dropped to my knees in a crowded ballroom and begged you to make love to me, for heaven’s sake.”
“You needn’t do me bodily harm, Maddie,” he growled. His lips danced across her collarbone. Maddie tugged her skirts higher and reached for the fastenings of his trousers. “What are you doing?” he growled, already growing hot and hard for her.
She leaned her forehead against his as she exposed him to the night air and took his manhood in her hand.
He glanced around the empty garden. “You’re going to kill me,” he growled.
“Tell me I’m the only one,” she urged. “Tell me I’m the one you love. Tell me I always will be. Please.”
“The only one. Ever,” he declared. Then he wrapped her legs arou
nd his waist, cupped her bottom in his hands, and lifted her, then sat down on a nearby bench, draping her so that she straddled his lap.
He lifted her skirts until his hands found her bottom and pulled her forward to ride the ridge of his manhood. She slid across his taut skin like satin, wet and ready for him.
“Can we do it like this?” she whispered against his mouth.
He nodded, his lips brushing hers as he did so. “Ride me,” he said softly. Then he rocked her bottom forward and slid his length into her. He groaned loudly as he did so. “It’s like coming home,” he whispered, his voice broken by emotion. “God, I love you,” he said.
But he’d taken any rational thought from her head when he slid inside her. Her cry was her only response. She couldn’t put two words together in her mind for all the pleasure that occupied it.
His hand slid into her curls as she rocked against him, taking her higher and higher and higher until her cries filled the night air. “Shhh…” he whispered against her lips. But she couldn’t. Not with the way he made her feel. She rose and fell on him, controlling the movements of their bodies with her quickening movements. But then she toppled over that precipice, fluttering in ecstasy around him as he groaned and spilled himself inside her. He held on to her hips, holding her above him, buried deep inside her as he finished. She dropped her head onto his chest and drew in great heaving breaths.
“Do you think anyone heard me?” she asked quietly.
He pushed her hair back and looked into her eyes. “I’m afraid everyone probably heard you, Maddie. You’ve been completely ruined.”
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed. It was difficult being perfect. Everyone needed a little ruination if it meant finding love, didn’t they?
“Why is this a good thing?”
“You can’t possibly give me back to my father now,” she informed him. She needed to be clear that he was stuck with her. By her own choice. He was hers and she was his forever and always. “I’m yours. I’ll ask you to kiss me every day.”
“You won’t have to ask, Maddie.” Then he leaned forward and did just that.
Epilogue
“I do not like surprises, Weston,” Maddie complained, tugging at the dark cloth covering her eyes.
“Behave,” he growled and swatted at her hands. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” she asked, though she knew he’d never tell her. He’d been more than secretive ever since they boarded the ferry in London.
“You are worse than a child,” he replied, then he kissed her cheek to soften his words.
“Can’t I get at least a hint?”
“Hmm.” He draped his arm around her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. “I made a promise to your father some time ago—”
“Weston Hadley, if you think you can be rid of me again—”
He laughed. “Spoiled and impatient, Maddie. May I please finish my sentence?”
She huffed indignantly and folded her arms across her chest, pursing her lips in the process.
“He didn’t like the state in which he found you in Gretna and told me if he ever saw you in a disheveled state again, he’d have my head on a platter, or something like that.”
“I did look awful.”
“You’re beautiful. Even in muddy clothes and wild hair, you’re the most beautiful creature in the world.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that. “You’re just partial since I’m your wife.”
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I took him at his word. My income was never very much—”
“I don’t care about that.” Besides Papa had relented and given Wes her dowry when he saw how much she truly did love her husband.
“Well, I did. I do,” he clarified. “I want to support you and care for you and…” Wes untied her blindfold. He gestured to a large structure near the edge of the water that was in the process of being built, if she wasn’t mistaken.
“What is that?”
“That is my legacy. Mine, Gray’s, and Archer’s. It’s a gambling establishment, or it will be once the construction is complete.”
Maddie couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her. “You are so fortunate that Papa has already given you my dowry. He will faint dead away when he finds out.”
Wes grinned at her. “I don’t care about your father. I only care about you. Can you stand being married to man who runs a gaming hall?”
Maddie gently touched the mark on the side of her neck. “I’m not sure,” she teased. “It is so very Hadley of you.” Then she looked down at her belly and touched it with her hand. “What do you think? Shall you be embarrassed to have a father who owns a gaming hell?”
Wes’ smile vanished and his mouth fell open a bit.
“Hmm.” Maddie bit back a smile. “Wolf got your tongue, Wes?”
“Are you saying I’m going to be a father?”
She nodded and softly touched the scar on his cheek. “I love you, Weston Hadley. I will love you if you run a gaming hell. I will love you all the days of my life.”
Wes lifted her to his lap, wrapped his arms around her, and pressed a kiss to her lips.
About the Author
Lydia Dare is a pseudonym for the writing team of Tammy Falkner and Jodie Pearson. Both are active members of the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America. Their writing process involves passing a manuscript back and forth, each one writing 1,500 words after editing the other’s previous installment. Jodie specializes in writing the history and Tammy in writing the paranormal. They live near Raleigh, North Carolina.
If you enjoyed The Wolf Who Loved Me,
you’ll love the rest of Lydia Dare’s
sexy Regency paranormal romances:
A Certain Wolfish Charm
Tall, Dark and Wolfish
The Wolf Next Door
The Taming of the Wolf
It Happened One Bite
In the Heat of the Bite
Never Been Bit
And watch for the next book
in the Hadley brothers trilogy,
coming November 2012
from Sourcebooks Casablanca.
Never Been Bit
by Lydia Dare
The glittering world of high society is the playground for the rich, titled, and reluctantly undead…
Alec MacQuarrie’s after-life has become an endless search for pleasure in an effort to overcome his heartbreak and despair. Wandering through the seedy world of London’s demimonde, he’s changed into a dark and fearsome creature even he doesn’t recognize until he stumbles into a magical lass he knew once upon a time and sees a glimpse of the life he could have had.
But the ton is no match for one incorrigible young lady…
After watching each of her coven sisters happily marry, Sorcha Ferguson is determined to capture a Lycan husband of her very own. When she encounters Alec, she decides to save her old friend from what he’s become, all while searching for her own happily-ever-after.
Over his dead body is Alec going to allow this enchanting innocent to throw herself away on an unworthy werewolf, but that leaves him responsible for her, and he’s the worst monster of them all…
For more Lydia Dare, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
In the Heat of the Bite
by Lydia Dare
Chivalry is far from undead…
Matthew Halkett, Earl of Blodswell, is one of the few men in the ton who can claim to be a knight in shining armor—because that’s precisely what he was before being turned into a vampyre. When he spies a damsel in distress in the midst of a storm in Hyde Park, his natural instinct is to rush to her aid…
But not every woman needs to be rescued…
Weather-controlling witch Rhiannon Sinclair isn’t caught in a storm—she’s the cause of it. She’s mortified to have been caught making trouble by the imposing earl, but she doesn’t need any man—never has, and is sure she never will…
But when Rhia
nnon encounters Matthew again, her powers go awry and his supernatural abilities run amok. Between the two of them, the ton is thrown into an uproar. There’s never been a more tempestuous scandal…
“Heartwarming romance, engaging characters, and engrossing plot twists…fast becoming ‘must buy’ books. I recommend them all.”—Star-Crossed Romance
For more Lydia Dare, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com