The Marriage Wager

by Candace Camp

  She slipped and would have fallen but for Dominic’s hand on her arm. His fingers tightened painfully and they stayed upright, but in two more steps, the smooth sole of his riding boot went sliding on the wet leaves. He slipped, and they staggered. He grabbed for a tree branch, and then they were on the ground, flat on their backs, sliding along until they were stopped by a knobby tree root.

  Dominic sat up and looked down at her. Constance let out a giggle and reached up to pluck the twig that had caught in his hair. He grinned, then laughed, too. The rain, coming faster now, sluiced down his head and face. He shoved his hair back with his hands and got to his feet, reaching down to pull Constance up. They scurried down the hillside to where their horses were tied. The rain was pounding down harder now. The horses jittered at the sound of thunder.

  Dominic pointed toward the little cottage. “Go inside. We’ll wait it out. It’s getting worse. I’ll put the horses in that shed.”

  Constance nodded, not eager to lead their horses down the rest of the hill and then ride for the summer house with the rain still pelting them. As Dominic untied the horses and led them to the shed, she ran for the cottage, keeping her skirts up as best she could. She didn’t know why she bothered, she thought. Her velvet riding habit was already sodden with rain, and not only splattered with mud about the hem but also liberally striped with it down her side and back from their fall. And that wasn’t even to mention leaves and twigs that had adhered to it as she slid along the ground.

  She turned the latch and pushed, and for an instant the door stuck, but then it gave way with a creak, and she stepped into the room. She left the door open despite the rain; for there was little light inside the tiny one-room house. It was cool, too, in her wet clothes, and a shiver shook her. Constance wrapped her arms around herself and advanced farther into the room, looking around.

  There was not much to see—it was a plain and sparsely furnished place. The entire house was but a single room. Two small windows, one almost completely overgrown with ivy outside, provided what light there was. A bed was pushed up against one wall, and there was a small table in the center of the room. A stool sat beside the table, and closer to the small fireplace, there was a wooden rocking chair. A braided rug lay on the floor beside the bed. Over everything, there was a layer of dust. She wondered how long it had been since the cottage had been inhabited. Years and years, it appeared.

  Dominic entered the cottage on the run and stopped, taking in the place in a glance. “Not much here, I fear.” He looked at Constance. “You’re shivering.”

  “Just a little. It’s the damp.”

  “Damp?” He raised an amused eyebrow. “You are soaked through.”

  Constance thought of how she must look, and she blushed, her hands going to her hair. Strands of it had come loose during their dash down the hill, almost a third of it on one side, and the locks straggled wetly around her face and down her back. Leaves and twigs had caught in it, as well, when they went sliding across the ground. Her riding habit was thoroughly wet and clinging to her, as well as being bedaubed with mud and stray leaves and twigs. She must look, she thought, a complete fright.

  Dominic went over to the fireplace and dropped down to one knee in front of it. “Hope this still works,” he commented as he felt for the flue handle.

  He began to build a fire with the small stack of logs beside the hearth. Constance busied herself with removing all the twigs and leaves she could find from her hair, while Dominic roamed the cottage and outside, collecting enough small dry twigs and bits of wood to use for kindling. It took some time, but eventually he got a small fire started in the fireplace, and, miraculously, it drew well enough to keep the smoke from flooding back into the room.

  She took the remaining pins from her hair and set them on the table, then squeezed the water from her locks. Combing her fingers through her hair as best she could, she watched Dominic coax the little flames into a steady fire.

  He turned toward her. “Here, come sit by the fire.”

  Constance went closer, stopping beside him. He smiled down at her and reached out to take an errant leaf from her hair.

  “I must look a mess,” she murmured.

  “You look like a wood nymph,” he replied, and his smile widened. “A very wet wood nymph.”

  “I am very wet,” Constance admitted, and another shiver shook her.

  “You should get out of your clothes,” he told her. Their gazes locked. His words seemed to hang in the air.

  Constance felt suddenly breathless. “I…um…”

  Her mind was crowded with images of pulling off her clothes in front of Dominic, and, bizarrely, the heat that washed through her at the thought was less from shame than anticipation. She thought of Dominic’s fingers on the buttons of her bodice, peeling back the material, and the tremors that raced across her skin were no longer caused by cold.

  He turned away abruptly and glanced around, then walked across the room, his moves a trifle jerky. A small trunk lay at the foot of the bed, and he opened it. Reaching in, he pulled out a blanket. He shook it out.

  “Here, this should be a good bit cleaner than what’s on the bed. Take off your dress and wrap this around you. We shall spread your things out on the chair to dry.”

  He slid off his jacket as he spoke, as though demonstrating, and hung it on the back of the rocker. His fingers went to the buttons of his waistcoat, and Constance found her eyes following their movements. She watched his long, supple fingers undo the buttons; it seemed as though she could not look away.

  “Come,” he said, his voice husky. “You must. You will catch cold. I—I will go outside while you undress.”

  “No, you’ll get wet. It is raining even harder,” Constance protested.

  “I am already wet through,” he pointed out.

  He was right, of course. Her gaze went to his white shirt, which clung to his chest, the thin lawn almost transparent. She could see the dark circles of his nipples, the lines of his musculature, the faint shading of hair in a V across the center of his chest. His riding breeches were molded just as wetly to his legs, suggestively outlining every taut muscle of his thighs and buttocks. It was almost worse, she thought, than if he had actually been naked, since she could think of nothing else but what her imagination was picturing beneath the clothes.

  She realized that she was staring, and a hot flush spread up her neck and stained her cheeks. She had to say something, she thought, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. “I-If you will turn your back…”

  He nodded and swung around, going back to the chest at the foot of the bed and digging in it for another cover. Constance turned back to the fire and began to unbutton the bodice of her riding habit with unsteady fingers. Then she unbuttoned the skirt; it was heavy with water and slid swiftly downward, landing on the floor with a wet plop. She grasped the sides of her bodice and started to pull it off.

  She thought of Dominic behind her and wondered if he had in fact turned away or if he were watching her undress. The heat that blossomed in her loins at the thought of him watching her made her wonder which she would actually prefer. She slid the jacketlike bodice off, then stopped. Unable to resist, she peeked over her shoulder.

  She should not have looked, she thought. It was quite wrong, for Dominic was behaving just as a gentleman should, his back resolutely toward her. He had pulled off his boots, then taken off his shirt. His back was bare, his wide shoulders tapering down to the long slender line of his waist. She watched the muscles ripple across his back as he hooked his hands in the sides of his breeches and pulled them down his legs. It was not an easy task—they were thoroughly wet, and he had to peel them from his skin.

  Constance knew she had been wrong. Seeing him naked was worse, much worse, than seeing him in his soaked clothes. She could not take her eyes away from the smooth taut curve of his buttocks as they flowed down into the firm muscles of his thighs. His legs were long, and his muscles, though hard, were lean. She had
never seen a man naked; she would have blushed even to have thought of what a man looked like without clothes. But she knew that she would not have expected him to look so compelling. She would not have thought his naked form could have drawn her eyes this way, could have made her loins melt or turned her mouth dry as dust.

  She must have made some small noise, because just then he turned his head, glancing over his shoulder, and his eyes met hers.

  Constance knew that she should whirl back around and face the fire. She should be humiliated at being caught watching him. She should wait until he looked away again, and then she should shrug off her bodice and wrap the blanket around herself.

  Instead, she found herself turning to face him. Slowly, deliberately, her eyes on his face, she pulled her bodice the rest of the way off her arms and let it fall to the floor. She stood in front of him clad only in her chemise and petticoat.

  He pivoted slowly to face her. His face was sharp and drawn, the skin stretched tautly across his bones. He watched her, his eyes dark, his hands curling into fists against his legs.

  Her eyes took him in slowly. He was hard and powerful and masculine. She could see the lines of his ribs, the curve of muscle beneath the smooth skin of his arms and chest, the flat plain of his stomach. Blond, curling hairs lightly furred his legs and arms and formed a narrow V on his chest, running in a line down from his navel to explode in a glinting riot of curls around his burgeoning manhood. It was the sight of that smooth-skinned shaft, lengthening and swelling, that drew her eyes downward. She had had no idea what to expect, had never dreamed that the sight of his awakened desire would stir her own need so much.

  Constance’s breath came shallow and fast. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She was scared and excited and a hundred other pounding emotions. Anyone would have told her, she knew, that she should not be doing this. She should stop. She should pull her clothes back on and run from this house.

  But she had no intention of doing that. She was, perhaps, acting impulsively, but she was not thoughtless. This was what she wanted. Dominic was whom she wanted. She knew that he would not, could not, marry her. She knew that others would label what she was about to do a mistake. But she did not care.

  She wanted Dominic. She wanted this moment. Whatever else happened in her life, she wanted to make love with him. She wanted to open herself to him, to let him take her in his arms and teach her everything that could be between a man and a woman. The rest of her life might stretch out in bleak emptiness, but she would, for this moment, know passion. She would, for this moment, lose herself in Dominic’s arms.

  Constance pulled the end of the blue bow at the neckline of her chemise, and the bow fell apart. Slowly, one by one, she unfastened each tie until the two sides were separated all the way up and down, exposing a narrow ribbon of skin down the center of her chest. She reached up to grasp the sides.

  “Constance…” Dominic grated out. “No. You should not.”

  “I want to.”

  He swallowed, gazing at her for a long moment, and when her name came again on his lips, there was no warning in it, only a low sigh of hunger. “Constance…”

  He started toward her with the slow, smooth stride of an animal on the hunt. Watching him, she pulled her chemise off and dropped it to the floor. He drew nearer, and she untied the side of her white muslin petticoat and let it slide down to the floor. He stopped only inches from her. She moved to the tie of her pantalets, but Dominic reached out and touched her hands, stopping her.

  A faint smile playing at his lips, he took the narrow bands in his fingers and undid them. He laid his hands flat against her sides, fingers splayed out over her skin, and slid them down, his hands moving under the cloth of her pantalets and shoving the cloth downward. His palms glided down her flesh, searing her with their heat and exposing her skin inch by inch.

  Constance sucked in her breath at the feel of his skin upon hers. His fingertips and palms, roughened by years of riding, were light on her soft skin, awakening the sensitive flesh to a tingling awareness. Her skin tightened all over, and an ache bloomed between her legs, low and pulsing.

  Dominic’s eyes fell to her breasts, where her nipples had hardened in response to his touch. His smile deepened with masculine satisfaction, and he pushed her undergarment the rest of the way down, letting it pool around her feet. He stood still for a moment, his hands resting on her hips, his eyes exploring her body.

  Then his gaze came back up and caught hers. He continued to hold her attention, his eyes hot and intense, as his hands moved up her sides, slow and soft, coaxing every tiny bit of sensation from her flesh. He caressed her breasts, fingers and thumbs teasing at the tight buds of her nipples and sliding across the pillowy softness of her breasts. His hands roamed her back, sliding down and curving over her hips, squeezing and separating her buttocks before gliding onto the tops of her thighs.

  His shaft prodded gently against her abdomen. Constance caught her lower lip in her teeth, amazed at each new pleasure his fingers brought. Then, startling her even more, he slipped one hand between her legs. She gasped even as she unconsciously widened her stance, opening herself to him. His fingers teased at her tender flesh, gently stroking and separating the sensitive folds.

  Constance brought her hands up to his arms, her fingers digging into his skin at the new, intense pleasure that was coursing through her. She swallowed, surprise in her eyes as she gazed up at him. He continued to look into her eyes as his fingers worked their magic on her flesh, taking in the subtle changes in her as each new sensation blossomed within her.

  She had never felt anything like the feeling that he was evoking in her, had never dreamed that such heat or such intense pleasure could consume her this way. He had not even kissed her yet, and she was trembling with an almost overwhelming need, a delight so intense that she thought she might shatter under its pressure.

  And then she did shatter, a small cry escaping her lips as passion rocked her. It burst at the center of her being, washing out in waves. She moved against him, her body so taut she shook all over.

  She melted. There was no other word for it, she thought. She simply melted inside and out, her body sagging, knees giving way, so that she was kept upright only by the arm Dominic looped around her waist. She leaned her head against his chest, her arms going around him. His heart hammered; his skin was hot and moist beneath hers; she could hear the harsh rasp of his breath.

  “Dominic…” She lifted wondering eyes to him. “That was…more than I…It was wonderful. But what about—I mean, you…” She stumbled to a halt, blushing.

  He grinned down at her, his eyes gleaming as he picked up the blanket from the chair and shook it out, settling it onto the floor. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said, picking her up and lowering her to the blanket, then lying down beside her. “We are only getting started.”

  And, at last, he leaned in and kissed her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE KISSED HER AS IF HE had all the time in the world, his mouth soft and slow, seeking out every pleasure. There was no hint of haste, no hurry to satisfy his own need, only a quiet, lingering exploration. Constance, stunned and replete, returned his kisses with a languid pleasure, content, she felt, to lie here with him forever doing nothing more.

  She slid her hands lazily up his arms, enjoying the feel of his skin beneath her palms, tracing the curve of muscle that lay beneath the skin. The tension that did not show in his kisses lay in his body, she realized. His forearms, supporting him, were as taut as stretched wire, and his skin, where she touched it, quivered. And she knew that desire raged in him, that his slow, tender lovemaking was the result of his iron control.

  It pleased her to realize the intensity of his passion, to know that he wanted her so much. She stroked her hand down the center of his chest, and the shudder that shook him in response awakened a new heat in her.

  She would not have thought that she could be aroused again so soon after the cataclysm she had already experie
nced, and the fire that licked down through her startled her. She must have made some movement in her surprise, for Dominic raised his head and looked down at her.

  His eyes were heavy with desire, his lips dark and swollen from their kisses. He saw the surprise in her eyes, and he smiled in a way that made the warm ache between her legs grow.

  “Did you think that was all you would have?” he murmured, and when Constance nodded, he bent and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “There’s more.” He kissed the opposite corner. “Much more.” He trailed the tip of his tongue along the line between her lips. “I promise you.”

  He kissed her cheeks, her chin, her brows, the petal-soft lids of her eyes, then settled at last on the lobe of her ear, kissing, then tonguing it, then taking it gently between his teeth and worrying it. Bright shivers of sensation darted through her, gathering hotly deep in her abdomen. Constance moved restlessly beneath him, unable to keep still under his teasing ministrations. The rough wool of the blanket was scratchy under her back, and its roughness seemed to accentuate even more the pleasure of the sensations his mouth aroused in her.

  Constance let out a shuddering breath and skimmed her hands down his side and up his back. She found the textures of him exciting—the smoothness of skin and the firm muscle beneath, the hard lines of his rib cage, the bony points of his shoulders and collarbone, the wiry curl of the hairs upon his chest.

  His tongue stole into her ear, and she jerked, desire slamming down into her loins and spreading out. Her breath rasped in her throat. He rolled on top of her, his legs between hers, spreading hers apart. He took much of his weight on his forearms, but his flesh was pressed against the length of her torso, and she could feel him against that most tender, intimate part of her, hard and heavy, pulsing.

  He kissed his way down her neck, nibbling on the tight cord, pressing a kiss as soft as butterfly wings on the hollow of her throat. He curved his hand around her breast as his lips trailed over her chest and touched upon the gentle swell of the rounded orb. He kissed the soft flesh, moving with infinite patience over the arc of her breast, coming at last to the pebbled flesh of her nipple. His tongue traced the outer rim of the areola, slowly circling again and again, moving fractionally closer, until at last he touched the hardened tip at the center. He stroked it, teasing it so that it lengthened and hardened.