The Wedding Challenge

by Candace Camp

  “Good. Then no one will know,” he said.

  Callie nodded slowly, thinking about the fact that they would still be alone in this house together. She remembered how the firelight had rippled across his bare chest, turning his skin golden and highlighting the smooth curve of his muscles beneath his skin.

  “I promise you, I will do nothing to you,” he told her quietly. “But if it will make you feel easier, I will sleep in the stables, so that you are truly alone in the house. Mrs. Farmington has clearly already returned to her cottage in the village. And you can lock the doors and windows.”

  “No, you need not do that.” Callie was not about to tell him that she had been worrying more about the pull of attraction she felt toward him than his trying to have his way with her. “I believe you.”

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  Their eyes held for a moment; then they both looked away, feeling suddenly awkward. Bromwell cleared his throat and glanced about the room, as though he would find some sort of answer there.

  “I imagine you would like to get some sleep,” he began finally. “Shall I show you to your room?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I, uh, perhaps I can find you something to, um, sleep in,” he went on as they left the room, color tinting the high ridges of his cheekbones. “One of my shirts or…” His voice trailed off.

  Callie thought of sleeping in one of Brom’s shirts, and her loins prickled with desire. It seemed far too intimate, almost as if he would be there with her. She wondered if any scent of him would still linger on the material.

  They started along the hall to the staircase, which lay near the front door. Callie saw the small cloth bag that she had brought with her lying beside the door. She supposed it must have been there earlier, though she had not noticed it in her panic as she ran out the front door.

  “Look. It is my bag.” She went forward to pick it up, but Brom took it from her hand. “That man must have brought it in. I did not notice.”

  “Good. Then you will have your clothes.” He looked away as he said it.

  Everything seemed awkward now, Callie thought. She wondered if he, like she, could not stop thinking about the fact that they were alone together. There were no chaperones and no one to tell tales. No one would know what transpired tonight except them.

  He led her up the stairs and along the hallway, stopping at the last door. “Here is your room. I fear it is rather cold. Let me light you a fire. Excuse me a moment.”

  It was indeed chilly in the room, which had clearly been unused for a while. Bromwell set down her bag and lit the lamp on the table beside the bed, then left the room. He returned a few moments later, carrying some firewood and kindling in his arms. Callie noted that he had also taken the time to put on a shirt, though he had not bothered to tuck it in, so that it hung loosely outside his trousers.

  He knelt in front of the fireplace and began to build a fire. He coaxed the flames into life, and before long the fireplace was giving forth warmth. Callie, who had stood watching him, huddled in the light blanket he had given her, went over to the hearth.

  He smiled at her. “I hope you have not caught a chill.” He reached out and smoothed back a stray curl of her hair, which had caught upon her cheek.

  Callie found herself wanting to lean into his hand like a cat, to close her eyes and give herself up to the wonderful feeling of being with him, of feeling his skin touch hers.

  His hand fell away, and he moved across the room to the window. He parted the curtains with his hand and stood there looking out into the dark night.

  After a moment, he said, “I believe I told you that my mother died when I was young. My nurse used to call Daphne my ‘little mother.’ She looked after me, played with me. We were all we had growing up. My father was…” His lip curled in distaste. “I have always sworn that I would never be such a one as my father. He had no understanding of or love for children. He expected us to behave as adults, and there was no quarter given for youth or a lack of strength or skill.”

  “I am sorry,” Callie said, her heart melting in sympathy.

  He looked over at her and smiled. “I did not mean to ask for your pity. I wanted to explain about Daphne. She protected me from him. His punishments were stern, even cruel, and she tried to shelter me from them. She would hide me, make excuses for me, even take the blame for something I had done because she could not bear to see me hurt. I have much to be grateful to her for.”

  “I know.” Callie’s smile was sad. She understood his love for his sister. Daphne had been the only one who loved him. She knew that he could never give up his sister, no matter how wrong she was in her actions.

  “She had to bear a great deal. I was too young to shelter her in any way. My father insisted that she marry advantageously. She was beautiful, and there were many men who wanted her. She married a man years older than she, a man she did not love, and she did it for us, to keep our estate from being swallowed up in my father’s debt. I remember hearing her weep in her room the night before her wedding day. And then, when she was finally free of him and could have a new life, a good life, she fell in love with Rochford. I hated him for her unhappiness. For her having to marry another old man and wither away for the last fifteen years, so far from everything she loved.”

  He turned to Callie, frowning. “And now…now I feel as if I do not know her. The things she has done to try to harm you. This ruse. That night at Vauxhall Gardens. I can scarcely believe that this is my sister, that she would stoop to such tricks. Her heart seems filled with bitterness and hatred. And now I…now I cannot help but wonder if I ever really understood her at all. Were all those things she told me lies? Was she the same then, and I just did not see it? Was I simply too young and foolish to recognize the truth?”

  The look on Bromwell’s face was so wretched that Callie went to him and put her hand on his arm. “I am sorry,” she told him softly again, gazing up into his face.

  Her dark eyes glowed with compassion, large and warm in her delicate heart-shaped face, and he was struck all over again by how beautiful she was. Her face, he thought, was perfect in every way, framed in a riot of black curls. Her lips were full and red, and he could not help but remember how her mouth had felt against his. And though he was across the room from the fire, his skin was suddenly searing.

  The wrap had fallen from her shoulders when she reached up to touch him, and his eyes dropped down to her shoulders and chest. The scoop neckline of her plain dimity gown revealed only a slice of skin along the rounded tops of her breasts, but the material, still slightly damp, clung to her form. His heart was hammering, his breath suddenly faster in his throat. As he gazed at her, her nipples tightened, thrusting against the cloth in a blatant show of desire.

  Suddenly he found it very difficult to think. He knew he should tear his gaze away from her, but somehow he could not. His body was pulsatingly aware of her hand upon his arm, now burning where it touched.

  “I, um…should go,” he said vaguely.

  “No. Do not,” Callie replied. She was aware that everyone would tell her that what she was doing was wrong, but it felt absolutely right to her. The pain of the past few weeks seemed to have melted away all fear, all doubt. The heat in his eyes as he had looked at her had opened up some deep, primitive longing in her. She wanted to feel again what she had felt with him before. She wanted to experience everything that had lain beyond that, unexplored.

  She slid her hand up his arm and onto his chest, aware of the smooth curve of his muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. The quick, harsh intake of his breath, the sudden sharpening of his face, stirred her. He wanted her, and that knowledge made her hungry.

  “Stay here with me,” she murmured.

  “Callie…” He released a shaky breath. “You are playing with fire.”

  She smiled slowly, sensuously, her eyes heavy with meaning. “Ah, but I like the heat.”

  Looking at him, seeing the desire that washed over his featur
es, she felt heady with power, filled with the triumphant knowledge that she could move him, and she ached to test the limits of that power. She loved the sensations sizzling inside her, and she wanted more, wanted it all. She wanted him.

  “I have thought about kissing you these past days,” she told him, emboldened by the energy pulsing through her. “Have you not thought about it?” She stretched up on tiptoe to place a featherlight kiss upon the line of his jaw.

  She felt the shudder that ran through him. “Good God, Callie, I have thought of little else.” She turned her head, brushing a kiss along the other side of his jaw. “You are mad to do this.”

  “Perhaps I am, a little,” she agreed. “Do you mind?”

  “I fear that you shall mind—tomorrow.”

  “I will not,” Callie promised, pressing her lips to his chin.

  She stretched upward, her soft lips beckoning his mouth, sweet and promising. He knew that he should pull away. A gentleman would never take advantage of a woman this way. But he could not seem to make his legs move, and he certainly did not feel like a gentleman at the moment.

  Callie pressed her lips against Brom’s, gently, like the merest breath, then came back to taste again, lingering this time before she pulled away. She looked up into his eyes, dark now with desire, and waited. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, the tension that ran up and down the length of him. His hands were clenched into fists, as if to hold on tightly to the shreds of his control.

  Her eyes steadily on his, she went up on tiptoe again, her mouth turning up to his. He let out a groan deep in his throat, and his arms clamped around her as his mouth came down to meet hers. Passion, long held back by both of them, came flooding out, swift and unstoppable.

  Their arms strained to pull them closer as their mouths clung desperately. They pulled away only to tear at their clothing, coming back together an instant later, unable to bear another moment apart, moving in a constant turning dance of desire that brought them closer and closer to the bed.

  His boots were soon gone, and his shirt unbuttoned and tossed blindly onto the floor. The myriad buttons down her back proved more difficult, but they, too, were conquered, though several of the small buttons were popped from their moorings in the process. In one smooth motion he stripped her dress down her body, revealing her lithe form, clad only in her thin undergarments.

  Callie’s breasts pushed up against the cotton chemise, swelling over its ribboned neckline, the nubs of her hardened nipples visible through the thin fabric. He stopped, his eyes dropping to the sight of the full white orbs, the edge of the chemise skimming just above her nipples, keeping them tantalizingly out of view. Slowly, almost reverently, he traced his forefinger along the neckline, his skin grazing her soft white flesh. Callie quivered beneath his touch, a soft moan escaping her lips.

  With the same deliberation, his fingers hooked into the top of the chemise, edging the material downward. The cloth rubbed over her sensitive nipples, tightening them further, as he slowly tugged it down until at last her nipples popped free, hard and pointing, dark rose in their arousal.

  He pulled the chemise down sharply then, little noticing and caring less for the faint ripping sound of the fabric. Her breasts fell free of the garment, firm and deliciously rounded, full white globes that seemed made for his hands. He could not keep from reaching out and cupping them, taking the weight of them in his hands, savoring the silken smooth feel of her skin. His thumbs moved over her nipples, circling and teasing the hard buds.

  With each movement Callie felt desire curl and knot within her, her loins melting, turning her hot and liquid. She could not keep still. Her flesh jerked and quivered beneath his touch; her legs moved restlessly, pressing together as though to still the relentless yearning that was growing there.

  She wanted each moment to last forever, yet at the same time she was filled with an urgent need, an eagerness that wanted to find and grasp and have everything at once.

  Callie reached out, finding the waistband of his breeches, and began to unbutton them. She could feel the insistent movement beneath the cloth, the physical proof of his need, and she could not resist sliding her hand downward over the material, caressing the throbbing ridge beneath it.

  Brom let out a low moan, which emboldened her to explore further, gliding lower to edge between his legs, then back up to slip between his trousers and his skin, down past the top unfastened button. It was completely unknown to her, the feel of satin-smooth skin and rough hair, the eager, leaping surge of flesh, and it was strangely exciting.

  He seized her lips in a fierce kiss, his mouth devouring hers as she made her tentative sensual exploration, and he caressed her breasts, gently squeezing and stroking. Desire sparked through her, jumping and twisting with each movement of his hands.

  Suddenly, as though he could wait no longer, Brom released her, moving back a little and reaching down to unbutton his breeches and sweep them down his body. Callie barely had time to react before he was untying her chemise and petticoats, pulling them from her and throwing them toward a chair.

  He went down on one knee, startling her, and she realized that he was untying her boots. He lifted her foot to pull one off, and she put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. He looked up at her as he raised the other foot and pulled the boot from it, and his eyes were intense and bright with promise. Callie suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

  Brom slid his hand up under the lace-trimmed leg of her pantalet, following the curve of her calf and moving up onto her thigh. He hooked his fingers into her garter and slowly drew it, and her stocking, down, his hands gliding over her now-bare flesh with infinite slowness. Callie swallowed hard; her skin tingled under his touch, and her legs felt unaccountably weak, as if they might give way beneath her at any moment. With the same care, he removed her other stocking.

  Then he rose to his feet, his hands sliding up her legs and over her pantalets until he reached the waistband. Slowly, his eyes holding hers, he tugged at the ribbon, untying the bow. His hands slid under the loosened waistband, shoving the thin cotton garment out of the way as his hands smoothed down over the lush curve of her hips. The pantalets fell the rest of the way to the floor, and she stood before him completely naked at last.

  His eyes roamed down over her body, his face slackening with hunger. Callie thought she should have felt embarrassed to have him look at her like this—and perhaps she was, a little—but to her surprise, his gaze stirred her as though it was his fingers that roamed over her flesh. She could feel the moisture gathering between her legs, the tender flesh throbbing.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said hoarsely, and he bent to pick her up in his arms and carry her the last few steps to the bed.

  He laid her down upon the mattress and stretched out beside her, propping himself up on one elbow. His other hand went to her chest, spreading his fingers on the flat plane of her rib cage, then traveling, curving over her breasts, then onto her stomach, caressing her abdomen, her hips, and at last moving down the side of her leg. His fingers slipped then between her legs, separating them, and slid down the inside of her thigh. Slowly, his hand began to retrace its path upward.

  Callie’s breath came short and fast as his fingers trailed higher, teasing the tender inner skin of her thighs, moving ever closer to his goal. Then, at last, he reached the center of her femininity, the lush secret folds that guarded her. Heat poured through her as he touched her there, gently separating and exploring that most intimate place.

  She bit her lip, so sudden and sharp was the exquisite pleasure, and arched against his hand. She had never dreamed that anything could feel quite like this, that her body could surge and melt at the merest touch of his finger.

  Callie groaned and moved beneath his hand, and he smiled down at her, his face heavy with sensual triumph. He bent and touched his lips to her breast, and she gasped at this new sensation. His lips moved across the soft white flesh, kissing and nibbling gently, teasing with the tip of
his tongue, until he came to the hard button of her nipple. There he stopped and concentrated his attention, circling and teasing, until finally his mouth came down upon it and he began to suckle her in long, luxurious strokes.

  A shudder shook her body at the combined pleasures of his mouth and fingers. Callie felt as if every part of her was on fire, and the molten center of that flame lay deep in her abdomen, where she pulsed and burned with a desperate need. She writhed beneath his ministrations, digging in with her heels and clutching at the coverlet beneath her.

  “Please, please,” she begged, feeling as if she must die, must explode.

  He moved over her, and she opened her legs to receive him. He slid his hands beneath her hips, tilting her up, and she felt the tip of him probing at the tender intimate flesh. She arched up gladly to meet him, and he slid into her slowly, carefully, his body taut with the strain of holding back.

  She had heard that there was always pain the first time, but she felt none, only a wonderful fulfillment as the full length of him slid inside her, stretching and filling her. Callie let out a low cry of pleasure, calling his name, and he buried his face in her neck, breathing in her scent, as he began to thrust in and out. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, moving in time with his long, sure strokes.

  His breath was harsh and ragged in her ear, and his searing heat enveloped her. Callie felt herself surrounded by him, immersed in him, and she reveled in the sensation. Tension was building deep in her abdomen, growing with each movement he made, knotting and re-knotting ever tighter, until at last it exploded in a glorious burst of pleasure so intense that she cried out.

  Brom shuddered and groaned, pumping into her wildly as he hurtled to his own peak with her, and together they collapsed, spent and exhausted and utterly replete. Brom murmured her name as he rolled from her, his arms still wrapped around her; then he reached out with one arm and grabbed the coverlet, pulling it over and around them like a cocoon. And together they drifted into sleep.